Architecture, And: Waterfront Design

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

B Together, we'll find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects. Welcome to Practice Disrupted. Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine.

A Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors. Today's episode is part of our architecture and series where we explore careers that move beyond the traditional path to licensure and leverage the education and training of becoming an architect to expand those skills into new and interesting career pathways.

B Our guest today is Dina Prathos, who is an entrepreneur architect and holds a background in civil engineering. As founder and CEO of Indigo River, Dina is the first waterfront architect trailblazing a new category in the industry. Indigo River is a women owned transdisciplinary design firm focused on progressive waterfront architecture, resiliency, and climate adaptation. A leading authority in New York Harbor and beyond, The firm specializes in climate adaptation through waterfront solutions that seamlessly transcend boundaries, guiding and executing projects from ideation through final construction and operations.

A Dina, I'm excited for this conversation because I think the idea of designing at the waterfront is something that not many architects and designers get to experience. So I wanna really dive into what that means and what kind of projects you get to work on, how you came up with the vision for this company, and what you get to do day to day. But I thought maybe a great starting point since you are really passionate about the waterfront is to talk about these 2 major environments that you've lived in that have inspired you. Can you tell us about growing up in Alaska? What it was like to live there? How did the nature influence you? And also, what is the waterfront system like in Alaska? Absolutely.

C And and first, just thank you, Janine and Evelyn, for having me. It's always so great to to chat with you and I feel like we always get into some really interesting discussions. To answer your question, I I did grow up in Anchorage, Alaska and that I have come to learn is is quite unique. And I I think in part because of certainly the extreme environment, the extreme seasonality experienced, and, certainly, the relationship developed with nature. And, I mean, growing up, we had a stream in my backyard and and much of our, you know, experience was go outside and play and, you know, get away from TVs, get away from technology early on, to experience nature and to develop a relationship with it, to go camping, to go on trips out in the outdoors, and to live off grid. And so much of my childhood was, you know, weekends and and stretches of summer where we would go and live, you know, camp and live off grid, no running water, no electricity, and kind of learn what that means. And at large, kind of gave me and continues to give me a greater appreciation for our built infrastructure systems when I'm in particularly in urban environments, just to have that stark contrast of what it means to live in the wild and what it means to live in a, you know, hyper urbanized developed environment. And so that is kind of a framework and departure point for me as an individual, but has also largely shaped my career and the the areas that I focus on within my career.

C But to maybe paint a little bit more of a picture of of what that looked like, I mentioned, you know, being very in touch with nature and just, you know, even at, the luxury of of my home having a stream in the backyard. But the way that Anchorage is situated and it's not a particularly large population, less than 300,000 people, but Anchorage is situated and kind of experiences a large lake effect just in that it's situated on an inlet, the Cook Inlet. It has a large mountain range right behind it on the east. And so growing up, you know, the first 17 years of my life, anytime I would travel, if I didn't have, you know, a mountain range and a body of water, I almost felt, like, the sense of vertigo. Like, I didn't know how to orient myself because my whole life, you know, wake up in the mountains or in the east with the sunrise and the sunsets with the west in the water. And, I mean, learning different different or different sites in different geographies. And I've again, just by contrast, I've lived in the Middle East. I spent a lot of time growing up visiting relatives in Greece, and so I have a few different areas that I've become much more familiar with over the course of my life.

C But I mentioned also the seasonality. And if a person is to visit Anchorage or or Alaska, you know, in the summer versus in the winter, you would feel like you're visiting 2 entirely different places. And part of that has to do with, you know, the freeze thaw of the the winter and the ice and the snow. And, literally, there are different road systems that appear over the course of the winter that we, you know, we would go snow machining or snowmobiling on rivers that, you know, they would freeze and and that those were passageways for us that we would snow machine up rivers and camp out versus, you know, in the summer, we'd have to kayak or or canoe up those water bodies and even lake systems where there are there are roads on lakes in the winter that, you know, after a particular time, it's not safe to drive anymore and the the road system changes, and and now it's a water body in the summer. And so just think that constant change, it's it's a very dynamic environment from season to season. And I think that experience also kind of teed up and gave me a framework to consider working on the waterfront because it is a dynamic environment, and there are things that are always changing. And, particularly, I know we might get into, you know, sea level rise discussion, but, you know, that's a site condition that continues to change on an ongoing basis. And so I think now looking back, it makes sense that given some of my background and some of my early, you know, childhood experiences, that's kind of framed my lens with which to focus on design.

B So nowadays, you alluded to the contrast of where you are now versus where you grew up. And you find yourself in New York, which is very, very different systems, I imagine, than what you were experiencing in Alaska. Everything from, you know, the overall landscape to to the climate as well. So can you tell us a little bit more about the water system in New York, including the shoreline and communities that you end up working with?

C Absolutely. So I I live and work, in and around New York Harbor now. During school, I went to NJIT. I lived in Newark, New Jersey for 5 years and very much learned what it meant to kind of be in an urban environment and to be in somewhat of a concrete jungle. And that early on took its toll because I didn't realize what that disconnect with nature for me meant, and it took me a while to realize and kind of orient myself back towards nature. And and the way I did that through my career was focusing on waterfront projects. And that might sound more eloquent now, but at the time, it wasn't a deliberate, like, I'm gonna be waterfront architect. I leaned into some of the experience and exposures that I had.

C So my the first project I worked on was the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, and it was a design build project. And from that first project that I really got my feet wet, I began to understand that the benefit one of the benefits of working on the waterfront, and it becomes, you know, a highly specialized field with the different multi multiple disciplines that are kind of contained within a team to to execute a successful project. But one of the benefits for me is that anywhere even in urban environments, anywhere that you're working at the water's edge, you're working with nature. And so that can be hard to find when you're otherwise working on upland landlocked sites and urban dense environments. For me, that was kind of a an outlet that I've since, you know, doubled down and taken advantage of. But in in regard to, you know, what does the New York Harbor system look like, it's 520 miles of shoreline and something that really stood out to me that, you know, the first couple times we we go on a lot of site visits by boat and by water, and that's, you know, important in in our line of work. But when we would have other team members or or even just, you know, members of the public, if it's a public ferry system, it was so striking to me that much of the public within, you know, 520 miles of shoreline, that's a lot of shoreline. But as soon as you take an individual off of kind of the mainland and you put them on a boat and you orient them back toward the land, it was just striking to me that most people couldn't orient themselves.

C They didn't know what what borough they were looking at, what part of the city they were looking at. I mean, you put them anywhere in the city, and they'll, you know, they'll orient themselves from the skyscrapers from the from the dense built, you know, urban fabric of the city. And so it started to become clear to me that the relationship with nature in a city is is very different. And part of that also in terms of, you know, our role as an architect, looking through the regulatory system and the regulatory framework that has many different layers and many different agencies having jurisdiction and many different motivations behind the different agencies start to really understand what it means to work with nature and build with nature in a dense urban environment and how stark of a a contrast that is from, yeah, where I grew up, you know, in the wilderness where, sure, there's regulation, but the the enforcement and the the permitting process, completely different when the the emphasis and the focus that you can have as an architect on on design and just the maybe the proportion of time that's spent on design versus, you know, regulatory permits and approvals, completely different experience and just working system.

A Yeah. That is super fascinating. And I imagine that you've broken into a market where there's a ton of work because there's so much water in and around New York, New Jersey, and the surrounding areas. There's probably a lot of different types of projects that you work on too. I wanted to talk about your journey as an entrepreneur because you've basically launched a company that serves a unique market and a unique clientele group. What was your vision for building this multidisciplinary practice? And tell us about some of the unique services that you're offering your clients.

C If you would have asked me 10 years ago, do you think you're gonna, a, be licensed and, b, found a firm that's focusing on a specialty, I would have said I have no idea and I doubt it. But at the same time, kind of early in my career, I remember a mentor asking me, you know, where where do you see yourself in 10 years? And and I thought, you know, if I could define it now, I'm probably failing myself. And so that just kinda speaks maybe a little bit to my personality of kind of exploratory in spirit at my core and in my nature. And so I I think just, again, through some of the exposure and opportunities that I had through my career, I mentioned Staten Island Ferry Terminal as a as a first project that I really got my feet wet literally and figuratively on. But, also, some of the other projects that followed and the the doors that opened just through some of that niche experience, other other projects like the the New York City ferry system, any of the ferry landings built in the last 5, 6 years were projects that I was responsible for designing and managing the design team for. And so that's a, you know, a unique type of architecture, a floating architecture, a floating ferry landing. And so I was, for the first part of my career, really focused more through the engineering lens. I have a background in civil engineering as well.

C And my my motivation to get exposure into engineering and get experience there was really to become a better architect and to become a better designer and have more empathy. As I proceeded in my career, I had several experiences that pointed me toward, a, getting licensed, and, b, looking for really a firm culture and environment that I wasn't finding. And it wasn't always about wanting to be a waterfront architect or wanting to have a firm that focuses on the waterfront, But I did start to kind of peel back the layers and understand the opportunity, again, particularly in this moment where, you know, climate change is a headline topic in, you know, any news outlet, any media, and and realizing the lack of architects in the field that it's, you know, predominantly engineers and ecologists and scientists. And the value that architects bring to to any any room, but particularly within this domain and my experience that was a unique niche experience again through the engineering lens. But where in my architecture had, I saw the opportunity to both be the generalist to to gather all the specialists in the room, but also be the specialist that can speak the same language and kind of have this larger vision, again, speaking to my ethos of my relationship with nature and appreciating both the the built fabric as well as what is, you know, natural and wild. And so it started to open the door, and and I really leaned into the opportunity again finding or creating what I couldn't find and that again both in terms of scope of work what we focus on as well as the dynamic and the environment that that we've created.

A Just building off of what you just said, I guess I wanna clarify, do you feel like in building your business that it is a reflection of you finding your place where you fit in your career? And is it a building your business, is it a form of self identity and exploration in addition to wanting to have the specific impact in the natural environment? Or how do you view it?

C Yes. Both and. So, certainly, it was a means for me not to feel I mean, I I remember feeling unhappy in my position in, you know, various roles that I held and and feeling like I was being pointed to be kind of guttered in a specific career track or career path that felt very limiting. And I and I didn't want to feel limiting, and I felt that I had more value to offer. And I feel like that's a that's a common experience that many architects have that, yes, there's job to to be done in their different roles and different ranks within firms, but I I wasn't finding the exposure and outlet repeatedly to the types of project that I feel really do need the generalist and kind of multidisciplinary approach like the waterfront does as well as the opportunity knowing, if nothing else, just the the funding and the the governmental funding that's going into climate adaptation projects, whether you look at it through the sustainability lens or through the resiliency lenses, or disaster relief. There's a lot of opportunity and and, furthermore, just the need for that to be the focus of of more again, whether in our profession or in parallel professions, there is certainly opportunity for our built environment to respond better to natural hazards, natural conditions, the changing climate, and be more sustainable, but not limit, again, in terms of career. And it wasn't wasn't so much for for me to build something around me. It was identifying the opportunity and identifying others along the way that I had worked with that were also very enthusiastic about this kind of mission and ethos and wanted to have a a culture that represented, you know, we like to work together.

C We like the projects that we work on. We feel we're making an impact, certainly for the public, but also for the betterment of the environment. And so that, I think, has also attracted and not about me except that I couldn't find it, and so I took the liberty of creating it.

A Yeah. Exactly. Can we

B go a little bit deeper into kind of the different type of services that you're providing? What would you specifically say makes you different as a waterfront architect other than working along the waterfront?

C Sure. So one difference is just the the types of projects that we focus on. And so those can be things like ports, marinas, ferry landings, wharves, keys, seawalls, docks, piers. So those are not, you know, skyscrapers, buildings, factories, schools, hospitals, things that are, you know, residential. That said, we we overlap with a lot of different types of program, but only through the lens of if it's on the waterfront. And we really do try and stay in our lane in terms of what it means to build and design on the waterfront. And there are nuances to that. I'll caveat saying many of our team, we have, you know, multiple disciplines that can kind of outline what members of our team we have on any given project, but we also many of us come through different backgrounds, not only design, not only architecture, not only engineering.

C Many of us have construction backgrounds and have experienced, you know, the building process in the field and what that means, again, particularly on the waterfront where it is a niche environment where you have shifting tides, you have in water work windows that are affected, you have moratoriums where you cannot work in water where the means and methods really become part of the design, and factoring those in early on to design helps, you know, streamline projects as well as, you know, the permitting and the regulation. It's the most heavily regulated environment. And, certainly, in New York Harbor, I would say, in the country, if not in the world, just in terms of you know, we have federal jurisdiction. We have the army corps. We have NOAA. We have, you know, essential fish habitat environments that we're considering. We have state jurisdiction, depart Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of Environmental Protection. We have city, you know, waterfront revitalization plans that we conform with.

C So there's a lot of different levels of jurisdiction, a lot of different motivations behind the agencies. And so to understand also the nuances of those, in many way, constraints and how do they open them up into opportunities for design, again, for the the different types of projects that we work on. And I will say that beyond the typical waterfront, like I mentioned, piers and marinas and and docks and ferry landings and port facilities, We also do work, I'll say, limited upland in flood prone areas only because by default, we are so comfortable working on in with the water and and what that means for the the built environment. And so a lot of our climate adaptation work has opened the door to, you know, flood mitigation techniques, and and that lends itself not only to, you know, the the static design of what the the finished built system is, but it also opens the door for conversations with operations teams of, you know, how how can we protect this asset? And is it a a permanent system, or is it a deployable temporary system? And what human intervention is required? And what does it mean for the operations team? And so we've we've kind of navigated our way to what we feel is, you know, provide best impact or better impact for our niche area of expertise. And that, you know, certainly architecture and engineering of, you know, the the typologies that I mentioned as well as additional services, you know, cost benefit analyses of different flood mitigation systems, return on investment for these different systems, being able to model different designs, not only with, you know, backward looking code of historical events, but also take into consideration future looking science projections and be able to say, you know, a category 1, a category 3, a category 5 storm hits this proposed design or that proposed design or another one, what are the impacts? What is you know, what was the initial cost? What's the return on investment for level of protection? And so we really we do focus on that that relationship of where water is meeting man made.

A You mentioned your team a lot, and so I wanna shift over to the fact that you have 15 people on staff. And a lot of those positions are really interesting and have unique purposes and roles that they serve on completing all this work. You even have a diver on staff. Tell us about some of those different skill sets that you've added to your team as you've grown and what roles do they fill on these projects?

C Absolutely. So I'll broadly categorize our our team as as architects, engineers, or planners. And within within architecture, I'm actually somewhat kind of not ashamed, but bashful that we we only have one other traditionally trained architect on staff. And that I I feel embarrassed by it because I feel like it's such an opportunity, and I'm I'm disappointed that we don't have more on the team. And it's not for lack of of looking or trying or having availability. It's it's that it is a niche that really does need to be focused on and specialized and kind of another layer of kind of meaning within the work. But that aside, we have one other traditionally trained architect, but I'll say both of our careers have been focused entirely on waterfront infrastructure, either through, you know, owner's rep side of asset management or, like, my background, construction and civil engineering. We have naval architects that focus on floating assets, so whether it's a a ship or a barge or the interface of a floating landing, we have landscape architects, which have, you know, tremendous value to add.

C The one area where I feel like we might kind of double down and add another level is to bring in, in, you know, architectural ecologist on staff, and that I feel like has a tremendous amount of potential for the future. That's not a position we have yet, though, but are looking and as we grow. In engineers, we have, you know, run the gamut of different mostly civil disciplines, but certainly marine and coastal engineers that look at, you know, wave forces, wave actions, structures in water. We have structural engineers. We have geotechnical engineers that are looking at soil composition, soil mechanics, construction engineers. Again, I mentioned kind of working on the waterfront is a very niche and nuanced area to work in. And so, you know, when you have a crane on a barge and what the picks can be and what the what the size of members can be is very different than the constraints of in a city and what the turning radius is is of a truck and the members that can fit on that truck bed. And so there's kind of some other liberties that are afforded by working on the water and bringing materials to site by water, you know, going upstream, you know, the logistics of of transporting materials on the water and what that means as well.

C We also have environmental engineers, and and you mentioned certainly the PE diver that we have that will go underwater and and inspect, you know, facilities that if we're whether we're making repairs or rehabilitating a structure, it's important to know the conditions. Sometimes we'll send a diver down. Sometimes we'll we'll send a drone down to, you know, photograph and and do an inspection that way as well. And then within planners, we have I'll I'll call them waterfront planners, but but, truly, they are climate adaptation specialists that focus in an urban environment. And so they're looking not only at the environmental and regulatory impacts at different scales, not just a site scale, but even a regional scale. They're also considering some of the workforce development impacts of the different typologies of what is going on in the water. And so one of the areas that we've focused more heavily on in New York state, there are tremendous amount of goals within renewable energy and offshore wind. And so we, early on, for the last 4 years, we've been working on offshore wind ports, which are very different than, you know, other typical shipping ports and port facilities.

C And so the offshore wind ports and what that means for generation of offshore wind power and, you know, completely different port layouts and designs and structures. But kind of seeing the writing on the wall, we're on the design stage of these port facilities. I mean, we were involved at the planning stage. And so even in the the site identification and selection, understanding what the effort will be for New York State to meet some of these goals. It's not only, you know, the port facilities to be able to construct the offshore wind turbines, but it's also the entire pipeline of the workforce development, again, not only at the infrastructure level of creating the port facilities that will create these systems, but it's also the, you know, the offshore wind tech turbines that'll go offshore, and our workforce is lacking to say the least. So some of what our planners do is look at that pipeline and help develop different mentorship programs for for companies as well as for individuals to get trained up in this arena.

A Interestingly enough, I actually did work on waterfront projects in the Bay Area when I was working in an architecture firm and did a little bit of peer work and things in relationship to ferry work, which was super interesting. And so I had this chance to learn about sea level rise and the like, you mentioned the regulatory issues of having all these different. You have the jurisdictions over the water, then you have the jurisdictions over the land, and they kinda have different viewpoints on things. And one of the issues that we were definitely struggling with in the Bay Area was the king tides and the raising water over the Embarcadero that was coming up against all of these historic landmark projects that have been there for a very long time. But I did I think it's cool that you have a team that you can leverage in these instances to kinda look at the design problem from so many different angles because being underwater, it is it is challenging, like, to know what the existing conditions were under the existing pier or to understand how to put some of these different regulations and how to push things through from an approval standpoint or even interacting with the boat that was docked at this pier. We were designing the ramp that connected the pier to the boat and and, of course, the rising tide changes like how the pier is laid out over time. So anyway, I guess I just had this like tiny experience where I understand just a fraction of what you're doing and knowing that you're scaling that up across so many different types of projects is very interesting to me and I have, frankly, a lot of respect for you because if you have 15 people on staff, you've clearly got a lot of projects going on. You've built a business in a really short amount of time.

A I mean, how how many years have you been growing Indigo River?

C We are in our 6th year. We launched in midway through 2018.

A Yeah. I mean, 6 years is not I mean, I'm 4 years into building my business, 6 years to have 15 people on staff and to be managing all these projects. Like, this is super impressive, Dina.

C Thank you. And, actually, yeah, we have we are rapidly growing and trying to be thoughtful about our growth and not not overstep. And we are very kind of transparent with our team, and we solicit feedback on on, you know, our performance as a company. But we've actually I think we're at 18 people now. We hired someone yesterday. We have someone starting next week. And so we are rapidly growing and trying to actually keep a lid on it and and in some ways, not limit, but thoughtfully control that growth so that we don't get in over our head. But the the opportunity is clear that in at least in in where we're specializing, there's more work out there.

C And we have tremendous amount of backlog that we're pushing back on because, you know, we wanna keep the quality. But some of maybe what I'll highlight, again, seeing the opportunity as an architect is maybe different because there are there are engineering firms out there there that specialize in marine engineering. And I think part of what maybe the architecture lens kind of brings to this typology that's that's different is considering some of not only the, you know, certainly safety and and what the you know, there are some standards and guidelines out there that are engineering material, but they're very dry in terms of what that experience looks like. And so when as an architect, I'm talking about and and you started you mentioned, you know, the ramp and when you have a fixed structure and a floating structure, you have the fixed pier and you have a gangway down to maybe a floating ferry landing, and you have a tide cycle, and there's a range of motion that's inherent in that design because the the water body is always moving and there's a, you know, king tide, there's storm surge, there's there's a lot of different factors. There's a normal range of motion. But as an architect, when I think through accessibility, I have a very different thought process on it than an engineer that'll just look at what the standards and the guidelines are. And so I will inherently try to improve what that experience is like and what that wellness and welfare factor is for the public that will be the end user. Not only kind of just respond to what the client is generally looking for, you know, guidelines to be met or design criteria to be met, but they're not always thinking of that end user experience, which sometimes on, you know, infrastructure projects is a generation removed even.

C And so anticipating what some of those differences will be. And, again, in terms of accessibility, thinking about what that experience is and not just kind of stopping at the the minimum operating standard or the the lowest common denominator of of what the standards and guidelines permit, but kind of going a step beyond and creating a better experience and creating something that's more inclusive and talking about, you know, inclusivity and accessibility and equity. And and those aren't typical vocabulary for engineers, but they are for architects. And so marrying together some of what we're trained to look for and some of what we're, you know, trained to strive for and endeavor toward, I feel like has added a level of richness. And it's not to knock engineers or, you know, we all have the the different things we're in charge of, but this is where I I saw and I continue to find tremendous opportunity to affect change and assert agency as an architect. I'll mention just in in terms of equity. I mentioned our offshore wind kind of area of focus and something that we've kind of we've sidestepped, and we've we've joint ventured with another team to offer workforce development training. And we, actually, we offer it on a barge, and that was very intentional because in nature, the barge is mobile.

C And if we look at workforce development, particularly in dense urban environments and we look at some of the systemic injustices of even access to work and access to training, inherently, we're putting a training platform on a floating structure. We're able to relocate our barge. I mentioned there's 520 miles of shoreline. Well, there's no reason that someone from the Bronx has to travel to Staten Island for training. We can relocate the barge to the Bronx, to Staten Island, to Queens and start to open up doors and kind of break down the barriers that were fixed in some of our fixed infrastructure unintentionally, but it is a byproduct and a consequence of. And so I think having having that background as an architect and being trained and looking for ways to improve and endeavor to improve, not only, you know, meet the minimum code, but really focus on the experience and how we're impacting welfare has been a much of a guide for for me and for our practice.

B It's been interesting to hear how you've personally evolved and then how your practice has evolved and the different type of disciplinaries you have in there. Can you tell us a little bit more about your path through this? When did you decide to get the architecture degree? And then when did you decide to get the civil engineering degree? What came first? And what made you in that process think I need to go back and get the other one as well?

C Sure. Yeah. My career path is anything but typical, I think, within the architecture profession. And I'll I'll own that because I feel like as architects, we pride ourselves on being unique and being creative and being different, and it's almost it's in some ways, I'm I'm disappointed by many in our profession that really become entrenched in what was done before them, and they're not flexing their creativity muscles on their career and ways to assert their agency in different ways. But to to answer the original question, what, you know, what my background is, I studied architecture undergrad. I have a 5 year undergrad program. And when I finished, I had several, you know, intern experiences where I kind of saw the writing on the wall that I was, you know, picking up software quickly, able to leverage tech savvy, you know, production. And I very quickly decided I did not want to go to a firm where I was gonna be, you know, CAD Jockey or a BIM modeler or things that maybe came more easily to me, but I didn't wanna do it as a means to become kind of guttered in my career or limited in my career.

C I wanted to learn other areas of of the profession and of the practice. And right when I finished my undergrad and I had some of those intern experiences, it was also kind of 2,007, 2008, the downturn of the economy, and I was looking for ways to differentiate myself. And it wasn't a time to be, you know, picky or choosy within, you know, job offers. It was, you know, if you got something, it was great. And the the architecture market was was not stagnating, but drying up a bit, and there's just kind of historically looking when architecture opportunities dry up, the civil engineering, there's an uptick. And so I thought, you know what? I have a a type of I'll call it an insecurity or an awareness around, you know, the more, you know, technical attributes of the profession I wasn't confident in. I, you know, got very high marks in design and architecture, but I was self conscious around my technical abilities. And so I took that as an opportunity to lean in, and I think that that mentality and that philosophy is ingrained in me, if nothing else, by athletics.

C I was a, you know, soccer player, tennis player, and it always was clear that my ability to perform was not limited by my strengths. It was limited by my weaknesses. So if you're, you know, right footed, if an opponent finds out you're right footed, they'll, you know, attack your left foot. And whatever you can do with your left foot is kind of the the limiting factor in your trajectory. And so I always focused on my weakness, and I I took that lesson from athletics and really focused it within my career of, alright. I have strengths as an architect. I can, you know, do all these things in design, but the technical wasn't ever a focus, and it was an area that I saw truly as an opportunity for improvement. So I studied civil engineering.

C I got a master's in it. And, again, even when I finished the, you know, the academic and the the desktop top work of, you know, civil engineering, I had, again, a self conscious area of, you know, why practically would I choose one structural system over another, and what are the conversations in the field? Why would I choose one material over the other? And I wanted I I had this kind of ringing in my head of, I'm gonna design something. I'm gonna be out on-site, and the the laborers are gonna be, you know, who designed the system? And just a total disconnect with the built the actual process of building the environment. And so my first job that I took out of school where I did work on the Staten Island ferry turtle, I mentioned was a design build project. I was on the contractor side of the design build. And so it was it was a great place to be as an architect, as an engineer, but really learning rapidly both the the the design, the integration, and the engineering, and that shaped much of my career. And so first working in construction, I worked for about 6 years in construction, including working overseas in the Middle East as a woman, which is a whole another topic. But coming back and then working in the design engineering world for marine engineering firm, again, working on many of the different types of projects.

C But but, again, architecture was an afterthought if a thought. It was engineering, engineering for safety, engineering to standards, engineering to the whatever the guidelines were. And it wasn't until I was kind of midway through that engineering project where I thought, you know, if I'm ever gonna be an architect, I need time working under an architect in an architecture firm. I mean, I had a little experience from my internship, and I had already, you know, way maxed out on the the o setting of the criteria for for licensure. And so I did pivot and went to an architecture firm, had some exposure in just kinda leverage my experience in in waterfront architecture. But, by and large, it was a more generic architecture firm and not a healthy environment. And so it took me kind of seeing, you know, my experiences in engineering, my experiences in architecture, the the environmental, like, what the office environment was like and what I was looking for to realize my my avenue, my outlet, my way to achieve freedom in a sense was to get my license. And so I did that.

C And as soon as I had my license launched Indigo River, and I launched with a partner, Shay Thorvaldson, who was at one point my he was a division manager, when I worked for the design engineering firm. And when I left, he had said, you know, if I ever do my own thing, it'll be my first call. And I thought, yeah. Right. Okay. Whatever. And then a couple years later, I reached out because I said, look. I'm I'm gonna get my license.

C I'm not looking to stay where I'm at forever. Were you serious? Let's do something. And and we lined up our first job on a retainer model, and we're able to build the practice since. And so we've gone from the the 2 of us in 2018 to 17 now, 18 next week.

A That's awesome. So architecture school has such, like, a cultural experience that goes with it. I think that what binds architects and people who study in architecture school is that kind of cultural experience they gain. I was curious what the engineering educational experience is like, and could you culturally paint us a picture of how that, like, contrast or is similar or different from what we experience in architecture school?

C In a word, I'd say comparatively, the engineering academia for me was very dry because we have this richness that is studio and this culture that's created. And whether or not you subscribe to the all nighters, which I never did, but there there's still kind of a richness and camaraderie that's built. And if you study abroad, particularly, and especially, I studied Rutten, Italy, and there was just certainly, you know, the relationships that are formed through architecture school are I don't know that they're parallel to anywhere in any other industry, and that maybe is by default of, you know, being the only building on campus that is open 24 hours and what that says about, you know, what cloth you're cut from as an architecture student, whether or not you ever go on to become licensed, but it is a very unique academic setting. By comparison, I think, yeah, any other field of practice might be considered dry. But particularly engineering, I had to kind of grin and bear it and get through it, and it wasn't it wasn't as enjoyable. I appreciated a lot of the logic through it. But, again, with the background of of having my architecture, you know, experience and the creativity with which to begin to see opportunity for some of the the more technical, strings within engineering.

A And how do you see that engineering experience showing up in your role at Indigo River now?

C So I think just by default of my career path of working, you know, as a construction manager for a self perform contractor, understanding some of the basics of, you know, engineering principles and, again, working as a, you know, with a design engineering firm, there is a certain efficiency and rationale and logic in working with engineers. But, again, I I I find myself often challenging or reframing questions through the lens of an architect. So if if nothing else, it's given me it's certainly given me empathy to talk to contractors, to talk to engineers, to understand where they're coming from, and also the vocabulary to do so efficiently and and quickly as well as the relationships to pick up the phone and call a contractor and say, hey. This is a condition I haven't encountered. Like, this is what I'm thinking. What would you do without, you know, going through, you know, concept development, design schematic design development, and then sharing it with contractors. Having some of those relationships, again, in a niche field of waterfront architecture, waterfront construction, they are very specialized. And so having developed some of those relationships can shortcut and and become, you know, a very valuable have become a very valuable investment.

A I'm really curious. So civil engineering, when I think of civil engineering, I would I would think of like the site conditions. But again, my brain is jumping to earth and not water. And so I was wondering how much of your education when you studied civil engineering focused at all on water or focused on that transition between earth and water?

C Yeah. No. That's that's a great question because, yeah, civil engineering, a lot of people don't understand what that umbrella covers. And if you look at even just the disciplines that were born out of civil engineering because we can, yeah, go back in time, and there was an engineer, and then there were, you know, a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer. And out of civil engineer, there were several fields born, which include the the marine engineering, the coastal engineering, the structural engineering, geotechnical. All of those are civil environmental. All of those were born out of civil, which some some of which have kind of rise to the same level as civil engineering, but they were born out of, you know, finding opportunities for specialties. And so when I talk about my civil engineering experience, it is broad in that I worked on a lot of heavy civil infrastructure.

C I worked on bridges. I worked on roadways. I worked on ferry terminals, and those are different pieces if you think of just the infrastructure that you encounter on a daily basis in a city and the, you know, the sidewalks and the the whether it's a bulkhead or whatever those built forms are in the urban environment that aren't a skyscraper, which obviously have engineering components to it, but just the the fabric of our city, much of that city is designed at some level through civil engineering. And so just, again, I've I've talked about kind of specialization within architecture and whether or not we should have specialists in architecture. I've obviously leaned into waterfront as a specialty of my own. But even considering civil architecture of, you know, there's urban planners and there's there are different areas where there are specialists within parallel fields, but the civil to me really stitches well together with a lot of our different municipalities and initiatives that they take on.

B So I wanna circle back to this full question of entrepreneurship and obviously starting up Indigo River, the idea of going into a specialized niche. I think, you know, most people would be hesitant to go into a specialized niche, but here you are growing the thriving practice with a lot more people than I ever thought you would have to support in the Go River. What has that entrepreneurship journey been like for you? How do you identify, like, who you need next on your team and your further growth in in the future?

C So some of it, we we plan for areas where we're looking to grow, and some of it is, you know, areas where we've already been awarded work and we just we don't have the internal bandwidth to complete, but we have a lot of backlog in a particular area of expertise. And so sometimes it's looking for more redundancy within the team just to increase, you know, expand and extend what our productivity can be. But I would say is the first part of your question about, yeah, specialists or generalists, and and I feel like that's a very polarizing topic within architecture because I when I talk about specialists within the profession, I'm not foregoing that we all still need to be generalists. What I mean when I talk about specialists is if we look at have you ever talked about, you know, t shaped specialists, and and they have a kind of a wide breadth of knowledge? But then, also so you can think about that on a horizontal axis that there's a wide breadth of knowledge. But then on the vertical, you can think of the depth of knowledge. And so I would say, by and large, engineers are typically like an eye. They don't have a wide breadth of knowledge, but they have a very deep focus and a deep area of knowledge. And I feel like, as architects, we continue to have the wide breadth and know how how to relate different pieces back to the overall big picture.

C But whether it's t shaped or or pie shaped or, you know, cone shaped, there are a lot of different opportunities for architects to become to have deeper areas of knowledge and still tie it back to the breadth of knowledge and the width of, you know, areas of different expertise. And so looking at, yeah, historically, what what architects did and what they do now again, I don't wanna use it as harden, but it seems like a lost opportunity that we've given up opportunities to other areas to kind of come in and scoop out and carve out scope that historically was ours. So, yeah, the Renaissance architect did, you know, everything, and then, you know, engineering got carved out and then construction got carved out and fine. But even within what we, you know, today know as architecture, I do argue that, by and large, landscape architecture is born out of architecture, urban planning, design thinking, sustainability consultants, resiliency consultants, interior designers, community stakeholder engagement specialists. Like, all of these things to me are architecture, but there have been ways that have been presented that you no longer need to go get an architecture degree to practice in some of these areas, but there still is value in specializing to me in these areas as an architect. And so I I don't argue that they're they're not valid. They are absolutely valid. They are worthy of specialization.

C But hiring a an interior designer or hiring a sustainability consultant that is only that is limiting the potential and the potential for positive impact just by way of how we think as architects and what we're licensed to do in terms of protecting health, safety, and welfare of of the public. I feel like there is opportunity to further develop and further advance and further specialize in some of these areas as well as many others.

A I wanna bring it back to this area of expertise that you've built around climate adaptation. You are thinking about resiliency. You're working in and around New York City where the emphasis on climate action is pretty significant in the country. And you're also probably deep in conversations about sea level rise. What can you tell our listeners? What do architects need to know about climate adaptation and resiliency in relationship to the waterfront? What what's the latest in this space?

C Sure. And that's that's actually a very exciting question at this moment in time because we're we are working on some exciting code actually for for waterfront architecture, for waterfront construction. And maybe I'll start by kind of clarifying, you know, under climate adaptation, there are different measures that can be taken. And most broadly, we can talk about sustainability and carbon emissions or resiliency and what their relationship is to each other. And I would say, by and large, working on the waterfront, both are important. Don't get me wrong. But by and large, when we're working on the waterfront, we're looking more to design with a resilient mindset.

B And, again, just quickly, the the

C difference between sustainability and resiliency, set. And, again, just quickly, the the difference between sustainability and resiliency, sustainability is looking at mankind's impact on the environment, whether or not what we're doing is sustainable. Whereas resiliency is the inverse of that, and we're looking at nature's impact on the man made. And so we talk about natural disasters and and different impacts of, you know, nature, different hazard systems, and what vulnerabilities our built infrastructure has. And so when we design, we're looking to design with a resilient mindset because even if you design sustainably and you have the lowest carbon footprint and it's, you know, a very lean build and it's sustainable, if it's not resilient and it's wiped out in a short period of time, you know, lesser than what the design intent and the design life was intended to be, it's not sustainable because you have to rebuild it. And so kind of the the relationship of the 2 But what I I mentioned about, you know, the waterfront code, New York City, historically, you know, we have a department of building code for buildings. There hasn't been a waterfront code. And so there is in the last couple years, there's been a spotlight put on the need for waterfront code, and AECOM was awarded the contract.

C We are a specialty subject matter expert for for writing this code. And, particularly, the discussion around sea level rise is a heated one because as designers and particularly as an architect, the opportunity and tying it to welfare of the public and not today's public, but as I mentioned, infrastructure projects are sometimes, you know, it's 10 years of design and 10 years of construction, and it's, you know, another generation that's actually gonna be the end user of this infrastructure, we have to understand that sea level rise is a site condition, and it's a changing site condition. And so if we design to what our code outlines, which code in general is backwards looking, there's, you know, a hazard, there's an incident, we update our code to match, you know, what's happened. But within sea level rise and the climate changing in general, we're experiencing new norms that are unprecedented and haven't occurred before, and they're more strenuous and more extreme than ever before. And even just the mindset of taking into consideration climate projections, climate science, That isn't fact. It's a projection. But if nothing else, we know these extremes to be more like, you know, these hazard events to be more extreme than they were before. And so talking through, you know, what is how how does that reflect in a code that we're writing today about the waterfront that is, you know, a a vulnerable typology, a vulnerable condition? It has a dynamic changing site constraint that is the sea level and what that means for built infrastructure, especially if it's fixed or even if it's floating.

C It's been a very dynamic conversation around, you know, what do we feel is right to do, but also what are the implications of that? So I will argue all day long that we should be taking into account, you know, projected sea level rise, the science, just if for no other reason than we know whatever we project happens to become exceeded in a very short period of time, and so we should be looking forward and not backwards. I mean, it's the same with our legal system. Everything is based on precedent. We're looking at, you know, what happened to dictate what is today. And I think within the design world, that's a really dangerous constraint to only look at what has happened to dictate what we can do today, which will become our future. And so that's, yeah, polarizing topic even just within within the profession and whether you're on the regulatory side or on the design side. But but, furthermore, just understanding that there are implications, and we we talk about, you know, there's zoning code. There's regulation.

C There is height restrictions, and we talk about what those, you know, view corridors can be. And that's that's code. That's law. Right? Well, there's also new flood maps, and there's rising sea level horizon. So now if you had a site where you could build, you know, 20 feet high, let's just say, but now you also have another body coming in and saying, oh, you can't build that low. Your envelope of what you can reasonably build is shrinking. And so either the codes have to change or the property valuations are changing. So it's a very dynamic environment to be having some of these conversations that have a lot of consequences downstream that are shaping, certainly, you know, the the economic climate as well.

C And so it's not a simple answer, but it is a important discussion. And we are having it, and I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of the code with regard specifically to sea level rise knowing that there are some hot buttons and there are there is also pushback on, you know, what we can enforce and what we can tie it to even if it is an outside source that we're pointing to, what that source is and how frequently it will change and what the implications of that change will be on, you know, if nothing else, the economics of the site and the viability of whatever the buildings are, the infrastructure is being designed, what the return on investment is. So there yeah. There are a lot of lot of different ways we can go in answering that.

A Yeah. No. That's great. And I agree with you about the projections. I mean, what I do remember about working on those projects in the Bay Area is that the regulatory bodies basically had implemented that the design along the shoreline required us to look at projections. I believe it was 50 year and a 100 year flood lines for sea level rise. So I think that it is changing how you can design along the waterfront at least in the Bay Area, and I think there's definitely other areas in the country that are exploring that as well with increased hurricanes and water rise and all kinds of constraints that we now have to think about. To close out this episode, I wanted to bring it back to this amazingly unique path that you've carved out in your career.

A You're kind of one of a kind. What advice would you give to someone else who's on this journey of trying to figure out their identity, where they fit in the profession, and trying to move towards something that feels aligned with who they are and the impact that they're trying to make on the world?

C So, I mean, my lessons learned and what's helped me along the way is certainly not self limiting, understanding that every choice that we have has a consequence and has parameters around it. And so looking for ways to keep optionality open, but, also, being patient, understanding that timing is everything, at the same time, understanding that you'll never feel ready. And so there is kind of a fake it till you make it that you can push yourself out of your comfort zone to, you know, surround yourself with with supportive people and people who will support you along your journey, both personally and professionally, and continue investing in relationships because they become more and more valuable over time. And so even if it's you know, I think about when I was a field engineer 20 years ago on a site, there's still laborers and foremen and superintendents and contractors that I will pick up the phone and call from those early relationships that, at the time, I had no idea how meaningful or how valuable they would be later in my career. And so even if you can't predict, you know, your trajectory or or direction even, understanding that we are a culture that has relationships, and there's value in those relationships, and there's value in investing and maintaining those relationships for whatever your career will be.

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