Practice with Purpose - A Guide to Mission Driven Design

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. Welcome to Practice Disrupted. Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine.

C Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors. This season, I've been introducing listeners to key organizations that left a significant impact on me and my career development. Each taught me something about finding my voice as a leader in this field. Today, I'm delighted to introduce our audience to Bill Leddy and Gwen Fuertes, 2 leaders in the sustainable design movement that I deeply care about and respect. I've asked them to share more about the work of their firm, Leddy, Madam, Stacy Architects, a 35 person team based in San Francisco. Of all the places I've worked, LMSA was truly one of the most impactful experiences. When I decided to move back home to the East Coast, it was really hard because I love these people so much.

C The people, the projects, the care for their craft, and the the purpose in the way that they practice make them an incredible firm. I want our audience to learn from them, specifically the way that they think about their practice and the way they practice. Our guests today are William Leddy, f a I a. He is a founding principal of San Francisco based Leddy Madam Stacy Architects, the 2017 recipient of the AIA Firm Award. For over 30 years, he has been a national leader in the design of environments that celebrate our place in the natural world. LMSA has received more than a 175 design awards and is one of only 3 firms to have received 11 or more national AIA committee on the environment top 10 green project awards. A past chair of the National AIA COTE, he currently serves as the AIE California vice president for climate action, helping to advance the rapid decarbonization of the built environment in California and beyond. He is the coauthor of his firm's new book, Practice with Purpose, a Guide to Mission Driven Design, published in late 2022.

B Gwen has 2 decades of work in design, research, and analysts of high performing buildings. She began her career at the US Green Building Council in Washington, DC. She then worked at the Center For the Built Environment, CBE, as a graduate student researcher, acquiring a depth of expertise in building science and post occupancy analysis. Glenn has worked at Lenny Madam Stacey Architects for over 9 years, designing low carbon mission driven projects in Northern California. She was a member and former co chair of the AIA 2030 Commitment Group, most recently leading the pivot of the program towards a carbon focus metric.

C This episode is airing just before Earth Day 2023. Appropriately, Bill and Gwen are experts on climate action and designing for a zero carbon future. In addition to designing for environmental considerations, the practice is well known for delivering design excellence to communities often underrepresented in the built environment. They've tackled social issues through architecture by designing for students, veterans, formerly unhoused individuals, and even in celebration of the Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement. There's so much to talk about today. We'll discuss their new book, their projects, and their work on climate action. To our listeners, I highly encourage you to grab your sketchbook and get ready to take notes. So welcome, Bill and Gwen.

C I have been really looking forward to this conversation with you. And we often ask our guests to start by introducing themselves. Since we kinda read your bios, maybe we can start by talking about what has drawn you into this work.

D This is Bill, and, you know, what's drawn me into this work is the, the fact that architects, I think, can have a huge impact in their daily lives beyond the work that they're actually doing. So, and this this we'll talk about this later, but this comes in several different different, dimensions. But I've always been a firm believer in the fact that architecture is all about values and about expressing those values in the natural world and in the built world. So I look forward to the conversation.

E And this is Gwen. Thank you so much for inviting us on your podcast. It's really great to be here. And I think I come to this work, from a few different perspectives. I, I'm a nerd at heart. I as you read in my bio, I have a building science degree. I worked for the US Green Building Council on kind of some technical material, but what really brought me to Lettie, Meade, and Stacy was the connection between high performance design and just really good design that makes a difference in the community. And I think what Bill said about kind of a value centered approach really resonates with me and a lot of other people, I think, in our generation.

E When we're doing this work, it's really easy to, you know, sometimes lose track about what's the impact that this work is making. But with the type of work and the approach that we do at LMS, I think that there's a lot of connections to make on a daily basis to that, and it helps reinforce the value of that at the time that we're putting in. So that's that's one piece of it, and I'm sure there's gonna be more stories that'll come out through our conversation.

B I wanted to since you were both talking about values, and I know we're going a little bit off script here, but since you were both talking about values, I was wondering if kind of in your own words, you know, if you were to frame what are the values that tends to lean into. I don't know if you can carve that out in 3 to 5 words, but how how would you describe LMS's values?

E Values? So I think, you know, and and this might be jumping ahead a little bit, but I think that there's I'm gonna answer this question and sort of like a way of thinking about how this book is sort of representing that approach. So when I started working at LMS, it was, you know, 9 years ago, and there was a monograph out from, I think, like the late nineties or early 2000 or something like that of LMS's work. So it had been released, you know, well before I arrived. And it had been a while, you know, since that book came out, and it felt like it was the right time to have an opportunity to reflect on on our work as it pertains to our values and our our firm's work and approach to the profession that on a whole. And I feel really lucky to, like, have been able to partner in this effort in in making this book. So I I think that it's a very different approach of, like, describing our work than other monographs might do. Like, this is trying to really lean into this idea of a guidebook and, like, using case studies, examples of our work within this value centered approach and these different kind of categories of values, be it responding to climate action, adaptive reuse being a potential tool for addressing resilience challenges and all the other challenges that come up when you're an architect in the 21st century. So I feel like, you know, some of these values are baked into the work and a lot of them are, like, really describe solutions to these challenges that probably a lot of your audience is facing today right now.

D I was going to add that if you if you ask just about any architect why they want to be an architect, I'm pretty sure that a vast majority of them would say to build a better world. And this is the value I think that we've based our careers on. But I think the question is, it's it's the problem is it's a lot more difficult challenge to go from saying that to actually doing it. And I think what we as architects above anything else are, is we're people of action. We make things real in a complicated, messy world. And I think the the idea of of taking the power of design and applying that to the basically the overwhelming emergencies that our society is facing is I think, are not only our moral imperative right now, but also a huge opportunity to become relevant in this big, big complicated world. A challenge that we've always, I think, struggled with a little bit. How can architecture become relevant to everyone regardless of their background or socioeconomic, situation.

D So so I think that's where, you know, wanting to do good and then actually doing good is something that we've been we've built our careers around.

C So the book that we're excited to talk to you about today is Practice with Purpose, A Guide to Mission Driven Design. And I see this book as a call to action and a case study on how architects can actually not only think about the way they're designing their practice and designing their projects, but also designing their careers towards what you've alluded to, Bill, things that are really truly values driven. And I'd like you to talk to us a little bit about the goals of this book.

D Sure. I, you know, I think this book really grew out of of an experience of having many people over the years say to us, well, you know, we know there's a climate emergency. We know there's all of this, all these, you know, social injustice, all of these challenges that we all face, that our communities all face. But as an individual, what can I possibly do? I mean, it's just an overwhelming, you know, deluge of bad news if you're paying any attention at all. I mean, just this week, the, international panel, governmental panel on climate change came out with yet another report talking about the serious impacts that are already happening in climate action. And those, of course, are impacting, you know, much more disproportionately people of color and people in disadvantaged communities. So I think what we wanted to do with this book was to say, Look, you know, this is true. These are all problems and we have to think about them as one giant problem, not a bunch of siloed issues.

D You know, climate's over here and social justice is over there and, you know, designed for the elderly is over there. It's all one it's all one integrated, you know, sociological, ecological, global emergency that we're facing. And time is short. This is an urgent problem. We have to make huge changes within the next 10 years if we were gonna have any hope of trying to mitigate severe climate catastrophe. So, and at the same time, I think we have to also address all of these other challenges that our communities face. So I think as architects, we are blessed. We are blessed because we have the opportunity to make physical substantial change every day in our work.

D And so that's why we use the words practice with purpose. The whole idea of practicing architecture and coming to work every day and knowing that everything you do is gonna make a change. And so that's, that's I think the fundamental reason for writing this book. And I think it's a, it's a, we refer to it, my partner, Marsha Nadeem and I, and Gwen, we worked on the book and we, refer to it often as sort of a love letter to the profession. It's addressing young people, students, faculty, or emerging professionals who've got to wonder, well, how am I gonna make a place in this world? And this is how we've done it. And and we hope that it will inspire other folks to bring their own creativity to the fore and make their own version of that change.

E Yeah. And just to add to that, I feel like, you know, this book we we thought a lot about audience with this book, like like Bill just said. So, you know, in the teaching that I've been doing from time to time, a lot of a lot of times students come up, and once they learned about our firm and the work that we do, you know, which is very deep, sustainable projects for mission driven clients often who have really tight budgets. You know? Like, they wanna know how how do you do this, the whole thing all the time. And this book is really trying to crack open that nut and break it into pieces and actually provide starting points, entry points for for anyone, so students, you know, emerging professionals or, you know, folks that have been working in the field for a while. And I'd like to add to that, like, the book and the case studies are showing our approach to this work of mission driven design, but by no means are we working in a vacuum on this. Like and my hope is that a lot of the themes in this book that we're sharing are themes and values that are shared by a lot of firms out there doing this work already and have their own amazing stories and case studies to share. And even for firms that are still, you know, grappling with these questions and struggling to figure out an entry point or a way in, I I do hope that the book is potentially a chance to hold up a mirror and say, you know, where do you see yourself? Where do you have the capacity to grow? What are you already doing that, you know, you can actually get fired up about and, you know, evolve into a little bit more? So, you know, we're not presenting, like, a a widget or, like, a secret that no one else can figure out.

E How do we get how do we get this done? Because, you know, we're in a community of amazing design professionals in the world, and and this book is basically patching together examples of how are we approached it, and potentially messages that really resonate in in the industry at large. And I think I hope that in the end, we kind of communicate this message that like a a values based approach to design is what makes better design, period. And you can kind of apply that in a lot of different universal ways.

D I think that, you know, in the book, we say something along the lines of, you know, this is how we think about our work. This is how we do it. We hope you, the reader, will find many more ways to interpret this, this challenge and bring, you know, your creativity to the fore. I think this really this book is really about unleashing and hoping to unleash the enormous latent power of designers across the world to address these challenges. And, you know, no small task, but I think that we're very much believers in the in the in the dropping the pebble in the in the pond and the ripple effect that that leads out and you know, you don't know where it's gonna head. So this is our this is our pebble dropped in the pond.

B And what I love about it too is just it's the size of LMS kind of and what they're doing and the impact they're still making as well as the the projects type. I mean, you already alluded to working with many is, you know, primarily public clients and and that always comes that has always come with this idea of constraints, right, around the budget planning process. So I often believe that it's within those constraints that we find our best place of design and creativity and opportunity, and I feel like LMS really begins to showcase that in in their work. So what I also love is how accessible, if you look at the multiple definitions of accessible and accessibility and what that means your work is to the public. So we want to learn about a few of your project example projects that demonstrate your approach to applying these design principles across various different client types. So let's start with one of your most iconic projects and also one of my favorite projects, the Ed Roberts campus. And what makes this project so well, I know what this makes this project so unique. But if you 2 could share in your own words what makes this project so unique, I'd love to hear it.

D Sure. This project was is near and dear to my heart as well because it was an amazing process that sort of in many ways embodied the various elements that we were already thinking about in our practice. You know, how, how do you help to make architecture for everyone? How do you, how do you draw people into the design process with a variety of diversity of backgrounds and in this case, diversity of abilities? How do you, you know, create a project that really does have an impact, you know, beyond its program and beyond its property line? So we were approached by 11 nonprofit organizations in Berkeley, California, who all came out of the disability rights independent living movement. They were all in one way or another inspired by Ed Roberts, who was an early 1960s seventies champion of disability rights. He was a seriously disabled man himself, but he that didn't stop him from having a huge impact over the disability movement. And the idea was they were all nonprofits, so they were all living in working in really awful little, you know, back hubble, little cubbyholes and so forth. And so we they wanted their vision was to be sort of out and proud essentially. They wanted to be a part of the community.

D They wanted people to honor and respect them as a part of that. And so our task was that was given to us was let's design this as a building that welcomes everyone. We don't want it to look like a hospital or like an institutional project. We want it to be welcoming and graceful. And I think that word grace really resonated with us. And so we designed a building that at the time was, I think one of the largest buildings in the country that were attempting to was attempting to expand the scale of universal design. So that really, really was at a civic scale and it was gonna really bring everyone into the building. And in fact, it's located at a at a Bay Area Rapid Transit Station in Berkeley, California, where people actually have to go through the building when they park for BART.

D They have to go through the building and engage with all these folks as they're going on their way to Bard. And so I think the idea of integrating them completely within that community has been a very successful thing. And I'll just tell you one story since I know our time is right, and there was a lot of stories with this project, but one that really stuck with me was that we were, I was after the project was done and and everyone was very happy with with the fact that it was a gracious environment for that accommodated a wide range of of of of folks. I was at a meeting there and a gentleman showed up late and he was in a wheelchair and he really couldn't use his hands either. And he was a little emotional. And his colleagues, I didn't know the guy, but his colleagues asked him, so, you know, Freddie, are you okay? Is everything all right? And he and he goes, no, I just I just I had never realized that I've never gone into a building before where I could get in all by myself without any help at all. That says it all. Doctor.

C That's really powerful. I think we all take for granted the ease in which we can move in this world and the opportunity to give someone that freedom is so powerful. I'd love, Bill, for you to talk about the focal point in the interior space. I don't wanna give it away. I'd love for you to describe it in your own words.

D Early on, we we wanted to we realized that the building for a variety of different planning code reasons couldn't be much much taller than 2 stories, and and we wanted to provide a way to for everyone to invite everyone upstairs and not make it a journey. And so a switchback ramp going one floor was just gonna be too daunting. A big a big thing we learned during our workshops with the with the various user groups was that that, you know, the universal design comes down to moments often. Moments of awkward social awkwardness where, you know, if a person in a wheelchair and an ambulatory person arrive at a stair, the person with this who's ambulatory can just bound up the stairs and then stop, wait at the top and wait for the person in the wheelchair to to work their way up the the long ramp. And so we wanted to find a way that was gonna invite everyone. So we worked with ARUP, our engineers, to design this cantilevered, hovering, red, helical ramp that sort of becomes both a practical element that invites allows everyone to get upstairs and not coincidentally everyone to get out in a hurry, but also invites the ambulatory folks to do have that experience as well, kind of sort of rising up through this space. And, you know, I think the the thing that we've really, I think, been grateful for is how well received this thing, which was intended to be both this practical element, but also this poetic element, this sort of expression of universal design access for all, right at the front of the building, visible to the city outside, how successful it's been. And to the point where, you know, I've had I've had on the day that the building was opening, on opening day, there were a lot of people in the building and, and somebody accidentally, I guess, pulled the fire alarm.

D And so the entire Berkeley fire department showed up in force because because they just they knew this new building had been built with all these people in wheelchairs and they had no idea what they're gonna have to do. So so, like, 20 trucks, it seemed like, showed up all at one time. And there in the plaza in front of the building, we we were all there to greet them because everyone had gotten out just fine, and they were just flabbergasted that this this this had this had happened. So anyway, I think it's been a and it's been also been gratifying to be in the building and have people come up to me and say, I've never felt more safe in a building in my life. Thank you. And that's why we do this stuff.

C I've also always wondered, you know, what was the most challenging part of either designing or constructing that architectural element? Was it challenging in the design process, challenging to the building process, or both?

D You know, it wasn't that challenging. I think the challenging thing was convincing the project to do it and to pay for it. And, you know, we knew we had to do it and it became an integral part. In fact, it became the originally, the the the the, the logo for the for the Ed Roberts campus was this sort of blue themed logo. And, as soon as we completed the project and constructed this bright red resin paneled helical sculpture, they changed they changed their their logo to be a, a bright red helix to to symbolize that, aspect of the project. But I think, you know, in thinking about the challenges for the project as a whole, this was in Berkeley, you know, where things are always challenging to get approved. And I I just I think there's one story that resonates really well with this, and that was that that many folks thought the the project was too big and wasn't compatible enough with the small single family homes that were surrounding it beyond the parking the existing transit parking lot. And and so we went to a key historic preservation meeting, the city of Berkeley with and all everyone showed up.

D So with all the project proponents and all of the all of the project proponents came all all came in force. And there was a lot of debate, a lot of discussion. It looks like this. It looks like that. It doesn't fit, blah blah blah. And then finally, this, gentleman who was in a reclining wheelchair, he could only move his head. He maneuvered himself up in front of the board and he said, you know, I'm your worst nightmare because someday you might end up like me. But I want you to know that I've been I've gone in the back doors of many buildings in my life, and I'll be so proud to roll in the front door of this one.

D At that point, the the historic preservation committee looked at each other and said, I think we're approving this now.

C That's a great story. Gwen, I wanna come to you building off of this idea of really mission driven work, and you've been involved in the Edwin M. Lee Apartments, which won an AI National Housing Award and a Coat Green Project Award. I want to talk about the significant social and environmental considerations of this project because it's it dips into a different population, but similarly carries the theme of being very purpose driven.

E Yeah. Thanks for for choosing this project. It's so close to my heart. It was really the first project that letting me, I'm Stacy, that I worked on that I was involved with from the very beginning to the very end of the punch list process. So, yeah, I think for for the the the challenges that face this project, you know, San Francisco, like many cities, has a housing shortage crisis and specifically an affordable housing shortage crisis. And, you know, we were fortunate to be selected with Zeta Sullivan Design Partners, our associate architects, to design a 120 new units in Mission Bay. So it was the 1st ground up construction of its kind in SF, I believe, to actually house 2 specific populations, which made it a little bit unique. So we were testing out this model of community living between 1 group, formerly homeless veterans, and then another group, low income families.

E And this hadn't really been done before. We were we were kind of seeing if the synergies of these different communities would work. And and I think we're fortunate to say it's really been successful and actually replicable that the two clients are actually going to be, you know, creating more spaces for families and veterans to share to share common building amenities. And it was named after the late Edwin m Lee, our former mayor. It was named in his honor, I think, for a few reasons. He has a history of activism and support for veterans. He signed Michelle Obama's pledge to eliminate veteran homelessness when he was in office, and his his father himself was a veteran. So he had a pretty close connection to to veterans' needs.

E And also he was a big advocate for housing in general for for family affordable housing and his advocacy work in San Francisco dating, you know, years before he was a mayor. So it feels really special to to have his name on on the project. And I think our clients, we learned we're so fortunate to work with really great clients that have deep experience in so many of these social issues. So so we partnered with Chinatown Community Development Center and Swords to Plowshares. So those are the 2 kind of arms of of the clients that were able to represent these 2 community groups, and each of them had, you know, really unique and rich perspectives on how to serve the population. And I think, Evelyn, your question about values before, you know, I think there's the real answer is, like, the values arise from the needs of the project, and we're really lucky to learn from our clients and the communities that we serve, like, what are the values that are important to you and design really in service of that. So we learned a lot through this process and researching on trauma informed design and thinking about the veterans residents with disabilities and PTSD issues and as well as how to design towards that, but also how to design for a welcoming home for people and families of all ages and incomes in a city that folks have been really squeezed. And it's really hard to find stable, affordable housing just as a minimum.

E But then our our task was to elevate that, you know, building off of just stable, affordable housing. How can you make that a high performing space that's resilient? And this is, you know, the design challenge that we like to to bring into every project.

C What's worth noting about this project is it's building off of a legacy that you all have cultivated through reoccurring projects that address affordable housing. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the lessons learned in, in building up to the point where you were able to do a project of the skill in with that focus. I also want to talk because I think the other major design aspect of this is the sustainable design elements. I mean, it's it's it's apparent in the architecture itself, but also its performance is really notable.

E Yeah. I think that it is a very visual, you know, striking example of kind of how you can represent sustainability in a design potentially. And I think, you know, this project probably won some of its design awards because it was doing both, you know, focusing on community and healing as well as the high performance visual design. And in this case, it's we sort of thought of it as a little bit of a visual billboard to the neighborhood about, you know, low carbon design. I could nerd out a lot about this, so bear with me. But I feel like there's there's kind of literal ways that we're representing performance, but also kind of metaphorical ways. And I think the focus in this project could be you could think about it as, like, a solar response. And the first way we thought about that was the shaping of the facade itself.

E And we got this gigantic lot in Mission Bay. So folks don't know it's like an old industrial neighborhood that got scraped and is now kind of a newer neighborhood in San Francisco, and we had a very large lot to deal with, which meant that we had a long wall to design on the main facade. And so the question and the challenge was how to make this an interesting kind of sculpted design with some dimension. And, you know, the building is more or less oriented on the north south east west axis, but we've really pulled and pushed the exterior walls to try to take advantage of passive design in respect to light and views to multiple angles so that, you know, each unit might have 2 or 3 different aspects or views and opportunities for sunlight to spill in throughout the day. And we, you know, study this a lot with daylight simulation software and and wanted to really tune the size and positioning of the windows to to dial that in. The second aspect on that long facade that we were dealing with was a a long blue gradient that was really charged by this inspiration of the blues of the sky. And so with a lot of wall area to deal with, we we kind of created this blue gradient pattern that activates and unfolds as you pass by. This is right also across from the Muni line on Third Street.

E So it is a really special moment when you're looking at and you can kind of see this cascading rainbow of blues. And, you know, our thought was, like, you're hopefully connecting that to the the shifting color of the sky as it goes from the horizon to the zenith. It's a it's a nice kinda gesture. And then finally, I think the the most obvious, representation on our facade in the design of this billboard aspect is this lifted cascading PV array, which not every, you know, affordable housing project has an identity of this large canopy of PVs, which we tried to get to, you know, float above that really long facade I just described, and it also wraps down the south side of the building. And this is a big move. You know, it's projecting this message of resilience and sustainability. It's one of those things Bill was just talking about of, like, how this is part of the design. It was baked into the design, and it was in in a way impossible to strip away because it was part of that unifying element of of the project from the very beginning.

E And in a way, it's it's also a message that we're broadcasting to the community that we're participating in a resilient infrastructure at our building site. And this this PV array along with other PVs that are on the flat roof of the building generate almost a 100% of the building's common area loads and which means that it's telling the community we're reducing our reliance on the electrical grid. You you know, we're all in this together. We can all do our part at the building scale to become a more resilient community together, which affects and benefits all of the neighbors. So I guess that's one angle to kind of break apart as, like, how how this project can represent sustainability and resilience in a in a broad gesture visual way.

B I think, like, what I what is so addressing about these types of projects is the complexity of the client and the community, and also, you know, trying to overlay how do we address carbon metrics and the environment all into one package. Gwen, at the beginning, when you started describing this project, you mentioned it was really the first project that you got to lead from start to finish. So as someone who who stepped into this this role at maybe a different point or stepped into LMS at a different point in your career than when the projects was completed. What were lessons that you took away over the course of the project?

E Yeah. I think I mean, to be completely transparent, I did not lead this project. It was, I was part of a team with some amazing, you know, architects at the firm that were truly leading and teaching me. But I think what you're getting into at is that, you know, over the 4 years that this project took to design and construct and complete, you know, I did really grow into into my role as an architect at LMS. And I think that that is a we really try to make that happen for for folks in the firm, and we're small enough and nimble enough to try to to, shoehorn those types of roles in as as it's possible to. Sometimes it's really hard because these housing projects take so long to permit and they go on hold, but I've been really fortunate to be kind of involved with this one from the very beginning. And it was just such a such a gift of an education to be able to to learn how, you know, our diagram, you know, from early concept design, how everything was centered on community. And I think I didn't mention, but, like, because of this very large site, we had a very generous courtyard, really deep and really long, that was kind of this Venn diagram kind of connective tissue that would bring these different wings of the building, the veterans and the families kind of together.

E You know? And we we sketched out this diagram, and and, you know, 4 years later, we see this diagram enacted. We see I've popped by the building and there have been, you know, impromptu barbecues going on. There's a community garden where residents can actually grow vegetables and they are popping off. There's so many veggies in this community garden. It's like very well used. There's like a play area for kids like and to be able to see this activated and like lived in and appreciated, you know, I talk to a lot of veterans. We do like a post occupancy evaluation, and we did a survey of the residents, and they are just so appreciative of the space that they had. This building opened right before COVID, like, or right during the beginning of lockdown, and it was just a hectic time.

E But they were so appreciative to have this super generous courtyard for just meditation classes and healing. The counseling services that are provided on-site, they use this space. They use the courtyard space as a setting for their for their settings and their their their sessions and their conversations with the veterans. And it's like it's really validating. So it was it was a great opportunity to to learn so much from this project. And and, yeah, with the post occupancy surveys and and the lessons learned, I think we have a lot to bring into the the next projects as we're working on more and more housing, which the city truly really needs.

B So I wanna go into the project at the University of California Davis, and I think for people both within California and outside of California, UC Davis, for whatever reason, doesn't have the cache as you will of, like, Berkeley or UCLA, but they are actually globally well known for their agricultural programs and have scientists all over the world, coming to participate in their graduate studies there. And now you're a part of that legacy at Bill. So could you tell us about LMS's project on that campus?

D Sure, Evelyn. So I think the thing to, you know, getting back to this idea of values, I think the from the very beginning of our practice, you know, we've been interested in, very much interested in 2 components of this project combines. 1, of course, is education and the other one is adaptive reuse of existing structures. The education component, we've always been interested in as I think Gwen used this word earlier, as kind of a billboard for a low carbon future for students, their teachers, their parents, to be able to understand what life is day to day in a low carbon environment and how it actually enhances our experience of life, of engaging with our communities, etcetera. And and so then, on the other hand, we have adaptive reuse. And we for many, many years, we've been doing adaptive reuse of projects partly because we love old buildings. And in fact, we love old buildings regardless of their, often regardless of their architectural and innate architectural quality. You know, we've reused, you know, old bus garages and and mobile garages, but we've also adaptively reused historic properties.

D So at the end of the day, what's happened now over time is that we thought of working in adaptive reuse as being interesting from the aspect of having a dialogue with time, creating, you know, maybe in the spirit of Carlos Scarpa, for example, creating new modern interventions within historic fabrics that create this sort of active engagement. But now, as we've understood Embodied Carbon more intensely, we understand that really adaptive reuse is probably one should be one of the major focuses of every practice in the country, because it represents both the harvesting of embodied carbon, but also of embodied culture. So together, those things become very dominant. So, this existing building was built in the 1920s when, when UC Davis was primarily just a, agricultural college. It was literally, we have photographs of the building sitting in this farm field. And, you know, it had sort of an E shaped plan with 3 wings jutting out. There were just big, lofty steel truss, open spaces where, you know, the students and their faculty members would design tractors and harvesters and all sorts of, different agricultural equipment. The building was signed, it's been again safe.

D It had been closed down for quite a while. And so we were tasked with the idea of adaptively reusing this project and converting it to a graduate student center with with also some large sort of active learning style classrooms that phased out to this long promenade. So once again, I think the themes of, you know, telling the story and the history of the building, engaging with the materiality of the building and letting the, you know, celebrating the trusses and connecting these students to the, you know, the learning that had been done for decades, for almost a 100 years in making making machines for for farming. But here they are now with their laptops and with interactive media and there's just a different kind of learning, but it's still learning in these big lofty daylit spaces. So it's been very, very well received. And I think it, this idea, I think we calculated it that it, it preserved around 55% reduction of of carbon bodied carbon compared to, a new building of the same size being built in that location. So, I think that the lessons of that project are, I think, very pertinent to our challenges today.

C So building off, you know, this idea of projects that are responsive to populations in need and also considering the environmental design opportunities. I also want to talk about how LMS is a teaching practice, and Gwen, you've kind of alluded to this in some of your comments with the experience of working on the affordable housing project, but can you tell to us about how you all are approaching lifting up the next generation of architects? It's it's one of the things that I hear from architects around the world is so challenging given the deadlines that are on you all to complete your projects. And I'm just curious how you guys have integrated it into your practice.

E Yeah. Thank you so much. That's a really good question, and it's also pretty pertinent because we feel like, you know, the book that we are releasing is one element of a teaching tool, but it's actually really helpful to think about it and talk about it, what it looks like in practice, like what teaching looks like in practice. And I think, like, one skill that architects have that we do really well is communication and education. You know, typically in a a situation where we're talking to our clients and we're trying to communicate the value of a certain design or educate them on a certain technology, But we don't always do enough talking about what it means to teach within the firm and especially, like, coming out of COVID, which was just kind of chaotic for a lot of firms. We've been having some dedicated conversations at LMS about how we want to recenter that effort now that we're kind of back in the office more often. So we want to we want to center that those conversations on like, let's serve ourselves, you know, like, let's make sure that we're keeping up with that culture of of curiosity and this kind of effort to really make sure that we're building well rounded architects across all levels of the firm because I think at at all levels of the firm, we are all continuously learning. And so we kind of broke this up recently in in some of our conversations in into 3 different kind of buckets as we think of them as a teaching practice.

E And I think the first one, which might align with a lot of other folks or listeners is, like, how we how we think about teaching across the whole office. Like, what kind of events are we hosting to promote a design dialogue and make sure that our our literacy and how we're talking about design is is still improving and, evolving. So we have regularly scheduled design pin ups for different projects that are in, you know, early phases of design concept SD or DD or or, you know, in the in those early phases where we kind of have folks from the team present the design and there's a discussion and there's, you know, it's like a happy hour setting. And that's been really satisfying to have back in person again. We were doing that sort of virtually during COVID, but, like, it is really validating to have, you know, a real pinup setting where we can bounce ideas off of each other. Another interesting kind of method that we've tried out is the having pinups more with, like, a smaller group where the design principles are involved. It's a much more kind of intimate and directed conversation between the firm's principles and the and the design team. And then partnering with that, there's a lot of other events that we have, like lunchtime presentations where we share technical material, sustainability related presentations, and there's really a chance for everybody to present across all the office, all all staff levels.

E We have a lot to share and learn from each other across the whole office, really. And then just another way of thinking about it, teaching practices within our teams. So this kinda shows up in different ways for different team sizes, and and probably a lot of listeners might, you know, relate to this where if you have a project that's, you know, in the meat of, like, CDs, that's a very large team. It's a lot different than, you know, a 3 person team at the early phases of concept, for example. But I think that the overall theme of, like, making sure that there's a teaching practice culture within our design teams is like meeting folks where they're at at the beginning of the design phase and charting out, you know, really clear goals for not only the the project and the growth and the evolution of the project, but also accountability for our own roles and our tasks and making sure that we're getting to the end of the phase as better architects throughout the questions that come up. And then we also have, you know, more one on one teaching practice elements that are coming through. We have a mentorship program where folks are matched with others in the firm that they wouldn't normally interact with, so folks that are outside of their design teams and they have there's a process for having like a semi annual, you know, conversation, coffee, check in about how things are going. And then, you know, within the teams, we have make sure that there's time for folks to have 1 on 1 conversations, you know, standing desk meetings, whatnot, to make sure that folks are really supported to to feel like they they they can do their work, but also, you know, beyond that, achieve licensure if that's part of their goals and become more involved with advocacy and things like that.

E So I would say, like, that's that is a piece that we're actively focusing on again, you know, trying to make sure that this idea of again, like generating really well rounded architects that have not only good design skills and organizational skills, but good communication skills and can, you know, think creatively about these values that we were talking about before. How can we make sure that we're serving our communities as as architects that can provide really good, smart solutions?

C My favorite thing that you guys do is the pinups. Like, honestly, when we would all get together in the room and talk about the project work like that, I felt like was such a impactful moment to hear the teams really talk about the purpose of these projects and not just getting bogged down in the minutiae of day to day deadlines, but to really zoom back out and think about why are you doing this work? Speaking of why are you doing this work, I think that we need to shift into our conversation on climate action because that is in addition to incredible projects that you've designed with high craft. Another major focus of the practice is centered on advocacy. So we wanna go into depth and teach our audience who are global about the urgency, the opportunity, and the practical steps that they can take towards climate action. So I thought we could start by grounding this conversation and the urgency it deserves and framing the problem. So maybe, Bill, you're best suited to do that.

D Well, I'll give it a shot, but, Gwen. Gwen, please jump in if I forget anything. But I think the a long time ago when we we started thinking about we've reformed our practice about 20 years ago to really focus on these societal issues and really work only for nonprofit organizations, we realize that, you know, it's hard to make change one building at a time and that, in fact, you know, I think being, you know, advocate architects or as the AIA refers to it, citizen architects, I think is equally important, just as important than to, as a fully realized practice as, you know, designing beautiful buildings. So, you know, we've been involved over the years in, you know, many of the movements around sustainability. I think we were the 6th architectural firm in the country to join the U. S. Green Building Council. And we've kept that going, trying to stay with with a lot of people's help, including Gwen's, trying to stay, you know, ahead of the the the learning curve, to understand all of that.

D But I think I think this has really been important. So it it it extends to everything from, you know, work that we've done, both Marsha Mehta, my partner, and I have been our past chairs of the Committee on the Environment at the national level. In 2013, when I was committee chair, we initiated the top tens, co top ten for students competition, which I'm really delighted to see has continued to grow ever since we started it to, have now be attracted attracting schemes from all over the world. And has impacted studio culture in many, many universities, which was really the original idea. You know, how do you get the faculty to keep up with the students on the issue of climate action? We've also been involved in when Marsha was co chair, she was very active in promoting the idea of really bringing to the floor of the EA convention a vote to declare a climate emergency. And when that happened, all of a sudden, the framework for design excellence was formed and Marshall was also a key promoter of that. And so I think we've seen we've been trying to do our best to nudge, you know, the various components of our world to accept this. And most recently in my role as vice president of climate action at AI California, the thing I'm, I think, most proud of is that we've organized a group of really smart people who have helped to promote advocacy across the state.

D I think we now have 75 municipalities in the state of California who have initiated their own all electric codes to get rid of natural gas use. We've we have something like 50 different low carbon and environmentally sustainable webinars on-site now, on the web now. Last year, we recorded something like, you know, 50,000 different hits of people, you know, looking to learn more about this. The thing I think I'm most proud of in this process is that we realized that in California, we have a requirement for only, I think, 5 units, learning units to get licensed every 2 years. And those learning units are only related to universal design and accessibility, which is great. That's important. But we initiated legislation at the state level to require 5 additional learning units for every architect in the state to be specifically focused on 0 net carbon design, to try to ramp up, design literacy in this area as quickly as possible so that every architect in the state understands how to do this. This is not just for the reason of, you know, being familiar with these things for your client, to help your clients.

D It's all about surviving in a business climate that's changing very rapidly along with the natural climate. How do you prepare architects for this future context where we're gonna have to be doing all of these things and doing it really well? So, now what's happening in the state is that we have every architect in the state required to do this. The AIA California is actually offering free at no charge to any architect, regardless of whether they're members of the AIA or not, these courses to ramp that up as quickly as possible. And I can go on and on about all the different things we're doing, but I think that's I found to be, and for my own personal development and growth, I found that to be very gratifying and and, just, you know, the idea of being together with like minded folks and working together to to to really get things moving in this direction. So

C I wanted to gauge both of your reaction. So the IPCC climate change 202030 synthesis report just came out in it. It states more than a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use have led to global warming of 1.1 percent Celsius above pre industrial levels. This has resulted in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events that have caused increasingly dangerous impacts on nature and people in every region of the world. I just wanted to gauge your reaction to this update of this report. I think in your book, you refer to prior versions of this report, which state a different number.

D It's a I'll let Gwen jump in here real quick, but I would just say that this most recent IPCC report is just more of the same. Unfortunately, the nations of the world aren't taking action on as quickly as they should be on their on their commitments that they've already made. And and I think what we know is that that even if even if the commitments are, that all the nations have made are fulfilled, which is not happening, even if they are fulfilled, we're we're now projected to be beyond 2.2 degrees Celsius or higher in the next in the next, 10 years. So I think the the, the urgency of this situation cannot be overstated. And the, at the same time, I think the opportunity and the training of our profession of architects in general and our ability to actually take a leadership role in addressing this challenge can also not be overstated. So I think, I think that's the, that's the takeaway. And I think, I think we just, we have to mobilize every designer in the world to step it up, to stop talking about it, step it up, do the work. And we can not just not just designing the buildings, but also changing building codes.

D So it's required. Every state in the union has to have a zero carbon building code ASAP.

E Yeah. I you couldn't have said it better. I mean, it's just such a sobering report that is, like, reinforcing kind of what we've been, you know, saying in the past, but just adding another layer of urgency. And I think, like Bill said, we as architects have a choice. We could, you know, design per the status quo, kind of keep doing what we're required to do, design to the bare minimum of what the codes are saying we should design towards. But we have a choice to also design towards what the future needs, and we are actually responsible to do this. You know, the code of ethics was updated to include an imperative that we communicate with our clients the environmental implications or results of the design decisions that they are essentially buying from us. And it's irresponsible if we don't educate our clients about the repercussions of any decision that that they're making.

E And so we have to get educated and really make sure that we are talking to our clients upfront about, do you want this building to, you know, perform well in in 10 years, in 20 years? Do you want this building to still be standing in a 100 years? You know? Is this like, let's think let's think in a long term setting and really make the right decisions now and not just rely on sort of policies and codes because it's gonna take a while for that to catch up, and this report is really reinforcing, like, we have to change today.

B So, Gwen, we mentioned in your bio that you worked with the 2030 Commitment Working Group and are now on the strategic council. And throughout this conversation, we've kind of mentioned how Bill and Marsha have played variety of different roles, both locally at AIA California and at National Lee with AIA CoAT as well. Can you tell us, either of you, in in your current capacities, tell us about the work to advance conversations on climate through COTE and the 2030 Commitment Working Group and and maybe how that's being spurred further along, hopefully, by the strategic council as

E well. Yeah. I think it's a really good link between the last topic that we were talking about, which is, you know, urgency and taking responsibility as architects ourselves to start doing the work differently. And the AIA has been a really great supporter of that, kind of providing the tools and the space for having these conversations that we all need to be having. And so, yeah, I started being involved with the AIA as, like, a disciple of the 20 30 Commitment Program, but, you know, mostly because I was really inspired by this vision and the promise that it holds. And I love it because it is this pretty classic grassroots program at AIA. It's, like, very ground up. You can enter.

E You sign on. It's free. You don't have to pay. You even don't have to be an AIA member to participate. There's mechanical firms that are involved, and it's really straightforward to get started. And, you know, the premise is, like Janeen said, you know, we are here at the climate emergency, and we have to start, you know, transforming our designs to reduce the use of carbon drastically today and certainly by 2030 in order to meet this, you know, internationally established limit to greenhouse gas emissions, which feels like a really big problem, but the 2030 commitment is really taking that problem into your firm and taking responsibility as a firm for how you are doing. What do you have control over is your designs, and how are you responding to this problem? And it's not like it's a I I do wanna make sure that people know that it's different than, you know, a third party green certification program. You know, it's different.

E It's it actually gets pretty fun because the program asks firms to track their progress on all projects across the firm to gauge how are you doing as a firm to get to this goal. You don't get to rely on, you know, the glitzy project that's on your website. That's like a LEED Platinum project. This is looking at all of the projects in your portfolio, you know, from your tiny TI projects to your skyscrapers. And I think it's important to think about it in this way because every project we touch plays a role in the climate challenge. Every client we talk to, you know, we can educate them. It might be on a Tiny TI project, but they might take those lessons onto the next bigger project potentially with a different client or a different architecture partner. But, you know, it's it's on us to make sure that we're sending these messages through every conduit that we have.

E And it's really about taking a look at your design culture and your practice because of that. You can't just kind of focus on one project. You have to do it across the firm and you have to kind of ask the question, what's gonna stop you from doing it across the firm? If you can do it on one project, what's gonna stop you from actually approaching other clients on doing this? So that is how I've started getting involved with the AIA. I think that it's, like, such a promising program and there's so many firms that have signed on and are actively working on it. And as you mentioned, Evelyn, I'm now on the AIA Strategic Council. I was just rolled on at the beginning of the year, and it's still pretty early. But I'm taking the work from the 2030 Commitment program and and really focusing on a bigger picture sort of carbon focused task force with other members on the strategic council. And our task, it's pretty exciting, is sort of researching what it will mean as an architect to have a climate positive architectural practice, which is a really cool question.

E It kind of gets over the doom and gloom hump, that we're just talking about with the IPCC report. It's now looking at we've arrived, we're a climate positive architectural practice in a culture that has supported us to get to this point. What does that actually mean for our practice? And so it's been really fun to dig into this work and imagining the future for architects in all states and climate zones to do this work together. And I'm really inspired by the other folks in this group that I'm working with. And it last thing is, like, I do feel like the AIA is aligning now at all levels to support this work. Like we're all sort of pointing in the same direction. And Marsha has reminded me that, you know, the AIA, it is the institute that represents our profession and it's a big thing and it's unwieldy, but it's on us to make sure that we're steering in the right direction, in a direction that supports us. As an elder millennial, you know, I feel like I need the AIA to support me in the future of my career and then the future of the communities that we're serving.

E So I feel like I I'm very optimistic about the the transformation really that's happened over the last it feels like, 5 years has really proven to set us up for success.

C I'm really excited that you're on the strategic council, Gwen, because they don't know what an asset they just got. I mean, they are about to find out and I think you are going to play such a critical role because you're a building scientist and an architect in helping to expand and educate so many more people in our profession about the amazing knowledge that that I saw when I got to work with you. Like, I think that it's done a lot of times behind the scenes, but once people understand what you're doing in your career, I think it's going to be very inspiring for people coming along in the profession to know that there are people out there like you practicing. And I guess just to, you know, we're bringing this conversation to a close. And so I wanna, I wanted to ask you both to talk about, you know, what is your hope and what do you think the opportunity is for other architects out there to take these conversations and move them forward?

D One of the things that reason we wrote the book as well was that this this idea of a values based practice is, I think, something that a lot of architects really don't understand how to how to get to or they're skeptical. You know, people people might say to us, well, you know, you practice in San Francisco. How nice for you? And, you know, I think our response is, well, you know, you can, you you can do this no matter where you are. You just have to find a way to do it. And, and I think you have to first step is to decide that you wanna do it, that you wanna have a mission driven practice. You know, I always tell students, look, you know, if you're a designer, why wouldn't you design the most important thing that you own, which is your life and design? And I think that's that goes for, for veteran architects as well. You know, why, why do we have to feel like we're at the mercy of the marketplace when we can actually take control of our design careers and do something that's much more aligned with our value system. So I would just like to end by saying that, and as we've discussed, I think, you know, our society is facing a challenge that it's never faced before.

D I mean, this is they were talking about a challenge that that that has never been seen. It's an existential challenge that's never been seen to all species on this planet for 1000 of years. And it comes down to the next 10 years of trying to turn things around. And I really firmly believe that there is no profession better suited to help address this, to become leaders in our communities than architects. We're trained to find ways to solve problems and make beauty and functionality in a messy, complicated world. I think for many, many years, architects have struggled with relevance in our society as one reason why I think we've had a hard time attracting greater diversity of young people into our practice, into our profession, because we are, you know, hanging on to old models of practice, the sort of the old white guy doing fancy houses for rich people model. And that's just not tenable anymore. We can't afford business as usual.

D We have to we have to radically reform the practice of architecture right now to help lead our communities to a just sustainable future for everyone. That's our challenge. I always say there's never been a more important time in the history of architecture to be an architect.

C I wanted to make sure that our audience knows that this book is available. It is worth purchasing and diving into. We're gonna drop a link in the show notes to Practice with Purpose, A Guide to Mission Driven Design, and we encourage our listeners to get a copy and see the amazing case studies in this book that demonstrate that building your practice in this way is possible. And before we go, I wanted to say that this Bill and Gwen, thank you so much for being on the show today with Bill and Gwen, thank you so much for being on the show today with us.

D Thank you, Jeanine and Evelyn.

E Thank you so much. And, Jeanine, you've made your mark on on our culture too. So you're part of the LMS family as well. So thank you so much for having us on the on the podcast. Thank you, guys.

C Hi, disruptors. If you like the content from today's show,

E you can find all

C of our past episodes over on practiceofarchitecture.com/podcast.

B Be a part of the conversation by joining us, our speakers, and others in the community at practiceofarchitecture.com/community.

C Our social media handle is practice of arc. That's practice of a r c h. H. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello.

B Thank you for joining us on practice disrupted, a podcast by the practice of architecture. Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.