Single Serves Podcast

Single Serves ep. 312 - Cousins Wilson on the Preservation of Social Housing

There has been a lot of talk on this podcast about housing, missing middle and the current challenges that much of the western world, and particularly Canada is experiencing when it comes to housing, its affordability and availability.
Enter Tura Cousins-Wilson, co-founder of SOCA, with partner Shane Laptiste, who have caught the public’s attention over the last couple of years with daring and innovative proposal, often centred around preservation of existing buildings.
I invited Tura to join me on the podcast to talk about the preservation of social housing as a way to increase the housing supply without throwing the modernist baby with the bathwater and demolish buildings that, in spite of not love at the present moment, present architectural qualities that Cousins-Wilson think are worth preserving.
Listen in to see what Tura has to say on the topic.
{Recorded in April 2022 during IDS Toronto}
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd

Single Serves ep. 311 - Barhay & Sun on The Future of Retail.mp3

The last few years have been a rollercoaster for retail.
In this is episode, Supreet Barhay and Stanley Sun attempt answering the question: What's the future like for retail?
Barhay is a principal at WZMH architects in Toronto, where she leads the retail team. As a result of the shifting retail landscape brought about by long-term trends and accelerated by the pandemic, she and her team have been working on an initiative called 'The future of Retail'.
 
Sun is the co-founder and principal at Mason Studio in Toronto, where he has worked on a variety of interiors, from boutique hotel to retail stores, he is a keen observer of how people interact with and use spaces. He uses that knowledge to shape spaces, specifically with light.
 
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd

Single Serves ep. 310 - Ashfield on Public Speaking

 
What make a good public speaker? Susie Ashfield joins us on episode 310 to share some secrets with us...
 
Ashfield comes from a strong creative background. As a communications specialist, she makes the most of her unique combination of acting skills, and her director-level business experience. She focuses on coaching to control and optimize body language and non-verbal communication techniques, as well as enabling clients to structure content for effect, and develop the kind of vocal strength needed to succeed. As a speaker and trainer she runs high energy workshops centered around powerful performance, from dealmaking conversations to TEDx talks. Susie is a qualified Associate Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation and she specialises in stage fright and performances anxiety techniques
 
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd

Single Serves ep. 309 - Sibolboro on Canadian Design

Richelle Sibolboro is a brand strategist and content creator with in-depth expertise and passion for arts and culture especially design, architecture, and travel.
 
With over 15 years of experience in communications, design, brand, and strategy, she currently works with brands to achieve insight and alignment through participatory and collaborative sessions.
 
Today, we're going to talk about Canadian Design and specifically attempt to answer the question: What is Canadian Design?
 
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd

Single Serves ep. 308 - Stoddard on Service Design

What is service design and how can it help designers conceive of better environments that better serve their users?
This is the question that John Stoddard and I attempted to answer in this conversation.
John is a Service Design consultant and teacher, based in the Bay Area, helping organizations create high value customer experiences. He's worked with many organizations and firms in the past, most notably IDEO in their London and Palo Alto offices. He's also an educator, having taught at UC Berkeley and University of San Francisco.
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd

Single Serves ep. 307 - Speckert on Single Stair Buildings

What are some of the simple, easy and immediate solutions to the housing challenges that many growing cities are experiencing?
Conrad Speckert came up with one and has joined us on the podcast to talk about it in detail.
 
Conrad is a recent graduate from architecture school, and previously an architectural designer at Superkul and KPMB in Toronto, as well as offices in Japan and Germany.
He's currently working on a proposal to allow for single stair apartment buildings in the National Building Code of Canada. More broadly, he's interested in policy solutions that address our combined housing and climate crises.
Check out his website documenting all his research and findings here: www.secondegress.ca
 
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
 
Interview transcript (edited for brevity and clarity):
RVLTR (00:01:34):
So today we're gonna talk about single-stair buildings and why they might provide solutions to the housing crisis before we do. So can you tell us who you are and what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less?
Conrad Speckert (00:01:48):
Sure. I've recently graduated from architecture school. I did my undergrad in Ontario at Waterloo and my Master's at McGill. And what I've become really interested in is the issue of housing, especially around the missing middle and just how this can really deal with questions of affordability. And yeah, currently I spend my days working on the [building] code change, which is kind of a continuation of what I've done as my thesis project,which is all about single-stair buildings in Canada.
RVLTR (00:02:20):
Okay. So before we jump into the single staircase buildings can you tell us a little bit more about that effort or project you're working on for the code change? Have you been mandated by someone or is it something you were doing independently? How is that working for you?
Conrad Speckert (00:02:36):
I wish someone had told me to do this, it basically began as a thesis project, four months of research where I started to look at what other jurisdictions allow the types of multi-unit buildings that are possible. And that work was really well received and given the recent kind of pressure and timing around issues of housing affordability, I've been really encouraged by other architects and then got some funding through federal grants to actually develop this into a code change, for the national building code.
RVLTR (00:03:21):
So you're working on the changes and you are going to submit them to the regulatory authority at some point in the hopes that they'll change the code based on your recommendations?
Conrad Speckert (00:03:32):
Yes.
RVLTR (00:03:33):
That's amazing. Let's talk about single staircase buildings and what they are exactly.
Conrad Speckert (00:03:41):
So single staircase buildings, which you'll hear some people refer to as point access blocks, is a building that has one exit stair. For instance, in North America, mostly for apartment buildings, we have a door with two exit stairs at either end. But there's way more flexibility in the types of floor plans you can design and the way you can lay out units when you can have one central exit stair it gets you much more livable spaces, more natural daylight and better passive ventilation. And it's really the dominant housing type in urban environments around the world, except in North America where we do double loaded corridors, which are pretty much the same layout as a hotel. So your apartment is a shoebox and my favourite term I've heard someone use for it is that they are "safety deposit boxes in sky".
RVLTR (00:04:52):
Yeah. There's a lot of truth to that. So is there a particular reason why we don't have them in North America?
Conrad Speckert (00:04:59):
Our building code does not permit it. In Canada, you're not allowed to build above two stories with a single stair. And there's only one exception to that, which is townhouses, for which you can go to three stories with the stairs just within that unit. In the US, you can go to four stories, although every city actually has its own kind of variation on that. And when you start to look at building codes in the States, it's crazy how every single city is slightly unique in its own way.
RVLTR (00:05:36):
So in the course of your research, have you found out what was the rationale for two stairs in North America? Is there a particular reason?
Conrad Speckert (00:05:46):
I'll give you two versions of an answer to that. The Canadian building code was first published in 1941, and Canada has a history of building in wood frame construction, which is combustible construction. And so one really good argument for why the rules are the way they are. Is that in return for combustible construction, we have really stringent exiting requirements. To be honest, that made a lot of sense in 1941 when the code was first published, but today with modern firefighting practices, a really good understanding of people's behaviour in fire, with modern fire alarm systems, with a whole bunch of other things that we put into our codes and just a totally different way of building buildings it really doesn't reflect that condition. So I'd say it's the history of building in wood. And then the other one is that in Canada, there isn't really a history of dense, walkable urbanism, which is the way cities have been built in Asia and Europe for a long time. So that never meant that there was any kind of pressure to optimize the codes for mid-rise apartment buildings. That's why in Canada, there's "part nine", which makes it really easy and, and affordable to build low rise buildings below three stories and 600 square meters. And then as soon as you exceed that, you jump into a whole new basket of rules, which means that a developer will very rarely be able to pencil out a project that's four or five stories and it just adds pressure to go really high. So I'd say those are two answers to it. And maybe one thing just to add to it to compare is that in talking to a code expert a really good description I got is that basically the older the building code is the longer that document is. The code in Canada is over 2000 pages long, whereas in a country like Switzerland, for instance, it's only about 600. A lot of countries after WWII just started over with a new code, but in North America, our code is based off of codes from individual cities. So Chicago, New York and Boston. That basically means that there's a lot of stuff that's in the code Canada today, that's based off of risk assumptions from over a hundred years ago.
RVLTR (00:08:34):
What you said about the double stair requirement, making it more difficult for developers to build denser or to make their proforma work really, it sounds to me like there's an analogy to the now removed parking requirements that made developments much more challenging because you had to dig two or three stories to build a parking lot. Whereas nowadays there's maximum parking requirements that either allow you to not have any parking if you do, to keep it to a bare minimum. So do you think if that rule was removed or amended, it would have a similar impact on the ability of developers to make their proformas work?
Conrad Speckert (00:09:20):
Absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned the parking thing because when I first started looking into this, the first initial literature review Eb Zeidler, who is a really renowned architect in Toronto, was in an interview in the Toronto Star way back in 2004 where they were asking him about the new kind of midrise planning guidelines and what that would mean for the city of Toronto along avenues. He brought up specific points. He spent the whole interview talking about the issue of the two means of egress and the parking requirements. And so what's really exciting is that the city has removed and changed those parking requirements, which suggest, you know, in part, if you follow Zeidler's logic, the stairs are that other big hurdle. Now without a doubt, zoning regulations, questions of how projects are financed there are huge other implications out there. And a lot of that has to do with politics and complex regulations, but as a specific building code issue, within the realm of architects and engineers and planning departments the issue of the single stair is huge.
RVLTR (00:10:44):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So to go back to the idea of the code dating back to 1941, being probably on the older side of building codes worldwide and it being based on the fact that a lot of buildings were wood frame buildings at the time, it doesn't seem to me that there's a lot of mid-rise apartment buildings that are built out of wood. Generally it would be either concrete or nowadays maybe mass timber or combination of steel and concrete, or maybe a concrete superstructure with partitions. So it doesn't seem like there's any reason anymore to justify that because as you and I both know apartment buildings in Europe are generally concrete either precast or cast in place. And they all have a single-stair exit. Would that be any different in Canada if we had more of those kinds of mid-rise buildings, like say six to 12 stories?
Conrad Speckert (00:11:53):
It's really a question of combustible and non combustible construction. I can point you to dozens of projects, which are wood frame, mass timber, what we define as combustible construction that are single-stair in Europe. So it's not to say that the single stair is related to non-combustible construction in any of those codes, but maybe the best way to describe this is that there's an essay which someone from the Canadian code development wrote in the 1980s which was basically called "the issue of combustible". And what it was talking about is that for the longest time, we always define wood as combustible and concrete or steel is non combustible, but the modern code is actually set up that it really, that's really not the discussion at hand in that performatively, It's about time, it's about the fire rating of your assembly. You can build a wood frame building with a two-hour fire rating, the same way as concrete. We really have to untangle this idea of a building being either non-combustible or combustible because that has also a huge impact on the embodied carbon of how you build as well. What's really exciting about everything that's happening with mass timber is that you can build out of wood just as safe. This was the huge push that happened in 2015 and in the IBC and in the US in 2018 is that you can build out of wood to be just as safe as out of concrete. So that material question has really been debunked in the past few years especially through the work of the Canadian wood council.
RVLTR (00:13:51):
I remember in my student days back in France at the time mass timber wasn't all the rage, but it had already kind of started taking hold in Germany and Switzerland and the architecturally progressive countries. I was stunned to learn at the time that from an engineering perspective, a mass timber member would withstand fire for a long time because that outer layer burns and then it protects the inside of the structure. So as long as you oversize your members, your structure should stand up for quite some time. It seems that in the public psyche, and even with architects, they say: "oh, wood is combustible and concrete isn't" and I think you make a very good point. It's maybe time to jettison that outdated mode of thinking and really start thinking in terms of what makes sense from a safety perspective.
Conrad Speckert (00:14:51):
I'll just add to that. I was at a passive house conference a few months ago, and there was a prefabricated straw bale manufacturer from Eastern Europe who was giving a presentation. And it boggles my mind, but they actually produce straw bales, that just seems to me like the most combustible thing in the world, but they have created a straw bale panel that has a fire rating of either 90 minutes or two hours. Incredible.
RVLTR (00:15:23):
I'm supposing it has non combustible finishes on the outside. Is that what it is?
Conrad Speckert (00:15:29):
Yeah, I really should have paid closer attention to really know exactly what it is that they've done, but the stringent fire testing that these new materials have to go through to be able to conform to the codes. They met the requirements and the guy actually showed a video: it's got a wood frame and then the installation of the straw bale is basically infill. And in the final testing video, the wood of the frame burned first and burned far more vigorously than the straw bale in between.
RVLTR (00:16:05):
That's interesting
Conrad Speckert (00:16:07):
It turns the logic on its head.
RVLTR (00:16:08):
It goes to show that and that's more of a general comment about technology - that you can't really predict what new technologies will allow you to do even in the near future. That's why maybe it's time to revise the building code or even scrap it and start from scratch, as you said, I don't know if that's a good idea.
Conrad Speckert (00:16:31):
I won't say that or I'll get shot when I submit my building code change.
RVLTR (00:16:36):
You didn't, but I did, so you're safe.
Conrad Speckert (00:16:40):
One thing I can add to that is that the big issue with new materials and new practices, the combined crises right now of housing and climate, there are solutions out there that can really address both these issues that we see happening in other jurisdictions. And what's frustrating is that the code in Canada explicitly says that you can do alternative solutions. So when you go for a building permit, if you think you can exceed the life safety of what's considered acceptable in the code, you consider that alternative solution.
RVLTR (00:17:21):
But then you have to fund your own testing, right?
Conrad Speckert (00:17:23):
Have to fund your own testing. Exactly. There's no mechanism to do that upfront and collaboratively. You can't do it until you get a building permit. And by the time you're at the building permit, all decisions have been made essentially. And so it's an incredibly risky thing, but it does happen for lots of stuff. The double stair requirement has been in the code since the beginning. The mantra "you must have two means of egress" is something that is drilled into the brains of architecture students from first year. So you're going up against a Goliath of assumptions when you try to come up with an alternative solution for that, which is why - quite reasonably - no one does it.
RVLTR (00:18:10):
And to be fair, I think the housing crisis, although I hate this term crisis, because it's overused. I'm sure the building code change could have a serious impact on making it easier. But I personally, and this is a whole other topic for another podcast, but I personally think it's a zoning issue and the politicians' lack of balls to be direct, to change the code, to allow more midrises as of right. The building code would help if you didn't have a second stair requirement, but there's also an entire 60 or 70% of the city of Toronto, where you can only build single-family houses as of right. This is insane. This is madness. And I've talked about this many times on this podcast with Chris Spoke...
Conrad Speckert (00:19:02):
Are you counting how many times someone says yellow belt on your podcast?
RVLTR (00:19:06):
If I had to drink every time, I'd be drunk. (laughs)
Conrad Speckert (00:19:14):
If anybody thinks that I'm coming in here proclaiming that a single stair is a silver bullet, no, it's not a silver bullet. The issue of zoning, the issue of acceptable levels of profit in a proforma and the degree of capitalism that we insist on, there are bigger issues at stake here. But what's interesting about the single stair is that we don't need to hold an election to deal with the single stair. We don't need to go door to door and knock on everybody's house or deal with the NIMBYs. That shows up to a council meeting. Single stair is within the control and subject matter of professionals in this industry. So we should be able to have a really adult conversation about it.
RVLTR (00:20:04):
Probably no one cares like outside of the profession anyways. So if that requirement were removed, people wouldn't even give a thought to it.
Conrad Speckert (00:20:13):
I've been accused by some people of trying to kill people.
RVLTR (00:20:18):
That's always gonna happen, I'm afraid. So let's talk a little bit about your research and what motivated you to do your thesis on the subject in the first place, how did that come about?
Conrad Speckert (00:20:33):
I grew up in Europe. I grew up in a single stair building. It was three stories and five apartments. When I started architecture school in Canada, we had a housing project and multi-unit we did, I think, three stories and the professors made it very explicit: you need to have two means of egress. And at the time I didn't realize the significance of that statement. But then after architecture school, I was working in Toronto doing a lot of mid-rise, 6 to 10 storey housing.I completely understand why it is that way, but everything was a double-loaded corridor, 22 to 25 meters deep floor plates. So each unit is like a shoebox and really repetitive. And you'd get these long corridors because the code lets you do a corridor, basically up to 45 meters I think, which are just dead spaces. If you Google - it's a kinda cute name - "breaking up with the double-loaded corridor", it's this wonderful package that basically just compares what circulation could be and makes everybody envious of what that code change could create. So there's that kind of frustration working in Toronto and at the same time, you'd see precedents of housing going up in other places. I worked in Berlin where everything was single-stair. I lived in a single-stair. All my friends lived in single-stair buildings. When I was working in Japan the actual architectural office was a four story brand new building, single-stair. That was actually commercial use. So when I started my thesis and pondered: "Hey, what am I gonna do this on?" I started to just look at: "Has anybody ever really gone into this conversation in North America" and with the exception of the Zeidler article from 2004 the OAA, the Ontario association of architects published a report in 2019 - and I think you've had some of the people that worked on that on here before - and on one of the slides as part of their package recommendations, they mentioned a change to the Ontario building code to allow for single-stair buildings. I got goosebumps at that moment because it was in black and white, I'm not insane. It is a good idea, and I just decided to make this work for the next little while and then increasingly as I got into it it started with an essay that I wrote then that started turned into a grant to do a bit more research on it, then turned into a CMHC-funded "big project". And it just keeps growing.
RVLTR (00:23:38):
I think that's probably the best way to enter the profession is to develop something that makes you an expert and then people seek you out. So I think it's great that you did that and it's great that you continue beyond school and I think gives you a huge leg up professionally, now you're probably gonna start being seen - if you're not already - as the code reform expert in the country or hopefully that's what happens to you, leading to a great career. So let's talk a little bit about other places and, and I know we've touched on that here and there through other questions, but what do other building codes in other countries allow that are not allowed in Canada that would make a big difference?
Conrad Speckert (00:24:24):
That's probably my favorite question because once you start to look at what's possible in other countries and read some of these building codes you realize just how profoundly different things are. So in Germany and Switzerland, you can go up to 60 meters. That's about 20 storeys you with the single-stair and the requirements around sprinkler and pressurization and corridor separation - the life safety measures - change once you exceed 20 to 22 meters. In Japan, which again is a place with really significant earthquake risk, the rules are five stories. In China, you can go 80 meters. In Australia and New Zealand, which have a similar cultural context and background as Canada, it's 25 meters. And there's some beautiful examples of that there
RVLTR (00:25:25):
I've always been amazed with Australia's architectural quality. For such a small country in such a remote part of the world. I think they have, per capita, probably some of the best contemporary architecture almost anywhere, maybe except for Germany, Switzerland, and Spain or something, so it's no surprise that they're a bit more progressive too.
Conrad Speckert (00:25:50):
I'm curious, have you ever wondered why that is? Because I actually don't don't have a good answer. Because it seems to me that Australia and Canada competitive advantage-wise are similar Commonwealth countries.
RVLTR (00:26:04):
I don't know. I've asked many people, I've asked Australian architects. Nobody has a definite answer. Some people have elements of an answer, but it's hard to tell, I don't know if it's in the culture or if their building codes allow them to do things you can't do elsewhere. I'm not familiar enough with that, but I've been to Australia once for a couple of weeks. And just about anywhere I went, the creativity and the quality of architecture was outstanding. It's just mind blowing. I don't know if anyone has a good answer, but maybe it's cultural and because they're a bit weird sometimes. Maybe they just kind of carry that.
Conrad Speckert (00:26:55):
Canadians are not weird sometimes?
RVLTR (00:26:57):
They are, but not in a creative, funny way. What I'm saying may make no sense at all, but Australians are playful, you know, when you hang out with a group of Australians, they're gonna banter, they're gonna give you shit for having a silly name or wearing a funny shirt or not drinking as many beers as they do or whatever it is. And I think that translates into their design culture. They're just more playful, I guess, is the closest term I could use. Canadians can be weird from a European perspective and I am Canadian now, so I'm trying to be careful about what I say, but it's in a more conservative fashion. Socially speaking, Canadians are more conservative. They don't like to rock the boat. They don't like to stand out. So I think that's, to me, that's the chief distinction between Canadian and Australian cultures.
Conrad Speckert (00:27:56):
In a sense, our building code is a perfect reflection of our culture.
RVLTR (00:28:01):
Probably
Conrad Speckert (00:28:04):
Add to that a few more notes maybe. I'm in Quebec right now. So I better mention France. France is 50 meters. But if anyone listening to this is really curious, you can go to the website www.secondegress.Ca, And there's a whole list of countries and the maximum height you can build with one stair. Again, just to point out, Canada is at the bottom of that list. Maybe one other thing is the UK. The UK is at the top of that list and the UK actually has no limit on the maximum building height you can build. And there's been a few interesting articles recently because of the Grenfell disaster. Post-Grenfell there have been some building applications for buildings that are almost 50% taller than Grenfell with a single stair, and the code in the UK says: "This is fine". Part of the way that has come about is because in the UK, there's a "stay in place" firefighting strategy, which means that you stay in your unit, even once the fire alarm's gone off, until the fire department explicitly orders you to evacuate. And so for context, in the Grenfell tower disaster, a 24-storey tower, which caught fire in 2017, where the insulation wasn't up to code and was actually combustible on the facade. A lot of people died. But in that case, the fire alarm was going for more than 80 minutes, more than an hour before the building evacuation. And certainly, you know, the reason why that stay in place was there is because it's a single-stair building. There's the risk that you overwhelm that stair, nevermind the fact that firefighters are going up and people are going down if only have one. But Granfell was a 24-storey tower. I'm talking about this here, we're talking about mid rise buildings, five, six stories. There's a whole bunch more complexity into it as well. I just bring up Grenfell because the immediate gut reaction that I received from people who don't like this idea of single stair is to raise the example of the Grrenfell tower. But there is so much more complexity to that conversation than just the fact that it was a single stair building.
RVLTR (00:30:34):
The common fallacy, that logical fallacy that people make in any area of expertise, not just architecture where they'll pick one horrible, horrible incident as a justification for a rule that doesn't necessarily make sense. But if you think there's probably millions, or if not millions, maybe hundreds of thousands of towers like that across the world that didn't burn down. So for one of those that horribly burnt down, how many are still standing up and perfectly safe is really what you need to look at.
Conrad Speckert (00:31:08):
Yeah. I mean, Grenfell violated the code. The insulation they used on it was not code compliant and in a bunch of other ways, Grenfell could never repeat itself here because of the way that we have a whole bunch of rules in our building code that apply to buildings above 18 meters in Heights. In Canada, there's a really good package of rules that comes with high rise buildings. After Grenfell, authorities in Canada went: "Oh, could this happen here?" And they reviewed the codes and in Canada they are nothing like the code in the UK in terms of tall building requirements. There's a whole bunch of other safety measures in it beyond the issue of two stairs.
RVLTR (00:32:07):
It's a code compliance issue. It's not an egress issue basically. You should almost not be allowed to use that example, because it has it's almost entirely irrelevant
Conrad Speckert (00:32:24):
But it will come up. I know when this code change goes in people will raise hell and point at Grenfell. And precisely this conversation has to happen over and over again.
RVLTR (00:32:35):
That's why you have to be prepared. Logic doesn't always solve the issue because logic doesn't convince people necessarily, but I think you gotta stick to the evidence of the safety of those stairs by and large. Otherwise you can find a horrible example of anything just about anywhere in the world. So those 1-time instances should never be used as justification for not even considering a change in code.
Conrad Speckert (00:33:12):
Well I'm not gonna get into the whole conversation of post-truth and post-fact world because that's beyond my scope, but a U of T professor was describing this issue of "wicked problems" and in doing so had mentioned the debate around street widening or traffic calming where planners will say, you know, this saves lives because it slows traffic, which makes the streets safer. But often a fire department will come back and say: "No this doesn't save lives because it slows our response time to an emergency." And so you get two competing risk assumptions based on empirical knowledge. It's a really frustrating predicament because someone will say: "Okay, we need to create the study and hire a consultant to settle this debate." But how do you settle that debate when both sides have a competing value system?
RVLTR (00:34:18):
Well, there's an easy answer to that: buy smaller fire trucks like they do in Europe. Because it's true. There's probably issues with the fire departments not being able to fit those ginormous trucks through smaller streets, but that's a design problem. It's not a safety issue. You either design those streets to somehow still be able to accommodate those, or you just start buying smaller trucks for those instances where you can't fit the big ones. I don't think that's strictly a safety issue. It's a logistical problem that certainly has a solution. And as a society, you know, you were talking about post-truth and not wanting to get into debate, but I think we have to get into that debate because without necessarily being controversial, but we live in a world where information is biased and it always was biased to an extent, but the problem is that with contemporary media, they have access to analytical tools that they never had before. And what that means is that for anyone who puts out, say, the news, they can analyze the effect of any headline over thousands of viewers with a level of granularity that they never had access to before. What that means is that you can literally figure out which headlines will get the most clicks. And so, because we're wired - evolutionarily speaking - to respond to "drama" and unusual news, the media are producing news that directly taps into our subconscious or unconscious desire to respond to things that are unusual. Whereas, you know, a moderately written news headline will not attract anyone's attention because it doesn't stand out. And so to go back to the idea of post-truth and wicked problems we have to become attuned to the fact that the media is biased. Media are biased more than ever before, because they have access to that analytical data that enables them to produce content that people want to click on at a subconscious level. And we're not equipped to fight with that because we don't have time to spend any amount of time looking at a headline and thinking: "Is that trying to manipulate me?" We don't because people have lives to live. There's an asymmetry of power in some sense where we're bombarded with grandiose bombastic dramatic headlines that make everything sound like it's way worse than it is. So I'm not sure how that ties into what you were saying, but, you know, when you're trying to convince people that your code change could be good for the country and the cities as a whole and solve a whole bunch of problems in the process you have to be equipped to debunk those specious arguments that people are gonna make and say: "Oh, you're just trying to create a whole bunch of Grenfell towers." It's like: "No, and this is what the data tells me. What you're saying is false. And I can prove it."
Conrad Speckert (00:38:09):
That requires the opposing party to be willing to come to the table and have an adult discussion.
RVLTR (00:38:17):
That is true. That is entirely true. I just read a book that addresses all of that. It's called "Loserthink". I strongly advise you and anyone who listens to this to read it, because it's gonna equip you with some tools, persuasion-based tools to decide when it's time to walk away from an unproductive conversation or how in subtle and non-confrontational ways, you can try to convince people that your idea, maybe not as dumb as it seems because it's important, right? You have a great idea. You're doing great work and I think anyone who does anything similar to what you do and it's true for what I do professionally as well, we have to be equipped to be able to convince people that all new ideas are not necessarily bad. And you know, there's precedents out there that we can study. These could be the benefits we gain from changing this or that because you're gonna do it one step at a time. You're not gonna convince everyone that you are correct, but one domino knocks down another one and before, you know, you have enough support to support your idea and you change. Anyway, that's a bit of a digression.
Conrad Speckert (00:39:39):
It's fine. Since this work has started, I found myself reinstalling Twitter. It's very involuntary and reluctant. But partly because Mike Ellison who's an architect in Seattle and a really strong advocate for the single stairs. He's always on Twitter. He's the guy that posted about straw bales just earlier. And I find myself actually surprised by how intelligent Twitter can be. Perhaps it's an echo chamber because I just follow a bunch of other architects. I might speculate and I'm sure my professors at McGill will resent me for saying this, but I learned more on Twitter scrolling during my 30 minute metro ride every morning than I did in a three hour lecture at university. So we might be in a post-truth, post-fact era, but Twitter's been good to me.
RVLTR (00:40:43):
I haven't been on Twitter in a few years. I deleted my account, but I think there's kind of two Twitters. There's the cesspool of trolls Twitter that you really don't wanna engage with because it's just a bunch of angry people either actively trolling, so they don't even mean what they say, but they just wanna get a rise out of you or they're just plain dumb, and they don't really think for themselves and just repeat what they heard elsewhere as if it were truth. And there is a civilized Twitter, I think on very specific topics like maybe you're doing, where you'll have intelligent conversations with people who know what they're talking about and you can learn a lot from it. So I'm not a big fan of social media, but I think using the right way can be a very effective tool where you just have to know how and when to do it. We're not in a post fact world because there's a simple reason for that: architecture is still very much a real life-based discipline where building buildings with materials and if they're not built properly, they're gonna fall down and kill people.
Conrad Speckert (00:41:54):
If you didn't have to apply the building code, you might be in a post-fact world, but obviously we do and hence, we apply in a rational, reasonable way.
RVLTR (00:42:06):
The idea that facts don't matter and laws of science be damned, some people may think that way and I think it's a tiny minority anyway. But the reality is that those people will get hurt in the real world, whether it's literally or figuratively because you cannot - as long as we live in physical bodies made of matter - you can't escape the laws of physics - intellectually you can live in the fantasy you decide to live in, but at some point you have to engage with the real world and that's where the rubber meets the road, in my opinion. So you just mentioned this guy in Seattle and one of my questions was what's really special about Seattle?
Conrad Speckert (00:42:55):
Well, Seattle's a really cool city. It rains a lot, but it's a cool place, but that's not what's exciting. Seattle is the only jurisdiction in North America that lets you build to six stories with a single stair. They call it the Seattle special. They added specific requirements to the Seattle building code way back in 1977 to let you do these point access blocks. What's really exciting too, of course, is that when you look at those dependencies of why the code is the way it is in Canada, well Seattle has a history of wood construction and has a history of suburban sprawl. So culturally and contextually Seattle, it's right on the border with BC, it's a really good reference and precedent for the kinds of code changes we're talking about because, I can talk about codes in Asia and in Europe all day long, but that might just go over someone's head or seem unhelpful when you're talking in a north American context.
RVLTR (00:44:07):
Yes, Seattle Is close to home, right?
Conrad Speckert (00:44:09):
Seattle's close to home. Exactly. And they've had it for over 40 years and there's some beautiful examples of these single stair projects being built. Probably my favorite one is the Capitol hill urban co-housing. I got in touch with the architect that designed this. It's co-housing so they designed it, they live in it, their office is on the ground floor. It's just a dreamy story. When I talked to them, one of the questions was: "Did you look at the code alternative? - If you had to put two stairs or how in your massing options - How did you guys go through this?" They wanted to do it as co-housing, which meant that they found a bunch of other families with limited capital. So in a way it was really about affordability as well. And the single-stair design that ended up getting built has nine units, but they were looking at what would be required if they had to put two stairs and they were only able to actually fit six units. So you lose three units in that scenario.
RVLTR (00:45:14):
Yeah. It's 50% that's crazy.
Conrad Speckert (00:45:16):
That's huge, right? What that does to your costs, your construction costs and your proforma. These are his words: "We no longer would have been able to house the people we wanted to house in this project and probably needed to look for a higher income group of people." And then also if you look at this project, it's just beautiful the way the circulation works. There's this wonderful axonometric drawing that just shows how everything comes together and it's really aspirational. For someone living in Vancouver, this must be so frustrating to know that just across the border, you can do it. But in Vancouver one cannot.
RVLTR (00:46:03):
I'm looking at the website of the architect, it's pretty cool. It's interesting that Seattle has allowed that. You said it introduced that rule in the seventies?
Conrad Speckert (00:46:16):
I spoke with some people from Seattle's building code department and they added the rule in 1977 because at the time they were similar in the way that planning was laid out in Canadian cities. Suburban, single family, lots are being developed closer into the city. You have these small lots. And so really tight floor plans, really tight ability to fit something into it. And I guess in the 1970s they've realized, and they started having conversations with the fire department about: "Can we create a regulatory condition in which a single stair is allowed?" And what came out of that is a bunch of really good rational rules to say, okay, in the current code, the life safety says, you need two stairs. How can we write a code that lets you have one stair? But is arguably as, or safer than what's currently allowed. And so what they added was they said: "Okay, these buildings need to be sprinklered. The stair needs to be pressurized and pressurization is all about blowing air into the stair to positively pressurize it to keep smoke out." For that scale of building with two stairs it's not a requirement. They increased the fire ratings and the biggest thing is they set a maximum limit. And this is really similar to a lot of European jurisdictions. You cannot have more than four apartments on each floor, which is also in terms of livability, quite nice. Because then it's a bit more intimate. Your units are all on corners.It has a whole bunch of other implications for the kind of scale and maybe less anonymous kind of culture in that kind of building.
RVLTR (00:48:17):
That makes a lot of sense. So has there been any studies of the impact of that rule in Seattle since it was implemented?
Conrad Speckert (00:48:26):
None that I've come across.
RVLTR (00:48:32):
Because what would be interesting is to see and pre- and post-rule Seattle and see how the city has changed and been impacted. And I guess it's hard to measure because ideally you'd run an experiment in parallel with two cities, one with the rule and one without, but we don't really have that luxury.
Conrad Speckert (00:48:49):
Studies are interesting because studies rely on data. One of the things that I've been constantly studying isto look at the fire statistics, injuries and deaths across Canada and the US and in Europe and to say: "Okay in jurisdictions where you can do this or even just for that building type, is it safer?" But the problem is that fire statistics, in Canada for instance the way the statistics are collected is in categories. So you're either in a category which is multi-unit building below five storeys, and multi-unit building above five storeys, which means that a six storey building and a 30-story, you know, tower are tabulated in the same way. It's what I've been told by some people that do this for a living, it will be impossible to really extract the concrete, solid argument from these statistics about this issue. In the case of Seattle even though since 1977, vthe, the single stair has been legal, the reality is that there are dozens of these buildings, but there aren't many, there aren't thousands, it's not the predominant building typology of the city in the way that it is in Berlin, Paris or Barcelona, where it's everywhere. It's culturally the norm. And that's a whole other conversation around what is the minimum scale of development that people deem profitable? What is the acceptable profit margin? Just a whole bunch of other questions around land assembly, everything else. It would be really easy if we could go to Seattle and just drive down the street and every building was one of these single-stair specials. But they're kind of gems hidden in the midst.
RVLTR (00:50:48):
I'm sure there's still something to learn from it, but it's also a very locale-specific issue, right? You would have to adapt the rules to every province or every city because they don't have all the same needs. Montreal has a lot of two, three-storey walk ups with like a couple units per floor. So they have much more of that high low-rise typology that allows them to have a much greater density than single family homes that you see dominant in most of Toronto.
Conrad Speckert (00:51:26):
It's funny, I live in Montreal right now, and I've been doing this research entirely while living here. But I kind of smile at the fact that Montreal's the place in Canada that needs this code change perhaps the least, precisely because it has a really good housing stock of triplexes. What's also funny is once you start to go in depth, the triplex has this winding steep exterior stair at the front and these spiral fire escapes in the back, which today with the modern code, you cannot do, but there's some really amazing examples from architects that have done triplexes new construction today. And they've been really smart about finding ways to conform with those current safety requirements in Montreal. But the biggest lesson I think that comes from Montreal is that it's colder in winter than Toronto or Vancouver and it snows more, but its stairs are totally acceptable means of egress. But if you go talk to an architect in Toronto and say you're gonna put an exterior stair, everyone gets really worried, because that just seems irrational or unreasonable. They're super unsafe. But in Montreal they're just ingrained [in the culture].
RVLTR (00:52:52):
Is that a cultural thing or is that a code thing? Because if you wanted to do external stairs in Toronto, can you do that or is that not allowed?
Conrad Speckert (00:53:01):
So explicitly in the building code? Yes. You can do exterior stairs, but once you start to sit down with, you know, authorities and perhaps a fire inspector or plans reviewer, sometimes you actually have to explain to them what the difference is between a fire escape and an exterior stair. And oftentimes that becomes a frustrating, long drawn-out headache. And there's a bunch of other ingrained assumptions. But explicitly in the code, yes, you can do exterior stairs. It's just not conventional practice.
RVLTR (00:53:49):
One of the last questions I had for you is about scissor stairs. Aren't those the solution to the problem?
Conrad Speckert (00:54:02):
So scissor stairs are efficient. And in Canada, scissor stairs count as two exits. But in the US actually, scissor stairs do not. So scissor stairs are only allowed to count as one. Scissor stairs are really cheap and efficient ways to build, pretty much every condo glass tower in Vancouver is a scissor stair building. But one comment I would give about scissor stairs is: it's fine when you're in a tall building and you use the elevator anyways, but to carry your groceries up a scissor stair, or to ever bump into your neighbour on a scissor stair is not gonna happen. And in buildings that are three or four stories, five stories, six stories, these kinds of missing middle mid-rise scale to buildings, a scissor stair will have a huge impact on the cost and the quality of the building. Because you have that corridor separation, stairs that use more space and because these projects are so non-competitive already, the difference in your design between a scissor stair and a single stair has a really huge impact. But obviously if you're doing a 10 or 20 story tower, yeah. The scissor stair is the most rational thing to be doing in the code in Canada
RVLTR (00:55:29):
So there's a qualitative aspect to the stairs as well. If you want to build better housing stock because a lot of those interactions happen in the stairs, you were mentioning bumping into your neighbours or helping the grandma that lives upstairs with their groceries. I think there's a qualitative component that we haven't talked about. That's really important in the way those buildings are built. Because maybe if you don't have a two-stair requirement, you can put, I don't know, 10 to 15% more surface area into the main staircase to make it more of a social component of the building. Isn't that the case?
Conrad Speckert (00:56:06):
Yeah, absolutely. Corridor separation is a really detailed question about whether that stair is open to a landing or not. But beyond just the cost and floor plan efficiency, [it's about ] being able to unlock smaller lots and smaller sites to actually be able to develop on them. There's this whole other conversation about livability that with a single stair, you get these units that can be "through" units. So daylight on both sides and cross ventilation. Mike Ellison actually brought up something, which I hadn't thought about yet, which is the question of urban noise. So if you're in a condo building on an arterial or street in Toronto and you have one orientation, and say it's north-south orientation. One side gets a lot of all the noise from the traffic and all the sun and the other side, it gets neither.
RVLTR (00:57:05):
Well, you see it in Paris or even in France, where there are multiple buildings, but they form an entire block and then there's a big courtyard in the middle. The street in the front is very busy and that's usually where you have the kitchen and living room and then the bedrooms are on the courtyard side where everything is super quiet and you still get a bit of sunlight and some direct ventilation. So that makes a lot of sense.
Conrad Speckert (00:57:30):
It's a way more livable way to build. I'm not surprised that in Canada everyone saves up to the point that they commute far enough out of the city until they can afford a detached house and everyone hates condo buildings and rails against them all the time, because it's really hard to build a pleasant and nice apartment building in Canada.
RVLTR (00:57:56):
I can see that point being very true. I think that was a very interesting conversation. I am out of questions anyway, but any last words of wisdom or thoughts that you want to share with the audience?
Conrad Speckert (00:58:09):
One thing I'll just mention is that the way that we're working on this code change right now is not at all to imply a decrease in safety. The code changes are being developed in ways that either meet or exceed the currently acceptable life safety of having two stairs. And there's a really detailed conversation about that. So to anybody that wants to get in touch with me, support the code change,go to the website and you'll find my email address.
RVLTR (00:58:41):
Www.Secondegress.Ca, correct?
Conrad Speckert (00:58:42):
Yep.
RVLTR (00:58:43):
I'll be sure to put that in the show notes.
Conrad Speckert (00:58:47):
And then maybe one other note is, and this really surprised me is that when I started to look into the codes development system in Canada which is the federal body called CCBFC, the Canadian Commission on Building Fire Codes. For a long period of time, there weren't any architects involved in code development on those committees. I smiled because if there aren't any architects participating in the development of our codes - it's mostly engineers people from the association of sprinklers and the concrete association and fire marshals - if there's no architect advocating on behalf of architecture it's no surprise that we end up with with building codes that are architecturally really restrictive.
RVLTR (00:59:35):
And probably not leading to great quality architecture too, because that qualitative aspect that architects are known to bring to the table is gone. If you ask an engineer how to solve a problem, they're gonna go for the most efficient solution, but they're not necessarily gonna think about is that a workable solution from a usability and pleasantness perspective? So yeah, you make a hugely valuable point in saying that and those problems can't be solved by one body or the other [alone]. It really needs to be collaborative. I think people need to talk to each other and have those difficult conversations, but look at the facts. When people collaborate, you can really come up with great solutions and where the sum is greater than the sum of its parts.
Conrad Speckert (01:00:24):
The other point is that the CCBFC right now has a lot on its plate questions around energy and climate. And so right now they're actually having to prioritize really intensely each code change request that they get. And part of the way that they prioritize things is that they ask each province: "What's a priority for you and your province right now?" So that's an opportunity for anybody who's listened to this. There's a whole discussion that needs to be had in each province to say: "This would be really beneficial to the supply of housing in this province, please at the next discussion of provincial authorities with the codes commission, emphasize the importance of this code change request." Because otherwise it will get buried at the bottom of the stack.
RVLTR (01:01:17):
That's a very good point. Well, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to chat. We ended up talking for a lot longer than we initially anticipated, which is totally fine. It was a very interesting conversation, but I think it's time for us to end. Thank you very much. And hopefully this will help you get the word out there as well. Obviously you don't need my permission, but you're welcome and encouraged to use this podcast once it's released to get people to engage with the topic. Even people who don't know, I think we've covered enough ground today for any newbie to really get a much better understanding of what the issue is and how much of a difference that could make.
Conrad Speckert (01:02:00):
I hope so. Well, thank you very much for having me, Arnaud.
RVLTR (01:02:03):
Thank you. And you're welcome.

Single Serves ep. 306 - Chodikoff on the Image

How can architects, and other professionals, project a positive, effective image that gets them hired?
This is the question that Ian Chodikoff attempted to answer in this interview.
Ian is an architect, editor, curator and design strategist experienced in research, programming, marketing, business development and strategy. He has led communications teams and projects that include learning platforms, exhibitions, publishing, workshops and events.
He has consulted with municipalities, real estate developers, and cultural organizations. He has also led a national architectural association in which he remains a Fellow, directed a monthly architecture publication, led conference programming and currently plays a leadership role for a dynamic interdisciplinary architecture and urban planning firm.
 
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
 
Interview transcript (edited for brevity and clarity):
RVLTR: So can you start by telling us who you are and what you do in your own words in three sentences or less?
Ian Chodikoff (IC): Sure. I'll give it my best shot. I like to think of myself as a synthesizer of ideas within the design profession. I like to think of myself as someone who can speak the different languages spoken by, let's say an engineer versus an architect versus interior designer. And, what I do is develop and consolidate strategy for communication, business development and marketing for firms
RVLTR: That's pretty clear and succint. So the conversation for today, we're going to talk about the image in architecture, when you use the word image in the context of architecture, what do you mean?
IC: That's a very, very good question. And I think it's it's one of those questions that are not always easily answered by firms that seek to project their image. What is it, what is their image to the world? Kevin Lynch came up with this term. He was an urban planner in the sixties that talked about the "imageability" of cities. It's not, you know, technically a word, but it really, if you're to close your eyes or walk away when someone says, you know, firm X, what do you think of them? What is their reputation? What is their level of cultural acumen? How good a designer they are, how good are they with engaging community? And so when I talk about the image in the context of architecture, you know, what is it whether it's a building or really a design practice, what is the image that the public sees when they hear or see their work?
RVLTR: So if we go back to the idea "imageability" from Kevin Lynch, is that what he meant by that? Is that just a neologism used to describe what you just talked about?
IC: Well, I mean it's been a little while, I don't know the exact words, but, for him the city has an identity. You know, cities are in competition with each other Los Angeles versus San Francisco, you know, Paris versus Lyon or Frankfurt versus London. It's pretty clear about the "imageability" of that city. What is that? What does, when someone thinks of Copenhagen, they think of bike lanes, there's an image, that's the imageability of the city. That's the identity of, that kind of ecosystem. He was referencing it in much broader terms. Then when I talk about the image, it's really: is that firm a corporate firm, or is it a boutique firm? Is that firm, really amazing at very tactile design solutions or is that firm really about allowing its users to co-opt its design over time, like a public building would be an example the building that could be co-opted by the users over time. And, and so that's the imageability of that building could be messier gritty, or it could be, you know, sultry and smooth as some new boutique shop in Yorkville.
RVLTR: And so why is the image so critical for architecture firms?
IC: I think it's critical from a competition analysis or marketability of that firm, to know, okay, like "Arnaud's Firm" tackles these kinds of design problems and we see the results that he achieves. And so I think that's useful. So if one was to say "I have a really tough design problem that I need Arnaud to resolve". I know how he would go about doing it. And I think it's not quite the same as saying what style a firm has, because that's a whole other discussion. Especially on interiors or certain types of bespoke housing, we know the kind of hand that goes into designing a particular kind of house, but I think that the image is a more of a broader idea that encompasses the tactics and strategies of how a design firm solves the design problem.
RVLTR: So, it sounds like it almost has more to do with, while being a bit different from, but still being very much linked to the firm's positioning and how they portray themselves to the world as to what their expertise and specialty is.
IC: I think so, I mean for all intents and purposes, whether you choose your firm or my firm, both of our design team will make sure the roof doesn't leak
RVLTR: Generally speaking. Yeah.
IC: Generally speaking, but yeah, we're both gonna be competent. We'll both get the job done. So what's gonna make the difference between the client perceived value about your firm versus our firm who obviously you might charge more than me or vice versa. Maybe that might have a factor, but I think when it comes down to it, it's really : can you do something understated? Can you do something that changes over time? Can you do something that's much more environmentally motivated for a post-carbon future? Can you design a building that engages the entire stakeholder community, if it's a sensitive community center in Toronto, so certain firms have that knack to resolve these types of problems and certain firms are better doing a gorgeous home up in Muskoka. And that's an image of that firm.
RVLTR: Yeah. And I think it touches on what I've been yelling about on rooftops for years that most firms really don't have a clear, differentiated image if we use your term in the public's eye. And that's why most firms have to compete on price because they're not differentiated enough. They don't have enough of an image that distinguishes them from the competition to be able to charge what they want or need to charge. Does that, does that ring a bell to you?
IC: Absolutely. You know, and as you're saying that, you know, I could hear a lot of principals and firms going well. We've been trying to get that public library for many years. If we got, if we got that public library, people would really understand how we're gonna design for a for a community in Malvern or a community in Scarborough or something.
IC: But you know, there are many other things firms can do to add value to their image. And that is maybe get involved with certain boards, do certain charity work. Have some exposure to helping a community set up a garden or a farmer's market. These may not be specifically project-related, but it sets out a precedent for the kind of philosophy that the firm engenders, when you start to look on websites and something, we do all the time. It's like, how are the people conveyed? Are the staff pictures even there? Or do they have a very artificial photo of a staff member holding up a mountain bike? Another one holds up a golden doodle and it's supposed to be like a very work life balance kind of joint. Is that really value for recruitment? Do, do young hires believe in that? Do clients appreciate that? Maybe, maybe not, but you know, some firms you can see that posit themselves as urban minded firms, seeing them out there helping communities is really a golden ticket. And it's a way to project your image without necessarily having that public library under your belt that you're striving to build, a lot of young firms try and get out of that. It's hard to get out of that realm just because of procurement and RFPs and interview process, and maybe the bench strength of your firm. It might be small. And so the client's not gonna take a chance on you and maybe the market currently is very busy, but it's still risk adverse. So what can you do to enhance your image without necessarily waiting for you that moment when you get that gorgeous community library?
RVLTR: Yeah. Or do speculative projects or or there's so many ways that are more, more inspired by, by Guerilla marketing that firms can put themselves on the map. I think the speculative project still works because a client of mine have done has done a few of those in the last couple of years. And every time it's gotten them in the globe mail and a bunch of other outlets, so it may not get them that, that that big project they're looking at, but it certainly puts them on the map. And I know for a fact, I'm pretty sure that they've gotten work as a result of that exposure, even if it's not the work they were presenting to the world. Yeah. So there are ways to kind of bypass the traditional, oh, I gotta fill out RFPs till the cow comes home and hoping I get this job to, to kind of get ahead of the competition. I think it's the firms that are smarter about that and the ones that are kind of do it intuitively they don't have to be told. So I, yeah, you, you're absolutely right. There's a very kind of community almost intuitive way of putting yourself on the map and then there's following everybody else's lead. And I think, following everybody, else's lead is the wrong way to do it because then you're competing with a whole bunch of firms that are trying to do exactly what you're doing.
IC: And this is a very good point. Our firm we do we obviously do a lot of real work. It keeps people very busy and, but some of the work we do takes time to bake takes time to finish. And we feel that we take that thought leadership and trying to distill it down to those speculative projects, because they help engender a discourse. And you're right. We find that when it gets out there and people appreciate it, it helps with the discussion about architecture and design in the city that more than just a transactional basis. And it also certainly is able for people like our team to flex their thought leadership muscle on issues of affordability of equity in the city of technical innovation. So there's a lot of facets to speculative work that will help you leverage the knowledge that you've been gaining, even if there's not a project that will necessarily distill and manifest it, certainly the speculative work can achieve that.
RVLTR: So in your mind, is there a way to kind of classify or define the different kinds of images that a firm projects, or even images of projects themselves? Do you have like kind of a way to sort that out in your mind?
IC: Yeah, I do. You know, I think one of the interesting things about our firm, very smart about developing these research committees or research engines.
RVLTR: So what are the, those?
IC: Those would be, I mean, for us there's issues of housing, the thinking about the post-carbon future, environmental sustainability, there's also, we have a strong committee that helps permeate through the work that we do internally and externally, the sort of the justice equity, diversity and inclusion committee and we have biodiversity, but I think how I would break that down is you go, okay, what are the big issues that clients want to resolve these days? And what can we do to help our clients achieve that? And it's not really rocket science, and there's obviously building regenerative design, so sustainability, there's issues of community. So those are the social issues that, that surround your work. And then there's issues of if your firm touches on landscape or on a larger scale, there's the whole, how do you build better ecosystems, or how does the built environment interact with natural environment? So, it's people, environment, material and innovation is a big thing especially for smaller firms. It's wonderful if you're doing a lot of material investigation and you're doing smaller projects that are really trying out new technologies. So I think those are areas that you can kind of hone in on and, and within those headings, you can nurture some bite size thought leadership pieces that will only contribute to your, how your perspective client sees you.
RVLTR: Because you guys put out a lot of thought leadership from what I can tell and I think more so than most, if not all of the firms that you're competing with. How does that impact the firm first in terms of image and then in terms of how much work it gets?
IC: That's a very good question because I was out last night with a friend of mine, who's a principal, at a very large firm here in Toronto and they have offices across north America. You can very easily burn a lot of money in your research. Research is not always the panacea for achieving work. We all recognize that, our firm recognizes it. His recognizes it. You have to be careful when you plow that investment into research, because it could be more expensive than going after bad RFPs. You also don't want to subsidize, you don't want to give stuff away for free. You don't want to say "You know, Madam developer, look at this fabulous thought leadership we have, we can save you some money" and they take it, thank you very much and go to a firm that's cheaper and doesn't do research. So you have to watch that input and how it comes back to the firm. I think for us one thing it does right away is improves morale and gets people motivated and excited about the work that we do. That's certainly a huge direct benefit. Another benefit is it helps with gaining trust. So I think in some ways it's almost not what the work does, but how is the work received? When a client looks: "We may not see a direct value in that research you did Mr. Chodikoff, but we love the firm. You guys are obviously full of a lot of gearheads and visionaries. We want to hire you."
RVLTR: So you've been in the industry for some time now, how have things changed or evolved over the past 20 years and specifically in terms the image and how people market themselves?
IC: That's a good question. Sometimes, I wonder how I managed to be in this industry for so long. I think it's changed in the sense that nothing is to be taken for granted. When I started in the industry, we were in a recession, it was hard for folks like my age to even get work. It was it was a struggle. And then the economy picked up and turned around, but as I was coming out of school, a lot of firms really took a devastating hit in the late nineties with the economy or especially firms that put all their money in one market, maybe that has changed for a variety of reasons, but it used to be, you know, a firm would only be doing social housing, a firm would only be doing condos or retail. So I think firms are much more capable of diversifying even at all scales. The larger firms obviously in the last 20 years, there's been a huge amount of consolidation. In order to harvest the market or harvest sectors within the market, firms like dialogue and Cannon and Perkins + Will and others have to buy up other firms so that ythey can say they did a library in the last six months, a hospital in the last year at a certain scale or size. And that competition for those kinds of projects are has certainly increased. And so firms needed to buy up one another and merge. That's something that's interesting because in doing so they're hedging their bets, both in markets and in sectors. Another thing I think that is the smaller firms are much more capable of finding more interesting collaborative work because the the nature of networking has been facilitated. You can collaborate with someone in Europe, much more easily than you could 20 years ago. The internet allows you to find like-minded people more quickly. Always technology. I believe it's not the technology, it's the people that technology brings together. And I think that has enabled new things to happen. And I think the gap between manufacturing and design is narrowed and has allowed smaller design firms to do furniture, lamps, or other specialty equipment in a building that may not have been so tenable 20 years ago, but with different methods of manufacturing and collaboration that's now more readily achievable.
RVLTR: So how would your variety of experiences from architect and urban planner to event organizer and magazine editor shaped your opinion on architecture marketing?
IC: Well, at times it may have made me more cynical, but I shouldn't be saying that. In all seriousness it's allowed me to really meet the diversity of practitioners that are out there. It's really quite extraordinary, the energy and the imagination that happens at all generations of designer, all backgrounds of designers. Certainly my career showed me that all bets are off, you know? I don't know why Virgil Abloh comes into mind where he was trained as an architect and then became a fashion designer. And I don't know if he would be the iconic image of how the profession has changed, but the culture of architecture and design is blurred. Architects have always taken influence from so many other creative pursuits, whether it's the visual arts film or music, but it seems that that kind of academic influence has now become realistic influence in the way people practice. So through my exposure to this range and I've been blessed by meeting architects from all over the world and all backgrounds or most of the backgrounds, and you can't say all backgrounds, but certainly under, you know minorities underrepresented architects, architects of colour, indigenous architects, women... Seeing the leadership capacities change about what is leadership in the profession too has given me a lot of food for thought and a lot of excitement because when I started it really, it was much more of a narrow focus about what it means to be the star architect, the master builder, the generalist, that kind of verbiage doesn't seem to apply anymore. It seems to be much more entrepreneurial and socially motivated. And that is very exciting to me.
RVLTR: I can see that because when I started school by 20 years ago, architecture school, that is you know, the big names were still the the Frank Gehrys and Rem Koolhaases and Tom Maynes of the world. That was the kind of aspiration. I think - I have no actual evidence of that - but based on what I see around the industry, it seems like this has waned a little bit and there's more of a diversity, it's almost like the internet has democratized design in a way where you don't have to be superstar architect to gain traction. If you have a decent project or cool idea, the internet might give you a break and push you to the forefront. It requires an incredible amount of luck too, because good work is not the only parameter that needs to be fulfilled. But I think there's more of a democratization of access to the public as an architect than there ever was.
IC: You're bringing up some interesting points and I don't profess to have all the answers, but you know, it used to be, if you were published in a particular magazine print, if you had a monograph print, maybe you had an exhibition in real life, maybe you made it to the serpentine gallery as a designer, the Venice Biennale, there were certain points that would be on your bucket list to become your superstar architect. And some of those are still very important and still remain in effect, I guess they all do to some degree, but you can do a lot to circumvent that if you don't make it, if you don't think you'll make it. Of course, the challenge is, you can get a lot of "B+" architects out there, meaning the ones that just reside under the so-called "A-level", you can get a lot of B+ maybe even the "B-" ones that aren't even building anything, but they can put on a hell of a show on their landing page, but what have they done for the society lately. They have some ideas, but it's not realized, there's no real clients, they haven't really been tested by builders. So, you know, it's like so many other things in the last 20 years with social media on the internet, what is real and what is fake? What is your, is your "imageability" - back to that issue - Is it a big bubble of nothingness or do you have a lot to back it up? And then there are also a lot of people that do amazing work and have very little presence on the web. Sometimes we all look at images now and is that real? Is that a rendering or did that get built? And if it did get built, is it [photographed] on a perfect day when there's no people or no cars or the first day it was opened, but not five years later? Where is the grittiness?
RVLTR: I remember when I was in school, towards the end of my studies, a dozen or so years ago, I spent a lot of time on blogs, like ArchDaily at the time. And then I started realizing that they put a lot of unbuilt projects on there, basically renderings. And after seeing a couple of those first before being built, so as a rendering online and then the project being built later on and being highly disappointed in the finished project, not living up to the expectations of the renderings, I really became skeptical of looking at renderings online, because they're always very sexy obviously. But the reason I'm saying this is because to your point of like maybe B+ or even B- architects can make a splash online, but I think for anyone who knows the industry and has been around long enough it's very easy to see through that, even with beautiful pictures of a finished project. I certainly, and maybe I'm a bit biased because I look at projects day in and day out and I photograph them too, but I can look at pictures of a project, even if I haven't seen it in person and almost instantly gauge the quality of the building itself, like how well detailed it is, how well built it is. So I think if you look at that long enough, you can't really fool anyone. You might fool the general public who doesn't know about architecture and there could be a danger in there because they're the ones who are going to hire you. But I think there's still something to be said about long-term reputation. And if you do too much work that doesn't live up to the expectations for whatever reason, that's gonna catch up to you at some point. You only get so many free passes before your reputation is destroyed. I think that leads us to an interesting point over the reality of social media and its influence on the architecture industry. Can you explain - in your mind - the the myth and realities of social media for the for design firm?
IC: Well, I think this is a tough question again, you know, I don't want tp sound like The Economist. It says: "Well, it depends" but I think these are the discussions we have a lot, both internally and with my colleagues is that the key to a successful design platform is that it has to be consistent. You have to deliver consistent content over your platforms day in and day out, it's a bit of a churn. And with that pressure to be consistent, sometimes you're just throwing a past project, a current project and stuff out, and you're just putting stuff to fill the air. So you shouldn't necessarily be doing that. LinkedIn is different from Instagram, which is different from Twitter and, and all of them have their own characteristics. And I think they all have their own value, Instagram still trends younger, but Instagram is much more effective, I think for firms whose work - I don't wanna say their work is commodified because I don't want to sound patronizing - but if you're doing, sexy interior, sexy retail, you can just take a cool photo of a light. You can take a photo of a handrail. You know, those things work well on Instagram because people kind of get the gist with very small tangible items, the larger ineffable things of public buildings, for example, universities, hospitals you know, community centers, that's harder to convey in an exciting way on Instagram or even on social media, generally. What it does do, Instagram's really good for conveying the culture of a firm. I think that's one aspect too. Obviously again, the small jewel-like projects go very well on social because they're quick and digestible. But cultural things work well, some firms, put a lot of photos of their team on site or maybe their team has these sort of parties or event and those things can work well. And then other platforms are much more effective at conveying policy elements, housing, affordability, sustainability. Those are, those are prime examples of that. So many of my colleagues, they do a presentation, they do a conference, they do a talk. During COVID, you can be doing five conferences in five different cities, one day it's very easy, because you can just do it all virtually and you can project that out onto LinkedIn and your website to kind of prove your chops in terms of a particular facet of the work that you're doing. I think you can achieve some success with that. It is a communication board. It is a mouthpiece. But I guess it's always important to be authentic because sometimes these you're sending out messages and it can be kind of normative. "Well, so what if you're doing geothermal isn't everyone? Well, so what if you achieveLEED Gold?" People used to joke about achieving LEED gold.
RVLTR: I think you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I have a hunch that this is generally true. I think most people and firms alike get on social media without really thinking about what that will do for them, or what's the purpose of getting on social media because let's, let's be frank, we've all been at that point where everybody gets on Instagram and then you feel left out. So you're gonna get on Instagram - and I remember my Instagram started by just posting pictures of food and my new bike and whatever stupid stuff that no one cares about - 12 years ago, like way, way back when it started. But I think when people get more serious about social media and they start spending a lot more time and resources to strategize and curate the content that's gonna be on there, one of the questions that they rarely ask themselves is: "Why should we be on this platform to begin with what is it gonna do for us?" And I think there's a bit of a rat-race happening on social media, especially with Instagram, like the more visual ones because everybody's on there, there's a huge network effect of people thinking: "Oh, if everyone is on there, I need to be on there too." Without really questioning the reason why. And I think that's an issue with a lot of firms' endeavour on social media because, some firms clearly benefit from it and have become masters at it, so there's no question it can be useful, but I think too many firms just do that and they kind of half-ass to do what their friends do, but not really make sure that it serves them. I know this is just an example of one, but I haven't been on social media except for LinkedIn for over two years now and it hasn't affected my bottom line. As a matter of fact, I made more money since I stopped being on social media than I had before. So it's not necessarily really an argument to say: "Well, I have to do it for my marketing." What kind of results do you get out of it is the real question. And if that doesn't serve you, why are you on there? What are your thoughts on that?
IC: I think that's key. I think the website is your basis.
RVLTR: The website is the brochure everyone needs to have. That's kind of a given
IC: When your client goes Googling they're gonna be looking for you - hopefully - on the website and Instagram or any social media platform they all have. I think you have to be clear about what kind of audience are you going after? If you're, if you're a larger firm and you need to recruit people, you need to be on the new young hires' radar, social media is good.
RVLTR: Yeah. I have a friend who's a medium-size, firm design firm principal, and the only reason they have an Instagram account is for recruitment purposes. So they know that. Some people are very clear on that.
IC: You might be involved with the cultural industry and you're involved with museums, there might be an aspect of your work that will tie into other discussions online. And I think that's a fair assessment. Retail would be a good example. It's often very specialized lighting applications and specialized hardware. And linking that to a broader discussion is useful. For ourselves, when we're dealing with transit or with housing, we wanna be part of that larger conversation because we're players in that market and we need to assert ourselves in that online discourse. Whether it's comments online, Twitter and LinkedIn are very helpful, because we're engaging with city planners or municipal bureaucrats who tend not maybe be so visual, they may be more policy oriented. So we wanna be part of that discussion. So whether your discussion is through text or visuals, just understand "What kind of conversation do you wanna be part of?" I think is maybe a good question. Good place to start.
RVLTR: So if you were to do a media campaign to promote a project, if you did it well, you were gonna really think about the kind of publications you want to target and you're gonna write your media kit specifically to target those publications. So I think when it comes to marketing, it has to be the same thing. If you're thinking about getting on social media, if you're not already on there, or even if you're already on there, the real question is: "Is the audience you're targeting on those platforms?" If you're, if you're a high-end or even a mid-range residential designer and all you do is like houses between $2 and $5 million of property value, then you know that your target's probably on Pinterest maybe on things like Houzz, maybe a little bit on Instagram, but so the platforms you're gonna target are different from, if you are a company that does large institutional projects where you probably more likely to target the proper audience on LinkedIn, in trade magazines, places where the property managers or the building managers hang out, things like that. Does that make sense?
IC: Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes we've all been there where your campaign might be to target [only] five people that you might be able to identify by name and you almost wanna know: "Where do they hang out?" You could get very granular and drill down to that level.
RVLTR: And I would say be creative too, because if you know that person X goes to that restaurant every day, maybe the best approach is to go hang out at that restaurant and approach them in person.
IC: Maybe yeah. Or if you want to do cultural buildings go hang out at the art fairs. That's a whole other aspect of marketing. I remember few years ago I was doing some consulting work with a healthcare firm and, you know, I showed up at a healthcare conference. I was the only architect in the room.
RVLTR: How many leads did you get out of this?
IC: I got a couple leads. It was remarkable. I certainly was do not profess to be a healthcare expert, but as an architect, we can translate issues into a visual solution, more readily than someone who's not an architect, that's sort of what we do. And just being there was appreciated because you're in the healthcare profession and you, and you're planning facilities you don't know who to turn to. You don't know what's out there, you don't know where to start.
RVLTR: I think that's a telling example, because an acquaintance of mine is both a licensed architect and an MD and she's been fighting for years to connect the two worlds because her whole thesis is that they're too disconnected and that's why a lot of medical buildings don't work very well. She's probably the only one in the world and maybe one of a handful that has that kind of education. So it speaks a lot to having the ability to zig when everybody else zags and see opportunities where no one else sees them. I think that's a very valuable lesson. Because you've been in this industry and especially looking at marketing for so long, are there some particularly egregious mistakes that you see firms making over and over when they market themselves that you can pinpoint?
IC: Yeah. It's often the case of "on time, on budget." We're hiring you to be on time and on budget you say you're gonna be on time and on budget. It's like to market that you - when someone says "Can we have a three o'clock appointment?" and you're gonna market yourself: "I always show up at my three o'clock appointments", it's not great. And you can do better than that. There's a lot of the stating of the obvious. And I think people pick up on a lot of the jargon and so you're afraid not to use it. Again, you don't wanna be the outlier and a lot of firms have that attitude. The idea of a multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, pluri-disciplinary firm yeah, that's useful. But by nature if we don't have that expertise in house, then we work with them through our consultant base. So I find that a little bit of a weak statement.
RVLTR: I've written a few of those very generic paragraphs that basically summarize 90% of what the architecture firms say on their website: We're a full service, multidisciplinary, diverse group of architects who designs buildings. I mean, this is a gross exaggeration, but those kinds of things don't stand out because everybody else is saying them. So I think it's very important to remember.
IC: That's a hard thing. I don't blame partners or leadership for being afraid to drop it.
RVLTR: Why not?
IC: Well, because I'm not, I'm being kind, but you're competing at brinkmanship. You feel like: "Oh, if I take my hand off the button and say: 'I'm not multidisciplinary', people are gonna think I'm not multidisciplinary, and they're gonna go to the next guy."
RVLTR: Clients probably don't even know what that means. Do they?
IC: Some do and some awesome clients are pretty sophisticated, hey can always hire a couple other people, you know, they don't need to [hire us] but for smaller projects, it's useful to have certain in-house services depending on what it is. SvN is very unique in that we're a pretty intensive planning operation and we are an architecture firm. There are not too many firms that can say that so we can stick handle difficult projects through the approvals process and get them built with a higher degree of confidence than our competition, because they don't have that multidisciplinary component. And I think it's an achievement. So I think it's a bona fide statement to say that we are a multidisciplinary firm. That being said, I just think that the term or that direction can sometimes lead to a client [that] may not be able to distinguish our multidisciplinary firm next to the other multidisciplinary firm. So we have to take [the] next steps to really clarify that for our client. And we do do that through other means that try and leverage our tactical muscle.
RVLTR: I think it's important to say that being multidisciplinary is not a bad thing at all, if anything, it's an asset, but when everybody else is trying to claim that as their superpower, then it's not a superpower anymore. You'll have to present yourself in a different way that may still touch on the fact that you're multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary, but also presents you portrays you as different from the competition. I think that's the key. It's just not the first thing necessarily you should put on your website because - and I've done that exercise where you go look at a few dozen websites, if not hundreds, and I know people who've done that with thousands of architecture websites, I don't know how they've had the patience to do that - But if you did that and look the keywords, you quickly start seeing the ones that repeats themselves all the time, multidisciplinary, diverse, whatever. I think it's just not the first thing clients should see, because if you're gonna look at 10 architects who do what you do, and they see the same thing on all the landing pages, then say in their mind: "I can't tell them apart". And so the best way to tell them apart is on price. So the cheaper one will always get the job. It always comes down to that. So it's not necessarily that you don't want to be those things it's that you just want to present yourself in a different way that makes you stand out as unique. And I've talked a lot to advertising people, especially on this podcast, because I think there's a lot of really good lessons about marketing to be learned from advertising. And most advertising is total shit. 90% of it. And there's a number of reasons for that. But occasionally you'll see a very creative ad come out and usually they're funny or quirky or some variation thereof or some of them can be like really emotional., hat works too, like tear-jerkers almost. But the ones that are effective at keeping brand X on top of your mind are the ones that stand out one way or another. And they're usually also very effective commercially. One of the best examples is the Snickers campaign. They ran a few years ago: "You're not you when you're hungry". And I think the first one of that series were people playing rugby. And then all of a sudden, one of them gets knocked to the ground and turns into a famous old actress that just died this last year. She was already old at the time. And then she eats the Snickers and then turns back into this young, healthy, energetic man.
IC: Betty White?
RVLTR: Betty White that's right.
IC: Bless her.
RVLTR: And, and those were great. I hate Snickers. I would never buy one of those, but the fact that I remember it and the reality is that it also increased their bottom line. They sold more Snickers after those campaigns than they ever had before. So I think there's a true value commercially in standing out. It's just that too many people are afraid of it.
IC: It's hard. because it's you want to build trust with the client. The work we do is [challenging], we have to embed ourselves with the clients [who are] taking a chance on us. If they're building their own home, it's probably the most expensive thing they've ever done in their lives. If it's an institution it could have huge effects on fundraising. So that's a lot on the line. I think it's very easy to kind of drop some of the humour and be very serious and trust -ased. But to your point, to stand out you have to present your differentiator. I mean, candy bars are sort of hard to present your differentiator. In architecture, we're a multidisciplinary firm which SvN is. How do you project that don't sound like it's cliche or platitude? How do you build trust without conveying arrogance? That's another thing. I know anecdotally, I've been on a lot selection committees and juries over a number of years. Sometimes when the architect comes in and sits at the edge of the table after he has given his talk in front of the board, casually sitting there going: "You know, Arnaud, we'll build your student residence. We'll build it on time and on budget, We've got a multidisciplinary office, we'll do a great job". The client might get scared because it's almost arrogant because it's kind of like: "were you not even listening to us?" Versus: "I've heard that [for] that particular project, it went to another firm and I know the client said: 'We chose this other firm because they came to us.' We actually don't know what we're gonna do. Because we haven't talked to anybody. We haven't talked to the community, we haven't talked to the students. We haven't fully fleshed [it] out with you. We don't know, but we're set up to listen. We're set up to go through the process. And we're pretty confident that when we go through that process, we'll come up with, with a solution that will benefit everyone." It turns the conversation around. Not trying to toot our own horn too much, I know SvN kind of touts itself as "listen first". It's a big thing for the firm, big tenet. It could sound kind of cheesy, but it's important. Because if you are arrogant, that's a trust-breaker. That's not good, no one likes an arrogant person on the first date, no one likes to hire an architect who's arrogant. Architects are arrogant enough as they are. That trust is important. If you eat that Snickers bar, you'll remember who you are all along. So if you're an architect that listens first maybe your client will feel like, you know that you will see them for who they are.
RVLTR: That's a very good point. It's not actually not that hard once you learn how to do it properly to ask questions and just listen, because all you gotta do is ask, you can learn everything about a potential client by asking four or five, maybe six questions. That's all you need to do. And then the conversation will go from there, but that's all you need to start with. And that reveals so much more about your clients, which gives you the knowledge as a service provider. You need to be able to offer a solution that suits them. Obviously there's a lot more that goes into designing buildings for clients, but as a starter conversation, that's really all you need. And I think in the industry it would be beneficial if people said things about themselves less and demonstrated it [their expertise] more in their actions. Instead of saying you're multidisciplinary, maybe it's time to think about how you can show that to your clients, through your actions. So instead of sending the principal architect to a meeting with the clients, maybe you send a team of people and that could include the architect, but to [also] show that actually it's important for that portion of the team to be there because they need to know about the client too, or they can't design a building otherwise. And that's just a silly example. Maybe that's not the right way to do it, but just to think about how to do things differently, that will make you appear as if you're not just trying to get a job, but you genuinely care about doing good work for that client. And that will come with fees and profit and whatever. Obviously everybody needs that. But more listening. I certainly think that would be a great asset to a great many firms.
IC: I think that that's a really important part. Makes me think of some of these firms where on their website, it's really just the two partners and everyone else.
RVLTR: Yeah.
IC: And you go: "Is that partner gonna be answering my call or email at 10 o'clock at night when I'm worried about something, and I trust that partner that's looking all glam to answer my calls or do I wanna know that there's a whole team that's gonna back me up?" Trying to build off what you're saying, you wanna project a sense that there's not just one person, there could be dozens that can back you up and having that teamwork, having that relationship. That's a strong selling feature. I think a lot of firms miss that opportunity to project that dialogue that you engage with when you hire an architect,
RVLTR: There's never just one person. And sometimes the person who claims to be behind the masterpiece is not even doing any work, they're just basically lending their name to it. So yeah, it's a very good point.
IC: I always remember once: it was a very, very large public building and I was on the selection committee. I was consulting. They paid along the way and we had a series of interviews and one architect firm, very high profile didn't get the job because the principal was saying: "You know, I'm working on this big project, I'm working on that project, I'm handling this, I'm flying out there." And the client was like: "Well who are we gonna call? Are you gonna handle our project? And what other projects are you working on?" And he's like: 'Oh, I'm handling them all. They're all under my charge. Don't worry." And we're scratching our heads going: "Well, that's just not possible. There's not enough hours in the day" Versus the teams that did better would bring in the principal and the more junior staff, they're all in the room, they're all going for the interview. And it's like, woo, we've got a team here. That's a strong selling feature. We've got a team. We just hired this new landscape architect. We're not even an architecture firm, but we've got a landscape architect. When you walk in and go: "You hire us, we just picked up this amazing woman. She just came out of this program. She's doing all this award-winning stuff, we're so glad to have her on the team. She's got a couple years experience. Boy, she's a good designer, but worry not, I've got you and I can handle it. So you have the range and the client would sit there and go: "My god".
RVLTR: What if something happens to the principal even if they just get the flu for two weeks? Is the project stopping? It's important to think about. I think we've covered most of the questions I had for you. The last one I have is if you had one piece of advice for any architecture firm regarding how they market themselves, what would it be?
IC: First, be authentic, really sell how you solve a problem. When a client is gonna hire you, whether you're going for your first job or whether you're going for a major airport, when it comes down to the wire, if both your firm and my firm, Arnaud, we both did these great airports. You know, yours might have been in Paris. Mine might have been in Berlin, but when it comes down to it, what's our team and what's our people? So I think really selling the people behind every design. I think that's, that's the greatest asset you can go with.
RVLTR: That's a great piece of advice. And I would add to that, think of every touch point with your potential client as an opportunity to sell. Even if you're not saying anything, but just by the way you act. Things as simple as showing up a few minutes early, whatever the case maybe, there's so many things you can do. That's a thing that a lot of people tend to forget and I have forgotten it in the past too, but I think ultimately people judge you by all those micro touch points that happen throughout the interaction. And when you work on a project that lasts for years you don't necessarily have to maintain the perfect standard because nobody's perfect. But it has to be at a certain level throughout. There's also the fact that as projects get longer and longer, you have to work harder to maintain the same level of trust. Because trust tends to wane a bit over time. So if you don't work extra hard to maintain that trust that's that could bite you in the ass.
IC: That's a good point. And it's consistency.
New Speaker:
RVLTR: That's a perfect way to summarize it. Consistency. This was a great conversation. We went in many different directions, but all kind of somewhat relevant to the topic of the image. So I want to thank you very much for giving some of your time to this podcast. And I look forward to the next conversation.
IC: Arnaud, I appreciate it. I appreciate your authenticity. I appreciate your consistency and your, your reliability.
RVLTR: You're very welcome.
 
 

Single Serves ep. 305 - Schliemann on Placemaking

What makes a good “place”?
This a notoriously difficult to answer, but Udo Schliemann, past guest, renowned graphic designer and accomplished artist attempts to answer that question through the lens of his own expertise and experience, with a focus on the olympics as a way to build community.
Udo is a designer and principal creative director at Entro. He was born and raised in Germany and spent half of his career there, notably being mentored by Anton Stankowski, before moving to Canada and landing at Entro.
 
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd