Miller Hull

As public debates about national priorities focus on “infrastructure,” definitions of the term will vary.

Should infrastructure be locked away behind a razor-wire fence? Or is it possible to design infrastructure as an accessible, and even enriching, part of a modern city’s urban fabric?

Architects Scott Wolf, FAIA, Anton Dekom, AIA, and Mark T. Johnson, AIA, have spent their careers trying to make the latter solution possible. In an hour-long session at AIA Conference on Architecture 2018 titled “Narrative Infrastructure: 1% Visible,” they encouraged architects to think about—and articulate to potential clients—how infrastructure can be pleasing and functional and contribute to communities in innumerable ways, simultaneously. Think Trajan’s triple-arched Proserpina aqueduct in Mérida, Spain (or any Roman aqueduct, for that matter). Think John and Washington Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge.