2022 AIA Gold Medal Winners: Brooks + Scarpa

A I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry of architecture is changing.

B Together, we'll find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects.

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted.

B Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine.

A Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors.

B I am so incredibly excited to introduce our next guest to today's episodes. These 2 have had an incredible impact on my career, giving me a voice as a young associate AIA member on committees and being welcome host to their home when I was on the ARCA editorial board. Well, they have dozens, literally over 50 design accolades and a handful of lifetime achievement awards from the likes of AIA National, AIA California, Architect Magazine, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and more, we are going to focus on their own personal influences, activism through advocacy, and entrepreneurial endeavors in both the for profit and nonprofit sectors. It is with great enthusiasm that I welcome the 2022 recipients of AIA Nationals Gold Medal Award, Angela Brooks, FAIA, and Lawrence Scirpa, FAIA. And it's so weird to kind of rattle your two names off very formally. So Angie and Larry, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be with us. We are going to drop your well intentioned, well meaning, formally written bios in the show notes. So all of your accolades will be listed there.

B But we like to kind of drop a softball question to our guests to get them started and have you introduce yourselves in your own words. So maybe Angie, starting with you, tell us little bit about yourself, and then we'll pick up a little bit about Brooks Scarpa as well.

C Sure. Well, hi, Evelyn and Janine. Thank you so much for inviting us today. I got started in architecture, many years ago. Both of my parents were teachers, and I wanted to help a lot of people make better communities. And the interesting thing is I really didn't know what an architect did when I started school. At the time I graduated, I knew I wanted to really work on things that exist beyond the property line, and so I guess I would say for the last 3 decades, I've been working on these issues while staying within the traditional architectural profession and trying to kind of broaden what it is an architect does.

B Amazing. Larry, do you wanna take your own intro?

D Yeah. I always wanted to be an architect since I was a kid as far as I can remember. I had no idea what an architect did, but I wanted to be 1. And I think it was, because when I was younger, I grew up in a family of 4 kids, and my mother passed away when I was 9, and I was the oldest of the 4. And my dad worked several jobs, but he would pick me up from school when I was a kid and take me to one of his jobs, which was building small additions. And I thought my father was an architect, and like a lot of kids, I wanted to be like my dad, so I decided at a very young age that I was gonna be an architect then, but knowing, having no idea what architects do.

C That's what we have in common. We had no clue what we were getting into.

A You guys started from humble beginnings, but you've certainly grown a really impressive practice. It's funny because I actually studied you guys while I was in school and I it's just very humbling to be able to interview you guys today on the podcast, but I feel like all of the PR tied to the gold medal award about the history of your firm and the trajectory of the path that you all have been on, you guys have come a long way, and you've built something really incredible. I thought a good place to start this conversation is to talk about what practicing architecture means to you.

B Now that you know what it means to be an architect.

A Yeah. And, also, what drives your diverse approach to practice?

D We are the classic. You know, we have common interests, Angie and I, but we also have diverging interests, and I think that's what makes it both interesting and and workable. You know, we came to California, basically, Angie went to grad school here, and we knew nobody. So we just kinda showed up and, you know, I had worked for the likes of Paul Rudolph and Holt Hinshaw and other well known architects. And at that point, I was pretty much ready to, you know, branch out on my own or have my own voice. So I knew nobody in LA, and I was just looking for a job in a way to kinda make my marks. I was always interested in design as kind of an art, but art with a purpose. And, you know, I thought that you could do that whether rich or poor.

D And, you know, Angie kinda had similar objectives.

C Yeah. And I think architects are problem solvers. You know, the education of an architect is to solve problems both large and small. The problem exists, I think, with architectural education. You know, when we, graduate

D I create the problems that AANV solves.

C You know, we're best suited, I think, to solve a lot of these issues that society is gonna come up against, you know, whether it's a climate crisis or social equity or just anything, and they exist beyond the property line. So I think we need to have sort of a transformative in the future, you know, we have to transform what it is an architect does, and it's I sort of think about it the same way that the law profession kind of expanded what they do. You know, today, you can't really do anything without an attorney. You really need an attorney to attorneys write our policy, right, which is public policy that architects design within, and I would really wanna get to a day when we can't do anything without an architect. You know? We need to have a designer on the staff of the city that's looking at, you know, putting in bike lanes, for instance. We need to have an architect working with a civil engineer. And architects are collaborators. That's what we do, and I think that's what we're educated to do.

C So I think we need to elevate the definition of an architect and what it is an architect does. And so when I graduated from SCI Arc, you know, I really wanted I didn't wanna design singular buildings, and my thesis was, about solving the problem of suburbia, and SCI Arc was not doing that in the early nineties.

D They accused Angie of doing a Berkeley thesis in SCI Arc.

C Yeah. I mean but, you know, it was a really great experience for me because SCI Arc, you know, teaches you to think outside the box and be creative and solve these larger issues. So I went to work for the LA Community Design Center because it was the literally the only place in Los Angeles at the time that was doing both development and design and was hiring architects. And so I wanted to learn how how communities got developed, how projects got developed, and so I did that for a little while, and I think that was really what, for me, a really critical part of my foundation, and it's kind of helped me now. A lot of the people I knew back then are my clients and colleagues today.

D Yeah. And architecture is, you know, it's an art that people occupy, and, you know, it really has unlike a painting, if you don't like it, you put it in the closet, you know, a building you go into and it's not so easy to make disappear. So it has a profound impact on people, good or bad, you know? So there's something incredibly gratifying about that when, you know, people go into your building and it affects them emotionally or, you know, we we have a lot of people from, you know, high end work that are just wowed by what we do and people who come off the street in the same kind of way.

C Yeah. I don't think you can really tell the difference between our work for people who have been previously homeless and our work for, you know, market rate homes above, you know, mixed use dense urban developments. You really can't tell the difference because the principles that we believe are good design, you know, they're they translate across all across everything, and, the good news is they also align with passive design principles, you know, natural light, cross ventilation, courtyards, and those are the things that we do anyway. They don't cost more money. You know? We know how to design something to a budget, to a schedule, and I think designing on all these different levels for different types of clients has really helped us do both better.

B So Brooks Scarpa encompasses all different types of projects. Right? Like, from the art installations to the large multimillion dollar government affordable housing. How do you guys decide and maybe there's a pragmatic way of going about this, which which is probably less interesting. But how do you decide what, like, what do you pursue next? Is it pipeline driven? Is it passion driven? Is it, you know, this is gonna have the biggest impact?

D We look for, you know, opportunities, for example, in the affordable housing world when we started, you know, there were it was not really about good design. And, you know, we were young in our career and, you know, had basically nothing to do. And we looked at it and said, boy, this, you know, there's some really bad work in this area. We don't have to do much to look like heroes. And it wasn't quite that easy, but, you know, we've, we've kind of chose the path of maybe some less glamorous arenas that people have avoided, and we've kind of turned them into something special, like affordable housing. We've done similar things with parking structures, but we've always, we've always, you know, done what we've made, chicken liver from chicken, you know what, you know, that's kind of been something we've done as we've, we've taken opportunities or we found opportunities where others never ventured to look. And that's, you know, kind of been a hallmark of what we've, we've done even with, some of our affordable housing projects. We recently finished the project for Skid Row Housing Trust, and in the affordable world, they have a modernization program, which is, you know, pretty workmanlike thing, replace windows, upgrade, you know, electrical appliances, ADA.

D There's what they say no design involved. And, you know, the trust sort of apologetically asked if we could help them, you know, with one of the modernization projects. And we saw it as a design opportunity. And, you know, with very meager means, we made these public spaces where none exists and we wound up winning a national AIA award for a project where, you know, nobody saw a design opportunity. So that's kind of been what we do, we find ways.

C Yeah. And I I also think that a couple decades ago, you know, everyone used to specialize. Still do. There were architects that only did single family houses. There were architects that only only did affordable housing, you know, or architects that only do commercial buildings, and we've never really wanted to do that. And at one point, I told Larry, you know, can we just do the same type twice?

D It's not the best business model.

C Yeah. You know, doing a different type of building every single time, you know, it's a huge learning curve. So I think 3 decades, you know, hindsight's 2020. So 3 decades later, I think that is what has made us successful and allowed us to do what we really really wanna do, which is design, all of these different building types.

D And And it's hard.

C It's very hard. You know, people will come to you and say, if you try to our first project in the nonprofit affordable housing world, you know, the question was asked, how many have you done? And, of course, it was none. You know? So how do you do your first one? That's what's really difficult. And even now, you know, the banks, they don't wanna finance a project if the architect hasn't done at least 10

D Yeah.

C Of the same building type. And so we have to fill out these forms now, you know, which prove that we've done 10 of these. So we're at a point now where we where we've done all of this stuff, but it's been, you know, not easy.

D Tom Maine told me, he said it took him 30 years for people to figure out that he could do, you know, a whole variety of building types that it was about design, not about the project type. But in today's world, that's a, you know, makes it difficult to practice, but it, for us, it makes it fun, it makes it interesting. We don't wanna do the same thing over and over and over. You know, in fact, I think you do your best work when you're challenged, you know, when you don't do the same thing over and over and over. So it's both a, you know, it's I think it's a personal thing in some way, you know, as well as professional.

C I'm really proud of the fact that we have a lot of repeat clients too. So we're sort of we're, I would say, we're kind of known for working on challenging projects as well, which is both good and bad, but, you know, people come back to us. So we've done several buildings, for instance, for the same clients. Mhmm. And that's what I'm really proud of.

A You know, in addition to being very intentional about how you've built your practice and creating design for everyone, I'm I'm wondering another hallmark of your firm is really this activism that you guys are engaged in, and it shows up both in the affordable housing realm, but I know also in the, sustainability and climate activism realm. So I'd love to hear more about how activism plays a role in the way that you design and create.

D Yeah. We work in a bit of what Ted Smith would describe as a parallel universe, you know, where we have part of us doing things that are not really building related, but they eventually come back to us, you know, in building form. For example, you know, when we did Colorado Court, when we finished that, we we got, you know, almost every award on the planet for that project, but we were left with a sense of emptiness, you know, when it was done because it was downtown Santa Monica and the best we could get our client to do was to put a community room on the ground floor. You know, you're talking probably the most expensive real estate in the country where, you know, it would be a huge win to have, commercial space or something on the ground floor. And we were told their bylaws and funding just wouldn't allow it. So what we did is, you know, we went and lobbied the state. We got rules changed. And so our next project, we were able to do it.

D So we kinda don't sometimes fight on a building basis, but we fight at the policy level to make changes. Angie can elaborate a lot more on that.

C Yeah. I think whether you call it activism or advocacy, you know, just these issues that exist in the world today, I think everyone, whether you're an architect or a different professional, needs to be involved in making the world a better place for everyone. The first job I had out of graduate school, I was given a task to spend $250,000. It was a grant that was given to put recycling chutes in affordable housing projects, and this was in, like, 1991. And so, you know, that was when we didn't even we weren't even recycling anything. You know? So there's been a lot of changes, and I think, you know, we can kind of see that. We can see that into the future, but we also were in school at the University of Florida where we had a professor who was putting solar panels on his buildings in the seventies, and, you know, we know that that never really took off, and so you have to be active and you have to get yourself, to these tables where these discussions are are being made because, laws are being made and passed, and those are the things that we operate within. And we really wanna be able to be a part of those discussions, and so I think that's why we're active.

C But, you know, we're also mentors. I mean, Larry teaches. I started a small mentorship program to help young black women who are professionals because I feel like within our profession, diversity is what makes us better as well, and so our profession needs to be more diverse, and we need to give give people support and a leg up within our profession. We need to be active to do that in order to make our profession better for for all of us.

D Harvey Gant, the former mayor of Charlotte and architect, once said, he said, he did more in 1 week as a mayor than he did in 20 years as an architect. So, you know, when you work on policy things and you get changes that way, it impacts so many people. You know? Like, we through a nonprofit, we started Livable Places. We were able to get adopted what's known here in LA now, is the the small lot ordinance is commonly referred to. And you ask any architect in LA and they know it, they use it. It's like, you know, it's kind of a game changer for how we do development in LA, you know, bring raising the quality and make them more density. And when we first started that, and we kind of tested those ideas and we went to the politicians and stuff to get support, they told us it was political suicide. But now, what we did over 20 years ago, everyone now is saying, oh, the ADU, you know, this was stuff we were doing over 2 decades ago, and how you densify.

D So we're just, you know, we just have ideas and we, you know, I guess we're motivated to make our world a better place. And I think that's what architects do. And, you know, essentially when we went to school, you were kinda, everyone was taught to be the designer. And if you weren't the designer, you were a failure as an architect. And I think we that paradigm is changing, but it still needs to shift because our profession is big and broad and it needs a lot of people doing a lot of different things like Angie alluded to. You know, we should be advisors on policy. We should be advisors on the, you know, how cities are formed, urban design, and, that's what we're really cut out to do.

C And Maurice Cox is another person that Larry didn't mention who was the mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, he's now, you know, runs planning in Chicago. And so the nonprofit that we cofounded with Maurice and Katie Swenson, the affordable housing design leadership institute, was another vehicle to help we wanna we don't wanna just do it ourselves. We want the profession to do it and other architects to be able to do it. So this was really to help nonprofit developers do better design work.

D I learned that from my childhood friend. Get your friends to do all the work.

C Now, you know, we thought it'd just be a year, started it, and, you know, it's been going for, what, 10 years now,

D Larry? 11th year.

C Through enterprise, and you can go on their website, and they have tool kits and guidelines and guidebooks and stuff. And I would also say that we create our own projects as well. So we just finished exhibit called, about density, actually, because we felt like the general public wasn't really understanding what density means and how density is really directly linked to more livable communities, and we need density to be able to have these more livable communities. So it was done in an art gallery, the eighteenth Street Art Gallery in Santa Monica, and, it was really designed to look like art. You know? So when you walked in the front door, you saw it looked like a big painting, but then as you walked in the space and got closer to what you thought was a painting, it was literally a series of diagrams showing how density can really be a great thing. So, you know, that was just something that we did sort of on the side, you know, but what happened was 250 people showed up to see this art exhibit from all walks of life, you know, all the public, and then I I spoke in front of the housing comp the joint housing commission, planning commission for the city of Santa Monica to talk about density. We were on the local TV channel talking about density. We were interviewed by a bunch of different publications.

D Mainstream art magazines were covering it. So it was, like, about art, but it was really about housing and affordability. So It

C was a way to make it accessible to people, you know?

D Right. And if people don't love, you know, what you do, it doesn't matter how good of a purpose you have.

C Or how sustainable it is.

D Or how sustainable A zero energy building that nobody likes is less sustainable than a building that's an energy hog that everyone loves. So it has to be people have to love it. So no matter what you do, and I think that's part of what we try to do across all spectrums.

C I mean, the good news is we do things that we enjoy, I think, now, and we we feel like we have a little bit of time to do that, which is really luxurious. We answered the call when LA County came out with a grant, $5,000,000 grant, and they said we need ideas about how to solve the homelessness problem in Los Angeles, and so we put a brief together called the nest toolkit with plant prefab and community corporation of Santa Monica, and it won a $1,000,000 grant, and we're now building the first demonstration project in Santa Monica.

D Those are targeted basically at developers. You know, they're not really for architects, and we we basically led the team. We went after that. We kinda had the idea, and I think, you know, the architects are good at that. We should be more proactive in those areas.

C Yeah. And so it's taking the prefab, you know, develop prefab industry and tailoring it to housing and making it easier for developers and architects to kind of do that mid range and fill up density. But that was something, you know, we just had fun doing that, and we didn't think we didn't weren't sure we were gonna win and, you know, we ended up winning. So it's something that we're interested in, so we do things that we're we're interested in.

B I wanna go back to something that Laurie said, like, very early on in the dialogue about how you designed a project, it won a whole bunch of design accolades, and yet you guys were left feeling empty. I think, you know, at that point, most architects would have gone on and have been entirely happy with all those design accolades. And Angie, you and Larry just kind of had an incredible back and forth of all the things that you guys are doing in the public realm regarding policy, how you pursue archetypes that architects aren't usually a part of to be a voice at the table. Is there any one thing or collective thing that you guys can point to in terms of in terms of why the 2 of you think this way about your practice?

C I think that I think it we don't take anything at face value, and I think that's the way I've always been personally. And I think it's both an asset of mine and a fault of mine. So, you know, I traditions, you know, I look at them and I look at a tradition and I say, well, that doesn't make any sense, and so I'm not gonna do it. Or, you know, it's it's kind of I'm always rethinking things, and I'm you know, I take nothing at face value. And so if there's an issue that needs to be solved, I wanna try to solve it.

D Yeah. I don't care who you are. Everyone wants to have a purpose. And I you know, we look at it as art with a purpose. And it's, you know, where we think you can do both, and they're, they're not mutually exclusive. And and I, you know, we just there are just so many issues and problems in our world that's like easy to find things to do with a purpose, you know. We're now for the past 5 years been working on sea level rise issues in coastal regions, you know, and that's, you know, that's gonna be a big problem for us and how society kinda copes with that. So, you know, we just kinda have an idea and we're not afraid to fail, I guess, in a way, you know, and we pick it up, we work on it, And, you know, we we do what we think we can to, you know, make the world a better place, I I suppose.

C Yeah.

D You know, and so even with our own work, if it doesn't work out, we we try to make it better, you know, we don't, we don't give up. It's a lot of intestinal fortitude in some ways.

C I I used to say I'm not an architect. I'm a frustrated planner because when I went to architecture school, I thought that's what architects did. They planned communities. They thought about cities, and, you know, I think it goes back to kind of where we began, which is that both Larry and I had an interest, and we started college without really knowing anything about the profession. You know? So that was really, I think, that is part of why we are who we are today.

A Yeah. I I I was learning about your background and that you guys both came from blue collar families and you came to architecture school kind of learning about it for the first time. I'm curious, like, what from those early experiences, including from University of Florida or even working when you went to work for Paul Rudolph, which is amazing, you know, like, transitioned with you and has stuck with you through all these years?

D A lot of things have stuck with me personally. You know, I also worked for Paul Rudolph's first employee in Florida, And I learned a lot of lessons about space and light, lots of little lessons. But the for me, the big takeaway was, you know, it was it was a moment when I was in Rudolph's office, and I always loved this house called the Milam House that he did in in, Jacksonville Beach. And, you know, I wanted to see it. So the first thing I did when I was in Rudolph's office, I went to look at the drawings of that house, and he kept very good records of his sketches and so forth. And I was like completely shocked when I looked at it because the first drawings of that house were like nothing like what was built, and honestly were quite bad. But when you looked at like the evolution of those drawings, you could see how it became, what it was that was built. And it was at that moment, I knew I had a chance to be a good architect.

D You know, I said with a lot of work, you can actually become a good architect. He is the, you know, I mean, and he and he worked. He always worked very hard. So I, I guess I kind of continued. My dad was a hard worker too, you know, always was. And I learned that, you know, it the a good work ethic can go a long way, can make up for a lot of lack of talent.

C Yeah. And I think at University of Florida in the late eighties, it was called regionalism. Sustainability wasn't actually a term that was used when we're talking about recycling. We were it was called regionalism, and that's really what was kind of ingrained in us as students, which was designed within the region where within where you are. You know? If it's Florida, it's hot and humid and tropical. You know? If it's California, it's dry. You know? And so I always thought that was what architects were supposed to do, you know? And then, of course, the nineties came. We kind of lost that.

C We're coming back now full circle, but that's something that really was ingrained in us at the University of Florida.

D In graduate school, I did a project called the Tree House, you know, which was exactly what Angie was talking about. It worked with the environment and, you know, I had no idea that the term sustainability even existed, but that's what I what I was doing. And that was the first competition, national competition that I won as a graduate student. And it was really about, you know, sustainable housing.

C It had a little windmill. It had a an electronic solar panel.

D All the things you see today, you know, were there in 1984. Yeah. And, you know, and it wasn't until 2,002 when we did Colorado Court that it kinda re manifested itself in a built building. And that was the first lead residential building in the country. But we were just doing what my mother would describe as, you know, Jewish common sense. It wasn't, you know, anything that we thought special. It was just the right thing to do.

C And now, I mean, coming full circle, we, just interviewed for a campus building at the University of Florida and found found that we were awarded the project just last week. So Fantastic. To add to add to the architecture building where we had our studios

A Oh, that's so cool.

C Back in the eighties. So it's coming full circle.

D Our interview was in a studio that had been converted to their gallery a long time ago, which is where I where I had my my studio. So in the interview, I told them I said, this will be the first critique of my work in this room in almost 3 decades.

A That's really cool.

C Or and more than 3 decades, Larry. Yeah. Not all of us.

D Yeah. I guess so.

B I wanna talk a little bit, like, take taking your work from this kind of macro city level down to the the micro because you do kind of you've talked in your previous talks, you differentiate between experience versus place. And what's so interesting to me is even though that you're, like, working out these bigger policy levels, you you're you also get down to the very tactile feel of kind of, you know, people remember experiences outside of the places that they're in. So are there any experiences that resonate with you, that inspire you, or alternatively, what are kind of some of the favorite experiences that you guys have created throughout your work?

D Well, I mean, I think I'm not sure there's a specific thing, but the way that we do think about our work is is experiential. And I think people think that way too. So if you just think for yourself for a minute, if you were to close your eyes and think there's a special place you know in your somewhere within you, whether it be from childhood or whenever, but it's a place you remember. It's something that has like incredible meaning to you. And, you know, it's there, like, as if it were yesterday, but when you go and visit it, years later, decades later, it never looks the way that you remember it, but the memory is there like fresh as can be. So we always kind of focus on that, like leaving something behind for the user or something that they, that's ingrained in them, in their memory, whether they remember the building or not. Like, we almost don't care if they don't remember what the building looks like, but we want them to remember what it was like to be there. And that's something we always do with all of our work.

C And I think it goes back to the scale of a person. You know, if you go back a couple 100 years, the scale of a person hasn't really changed. Right? But what has changed is that the scale of development has changed. So even with livable places, we were discussing, you know, how much area should one architect actually design, and it was probably half an acre. You know, it wasn't, like, 5 acres. It wasn't planned communities. You know? And so and I also think, you know, the advent of the air conditioning of all spaces, you know, made us sort of lose this concept of what it is to be a person and what it is to enjoy the space within which we're in. And so we talk about buildings, alphabet buildings, you know, that we used to design before we had air conditioning.

C You know, they were buildings that had natural light, not in ventilation, and we need to get back to that sort of scale of building. You know, if you walk down at the Canyon, for instance, in Venice, where we live now, the scale of the storefronts are about 12 feet wide, 12 to 15 feet wide. That is the scale that people love. That's the scale that is the best for people to walk down a sidewalk and shop or eat or, you know, be in this kind of social environment, and so people love these walkable communities, but no one can afford to live in Venice now because it's completely gentrified. And so it's because we've lost these communities, you know, these, like, little downtowns that we used to develop, and now we can develop a big commercial, big box retailer in a sea of parking that you have to drive to. And so I think we need to get back to this idea that it's the scale of a person that matters and how do we design kind of our communities around the scale of a person, and I think we have to stop building roads that are 6 lanes wide that we expect people to ride a bike on or, you know, walk on a sidewalk along and think that people are gonna enjoy that. You know, we have to kinda get back to what it means to be a person and a and livable space for people.

A Evelyn and I talk a lot about firms and firm practices on the podcast. That's a big theme across what we discuss, and we're both entrepreneurial at heart. So I I really would love to hear more about what it's like inside your studio. You guys went through this really intentional transition where you became Brooks Scarpa. And just listening to everything you've just told us about being very determined to pursue things that are passionate and interesting to you, I'm curious, like, how did you build your firm up over the last several years? I mean, what is the operations like? What are how do you guys operate? Well,

D you know, again, I come from a family that of pretty meager means, but all of my my father was a immigrant, you know, but he managed to have his own business. All of my siblings have their own business. We have, I think, just a kind of survival instinct. I'm I'm not sure, you know, where it came from, but, you know, so we we do treat our practice like a business and we we, you know, we operate it like a business, but that's not what motivates us. You know, we kind of follow our passion and we, we do what we're passionate about. You know, Steve Jobs said that you spend 80% of your life and your work, you better like what you do, you know, and so we kind of like what we do and we actually, Angie and I work, you know, we're not like, we're not film directors, you know, we don't just point and tell people to do stuff, we actually do work too because we we like what we do. So, you know, we're we're pretty well organized. Angie's actually the the she's very efficient.

D Let I'll leave it at that.

C I'm very detail oriented. Another fault of mine. I, like, can't let things go. I'm relentless. I'm relentless.

D I can be I can be I can be too, but I'm very happy to let Angie do do that.

C So I'm what we I'm we call self the managing principal, and Larry's the principal in charge of design.

D And I'm the partner in charge of reaping the benefit.

C And so what I really love is kind of what I used to do at the LA Community Design Center, which was feasibility studies. Actually, looking around for opportunities and, site selection, you know, due diligence, development, how to make the best project and the best site location. We just recently finished a project for Jonathan Rose Companies where it was an existing high rise building on a large parcel. And when I went and looked at it the first time, I realized that the site was so large for the city of LA where, you know, I have developed I have developer friends who are looking for parcels that are big to develop on. When I took a look at it, I realized that they could just adjust a property line on their parcel and carve out a whole new parcel for themselves on land that they already owned. And that was just something that I kind of saw as I looked around and just this idea that I could actually do that as something that I actually love. So I do a lot of that for us, you know, on the front end.

D So, we created our own project there, you know, so we always look for opportunities and, you know, not just waiting for them. We, in that case, we create

C And Larry's a designer.

D You know, in the nest toolkit

C Larry is a sculptor. He's an artist, you know, and he continually he would be happy just in a studio designing all day and not talking to anybody else.

B I I do like, in the videos that you sent over and we'll link it in the show notes, there's I think Angie, at one point, you say, like, we like, Larry, you don't let him design beyond CDs. Like, that's, like, the cutoff.

C Yeah. So we try not to even talk to Larry once the project starts construction because, you know, we'll go out to the job site and Larry, you know, it'd be better if that door were over there or, you know, I'm kind of joking, but, you know, it's funny because it we constantly look at how to make things better, you know, and so sometimes through construction, you know, people will look at, well, we win design awards for projects that, you know, in our minds, they were actually designed differently, and we had to actually kind of what they call value engineer things out of the project. And so at the end of the day, we look at it, and we we think about, you know, the glass is half full kind of because, you know, it could have been this, but then everyone else looks at it and says, wow, this is just really great, you know, because we're able to adapt and change really well, and I think we're able to, and, you know, from my point of view, I'm so deep I budgets and schedules is really are really important, you know, so I set up all the guidelines for our office about how means and methods, how do we do things, how do we get things built. We both Larry and I, we do not want to design projects that don't get built.

D We treat what we do as a business, and we talk to our clients about budgets and schedules, and we don't really, you know, talk about design a whole lot that kinda sells itself, you know, and so we, in some ways, are fairly practical about, you know, getting a project done, getting it to the finish line, getting it done on budget. But, you know, behind all of that, we're really interested as an art. So you have to do both, and that's, you know, in some ways, the beauty of being an architect.

C Yeah. That people actually give us that opportunity. You know, it's just a great opportunity to be able to do that, and not many people have that opportunity. You know, we can we design space for people.

D Everyone has a budget even if it's like a ridiculously good budget. It's still a budget. You know what I mean? So you always have to be conscious about that and the constructability and

C It's hard to maintain a design thread from concept through construction. It really is. So we don't do any projects where we're not involved in construction. Mhmm. Let me take that back. Unless they're in another country where we don't, you know, do that, but we just won't do that because it's just so difficult to actually assume that the team is gonna be able to know, you know, how to make those decisions when when you're under construction because you really do. So everyone who works with us, you know, our entire staff, they all have that design eye. So when they get a question from a builder, you know, should we do it this way, or should we do it this way? They know how to make the best decision.

D Firma, again, you asked a little bit about the practice too. We've never had, a, you know, a business plan that said something like, in 5 years, we're gonna be a 100 people. Now, it's always we've been driven by doing the quality work and, you know, like our plan is more about getting better than getting bigger. And, you know, we just let the chips sort of fall where they may with respect to size, you know, but we're always trying to to be better, you know, not just with what we do as a design, but better as a business, better performance, you know, and then all the other stuff kinda takes care of itself. You know, if you can if you can get better, things will go better.

A Yeah. I think you guys definitely model that you're a firm that's driven by purpose, and you put that at the forefront of how you think about architecture, that you're pursuing things that really are meaningful. And then you're very entrepreneurial and using your architecture skills to create solutions and and make it happen, like, make these ideas happen, which is really exciting to hear.

D That's a you said it better than we could.

B Both Angie and Larry, you kind of alluded to other organizations that you have had a very large hand in starting, if not founding. So, you know, you talked about Livable Places. You talked about the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute. I don't think we've fully mentioned the a plus d museum. You started a a scholarship with AIA Los Angeles, right, a student scholarship that has raised almost $1,000,000. Mhmm. Like, how does that work within your practice? You know, most architects aren't going to think about like, oh, we should start this organization. And and you and you also talked about the recent exhibit that you guys kind of put on yourselves.

B I don't think the average architect would say that's very entrepreneurial. I think Janine and I look at that and say that is actually super entrepreneurial.

D There's a lot of time if you don't watch a lot of TV, actually.

C Yeah. We could actually work both of us full time with a 20 person office with 0 clients. We have no problem doing that. We would not Creating work. Yeah. Generate any revenue.

D Yeah. We do have to We

C could do we could create our own work. We have no problem doing that. Yeah.

D But there's, you know, again, LA, when we the a plus d, when we started that a long time ago, you know, it was a group of us, at the AIA. It's like, you know, LA, it's like the, you know, 2nd biggest city in the country that, and there's no architecture and design representation, that just doesn't make sense. You know, so we kinda just pursued it, you know, not knowing exactly where it would take us. And, you know, it was something that had legs with people, something that has lasted now for 25 plus years where, and that's what we do a lot of, we're no longer involved in any way, shape, or form, you know, and there was a time where it was our night job, same with the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute, you know, that was something we did with a grant to the NEA. And, you know, it took a lot of our time, and then we kinda handed it over to enterprise, and they've taken it like way beyond what I could have ever imagined. For us, it was a sort of 1 year thing and with hopes or aspirations and more. We're in the 11th year now. So you can get a lot done if you, you know, everyone wants to, or not everyone, but a lot of people, like when they have an idea, they want to own it forever.

D And we don't want that. You know, we wanna to to live on its own, to have its own legs and, you know, 88 the institute doesn't need us anymore. We're we're at this point baggage, and that's, you know, even from time to time, they'll ask us to help on some things, but by and large, you know, we would be getting in the way now.

C Yeah. And I would say it's not just about us. You know? All of these different things that we just talked about were really us talking to like minded colleagues because we saw a problem that needed to be solved. You know? So even with livable places, it was a group of people who were talking about these issues beyond the property line. There were nonprofit developers. There were 2 contractors. There was a politician.

D Architects.

C Mike Wu. Yeah. Architects. So it was a group of people from different oh, and a couple from the fine financing world. So it was different people talking about the same issues, and all of us decided that we couldn't actually tackle the issue within our own professions, and that the only way we could do it was to form a nonprofit. And so we did that, and, actually, that was when I went to the hospital to have my to have called her. And when I was the only the only meeting I missed and wasn't at, I was named president of the organization. Oh,

D no. Those are not there. Get the, you know, I get the burn. Yeah.

C So, but it's not just us, you know, it's I think but I think I guess the key to all of it, now that I'm saying this out loud, is really that we're so passionate about it. We try to make it happen, you know, with all of these collaborators.

D But there are always successes and failures, you know, and everything. And, you know, you learn from them and you try and make it better. But again, we did some things at livable places that have had a profound impact, you know, on on many things.

C But at the same time, I wish that nonprofit was still going. You know? It had to close its doors. It was a nonprofit for 6 years and then closed its doors, and I really we wanted that to be sort of like our second child. You know, I wanted it to be an organization that kind of went off and did those things on their own, but it didn't. You know?

D And the scholarships too, you know, were were part of that too, the 2 by 8. That's something that continues to go on right now. It's, like become a legacy project for AIA LA. And again, you know, I'm always looking for ways to multiply, to have things continue on. I have, again, very little to do with that other than, you know, once in a while, they asked me to do things, but it's it's now runs on its own, you know, and it's kind of entirety and then, you know, it won't be the last thing we do or probably the last organization we, you know, start, but we don't know what that'll be yet.

C But I guess I would say, you know, with the gold medal, which is just such a great award for us that what's great about it is maybe we can be an example for other architects or for young professionals that this is a viable business model and, you know, I think the more people that think about these issues and make and kind of structure their business around these issues, I think it'll be better.

D We get asked, you know, from students, it's like, how can we do, you know, how can we do this? So that's, it's not out of desire. It's just that they don't know and, you know, we're not educating in a way that you can have greater purpose. And there are other avenues like as an architect and that design has, you know, tremendous value to, to our world, you know, it's and it's it's the creativity is you, is not just, you know, for something pretty you put in the landscape, it's how you change the world, you know? And so I think we need to do a better job teaching that, you know, to to our up and coming architects. We're we're due for a paradigm shift in education.

C And I actually think that design makes a much bigger impact on people who traditionally don't have access to it or can't afford it. And so strategizing the value of design to those people and to kind of larger communities in the public, I think, makes a much bigger impact.

A Speaking of change, we are implementing a new tradition on the show where we close out our episode asking our guests to share one idea or lesson on change that they think the practice of architecture needs. And so we'd love to hear from you. What idea would you like to pass forward to architects, emerging professionals, and industry disruptors?

D I think we should look for, you know, opportunities. Don't be afraid to venture out the it's a big, big profession now. There was a time where you would do 4 sheets of drawings and that was the whole thing. There are now design build, there's CMAR, there, you know, you can be a specialist in our profession. So don't be afraid to follow your passion. If you like theory, we need people who specialize in theory, if you like construction, we need people to be experts in that. It's, I think we should be more like some of the other scientific and medical fields where we have, you know, architects who are the utmost specialists in, you know, expansion of materials or acoustics or lighting. Mhmm.

C Or civil civil infrastructure.

D And not let all that be done by engineers. So, you know, my hope is that we have a paradigm.

C That engineers are bad, my sister's an engineer. It's just it's just value. Yeah.

D We have a paradigm shift in how we educate architects and we move, away from, like, heavy design studio requirements and allow, people to explore more of their passion in there. Not do away with it, but open it up to other avenues.

C And I would say, not to take no for an answer ever. And if there's a closed door to go open it and to know that you are probably the only one in the room who knows the best solution and can draw it and show people what that means. And so I think a lot of times, designers and architects find themselves at a table with a lot of other professionals and, tend to not, you know, I wouldn't say stick your leg out or say something that maybe other people don't wanna hear, you know, but I think at the end of the day, we are the ones who best know the solution and, you know, and can show it in the best way to everyone else.

D But like we said, you we've done it in a kind of parallel universe, and I don't think you have to confront it head on and it's either or, I think you can lead by example so you can show how it can be done while you work sometimes within the norms or the conventions, and eventually it gets you know, picked up. So it's like you can't be discouraged, you just have to find the way, and eventually, you know, it will pay off for you.

C And take measured risks. So, you know, I think a lot of times our profession is risk averse. Not just our profession. Every profession these days seems to be risk averse, but you have to take a risk to make change.

D Yeah. You'll regret more what you haven't done in your life than what mistakes you've made. You know? So

C Yeah. We've made a lot of mistakes too, so.

D And our risks were calculated risk takers, you know, so we don't throw caution to the wind. You know, we we're pretty calculated about taking risks, but we're not risk averse. And, you know, it's really hard in today's world when everyone wants to sue you, you know. So part of it is is bringing our clients along and talking to them, and, you know, what that risk means and what the rewards could be as well.

C So And it goes back to purpose. I think everything goes back to that purpose. If you have a purpose. Yeah.

D And to work with people who understand that, You know? That's also part of it too.

A Hi, disruptors. If you like the content from today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practice of architecture dot com/podcast.

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A This show is part of Gable Media. You can learn more about other podcasts and video channels in our community by visiting g ablmedia.com.

B Thank you for joining us on Practice Disrupted, a podcast by Practice of Architecture. Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.