CO Architects, Leading the Way Through Change

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.

A Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine. Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors. This week, we're excited to welcome Jenna Knudson, managing principal of Co Architects onto the show. Co Architects is another case study firm that we're excited to feature as they're known for their perpetual focus on innovation and continual improvement in their practice.

B While we were at 823 in San Francisco, and that's the American Institute of Architects annual conference in San Francisco, we had a chance to sit down with Jenna and learn more about her transition into the role of managing principal as a next generation leader of a practice founded in 1986. Today, she'll open up about what that transition has been like for her and her vision in shaping the next chapter of the firm. Welcome to the show, Jenna.

C Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's good to see you both again.

A We're so glad to have you here. Maybe we can open it up by just having you introduce yourself to our listeners.

C Sure. Yeah. So as you said, I'm Jenna Knutson. I'm the managing principal of Coarchitect. Maybe I could just talk a little bit about about myself, how I got to architecture. I am originally from California, but Northern California, the Central Valley. I grew up in a large Greek family, and I have 4 siblings, so 7 people in my family. And I just went in my own room as a kid.

C And, my my parents are realtors. So had a lot of experience seeing homes and you know always appreciated Architecture in that way my grandfather owned a grocery store where most of my family worked including he was my first employer Spent a lot of time there, and when I was younger, they used to sell these spec home magazines that had floor plans in them, and and I was just enamored. And I really wanted to find one that would allow everyone in my family to have their own room. I never found it, so I was sort of sketching and recreating the floor plans at the grocery store. And people would walk by and say, oh, you must wanna be an architect. You should be an architect. And I didn't really know any architects, but it sort of stuck as a profession. And I liked drawing and kind of early on was was a career that I was interested in and and just went in that direction.

C I moved to Los Angeles in the early nineties. I went to University of Southern California, studied architecture, and then joined joined Co Architects after graduation. We were in Shenanau in Los Angeles at the time, but this was my first the first place I worked. I was here for 3 years and then decided to pursue a master's. I moved to New York. I went to Columbia University for a year and got a master's in architecture and urban design. I stayed in New York and worked for a couple years for Rafael Vignoli, and then I came back to Los Angeles and and back to Co Architects, and that was 19 years ago.

A There are a couple of reasons I was really interested in having you on the show. First of all, you know, Evelyn and I both spent a lot of time in California. She's still there, and we know about co architects, and we know what a cool firm that is. So we're interested to definitely understand the business model and the cultural elements of the firm that make it so special, but also your transition into the managing principal role and your trajectory to find your way from starting off early in your career working at this firm, but all the way into working on large, I believe, healthcare projects into now being responsible for the managing principal role of this very large growing California based firm. That's a interesting story that we wanna dive further into.

C Yeah. I look forward to it.

B So obviously, we know a lot about Co Architects, but for those who don't know, and our our listeners are global and international, why don't you give us your elevator pitch on Co. Sure.

C So as I mentioned, we started as a regional office of Anchin and Allen. That was in in 1986, and then became an autonomous practice in 1996. So that was sort of just before I joined. We are based in Los Angeles. We do have a small San Diego office that we opened about 5 years ago. From those offices, we work all over the country. I guess a little bit of international work as well, but but mostly a national practice. We are about a 160 people now.

C I've grown quite a bit over the last couple of years. The name co is the prefix co, so which means together jointly. When we renamed the firm, it made no sense to name it after any people, any specific partners, and really wanted the name to to evoke, you know, what we believe to be a practice of into perpetuity and one where, you know, we produce our work together. And that's internal, but also, I think, how we view our external partners in our clients, in in our builder partners, in our, you know, design consultants. The work we do is largely for mission driven clients, and health care came up. So, yes, health care, higher education, and that's sort of science and technology, health sciences, education buildings, life sciences, k through 12. So really pretty, not always large, but sometimes very large almost always complex programmatically driven projects and buildings types where the occupants are often doing very serious work and could be spending, you know, 24 hours a day, you know, 365 days a year in the buildings.

A Yeah. Looking at a lot of your projects, I think what definitely stands out to me, several of them are very complex large projects, but quite elegant solutions. And I think I feel like I've known you all through the education lens of your practice mostly. I wanted to talk I'm very curious, like, behind the scenes of what makes Ko unique, you know, working inside of the practice, what the culture's like, how would you describe what makes you so excited to be there?

C Sure. So I I mentioned this idea of a practice into perpetuity, and I think that that is a term that sort of encompasses a lot of what Coe is about. At its core, it really means that the current partners are really the caretakers of the firm. And so, you know, it is a firm that will last beyond any individual, any group of partners, and the goal is to, you know, to continue to care for this practice for the next for the next generation. So I think if you think of your practice in that way, then, you know, then you have to think about a decision making process that considers, you know, a future generation of leaders, that we're always thinking about transition, that we are all of us are responsible for mentorship and knowledge transfer and creating opportunities. And we have a lot of programs, initiatives, most of which are grassroots. You know, some somebody had an idea for something, you know, a mentorship program. We have something called Co University, and and so that's a annual class of about a dozen people usually are promoted associates who are going through a series of courses that are taught by the principals and associate principals, not just about the firm about the firm, but also sort of about the profession and, you know, looking inward, but also looking outward.

C We have coincides, which are presentations that individuals will give over lunch about anything. Anybody at any level can, you know, can give a presentation about something they've learned on a project, something they're doing, technology, a business practice, you know, anything like that. We have a newer program, a fairly new employee after we returned to the office physically in a hybrid fashion after the pandemic allowed us to, and we moved to a new office, which was very exciting. She felt like, you know, I think there's an there's a need here to share a little bit more on some of the fundamentals of architecture, dimensioning, you know, for example, or why are specs important? And so she developed a whole program called co fundamentals. I think you're getting you're seeing that all of our everything has co in it. And and that was taught by actually kind of our our next generation of leaders. So the senior associates and the associates intended to for an audience of somebody just coming into the profession, but open to everyone. You know? So I think the culture is really about this idea of continual improvement, continually learning, and really thinking about growing everyone in the practice.

C And if you're a firm, you know, a kind of practice into perpetuity, then you also have to embrace change and that's kind of, you know, has to be at your core as well. You know, sort of what is going on around us? What is happening in the profession? What are we hearing from our clients from internally, and how do we need to respond to that?

B So nowadays, I'm seeing a lot more younger firms or firms rebranding or renaming themselves to remove themselves as a legacy partners. Right? That in many instance don't have any stake in the firm yet. But I like this idea. I like how you describe it as a firm in perpetuity, as an outcome of that name change, and as a mindset for how to continue to move the firm forward. So that's kind of a fresh new take on the outcome of that name change that I haven't heard about.

A I know that innovation, and you've mentioned this a few times, the continual improvement piece are extremely fundamental in terms of your values and how you all operate. I was wondering if you could give us an example of how that shows up in your practice.

C Yeah. I think if you if you were to just think about health care, for example, and, you know, that somebody spends 5 years, 8 years, 10 years working on a health care project, and then there's so much to learn from that from that process. Right? Technology is continually changing. The sort of continuum of care is changing. And so our goal is to always change with that to, you know, to figure out what needs to evolve. I mean, I think, you know, we're not interested in innovation for innovation's sake. Right? But what can we learn from any project that you can then, you know, sort of take take to the next project? And and every project is different also. So, you know, it's sort of looking for what is the right innovation for this project, for this client.

C And so whether that's, you know, some programmatic piece or whether it's a material or whether it's about energy use or often it's about kind of all of those things. But, you know, how do you keep moving forward? How do you how do you continually improve and upon what you've done? And that's not to say what you've done is not great. Right? But it's sort of like, you know, how do we just continually move forward? And so while we have sort of very specific project types that we do, we're not organized as a studio or in as studios. We are a studio. We are not organized in studios. That's kind of unique. You'll often see, you know, that a practice of our size or doing the types of projects we do has a health care studio and a and a higher ed studio. And we feel that also this idea of of innovating is bringing in fresh perspectives and ideas.

C So somebody who, you know, just finished a medical education building can now work on a hospital and, you know, and bring some of some of those ideas to it. So we're not you know, that that also has a kind of inherent way of continually asking and questioning, why are we doing this? What is there another way?

B So great to hear about innovation and this unique non studio model that you have, but you rarely ever do we see so many individuals that have spent such a long tenure at a cellular firm. So what makes Coe unique? And then a follow-up question would be, how has Coe allowed you to grow in your own career as you've progressed there too?

C So I feel that I have had many opportunities and been given many opportunities to do lots of different things and to drive the projects and to drive the practice. And so it's never felt like I haven't continued to grow, continued to have opportunities, continued to make Co Architects a place that I have had influence. And I think that's really important because I think that that is what most people want. Right? The the ability to influence projects or or the business or the practice and feel like, you know, what they bring to the table, whether that's, you know, an initiative that they think, you know, would would help the practice or an idea on a project, you know, that those things are considered, and there's an environment that supports that. So when I came back to the practice in 2004, we were starting a very large hospital project, 1 Palomar, that that had sort of all this the promise of of being incorporating evidence based design into the project. And so I was really excited about that because I had worked on health care before, and this felt like a great new opportunity to continually improve on the project type. And it was the infancy of building information modeling in architecture. And so as a practice, and I was sort of in the middle of it in this very large project, you know, I was really instrumental and pushed for, you know, taking this project into building information modeling and then bringing our consultants along and then using that model to work with the contractors.

C And and so for a while, I was really big in kind of technology and integrated practice, and and that drove a lot of what I was doing in the practice. And then at the same time, I, you know, was part of a group that started a group, WOCO, Women of Co, you know, sort of thinking about equity and and and diversity and, you know, what are we doing as a practice, you know, to ensure opportunities for for female employees. And, you know, and then I became responsible for hiring and staffing. And, you know, and so then I was seeing sort of a different part of the of the practice and informing, you know, kind of who we were hiring and project opportunities and mentorship. And so I think those are just some examples of, well, one, my my path, but but also that it's not all it's not always a straight line. And I think that for me, that's what kind of makes Coe interesting is that it is an environment where there are a lot of opportunities. It's also an environment where, you know, if you wanna go really deep on something and be the expert in healthcare planning or, you know, digital technology, you know, you can do that as well. So we're not really prescriptive, I guess, you know, it's kind of a place where people who who like some gray and, you know, are interested to have initiative and sort of looking for opportunities within the practice.

C I think those are people who tend to really thrive at Coe.

A So you've been on this transition path over the past couple years of stepping into the managing principal role at Coe. And I know that this was not something that just happened overnight. It was a process of identifying this opportunity, working with the prior managing principal, and then transitioning. You've been in this role for almost 2 years now. Right? Is that correct? Two and a half years. Two and a half years.

C Yeah.

A It's interesting to see someone first of all, I get excited when I meet NextGen leaders stepping into these types of management roles. But it's also interesting, I think, Evelyn and I are always curious about the architects that choose to jump from leading projects to leading, like, the studio, the firm, the practice, looking at it as the business as a whole. So tell us a bit about what that transition process has been like for you and, you know, what you're excited about in terms of this role. Sure.

C So, I mean, I think some of the things I already talked about, maybe tell you one, what I've what I've been interested in, which is to understand more about the business of architecture. I think that's something that I have found interesting kind of all along. And so, you know, whether that was initiatives or that was, you know, leading staffing and hiring, and then at some point sort of asking the former managing principal, who at the time was the current managing principal, to share a little bit more about the business, and I became part of the management committee just, you know, really with the with the expectation not of, you know, one day I wanna be managing principal, but I just I just wanna understand. I just wanna have a very broad perspective on on the practice and, you know, what we do, you know, sort of in an individual project. So it was probably a curiosity and an exploration that that I was interested in that sort of took me on that journey. So so that you know, that's, I think, probably what what positioned me, you know, to be somebody who had a really broad perspective on the practice and therefore, I think was well positioned to lead the practice, you know, for the into the next the next generation. You know, as as you mentioned, Janine, it was a very purposeful transition. I feel very thankful and appreciative that I worked closely with just the the former managing principal, but the other partners to, as much as I, you know, could sort of understand what was the role.

C Right? What was I going to be stepping into? And through that process, I also just I felt that I had a lot of support, a lot of support from my partners. And so with that, we did make the transition kind of during the pandemic when we were entirely remote. You know, as you said, it was a a purposeful transition. The former managing principal is still in the practice, so I've had the opportunity to, you know, to kind of transition with him. He's moving into a different role, more focused on on projects. And so that's been helpful to have, you know, to have him here and and his guidance. And at the same time, for me to, you know, to step into the role and see how will I lead differently. You know, what is what is my style, but also the world is changing so quickly.

C There's so much complexity, so much facing, you know, us in the last couple of years, so much exponential change that it requires, you know, kind of thinking differently. And and so I'm I'm excited about that. I'm excited about, you know, leading the practice. You know, we've grown. I think there's a lot of opportunity, continues to be a lot of opportunity for great projects for us to do. Nationally, we have excellent people, you know, great, great people who work here, and it was nice after a year of leading remotely to be able to come into our new office and have the ability to to physically be together, you know, for me to see and meet and be able to spend more time with the people who've joined the practice. I think, you know, that's been really great. We have a new office space in San Diego, so that has been something that I've been focused on.

C So, you know, the I mean, I think those are those are kind of some of the the specific things.

B So when we were prepping for this call way back when you had an interesting story, and you mentioned earlier, you know, that you had been part of started a lot of women's groups in AIA LA as well as JEDI initiatives. You told a great story about how you increased diversity hiring within co, and I was wondering if you could tell that to our audience today.

C Sure. Sure. So when I took over hiring, which was I did it for about 10 years, so it was probably about 12 years ago. And we were we were at a point where we were we were hiring. We were in a hiring mode after maybe a number of years of not hiring, and so kind of coming out of the recession and needing to add add people. And I just thought it was important that we had diverse representation in those who were conducting interviews. And so I really made an effort to do that, to try to have every interview at least have gender diversity as well as other kinds of diversity, from roles in the practice, you know, somebody who's more focused on, you know, maybe project management to somebody who's more focused on project design. So really just trying to have diverse perspectives in the interview when we met people.

C And then if those people have, you know, sort of consensus on on the best candidates, then, you know, then we've then I think we're really hiring the best people. We just happen to hire a lot more women. And so it was interesting. I don't know that I can say I thought that would be the result. I just thought we need to be diverse, you know, so that we have diverse people in our practice, which we value, sort of different perspectives, giving those perspectives on candidates. And I think what we also found was just that we we hired more women. We still believed we we were hiring the best candidates, and so, you know, I think that is very important. And I think we we just found that in that process, the interviews were also different.

C You know, people sort of asked different questions. There were maybe more questions about being a parent, and that was not just women. That was men and women, you know. So it was kind of it sort of changed the tenor of the conversation, just having the the diverse perspectives and yeah. So that was that was pretty interesting and a very minor change that had a pretty impactful result. Personally, I'm, you know, I'm I'm very passionate about this idea of of diversity. I think as a practice, just having more diverse opinions has resulted in better work. So I think there's a business case, you know, for having diverse opinions, for thinking about diversity in a very broad sense.

C And I think it's important to the profession that one that has not traditionally been that diverse is, I think, finally has the opportunity to move exponentially. And I was involved in, and continue to be involved in the AIA Los Angeles Women in Architecture Committee. We held sort of programmed and, you know, and put on with with the chapter and annual conference powerful, which continues to be sort of very popular and important venue to highlight the voices of women and and the kind of content that women architects feel is important to to put forth. And within co architects and kind of externally on some boards that I'm on, also really just trying to think about the diversity of the pipeline. So we have a high school discovery program that we do at coarchitects that started with a a girl's high school and has now expanded to some, you know, STEM programs in Los Angeles. And we work with SoCal Noma, on their summer camp. And so just a number of programs at kind of all different levels, really trying to go deeper into the pipeline and expose architecture to as as many groups as we can, those who often would not have known of architecture as a profession, and to continue to sort of fortify the pipeline and and, continue to diversify the profession.

A Actually, you know, you raising those comments reminded me that when we were at Entre Architect, there was a speaker that was talking about some of the internal consulting work that she'd been doing with coarchitects on equity, diversity, and inclusion. It sounds like that you all have created some internal operational systems around how you're thinking about implementing equity, diversity, inclusion into your practice.

C Yeah. Some of it is a group, you know, of people, you know, kind of coming together and saying this is this is something we need to be talking about. And so, you know, there is a JEDI group. We we have the kind of WOCO. Right? And then we had these sort of programs with SoCal Noma. And but but in in in 2020, after the death of George Floyd, there was a kind of much more formalized group, you know, around JEDI. And and so that group is, you know, kind of continues to come up with, you know, different initiatives related to either, you know, diversifying the pool of partners that we can work with. Right? So making sure that, you know, that that we have a comprehensive list of of consultants, you know, that that can make us more diverse, to supporting, you know, these kind of pipeline programs, whether they be internal to co or, you know, our employees being part of of programs that exist in in other organizations to, you know, just kind of education.

C And and so, you know, I think that that often these things sort of start around conversation, right, and those who are sort of passionate about a conversation. And then how does, you know, how does the leadership engage in that conversation, and, you know, what are the mechanisms and, you know, what is the change that that that needs to occur. And so I, you know, I've seen that kind of continually occur around different topics throughout my, you know, my many years here. So the the group was formed in 2010 and has evolved. I would say, you know, at its core, it's it's still about gender diversity and, you know, a space for for women within the office and within the profession to just share, what are you thinking about, what are your concerns, what do we need to do as a practice to continue to promote and advance women? It invariably supports the entire office. I think a lot of initiatives that maybe women have been more likely to pursue, being a parent and having children, flexibility. You know, I think those are well, those are certainly not issues that are exclusive to women. I think that WoWoWCO has internally advanced advanced that conversation and and kind of initiatives around support for that.

C The group leaders have changed, and it's kind of any we we've gone into an evolving leadership board. And so there's a couple of people at kind of different levels that that I work with. And we really continue to ask, you know, do we still need this group? You know, is it important? Is it serving its purpose? And the answer typically comes back yes, but, you know, here's what we wanna focus on. And and, and so that has evolved over time. There's always a conversation about sort of programs that are maybe more specific to women. So sometimes we'll have, you know, a lunch conversation or a mentorship group that that is, kind of more specific to just the women. But I would say over the last couple of years, it's really been more about involving the entire office being inclusive, but still allowing a group of women to kind of be the voices that are thinking about what are the topics. And so this year, there's a couple of people who are looking at different ways to engage the office in conversations that are led by women, but that would be interesting to everyone.

C So we just had some small group lunches. We've also gotten so large. There's so many women that, you know, it used to be 10 people, and then it was 25 people. And, you know, and so you might as well just say it's the whole office. You know, conversation about inspiration. So we've had these small group lunches and and just, you know, talked about inspiration and and everyone wasn't invited. So so the topics are not necessarily you know, this is something that, you know, only women care about, but finding opportunities for women to lead conversations. We had a 2 women who wanted to talk about being in construction administration and and, you know, being on a job site and, what was their experience.

C And so I think the topics are very numerous.

A What I think is interesting about the timing of your transition into this new role is that it was right during the pandemic. So you obviously have been having to grapple with the process of leading during a very pivotal moment of change. There have been so many layers of change in the last couple years. So I wanted to talk about how that has challenged you as a leader, what you have maybe learned about yourself in growing into this role in that capacity and your standpoint in how you're prioritizing some of these additional opportunities for change?

C Sure. So, yes, it has been an interesting time for the profession for, you know, for the world, really. Right? So so much change occurring. I'm gonna go back again. I think when I think about sort of moving forward and making decisions, you know, I think it really has to be grounded in, you know, what are our values at Co Architects? What's our culture? You know, what what do we care about? And and I think that that always helps maybe expose the answers, right, and not not get sort of caught up in the complexity of really sort of, you know, everything that's that's happening. So, you know, if I think about where we're going, how we're navigating, you know, kind of a returned office and hybrid and remote and, you know, and kind of all of that, I think it just it kind of, again, goes to this, okay, you know, we're we're a practice in perpetuity. What does that look like right now, right? What do we care about? Co, with, together, jointly, right? So how do we make sure that we can lean in on collaboration, on mentorship, on innovation? What is allowing that to happen, and what is, you know, potentially standing in the way? Are we creating diverse opportunities, you know, for everyone at every level? In our retreat this year, in our partners retreat, we kinda came out of it with some work groups. And and this is actually from the retreat, but also we did a an an employee engagement survey.

C And so one of the, you know, kind of things that came out of this was was about advancement. And, yes, that's promotion and title, but, really, I think what that group has found is it's really a lot about all those little opportunities for advancement and how do people, you know, feel like they're continuing to advance in their careers. And so there's a there's a group that's sort of looking at that and and kind of breaking that down and seeing, you know, are are there are there things we need to implement in order to to make that more purposeful? It's kind of balancing this idea that we are individuals, that we're an office of individuals that are very different, have different experiences, different needs, different goals, but then yet we are a collective. Right? And so how do we kind of I always struggle with the word balance because it feels like a teeter totter, but, you know, how do we find that kind of right mix or, you know, the kind of melding of individuals and addressing kind of the, you know, very specific needs of individuals with, you know, an office and and the need to, you know, to be together, to work together, to, you know, to produce work together, and then embracing change. And there's a lot of uncertainty with that. And so that's something that I am myself getting used to, you know, sort of be being okay with the uncertainty, you know, which is a big part of the role.

B I'm trying to get I'm trying to dig a little bit deeper here and understand a lot of a lot of the outcomes of what you are telling us about. So, you know, in looking at how you worked at the firm pre pandemic and navigating everything and all the choices that people have to make now with return to office and hybrid work. What are some of the more unique or some of the more interesting outcomes of how you work now that you might be a little bit surprised about that is different from how you worked before?

C I mean, I think just in general, before we were pretty much all physically together. You know, we had flexibility in terms of, you know, some people had a schedule or maybe they worked from home on Friday or but, you know, we were we were kind of 5 days together, you know, in the office, everybody in the office. Then obviously, we went to, you know, 5 days nobody in the office. And so, you know, now we we are, I think, in a position where there's a lot more hybridity. We're in the office 3 days. There are we have people who have left Los Angeles and are are somewhere else, and so figuring that out, you know, trying to figure out how can we how can we be inclusive of, you know, of of individuals who are not physically here and have opportunity, but then, you know, make them feel that they are still a part of Co Architects. And so, you know, I think that there's sort of those layers that we have a much larger office in San Diego now. It's not large, but it was 3 people in 2020, and and now it's a dozen people.

C And so, you know, now it you know, there is a physical presence there, a group of people. And so, you know, I think sort of figuring out the evolution from, you know, kind of single office in Los Angeles where everyone is is sitting together and collaborating to something that looks very different, but still needs to be, you know, just as collaborative.

B I mean, are are there any tools that are you using? Are you approaching projects and how you assign people to those projects any differently? I almost want to get in the weeds as to what's going on so other people can think about things that they could adopt in their firm as well.

C Yeah. One of the tools that that we found very useful sort of right at the beginning of going fully remote during COVID is Miro, you know, which is a kind of virtual pinup board, and that has continued to be a very robust tool. So even sort of physically back in the office, and I I'm seeing Miro being used, you know, projects, for sure, building projects to, you know, for the teams to collaborate. So I mean, maybe for those who don't know, it's it's a whiteboard where you can basically put images, you can make notes, you can, you know, sort of mark it up, you can present, you know, so it's a great tool for collaborating, shredding in a virtual environment. But I think what we found is it just becomes like a great repository for the project, and so people are using it in lots of different ways, you know, either to kinda organize their thoughts or to brainstorm something or, you know, so all of these, like, initiatives, all these groups, everybody has a Miro board, and I think it becomes an opportunity to, you know, to kind of, throw stuff up on a board, mark it up, ask questions, you know, kind of put it away for a little while, come back to it. So that that's, I think, been a very useful virtual tool. I mean, as a practice, we have long embraced technology. I think in in the like at the beginning of the practice, the kind of first managing principle said we're doing CAD well before, we're just, we're not hand drawing anymore, we're going to CAD.

C That's the future kind of well before most practices were doing that. So, you know, that that kind of set set a stage, and and, I talked a little bit about BIM and, you know, kind of being an early adopter of of BIM. We we have a a digital technology group of of a couple of individuals, and and they're kind of constantly looking at at tools. Sometimes it's it it's usually project related, you know, a kind of tool that we need for a project that sometimes they're developing those, you know, sometimes it's it's sort of looking at what's out in the industry. But I think, you know, leaning on technology is very important. I don't think we've figured out audio video aspect that I would like for the hybrid. I think it works really well when everyone's virtual, like, you know, and and has their little their little square. But when some people are in a room and some people are are remote, I think that's that's an area that I would like to see improved so there's better equity for those who are not in the room, you know, whether that's a client or a collaborator.

A You mentioned also AI is something that you all are talking a lot about internally. We were curious what is Coe's take on AI and how it might disrupt or, you know, even enhance the way you guys are thinking about practice. Yeah.

C I mean, I'm not gonna pretend that I that we've figured it out, but I think like like many others, there's definitely a recognition that AI is going to be a disruptor, and we need to really start thinking about how it's going to impact practice. You know, what are the opportunities and, you know, what are the potential the potential challenges? So I've been working with our director of digital design and technology, and he's kind of pulling together, you know, sort of what what is the state. You know, what is the state of the industry? And then what I'd like to do is, you know, is kind of start to to really pick it apart and and brainstorm if when you know scenarios if this happens, you know, what would we do? You know, I think there's a lot of hypothesizing about, you know, how how AI is gonna impact architects. Are we gonna need architects anymore? I believe we will, but I do think it is going to sort of change, and I think potentially there's a lot of opportunity for automating things that we thought would already be automated and are would be done better by a computer. You know, some of that is already happening kind of iterating, you know, iterating options. You know, but there's a lot of interesting questions just about, you know, our obligations as as professionals, as an architect, and copyright, and, you know, just so I think there's there's a lot of interesting things to unpack that touch on, you know, business and legal and and financial and, you know, and kind of all of that. And I think it's it's also just continually thinking about, well, what what can architects bring? Right? What what do we, you know, what is our value? And and I think, you know, critical thinking and creativity and and empathy are really traits that we need to lean into as we think about, you know, how AI is gonna potentially change the industry.

A Yeah. I can understand that given some of the complexity of the projects that you all are designing around where you have large user groups or that you're thinking about really complex systems. You said some of your clients are using these buildings 24 hours a day. And so the process and the value of you all being able to lead user groups through the design process and the delivery of those spaces. Where do you think AI might be beneficial in terms of how you all add design or create?

C Yeah. No. I think you bring up some really good points. I think that, you know, just even internally, we have 35 plus years of the same project types, right, the same building types. And and so the metrics associated with with those projects, you know, whether that be space planning, you know, sort of coming up with with with a straw program or, you know, we've already developed a program that that sort of does that, that that that spits out a through a series of questions, a straw program for, you know, for a building, and then you further refine it. So, I think I think taking data that that we have internally and and then utilizing that to run options. I mean, I think options are are kind of one of the the best possibilities, but it's it's like anything. It's what is it basing that on.

C Right? And so I think it's it's really understanding what is what are the metrics and what is the information with which, you know, the the data is is being developed. I mean, I think, you know, facades is another area and kind of building performance that that is already probably one of the kind of earlier areas where, you know, I think computational design and and AI. But, yeah, being able to sit in a meeting with with the user and sort of run through scenarios live, like, okay. The plan does this. The plan does that, you know, in a kind of simple way would be would be amazing.

B I think it's been great to hear about the evolution of co architects and your career trajectory through that evolution. AI aside, what do you see as the next iteration of of practice, and how are you looking forward to leading that team into the future?

C So I I think that the the future of practice is more diverse, and so, you know, I've talked about about that as a practice and also as a profession, what we need to be doing to continue to diversify the profession. I think it's more flexible and more equitable. And so I've also talked about that. I think that's kind of meeting people where they are, but also balancing the collective need. Technology, for sure, I think, plays an important role in, you know, in how we will continue to run our business and and deliver projects. And and I think there continues to be this need for purposeful knowledge transfer, mentorship, opportunities, and embracing change. So I see my role and responsibility to kind of continue to to, navigate and balance those changing variables and, you know, continue to kind of lean into Co Architects culture and values to to with which to do that.

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