We miss the forest for the trees when we start worrying about that title.
Welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today I have the pleasure of introducing Lance Seiko, a serial entrepreneur and the co founder of tremendously successful architecture and construction enterprise in northern Colorado called f9 productions with over two decades immersed in the architecture, engineering and construction realm. Lance boasts an illustrious career, adorned with numerous design accolades, including the prestigious international architect A plus award for architecture and living small in 2016 in 2009 Lance, alongside his esteemed colleague, Alex Gore, established f9 productions, their architectural venture, their operations are headquartered in a bespoke office, meticulously crafted in Longmont, reflecting their expertise in both design and construction. Remarkably, their growth trajectory saw them clinch the coveted number one position in tier three of biz West, mercury, 100 fastest growing private firms in 2020 boasting an astounding 386% growth rate, leaving their competitors in their wake beyond his professional endeavors. Lance ardently serves his community, stewarding a community garden in Longmont, which he now seeks to formalize into a nonprofit entity. Additionally, he imparts a wealth of knowledge as a part time educator at the University of Colorado. Boulder. Moreover, Lance co hosts one of the world's premier architecture and business podcasts inside the firm, which I highly recommend that you go and listen to and subscribe to, which consistently ranks amongst the top five in the genre globally, when not immersed in his myriad of commitments, Lance cherishes moments with his family amidst tranquil fishing escapades. In today's episode we'll be discussing is architecture and elitist profession. What does being elitist actually mean? And we'll be looking at different forms of elitism, such as economic elitism, design elitism and social elitism. So sit back and relax and enjoy Lance Seiko now a message from our sponsor, so I've been personally a vector works user for the best part of over a decade. It was the program and package that I personally used in my architecture firm, and I found it absolutely brilliant. So I'm very pleased to be working here and having vector works as one of the sponsors of Business of Architecture, as a user of their program and as an advisor to many architecture practices. It is one of the pieces of software that I highly recommend. One of the reasons why is I often deal with architects, and I see them not utilizing their current software. They're often using outdated workflows, and they're investing in software which actually is very difficult to use. It takes them ages to learn and they don't learn it, and it's full capabilities. They often have very fractured workflows where they're using multiple packages to create concept work, 3d imagery, desktop publishing, even. And this all takes ages and demands staff to be competent and conversant in multiple bits of software, which all takes up an enormous amount of valuable time and leaves practices bleeding profit with their own internal inefficiencies. This obviously has outward effects on being able to deliver work on time. It also creates the sensation of frustration and overwhelm, and we often see utilization in teams dropping as they're fighting with their own inefficiencies of software. So vector Works has simplified workflows. Imagine being able to use a single a single package to better create 3d modeling your concept work, BIM capabilities, and even be able to create beautiful presentations, documents, presentation panels. And it's also imagine a package which is super easy to learn with lots of training resources, readily available vector works itself has a hybrid ly and 3d modeling environment. The I've personally always found the thoughtful user experience and layout has meant that I can learn. I was able to learn vector works very quickly. There was lots of resources online. You know, there's different trainings available. It looks great. It's very legible. It's easy for people to pick up and start using. And of course, my favorite, it's compatible with Macintoshes and apples. So I'm very pleased to announce that we have a free seven day trial of vector works here with Business of Architecture. You can. Use the link that's in the information of this podcast. The link is vector works.net. Forward, slash Business of Architecture. I highly recommend, even if you're well committed using another piece of software to adapt, try this seven day trial out. See how you find vector works. We've got loads of clients here at Business of Architecture, who who use it, and once they start using it, they become fanatics and obsessive. Lance, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How
are you? I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. It's
always a pleasure, absolute pleasure, to be talking with you again. And I think we can just jump straight into the today's topic. You're an old timer here at Business of Architecture. It's not your first time on the show. It's always interesting to to to actually kind of get your perspective on a lot of the issues that are the architecture industry is dealing with. I feel like you've got a very interesting and broad perspective on both the architecture as a profession, the business side of it and the entrepreneurial side of it, and what it takes to make a business work. And also you're intimately involved in education and actually playing an active role in shaping the next generation of architects, to an extent. And I think that gives a very interesting perspective as well. And I appreciate a lot of your your views, because they're often contrary to a lot of them, I might say, mainstream views of of what is held or kind of revered in the architectural industry. And there's lots of issues with some of those views as well. So we can, we can talk and discuss. And today's topic, we were going to look at this idea that is architecture an elitist profession. So I'm, I'll start off by saying the kind of the the history of the architecture profession from an Englishman's perspective, and the way it often gets framed in the UK is that the profession of architecture before the 1400s shall we say? So, whilst the just as the Renaissance was about to happen in Italy, and there was advances in technology and science, and this kind of gave rise to drawing in the UK, there was a similar sort of, you know, Renaissance happening, and there was also a lot of interesting things happen politically. So Henry, the eighth King at the time, was having a power struggle between himself and the Catholic Church, and was becoming increasingly frustrated at having to get the Pope's permission to do anything. One that's one aspect of that was, you know, getting divorced. And he kind of resorted to not being allowed to be to have divorce. He resorted to beheading his wives instead, which was
a solution, I guess, a
little bit more extreme, a little bit more extreme, yeah, but, but essentially, he created his own religion, which is what's now known as the Church of England. And in that there was a power grab and a land grab, which meant that there was a dissolution of the monasteries. They went in there and actively destroyed lots of centers of study, where all the Catholic Cistercian monks. It's very difficult to find old Catholic churches in the UK, outside of London, certainly, anything that's more than a few 100 years old. It's very, very rare to find, and in that there was a land grab. So at that point, you know, the church was the, probably the biggest landowner in the land, and then that kind of came over to the king. The king takes a lot of land and starts distributing the land out to lots of his family and wealthy peers or Dukes and princes and other people in there, in that kind of world, before this has happened, any buildings of note, typically were done by anonymous designers or architects, and there wasn't really this idea of the architect at play at All, certainly within the church, it would have been an unknown, nameless monastic who would have been drawing, and, you know, probably not drawing, probably more kind of making things. And there would have been generations of cathedral builders, and it would have been a craftsman type of activity, but no one person would have been identified as an architect or would have been celebrated as such, perhaps maybe internally, but certainly there's no records of that really kind of being there. And then the rest of the building in the in England would have been vernacular building. So you're kind of resting on a tradition that has evolved and has its. Kind of skill sets passed down by craftspeople. So again, there's no one single individual who was kind of given this title of of architect, or certainly had the reverence or the the fame as an architect. So we had this interesting political shift happening. We have a kind of scientific shift happening where now you know drawing or perspectival drawing, was starting to come to the forefront, and moving away from how medieval art and architecture had been conceived of, and these influences happening in Italy, which now puts a single person, it gives the single person the ability to conceive of a building, you know, on a piece of paper, which to us, it sounds so obvious now, but we can't underestimate the enormous shift that that was. So it becomes interesting that Henry, the eighth, you know, he's he's distributed this land amongst other wealthy peers, and of course, one of the things that they want to do to kind of celebrate their new found wealth, is to market with property or to market with a building. And we now start to see this emergence of an individual who designs a house or a home or a castle or a mansion or whatever it might be, and it's kind of considered a, you know, architecture is kind of considered as a, you know, an opportunity to test lots of intellectual ideas. And it's a, kind of, you know, it's a, it's a mix of science and art, and it's an intellectual pursuit, shall we say, Sure, so either in even though wealthy people are now kind of engaging with it like a intellectual pursuit and celebrating it as such, and some of those people might end up doing architectural designs for other wealthy people as well. So we start to see the kind of formation of of the of the architectural industry, and of course, it's born out of a very privileged I suppose, or it's bought, it's it's born out of the wealth and the royalty of the of the kingdom. And so there is a kind of, we could look at it in a way, that there's a sort of DNA of that all the way through architecture and and the profession, and it's always been considered, you know, for many, like an intellectual pursuit. And now, actually, we're kind of coming into an era where there's a lot more practical ramifications for architecture. So it's starting to have a little bit of a disjunct with with with its roots in his past. So I kind of start there with a
history lesson, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So I appreciate that lens as well. Through the Ages there, right? I mean, the architect used to be master builder, that's all it really was, right? And so it was the it was, it could have been a mason making the cathedrals back in the day, and there was no formal title and all of that. And that was, this is sort of me, and Alex's counter argument to the profession is trying to take back that title by encouraging as many architects to build as much as possible. You know, to and, you know, the AIA is not a huge fan of that. The profession at large, you start to America is a very litigious country. Maybe the UK is too, I don't know. You know, there's a ton of lawyers. So at every turn, you know, we're looking, we're trying to watch out, to not get sued. And as soon as you take on the more responsibility of being a built architect who builds also, even if you set up different companies and all of that. And then the even, the further step for that is then you should, you should do real estate development at least once in your life, if you're taking on both of those kind of roles. And then then you really are back to master builder in that, in that sort of category, so, but, you know, it's like even in that lens I know, and what was I watching? It was a, I think it was Philip Johnson or me that there's one of the documentaries on Amazon Prime right now. I think it might have been Philip Johnson's, and he says something, something's the tune of your best clients or yourself, right? So if I think and why I'm talking about that is because, like, I'm sitting in the building that we designed, built and developed, and I live right across the alley in a condo that I designed, built and developed. I used to live in another house that I designed, built and developed with my wife, and I was the best client, right? So, like, I and that's Jonathan seagals Not the actor, but the architect out there in California. That's his big pitch of becoming architect as developer too, is like, it's sort of an internal lead. Best idea, right? That like, yeah, my, my, I'm the best client for me as the architect. I'm not going to argue. I'm going to trust myself. You know, the rubber always hits the road for anybody when it, when it comes down to money in that sort of way. So I think there's like, the individual, look at it. That's sort of my take on the individual. Look at it, and then as then, if I kind of zoom out and think about society at large for that, one of the things I heard you talk, you kind of mentioned about my involvement in higher ed. So I teach at CU Boulder, and then I also teach at my alma mater, North Dakota, state, so two different universities, both all architecture students. And so when I think about my time at North Dakota State, even as a student, I've, you know, there's every all, every every professor, every teacher, has their opinion about architecture, what you should be practicing, what you shouldn't be practicing, what you probably will or want will not be practicing. And a lot of the professors I had were not practicing at the same time. And that's one of the things that I've always insisted on doing first, is like practicing architect, first professor, second, and trying to maintain that so that I can bring that lens in, but then at the same time, come out of the university, bring that also sort of intellectual thinking, pushing the boundaries and everything in that way. But my professors, I remember as they were not mostly practicing they were mostly not practicing architecture at the same time, they had a very strange lens on like residential architecture in particular. And I remember over and over and over again hearing that you aren't going to be designing houses when you get out of school, you're going to be doing big som style office buildings or public buildings, libraries, museums and all. And actually, once we got to Colorado, I found out that was the complete opposite of how it worked, and it made me kind of rethink the architects role and who you know, then there's, then there's, especially if you're a man, there's, we have a tendency to gravitate towards hierarchy and competition. And so I would, I would in my at the beginning of our practice here in in Colorado, we would always go back once a year and fish with our buddies. We'd have this big all architecture friends, right? And some of these architecture friends, they would go work for very large firms, and they would be doing the public work. I just described the libraries, the museums, very prominent kind of stuff. And their take was very interesting, because they were like, Oh, you guys are just doing houses. And I was like, it took me a couple years to kind of get comfort just to process what they were saying. Because I would just, I honestly, would take it and go, Yeah, we're not as good as those like we're, I guess we're not. We're not the kind of architects that are helping humanity as much as maybe they are, or affecting society as much as they are, because their argument was, it's a public building serving the public. And once I actually kind of finally thought about the whole situation for a couple years, my conclusion now is, is that I kind of slap, you know, slap them around metaphorically when they try to bring they don't do it anymore, but they used to. And I say, Well, how like do you live in these public buildings? No, oh, well, you live in the house like you could probably die in the house. Maybe they're you're even if you're doing home births, like you're born like the house, and especially with the work from home movement. Now, in that kind of way, it's like, boy, I would almost make the argument that single family residential architecture is maybe more impactful to society if you're, if you're an architect, doing that, but here, here's the problem. And you kind of already described it in this situation when, and that was okay. Now you have these, let's say they're tech elites, which is very obvious. You're in out in California, so, and I'm in Boulder County, so it's very obvious. There's a lot of them here. There's some of my best clients. They come from, you know, the Googles of the world, and they're higher ups, and they have money to spend, and they're highly educated, and they're they want to do the intellectual exercise with this with a single family house. I just walked by one of our best houses yesterday with my girlfriend, $6 million budget. It's amazing. It'll be one of the best houses in Boulder. But that's not serving your lower middle class folks, right? Like, Oh, wow. So now I'm and now I'm in that category. So am I helpful in that kind of way? And one of the things that I'm actually most proud of that we've done, and I would encourage architects to not poo poo on it if they want to not if they want to buck the trend and try to affect more of society in a positive way with their with their services. I don't think anybody should technically work for free. You have to eat. The world revolves around money. But you know, come to find out when we when some of our best clients down here. Here have been spec builders. They just, they want us to design four different models that they can repeat and maybe flip and change facades and not happen. It's so it's not so cookie cutter in that kind of way and and honestly, if I had to say, like for us, how we've affected society, probably just volumetrically the most, spatially the most, if you added up all the square footage that's built, it's probably those, you know, four or five, six developers that have hired us over the past 15 years to develop those stock plans that can then be changed and modified as necessary, depending on the lot, and they're flexible and that all that sort of thing. But a lot of, like, award winning high Fauci architects, you know, that win the Pritzker Prize would probably, probably look down on that. And I, you know, and I've kind of seen those kind of lenses in that way. And again, back to the boulder house, like, trust me, we do houses that get on the cover of magazines, builder magazine, we've made, we've made the cover of builder magazine, we've made, dwell, all of those sort of things. And that's, that's kind of the my lens about the the elitism as it comes to how we're affecting society and or not. And like you, like you said at the beginning, you, I'm glad you appreciate my contrarian view. It is often, most of the time, very different than mainstream corporate media or even most architects in the sphere that we, that we, that we operate in, in that kind of way. And I guess that's what's important to me, is I just want us to have an honest intellectual conversation about it, without anybody getting upset and just going, just breathing a little bit, you know, slowing it down, thinking and and and really facing reality and going fine. Maybe we are religious like and if we are, if the majority of the profession is, then own it, then own it. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's okay to just accept the
truth. I totally agree with you here, and I get a little bit perturbed and frustrated at the the other the counter elitism, let's call it, where you've got people who are now being either design snobs or that they're, you know, they've got a kind of pedigree that they want to adhere to, that they think is the best, or you've got people who think that the work that they're doing, which is, if it's public work, is is more significant, are often not aware of the broader context of a how economics are all kind of deeply interconnected to things, the kind of macro trends and how wealth moves and operates and how society is like, actually quite complex and structured in a certain way, and it's very easy to pick on or to take a kind of linked ideological approach, which automatically puts rich people and wealth into all things evil and bad, and doing work with those sorts of people is not what architects should be doing, and it's very damaging to society. And now you're, if you have that kind of mindset, there's, it's going to be a difficult life. I can guarantee that, certainly, as a practicing, practicing architect, it's going to be difficult, and it's difficult to run a business, and it's filled with a lot of with a lot of angst. I used to work for Richard Rogers in in London, and he was famously very left wing in his outlook in life, but he was often criticized by the left wing media as being a champagne socialist, and he was a multi multi millionaire who was very wealthy. Rang one of the most successful architecture practices on the on the planet, often would charge way more in fees than anybody else with but he was very committed and made no had no ideological problems with serving the very wealthiest people in society and serving, you know, doing affordable housing. And was very innovative in that, in that aspect, and the media would often give him a lot of unfair criticism, and he was always like, well, you know, we're, we're, we're running a business, and my intention here is to make the city a much more beautiful place. And I'm, in that sense, I'm serving everybody. So I'm going to serve the wealthy, and I'm going to serve the the the less, the less wealthy. And actually, when we look at it, and he would say, you know, we the practice designed number one, Hyde Park, so probably the poster boy in London real estate of you know, you know, big, big building and some of the most expensive real estate anywhere on the planet, you know, 100 million pound apartments that got sold off, and then nobody lives there. And it's a kind of empty the real poster boy for that kind of development and criticism, and he would often make the argument of like, well, okay, that, you know, actually that building has. Generated a lot of growth around it. And also, nobody ever talks about the section 106 agreement that insisted, or that the developers came to where they had to provide affordable housing as a result of doing this development. And so there was an affordable housing scheme that was built a little while, you know, somewhere else in the in the borough that had contributed many units of of housing as a result of that development. Also from a kind of business standpoint, that particular project was the thing that kept the business going. And you have these kind of key projects which enabled the office to carry on going, particularly during times of 2008 when there was recessions. And it also allows the office to do its research and its work into other areas where it wanted to have agency. So the practice itself was set up in a way where it didn't have any private ownership. It was owned by a charitable trust, and half the profits were given to charities of people's choosings, the other half of it was given to the individuals who worked in the practice. And they also were able to fund research into different building technologies that could be employed elsewhere in the, you know, in in society. Now, that's a very that's a much more holistic perspective of placing of wealth, and actually kind of the importance of being able to serve multiple areas of society, because it gives you agency. And I think that's, you know, my my frustration often when I talk to architect practices and they're dealing with only, you know, if they're dealing only in community buildings or houses, for example, and then they're doing, you know, worst case scenario, they're doing loads of work for free, or they're just running at a loss, and they're constantly on a, on a on a grind, and it's becoming a very uncomfortable position for them. They can't they don't have much ability to do research and to to increase their kind of knowledge base, if you like, and without money, and there is a our agency begins to diminish. And you may probably heard me say this before, on the on the on the podcast, that you know money is the index of agency. And if we're going to be waving banners about all these other things, then I can't really take you seriously unless you're doing something to financially support it. Otherwise, it's very easy to wave the placard.
Yeah, yeah, you have me thinking. I guess I would consider, you know, there's the word contrarian, but I think reactionary is another word that describes me pretty well, especially when the masses do anything, you know, when there's sort of this sheep mentality, following the following the following the crowd, you know, that sort of thing. I'm just always very hesitant and not that person, because, like the best, if you're a fish that swims downstream, you're a weaker fish than the one that swims upstream, right against against the current, is kind of my, my thought process with that. So why I'm saying reactionary is because I feel as if a lot of my opinions upon this, the elitism Part Two is it's I'm reacting specifically to the firm that I came to work for when I first moved to Colorado, who then laid me off nine months after only nine months during the great recession. And I wonder if they hadn't been so elitist in their clientele, and if they would have had a broader pool to pick from, and they wouldn't have turned their noses up, if they wouldn't have had to lay somebody like me off. And now actually, the one of the principals who is still running a firm down here in Colorado, the other one went away. He did something else entirely after they broke up. But I wonder if that principal would now not have to be worried about our firm overtaking their firm, and the Google rankings, winning awards over them, taking literally. Now we're a competitor because of it. And it's exactly what you were saying, where it's like I had to have the capital to have the agency, and the way I can do that is if I'm we've always believed in the true me, you know, the true definition, I think, of diversity of your strength, which is, I have a strong I've built. We've reacted to them just catering towards, you know, a lot, and a lot of architects do that the very just point zero, 1% we want to do the we don't. We don't care about serving anybody else. We don't even care to try to structure our business model so that we can be elastic and nimble and still actually end up making the kind of profit you need to to stay in business and not lay people off by serving lower middle class folks in that kind of way. So that's the spectrum that we run. And it's like, I guess that's one of my questions to the larger audiences, is you. Your elitism worth it to potentially have to have those tough conversations when times get tough and you let you have to let go half your staff, you know, something like that, or even, or even your top person, if it gets really bad, right? I mean that, you know, the the problem with layoffs, besides creating reactionaries like me, who then are very hungry, and if I'm a male, so I'm competitive, and I have Michael Jordan ship on my shoulder, and I'm here to, I'm here to now take down. You know that that that former boss, in that kind of in metaphorical way, I'm not actually gonna do what the king you described earlier, beheaded, but definitely, yeah, we definitely beheaded the firm that I'm describing on Google. We just found out, actually yesterday with our marketing agency. I was like, I couldn't believe it amazing. Thank you. Cost a lot of money to get there, but, man, we got there for sure. So yeah, that's, that's where I go with that is like, Is that worth it? Because the other problem with is not only just laying off like some junior staff or lower staff and all that if you ever have to, if you ever have to get rid of your number one or number two, because you again had this agency of, of of, uh, elitism, where you were only take on a very certain higher level kind of client and not you weren't trying to spread things out a little bit. So that if, if, one part, you know, if houses, you were doing single family houses, and that market just completely died, but you were able to pick it up because tenant improvements went up, or multi family, or whatever, and you have this multi you actually lose the all the knowledge that was captured with that person. Like, I think that's something that people under underestimate, or don't even talk about, enough that I've even just recently, I just read the H Okay book Patrick MCLE me where he was, it's, it's the manifesto of basically, H Okay, and how they started, and how they've thrived, and how they continue to thrive and be one of the top, largest architecture firms in the world. And that was one of the, one of the nuggets of knowledge in there was, I was like, Oh yeah, geez, the capturing and knowledge, boy, that's how I'm like, Well, how do you even put a number on that to try to keep, you know, keep that going. Because at a certain point, I mean, if you're when you're the principal and or the owner or the CEO, you have to, I believe the the best ones, put themselves in a flow state so that they're this, they're the spear. They're the tip of the tip of the spear for their business. And they're in that kind of really positive mental and physical flow state to where they can then see the next expansion, you know, and they can go after that, that next client, and they can, they can do the extra stuff to make that happen. It's actually a totally different kind of creativity. Now, imagine if you had to then because of this, you know, your your elitist agency again, you had to lay that top person off. You lose the knowledge you're not. You're pulling yourself out of that flow state, and you're pulling yourself down, and you're having to go back in and be a project architect or a project manager and, like, retrain the you know, or you're then all that time and energy that you could have been spending being the tip of the spear you're concentrating on, like, just managing people again in a bigger capacity. So it's my, you know, that's always been our goal is, like, if I never have to lay anybody off, that is a life goal. And so far we haven't had to. We fired one person, but that was different than laying them off, because we don't have the work to do it in
that so this is, this is very interesting. So you're kind of articulating here an idea of elitism being, you know, there's one form of elitism where you might be elite in terms of just only choosing one project type. And there's a kind of an argument, therefore one business, one particular project type, can create a vulnerable business. So being like elitist with only one kind of type of project, then you're missing out on other things, everything, anything happens to that one project type. Then now we've got a problem. You've got to let a load of other people off. So in your practice, then the the spread of different types of projects. How do you kind of consolidate it? Or, how do you, how do you avoid yourself from being too generalized.
Oh gosh, great question. Yeah, because that's the danger, right? So I haven't had that problem. I think you have to have a base for fees, for sure. I so I think there is like, Okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna take on every single project. There has to be some threshold here. I have to have some kind of standards, for sure, so that I'd say that's one metric that helps, helps us just stay where we want to be at but we don't. We definitely don't turn down the little projects. I think it's always trying to put a positive spin on things or polish it in that sort of way. But. So how about this for 80 there's a, there's there's a, we're on the cusp, I think, of a giant adu explosion in Colorado and and I know that just because I'm seeing the web traffic that we're getting because of the various blogs and writing we have about being architects who want to do these little, tiny projects, which is rare from what I can see, and this is based on, you know, marketing intelligence we're getting to but then also there's, there's some companies that are starting to migrate over from that. One is particular, started in Utah, then they went to California, and in California, in the first three years, they did 9 million in sales. This is just four years ago, so they're just starting to franchise over here. They did 9 million in sales. Then they the next year, they did 30 million, and then the next year they did one 50 million, which this company was, anchor tiny homes, yeah. Anchor tiny homes, yeah. And so we're doing a bunch of, uh, they're amazing, because the they're bringing us a ton of work. We're starting to form this sort of business relationship with them and and all that sort of thing. So then, but then there's some competitors that are sort of local to to these guys, right? And some of them didn't work out for us at all same typology. But the other ones like we got kind of a one in particular, this gal, I got into a very strangely contentious phone conversation with her, because she was asking about fees, and I was having, I was explaining what the fees would be, and she was just like her motive was, I want to do this adu company, because I want to be I want to provide as many affordable units as I possibly can, So very non elitist, egalitarian type of what she was, you know, her, that was her goal and but anchor tiny home. Same thing, actually, they want to provide as many dwelling units as possible. But the the gal was really a lose win situation, meaning she wanted us to lose so she could win, because you wouldn't accept these fees, which were not that drastic. And then I heard this complete opposite language from anchor tiny homes, which was, oh, we can both win. Why don't we have a win? Win, right? And it goes back to the there's a book that's called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and they talk about a lot about this, like the lose, lose, win, win. You know, all that sometimes you take an L to get a W and all that sort of thing, yeah. So, so I'm just framing this as we don't that typology. We definitely split right where we said, Okay, we're still, we still want to do this typology, but not for everybody, right? So, and, and then, then the way I tried to spin it positive and say, even in the general, you know, us doing a lot of different kinds of typologies, was, there's a couple architecture books I bought here. So here's all the academics has been coming into my office lately. There's two. They're really beautiful. It's like, one is called, like, small architecture. And I pontificated to the firm after I read through it over the weekend. What like, there's like, a couple months ago, I said, guys and gals, every like, every little project, we should treat as if we could win a Pritzker Prize. Like, all the little ones matter just as much as the big ones. And then I, you know, showed them, like certain examples in this book, and that's all it is. Actually, this little book is just, it's just small little buildings, but they're beautiful. I mean, the kind of attention to detail and all of that. And then I just had to re emphasize again. As you know, a lot of these little ADUs that we're doing right now are their reactions by the owners to what they can and cannot do with their property. And a lot of people have golden handcuffs right now because they got this very low interest rate and they don't want to sell. But then at the same time, they're having children, or mom and dad are coming to live with them, and they have no choice other than we need to basically make a little adu in the back for mom and dad to live in, or stuff like that. And I had to re emphasize that staff is like, imagine how that affects somebody's life, like this little, tiny piece of architecture. I mean, you could have like, you got to think about it like the, you know, the future president, a future leader, could be like, be born in that little space and be affected by that space and change him in that kind of way. You know, it's kind of like Norman Foster during his movie. How much is a building way Mr. Foster, one of my favorite parts about that documentary, and what he says is he was like he saw everything through his window in, like, lower middle class in the UK where he lived, and that's all he needed, was that one window. And that effect is that now he's Norman Foster, you know, arguably, maybe the greatest living architect today, you know, type of thing. So, yeah, it's hard to, there's definitely it, because it's like, tough calls on over generalizing, for sure. I mean, I would like, I like to think that we just niche, we've niched in multiple ways, maybe more. Than other people have, and that's the key, is to niche into that tiny house market, or high end residential, or a lot of like tenant finishes we're doing, or multi family is another one that we do in that kind of regard. It's a tricky proposition. So this is
very, very interesting, because we can get quite a broad perspective here on what does this What does elitism look in architecture? So we've just looked at this idea of we can be elitist by just only selecting one type of project typology, and then there's a vulnerability to into that. I would assert that with the question of, is architecture an elitist profession, there's also a dialog here around the type of people who get to practice architecture and or who typically practice architecture. And then this would obviously be something that we've seen the AIA and the RBA, they're very aggressive on in terms of their what do they call it? Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and that there is that, like they would paint a picture of the architecture profession as being elitist by the people who actually practice it. What are your What are your thoughts on?
Is that true? Is it an elite acronym? So that acronym is just so pervasive. It's so pervasive everywhere. And as somebody who teaches in higher ed, it is like a like it in one of the universities, it's so pervasive that there's, I swear, there's a workshop on it every week, in that kind of way. It's, I think it's an overreaction, you know, and that's what we seem to do, maybe, maybe just in the western world in general, where we go too far to the left, then we go too far to the right. And usually the answer is somewhere, somewhere sort of in the middle in that kind of way. But I do have empathy for what they're trying to do in the in that kind of way. I just don't know how much truth is in the problem that they think actually exists. And so here's the here's one of the problems that I that I thought existed, and I and I come to find out it wasn't really true actually, when I was in college, and that was I thought. So I full disclosure, I am. I'm a Native American, federally registered, so technically, not white in that sort of way, right, just on paper, and but what that afforded me was access to a ton of scholarships that white kids couldn't get. And then it afforded me actually, a diversity tuition waiver. So I'm like my all my tuition was waived when I went to North Dakota State, and then I just had to figure out how to, like, feed myself. Well, then all the scholarships came in because I was a good student, but I'm here, so I have, there's two takes I have on this, and that is number one, like I'm a minority of a minority, meaning I most of the other Native Americans that I grew up with, and no, never made it out of the reservation. They never took advantage of this, right? So for throwing all this money and all this effort and only a very slim few get out and maybe, and I'm one of them. I mean, I don't even know any any other Native American architects whatsoever. Even when I was research, researching my graduate thesis, it was hard to find them. I think there was two that I found that were worthwhile, and doing case studies on other than that. It just doesn't even really exist, right? So, so there's that sort of lens, and then I think there was this false lens that I had that's a real lens, because I'm here to tell you, like, and sure, people are probably screaming at the at their headphones right now and going, Yeah, but you're that's just anecdotal. That's just, well, I'm sorry that that that is my anecdotal take. This the other the other side of it that I think that I had some false impressions of was, I was like, Oh, well, I just assumed that all these white kids from Minneapolis that I went to school with, their mom and dad just paid for their tuition. They probably gave them money to live on, and they so therefore they will have an advantage over me, because I won't have the kind of time to be able to, I don't, if I'm not worried about money, like, like, I assume they were, then I'm and I can just concentrate on studio and school. Then I should I, I haven't they have, would have an unfair advantage over me. It was actually the complete opposite. It was actually the complete opposite. Most of them ended up with like, $80,000 in debt, and they would have to have a job or two outside of studio, and they actually couldn't spend it. So that was just my, you know, coming off the res, the reservation, the Indian Reservation. My thoughts about from growing up in a very small town, 500 people graduated with only 20. And then, then I was up against these. A lot of these kids from Minneapolis who went to huge schools, their mom and dad were both educated all that my mom and dad were not educated whatsoever, and stuff like that. So there's I'm not when it seemed. Is, I don't know if the the amount of compensation that we're pushing at dei is actually in concert with how many people it's actually helping pull up a little bit or not. I'm not, I'm not really convinced about that. And then you got to look at it from like, then, then the bigger lens, I think, is this, like, Okay, put that aside. Let's say, let's say that doesn't matter, right? Where we're just like, well, we should do it anyway. Who cares? We should just do this anyway. Okay, you're doing it anyway. Fine. Is it positive or negative? Overall? In terms of divisiveness, my business partner is on the school board in what we thought was a very right of center conservative school district, and even that is, he just got out voted nine to two right for the DEI stuff. And I think it's actually very divisive, if anything, I think it's, I think it has a net negative overall, because all of a sudden it just, it's sort of, I don't like the when boomers do this whole, well, they're the they're the ones that are actually the real racist. It's like, Nope, you can just leave it at this is divisive because it's putting people in categories again, in that sort of way. And we can't help it either. I mean, we are humans. We have to. That's how we sift through information. Is categorizing it, right? So it's sort of the struggle with it. I think the acronym that is stick or the somebody made a joke the other day was Gavin McInnes, and he said, somebody else, other people like to say like, the acronym actually means die. It means die like it needs to die. And the acronym, the, what I like is, what Gavin was saying is, like, didn't even earn it. Is that, like, is that? Because that's kind of it, it's, it's sort of like, okay, we don't believe in meritocracy. Do we not believe in meritocracy anymore? Like, can't get like, and again, is this is, to me, it's an intellectual dishonesty. I just if the DEI advocates, of people who are just very, very raw, raw, raw about it, would just admit to me or the other people, and they would go, Yeah, we don't believe in meritocracy. I can actually accept that honesty and them going forward. But it's very much like you described Richie Rogers about being a champagne accused of being a champagne socialist, or it's like, yeah, you know. And for people who don't know what that means, that means like, well, you're, you're, you're, you pretend to attack the man who has all the money, but then you work for him. So, yeah, yeah,
no, exactly. And I think that's that's there's a lot of kind of problem, things that are problematic with the diversity, inclusion philosophies and actions. One is obviously the perception or or actually giving people who haven't been as talented spots above people who are as as not as talented. So this idea of it not being any more merit, you know, meritocracy also for the people who do get there who are of a minority group of their own volition now that they're going to be undermined, or people are going to be expecting or we only there because of the color of your skin, which is equally not helpful and very destructive, and it also kind of clouds from my perspective, certainly with architecture, you know, one of the reasons why architecture has, you know, a low amount of minorities in the profession later on in stage and not entering into the profession is because the pay is shit, and it's a and it's just like a mathematical equation that doesn't work out. Where you're looking at somebody, certainly somebody who's coming into the profession, and they look at it from a you know, it's gonna be eight years of my life, seven years of my life studying, spending loads of money, and then how much are we gonna get paid at the end of it? Hmm, first generation person going into university. Maybe that doesn't make sense.
Yeah, and that's a really good point that I hadn't even thought about. Honestly, I was brilliant. The money aspect of it. Yeah, it's huge. Because, gosh, I remember when I got my first job down here in Colorado, and it was like paycheck to paycheck, and just I had two children, it was so hard, and it was just very, very brutal. I mean, it really is that that kind of points to the whole architecture. Probably, uh, a lot of us are just called to it, you know. And then, then you start thinking about it as, as more of an art than a business, right? Which is, which is the problem? I mean, your guys's podcast isn't, isn't called The Art of architecture. It's called the Business of Architecture. So, you know, it's like, it's that contrast every single time. I mean, then I think about like, people like Zaha, right? So she's obviously not a white person, or wasn't a white person. God, rest her soul. She How long did she have to be sort of a champagne socialist in that way, she had very left wing ideas were not, not getting built work for like. So long, but like, how did she subsidize that? Well, it was very wealthy donors and people that kept her going, just in theory, until she finally got a few projects under her belt, and then, and then eventually was anointed an elite with the Pritzker Prize. And then that's actually what catapulted her career, like she got all kinds of commissions after after she won the Pritzker and stuff like that. Again, I'm actually okay with it being an elitist profession, if we're just intellectually honest about it. I am okay with that. I am 100% okay with that. I don't think it should ever be dictated, that it should be otherwise, where it's somebody like me who's trying to be a little bit more egalitarian about it, and structure my business such that I can serve a wider audience. I I'm okay with that. I just am dying for intellectual honesty in today's society.
Yeah, no, I'm with you on this. And I think it's a bit of, I think it's a, it's a bit of a wrong turn. This quote, this, this question or criticism of whether architecture as an elitist profession, because it then it stops us from looking at the wider perspective of things. It stops us from addressing, well, whatever kind of practice you choose, you're an architect. It's a big field. There's loads of different of aspects of society to focus on, and you are free to choose which ones, and there's arguments and counter arguments for whichever part you you choose to serve, and it's actually quite a complex and, you know, deeply interconnected series of arguments. But don't let this, this, this kind of criticism of it being a leader's profession, detract from you've got to be fiscally responsible when running a business and setting up your career. And that actually is one of the things that will create a wider pull of equity for everybody. If you're genuinely interested in it, have a money as agency, 100%
you know, there was another this. This discussion has been going on at our firm now about this topic for, I don't know, months, and I think it was maybe last summer, I asked this question because it spurred this, this topic then spurred the question. And the question was, I go, would you rather we the built environment continue down the path it's going, where we have vernacular buildings, we have background buildings, and then we have rock star buildings, right? We have the World Trade Center one, you know, the remake of that, or like the Hearst tower fosters in the middle of New York, or stuff like that, right? Or, would you just rather? They're all rock star architects, you know, all the best elite buildings you've ever seen. And most of the staff actually said, I like I like that. There's the background buildings and stuff still, like, they all have their place, actually, you know what? Nobody if every building was awesome, if every building was just the best, it was all Norman Foster level. You know that kind of every building was a Pritzker Prize winning building. Boy, I feel like that would get boring. I think then you're sort of heading in the opposite direction. So again, back to this whole like, okay, diversity, equity, inclusion, like, I would argue you need the architects that don't do elite work just as much as the elite ones. And then there. Again, it's like, that's diversity is our strength, right? We have a diversity of built environment. I really appreciate the awesome building because of the boring one, and then I can actually appreciate the boring one because of the the really cool one, right? That's, I mean, it's just like basic contrast to white versus black, or like an old material versus a new one. That's why it works in architecture and design. That's,
that's really interesting. It's quite an enlightened way of looking at architecture. And I know, you know, if people, sometimes friends of mine, they'll ask me the question, what do you think of this building? And I'm, you know, generally, my architectural looking at it, is a bit hesitant to answer, because I don't know what the problems were that the architect was trying to solve. And this is the beauty of a lot of architecture, is once you know a little bit about what the problems were, what the problems were, what they were dealing with, what the client was like, then you can get quite enrolled and find a compelling story about why the building is the way, the way it is otherwise any any judgment on it is quite superficial, and that's that's like, there's diversity there in terms of Just just being able to appreciate the all the different approaches to the to the built environment and the different kind of complexities that you know architects are dealing with.
Yeah, yeah. I like that. I like that. I actually usually judge right away and I but I'm going to try to use your method. Maybe it'll help me think a little bit more and just slow down a bit. I think that's a little I would I feel, probably feel better, just kind of tipping it around. But yeah, some I mean vernacular architecture in particular, right? Like, gosh, I just actually really appreciate vernacular architecture now at a kind of a different level than I think I had before I started tossing around. On, you know, this topic in the last year or so in my head, because some of it's very meaningful, and some of it is, you know, and then, and then, and then, if you think about, like, to kind of go back to the education part of it, I want to make sure we didn't miss this part and talk about this is like, then there's, then there's also just the title of architect, right? And I got into a discussion on LinkedIn the other day with this young guy. Because, you know, I think it was Tyler suomala. He posted on LinkedIn. Everybody should follow him. He's he posts very, sometimes he's just very engaging stuff on LinkedIn. Sometimes it's controversial, sometimes it's not. He had a layup one the other day where it was like some about the title of architect, like, when, when should you be able to own that title after licensure, after school, whatever. And I went to the comments, and I go, Hey, I just want to remind everybody that Tadao Ando was never formally trained, ever arguably the master right now of brutalist but beautiful concrete, like he took Soviet architecture and made it beautiful, right? Everybody knows who's listening. Probably knows who to DO and DOES with this beautiful light and all the other stuff. And sure enough, somebody took the bait, and they're like, well, he can't call himself an architect. And it's like, and then somebody else stood up for Ted Island. Was like, he's a Pritzker, right? He's a Pritzker Prize winning architect. He's like, hands down. He's there. So then there's also this strange sort of, we need titles. And I've been thinking about this lot in the last two or three weeks, because I just promoted two people, one in the arc, one in the construction firm, and one in the architecture firm. And they're both, they're both men, and they, I don't know if this is a man thing, if we, if men need the titles or what's going on. I mean, I give myself the titles. Like, I was just doing another podcast for four years, and it was, he said, Well, what would you call yourself? He's like, you do a lot of stuff. And I was like, gun to my head. I would probably have to say serial entrepreneur, like, that would be my title, right? And so we have this weird, elitist and not, you know, discussion about architect, Software Architect, uh, engineer, architect, or whatever. And like, when do you get to call yourself that? And I think what really frustrates me about the conversation on both sides, because I'm guilty of it. I actually don't. I don't have that sort of you have to have your license to be called. You have an architect. I don't care. You're today Orlando, you're an architect. But or whatever, what frustrates me about even myself and being, you know, left, right or up or down, and part of that conversation is like, Oh, we're missing the forest. For the trees, guys, we're missing the forest. Look at us worrying about the title, when maybe we should be worrying about the money so that we can have the agency to do what we want, not lay people off, right? Serve, serve more or less people, and be that like, how many times architects and maybe that's the summation of the elitism, right? And my critique against it is like, we miss the forest for the trees when we start worrying about that title.
Love it brilliant. I mean, it's the perfect place to conclude the conversation. There Lance, as always thoroughly, thoroughly stimulating conversation with you. I look forward to doing this again. So thank you.
Thank you so much for having me on, always a pleasure, and
that's a wrap. And one more thing, if you haven't already, please do head on over to iTunes or Spotify and leave us a review. We'd love to read your name out here on the show, and we'd love to get your feedback, and we'd love to hear what it is that you'd like to see more of and what you love about the show already. Now, a message from our sponsor, Why settle for switching between multiple design programs to complete a single project with Vectorworks architect, you don't have to simplify your workflow with a hybrid 2d and 3d modeling environment made to support your work from the pre design phase all the way through to construction documentation in a single platform. Learn more about the tool that can help you accomplish everything you need with the free seven day trial of Vectorworks architect, get started here@vectorworks.net forward slash Business of Architecture. The views expressed on this show by my guest do not represent those of the host and I make no representation. Promise, guarantee, pledge, warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you be unstoppable. Do.
