 So, while we wait for the first visitor to join the call, I would like to present a little bit what we're doing. There's a few days to commencement, so you're almost there. It's kind of a very exciting moment. And it's the moment also. Oh, Charles, how are you? Excellent. Oh, you're mute. Yeah. Hello. How are you? We're super happy to be here with you, Charles. What is the room you're in? What is that round room with column? Yeah, it's like that. Yeah. It's like the oval office actually. This is my apartment. I'd so much rather have you in the oval office than what we have. Yes. Yes. Well, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's great to have you here, Charles. I mean, you don't need introduction. Everyone knows you. You're behind many of the most important things that have happened, not only to architecture in the last years, but also to the city of New York and to other places like Fire Island and many other places. We're really happy to be here with you. And all these bunch of people that you see here, they will be having their commencement this weekend, this Saturday. So it's the moment to have a discussion with you and to know more about how where you're basically the moments that you left the school and started your own career. Such an exciting one that we all enjoy. So you have the mic. Well, thank you. Thank you, Andres. It's really wonderful to, to be with you all. This is the first time I've joined a class at Columbia in quite some time. I used to teach there. I used to be invited to, to end of term crits. I don't know what happened. Anyway, I do miss, I miss, miss the school up there. And I still teach at SBA. I invented a course that's on the bridge between art spaces and architecture. It's called the redefined space of art or something like that. And, you know, because our practice as, as you all know, our practice is, is a multidisciplinary practice. And we, we started as an art studio, meaning Liz and Rick started doing work using their credit card to do things that were counter to the institution of architecture, which they had thought had sold out. They were, they didn't want to participate in the kind of 80s crass commercial architecture world, you know, right after Liz got out of school. And rather they started funding their own work and their work was always architectural in nature. But, but more importantly, I think it was cultural in nature. And I think our practice has always been about thinking deeply about culture. And what that means in terms of space and building, but also in terms of theater and, and dance and opera and, and our public space. What are, what are those, those things that we, we negotiate through design that impact the world of culture every day. And so that curiosity, sort of that working on the outsides of the business combined with the curiosity of interrogation about our culture and, and what makes us tick is the same thing that drives our architecture practice now. Our practice has grown. When I started with Liz and Rick in 97, I was only three years out of Columbia. Yeah, I graduated 95, 94, I don't remember, but I was three years out of Columbia. I had started my own practice. And, but it was a fledgling, pretty typical New York City practice. I was doing gallery spaces, retail spaces, apartments and some freestanding work out of the city. And I'm, I have to mention just personally, I started my professional career before Columbia in New York with Smith Miller and Hawkinson. I was there for four years. And I have to give a lot of credit to Henry Smith Miller and Laurie Hawkinson who taught me how to make things. During that four year stint, I, I learned how to make a full set of drawings. There were only six of us in the studio. I became an associate at the age of 27 and drew an entire set of drawings by myself for a gallery in Brooklyn called the Rotunda Gallery, which I think it still might be there. And I also designed and built by hand my own loft. I did all the plumbing and the electric and I made the doors and I'm in, of course it's because it's me and Smith Miller and Hawkinson influence too. I made a giant door that was 30 feet long and I rolled on a track. And I made all that stuff myself. I can't forget the day that I took the wedges out from underneath the 30 foot door and the whole thing didn't fall down and actually moved. I was so thrilled and I was like, fuck it. I know how to be an architect. And so I think, I know that you want to hear about being an architect in the world and I think the first lesson for me came from that period which is learn how to make something and make it yourself. And that makes you understand physics and materials and tools and then you have empathy for the people that you're going to be working with. It doesn't matter how small in a way or how big the thing is but making something is such a great way to learn something. Anyway, and getting back to, and so I had that four year stint and then I went to Columbia to the AAD program which I really loved. I thought it was fantastic. It's very short and I know it's a cash cow and it was there to generate tons of money for the school. But it also made a whole bunch of great architects. I mean, out of my class, Greg Pascarelli, Lynn Rice, gosh, a whole bunch of really significant architects emerged from my class and the surrounding classes and so I was thrilled with that. I joined Liz and Rick. So I founded my own little practice and I was doing things for myself that were like, I was doing things for other people like I was doing for myself that loft that I made for myself and it wasn't that it was unfulfilling and it wasn't that I knew it couldn't go somewhere. I knew it could and it was, I was already starting to work in the art world and things like that. But Liz and Rick offered, they heard that I was good and they offered to have me come in and do design with them and manage the Brasserie restaurant which was their very first permanent piece of architecture in New York City and they entrusted me with that. And so it was a scale I felt very comfortable with and I didn't really know Liz and Rick that well. I knew them from my undergraduate years as the pretentious ones from New York and I'm joking but they were smarty pants and I was like, gosh, I just want to go out and build. Anyway, but the combination really worked somehow that I kind of knew the nuts and bolts of doing these things and that Liz and Rick were thinkers sort of outside the field. When we got together, this synergy was really palpable. It was immediate in two weeks. Liz and I were drawing each other's drawings within two weeks and we designed the Brasserie and we came with a blur building together. We did the Brasserie, we did the ICA, our iBeam competition. At any rate, I had started as a freelancer there because I kept my practice going and then pretty soon I was like, huh, these projects I'm working on with Liz and Rick are kind of exciting and big and around the world and so I gave up my practice. I finished my last job, gave up my practice and joined them as a partner, which is sort of how I came to be there. And that was, it's been great ever since. We were doing projects around the world. We have 110 employees. I'm sure you know people there. In fact, I know Kevin Kennan wanted me to send a shout out to one of you, I forget whom, but we have a lot of people from Columbia. They're some of our favorites. And if we start hiring again, I'm sure you can send in your resumes. I'll get to that in a little bit about COVID and what we think the future is. But I want to say something specific to your generation, which is we find that you guys come out of school with incredibly broad skill sets. All the modeling programs and all the digital software and all of these things are really wonderful. And I think most of you come out with a great head on your shoulders, kind of can think through a problem, but can also problematize a problem to actually, what is the thing you're trying to do? Problematizing it. And that's, when you're trying to be a creative professional, we are always trying to solve a problem, even if it's not a problem that a client gives us. It's our own problem. What are we trying to do? That's super key. But so, but getting back to, to the kind of current generation of graduates. The other thing we find, and this is a little bit of a critique, and I'm just going to put it out there, and we can have an open conversation in a little bit about this. The other thing that I find is that your generation has been exposed to so much so quickly and knows so much. There's a sense of impatience about when you're, you should be given things to do. Architecture is still an old fashioned craft, even though tools have advanced a lot and we can make many things with digital printing and all kinds of computer assisted fabrication programs. It is still a craft. It still requires that you learn on the job learning all the different parts and pieces of making a building, of communicating with a client, of talking to engineers, of learning how to build a professional model, of knowing how to sketch on a piece of paper with your own hand and idea that's in your head that you can convey immediately and with clarity and vision. These are skills that, that you must have and you must, if you don't have them right now, you have to develop them. It doesn't come, it's not right away. You're not going to be a principal at a firm in a year. I wasn't either, by the way. I took me 10 years of working in New York before I became a partner and it was hard work. I was, as I said, I was doing my own plumbing. I electrocuted myself. I closed the tools. I closed the sheetrock on the ceiling with all my tools above the sheetrock and had to take the whole ceiling down. You learn and you can't be afraid to make mistakes and you can't expect it all right away. And so I think what my biggest advice to people leaving now is to not, to have patience and but also to take advantage of every single task and know that there's something to be learned from everything you do that you'll put into effect down the road. So, you know, I know that some jobs are icky sounding, but they're all important, you know, so just keep that in mind as you come and work for us. Now, I know I want to leave a good chunk of time for some Q&A, so I'm going to speak for a bit longer and then we'll open up the call to all of you. I think they're 60, how many of you have 66? That's really wonderful. So, recently, as you know, the world has changed. You're all sitting in your own spaces, some of which are quite beautiful. Oh my God, somebody's in the Judd Foundation building. Who is that? Okay. Ooh, I love seeing these backgrounds. Cool. So, this thing has impacted everyone, everything, of course, as you know. We are lucky that our work has generally continued and we're working from home. It's non-stop. It's Zoom all the time. It's a little exhausting, but we're managing to do it. We've actually had a huge success last week. We got a new project that was entirely pitched for and won and the contract made all over Zoom. Or actually, it was a different program, but whatever, same difference. And that was surprising to all of us. We hadn't been to the site. We hadn't met the client in person, hadn't touched their hands, shaken their hand. And so all of this happened over Zoom. And it's like, it's a good thing and a bad thing, you know. It's great that we have alternative business practices that we can be much more flexible. We can be anywhere and work together, which is very interesting. We've started hiring West Coast people, European people. Well, we had hired those before the crisis, but now they feel like they're with us, the same as anybody else. So it's kind of interesting. I suspect that our projects in particular are going to be impacted in the long term because they're almost all dependent on public gathering. This is our passion, is the general public and making work for the public. So in my opinion, a city in which social distancing is built into the architecture is not a city I want to be in. It's not a city at all. So I think instead of changing our architecture, we should be changing our healthcare system. And we should be conquering these illnesses as they crop up very quickly because they will continue to crop up clearly. But I, for one, am very, I'm not interested in not having cities. I'm not interested in not being with people. I'm not interested in not going to the pines and having a tea dance. I'm not interested in going to virtual performances all the time. Not interested in an auditorium that has three people, one person per three seats. Not interesting, yawn boring, and the end of humanity in my opinion. So I think we need to all work to make the world work again. We do need to be thoughtful about these kinds of pandemics. They will happen again. And in terms of your careers, getting out during this time is going to be tricky. But I use the illustration of getting a job without meeting as an example of encouragement that it is possible. And I know that there are some firms hiring. And in fact, if just one more of our jobs that went on hold starts up, we'll also be rehiring again, I suspect. So it's not all doom and gloom. It's just weird, plain weird. I'm, you know, I sit here and I draw drawings all day long. And then I'm very old fashioned. I draw these drawings on sketch form and I photograph them. And I send, don't take picture of that, by the way, that's confidential project. I photograph them and I send them out to my partners and they sketch on them. It's very labor intensive. You know, it's, it takes a long time, lots longer than it does to be together. So we're all wishing for that at that moment to happen. And then one thing I'll just say, and then I'm going to open up for questions is, I think there are really interesting opportunities that are going to come about because of this. And it's not redesigning public space for social distance or rethinking public gathering necessarily. I think there will be advantages. There will be new type, new forms of gathering and new forms of entertainment that we will adopt and they'll become part of the part of our normal, but we're not going to give up on the old forms either. They may shrink. I bet they're going to shrink. I have a feeling they're going to shrink. They're going to shrink. So we have to deal with those. But I think one of the things that's an irrevocably, irrevocably changed is the workplace. The workplace is going to shrink. We are going to lose office space by half, I predict. And why? Because we don't need to be together all the time. We've proven that we don't. We don't need to be together all the time. So offices are going to start shrinking. What's the opportunity? Housing. What has to be done? People have to work at a policy level. I'm just talking to you about those of you that might be thinking about getting going into different sites, side places and margin related, but marginal parts of the marginals and bad word. Ally, but different than architecture. People can start working in policy to change code and zoning. And to, and, and, and does not be being conscious of how to convert office buildings, have that floor plates into come to mixed use residential office buildings. How does that, how can that work? How can we add cores? How do we, how do we, and how do we make that those, those, those residential pieces affordable? Because as we all know, one of the reasons New York has been losing its artists and its creatives and its, you know, poor people is, it's just too expensive and there's not enough housing to, to, to, to put these people up affordably. So the glut of office space, it seems to me like an obvious place for architects, engineers, policymakers to be putting energy into thinking about conversion to housing. So that's just a little tidbit of advice. Take that. I don't even need a commission when you make that super successful, but it's a good idea. Andrea, I'm going to just open up to questions. I think we've got about 15 minutes. So amazing. So much for you. And I'm sure there will be. Please. Your thoughts and questions. Hi, everyone. Please remute yourself if you're not speaking, but you have the possibility to unmute yourself. If you'd like to ask a question. Don't everybody jump at once. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to have to go ahead and view everyone. You were talking about art and spaces of gathering. I wonder what's the way that you would imagine the places that basically, you've been working on and universities also evolving like, like universities are a huge thing. And we're discussing. Charles, what would be the, the evolution of that? How do you see that? Having been involved in so many kind of experimental university buildings. Are you asking specifically about our current coronavirus age? Is that the question? Yeah. In general, and how, and kind of all the changes that you're seeing. We're working remotely now. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, like I said, I mean, I suppose I'm a little bit of a Luddite in that I don't really want to believe that this, this virus will require us to rethink our public spaces or being together. I just don't, I'd like to not think that, but, but clearly it's made a whole bunch of opportunities avail themselves. I'm sort of a positivist that way, because I do think that the way we're, we're working right now on this call is a brand new feature of this time. And it's not all bad. It's actually kind of got a good aspect to it. If, if we can't, you know, if we can't gather, you know, I mean, I just can't think of the consequences that we can't gather in groups. If, if artists and performers and entertainers and sports people, I mean, even them, if we can't get together, then the entire economy really is doomed. And like the world does fall into a new middle ages. Honestly, you know, so I'm really holding out for some value. But I also think we can hold on to some of the things that have happened here. So I'll just say for a couple of things, since nobody's asking questions, if you want to ask a question, just jump in. But one thing I think that's going to happen is the performing arts event. Oh, wait, I've got some, hold on. I've got chats here. I can look here. Should we unmute yourself? Okay. I think that the performing arts centers that we're working on right now, in particular, we're doing an offer house for 2,300 people in China. I believe that those spaces are going to shrink by a half. That there will be gathering. There will be, it will be just like it was. But that, I think that the performing arts centers that we're working on right now, in particular, we're doing an offer house for 2,300 people in China. But that there won't be the demand to be there all together the same way as there had been in the past. There will be the demand to build in technology into those spaces so that they can capture, you know, they can capture what's going on and broadcast them live to ticketed people, but with really high quality sound and video so that people do feel that they can be there. And one thing that's fantastic about that is the democratization of the performing arts. I actually think that, that this might be a way for people to watch a Metropolitan Opera production with great sound. And they've already done this a little bit in their own home in like La Paz, Bolivia for $5. And, you know, at the same time, somebody in Sydney, Australia is doing it. They stayed up really late or got up really early. And they're paying $5. And so the audience is tremendously expanded, but the ticket price has dropped a lot and somehow there's a balance that lets the Met take home the same amount of money it needs to pay its staff and artists. So I think there will be sort of new kind of rebalancing. But I can tell you, I am not going to design a hall that spaces people six feet apart from each other. That isn't a hall for me. We'll give up on that kind of performance. We'll do mile on operas or something that's different from its inception, that puts people outside. There's an article today about that, by the way. So it's interesting to read about the way we're going to get through this interim time and still make money. So it's not all bad. I think actually there's a lot of expansion that can make the arts more accessible and affordable. So any questions yet? We have one question being asked, have you already had clients who are asking you to adjust designs in process in response to the pandemic? How have you, what have you been hearing from clients about this so far? So far, no. I think it's so early and we don't even, you know, there's a lot, there's 150 vaccine trials underway around the world. 150. There's a chance that diseases have been controlled and conquered. So I think most of our clients, since they're in performing arts and visual arts, they don't want to think about a difference to the business model. Because when they give this instruction to something differently on a fixed piece of architecture, they are instructing, they're telling themselves that they're going to have a change to their business model. And I don't think that they're yet dealing with that. And they are not wanting to construct things into the architecture that are permanent. On the other hand, I think we will, I think have to think about things about like, well, how do people queue up to get into this hall? Maybe we should think differently about that. So that in the future, if we do have another one of these, we can make it a little bit safer. But I, you know, I just don't think anybody is going to go into a hall that is half full and ever feel anything but grief and sadness. So that is not something, you know, that, you know, I'd like to think about. So changing the, having a client change the criteria by which we're designing their project would probably mean jettisoning the project and rethinking from scratch, the way their, their business model and their, their content is delivered. Next question. I hope that helped. I don't know who asked that. Dexter. Oh, Leslie. And there's one from Dexter right now. Yeah. Dexter has one. What kind of adjustments in terms of updating building codes to enhance our resiliency as future public health response? Yeah, I mean, this, this one probably is something that will be developed more in terms of probably first and foremost. Air. You know, if you decide the air exchanges in the MEP system. That's, that's going to be made much more robust. There's going to be crazy filters on the machines. They're going to be pushing air faster or changing air faster. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the some of the technological developments that are in the works are virus killers airborne virus killers That that in essence don't just trap viruses, but they literally kill them I don't know how with Clorox No, but uh, that you swallow anyway I Think there'll be a lot of things that will get applied that it will be invisible I think I think that's what you're gonna see mostly I think every bathroom from now I mean, I just told my my people in my office to change all the fixtures in our bathrooms to touch free we had Previously you had to touch them And so that's happening even before we get back into the studio Things so that'll happen You know, I There there might be, you know little things like having a health room at the entrance to each office, you know where people can get Tests run and wait wait it out. I mean, I think probably in the next little bit Before we all get back to work We're gonna be having we'll have tests at our office front door and there'll be 15 minute tests and People will be required to get tested once a week or something like that And you know, of course positive people will be pulled pulled out. This is, you know, this is how we're gonna manage Coming back together But the other thing is we're probably not all gonna come back together again, you know, I think that that's really gonna happen and You know, so other coat things, you know, just following on that is they may increase the area per Occupant of office space and by code, you know, what what what you're designing to might might happen in restaurants as well although Yeah, so There may be some things like that that happen, but my sense is that mostly it will be slightly invisible things That will make us all feel more comfortable being together I Want to be together. I miss people. I miss bodies and it's warm flesh. I miss hugging people It's bad. So this is actually a great segue question The last question for you Charles. Okay. Do you think that? Offices are gonna start hiring designers who live in different countries and allowing them to work remotely more permanently Yeah, I think that I sort of alluded to that earlier I think I think it's true. I think we're the idea of employment And and geography has really been thrown in its head And I think that's an opportunity that a good opportunity opportunity You know, one of the great things about what's happened is I'm not getting on a plane I used to get on a plane twice a week And I haven't gone on a plane it as probably most of you haven't for almost three months now and There's actually no need our Clients that used to demand that we fly overseas for a for a one-hour meeting in Paris I went to Paris on March 1st for a one-hour meeting with my last big trip Which is dumb and just terrible for the environment and it's the same thing that will let us hire people from other places and bring them in and Make us make them feel part of the team I don't I think our technology is behind, you know this a little bit You know, I I want to have bigger pictures of people. I want to feel like there's Sort of you're in the same air. I suppose You know, I think it's it's still too distance You're every's on a screen and so there could be advancements of technology that make us feel more comfortable with people being in far away places But we haven't we have two employees in Europe one in Australia and one in Los Angeles and I know that It had always been a struggle for us to think that they could be fully engaged because we thought they needed to be with us But guess what they're working just as hard as anyone doing is consequential of work now as anyone in the studio And it just doesn't matter. So the answer to the question is I think so I think offices are going to start getting shaken up a lot a lot a lot And it's kind of an interesting and fascinating time for that Fascinating actually now Well, thank you. Todd and I just oh, sorry. I just wanted to jump in and ask a question. Thank you. Just sorry It's just like we have you have a minute for this last question. There's just this idea of the 615 right Hi, Ibrahim you can go really quick question. I because of that Thinking about the performance space and the kind of Just the access to culture and the opera was really fascinating And I was just thinking is there a way we can kind of it's very speculative like Design an experience of being in the theater in an opera while being at home like I don't know do design like you turn off your lights now and I don't know we designs like like extension to our houses where Your house is like an opera too, or I don't know like I just wanted to hear your kind of speculation on this my my partner is a concert pianist and and He gave a concert on Sunday night That was completely professionally staged managed And we thought it would be perfect and then I listened to it live and it was Awful, I mean it was awful it the the recording equipment just buzzed and pissed and hit and it sizzled it was like, you know So and all I've got a lot of friends in the performing arts and they're all in the same boat They cannot there's no way this technology can transmit With any verisimilitude the sound that's being made by a performer So there's a long way to go before technology kind of fall catches up with our needs to To to trends transmit better, but I think it will At some point and even though I think we are going to be able to get back into a room together As I said before I think one of the great opportunities of now is we're going to Develop technologies that that do what you just said, you know that surround you with image and sound That you know, you'll get add-ons to your computer that will translate, you know Signals that are come come from different sites there will be recording You know in-home recording microphones that will be great and You'll you know be able to hear things beautifully. It does not happen now It's very frustrating for performers But yes, I think that that's that's good. That's in the works I mean you guys shall go you should probably be thinking about all these different kinds of opportunities of now Keeping in mind that we've got to get back together. It's gonna it has to happen. So it too much of too much of our cultural Well-being is based in being in togetherness Well, thanks so much Charles. I propose that everyone amused and we have a big applause online for Charles Thank you. Oh Gosh that did not sound like a haul Goal have good luck oops Good luck in your in your future endeavors and you know, I will certainly look for some of your resumes will try to If we're hiring we'll definitely give it give them a thought. So with that, I'm going to say adieu Amazing really good you And We have probably Ursula is Ursula. Oh, I don't see you. Yes, we're here. Oh, yeah, and Stefan Thank you so much. I'm sorry. We're kind of getting longer in the calls, but it's such a joy to see you. How are you? We are very well. How are you? We're very happy to welcome you everyone knows Ursula and Stefan agency They've been doing an amazing work that everyone's been following on Borders and environmental Implications also of the construction and management of borders. They have a long trajectory and they are one of our most exciting and Lively family members. So we're really happy to have this call with you Thank you. Thank you. We hi everyone. First of all, congratulations, right? I'm graduating everyone is saying this is unique class. You're the first pandemic class. So that's something And we just prepared a few slides just to kind of share under us asked us to share our trajectory how we Launched our practice right after graduation and where we are now. So It'll be really quick and then yeah, please just let us know if you have any thoughts or questions All right, can you all see full screen or what do you see on your end? We see presenter mode or slab not not the full screen, but the other one the one with the all this light thing with the slides This is better. Yeah, yeah. All right. So Is under as mentioned we are agency and we live and work on the US Mexico border So we launched Well, we graduated in 2006 And we started with the kidney travel fellowship and that was a way for us to really kind of formulate our thoughts as Practicing architects and designers in the world. So we took two years to work and obtain our licenses and then in 2008 we decided to launch our practice right in the middle of the Economic crash, which is very similar to the current economic crash And so we thought we can share this as a as a positive note for you guys that if you feel like financially things are unstable right now It can be done and it actually launched us in an amazing way And so in order to do that because we were practicing in sort of economic scarcity No one was really hiring architects at the time. We then applied to every fellowship We could think of so do that right get there's a book out there. That's called like architecture fellowships And we applied and entered every competition. We just really wanted to kind of understand our place in the world But also be able to pay our bills And in order to do that so here here's a here's a collection of things we want So we're able to win the McDowell Fellowship the foundation for the arts in New York the one prize and then the room fries And all of this craziness happened within one year and we just couldn't believe it And it's not because we're any better than anyone else, but it's we really think it's because we were really hungry financially intellectually we just Literally always so we graduated and we were just like left out of the G-SAP family and we just didn't know what to do And so that kind of hunger translated and somehow all these institutions decided to support us And so but in order to do that The the goal was to create what we called our manual of practice. This was a hundred and fifty page document a little sort of manifesto book that Essentially is the trajectory within which we wanted to practice So we weren't just going to go after any kitchen renovation or any client We really wanted to sort of understand what meant a lot to us So this manual of practice you see it It looks like the chemistry table of elements, but it moves from a gradient of Informal to formal environments and then scales that are from the globe down to the body and to particulate matter And so within it we were able to find Whether each project we wanted to go after intersected and made sense in our manual of practice and it's been 12 years now We still follow it So in order to do that we said okay So what is the world in which we're going to practice architecture? So we started to map the world. This is the sort of the dimaxian, you know, the bucket fullers Unfolded map of the world and the idea was to truly only map spaces of Conflict and of scarcity and we think this has a lot to do with when we launched our practice that we were drawn to this idea of Conflict and scarcity because of that the political and economic instability so we map to migration and detention sites waste and extraction sites and Conflict and humanitarian aid So this military conflict and humanitarian aid and what we are realizing is that all of these kinds of Like sort of really deep deeply rooted conflicts were overlapping and we realized that that's where that's the scale at Which we wanted to practice but also to be able to zoom in to the scale of air or of dust molecules This is a scan of dust Binational dust in the region. This is border dust And so so that kind of manual of practice like I would suggest for all of you guys to take the next month after you graduate to say Okay What is my role in the world and within what are the brackets within which I want to make I want to make a difference and so Some of the we were operating at the margins when we went to Rome when we want the Rome price We were there for a year and we were mapping and working with the Roma population in order to uncover institutionalized racism by the Italian government and how these people were always Pushed and relegated to the margins of the city And so this is these are mapping exercises of understanding the sort of the relocation of the Roma population And then after that we started teaching in St. Louis. This is right at right when Black Lives Matter started to sort of become founded In St. Louis. And so here we are really interested at the evolution of the militarization of police and the absolute loss of Basic civil rights that we have in public space So so images like this emerge where we are no longer allowed to protest peacefully And then to scale that up to sort of the globe. We are looking at the the militarization of urbanism. This is a assimilated military urban environment that's meant for urban warfare training and here at the scale we're interested in understanding how the Securacratic regimes or military industrial complex is In essentially criminalizing urbanism and and training how to penetrate it more and so all of that It's has or most of this work then we decided to collect it into a publication So our book comes out very soon And this collects all of the military urbanisms and their relationships to the developing world and to informality and understanding how the sort of the global and US military are always interested in controlling even Spaces of informality that are generally unpredictable And so our work as architects and designers has been to collect taxonomies and typologies of these fake built environments all over the world and the US and to Expose them. So this will become a publicly available database for anyone to see through a sort of a GIS Completely located sites to understand how the military is replicating a spaces of culture like mosques and cemeteries And things like that And so I think that was a very fast kind of overview of the research and as Steven will talk a little bit about So what do we do right? Like what do we do when we learn the world like this? How do we practice as designers? So a lot of the built work Deals with trying to find an audience and trying to find a site and trying to find a Point kind of like a leverage point in order to inflect some of these situations and oftentimes we find that Perhaps the smallest interventions can have the largest effects I think going back to how Ursula introduced Our practice that we started with this enormous institutional support including fellowships with with arts communities and artists and Authors and and all sorts of individuals outside the realm of architecture. We're always looking for For ways to increase the kind of architectural public and to engage the public through through architecture So I think as we go you might if you're not familiar with our work You might find the the question keeps coming up like is it architecture and in what ways is it architecture? So but the common themes I think are that the projects have objections to make that we we take a stand That they materialize themselves in objects that we either find inappropriate or objects that we design with our kind of sensitivities to the conditions In order to enact objectives. And so the projects always have a kind of advocacy component, which is essential to how we wanted to practice and how we wanted to affect The world through architecture. So this this project is an example Right when we moved to El Paso, we found That we had an opportunity actually in the space in the space just behind The school that we teach we teach at Texas Tech College of architecture in El Paso on the US Mexico border And there's this amazing infrastructural canopy that had been underused And we were noticing sort of as we were traveling through the city that these objects these these traffic barrels were sort of Directing border communities in and out of the border Crossing every day. And so we decided to make an impact and sort of take them out of commission for a night While hanging them in this kind of parametric canopy To really transform the space into an event space and to have this was really meant to generate dialogue So we invited a large public including our students But also city officials to really think about ways to reconsider the kind of crafting of space in the borderland To imagine a kind of playful occupation as opposed to the kind of ordered occupation of the space and to really celebrate the strange Kind of juxtapositions That happened. So here's a student of ours. It was a costume party around Halloween to the same night student of ours really Becoming the kind of infrastructural System that we were meant to critique Yeah, so in another way so those were found objects sort of You know appropriating material that that is of the city This is more of a fabrication project where we're interested in the ways in which we can as I Architects enact a large-scale transformation of space and public opinion with kind of a minimal use of material And so this is a really lightweight composite aluminum sheet A luke bond or die bond as you guys probably know that we CNC flip milled in order to assemble these kind of umbrella forms creating a kind of armature for photography as a way to engage This is our selfie wall is a way to engage selfie culture and the ways in which the public is sort of constantly uploading Data to social media and online and data that can be scraped with biometrics and facial recognition software and so the armature was really also meant to confuse the biometrics and the facial recognition software by deploying shadows and Converting the light situations in order to see some of the factors there And this was tied to so it wasn't only an architecture in the physical world. It was tied to a kind of architectural platform online in which people that were at the at the event were actually in dialogue with each other through hashtagging and aggregating some of these photos to a Public public website that was then commenting on the types of data that they were sort of inadvertently releasing in public space This last project speaking of data. Yes speaking of data says last I guess one of the last projects will show It's more recent and this is engaging the kind of cross-border atmospherics of the borderlands These are dust sensors that we've placed in kind of hacked surveillance camera housings as a way to Collectively draw across the border of this project this part of this project is called drawn across borders and so Information especially environmental information sort of recognizes a hard border at the US Mexico boundary and people even though We ingest Mexican dust every day and Mexicans and just American dust in the desert that we live in We we don't really understand the kinds of flows and transfers of this pollutant or or this the kind of data that it holds And so this was an exercise We kind of gorilla installed but also had some permission to install some sensors in some sites In see that bodies on the Mexican side and in El Paso in the US side where we employed The help of the public to kind of be stewards of these sensors And to have them provide a kind of Wi-Fi connection in order to upload this data for these real-time visualizations and So these maps are basically real-time environmental analysis based on wind flow data Looking at the trajectories of pollution so people can understand What areas they might be polluting from their one atomized sort of sensor location and and what? What areas might be? Polluting basically driving pollutants into their area through the wind So we've also So back to this idea of being sort of nimble and flexible and finding many different avenues for for practice another sort of wing of our work is dealing with publications as a form of sort of democratizing data and sort of getting getting the truth of the situations that were Interested in and out. So the border dispatches is a partnership with architects newspaper of the past couple of years Where we've looked at architectural and infrastructural transformations in the borderland That pose potentially significant threats to public health and and public space So everything from we've uncovered the use of kind of simulated border fences for border Patrol training where they actually trained to shoot across the wall, which isn't quite legal by international law standards to these kind of remote surveillance structures that Managed the land when in the absence of any physical patrol To unpacking a bit of the privatization of the migrant detention complex and the the various conditions of human rights offenses that might be perpetuated in that situation all of that to say This work has drawn has garnered the attention of Some some NGOs who then now use us as sort of quasi architectural consultants Or urban analytical spatial analytical consultants to better understand sort of their Their issues of dirt they're dealing with and so Amnesty International recently approached us to look at in light of recent Covid cases and in migrant detention centers to sort of unpack the ownership models and the actual physical locations of a variety of Detention centers across the US. So we use our tools, which I'm sure you know, you guys have mastered over the last several months to to kind of data scrape and aggregate and in kind of compiled spatial and Visual graphics to then put this online to make this kind of radically public so everybody can know what detention center is in their backyard and also to know the kind of relative The relative population density within each of these environments as COVID Over the next several months will surely Covid cases will continue to increase and jeopardize the health of individuals here So this map is actually live online right now and you can zoom in and understand whether it's run by for profit by private companies or it's federal And to the right you see that if you zoom in enough you actually see the architectural spaces or the buildings Through the aerial imagery that would overlaid And so we're going to continue to build on this as an idea of understanding the spaces of detention that now are becoming spaces of death And we're also finding other avenues for work So we've recently launched a research center as part of the Texas Tech College of Architecture satellite here that should be called post project for operative spatial technologies, which is looking at the use of emerging technologies from the fields of surveillance remote sensing Environmental sensing etc in order to better understand what we call a data divide between the US and Mexico boundary So some of this work in the previous environmental sort of study But this this platform is meant to then now be a node and a larger network of researchers and available sort of radically publicly available to County and city officials and architects and urbanists sort of traveling to the border So we're launching a even larger initiative called the border consortium for actionable spatial research which aggregates Both us and Mexican largely architectural Spatial practitioners and educators and researchers who are either We either have a border city or border condition as a site of study or as as a location for where they live and work We're developing a platform for kind of shared Shared data transfer and and shared sort of projects that happen. So stay tuned to that And Yeah, I think full circle we were so happy to be invited back to to GSAP this last year as part of the incubator prize we've been developing ideas about Combating conditions of UV radiation in the borderlands as a major threat to public health and as a kind of architectural problem in which Architects typically designed for shade, but they don't necessarily designed to combat the effects of radiation within conditions of apparent shade which actually is really harmful to the bodies and the people of the borderland and so we're developing shared tools tool sets visualization and modeling tools in order to understand this as a design condition and then prototyping actual design responses in partnership with some of our So city city arts districts and City government and the way this connects to the overall work here on the border is that we're finding out more and more that Migrant bodies are generally subjected to a lot more UV radiation and damage whereas the surveillance mechanisms or border patrol agents are Constantly making more and more shade available to themselves and to equipment So they will shade and protect cameras before they protect migrant Humans and so so we're kind of looking at the disparities there as well and So we really look at sort of the architecture of policy in the architecture architecture as policy Part of the reason we named our firm agency to be sort of simultaneously bureaucratic and Design-oriented what you'll see here like all these goals like being nimble and flexible because we've Sort of been constantly moving and following our sites and following our research interests and being lucky enough to be in Academia where we can actually afford to to develop this research. That's not necessarily client-based But we I would I think our advice would be to just be flexible and nimble and expand the boundaries at which You think a designer or an architect might be operating Well, this is amazing really really Incredible practice and so much inventive in the way that you're emerging as architects I'm sure there's so many questions But meanwhile, I mean I would propose anyone either jumping as soon as possible because we we have to go really fast but also to there's the possibility of writing in the chat and But I'm really There's something that I really love of your practice is that in the way you explain it today I think it was totally making sense that is basically that it all started with objections So whereas we think that architectural as Basically as actors were very kind of we have to be very kind of Welcoming whatever we're commissioned Your position is really different you start basically by objecting and finding the funding the situation the Basically building up the whole situation in which your work and develop and I think this is crucial at this point Not only because of the kind of the uncertainty about markets or things like that But because the world is going through a process of of transformation that really needs voices and needs kind of a civil society That is active and I can touch on so maybe you can develop on this because I think it's a crucial part of your as of your practice Right. Yeah, and I think well, I don't we never think within within architectural practice or discipline to begin with and so When when we're faced with specific issues of scarcity or inequality or migration just everything that's happening in the world right now What what seems to make sense for us is to first construct the database first construct the map, right? Like whether it is a physical a map as we understand it or a map of characters There are players or a policies and truly understand the button that we need to press in order to undo or to object, right? And so some of the build projects end up being really small All and we like that because we can build them ourselves But they really there is just that that one lever or that one button that they press that completely sort of connects to the much larger global issues and And I think that was also part of our education when we were at G-SAP with Jeffrey Nava He had just come out of sort of like the AMO research lab And he was saying listen all you need to do is just like spend 20 minutes Like throw yourself into research mode on the internet and then be able to kind of sort of find the moment Where you think you make sense and build the context and then when that within that context and the objection makes sense So that's kind of how we've been operating since school This is really a follow-up to your question, but Matthew typed it in the chat Or the to what you were just saying How has your manifesto evolved over time like have you made changes to that original book? What exactly you know like where where are the sort of like differences that you see, right? Yeah, it has has changed a lot because we've grown a lot but at first the manifesto was really looking at the spatial manifestation of inequality and So we were looking at informality What I might be called slums or favelas and these kinds of spaces and then with with the years We've been able to zoom further and further out and understand that we're clearly not trained to be humanitarian aid workers Or doctors and things like that. So we can't really intervene in these spaces without totally making a mess So as we're zooming out, we've we've actually realized that the powers that control those kinds of environments At the decision-making table, like that's where we actually need to intervene to kind of amplify The the reach of our work and so in that sense I would say we've essentially zoomed out and not necessarily only looked at this the architecture and urban manifestations of the conditions but looked at policy and surveillance and military and all of the incredibly powerful people who actually are structures that actually Make these spaces such or you know that force people to live in these kinds of environments So I maybe that comes with maturity and gray hair. I don't know but That's you know, we've just like continued to zoom out further and further Yeah, we've also found the need or at least Anyway had better experiences now now that we've sort of moved our practice to be more based in a location in which we Hope to act and transform and so for a while You know our practice has been has been moving around a bit from New York to Rome to St. Louis and El Paso and El Paso Not that it's the only place that we can practice But it's it's been really productive in that the the actual site of the work is Is the subject of the work and the subject is the site, right? There's it's no longer sort of at arms length and the experience that we were fortunate enough to have in Rome which was the first sort of test case of Actually living living the research right actually being in these communities and Talking to people on the ground and trying things out and seeing all the all the inevitable failures of certain interventions and then working through That really that really changed our perspective from our initial manifesto in which we thought we could sort of abstractly sort of analyze and suggest interventions to to practice Now which is much more sort of in conversation With the place that it is through the projects right like we're we're as interested in The response to the project as the delivery of the project in the context that we're in currently and I think that's been That's been really productive Well Ursula and Stefan, thank you so much It's been really really great to see your work and also understand What is the huge potential of architecture that you're showing like the huge potential of becoming really a player in Really important things that are happening and that architecture can really help to to make them a more differently Thank you so much. Let's see now people kind of mute and applause. I'm I think that you totally deserve I promise it'll never work Andre. It's not Here this is what I have for you Okay, thank you so much right your manifesto you guys See you I'm really happy to see you here We we met a couple of years ago and we had such a number of exciting conversations Your practice keeps growing and gaining importance It's you're very well known RSAA Is that is the firm also that is expanding its alliances internationally and you also were in G sub in the UD program and graduating and We're really happy to have you talking to all of us today at the moment that people will be graduating in a couple of days and We're so many Emotions, but also let's say Plants are being made and your voice your experience your your insight will be super useful I'm sure for everyone. So welcome and super happy to have you here. Thank you. Thank you, Andrews Yeah, it's my great honor to share something Which we did in the last few years and also I think I follow up the whole conversation, you know last one Charles and especially Charles talking about a lot of the things after the corona issues Right now we base with many base in China. I just opened up my my new office in Berlin during the How to say the beginning phase of the virus issues in China at that moment the Europe in Europe in United States Everyone's what's what's safe? So I was actually spent my first month actually not in China because at that moment No one is working in China. They all stay at home and no project Everything's just seized. So that was very interesting experience We were talking about what's going on if Europe in in Berlin if that happened And no one believed that and then after we went back two weeks actually two weeks later You know in Berlin my office started to you know, also stay at home and they work at home Even in Beijing I have two offices in Shanghai and Beijing in China So basically the Shanghai office was was quite quite okay They start work. I think just early February Without any, you know, the problem but in Beijing because you know in China is more political-oriented so that we actually only half of the workers You know the the labor force being used in the last two or three months until three weeks ago we start to work normally and today we feel very Just the same as last year, you know, the I think for for all part the market is totally recovered Somehow we feel that like that but thank you for introduction that But I think still I think for most of the maybe some of the Chinese students We are more familiar but I think for a lot of The other alumnus and also a non-Chinese Maybe we some of the practice they saw online, but not not too many So I think also the case I'm a Chinese student was educated in China and UK and United States and the work for You know in New York for a few years and went back to China work with it with some bunch of Germans But you know, it's more like independent office later So I think this experience could be interesting or I don't know if it's helpful But we like to share some of the stuff. Maybe I I have also a really small Presentation if you saw that you can see that we can see it, but it's in presentation. Yeah, there you go. Thank you Okay. Yeah, this is a basic a presentation I made for the a lecture talking about also something similar about young architects in Korea even them This year 36 37, but you know, I I'm considering, you know in architecture society. This is a Still quite quite young age So after graduating 13 years, this is some some quick through You know, this is what I did in China in 2003 is almost 20 years ago Lot of Chinese student might interested or familiar with with this this kind of format really let's say Traditional but you know, it's a big change after I exchange in UK So basically that was a little bit Closer what what we do are recently, but that's You know not really common in China. So that's why I I start to Go abroad and study, but this is some first try, you know to try some some little bit interesting stuff And this is a very Columbia G-step oriented Form what we did let's say 14 15 years ago and This is what we did in UD program very how does a systematic urban design, but this is a very interesting The UD stuff we learned At that moment in China, even when we went back to China You know, no one understand what we're doing Because it's FR zero in China if you talk about urban design is basically like master planning Buildings about a lot of mass produced urban design that that's what we What we do recent let's say five years later after we we we start a practice in China but not not too much right now because In China the market is it's getting the same like in Beijing Shanghai is the same as New York and San Francisco and people talk about FR zero talking about some really light acupuncture Style, you know urban design, but this is a this is another competition Just right after graduation. I did the competition with one of my AAD Fellow So we win the second prize This is some some something we try to combine what I learned as urban design Urban designer and in UD program and also I'm quite interested of what they did, you know So we did together right now. They are also to a AD guys work for me in Shanghai office Zhengdong Qi from Qinghua and Ye Yang from Southeast New University. They all found a 809 So two two years later than me, but we work together quite well and You know, especially don't don't has been worked for me for five years So we sell up a lot of interesting stuff in past five years And Ye Yang was just left Mushi safety because he was the project manager for this a Chongqing big boat building You know, this big boat floating building and so he joined us I think in this March, so Quite interesting. So then I joined CISA Pelley, but I personally was not a big fan of Pelley's architecture style, but I think it's a really good Experience for me to to learn how to operate our office and not really big-scale office This is our New York office. I work for Rockwell Pelley actually. Sorry. Sorry. It's so sorry to interrupt But I think your presentation may be frozen on the first slide. Are we supposed to see a different image? Oh, okay Sorry about that Hope it's not the Chinese firewall Let me let me Retry that again Maybe this is better. I just leave that in a in this format So that sure you can slice. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. Yes, the Chinese stuff I talking about learn in China and UK and you deep program Yeah, the competition Yeah, so and also very interesting in in Pelley office the I mean especially in New York office It's quite compact size and the working flow Everyone is basically working very independently. So basically the format I learned is exactly what we have been bitching or Beijing office Even now I I mean in my Beijing office. There are 30 people and in Shanghai office 12 So basically it's it's a little bit a little bit bigger than Pelley New York office right now But the basic format I learned from the you know, the experience in Pelley At the later phase of my Pelley experience I start to We start to do competitions in China So you can see this library and performing art center But mostly, you know in the first three years, we just you know, the main work is building towers for New York Mountain Sinai and 1510 Plaza, but you know at this one's built at this one was not there forever But very interesting in Pelley office We did a competition for a muscle planning and this muscle planning is basically literally done by my current office the RSA But RSA is not not the same like GMP or HOK. They are They are not a very strong core Working methods as a team but more like the collections of different independent studios So right now you see the logo we use is RSA But basically it's a bureau so you join it's basically my own studio. So I'm talking Berlin Shanghai Beijing. They all work for me So basically that's like working flow as as independent Very independent individual personality, but at the beginning we don't have any personality when I joined the office I was young kids six twenty six years old So I also at the beginning those guys in Germany They only have experience of big muscle planning in a project experience. They don't have too many Building experience not not not not saying but the model like China if you talk about the building is usually at that time It's definitely more than 50,000 square meters. So that you know, so this is early stuff This is actually the first How does a winning project we did and when I joined the office a big contract It's more than like I think it's more than two million US dollars contract. So as a young kid 27 years old I signed a contract Was was quite surprised for myself and everyone because I think at that moment the market was so good And then you just need to Do a little bit interesting good quality of design And you have a good chance then then you can you can even get it until now We never sign a single contract as I speak as this one so far So very very I was I was in a state This was a south northern station high-speed railway station area and in Qingdao. I was in a station last week The project was pending for eight years I was surprised but That that was because of some political issues, but So but I find out the problem when I run office for two years and When we always do the urban design because we find out, you know, the people doesn't really because the urban design China is like you run for two months And you you stop and you run you keep running But in between if you don't have some smaller things you don't have bigger project Then people just has nothing to do and they wait for that not a big urban design project and they run So I talked with my colleagues and you know, maybe we need to do some competitions I'm personally still interested of architecture. So Also, I educated, you know from architecture backgrounds and the graduates. So I Told them maybe we need to do competition. So this is the first competition will win It took eight years to build so it was only finished last year number four high school in Tianjin But you can see this is still quite German style and you know, really Rational and all these kind of but for example some flocking gestures and these kind of elements We always use they are still captain or recent project So in that case every year we win like big competitions once a year probably in 2003 2013-14-15 so this is another one within we went in 14 we did the mass art center and Mario Bota Nishi Java and also Ho Chi town is one of the most renowned old Chinese architect So this is more like cluster of culture buildings, but we did them home as a plan Urban design. So that's some something we we gain experience in the in the past Let's say three years from 2010 to 2014 But we also win one big building project. So this one was built up But you know, this is also like a Highland Park we build a base So the base can overlook in the the lake and also have some certain kind of service function in it So was was also quite long project. This is a hotel actually high high luxury collection Siri in Nanjing so that was in 2015 so every year and we start to do interior design with Jaya and some other renowned interior designers So so right now the project will work on mostly 90% including architecture and the interior Where the trickiest thing in China is they have a national standard for having a limitation for architecture projects But there's no limitation for interior design fee and interior design fee almost ten times than architecture design fee in China So that can balance out certain, you know a budget for the office But you know after this kind of whole series since series of things we we think about You know, we maybe we need certain identity to finding out, you know, if this is a not only rsa a but something my own studio As a practice in China what what we can find out But you know architects at the beginning phase They don't have they don't have too many when they don't have too many projects They do something for for themselves This is my my office in Beijing It's a it's a yard next to drum and bow tower so that we ran away that And it became a really famous tourist attraction site actually yesterday. I even had a husband shooting for for Dell New workstation series and on this space and everyone was shocked by how beautiful that looks like It's especially at night, you know But today's the time is really sharp Maybe I can show you something of those videos are very interesting, but but the same thing, you know As a as a fabric as a renovation if we we just do that in a Chinese way right away the Chinese yard It's not interesting. So we're thinking about what we learn as architecture practice and you know as a kind of typological evolutionary mapping you know methods so What we can do for the Chinese rule for example So basically we made a roof as a public as a more like a public space and a gathering space for for the whole office So basically we had a lot of events barbecues and parties Also putting new materials and different layers and renovate the project. So this inspired a lot of people to think about, you know, how You know how a Chinese yard can be can be done But but not only in that way, but you know, this is also very interesting not really not realize project, but only even last week the Sinak one of the biggest Chinese developer they start to build this one We start to talk about this one in Shandong one of the project side because they saw this one and they want to build a church So they said this is a great and then we went to the site So they would like to pay but this was some kind of competition with we did in 2014-15 Yeah, so at that time, you know, we don't have too many interesting project and when the project was very big or urban design project I'm thinking about, you know, maybe we can collect something as as as our own identity or own practice and finding out some Little bit different prototype for the office. So basically every year we have a certain budget like about half a million That's actually actually the let's say 80% of the profit we can gain each each year At that moment. So that was a big effort with but we don't know what this end up to but we just want to try something so that You know finding prototype for this pure church space and also we did a International competitions, but we know we're never gonna win this one We actually break up the rule a little bit of putting these cutting off box in the water But all these kind of trying things I think at that moment, we don't see any hope or we don't see any result But right now I'm sitting there and talking about these all these kind of things We have way we have certain way to reuse them or putting even the same project the or client life and to be realized and So keep moving of these finding prototype and basic prototype method with either actually a small Project for TV show. So basically in this one We also finding out very interesting prototype for a Chinese traditional yard interior Exterior but also finding that potential for linking to the multiple perspective and narration narrative Feature for the for the Chinese painting in a certain way finding out stories in the long elevation But actually that one has been prolonged As a Chinese scroll. So that was the project build up in the last two years Finding more section possibilities and and build up something bigger This is actually a resort with 30 room hotel rooms that with With a restaurant and spa and a lot of functions in Chengdu But you can see of these kind of things we use the local material and So very vernacular looking And VUE resort another one we did last year. So basically this evolutionary map Mapping where has this how to say evolutionary past keep going. So But you know, they look similar but every step we've moved forward We have some kind of interesting result finding out and this is actually quite Acceptable acceptable by the Chinese market You know, the client was really really happy because you know, they feel that you know, this is some interior we also together and very Very interesting this whole project from design to construction architecture and interior We spent actually five months from last March to Let's say September and everything finished. So this is the face one and face two They will start another part of the hotel rooms. So actually you can see this Evolutionary process of our project. So and also we have even more. So this is more like You can see from the beginning of this German style saying and we start to Find it or own identity and step by step even with last time and just you were in China, we don't have so many that was three years ago and we only have this twin Recruits this small one and some some big huge building and this is some recent project and the construction in Guangzhou and In Chengdu they all Gonna be built up really quick this year. Let's say this October these two buildings will be finished UCC a So really quick. I know the time is running out But buy on buy on tree hotels and you know, this is just more following the the past But still at a certain phase we we try to re-identify, you know What we're doing for example talking about the prototype different of of this guy and this guy used to see especially the gallery How this is different from the the Guggenheim prototype And also different view pause and in the Chinese way talking about this horizontal expression of Narration also last year we did quite a lot of installations because it's about a pace maybe this is some not a topic but Because in 2007 we start to see the you know, this big The big jump of the office and a lot of projects, but in 2018 We didn't have too many project to be built up because we see the Architecture still as a very traditional old Production the production time to build takes one or five to five to ten years So basically we try to build up some something smaller So you see the project we build up at the beginning. They were huge. They were like half million square meters 100,000 square meters and now the project we're working on mostly around five thousand to 50,000 square meters still quite big scale in in Europe in the United States, but they are small scale in China So in this case the production time with the to produce the production Let's say the first high school project we built takes eight years and recent projects They're either one year even half a year. We build up a new project so that This is a practice. We have very strong feedback But in 2018 or 1918, we don't have too many things was be built So that we think about maybe we do installations that will be quicker speed. So this was Also, this one was very interesting. This one when it's called a clock maze and when actually the WF work architecture festival the installation the The unit I'm in the final winner of the installation. So Talking about some oriental feeling This one even have a second generation. We did that in actually one week for one of the artist's friend for myself And really low budget twenty thousand US dollars. Oh, no, actually it's two thousand US dollars an installation for the next cafe but more like more like interior design but Together with urban renovation, but really quick in one week construction phase, but Quite good result. We also, you know, the same kind of things for practicing in interior and also for my some This is my teaching production in as a visiting professor in Tianjin University but quite similar quite similar idea of You know creating different polo type and clusters and multi perspective Chinese views and Different functions. We also did marry a lot of let's say How to say in in two-dimensional How to say two-dimensional graphic. This is a, you know, Japanese cartoon style Graphic but I think it's very interesting because even you see some, you know, luxury branding Louis Vuitton They start to all the whole the whole market is shifting to these two-dimensional graphic style word as architect Of course, you do good good architecture, but architectures is not only about the building, but you know Expand to to to every corner of your life. So You know, for example, we made this one for our restaurant You see this restaurant was one of the most popular restaurant in Xi'an But Xi'an was the you know, really Asian dynasty a capital for China So I want to see a dragon flowing above so that we'll just put it there But you can't do that in new architecture design But maybe later you have a goggle for the RVR then you eat and you talk with the dragon That's something as some kind of expansion of the imagination of as architect But I think spatial experience is really really important. You know, we're talking about Chinese style or Chinese feature, but I think it's it's universal. It's not only about China because It's a consuming time consuming market I'm I'm a little bit doubted how how that goes later after the You know the current coronavirus issues, but I see the Chinese market is recovering and I think still as architect Approach is always the same. You use the same kind of approach to achieve your goal Not necessary in the traditional architectural way, but still I think there are multiple ways as architect we can do Yeah, but I think so we talk about, you know, the whole presentation was talking about the Chinese form Chinese narration But I think it's not nothing about nothing about only about China but about a lot of things we can we can we can see as a Young practice, you know, less than 10 years what we did in the in the last 10 years after one back to China Thank you. This is amazing Amazing presentation so so many things to discuss. I'm sure there will be questions emerging Meanwhile, I would like to ask you something very particular What what is that that you you good advice of people that are graduating that all of us that are here I mean because your your career the first moments were really rich like you were collaborating with others You were building up partnerships. You were Operating in different countries. What is that that overall you would take out of all that experience that you would convey to others? I Think a lot of things happen to us very random in a random way, but we don't we don't even plan What we got right now Because I still see architecture practice as a very old Probably the oldest industry in now compared to it compared to the other industry It's still a long term for for practice But how to compress that is I think something right we did especially, you know facing the Chinese market facing different situations, but I Wasn't expect I I even do a practice myself. I know the risk. I know how hard that is but When I joined the office We have I have a German Collaborator who is the general manager and he he do business and I just focus on design work That's something I was looking for but later I find out If you want to do your own practices, it's not enough It's about it's the whole thing is about star sorry telling If you don't have your own identity your own story It's never gonna be possible to be happened. I'm talking about self-practice, but if you work for someone else I think The methodology is quite clear then that's very different thing For me as you said it's somehow in between at the beginning. I wasn't I wasn't You know try to find out something myself. I it's it's it's the In the process I find out, you know when we talk about yeah We're a German office where I say no one knows what's the difference from this guy and and the other guy is GMP and HPP or S1 so But those offices are much better than you in the way in the track you try to find out then I tell my partners This is not the way you are you are not as good as them in the track you're looking for so We are collect like more like collections of small offices Personal identity is more important. So but I don't know what's my personal identity, but I know what I'm interested So, you know, like the way we were in Gemma I still hold is same as New York the CBD area I'm still living here as the CBD area, but you know as office I think that doesn't inspire might mean too much, you know, we I want to move into the City in Beijing. That's why you stay in Beijing, right? So then You know every action we did is Actually not the choose of in a certain target, but actually that That gave us a certain track to find out we are, you know, that that's that's the track Yeah There is one question. Are there these six distinctions in professional opportunity and growth between Chinese and non-Chinese Architects practicing in China these days That's a very interesting topic. I think The market is getting very diverse But I think every every how does it every generation has its own chance I Talk with Yes, for my for example, I made a lot about their practice. I see very different opportunities At that moment, no one know what is parametric design what is, you know, this kind of really fancy curved form and So he just need to do one thing and then he will be success as long as he insists this and then going to the end Of course, he has a lot of, you know, deeper thoughts about those In all time, the chances passed, but you know, what is what is the thing? For the new generation, I've been talked with for example, Boyuan Jiang one of the I'm Mark guy very good very good alumni from G-SAP and and some younger G-SAP friends and I See there it's really hard for them to get into the let's say a big big building Let's say larger scale building market. Let's say this way because I think not only in China But also even in in Germany in the United States if you don't have a really good portfolio You don't have a solid experience You don't really get a chance because I mean it's a big risk for the client. I Think even in let's say go back to 15 years ago 30 years ago even the chances getting smaller and smaller Not only in China, but globally for example, if we want to do some Bigger project we have projects my own office in Germany Like my own studio, but if we want to do a same kind of scale project in Europe We still I think I assume it takes me maybe another five years to get there But you know because because they want to see your portfolio in Europe. We don't have it's all in China. So It's the same situation for the new generation, but however in China they see this diversity happening And then they are breaking up the market and before was totally owned by the national owned big design Institute and now There are many many small offices. They have their own position But mostly interior designs Maybe some installations. So the time is still quite quite quite good and tough they don't have Very rich Project resource like us, but they I think they can survive and they they can also offer very unique Vision to the market and I think it's only about time Right, it's about time and but I see the generation is compressed. For example, if if you say you see the How all practice coming out from the market from I may be that that takes about maybe eight years seven years But next generation to to catch up Maybe only takes three years and next generation even faster and faster. So the whole thing is compact So last week they have a really interesting talk about new generations. I Was listening that yes online talking with some other Architects he said for him the 80s 70s and the 90s They are the same generation that I agree because Basically, it's very similar south. It's it's all about your vision how to look at the Society in China the 60s. I think they are they are quite different But I think the later generations are compressed, you know, they're they have similar vision and they're in the same track But then I think of course in that in that chance If you're younger architects, you've got less chance one final question That that says he Raised how was the interaction with clients? How has things the interaction with clients changed in the past ten years private public institutional You have a broad experience with different clients. How do you see this relationship changing in the last ten years? I See very different when I work in New York, my client is like for example Steve Ross and 60 years old you know Go back to China the the client was from 50 to 40 years old now. They're even older Now my clients mostly the same age as myself around 40 Even younger some ten years younger than me. So they I think that's that's exactly the chance You know the new generation are so different from the phone from old one there There's a big jump especially from 80s or 90s that the generation in China I also see that globally. So I don't know what's the market situation in in New York in Europe we start to talk talk with some very young clients So so that changed the whole the whole methodology method Not only about how you approach the project But also about finding identity of the projects and then how to you know throw after the production How to drop this to the to the market not only the client but also the users, you know for example, all those projects we did in China are really popular because offers very interesting views of you know perspective for for you know whole new thinking of the space but it looks Chinese But but no one tells why but you know, that's that's the thing we talk about and the old generation They understand but I think they are not so sensitive. They don't take too much sci-fi for example So, you know, it's about image But I'm not saying about image-driven is it's right thing But it's one part of the identity or one part of the character of Architecture design. So I think that that that is you know in everywhere in the world is getting there It's very interesting And of course in installation is another way to make offering a more pure experience for for that That's why we we did so many installations last year Well, see you this has been amazing It's really Energizing talking to you and see all the activity in the beautiful projects that you're developing and the way that you're thinking of the Evolution of the context. Thank you so much. It's really I don't know with the clapping thing the upload is not working, but maybe we have the recorded one But it's been an amazing session Thank you so much to everyone And let's keep talking very soon in in two days on Saturday. You have your big day So you need to relax and prepare for it and we will be following and we'll keep connected With we'd see you with everyone here as part of this large G sub community That we sir sir sensitivities we understand what We mean why we say typologies and and we that is really a language that that we we were part of Thank you very much for this amazing conversation. So we keep talking on Saturday with all everyone and with all our friends internationally