 We're also the people that that create human experience in a way because The the spaces we're in if that's the thesis of this conversation in a way they influence the way we think Yes, the way we feel the way we make decisions Boom, what's up everyone? Welcome to simulation. I'm your host out Sakyan. We are in Los Angeles, California We are gonna be talking about all things architecture all things design all things Understanding what actually goes in to building these buildings that we all have the pleasure and honor to actually Walk into and be a part of on a daily basis. We are sitting down with Evan Bliss Pleasure to be here Alan. What's up? It's been too long. Evan and I actually went to high school together ten years ago and here we are now later in life Just feel doesn't even feel like I don't think I could have ever Predicted this in the best of ways, right? Yeah, he's in LA doing badass work in architecture design I'm in San Francisco doing badass work in interviewing So it's exciting that we both made the trek out to California and also it feels like we're just you know Just it's like coming home. It's like coming home. We're just tight Like we've had both good consciousness expansions from coming to California and we vibe we vibe greatly. So Everyone I think it's so important We're gonna start with some some big history as we jump into things but quick on Evan's background I want to introduce you guys to what his background is So he has a bachelor of science in design and architecture at the University of Nebraska Lincoln Then he has masters in architecture from the University of Illinois in Chicago Then he spent two years at Clive Wilkinson architects Then he spent one year currently board of directors of Los Angeles form for architecture and urban design and Six months most recently as the design director at Aloy architecture and construction And he is spent the last two months as an instructor at UCLA Extension architecture and interior design program. So you're already doing teaching now at UCLA's extension program That's dope. You've had a lot of great experience at different architectural firms and You have a really good abstract perspective on architecture, which I love so much So before we get into the nuance of that, let's do a big history synthesis on reality. Here. We are evolution Long period of evolution. We're stewards of earth now We're hockey sticking up in population and exponential technology. What is your current? Synthesis of the state of humanity Current synthesis of the state of humanity That's a big question for from a big big person Alan. I love that. Okay, so obviously I'm gonna have my specific lens on it So I I think it's best that I speak about it in terms of In terms of architecture, so I Might have to start a little bit abstract for myself and kind of parse out what What parts of that I'd like to hone in on? I think I think over the course of talking to you over the last couple days Maybe it's become apparent that I think culture is really the part of of humanity that most interests me I think there's a lot of other practitioners and architecture in in other technical and artistic disciplines that very much concern themselves with I Guess the notions of how do we you know, how do we mitigate? overuse of water, how do we utilize sustainable materials, how do we Use the raw matter in the most efficient way, I would say for me. I'm I'm equally interested in how do we Somewhat in the Elon Musk sort of way How do we how do we assure that the future that we're pursuing is when we're excited about which to me is essentially a cultural problem? so I would say that everything I do in architecture is Is with that in mind with that approach in mind that it's really about curating a cultural condition through design and architecture that That makes life a really compelling experience for everybody, right? I know that's abstract, but I think that's a good one That's a good one because yeah when when we when we look around us we we spoke a lot about communication We're gonna dive a bit into some ethos stuff in a little bit, but When when when we when we look at when we talk to people communicate to people The you know the buildings that we go into also communicate to us and we communicate with them So building them in a way that gets us excited in a sustainable and ecological and technically exciting way Excites us as a communication fabric for where we're heading so That's good that you have that lens and then I want to ask you You know as we get more into the weeds one more kind of abstract point with that is We looking around us here in downtown Los Angeles We have a lot of you know a lot of these you know late 1800s early 1900s mid 1900s style Construction where things look a little bit more and you can obviously describe this better, but concretey Bricky sure. Yeah, not non porous monolithic. Yeah, which I would argue Alan that that's interesting You hit immediately on that I would argue that that Manifestation is a direct Cultural message that's being sent as you can see a lot a lot of the names you're seeing on these buildings are banks They're counting firms there the the vestiges of the financial industry right through Conveying a message about their prominence through architecture So I think that's a great example really and now my follow-up to that is where would you like to see? How will you because you have so many good? Actual designs that you've made yourself of the future of architecture. Where do you see us transitioning as the newer era of? Buildings come into play 100% why I think it'll be far less Hierarchically oriented, so I think there's sort of certainly this kind of attitude about as you say a monolithic quality of institutions asserting their dominance over the population in a way not to not to make this some sort of Power struggle dynamic necessarily, but I think that's certainly imbued on every level I look at design as having a value in the sense that it can certainly bring people together it can It can be a mechanism that allows the collective cultural values to be projected so it's not only Kind of a temperature reading of how people in our society are feeling because we're driven I mean I think architecture is just as Kind of it adhered to market forces and adhered to cultural forces as any other discipline But it also has that element of of the practitioners being The folks that are both both interpreting what's happening on the ground Culturally amongst people but also projecting a kind of collective ideal that they see for for design like design being both a passive and an active Intervention in society So I've always thought that it design is actually political in a sense, right? It's it's not necessarily in the left versus right way, but in the sense that it influences Culture like you were saying earlier Yeah, it influences the structure and the kind of interrelations of people of people So so when you when you build a building without the intention of people connecting to earth Yes, then people don't get to connect to earth exactly when you build it with porosity for natural light to come through like the holes of a sponge and When you build it with the intent of it being ecologically friendly that you can breathe in fresh air from from trees that you can see Green around you that you can have the proper recycling systems all this type of stuff inside that you know that further connects people In okay, let's jump into a little bit more of this nuance now. So, okay So you find yourself you find yourself doing architecture and design Through the through through a bachelors and masters and then you you know, you get yourself out in Los Angeles You're going through these firms. What is one of these? you know these these profound takeaways for you as you're going through the different firms because people design Different buildings. There's office buildings. There's hospitals. There's schools. There's Residential, there's so many different designs and they all Have somewhat of a similar you have to lug materials in you have to do electrical and concerns always and air-conditioning and plumbing etc all this stuff and there's contractors and yeah, so tell yeah take teachers about this It's really a dance, right? I mean so I look at the architect is sort of the Would you say the the conductor of the orchestra in a way like we're not we? We have the asset and the advantage of being by our training generally Generalists right we we have to know a little bit about everything We have to know enough to be dangerous in all those various disciplines and considerations you mentioned and in practice that that turns into us kind of Guiding the direction in the intent of each one of those individual practices So whether it be in a particular building with the ventilation system has a really strong impact on The end result of the design or it's it's it's deeply part of the conceptual understanding of this building Then the architect needs to be adept at communicating that to their mechanical engineer to make sure that that Part of the building is is done properly within the kind of design direction. So That's really what we are is we have our deep domain expertise in architecture. We're you know, we have our rudiments We're we know how to draw. We know how to create imagery that sells an idea. We know how to create imagery that Digests and unpacks the technical data behind the designs we make but at the end of the day I look at us as Once again kind of communicators with it with a broad constituency of other professionals So it's it's for me It's very liberating for what I would say a person like me who's who considers himself a kind of a 40,000 foot type type thinker So walk us through this as you going through these different firms and you're going through school and whatnot. How are you actually? Dealing with offices hospital schools residential. How are you picking? How do firms? Look, how do the schools and hospitals and stuff? Generally contract the stuff out. How do you then generally contract out to the different engineers and Civils and civil engineers plumbers electricians etc. How does that whole entire thing happen? Well, it's it's really a I would say a professional ecosystem not terribly dissimilar from any other one in the sense that You have generally you have a team that's that's kind of Ongoing because these things are all about relationships, right when you when you work with one structural engineer They start to understand maybe not your style But the way that you might structure your designs your architectural thinking so they can be one step ahead and kind of help you Help you improve Your ability to execute on those designs because they're they're preemptively sort of reading what you might do You build up that rapport and that relationship with your consultant teams with your structural engineers with your mechanical engineers And it also just improves the speed to market, right? If you have a team if you got if you got a few guys or girls You can call Right away when you get projects and you know they'll help deliver what you need. It's it's It's frankly just like any other industry. It's it's all about relationships and And once again any time in the creative fields as well that there's that kind of extra layer of Something beyond just the practical and just and just the financial and it's not just about hey, which engineers got the cheapest fee You know, it's it's also about Who's gonna help me really? Build that badass cantilever that the city the city will approve and knows and knows and is willing to tackle that problem of About you know an avant-garde structural design is in my experience. I found that Sometimes you do encounter engineers that that will tell you can't do something but there might be a way to do it It's just it just takes a lot of work So so like anything it you have to you have to kind of love it To make it happen and want to make it happen Let me see if I can hit this you want a team that loves it, right? Yes. So let me see if I can hit this So then you'll get a you'll get potentially Hospital school office etc. We'll we'll look at a bunch of different architectural firms And they'll maybe reach out to them and then those architectural firms will provide you guys will We'll sketch things out by hand and then by CAD and and Explore what it would be like to submit, you know designs for them and and then Something that's interesting that you were teaching me about and then that you know You obviously go off if you get the if you get the bid and go out and contract people and actually go and build it out But you were teaching me a lot about ethos I thought this was really interesting. You guys worked on a project that was firm medical facility for physical therapy Yes, and so you had to design the interior of this building to be very For for different physical therapy you want to inspire people but for like a traumatic brain injury You don't want it to be like too bright and too excitable and stuff like that. Yes So yeah, so teach us about how you blend when they give you an ethos how you design towards that ethos 100% I and that's just on that's on the money for for how I frame up really any architectural design problem in an office or otherwise is Starting with what are the what are the real cultural and human implications of this design brief? I've been given by a client. So That particular project you're alluding to was I would number one I would say was incredibly unique. So it it was a project. I was privileged to work on at at Clyde Wilkinson architects that you mentioned earlier and It was also it was framed up in a very unique way because the client understood our offices particular expertise in office design so we'd been known for quite a quite a period of time probably 20 plus years as being Really a firm that understood how to create an open office which For better or for worse is is getting a little bit of cultural pushback now, but understood how to make an open office that Really communicated the ideals of an organization of a company and also created a space in which they could work most effectively So it it started with culture. It started with interviewing the executives with interviewing the project managers interviewing the staff to understand Intimately what what are their needs both practically and culturally to best do their work? so this rehabilitation Institute in Chicago came to us with that knowledge and Asked us can you take that particular approach and apply it to our design problem? Which is how do we create a rehabilitation Institute that? Breaks down the barriers between those who practice the rehabilitation those that are on the ground actually helping people Physically in real time better themselves and get back to you know full mobility. How do you fuse that with? Kind of the research is happening on the other end and perhaps in a in an isolated institution physically geographically intellectually separated from the actual work that's being done and They were convinced and and we agreed that that's some of the principles that we had developed through our office design experience could be applied To this institution And then how do you go about? Taking an ethos like that. Yes, and then actually bring it into designing the space a hundred percent so A couple things the design problem itself the client asked us to do that We design the patient experience, which is a very abstract ass, but we define that as What the patient sees experiences feels from the minute they show up? To to when they've came up to the floors when they're when they're actively being real Rehabilitated that whole narrative along the way is what our problem is right so that that manifested in very simple but provocative and thoughtful ways I would say one of them being that Graphics were a very strong component of what we did. So thinking about architecture not just as Bricks and water but also as surface treatment as the way that you think about colors and the way that you think about how those colors affect one's mood and one's Understanding of what the space they've just entered represents Or is trying to do for them So a really good example is how we thought about the ambulance entry, which I think I already mentioned to you It's so cool. Yeah, which is you know, it's such a it's such a simple idea But it's like how do these how do these patients come into this space? How do they come into this rehabilitation Institute if they're coming in on an ambulance? They're on the back right and they're in a very traumatic state Like in a very compromised state and they need they need something that really envelops them and and Reassures them and lets them know that they're at a place where people care and they're here to help you, right? So the way that we translated that was we we thought about the kind of entry bay to the building rather than it being this Dark dank utilitarian forgotten space where there's you know, there's water leaking You know, there's cracks in the walls. Everything's just dismal we thought about it as a place of of not overstimulating but something that kind of projected an era of freshness of cleanness, so it's it's these kind of curvilinear graphics that are orange tones, which are kind of the brand tones of this particular organization and just kind of projects this idea of of Coming home in a way right through through this graphic treatment There's like a heart and there's yeah, there's a compassion feeling Exactly, that's a great. Thank you. That's thank you for those words at compassion precisely So it from from day one from moment one we're communicating something And then I can kind of walk you through the building So this this particular project it was broken up into I believe four or five floors each floor dedicated to a particular rehabilitation type whether that be Sort of arms and hands so people that have hand injuries and have these kind of micro scale Fine-grain maneuvers that they have to kind of relearn or or go through that experience of relearning those that are Basically need to relearn how to walk So the kind of legs and walking floor as you alluded to those that have brain injuries traumatic brain injuries that I But it's it's a very different experience from that very physical side of Rehabilitation and then and then I believe just a strength floor for those that just have kind of need to be rehabilitated in general Strength damn, so you're designing a different aesthetic in environment for every single one of those Physical yes areas for right rehabilitation and treatment. Yeah therapy. That's so cool Right and the thing is that I think where this really became a novel approach is if you think about if you just take a second And you think about what does a hospital look like what does a rehabilitation Institute look like it looks very monolithic, right? It's it's we see that you know the drab hallways the endless kind of beige this very Frankly an environment that's I think inherently not conducive to what what we're trying to do for the people that are in the space, right? You need something that's catered to them that that is catered to their emotional state not just the practical Solving of you know, how do we get you back to strong again and active again and capable again? But how do we this is just as much an emotional thing as it is a physical thing? So that was front of mind when we were designing these spaces so Each of those spaces it in a very real and physical way manifests differently So I was I was charged primarily with designing the the brain floor which differentiated from the kind of arms and the hands and the strength and the legs and walking it needed a very at least by our measure from From thinking about it critically from speaking to the leadership at the Rehabilitation Institute from actually visiting there I got to fly to Chicago meet with the staff there to actually see what was happening and understand that intimately It was understood that this brain floor needed a very Almost kind of a nurturing sort of aesthetic and a nurturing sort of organization and sense to it, so it's it's organized in a way that All the kind of more active Parts of the rehabilitation are happening on the center of the floor, right? And then on the edges of the floor on the periphery are these kind of sculptural type Scoops and and gestures if your listeners go and take a look we're gonna plug in these images You'll be seeing them right now. Yeah, yeah, so you'll understand that they're they're kind of these scallop-type shapes Almost like spherical or almost arch-like that have a almost ancient softness to them that are also Covered with these soft blue graphics that it feels almost like a sky like almost the Mist in the in the gradient of sky enveloping you so that's where these very sensitive Rehabilitation actions are happening. It's kind of on the edges But it's Simultaneously projecting this idea and this intention of intimacy by creating these little break-off nooks But also understanding that there needs to be a clear dialogue happening on across the floor that the activities that are happening The rehabilitation that's happening in the center of the floor needs to be physically and communicationally Proximate to the kind of edge conditions. Yeah it was so so nuts listening to you talk about this because It it's this reminds us continuously reminds me about the sheer complexity of the world around us like When we walk into a restaurant We're not actually thinking about how they source the food the buzzers the waiters the chefs the management how they designed the actual Venue where you're sitting all this kind of stuff same similar to when the future is not these monolithic Buildings with these hospital hallways that are just Bayesian whatnot But it's this warm and inviting all the way from when you first park your car It's a warm and inviting environment for you to come in knowing that you're gonna be compassionately taken care of and then there's a Different on every floor for every single different Treatment every therapy that's happening here. So thinking about it in that lens is totally part of this future of where we think about design in A new way and I and I love I love that Now now that that's a really good powerful example for hospitals now I want you to also touch on the ethos for offices. This is also interesting So you'll you'll be going and you were talking about this you flew to Chicago to talk with them You know when you have these these these these meetings with let's say the company that's coming in that wants their That wants their office design You'll have a conversation with them about their ethos about what they want to see in their office and then you guys manifest that through your designs and So tell us about that process, right? Well, you know, frankly Alan, I don't think it's terribly different than what you do fascinatingly enough. I think I think we all think You know architects and designers, there's so much different than me or there that what they do is so unique and perhaps it is in some ways But I think it's really just about asking great questions Which you spoke to in a lot of your work and I think great architects know how to do that with their clients like they they know how to ask the right level of questions that it's It makes enough assumptions that you can frame up what you're perhaps trying to Get from them from the conversation, but not so specific that it forces a certain answer, right? Which is a very difficult thing to do and it's it's it's a very human and a very emotional and a very Soft skills approach, right so and I think the thing is from my experience that You get different types of clients too. I would say in offices They tend to be a little bit more oriented that way naturally like I think they understand that Their organization is a complex organism and then it has all these particulars about it that that they're asking you as the designer to Kind of parse through an assess and then give them deliver them and a solution that is is filtering Your subjectivity of what they are through the practicality of of you know, this is how the deaths are arranged This is what materials we're using. This is the natural light. We're we're bringing into the building it's it's a high-level question not not so much a laundry list of of Preconceived answers about I you know, I need this many desks or I need this many soft chairs I need this many floors even I think the best office projects I've ever worked on had they've started more abstract and then You end up with the result that could never have been predicted on day one And I and that's in a good in a good way not not in just a crazy way And one example I can think of I I actually only had a kind of a relatively small part of this project, but it was a Project we did a Clive's office for a French advertising agency publicist group, which perhaps you've heard of they had asked us to design their new New York North American headquarters in New York City and they They have zero assigned desks in the whole complex interesting just kind of incredible, right? It and that's just something that I don't think could have ever been generated if if If day one conversation was here's how many employees we had which I'm sure that conversation was had It's like here's how many employees we had but but the boundaries and and the question was loose enough that you could say It's not about how many employees we have. It's about what our employees need Do they need to be tied to us? Do they perhaps instead need many different working options? Can we provide a whole gradient and a whole milu of different choices for these? Workers that you come in every day, and if it's it's a heads down focus day We have that environment that we've created for you whether it's a private. It's a private booth. It's a phone booth it's It's a conference room just for you and your foreclosest associates to hash out You know a really important problem or it maybe some days like you need that coffee bar that a really central hub inside the office Where you can all convene and you can trade ideas and you can really get a read on what everybody's up to and Perhaps translate that into what your work group is doing. So it's that's really what I mean I hope that's a more tangible and practical way of saying that's that's how you start with culture as a designer. I Love that I love that your your emphasis on culture and Communication exactly and ethos in this in the push for design is so incredibly important And I'm glad that you're disseminating that as your first principle and a lot of the prominent architects that you surround yourself with Carrie that is their first principle. So that's how this this is a good Dissemination for other people to latch on and be like whoa, we should be seeing the world through through this lens as we construct and build I want you to speak on on technicalities sure so, yeah There's is it too leading Softwares Rhino and Revit are this leading softwares for designing I would say in a contemporary environment. Yeah, yes in a contemporary environment And so when you're when you're using These softwares, this is kind of like in a in a little bit of like a three-dimensional computer aided design II style CAD environment and you're able to Take what you're visualizing from that ethos and communication with the org and put that into a digital Yeah, and then so tell us about that and then how that how that the technical tool will then translate into the final product Yeah, I love this I love the salad because it I want to make a micro aside before we jump right into that I I think you are giving me a great You're providing a great example of why the outside the outsider sometimes the best person to have a conversation about a field because They're not going to make the same presumptions about the conversation because one thing that sort of exists in my field is a really Would you say almost? oppressive kind of Separation between the technical people and the the design people and I love that this conversation right here It's like we can talk culture, but now we're going let's like talk about software. Let's talk about yeah Yeah, what do you know? What's the super technical in the weeds thing that you're doing? By the way, I love to have the same issue with engineers and sales people That's a great way to characterize it and I think that just speaks to that It's a very human thing and night and maybe that's the other vision for the future for you know I think collectively maybe we can start to bridge that divide. Yes, but to get into your question specifically so I I am very much aligned with Revit. I that's what I use every day and I There's there's haters. There's lovers of Revit. I at this point honestly, man I'm I would I'd put myself in the lovers camp it It's just so so useful it Where it differentiates from other softwares, and I don't know how much your audience is familiar with CAD drafting softwares or 3d modeling softwares how they've really Existed in the past is that when you model Something in 3d or when you draw a line in the in the AutoCAD space that line doesn't have a property beyond just being a liner volume Like the software doesn't have the intelligence It doesn't have the data mining to assign the properties of what that thing actually means and by thing I mean when you when you extrude or you create a volumetric rectangle in 3d modeling software you're representing a wall if you're if you're modeling architecture, right? You're it has a thickness. It's perhaps four and seven eighths inch thick, which is pretty standard with you know I but two by four stud and then your five eighths chipboard on either side goes super micro here for you love that That's great. That's great detail. I love micro But what's incredible about Revit is that it's what we call a building information modeling software So that's a BIM For short and what that means is when when you're drawing a wall and Revit when you're drawing that that one hour rated four and seven eighth inch wall The software actually has a whole list of properties associated with that Automatically generated. So there's kind of oh cool. It's it's less like Starting super abstract and it kind of gives you a kit of parts in a way that you start with Sketch does that a little bit too for the yep first for technical people that are building interfaces for Like user interfaces for apps that they have these sort of little kit components They're like little plug-ins that you can plug in that that's interesting just a quick quick question Why four and seven eighths instead of five like what's the deal? I know well what you know, I think it's I mean you might know this This is I would say this is relatively common knowledge if you know anything about construction is so there's nominal dimensions and real dimensions for Studs right like when you hear somebody say a two by four a two by four is an actually two by four what it's not right It's it's it's two one and a half by three and a half inches in profile So right there could be different lengths that two by four two by four just simply means Through it. It's it's the actual dimensions length and height Yeah, yeah, two inches four inches as a piece of wood and what did you say it actually is instead? It's and I hope I'm not miss speaking here the standard is it's usually four and seven eighths So I hope my mask coming out right there. It is Five eighths gypsum board on either side. Oh, it's interesting. We're cheating on other side four and seven eighths So okay, but sorry anyway instead of instead of going super technical Why don't you do this because you're actually you're hitting on something interesting? Tell us about these other component modules that you plug in because that was an interesting one What are the other ones? Can you just like? Oh, yeah, click on like something to help you with like the electrical and the plumbing? Yes Yes, so let's I love this. Let's go super technical. So This will it'll require a little bit of history about how architecture is practiced So in the past when we were coordinating with our mechanical engineers or with our structural engineers We would trade what we call CAD backgrounds. So an architect would generate Their kind of latest drawings their floor plan drawings their section drawings. So those are cut through the building vertically You would provide those drawings to your consultant team as Backgrounds and then the consultant team would go in and they would draw in their ducks They would they would route all their ducks. They would specify where certain structural members would go so they would specify where Beams of a certain depth are required because of structural calculations But this was all done primarily in two dimensions and it was done primarily in a in a way that the drawing was divorced from the actual Properties of each beam that was being drawn, right? It was just simply line once again line works That was being created lines that were drawn and then that were either Provided in a table of values about what that particular beam was or it was labeled It wasn't actually associated in a smart way in real time within the software. So What's incredible about Revit the BIM software is that the 3d modeled BIM model that we create We can trade off with our structural engineer now instead of them translating two-dimensional data line work to three-dimensional data about the structural properties or the duct routing Now they can actually model their ducks in 3d and yeah, and each one of those ducks has a property so Instead of it being a schematic line on a page It's now a you know a 30 inch wide duck that has a certain air volume That has every every line item of its properties on it So it would start as like a 2d line being the duct Yeah, and then it and then you would actually make it this actual Rectangle that has an air volume and then that would plug into the rest of the three-dimensional model Yeah, that's really cool, and it's powerful because it allows for what we typically term Clash detection so as you can imagine and when you go inside a typical building You often see those kind of gridded ceilings the what we call ACT acoustical ceiling tiles, right? It's kind of that I would argue not the most aesthetically totally moving away from that But above that you often find all the guts of the building right? It's the all your ducks are routed through out there all your your structural members are up there So that's stuff that's happening in three dimensions So you can imagine in the past when we were doing that in 2d. Oh, yeah Most people don't even know that the guts are up there. Yeah, it's always interesting lifting it up moving it to the side Oh, so you've done this. Oh, yeah, totally. So maybe your audience has done this here But yeah, what's great about this BIM software is now all that action that's happening with the ducks They're routing up and down they're changing vertically there they have to route around Water piping they have to route around structural members instead of trying to make sure we're not screwing that up in 2d We can actually 3d model and coordinate that Together like we can trade models that are 3d. So okay powerful. All right, that's so cool bit on the technical side get out here Deacon out. I love it. There's some interesting ways for you for us to be able to better understand the nuance of things Literally just look at one of those acoustic tiles lift it up Move it over to the side and just look up into that space because you'll see some interesting stuff Also when you're just in buildings just think about the hundreds of people that went into the process of designing and architecting and moving the materials They're everything I want to ask you about this major move of Human animals to metropolises Wow, okay. Okay So human animals are moving by the droves to Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo Beijing Hong Kong Shanghai London Paris, etc We're moving to metropolises away from the rural environments You and I went from Sioux Falls, South Dakota with 150,000 people to these multi-million person cities So yes, how are how do you see what's happening there with people moving away from the? 3000 square foot houses into the 300 square foot shoe box Apartments so tell us about what you see with that transition and what that means with architecture and design Yeah, you know Alan This is so timely because I I was actually just at a talk last week. I you're still here I think I mentioned this to you. I was at a talk with the Urban Land Institute and There was a company the CEO of a company called Ali that was speaking there And so always a pretty unique business they there I I can't comment exactly on what they do in terms of their classification whether they're a developer or a consulting agency but what they've managed to do is to Crack the code the building code in New York City to allow micro units which by micro units We mean sub 300 square foot apartments to be buildable by code in in New York City But on top of that what they've done is not only allow that to happen practically to allow it to be financially viable to allow it to be Ethically and legally viable. Well, maybe I don't know about that. I think we've been legally viable They've also layered on this whole other approach about this not just being about a Lack of space in cities and which you know it in some ways it's driven by that these these First-tier cities are they're running out of space in some ways or they're running out of reasonably priced space So it's not only solving the problem of putting more people in a smaller space It's it as I would say it's it's also solving a cultural problem, right? So I I would I would take it to the next level and say that All this stuff is equally happening because of cultural reasons that it that are probably Driven in large part by social media the network effect people want to live among other high Profile productive people roaring in the metropolises gonna be closer to millions of people and also you're talking about these shoebox style Designs where literally the beds are folding up into the walls The couches can push into the walls and out and you can sit on and push them into the wall The dressers can be pushed into the wall pulled out. Yeah, etc. This is so Modular eyes. Yeah. Yeah, and and what I liked about how Ollie framed it up was they said why why have we always thought about Apartments and housing as distinct from products like product designs and commodities and and consumer goods because at the end of the day I mean in some ways that is what you're providing if you're if you're a developer of apartments You're providing a product that that folks can can buy like can buy into they can rent So in that sense that product needs to have all the features, right? It's not just a space you're giving them You're giving them a whole built-out space in the case of this company as you're saying like every all the necessary Baseline furniture is built into the walls. It's it's specifically catered so that you can come in on it you can come in on an Uber with your your your bag of stuff your couple duffel bags and you're set for the next year or two years you don't need to bring anything else to the table and And what I also thought was incredibly compelling is they weren't just solving the problem of the individual unit They were also folding in this idea of how do we make all the a lifestyle brand? How do we make it? how do we have this Community organizing element that they actually provide each of their residents a Membership to their club, right? So it's a social club too. It's the building has shared amenities Which a lot of apartment buildings have but they've kind of Institutionalized as part of the business model as part of buying into that unit if you pay rent You're automatically part of the social club that has events that has ski trips that has a whole you know Yep, dinners fitnesses all this different type of stuff. It's not to I feel like I'm just So quick quick bit on that It's really crazy that Millennials and Gen Z you mentioned it earlier just kind of in the most crazy way moving into these urban environments With just a couple duffel bags right now and everything's already yeah, I don't know. Yeah, totally Yeah, we just move in with a couple bags into these environments Yeah, and what else is is looking to be crazy is that it's transitioning into even you don't even need your duffel bags anymore You don't even need a computer in your phone You just go and you log into the already existing technical infrastructure Yeah, spatial computing infrastructure in that location and the clothes That you need this is already all connected to the artificial intelligence grid where they already know you you know Your shoe size your couple pieces of clothing you need at that location at that time all part of the shared economy Etc. So all very very interesting as you travel from city to city Okay, a couple things on the way out it's I'm I want to I want to I want to talk about this because this seems to be The in many ways the future we've seen things like the Venus project We've seen things like our ecology taking over architecture and ecology mixed together We've been talking a lot about moving away from monolithic buildings into into porous green architecture sustainable Architecture taking ethos as a principal communicative design all this stuff So where do you see the future of the architecture in design? When I see the future Well, I mean in a way I kind of want to double back on what we were just saying in some ways What you kind of fed me a good answer here. It's almost it's kind of the we were Workification of space as well right that that perhaps in a way Architects might be necessary in a different way. We're designing systems and in opportunities less than we're designing custom one-off Happenings right that it's more about understanding how we're implicated in creating the systems that people arrive in and plug in and I think it's also probably about coming together as well as a field because I think architecture has always been a disparate field of of kind of singular individuals or ideologies, which I think you find in any any discipline or practice and and I think it's the political nature of humans that generates that but I do think Architects power is in is in numbers because I do feel like society has not Fully understood what we do And why we bring value or how we bring value beyond just being the people that are on the ground Kind of drawing the buildings and going to building department and making sure that Everything's code compliant all the all the practical parts of delivering it But it's we're also the people that that create human experience in a way because The the spaces we're in if that's the thesis of this conversation in a way They influence the way we think yes the way we feel the way we make decisions That's very well understood in retail architecture. I frankly I'm kind of excited to see Other people outside of our our typical boundaries see the value in architecture There was I'm gonna give you an example and maybe your audience can look into this further if they're interested This was talked about quite a bit here in LA So there's a really prominent architectural school down the way literally probably a mile or two from here It's called a Cyark, which is a Southern California Institute of architecture and very recently Kanye West actually showed up unannounced with the crew of his his compadres To walk through the student reviews there the student design project reviews at Cyark sweet and this got very well published because Obviously, you know Kanye has it, you know, he's kind of a well-known cultural figure but it it it gave architecture a moment and a lot of people have been writing about this happening and I'm talking about what happened and we had our five minutes of fame in a way oddly enough that Architects are forgotten about but Kanye Gave us a micro spotlight for a moment that that him thinking as this kind of visionary person Thinking that architecture had real grabby toss in society Gave us a little bit of credence and a little bit of muscle in a way I think we're moving towards an era of people that see the architect and designing from a perspective of These do directly influence the way that we communicate with each other that we think like you said this thesis of this Conversation and so I'm glad you brought that Okay, I want to ask a couple questions on the way out. Awesome What would you say is a core driving principle of your life? Growth yeah to put it simply I grew well something I like to say to people or that I found myself saying quite a bit is It's maybe it's right in a way But my two favorite things in the world are people and and learning so if I can find a person I can learn from I'm just like sent so I Would say that's that's often how I end up Pursuing very social relationships or when I really feel myself drawn to a person or Or an experience it's it's usually because that experience a person is is Whether directly or indirectly inspiring me or bringing bringing new ideas to me And I think certainly I would argue that that's maybe why there was immediate Probably drawn to that same approach. Yeah, I think it we just started day one we showed up growth and learning with each other Yeah, yeah, I love that principle. That's a really good one. So so growth Learning in people people. Yeah, that's so good How about if you could rebuild civilization from scratch, how would you design it? So first I want to ask is that the physical world or is that the structure of society politics structure of civilization, okay, I Think I think one of the the biggest Missed opportunities that exists is that We have a world filled with people that don't know how much potential they actually have and maybe that's I don't know Maybe that I don't I hope that's not throw away and I hope it's not superficial and it's good dive deeper into why yeah, okay? I think We're a world that's and I don't want to come off just like a Rationally utopianist, but maybe I am We are in a world that's driven so so profoundly by people's Impulsive emotions in a way right and and people's judgmental emotions and people's Deluding emotions, so I think what we really need to to or in this hypothetical question where I'm restructuring humanity We we need to find a way through society that we Basically allow people to to step outside of their immediate feelings because I think At the end of the day at this this kind of political battle that we're having This kind of ideological battle that we're having people don't understand that that's happening on the level of individual people's personality psychology and emotions right and That it's not necessarily that There's one right political answer or wrong political answer We are just we are simply acting in the world as a direct result of what's going on up in our individual dome right that We're predisposed Because of personality types it to see the world in a certain way. We're biased beyond experience we're biased personality and psychologically speaking and I Don't know how you structure the world I in a way that you help people step outside of that for a moment and and and see Zoom out 40,000 feet and be like wow if I could be empathetic and and really understand why this person thinks that or why this person is doing that or Any number of things I think to allow a structure that facilitates that for a broad population would would reap incredible results Because there's there's so much value tied up in people too. There's so much latent value because you have this world filled with people that That have already made up their minds about what what their opportunity is or what what they're capable of or who they are And I would say that with myself. I mean, maybe this is just a personal thing and a projection of my in internal world that I found that through experience through time that and once again, this is maybe this is right, but it's it's you It's all about how you frame What you think your identity is like there's always going to be people that are going to try to tell you What your identity is but if we can en masse empower people to define their own identities That's really good. Yeah, I like that as a design principle for and I'm not sure how you write it I'm not sure how to do it. Yeah, but I am a lot of it has to do with degrees of freedom So so raising the baseline for basic needs to be met. Yeah, and then degrees of freedom. It's mazos hierarchy Yeah, yes. Yes. So the basic needs are met to the point of like self-actualization So there's unconditional love and all these other basic needs and then from there the degrees of freedom are free of Equality of opportunity to pursue whatever you would like but just know that in order to actually Build something at that's at the tippy top scales It's going to require a lot more work than if you want to potentially just do something a little more relaxing In your day-to-days and whatnot. Okay. Anyway Two more got it. Are we in a simulation? I Love it Are we in a simulation? Well, I a question like that. I would want to start with I think we have to define simulation first, right? That's the most important part. So a simulation implies inherently that You're recreating or you're you're creating maybe not a false version, but an alternative a Recreated version of something else right is a simulation. Let's say Is this base reality or a simulation? Right, is this the actual earth that evolved from the Big Bang orbiting a star or is this a simulation of all the laws of maths and physics that are just existing in a place that is not the actual Physical reality Right, but bizarrely what I like about this is is in order for the concept of a simulation to even exist, right? It assumes that there is this other alternative universe that we're mirroring or that we're we're kind of copying. So I would say That seems like a pretty elaborate ruse. I would say that's just probably not a simulation. I don't I don't think um I don't think so. I don't know. Okay. Last question. Yeah, what do you think is the most beautiful thing in the world? Wow Oh, um I think I have an answer maybe in a way, but uh Um, it's the most beautiful thing in the world How would I give you an abstract answer and a tangible answer? I think the most beautiful Thing in the world abstractly is truth and I think the most beautiful actual physical thing in the world is uh Perhaps it's uh Still abstract, but I'm just gonna I'm gonna say I want women Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I I love I love I love those answers. Um Tell us a quick bit on why truth and why women? Sure um Truth because it's incredibly empowering And I think that's sort of what I was alluding to in your earlier question regarding uh, how do we If I was to idealize and manifest an ideal society It would be one driven by truth, which is kind of an ancient idea. You know, there's ancient philosophers who talked about that But we still do today. Yeah, right. We're digging and figuring things out But easier to self-actualize people when the degrees of the foundation of truth are actually present in the Education of every child I mean if if you don't know the truth, how do you uh, how do you work from that that space of falsehood? Essentially, you can't build up. You can't build a building on a Broken foundation. Yeah, so to me that's in summary. That's what truth is and women and women Well, I mean, there might be obvious reasons as a male that um, I but I think What I find particularly fascinating about that answer in that way of framing it up is that it's both this very, um biological maybe and and and um an instinctual Appreciation of this difference or this with this kind of a what would you say? It's like a companion to the to the man. Yeah, right. It feels like somebody who they're And I and I also want to I want to preface this with saying that I'm I'm certainly somebody who it Yeah, like an equality. Yeah leaves in a broad spectrum of of types of people and types of perceiving your gender and your identity I don't want to I don't want to frame it up in some sort of weird kind of black and white binary way, but It's almost like it's more of an appreciation for A set of traits that are maybe in some ways I feel Different than mine or complimentary That I I do find that Maybe we'll just say the feminine spirit in a broad sense. I think often um Can manifest a a sense of compassion a sense of yes, um Of relational value that I think sometimes we we get in we get on our high horse and we come into situations And we want to we want to be diabetic and we want to intervene and I mean broadly People want to do that but I think maybe that archetype represents a desire to understand first rather than to to to um Intervene and to yeah That's that's very interesting. There's a just a couple things there. Um the The rising of the feminine spirit To commingle with this masculine spirit that we've built a lot of civilization with Is super exciting times and super exciting times is to see what actually happens We we like running simulations of what civilization would have evolved like if it was a matriarchy Yeah, could have there been a deeper sense of compassion and understanding And maybe less war potentially who who who knows Where would innovations be how green or peaceful etc all these different kind of things Also women in general, this is everything from like a mother Yes, yes to us who we absolutely love and adore all the way to the women that we engage with In like a formal like business sort of sense that are giving incredible ideas for building civilization But also in a romantic sense as well Adoring the female as well. So this is like, um, this is such a beautiful way to I'm happy you said that as an answer I think we're too politically correct to even sometimes say that so I'm glad you did in truth So many profound takeaways from this conversation evan. This has been such a pleasure. Wow. Thank you so much for joining us on the show So generous Thank you so much And super super important to take away this principle of understanding the communicative fabric with which we architect and design our world and really getting behind the The the eyes of the people that have built civilization the buildings we walk through the complexity of them The software that's now being used to help make it happen the ethos of communication This is all super exciting go and think about that more mull that over more write your thoughts in the comments below We'd love to hear from you everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in check out evan's links below as well And keep supporting awesome artists and entrepreneurs that you believe in like evan like ourselves Keep supporting it so we can continue doing cool things like coming on site and doing epic shows like this And go and build the future everyone go and manifest your destiny into the world create build We love you so much and we will see you soon Peace That's it my man. Love it man. That was great