#378 - Misalignments of Rigor

Summary

Archispeak Episode #378: "Misalignments of Rigor"

Hosts: Evan Troxel & Cormac Phalen
Date: September 16, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Evan and Cormac explore the complexities—and pitfalls—of working on additions to significant architectural landmarks. Through personal field experiences, the hosts discuss why alignments and detailing matter, what can go wrong when rigor is ignored, and reflect on how architects learn from both successes and failures in the built environment. This candid episode blends on-site observations, technical insight, and tales of architectural discovery, offering a nuanced look into the art (and frustration) of adapting revered buildings.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tectonic Lodge and the Field Trip to a Louis Kahn Building

[00:24–02:28]

• Cormac describes joining a small group called the "Tectonic Lodge," an informal gathering of architects focused on visiting and experiencing notable buildings firsthand.
• The group planned a trip to the Louis Kahn-designed building in Fort Wayne, Indiana, only to discover upon arrival it was closed for renovations despite the website indicating otherwise.
• Cormac: "Both of us looked ahead of time to make sure it was open... Get there. Guess what? It wasn’t." [01:54]

2. The Dilemma of Adding to Architectural Masterpieces

[03:16–07:01]

• The hosts contemplate the immense pressure and responsibility of designing an addition to an iconic building.
• Evan raises the question: "Could you imagine the pressure of doing an addition to a Kahn building? Would you even say yes to a project like that?" [03:16]
• Cormac reflects on seeing additions to both Kahn and Breuer buildings, noting missed opportunities in aligning with the rigor and intentions of the original designs.

Notable Observations:

• The new addition appeared haphazard and misaligned, failing to respect key elements like material transitions, geometry, and door sizes.
• Cormac: "There were so many misalignments with the... rigor of what Kahn does... The addition looks so haphazard." [06:04]
• The hosts debate whether design compromises were due to value engineering, committee decisions, or possibly even client indifference.

3. Preservation, Contrast, and Context in Architectural Additions

[07:07–14:24]

• The conversation shifts to the philosophy of architectural preservation—should additions strictly preserve the original language, or contrast intentionally and honestly?
• Cormac: "There's a difference between preservation and recreation... If you look at the standards, they tell a different story." [13:04]
• They discuss official guidelines and committees that typically regulate changes to historic buildings.
• Evan shares his own project experience where additions were purposefully contrasting, responding to user dissatisfaction with the original William Pereira campus buildings.
• The importance of designing "of your own time" vs. creating visual recreations is debated.

4. Case Study Comparisons: Gehry and SANAA

[14:24–27:22]

• On the return trip, Cormac visits the Frank Gehry addition to the Toledo Art Museum. He expresses unexpected admiration for the project, especially the detailing and weathering of its unusual matte metal cladding.
• Cormac: "Of all of the Gehry buildings that I have seen throughout my life... this is one of my favorites." [14:24]
• Detailing praise: unlike the problematic Stata Center (MIT), the Toledo building’s joints and edges kept water out, even in a downpour, which impressed both hosts.
• The contextual relationship of Gehry’s design with the classical museum provided a grounded example of contrast done well: "It looks a lot like... they were excavating to do an addition... and found this big titanium or unearthed this thing and said, well, it’s too big for us to move..." [17:08]
• The hosts briefly cover Gehry’s design development on the Disney Concert Hall and its variations of success.

5. SANAA’s Glass Museum: Detailing Innovation and Failures

[23:19–30:22]

• Across from Gehry’s building, Cormac visits the SANAA-designed glass Museum of Glass, lauding its innovative double-glass wall and acoustic qualities.
• He observes failures in parapet and flashing details, causing visible swelling and misalignment—fuel for pondering how architects try to innovate and invent new details, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
• Cormac: "They made this detail up. This was a one-off... They’re going to improve that detail because they saw, oh, this failed." [29:27]

6. Learning from Failures: Research, Mock-ups, and Design Development

[30:22–33:47]

• The need for full-scale testing, R&D, and learning from previous attempts before committing to never-before-done details is emphasized.
• Evan challenges the practicalities of doing meaningful mock-ups early in design development and the reality of time and resource constraints.
• Cormac shares a rare success story in which a custom detail—developed with a manufacturer—has lasted the test of time.

7. Coordination, Rigor, and the "Invisible" Details

[36:52–41:28]

• In discussing his own ongoing Baltimore project, Cormac laments how details like wall devices and fixtures, if not perfectly coordinated, can create painful visual misalignments—and clients always notice.
• Evan: "Are these things just too small to show up in the model? Is that the deal?" [37:49]
• Both reflect on their experiences with subcontractors who sometimes neglect the bigger aesthetic picture, or simply follow instructions that lack holistic coordination.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Cormac, on the failed addition:
  "The addition looks so haphazard... There's such a rigor to what Kahn does, that everything about that rigor... was 100% ignored." [06:04–11:07]

• Evan, on designing in opposition:
  "Everything we did was in direct opposite response... It was like, here's what we don't like. The new thing will be the opposite of that." [12:14]

• Cormac, on Gehry's Toledo addition:
  "This one, it's interesting because ... the rain was rolling over. And what was interesting about it is... the water would rush down one thing and then it would rush down the face of it, create... man made waterfalls..." [18:02–19:04]

• Cormac, on learning from failures:
  "They made this detail up. This was a one-off. No one's ever done this detail for... they're going to improve that detail because they saw, oh, this failed. What could we do better?" [29:27]

• Cormac, on device placement mishaps:
  "When you miss something, it is seen. It hurts." [38:22]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:24 | Tectonic Lodge and field trip to Kahn building | | 03:16 | Pressure and challenges of adding to landmark works | | 06:04 | Observations on misalignments and lack of rigor in an addition | | 13:04 | Preservation vs. recreation; "building of your time" | | 14:24 | Visiting the Gehry addition—unexpectedly positive takeaways | | 17:31 | Unique qualities and landscape approach of Gehry's museum design | | 23:19 | SANAA’s glass Museum—detailing, innovation, and issues | | 29:27 | Learning from failed details; why R&D in architecture matters | | 36:52 | Everyday project lessons: device/equipment coordination headaches | | 38:22 | How missed coordination undermines the intended design |

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is marked by curiosity, camaraderie, a persistent desire to learn, and a healthy self-deprecation. Cormac and Evan do not shy away from critiquing themselves or the broader profession, seeing both beauty and faults in the built environment—and using each as a springboard for future rigor.

Final Takeaway:
Architecture lives in the details—the glorious and the flawed. Whether studying Kahn’s rigor, Gehry’s bravado, SANAA’s transparency, or the installer’s missteps, only by confronting the misalignments of rigor, both literally and metaphorically, does the profession evolve.

Transcript

[A]

You went on a field trip recently. Is that what I heard?

[B]

I did. I did, actually.

[A]

I think I saw a picture. I don't think I. I didn't hear this. I saw this.

[B]

Keeping it secret.

[A]

Well, you did. What'd you do?

[B]

You.

[A]

You posted a picture on social media? I believe so.

[B]

Medias of the social. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So friend of mine, he reached out, he was asking. He kind of set up this, this kind of group of. Just a bunch of architects and called it a tectonic lodge, which was kind of cool sound. It's just. No, not very many people were like the ma.

[A]

The freemasons of architecture. What is this?

[B]

There you go. Exactly.

[A]

Tectonic lodge.

[B]

But so one of the things that we, we want to try to achieve is just basically get a group together to go and visit architecture and take a look at it and experience it, hug it, rub your hands across the, punch it, all that other stuff. So we had planned a trip to the nearest Louis Kahn building to us, which just happens to be in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And so we looked it up, we kind of rescheduled it a couple of times, try to align with other people's schedules. And then people started to drop off on the trip, and we're just like, yeah, well, let's just do it. And so he and I hopped in the, in the car and drove down to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Both of us, both of us looked ahead of time to make sure that it was open. And everything else looked on the, on the website. It was open. Get there. Guess what? It wasn't.

[A]

It was not open.

[B]

Not only was it not open, it was not accessible. Why was it not accessible? Because it's going under a major renovation in addition.

[A]

So the website's just out of date.

[B]

It's. We looked at the art center in general. It is one of the. One of many buildings in the art center.

[A]

Gotcha.

[B]

And so unfortunately.

[A]

So you didn't read below. Read below. You know, the details.

[B]

We didn't, we didn't dig into the details saying, oh, yeah, by the way, the two guys that are driving down from Detroit to Fort Wayne, Indiana to look at one specific building only and nothing else, they really shouldn't come because the thing's closed.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, so. So you got to study it from afar. Is that what happened?

[B]

Well, I mean, you could get up close enough. I mean, the, the, the construction fence was pulled in pretty tight to the building, at least on the con part of it. And then there's the construction fencing around the addition. And we spent a Lot of time on the side of the building where you could look at both the Kahn building and the addition at the same time. Mm. We've got notes. We've got notes.

[A]

I was thinking, oh, man, what a project. Could you imagine the pressure of doing an addition to a con building?

[B]

Would.

[A]

Would you even say yes to a project like that?

[B]

So this is the second time I've seen an addition, a recent addition to a. A building done by a noteworthy architect. We have an addition that was done to the Grosse Pointe Public Library that was done by Breuer. And it. I had notes on that one too. Just the. The thing about it was, is seemed like it missed some cues on alignments and things like that. Whatever. I mean. I mean, I get it. All that other stuff. So there's that. And, and this one wasn't necessarily one of Breuer's, like, most notable buildings. He was just done by him. And, and, and honestly, it's brick. It's very modern and it's very modern in kind of like the same time period as he was doing with all of his brutalist buildings. And so it almost seems like this was a. I don't know the history of it, but it was almost like a favor for somebody. And they're like, oh, yeah, by the way, none of that concrete stuff that you've been doing.

[A]

It's gotta be brick.

[B]

It's gotta be brick.

[A]

Just a last minute change.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So they probably didn't say that until, you know, right before it went to bed.

[B]

Probably. Probably. So we get down to Fort Wayne and we're looking at the. The addition first. We looked at the renderings of the completed building, and it actually didn't look that bad. And then you start to see. Then you walk around the building, you see the addition, but you also see the addition that does not look anything like the renderings. And you're like, oh, because, like, like.

[A]

Like, what do you. What kind of changes are you talking about? The shade of gray in the materials different, or are you talking like, you know, significantly different?

[B]

Funny enough. Shades of gray in the types of. In the color of ma. I mean, there was more white that would stand off of the brick a little bit more. It was kind of more taupey than anything else. It was kind of. Oh, it was make the face, because it is definitely not. And then. So you've heard. I mean, you and I've walked around plenty of buildings together. And my. My stance on two different material. Material change on the same plane.

[A]

In the same plane in the Same.

[B]

Plane, in the same plane, aligned face to face with no real joint, no relief, no nothing. Just kind of like it goes from one material to another and it's flush and it's bad and it's not aligned. And there were so many misalignments with the, the very. The rigor of what Khan does, the alignments, the. Like. Everything has a point and purpose behind why it is where it is and what it's doing. And the addition looks so haphazard. I. It. It's a large firm, a very large firm, actually. And if somebody's listening and they're yelling at me, it was like, hey, didn't you say that you understand the whole, like, value engineering? I don't think this is value engineering. I, I really don't.

[A]

What is it then? What do you think happened? Let's pontificate. Let's speculate, man.

[B]

Are you really.

[A]

Because we're guaranteed to be wrong. This is the beauty of speculating. It's like, okay, we're wrong. And, and therefore. And, and let's just, let's just put it out there in front. We're probably going to be wrong.

[B]

So let, okay, so let me ask you this. So we've. You've done adaptive reuse projects, right?

[A]

I mean, or modernizations.

[B]

That. That's actually, that's, that's, you know, renovations with additions and things like that. And in, you know, I don't know if you've done. I know I've done preservation projects with an addition to it. And, you know, the, the rules behind kind of the. How you treat the existing building versus the, in the new additions and things like that. And, and that's, that's what I was, I guess, kind of disappointed in when I saw what I saw, because this building has got to be on the register. I didn't look it up, and I probably should have before I started talking about it, but I didn't look it up to see whether or not it was on the register. But, you know, it's. It's in, like, the last projects that he did. And so you would assume that it was on. On the register. And so, you know, there should be some bit of reverence in how you deal with any of the additions that you do, you know, that you put on buildings like this. You know, Department of Interiors has guidelines for it, depending on the jurisdiction. They've got their own guidelines that they add to, like, you know, their historic buildings.

[A]

Well, you would also assume that there would be beyond guidelines, like committees.

[B]

And you think that there'd be committees, especially since this is their big art center for that, and so that they probably have a board of directors and everybody else, and probably some. Some people who are on, like, their design committee or their expansion committee and things like that. And most likely there's going to be some architect poking their nose into, you know, hey, I'd like to be on that committee kind of thing. And. And you look at the addition, and it's so interestingly out of place because it's creating a new entrance, but it's completely ignoring the portion of the building where you can walk in and out of. So it's basically attaching to the side, side rear of this building, but it's facing public park, it's facing parking. So it makes sense that if you're going to kind of reorient kind of the main entrance, or at least an entrance into this building, that you would do it there. But you would also want to be sensitive to what's there, the geometry that's there, the material that's there. It pretty much ignored all of that. They, you know, they. They basically cut out a bunch of brick to align the materials, cut out a bunch of, like, cons bricks. So apparently I know what those bricks want to be, you know, heading to the landfill. Yeah, but, you know, it's. It's just. It was one of these. It's like, oh, so close. But so far, none of the. None of the door sizes match or pay homage to or whatever. And I don't know it. I guess for me, it's just. There's such a rigor to what Khan does, that everything about that rigor, everything about the order, everything about kind of like the deliberate placement of things was 100 ignored.

[A]

And what's interesting that is, could the client just really dislike their con building?

[B]

They very much could have. They could have said, you know, I mean, I get that you weirdos who drive down here for. Spend a couple of hours driving down here to go and see a building, to go and touch the con building. You guys want to. You love this thing, but, you know, we don't. We don't. And. But. But in turn, though, they know what they have. They know the status of. Well, I say. I say that, but then I also know that there's architecturally significant buildings dropping every day, so.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I just.

[B]

That.

[A]

That, to me, is. Is the first thing that comes to mind when you do something like that, because I've. I've done what I would feel like is kind of the opposite Where I worked on a campus where there was. It was a William Pereira campus. They hated the Prayer Buildings. But you look at the Prayer Buildings, and you know exactly why they hate them. Like, they were.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Concrete boxes with no windows. And. And it was. These were learning environments. And there was. There was a lot. It wasn't functioning for what they needed it to be. It was a school campus. It was, you know, higher education. And so everything that we did, we didn't. We didn't graft on to an existing Pereira building. We built a new building. But everything we did was in direct opposite response to what they had already on the campus. It was like, here's what we don't like. The new thing will be the opposite of that.

[B]

In. In. Honestly, in a way, most preservationists, they want you to build additions, or they want you to build of your time. Of the time. Right.

[A]

And specifically contrasting the original.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So that there's no confusion over what's original and what's new. Yeah.

[B]

There's a difference between preservation and recreation. There's a lot of people who want it to be recreations, but honestly, if you look at the standards, they tell a different story. And I get. I get the people who want to kind of maintain a style and a character, because a lot of times there are a lot of additions that are of our time that are completely. Just completely ignore the context of the existing buildings. So it's funny. So fast forward, and we can come back to the Kahn building. But fast forward to. On our drive home, we decided to kind of drive through and go and take a look at a. An addition to the Toledo Art Museum that was done by Frank Gehry. And it was really interesting, very neoclassic building, which, of course, with Not a neoclassic addition to it. And to be quite honest with you, of all of the Gary buildings that I have seen throughout my life, I don't know why, but I actually think this is one of my favorites.

[A]

Oh, I was gonna ask, because I know how you've. I've been with you when we've experienced other Gary buildings.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's like, not a fan. Not a fan.

[B]

Well, here's the.

[A]

Usually it comes down to the detailing.

[B]

Yeah. And here's the funny thing is I was a huge fan, design wise. And unfortunately, I'm always disappointed in the execution wise. Yeah, yeah. The. The. The. The one. Why am I blanking on the. The name of that building?

[A]

I can't think of the name either.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. But. But I mean, that one. What was interesting about that one, as is both you and I experienced was that one of the details that was just amazingly. Just kind of fell apart. And I'm looking at my list here. The. The. The Stata Building. The Stata Center.

[A]

I was like, I have pictures, but I don't have a name.

[B]

Yeah. And. And it's just. It's that. It's that one canopy over the door with a corrugated metal that looks like somebody took some tin snips. But it was like Somebody like Edward Scissorhands. Like, it was. It was some arthritic dude who could barely wield some tin snips, and he was just like.

[A]

And then they wrapped it in. In bird netting. Like, it was bad. It was so bad.

[B]

It was so bad in.

[A]

I don't think that was original. It couldn't have been.

[B]

And the thing about it is, is that. Well, it has to have been, because if you go to the other side of the building, there are more similar. There's similar things on that side of the building.

[A]

It didn't hold up well.

[B]

It didn't hold up well. Yeah. But honestly, this one, it's interesting because when you're looking at it from the street, you just see this kind of like the. You go up a series of steps to the classical building, and there is one of those art nouveau Paris Metro entrances. You know, very beautiful. And so you kind of, like, you walk up that, and it's kind of in line with the front doors and everything. It's just so. It. But it. It's. It's the. The entrance of. It sits up high, and then you kind of follow it along the roadside, and the. The ground is kind of bermed up, and it's got these little small rolling berms. Hills. I'm reluctant to call them hills, but it's just this rolling landscape, and you can kind of see a little bit of a peak up. But then as you get closer to it, you actually walk up and you look down at the base of it because it looks like it was kind of carved out of the ground. And it looks a lot like basically they were excavating to do an addition to the building and found this big titanium or unearthed this thing and said, well, it's too big for us to move. Let's just, you know, carve. Let's carve out. Let's carve it out and occupy it. And that's sort of what it sort of feels like.

[A]

It does kind of look like it was left by a previous civilization.

[B]

Yeah, it does. It does. It very Much does. And it's actually. And so, but when you. So we were there and it started to rain and it was, it was interesting because had, first of all you, you think, oh, it's raining and we're at a Gary building. This can't be good. But all of the corner joints were beautifully done. There was. The rain was rolling over. And what was interesting about it is.

[A]

That what's the material?

[B]

What is it?

[A]

Is it.

[B]

We couldn't figure. No, it's metal, but we couldn't figure out what kind of metal.

[A]

It's like a really matte texture though.

[B]

That's why it's, it's a, it's a matte texture. It's dark. And when, when it rains, it gets real, it gets darker. But also you can see the streaking in it. It looks weathered, weathered and striated, as if it were a big chunk of alien metal left in there. That it has basically been exposed to the elements for a very long time.

[A]

I think it says it was 1993. So I mean, it's at least, at least that old. But, but also what you're saying is it just looks weathered.

[B]

It looks, it looks weathered.

[A]

A te to it.

[B]

Yes. And, and what's interesting is so when it was raining, it started to rain a little bit and then it was picking up pretty hard. And so it was already to the point where we're soaking wet. So it's just like we ain't gonna run around and like, oh my God, let's get out of the rain. I'm like, we're already. Let's just look at the building now.

[A]

That, you know, let's just watch it get wet.

[B]

And, and here. And what was interesting about it is, is that there was, because of the angles and stuff, the water would rush down one thing and then it would rush down the face of it. Create kind of like these very, very wonderful little like moments of like these man made waterfalls along the, along the face of it. And. But the one thing that put my mind to ease is that at all of the corners and all of the edges where all of the two different planes come together, it just rolled right on by because the detailing was nice. It was sealed up. There was no open joints. There was no kind of like gaps at the bottom where they had to infill it with mesh. And remember who had the, the perfect.

[A]

Thing to fill a gap with? Yeah, mesh.

[B]

Yeah. Remember that one year was.

[A]

What year was Disney Concert hall then? Do you know?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I remember because this is 93.

[B]

What's interesting. What's interesting is it's, it's. Disney is after that. But I don't. I think the design was before that, though. Oh. Because I remember I've got a. I've got a book on LA architecture where they had the original design for the Disney Concert hall that was very similar to the final product, but it was in limestone. Not. Is it. It's not stainless steel. Yeah. Is it stainless?

[A]

Says it was. It was designed beginning 1987, opened in 2003. So. Yeah. I mean, they were.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In the studio.

[B]

Yeah. And what's interesting is like every other one, sort of like there was the open joint and that one Disney Concert.

[A]

Hall is open joint. That's why I'm asking if these were. It seems like they were trying different things in different locations.

[B]

And this one's beautifully sealed up. And actually it, it's. Surprisingly enough, it's actually really nice. It. In a very, you know, like I said, it's like I loved the. I loved his design concepts until they just became the same thing over and over again.

[A]

Well, did you go inside or was this just an.

[B]

It's. It's a student. It's. It's student access. So. Yeah, they have a student badge. I think if we would have gone in through the, through the actual museum, we could have possibly gotten over there. But I, I think it's a. Classrooms and meeting, meeting rooms and things like that now. Well, but it's, but it's attached to the museum.

[A]

Okay. The. The Disney Concert hall interior.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is worth it. It's worth seeing. Hands down, incredible spaces. Absolutely. Like, of course, weird spaces. What would you expect from the exterior geometry? So hats off to actually figuring out how that kind of came together in the interior, but.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

Really, really interesting on the inside, for sure.

[B]

Yeah. And the only thing that I've ever really heard people, like, kind of moan about is not necessarily the concert hall per se, but in, you know, the, the application of that design in museums like, you know, Guggenheim Bilbao, is that the spaces kind of dominate and detract from, you know, its intended purpose, the art.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And yeah, I can see that.

[A]

I've been to one. One, maybe one other. I mean, maybe I've been to more than, than one other Gary building. But isn't there like the. In Seattle there's a museum and I'm. I'm trying to remember. Yeah. The Museum of Pop.

[B]

Oh, yeah, you. Yeah, I remember.

[A]

You're not as successful as, as Disney, for sure.

[B]

Yeah, I remember. I remember you sending me Pictures of that when you were there. Now exterior wise, some of the, like the. The metal and all, you know, like that was, you know, kind of nice with all the different colored metal and things.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Was interesting. Is across the street from the Gary Building in Toledo was a sauna building and it was the museum of glass. And it's all glass from ground plane to. Well, probably just a little bit below the parapet. No parapet, gravel stop. And just like a. A steel banding edge that goes around it. And it's this very kind of sinuous, kind of flowing thing makes these great little spaces for courtyard spaces. And then you know, on the both like the entry court as you move into the building and then there are these like little, little courtyard spaces because it's kind of like it's. If you want to kind of call it a grid, it's not really a grid per se, but there's four spaces interconnected in the center and then there's just these courtyard spaces all the way around it. And each of them kind of like serve their own little purpose of whether it's an interior courtyard or an exterior courtyard. The acoustics in there are so strangely appealing because like one of the things I, I have fun with when you go to spaces like that where you can feel the echo when you're walking through and you're talking, you're like wait, wait. And then I start to whistle and like, like whistle something and then just like hear it kind of like in stereo as it's like rolling around my head. You're just like, this is kind of cool. Like yeah. And it didn't really feel like that cavernous of a space because it's all glass. But what was really interesting about that building is how innovative they. So it was the glass exterior wall. Then there was like this little interstitial space of probably about 3ft and then there was a glass inner wall. So it almost. These walls almost created a double pane window that was separated by 3ft by 3ft and weird. And they were. The space. The interior space between the. The two curtain walls were. Was conditioned all the way through because you saw down on the. The floor, you. You saw registers and everything else. And then they also had the cur. They had curtains very much like what you would expect to see at the Farnsworth house. Because that was the first thing that I thought of when I saw it. I'm like, oh, Farnsworth House kind of detail. And it was very similar to that. Very simple. You don't really see the like the curtain Rod, not rod. The. The track. Track of where the, where the curtains were and stuff. But it was, it was really, it was really interesting. They, it was, it was a glass museum. But also they had, you know, like a glass blowing, you know, kiln, like the, the. The stoves, the ovens, the kilns, the whole thing. A full, A full display going on there. It was, it was, it was kind of nice. I mean, it was. They're doing some renovations, some repairs to some of the detailing, and it's. I, I swear it's an affliction that I have where I'm looking at it and I. Trying to solve. What would I have done differently to try to maintain the same design, but what could I have done to make the detail better for, like, waterproofing or whatever? And so, you know, me and my friend Scott, we were sitting there, we were looking at it, talking through what we could have done differently, design wise. Like, do you feel like, how could you have detailed that differently?

[A]

Do you feel like you could have done that before you built it? Or do you feel like you have to have seen this version of it to know that it doesn't work and then therefore come up with a different solution?

[B]

I'm going to be 100 better. I'm going to be 100% fair to them. I think it was because of what I, like the, the failure part of it. And like, oh, well, what could you have done differently to.

[A]

Because nobody designs it to fail, I don't think.

[B]

Absolutely not.

[A]

So. Yeah, I mean, nobody would. Would do that on purpose. It happens. Right. Like, what are you talking about? The Gary buildings and.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It starts to rain and you get worried, right?

[B]

Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Of course, that's not the. What they set out to do, but at the same time, it's like, I mean, this is the risk. One of the big risks of architecture, of doing what we do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is this, you know, oh, 10 years. I don't know when that building was done, but. But, you know, years later.

[B]

Yeah. You're like, okay, in. Yeah. And so this is one of those ones where I wish, because it is such a slick, clean building, and unfortunately, that particular detail fails them, you know, fails that kind of, like seamless kind of. Because when you see it, when you're looking at photographs of it or if you're like just staring at it, when you're standing in the grass next to it and you see the glass going up and then it hits the, the, basically the little attachment band, the, the little fascia band that goes all the way around it at the, at the parapet. I keep calling it a parrot. It's not a parapet. It's just a drip edge. So, you know, when it goes up to that and they wanted it to be seamless, they didn't want to see any kind of like flashing or anything like that. And I get that, but what happens is, is that the water is getting in between the roofing membrane and that piece of metal and it's starting to swell. And so you get this kind of like warping or kind of like pushing out of like the, of that metal. And so the metal's not aligned anymore. It's not this clean line between the glass and the metal. And this is where. And they made this detail up. This was a one off. No one's ever done this detail for. I guarantee you they haven't. They're not going to do that detail again. They're going to improve that detail because they saw, oh, this, this failed. What could we do better? But this is one of those ones where I sort of wish we as architects, especially when we're trying to do avant garde brand new things that have never been done before, that we are allowed to, or we invest the time into doing a little bit of trial and error, doing some R and D, trying to see, okay, I've never done this detail before. I don't know if it's going to work or not. We should really try to figure out if it's going to work or not.

[A]

How would you do that? Like, are you talking about mockups? Are you talking about.

[B]

So there's, so there's like a full scale mock up that gets to the point where, you know, in a way, when you get to the mock up stage, in my opinion, it might be too late.

[A]

Yeah, well, exactly. That's what, that's, that's why I'm wondering.

[B]

What, what you're supposed to do. So I'm, I'm more proposing 10 years.

[A]

In advance before you're willing to actually put it in. I'm.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. I'm more proposing. Okay, here we are at the end of dds. At end of dds. You should have already kind of like known that this is what the, this is what you want that particular detail to look like. Now how do we make it work? We've got this whole time period between DDs and CDs to figure out how to 3. Oh. How painfully true that is. See, now you just ruined my whole thing. Because I was gonna say, I know you got all this the Truth. It is the truth, damn it. Like, I don't know.

[A]

I mean, don't let the insurance companies hear what you're saying either. Right. Like, oh, I wish we had, we could do. Oh, we're gonna make you do that. Because if that's what y, you actually need.

[B]

True. Well, I mean, you know, when you, when you have like these tried and true, you know, tested, you know, off the, off the shelf stuff, of course they're gonna be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're fine. Because, you know, the manufacturer stands behind that detail. You know, you're doing a detail that's that, you know, out of their, out of their, out of their catalog. We've already seen it. We're good with that. It's you, it's, it's those new things. It's the, yeah. You know, hey, no one's ever done this before. Like, everything that Gary has done.

[A]

Well, and, and, well, there's, there's, hey, we've never done this before, has it? Never been done before, period. Ever. And, and that's where the industry doesn't talk to each other. Right. It's quote unquote proprietary at that, you know, at that level. And so those kinds of things don't get shared. And if there's a manufacturer who has done something, they will share whatever they can. Of course. Yeah, but, yeah, but not the ones solving it. From ideation to completion, they're coming in where they come in.

[B]

So a detail that I did a decade ago, I was looking at kind of like the manufacturer's standard details didn't quite do what I wanted to do. Most of it was in a horizontal application. I wanted it in a vertical application. I wanted it to actually cantilever a lot further than what they were doing. And what was cool is that we actually developed together a detail to make what I wanted to do work. And still to this day, funny enough, it actually, it's still standing, still working.

[A]

They've, I like how you say funny enough. Like, like, well, that was weird.

[B]

Suckered them into doing that one, funny enough. And it still works. Well, what was interesting is because they were so, like, this particular institution was so gun shy of doing anything that wasn't from a standard catalog because they.

[A]

Had, I've worked with, with people like that before who will. You are only allowed to do details that are from the, it's like, seriously, I, I, that's not a place I would want to work.

[B]

Well, so they had this big, beautiful atrium space and it was curved and it had all of this curved Glass handrailing. And the atrium was this beautifully done structural system with the all glass roof. It got hot in there. And just systematically, just without warning, the curved glass would pop and break, depending on where you're at, what time of day. And we're not talking about a small space either. We're talking about a massive space. And there's, you know, glass all the way around. This big, huge, open atrium space. And then coming down this. This beautiful, you know, decorative staircase, you know, with these floating stairs and these glass handrails. And sure enough. And of course, I pitched glass handrails as well right after all of this event, and they're like, yeah, no. Which completely changed the design of, you know, some of the things that we wanted to do and which really kind of bummed me out. But in turn, though, like, I had to prove to them that the detail that we were working for, for these terracotta fins would, would work. And so we just worked with the manufacturer. The manufacturer stood behind it. We even did, you know, a couple of mockups before, you know, we even released it for. For a bid. And again, surprisingly enough, they bought it.

[A]

You're a professional, funny enough.

[B]

Yeah, but, yeah. So it's just.

[A]

You've continued the summer of architecture. I'm so proud of you.

[B]

I've continued the summer summer of architecture.

[A]

I didn't get to do that. I didn't get to do that. Like, I don't have. What was the name of your group?

[B]

Tectonic Lodge.

[A]

I don't have a Tectonic Lodge.

[B]

You are officially invited to the Tectonic Lodge.

[A]

I. I feel like I'm. Yeah. Living through you.

[B]

Some cost you a little bit.

[A]

It cost me a little bit to get there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But that's. That's cool that you got to do that. So you got to be disappointed by an addition to a con building. You got to actually admire a Frank Gehry building.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

At some level. And. And then you're.

[B]

You' mentally redesign.

[A]

You become a project architect on the SANAA building, whatever. However, a decade after it went up. So. Yeah, all good. Very cool. Oh, I'm jealous because that's all architecture. That's great.

[B]

That's all architecture. Yeah. And in. In my own summer of architecture of just like the. My project is in Baltimore is it's still a year off of being completed, but, you know, it's just kind of fun to see things slowly but surely kind of come off of the paper and, you know, come into reality and say, yeah, that. That's what we Wanted it to look like, oh, good.

[A]

You know, hopefully it wasn't the opposite.

[B]

Well, we're gonna have to address that one. Well, there, there are some lessons learned as well. You know, you're like, well, this, you know, so, so let's ask a question. If you've got all these walls that are like all these high end finishes and you don't want to put any devices on them, where do you put them?

[A]

Ceiling. I don't know what. I mean, that, that, that margin that Louis Kahn did along the floor line of.

[B]

Well, no, you, you, you unexpectedly have the contractor install them in a place that they should be. You're like, damn coordination issues. And then of course, what is the first thing that, you know, your client says to you as you're walking through with them? Why is that there?

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say, why.

[B]

Is that there, man?

[A]

Are these things just too small to show up in the model? Is that the deal? Like, they're just under the threshold, we will model this or what?

[B]

There are some things that, you know, they didn't model and you know, we just had kind of a general, you know, like general mounting height thing. And so when they show up in the plans, you know, I, I'm not.

[A]

In the interior elevations. Huh.

[B]

I'm not even going to expose the fact that we. It was just, it was just something that was missed.

[A]

Bummer.

[B]

And it wasn't everywhere. It's just, unfortunately, this particular place is so high visibility that it's, it was one that when you miss something, it is seen. It's seen. It hurts. Yeah.

[A]

I was just talking with somebody, a friend who doesn't know anything about architecture. The other day we were talking about this exact thing. It was like, you know, cause they have this. He moved into a new house and talking about this feature wall. And I said, that's where stuff shows up in your building where you didn't expect it. Right there in the middle of that wall.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

He was like, what are you talking about? So I went through that exact thing that you just talked about with him and it's like, oh, I could see how that would be very frustrating. Oh, oh, you don't even know.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Or, or when you, or when you do go through the painstaking, the kind of arduous layout of things and say, okay, strobe here, here's our big wall. Here's entry doors into this space. Here's all of this going on. We've got all of these different things going on. We want them to line up. We want it to be orderly. We want it to be symmetrical. So we install the strobe exactly where we want the strobe to be. It gets installed exactly where we want to be. And they say, well, we need a camera there. We want to, we want to put, we want to put a rear facing camera that take pictures of what's. The lectures that are going on. You're like, it's at the same place as this. So then they install it. They cut open a hole and they install it kind of like right next to it.

[A]

Just run the conduit on the other side. What are you talking about?

[B]

Not only do they put it next to it, but it's slightly up from. Could have been aligned. Could have been. You know, and it's just like, man, really like, like, look at this room. I mean, you see, you see that we spent a little bit of time thinking where everything should go and then we decide to put something where it should be.

[A]

The thing is that installer had one job and they did it and they didn't think about everything else that went on around it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I, So I've seen installers, whether they're electricians, whether they're mechanical contractors and stuff, who will think about kind of like what the end aesthetics look like. But if we, the architect or we the engineer didn't think about any of things, there should be no reason in the world that we should expect them to think about it, you know, and so like the outcome that we get sometimes it's of our own making. Now there is.

[A]

And you don't throw a fit.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And then, and then you, you must have heard that a few times on the maybe job site. Yeah, there's a, there's a few times where I just like walk out of my. That's not what I meant to do. Yeah, right. All right, well, school's back in session.

[A]

Well, you're keeping my architectural dream alive. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

[B]

Well, I'll, I'll, I'll inform you next time around. The school's back in session. I'm back in session at school, so that's fun.

[A]

Had so much fun. You got to do it again.

[B]

Got to do it again. Want to do it again.

[A]

All right, well, that'll be a good topic. All right, cool. Talk to you soon.

[B]

All right.