It is interesting to note, when considering Amy Noble, Ph.D., that the first four letters of “architecture”—a-r-c-h—are the last four letters of “research,” for that is what Amy is about. Educated at Rice University and the Harvard School of Design, and holder of the degree of Doctor of Design from the latter institution, Amy today is immersed not in architecture, but in research work—research work in which her background in architecture figures very prominently.
Amy is Director of Research for KB Home Architecture, the full-service, in-house architecture department of one of the nation’s largest homebuilders. One of the homebuilder’s distinctions is its extensive use of research to drive the architectural design process. Amy directs a research staff of seven, designing and conducting the research that informs the designs of the firm’s architects to assure that they best meet the demands of the marketplace.
Amy’s journey to this juncture is an interesting one. Her fifth year at Rice was spent, as fifth years there are, working in the profession. Then, after completing her sixth year and with her B. Arch. degree in hand, she returned to the same firm—in her case, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. There, for four years, she had a hand in the full range of the firm’s commissions—including one stint “designing and redesigning” a single façade for one of the firm’s projects.
That experience, plus chancing upon Robert Gutman’s The Design of American Housing, in which he attempts a re-appraisal of the architect’s role in production housing, and which she describes as having been a “seminal influence,” led her to Harvard, where she studied under the likes of Kermit Baker, Ph.D., the AIA’s chief economist, and produced a dissertation entitled A Market Research Method for the Design of Single-Family Prototype Housing.
Her formal education complete, Amy and her husband made their way to Los Angeles in 2003, where Amy founded her own firm, Homebuyer Research, and conducted custom homebuyer research for homebuilders. Soon enough, she attracted the attention of KB Home, which she joined this year.
Amy’s enthusiasm for her work is infectious. She has always had, she says, “the sense that housing makes up the majority of our built environment,” that the relationship between architect and client is closer in housing than in any other building type, and that she is “drawn to the relationship between the client and the architecture.”
Asked if she thinks that someday she’ll return to the profession, Amy says that she “hopes so,” and states that she wants to combine design and research. As for licensing, “it’s always out there”; in fact, she maintains her NCARB file, even though for now she’s not actively preparing for the exam. And AIA? She hasn’t “thought about it much since leaving school.”
Although the number of newly issued architect licenses has declined steeply in recent years, the number of graduates has continued to rise, which suggests that an architect’s education is highly valued well beyond the narrow limits of the profession, and that the future of the profession, rather than being worrisome and bleak, is bright with promise. Amy Noble, Ph.D., is a case in point.
Author John Melcher, AIA, is first vice president/president elect of the AIA California Council, and will serve as the Council’s president in 2006. He is employed by STV Incorporated, a national E/A firm, in its Rancho Cucamonga office.
Originally published 2nd quarter 2005, in arcCA 05.2, “Other Business.”
