So to deal with your.

This is pandering because I have
just superimposed our logo.

Over.

An Analytical drawing made
by a Georgia Tech grad.

That works for us and.

Knows his German Evan Lavelle actually
did the four year degree then he went to

software and then he left Coke
is also the Georgia Tech grad.

Dragged him into our office and
decided that doing facade engineering and

computational work is pretty cool and
bring him to days in our office here

also from my first studio here and
made the same stick.

Drawing is this this analytical
tool that was used for the.

The museum pavilion in.

Interior by Florian I remember going to so
ill is.

It was recognized that it was so
enabling for

the particular facade if you would
just a screen it's a chain mail screen

doesn't actually do anything
except look good but the tool.

Maybe under the cover of DOMAs
magazine which of course it's

like nice to be on the cover of
Architectural records there but

don't miss this critical
element is more interesting

if you get the cover of darkness like
you actually kind of made it somewhere.

So that was really cool to
see this was going to be a.

Story of all men my desk here.

That likes to turn itself
off of the figure that it.

Is going to meet and
I'm going to have to go forward with these

barrels in the house.

And I know we've made it all right.

So what's really awesome about this also
the Museum of Modern Art actually bought.

The design was part of
their permanent collection.

So Georgia Tech is in
the Museum of Modern Art.

This is our office in New York and

that somewhere over there.

Just a few notes about the practice
I think most of you know is but were.

Fifty staff now across
four different offices in

New York Hong Kong Seattle San Francisco
with.

Imminent plans for London so hopefully
that will happen within the next year.

And the office is multi just Linaria core.

But mostly just one skill set but we
only do one thing we only do building on

we don't do primary building
structures for the most part.

What we do kind of like
fancy long span structures

that was like that that
are really Amazon you know.

But the.

But the skill set in the house whether
it's kind of like architectural

knowledge or fabrication knowledge or you
know industry knowledge or computational

knowledge or project management knowledge
or a cost estimating knowledge of risk

management knowledge or whatever it is
that's a kind of team we built up and

so all those people have a very diverse
skill set we do kind of have a bit of

a hierarchy now and since we have
partners associates and then the team but

I think it's very horizontal in
the way we organize ourselves and

one thing that I've always
been very interested in is.

What I would become and hierarchy in many
ways is like we really want people to try

and understand the profile
of their partners

experience like what actually
do they know how to do and

how can you kind of like
Nest with those people.

So that for a company was founded
in two thousand and two so

were in your I guess I
would be like fourteen now.

We have.

One hundred forty built projects we worked
on about four hundred fifty projects

we have about eighty in design right now
of which about half are under construction

so that kind of gives you the full
profile of what we're doing.

And at this moment the economy in the rest
of world doesn't seem to be very good but

luckily for you that my graduates are in
it seems to be quite good in the States.

And you know we're seeing inquiries
at a kind of pretty healthy clip

right now that might be also because
we've kind of maturity as a company but

it also might be because.

The economy's doing the work is out
there so what I have tonight I'm going

to show ten case studies
I guess their little

slide sequences that generally show from
concept to mock ups to construction some

of them are still in construction some
of them are finished some of them have

more complete stories some of them
have less complete stories and

then at the end I just included like
you know seven or eight little projects

that are recent like recent appointments
or things we've only been working on for

a few months just to kind of give you that
kind of flavor of you know what's what's

next so that's just a few a few slides.

As you may know though
unfortunately the culture

of confidentiality has exploded and I'd
say my God like seventy five percent of

everything we work on has non-disclosure
agreements confidentiality agreements and

so forth so a lot of the very most recent
work you really can't show it in any kind

of detail and even some of the projects
all show you I can credit the architect

but I can't tell you where the job is or
like you know who the developer is or

so forth like I've gotten certain
permissions to show these things but

they're all kind of limited
constrained permissions and

what's kind of like difficult about
that is like you're never always seeing

that kind of like in the moment of what
we're seeing because we see a kind of like

you know we're in the kind of front
driver seat and we see this kind.

Wave of amazing stuff covering some of
it's really still quite conventional but

it's all got a little bit of interest so
what I want to show you first project

is the this is one of my favorite
things is been going on for like.

Six years maybe seven years or so long and

it's a carousel this is my second carousel
we have a carousel division in front

we did the Janes Carousel
which I did a case study for

these guys in the center three hours
talking about a carousel I could talk for

three hours about this one too but
I won't this is in Battery Park the site

is right there this is Clint castle.

And the Battery Park is not part of
Battery Park City it's actually now called

the battery so it's the Battery Park
Conservancy actually runs this they

actually sponsored this thing in
the Carousel is called sea glass and

it was designed by X.Y.
architects who are great friends of ours.

And it's really a labor of love I mean you
can't make money on projects like this

it's really pro bono they put in thousands
and thousands of hours for a tiny fees but

that's not the point so this site
used to be the home of the original

New York Aquarium about one hundred
years ago hundred ten years ago and so

when they sponsored this children's
carousel Everyone hit on the theme of

recreating this kind of like
underwater sea glass kind of concept.

And so the pavilion is one part of
the story what's inside of it is is really

altogether amazing So these are just two
images to give you a kind of flavor for

what's going to come so this thing is
based on Nautilus of course as a geometry

it's got interlacing ribbons of scalloped
open curved glass that tapers up and

spirals out nested with this kind of
white surface on the inside which is

actually a projection screen so the idea
is that it's basically like you know they

are going to commission various artwork
and so forth to actually project onto the.

That's part of the ride and then the glass
spirals up and then on the outside

it's the stainless steel shingles
just to give it a bit of bling.

And then the bottom we actually just have
the simple kind of pedestal ring that

brings in at the bottom to keep the rats.

So this thing had a problem
in Hurricane Sandy just like

our other carousel all the kind
of like stuff underwater got

destroyed while it was under construction
and then it had a big hiatus and

then they had to kind of fix it and
do that but I'm going to kind of like.

Take You Through the essence so here's
the kind of built up layers the structure

actually follows the kind of
exist it's simply all welded to.

Long.

So these are the renderings.

And then some images of the construction

as something that's really cute is
the eleven it into the glass is what we

just call Smart Glass which is actually
sort of a dumb version of kinetic glass or

does it basically just switch from
dark to light fairly quickly and

use it for privacy and
you know high end on one deals and

things like that it's not electrochromic
it's kind of a lower tech technology.

But what happens is when
you get on the ride and

the lights darken the projection turns on
the music starts and it starts to move and

the glass begins to darken in sequence
as it goes around in the spiral so

you can actually have the full
immersive experience.

So they hired.

Artist forgive me I actually should
know his name I don't know that they

did these incredible kind of like resin.

Laminated fiberglass you
know fish with integrated

fiber optics and they basically you
ride inside of them with seat belts and

then they basically go up and
down and around and then did.

You wouldn't believe this was done by
like a conventional contractor the guys

who built this are amazing
the bunch of like not

the Montreal Canadian guys who
are called Show Canada and

show Canada do like all of the kinetic
structural work for Cirque du Soleil

on contract so they build roller coasters
they build crazy kinetic devices and

they seemed like the right partner to do
this and at first they were commission for

the ride but eventually they
took on the entire pavilion so

this is their shop up in Montreal where
they basically did a trial assembly

of the entire pavilion first just to make
sure it all fit before they sent it to

site in New York because New York labor is
very expensive so the model the steel they

basically put in all the little ins they
actually put the stainless steel panels on

and the grass was something they
needed a little bit more help with so

we were there for them here's the kind of
reframed going up with the kind of ocular

structure at the top there's a coming
in on its flatbed from the trail.

And then the ride the ride is so
cool with this it's like this amazing

structure where the whole thing
basically turns around and

around and it's got three sub turntables
that simultaneously turn within the main

turntable and then of course all of
the fish turn and they actually go up and

down at the same time so what was
really exciting is the week before

it was going to open to
the public they wanted to.

Have an argument about what is
the smallest child that could ride on it

independently and
they said a number of forty two inches and

coincidentally my daughter is
forty two and a quarter and so

she was like the perfect she just turned
five and so we took her out there and

got her to ride by herself and what we
didn't know is they've done that for

the New York Times was doing his C.
glass article that night.

With their video online and everything and
Madeline was the first child ever ride

this by herself and David Dunn that
interviewed her when she got off of it.

And I asked her So how was it and
she said it's too slow.

And it is actually it's a bit too slow.

Our kids can go on it but
they have to right in your lap.

And so this is this crazy thing like
these kind of totally psychedelic.

I mean I just want talk about drug
abuse but this is like an incentive for

ever seen one.

So you can see the projections
on the roof and

the totally kaleidoscope psychedelic fish.

And just kind of here with the Smart Glass
and here with the projectors.

It's just like an amazing amazing thing.

There are videos online I didn't
want to take the time to show that.

Second little pavilion this is where
we're onto building number seven and

for those of you who don't know that
acronym Shame on you so that's and

and associates it's the most absurd
company name I've ever seen so

they just called it essay and Santa.

So seven very things and
they're like We love them but

man they are the simply the most demanding
people we ever ever worked with insect

such a point that we have to have to cycle
ourselves out of the relationship so

like I would do two buildings and
then burn out and

then my partner Bruce would move in and
burn it in that currently it's my turn so

you know Mike is doing
projects with them and

this is one of them this is
Farms which is also being.

Currently managed by
Jeff Koch Georgia Tech grad.

And it's the spiritual
center up in Connecticut.

The beautiful concept it's basically
this kind of it's like a built

permanent version of their serpentine
prevailing in that they didn't London.

So it's basically this kind of a concept
of this analog for a river and

then underneath it are a series of
pavilions So here's the plan and you can

see here there's like a kind of sanctuary
space here various kinds of facilities for

washrooms everything else is open
air Romy a whole lot of some of

the the full If there
are poor a park work by.

Niemeyer that we want to go visit on our
field trip very very similar inspiration

some of these different villains and
they're all different levels so

if you actually look at the bottom you
can see the section through the different

designs is actually quite a lot of great
change that really is like this kind of

river flowing downhill and of course it's
it's like the Toledo museum which we also

did which is this really fine series of
steel pillow tea that are just supporting

a steel perimeter structure
that's in filled with timber.

Beams basically has a little
bit of cable reinforcement and

then on top of it it has
plywood structures with.

Electrical Mike Lee polished
stainless steel roof tiles.

So here's a detail kind of
like at the head condition so

all the glass is a mix of flat and
curved double lemonade an insulated glass

frameless And so the whole thing is
just this kind of sin us panel and

Santa working with them now over
the years are completely obsessed with

minimalist joint detail and like on
Toledo we had a full cavity wall so

we could get away with single glazing
with minimal joints on the Vargas we had

to do frame the triple glazed insulated
units which was its own world first and

this one here basically is they
wanted the smallest insulated

glass joint that was
really humanly possible.

So there was a lot of analysis
done in terms of the structural.

If it's of curved glass and whether we can
actually use that optimized glass that

we do that on several buildings you'll
see one later on it's like that and

what this is really trying to say is
that if you have a conventional space or

with conventional butyl with
a conventional silicone joint between

the glass for this building you will have
three and three eighths of an interesting

millimeters now you might say well you
know who cares it's of the obsessive but

I mean I have this kind of truism that
like contemporary architecture is

basically a war on joints because
joints are basically like an index for

what is normative and what is normative
is what is economical so your mind

haptic that you understand the entire
world based on economic metrics that

are quite typical and if you look around
the Georgia Tech campus you can see that

this campus largely subscribes to that you
know a lot of your kind of cladding is all

conventional window walls your glass
panels are not too small not too big and

so forth I mean there are some special
buildings here they're getting better but

there is there's a kind of like
normative language here that is quite

You can read it as being typical.

Whereas you know when you start saying
I want huge panels of anything or

I want an infinite array of tiny panels of
something that starts to challenge your

sense of you know what what is normative
in construction and so we are constantly

dealing with this index question both in
terms of cost means and methods labor you

know production technology everything
basically comes into scale even logistics.

For syllogistic So look at this detail
though this is like forty millimeters so

this is basically using next
generation sealants tapes spacers and

so forth everything I won't go into all
the detail that's all deployed here

in order to simply turn eighty six
millimeters into forty millimeters

is a huge amount of research and
analysis testing you know and so

forth working with our contractor
Russian from Germany and

also Russians a structural engineer on
their side of the table is a guy named

He's also totally awesome there
is just a few construction for.

Graphs the kind of cereal joint.

Crazy image taken from the outside
looking at reflections superimposed upon

the interior of course it's always lovely.

The wood soffits really gorgeous.

And it's much more subdued
much more gentle than.

The kind of project in Switzerland
which is amazing project to

this thing going to has a kind of
quietude a kind of serenity to it that

there is really enjoyable.

OK next project this is a corporate lobby
make over this is a very curious project

because it's a one nine hundred ninety
building design by Skidmore Owings and

Merrill called Park Avenue Plaza
it actually is right adjacent

to lever house across the street
from the Seguin building.

But it has no facade on to
Park Avenue it has basically a facade

on the cross streets which is here so
that's a lever house in this image and

this is the lobby which is like a gigantic
duas through the entire city block it's

like thirty feet tall and it's huge and
wide and it's at the moment just tired and

very ugly but New York also has this kind
of tradition of what we call privately

owned public spaces where developers
are allowed to do certain things but

the public spaces like lobbies and so
forth have to be open twenty four seven to

the public and so like at the time when
this was approved amended burden the city

of New York had kind of purview over what
was going to happen inside the space when

the Fisher family actually decided that
they wanted to renovate it now Fisher was

in the only catalyst I think had they just
own the building they would just continue

to collect the rent they're pretty
dynamic family but what they did was they

sold out a majority stake of the building
like fifty one percent or something.

Kind of hearsay but
I think it's about that to.

Miss Shannon who is the owner of
Soho in China who's like one of

the wealthiest developers and so instead
of Soho just moving into the states and

building ground up they actually decided
to start partnering with established

New York City developers and then with
that kind of injection of capital

they actually started funding these
kind of pretty significant make overs so

this is just like it's a twenty five
million dollar lobby renovation

which is quite a lot for a lobby.

And so Jensen Goldstein this dining hall
Goldstein is a really good friend of ours

we've done so much kind of
interesting cool kind of retail work

with him over the years got
introduced to these guys and

managed to secure the project.

So this is what we're going to do it's
basically just like cleaning up the whole

thing just making it really really smooth
and slick but we have these kind of these

these these I don't know what
they are like thirty foot.

Floor to ceiling elements that are just.

Reflective and abstract and
they have no structure the kind of like

acrylic waterfall I don't
know what they are but

they're beautiful we think people are just
going to run into them all the timing

basically hit themselves we
call that natural selection.

But we.

We thought this is cool everyone was like
OK these things are obstructive never

seen anything like that before and they're
totally nonfunctional they're just like

the pets in the space and
then on the wall it's not rendered so

well here but I mean it's just this idea
of this kind of like two hundred foot long

texture of abstract luminous like
you just don't know what it is but

it's really good looking and
beautiful and shiny and winged out and

below that it's like a whole series of
grow lights with these kind of vines and

water features and
then the whole floor is just.

White and
the pole space is just kind of serene.

So for renovation it's pretty ambitious So

really the story is about this kind
of glass wall and these acrylic

elements which could have been glass we
looked at many many variations on glass So

here's the kind of renderings of
give you a sense of the space and so

what we want to do is basically have
these kind of continuous twenty three

foot long strips of glass one
foot wide with an extruded

glass profile with an integrated L.E.D.

light shooting down through the middle
of every one of these elements and

just kind of like glowing
all the way down.

And now you know no one can even make
a one foot by twenty one twenty three foot

sheet of glass or the loan for it with the
kind of silver backing let alone an extra

piece of glass that has you know twenty
three feet glass extrusions on it so

it mean this is like a lot of constraints
here that we had to work with and

so we work we started working
with shot from Germany

who do a lot of Barroso look at
extruded you know tubular glass but

they can also do custom shapes
custom hollow shapes and so

what you're seeing here this kind of like
rounded triangle is a glass extrusion and

this it's really just cosmetic and
then we basically kind of looked at

severing the back of it and
then bonding it onto a cradle and

then the cradle has a way of being
fastened on to a receiving extrusion

which then is prefabricated to a panel and
what we also looked at was could we

just aggregate the glass panels of the
three feet wide by twenty three feet but

then have one crystal as we call
them attached at the joint and

then two intermediate
crystals that one foot on

center just bonded straight to
the surface of the glass and

this really is all these logistical
questions about well what do you do do you

do it in the factory and then you
bring it to site what if it cracks.

You know how flexible is this thing so
there's like all these unknowns so

there's a lot of mock ups that were done
in the end there's a story here where shot

made the glass extrusions and
company called M. Cohen and

it and doing the kind of glass
assembly work again Nora

from Collingwood Ontario Canada
was the producer for

the big silver laminated glass and behind.

And then this is.

This is like Georgia Tech night
this is Vish Dio's project

this was a messy here in digital
design fabrication who's one of our SO

shoots right now these are all his
drawings showing the kind of method of

assembly how this thing might work you
know he did all the material research and

so forth to try to figure this out you
imagine trying to get this on budget

on schedule but it's not obvious how you
do this so the second part here is this

acrylic element we looked at all these
glass elements we looked at doing hollow

glass tubes molded infused to glass we
looked at doing solid laminated glass that

was subtractive we milled and polished on
the end things were just so heavy like

the twelve thirteen thousand pound losses
you know it's just just crazy and so

acrylic we did beautiful acrylic
panels for Jane's carousel and

Dumbo and we thought the only risk
here is basically fire spread and

so we actually got the owners to
hire air fire engineering to do

a kind of study of the fire spread and
the sprinkling requirements for

these elements because they're
actually all combustible materials and

what was really tricky we thought you know
it's like a retail store you know can

you can put like wood furniture inside is
not a problem like these you know backs of

the seats might be combustible but what
we learned is that the the actual lobby

as a kind of public space was defined
as the exterior safe haven for

us so the eager us that's to build
stairs actually exit into the lobby.

They didn't exit into the actual
building itself I mean into the side and

so this now became an eager escort or

with like thirty foot combustible
acrylic columns inside of it so

this was a long protracted
discussion in negotiation

getting all of the kind of like you know
David testing from all the different

acrylic manufacturers and trying to get
the city to finally have quote unquote

then I'm going to prove it but
they say no objection.

There here's or.

It's going on to the glass.

And then closed angle of the room of
these guys the lighting designer in D.C.

is pretty awesome but we did a whole
ton of mock ups with him where we were

shooting light down the middle of
a glass tube and you know supposed glass

to one side really doesn't take light very
well so you have to start like roughing

it up and we thought about painting the
inside of it without about sandblasting

the inside of it without it pouring acid
down the middle of it to acid that it so

would actually glow in the end we decided
it was easier to sleeve a circular

translucent piece of acrylic down
the middle of this element but

then there's a question about how you
build this because we wanted to actually

install all of the glass elements
on site not in the factory

because we thought if you lift them
the chance of breaking it is too high and

so really we're looking at
basically putting up two

three we've got two in the end I
think three that's three glass

extrusions that all come back to back and
then we basically had to sleeve up

a continuous twenty three
foot piece of tubing

that was pretreated that would
actually take the light down and

transmit the light over twenty three feet
down this this hole this was a picture of

an early experiment where they
actually just took a solid acrylic and

they're just tried to rough up the surface
and you get this kind of bizarre.

You know kind of.

Effect that in the end was just not right
for the project is a bit too techno.

But you can see the scale of this twenty
three feet long it's actually quite long.

So here's the glass up in
Canada being produced.

That is an autoclave and you have
two sheets of glass with a polymer

you put it in there you put heat on it and

you basically compress it together it
fuses the polymer with the glass and.

That is how you make lemonade glass.

So this is the glass with
the fridge on the back of it.

Most of the move glass and

he's even seen it before with
suction cups and big armatures.

So that's the full size of the glass and

then you can see it totally
transforms when you get the.

The glass cylinders at one foot on center
and we have a short while we have a big

wall the short walls now done the big wall
still under installation as we speak but

I thought one sure this year anyway and
so here's the acrylic.

And so Reynolds out of Salt Lake and
of being the manufacturer there's only two

others in the world that would be able to
do the job balloon or not there's actually

a fused line at the top because they
couldn't actually cast it that big and

then it is attractively milled and this
is all polished this thing is thirty and

thirty one feet high it's got
six inch thickness solid and

it's radius to a seven circle and
all polished up at the edges and

it's hung in the end we have.

Actually that's not true it's kind of both
it's it's actually based supported or

it's normal condition but in the case
of a fire you'll see this in a minute.

If the thing melts there is these
large additional fuse blocks

at the top that bottom out and prevent
the rest of it would actually collapse and

so it goes into a kind of tension mode and
it's failsafe condition but

it's actually very supportive under normal
conditions and there's also a lot of kind

of discussion about whether
you should light this thing.

Right because we see.

Soon that we're going to the same that
would have integrated lighting fixture

customarily the fixture in the base of the
shoe and shoot light up through this thing

and in the end it we built a mock up about
eight feet high inside the lobby and

the way it just absorbed light
from the atmosphere was so

amazing we said like forget it
we're not going to touch this

thing we're just going to like
polish it up and put it in.

So those of those blocks at the top
this is how we can actually suspend it.

And that's the end profile.

Pure artifice but so much fun.

Never seen anything like that
it's kind of bizarre isn't it.

That's what we're worried about
glass would bend even more.

So here's those fuse blocks.

And Salt Lake.

And then this is the small wall that's
two panels high one piece of glass but

it's like two acrylic element you can see
the joint kind of halfway course is no

light on yet the light hasn't been
fully commissioned at this point so but

the way this actually just kind
of absorbs light you have and

you almost can you can kind of like quite
understand what the materiality is is it

is an aluminum extrusion is stainless
steel isn't actually glass.

So we haven't seen the full
thing completely configured yet

but we're pretty excited.

So the next project is sugar Rabanne.

We're doing several projects
with him right now.

And this is the first one that's
actually built I don't have

much case study stuff on this it could
go through the whole development of

the wood in the roof in the facades and
so forth but I think.

These three images those three those
two images there are renderings.

And then this is basically
the party of the building so

what's really nice we didn't work on it
but what's really amazing is the roof is

a subtractive Li milled glue
them space frame structure so

all the elements are basically like kind
of ass shaped and then they're all pinned

and bolted together at a center point into
this you know he's obsessed with wood but

it's a really amazing thing and then we
basically put the kind of glass roof and

conventional roofing membrane glass
walls and then the kind of woven.

Wood on the outside what's crazy about
this project is actually we did so

much testing in product development
with the actual woven wood but

in the end on site it
actually did laminate it and

it was it was a bit of a kind of.

Bit of a shock it's not good when that
happens for anybody but the manufacturer

got behind it immediately basically
identified some kind of a batting problem

that they had and basically rebuilt it so
that's basically kind of like ongoing

right now just in case you've heard that
story out there it's important enough so

this would really looks like there's
the wood space frame there's the kind of

glass enclosure that really in the end has
not much of a presence on the building and

then here is the kind of
lattice work structure in front

of it that's going to
hold the basket weave.

Laminated timber.

And then here it is going on.

And then here is just a sequence of we're
very happy about this project is just so

beautiful and.

It's actually got a lot of you
know critical response and press.

But these are just like professional
photographs of the final

product.

Should ribands a very interesting
character obviously Mr Pritzker.

You know he's got.

This incredible kind of world of
you know emergency response and

disaster relief work he's got this entire
kind of world of off the shelf and

conventional low cost materials he thought
he has a whole obsession with things

that are kinetic you know so he's even
doing of course office buildings and high

end condos like any successful architect
eventually they do all manner of things

but he brings those kind of predilections
to all manner of these projects.

And of course timber itself is kind
of like you know an obsession and

what he manages to pursue through you know
just because he built his reputation up so

early with such crappy work is able to
leverage that right now to get kind

of such the port to do amazing
technological things with wood and

all manner of wood products
cardboard included.

In some ways working with him
we're kind of along for the ride.

So it's nice if you like to work with us.

Because sometimes we wonder
what we have to add and

then we get into the relationship and
then we start figuring it out.

And we don't have anything just fires.

You can see the curtain lawyer it's
like completely conventional this is not

the story this is a very modest building
in terms of its construction and

so he's prioritizing the things that
are really really important to him and

although the glass was do have
a significant presence the very neutral

they're not kind of like the centric
they don't have a lot of personality

inflections It's just like an off
the shelf simple aluminum curtain wall

pressure caps included glazing sizes are
very conventional as is all triple glazed

because the climate.

And this is the final result.

Here's a project that.

We're doing right now.

Grimshaw is Duke University it's
the Duke student union building

a very very challenging project
basically it's a beautiful you know.

Heritage building on the campus it has
a very kind of pivotal point location but

inside the kind of courtyard
of that building was just like

like a mess of kitchens and
nasty cafeterias and so forth so

do kind of I had it on their list this
thing has to come out and so you know.

To to be on a team like this you
have to have both experience and

doing kind of like interesting
new construction you have to have

a culture that's basically sympathetic
with the desire Grimshaw as an office but

you also have to have really good
experience with adaptive reuse and

adding to new construction I mean adding
new construction to basically existing

buildings and it's something over the
years that we've we've done a lot of and

say to this point we did an audit
at one point about forty percent

by project calendar of everything
we do is somehow adding to

subtracting a lot of
firing inserting within.

You know extending an existing building
and that's that's like a huge thing I mean

telling my students every single semester
that you know the crazy thing is like what

is it like the statistic that goes around
is like by two thousand and fifty in

the next thirty five years two point
five billion people are going to migrate

to cities from where they are right
now that's not to mention new people.

And that's not to mention the fact
that like probably most of the built

environment that we have right now is
built poorly you know even conventional

modern office buildings are being
required within thirty forty years it's

like we have to rebuild fifty percent of
the entire built environment while adding

another fifty percent to accommodate
the growth I mean this is a crisis but

it's also like a bull market I mean
if you guys want to seize it but

thinking about new construction on its
own but think about new construction as

adaptive reuse and eventually Scott's
going to have me do a let's talk to them.

Exhibition and one of the things
that will be revealed is that.

We are engaging questions of adaptive
reuse in almost every single studio and

the students as a group are making
elective choices about what to do

with that like in Hong Kong we actually
demo the building because we felt it was

crap and getting in the way.

Whereas this particular studio we're
doing it after we use Project in Paris as

a kind of migrant or
refugee European Center for Paris which is

a very provocative interesting program
right now but it wasn't put upon them and

the I mean I suppose you could demo
the building but it's so self-evident that

the building so substantial that we're
going to work within the building.

But also proposing a five hundred thousand
square foot ground up new construction for

refugees actually doesn't
make any sense but

if you have a five hundred thousand square
foot building that happens to be empty

it's actually a pretty good opportunity
and it's owned by the city and

you can say from a value standpoint
that we're going to repurpose it for

this particular crisis even if it's near
term medium term solution and it back

to Grimshaw So this building is you go
back to the rendering is very fussy.

They know it too but it has this kind of
big central box that comes out the middle

and it's got these kind of frames to go
around and there's all these transitional

spaces between it's like the cloth
building you know but but all of that food

and so you've got all these kind of like
interesting interlock spaces inside that

basically we've themselves into the host
building as well but in the end this is

the back of the building and the back of
the building is being combined with a few

other buildings urban mystically that
actually colonizing the backyard of these

projects to merge it with a building
being done by Tom Pfeiffer and

a building being done by Jamie
carpenter and so they all have

a kind of formal relationship to each
other with a kind of Cartesian clean but

articulated kind of architectural
geometry to it and so there is.

It's kind of like master plan that's also
aesthetics is that actually based as well.

So in the end we have a center block
that has one representative facade with

the porch on it and
then we have these kind of like alleyways

down the middle which separate the entire
main box from the existing building it's

a fairly straightforward diagram and
what you're looking at here is a composite

mock up this contractor is
also Russian from Germany.

Which is hard to kind of read to me in
this is a column on one side of an alley

there's another column of the primary
building these are kind of like large

suspended elements holding up
staircases this is the actual you know

pitch of the skylight element this is
like a vertical glazing panel on another

upper floor so there's always
complex things being mashed together

in this particular mockup and
we're really basically studying not so

much one perfect condition on the building
but we're hybridizing everything and

basically trying to say how
does the materiality the color

the shape of everything actually come
together that's why it looks a bit funky

because not that kind of legible but for
us that worked on the project it's very

meaningful to be able to evaluate all
these materials like in tandem and

in close proximity to each other.

This is also another kind of like mini
mock up this is the main wall the main

wall has these huge cast related steel
elements that are really actually quite

tall and then here we have
basically a very narrow strip

curtain wall that's vertically
frameless with the glass but

then it has a horizontal laminated glass
B. that is taking the wind loads and

then all those laminated glass beams
basically go from large steel columns to

large steel columns and in order to not
sag under their own self weight there's

intermediate tension rod hangers so.

So what you're looking at here
is again long span still column

horizontal glass fins.

Vertical tension rods and then the detail
at the face which basically holds

the insulated glass unit and then this
is a detail at the head condition so

this is just the head detail of that
big welded built up steel beam this is

the regular bracket that actually holds
the dead load of the exterior glazing and

then this is the element at the top that
basically picks up the intermediate dead

load of this entire facade all the way
down and so these are fairly kind of

beautiful obsessive artifacts in their own
right you see a little bit later on what

what was kind of really disappointing
though the client being not necessarily

able to read composite mock ups just
basically said the joints look too big but

the glass panels actually only half
the size to put it's supposed to be but

the joints are at the real size and we're
making all these kind of adjustments for

that but we're very careful and
render pounds off as particularly for

studious about managing the client
expectation understanding of what a mockup

is what it's for what it's telling you
that there's no misinterpretation and

I'll show you one thing later on when
they did something very funny in order to

manage that so here we are construction
These are the kind of you can see the big

alleyways are actually quite sizable when
that horizontal beam is what you saw in

one of those mock ups and all of this is
glazed all the way around on three sides

actually mostly glass building so
here are the.

Very very slender beams
with a little pitch on it

almost near horizontal glass panels.

And then this is the kind of
existing condition after demolition.

And we're about eighty percent
through construction right now

this building should be opening
up in about a year maybe sooner.

It's kind of familiar it's come.

So the New York Post project this is Renzo
Piano I showed a bit of this last year but

it was at the very end we went
through a really quick and

I'm a bit of an update because I got
together with John proponents here.

In Greece in June and I went to go look at
the site because they opened up the public

park with the building
still about one year away.

And so.

These are a bit older so
here's the here's the master plan here so

this is this is the public like Sports
Park which is already handed over this is

the large public park which is the size

of the garden looks in Bergen Paris
which is now open the building itself

actually starts here all of
this is basically Phil and

then this is a parking garage that has
its own garden green roof on it this

building here is the National Library
this building here is the National Opera

there is on the roof a two megawatt
photovoltaic energy canopy

which powers the building and then down at
the lower level does this kind of linear

water element called the Canal
over here is a restaurant

cafe pavilion and then all the way out
here this is another green route called

the Esplanade which goes up and over
the expressway and connects the entire

waterfront neighborhood down here
now this little square here is

called the GOA you know basically the kind
of main meeting place for this is down at

the level of the canal and all of this
over here is actually stepped seating so

people can actually walk along
the canal settle in here and

they're going to mount exterior opera.

For the public in this kind of space
with large theatrical backdrops and

part of the structure that's going
in there is basically to hold those

the optical backdrops.

In front of the glass facades So
here's a more detailed plan

showing the whole configuration of
the opera with many many other performance

spaces rehearsal spaces and so
forth and then the library over here.

The materials of this building basically
fit into the three categories one is fair

faced architectural concrete two is
basically the long span glass facades and

three is really the Pharaoh cement
shell of the energy canopy so

the team is Renzo Piano building workshop
in partnership with a company called

data plan who are the executive
architects but really a full partner

the structural engineering is being
done by a company in the U.K.

called Expedition which is all spin
off people and then the N.E.P.

is all being done by Arab London.

So the structure of this
sucker up here we actually.

The energy can be itself
is a collaboration between.

US an Arab in terms of we're doing the
physical part of they're doing the kind of

electrical implementation part but
then we're all sitting on a structure that

is the world's largest ferro cement shell
structure as designed by expedition and

then executed by design build contractor.

And so that entire thing is a single
one hundred meter by one hundred meter

continuous ferro cement shall Y.C. first
and then the actual wall thickness of that

whole thing is three quarters of an inch
thick of concrete it has little ribs but

every foot on center and then the whole
surface is a poxy to make it completely

smooth but it has an up or shut has
a lower show with an edge beam and then in

the middle of those two cylinder shells
the intermediate ribs are all connected by

a large steel space frame elements so
it's actually a composite steel structure

actually it's very deep like three
four five metres and it's midpoint you

can actually walk through the whole thing
but it's really a world first and then of

course it provides its very generous
exterior shade canopy for a public.

This is in for some of the gardens and at
the very top of this manmade landscape you

get to one hundred thirty five feet
above the sea level and you rise up very

very gently from the city and when you get
there you have this balustrade panorama

looking over the sea it's incredible and
then when you look back of course it's

not lost on anybody but this energy
canopy has a formal relationship to the

Parthenon.

So well I'm flipping through this because
there are some stories to tell here but

if I try to explain the whole project
it'll be lost I'm going to talk about this

concept of intentionality since we're
on to the subject of John proponents So

when I first came to Georgia Tech and
you know he's looked at our kind of.

The range of work that we engage and
the diversity of it you know basically

said if you ever do a book and it's to
be called the Atlas of intentions and.

I think you know the word intentions
is very wise in many ways because it's

it's obviously not prescriptive in what
it means and it's obviously implies

subjective judgment implies
power of the individual.

You know questions of intentionality are
like also saying that you have a critical

position on something or the level of the
quality of your intentions matter you know

so the more sophisticated the more nuanced
the more experienced you are the more

considered your intentions the more
successful the likely outcome will be and

this is a very kind of interesting and
difficult concept it's basically kind of

the counterpoint to authorship authorship
is inherently kind of like a negative

word in the industry you know the whole
word stark attacked everyone kind of

like hates it including stark attacks
because every stark attack knows about

six thousand people to make a building
you know even dividual author type.

Projects like Frank Gehry who of course
are masterful at building an entire.

Team around him to implement
a kind of artistic vision

that's that's almost like the most
extreme example in the industry and

everything beyond that is really about
like very very interesting forms of

team building and
collaboration but when you bring.

A set of intentions to the table
you know there are going to drive

the process forward they're going to drive
it to the left they're going to drive it

to the right where they're
going to make it collapse.

And they need to adapt they need
to evolve as you're moving and

it's a difficult problem it's
a difficult problem and for

us I mean I mean when Scott says we're
very good at what we do I thank you.

But why you were good at
what we do is based on.

Spending a lot of time travelling
around the world talking to people

listening to people
reading reading reading.

Basically it's life experience and
it's listening it's trying to understand

really what are the set of cultural values
what is the medium within which you're

working I mean I've joked in the past as
like you know there's there's there's

religion is procreation and then there's
architecture right it's like one of

the most important things we do after
breeding eating and you know praying.

And it's we can joke about it but like
think about you if you basically like or

like Neo in the entire world the matrix
basically deal with serialize in front of

you and you see the world is kind of
like one that is completely unstable.

Completely infinitely possible
to do anything you want

then you ask yourself like what am I going
to do in this world how am I going to act

in order to make myself kind of like heard
how am I going to make an empowered how

I'm going to make people's lives better
you know when Scott decided to come here

I know that the kind of governing
kind of ethos was really about saying

we need as a school to be in
gauging issues of consequence.

You know whether that leads to
whatever mean there's outliers and

people can go off and be geniuses and this
not but to deal with issues of consequence

issues where basically in absolute terms
you make somebody else's life better.

You actually solve those things that's
that's the whole critical process that's

it's it's what we need to do
right now I mean many many so

many people around the world are doing it
but as you know every day in the media and

especially a Republican circus right now
is the kind of like the kind of rhetoric

and the intransigence and the kind of like
talking points that kind of get in the way

of building consensus and actually finding
kind of priorities and ways actually

make the world better is difficult to
inspire pope right now is not my pope but

he's actually look at him every day in the
morning because I have a probably the most

kind of Catholic Catholic Church
across the street from my house.

And they have a big big banner of this
pope and I have to say not being Catholic

religious I actually love this stuff like
this guys like this guy has got it right.

It's a very very interesting week
right now having Xi Jinping and

the pope here in the states same
time I don't what it means but

it's kind interesting to see
how Mr Obama handled and.

So this was project is crazy I
mean that's five hundred million

euros it's paid for by the star as
an artist foundation through their

philanthropic foundation as a gift to the
country of Greece after they build it it

will be bequeath to the country and
the municipality will manage it.

And you know when we were in Greece
recently we talked to a lot of

you know people waiters and
hoteliers and various people about what

they thought of this thing and because we
thought people would be cynical they think

that the New Yorker Sam was just basically
a bunch of tax evaders and out of guilt or

giving back and
this project is basically a lie.

You know but we were told something
different Actually we were

saying well actually they would have made
the money anyway and it's actually really

nice that they're giving back and what's
most impressive about it is this is what

I heard right on is like I heard
that it's being built well and

I heard that it's being built on time I
want to tell them that's being managed by

the British OK go from London to the
project manager was great project manager

probably won't happen but but nonetheless
it is happening the money is being funded

by The New Yorker's Foundation and
they are very tight control over this and

it's an amazing project and
when when we were there recently they were

opening up the park to the public events
of Carol's up there giving a speech and

being sick he was just
talking about joy and joy and

joy and this project is so amazing and
what better things can you do than give

a completely new public park to the to
the to the country I mean it's just

a wonderful thing along with all of these
kind of amazing amenities Now Greece is

you know has certain politics.

Which are coming down now right but.

But occasionally people
like to blow stuff up so

our security consultants to the New
Yorker's family does go down a flight that

all the facades need
to be blast resistant.

There is primitive security you
can't drive a truck up to it or

anything so it's basically a backpack bomb
and backed up and can go inside or outside

because it's not a secure threshold but
it's really then saying if you can drive

a truck up across the esplanade and blow
up the facade on the side us or survive or

if you have a backpack bomb the facade
can't collapse you can't have a secondary

collapse you can have a catastrophic
failure of the primary structure as well

and so all of those things were taken on
board as part of the engineering and so

we have a twenty four metre span
this eighty feet the things

eighty feet high those glass walls that's
crazy and in the end we went through so

many schemes you know cable nets and
trusses and everything you can imagine and

trying to spend eighty feet for
a blast resistant wall it's not that easy.

And we also in the end couldn't
do a single direction cable wall

because the priest US forces were too
high and the primary structure actually

couldn't handle that kind of stuff so
in the end you know after going

through all these crazy geometries you
know the piano would you think he'd even

you know indulge many of these these
things like you see the mock up in

the back there it's like Somalia project
with all the beautiful curved rims.

They wanted something in the end that
was very calm very Cartesian almost

like a kind of three dimensional Cartesian
fabric with no structural legibility or

expression of value or structure like
trusses you know they inherently kind of

express a kind of plasticity of form but
in here you know it's like.

We said OK how do we do something
like that and we said OK let's

very very deal is basically the answer and
if you do a still very and

the other things look like a pig so we
said how do you do a variable that slender

and so the thesis was hypothesis
was could we use the glass

as a structural diaphragm in the plane
of the steel so you can do is still very

real with a steel is impossibly slender
that it couldn't work by itself but

we didn't really want to engage in
the language of splice connections and

bolt fixings and all the other stuff
that you go on and you know and

the Apple stuff is amazing at forty
fifty feet but we're eighty feet so

we couldn't even do like a single
piece of eighty foot glass yet

I was working on that we're up to about
sixty feet now we're getting there.

The Chinese in Beijing they can do sixty.

So we went for
this this fabric this kind of like no.

This is actually kind of
a good product it will.

Be So three metre high panels and
in the end the aspect ratio of this

is one to twenty seven so one to twenty
seven is a bean over eighty foot span.

With only one hundred ninety millimeters
of deflection under three times design.

That is mazing step and

the way you actually just connect the
glass in the steel is you inject grout So

this is where rocket science happens where
beautiful materials like non-trained some

intuitions grow like hell to hit you can
inject in between glass and steel and

it actually doesn't shrink so one thing
we're concerned about was the kind of long

term thermal expansion of the truss and
with the growth start loosening up so

that when the storm hits it in the summer
does it actually start deflecting a whole

lot more than what you thought doesn't
measure kind of unbelievable So

that's one theory but this market this is
not even steel This is just like a fake

that would market was a kind of thing you
can do a Georgia Tech in the studio you

know into let's giving you enough money
to do this if you have the motivation but

you have to have a set of intentions that
are so clear that this facade is justified

within the context of the project and you
need to get to this level of conviction

within the timeframe of the studio in
order for us to spend that money right.

And then it's like.

So this is a visual mock up and
you can see the absurdity of this look

this thing is cut off here that was
cut off there's one is cut off here.

Looks like a joke but this is piano
basically saying to the client

when you look at this you know that
these things continue in space.

If you cut them all at the same height
they think that that's the height and

then they say this thing looks to squat
because you can see we didn't even

terminate it with a little transom up here
we cut it halfway and we had this little

fake piece of glass just floating in space
it's like get a cut line on a drawing.

Just think about that in terms of the
usefulness of mockups and what it means.

And then of course the markup was used for
trench drains and pavers and flooring and

studying materiality and color and so
many other kind of wonderful things so

I can try and get through this
story really quickly this is.

Twenty four meter blast resistant compas
it's never been done before in the world.

The Greeks however insisted that this
be what we call one hundred percent

Design been built So hundred percent
CD hard bed at risk if the project

not on budget everyone has to redesign so
given that you've never done something in

the world before and it's hard bed project
eventually you can just write on the walls

that all the subcontractors going to
the project and saying doesn't work

you know bit and then the client says
Mr Architect Lo doesn't work and

then they say Mr consultant you make
us design this thing doesn't work

this is like a crisis so we said we knew
that looking around corners we just said

if you want to do this you must find
a full scale structural mock up

in the design development stage of
the project before it goes to tender

way before it goes to tender in order to
prove the structural viability of it and

then to create a market of people who are
interested in building it and this market

here was the first one we actually went to
tender to three contractors Gartner got

this job to build this mock up this
one actually was tested two point

two times design the just you know one
point zero times design mode is what you

should be designing for one point five is
considered the kind of technical overload

which we normally would be
contractually obligated to test do and

then two point two is like a science
experiment three point zero is as we say

statistically meaningful as a science
experiment but at two point two the glass

didn't fail they still didn't fail the
pins of the mechanism actually failed so

this mock up regular just wasn't
designed to be tested to that limit.

The glasses triple laminated the middle
blade is taking all the load the other two

are there set back for buckling.

And just some sketches of the we'll get
back to some stuff we're going to lot

on this project so there's a mock up of
the first cement shell that's a kind of

structural configuration of how
that thing works back to the facade

to Sony was our facade contractor in
Italy and these are what we call like

a little bit more than tabletop
mock ups but they're basically.

Actual job materials trial assembly
mock ups studying all the cruciform

drawings of all the different type
ologies would love doing the stuff

you guys should do this year the deal for
you can make this.

And then these are full large scale mock
ups integrating the cast concrete with

the facade systems with
the integrated blinds and

then this is the frame was
glass mockup and then we have.

For scale to so many structural markup
because we evolved the system from

Gartner to Sony actually got the job and
in the end we built two fins and tested

them to three point zero times design
load and here you can see the whole thing

deflecting about two hundred millimeters
under suction we have hydraulic rams at

every level is basically imposing the load
under positive the next negative load and

we're standing back pretty far because
this thing is kind of exciting but

we got our name up there.

It's just like really.

My boy that's George's Bianca he
might come here this semester.

If we're nice and
make these runs of his partner and

then this is the concrete mockup beautiful
architectural concrete mockup and

one thing I want tell you but these
concrete walls they're six inches thick

little bearing on the base they're up to
one hundred thirty five feet tall it's

a continuous series of structural pores
and then the back of it six inches of

insulation air water barrier and
then metal studs.

Plus a bit of concrete framing So
this entire architectural concrete wall

is a rain screen outboard of the building
structure completely insulated super high

performance the fact that the building
is eighty five percent opaque in only

fifteen percent glass means it really
rocks from and on the stand point the roof

is fully insulated it's got one hundred
percent green roof this thing like knocks

LEED Platinum out of the stratosphere
course it's got its own energy plant

as well.

Here's the.

Compazine fins in the factory.

And then on site.

And so what I just back to this
question of intentions like

unless you have absolute
clarity about what.

Kind of effect it's not even about knowing
what this thing could be at the time

no one knew what this could be
at the time but we just did so

many versions to find out
what we didn't want and

think this building wanted just something
kind of abstract and seamless and

kind of minimal seemingly
kind of effortless.

This kind of a uniform value.

And in the end like we're so happy this
thing here is the first cement structure

this is the pieces going together that.

Diagonal structure that goes in between
it and see if in this thing is.

And then here's a glass walls so
the building should open up in about eight

months and we've been working on it for
no less than seven years.

Seven years guys.

That's what it is.

And the New Yorkers people probably were
in working order about ten or twelve.

You know a little bit more editing here
and then this is the park this is a little

mini canopies of this is the surface
quality of the pharaoh cement shell so

when I talk about a contemporary war on
joints these kind of technologies interest

people a lot the idea of monolithic
abstract continuous surface techniques and

we're very good with like all
of these kind of techniques.

Because we have to be it's
what a lot of people want now.

But it's takes a lot of work a lot of
work to achieve that kind of thing.

And it is just getting a flavor of
like you know what's on the site.

And that's what it's supposed to
look like roughly when it's done.

So a very quick vignette about a big
corporate office building in Calgary.

Brookfield Properties one of the biggest
landlord developers in North America

retained a guy named Earl Arnie as
an architect and London to design this

two and a half million square foot office
complex in Calgary which then was seventy

two percent and
they went into construction and.

Kind of Strictly you know Calgary is
a very different market from New York like

the rents are basically a quarter like you
know my rent in Dumbo is probably more

expensive than the top rents in Calgary
and in the end to me that the strategy

on this building was a kind of hypothesis
by the architect which was really smart

which is like we're going to make ninety
two percent of the design surface of

the building completely rectangular
orthogonal and totally repetitive and

we're going to buy it over like
seventy five bucks a square foot and

then we're going to spend four hundred
bucks a square foot on the corners and

the corners are all inverse
conical geometries that basically

taper from the top to the bottom of the
entire building and so while most of this

building is kind of knowable the big risks
are basically in the curved glass so

I'm only going to tell you one little
story about this which is again.

Mitigating risk this client didn't want
to design a system which would kind of

support and
in this case they actually wanted to.

Go hundred percent.

Harb it at one hundred percent
construction documents you talk to

contractors all the way along the path but
at the end of the day there's this kind of

question about glass risk and
we need to meter energy performance and

there's only certain coatings in
the world that could be curved tempered

not slumped when we slam glass like in
the little museum it's a very expensive

process there's machines out there called
bending tempering furnace is were a series

of chain driven plates that C.N.C.
heat and they form the glass into a.

Specific geometry so you could basically
just put in the glass dial in the geometry

and it bends and tempers it to the exactly
so we had to use that kind of technique

and only certain coatings in the world
could survive that process and

only certain coatings in that family of
coatings could meet our energy performance

and there's only three coatings in
the world that met our static performance.

And so we knew exactly what we wanted it
down to those three and then we identified

every fabricator in the world and
every glass manufacturer in the world to

basically partner with those curving guys
and so the glass curving companies then.

We you know basically if you really
want them to party you basically say I

want to create a market I want to know
that Beijing North glass and sunshine and

China are going to build this child I want
to know that Christa curve in Mexico is

going to the job I want to know that TAM
glass and the alien fin you know Sun

is a clean and basically just named all
the major car glass people in the world

is that you want to create a market and
so Brookfield being in light and

I think quite enlightening as a developer
put several hundred thousands of dollars

into the pockets of those glass
fabricators to fund them to build all

of the limit glass panels on a project
with three different coatings and so

what they did was we had to build a flat
and a curved flat and a curve to flatten

a curved with three different geometries
with three different coatings in order to

sort of valuating is or give it your
fixation of the coatings is there kind of

like optical effects or funky and
is a tropic of facts like clinch marks and

other roller way of distortion
problems other global work problems

what are the manufacturing
tolerances of this and

once the fabricators go
through this process and

know exactly what they're working with
their pricing becomes far more precise and

efficient and you do have a competitive
field and that worked out amazingly

well at the end of the day we had four
different curtain wall contractors and.

Headed to bid the job old
castle one the job and

then when they went to the market to
basically buy the glass you know.

For anyone here from China
you should be concerned that

under the current economic norms of the
world European glass fabrication is now

the same cost as Chinese glass fabrication
meaning there's no more discount there's

a kind of global convergence in terms of
costing happening because the American

market is up the European market is in the
trash and the Chinese market has actually

gotten very expensive because land and
labor and commodities and so forth are not

really that much cheaper especially
when you get into skilled labor.

And so in the end this glass
is coming from Belgium for

the coatings and the curved glass
is actually coming from Spain.

But both of those companies
are owned by the Japanese from the.

That's the world we live in So here's the
conical unitized panels under fabrication

Here's our massive bending tempering
furnace This is our performance mock up

going in with our conical glass which is
down in Miami in this past so meanly and

then these are our panels going up and
you can see right now the very subtle

shift in the geometry of these lines
track up in every one of these conical

panels is a slightly different geometry
as it's tracking up the building but

it's so smooth one point one point
I really want to make is of course

you're not going to use a different coding
from the corner to the flat right so

the corner governs that's the key to
all these projects is that once you

select that coding for the corner
it's going to drive the aesthetics of

the entire building because no developer
like this is going to take the risk

that they don't match especially from
the inside you start to see all the color

shifts on the inside when you're looking
out and the idea that the corner was not

the same as the flat was just
almost like a nonstarter.

But this has been incredibly successful
blended rate of eighty six bucks a.

Square foot so in the Calgary
market it's a total home run so

also by Brookfield Properties I
showed a little bit of this last year

this is our largest repositioning project
basically this is like a one thousand nine

hundred six building from Davis Brody
bond which is like a giant mega bridge

structure that bridges over
the the real yards and Penn Station and

this thing is like we've heard
the missing link it's like prehistoric.

And Amanda Burton was begging begging
begging Brookfield to just tear this

sucker down they're likely kidding there's
no chance we're going to knock this thing

down we can't afford to knock it down it's
too to strong and then they said OK we're

going to reposition and we're glad it what
is shocking is that this thing is selling

like unbelievable just leasing like
nobody's business because actually what

everyone wants are these like what does
Google want I was just in Google's offices

you know yesterday in New York and
it's like it's like a nightmare I mean

the second entire city block long and you
know they want to want co-working together

this building has like seventeen foot sort
of floors in the two hundred thousand

square foot four plates are buildings
like forty five thousand square foot.

Four and a half of those four plates
on the single floor with these exposed

concrete coffers and then there's
like hyper cool like cascading for

no curtain wall and what I like about this
curtain wall is it's such a simple move

very difficult to make by the way
very very difficult but it's like.

It's like it's like it's like a riff
on the inherent intrinsic quality of

the building because everyone said like
why don't we just square the building up

why don't we just like you know eradicate
the essence of this kind of big form or

iconic move that this building has only
got Actually it's coming cool I mean like

what's wrong with that you know let's
work with that let's really tease out

the essence of it in the end we had to
cloud the core walls as well mainly for

energy issues to actually bring
the energy performance up but

now it's things like this kind of
you know cascading optical game.

In a way you can imagine
the shock runs that quick.

This is a visual mockup perms to Lisa's
a contractor built the construction as

a general contractor snow
guards who don't want snow and

ice hydroplaning off the roof and
then this is the performance mock up in

Montreal testing the kind
of largest panels.

And then the actual production
of the big curtain wall units

which will still be in force in
order to make those places work and

we're very excited now most of
the flat walls are done and

now we're basically on to this kind of
installation of this cascading glass and

pretty soon like within months this
whole thing's going to be done so

the back wall buildings flooded so
the curtain was flat back well here's

slope in the from all slopes of the
curtain walls actually shingle slope but

in the end like fifty percent of
the building the shingled not shingle but

kind of folded and fifty percent is flat
and that's actually good from a budget

standpoint because like the four that
stuff is two hundred bucks as well for

the other stuff is one
hundred ten bucks where for

your blended one hundred sixty
the building makes economic sense.

And then this is where it sits this is
the giant related Hudson yard project with

a one thousand three hundred foot keep
you have towers which we also work on and

here is the new.

Post Office Building Farley building
that's going to be renamed the morning

train station from Penn Station and
then Brookfield has been decking over

the entire real yards and so embers doing
like a sixty story tower right here and

then all of this is going to become a new
massive public space with a pedestrian

connection right from Penn Station
right through a shopping mall and

the underside of our building connecting
into the high line over here and

then into the Hudson Yards development
where there has been for years working and

our friend Thomas Heatherwick is doing
some totally insane sculpture in

the middle of this courtyard it's going
to be absolutely incredible OK so

I want to I don't want to tell you
about a hundred city of dreams but

suffice it to say we worked on this job.

Then we basically got appointed to
figure it out on the contractor side so

as a Belgian contractor named Kia
tech who is now our client and

we have the responsibility
of generating all of the.

System design structural analysis and
complete fabrication data for

the skin.

And we're focusing not on the glass but
we're focusing basically on the housings

of the cladding for the exits Cullerton
they go around the entire building.

And what our whole kind
of team has been doing.

There's many people in the office
are contributing to this.

And over the years you know we gauge
this problem about knowledge reuse

rule based design parametric
cetera et cetera et cetera but

from a facade standpoint the facade is
a very particular kind of problem it's its

own problem because it is system based but
it tends to be custom but

the buildings itself are always unique
instances when loads are in you know

unique the client's desires in the.

Seismic performances might be blast
requirements might mean it's kind of goes

on as to why there's so many reasons
why these things defy standardized

categorization and so we've been working
with this problem basically saying OK if

we're not a multi-disciplinary design team
that can work both on the owner side and

the contractor side then we will never be
able to control this kind of the problem

and so we basically like me and
my partner Mike we actually

started design build company and we've
built thirty facades on our own at risk.

We don't do it that much anymore it's
a little remnants of it going on but

we kind of internalize that knowledge

in terms of risk logistics cost you know
construction sequencing how does actually

something go together it is different in
every location and then how you take.

Hundred performance criteria overlay
it on to the aesthetics of geometries

integrated energy power and you know you
know I mean it is just like crazy but

as an organization this is the machine
that we built we built this machine to

do this and then basically we do projects
as we sit around we whiteboard the project

we create the kind of rule set for the
project what is the intrinsic logic for

the project and then we start
programming it and when grasshopper and

such tools came along it was like
an explosion of kind of excitement and

then what we did I mean you know KION and
hide in our entire home and

you guys in the office and girls.

Basically started evolving a toolset
that we now call elephant and what is

essentially a machine to do infinite
attribution to going to objects and

instead of creating kind of like models
per se we created the sets so we're very

very data driven company and you know
like the Matrix we actually see the world

as OK this kind of three dimensional
physical construct that needs to work and

perform in the real world and at the same
time there's going to be this kind of data

set that somehow is
the actual correlating.

Description syntax of the real thing and

then with this kind of dataset we do have
to decide what are we defining what do we

want who wants what out of this who are
our partners what formats do they need and

so the other tools that we've created
within the elephant suite are basically

interoperability so you know tools so like
one thing that we've gotten good at and

like on the Amazon project is
basically doing kind of like

interactive overlays on to datasets
to extract useful data for

different stakeholders so if someone wants
to tackle a V eighteen fabrication model

if they want to preprocess model for
structural analysis in the Strand seven

we can give them that if they want
an environmental analysis for

sorry or whatever they're using we can
give it to them it's a lot of work

it takes a lot of thinking to get
there but the moral of the story.

Is if you're not able to design the thing
that you want to model you are nowhere and

this is the problem which is like you
know organizations in the world and

we're just like tiny little thing but like
all the big corporations in the world all

the companies in the world basically live
or die by their core competency I mean

they're good at what they do only to
the limit of good what they do right and

that's it you know we went over one of
basically robotics expertise went to grade

universities like bought up all the people
this is what people do their basically

buying expertise acquiring that's what
Emily activity is all about and we already

have four offers to buy our company but
we're not selling because we're artists.

But it's a very kind of interesting
moment where I guess what's been called

big you know another company but building
information generation as opposed to

building information modeling I don't know
if that's a commonplace expression but

building information generation
is basically now about

taking a design making the design
interrogating and understanding

the design distilling the rule sets of
the design deciding what are all the what

a final export you want from the data
set and then creating the data and

then also then reacts boarding it to
all those people to make shit happen so

you know the in this case here
you know we're taking imports for

the primary still we're taking imports in
terms of design service from his office

we're taking imports in terms of cost
tolerance for example from key a tech

side because they're our client and they
have to make this thing and in the end.

The kind of automation that Evan and
Remonde have done I mean we were not

drawing any of this this is
all rule based automation.

I mean Evan told me that last week
they sent out one hundred ten thousand

components for fabrication in
a week that was the deliverable And

what's amazing you're looking at
like you know kind of been born here

basically all this is basically like a.

You know.

It's a screenshot viewport of basically
one expression of a series of data sets

from from the Excel sheet it's really what
it is like excels or main weapon now.

But what we do as well is this this
is the key of the key but it's like

really important which is drawings you
know nobody wants to make these drawings

anymore so the drawings need title blocks
and they need legal information and

they need tolerances and they need all the
other kind of contractual information that

goes with in the world and so when we work
with the stakeholders like say we're going

to make stone with camp along we're told
camp along the sun this your title book

Send us your Q.C. sheet and we're going
to program a version of your sheet and

then we're going to basically distill
the kind of say four to have thousand

instances of different stone panels
on to the template document and

we're basically going to hit play and
then if our data is correct and

the template is working we can
generate four to have thousand P.D.F.

at the same time within about twenty
minutes or something and you can actually

generate for HAVE thousand xcept files
of the same versions with their kind of

naming conventions and partner bring
in the file structure and like

another project we're doing with
showing today is called BAM so.

We're also we're going to contractor
we're actually generating the G.

code as well so they're getting basically
a Jiko they're getting a three D.

model they're getting into
getting actually to the P.D.F.

file in their native format actually
describing how they do it and so

by being this kind of a total pragmatist
about how the world is and not trying to

change everyone else's business model
because you can't change anyone

else's business model that they're going
to like look at I cut stuff with a C.N.C.

router like me just give me the file I
need to make the thing I'll be happy and

then I'll be competitive in all you
know they want to evolve their business

that's fine but we're not telling them.

We're not telling them what to do.

So in the end all of these two
drawings that we generate power.

Essentially programmed drawings and

the format of output is just defined
as to whatever we want to give.

So we've we've given people exports for
entire primary building structures.

Is a pretty heavy falls.

Well it's crazy it looks actually
like it's going to get a Band-Aid and

it's like so much secondary sub still
on there like why are we doing it

because the structure isn't existent it
needs to be waterproof and insulated.

And then the design into the building
is not to see these kind of crazy steel

connections it's actually to see this
smooth architectural kind of like design

service so this is just like the building
up of the node into its logical

layers.

And then a mock up with concept.

And the buildings under
construction right now and

Kyoto is fabricating all this stuff so
it's really exciting.

So we have several projects that are doing
like this and I didn't say that you know

how we got here is really through funding
our own design build activities and

taking all those risks to really
understand like how in the end can you

work with various stakeholders
the reason we don't want to do so

much design to work now is because our
heart is not in being a contractor but

being contractors a whole other logistical
kind of like management infrastructure

that you want to have to do people are
born with a contractor mindset that's not

us we're born as designers as
engineers as modelers but that whole

experience has given so much credibility
that when we talk to fabricators and

tractors and installers they know that
we get it we know that we respect all

of their risks and concerns and their
business model and we can plug into it so

several people in the office
contributed to writing this and I know.

I typically don't do this and when they're
going to read it to you a three D.

model is unfit for reuse as No
two buildings are ever the same

however the codify project
intelligence and knowledge.

Can be reused and this case study you've
just seen demonstrates the advantages of

structuring the processing of information
very clearly and dividing these processes

into generic operations that are separate
from projects for civic operations

each successive project has the potential
to be better than the previous one

because knowledge we use enables project
teams to focus on what could be improved

knowledge can be incrementally added
to the workflow thereby creating

an intelligent process future research and
development of this process will include

creating a more collaborative in software
and Gnostic platform the building

information generation process represents
an opportunity to further shift

the role that designers perform in
the production and design in fabrication

information the role of manually
producing singular instances of three D.

models is shifting to being one of
rule makers who established logical

relationships and build team
consensus about Project knowledge and

execution the influence this has on design
and fabrication is significant and it

echoes the potentially enormous impact on
the industry as a whole the centuries old

profession of architecture is that in the
process of becoming in coded and at least

partially being intrusted to machines with
all of the workflow restructuring and

cultural changes that this entails and

we have no illusions that this is
a very messy process there are so

many cool people in our community your
community that are we know all around

the world everyone knows them they're
doing amazing cool things and so

many of them are at this college and
you know.

But I think that what we've learned is.

You know in a multi-stakeholder
environment where it takes so many

different entities to bring a project to
bear typically values are misaligned and

I know the school the construction school
here talks a lot about integrated process

you know integrated project delivery and
various kind of accelerated forms of

delivery and we absolutely agree
with all that but we do think that.

There needs to be like an incredibly
robust kind of bottom up.

Knowledge Base.

You know it's really like
experts who design things like

you have to be an expert in their force
Congress Aria be an expert in like you

know elevator systems I mean if you're not
an expert in something you can't leverage

you know automation information
technology in order to accelerate that

that's why you know the biggest players
in the industry are pretty stable

because only five major glass companies in
the world five major concrete companies

in the world you know the curtain wall
companies unfortunately the ones that

are always going bust because they're
mid-scale companies that kind of

suck at what they do basically they should
be logistics management companies and

knowledge we use companies and then they
should just buy things everywhere in

the world they shouldn't be trying to make
it all themselves they should be owning

design and so what we do now is we're
consulting it's to those kinds of entities

basically providing that kind of knowledge
providing that kind of expertise and

this is a this is a very unique
niche business but it's actually

very large when I talk about two and half
billion people moving to cities there's

a lot of work to do and
the more automation the more C.N.C.

fabrication there is that's probably
a good day anyway I'm almost done so

here's a few things that are going on this
is a really cute little project we're

doing in Des Moines Iowa with Renzo Piano.

This is an emerging office building
I can't tell you where it is but

you might go to guess the city
can tell you the climb but

I can tell you that it's designed
by a my friend that wrecks.

And it's using all cylindrical
curved con that insulated laminated

glass units that are all frameless using
the glass of the structural stuff and

in order to reduce the weight this is
already been approved by the client

also like with the Brookfield
job that relied on curved glass

we've have already at the concepts
stage gone to the entire world of

glass fabrication to establish the supply
costs of this kind of product in order to.

Make sure that it works within
a completely conventional normative

commercial budget.

This is cool.

This is a new extension to the.

Can even tell you it's
a museum in Connecticut.

With Steve him as well
as you do the ripple.

This is the Columbia form
project with winds of piano.

Now under construction.

So these are just little
vignettes of like you know

we've got a lot of things going on but
these are a few.

That are you know I'm thinking
about that are close and coming up.

As it is it is a point of
like intense kind of like.

I could never have imagined
this happening this project.

Flight Center at J.F.K. has been
vacant for fifteen years and finally

there is a development group that is
actually building a hotel around this and

they are using this as the main lobby and
pavilion for the hotel and

we have just been retained
to not only do the hotel but

to do the adaptive reuse of this or
a certain pavilion.

It's like such an incredible privilege.

And.

We.

Can imagine really how
we got the job we're

called up we went through
two interviews and.

Called a spade a spade I guess.

There's a tower design by as an intern in
Moscow that we're working on right now.

Love like totally nuts.

Right now we are this is not
within budget so we say.

But we believe that there are various.

Rule based grasshopper definitions that
can be evolved in order to economically

optimize this design intent so
the building design will be different but

the essence of the building
will be the same

by the time the collaboration is done.

It's crazy Kirwan.

And this is a lovely
little project this is.

A condominium private condominium in
Manhattan and you can see just above

the World Trade Center there's
marquees Four World Trade Center

very curious little little building and
it's just this concept of these kind of

like thin plates that become these kind
of dribbles all the way around it and

the material choice here is we're going
to use basically a kind of black Burgundy

ductile fabric concrete in these kind of
L. shaped kind of mainstream panels and

these windows are actually huge they're
five feet by twelve feet long single pane

of glass and all of the windows in the
building are motorized operable windows so

they all have actuators with dual
chain drives that move them open and

they just clear the concrete so it's
this kind of very elegant solution and

this thing is actually being.

Purchased as a off the shelf prefab
panel wall assembly that is using

Dr Raines green outboard of insulation or
water barriers metal studs and shielding

with custom windows these
windows are coming from China.

Is frankly it's one of the best
fabricators we know who can do

big operable motorized windows for

a reasonable budget and those windows
are going to come to Pennsylvania and

they're going to get installed
into our mega panel suddenly.

This is like you know one kind of condo
project in New York that we're doing it's

not big that we love this kind of stuff
and then last but not least I can

show you this because this is what was
in the press release year ago or so.

But we.

We have done work with.

For the years.

And send an energy building which is a two
hundred twenty metre towers engine is now

coming out of the ground that's
one of our big projects.

But Thomas Christofferson who is
one of the partners of big you know

called me I was quite funny because when
done with a job where he says I want to

talk about something you just come around
our office and then I come around and

then it's very informal but then there's
like you know three people from Thomas

have the Works office there and
three people from Biggs office and then

they said yeah we're going to get somebody
on the phone and then Google dows in.

This is an ambush and that was
the intention there was an ambush and so

they interviewed us in a few
other people totally unprepared.

And said Yeah we want to go like nine
hundred foot diameter Buckminster Fuller

domes for State of the art
office buildings like we think.

So because we actually had done so many.

Art projects with multi-layered glass roof
assemblies dealing with all of the kind of

lighting controls and so forth actually to
about twenty of those types of buildings

we have very good knowledge of this and
one of our most recent projects

which Patrick divel the uninsured
is working on Encounter which is

the Canadian parliament has a fifty meter
by fifty meter multilayer glass roof and

when we put that out of our pocket they're
like my God you've dealt with every issue

we need to deal with on this project so
they didn't say that in the meeting.

And then they called us back two weeks
later and said you're on deck Come on

let's go as a board are we doing
like you know planes were feet of.

Planes domes.

All right so we started ramping up
now like you know ten people or

so working on the stuff.

Now as you can imagine the design.

Has evolved I cannot tell you in any way
about what has evolved all of the stuff

you're looking at is public because it had
to be submitted to the city and not in

view as part of their application process
so as soon as they submit it basically

public and so all of the materials
you're looking at were issued formally

just about a year ago as part
of their formal press release.

As many of you may have read in the press
they didn't get their full allocation of

buildable.

But that's not the only
property that Google owns So

Google is proceeding with several million
square feet of development just a mountain

view by itself notwithstanding
other projects around the world.

And this is this is obviously in
the context of Apple nearly finished their

corporate headquarters.

Last year we also showed a little bit of
the Amazon work we're doing which is now

under construction but
Amazon is more thrifty they have.

They're building conventional
office buildings about three and

half million square feet with and B.J. But
then there's the Amazon spheres project

which is the three glass and steel spheres
in the middle which is their kind of

flagship moment in Seattle it's quite a
still a big impressive expensive thing but

it's really five percent of their
total investment whereas Google saying

actually we want to reinvent the building
which is their kind of philosophy we want

the interior to be hackable we want the
exterior be kinetic and valuable we want

basically like freeform long span building
spaces to have just endless kind of you

know office space underneath it if we want
to repair the offices we can extract and

we can we can do fabrication and so this
whole thing has been evolving in a kind of

just incredible incredible rate I mean
about every six weeks we have full scale

mock ups that are being commissioned and
you know I never quite thought that our

multi scale or design studio here with
going from one to five hundred to

one to one mockups would necessarily
be a great training ground but.

You know one person in particular has been
working on this building Joe Fredrickson

who is classmate is has
been then aging fabrication

Fastrack fabrication
document of mock ups because

Google the contractors are not fast enough
so they have the contractors build it but

then we actually do all the kind of
prescriptive design of the markups and

go to keep the acceleration happening not
only that but to keep all the intellectual

property within the kind of Google family
because everything we do they own.

The do their work with Google to plan but
they're pretty interesting client I got to

say and one thing I want to say about this
though more importantly than the project

is the team Google has hired.

And Thomas had a way.

And there are two hundred person offices
like Thomas other working together and

Thomas Either way you know battling you
know Thomas other work is just like

one of the most spectacular people of his
generation is only forty three years old

is an artist who runs an architectural
practices two hundred ten people and

they do some of the most interesting
beautiful creative work that's being done

anywhere and Biggs office
obviously is doing the same and

they're also two hundred staff and to
put those two people together is just so

kind of like unlikely but the story is you
know darkened and tons got together and

said Well you know there's an opportunity
here and you want to play together or not

and from the consultant standpoint because
it's mainly until you're ten for any P..

And a Katie out of London.

And Albert Taylor those guys are teamed
with our upper structure and we

don't have a team because we're based in
North America we're not based in London so

we're doing the facade engineering and so
it's really façade every piece structure

supporting the big heavyweight
team that's the court and

then there's like many
many other consultants.

But that watching them work
collaboratively is is so

inspirational like.

The whole idea of like a local design
architect and all that like if there was

ever a model for pure unadulterated
collaboration this is like to incredibly

smart you know ego driven people they have
to be driven to do what they've done but

to watch the kind of process them is
coming gladiatorial in there's like it's

like an endless kind of you know bloodbath
of ideas you know to basically tease out

what is going to work and they also listen
to their engineers which is a great thing

but I just assume going to end there and
I'm just going to say that.

You know how you move forward what your
convictions are what your values are and

how you actually collaborate in the world
how you actually get things done

this is all on you and it is just
such an incredibly kind of like for

a whole world of potential out there so
I'm I'm extraordinarily optimistic.

Always have been which is I think
what we can do what we do and

I just encourage you to be the same
cynics don't build buildings and

the devil's advocate never did jack shit.

Thank

you.

Name rank serial number.

Testing.

I'm going to speak and I'm a second
year master of architecture student.

I'm in a froth and I may.

Third year undergraduate architecture.

My name is their first year and
student in high performance

buildings.

Take away.

That work.

Yes.

Thank you so much for one full

lecture.

So.

How do

you.

Know.

It's a good question I think.

Really taking a position in that regard
never defining for ourselves what.

We need to be doing.

I know it's kind of silly but you know
it's just really about personal pleasure

we built a practice to
engage in cool projects and

I think the big move we made early
on was understanding that like

there was even a discussion
of like are we going to be.

An architectural practice we're going
to be a structural engineering firm or

we're going to be focusing on.

And it wasn't absolutely clear
you know what we would do but

the facade stuff you know
we were good at it and

we were agile enough to
work with other people and

the moment you start understanding
that people trust you not to you

know insult their ideas or
throw it in their face or take credit for

their work or whatever it is like if you
can be gracious in your collaboration

with people then those
collaboration will grow.

And you know I kind of reject the kind of
corporate top down idea of what business

is it really is about bottom up kind
of people and their operations and

intentions and capabilities so
we were always very realistic about

what our limitations were and if we wanted
to overcome our limitations we had to

hire different people with different skill
sets I mean my partner Richard Green I'm

trained as an architect and I can
masquerade as an engineer pretty well but

I can't do the math and
you know he on those.

Again I can't even if
I try fact I hate it.

You know but I but I have a very
strong conceptual understanding

of forces and materials and effects.

And I can talk.

Unscripted.

Yeah that is that's absolutely true but
I think what you'll find is that

every successful practice and
I don't care what discipline is

the principles of that firm
are there because they can do that.

Like you know in these in these big
Google meetings like for example.

You know with everyone there at the table
is there because they deserve to be there

I guess they earned their spot there but

there's still a core group of people that
are actually speaking and contributed.

You know some people are there to support
roles some people there are generating

a lot of the work but they're not
necessarily either confident enough or

respected enough to be.

Delivering at the table so literally
you earn your place at the table and

over the years I've found like for
example like

to give you an example like if you go to
a sauna meeting with like instincts for

Gary details you're not going to be
asked to the next meeting you know and

I have had phone calls it's very
uncomfortable from architects saying.

That person in the room that you brought

that spoke out of turn could
you not bring them again.

Was like really and they're like
yeah because they're obviously they

kind of overstepped their capabilities
they didn't understand all of the subtlety

in the room the client's values you
know you just do something subtle and

you really insult somebody or you you
prove yourself to be very naive and people

are like we're paying you all a lot of
money to be here and we don't need that.

You know it's funny get into conflicts
like when you're really powerful and

you're going forward and you're
negotiating but I think what I'm trying to

say is that people build their
practices based on their abilities as.

One they have to have their
core competency completely.

In him and then they had the you
have the interpersonal skills and

charisma to actually carry it

forward.

Yeah.

Yeah Crossman I guess but at the same
time I have great respect for Crossman.

And Craftsman make things
I don't make things.

Even even when I set up my own C.N.C.
fabrication workshop but

you know the Lincoln Square synagogue
project was a an act of conceit

where I said Wouldn't it be nice to
design around fix during Miller and

profiles build the facade ourselves
we did we did that was fun.

But that I ever actually programmed the
fix during that I ever do that you know

do I know how to do it now.

But do I know how to deploy a technology
in the service of a result and

I know how to organize a group of people
to galvanize around a set of you know.

Goals in order to make that happen.

You know and

that's something you learn over a long
time but you also have want to learn it.

You have to want to do that and
it's not always that easy.

So I'm not

across.

Thank you.

Wanted to.

Doing with the finish has been so
I couldn't give a shit about it.

No I mean you know guys like
Dennis Shabnam take me to task for

not being a user.

I can draw a line.

With all of do with a whiteboard and
a hands because I'm drawing a draw I draw.

But do I understand the software do I
fund the structure of it do I know how to

apply the technology to the structure of
the industry for meaningful deployment.

To many people know how to do that no.

Because if you don't understand the big
frame the technology is useless.

For doing technical exercises on the piano
it's not basically doing what you know

with something.

You.

Like.

You're criticising yourself.

Yeah.

Absolutely because like right now it's
just as ridiculous as doing like one foot

center extruded glass tubes with lights
down the middle of it over what.

Students to increase the rent
on parka at some point

like.

If.

You ever look at the suburbs of Moscow
a career of like repetitive fifteen story

slabs lined up until the horizon you
don't design should that's what happens.

Meaning Life ends up in a very nasty
awful place I mean beauty has a place

you know I mean people like things
they want to live it have wonderful

beautiful places that's
why we build parks.

You know.

But.

I think I like things like.

That really.

Like going to get rid of the bird that.

Well we think about those things every day
and it's like my comment like you might

like.

Well that's when you call your
facade maintenance consultant and

consulting ornithologist and
those people are there I'm good but

we have a consulting ornithologist
to deal with bird safety issues.

No of course not because all
those buildings that were.

It's in the public realm you can actually
look at the prism those buildings

basically if you can't kinetically close
them down at night there's light pollution

in the light pollution basically
disrupts the birds migratory path.

So there's a bird safe ordinance in the
whole Bay Area that you have to satisfy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah and it still has to be on budget.

And on schedule the nightmare
Yeah to give up

now.

OK.

I mean now there's just.

I mean why is talking about getting
people out of energy so I don't know.

You know real architecture.

People.

Of you and you come down on them.

And also you know that what
you know how how much they

are based on you know.

Well it's.

It's it's critical.

Important out there.

First of all it all starts
with legislation right so

if a jurisdiction or a country or
region whatever and legislates certain

performance requirements then that's
an expression of cultural values.

But whether it's an autocratic government
or whether it's like a democratically

elected government if they can
actually need that kind of mandatory

legislation the next question isn't
Foresman like I was educated in Canada so

we understand what cold is and trauma
was also very hot so we had a very kind

of dynamic climate and the idea of
not insulating and doing probably or

maybe barriers in their various was just
like you know not not a question actually

I'm kind of surprised now how horrific
many of the buildings are in Canada but

most of the condos are complete crap
with the bridges everywhere and

I asked how can this happen and
part of the problem is and

it happened in New York when I first
read New York in two thousand is that so

many of the buildings have to comply
with New York state energy code and

compliance with energy code itself
certified by the architect.

With no enforcement no validation and

I would hazard to say fifty percent of
the buildings on the earth are legal.

And a lot of the people actually I work
with I would say architects were drawing

things that were illegal I
mean he's in the audience

over there one of our associates
She's our environmental modeling.

And sort of the.

She the.

I think was one of the first people to
tell me that ashtray mandates a sixty

percent reduction or you value if
you don't jacket your studs so

almost every building in New York City
they basically just insulate between

the studs put your thing on
the outside throw up a brick wall and

then they'd say that is our thirteen but
it's actually our four.

And they just step.

Up but all those buildings are just
pissing energy all the time and

then there's thermal bridges.

You know I'm going to start calling up
famous architects going to get myself in

trouble but.

There's a lot of crap that can build and
there's a lot of lies they're told.

But I think that.

Things are getting tighter enforcement
is starting to happen a lot more and

I do believe though that when a client
demands it from a cultural and

economic standpoint or a values them
point it is absolutely happening.

And so the next generation of lead before
is pretty hardcore I think it's starting

to get and we've always been kind of
holding our nose and thinking it's going

to solve it to something that eventually
is quite serious and it's there.

It's very serious and if you're cynical
about it it's everyone's taking the boxes

to get their points it's OK I'm OK with
that eventually if they took enough boxes

that it's all good and if you actually
up the ante people are starting to say

well I really need to reconfigure
what I'm asking properly or

really need to do to get a renewables
are they need to be geothermal are really

going to insulate the hell out of my
walls are going to do all these things

like that New York was building like we
have like six inches of insulation run

the entire building in Greece think
anybody recently their buildings.

No nobody does it's like stuck
on paint like a block wall and

there's no insulation No it's like Miami.

Right.

We have the construction of
the south here is kind of a joke.

You know as soon as you insulate I mean as
soon as you like air condition a building

you should be insulating the hell out of
it you think all the buildings in Miami

are a condition that yeah of course
they are right so we did a job in

Saudi Arabia where they took billion very
seriously the direction exterior Rito lays

there really broken with triple glazing
double over the coating of gas fillings.

In Saudi Arabia.

Is because they understand that like
you know if you can air condition

the building because of all
the internally generated loads

you're going to mitigate all the solar.

Load and then you're going to keep all
your conditioning inside the building

through good on globe.

So we're seeing a lot of buildings
that are very serious now

very very serious sales everybody
we're doing in serious.

But the world's a bigger problem.

Legislation and Forstmann if you're
really concerned about human policy.

I mean.

You have to.

Think.

It's making it.

All.

That this question that you.

Don't want to.

You.

I.

Mean you just want.

That everybody wants to save money in
construction that's a universal truth that

nobody wants to spend more money than
they have to you know right now.

No there's no way.

Everyone wants to spend
as little as possible.

But it comes from the government frankly I
mean maybe private individuals of certain

values but it's got to be legislated
it's got a good course that's the but

the bottom line let's look
at Hong Kong Hong Kong is

arguably one of the most environmentally
like efficient places on Earth just

because of the population density but
there's something like thirty cars for

a thousand people we as we
have five hundred fifty.

Great them like that so their use of
mass transit their use of density is

really really efficient and so what else
can they do well none of their buildings

are insulated but they're all are
conditioned so the government has multiple

pilot projects going right now to actually
start retrofitting the exterior of all

their crappy concrete buildings with
exterior insulation and waterproofing.

At the pretty big expense but they only
they know that that's the only place they

can go to start and hence inefficiencies
apart from using renewables.

But don't be cynical.

Just get the brother.

Duck attention.

So curious.

So.

St.

So.

That.

It's.

Well every every relationship
is different you know and

it's OK that they're different so
I have a number of now close friends and

collaborators who I've
worked with over the years.

Where we get involved in dogs
at the competitions that so

we're there to kind of at
the ideation you know process and

we contribute to the extent that
we can mean we're not off and

the driver in the design team maybe
putting like many people on the table but

when we go into a shredder workshop
you know we don't hold back I mean

if we have an idea that we think is going
to influence the project and everyone else

eventually is of that is a good idea yeah
I can work with that it's like there's no

there's no sense of ownership or
ego because if you have that on the table

people just get the backs up and
they won't go with it but so

when when you have these kind of free for
alls in terms of ideas it's really great.

Eventually the the architect is the author
who has to run with it and develop it and

then you're there to come the exam with
them as they go even if at the end

of the day you know in private you know.

It's like who cares and like his ideas
are diven doesn't write and so the idea is

a better than others but eventually
it's like what you do with that.

Thing actually how do you of all of that
idea How do you adapt that idea to do

all of the things it is
going to need to do and

then as I always say it will make it
affordable and actually make it on budget

and affordable is like how long is
a string right from building for

very modest budgets in other buildings or
bigness but.

I don't think we've built is like
on budget because even if it's like

two hundred boxes were foot versus
like e-books or square foot.

So then we have clients
where the relationship isn't

like old and we haven't done a lot
of building this together and

we haven't been through
the work together and

it's a new relationship and
we have to be very.

Cautious flee to defense of the word but

you have to be smart you
have to be respectful.

You know because it's too easy to
say especially with my like you know

free speech.

You know you could decide job here and
someone had something to do with it or

you can make talk about somebody and their
best friend or their spouse you know.

You're married you knowing that
they can get yourself into

trouble in a lot of ways.

And what we find now is that
our clientele and it's almost

after all these years fourteen years it's
almost one hundred percent referral.

Meaning that our clients are also largely
self-selecting in the sense that they

already have a sense of what we do and
how we operate and then they want

that relationship is they like I heard you
like work really well with these guys and

they want to work with you like any
of the guys doing the British Museum.

He's he's good friends with clear way
said Mark Hughes from the X. Y. and

you know he's just heard over
the years of like how flexible and

adaptable we are we're not money people
either I mean I can just tell you like

you know two thirds of our projects are in
the black and one third are in the red and

I know that it's been like that for
fourteen years but you know the fact that

balance with the black community can
actually carry the business forward but

I reserve the right to
lose money on the job and

I want to I reserve the right to do
a competition for no fees when I want to

buy a roof you know when can you promote
it work I mean I can do all those things.

And on balance I just have a faith
that you do the job you try and

get a furphy and you force out of
the I don't think your fees are high.

Like we never win in job
because our fee is higher and

people still hold us off
into account like I mean

you know they may say I heard great things
about you we want to work with you but

we still need to provide three
competitive bids to our clients.

You know.

Large.

What you want.

They all feel it's a

purpose.

So it's a good question it sounds like
you know the answer storm of them with

their ticket about the problem.

So I'll give you a different point
of view which is that every every

fragment of a building
that you choose to make.

Between sketching and
making the real thing.

Has to answer a series of questions.

Right so.

You want like a trial a sommelier you want
to build a model you want to build like

a visual mark up where you want samples
and you want to test in the factor.

Eventually you're going to get to
a certain level of conviction about

the effects of the things that you want
and then you can start trying to figure

technically how all that can be assembled
and do the performance that you need and

then if you have questions about what does
this perform technically then you start

constructing ideas about mock ups.

This answer those questions.

I mean there is an entire kind of like
you know code environment that mandates

some of these things.

But they have evolved out of
the process that I'm describing.

Right I mean like even airplane
engine testing to do dynamic

simulations of water on a facade during
a hurricane like some guy made that up

James technology in Miami right one day
he just started like testing shit and you

thought this is a good way to do it and
then eventually it became a test under and

asked him test Enders just like material
hours they all evolve from the need

you know so you can say right now that the
whole world has been codified but actually

you really should try to understand
the first principles behind how and

why that was and the real test in our
industry is if like if our guys just start

aping a certain test tendered so
will the Virgin Group.

So we're going to be
like well you know but

maybe maybe the German standard is
more relevant in this case because it

actually treats this in a slightly
different way for a different reason

you know we've got to start understanding
international codes and thinking and

practice and tolerance and risk and
who authored these things then you

can really start thinking about like what
it is you want to test like that twenty

four meter structural mock up there's
no test code that governs that.

Right I mean my body Richard and
I were thinking.

How do we test something.

Economically that is going to.

Make the point the point is that OK we
want to client to know that it works

we want it works and we want the New
Yorker's foundation to know that it works.

And then we want at least
three subcontractors

on the other side of the table
working under the general contractor

to also believe that it works
to the point that we put

in a commercial building we want
to build it that's the goal.

Right and so I would ask you there's
a scale mock up work you can do structural

testing it quarter scale half scale we've
done one to seven scale total testing.

But would a partial scale or

a horizontal test like you could actually
do a structural load as well as only

you can sandbag the whole thing
you can do is make it much cheaper

than building full scale twenty four
meter high with a stabilize scuffled.

Rate but but the expensive
option was the only option for

the desired outcome because the desired
outcome was not just the technical but

it was also the cultural.

Like why do we do mock ups in New York for
condos.

Such a limitation six years five and
a half years every condo board in New York

basically wraps up its list complains and
Souza developer like clockwork.

That's where works but trust me they have
a financial reserve in their pro-forma

to deal with that event will
continue to and they settle.

It's just the way it happens but

if you don't have the performance mark
up you're in a much worse situation.

Kind of insurance Thank you.

So I think it has to be both I mean I I.

Believe in core competency very
deeply like I really be like I mean

you know to the questions earlier about
me being a generalist or a mediator or

whatever I actually know in my
heart I'm an industrial designer.

Like in terms of actual facade
system design I'm certainly

like up there in terms of my capabilities
globally you know I don't get

that kind of recognition because I'm not
Johnny I was you know I mean it's not like

it's not like I'm creating product on the
front line and I don't I don't actually

perform this particular venue I don't
take that credit I don't push for

that because I get it through word of
mouth and then I get the opportunity and

I have a lot of satisfaction in knowing
what I'm doing and the people I work with

know my skill level in terms
of that ability to synthesize

things that the industrial design scale in
the service of this kind of architectural

project not in the service of
I was trained as an architect.

But the so
that I mean that's my core skill and

then the rest of it is all these
kind of like generalities so

I do have a kind of very specific
competency but I do think though that.

The architectural education
like globally is the only

education that can create
an excellent generalist.

And that the industry needs it because
if you've worked on projects with

owner reps or construction managers or
quantity surveyor or structural mechanical

engineers and so forth no one is thinking
about the project like the architect.

And.
In the end the architect I think

becomes and the best architects I will.

Work with some of them is that I know that
their frame of reference their ability to

understand the extents culturally
economically technically of the business

of architecture is at the edge they get it
they know how to operate within that and

they know the interests of all
of the constituent parties and

that could be hundreds of
different types of companies.

So how do you organize those people

like you could say a company might
have a core specialization it has do

you want to work with the best structural
engineers in the world right you want to

work with the best concrete fabricators in
the world like there's only a few of them.

But you as the individual
organizing a set of.

Groups to meet your ambition.

In the service of a client
who's paying for it

because that's what we do were essential
agents of those cultural values and

the aggregation of resources that you
need to fund construction because without

resources nobody builds right let me say
it but like the I say it quite often but

it sounds awful but the built environment
is a history of winners not losers.

Right kind of awful but at the end of
the day the thing I like about the West

is that there's enough diversity
of organizations with money.

Like politically and typological you have
N.G.O.s and you have individuals and

you have governments and you have private
corporations and you have institutions and

they all have divergent values and
thank God the landscape is actually pretty

interesting you know so when they build
it's interesting but if you have a kind of

like narrow band with people who sponsor
construction that's when you start getting

like you know Stalinist improvements
that are just not very kind of human so

I do think like the best education for
being at the center.

Of that process is the architect's
education is basically a design

oriented technically oriented liberal
arts education when one criticism I have

with the school is I think people don't
read enough it's my experience so far.

I.
Think people here need to leverage their

technical ambition with
a pretty hard core cultural and

you know social agenda.

Because otherwise you're not going to
you're not going to put it to work years

basically to be in the service of
other people like I was just doing for

side engineering and

I was just sizing millions were allowed to
slit my wrists and be so unhappy varied if

I couldn't be impactful in terms of
a collaboration within the limits I can be

you know that I mean that's what makes
me happy is to be able to do that.

You know the

question.

Growing there.

You know it's a bit of a loaded question
particularly some people in the room.

Well I can tell you a story about Keown.

Their story at the risk
of embarrassing him.

When he was in the studio in
their first year here we actually

leverage a relationship with
sunshine glass and china to actually

fabricate trapper's oil custom
black painted glass panels for

one of the mock ups and they airfreighted
the glass in and Young was responsible for

the fabrication drawings and
in the end he wrote against the script and

then he was interrogated several times
as to whether it was all correct and

when that glass got airfreighted in
two thirds of it will be reversed.

Do you metric the reverse.

Actually kind of still fit on because
you could mirror everything it's just

the finish was different so

the mock up ended up being like a half
like reflective glass and half kind of

satin black is actually quite interesting
in retrospect but I knew it was a kind

of levelheaded pragmatic individual
that he would never forget that.

And it's not just because it was him but
it's because he had a group.

He had peers that were counting
on him to get this right and

forevermore they would never have a mock
up that was realized in the way it was

intended hoops.

I don't know but.

There's a lot of truth of that.

But otherwise I think in our
organization it has to be.

Just a personal work ethic but
we were very very hard I never

asked people to work overtime but
my God they work overtime.

It's kind of relentless actually
just because the work is so

compelling that people have a sense of
vision that their life circumstances don't

permit it then doesn't work.

But.

I.
Think they also need to be very

kind of grounded.

Emotionally.

I think they need to be.

You know I'm not sure that I mean it's
not without spirit it's basically

extraordinarily passionate but at the same
time this kind of pragmatic grounded

work ethic if you just hire
people from the Midwest.

It's a lot of them are a little
bit passive aggressive.

Thanks Scott.