Revelateur Studio 10/26/22 Revelateur Studio 10/26/22

{PODCAST RERUN} Truth Is Golden - 205 | Less Is More Or Less w/ Dan Brunn

A brief 2022 take on this podcast: When I started podcasting 5 years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. I had an idea of what I wanted to accomplish, but on the technical side, I sucked and I was also terrified to record myself for the public to hear. “What are they going to think of me?” was a constantly recurring mantra in my head and I would routinely get the jitters in the hour leading up to an interview.

Four years on, I feel much more positively about the whole endeavour, but if I ask one thing of you is this: don’t judge the execution too harshly and instead focus on the content of the conversations. I think after all these years they still hold tremendous value.

Dan Brunn’s early life in Tel Aviv, subsequent move with his family to Southern California at age 7 and his later nomadic lifestyle as an adult certainly did not make his life easy, yet set the stage for a highly creative and driven character to develop. Someone as uncompromising as he is a kind soul who wants to do good in the world. Dan is a young(ish) architect based out of LA creating buildings inspired by the Bauhaus aesthetic he grew up around in Tel Aviv, but also influenced by Southern California modernism. We chatted about what moves him, his very early love for architecture, his influences as well as his love of cars, music, food and travel. Listen in to hear Dan speak about his work and life.

The intent behind our podcast series "Truth Is Golden" is to look at renowned creatives and their work with a critical eye. We aim to ask deep questions in order to peel back the layers of marketing, clever one-liners and sexy branding. We want to show the world what it truly takes for genuinely creative forces to find their own voice build a career on what is very often nothing more than a drive to do things differently. We want to hear about the successes, the failures, the inspirational stories and the lessons gleaned from all of it. We want the truth, so that we can inspire other people to fulfill their own creative aspirations and in the process contribute to making the world a better place.

Credits:
Post-Production: Ryan Aktari
Music: Bounce Trio, Star Animal, 2014.
Organ & Keys : Matthieu Marthouret
Ténor Sax : Toine Thys
Drums : Gautier Garrigue
Composed by Toine Thys (copyrights SABAM).

Buy it on BandCamp :
weseemusicstore.bandcamp.com/album/smal…big-rivers

More info and music here :
www.youtube.com/user/weseemusic
www.matthieumarthouret.com
www.facebook.com/MatthieuMarthouret.Music/

Revelateur Studio 10/19/22 Revelateur Studio 10/19/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 315 - McKinley on the Black Chamber

This week, we’re taking a break from talking about housing affordability and the missing middle. My guest is Walker McKinley, founder of McKinley Studios and we’re talking about his integrated practice model called the “Black Chamber” which is set up to promote collaboration across disciplines and foster innovation.

Listen in to hear him speak about this practice model and learn how it works.

About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.

Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity .

RVLTR:

Walker McKinley is the founder of McKinley Studios, a firm operating in the fields of strategy architecture, interiors, branding, art, and furniture based in Western Canada. The firm operates on a unique studio model, the Black Chamber, that aims at giving designers more agency over their work through a collaboration between creative disciplines, which is what we're here to talk about today. So, can you start by telling us who you are and what you do in your own words in three sentences or less?

Walker McKinley (WM):

I'm Walker McKinley, Founder of McKinley Studios. I'm a architect by education, but I'm involved in, I guess, six different creative studios, as well as some manufacturing companies mostly based in Vancouver and Calgary.

RVLTR:

That was short and sweet. So, let's get right into it and what the hell is the Black Chamber?

WM:

So in our architecture and interiors practice, we were increasingly asked questions by clients that we felt weren't really answerable by architecting and required research and collaboration and outside voices. We decided to both monetize that activity, and also by taking on that work for our clients, it was a way to be at the table at the very beginning of projects when we think a lot of really important decisions are made that designers are sort of left out of when they come in in the standard practice of later.

So we're doing research, we're bringing in artists and top chefs and economists and other data professionals and working on ... it changes with every project. Sometimes it's positioning of a real estate project, sometimes it's programming, sometimes it's uncovering assets that a client has that they may not understand. Then often it works for us as a business development tool, because it leads to design.

RVLTR:

So if I understand correctly, design is not always the answer to those challenges.

WM:

Design is ultimately the answer, but we think that designers have often been left out of that critical first step, which in my mind, design thinking is what is needed for so many of these challenges. Yet pro-forma thinking and legal thinking, and political thinking ends up taking over and designers are handed a kind of half-baked agenda.

RVLTR:

So, how long have you been operating on that model then?

WM:

The firm is 20-some years old as a kind of pure architecture and interiors firm. Black Chamber came about I would say five years ago-ish, and has really in the last three years taken on real flash that's got a team and really a process.

RVLTR:

So I think to help me visualize and I think the audience as well, can you maybe speak to a couple of significant or typical projects that have come out of this collaborative process?

WM:

Sure. I'll be speaking today about a couple of them here at IDS. The very first project where we really catalyzed this was Simons department store, which we had done work for them. They have 125,000 square foot department stores. They work for them, unlike most retailers these days, but they could not get that kind of real estate in downtown Toronto or downtown Vancouver, so they came to us and said, "You know our program, what would a 10,000 or a 30,000 square foot Simons look like?"

So we knew that that wasn't just shrinking the store, that it wouldn't be sensical and needed a completely different idea of what shopping is. So the day that I would talk to Peter Simons about that project, I was that evening watching a documentary about a group in World War II that cracked the Japanese code during the war. They were called Black Chamber. I was kind of half deliriously asleep on the couch, and I was like, "Hey, I think that's what we're being asked to do is crack cultural codes and consumer behavior codes, and figure out how the web could replace 120,000 square feet in mixed with a 30,000 square feet, and what that would look like and what it would need to do."

So, then the store became about community and being a sort of ambassador, generating web traffic, shopping takes on a whole other sort of look.

RVLTR:

So, are you directly responsible for bringing Simons to Toronto?

WM:

I am not.

RVLTR:

No?

WM:

We have not done any of that work yet. We've started in on the work and I've done a number of their department stores, none here.

RVLTR:

I see. So, what do you aim to accomplish for this new model? What's your purpose or your long-term vision?

WM:

For us, Black Chamber, I mean, it's a powerful way ... how do I say this? It's at once new for us, but really it's old. It's what architects have always known their job was to think and to be design thinkers. I feel like recently developers and project managers and all kinds of other related professionals have taken away a lot of the sort of agency of the designer. So for us, partly it just gives it back.

It gets us at the table right away, it lets us help make big important programming decisions. It's worked so well for our projects where we've done it separately as a project, that now every project we have starts with a mini Black Chamber. It's sort of our pre-design process and it's opening doors for us. Sometimes people are interested in that thinking more than necessarily they already have a designer or an architect, but we'll still do the thinking and then it leads to more of the more traditional work that we do.

RVLTR:

So are you still taking on the traditional architecture interior's work, or are you solely operating from that Black Chamber model now?

WM:

We definitely still do architecture and interiors, but Black Chamber's now sort of the foundation of how we work.

RVLTR:

That's very interesting. So you have your fingers in many figurative pies, architecture interiors, graphic design, art, products even. I think those glasses you're wearing are your design. How do you keep track of everything and prevent the whole thing from losing steam or get lost?

WM:

Falling apart?

RVLTR:

Yeah.

WM:

Do I? No, I mean, I've got a great team. Each of the studios has a director and associates and a team. My job is to make sure they're collaborating and working as an interdisciplinary whole. I'm sort of a mascot for a fair amount of it and very high-level within it, and then the team really does the work.

RVLTR:

So, it's all about people.

WM:

Absolutely, and collaboration. We're extremely collaborative.

RVLTR:

That's very interesting. So, there's another architect who's been working hard at bringing agency back into the fold of architecture. That's Joshua Prince-Ramus of REX New York. He's really big on doing that by designing in a way that gives him and his firm more agency, and he does so by designing buildings that basically cannot be modified without being completely destroyed.

WM:

Right.

RVLTR:

There's a famous example of one of those ubiquitous high-rise towers in Seoul that he was asked to design, and his solution was to make the elevator core the facade so that it couldn't be changed. It had to be what it was, otherwise the structure would not stand. So that's more, to me, a tactical approach to bringing agency back into the fold of the architect. It seems you have more of a strategic approach to the problem. Can you speak more about that?

WM:

Yeah, I think through Black Chamber, our approach is to, as I say, have a seat at the table right from the beginning and to be really involved in the decisions that would lead to decisions that would lead to value engineering. So, we are helping set the overall values of the project and why the project exists and setting a North Star for all decisions that are made within a project, from how it's communicated to the public, to how it's negotiated with the municipalities, to what it looks like, to how it's sold. So by being a part of that, I feel like we're able to really define where the project goes.

RVLTR:

So when you do that, do you find that it's harder to value engineer, because you have your fingers in all those aspects of the project?

WM:

Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily see value engineering as an evil even. I think if it's value engineering, and truly I think what we are trying to work on in Black Chamber are the values. So I think if the values are strongly set, yes, you can make decisions about do we spend on this or that, but they're made around values. So yeah, I think it is a way to control quality or at least encourage quality, which I think is also what fighting value engineering is also obviously trying to do.

RVLTR:

So, have you noticed any tangible or noticeable differences in quality between maybe your older more traditional architecture and what you do now?

WM:

Yes, for sure. I mean, we're seeing great success in some of the really large projects that we're involved in like multi-building urban fabric kind of projects. We're able to tell a story and bring a narrative based on setting up values all the way through the project, so that different architects can be working on different parts of it, we can be working on parts of it. We can be helping to bring in the right kind of tenants, we can be helping to set how the tenants communicate with each other, how the branding is done.

So, we've gone from maybe we're doing the architecture of a building or the interiors in a building to really helping engineer the entire vision of the place and how all parts of it come together with us and other people.

RVLTR:

So again, just to maybe paint a picture in the listener's mind and in my own mind too, because it helps me, a visual person. Say if you did a condo for a developer, what you can do basically is everything from the pro forma and the initial studies down to the marketing and the selling. Can you do all of that in-house?

WM:

Not all of it. So, a lot of it. So currently, of course Vancouver is like Toronto, a lot of the work is developer condo buildings. So, we would typically get involved with Black Chamber early on in terms of helping envision the sort of positioning of a product and a building, who it's going to sell to. We do consumer behavior research, we do that kind of market analysis, but we do it from a design point of view. We would do the architecture, we would do the interiors, we would do the branding, we would do strategy around marketing, not sales certainly.

RVLTR:

I see. So, what kind of response has that model generated, both from the clients and maybe from the users or consumers or the general public? What kind of response have you seen to it?

WM:

I'd say generally it's been really, really positive. In a way, it empowers clients who don't always have the tools to do design thinking. They come from a real estate background or a financial background, and so you become another part of their organization and help them think in a way that they'd rather do good things, and you help them set values for a project that are more noble perhaps than just the pro forma, and yet you're also responsive to the pro forma. So I think clients have reacted really well, I think the product is generally better that we've been doing.

Some of my favorite work we've done in Black Chamber has been just for ourselves. We've done a big study on housing and construction processes for single family homes, which has led to us being partners in a manufacturing company on a sort of innovative housing platform, prefabricated magnesium panel homes that we're rolling out called Commonplace. So, that started as us asking ourselves is there another way for housing and turned into a company and a platform. We're building our first prototypes now and we're in conversations with people in the US to do 400 homes.

RVLTR:

Oh, that's amazing. So, it sounds like it's almost your own and also your clients' R&D departments basically.

WM:

Yeah. Yeah, really. We started out calling it R&D and it morphs. Sometimes it's visioning, market positioning. The best of it is, I think, R&D.

RVLTR:

That's interesting. So, you mentioned this one personal project that led to a whole other business. Are there any other self-initiated projects or research topics that you're very interested in that have yielded extraordinary results?

WM:

Well, they haven't yielded companies mostly, but we're all over the place. We're doing a study on street fashion and how luxury as an idea has been changed by marginalized groups through street fashion, and what that means for architecture is a study I'm really excited about right now. We've been doing studies for clients on a deep understanding of wellness for architecture, what we're calling wholeness. A really, really holistic idea of wellness and what that literally will mean for buildings and cities.

RVLTR:

That's interesting.

WM:

Yeah, so we're all over the place.

RVLTR:

So, maybe you can help me clarify. I never understood the brand Supreme, and I think it's right up that alley of street fashion as luxury. Is that something you can explain to me? Because this is still a mystery.

WM:

I think Supreme's a mystery to most people. I mean, what excites me about that space is that people like Virgil Abloh literally opened the doors of a very homogenous luxury world and brought in designers of colour. The first students were sitting in the front rows of fashion shows, he was the first black designer to be in the LVMH stable. When he did that, what he did for say Louis Vuitton, I think, changes design.

RVLTR:

So I'm familiar with him, because I actually went to the same school he did.

WM:

Oh yeah?

RVLTR:

Yeah, we both studied at IIT and I know he passed away recently, so rest in peace, but I'm not too familiar with his fashion work. What, in your mind, has he done to open the doors to a whole new market or type of fashion that didn't exist before?

WM:

I mean, he did a lot of things. To me, the exciting stuff was what he was doing at Louis Vuitton, where he was taking this generations-old, very stable, very traditional brand, and really ironically and sometimes sarcastically even warping it, morphing it, changing it, often with a marginalized audience in mind.

So, he sort of inserted this code into the traditional French luxury market that we can never go back on now. Yet, the computer was still running Louis Vuitton and now there was this rogue code in it.

RVLTR:

It's amazing that they let him do it in the first place. What do you think pushed them to do such a 180? Because it doesn't sound like they ran away from their existing brand, but to let it be co-opted by someone who you would never thought as being part of that brand to begin with.

WM:

I mean, I don't know the exact story. I should look into the genesis story of when that happened, but it was phenomenally successful, right? I think Baby Steps saw that this was a world that was going to financially be so successful for these brands, that it was sort of impossible to not allow it. Those brands had a long history of artistic respect and freedom, but within a pretty narrow band until people like him came along.

RVLTR:

Yeah.

WM:

Of course, now it works so well that there's an almost cynical version of it going on where everybody needs a Virgil Abloh, and there's not that many Virgil Ablohs to go around.

RVLTR:

Yeah. Yeah, well, there was probably only one.

WM:

Exactly.

RVLTR:

So, that's interesting. I mean, that's an interesting tangent, but it shows how broadly you're thinking and I think that's much needed in this industry. What has gotten you excited maybe in the last little while of things that you're thinking about working on or you started working on, but ideas you haven't fully formed yet, or things that you think are going to happen in the future that would be worth looking at?

WM:

I mean, off the cuff, our housing project is very exciting to me right now. It feels like it answers so many issues that are in front of us with housing, from affordability to fireproofing, to sustainability and recycling. Whether our product will be one that makes it within the masses of product or not, we'll see, but I'm really excited about where the world's heading in terms of new technologies and ways of thinking about housing.

RVLTR:

So, you said that's a prefab product, right?

WM:

Yeah.

RVLTR:

So, can you maybe give us a little more detail about what that is and how that's going to come to market? Or is it already being sold?

WM:

It's not being sold yet, it's in prototype. We're building our first prototype homes. So we went out to find a better way to construct a home, and at the same time, we're designing what we call the essential home. So on the heels of people like Dieter Rams, less, but better. Not less, not minimal, but essential.

RVLTR:

Yeah.

WM:

So, we were designing what we thought could be a home that answered to that ambition that I think a lot of people have right now. Especially younger generations are not interested in being anchored to their home. They want exceptional lives that include all kinds of other things, but would also love to own a home. So, there was a lot of these things in our minds. Then we went out to try and find the right technology to help us produce something that could answer to some of the technical problems that we saw in wood frame construction, and we ended up partnering with a manufacturer.

So, the product is a magnesium and hemp and recycled plastic panel. It's factory made. We're able to ship these homes with cabling and plumbing within the walls. Because the walls are magnesium, we're working on them being able to be a battery basically. So if you're off the grid, you could store energy in the walls. So, they're not instantaneous, but you would build a home pretty much anywhere that you could ship to within two to three months instead of a year and a half. They would be more affordable, they would be recyclable. These panels, you can mulch them up and make a new panel, unlike wood frame construction, which has nails in it, which makes it very hard to recycle.

RVLTR:

That's interesting. They're also structural panels?

WM:

They are.

RVLTR:

So it's basically a, traditional might not be the right word, but a kind of conventional home, but it's designed and built in a whole new way.

WM:

Yes.

RVLTR:

You have to reinvent the way they're constructed basically.

WM:

Yes, the technology of the construction is what's truly new.

RVLTR:

That's fascinating. I think I ran out of all my questions for you, but is there anything else you want to add or share with the audience that's really exciting to you, or a message you want to pass on or anything else?

WM:

Gosh, I don't know. Thanks for having me. I could talk all day about all this stuff.

RVLTR:

Well, you don't have to have an answer, no sometimes is acceptable. I want to thank you very much for your time. It was great, short and sweet. Hopefully it's first of many conversations.

WM:

Thank you very much, appreciate it.

Revelateur Studio 10/11/22 Revelateur Studio 10/11/22

{PODCAST RERUN} Truth Is Golden - 204 | Multicultural Modernism w/ Steve Ehrlich

In episode 204, I interviewed veteran architect and globe-trotter Steven Ehrlich, founder and principal at EYRC, a Los Angeles based architecture studio working under the tenet of "Multicultural Modernism". Steven talked about his formative years on the east coast, his early career in Africa as a member of the peace corps, creativity and the challenges and inspiration that come with running a small, but mighty and well respected practice.

Buy it on BandCamp :
weseemusicstore.bandcamp.com/album/smal…big-rivers

More info and music here :
www.youtube.com/user/weseemusic
www.matthieumarthouret.com
www.facebook.com/MatthieuMarthouret.Music/

Revelateur Studio 10/7/22 Revelateur Studio 10/7/22

Parts Galore

I recently had to take my car to Galaxy Auto to fix an electrical issue (highly recommended if electrical gremlins are plaguing your car), and I was inspired by a wall of rebuilt parts shown below. They’re car alternators in case you’re wondering.

The shop collects broken ones, reconditions them and sells them to all the local shops as an alternative to buying expensive spare parts from the dealer. This is their stock, on display for all to see and without a parts management system. According to the owner, he knows exactly where each part is and which car it will fit. When I asked if he had one for my car, he instantly pointed at the right shelf and said “here”.

These are available as limited edition prints for sale (run of 25). Contact us for pricing and printing details.

Revelateur Studio 10/5/22 Revelateur Studio 10/5/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 314 - Chung on Creative Solutions to the Housing Problem

Image courtesy of our guest

Listeners of this podcast know all too well about Toronto’s housing woes and affordability issues. We’ve discussed these issues numerous times with a number of guests before.

Jaegap Chung, co-founder with Sue Jean Chung of Studio JCI has been advocating for innovative solutions to the residential housing supply shortage that are buildable today.

His focus on creativity is inspiring and his architecture idiosyncratically unique.

Check out this episode to hear what more about his ideas and his solutions.

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity:

RVLTR:

Jaegap Chung founded Studio JCI with his partner, Sue Jean Chung in 2007, with the shared goal of creating timeless buildings that contribute to the social, economic and cultural fabric of cities. A Commitment to finding creative, practical, and affordable solutions to Toronto's urban planning problem led to the development of the "Multi-Tach", a long term, sustainable, multi-generational solution to the problem of Toronto's affordable housing crisis and its missing middle challenge. Today we're discussing yet another time Toronto's chronically undersupplied housing stock and we will discuss it over and over again until things change. I'm looking at you politicians.Jaegap, thank you very much for indulging in my city-building obsession. It's a real pleasure to welcome you to the show as a guest. And I hope we'll have a very productive conversation.

Jaegap Chung (JC):

Thanks, Arno. Happy to be here.

RVLTR:

Thank you very much. So tell us who you are and what you do, in your own words in three sentences or less.

JC:

I like to see myself as a problem solver. We don't just pick pretty materials for buildings, but we need to solve problems. When I went to school, the projects that garnered a lot of attention tended to be ones [with] beautiful pictures, beautiful renderings, and those are important, but I think equally important is to be able to problem solve, to bring not only designers, but [all] sorts of other disciplines together to be able to look at issues from a different vantage point and to say: "Okay, how can we improve [our designs]?" And those problem solving skills are becoming even more relevant and important, especially in this post-pandemic world. I think that was our impetus for starting this Multi-Tach initiative.

RVLTR:

So it's widely accepted now that the country and Toronto specifically has a housing problem, and I realize that it's a very complex problem that has a lot of ramifications, but what is it in your opinion? How would you summarize it briefly? And maybe you can start hinting at some of the solutions that we'll talk about later in the interview?

JC:

You're right. The issue is complex and there are many different layers. But I just want to show the way that the city of Toronto has had since its inception this "yellow belt", which takes up about 75% of the landmass of the GTA and of which 66% of the yellow belt has been designated as single detached home [zoning]. And to try to [build anything other than single family homes] you are fighting an uphill battle that's almost unwinnable. And so we, so invariably what the OP policies force developers to build only within that kind of intensification zones, the avenues and along the Yonge street corridor and the downtown area where all the housing needs have to be addressed along that corridor. So as a build form, as a city, you'll see so many high rises along that Yonge street corridor. And oftentimes what we get, [are things] like [where ] I live: a neighborhood where [you have] a 20 story high-rise. and then there's two storey single family homes right next to it. And then it becomes one story bungalows that are [15-minutes] walking distance from a subway and huge 50-foot lots. And so that is an easy thing for the planning policies to change and say, well, if you're within a certain distance from the subway station and you're living right along Yonge street, it makes sense for those homes to be multi-unit, multi-tenant and open up the zoning to be able to do that. But the reality is because the way that the OP policies have been written, they are considered sort of stable neighborhoods and stable neighborhoods, from a planning policy point of view, are like a no-go zone. You don't wanna touch it, and they've been preserved as a kind of economic gated communities, that prohibit somebody like a younger or immigrant to come and, and buy and live in those areas.

RVLTR:

That makes sense. And it speaks to what we were talking about just before the interview: that there is for a lot of people and - and this is broad generalization - a desire to keep things as they are, because there are the incumbents that got into the market when it was [economically] feasible. And now they're worried that their wealth is going to be wiped away by a condo being built at the end of their street, which we know as "NIMBYs". But what's your take on advocating for people that either can't afford at this point to live in those neighborhoods. And worse still, the people that are not yet living in the city, but there's like hundreds of thousands of people that are expected to move to the GTA in the next few decades, and these will need to find housing. What, and then you've talked a little bit about the multi-tach and some of your own solutions to that problem, but what do you think will happen if we don't do anything, and we don't work really hard to make that city livable for everyone?

JC:

So I think there's different ways to look at the problem. Oftentimes some municipalities think that the right way is to "ghettoize" and create, you [...] highrise communities, and we're gonna build it, you know, in the Junction area or Etobicoke or the Weston-Lawrence zone [Toronto neighbourhoods] [...]. And we're gonna designate these zones as, as being "high-intensity" areas and then try to meet and address all of your housing needs there and only there. It's basically creating areas where you're putting so much stress on a very limited [space], right? Because now instead of [housing] a thousand people per square kilometer now you've got 10,000 people/km2, and all of your services and water sewage, and all that capacity has to keep up to be able to house all those people. It's not only costing the taxpayers a lot of money, but it's sort of, ghettoizing that kind of zone and same thing with affordable housing, the federal government has announced some initial, new initiatives for affordable housing. We all know that that's important, but invariably, what ends up happening is then they kind of demarcate certain zones for affordable housing. They build High Rise affordable housing and then, that's where they house everybody. And it becomes another St. James town, or it becomes another Regent park where you end up ghettoizing neighborhoods. Our thinking is with the Multi-tach initiative is instead of concentrating development in one or two areas, why not just like evenly spread it out? So based on our research, if we looked at 1% adoption in the current available R, RA and RM zones [Yellow Belt], a 1% adoption of the Multi Tach, we're talking about 10,000 extra units. Okay. Which is equivalent to about 25 high rises

RVLTR:

For the whole city?

JC:

This is only in the R zone, which is only in the 30% of the yellow belt. Now, if we take that to 18%, that's equivalent to 350,000 units, again, not in one area, I'm talking about more of an equitable distribution, right? We're not talking about putting everybody in one area. No, we're just saying just evenly spreading it out, starting with the NTSA zone. Start with the subway lines. Start with the bus lines, start there. We're talking about very gentle densification. And we're talking about only about 18% adoption of a given residential block. So, the insertion is very gentle and very discreet. That's 350,000 units. Now, get this Arnaud, if we take that idea and you apply it to the entire RD zone. So now we're talking about the entire yellow belt, which goes up to Steeles ave., which is where I live. I live in an RD zone. Then we are talking about the possibility of 18% adoption - I'm not even talking about half, we're talking about 18% adoption - brings about 1.2 million family size 1000 square feet, residential, multi multiplex units. 1.2 million.

RVLTR:

What's the current deficit of units as of today in the city? I heard that number a while back, but I can't remember what it is. Do you know?

JC:

I'm not entirely sure, but we are facing about 40,000 to 50,000 a year deficit in terms of housing. And that's been accumulating. So the housing issue can be resolved without having to concentrate our development along Yonge street and the avenues corridors.

RVLTR:

And there are neighborhoods where this happened organically. I live in Roncesvalles.

JC:

Roncesvalles is organic.

RVLTR:

Most of the houses along Parkside dr., which is a busy street. Most of them are multi-unit residential. They've been converted over the years. The house I live in is that way. And then if you go into the side streets, it's all single family residential. And it's an extremely pleasant neighborhood to be in.

JC:

Right. Right.

RVLTR:

So there are precedents in the city of that already existing and not really being an issue. And we don't have issues with our neighbors, the one, the owners, the renters, they're all fine.

JC:

We did a lot of research. We went to Montreal, we looked at the, , the three-storey kind of units that exist in old Montreal. We looked at Boston, [where] they're called the Triple-Deckers, and the old historic part of Austin, they have like these buildings with balconies on each side. We explored London. London has something very similar. Brooklyn also has them, [All of these] are great examples of cities that we would never call them third world cities. They're great cities. They're beautiful places to be in. And it works. And you know what Arnaud, what I find pleasant about those cities is that they're very walkable. First of all, because they have more generous sidewalks. There's more people on the street, which makes them safer. And because there's more people in concentration, there's fewer cars. And you know, it just [makes] for a better community. People are happier. There's more access to sunlight. Don't get me wrong, I'm from Asia. I grew up in a high-rise city: Seoul. It's flooded with high rises.

RVLTR:

I've been to Seoul. It's quite impressive. Yeah.

JC:

And I'm not saying that there's not a place for High Rises. Certainly there is, but highrises, and mid-rises cannot be the only solution for housing in the city. It just cannot. And currently, on the supply side, over 85% of the new supply is in the form of high-rise and mid-rise condominiums. And, and that's not balanced.

RVLTR:

Well, you can't live in a city of high rises the way downtown [Toronto] is, because you can't make the whole city [like] downtown or it's gonna be completely soulless and not pleasant to be in. It works for certain areas, obviously. So you said in your introduction that you like to think of yourself as a problem solver, and I think it's fair to say that architects are increasingly used as mere service providers. Like: "We're gonna put plans together for you and be done with it." How do you think they could become more than just hired guns, and truly maximize the value offering? Because architects are very creative and, and they, they can come up with great solutions to complex problems. But how would you get out of that kind of habit that the industry and the culture has kind of pigeonholed the architects into?

JC:

I think that's a very good question. When I was in school, we were taught that as architects, we're leaders. Right. But the reality is we haven't been functioning in that role because our role was primarily [that] of a service provider doing the drawings and getting them approved with the city. But I believe there's a new generation of architects that are coming up that are thinking not just about providing a service, but really taking leadership and saying: "Okay, we're gonna solve this. We're gonna tackle this issue. In order to do that, I need to bring on an MBA, a finance guy. I need to bring on a seasoned builder. I need to bring on a person to be able to address these challenges from a new vantage point. I think it starts with the [architecture education] because what kind of architects are we creating in our schools? And if we can, for example, teach our young graduates how to think outside the box and really start tackling [issues]. So instead of doing a thesis project about a beautiful art gallery or a beautiful community center. Those are beautiful buildings and projects, community centers are fine, but community centers are financed by the municipality and paid for by the government. They're not intrinsically the center of commerce, so to speak. And I think we need to think very carefully about who are the city builders today? The city builders are the developers, right? And the developers have very strong and deep ties to money. And they're the ones influencing the way that the cities get built and formed. Many of them are very conscientious developers and they're fantastic at what they do as a provider of phenomenal service to the community and to, and to the city. Many of them do, but many of them are only motivated by the almighty dollar. And so you get a kind of a varied group. But the reason why they're at the table calling the shots is because they have control over those resources. And they're calling the shots.

RVLTR:

I think it's also very easy to shit on developers, because some of them are bad, like any profession, but the reality is they're also dealing with a lot of forces that are beyond their control.

JC:

Absolutely.

RVLTR:

The zoning building code, all those regulations they have to contend with.

JC:

Absolutely.

RVLTR:

It's not an easy job.

JC:

It's high-risk. It's very, very difficult and it's challenging. It requires you to know a lot. So we've been thankful, we're partnering up with some phenomenal developers that think outside the box and we're able to kind of service them in a way that enables us to see things a little bit more differently. But it's a challenge and I think our success as a firm has been attributed to our ability to kind of think outside the box to meet some of their needs in a more creative way.

RVLTR:

And I think your portfolio speaks to that for sure. So you've come up with a few solutions. We talked briefly about Multi-Tach and there's also that initiative called Clip Homes to maybe [solve] some of those problems we've been discussing. Can you tell us a little more about them?

JC:

So the Multi-Tach initiative is one of advocacy. We've been working with the EHON group there, which EHON stands for Expended Housing Options for Neighborhoods. It's an initiative that the city of Toronto has undertaken and under the EHON initiative, things like the garden suite and the laneway bylaws were passed. It was adopted by council and passed, [but it's] unfortunately currently under appeal. They are also now in the process of trying to get this thing called a multiplex initiative. And that's in the dialogue and hopefully that will come to council hopefully sometime this year, and we're actively involved.

RVLTR:

So what is that initiative?

JC:

The multiplex initiative is really a direct result of our Multi-Tach - the triplex and the fourplex model - we've been working with the Ryerson city Institute in getting that messaging out and the city's really catching onto that and they're really seeing a benefit. So that initiative is being headed by two planners in the city, Philip Parker and Melanie Melnyk and they're fantastic. They're really forward thinking, planners that are really listening and they want to instigate change. So I really want to thank them for that. So that's on the advocacy side and on the initiative side, Clip Homes is a company that we formed with a couple of other partners. CLIP actually stands for "City Living Is Possible". And its mandate is to implement the initiative, so to speak. If Multi-Tach is about asking: "What can we do and how do we get that messaging out to the public?" Clip is about: "Okay, now, how do we take that, create a business case around it? How do we build with efficiency? How do we make that work?" So, in order to make that work, it's not just about being an architect, planner or builder, it's about being able to bring all that together with the expertise and providing a kind of a financial option and a solution for the homeowner.

RVLTR:

Is it a prefab based solution?

JC:

Our focus right now is on the garden suites. Start small. We're very much focused on developing the garden suite model, but that's the product, and using panelization and also looking at ways to streamline construction. So we've been looking at various different models. We've got a workshop and we're building a pilot, we're hoping to build something by the summer, an actual one to one scale pilot.

RVLTR:

That's great.

JC:

We're looking at a cool design, but equally we're very interested in the kind of process and how we automate, how we streamline the whole construction process? So that 80 to 85% of the work is done in a shop and only 15% of the work is actually done on site. And so what that does, the ultimate yield is that we can build the garden suite for under a hundred thousand dollars for a 300-350 square foot unit,

RVLTR:

Right. Turn-key?

JC:

Turn-key. So it'll be $100K or $600/month, like a car lease. And one week from start to finish for the complete construction.

RVLTR:

So you prefabricate all in a plant and one week on site and it's done?

JC:

One week on site, that's the goal. Now we're not gonna do volumetric prefab. Volumetric prefab is complicated because you're limited to the streets that you have to drive through. So this is gonna be more of, let's say, an alternative to the panelization, but it's a smart panelization because it's using foldable technology and things like that

RVLTR:

RVLTR: But if it's one week on site, if you built it traditionally it would be what, at least a year, right?

JC:

If it's a garden suite it will probably take about four to five months.

RVLTR:

Yeah. So you, you're cutting it by more than 10 times. That's crazy.

JC:

And also there's not gonna be hammering and drilling and loud construction noise on site. The whole goal is to try to mitigate. And so that the work done on site is just more like securing fastening and fitting versus all the noise that construction makes. Nobody wants all this noise in your neighborhood.

RVLTR:

So you, you briefly touched on the financing aspect. Is your plan to offer financing? So people who may not have a hundred thousand lying around can still get it built and then say, rent that unit for a thousand bucks. And so they pay you $600, then earn an extra $400 kinda thing?

JC:

Correct. We're bringing on a financing partner to help us do that.

RVLTR:

That's amazing. So there has been for decades a desire, at least on the architect's side, to bring about more rationalization and industrialization to the building process. And it's by and large not taken, there's been some prefabrication endeavors out there, but they've never blown up throughout the entire industry. Why do you think that is? And what, what were the main roadblocks? And one of the biggest examples is Katerra that went bankrupt last year. So how does one overcome that problem? Because it seems like everyone who's tried has had incredible challenges with that.

JC:

That's a very good question, Arnaud And I've been researching a little bit about Katerra and why they failed. And Katera, I think first, was headed by a software CEO, who didn't have a thorough understanding of the complexity of the construction processes and in the industry. And I think they are just at a high-level thought: "Okay, if we cut out the middleman, then we're gonna save time and save money." So the whole idea was you inboard the engineer you inboard the architect you don't have to wait for the windows supplier. "We're gonna create a window company, we're gonna make our own windows. HVAC. We're gonna make our own HVAC. We're gonna make our own plumbing fixtures." So they just started too much too fast and they're burning through massive amounts of cash very quickly. And I think that was a challenge. Instead, I think what we're seeing now is companies like Cover, in the US where they're just focusing on ADUs: accessible dwelling units.

RVLTR:

Which is, our garden suites and laneway homes.

JC:

Exactly garden suites and laneway homes. And you just start small and you don't overstretch yourself and you just focus and develop at that small scale. You refine that model, you perfect it. Then you could take it to the next level. But, Katerra never did that. They just under-bidding, on all their projects, and then started losing money. They didn't perfect the process, and it was a nightmare.

RVLTR:

And so the other side of that coin is why wouldn't large developers - not to pick on them - Let's say like Mattamy Homes who build thousands and thousands of houses every year, not be interested or even implement that model of, panelized prefab 85% done in a plant. And then one week on site and done, because you'd think if that works for you at a small scale, they would save a ton of money doing that and still provide valuable service, right?

JC:

So that's a very good question. And to me, it's like the blockbuster model. Why didn't blockbuster come up with Netflix? Because that was the obvious choice. They were the Goliath and Netflix was David, right? They were much smaller. I believe Mattamy Homes did try to do the panelization, but it failed miserably. And I think the problem from gathering, and from the study that I've done, is they wanted to use conventional methods, but just build it at the factory. I think the difference with clip is that it's not conventional. We have to really think outside the box and look at materials. Like, why would you have drywall? Especially if you've got drywall sitting out in the rain, then that's gonna create mold. But is drywall the only option for the interior of a house? No. If you use, for example, CLT [cross-laminated timber]. CLT can sit outside now, there are challenges with using CLT we also ran into, based on our research that CLT, the wood itself, can still expand and contract. So conceptually this idea of the CLT fitting together like Lego blocks in theory works really well. But in practice, there are also some challenges because you have to make site modifications. When you have to make site modifications. That's when things become very expensive, yeah. And complicated. And the timing gets drawn out. There is a product called magnesium oxide panel, which is a product that's very readily available in China, but Canada's also becoming a big distributor of that because we're mining magnesium oxide, magnesium oxide is very healthy. You could in fact eat it, like those magnesium tablets that you take for health. So it's very environmentally sustainable. It's healthy for you.

RVLTR:

Is it similar to your drywall panel?

JC:

Like, it's very similar, but it feels a little bit more like stone, it's a little bit more brittle. There is a kind of fiber fiberglass mesh that makes it a little bit more durable, but that can be exposed to the elements, no issues. And it's got a phenomenal fire rating, for example. And if you designed it right, so that you don't have to tape the joints, mud and sand it again, mud it again, sand it again, mud it again. And you don't even have to paint it.

RVLTR:

Painting alone after drywalling is a huge amount of work.

JC:

A huge amount of work. But you think about magnesium oxide and it just comes in panels, that's it. You don't even have to paint them, they look beautiful in and of themselves. Leave it. You just have to put a baseboard and put your electrical and mechanical chases.

RVLTR:

And then you can work with the joints to look intentional.

JC:

I'm just showing as, as one example, we don't have to use magnesium panels. You can use other panels. There's MDF and plywood panels. So if you want the wood look, certainly you can achieve that, but we have to approach things in its inception differently, fundamentally different from the way that we have been approaching it.

RVLTR:

So you're saying, to make a prefab successful, you really have to step away from everything you know, basically. And think about the problems differently. That's very interesting. So to go back to your two initiatives: CLIP Homes and Multi-Tach, what has the response been to that? Both on the political side and also maybe by the general public or the industry?

JC:

So, you know, I currently employ about 32 architects and out of 32, I would say probably almost 25 of them are millennials and gen Zs. They're young. And I ask them all the time at the office: "Hey, listen, you know, you guys are renting right now, would you buy one of these?" And the response has always been incredibly resounding. Yes. I would love to live in one. So first I needed to make sure that there's a market for it. And then people would want to live in these kinds of places. So from the demand side we are pretty confident that there's a big demand. I think your question was also from the political and from the city staff side, we're seeing huge interests as well from city staff.

RVLTR:

Yeah.

JC:

From some counselors, depending you get some hot and, you know, warm and, and lukewarm [responses] depending on where you are.

RVLTR:

Well, the good news is that the elections are coming up. So if your counselor is not supporting those initiatives, time to vote them out.

JC:

However, there are some residents in the neighborhood, depending on where you are, that are strongly opposed to this. And I could see this, the fact that the garden suites got appealed and now people can't do them anymore. It's gonna be an uphill battle. It's not gonna be easy. I can tell you that people don't like change.

RVLTR:

Especially in Canada.

JC:

Especially the incumbents, already in, the homeowners that are all sitting on a very nice retirement nest egg, living in the neighborhood, they don't want change.

RVLTR:

I mean, they're acting rationally, but what drives me nuts is those people, again - to generalize broadly- let's say they tend to be a little more liberal and they'll say: "Oh, we want all those nice things for all the poor people and the future immigrants." But their actions say the exact opposite. And there's a huge amount of cognitive dissonance for those people who say they want to support the society and the culture as a whole, but when it comes to their own interest, it comes first. And frankly, first of all, there's no evidence that densifying the city is gonna make their property lose any value. If anything, it's probably gonna gain value. But also it's very selfish because they're the ones who were lucky enough to buy say 15 years ago or even earlier, when it was still cheap, but it's no longer the case. I think now you have to have a household income of $180,000 a year to be able to afford a home, say a detached home or a townhome. And I think it's $130K to afford a basic condo. It's insane.

JC:

Yeah. It's crazy.

RVLTR:

It's really insane. So if you're a lawyer, maybe you can afford it. But if you're a blue collar worker, even if you make good money, you probably don't make that much. So it's quite insane. So can you tell us a little bit about your recent ULI workshop and how effective it was to bring the city builders, developers, and architects and planners together to address some of those issues?

JC:

I went in a little bit jaded and skeptical, but to my surprise, I thought it was very, very good. And I think it was really good to get different perspectives. First of all, again this idea that I brought up - and I mentioned at the beginning - the problems that we face today are multifaceted. It can't be solved by one party or one discipline. It's gotta be multidisciplinary. We need input from all sides. And I think the city recognized that, and it was really great because the panel was composed of a very diverse range of people from architects to planners, to builders, developers, and marketing [people] and sales people. It was really well composed. I really appreciated it. Having said that they're gonna take those recommendations.They're gonna have to take it to council and I hope council will adopt, but even if they did adopt, our democracy is very fragile that it can be kiboshed by different resident groups and neighborhood associations. So even though it makes sense to 75 to 80% of the people out there, our democracy is set up in such a way so that 20% can technically kibosh the interest of 70% of the people. Now I wanted to bring up this point because my "why" for doing this is, if you really think about housing, like a basic human need, shelter. Like clothing and food, right? It's a basic human need. So if you approach housing as a basic human need, not as a want or not as a kind of a luxury item, but think about it as like wearing clothes. Everybody needs clothes, so I think we're gonna approach the problem differently. But until there's that sense that we all deserve basic housing, like it's a human rights issue, unless we actually think about it that way, change is gonna be very, very difficult.

RVLTR:

And do you think the solution should come from the government or from the market?

JC:

I think it needs to come from both. I think there needs to be a recognition from the government that the policies they have put in place are not working. What would be a shame is for the government to just throw gobs and gobs of money to builders to build like one type of housing that we see everywhere in Toronto. Which tends to be the model for our affordable housing: mid-rise or lower rise scale. You can't live in the city. So now we're gonna put you in the middle of "Timbuktu" . Let's say Midland I mean, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being in Midland.

RVLTR:

If you work in the city, the commute becomes horrendous.

JC:

Where are people who serve you? The bartenders, the dry cleaners, the waitresses and the people who work at Starbucks and Tim Hortons and, and McDonald's? Where are they living? Do they live in basement apartments with no light in their unit? What about them? I think that's what my concern with these affordable housing projects is you're, ghettoizing them in certain areas. And I think we have to be very, very careful Because to be honest, I'm one of the privileged, we're both living in a great city. We're probably at the top 1% of the world in terms of income. But I don't want to be thought of as a guy who lives in the Thorncliffe neighborhood or St. Jamestown, because that's not where I want to be. I wanna be in the upper beaches, or I wanna be in Leslieville. Maybe not in a 3000 square foot detached home, I'm happy with an 800 or 900 square feet, three bedroom apartment. But to me, being in a community provides more dignity than being allocated to an affordable housing project.

RVLTR:

That's what I was gonna say. It's about dignity, right? You might be a "lowly" Starbucks barista, but dignity is as important to you as it is to the wealthy person.

JC:

Absolutely.

RVLTR:

And that's what makes great societies when everybody can live with dignity, even if they have different means.

JC:

Absolutely. For my talk, we researched four cities that are more affordable than Toronto. And one city that stands out is Houston. They have no zoning bylaw. The average home is $250,000 CAD. I don't even think you could build affordable housing for $250,000 in Toronto right now. And so it goes to show you that, again, I'm not saying Houston is a model of a phenomenal city. I'm not saying that at all. However they have addressed their housing issues. Because they made it accessible.

RVLTR:

So I have a little anecdote to speak to that. I have a friend who just bought a huge apartment in Chicago, not downtown a little bit outside of the city center. And I was shocked when she told me how much she paid for it, because it was less than the cost of a studio condo. And it's like a 2,000 or 2,500 square feet unit in a beautiful old apartment building. I'm like: "That's amazing". So of course, Chicago doesn't have the pressure that Toronto has because it's a city that's been losing residents, but there's, there's cities that are very similar in many ways, they're in similar climates, they're economically very similar and there's a huge difference. And those are things we need to look at. I was shocked a few years ago to learn that Tokyo, which is the biggest city in the world by any measure, has managed to keep its affordability under control because they've allowed early on a lot of different options, for people to build their homes, they have those tiny, really tall and skinny two, three-storey houses that might have one or two units in them. They have lots of tall apartment buildings. They have a bit of everything. But for the largest city in the world, which is arguably, one of the most powerful economically as well, it's impressively affordable. So it is possible. It doesn't have to be New York, London, or Paris.

JC:

Exactly. It is possible. It becomes more important as, as we are bringing more immigrants, as we as a city, want to grow and we want to attract talent. You know, affordability becomes a big problem. We're not gonna be able, as a global city, to attract the right talent, the right people.

RVLTR:

You know, you know, you run the risk of becoming another San Francisco where you only have tech workers that can afford it, but there's no one else who can afford it. And everybody leaves.

JC:

Exactly.

RVLTR:

So that's not a good thing. I think that's all the questions I had for you today, but do you have any last thoughts you wanna share with the audience? Anything you want to add that you think is important to put out there?

JC:

I was originally born and raised in South Korea. I grew up in South India and Bangladesh and I went to school in the US for a little bit. I did a lot of odd jobs here and there and lived in different parts of the US. Toronto is a great city. I fell in love with the city 23 years ago, because it was a city of diversity. They embrace diversity.

RVLTR:

It has a lot to offer.

JC:

It has a lot to offer and I think that the city I love, I would hate for it to become a city that nobody can afford to live in. And I think it's really important that policy makers and counselors and politicians and people recognize that. We're not asking for much, we're just asking to open the zoning restrictions a little bit.

And we're not asking for billions of dollars, if you open it up a little bit, I think the market will dictate the solutions, but you have to open it up so the market can do its job.

RVLTR:

I think every citizen has a duty to be interested in those issues and vote. I became Canadian a few months ago and I decided to stop being cynical about politics. Because that's the easy solution, right? "This politician is an asshole. This one thinks about himself only." But the reality is that as a voter, you have the ability to change. And I know it may seem like a vote won't make a difference, but enough votes will make a difference. And as I mentioned briefly earlier, the municipal elections are coming up in the fall. It's time to, to use that power that we all have at least as Canadians.And we should vote and make sure to you vote for the right or for the person who supports what you're interested in.

JC:

Absolutely.

RVLTR:

Well, I wanna thank you very much for your time. This was a very interesting conversation and hopefully the first of many.

JC:

Thank you, Arnaud.

Revelateur Studio 9/29/22 Revelateur Studio 9/29/22

Not Another Fucking App

Recently, I was made aware of the existence of the latest social media app called BeReal. It purports to avoid all the trappings of the most popular apps out there. I'm looking at your twitter, facebook, instagram and (ewww) tiktok. I had never heard of it before (That’s how you know what age group I proudly belong to. Hint: it involves sports cars). My initial reaction was: "Oh, this is a cool idea. It will make people look more like their true selves, without all the Hollywood-level deception that's so common on social platforms".

I then proceeded to read a bit more about it to learn how it functions. Within about 13.62 seconds, I was convinced it was garbage. Why, you ask? Because the app beckons you at random times during the day for you to post within an imposed 2-minute window. That’s when I realized that its creators have fallen into the same trap every tech entrepreneur before them as fallen into: thinking that technology is a necessary ingredient to the recipe for living a meaningful life.

We see this time and time again with tech companies. They are so utterly disconnected from the physical world, you know, that place where the laws of physics apply, that they don’t think about the impact of their products on people beyond the basic user experience, and even that, they don't always get right. Forget the psychological and social impacts of their products. Years later, when the negative impacts are obvious and demonstrable, they throw their hands up in the air and say: “We didn’t see this coming”. When it comes to newfangled products or ideas, I side with Nassim Taleb on that one. The Lindy effect indeed predicts that this app will likely not be around in 2 years. Conversely, hanging out at a café with a friend will still be an option millenia from now, as it something that humans have been doing since the dawn of civilization.

During the COVID pandemic, most of us realized how much we relied on in-person social interactions and that social media was far from a good substitute for them. One could argues that it made our social lives worse, if we really look at it. So what is one to do?

I'm glad you asked. My message is this: don’t trust digital products without looking under the hood. Consider the implications that they might have on your daily life, how much meaning they potentially create for you and how much time they will take to engage with. We’ve seen it time and time again with facebook, twitter, instagram, tik tok and many others, now defunct. These apps compete for our most precious resource: time. And they take it away from more important and fulfilling things from life.

I have been on a social media diet for almost 3 years now. I have deleted my twitter and facebook accounts and haven’t touched instagram. The undeniable result? I have more time for myself and my life quality is about the same, if not demonstrably better, but I don’t spend hours doom-scrolling every day. I do other silly things, but these bring more joy and meaning to me. I’m not saying everyone should ride a motorcycle fast in the woods, but rather that nothing is more satisfying than finding what moves you and fully engage in it. Don't let someone else's idea of a good time become yours by default, as you will be constrained by the very limitations of the app and what it permits you to do and not do.

Social media platforms are nothing more than a one-size-fits-all experience designed to capture your attention and working really hard at never releasing it again, so you keep coming back for more. So next time a newfangled app comes to your attention, ask yourself: “What is it going to take away from that I truly enjoy doing”?

For me, I enjoy too much having the ability to ignore my phone for hours on end to let an app like BeReal snatch that back from me and push me to post when I don’t want to.

Let's be real: what’s it going to be for you?

Revelateur Studio 9/28/22 Revelateur Studio 9/28/22

{PODCAST RERUN} Truth Is Golden - 203 | There Is Something Funny About This w/ David K. Levine

In episode 3 of our second season, I talked to David K. Levine a distinguished academic, political economist and popular author. We talked about his midwestern childhood, how economics can explain a lot of modern society challenges, his transplant life in Europe and how one of the biggest risks he took was a late-career change, taking on subjects he was not an expert in. Listen in to hear more about David and his accomplishments.

About the podcast: The intent behind our podcast series "Truth Is Golden" is to look at renowned creatives and their work with a critical eye. We aim to ask deep questions in order to peel back the layers of marketing, clever one-liners and sexy branding. We want to show the world what it truly takes for genuinely creative forces to find their own voice make a go of a career at it. We want to hear about the successes, the failures, the inspirational stories and the lessons gleaned from all of it. In short, we want the truth, so that we can inspire other people to fulfill their own creative vision and in the process contribute to making the world a better place.

Revelateur Studio 9/20/22 Revelateur Studio 9/20/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 313 - Lewis on Talent Attraction

The architecture industry currently has a massive talent gap. There are way more vacancies than there are candidates, which is a massive problem for many firms who cannot staff properly and deliver projects, leading to employees quitting, staff burnout and a whole host of attendant issues.

I interview Stuart Lewis, CEO of marketing agency Clever Samurai to discuss talent attraction, best hiring practices and finding out ways to stand out from the competition.

Hiring, much like marketing is a spring, not a marathon.

Listen in to see what Stuart had to say on the topic.

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

RVLTR (00:04):

Stuart Lewis is a marketing and communications strategy expert who leads Clever Samurai, a Toronto-based marketing consultancy. His agency works in healthcare technology, manufacturing, utilities, distribution, and logistics. Employee branding, talent attraction, and retention programs have been central to the agency's work, developing successful campaigns for a range of corporate clients and industry sectors. So the topic for today is talent attraction, one of Clever Samurai specialties. So thank you very much Stuart for being on the show and taking the time to do this.

Stuart Lewis (SL) (01:24):

You're very welcome Arnaud and nice to see you.

RVLTR (01:27):

So can you start by telling us who you are and what you do, in your own words, in three sentences or less?

SL (01:33):

Well, as you said my name's Stuart Lewis and I am the president of Clever Samurai. And we are a marketing communications consultancy as it relates to what we're chatting about today. We're talking about employer branding, talent attraction, and retention, and our organization, which I'm very fortunate to lead, does a lot of that work for various clients in different sectors.

RVLTR (01:53):

So why is talent attraction important? One of the reasons that I want to ask that question is [that] in my industry, architecture and design, it's a sellers market. There are more jobs than there are people to fill them. So why is that important?

SL (02:12):

[...] The architecture segment is frankly very similar to many other segments where there's a talent shortfall. So why is it important? Well, I think there are two things: First of all, if you don't have the talent, how do you get the work done? That's just a fundamental, basic principle of many businesses that are short of talent. And then second, you want the best talent. If you think about [it] not all architects, just like any other profession, are created equal. You want the best people to work for your company or your organization working on whatever projects they're doing. And so the best people come in, all kinds of shapes and forms. And you want to make sure they have a chance to choose your organization. If you think about an architecture firm, as an example, what they do is they [come up] with ideas and then they use all kinds of technology and engineering thinking to make those ideas come to life. And that's complex work. So if you don't have people who are capable of doing that work, then how are you gonna fulfill the projects that your firm's been hired to do? You can't do it.

RVLTR (03:28):

So what would be the three things that a company needs to consider when developing a talent attraction strategy?

SL (03:36):

I would actually say probably four things. So the first is, you know, what's the objective? As in, what are we trying to do? So if you're an architecture firm, as an example, are you trying to hire an architect? Are you trying to deal with succession planning? Are you trying to deal with being able to support additional work that's coming in? Are you trying to deal with mergers or acquisitions? [...] So the highest level business objectives, drive everything. So the talent you'll bring in will be a function of what your business objectives are for today, the near term and also in the long-term. Most of the time people are back-filling or scrambling [to hire for] what they need to do for this week. As much as that's something that is obviously important to do, companies need to really think about what they need to do for next year, the next five years, etc. And it's no surprise that so many industries [have a] shortfall of talent. We've got an aging population and the Canadian government is trying to backfill some of that [with] immigration policies and the like, but there's just deficiencies in so many [sectors of the] workforce. Never mind capable people, just enough people [to begin with]. If you're a company that is trying to get ahead, there's just not enough workers to do the work you need them to do. The second part of all of this is: what's the story you wanna put out? In our world, we refer to it as an employer value proposition, [as in]: what are we selling? [Here's] an example: One of our clients is in the healthcare space. There's no question that there's a shortfall of nurses. Everybody knows that. So making more nurses is not an option that's gonna happen overnight. So what that means is that nurses have to come from [another] organization to their organization. You don't have to convince someone to be a nurse. You have to convince somebody to be a nurse with our client. So that employer value proposition becomes very, very important. And as much as compensation is an important factor in all of this, one of the things that's becoming increasingly more important is lifestyle. I think the pandemic has sped some of that up, but you look at how millennials view work versus say my father's generation or whatever. It's quite different. And my father worked for the same company for over 40 years. Who works for companies for more than 40 years anymore.

RVLTR (05:54):

You're lucky if they stay four years <laughs>.

SL (05:56):

You're right. So with that employer value proposition, not only you wan to attract them, but to your point, when you say they're lucky to be there for four years, is how do you make that EVP really come to life? So the reasons that they join are the reasons that they stay. So that'd be the second thing. The third thing is about creative. So, let's talk about architects. I mean, they are technical in nature for sure, but they're also creative. No one wants to make ugly things. Obviously there's the limits of budget and time and technical parameters, but everybody wants to try and find a creative way to solve whatever problem they're trying to solve. So if you're putting out some sort of a campaign that has the employer value proposition, that's what that architecture firm wants, but you do it in a way that's not appealing to architects. Well, who's gonna apply? Nobody. They're not gonna do it. So if you're doing something that's interesting, then you're gonna get their attention. And I think the fourth thing is the channels. So for example [this] podcast that we're, is a channel that architects and others that are tangentially related to the space are listening to. Because of that, it's a way to reach that particular audience. There's many ways to reach that audience, but your [...] show is what could easily be part of a mix to be able to reach people in a new way. So it's interesting when I look at indeed, and I don't know if you you've done this, but what would you guess the number of architecture related jobs that are just up for post on indeed right now, today in Toronto area alone? What would you guess be?

RVLTR (07:31):

500

SL (07:33):

Over 3000.

RVLTR (07:34):

Wow. I knew there were a lot of postings, but I didn't know it was that many. That's probably as many as there are firms in the city.

SL (07:41):

It's insane. You've got a retirement boom happening, so what that happens is that you have experience leaving, you have a talent vacuum. You asked at the beginning: "Why is it important?" Well, it's important because [...] if you don't have the people to do the work, then how does the work get done? So what ends up happening is that in some cases you end up having to settle for talent that isn't as good, because having talent isn't as good is better than having no talent on your team at all.

RVLTR (08:22):

I can't tell you how many firms I've seen scramble to hirer, because they needed the bodies in the chairs to do the work. And then six months later they let people go. Because they're just not the right fit. So that's also a huge waste of time because you try to fill those spaces with bodies, but they're not working out. And so you're wasting a lot of time, and you have to rehire shortly after. And that costs a lot of money too.

SL (08:46):

There's an old adage that's: "Slow to hire quick to fire."

RVLTR (08:51):

Fire fast, hire slow.

SL (08:53):

Exactly. But these days who can hire slow? So from a strategy perspective, you're really thinking about how do you bake that employer value proposition in a way where you're like a magnet and you're attracting the kind of candidates that you want, whoever they may be, whatever that profile might look like, for the business you're running. But it's not: "I'm switching on the switch today." The switch is always on because you're always interviewing, you're always looking and you're always trying to make sure that whatever is your overall business strategy, your overall plan, you've got people potentially coming all the time at the ready, to make that happen.

RVLTR (09:30):

That's a very good point. It's not to say that it's the only way to do it, but have had friends who are firm principals who have started an Instagram account solely for hiring purposes. Because they know that the kids they want to hire are on there and that they're going to look at the firm for months, years before they send a resume. And so if they have a good image of what the firm's about over time, it helps them hire the right talent at the right time. So it makes a lot of sense.

SL (09:56):

And you know, it's interesting what your friends are doing because they recognize that people are doing all kinds of online research. There was a time, again my father's generation, he was just happy to have a job, but now, you know, as we talked about earlier, people are looking around and they're making decisions that aligned with their values or their lifestyle or whatever it all is. And there's so much information available, that's at the fingertips, from behind a computer. So how companies are managing their brand online makes a huge difference. So which company would you rather go to? One that's engaged in its brand and doing the things that align with your values or one that you haven't heard anything about?

RVLTR (10:33):

Well, we both know the answer to that. So it sounds like what you called an employee value proposition and a talent retention strategy is almost to be treated like a marketing strategy where you want to find the right talent, that's the right fit for your company. And so you have to go where they are the same way, [say] if I were to help a client promote their latest project to have to try and get it published to wherever the potential clients are. Is that correct?

SL (11:02):

Absolutely. And I wish more people understood that. So one of the things that we talk about is this thing that, , oftentimes people are doing is what we call it "post and pray": [They're] just gonna post a job and pray something's gonna happen. Well, post and pray, I'm not saying it can't work, but think about the example we used earlier: 3000-some jobs for architects or technologists and the like on indeed. Good luck trying to find your job at the top of the heap and somebody, picking your job because they like your job better than whatever it is they're wading through. You can have the best opportunity in the world, but if it's buried, how [are they] gonna find it? So it's as much as it's true that candidates do go to job boards, candidates do all kinds of other things in their lives that have nothing to do with job boards. You're absolutely right. If you're marketing, whatever that is: a product, a service, you want to go where your customer is. The customer that you might be looking for in this case is a job seeker. Here's the other thing I think is important. 73% of job seekers are actually passive. They're not actively looking, but if they saw something that was interesting to them, away they go. They'll start looking around and how do you build a relationship with somebody [who's] maybe at an early stage of looking [around], but you've got their attention and then away they go. The principles around consumer marketing, because obviously this is a consumer thing, it's marketing to a consumer who is an individual looking for a job. I mean, these principles apply, I'm not saying universally, but certainly materially.

RVLTR (12:30):

I guess it would be different for every company. What are some of the things you can point out to, for firms to start doing, to stand out? Because you said, you know, you go on Indeed and there's 3000 other jobs you're competing against. Not only you're looking for the right talent, but there's 3000 or let's say even half that 1500 people that are looking for the same talent. How does one stand out? What are some of the foundational principles of a job fulfillment strategy that someone could look at and say, this is what I need to do to stand out and find the right talent. Because, and again, it's very timely we're talking about this because everyone I know, maybe 90% of the firm principals that I interact with every day, they're all looking to hire right now, all of them and they're all struggling. So I think this is an extremely important question to answer because everybody has the same issue.

SL (13:29):

There's a lot to unpack in that, but I'll comment on two things that are probably pillars around all this . The first one is: "What are we selling?" So everybody who's an architect is already an architect. You don't have to convince them to be an architect. So you look at all these job posting and they say: "You do this and you do this and you do this and you do this". Yeah. I already know what that is. I'm an architect. I know what that is. You don't have to convince somebody to be an architect. You have to convince somebody to be an architect with you. So what is it about you and your company? That's better, smarter, different, faster, stronger, whatever it is, that's gonna appeal to that candidate. And I'm not talking about foosball tables and beer taps. I mean, they're cool and all, but at the end of the day, people that are top quality talent, it's not they don't enjoy things like that. But what they wanna do is they wanna do real work. They wanna do something that's meaningful. If you think about an architect, how many years did they go to school? How much money did they spend to do that? When did they start even thinking about it? They're probably playing with all kinds of toys and various things that had them interested when they were a child. So you don't just fall into it as a job, likely it's something that is a passion. So if you are trying to attract people to come to your place of work, what kind of work are you offering them? And I don't mean how many hours. I mean, what kind of projects can they [work on]? Can they do cool stuff? So here's an example. It's not about talent attraction, but it's the same kind of idea. One of our clients and they've been subsumed a couple of times over through acquisitions and the client that acquired them is still a client of ours to this day. So we're really, really fortunate they continue to trust us through, through the years, but the genesis of it was a company called Icynene. It's a spray foam company. And there's all kinds of benefits of spray foam, but one of the benefits from an architectural perspective, is that spray foam can go around curves. Well, the number one competitor of spray foam is rigid board. It doesn't go around curves, so if you're an architect and you wanna make a building that's got curves on it and you wanna make sure it's up to code and all the different things.

New Speaker (15:35):

Hopefully insulated.

SL (15:36):

You got it. Now what we wanted to do at the time was to have architects spec, our guys product. The first thing it starts with is: "Spec spray foam". And then maybe they spec our guys stuff, but at least spec spray foam, and then our guys will get whatever, whatever share of the market they have. So one of the insights that, that we had was that not exactly groundbreaking here, but architects are proud of their work. So what we did was we targeted a whole bunch of firms in the US and we found a marquee project that had a curves on it that they were proud of. [We] took that project, had it sketched, put on a t-shirt sent it to the firm's principal in a beautiful tin with a letter and saying, we're calling you, we want to talk to you about [spray foam]. The lunch & learns were off the hook. Further to that, these firms were asking for more t-shirts because it had their stuff on it. Why? Because the insight was is that architects want to do great work and they want it to be beautiful and they wanna do a great job. Now I appreciate there's a lot more to it than that, but that's the simple kind of insight. So if you are a firm, you wanna attract someone to work for you, why would someone work for your firm versus somebody else? And then the second thing is if you're out there and you're communicating whatever it is, you're communicating a job ad. Well let's face it, job ads or not the sexiest things in the world.

RVLTR (16:54):

No, and they're often the same. I don't read them regularly, but every once in a while I'll go to job boards and look at them and it's always the same formula. It's very formulaic. It's always the same crap. Like: "Your responsibilities are this, your role will be this, your experience is that and your salary commensurate with experience." None of them are writing ads that stand out like that. Even something remotely funny. I'm not saying "Be a standup comedian", but write something that catches someone's attention. Why aren't copywriters writing ads?

SL (17:30):

Humor is obviously a great breakthrough device for sure. And I'll come back to something in a second, I'm gonna pick up on what you were just saying. People often say to me, I love what that company did, but I can't do that myself. And I'm like, why can't you? When you show clients creative, that's more breakthrough often, they're afraid of it because what would [people] think? Well, imagine somebody actually noticing you that would actually be a good start. There's a saying that somebody said to me, once: "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." And so with that, I love the creative that somebody else is doing, but that's not for me. Really? So to your point, you know, where are the great copywriters doing this kind of stuff? And when you were talking about the job ad, you said "[...] and this experience and this and that" You know, what, who cares? What's in it for the candidate? So employers are always thinking about me, me, me, me, and me. They need to turn it 180 degrees and think about candidate, candidate, candidate no longer are employers buyers, they're sellers, they have to sell why someone should come to them. And what they have to do is get that employer value proposition clear, tight, and compelling, and [to]deliver it in a creative way. We recently won an international marketing award for a healthcare client that we've been doing some work with and, continue to do so right now, in fact, it's in field as we speak and it's about attracting nurses. And I think I touched on it a couple of seconds ago. We don't actually market the nursing job. It's a community nursing organization. So what's inherent in the job is an ability to have split shifts and have work life balance, flex time. So we're actually selling flexible days.

RVLTR (19:21):

That's on your website, right? I saw that campaign.

SL (19:24):

That campaign, doesn't say: "Here's how you be a nurse". What it actually says is: "Here's how you be a mother or a father or a brother or whatever.

RVLTR (19:33):

The same way you said architects know how to be architects, nurses know how to be nurses. They want to know what's in it for them, right?

SL (19:42):

That architect firm that wants to do whatever they wanna do, if they wanna be different from somebody else, then they actually have to first make the decision to actually be different. They don't have to figure out what that is. I mean, obviously folks like our firm and others out there, help people navigate that process. But the first thing they have to look at and say is: "I got this problem. Whatever I'm doing right now is not solving my problem. And so therefore I'm willing to do something different than 'post and pray'.I don't know what that looks like or what that feels like, but at least I'm gonna give it a go because whatever's going on right now, I've got a talent gap that I can't fill." And then further to that, I may have a further talent gap, you know, down the line because my workforce is gonna continue to retire. And then what do I do?

RVLTR (20:22):

Do you have any idea why there - and maybe it exists, I haven't seen it - I'm completely ignorant on the subject, but why isn't anyone out there offering firms to write job postings for them? Like a copywriter who knows how to sell something like someone who can write sales copy that that actually works, because in a market like we have today, you could charge a few hundred bucks a posting and and probably be very successful at it because no one else is doing it.

SL (20:57):

As much as a job posting is important, it's, it's a very small item. It's an important item, but it's a singular item as part of an overall strategy. So if you look at the commercialization of something like that, it's hard. To your point, someone could make money charging $300 or $400, but you gotta sell an awful lot of those to make any money. From a commercialization perspective, if you're looking at firms that have depth and breadth and capabilities, they're looking at being able to roll in and look at end to end because it really is an end to end scenario. So if you look at the job postings, the number of architects that are actually looking for jobs right now will likely be less than the number of architect jobs that are open. But all that said that doesn't mean people aren't willing to move. So how do you get somebody to move from point a to point B? If you've got a shortfall of talent, one of the things you gotta convince somebody to do is to leave somewhere else. You're essentially poaching from another organization. So how [do you] do that? And if 73% of the job seekers are passive, they're not out looking on job boards for jobs at all. In fact, the bulk of people are not doing that. So how do you interrupt them in their day, wherever they may be doing whatever they're doing [so] you can get to them. And then with that, this isn't the job posting. This is the story. And so what's the story that your organization needs to tell that is true, because if it's not true, people are gonna find a disconnect. And to your point earlier, they're gonna leave and they're not gonna like it. So that's not gonna work. So you either fire them because they're not right, because you've made the wrong hire or they're gonna leave you because you misrepresented what you're about. And so how do you interrupt them in their journey and then get them to self-select and say: "You know what, I'm kind of interested in that [job]". We did a campaign. This goes back, maybe four years ago. It happened to be for a law firm and we're actually gonna do something similar for another client in a different category. But this law firm was looking to get people of a certain experience, within certain specialties. And we carved a very specific strategy that had, geographic boundaries and a pitch around it, the whole bit. And we actually reached out to people directly, so it was a little bit headhunter-y, but there was some nuanced differences from it, [it was] very, very successful. But that was a decision that this law firm made that they were willing to, put their neck out there and reach out and target the talent that they wanted, specifically to fit the needs that they had as an organization to do what they've gotta do. [...] Not one job posting involved at all. So I think there's lots of different ways to do things. But what's right for one company may not be right for another.

RVLTR (23:35):

One thing that I wanted to touch on and I've seen it for as long as I've had a career, which is about 12 years, people of often leave a job "greener pastures" and generally for better pay. But especially during COVID, we've seen some of that backfire what some people have called "the great resignation" and realizing that better pay is, everything else being equal, not necessarily better leading to what you called the great regret, what can companies do to address that and what are the issues or challenges associated with that that phenomenon?

SL (24:20):

Well, I think one of the things that happens is that companies and I think it's changing a lot in fairness, but they become complacent. They have to realize the value of their business. So you look at floor workers in manufacturing plants, and let's say they're labour that doesn't require significant technical training. So you're talking about lower cost labor. When you're an industrial complex. And you've got 50 companies in that area that are all more or less the same. You can move from building to building and you can just do the circuit and you can go for your $2,000 extension bonus or $5,000 signing bonus or whatever they'll do laps. And so sometimes people are doing that. So how do you be preemptive? Well, you be preemptive by being preemptive. So what's the strategy that you need to put in place in order to be preemptive. How do you listen to your employees? How do you make sure they are valued? I don't mean lip service. I mean, really feel valued. Everybody wants to feel valued and you're not gonna keep everybody because some people it's just not the right fit on both sides, but being preemptive means being seen to act in a genuine fashion. So if you're an employer who is genuine about what you're doing and you're being proactive and preemptive about it, you're not gonna have that problem. You know, we we had a client that another one acquired some time ago, but they were the largest non-union electrical contractor in Ontario and the union came all the time and said: "You know, we'd like to try and get your team to sign up for the union." And the employees of this organization never said yes, because their employer [a] privately held business, understood the game and understood "Here's what I need to do to keep my employees happy" and did any number of things to make that happen. Compensation was part of it, but it wasn't the only thing. And so what do you do? You do it before it actually happens and you do it genuinely, and honestly because you, your employees are, maybe not partners by contract, but they're partners in the success of your business and in a market where talent is at a premium, especially great talent at a premium. You wanna make sure that you're keeping your people happy and most importantly fulfilled, in in what they're doing. Because if they're fulfilled in what they're doing, they're gonna do more of it. You look at situations like architects, where they invest a lot of time and money in education to [just to have] this career. It's quite an achievement just to be able to be able to stamp a drawing. They've got mobility. They can go anywhere. And as we talked [about] earlier with 3000-some jobs in Toronto alone, someone find have a job in a week. So the employers that have them [the talent] right now, what are they doing to show them the appreciation and love they need? And it goes beyond money, sometimes money, you don't have it, but you can do lots of other things. And I think one of the things that happens is that, employee surveys as much as people go: 'Oh, it's an employee survey. It's another one of those things again." Well, it's incredible what they'll tell you, and what you might learn.

RVLTR (27:33):

If you ask the right questions.

SL (27:35):

Yeah. But you gotta be prepared to act on it too. But "I don't care?" Well then fine then, you reap what you sow.

RVLTR (27:43):

So you you've touched on that briefly, but for employers, is it ever a good idea to try and attract your competitors employees?

SL (27:52):

That's an interesting question. Ever is a big statement, so ever? Sure. But is it right in every circumstance? Probably not. So it really depends on where your business is going and how committed you are to being assertive around at that particular strategy in effect. Anybody who posts job ads that you're referring to is taking employees from someone else. Anyway, it's just not overt. So the difference is that if you're being overt about it, then that would be a different thing. So for example, this industrial area that we were referring to that has these 50 hypothetical companies all in the same area, if you're to run geofenced advertising and say: "Everybody come over to our company and leave where you're at", it's gonna show up on everybody's phone and everybody's apps. Well, does that mean like war? Yeah, it does. If you're prepared for the consequences of that, and you believe that's a strategy that you want to to employ, to be successful, then have at it, but you gotta really think it out because you know that the other company who is potentially leaving their employees, they're gonna counter. And then where, where do you go with that? So I think it's one of those things that recognizing the labor market has mobility in it. It happens because it happens, it just doesn't happen overtly. So when you're doing it overtly, it's kind of a different thing. One of the things that we've been doing is we've been running ads for our community nursing client on geofence. What happens if you're working a night shift at hospital X and something shows up because you're surfing around and you see something for community nursing that might interest you. But the thing about something like that is we've made a decision with our client that if someone wants to take an interest in it, away they go, but we're not actively poaching employees from that particular organization, because that's [...] not where our client or that strategy is gonna make sense. So what's good for one is not necessarily good for another. You just gotta be aware the consequences, both the good and the bad of doing it.

RVLTR (30:02):

There's another topic I wanted to touch on, because I think it's gonna become even more prevalent in the future. It's the use of AI as a recruitment tool and from what I understand, I could be wrong, but a lot of job posting platforms are screening in the first rounds using AI. So if that's the case and I don't know how much you know about that, and they use that to separate the, the wheat from the chaff. How can employers and employees prepare for that change in the way they post and respond to job postings?

SL (30:39):

You are right that it's becoming more prevalent and it's becoming more advanced. I think there's two sides to it. There's the employee side and the employer side. Let's talk about the employee first. So what happens is that employees are now force fit into various systems, various ATS, and the like that will basically reject their application. If it doesn't meet a set of criteria or it's not formatted properly.

RVLTR (31:09):

Can you define ATS?

SL (31:11):

It's a talent management type system. So it's like a CRM for talent. So if you're going into an organization that's large and they have a high volume of applicants, the HR departments will have a tendency to use these kind of systems where they pre-screen. They're cumbersome for employees. If you are an employee who doesn't take the time to do it properly, or perhaps the job is something that doesn't require strong language skills or strong computer skills, and you don't have strong language or computer skills, then all of a sudden you're gonna run at all kinds of problems. So the reason that they're there is because the human resources departments, particularly large companies, it makes it easier for them to manage applicants. But the downside is that the abandonment rate is enormous. You're talking like 90% abandonment rate on some of these systems, it's brutal. So what they're doing is they're missing out on all kinds of potential candidates who say: "This is a pain, or I can't do it, or I'm out." So if you are wanting to streamline the labor on the management of the applicants, it's got an advantage because obviously it makes it easier to parse various kinds of candidates. But the downside is what are you losing because that's in place. So there's arguments to be made on both sides. Obviously the software providers who build these things, think they're great and wonderful. Because obviously that's their business to try and sell them, and in fairness, there are huge advantages to them. The disadvantage is that it's not perfect. And you know, Candidates are just like: "Why do I wanna do this?" The other thing as well is that it's all about "easy". So the systems that are being sold to employers, they're saying I'm gonna make it easy for you [employer] to manage your candidate pool. All true. But it doesn't necessarily make it easy for the candidate. As we were saying earlier, that we want to have candidates be like customers, is that customer-friendly? So how do you wanna look at it? So you've got this [im]balance where the HR departments are saying: "I need to make my life easier, but I need great talent." And you've got candidates who are saying: "I'm not gonna go through this process because this is a pain in the neck." Now, when you talk about things like personality profiling and behavioral assessments and those other kinds of diagnostic tools, that gets beyond our realm of expertise. Because that goes beyond marketing, but those types of diagnostic tools are extraordinarily helpful in terms of me being able to make decisions on the kind of candidate profile that you're looking for when you're actually going through the hiring process. So I think that your broader question is: "Is AI beneficial?" And the answer is: absolutely if it's done smartly. But I think that there are some downsides, like there is with anything, you just have to recognize what you're dealing with.

RVLTR (33:59):

I think you are right on the money. The challenge is that it makes HR managers's lives easier. But if you're looking for talent, and talent is hard to come by to begin with, how many great potential employees are you missing on because they just don't have either the patience or enough computer skills, like you said, to fill out your application, or put together a resume that fits within those little boxes that have to be ticked. I think that's a huge issue. Do you think hiring is gonna be a hundred percent managed by AI in the future or there's always gonna be a human element?

SL (34:41):

That's a tough question to answer, but I gotta think that, if you're hiring people, you need people to actually hire at the end of the day. So a hundred percent? I would say unlikely, but do I think that there's gonna be more integration of technology into everything that we do, including hiring? Yeah. Of course there's no question about it. And if you also think about even where talent wants to go, you know, there's a survey I was looking at this morning in which Gen Z'ers claim they are interested in arts and recreation as a number one choice and technology, the number two choice. So if you've got more and more people getting into technology fields, they're gonna be advancing technology at an even more rapid pace than it is now. So I don't see how that could not touch HR, just like it touches everything else.

RVLTR (35:27):

Good point. I think that's all for the questions I had for you today. Is there anything else, any last thoughts you'd like to share with the audience or maybe some tips for them, how to go about finding and retaining the right talent?

SL (35:44):

I think the biggest thing I can say is if what you're doing is not working effectively enough, then you need to think about doing something else and Arnaud, you said earlier, how do you, how do you stick outta the crowd? Well, you know, you stick outta the crowd by actually doing something different from everybody else. And so you don't have to know what that different is. I mean, there's people like us and others that know how to do that, but the first decision is maybe to do something different. If what's going on is working for the architect firms then have at it. But if it's not, then look at a fresh approach. Think about what we talked about at the beginning, about why is talent attraction important? It's competitive advantage because if you've got the talent to run your business and somebody else, doesn't. Your ability to run your business and your ability to win bigger and better projects and continue to do that. That's what it's about. And if good talent is the barometer of what's gonna make one business more successful than another, then that's a strategic imperative. And I would say to firm's principals: "And what are you doing about it?"

RVLTR (37:00):

It makes sense. The number one thing I retained for this conversation today is that hiring is not something that happens at one point in time. It's a continuum and you constantly have to be on the lookout, even if you're not actively hiring, because when you are looking for staff, if you have an Instagram that is engaging and you're doing all kinds of other things that people pay attention to when you are hiring, they'll say: "Oh, that firm's interesting. I've heard about them here. And I've heard about them there and they were at this conference and whatever." I think this is really the way to look at it. It's like marketing, how many times I had clients who thought that they can do a push for three, six months and then turn off the tap and be done with it and think that it's gonna work for the next 10 years, versus understanding that marketing is an ongoing thing. You constantly have to put yourself out there. That's, that's what I retained from this.

SL (38:00):

I would agree with all of that.

RVLTR (38:02):

Cool. Well, I wanna thank you very much for your time and generous insights and hopefully this is the first of many conversations.

SL (38:09):

Fantastic. Arnaud, thanks so much.

Revelateur Studio 9/14/22 Revelateur Studio 9/14/22

{PODCAST RERUN} Truth is Golden - 202 | We're All Going To Die w/ Stefan Hunt

In episode 2 of our second season, Stefan Hunt, recounted his -short- life story, from a typical western childhood in New South Wales, Australia, to his early foray into film making, crossing the US at 18 with no money, a bieber haircut and a drive to surf all 48 states, including the 20+ landlocked ones. His first film, self-described as “cringeworthy”, got him some attention and eventually led him to become the multi-talented professional filmmaker, artist and storyteller he is today; all the while continuing on his literally off the beaten path journey. Listen in to hear more about how one can be a highly creative, decent and compassionate human being at the same time.

Revelateur Studio 9/7/22 Revelateur Studio 9/7/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 312 - Cousins Wilson on the Preservation of Social Housing

There has been a lot of talk on this podcast about housing, missing middle and the current challenges that much of the western world, and particularly Canada is experiencing when it comes to housing, its affordability and availability.

Enter Tura Cousins Wilson, co-founder of SOCA,, with partner Shane Laptiste, who have caught the public’s attention over the last couple of years with daring and innovative proposals, often centred around preservation of existing buildings.

I invited Tura to join me on the podcast to talk about the preservation of social housing as a way to increase the housing supply without throwing the modernist baby with the bathwater and demolish buildings that, in spite of not being loved at the present moment, present architectural qualities that Cousins-Wilson think are worth preserving.

Listen in to see what Tura has to say on the topic.

{Recorded in April 2022 during IDS Toronto}

RVLTR (00:04):

Tura Cousins Wilson is the co-founder of the Studio of Contemporary Architecture, where he and partner Shane lapis are involved in both speculative and real projects that aim at creating a positive impact through innovative high-quality designs. Their designs and ideas have been extensively published and acknowledged. Tura, thank you very much for being on the show and indulging in my city-building obsession. It's a real pleasure to welcome you as a guest.

Tura Cousins Wilson (TCW) (01:17):

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

RVLTR (01:19):

So today we're discussing yet another time Toronto's chronically undersupplied housing stock, but this time we're looking at the idea of reviving social housing through conservation and what it means for a city like Toronto. So before we jump right into the topic, can you tell us who you are and what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less?

TCW (01:38):

Yes. Simply I'm an architect born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, currently working at the Studio of Contemporary Architecture [SOCA] which I co-founded as with Shane Laptiste, as you mentioned, and we're doing work that spans a variety scales including private residential renovations and additions to community work to sports and recreation facilities, as well as urban design, master planning and speculative work. And the speculative work spans a broad range of scales and our interest the in speculative work is about the creative process. It's about asking questions, exploring ideas that we can't always explore in built work. So with professional projects or with real clients, for example.

RVLTR (02:29):

And some of those projects are actually very interesting. I'm thinking about the the renovation of that brutalist theatre. I forget the name.

TCW (02:37):

Yeah, the St. Lawrence Center for the Performing Arts.

RVLTR (02:40):

So I understand you do those as speculative projects, but do they actually lead to work or have they led to like interesting conversations?

TCW (02:48):

Some have led to work. They definitely, in my opinion, lead to conversations, that was part of a Globe and Mail article questioning what we see as heritage. Particularly, do we see brutalist architecture as heritage? There was a current proposal that was looking at demolishing that, and ours was a counter-proposal that said: "Hey, we see value in this building". We think you could do something bold here that has its own identity while also, , acknowledging the 50 years of the site.

RVLTR (03:28):

I understand this may not have been the primary purpose of that counter-proposal but has that changed the goals of the building owners at all?

TCW (03:39):

It actually, I think it has I just recently saw they're gonna be looking at doing a feasibility study and one of the things identified was working with the existing building. And I think largely that's partially from a budgetary perspective, but I also think it's a greater acknowledgement of the value and the history of the site and the culture of that site.

RVLTR (04:05):

That's very interesting. So let's go back to the topic of social housing in in the context of Toronto. So Toronto has a housing problem. That's undeniable and I have my own ideas is why that is, but what is it in your opinion?

TCW (04:22):

That's a challenging question. I think there's no one answer. Simply put, we're not building enough housing for the amount of people coming to the city and that's all different types of housing. So that's: market housing, It's missing middle, so duplexes, triplexes, small walk-up apartments. It's even Highrise residential, even though it seems like we're building a lot, we could be building a lot more. And most importantly, when it comes to super deep affordable housing is social housing. So that's government funded housing. We're not nearly building enough, a drop in the bucket. If that can answer the question a bit it's, challenging, it's more than just supply. It's a market, so interest rates, supply and demand, cost of construction materials, cost of labor, the shortage of labor, all those things contribute to the inflated housing market.

RVLTR (05:30):

I personally think that a large part of the blame is on politicians refusing to change the regulatory environment, make it easier to build more dense environments. How much do you think that impacts the whole situation?

TCW (05:46):

I think that's, that's a big part of the question of missing middle, small walkups in similar scale to a single family home, but that have multiple units in roughly the same size you've probably heard. And I think maybe a lot of listeners may have heard of the yellow belt. Particularly, that's a large region of residential neighbourhoods in Toronto that where you can't build anything else other than a single family home. And when the largest area of land can only be put to one use that limits the amount of housing that you can build.

RVLTR (06:25):

Yeah. That's simple arithmetic, right? So how do that, those broad ranging societal issues relate to social housing and its preservation,

TCW (06:38):

They do, and they don't. The missing middle in general doesn't necessarily have to relate to social housing, although you can have social housing that is missing middle or at a smaller scale and TCHC, Toronto Community Housing, they have part of their portfolio is missing middle houses. So duplexes, in addition to their larger buildings.

RVLTR (07:10):

Yeah, that makes sense. So let's talk about heritage, because that's that's what was the topic. What is what is your definition of heritage, because you just had a talk at IDS [Interior Design Show]. You were talking about reviving social housing as heritage buildings instead of demolishing them. So what is, what has been the extent of your work? What are you advocating for? And more importantly, what are the roadblocks that you're up against that maybe prevent you from doing that or prevent your proposals from becoming reality?

TCW (07:47):

Yeah, it's an interesting question. The question of heritage has been an interest of our studio for some time now and, asking what makes the city a city and in the case of Toronto, what makes Toronto "Toronto" that is what defines us. And I think in a lot of cases Victorian era, neoclassical architecture, early 20th century, industrial architecture is considered, part of the ethos and character of the city. It is changing. I would argue that mid-century architecture whether it be just modernism, brutalism, high-tech architecture, doesn't have that same broader [perceived] value. And I think there are niches of architects who appreciate it, but less so from a broader cultural perspective. I'd say the interesting thing is so much of our city is made up of those post-war years. In a lot of ways, I would say Toronto came of age after the second world war demographically, definitely in the way the city boomed and culturally, it's transitioned from a very White Anglo-Saxon Protestant city to a much more diverse diverse city. The question then becomes "Does that era's architecture have value?" And I would suggest that it does. And then the talk at IDs was looking at specifically at Alexandra Park, an 18-acre site, just west of the downtown core

RVLTR (09:39):

That Spadina and Dundas [a neighbourhood of Toronto]?

TCW (09:40):

Yes, Spadina and Dundas. So just west of Chinatown, south of Kensington market, and then north of queen and east of Bathurst street. It's Undergoing large-scale redevelopment master plan. Very much similar to Regent Park [a local urban renewal project], it's well underway. It started in 2014 that is seeing the existing site that was designed by Jerome Markson, a really interesting Toronto architect, demolished to make way for a new development, in a mix of use. The idea being that you have market units that finance the replacement of social housing units, as well as below market units. And it started within article that I wrote in Azure questioning the approach to tabula rasa of tearing it down to create a clean slate. Is that the best approach? From a cultural sense, a cultural memory of our identity to place, from an environmental standpoint of there's a lot of embodied carbon and energy in existing buildings. Why landfill them unnecessarily?

RVLTR (10:54):

The most sustainable building is the one you don't build, right?

TCW (10:56):

Exactly. And additionally, from an environmental perspective and, not even architecture was the destruction of trees. So there was quite an extensive canopy of mature trees that are 60 + years old. Replacing them, which is what they'll do, will take another 60 years. Another two generations of children, really not having mature trees. So it was questioning that approach. And it's a similar approach that was taken in phase one of Regent Park and there's new developments happening elsewhere in the city and across the country "What do we do?" How do we restore and regenerate these sites? And not to say at all that there aren't design shortcomings with them, but to say maybe there's a more nuanced approach.

RVLTR (11:50):

And I believe you had a speculative proposal for that site too. What conclusion did you come to, by designing this speculative project?

TCW (12:02):

The conclusion was simply that, and I'm gonna back up a bit there, we treated it almost as a lab research project of questioning: "Why not? Why do we tear this down? Can there be a more nuanced approach?" And was testing, whether there could be a more nuanced approach through a design exercise, that literally looked at the site and said, these are the existing buildings, what is the value to them? So it was identifying value. It was identifying buildings that, were very easy to keep. And then there was certain buildings that were challenging to keep and, how could we keep them? And then where would we say: "Add new density?" So the idea was to follow the model. And I think it's a debate on our approach to social housing that we require the private sector to finance it. I think that's a separate debate. But we did follow that model to keep [buildings] in relation to the existing master plan and [we were] finding areas to add new density that wouldn't impact the existing structures as much as possible. So largely, looking at parking empty parking lots and adding a lot of density. And it was, I think, challenging the idea that Toronto can't have high amounts of density. So if we kept a two-story townhouse to have a consistent density might mean that we need a 30-storey point tower, right beside it. And I think in this city, if we are gonna have a conversation about heritage it's about the duality, it's not about preserving something, some archaic vision or notion of the past, but allowing the city to renew itself while at the same time, still being respectful of the past. And I think building from the past, that adds value. One of the critiques of so much residential architecture is that it's generic and soulless. And part of the argument was [finding] an easy way of creating character through working with existing buildings. I think even good architecture requires time to develop its own sense of identity and character and broader meaning.

RVLTR (14:28):

Yeah. And I think this brings up a couple of interesting points. One is that not all architecture is worth preserving. And I remember Alexandra Park because I used to live in Kensington market. So I would go through that area quite often. And just from a purely empirical observation from going through at the street level, there seemed to have been a lot of architectural quality there in the way the buildings related to the streets and the pedestrian pathways, even though I realized those buildings may have been quite derelict after decades of mm- being in use. So how does one determine what's worth preserving? And what's not because, in my opinion, smart heritage would be about preserving the things that make sense to preserve or architecturally, significant, whatever that means, in some way. So how, how do you go about that and how do you say: "Well, we can demolish that cause it doesn't really have any value or it impedes the adaptive reuse too much, but we need to preserve that one because it's architecturally significant and it's easier to renovate and reuse?"

TCW (15:39):

It's a very challenging question. And it's the question that's constantly evolving. I think a good example would be Victorian houses. There was an era in this city. Regent Park is a good example. What predated Alexandra Park was an old street grid of Victorian houses, an older suburb in the inner part of the city. And there was a point where those houses weren't valued, which resulted in the creation of, Regent Park. That being that they're also in many cases in disrepair. The irony is that today Cabbagetown, which is really the north portion of Regent Park is valued. You ou can't get a house for under 2 million, if you're lucky, in that, that part of the city. So I think it's acknowledging that our values constantly change and part of our interest is questioning what are our values today. So I think it's challenging. I'd also like to push beyond heritage as purely being physical architecture, using the Cabbagetown example again today. I think it's a beautiful neighborhood. They've done a great job at preserving many of the built form qualities. However, if you look at the perspective of heritage from a "people perspective", it's fundamentally different. Family sizes have changed, they're much smaller and people are much richer. They're living in bigger houses with smaller space. The density is different. Cabbage town in, say the 1920s, was fundamentally different from the perspective of people.

RVLTR (17:30):

It was blue collar, right?

TCW (17:31):

Right. I think it's questioning what heritage means from different perspectives from built architectural form, because ultimately my opinion is heritage is meaningless to a large degree if it's not used well.

RVLTR (17:56):

It's about the culture as well and how it fits into the culture. And it's interesting, you mentioned the Victorian homes because there's literally thousands of them across the city. So the one question that I've asked over the years is: "Is it worth preserving all of them or should you selectively as the population pressure increases in the city?" Should you allow for maybe the demolition of the least significant of them and to build maybe higher density? Because we need to put those people somewhere too. You have to be realistic. Or is it about preserving all of them because they're old enough to trigger some kind of nostalgia in the culture? I think that's an interesting question. What are your thoughts on that?

TCW (18:37):

It is. I think it's constantly evolving. I don't think there's a broad brush approach. I think in certain areas that might make sense and others less. So there's certain Victorian houses where they weren't built that well, there's many houses in the city that are built cheaply. They were essentially workers' houses. They're stick-frame houses with a brick veneer facade at the front with some interesting architectural detailing beyond that. There's not that much special, at least from an architectural perspective from a standalone building, obviously. There's [also] the scale of the street and there's the potentially maybe the coherence. I think coherence is another one. So there's certain areas where I think in a coherent district you might make sense to keep the heritage. There's many areas in the city where much of the original architectural detailing has been erased. And there might be one standalone building. Do you prevent any change in a whole district because there's a few buildings that still maintain that character? I would say probably not. That's why I say, I think it's something that you can't address entirely holistically. I think it does come down to neighborhood-specific approaches, but also identifying that we are in a housing crisis and we can't just remain the same.

RVLTR (20:12):

In your opinion and maybe you can tie that back a little bit to your work on preserving social housing, but maybe broaden the answer to a larger architectural context. What would you do if you had a magic wand? What would be your fix to the housing crisis?

TCW (20:35):

I think simply it would be investing more money in public housing. Is probably the first thing that I would do. I don't mean 1 or 2 billion, I mean a lot of money across the country for the next 10 to 20 years. It's a crisis that's we're not gonna get out of in the short term. In large part, it's a generational approach. The next thing is, and I think this gets to heritage, is we are generally okay with upending, large social housing communities, but we wouldn't do that, say, for Rosedale

RVLTR (21:29):

Or the Annex. And they wouldn't let you do that. Because every time there's a condo [proposal] "at the end of the street", they go up in arms and say: "We don't want to destroy the character of the neighbourhood", whatever that means. I guess there is a point to be made about your level of wealth determining how much your housing is protected, so to speak.

TCW (21:51):

In an ideal world we could build housing everywhere and it gets back to kind of the question of the yellow belt, the question of missing middle, the question of scale. As I mentioned previously, the ability to say: "Hey, it's okay to have, say a 20 story building that backs onto a much smaller building, because you want to keep that smaller building."

RVLTR (22:25):

And there's cities elsewhere where it happens all the time, definitely in every neighbourhood. To me, what's baffling about Toronto and to an extent maybe other Canadian cities is that there's this fear that more density will destroy the "character of the neighbourhood". Again, whatever the hell that means. Because I don't think it's a valid argument, but people fail to look at other successful cities that are way denser than Toronto and still managing to be very livable. But I think our idea of livability in Canada or North America, I guess you could say is that you have to have a single family home with a two-car parking pad and maybe even a garage because that's, that's what you "should have" if you make it in life. I guess that's a bit of an overly broad generalization, but I think there's, that kind of desire to show that you've made it by owning a piece of single family property instead of in Paris, [where] wealthy people live in apartments, right? And there's many other cities where that's the case. So it's also, I think there's a bit of a cultural shift that needs to happen.

TCW (23:36):

Definitely. And it is happening it's so I think, , the suburban house Canadian dream, if you will, still exists at the same time, the majority of residents in Toronto live in apartment buildings.

RVLTR (23:54):

Is that the case?

TCW (23:54):

Yes. And I think, and it's gonna continue to be the case.

RVLTR (23:59):

It' interesting because looking at the city, like walking or driving through it, you'd think there's more single family units than there are apartment units. So it's interesting to see that statistically there's more people living in apartments.

TCW (24:13):

When you think of the space that a single family home can take up. There's, there's lots that are, a 100 feet by 200 feet wide with maybe four people living in them, in a lot like that. That's the size of a point tower in downtown Toronto.

RVLTR (24:31):

So you could literally have hundreds of units in the same space. So we talked about conservation heritage and more of the cultural aspect. What are the environmental benefits of preserving any architecture, but specifically social housing?

TCW (24:50):

One being the embodied energy in a building, if you don't have to tear down a building. And really when you think about what tearing down a building, you're throwing it into a landfill. There is a huge debate and a push to remove plastic bags. I'd say: "How many billions of plastic bags does a building make up?" And if you think of it from that perspective, if you're demolishing a building, you're throwing out quite a few plastic bags.

RVLTR (25:26):

Yeah.

TCW (25:27):

So there's that perspective. There's also the perspective, as I mentioned, of existing trees, so we're not talking often that we're just demolishing buildings. We're demolishing the landscape and trees again, have an embodied energy. They also provide shading. Some of the poorest neighbourhoods in our city don't have enough trees. And as a result, some of the poorest neighbourhoods are also some of the hottest neighbourhoods in the summer. So the there's that environmental perspective, in the perspective of human health from trees cleaning the environment and things like that.

RVLTR (26:08):

I think we've covered most of the questions I had, but there's one that I'm fascinated by cause I've come across this idea in various forms recently. There's this idea out there that architecture has become disposable in large part, I'm not gonna say the only reason that's the only reason, but in large part because of the way it's financed and the access to easy credit, it's easy to borrow money. So most buildings have an amortization period of like 30 years or so which is one generation. So after that they've been paid off and, and the owners have made their money back and so economically speaking their a write-off, right? They have no book value, so to speak. And so they're easily demolished because then you can rinse and repeat and do the same thing for the next 30 years. How much do you think that has an actual impact on the durability of architecture? Because I've heard one economist specifically make the argument that even 120 years ago, we generally speaking built buildings that were designed to last generations and generations and then with the kind of new financing model and the access to easy credit that has gone by the wayside. What's your take on that? And is there something that can be done in the way buildings are financed to incentivize owners, architects, and users to design buildings that last longer?

TCW (27:54):

That's a very good question and a question I'm not sure I can give you a complete answer to. I would add that it's how we finance architecture and how technology has changed architecture. And I think that the two tied in together with globalization [...] It's changed architecture [compared to] a hundred years ago. From where we source our building materials, to the types of laborers and craft people that are required to build. You can have large panels go up on a building where you need very few trades people, or you don't need brick layers at all. You can ship products from anywhere around the world. So you're not necessarily sourcing materials from that region or materials that are very durable in a certain region. I think that is a big, big perspective. The question of capital is huge. Mortgage rates shape the city, access to money can shape the size of the house. People build generally, in my perspective working with clients is, people always want more.

RVLTR (29:41):

But they're not always ready to pay for it, right?

TCW (29:44):

The system of borrowing before you can afford to pay it kind of entices that even more.

RVLTR (29:55):

So if you pictured like any given project in your head and you would design it, say for minimum 30 years lifespan, and then you design the exact same project to last a 150 years. How much more do you think it would cost? I know it's hard to throw numbers numbers like that, but would it be significantly more expensive?

TCW (30:17):

I would say in all our projects, we aim to go beyond 30 years but even 50 or 100 years is short in the grand scheme of things. When you think of the history of the world, I think one thing that's changing that is the environmental performance perspective, energy costs, and certain standards, like the Toronto green standards, net zero things like passive house as more municipalities and authorities having jurisdiction require higher standards, the more likely we're gonna see better, higher quality architecture from an energy perspective. But I also think from a detailing perspective, and I think even from an aesthetic perspective.

RVLTR (31:17):

So you do, you do think those standards are actually pushing the quality of the architecture itself beyond just the energy performance?

TCW (31:27):

It has the potential to, to clarify. There's certainly bad green buildings from both a beauty perspective, but also in how they make people feel. So it can perform well, but it's ugly or can perform well and it's not comfortable.

RVLTR (31:49):

Yeah. That makes sense.

TCW (31:53):

I like to hope.

RVLTR (31:55):

I mean, hope is what drives humanity and drives progress. So I'm with you. It's good to hope, but it's also important to keep in mind what are the incentives and rules you have to [abide] by, to accomplish that, because it's, it's gonna help move things forward. I think we've covered quite a bit of ground and I don't have any more questions for you, but are there any final thoughts you'd like to share with the audience with regards to all the things we've discussed today?

TCW (32:28):

It was fun. I don't have any specific questions. I just would like to say, thanks for having me, this has been really great.

RVLTR (32:36):

It's been a pleasure to have you, and hopefully this is just the first of many conversations.

TCW (32:40):

It's not all that often I get to spend additional time talking about architectural ideas like this.

RVLTR (32:46):

Well, you're welcome to do it anytime. As long as there's an interesting topic to talk about, I'm always happy to do those.

TCW (32:53):

All right.

RVLTR (32:53):

Well, thanks a lot. It's it's been great.

TCW (32:55):

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Revelateur Studio 6/29/22 Revelateur Studio 6/29/22

Please Hold

As Canada Day marks the unofficial beginning of the summer holidays, we at RVLTR are taking a break from postings, writings and podcasts.

We will see you back in August after some exploration of Ontario’s National Parks, with some fresh content and pretty pictures. My personal goal is to see all the national park located in Ontario within the span of 2 weeks, but that’s a very ambitious goal.

Remember to enjoy the summer!

Revelateur Studio 6/23/22 Revelateur Studio 6/23/22

Adapting Timeless Stories To Reach Young(er) Architects

SIDE NOTE: Yesterday’s post contained the wrong text description for the podcast episode on the Future of Retail. It has now been updated.

When Pro-Demnity insurance company approached me to discuss producing a podcast for them, I was very excited at the prospect to produce a podcast for someone else, as I had been producing my own for a number of years.

The source Material, David Croft’s famous “Claim Stories” which had been written as cases studies (and cautionary tales of sorts) for Ontario Architects insured by Pro-Demnity, had not aged one bit, but the client and specifically their new VP of Marketing were looking for ways to make these great stories more accessible to a broader, and now decidedly younger public, as these had been an instrumental part of the education of 4 generations or so of licensed architects.

It turns out, translating written stories into audio is no easy feat, but with a dedicated team (and many, many test recordings), we finally hit a tone and cadence that felt both distinguished, professional and appropriate for the client and more importantly, their audience.

The beauty of the podcast format and its borderless distribution is that Prodemnity was able to take stories that had been historically limited to Ontario Architects and make them truly universal. While some of the details may be very specific to Canadian architecture, its lessons are eminently applicable to architects the world over, as they speak of far-reaching issues of professionalism, common sense and duty of care.

The resulting Architect’s Claims Stories are now live with Episodes 1 and 2, No Written Record and Failure to Communicate respectively, available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual platforms. The pilot episode ”No Written Record” contains three claim stories, dealing with the consequences of an architect failing to keep written records, while episode 2, “Failure to Communicate” relates how a simple exchange of information, promptly delivered, duly recorded and correctly remembered, might have saved everyone a lot of grief.

All the Stories have been fictionalized, to protect the identity of the parties involved, but each recount the circumstances of a real claim, inspired by the 6,000+ that Pro-Demnity has defended over the years. As with all good stories, Pro-Demnity’s Audio Claims Stories impart practical lessons. Architectural practice may be deeply rewarding, but there are very factual risks – insured and uninsured. The original Claims Stories were written by David Croft, FRAIC, ****retired VP Claims and OAA’s 2021 G. Randy Roberts Award Winner, and were created to help architects understand professional liability.

I couldn’t be prouder of what we accomplished with a small and mighty team. Here’s what the client had to say about the experience:

“Working with Arnaud and Revelateur Studio was an invaluable experience. His expertise during the development of Pro-Demnity’s first podcast helped to shape, inform and improve Architect’s Claims Stories. Thank you Arnaud.”

Iliana Arapis, VP Marketing, Pro-Demnity Insurance Company.

Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the comments!

Credits:

Voice Artist: Liam Gadsby

Executive Producer: Pro-Demnity Insurance Company, Iliana Arapis, VP Marketing

Editor: Gordon Grice, Pro-Demnity Insurance Company

Producer, Art Direction: Révélateur Studio

Recording Studio: Lynx Music

Audio Engineers / Editors: João Thiré & James Findlay at Audio Process

Revelateur Studio 6/22/22 Revelateur Studio 6/22/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 311 - Barhay & Sun on the Future of Retail

The last few years have been a rollercoaster for retail.

In this is episode, Supreet Barhay and Stanley Sun attempt answering the question: What's the future like for retail?

Barhay is a principal at WZMH architects in Toronto, where she leads the retail team. As a result of the shifting retail landscape brought about by long-term trends and accelerated by the pandemic, she and her team have been working on an initiative called 'The future of Retail'.

Sun is the co-founder and principal at Mason Studio in Toronto, where he has worked on a variety of interiors, from boutique hotel to retail stores, he is a keen observer of how people interact with and use spaces. He uses that knowledge to shape spaces, specifically with light.

Revelateur Studio 6/8/22 Revelateur Studio 6/8/22

{PODCAST RERUN} Truth is Golden - 201 | Creativity is an Interesting Word w/ John DeWolf

In our first episode of season 2, John Dewolf, Vice President at Form : Media walks us through his youth in the Canadian Maritimes, his early career as a graphic designer before he realized, while working on a software to help people save for retirement and later on the redesign of the US census forms, the power of design to positively influence people’s lives. We also talked creativity, his design process and how his career is bridging the gap across many design disciplines to create places that people can relate to. Listen in to hear more about John and his captivating career. 2022 update: John has since moved on from Form:Media and is now pursuing further endeavours.

Revelateur Studio 6/1/22 Revelateur Studio 6/1/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 310 - Ashfield on Public Speaking

What make a good public speaker? Susie Ashfield joins us on episode 310 to share some secrets with us...

Ashfield comes from a strong creative background. As a communications specialist, she makes the most of her unique combination of acting skills, and her director-level business experience. She focuses on coaching to control and optimize body language and non-verbal communication techniques, as well as enabling clients to structure content for effect, and develop the kind of vocal strength needed to succeed. As a speaker and trainer she runs high energy workshops centered around powerful performance, from dealmaking conversations to TEDx talks. Susie is a qualified Associate Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation and she specialises in stage fright and performances anxiety techniques

Revelateur Studio 5/18/22 Revelateur Studio 5/18/22

{PODCAST RERUN} Truth is Golden - 106 | The Milk that Never Spoils w/ Jamie Derringer {ARCHIVE}

Nothing in her early life foreshadowed Jaime Derringer’s rise as a champion of contemporary design, through the development of her wildly successful design blog Design Milk and its sister sites, Dog Milk and Adorn Milk. A passion project if there is one, she turned - one step at a time - her love of contemporary design, architecture and beautiful things into a career that took her to places she probably wouldn’t have, had she stuck to a conventional path. Jaime was kind enough to open up and share with us what she was like growing up, her early career, her failures, her fears, her aspirations and what she’s hoping to accomplish in the future. I loved her willingness to be unconditionally open about her experiences and lack of pretense, particularly in light of the fact that she was a complete outsider to her industry and how she used that to her advantage, in building the indispensable design platform that Design Milk is today. Listen in to hear more about Jaime and her journey.

Revelateur Studio 5/11/22 Revelateur Studio 5/11/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 309 - Sibolboro on Canadian Design

Image courtesy of Richelle Sibolboro

Richelle Sibolboro is a brand strategist and content creator with in-depth expertise and passion for arts and culture especially design, architecture, and travel. With over 15 years of experience in communications, design, brand, and strategy, she currently works with brands to achieve insight and alignment through participatory and collaborative sessions.

Today, we're going to talk about Canadian Design and specifically attempt to answer the question: What is Canadian Design?

Revelateur Studio 5/3/22 Revelateur Studio 5/3/22

{PODCAST RERUN} Truth is Golden - Ep. 105 | Revolution Not Evolution w/ Matthew Rosenberg

Architect Matthew Rosenberg grew up in Saskatoon in an environment that did not predestine him to become the daring creative force he is today. A quiet suburban life and (admittedly overly) caring jewish family was more likely to be conducive to a humdrum suburban life. Attending the march of the living in Israel and Poland in his teens, awakened in him the desire to aspire to bigger and better things. Fast forward 20 years or so and the pudgy, quiet teen is now a well put-together, articulate and vocal advocate of nothing short of a revolution of the architectural practice. His integrated approach to practicing architecture, from pre-development to post-occupancy operations, from designing for a persona to designing the experience of end users, takes the master builder model one step further, by taking ownership of a building through its entire life-cycle. Listen in to the podcast to learn more about Matthew and his ideas.

Revelateur Studio 5/2/22 Revelateur Studio 5/2/22

"We specialize in a wide array of work"

I once stumbled upon the titular statement while browsing a design firm's website, which shall remain nameless. This oxymoronic statement says nothing. Specializing is, by definition, the act of becoming an expert in a particular subject of skill. "Specializing in a wide array of work" is therefore, not specializing at all, but actually the exact opposite.

My aim isn't to pick on a particular business, but rather use it as an example of what misguided language can do to an otherwise excellent design firm and how it undermines one's credibility as well as ability to deliver maximum value.

Designers too often come up with self-describing statements that sound elegant and distinguished, but most of the time, are buzzword-laden descriptions (dare I say deceptions?) of their firms that ultimately are devoid of all meaning, as their verbiage is so tortured and convoluted that it ends up meaning nothing.

When it comes to client-facing descriptive statements, it's best to keep it simple, or better yet, leave it to professional copywriters and communicators* who understand the language well enough to translate your beautiful, wild, crazy and creative ideas into human-intelligible language, which in turn will keep your would-be clients longer on your website, increasing your chances of making a sale.

One thing that is often overlooked about good copy, and specifically of the kind that helps you sell your services, is that effective copy can sound dull or worse - crime of all crime - salesy. But ultimately, the only thing that matters is effectiveness. If said copy helps you sell your services or accomplish any other goals, then it can be considered effective copy. Otherwise, it’s just a vanity project.

*There are a bajillion of them out there, some good, some bad, but the good ones are worth every penny. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to discuss how your messaging can help you accomplish your goals.

Revelateur Studio 4/28/22 Revelateur Studio 4/28/22

{PODCAST} Single Serves ep. 308 - Stoddard on Service Design

What is service design and how can it help designers conceive of better environments that better serve their users?

This is the question that John Stoddard and I attempted to answer in this conversation.

John is a Service Design consultant and teacher, based in the Bay Area, helping organizations create high value customer experiences. He's worked with many organizations and firms in the past, most notably IDEO in their London and Palo Alto offices. He's also an educator, having taught at UC Berkeley and University of San Francisco.

RVLTR (00:04):

Can you tell us who you are and what you do, in your own words, in three sentences or less?

John Stoddard (JS) (01:33):

Okay. I wrote it down just to try and be concise. All right. So I start by saying: I believe all companies are service businesses and that means they are creating customer relationships, which lead to recurring revenue rather than the old style of business based on transactions. And we can talk more about what that all means, but basically the key to providing a wonderful service is the customer experience. And that's what I do. I design services with a better customer experience than existed before or improve customer experiences that have problems. So I I'm a consultant. I work with companies and organizations to help them understand their customers better and find a way to respond to those customer needs. In a way that is more careful about understanding those needs and more careful about how to deliver those responses to those needs normally as a service, and since in the current business world where I operate everything is a service these days. That's where I focus the customer experience.

RVLTR (03:05):

So my next question was going to be what is service design? I believe you've already pretty much answered that. Is there anything you want to add to it, to maybe make it a little more clear?

JS (03:16):

I think it's worth exploring the word service for a little bit. In the old world and, customer service was what happened to fix problems for customers. Someone buys a product, maybe in a store, they take it home it breaks or they have a problem with it. They go back to customer service. That's the old meaning of customer service, which was fixing problems with products particularly or you're not happy with the service, you get on the phone and you complain about it. You talk normally with customer service, but what really happened with the internet in particular, was that companies realized that providing support for their customers when they buy something, purchase something from them, that was part of the product really. So you might buy a television and you, take it home and you want to be able to use it immediately, use it easily. So you expect that television to be intuitive in how you use it. In some products, you feel you should read the instruction book and that is if you like training and then when you are using it you, you have a particular goal in mind for what you're trying to do, you could be doing something for yourself or, or doing something for other people. So that again is a service. So, creating a product and supporting it with training making it easy to buy, making it easy to maybe to use in fact that that's all part of the products these days. And so what's happened is products have become expanded in into services. And of course services have always existed. You know, a restaurant is a service but economists have always had a problem trying to figure out what is a restaurant, for example, is it a service providing you know, the an environment and, and people that help you have a meal as a service, or is it a manufacturer? Cause they make food and you can even buy that food and take it away, it's a product. So what's happened is the old economic divisions between the two sectors, service and product, that's all evaporated. Thanks to technology really. So the internet made people aware that it's not just the product, it's really the whole journey that you go on when you you buy what we used to call a product. And that requires a new attitude and a new approach from companies that used to be thinking of themselves as manufacturers, for example. And now they have to take responsibility for the whole of that journey. And they're glad to actually, because it leads to a closer relationship with their customer. So service used to mean limited support for products and what happened was products and services merged. And now the service is really what companies do.

RVLTR (07:15):

Yeah. And your restaurant example is a fascinating one because, and I'm not an expert in the field, but when you describe what they're offering, I would say it's neither a service nor a product. It's an experience.

JS (07:29):

Yes.

RVLTR (07:30):

It's really what people buy is the quality of the experience. And the food is just a tiny portion of it.

JS (07:36):

That's true. Maybe it's more than that as well. I mean, the experience is how you deliver the service, I would say, but there's performance as well. Okay. That food has got to be nourishing, for example is gotta be safe. And so this performance is what the thing does, what the restaurant does, what the food does. And, and then there's how you do it and. I regard that as the service, you're enabling people to achieve something which is a definition of the service, really. So yes, the experience, when you're designing a service, a large part of it is designing how you deliver the service, which is the experience as you say.

RVLTR (08:28):

Yeah, that makes sense. So why is service design important in your mind?

JS (08:34):

Well, it's what I observe happening in business and in the world. Really. if you, you have a choice between two companies trying to sell you something, you are gonna go with the company that provides a better experience, the better service. And if you buy a product and you find it's hard to use or you find that it feels like it's designed for someone else, rather than you, that's bad service. It's gonna lose you customers from that company's point of view. So really the service is where you meet your customer and how you create a relationship that's gonna last over time. And so another word for that is the brand relationship. So we're used to the idea of being loyal to a brand. You know, you get to know a brand, you feel is a good fit for you, and you return to that brand when you want to expand what you're doing in some way. And so that that relationship is provided through service. And therefore the success and survival of any company these days, I believe is down to the quality of service they design and deliver.

RVLTR (10:09):

Which is no small feat, cause it's an incredibly complex problem to solve really.

JS (10:15):

There's a process to get there. And one of the best processes around is called design thinking. And that's what I do. I apply design thinking, which is a customer focused approach to creating a service. That was formulated, I would say principally by IDEO. And so I gained a lot of experience when I was working there on working with different sorts of customer, different sorts of industry, different sorts of cultures which all affect how you design a service.

RVLTR (10:55):

So how would the principles and ideas apply to the world of architecture and interior design?

JS (11:03):

Well, I would maintain that a building is a service delivery device. Let me unpack that a little bit. In the old world we had products, okay. Let's say a mobile phone. That mobile phone evolved and along came the iPhone, which was a product that delivered services in a great way. The previous products were about delivering a service, but very limited phone calls basically. They couldn't quite deal with the internet, the iPhone, when apple created it, they realized the phone was about delivering services and that's what they created a device for delivering services, and as I was mentioning before, it's about enabling people to do things it's about providing a capability, not just an object or a thing. And so buildings are things, they're solid like a product, but I regard them as service in solid form. So a hospital for example, is very easy to see how that only exists to provide healthcare services. It's a service delivery device in a way. You could look at maybe people's homes. Now what the architect and the building designer is doing is creating an environment which allows a family or the occupant to do things, to achieve their goals. And so clearly the architect and building designer is providing a service to their clients for instance, in the case of a hospital, but also to homeowners, they're providing a service. And so the home is delivering the architect service and in many cases it's allowing their client to deliver a service. And so you have the situation that occurs in the, in the business as well. There would B to B to C going on there. So a business supplies, a business which supplies a customer or consumer. So however you look at it, in my mind a building is about enabling people by providing a service it's a service providing device, therefore that service needs designing in such a way that it's a great experience, as you mentioned before. Therefore designing the building as if it's an object is that shows concern for the clients, the architects clients, but it really means you have to go much further and think about all the people who use that building and think about the journey they go on and the experience they have as you are designing the building, because it's about enabling those people, it's about providing a service to those people. So architects should be thinking about service design. And I have to say that that's not something these days that you can do without training. Okay. In the same way that when software kind of took over in products. And initially that software user interface, the interaction was, was designed by industrial designers at first because it was an extension of making the product nice to use and safe to use and so on. So the first wave of any new discipline is done by the existing disciplines, but pretty soon you need people who are trained and have experience. Now in, in my case, I was lucky I had my training at IDEO and a lot of experience there. But these days there are service designers coming out of college and that includes business schools. And they are professionally trained service designers and they should be on the architects team. They should be on the building designers team. If they're going to design the experience and design the service to a professional level, which these days means global, world class.

RVLTR (15:48):

I can tell you from experience, there are few, if any firms that have service designers on staff, so while you were answering the question, the idea occurred to me that basically buildings would be the real world equivalent to software. It's an interface for people to accomplish certain tasks or goals. Is that fair to characterize it that way?

JS (16:11):

Well, it's hardware and software, right. And so those two things, hardware and software are quite often part of providing a service. You need that other element, which is how you deliver the software and how you deliver the, the hardware. And so, there's a phrase in, in the product design world, they talk about software as service? And I think you could say you could talk about architecture as service. You could talk about building buildings as service now. The software equivalent is, maybe going off in a slightly different direction to the service. I think because as buildings become intelligent, through AI, through machine learning, through machine vision, through touchless interaction, through behavioral interaction. As They become smart, then they do have their own software. And that's kind of behind the scenes, I think.

RVLTR (17:24):

You're talking about literal software?

JS (17:27):

Yeah.

RVLTR (17:28):

Yeah. Okay.

JS (17:28):

I worked with a startup in Silicon valley called use space, and we were exploring machine vision and machine learning, which allowed a space to be monitored by infrared cameras, such that people's behaviour could be monitored because the space was mapping those people. It was mapping their shape and how they moved so that the building could interpret people's behaviour. So in that case, the space becomes interactive. So that's an AI based software. In the past we needed physical things to allow buildings, to interact with people. We needed doorbells, we needed sensors on doors. We needed maybe a reception desk and someone behind the desk and a telephone. If you're in an airport to, try and get help, all these things are physical ways to allow a building to respond to people. But with with spatial monitoring machine vision, then the space merely uses invisible infrared, for example to be able to respond to people. So in the case of use space, we were exploring what happens if you walk into a department store and you want to maybe head to the furniture department and you go to that department and you want to inquire about the furniture that's there. The first thing you do is look around for an assistant, the sales assistant can help you, perhaps. So when you do that, you are behaving in a certain way. If you watch someone walk into that furniture department and look around in a certain way, you can read their behaviour and you can tell that they are looking for help. And that's what an AI system can do. So in that case, the store can respond to people and bring humans into the picture as needed. So that's what I mean by, you know, buildings having software.

RVLTR (20:08):

So if service design principles and concepts can be applied and maybe should be applied to architecture and interior design, why in your mind are so many buildings performing poorly and not providing the service they're meant to?

JS (20:29):

I think it's it's a lack of input from their customers, from their users, really. They're limiting the users they're thinking about perhaps. And perhaps they're thinking about their clients, certainly. And they're thinking at a broad level about people, they're thinking about people walking into a hospital but people don't exist. Actually, the world is made up of individuals and they all have different needs and a different culture. And those needs are more than a place to sit and wait, for example, in the reception area their needs are: "I've got an urgent problem. I need help right now". Or "I've come here to see a relative who's very sick, and I don't know where to go or how to make contact with them. What do I do?" So every individual has a need. So this is tough, but what architects and building designers need to do is figure out what are the main needs of their main customers. They gotta decide which customers are priority. So therefore they need a lot of focus on those people and which customers are next level down in terms of the attention they need. If in the world of business you know, you've got to get down to a much more granular understanding of your customer and your users compared to the old approach, the old marketing approach, where you'd categorize people by the hundred. Whereas in the new world of customer experience and service design, you've got to get down to individual individuals and what are their real needs. And then you have to figure out what are the priorities, what are all the different needs and how do you respond to them all? I mean, you do find that those needs break down into main categories. So it's not as if you end up with, you know, 10,000 different customer needs, it normally breaks down into a hierarchy of needs. And if you are wise, you'll figure out what's the top priority. Which means then you have to figure out what business you are in. So you have to figure it out, and you may find that the hospital is really two businesses in one, maybe. So the first thing we have to do is help people decide, are they this type of customer or that type of customer when they arrive? So instead of having one parking lot, for instance, for all patients, you might decide to have parking lots for different types of patient with a different path for those people as they come into the hospital. That leads to more ideas about how a hospital should be designed. Once you start going into people's needs, it's not just a question of signage in the hospital. It becomes, how do you structure the hospital? Do you have two hospitals, urgent and non urgent? So it can get quite fundamental. And the trick is definitely to figure out what is your building really about. If it's an office building, it's not about providing an environment for people to work on office stuff, it's that the people in that building are trying to achieve something and your building should help them achieve that, which means you have to understand what those people are trying to do. And that's a challenge. If the building is gonna change its purpose over time, for example, then you design a building that's flexible. So it gets quite fundamental very quickly. Is this making sense?

RVLTR (25:01):

Yeah, absolutely. So if you had a magic wand and you could change the way architecture is practiced, conceived or delivered, what would you do based on your expertise and what you know about service design?

JS (25:20):

Well I believe building design would would be better if the designers took an experiential approach and a service approach. So design the service experience as they're giving form to the building and everything associated with that. And in order to do that, the magic wand would be to hire service designers or work with service designers. You don't have to hire people at first. You know, there are lots of service design consultants like myself who can work with an organization on a project basis. And and then the building designers can, can see how to fit that new way of thinking that new way of designing into their practice. So that's, that would be my magic wand, I think, would be find service design partners right now.

RVLTR (26:28):

Are you aware of any architecture and design projects being designed that way with service designers on the teams?

JS (26:38):

Well, it's kind of happening the other way in my experience now, I have not worked with an architectural practice actually. My approach to service design came out of product design, and I know that in that world, what I regard as leading design and innovation firms like IDEO and Frog Design and many others, well, not too many others. But they are actually spreading and expanding what they do to go beyond the normal boundaries. So if someone approaches an innovation firm that takes this approach then that company is gonna start asking questions, which expands the question or the problem you're solving. For example, I worked with a firm in China a little while ago. They have a chain of stores and the founder of that company, they have quite a few stores. They asked me to help them figure out how to improve their customer experience. And they do a really good job. They're very successful, but they wanted to compete with online sales, for example, in their stores. And normally stores can get decimated by online sales, unless you have something to offer, which gives people a reason to go to the stores. And so that's what I worked on with them. And so I started off by asking: "Okay, so why do people go stores now"? And they said: "To buy what we sell". And as you can imagine, I then followed up with a lot of other questions to figure out what was going on. And we realized we needed to go and find out actually, so together with the CEO and founder and other people in the management, we went out to the stores and we watched people, we watched customers, we talked to customers and we established why people were going to the stores. And we found out that for instance, people were shopping quite often as pairs rather than individuals. And that was because the products being sold there were being purchased as gifts by one person for another. In other words, the people were not going there just to buy the products. What they were doing was going to the store as part of celebrating something, it could be a birthday or a promotion. They were helping someone celebrate something in their life. So in other words, the store was about celebration. And so when we looked at how the customer experience might be improved in the future, that became the theme for how the store was designed and how the staff behaved and what experience was that people received. So if you go to a store for a celebration, that's very different from walking into store to simply buy something. And so the store design was an expansion of trying to think of the customer experience. That way of thinking has become the norm for innovation firms and design firms. And they are expanding it into spaces and buildings and events and institutions. So once you adopt that approach the boundaries don't make a lot of sense, because you're looking across the whole experience. In other words, architects may find that their world is maybe becomes part of something else.

RVLTR (30:59):

Yeah, that makes sense. And it's fascinating to think that sooner than later, the practice of architecture could be completely transformed because someone else is coming in and disrupted the industry hopefully for the better.

JS (31:16):

If when you think about industrialized buildings something you've asked me about, then the difference between a building and a product and the service it provides means that, it's kind of fragmented the old definition of building design.

RVLTR (31:37):

Yeah. It's kind of funny to think that in a world where every industry tends to become more and more productive over time, find better ways to produce the same thing for for cheaper or better at the same price. The architecture and construction industries have gone in the completely complete opposite direction because the the cost of construction keeps going up. And it's due to a number of factors. We don't need to necessarily get into the details of that, but in spite of a boom in technology, which is the most mind blowing thing, do you have any idea why that is? Any kind of insights?

JS (32:21):

Well, Every building is a prototype in one way, isn't it? And unless we are talking about modular and industrialized building, then buildings tend to be a one off prototype. There's no pressure to adopt new, new ways to do things. If you can just modify what you've always done. But I think there's a need in the building industry perhaps to step back and, and figure out what business are they really in? Obviously architects go into architecture because they love creating architecture. And that's very understandable, but to every hammer, everything is a nail and therefore there's a danger just in seeing every problem you are solving as a building. And I think the great architects don't fall into that trap necessarily. And therefore come up with a new approach to things

RVLTR (33:44):

That makes sense. I like to compare buildings and cars because cars used to be very much like buildings a hundred or so years ago, you'd buy a chassis with an engine and then you'd go to a coach builder to make a custom body that's uniquely yours. And then we moved into the mass production of cars and then the mass customization, where everybody buys the same car, but you can choose the color of your stitching and leather and interior and paint while still buying, by and large, The same product. Do you think that's an apt comparison and we could realistically expect buildings to eventually become like cars where you buy base module, like a chassis, and then you pick the color of the paint and you might pick some of the finishes, but by and large it's the same structure. And then everybody lives in a similar environment, at least for people who can't afford to have a prototype designed for themselves. The challenge in this industry is that there's been many attempts to do that. The biggest in recent times was a company called Katerra whicho was a huge business that aimed at basically mass manufacturing buildings, at least structural parts, and they failed. They went bankrupt, I think last year. And there's been many attempts before that. Is there anything inherently unique to the way we live in buildings, the architecture that would prevent us from taking some of those lessons from other mass manufactured products to make the design production and sale of those products more efficient and more cost effective?

JS (35:40):

Well I think your comparison with automobiles is a little bit black and white. I think it's a little more complicated than that. I mean, when you were thinking of the car, which one were you thinking of?

RVLTR (35:58):

Mine.

JS (36:00):

Okay. I asked that because there are many different types of car and some cars try to be everything. So there is actually variety, even though there's mass production and in the building industry, there's been flexibility and industrialization for hundreds of years, right? Based on this module called a brick. So I'm not sure that we need to be forced into a choice between prototypes and uniformity. It depends how you design the building. There are lots of different ways to construct a building, the chassis, framework and body, which you mentioned, that's one way you could approach it. And I think some, some architects have got close to that in a way. Other, other people have gone a different direction, they've gone for the unified body, which is totally flexible. And it can be a van, or it can be a, a sports car within the same unified body. So I think it's the main thing is to figure out what problem you're solving, and then you'll find that there are different solutions depending on what you think the problem is.

RVLTR (37:39):

So let's, let's rephrase the question: If based on the assumption that each building being a prototype might be counterproductive or a waste of time and resources, what would be the solution to that problem?

JS (37:56):

Oh, I think we've already seen solutions. You've got the one-of building, which is the large expensive building. But then you have mass produced homes in this part of the world. In the bay area, we have Eichler homes. You may be familiar with them. They're modernist, but using a lot of natural materials combined.

RVLTR (38:27):

What's the name again?

JS (38:29):

Eichler. He was the, the architect entrepreneur who created them. They are standardized in many ways, but because they're based on the philosophy of having minimum walls inside so that the space flows and having a lot of glass. So that the outside and inside nesh together. So it's a small house, but it feels big because the outside comes in, as it were. So you know, that's pretty standardized. And there are systems which I think get close to that. Now that's one style. Other people might prefer a more traditional style home, but that's just a question of how you design the system really. I think there have been examples that have taken steps towards industrialization, but we have to recognize that to do it properly and thoroughly requires a huge amount of investment. [For example] Tesla, he [Elon Musk] and his team rethought what an automobile is, but it did require a hundred million dollars to get started. And so I don't know how much investment has been going into building systems, probably a lot. But I think we're at the early days of figuring all that out. And maybe in some parts of the world where a building lasts longer. In California buildings have a very short life they're, designed to be easy to build and easy to take down.

RVLTR (40:29):

In most of North America. And I've always wondered, because I grew up in Europe, where centenarian buildings are very common 200, 300, 400, 500 years, sometimes even more. I think there's a threshold before which buildings are considered old and not worth keeping around. And then 100-150 years in, they become heritage or considered worthy of keeping. And then after that, they're impossible to demolish because of the level of protection they benefit from. And that's not true everywhere, but for the sake of the argument, let's just say, that's the way it works. I've always wondered why aren't we building for 200, 300, 400 years, because you could realistically very easily design a building to have the skeleton that lasts this long, and then you just remodel parts of it, or you re-clad the facade to bring it up to the standards of the day. I actually have a friend who was a guest on this podcast, who started this business which, which mandate is to make the economic case, that buildings that you keep around longer save money in the long run instead of building and demolishing every 50 years, even if you did that every 150 years. And so she's developed a whole system of assessing the, the quality and the state of repair of a building that's very thorough and gives a instant snapshot into what the building is worth in the long term, like in terms of how useful it can be for the future. And that's generally one of her arguments is that the way buildings are financed, they're financed over the course of a few decades. I think it's generally only 30 or 40 years for most mortgages, especially in the commercial world. So there's no incentive to think about what the building becomes after that. Because once you've amortized it, paid it off, then you can either sell it or demolish it and borrow again to build another one which leads to a whole bunch of issues, like buildings that are being oftentimes unnecessarily demolished. And I think that's one of the biggest problems we have at least in north America. Europe might be a bit different because they have more of a tendency to keep things around. But what are your thoughts on that?

JS (43:13):

Well, I put my service designer hat and I have to ask, what problem are you solving for which customer? Say you're designing a hotel, okay? The service that hotel provides could be change over 5 or 10 years easily, right? What are the places people want to stay in, you know, look at Airbnb: what is a hotel these days? So in designing a hotel, it could be appropriate to design it in such a way that it could be easily changed. Quite radically within five years, but if you're designing someone's home in the country, you know, in the rural setting, then maybe it's appropriate that that becomes a family heritage thing, which is passed on generation to generation and has great value by being unchanging. And then again, if you are designing a place for people to work in the city, is that a cafe you know, do you need a building necessarily? So it all depends. What's the problem you're solving and for whom, right? And so the thing you described sounds great, but maybe for some customers and not others, and what we have to do is be very careful what problem you're solving and for whom, which is, the two questions that every venture capitalist asks every startup. What problem are you solving? That's the first question they ask. And, and if you're not clear about that, then you haven't defined the problem enough. And you're gonna waste resources and waste time coming up with a a great answer to the wrong problem. And so service design forces you really, for its process to, to immediately ask, okay, which customers are we talking about here? And not only now, but in the future. You know, when I work with a company and I ask them, who are your customers and what do they need? There's a tendency for them to be immediately thinking about their current customers. They're also thinking about what they provide now, which is probably irrelevant in the future, but you have to think about what customers will need in the future, because you want a strategy for your business. That's going to yield wonderful innovations and products and services over a time scale that is gives you a good return on investment. So we have to think not only about the customers we're solving a problem for now, but which customers are we interested in in the future, which could be different.

RVLTR (46:22):

That makes a lot of sense. And the hotel example you mentioned is entirely true, because hotels are being rerefurbished every 10 years or so, maybe every 15 years. But they don't necessarily demolish the whole building. They just redo the interiors.

JS (46:38):

Right. And they would prefer if they could change it once a year, I suggest.

RVLTR (46:45):

Probably yeah.

JS (46:46):

They've gotta have a new message, right. They've gotta have a new offering compared to the competition. And so therefore they've gotta be able to adapt as quickly as someone running a cafe or providing, you know, entertainment experiences, for example.

RVLTR (47:05):

And I think that takes us to one of the biggest problems I see in the industry is the lack of specialization. Most architects want to be generalists who are able to design anything and everything. And I've been trying to convey the message for a few years, now that specialization is a way forward because you can become the number one expert at a specific typology.

JS (47:33):

I would push back a little bit. I don't think they need to become specialized necessarily if their process allows them to come up with specialized understandings of the problem and specialized solutions. If your process is smart enough, you can be a generalist.

RVLTR (47:50):

That's an interesting thought. I, I think that's all for the questions I have for you today. Is there any parting thoughts you'd like to share with the listeners?

JS (48:03):

I think in talking with you, I've become even more interested in thinking about the buildings as service. What happens if you think about going beyond how you provide a service within existing buildings or conventionally defined buildings, but what happens if the building is strictly a service delivery device, where would that take you in terms of how you'd design a building? I'd like to think more about that. And that might be my parting shot. I think apart from advising, building designers and architects to hire a service designer, as soon as they can, or a service researcher, I mean, someone who's gonna help them with a better understanding of their users and customers.

RVLTR (48:59):

Or even take a training in service design to at least get a basic understanding of it.

JS (49:05):

You can, but then you run up again, run up against a problem that you know, service design is not rocket science. It's harder than that. Okay. Because it's like playing the violin. I could tell you how to play a violin in 30 seconds. Okay. Pretty simple. Take, you know, pick up the instrument, put it on your chin, hold the fret board, then run a bow across the strings, press down on the strings. There you go. Those are the principles. Now, how long would it take you to get beautiful music out of that violin, maybe years to become really proficient, that's the slightly misleading thing with service design. It sounds simple. The principles are simple, but to do it properly needs skills that evolve over time and yes, you could be trained, but it's not like learning an Adobe tool. It's something which modifies your philosophy or approach your way of looking at the world. And it takes a lot of practice to do it without slipping back into the old ways of doing things. So yes, you can be trained, but it's gonna mean going back to college to do a masters or something like that.

RVLTR (50:25):

I was saying that more in the sense of like getting a basic understanding so they know what to look for and who to hire and those kinds of things.

JS (50:33):

Ah, right. Yeah. That's the first thing, as you say, you've gotta learn to understand what you don't know. So the problem is you start off by not knowing what you don't know,

RVLTR (50:43):

But would you say that architects as people well versed in the, the art of designing things are well positioned to learn about service design?

JS (50:53):

Oh yeah, absolutely. Because they're already problem-solving. They're already thinking about how people react to a space and they're able to visualize what it feels like to be in a space to have all those, those skills, which is great. Now they just have to drill deeper.

RVLTR (51:16):

That makes sense. Well, John, I wanna thank you very much for taking the time to talk about service design. And it was very interesting conversation and hopefully the first of many, and also hopefully people open their eyes to what you had to say and maybe reach out to you other service designers to have meaningful conversations.

JS (51:39):

Yeah. That's been great. Thank you very much for those stimulating questions.

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