The BLDUP Spotlight is a weekly feature where readers gain insight into high-profile developments around the city and get to know local industry leaders. Today we chat with Mike Aziz, AIA, LEED AP, Director of Urban Design at Cooper Robertson. Mike’s background includes over 15 years of award-winning work in urban design, campus planning, and computational design. He is also a leader in New York City’s planning community, serving on the steering committee for the AIANY Planning and Urban Design Committee.

BLDUP: What is the last book you read that you would recommend as a "must-read" to the construction and design community? Why did you find this book so important? 

Mike Aziz: One book I’d recommend as a “must-read” is The Code Breaker, by Walter Isaacson. It profiles Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues and recounts how the scientific community came together to develop COVID vaccines and other solutions to medical challenges — an important example of how a community of experts, who are routinely in competition with one another, can find ways to collaborate during moments of crisis. I think there are valuable lessons here for the construction and design community, in terms of how we can all take this approach more often and more meaningfully. The value and power of collaboration is something I’ve thought about a lot while reflecting on the past year’s Covid responses, and also on the way that the New York construction and design community came together in the Post-9/11 period. In both cases, we saw the impact of knowledge-sharing and the galvanizing power of leadership from professional organizations such as the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which encouraged open communication and helped inspire new frameworks for making our cities better.

As a real estate or design professional, I also think that it’s vital to read about the history of the places where you live and work.  Understanding how a particular environment evolved and being aware of the range of structural and individual forces that shaped that evolution, will make us all more empathetic and more effective practitioners. For example, our firm Cooper Robertson is now leading a waterfront masterplanning process in Middletown, Connecticut, and I’ve been reading about the city’s planning history — including how existing neighborhoods were cleared to build a highway in the middle of the 20th Century. Much of what the current initiative aims to accomplish in terms of community benefit is informed by those past decisions, and in order to be effective facilitators of this plan, we need to understand the what, why, how, and who of what happened previously in this area. 

BLDUP: Do you have a daily or weekly routine that you follow? If so, how do you feel it has contributed to your success? How has this routine changed/been adjusted given the current situation?

Mike Aziz: As far as personal routines, one of the great blessings of working from home for the past year-plus is that I can have breakfast and dinner with my family every day, no matter how busy I am (or think I am). Compared to how busy things were before, it feels like I’m getting a chance to watch my kids grow up in slow motion.

From a professional perspective, we have routines at Cooper Robertson that I’ve found very useful in helping to lead the firm with my colleagues, and also in maintaining a sense of structure while we’ve all been remote. Every Monday morning, I take part in a series of office-wide updates, which includes an office-wide meeting, a staffing committee meeting, and a marketing committee meeting. This gives me a detailed snapshot of where we are in all of our work, and helps me feel organized for the week. Then on Friday, we have a management committee meeting, which is a more top-level overview and strategy-setting session. Being able to bookend every week with a granular perspective and then a bird’s-eye-view has been a crucial element in moving our work and firm forward.  

BLDUP: During the course of your career, what was the biggest challenge you faced and how did you overcome it? What other accomplishments hold a special place in your heart and why?

Mike Aziz: One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced was needing to overcome the impulse to be a part of every project or initiative I found interesting. It’s tempting to always raise a hand and volunteer to lead a new effort, especially when you enjoy the work immensely. To that end, one of my greatest accomplishments was becoming a leader of the Planning & Urban Design Committee at the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY). The very nature of taking part in a real collective enterprise makes it a valuable learning experience. When you’re donating extracurricular time to something, there’s no way to do it all yourself, and you realize that it’s a fool’s errand to try and take on that mantle. Instead, you need to focus on collaboration.

This committee is also incredibly multi-generational, like Cooper Robertson, which has been very rewarding. It’s provided another great opportunity to learn from people who are standard-bearers in the profession and to help mentor graduate students or early-stage practitioners who are working to chart a path for their careers. 

BLDUP: What do you foresee for the future of urban development given mass vaccinations? The COVID-19 pandemic brought on a unique set of challenges, how has this affected your business in the short term. Do you expect to see long-term effects on your projects?

Mike Aziz: The nature of urban design is that there’s always an element of uncertainty when you’re planning for decades of growth. The most successful plans recognize that uncertainty will always be present, and have been crafted in a way that makes flexibility and adaptability a priority — think about a university campus plan, which might set a framework for several decades of growth without dictating what exactly the growth will look like in terms of specific building designs. 

In the construction and design community, we need to recognize this. Especially now in the wake of a global pandemic and in the face of an increasingly urgent climate crisis, we need to be able to balance short-term crisis management with long-term transformational change. The open streets movement of the past year is a good example of how to marry these two types of response: sidewalk sheds and “streateries” popped up as an immediate solution whose success has led in many cases to a permanent transformation of public space. Now, designers can take a longer view and create structures that are more attractive, more functional, and more durable. The transformational change depended on and grew out of the crisis response, but that crisis response alone wasn’t enough.

BLDUP: What upcoming projects are you most excited about?

Mike Aziz: We’re very excited about the Middletown Riverfront Master Plan. It’s a great opportunity to work with a city and a mayor that are committed to a forward-looking vision. The community in Middletown is incredibly diverse, inclusive, and passionate about planning for the future. Our goal is to craft a process that puts this community at the center of shaping plans for its waterfront.

I also like how this project combines so many of the sectors in which Cooper Robertson has expertise — including resiliency, waterfront planning, downtown revitalization, and the relationship of colleges and universities to their surrounding towns and cities. It really encapsulates what urban design is all about. 

BLDUP: What other types of projects are you looking for right now (if any)? Certain areas, project type/size?

Mike Aziz: Right now we’re wrapping up a few big strategic planning initiatives with major universities, which is a type of project we love. Cooper Robertson has a talented and experienced higher-ed planning team, and we’re very interested in helping institutions with the next phase of masterplanning that will come as we turn the corner post-Covid. This is going to be a critical phase for many colleges and universities across the country as they navigate what their new normal will be in terms of the role of the physical campus, the direction of the academic curriculum, and the nature of the student body. There are a lot of opportunities for campus leaders to set their institutions up for long-term success, but being able to develop a plan that is responsive and adaptable is critical.

BLDUP: Have you had a mentor or someone who has helped you during your career? What are the most valuable lessons you learned from that person?

Mike Aziz: I’ve had so many mentors, including the Cooper Robertson founders Alex Cooper and Jaque Robertson, along with Brian Shea, Janice Barnes, Dhiru Thadani, to name a few, and one of the most valuable and consistent lessons I’ve learned from all of them is the respect for the craft of urban design. Architecture and urban design are inextricably linked, but they often have very different objectives.  Architecture is often about making something beautiful and functional that uplifts people. Urban design is more about starting a dialogue.  It’s about bringing people together, asking questions, listening carefully, and then, with great clarity and inspiration - reflecting back opportunities for positive growth and change.

BLDUP: What do you hope for the future of your company in the next 30 years? What legacy do you want to leave?

Mike Aziz: I have no doubt that Cooper Robertson will continue to be a leader in our industry and to be a place of creative, equitable, and sustainable design excellence. What I do hope I can impart is the belief that what matters most as a professional is to have respect for the profession— for the work itself, for what it represents, and for all the people involved. It’s so important to have respect for — to really listen to, learn from, and give back — to all of your colleagues, clients, and collaborators. That’s where success and growth comes from in this field, because ultimately the nature of this work is about giving back. 

BLDUP: What is a favorite quote that inspires you or you strive to live by?

Mike Aziz: One of my favorite quotes is from Winston Churchill: "We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” It’s a powerful statement that cuts to the heart of why urban design matters. Giving form to and creating a framework for the built environment (and particularly the public realm) has a huge impact on people’s lives, and it’s critical to consider the implications and the responsibility that comes with this role. The quote inspires me to always think about how our work can do more to strengthen communities and make them more joyful, equitable, and resilient.