Sim notes Part I: I want my SIMTV

Sim Van der Ryn, pioneer of ecological design, passes away at 89

Sim Article

A few thoughts on the passing of Sim van der Ryn.

The studio was quiet as we waited for Sim. The other Fall 1984 senior studio sections on the floor had disbursed over an hour ago. We looked at each other, a mixture of what next. Leave? Stay two more hours? Get coffee?

Finally the door opened at the end of the hall, Sim’s outline framed by the bright sun shining over the Golden Gate.

Oh man, sorry I was late but I was kayaking out in the Bay. It was so beautiful.

I don’t normally do undergraduate studios so bear with me. So I got to thinking, why can’t architecture be more like nature. I mean, take Yosemite.

The granite mountains shaped by the forces of nature: sun and ice water wind and the enormous trees.

Who here has been to Yosemite?

I raised my hand along with a few others.

Beautiful right?

So you know.

And who has been to downtown San Francisco?

Everyone raised their hands.

Not the same experience, right? Why is that? You are still in a canyon of stone.

Shaking heads

So I want to devote our studio to designing a high rise based on the forces of nature, the elements of the mountains, granite, sun and weather, trees. Waterfalls, scree slopes, glaciers, volcanic stack.

I want my Sim TV.

While the other senior studios were designing fire stations and schools, Sim’s studio, which became know as SIMTV, spent the entire time designing a high rise formed by the forces of nature.

But Sim wasn’t just another earthy genius at Berkeley. The project location was South of Market in San Francisco. This was decades before the Salesforce tower led the phenomenal redevelopment of South of Market. Sim’s Senior Studio also included involvement with the San Francisco Planning department and how they were challenged with new high rises and undergoing a revolution of principles based on sunlight access- driven by legal action to protect parks. The head of planning was in our final critique along with principals from architectural firms designing high rises and the developers who paid for the projects. No doubt Sim was using the studio to educate more than the students with his particular vision of the world. Today the terms sustainability and resiliency are commonplace but Sim baked all of this from his experience into the studio. The 1960s and 1970s. He even put up with the youth of the 1980s MTV Generation when we dubbed the studio SIMTV. SIMTV became quite notorious as visitors would visit our open studio to see the high rise eco towers. No one had ever been tasked with designing a highrise, let alone one based on the principles of nature.

I want my SIMTV.

Stay tuned for more notes on Sim van der Ryn…