Architecture, And: Mental Health in the Profession

A What if you could start a movement to change the bill's environment? How would you help the architecture community come up with new ways to build a better world where people come together to live, work, and play in elegant buildings made of cutting edge sustainable materials? Stop dreaming. That opportunity is real, and it's at the American institute of steel construction, they're looking for creative architects to reimagine the way our profession approaches structural steel by developing a program to help us harness structural steel innovations today and tomorrow. Learn more@aisc.org architecture that's aisc.org architecture. I'm Evelyn Lee.

B 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 architecture.

B Welcome to practice disrupted.

A Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine.

B Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors.

A Today on practice disrupted, we are bringing back Joanne Lloyd to talk about her career pathway from architecture into tech, why she continues to stay engaged within the profession through her Facebook group, the women architects collective, and by helping architects build their personal brands, and her most recent endeavor, the mental health summit. And I think there is kind of an interesting thread that we're going to look at weaving throughout all of this. There's been a lot of conversations and talks about the need for greater mental health and well being, especially with the pandemic and a focus on individual health and well being throughout, not just in architecture. But I would say even more broadly, this is something that is not particular to our industry. But given the culture that we have in architecture, I think we face maybe some unique challenges or a difference in how we apply those solutions. So I think this is something that we can talk about throughout.

B Yeah, we had an episode last year that was focused on mental health, and there was, like, a core group of.

C People out of the AI.

B That have been trying to figure out how to tackle this issue. A lot of firms are also trying to tackle this issue, so I'm excited. Today, Joanne has been an advocate for helping architecture, especially women in the field, figure out their personal brand, their personal stories. She's very focused on the personal aspect of individual development, not just professional development, but strengthening your self identity, your confidence, your own narrative that you're telling yourself in your head about your career. And now she's interested in tackling and bringing together a group of people to talk about mental health and addressing it from a solution standpoint. So we'll be talking about her upcoming program as well as some of the other pieces of her work that she's been collaborating on. So welcome back, Joanne.

C Thank you. Thanks for having me.

B And I want to say thank you so much for doing our opening episode. We were so appreciative to have you help lead us through that conversation. So now we're excited to turn the table and come back to you and hear more about your story. So maybe we'll kick it off by asking you to just briefly introduce yourself.

C Sure. So I'm an architect. I still like to say that I'm an architect even though I have made a career transition into doing marketing for tech startups. Right now I'm at a tech startup called Test Fit. Some of you might know it and I'm their Content Marketing manager, as you have talked about. I also founded the Women RKS Collective, which is an online community. Right now we have about 4700 members. So it's very exciting to just see a group of women in architecture really supporting each other, asking questions, mentoring.

C It's a great group of people. And on top of that, I like to help as much as I can in the industry. So I do coaching and helping architects with their personal brand because that's one thing that with my marketing skills and branding skills, that I believe I could help them really make their voices heard and like you said, building their confidence and self identity in the industry. And I also do events for the community. So like you said, I'm doing the mental health and architecture summit. We have previously also had the Women Archaeus Festival last year and really just finding ways to bring people together and uplifting architecture in general.

B Can I ask you, because you've mentioned that you're very interested in this personal piece, connecting with people on a personal level and helping them in that realm. What is it that makes you interested in doing that work? What gets you excited about it?

C I like to think that we all have the power to make an impact and change in any industry that we're in, not just in architecture. I believe that individuals can make a change and I think we have to start with ourselves. I don't know if this is because of my culture or of my upbringing, but I believe that people are starting with yourself and building more confidence and really focusing on personal development before you can really go and help other people. Kind of like that analogy, right? When you're on an airplane, they tell you to put a mask on yourself before you help other people. And I really believe that having your own personal development and self identity more clarified before you go and try to do bigger things gives you more confidence and a more solid foundation.

A I like the distinction that you made between being jumping in and doing those things and actually having identified that as bringing greater confidence to do those things. Because I think there's a lot of times personally, when I have just jumped into things without necessarily having my point of view on it. And then it's harder to not only understand why I'm putting my passion behind it, but actually have a voice in it as well. It was interesting because in preparation for this conference, you're like, oh, everyone has heard my story. And I was like, well, but hopefully this podcast is reaching some new audience members and you've been very open about your transition from architecture into tech and how you got there. Can you talk a little bit about that and then maybe we can tie this back because we do have this focus on this mental health summit that's coming up at the end of September. So I don't know how personal you want to get, but I remember being on Slack with you as you were kind of making that decision and it was very much this internal struggle for you. So walk us through all of that if you're willing.

C Yeah, I think to make a drastic career change is always going to be a struggle for everyone. It was definitely a struggle for me. The opportunity kind of came really naturally for me. I was an architect at Gensler and I was there for six years and at the time I just felt like I needed a change and I didn't really know what it was. And I've always talked about this, it's like I always knew that I wasn't going to be an architect forever because while I love architecture, I do find myself have much more passion about branding and marketing. And the one day that I realized I probably should pursue this as a profession was when I walked into the office one day and I saw everyone have on their screen, they're all reading about some buildings on Art Daily, like every single one of them. And I was listening in my ear, I was listening to a podcast, like a podcast about marketing, and I just thought to myself, I never read about architecture, I never really look up anything design in architecture related. And I was constantly just listening to podcasts about marketing, I was reading books about marketing, I was learning about branding, graphic design and all that stuff.

C And I was really passionate about it on the side. So I just thought maybe I should see if I can do this, if this should be actually my career instead of architecture. So I kind of looked into it. I saw a group of people on architecture about architects that are moving into tech and I started joining the community, talking to people. And I met George, who was the head of marketing in monograph, which you all know, and I met him, I talked to him, and we started working together just on a part time contract basis for monograph on some content. And after about six months working with them part time, they opened up a full time opportunity for me. And at that time it was definitely hard to make the decision because I have spent probably what, 15 years getting my foot in architecture, really building a brand and my career. And I was on a good path at Gensler, and even when I told my boss that I was leaving.

C He was like, why would you leave at this time? When you're getting promoted, you're on a great path in your career to become, like, the star. So it was definitely difficult. But I just find myself so much more passionate about marketing, and I also think tying it back to mental health, it's like I needed a break from just overworking and spending hours commuting and doing really stressful, complicated projects, and I just needed a break from that.

B That was a really big moment when you made that transition. I remember it. That was when you kind of were communicating about that experience. And I know personally evelyn was an ally and someone you were talking to to figure out how and when and trying to decide if you wanted to take that leap. But it's landed you in your current role, where you've been able to work now at test fit and continue to grow your skills in this marketing capacity. What do you think you've learned after now you've had a couple of years under your belt of doing marketing and seeing what that career path is like? What do you think you've learned?

C I still feel like to this day that I'm so new to marketing that I don't know what I'm doing, but I want to believe that I know what I'm doing. But I'm definitely learning a lot in terms of, in particular, marketing a SaaS product, like a software product, marketing to b, two b company. I learned so much marketing to architects. I know everything that every pain points the architect could ever have. And really, it comes down to, I think, the story behind what you're doing and the product market fit of your product, especially in a tech startup software world. So those two things, I think, is really what the most important thing are in marketing for tech. And I'm still learning, and hopefully I'll get better. But I think it's definitely a learning curve for me because while I did know marketing, but I was doing it more for myself, like, I was just building personal brands.

C I was talking more to individual levels, to people in their career most of the time. So marketing to a different b, two b type of audience is similar, but it's still different. So it's definitely something that I'm learning, but it's been really fun.

B And to build on that question, do you still see yourself as part of the architecture community?

C I do, and I think that's why I still stick around in architecture. And part of the struggle when I was making the decision to make this career transition was I had the woman architecture collective. There was a part of me that felt like, am I failing the community if I stop being an architect? I feel like I've built a community of women in architecture. It was the entire brand, and it was about the representation of empowering women in architecture, and part of me felt like I was letting them down to, I guess, stop being a traditional practicing architecture. But part of me also know that when I stop being a practicing architect, I have more time to do more things for them and to empower them even more. So once I have moved away from architecture firms and I was working at monograph at that time, I started doing conferences, for example, I started coaching more people because I started having more time on the side to do these things. So while I kind of still feel a little strange to the community that I'm serving that I'm no longer working as an architect, but I do appreciate that I have more time now and energy to serve them even better.

A I want to take the last little bit that you just said energy, because I don't know if you even realize this. First of all, you have incredible impostor syndrome. I just want to point that out because I think you are doing such a wonderful job running the community and all of your webinars on brand and the reason why everyone should develop their own brand, I think have been so crucial, and a lot of people have taken a lot of things away from that. But when we talk about following our passion and I know you were worried about how long you've been in the industry before you left, I think what we don't actually realize so much when it comes to mental health is the extra capacity that it takes to do work that you aren't passionate about versus the ease that it comes with doing work that you are actually excited about. Can you talk about so you're nodding. So I'm hoping that we're on the right path. Can you talk about maybe what it was like to finally realize that you made a good move for yourself and what that meant to you from an overall mental health perspective?

C Yeah, like you said, the energy level. I have to do what I'm doing now, not just at my full time job, but for the woman, I guess collective, for all the extra things I'm doing on the side, I think I'm showing up much better and have much more energy to serve and to help people. And like you said, it's much more easier to lean into your passion because you want to learn about it, and as you want to learn about it, you naturally get better at it, if that makes sense. And I've always really loved the storytelling aspect of marketing and the writing side of it. So in my current role at Test Fit as a content marketing manager, I write a lot. And I just find that in the act of writing, I not just learn so much about the industry in general because I'm writing about the industry all the time, but I learned so much more about how to tell better stories and how to express myself better. And by being able to express myself better, I think I'm able to serve other people, architects in the community with just much better clarity.

B Yeah, I think that your investment in building this upcoming summit is an example of that. I know it's one element of all the different ways that you're showing up and helping architects. But even building the Women Architects Collaborative, you've built a community that allows space and support in all of these different areas that you're super passionate about. And so you're filling a need in the industry where people can go and get that level of support that they're looking for, that they might be missing in their own firms. So why don't we talk about building the Women Architects Collaborative and why you started it in the first place and how it's grown.

C I started the Woman Archives Collective in I believe around 2018. And honestly, at that time, I just finished my AR exams, I got my license and I guess call myself a workaholic. I had to find something to do and I had so much more time on my hand and I just thought, why don't I start something? And I was looking around and really finding a need for women in our industry to have a space, like you said, to at the very least ask questions. Because as we know, most firms in our industry is small firms and most small firms, probably a lot of especially young women, feel like they don't have a mental that can help them with their unique issues. And I just wanted like, I see this in my coworkers or in my friends that don't know where to go or where to ask questions. So I just remember one day I was just looking online and thought, maybe I can start a group of people. It was small and I started a Facebook group, invited a few of my friends and it just slowly grow from there. Organically people started inviting their friends and their colleagues and it started becoming a space where they can ask questions and feedback, where they normally wouldn't get in their firm or even locally in their area.

C So that started growing pretty much organically. And during the pandemic I just saw a need for more support to the community because everyone was struggling, everyone was stressing out and I wanted to help in whatever way I could. And the only way I know how was building personal brand. So I started helping architecture build their personal brand, started coaching people in the community and helping them to find a way to communicate their value or their worth, especially online since we were in a pandemic at that time and it's just slowly grow from there. Then I started doing the conferences and just finding different way to help the collective.

A So we will be sure to put all of these links to everything that we're talking in the show notes of the podcast if anyone wants to find out how to join the community. So I'm going to talk a little bit about this entrepreneurial spirit that you have too, and a little bit about work life balance, I think, in and around it all. So you do the women architects collective, you do coaching, you are working in marketing at testfet, and you're also doing this matcha shop that most people don't know about. Is this another passion for you? What does that look like? And where did this entrepreneurial kind of bug start for you?

C The mattress shop is interesting. It started also during the pandemic. I think the pandemic just started everything for me to really push on many things that I wanted to do. My partner and I always had a dream of owning a tea shop one day when we are like 70 years old and retired and wrinkly and just doing that when we're really old. But during the pandemic, we thought he usually does a lot of traveling for video work. And because he couldn't travel, he started looking into starting an online tea shop. And we got into this whole world of just learning how to build a business, especially a physical product business, which is much more difficult than what I've been doing with the woman archives collective as an online business. And we started looking into it and realized there's a need in the market for fresh matcha, which talking about product market fit is kind of the research that we have done to find a niche that would work in the United States.

C So we looked into we I think it's probably been two years ago that we decided to import a stone mill from Japan. So it's a traditional stone mill that traditionally you would use to mill matcha fresh. So we imported it, we started milling matcha, started posting online using our marketing skills and his video photography skills to try to grow a business online. So that started and it's still growing, and hopefully we will continue to grow into a bigger business. But it's something that, again, we're both very passionate about. We just saw a need in the market and matcha was getting more and more popular in America. And there's just to me at least, no good matcha that you can get at a grocery store. So I was like, why don't we just make it ourselves?

A So back to the mental health summit. And I think another thing that we should link down here is actually a survey that you ran your last year at monograph during the pandemic, which was talking about burnout. And that was a couple of years ago now. So why the mental health summit now?

C Yeah, that was, I think in 2021 that I did the survey and we find that 97% of architects said they were experiencing burnout. And that really kind of not opened my mind because everyone knows architects is burnout, but that kind of solidified the problem and reading the responses from people and writing the report and putting out there for me was astonishing. And I wanted to find a way to help and I didn't know how because I can speak from my own personal experience, I can speak from just what I've been through, what I see my friends been through, but I'm not an expert in mental health or burnout or certified in any way to help. But I just thought I have the ability to bring communities together like the Woman Ace Collective or like previous conferences that I've hosted and from all the experiences, even doing the Womancast Festival last year, or helping monograph, a session cut for the virtual conference, I knew I have the ability and skills to do that. So I just thought, why don't I just put together a virtual summit for this topic that I really want to help and help find a solution for without trying to position myself as an expert in it, because I'm obviously not. And just use my skills in community building to give people a space and a platform to talk about this and to try to find solutions together. And not saying that you'll magically cure burnout in this two days of a conference, but just a space where you can see other people, what they're doing to help with mental health and burnouts in the industry and learn from that and start this conversation.

B So, first off, maybe we should tell our audience what the date is again and where they can go sign up. But I also want to hear about how did you decide on what some of the different speaking sessions would be? I think they're thematic around problems and solutions and the idea that you probably handpicked a bunch of people that you felt like could actually tackle and address some of the conversations. So tell us about the process of figuring out what those topics would be, what you're trying to solve, and who are some of these speakers that you've handpicked?

C Yes, so the Mental Health in Architecture Summit is on September 23 and 24th and you can sign up on Mentalhealthsummit co. So we started with a survey with our audience because I always like to know what they think. So I started a survey and asking them what kind of topics you would like to see, what help do you need with in this mental health space? And I do believe that to tackle this problem we have to again start with individual level, but also going all the way up to firm policy level because everything is related. And I try to find different topics, not just from the survey that people said they want to see, but also on a bigger level, like different perspectives and as many variety of topics as possible to help more people in the industry. So, going from individual level, we have topics around how to overcome burnout and Mike LaValley is leading that and he's been a huge advocate for burnout and mental health in the industry for years now and he's done a lot of research on it. So I think having him talk about that topic is great. We have topics like people pleasing, like if you are a people pleaser and you need help unpleasing your tendency to please people, we have a topic on that and it's by a psychologist called Casey Ondor and she has a PhD in this topic. So she will be great in just talking about the psychology behind people pleasing and how you can still collaborate with people without giving up your mental health.

C We have topics around basically anything that can help. So we have a section about just writing journaling and how that helps clarify your inner thoughts and how that can help. So Kayla is leading that because she's an advocate for journaling and writing. She loves that and she'll be talking about the power of writing, basically. And then we have more, I would say a collective topics around balancing as firm owners. So we have a panel of firm architecture, firm owners at different levels. Some of them just starting, some of them maybe a couple of years in. Some of them are even more years into building a firm and talking about their experiencing, how to balance their work life as a firm owner, which might be more relevant to your audience.

C And then we have another panel around parenthood in architecture because I just feel like you can't talk about mental health without talking about being a parent is obviously very difficult for a lot of people. And the most excited, I would say for me is from Leah Bea, who will be our keynote on day two. And she is going to be talking about how her practice and I'm sure she has been on your podcast. I think she will be talking about how her practice, how she has really built a firm that promotes balance. And mental health and all the policies that she has put into place to build a firm culture that she would want to work in. So that one I'm very excited about because I think to really get to where we want to be in terms of getting rid of burnout and having better work life balance, we have to start at the firm level to have better policy to help people have more boundaries in their work. Yeah, Leah will be great.

B She's been on the podcast twice and actually all three of them are going to come on and talk about the firm and building a feminist practice. But I also am really excited about Mike. I've been following his work too and basically he's been very transparent about his experience with burnout, trying to become a really strong architect and how too much emphasis on that can actually lead to burnout. I was just looking at one of his sketches the other day that he posted on social media, which was really fantastic. So that'll be good. And then Jennifer Matthews and Ben Casden, they're going to be on your parenthood panel. Both of them are really good friends of the show and have been on. And I like that you took the approach about parents.

B We've definitely had a lot about mothers. We haven't really been good about being equitable in terms of talking about parents and the experience for fathers as well as mothers. We've kind of leaned more towards the mother piece because I think it's such a specific experience that mothers go through. But I think it'll be really awesome that you're also talking about it from fathers as well. And probably there's a lot more in that conversation to unpack. But anyway, I think that the fact that you're addressing it is great. People talked about mental health during the pandemic and tried to find solutions and tried to figure out how do we support people's mental health during this really difficult time. But I still feel like people are trying to figure out what does that mean and how do you do it well and how do you actually support people with conversations on mental health? Because it can be very personal.

B So I know that there are going to be solutions that come out of this. But what do you hope will be solutions that participants might walk away with?

C I hope they find actual real actionable strategies that they can do just from all the different workshops. And so like, if you're a firm owner learning from Leah Baer about how her practice is putting in place these policies, maybe you're not adopting every single policy, but how a firm owner can make change in their practice to help with mental health, seeing that I think will be so helpful. Listening to a panel of firm owners talking about their own way of dealing with work life balance and just taking advice and strategies from different people and then choosing what might work for you because like you said, mental health is a very personal issue and what works for me might not work for you. So just having the opportunity to listen to many people and learn from their experiences, what they have done, what have worked for them, and then seeing what might work for you individually, I think that's great.

B And I think visibility is key in this conversation. Just allowing people to have the space to see that other people struggle with these know, Brene Brown always talks about how we armor up. We try to protect ourselves and put our armor on so that we aren't vulnerable. And I think that a shift in practice is really being more comfortable with vulnerability and opening up to people to tell our stories. And certainly I would say that in every firm I've ever worked with, people seem stressed out at all levels. It's not just like you experiencing.

C It.

B And long term stress over time leads to burnout. And I know some people argue if burnout is even real, but I can assure you that there are diminishing returns on your mental health in terms of your ability to manage stress, make good choices, and make effective decisions from a leadership standpoint. So I think you're right. I think there's how you address this at the individual level, how you seek community around your mental health, how you place different mechanisms that will help you. And there's also a responsibility at the firm level from firm owners and leaders to set policies in place in their organization that help support the mental health of their employees, which is something that I'm very passionate about. So I'm really excited about it. I'm glad you've tackled this as an initiative, and I will be looking forward to participating.

C Thank you. I'm excited for everyone to come together too.

A So I think mental health is part of a broader solution, right, to all of the things that are going on within the profession and within practice that I think a lot of our audience members believe need to change. I realize that you're kind of an outsider now that you're in tech, but I would be interested in understanding what are your hopes for the future of the profession?

C My hopes are generally just that we can have happier and healthier architects in general. I feel like if you ask any architect now and it's probably been like this forever we've talked about before, everyone seems so stressed and at least for me, I was so unhealthy and I was constantly getting sick and not taking care of my own health. And I just want a profession where while we are building great buildings and design for other people, that we take care of ourselves and we can be happier and just a healthier individual in general. And I mean, the mental health summit for me is a way to try to help with that. But also there's so many different ways that everyone can help in this goal. But I just think that we need that to happen quickly because we don't want to lose any more architects in our industry and we need architecture. So I think having a healthier industry in general would definitely help with that.

B Man I wholeheartedly agree. I think that you're spot on, especially.

C As someone who, I guess, quote unquote, left the industry. I don't want to see more architecture leave the industry, and I hope that the future of architecture can just support that.

B Hi Disruptors. If you like the content from today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on Practiceofarcharchitecture.com podcast.

A Be a part of the conversation by joining us, our speakers, and others in the community@practiceofarchitecture.com. Community.

B Our social media handle is Practiceofark. That's practice of arch. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello.

C Thank you.

A 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.