2024 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award Honoree Douglas Ito, FAIA

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted, a podcast where we find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects. I'm your host, Evelyn Li, an architect who spans tech as an angel investor, start up advisor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're a seasoned architect or just starting in the field, this podcast is your gateway to think differently about the role architects play within our global community. Hello, disruptors. Welcome to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted. Today, we're honored to interview Douglas Ito, FAIA, the 2024 recipient of the AIA Whitney M Young Junior Honor Award. Douglas is a managing member of SMR Architects in Seattle, Washington, and he has an outstanding legacy in the architectural world, particularly in affordable housing. As the past president of AIA Washington Council and someone who has previously served on numerous committees for both AIA Washington Council and AIA Seattle.

A Douglas's dedication to design excellence is evident in the many accolades his work has earned, including the 2020 AIA HUD Secretary's Housing Accessibility Alan J. Rothman award, and the 2021 Urban Land Institute's Jack Kemp Excellence in Affordable and Workforce Housing Chairman's award. Douglas has made a tremendous impact creating over 2,800 units of affordable housing, including 1300 units dedicated to permanent supportive housing for vulnerable populations. His work not only addresses the urgent need for housing, but also confronts the racial, social, and political injustices that persist in our communities. In this episode, we'll dive into Douglas's career, his approach to architecture and his advocacy for housing equity. Stay tuned for an inspiring conversation on all of that and his view on the future of practice. Hi, Douglas. Thank you so much for joining us and taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us here today.

B Great. It's great to be able to talk to you.

A We are here to celebrate you, and you winning the Whitney Young Junior or being, you know, the honoree of the Whitney m Young Junior Award for 2024. So I like to do a little bit of an icebreaker. You kind of did. So thank you for that. But even more of a little icebreaker, is there anything that you're looking forward to in the in the near future, either personally or professionally?

B Professionally, you know, I hope that the Whitney Award can be a useful open door for communication outside of the AIA because I think, you know, the AIA does a really good job about preaching to the choir. We architects can talk to other architects about diversity. We can talk to everybody about climate change. We can talk to everybody about all sorts of things that really we are interested in and impact us. However, we do a very, very poor, poor job about talking to politicians, to the general public, to any number of people out there who and and there was another video that the AI took that has me saying that, oh, architects, we save lives. Because everybody just thinks we make pretty buildings and that's all we do. They don't understand the nuances and all the things that we actually are responsible for legally, like life safety and making sure that all of our all the sub consultants are working together to create a building. They just think, oh, we come in the end when the contractor's ready and we just kinda put in some windows and make it pretty.

B And politicians, you know, when I go talk to legislators, that's what they think. So they always go to a contractor to ask questions about design or anything else. You know, you go to the general public and you talk to them when you're doing presentation, that's what they think you do. And I think there's a long history of that, that architects are the taste makers, which thankfully we are to some degree, but we are also people who are professional and are responsible for a huge number of things that people just don't understand.

A I I mean, I we could go a lot deeper into that one. I would say it doesn't help that our websites just show pictures of pretty buildings and not even go into the making of those buildings. Sometimes it and the community outreach that a lot of, you know, affordable multifamily affordable housing covers. But before we go there, I would like to know more about you as, as a person. So is there anything not in your formal bio that you would like to share about Douglas Ito, the, I don't know, maybe even the non architect?

B Well, one thing that I've been doing that is sort of non architecture that I've been interested in is I have co founded a non profit called ESAN Bellevue which is a non profit set up to talk about and showcase the Japanese, the JA community in Bellevue, Washington. And that's where my grandfather settled as a pioneer in the late 19th century and where we have, my family has, like, history there. So it's it's about Bellevue and the JA community there, but it's also touches on the incarceration that happened in the forties during World War 2. And it's a hub and spoke type project where we have 1 we'll have 1 large center art piece with other things that go around Bellevue that talk about the JA community there. But the centerpiece would be a social justice piece that talks about, Never Again Now, which talks to incarceration and how that cannot happen again, especially given after 911, everybody wanted to it was so so close to, the government, you know, rounding up Arab Americans and putting them in camps. Very similar to what happened in World War 2. Also, you know, the immigration situation that we have and people putting people in detention. I mean, there's so there's a lot of things that touch every day in what happened in World War 2.

B So it's it's a bigger bigger picture sort of touch on that whole situation.

A I think then we have to have another conversation that I wasn't planning on and we probably can't cover in this hour about just like how you manage time and having a family of your own and running a firm and the energy to then come up and support the nonprofit organization. So so anything else that you'd like to share about your your background before we dive in a little deeper?

B I think the other thing that I hope that Whitney does is give other young architects an idea that if you are a person of color, if you're Asian American, that you can also be a firm leader and do social justice work and go out and, you know, participate in the AIA or just go down to legislator and legislature and make your voice heard. I mean, it's not common to find that in society. So hopefully it like I said, I hope these that the award can open those doors for people.

A I think you are definitely getting ahead of the questions that I had, which is perfectly fine. Don't be hard on yourself. But I would love to go to the beginning, of your story and becoming an architect. Do you have a defining moment in your mind where like, I wanna be an architect? Or was this something that came to you over time?

B So in high school, I went to public school, public high school, and there was a teacher, John Livingston, who, was very much, I think he was, somebody who wanted to be an architect and didn't become one and was a school teacher. And in high school, he is in the humanities program and somehow everything he taught circled back to architecture in some way. And I think he wanted all his students to become architects. And that was something that got implanted into my head. And I also took a lot of fine art drawing classes and things like that in school and they were all like, oh, yeah, you should go to college and you should do fine arts.

A And I'm like, well, yeah, but I don't think I

B can make any money doing fine arts.

A To be So why not architecture? Yeah. Yeah.

B Why not architecture where you can't maybe make no money? So so in high school, I thought, yeah, I think architecture is gonna be the thing I try to do. So then getting into college, went to the UW. I, of course, having dutiful, strong Asian parents thought education was the best thing in the world and they'd pay for it. So thank I mean, so much privilege from that, which I kind of took advantage of because I went 7 years undergrad full time and took like all sorts of classes that I wanted to take like Italian and drawing classes. And I took every architecture class I could take without going into the major before that. Then I got into it. And then at the University of Washington, there was a professor, Michael Pyatok, who also does affordable housing. And his name is huge for affordable housing throughout the country, and he taught at the UW.

B And so I took a number of courses from him. And, you know, that actually versus, oh, I'm gonna do some high I mean, I like design. There's nothing wrong with high design, but how can high design and and affordable housing cross paths is something I tried to do and try to get our staff to do. But, you know, at the time, it was hard to understand how a house that is hanging off of a cliff would cost, you know, multi multi 1,000,000 of dollars had any sort of social resonance with me. So I gravitated toward Michael's classes and understanding of what I could do in the future. And then after school, I started working at, SMR Architects, which was a firm in Seattle that had just started doing affordable housing. And I kind of never left and became one of the owners and and that is being an owner lets you have some leeway on having personal things that you can do sometimes even though I still have to be billable.

A I would love to get into, you know, how SMR Architects has allowed you to grow over your career a little bit later. When did the social justice and kind of activists voice come to you? And I and I say this from a perspective as a fellow Asian American. So I'm 1st generation, you know, and I was very much, you know, raised under everything that falls under the auspices of the model minority, right, keep my head down, hard work, everything essentially related to assimilation, which ultimately is a as a quiet voice. So when did you find your voice in this?

B I think the world in which I work in and which our firm does obviously has a lot of social justice minded developers, owners of of nonprofits that all come into play. I think early in my career, it was a long time ago, so there wasn't a whole lot out there to do. People I don't think architects in general did anything that linked to housing or social justice advocacy. But as I grew in the firm, as I grew in just in the profession, opportunities opened up. Thankfully, the 2 founding partners, Gerry Stickney and Ron Murphy, at our firm had left space open for anyone in the office to go onto a board if they were asked or wanted to do it. So that was, I think, a huge thing that helped elevate my consciousness on what I could do, and it was kind of more personal than office, but they were all linked to what we are doing in the office. So housing social justice was was there and that's what I kind of fell into in a lot of ways. A lot of things for a lot of people are it just seems like, oh, happenstance.

B Like, oh, I've been asked to be on this board or whatever. And you don't know if it's because of the work you've done or because of other things you've done that you may be asked. And I think once you get on to that path, if you get on a board and you understand and you do the right thing on a board and people understand that when they ask you to do something, you do it just like any job, that you'll be asked for other boards. And then it's I have this horrible problem of saying yes to things. So you get on more boards and but like I said, thankfully the firm was always very open to it. In a lot of ways, you know, it is somewhat marketing because you get to see all your clients, other things, but also you can't do that kind of work without actually believing it. So I think one of the things that from that I really, really want to make sure that staff that we have currently are able to get a seat on a board or get into that sort of pathway. If they choose not to, that's fine too.

B But there are people who we are now at a size and kind of the type of work we do. The people who come to our firm wanna do affordable housing and wanna do some social good. Some of them want to just do that and some of them actually want to do more. And so we keep we do keep that pathway open to staff to say, hey, if you want to do this, we can we can help you and try to make it less so that it, like, pops out of nowhere that we we can try to guide them on the way, and we're here to advise them on things as they, have their own journeys.

A In my own professional career, like I am grateful for all the doors that opened to me that that not only opened to me, but others held open and kind of pushed me through in my own leadership. So I appreciate kind of you sharing that that was an an opportunity that helped you also find find your voice and kind of give you give you permission to have that as well.

B It's also a thing where I under I really do understand the whole, like, assimilation. I mean, I present very much as a, you know, I don't have an accent. I don't, you know, I I present as I I think, anyway, in my mind that if you didn't see me, no one would know that I'm Asian American or whatever. I have very Seattle accent, whatever, you know. And but as I'm actually a 1st and third generation, my mom's from Japan and my dad is from Bellevue, I can understand in Asian culture in America is all about assimilation, especially for the JA community because of the war. My dad was very you know, after that, it was very much you will do x because that's what's expected of you. You know, they sent me to a church even though I they did not go. They found somebody to take me to a nice Episcopal church.

B They, you know, they school is where you're gonna go and that's what you're gonna do. And there are things that I do currently that are probably, linked to that ingrained sort of mentality that my parents put on me. Like, oddly, I wear a tie every day to the office. And it's Seattle and West Coast, so no one wears a tie. But so I guess I'm not just gonna fall into the background, but I do it for a couple of reasons. I do it, 1, it is the standardized sort of idea of somebody who knows what they're doing. So I started it because when I had to go on a job site, I am a short somewhat chubby Asian American who has sort of no real presence on a job site. And so I wanted to make sure that the contractor knew that I was the one who was gonna tell them no.

B To redo it or do whatever they needed to do. And it was amazing how much a tie and a dress shirt did on-site. So I figured I'll just wear a tie every day.

A It's funny. I have similar stories. I did a lot of k through 12 schools when I was first out of out of school. I would be surveying a high school and, you know, the teachers would be asking me if I have my hall pass to be out of class, using the bathroom. So I definitely I definitely changed my attire after that. And I felt in Orange County, California, similarly, I felt overdressed compared to my peers, but it was, in my head, kind of a bit of a necessity for me to be able to establish my not only my own confidence, but to ensure that people don't mistake me for a high schooler. So yeah.

B Yeah. And it's the other thing is, you know, like, as an Asian American, what I see now is so many in our firm and other places, like, I'm just gonna sit, you know, on the side, on the back row. And I'm always telling people, especially job meetings, especially other meetings, it's like, especially if you're a person of color, especially if you're a woman, no. Get your butt up to the table. You need to be at the table because people won't know why you're there or anything else. They just think you're the person carrying the drawings or something like that. You need you have a voice. You need to be at the table.

B And if you're there first, take the prime spot at the table because you need to push yourself into that position or you're not gonna feel comfortable in it later on. So you need to do that. And, you know, that is the a real hard thing, I think, especially for kids coming out of pandemic. The newest generation of kids that are coming out, they they don't see the the social interaction piece of it. The everything about your career, about business, about everything else is about relationships. And you need to set the tone for those relationships, especially in construction site that you aren't the one gonna be walked over. And it's hard when you're a person of color or you're gay or you're a woman. So, you know, you need to do some subtle, messaging.

A I love all the storytelling that you're doing. I I wanna talk about the the Whitney Young Junior Award, though. And what was your story about learning about the award and then and then pursuing the award?

B I heard about and knew about Whitney Young a while ago, maybe 10 years ago. It didn't connect to me that there was an award named after him, but I knew about his speech, I knew about his civil justice work, etcetera. I was thinking about going for fellowship and then just generally looking through all these awards that the AI has out there on their site, which is great, and I came across Whitney and Young. I was like, oh what's this? So I looked at it and the interesting thing is in the blurb about the Whitney m Young, it does say affordable housing. And if you go through his speech that he gave to the AIA in Portland, a big chunk of it was calling out architects for doing crappy job for affordable housing for the people who need housing the most. So when I read affordable housing, I thought, well, you know, that does talk to what I do in our firm and what I do personally and, you know, social justice work and it's very topic du jour these days. You know, affordable housing is a problem not just in Seattle, not just in San Francisco or New York or Chicago. It is an issue everywhere.

B Small cities are having the same issue. And there's a lot of talk about it politically at every level of government. And so I thought, well, you know, if the AIA was interested in this crisis, the affordable housing crisis that, you know, I might have a chance of doing it. So I thought, well, I'll go for that. And so I did.

A Obviously, there's a very strong connection between behind your background and what you're doing in affordable housing and and the speech itself. And you talked a little bit more a little bit about what you would hope the recognition of of, you know, being a recipient of this award would do for Asian Americans and then for younger, younger architects and, you know, those that are interested in having a strong voice in, in social justice. Is there anything else that you would hope that you winning this award will inspire not only in future generations, but even current, like mid career architects?

B You know, I think the importance of the Whitney isn't that every architect should necessarily have to go into social justice work or go into doing affordable housing or any of that. It is that even if you're doing work that isn't that, that you have a voice and if you have a conscience that leads you to social justice, racial justice, housing justice, that you still have a voice and can make that known to people. And I wanna emphasize outside of architecture because it does no good to talk about it to other architects. I'm sorry about I know this podcast goes out to architects, but No.

A I mean, it's it's called practice disrupted. So it's about disrupting the the status quo. So absolutely. Yes.

B You know, it is, you know, when, housing levy is in your area to go out and make your voice heard. If there is some issue about Black Lives Matter, you should go out there and make your voice heard. Now I understand how the AIA as a membership organization, because I've been on boards of many membership organizations now, sometimes cannot make a radical voice heard as the, quote, AIA. However, you personally, as a citizen of this country, have every right to go out and talk to your politicians that represent you, to other groups that want to hear your voice, to make it known. The benefit of being an architect is there's a huge cache that comes with being an architect of being a sort of sound voice of reason on so many things. So when an architect can come out and say, this is wrong, we need to do more for housing, we need to do more for racial justice, black lives do matter, That is a huge thing that we have in our pocket that we need to use more and more individually, not just as an organization.

A So the flip side to that is and and I'm just playing the devil's advocate, is a lot of people say that architecture is not political. Do you believe architecture to be political, or do you believe architects should have a more political voice? And is there a distinction between the 2?

B Yeah. It's a tough question. And and and it's one of those questions that, like I said, it is at the crux of so many membership organizations. Even conservative organizations like the master builders or something like that have liberal and conservative voices within the membership. Even a membership organization about affordable housing have completely potentially different views about affordable housing and how it should in particular, when money comes to play, how money should be allocated. So organizationally, I can see having some qualms about going too political. However, if 95% of your organization believes in a cause or a social justice outcome or anything else, maybe you should actually step up to the plate and make a comment and not have 5 years of debate before you do to do that and it becomes irrelevant. Because, you know, maybe the 5% that say are against you, maybe they don't belong in the organization anymore.

B Just say

A you. I'm gonna leave that one alone. But I'm more interested in in your take as the Whitney M Young Junior Award organizations aside, I guess, do you believe that that architecture is inherently political?

B Oh, I think architecture can be very political, very political. You look at Nazi Germany, the buildings they built for civic use, for the government to tell people what they should think, I think is extremely political. I think when architects are told that they shouldn't do something because it's it looks one way or the other. I think it's also can be very political. I think people use a lot of things that are not architecture to try to change, the built environment, but it affects us. And we could push back more on that. Like, people use the code a lot of times, which is what we do all the time is use the code, but they use that code to it's not necessarily architecture, but it's people who use the code and other things for, you know, NIMBYs who don't want something in their neighborhood because of those people. I think the buildings themselves are not that political, but the purpose for those buildings is very political sometimes.

B And for you to be an architect and not have a stance if you're doing that work is wrong. If you don't believe in doing that work, you shouldn't take out work. And that's not necessarily political, but if your political beliefs don't align with social justice work that a organization or a developer or an owner wants to have, then there's something wrong with that equation, either with the developer hiring you or with you doing it just because you want the money.

A That I can definitely get on board with. I wanna talk about your lengthy stay SMR architects. Only because I feel like it's, it's unusual to find an individual these days that have stayed their entire career in one place. And we change a lot over time too, as individuals. And I think a lot of movement between firms is often an unwillingness to accommodate for that change over time. So I I'm interested in hearing about, like, how how SMR has supported your career growth in a way that you felt was productive to to the goals that and aspirations that you set for your for yourself.

B I think for me to land at SMR, I was extremely lucky in that the firm was there and able to and understood that my career path and growth could go along with the firm. When I started at SMR, it was very small. It was Sticky and Murphy Architects. It was very small, maybe, you know, 8 people. And now we're at 39. So I was able to grow with that firm. I think if I had gone to a 200 person firm, it's a completely different trajectory because you're just kind of a cog. And you're not you're not an individual who somebody could mentor or understand how their their wants and desires for architecture can align with the firm's wants and desires for everything.

B So I think I was incredibly lucky. I think I understand that, you know, a lot of people coming out of school are jumping around because, 1, money. I mean, completely understandable that jumping from firm to firm might get you more money, but the staying at one firm, if it's a good firm, allows you to learn everything you need to do to if you wanna go into leadership because without the support of the firm, you can't get into leadership. Going back to the whole, you know, Asian thing, it's a lot easier to become less risky to become a leader within a firm and become a leader and be at the top of the pile, right, than going off on your own. Going off on your own risky could be very financially scary. So, you know, the stability of being able to stay at a firm if you're a you know, you also have to be a really good worker. You have to have some talent. You have to know what you want to do.

B You have to be able to push, leadership to say this is, you know, what I want and how it benefits the firm. There's a lot of stuff staying in a firm allows you to do if you are set up for it. Jumping around, you might not learn all the things you need to do until you settle into a job that you feel comfortable in and that you feel like you can advance in. So I think, like, if I had gone to a a really big firm, I think I would have lost out on a lot of things.

A So let's let's talk about leadership and mentorship. And this is like a moment where I wish I had Janine with me back on as co host. But, you know, one of the things that we've always experienced is that there's there's not a lot of emphasis on on leadership development, even even within firms, because you learn by doing and you learn from the people in front of you and the culture and the architecture industry isn't that just very generically the definition of of how leaders lead within the industry is, is not necessarily a great one, especially for someone who has stepped into other industries like tech and like was at one of, I truly believe one of the best companies to work for during the pandemic because of the leadership team that was in place. So how does SMR architects develop that leadership? And then simultaneously, you know, what what has that changed look like? You talked about, like, the next generation coming out of the pandemic and and helping those individuals find their voice too.

B So at our firm, we really want to make sure we develop well rounded architects. So you come in as an EP. We wanna make sure that you understand that we don't want you just to, you know, do tile details for a bathroom for 4 years in a row. We want you to, you know, we will bring you to job meetings. We'll bring you to an owner's meeting where we're discussing design. We wanna have and we understand that, you know, there's a lot of boring in architecture. We wanna let you have some fun. So let you design something.

B Like, okay. Here's a it may be at the beginning of traction enclosure, but it may also be something like the office layout or something else that you can get your teeth into and get some ownership of so that you can build what you need in architecture. So or, like, if a small project comes in, like, a TI or something small, we will if you've been here a little while, just to get you into understanding what an architect does and a project manager does, those small projects have every piece of the pie as a $20,000,000 project. But risk is low for the individuals doing it and for the firm. So it's like, hey. You. Do you wanna take this project? You know, it's a small project. It would be just you, principal, and you doing it.

B We want you you know, we think you have that You you're at the point where you can take that on, and you will learn from that. And, you know, we so we try to build them into understanding all the facets that happen in our in a in a project, in in a firm. And then we do have things where, you know, we send them to training for project management and things like that. But also in Seattle, there's the housing development consortium who has a leadership development program. We send them through to that, a lot of our staff. So because leadership is about, like I said earlier, it's about relationships and networking. So they go there. They are in leadership with a training program with young developers, young contractors, young

A Your future partners and clients. Yeah.

B Exactly. So they can start building the base of network that they need to move on in their career whether it's here hopefully or other places. And we understand that that, you know, has some risk in that. People move and do other things. But it's, you know, if they don't get some taste of it, they'd miss out. The earlier, the better. And when they have that, they though that's when those things start to potentially fall into place. Like, their network grows.

B They mature in the field. They have friends who then are in leadership in something else, and they ask, hey. Did you we recommended you to be on a board, and then we're able to then allow them to be on the board, which also increases their network and their, you know, their ability to get work or to talk about SMR or any number of things. So, you know, it's all it's not about holding on to this precious commodity of leadership. We wanna have everybody start lifting up because the more everybody's lifting up in the firm, the better the firm can be. So, I mean, there are rainmakers. It's always gonna be the case. But if everybody thinks that everybody in the firm is doing great work, then, you know, there's nothing wrong with that.

B We see this leadership in our firm as well as the affordable housing community. So we wanna make sure that it's all out there. I mean, we just had somebody in our office who we would have loved to stay here and be a fabulous architect and could have been great. Got snatched away by an affordable housing developer to be a developer for a while because they're having difficulty finding developers. So they thought, well, this person's great. They know the the field. They know what's going on. And that person thought, well, opportunity.

B They may come back to us. They may come back to architecture with that knowledge base that helps us out if they come back here. So,

A you know, it's all it's all good. Thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate it. I mean, those thoughts humanize you, I think, right, every leader wants to be putting time and commitment into future leaders in the hopes that they obviously often stay, but knowing that they might leave, and I think that shouldn't stop us from putting those resources behind those those individuals.

B The other thing that I've done on all the boards that I've been on has been not necessary for the firm because all the boards I've been on, I've tried and have been successful at bringing on not only emerging professionals or architects, but within whatever the field it is, that each board should bring on, like, 2 or 3 junior members of the community at large to be on their on the board so their voices are known, so to be more relevant. In particular, at AIA Washington Council, we started the board associates program where we bring 2 emerging professional people from Washington State to be on our board. Tammy and I worked really hard to get that started. I think as a cohort, we have 3 every year and we don't just say, oh, you're on the board, you know. We are there to mentor them, talk to them. Hopefully, you know, Tammy is able to, when we have the money, to send them to convention or to leadership in the AIA so they can get that piece of leadership as well at a very young age. They you know, through that, we can get them onto YAF or any number of other things that hopefully will benefit and help them in their careers overall. So that's more of a general thing.

B And then at AI Washington Council, we've started SMR Architects and AI Washington Council have started a scholarship program for, emerging professional or people 1st year students in either college and or community colleges or trade schools where because in Washington you can go into architecture through a different method. You don't have to be masters of architecture to get it. So it's our way of trying to encourage people to go into architecture and in particular it's a diversity scholarship. So it's about diversity and if you're BIPOC or LGBTQ or any number of things, you have to self identify your diversity and why you deserve this scholarship. It's not a huge amount of money, but we you know, it was important for us to start that conversation and getting diversity in. And as part of that scholarship also comes with mentorship from AIU Washington Council board members or whoever is involved with it. They can always come to us and ask us questions about their career, questions about school, any number of things. So it's all about, you know, different levels of mentorship in different career paths and where they are in becoming an architect.

B It was I mean, that's a huge focus for me to make sure that, you know, we can, like, Jedi. It's great. But when you look at the demographics, you know, the other Whitney Award winners have said, okay. Yeah. 60 1960 whatever when Whitney m Young Junior was, talking about it. The number of black architects in the AIA was, like, 2%, and it's still the same. So there hasn't been any change, but unless you tell people that this is a path they could take, why would they take it? They can be, you know if you're a recent immigrant, if you're black, if you're anyone in the world and you're smart, are you gonna go into tech and try to make $500,000 a year? Are you gonna be a doctor? Are you gonna be a lawyer, you know, professionally? Or are you gonna be an architect? And architects do okay, but it's not that. So, you know, what what can we do to tell young people that architecture is a great profession when they're looking at the money? You know, there are other things that architecture does for you.

A I mean, that that's my bucket too. Right? On I mean, honestly, yes. Yes. I think we should be encouraging people to look beyond their money. And actually, I'm very hopeful that Gen z is doing that. But also, how do we make architecture profession and practice and even our business model, one that encourages more people to stay and is equally competitive with the tech industry. So that that doesn't become a that's a non decision to me.

B But I think currently, it's a tough one.

A It is. It's one that I made.

B Yeah. But if you're if you're got your parents have paid for or you've clawed through scholarships and financial aid to take on the huge amount of money that you have to do to be a master's of architecture. You know, the they have to pay that off. I mean, it's a huge potential debt for anybody. And I feel like, thankfully, I didn't have the financial issues because my dutiful parents. But it's it puts people, you know, 10 steps back because financially coming out of school, they're hamstrung. So there has to be something else. And how can we, as a profession, tell people, young people that, hey.

B There's something here more than a pretty building. Right? There's something you can do. I think I agree with you that the next generation coming out of school want to do work that's meaningful. There's always gonna be the ones who wanna do a skyscraper or, you know, some glorious mansion somewhere. There's always that. But I think there were always people who are like, I wanna do something more than that, and I think they just have to open their eyes to other, you know, look at firms and see what they're doing. And if there's something that talks to them, whether it's affordable housing, whether it's education or anything else that they think that they can feel like they're doing good in the world as well as having a profession. I think it's a huge thing that the AIA should espouse to the younger generation.

A So we've talked a lot about the firm and yourself and your background leading up to being the Whitney Young Junior Award winner or honoree for 2024. What are some of your favorite moments that you've had in your career that keep you motivated as an architect?

B I think there's a, like, really any one thing. I mean, I think one of the things that is a huge thing for people to understand is architecture is actually fun. It is a profession. I know there's some crappy parts to it, but generally, you are doing something you love to do. So it's not like work. It's not like I come to work where it's just a drudge and I'm just doing it to earn money so I can retire and get out and then have fun. Designing buildings is is a cool thing and it's fun and you get to do it as a profession and make money at it. So once you become a business owner, that's a whole different thing, but then there's some fun and some not fun parts of that.

B But generally speaking, going into architecture is fun and and you can make it more impactful for yourself to make it feel like you're doing something good, and it makes it more fun. And, I mean, there it's great when a building opens up. It's great when you land a project. But those are like blips on the sort of like on the way of just regular work that you do. I mean, there are times when you get to see somebody that is in one of your buildings that has is so grateful that they're able to have a place to live, that they're not living on the street, in the doorway, in a tent. And that's very, very fulfilling. But we do affordable housing, so that it's not that I'm jaded to it, but it is part of why I'm doing this work. So, you know, it is very fulfilling when that happens, but it isn't something that's like a peak that, you know, this is I want that to happen every day, so it's not the the peak.

B You know, winning the Whitney and going out of the stage was and getting peer recognition for what you do is is always something that I'll remember. And it's great to have that peer recognition, and it does stand out because, you know, when you're sitting on the stage and there's 10,000 people there, it's different. I've been at conferences and since I've been board presidents and stuff, you have a 1,000 people maybe, but 10,000 is is big. And so it will it will stand out in my mind as something as a highlight, I should say, I guess.

A You've talked and I'm super grateful that you're talking about a lot about the future of the profession, emerging professionals and holding and holding them up. What advice do you have for the next generation of architects who do want to be louder within our communities as as you have kind of encouraged people to do throughout this conversation?

B If you're an emerging professional, you should always just ask about, like, ask ask the principles in your firm like, hey, I want to join this committee on the AIA or there's the AIA is doing legislative outreach day and I think that would be really interesting for me because I'm interested in architecture and what politically happens. Or, you know, I I think if you see something where there's a bunch of nimby's out there who are like, we don't want this affordable housing, senior affordable housing project or any other affordable housing project in this neighborhood to, you know, log on to some blog. And, I mean, you could be somewhat anonymous too. Just, you know, put put your voice out there. It's not always about screaming into a microphone. It's, you know, a lot of small voices can work equally as one really obnoxious loud one like mine.

A Hi, disruptors. Thank you for joining us today on an episode of Practice Disrupted. If you like the content for today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practice of architecture.com/podcast. Be a part of the conversation by joining me, our speakers, and other disruptors in our community at practice of architecture.com/community. Our social media handle is practice of arch. That's practice of a r c h. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello. Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.