Unruly Practices: Navigating Non-Traditional Careers in Design and Social Impact Real Estate

A Firm owners, the move that cuts this year's tax bill have to be in place before December 31st, and most take months to set up. I use Gelt, who I partnered with on this episode, but also in my business, and they saved me over $10,000 in year one. Visit joingelt.com, that's J-O-I-N-G-E-L-T.com, to sign up for a consultation and mention Practice of Architecture for 10% off your first year. Welcome to Practice Disrupted, the podcast on the business of architecture and how it's changing. I'm your host, Evelyn Lee, FAIA, NOMA, architect, angel investor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're running a firm, starting your career, or rethinking what practice looks like, this show gets into how architects actually change the way they work. Hello, disruptors. Welcome to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted.

A A thread that keeps surfacing this season is what happens to the people who get an architecture education and then don't practice, whether the profession is losing them or finally making room for them to use their training somewhere else. Sarai Williams earned her Bachelor of Architecture at Howard, a dual master's in City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture at Penn, and designed parks and campuses at Olin. She is now Vice President of Housing Strategy and Partnerships at BDP Impact Real Estate, where the work is keeping people not just housed, but successfully housed across a national portfolio. For 4 years, she has co-taught a graduate elective at Penn called Unruly Practices, built around guests who arrived with nothing prepared so students could ask the real questions. We asked what she actually kept from design school when she stopped designing, what she wishes architects understood about what happens to housing after it's built, and what she makes of the students finishing the degree with no intention of practicing traditionally. And we close on what an architecture education is for. Let's get into it. Hi, Sarai.

B Welcome to Practice Disrupted. Thank you so much for joining us.

C No problem. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

B Yeah. So you have a really interesting career path that's a little bit more adjacent, or, you know, some would even say steps off of the traditional path altogether. But I always want to start with what got you interested in architecture in the first place. So you got your Bachelor of Architecture at Howard and then a dual master's in City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture at Penn. So what pulled you towards architecture in the first place and then the variety of different degree programs within the built environment realm that you pursued after that?

C Yeah, there was some time definitely in between getting the various degrees. But I think originally my dad is kind of, he's into graphic design and he did that in school and he always had an eye for things. And I think I did too. I got that from him. And then my mom has like the engineering side. She did civil engineering. And so in school there was like a drafting class I took. And so when I was trying to decide on a major for college, they were kind of, you know, trying to guide me.

C And I was like, maybe I'll just do interior design. And I happened to be good at math at the time. And so they're like, well, maybe try architecture. It's a little bit more challenging. Or, you know, if you don't like interior design, or if you liked— if you didn't like architecture, you could like maybe more easily transition to interior design versus the other way around. So I tried architecture. I liked it the first year, I would say. And then I quickly realized that I probably wasn't gonna be like a star architect or anything like that.

C And so I stayed in it though, because I was able to find a through line within the work of working, like giving people a voice through design to advocate for their built environment. I also connected well with a lot of students there, and I feel like there were maybe people that weren't saying it, but they were also scared about taking on the profession. And I was just like, there's gotta be something else we can do with this degree. We're learning so much so quickly. It's intense. So, even back in undergrad, I was like thinking about what other things I can do with an architectural degree. So, I happened to be president of NOMAS at that time. And so, I put all these sessions together with professionals that were doing work outside of architecture, but with architecture.

C degree. So it started pretty early on, I'd say my second or third year of undergrad. And I just, I ended up staying with it because I liked the way you're taught to think about things comprehensively in the built environment. Yeah. And so then after I graduated, it was a 5-year program, right? After I graduated, I came back to California where I'm originally from, and it was during like the first recession of my generation. And so I was thinking I would go find a job in architecture firm, but I ended up at an architectural consulting firm, which is kind of a pretty niche thing where you basically work on behalf of contractors, developers, architects when they get sued and you are hired by their attorneys. You're hired by their attorneys and you try to prove, you know, they had less liability in whatever issue was going on. It was like forensic architecture, essentially.

C It was pretty cool. I think honestly everybody should have a job in it at some point. Maybe it's like a required internship in school just to see how not to design. I was doing that for about 6 years and I feel like I had gotten my fill. And I think in architecture school, I was more, I think I leaned more toward like the urban design portion of it. And so when I went back, I decided to apply to grad school. I looked for programs that had like an urban design component to it. So Penn happened to have city planning degree that had an urban design focus.

C And so I went with that route. And then when I went for the interest meeting for admitted students, I had a former colleague at Howard. who was actually in their landscape program, and he's like, you gotta do it. You gotta do a dual degree. I was like, that seems like a lot. I'm like 6 years out of school, getting back into it in my 30s. I'm probably gonna be tired. Like, I don't wanna be in the studio late at night anymore.

C I ended up doing it anyway. So, they allowed me to do a 3-year dual degree that was both city planning and landscape architecture. So. That's kind of how that happened. But I did appreciate the landscape architecture side of it because it felt like I was going to get like a full understanding of the built environment with the exterior, essentially, the interior, and then the streetscape. And so it made sense at the time, especially if I was able to do it in that amount of time. So I leaned into that. and kind of try to make it my own when I went to grad school.

C And I think it definitely helped that I was 6 years out because I knew exactly what I didn't want to do. And then I knew I could kind of traverse that, navigate that grad school into making it what I wanted to do or what I wanted to get out of it.

B Thank you for that. I didn't realize, I'm just looking at your LinkedIn and I was like, oh, now I have to dig deeper into what this architectural consultant I wanted to go back because you said very early on actually that you knew you weren't going to be a starchitect. And then simultaneously to that, you were talking about how as president of NOMAS, right, you were bringing all these people in that were more like architecturally adjacent or had done other things. So what really just inside of you made you feel that you were never going to go the architect way, how you came to that conclusion?

C I think early on, all the assignments that you get and going through your first crits, I just understood that my design style wasn't— like, I think I'm a better editor than I am a better creator. Like, I think I can give constructive criticism to a design that already exists versus creating my own out of thin air. And that just felt like, I think in undergrad they're just like looking for those folks that have this like amazing talent of creating something outta thin air. Or I, I just didn't get inspiration that way. And so I, it took a while. It was a pretty frustrating, I don't know, first and second year I was contemplating leaving school and doing forensic science in Florida. Like there was just a lot of, there was a lot of of soul-searching done between my freshman and sophomore year. But I think I also, I landed on that advocacy piece of it when we were doing one of the programs was working with like middle schoolers and teaching them about design and taking them to, having them enter into a national building museum competition and just letting them learn about the profession in that part.

C One of the projects was like, if you could design, redesign your neighborhood, or what would you add to your neighborhood? I just, I loved that component of it. And I didn't quite know where else to get that in another profession. And it might have just been my naivety of knowing what else is out there. I decided that I can make architecture work for me, but it wasn't going to be my own thing. I really, I love the collaboration portion of it. So, I kind of leaned in. where is there a way that there can be collaboration or mentorship or working with less advantaged communities, things like that? So I kind of just leaned into that area of it.

B I'm glad you stuck it out. I often tell people to stick it out because it does open up so many doors. But then I guess my next question is, so many people don't know where to begin looking for what those other doors are. So it's interesting to me that even as a student at the time that you graduated, you were bringing in other people to talk about like kind of adjacent or different paths from architecture. How did you even know to find those people and where did you go to find them? Because I feel like so many people find individuals like us and they're like, oh, I didn't know you existed. So, so how did you know these people existed?

C I'm trying to think of the, the actual moment that happened, but I think it had to do with maybe one of the sessions that we were encouraged to put together for NOMAS. I think when I first joined, I was maybe treasurer or not president, so the president was putting together different sessions. And I believe we had someone from Jones Lang LaSalle that came and spoke, and I was really intrigued by her work, stuff that she did with— in her company. And I was like, oh, I feel like there's something aligned there. Maybe we should have more of these conversations. And so I kept in contact with her and I think she did like another version of that talk later on. And then at some point we had, in my history class, we had a guest speaker on. He was an attorney for like copyright law.

C I was like, okay, they were talking about, you know, I think the focus of the discussion was about how to keep your identity in your work and like the proper channels to do it. But I wasn't more so— I was obviously interested in the subject matter, but I was interested in the person who was teaching it. Like, oh, he has an architecture background. And so all these people that came and talked to us about like the subject matter of things that we should know about the practice, things that we should know about the profession, all of that, I would always ask like, oh, do you have a design background or did you just do law school? And a lot of 'em had design backgrounds. And so it just made me think. I should start asking people to tell us the story of how they even got to that route and didn't end up graduating and becoming a principal in a firm. And so, that's kind of how it happened through these encounters in school where we were getting taught things by people who actually did have design backgrounds, even though they were teaching us on different subject matters.

B I think that's a great kind of transition to go back to your own career and where you went after grad school and then of Cape Architecture. Can you talk about that evolution from there to BDEP?

C Yeah, that was like a culmination of a lot of things. After grad school, well, while in grad school, I was intentional about my internships. And so, first of all, I was trying to get, I was able to get like a full ride aside from like living expenses. So, I was like, okay, I can, I was very fortunate in that regard. And so, it made it a lot more affordable to do to be a little bit more risky on my internship. So I did things that were— I could go to— I could travel, and they provided stipends or grants for traveling. And I did it a little bit. I tried to find more unconventional internship opportunities.

C So that kind of— that led to me running a pilot in Southern Africa around environmental alternatives to design, to some of the design methodologies that people I do in building, and it was a great experience. I wanted, and I partnered with some local folks that were doing this work and wanted to establish like an international internship pipeline so that this can be a consistent thing that like students have the opportunity, you know, they can obviously take the firm route for internships, but also if they wanted to work with communities on a little bit of a different thing, then we would have these partnerships established. And it was a lot harder to do that once I graduated, at least to find the money to continue me doing that. So I tried to do that on my own for a little while and it wasn't working out. So luckily I had the landscape degree and I was able to get a contract job at Olin really quickly, which was great. So I did that and I knew at Olin I kind of had one foot in, one foot out, and they knew that from the beginning too. I was pretty transparent about that. And so they just appreciated that I was there to do all the work they had at the time.

C But With that one foot in, one foot out, I think the one foot out was still searching for where I fit in. And, you know, I got a lot out of that experience at Olin. I really appreciated that time there. And COVID happened during that time and George Floyd happened during that time. And that summer was, I was doing some career coaching and it just so happened everybody's working from home and I was able to, I was doing career coaching actually the whole time I was at Olin. And it was teaching me about how to say no to certain things in like a patriarchal setup of design firms and such, how to do informational interviews, how to, you know, network and go back to your other connections. So I had a teacher, a professor who was working as an architect with the version of BDP, our National Nonprofit Community Solutions, working with them. And I was telling him, do you know any design firms that do like social impact work? Because that's kind of where my mind was.

C I wanted to realign my work with like my values. And he said, yeah, I'll have— I have someone you can talk to. So I started to do informational interviews and she ended up being my, my now supervisor. And so we, we talked about what kind of work she does. It was in, it was in development, but I had never like working with an architectural consulting. I worked with a lot of developers that were not like the, just the typical developer trying to get the most for the money. I had never heard of a social impact developer, so that really intrigued me. And so I ended up being able to have an informational interview with Dave Foster, who is the president of BDP, and just kind of asked him like, what does it mean to be a social impact developer? I'm very curious about it.

C Not really looking, not really asking him to know Like to get a job, but more so just to understand what that work entailed. And so, that was, you know, toward the end of it, he's like, actually, you know, we're looking to expand and you might be, you know, you might be interested in it. I'll keep you posted as we roll it out. And it was kind of like they were developing the position as we continued to talk. So, it was very coincidental.

B Sounds also very serendipitous. Yeah.

C Exactly. That as well. So I think it was more so back to the original question. It was just like I was yearning for doing work that was more aligned with my values that I could wake up feeling good about doing. Not that I was feeling bad about it, but I think all the stressors of that timeframe was just making it challenging to get out of bed. I was like, I got to change something up because I don't want to ever resent any of the people that I work with, the work that I'm doing, my decisions, all of that. When I start to feel that inkling, and that's kind of started since I made the decision to stay in architecture, that if it's feeling like I'm in a stuck place and getting mad at people for no reason, then it's probably time for me to make a shift.

B I want to talk further about values alignment, but before we get into that, I want to just talk about the importance of informational interviews. And I don't think enough architects actually know, like, one, know what an informational interview is. And two, clearly it is an opportunity because yours led to your current position. So, can you just talk about the value you see in having those types of interviews and what it means to ask for an informational interview?

C Yeah, they're highly valuable. I think they're so easy too. I mean, I don't necessarily like public speaking, and the way that my career coach framed it just made it very approachable, I would say. You know, you don't go in looking for a job, you go in looking to know what the day in the life of that person is. So, you know, I had— I was tasked with doing some LinkedIn stalking of like or thinking back to the people that I've met that inspired me, whether it was at some kind of seminar or a conference or whatever, and seeing if I had any kind of tangential connection to them, or, you know, 6 degrees removed or whatever the case is. But you really just have to come up with 5 questions that are very simple and straightforward and kind of let someone talk about themselves. And I appreciate informational interviews that you set the tone of, you know, I'm just really kind of looking for— give me a sense of the day and the day in your life at work. And, you know, you get the good and the bad with that.

C Because if you're looking for— if, you know, if you're going there, um, saying like, I'm looking for a job in some kind of way, then everybody's trying to give you the best version of the work they do when— and then you don't really get the insight in like the pros and the cons of that work, or if you even want to do that work. I remember I always thought I wanted to work at UN Habitat or UN, the one acronym where they work with the refugees. And I finally got it. I got an informational interview with that person and she was very honest. And even between the 2 UN groups told me about how much they are disconnected and don't work together. And I thought they would be overlapped. I was like, oh, there's no way I want to do that. And she said, you know, If you're looking to see results of your work in your time, in your generation, you might not want this job because it's really dependent on who's in office, political climates, you know, what's going on around the world.

C And so if that's not something that you have the stomach for or the patience for, then it might not be a good role for you. And I think I thought that was very helpful for me to hear that from her, and I appreciated Like the transparency. So I think informational interviews give it less of a, of a, of a, you go in there with no expectations of being presented with like the shiny image of what that job entails.

B Yeah. I also like the fact that you actually spend most of the time listening. I think, I feel like that's so important because I, I mean, I just got off a call even this week and somebody's like, I have a question about where my job is headed, or like where, you know, where— when it wasn't an informational interview, but it was a good friend. And I was like, okay. And then it took them, like, they went on, they took 20 of their 30 minutes just like explaining so much of themselves to me. And I was like, okay, you could have talked through this on your own. How, how can I help? How can I help you in this conversation? Like, where do I, where do I fit in?

C Yeah, it's It's key to have those 5 questions and stick to them. And if you don't get through all them, that's fine because you're really just listening and you usually get nuggets of information that you never even thought to ask because somebody maybe had a stressful day and now they're just sharing more than you expected, which you appreciate and you take it all in. And I think it's helpful for you to decide if that's the kind of position I want to be in or—

B Yeah.

C In the environment I wanna work in, you know, so on and so forth. So yeah, I, I, starting with the day, I just kind of wanna hear what it, what a day in the life of you. It's like you can set off a lot and then if you know they're short with it, you just have some follow-up questions, but only ask for maybe 20 minutes tops of their time, maybe 30. It can be over a coffee or I was doing a lot of these remotely, so it was nice to just have a conversation.

B Let's go back to your current role, though, and what it means to work as a values-aligned developer, which I think is— most people hear developer and they're like, eek. So, why don't you talk a little bit about what it is and what is a day in the life of?

C Yeah. A value-aligned developer. Yeah, I still feel eek when I hear developer, not necessarily value-aligned. Oh, if you put social impact in front of it, which when people ask me, who do you work for? And they're like, wait, real— oh, you're in real estate development. And they like immediately have this face that like, oh, they understand what I do. They understand that I'm cutthroat and that I only care about money. I'm like, no, no, no, no, it's social impact. Like, let me, let me tell you a little bit about it.

C And so I give them like a version of my elevator pitch, but I think— The work that we do, we are basically the real estate arm of a national nonprofit, Community Solutions, that works on reducing, like mitigating homelessness across the country. And they do it in various different ways where they work with large cities, small cities, and in the homeless response systems and try to coordinate with those homeless response entities within those communities on how to basically understand their homeless population and then what levers to pull to reduce that in ways that are sustainable and scalable. So we act, VDP acts as Community Solutions, basically real estate arm, and Community Solutions has prioritized several large cities to have real estate be one of those, you know, actions. And so we buy properties on their behalf. in those cities and through like natural attrition, the model is that we prioritize 30 to 50% of those units to those who've exited homelessness. Community Solutions primarily, primary population I would say are veteran homeless. So that's where we start the partnerships. So we'll partner with the VAs in those communities, other like the Social Services of Veteran Families, so SSVF.

C I was, I'm trying to say the full name so I don't just go into a bunch of acronyms. But so in those communities, we partner with them and try to get their clients into our buildings until we reach that like 30 to 50% capacity. And the other 50% are just conventional workforce residents, usually low to mid-income. And so these are existing properties so that we don't have to wait for them to be built. It's trying to promote that like there is a way to maintain affordability. we get the capital for it through social impact dollars of like larger entities or philanthropic dollars of families and such. And so they accept like a smaller return on investment than you would for maybe a conventional development with the understanding that it's for like a social impact endeavor. And so I kind of, not kind of, I do act as the liaison between those community partners, such from the VA and those other homeless response agencies and our buildings, our property managers, our asset managers, and help to make sure they know, the community knows that we have available units.

C We also have a position that I manage across our portfolio that we have resident services coordinators. And so they also help to fill that gap. on services with residents that are coming from the homeless response system. As you can imagine, they exhibit a various number of needs. And so working on getting them housed and then stability and retention is like really what I like to spend a lot of my time on. And that I would say if I could wrap it up in a phrase is just like how to work around a broken system. So. If I was to wrap it up like that.

C But it's a lot of changing of hats. I think the work, the way they teach you in design to take all these various externalities and complexities and design a building or a place that can meet all the needs of all these various things is exactly the systems thinking that I was probably hired for, that VDP appreciates having design thinking and systems thinkers on the team. My supervisor's also trained in architecture, and so we work really well together on meeting all these challenges that get thrown at us. How can we really present the best environment for our residents and hopefully promote some kind of sense of stability? Or working their way toward that, considering all the things that are going on around them. So.

A Here's the thing about year-end tax planning: owner compensation, retirement plans, PTE elections— they only count on this year's returns if they're set up before the calendar runs out. And your current CPA is probably reactive. Gelt CPAs, they build the plan, run a calculated year-end projection so you know exactly where you stand. and support your firm year-round. Start now at joingelt.com. That's J-O-I-N-G-E-L-T.com. And mention Practice of Architecture for 10% off your first year.

B So what does a day in your life look like?

C Depends on what day of the week. I'd say Wednesdays are the, are the days— I was just talking to a colleague— Wednesdays are the days where I'm just Like, man, I don't know. Like, I don't know. And I think, and that comes from just, there's just, there's so much that is involved with the process of getting someone housed. And so a lot of the times a day in the life looks like check-in meetings with our resident services coordinators to see how they're doing, how the community's doing, how they're working with the property managers. I'll check in calls with them on that. I'll look and see what is the most pressing email. Potentially there was a resident who had some unauthorized visitors, and that unfortunately led to an incident.

C And so, you know, is it one that we work, work on and try to resolve within our property team and myself providing instruction or guidance? Or do I need to bring in like the larger partners to figure out how we stop this from continuing to happen or whatever the case is? So, or maybe I have an investor report that's due and so I have to pull together a bunch of metrics of all the people we housed and make sure all those numbers are accurate and consider stability rates. Or maybe we have a team meeting and we're doing a design session on how to rethink You know, bringing resources to the property with considering how funding has changed drastically in this current climate. Or maybe it's like I'm getting a bunch of photos of an event that went really well because the food pantry came out to the property and distributed food to a bunch of residents, one of our properties. So it really varies and it makes it exciting and challenging. And I kind of just— Wake up like, okay, what? Hopefully there are no fires. Hopefully there are no actual and metaphorical and physical fires at one of our properties. And hopefully we're housing someone today or we're helping someone get navigated to resources so they can pay their rent on time or getting them connected to the service provider or their SNAP benefits or something like that. So it varies a lot, but— I think it keeps you on your toes.

C And when you get to step back and try to put together— I also am tasked with putting together systems improvement work. And so I get a chance to talk to people who are doing it well in other places and in other contexts and draw from their expertise and figure out how it might work in our context and try to put together maybe a Standard, like standardize our approach or standardize documents or standardize how we work with residents or the other little helpful things that, like trauma-informed care training and putting that together and putting that out to our property managers so they understand how to work with the population that we serve. So there's a lot of levels of involvement and guidance or trainings or expertise that I'm getting from other people as well in the service world. So, it's a lot of that. It's a lot of processing a lot of things all the time at once, but I enjoy it.

B So, my next question is, you talked about the need or the fact that BDP is really Thankful for having systems thinkers. And I often say that a lot of the education that we are provided as architects, right, going through that program is really about systems thinking. What other skills do you find kind of transferable from your architecture degree? I don't ever remember opening a spreadsheet, for instance, in school. So, so what other, when you think about like the other skills that really did transition, where are you pulling from your architecture degree?

C I mean, luckily I get to use a little bit of like my design eye for some of our projects. And so, you know, when there's a lot of stuff going on and all of a sudden a community or a property is like, oh, we wanna repaint, or we wanna have a community garden, where should we put it? Or we wanna redesign our common space. Some, they'll be like, oh, let's ask Sarai. I love when I can do actual like design work that actually, that translates most directly to my work. And so, those are the cool things. I would say there's something that was on the tip of my tongue. The way that you can take— you learn to take criticism, I think, is really helpful in this work because as a company that we have to be very flexible depending on the needs of the community and adapting to that. But also, you know, living at a property and renting at a property, there's going to be just things that you do that just have to be done.

C But the flexibility in how we do that and hearing back from various communities of like, why are you guys doing it this way? It's like really hard for our clients to adjust and blah, blah, blah. And we have to take that feedback and be able to provide answers or Compromises or workarounds. And if something's not working, even though we tried it and we want to hear back, like taking that feedback, I think, I mean, I've not received any feedback like I did in school that like has made me cry, which is like a, which like, I can't say the same for school. Like in school they tore you down. So if you can get through architecture school in one piece, then you can almost get through anything. So I would say. And I think what also architecture school has taught me about what I never want to experience again. Like, I don't want to experience having to present your best self on like the least amount of energy— Sleep.

C —which you have ever— sleep, nutrition, all of that. Like, I never wanna do that. Like, so in this work, it also has helped me. set boundaries, which I think are needed because, I don't know, it's just part of life. There's just so many things that can go on and that you could stay awake thinking about. I think in architecture, you have to know how to receive feedback and articulate back to someone what they presented to you in a way that makes sense to them and like translates how a different design element or shift actually does meet someone's need. And that's, it just keeps going. It's like back and forth in that way.

C And then you essentially do that advocacy for them and then you present it to, you know, whomever to say, this is the way we should go about it. The community said this, the client said this, and here's the idea. And so we get to do a lot of that in different contexts. And this, like, the most pressing need right now, people aren't paying their rent because they lost this other benefit. You know, let's talk to investors about being okay with investing money in this route. And like that back and forth liaisoning that I think design allows for is I, I do that kind of on a constant basis. So that's like a, I feel like a transferable skill for sure.

B Well, throughout your career, and you mentioned this before, kind of the whole one foot in, one foot out.

C Yeah.

B I want to go back to your— the course that you taught at Penn.

C Yeah.

B Unruly Practices.

C Yeah.

B How did that come about?

C It was during 2020 summer. I think a lot of students with my co-instructor, she's a full-time— or she teaches like more of the studio courses. I just kind of have stepped in for electives and such, but she was getting a lot of angsts and anxieties from students about, is this work even going to be— are these degrees even going to be helpful in whatever is happening in the world right now? And I'm spending a lot of money on it and I'm going to have debt and I'm going to be in a job that I hate or blah, blah, blah. So I think she was getting a lot of that. And She used to direct students that wanted to go an unconventional route to me because not only was she my co-instructor, she was also my former professor and ended up being a colleague of mine at Olin. So we're friends. And so she would say, Sarai, I have a student who I told them that they should talk to you because you figured out how to navigate Penn in a way that made sense for you. And I think— that kind of need some direction.

C So she'd always send them to me. And so I think the buildup of all of those students having all these anxieties in 2020, she kind of said she was talking to the chair of the department and proposed a class and said, I think I have the best person to teach it with me. And so after she already volunteered our collaboration, Uh-huh. she told me about it and she was like, Like, we're gonna teach a class. Do you wanna have like, um, an elective around all this stuff that I've been telling you about the students, the feedback from students? And so I was like, all right, let's do it. And so we kind of, we just brought it together. She had been having remote versions of like counseling sessions essentially, even though it was like office hours already with students. And so we kind of just transitioned it to a class, pulling out themes that were common from students.

C To try to figure out a way to let them know, like, things are going to be okay. Your profession or your degree is not a waste. Let's show you, give you steps or some guidance and a structure around how to, like, channel those anxieties to something that's productive and hear from people who have taken an alternative route and see that and get an honest opinion of how they feel about where they are right now and how they got there. And so we didn't want to put together a panel of people who were going to present again that shiny object. We wanted to— we asked the panelists to come fully unprepared, but just open to answering very honest questions from students. And so the students brought together the questions. for each class, and we give them a sense of who was going to be visiting, what their background might be, you know. And we would kind of— we put the speakers, the panelists, in categories of like advocacy or starting up.

C Starting out was one of our categories, or research. Maybe there's somebody who's heavy on research. So we kind of categorize them based on the sections of our, of our class, of our course. So they would have that, and that would be, you know, the students would decide on how they would emcee that part of the class. That was always at the end of the class. But the bulk of— not the bulk of the class, but the other portion of the class was showing them what they might encounter if they decide to go an unconventional route in the design world. So letting them know what it looks like to apply for a grant, letting them know what it looks like to do actual research if you're gonna go maybe the PhD route, letting them know how to like bring the finance into starting out on your own. So we would have someone do a course on— he was a— he's a professor at RISD and does entrepreneurial course for design students there.

C And so we had him guest speak in like kind of teach students how to present their work and think about it, not just like just trying to get by on hopefully you sell it, but like be strategic about that and starting a business. And so bringing in those little components that we didn't, we didn't go into, into depth on any one topic, but wanted to give them a sense of what it might look like if you go this route and that, and just to show them that it's feasible. This is how you might get there. And then I think one of the other recurring people that we had present was talking about interview techniques. So we had a journalist come in and do conversations, instruction on interview techniques, how to leave your biases at the door, you know, what to— how to listen, how to move through an interview. So it was— I really enjoyed teaching that class. Because I learn a lot as well from all these people who we bring in. The students, I think, really feel like they get to ask some questions that are like, they wouldn't necessarily raise their hand at the end of a presentation in a larger setting and say like, how did you support yourself and pay off your loans until you got this job as a principal? You know, and so they can ask those questions there.

B So did you ever find any patterns Or just traits of, you know, how people showed up and built unconventional careers? Is there— or when they started, was it, you know, are these people that identified earlier on? Are they people like yourself? Are they people that like did like mid-career shifts? Or is it just like everyone's really finding their own path on their own time?

C I think I want to say that there seems to be a commonality of someone trying to meet a need or desire that isn't being met in whatever phase of life they're in, like on the career side of things. So a lot of— it's like in academia, if you're not being taught about— maybe for instance, you want to know about your you're particularly curious about? Like, why aren't we being taught in professional practice about sustainability goals? Or why are we not talking more about climate change? I know we were maybe a few years ago, but maybe that was a desire that we didn't get fulfilled. Or maybe labor dynamics. Like, that's one that we don't hear a lot about as far as Like, and I mean on the landscape architecture side of it, who's actually— these, we're getting all this money for these projects, but who's actually getting paid to do the work and something like that. So maybe there was a person who didn't see that being highlighted, so they chose that thing that wasn't being addressed to hone in on it, become the expert in it, and either start their own firm that centers on that or start some kind of committee or something within their firm, but it always felt like it happened. There was like some need that wasn't being met for them, and they decided to hone in on it in some kind of way. And I mean, I don't know, I think they just, they took that leap of faith. They took that leap and just trusted that or became really curious about it.

C And I think that curiosity not being met was probably the underlying thing that has been the through line for a lot of the people. That it can look like anxiety, it can look like being fed up, it can look like burnout, but essentially when you get past all of it, it's like a curiosity I feel that's there.

B What would you tell a high schooler now that's interested in pursuing architecture? Or a degree in architecture.

C Are you sure?

A No.

C Which is fair. Yeah. I would say I would really, I would probably ask them a lot of questions first before giving them any advice because I think, I honestly wonder for high schoolers, I haven't been in contact with a lot of high schoolers in a while. I just wonder what their perception of architecture is. currently. And so it'd be kind of interesting to do like an interview of a high school student or a high school class of like, what do you think an architect does? Because I think the answer to that would then influence my advice to them. Because I would ask them to just make sure you understand what you're passionate about right now and where you think you see yourself in the world of design, because that'll That'll provide some— that would help me provide guidance to them on what they should consider. Is it that you like the end result or you're curious about how you get to that process? Are you curious about the mechanics? Are you curious about just building stadiums? Is there some particular type of design that you like? What intrigues you about it? And then I would say, do you think, are you the type of person that no matter like how challenging it might get, you can see past that circumstance at the moment to like an end result? Like that won't deter you, you know, because there will be a lot of things thrown at you and— If that's okay and you're just okay with navigating it and understanding that it's part of the process, then maybe architecture is a thing for you.

C But I don't know. I don't know if I would have immediate advice. I would just, I'd have more questions than advice first off, just to kind of get to the bottom of what they think they love about it or what they love about it if they already know, where they feel like they have strengths and where they feel like they would, you know, have things they need to work on. So, that would open up a lot of insight, I think. And then I'd hopefully be able to more effectively, like, provide them some guidance. You gotta, like, do you drink coffee already? Like, that's gonna be like—

B Someday, I wish, like, I would hope that studio culture evolves Enough that like one day we can be asking different questions about what it means to survive architecture school. Yeah, I, I think so. It's also been interesting to see the proliferation of like TikTok and Instagram creators on the student side that's kind of lifting the veil on what it means to be an architecture student these days. What do you tell architecture students who are stuck in a similar situation that you were stuck in?

C I tell them that you're only stuck because I don't think academia does a good job of giving you options. And that you're— I don't want to— I don't like to dismiss their feelings, but I do like to present them with— again, I probably lean more into starting with the questions first. Like, why do you feel you're stuck? What about where you are right now doesn't feel like it's in your control. And then try to give them guidance on how to get that control back in some kind of way to where they feel that they can move forward. And it might be incremental at first, and letting them know that that's okay because you're still in school and you're not meant to know everything. That's why you're in school, to learn. And then to make them aware of all the resources they have at their expenditure at the time. Penn has a wealth of resources, a wealth of knowledge, connections, all of that stuff.

C And I think if students are so bogged down with the rigor of the coursework, they kind of forget to look outside of the 4 walls. And so I typically will ask them to Ask them, what do you like to do outside of architecture or outside of design? And Philadelphia is a walkable city in a lot of times of the year, or a decent amount of time of the year. So, like, you know, let's take a walk, or, you know, let's go— they have a performing arts place right on campus. Like, let's go to a concert, or go to a concert tonight and leave this work behind and think about these things. that you think would get you to a place of feeling unstuck and come back and let's talk about it. But yeah, I think we just get so bogged down by what we think we need to have done by this timeframe that we don't lift our heads up. So I just ask, I kind of tell them, let's lift our heads up and figure out how we can put one foot in front of the other again. Just give them some hope.

B I feel like all of us, Especially when we are lost, right? Need a direction for hope. What is your hope for the future of housing and the architect's role and what they play in that?

C I think we could do better at not trying to maintain a certain air or that we know That we're like so, so much the expertise. I think there's validity in that for sure in maintaining the integrity of the profession, but I think we could be better listeners. I think things have turned so much on like promoting yourself and making sure you know this and blah, blah, blah that we have gotten away from listening and listening with like— It's really hard for architects to not immediately have a solution. And I think we got to figure out a way. My hope is that we can figure out a way to actually listen and learn from those around us that are dealing with the really challenging things in life and trying to understand that priorities shift depending on where you are in your life. You know, maybe I don't care that I have the best lighting in my room when I don't know where I'm getting my next meal from right now, or, you know, that kind of thing. So if we could, my hope would be that we can be better listeners in general. I think that would be helpful to how we design, but also helpful to how we make things more accessible for folks.

C Since I've shifted away from architecture, sometimes it's challenging to immediately identify the role that an architect can play in this work. I feel like I've not necessarily cared less about architecture, but it's been less of a priority to the immediate work that I'm doing. So, I think it's probably beneficial for me to still attend some conferences that have parallels. to the work I'm doing so that I can be a little bit more informed or connected or aligned to what architects can truly do to impact this work on the housing side. But I think some of the— so one of the things that we promote in the class, we try to promote in the class is that there's a lot of alignments and overlaps in a lot of these other professions that aren't related to architecture. that we don't think are related to architecture. And if architects can delve more into those overlaps, I think we— and not rely on us being the expert of everything. And I know that's a generalization, but, you know, why aren't we doing more projects where it's an architect consulted with like behavioral therapists, consulted with an engineer, consulted, you know, like a— Environmentalist, arborist, someone in the medical field.

C Like, that would be an amazing team, you know, to design a building or facility or apartment complex. If we could do more of that and not be caught up with like the fee structure and all that stuff, who is prime, like, who cares? Like, let's make something that makes sense. So that would be my hope if we can get to that point.

A Hi, disruptors.

B Thank you for joining us on this episode of Practice Disrupted.

A Want more of this between episodes? Start with Practice Rebuilt, our weekly newsletter on the business of architecture at practiceofarchitecture.com/newsletter. And when you're ready to stop reading about change and start testing it in your own firm, get on the list for the Lab at practiceofarchitecture.com/lab. We'll see you next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.