Episode Fourteen: A Celebration of the Profession

The Arcfluence crew shares their experiences from the recent AIA conference in Washington, D.C. They dive into the creative process of turning old commercial buildings into new residential spaces, discussing everything from dealing with tricky post-tension slabs to solving floodplain challenges. They highlight some standout projects and how thoughtful design can breathe new life into underused spaces. Plus, they chat about inspiring keynote speakers and the evolving role of architecture in shaping our communities. Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at the conference, cool design ideas, and real talk on the future of urban spaces.

 

 

 

Nick: I am, I'm a creative, I'm a creative Nino. I know, I know that you are. Don't mess with me.

Nino: I got to distance myself from this creative person. It's probably good for your health.

Nick: Welcome to the ArcFluence Podcast, where we chat about how design impacts the way we live, work, and invest. I'm Nick Kraken, your host, and with me as usual are my two amazing co hosts, Paul Fatkins, and Nino Samardzic.

Nino: you are good.

Nino: Good. Slow, slow down a little bit there. Yeah. . Well, I was thinking, I

Nick: was like, do I do Nino Slav? I haven't really introduced him as Nino Slav yet, but that's fine. We just call him Nina. You

Nino: don't have to call me Nino sl. Only my mother calls me. I screw up something. So we

Nick: good. Well, I mean, you, you do screw up sometimes, so.

Nick: Oh yeah, I do. Quite often. I'll hold you Don't, I'll hold that. You guys don't

Paul: get the middle name. Is it just like. So it's like the short name or the long name for the first name and that's it. Yeah, it's

Nino: actually we usually have like, uh, the first and last name. Yeah. And then we get the nickname. And the nickname can be completely different than can be actually explaining your character or just be, yeah.

Nino: Something that your friends bring up. You know, my nickname of creativity, my nickname is

Nick: Nick.

Nino: I, yeah. You know that? Yeah. The

Nick: lack of creation. They gave, they, they gave me all the creative by not coming up. I dunno. I dunno where this same, same mind. Yeah. All right. That was a fail.

Nick: This is episode 14, and we are going to be talking about our trip to DC at the AIA conference.

Paul: Nice. Yeah, it was amazing trip. So I think Nick, it was your first time in my career. It was my

Nino: first.

Paul: Yeah. Oh, nice.

Nino: Actually. I've never been in a conference. What do you mean? No, never. Honestly. No, I'm kind of, with

Paul: as hard as you work, you should tell your company.

Paul: I know I was going explore and I've

Nino: been members since 2015, I think. Yeah, I never went to the conference. You know, if you're

Nick: gonna, if you're gonna sign up for it, if you're gonna be a part of the organization, you should be, you should be active, you know. I know, I should be, yeah, I should be involved. You should participate.

Nick: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, um. What? What is AIA? Yes. The

Nino: American Institute of Architects. Yes. Thank you, Nino.

Nick: And not only is it an institute of architects, it's, it's a, it's a governing body. It's one of the oldest. Yeah, it's like a professional organization

Nino: for architects established 1857.

Paul: Is that is

Nick: that pre

Paul: civil war?

Paul: Now you put me really on It's right around there. It's definitely right around there. I got where's my phone? I gotta look now

Nino: I was actually established by 13 members and then it keep developing and developing. And now God knows how many members, you

Nick: know, you always impress me cause we don't really have any notes here at the artfulence podcast.

Nick: At least not often. Um, we just kind of go off the cut

Paul: off the, yeah. What was the year of the, the founding of it?

Nino: 1857.

Paul: Yeah. Pre civil war. Pre

Nino: civil war. That's awesome. Yeah. So that's how architecture was actually important in society.

Nick: It's. I think it's important that whatever industry you're in, whatever professional You know, track, you decide to go down, being around other professionals in the industry gets you to get outside yourself, outside your little world.

Nick: And I'd say if

Nino: you're a silo,

Nick: yeah, that's very important to see

Nino: what's actually happening around you.

Nick: For example, there was an enormous push on mental health, physical health, wellbeing in the workplace and in the buildings that we're designing to, to focus on, you know, humanities. Safety, health, and wellness is, is kind of this new guiding light that we have around designing buildings.

Nino: And you always have to advance in your profession and profession itself because it's going to become, um, redundant. You know what I'm saying? So the architecture needs to evolving in order to survive like any other profession, you know? And that's like, I'll keep saying one things like, uh, I still kind of regret because the architecture lost a lot of influence, like especially in the individual dwelling.

Nino: Yes. And, uh, and I don't want to, these things happen to like, uh, multi house dwelling or like, uh, yeah.

Nick: You know, it's really funny you say that because the, the keynote speakers were talking exactly about that and how they, They're making it also a focus to bring back the importance of the architect's role in society.

Nick: Yeah. I mean, we're helping shape culture.

Nino: Exactly. It's not just like a, to build like a, like a footprint that you find it online and then inject, draw on a sand and just build it, give it to contractor. But the, uh, the end user or potential customers have to recognize the value that architects bring. If you look at

Paul: tables, it's actually a decent transition to the small projects.

Paul: Um, talk that we went to, they were part of how they were set up was basically to make architects more approachable for these community projects. Correct. And it's like where you have a community project where every single dollar, like down to the dollar counts, right? Matters. Yep. Because it's either like you hire an architect or you do the project like that's their mindset.

Paul: No, they're in these community level projects. Oh, I like that because it's like design fees. Right. You're either paying your money there or because the project so small for these, you know, impoverished communities, you're either doing that or you're paying for the project because it's these super small, like one was like a community garden, like space where they kind of reworked an area and had like an outdoor fitness area.

Paul: Um, I think it was in somewhere in New York right now.

Nick: Yeah. I forget the name of the other architect, but she blew me away. She was so passionate and she's like, I'll, I'll do this, I'll do this. She lived with the community for like, it was, that was the

Paul: Indian

Nick: reservation one? Yeah, I think it was the Lakota or the Sioux, like formerly, like they were known as a Sioux and it was the Lakota, Lakota.

Nick: Lakota, Lakota Uhhuh, and yeah, and I think South

Paul: Dakota, right? Yeah.

Nick: The history behind that was frightful. And somewhat inspiring. Is she native too? No, no, she's like

Paul: you or me, just some random architect who's like, you know what? This is important. She, she lived there for a little bit. Nice. Got ingrained with like ingrained with their culture.

Paul: She's definitely

Nick: taken on that identity though, because when she spoke, she was very passionate and she's, she said, we, as like referring to the tribe. And like, and, and also just the, the, the intent of the architecture design, just for a couple of examples is like the way the house faces, like we're facing the spirit, it's ingrained into their spiritual culture, like, yeah, there's circles windows for like, again, their culture, the way the house faces, the way it's designed for, and, and a lot of these are generational or family units, because I mean, there's.

Nick: There's no money, right? Yes. But, and they,

Nino: and they live like a, you know, it's usually like what you see, still see in Europe when family lives together and there was like a, you know, the younger couple just go grab the like, uh, the like, uh, the, the level above the parents and they live there. Yeah. And that's, and we've

Nick: mentioned this before.

Nick: Yeah. We're seeing that on a global scale, even in America. Yeah,

Paul: so this, yeah, this presentation, there's two different people and they actually won a grant so that their design fees could be covered by the grant. Oh,

Nino: that's beautiful. And

Paul: then basically for the community, for them, it's free, right? But also it's like, There's a little bit of this perception that to hire an architect, you need a lot of money.

Paul: And so like this whole small project forum was talking about, no, not really. I mean, especially if you have a smaller project, I mean, you know, that's kind of a little bit where we are now. We're not doing any big crazy hospitals like you're doing your day to day.

Nick: And I just got to say, like, I've seen as an investor, I know a lot of investors, I've seen a lot of investors trying to cut corners and you don't always have to.

Nick: No, when they're not using a design professional, there's so many misses. And so many missed opportunities, not just for profit, but for the enjoyment and fulfillment and just the lifestyle of the occupants are going to be living in that space.

Nino: And that's kind of unfortunate because we have to keep educating our clients to actually, they foresee the end product and they can see like, wow, it's actually was worth it.

Nino: Hiring these guys. You know what I'm saying?

Paul: And I think that that takes us back to the first point. Which is to go to one of these conferences to get involved. You're so involved in your day to day. That you kind of lose sight, you get this tunnel vision right to step out and get others perspectives around, especially design professionals who have a certain experience and a certain eye for things.

Paul: It just, it opens your mind and opens possibilities and you don't miss these things that, you know, I wouldn't call it,

Nick: I wouldn't call it a vacation, but it's kind of a vacation because we get to change the way we're thinking vacation. I

Nino: will call it celebration of the profession. Honestly. Good job, Nino.

Nino: Yeah. Honestly, just go there. And now that's the title of the podcast. Celebration of

Paul: the profession. No, honestly,

Nino: you guys, I'm already convinced and I'm going to not going to miss the next one. Uh, Boston, Boston, even better. It's my, my favorite city. Nino, you

Nick: know, there's a Ohio AIA convention coming up September and guess who's speaking at it.

Nick: I'm here.

Nino: I heard something. Yeah. Yeah. Little bird told me that it's going to be Paul Fatkins I got to

Paul: refine, I got to refine some talking points. Yeah. I'm going to have to bounce some stuff off of you guys later.

Nick: I'm going to be up there with him just because I got half price on my ticket. And, um, I have to be there too.

Nick: Well then you got to come. Yeah. I definitely have to be there too. So you can come and help us speak to that. Can we, if, if, how does that work?

Nino: It's, it's, it's, it's mostly, you know, I can ask some questions. Yeah.

Paul: Have your, have your firm pay for the ticket. He can pay full price. His firm can pay and just come and relax.

Paul: Exactly. Yeah. And I will listen. I did. I did

Nick: buy us mics though, so we can mic up when we, when we do that and that will become an actual podcast episode. Yeah.

Paul: But I'm going to talk about scanning. And the importance of scanning from large projects to small projects. Cause Nick and I, we use it on every single project.

Paul: Can

Nino: you just like, uh, remind us what date is that? What time? September

Paul: 12, 18, something like that. It's like mid September. Sounds about right to me. Yeah. Okay. I'll, I'll pull it up

Nick: here sometime between September 1st and September 30th. Oh,

Nino: okay. That's close enough. So maybe we should actually put the, like a little link down below in our podcast and just remind people what time is the convention and who's going to be speaker and what he's going to talk about.

Nick: Yeah. We're, um, we're actually working with Danny to get a. A little, uh, update on that for our website, just to give some more information on it as well.

Nino: Okay. Now tell us guys your experience, uh, going first, where was the convention?

Nick: Well, I got to say DC is beautiful and it's been years since I've been to the Capitol and, uh, I, I just love what's happening.

Nick: Virginia has a lot of development. It's been Paul. Yes. I,

Paul: yeah, I don't want to interrupt. But, uh, so I was close September 15th to 17th. I was off by like a day or two. There's

Nick: my detailed best friend over there who can't let things go. Yeah, that's fine. No, you

Paul: shouldn't. You shouldn't. Cause I'm like, it's in September and it's around the 18th.

Paul: So I was right. It's right in the middle. 15 to 17. So I'm proud of you. It's kind of

Nino: close to my birthday. My goodness. There we go. September 6th. What are you going to be? 29? I'm going to be 20 times two

Paul: times two. All right. Um, speaking of birth, yeah, it's also your birthday. Happy birthday. Well, when this airs, it won't be my word.

Paul: I know

Nick: as we record this, it's my birthday today. You guys got me this beautiful bottle of bourbon.

Nino: And can you name it? And you said it like a, you, you feel both.

Nick: I've

Paul: never even

Nick: heard of this, but it looks really cool. Like I said,

Paul: I am wicked. I picked it by price and the fact that it was the last one on the shelf.

Paul: So it's got, it's gotta be good when you're flying blind. That's a good way to go. Yeah,

Nino: exactly. Price usually helps. All

Paul: right. And last

Nino: item on the shelf.

Paul: Now I derailed all that. So development in Virginia, there's a lot of development in Virginia. That's what you were. So

Nick: I appreciate like, The Corps of Engineers have designed those highways that going into our capital.

Nick: It's there, there's boulevards. They're lined with trees. There's, they're lined with parks and, and protected lands. It's, it's gorgeous. Like I, I love how they've brought that together and developed it. There's a lot of. A lot of, uh, it gives me this kind of New York city slash Philly slash something unique vibe where there's just

Nino: wasn't actually urban design, like entire layout of the city based like on Paris kind of diagonals and stuff.

Nino: I forgot.

Paul: Who was the, wasn't it the famous landscape architect?

Nino: Oh yes. I believe the one Olmstead, or, oh, I think so. Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Nino: Nah, geez. He

Paul: also did Central Park, I believe

Nino: he did Central Park in New York City. Yes. Yeah, that was Olmstead. Yeah, I

Paul: know Chicago is Burnham.

Nino: Yes.

Paul: DC I'm not positive. I'm a big fan of Burnham.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not positive on dc but yeah, a lot of thought went into the, how everything was organized, so all these

Nino: like diagonals and, and heading into the spot and, yeah.

Nick: No, I, and I. I don't remember that experience because I was coming from, last time I was there, I was coming from New York and I took the train in and this time Paul and I drove and I'll tell you what, it's whether you fly in, whether you take the train, where you drive in, I think if you are thinking about from an urban design standpoint, the experience of how you enter a city, just like you do when you enter a building, um, it's gonna, it's gonna yield its, its rewards, right?

Nino: I like it. Yeah. Once again, another admission. Never been DC. Yeah. Wow. No. That's all right. It's all right. You're not.

Paul: Yeah.

Nick: Well, let's talk

Paul: about going back to the mothership or

Nick: something. I know.

Paul: Okay.

Nick: The first day there, we took tours of three, uh, Buildings that got converted from commercial to residential.

Nick: And then ironically enough, we have a podcast on that previously. Danny, could you want to comment or put a link to that podcast in the notes? And, um, we just want to go over some of the buildings that we saw. Um, one was really cool. And, and they're saying that

Paul: one for last we'll, we'll build to the crescendo.

Paul: Yeah, but, but

Nick: they're all like really interesting and important for. For where we're at kind of in society with all these buildings that are not being utilized to their full extent.

Nino: So how many days did you guys stay there? I think it was four days, four days. It was great. And on the last

Nick: day, when we came back, we hit falling water in Pennsylvania.

Nick: Oh my gosh. As first time I was there and

Paul: speaking, I've never been driven past so many times, 10 years

Nino: ago, it

Nick: was a

Nino: beautiful experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They, they

Nick: are, they put in millions of dollars a year just to keep it to upkeep and it's upkeep. Yeah. Because when I was

Nino: there, they were actually supporting the back, uh, terrorists.

Nino: Yeah. So they have to actually pour a new foundation, which is, which is actually pretty on the end of the, of the bear Creek. I think that's the name of the Creek and bear run, bear run, bear run Creek. And they were actually, it was quite involved process in order to preserve the existing stone and everything.

Nino: Again, foundations. They said

Paul: foundation. 4 million a year, roughly, is their preservation budget. And when we were there, they were looking at water infiltration and determining all sources of where water is getting into the structure and into the concrete and wherever it is that it's getting in. Nature

Nino: doing its course.

Nino: Yep.

Paul: Well, it was interesting too. They mentioned something that part of Wright's thinking with this particular project was like, eventually it would be given back to the landscape, to nature. That's so cool. Like, it should deteriorate. You get it. And so, like, when we were on the tour, they're like, that's it.

Paul: It's almost, it should recycle

Nino: itself. Yeah.

Paul: Do you agree? Do you disagree? Like, should it go back to

Nick: nature or should we keep trying to preserve it? They clearly disagree because they're putting millions of dollars

Nino: in. To maintain it. Well, it's

Nick: a tourist attraction at this point. And they've expanded from what?

Nick: 1500 acres or it's like, it's like 5, 000 acres now or something. Cause they joined

Paul: it with the park.

Nick: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah.

Nick: That's a huge, originally

Paul: was. They bought 1500 acres, I think, or something like that, or 500 acres. Well, the

Nick: family,

Paul: and then that's what the family had owned. And then it later got joined with, yeah, joined with what a cool

Nick: story.

Nick: Just, I love the, I love a good story behind a good building. It

Nino: was so many good stories. And also it's, it's a landmark of that time period of time. That's very unique and original design that actually, well, you know, what's interesting,

Paul: you It's like the model fricking T was still on the road, like everywhere when they built that.

Paul: Oh yeah, it was a model T. Yeah, like, just the technology of the time. No, listen to this, listen to this. Concrete was a

Nino: brand new material. But look at this, look at the design of the car. At that time and design of the house and look at this and look at the design of the house today and design of the car.

Nino: We think the same way cars come so far because architect gave up on residential architecture, except really costume individual homes. So that's what he said, by the

Paul: way, your friend, Matt, uh, remark, remark, remark, yes. Yeah. Have you seen the new Bugatti? Yeah, I know if you haven't it's a beast Nick if you haven't seen it Just go and watch I need to see it.

Paul: Yeah. Oh my god. It's a beast. It's a car design. Yes

Nick: well, that's a great kind of segue because the design of Falling water is just it's incredible. It's ahead of its time just Natural systems and lighting airflow all these things that they take into account and that's why it's important to integrate this into today's You Architecture and, and,

Nino: and most important didn't actually came over the night.

Nino: It's actually it's influence of the Bauhaus, it's influence of Japanese architecture. Yeah. And that's why it's important that we as an a professionalist come together at least once a year to elaborate different ideas. This was at a,

Nick: this was at a time when houses were about $5,000. Five to $10,000 on average.

Nick: Yeah. Like they weren't that much cars were $500. Yes. Right.

Nino: And this house was how much God knows this.

Nick: He, they ended up going way over budget, clearly. Um, it ended up

Paul: being a couple of hundred thousand, I think for the time, but like in today's money, it's like a few million dollars. Yeah. Yeah. But the commission

Nino: people spending steel money on the house was

Nick: 15 percent and it was ended up being like 30 grand or 40 grand or something like that, which it's just like you could, he could have bought like five regular five to 10 regular houses.

Nino: Look at the lead mark. It was created. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean it could look like the princess castle and and and copy of Disneyland instead of it was like a masterpiece of architecture that's in every book. Yeah, he was

Nick: also at his prime and World renowned, you know,

Paul: and something that stuck with me too Even even how you control the sound thought was put into how you control sound.

Paul: Oh

Nino: explain more about it

Paul: Um, it was the windows on the corner and I mean, you know, basically you're sitting right on top of the, this waterfall essentially right to the side of it. And it's like opening the panes. It's almost like you can control direction of sound and intensity of sound. Because they're like

Nino: these little panes.

Nino: They're open. I didn't know that. Multiple

Paul: openings. And so you can control the white noise. Yeah. When you sleep. And yeah, when we were there on the tour, they actually, they demoed it. And so like they started opening and like ones on the top ones on the bottom and it was like surround sound

Nino: Wow

Paul: you know with the with the waterfall white noise and then eventually they had them all open and then it was just like in like What I also love to sleep in that room at night.

Paul: Oh my god for one night I

Nick: also found it fascinating like this house wasn't designed by Basic architectural standards because I don't know if there were too many back then but it was designed for the actual family So the family was met their height was measured. Yep. Their lifestyle was was There was conversations around how they lived, how they worked, how they wanted to experience.

Nick: And did you guys see the,

Nino: the sense of the scale? Everything is so tight in today's standards.

Nick: They weren't that tall.

Nino: No, they weren't that tall and they weren't that wide either. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick: So if you were, if you're like five, nine, between five, six and five, nine, that house was designed for you.

Nino: And he purposely actually lowered the ceiling so he can push you out of these open terraces, push you out from the house.

Nino: Well,

Nick: he. Actually, the bedroom ceilings are higher. It's the hallways that were lowest. So when you go in the hallways, you're, you're, you want to get out of the corridor, squeezed out into those spaces and then even pushed out onto the terrace and there's, and there's balconies everywhere. Yeah. And they're

Nino: gigantic.

Paul: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it was their cottage, basically their cabin. Yes,

Nino: there was cabin and there is a guest house like above in the hill. Yeah, that was built a

Paul: little later, but yeah, and then they had like Picasso hanging in the hallway in their guest house, you know,

Nino: And a lot of, a lot of, uh, these like, uh, the, the art from the Japan, he was like, uh, he was so influenced by that.

Nick: Well, that had nothing to do with the AIA conference. Actually, that's a

Nino: lot. We can just jump it back. Just like a reverse.

Paul: Because we went, because we took our time out, our mental vacation or celebration of the profession. There you go. We got to tag that onto the end. Just jump into

Nino: the history first. And now we coming back to the four days in DC.

Nick: Yeah. I want to talk about. A couple of the keynote speakers. And I want to talk about the tour that we did. Yeah.

Paul: Let's keep talking about the project. So go back to, that's how this all started. Yeah. So the first project we went and saw, what was your impression of the first one? So can you get us the name of that?

Paul: I totally forget, but Park and Ford was the whole like development center that we went to. Yeah. And this was a commercial building that

Nick: they converted to residential, but they didn't go full residential. At least that wasn't the intent in the beginning. Um, they wanted to have this. Yeah. Cause COVID was kind of happening at a time when this was going on.

Nick: They're like, okay, we're going to create a building. And

Paul: this was pre COVID.

Nick: This was pre COVID. So then they were forward thinking because they were thinking that this was going to be a work from home, a work loft space. Yeah. Like a work loft. So some companies would rent these out for like potential clients that they're bringing in.

Nick: Instead

Nino: of renting hotel, you actually have everything in one place. Work from home. Yeah.

Paul: And it's not crazy because the firm I worked for before when I was in Chicago, we did the Tribune Tower. We also did a hundred Van Ness out in San Francisco. So again, those were office to residential conversion. So it's not a new idea.

Paul: It's been around. It just wasn't as popular as it is now. Post COVID. Right. I love everything we talked about the last episode. What

Nick: I really did like about the lobby space, so to speak, it did feel a little hotel y. Which I kind of like that luxury. I like that touch. I don't want it to feel like this. I don't want to see a bunch of mailboxes and then an elevator and have this be this amenities.

Nick: Yeah. Amenities

Paul: are huge.

Nick: So residential. So they had conference rooms. They had breakout stations. They had a telephone booths. They had kidding all these places where you could take a phone call in private, have a meeting, do some work. There's commute communal spaces that are a little bit more exposed.

Nick: There's some private spaces that you can get a little bit more. Yeah.

Paul: So yeah, if you're a small like sole proprietor, right, and you're doing some work on the side or whatever, or that's your main thing that you're doing great. Where you live is now also your office essentially, but it's literally, it's not your bedroom either.

Paul: Like

Nick: you go downstairs into

Paul: a lobby and you could have a conference room and you can have meetings with clients. Interesting.

Nino: Actually, Hotela was the last one when it was in Wisconsin. It was actually entire lobby looks like I'm in a residential space. So you can see this, like a mix of influences overlapping.

Nino: Very interesting. Go ahead.

Paul: Yeah, but the outside was, it looked

Nick: like an office building. They didn't touch it. They didn't touch it. Well, I think it was cost prohibitive to do that much work, too. It's always cost prohibitive to do you guys know when

Nino: was the building built originally? Was 80s or 70s?

Nick: I don't think there were any

Paul: operable windows.

Nino: No, that's Mr. Air Conditioning doing all the stuff.

Paul: Yeah, and they talked about that, too, because in Virginia, within the code, They actually allow for like typically residential, you have to have some operable ventilation. So light and ventilation is part of requirements. Yeah. But for the Virginia code, they actually could get away with not having any operable windows and have everything.

Paul: So they just left the facade as, as it was. How tall is the building? Um, like 40 floors. Yeah. It's a big building. Yeah. Yeah. 40 floors, something like that. Yeah.

Nino: So it's just commercial. Just keep calling. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick: Yeah. Um, so what about our second

Paul: tour? The second one was a little bit more refined. So they actually, um, not only did they reconfigure and delete the inside, and it was a similar, very similar concept to the first one because it was right.

Paul: I mean, it's right next to each other. It's all part of the same development, but they actually. Did some exterior work. Yeah, they actually completely gutted the outside. They completely rebuilt the facade. They added balconies They had to like and it was a post tension concrete slab nice So they couldn't well nice and also not nice like I mean

Nino: they have to do it

Paul: They, yeah, but they couldn't, when they did the balconies, they couldn't like drill in or do anything because of where all the tendons are.

Paul: You don't want to touch those. Yeah, no, the building. Goodbye.

Nino: Can you, can you explain to our, what is pre tension post tension

Paul: post tensioning? You have a cable, a metal cable that's essentially inside this lab and. After the slab is poured, you're at the ends, you're pulling that cable to a certain tension and then you lock it into place.

Paul: Yes. And so that and

Nino: when concrete cures, it's actually a drop that is actually exactly 28

Paul: days to fully cure. Basically, and it's

Nino: actually that tension now is capturing this concrete. Yeah. So you can go thinner slab. With with the better with the better like uh gives

Nick: you tremendous strength against But

Paul: also like the same span or a greater span Right with like your thickness with less concrete and less and less weight And it helps cut costs

Nino: The only things that you cannot do it later is if you want to drill some holes and stuff, you have to be extremely careful.

Nino: So that was the issue. They

Paul: x rayed and they did all this stuff and they've determined they couldn't just like bolt these balconies on. So they had to design like this. Bracket like clamping bracket to like clamp on to the slab Wow, and then the post come out and it's like a cantilever post I mean is is interesting.

Paul: So they actually did some Research and some thought so how they modified the

Nino: existing slab was Post tension. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so there's the only way to attach balconies, almost like a clamp system. And they wanted to

Paul: make these modifications to the outside, but they came up against these, you know, struggles.

Paul: How are we going to do it? Like Nick said, the, the cost issue starts creeping in, you know, because anytime you're modifying these buildings, I mean, cost issues always, always there. Wow. And even, I think the, one of the presenters was talking about the different things that you consider. Um, in terms of when you convert one of these projects, they said site contacts was like 10%, the form of the building was like another 30 percent of the consideration for if it's a good candidate to convert the floor plate was another consideration, about 30%.

Paul: The envelope was 10 percent of it. So not a big portion. That's probably why the first one had the envelope in town. And then the other 20 percent is all the servicing of the building. Yeah. So,

Nick: so the score that they come up with to determine if a building is a candidate for this conversion or not, if, if they have like a 70 or, or greater, it's a good candidate if they have between 60 and 70, we need to have a conversation because there's going to be some costs associated with this.

Nick: And if it's less than 60. Sorry, it's not

Nino: worth it touching it unless,

Nick: unless the building is gifted. So for example, our third project, which is, by the way, I was blown away. I was just like,

Nino: what

Paul: it's, it's like the location for, for one,

Nino: which is number one thing,

Paul: and it was, uh, what the point, I think it was called, right, right on the river.

Paul: It was the old

Nick: Coast Guard building. Yeah. Nah. And it was just this. Ugly, it

Paul: was the headquarters building. Yeah. It was this ugly concrete, heavy block. It was like almost a million square. It's like 700, 000 square feet of space office space. Wow. Horrible, horrible. And it wasn't that tall. I mean, it was in DC.

Nino: It was like a, it was, it was the footprint pretty deep.

Paul: Um, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It was like. 500 feet by 500 feet and like seven stories so hard to convert, it

Nick: looked like a secret government building.

Paul: Yeah. Like, it's like, you know, the movies where you see the corridors and people are just walking.

Paul: Yeah. They probably filmed some shots in that building. Because the challenge, the

Nino: challenge, they convert converting to residential because you don't need big depth in residential. Yeah. Right. And you And you need to have direct access, natural light. To be natural light. Exactly. So what are you gonna do with all these empty space in the middle?

Nino: This, yeah. This is where you're gonna love this. It's crazy. So first of

Nick: all, the important just to make this a viable Mm-Hmm. concept is the building was donated. Yeah. Basically the government just do something with it is, we'll, we'll sell you this for a dollar, but you have to meet all these standards so that we can provide housing that is so cool to, to our community.

Paul: Yeah.

Nino: There we go. Challenge, yeah. Yeah. And it

Paul: was like from the sixties or seventies, some old office government building.

Nino: Oh yeah. And pretty heavy, like a pretty giant spans and Yep, it's rock. It's right on the right on on the river though,

Nick: just prime location. And they carved into this building and put all these light corridors in.

Nick: So, oh my gosh. So pre, it was so cool.

Paul: Like I said, pre touching it. Mm-Hmm. , almost a million square feet, like 700,000 something, you know, close to a million. But then afterwards, literally they removed half of that. So the final square footage was like 300 something, you know, thousand square feet. So literally half of the building, they carve so much chunks away from it.

Paul: They took half of the building. So they carve

Nino: out to that space pretty

Nick: much, but then they added a, also a lot of outdoor space. They had terraces and balconies everywhere. Pool.

Paul: Yeah, like, I mean, like, obviously,

Nick: like,

Paul: open courtyards.

Nick: And so all the, all the, like, overlooking the river. So when, when you carve out these spaces, they make them green spaces.

Nick: So now there's, there's literal parks within this massive structure. And they, I mean, they

Paul: carved it up so that it's actually like thoughtful layout laid out. You know, like everybody has access to light and air and ventilation in these courtyards. And it's, it's just beautiful. So when you like,

Nino: it's pretty much like a community, like a, to be this, like a guidance in

Nick: betweens.

Nick: And, and what's really cool is they spent, I mean, since the building was donated, they spent a little, a little bit more than what, with, you know, a standard conversion would be, and they got the building for free and the wind and a prime location. So that's, that's the only way it works. That's the

Paul: only

Nick: way they made it viable.

Nick: But I will say this. Because of that development right across the street, they were already building a new structure. So everyone kind of jumps on board when they see this opportunity. Oh, look at this, look, look at these luxury apartments now and we now we're going to develop additional stuff. You see how

Nino: you can actually with the right policy dictate the development of the city.

Nino: You inject

Paul: a little bit of life into the area.

Nino: Exactly. And how you can switch the neighborhood upside down. And

Nick: in a place where we have a housing shortage now has an abundance and a larger tax burden Base so that they can make the streets beautiful and protect more land. So instead of

Nino: to be a ruin for a, for a homeless people, for

Paul: a graffiti and stuff, I think they got like 300 some units out of the building.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah. How smart

Nino: decision donate the building.

Paul: Yeah. Um, so the interesting. The thing that was really interesting though, so you're right on the river, they're a little, and they're in a floodplain, so they actually had to like, construct these floodgates, and when you walk around the site, there's all these like, um, pre drilled, like screws that basically you could put up a barrier and then bolt it down.

Paul: Oh, if the river

Nino: raises up, yeah.

Nick: So Paul was asking about that, and it turns out when you take away 50 percent of the

Paul: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I want to ask you, so you're right on the river, right? You're in a floodplain. Okay. So think about soil conditions, right? It's

Nino: horrible. Yeah.

Paul: And then now you remove half of the building.

Paul: What do you think the engineers were thinking about if you remove half of that weight of the building, all of a sudden it gets a little lighter, right? Yeah, it gets a light.

Nick: You wouldn't think though, that the building's going to float away, but

Paul: no. But that's what they said, they were

Nick: concerned because being on the water table so high there because you're right on the river, they were concerned.

Paul: Yeah, the hydrostatic pressure was going to push up on the foundations, all this concrete and steel and everything is getting removed. They were worried about the building actually rising up. It's like, it's

Nino: like, like, like, like a swimming pool effect. Like it's almost like, yeah,

Paul: exactly. Yeah. And I was like, what?

Paul: So they, one of the things that the pro this is why the project was so crazy to convert, right? There's so much that went into it. One of the things they actually did, they went down into the basement of this project. They drilled these, you know, couple of foot holes, and then they bored down and basically installed like anchors.

Paul: You know, like concrete piers all over the box. So they added like a hundred of these piers all over in the bedrock to keep it from rising and floating. Wow. I think it's an engineering marvel. I was blown away. Yeah,

Nino: but that is you see literally we'll actually just

Paul: Yeah, and it pop yeah, and it was so weird because for whatever reason they saved it to last on the tour Which it was the most interesting one.

Paul: We were blown away by it, but we ran out of time. So that was Running through this project like sprinting to get out and to make the bus to get back to them. I'm going down

Nick: I'm going down corridors We're not supposed to go down because I'm like curious I want to see like these bolts and I want to be in the basement and to find out like how they actually attach this Stuff they're like

Nino: you got it guys.

Nino: We gotta go.

Paul: We gotta go. Yeah,

Nick: like bus is leaving. Yeah Yeah,

Paul: you're either walking back or getting an uber or

Nick: something. Paul and I rode those city scooters more like, what was it called? Lime, lime. Yeah. The scooters is the

Nino: color of the lime green. Yeah. We

Nick: rode those scooters every day. Cause we

Paul: were late leaving.

Paul: We're like, we got to make up time. Yeah. I'm going to get

Nick: my steps in today. Nope. We're

Paul: running scooters. I gotta, I gotta hear the keynote, Nick. I gotta get my learning credits. Speaking of

Nick: keynotes, um, we had. An excellent speaker. He is a teacher at Harvard University. I'm actually going to look him up because I bought his book here, but, um, he wrote build the life you want.

Nick: Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah, um, is the coauthor of this book. They teamed up and I got to say, I'm blown away by some of these concepts and just, and, and in terms of happiness. So the, the function is like, how do you, How do we explain the science of happiness? When when are we are most happy and he really kind of broke it down.

Nick: I love he's a dynamic speaker, too Again, he's a professor at harvard and uh, just was very charismatic And I just like how he said things are supposed to we do get satisfaction out of when things are difficult when you accomplish something That is hard You feel good about yourself when you're given something It's not so much like when you cheat on a video game.

Nick: Do you really like have a no at a certain point? You're just like no No, but if you earn it and you and you and do something that's actually like Something to be proud of and something unique something that's you know was a challenge for you There's a fulfillment there. Um, and that's one of the three things that he really dug into in terms of creating a happy life so, um I don't know it kind of resonated with me.

Nick: Um, and I was really impressed I also kind of like the whole idea of not sweating the small stuff and just yeah, exactly not I mean, I guess I guess he kind of Described it as lowering your expectations not necessarily your goals You Exactly. You're not, you're not, you're not lowering what you want to accomplish, but you're lowering like maybe some of the outcomes or at least the timeline that you're trying to achieve.

Nick: Exactly. That's

Nino: what I was thinking. There was like a timeline. Doesn't need to happen now. Sometimes to accomplish something and you will think like, okay, this is the simplest thing I can do it in a day. It may take you a month and then you see, then you figure out, wow, this is really wasn't easy as I was taught.

Nino: It's, it's, that's, that's a lowering expectation. That's how I'm saying, look at just realizing that your first guess was wrong. You know, attacking this item and that's a lowering expectation. Failure's okay though. You're going to suck. You're going to learn from that. You're going to grow. You're going to adjust.

Nino: And you're

Nick: exactly. Keep going. Don't give up. Very

Paul: cool. No, it was, what was the list though that he was talking about? So you had like your, his desire, like he said, his desires or his wants, there was like two different lists that he had. I would suggest you read the book, but, um, yeah, the first was the bucket list.

Paul: And then he came up with like the opposite to the bucket list. Yeah. And that was like what he then started because there wasn't that satisfaction that he was getting from the bucket list because he looked at it after a certain point and he's like, great, I've done all this stuff now, right? And so then,

Nino: did it make him happy?

Paul: No. So then he came up with this other, so yeah, I would agree with Nick. You got to listen to the book. There's so much. I

Nick: ended up taking this test. I took it on the way, Paul, I bought the book and we ended up taking this test on the way home while Paul was driving and I found out a lot of things about myself.

Nick: But basically there are. There's the poet and there's the cheerleader and there's the mad scientist and there's the the judge judge. That's Paul the

Paul: judge And I think I think I'm the poet and the judge you're the mad scientist in the poet I'm the mad scientist. Or no, sorry, cheerleader. Sorry, you're the cheerleader mad scientist.

Paul: I think Nino's the poet

Nick: mad scientist. And just to put this in context, like, for example, there are people who are on the more pessimistic side, but you need them in your life because they, they warn you about troubles, but they're also, like, a lot to be around. Like, you're very heavy, Nino. I am. But what you say is extremely valid.

Nick: Yeah. And we need to listen to those people. Um, and then there's, you know, the cheerleader who's like, everything's great. And the world could be falling down. I'm like, Oh my gosh, be quiet. It's all

Paul: about positive, negative. And there's actually a test in scoring that he came up with. It's the PANAS test.

Paul: Yeah.

Nick: And

Paul: the,

Nick: and when I took it, I ended up being a mad scientist and that those are the folks and they're the smallest group, apparently, but Just, just for your positivity, your negativity was a different

Paul: story. That's where you came into the other category. No, no. I was, I was

Nick: higher on the negativity and higher on the positivity.

Nick: And that's what the mad scientist is.

Paul: No. So it's two different things. Positivity. Is one thing. So that's where you fall into the mad scientist category. No, no, no positive. Well, we can, I'm pretty sure look it up, but I'm pretty sure. All

Nick: right. Well, let's just go with my idea right now. You just want to be called mad scientist.

Nick: The mad scientist though gets riled up about everything and he's the extreme of both negative and positive. Cheerleaders skews positive. Poets skews negative. But to be that you have to be the exact number for both. And the judge, no, I think it's, we'll look at it. We'll look it up. I don't want to argue with you, Paul.

Nick: He's a judge. He is a judge. And honestly, judges get the details and they're just like, they're the operators. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh, just go, just take care of it for goodness sake. Just take care of it.

Nino: That's Paul. That's Paul for sure. That's

Nick: um, no, but

Nino: I mean, look at this. He assembled all these microphones and stuff.

Nino: I mean, I don't even know how to turn on the TV.

Nick: Well, it turns out that the mad scientist and the judge makes a really good team.

Nino: Good.

Nick: Uh,

Nino: that's, that's,

Nick: but I, again, guys, the book is build the life you want by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey. Uh, definitely. Yeah. Give it a read and

Paul: I'll say just the pillars to, he talked about the four pillars, right?

Paul: So you have family friendships. And work and faith. So those are the four main pillars that he talked about. Yeah, you see and not necessarily religious faith No, no, no fate. It's it's it's a whole different thing that he's talking about. Yeah, they're not pushing

Nick: any type of agenda either No, no, um, but it's

Nino: really important.

Nino: You have to have

Nick: that some interesting things though is like it they did interviews of people and most people don't have Is it two or three? I can't remember really close friends in your network, like outside of your, you know, your partner.

Paul: Um,

Nick: and to have the relationships that we have in this room, um, is actually kind of unique.

Nick: It is very

Nino: unique. Yeah, Nick, it is very unique. You don't have, there was, there was surprising. There was surprising things when I came United States, how many people. Not really having the good good buddies or friends and

Nick: that contributes to long Longer lifespans and happiness

Nino: exactly you and it's and they're or they're just Concentrated around their marriage and their family and when that things dissolved unfortunately, then they're almost like by themself Not having the friendship to help you in that occasions, you know what I'm saying?

Nino: So no, it's

Nick: good. I mean it and and also your your partner also needs to be your best friend Like there's a foundation there

Nino: is you know, your family is really important. Yeah, I'm so blessed with that So it's I think four of us. Oh, oh, yeah, all four of us are blessed.

Nick: Yeah I think it's important though to to really think about like It's just, I mean, a lot of times I hide in my work.

Nick: I love to work, but I hide in it too. And just to remind myself of all the blessings that, you know, the, you have to have that gratitude for the friendships and the other things in your lives.

Nino: Take it for granted. Yeah, that's true. We, we, we have that tendency when things go the way we think, but yeah, never forget importance of it.

Nino: Yeah.

Paul: But I think the first speaker, in my opinion, was, was the best. I liked him the most. Yeah. So the other one was what Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Yep. The CNN correspondent. No, it was

Nick: interesting. I love to learn a little bit about the brain.

Paul: Yeah.

Nick: Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: And then

Nino: that's, that's a, that's a healthcare fellow, healthcare.

Nino: Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yes. Sanjay Gupta.

Paul: Yep. So he was talking about how like his back, a little bit of his backstory, how he got involved and everything. And then he kind of circled around in the end to talk about, you know, health and environment and how it's related to building and architecture and all that.

Nino: Funny thing saying I'm actually working with the doctor, another Dr. Gupta in OSU and he's a head of the radiologies for a cancer program. Yeah, it interesting. Yeah. You say Gupta like, oh yeah, there is another Gupta. I know. Yeah. Also phenomenal person. Yeah. Yeah. And then the last

Paul: keynote was the what?

Paul: Costume design. She, she was good

Nick: actually. I, I, uh, I really wish I would've screamed out Wakanda forever. I, I almost did it and no one did. And I was just like, what am, should I have done this? Wakanda forever! Did

Nino: you say it?

Paul: No. Thank God, because I was sitting right next to him. I just, I don't know.

Nick: Literally for the next, I'm

Paul: not here, I'm not with him. I actually,

Nick: I don't even know what she said for the next 15 minutes because I was always like, doing is beating myself up that I

Paul: didn't

Nick: scream out Wakanda forever.

Paul: Pushing that cheerleader down. You missed it. Yeah. That's the cheer. Like I said, cheerleaders, that's us.

Paul: You had one chance.

Nick: No, no. I was, I was, I was upset about it. You had one

Paul: chance

Nino: to scream.

Paul: She did the Afrofuturism. That was her whole, you know, and then obviously she, her like crescendo stuff, Of the speak was in the Wakanda forever. All the Marvel, Black Panther stuff, she designed all the stuff. Costume

Nick: designer.

Nick: Yeah. Yeah.

Nino: Wow. You see like a convention and the speakers are from different fields. Just,

Nick: well, I think it's important. Like this is a creative field and I think we need to, it's all architecture. I honestly think that creative exists and everywhere. Yes. So there's just opportunities that we're missing.

Nick: And the whole point is, is that the, the, whether it's, you know, we talk about architecture being the third skin, well, you're what you wear is your second skin, you know? So, I mean, all these things impact the way we live. Work and feel. . Yeah, . Oh, I like that third skin thing and how, and how I invest. I like that third skin tank.

Paul: I mean, it kind of is, right? Yeah. Your whole spatial experience based, you just

Nino: came out with that, that you

Nick: heard that from someone? No, I've, I've said it for years. Did you? Yeah.

Nino: Third skin.

Nick: Third skin. Yeah. I like it. Yeah.

Nino: Jesus Christ.

Nick: I didn't, your clothing is a second. Skin in the building is the third.

Nick: I'll say this. I didn't, I didn't create it because I heard it. I mean 20 years ago, really? Yeah, this is I've always thought of architecture like that because it's stuck with me you know, it really shapes like when you put on a great suit or just a Clothes that really make you feel special like that. It changes the way you walk.

Nick: It changed the way you talk It changes the way you being perceived being perceived and how you move through this world exact interact Architecture is the same way when I, when I go into a city that's dying, I feel sad. Yes. And when I go into a city that's thriving and it's being innovative, you just want to be,

Paul: I want to be a part of it.

Paul: Yes. Pull pulling back to, so like, again, years ago, one of the things that stuck with me in school at Ken was when Hilton had one of our reviews and he was talking about spatial sequencing. You know, and again, like these little moments and then to connect it back at the conference, we actually got together with, uh, fellow alums with Kent State alums.

Paul: That was great. It was great. Yeah. Um, who do we meet? Hughes, our old methods teacher. Yeah. And the, the current dean was there and he was talking about, they're actually expanding into a new building, right? Yeah. They're really working on that. Yeah.

Nick: The architecture program is exploding at Kent. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick: They're doing very, very well. And they're getting a record number of out of state. Folks coming in, which is, um, greater than I think any other college. I think they're crushing it. They're

Paul: crushing it. I was actually impressed with all the stuff they have going on.

Nick: And they're do,

Nino: they needed that. They needed that extra,

Nick: they're, they're doing their Florence program.

Nick: So, um, every student is basically encouraged when, and in many cases helped, um, to travel abroad. Very important. I mean, they've

Paul: done that, like my friend's dad, um, who's, you know, now basically 20 years, 30 years. Yeah, they've been doing that forever. So in the

Nick: seventies, he went to Florence.

Paul: But they're also talking about

Nick: doing something similar to LDAP and Cincinnati, uh, with that.

Nick: Just LDAP, LDAP, no L. They're always, they're always, um, they're considering these really prestigious internships. Do you

Nino: know what else they have to do? They have to encourage co op. The same stuff that the University of Cincinnati is doing very well. That's exactly what I was talking about. Yep.

Nick: And that's, that's why they've had tremendous success and it produced so many great architects.

Paul: Yeah. But yeah, it was, it was great to, um, to meet up with just again, people. Yeah. We're, we're getting close to wrapping up. It was great to meet up with them. And then during the tour. Nick went to go explore again. Oh, of course. This is another good DC memory. All of a sudden, and everyone looks right over where the sound is coming from.

Paul: And there's Nick and he just puts his hands up. Like you caught me.

Nick: First of all, first of all,

Paul: he opened the door. The alarm went off. And he just, it's great. He slowly rotated with his hands up. Okay,

Nick: let me ask you a question. You guys, you're in Gensler. Yes. The largest firm in the world. One of the largest. Yeah, they have, I mean, collectively they have like 70, 000 employees.

Nick: It's much famous. And we're in DC at their beautiful office. And I'm, I'm, it's, I'm getting all these Google vibes. It's like an Apple campus. Yeah. It's when I, when I designed the Google office in New York city in Boston, I'm just like all the, all the old feelings come back and I'm just like the, they reached out to design these chairs with Herman Miller.

Nick: Everything was specifically like thoughtful and like, it's just, it's, Inspiring. Right. And then they have this beautiful terrace outside with all this, with these dining tables and views of the city. And you just want to go there and it says exit on it. And I don't see any signage that says alarm's going to go off.

Nick: So I'm like, all right, I'm going to pop out here and check out what's going on, on this beautiful outdoor terrace. So then I thought I'd like, was going to get the FBI was going to come down in choppers and take me away. It was

Nino: actually, as soon as you open the door, it's like, keep going. Everyone

Nick: looks at me and I'm like.

Nick: That was me, you guys. I want to see the tears. I don't blame you. And I still I'll probably do the same. I'm still going out.

Paul: You never went out once you got caught. You just kind of slowly turned and walked away. I was asking

Nick: our tour guide, Nick, who has a fantastic name, um, was very gracious and he said, don't worry about it.

Nick: The reason that that happened is because there's people Uh, access to the alley that you can walk up. So security, security and they work on a lot of important stuff there. So there we go. Well, their whole

Paul: federal department was like, yeah, it was a whole separate room that was

Nick: locked. I didn't mean any ill will there.

Nick: I was simply curious. It was a good memory for me. It's always served me. Sometimes it doesn't, but usually it serves me well.

Nino: Curiosity is important. It is very important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah,

Paul: overall, I mean, the trip was amazing. You got to come Boston next year. We'll all go. It'll be fantastic. I'll definitely have

Nino: to do the Boston because I love the Boston.

Nino: I was in Boston a couple of years ago and I love it. Great. So

Nick: yeah, yeah. Boston is a beautiful city. Yeah. I think that, uh, wraps up our, uh, episode. Uh, another great episode, uh, at the Yonker Plus Podcast. It was actually a

Nino: pretty engaging one. I like it actually.

Nick: With that, we're going to let you go. Um, enjoy the rest of your day and we will see you in two weeks.

Paul: This has been the ArcFluence podcast. As always, you can get more information and additional content on arcfluence.com. Please subscribe on the platform of your choice and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you.