Fred Zanghi
Arriving for jury duty in San Francisco, Fred Zanghi, B.P.S. ’85, knew the building was poorly designed when he watched the judge enter the courtroom through the same door used by the public. He had already designed three courthouses, including the award-winning Utah State Court Complex in Salt Lake City. From interviews with judges and court staff, he learned to ensure the integrity of the legal system by keeping the users separate. “That’s the part of the profession that’s exciting,” Zanghi says. “You design a building for a development corporation and you learn how that business works. You design a courthouse and you learn what’s important to judges, clerks and the public.”
Since 2004, Zanghi has been working at Perkins Eastman Architects in Stamford, Connecticut, where, he notes, “I can have more impact in the office” and continue to work on large-scale projects. Zanghi has always resisted design specialization. “Each type of building lets you reinvent yourself,” he says. Prior to that, he worked for 14 years with the prestigious firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK), advancing to senior associate.
While at HOK, Zanghi was project architect for the headquarters of Winrock International, a nonprofit organization in Little Rock, Arkansas. The building’s expressivity excites him. “The trusses from the ‘V’ roof come flying out,” Zanghi explains. “The glass shows the building structure inside and out.” The design also expresses the building’s functionality. It gave Zanghi an opportunity for reinvention. The headquarters had to reflect the organization’s role in supporting Third World initiatives in environmentally sustainable agriculture, so Zanghi obtained certification in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines. To reduce the air conditioning load, he drew on the traditional “dog trot” style of southern homes and designed Winrock with a central breezeway to catch winds from the Arkansas River. The white ‘V’ roof reflects sunlight and shades the building; the steep angle collects cooling rainwater that drains into a nearby lagoon to be recycled (when needed) to irrigate plantings of hardy native grasses and flowers.
Zanghi recalls his course on environmental issues with UB associate professor Dennis Andrejko 20 years ago, when architects were first sensitized to links between the built and natural environments. “Finally, things are actually being implemented,” Zanghi observes. “Architectural firms have environmental goals as one of their core values because it’s good for society.”
Now at Perkins Eastman, Zanghi works on educational structures. With two small children, he has personal motives for creating environmentally responsible designs, flooding classrooms with natural light to improve students’ performance and avoiding gas-emitting materials to prevent the “sick-building syndrome.” He is studying the unique space requirements of different curricula and user groups, and taps the expertise of his wife, Maria Martinez, a speech-language pathologist and fellow UB graduate (B.A. ’87). “I’m learning a whole other language of architecture and how a building functions,” he says.
Zanghi and his fellow UB architecture students used to enjoy UB professor emeritus William Huff’s phrase, “Never let an architect drive a car. He’ll be looking at everything but the road.” He admits it’s very difficult to turn off his fascination with structures, people’s relationship to space, and how the environment works inside and outside a building. “The built environment is all around you,” he says. “It’s your laboratory.”
Originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2005 issue of UB Today as part of the article Creating Innovative Environments: Inside and Out by Tacey A. Roslowski, Ph.D. '91.
