Evelyn Lee

[00:00:04] You could say that about architecture. Architecture is a little bit more nuanced because you're delivering a prototype, essentially, every time. Every time, yeah. Every time I did corporate, like a workplace strategy job, it was the same thing over and over again. And I was like, I would love to actually see this through to implementation or have a different set of projects. And I think it goes back to how few people know what architects actually do.

[00:00:29] And really educate non-architects on other areas that architects can be helpful. Wow, yeah. Hi. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, and welcome to Architecting. Hello, and welcome to a special series of the Architecting Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Weiger. Over the next five episodes, we're bringing you exclusive interviews with the keynote speakers from the 2024 AIA Colorado Practice and Design Conference held in Keystone, Colorado.

[00:00:58] I was grateful to AIA Colorado for once again inviting me to sit down with these giants of our profession and diving deeper into some of the ideas from their talks, as well as deeper into their personal stories. In this episode, I'm speaking with Evelyn Lee, FAIA, the 2024 National AIA President and the founder of the Practice of Architecture.

[00:01:24] Evelyn is a trailblazer at the intersection of architecture, business, and technology, leveraging her expertise to redefine how architects approach practice in the 21st century. In this episode, we delve into her unique career path, her innovative strategies for integrating design and workplace culture, and the thought-provoking insights she shared at the conference. Yeah, so you spent some time with Mike in Chicago? Well, he was in Springfield, Illinois. Oh, okay. Yeah.

[00:01:54] And you were there for a little bit? I feel like you just float everywhere. You're just kind of... He was part of the AIA ecosystem. So, California was really good. So, Mike's counterpart in California, Paul Welsh, loved advocating for emerging professionals. So, he really pushed me out into being a part of the region, being a part of national, and introducing me to a lot of people that way. So, that's how I merged that, Mike.

[00:02:23] Guys, and stepping back a little bit. So, you went to undergrad at Drury, is that right? Yeah. Underground in Drury. So, are you from Missouri? No. Oh, really? For... I grew up not too far from here. I grew up in Los Angeles, New Mexico. Oh, really? Yeah, Drury was one of the few places that let me play soccer while doing architecture. So, yeah. I was wondering, I grew up in Kansas, and so it was like Missouri didn't have an accredited state architecture school, and so they would...

[00:02:51] Architects could come to Kansas, and then if you wanted to be a dentist, you would go to Missouri from Kansas. Yeah. You never liked that Drury? No. I mean... It's small. It's small. I mean, I know good architects from there, but it always seems like, yeah, it's people from Missouri, or it's people from that area, but the soccer makes sense. So, did you know what you were getting into with architecture? Like, were you pretty going whole with architecture? Well, I mean... When, like, I talked to a lot of soccer coaches, and they're like, oh, what do you want to major in?

[00:03:21] And as soon as they say architecture, they're like, oh, I don't know if we're going to be able to support that. And I was like, what is going on? Maybe try that later. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Why can't we do both? Why? Yeah. It looks so fun, yeah. I mean, like, growing up, did you have a sense of what architecture was? I feel like it's not a common thing to almost understand, right? No, I think, so I, um, my first love of architecture, I always tell this story when I was in fourth

[00:03:48] grade, and, you know, your teacher tells you to draw your dream home. Make it look both sports graders tend to draw an elevation, but I drew in plan. Oh, I did a full one point. It was perfect. And yeah? Yeah. No. But like, you know, I had the indoor soccer field. All right. Nice. Yeah. And, you know, obviously, and I was having a lot of sleepovers at the time, and, you know, I'll date myself, like, the original Nintendo was out, so I would, you know, I just draw like TVs with the controllers, you know. Nice. Perfect. Yeah, so. I know.

[00:04:17] And then it just kind of, it, it, I didn't, I still didn't really know what it was, right? But I found these stock plan magazines when I would go grocery shopping at like the local Safeway. Yeah. And then, uh, New Mexico itself has a different type of architecture than most places. So that kind of stood out to me. Yeah. And then finally in high school, um, Stephen Hall finished our, we, he designed a new community library. Oh. And that was a pretty. There you go.

[00:04:44] I could have a little move for our community, and it was one of my most favorite spaces. Yeah. Interesting. Because I feel like, yeah, my dad was a. No, wait. Sorry. I should go back. It wasn't Stephen Hall. It was Antoine Freedock. Okay. I was wondering about that. Yeah. Which space is. It makes sense because he's. I was going to say, like, how much did, how much does Freedock. Freedock. Okay. Yeah. Freedock. Yeah. So. And that's what I was going to say of, like, I grew up in the middle of Kansas. My dad was a small general contractor, and I went to architecture school thinking I'd

[00:05:12] be a little bit better contractor if I had new architecture. And within, like, the first two weeks, it was like, oh, there's a lot more to this. Right? Yeah. But I don't feel like I necessarily experienced, like, amazing architecture yet. And with, like, Freedock and with some of the other architects down there, you know, it's an interesting environment, it seems like, to kind of culture that. Yeah. In you. Well, it's like, you know, Santa Fe has this very stringent historical code when it comes to even look and feel of their buildings.

[00:05:41] So even the target there is, like, Adobe, right, style. So. Yeah. Hmm. And so did you make it all the way through college playing soccer and architecture? Yeah. I did it, like, I did it for two seasons, and then it was just clear. Well, and Drury, as we said, is a really small school. So I had, like, 25 people in my graduating class. Oh, really? So you're literally choosing between studio and practice every single day or studio. It's funny you say studio practice. Yeah. Different kind of practice.

[00:06:10] Different type of practice. Architectural practice and soccer practice. But so it was, I literally, my studio professors weren't going to be happy if I was missing studio and, of course, nice, it's a team sport. Right. So there were a lot of successful, like, swimmers. So as more of an independent sport, it's a little bit easier. Interesting. Yeah. But you can just zone out and think about your project as yours. But also you don't have to necessarily practice with the team. Oh, right, right, right.

[00:06:38] So you could sleep much less and do sleep less. Was that a hard decision at the time of, like, soccer versus architecture? By then you were so... I mean, I think it wasn't that I was overly passionate about architecture. I think it was just the reality that I knew I wasn't good enough to play soccer the rest of my life. Oh, right. And even if I was good enough to play soccer the rest of my life, I mean, if you look

[00:07:05] at all the things that the women's soccer team has had to endure through time, like, it's really hard to make a living. Right. And get soccer in the rest of your life. Yeah. So, yeah. And it's so easy to make a living in architecture. Yeah. So easy. So easy. Which is why I love architecture. But so the next step, you went to SCI-Arc after that? I did. I had it in my mind. I had some really great connections with professors at Drury, and I had it in my mind that I always wanted to teach. So that was one of the reasons why I pursued an M-Arc.

[00:07:35] Drury was a more technical school, and I had some teachers that were into more theory, and I was really interested in that even further. And then I was also interested in just the new computer programs that were coming out relative to the architecture practice. And Drury, for some weird reason, made us do Reform Z. Do you remember? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Weird. Yeah. So I was like, no, there's got to be other things.

[00:08:00] So I went to SCI-Arc, and then I learned Baya and Rhino, and yeah, and it's a lot of theory. Right. Yeah. You know, I feel like it can affect you so much, right, of which school you choose and which path it goes on. And was that a fairly obvious choice for you of like that SCI-Arc, or do you look at a lot of different places? I looked at a lot of different places. I was mostly focused on places doing really addressing things with computers.

[00:08:25] So I looked at Carnegie Mellon and Columbia, too. And then I didn't actually think I could get into SCI-Arc until one of my professors recommended it to me. And then I just, I had a visit. I met Michael Speets at the time. He is the dean of Syracuse now. Yeah, yeah. But he was running the post-professional master's program there. And he, like, he was the only, when I went and visited the campus, he was the only dean.

[00:08:54] And he sat down, he said, like, he, I didn't even get an admittance letter. He's like, I'm like, you know, you're in the program. Come here. It's California. You're like, yes, but can I get a letter? Like, just, can we get something in writing? Yeah. Funny. Did you actually get a diploma? Yeah. I did. Oh, yes. Yeah. And SCI-Arc has very uniquely designed diplomas. Oh, really? Yeah. That's interesting because we just had Anne Mooney in here and she was a SCI, she's a SCI-Arc grad, too.

[00:09:23] So that, that sort of hit all, checked all those kind of boxes that you felt were missing from undergrad and. It did. It did. One of my, we had this crazy studio, strategic scenario planning studio. Uh, that was run by Michael Speaks. But at the time, the Los Angeles was looking at, uh, or the Los Angeles Valley, the Valley was looking at seceding from Los Angeles to the city. Oh, really? So we looked at various different city systems.

[00:09:53] Um, my team got parks and we looked at like what would happen to the Valley if it could no longer rely on the Los Angeles park system. Interesting. Anyways, we, it was a lot of like mapping of the city and understanding where parks are and how they were being utilized by the community. And I wish I kind of paid attention to how much I loved that studio because I think I would have found, took a while to find my way back there.

[00:10:18] But ultimately when I went into consulting and did strategy work later after, um, getting my MBA, my MPA and I went back to design and working in a design studio, that was the type of work that I was doing. Yeah. Yeah. So what did that look like? You, you know, you, you, you come out of CyArc, you have, you know, you have all these big ideas and things and then like you get hit with the real world. What, what did that look for you? Hit by a real world working for a firm that was doing a Home Depot. Oh, I did that.

[00:10:49] Sorry. So I can, like, I know. Was that like 09 or something? Was it cheapo-deebo? In the depression? No, I was a little older. Dun dun dun. So that was, um, so I graduated in 2003 from that. Oh, okay. Cool. Um, it was a bit of a, it was a bit of a dipped, um, schools. I don't know any good schools, at least that, that having been to business school, I don't know any good architecture school that has really quality job placement. Mm. Mm. Mm.

[00:11:18] Um, at career centers. Yeah. Right? So I was, I was just kind of hitting the job boards, finding the first thing I could. It was interesting. WD Partners was an interesting firm to me because they were doing nuts and boats all the way down to helping some fast food companies redesign their packaging. And I was like, that's pretty cool that you're doing architecture and then even process operations and food delivery. Yeah. But then I just got stuck.

[00:11:45] Like the only thing that the Orange County office was doing at the time was home depots. So that's, I got stuck there for you. You need a lot of advanced modeling for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So learn things like you can only break ground so many times or so many months of the year in Alaska. Oh, so it was all over. Yeah. These were everywhere. Yeah. So, and then, yeah. And I know, I can tell you exactly if the plan is mirrored or not by whether, what side like Lumberyard is on. Nice. Right?

[00:12:15] Things like that. That's helpful. Yeah. I don't like. Every time you walk into a home depot, you don't react to your... A hound. Yeah. And so how long did you last there? A year. A year? Yeah. And then, did you know? Uh, no. I was, so I was, um, I, I, through Paul Welsh, um, he helped me find a job at a local firm. They did K through 12 modernizations. I thought, it's amazing.

[00:12:44] You're going to be building environments for... For these youths. For these generations. Sculpting and running environments. Yeah. Yeah. But California has this program, um, the Department of the State Architect that all K through 12, um, and most community colleges are run through. And they have a lowest bid system, right? So you, you get set up with all of... So when it felt like there was this, like, this extra building, layer of building department,

[00:13:12] but then, which was, you know, fun to deal with. But then lowest bid for these environments means that you're ending up with a lot of contractors that there were some great contractors to work with, but there were definitely contractors. He set up separate trailers on our job site looking for mistakes in our drawings because they needed a chained order away to profit. And then, you know, we would upgrade these schools. We'd give them internet. We'd give them air conditioning.

[00:13:39] Um, and the teachers would be complaining to me that they can't plug in their coffee maker at the same place that they used to plug into. And I was like, where is, like, where was, where's the joy that I'm supposed to be getting out of for these new environments? So, so that's when I was, was realizing that I was like, well, maybe an architecture firm isn't the right thing for me. And I went and I came, I went up to San Francisco to the Bay Area for the first time. And I worked for public architecture, which has since gone away.

[00:14:06] Um, but it was, I went and I managed a program there that they were calling the 1% and it eventually became the 1 plus program. Yeah. Yeah. You heard of it now? The economy was good. Architects were, were, had so much work and we were asking architects to give 1% of their billable time towards the public pro bono. Right. In the hope of creating like the world's largest pro bono studio. They were actually having problems finding projects to work on. Hmm. Interesting.

[00:14:33] And I think it goes back to how few people know what architects actually do. Right. So a nonprofit is just like, I can't afford a ground up new building. Why would I need to partner with an architect or anything? So it wasn't, so I came in there to match, to begin to match them with pro bono projects and really educate non-architects on other areas that architects can be helpful. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That seemed like things really aligned to that. Right. Yeah.

[00:15:03] But then. It's only ever been to be a one year day. Yeah. Um, I was, my friend John Kerry was doing a year at the American Academy of Rome. Um, he was going to come back and sorry, I was like, well, maybe I'll go to business full. So I, hmm. Was that sort of stimulated from the, from the 1% kind of stuff or just like from your whole kind of career? It was stimulated from the 1% stuff because I was like, we have no idea as architects how to talk to anyone but ourselves.

[00:15:33] Having all of these conversations outside of architecture. And, um, so it was kind of stimulated when I was like, yeah, you know, it would be helpful to understand, to begin to build the business case around what it means to be an architect. But it was also like, I hit this, I hit, it was hitting my head and I was like, I don't, I don't know what I want to do next. Right. Um, I appreciated this being a non-profit organization, but, um, but I don't know what I want to do next.

[00:16:02] And I felt like I'd been on this path since fourth grade. Maybe I should see if there's anything else out there. Yeah. So I went to business school. I took a break from anything I was volunteering in. I dropped everything related to AIA. I had stayed away from real estate clubs. I stayed away from rebuilding clubs. I immersed myself in marketing and entertainment and consulting. A real detox. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:27] But ultimately what I found was I missed the people in the profession and I missed kind of the, the hope they bring to what, what the, the changes that they want to see in their community. Right. So then I needed to figure out a way to, to be a part of that architectural world, but I still wasn't convinced I wanted to live and, and work on the firm side. Right. Talk a little bit about just that experience of going to business school.

[00:16:56] You know, like I think about that sometimes and I'm like, oh, that's, you know, but like what's the experience of like that, especially can kind of compared or contrasted with the architecture studio experience, you know? Yeah. So I really stopped at, I mean, so I, I was, I was in my mid twenties. I was unattached. Um, I applied everywhere. I ended up at UCLA. I ended up transitioning the year after to the Presidio graduate school, but being full

[00:17:21] time immersed in an MBA program, pretty, it's pretty intensive, but it's, you have these cohorts, you kind of live, breathe, study, um, go out on the weekends, spend all of these time with these, these people. And it's, I don't know, at the bit like undergrad on steroids because people have gone off into the world and they have money and they're all like legal drinking age. Yeah.

[00:17:49] Now, like I definitely went, like I knew more of the night scene while I was in, in LA when I was in business school than I ever did. Yeah. Pre or post. Yeah. Because we just, we just hung out together. Right. Um, but it was so interesting understanding all of these different perspectives, people from so many different backgrounds and career paths and industries kind of coming together. And a lot of it, you know, a business school had a lot of evolved to a lot of team built problems all in too.

[00:18:18] So a lot of the work we did was in teams. Right. And it's sort of like project based, right? I love like coming up with a business model and like creating a business in kind of the same way as a studio. Right. But they make money instead of, uh, to lose you money, baby. And so when you, when you, when you got out of there, did you have a clear sort of direction of what? So that was, that was, we were just coming out of the recession. So that was like 2011, 2012. I was playing everywhere.

[00:18:47] You know, you, you have this, you're told in undergrad, like you can do anything without architect's degree. The problem is people don't understand what architects are doing. Yeah. So I, I had a really, honestly, a hard time trying to keep the architecture part of me with the MBA and people trying to like understand what that meant. They couldn't see how my skills translated from one job to another. I was applying in various different sectors. I was really interested in something more community based.

[00:19:16] And I, I, what ultimately made me get the job is I did a lot of writing and I did a lot of posting on LinkedIn. And I started having a lot of coffee chats with people that work within the architecture industry or had, had been an architect and they left the industry. And I had a lunch or is, yeah, it was a lunch with Marjorie Pearson. And she's like, I just interviewed for one of my articles, this firm called MK Think.

[00:19:45] They have this strategy group that looks at like what services can you deliver pre and post traditional practice. And I think you would really love it there. So that's why I ended up the next five years. Oh, interesting. Was, was Slack the next move from there or? From there, um, from there I went into, uh, commercial corporate, the consulting side of brokerage, which I don't recommend to anyone. Honestly. I love looking at your LinkedIn profile where you just say like, load more jobs, load more jobs.

[00:20:14] It just keeps going. Yeah. I like it. I went into it. So I, so some of the work that I was doing at MK Think was like workplace strategy. Okay. Yeah. So I went into a corporate, uh, corporate on the consulting side of commercial beverage. And it's, that life is crazy in there. Um, I felt like I was selling my services more than I was doing the work. Um, cause I had to sell to the brokers because they were the gatekeepers, uh, the relationships.

[00:20:40] And then you have to create a contract with the brokers and then you have to go sell to their clients. And then you had to create this contract with the client, remembering the other way that like the fee split with the broker. So I spent 75% selling, which was a good experience. And 25% like doing the onshore work. Right. Um, and then I, with any consulting work in order to successfully skill consulting work,

[00:21:08] professional service work, you're ultimately doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, you could say that about architecture. Architecture is a little bit more nuanced because you're delivering a prototype essentially every time. Every time. But, um, but like every time I did corporate, like a workplace strategy job, it was, it was the same thing over and over again. And I was like, I would love to actually see these, this through to implementation or have a different set of projects.

[00:21:38] So then I started looking at tech and I was like, where could I land in house where I can actually see movement and see change over time instead of like doing a six month strategy at the edge of my life. Right. And so did Slack work for that for a little bit? No, Slack did. Slack was amazing. I mean, not only are they a great, so there's horrible, like there's, there's tech leaders

[00:22:04] out there that people probably aren't the biggest fans of that don't have the best culture. I was at Slack for, uh, another five years, but it was the best. It was, it was, I think it far away and above the best company I could have been in during the pandemic. The leadership were so human. Like I've never had better leaders, um, than when I was at Slack and then it got acquired by Salesforce.

[00:22:31] But those people, I still got to work under those Slack leaders. And that was, that was amazing. Cause I learned a lot. Um, I would say I learned a lot more about leadership and professional development and what it means to truly care about employees and, uh, engage in your employees. Yeah. That's life. But, but then the architect bug kind of crept back in or how did it? No, I mean, so ultimately I was doing a lot of work.

[00:23:01] Um, I was heading, I was looking at like what do future environments look like in the workplace is partnering a lot with future forum at Slack and future forum was doing all this amazing research about how we need to change the way we work post pandemic and now that we're all more flexible. And in December fortune magazine put up an article where they literally compared future forums, findings, research findings with Mark Benioff's return to office strategy.

[00:23:29] And it was clear that like the work that we were doing in this little incubator and Slack would never roll up to the corporate level. I sales worse. Um, so I left essentially, I left when, when the last of Slack leadership at the C level left, I decided to head off on my own. Um, we, we got the severance package for it. It set me up. And in the background, all of these things, uh, when I started business school, I started

[00:23:58] practice of architecture. Okay. Yeah. Um, which was originally just a curation of all these articles I was reading in this little school that I felt it would be handy for architects to be aware of. And I was like, well, let me, let me go home all in on practice of architecture. And we started, Janine and I had started the podcast practice disrupted during the pandemic. So there were pieces in play to begin to make something out of that. But now that was when you were still at Slack. Yeah. When you, yeah. So I've, I've always had like I encourage side hustles.

[00:24:28] I know a lot of principles are like E side hustles, but also I think it doesn't have to be like doing architectural projects in this side. Like I've always written and made money writing on this side. Nice. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, yeah, I, I'm, uh, friends with Janine and, and, uh, and saw you guys speak at the first, uh, Entree Architect event in, uh, Austin. Like a year ago, I, I was having a real crisis of like, what do I want to do?

[00:24:55] And what do I, you know, and, and, uh, and reached out to Janine and was like, Hey, can we get, let's grab a digital coffee. And like, I like what you guys are doing. Like, let's, let's talk more. Right. Cause, and I, I think you, you and her are inspiring in that way of how, yeah, how you can circle around architecture, right. And, and do different things in, in how you're supporting architects in these huge blind spots that we have. Right.

[00:25:21] So maybe talk a little bit about sort of how practice of architecture has evolved down and sort of like what you're doing with it. Yeah. Yeah. I think to talk about that, you kind of have to talk about this notion of portfolio careers and it's really hard. And I feel like tech talks about it more people in tech or people outside of architecture talk about it, but it's this idea that it's really hard to, as a, as a person and individual with multiple passions to, to fill it, to fill all those passions in one job. Yeah. Right.

[00:25:51] So I think practice of architecture similarly is amalgamation of a different, of different things. So because I was in Slack, um, I, I have my foot in the tech world that I wanted to maintain that. So I am an advisor, I'm an advisor to a number of different startups, um, that have an AEC connection. Cause there's a ton of VC and private equity money going into the AC space right now. So I, I do a little bit of that. I am an outside board member to our, uh, architecture firm.

[00:26:21] So I serve as an outside board member to Shepley Bolfinch. Um, I run my own little community where small and mighty and growing, but it's, um, it was really, I felt like we had all these people tuning into the podcast and we needed to give them a home to connect with one another. Right. And Janine and I were realizing we're not alone in all of the dialogue we're having. And there's other people that are actually in practice that, um, are hearing what we're saying. Yeah.

[00:26:47] So, um, I, I have a little community for that community. I create resources. Um, I upsell those, like if you're outside of the community, you pay a little bit for those resources. If you're inside of the community, right. You, you get the resources for free and working. I brought on a partner, a CIO, uh, Larry for Bruni, and we're really interested. He's finishing his, um, his MBA at booth in Chicago.

[00:27:12] And he's really been working with a lot of professors in that have, have built venture funds or have been a part of accelerators. And we're now, um, seeking out conversations with universities who are interested in having, building on a certificate program, um, around entrepreneurship and architecture. And the idea is to get architects in there to create new products and services that can

[00:27:38] expand their business and also sustain them when their clients are building and then drop them into our accelerator, you know, kind of cherry pick the best of whoever comes out of that curriculum with that universe, the university partners and drop them into the accelerator and see if we can take a margin. Yeah. So it's an amalgamation of like everything, like the consulting and the advising and the business school, the crocheting architecture and new directions. Yeah.

[00:28:06] So do you feel like this is finally the culmination of all that background and this like scratches every itch sort of thing or. Like, yeah, like it's pretty covered. Right. And then a part of it is just getting out and, and speaking, getting to come to conferences and talking about that passion and how, how, how the business of architecture needs to, to change. Um, but yeah. Yeah. What, what's, what's that piece of advice that you have for people, you know, what'd you, what'd you call it? Portfolio? Portfolio career.

[00:28:36] Portfolio career. So that's, that's sort of having a career where you, it's varied. Is that the idea behind it? Yeah. I mean, there's kind of different definitions. I think it's really this just one, it's a mindset that a career isn't linear, which is really hard. I feel like an architecture because architecture is life to so many people and it is an identity, especially if you went through extra years of school and the IDP or the AXP and you took

[00:29:03] tests just so you could sit among your peers and call yourself an architect. Right. Right. So, so the path after you graduate is always kind of become an architect, lead an architecture firm. It's a very linear. Right. One direction path. But, um, yeah, but just, it's just, you know, I like to read, I like to write, I like to speak, I like to engage with people. How do I do all of those things? And it's really hard to find that one job. Right. That does all those things.

[00:29:31] When I think just like you said, like, I didn't think I could get into SciArc. Right. I hear students say, how do you know to apply? Right. Like you don't know and, and try these things. Right. And in the same sense of, well, I need to get a job out of school and I need to get my license and I need to, you know, it's like, do you, is that the thing that, that works? Right. And it, and to do what you, you're doing where it's not this defined thing, right. Is, is hard to figure out.

[00:29:58] And, and that idea of, yeah, you have an architecture degree, you can do anything right. You talked about when you actually try to put that into practice, it is, it can be difficult, but do you have that advice to people looking to have that more buried experience of how they keep pursuing that or. One of the best, I don't know why I can't, I can't play favorites, but one of, um, so we, I have a good friend, uh, Laura Weiss who we've done several, a workshop with her.

[00:30:24] She brought it, she was on the first season of practice disrupted, but she has had many different careers. Um, she's older than me generationally and she always gives advice. And this is true of, uh, there's a book out there called design your life. And essentially they say to prototype your way to what's next. So if you're interested in booze school, go and take some night and evening classes or electives in the business school and see if like, that's something that you actually want to invest more time and money into. Yeah.

[00:30:53] If you're interested in, I don't know, I was talking, I was at another conference and they're like, one guy's like, I always wanted to see if I could make it as a chef. You know, like, I feel like pop-up like little pop-up restaurants are so ubiquitous now. Like do a, do a pop-up and like out of your house, like see how that works. And then, you know, is that something that you want to do on a daily basis that you want it to become your primary source of income?

[00:31:20] Um, like I just interviewed on the podcast, um, X over zero. It's a jewelry company that was started by an architect. They just had one of their pieces featured on a Netflix movie. Hmm. But, um, but anyways, there's an architecture firm literally in, in LA, they are professors at Cyric too. Um, but they have a jewelry line that they are very open that the jewelry line actually sustains their architectural practice.

[00:31:50] Like they are allowed, they're able to do more research because of your money. It's like Dwayne, Dwayne is the individuals out of, uh, the X over zero. Dwayne is his partner. Dwayne. Okay. Okay. But it was, um, there's another, um, jewelry maker in, uh, LA that has the jewelry line is called lace. Oh, it's, it's, it's Oliver Wu. It's. Oh yeah. All right. It's genuine. Yeah. Hunter Oliver. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:20] So they, they both are teachers. Maybe that's Sarah can you'll see now, but lace is like this, um, growing jewelry line. It's all three kind of jewelry. Yeah. Jewelry. And you can tell it's very architectural design. Yeah. Well, great. You know, thank you for coming to the conference. We're looking forward to, I'm at a little disadvantage because I didn't get to hear your talk before this. So I'm looking forward to it tomorrow and, uh, see, see what you had to say.

[00:32:47] And, uh, yeah, thanks for pushing forward and leading the profession. So thanks for coming on. You can visit architecting.com. That's architect dash I N G.com to see images from this week's guest. And please rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Have a great week and keep connecting. Hi, I'm Eli. This show is made by my mom and dad and these people.

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