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SKE+CHED with Richard Wengle Architects
SKE+CHED ft. Richard Wengle Architects
Be inspired and dive deeper into the thought process behind Richard Wengle's custom molded brick residences in the Toronto area.
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SKE+CHED with Stantec
SKE+CHED ft. Stantec
Be inspired and dive deeper into the thought process behind Jennifer Grafton's work on the Northeast Community Propel Academy, in the School District of Philadelphia.
Northeast Community Propel Academy
Custom Klaycoat Blend
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SKE+CHED with Design Collective
SKE+CHED ft. Design Collective
Be inspired and dive deeper into the thought process behind Alyse Talbott's work on Solaire 8200 Dixon, in the Ripley 2 district of Baltimore, Maryland.
Solaire 8200 Dixon
Custom Klaycoat Blends
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Glazed Brick
To create the unmistakable look of Glazed brick, a glaze is applied to the outer surface of extruded clay and carefully fired, allowing an unlimited long-lasting color range and variation of textures from glass smooth to speckled and rough.
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Klaycoat Brick
When you build with Glen-Gery Klaycoat®, color is more than just a finishing touch. It’s a focal point that takes any project from “okay” to “outstanding.” That’s inevitable when you have the opportunity to customize the color of your project in an unexpected way to meet any ask and exceed every expectation.
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Gradient Brick Blends
Using Gradient Brick Blends in an Architectural Project
Brickwork is a timeless element in architecture that can create a distinctive character for any building. Incorporating gradient brick blends in an architectural project can add a unique aesthetic element. Gradation can be achieved through blending bricks of different colors, textures, or sizes. This technique can create a striking visual effect, such as a smooth transition from one color to another, or a subtle variation within a single color family.
In addition to aesthetic benefits, gradient brick blends can enhance the functionality of a building. For instance, blending darker bricks near the base of a building can provide better durability, while lighter shades at the top can reflect more sunlight and reduce heat absorption.
When laying the bricks, it's important to follow the manufacturer's instructions for the specific blend. Typically, these bricks are laid in a random pattern to achieve a natural look. The gradual color transition creates a sense of depth and texture, adding dimension to the project.
Using gradient brick blends can elevate any design, creating a unique and cohesive look. Whether you're designing a single story or a multi-level structure, consider incorporating this technique to add a touch of artistry and sophistication to your project.
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Design Vault Ep. 14 Lorne Rose Architects with Lorne Rose
ABOUT THE ARCHITECT:
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Lorne has a true passion for architecture and is inspired by his clients. He loves nothing more than delivering a family the home of their dreams.
Lorne lives in the Lytton Park neighbourhood of Toronto with his family. When he does have free time he loves to coach hockey, work in his garden and travel. Trips to Europe and Africa provide architectural inspiration and many subjects for his newest passion, photography.
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![lorne rose architects](/sites/default/files/2023-10/Backyard-Day-36-cushions.jpg)
Tudor House
designed by Lorne Rose Architects
TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;02 - 00;00;05;08
Doug Pat (DP)
Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.
00;00;05;10 - 00;00;25;28
Lorne Rose (LR)
They wanted a spacious two car garage with mudroom, and then they like to entertain. So a combined living room, dining room, and then a kitchen. They love to cook. And then a beautiful two-story family room. That's all done at hundred-year-old occupied a beautiful room that some people think looks like a small chapel.
00;00;26;00 - 00;02;37;16
DP
This is my guest, Lorne Rose. I'll share more about him shortly. Today, we're going to talk about Lauren's Tudor home in Toronto. The neighborhood has a number of esthetically diverse architectural gems from the turn of the century, including a traditional Tudor that served as inspiration. Lauren's Tudor home features a variety of signature Tudor brick patterns from diagonal and herringbone to basket weave.
The traditional half timber board work has been replaced with stone and a carved stone belt course that runs across the front facade, separates stone veneer at the base, a steep gable stance across all facades, giving it order and magnifying the Tudor style. The roof is cedar shingle and the overhangs are traditional. The rear of the house has a spacious covered porch with wonderful wood.
Details, and the opposite side features a carved stone entry and a large wood and glass front door. The front landscape is organized, yet slightly whimsical, with a U-shaped drive. The backyard, in contrast, has an oval shaped lawn area surrounded by garden walls, apple trees and a vegetable garden.
Hi, I'm Doug Pat, and this is Design Vault. Lorne Rose Architect was established in Toronto in 1995 as Rose Pegasus Architects Inc. In 2000, his firm became Lorne Rose Architects. Lorne had an idea long ago at the age of ten, in fact, that he wanted to be an architect. He eventually attended the Ohio State University, receiving his Bachelor of Science in Architecture and his master's degree from the University of Michigan. In his practice, Lorne prides himself as hands on and intimately involved in every residential architecture project that comes through the door down to the last detail.
Lorne’s firm has completed many projects, including work in the United States and Canada. Lorne lives in Toronto with his family. He also coaches hockey travels and loves photography. Welcome, Lauren. Nice to have you with us today. So tell us a little bit about Lorne Rose, architect in Toronto. So where are you guys located? Toronto? What's the size of the firm and what type of work do you do?
00;02;37;22 - 00;03;07;16
LR
First of all, thank you for having me. So we are a small critique firm, the architectural side. We are myself and two others. Right now we do have an interior design firm called Empress Design and have recently taken on my side partner who is going to be a partner at the architectural firm. So the architectural side right now it's three of us and that interior design side there is probably about seven, and that supports jobs counting receptions.
00;03;07;18 - 00;03;09;27
DP
And to do only residential work.
00;03;10;00 - 00;03;36;03
LR
We're known for our residential work, but we do do some commercial work, some community work in terms of residential neighborhoods. Oftentimes, it's my residential clients who ask me to do some of their subdivision work or commercial work for them. We are located in Forest Hill neighborhood. Our office is kind of unique. It's really just like a house, except in this case, the kitchen is on the third floor and offices basement ground in second.
00;03;36;05 - 00;03;46;25
DP
So tell us a little bit about yourself. Your original firm was started in 1995, then transitioned in 2000. Tell us a little bit about that and then your role in the office currently.
00;03;46;27 - 00;04;31;15
LR
So I made the job was turning 30. Just got pregnant with her first son and decided it was time to leave. The firm that I was at. Enterprise just set me up in business. Taught me a lot. Worked together with him for many years. He was specialized in new work, high rise work. But I specialized in the residential, and it's really my passion that's dealing with the clients hands on.
The turnaround of projects is a little quicker and not working on a condo for two years or less. So we sort of finally decided that he had no interest in the small residential, which was my passion. So we just separated the first store out of the same office and still I wrote to my new office about six years ago or so.
00;04;31;22 - 00;04;33;24
DP
He's still practicing architecture as well.
00;04;33;26 - 00;04;44;14
LR
Andrew has actually, I think, retired. Some of his associates have taken it over. That first couple, Rafael Augustus, and they're quite successful still friendly with him.
00;04;44;16 - 00;04;56;29
DP
That's great. Now, you had mentioned residential contracts. I'm always curious, most of the jobs that you take on residential projects, how long do they take from kind of start to finish Client walks in the door to they got the keys to the front door.
00;04;57;04 - 00;05;23;01
LR
Right. So typically, I'll tell a client the municipal process in here is quite long. So from the day they hire me to the day they put a shovel in the ground, could be anywhere from 6 to 12 months. Used to take 10 to 12 months to build a house. But since COVID hit, Toronto may be different than other cities that exploded here, we've never been more busy than we were during COVID.
So you're looking at 12 to 18 months to build a home here now.
00;05;23;08 - 00;05;31;11
DP
I mean, it's kind of surprising. As a US citizen, I always hear about how expensive Canada is. And Toronto's extraordinary, isn't it?
00;05;31;17 - 00;06;23;17
LR
It is extraordinary beyond belief. It's surprisingly the fourth largest city in North America. I've been wrong about everything. During COVID, we thought the market would crash. Interest rates were extremely low and people were just buying up homes. People were tired of their own homes. They would renovate or they would actually, surprisingly, they left their neighbors. They decided to tear down their perfectly good house because the cost of getting it aged what we have here called land transfer tax and buy a new home, a tax on new people, said, you know what, I love my street, my neighborhood.
I'm going to tear down this somewhat good home and build a new home. So the industry exploded it very, very expensive to build a house in Toronto because the trades had actually good for too long. It seems to be slowing down a little bit now. But as I said, I'd be wrong about everything. Sure.
00;06;23;19 - 00;06;24;04
DP
You're not.
00;06;24;04 - 00;06;26;20
LR
Alone. I'm not going to make predictions.
00;06;26;23 - 00;06;34;19
DP
Yeah. So today we're going to talk about a Tudor home project that you did. What was the year that it was built and approximately where is it?
00;06;34;23 - 00;07;10;21
LR
So it's in the neighborhood. It was 13 years ago that my clients are again. So we probably started it 15 years ago. It's in a neighborhood or a street that did not have many houses on it. The owner moved a block east. They elected a tutor house that they renovated and decided to do a new Tudor house on this lot.
Since that time, the street has exploded and there are probably six or seven houses under construction on the street, many of which I am doing, which is nice. I don't do also.
00;07;10;25 - 00;07;13;24
DP
So there was nothing on the property when you built that house.
00;07;13;26 - 00;07;30;29
LR
There was an okay Tudor style home in Toronto. Land is at a premium and people are buying perfectly good homes and tearing them down. The home that was there did not meet the client's needs, so tore it down and designed a new house.
00;07;31;01 - 00;07;32;24
DP
And how big was the lot and truck?
00;07;32;24 - 00;07;40;19
LR
So we go by frontage which is very different states. So it was a 64 foot lot by 175 feet.
00;07;40;22 - 00;07;45;21
DP
That 100 foot dimension. Is that the entire length or just the street front?
00;07;45;23 - 00;07;48;05
LR
175 feet long.
00;07;48;12 - 00;07;49;08
DP
Front to back.
00;07;49;09 - 00;08;07;00
LR
Yeah, 64 feet wide. The street is predominately 50 foot lots, so this is probably the widest lot on the street. Right. You went to other 60 footers decided. I think there's a few fourth graders. That's how we call them here. 50 footers for this region.
00;08;07;02 - 00;08;09;22
DP
What were the programmatic requirements for the clients?
00;08;09;24 - 00;09;42;03
LR
Most important things were a two car garage with that mudroom attached garage. Previous house, they had had a detached garage and they never park your car in the back. And as you know, we deal with a lot of snow here, clients. So shoveling the driveway, all that. And then people put junk in there in their garages. So they wanted a spacious two car garage with mudroom and then they like to entertain.
So a combined living room, dining room, the living room here is going a little bit to where a general over these days we're finding people are using them. You have the most expensive furniture and nobody sits in them. They sit in a family room or great room. This family needed a combined living room, dining room because they like to have dining parties, so they could expand their dining table into the living room.
Living room has a piano, just table. That's it. It's mostly dinner just to expand for family occasions, holidays where they host large parties and then a kitchen. They love to cook a great inventory. It's very five feet by 14 feet long, very well organized with an extra fridge, whole wall of spices and sauce charged space, and then a beautiful two story family room.
That's all done at our hundred year old time. There was a dream of the homeowner to do a room out of 100 year old, not a pine. So it was all party boards carved and played down to create a beautiful room that some people think looks like a small chapel.
00;09;42;05 - 00;09;44;08
DP
So how many square feet is the house total?
00;09;44;16 - 00;09;57;06
LR
The home is about 5000 square feet, four bedrooms for best two children. The wife was from the States, so they often have family ties to the business suite at all. Work lunch.
00;09;57;09 - 00;09;59;27
DP
That's awesome. A homework, lunches get used.
00;10;00;01 - 00;10;07;21
LR
It did before the kids moved out. And now she's fighting the headstone for doing some of his hobby work.
00;10;07;23 - 00;10;15;22
DP
So in plan. Then when I looked at the elevations of the building, it looks like a large rectangle set, Correct? Or is it way more complex than that?
00;10;15;24 - 00;10;38;17
LR
It is. The floorplan is garage on the left side looking at the home office across the front door and then the window that is the piano area in the living room. There's actually a garden shed at the back which is attached to the house strip and turn into a cabana the car in order to have a pool because they need it.
So it's a garden shed. They like to garden.
00;10;38;19 - 00;10;42;24
DP
So is the site completely flat? No. Unique topographic features.
00;10;42;26 - 00;10;55;08
LR
Pretty much flat. So much so that the homeowner had to do two huge drainage pits to ensure that drainage worked. The area has a lot of clay in the soil, so it doesn't drain that well.
00;10;55;10 - 00;11;04;18
DP
So this next question is going to be interesting because I'm sure it's at least a little different from the U.S. What were the project restrictions like zoning codes, etc.?
00;11;04;20 - 00;11;35;22
LR
There were variances to the bylaw. We were required to have five front side yard setbacks. We have four foot sideboard setbacks. The density in this neighborhood go by 35% of the lot area is what gross floor area we were slightly over. Not very common in the area to go over 35 is antiquated. Most homes are going to be few across the street.
We did renovation on a smaller block, but we were at 90%. It's not uncommon to get the variance for the density.
00;11;35;24 - 00;11;36;24
DP
And how many stories?
00;11;37;01 - 00;12;12;21
LR
Two stories lot of people thought it had for its story. It could have had a third story, but the family didn't need more space. The covered porch was another very important requirement for the family and served them very well during COVID. Like some parts of the United States where people worked as servants of the rules, Canadians, I can say, were quite observant.
So it was a great place. Covered portraits, heaters for entertaining in the fall. Even in the winter, on a warmer day, family could entertain outside with guests, nice barbecuing area, a dining area sitting here.
00;12;12;24 - 00;12;22;29
DP
So tell us a little bit about the style choice. You had said that the neighborhood had a Tudor style home that you really liked before you designed this one.
00;12;23;06 - 00;13;56;28
LR
Yeah, there were some Tudor, a lot of postwar architecture. Toronto is very much influenced by English architecture, especially at the time. But the home that was an inspiration for this one was a much smaller home for us. So village near where my office is, it was a much smaller home that had beautiful brickwork and the Midband was a homage to that house in Forest Hill, where you describe it, is it orange segment carving it would have been done out of wood on the original house.
These beautiful brick patterns which you would see on other homes or so village that really caught my eye. And nobody really replicates properly these days in addition of spores that were carved, details like that on the old Tudor homes from the turn of the century in the revival of these styles are always left out. So we really wanted to do it correctly on this home, and the homeowner spent extra money to do it properly and more authentic.
Subsequent to that, there were quasi replicas of this house that popped up. People chortle when they see something they like. We started emulating it, but I don't take it as a sense to take it as a form of compliment. I didn't invent anything here. I was borrowing from collecting borrowing details from architecture styles in Italy, and I do it with any style in modern or Georgian or French provincial.
I like to use the most authentic details that clients will allow us to afford.
00;13;57;00 - 00;14;02;20
DP
So was there ever any question then in your mind that this House could be something other than brick?
00;14;02;22 - 00;14;29;19
LR
There were examples that I looked at as well, where the second floor rather than brick, you could use some of these patterns in stone, but red brick was dear to the owners liking, and I don't think there was really another option in this item where the house is a stone skirt, the rocks around the house, but the rest of the house's brick.
And while many people do a out of all stone sites and red brick, it allowed us to tie to breaking all the way around the house.
00;14;29;21 - 00;14;39;07
DP
What I think is really pretty when you look at the exterior gables, the half timber construction has become stone. Talk a little bit about that and where have you seen that in the past?
00;14;39;09 - 00;15;13;00
LR
There were some examples I've seen in the city, but for the most part, even on a lot of houses, we knew that our Tudor will have a cornice, detail are winters are harsh or weather is harsh or summers are hot, sticky and we have extremes. The thought of painting wood timbers, half timbers every now and then was not something the homeowner wanted to do, so we suggested doing them out of stone.
There's no way. So we've done that a couple of times. Just to cut down on this. There are some parts that are would not allow this house the stone.
00;15;13;00 - 00;15;26;17
DP
Details on this home are absolutely stunning. This carved front entry left and right. They did this little custom rose after your name. Now, where did you find somebody that does that? I mean, unbelievable.
00;15;26;19 - 00;16;35;22
LR
Funny enough, little story about the limestone on this house. It came from Indiana and were horrible. What I learned during this house is that Indiana supplies great stone. But in the future, I would never let them cut the stone. We have some great stonemasons in Toronto. We actually had to have some of them fix up the stone that was originally carved in Indiana.
But nowadays we ship the blocks out from Indiana and everything is carved here. I learned that on this house. So we have tons of great carvers here. The guy who did this house is Romanian and he worked for a school back in a communist Romania. And so a lot of great talent from Europe. Toronto is a melting pot, as is Canada, people from all over the world.
So there's no shortage of great transport, although I shouldn't say that as they're aging those artisans, the children do not want to follow in their parents footsteps. So I hope it won't be a lost art. But that's where the C and C machines of today computers are allowing us to still allow for those carved rosettes.
00;16;35;24 - 00;16;39;26
DP
So did you have any challenges finding a good brick Mason No.
00;16;39;26 - 00;16;56;08
LR
In fact, shared signature digitally had always been one of the best masons in Toronto, and I asked to take care of during makes my hair usually mostly stone. He didn't really want to do the brick, but when he saw the intricate brick patterns, it grated your brickwork as well.
00;16;56;16 - 00;17;03;26
DP
So Lorne, we were just talking about the brick. Could you tell us a little bit about the color and whether or not it was a special mixture?
00;17;04;02 - 00;17;51;11
LR
Yeah, at the time I was dealing with a gentleman named Isaac Raposo from King Masonry. Now he had an idea. We worked with Isaac for years. It came straight out of the company's work that he was passionate about brick and Stone. So he said to me, Lord, I have this special brick that's being used in university states, and it's Glengarry brick, and it's 85% Shenandoah and 50% Colt 50 3dd It's been used at the university.
It had a nice tonal range, some fire bricks in there, so it wasn't all flat coloring, a great deal of variation on the brick. And I said, Great, let's do it. Isaac was instrumental in suggesting that Brick and other clients have used a similar mix.
00;17;51;18 - 00;18;01;07
DP
So were there any unique construction details using masonry or brick on the home? Anything that you had never done before? Anything that you do a lot.
00;18;01;10 - 00;19;27;06
LR
This was the first time that I used the stone boards at six feet to bring, and it was the first time, I believe, that these different brick patterns on a house. So it was challenging for the Masons. I remember calls about how do you want to do this? Even on the stonework, we had some smoother blocks, but I wanted them chiseled with different patterns on them, really authentic stuff.
I didn't want perfectly aligned joints. I wanted it a little bit. I called it messy, but when it's done perfectly linear, you can spend the money on a real stone. It doesn't look real because it's so perfectly laid up. Bellies were put on a lot of the stones chopping the edges off. It's a little bit of a mess.
Your joint, Chino. I like to call it a rock joint. I was particular about the laying of the stone brick and quite happy with the way it turned out. The chimneys are quite detailed with different patterns as well. And limestone caps. One of the things I like to do is put superior clay chili pots on jumbo ones. One of the details I loved in traveling in England and there would have many chimneys and different clay pots on top of each.
Normally on our homes we put two of the same. I wanted to do something a little more British and mix them up. So each chimney has two different pots on it just for fun.
00;19;27;09 - 00;19;42;15
DP
So when it comes to a lot of these details, brick coursing, etc., do you guys end up doing a lot of a variety of drawings, series of iterations, looking at different patterns and then go out into the field and look at examples that the Mason puts together? How do you guys do that?
00;19;42;22 - 00;20;03;08
LR
That sounds a little more romantic than how it actually happened. I do have some great books on brickwork that I get to reference, but it was more the Mason gene and I just sitting out there and discussing them and looking at what we could really do. Not quite as romantic as drawing it all.
00;20;03;10 - 00;20;11;15
DP
Yeah, but it's a little more authentic in terms of how we used to do things as architects, right? Walk out onto the site, you tell people what to do so.
00;20;11;17 - 00;20;21;15
LR
That Gino is up for the challenge. We laid them out on the ground just to verify. I had ideas of what I wanted, but we did actually draw on that.
00;20;21;18 - 00;20;26;27
DP
So when you drew the building, are you guys using CAD? Are you drawing in 2D or are you drawing in 3D?
00;20;27;04 - 00;20;49;23
LR
I'm a little bit of a dinosaur. I'm going around my office. Who doesn't use AutoCAD? We now use Revit as well. I know how to use it, but every time I come to the computer, that stuff, you get away with it. I have two very talented staff, one staff member with me 23 years. They sort of know how I think that makes the office much more efficient.
00;20;49;26 - 00;20;59;19
DP
So I'm sure Toronto has rules about energy efficiency. Was sustainability an issue when you built the home in terms of the wall cavities, etc.?
00;20;59;21 - 00;22;19;19
LR
There were some things that we did here differently. I think our energy efficiency rules came into play a little bit more after this House would interconnect. But one of the things differently down here, it's normally called psychiatrist's insulation in the walls. In this case, we did two inches of £2 spread foam against the plywood, more airtight and a higher insulation lets you go over four inches a spray for the added impact of going to six inches is not necessarily worthy.
So we did two inches a separate fall and then three and a half inches of fiberglass insulation to give us a little bit higher our value at the time the spray fall thing was relatively new. The building department wasn't sure if there was still a void, how to deal with it still needed paper barrier. You don't necessarily need it anymore.
We did a blended version and built it. Department accepted it, still liked the system. It was cost effective way to get the air tightness and fill the void. Insulation nowadays where champ moving more to at least one inch exterior insulation and air space. Then Brick, our next building code will probably make that mandatory. And that way you don't lose as much thermal value through the stud cavities.
00;22;19;22 - 00;22;28;06
DP
So I know you do a lot of homes. Was there anything that you or your team learned during the process of building this one, designing it and having it built?
00;22;28;09 - 00;22;53;19
LR
Yes. When you specify certain forgeries dressed, let the lumber yard use a different kind of floor choice. There is a few problems with that. But aside from that, things went relatively urban innovation at home and did a great job. One of the things we did that was unique here. I like skylights a lot, but I don't like looking through a skylight well and seeing the clouds.
00;22;53;21 - 00;23;19;21
LR
So we do these lenses, frosted lenses, they look great, except they can get irksome. So there's a mechanical room in the roof here. So through access, through the mechanical room, it's a little boardwalk where the homeowner can't actually open up a door and vacuum the box off of the skylight. Let's just get rid of this box and we'll have the box get in there.
But they do look up. You know, I see books. That's great.
00;23;19;21 - 00;23;28;25
DP
Very creative spoken just like an architect. So you've been an architect for a long time. If you could give your younger self some career advice, what would it be?
00;23;28;28 - 00;23;29;24
LR
Wow.
00;23;29;27 - 00;23;31;21
DP
We're always learning as architects.
00;23;31;23 - 00;23;40;27
LR
That's a great question. It's not an uncommon question, but I've never really thought about it. I'm passionate and love architectural history and I learned a lot from it.
00;23;41;02 - 00;24;13;09
DP
You know, when I went to college, architectural history was a class I had to take, and it wasn't something that I really enjoyed. And ultimately I ended up with a YouTube channel. And all I do, or most of what I did for many years is make videos about historical architecture, right? So you never really know when you're going to use that information and how passionate you might become about something would seem to me, looking at the breadth of the work that you've done online, that you've got a really nice historical background that you're utilizing all the time.
00;24;13;09 - 00;24;21;17
DP
And it would seem to me if I was the younger you, I'd say to you, Look, man, pay attention, because you're going to be using all this information someday.
00;24;21;19 - 00;25;35;13
LR
So it's interesting. It's an architecture school was great. And the worst part about architecture history, which I loved, was that it was an 80 year class which any college students thought was awful and it was like three times a week. And you'd go to this class tired as can be, and the first thing they do is turn off the lights and show you slides.
So it was hard to stay awake, but I never anticipated the stuff that I did see, which was influenced by Peter Eisenman, who was there at the time, was nothing traditional. And just like I say to anybody, architect, just pay attention to trigonometry. Yes, you do use it. Toronto's a very traditional city. If I had lived in another city, I might have done more modern architecture in my career.
Now we're doing a ton of it and I love it. But just like, you know, Picasso was a classical painter before he did, where he did the traditional architecture and studying the masters in scale proportion, that's the talent that somebody gave me that I can see a proportion. I learned it through architecture styles, and then you can apply that to any style.
So I think that's paying attention in those classes as hard as they were when the lights were really made a difference in my career.
00;25;35;15 - 00;25;42;10
DP
Lauren, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Lorne Rose, Architect Inc and yourself?
00;25;42;17 - 00;25;52;14
LR
Lorne Rose dot com And it's not a popular name in the United States. It's very popular Canada the sixties it's aloha Annie RC dot com.
00;25;52;17 - 00;25;53;28
DP
Are you guys on Instagram.
00;25;54;01 - 00;26;09;21
LR
We are. I have to say I'm terrible at social media and I should be doing more because a lot of Americans have reached out based on some of the social media I need to concentrate more on. Yes, I am on Instagram and learn search. So yeah, please look us up.
00;26;09;27 - 00;26;14;02
DP
Well, it sounds like you're very busy. It was wonderful to have you here. Thank you so much for your time, Lorne.
00;26;14;04 - 00;26;18;02
LR
Thank you for having me. It's fun.
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Design Vault Ep. 15 650 Park Avenue with Christa Waring
ABOUT THE ARCHITECT:
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Christa is a Principal at CTA Architects P.C. whose journey with the firm began in 1994 when she joined as a member of the technical staff. With a deep-rooted passion for sustainable design and a keen understanding of Building Code and Zoning issues, Christa plays a pivotal role in driving the office's environmental research and implementation of green technologies, including adherence to LEED and Certified Passive House design standards.
Christa has worked on some of the firm's largest projects, and she brings a consistent focus on sustainability to all of her work. The 90,000-square-foot, mixed-use Lower Eastside Girls Club/Arabella 101 was designed to LEED standards, and the Grand Street Guild moderate rehabilitation featured a 3,500-square-foot maintenance building with a seasonally blooming extensive green roof. Her recent projects include the award-winning exterior preservation of the cast iron façade at 54 Bond Street, and she recently oversaw the completion of the conversion of an illegal SRO into low-income housing for formerly homeless elderly residents on the Upper West Side. Her current workload includes the start of construction on a building rehabilitation project that is part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's RetrofitNY pilot program.
In addition to her work as a Principal at CTA, Christa taught at Pratt Institute for a number of years and lectured for the New York City Urban Green Council and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. She is also a member of the New York City Department of Buildings Construction Requirement & Materials Committee and the New York City Energy Conservation Code Commercial Advisory Committee.
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![cta architects.jpg](/sites/default/files/2023-10/cta%20architects.jpg)
650 Park Avenue
designed by CTA Architects
TRANSCRIPT
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;05;13
Doug Patt (DP)
Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.
00;00;05;15 - 00;00;28;26
Christa Waring (CW)
It's only exterior work. Right now, we've just mobilized to start the brick restoration. We had great assistants getting a perfect match to the original white glazed brick that they have there. You want to make sure when you're doing this much brickwork that your spackle is right, and it doesn't stand out in the end. And Landmarks approves the work very easily.
00;00;29;03 - 00;03;30;29
DP
This is my guest, Christa Waring. I'll share more about her shortly in this episode from The Design Vault. We highlight Christa's project in New York City, 650 Park Avenue. 650 Park Avenue is located in the Upper East Side Historic District, built in 1963 and designed by Emery Roth and Sons Architects. It's a 21-story apartment building with a white glazed brick facade and setbacks above the 16th floor.
The base of the building maintains the building line of Park Avenue. Recent façade examinations revealed a deficiency in the wall tie system that connects the face masonry to the backup concrete block masonry. CTA designed a program of facade repairs that include face masonry pinning in addition to the restoration of all shelf angles across the façades. The original construction features have finished glazed edge over all the window lintels, which has an impressive impact on the esthetic of the building. Thus, the project entails an extensive masonry rebuild where matching the existing brick is of paramount importance.
Hi, I'm Doug Pat, and this is Design Vault.
Christa Waring is a principal at CTA Architects, P.C. in New York City. She's been with the firm since 1994. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute. She's passionate about sustainable design and has a keen understanding of building code and zoning issues.
Christa drives her office's environmental research and implementation of green technologies, which includes adherence to lead and certified passive House design standards. She's worked on some of CTA's largest projects, including the 90,000 square foot mixed use Lower East Side Girls Club, Arabella 101, and the Grand Street Guild. Her recent projects include the award-winning exterior Preservation of the Cast Iron Facade at 54 Bond Street.
She also recently oversaw the completion of the conversion of an illegal SRO into low-income housing on the Upper West Side. One of her current projects includes a building rehabilitation project that's part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's Retrofit New York pilot program. Christa taught at Pratt Institute and lectured for the New York City Urban Green Council and the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association.
She's also a member of the New York City Department of Buildings Construction Requirement and Materials Committee, and the New York City Energy Conservation Code, Commercial Advisory Committee. So welcome, Christin. It's nice to have you with us today. So, tell us a little bit about CTA architects, P.C. in New York City. So where are you guys located in New York. What's the size of the firm? How long have you been around and what type of work do you do?
00;03;31;02 - 00;04;46;14
CW
Well, thank you for having me today. CTA Architects. We're located down in the Flatiron District, just a couple of blocks from the Flatiron. We have 60 plus employees at this point, including support staff. We do a variety of work in New York City. All of our work is focused in the five boroughs, frankly, mostly Manhattan. We do have Brooklyn and Queens, some in Staten Island, a couple in the Bronx.
But we originally started out in 1987 or so. We came into being around the time that the first facade laws came into effect. And so, it was something that we naturally fell into. And we have been doing that work ever since I've been there since 1994. Our founding partner, Doug Cutsogeorge was my professor at Pratt and hired me as an intern in my second year there, and I have been there ever since.
So, I was an intern. I typed envelopes that when we had typewriters, I fax things and then went out and did field measurements and climbed around on ladders and hung on scaffolds. And 29 years later, still there. And I've been a partner since 2014.
00;04;46;17 - 00;04;49;16
DP
Real quickly, tell me about these façade laws. What is that?
00;04;49;23 - 00;05;55;20
CW
You know, my business partner Dan, could give you, like, every single date and iteration, but I'll give you the gist, which is that terracotta fell off a building at Columbia University and that initiated a city response, which was at that time called Local Law ten, which mandated that all buildings over six stories have to be inspected every five years by a registered professional and a report submitted to the Department of Buildings.
So, at that point, all of the buildings submitted on the same day, February 21st, every five years, and as the law developed, it keeps developing based on things that have happened in the city. At that point, it was just the street elevation and you just had to look at it with binoculars. Now it's the entire building and you have to look at it from a hanging scaffold or a bucket truck. And depending on the construction type, you have to open probes through the face masonry to expose what's in the cavity.
00;05;55;25 - 00;05;59;20
DP
Wow. So, the incident at Columbia was that in the early eighties?
00;05;59;21 - 00;06;09;27
CW
That was in the early to mid-eighties. So first it was Local ten and then it was local Law 11. And now it's called the Façade Inspection Safety Program.
00;06;10;05 - 00;06;14;05
DP
So, it sounds like a good thing. They're now inspecting buildings for this very issue.
00;06;14;12 - 00;06;25;23
CW
Right. And now they broke up the buildings. There are three sub cycles, so not every report for every building in the city is due on the same day. So now it's broken up. So that makes it a little easier.
00;06;25;26 - 00;06;32;12
DP
So, tell us a little bit about yourself. So how long have you been a practicing architect and what's your role in the office as principal?
00;06;32;19 - 00;06;53;26
CW
I got my license in 2003, But, you know, obviously I was working for the nine years before that. Currently, as principal, I do a lot of things. I wear a lot of hats. I yell at contractors, I hold clients’ hands and bring in work and put out fires where I need to.
00;06;53;28 - 00;06;55;02
DP
Do you like your job?
00;06;55;04 - 00;07;08;05
CW
I do. It is challenging. It's a lot. You have to really want to buy into it and invest. My partners, I've been with them almost 30 years. They're family and it's a good place to be. They're good partners.
00;07;08;12 - 00;07;11;15
DP
That sounds like a really interesting niche market.
00;07;11;17 - 00;07;33;01
CW
It is. And it's funny because, you know, there are a few firms in the city that do this, and we all know each other, and then we all get offshoots from employees have left and hung their own shingle and proceeded to sell focus and exterior restoration work. I would say it's about 70% of our work is exterior restoration.
00;07;33;06 - 00;07;38;04
DP
Gotcha. Let's talk about 650 Park Avenue. So how did you guys get the project?
00;07;38;06 -00;08;21;11
CW
So, I think, like everything in my history at CTA, it was word of mouth. It's kind of a tangled web. So, we use a consulting engineer who was working on a project out and Garden City, Long Island, and they needed an architect. So, he referred me to the owner, and the owner liked us and then brought us on to some of the more buildings that he owns in Brooklyn.
And then they were going around and around with their facade issues at the building that he lives in. And so, then he brought me in over there. So, it was all this chain. I always say, you never know who you're talking to when you're going to run into them again, who they are, who they end up being. To you and professionally. So that's how we got brought into the building.
00;08;21;18 - 00;08;29;07
DP
That's really interesting. So, could you give us a little history of the location? So, what was there prior to 1963, if you know?
00;08;29;13 - 00;08;43;23
CW
I do not know what was there prior to 1963, but it is a typical white glazed brick building of that era with the wedding cake setbacks. Also, during that construction period, the kind of problems that you find typically in that construction.
00;08;43;26 - 00;08;50;06
DP
So, the scope of the project then was only exterior work. Do you guys too any renovation work on the interior?
00;08;50;13 - 00;09;05;21
CW
It's only exterior work right now. We've just mobilized to start the brick restoration and we are going to visit with landmarks, redoing the ground floor, the base of the building as well.
00;09;05;23 - 00;09;07;20
DP
So, the project is currently underway.
00;09;07;26 - 00;09;08;24
CW
It's just started.
00;09;08;24 - 00;09;09;06
DP
Just getting rolling.
00;09;09;06 - 00;09;11;04
CW
Just getting rolling. It's exciting.
00;09;11;11 - 00;09;18;05
DP
So stylistically, the setbacks on those building that's due to the new laws in New York City at the time.
00;09;18;09 - 00;09;21;25
CW
Yes, those were due to zoning.
00;09;21;28 - 00;09;35;22
DP
Project restrictions - so when you guys are working on an exterior facade, what are the rules of the road? How do you guys end up doing a project like that? I would imagine that the exterior is all scaffolding at some point. What does the city make the contractor do?
00;09;35;24 - 00;11;06;28
CW
Okay, so first we started this project with, I would say, upwards of a hundred probes through the face masonry to really define what the issues were, because there was some debate over the extent of the repairs that were necessary. So, I spent a lot of time on the scaffold in the summer of 2022 looking at all the probes and really identifying the same repetitive problem over and over again.
We're just getting mobilized with hanging the rigs and part of all that entails is we had to file drawings at the Department of Buildings to get our permits and landmarks. Landmarks has to approve first, and we had great assistance getting a perfect match to the original white glazed brick that they have there. You would be surprised at how many iterations of white glazed brick there can be, but you want to make sure when you're doing this much brickwork that your speckle is right and it doesn't stand out in the end.
And Landmarks approves the work very easily. We didn't have any issues. I submitted to them the chip that we had custom made for the building. So that was great. To mobilize, the contractor has to pull scaffold permits, so he has to file with the city to install hanging scaffolds. There was already a sidewalk shed in front of the building to protect the pedestrians on the street. It's a corner building, so a lot of sidewalk shed that's been there for a while.
00;11;07;06 - 00;11;11;19
DP
So, let's back up. How did they know they had a problem? There were bricks falling off the building.
00;11;11;26 - 00;11;24;06
CW
It originally came up in a small exterior restoration project before our time that someone identified that they had a problem, and then it just kept developing from there.
00;11;24;10 - 00;11;29;05
DP
And how many sides were that exposed? Two or three. I understand it's a corner. Does it have a back side?
00;11;29;10 - 00;11;35;18
CW
Actually, it's L-shaped in the back. It has a number of large façades. It has the two large corner facades.
00;11;35;20 - 00;11;39;26
DP
So, the building's L-shaped and plan to then open up to a courtyard and-
00;11;39;26 - 00;11;40;05
CW
It does.
00;11;40;06 - 00;11;44;26
DP
Okay. How long does the project then take? Start to finish on a building this size?
00;11;44;28 - 00;12;12;26
CW
So, we're looking at completion in February of 2025. So, it's going to be about a year and a half on the ground. We have to install all of the pins. We have to pin the face masonry back to the backup block, which is a retrofit wall tie and first they pin and then we're going to strip all the shelf angles above and below the shelf angle and address the flashing and repaint the shelf angles.
00;12;12;26 - 00;12;22;12
CW
And sometimes we'll have to replace some of the angles and rebuild the masonry. And we have some parapet work to do, parapets that are not in good shape.
00;12;22;14 - 00;12;35;16
DP
So just so I understand that. So, they put up the scaffolding. Then you end up spending a bunch of time out there. I would imagine your partners are also out there. What I'm getting at is who identifies the structural issue? Who's the expert? Is it the architect?
00;12;35;24 - 00;12;36;27
CW
Oh yes, I did that. Yep.
00;12;37;03 - 00;12;45;06
DP
Interesting. You then document those issues in drawing form, like two dimensional drawings or 3D drawings and present them to somebody.
00;12;45;11 - 00;13;13;02
CW
Yes. Two dimensional drawings and photographs. I think the photos really speak a thousand words on this one. I presented it to the board. It's a condominium, so they have a board of directors and we met with them. I went over what I saw and the resident manager there was also very helpful, and he understands the situation and saw some of the probes that were open, that were closer to the ground and could confirm what we were telling them.
00;13;13;05 - 00;13;25;13
DP
So, you put together a set of drawings and is that priced like a typical architectural set of drawings by a GC? Is it then bid out and the lowest bidder is chosen? What's that process look like?
00;13;25;19 - 00;14;52;03
CW
So, we put together a set of drawings and construction details because we had opened so many probes, there were no questions. A lot of times when you work on a building and there are no existing drawings, which is probably 90% of the time for us, you're making assumptions about how things were built in the period of the building, right?
So inevitably you open it up and there's a surprise, sometimes a minor surprise, sometimes not so minor surprise. But this one, because we had had so many probes opened, we were able to really pin down what was behind the wall. So, we put together elevations, construction details and written specifications. We put them out to bid like the architects having a niche market in exterior restoration in New York City, there are also contractors who are a niche market for exterior restoration in New York City.
So, we bid to five or six or seven of those guys, the majority of whom I've known for many, many years. You know, we all work on the same stuff, and they select the bidder. Because it's private, it doesn't have to go to the lowest bidder. You know, we usually have an interview process so that the board can meet the contractor and get their feel for if they're a good match, that they're going to be a good match with building staff. So we go through the bidding process and then the contract is awarded and they do all that legal stuff on the side that I don't have to worry about.
00;14;52;08 - 00;14;58;04
DP
So, you guys do two dimensional drawings, details, any 3-D stuff? Not really necessary.
00;14;58;04 - 00;15;00;03
CW
Not really necessary for this type.
00;15;00;03 - 00;15;03;21
DP
And how many people end up working on one of your projects like this one?
00;15;03;24 - 00;15;11;00
CW
So, on this project, it was myself, our project manager, Freddy, and his staff member Arefa.
00;15;11;06 - 00;15;24;25
DP
So, let's get into the details. How does this work? Like, how do you do what you're doing? Are you just replacing bricks in specific areas? Are you replacing entire facades? And what does that detail look like?
00;15;24;28 - 00;15;33;29
CW
So, in the scope that we settled on, we are replacing the bricks along every shelf, angled the building, and this building has shelf angles that every floor.
00;15;34;02 - 00;15;36;11
DP
Explained to us what that is, a shelf angle.
00;15;36;13 - 00;16;11;02
CW
This is a concrete framed building. So, it has a concrete structure, and a shelf angle is a continuous steel lintel basically that holds up the masonry at every floor and it's bolted back to the concrete slab at regular intervals. There are shims and bolts, and it holds the slab in there. It holds the brick at every floor, provides the gravity support, and the wall ties provide lateral support. So, the shelf angles that this building were in very good condition. There are a few issues here and there, but nothing terrible.
00;16;11;02 - 00;16;11;20
DP
They’re all steel?
00;16;11;25 - 00;16;18;08
CW
They are steel like three by three, 4x4 angles. Some of them were shallow. So, we're making them a little deeper.
00;16;18;14 - 00;16;20;04
DP
Were they galvanized or painted?
00;16;20;09 - 00;16;46;03
CW
The original ones were not. They were painted. But when we go back, we go back with galvanized and stainless-steel bolts, and then we replace the shims and the bolts, obviously. And where we find a length of deteriorated shelf angle, we will replace that. We have an allowance for that in the contract to deal with that because there were some areas higher up on the building where they get, you know, more weather exposure that we're in worse condition.
00;16;46;05 - 00;16;49;10
DP
Tell us a little bit about the brick. How did you get the matches?
00;16;49;17 - 00;18;25;21
CW
Fortunately, this building hasn't had any huge projects on it, so it was fairly easy to identify which white glazed brick was the original brick, which was good because there were maybe three different bricks on it, different color, white base. You know, one was a little pink, one was a little white, or some had a brown speckle, some had a fine speckle, some had a varied speckle.
So, because there are so many setbacks, we were able to go to somebody's terrace where there hadn't been any work high up on the building because at the base at stone. So, I'm not comparing it at the base of the building. We also walked along the sidewalk shed because that gets you up higher. And we selected - we were like, okay, this is the original brick.
And then I reached out to King's. They are brick distributors in New York City, and the folks there were super helpful and made me all sorts of custom samples and they have little brick chips and brought the brick chips up to site and went through everything with the resident manager and decided on our brick. And then you mentioned in your intro the finished underside of the brick at all of the window lintels.
So, when you have a shelf angle you don't see in the field of the masonry, you don't see the underside, the clay body of the brick. But over the lentils you can see like the little yellow clay body of the brick. And I really got into the fact that it was finished on the underside. I think it's just a little bit like a perfect little thing that I really liked. So, we asked for that as well.
00;18;25;23 - 00;18;29;11
DP
Is that like a space that's about a half hedge, three quarters of an inch wide?
00;18;29;14 - 00;18;43;10
CW
Yeah, it's about a half an inch. If you have the right amount of bearing. And so, they put the glaze on the underside. So, the Masons have to be aware, obviously, when they're rebuilding to look for that. I'm sure I'll catch some in the beginning before they get used to it.
00;18;43;18 - 00;18;45;13
DP
Is it going to be hard to find a good mason?
00;18;45;19 - 00;18;51;10
CW
We have the contractor on board, and he has good masons on hand, so I'm not very worried about that.
00;18;51;16 - 00;19;01;08
DP
So, did you guys learn anything interesting through the construction process, through the inquiry process, anything unusual, Anything you'd never seen before?
00;19;01;14 - 00;20;11;10
CW
Not anything I've never seen before, thank goodness. Because those are never good surprises. I was happy, given the lack of wall ties, that I was happy to find that the backup masonry was still in good condition. We didn't have to worry about the backup masonry because that can also be an issue. We decided to pin the columns, which I was surprised actually worked because I had never pinned columns before because you're pinning into the concrete.
So, when you do the retrofit wall tie, you can call the manufacturers rep and he'll come out and do a test. He'll drill in the wall tie, and then he has like a crank to see what the force is, to see if the tie actually holds. And I had originally planned to strip all of the column locations in the building and rebuild that as well.
But on another project of mine, we had had pull tests done for retrofit pins on that building and they went into the columns, and I was like, wait, what? I didn't think that could happen. So, we called them out. We had had him do the tests in the field, in the masonry before, but we had him come back and do the pull tests and the columns and the pins drilled right in. So, it was great news.
00;20;11;17 - 00;20;15;13
DP
So, these are columns on the exterior facade behind the brick masonry.
00;20;15;16 - 00;20;31;04
CW
Right there, directly behind one wythe of brick behind the masonry. So, the backup concrete block goes right to the column. And then if you were to take all the face masonry off the building, you would see a grid of the columns with the backup block in between.
00;20;31;06 - 00;20;38;00
DP
And all the residents there. Do they get to live through the construction process?
00;20;38;02 - 00;21;04;06
CW
They do...Yeah. It's never pretty. It's just not. I feel bad, but there is going to be a lot of saw cutting, which is dusty. There is going to be a lot of drilling, which is loud. So, I hope that people at 650 Park, if you're listening, maybe you go back to working in the office for a while. What we do is loud and not anything that anyone wants to have to hear all day long if they're home.
00;21;04;08 - 00;21;08;02
DP
Back to the building for a second. I'm really surprised there were no drawings.
00;21;08;03 - 00;21;13;06
CW
We did have some the building super. The resident manager had some drawings.
00;21;13;08 - 00;21;21;10
DP
Yeah. What's always amazing. I mean, to go back further than that, people-built buildings from so little information, right? I mean, it's crazy.
00;21;21;14 - 00;22;05;26
CW
Yeah. So, we didn't really find any wall details. We had elevation drawings and then there's always elevation drawings, probably some plans and lots of plumbing drawings and mechanical drawings, which I don't need and are never accurate because they never built it that way anyway. And it was sixty years ago. So, lots of things have changed. So, we did go through the resident manager's giant bin of drawings in the beginning and got what we could use and it was helpful.
I mean, it helped us locate all of the columns along the facade, right? We wouldn't have had that if we didn't have the original drawings. It would have been more of a guess. But like in this project I said was knock wood a lot of guesswork so far.
00;22;05;29 - 00;22;16;02
DP
Yeah. And you talked a little bit about existing conditions and drawings. Is that something that you still do, do some existing condition sketches when you're out there and then somebody'll draw it up for you or.
00;22;16;09 - 00;22;56;00
CW
Oh absolutely. That's part of the process. You know, I went to site one day with my notebook and my pen and the contractor said, well, the girl who came last time had an iPad. And I said, I don't have an iPad. I have a notebook and a pen. They tried to give me an iPad, but I'm just more comfortable sketching it.
I feel like there is a connection between pencil and paper that makes you understand what you're looking at and what you're drawing. I don't know. When you go to architecture school, you don't really know anything when you start. And I started to understand through drawing, and I went to school in the era where there was no computer drafting.
00;22;56;00 - 00;22;56;16
DP
Yeah, I experienced the same thing.
00;22;56;21 - 00;23;13;25
CW
Yeah, I feel like there's a real connection and I think, you know, a lot of times there's an assumption that the computer program is the be all, end all. Not that just a tool and people don't really sometimes don't understand what it is that they're drawing because the computer's creating the detail.
00;23;13;28 - 00;23;15;14
DP
They miss it in the learning process.
00;23;15;19 - 00;23;35;24
CW
Yeah. And because we do what we do, that's not something that they teach. They don't teach that at school. I actually didn't have to take construction documents in school because I got credit for my job because I was doing actual construction documents. I worked full time. I went to school part time. So, it took me a very, very long time to graduate.
00;23;35;26 - 00;23;37;09
DP
Wow, that's impressive.
00;23;37;11 - 00;23;37;22
CW
Yeah.
00;23;37;29 - 00;23;42;20
DP
Christa, was sustainability an issue for you guys when you took on the project?
00;23;42;27 - 00;24;46;20
CW
Unfortunately, with this project, given the parameters of the scope, we could not really accomplish the integration of additional insulation in the cavity or something to that effect, moving forward, but in our office, we really focus on the concept of maintaining existing buildings and doing rehabilitations as sustainable practice. We have a sustainability coordinator that we brought on about two years ago.
She's fantastic. She keeps us honest. She's always regulating things, making sure we're composting, taking things out of the garbage can and putting them in the compost. We did a full led switch over on our lighting in the office pushed by her. She's changed our specs, you know, she'll give me and my partner Dan markups on the specifications with suggestions and we integrate that into our specifications. We do have a sustainable component in every job and some jobs, we can take it to a whole other level.
00;24;46;27 - 00;25;03;03
DP
Yeah, it would seem to me that have to go to the interior, right, and rip out all of the plasterwork and drywall and then reinsulate. So, I'm curious, a building like that, it gets a new facade, but it's not going to really change the R-value of the walls and it's still probably going to be a cold building.
00;25;03;06 - 00;25;28;21
CW
Right, there is that. And then a lot of times people say, well, I can put in these super-duper windows. And I'm like, Yeah, but your walls are not insulated at all. And you have a PTAC unit, which is basically a hole in the wall. So, you have to look at the balance of how to accomplish what it is you need to accomplish. But we look at the materials and the VOCs, and the location where things are made as well plays into sustainability.
00;25;28;21 - 00;25;29;29
DP
Yeah, it is what it is.
00;25;30;00 -00;26;06;06
CW
Yeah. I was on the Energy Code review Committee, as you mentioned, the advisory committee, but one of the reasons I signed up for that is because it does not answer existing buildings to the extent that I think it should, given that it's the New York City Energy Code and there's still some gaps in there. But, you know, we're conserving these buildings, we’re restoring them, we're not tearing down and building new ones.
And so that's good for the environment. But then how can we make a realistic energy code that you can apply to all of these existing conditions that we can't just change?
00;26;06;09 - 00;26;09;13
DP
I think it's wonderful. It's something most people don't think about.
00;26;09;20 - 00;26;38;04
CW
They don't know. And I lectured for Urban Green on the Energy Code. I gave a scintillating seven-hour long lecture. I ran out of words, though, during COVID, I couldn't do it on a screen. So, I tell my kids I ran out of words because there are a lot of words, but I think even sometimes the people that I was lecturing to depending on, you know, like you said, a normal architecture firm isn't thinking about this stuff because they're not dealing with existing building. They're dealing with a plot of land.
00;26;38;06 - 00;26;59;27
DP
So, Christa, you've been an architect for some time. Based on what you know today about being an architect, do you have any words of advice for either your younger self or young architects coming up? Because what you do is a little different - the 70% of the work that you guys do - is really very different from what many architects end up doing when they get out of school.
00;27;00;05 - 00;27;33;04
CW
One word of advice is not to be too married to the thought of what you think you want to do and to try different things, and you might really find something that surprises you, that you do. I've found along the way I've done some projects I would never imagine when I was in school that I would do something like that, and I really enjoyed it.
When you go to school, you have a vision, I'm going to do this. I want to do this. And if you just open yourself up to different projects and you might find something that really makes an impression on you.
00;27;33;11 - 00;27;35;23
DP
Yeah. What clearly worked for you?
00;27;35;25 - 00;28;13;05
CW
Yeah. And to my younger self, I don't know that I have advised my younger self because I don't know how much I've changed, but I always felt like if you're doing what you enjoy and you're with people that you enjoy doing it with, then little things that might be irksome to contemporary youth don't really register. They're not important in the long run, and you have to see the big picture.
I mean, did I think when I was hired, did I think when I was 23, someday I’ll own the company? No, I didn't think that, but it happened. So you never know. Hard work and a lot of luck is what gets you where you want to be.
00;28;13;10 - 00;28;19;29
DP
Christa, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about CTA architects and yourself?
00;28;20;02 - 00;28;44;21
CW
We have a website. It's www.ctaarchitects, all one-word dotcom where we showcase all of our finest work. Sometimes people look at our website and get a little, oh that's very fancy, but I always say it's your portfolio, it's your best, but there's everything in there. There's all this stuff that we do that doesn't make it to the portfolio level that's necessary.
00;28;44;24 - 00;28;46;15
DP
Well, thank you very much. Been great to have you.
00;28;46;19 - 00;28;51;09
CW
Thank you for having me. It was nice talking.
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Design Vault Ep. 9 PA State Archives with Paul Neuhaus
ABOUT THE ARCHITECT:
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Paul Neuhaus, AIA, LEED AP is a senior designer for HGA in their Minneapolis office, and has been practicing for 30 years. Working in their Arts, Community and Education (ACE) practice group, Paul's project work includes studio arts and performing arts facilities, science labs, student centers, and life science classrooms for higher education; as well as libraries, a church, and very recently, a paper archive for the State of Pennsylvania.
Paul strives to engender a sense of community and belonging for those who visit and work in the buildings his team designs. Paul's process centers on discovering how the project site, culture, and program can shape space and take form, to reflect his client's aspirations and give dignity, purpose, and pleasure to people's lives. |
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PA State Archives
HGA
View Project00;00;00;00 - 00;00;05;12
Doug Patt (DP)
Let's go inside the vault. The design vault.
00;00;05;14 - 00;00;34;08
Paul Neuhaus (PN)
They wanted a full archive with plenty of space for growth into the future. The storage has different requirements depending on the kinds of documents. So, we needed to create spaces that allow them to continue to collect. And a lot of the people who come in to do research, which is another big part of what they do, they collect and preserve. But they also provide these documents to the public for access, for research, or just for curiosity and to learn.
00;00;34;11 - 00;02;55;10
DP
This is my guest, Paul Neuhaus. I'll share more about him shortly. In this episode from the Design Vault, we’ll highlight Paul's project, the PA State Archives. The new Pennsylvania State Archives Facility collects and preserves valuable paper documents while making them available to the public for viewing and research. The building is a state-of-the-art archival facility with an enhanced building envelope and HVAC system for the optimal environment to preserve historical paper documents.
The street facade features a linear, steel framed louver structure which surrounds a two-story high glass enclosed pavilion. The pavilion is connected to the main building, which accommodates the two public research rooms and staff spaces. While much of the building requires a windowless approach. A wide assortment of colored Norman size bricks were used to give the facade a varied and playful appearance.
The building used 350,000 brick equivalents in a blend of five different glazed brick colors. The building is three city blocks in size on three acres of land. The total storage area on three floors is 50,000 square feet and includes oversized, cool, cold, secure, and digital archives.
Hi, I'm Doug Pat and this is Design Vault.
Today we're talking to Paul Neuhaus, AIA, LEED AP. Paul has a bachelor's degree in art from California Lutheran University and a master's degree in architecture from UCLA Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Paul is a Senior designer for HGA. Paul is in their Minneapolis office and has been practicing for 30 years, working in their arts community and education practice group. Paul's project work includes studio arts and performing arts facilities, science labs, student centers and life science classrooms for higher ed, as well as libraries, a church and very recently, the building we will be talking about today, a paper archive for the State of Pennsylvania.
Paul strives to engender a sense of community and belonging for those who visit and work in the buildings his teams design. So welcome, Paul.
00;02;55;14 - 00;02;56;28
PN
Thank you. It's great to be here.
00;02;57;01 - 00;03;08;11
DP
It's great to have you with us today. So, before we get started, tell us a little bit about HGA architects. We know you're in the Minneapolis area. What's the size of the firm, the type of work you guys do?
00;03;08;14 - 00;03;26;05
PN
HGA is a national interdisciplinary design firm committed to making a positive, lasting impact for our clients and communities through research based holistic solutions. We’re a collective of over a thousand professionals in 12 offices nationwide.
00;03;26;08 - 00;03;30;21
DP
Wow. That's incredible. So how long has HGA been around?
00;03;30;23 - 00;03;51;26
PN
Oh, boy. We go back to the fifties. The office here in Minneapolis was the first office and Hamel Green and Abramson, the founders, started the firm. They were a well-known firm in the state for many years and grew over the years and became a dominant force here in the state. And today, they're the largest firm in the state.
00;03;51;29 - 00;03;54;09
DP
Do you have any other locations outside the state?
00;03;54;11 - 00;04;03;13
PN
Yeah, we have 11 other offices, so East Coast and West Coast mostly. We also have two offices in Wisconsin.
00;04;03;20 - 00;04;12;17
DP
That's a really big architecture firm. Tell me a little bit about the role that you play at HGA. How did you end up there and what are you doing now?
00;04;12;20 - 00;05;08;10
PN
I've been in the city practicing since 1992. As a matter of fact, I wanted to work for HGA when I first moved to the city from Los Angeles. Interviewed here a couple of times, and it just worked out that I got an offer from another firm in town and work for them. That was back in 92. And then I didn't end up working for HGA until 2014.
I was really attracted to the firm because of the high quality of the design they do. Even though they're a large firm, they really practice like a small boutique firm. There's a lot of collaboration and independent thinking here. They allow architects to really pursue individually on each project what they think the vision of that project should be. So, when you look at HGA’s work, you don't see a pattern of design that looks a certain way. Buildings and projects can go in a lot of different directions, and there really isn't a style for our firm, which is really the way it should be.
00;05;08;16 - 00;05;26;03
DP
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty unique. Most offices, you look at their work and you can spot the thread that works its way through all of the architecture, and I'm sure that's the same way with your office. And yet many offices, stylistically they're just churning out the same thing, one building after another. So that's interesting.
00;05;26;05 - 00;05;44;00
PN
There definitely is a commitment to modernism and contemporary architecture. We do that well, but we also do historical preservation. And so, we have people who are working on buildings that are hundreds of years old - that occurs too - where we have to tie into historical buildings quite often with the new additions.
00;05;44;02 - 00;05;45;23
DP
So, what is your role in the office?
00;05;45;29 - 00;06;26;00
PN
I'm a senior designer. I lead projects, teams that can be anywhere from just me to four or five architects, depending on the size of the project. And then we have interior design. HGA really is a full-service firm. We have architecture, interior design, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, security, and AV. So, we can do it all, but we often will team up with other architecture firms around the country because we have an expertise that we can bring, which is in this case, museums and archives. So, we'll team up with locals and go after projects together, and that's what we did here in Pennsylvania.
00;06;26;02 - 00;06;30;14
DP
So, are you guys the architects of record or the design architects, or do you switch roles?
00;06;30;20 - 00;06;48;10
PN
Vitetta Architects is the executive architect, and we were the design architect. So, we had the upfront part of the project. We team together. We were always together working together, but we emphasized the front end of the project, and they were construction drawings and CA.
00;06;48;13 - 00;06;53;28
DP
All right, so let's jump into the building here. So, could you tell us a little bit about how your office got the project?
00;06;54;01 - 00;07;52;29
PN
You know, I wasn't there when we went after the project, but it's a typical story, I'm sure, which is there is a proposal out from an owner. They want a building, so they publish a proposal that anybody can submit to. And we looked for someone to team up with locally or they approached us, perhaps the local architect, Vitetta, and we've teamed up as a team and submitted a proposal. And then we were shortlisted, interviewed for it, and we were selected as the team to do it. We had experience doing museums and archives very recently before that, so that made a big impact on our selection.
I think it goes back to 2014 when we were selected for the project there initially was a different site. They went all the way through schematic on a site that was a green site on the edge of town. After schematic, they decided, no, we want to have a site that's closer to our capital complex in town. So, they found a different site and started design over, and that's when I joined the team.
00;07;53;01 - 00;07;59;04
DP
Wow. There's an original archive building, right? And that is done, I think in the brutalist style.
00;07;59;07 - 00;08;40;27
PN
Yeah, you could say that. It doesn't have many windows, so I could see how that would feel Brutalist. It's limestone, however, it's got a concrete structure, but the structure isn't expressed on the outside like you would typically see for brutalist architecture. It's at the Capitol grounds. It's 21 stories tall. And the problem with it is it's a low floor to floor, by today's standards. They considered upgrading it and expanding it, but they determined that the low floor to floor wouldn't allow them to create the updates they need for mechanical systems. Plus, there just wasn't enough space around it to move laterally. So, they decided the thing to do was to find a new site.
00;08;40;29 - 00;08;53;07
DP
So, I'm curious, when they came to you and this was their original building, did they talk at all about style? Clearly the floor heights were an issue. Did they say, “Hey, we don't want to do this again. We want something that's a little more contemporary”?
00;08;53;12 - 00;09;38;12
PN
Good question. Yes, they wanted a contemporary building. They wanted something that reflected today and the way we think about architecture today, which is great. The building that was built originally was a modern building, too. It was of its time. The History Museum is right next to it that will continue to be used. It was great that they wanted to look forward and be progressive about style, and I don't know if we ever talked style per se.
We just had already gone through schematic design. Like I said on this other site with another team. So, I think there was some sort of way of working that had already been established so that when I started on the new site as the lead designer, they had already had some confidence in us and were on board with the way we work.
00;09;38;15 - 00;09;43;13
DP
So, tell us a little bit about the programmatic requirements they came to you guys with.
00;09;43;15 - 00;11;52;13
PN
They wanted a full archive with plenty of space for growth into the future. So, of 146,000 square feet of this building, about 50,000 square feet is the archive storage spaces. The storage has different requirements depending on the kinds of documents it might be worth saying that the Pennsylvania State Archives collects, preserves, and makes available for study the permanently valuable public records of the Commonwealth, with particular attention given to the records of state government.
And as the Archives director, David Carmichael, once said, “they collect everything from parchment to pixels.” As a matter of fact, William Penn, who founded the Commonwealth in 1681, used a charter that gave him the right to establish the Commonwealth. And that charter is at the archives in Pennsylvania and as well as hundreds of millions of other documents that are important to the Commonwealth.
So, we needed to create spaces that allow them to continue to collect. So, it's important the whole process of how documents arrive at the site are brought in, brought into processing rooms, and then eventually put into storage. Quite often they're also photographed so that they can have a digital record of the document and a lot of the people who come in to do research, which is another big part of what they do, they collect and preserve, but they also provide these documents to the public for access, for research or just for curiosity and to learn.
So, there is this whole system of how documents are moving in and how they're being brought to the public to use and then put back into storage. The documents can be anything from large documents in flat files like maps. They can be eight and a half by eleven size. Some of the rooms need to be cool or even cold. So, there are different climates, let's say, in some of these rooms based on the type of media it is. For instance, film that they'll collect needs to be in a very cool environment. So, they have different climates in each space.
00;11;52;16 - 00;12;05;03
DP
Well, that's really interesting. So, let's go back a little bit. Tell us a little bit about the site. Are there any unique topographic features? Is it completely flat? Was it a pretty simple thing to put a building on it?
00;12;05;05 - 00;13;08;18
PN
Yeah, it's a three-acre site and there are two main streets on the west and east side. Sixth Street on the west is about one story above Seventh Street, which is on the East. And Seventh Street is a main feeder artery that comes into town, while sixth is more of a residential neighborhood or semi commercial residential. So, we put the public entry on Sixth Street, which is up a level which means of the four level building, there's a lower level that's a walk out, let's say on the east side.
And then the public enters on what we call first floor, which is one level up from the lower level. The site is also L-shaped, which sounds like it could be a problem, but it really isn't because it's a large enough site that it provides for the building and public space. So, we were able to create a nice plaza out front and lots of landscaping in front of the building to provide a public amenity, let's say, to the people who live in the community and anyone who's visiting.
00;13;08;21 - 00;13;11;23
DP
Did you guys have any challenging restrictions, in terms of zoning?
00;13;11;26 - 00;14;22;26
PN
There were challenges with infrastructure. We had some issues needing to connect the archive with the state capital complex with fiber optics. So, there was a fiber optic line that had to come underground all the way to our site and that was done on a different contract. But we also had a lot of flexibility. For instance, there were streetlights and so on around the site and in some cases, especially on the front where we met the public, we were able to move the streetlights across the street from us because we just didn't think it would be nice having all the lights and lines right out in front of the building.
So, there was some infrastructural work that was done more on a urban scale level to help accommodate this building. Also add that at the same time that we were doing this building, there was a federal courthouse being put in, which is just about completed now too, at the same time. So, these two large buildings that are within a couple of blocks from each other going in at the same time was interesting.
And we actually worked – we had one meeting with the local architect, the design architects of that building, so that we could coordinate a little bit on what some of the public lighting would look like.
00;14;22;28 - 00;14;44;05
DP
The building stylistically, you've got this large glass atrium space and you've got this metal framed armature that wraps that. And then I'm assuming going off in the other direction, you've got a very large block that is made out of masonry. Is that correct?
00;14;44;07 - 00;16;25;19
PN
That's right. We took that stated purpose, the mission statement of the archive, which is the archive collects, preserves, and makes available for study. We took those three ideas, and we turned them into form and gave each form its own material. So, for instance, “collects” is the storage of the archives. That became a form that you just described as masonry.
They preserve, and mechanical systems are an important part of preservation. We have the unique situation of all of the mechanical systems needing to be off to the side of the archive that couldn't be on top of the archive because we couldn't risk any sort of liquids leaking out of mechanical systems into the archives. So, all of the mechanical systems are in their own bay off to the side. That's the preservation part. And we use metal panels to describe that bay.
And then finally, “making available to the public,” there was a public element of it, and in this case, we made it a glass pavilion and we used an aluminum extruded solar shade custom made to protect people from direct sunlight but provide lots of daylight. So, it's very open, very visible. You drive by it on Sixth Street and great views in and out to the street and from the road in. But it's got its own expression from the other elements. And so those three elements look very different from each other. They each really have a different personality, but they're all neutral in color. They're grays from white to medium gray, nothing - it's a very tight range of neutral tones.
00;16;25;23 - 00;16;35;09
DP
Yeah, for a storage facility, it's pretty welcoming. The elevation with the glass and this metal armature is really quite lovely.
00;16;35;15 - 00;16;36;07
PN
Thank you.
00;16;36;10 - 00;16;51;15
DP
So, I saw some really interesting studies in your emails back and forth with Glen-Gery in regard to the colors that you ultimately chose for the facades. There's really a lot there. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
00;16;51;17 - 00;20;13;16
PN
That's a great part of the story. We knew that the archive wing would be enveloped by a long expanse of wall. Archives don't want to have windows, so there were not going to be many windows and this building was going to be up to four stories tall. So, we wanted to make sure that what we put on the building would be something that would be out of the ordinary. And we didn't have the budget for limestone. The Capitol complex is limestone. The original building was that way, but we wanted something durable and where we could allude in some way to what was going on at the Capitol. We thought brick is durable. It's a good candidate for an archive because of that, and we wanted to make some connection to the limestone.
We began looking for a light-colored brick, very neutral, something that could echo that limestone. But clay doesn't come in neutrals like we wanted it. You know, Clay typically is in the Browns, yellow reds. You can get it to be black or very close to black. But everything we found seemed to be a little bit too warm. The closest we could get was a very light-yellow brick, and even then, it just felt a little too warm. So, we started considering clay slip coatings that are available on the market for bricks that could be applied to the brick to get a lighter and more neutral look. And that's when we came across Glen-Gery. We found some buildings on the Internet that traced us back to Glen-Gery. I don't remember how, but we were able to find them. And then Glen-Gery could make custom colors in the matte, but they also could make glossy glazed finishes. So that's when we started to consider that. And from there we began a conversation with them about brick colors and finishes.
Eventually I took a trip to their plant up in northern Pennsylvania. One time I landed in Pittsburgh, rented a car, drove up to their plant, and then from there I went to a client meeting in Harrisburg. It was really a fun visit just to see that plant work and meet with the artist. They had like an artist lab or chem lab where they can mix custom colors. And we had really good conversations and that really convinced me that this had a lot of potential. It wasn't a shoe in, it wasn't sure yet that we could go this route, but I just felt like there was a path to get there.
And eventually we went the route of glazed brick over the matte finish. We found the shine and reflectance of the wall surface potentially very appealing, especially on a large building with so few windows. Second, there was a side benefit with the glazed brick, and we believe that it would help resist graffiti and make it easier to clean because we were in an area where graffiti could be an issue. So that was another selling point for going that direction. It certainly worked in terms of getting the state to back that idea of going with a glazed brick, because I think it just seemed very unusual that a building would be entirely covered with glazed brick, and it helped that we were using very subdued colors like grays. We have five colors. It's a range of grays. And when you stand back, they kind of blend together. It creates what I like to call a heathered look. You know, if this were a knit sweater, it would be using heathered gray yarn and it kind of all blends together.
00;20;13;16 - 00;20;22;16
DP
Well, when the bricks glaze, does it reflect images or light or is there anything special about the facade when you stand back and look at it, other than the color?
00;20;22;23 - 00;20;51;12
PN
In a surprising way, that was very pleasant, once it got put up – especially on that north side where it's a long wall of brick – we were really surprised and pleased to see that on a cloudy day as the clouds are going over, it reflects the sky and the clouds, enough really to - it's not like a mirror, but it gives you a nice feeling that this building is somehow relating to the sky. So we really like that part of it.
00;20;51;14 - 00;21;01;19
DP
It all sounds really cool. Before we wrap this part of the conversation up, tell me about the mockups you guys did for the colors of the brick. They're really cool. It was a great idea.
00;21;01;22 - 00;22;22;18
PN
Yeah. Thanks. We started just by getting Sherwin-Williams paint chips. They make eight by ten paint samples. We pulled out a whole bunch of neutral colors with little bits of warm and cool associated with them and had them sent to us. Then we took the ones that we found most appealing, and we created a brick shape with using chipboard, glued them down, and then we started to assemble different quantities and proportions of different colors and just started mixing things until we saw something that looked appealing.
So, we created this mockup model where we could try different proportions. We kept records of how many of this color, how many of that on each set up that we did. And we created a whole series of these that we could first show ourselves and figure out which ones we liked the best. And then we took them to the client and showed them to them and tried to find where the sweet spot was for this blend.
From there we started to work with Glen-Gery to actually come up with samples, glazed brick samples. They weren't full bricks right away. They were just pieces of clay, small, maybe four by three inches, for starters, until we could come up with something closer to the actual colors we'd want to consider.
00;22;22;21 - 00;22;45;28
DP
You know, what's so surprising to me is you take five colors, put them together on a board. You've got 30 or 40 bricks. Each one of these samples, you stand back, and you look at, I'm just blown away that you can do that on a facade, and it never looks busy. You stand back and it becomes like another color. It becomes the color in-between all the colors. How did you even know that was going to happen?
00;22;46;00 - 00;23;31;00
PN
That's a good question. You're digging into the way we had to think about this. You know, some of our mockups had more contrast. Some of them had less contrast. And I think you need to find that point where the contrast is enough to give some variety and not make it look homogenous. But you don't want it to be so contrasty that it starts to look speckled. We didn't want to speckled looking, building, so it was just a matter of setting things up, looking at them close and then walking away and looking at them from, you know, 100 feet away and just see how well they blend together. It's like pixels, right, on your computer. These were really just physical pixels. And the farther you get back, the more they blend.
00;23;31;03 - 00;23;47;29
DP
So, at the end of the day, when you guys were all done with the job, was there anything that you learned that was really interesting about the design or the construction process? Again, as an aside, being the designer architects, it's got to be interesting handing a job over and then coming back to it as it nears completion, right?
00;23;48;01 - 00;24;39;20
PN
Yeah. And fortunately, we had a great working relationship with Vitetta, Daniel Wasik, the architect who led the team at Vitetta, who did a wonderful job. We had a good relationship and all the way through construction drawings, we were actively reviewing the drawings with them and participating in meetings. They were leading that process at that point from there on out but we were still involved. And even during construction administration, I didn't get to go to the site until late in the game. However, we were getting pictures from them monthly, lots of pictures. They were really good about it. They would tell us if there were any issues, we'd work it through together. So, it really worked well. And I have to say, I've never worked with a local architect that well before. It was a wonderful relationship and I’d love to work with them again sometime.
00;24;39;23 - 00;24;43;03
DP
That's really cool. Did the GC have any trouble finding a good mason?
00;24;43;10 - 00;24;45;05
PN
I know that there were issues.
00;24;45;05 - 00;24;47;11
DP
It's always an issue.
00;24;47;14 - 00;25;23;03
PN
Yeah. I mean, when I look at the building, it was well done overall.
You know, we had some complicated pieces to it too. For instance, we had an overhang at the front entry with brick hanging ten feet out, cantilever out over the entryway, and we designed it so that the brick at the bottom was not supported by an angle. We hid the structure and hung those two courses at the bottom from a structure up inside the wall. So, we were able to glaze even the underside of the brick hanging out over that cantilever, which wasn't an easy thing to accomplish.
00;25;23;03 - 00;25;24;17
DP
Yeah, it sounds expensive.
00;25;24;23 - 00;25;44;28
PN
It was, but it's a state building and you want it to be done right, and further, I don't know if you've had this experience on your work, but I've gone back to visit buildings sometimes that are years old, ten years old maybe, and some of those angles that support brick can start to rust. So, we wanted to avoid having that happen on a building this important.
00;25;45;00 - 00;26;04;20
DP
Yeah. And you know, you're going to make a few statements in the architecture and that's one really big one right at the front of the building. Very cool. So, before you go, you've been at this for 30 years or so. If you could give yourself – your younger self some career advice, what would it be?
00;26;04;22 - 00;26;49;17
PN
Oh, boy. Well, I do meet with mentees – we have a mentorship program here at HGA, which is highly valued by the people who are just starting out in their careers. And sometimes what I'll tell them is try to pay attention to everything you do, even the details. And not just focus on the big picture because the more you can know about the way buildings are specifically put together, the more you can understand about the structure and the other disciplines, the better you can be at making those decisions and choices at the beginning of your project. And so, I always encourage architects, especially people who are interested in being designers, to learn every aspect of the project down to the details.
00;26;49;20 - 00;26;56;24
DP
Yeah, if you're not interested in being a lifelong learner, architecture may not be the right profession for you.
00;26;56;26 - 00;26;57;16
PN
That's true.
00;26;57;16 - 00;26;59;28
DP
Right? You're always learning something.
00;27;00;06 - 00;27;01;08
PN
I'm still learning.
00;27;01;12 - 00;27;08;25
DP
Oh, yeah, I am too. Every day. So, Paul, it's been great to have you here. Thanks for your time. Where can people go to learn more about HGA architects?
00;27;08;25 - 00;27;18;15
PN
They would go to hga.com, and we've got our projects there that you can look at, and our teams, our people. It's a fun place to go.
TRANSCRIPT
00;27;18;18 - 00;27;21;25
DP
That's great. It sounds like a really interesting place to work.
00;27;22;00 - 00;27;34;05
PN
It is. I really enjoy it. There's a lot of smart people here and I'm so glad that I get to play the role I play. But I also admire those people who play all the other roles that we have at this firm.
00;27;34;08 - 00;27;34;28
DP
That's great, Paul. Thank you.
00;27;35;01 - 00;27;39;18
PN
Thank you. It was a pleasure.
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