Detailed Podcast: BAHA Hybrid Office Kit-of-Parts Design

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Welcome or welcome back to Detailed, an original podcast by ARCAT. This is the show where we uncover lessons learned to
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help you navigate your next project. I'm Charice Lakesside, senior specification writer at RDH Building Science and your
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host. My guests today, two guests are Paul Cooper, AIA lead AP DBIA
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principal, and Amy Stock, NCIDQ lead GA associate, both with T.E.F.
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design in San Francisco, California. Paul launched his architecture career at just 16, sparking a passion that has
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driven more than three decades of thoughtful, impactful design. Today, he continues to blend creativity with
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structure, guiding clients and teams through complex projects with a focus on
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clarity, collaboration, and excellence. As a solutionoriented leader, Paul
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excels at aligning stakeholder visions, harnessing the unique strengths of
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interdisciplinary teams, and navigating the intricate details that bring bold
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ideas to life. Amy is an interior designer who combines creative vision
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with strong technical discipline, shaping interior environments that feel purposeful, cohesive, and inviting. Her
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work spans workplace, education, and wellness projects where she brings a collaborative approach and a deep
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understanding of how materials, furnishings, and spatial planning shape the user experience.
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At the core of her work is a belief that carefully considered human- centered interiors can meaningfully change or
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enrich daily life. The project we're talking about today is the Bay Area Headquarters Authority or Baja Work
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Adaptation, also in San Francisco. Following the initial workplace buildout
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of the Bay Area Metro Center, the Baja Hybrid Office represents a continued
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investment in adaptability, an evolution shaped by changing work patterns rather
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than a fixed end state. Through workshops and stakeholder engagement,
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TEF gathered insight into daily workflows, uncovering opportunities to
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better align the environment with how people actually use it. This collaborative process informed the
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development of a quote unquote kit of parts, a flexible system of spatial
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strategies that could be deployed, rearranged, or expanded over time. Now,
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let's get into the details.
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Welcome or welcome back to Detailed. My guests today, I'm super excited are Paul
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Cooper, AIA, lead AP DBIA, which I find very interesting by the way, principal
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and Amy Stock, NCIDQ. You guys got lots of letters. lead GA associate both at
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TEF Design in San Francisco, California. The project we're going to talk about today is the Bay Area Headquarters
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Authority or Baja Work Adaptation, also in San Francisco, one of my favorite
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cities. Paul and Amy, how you doing today? Great. Great. Exciting to be here.
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Uh I'm excited to have you both. Um excited to talk about this project. I
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like to warm up my guests a little bit with an icebreaker question and they
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those questions are all over the board depending on my mood the day I wrote your script really honestly and I don't
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know why this popped into my head but I I was thinking to myself I've never asked a get guest this before. So, I'm
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going to ask you guys, if you had the opportunity to give a TED talk, which I
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always thought would be fun to do, what would your topic be? Yeah, I was thinking about this. You
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know, TED talks are kind of forward or looking into the future about that. So,
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I was thinking about, you know, maybe how the common architect is approaching
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AI. You know it is I'm not an expert but I
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can tell you that I've already seen a lot of transformation in our industry. You know when I started uh college there
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was a computer lab. When I ended everybody got a computer on their desk. I was the last person to take the exam
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by hand. Uh and uh and then I was thrust into AutoCAD and Revit and now AI. So I
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think I would love to just have a discussion about where is this taking us? uh and uh is it that transformation
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which is a tools transformation or is it really a knowledge transformation about
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how we're going to do our process and do our practice? I I love that because this is a hot topic in the industry right
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now, you know, and I've played with it some um for for writing specs. So far,
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it's not where I need it to be to feel comfortable with the information I'm pulling from it. Um, but it grows on its
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own over time, which is also a little scary. So, I would come to that TED talk. I would to I would totally come to
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hear your because I'm not an expert either. And I it sounds like we're probably around this in the same age
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group because my first office in this industry had one computer on a desk and it was a Tandy
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from Radio Shack, you know, that that Amy's probably never even heard of.
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Never heard of it. He didn't she didn't lead into Amy's what she's doing, but the the somebody that did computers at
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my first office knit while she did the computer. So, she would do one thing, it took so long, and then she would do a
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stitch and then she would do another thing. Her name was Phyllis. It was great. Oh, I had to write code,
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literally write like basic language. Goss. Yeah. um to make a line bold and I had
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to put that code at the beginning of the line at the end of the line to make like that title line bold. Oh, it was
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horrible. We've come it's it's really interesting to look like there's ne like
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now I wouldn't even write specs in Word like oh just the thought of that I would
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not if I'm not using my database driven software to write specs I'm not working
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for you know I mean that's just it's it's amazing how far we've come. Um, Amy, I'm
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curious because we've got a couple of different and I love having a multi- two
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guests from different generations. What would you do a TED talk on? Yeah, I um I would do it about how
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design principles apply across different scales. Paul kind of alluded to it, but
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in my free time, I like to design and sew clothing. And so as I do interior
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design for my job during the day and do that in my free time, I'm noticing more and more parallels and design concepts
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that apply to both things like proportion and structure and materiality. And it's all related to the
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human body, how we occupy space, how we move through space, form following
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function that's absolutely applicable for buildings and rooms and clothes at
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all different scales. So, I would kind of dive into what are those similarities, what applies to both, and why. I just think it's interesting.
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And, you know, I love that. And you'll love this. A previous firm that I worked for had this huge they had they had
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built their own six-story building and had this huge grand opening party. Probably the most amazing
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party at a firm I've ever been to. Um, but
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they did a whole theme through the party where they had mannequins all throughout the party with clothing designed around
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major projects they had done. Oh, wow. And it was it was just every and
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then they have a little, you know, plaque narrative next to, you know,
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whatever mannequin and whatever outfit they were wearing kind of just showing the building and describing
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kind of that that process. And it was just a really cool unique thing. They threw the best parties at that firm.
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Amazing amazing parties. Um, but I No, I love that. Um that would probably be
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pretty well received as well because it's different. You know, we see a lot
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of times the conferences and things we go to. It's kind of like, oh gosh, we got another speaker on that topic.
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Let's shake it up a little bit. But that's why I love working with younger people, which I do a lot.
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Um so you better call me when you're doing it because now I'm going to be looking for it. Go submit right after
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this interview. Go submit that TED talk. I know we should. Uh you absolutely should because I think it would be
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interesting. So let's talk about this project before we get into specifics about the actual project itself.
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Um give me a little background on the client. So, uh, the client was really NTC, which
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is, you know, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and they oversee the bridges in San Francisco.
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and Steve Henninger who was the head of that at the time gathered up the air
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district and Abag which is the government they did like insurance and
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things like that and the BCDC which does the bays so uh bay conservatization and
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development commission and so he was like this brainchild of like we have these nine counties
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I have a planning department they have a planning department the other agency has a planning department and they're
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talking all the time, why can't we put them in the same place? So, his vision was to get them in the same place and he
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found this building in San Francisco and that was really the impetus for all of
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this. And he wanted to promote collaboration and really making the
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resources better for the government around the Bay Area. I mean, really, that was a core piece of the mission.
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Wow. Oh, and look at you all hitting two questions at once. Thank you. No,
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we get going. You know, I Oh, no. I trust me, this is a broad scope. You
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guys haven't seen me come in with a a rabbit hole question yet that you don't even know is coming.
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Okay, so there there's a lot of cool things going on here, but let's just start broadly.
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Describe describe the overall scope of this project. So, I would say uh I'm gonna go back. I
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would say that there's four scopes. So, Amy will talk about the last one. Okay. So, the first one is we redid we did the
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top four floors of the building uh for government agency
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and the building was originally a armory uh like they compile tanks there like
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things. So, they had trains coming in the basement. It's a very concrete. Uh the floor tofloor underside slide was
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only 10 foot one. So it was a lot to get in there. Then it was a post office. Then it was this building. And uh really
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that was the first project. The second project was really the uh teascal room which is
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something you've asked us to talk about and we can talk about that in depth kind of later. I guess there's three maybe
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because I lumped together the first two phases and then there's the hybrid which Amy can give you a over overview of.
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Yeah. Yeah. The hybrid pilot they really wanted to study how can we improve some
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of these existing spaces they have in the building to work better for their new hybrid work policy. The pandemic
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happened everyone went home. Everyone was working from home and they were implementing a new hybrid policy coming
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out of the pandemic which we are all familiar with. uh where people were
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required to come into the office two or three days a week. And those days weren't assigned. So some days would be
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certain groups of people, other days would be other groups of people, but it wasn't like Monday through Wednesday
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everyone's in person. It was kind of a little bit more random. So they were looking at certain conference rooms,
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certain private offices, some of open office spaces and collaboration spaces and wanted to understand how can we
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improve these to work better for the new model of work and specifically hybrid
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collaboration. So I'm particularly interested in that. I mean I'm not at work. I went I went
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home during CO just like everybody else did and I never left home again.
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um you know the office a lot not everybody but we have some hybrid people. We have some people especially
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our younger professionals are in the office full-time and it but it made more
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actually more sense for me to work from home because of working for multiple offices and on calls like this all the
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time. Um, but I'm kind of, you know, and I've never thought about it before until I got your project description that that
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that's been a polar shift, you know, and it's affecting architecture in a lot of ways. Like one of the things we're
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seeing here in Portland is people trying to find ways to convert office space into like condos
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to get because we have housing shortage and so many people didn't come back to
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work at all. And so the ones some came back hybrid so that people are using a
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lot less office space. So your project description said you
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partnered with Baja to reimagine their workplace for this hybrid future. And so
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I started thinking to myself, okay, how do you plan for that? What
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what kinds of things are you are you thinking about in in respect to your
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design to accommodate a hybrid situation? I mean, I have a few ideas,
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but I'm guessing that I didn't have to think about any anywhere near as many as you did. So, so what what is that design
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process look like in your head? Yeah, I think I'd like to also take a step back. I think they set it up when
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they originally did it. So, we had four agencies with four different space
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standards, different size office requirements, different size open office, and they had people that were
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coming out of offices going into workstations and people in workstations going into offices. So, there was a big
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change management piece that was going on. And so basically
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offices uh got basically smaller, workstations got bigger, workstations
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were put near the light, offices were ringing the light, you know, around the office space and they were concerned
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about equity at the beginning. This is 2012 that they were concerned about it.
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So it started there and then I think it was a natural evolution to after when
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they were like okay we want people to come back now it's not do we want equal between the offices and the workstations
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it's we want work we want equity between the people that are at home and the people that are here. So I think Amy can
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go into details about what we did about that but that was really setting the table for this uh this project.
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So, ex I'm Okay, first rabbit hole question. Um, I knew it wasn't going to
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take long. When you say equity between people in the office
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and people at home, how do you address that in in in your design? Obviously,
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I'm at home, right? So, I think I don't count in what you're planning for the office, correct? Or or not.
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Well, partially through the technology and how it's designed and I would also say how the room is designed and how the
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people in the room appear on your screen. That's how you connect it to the remote attendees. So, it has to do with
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lighting. It has to do with furniture configuration. It has to do with the technology. What height is the camera at
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versus the people's eye height in the room. I think people came back to the office after working from home and
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realized that the old setup of these conference rooms and how the conferencing technology worked, some
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people didn't show up on screen. You couldn't hear people in the back of the room if it was a larger conference room.
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So there are ways to kind of bring in the remote employee and make it a more equitable experience for them and for
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the people who are actually in the room. So imagine you have a big conference room. It has an oval table, right? We
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cut that table in half the lengthwise and put the TVs on the wall and people
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sit there now. And then we didn't say, "Oh, people are going to sit behind there and sit low." We raised the tables
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behind there, a ring table so that people could see. So, we're trying to create uh connection
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and and and I can actually relate to that because we have regular staff meetings. I'm tethered to the Portland
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office even though I'm a corporate employee and so we have regular staff meetings in Portland and it's a
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challenge um with our with the current and and you know they're looking at some things to do with our space but with
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what we currently have right now. We have a long table. I can't hear the people in the back of
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the room. The microphones only are in a couple spots on the table. So if you're not right next to one of them, we're
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often in the chat going can't hear you. can't hear you. Um, or if there's a lot
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of chatter, you can't hardly see anybody at all except for who's at the front of the table, you know, as far as like
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looks on their faces, things like that. So, I could I can certainly relate
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relate to that and it's not something I would have I don't think ever would have crossed my mind if I was thinking about
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like what do I have to think about differently in an office space when it's a hybrid environment. I don't know that
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that ever would have crossed my mind. And I think part of the way we got to
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that conclusion, I mean, we didn't start the project and think about that immediately either, but it was a really
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collaborative process with the client. We held workshops and we really got into the nitty-gritty of what are the
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challenges when you're trying to use these rooms again. And I think we had really insightful users in the rooms who
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could identify, hey, when I'm at home, I can't people hear the people who are sitting in the back of the room or I
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can't see the people whose backs are to the monitors now. So that already gives
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us implications about how the acoustics need to be designed and how the furniture needs to be oriented in the
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room. So, I think we got really great specific feedback from the client about what wasn't working that really directly
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impacted how we designed the spaces for them. Yeah. And I think our discussions also went to it's not only being hybrid, it's
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having the hybrid people come in. So, we would we took like four workstations and made more of like a bullpen where people
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would come and be able to meet in a table in the center and have technology and those people would come in and be
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like, "Okay, I'm meeting with those people." and then when they go back they feel more connected to people. So it was it was a whole discussion about how
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things how you build teams how you build collaboration uh and that was and that came a lot out
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of the surveys also. So I find that interesting like one of the reasons I don't go into the office
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more often you know they have there's an empty desk I can go work at but I have like this command center. I've got four
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screens. I've got all these different pieces and parts that I need all day every day because of working
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across a bunch of different offices and and when I go in I have to just have my
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little laptop and I need an absolute minimum of two screens just to lumber
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by. I need all four to be super efficient and and so,
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you know, for me it's actually slowing down my work product. So, one of the
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things you talked about and Amy just alluded to a little bit um was a
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collaborative visioning process with the client. And
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so tell me more specifically how how you navig and you've got you
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know different people and different needs going on here as well. How you how you navigated that and and like dig into
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that one a little bit more. Yeah. Um
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I would say you know we were working with multiple different agencies who were going to be using some of these
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shared spaces. So, in order to make sure whatever we designed would work for all of these different groups, we had to
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meet and hear from all of these different groups to make sure we understood their unique challenges in
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each room for how they use it for their meetings because some of these different agencies
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meet differently than the other agencies. So we had a workshop with all
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four agencies understanding when you came back to work. What were the
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challenges you ran into when you started to try to plug into your desk or use a phone room or use this meeting room
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again in a way that supported their hybrid work. So we started with a workshop and then we reported back what
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we heard from them. We also did surveys, questionnaires, more in-depth
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interviews. We really dug into the needs of every individual group and after each
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session we would present back to the group here's what we heard. Can you verify that this aligns with what you
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think you told us? I think part of this was also site observation. A lot of
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people, you know, we brought up the concept of maybe going to shared private offices instead of each person having
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their individual private office if they weren't going to be in the office every day. And understandably they were not so
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keen on that idea. You know, once you kind of move into a position where you have the status of earning your private
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office, we were very understanding that they didn't want to go that way. So, we
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wanted to come up with another creative approach of, hey, when you're not in the office, how can we adjust this room with
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some minor tweaks to make it usable for the people who are in the office to use it as a small meeting room? um so that
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we can kind of enable the other workers in the office to do their work more
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efficiently but still give you your private office basically. So we would
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present solutions to them based on the feedback that we heard. We would get additional feedback, tie that in,
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present the idea again. It was a very iterative process. And I would say um as
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we're going through it, we also met with their AV and IT team. They have building standards for uh the technology they
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were using and they understood it's time to upgrade some of these things and that might come with working through some
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kinks as we install it. it's a new system for them. Uh, and we also worked closely with facilities to make sure the
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people who are running the room behind the scenes with it, maintaining the room, making sure the solution worked
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for them, but also for the people who would come into the room and use it for work and for meeting.
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Yeah. And and then the collaboration just continued into the pilot program. So then we actually did it
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and then we actually asked for feedback after that. So it was collaborative all the way through. And I don't know if
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they've made adjustments after the feedback, but I know that technology continued to be the biggest hurdle.
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I'm I'm curious. I did the fir the first 22 years of my career, I did public work.
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And any public project, and this is not not a slam, any public project typically
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has a lot more cooks in the kitchen. Oh, yeah. from from even if it's just a
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single agency, right? Um you know, they're spending taxpayer dollars, they're
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accountable to that. There's a whole different set of rules when you're, you know, designing and bidding and
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everything you do with public work. Um
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I am trying to picture four agencies getting getting on the same page. Did
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you have any um any things that like there was a little bit of
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No, we don't agree. Oh, for sure. And I would say for sure at the beginning
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uh so we did a very interesting so you know let's say 2012 2013 we did a very
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interesting kind of um I don't know it's not get to know you but kind of process
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with the four agencies. We had all the executives together and we had culture cards. So, there were photos of people
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like somebody walking on top of a bridge, somebody uh holding a spiderweb
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together, somebody rowing together in a boat, right? And we said to each of
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these people, you pick the card that identifies the culture of your agency.
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And then we put those up. It was super interesting. and they talked about why
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they picked what they did and that was a huge insight for us. Uh you know to
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understand one of the agencies was very open open agency very equal very kind of
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one of them was super hierarchical uh and had a huge lots of issues and we
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found out at that time and one of them really felt like they were just in a space in a high-rise and it had been
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shoved into their space and that's what they dealt with. So there were lots of different kind of ways people were
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approaching that but I would say at that point we kind of were able to okay can we all get on the same page with this
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and I really think it was the leaders that helped do that and that led and that leads till now till the hybrid
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project. I mean that kind of culture was created and then it's continued. Um, it
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doesn't mean that people haven't, you know, put up film on glass that we've been like, "That's not supposed to be film on the glass." And that people
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haven't, you know, moved pieces of furniture that were like, "Why are you moving that piece of furniture?" And, you know, that people aren't doing
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things like that. Um, but everybody buys in in general to let's work together.
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Let's have collaborative space. They condoize the building. So the spaces
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that they are shared, they have agreements between agencies on who's going to clean it, how it's going to be
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cleaned, how they use it, what the hours, you know, so they really thought about it and really laid out a great
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structure. Well, that's so you just threw two things out there that I mean I've seen
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every once in a while I have a guest on the show and I see I've seen it at a past form I work for where they did this
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just weird little workshop for for lack of a better term at the moment um to
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like dig into who who really are you. There's it's one thing to sit there and
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say I need to have four screens on my desk. It's it's another to dig into because
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every every company, I don't care what kind of company you are, has its own
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personality, right? Its own vibe, its own culture. Some is better than than the other. But I love
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hearing about these kind of unique unique ways that
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architects get people to come to the table and work together. And I've never heard
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of anybody condoizing. I'm going to steal that. I'm going to use that condoizing,
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you know, when you have multiple different groups. Yeah. You know, agencies in this case in one
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space, that's a great way to handle it. Yeah. The other design component that was super fun to do in the original
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project is we actually did a stair between all the floors. Agencies were on different floors. Some of them were
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mixed. and we put a 9count map on the stair and we got input on all their
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inputs on how should this be how should this be designed and so they I they all kind of got invested in that piece of
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the project which was great. So, you also talked about a customizable
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quote kit of parts. You know, I got Lego pictures of Legos
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in my head. Okay. I can put move these around any way I want. Explain to me in
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in in this instance, in this project, what that means.
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Yeah. So, our charge was really to renovate these rooms without tearing down walls, without gutting the space
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and starting fresh. So we looked at what are the components we can affect in these rooms without starting from
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scratch. And that includes furniture, acoustics, technology, and lighting. And
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I think those also came out of those workshops with the client understanding that's where a lot of their challenges
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were coming. Anyway, um so the goal of the hybrid project was to address kind
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of the typical room types that repeat throughout the building. So once we came up with the right solution for those
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four components in each room type, hypothetically it's something that could be repeated through the building if this
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was something that they wanted to do in the future. Um so I would say it's kind
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of a Lego per room type. You know, if you're thinking about a small conference room versus a large, you obviously can't
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use the same type of table in each. And you have to think about the existing room configuration. is the door in a
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place that's prohibitive for the perfect Legos to lay out in that specific space. So there is a bit of understanding the
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existing conditions and working with that. So I think our toolbox really became those four major categories of
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furniture, technology, acoustics and lighting. And then we tried to address
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kind of a typical room type addressing those items uh which ideally could be
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kind of copy and pasted and adjusted as needed through the building. And it also was in the open office
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space. So not just in kind of an enclosed room, but like if you have four workstations, this is what you can do.
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If you have two workstations, this is what you can do. Here's a phone booth that we, you know, that you can insert
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into a corner if you want it. or here's a chair that you can sit in that has a high back that you can swivel that you
31:04
can put in. So, we were really, you know, uh trying to maximize the use of the spaces with these kind of kits and
31:11
parts and give them the options to say, "Hey, we need more here."
31:16
It's kind of like going shopping. I'll take one of those, one of them. Exactly. Exact. And they wanted to they
31:22
wanted to make sure that what what they were doing was going to be the best
31:27
thing to do. Right. So if you would renovate the whole space and all everything, you'd be investing all this
31:33
money. This was a way for them to invest money, see how it works, and now and
31:38
then do the next. Okay, we're going to do that again to here and here. So I have to ask this question. This is
31:45
only my personal opinion. So listeners, please don't fry me online. Are we over
31:51
the o open office thing yet? Are we even moving? Are we moving away
31:57
from it yet? I think it can be designed better than
32:02
what we're used to seeing. I think that's the key. There is an economy of
32:08
space. When you have open space, you can get this many people into it that you can't really get with private offices.
32:15
And I understand renting out your space, you need a certain amount of efficiency of how many people you can fit in there.
32:21
But part of the goal with the hybrid pilot as well was to give agency or choice to the people in the office. So
32:29
if you're sitting at your desk and you get sick of hearing other people talking, here are four other spaces you
32:34
could go to that have different vibes, for lack of a better word, for you to go work in. Whether it's a phone booth, do
32:41
you need complete acoustic isolation and heads down time? Or do you want to move to a lounge space that feels a bit more
32:48
like a coffee shop, but it's tech enabled? So you're not just floating there waiting for your laptop to die.
32:54
You have a monitor you can plug into. You have power. You have the right lighting to take a call from there. So I
33:00
think it's more about providing agency of choice instead of saying this is the only space you can work and you have to
33:07
sit there for eight hours a day when you come into the office which is also creating the home at the
33:12
work which was the discussion we had. People are saying well at home I get to get up and go have my tea and look out
33:18
the window. Uh, and so if you want me to come in, you've got to create these different spaces uh that you know are
33:26
are not exactly like home but more mimic it. I feel like that's always been a a
33:32
challenge particularly in architecture firms. Um,
33:37
but depending on the kind of work you do is you you need that team environment. You need to be able to have your younger
33:44
people learn from your older people. There's a lot of things that an open office has to offer.
33:50
But on the flip side of that, if you stand next to my desk one more time and have a conversation,
33:57
when I'm doing this super technical, concentrated work, I'm you might be
34:03
wearing my coffee. I mean, you won't be, but that's what's that's what's going through my head to make me feel better.
34:08
Um, you know, it's it's so I am just I I bought these in one office
34:14
I work for. I bought those big ear muff things that you you buy like when you
34:19
shoot guns. I I don't shoot guns, but I bought those kind of ear muffs because they block out
34:25
everything. So, just so I could work, you know, at at a previous firm um
34:31
because everything was open there and there were only a few private offices for the the principles. And it's it's
34:37
such a double-edged sword. And I don't know how we get to a place where you can accommodate
34:44
both and and not have it drive you insane. But that's another reason I like
34:49
working. I'm probably good to be working at home in all honesty. And I and I
34:54
drive but on the flip side of that, I drive everybody else around me in the office when I when I'm in the office
35:02
crazy as well because I'm working with 15 offices, right? I'm on calls all the time and there's no
35:09
escaping the people around me, you know, and and
35:14
I have to collaborate with my teams and and so I understand that I'm also part of the problem in in that environment.
35:21
Um Yeah, but I think you really you you really pinpointed something that I don't
35:27
really know where we're headed, but the the younger generation is losing out if
35:32
they're not here or if they're not in in the office. I think that that is something that we really should be
35:38
thinking about. Well, and I think a lot of firms are because I hear I hear about that quite a
35:45
bit that um they are but it you can't let all your senior people
35:52
stay home, right? And have your younger people in the office because we all know in this
35:57
industry that we all work in. Yeah. Your growth comes from, you know, you
36:02
learn how to design in school. Yeah. Uh for you guys, I'm not an architect. Don't don't pretend to be one. U but you
36:10
know you you learn wherever you learn the basics of what you have to do or you guys learn how to design in school and
36:16
then you go into a firm and you go wait what's all this other stuff I'm supposed to know how to do right and and you it's it's a it really is
36:23
even though we don't have quote unquote apprenticeships in this industry that's what your whole career is like is
36:29
apprenticing with a new project type you're appren apprenticing and and learning how to do a new thing um and so
36:38
that I think the bigger challenge has been making sure the senior people aren't all working from home because you
36:45
know they often get that opportunity are offered that opportunity more often than the younger professionals.
36:51
Yeah. Because otherwise the younger people don't have those people who've already walked that road to
36:57
collaborate with and and learn from. And I I don't know what the answer is.
37:02
Everybody has to talk to me online because only one of our 15 offices is even in my city. So, you know, we've
37:11
found a way like in a position like mine to continue that kind of collaboration,
37:16
but I I don't know how you guys manage that in design and still have the
37:21
flexibility, but hybrid's really what I'm hearing more often than just straight work from home. Yeah, we're in
37:28
the office Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and we are You have an option on Thursday, Friday.
37:33
Oh, nice. Four day weekend every weekend. I'm kidding. You're hired.
37:40
Yeah. No, no, no. Trust me, that's coming from a workaholic. That's what I would wish it would be.
37:45
Um, let's start talking about some of the individual spaces. So tell me about some of the different
37:53
spaces you had to design and um some of the more unique things you did in each.
38:00
Yeah, so I think we can kind of piggyback off of the example of that conference room where we cut the table
38:06
in half. Um so this was a larger conference room. They call it the Redwood conference room. And it was a
38:13
very typical conference room setup with a oval table, monitors on one wall,
38:18
microphone in the middle of the table, and that's it. Um, so they really needed
38:25
that to be a hybrid enabled space. And one of the biggest issues they were running into was like we talked about
38:31
people being able people who are remote being able to see those in the room on
38:36
the screen and hear them in the room on the screen. And then also we needed to be cognizant that the people in the room
38:43
also need to be able to see each other while being able to see the screen. So
38:49
there were a lot of kind of eye angles to consider in our solution, but we
38:55
really came up with uh creating kind a half round table where all of the people
39:00
in the room are seated around this half round table so they can see each other, but they're seated at a height where the
39:07
camera is mounted at the monitors on the wall and it's basically at the same
39:12
height as your eyes. So those who are on Zoom can kind of see the the faces of
39:19
those sitting at that table more clearly. And when they needed overflow or additional people in the room, we
39:25
added another table at the back of the room. It was all kind of oriented toward the screens because this was a very
39:32
hybrid tech- enabled space that they required. So there was a higher table in the back making sure that anyone sitting
39:39
there was high enough to see over the people sitting in front of them but also within the range for the camera to see
39:46
their faces. Uh we also incorporated microphones all around the room so that
39:52
no matter where you're sitting, you could kind of pick up the audio of whoever was speaking. And we upgraded
39:58
the lighting in the room as well to make sure kind of at all angles people have
40:04
lighting well on their face but also avoiding glare on the screen so that those who are sitting in the room can
40:11
see clearly what's on the screen as well.
40:16
I want one of those. You know when you go into Google Maps and you search for an address
40:21
and then it pops up a picture and you can take your mouse and do like a 360 the whole
40:26
everything on the street. Add that one in next time and then and then call me and let me come to a
40:33
meeting just so I can play with it. You can zoom in on people's faces and uh that that could be entertaining.
40:39
Yeah. Another space you asked about was the teascal room. Mhm. is a space that kind of was a
40:45
precursor to the hybrid and I actually think it caused the hybrid project. Uh
40:51
so it was a space that we did starting right before the pandemic and
40:57
then it had to be completed during the pandemic. It's a space that was in the first floor right off the lobby that had
41:04
been un undone. It was a very tall uh
41:09
space where the trains used to come in and bring materials in. So it was a raw
41:14
concrete kind of space. And they basically, you know, we're talking about just the agency spaces, but they decided
41:20
in the whole building, they didn't have casual space to meet. They didn't have a
41:26
space that had good food service. They didn't have a space to have an all hands meeting. They didn't have a space to
41:32
have celebrations of people retiring. So this space we created had a little
41:39
catering kitchen and it had f four furniture options
41:45
uh to that could you know storage place to move furniture that could do these
41:50
different type of things. So you could have hundreds of people there for the all hands meeting or you could have a
41:55
board meeting or you could just have casual seating and have coffee and serve beer you know serve you know beer at the
42:01
end of the day and so that space I think actually kind of sparked their interest
42:07
in like oh we don't have these casual spaces in our agency space and what if
42:12
we were able to have some of these casual spaces up there
42:18
and so you you purposed fully um in your project description or maybe I
42:24
purposefully picked it out from doing my trolling online of your project as well, but you purposely pointed out that room.
42:32
Um and so now I understand why they did it. Did you do any special unique like I'm
42:39
I'm trying to all those uses like furniture is one that pops into my head and where do you put away the stuff you
42:45
don't need when you're doing a different kind of meeting and I would imagine with that
42:50
many different uses you had to really put some thought into that. Yeah, the technology was a challenge. We
42:57
had uh you know uh all the angles we're talking about for views. We had to put some linear TVs on columns so that
43:04
people could see because it was an existing space. Uh, one interesting thing of that space and of other spaces
43:10
was that the bar was actually made out of wood that was the piles from the bay the original Bay Bridge. Uh, and so it
43:18
had this great kind of uh wood uh, you know, brown kind of hune like it was in
43:25
water. It was it was great. Um, you know, it was really the similar things that we did the conference rooms. It was
43:31
lighting, it was uh technology, it was we did have a very large furniture
43:37
storage uh to get everything in and the carts to put them in there. So, we had
43:42
to do lots of cart drawings of like in this version, what do you do? In this version, what do you do? And they switch
43:48
it. My, you know, I go to the that building much. I think they mostly go
43:54
between two scenarios. uh they go through one scenario that is basically mostly casual furniture or they have it
44:02
set up with linear chairs and all hands meetings and it's like packed because they don't have that space in the
44:08
building and so that is yeah
44:13
what would you say I I love asking about the things that were hard
44:19
because number one we don't learn a lot from the things that are easy it was easy you know you blow through it and
44:25
you move on. Um, what would you say was the most challenging aspect of the
44:31
design on this project and how did you navigate that those challenges?
44:37
I'd say for the hybrid pilot, one challenging scenario was the open office configuration.
44:43
So, you know, early on we're kind of analyzing what is your standard footprint of a workstation and the goal
44:50
was to reuse as many components as possible and reconfigure them. And I think anytime you're trying to
44:56
reconfigure a standard uh panel and workstation type system, you run into
45:02
challenges, especially, you know, sometimes certain components aren't manufactured anymore. Can you actually
45:08
reuse this panel size with the new plan that you've drawn? So, we worked very closely with the furniture dealer on the
45:15
project. We worked with KBM Hogue, who were great partners on this project. Um, but we really had to dive into the
45:22
details of, hey, here's our ideal furniture configuration. Typically,
45:27
originally, they had the standard kind of spine in the middle for workstations with the panels in front and everyone's
45:34
facing the same direction. And we really wanted to create two packs instead of
45:39
that where the panels were three sides around, you have the workstations inside of it, a space in the middle for
45:46
collaboration, and then a second two pack. So you're taking apart a lot of the components um and not configuring
45:54
them in a way where they were originally designed for. So we reused as much as we could but we had to work very closely
46:00
with the furniture manufacturer to understand do we need to order a new panel size for this configuration. Can
46:06
it stand on its own? How does the power work? we had to coordinate with uh using a connect track type system to make sure
46:13
the power could run to the new configure the new configuration of the workstations which was further away from
46:19
the power source than uh it was originally. So it seems easy to move
46:25
around all of these furniture components but you have to consider getting power there. How do you actually build it? And
46:32
if you are buying new components, how do you make it seem like it's part of what was originally there? uh and that kind
46:39
of thing. So, coordinating finishes, coordinating sizes, all of that. So, there was a lot of kind
46:46
of technical d uh diving into the details just for that piece of the project.
46:51
Yeah, there's nothing easy about that. I don't have to specify those anymore. But, you know, those whole partitioned
46:59
office systems are Yeah, it is challenging. You know, they're
47:04
great if you have a just a ginormous square room. Exactly. But you have, you know, the minute you
47:10
put a door on a wall or there's just so many different things. I like the configuration you chose, by the way.
47:16
The I don't want to be staring at somebody all day. And I worked in an office where we had these stations set
47:22
up and I'm looking directly across at the other speck rider and and I adored the man,
47:28
but you know, throwing spiders at me during the day, plastic spiders and
47:33
Yeah, I don't want to see all day long. Um, but yeah. So, what about you, Paul? What
47:40
would you say that was most challenging? So, I would say, you know, this is not unique to this project. Uh, I would say
47:48
that for the hybrid project, the DSA process was difficult because
47:55
they don't get government work a lot that is this small. So, uh, you know, I had to drive to
48:03
Sacramento and go to the fire marshall for each little thing. And they, it was
48:09
hard for them to understand, you're just doing this. They kept asking me, "You're just doing this? Yeah, we're just doing
48:15
this little thing here, and you're requiring all of this." And so, while it's not the hardest of things, it was
48:22
definitely a challenge. It It honestly seemed easier. We had an easier time
48:27
getting it through DSA when we were doing the floors. I because I did that, too. It was honestly easier. They were
48:33
they were super confused about what we were doing. And uh they were like and
48:39
and and they just it's just not in their wheelhouse to have a government type project come and be like, "We're doing
48:45
this surgical work, right? We're doing just this." And then they're like, "Well, why aren't you showing me everything else?" And I'm like, "Well,
48:51
here's the old drawings and here's here's what it is." in there and so it's
48:57
just not what they're used to. So it was definitely that was a hurdle. It took us a while to get through it.
49:03
Yeah. Because a lot of the work was just getting electrical infrastructure for the new technology system, redoing the
49:10
lighting, but those things need permitted. And so, yeah, when you're looking at a space and saying, "This is all you're
49:16
doing." Yes. It's all we're doing, and it's gonna have a great impact for the user, but we still have to go through
49:22
the entire permitting process for those small adjustments. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that they're used to just being like being able to go
49:28
back all the way to the system, point A to point B. They're not used to looking at a truncated thing.
49:35
Well, I do have to say, um, you are in California. Yes, we are. And um we have offices in
49:43
California and I love California actually. I'll be in Palm Springs in a couple weeks for a
49:48
conference. Yeah. Oh, I know. Oh, you get an invite to a conference in Palm Springs. You do not say no.
49:55
Especially when you're from Oregon and you're ready to see anything that resembles sun. Oh, yeah. Um
50:01
I went to the University of Oregon. Go Ducks. Yeah. Oh god.
50:06
I I I am I I am a human divided because I was always a Ducks fan and then my
50:13
youngest son went to Oregon State. Oh no. And and so I had to become a Beavers fan
50:19
and so now I just cheer for both because he would be mad at me if I went back to fully being a Ducks fan. it. Um,
50:28
but one of the things again having done public work for a really long time, one
50:34
of the most difficult places I've done public work is in California. There are a lot of I have your entire public
50:41
contracting rules on my shelf right behind me because I did one not too long ago. Um, but one of the things I think
50:48
is important for our listeners to understand, regardless of where you are, if you've never if if you're in the
50:55
industry and and not just an an average human that thinks this is interesting
51:00
and you've never done a public project before, before you even provide a fee proposal, you need to figure out what
51:06
that is because it is a completely I'm not saying it's bad, but it's a
51:12
completely different beast. And if you've never done one before, you've got a lot to learn before you're going to get this done. And to add insult to
51:20
injury, it's different in every state. And then within each state, it's diff
51:27
different for every agency. And sometimes you'll have multiple layers. You'll have county, you'll have city,
51:32
you'll have state additional rules added on to the state rules. Uh and it's a lot
51:38
more work to get your contract documents done, get your approvals. There's there's a lot more hoops to jump
51:44
through. I mean, they're interested in the bolts. Yeah. Nuts and bolts. They're interested nuts
51:50
and bolts. Down to every last little piece, right? And that's in every state. It's not just California. I just think California is
51:56
harder than most. Um just finding the rules. It's like where where can I find
52:02
this? But um it is an important thing I think um with any public client is
52:08
there's going to be a more involved because it is incumbent upon that agency to
52:15
spend the taxpayers's dollars. Well, you're always going to put this project out for bid and the low bidder is going
52:20
to get it. You almost always but um so that's an important distinction I think
52:27
to understand too. all those trips you made to Sacramento. Had you never done a public project before, you might not
52:32
have been prepared for that. No. Yeah. Um and that hurts when you figure out, wait a minute, there's
52:38
Yeah. Sometimes hundreds of hours of work more I have to do that I didn't know when I
52:43
proposed a fee. It's always better to get the fee right up front. Yeah. Than to try to ask for those additional
52:50
services later. No, I'll never forget when I did my first project in Chicago
52:56
uh and they uh basically had all these tables set up this early 90s and you
53:02
went and signed in at one table and then you would go to the next and I was like
53:07
waiting and waiting and I couldn't get anything and there was a expediter out in the hallway and he's like what are
53:13
you doing? I'm like well I'm trying to get this project through. was like, "I think you need an expediter." And I was
53:18
like, "No." I was young and I'm like, "No, no, no. I can do this myself. It's no problem." So then the next day, I go
53:25
to him and I go, "Can you please do this? How much do I need to give you to get this through?" That was Yeah.
53:31
Yeah. I don't even care how much you throw a number out. Just let me hand it to you. And And I do think um in
53:39
California that can be at least in in certain
53:46
projects a very valuable thing to do, very valuable. Um, and we don't have those here in
53:53
Oregon, but our rules are I think a little bit more cut and dried um and and
53:59
clear uh than some of the projects at least I've worked on in California. But uh I
54:06
can't I'll say I don't I don't care pick a state any state I've actually done public work in I can't help but think
54:13
every time I wish we could just pay a consultant to do this um be because it
54:20
is you know I know more about public work than I ever wanted wanted to know.
54:26
Um so paint me a picture interior your
54:32
interior material finishes. So, we've talked about some of the pieces and parts in this kit of parts, but like
54:38
right now, pretending I'd never seen a picture of this project or anything.
54:43
What What are the aesthetics? Tell me about some of the more unique interior finishes choices you have. What What do
54:48
you have in there to make me feel warm and fuzzy when I walk in? Yeah, I mean, a lot of these spaces are
54:55
used by executive level people in these agencies. So they really wanted it to
55:00
feel executive level while also having a layer of comfort and almost a sense of
55:06
hospitality in some of them. So we definitely wanted to incorporate wood finishes, some softer materials, um but
55:14
also make sure it really functions for the goals of the room, right? Again, we weren't gutting these spaces. So I think
55:21
all of the interventions that we did had to look aesthetically great. That's almost a given. uh hopefully um but they
55:29
had to function well. So for example, when we're thinking about the tabletop finish in the room for a conference
55:35
room, you really have to consider the LRV, which is the light reflectance value of that surface material. So for
55:42
example, if it's a super dark finish, it'll have a lower LRV value or LRV. And
55:49
if it's lighter, it'll have a higher LV. And if you're thinking about the lighting in the room and equity for
55:55
those who are joining remotely and those who are appearing on screen, you want a lighter colored surface so that more
56:02
light bounces off of the tabletop and onto your face. And that just helps everybody look a little bit brighter and
56:08
have lighting coming from the right direction when most of the lighting is overhead in these kinds of rooms. Um,
56:15
but that being said, we didn't want to use a white laminate finish. So then you have to think about what feels executive, what feels comfortable. So we
56:23
looked at different wood tones. Um, and we ended up using kind of a mid to lighter wood tone to achieve that LRV
56:30
that we were looking for in the room, but without making it kind of a drab,
56:35
dry space in there, too. I got to say, I've never once considered
56:42
never once even thought about that, you I mean, I know what LRV is, but never once thought about
56:49
that consideration being on a finish for the reasons that you needed to. Of course, I've never thought I don't
56:56
know that anybody's really thinking about equity for hybrid work environments. At least
57:02
it's the first time I've ever heard anybody talk about it, which is why I wanted to talk about this project because okay, this is this is different
57:10
and and you've already said so many things that are something to really think
57:16
about. You know, a lot of people are redoing their offices now because of COVID and the the changes that's made to
57:23
the workplace. And these are all valuable tips to be thinking about for
57:28
that. Any other finishes you want to highlight? Yeah, the one that I would uh highlight
57:35
is that when the building was a post office right before we uh had the
57:41
building and uh when I was walking the building with the client at the beginning, there were all these Douglas
57:47
fur bumpers on the wall. They're like, you know, 12-in solid bumpers in all these rooms.
57:55
And they're like, you know, we should use this wood. And so I was thinking about I was
58:01
thinking about it and then when we got into the project I was like you know we could use these for the stair treads
58:07
that go from the fifth floor to the eighth floor. And so the stair treads
58:13
they were remade and plugged where the things are are the thing that they walk up and down to communicate between
58:20
between the uh spaces between floors. That's an interesting way to to sol I I
58:27
was waiting. It's like what is he going to say they use that for? I'm dying to hear what they use that for. Um that's a
58:34
a unique unique way to do it. And you What kind of wood did you say it was? Douglas fur
58:41
but it was so old it like it is a little bit yellowed a little bit orangey yellow. It's a it's interesting. Uh
58:47
yeah, it was and it was really, you know, I I I I don't know when the transition was from the from it, but it
58:55
was mostly uh you know, clear grain. So, it was not
59:00
knotted. Uh it was beautiful wood that was being used as bumpers, but it could have been I I don't remember when it was
59:05
put in, but it could have been put in in like, you know, the 60s or something, you know. So, Well, nothing warms a stair up faster
59:13
than putting wood in it. Yes. and because they're not usually
59:19
warm, comfortable spaces. They're very utilitarian typically. And so I'm I'm
59:26
sure that was a game changer, right? And allowed us to tell the story and it wasn't really, yes, it cost money
59:32
to do it, but it allowed them to kind of add this type of finish. So there was it was a win-win.
59:40
So let's talk about construction a little bit. You know, I mean, I know you guys didn't rip out all the walls and all of that kind of thing here, but this
59:48
all had to come together. There was work that had to be done. And I have never worked on a project that didn't have at
59:54
least one good story during construction or or running into something you didn't
1:00:00
inspect to find or something didn't quite fit the way you thought it was
1:00:06
going to fit, you know, once you're actually getting it in there. Tell me
1:00:11
about the construction phase a little bit and if there were any unique surprises or challenges during
1:00:17
construction that you had to work your way through. Yeah, so the project we had several
1:00:23
rooms kind of scattered throughout the building. The goal was to not localize at all to one area so that certain users
1:00:29
in one area wouldn't have an available conference room to use. So that was part of the approach of the design of the
1:00:36
project itself and the scope itself was making sure people have an alternate
1:00:41
space to use while it's under construction and also of course keeping the construction phase as short as
1:00:46
possible which everyone always wants to do. Um but I will credit field
1:00:52
construction. They were the general contractor on the project. They did a very efficient procurement phase and
1:00:58
really helped us stay on schedule with this project. Uh as we mentioned it was mostly electrical some finishes and then
1:01:06
lighting. I think lighting is where we ran into the most challenges. Um, one
1:01:11
example is there was an existing kind of wood slat ceiling system where we were
1:01:18
trying to reuse the the same wood slat ceiling system, but the way it was cut
1:01:24
in the existing condition wouldn't work with the ideal lighting layout uh for the space to be lit well
1:01:32
for a hybrid environment. So we had to meet with the manufacturer of that
1:01:37
original system, understand how does this go together? Can we replace a few
1:01:42
of these pieces and make it work? We really were trying to reuse as much of the existing components as we could, not
1:01:50
only for financial reasons, but also for sustainability reasons um for this space. And I guess the way it was
1:01:56
constructed was basically tongue and groove so that you had to install one
1:02:02
piece before you could install the next one. So it wasn't an easy slip in one
1:02:07
piece here and fix the issue. Um I think we ended up having to replace the wood
1:02:13
ceiling in there. Uh yeah, so we couldn't reuse all the components that we wanted to just because of the goal of
1:02:20
the lighting of the room. It wouldn't work. But we worked with as much of the existing infrastructure as we could. But
1:02:26
the way it was constructed, we weren't able to adjust it the way we were hoping.
1:02:31
And Amy, I can't remember this. We we have other projects where we're like updating conference rooms and stuff, but I know that the fabric was not made in
1:02:38
some of these spaces also, right? Then so the building, the original
1:02:44
design, it's a really big floor plate and we had zones in the building that had differentiation. So one was urban,
1:02:51
one was bay, one was and they had graphics and colors that were all associated with them. So you know the
1:02:58
color in the conference room helped people to know where they were and then we couldn't get the fabric. So
1:03:05
Right. Yeah. There were existing acoustic panels on the wall which were fabric wrapped panels. So once we
1:03:12
removed monitors from one wall and put them on another, you can't very well reuse those acoustic panels on a
1:03:18
different sized wall. So, we had to put new acoustic panels up there because the acoustics were important to the room and
1:03:25
we needed to have them there. So, the goal was to match the existing fabric, but they don't make that fabric anymore.
1:03:31
Um, so we had to adjust to find a spec that kind of worked with the color of
1:03:36
that zone of the floor plan, but then we ended up having to redo the fabric of the other panels in the room because we
1:03:43
couldn't just match existing. Don't we love those things when they come up? existing conditions.
1:03:50
Yeah. Yeah. Why didn't the spec rider get that? That's what I want to know. I I I don't know. You better tell me who
1:03:57
your spec writer is. I might might know him. Oh, I I I always tell people the minute
1:04:04
you think you're an expert in this business, you should get out of this business. Yes. Because you're never going to be an
1:04:09
expert, you're never going to know everything. I yet when I work with I I teach and speak as well outside of work
1:04:16
a lot and uh mentor a lot of younger professionals and and oftentimes
1:04:23
in different environments that I've been in they'll ask me a question and I'll be like why didn't you ask your PM or you
1:04:31
know oh because I didn't want to look stupid and I'm like there is no stupid
1:04:37
questions the smart person the person I would be looking to promote is the one that asks all the questions, no matter
1:04:43
how stupid they sound, because it's more important to get it right and make sure that you're on the same page and be
1:04:49
efficient. Ask the question. Don't struggle with this for four hours. Oh my god, I hate that. You know, I mean, I'm not saying don't
1:04:55
try to find the answer yourself. But yeah, if if you're not there in a
1:05:02
a reasonable amount of time, come find me. Let me help you get there. Um, right.
1:05:07
Yeah. That keeps on giving. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's I I say that to
1:05:12
my students all the time. Lifelong learner business. Yeah. Just you're going to wake up every
1:05:17
single morning feeling like you know less than you did the day before. Exactly. Not more. True.
1:05:23
Even if you learned 400 things yesterday from this and your projects will teach you the most.
1:05:28
And usually when you screw up, not when you get it right. Um but yeah, no, it's
1:05:34
uh Nope. I very easily could have made that mistake. No, I really do want to go get a drink
1:05:40
with you, though. Well, hey, I'll be I'll be in Palm Springs in two weeks. Yeah. Well, I
1:05:47
I was just I I did an interview the other day and I told my guest, I said, "It's really kind of a shame that I
1:05:53
almost never get to see the projects I talk to people about, you know, unless it
1:05:58
happens to be a project in Portland." And I've done a number of those, like the Portland airport. I flying through
1:06:04
there. I know. Isn't it pretty? best airport in the country. So, don't
1:06:11
think your little San Francisco airport's competing. Just saying. Um, but yeah, you know, I
1:06:18
always tell my guests, if I'm in your city, don't be surprised if you don't get a phone call for me. I want to want
1:06:24
you to show me the building and then we're going to have to actually have that drink. Yes, that'd be great.
1:06:30
I've had a couple of guests say, "Well, we could have that drink right now." say, "You don't want me doing this
1:06:35
podcast with a glass of whiskey in my hand. That would not that would not be pretty."
1:06:41
So, what would you say was your biggest lesson learned? Because I think we learn
1:06:46
a lesson from every project we do. Your biggest lesson learned from this project that made you a better architect, better
1:06:53
professional on the next project. Yeah, I think you know this has been
1:07:00
such a long this has been the longest project I've ever worked on. It's an iteration of projects. We started it in
1:07:06
2012 and I would say that what has made me a better architect is that there have
1:07:12
been, you know, waves of people going through this project and different ideas
1:07:18
and different contractual relationships. And I would say what I've learned is,
1:07:24
you know, I just need to keep I just care about the project. I care about the
1:07:31
people and it just kind of keeps coming back. You know, if you if you put the
1:07:37
energy out there, it comes back to you. And that that's what I've really learned
1:07:42
with this project because before this I mean I had repeat clients but it wasn't
1:07:48
this long of a sustained kind of relationship where you are I mean we've
1:07:54
been working in the building for what is that 14 years. That's a long time. Uh, and so I really
1:08:02
I I I've learned that uh I want to have
1:08:07
these kind of long-term relationships and I want to invest in spaces uh that,
1:08:14
you know, help people to do the work that they do. Well, particularly important in public
1:08:20
work as well. Uh when I did public work, we had clients that we'd worked for for years,
1:08:26
just come back to different projects in different different buildings. Um that way at least you only suffer through
1:08:32
that figuring out how to do public work once. I mean you're always going to have
1:08:37
new questions you have to ask. Um but that's a good point that people change on long-term projects. People come in
1:08:44
and out. People have different maybe different ideas. I've watched whole designs change because the balance of
1:08:50
power changed and the the new person or group coming in are like no that we
1:08:55
don't want that. Mhm. Um I think that teaches you to be patient
1:09:00
and be flexible and not you know and then you can go home and cry in your beer for a while too
1:09:07
and ask questions. Yeah. And and ask them early especially when that happens
1:09:12
like hard stop for a minute. Are are we still in a good place to keep moving for
1:09:18
what we've been working on for five years that you were not here for? Right.
1:09:24
Good advice. Amy, how about you? What did you learn from this project? Yeah, I would say it's the equity piece
1:09:31
kind of what we've talked about a bit because I had not thought about expanding the idea of who are we
1:09:36
including in the idea of an equitable workplace either. So coming out of the pandemic, we're always going to have
1:09:44
hybrid meeting. That's my opinion. Not everyone's always going to be in the same room to meet. and how can we take
1:09:51
the concepts that we've learned from this project about making sure the people who aren't actually in the room
1:09:57
feel equal to those who are in the room within a meeting. So, I've learned a lot of little tricks like the LRV on the top
1:10:05
of uh the work surface in a conference room that I I think it makes sense to
1:10:10
apply to future projects who have collaboration spaces, any kind of uh workspace, even if the client doesn't
1:10:18
come to you with that specific request. Kind of understanding, hey, this is how we can better bring in the people who
1:10:24
work for you who aren't in the office full-time. Well, you are the first guest I've ever
1:10:29
had that has even talked about this. Um, you know, from from that lens, you
1:10:37
know, there's lots of people, you know, doing adaptive reuse or or or building
1:10:42
new office buildings or those kinds of things, but nobody has really talked about this before. So, I would hope
1:10:49
you'll go back, well, especially since it's a longtime client, and say, "Okay,
1:10:54
it's done. You've been in here. you've been doing your thing for a while. Tell me what's working and what isn't
1:11:01
because you kind of you kind of can set yourself up as being an expert here because I mean maybe there's somebody
1:11:06
else talking about it but I haven't heard it yet. Um but you know that's a piece I think we
1:11:12
also miss a lot of the times of really getting that you know after they've been in for a year. um that helps us kind of
1:11:20
like tweak these great ideas on the next one you do because
1:11:25
somebody's going to hear you in this episode and they're going to go, "Oh, we're calling them because we need to do that to our office." Hopefully, that's
1:11:32
that's the goal, right? Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. We actually did do that with this
1:11:39
client. You know, we went back. They've been in these spaces, I think, two years now. uh some of these wrapped up in 2023
1:11:46
2024 and we have gotten feedback. Most of it is positive which is great but the
1:11:53
two biggest challenges or tweaks that I think we've learned that we would adjust on projects going forward would be
1:11:59
lighting especially near monitors. It's typically tough to place a down light near a
1:12:06
monitor in general is what I would say. So working out uh how to properly light
1:12:11
the people in the room while making sure the monitor is clear and in view for everyone who's in the room. And then
1:12:17
technology I think the technology for a lot of conferencing is changing live. uh
1:12:24
there are a lot of new specs out there, new manufacturers who are creating AI enabled conferencing and
1:12:32
I think that's just something that will be trial and error over time unfortunately because technology changes
1:12:38
so fast. I think the goal is to plan for the infrastructure that you might need
1:12:44
in the room that might be able to accommodate future technologies because conferencing technology will continue to
1:12:51
change and evolve. I don't know how anybody keeps up to be perfectly honest. We I feel like
1:12:58
I started in this business in I was just a kid in the the late 80s and
1:13:07
uh from then to now I understand that's been a long time now, but from then to
1:13:14
now it's just like we do so many things that I never would have thought were possible. And I can't
1:13:20
tell you how many times I've watched a project in in a firm I've worked at start and they're they're like thinking
1:13:27
they're future proofing it designing more than they need in technology and by the time it's actually going into
1:13:33
construction you're already behind. Right. Right. Um I I don't
1:13:38
I yeah I I don't know I although I am really interested in that getting that like AI person to do all my meetings for
1:13:45
me. You can do that. that that happens now. I I I could, you know, the hair would be
1:13:51
perfect every day. And I love that idea. Um, so before we get to our our standard
1:14:01
two closing questions, tell me what TEF is up to right now that I get to
1:14:07
call you and have you back on the show to tell me about later. Yeah. So we are really um
1:14:16
well I mean I want to talk holistically about what we actually do. So we have
1:14:21
education projects from prek all the way through higher education. We do community work you know community
1:14:28
centers and nonprofits. We do health care from Stanford to UC's.
1:14:34
We do workplace. We're currently doing Amy's currently doing uh workplace for
1:14:40
Marin Fire, their headquarters in an existing building that is very cool with
1:14:47
uh the you know the uh waffle slab concrete uh and great views through
1:14:54
that. So that is going to be an interesting kind of space that is is coming up. Um, and we're and we also do
1:15:04
uh some housing, but we also have a have a preservation practice that goes across
1:15:09
all of our sectors, you know, and adaptive reuse. So, we do both, you know, that difference. And another
1:15:15
interesting project we're doing right now is the cafe at the Marin Civic Center. Uh so that's Franklidd Wright's
1:15:23
building and we are helping them to re I
1:15:28
don't want to say reimagine that might be too bold uh but to rethink uh how the
1:15:34
space is being used in a similar way we're talking about now lighting furniture a little bit of kind of how
1:15:42
the servery uh functions and we're also going to be looking at the exterior space. So that's a very interesting
1:15:48
project we have on on the books right now. Uh, I had I interviewed an architect on
1:15:54
a building in Washington DC once and and that architect told me and I don't
1:16:01
remember who the well-known famous architect was that originally designed that building, but now this architect is
1:16:07
coming in in today's day and age and touching this building. Yeah. And he's like,
1:16:13
it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure because here's this notable architect that designed this building
1:16:19
that everybody knows you cannot come in here and screw that up.
1:16:25
Yeah. Do you feel that same kind of pressure touching a Franklid Wright building?
1:16:30
You know, we do, but I think that we're making very smart
1:16:35
steps. And there was actually a seismic renovation that was done in the 90s that is very intrusive that we're trying to
1:16:42
fix. So, I feel a little bit like on that piece I'm like, well, we're trying to
1:16:47
make this better. And I think other things um are not too drastic. So, you
1:16:54
know, and it the lighting can be better, the acoustics can be better. We're taking the circle of the servery and
1:16:59
instead of you going inside of it, we're having people circle around it because they need more kitchen space. So, it
1:17:05
serves kind of two things. So, I think that we're things that we're doing are very uh logical and we're still, you
1:17:12
know, in design. So, we'll see what actually goes through it. We've gone to the conservancy once and we'll see.
1:17:17
We'll see how it ends up. Yeah, there's some pressure I don't need.
1:17:22
So, that is pressure for sure. Well, I I can't design my way out of
1:17:27
paper bags, so I I've got a very analytical brain and I'm crazy efficient
1:17:34
and those, but you start definitely talk about this project in a year or so. It'll be fun. Yeah, I would love to hear about it. And
1:17:40
then I need Amy to come help me decorate my house and I want to see our clothing designs. I would love that.
1:17:46
Yeah, because I'm I'm I'm I do my best, but I'm not good at it.
1:17:51
So, I close every episode with two questions. The first being a broader
1:17:57
industry question, which also also changes with every guest. Um,
1:18:04
sometimes it's specific to those guests or the project and sometimes it's something that popped in my head. So,
1:18:12
because this is, you know, a heavy interiors project in in reformulating
1:18:17
these spaces, I'm curious because I'm I'm very much a minimalist.
1:18:23
Um, I don't like busy. I'm I own more black clothing than any
1:18:29
architect. I mean, I don't I don't like busy. I like things very clean and fine
1:18:34
lines. It It needs to be warm, but uh one of the things that's always
1:18:40
bothered me throughout the years are these crazy fads that happen in interiors and then, you know, like
1:18:47
five years later, you're walking into a space and you're going, you know, it's just like this lasted a whole five
1:18:54
minutes. That hot trend. So among all of these everchanging
1:18:59
trends and fads in planning for interiors and interior design and colors and things like that,
1:19:07
what do the two of you feel should be the considerations when picking materials and finishes
1:19:15
to result in a more timeless and less trendy aesthetic on on your projects?
1:19:22
What what guidance would you give me? I'm not going to do fatty stuff anyway,
1:19:28
but it seems like you have a great design aesthetic based on what you described. Um, but yeah, I think we tend to try to
1:19:36
use honest materials and that's kind of a timeless look every time. Uh, using a
1:19:42
material that when it's installed, it looks like the material that it is. For
1:19:47
example, we don't want to use a laminate that's trying to look like stone or a tile that's trying to look like a wood
1:19:54
plank. I think when you walk into a space and see that kind of thing, you do get that trigger in your mind of, "Oh, I
1:20:01
remember that was installed everywhere in 2010." You know, there's kind of a time stamp to those types of materials.
1:20:08
So, I think the more you can be honest in the materiality you're using in a project, the more likely that material
1:20:14
is to be more timeless. Yeah, I I totally agree with that. And I would I would also add there's two other
1:20:21
things in the consideration. And I think that you really need to get to the essence of the client. I think that the
1:20:27
more that you understand about the the client and uh where they're coming from,
1:20:33
what they represent, how you can integrate that into the the
1:20:39
project, like the piles from the Bay Bridge, like the map of what they were
1:20:44
doing, it becomes more timeless because it's tied to them. And then I think the other overlay in that if you're dealing
1:20:50
with an existing building is the views, the space, the light, the all of that.
1:20:56
Making respecting all of those things also makes it so that it is less fadlike
1:21:04
or less kind of like, oh, we want to change this, right? I think that how people feel uh is what they can see
1:21:11
outside. uh I think how people feel is you know um the materials that are
1:21:17
around them some natural materials u and so I think those are two other components I think about
1:21:23
I I really love that you mentioned that because I think that's a piece that doesn't get enough credit a lot of the
1:21:29
times like in Oregon in Portland we joke all the time oh the mountains out today
1:21:35
um in in certain spots so that we have a number of mountains we're usually talking about Mount Hood when we say
1:21:41
that. But we can also from from downtown Portland, we can see Mount St. Helens. We can see Mount Reineer in the distance
1:21:48
on a really clear day. Uh but we all live for the day it's not cloudy and the mountains out. It's you know it's it's
1:21:54
just a thing. And you know like in our downtown Portland office buildings um which one firm I
1:22:01
worked in, we were way up there um at the top of the building and they put
1:22:06
this they made sure to design into that space. So, when they did this ginormous
1:22:11
outdoor patio and it it was just a frame
1:22:16
of Mount Hood and our skyline and all of our bridges because we're also the bridge city. Yeah.
1:22:22
Um and it was the absolute best place to be is out on that patio or in that
1:22:28
conference room which was an entire glass wall. I still have friends that work there and they're constantly
1:22:33
posting, check out the sunrise today because that's also where the sun comes up and
1:22:40
it it's a game changer for that room. I could not tell you what the conference table is made out of. I don't remember
1:22:47
what's on the floor or on the walls, but that view out of that room and and
1:22:53
bring making that bringing that outside into the interior aesthetic is something that I remember day after
1:23:00
day after day being uplifting and and
1:23:05
you know, warm and in and something that made a difference in your day. Uh they
1:23:11
could have just put in solid walls. We don't want you distracted looking out the window. we want you to work,
1:23:16
right? You know, but they didn't do that. So, that's that's a really good point to make because I think we miss those
1:23:21
opportunities sometimes. Yeah. So, final question. Here comes this
1:23:27
total sarcasm. Easiest question of the day.
1:23:32
Everybody says, "Shice, that is not the easiest question." Um, and it's not the easiest question, but I'm a big
1:23:39
marshmallow. So, I know I do, and I hope we all want to
1:23:47
live a life that leaves some kind of impact or contribution
1:23:53
to make the world a better place. And when I say the world, I don't mean the entire planet or maybe the entire
1:23:58
planet, but your world. We we can all only reach what we can reach.
1:24:04
Personal or professional, what do you hope your impact will be?
1:24:11
Yeah, I would say mine closely ties to my professional career. You know, I was
1:24:16
very interested in workplace design because there are so many studies about pre- pandemic when I was choosing my
1:24:24
line of work, but how much time people spend in the office, you know, it's exorbitant and so many people spend so
1:24:30
much time doing their job wherever it is. So, you know, if I can make
1:24:35
someone's life a little bit easier with how a space circulates or help them run into
1:24:42
co-workers that they otherwise wouldn't see or give them a space where they can decompress or just reduce their stress
1:24:49
and give them a more comfortable space to work in, that means a lot to me. You
1:24:55
know, we work with a lot of clients who themselves have very stressful jobs. what can we do to make their day a bit
1:25:01
easier to help them connect with one another to have a better day and enable them to do their best work a lot of
1:25:09
which is working to improve the world we live in as well so I think it's a domino effect as well
1:25:15
I'm I'm a I I call them ripples all these little things you do you'll never ever know
1:25:21
exactly how those things made a difference for somebody that person won't even know how
1:25:28
it it makes a difference for them every day. I don't think I really ever thought about that conference room at my old office in any real way till right now
1:25:35
talking to you, but I remember making a point of walking down that particular hallway just so I could look out those
1:25:41
windows and especially if the sun was going down or coming up. Um, and it did it made a a
1:25:48
difference in my day every day. And whoever made that design decision to make sure that we didn't miss that
1:25:54
made an impact on my life on a daily basis. Um, and it's the little things I
1:26:00
think that make the biggest change over time, even if you never get to know about them.
1:26:06
Um, and we spend more awake time at work
1:26:11
than we do in anything else, right?
1:26:16
Basically, we're we hope you're sleeping eight hours. I'm not, but I don't know about the rest of you. And and you're at work at least eight
1:26:23
hours a day, if not more. And then you have this little chunk of time for family or fun or you know whatever.
1:26:31
Those spaces matter. They really matter. How about you Paul? How are you going to
1:26:36
change the world? So I think that I can't reduce it to one. I'm going to I'm going to hit you
1:26:42
with two. But uh so very early on my career I really was drawn to public
1:26:47
architecture. Um, I can, you know, remember kind of, uh, the first library
1:26:54
opening I went to that I did, the Traverse Area District Library, and just this feeling of the communities here,
1:27:02
people are going to be reading here, people are going to be learning here. Um, you know, I can remember my first
1:27:08
community center. Uh, so I really and, you know, and helping people in workplace in public. So I think
1:27:14
professionally I'm really drawn to things that kind of help our society. And so I hope that that is an impact.
1:27:21
But I think you know the older I get uh the other impact I am hoping to have is
1:27:28
that I really am enjoying mentoring uh and sharing my experiences. And you know
1:27:34
there are lots of people on our staff that I am trying to you know just share my stories and help them to get to the
1:27:42
next level in their career and that is you know something that I think pays it forward and is you know so rewarding for
1:27:50
me and I hope I hope it helps them too. It does. We're kindred spirits in that
1:27:55
department. Um, it's just I I I wouldn't be sitting where I am today had it not
1:28:02
been for the three partners in that first firm I ever worked at. You know, I was barely 20 years old and
1:28:10
had no plan at all in any way, shape, or form of working in this industry.
1:28:18
I didn't even know what this industry was. And, you know, it was just a job. I
1:28:23
was looking for a job to pay the bills and they taught me so much. And that was a
1:28:29
day and age when women didn't have all the same opportunities as as our in our
1:28:34
industry. They didn't have a female architect working in that office for the first at least 10 or 10 to 15 years I
1:28:41
was there. Um and but I was curious, a little bit of a big
1:28:49
mouth. I was asking lots and lots of questions. Wait, why do we do this? I don't know what this is. What is this?
1:28:54
Why do we do it? How do you do it? And they taught me all of those things. And
1:28:59
I really feel a responsibility because that was a real gift for me that I give that back. And I've been trying to do
1:29:06
that my whole career. And it it does. I love it when I get an email from a former student or a former co-orker and
1:29:12
it's like, shares, I just got promoted today. there. Shares, I just you taught me this in class and I just told my boss
1:29:20
this and they didn't know it and they were really amazed that I did. And I'm just like, yes, score, you know, and and
1:29:27
I hopefully only hear a fraction of that impact. But I share your heart in that
1:29:33
arena. So, keep it up. Yeah. Um Paul and Amy, thank you. This was a
1:29:40
lovely conversation. You don't need an invitation. I don't say that to everybody. I say it
1:29:46
to a lot of people, but I don't say it to everybody. Um, you don't need an invitation to come back. If you have a
1:29:53
project that comes up, just drop me a line. I'd love to have you both back to talk about another project. And I so
1:29:59
appreciate your time today coming to talk to me. Great. It's been lovely. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you so much. This is really
1:30:06
great. Yep. Well, I I can't wait to do it again.