2023 AIA Gold Medal Award Winner Carol Ross Barney

A This podcast is sponsored by Autodesk. Autodesk has been a part of the design conversation since 1982, providing the tools that help architects around the globe imagine and create beautifully designed, memorable buildings that people love and admire.

B Thank you to Autodesk for supporting the work of Practice Disrupted and helping us bring the architecture community together, sparking curiosity and leading vibrant and necessary conversations with the industry's visionaries and bot leaders. I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry of architecture is changing.

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

B Welcome to Practice Disrupted.

A Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine.

B Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors.

A So in this week's episode, we celebrate the 2023 AIA Gold Medal Award winner, Carol Ross Bardi, FAIA, who is here with us today. Thank you so much, Carol, for your time today. But we're approaching things a little bit differently than usual by bringing on a guest interviewer and friend, Ryan Gann, to guide the conversation.

B Now Ryan is actually a returning guest, and he is a longtime friend of ours through AIA and AIAS. But to let our listeners get to know him, Ryan Gahan, AIA, NOMA, is an architect and design strategist, helping clients become better versions of themselves through design, culture, and prosperity. His work expands beyond architecture and often sits at the intersection of engagement and facilitation, elevating community centered voices through the built environment.

A Now he's also a previous employee of Rastani Architects, and he continues to work with the firm. He has an art show opening soon with them. So we actually wanted to bring him on for this interview with the hopes that his knowledge of working with Carol and her firm would bring some deeper insights into the conversation.

B So thank you both Carol and Ryan. Welcome to the podcast. Ryan, I'm gonna hand it off to you.

C Well, thanks so much, Janine and Evelyn, for having us here today. Just wanted to add a little bit more context. So Carol, you are a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, a recipient to AI's Award for Excellence in Public Architecture, a Lincoln Laureate joining me is Vanderohe and Buckminster Fuller. You're an AI Gold Medalist. The first from Chicago to be honored since 1960. For those following along, Mies van der Rohe was the prior. You're also the first living woman to win the award as an individual. You've been called the people's architect by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago's new Daniel Burnham by Bliss Magazine, and an unrivaled architect for the people.

C But to me, you are a close collaborator, you're a mentor, and I think most importantly, a friend. So, Carol, when I list those accomplishments and honors, how do you feel? Do you recognize yourself?

D I guess so. In a way, you know what? Yeah. I recognize myself. I think they still have work to do. How's that?

C Ah, yes. Always looking forward.

D We should let people know. I I'll have all these associations with me, but, actually, I didn't go to IAT. I am a graduate of the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign. However, I met Ryan there because I was his thesis critic. So we have been together for a very, very long time. I mean, because you I mean, how old are you now? I'm kidding.

C Could you tell our listeners how we first met? Tell them about that day on the lawn outside of Crown Hall.

D Well, he was late for the first class. What can I say? And it's it's interesting that you call your program the disruptors because I was sitting out there perfectly happy with my class, and Ryan came along and he was the disruptor. He was late. And it was funny because we had a new, dean at that point. And I remember that the students were very they wanted to know who he was and if he, you know, he they're sort of suspicious of him. And they thought that Ryan was a representative of him because he was late that he was sent to look at us and spy on us. But, it all worked out.

B Well, Ryan's long been a disruptor, so he's yes. He's definitely we claim him.

C Yeah. I was the mole, apparently.

D That's what everybody else thought that you were the mole.

C I think that's where our relationship started though in that sort of academic setting between professor and student being able to push one another. And I know that you've taught for decades now. Could you maybe talk a little bit more about why you're so interested in teaching and how that sort of nourishes you as an individual and as a practitioner?

D Yeah. I've been teaching, oh, wow, at most of the time I've spent at IIT where I usually teach a 5th year studio, but I've been teaching at various institutions essentially since I started practice. My the first place I taught was at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And I I do it because I like the pace of idea making in school. I mean, I like working with people who wanna be architects. That's unsaid. But I also think that when you're working in a studio a lot of the work that we do is it's changing because of technology changes, but it's very nose to the grindstone, head down, figuring out the details. And I personally, I like to I like I like to break up my studio experience by going to the school and seeing, you know, 7, 8, 9 kids in a row and just talking about ideas in a group.

D For me, and I think that my my biggest talent is, first of all, idea making, but second of all, editing. I'm a really good editor. If I see a good idea, I think I have a really good talent at being able to work that into the overall fabric of a solution. I think that's the hallmark of our studio too. If you work for if you work in our studio, if you're if you're part of our collaborative, I'm hiring you because you are talented and because you have ideas. And if you don't produce those ideas, you're you're not producing. You can't wait for someone else to tell you what the what the idea is. Let me let me temper that a bit though because then you have to combine it with a passion for the project, the cons the concept, and an ability to work on a team.

D So working in our studio and probably work having me as a critic in school, you have to be ready for chaos because there's gonna be a lot of garbage on the table. And you have to be, ready to put your ego aside and advance a concept as a group. It's not going to be one person's concept. It's gonna be what we agree on and we're gonna put every sensible thing that we can find on it. We're gonna make it elegant. We're gonna make it simple. We're gonna edit it down. I think that for me right now, at the point I am in my career, what most when I like, when I'm a I'm on a jury at a awards jury or something, the thing that is hardest for architects to do is edit, getting it down to that essence.

D I mean, essentially, what we're doing is we're finding an answer. And, I say this a lot. If you don't have the right question, you'll never get the right answer. So it's refining your question constantly and then, building that elegant answer. That's a really long answer to how, I teach. But that's what I try to teach. It doesn't really matter what you're interested in. If you love concrete or you like computers, it doesn't matter as long as you're dedicated to that sim simple elegant concept.

D You can do what you love.

C Yeah. And in that, year of studio together, we were looking at redesigning a transportation system for Chicago along its waterways in the Chicago River and along Lake Michigan. And that as an architectural solution seems a bit maybe detached from what architecture is necessarily, but you taught me that that it's totally interrelated And that it is the idea of systems thinking and sort of, I think you've called it the sinew of our cities. And within that studio, we had people who had very different interests, ones that were traditionalists in what architecture meant, landscape architects, urban planners, was sort of this nice cross section of thinking and that kind of represents the work that you do today.

D Yeah. I like I like to teach that that studio format because I think that I found that when we spend the 1st semester, so the 1st 16 weeks working on research, the idea of, truly understanding an environment. And then what I like to do is I like to spend the 2nd semester having each student identify an individual problem that they discovered through their research in designing a solution. I think that architects I mean, yes, you do get an assignment from your client, but we need to be proactive. We need to be really involved in that solution and understand how it's possible to change the problem when you know, when you do the research and have a much better answer for the for your your client, your user, your community. So that's why I teach that way. I like to build the idea of of research and understanding to problem identification and then solution. So, yeah, sure, why not the river? The river runs all the way through Chicago.

D And we got great projects, you're right. I remember that studio very well. Although after 30 summers I have lots of I have lots of, projects to remember. So funny when I meet my students these days, because now I mean really there's 100 of them and I love them all terribly. But sometimes I have to ask them what their project was to remember, them in studio. So, you know, when you go back to talk to any of your teachers or any of your collaborators.

C And we've even taught studio together after that experience of you being my teacher and mentor, me being employed at Ross Berney Architects, and then teaching together. I think that that's sort of it's been an interesting evolution these past couple years.

D I think anybody who's in practice and wants to teach probably has to do that as a family also. So I'm really happy to have Ryan and some of my other people who work in my in my in my office teach with me. It's really great. And then and then we can take those ideas back to I almost always try to assign something that I'm thinking about. If I don't actively have a commission of doing something like that, it's something that I I think about. So it's often about transportation, making cities, things that we're doing, things that people have asked us to think about, you know, in real life.

C So part of teaching is also about mentorship and sponsorship. Could you maybe talk a little bit about how that's influenced not only the way in which you teach, but also maybe influenced your career?

D Well, when I talk about mentorship, I I probably should start out with my own experience because I think that I was super lucky in having really good mentors, really good encouragers. And so I I can tell you the story. I hope I I take a few minutes. Hope it's not too long. But I am, I'm a boomer. What a terrible word right now. I am a boomer. And, that meant I went I went to high school.

D There are thousands of us, essentially, because they were just, like, you know, a dime a dozen. And I went to an all girls Catholic high school. There were over 400 girls in my graduating class. We had one guidance counselor, and she was supposed to guide us off to our proper careers. And, you can imagine this is a before title 9 for sure. Anyway, girls were gen generally guided into careers that included teaching, nursing, social work. Those were the things that we could do. And I, had been really impressed.

D I had always loved painting and drawing and I've been really impressed by the power of space and I had also been impressed by the optimism of the sixties seventies. Kennedy's inaugural is always one example I give. And so I I had thought all by myself, well, you know, painting and drawing won't change the world, but I love the idea of planning an architecture. I did I did not know an architect and I didn't know a planner. And so I went into this guidance counselor and I said, sister, I think I want to be an architect. And I'm pretty sure nobody ever told her that before, at least at her. And she looked at me and she said, okay, I'll find out what schools you have to attend. She never told me that, you know, this was an unusual career choice.

D And I think that type of belief in you, you know, when you're when you're when you're trying to sort out who you are and what you do well and what makes you happy is really important. So she was a a mentor. I'm I'm sure she wasn't even aware of it that she, you know, enabled me that way. In fact, I wasn't until I got to the U of I and I was the, there were 12 women in my class of 300. And so, I did, I was not even aware of what she did. But, as I moved through my career, there are people who you meet and they fit into your life right then. And if you can make a connection, they can help you answer the questions or give you direction or just or just make your what you're doing in your career or in your life more comfortable. So for me, my first job I was working I went to work for Halliburton Root, a very old Chicago firm, very illustrious practice.

D And when I joined, John Hollowbird Junior was, one of the partners. He is the grandson of the original Hollowbird, William. This is before computers so I was sitting at a drawing table and I, you know, I had my pencils out and everything. And he came by the first day I was employed there and he said, hi. I'm John. I'm the last of the hollow birds. And I'm kinda like, well, you know, what do you mean you're the last of the hollow birds? You have kids. They're all girls.

D So I I ribbed him about that and we became really good friends. And I you know, it's not like he threw assignments my way that were so plumb. But his interest in me and my career was really, it made working every day a lot easier. One of the things I got from John is he told me I can't say that even at Halliburton there wasn't, you know, some some hold back because of gender, but he told me that he and I did the noble projects. And by that, we did mostly public work. And I believed him. So just that that type of groundedness in, you know, working. I was I was young, I was starting a family, was really important.

D And which leads to my my sec my next mentor who was a very illustrious woman, an architect, Natalie Du Bois. She was the first woman who was admitted to the partnership at Skidmore. But, boy, if you if if you knew Natalie, being being admitted to the partnership that while that sounds really glorious, Her career probably would make women today just like, oh my god. I remember her telling me one story where she was making a presentation with Gordon Bunshaft. She started in in the New York office, and, he didn't like the dress she was wearing. And he went told her to go home and change it. And I I said, Natalie, what did you do? She said, oh, I went and changed it. She talked about not being included in client meetings because they were lunching at men only clubs.

D But she had, you know, to survive in that period she had a an attitude that, it's not my attitude necessarily or what I'm comfortable with, But it was really important for me at that point to learn what her what I what was happening to me and what's happening today to people who aren't you know, totally integrated or, you know, things that still aren't totally equal, it's important to know what attitudes other people had and what history is there. She also had 4 sons. When Natalie died, she would be a 100 this year. Oh, no. No. She would be a 102. Anyway, but she had 4 sons and I have to tell you when I sat at at Halliburton Root and I was like, the only woman in the drafting room, I was wondering how you did that, how you balance career and family, and she was really good. And sometimes you need really hard examples like that too.

D And that there's one more person I wanna mention because probably the more conventional sort of of mentor that you think about. When I started my company, I was really lucky. I had a few people who wanted to hire me right away and I found out though that after 6 months, everybody who ever wanted me to be their architect had already called and I had to find more clients. And they don't teach you this anywhere, you don't learn it in practice, you don't learn it in school, and I'm sitting there, oh, wow. What do I do now? And I had an acquaintance. It's through AIA actually, Ken Groggs who is one of the founding members of NOMA interestingly enough and he's a black architect. He was he had a lot of interesting jobs but he was connected in many many political ways that I had never been able to establish. That that's not my personality.

D And I I remember meeting him or, you know, talking with him at a meeting or something, and I I was telling him how terrible it was. I didn't know who to ask for work. And he said come over to my office and we'll talk. And when I got there, he sat me on the other side of his desk and he opened his rolodex and he went through it and he said, well Carol, call this person Carol, call this person, this person, this person, this person. And, he it did help me. I mean it really put me, it put me way ahead in terms of where of actually your calling, but it also put me way ahead in terms of confidence. He taught me something that I do today. If if a young architect comes to me and wants to understand that part of running a firm, I tell them.

D My marketing director, when she first started working for our firm, she said, you're gonna do that? Give them all your contacts? I said, yeah. I am. I am. Especially if I think that they have big potential to do good work because it doesn't matter in the end whether I get the commission. It's whether we make the world better. You know, I can't I can't walk away from my reason for being an architect. Anyway, Ken taught me mountains by doing that. And so that those people are the ones who I think about when and when I meet young architects today.

C I think those are great stories, and I've heard those before, but I'm always inspired to hear them retold and hear the additional context each time. We were with Craig Duiker from Snow Hatter recently, Carol, and you were telling a funny story about Natalie though, because Natalie was one of his mentors as well where she showed up at O'Hare with a toothbrush. Could you just retell that story really quickly?

D So I met Natalie when she was working for Skidmore. But, it you know, it's interesting, she started in New York and she moved to Chicago because, she became she is mother of 4 sons and she was divorced. And the father of her children was stationed and got a job in Chicago. And so so they could shed share the care of those children, she transferred to the Chicago office and that's when I met her. And after I met her though, she left Skidmore and she went to work for oh man, I can't remember a succession of firms, 3 d International, Newhouse, and Taylor. And landed up in Dallas and eventually in Austin where she taught for years years years at the University of Texas. And that's when Craig was her student. Also, though, that meant that she wasn't living in Chicago.

D And so she used to call me on the phone and say something like, oh, hi, I'm on my way. Could you pick me up at O'Hare? Which I would do. And she would arrive and I'd say, Natalie, do you have a bag? And she said, no. And she'd say, but I have my tooth brush and she'd reach inside her jacket or whatever and she'd have a toothbrush and that's the way she traveled. And he said, basically he agreed, yeah, that that that was family. That's all she traveled with was her toothbrush. It's funny because, when at her memorial, we were talking her sons I told that story about her toothbrush, and her sons laughed and said, yeah. They used to travel through Europe in the summers and they were all each allowed a small backpack.

D That was it. She didn't let them. I'm making her sound like a saint. She probably beat them if they brought more. She she was she didn't look fools ever.

C I just love the simplicity of it though, and how connected that relationship was. And I think in some ways, you had mentioned that mentors and sponsors sort of fit into your life or make a connection in a personal or a professional way. And I think our relationship sits on both of those. But I wanted to share a quick anecdote. You met my partner, George, right after graduation, actually, from the work that we had done in that studio, I had won an award with the Art Institute, we went to lunch, and I just sort of sprung him on you. And but after that, then we sort of became good friends. And after I'd come out to my parents, there was sort of a tenuous relationship there where George wasn't really invited back home for the holidays. And I had shared that with you and you extended that invitation to your family and your family gathering for George, which is something that you didn't have to do.

C But I think it represents a type of relationship that we have that we've built and that I didn't know I could have out of someone that both employed me, but also was a sponsor of mine. And I think that those are really amazing opportunities and stories that we hear, but we don't necessarily hear talked about frequently enough, in my opinion.

D And the good news is now Ryan's parents love George. So that's the good news. And I have to tell you, what what the thing about me is affects a lot of what I do. I'm the oldest of 8 children. And so, for me, family is a big deal, but it's also a very big thing. So if, you know, somebody needs family, I'll do it. I think that also affects the way I think about, collaboration and practice. When you're the oldest of 8, you can't tell them what to do.

D You just have to negotiate everything. So yeah. But I I I remember that. Good. Excellent.

C It was a very memorable moment for me still to this day. So we talked about it briefly or you talked about it briefly. As you were starting your practice, you had 3 sons. And I remember there's this iconic photo of you in the Chicago Tribune from I looked this morning, it's December 1984. The headline says, Women Architects Build Network. And in that photo, you're sitting at a piano and staring longingly down at your son, John, who's an infant, a newborn. What was that like during that period of time raising a family, building a practice, struggling through the connective tissue that is that and growing as an individual?

D You know, I think this is a, a topic in in my studio now. You know, what what do you do with your family? What do you do with your children? Do you package them up and put them under the desk or do you do you stay home for 3 years or 5 years or whatever it takes to bring them to a successful level? I think in a way, my life was easier because my my my sons were born when there were so few women in my position that there were no expectations. And I think that today, the expectations for women to integrate their lives and, you know, take over these roles is so hard that, that I think it creates a lot of mental stress. Like, you know, where should I be? I'm not saying I didn't feel that mental stress. I have to be honest to you with you that, especially after my first son was born, When I was at work, I I felt like I should be at home and when I was at home, I felt like I should be at work, but I didn't have the outside pressure that people have today, especially women. And I think it's one of the problems we have to solve. It I think the solution is different for individuals. For me, my solution was to integrate everything.

D I'm never at work and I'm never at home. I am caring for my children and I'm living my life. But that doesn't work for everybody. I understand that that, you know, there are more complex relationships. And there probably need to be a lot of different answers. Ones we've worked on in our studio is we've had people share one job if they feel like that's a good thing to do. We've had people work less time. I have always said that I sell ideas and I hire intelligence.

D So if you give me, you know, 20 hours of your intelligence and we have to use it effectively, that's fine with me. I think a lot of times and maybe this is because of the of the economics of our of our profession and our industry. We're not getting people's best hours, You know, it we're we're not treating them like adults. I need your best hours, and I'll pay you for 20, 40, 80 of them. There I don't need you to work 80 hours and not get paid for it. I do not need that. Those aren't your best hours. And you know this for a fact that that's we actually have no office hours in our studio.

D If you aren't adult enough to work for me, don't come. It makes you have other hard decisions. Like, when someone isn't producing, you have to help them, but that's sort of adult too. I don't know.

C Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great point that there's sort of an equation and a system that's been built and structured, and it doesn't always result in the best work product, the best experiences. And for us to perpetuate that, we're designers. We can design another system. We can design the flexibility, that allows everyone to bring their full selves to work and be able to contribute in the way they feel they can best contribute. And it's a shared relationship there. There's a give and take. I think one of the things that you and I talk about too a lot, and especially on the heels of winning the gold medal, we haven't really had that many celebrations about the holistic experiences of women within the top honors of architecture awards in general.

C And I'm sure you've gotten this question a lot in the past couple of months, but how does it feel? Like, what does it represent to you to be one of those very few to be the 1st living woman to win the award as an individual?

D You know, I have to say that we've been listening to this, so probably, women almost universally do not wanna be identified as women architects. They want to be identified as architects who happen to be women. I mean it's not that you're saying you're not a woman, it's that I'm doing a job. I'm doing what I love. And so, there's always I have felt a little bit a little bit indecision or reluctance to talk about architecture and being a woman in the same breath. But I am going to swallow my ideas about that and tell you that I think I'm really excited about it. I think it's really important. The longer I work at this, I realize that, yeah, I I I I'm a good architect.

D Okay? I have a a career that I'm I'm very proud of. But, you know, the idea of standing on other people's shoulders gets to be more and more obvious the longer you do this. Sometimes it's not obvious. I I think I remember having another conversation. I keep on telling these stories that might be boring. Talking to Gertrude Curbus and Gertrude was a very, active architect in Chicago. She's a like 2 years younger than Natalie so I always I always put them together. But Gert went a 180 degrees while Natalie became, you know, the corporate player at Skidmore.

D Gert, who also worked at Skidmore, left and she started her own studio and she was like, you know, out there. She was the first woman architect I actually heard of. I knew her before I met her because she is in the press. And, we got to be friends also because there's just such a small group of us. But I remember her telling me one time, she said, Carol, you have it so easy. And I'm going, wait a minute. This isn't easy at home. What are you talking about? But my easy is contrasting what she had to overcome to practice architecture.

D So I am talking about women and architecture and I'm sort of swallowing my my my, like, treat me as an architect first reactions. And I think that this is us moving together, forward together. There have been great women designers who the gold medal I think is a little bit fuzzy right now. You and I have had this conversation because traditionally I mean basically it goes to individuals. I think of them as the storytellers of our profession, people who change things by by making people listen or making making people look. And right now because, I think it's because we communicate more which is a good thing as long as we understand. Understanding is this thing we we have issues with communicating, it's not. But, you know, the goal has been, sometimes it's been assigned to a cause like sustainability or to the idea that well and I I maybe this is about women, that a partnership can have as many ideas as a single individual.

D And I don't I'm I'm not gonna talk about those but it's been a little fuzzy. And in this fuzziness women haven't ever had that design leader award and I think it's important to get us there. And so I'm glad. I'm glad that it's me. I'm glad that someone did it, particularly I'm glad it's me. Don't I'm I'm not being super modest here. That's not what I'm doing. But I also think, I'm hoping that it'll just break the floodgates and there'll be many, many more women gold medalists.

D I don't see any reason why not.

C Let's do it. Mentorship, sponsorship, get the names out there, elevate the voices, the stories, and those careers.

D That's why I think it's important, Ryan. That's the Mhmm. Only reason I think that the woman thing is important is because there'll be many, many more. And so you just have to start. I think actually their first selection AI's first selection, Julia Morgan, was pretty funny in its own way. You know, 60 years after she's dead. But it it it I think it what it what it did do and I think it was intended to do was sort of make people think.

C Yeah. I think that could be a whole other podcast episode about awards and the psychology, the role that media plays, the role that experiences in academia play, and the perception of architecture as an industry, internal and external. I wanted to ask though a little bit more, dive into this. You often say that design excellence is a right, not a privilege. And your philosophy of design is that you can design a phone case, you can design an entire city that there are there's a process, there's a methodology that goes behind it. And often the work that you've been getting recently sort of sits at the fringes of what people might call architecture, whether it's a transit station, whether it's being asked about the exhibit that's opening up at the Chicago Architecture Center, the future of Chicago's Urban Tree Canopy. Those are sort of what I see as adjacent or have seen as adjacent to architecture. Why do you think people are attracted to asking you design questions that seem at the fringes?

D Oh, wow. Oh, that has a 2 part answer. I'm gonna start out with a part about design excellence. I have said that design excellence is alright. But what I'm talking about is I see design and design thinking is an asset that often isn't realized, that brings considerable value to investment. It makes it more efficient, it makes it more usable, and it makes it more beautiful. And those are all important to the quality of life. And I think that since that isn't realized in a lot of public projects or projects that we do for ourselves, communities do for themselves, it's discounted and it's such an important asset.

D You can't discount it. You shouldn't discount it. Like, oh, you know, we don't have to design this. It just needs to be done. No. It's an asset. It's a it's a true value. And so that's why I say it shouldn't be a right.

D So, you know, you get museums need a designer, private houses need a designer, but the things that are most important to life quality to the most people don't need a designer. They don't need that. They don't need that happiness. And so that's what I mean when I say that. As far as the work we do though, first of all, I love it. I have never been happy. I have done maybe 3 or 4 houses in my career which, makes me which sets me apart from most of my peers. And the the houses that I did are okay.

D I like them well enough. I I've, stayed in them. They're okay. They do okay. But when I'm working for someone, it it's your house. You're right. That, you know, you're right about that thing. I can help you make decisions but that's yours.

D When I'm working on public work, my mind slips a little bit to the role of I'm a member of this community. This is my responsibility to to my people to do this right. So regardless of who the client is, I have a responsibility as a citizen architect to help them make the proper design decisions. So I feel I feel, you know, sort of like, I don't know, enabled by that. And so doing that work, doing the public work, I feel the most powerful there and I'm actually the happiest. I think it's really important to do that work and make sure that those intrinsic as well as extrinsic things get accomplished. The ones that are easy to ignore because, you know, we don't need a designer on this project. So, yeah, a lot of our work and the transfer work we do is often big e, little a, and, the architecture role is small but it's not if it's not done, the prod the whole project lacks a wholeness, a holistic success that we've been able to accomplish.

D I I'm very proud of that. So those projects, yeah, you know, are train stations really architecture? You can't do a LEED certification so obviously they they're not. Especially the ones that are outdoors, just platforms. They go, but you don't use any energy, how can we certify you? Hey, that's the idea. But no, it's okay. The other thing is working on projects like that, you can work on bigger issues for society. I think well, I think the design thinking and the value of design is probably architecture's most important mission. I think the problem we have to solve, the existential problem of our generation of architects is sustainability.

D There's nothing that's too expensive.

C So let's use that as an example really quickly. In collaborating with McDonald's, they essentially came to you and said, we need a building. Yes. But really what we want is a representation of our brand, of our values, of the work that we've been quietly doing for decades to become a more forward facing force in the industry for change. You can talk about whether their food is healthy or not, or sustainability and sourcing practices that can't necessarily be solved through architecture, but they did have an ambition that was much bigger. And then your hour sort of resultant of that was a building that spoke and told those stories through architecture. I think that's a different design conversation, a design ask, then oftentimes the client has. The client says, oh, I need a building to to blah, blah, and blah.

C I need someone to sit in an office and produce work. This was a much bigger question.

D Yeah. You know, it's interesting because you, you're absolutely right in how you recounted that that relationship with McDonald's. But I think that what might be more interesting to architects to know is the conversation started out much smaller. We've done actually 2 now, flagship stores for McDonald's. And, the first conversation was much smaller. It was about a specific store that they wanted to celebrate an anniversary. And this store is Chicago and it was in a neighborhood that was rapidly changing from industrial warehouse type, buildings to residential. And the client is you know, it's so often when you do public work or corporate work, your your client is an architect.

D So you have this advantage of some shared understandings and beliefs starting out. And our client, Max Carmona, had felt very strongly that he wanted to be a good neighbor. That's how he put it. So we in fact you did you did the research, it was brilliant, about parks nearby and walking distance and that type of thing. Yeah. What type of asset could this be? What did it mean to be a good neighbor there? And it was talking to Max and doing the research that's the core of our particular practice and finding out about the and the, idea that they wanted to be good neighbors, they had these immense sustainability goals but the buildings had kind of I remember having a meeting with Max and he said, well, we tried these a few years ago and we found out we couldn't do it because our energy requirements to cook are too high. We can't get, you know, low energy buildings. And we said well let us try anyway in the context of this being a better neighbor.

D And it was that conversation that drove the second building where McDonald's came to us and said, you did such a good job on the first one, this one make it net 0. And we're kinda going wait. We didn't say we can make it net 0. We did make it net 0, but we said, oh, wow. What did we do? We kind of created a monster. But I think that kind of conversation between clients and architects, that's the value of design that I was talking about earlier, why I think it's a public asset. It's that conversation, that really crystallizes goals and possibilities. That's when we're most valuable.

D That's when we designers are most valuable.

C I think that's amazingly inspiring and certainly begins to take us in a different path, I think, as a profession to not just providing a product, that there's a much broader conversation here about integration, about outcome, about acceptance, and about vision. Before we close, I wanted you to think back on your career and what's one piece of advice you would give your younger self?

D You know, I've seen I find my career so incremental that I don't have any singular advice. I I look back and I go oh, yeah. Maybe that wasn't so good. I don't know. But I will force myself for you. Okay. I think that one of the things that I would tell my younger self is to relax. I remember being very anxious about making everybody happy and doing everything right.

D And, right now, I'm really good at letting people take their own path, and I that includes clients and collaborators and employees. And I think I wasn't so good at that to start out with. Although, I I don't know if I paid a big price for it. When, when I won the gold medal, my first partner who was also a college classmate of mine, Jim Jim Jim Jankowski called me and he said, Carol, you know, I always thought you had the talent to win this, but the reason you wanted is because you're so damn stubborn. So I'm not sure I'd be as stubborn, but then when I look back, maybe you do need to be stubborn about the things you really believe in.

C Yeah. I think that conviction and self reflection keeps the energy flowing. And if you don't have that, you sort of begin to wander through life. Well, Carol, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. We could talk for hours about many, many more things. And I'm gonna I have a running list here of future conversations to pitch to Janine and Evelyn.

B We're in for it. Ryan, you did such a great job. And honestly, I think Evelyn and I were just smiling the whole time listening to the stories that were shared today and just what an amazing job you did as an interviewer, Ryan. Really good job. And, Carol, thank you so much for opening up and sharing a little bit about your story with our audience.

D Well, thank you for the conversation. It's very interesting.

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