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March 31, 2025 79 mins

William Dodge joins the podcast to discuss his latest article the integration of AI in architecture, its impact on creativity, the evolving role of architects, and the shift towards innovative practices and micro studios, highlighting the future of the profession.

Click here for images that William shared during the conversation.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
William Dodge (00:08):
ever since you guys invited me to be on this,
I was, um, I've been listening.
I, I've figured out that Iactually sleep so much better.

Evan Troxel (00:16):
I was gonna be
like, I I heard, I I really, heardthat we're all sleeping together now.

William Dodge (00:22):
yeah, yeah.
No, I, uh, I fi I figuredout that I, um, that

Cormac Phalen (00:26):
Evan.
Evan, you,

William Dodge (00:27):
at night,

Cormac Phalen (00:28):
yeah.
You, you get like

William Dodge (00:30):
a podcast.
So, yeah.
I've jumped, I jumped ahead.
Sorry.
I ruined it.

Cormac Phalen (00:36):
if we, if, if

William Dodge (00:37):
it's romantic or awkward or or it's maybe all those things.
I have no idea.

Evan Troxel (00:45):
That, that's what I'm

William Dodge (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Cormac Phalen (00:47):
are you saying romance

William Dodge (00:50):
yeah.

Cormac Phalen (00:51):
or,

Evan Troxel (00:52):
I'm, leaving it
open to interpretation.

William Dodge (00:55):
Yeah, yeah.
No, it, yeah, no,

Cormac Phalen (00:57):
you know, it would be a lot better if we were just sleeping together.

William Dodge (01:00):
yeah.
Yeah.
No.

Evan Troxel (01:02):
All of

William Dodge (01:02):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:03):
of it.
The

Cormac Phalen (01:03):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:04):
Yes.

William Dodge (01:05):
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:06):
Yeah,

William Dodge (01:06):
I, I think that's actually what a lot of
architecture people do actually.
So, um, in fairness,

Cormac Phalen (01:13):
I've, I've heard the stories,

Evan Troxel (01:15):
Like if we just

William Dodge (01:16):
yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:16):
an industry.
Right.

William Dodge (01:19):
yeah.
yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:21):
you know, it was,

William Dodge (01:21):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:22):
was interesting.
I had a conversation with we have acouple of externs in our office this
week, and they were just kind of likeshadowing, looking at, like what they're
getting into and stuff like that.
And one of 'em happened to be amilitary veteran and they were like,
oh, I want, to make sure that youtalk to Cormick, you know, he can

(01:42):
kind of talk you through like, youknow, his experiences in anything.
And I was telling her that you'regonna sit there and you're gonna
watch everybody scurry around runninginto each other, acting all crazy and
stuff, and you're just gonna sit backand say, dude, it's not that hard.

(02:03):
It's not that crazy.
Like, you know, you'restressing over nothing.
And she's just like, oh my God.
I know.
It's like, she's like, I don'tunderstand that these people
think that this is pressure.

William Dodge (02:16):
yeah.
I know.
Yeah, I know.

Cormac Phalen (02:19):
And I was just like, I, I was like, I know.

William Dodge (02:21):
it's funny, I was telling Evan last time and actually
heard one of your episodes where youwere talking about being an ACE mentor.
So I,

Cormac Phalen (02:28):
Yeah.

William Dodge (02:29):
that for years, I think 10 plus years.
I was telling Evan I was aanti architecture mentor.
I tried to convince everybodyfrom going into architecture.
I'm like, it's a life of heart.
And Commis, don't do it.

Evan Troxel (02:40):
this up

William Dodge (02:40):
Be an engineer.

Evan Troxel (02:41):
of the, I mean, this,
this to me sounds like

Cormac Phalen (02:44):
Well,

William Dodge (02:44):
Well, then I should just shut up.

Evan Troxel (02:46):
here.

Cormac Phalen (02:46):
well, then I just keep up.

Evan Troxel (02:47):
what

Cormac Phalen (02:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (02:48):
by, by
an anti

William Dodge (02:50):
Yeah, yeah.

Evan Troxel (02:51):
I.

William Dodge (02:52):
No,

Cormac Phalen (02:53):
Oh my gosh.

William Dodge (02:54):
yeah, it's a, it's a, there, there's a long story, but but
I'll spare you the the, the details.
But know that when I graduated, itwas the highest unemployment rate in
America, and the first and only jobI could find was as a janitor at NC
State Libraries making $9 an hour.

Cormac Phalen (03:11):
Yeah.

William Dodge (03:11):
um, three years later, I became a principal at a major firm.
But like there's a weird story inbetween, uh, as one does obviously.
But I went into manufacturingin between that and I got
involved in ACE mentors program.
And it was the architecture mentor,

Cormac Phalen (03:27):
Yeah.

William Dodge (03:27):
a lot of students.
Um, um, you know, all of which whohave this very kind of glamorized,
kind of Hollywood kind of viewof what architecture actually is.
I mean, hell, I, half the architectsI know don't even actually can.
Actually figure out how to describewhat it is that they actually do.
So,

Cormac Phalen (03:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.

William Dodge (03:44):
try to be very honest and real with that were, that were
looking at going into the profession.
Uh, one of which who I stillwork with every day, almost.
I've known her since shewas fourteen's amazing.
Like, she is like 28 years oldand is a rockstar designer.
And I got her a job at Sanders PaceArchitects in Knoxville, Tennessee.

(04:04):
But she still

Cormac Phalen (04:05):
Nice.

William Dodge (04:05):
on some public art stuff.
But there, there, there wasanother kid one time, uh.
He was just grad.
I was like doing reviews in NC Stateand this guy comes up to me, he was
like, Hey man, I've met you before.
And I was like, really?
And he was like, yeah, yeahyou were, you gave a talk about
architecture and you tried to tellus not to go into architecture and
I thought you were the biggest jerk.
And now I like look back on it andI'm like, that guy, that dude, he was

Cormac Phalen (04:29):
He,

William Dodge (04:29):
me out, man.
Like I

Cormac Phalen (04:31):
yeah.

William Dodge (04:32):
listened to that guy.
And like that guy still reaches out to
how to

Cormac Phalen (04:41):
Well, you know, let me go.
So part of this conversation that Iwas having with this this girl who's
I think a junior in college rightnow, and, she's 15 year Navy veteran.
And, and so, you know, I was talking toher and, and, and I was just like, 'cause
we had started talking about podcasts.

(05:02):
She's like, oh my God.
You know, why do you do podcasting and,not, and it was just, you know, we were.
I kind of try to explain it to her thesame way that, the way I wish the Army
was at the time, it was sort of like theway of why we do the podcast, but it's
also one of the ways that I actually,one of the reasons why I do as is I, I

(05:24):
came from, the other side of the tracksof, in a lot of the people that I work
with in ace, they've never even heardof a career in architecture, never
considered a career in architecture,designer construction, you know, um,
they, have never been exposed to this.
And so.
The, what I try to do is bring,my experience of, coming from

(05:47):
a non-conventional background.
My, my father was, a line workerat General Motors and, and,
that would've been my fate or,whatever would've been my fate.
But, you know,

William Dodge (05:56):
Sure.

Cormac Phalen (05:57):
I, I pursued the circuitous route of pursuing,
going into architecture.
And like, the reason why we do thisis a lot of times it's because we're
sitting there talking about like, whyit is that we do what we do, and why
we go through the whole insanity ofwhat it, of the profession and try

(06:17):
to be as real about it as possible.
And I was talking to her and I waslike, you know, I would, I wish
that somebody, I was like, I, if myrecruiters told me the truth about the
army, would I have gone in the army?
Probably, but.
If the, you know, academic counselorswould've told me, you know, what
architecture, if they, you know,it's funny you said this and, and

(06:39):
well, I mean the funnything is even if we,

William Dodge (06:41):
the thing.

Cormac Phalen (06:42):
even if we asked architects could they have told, could they tell
us what if we do, you know, and, and,and so, I mean that's kinda like the
whole point of this is just, talkingabout the reality of what it is that
we do and why it is we still do itand why it is we actually talk, for
the past 12 years, why we've actuallytalked about what it is that we do.

William Dodge (07:03):
No, totally man.
Yeah, no, it's, uh, no, I, I, I, Icould, could not agree with you more.
So, yeah, it's it's interesting.
It's funny.
I meet people all the time.
They're like, oh, I alwayswanted to be an architect.

Cormac Phalen (07:13):
Hmm.

William Dodge (07:14):
at math

Cormac Phalen (07:15):
That's my favorite thing.

William Dodge (07:16):
like, man, dude, I went into architecture
'cause I was bad at math.
I couldn't draw, I was

Cormac Phalen (07:20):
It's my,

William Dodge (07:21):
I couldn't spell

Cormac Phalen (07:22):
that it.

William Dodge (07:23):
that or become a bank robber.
It was like one of those two things.
It was

Evan Troxel (07:26):
the
options.

William Dodge (07:27):
like,

Cormac Phalen (07:28):
Uh,

William Dodge (07:28):
those are the only two options.
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (07:30):
I was just, I was just in DC yesterday went to a conference
and we'll talk about that at, in ournext episode of it, that conference.
But but I was in an Uber, gettinga ride into the office before
I headed out to the conference.
And, you know, she was just like,well, what brings you into town?
I was like, you know, I'm,just here for a conference.

(07:51):
Oh, what kind of conference?
I'm like, something about architecture.
She's like, oh, I wanted to be anarchitect, but you know, I went into real
estate instead, and also an Uber driver.
And I was just like.
That's cool.
She's like, yeah, I justcouldn't handle the math.
And I'm like, you don't know how manytimes I've heard that story about I
could, I was like, in, in my almostimmediate response is exactly like yours.
It's, it's just, I went intoarchitecture because I was bad at

(08:15):
math, because I didn't know math.

William Dodge (08:17):
Yeah,

Cormac Phalen (08:17):
like, I, I was a creative thinker, you know, I was a critical
thinker, you know, problem solver.
And that's more of like, our corecompetency than actually adding

Evan Troxel (08:27):
Yeah.

William Dodge (08:27):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (08:29):
I, I, I mean, this is my best calculator right here.

Evan Troxel (08:32):
mentioned addition, and that's what you're bad
at, is addition cormick.
Like, none, none.
Like you're, you're good at trig andcalculus, but addition, that's the hard
part.

William Dodge (08:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah,

Cormac Phalen (08:42):
Is that how this is gonna go?

Evan Troxel (08:44):
gonna go.

Cormac Phalen (08:44):
I know where you live.
I know where you live.

Evan Troxel (08:47):
I don't think you

William Dodge (08:48):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (08:48):
You kind of
do.
All

Cormac Phalen (08:50):
I do, I do actually.
I have it pinned.

Evan Troxel (08:52):
I know you stalk, you stalked me.
Okay, so we have not
formally introduced our,

Cormac Phalen (08:57):
I was into missiles.

William Dodge (08:59):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry.

Evan Troxel (09:00):
listeners

William Dodge (09:01):
sorry.

Evan Troxel (09:01):
who can't tell the difference between Cormick and I already, there's a
third person on this call, people watchingthis already know this, but William
Dodge, welcome to the podcast, architect,
artist,

William Dodge (09:13):
Thanks for having me

Evan Troxel (09:14):
All kinds of things.
You're, you're, you
sound like you're a, a

William Dodge (09:17):
see you.

Evan Troxel (09:18):
man.
I, reason you're on the show, and, and I'mjust gonna, I'm just gonna read a quote.
I'm not even going to,
I, I'm gonna have

William Dodge (09:25):
Okay.

Evan Troxel (09:25):
what you've done here.
Technology

William Dodge (09:28):
Sure.

Cormac Phalen (09:28):
have you done?

Evan Troxel (09:30):
If we're lucky, the industry will reimagine itself entirely.
the quote I wanted to

William Dodge (09:36):
Yep.

Evan Troxel (09:36):
with, because I
think that's kind of like the

William Dodge (09:38):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (09:39):
of this article that you've written.
I want you to introduce it,but welcome to the show.
It's great to have you.

William Dodge (09:45):
Thanks.
Yeah,

Cormac Phalen (09:46):
Good.

William Dodge (09:46):
for having me.
And for clarification, I should, I, Ishould very briefly clarify the fact
that I never actually got my license.
I used to run major practices, so yeah.
So I used to run major practices, butI believe that the world is a safer
place without me having the abilityto be able to stand up a drawing.

Evan Troxel (10:03):
as well
just make it the A-R-E-I-I

William Dodge (10:05):
Yeah, yeah, No,

Cormac Phalen (10:06):
Yeah.

William Dodge (10:07):
it's funny actually.
And speaking of people that that you know,that architects, my, my, my girlfriend
her father had one rule growing up.
He was a, a seniorarchitect at Albert Khan.
You'll not be an architect, you'll notdate or get involved with an architect.
And so when I quit my job, I wasthe managing principal at Hanbury.

Cormac Phalen (10:25):
Oh yeah.

William Dodge (10:25):
left.
So when I left, um, in the NorthCarolina office in particular, so
when I left Amelia told her dad, shewas like, well, congratulations, dad.
All your greatest fears have come true.
I'm not dating an unemployed architect.
I was like,
unemployed.
Pretend architect.
Pretend architect.
This is what I,

Cormac Phalen (10:42):
Yeah.

William Dodge (10:43):
it's like, no, I used to run a major practice about 45 people.
So it's obviously I, I, I know alot, quite a lot about the industry,
but never bothered to get mylicense for a variety of reasons.
Not the least of which is actually thefact that I believe that, um, in general
has become such a commodity in the UnitedStates that I'd actually rather have the

(11:03):
title of designer than architect anyway.
And yeah, I mean, the whole industry.
Ellen kind of, kind of exploitingthe resources of, young designers
working them indiscriminately.
I know billing them out, significantlyhigher to basically pay the, pay the
salaries of, principals, et cetera.

(11:24):
And that's how it's always workedand it's never it's never evolved.
Um, and yeah, it's aprofoundly broken profession.
I think anyone that you talk tothat actually works with it in a
profession would agree with that.
Now what does that actually mean, andwhat are the paths to move forward?
Is the question.
Point in the article that we were, thatyou referenced is I, I, I believe so,
kind of through a weird series of events.

(11:46):
I mean, going back to Cormick, what yousaid earlier about where you grew up.
I grew up 50 feet from a tobaccofield in Eastern North Carolina,
man, so I totally, I totally get it.
I mean,

Cormac Phalen (11:55):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (11:56):
was like a university librarian.
My mom was an English teacher,so I mean, there was like.
know, it's not like, it's not like I was,you know, go, go, going to go work in a
factory or anything like your experience.
But, I wasn't necessarilysurrounded by architecture.
Well, I mean, I was, it

Cormac Phalen (12:09):
Right.

William Dodge (12:10):
tobacco barn that I grew up with, and, so, yeah, it's like, for me,
um, kind of going into architecture, I, Ibelieve that I could really open people's
eyes to new possibilities and kind ofthought about architecture as being
this kind of really great architecture.
Helps to tell a story and to help,maybe, maybe it's naive, it could
better humanity, in some way.

(12:32):
You know, certainly that's.
Maybe that's a, that's a, not,maybe a hundred percent is an
incredibly idealized version of theprofession, but it's certainly not
the way that we found ourselves.
You know, as we've kind of grownover the decades as a profession,
we've really started to commoditizeourselves in a really significant
way, in particular in this country.

(12:52):
I practice a lot globally.
And it's funny, all architects, can alwaystell an architect, it doesn't matter if
you don't speak your language or whatevercountry you're in, you can always a
hundred percent pinpoint an architect.
But when you but you when you talkto folks practicing outside of
the us, it is, it is pretty, um.

(13:13):
to see kind of what a radicaldifference the practice is.
And I'm

Cormac Phalen (13:16):
yeah.

William Dodge (13:17):
that with AI start to see a rise of micro studios.
Because right now, you know, the, thething that is with the Genslers and the
Perkins and Wheels, and I'm just usingthem as examples 'cause they're enormous.
they win a lot of their projectsjust simply through iteration
production, you know, portfolio.
Okay.
Well

Cormac Phalen (13:36):
Right.
I.

William Dodge (13:36):
you know what, I'm through a weird series of events.
I found myself on the Fast CompaniesImpact Council, which is kind of
like their board of executive CEOsand stuff from all over the world,
which is hilarious that on there.
But we've won an urban designaward, so that, and for a public art
project, the world's only totallydynamic climate change memorial.

(13:57):
So they were like, Hey, you're doingsome $50,000 total project budget,
57 cents square foot, by the way.
So they were like, you're doingsome pretty interesting stuff.
You wanna be on our Impact council?
But it's interesting because kinda sittingin those conversations with some of the
world's, not some of many of the world'sexperts on AI and technology, and hearing
about what's going on that, will notbe public knowledge for 10 or 15 years.

Cormac Phalen (14:21):
All right.

William Dodge (14:21):
extraordinarily obvious that we're going to, again, not
necessarily be, we're gonna, we'regonna shift our role as architects
from being producers of documentsto becoming more creative directors.
Much is the same way that seniorarchitects and principals do now.
We're just basically gonna becutting out a lot of the, the staff.
So what I mean, there's good, there'spluses and minuses to that, right?

(14:44):
What you do is you democratize designand you really give the opportunities
to be able to go and kind of createbest ideal win scenarios, you know?
But what you're also doing is, is you'rekind of making it really challenging
for people that are in the process oftrying to break into the profession.
Right, because then all of a sudden, likethe three of us and some stranger on the

(15:05):
street can go and compete with Genslerto build a a billion square foot building
or whatever, just because we've got,constant ability to be able to iterate.
we've got the knowledge to beable to creatively direct that.
Well, Susie or Bob that's coming outtaschool doesn't necessarily have that.
They do have the expertise in the,they do have the expertise in being

(15:27):
naive, and I should very specificallycall that an expertise because a
lot of times, we think, we tend tothink that expertise is so wonderful.
Man, it's not, I mean, it is a lot oftimes because you know what you're doing.
The bad part is, is youknow what you're doing.
So you're too predisposed towhat is and isn't a good idea.
So you

Cormac Phalen (15:45):
Right.

William Dodge (15:46):
think about things in new ways anymore.
So, um, you know, there isa serious advantage to not.
Of experience, but in this scenario it's,it's not necessarily the best situation.

Evan Troxel (15:59):
back into your,

William Dodge (15:59):
So,

Evan Troxel (16:00):
comment earlier too about using young staff
to pay principal salaries.
It's also for, I mean, not that thatreally plays out this way, but this
is what happens in school, right?
It's like that's where the great
ideas are.
This is

William Dodge (16:12):
yep.

Evan Troxel (16:13):
of
people who practice

Cormac Phalen (16:14):
All right.

Evan Troxel (16:15):
are working at a school doing teaching studios is
because it's a great place to,great to hear ideas and, and, and
participate in that

William Dodge (16:26):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (16:28):
But, but even to your point, it's, you know.
So I, I just started teaching,a semester ago, and the
reinvigoration that I've experienced

William Dodge (16:41):
Oh, totally.
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (16:42):
is amazing because now I'm with a bunch of naive, don't know,
squat about squat, about architecture.
But that's the fun part of it islike, it's, it's that, it's that,
you know, sense of discovery, thatsense of like exploration that, when
you are 25 years into your careerand you're sort of like, become the

(17:02):
curmudgeon and you're just like, well,I've been doing this for 25 years.
Just like you've heard, on thejob sites and stuff like that.
You know, when it's just like, thisis just the way that we do it, kind
of thing isn't always the best idea.
You know, that's not wherecreativity lives in the, this is
the way we used to do it and thisis the way we're going to do it.

William Dodge (17:21):
yeah.
No, totally.
I mean, if I told somebody 15 years ago,well I, let's say 20 years ago now that
I was gonna carry one of the world's mostpowerful computers in the palm of my hand.
It was gonna

Cormac Phalen (17:31):
Hmm.

William Dodge (17:31):
a phone made

Cormac Phalen (17:32):
Yeah,

William Dodge (17:33):
and have three buttons on it.
They would've told me I was crazy,

Cormac Phalen (17:36):
exactly.
Yeah,

William Dodge (17:37):
Yeah.
The trick is, is the world's ingreatest innovators are inherently
the people that don't know any better.
Right.

Cormac Phalen (17:42):
I, yeah, I mean,

Evan Troxel (17:43):
Jobs, one of his

Cormac Phalen (17:44):
I,

Evan Troxel (17:44):
quotes, like, I don't, or may, it might not even be Steve
Jobs, but it's like, we don'tbuild things based on what, what
our customers tell us they want.
Right.
It's, it's like
Henry Ford also, right?
That people
said I would've wanted a,

William Dodge (17:56):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (17:57):
a faster horse.
Right?
Not a car.
And, and
it's

Cormac Phalen (17:59):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (18:00):
people don't know what

William Dodge (18:01):
exactly.

Evan Troxel (18:02):
what they, want.

Cormac Phalen (18:03):
Right.

Evan Troxel (18:04):
I think that that's an accurate statement.
I, I'm
curious from your

Cormac Phalen (18:07):
Well,

Evan Troxel (18:08):
you talked earlier about idea of.
Curation, right?
Like
orchestration,

William Dodge (18:15):
Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel (18:15):
the, idea that the, you know,

William Dodge (18:17):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (18:17):
what you said it, like principles do it.
Now you
reference this in your

Cormac Phalen (18:20):
the creative direction.
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (18:22):
like, you're, you're marking things up and then the, the
minions and the computers and therobots and the interns and the younger,
like every, whatever you wanna callit, like they're, they're doing
the actual

William Dodge (18:32):
sure.

Evan Troxel (18:33):
this idea of curation and really going that direction, I'm just
wondering if you could expand on that alittle bit because I, I, I wanna make sure
that this lands because I, I also thinkit's true, it's like is, is happening.
At an astounding rate.
And, and, and

William Dodge (18:51):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (18:52):
I don't think architects should be competing on the quality
of their drawings because architects
I don't think should be

William Dodge (18:58):
Duh.

Evan Troxel (18:58):
in that space at all when it comes to,
like, Cormick works

William Dodge (19:01):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (19:02):
large scale contractors on projects who are redrawing
everything anyways because that they're
drawing

William Dodge (19:08):
totally.

Evan Troxel (19:08):
need

William Dodge (19:08):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (19:09):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (19:10):
that we

Cormac Phalen (19:10):
Right.
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (19:11):
construction, uh, but also
forbid they're,

Cormac Phalen (19:15):
Are they.

Evan Troxel (19:16):
permits, right?

William Dodge (19:17):
they're, they're

Evan Troxel (19:17):
different,

William Dodge (19:18):
they're more for design intent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're more like, here's theidea now, if you could figure

Cormac Phalen (19:24):
If,

William Dodge (19:25):
do it, but

Cormac Phalen (19:26):
yeah,

William Dodge (19:26):
get sued, that'd be awesome.

Cormac Phalen (19:28):
but see, but, but see, I kind of, I kind
of wish that that was true.
And, and so, you know, Evanand I have talked about this
in the past where, you know.
And, and, and even in your article, youknow, you're talking about kind of like
setting up the stage for, technology tobasically take the, you know, mundane
tasks and things like that out of itso that we can go back to basically

(19:48):
what it was that we came to thisprofession to do in the first place.
You know,

William Dodge (19:53):
Mm-hmm.

Cormac Phalen (19:53):
you're, you're talking about exactly where our value is.
And a lot of times, and, and I'll giveyou an example is, you know, here we are
Evan, alluded to, me working on, really alarge projects with large contractors and
stuff, and they are exactly doing that.
They are taking.
You know, we had a conversationlast week when I was kind of like

(20:15):
loading up all my drawings and bigproject twenty one hundred and fifty
six was what I had told him was theamount of drawings that were done.
So think about like the, a obscene amountof production that, went into that.
But actually I finished uploading all ofthe drawings and it ended up being, 2,586.
So, you know,

William Dodge (20:34):
got my

Cormac Phalen (20:35):
in, in this, and this is not, and, and as is, as he said on, yeah.
And, and as he said on the lastepisode, that is nothing to be proud of.
And I totally agree.
Because ultimately at the end of theday, once they start, producing shop
drawings and things like that, all ofthose drawings are kind of pointless.
They're, they, you know, they'vebecome just some, you know,

Evan Troxel (20:58):
Well, you, you,
build a model,

Cormac Phalen (21:00):
stack of paper,

Evan Troxel (21:01):
drawings, and then
those drawings go to

Cormac Phalen (21:03):
right.

Evan Troxel (21:04):
model to make more
drawings, Right,

Cormac Phalen (21:06):
right?

Evan Troxel (21:06):
it's just

Cormac Phalen (21:07):
right, right.
Exactly.

Evan Troxel (21:09):
on

Cormac Phalen (21:09):
It's this weird cyclical event, and so you, you,
you sort of ask, what's the point?
You know, why, why, why go through these?
And, you know, getting back to thiskind of like, this, this notion of, us
being more of like the creative directorsounds far more appealing to most
everybody when they don't really knowwhat architects are all about anyway.

(21:30):
And sometimes neither do we, you know?

William Dodge (21:33):
Yeah

Cormac Phalen (21:34):
and, and really we got into this 'cause we wanted to create, we
wanted to have impacts, you know, and you.

William Dodge (21:42):
were duped.
One of the, one of, one of those things.

Cormac Phalen (21:45):
Or, or we were, well, we were duped because, you know, we
thought we didn't do enough research.
We didn't like, you know, I was, I wastelling somebody that, you know, I,
you know, I went into fine arts, I wentinto the army, I went into architecture
and even dabbled in archeology.
All of those start with ar.

William Dodge (22:01):
my God, we have so much in

Cormac Phalen (22:03):
Yeah.

William Dodge (22:03):
That's

Cormac Phalen (22:04):
all of, yeah.

William Dodge (22:05):
those things.

Cormac Phalen (22:06):
All, all of those started with ar so apparently I couldn't flip pa,
I couldn't PA get past theA's in the career handbook.

William Dodge (22:14):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (22:15):
None of

William Dodge (22:15):
No, that's,

Evan Troxel (22:16):
architect.

William Dodge (22:17):
Yeah, no,
Yeah.
No, that, that's hilarious, man.
Uh, no, that's interesting.
Yeah, I, I used to study ar I studiedarcheology and architecture, Malta.

Cormac Phalen (22:27):
Uh,

William Dodge (22:27):
they, uh, and I actually do work in Malta now, and
one of my just kinda going back tothis original point or earlier point,
my Maltese, it's architect friends.
They'll, what they'll do isbasically do design intent drawings,

Cormac Phalen (22:40):
Yeah.
Yeah.

William Dodge (22:41):
they'll, and they'll design very specifically
the key details that matter,

Cormac Phalen (22:46):
Yeah.
Yeah,

William Dodge (22:46):
is doing the rest of the drawings.

Cormac Phalen (22:48):
yeah, yeah.

William Dodge (22:49):
They're like kind of more like the master kind of creative director.
That's what the architect Andso they're a firm of four,
four, currently four people now.
And they're one of the best designfirms in Europe they, they won the World
Architecture Festival for best interiors.
They've been a finalists for, multiplecategories of World Architecture Festival.

(23:09):
They won the Architecture Review awards.
I mean, they're like just a topnotchdesign firm, but it could not possibly be
more different than of work that we do.
I actually took, two young designersdecided to come with me to tic 'cause
they heard me talking about it so much.
It's the one who was, my, my mentee isbasically my kid and her best friend, who

(23:30):
was the last person I hired who I neveractually worked with, which is funny.
She came with me and my girlfriendand, and some other people.
And I took them to the office andthey were like, oh my God, I can't
even imagine working like this.
It's just

Cormac Phalen (23:42):
Right.

William Dodge (23:42):
radically different than what we do.
Yeah.
No, it's yeah, it, it, it is, it isinteresting because, in that kind of the
kind of cultural ze geist, we imaginethat architects are like super creative,
like highly, like tinkering all thetime, becoming, almost like inventors
and people think about Bucky Fuller,obviously not an architects, right?

Cormac Phalen (24:04):
Yeah.

William Dodge (24:04):
did a lot for architecture, you know, so, but people think about
folks like that, which is just,just, sadly that's not the, the case.
You know, I think of that old there was a,famous meme or Instagram post or whatever
it was that was going around, like,I want, I want AI to do my dishes and
clean my house, and so I can do my art.
I don't want it to do my art forme so I can do those other things.

(24:27):
And

Cormac Phalen (24:27):
Okay.

William Dodge (24:28):
think that's kind of what we're talking about.
I mean, I,

Cormac Phalen (24:30):
Hm.

William Dodge (24:30):
when I talk to people, I have a friend who's one of the world's
experts in ai, and, and was telling me,they have whole syn synthetic teammates.
They work all night and they come andthey're like, Hey Will, how's it going?
You know what, I've beenworking on this all night.
What do you think?
And then it's like onconversations and they grow with
you in levels of experience.

(24:52):
Right?

Cormac Phalen (24:52):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (24:53):
retire, you basically that person, because some
becomes somebody else's mentor.
Right?
They

Cormac Phalen (24:59):
Yeah.

William Dodge (24:59):
also have fully synthetic user groups of

Cormac Phalen (25:03):
Hmm.

William Dodge (25:03):
40, 40, 40 people basically, where you have
like, okay, well this is Mitch.
He is Black American and hegrew up in Lansing, Michigan.
He's got a PhD in philosophy.
He's going through a divorce.
yeah, he is, is a little feelinga little under the weather.

Evan Troxel (25:17):
kind of

William Dodge (25:18):
And this is Susie, she's a lawyer.
Yeah, totally.
And they give them whole personalitiesand then they basically give them
pitches and get the reaction.
What jokes land, what don't.
designs land, what doesn't?

Cormac Phalen (25:31):
Okay.

William Dodge (25:31):
like, that's kind of what we're we're talking about.
And then when you start to kindof get into regenerative a ai,
I mean, it's regenerative ai.
It's a whole scenario.
But I guess what, what we're talkingabout, like a lot of people are
thinking like chat GPT and things.
I mean, that's not whatwe're talking about.
I think what it, what itdoes, it's both terrifying and
exciting at the exact same time.

(25:53):
It's both dreams and nightmaresare the same thing, you know, the
other side of it, the differentnightmares and dreams too, you know.

Cormac Phalen (26:00):
Yeah,

William Dodge (26:01):
think it can be, um,

Cormac Phalen (26:03):
do dude.

William Dodge (26:04):
really wonderful thing for, for our industry, but
it can also be a terrible thing.
It just really depends on who'susing it and how they're using
it and what they're using it for.
So I think I personally welcome it.
I mean, I think it's gonna beinteresting to see kinda how it all

Cormac Phalen (26:18):
S So let me ask you, just, as more of a, a novice in this, I've, you
know, I'm the, roll the sleeves up, kindof, get into the projects and the weeds
and all of this other stuff, and, and I amnot a naysayer on, the coming tide of ai.
I know it's coming, you know, as, asEvan says, the genie's out of the bottle.

(26:38):
You can't put 'em back in.
It's coming.

William Dodge (26:40):
totally.

Cormac Phalen (26:41):
So, where do you see the benefit of AI in architecture,
you know, not just, kind of like bigpicture stuff, but also like, where it
is gonna kind of improve the lives of,let's just say the minions that are in
the trenches that are, kind of grindingit out every day and really kind of

(27:01):
like losing touch with, the, like, thereality of what they actually, w wanted
to get into architecture four and Yeah.
I mean, we,

Evan Troxel (27:08):
your, your answer, William, because I want to add
to it and that, and that is likethe thing that Cormick just said.
finds value in that.
Right?
Rolling up the

William Dodge (27:18):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (27:20):
project managers find they, they perceive value, I'm gonna say, 'cause
I don't know if they find value in this,in sending a lot of email and checking
things off in an Excel spreadsheet andlike, like, like that busyness, quote
unquote busyness is like, that's,that's what they go to work for.
That's what they get paid for.

(27:40):
They're not taking a lot of risk.
Although, you know, I'm sure that's,you, you could probably debate that.
Right.
But, but the

William Dodge (27:46):
Yeah.
Yeah, you can.
You can debate it if you say the wrongthing in OAC meeting, you're getting

Cormac Phalen (27:50):
Oh yeah.

William Dodge (27:51):
a

Cormac Phalen (27:51):
yeah, yeah,

Evan Troxel (27:52):
are quote unquote, busy doing stuff, and, and you're
not talking about that stuff.
You're talking about getting rid
of that stuff

Cormac Phalen (27:59):
yeah.

Evan Troxel (28:00):
that

Cormac Phalen (28:01):
yeah.

Evan Troxel (28:01):
more valuable things.
Not everybody's cut out for

Cormac Phalen (28:03):
Right.

Evan Troxel (28:04):
I'm just gonna pause it.
That, and I'm
also gonna pause it,

Cormac Phalen (28:07):
Uh,

Evan Troxel (28:07):
everybody is able to do the mindset shift, the behavior shift
to become the orchestrator, to becomethe curator, to become the tastemaker,
to do all those things because they'resuper comfortable doing the busy work.
And like that to

William Dodge (28:24):
Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel (28:24):
a

Cormac Phalen (28:25):
Yeah, yeah,

Evan Troxel (28:26):
And
I'm not saying like

Cormac Phalen (28:28):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (28:29):
or bad.
Like
I, I kind of

William Dodge (28:31):
Totally.

Evan Troxel (28:31):
of not.
Right?
It's like, it's like there's,because what you're saying is,
is like this, this wave's coming.
I agree with that.
And there's
not

William Dodge (28:40):
Hmm

Evan Troxel (28:40):
for

Cormac Phalen (28:40):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (28:41):
who's currently signed up to be in this profession because
the machine's

Cormac Phalen (28:45):
yeah, yeah,

Evan Troxel (28:46):
it.
Right.
And
so, I

William Dodge (28:48):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (28:49):
schools pumping out graduates all the time, and
I would say there's been

William Dodge (28:53):
Yeah,

Cormac Phalen (28:53):
Right.

Evan Troxel (28:54):
in this profession for too long, like honestly,
because we

William Dodge (28:57):
yeah.

Evan Troxel (28:58):
issue of paying these low wage staff people
to do high

Cormac Phalen (29:02):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (29:02):
work and

Cormac Phalen (29:03):
Which,

Evan Troxel (29:04):
line just keeps going out the door.
As soon as somebody
gets fed up and leaves, there's

William Dodge (29:08):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (29:08):
to take
their place.

Cormac Phalen (29:09):
yeah, which back in, previous generations, those people who
were doing, you know, I hate to call itthe grunt work, but it's the grunt work
of, the detailing and the drawings and,pumping out the construction documents.
They were draftsmen,they weren't architects.
Architects were doing thingsdraftsmen were, basically
interpreting their, their things.

(29:29):
Do you know, do you think that, and,and, I've been listening to a lot of
biographies on architects the, overthe past couple of weeks, months, and

William Dodge (29:38):
I've been listening to some of your thoughts on

Cormac Phalen (29:41):
Yeah.
And do you think that KB or FrankLloyd Wright or Gropius really
did construction documents the waythat architects No, not at all.

William Dodge (29:51):
yeah.
No.
Yeah, absolutely

Cormac Phalen (29:54):
I mean, they could, they could have used maybe a little
bit of technical knowledge to maybekeep water out, but, you know,

William Dodge (30:00):
Yeah.
That actually

Cormac Phalen (30:00):
Yeah.

William Dodge (30:01):
that brings me to a point, I wrote down a bunch of notes.
So I'll, I'll try and remember.
Don't, don't let me getoff the topic, but I

Cormac Phalen (30:07):
Okay.

William Dodge (30:08):
out, um, you were talking about

Cormac Phalen (30:10):
Yeah.

William Dodge (30:11):
you were, you were talking about in an episode
recently about, you know, me notbeing able to keep water out and

Cormac Phalen (30:15):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (30:16):
same thing with Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, coming in
on the wood cell and stuff, have

Cormac Phalen (30:20):
Yeah,

William Dodge (30:20):
Have you seen Thomas Pfeiffer's new building where they built

Cormac Phalen (30:23):
yeah,

William Dodge (30:24):
or they built one of me's Unbuilt projects and I was just curious
because you had the kind of, the thought,the mindset of those buildings couldn't
be built now, but they did build one now,

Cormac Phalen (30:36):
yeah.

William Dodge (30:36):
what was your, if you've seen it, what was your impression of it?

Cormac Phalen (30:40):
So.
So I ha I've, I've only seenit in article, but I have, you
know, I, I am kind of partial toanother Thomas Pfeiffer project.
Unfortunately, it's closed rightnow for repairs because it's leaking

William Dodge (30:55):
Oh, uh, the Glenstone.

Cormac Phalen (30:57):
Gladstone.
Yeah.
Which is one of my favorite places.
I love that place.
You know, the, the, the, um,you know, just the feeling
that you get there is amazing.
You know, it's the way that it, like I,I, I don't know if there's art there.
I'm pretty sure there is, but, youknow, I'm a namer with the building.
That's not why I go

Evan Troxel (31:15):
jury's

Cormac Phalen (31:15):
the way that it, you know,

Evan Troxel (31:16):
is you don't know if, if, uh,
modern construction techniques,

William Dodge (31:19):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (31:20):
you know, modeling all these things

Cormac Phalen (31:22):
well,

Evan Troxel (31:23):
out.

Cormac Phalen (31:25):
what's interesting is, you know, now I'm working on a smaller
project, like the, one of the smallestprojects I've worked on in a long time.
That is basically repairingmodernist details on a.
On a building that basically failed.
And when you look at 'em, you'relike, of course it failed.
You know, there no, no wonder it failedis because, if you just look at, if you

(31:48):
look at it and you look at like, here'sthe path of the water, and the water
is going into a stone coping, and thatstone coping basically is a sponge.
And if you're not gonna stop itfrom continuing down, it's gonna
leak, it's going to deterioratethe panels, it's gonna fall apart,
and it's all of these other things.
So, so, and we're gonna get up.
We're gonna,

William Dodge (32:09):
question, right?
You kind of answered your own question.

Cormac Phalen (32:12):
Well, so, so I get,

William Dodge (32:14):
to do that or

Cormac Phalen (32:15):
yeah.
So, so, uh, there's, there's so many.
So as I was reading the article.
I, I am g Um, so I, I, I read the article.
I'm like, this is interesting.
I'm curious what other people think.
And so I sent it to a handful of friendsto just kinda get their take on it,
and it sparked a shit storm of really,really interesting conversations.

(32:39):
Not bad.
I mean, they weren't like, oh my God, youknow, what is this idiot talking about?

William Dodge (32:42):
yeah.

Cormac Phalen (32:43):
I will say

William Dodge (32:44):
I hear that all the

Cormac Phalen (32:45):
I, I did, I did not know this, but I sent it to a mutual
friend of mine, Evans and yours, that

William Dodge (32:52):
Uh,

Cormac Phalen (32:53):
I'm not gonna tell you who it's, I'll tell you later
when I we're off, but, you know, uh.

William Dodge (32:57):
No, I was gonna say we, that's, yeah.

Cormac Phalen (32:59):
Actually, you know what?
He prob, he prob heprobably wouldn't care.
Um,

William Dodge (33:02):
but

Cormac Phalen (33:03):
uh, should I do it Evan?
Should I out him rusty Long?

William Dodge (33:06):
okay.
Oh, well, Ru Rusty Long, so I actuallydidn't go to school with Rusty.

Cormac Phalen (33:11):
Or, or he said he crossed path.
Sorry?
He said he crossed paths with you at,

William Dodge (33:15):
yeah,

Cormac Phalen (33:15):
state?
Yeah.

William Dodge (33:16):
Yes,

Cormac Phalen (33:17):
Yes.

William Dodge (33:18):
Yeah.
I was trying to help him get a job.
Yeah.
The, uh, yeah, yeah.
No, I, I don't know him well.
No, he is,

Cormac Phalen (33:23):
Yeah.

William Dodge (33:23):
no, he's great.
And

Cormac Phalen (33:24):
But, but apparently he's heard you, he's, he's heard you enough
to, to know that, you know, oh yeah,this sounds like you kind of thing.
But, but it was,

William Dodge (33:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (33:32):
but it's really interesting because, you have all of these different
impressions about, and that that's,kind of like the impetus of the question
that I asked you was, because you haveso many different people who have so
many different impressions about whatAI means in architecture, you know,
some people were talking about it andthey were welcoming because, it's just
like, this is gonna help me be moreproductive in what I really wanna do.

(33:55):
And then others are justlike, is this gonna take over?
Like the think the thinking for people,

Evan Troxel (34:00):
creative

Cormac Phalen (34:00):
you know, are we gonna lose that cr?
Exactly.
Are we gonna lose the creative part?
Is it just gonna be image making now?
Is it gonna be where we lose that creat,that critical, thinking that, that
problem solving and stuff, you know?
And so there was a variety of different,like, you know, attitudes on it.
And, and so you know me asking you naively

William Dodge (34:19):
be,

Cormac Phalen (34:20):
Exactly.

William Dodge (34:20):
It just really depends on how you wanna use it.

Cormac Phalen (34:23):
Ex Exactly, yeah.

William Dodge (34:25):
So if you wanted to do the creative stuff for you, it
can do the creative stuff for you.
I

Cormac Phalen (34:29):
Right?

William Dodge (34:30):
that are allowing that to happen, and

Cormac Phalen (34:32):
Yeah,

William Dodge (34:32):
the quality of terrible designs that's coming out as a result.

Cormac Phalen (34:36):
yeah, yeah.

William Dodge (34:36):
it's like, why do, why would you wanna give up that stuff?
I mean, I

Cormac Phalen (34:39):
Right.

William Dodge (34:40):
I don't know.
I mean, I just know, to me, I, I seethe, the value in iteration, I see
the value in democratizing design.

Cormac Phalen (34:48):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (34:48):
see the value in just kind of the, the details.
You know,

Cormac Phalen (34:52):
Right,

William Dodge (34:52):
how do you develop a perfect detail that's not gonna
leak and whatever, you know,these, these are the, these are
the, materials, this is the angle,

Cormac Phalen (35:00):
right.

William Dodge (35:01):
you know.
And I think when you, when you starttalking about that, I think that's really
the best, most valuable thing for peoplethat are creative and want to use it.
however, I do think thatpeople can use it for design.
It's not gonna be a.
Good design tool.
But that said,

Cormac Phalen (35:17):
Yeah.

William Dodge (35:17):
I made the comment in this meeting last summer, I was
in this again, again in this roomwith like all these global CEOs.
It's hilarious.
at the top of the New York StockExchange it's the fanciest room
I've ever been in in my entire life.
It's the executive board roomin the New York Stock Exchange
and basically made any room inVersailles look silly, by comparison.
So it's, it is the

Cormac Phalen (35:37):
Yeah.

William Dodge (35:37):
where like John Rockefeller and JP Morgan and Carnegie
got together and figured out howthey were gonna take over the world.
So I'm sitting there with many of theworld's most kind of interesting people.
And they were talking about,the, the constant quest for
perfection with ai, et cetera.
I, I brought up the point that, AIcurrently, at least now AI is one
of its biggest benefits, is the factthat that makes mistakes all the time.

(35:59):
Because then, you know, again, kindof going back to this whole leveraging
kind of the whole of being naive.
If I'm looking at a hundred things, youknow, one of 'em might spark an idea

Cormac Phalen (36:11):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (36:11):
and that is a tremendously valuable thing.
Like, and I, I think that we get hungup on perfection a lot of times and just
good enough is sometimes really great.
And I think that's a problemwith architects in general.
I have

Cormac Phalen (36:26):
Yeah.

William Dodge (36:26):
but then I, you know, I, I have, I have some of the world's best
designers that I know personally that areusing AI more for, again, for iteration
and creatively directing things, ratherthan saying, Hey, Susie, Billy, stay up
all night for the next three days andsee your family, to, to do these things.
I, I see the value in that.

(36:47):
Um, personally, you know.

Evan Troxel (36:48):
by these micro studio idea, or maybe give a couple of, you
know, just, just give us an idea of whatyou're talking about, because I think.
I think again, like that'sopen to wide interpretation.
Like what is a micro studio?
But you talked
about this group of four

William Dodge (37:02):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (37:02):
right?
That are leveraging

William Dodge (37:04):
yeah, yeah,

Evan Troxel (37:05):
in in what ways and, and also kind of like the decisions
that they've made to be thepractice that they want to be like.
That means the things that they

William Dodge (37:14):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (37:15):
it also means the things that they don't do, right?

William Dodge (37:18):
yeah, yeah.
yeah.
No, and, and I should mention too,in particular, my, my firm and
Malta that I'm referring to, they'rewonderful Valentino architects.
They're amazing.
Everybody should look 'em up.
They're doing incredible work.
So they're not necessarilyusing a ton of ai.
We've talked about it.
I mean, they use it occasionally,but they're more, again, just the
method of practice is wildly differentthan it's in the United States,

Evan Troxel (37:40):
if

William Dodge (37:40):
you know?
So there's there,

Evan Troxel (37:41):
micro

William Dodge (37:42):
that.

Evan Troxel (37:42):
is with this
super

William Dodge (37:44):
Yeah.
I mean, actually, well,they, they would, they.
Yeah, they would be a good exampleof kind of what could be now
possible in the United States thatisn't currently possible, right?
You have three or four, three orfour people that are able to leverage
different expertise um, kind ofcritical thinking to help drive constant

(38:04):
iteration in order to achieve designsuccess in project success, right?
As opposed to like needinga studio of 30, 40 people or
thousands of people or whatever.
I remember sitting in this, um, thismeeting for Fast Company and I had,
there was a CEO of this firm called Gray.
They're a huge advertising agency, andthere was another CEO, but the, the

(38:29):
world's second largest advertising agency.
And they were just telling us, theywere like, oh, yeah, we, we used,
you know, we, we had this pitch thatturned out they were competing against
each other and they didn't realize it.
And, and one of 'em won and one of 'emfinished second, but they were talking
about how they were utilizing ai.
And, um, know, for all these differentiterations and how they were using

(38:49):
it to do all this market analysis andhow it spit it out, you know, eight
years of data in five minutes and,they were just made it super concise.
I was, I remember the guy, the guy,there was a guy sitting next to me.
He is the global CEO and he looksat me and I looked at him and he
was like, they just told us they'renot gonna be in business in, in
the next three or four years.
And I was like, yeah.
I was like, I don't thinkthey realize that, but that's

(39:11):
exactly what they just said.
Like, I

Cormac Phalen (39:14):
Yeah.

William Dodge (39:14):
are firms that leverage, hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of people.
So I mean, may

Cormac Phalen (39:18):
Yeah.

William Dodge (39:19):
these folks will figure it out, but I remember thinking about
after that comment, I was just thinkinglike, Gensler and purchase Will and these
huge firms that just really just like,they just throw a bunch of stuff at the

Cormac Phalen (39:31):
All right.

William Dodge (39:31):
what sticks.
I just don't see a place inthe modern world with AI where
that's gonna still be irrelevant.
Business model.

Cormac Phalen (39:39):
So, so what's interesting is that, Evan and I've had this
conversation, 'cause now that I'm kindof, you know, he's not working for
his big firm and I've helped friendsand stuff kind of go out and look
for jobs and all of this other stuff.
It started to kind of like dawn on me.
I was just like, what's missingin the Javas sphere of, of

(40:03):
architecture is basically.
Kind of creating a consortium of,of, of like, a quality architects.
Uh, that's a really bad way ofexplaining it, but, you know,
just these amazing architects

William Dodge (40:16):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (40:16):
That are just remote and they're just working wherever it is
that they are and that they, that you'regetting like the best minds, best talent,
best passion, and you're going aftersame projects that you know, the genslers
and, people like that are, are doing.
The problem is, is that unfortunatelythe model right now, which you know, is
kind of interesting in the article is,like there's almost this, need to like

(40:38):
strip us all the way down to bear and, youknow, build us back up in a different way.
Is that.
Everybody thinks that, oh, well Ihave to have the Gensler, I have to
have, the big architect and stuff.
And the problem is, is that a lotof times, you're, you know, you're
not getting like, Gensler's ateam, you're getting just, you're
getting a, a breath and a pulse,

William Dodge (40:58):
yeah,

Cormac Phalen (40:59):
what you're getting.
You're, you know.

William Dodge (41:00):
you're getting the Q team.
Yeah, yeah,

Cormac Phalen (41:02):
Yeah.

William Dodge (41:03):
Yeah.
Where

Cormac Phalen (41:03):
and when you

William Dodge (41:03):
hiring.

Cormac Phalen (41:04):
Exactly.

William Dodge (41:05):
you're

Cormac Phalen (41:05):
we,

William Dodge (41:06):
X, Y, z, other firm, you're getting all the principles and
stuff, you know, I mean, they just don'tunderstand that, and that's on us to
be able to explain that too, though.
I mean,

Cormac Phalen (41:14):
And when you have like, these, like micro studios, I remember
in, so I'm gonna give you a littlelike, history on like, me and so I,
I see this little project that I havehovering over my head next to the light
that Evan was asking me about that I, itwas, it was me and my college roommate.
We didn't have our licenses yet.

(41:34):
You know, we went out, we, we werehelping a friend write an, a request
for proposals for a project thatthey were looking for, and we helped
them craft this document to issue outto some really big name architects.
And, these were architects that, stillto this day, I kind of revere, the work
that they do and the quality, and justlike the passion that they have for
the, but, so, we just gave it to 'em.

(41:58):
They, started getting the proposalscoming in, and they called us up
and they were like, well, you know,hey, you know, this project pretty
well because, you helped, craft thisdocument, why aren't you guys submitting?
And we're like, well, we don't havea license and we don't, you know,
they're like, no, no, no, you know.
Well, so, so come to find out, they,they basically kind of like asked us,
you know, Hey, can you know, just we,we want you to come and present and.

(42:22):
Me completely out of mycomfort zone, completely.
Not knowing what the hell I was doing,gave a presentation that apparently I,
I honestly wish I recorded it becauseI have no recollection of it at all.
But, but apparently it was so impassionthat these firms that again, are some

(42:42):
of my favorite firms in the country,we beat and got this project and,
you know, then, then won big awardsfor it and all of these other things.
And I had absolutely no clueof what the hell I was doing.

William Dodge (42:57):
That's the

Cormac Phalen (42:58):
I came,

William Dodge (42:58):
sometimes,

Cormac Phalen (42:59):
I came into it every single time.

Evan Troxel (43:01):
about that.

Cormac Phalen (43:02):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (43:02):
being naive, right?

William Dodge (43:04):
Yeah,

Cormac Phalen (43:05):
Yeah, exactly.
That was it.
And that's what I'm saying.
It's like, and so like these, youknow, in these like micro studios are,
they're like, okay, yeah, I'm, I knowI'm competing against like the Genslers
and whoever else, but, and so, you know,you may come into it with like this lack
of confidence that, you know, you know,I'm just tiny, but you, you come into
it with a completely different mindset.

(43:26):
It's like, all right, fine.
You know, it is a David andGoliath thing, let's go after it.

Evan Troxel (43:29):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (43:30):
And you go.
with it naive, kind of like, youknow, devil made care kinda attitude.

William Dodge (43:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's interesting.
I, you know, I, so I do businessconsulting for different firms globally
and and I find it really interesting when,firms are like, oh, well they're not gonna
give it to us 'cause we're too small.
And I'm like,

Cormac Phalen (43:47):
Right,

William Dodge (43:47):
they will give it to you because you are the
ones that are gonna be involved.
Yeah,

Cormac Phalen (43:51):
right, right.

Evan Troxel (43:52):
before they even try.
Right.
Like,
this is a, this

Cormac Phalen (43:55):
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

William Dodge (43:58):
No, I used to use the I used to use the quote that, you know, my
wife would've never married me if I hadn'tasked her out, but then we got divorced.
So I don't know that that reallyworks anymore, but the point remains
the same, you know what I mean?

Cormac Phalen (44:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.

William Dodge (44:09):
and I are very good friends.
She would think that was funny.
But, uh, you know, I mean, the wholepoint, I mean, I guess the whole thing
is though is, the reality is is you know,if, if you kind of go in with a defeatist
attitude, you've already lost, you

Cormac Phalen (44:23):
Yeah.

William Dodge (44:23):
and yeah, and I just, I think there's a lot of
opportunity for people to leveragetheir strengths and what they're
good at forward using technology.
Am I an AI evangelist?
No.
Do I know the most about it?
Absolutely not.
Do I sit in the roomwith the people that do?
Yes.
Like, do I hear what they're doing?
A hundred percent.

(44:43):
it's like it's the reality that's coming.
It's kinda like, okay, people, it'skinda like, I think about, you know, you
used the example of Henry Ford earlier.
You know, people, are like, whatis this assembly line nonsense?
You know, where we craft, you know, thesebeautifully, crafted cars or whatever.
Yeah.
How many of those peopleare still in business?
Or you look at the or you lookat the, the, the stock, the, the

(45:05):
top, top 50 stocks from like 1940.
How many of those companiesare still in business?
Right.

Cormac Phalen (45:11):
right.

William Dodge (45:12):
know, it's like, the reality is is we
have to always be iterating.
And you would think that architecturesarchitects will be better at that.
You think?
Our

Cormac Phalen (45:20):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (45:20):
not on

William Dodge (45:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No,

Cormac Phalen (45:22):
Yeah.

William Dodge (45:22):
No, no,

Cormac Phalen (45:23):
Crew.

William Dodge (45:23):
and lawyers are way better at iterating we

Cormac Phalen (45:26):
Yeah.

William Dodge (45:27):
Because there's more money in it in iteration where
we are just afraid of liability.
That's like, we've run like crazyfrom liability and we're always
worried about changing anything.
I mean, I think the AIhas a lot to do with that.

Cormac Phalen (45:40):
Well, I mean, just think about like, sorry, I didn't
mean to cut you off, but I mean itwas just like, think, think about like
Blockbuster was the, the leader in homeentertainment and they saw it coming
and said, eh, you know, we're fine.

Evan Troxel (45:55):
I There's

Cormac Phalen (45:56):
Yeah.
It's like, where the hell are they?
Yeah, exactly.
Where the hell are theynow, kind of thing.

Evan Troxel (46:01):
I,

William Dodge (46:01):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (46:02):
so one of the

William Dodge (46:02):
yeah, yeah.

Evan Troxel (46:03):
William, in your article is, you know, burn it all down.
Start over.
Right?
And, and I think that that is a.
I mean, it's really hardto change institutions, big
institutions, and I

William Dodge (46:15):
Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel (46:15):
consider our profession an
institution.

William Dodge (46:19):
Oh, yeah.

Cormac Phalen (46:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

William Dodge (46:20):
Totally.

Evan Troxel (46:21):
there's this,

Cormac Phalen (46:21):
Because we have institutional problems.

Evan Troxel (46:23):
and there's, it's very, very, very difficult
to change it from the inside.
A lot of people go
outside and

William Dodge (46:30):
Totally.

Evan Troxel (46:30):
it from the outside and have
just as big of a problem, right.
Um, speaking from

William Dodge (46:35):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (46:36):
and, then, and then,
there's this

William Dodge (46:38):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (46:38):
uh, empires have to crumble.
I mean, I don't know if this
is an empire, but,

William Dodge (46:43):
Oh yeah.

Evan Troxel (46:43):
you gotta

William Dodge (46:44):
we're, we're we're watching it right now in real time, bro.

Cormac Phalen (46:47):
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah,

William Dodge (46:50):
We're talking about different things, but we're

Cormac Phalen (46:52):
yeah, yeah, yeah.

William Dodge (46:53):
time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I wrote an article about that.

Evan Troxel (46:56):
Yeah.
And, and I would love to talk
about that.
Um, I,

William Dodge (46:58):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (46:59):
like what, what do you, okay, so let's say that there
are, there's definitely gonna bearchitects who are interested in, in
what

William Dodge (47:06):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (47:07):
There's a lot who are not, who are just gonna
write it out, right?

Cormac Phalen (47:09):
Oh yeah.

Evan Troxel (47:10):
it into the

William Dodge (47:10):
And, and, and, yeah.

Evan Troxel (47:12):
like, what, what

William Dodge (47:12):
Yeah.
And that, that's fine.

Evan Troxel (47:14):
for and shape a new future of the profession?
What, what do you,
what do you think.

William Dodge (47:19):
I, I mean, I, I, I mean in terms of architecture
school and what I tell what I tellstudents all the time, it's just.
know, try and hone your creativity skills.
Don't necessarily worry so much onabout specific programs and stuff,
if, if people are hiring you becauseyou're a great renderer or you're
great at Revit, that should be actuallybe a red flag anyway, you know?

Cormac Phalen (47:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.

William Dodge (47:42):
know, I could, I can, well, not me, because I'm not an
architect, but people that I workwith could, can teach people how
to be, great at Revit or whatever,different programs, but you can't
teach people how to think critically.
You can't teach people howto be fun to work with.
You can't teach 'em how to, have a greatcreative eye and you can't teach 'em to

(48:02):
have a good sense of humor, et cetera.
So, I, I mean, from, from mystandpoint, it's like, how can you, how.
Come Outta school is the most well-roundedkind of curious person possible
because I think that is the real key

Cormac Phalen (48:18):
A hundred percent.

William Dodge (48:20):
And

Cormac Phalen (48:21):
Yeah.

William Dodge (48:21):
is, is like, yeah, to your point Evan, there are gonna definitely
be people that aren't going to change.
And do I think that firms aregonna start to change this way?
No.
But what I do think is they're gonnabe small firms that are gonna start
to form from other people that startto see opportunities like this.

Cormac Phalen (48:37):
Yeah.

William Dodge (48:38):
will start taking the projects from the other people
and then that will shift everything.
you an example.
So like we use an example of myfriends at Mal Valentino and Malta.
Um.
I, I'll give you an example of myself.
So I, in 2020, I started, and Idon't even know if you guys know
this, so in 2020 I started this Istarted a public art practice with

(49:00):
two buddies called a gang of three.
and were, um, just trying to kind of.
Find something to do and do right.
Um, by kind of our, our city.
And we had this opportunity to, itcame out, it was a, for a, $50,000,
um, total project cost was actually35, but they raised the budget.
Let's get crazy.
It was a $50,000.

(49:20):
It was a creative educationdisplay to talk about flooding.
And basically what we ended up doingwas kind of through a random stream of
events, we ended up creating this twoacre interactive project that since won
13 National and Global Design Awards.
Including one from Fast Company forHonorable mention for Best Urban Design.
we won architect newspaper for editorspick Best Landscape Project in America.

(49:43):
It was like Google, Google, Google Award.
We were up for global finalistsfor Landscape Project, the Year
World Architecture Festival.
We didn't really know what we were doing.
We were just trying to make a differencein our community and leveraging
every, growing up in East NorthCarolina, there's not a lot of money,
certainly not a lot of money for art.
How can we do more with less?

(50:05):
And we just used design, design thinking,kind of critical thinking skills and kind
of, um, using things like, uh, nature,sight lines, prevailing wind and stuff
like that as our collaborators, right?
And to be able to createa meaningful experience.
Now what what's since happened is,is so one of our partners was a, a
landscape architect who's now justblown up his, yeah, he had just

(50:27):
started another firm and he is like,he is a firm called Ground Control.
Will Belcher.
He's amazing.
He is blown up.
And now he is like, he is becomethe favorite to a lot of these
architects and people like that.
So he doesn't have his, he doesn't reallyhave much time to be involved in our
practice anymore, so he had stepped away.
But now Lincoln and I'm their partner,we're doing projects all over the world.

(50:48):
And like we're doing, like we,we have a black history memorial.
That's that we we'recalled a gang of three.
We always partner with a third person.
Anyway, our first project, it happenedto be with Will and he's left, but,
and the next project we partnered witha friend of mine from architecture
school who's, um, generation Richmondnative whose family was enslaved.
They're there I believe and he wewent to architecture school twice.

(51:10):
And so we partnered withhim on this project.
'cause it's, we were doing a new,there was, we were got hired to do
the public art within a building.
But what we ended up doing wasconvincing the client and the building
architect to let us turn the buildinginto a giant piece of public art.
The firefighters it And it's,

Cormac Phalen (51:25):
Nice.

William Dodge (51:25):
ready to open in a couple of weeks, but it's a, it's on the site
of a former Confederate Army camp.
on, right on the terminus of anextraordinarily and historically charged
site, uh, through less than threemiles from the Confederate White House.
I guess my point is, is like if wehad been traditionally practicing
architecture, we would never be able todo the projects that we've been doing, and

(51:49):
then all of a sudden we've been now usethose as a couple of different examples.
We've been able to do some prettyincredible things with just two or
three people and thinking creatively,and that's not even thinking about ai.
Just imagine what you could do ifyou start having all the production.
I guess my point is, is like once you kindof step and remove yourself outside of the

(52:10):
kind of the normalcy that is architecture.
I think you start to kinda you startto kinda see some of the cracks
and the flaws and how you might beable to fix some of those things.
So, I, as I mentioned before, Iwas a previously managing principal
for a a, for a firm called Berry.
They were they had previously had anoffice in Raleigh, North Carolina.

(52:30):
They were down, they werethere for five years.
They were about to close.
They were literally just, theywere about to close the office.
A friend of mine became theCEO and asked me to, to just
basically restart the office.
And at the time I was thinkingabout starting my own practice
or moving overseas, and I.
And David had this really good pitch.
He was like, you know what you should do?

(52:50):
You should start your practiceand you should call it Handbury
and I'll pay for everything.
I was like, oh, that's,
a that's an interesting thought.
And I was like, well,well, here's the deal, man.
Like I'm never working foranybody again in my life.
I'll work with people and havepeople work with me, not for me.
And those, there's a coupleof different conditions.
One, two, I'm gonna hire whoeverI want, no questions asked, like

(53:15):
literally no questions asked.
And we are gonna lose money in spectacularfashion for the next 24 to 36 months.
But then after that, dump truck's fullof money are gonna start showing up.
And that's exactly what happened.
So agree the practice formyself and one other person.
To being over 45 people by the timeI left, and from no work to over two
and a half billion dollars worth ofwork, um, in less than four years.

(53:37):
Oh, well, 49 months I should say.
And then, so what happened was,is I was like, oh, my, I've spent
my entire career kind of settingcreating situations to connect the
dots for people to be successful.
Whether it's recruiting people,whether it's, winning work, whether
it's designing work, whatever it is.
and I, and what I decided to do was,instead of, going from firm to firm
or just being like super bored, Imean, I could have stayed there.

(53:59):
I worked with all my friends.
I heard 40 of my friends, likeincluding the, the, the woman that
I've known since she was 14, someof my best friends, et cetera.
I could have stayed there and, andbeen happy forever, but I decided,
you know, impact on this firm hasbeen vertical the last four years.
I could be here for the next 50and have a 10th of the impact.
So instead of quitting my job everyfour years, I decided to start

(54:22):
my own practice and transition myclients every three to four years.
Right?
And so I have this kind of global networkthrough a variety of different reasons
I've been able to work around the worldwith folks from New Zealand, from Mexico
City, from Malta to Philadelphia, kindof with this unorthodox business model.
We're trying to kind of reimaginewhat architecture looks like and what,

Cormac Phalen (54:45):
Hm.

William Dodge (54:45):
can get done.
Because, so basically the best way I candescribe my practice is I'm essentially
an on contract, part-time senior partnerto different firms around the world.
so it's like, there are people that doPR marketing or business development
or programming, consulting or kindof operations or things like that.

(55:06):
But typically none of those peoplehave started firms from scratch.
Hired 40 people.
You know, major Christmas came that yearfor those people's kids, one with pain and
ass clients on huge complex project teamsand designed 'em from beginning to end and
delivered them where everybody's happy.
I've done all those things, right?
So

Cormac Phalen (55:20):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (55:21):
I, so when I speak with my clients, I don't get paid for my time all.
I don't charge by the hourwhich freak a lot of people out.
I just get paid for my expertise.
I get paid on the first day andthen we work on 12 month contract.
And you know, it's interesting becauselike I talk to people about that,
it's uh, it's kind of trying to seta situation where there's no winners

(55:43):
and losers, but everybody wins.
And I think that that's thesituation with the AI too.
It's like, depends on how you frame it.
How do you do more with less?
Kind of think about, I think backon like the climate change memorial
project I was talking about,how do you do more with less?
How do you think strategically andbe able to leverage design principles
and business kind of ideas and do andmore efficient ways rather than just

(56:05):
throwing a bunch of time and effort.
It, it's something.
Or doing things like billing by thehour, that doesn't necessarily work.
It's not necessarily efficient.
Like I'll give you an example.
If I can, if I can work 40 hoursa week, for an entire year, let's
be honest, an architecture 60, 80hours a week for an entire year and,
and make a firm a million dollars.
Okay.
And I get paid a salary.

(56:27):
Okay, well cool.
If I can pick up the phone in fiveminutes making that same amount
of money, I get paid the same.

Evan Troxel (56:33):
Instead of

William Dodge (56:33):
Like that's just the reality that, that, yeah, exactly.
So I mean, it's like, to me it's likehow do you talk about value and not cost?
And it's like what?
So it's interesting is wheneverI talk to my clients or potential
clients, they either think,this guy's, this guy's crazy.
He, this guy's crazy.
He is trying to rip me off.
He's a lunatic like he is, you know, he islying to me or God, this dude's a genius.

(56:59):
And a friend of mine told methe other day, he was like,
you're a crazy genius, William.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, exactly.

Cormac Phalen (57:05):
Yeah.

William Dodge (57:06):
And that's that.
And that's the thing.
And that's what I used to always tellmy my staff too, and the people, like
my colleagues that I worked with atAmber, it's like, don't want every
project, we just want the right ones.

Cormac Phalen (57:16):
Yeah.

William Dodge (57:16):
want every client, man, you just want the right ones.
And that's the, that's the trick.
It's like, I don't wanna hire 50 people.
I wanna hire, I, I always wanted tohire like 10, 15 people that were just
really, really good and then pay 'emreally well and take care of 'em because
I don't need to hire so many more people.
'cause these people are super badass.
And like, give them a lot ofopportunities to be successful.

(57:39):
And, and that's how,good business gets done.

Cormac Phalen (57:42):
Well, that sort of goes back to the, or, the start of this
conversation and you know, and even inthe article where you talk about like,
the inherently broken way that, Americakind of approaches these projects is
more of like, it's a commodity, not, youknow, um, it's not architecture anymore.
It's, you

William Dodge (58:02):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (58:03):
know,

William Dodge (58:03):
building.

Cormac Phalen (58:04):
it, it's, it's just, it's a, it is the assembly line, right?

William Dodge (58:07):
yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's building,it's not architecture.
And I made

Cormac Phalen (58:10):
Yeah.

William Dodge (58:11):
you know, and I, at the end, I end the, end the article,
then the CEO of my old company,he was like, what do you wanna do?
And I was like, I don'twanna be an architect, man.
He was like, well, what do you wanna do?
I was like, I wanna do reallyincredible architecture.
It was a big difference.

Cormac Phalen (58:23):
Yeah,

William Dodge (58:24):
And he was like,

Cormac Phalen (58:25):
yeah,

William Dodge (58:25):
point.
I was like, yeah, it'sa, that's a great quote.
I was like, yeah, but it'salso a real good point, man.
It's true.
I was like,

Cormac Phalen (58:31):
yeah.

William Dodge (58:31):
are we doing?

Evan Troxel (58:32):
mean the,

William Dodge (58:33):
And it's not that they were doing bad architecture,
it's just the industry in general is,

Evan Troxel (58:37):
about like

Cormac Phalen (58:37):
yeah,
yeah.

Evan Troxel (58:38):
about and like how incompatible it is with.
The current mindset

Cormac Phalen (58:43):
Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel (58:44):
And, and
I, that's why I keep

William Dodge (58:45):
Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel (58:46):
idea of like, of course, like not everybody has to do it and it's,

William Dodge (58:50):
Yeah,

Cormac Phalen (58:51):
Right.

Evan Troxel (58:52):
do have to think and approach differently, all of

William Dodge (58:56):
sure.

Evan Troxel (58:57):
Um, it, it's really interesting to kind of think
through that and think who,who wants to be a part of that?
And, and, and
because I, it is

William Dodge (59:05):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (59:06):
to get out of the rut of,
you know,

William Dodge (59:09):
Uhhuh.

Evan Troxel (59:10):
out there are going after work just like they did last
week, just like they did a year ago.
Just like they
did five

William Dodge (59:15):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (59:16):
10 years ago.
Right.
It's like rinse and repeat.
Do the same thing.
It
it is, it is an

William Dodge (59:20):
Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel (59:21):
And,
and I get, you

William Dodge (59:23):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (59:23):
the largest firms have to do the same thing because
they've built this machine to
operate

Cormac Phalen (59:29):
Right.

William Dodge (59:30):
keep

Cormac Phalen (59:30):
You gotta keep feeding the machine.
Yeah.

William Dodge (59:33):
Totally.
Yeah.
No, but I mean to Cormick or, or Ican't remember if it was you, Cormick
or Evan, you know, we were talking aboutcomment, other comment about my clients
when my business consulting clients is,you know, it's self-selecting, right?
I think the

Cormac Phalen (59:46):
Yeah.

William Dodge (59:47):
is gonna do the same thing.
It's like, you know, people are gonna goand start doing, doing their own things.
Whether it's, folks like me thatare trying to kind of, I've got like
10 different toes and 10 differentdisciplines with a, a gang of three.
We're sort of architecture, sort ofpublic art, installation landscape, urban
design, storytelling, everything in, inbetween basically, and it's like when

(01:00:08):
I started my, my strategy practice, Iintentionally started it because there was
no one in the world doing what I'm doing.
And they're still not.
I'm the only one, which is really greatsome ways because you don't have any
competitors and it's really terrible.
And others, because people,even my best clients still don't
necessarily understand what I do,except I make millions of dollars.
So it works out.
But but with a gang of three, when westarted that practice, we were, again,

(01:00:30):
we were just trying to do right byour community and then really focus
on social and sustainability issues.
Like all our projects dealwith, socially conscious issues.
That's all we do.
We don't do pretty things, but whenwe start just, we don't just do things
because they're pretty, I shouldn'tmention, we do pretty things, so
we do beautiful things, but theyalways have a meaning behind 'em.
But you know, when we startedthat practice, we didn't mean

(01:00:52):
to start a practice that wascompletely unique globally.
There's

Cormac Phalen (01:00:56):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (01:00:57):
in the world that's doing what we're doing,
but that was by accident.
Like, but I, I, I, what I thinkyou're going to see is you're gonna
start to see a bunch of different andstartups that maybe somebody's doing
it on the side, and then they're gonnastart landing a big project, and then
they're gonna step out of a, know, amajor firm and then just go and start

(01:01:17):
doing their own thing moving forward.
it's, it, it'll be interesting to kindalook back in, years and see kinda whether
I'm right or wrong, or Jesus, whetherthe world still exists at this point.

Cormac Phalen (01:01:30):
I too.

William Dodge (01:01:30):
but yeah, no, it's, it's, it is interesting.
It's a, it's a hard thingto predictions, right?
You're either a genius oryou're a total lunatic.
What was, what was that guy thinking?
But just again, you know,I'm not an AI evangelist.
I just see the writing on thewall from the conversations
I've been intimately a part of.

Evan Troxel (01:01:46):
And, and your articles really, really, I mean,
you talk about AI being kind, Iguess maybe like the lever, right?
Uh, in,
in this in

William Dodge (01:01:55):
yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:01:56):
here.
And so I just think it's at a differentlevel than what people are reading
in the headlines every day anddealing, you're, you're talking about.
Uh, when you're sitting inthat room with, with the other
top CEOs and they're talking
about the AI that

William Dodge (01:02:10):
Yeah, yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:02:11):
is a
very different than

William Dodge (01:02:13):
yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:02:13):
grade stuff that everybody's
gotta

William Dodge (01:02:15):
Oh, totally.

Cormac Phalen (01:02:16):
Right, right.

William Dodge (01:02:17):
yeah, yeah.
Well, there's that, and it'salso continuously developing.
I mean, it's, you know, this stuff that'shere today is gonna be like garbage by the
stuff that, you know, six months from now,

Evan Troxel (01:02:27):
and I

William Dodge (01:02:28):
you know, it's gonna be,

Evan Troxel (01:02:29):
like,

William Dodge (01:02:30):
it's like punch cards by comparison to that stuff, you know?

Cormac Phalen (01:02:32):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:02:33):
then, right.
To ev
even to,

William Dodge (01:02:35):
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:02:36):
more leverage.
I,

William Dodge (01:02:37):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:02:38):
can continue to ignore it and that you're gonna be doing things the
way that you're doing them in the future.
It, it doesn't make

William Dodge (01:02:46):
yeah.
That, yeah.
Yeah, no, it is interesting.
And one thing I will say that theyounger generation other than,
you know, the fact that they,they don't know any better, right?
and Cormick, you just gave usa really amazing example of
why that is super valuable.
They're also incrediblytechnologically literate.

(01:03:06):
You know, it's like my, my businesspartner is like a tech genius, and he, he
gets so I, I'm like the complete opposite.
Again, that's why I wentinto architecture, right?
I'm terrible at all these things.
And, uh, so he is like, he'slike, I thought you, I thought
you saved it in the OneDrive.
And I was like, I did.
I don't know where it is.
You know, it's

Cormac Phalen (01:03:24):
Uh.

William Dodge (01:03:25):
you know, where it's like I have like a, my young staff
would just laugh at me, like constantly.
They were like, bro, like,

Evan Troxel (01:03:30):
Yeah,

William Dodge (01:03:31):
they were like, yeah, yeah, totally.
Yeah.
No, yeah.
I mean, not, not intentionally, but yeah,I've, I've become, so yeah, we, I got old.
I.
And, uh,
yeah, I'm not, I'm not as, I'm, yeah, I'mnot as up on the technology as I should
be, but hey, no, it, it is, it is reallyinteresting to see I think it's actually
could potentially be a golden age forarchitecture, but maybe that's naive.

(01:03:53):
Um, but I do think, uh,

Evan Troxel (01:03:55):
we always have an

William Dodge (01:03:56):
I do

Cormac Phalen (01:03:57):
Well,

William Dodge (01:03:57):
possibility.

Evan Troxel (01:03:58):
have an existential

Cormac Phalen (01:03:59):
yeah, I,

Evan Troxel (01:04:00):
in this profession, and to me, like this seems like a pretty
incredibly, um, viable catalyst
for, for

Cormac Phalen (01:04:08):
yeah.

William Dodge (01:04:08):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:04:09):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:04:10):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:04:10):
mean, you know, you think, you look at it as just
like, CAD came in and, oh my God,it's gonna destroy architecture.
Revit came in.
Oh my God, it's gonna destroyarchitecture and AI's coming.
Oh my God, it's gonnadestroy architecture.
No, what's gonna destroyarchitecture or architects,

William Dodge (01:04:25):
yeah.
And

Cormac Phalen (01:04:26):
you know?
And,

Evan Troxel (01:04:27):
I.

Cormac Phalen (01:04:27):
and I know we talk about this all the time.
It's, you know, and, and you even saidit in the article about, it's, it's those
that you know are going to embrace it,early on and adopt it, that's really
gonna kind of arrive this way for change.
Um, versus, you know, those who arejust gonna kind of like stand by and,
you know, I I, I'm hoping that I'm likein that little middle ground of like,

(01:04:49):
yeah, I'll accept it, but you know, I'mstill gonna draw with my pen and paper.

William Dodge (01:04:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, You're, you're, you're like,
you're like the, you know, um, the,uh, older architects that I know that
I love very much that are like, ohman, I'm just gonna keep using cad.
I'm gonna ride this to the sunset.
Just to the very of ride riding

Cormac Phalen (01:05:08):
the, the, the,

William Dodge (01:05:09):
still the very end.

Cormac Phalen (01:05:10):
well, the funny thing is, is that I'm willing to
accept and change and, and adopt.
It's just there are certain likehabits that I've gotten that, you
know, that, that, you know, my juststream of consciousness, my thinking is
better, as it's kinda like this directtranslation from, you know, head to hand.

William Dodge (01:05:30):
Yeah.
No, I mean, and I think, I think that'sthe, that's the nature of the profession.
Just

Cormac Phalen (01:05:34):
Yeah,

William Dodge (01:05:34):
do what works best for you, man.

Cormac Phalen (01:05:36):
yeah.

William Dodge (01:05:36):
mean, like, I've never, I never understood that this
whole, like, when you're in studio,like you have to have three sections
and two drawings and like, man,that's not, that's not the reality.
Like, do it, explain your project and

Cormac Phalen (01:05:47):
uh,

William Dodge (01:05:47):
then

Cormac Phalen (01:05:48):
totally, yeah.
That

William Dodge (01:05:50):
just kill Tom doing all this stuff that doesn't tell us anything.
Like,

Cormac Phalen (01:05:55):
the, the, yeah.

William Dodge (01:05:57):
totally not real life.
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:05:58):
As like the thing, because.
So what's interesting about the schoolI'm teaching at, it's predominantly
taught by adjuncts, so it's allpractitioners and, each of them have
a very interesting, take on how theygo about teaching, students and stuff.
And mine's more along the lines oflike, you know, what I see as the
reality of the profession and howyou fit in there and how you can make

(01:06:20):
a difference or how like, you know,

William Dodge (01:06:22):
Sure.

Cormac Phalen (01:06:23):
people who might be, one way can fit in and others.
But I, I always keep, I wastelling them and I was just
telling this to a group that.
You know, reached out to me for theirparticular project, and just said, you
know, Hey, can you kind of guide me?
I'm like, remember, youcontrol the narrative.
This is your story to tell.
You know, I understand that this iswhat they're looking for, but if that's
not what tells your story, you'vegotta find the best way that you can

(01:06:47):
convey your ideas and tell that story.
And if you, and, andthat's what we are, right?
I mean, even through the drawings, eventhrough, our presentations, everything,
if we're not storyteller first, it's a,it's gonna be a horrible damn project.

William Dodge (01:07:03):
Yeah.
you can have the greatest idea inthe world, but man, if you can't
convince somebody to build it, it's

Cormac Phalen (01:07:08):
Exactly.

William Dodge (01:07:09):
the page.

Cormac Phalen (01:07:10):
I always, I always go back to this story, and I, of
like, and it is like, can you imaginebeing in the room when Aero Seranin
was pitching the, the Gateway Arch.
People must have looked at him likehe was just out of his goddamn mind.
Like, you wanna do what you want to,like this big stainless steel arch.

(01:07:32):
Nobody's ever seen it before.
Nobody's ever done it beforeand you want to do what?
And he must have been soimpassioned and so like, convincing.
And they're like, yeah, yeah, why not?
Let's do it.

Evan Troxel (01:07:44):
can't

Cormac Phalen (01:07:44):
know?

Evan Troxel (01:07:44):
do it.
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:07:46):
Exactly.
I mean, it was just like, could,I mean, you know, there are some,
obviously some other examples, but Imean, think about nobody like that,

William Dodge (01:07:56):
yeah,

Cormac Phalen (01:07:56):
existed.
Like,

William Dodge (01:07:58):
yeah,

Cormac Phalen (01:07:58):
know, even the thought you was like, and it's just like,
I, I would've loved, I mean, I thinkof one thing in this world that if
they were like, you know, if youcould have been in any conversation,
what conversation would it be?
That one I wanted to be in that one.

William Dodge (01:08:13):
like I would've wanted to be in your presentation.
Yeah.
The uh,

Cormac Phalen (01:08:16):
Well then somebody should have taken notes because I sure
the hell wish I, I knew what I said.

William Dodge (01:08:21):
Yeah.
Well, actually, it's funny you justreminded me of something pretty
interesting in your KB episode.
You were talking about whether or not,you know, Pierre, Jean Ray, or what his

Cormac Phalen (01:08:30):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:08:30):
whatever was, you know,

Cormac Phalen (01:08:31):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:08:32):
getting credit.
You know, KB was notorious for that.
So

Cormac Phalen (01:08:35):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (01:08:36):
you all know the story.
So I'm from Raleigh, North Carolina.
That's where I grew up.

Cormac Phalen (01:08:39):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:08:40):
I was really fortunate that when I was in the eighth, ninth
grade, I be became really good friendswith a a, now a woman, a girl at the time.
My friend Laura Harmon, whose fatheris Frank, is Frank Harmon, who's like
a really super notable architect.
So I knew what I was getting into.

Cormac Phalen (01:08:54):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (01:08:54):
go over to his house all the time.
like, it was interesting where I livein North Carolina, we used to be this
kind of hotbed for modern architecture.

Cormac Phalen (01:09:02):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:09:03):
And the, the NC State's first architectural department head was
this Polish guy named Matthew Naski.
And so Matthew Naski is internationallyknown specifically because he
was the world he won the world'slargest architecture competition
to design Punjab India, whichyou would know is Shand de Gar.

Cormac Phalen (01:09:20):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:09:21):
So, and he was going back and forth and flying back and forth
to India and leading all the design.
Um,

Cormac Phalen (01:09:27):
Hmm.

William Dodge (01:09:27):
his plane crashed in Egypt and he died.
And then, then that's how Corbended up getting the project.

Cormac Phalen (01:09:33):
Hmm.

William Dodge (01:09:33):
it's funny because if you look at the Secretariat building
and you look at NA's building and you

Cormac Phalen (01:09:38):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:09:39):
building,

Cormac Phalen (01:09:39):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:09:40):
they're the same building,

Cormac Phalen (01:09:41):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:09:43):
but it's, it's, but there's a, there's a bigger part to that.
There's a Sarah and he and MatthewNaski were best friends and there's
one build, there's a building inNorth Carolina called Do Arena.

Cormac Phalen (01:09:54):
Mm-hmm.

William Dodge (01:09:56):
Um, and it's a hyperbolic paraboloid and it's basically two
arches that are essentially fallingdown on one another and it stretches
hot tensile cables between them.
it was the world's first building tohold its roof up entirely by cables.
I, um, I remember taking MichaelUND there when I was in grad
school, and he was like, oh my God.
He was like, man, Tom Main andI, we were starting more focuses.

(01:10:19):
We would've never donesome crazy shit like this.
And these guys did this withslide rules in the forties.

Cormac Phalen (01:10:24):
Yeah.
Yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:10:25):
Totally.

William Dodge (01:10:26):
But like, I I, I have never measured the exact the
exact dimensions, but I, I knowSarah and apparently was super
obviously upset when his friend died.
And I I'd be willing to bet thatif you look at a plan view of,
'cause these, there's two arches,if you just basically stand one up,
it's a very emblematic of the St.

(01:10:46):
Louis Arch.
So they,

Cormac Phalen (01:10:48):
yeah.

William Dodge (01:10:49):
but it's, it is worth checking out the story.
It's a, it's a,

Cormac Phalen (01:10:52):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:10:53):
situation with Naski because his family gave all his work
to North Carolina State archives,but they didn't release a copyright.
So because of that, none of hiswork could ever be reproduced
for, for like a hundred years.
So the world totally forgot about him.
They thought they were given it, the

Cormac Phalen (01:11:06):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:11:07):
to preserve it, but everybody forgot about him

Evan Troxel (01:11:09):
like the

William Dodge (01:11:10):
of it.

Evan Troxel (01:11:10):
the end
of the Indiana

Cormac Phalen (01:11:11):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:11:12):
Right?
It's
like,

William Dodge (01:11:13):
Oh yeah.
No,

Evan Troxel (01:11:14):
except
it's

William Dodge (01:11:15):
yeah, hundred percent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And remind me before we go thatI've got, I've got the most epic
Frank Lloyd Wright story ever.

Evan Troxel (01:11:24):
Let's,

Cormac Phalen (01:11:25):
All right.
Tell it.

William Dodge (01:11:27):
uh, so

Cormac Phalen (01:11:28):
He.

William Dodge (01:11:28):
There's an architect in Malta Richard England.
He's amazing.
And there's actually, there's anew new little mini documentary.
It's only like six minutes.
So there's a a European firm called Everhouse art House Studio that did a little
documentary on my friend Richard England.
But he is basically like the godfatherof Mediterranean architecture, right?
Like is, like, he's become really goodfriends with Renzo Piano and Daniel

(01:11:51):
Kin because they're super fans of.
You know what I mean?

Cormac Phalen (01:11:54):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:11:55):
he kind of reminds me of my friend, he's the Mediterranean version
of my friend Frank Arman, where likeI'll go to dinner with Frank and like
Tom Kig and Marlon Blackwell and RickJoy and all those guys will be there.
And then like Frank'slike their leader, right.
You know, like that's kinda like, heis like the leader, their like gang.
Right?
And then that's that's thesituation with Richard and Malta.
But he used to work for geo Ponti he,um, Ponti used to collaborate a lot

(01:12:18):
with Scarpa and some all these, hehas all these really cool stories.
Apparently Scarpa wrote mirror imagelike Leonard Leonardo and he would
always, he was always so distracted andkind of scatterbrained that he would
forget that he was smoking and thecigarettes would burn out on his hand.
So he was always coveredin like scabs and stuff.
He would leave them drawings, like tracepaper drawings and they couldn't read it.
So they'd have to hold it up in front ofa mirror to read what she said because

(01:12:40):
it went in the opposite direction.
It's all these wild stories.
But my friend Richard is late in his lateeighties and, he was telling me was they
were working on the University of Baghdad.
And because at, at the time, I didn'tknow this until he was telling me
this, that that was like a reallybig deal, architectural project.
Kinda like, almost like Shon de guard,like they were trying to collect the
world's greatest architects and like,like COR had a project and Franklin Lloyd

(01:13:03):
Writeup, Gropius or like, geo Ponti, allthese people had different projects and
apparently everybody got along reallywell except for everybody universally.
Hated Frank Lloyd Wright'cause he was such an asshole.
So, so, so like, they kind of all hadlike this understanding that nobody
would ever allow Frank to get, be therewhen they were there because the, his

(01:13:24):
ego was just too much to deal with.

Cormac Phalen (01:13:27):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:13:27):
was there and he was at the lecture of Walter Gropius.
So Frank Lloyd Wright shows up a dayearly and doesn't tell anybody, and he
hears what Gropius has given the lecture.
And Gropius is like, you know,the geniuses in the collective.
You know, we are, you know,we all collaborate, et cetera.
You know, this just theopposite of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Complete opposite.
I'm the genius.
You were my draftsman, I'm thecollective genius, whatever.

(01:13:50):
So, he shows up to Grey's lecturer.
He walks in like halfway throughand goes and kind of interrupts
everything and sits in the front row.
And Grey's is kinda like looking athim like, what are you doing here?
Like, this is super awkward.
So my friend is in the audience, and he'ssitting there talking and at the very
end he asked if there's any questions.
And Wright raises his hand and hesays, let me ask you something, Walter,

(01:14:14):
when you make babies with your wife,do you call your neighbors to help?
What an asshole.
What an extraordinary asshole.
The uh,

Evan Troxel (01:14:23):
Jeez.

William Dodge (01:14:25):
and I remember when he told me that, I was
like, of course he said that.

Evan Troxel (01:14:28):
Wow,
man.

William Dodge (01:14:32):
So, yeah.
Anyway, yeah, when you guyswere talking about these things
on your episodes, I was like

Cormac Phalen (01:14:37):
Yeah,

William Dodge (01:14:37):
I was like, I need to remember to tell this and this.

Cormac Phalen (01:14:42):
but you, I will say, you know what's interesting that I've sort of
seen as a thread with all of them, coreGropius, Royer, whoever, you know, every
one of them, um, Frank, I mean their, whatwas interesting about their common thread
is all of them, yes, they had their egos.

(01:15:03):
Yes.
They were, probably all assholes,but they had that naive, like, I
can do whatever kind of mentalityin, you know, in a, in a time when
what they were doing didn't exist.
So they were just, they weredumb enough to do something.
So, you know.

(01:15:24):
So mind, so game changingthat, it, essentially changed
the world of architecture.
And, and, and they may have said, ohyeah, I know exactly what I'm doing,
but I'm looking at it more on a criticallevel is like, no, you didn't, you
didn't know what the hell you were doing.
You're like, if, if, and that's okay.

(01:15:45):
That's okay.
You, he is like, if they were honestwith himself, they would probably
sit in the dark room and say, yeah,I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
But you know what?
They had the confidence to go outthere and say, this is what I'm
doing, and you know, you know,

Evan Troxel (01:15:58):
it's It's,
like risk

Cormac Phalen (01:16:00):
it's,

William Dodge (01:16:00):
yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:16:00):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:16:01):
and
it's, it's like

William Dodge (01:16:02):
yeah,

Cormac Phalen (01:16:03):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:16:04):
you get into these, I think we've probably all experienced this.
It's like, who can have the best idea and
who can actually get it

Cormac Phalen (01:16:11):
yeah, yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:16:13):
like those,
and, and, and then it

William Dodge (01:16:15):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:16:15):
like this.
This competition for the best
ideas and, and it's

Cormac Phalen (01:16:19):
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:16:20):
It's, it's like, it just keeps going and,
kind of an interesting life to
live for sure.

Cormac Phalen (01:16:26):
Well, well, I mean, falling water, if the stories that I was told
is to be believed, came about becausehe was left out of the I'm blanking,
Congress of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The, you know, you knowwhat I'm talking about.
Um, and I can't remember the acronym.

William Dodge (01:16:41):
Yeah.

Cormac Phalen (01:16:42):
Corps's Group.
And he, they were basicallylike, you're washed up, you're
nothing, you can't do this.
And he was just like, watch me.
And, but, but you know, ifthat's true, then great.
If it's not, it was stillone of these things.
It's just like, the competitionthat they had bred that.
And what's interesting is.
I, I think these mega firms,kinda like to bring it back.

(01:17:02):
You like these mega firms and, andeverything sort of take that, like
whole desire of competition out of it.
It's just like, again, it's a, you know,an assembly line kind of mentality.
I mean, they may be some really competent,well designed buildings, but it's still,
it's still a, an assembly, line mentality.

William Dodge (01:17:20):
yeah.
Is that, is that architecture or isthat more facilitating a building?
So I

Cormac Phalen (01:17:23):
It, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.

William Dodge (01:17:26):
And it's, that's what, what exactly defines
architecture is the real question.
Right.
It's kind of like

Cormac Phalen (01:17:31):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:17:32):
You know it when you see it.
You know,

Cormac Phalen (01:17:34):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:17:35):
so, but it's like, you know, it it is, it is.
Totally, it is.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I, I will say that apparently Renzopiano is like the nicest dude on
the face of the earth, by the way.
I think he,

Cormac Phalen (01:17:45):
W we're, yeah,

William Dodge (01:17:46):
like his spare time, like helping old ladies
across the street and stuff.
So there are some really good ones,

Cormac Phalen (01:17:51):
we.

William Dodge (01:17:51):
there, huh?

Cormac Phalen (01:17:52):
We're working on our second, I think second, at
least second project with him.

William Dodge (01:17:56):
I did hear

Cormac Phalen (01:17:57):
And, and that's, you know, I mean, other, the, the only thing is
like, they wish that, we'd stop designingthrough construction, you know, but other
than that, they're like, dude's amazing.
You know, I mean my, uh, you know, oneof our, principals is just, he falls all
over him, you know, for good reason too.
Because, you know, he's not only good,but he's, you know, a good person too.

William Dodge (01:18:23):
Yeah.
He is a wonderful guy.

Evan Troxel (01:18:24):
this

William Dodge (01:18:24):
His very best friend.

Evan Troxel (01:18:26):
about being, you know, being likable, being
somebody that people like to work

Cormac Phalen (01:18:29):
yeah,

William Dodge (01:18:29):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:18:30):
And I,

Cormac Phalen (01:18:31):
yeah.

William Dodge (01:18:31):
yeah.
No, that's the trick.

Evan Troxel (01:18:33):
So I
think we should call it, I

William Dodge (01:18:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:18:36):
love to have you back and talk about your next article that just got
published, William, uh,

William Dodge (01:18:40):
yeah, yeah,

Cormac Phalen (01:18:40):
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:18:41):
yeah,

Evan Troxel (01:18:41):
federal.
What, what's the,
what's the actual terminology?

William Dodge (01:18:45):
The, the ma basically it's a federal, make America's
federal building's beautiful

Cormac Phalen (01:18:51):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

William Dodge (01:18:53):
that.
Yeah.
No,

Cormac Phalen (01:18:54):
yeah.

William Dodge (01:18:54):
I should mention that piano is very best friend is the one
who told me that story about Wright.

Cormac Phalen (01:18:59):
Oh,

William Dodge (01:18:59):
So it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's funny.
Yeah.
And the yeah.
But anyway, there I hadanother story about bug Mr.
Fuller in Raleigh too,but we'll leave it the

Cormac Phalen (01:19:08):
Uh, yeah.
Ple.
Yeah, please.
Definitely.

William Dodge (01:19:10):
well, before I forget, Bucky did not actually
invent the space frame.
Somebody else did, and heactually never claimed that

Cormac Phalen (01:19:18):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:19:18):
you're, you're,
you.
Just

Cormac Phalen (01:19:19):
Oh, yeah,

William Dodge (01:19:20):
had,

Cormac Phalen (01:19:20):
yeah,

William Dodge (01:19:20):
he, he didn't,
yeah, he did not, he did not tryto convince people that he designed
it, but his business partner did.
Another

Cormac Phalen (01:19:28):
yeah.
Yeah.

William Dodge (01:19:29):
Raleigh that I'll tell you about next time.

Evan Troxel (01:19:31):
All right.

William Dodge (01:19:31):
Yeah.

Evan Troxel (01:19:32):
Cliffhanger.

William Dodge (01:19:33):
no, but thank you.
Thanks guys.
No, I really appreciate it.
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