#388 - Frank Lloyd Wright Lemonade

Summary

Archispeak Episode #388 - Frank Lloyd Wright Lemonade

Hosts: Evan Troxel & Cormac Phalen
Date: April 24, 2026

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Main Theme

This episode dives into the real-world journey of architectural practice, focusing on site visits, the challenges of quality control, craftsmanship in contemporary and historic architecture, and professional passion projects. Cormac recounts a whirlwind week traveling for project reviews and making lemonade from lemons by visiting architectural landmarks, while Evan and Cormac riff on generational approaches, jobsite woes, and the joys and heartbreaks of design execution.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Realities of Architectural Site Visits & Punch Lists

• Glass Factory Adventure:
  • Cormac recently visited a glass factory to inspect a custom piece for a project’s vestibule—an 8’x14’ panel with an intricate printed interlayer, replacing a rejected earlier attempt.
  • Recurring technical issues: the scale of printed text remained wrong due to possible miscommunication or file conversion errors.
  • Travel labor: Cormac recounts making a long drive from Detroit to Baltimore for building punch-outs, then from Baltimore to well north of Toronto for the factory review.
  • Punch List Frustration: The team discusses the expectation vs. reality of what "punch-ready" means on jobsites.
    • Evan (05:55): “What is punch ready should actually be like, 'We did what was on the plans.' That’s what punch ready should be.”

2. Making Lemonade: Turning Work Trips into Architectural Pilgrimages

• Darwin Martin House Visit:

  • En route, Cormac made time to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, NY, catching the last tour.
  • He also visited the Louis Sullivan–designed Guaranty Building, sharing his ongoing admiration for Sullivan and Wright.

• Architectural Fandom and Volunteerism:

  • Cormac talks about volunteering at the Frank Lloyd Wright House & Studio (Chicago, IL) for the Wright Plus event, reflecting his deep personal investment in the architectural community.

3. Craftsmanship, Value, and the Cost of Quality

• Historic vs. Contemporary Construction:

  • The hosts lament the lack of craft and attention to detail in today's mass housing compared to early 20th-century masterpieces.
    • Cormac (15:54): “124 years later…we’re still unable to, like, build things like that.”
  • Discussion about client expectations, value engineering, and how exceptional craftsmanship often becomes a luxury reserved for high-end projects.

• Modern-Day Exceptions:

  • Reference to projects with bespoke detail and the struggle to make such work accessible and widespread.
  • Lighthearted roasting of “Home Depot details” and makeshift zhuzh vs. authentic craftsman solutions.

4. Iconoclastic Design: Gehry, Social Commentary, and Regionalism

• The conversation pivots to Frank Gehry’s Santa Monica residence:
  • Appreciation of Gehry’s use of everyday materials like chain link fence as both design and social commentary.
  • Evan (21:46): “[Gehry’s] like, it’s already here! …I’m just using what’s already here, just in a different way.”

5. Factory Innovations – Giant Glass and the Unicorn Corner

• Agnora Factory:

  • Shout-out to Agnora in Ontario, known for massive bespoke glazing applications.

  • Cormac details a “unicorn” sighting: a mullionless, fully corner-glazed IGU (insulated glazing unit) without visible seals—used for jaw-dropping modern facades.

    • Cormac (27:02): “You’re staring at the corner of the glass and there’s nothing but a real thin line you can barely notice…”

  • Discussion includes logistics of fabrication, certification, handling, and why such innovations are rare.

  • Apple retail stores cited as drivers/beneficiaries of such glass technology.

• Printing on Glass:

  • Description of a project where a demolished building was memorialized by printing its image onto the glass of its replacement.

6. Tech Habits – Monitors on Monitors

• Lighthearted banter about the office tech arms race:
  • Cormac describes seeing a project manager with 8 monitors.
  • Both hosts compare their own setups, sheepishly admitting to 3+ screens (plus phone and iPad).
    • Cormac (25:39): “Eight monitors. Eight monitors.”
    • Evan (24:31): “I have eight on my desk. They’re not all on…which sounds crazy.”

7. Life Outside Architecture

• Touches on non-architectural life: mowing, yardwork, and seasonal woes (e.g., poison oak, humidity).
• Reflections on balancing work intensity with downtime and hands-on activities.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On jobsite punch lists and deadlines:
  Evan (05:24): “Here’s your deadline: tomorrow.”
  Cormac (05:55): “What is punch ready should actually be…‘we did what was on the plans’…Or maybe not so much.”

• On learning and teaching during the Darwin Martin House tour:
  Cormac (13:23): “By the end of my tour, I was teaching all of the docents…all circled around me, having this great conversation about architecture, and here I am, like, espousing all of my nerd tome.”

• On architecture’s legacy vs. value engineering:
  Cormac (16:08): “We’re not able to, but we don’t seem to because everybody says, what is the return on your investment?…Like, this is your home—love it, give it.”

• On monitor obsession:
  Cormac (25:39): “I just looked at him like, why? Why so many? He never really expanded on why…just like, he’s productive that way.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |--------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:47 | Glass factory story begins | | 04:23 | Glass size and logistics | | 05:24 | Punch list & jobsite realities | | 07:19 | “Making lemonade”—Frank Lloyd Wright & Sullivan sidetrip| | 12:51 | Details on the Darwin Martin House | | 15:53 | Craftsmanship, value, and modern building practices | | 21:27 | Frank Gehry’s Santa Monica house discussion | | 23:07 | Sight: “Eight monitors” tech banter | | 25:39 | Factory innovation: mullionless corner glass | | 32:13 | Shout-out to Agnora; printing building images on glass | | 34:08 | Show notes and photo mention | | 37:09 | Life outside architecture: poison oak and yardwork |

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Additional Notes

• Photo References: Cormac promises to post trip photos (where allowed) on Instagram and in episode show notes at archispeakpodcast.com (Episode #388).
• Interactive Segment: Listeners are encouraged to guess “the other Louis” in Cormac’s architect rankings on the LinkedIn podcast episode post for a shoutout.

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Tone

The episode is friendly, dryly humorous, and self-deprecating—classic Archispeak candor, mixing practitioner gripes, architectural admiration, deep technical dives, and nerdy asides. It’s both accessible and deeply specific, a “pull up a stump” chat blending work, passion, and the lived realities of practice.

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Summary by Archispeak Podcast Summarizer – for architects, students, and anyone who loves the real talk of design culture.

Transcript

[A]

What can we talk about that's. That's new? I think. I think we're just going to want to talk about things that we've talked about before.

[B]

The number of.

[A]

How many. How many distractions do you have? How many apps do you have open? How much sleep are you running on? I got a fresh cup of coffee right here. What time is it? It's almost five,

[B]

actually, funny enough, as I was getting ready to prep for coming in to record, I was thinking, oh, I've got coffee left over. I'll go down and make myself an iced coffee. Right as I get downstairs, my wife's pouring it out.

[A]

I'm like, refill the IV bag.

[B]

That was my lifeblood. Where'd it go?

[A]

Get me a caffeine drip, stat.

[B]

So I was on a factory tour last week.

[A]

Factory of what?

[B]

Factory of glass.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

Oh, look.

[A]

Look at you getting out. Getting out and seeing how things.

[B]

Well, specifically, I was going to review a replacement glass for. For a vestibule at one of my projects that has an inner layer in printing and everything else on it. And the inner layer of the first glass that was shipped to us started to kind of like pull in. So when you had like a butt glazed system. Yeah, it started to peel away and so you saw like little gaps in the inner layer which it wasn't supposed to. It was supposed to go look seamless and smooth, straight across. Now, nobody's really quite sure how or why that happened, but then as we were all reviewing it in place, we rejected that glass there. And so we. But also the printed image on there was a. Was smaller than what the shop drawings call for, like considerably smaller. And so in this big ginormous space, this text was supposed to actually be reasonably large and it was not. So, fast forward to last week. We're reviewing it again. Different shop, different glass manufacturer. Everything looked perfect, except the text was the same size as the rejected one.

[A]

Didn't get the memo.

[B]

I. We feel like there may have been a. The art that was supposed to be sent to the manufacturer was the wrong file again. Or when somebody was converting it from the vector file that we provided to a PDF print file for the manufacturer. Somebody might have hit scale to fit or something which would have reduced it down. We're not quite sure. We're not quite sure. But yeah, a lot of people showed up to a. To inspect and review this and it was a pretty quick meeting because. And this was in Canada, so we had to go to Canada to look at this. And then unfortunately we had to walk Away Rejecting again.

[A]

Wow. Yeah, that seems like a unfortunate series of events.

[B]

It is. And like, can't somebody just send a

[A]

picture first and say, like, do we need to go actually do a visit?

[B]

Well, we were, we were inspecting the whole thing because they were getting ready to ship it. And we made the arrangement with them previously that we want to inspect it before we like physically inspect it. We want to look at the way that it comes together. We want to look at all of the issues that we had with the previous one. We wanted to make sure that this one, everything was perfect except for unfortunately, the scale of the text. And it just meant that somebody was circulating around the wrong print file and still. Unfortunately, yeah. And unfortunately a piece of glass that's 8ft wide, single piece of glass. 8ft wide by 14ft tall.

[A]

It's a big piece of glass.

[B]

It's a big piece of glass.

[A]

They could, they could do something with that. They don't need to throw it away. Well, send it. Just strap it to the top of your jeep and you could drive it home and use it for something.

[B]

I'd fly away.

[A]

Yeah. No, it's a ray, it's a rain shield. I don't know exactly.

[B]

So.

[A]

So you, you say like, I took a trip to Canada. Obviously Canada is closer to you than it is to me, but. But of course you drove because that's what you do.

[B]

Well, my last week was I drove from Detroit to Baltimore. We're punching the building out in stages and so the next phase of things were ready to punch. And so I went out and helped the team because they, there was a lot more than like, they normally usually staggered enough where the on site team can handle it all. But because if we're getting to the end and they're trying to pile everything in there and say, okay, Evan, you could punch like five floors. Yeah.

[A]

Here's your deadline tomorrow.

[B]

You got 24 hours exactly.

[A]

So times, times ticking. Building's got to open and nobody wants

[B]

to get blamed for delay.

[A]

This always happens. It's like run up against that end deadline and it's like, hurry up and punch the building. And then, and then. Okay, you do that and they still don't take care of the punch list items because the building's got to open and they got to go at night. Like, it's such a, it's such a mess.

[B]

What do you expect punch ready to actually be when you would go to be something.

[A]

What is punch ready should actually be like, like here it's. We did what was on the plans that's what punch ready should be. Yeah.

[B]

And to like we looked at it and there's no like scrapes or scratches or dirts or very, you know, it's ready for occupancy.

[A]

It's what punch ready is. Yeah.

[B]

Or maybe not so much.

[A]

Not so much usually.

[B]

Or not so much. And so, so then I went from there to then started heading north from Baltimore later in the week to head towards Toronto which actually was. I was at first told, oh yes, it's just outside of Toronto. Yeah, two hours north outside of Toronto.

[A]

So yeah, not only is it a

[B]

big from Baltimore to Toronto that I was looking at was a nine hour drive. Well, tack on a. Oh and don't forget that you've got to hit all these different like traffics.

[A]

That's cool. You've got full self driving. Right. You can get work done while.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're a bleeding edge technologist.

[B]

Regret it every second I'm like, wait, why, why did I choose to drive like.

[A]

And then to find out the text is too small.

[B]

Yes. Only to find out that text is too small. Just find out.

[A]

You actually have to reject it because

[B]

you, you, you did receive a few images from last week on my drive.

[A]

I decided you squeezed a few extra things in.

[B]

If, if I'm gonna, if, if I'm gonna be handed lemons, I am gonna make lemonade. And I did. I made some. Look at you. I made some Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan lemonade. I got to see the Darwin Martin

[A]

house, which is where.

[B]

Which is in Buffalo, New York, just at the border of Canada and the US of A. And went and said, hey, I've still got time. And literally caught the very last, the very last tour right before I crossed.

[A]

The best way to break up a drive.

[B]

Absolutely. And then I'm like, What? It is 12 minutes from that house to the Guarantee Building, Prudential building or whatever it was originally the Louis Sullivan building in downtown Buffalo. And so I got a chance to go see that. Which he's. He's pretty high up there on my favorites list. I mean he shares the number one spot. As you know, I always call my number. My number one is Louie or Louie.

[A]

I was gonna say. How many number ones are there in your.

[B]

There's two. Two. Two number ones.

[A]

Two number ones.

[B]

Louie and Louie. Now I have what I've now found out that I cycle through two through five in my top five list. That sometimes it's this person or that person or this person. Oh, don't forget about. It's like, don't forget about that guy.

[A]

Defends on. Depends on which way the wind's blowing. Okay, so. So don't mention the. The other name of the other Louis. Our listeners should all leave a comment on the YouTube video for this episode and tell us who's Cormac talking about. Like, let's play a little bit of jeopardy here.

[B]

Do you leave.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Kiss.

[A]

Is it Louie or is it Gotta Gotta. Gotta provide a last name listeners. Who's he talking about? What?

[B]

I'm not gonna say. Yeah, but there will be hints. There will be hints in.

[A]

There have been. There have been hints. If you're.

[B]

If you're a.

[A]

A loyal listener of the podcast, then.

[B]

Then you will. Then you will know the answer to this pretty. Pretty almost immediately.

[A]

Who can be the first. I wanna know who's gonna be the first person to comment on the Arcaspeak podcast episode post for this episode that goes onto LinkedIn. Not my post about it. Not Cormac's post about it. The actual Arcuspeak podcast pages post about it, which is full transparency. An automated post. It's very short. It's just like, hey, we did something, and here's how you can know about it. That's the post we'll use as the test. Who can be the first get a shout out on the next episode. How about that?

[B]

There you go.

[A]

So everybody who. Who sees one sees these. The right answer there. I mean, maybe the wrong answer is there. It's got to be the right answer. The first right answer. And if you see them, I mean, yeah, you might as well not even comment if you missed the boat, but there you go.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

I'm just gonna throw it out there,

[B]

but what was fun about that? So as we're talking and they're just like. They asked me, they were like, what? You know, because I was like the last person in there and practically the only person left walking through the building. All of the docents that were in there, they're all volunteers and that I volunteer for something every year, which will be coming up in the. In about a month for me, for another volunteer where I'll be volunteering at the Frank Lloyd Wright House and Studio in Chicago, Illinois. Ooh. At the Rice Wright plus event. So anyway, because that's just a.

[A]

Just a jaunt from you.

[B]

It's just a. It's about.

[A]

Compared to driving two hours north of Toronto.

[B]

It is. It is. Chicago is the exact same distance and time away from me from Toronto. So from. From where you are now, from where I am now.

[A]

Which is how far from where you are now? It's not 11 hours.

[B]

I'm right here in.

[A]

You were in Baltimore. I know you were there.

[B]

Where.

[A]

How far is me? I'm right here.

[B]

Well, so in both directions, it's four hours to Toronto, four hours to Bushaka.

[A]

Okay. The lengths you will go to to volunteer for architectural. Architectural nerdery.

[B]

Exactly four hours, easy.

[A]

That was an easy yes for you.

[B]

Exactly four hours. Sure, I'll be there.

[A]

No, no problem.

[B]

When you need me to be there, I'll be there.

[A]

I mean, the crappy thing is, if you were gonna fly to Chicago from Detroit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It would take just the same amount of time.

[B]

Absolutely. Because I'd have to get to the airport, get to welcome to the Airport and funny enough, security theater and all the time with. With everything going on now, to be quite honest with you, that's probably why one of the reasons why I kind of avoided flying this time is because everything, like everything at Detroit Airport, at BWI in Baltimore, they were just messes. So, yeah, honestly, I kind of wanted to avoid it and make that. I mean, I regretted it because I got an old crappy car that didn't have heated seats or anything else and no real luxury. I mean, come on.

[A]

But at least you weren't putting more miles on your car.

[B]

True. I'm. I am, as I am now, refusing to do that. If it's traveling for work, I will rent a car.

[A]

Like, how long did it take you to refuse to do that?

[B]

10 years. 10 years.

[A]

Okay. Or more.

[B]

Just 10 years for here.

[A]

Okay, so tell. Tell us about this. This Frank, Frankie Lloydy ready house that you visited.

[B]

Well, one of the interesting things about it was so, like, I kind of. They're like, are you familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright and his work and stuff like that. And then, of course, I had to go all geek out and stuff. And by the end of my tour, I was teaching all of the docents, and I literally had five ladies, which is fair. Like, they're volunteers, all circled around me. And we're sitting here having this great conversation about architecture, and here I am, like, espousing all of my nerd tome.

[A]

Michael Karmic. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Come on now. Gather around the fire. Let's have a.

[A]

Pull up a chair.

[B]

Pull up.

[A]

We're gonna be here a while.

[B]

Yeah. Pull up a stone. It was just like, I apologize. I know that you got. I know that you're done for the day. I'll leave you all over.

[A]

You have some things to learn. Let me no, no, they were like,

[B]

no, no, no, no, no. This is interesting. Like, okay, well, you don't.

[A]

And you can't refuse that either.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's like, when I volunteer at this. Right. Event, I'm probably going to be reminded that this is timed events in Time Tours, and they need to cycle.

[A]

It's like falling water. It's like falling water. You got to keep moving.

[B]

Yeah, you got to kind of keep moving. And I. I think I told you, like, last. Last year's event, they kept doing this to one of the. One of the volunteers. They kept doing this. They're like, come on, move it. Keep going.

[A]

Talking over there at Motormouth.

[B]

Yeah. And get up. And guess who that was.

[A]

Yes, I directed that exactly in your.

[B]

Yes, yes, it was me. Like, how are you gonna, like, architect, architectural nerd, professor, and just love to sit and spin yards about, like, architects and the. And all this other stuff? And here I am. And, like, all the people wanted to hear it, so I gave people what they wanted.

[A]

I feel like some. Some money we're leaving on the table here is what kind of AI images can be generated from. From these kinds of stories that are shared. I can just imagine. I mean, you've said so many Keith, like, phrases so far. Pull up a stump to listen to Uncle Cormac talk about Frank Lloyd Wright. I mean, you've got this pointing at the watch, like, settle down over there. It's time to keep moving, mister. Like, I could just see our. Our audience has. Oh, my amazing content.

[B]

Are you really going to unleash them on me?

[A]

I feel like.

[B]

I think you just did. You just did. Thanks, Tag, Tag.

[A]

Cormac in these. It would be fantastic. There's so much good stuff here.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. No, actually, it's going to be fun. And so what was interesting is the one thing that I didn't actually know about the Darwin Martin house. So Darwin Martin house, built in 1904-1906. Amazing Prairie style home. You look at homes like this and you're like, why are we building stuff like this? Now here we're talking about.

[A]

Because it's too expensive.

[B]

124 years later, right. Or 122 years later, and we're still unable to, like, build things like that. I mean, you. And I've got a friend.

[A]

What do you mean unable? Like, like, what's an example?

[B]

We're not able to, but. But we don't seem to because everybody says, what is the return on your investment? What, like, oh, you don't want to spend that Kind of money. You'll never get your return on your investment. You're like, investment. This is supposed to be that. Like, this is your home. Love it, give it.

[A]

Like, spend all the money.

[B]

Spend all the money. Like, if you get the return on your investment, great. If you don't, I mean, this is

[A]

one of the things we talked to Anthony Laney about, right? Like the, like, finding even a contractor who's willing to the kinds of things that you're talking about is a huge deal. And then once you find them, it's like you have to really work on maintaining those relationships.

[B]

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So one of the interesting things that I did not know about this house was so it's. It's the. I did know that it was his largest prairie home and not the Companion, but just the prairie home for those who would know Anyway.

[A]

For those who would know. But that was a reference.

[B]

There is A. About 50% of what's there now was not there when they. When the foundation and the university took it over. And they've spent millions of dollars doing a careful restoration, renovation and recreation of the full Darwin house.

[A]

Is that because the original contractor never finished their punch list items?

[B]

True. It just. It. They said that it fell into quite disrepair. It was basically abandoned for years. It was slated for demolition, which just would have been an absolute shame because, I mean, it is absolutely amazing. And we can. Well, I have not posted yet to my Instagram, so it'll be a later gram, but I do, I will post before this.

[A]

I don't know if you know this, Cormac, but Instagram is now strictly a video sharing. No more pictures allowed. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I was not allowed to take pictures. This is another one of those Frank Lloyd Wright houses that you're not allowed to take pictures inside. And I was just like, it was

[A]

because you're the flash on your. Your phone that you're not going to use is going to ruin something or what?

[B]

I. I don't know. I don't know why. I. It is literally one of those things that for some reason I start to go borderline.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Why can't I take pictures? Actually, I joked with. I was more. I was joking with them. Like, they're like, no, can't take any pictures. I'm like, oh, trust me, I understand. I'm like, did you guys ever notice that over there? And everybody looked like, over. And I was just like holding my phone. When they turned back, I'm like, it's not odd, but it could have been like, you're A Jim.

[A]

All a heart attack.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

I mean, if you're teaching them stuff at the end, they should. At least I told them that I

[B]

was just like, all of this, all of this, like, knowledge that I shared with you all, and I still can't take a single interior picture.

[A]

They're like,

[B]

hey, man, come on.

[A]

Should have got that. You should have. Should have covered that up front. Hey, here's what we'll do. I'll do this if you'll let me.

[B]

I will spin some yarn up a stump, pull up a stove, get my little corn cob pipe, and tell you a story.

[A]

So. So what are some examples of the things that we don't build nowadays that you saw?

[B]

Well, examples of. So, okay, I'm glad you actually brought up Anthony Laney's that episode because, I mean, I. I can retract that statement and say, no, we do. We is.

[A]

But it's a small percentage of.

[B]

But it's a very small. It is a very small percentage of we. And even though these were houses that were obviously out of the reach of the common, common home buyer, even back in the day, we are still building for. We still build at that level of craftsmanship for a level of home buyer that is not the common home buyer. And so it's just, it's interesting in a way, in a shameful way, I guess that we're unable to try to figure out a way to kind of make some of like these higher end details more affordable. Now we could say, like, say, for instance, you live in a house, you just moved into a house and you're thinking to yourself, hey, I'd really like to judge this up some. And you could go to Home Depot and buy some detailings and spray paint them gold and then just like plaster them all over the walls.

[A]

I don't know if you can buy that stuff at Home Depot. Well, you can buy it at the thrift store. You could buy it at the, at the.

[B]

No, some of those things that I'm referring to of a specific house that I've seen that more recently happen to you.

[A]

Throwing shade. I. I hear you.

[B]

Okay. Is definitely 100% a Home Depot thing,

[A]

because I was thinking Michael's or Hobby Lobby. Like you buy something. Yeah, that's maybe all of those.

[B]

Yeah, all of those would make sense too. But these are definitely some wood trim. Just.

[A]

Okay, but like, let's throw Frank Gary into the rug right now and talk about his residence in Santa Monica. Like the OG Frank Gehry remodel with the chain link Fence. And his, his comments about. He's like, the neighbors, like, don't like your, how your house looks. And he. Did you ever see that interview?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And he's like, what do you mean? Like, I see chain link fence and I see your boats and your cars and all this crap. And he's like, it's already here. What are you talking. He's in the neighborhood.

[B]

He's like, I'm just using. He's like, I'm just using what's already here, just in a different way. He was just like, I know that everybody hates this, but what, what on my house. Do you not see right there and right there and right there and right there? I mean, right. Come on, like.

[A]

And I loved it.

[B]

I love it. I think it was interesting about that is like, at, at first he was like, oh, he's just like, he'd be pop on car. No, he was being a regionalist.

[A]

He was doing social commentary.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Other. AKA he was putting some zhuzh on his place.

[B]

He was using it up with some chain link and a diagonal up high and corrugated. So corrugated stuff.

[A]

Corrugated metal.

[B]

Yeah. But yeah, so I will say when you, we were talking and we kind of like started this off talking about, like, tabs and all of this other stuff being open and stuff. So at the glass manufacturer's factory, I go in and meeting with like, the senior project manager who kind of like runs all of the jobs and everything else throughout there. And I look into his office. Eight monitors. Eight monitors.

[A]

Wow. Okay, so what, you, you were jealous? What are you saying?

[B]

I was.

[A]

Were you thinking, how can you handle that much information? Like what? I was both eight monitors.

[B]

Jealous, dumbfounded. Had a whole lot of why.

[A]

Yeah, because, because you've talked about, like, this, this, you want the, what was the movie you wanted the Minority Report. You've always talked about this idea of,

[B]

of you've got them.

[A]

You kind of have your magic. You kind of have your magic gloves on right now. You could do some minority reporting. Yeah. Look at you. Okay, so eight monitors. What is going on on eight monitors? Just I, I, I'm mining crypto and, and doing day trading and watching sports bets and, and then got some cameras on the floor at the factory and Gantt charts and you would think.

[B]

But it was. I just looked at him like, why, why, why, why so many. He never really, he never really expanded on why so many. Just like, he's productive that way. Like, all right, like, I am now regretting me.

[A]

Look at me.

[B]

I'm Looking at.

[A]

I'm looking at all my eight monitors.

[B]

I am now. Okay, that. I have three.

[A]

Fair enough. Here, I've got four, five, six. I have seven on my. I have eight on my desk. They're not all on.

[B]

Right. So I have.

[A]

Which is. I know that sounds crazy.

[B]

Three works. So if you want to. Really. Because I've got three work monitors that I put work on, then I have an iPad on. An iPad on a stand that if I need to do something like, I don't know, Netflix or whatever. I mean, work. Sorry, work. Did I pronounce that wrong?

[A]

How do you say it? Yeah, how do you make sure you said it right? Yeah, I'm sure you said it right.

[B]

And then, and then my phone. So like, if we want to talk about.

[A]

Oh, I didn't even count the phone.

[B]

Yeah. Then now you have what, nine.

[A]

I didn't count the iPad either. Geez.

[B]

Whoa. Now how much got a problem here?

[A]

10. I just went from 8. I didn't count the little screens on the cameras. I don't, I don't think those really count.

[B]

One of the things that I saw at this factory, and I should drop the name of the factory. But then the problem is, is that the one thing that I'm about to start talking about, they said they will never do again and or don't want to do. But I'm like, but you can do it. And everybody wants this.

[A]

So you're going to peer pressure them. I'm thinking if you, if you.

[B]

Oh, I, I. So they are one of the only people that can do a truly mullionless, fully corner glazed IG unit.

[A]

Okay. What does that look like? It looks so it's fully beveled. Fully beveled with.

[B]

It looks as if. And I wish that I actually had the.

[A]

But they won't get out on my

[B]

computer to like, they won't confirm this.

[A]

They wouldn't confirm this if you were to.

[B]

They, they did it for a couple of special things that they were sort of like, is an internal project. And so they created them. And I'm looking at them like insulated corner glazing. I In like, look, we all try to do corner glazing and all this other stuff we tend, tend to now have, like, it's either a. Not a insulated unit or it's a structural unit or it's a mold unit. Right. With the corners coming together on the outside. But you have a mullion on the inside. But never have I seen where you're staring at the corner of the glass. And there is nothing but a real thin line that you can barely notice when you're staring through.

[A]

So is it. Is there a seal between the layers at that corner, or is it.

[B]

Oh, yes. Wow. No seal.

[A]

So there's no vertical line, except for just how the glass is coming together.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So they actually manufacture it and they put it all together and it is. It is a unit.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

In its final kind of state.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So it doesn't get glazed at the mold at the corner on site.

[B]

Absolutely. And now I'm going to have to. Just for you. And then we might have to sneak it into this episode and then call them out and let every. Cocaine Brothers. I want one of those.

[A]

I can imagine why they don't want to do it. I mean, it sounds super risky.

[B]

It is. Well, it is a. It. Not only do they have to certify it and everything else which they do

[A]

to warranty it, they install. It'd be a pain in the ass.

[B]

All of the above. All of the above. Now, could I have seen an absolute exact. Like, in my current project right now? I could have absolutely used that. Because what's the premium on this? Yeah. I mean.

[A]

Yeah, you. Yeah, I could spend all. Spend someone else's money big time on these kind of things.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

So have you seen any of these in the wild, or did you actually spot a unicorn here?

[B]

Oh, no, this is a unicorn.

[A]

Okay. All right. That's cool. Look at you.

[B]

Check your phone.

[A]

All right.

[B]

And that is a complete and utter unicorn.

[A]

Should I hold it up to the screen? I mean, you're. Oh, my God.

[B]

Right? Whoa.

[A]

I'm surprised they even let you out of the building with this photo on your device.

[B]

Oh, I told them. I'm like. I was like, I have got to do that. They're like, well, we don't really want to do it anymore because of, like, it's pretty involved.

[A]

I'm like, I mean, if they charged five times what they charge and people

[B]

wanted it and what they're. From the corner, they can go back five feet before you hit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Dang. And so this is dual glaze. Just dual do. They only do.

[B]

They can do triple glazed. They can't.

[A]

Wow. And they can do, like, a printed four in there. Not that you would want to mess up, that you wouldn't want to cover

[B]

the view, but you could do. Size of the glass that they have in this place is incredible.

[A]

That's one of the coolest innovations in the last, what, 20 years is just the size of the. I actually had A guy on the Troxel podcast who is a structural engineer and we were talking about cable net structures and structural glazing and all this stuff. And he was like, this is one of the coolest innovations because of a lot of work that Apple's done in this space. I mean we've been to the Chicago store and the Fifth Avenue store together,

[B]

helped innovate the glass for those stores.

[A]

Nice, nice.

[B]

They're doing the, they're doing the, the glazing for the Federal Reserve skylights, which are the big massive sheets of glass. I just sent you a couple of photos of like glazing.

[A]

Why is my phone buzzing?

[B]

Okay, your phone is buzzing because there's a lot of. I'm showing you some glasses.

[A]

Nice glass.

[B]

Yeah. And so the lab, there's a lot

[A]

of glass under this roof.

[B]

There's a lot of glass under this roof. And it is, I mean it is just, it's amazing what they can do. They're showing us structural like glass stringers

[A]

with how big are these ovens that they've got? Huge, huge.

[B]

Easily talking, easily talking about like four story tall, like so what, what size

[A]

sheets can they do nowadays?

[B]

So the largest.

[A]

Never mind logistics, like getting it to the site. That's got to be a whole other

[B]

thing that like the logistics of getting it to the site. You're like, how do you get a piece of glass like that, like that tall, like to, to these sites? And I, I, why am I blanking on the. I know it was like 310 inches by something and I completely forgot now.

[A]

So that's like 24ft.

[B]

Ish.

[A]

I don't know, like bigger.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

25ft.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like so you would very much mathing,

[B]

you would very much expect that when you have like when you go to these like shops that like the first thing that you see is them actually showing the glass, showcasing it in their building. And sure enough, you walk right in, their lobby is built out and it's got these large, massive, large format glass. That's all they do. They don't do like little small units and stuff.

[A]

They don't mess around.

[B]

All they do is large format glass. And it is incredible what they can do.

[A]

There's got to be some and printing amount of pride in that kind of work. Right. When you're really pushing the boundaries of a material, I mean there's got to be a lot of, I mean you got to show it off. That's cool.

[B]

Yeah. So I might as well go ahead and give them a shout out. It's Agnora.

[A]

Agnora.

[B]

Agnora. Ag N O R A. Yep. And that's cool. And they do like. So there was. Interesting. This one. So this, this, I guess, developer was trying to restore a building and it was in. Just outside of Toronto that they were trying to restore a building, this old historic building. Unfortunately, the structure of the foundation they were. It was. Was crumbling and they really couldn't salvage it. And so what they ended up doing was they demolished it, rebuilt a new building. But what they did was they printed on the inner layer of the glass. They printed the old building on top of it.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

And it was. I was just like. At first you're like, why would you do that? But then you look at it and you're just like, okay, I get it. And so the last thing I'm going to do and send you sending me more pictures. I'm going to send you one more picture. Is this what looks like a reflection? Is that cool? So now everybody on who's listening to this is going to need to see all of these.

[A]

They really should have matched up the modules. I mean, they kind of did.

[B]

Oh, they. Please. I mean, don't get me wrong, I. I said the same thing, but just. Come on.

[A]

But then you really thought about it.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so I guess we have to put a couple images for the episode.

[B]

We're gonna have to put a couple of images. So as you like, here's. Here's their like lobby space. As you walk into their lobby space, there's again this one big sheet of glass. Yeah, there's. Yep. No, there is no joint, no nothing. No anything.

[A]

That's nice.

[B]

Just.

[A]

That's nice. And you should remind the listeners where they can find show notes for our episodes that would include pictures like we're talking about.

[B]

You can find those at Arc Speak podcast. And look at the episode of number of this one, which. I don't know which episode number this will be.

[A]

This will probably be 388 is my guess.

[B]

388. And you will find show notes along with photographs and things like that. And if I was prepared enough, I would have probably shared my screen a little bit. But obviously I'm still a little tired from the whirlwind of driving, so get off my back. Hey, geez.

[A]

Arcuspeakpodcast.com you forgot the dot com part because you gotta tell people that it's an Internet address.

[B]

Yeah, that is true. Arch speak.com archispeakpodcast.com look at how tired you are.

[A]

Geez. Put you to bed.

[B]

Do not listen to me. Which pretty much you don't. Anyway, I get it. I get it.

[A]

I mean, how could they not. You talk the whole time.

[B]

I know. That is true. Is Uncle Cormac done yet?

[A]

Nope. It turns out he could. Still talking over there.

[B]

Still got some yards to spin. Still got some yards to spin. But seriously, why eight monitors? Why?

[A]

That seems like, over. Yeah, like I said, I have a lot of monitors here.

[B]

Yeah, but these are like.

[A]

But they're not all monitor. I don't use them.

[B]

Monitor, monitor, monitor, monitor, monitor.

[A]

That's ridiculous.

[B]

And that's not.

[A]

But I mean, that's what it costs to do innovation, to have eight monitors you. You want to do. Why. Why isn't it. Why can't they innovate these monitors and make one giant. I mean, they. Well, you buy a big tv, but a TV is not a monitor.

[B]

Yeah, but the whole thing about it is, is you. You want the partitioning of, like, all of that. You can do that on, like, the smaller ones that do. Like the. Where you can have, like, three monitors on, like, that curve, the long curved one. But that's still.

[A]

Yeah. You know, maybe I just don't have experience enough with those to see the value. But I. I. Every time I see those, I think, no, no, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. You know why I like cheap monitors? Because I can replace them with another one that's cheap.

[B]

Cheap monitor. Yeah, because so you can. Expensive monitor. So you can spend more time and money on the guitars behind Jedi.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Right?

[B]

I mean, priorities. Right, Priorities. That and conversion and.

[A]

I can't. Toolboxes and things like that.

[B]

Yeah, Toolboxes.

[A]

Yeah. We should talk about that. Maybe on the next episode, we can talk about stuff I've been doing away from the computer.

[B]

Step away from the computer.

[A]

Like. Like mowing grass and weed. Whacking.

[B]

Getting poison.

[A]

No, no. Actually, other fun stuff is the season.

[B]

Have you started with your poison oak adventure?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, for sure. I've got it, like, three. Three times already. Yeah, it's. There's an insane amount of poison oak here this year. It's like a bumper crop of poison.

[B]

This is. This is our first real week where we've spent mostly the entire week over 50 degrees.

[A]

Oh, so we've had a cold. We've had a lot of rain this week, which is weird. We thought. We thought that spring was over. It really was feeling like summer already. And now we're. We're solidly back into spring, so that's good, because it's definitely not summer yet.

[B]

Yeah. We're really hoping that we don't go from the winter to jumping right into summer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because that always sucks.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Especially on the West Coast.

[A]

Drought coast. Yeah.

[B]

But you guys don't have humidity, right? It's dry heat.

[A]

We have more humidity here, but. Yeah, I know, it's really dry. We have more than we used to have in Southern California. More humidity. We've got 30 to 40% here. We're down there. We had very little.

[B]

But.

[A]

Yeah, it's still a dry heat.

[B]

We get all the humidities here.

[A]

Yuck. Gross.

[B]

Gross.