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On the heels of Design Miami, the award-winning designer chats about what drives his practice.
Germane Barnes, the self-identified manga nerd behind this year’s futuristic LED-and-steel Lexus pavilion at Design Miami, has been working quietly to disrupt the architecture field in the U.S. for roughly the last decade. The Chicago native knew he wanted to become an architect as a kid, but at first pursued law to appease his architect-wary parents. He found his way back to design, knowing it was where his heart really was, and went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Illinois and a master’s from Woodbury University. He founded his own design firm, Studio Barnes in 2016, became an associate professor of architecture at the University of Miami in 2019, and this year took home the prestigious Wheelwright Prize, an honor bestowed by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. His practice centers on “cultural identity and space and how those cultural practices materialize as built form,” and he explores these ideas through commercial and residential projects and installation and research-based works.
For the Lexus pavilion (which sponsored a press trip to Design Miami that ELLE DECOR attended) Barnes sought to conjure a carbon-free future with its new electrified vehicles. We sat down with him to find out what turns his wheels, drives his work, and keeps him inspired.
ELLE DECOR: You have clearly loved architecture from a very young age. When did you become fascinated by buildings?
Germane Barnes: Most of it was just being a kid in Chicago. When you live in a city that big and diverse you see it everywhere. You’re playing in a park across from a Frank Lloyd Wright house, or your mom works in Sears [now Willis] Tower. As kids, me and my siblings also used to play “that’s my house”; while driving down the street we would point out nice houses and claim them as our own.
ED: How would you rewrite or adjust the architectural canon as you understand it?
GB: People have always skirted around this question—I think they’re afraid of my answer. I don’t think the canon needs to be erased; I just think it needs to be expanded. We get this one Eurocentric idea of what architecture is supposed to be, and it’s a very, very small representation of a field that is actually very diverse. Shelter has been around since the dawn of time, and you’re trying to tell me that sub-Saharan places or South American places don’t have material culture when it comes to architecture?
ED: Very true! What are some of the specific architectural problems unique to Miami that you tackle?
GB: A lot of them deal with built space, and how many individuals who are from Black Miami are constantly displaced or moved, either due to segregation, exclusionary policies, or “climate gentrification” [a type of gentrification in which housing prices spike in neighborhoods less vulnerable to climate change]. That’s another reason why my partnership worked so well with Lexus—when Black neighborhoods are ripped apart to build highways, the carbon emissions from those highways impact the remaining Black people in those areas.
I don’t think the canon needs to be erased; I just think it needs to be expanded.
ED: What is your research process like?
GB: There’s always a significant number of community meetings. I talk to the local elders—they may be church parishioners or something like that. I go do the work with my squad, then I take it back to the locals—that’s when I have a client. If it’s something I’m doing myself, I do a lot of writing first to figure out what I’m interested in intellectually and try to turn that into some sort of architectural object. It’s like journaling. I learned that from my mentor Jennifer Bonner [an associate professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design]. She used to say every project is a narrative. I think that’s where my law background comes in—I use architecture to support an argument.
ED: What were your first thoughts when you found out you got the Lexus partnership?
GB: It was pretty cool! It went through a few iterations. What you saw was the fourth version. In the end I was super happy. I’ve been to Design Miami every single year since I’ve lived here, and I’d never seen the University of Miami represented.
ED: What do you think are the most urgent topics to address in architecture?
GB: The lack of affordable housing. This shit is annoying! The entire developer-housing process disincentivizes actually affordable properties because the developer won’t make enough money on them. If you’re in the United States, there’s a massive stigma associated with social housing, but if we make it good, who cares?
