Architecture, And: Creative Director Obiekwe Okolo

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, startup advisor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're a seasoned architect or just starting in the field, this podcast 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 diving into the intersection of architecture, visual storytelling, and creative direction with Obi Okwe Okolo, also known as Obi. Obi is a Nigerian American photographer, multimedia artist, and the creative director at Bittersweet Creative. He also serves as the arts and culture editor for Bittersweet Monthly, where he explores the power of narrative and design to drive meaningful dialogue.

A Obi's journey started in architecture, but his curiosity led him to portraiture, documentary photography and writing. Fields where he continues to explore identity, culture and the reconciliation of humanity. His work spans exhibitions, publications and community driven creative initiatives, showcasing a unique blend of artistic vision and strategic leadership. In this conversation, we unpack what it means to transition from architecture into creative direction, how his architectural education influences his work, and the value architects bring to creative industries beyond traditional practice. We'll also discuss the future of creative professions in the age of AI and his insights for those considering unconventional career paths. Let's get into it. Hello, Obi. Welcome to the show.

A We're so glad to have you on Practice Disrupted.

B I'm so glad to be here.

A It's been a while. You and I were talking about kind of when we first met, and you are a past AIAS vice president. What is interesting to me, probably less less interesting to all of you, is how many past presidents and vice presidents have actually gone in on to stay within their profession or go on on to pursue a new career. We don't have to go all the way that far back in your history if you don't want to. But I'd love for you to talk about a little bit about what you did or what you are doing today, and then maybe we might back into it from there.

B Yeah. So today, I am a practicing artist and a creative director for a full service creative agency called Bittersweet Creative. We also have a nonprofit storytelling arm and media company called Bittersweet Monthly and a product and publishing company called Bittersweet Collective that we publish books and create fun, sort of hope orienting products through. So I wear a lot of hats in that sense. I guess that thing has not changed and maybe will never change. But, yeah, that's what I'm currently doing.

A I think a lot of people have an idea of what a creative director is or does. Can you give us your definition if it's easiest to take you through a day in the life of whatever's easiest to understand.

B The day in the life is shockingly unsexy, but fun. I I think the best way to define it is sort of, for me at least, is how I came to the definition of myself, which was from architecture. I I kind of always joke that it's not joke. This is real. I would never trade my architecture education for anything, but I would have really loved to know earlier all that that education could have afforded me and given me access to. Because when I decided to leave the profession and looked at at the landscape and looked at the things that I loved to do, I knew I loved storytelling. I've always been more interested in translating architecture for the public than I was in practicing it for myself. I've always loved narrative.

B I've always loved photography and sort of the the interplay of all of these different mediums to connect humanity to itself. And in looking at that landscape of my interests and skill sets, I kind of sort of discovered this title of creative director and realized pretty quickly that all I was doing was the thing I was taught to do in architecture school, which is to take a concept that is just an idea and then make sure that creative concept and that creative idea speaks the same language or is communicated from master plan to doorknob. That's functionally what I think an architect does outside of, you know, compliance and all the other stuff that exists, but the work of the design craft of architecture is taking an idea and seeing it through a scale. And that's functionally what I do every day as a creative director. I come in at the beginning, and we have these ideas, these concepts, these schematics. The clients ask us to develop for them, and then the next ask is to help them see it through and make sure that at scale, at human scale, at customer scale, that same idea is still felt. And I think that's kinda what a creative practice does.

A So you just talked a little bit about how and you never wanted to practice architecture, but you wanted to be at a a place where you could potentially tell stories, stories of architecture. Obviously, you're telling stories about a lot of different things. Now what was that transition like for you to kind of realize that you don't wanna practice in a traditional sense? And what was the search for then? What was next?

B Yeah. I think I I it started early. I think my junior year of high school was was the first time that actually it was noticed in me by a professor, Mark Blizzard, who I believe is still teaching at University of Texas in San Antonio. But he sort of just noted during a critique that the way that I I was the way that I presented my work was a lot less about the technical space and what the space was and a lot more about sort of what the space evoked and what the human experience would be in the space, which UTSA is a very, construction forward technical design program. So it I think that probably stood out in in that pool of people. I wasn't super interested in in sort of drawing or crafting or building details. I wasn't super interested in in systems at all. It really, for me, just kind of began and end in in the human experience in the building.

B So junior year is probably when I first started to sort of like, oh, this maybe is not what I wanna do forever as at least as it was presented. And then senior year, I served as staff director for AIS and was elected into the AIS VP position. And that just gave me this, like, 10,000 foot view of the entire profession, and that was when it sort of began to start to codify for me. Because what I was seeing was that much of the profession, the places where I would end up most immediately would require me to sacrifice that part of myself that was really interested in this sort of human sensual sensory experience in space and how to create that and cultivate that and curate that. And I just was bored, with the idea of not doing that. So fortunately, my AISVP tenure gave me a year to kind of make a salary, have a job, and and not have to practice architecture and continue to discover. And I got to stare at architecture a lot in that time and engage with practitioners. I was also on the ACSA board through my sort of board position with AIAS, so I got to look back at the education to, like, confirm that what I was feeling now is what I was sort of seeing then, whether I knew it or not.

B It very much did confirm it. So as I'm looking back and looking forward in this AI VP position, I was like, okay. Cool. I know pretty clearly that I don't I don't necessarily wanna go there. But you know? And it kinda became my accidental purview and rally cry. While I was in my my tenure, there was a lot of conversation about the alternative career paths. I think that was the word we were using at the time. I don't know if that's still there.

B But that kind of became my accidental rally cry, and I was sort of the guy who was just, like, stumpspeaching that over and over and over again. And the more that I talked about it, it seemed the less people cared to hear about it. And I I was just really, you know, selfishly trying to make a place for myself when when I was all done with this. So that's kinda what I was doing, and that didn't really take hold. So I left the VP position. The next logical step was to go into a firm because you don't wanna waste all the relationships and the contacts that you've made. So I did that. Joined the firm OPX here in Deep DC in DuPont Circle.

B And it was a sort of a workplace strategy architecture, A and E firm. And did that and did the conventional sort of, like, associate or design associate or whatever design or whatever the title is thing for about six months and then approached my boss and said, hey. We don't really have a marketing team. One of the other partners is doing it basically by himself. And I was like, I think I could be really good at that. Let me do that instead. And he said, yeah. Let's let's let's rock that because there was a need.

B So I rebranded the the studio. I redesigned the website. I basically was handed the keys to the city to this, like, I think now 30 year old firm or something and got to flex a lot of muscles that I never really used before. I also rebranded AIAS while I was there. So, like, that was my first experience of, like, creating creative directing for for a full brand. So I got to flex that muscle again, and then I was sort of, like, hooked. I was like, yeah. I wanna I wanna do this.

B I want to design I wanna design capital d. I don't want it architect capital a. And I kinda never turned back after doing that for OPX for about another six months, maybe eight months. I think I was at OPX for, like, fifteen, fourteen months total, so time's weird. But I, again, approached my boss, and he was like, I don't know if you really wanna be here. And I had sort of started taking up some small clients and small side design work at the time. And I was like, you know what? I don't think I do either. And he was like, well, how about we pay you to leave? So I was like, oh.

B I think there was some some interest to the firm at the time as well too because, you know, things are slowing down a little bit. So got let go, and that sort of thrust me into entrepreneurship and starting my own design shop here in DC. And I kind of made myself a creative director because there was no one else to do it.

A So I'm looking at your LinkedIn, and you ended up is yours truly hotel? Do you wanna even talk about that at all? Or

B Yeah. I'd love to talk about that. It is a painful story, but also a really sort of fruitful and an important piece of the narrative here. I had cut my teeth as sort of a independent practitioner or entrepreneur, whatever you wanna call it, in the hospitality space in DC, restaurants and hotels. And one of my clients was Johnny Sparrow, who has a restaurant in Georgetown called Reverie. And my wife and I used to spend a lot of time my then girlfriend, Nawa. And I used to spend a lot of time at Reverie, and I would oftentimes just work from the restaurant during prep because I loved him. I loved the restaurant space and ethos and the energy, and it was very creative for me.

B So, one day, I'm sitting we're sitting at the bar, and we're sitting next to, this gentleman named Kirk Kellaway. And we're just talking as we often do, and I think our bartender that night was Susie. And we were friends with her, so we're talking to Susie. And Kirk overhears this conversation, leans over and asks me just a bunch of questions about DC and DC scene. And then he eventually asked me for my email address. I I give my email address. And then within, like, a week week later or so, he emails me and effectively offers me a job as the creative and culture director for Brookfield Hospitality, specifically to open a new hotel property in a city called Yours Truly, which was set to open March of twenty twenty. So after much angst about whether or not I wanted to have a boss again, I had been wild and free running wild and free for, you know, seven, six years at this point and had made a really fun life for myself and really loved where I was.

B So it was a lot of a lot of conversations. And, ultimately, I said yes, for a lot of reasons. It was an incredible playground, another sort of, like, key to the city conversation where this is a major investment private equity ownership group that is just branching into hospitality for the first time. I guess, for the second time, technically. And they were saying, you know, you're someone who's working the city in the creative space. What do you think the city needs creatively? How do you make that in the living room condition in a hotel? And so it was designing programming, which is my sort of first foray into that. And, fortunately, not my last. It was my foray back into space and architecture, weirdly enough, because we had just they had effectively just began sort of yeah.

B They just sort of began making the space what they wanted to, and I got to speak into that a lot. Working with a firm out of Chicago and called Simien Simone Naidiri. And then, yeah, long story short, we're moving. We're chugging along. Everything's going really well. I'm learning new skills. I'm meeting new people. I've built out my team, which is the first time that I've had a team of people.

B I was sort of wrapped into the food and beverage department. So we're hiring staff. We're hiring and we're training. And then March rolls around. I wanna say, like, March 11, I came in. And or no. March 12, I came in, and they let us know we were gonna be laying off the entire staff. So got called in to do that.

B That was my first sort of, like, you're a leader now. You get to do the ugly stuff too. So that sucked. And then March 13, all the directors came in and they let us know that we would also be laid off. Yeah. That's the year's true story.

A But now you're, bittersweet creative. So it I mean, it's interesting to me how you you did this all entrepreneur thing so successfully. And you actually found, at least when I was watching you through all of our social media connections, a lot of different sources of revenue, be it working with brands on their own or even doing your own art and showing your art and may and maybe even a few commissions along the way. So what made you want to go back to working for a company? What was so compelling about Bittersweet?

B It was the ethos and the culture of Bittersweet and then also the life stage of I've I proved to myself that I can do it by myself. And then I kinda felt like I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it with other people. That felt just as important to me. And one cannot forsake the value of security in a every two weeks paycheck that you don't have to find under a rock somewhere. It just comes to you. So, yeah, I think a combination of all of those things, it had to be bittersweet. It wasn't gonna be anywhere else. It was time.

B And I I also one of the things I don't tell you about being an entrepreneur is that you don't have the built in mechanism of professional development. You have to go find it, And it can be really hard to find mentors, natural natural peers who are ahead of you or at different professional stages. And I was reaching that point where I was like, alright. Cool. Again, I know what I can do by myself, but what can I do with a team? And, yeah, the time was right.

A And how, I guess, how has your role evolved and grown over time at Bittersweet? It's it seems like the company itself keeps evolving and growing. So

B It does. So my my joining was was sort of a a pivot, like a not not not to say that I evolved it, but the time I joined and the reason I joined was sort of a pivotal evolution moment for the company. And it started with, as it often does, my now boss then friend, Kate still friend, by the way. Now boss and friend then just friend. Kate asked me if I would be willing to rebrand Bittersweet. It was her project. It was about eleven years old at that point, I think. Or maybe that was the ten year anniversary, and it was just time.

B And I said yes because this was 2019 '20 sorry. This is 2020, and everything was hard and money wasn't coming in. So I rebranded Bittersweet. That's where we started, which is a wonderful exercise. As I did that, I discovered really what it was fully. So I was sort of, like, investigating for the process and also for myself. After that process finished, she asked me if I stick around part time just to do some, you know, creative consulting and and direction work for for clients her clients and their clients. And I said, yeah.

B That sounds great. Again, a little bit more security at a very insecure time. And then she offered me the job, and she offered me the job with a caveat that was a huge ego check. And it and it I I say that now because I see it for what it was now. At the time, I was really kind of hurt and confused and afraid. But she asked me to come on full time, and then she asked me that if I would come on full time as a creative manager. And, again, like, I hadn't really I told I gave myself a creative director title. No one ever gave it to me.

B I didn't, you know, quote, unquote, I I think I had earned it, but I had it hadn't been externally validated by the marketplace, if you will. So I came home to to my wife, Maggie, and I was like, this is what she wants. This is ridiculous. I've been doing this. Look at my portfolio, this, that, and the third. And I don't remember exactly what Maggie said, but the conversation very much deescalated. And basically, it was just like, look, dude. You've never she doesn't know you from Adam to make you a director of her company.

B Sorry. She doesn't know you professionally from Adam to make you a director of her company on day one, you know, in a very insecure time for the entire market. That's just a silly notion. And and also, you know, you're you're at that point, I was 28. It's like you're 28. Like, you know, you got it you got you got so much cap. Like, where where are you going, kid? And it kinda was just a very humbling moment. I don't think she did it to humble at me.

B I think she did it because it was what was right for the company. And I and I think she knew at some level that it was what was right for me. But yeah. So I took that, and I I did did the best I could with that and and did it well. And, you know, another thing I love about Bittersweet is the understanding that sort of the whole person is who you're hiring. So there's understanding from day one that any of the work that I do outside of Bittersweet is is sort of serving my creative work within Bittersweet as well, which is a nice freedom to have. But yeah.

A And now you've officially earned the title.

B Now, you know, three years, five years in no. Two years in, I earned the title, and and we're rocking. So yeah.

A Why don't you talk a little bit about I mean, you alluded just now to the things that you do outside of bittersweet. And I kind of I like individuals like yourself because I truly believe it's hard for any one job to fulfill all the many things that individuals are passionate about anyways, especially from a creative standpoint. So what are you doing outside of Dursuit?

B Who? What am I doing outside? Okay. So I just for the last three years, I've been host of a creative community here in DC called Creative Mornings. It's about a three ish, four ish thousand person sort of creative volunteer community. Can't get away from volunteering, apparently. The k I s a I a bug thing that, you know, forever in us. So I've been the host for that for the last three years. I just handed over to our new host. I'm very excited about being able to pass the baton.

B It's a global network. And yeah. So I I got to sort of I had the fun task of bringing us back after the pandemic. Learned a lot lot of fun. I also am practicing my own work, doing a lot of writing. My work is sort of multimedia in that I do, you know, photography, photo manipulation, analog photography, and writing. So I just wrapped up a residency with Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and a show, a one month exhibition. I had another show earlier this year.

B My wife and one of our best friends and I also sort of curate and produce galleries around the city. We had one in February called grandma's house. And then, you know, a more quiet project that I'm working on is starting up a coffee company with two friends of mine who are also artists. That is gonna be really, really interesting. So

A Amazing. Is it brick and mortar too in addition to the, like, coffee product? You're saying you're like, no. No. No. No.

B Thank you. Commercial real estate in DC is a no go for me.

A I just didn't know if you had the any of the architecture bug in the back in you to

B Oh, it's so in me. It's not it's not going anywhere. I want to so badly. Like, I've got I've got a concept I'm working on right now in my head that I'm probably gonna start off kind of doing in our living room and in our kitchen just because, like, I I wanna work with space. I wanna work in space. I still I still love space. You know, as a lot of our clients are talking about fully virtual events, I'm the one saying absolutely not. It's never gonna work.

B It's I don't care how virtual or fun your event. I don't care what box of stuff you ship to your staff members across the country to make it more fun. It's not going to work the same way. I'm still very much a big fan of space. What I'm not a fan of is a city where, you know, the average commercial real estate costs $32 a square foot because that is just an anvil strapped to your ankles when you're doing business, and it makes it near impossible to build a sustainable business. So until I'm in a place where that number has changed or an economic season where DC doesn't look like that, I don't think, brick and mortar is is in the future. I've done it already too in this space. I've had a I've had a studio in the city twice now.

B I was involved in a project 2021 called The Twelve, one of the a developer and and sort of approached myself and a dear friend, Lori, about they're basically giving us a twenty twenty two hundred square foot space to do whatever we wanted with, and we sort of came together with 12 artists and activated it for a full year, as a retail gallery experience, gathering space, third place city living room thing. So, yeah, I love it. I love space, but until it's possible, it's not possible.

A Enjoying the show? Join a community of fellow disruptors at practiceofarchitecture.com/community. Your membership helps support the production of this podcast, Practice Disrupted, and funds the creation of more resources for all of you. Looking forward to growing together. Join us today at practiceofarchitecture.com/community. I wanna go back and investigate your perspective as an entrepreneur a little bit. I individuals that are starting younger than me. I feel like I'm like on the older why should we frame that? In tech, I feel old. In architecture, I still feel to be on the younger side of it.

A So but I see a lot of people even mid career earlier in architecture, especially a lot of moms or new dads looking to start families and wanting additional flexibility and believing that the best way to go out and do that is through entrepreneurship and by starting their own thing. What are some things that you thought were helpful to you having an architecture background and going into entrepreneurship? And what are some things that you wish you would have known before starting off on your own journey?

B I wish I had known everything. No. Helpful. Let's start with helpful. Helpful was I think we have a unique craft or a unique skill because of our craft, where we're not afraid of the blank sheet of paper. We are really good and are really well equipped to start from scratch, I think. And that is so valuable because not only, you know, day one of deciding you're gonna do this thing, are you starting from scratch, but in the process, you're going to have to kill your darling a number of times and start from scratch. And that was never hard.

B It never felt hard. I think this is also something that's a little bit wired to me. But I think paired with that sort of skill set of starting from scratch, it made me even less risk averse. I'm a lot more risk tolerant because I kind of I knew you know, if you think of any sort of architecture project or studio project, the the canvas or the tracing paper or whatever the the blank medium is, it starts off blank and then you fill it. And then even if you have to scrap it, you're not scrapping everything. You're still picking up pieces of what you put down on the first piece of paper and it it just needs to be put away for a second. So knowing that the the paper will always be filled again is is a level of risk tolerance, I think, was a little bit a little bit DNA, but also a lot of bit trained in the architecture trade and craft. Other things that helped a lot it's weird to say this because I actually don't think I got this from like, I can't I can't put my hand on, like, where this came from, but there's a certain sense of, like, business acumen that exists in architecture kind of just, like, osmotically that felt like I I had.

B But, again, I say that, but I understand that, like, one of the things that oftentimes people criticize of of the architecture education is that, like, there's not enough of that. But somehow, I got enough of it to be foolish enough to think that I could go start my own business, you know, with just a little bit help from YouTube or whatever. So I think that was helpful. Things I wish I'd learned more about or things I wish I'd known more, the business side. No. I'm just gonna contradict myself. I wish I'd known more of that. I learned by doing.

B I learned by making mistakes. I wish I'd I had an understanding of business scale also.

A Can you explain a little bit more about that? Because I feel like when you say scale on an architect's podcast and architects think about scale, it's very different than when entrepreneurs, business people think about scale.

B Yeah. You know, there's a make or break, and this was the moment I knew I needed to hang up my hang up the hang up the entrepreneur reigns. At least it's hard owning my own thing for a minute. There's a moment where you have to decide whether you're gonna grow or not. Like, if you're if you want more work, you need to bring on a partner or you need to hire. And there's something and maybe this is I've been because I wasn't in the profession for long enough to have seen this, but certainly, it wasn't taught to me. You know, you sort of learn about and and observe all of these firms kind of as scale, like, with scale agnostic lenses. You know? Like, there's a certain level of to the student being educated in architecture and even to, like, the early practitioner, Lake Plater architects in in San Antonio and Austin is the same size as Payette in Boston, like, in your mind.

B Like, when you look at the work, you have no idea what, like, size those people or those companies are. And even, you know I don't know. Again, I'm completely out of the loop here, so forgive me if, like, the star architect conversation is not still being had in the profession. But at the time, you know, there was still the single the single genius of the architect. And so you hear these names, and you don't register that, like, these names have hundreds of people behind them, hundreds of employees. And so the sense of scale as far as what it looks like to make a business work, make a business last was completely off. And having a a better sense of that would have helped quite a bit. And then also and and I I realized this pretty pretty quickly, so I don't necessarily feel like I missed it.

B But I've watched a lot of my colleagues and friends who have since left the profession. I've watched them have to cultivate this from themselves and gotten to be a part of helping some of them cultivate it. But one of the things that I think we leave on the table is just the superpower that is our architecture education. And, like, that thing that's one of the things I think I wish I had known more of. It's like, oh, here's what I'm actually learning. Like, yeah, the the the outcome is a building, but that's not what I'm learning. That learned knowledge can be applied to a lot of different outcomes all across the marketplace, and it's extremely valuable. That's the bit that I wish I had known even more, even as someone who picked who picked up on that pretty quickly.

A I would love to get your opinion on what you have to say to the naysayers who come in and say, I need my architecture graduates to know how to put together a construction documentation set relative to what you found most valuable in architecture education.

B I would ask them if they see a a future profession that has enough jobs to sustain such a specialized skill set. If the profession needs more architects, then, yeah, then that's what you need your graduates to do. If the profession doesn't need more architects, honestly, and can't sustain more architects, then you've gotta equip your graduates to do something more than just build. Because at at for in education, and I know this, having talked to hundreds of educators, everything you teach, you you fail to teach something else. For everything you add, you're subtracting something else. So we're playing this game of an unnecessary thing. We have to figure out what is the most valuable thing to equipped equip every graduate with. But that decision needs to be made based on a lot of factors.

B And one of them is, you know, the the value of the knowledge set. You know, I don't know if this is the case now, but at the time and I realized it pretty quickly after I left. And by pretty quickly, I mean, within the first year. I outearned myself the first year working for myself. I wasn't even, like, going anywhere else. Just, like, I I significantly out earned myself. So then you asked, okay. Cool.

B What is the market value of learning how to, you know, make these construction documents? And can that be taught somewhere else? Can that actually be taught in in a in a firm context?

A Well, the irony of that is right then, like, I feel like those people were honestly brought up in a more apprenticed practice. So are we supposed to be learning that in school, or are we supposed to be learning that on the job is all is also kind of my point of view, and EXP hours have to go somewhere.

B Yeah. And I think we would be doing architecture a disservice if we just turned into a trade school. And I say that as someone who is is like, one, has high respect for the trades, and two, has a lot of criticism to say about the profession. But I do think that to turn the education purely into a trade education is leaving a lot of what a design education is on the table and relegating that to other places like art schools, which, again, super valuable. The maybe that's the the place that design needs to live and not necessarily an art culture. It needs to live in art now because that's where the questions are being asked in a way that society and culture needs them to be asked. But I just think we have time to not do that. Like, we don't have to do it.

B We don't have to do that.

A Has your perspective on alternative careers changed or grown at all? You continue your love of space, but, like, has that narrative for you changed at all?

B Not not really. I I still I would still advise any any student or or young practitioner to to keep an ear out for their own internal voices and the things that are telling them what they love and what they enjoy, and then to keep an eye out on the marketplace for the places where those voices can live and live happily and live and flourish. I think that there is again, like, you don't have to look very far to find all the examples of people who have used our skill sets in some remarkable ways. And part I think one of the the one of the things that the the fears that I encountered a lot with talking to older professionals when I was effectively a child. I was just, like, 23 being like, I don't wanna do something different, which is fine. But, you know, the fear was, like, if everybody's, you know, everybody pursues alternative practice, right, we won't have any more architects. I'm like, that's just not true. That's just not correct.

B There are there are people whose whose hearts and eyes and life flourishes in the practicing of architecture, capital a, with a license. And I know those people I can name them. I came up with them. They're still friends of mine. But to assume that all of us are those people, that's just not fair. And to create a condition that is hostile towards those of us who are not those people is also not fair and not great. And I use that word hostile on purpose because I found it hostile while I was there. Not to mention that if we look at the people who are and this is, you know, not to get into it too much, but this is another sort of factor of the alternative practice model the alternative practice conversation.

B The people who there's the internal desire of, like, I just wanna do something different. There's something more. There's something different, bigger, whatever. Then there's the sort of market desire of, I can't get paid enough doing architecture. And unfortunately, the people who are saying that often are people coming from low income families, people who are brown and black, and people who are women. So if we're creating a hostile environment for the idea of alternative practice and and we if we're creating institutions that aren't willing to embrace and provide opportunities in development, in leadership, in exposure to those people, then we're also inherently creating a hostile environment for low income people from low income backgrounds, brown and black people, and women. That Venn diagram is damn near a circle. So we've gotta ask you know, you can't have one conversation without having I I found that you couldn't have one conversation without having another one.

A No. I agree. And I'm right there with you on the alternative career track. What I've actually found interesting is now that I am older in my career and further along and have gone on this path, I find a lot of even mid to late career professionals asking me, like, Evelyn, I've stayed in architecture too long. How do I make the transition now?

B What do you say to them?

A I I help them as best I I can. Well, I like, one, I I feel like everybody thinks it's such a hard move away. And I think that we are holding on to things that we shouldn't be holding on to, like, right, the time that we've committed, the time that we've committed our life to practice already, the credentials that we went through and the, the money we paid for that extra year in school and for, you know, however number of ARE exams that you had to take to earn that title. We're holding on to the fact that we we did so much work to earn the title. How could we ever think about leaving the profession? But if it's not where you're happy, and my my hope is that people are truly pursuing things that they're happy and passionate about, then that's a conversation that I think everyone should be open to.

B I think so. I think that that it you know, it's I've I've, again, like I said, come to a point where I'm also getting phone calls and messages from friends who are who have been in and are are looking out. And I think part of it is, you know, unfortunately, it's an exposure conversation. You you mentioned, like, you know, the sunk cost of time or the sunk cost fallacy, I should say, of time lost. And, again, like, I wouldn't I wouldn't do it differently. I would not get a different degree. I would not get a different education. I would not practice differently.

B I'd you know, I learned and use everything that I've learned on a daily, daily, daily basis. The credentials are proof of concept for anyone else hiring. They might not understand the credential, but they see it and they know that it means something. But part of the challenges, you know, in in the places where we learn how to architect, we don't see anything else. And even when, like, people are invited to this, I think about, like, AIA conferences in the past. Like, to make it on a prominent stage of AIA con, not a not as an architect, you've gotta be Michelle Obama, which is a really high bar. You know? Like, it's either, like, gonna be some Starkitect or some, like, award winning, you know, architecture, capital a architect, or Michelle Obama. And that's tough.

B A lot of people aren't Michelle Obama and have a lot of valuable things to say to a room full of architects or ways to inspire, ways to engage. And it's really kind of bummer to see that that is still sort of in some ways being left on the table.

A Well, and I think there's also that mentioned back to what you were talking about this hostile environment. Right? That if you leave the profession, you are considered less than two. So

B Core core memory, and I won't name a name, but I had a older black architect who was approximate to me and I would sort of say a budding mentor. And this was at a hotel hotel lobby in in Boston at an ACSA board meeting or something. And I I I sort of mentioned in conversation sort of with a group of other people that after my sort of AIES year, I was planning on exploring some other career path. And I I basically said I I knew at that point that I was probably never gonna get my license. And his response to me was that I was quandering the sacrifices of every black architect who fought for me to get where I am. And I'll never forget how small I felt in that moment and how much shame I felt in that moment. And that was, for me, the moment that solidified that I was not going to do this thing. Because it told me that unless I fit this mold, a very specific idea of what architecture and architect was, that I was never actually gonna be accepted in this community.

B And it sort of validated everything that I had felt and sensed up to that point. And that was it. So hostile really is. And I don't know that I've ever said hostile before out loud, but it it did feel really hostile the entire time that I was in it knowing that I didn't wanna be or knowing that it it didn't wanna accept me for for what I was and wanted to be.

A So what I mean, you just asked me, what do I say to people? Like, what is what is your advice to people who that want to get out and and do something else? And and how do they begin that journey?

B Yeah. I usually say it's not binary. It's not all or nothing. You don't have to do it all tomorrow. You can you can dabble and you can you can experiment and you can discover. I think one of the one of the things that and this isn't just architecture. We don't wanna vilify architecture. One of the things that the working world does to us is the second we come out of a studio or a pedagogy, we stop we stop being curious and we stop experimenting.

B We stop trying. We stop failing. And it becomes about, you know, security for security's sake. And a lot of people do have things to be secure for, families, children. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I usually just encourage people just to try, to start, to try something, whatever that something is. I there are few she doesn't know this. Maybe she does.

B But one of the people that I'm current constantly inspired by is Amy Amy Perenchio. Amy was the AIS president. God. I don't even know when. Before me. Generally speaking, before me. And, you know, one day, a number of years ago, I sort of was, like, bopping around Instagram, and Instagram was like, oh, you should follow Annie Parentia. And I followed her in her Instagram and realized at the moment or at that time that she was making her own clothes.

B Still an architect, still practicing, but designing and making and sewing her own clothes. And when I tell you that her stuff is so impressive I'm not talking just, like, you know, clothes as a means of covering the skin and nothing else. Like, she's designing fashion and then sitting at her dining room table and her studio and making these pieces, but still fully practicing. Things like that are really inspiring because, I mean, the I I again, she has no idea. But I definitely see a world where she could wake up tomorrow and be like, you know what? I'm a hang up this other thing. I don't take this thing up. I could do this whole time now. I can because she sort of experimented it and started with a passion that she just explored.

B So I I usually tell people it's not a binary. It's not this or that. It doesn't have to be at least. You don't actually have to take the leap. And that's another thing of false, like, unfortunate false narrative that we we put on entrepreneurship is just like, jump. It's no. It's okay. Sometimes there's stairs.

B Like, sometimes it's a slide. It doesn't have to be a full free fall and hope that the net's there.

A So what is your hope? Because you you still love space. You obviously still have a love for for architecture and the background it provided you in crafting who you are today and what you do as a creative director. What's your hope for the future of practice if it could be in a better place in five to ten years from now?

B Yeah. That's a really good question. I struggle because I stopped desiring anything for the profession about eight years ago. So because, again, like, it just it wasn't a place that wanted me. So, like, why would I waste my energy on that place? And I I feel that. I I don't know why I feel the same the the feel compelled to say that again. But if I can think back to, you know, what 24 or five year old OE would have wanted and project that ten years into the future, twenty years into the future, I'm gonna give two answers, and they're gonna negate each other. On one hand, I would love to see a more sort of holistic and accepting profession.

B I would love to see a profession that was not afraid to invite people into the room who are simply high level appreciators and valuers of architecture in the work, even if they've never practiced a single day of of their lives. I'd love to see a profession engage in and lead discussions about topics and spaces that deeply that are extremely tangential to architecture. There's a lot of conversations happening about third space and hospitality right now. Cities are suffering for a lack of third space and public space, and I still see a lot of other trades and and associations owning those conversations that we could be a part of or we could host at least. I don't think anyone that owns these conversations, but hosting these conversations. I'd love to see that. I'd love to see a less ego driven profession because that I still know is is still part of the part of the equation there. And on the others on the other hand, my other answer is maybe maybe architecture is not supposed to be any of those things.

B Maybe and this is after coming to it and and not desiring anything for the profession for for for a while now. Maybe I was asking this thing to be something that it was never meant to be and was never going to be. And that's also probably maybe okay in the long run. There will always be Evelyn's and and OB's and, you know yeah. They're they're always gonna be those people, and they'll always find their place somewhere else. And maybe it's okay that we sort of are kick started by architecture, but not necessarily sustained. Maybe that's fine. And that that I say that now after lots of years of therapy and being able to let go of the person that I thought I was supposed to be.

B And just be like, hey. You know what? It's cool. I started here. I didn't finish here. I'm grateful for for for here. I'm grateful for architecture, and maybe that's all. Maybe that's okay.

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 practiceofarchitecture.com/podcast. Be a part of the conversation by joining me, our speakers, and other disruptors in our community at practiceofarchitecture.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.