is part of not just doing good work but doing good at work and having a good life. You know, like, it doesn't all have to be high drama.
Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard and in today's episode, I will be speaking with Esther Sperber, who is the founder of studio St. Architects based in New York City. So as the founder at St. Architects in 2003, after working at Pei partnership architects for more than five years, during which she had the privilege of working very closely with Mr. im Pei and will discuss a little bit about that in the podcast itself and some of the lessons that she learned. Esther writes and lectures on architecture and psychoanalysis, to fields of practice that strive to reduce human distress and widen the range of human experiences. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Lilith magazine, The Huffington Post, among others. Born and raised in Jerusalem, Israel, she studied architecture at the Technion in Haifa, and Columbia University in New York. And in this episode, we will be discussing architecture as a leadership, art and what that actually means and how to bring leadership into your practice. We discuss how Esther's interest and understanding of psychology and psychoanalysis influences her leadership and architecture. And we also talk about the importance of hiring a great business coach to make sure that all of your blind spots are uncovered, and that you can invest into your business the most successfully. So sit back, relax and enjoy esta Sperber. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you please follow the link in the information star. Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me here. Great to be on your podcast.
absolute delight. So you're the founder of studio St. You guys started, what nearly 20 years ago? Yep. We're pretty much celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. Is it?
Exactly. We we had a little celebration?
Congratulations. That's No, that's no small achievement. And you guys have got an incredible portfolio of you know, beautiful design work. You've worked across multiple sectors from institutional work housing, interiors, religious work, and now you've got a specialism in doing beautiful interiors and work with with synagogues. And, you know, it's and I know that in your past life as well, you were working at I am pays office. Yep. Where was where was that was that
in New York. So I was working in imp sons offices with Mr. Pay for about five years. And it was really a privilege and an incredible experience.
Amazing. And we work. We work in that towards the end of his life. And he's kind of,
well, he lived a very long life. So I lived I worked there when he was in his mid 80s. He was still working, at least, you know, 10 or 15 years later, so.
Excellent, great, amazing. Well, what sorts of projects were you working on there?
I worked for about two years on the Ronald Reagan Hospital, which is the UCLA Hospital in LA. And then we worked on a number of museums it was it was great because Mr. Pay kind of could handpick the clients he wanted to work with at that point in his life. So I was working on the Islamic art museum in Qatar. He did a few projects that didn't end up getting built. But it was a really special place to be
amazing, amazing. And any kinds of architectural lessons either in design or business that you've kind of taken away and have kind of instilled into your own, like the future of your career?
Oh, that's a great question. Mr. P was a real force of nature but in the kind of quiet gentleman kind of way. He was able to kind of smile and charm the clients into anything he thought was going to be a great building. And, you know, they'd come in with this notion that we had to cut the budget and things were going too slowly and they would leave, feeling that they had the privilege of working with a great architect, and they should allow him to do whatever he wants. And it's true, they should, I mean, in the scheme of history, if the project, you know, took another year or two, nobody's going to remember that. But the building is going to stay there for for decades. So you know, I hope I learned a little bit of that, you know, that, that convincing clients to do the right thing, because it was in their advantage. And because they were going to get something that's worth more than what they're paying for kind of thing, you know, that it's really, and that the, that the relationship between the clients and the contractors and the architecture and be a confrontational one, it's a kind of collaboration to try to do something really special. Yeah, I hope I've been been able to learn a little bit of that.
Well, that's, that's, that's a lovely kind of insight to glean from someone like that. Do you think that this was something that he he always had the skill of being able to do? Or was it something that got easier over time, because of his, his reputation and the brand of the business?
I mean, I think it's definitely easier once you have, you know, this kind of incredible portfolio of projects that you've managed to deliver. But I think it was something that was also just part of who he was, I think he had a, a clear vision of what kind of architecture he wanted to do, and how you achieve that. And he was able to, in that, like, kind of forceful, gentle way, get his consultants to stretch their abilities to the maximum and his staff to do that, and his clients as well. So I think everyone was excited to be involved in something that is, you know, cutting edge and exciting and kind of push themselves to do things that they didn't think they could do before. And that's a real talent.
Amazing. So what was it that inspired you to step out on your on your own? Did you leave Mr. Pays office immediately and set up into your own practice? Or was there a kind of a process of doing that, and
so I did leave to start my own practice. But the there was definitely a process of figuring out what that actually meant, not my own, my own office would be. You know, when I left the working with a partnership, I think I had a sense that I had learned a lot about architecture and about construction, but that we were working on kind of the tail end of great modernist architecture. And that, you know, we were heading into the 21st century. And then I was curious to see what that would look like, and imagining that that might be a little bit different. So I had this kind of itch to do my own thing. When I left, I shared an office space with two friends. We had done a master's together at Columbia University, and, you know, five years earlier in 9798. And we had, over the years, done a bunch of competitions together on the weekends and at night and really loved being together but hadn't really done any real projects with clients. together. So we had inherited this loft in Dumbo in Brooklyn, which at the time was still a very grungy industrial area. Now it's full of, you know, Wall Street bankers, high end apartments. But, so we had this great space, and we really kind of weren't sure what we were doing. And we were lucky to all be kind of single and childless and be able to not make a lot of money. So we started by doing international competitions for probably about six or eight months. And during that time, each of us got a few clients. I did a small apartment renovation and then I got my first kind of more real project, which was a renovation of a townhouse in Brooklyn. It was a very dilapidated building and the client bought it to convert it into four apartments with an extension in the back. And we had a very loose collaboration of kind of who works on what and when we help each other and but each of the three of us had their own kind of official clients. Then it turned out that these two friends dividend Alanna got married to move back to Europe. And so even though I didn't really mean, to start up my office on my own, I, there was a certain comfort with being part of a group. That's kind of how it landed. So that was, you know, our first year, we shared those projects together. And then after that it was my own work,
right? So kind of, you know, making that leap to set up your, your, your own practice, you didn't have any work that you you didn't have a project or a client that you were taking or anything like that, it was kind of off into the wilderness, start doing competitions, reduce all expenses, and kind of slug it out to begin with.
Yeah, I mean, I always so yes, in terms of trying to figure it out, I always had some expenses. So one of the things that I think I did learn from from working as a partnership was a kind of sensibility that you have to be organized and work as if you're a big office, even if you're just one or two people. So I never worked out of my bedroom, you know, we always had an office space, we had early on stuff, set up our accounting system to be kind of very simple, but organized. And I gave myself payroll when we had money. And so it was a little bit of a mix of having no work, but having an infrastructure of an office, setting up CAD standards and being very insistent that you have to drive everything on the right layer. But I think that was actually a really important piece of it, that as soon as we did get some more work, we were really set up in in a good way to be able to perform perform that work. And, and not have to worry about the kind of back office part of setting it up once we had a client. So I was really fortunate to have done that in the right way. Well, I
mean, this, this is what is very interesting about me, if you look here in the UK, and across the globe, how many of these, let's call them like that kind of, you know, real, influential, impactful, stock tech firms, essentially, not only they've been influential and impactful in terms of the built work, but also the amount of smaller practices, or younger practices that have been, you know, have been generated or, you know, given birth to, if you like, as a result, I think is really, really fascinating. And often you see a very, very good quality of kind of systems infrastructure being taken from those offices, and then and then executed. In terms of winning work and projects, what are you what were the what were your kind of first business development adventures.
So it's always been a little bit intuitive and word of mouth and networking. It's interesting, because I grew up in Israel, and actually came to New York to do this master's. And so it wasn't like I had come to, I wasn't starting my practice in a place in which I had already kind of a big network of friends and family and colleagues. But over the years, you know, partly, I've been very involved in my own Jewish community. So that was one kind of Avenue in which I met people both, you know, kind of through my synagogue and the religious practice, also through some of the kind of Israeli liberal nonprofits that I was involved in, and, you know, you go to events and meet people. So that was one side of it, you know, some, to a lesser extent, through kind of the architectural community, but that has always been for me a little bit less of a avenue for, for getting business. You know, I've also got some referrals from, you know, my old office, and that was a very heartwarming thing when your boss would, you know, call and say, Listen, we have a product that's too small for us, or it's not the right fit, would you be interested. And I think that speaks to some of what you were saying about the kind of smaller firms, some of which are not so small anymore. Yeah, that were kind of kind of second generation of these bigger starchitect firms. I think that would actually be really fascinating to try to kind of track that network of, you know, offices and architects that were mentored by
a kind of architectural family tree.
Yeah. You know, there's this really beautiful, similar thing. I mean, we might touch on this later. But I've been very interested in psychoanalysis and also how that refers to architecture. But because psychoanalysis, you know, started with Freud, you can really kind of do this family tree. And there weren't that many people involved of the different generations, and who kind of analyzed who and who was a student of Google. And there is this, you know, that almost like a family tree, and it would be interesting to do something similar. For architecture, it's also interesting, because I think it fills a gap that that is not really cultivated by architecture schools. So our training is, is part of our education. And then there's this whole second phase of our education that often happens at firms. And, you know, you learn so much about the business and about client management and about project management. In an kind of apprentice type of framework. I don't know if other professions are, are like that, or not, probably in some ways they are.
It's very interesting. And I've I've kind of, in the past, quasi jokingly, when people have asked me and what's what's the sort of the best success or best recipe for starting an architectural practice. And I've often, you know, I've kind of alluded to well go and work for one of the stock tech firms first, and work, get a good 10 years worth of experience, and then basically take the team that you've been working with, and leave that office and use all this use all their systems, because, you know, on so many occasions, I've seen practices been born like that, and have got in a very short period of time, gone from no work to working on very significant projects, because they've kind of cultivated all of these connections. And the CAD systems have been just directly imported. And sometimes, you know, when we're talking about whole teams moving and becoming breakaway businesses, then the relationships are already there. People know how to work already. It's like they've been incubated in another in another practice, and then kind of, you know, that's it. That's a very, you know, it's a very, it's a very fast way of doing it, obviously, kind of, you know, I don't think people deliberately set out to do that tends to happen as a organic set of, of reasons and politics, perhaps, of why, of why those sorts of things, those sorts of things emerge. But it's it is testament to some of the larger corporate practices or the stock tech firms. And certainly, in that world of the kind of high tech, commercial projects where those architects, those businesses have been very good at serving commerce, because there's been a lot of need for efficiencies and need for kind of being able to talk the language of business, because that's where the clients are, and the architectural language kind of, you know, nicely fits into that as well.
Yeah, it's interesting, as I was listening to you, I was thinking about kind of my transition. And I think the piece that the piece that I've cultivated that is different is kind of slightly resisting that super efficient way of thinking, our clients tend to be less bottom line driven, whether it's, you know, interior, residential projects, or nonprofits where there's, there's definitely a concern about the cost. But doing things as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible are not necessarily the way those those types of clients work. And I've actually found it interesting that sometimes when I tried to put together a schedule, you know, I would put down how much time we would need to do the design. But then I realized you have to put in a lot of extra weeks for client deliberation and their own internal process, which I'm not resentful of, I think it is part of these types of projects. And it's part of the cultivation of the client where you need to allow them to go through those meetings and talking to the funders and talking to various committees and stakeholders, and allow buy in from the various, you know, membership groups in a community, for example, when we're doing a synagogue, and you know, in a way it seems like you're Not being efficient, right, because you're adding like weeks and weeks in between our different phases of design. But it's kind of the only way to do that in a way that actually brings people on and makes sure that the client is happy with the process and happy with the results. And, and also allows you to tweak things that you might have missed, you know, we don't know everything. And that input from the client is important. So, you know, that's one of the things I've never articulated it to myself in that way that, you know, that I'm kind of happy to have created a practice that can I somehow, with, somehow hold this certain inefficiency within it and still get, you know, survive financially and, and deliver the project
when this is this is kind of part and parcel of a successful practice, right is that that tension of design, which is iterative, creative, organic, we need to be able to create a space for it, in order to go on a discovery and discovery, a discovery process is inherently risky. And it can be very dramatic for a client, you know, because there's too many unknowns. And architects, we're typically very good at being able to occupy a kind of intellectual territory where you don't know what the answer is gonna be, you don't know how to deal with all the complexity, and we relish it, we really love it. Whereas for a client who's paying money for it, it's like, ah, that's yeah, so kind of being able to create a space to hold that I think, is really, you know, that's a real skill, it's a real skill to be able to do that.
Yeah, and I think, and I think it's, it's good when we can get our clients to be excited about that, you know, unknown and the discovery and realizing that what we're going to get to is something better than what they had maybe put together in the RFP that they put out for proposals. So we had an experience a while ago, where we renovated a community center down in the East Village, in Manhattan, and they were looking for an architect to renovate their fitness center, because that was the money generating piece of this. But they had many, many different programs, like, very niche ones, like women only swim out swim classes for very orthodox women. And then they also had like, Japanese parenting group. You know, they had a nursery school, they had, they had a real interesting and eclectic schedule of events and classes. And and when we started working with them, it became clear that like renovating the fitness center was not really what was what was going to transform the institution, it would be something different. And in the initial design, we proposed, you know, moving all the offices and creating a whole new lobby, and transforming the ground floor to make kind of public space for all these different activities to take place for the people that come to these activities to meet and mingle. And it was completely obvious once we said it, people are not going to like a fitness center, they can go to a million other fitness centers, they come here because it's a community center that has this kind of diversity in it. But it's nice when when your clients are like, oh, right, we hired you to do one thing. And we're so excited that you convinced us to do something completely different that is, you know, four times more expensive, but is really the right thing to do and, and what we were actually looking for, without knowing it.
How do you, you know, when you're working with a client, and I think one frustration will often hear from architects in general is, you know, a client will come to an architect already with, you know, some sort of brief that's been developed. And normally a brief certainly on institutional projects, like the brief might have been developed with, I don't know, maybe a lawyer and somebody in finance or an accountant or something like that. There hasn't been any creative input yet. And that can cause a bit of a friction sometimes because you know, that, certainly in a kind of contemporary procurement system, there's a little hole that's been crafted for the architect to fit their services in their fees. And often, that hole isn't best serving to the client, let alone the architect. Have you experienced that? And if you have, like, how do you kind of navigate your way around it and how do you like to get involved with, with with that kind of client, these sorts of institutional clients?
Yeah, so we've definitely experienced that. I think part of the The process of submitting our proposals and interviews and meeting with the clients and maybe giving them an opportunity to talk to some of our previous clients as references is to try to give that sense that part of what we can bring to the table is that process of figuring out what the project should be. So I'm trying to think we have, I can think of a few examples of how to do that. So one example is a project we recently completed, which is a synagogue renovation in New York. And there was actually an initial kind of preliminary design project that they had reached out to some architects and we submitted our proposal, and we were not, we were not selected. And they worked with a different firm. And that gave them I think, a preliminary sense of what could be done and what kind of sense of a budget. But somehow, at the end of that process, they also concluded those architects were not the right fit for the real project. And so that was really exciting, because they came back to us. And they said, you know, now we have a budget, we think this is somewhere between, you know, four and a half and five and a half million dollars, we think we want to do something in the lobby, can you now actually do the schematic design? So that was, and that was lucky for us, because we, I think they had done some preliminary work to get a sense of cost and get a sense of timing. Which, which led to a task that was a little bit more clear. With many of our other similar institutional projects, I think I like to propose some kind of exploratory phase like that. So I will say, Listen, let's spend three months figuring out what the project is, and then figuring out what it's going to cost. And then I can give you a real proposal for what, how much time and how much money that's gonna cost. It's very hard to do that, before, you know what the task is gonna be. Yeah. You know, so, and a lot of a lot of our clients have been open to that. So, you know, we say, this is not a huge commitment, let's, you know, let's, let's write a agreement to do this first three months exercise, we'll create a vision, we'll put together some renderings, we'll have some floor plans, we'll get some preliminary budget pricing, you'll be able to use this for your fundraising, which is usually like their first phase. Yeah. And then, you know, we'll jump on board and, and do the actual design,
right, so you got to kind of chunking down the full architectural service into, like a feasibility study or even pre design work, or some kind of,
I like calling it a vision designed, because I think that's really what it is, we kind of tried to work with them on figuring out what it is that they really need. And what what we can do with their existing building or their new building, in order to achieve that. You know, if, when it's clients that don't want to do that, and kind of want a full on proposal, I think, then you kind of do what typically architects do, which is to try to define the scope of work and the budget, and the schedule, and make it clear that anything beyond that is going to be additional services, which will be figured out in some way. And that's also okay, if, if we, if we do a proposal, and it turns out that is, you know, there, they want to do something much bigger and more interesting, then or much smaller, then, you know, we can we negotiate or negotiate that change later on.
And it's, quite interestingly, you've done a lot of work with kind of religious institutions or synagogues. And these types of projects can be very challenging. If you're working with kind of multi headed clients, ie, there's a kind of, there isn't always a single person who's at the helm, or there's a committee that needs to be consulted, sometimes the committee is, you know, part of the the of the community, therefore, they are not full time. You know, they've got other jobs and other lives that they're that they're leading, it just adds to a kind of a level of a level of complexity and management which requires a lot of interpersonal skill and coordination. How many of you, if you will, first of all, have you experienced those kinds of challenges? And if you have, how do you how have you sort of learned to navigate or or deal with them.
There are different kinds of institutions and different management styles. So we For example, the 14th Street way that I initially mentioned, had a very strong executive director. And it was very clear that, you know, if he was sold on the proposal, that was a Go ahead. And there, there was a board and there were committees, but it was really kind of him making the major decisions and the assistant director kind of managing how that happens. And that was, that was a very easy
process, in that sense, much more sense.
And the synagogues, they're also different types of institutions. So we did a synagogue renovation out in Skokie, which is a suburb of Chicago, where there was a volunteer, a small volunteer committee, with a very strong chair. And so the process was quite simple. And, you know, when they were convinced it was a Go ahead. And, yes, we had to present to various other groups and members and the rabbi, but it was clear, it was fairly clear how decisions were being made, and pretty fast. Other synagogues have a much more complicated organizational structure. And it definitely can become very challenging. It can also become challenging, because if it's a larger committee, and there are different voices on the committee, and some people can be, you know, more confrontational, versus other people who are kind of more collaborative, and so you're trying to manage that. The committee itself, there are kind of inner workings, and also, the messaging that comes from that committee towards the larger community. And I think one thing that I learned, I have learned from that experience is that first of all, you have to add to your schedule, and budget and proposal, lots of hours for various meetings. You know, weekly committee meetings can become pretty onerous. Yeah. And often there have to be in the evening, because people have jobs. So your meeting from like, 6:30pm to 8pm, every week or every other week, which is, you know, a big commitment and not very convenient for family life. But the other thing is that it's really important to, to take a leadership position as the architect to kind of speak clearly, from the point of an expert, that sometimes that kind of group dynamic of a committee can can derail the sense of the direction of the project. And while we're on the one hand, kind of giving a service to our clients, we're also hired because of our expertise and experience and judgment. And we need to kind of hold that balance of, you know, being responsive to people's concerns and people's anxiety and people's wishes. But also, you know, sometimes you just have to say, Listen, we've done this many times. And we know, this is a stressful process. And we know right now, it feels like nothing is going right. But we have a great team, we have great consultants, we have a good contractor, we're all we're working to make this a successful project. And you have to trust that us that we're going to deliver what we're, you know, what we've promised and you know, I think that's that's sometimes hard to do. And sometimes you have to do that to more than just one group. You can't just speak to the committee, but you have to speak to the entire community on you know, like a informational Zoom meeting or to the rabbis and cantors. Or, but I think communication and, you know, a sense of confidence that you can give and confidence doesn't mean that we're always right. I think that's another piece of it. You know, I have learned that it's equally important to sometimes say, you know, I'm sorry, we made a mistake, you know, we missed this. I wish we didn't this is going to cost some money to fix it. But it's part of the normal process of renovating an old building. And often once you say, you know, you're sorry, and you made a mistake there. It's not that they can't continue harassing you, right? You've already apologize. And let's move on where to him. And let's figure out how to fix this. Well, then
like, like you say, you can also, you know, prepare a client to be like, You know what, there's going to be stuff that we're going to miss, we're going to have a contingency in place for this, you know, we're working with a building where we can't see all of the expectations. But this is really interesting what you're saying, actually, you know, the architect as well, in a leadership position in the, in the kind of the whole process, because you're leading the client, you're leading other consultants, you're bringing together the team, in many cases. And being at the helm, being the leader is, is actually very difficult. Because there's a lot of, you know, what comes with being the leader is, number one being accountable and being responsible. And number two is like actually having the you've got to have conversations, let's say, which inherently have some kind of collision involved in them, or not, not saying that they're, they're adversarial, or necessarily confrontational. But, you know, they're not always lovey dovey agreeable conversations, like you have to, you know, you have to stand for the vision of the project and for what the client is saying the vision, sometimes the client gets in the way of their own vision. And also you've got to, you know, have have difficult conversations with your own team members sometimes. How have you kind of expanded your, your leadership? What sorts of challenges did you say, used to have, when you first started the business compared to the kind of how have your challenges evolved or matured, to what you deal with now,
I think the main thing you learn out of after working for 10, or 15, or 20 years, or hopefully, continuing longer, is a certain maturity of life, I think I think of it a little bit, when I look at my daughters, I have two teenage daughters, one is just finished high school, she's 18, and other ones 16. And every experience that they have, or not every but many of their experiences, it's the first time this happened, right? It's the first time that someone has been mean, in a particular way, or it's the first time they're, you know, dating someone or it's the first time they've got on an airplane alone. And those are, you know, exciting experiences, but also very overwhelming. And we really don't exactly know how they're, you haven't had the experience to know that it's all going to work out, and it's going to be fine. And, you know, these friends are fighting, and it's all going to be either you'll continue being their friend, and that's great, or you won't be their friend. And that's also fine. Right? You know, some people are not worth it. So I think one of the things you learn from working is just that, you know, for the most part, it's going to be okay, you have that kind of wisdom. And I think it's one of those things that you learn as you kind of get more experienced is the difference between just people who are smart and creative, I think we were very, very enamored by that these like brilliant people who can, who are either really intelligent or super creative. And then there's another kind of talent that's a little bit different, which is this like wisdom, this kind of knowing how to take those exciting, intelligent, creative, groundbreaking or not even groundbreaking, or just, you know, very good designs, and shepherding them through the process. And getting them actually built and getting them built with your clients being happy at the end and getting them built with your contractors feeling like they are also proud and part of the project and they're not not everyone suing everyone. And whether that's like emotional intelligence or, or just kind of a certain maturity. I don't know exactly what's the right term, but I feel like that's something that our culture sometimes forgets to appreciate. And it's part of not just doing good work, but doing good at work and having a good life. You know, like, it doesn't all have to be high drama.
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is an interesting point to talk a little bit about. I know you've a little while ago, you started working with a management coach, a mutual friend of ours, the fabulous Douglas tiga, who, you know, got, you know, loved dearly and got a lot of time for what what was it that had you reach out and start working with with someone like Doug, what was so what was Also things in the business that you felt that it was important to have that kind of outside consulting, you know, kind of look inside of the business and give guidance.
So we talked about leaving big firms and taking some of that knowledge. And I think some of the knowledge that I took, and many people take from the firms they work that has to do with how to do the architectural part, I think very few. Unless you're kind of pretty high up as a partner at a firm, I didn't have a lot of insight into how the PE firm was working financially, and contractually, and how they were tracking things, and which they may or may not have been done doing, I really, you know, had, it was kind of a side of the business that we were not privy to, yeah. So when I kind of started my firm, I figured out my own processes, and I think they were very good and sufficient, as long as we were fairly small. So when we had, you know, two or three people, I felt like I had good control of, of our projects. But over the last few years, we've grown to kind of seven or eight people and, you know, maybe between 10 and 14 projects at a time. And suddenly just kind of looking into our checking account and seeing how much cash was in there was not really the right way to kind of assess the profitability and efficiency of our office. And so, my, I felt like, there were different things that I was lacking. One of them was kind of a sense of, you know, where we are financially, both as a firm and also in relation to each specific projects, like which of our projects, we were making money on which we weren't, and I wasn't coming at it from the sense that every project has to be hugely profitable. I'm very comfortable with some projects being, you know, more of our money making projects, and other ones being something that we do, partly because we love doing it. And, you know, have a much smaller profit margin on those. But I didn't have that information, I didn't feel like I actually knew what was going on on a project basis. And then, you know, also being able to plan a little bit more like, you know, can I hire another person? I feel like we have a lot of work. But, you know, can I afford to hire one person or two people can I afford to pay for someone who would be doing more marketing and business development. So those were the kinds of measures that I felt like I did not have control over and I kind of spent quite some time just looking online trying to figure out if there's information out there that I could just, you know, pay for and get from someone, or if there were companies that would give that kind of consulting, and somehow happened upon Douglas teager. And we met, we met on Zoom, and I really enjoyed our first meeting and ever since. So, I've, I've learned so much from him. There are parts of his type of, I think he has also different areas in which he can consult. So the parts that I have used the most had to do with the financial side of the office, those have been the ones that I've been the most beneficial for me. Um, you know, the other parts are just the ability to talk to someone with a lot of experience and run things by them like, hey, this thing happens. My client is saying this, or they don't want to pay this bill. Or how should How would I? You know, manage that or what ways how would you think about it. So we've talked about those kinds of situations a little bit about, you know, managing staff, learning a little bit better, what that means to be a boss of a bigger firm, learning to let go a little bit let people have more leadership, more ownership of their own projects. Freeing up more time for me to not only, you know, do the work, but also think about the direction we want the firm to take and the intellectual project that is part of the architectural project we're doing today. It's been a real, it's been a real delight for me. It's been a piece that I didn't know I was missing. And I didn't know that I could, could get. And yeah, I'm very grateful that I found him and I'm very grateful for the work we've been able to do together.
Amazing, amazing. And we kind of touched upon a little bit earlier about your, your understanding of psycho analysis. And this is something that you've lectured on in conjunction with kind of design, and we were talking about it earlier, in terms of, like, kind of mapping out a family tree of, of architecture. And obviously, the work that you do with Doug, I know that they, you know, he's his, he has his own wisdom, for sure. And in kind of interpersonal communication, and, and dealing with people and the psychology and you were just mentioning there, you know, kind of dealing with these some of these difficult conversations with clients. And, you know, just, you know, kind of having yourself let go so that team members can step into their own leadership, what role does your understanding of psychoanalysis come into your own leadership?
So I think there are two pieces that I'm interested in in terms of the kind of use of psychoanalysis, I think, the first part of it is really very personal. And it's about being able to better understand yourself and better understand your reactions to others around you, and the ways that you become yourself in relation to others. So the type of person I am as a child to my parents is different than the type of person I am as a parent, to my children, hopefully. And that awareness, I think, is something that has helped me be a more attuned person in general, and I think brings a lot to the way I try to relate to both everyone around me. And architecture is a very social project, right? We're not artists in our own studio, kind of creating a piece and then putting it out there for someone to buy or curate, where we're always from the start working with our own teams in our office, our clients and their own, you know, desires and anxieties, and baggage. And then all the rest of the team, the consultants, the finance people, the owners, reps, the clients, the contractors, so being able to have a kind of deeper awareness of how I react, you know, when I become defensive, when I become insecure, and how that makes me respond in a way that might not be productive. I think that comes into the, what we touched about in terms of leadership, having a certain, you know, sense of integrity and, and confidence and also the ability to kind of pivot when needed, or even, you know, even meet a client and realize that this is not going to be a successful project, even though maybe there's a good budget and just say, kind of, you know, sorry, we're, we're too busy. And we'd rather, we can't take on this project. So I think that self awareness is something that guides me very much in the kind of work I do. I think the other side of it that we don't talk so much about is just the both social and emotional aspects of buildings, right? So we're not creating neutral Spaces, we're creating spaces that people live in, or interacted, whether there are personal spaces or social spaces. And those experiences have kind of very deep emotional foundations and trying to think about those. In a way I think some of the psychoanalytic research helped me think about that in in kind of more clear terms. So one of the things I've been thinking about in terms of designing synagogues has to deal with that balance of what it means to be in a, in a, in a, what it means to have a spiritual moment or a reflective moment that is both intimate so people want to have some kind of connection to something divine, maybe when they come to pray. But they do this in a communal space. They come to a church or synagogue or mosque to do that they're not they're not doing this on a mountain by themselves. So what is it that we're looking for? When we try to have a contemplative, religious spiritual experience within a community? And how do we try to hold those two experiences that sense that the community is giving us maybe a security net, to have a kind of this experience or that it enhances this experience? And I think some of so in psychoanalysis, there's a sense that there's a intrapersonal experience where, you know, I can be more vulnerable, because someone else is giving me the kind of confidence that they'll save me from falling apart, whether it's the therapist or my partner, or a friend, right. So I feel like in the, in some of these communal spaces, we are able to experience more of our emotional life, because we are within a community and maybe it's also the reason people go to a like a rock concert, right? Like you can, you can feel the pain of of a breakup, or the joys of love, or the, you know, being aware of mortality, dealing with these really profound experiences that we choose to do with others, and how can architecture or these spaces that we create, allow this to happen in a, in a, in the most profound and meaningful way? So I don't know, I don't know if that was going off too far. For No, no, I mean, I feel like this is something that, you know, has open to me kind of another way of thinking about the architectural process,
I love them. And I love this. And I think it's so fascinating. Just to consider the kind of human need to be part of a community and a group. And that doing these things, even something like prayer, which is so intimate and personal and kind of in solitude, but yet we choose to do it in the group, in order to effectively you know, magnify the experience that we might individually be having. Same thing going to a sports game, or to, you know, the reason why you go to a football game, even if you don't like football, you know, or soccer, or America or whatever, like that, you know, it's hard not to get moved by the rapture of the audience. You know, when a goal goes in, and the whole audience is just screaming, it's like, wow, that's, that's quite incredible. And having these kind of profound moments in solitude or communion with, with divinity or exploring that. Well imagine that, you know, doing that with it with a group that's, that's incredibly empowering, and creates more like the experience to endure, and deepens it. And I think it's very interesting, just kind of the, you know, in modern leadership, we are talking so much more nowadays about self reflection, and self awareness, and the ability to kind of, you know, you having a series of tools to be able to analyze your own subjective experience of the world. And you know, being able to do that and kind of have an audit of it, then opens up a much more powerful way of communicating with another person, as opposed to just communicate with your own thinking about the other person. Now you can actually communicate with them as they are. And in running a business, this becomes enormously important when we're dealing with human beings all the time. And we often step over our own, you know, subjectivity around something which then you know, these, this has very real impacts, it leads to arguments, it leads to conflict, it leads to things not working well, it leads to complaints brewing in an office, that go on unheard or unsaid, and then people leave, and then their careers go in different directions. So I think it's really really, you know, very important kind of body of knowledge to be bringing into both the design of buildings and the design of our businesses.
Yeah. And I think that's another interesting piece, your your, that last sentence, the design of our businesses, because I think, and that goes back maybe a little bit to what we talked about with about Doug teager. But as architects, we are good at designing things. And then you have to step back and think how do I want to craft this thing, which is my business, which is not just a kind of professional financial entity, it's also way of life, right? So you know, I started my business before I had kids, but pretty early on, I realized that the kind of work, the kind of work life balance that I'm looking for, has to do with being able to go home at a reasonable hour and give my kids dinner and read them a story before that time. And so there were types of projects, which I just was happy to kind of give up, because I didn't think that they would foster that type of professional practice. So, you know, if you're working for a big developer, and they're paying
interest on their loan, and so you have to do it as quickly as possible.
Those can be great projects, but they, I kind of decided those were not the type of projects I wanted to do, or the type of practice I wanted to have. Yeah, and, and in a similar way, I was kind of happy to create a practice in which everyone in the office has a kind of similar response or sensibility, you know, we, we work at reasonable hours, we work well, we're very collaborative, we help each other. We have very good, everyone has really good relationships with the clients. And, and people have stayed for many years. And, you know, there are other ways to craft your, your, your own practice. So you could have lots of very inexpensive interns, you can have a lot of junior people who are like, great at some things, but you know, very young in other things, in the ways they maybe communicate with, with people or in the types of experiences they've had. Sure. So my office tends to be a we're actually like almost all women, I don't know if that's just a fluke, but but we also tend to be you know, a little bit older. And everyone has, I would say at least 10 years of experience, if not 30. And so it leads to a certain kind of work environment in which, you know, I'm glad I was able to kind of be aware of what it was I was looking for, and, you know, be able to craft it to achieve that.
Amazing. Brilliant. I think that's the perfect place to conclude the conversation. We're just coming up to our time here, Esther, thank you so much for that really rich and enlightening conversation and just giving us a glimpse into studio STS. I really enjoyed speaking with you.
Thank you so much. It's one of those things, I think it's going back to kind of what I said about psychoanalysis is when you talk to other people, you kind of figure out something new about yourself. And so it was a pleasure for me to really wonderful.
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