We always are building narratives around architecture, or architecture within narratives.
Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard and today we embark on a journey into the realm of architectural innovation. With a spotlight on the esteemed 212 box, founded by the visionary Eric Cluff to one two box draws inspiration from a rich tapestry of experiences hailing from the heartland of the Midwest. Eric's upbringing in Brussels and London bestowed upon him a refined sensibility for texture, craftsmanship and intricate detailing a journey that saw him traverse continents culminated in the establishment of Tuan to box in the vibrant landscape of New York City, much like the architectural marvels they conceive to one two boxes, identity mirrors the flexibility and expansiveness of their design ethos, rooted in a philosophy of perpetual growth. The firm's name derived from the fusion of area code, and box embodies boundless aspirations. This was a really interesting conversation, because I've spoken with Eric before, he's been a guest here on Business of Architecture. And today, we focused on one particular project a penthouse in Houston, and their subsequent marketing of this project and the publication that they produced, and the production and PR events that they created around this singular project. And I thought what was really fascinating and why I love talking to Eric is that Eric is so passionate and creative and innovative. And he naturally markets he naturally finds himself doing these entrepreneurial, outgoing collaborations in rolling other people into into these amazing visions and ideas that he has. And they're all driven from a deep architectural sensibility, a deep architectural idea, or commitment or passion. And we find when we look at Eric as a business person, that there's really good marketing and business principles, which have been driven by architectural aspirations. And there's a lovely kind of meeting of the two worlds of the business side, and of the architectural design side. So really enjoyed speaking with Eric, it was a great privilege to be visit him in New York in his incredible offices. So sit back, relax and enjoy Eric cloth of 212 box. And
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Eric, welcome to the Business of Architecture. Once again, how are you?
Wonderful, thanks for having me. Again, it was nice to see you again.
Absolute pleasure and beautiful pleasure to be here in your incredible offices down near Wall Street in the Financial District of New York, in front of this incredible painting and this even more extraordinary table that you were just telling me about earlier, which is yeah, quite amazing.
Yeah. Ian Monroe is a dear friend of mine. And it's in London artists. And we do a lot of work together and try to collaborate on love. Thanks. So, but I love his paintings. And we've been selling these to clients.
Amazing. Amazing. So I was really interested in curious and interested to talk to you again. Last time. You were on the show, we spoke a lot about the kind of history of your of 212 box how you started your work in in kind of high end fashion retail and some of the clients that you've you've worked with, you've got an extraordinary portfolio of incredible, thoughtful, interesting buildings. You're working with titans of industry right across the globe, you know, and you'll have some wonderful clients. Yeah. And you're working with big, very well established brands and kind of helping them develop brand experience here in the city around the world. Again, Christian libertines who we spoke about a lot last time and then the work there. And one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was your recent publication on the who's Houston penthouse, which I thought was a really interesting initiative where you kind of created a monograph out of a single Will book. And I thought we could talk a little bit about that and the kind of marketing thought behind it, or what was driving some of the ideas? How you, you know, what were you? What were you seeing it as a as a business play? And how were you kind of into what woven that business play with? With its kind of creative integrity?
Yeah. So I think there are two ways maybe the start is thinking about the project. And it's a residential penthouse in Houston, Texas. And it was one of those extraordinary moments where we, you know, as you design, and you're showing and presenting things to the client, the client kept on saying yes to things and, you know, multiple things where we thought, oh, maybe choose one of three or something. And they just kept saying, yes, yes. So it was a wonderful moment of realizing like, oh, well let, then let's kind of stretch this and see if we can bring collaborations in in different artists. So the entire penthouse was a real team effort on collaborating with artists and vendors and makers and, and just extraordinary artisans, and craftsmanship. So
was it a client that you've worked with before?
No, we had designed the lobby and amenities in this particular building, and then they bought one of the pen testers, and we ended up designing five different pen testers, but one of them was this extraordinary result of of really taking a five bedroom down to two bedroom to study. So we're, space was very luxurious with the amount of space we you know, we could have for a bedroom suite and a primary suite and things like that. So, you know, just the actual apartment and everything we made in it. And then versus maybe just to go back to what we discussed last time, the the business to into boxes, is based on six disciplines, or it's six sides of the box. Five disciplines, but then the six side, and sorry, art, architecture and interiors, graphics, products, film and animation, and then larger Real Estate projects. The six side is all about both the clients. And everyone we you know, team up with. So, you know, what I love doing is being really open with collaborations and, and, you know, as you build things with tons of contractors, everyone has a different way of building things, and especially all of our experience around the world doing, you know, retail stores for Christian Lupita. You just you get in a different thought process, you really understand cultures, when you start building within different cultures, and, and so we've collected all these wonderful vendors, and I just kept them pulling them in for this, you know, kind of glorious, you know, opportunity. And so the book is about the penthouse. And it just goes room by room and through all of our fun details. But it really is a celebration of 50 of the artisans and their stories, right, because we wanted to express that. So you know, one small little secret is I wanted to do, you know, like, we didn't have a book, we're 24 years old, almost 25. And I thought, Okay, this is a great way to start. And it will also be it will be about the collaborations. And then this is actually, my hope is one of six to 10 books or something that, you know, puzzle together and form some wonderful thing at the end. So we have just started on the second two books, but that
was just a wonderful, it's great books on different projects, and they're all kind of no
different disciplines or I'm trying to get back to like, say, you know, if I spend a decade on every discipline, you know, my career, you know, stick Yes. Complete. So, yeah, but I love you know, I think some people give us a hard time because it's not really about us. And there was no pictures of us. And there was, you know, I just really I wanted to celebrate everyone else's story.
Yeah. I mean, it's an extraordinary book. I mean, I've sat down with my partner a few times and an evening has just gone through the whole thing and looking at all and just, you know, it's a real intense catalogue of every single detail of the project. Yeah. And one of the questions I had was, how did you get the was there any issue Use with the client, allowing you to do that and to go that deep into every last little nook and cranny of the of the project. Because normally, you know, there's, I often hear architects having problems, particularly with high end residential where the client is like, Nope, we don't want any photographs taken or you're not publishing this, was that ever an issue were they quite open and they know about the book, I'm assuming they're really
funny stories is one. You know, this was not their primary residence. So that's also I think, what we realized is, they were relying on our design intent, because every project we do is a collaboration with the client, and we don't have a set style, we are flexible. And if you want modern or traditional, like, we're happy to, you know, we try to bring a classic and elegant aesthetic to any one of those, but you know, we've done our deco stuff and just, you know, find ways of, of finding our own kind of design within that. But this client, just extraordinary family that supported the arts and paint again, they were a patron to the arts, and the layers became like a parent, where oh, my gosh, we can put cutlery in every single, you know, beautiful detail and moment. Meaning like, we can organize all that and do a 25 foot curiosity cabinet that's filled with treasures. And I was traveling a lot. So we were collecting wonderful things. So from the clients perspective, they, they were fairly open. And but they were not they're not showy, and they're not. There's no ego at all. And I had they known the book would have turned out like this, I think that, you know, they would not totally agree to it. What they did ask me, sorry, this is my point is, so we're handing over the apartment, we're doing kind of one of those, like, here's your, here's your place, and showing them all the details, and of course, telling the stories of, of all these objects and where we found them and who made them and, and so at the end, they said, Okay, that was a lot to digest, and do you think you could just write down, put some of those stories and write them down for us so that we like have a little packet that we can then tell our friends if someone comes over and, and, or just for us to know, like, this is really great. And, and we love that we've been patrons to this. And so this was 2020 or something, and then COVID. And so I dove into like, okay, great, we've got some time opened up. And, and, you know, one we had, sorry to jump around, but Nick retasking, he photographed, you know, six or 700 beautiful images of that. So we had a stockpile of all the detail, detail. And then when we got Saxon Henry to just interview everyone, and we together, listen to their stories, and she just has a beautiful way of presenting all the stories. We do all of this. And about two years later. Actually, it was it was published last spring summer. And in August, I was able to send a book to the client. And I, I remember, hear those notes. Well, yeah, so essentially, we were about to have a book launch in September. And in August, I sent him the book with a note that said, per your request, your is a book on all of your stories about your apartment. And, you know, he called me and I was just we had just landed in Barcelona and was getting this call from the airport and, and he's like, What the hell did you do? And I was like, yeah, sorry, when, you know, like, some of our stuff we go a little overboard on, follows through. And that's,
that's remarkable then so that so much of the thinking and the thought that you guys were putting into the client didn't necessarily know that that was they, they weren't necessarily present to all of the narratives that you were kind of intricately weaving into the into the space. How do you so when you're kind of designing a brief with the client, how do you give yourself space to be able to go that deep into the narratives and because because there's there's an art to this because if you the danger is if it you take the client too deep into this stuff whilst you're doing it, they freak out and they're like, What are you doing? Yeah, and but he also keeping it running inside of the office and with the design, how do you how do you create that balance just practically running a project? You
know, we're so Fortunate with all of our clients that they, they trust us, and we're a lot of referral basis. So the show notes, someone's maybe kind of vouched for. And then that trust, I don't think I've ever taken advantage of it, but I can play within that a little bit and was a little bit of a troublemaker. Sorry, I'd say that in the in the way of like, you control your you know, you just want to seize these opportunities. And, and and I think I can control all the things I want to do with, like presenting them in a way of, you know, look, only if you'd like to do this. We have an opportunity. But I think the key is also not explaining everything and maybe, you know, there's enough, left unsaid Yeah, that that's the you know, the little miniature I get to real
estate, I often use the the Mies van der Rohe quote, where he always used to say Don't Don't, don't need to talk to your clients about architecture, ask them how their dogs are, how the children is, you don't need to go, which, which I think is actually a very difficult skill for an architect because it's easy to become totally know what the client wants, and they're not really paying you for exactly what they want. There are things but it's part of the architects skill and discretion to be able to pull out what is the motivator of the project. And they also want the architect to do what the architect does, yeah, but they but the architect has to kind of lead the project and earn that position of trust. And it's not, it's not easy. And it's not necessarily formulaic.
That's, that's really interesting. I think, one small take on it is I tried to build a program, and function into those details. So that, you know, architects will obsess, or designers will obsess on, you know, extraordinary ways of folding stone and doing this and, or process of cutting the stone and doing it in a really unique way. And if the client knew you were spending money on that detail that they probably just pass over, and you know, it's like, that's a waste of their money, or it just, it's not worth it. But if you then program it and make that little detail functional in some way that then they can love. And this really gets to the core of what I love about our company is we always are building narratives around architecture, or architecture within narratives. And so it's, it's all that storytelling within even a detail or any ornamentation. So, yeah, you know, if I ever need to explain why we spent money on something, or a detail, or it's, I think, because we've programmed it something Yeah.
Well, how do you make sure that it's the right client in the first place? To be able to set up this kind of relationships? I think this is quite interesting as well, because clearly, you're not dealing with certain types of clients who would be averse to, you know, the level of detail and narrative. That's why that's the that's the, that's the kind of little vil Electra spice. It's the luxury. It's the it's the it's the thing that they they're coming for here. So how do you make sure that it is that you're qualifying the client that they're going to be the right person to go on this journey with you, as opposed to, you know, a client that suddenly is putting up red flags and is getting concerned or wants to control the process too much?
Sorry, I said something in an interview that killed me a long time ago. But I said something like, you know, I fall in love with every client, did we ever did, we talked about this, like, possibly. And it says meaning like, someone extrapolated, like, Oh, he's in love with clients. I just meant, like, you know, people are wonderful, and the nuances of, you know, we're architects and interior designers, and you and you want to know how they live and wake up and, you know, use all the details of what you're about to create. And so you get to know them and, and just the inherent beauty of a person comes through, the more time you spend with them. And I just, I think it could be that moment of picking up on what they need and what we think they need. And then and and then trying to extrapolate it into a story, a concept and then flows out into the into the design. Yeah, there's no filter on our client. I mean, and I guess I was saying all that and meaning to say, there's no client I wouldn't love to work and design with because it kind of goes back to the collaborations. It's amazing when, you know, two sets of thought, process culture, background, come together and try to build something. You know, it's it's a completely unique moment. And you can create some really wonderful things. So I try to pick up on a lot of, you know, what inspires them, what inspires us, and we try to bring that together.
I suppose in that way, there's something very, it's very reassuring as well, because it's kind of like biographical of the clients, there's, there's something kind of reflective about it. And it's, it's often an opportunity for them, certainly with for looking at kind of private residential, it's a time for them to set out a philosophy of living. And the architectural conversation is actually part of articulating that. Yeah, just happens to manifest itself, like three dimensionally on space. Yeah.
And that really shows up in the book, I think, I think of two chapters. One is literally, it's about a young Canadian artist who does all this beautiful origami, Japanese paper work sculptures, she came down, we spent the day with the family and small stories past, you know, like fun little things and photo albums and where you lived, and all this stuff came up. And she went back and created a beautiful big 40 foot wall sculpture, that we're all those stories entangled into just pictorial, you know, objects and things. And we've done that before with Erdos 1436. Right? A beautiful cashmere and luxury brand. And we've showed the process of how things are made. There are all sorts of things. You know, I always there's great opportunities to work with clients at because she really comes in and reinterprets the stories and stuff.
So, go coming back to the penthouse, and you've got it photographed. It's kind of evolved from it's evolved from a series of notes explaining the thinking behind it. And now you've got this extraordinary book, did it just show up to the, you know, you literally just sent the book in its published form to the client, and they, and that was the first time they'd seen
Oh, yes, absolutely. Amazing. Yeah.
And then, and then, what was the conversation about what your intentions were for the book afterwards? And, and the kind of publicity around it. And obviously, you've got a few kind of launch events here. And in in in London, yeah,
we just went in Paris this morning, we just finished so we did New York, then London, Paris, LA, and then we're back. And that was a fun four or five months of whirlwind, you know, throwing parties in different cities. wasn't as easy as I thought, you know, and also, but it's been a wonderful tool. If I can even say that, like, it's just, it's wonderful. When the potential client, yeah, says, Hey, let's work together. And I was like, Oh, come on, like, see what we've done just on one project. So it's been so valuable to just be able to pass a little thicker portfolio around. It's, it's funny, because I wanted to be true to the nature of the actual project. And, you know, a Houston pen test doesn't sell very well in Paris, or, you know, it, but I, it is a Houston penthouse. And it was all about the stories of everyone and, and all of those artists are international. And so it is interesting, there were about seven or eight different vendors in Paris, and we had a wonderful party, because we were celebrating all of them, and they they brought tons of friends and clients. And so that experience has just been it wasn't, again, really about us. It was about meeting new new people and branching out and, and hearing a lot of their stories and meeting a lot of their friends. So no, it's been a wonderful success in that way. And did
you when you put the book together? Did you have the think that you were going to do a kind of launch tour with it? Or was this were you talking with a PR strategic list or how did the idea come about because I think it's a really number one just putting together a book of somebody's residence. I've seen a number of architects do this very well. And we've got a client in a Business of Architecture who did do restored an old antique Japanese door for a client and an installed it into the house and it's like a quarter million dollar quarter million dollars door, right? And they made this beautiful kind of Mahna Mahna Golf book of it and done the door just on the on the fabrication of it, the restoration of it, how they set it in, and it sits there on the you know, as soon as you enter into the house, there's the book of the door. And it's obviously it's a conversation starter. It's a great marketing tool, in terms of for the, for the architects, because the clients always want to show everybody you know, anyone that comes in the house, hey, look at the door that are the, you know, it's a very nice kind of classy, elegant way of, you know, branding and, and creating that and creating that story about the door and also publicizing yourself in a very discreet, but kind of thoughtful manner.
We didn't, we didn't have any plans. I really, you know, as we're talking this, there's some in some ways to the mystery and Fifth Avenue, which we've already talked about, but the, you know, the book was really just meant for the client. And then when I got that off, and then we also you have to print so many what are we going to do? You know, and obviously, we have a great publisher images, image publishing, out of Australia, and the, they've got a great network. So I just, you know, I, once they saw it, I was like, by the way, we've this kind of ran away from us. And you know, this will be out in bookstores and things like that, and, and you know that we're totally fine. I think there's so many fun, beautiful stories that you you do want to market that and and it's a perfect example of the best way
we kind of work. I think what's nice about this, as well as actually, it's, it's where, I mean, I'm very aware that most many architects don't necessarily just make the distinction between marketing and something that's actually a natural part of their creative process. And this was kind of part of a creative dialogue and wanting to explain what the details were. And then it kind of the the marketing opportunity emerges, as opposed to it being something that was much more strategically laid out. And that's totally valid way of doing it just means that actually we start to see that there is no talking about the design process in any man in any way is brilliant. It's just that's what we should be doing as architects is too much of it hidden away. And no, we don't take the opportunity to talk about our work, or Korea or curator or choreograph it in a kind of manner that's, that's meaningful. And then this becomes great, because now you've got, you've got loads of books, they're lovely things to give away to people. And then there's the opportunity to create a live event around something. Yeah. And again, this is this as a as a kind of marketing tool to bring people together bring clients together, I could imagine what sorts of people were you inviting to the, to the live events to the, to the parties.
It will it was any any maker and vendor artists and that was in each town. We we asked them to co host and so you know, for London, there were six hosts, I think and then they brought and that was kind of beautifully curated only in that we didn't have a very big space. Tyler Hayes from btw was so nice to offer her New York showroom London showroom. And then fortunately, he opened la just in time. A couple months later, I've worked through the second party there. A lot of journalists and writers and then also clients and then friends of friends. And it was it was a nice, you know, wonderful community and it was it those were all special evenings because it was an extended family kind of really coming together. So I am sorry, I don't know when when you're going to drop that bomb of a question. Because when you said I'm going to ask you the successes and then the the setbacks or whatever. And I'm like you know just been trying to think like oh,
what what
this is why I just I I guess I planted that. But meaning you planted that seed earlier my original intent that was this was the only aspect of during COVID I was so excited by this apartment and when we got all these beautiful images back from neck I was like this like these Fatah the photography is amazing. But you need to see the space you know as the light changes and goes through at least this curtains that are all wood and silk. You need to really experience this with you know, feel the smoke in the air or just the lighting or whatever. And so I wrote three short films. Well one and then it kind of extrapolate into three short films. And we were, I spent endless hours trying to get this produced and made into films. And my hope was that we would be able to do a screening and have a book launch at the same time of these three short films. And it was, there were two wonderful actors, clearly, and Guillaume, who were doing these three different stories and different, you know, different characters within each but, you know, they're extraordinarily talented and, and I just thought, Oh, this is this is a wonderful, that's like a wonderful picture of taking the architecture and then seeing it in the film. And, you know, I wanted it to be like Tommy boards. Oh, man, you know. And we just, I couldn't get the made. And not wait, you know, like, I went through three or four different
character characters in the in the films. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And the thing that killed us was the HOA wouldn't allow us to film in the lobby. And there was a whole important sequence. One was a comedy. One was a drama. One was a music video. And anyway, sorry, I digress. That's,
that's, that's an extraordinary amount of thought to go into the capture of a project. Yeah. And so
I thought that was that was my original marketing plan of like, okay, this would be really cool. You know, maybe we have screenings and so as is all over the world of like, oh, screening and the book launch or whatever. But anyway, sadly, I the three films didn't happen. And how
far did you get into the scripts? What whatever?
No, no, the scripts are locked in. I had a co writer like Christian huntin did some beautiful writing with me. And the what I love about Matt Craig sorry. Well, so what
I love about this is it's kind of like it's, it's like a whirlwind of creative ideas and thinking, and you bring people in to it as well. Yeah. And there's a kind of this collaborative nature, which kind of gets people talking about the project, I'm just keep thinking about it, like as a marketer. And, and it's, it's a really lovely way of just building out a team and publicizing and talking the work, but at the at the core of it is a creative sort of direction that's coming from it. And the idea of having three short films made about the space and actually having like a plot and a narrative and protagonists, and something starts to elevate the project and architectural storytelling to something very unique, very, very different. And something again, a nice way to bring people together to see the film and enjoy it and talk about the space and then to one two boxes kind of bits there at the center of kind of generating it on leading it. Yeah.
Yeah. No, I was I was really excited. And I had a cheque sitting on the desk written, it was about to be mailed. And then we got this call of like, a, you can't do that filming. And so yes, we were very, very close. It's funny, it had a couple of different lives. I was just remembering. Gracie Abrams, who's huge now we've opened up for Taylor Swift and stuff. But she was just launching her career. And there were three songs that we kind of nested together to make one of the, the music videos and I thought, oh, and she, she really, it was during COVID. So her whole plan to tour and stuff had been delayed. And so she was somewhat unknown. So my dream was to have Timothy shall have a good intent with the author was a little bit more available before, you know, obviously he's exploded. But I thought those two would be a fantastic way to also present this. One of them was remaking the Twilight Zone episode and so we really had a lot of fun with it. And then it Yeah. And
how did the client know about any of these filmic ideas and
they were fine with us filming and I think we were all really proud of the project and they were supportive.
And do Do you ever with other clients have that kind of any kind of pushback in terms of being able to photograph and publicize projects and how do you navigate that because it's always such a
that's really tough because
I'm particularly the sorts of things that you guys are doing it's like you need to see like the little details and inside somebody's underwear drawer. Yeah,
because there's something It's great.
There's something hidden there. Yeah.
It's about 8020. You know, right. The trust is there. And if it's acceptable, we only use it for portfolio use versus you know, there's a lot of projects we can't post and publish, which is a little bit disheartening, but, but it's okay. Just having that, those treasures to remember. And, you know, the archive is wonderful. We did a house upstate in New York in like Canandaigua. And it was, it was four generations in this house now. And we've expanded it and renovated it and, and it's even moved from, you know, the cabin original cabin was sort of moved from another property. So it's had all the storytelling in life to it. And then there's some incredible ancient grounds around there. And, and there are a lot of folklore and mythology of serpents coming out of the lake, and, you know, doing some wonderful things, we harnessed all that and then kind of created another mini mystery, storytelling around the house and clues and fun thing. And also, we've written a film on that as well thinking, that would be a nice way to round it out as well, to then continue that storytelling into cinema. So yeah, I think that's when I said a couple of days, like a decade, I'm just making that transition to try to get a more film into our life. I mean, we've had a film company for 15 years, and we're 20. And we've just been doing small things, but my hope is that we really are able to, you know, work through and get into that
amazing, kind of go back to the the Houston penthouse projects, how has that kind of concluded with with a client, they were all happy with the way that the publicity went for the for the project? And what were some of the results from the tour if you like,
you know, they didn't attend every event. But we had a wonderful New York event with them. And, you know, I forgot to mention we did one in Dallas. So right, a lot of people ended up coming to that one. Because we did with ARIA stone gallery show was one of the vendors but Houston was keeps starting and stopping in terms of doing a launch there. By but in terms, like it just a lot of connections and meeting new people and new people to make things with. So we're, that's always the that important moment of those evenings, you know, getting crowds together and sharing stories, and then meeting new people. And
it's interesting about one of the things I liked about the book, and also having a focus and telling the story of all the crafts people in the artisans and all the people that made the project that's really nice, as well, as, you know, often from a marketing perspective, we'll talk about the idea of a dream team. And actually, you know, it's actually a little strategy that you can create, you can make a postcard for example, and have your here are the top five vendors that we that we that we work with. And that actually becomes a very valuable little piece of information for any client to have with and it's also a nice marketing tool, because you can give it to the 10 people who are on that list. And they're going to be like 10 marketers for you dishing out the postcards, that's just a very, very pared back simple version of what the book is doing. And now the book is something that that all the vendors are proud of and want to show to people and they're going to be inclined to even if they have one copy of it, they're going to want to my ploy Yeah, they can they want to show people and do it and it's got this lovely way of, of kind of continuing the conversation by making it about other people. And by sharing and you know, this is a really a good this is a way of talking about your own work when you start celebrating the work of other people in involved in it, then you create this, this tension for it to want to be shared by those people as well. Yeah.
You know, I over the course of the of my career, that's been the hardest part of realizing once you start making something and you've got a special vendor who can use wizard acrylic or metal or wood, and you know, we hoarded them for a long time like oh, don't tell anyone because As you know, then they'll get busy. And then like, they're kind of our go to and and when we started this book, there was a big discussion about that, because it's like, oh, but this is our secret sauce or, you know, the, our recipe of, of how to make things. And I, you know, you I think in anything, you just stopped back, you step back and, you know, open your heart and try to be as generous as possible. Yeah, and, and, you know, you realize for a long time, like, that's not going to help you. If you're, if you're keeping that amazing woodworker in a closet, you know, for only your stuff. I mean, it's helpful. But no, Gregory has had immense success. Probably more so than anyone, you know, based on this book, just because he built, you know, all this extraordinary millwork. And, but, you know, I also want to say, and I, and it's really important to distinguish, there were a lot of stories and from the artisans, we didn't collaborate with everyone, but it was kind of a spiritual collaboration of all of us coming together. Because I want to be careful to say, you know, Roman, and Williams, and Tyler, they're all incredible. Designers, and architects. And, you know, we curated a few of their furniture items and things like that, and tried to work with them in different ways. But I just want to be careful. Sorry, that's a it's a nuanced show. At one time, the title was nuanced collaborations, but it just, it didn't seem to work. But that was the explanation of this is one big family coming together and doing it and our part was, you know, I think for us, it was a good example of going look, you've got an incredible Terrazza wood terrazzo floor or materials system. Kind of be a flooring, and then yes, it can. And can we embed planks in it? Yes. Oh, interesting. Lis dry. And so we love getting into the art of making something the process of it, and kind of adding things throwing, like, thinking about other ways of making things and then can you do it like that? If it can? And so yeah, there's a there's a lot of different distinctions of collaborations in that book. But, but,
but I mean, that's quite an interesting insight to have that knowing, you know, actually, how would How would you like it with your developer clients, if they were to keep you a secret? And this is genuine, what happens? Right, right. And developers do keep they find a good architect, and then you kind of want them to share it. And they're like, Well, I don't want to share you with my competitors. Why would I do that? And that makes that makes sense. But it's also I think, what we're starting to see nowadays is that it's not there's the relation of the working relationship, professional working relationship, and the workflows and the efficiency that gets developed, that is meaningful. And also, if you promote somebody else that is meaningful for the other person, they're going to prioritize you, they're going to look after your relationship and make sure that you're taken care of, they're not going to turn their it's more unlikely anyway, that they're going to turn their back on you if they get busy. Yeah. And, and, you know, and also the other kind of commercial part of it is that when another one of your vendors is kind of growing and doing well, then they expand and they've got more capacity and their service gets better. Yeah, that's the idea anyway.
In a perfect world, yeah. Always always the case. Okay, all right. Well, you really
Yeah. No, a was a huge question. And but I think we came out obviously on the right side of just being as generous as possible and yeah, so when you celebrate, like it goes down to the human connection also it's it's um, you know, they're all people and I vacation with a lot of the you know, like, we have dinners and family and you know, are all together so it really, there's no other way of like, why why wouldn't you celebrate your your dearest friends and yeah, so. Yeah, and everyone in a way it all comes back around.
Let's talk a little bit about the type of client that you were you were working with and some of the things that you have to be sensitive to and the kinds of demands that they might have over you know, particularly with the high end residential working with them. ultra high net worth individuals, there's a certain level of client experience that they're expecting. Could you talk a little bit about that? Or is this? Or is this something that's very, it's so commonplace for you that might not be so cognizant of it? If you like? No?
Well, part of a part of it, for me is, is perfecting the experience for the client. I, you know, I always ask a client, if they've done this before, they built something. And then how was their experience that they had, and, you know, wavering? And I said, Well, I think like, come with us, like, I think you'll have fun. And I think, you know, it will be a unique experience. And, and I try very hard to do that. And to and to follow through with that. And, you know, there's a reason, we tried to build out a beautiful showcase office. And I think of this as a theater, and a way to, you know, the way we make presentations are very theatrical. And if we have, you know, we're coming into town, and we've only got a three hour meeting, and we've got, you know, massive, like, that's a long time, and, you know, they're gonna need a bite to eat. And this, you know, so you try to orchestrate the experience. And, and, you know, designers of our service industry, so I feel like, that's a bit of half the battle, it's also managing their expectations. So, our office, we email every Friday, weekly updates, and whether people read them or not, or there's, you know, it's just information. It's just the help them on like, oh, yeah, this is going on, oh, this is all the stuff we have, because we haven't heard from them in a couple of weeks. And so that I think, is really important, and just holding their hand through this process. And, and all the on site process of building things is so much fun, but if they're not in town, or they don't want to be a part of that, all the photos and you know, just, you know, kind of watch seeing that step by step. So I think that's the loveliest thing. And we're always making fun, extraordinary things. So the pictures from the factories are always fun to see and experience. It's interesting
you say actually, that you know, the curation of of your office, your studio is a place for entertaining and hosting. And I know that you do over dinner dinners, and this was sit on this mind bendingly wonderful table. And that's often something a lot of architects miss the opportunity on is the creating the the hospitality aspect of the service, and particularly when it's, you know, kind of high net worth individuals who are used to luxury experiences, in other in pretty much anything that they're engaging with, you know, I had a client recently say to me, that when we're dealing with this type of clientele, we're not competing with other architects, we're competing with their safari in Tanzania, or their ability to go and, you know, do whatever kind of exotic lavish trip that they can they have an expectation. And I've seen architects in the past as well, who have hired hospitality consultants, from the Ritz Carlton, or the four seasons for to train their team in how to create a luxury experience for their clientele, because there's an enormous amount of extra value that can be done with that. And it's not massive input on the architect side. It's just it's creating a fantastic seamless experience. And I think that's quite a clearly you guys are quite masterful at being able to do that. Well,
I hope so. I mean, we definitely try and make that you know, the primary focus as well as then executing a design. Yeah, that's very smart, maybe.
So what what do we have planned for the rest of 2020 for?
Well, lots of resident wonderful residential projects. We just finished two floors in the Rockefeller Center for big commercial office build out and we're just looking at another one in New York, and that's going to be a beautiful big project. And we, we I've made lots of secret projects, which I can always talk about, but there are some really wonderful things that are international, that are pretty interesting. But I've been doing a lot of travel back and forth of Portugal because there's some wonderful opportunities there and you When selling property, or selling property on clients and thinks, sorry, I'm not selling them, but we found them. And we said, Well,
you were saying this, this is interesting. Is this a new service that you're putting together? Or is it something you're collaborating with? Other kind of real estate agents to help clients at the really early stage? Oh,
yeah. Well, you know, you're always everyone, like, in our early clients in New York, we're always saying, Oh, if you find a building to renovate, let's do it. And so you know, I always love having my fingers on on beautiful properties and opportunities, and then just traveling internationally, they're even more so. So I'm always telling clients, oh, you should, this is a hot little bed there. And, you know, and so in a way, now, it's funny the last couple of years, I meet people, and I mentioned, Portugal, and they say, oh, you know, what I really wanted to tusk and Bill. And then so we're, you know, I found three different opportunities. And, and I just love it, it's not a service, it's not a I, you know, just for the love of finding something. Yeah. And, and knowing that maybe we would be traveling to that area and having a project. So I love providing that just because it's fun to then, you know, be at the inception of like, wow, this is a great opportunity, and seeing all those possibilities of what you can do. So.
But it's also it's also very smart. And it's a, it's a good way of kind of proactively leading the client to have a project happen. And you can actually start to be, you know, demonstrate, well, here's actually, here's three great properties that think you might like, whereas if you left it to the client, they might not do anything about it, they thinking about it for ages, and nothing happens. And then you're just passively waiting and hoping, whereas this is actually yeah, it's it's proactive. It definitely
is, I it's some, despite we're referral, you know, base and we grew very quickly, when we started with just kind of exponential. People, you know, three people offering our name and stuff, I always love to try to direct what we're doing and direct the steer the office and in different directions on. And I think that's the entrepreneur aspect of me, where I'm constantly looking for the opportunities. And then also, yeah, like these little business things. So I, I, you know, I have one big fun, big secret project, and then I had to create another little secret project to help support it. And so I'm constantly looking for those opportunities. And it really then allows for us to I think, sorry, architecture firms start spreading out five is a plan. And sometimes feels like our wings are clipped or, you know, like, we really want to expand and do those things. So, in any project, I'm always like, Oh, but what if we make a lot of these things as products? Or what if we do some graphic design? Like it was funny, I just pitched a client. We've been doing these one page posters. Sorry, one not novel on a one poster, one page. And, or yes, so there's in
Europe. Yeah.
And sorry, there's a wonderful graphic design firm in Holland that started this. And Philip Roth, I was telling him about it, and he said, Oh, do do one of my books. And so we ended up doing it, and it's incredible, tiny text, you can see where of all the dialogue occurs. And then, you know, is this visually seeing a book? Oh, yeah, open, one text beautiful. And so then I was calling Jonathan Safran Foer and all these people is going like, oh, let's do your books, and Malcolm Gladwell, and all this. And then, and then none of those like they all kind of laughed at me and but I've been dying to do you know, something this big, with all seven novels of my struggle. Now I'm scarred and so I pitched that in a meeting two weeks ago, and I think we may do it amazing. Because I just want a wall of like, my struggle, all seven novels of it though. Oh my god, is it six? I may be wrong, but anyway, So I'm always constantly,
this is what this is, this is what I really enjoy about your, your, your practice is that there's kind of the distinction between the kind of creative process and say, what I might call marketing is like it's quite blurred, and I'll be looking at a lot of what things you're you're doing. And actually, that's a very good marketing strategy inside of that. But it's driven by, like, an authentic creative curiosity in many, many cases, like, the idea of, you know, I've just had this idea of putting putting books on a whole page, and I'm gonna call up a whole load of people to tell them about it, and they might think you're bonkers.
But it's, but it's so many phone calls that people think. But
it's great, because it's like, that's what we should be, that's what you need to be doing as a business person is, is kind of connecting with people all the time. And, you know, and it's kind of brand this bubbling hot box, literally, of creative ideas, and you're calling people up to tell them about an idea. And that might not be the right one for them. But they're it's a it's a that's a campaign, it's it's a kind of marketing campaign and a way of connecting and keeping the the like a a tribe or a community informed about what it is you're doing. Yeah.
Yeah, that that's constantly I'm always rewriting or re, you know, like, really pitching different opportunities. So it's just I can't help not seeing how work can flow through all of the disciplines. And, and really, I think it just makes the architecture project so much stronger. When you're thinking about it in kind of all those different aspects, so Yeah, wonderful. Thanks. Thanks.
That's a perfect place for us to conclude the conversation there. And I look forward to the next conversation that we have when the secret projects are allowed to be spoken. Yes, I'm
sorry, I keep dropping those silly. We'll wait.
So it's good as it's leading up, it's planting the
trees for everyone to come back and join us.
Exactly, exactly. But always a pleasure talking with you.
Thank you so much, you too. Thank you so much. And
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