Concrete and Light: The Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Salk Institute courtyard, a "roofless cathedral" (all photos by me).

Jonas Salk founded the institute that bears his name in the early 1960s, after the success of his polio vaccine. He wanted a place where scientists could work with a sense of openness and purpose, and he asked architect Louis Kahn to design it. With input from Mexican architect Luis Barragán, Kahn produced what has become one of the most studied research campuses in the world. Even people unfamiliar with Kahn’s work have likely seen photographs of its courtyard: two symmetrical laboratory wings framing a travertine plaza, a thin runnel of water leading the eye toward the Pacific. The site itself—set high above the ocean in La Jolla—is spectacular, and Salk’s choice of it was as consequential as the architecture that followed.

I visited the Salk Institute last Friday while I was in San Diego. I’ve seen enough photographs and drawings over the years that I knew what to expect. Stepping into the courtyard felt like returning to a place I’d visited before. Nothing came as a surprise. The best way to describe the experience is one of recognition.

That familiarity didn’t diminish the visit. If anything, it underscored what I’ve always found compelling about the Salk: its sense of inevitability. The design feels so resolved that alternative outcomes are hard to imagine. I don’t mean that only Kahn could have achieved this. Another architect with a similar sensitivity to site (Arthur Erickson comes to mind) might have produced an equally strong result. But the built Salk has a clarity that reads as predestined. The alignment of program, setting, and light seems almost too exact to have happened any other way.

As I crossed the courtyard’s eastern threshold, I noticed how closely the place aligned with everything I had long understood about it. La Jolla’s bright sky did most of the work. The travertine glowed. The concrete carried its usual gravity. What struck me most was the calm that settled in once I stopped moving. For me, that calm is what “rightness” feels like: clarity, order, and confirmation that a building is precisely as it should be. Kahn’s work has always appealed to me for that reason. His pursuit of order in a world governed by entropy has long aligned with my own architectural temperament.

Our tour guide, Bob, pointed out a few details that reinforced this impression. The upper-level studies, for example, have taller ceilings and windows than the floors below. It’s a subtle correction for the way perspective compresses a façade when viewed from the courtyard. The variation in the spacing of the concrete panel joints is another subtle adjustment, giving the façade a proportional order that feels structural without explicitly expressing it. These aren’t dramatic moves. They’re the kinds of decisions that reward careful looking.

Some readers will look at the photos and see only exposed concrete and assume “brutalism” in the pejorative sense. But the Salk’s concrete isn’t cold. In that climate, under that sun, it reads as radiant and monumental. The texture and mass of the concrete play against the warmth of the teak infill panels in a way that feels deliberate and balanced. It’s a reminder that materials behave differently depending on where and how they’re used. In the Pacific Northwest, exposed concrete tends to stain, spall, and collect algae unless meticulously maintained. In La Jolla, it stays clean and sharp-edged. Context matters.

Not everything about the visit was ideal. The entry sequence through the 1992 East Building addition felt a bit flat, especially knowing that Kahn had originally intended visitors to approach through a dense eucalyptus grove—a transition from the “unmeasured world” of nature to the “measured world” of science. The grove was removed decades ago after disease spread through the trees, but I do wonder how different the emotional register of the approach might have been. I was also disappointed, though not surprised, that we weren’t allowed inside the laboratories. And I couldn’t help thinking about the unbuilt Meeting House and residences, which, if constructed, would have realized Kahn’s complete vision for the campus. These were footnotes, not failures.

The building felt inhabited, peripherally. Researchers and staff moved along the edges of the courtyard, but they were essentially background figures. The Salk is a workplace, yet it reads more like a monument that happens to contain work. It also resembles a secular monastery: a place set apart for concentrated study, shaped by a belief in the pursuit of truth. That may be the building’s deeper meaning, and perhaps its most enduring one.

Leaving the courtyard, I found myself thinking less about my visit and more about the building’s long arc. The Salk has entered that small category of works that no longer belong to their moment. It has passed into the realm of reference—a building architects return to not for novelty, but for orientation. Its reputation isn’t the result of myth or nostalgia; it’s the result of sustained performance over time. Concrete, light, and proportion held in lasting balance. Few buildings earn that. The Salk has.

San Diego

San Diego (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Roland A. Franklin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

I’m in San Diego this week(1), a city I’ve only previously skirted rather than truly visited. Back in the mid‑1980s, when my wife and I lived in Los Angeles, we made a couple of weekend trips south through here on our way to Ensenada and Rosarito Beach. This is the first occasion I’ve spent any real time in San Diego itself. 

I visited the Salk Institute on Friday, Louis Kahn’s research campus in La Jolla overlooking the Pacific. I’ve known it mostly through photographs, drawings, and decades of architectural reading. Seeing it in person clarified aspects that images only suggest. The proportions, the material discipline, and the way the courtyard aligns with the horizon all register more precisely in real life. It is a building that rewards slow looking. I’ll write a separate post about the Salk, and possibly more about San Diego, once I’m back home. 

The rest of my time has been spent moving around the city on foot and by transit. I’ve been taking in districts shaped by coastal geography, postwar expansion, and the substantial military presence that has influenced land use and employment patterns across the region. Mid‑century research campuses occupy the mesas above La Jolla, while older streetcar‑era neighborhoods such as North Park, South Park, Hillcrest, Mission Hills, Golden Hill, and University Heights extend inland. Large waterfront redevelopment projects stand next to long‑established naval facilities. Dense pockets of urban fabric give way quickly to open views and steep topography. 

San Diego’s particular mix of institutions, climate, and terrain gives it a character distinct from other West Coast cities. The conditions here are not directly transferable to a place like Eugene, but they echo patterns familiar to cities shaped by long‑term civic forces. Infrastructure, geography, and institutional anchors shape a region’s identity over generations. I’m grateful for the opportunity to spend a few days here, studying a place I once only passed through. 

(1)   I chose to visit San Diego now rather than during the AIA 2026 Conference on Architecture & Design in June. During my trips to the 2018 and 2022 conferences in New York and Chicago, I found I preferred spending my time exploring the cities rather than attending the educational sessions. I also no longer need the CEUs. Visiting now avoids the crowds associated with the conference and other busy periods on the calendar.

Why Libraries Matter

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

— Jorge Luis Borges

I want to reflect on what libraries have meant to me, both professionally and personally. This isn’t an argument. It’s simply an acknowledgment of how central they’ve been throughout my life.

On May 19, voters in Eugene will see Measure 20‑381 on the special election ballot. The measure would renew and modestly increase the existing local option levy, from 15 to 19 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, to help maintain hours, services, and staffing across the three Eugene Public Library branches.

I grew up in Vancouver, B.C., and my connection to libraries began early. Many Saturday afternoons found me at my local branch, wandering the stacks and pulling down books on whatever caught my attention that week — astronomy, architecture, trains, history, anything at all. It was the first place where I felt free to follow my curiosity without anyone nudging me toward or away from anything. That freedom mattered more than I understood at the time.

When I arrived at the University of Oregon, that pull toward libraries had already taken hold. I gravitated to design studios focused on libraries as the design problem and stayed with them longer than the syllabus required. They felt right to me. They were buildings with a clear civic purpose, open to anyone who walked through the door.

Years later, I had the chance to help shape Eugene’s main branch. The project remains one of the most meaningful of my career, not because of its visibility, but because of what it represents. It serves as a civic anchor that belongs to everyone. A place where a child discovering books and a retiree researching family history stand on equal footing. A place that doesn’t sort people by income or background. A place that says: Come in. This is for you.

People often call libraries “third places,” but they’re more than that. They’re also part of the quiet infrastructure of democracy: repositories of shared thought, custodians of collective memory, and level ground where ideas circulate freely. A well‑designed library gives every visitor space, light, and the assurance that they belong there. That belief is architectural, but it’s also civic.

Across the city, the Eugene Public Library system carries out steady, valuable work on behalf of the community. It connects people, resources, and ideas. After decades in and around civic architecture, I’ve learned how rare it is to see a system that works this well.

As the May 19 election approaches, I'm thinking less about ballot language and more about gratitude — for the people who keep our libraries running, for the generations who built and supported them, and for the simple idea that knowledge should be freely available to everyone.

Libraries don’t ask for much. On May 19, Eugene’s libraries are asking for our continued support.

To learn more about Measure 20‑381, visit Yes for the Eugene Public Library.

Iran’s Architectural Inheritance at Risk

Golestan Palace in Tehran, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most significant surviving ensembles of Qajar-era architecture. (photo by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Until I considered writing this piece, I knew very little about Iran’s architectural or cultural heritage. What understanding I have now comes from accessible sources: UNESCO reports, news coverage, and the kind of broad overview that a quick survey can provide. That is far from expertise, and I do not wish to suggest otherwise. Even so, a basic acquaintance with what exists in Iran makes the early reports of damage associated with the current American and Israeli air campaign difficult to set aside.

The accumulated layers of many centuries enrich Iran’s built environment. Ancient archaeological sites, Safavid squares and pavilions, Qajar palaces, Pahlavi‑era monuments, and more recent civic buildings stand side by side. Together they form a continuous architectural record that still shapes the nation's cities. When conflict enters that fabric, the losses become immediate and tangible.

Early reporting, summarized by UNESCO and other cultural organizations, indicates that several heritage sites have already sustained damage from shockwaves, debris, and strikes on nearby targets. In Tehran, the Golestan Palace complex—a Qajar‑era ensemble and the capital’s only standalone UNESCO World Heritage Site—was reportedly shaken by an airstrike near Arg Square in early March 2026. Accounts describe broken glass, cracked plaster, damaged mirrored elements, and new structural concerns. While none of this amounts to catastrophic destruction, it shows how vulnerable even well‑protected historic buildings become when they lie close to areas caught in military action. Other structures in the capital, including churches, museums, and civic buildings, have also reportedly been affected simply because they stand within a city now exposed to such pressures.

The Jameh Mosque of Isfahan, whose construction and reconstruction over centuries reveal the evolving architectural language of Islamic Persia. (photo by Hamidespanani, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Isfahan, long celebrated as one of the great architectural centers of the Islamic world, has seen similar impacts. The Masjed‑e Jāmé of Isfahan, along with elements of Naqsh‑e Jahan Square such as Ali Qapu Palace and the Chehel Sotoun pavilion, reportedly sustained damage from nearby blasts in mid‑March. These structures form an urban order whose integrity depends on the survival of each part. Harm to any single element subtly diminishes the whole. Subsequent reporting has identified additional damage to religious sites and museums elsewhere in the country, underscoring how quickly the cultural toll of the conflict has expanded.

Many other places could be named, sites that have not been damaged but that form part of the same cultural inheritance and could be vulnerable if the conflict widens: the earthen neighborhoods of Yazd, the gardens of Shiraz, the archaeological remains at Persepolis. Listing them risks reducing a living culture to a catalogue. The point is simpler. Architecture carries memory forward across generations. It records collective decisions, beliefs, and ways of living that outlast any individual life. When such structures are damaged or lost, something irreplaceable breaks in our shared connection to the past.

Traditional windcatchers rising above the earthen city of Yazd, an example of climate-adapted urban architecture in Iran’s desert environment. (photo by Andrehmarouti, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Four years ago, I wrote about the cultural losses unfolding in Ukraine. That piece tried to understand a place I had never visited by looking closely at its buildings and recognizing how fragile cultural memory becomes in wartime. The situation in Iran unfolds under very different political and historical circumstances: one a sustained ground conflict, the other a campaign of aerial strikes shaped by different strategic concerns. Yet the architectural stakes, even from a distance, remain substantial.

Any military campaign carries the potential for unintended consequences that reach beyond its immediate objectives. Cultural heritage often absorbs the impact of decisions made under the pressure of escalation, even when efforts such as the prior sharing of site coordinates aim to limit harm. Diplomatic attempts to address Iran’s nuclear program continued in the months before this phase of the conflict. Even so, with cultural sites clearly identified through UNESCO, the realities of war have still placed these irreplaceable structures in harm’s way.

There is no ideal way to write about such losses. Reports of damage have come quickly, and even a limited view of them is difficult to ignore. Each affected palace, mosque, or museum narrows the historical record and reduces the physical evidence through which future generations might come to know the past.

Azadi Tower in Tehran, completed in 1971. Its design combines modern engineering with forms drawn from earlier Persian architectural traditions. (photo by Blondinrikard Fröberg from Göteborg, Sweden, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Iran’s architectural heritage has already survived invasions, dynastic change, the long Iran–Iraq War, and the slow erosion of time. I hope it will endure this conflict as well. Yet hope alone offers no protection. The world has witnessed too many examples—including the destruction seen in Aleppo, Mosul, and Sana’a, as well as sites damaged in Israel and Lebanon during the wider regional hostilities—of how swiftly irreplaceable structures can vanish.

If the buildings now at risk in Tehran, Isfahan, and elsewhere survive, they will do so because they were spared rather than because they stood beyond reach. If they do not, the loss will belong not only to Iran but to anyone who believes that architecture records human possibility, and that its erasure diminishes our shared inheritance.

Can AI Recognize Living Structure?

Sitting area in the Parents' Realm of the Sala House - Christopher Alexander, Architect (photo by Ekyono; file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license).
 

For years I’ve wondered what role AI might play in architectural design—not in the routine domains of optimization, code compliance, or energy modeling, but in the harder question of how buildings acquire coherence, depth, and human resonance. Much of the current discourse avoids that question. It gravitates toward what is measurable and leaves the deeper structure of design unexamined.
 
That deeper question repeatedly leads me back to Christopher Alexander’s work and, more recently, to Nikos Salingaros’s explorations of whether large language models can detect “living geometry” in buildings.
 
Alexander identified fifteen fundamental properties that tend to co‑occur in environments we experience as alive. These appear in nature, in traditional buildings, and in the artifacts people cherish. They are not stylistic devices but a system of interdependent relationships:
 

• Levels of scale

• Strong centers

• Thick boundaries

• Alternating repetition

• Positive space

• Good shape

• Local symmetries

• Deep interlock and ambiguity

• Contrast

• Gradients

• Roughness

• Echoes

• The void

• Simplicity and inner calm

• Not‑separateness

When these properties reinforce one another, the result feels coherent and grounded. Salingaros links them to human neurophysiology, arguing that our perceptual systems evolved to favor nested scales and relational order.
 
With this in mind, I tested an online tool called the 15 Fundamental Properties of Wholeness Analyzer by Danny Raede. It is an admirable initiative: open‑source, accessible, and one of the few attempts to operationalize Alexander’s ideas. But it arrives without documentation on training data, methodology, or weighting. Experimenting with it suggests a modest image classifier that can detect visual signatures such as symmetry, repetition, and contrast, but struggles with the relational, multiscalar depth Alexander’s framework demands. A model can recognize what local symmetry looks like; it cannot easily evaluate how that symmetry strengthens centers across scales or contributes to overall wholeness. These limits reflect the state of current vision models more than the ambition of the tool.
 

Portion of an analysis of the Sala House image, by Danny Raede's 15 Fundamental Properties of Wholeness Analyzer.

A deeper constraint applies to any image‑only system: a single photograph is never a building. It freezes one viewpoint, one moment, one lighting condition. Many of Alexander’s properties are inherently experiential. Thick boundaries reveal themselves in section. Gradients unfold in movement. Not‑separateness depends on context beyond the frame. Positive space requires reading the shape of the outdoor room. Judging wholeness from one static image is necessarily partial.

After using Raede’s tool, I wanted a more relational reading. I turned to a large language model (Microsoft Copilot) and prompted it to analyze the same images through the lens of the fifteen properties: “Consider relationships across scales, massing, thresholds, centers, voids, interlock, context, and overall coherence.”

The difference was immediate. The model produced something closer to the kind of relational analysis an architect might offer. It could do this because it was not limited to pixel‑level cues. It could integrate the image, the conceptual structure of the fifteen properties, and the contextual hints in the prompt. This does not overcome the limits of a single photograph, but it allows the model to make sense of the available information in a more integrated way than a vision‑only classifier can. 

Design for a renovation and expansion of the McMinnville Public Library (1982). The original Carnegie library is on the left; the proposed addition is on the right, which opens toward McMinnville City Park.

To illustrate, here is its analysis of my 1982 project for an addition to the Carnegie Library in McMinnville (completed during my time as a student in the University of Oregon’s architecture program), based on my design drawings and the photograph of the physical model I built, seen above:
 
"The project exhibits a remarkably coherent alignment with Alexander’s fifteen properties. Its organization unfolds through clear levels of scale—from the civic park and axial approach to the outdoor room, lobby, reading rooms, and smaller alcoves—each nested within the next. The original Carnegie library and the new addition form strong centers, stabilized by the cloister‑like outdoor room and the layered thresholds that create thick boundaries between inside and out. Exterior spaces are shaped as positive space rather than residual voids, and the interlock between old and new is handled with care: axes align, proportions echo, and the addition adapts to its context with an intentional roughness that reflects the site’s particularities. Gradients of enclosure and light develop through the sequence of plaza → cloister → lobby → reading rooms, while the repetition of structural bays, window groupings, and spatial rhythms creates subtle echoes across scales. The underlying parti—House of Reading and House of Books—gives the building a simplicity and inner calm, and the reciprocal relationship between the volumes expresses a genuine not‑separateness. The coherence of the whole arises not from stylistic gestures but from a relational structure that resonates strongly with Alexander’s fifteen properties."

A vision‑only classifier cannot produce this kind of relational reading.

These experiments raise a larger question: could any future tool reliably detect living structure? Even with far more capable models, the answer is probably no. Wholeness is emergent. It arises from iterative negotiation among site, program, structure, light, materials, craft, and human inhabitation. These relationships unfold across scales and through time. Many require embodied, situated judgment. AI may one day illuminate hidden patterns or diagnose coherence more reliably, but the deeper life of a building is unlikely to spring from software alone. Design remains a recursive field grounded in construction’s realities.

Even so, the potential is real. If future systems combine multiscale visual reasoning, spatial‑relationship understanding, datasets annotated for the fifteen properties, and insights from environmental psychology and cognitive science, AI could become a useful diagnostic partner. It might help architects see strengths, weaknesses, and missed opportunities. Whether Alexander’s properties remain the definitive rubric is debatable. They endure because they describe persistent, cross‑cultural patterns rooted in human perception. But they demand a relational intelligence that challenges even skilled humans to articulate fully. Any meaningful AI engagement with them will require moving beyond feature detection toward something closer to architectural judgment.

My own exploration echoes themes in Salingaros’s work on living geometry’s measurable effects on cognition and wellbeing. The takeaway is modest but clear: relational coherence in buildings is not an aesthetic preference; it has consequences for how people perceive and inhabit space. For now, AI’s most immediate value lies in conversation, as a tool that helps us see our work more sharply, test assumptions, and notice relationships we might otherwise overlook. In my experiments, it has already done that. If future systems can extend this capacity without losing sight of the relational nature of design, they may become useful partners in the ongoing effort to create environments that are coherent, grounded, and humane.