Amortizing Your Value: A New Model for How Architects Add Value

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted, a podcast exploring how architects can build better businesses, embrace emerging technology, and create more sustainable, fulfilling practices. I'm your host, Evelyn Lee, architect, angel investor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're running a firm, starting your career, or reimagining what's possible, this podcast challenges you to think differently about the future of architecture. The built environment is changing fast. If you want to be one of the people leading that change rather than responding to it, Join me this summer for Innovation in the Built Environment, a professional intensive from the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Learn more@beradicallybetter.com that's B E R A D I C A L L Y B E T T E R R. Hello Disruptors. Welcome back to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted.

A This season we have been exploring what it actually means to transform a practice, not just describe it. And one of the threads running through nearly every conversation is the architects doing the most interesting work are often the ones who refuse to follow the most obvious path. Today's guest is a case study in that William Dodge grew up 50ft from a tobacco field in eastern North Carolina. He applied to architecture school four times. He moved to the tiny island nation of Malta at 19 because he thought Y2K might end civilization and figured he would rather ride that out in the Mediterranean. He took out trash and recycling as a janitor at NC State Libraries, overheard someone complaining that Snohetta couldn't deliver the wayfinding maps they needed and said he would do it. That wayfinding project got him in front of the Chancellor of the university, and within three years he was a principal

B at a major firm.

A He went on to help transform Hanbury's North Carolina office from two people and no work to 49 hires in 49 months and 2.5 billion worth of projects. Then he left because he made himself unnecessary. Which turned out to be exactly the point. Today, William is founder and design principal at Public co founder of the Public art practice A Gang of Three and a consulting principal to firms across multiple continents, working as an on contract senior partner to firm leaders who need someone who has actually done the thing before. Let's get into the conversation.

B Hi William, welcome to Practice Disrupted. We're so happy to have you here.

C Thanks for having me. It's a cool opportunity. I listen to your podcast all the time.

D Actually, I listen to your podcast before I even knew you, which I think is really interesting.

C So it's like a full circle.

B Oh well, thank you for that. So I think one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on is I've been talking a lot more about portfolio careers and what it means to build a portfolio career, and you've assembled quite an interesting one. But why don't we start with how you got into architecture and go from. From there? Because we always start with the same beginnings.

D Yeah, I mean, so I grew up. I mean, I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, but I moved to Greenville, North Carolina, which is in eastern North

C Carolina, when I was little. I mean, like, I think preschool.

D And I grew up about 50ft from a tobacco field in eastern North Carolina. So for me, like, the closest thing

C to architecture we had was, like, the cool tobacco barns in my youth.

D And I love those buildings.

C They're amazing. I wish people would make more of an effort to save them.

D But I wasn't necessarily surrounded by design excellence or architecture. Right. And then when I was in eighth grade, I moved back to Raleigh and befriended a woman.

C Well, a girl at the time, now

D a woman, my friend Laura Harmon, whose

C father, Frank Harmon's, one of the most preeminent architects in the southeast United States.

D And kind of started going over there and hanging out with her and.

C And it was my first exposure to really, lieutenant like a fantastic architecture, really amazing space.

D And I just started thinking more and more about, you know, how unusual that was in North Carolina, and particularly my experience in North Carolina, and how such kind of spaces and places and thinking

C might be able to positively impact society.

D That's the main reason why I went into architecture. I never had grand illusions that I was going to make a lot of money or design houses for rich people

C or do skyscrapers or anything. I just really wanted to help people, and I thought it was a good way to do it.

B And I think what's really interesting is, so your path immediately starts from architecture school applications in a unique way. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that journey?

D Yeah. So it was funny. I was not the best student. I was bad at math and spelling. I couldn't.

C Because I was terrible at science. I couldn't draw at all.

D So I always joke that, like, my. My path to architecture was, like, pretty obvious. I was either gonna, like, become an

C architecture person or, like, become, like, a bank robber.

D There's really not really any thing in between. But I applied to architecture school four times before they eventually let me in. And then they kicked me out twice. And now they asked me for money and to hire their students. It's funny how that works. Started undergrad at NC State and then started getting a little bit of wanderlust. So I ended up applying for directly

C to University of Malta when I was 19. This would have been in 1999.

D And so I ended up going to this tiny little island nation of Malta for two years and then ended up coming back.

C And when I came back, that's that a lot of that coursework didn't transfer. So I ended up creating my own major which was a multidisciplinary studies degree

D which at the time was really hard to find a job with, but in hindsight was a really gave me a lot of really interesting perspective. And ultimately I ended up applying for

C and finishing my master's at NC State.

D But then when I was graduating there was nobody hiring in America. I had actually, I think I applied for over, I think the final count that I, I actually stopped counting, but

C it was over 300 jobs.

D And I did get offered a job in Idaho Falls, Idaho and I was married at the time. My stepdaughter was 14 and they had a pitch to me was get your car in the family and come out here.

C And I was like, wow, I really

D want to go out there and see it first. You know, I don't want to move

C my family out to Idaho Falls without leasing. And they said, well, we don't have

D any money for that.

C And I said, what do you mean?

D They said, this is the only job in America. You can either have it or not.

C I got 200 other people that are really interested in this job. And I was like, I can't do that to my family.

D So I turned down this opportunity that you know, ultimately was the right decision because I ended up getting the job

C that changed my life shortly thereafter, which was a janitor at NC State Libraries,

D which was a pretty interesting experience. I ended up finding myself working on

C this exhibition design at NC State. They were looking for a part time exhibition designer and I worked on that and I finished that.

D And it had become pretty tight with

C all the people at NC State Libraries at the time.

D And it was right when they were building Hunt Library. The snow had a award winning Hunt Library and they wanted to keep me around but there weren't any jobs except

C for this facilities maintenance technician job. Told me that and I said I'll take it.

D And I said, you know what that is? I said I have no idea.

C They said, I said that doesn't matter

D man, I need a job. And he said it's a janitor. And I was like, well that's cool, I'll do that. So I Took out trash and recycling for four or five months. And then it was pretty interesting because one time I overheard them complaining about

C the fact that they couldn't get snow headed to design the wayfinding maps for Hunt Library, right?

D And then I mentioned to them, I'll do it.

C And they said, really, janitor Guy, you'll do this?

D And I said, yeah, and it'll be so beautiful you use them 15 years from now. And they looked at me and started laughing. And they asked me. They gave me. They said, well, what do you charge us? And at the time, I'm making $9 an hour. I was like, I don't know, 25 bucks an hour, thinking that was, like, really high. And they were like, oh, my God, that's it.

C And I was like, oh, Jesus.

D I just left a lot of money on the table, right? They were like, here's. Here's 100 bucks. Give us four hours of your time. Let's see what you got. And so I did the wayfinding maps

C for the mezzanine level of Hunt Library. And they were like, this is amazing.

D Like, we love this. And I was like, I know you would. I told you you would. And they said, well, send us that file. We're going to go give a big,

C big presentation at university.

D I can send you the file, and if I do that, it's just a still image. But if I go and give the presentation, like, I built a digital model

C to make this stuff, and then I can fly them around the digital model

D and talk about all the different uses that you can use this digital model for, like, interactive room reservation system, or, you know, you can fly through the building virtually or whatever.

C And they said, you don't mind doing that? I said, I don't.

D I don't care.

C I mean, that is a steal for

B a hundred dollars there.

D Yeah. Yeah. So they said, well, I ended up getting paid more to do the whole project that was just this one one. So I go and I give this presentation in front of the chancellor and

C the university librarian and everything. I said, congratulations, William. This is amazing.

D You got yourself a job for $25 an hour.

C And I was like, God, I really

D should have told him more money. But it was. It was interesting because. Because of that, it was. It was giving me a unique perspective. Like, Snow Ed is one of the

C best design practices globally.

D And the client was still having a hard time getting them to give them what they needed. But what it did was, is it gave me the perspective that it doesn't matter what your reputation is or what

C Your design capabilities are sometimes not everything you're doing is right for a client.

D And so being able to have this

C kid that's a janitor be able to

D do these maps that they still use, by the way. And I have since pursued a lot of work with Snohead and I give them a hard time about the fact that my entire career is dependent on their inability to be able to do this stuff. But it gave me a unique perspective because I think a lot of times

C we tend to revere these practices and thinking like every building they do, every project they touch is amazing and perfect. And that's just totally not true.

D But because of that, that, that catapulted by experience and my opportunities and I

C ended up becoming a principal at a major firm less than three years later,

D specifically because of that.

C Where's all my other friends that were

D giving me a hard time that I didn't take out of all his job? They. It took them 10, 15 years to

C get to that level.

D So, yeah, and it's, you know, a lot of people tend to kind of gloss over aspects of that, of things like that in their career. Like everybody's got a job like where

C they're waiting tables or being a substitute teacher or whatever that they may not necessarily want to talk about. I'm super proud of that.

D Like, I think it's important to know where you came from and to know where you're going. And I think one of the biggest. I don't think I know one of

C the biggest problems in our industry is we tend there's a super high level of snobbery where you went to school, who you work for, etc.

D And my work and my perspective is completely anti that. We, in my own practice, in my

C strategy practice, in my public art practice,

D everything I do, it's really important to

C me to try and provide a concrete example to others to look at to

D say it doesn't matter where you went

C to school, it doesn't matter how well you did in school, it doesn't matter

D where you worked or whatever, that you

C can make a difference and your value matters. Right?

D It doesn't matter what your Rolodex is,

C what your bank account looks like. You have the opportunity to make a difference. Go make it count.

B I appreciate that. I think it takes a certain individual with a drive and a certain level of drive and persistence to one apply to architecture school four times. And then I don't know if it's restlessness or just like constant pursuit and curiosity to leave that environment and go live on a Tiny island and then come back.

D Yeah, no, it's interesting. I moved to Malta in 1999. My dad traveled all over the world before he met my mother.

C And I spoke a lot of different languages. And I was just always really fascinated

D by the wider world.

C And I was exposed to a lot of that when I was a kid.

D So, I mean, for me, like, When

C I was 18, I went to the UK and hitchhiked around for an entire summer by myself.

D Like, I slept in an abandoned car,

C one of the most dangerous parts of

D London, for a weekend. Like, I mean, it's like I just. That's the kind of person I am. Like, what's the worst that's going to happen? Okay, well, none of us are getting out of this thing alive anyway, so why not really just go on and live your. Live your life, do what you can, you know? I'd rather live my life to the fullest than gain a couple extra boring

C days when I'm old.

D But when I moved to Malta, it was 1999. Everybody was really scared about this whole Y2K thing. And I had read. Read this article about these Americans that had moved to this tiny island nation that was basically built by the Knights Hospitaller.

C So basically to the Crusaders, it was stunningly beautiful. They spoke English, it was cheap, and

D they loved Americans at the time. And I was like, why would I not. If the world goes to hell with this Y2K thing happens, I'd much rather be on a tiny island in Mediterranean than in eastern North Carolina in America.

C I just find that to be very interesting. So that's why I went.

B But in 2016, you kind of found yourself searching for a different island. Do you want to tell us that story?

D Yeah. So in 2016. So I've been running the higher education

C practice for another firm, the firm that

D I went to work with after my

C experience at Hunt Library. I'd had some other stops in between too, as well. I was in manufacturing and did a

D handful of other things. But in 2016, due to a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the election, I was really interested in getting out of the country permanently. And I had applied for a variety

C of different jobs all around the world.

D And I ended up having the opportunity to interview with.

C There's an Italian architect at the time

D that no Americans really knew who he was.

C But now he's going to become a kind of a big deal. His name's Carly Roddy. So he was the most recently the. The curator for the Venice Biennale for this last architecture.

D Venice Biennale. So he was looking for somebody to

C run his practice in Turin, Italy.

D And I happened to be in Italy

C anyway, so I went to go meet with him. Super nice, wonderful firm. Did amazing work.

D It wasn't a right fit.

C I don't speak Italian, so I think that was a big part of why

D I didn't get the job. But it was interesting to get a chance to, you know, be considered essentially

C to run a practice at that level.

D And then I had an opportunity the

C night of the election, actually, I'd sent, you know, stuff in my immigration stuff to a variety of different places, in particular in New Zealand, because I wanted to try and be as far away from America as possible.

D And I got. I had a recruiter call me and said, hey, the best firm in New Zealand's looking for somebody to run their practice.

C I think you could be a good fit. And it was my buddy Andrew Patterson.

D I ended up connecting with him.

C We were supposed to talk for 30 minutes. We talked for, like, three hours. Just, like, really super hit it off

D and looked like that might happen. I was married at the time, and she was super excited about it until it became real. And then, like, the opportunity, like, became real.

C And then I think she started getting really nervous. And I get that. I mean, not everybody's kind of just

D gonna jump on a boat like I am. So we ended up kind of tabling that discussion. But years later, when I ended up going out on my own, he and I reconnected.

C And so now we work together all the time, very closely. I think we've been to five continents together.

D Now it's either four or five.

C I actually lose track.

D But. So I work with Andrew regularly now. But only reason why I know him

C is because I was. I submitted some immigration paperwork the night of the election in 2016.

D It's funny, he won his practice one global cultural building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in 2023. And I went to Auckland to celebrate

C with him, and he was having this huge party, and everybody's like, how on

D earth do you know each other? Like, you're this, like, you know, super interesting New Zealand architect. Like, very fancy, like, you know, Pritzker level architect. And you're this kind of this dude from eastern North Carolina. And he was like, oh, it's easy.

C Donald Trump introduced us.

D But.

B Oh, wow.

D Yeah, yeah. But essentially, that's all that happened. But it was interesting because, you know, what I learned from talking to Andrew or some of these other people was, it doesn't matter where you go in the world.

C The problems are the same they're just. The nuances are different.

D How do you run a practice?

C How do you hire great people?

D How do you deal with clients?

C How do you win work?

D Those are the things that everybody's dealing with. It's just there's totally unique nuances.

C But I think that's the thing that's

D been really valuable to me is to

C understand those nuances globally and try and figure out a way to synthesize them in my own practice.

D And I think that's part of the

C reason why our public art practice has been so successful. And some of my strategy work has been so successful too. Just kind of seeing how different people from around the world do things.

B Yeah. So you've alluded to the public art, and you've alluded to strategy, and I think it's time to kind of bring it to the present day. Why don't we talk a little bit more about what you are doing today? And it's also interesting for me to hear you say my practice, because I do also know that you're contractually associated with firms. So let's talk about all those threads.

D Yeah. In 2016, after those things did not

C work out, I had an opportunity to. I got recruited by a former client of mine to.

D He had just become the CEO at

C a firm called Hanbury in North Carolina.

D And they were looking to grow their

C office and expand their opportunities, diversify their portfolio, et cetera.

D And so I ended up starting with them.

C I had, like, a bunch of audacious demands. He was asking me if I was interested, and my point to him was just like, I'm only going to be interested if I have the opportunity to be really successful.

D And these are the things that I

C would need to be very successful.

D A lot of firms, a lot of times, they want somebody to start and then grow by winning work, and then

C they can go and hire an intern or a young designer or another person,

D and you kind of grow that way.

C That's a terrible way to do it, to be honest, because by the time you need to hire, you're never hiring the right person. You're never hiring the best talent. And so my pitch to David was,

D hey, in order to do the kind

C of work that you're talking about doing, this is what we would need to do.

D Like you would need to.

C We would need to bring on my. A buddy of mine that I trust to be my business partner so I can handle the operations and the business and strategy, and he can be the quote unquote, architect, because that's too much for one person. To do. And in order to be able to grow the practice and transform the portfolio the way that we want, we're going to need to hire the best talent. So basically I need a blank checkbook essentially to hire whoever we want. And we're going to lose money in spectacular fashion for 24 to 36 months.

D But by doing that, we're going to

C be really strategic about how we do that. And we're going to chase work and do different kinds of work that the firm is not used to doing. It's going to be very uncomfortable. But after that, dump trucks full of money are going to start showing up at the office. And that's essentially what happened.

D Which was great because what we did

C was, is basically by getting David to agree to those. Those things, we ended up having the ability to go hire all the best talent, bring all that best talent in. I'm really great at identifying talent.

D And by bringing all the best talent

C in, not only bring them in, but empower them.

D Build a culture of design culture and

C entrepreneurial spirit, but also a spirit of empowerment.

D Like if a 23 year old designer

C that just graduated six weeks ago has an idea that's just as important as my idea or anybody else's idea.

D And so by setting up the culture that way, we got all the best

C people because we got all the best people. We got all the best clients because

D we got all the best clients, we

C started winning all the best work. So we went from. And, and this is not because of me by any means.

D This is like some of the things that I helped to put in place and identified early on.

C But we recruited all the best people which helped us do all these things.

D So four years later, we kind of

C got them to the point that they didn't need me anymore. I had set out to do what

D I wanted to do.

C The company was not doing great before I joined and the office was going to close when I left. They're the most successful firm by far in the state of North Carolina, if not the. The southeast United States. And they've only gone on to explode even more due to many of my former partners and their expertise.

D But it was interesting because had we

C not been empowered to do those things the way the specific way we did it, that firm probably wouldn't even exist anymore because of COVID So it was interesting in 2022, after kind of I had started having this kind of self realizations of they didn't need me anymore. I was just looking for a new opportunity. So I decided I was going to go out on My own and try and amortize my value to different firms around the world in order to kind of really leverage my expertise to help others get to where they need to be.

D I really like helping people and I

C like to help grow practices. But I also don't ever want to be an employee. I don't want to work for people. I want to work with people essentially in a partnership situation. So I have my own strategy practice practice. But my strategy practice is basically not. Basically it is, it's on retainer, it's under contract with other practices. So I essentially work as an on contract part time senior partner at a different practices globally.

B So most people, when they grow a firm, I don't think they ever say like they've outgrown the firm or the firm's outgrown them. So what exactly were you feeling after four years where you just felt like you are ready to move on? Just because if you think about all of the firm leadership right now that's having a hard time stepping away and how many like private equity and acquisitions are happening because of that. It's kind of interesting to have that perspective.

D Yeah, I mean, I think part of it's just my personality because I'm always interested in, you know, where I can

C have the most impact. It would have frankly been extraordinarily boring to me if I had been there for another five years and not been able to do have the same kind of impact that I had.

D It's like I told the CEO when I was leaving that I could be

C there another 50 years and have a tenth of the impact I had in the first four.

D And like they just didn't need me anymore. I had never come to that practice

C with the plans to run that practice one day or make it entirely my own or anything like that. It was a firm that really needed help. It was a good opportunity for me, but personally and professional, professionally and I wanted to, to help set this firm up and to have the opportunity to make a difference in where the place in which I lived.

D And so I was able to do that. And I think my, my entire life

C I've tried to create situations where there's no winners and losers, but everybody wins. And this to me was a perfect opportunity of that.

D So I wasn't, I wasn't looking for it to be my own practice.

C I just wanted to help them get to where they didn't need me anymore. And then it was time to move on, which is the way I approach my strategy practice.

D If I'm doing my job right, I'M

C not working with the same people five years later because I'm helping them get to where they need to be to solve a problem or whatever.

D It's kind of like if you go

C to the chiropractor, go to the chiropractor

D twice a week for 10 years, there's

C something bigger going on.

D Right. It's a bigger problem. Right. You know, it's. I want to be able to help

C people, not necessarily just be an employee. If I wanted to be an employee, I would just go to practice.

B So another thing that you mentioned was amortizing your value, which I don't think I've ever heard out of an architect's mouth before. Talk to me about what you feel like amortizing your value is and like that uniqueness you're bringing.

D Yeah, I just want to be able to bring a wide perspective to people's practices. I'm really good at a lot of

C different aspects of the practice that most traditional architects are not.

D But if you tried to have me do a building set, it would fall down, everybody would die, people would get sued. So it's like I'm terrible at those things. I'm a good designer, don't get me wrong. But I'm better at strategy, running a practice. And there, there are other people out

C there for sure that are great at

D pr, great at marketing, are good at recruiting, are good at winning work or

C programming consultants or whatever.

D But those, those people typically are good

C at one of those things. I just happen to be uniquely talented at multiple of those things. And those people typically haven't restarted offices, started offices from scratch, hired 40 people, made sure Christmas came that year for

D those people's kids, you know, made sure they had work to do when they were in the office. You know, one big deal.

C Projects with pain in the ass clients, put together complex international project teams and design buildings from beginning to end. I've done all this stuff.

D So when I, when I'm working with

C my clients and my collaborators, it's really more of a partnership situation.

D Like I'm beholden to them.

B Yes.

C But they're also beholden to me.

D Like if they make me look bad,

C then it blows up my entire business model. So I only work, I'm very selective of who I work with. It's really a two way street.

D And so like for me, my job

C is to give them advice.

D Sometimes that's on how to build work,

C sometimes it's how to grow the portfolio or awards or hiring people.

D It's kind of all those things. So my, I essentially work as an

C on contract senior partner to the CEO.

D And so instead of basically joining a

C permanent partnership situation, it's harder to split up a business relationship than it is to get divorced.

D So for me, for me my whole thing is this kind of like we

C work on a 12 month contract, we can option to renew, etc. And with the plan is it's four to five years at the absolute most.

D We're probably not going to be working together anymore.

C But that's by design.

D Right.

C Like they're hiring me to help them solve a problem.

D And yeah, I just, whether or not they listen to me is really on their end. It's their call. But my job is to give them

C my advice because I've been there before and I'm offering advice as a peer, not as an employee.

B One, I'd love to understand, you know, how that pitch goes. Like how do you find these firms that are interested in this very unique model? Two, I would also love, and I know this is a multi part question, so take it however you want to. I'd love to understand why you chose that route instead of, I mean most people would say I'm going to be an outside strategic partner, you can hire me as a consultant, but you're really designating your, yourself and your time to one firm for, for an extended length.

D Yeah then. And I would say my clients, typically what they need me for is advice

C and direction and strategy consulting. They don't need me as a employee

D and nor, and what I try to

C do is keep my costs down. So I'm not inexpensive by any means,

D but I end up costing those firms

C less than what it costs them to an employee, a junior level designer. Because I'm a consultant, I'm just straight cost. There's no multiplier on my cost. Right. There's no benefits or anything like that.

D So I end up basically often, more

C often than not end up being the cheapest person that they pay for and I'm making millions of dollars. And so my whole idea is in the whole approach to my practice is trying to do more with less. Right.

D You don't need, you don't need my

C time, 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week. You only really need me when you need me, but when you need me, you really, really need me. Right. Like these, like you're trying to pursue a project here. Well, I've got a relationship with that person I've known for 20 years and I know X, Y and Z, you know, engineers and relationships there and how can I put together pieces and parts to be able to help you be successful. Basically how this came out is when I was at Hanbury and other places,

D actually I had helped a handful of

C friends of mine from major firms around the like, like Flato, for example. I helped them win several projects that ended up being, you know, huge money makers, huge opportunities. There's the, the, the new Amy Gutman hall at the University of Pennsylvania. I put together the entire project team. I wasn't involved in the project and I was really more just trying to help my friends out. Like, hey, you guys should know these people, you should know this engineer, etc. And it turned into $140 million project. Okay, well there's value there.

C How do you get paid for that value?

D And you know, one of the things that I realized, it's like I love

C architects, but Jesus, we are. Our egos are enormous and we are extraordinary pains in the ass.

D And so the last thing I want to do is sit around and argue

C with somebody of like. Because I've had certain people say, well,

D can you work with me on like

C if you bring in work, we'll pay you a percentage. I'm like, I don't want to track that.

D One, I don't want to waste my

C time tracking all that stuff.

D And two, I don't want to argue with you because you feel like because you played Little league with this guy

C once when you were nine years old, somehow that makes it your relationship and

D not the work that I did.

C I just, I'm not interested in doing that. So I just work on a flat fee.

D This is what I get paid.

C It shows up in my bank account on the 1st of every month. And then we work together. We have a 12 month contract. I represent you whether it's.

D And typically it's exclusive by region or by project type.

C So I might, I mean, I haven't had this happen. I was talking to, talking to two different people at one time where one was doing my K12 public safety and one was doing a lot of cultural work. It was very different kinds of work.

D So there may be, may occasionally be an overlap there, but I tend to

C try and spread, spread out my clients to create a situation where there's never any possibility of a conflict of interest or competition. If anything, actually my client in New Zealand and my client in Malta both become buddies. So maybe there's an opportunity we could pursue work together.

D I mean, very, very real.

C I remember when I went to Malta

D to go see our friends in Malta.

C Andrew from New Zealand flew over to meet us there because he wanted to hang out because he loves those guests.

D So it's, you know, how do you create an ecosystem where everybody wins is

C what I'm looking for.

A This episode is brought to you by the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. I am teaching their professional intensive course Innovation in the Built Environment. And it is designed for practitioners who are ready to think differently about how the built environment gets made. Whether you're an architect, planner, developer or somewhere in between, this course gives you the frameworks, the language and the cross sector perspective to lead change from wherever you sit. Five weeks of virtual sessions plus an in person intensive in Detroit. Find out more and register@beradicallybetter.com that's B E R A D I C A L L Y Better B E T T E r dot com.

B Right. So when you refer to your practice then. So it sounds like you can work with more than one firm at a time. Are you a sole practitioner or is there others supporting you?

D Yeah, it is just me. I mean I do there, there are

C people I occasionally lean on for specific tasks.

D If it ever arose where I was busy enough.

C There is somebody else love to be able to bring on full time. And I've talked about, have another friend

D in New York, we've talked about the

C opportunity of maybe combining our practice. She's doing something similar, ish, she's more

D of an operations person, but we've talked about that. But it's just never, it's never been

C the right fit or the right time.

D So for me it's like a lot

C of consultants and this is a different way. I mean this is the way that I'm differentiated. Whether it's good or bad. It really depends on your perspective. I'm not looking for every client.

D I'm not looking to try and make

C as much money as I can. I just want to work with cool, good people doing great work, have fun, make a difference, get paid my value. That's what I want to do. Whereas like a lot of consultants want to try and work with as many people as humanly possible. I am super not interested in doing that.

D So when I'm working with a client,

C I represent them, but they also represent me. Like we're tied to each other essentially.

D So for me it's if I have

C a client, you know, in, in the Mediterranean and a client, a collaborator in New Zealand and then maybe one in America, that's like an ideal situation for me.

D And I had that until fairly recently. I was working with a firm in Philadelphia.

C It was fantastic.

D I really Loved them. There was.

C It's.

D It's actually really interesting.

C This is how I knew I was really onto something. Their market was in K12, in public safety. There's two markets I knew absolutely nothing about.

D Like, nothing. Like, less than nothing. I mean, I. I went to public school, and I want the cops to come or the fire department to come

C if I call them.

D That's literally all I know about these things. But I knew them. I knew the people that knew about

C those markets, and they were trying to

D grow the practice, hire right people, you

C know, pitch their portfolio in a certain way.

D And we ended up working together, and we won over $300 million worth of work kind of through those relationships that I had, through the relationships that they

C had that we were able to find new opportunities to be able to leverage the portfolio, et cetera.

D And we were thinking it was going

C to probably be four or five years. And ultimately their ultimate plan eventually was to get out and to sell the firm. And that just happened after two and a half years, which was great.

D It's a great case study. But what that also means. This means I don't have a client anymore, which is. Which is both good and bad. I mean, in full disclosure, I was actually planning in about six months to

C maybe have a conversation on whether or

D not they did continue to need me because we. We had kind of gotten to where we needed to be sooner rather than we thought. I mean, there were still other things

C that needed to be resolved that we were pursuing.

D But I don't want somebody to pay

C me just to sit around. I think, like, I want to help people, so.

D Because that inhibits me from being able to help somebody else.

C So.

B And. And you are definitely not a person that sits around and does nothing. You also started your public art practice at Gang of Three, so why don't you talk to us a little bit about that as well?

C And it's funny that you mentioned that I'm not a person that sits around and does nothing. I had drinks with a prospective client last night, and he was like, what do you do for hobbies? I was like, oh, God, I don't actually know. It's really sad.

D I do what I love. Like, I truly love what I do. So I'm always working, but I'm always on vacation at the same time. And I don't know if that's really wonderful or incredibly sad. It's maybe a little bit of both.

B I think it's actually pretty. Pretty wonderful.

D Yes. No, I. Yeah, I can't.

B As long as you keep the burnout to the side like you're getting paid to do what you love. How many people can really say that?

D Yeah, that's the trick, right? You know, it's, it's interesting because you know that running your own practice is,

C is always a tricky thing. Sometimes it's feast or famine, you know, it's very stressful and sometimes you make

D less money than you would if you

C were a full time employee or a partner. But at the same time, I've never been happier and I'm so extraordinarily glad that I did what I did.

D But in 2020, so we were all

C sitting around the house, there was nothing going on basically.

D And we were trying to figure out, I was trying to figure out something

C to do and we, myself and a

D friend of mine, actually that I worked with at NC State when I was

C doing exhibition design before I became a

D janitor, we had started pursuing some public

C art practices or public art projects together

D just to kind of give us something to do. And there was an opportunity that came up for this quote, unquote, creative education, floodplain display, whatever that means. I think they couldn't call it public

C art because they didn't want people to get upset. They were spending taxpayer money on public art. So it had to be educational.

D And I had a friend in Philadelphia, oddly enough, who had just left Olin

C and decided to start his own practice on ground control, Will Belcher, who's fantastic.

D And we were, I remember thinking, you know, maybe there's an opportunity for the

C three of us to partner together and pursue this project.

D And at the time that sounded like a good idea. Will ended up getting so busy, which

C is great, his practice just took off like a rocket. We didn't really anticipate that, but he

D was able to be involved, but, you know, not.

C He wasn't able to come down and travel as much as he would like. So Lincoln and I took on kind

D of a majority of that role. But we ended up winning this project

C and what it was, a tiny little $50,000 total project cost project.

D And what we ended up doing was instead of doing a mural, which is

C what they thought they were going to get basically for $50,000, we tried to

D figure out a way to pixelate the site with data. And one of the things, as I

C mentioned, one of my big things is trying to do more with less.

D And so what we tried to do

C is figure out what was the best way to be able to maximize our impact.

D And so what we ultimately ended up

C doing was doing this 2 acre pixelated,

D immersive Floodplain display, basically with a series

C of 25 different flood markers that are

D all uniquely colored, coordinated, so there's maybe

C two or three for each particular storm.

D And what we did was is be

C able to leverage a horrific flooding situation to be able to put it on display in real time to cars and people walking by.

D And at the time we didn't realize

C what we were doing, but essentially we created the world's first like totally dynamic

D climate change memorial that put that stuff

C on display for people to see in full force. And because of that project, it ended up winning. I think we're up to over 20 national and international design awards or finalists or whatever.

D And it was completely unexpected. But for me it was like the

C perfect example of kind of how we like to work as individuals.

D Because like Lincoln and Will, my two

C partners on the project, and Lincoln is my full time business partner for Game three.

D That's how we like to work anyway.

C It's like, how do you maximize your impact?

D You know, you don't need to necessarily

C spend a ton of money or a ton of time or use a lot of material to have a big impact. Which is exactly how I approach things in my strategy, practice and with my entire career.

D You know, we can talk about sustainability

C all we want, but if we're using a lot of embodied carbon, how sustainable is it really?

D You know, and so it's for us, it's like, how do we tell a

C big story with its minimal effort? And I think it just resonated with

D a lot of people because of the

C attention that project got. It unintentionally basically started a larger practice for us. We had to incorporate right when we were signing the contract. And then we just ended up continuing to win different projects throughout the the years. And I think we're in, we're in year six now and it's been pretty interesting to see the type of attention and the just the kind of interest

D that are tiny little projects, because all

C our projects are tiny. And the largest project we've done to the to date was a $200,000 total construct construction cost. And we're our own contractors on all this stuff in order to make it work.

D But it's been really interesting to have

C conversations with some of the best designers in the world that are very familiar with our work and use our work sometimes as precedent studies, which has been pretty interesting.

D But because of the attention that we've gotten from that.

C This is a long answer, sorry.

D But because of the attention we've gotten

C from that, we get invited to these really interesting Opportunities to go and speak in Barcelona or in Singapore or have our work exhibited in China or whatever

D it is which gets us in the

C doors that most designers wouldn't be able

D to get in otherwise.

C Which is also really great for my strategy clients because all of a sudden

D I'm meeting all these prospective clients and people that they should know that they would never in a million years be able to get to know. But since I'm doing that, it essentially

C creates this wider ecosystem, unintentional but highly

D effective ecosystem for doing business.

B So you brought me in on one of your Fast Company articles. There's one that you that I will make sure to link to in the show notes where you talk about our industry as we know it will soon cease to exist. You also said that that's not a bad thing. So what do you think disappears, I guess, and then what do you think takes its place?

D Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, it's not that it's not terrifying.

C It's scary as hell.

D Like, I mean, like we were talking about AI and things like that.

C I mean, it's terrifying.

D Everybody's worried about, you know, losing their jobs, etc. It would be great if we lived in some utopian society with the universal income and all that stuff that does not exist, nor will it ever exist

C and exists in the United States at least.

D But that said, when it comes to our industry, it's interesting when you ask

C people what architects do. And by the way, I don't think most architects actually really know what architects do.

B I don't think most architects can distill anything of what they do down to a single sentence.

D Yeah, exactly. Well, certainly not myself. But you know, the interesting thing about the AI kind of revolution that we're incor encountering now is, you know, when

C you ask somebody on the street what an architect does, I think they have these grand visions of this hyper creative kind of inventor, master artist, master builder,

D like thinking about Bucky Fuller or, you

C know, even going back to the ancient Egyptians or ancient Chinese, like there's kind of this kind of creative genius that can really impact the built environment. That's not really what we do now. We're more like facilitators of buildings in particular in this country. Not that there's not people doing great architecture, but it's to meet a need.

D It's, it's.

C I mean, it's a needed thing.

D But a lot of our time, just

C due to our industry is called up, both documenting drawings and reducing risk.

D And as AI continues to Develop.

C I just do not foresee, and I know for a fact, by the way, that many different design firms are using AI to create construction drawings.

D And as that continues to get perfected, there's no reason to think, I think it would be naive to think that

C AI is not going to be doing window details and, and construction drawings. And so all of a sudden you're not really going to need as many production people. But what that does is it frees up people to have the opportunity to explore more, be more creative.

D Now what, what does that mean?

C It also means that the workforce is going to be tremendously reduced or that these larger companies are going to get significantly smaller.

D That's bad in some ways.

C It's also extraordinarily good in other ways

D because that means that, that like you

C and I and two random people on the street might be able to go and start our own practice. And all of a sudden we'd be competing with some of the top architects in the world because it's really more at that time, really based on ideas

D and then, you know, being able to

C leverage things like production through using artificial intelligence.

D And that's what I mean when it

C is, when I say it's going to soon cease to exist.

D I'm very bullish on the fact that

C the large firms will either no longer be in business or will look tremendously different in the next 10 years. I would be absolutely shocked if that is not the case. Just knowing, being aware of what I'm aware of.

B So we said the architects probably can't really articulate what they're doing now. Where does that really push our work in the future then? Especially those smaller nimble firms.

D Yeah, I think it pushes us into becoming creative directors.

C You know, we really become creative directors to the built environment rather than, you know, somebody who's just facilitating drawings or making sure to mitigate risk. I really think that's the direction that, that our industry is going to go. Whether we like it or not. The sooner that people start to kind of wrap their brain around where their place is in the world and that kind of world, it's going to be better for them.

D You know, for the people that are

C close to retirement, it's not really going to matter. For people that are mid career, I

D mean, they're definitely going to see a change. For the people that.

C The concern that I have is the people that are in school right now are the super young designers. I think I should say I'm somewhat concerned about that.

D But also those are the people that

C are most fluent in this type of technology. So actually they're going to be the ones that are going to be leading a lot of this change. My concern is there may not be as much opportunity for, for mentorship, but if anything, it actually potentially flips the script on mentorship because then all of a sudden it's the young designers that are going to be mentoring some of the older designers on how these things

B work if our ego can get out of the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

D If anything, actually think it kind of

C democratizes the system a lot better.

D And maybe what it does is it

C helps to improve the American built environment.

D I don't know.

C I mean, I'm not naive enough to know, to think that that's going to be the case, but it's, that's a possibility.

D You know, a lot of the reason

C why our built environment looks the way it does is because there's a risk, mitigation.

D You know, so if you can all of a sudden be able to take

C that stuff out of the equation where everybody's using the same details, everybody's using these kinds of things, and then it really just becomes about design thinking, maybe that's a good thing for our built environment. Right.

D Is there an opportunity to start to

C reduce, you know, the amount of steel or the amount of concrete or whatever in really unique ways to be able to create more forward thinking, sustainable, efficient buildings?

D You know, there, I mean, there's, I

C think there's a lot of opportunities there. I'm not an AI evangelist, I'm just a realist.

D Like, I'm not super stoked about this

C direction, but it is the reality.

D So I just, it's what I, what

C I foresee, at least.

B So we've had this conversation and I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear that you actually never got your architecture license.

D Yeah, yeah, no. It's funny, whenever I give a presentation, I always started off with two truths and a lie.

C It's kind of like a dating profile, like hack, where it's like you give

D like two truths about yourself in one lie and then see if there's someone can figure it out.

C And so mine are always.

D I was once a licensed taxi driver in the hometown. I once slept in an abandoned car,

C the most dangerous part of London, for three days. And I am an architect. And the lie is, of course I am not an architect because I never bothered to get my license.

D So the, the other two are definitely true.

C I appreciate my time as a taxi driver and as a janitor and all those other things.

D And maybe the person that I Am. But yeah, no, for me, I get

C asked this question a lot.

D I think that in our industry, in

C particular in America, I should say we are very adamant that you should. And I actually had this conversation with a student today that we were very adamant that you should get your license.

D And I think that that's important, but

C it's also not for everybody.

D And you know, the, the main reason

C for me of not getting my license was it's not the best use of my time.

D The best use of my time is

C growing a practice winning. Winning a practice winning work, hiring people, helping to design. It's not sitting around and sealing drawings and doing details. That's just not my skill set. It's not the highest and best use of my time.

D So for me to go and get

C a license, I've got all the.

D I mean, for me to go and

C study for all these tests, et cetera, the opportunity cost is extraordinarily high.

D Like, it just doesn't make any sort.

C There's no business sense for me to

D do that, you know, And I was

C pointing out to some of the other people, some of the architects, many of the architects and designers that we bring revere, never bothered to get an accredited license in America.

D You know what I mean? Like many of the people that we study in school, they may not have their license.

C There are plenty of licensed architects that work there. All that really matters is that you can deliver the project and deliver the drawing.

D I think when it really matters the

C most is when you're a sole practitioner or you're in charge of reviewing specific drawings. It just really depends on which career path, path you go into. And for me, it just was never. It never made sense. Plus, as I mentioned, I'm dyslexic, extraordinarily add so.

D And I want to just.

C It's a matter of public safety and public health. I am not going to get my license.

D I've run major companies before. I work with people all the time, but I always work with people that

C are great at those things. Know your strengths and work with the

D people that are great at the things you're not.

C That's a great rule for business.

B I absolutely agree. So you've said multiple different ways throughout the last hour that you're not interested in helping bad people build a good business, that you only work with good people doing important work. I think that's an easy principle when you have the marketing position that you have to be selective. But how did you build to the point where you could afford to operate that way? Or when did you realize that capacity?

D Well, I found myself in situations in

C the past, throughout my career where it just became apparent that I was doing myself an injustice by helping other people continue to grow their business. So I very quickly left with my last practice hamburger. That was certainly not the case. Absolutely. Well, all those people, I still play trivia with them. I love nothing but the best for them. They're amazing, they're great people.

D But you know, when I decided to leave that I had like the best

C job in North Carolina. I worked with like 40 of my friends, I get to hire them all with. It was amazing. It was like I genuinely be friends all those people till the day I die.

D So for me to leave that I

C had to set a certain amount of principles for myself to be able to make it worth my time.

D And you know, I've spent an entire,

C my entire life building a reputation and a career based on honesty and collaboration and being easy to work with, not

D always easy to understand and sometimes I'm

C a pain in the ass. I get it.

D But like also too just like, you know, I'll do whatever I can to

C have somebody be successful or a project be successful. And I built a career on like that. I cannot jeopardize my entire last 30 years of my life by working with somebody else who's going to blow that up immediately. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation. It takes an instant to destroy it.

D And so one, there's like a business

C case for that too. Life's too short to work with. And narcissists, I'm good.

D Like I have no, no desire to continue to add to that.

C There are enough those people in the world.

D I want to help good people make

C a difference, have fun, get paid my value just exactly. That's a guiding principle in my life.

D And so for me, I try to

C keep my cost down as low as humanly possible. So it affords me the ability to be able to do that. I'm not going to say it's not hard.

D It is hard.

C It's hard to find the right clients. I mean doctors, lawyers, bankers, they're all significantly more creative and more innovative than architects are.

D I mean we get really upset when

C people say that, but it's true.

D We are like so stuck in our

C ways on how that we're going to

D do things and being able to think

C about things in new ways is scary because we're so risk averse.

D So finding the right clients is hard.

C But also finding the right clients that

D are willing to pay you but that

C are also, you know, ideologically Aligned so you feel good about yourself going to work every day. I can't authentically help somebody grow a business or tell a contact that I've known for 30 years that they should work with somebody that I know is going to not do them right.

B I would hope that there are some individuals that are listening to this podcast and be like, we could really use an individual like William Dodge. What's the best way to get in touch with you? And. And are you looking for new clients right now? And what size of firm do you typically? Is there like any size constraints or things that like, really get you going?

D No, I think for me it's not

C a size constraint situation. It's the ability to be able to make decisions. Sometimes you'll have a small firm that has 20 different people that are involved in decision making and everybody's got an incredibly different direction where you'll have a firm of 500 people, where it's a couple of people making the decision and that's the direction it's going to go.

D So I would just more for me,

C working with people that are actually able to make a decision because. Because otherwise it doesn't matter what I'm offering. If they're not able to implement anything, then it just becomes completely useless.

D That said, you know, for me, the

C clients that I'm looking for the most, again, are the ones that are trying to do good work. And good work's relative.

D You know, it's like, what is good work?

C Does that mean design? Does that mean, you know, work that impacts your community? It can be any of those things. But for me, the clients that I'm most looking for are clients that are

D looking to grow their.

C Grow that sometimes that means in terms of size, but sometimes that means just in terms of quality of work or quality of, you know, portfolio or type of work that you're doing, or type of staff that you have, or they're looking to transition into new markets, new locations or new project types, or they just need a fresh look at, you know, fresh set of eyes on what they're already doing. My first client when I ended up going out on my own was a firm, Sanders Pace in Tennessee. They're one of the best firms in Southeast. They're amazing.

D They had called me and it's.

C I don't normally work on project specific stuff. They're just happened to be good buddies.

D And so they had called me to

C help them try and, you know, facilitate essentially a design retreat so they could help to distill down where they wanted to take the firm over the next 20 years. Like, what are they, how do they start to look at, think, not necessarily

D thinking about immediately, but planning to think

C about firm transition, etc.

D And so, you know, for me, any

C firms that are doing something like that in terms of transition or thinking about the future of the firm, I think is something that's incredibly useful and interesting and somewhere I can offer value.

D I just, my main thing is it's

C like I've got to be able to offer value. If I can't offer value, it's not worth my time. It doesn't matter how much you pay me, it's not worth my time. I'm very much a believer of like life short, make a difference while you can, because you only have one chance.

B So you mentioned that you were just talking to, having a conversation with a student about licensure. What is your advice to new graduates coming out right now, especially with the technology shift and everything else that's happening on the horizon?

D And I clarified this when I was talking to him. I was like, you know, I may not be the best person to ask

C about this, but I'm very much a believer that licensure is important for some people and it is important if you can get it and it will add value to you. But I've never thought of myself as an architect. I'm a designer. Architecture is just a medium that I practice. Right.

D Like, but my point to him was,

C is he was looking at some schools abroad that may not have that, that accreditation might not transfer to America, back to America. And my point was, is who cares?

D Try and go.

C Learn as much as you can. Get as much of a diverse and varied experience as you can. Specifically focus on the kind of stuff that you want to be doing for the rest of your career. Because the last thing you want to do is go somewhere that checks this one box. But then it boxes you out of being able to learn all this other life changing experiences, etc.

D Like go where you're going to learn

C the most and, and you know, be happiest and then figure that stuff out later. And my point to him was, is if you go to Delft or wherever else it is, if that doesn't transfer back to America, who cares? Because you can go and get a job at a firm that's got license, other licensed landscape architecture architects or whatever. And it ultimately doesn't really matter as long as you've got the, you've got the degree and the knowledge to be able to do the project. The only time it really matters is if you're a sole practitioner who has to be able to seal their own drawings. But if you're working for a bigger company, it's less about where you went to school and more about what you know. That's my advice.

D That is very different advice than most

C people would give, but that's just my advice.

D I'm not an architect. I'm not a landscape architect. I'm none of those things, but I play one every day and we're pretty successful at it.

A This summer, join me for Innovation in the Built Environment, a professional intensive from the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, built for practitioners who are ready to move from thinking about transformation to actually leading it. Learn more@beradicallybetter.com that's B E R A D I C A L L Y B E t e r.com. 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@practiceofarchitecture.com community. Our social media handle is practiceofarch. That's practiceofarch. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello.

A Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.