#352 - ‘A 13-Year Architecture Project’, with Israel Peña

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Archispeak
Episode: #352 – ‘A 13-Year Architecture Project’, with Israel Peña
Hosts: Evan Troxel & Cormac Phalen
Guest: Israel Peña
Date: November 21, 2024

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the realities—both rewarding and grueling—of long-term architectural projects, spotlighting a 13-year school modernization in Beverly Hills led by guest architect Israel Peña. Through candid conversation, Evan and Cormac explore the complexities, setbacks, unexpected discoveries, and personal growth Israel experienced as project manager and construction administrator. In the latter part, Israel shares about his creative life outside architecture, discussing an elaborate home Halloween display as another creative, community-driven outlet.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing the Project and Setting the Stage

• Israel has been with HMC Architects for 22 years, with over half of that spent on the featured Beverly Hills K-5 school project ([00:15]–[00:54]).
• The project began in 2011, initially as a K-8, later reconfigured to a K-5 after a long program and design evolution ([10:22]).
• Cormac points out the unusual length, comparing to his own seven-year historic project in Annapolis ([15:18]).

2. Coping with the Marathon: Longevity & Sanity

• Israel’s approach to managing stress and maintaining sanity is rooted in fitness and running, recounting participation in 28+ marathons and several Ironman events:
  • “Really, after a stressful day of work, I go and I run… That was my therapy, and that’s the only way I could get through some of those incredibly difficult days.” – Israel ([03:20]).
  • Notably, during peak periods, Israel’s walking and running miles on site surpassed mileage he put on his vehicle ([08:29]).
• The metaphor of long architecture projects as endurance events is a recurring theme.

3. The Project’s Scope, Historic Complexity & Budget Evolution

• Project Highlights:
  • Five interconnected buildings (~118,000 sq ft), featuring three historic 1927 Spanish Revival structures and two from the 1960s.
  • Full modernization, seismic retrofit, and preservation—all historic interiors and exteriors were touched ([10:22]–[12:36]).
  • “There’s really nothing that we didn’t touch as part of this modernization. But it didn’t start off as that...” – Israel ([11:37]).
• Initial budget: $22 million—insufficient for true scope. Incrementally grew to over $50 million with added scope and unforeseen needs ([12:58], [16:21]).
• Bureaucratic and political factors (board reluctance to pursue additional bonds, leadership turnover) heavily delayed decision-making and funding ([16:17]).

4. Design & Construction Phases – Obstacles at Every Turn

• Design Phase Length:
  • Seven years from pursuit/presentation (2011) to “final” schematic (2014) and eventual DSA submission ([23:53]).
  • Multiple redesigns and evolving requirements due to funding opportunities (seismic mitigation programs) and structural revelations during demolition ([25:46]).
• Approval Hurdles with California’s DSA:
  • Israel details DSA’s multi-phase, specialist review process, changing reviewers mid-way, program funding shifts, and multiple submittals:
    • “We literally had to pull back and redesign our structural systems…that was our second submittal.” ([28:42]–[32:03])
    • Ultimately, the project saw four major design revisions after entering DSA approval ([33:04]).
  • Remarkably, despite the timeline, they kept the project under the 2013 CBC building code ([33:41]).
• Construction Phase:
  • School closed for almost seven years; shifting all students (700–800) to another campus made construction feasible ([19:19]–[20:47]).
  • Tight <6.5-acre site made logistics challenging ([21:35]).

5. Tales from the Trenches: Historic Surprises & Problem Solving

• Unforeseen conditions abounded—removal of plaster revealed extensive hollow clay tile walls (“had to remove every square inch…replace it with metal stud framing” – [37:15]).
• Unique preservation challenge: The historic auditorium’s dome and floor.
  • “That ceiling in the auditorium. And the dome. The dome is the one that kept me up at night a lot. It’s—how do you document that, knowing that whole thing needs to come down and you need to rebuild it and make it look exactly like it was before?” – Israel ([40:14]).
  • Used advanced scanning, modeling (Revit, Rhino), and detective work to recreate complex geometry and match historic construction ([41:21]–[45:13]).
• Numerous scope changes were compounded by incomplete or inaccurate historic documentation and the need to learn, on the fly, how things were originally built ([44:12]).

6. Personal and Professional Growth Through Adversity

• Israel reflects on his evolution—a journey from self-doubt to newfound confidence:
  • “One of the things that I really had to learn was to trust that I knew what I knew, you know, because I always second guess myself…So I definitely walked away with a little bit more confidence than I had before.” ([48:06]–[49:27])
• The demands ultimately took a toll: Israel discusses a stress-induced autoimmune condition (impacting his vision) that changed his daily life ([54:53]).
• Feeling “empty” now that the project is complete, echoing a common post-project letdown among architects ([54:51]).
• Emphasizes the educational value of Construction Administration (CA) and how he insisted young architects share in the day-to-day lessons of solving on-site unforeseen conditions ([51:22]–[53:32]).

7. Attachment to the Work & Architectural Calling

• Israel describes developing a deep emotional connection to the building itself, not just the client or users:
  • “I really became an advocate for the building because I felt that so many people didn’t understand the significance of what this cultural resource is and is for that community…” ([56:57])
• Cormac relates the experience to architecture’s persistent, sometimes unbalanced, “love affair” with projects:
  • “It’s that abusive relationship...we love and we love and we love, and it just doesn’t love us back…” – Cormac ([57:41])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On endurance and coping:
  • “That was my therapy, and that’s the only way that I could…get through some of those incredibly difficult days. But it was definitely my fitness.” – Israel ([03:20])
• On historic preservation surprises:
  • “…as soon as the plaster came off, and we saw that they were hollow clay tiles, now we understood, oh, that actually was a little different…So we basically had to remove every square inch of hollow clay tile…” – Israel ([36:26])
• On the post-project feeling:
  • “Oh, absolutely. I…again, it was incredibly stressful. But now being off of the project, I’m, I feel a little empty. You know, it’s like, what, what’s next?” – Israel ([54:04])
• On self-realization:
  • “I had to give myself more credit than I was willing to give myself. So I definitely walked away with a little bit more confidence than I had before.” – Israel ([49:27])
• On project advocacy:
  • “…for this particular project, I really became an advocate for the building because I felt that so many people didn’t understand the significance…” – Israel ([56:57])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:20]: Israel explains how running helped him cope with long-term project stress.
• [10:22]: Initial project overview—scope, history, significance.
• [12:58]: How the project’s scope crept and budget changed.
• [15:18]: Why the project took 13 years: “politics and bucks.”
• [23:53]: Length of schematic and design phases; number of redesigns.
• [28:42]–[33:15]: Challenges with DSA, changing requirements, multiple design resubmittals.
• [36:26]: Discovering hollow clay tile and how it altered the renovation plans.
• [40:14]: The auditorium dome preservation challenge.
• [48:06]: Israel’s professional growth and building confidence.
• [54:04]: The bittersweet “emptiness” after project completion.
• [56:57]: Becoming an advocate for the building as a cultural resource.
• [58:58]–[72:00+]: Israel’s Pirates of the Caribbean home Halloween display—creative process, community engagement, and charity focus.

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Bonus: Israel’s Creative Outlet – Halloween Pirates of the Caribbean Display

The closing segment (from [58:58] on) is a lively change of pace, with Israel sharing details about his and his partner’s annual home Halloween extravaganza—a faithful Pirates of the Caribbean walk-through built from scratch and staged with family, combining theatrical set design, architecture skills, and 3D printing:

• All decor is handmade or custom-built (lettering, figures, props).
• The project doubles as a community charity drive for the American Cancer Society ([66:46]).
• Showcases Israel’s passion for making and how creative side-projects provide balance and joy amid high-stress professional commitments.

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Conclusion

This episode is a deep dive into the real-world demands of large, drawn-out architectural projects—highlighting not just technical challenges but the enormous perseverance and adaptability required. Israel’s candor about the stress, exhaustion, and eventual sense of pride and emptiness offers a compelling look into the lived experience of practicing architects. The episode also celebrates the creativity that flourishes outside work, reminding listeners of the passions that renew and sustain through the marathon.

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For Further Exploration

• Israel’s documented Halloween shows: (Photos/videos requested in the episode; see show notes)
• More behind-the-scenes stories at archispeakpodcast.com
• Information on DSA and California school construction: CA Department of General Services - DSA

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Note: Intro/outro, sponsor mention, and ads have been omitted in accordance with guidelines.

Transcript

[A]

Israel, welcome to the Ark of Speak podcast. It's great to see you.

[B]

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[A]

So Cormac is not in on this yet, but I thought it would be fun to do. We're going to talk about architecture, believe it or not. And the reason that Israel is on the show. Israel and I, we used to work together. Israel is at the firm, that architect I used to be at, and he's. How long have you been there now, Israel? I mean, you may just want to say 22 years.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say, I know it's been a long time, but, but okay. More than half of that time has been not, not entirely, but been spent on the project that we're going to talk about today. Yes, yes.

[B]

More than half of my HMC career has been on this project.

[C]

That's interesting.

[A]

And, and okay, so just having a.

[C]

Conversation similar to that, I would love.

[A]

Cormac, for you to pull out your crystal ball right now.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

You kind of know, you know what kind of projects HMC does. I would love you to guess what kind of project Israel has been working on for since 2011. Since 2011.

[C]

2011. Okay. Is it. Could I do some 20 questions here to kind of like zero in on it a bit?

[A]

Okay. First I want you to just go cold, cold guess, and then you can play 20 questions. So let's just see if you can cold guess.

[C]

I mean, yeah, I would love to say something as ridiculous as an elementary school.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Pretty.

[A]

Pretty darn good. Yeah, I like that you think it's ridiculous. And by the way, look at, I'm pulling out the ARCA Speak mug here. This, this podcast, Israel has been going on slightly longer than your project.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Just barely.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So why are you making those noises?

[C]

Because sadly, I, I, I can, I can feel the pain that the smile is hiding.

[B]

Yeah. No. Oh, which.

[A]

Realities of architecture right here.

[B]

Which I think it was one of your, one of your recent. Pod. Pod. You talked about those projects that are just so exhausting and tiring and stressful, but at the end of it, you realized how incredible of a project it was and how much you miss it. So I was listening to one of your podcasts, and that just was incredibly relevant to this one.

[C]

We were trying to explain to one of our newer hires about a project that we're working on right now, and, and I was actually corrected. The project started in 2015, and I think.

[B]

2015.

[C]

Yeah, 2015. And it will finish up third quarter of 2026. So not as long as yours, but it is one of those, like, long process, and they're like, how do you stay sane on a project like that? So, yeah, let me ask you, how do you stay sane on a project like that?

[B]

Well, for me, running. Honestly.

[C]

Running from the project.

[B]

Yeah, running from the project. That is one of. One of the things that I'm very passionate about is running. My fitness. Health and fitness has always been a big part of my life. You know, I've done over 28 marathons, two full Ironmans, half a dozen or more, half Ironmans. And you know, you name it, I've done it. And really, after a stressful day of work, I go and I run. And even at work, when I worked at. When I was. This is before pre pandemic and before Beverly, before I. I spent more time off site, I would actually spend my lunch at HMC running. We had a gym there, and that's what I did. I just, I. I ran. That was my therapy, and that's the only way that I could. Could get through some of those. Those incredibly difficult days. But it was definitely my fitness.

[A]

Yeah, great answer. And I. I'm glad you brought up the Ironman thing and the marathon thing, because that's an incredible accomplishment. I. If you had to guess, like, I don't want to ask how many miles you've run, you probably. I don't know if you know that, but how many pairs of shoes have you gone through?

[B]

Oh, my gosh. I go through. I go through, you know, the. Every pair of shoes is 200 miles. And I can easily. I can get 200 miles during peak training, you know, every three months, two to three months. I'm constantly going through shoes. And that's one of the. That's the. One of the reasons I do it is to prevent injury. I know that. I have a lot of friends that just. They don't want to spend the money because they're not cheap. So they're. You. They just. Until they're falling apart, that's when they get rid of them. But as soon as I feel anything, whether it's a little something in my knee, something my lower back, something in my calf, it's like, okay, time to throw out those shoes and get a new pair.

[C]

So.

[B]

But, yeah, I go through a lot of shoes. Yeah.

[C]

I have a friend who was in architecture and wasn't. Didn't seem as passionate about it as we clearly are, at least just in the fact that, like, it was always kind of like, wearing him down and he was a runner. He was a cross country runner and everything else and ran in college and then ended up quitting it and becoming an elite runner.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

Where now he's ranked in his age group and now 40s and like in the top whatever, like 20. And he just, he always, Yes, I should continue to keep running, but I, I'm running from like ice cream trucks and things like that. But he's, he, that's one of his things is he used, he goes through shoes like nobody's business. I mean he's always posting. It's just like welcome the new pair. It's just like welcoming a new baby. It's like welcoming the new pair. And it's, it literally is probably like one every two months at best, not more.

[B]

And those runners, elite runners are not wearing. Those shoes are expensive. Those are, those are really expensive shoes. I, I, I won't spend that unless I'm doing a race where I'm trying to qualify for something, but I'm not there anymore. That was back 10 years ago and.

[C]

I watched him on just a local 10k and he, and the, the front runners, they sprinted the entire 10k. Like how do you maintain that level of intensity for that long? You know, it's just, it just dumbfounded me.

[B]

It's, it's, it's pretty amazing. I, you know, I think about my best marathon that I ever ran was actually my fastest was Ojai, but I don't count that as my fastest, even though I had the better time. My best I, that I'm most proud of is the LA Marathon because it is a challenging course. It isn't flat. They kind of advert, they market it as a downhill run, but it really isn't. There are so many hills and so many climbs that it's really challenging. But that's one of my best times. And it was my, my, my time was 3:06, so my miles were about 706, 707 pace.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Which.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

I, I mean I was just incredibly excited to get that. I was really hoping to try to get a sub 3 hour marathon, but I just, I never got there. Just it's a whole different level.

[C]

Just the fact that you can say you ran a marathon in general, but this as many as you have, and the Ironman and the half marathons and the half Ironman and stuff like that, that's, it was funny that I was just having this conversation about somebody saying you, you do a lot of things. You teach, you podcast, you do this and then you have the full Time job. And you just like. Yeah, you. All the training that you're doing. Yeah, you best put me to chain.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. What's interesting about the mileage, although I don't know how many miles I've. I've run, overall, I easily hit 2000 a year. But that was. That was a while ago.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But the last couple years, specifically because of this Beverly Hills project, I spent a lot of time in Beverly Hills, and I actually was living in Beverly Hills most of the week because I was required to be on site. And so I spent. There are more miles on my feet than there were on my vehicle in the last couple years. In the last two, three years. So, you know, Garmin tracks everything. Right. I track all my mileage, my walking, my running and. And then the odometer on my truck. I, I was. I. I put in more miles on my Garmin than I did on. In my. My vehicle.

[A]

That's crazy.

[B]

Yeah, that's pretty insane.

[A]

So, so speaking of marathons. Right. Like, that's what this. That's what. Look at that segue.

[C]

I was gonna. That's how that was my segue.

[A]

Dang it. I mean, and the demands of a project that goes on for this long, and maybe you can just give kind of an overview of this project. I, I will preempt that and say I looked back through some of my old design files because I was on the team that pursued this client. And we. And it was like, like you've already alluded to Beverly Hills. So it's a. It's the school district in Beverly Hills for K12. And this, I believe this was a K8, wasn't it? They have quite a few K8s, and. And the whole district had to be modernized at some point. And so we didn't know what we were going after. Everybody was going after something who was in the pool, basically, to be in the pool of architects. And I looked at the dates on the files and it was January of 2011 that we presented to the school district, which then precipitated the project that Israel's going to tell us about now. So jump in.

[B]

So the project did start off as a K8, but during. Actually, after DSA approval, it. The district went through an educational reconfiguration and it became a K5. So it did become an elementary school. So it didn't start off as one, but it became one after DSA approval. But it's essentially 118,000 square feet of. Of buildings. It's five building units that are all connected so it's almost like one massive building and with part of the component being a major historic rehabilitation, seismic retrofit and as well as a modernization. So there was multiple things going on at the same time and each one could have been a standalone. It's a beautiful 1927 revival at least. The historic components are a Spanish revival building designed by Austin, Ashley and Hudson. Beautiful, gorgeous ornate facade with a belfry and beautiful stone facades tile. I mean it was, it's just a stunning building. So three of the buildings are registered as are identified as historic buildings and two were built in the 60s and are not. But, but they're all interconnected. But we pretty much as part of the modernization, we have touched every square inch of that building, every square inch of the exterior, every interior and including the entire exterior, every surface has been touched there. There's really nothing that we didn't touch as part of this modernization. But it didn't start off as that. You know, when, when Evan first worked on it, I mean it was just the budget was only 22 million back then. And the major concern back then was the seismic retrofit portion of it. That was really, that's what triggered the modernization. And, and as, as well as aging infrastructure, just the systems were just very antiquated and old. And also the reality that they really hadn't done any major improvements to the interior of those classrooms in a long time and they were in dire need. But we had to do a lot with 22 million and it just wasn't working. It just, yeah, it just wasn't enough money.

[C]

I love how states or even like local jurisdictions love to stretch that, you know, that dollar as far as you can go. And when it's faced with the reality of they're asking for the 10 pounds of program that, you know, and fit it into that five pound bag and you're just like, it's just not working.

[B]

No, it's just you're, you're not able.

[C]

To get all of that in there. But yet then at the end of the day when the budget comes by and they're like, so yeah, what are we going to get cut off of this one? It sounds like you went the, you.

[A]

Know, well, that's, that was definitely the conversation that was going on back then. And I think just to kind of set the stage of where we started, it was like all hands on deck, full team on site with, okay, remember 2011 laptops and Revit, early.

[B]

Revit.

[A]

Revit 2010 or 2009, where all the buttons went down. The side there wasn't even a ribbon yet. And actually did an as built model of the campus with I don't know, five or six or 10 people and really crawling through every nook and cranny and exploring. I mean it was very Atlas Obscura Cormac. If you go up into the bell tower, it was filled with graffiti on the inside and everybody had tagged it and signed their name. Like the students had all snuck up there whenever they could and signed their name as like part of the school. Right. And there was just a lot of really cool little things to find out about this place as you kind of as we explored through it, but also modeled it so that we could do the kind of feasibility study that was really needed, that hadn't. Because nobody truly knew what existed there. Right. They didn't know the true state of what everything was in. And I remember even like crawling through the attic of the auditorium, right. Like up into the performing arts kind of room space and crawling through this trust space and just, it was just insanely kind of haunted feeling up there. It was just. It really had not been. Not much had been done in quite a very long time. So I mean that just kind of gives you a little bit of the picture of where we started with this project. And then we ultimately kind of just established what we thought was going to be the feasibility, like what was going to happen. And we presented that I think in like October of that year and. And nobody foresaw this project taking 13 years to complete. Nobody. But at the same time nobody knew where it was going because clearly kind of the scope and the budget were not well defined. But also you could tell they were going to be at odds for quite a while.

[C]

So I've worked on projects that sound almost identical in the fact that they've got historic components, you've got addition, later additions that aren't really part of like the contributing factor to the historic fabric, but are things that you need to do either a modernization or a revitalization to. And then selective additions and things like that. And, and they've been those projects, I will definitely say take a while. And one that I had that was conformed, I had to conform to the Department of Interior historic standards because it was in downtown historic Annapolis, Maryland, which is the state capital. It took seven. It was a seven year project. And this is kind of a loaded question because I sort of know the answer. But I'm also kind of curious why 13 years.

[B]

Politics and bucks.

[C]

I sort of knew that that was.

[B]

Where you were going but it's, you know, again, it was very difficult for the board to go back to their, to the community and say we need another bond and we need more money to really do this right. And the board was divided. Some of them knew what needed to be done and others just, they didn't, they didn't want to go back and try to issue another bond. The. So it was challenging because of that. And so, you know, we did, they did increase the budget throughout the years. So it went from 22 million, then it went up to 42 million, then it went up to 50, 50 plus, but it still wasn't enough. One of the things that was happening was one of the, one of our, one of the other campuses started the whole modernization process. It was Horace Mann, it was one of the other K8s. That was kind of like the guinea pig. They were, they were, they started off first.

[A]

That was the first one.

[B]

That was the first.

[A]

We did the design kind of like a. That was part of the presentation was showing the design for that campus and what we would do there. So I can totally see why they did that one first because everybody kind of knew it. And that one had a head start.

[B]

Right. So they started construction and then of course, with hundred year old buildings, as soon as you start demolition, what happens? You find stuff, you find things. Unforeseen conditions. Yeah, exactly. And that's what they were discovering is all these issues. And the program manager at that time was really trying to stick to the budget as much as they could. And so they were really working hard to stay within budget, even though things kept coming up and they just had to spend more money. And at the end of the project they did what they could and then they realized we really should have spent the money to do all these other things because then those other things became issues like for example, the roof. They are certain parts I'm not exactly sure, but it had something to do with the roofing. They had a major rain event and all of a sudden roofs were leaking and all the work they'd done on the interiors was starting to get damaged. So I think that really opened up the eyes of the board and other individuals that it's like we, if we're going to do this, we got to do it right. But again, there were a lot of other politics involved and I mean the. Just the change in leadership on the, on the district side was constant. And so it was hard to get everybody on board and get everybody up to speed. And then finally in 2000, I want to say 20 was 2018 or 2000? 2017. 2018. A new program manager came in and really just said if you guys want to do this right, this is what you have to do and this is the money you need to spend. And that's when things really started going. And that's, that's, that's what, that's where we were able to finally get into construction and finally try to get this done.

[A]

How long was that school closed down during this process?

[B]

Oh, I believe they closed down. I might be off by a year. 2. So in 2018, was it 2018 or 2017 was the last year that students were in that building. And so, you know, almost seven. Six. Yeah, almost seven. No students. Six to seven years that students weren't there originally. The original plan was to have a phased program and so interim housing was everywhere. And it just. When we think about what we had to go through without students on campus, I would have just been absolutely impossible. There was just no way that would have worked. But one of the things that, that that was happening in the district was they do. They are experiencing declining enrollment. And so one of the campuses was almost vacant. So they were able to take all the Alvareo students and take them over to Hawthorne elementary, which is down the road. And, and again with the restructuring going from K8 to K5, they now had some, some better efficiencies with not duplication of so much staff and needing different campuses. So it helped consolidate some of the programs they had. So it helped that being able to shift all the students from El Rodeo onto another campus because of that. So it did help.

[C]

What was the size of the student body there.

[B]

So at El Rodeo at that time it was about between 7 and 800.

[C]

You said it was 100,000 square feet.

[B]

It's 118,000 square feet of building. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

I can, I'm just, I've worked through numerous like face while occupied and just the nightmare of going through all of that and the multiple different like phasing plans and life safety plans that you have to do to get that project to work is kind of insane. But a lot of times for schools that big in with a large student population that you almost have to convince them you've got to get the kids out of there and do something else because it just becomes unruly.

[B]

And it was. And it's a small site, it's acres, less than six and a half acres. So it's a really tight site. So even with the construction crews, it was tight. I mean there was Very little room to lay down areas and all the trailers that people needed and our construction trailers as well. We ended up getting moved around from, from place to place just because we needed. Okay, now we need to, we're moving into this phase. Get out, move on to the other side of the campus. And eventually we ended up occupying part of the administration building towards the tail end of it.

[A]

So when the school actually shut down fully, when then did construction begin? So was there a gap there before construction started or did it start right then?

[B]

Well, I believe there was a little bit of a gap because we were going through DSA approval. But in 2019 is when we officially kicked off. So I think we had. So no, I think students were there up until the 2018, 2019 school year. And then in 2019 it shut down and then we started construction that August.

[A]

And I can't remember when like the actual design phase, like not, let's not call it like conceptual design even part of this conversation. Like when did schematic design start like year wise? Like just, I'm just kind of tracking this. 2011 to 2018. That's a seven year design phase, right? I mean, and there was all kinds of roller coaster going on during that time with the politics and with the, the money and with all this stuff. But like how long was it actually in SD dddc, You know, like actually in, in the model.

[C]

And before you answer that. So I want to add on how many design redesign. Redesign and things like that happen because I can, I can see because live those kind of like, oh, it's taken you to how long to design it and it usually is the design, redesign, re. Redesign the. You know how it's like when you look at those files. So it's just like final final point two final point. You know, final, final, final. Really?

[A]

No really this time exist.

[C]

So sorry.

[B]

So fine. So the date that I that's like right in front of me. It's final schematic design package was June of 2014. So June of 2014 was when the.

[A]

The final scheme they approved.

[B]

Yeah, when they approved the schematic design.

[A]

And then it actually went into dd.

[C]

So let me ask you, the final approved schematic design, what did that. Was that what was made it basically, you know, your bid set?

[A]

No, no, not at all.

[B]

Yeah, no. So what happened was that after the schematic design was was approved, then the discussion started coming in from the district side. The, the interim district facilities director at that time wanted to explore the seismic mitigation program through dsa. The SMPR program. And so, you know, there, that was an opportunity to go after additional funding because there, there was the seismic retrofit component. Then they thought, well, let's pursue those funds. And so there was a shift. So we shifted gears at that point. And then we really started to look at the project from a seismic perspective and, and looking at all the requirements for the. This procedure through dsa. And so that started. That really triggered even more changes because all going into a mandatory seismic retrofit, there were very specific things that you needed to do to the building. Right. And each one of those impacted the historic parts of the building. And so that budget just, that's when it really started increasing because now you were following this mandatory program. And so that really changed the project completely.

[A]

I'm trying to think back Israel, about the process and just kind of thinking about all the materials that we just continued to provide until schematic designs were actually approved. I mean, it was volumes and volumes and volumes of work. Right. And the reason I'm kind of.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's crazy that it took this long. And then you've talked about politics and we talked about all the design changes and we've talked about once you kind of crack the walls open, it's like, oh, there's stuff in there. There's all these things. And I think that it's just important to kind of keep in mind. And you've mentioned dsa. I think a lot of our listeners, I don't even know what DSA is. Right. Might be good to define what DSA is and kind of explain how it works in California with schools. But there's just a lot of moving parts here. And I don't think anybody goes to school thinking that any of this is part of quote, unquote, architecture. Right. Like, architecture is just designing buildings. Right. And I bring it up as, like, all these moving parts because, like, you're actually involved and you've been personally involved in a lot of that for so long as the project manager of the project and just being the orchestrator of everything that has to happen internally with the internal design team, but also externally with all these other pieces to the puzzle.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

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[B]

DSA was very challenging. So for those of you that don't know what DSA is, it's the division of the State Architect and it's the state agency that all school projects and community college districts go through for plan approval for schools. And so we went through we initially submitted into DSA in 2016. Early 2016 was our first submittal and we were going in as a seismic mitigation pro project. And so we were following that process which has, which is different from a regular submittal. There's like these very specific phases that you have to follow. And you submit a phase, you, you submit your project, you get a concurrence or acceptance letter from DSA and then you move on to the next phase. And then you keep doing that until you actually get to what is the typical traditional DSA submittal at for any school project? So you have to go through all these phases before you go into the actual DSA submittal. And then after that then you go through OPSC for the funding portion of it. So we started off that way and we submitted and we were going through the plan review process. And you have your access, you have your structural life, your structural reviewer, and your fire life safety. So you have your three disciplines. And so we're going through the process. You wait for comments, you get the comments back. Like every plan check and you pick them up. Well, what happened for this project was there was a change in the structural reviewer. So the structural. So the structural reviewer that reviewed all the. In the previous initial phases or tiers of the S and P program, you know, the one that says, I agree with your direction, I agree with your approach, move forward, that reviewer was changed to somebody completely different. And so again, we've already gone through this process and we've gotten concurrence letters from the state saying like, yeah, we're in agreement in your approach. Go. We've submitted the project, we've designed the entire project and it goes to a new reviewer. And this reviewer comes back and says, timeout. I disagree, I don't agree with this. So we literally had to pull back and redesign our structural systems because the. Because this reviewer didn't agree with the original concurrence from dsa. So we almost had. I mean, for the most part, a lot of the modernization components and some of the historic parts that we did were stayed the same, but structurally there were a lot of changes. So we had to go back and start over again. So that was our second submittal. So now we're going through this, going right, getting our. Waiting for comments for this next round, and we're dealing with our reviewers. And we had some of those most challenging reviewers that you could get at DSA. Then this is taking so long that now this funding component that was out there through the state was disappearing and we were seeing those dollars just dwindle. And we were like, the district was just wanting this process to cook quicker because you had to get in line for this money. And then we realized, yeah, we realized, oh, we're not going to get it, so. So we need to pull out. So, yeah, so when projects take that.

[C]

Long, you sort of are like, you get kicked to the side. You're just like, you gotta go back to the line and get there with your plate out.

[A]

Say, you've gotta be done, done. You gotta be done to get in line.

[C]

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

So. So we had to pull out and go, okay, if there is no more funding to go through this mandatory seismic program, why are we going to spend all this money to do this when we're not going to get anything back? So we had to basically pull it back and start again structurally and say, okay, we're not doing it as a mandatory program, we're now doing it as a voluntary. And what does that mean? So. So that was our third resubmittal and so that was our third submission and we finally Got it through DSA approval. And then after DSA approval, the district made the educational program change, went from a K8 to a K5. So once we got DSA approved, it's almost like we had to start over again.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And this. And they increased. There was a lot of. A lot more scope that was introduced into the project. So there were four major revisions once we started the whole DSA approval process.

[C]

So let me ask you this, because the length of the design process, not just the 13 years of the overall project, but the design process took so long. How many times, because this was prior to submitting for permit, and how many times did the building building codes change that you had to either potentially redo everything?

[B]

We actually were really lucky on that. We started off under the 2013 CBC and we remained as the 2013 CBC. It don't.

[A]

That's not even possible.

[B]

DSA did not make us.

[A]

They didn't require.

[B]

You didn't require us to go to the current code.

[A]

That's incredible.

[B]

But I mean, I will say that there were a lot of things that we did that met current code anyway. But still it was approved under the 2013 CBC even though it was DSA approved in 2019.

[C]

Yeah. I've been caught a couple of times in the transition between codes and they're like, well, you haven't submit for permit yet, so guess what? We've now adopted IBC 2015. And so you've got to do that one now. You're like. And then you do the whole assessment of like, all right, what has changed, what is applicable still. And. And then go through that whole process, which I know you know what I'm talking about.

[A]

I have. I have at least three more topics that I still want to get to here. So I have one and I'm sure you do. So. So you go first and I'm gonna try to keep this moving so that this isn't a four hour podcast. There's a lot to talk about still.

[C]

So one of the things in. I've experienced this, so I'm just kind of curious about what you've experienced. The historic building. You started opening it up. What kind of fun skeletons did you find? Because I'd love to trade war stories about, like, ooh, what. What's inside your bag of tricks? It.

[B]

The, the immediate one was the. As soon as the plaster came off those walls and some of those walls, the hollow clay tile, it.

[C]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

And so, you know, this was seismic tile. Seismic tile. It's like, it's great. It's A fantastic building material.

[C]

We, we had terracotta holoclay terracotta tiles as the one of the load bearing. And so they moved all of the lockers out and this was in one of the 1930 editions. And so they moved all of the lockers out of the way and they had all of this glazed tile down the corridor that they started to peel away. Well, they peeled away a little bit and I'm Talking about like 70 or linear feet of the, of all of this glazed tile came off. But what it did was it took the like if you've got the, the block, it took half of the fit of the block with it. And so essentially when it, when the set 70 linear feet fell it, you had half a block for 70 linear feet of a bearing wall.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[C]

Good luck with that.

[B]

There was. And now looking back at the as built or the record drawings that we had, again, they were really weak. I mean they were just very limited. Now we understand why those walls look like they didn't plan because at first there was really wasn't a legend. And so we really didn't understand what we were looking at other than, well, it looks like a concrete wall cast in place. Concrete. Okay. But as soon as the, the plaster came off and we saw that they were hollow clay tiles, now that, now we're, now we understood, oh, that actually was a little different. It that's where all the hollow clay tile was. And so we basically had to remove every square inch of hollow clay tile and replace it with metal stud framing everywhere. So a lot of the walls that we didn't think we were going to have to rebuild, we had to rebuild throughout the interior of those buildings the.

[C]

Unforeseen conditions of existing buildings. When you're trying to do a renovation, especially when it gets gets into historic, it's just amazing how where a lot of your money in the budget goes.

[B]

Oh, we, yeah, we spent a lot of energy in the auditorium. A lot of time and energy. Evan, if you're ever down here, man, I, I, you need to see this auditorium. It's just, it's beautiful. It's gorgeous photographs.

[A]

It's absolutely incredible with that lowering.

[B]

Oh that line shaft. It's so awesome. It's really, honestly, it's user friendly. I was ab. I learned how to use it and I was able to. So in the video that we did for the, for that project, that was me navigating that and you know, bringing it up, taking it down, changing the lights. It was pretty amazing. That's cool. But in that auditorium, because of the historic component, one of the character defining features of the auditorium was actually the floor slope. Right. So. And it wasn't accessible or parts of it weren't accessible. But per dsa, we had to make it accessible. So we were really being strategic as to how much of that floor slope we impacted by putting in a little bit of a ramp to just make it compliant. And so we spent so much energy designing this thing and making and trying to preserve as much of that. That, that original FL floor slope. So then they start ex are looking underneath the, the slab that we were doing some. We were underneath the stage and we were running some utilities underneath it and we were able to crawl under, under it. And we saw that it wasn't being supported. So it was supposed to be a slab on great condition. And our structural engineer and I were under there, or several of us were under there. And she, she basically said this can't happen. And so we literally had to. We ended up demoing that for the entire floor, redesigning it, report it, and put the proper. Because even the supports that slab had, they weren't there. There are some that weren't even attached. And it just is, it was. And this is during construction. And we had to hurry up and you know, we were trying to meet our schedule and in the midst of it, we had to basically redesign it and repo the whole thing. And so although that effort that we spent trying to preserve as much of that character defining floor slab, it just, we had to redemo it and start over again.

[A]

Oh my gosh.

[B]

Yeah, it was. Yeah. So. And that, you know, that happened a lot throughout the building.

[A]

Well, you, you talked about that space and I'm curious, like, what.

[B]

Maybe.

[A]

And maybe that space is the answer, but, like, what are you most proud of with this project? Is it, is it just the. Try not to think of the whole thing in total. I know this is like an incredible feat of architecture to have done this whole thing and to touch everything. There's some piece of it, though, that really stands out to you.

[B]

That ceiling in the auditorium. And the dome. The dome. The dome is the one that kept me up at night a lot. It's. How do you document that and knowing that whole thing needs to come down and you need to rebuild it and make it look exactly like it was before. How do you do it? I mean, we're trying to paint a.

[A]

Picture of what that dome looks like so people can kind of get a picture in their brain. Because I. If you say dome, it's like you could mean like some giant like 100 Foot Dome or you could mean what you're actually going to say.

[B]

It's. I wish I could show you pictures but it's. I can't even. I honestly I don't even know the dimensions of the diameter of the, the dome. But it's this beautiful dome that sits on top of this belfry. It's this octagonal tower and so that we have this dome that's just covered in tile and it's have, it has this eight, these eight segments of very specific geometry and colors of tile that needed to be, that needed to be replicated. So how do you we. So that the, the reason that dome had to come down is because the interior, the, the structure that was supporting it was rusting and falling apart. And we were trying to figure out is there any way to encapsulate it so to, to so it can stop the tier so it doesn't fall apart and we don't have any more, it doesn't deteriorate and just structurally our structural engineer is like no, that, that has to come down. So because of that, everything on top of it had to come down because there wasn't any way to actually support the plaster above it. And all the tile that was on top of it, plus the cupola that was sitting on top of the dome. And so trying to figure out what the actual construction was and what that thickness of that assembly was that rested on that octagon and just getting the right radius for the curvature of the dome and just all those things and just the number of tiles, the size of tiles, the spacing of the tile, it's just like how do you do it? Like how do you actually do it? So one of the things that we had was early on during the non destructive testing portion of the investigations that we were doing, the district hired this company called GB Geotechnical USA Inc. And so they did a lot of, they did a lot of non destructive testing for us. They did, they did photography, they did scanning, they did thermal imaging, they did a lot of like a lot of cool things that I've never done before in my life. And now it's, I can say that, that I've done it. But one of the things that they did is they scanned the entire tower. And just to, from a historic perspective in case something happened, right if there was this major earthquake and it all collapsed, at least we have record of what that was. Not that we were going to build off of it, but at least you have that record so one of the things that we were able to do is we were able to take that model and I don't remember the file format that they gave us. It was a little bit odd because we had a difficult time bringing it into revit, but we were able to bring it into Revit and we were able to kind of figure out what the outer radius of the dome was. And we found that it wasn't, it wasn't just center. Here's your center point and it just goes from the center and it goes out. No, actually the radius was, they were kind of crisscrossed like this. And so it was really weird. And so when we were doing the drawings, it just looked wrong. It was like, this isn't right. But taking the scan and bringing and overlaying it with our Revit model and our even just doing like 2D sections. I mean that's, that's the radius and that was our center point that it was telling us. But then when we added the, when we added the cupola on top of it, it made sense. It really did look just like the original dome, but, but without it, it just looked wrong. It just didn't look like that perfect spherical shape.

[C]

So you were talking about like in. I know from experience that a lot of times when you're doing historic buildings from the 20s on back that the, the existing drawings aren't really reliable or non existent or whatever. And I always found kind of excitement in a way in almost trying to play detective, play sleuth and figure out how things go together when you don't have all of that information and especially if you're doing non destructive testing and surveying because you know, you really don't know some of the things that are, you know, hiding behind the walls when you're going through that whole process and just kind of curious from like what are some of the fun things that like you were doing to kind of almost learn how things were done back then so that you can do them now in modern ways.

[B]

So the support at the dome, that was one of the things that we were unsure how it actually was supported. One of the, one of the things that was missing is this the infamous detail sheet number eight. So this was the detail, this was, this was the detail sheet that was for all for the dome and specifically for the stone. That was the challenging part is trying to figure out, well, how is this all being supported and anchored? And now for the dome we did have an opportunity to climb into it and kind of see what was happening. But a lot of it was covered in plaster, so you couldn't actually see the connection. And so again, as part of the demolition and the removal of some of the plaster, it revealed that the details that were there didn't really apply and some of the connections that were there actually didn't exist. So even though that octagon that was there, that should have remained in place, once we removed that dome off of it, that whole octagon was also impacted. So all that support base also had to be removed and taken off just because it needed the dome in order to keep it in place. So then we had to go back and redesign our structure and figure out how to one, extend our steel to go all the way down to the actual cast in place concrete portion of the substrate of the tower and then go outward and try to figure out, okay, what can we do? Because we can't go beyond this radius of the dome. Right. And we have to work with the limitations of the steel that we already have on the inside and the substrate of the tower. So it's like filling in that gap. It's like, okay, how are we going to do it? We only have this much room. And so that was pretty fascinating trying to figure that out. And my team did, did a lot of, of modeling, actually a lot of modeling in, in Rhino to try to figure out what all those components needed to be and the thickness. So that was a pretty cool exercise that we were dependent on technology to be able to do that.

[A]

I'm interested from like a professional standpoint now, like focusing on how you grew as an architect throughout this project. So 13 years, like you weren't the same at the end that you were at the beginning. Right. So maybe pick a couple things to talk about for your own professional growth that happened maybe because of this project, but throughout this project, obviously you experienced a lot and you had to deal with a lot of balls in the air at the same time and like changing of the guard, as it were, on the district side. And you stayed constant through this whole thing. Right. So, I mean professionally, how did this project impact you?

[B]

That I'm loyal to a fault.

[A]

It's rare that a project manager would stay on a project that entire time that is that long.

[B]

That or I wasn't actually supposed to be doing the ca, but the program manager at that time felt strongly that, okay, if there's been one person that's been consistent throughout this entire project, it's been Israel. Israel knows this project. You know, you knew too much.

[C]

You know, where everything is buried and.

[B]

And you know we had a meeting initially before we started construction, and we had identified who our site construction administrator was going to be. And it was one of our best senior CA guys. And I was like, okay, this is gonna be great. And the district said, no. I said, we do not want this person. The person that needs to be out here and needs to be out here full time is Israel. That was rough because I. I said to them, hey, this isn't what I do. I'm not a CA guy. Can I do it? Yeah. I've done it before on other projects, but that's not my expertise. But they really pushed for me to be out there, and I ended up being out there. And so one of the things that I really had to learn was to trust that I knew what I knew, you know, because I always second guess myself. And I think we all do. We always second guess ourselves.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

And so it's like, am I doing the right thing? Is, am I going to screw this up? You know, that's. But I did realize that a lot of that I did know a lot. I had to give myself more credit than that I was willing to give myself. So I definitely walked away with a little bit more confidence than I had before with that.

[C]

With a project like this, the complexity of a project like this, there are some things that you are taking some assumptions when you're working on them, and especially when you're in CA and you're now it's proof, proving that those assumptions are right. You're probably sitting there sometimes like, fingers crossed, kind of like, please be right, please be right, please be right kind of thing. Because I mean, those are some really projects like this. I wish people could at least experience once in their career something like this. Because to be quite honest with you, you can learn so much from these complex projects that you're looking at the way things were done historically, that you've seen the process of like all these different construction methods throughout the process. Then you're applying your. Your construction techniques and everything else, and all of the meshing together of all of these different. Basically everything that you've learned, and even it sound like you're saying Israel is like things that you didn't even know you knew, and now you know them. You know, it's just the complex projects like these, you know, these historic revitalization, renovations, modernizations with additions and things like that, it literally runs the game out of almost every type of project that you could ever do all wrapped up in one package.

[B]

Yep. I mean, just any project that you go into construction. It's challenging. Right? But then add, just add the historic component and then having to go back to all the preservation briefs for this one specific thing, it's like, okay, yeah, okay, railing. I need to make this accessible. What am I able to do to still be compliant within historic code? Right. And then it's so, but thankfully, we were partnered with Historic Resources Group, who was our, who is our historic architect. And they were just, they were incredible. I was constant communication with them. They'd come out to the site, they look at things, and it was just a very collaborative experience. But going back to the experience of doing ca, so one of the things that we had the ability to do is. So I did have an additional CA support with me out there, and I also brought out two young architects all the time. I made sure they came out at least once a week or, and spent time and they just, it took them away from doing design work and doing production work in the office. But they are such better architects for it just because of experiencing all the crazy, unforeseen conditions and the, oh, my gosh, now we have to redesign this and do it over again because of whatever reason. And they're just such better architects for it. And so I was very grateful that all four of us, we're able to do what we, that we had that experience with El Rodeo.

[C]

Yeah. Honestly, I don't know of any better educational tool than CA because of the fact that you've drawn it and now you've got to see it through better work. Really.

[B]

I understand.

[C]

It's just like, hey, you remember that line that you drew there? Guess what? There it is right there. And then in really understanding that, and then they go back and they understand and are more likely to take more care, more concentration to say, okay, am I doing this right? Am I going to get the final output the way that I'm thinking it's going to be in. Yeah.

[A]

The amount of problem solving that happens during the CA process on any project is incredible. Project like this is probably got to be to the to power of 10. Right. Because you are dealing with so many varying existing conditions and having to blend in with the historic preservation aspect of it, and there's so many different constraints that you're having to deal with. So I imagine that was probably an incredible development time for your team to face those challenges on a daily basis, basically, and have to respond as quickly as possible.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. I, I again, it was incredibly stressful. But now being off of the project, I'm, I feel a little empty. You know, it's like, what, what's next?

[C]

So, you know, so let me ask you this. So there's times when it was stressful, times when you probably were bitter. It was like rough and angry and you're like, man, I can't wait till this is done. Just give me.

[B]

How do I get off?

[C]

Let me get away. It's just like, and then, and now that it's done, and then there's this sense of relief, release. He's taking this step back and you know, sometimes we have these kind of like love hate relationships with our projects. But where are you at in that stage? I mean, are you feeling empty now?

[A]

He misses it.

[B]

I want to go back.

[A]

You don't know it's got Stockholm syndrome.

[B]

Yeah, it's, it's just been such a big part of my life that it's, you know, good and bad. I had, in 2018, 2019, I had this weird issue that just, we don't know exactly what happened. I think it's was based off of stress that my, my auto, my immune system started attacking my optic nerve so it sting my vision. So I have, I'm technically visually impaired now. And so it's really changed. My life has changed quite a bit since then, which is one of the reasons that I was living out in Beverly Hills and had a place to stay at during the week because I couldn't drive, because I, I have, I have driving restrictions and I, I have all these restrictions because of my vision. And so it, it was, it impacted me a lot. And, and again, I, I think it happened because of stress and thankfully because of my fitness. It wasn't a heart attack, but, but it just, it, it just happened to me. It just happened to attack my eyes. But it, but again, I still, the experience has just been absolutely incredible. It's been life changing. It's giving me some, you know, confidence that, that I didn't have because I, I, I have issues with self confidence. I've always had that. And, but I know that I'm very capable of doing something pretty amazing. Just looking at what we accomplished out at, at this campus.

[A]

I have a topic that I think goes into like, overtime because I think Cormac, you would get a kick out of this. So I feel I. Do you have anything else that you want to ask Israel about this project? Because like, what you just said there, Israel was like this really poetic moment. It was just like, it was like the answer to more stress is to actually embed you further in the project. But, but you miss it like, it actually is this thing you're so proud of. It's absolutely an incredible story.

[B]

Yeah. One of the. I just wanted to say that one of the lines that I said that I come came up with in the interview and the video was that, you know, as architects were advocates for our districts, for our clients, for our staff and the students, and I found myself, for this particular project that I really became an advocate for the building because I felt that so many people didn't understand the significance of what this cultural resource is and is for that community of Beverly Hills. And. And thankfully, we were able to preserve as much as we could, and the community really did appreciate what we did from that perspective. And so I feel an attachment to the building and.

[A]

Special place.

[B]

Yeah. Very special place. Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

I was. So I was in the office yesterday, and I was talking to a bunch of senior folks, and they were the only ones left in the office. And I'm like, why are you still here? Just like, well, we gotta get this done and all this other stuff. And I'm like, in fact, I. I was having a conversation back in our. The Chicago AIA convention with one of your fellow colleagues at hmc, and we were. We were kind of lamenting about just, like, the young kids and their dedication and all of this other stuff. And we kind of talking more about just the fact that maybe we have it wrong, that maybe our overworking and all of that other stuff is kind of the wrong way of doing things. But. And so I'd said it's just like. It's that, you know, that abusive relationship. This is what I said yesterday. I was like, it was that abusive relationship where we. We love and we love and we love, and it just doesn't love us back the way that we want to be loved. And they were like, yes, exactly. That, you know, and it was just like, yeah, I mean, you loved a little too much where it was almost about to take you out.

[A]

It's a therapy session right here.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, so let's shift gears into overtime, and let's not talk about architecture anymore for a minute, because I want you to explain your backdrop and kind of what this party is.

[B]

Oh, okay. Let me do this first. Hold on a second. You'll love this part.

[A]

I knew there was going to be special lighting.

[C]

Nice.

[A]

So you got to look at this part on YouTube, listeners, because it's a very visual. It's a visual spectacle, I dare say.

[C]

It is definitely the spectacle.

[A]

So explain what's behind you and then explain this part of your Life that's absolutely incredible.

[B]

So right now we're sitting in my home, office, studio, exercise room. But because it's after Halloween, I've actually covered everything behind me because it's a disaster. So our house is a total mess right now. So basically for two months starting, and usually we start in after Labor Day weekend is when we start setting up for Halloween. So my partner and I are huge Halloween fans. And not that we're into the gory, scary things, we're just very creative individuals. I call us the perfect A and E team. I'm the architecture, I'm the design, I'm the structure. And my partner is the mechanical, the electrical, the plumbing, the audio, visual, the lighting. That's him. And so we're like this perfect combination of just putting something really amazing. So we're big fans of Disney. And so I'm actually a Nightmare Before Christmas fan. And so we've been.

[C]

I noticed the mug.

[B]

You notice the mug?

[C]

Him. I'm a. I'm a. I'm a big Tim Burton fan. Big, big Tim Burton fan.

[B]

So we started decorating for, for Halloween and Christmas when we first moved down from the Central coast. And so we were doing Nightmare Before Christmas and we were doing that for several years and my partner was kind of getting tired of it. So when we moved into our home, the home that we're in now, he wanted to. He said, hey, can we take a break from Nightmare and do Pirates of the Caribbean? Because he's a big fan of pirates. And so I said, I joked, I kind of joked, but I was actually telling the truth. I said, well, I'm willing to change if I can build a ship. If I can build a pirate ship, then I'm in. And he goes, okay. So it started off with half of a pirate ship and a treasure room and a little bit of decking. And. And it was again, it was pretty spectacular for just a small Halloween display, right? But then we started noticing as trick people were coming, people were kind of excited about what we were doing. We were having some traffic flow issues because of all the people coming to the door and coming back.

[A]

I've driven by this. I've driven by this like, it's incredible. And I want you to send me some pictures, Israel, so that I can put them in the video here so people can actually see it.

[B]

So I'm actually working on a new video because the last video that I did was in 2022, which is a good one. And it's a 12 minute video, but it's only because I'm trying to capture all the detail. So. But it's a full on walkthrough of Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean. And again we've tried to replicate it as closely as we but it's pretty fantastic. And I call it an immersive experience because when you come through this you can't help but escape and revert back to that time that you rode the ride. Children and old older individuals, they, everyone just absolutely loves it and they, you always hear the stories. It's like, oh my gosh, I remember when I was. Oh, this is my favorite ride. And. But we literally have converted our, our entire yard, our garage, our entire courtyard. And it's a very immersive walkthrough experience. And then we've again we try to take all the main scenes from the ride and try to replicate them and, and it' done just him and I for the most part. We are the creative force behind it. And so does it stay up all year?

[C]

Do you take it down now? So you convert pirates just a couple.

[A]

Of bins in the garage. It's just, just a little bit of stuff that you put away once a year.

[B]

No, it, it's. So this is the, this I've. My partner actually because now he's retired, he disappeared to go visit his parents for a week. And so we should be taking things down and putting them away. But it takes us, sometimes it even takes us three to four months to put everything away. Just because it's so much.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's just. And we're exhausted, we're just tired. But it's, it's. We're very creative individuals. My biggest thing with this is that we love sharing with the kids that come and see it and explaining that everything you're looking at was handmade and because the first question we usually get from kids is where did you buy this?

[A]

Where did you buy this stuff?

[B]

Where did you buy this? Oh, did you get this from Disney? Oh, do you work for Disney? No, no, no, no, no. We, we've made everything and I've actually been put anything together yet. But we do a lot of time lapse videos and I've been doing time lapse captures of everything from my sketching to the, the cad work, to the sketchup modeling to the doing the mockup to producing this thing and to the final product. So in, in the future I really do hope to have this video as people because people actually wait in line to see this when we're, when it's held Disneyland. Just like Disneyland So that they have something so they can see the process and they can realize, like, oh, my gosh. They literally did everything just like this sign back here. I. I took a. We had a photo of the actual sign at the. The entrance of the ride, and I went into CAD and I traced every letter just because it had to be exactly like Disney. I built the letters in two pieces and modeled them in SketchUp 3D, printed them, and it's one of my favorite pieces, and I do a lot of 3D printing, and it's just been. It just. It makes. It's just. It's so, so much fun. I just get lost.

[A]

How long have you had that 3D printer now? It hasn't been that long, has it?

[B]

So, yeah, it's just been. It's just been a few years. I have the Ultimaker 2 Plus, and then I recently acquired the. The S5. But it's just been. Actually, the S5 has just been a pain in the. And pain in my butt because I just can't. I keep having issues with the print head, but that two plus, that Ultimaker 2 has just. It just keeps going. It's a workhorse. I love it. And the only reason I got the S5 is because I wanted the bigger build plate. Um, and. But so, yeah, it's just. It's a lot of fun.

[A]

Give people an idea of the kinds of things you're modeling. And 3D printing, though. So, like, you're talking about this sign and letters and stuff, but you. You have a lot more kind of.

[B]

So I also. So there's the plaque. There's this entry. There's a dedication plaque at the. At the entrance of the. The ride, right as you're walking into in Anaheim at the Pirates, when you're walking in and it kind of splits off and goes upward at the little water fountain, there's this plaque that's dedicated to the original Imagineers. So I kind of created my own. And I 3D printed again, all the letters. But so I did it most. I tried to replicate it like the actual sign, but then I dedicated it to us, to myself. And we call ourselves Pirates for a cause we've been raising. We. We actually have a team with the American Cancer Society, really, for Life of Corona. And we've been raising funds for the American Cancer Society for. Through this display for the last 2,000. Yeah, 10, 20, 10. So it's. We do this for charity. But. So that plaque I3D printed, there's a skull that I3D printed. There's the. Some of the details on this. On the mermaids that i3D printed. Actually, I love this piece. So this is.

[C]

Yeah, cool.

[B]

So I 3D printed this. Well, at least the. The base for this. And so the scarab. And this portion in Here is all 3D printed, and then it's just covered in swarovski crystals and whatnot.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

It's. It's. It's a beautiful piece. I, again, you can see I love the detail. I love working with these details. But, yeah, there's just. There's a lot of things that. That we've. A lot of little things that I've printed, but.

[A]

And then you have actors, like, be parts of the display so that you actually have kind of like this live stage thing going, so that when people go through these different spaces, they're experiencing characters, and it's very cool.

[B]

Yep. It's a friend of the show.

[A]

I got to put a shout out to Brett. Brett, friend of the show, who. Yes, he was a huge part of that for so long.

[B]

Brett used to be our Davy Jones. He used to dress up as Davy Jones. He was amazing. But when he had Owen, their first child, you know, he couldn't participate anymore. So then my brother took over as Davy Jones. So my brother is Davy Jones. One of my nephews was Makus, one of the. Part of the crew of Davy Jones's ship, but he has also kind of outgrown that. So now we've brought in his successor, my nephew, who's. Who's now the young Maccus. And then myself. I'm the auctioneer with the wench next to me. And I, you know, I give out the candy and. But it's. It's a whole family affair. I mean, it's totally. It's. It's a. It's a huge crew. We even do, like, in the background, my sister and my nieces are making homemade beignets. So on. On Halloween night, we actually set up under our tree. We set up the Blue Bayou. And so we have reservations for VIPs. And so those people come into the Blue Bayou and are served hot cocoa and coffee with freshly made beignets. And every year, people are like, how do I get on the list? How do I. How. How. How can I get a reservation for next year?

[A]

It's so a big donation to the Cancer Society.

[B]

Absolutely. So it's.

[A]

It's cool.

[B]

It's just become a community thing and just fun. It's a lot of work. It's a tremendous amount of work, but.

[A]

It'S and how many nights do you do the performances?

[B]

We only. We actually only do it. We opened the two Saturdays before and just Halloween night.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because we all the, like the speakers, the ipods, the characters, anything that isn't nailed down and permanent, we actually take it down and put it away. So set up during each night will take anywhere from. Depending on the night could be one to two hours to set up, and then we take it down at night. And so that's why we don't do it every night. It's just. It's tremendous amount of work and it takes a lot of people to. To man it. But my family is amazing. They all live, you know, within a. So many miles from here, so they're just as much a part of it as my partner and I. And so it's a huge. It's a huge thing.

[A]

So cool. So cool.

[B]

But next year. Next year is Nightmare before Christmas.

[A]

Oh, okay. I was going to ask, like, when does it switch? Like, because if he got tired of it and then you move to this, when does. When do you get tired of this and move to something else?

[B]

So. So we take a break. Yeah, so we take a break every four to five years. And, you know, it just depends. But because I am turning 50 in 2025, I determined that that's when we're doing nightmare. So next Halloween will be nightmare before Christmas.

[A]

And what do you do with all this stuff? What do you do with all this stuff that, like, you know, number one, you got to put it somewhere when you're not doing that, but now you're actually switching it up and then. And now what?

[B]

So this is the part that really, really kind of sucks that my partner retired. So my partner worked in a warehouse and the owners, the original owners of the company knew us and that we were doing this for charity. And so they said you need to just. Just put everything on a pallet and just store everything here for free. And so that's one of the reasons why I had to be strategic about how I design pieces. So I had to design everything to basically break down and fit on a 48 inch pallet. So that's kind of the. The geometry I had. Everything had to fit within a pallet and it can only be so high. So that's. That. That was. Those are my constraints when designing pieces. And. But most of it was stored for free at this warehouse because we were doing it for charity. But now that he retired, we lost our free storage. And so we. We did. We've had a storage unit and that's where we had our nightmare stuff, which it's not as big as pirates, but now that pirates had to be removed from the warehouse, we had to get a bigger storage unit. And it's really hurting the pocketbook. You know, it's really expensive. So I don't know how much longer we'll be able to maintain doing this. And again, we're also getting older and it's a lot of work. It's a lot of hard work for just a couple individuals to do. I will say my brother, Major shout out to my brother. He actually took off a week of vacation this year just to help us set up. So between the three of us and without him, I mean he was just. He's vital. So that's, I mean, that's how much of commitment this is. And that's. It's pretty hardcore. So we'll see. We're all getting older, it's getting harder to build some of these things and it just takes up a lot of time and resources. But we're still passionate about it, we love it and it's going towards a good cause. So we'll continue to do it as long as we can.

[A]

Such a cool, such a cool, like out of normal day to day architecture stuff that you guys are doing. Oh yeah, Absolutely incredible. Well, I'm glad you got to tell that part of what I mean, that has nothing to do with that project. And at the same time, like, this is probably.

[C]

Oh no.

[A]

Like a piece of your sanity, right?

[B]

No. Well, I was, when I was in school, I did do a year of set design and I was working with a professor there at, in San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. And he reached out to me and he said, Israel, you need to go into set design. What are you doing in architecture? And at that point. Yeah, and you know, this was before my fifth year, going into my fifth year thesis and I just said, you know what, I just don't want to start over again. I'm just almost done with architecture school. I just need to get out. But he was trying to encourage me to get my MFA because he just saw that I loved doing this. And so a part of me wishes that I had gone into set design, but not really just working in Hollywood.

[C]

In a way you. In a way you still are, but.

[B]

I am, but I. Exactly.

[A]

That's why you got to do it.

[B]

That's what I'm doing. I am able to do it, so.

[A]

And you don't have to.

[C]

I'm not even Talking about that. I'm talking about architecture is set design in its own right.

[B]

That is true. That is true. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Very cool. Well, thank you so much for spending the time with us and telling these stories because it's cool to kind of have this real life. Like, people have been listening to us Babylon for a long time, but to have somebody who is, like, living in the trenches on one project that went for 13 years is just absolutely incredible. Such an amazing achievement. To see it through that whole way and. And not. Not walk away from it at some point because, I mean, that happens all the time in architecture. Right? So cool. Thank you so much for doing that and coming on here to share that.

[B]

No, this was a lot of fun. I appreciate you inviting me to be on here. It's been. It's been a lot.

[A]

And visiting the auditorium at El Rodeo.

[B]

It'Ll be easier to get to my house and than getting into Beverly Hills. It's just Beverly Hills. Driving into there is just a challenge.

[A]

True, true. Yeah. I moved out of Southern California. I have no current desire to go visit, but I would go visit for this for sure.

[B]

No, you should. You should. It's a lot of fun. And we've been very lucky and fortunate that the Designing Futures foundation, which is the foundation through HMC Architects, has actually been supporting us the last several years. And so it's become a bigger thing every year. And it's just. A lot of people are just incredibly supportive. So we're very grateful for that support. Nice.

[A]

Well, thanks, man. Great to see you.

[B]

Likewise. Thank you.