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- [00:01]
A
Don't read the news right now. You don't want to do that.
- [00:03]
B
I'm not. I won't. Because it's all scary out there.
- [00:10]
A
Live stream. No, I don't want to live stream. Not yet.
- [00:14]
B
That's coming. It is.
- [00:16]
A
Oh, future announcements. Careful. What's new with you?
- [00:22]
B
Oh, hey, remember how we've always talked about all of our long projects and things like that? I celebrated a couple of days ago my 5th anniversary on our Saudi Arabian project. It was funny as the anniversary shared my middle child's birthday, Maryland Day, and the fifth year anniversary of that project. So if anybody's interested in when that anniversary happened, I've given you a little bit of homework to do. Oh, you really gotta look up when Maryland day is.
- [00:58]
A
Cheat code.
- [00:59]
B
There you go.
- [01:01]
A
Because people really care about the exact date of this anniversary. Hey, five years. I mean, okay, so we can't, you know, we can't really belabor the point that projects take a long time, but.
- [01:10]
B
They take a long time. I was going to say what's interesting though is in comparison to my 10 year project and in comparison to the project that we talked about with your friend, projects are becoming longer and longer. I mean, I remember when you and I started our careers way back in the day. Way back in the day when things were all in black and white and
- [01:31]
A
then used HB pencils and.
- [01:34]
B
Exactly. But it didn't necessarily seem as if projects took as long as they did. Now let's preface this. These are big projects.
- [01:46]
A
I was going to say, like it's part scale, but it's also complexity.
- [01:50]
B
Yes. This is the project in, in Saudi Arabia, if I haven't mentioned it before, is a ground up, brand new university. So multiple buildings. Brand new. It's in the middle of a big huge development and a big huge development is going on. So there's a whole lot of things. And so obviously it's something that's going to take forever and then like the complexity of the other one and why it's taking so long and of course it being in the middle of COVID that would be another thing. But it's just one of those things that take forever. I had a series of anniversaries coming up and in fact, to be quite honest with you, even the anniversary of the 10 year project is coming up really soon. So there's just anniversary.
- [02:31]
A
So a lot of people don't even stay at firms that long. I mean, I. No, I think we've kind of, kind of gone through this, but that's longer than 10 years at firms.
- [02:40]
B
It's right.
- [02:41]
A
How many people, how many people have touched that project in your firm? If you just had to guess round numbers versus the number of people who have been on it consistently. So let's just say just in your firm because there's. Yeah, the team is enormous.
- [02:59]
B
Just, just in our firm, I think that when the 10 year project, that one, I believe we were in the mid-20s of people that had cycled through this, whether they were on the project or for just a little bit or quite a bit of time or they had specific roles like say interior design. And it may not sound like a lot, let's just say it was 25. But I mean obviously we try to stay efficient with the size of the staff that we have on projects and stuff. And ultimately at the end of the day, I mean it is a big complex project but we've gotten to the point where you can be efficient with the staff, you put the right staff on the project, you don't really need a lot. And now that I'm talking about it and rambling a little bit, I'm thinking it's now in the 30s and then probably the same with the five year project. Is that where it's cycled through quite a bit and then even. I'll give you something. So we had one of our principals, in fact actually we've had three different principals retirement on the 10 year project. So there's there, there's that, you know,
- [04:10]
A
and that doesn't happen that often.
- [04:11]
B
And that doesn't happen that often. And so like there's several of the, the principles that we had. And so we, we were on one of the principals that was that retired last. He, we actually had a kind of a going away party for him. He's been, he was in our leader on this project for quite a long time. And so what I did was I arranged the retirement party and what I wanted to do was I wanted to invite everybody who had been on the project whether or not they're still at the firm or not. And most, a lot of people actually showed up that have left the firm and have came back for him and he had a good showing of about 2, 25, 30 people and testament to him but also just a testament to the fact that like that's how many people it takes to do some complex projects like these. Yeah.
- [05:10]
A
What do you think about retirement?
- [05:15]
B
Every time I touch.
- [05:17]
A
Let's shift over to the older audience
- [05:20]
B
of our, the, the thing.
- [05:22]
A
Things that they're thinking about things that maybe they've done. I mean, that's one of the interesting things about this podcast is have a wide range of audience members, from students, very early students, to retirees, post. Pre. Just pre. To post retirees. We've had people write into the show that say, I, I just turn it on because I still want to hear architects talk. Like I was in the office kind of a thing. So, yeah, we've kind of joked about.
- [05:51]
B
So here. So here's actually before. So here's something actually funny. So the last time I was in the office, which is just a couple weeks ago, I was having a conversation with somebody who is well within, if not at the retirement age.
- [06:06]
A
Which is what. What's the retirement age now?
- [06:08]
B
Well, if we're talking.
- [06:09]
A
It doesn't matter for this person in. In specifically, but just generally if we
- [06:14]
B
are retirement age in architecture, well, that's different. If we're talking about retirement age and architecture versus retirement age as it's legally defined by the federal government, that's two completely different conversations. And so this is more of he's legally of age to. If he wanted to retire and start drawing Social Security and things like that.
- [06:41]
A
So drawing, drawing has a different connotation in our industry than pulling checks from Social Security.
- [06:48]
B
True, true. So I, because we had several principals recently who've retired, and three of them were involved on this one project. I, I just was casually having a chat with him and it was just like, so with, with all of these different retirements and stuff, are you, are you considering retiring? I mean, when, when are you hijacking.
- [07:13]
A
You're old. Hey, hey, old man. When are you, hey, old man.
- [07:16]
B
When you're, when are you getting put out to pasture? And he was just like, there's a lot of people who think about that and think plan towards retirement. And he's like, I don't, I haven't really thought of retirement. I don't really think that I'm going to retire in the traditional sense. And I was just like. I was just like. Well, I was like, there's the traditional sense and then there's. Sorry, I'm about to say this. There's the Frank Erie retirement plan.
- [07:51]
A
Sorry, I'm laughing.
- [07:51]
B
Yes. And that. Just work till they die. He.
- [07:56]
A
He lived a long life.
- [07:58]
B
He lived. He lived. He lived a long life.
- [08:01]
A
Probably went out on his own terms.
- [08:02]
B
Yeah, went out on his own terms. Made a huge impact on the profession. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what he did, but there was. He was passionate about what he did, and so he wanted to stay in the profession. And so we did great. That's fantastic. And then there's people who. They're like, well, when I hit retirement age of 65, I really want to go ahead and consider retirement. And then we've had some of our more recent retirees range basically from that early retirement, legal retirement age as defined by the federal government to people who are struggling to let go in their 70s. And when I say struggling to let go is that they've retired in name only and are always still bantering about the office and things like that, which is great because they had a huge impact on the office. And so. But it's one of those things. It's like, would you want to retire to. I'm thinking about this, and as I start saying this, it's like, do you want to retire to just enjoy your golden years and maybe travel or maybe just do the things that you wanted to do or just rest so you don't have to do all of these things that you did on a daily basis in architecture? Right. That's kind of the things. So, interestingly enough, I started having the conversation about diversification of my stock shares for. Because I am of age, where I can start to diversify, AKA I'm getting old, and start to either put it into IRA or roll it into my retirement 401k and things like that. And so it really started to make me start thinking about retirement and when am I actually thinking about or considering retirement, or is it something that I'm on the Frank Gehry plan? I mean, you've heard me joke multiple times that I'm on the architectural retirement plan of die at my desk.
- [10:10]
A
Okay. So my view of it is this. And I think you fall into the second category. The first one is. The first category is architecture is not your number one. The second category is your architecture. So your number one. So architects who. It's not their number one thing. It's not their number one priority to do architecture. Go to the office like this. It's not their life. They've got other hobbies, they've got plans, they've got things they want to do.
- [10:37]
B
Yeah.
- [10:38]
A
I mean, obviously it's a demanding, challenging profession. Right. And so, like, to your point a minute, you just want to go rest.
- [10:45]
B
Yeah.
- [10:46]
A
Right. Because, like, there's. There's a certain level of grind to it. There's people who, who I know who have retired and who are talking about their retirement, who listen to the show. So they all know who. That I'm talking about them. Cannot wait for that day. To come the first eligible day, they're out, Peace out. And it's because it's not their whole life. It's just not their whole life. And you know that even if it's not your whole life, when you're doing it, you have to commit an infinite amount of time to doing it. Right. So I don't blame them. Right. It's like that's. You get to take care of yourself. Right. Whatever that means. And you don't need permission from anybody else to do that. I think there's definitely a little bit of stigma that comes along with that from, from the community of capital A architects out there. To your point, Frank Gehry.
- [11:40]
B
Right.
- [11:41]
A
What else is Frank going to do? He's. He's going to architect or nothing. And so then there's the other people. And I think you fall more into this category. I don't, I don't think this really defines you, but it's like, this is what you do. This is all. This is your thing and you're just going to keep doing your thing and you have more to give. You've got people that you can share knowledge with. And it's not that the people who are Peace out, day one don't do that. They totally do that. But they're going to be done doing that at some point and they have some boundary and they're preparing for that boundary to say, like, nope, it's me time after this. And like, you made the example of people who come back in and visit and walk the halls and talk to the people and like, of course, like, yeah, there's. There's something there. And then there's other people who will never come back. Like, and I know people like that, too. They've left and you never saw them again, ever.
- [12:35]
B
Yeah, right, Absolutely. Yeah. We. They're one of. We've had several retirees that once they're gone, they're gone. We never hear from them again. And they may have been with for 20, 30, 35, 40 years.
- [12:52]
A
That's exactly. Yeah.
- [12:53]
B
But they're just like, I'm done. I. I did my time and you
- [12:57]
A
people mean nothing to me.
- [12:59]
B
Yeah, there's. There's two more recent retirees. One of them I actually work with and teach with. That is it. He, he's very passionate about architecture and so he, I guess he falls into my category of the bucket that you threw me into.
- [13:19]
A
What else, what else are we going to do? That's the bucket name.
- [13:22]
B
Yeah.
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A
What else we going to do?
- [13:24]
B
And, and he is, is so impassioned about learning about architecture and now he's doing research on things that he never really had a chance to actually learn about when he was practicing.
- [13:36]
A
Freedom.
- [13:37]
B
And now he's got some freedom to do things and still be relevant and adjacent to the profession without actually clocking in, clocking out. As well as teaching, as well as he's a docent, as well as he. I don't know if docent's the right word, but basically he gives tours of the campus to new prospective students. He absolutely loves to like, encourage people and just show them the passion about why architecture? When we ask the question, we should be asking that question when we're coming into the, when we're going into school, right? So why architecture? And he loves sharing that with, with people. And then there was another one. And I think I've told you about this guy before, but when I very first time I had ever gone to Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, we were walking around and we're creating our head and we're looking at all these like, different details, trying to figure out how Pfeiffer had done the glazing details and things like that. And he walks, this guy walks up to us. He's one of the, the docents there and he's like, architects, right? And we're like, is it that obvious? He's like, yeah, I used to be one of you. He's like, I retired. And so one of the things that he does is he's a docent at this beautifully, like, because I've, I've talked it up many times. It's. I truly believe that it's a nice masterpiece of modern architecture. It's a fantastic museum, as well as a landscape sculpture, as well as, you name it. I mean, it is a. Just a fantastic experience. Can't talk about it enough. In fact, maybe that's one of our future what makes this building great episodes.
- [15:25]
A
But no, literally, we can't talk about it enough.
- [15:28]
B
Yes, we can't talk about it. And then I was at the National Building Museum and there's this, they, they, they hold all sorts of different exhibits and events and things like that. And it's just this fantastic old building. It was built as a soldiers building for returning veterans after the Civil War. It's just this great building, but it's now the National Building Museum. And they were doing a movie event. They, they do this documentary series over the course of a couple of days where they do architectural documentaries. And I saw this great one on Renzo and I see this Guy, and he's like, walking by and he's like, meet and greeting with people. But he, he works at the museum, and it's the same guy from the Glenstone Museum. He also works at another one. And I stopped him and he's just like, hey, Glenstone guy. To me. Not to. I didn't say that to him. He said that to me because he recognized me from the Glenstone in our conversation. And. And then I've seen him a couple of times here and there at each one of these. And that's how he's choosing to spend his retirement is architecture adjacent. By being around professionals, being around architecture and things like that. That dude, if I can't do kind of like a Rick Steves kind of like retirement type thing where I'm, like, traveling Europe looking at buildings and eating, then I want to do that. I want to be like, I want to, like, volunteer at some architecturally significant building and be a docent and teach people the joy and passion of the things that I know about architecture and share it with other people, whether they like it or not, whether they want or ask about it or not. Like, oh, did you see this? Hey, old man, stop.
- [17:18]
A
Shove this architecture in your face.
- [17:22]
B
Stop following me. But I mean, you know, I mean, for me. And actually, what's funny is, you know, my wife had said I could totally see that you could do that. And like, just. I would be the Walmart greeter of architecture.
- [17:37]
A
That's a, That's a. I was, I was trying to figure out how to work being a Walmart greeter into. But, but yeah, it's just the analogy of it. Yes. You can just be the Walmart greeter of architecture.
- [17:47]
B
Hi, how are you doing? How's your day going? Welcome to architecture.
- [17:53]
A
It's interesting to think about how many really famous architects have done some of their most important work.
- [18:01]
B
Yeah.
- [18:01]
A
Way later in their career.
- [18:03]
B
Yeah.
- [18:04]
A
And so then it's like, how do you. Okay, so say that happens. And then you're like, wow. I mean, now, now things are rolling. I don't think I can leave.
- [18:13]
B
Well, if you think about, like, traditionally and it hasn't been the case more recently because, you know, you've had a lot of younger, you know, starchitects. And, you know, that's just kind of like the, the way that, you know, it has. But I mean, traditionally, there used to be that you didn't really get, you know, started in your career until you were in your 50s. You know, have you paid your dues and those kind of things.
- [18:37]
A
Well, you had to build a practice. I mean you had to do all of the work to get to the point where you could get the more and more and more important commissions.
- [18:44]
B
I mean, how many times did Frank Lloyd Ray reinvent himself? How, how long did he work? Him. He worked till, he worked till the end. And there was. How many buildings were completed after his death? Same thing with me. Same thing with Multitude. Now I was gonna say even like Saarinen, but unfortunately Saarinen passed away way too early. But I mean many of his were, were completed posthumously. I'm not looking forward to that part. I'm more looking forward to the.
- [19:16]
A
You want to see it, you want to see it complete while you're still here? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [19:22]
B
I mean, ain't gonna happen if they keep doing 10 year buildings. True.
- [19:28]
A
But I mean, yeah, you think about these, these really important buildings coming in very late and obviously they're not the sole author. They're not the ones who are working on all the drawings, but they're the ones who built the firm that then enabled those projects to happen. And they're still involved and at some level. And it's got to be really hard at that point to like step back because I mean, obviously the percentage of stuff that they're doing, I'm sure it varies, but it's a much smaller amount than earlier in their career because you have a really competent team at that point I would assume kind of taking that on. So doing the work. But interesting to think about how it works in this profession when it comes to quote unquote, retirement. Okay, so dying at the drafting table.
- [20:19]
B
So I just looked up now we've been, we just finished, completed a project with Renzo Piano and Renzo Piano was very involved with this project. Renzo Piano is 88 years old.
- [20:35]
A
Wow.
- [20:36]
B
Renzo doesn't seem like he's going to be slowing down anytime soon. He still has quite a bit of vigor. Again, he was like actively involved with this project that. Yes. Were there plenty of people at the Renza Piano workshop that actually were involved with this project? Absolutely. But again this was a principal who was actively involved with the design of the project. All of those sketches that are used in the marketing material came from his hand and he's 88 years old.
- [21:15]
A
So now where my mind is going with this is this kind of construct in our profession. I think it's going away. You actually sent me a link to an article about the younger generations. Don't even know who the starchitects are. And it also kind of leads me to thinking though, about how adverse this industry is to younger leadership and. Yeah, and so it makes it difficult, I think first, especially in the way things are going outside of architecture, where you see a lot of younger leaders being like, Bjarke Ingels is kind of the exception to the rule. Now. You could put him potentially in that tier of starchitect. Right. And when did he become like the who he was? I mean, who he is now? I mean, he had to be late 30s, early 40s, but before him. And he just. Just one example is the one that I can think of in a moment. Right. It's. It's like they're. No, you were. Starchitects are old.
- [22:23]
B
Well, I just looked up because I just recently visited a building by Calatrava and Calatrava 74. And then we were talking about Bjark and he is almost 52.
- [22:37]
A
Yeah, I was gonna say about the same age. So it's interesting because he's been heading up big for over a decade, probably longer. Right. So I don't know. I don't know the start date. But it's interesting to think about how that older guard had a very different mentality then.
- [22:55]
B
Right, right.
- [22:57]
A
The direction the world's going, I mean, let alone architecture, but many other.
- [23:02]
B
So I wonder out of curiosity, if the changing of kind of, dare I say, fame for these starchitects or more progressive firms that are out there doing avant card architecture or game changing work in things like adaptive reuse or mass timber or all of these other things. And they seem to be getting, in some cases, not all cases, but in some cases they seem to be getting younger and younger. Does that mean that these would be people who would continue to keep working as long as they can, like the old guard that we're talking about, or would these be people who would be more inclined to start looking at, well, I'm in the bucket of this is my job, not my life. And when it came to retirement, would they retire early or on time or at least something that made a little bit more sense to like, hey, I still have my health. I still and able to do other things. And that's what I would like to do. So it'd be interesting to kind of like have that conversation maybe in the next 14 years on whether or not like people would. Would consider the way that the practice is changing, hopefully for the better. Jerry's out, right? We'll see. We'll see where. We'll see where it's going. But it'd Be interesting to see how people, the younger people, view retirement from the profession. I mean, we do know that there's a lot of people who are recognizing that this profession is incredibly tough and that they are either leaving the profession or looking for alternative careers within the profession or specialities within the profession. So that there are, as we kind of talked about in the past, less and less generalist and more specialists when it comes to things like this. So who knows?
- [25:17]
A
Also kind of generational boundaries and.
- [25:21]
B
Yeah.
- [25:21]
A
Values and things like that. I mean, there's definitely people in our generation even who are like, not gonna wait for retirement to do the things that they want to do.
- [25:30]
B
Right.
- [25:31]
A
And the, the profession, at some level, I mean, I totally. I just have to generalize when I say this. Right. Cause there's no other way to kind of make the point. But it's like, is frowned upon. Like, what do you mean you're going to take two weeks off? What do you mean you're going to take three weeks off? What do you mean you're going to. Once a year? No, that's. That's just. There's something that's looked down upon about that and it's. Yeah, it's interesting to see that. And then you look at other countries, like European countries who just completely. In a very different way.
- [26:04]
B
We're taking the month of August off.
- [26:06]
A
Yeah.
- [26:06]
B
Cool.
- [26:07]
A
Right? We're shutting down. Yeah.
- [26:11]
B
You're like, what, dude, Is that legal?
- [26:17]
A
But capitalism. Yeah. Is that legal?
- [26:22]
B
Aren't they supposed to be at work?
- [26:28]
A
Yeah. This, this thing about expectations and boundaries and age and experience and I mean, this is. It just makes me think that, I mean, we're in for some interesting times. It's kind of fun to be where we are in the. On the podcast where we can talk about that. But it's also one of those things where it's like this industry, I think this profession, I shouldn't call it just talking about architecture is it's going to go through some changes. Right. And like everything, it's just there's pressure and so pressure changes things. Right. And it's gonna be interesting to see where it ends up. I mean, not like there's an end, but. But to see how it evolves.
- [27:07]
B
I was starting to think a little bit about your announcement earlier. Maybe we have.
- [27:14]
A
My announcement. It was just. It's just mine. Yeah. It's not our.
- [27:17]
B
Well, I mean, you made the announcement as our announcement, but it would be interesting to kind of have a roundtable of recently retired people who have spent, obviously, their Entire career. And just what it was that they looked for for retirement. Words, wisdom. It would be just interesting to have a conversation with people who have.
- [27:40]
A
Where this happens, and it's awesome. Is at Monterey Design Conference when they have the talk from the elders, right? And they kind of distinctly categorize, like, there's the elders and then there's the avant garde, and then there's like all of us in the middle. And so the elders and they have kind of this. They kind of frame it as a fireside chat where it really is just kind of a conversation from the stage where somebody gets to share their experiences. And it is. It's really cool to get the ability, the opportunity to hear from them in that regard.
- [28:18]
B
So the last time we were there together, there wasn't a REM who was.
- [28:25]
A
That was. That was at an AIA show, I think, where there was a similar thing. But it was. I can't think of his name. James. The guy who did like the department stores. It was actually remote. It wasn't in person because of.
- [28:39]
B
That's true.
- [28:39]
A
Reasons.
- [28:40]
B
That's true. That's true. And the reason I asked is just. It was like. There was one. I swear there was one. Because that. And I. And I just wish that I could remember who it was that was. There you go. That was. That was basically giving a presentation. And they. English wasn't their native language and. But they still practice and they were given the kind of like elder statesman. And this was what, six years ago or something?
- [29:11]
A
Well, I don't know which one you're talking about, so I don't know. Well, you have to Google that. Let me Google that.
- [29:17]
B
Yes, I'm gonna have to Google it. But anyway.
- [29:21]
A
Music.
- [29:22]
B
Yeah, but. But anyway, it was just one of those. It was just one of those ones that. It was just kind of interesting that they. It was just one of these starchitects that had worked. That worked forever, but then also had. And of course it really. Yeah. So it was REM Cool house.
- [29:43]
A
That was mdc.
- [29:44]
B
At mdc. Yeah.
- [29:47]
A
I'm trying to figure out sleep during that one.
- [29:50]
B
I will tell you what. I. For quite a bit of it, I was.
- [29:58]
A
I remember hearing. Hearing that conversation that they had on stage at aia and it was like, what's going on? Yeah, this is. It was.
- [30:07]
B
Well, it was. I was sitting up in the. In the upper. The. The rafters in the.
- [30:12]
A
Yeah, up in the.
- [30:13]
B
In the balcony space in the. Yeah. And. And it was. It was hot up there.
- [30:17]
A
Hot y. Time.
- [30:19]
B
And it was late, so no Offense to rem, but he was putting me in the rim zone. But yeah, that. Oh, it's one last thing. Just. Just this stray thought and absolutely not related to anything that we've been chatting about.
- [30:47]
A
Perfect. It's on brand for the show.
- [30:49]
B
Good. So I remember back when I was in third year, I had this professor, Bill Gwynn. And Bill Gwynn used to. He was. He was a tough professor. And if you were talking about architecture, but you use like the wrong terms, let's just say that you were talking about a cloister, but you use colonnade or you use something else. And it was just like completely incorrect. He'd get pissed off and he'd correct you and he would say, you're. You're becoming an architect. You need to know these terms. And at the time, I just shrugged it off. It's like whatever old man kind of thing. And I found myself via last studio where I was listening to some of my students talk about their project. And they were trying to explain some things that. Some design ideas and things that they had, and they were so incorrect in the terminologies that they were using and everything else. And I honestly bit my tongue to try to not correct them on what you call those things. But also like later on, say, hey, by the way, if you were to do this, like, he, he, like, he would call me out or call anybody out, like right in the middle of studio and embarrass everybody. And it's just like, it was sort of uncalled for it. Me being former military at the time, I was just like, yeah, that's no tact. You have zero tact in the way that you, like, approach people and stuff, which was pretty much, I don't remember back in the day, us filling out the. The course evaluations that included not only evaluating the course, but evaluating the instructor. But we do it now, and I get course evaluations and evaluations of me from students all the time. But I sure swear that everybody would say that dude's hard, dude's harsh, and things like that in that. But I don't know, like, what are your thoughts on, like, at least knowing the terminologies of the stuff that you're designed?
- [32:58]
A
How do you learn the terminologies? Is it through? I guess it's through the reading. It's through your. Your professors speaking. It's through the crits. Like, it seems like those kinds of things would come up. And so part of it, I feel like, is it totally is the responsibility of the person who is developing Their skills to learn that stuff like that shows ownership in the process of your own development. Right. And so, I mean, that's kind of my first thought that comes to mind. And it's not like you don't know what you don't know. Right. So if it hasn't come up before. Okay, Grace. But if you've gone through this before, if you're explaining a final concept and you don't have the right arus speak, maybe it's not even archa speak, it's just. It's just geometric terminologies or. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. There's. There's a lot of vocabulary that comes along with architecture that's not archa speak. Right. So.
- [33:55]
B
Right, right.
- [33:55]
A
I think it's. Yeah, I. I agree.
- [33:58]
B
Design language, your design vocabulary. It's when you are talking about something like it, you want to know what that something is called.
- [34:06]
A
Yeah, yeah. I think that it is important because you do have to present your ideas and you need to use the correct vocabulary. This is a pet peeve of my wife's for sure. It's like that the quality of language is going down over time is her sense about it. And it's frustrating because it's like. I mean, obviously there's slang and there's words that get chopped up and reconstituted and all of these things, and there's new words. But. But the deprecation of old vocabulary, old and air quotes is. It's difficult. It's a difficult transition to make because it's like the words mean things and you. And it's also kind of a sign of education and things. And so maybe there's some kind of.
- [35:01]
B
Well, in a way, it's also like, actually giving about, like, what it is that you are learning now. I mean, we may not design some of the things that we're learning about, but when somebody is talking about a. A railing, they. If they say, well, it's a hand railing, it's just like there used to be a time when we used to call it a balustrade. And what is a balustrade? All these other things. And so it's kind of interesting that we, like you and I, joke about, like, the name of our. Our podcast, and it's rare that we actually like archa speak. We talk about architecture and speak about, like, the profession, but not, like, use the hoity toity, highfalutin terms and things like that. But those hoity toity, highfalutin terms are the terms of our profession.
- [35:52]
A
They are in the academic sense, the academic sense. For sure. And in short, certain lecture circuits.
- [35:59]
B
Right.
- [35:59]
A
But. But then there's, like, a very technical aspect to it as well. Yeah, a lot of times. Sure.
- [36:04]
B
And.
- [36:04]
A
And. And it is. It's like when we're literally watching the language of the world get crunched down and like, because of AI. Right. Like, just this. What's the word? Like, it's. It's not just watered down. It's. It's like. It's mediocritized. It's like, if.
- [36:30]
B
If. Well, there's. There's two. My. It. I'll just get. I'll tell you my term. My term is domestication. But then there's also the. My wife and I kind of also refer to as. You are kind of the. The idiocracy. The movie idiocracy. And just like this. The dumb. Dumbing down of things. And it's just like. Well, you just want to be able to, like, kind of plain speak. Well, sometimes plain.
- [36:58]
A
It's more inclusive.
- [36:59]
B
It's more.
- [37:00]
A
The issue. The issue with that then is that. Yeah. What I'm thinking about the Ares and how much specialized vocabulary was in the Aries. Do you remember, like, studying the flashcards?
- [37:14]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [37:14]
A
And it was like, what are all of the different coursings of the bricks? What are all the different parts of a window assembly? What are you doing? Yeah. And it was vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary. What are all these different things and what do they mean? And that was actually a really interesting training ground for that because it was something that got applied to anybody who was trying to become a licensed architect.
- [37:38]
B
Well, so then the question becomes, And I've heard this is. Why is that important? Why should I know that? How would you answer that? If somebody. If. If. If you were teaching somebody and you were like, well, you really need to know the. The architecture, the glossary of terms. And they're like, well, why. Why do I need to know that? In. In one of them is a good, good example that you just said. When you're talking about all the different brick coursings and stuff, it's just like, well, I want to do that one where it's like brick and this. And it looks like this, and it looks like this. And you're just like that. You're like, what is that? It's just.
- [38:13]
A
Well, it's the specificity of it. I mean.
- [38:15]
B
Yeah.
- [38:15]
A
That. That's the reason.
- [38:16]
B
And how. If you.
- [38:20]
A
Through complexity. I mean, it is more complex, I think, to have to memorize all that, but it's a shorthand that allows you to speak specifically about the way things are in a specific field doesn't mean you need to speak like that to everybody. You don't. But inside architecture, it makes a heck of a lot of sense. Just like inside medicine, it makes sense to speak medicine. Just like inside law, it makes sense to speak law. Right? Yeah, yeah.
- [38:47]
B
So when you're sitting there and you're talking to a mason about your design, and they're like, well, what bond were you looking for in this particular case? And you're like, the one that's doing this, they're like, are we talking about a Flemish bond? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the one. That's the one. Like, oh, okay. Well, why don't you just say, hey, no, it's.
- [39:09]
A
But yeah, it's like, draw it for me. I have to see it to know. I don't know. And yeah, you don't have as many options. Right. So.
- [39:16]
B
Right.
- [39:17]
A
It is, it is an interesting thing that I. That is unfolding. And I wonder how it's unfolding in architecture. Do you guys have any thing on the curriculum side or in your didactic approach that you do when you're teaching that, that specifically talks about this, or is it just kind of up to each individual professor?
- [39:36]
B
Well, what's interesting is, is there's not like, let's just say, okay, so we're, we're kind of focus mostly on housing and we're talking about, well, first it's, it's urban, urban planning. And then specifically we're going to let them design a. First they're going to do a master plan. In understanding what a master plan is, but I go even further, is like, well, what are the components of a master plan? What do you need to know? Like, what is the glossary of terms when you're talking about master planning? Should you know when you're talking about these. So when you're explaining something to somebody else, not only do you understand the components that go into master planning, but now you're able to talk about that in a clear and understandable way. So when you're explaining to them, even if you don't use those terms, you now have an understanding of how to explain to somebody something about this master plan that you're creating through understanding what the parts and pieces of a master plan are. And then you can figure out whether or not it's. Where is the level of conversation going to be? Who am I talking about? Because I will be the first one to say that in many a times when I start off kind of like the preamble before students are giving their final presentations, I will always remind them, remember this when you step out into the the profession. You aren't giving presentations to other architects. Most of the time. You are giving them to your clients, to the community, to other people who do not understand the terms that you use. I still want you to understand those terms, but they're not, they aren't going to understand when you start talking about juxtaposition. Well, what is juxtaposition? There's a definition of what juxtaposition is. There will be some people in the audience who will know exactly what you're talking about. Then there's gonna be some people who say, what the hell are they talking about?
- [41:37]
A
And then you lost them.
- [41:39]
B
And then you've lost them.
- [41:40]
A
They're gone.
- [41:41]
B
Exactly. I've done enough training in public speaking. If it is to the contrary, at least talking about the fact that you need to understand that the audience is not the subject matter expert that you are. Unless you are giving something, a speech to a trade show or something like that. Then of course you're in a room full of subject matter experts and they want to just hear like your research on that subject matter. But if you are the subject matter expert and you're giving a presentation to a community who wants to know what their new school is going to be or a new community center or something like that, are you going to sit down and have this conversation with them about all of this Archibabble, the glossary of terms that we learned in school? Are you going to give them to them so they understand you are wanting them to buy in on this? And so a lot of times I will see people write out their cards and practice their cards and they'll be looking at them, and I'll look at them and say, let me just see what you're going to talk about. And I was like, like, all of this is great. All of this is great, good information. When you're talking to me and the jurors who are architects and stuff like that, we're going to understand what you're talking about. I was like, but if you want to do yourself a favor and probably even like, ease your own stress, just talk about it with passion. Just talk about it plainly. Explain to people what it is like this project the best. So just explain it in the simplest of terms, in the most compassionate terms that you can to make people like, first, I'll believe that you know what you're talking about. But two, secondly, that you like, this is this Is the project that you want kind of thing. Right.
- [43:28]
A
I mean, I would say tell me a story that I would want to hear. Tell me a story. Like, especially when you're talking about that audience that's not architects.
- [43:39]
B
Yeah.
- [43:40]
A
It's. It's like, give people a vision of why this thing matters and do that.
- [43:47]
B
Yes.
- [43:47]
A
By telling a story.
- [43:49]
B
Well, I even say that I was like, look, when you. When you're like. We had talked about, like, the why. Right? We've. We've talked about the why, and I bring up the why and all this other stuff. And. And so I was. After you and I talked about it. I. When I was talking to my students about it and stuff. I'm like, the thing that we really like. You need to understand why you're excited about it. Because when you can explain to other people why you're excited about it and why they should be excited about it, when it comes down to things like value engineering or something like that, this is something that you'll be able to save. It won't be something that it's just like, oh, you don't really know how to explain why we should keep it.
- [44:32]
A
Stuff's gone if you can't. Right.
- [44:36]
B
Exactly.
- [44:36]
A
If you hesitate. If you hesitate, why does this matter? Gone.
- [44:41]
B
Exactly. Exactly. And so cut it out. Yeah. Do you want to. The value. Like, if you want to explain to people the value of an architect, then you need to understand, like, why you value architecture.
- [44:58]
A
Yeah.
- [44:59]
B
I don't know.
- [44:59]
A
Okay, so. So you. You on your. You have a class kind of whiteboarding.
- [45:06]
B
Yeah.
- [45:07]
A
So tell everybody what you put in there.
- [45:09]
B
Yeah. So not only did I put some examples of some things for master planning and some projects.
- [45:15]
A
What is this? It's like a mirror board.
- [45:17]
B
Mural. Mural. Board.
- [45:18]
A
Mural. Okay.
- [45:19]
B
Mural board. Yeah. Yeah. The other whiteboarding platforms, all the different whiteboarding programs that are out there, one of them, I kind of gave them a little bit more because I would prefer students learn how to understand and digest the syllabus and understand how. What we're asking them to accomplish and start to break down a pacing guide of like, okay, I've got six weeks to do all of this stuff. This is all of the stuff that they're asking me to do.
- [45:55]
A
So you put all that on a mural board for all of the students to go into one place and see all that stuff.
- [46:01]
B
And so what I did was I created kind of a pacing guide for them. It's like, you've got three and a half weeks to do this project. Here is what I would Expect to see you accomplish each studio that we do.
- [46:14]
A
You're such a project manager, such a pro.
- [46:17]
B
I'll say. Yes, yes. But the thing about it is, is that, like, when we have, like, that's what drives. Like, if we, if we want to start dissecting, it's like, that's when we aren't profitable. And that's when this or that or the other. When we start talking about, like, just the mechanics of like a project. A lot of it falls apart in not planning. Right. But it. But we never really. We teach them how to do stuff in school, but we never really teach them how to plan and organize how to do that stuff. And so one of the things that
- [46:53]
A
we leave it up to everybody to their own devices to figure out.
- [46:56]
B
Figure. Figure out how to do it. And I'm like, well, I was just like, that seems a little unfair. I was just like, why are we gatekeeping this information? I was just like, oh, by the way, what you can do is you could kind of just like break down and say, okay, like, I've got this, this, this, and this to do. I need to make some decisions pretty quickly. Here's like, the design decisions that I need to create quickly. And then here's how I can evolve it and develop all of these assignment things. And so, like, I'm not waiting until the very last minute to try to just jam three and a half weeks worth of work in three and a half days.
- [47:29]
A
Yeah.
- [47:30]
B
So, like, at least be like, let's. Let's be fair to them and teach them how to think about how to prepare themselves.
- [47:38]
A
Okay, so what did you put into this? What did you put into this?
- [47:40]
B
So, so I. I put in pacing guide that kind of like mirrored the syllabus so that they could understand that. But if you zoom to the extents, big massive word right in the middle of the mirror board. Why? Why? With a big question.
- [47:59]
A
That is the word. That is the word.
- [48:00]
B
That is the. That is.
- [48:01]
A
You're not asking a question right now.
- [48:03]
B
I just, I posted why? And most people are like, what does that mean? Why what? Like, exactly. That's exactly why what? And they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, well, let's talk about your project. And so they started talking about the project. And I'm thinking about doing this. Why? What do you mean, why? Did you not understand what I just said? No, no, no, I understood what you said, but why? Why? Why did you do that? And they're like, well, and. And that's when I started Having the conversation about it was like, these are the things that you need to be convinced of yourself. It's like, why did you do that? I was like, I'm going to give you an example of just something very, very simple. And I talked to them about a door and they're like, what the hell is like this design of the master planning design have to do with the door? They're like, well we had a door and this came off of a, a question that somebody put in our zoom chat, our office wide zoom chat. And they were asking about a specific like what kind of like things do they need to think about for an acoustic door? Well, so it was an acoustically rated, it was acoustic door in a rated wall, in a rated partition. So it was a two hour wall, 90 minute door, acoustically rated. I believe it was STC 50. So we're talking about a pretty good sound barrier door, right?
- [49:29]
A
Sounds like an expensive door to me.
- [49:31]
B
Yeah, expensive door and all that other stuff. But so now there's like a variety of different questions. It's like, okay, well why do you need that door? I need that door because of this, this, this and this. Okay, so now you have this door. Then you had, I was just like why? Is always followed by what? And they went what? It was like exactly like, okay, so why did you need this door? You've answered that question. Now what do you need for that door? Like those are the questions. You start to like dissect it down to this needs to. This is going to be this kind of a door with this kind of a hardware for, for me to meet. But for you to meet the £5 pull and all of this other stuff, you have to probably have specialty hardware for it or a automatic opener or all of these other things. I was like, but I was like, if you're not asking the big question of why when you're thinking about all of these things you, you're never, you're going to miss the what's like what are we, what would we need to do that? And they were like, I was like, it may sound like I'm trying to trivialize the process of architecture, but it really does boil down to the simplicity of just the simple questions that you ask. Like, why do I need that door? And if I need that door, what are the things that I need for that door? And if I, if I'm not thinking about what I need for that door, then when somebody installs that door, which is where the whole kind of conversation in the chat came from, is they did not have the right hardware specified for this door. And so here they are asking an rfi. The RFI gets asked about all of this other stuff and they talk about like the weight of the door and all of this other stuff. Because there's all these other things. And then you've got your sound seals and the drop seal, all of these other little miscellaneous shit that we need to think about for all of that. I was just like, if you ask the question at the very beginning about like that door, that particular door, then you would have been able to say that that door is special from all of my other doors. And I can't lump them all into one. I gotta figure out that door.
- [51:40]
A
I know this door is not like the other doors, but. But your point of this whole why thing is just to constantly remember to
- [51:48]
B
ask, ask the questions about, hey, I decided to do like I want to do on street parking. Why? What would you want to do on street parking? There's, there's a variety of like, I was just like, I'm not questioning whether or not it's right or wrong that you're doing that. I'm questioning. Did you think about why you're doing it?
- [52:08]
A
Yeah.
- [52:08]
B
Yeah. Did you think about, like, it could be that you want to. With doing on street parking, it reduces the overall size of the road. And with that in the. On street parking, there is a perceived potential danger. So you're thinking about, well, it's going to slow traffic down. Great, there you go. We've got. We have slower traffic coming through there, safer routes, right?
- [52:32]
A
Yes. You're asking them to do is. Is at least have in their back pocket, because there's no guarantee that anyone's going to ask why, but if they do, there's a justification there.
- [52:41]
B
We should always know why we do what we're doing. Right.
- [52:44]
A
Well, a lot of times you're going to make assumptions and you're going to go. You're going to throw caution to the wind because you have to go fast. And there's all these things that could happen there, but you're basically saying no, like, check the boxes there.
- [52:59]
B
So there's assumptions based off of experience and knowledge gained through your. Your career. And then there's assumptions based off on ignorance. Based off of ignorance, what you saw somebody else do.
- [53:14]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:15]
B
And so when it's based off of ignorance, that's when trouble happens. That's when risk happens. That's when potentially you say, hey, I put a door out into the world that doesn't have all the right Hardware. Now I have to get the right hardware and it's going to cost a whole lot of money.
- [53:33]
A
So imagine, imagine during a crit when there's going to be one student presenting and they're like, the jury says, why'd you do that? Or they say something. What do you mean, why? Why? And they are like, oh no, the dreaded question. I start fumbling and then there's another student who's talking about something and says some off the cuff thing I decided to do on street parking, whatever. And then somebody stops him and says, wait, why? And they say, I'm so glad you asked, because they have a reason. And that is you paint those two pictures. And that is two completely different worlds of the quality of the conversation that's going to come out of that.
- [54:12]
B
And I, that's why with the students that I have, I'm teaching them to be prepared for anything. Now, they may not have the answer for everything that they're going to be asked.
- [54:26]
A
You probably.
- [54:26]
B
But if, but if you at least if you yourself are asking all of these questions to yourself as you're doing all of these, most likely you'll be able and prepared to answer that why? Or at least get it to a point where there's a conversation at least had back and forth between those that you're obviously more than I do, Evan. So I would like, here's why I chose to do this, but I'd like to know why you would think you would do something like that. Just have a conversation, open conversations about things. I mean, if you can have more of a dialogue in these like crits rather than you basically are sitting under the, the heat lamp being grilled. It, it makes and prepares students, especially the ones that are far more uncomfortable talking in, in public. I was just like, I was talking to a student and they were talking about how very much like they've designed their, this multifamily housing with a variety of different unit types and stuff. And he was just like, well, I'm an introvert and I really don't want anybody, any people here. I'm like, well, this is like, that's not really the luxury that we have if we're doing all of this stuff. But what, what as an introvert would you bring to this project that would make you feel equally as comfortable as other people? And those are the questions. It's just like he goes, huh, I never really thought about it that way. I'm like, it's like, so you may feel a little bit more kind of like reserved and not as social. So what would make you feel comfortable in a place like this? Like, ask that question. What?
- [56:11]
A
Yeah. Yeah, you know, I like it. Reframe. Reframe the problem in a different way.
- [56:17]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly.