#367 - Level of Expected Standard of Care - Archispeak

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evan Troxel (00:09):
So Cormac, you wanna share your, what?
What is that?

Cormac Phalen (00:12):
The, so this episode is brought to you by a new mug.

sponsored by,

Really,

sponsored by the
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
All of a sudden are
we.

Uh, I mean, yeah, so new mug.

yeah.

New mug, new nerd.

be clear.
We're actually not.
And so Cormac is

Although,

the Frank
Lloyd Wright Foundation.

although if they would like to,

We're,
we're here.

phone number is,

inquiries to Yeah, evan@archpeakpodcast.com.

yeah.
new mug.

Gotta

if we, if

people.
Like, if you wanna see the mug,you gotta look at the YouTube
just for the

the mug, so if, if anybody is interested, the mug is a, just a
graphic of the stage curtain from Taliesn,the one in Wisconsin, not the west.

yeah, I was I,

And, uh,

I
was at the little theaterthey have at Taliesn West, and
it's just like a dark, maroon,
fuzzy curtain.
It's just like
a normal curtain.
So
I'm, I'm a little

now one.

such a
cool

Yeah.

at at Tally

They do.
It's actually, I, I was really,was kind of smitten by it.
I've got
a magnet, I got a picture.

Don't look at the

Yeah, exactly.

Like just, wow, that
curtain's amazing.

Yeah.
Well, so the theater itself, it justreopened and they it after a long.
Renovation.
And so that one actually doesn't leak.
Everything else thereleaks, but that one doesn't.
And yeah, so actually spring breakfor my daughter, we decided to take

(01:53):
a trip down to Florida and droppedher off at Bush Garden so that
she could ride roller coasters.
And I said, you're gonna have fun andI'm gonna have fun and I'm gonna go for
a small little drive out to Lakelandand I'm gonna go to Florida Southern.
then I decided to also go andvisit Florida Polytechnic, which
is where the recently opened.

(02:15):
I can't say it's new, but it'snew where Santiago College Trauma
Building is which if you want me toeven remotely say anything about it,
Evan is, uh,

we wanna

is

its own, its

okay.
We, we'll, yeah, we'll,
talk about that because.

a lot to

There,
there, there is.
And you forced me, you forced meinto revealing some of its secrets.

have, I have kind of analog, an analogous thing that I could
show, and then you could show that.
And, and so now I think wejust wanna foreshadow heavily

Ooh,

that will be a fun episode
to do.

there you go.

yeah.
Comparing

Yeah,

various methods of structural structuralizing a building.
Let's just, let's just

so I'm,

way.

so I'm not sure why you wanted to call me out on my
muck, but, here's my mug, everyone.

you'd wanna show it off because I, I, a few episodes
ago I've shown off my arc of Speakpodcast mug and you, you, yours is
cooler looking.

Yeah.
Mine's broke.
We need to,
we,

ACA speak mug is

yeah.
yeah.
We need to reopen the, uh, store there.

sustainability.
Yeah.
Maybe we should reopen the store people.
Let us know if we should reopen the store.
Do you want some aca speak merch.
All right, so we, we have a new thingthat we've announced a couple of times
and that is the AskArchispeak.com
website where listeners of the showyou dear listeners can submit a
question to be answered on the show.

(03:43):
we had a couple of questions come in.
These were big, big, long questions.
And, and so I'm like, I know, I knowwho wrote these questions and, and let's
just have him come on the show and,and talk about these things because
like, there's, there's a lot to this.
And I, and I, our guest in thisepisode has a lot of thoughts about

(04:06):
this already, which I think willheavily contribute to the conversation.
And so, Chad Clary,welcome to the podcast.
Great to have
you.

Chad Clary (04:13):
thank you for, for having me.
I was not expecting to comeon when I submitted questions.

I asked you and you said
yes.
And, and here you
are.

Chad Clary (04:21):
yeah,

So.

it's, your own damn
fault.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (04:25):
Uh, usually is

and, Chad, to be

Chad Clary (04:27):
I.

honest with you, he already gave away why he invited
you is because they were really longquestions and he didn't wanna read 'em.

Yeah.

So he wanted you to,

Um, and now I'm just gonna type into my, my AI chat bot named Chad.
Hey Chad, can you please, uh,
reask the question righthere on the podcast?
But, uh, we, we will getinto that in just a second.
I just thought it would be cool to telleverybody how Chad and I met, which
was at

yeah.

AEC Acoustics

Chad Clary (04:54):
Yep,

Conference last fall in Melrose, Florida.
that's a, a small conference put onby Phil Read and Adam Thomas from Read
Thomas, which is also where Chad now
works, which

Chad Clary (05:06):
that is true.

recent development.
And,

Cool.

I, I, believe we talked about that on this show,
Cormac if obviously, as he juststated, has ties to Florida, he just
went there

Chad Clary (05:18):
Yep.

Uh,
and
I was there.

Mm.

You, you had fun.
You,
you went out, you didyour architectural field

I, I had, I had fun.
I had a blast actually.

I mean, you're, you you consider yourself a Floridian
at at least like what, 50%, 40%?
Like what's the percentage ofFloridian that you consider yourself?

Well, I'll tell you, last night I was at school to some students
and it was starting to rain, and they'relike, Cormac, you should probably
leave so that you can, beat the rain.
And it was already coming down.
I'm like, like, I'm a Floridian.
I know how to drive in the rain.
So, I admit to it when it's convenient.

Yeah.

when I

you

have read the,

Florida Man does this right?
And you're like,

yeah, I, I told a, I told a client something about past as a child
growing up in Florida and they're like,are like the stories of Florida, man.
I'm like, crap.
Cormac has considered Florida, man.

Anyway,

I'm a Florida man.

All right.
So, so

Yeah.
Gets to get back to chat.

in the fall at, at at this nice little, it's
like an unconference, right?
And it was
a leadership conference.
It's a

Chad Clary (06:27):
Yeah,

conference.

Chad Clary (06:28):
retreat.

It's a retreat and we got to do cool
stuff every day at the

I,

and hang out, and it's super low key.
And anyway, that's where Igot to know Chad a little bit.
And then Chad writesin with this question.
Chad, you want to just kindof summarize the question and
then we'll see where this goes?

Chad Clary (06:45):
Sure.
Do you, do you want me tointroduce myself first?

I was gonna say, I mean,

I would love it.

where's

Chad Clary (06:51):
mean,

Where's your decorum, Evan?

Chad Clary (06:54):
I.
I mean, I'm fine just being Chad, but,
Yeah, so as, as Evan said my nameis Chad and I work at Read Thomas.
Now, I've been there a little over ayear prior to that, spent just under
20 years in architectural officedoing a little bit of everything.
CDs, pm, pa, ca and then ended upkind of more on the technical bi

(07:22):
manager side of things full-time.
Last five or six years I was there.
And prior to that, you know,got my B arch from Kentucky.
Took the long way through, droppedout for a while, came back because
I realized the real world was dumband was better off with a degree

(07:42):
so I could go face the real world.
And here I am now.

Interesting.
So just explain what Reed Thomas is andwhat, what you do there, because you,
because it sounds like you've split awayfrom architecture, but you haven't Right.

Chad Clary (07:56):
No, not, not completely.
So re Reed Thomas is,I'm gonna butcher this.
Basically a third party consultantand I, Adam Thomas, who's my
boss he's, he said basically ourjob is to make your job easier.
So we work with architects,engineers, product manufacturers
general contractors, developersto do pretty much what they need.

(08:18):
We do project support, we cando modeling, documentation,
templates, content creation.
Worked on some marketing images formanufacturers, building like, mockup
walls and kind of tear 'em apart.
You see those pictures 'cause thoseare way more informative than just a.
Plane section,

Hmm.

Chad Clary (08:39):
Do reality capture, I'm sure I'm missing a lot of app development.
There's, there's half the office

things.

Chad Clary (08:46):
are developers.
Yeah.

all tech
based stuff.

Chad Clary (08:49):
Yes, yes.

but what's interesting about, like what you just said, all those
things, Chad, when you were getting yourdegree at uk, like was this, this was
not a thing that you could have done whenyou graduated school back then, right?
It wasn't like,
I

Chad Clary (09:04):
No,

so many jobs in architecture now that it never used,
it was never like that when we were in
school, right?
It was always

Chad Clary (09:11):
he

do three
things.
You can do the design, you canbasically, you can do the design.
And but then there was project managersand there was like technical people
and, and now it's

Chad Clary (09:20):
cad CAD manager.

yeah.
And so now it's like, wow, there's so,and, and so I was just wondering like,
could you, if you look back and toldyourself that you'd be doing this,
that you would probably be like, what?
I mean there's, that's
crazy.

Chad Clary (09:33):
No, not, not in this degree.
I know when I was a kid I alwaysthought it'd be really cool
to be an Imagineer at Disney.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (09:42):
Which, which would be a similar, you're doing,
you're touching everything.
'cause they draw, they paint, they

They model, Yeah.

Chad Clary (09:49):
model, they, design buildings, they animatronics.
So this is kind of like that, but

You know,

Chad Clary (09:56):
not quite as fanciful.

get
to draw toilet rooms like Disney,early interns for imagineers
get to draw line cues for, for,
for the, they

Chad Clary (10:04):
Yeah.

the maze of

Uh,

haunted mansion when they're remodeling that.

you, you know, it's funny, Chad, that I actually had
aspirations to be an imaginary as well.
I grew up, as obviously you heard me
say I grew up in Florida, so,

Chad Clary (10:19):
Yep.

friends that worked in, in, at Disney.
And so we were there practically everyweekend, or, at least once a month.
Um,

back
then.
Yeah.

Chad Clary (10:28):
Yeah.

or free.

that now, or free.

Or free.
I'm not, giving away their secrets.
They got us in

Nice.

And so, it was great.
And, and saying anybody's name, butyou know, I have been, you know,

the

underneath,
yeah, I've been underneath Disney.
I've seen the world.
Underneath the world.

tunnels.

I have been in the secret tunnels.

maybe not So,

so

Yeah,

yes.
So, and, and it would just, it was,it, honestly, it was captivating.
I, I it, it sounds like youand I have had some interesting
similarities in our, start stops ineducation, desire to be imagineer.

Hmm.

mean, when you go there, you're just like, man, and in fact,
I've even had some projects that I'veworked on that, I kind of, call it like,
the Disnification of X or Y or Z and

Chad Clary (11:17):
Yeah.

not gonna say what
those projects are 'cause, you know,

Chad Clary (11:20):
Times Square.

shouldn't.

There you go.
Yeah.

Yeah.

Vegas.
Yeah, the whole city.
Uh,
well, okay,

Uh.

thanks
for, for sharing, like kind of that,that, what would you call that?
I guess that's just your, your intro,but your, your origin story there.
A
little bit of it at least.

Chad Clary (11:39):
Yeah, a little bit of it.

let's talk about your, your question and, and kind of where
it came from, where'd this idea comefrom, and then what, what is it?

Chad Clary (11:48):
My, my big conspiracy theory
so the, the original questionthat, the simple version is why
don't buildings have credits?
'cause if you think about it, it's avery creative project that involves
dozens to hundreds of people.
Same as a movie or a video game.
Or a, a music album, which all havecredits, in the album it's in the,

(12:11):
the liner notes, movies and games.
It's at the end.
And it was during COVI was playing agame and finished it, and the credits
popped up and there was a little note,oh, we finished this during CO with all
the isolation, and I don't remember ifthe credits were skippable, that might

(12:31):
be why I actually sat through them.

Hmm.

Chad Clary (12:34):
But I ended up just watching the credits and it was
the usual, like art directors andprogrammers, and then it went on.
It's like, oh, and here's ourlawyers and here's their admin
assistants and here's our dogs.

Wow.

Chad Clary (12:47):
just, it was just one of those, it's like, wait,
why don't buildings do, whydoes an architecture do this?
So that was, that was kindof the, the thought process
and it's just stuck with me.
So.

Well, what's interesting is think about this.
Think about how many times you'vebeen to either a grand opening or a
groundbreaking or things like that.
And Evan has a certain term forthis, and I'm gonna let him say it.
But where is usually thearchitect in all of this?
Most, you know, ninetimes outta 10, they're
sitting down in the backor something, or not

Chad Clary (13:21):
Yep.

or whatever.
And

Yeah,

is that ceremony called?
Evan, what's that ceremony called?

called the ceremony of the uninvolved.
Yes.
Because it's

Chad Clary (13:31):
Sounds about right.

the city council member

Right, right,

it's, it's
the, the lieutenant, supervisorof the assistant to the assistant
manager of this and that and it,and they're out there with the giant
scissors or the golden shovel or
whatever it is.

right,

they're doing
this thing and they're shaking handsand handing out plaques and all this
stuff, and yeah, like they're, therecognition is very odd in that moment
because it's like, we're talkingabout this, this physical thing right
here, and

right,

talking
about is the bureaucracy it tookto get there and how they were
involved in that part of it.
Right.
And, and
not the actual creation of the
thing.
Usually it's like that, like Carmexsaid, the architect isn't even invited
to this one,

well,

Chad Clary (14:13):
Yeah.

to kinda Chad's point, you're reading these.
The, the credits and,

that's part

you know, they are thanking everybody and that's fine.
I mean, ev there's a whole villagethat it takes to create this, right?
I mean, we aren't the ones who comeup with the idea for the project.
I mean, the clients come to usand, and they're as easy, as
much recognized as we should be.
And, and so when I saw the question andEvan was like, oh yeah, don't forget

(14:40):
that we'll be talking to Chad tonight.
I'm like, I was like, what wasinteresting about that and timely is
when I went back to refresh my memoryon the, the question I went into.
So when I was down in Florida, I went intohis art museum in, in downtown Lakeland.
And.
For some reason I was just kindacaptivated by the building.

(15:02):
I mean, there was a lot going on.
There was the original building thatwas very postmodern, and then there
was the addition that was done,which is, very contemporary, modern.
There's a lot of like, competing forattention in the facade of this building.
And I was, I, I, I think I sent a, animage of it and sent it to Evan and I

(15:22):
was just like, I don't know why, butI'm completely captivated by this thing.
And I go in and I ask, all of thedifferent people who are working
there, Hey, do you guys haveany idea who did this building?
And they're like, no, no idea.
You know, but

Chad Clary (15:36):
Yep.

If you like walk around the corner, there's a little alcove
underneath the stairs that has the model.
And I'm like, oh, cool.
Well of course I'm gonnago take a look at that.
And I.
Took a couple of photographsof it and looked at the model.
But what I realized is as I waswalking around the corner to get
to this place, they had a plaque.
And the plaque did basically say,thanks to such and such and such and

(15:59):
such and such and such, and at the verybottom it did acknowledge the architect
and it acknowledged the contractor.
And so, I, I actually got to, you know,nobody knew who did it to all the people
who've probably walked past that plaque athousand times, probably have never looked
at the plaque to, acknowledge, like allof the people who were involved with it.

(16:19):
But it was on the old portion ofthe building, not the new portion.
And I'm working on a buildingright now, and we're getting close
to completion of like the mainlobby and, and things like that.
And I'm thinking to myself,there's gonna be no plaque.
When I, when I walked past that plaque,I was thinking to myself, I don't
remember the last time any projectthat I've ever worked on and they're

(16:40):
large projects, has ever had a plaque.
That says who's done it.
And I remember like the old, like fiftiesand sixties, like, modernist like school
campuses, elementary schools, whatever.
And they would have that plaque in there.
And, and, and even that was like,you know, that was the credit enough.

(17:01):
I guess that was the end credits for usenough is like, okay, here's a building.
Oh yeah.
And here's the people whodid it, kind of thing.
And
now we don't
even get that

Chad Clary (17:09):
Yeah, I've, I've, I've seen cornerstones occasionally,

Yeah.

Chad Clary (17:15):
but yeah, plaques.
The only plaques I've seen areusually like the city council and the
mayor and the developer in the bank.
It's not

Yeah.

Chad Clary (17:24):
that actually did work.

It's, it's funny that you say that.
It's like, I, I've seen, and I.
Dragged Evan around a, a couple of timeson so some Frank Lloyd Wright buildings
and, there's a lot of cornerstones thathave, like architect Frank Lloyd Wright
on there and, and stuff like that.
And the only reason that they're probablythere, other than the fact that, like
is he designed it in, he designed hi,

Chad Clary (17:48):
Yeah.

acknowledgement of I did this building.

right.
Totally.
I'm, looking for a photo right now.
Cormac from, of architecturaltours, I have a picture my
phone, which is not helpful.
I'm going to try to find it on mycomputer so I can show you guys this
and, and it, it is a plaque and Cormac,I, maybe you can kind of talk about
this for a minute because you probablyremember it, but remember when we

(18:14):
visited the Barnes Foundation in Phil?
In Philly,

Yes.
Yeah.

mean, Billy Tsein and Tod Williams actually do put
plaques on their buildings and
and

Yeah.

it's just a kind of a bau relief.
It's kind of a, a concept model, a part
T diagram,

Mm-hmm.

that, that
could be cast into a concrete panel or
something.
This was

Yeah.

steel
plaque.
Now I want to, I'm gonna try tofind it and pull it up because
it has a lot of names on it.
And so
Chad's point, like,
but I think, I think thiswas probably driven by the
architecture firm that did it,
right In this case,

Chad Clary (18:48):
Yeah.

Tod
Williams.

Yeah.
Well, and so like, it, you know, I,I'm trying to think of like all of
these other buildings that I've beento recently, that are like famous
architects and most of them arebecause they have some significance to
history is why there's a plaque there.

(19:11):
There's is why there's, someacknowledgment of who's there.
But if you think about like all of the, I.
Other buildings that were done.
There's, it's becoming fewer and farbetween that kind of acknowledgement
that, here's who was involved or here'sthe, I mean, unless you were a donor
and, and I've, I've designed many adonor wall where, you get like, our

(19:34):
money helped pay for this building.
Like, yes, but my blood,sweat, and tears did,

Chad Clary (19:39):
What's, what's a couple of all-nighters?

Here it is.

Chad Clary (19:42):
Oh wow.

you go.

And so it's not a complete photo, but this is the best I have.
But you can see it actuallyhas the date, like I'm assuming
that's like the date of the
opening, kind of the,

Mm-hmm.

the, ribbon
cutting ceremony.
It has little diagrams of thebuilding on it, and it has names,
names, names, names, names.
And I don't know if I, I can zoom, I canzoom in on this, but yeah, you can see

Yeah.

and lots of
names in here.
And for all I know theseare donors, like I actually,

it, it could very well be.
Yeah.

and construction of it.
And, and so it, it actuallystill could be donors.
Right?
For all I know.
I mean, it is an art
museum.

Yeah.

but.
it does say in

I,

of the
individuals in design and construction.
So, this is a pretty coollittle piece of evidence that
I happen to recall having on my
phone.
but

Chad Clary (20:31):
Yeah, that's.

when I was
there and it was justout kind of in the open.
It wasn't hidden under a stairwell.
it

Hmm.

out in the courtyard in the middle of the whole and
it's there for everybody to see.
It's pretty cool.

Chad Clary (20:43):
Yeah, that's, that's the only one I think I've ever seen.

Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah.
I

Chad Clary (20:48):
Yeah.

not to that level of detail

Yeah.
I mean, it's obviously theyput some thought into it.
I'm sure they had an interndesign it, but who knows?

Chad Clary (20:59):
It's better than detailing the bathroom.

Right.
what would it actually take?
I mean, I've worked in firms thatdon't credit anybody in any of
their marketing materials aboutany of their projects because, it's

Chad Clary (21:11):
Yep.

a firm project and the firm, all those individuals work for the firm.
And I

Right?

saying
is like, like firms aren't.
like company.
Like there's no, actually, there'sno such thing as, as like a company.
It's, it's like the people.
It's the people who were there.
It's the people who did the
thing, right?

Mm-hmm.

Chad Clary (21:29):
Yep.

talent, their experience, their role, their skills, all those things
went into actually making it happen.
And how, why don't we acknowledgethose people for that thing,
for that moment in, in time.
And I, I do find it odd that many, many,many firms, because of their brand and
their identity, obviously, like they,they actually just put the firm name on it

(21:51):
and say, designed by whatever architects.

It is interesting that you say that because there are.
F websites that I've been to from otherarchitecture firms, even one that I
worked for in the past that has youknow, like my involvement on a project,

Mm.

And I'm not even at that firm anymore.
and they could easily havelike, scrubbed me from that.
But, and then there's, know, andthen there's others that they
don't even acknowledge anyoneexactly like you're saying.
And it's just, it's, it's kind of a shamethat like, you know, there is, unless it's
like, the late night marauding of the, theserver to get your projects off of there

(22:32):
when you're, you're looking for a new jobor, or whatever it is that you, you know,

portfolio together?

pillaging and getting your portfolio together
that is any record of like you, oracknowledgement of you working on it.
It's like, look, see heredrawn by and here's my cp, you
know, or something like that.

Like in the title
block.
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.
It's like the closest thing you get toacknowledgement that you worked on it is
like your initials and it'd be like, oh,that could have been know, anybody else.
But that, you know, it, it, it's kind ofa shame that even firms don't acknowledge
like all of the people who work onthose and, and it's not all of them.
I've, I have seen plenty of people getacknowledged, but, like it almost should

(23:16):
be almost a, a profession standard.
It's like, if, if somebody worked on theproject, they should get acknowledgement.

But how deep how deep should it go?
Like, to
Chad's point, right?
Like you

Chad Clary (23:25):
Yeah, that's, that's where it gets
confusing.

we, we, were watching what was the latest
Marvel movie that just came out.
We were, we went and we watched it andthey were rolling all of the credits and,
um.

'em now
because of the, the extra

Well, 'cause because they know that they're gonna be the mid, mid
credited scene or the end credit scenethey, you get through there and you're
watching it and, and just like you weresaying, it's the, see, they think of
the lawyers, they think of the dogs.
This was just like, all of the babies thatwere born, while making of this movie.
And it's just like, havingsome like, random, baby's name,
come floating by and stuff.

(24:01):
And so if they acknowledge all of them,they should at least acknowledge all the
creators.
And, like

Chad Clary (24:06):
Yeah,

the, the toilet room, detailer.

Chad Clary (24:11):
well, even, even if you just look at a high level, you've got
architectural, civil, electrical, fireprotection, interiors, low voltage
mechanical, plumbing, structural.
Possibly a door window consultant,storefront, circulation, et cetera.
It's, so you've got 30 different peopleand that's before you get into specifics.

(24:34):
Like the mason,

Mm-hmm.

Chad Clary (24:36):
that's, that's just high level.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (24:40):
So it's, there's a lot, but it might only be one person
from the door window consultant.

We were talking about trades how, know, the, a sense of pride
for a tradesman is to drive past a project
and them, like,

Chad Clary (24:59):
Yep.

to their kids and say, Hey, daddy worked on that.
Or, Hey, hey, mom worked on that.
And it.
Even them, I mean, they'vegot that sense of pride.
I mean, anybody who's worked on it,I mean, thing that in one of our
previous episodes was talking about,you know, a kid who was, kind of like
a little beside himself because hehad to do a group project and he was

(25:20):
just like, yeah, I'm just, I'm, I'mplanning on being a sole practitioner.
And I was like, even if you're a solepractitioner, you will never work
on a project where you are the onlyperson that ever works on that project.
You are not the only hand thathas an effect on that project.
There are so many hands that aregoing to be helping you the way.
And, you need to recognizeand understand that.

(25:41):
So you need to learn how to work as a,as a team, work together as a group.
And, so like everything, from theclient all the way down to the.
The locksmith that, reset the lock sothat you could hand the key to the owner
should be acknowledged in the fact thatthey had some part to play in the creation
of this building, of this space, ofthis place that, everybody sweat over

Whose job would

Chad Clary (26:06):
Yeah.

Who, who would do this?
Would it have to be thearchitects that kind

the, the, intern, of course,

of all this?
They would lay out the
plaque.

yes.

How big is this?
Could be to cover a whole wall.
I think
I, I mean, I, I

Well,

about the,
the, the amount of work that this
actually is and, and maybe

but,

don't do
it.

but

Chad Clary (26:24):
Yeah.

you know, I mean, like multimedia, you could have a
screen with the credits rolling.

the

Exactly.
You know, and if you,

screen in the building.
Yes.

you know, you could have a few
little like, splashes and you

Chad Clary (26:40):
Yeah, Easter eggs.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (26:42):
'cause I guarantee if I put that together, there
would be Easter eggs in it.

Yeah.

what would be great
is if you.

this.
Yeah.

Chad Clary (26:49):
Yeah.

would, what would be cool about this is if you did something like
that, that, you had like still images or,or, or some film that was taken during
the process all the way through from,client meetings all the way through, like
brick laying and, and everything else.
And then, you just kind of createit and it's scrolling and, but you
have like images and movies behindit and it's scrolling and so you

(27:11):
can like look and see, you know,
Oh, there, there I am.
There I am.

Chad Clary (27:14):
Oh, that would be great.
I would love that.

let's start a, okay, well we're gonna hang up now.
We're gonna start a side
business.

my gosh.
Yeah, you

Chad Clary (27:24):
I'm in,

consultants.
Yes.

There you go.
Construction credit consulting.

Chad Clary (27:30):
I'm, I'm sure in film there's a company that's their job.
I'm pretty sure it is.

I mean,
that's the model, right?

Chad Clary (27:36):
I,

at how, how do they do that?
How do they pull that together?
How do they make sure they get it right?
How do they get all the spelling right and
the, you know, because

Whoop.

lot of turnover on projects
too, right?

Chad Clary (27:46):
yeah.

people who just dip in and dip out.
They're part of the planning process.
They retire.
You
know, there's all of

Chad Clary (27:53):
Or there's,

Um,

Chad Clary (27:54):
someone gets pulled in for two days because the drawing has to go out.
I.

Yeah, so I, I, I'm the one who like, has the head in the clouds here,
so like, now I'm starting to think aboutthis and if, think about like, as this is
going through, is also a way to kind ofmemorialize everything that's gone into
a building because so many people justdon't understand whole process and what

(28:21):
it really means and like how architectsare involved with it, how contractors
are involved with it and stuff.
And you'd have this like memorial,this memorial scroll with all of
the people's names on it and stuff.
It really can kind of like.
Put almost a value that we seem tobe very, very hard at explaining,
what's the value of an architect?

(28:41):
What's the value of, people thinkthat, oh, if I see a building, it's
just this, person or that personwho's, brought it into fruition.
And, you yes, give all props to thecontractors because yes, they take our,
our paper and turn it into reality.
But, you know, to get to thatpoint, there's, you know, the, the
architects, there's, all the engineers.

(29:01):
There's the, the, the one kid who, onhis summer internship, came in and,
and had to like, do pick up all thered lines on the toilet room plans.
All of these people should be acknowledgedand it would be kind of fun to do
something like that, that really tellsthe story of the creation of the building.
And, and now like

the story nobody would read.
I think.
I
mean, it honestly.

Chad Clary (29:24):
I, I would,
but I also,
yeah, I, I'm also the one thatgoes to the museum and takes
a picture of the staircase, so

Exactly.
yeah.

Chad Clary (29:33):
staircases.

In fact, I had that, that museum in Lakewood, I was taking
a picture of It was this, beautifulsteel and wood and glass stair that
was kind of in the interstitialspace between the old and the new.
And, I was, I had to put alittle bit of cus speak into
the cus Speak podcast there.

(29:55):
Sorry, Evan.
um, and it was just, but I mean,this, this lady and her daughter
are like looking at me like, whatthe hell's wrong with this guy?

Who's the weirdo?

I'm like, oh,
oh

Chad Clary (30:06):
I

Yeah.

Chad Clary (30:07):
I do that all the time.
We went to a, uh,
a CEU session that, it was one ofthe interiors companies did, and it
was at the Angels Envy Distillery,which, 'cause I'm, I'm in Louisville,

You

Chad Clary (30:22):
which is, you know, bourbon Central.

Yep.

Chad Clary (30:25):
the Distillery's just downtown.
And we went, and the office I was at, wejust did not deal with interior stuff,
carpets and wallpaper and all that.
But it's like, all right, freesnacks and get to leave the
office early 'cause it's a CU.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (30:41):
And I, I spent the whole time taking pictures of the building
to the point where one of the peoplethat was there was like, you haven't
paid attention at all, but you've takenpictures of everything in the building.
It's like, oh yeah.
It's like, 'cause that'swhat's interesting.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (30:55):
And I can, I, I have a folder of pictures on my phone
of building pictures and it'sfrequently stuff that's wrong.

Hmm.

' Chad Clary (31:05):
cause I can go, I scroll through and someone I can show someone's
like, look, this is what you're designing.
Don't do it.

Yeah,

Chad Clary (31:11):
This is, this is bad.

so it's funny is I actually have a whole roll of glamor
shots from Florida Southern, which is thecampus that Frank Lloyd Wright designed.
So I've got the glamor shots,
but then I also have the horror shots.
You

Chad Clary (31:26):
Yep.

know,

Chad Clary (31:28):
I've, I've,

how it's pretty,
but

Chad Clary (31:31):
Lots of horror shots

Lots

Chad Clary (31:33):
or, or just
reference pictures like, oh,that's how that goes together,
or, that's a good detail.

so

and

is is you have this running list of credits for the building and
somebody like really screws something up.
Like do they, you
just, you're gonna be removed from the

Chad Clary (31:47):
yeah, a hundred percent.

on the

Oh,

Chad Clary (31:49):
Oh, no, no, no.
They get a special call out.
They get their name on the picture.
Cormac did this.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (31:56):
It cost us two days.

yeah.
This change order wasbrought to you by Cormac.
I,

Chad Clary (32:04):
I, I think it would be great.

Well, I mean, it's interesting also to think about kind
of, I mean, something that, thatyou, you talked about when, when we
chatted about this beforehand waslike this idea of like budget, right?
It's like buildings cost a lot
of money, but so do

Chad Clary (32:19):
Yeah.

so do these
video

Chad Clary (32:20):
Yeah.

and, and

Yeah.

if you're kind
of comparing these things to eachother, there, there is some like
kinda a reasonable budget forall of these types of things.
And yet you always see this list of
individuals attached to media, but
not

Chad Clary (32:38):
yeah.

architecture

Chad Clary (32:40):
Yeah, because I, I did very, very cursory research,
if we could call it that.

search.
You
did search, not

Chad Clary (32:48):
I did a search, not, not an AI search, I actually
went to websites to look this up.
So like movie budgets area hundred to 200 million.
It was a good average based onthis website, I found I and studios
self-report budgets, I'm pretty sure.
So who knows how correct they are.

Right.

Chad Clary (33:08):
You know, buildings are easily 10 million plus depending
on what you're looking at.
And video games like GTA six, I've heardestimates 'cause they're not gonna share
their numbers anywhere from like 500million to 2 billion for a video game.

Wow.

Chad Clary (33:26):
Now granted, it's, it's been a development for like 10 years,
but like that's a lot of money.

Yeah.

Interesting.

think
about all the people who
are actually involved with all of that.

Chad Clary (33:38):
Yeah.
Oh, it's a lot.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Chad Clary (33:41):
It's, it's a lot.

You guys familiar

Chad Clary (33:43):
And if,

the, the original Macintosh?
This is the only thing I can

Mm-hmm.

of
where it's like, um, there's,there's this thing, and Apple
would never do this today, right?
But it's like this brand new ideaof, of a computer and they designed
a computer in a case, right?
Like the whole thing waslike all self-contained.
You, you guys can imagine what it looks
like and,

Mm-hmm.

little like
what, five inch screen or
something and a

Chad Clary (34:07):
oh, like the old

floppy

Chad Clary (34:08):
two E?

Yeah.
You know, like
the, the

Chad Clary (34:10):
Yeah.

Yeah.

right?

Yeah.
yeah.
yeah.
I

Chad Clary (34:14):
Yep.

learned how to draft on that thing.

uh, and, and, but, but the cool thing that I think is, I think
this is really cool and it totallyspeaks to this idea, is like inside the
case, all the people who worked on thatproject's names are the mold for the case
itself.
Like.

Chad Clary (34:29):
Oh, that's cool.

they designed the mold, everybody signed and they actually put
it into the mold and made it so that onthe inside it looks like all their names
are carved outta the inside of the case.
So if you pull that case off,but it's on the inside, like
who's gonna

Yeah.

the case off.
But when
you do, it's like, oh, that's
cool.
Like there's a,

Well,

touch to that.

well, I don't know if I, either one of you have been
involved with, but I mean, we dotopping, topping out ceremonies where,

he signed the

you know, that, that that last beam that's being
placed, everybody signs that last

Chad Clary (35:00):
Yeah,

go.

and, gets put in place.
And so it's sort of
that time,
not

Chad Clary (35:05):
everyone that's there,

everybody that can, that they can like, wrangle
in,

Chad Clary (35:10):
I've I've done that
with, uh, habitat.

Oh,

Chad Clary (35:14):
If you, if you go to Habitat and you're there prior to
like drywall being installed, peoplesign the studs all the time, and
I actually have on my, one of the
walls in my house, someone wrote the date.
Of, uh, 1921.
20.
Was it 21?
I think it's 21.

A little time

Chad Clary (35:34):
There's no name, but they wrote the date,

Yeah.

Chad Clary (35:36):
which is kind of cool.

That's cool.
It's cool like a

Yeah.

find it
later and you're like, oh, like

Chad Clary (35:41):
Yeah.

hit a, hit some matchbox cars in one of the walls
here when we were remodeling.
Like he, he, we, we had a hole cut outto run some plumbing through a wall.
He stuffed a car in there.
He's like, I

Nice.

finds this
someday.
You,

Chad Clary (35:54):
Oh yeah.
That would be cool.

Or it's just like, I wonder why the the
house just sort short-circuited,
car touches the wires.

Chad Clary (36:03):
Is is it a die cast or a plastic one?

Yeah.

cast, but it was
plumbing.
Yeah,

Chad Clary (36:08):
Oh, yeah.

a

Chad Clary (36:09):
You're, you're fine.

You were fine.

All right.
We good?

We're fine.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't know what to do about thisbecause I feel like this is one of
those jobs that like once you get intoit, it's way bigger than you thought it
was.

Oh, of course.
Of course.

But it would be cool.
I mean, I, and I think, you know,there's like the internet movie database,
right?
IM DB

Chad Clary (36:30):
Yeah.

I'll go there to look up who's been in a film or who wrote this
or who di what other films did they
direct or whatever.
And it

Chad Clary (36:37):
Yep.

this cross referenceable thing.
And I actually have a couple creditsin there, but it's like this kind
of a thing where it's like you,that's part of that industry, right?
That industry is,

Chad Clary (36:48):
Yeah.

is built on and contribution to projects.
And that's how you builda reputation in the

Yeah.

at least with like
what you've done.
Maybe it's not who you are, right?
But it's what you've done.
I feel like there's room inarchitecture because it's not
unlike that people jump from firm to
firm.
What did you do on a

Yeah.

You show
something

Well,

Well,
what did you actually do in that project?
And it seems to me like.
Databases, the world of
data that we swim innowadays, this, it should
be a lot easier than to, to actually dothis, but also for, for a good reason.
Right?
More than just vanity,more than just ego, right.
To have your name on a project.
It's like, well, here's what we did here.
Here.
This was my role on the project.

Chad Clary (37:28):
That's, that's good if you're writing a resume too.
I don't remember the names.
Of all the projects I've worked on,

mm-hmm.

Chad Clary (37:34):
I've had 20 years.
I,

it up.
Yeah.

Chad Clary (37:36):
I remember, I remember the five or six that I have on my resume.

Yeah.

Well it, it's interesting that you bring that up and Evan, my
kinda like little fascination with kindalike the, this kind of like diagram
in my head of like, this architectworked for this architect and now this
architect is like more famous than that.
The family tree of architects, because,listening to all of these biographies
and stuff that I've been listeningto recently, know, there's this like

(38:02):
one common thread with a lot of likethe ones, I've been listening to the
Corps and, Gropius and Meese and allof these other ones, and they were all
draftsmen in, Peter Barron's officeand, it was just kind of interesting to
like, hear it was like, wait, you know?
Who are all these different peopleand it's just like, oh yeah, Marcel
Royer was here and this person washere, and like, and then it's just
like that family tree then grows intoa different family tree of, of, like

(38:25):
branches start to grow and then likethe, these people work for this guy and
then these people work for this guy.
And here in Detroit, when you startthinking about like, Albert Kahn and who
worked for Albert Kahn, and there's likethis whole massive family tree of like
firms that, grew out of it, like SmithGroup and other ones that, you know,
that they were draftsmen at, at Kahan.
And, and now they're like big names andit's just like, who worked for them and

(38:49):
all this other, it's kind of interesting,you know, so it's like, it's like
we need to have an an,
you know, an an ancestry.com
for architects.
I mean, none of thestudents would ever pay.

in there that should never be seen.

I'm not saying, you know, like, you know,
and this

incestuous.
I'm just gonna say

Yeah, and this.
Oh, so, so you're saying it's just it'snot really gonna be a, a family tree.
It's gonna be a family stick.

right.

Chad Clary (39:21):
More of a, more of an or burros.

Exactly.
Uh,

man.
Well, you had another question, Chad, andit was about specificity and I, I would
love it if you would give a crack at
explaining this one.

can you be specific
about that?

Can you be More
specific?

Chad Clary (39:40):
More specific.
Yeah, so, so specificity, andI don't remember the original
question but it was basically like,it'd be interesting to talk about
specificity in a EC, and I don't mean
specifications, but actual the,the pedantic side of specificity.

(40:02):
For instance, a CT acoustic ceiling tileversus a CP acoustic ceiling panel, which
a lot of people use interchangeably,

Mm-hmm.

Chad Clary (40:12):
though they're very different products.
Like, there's A-A-S-T-M thatspecifically defines the difference.
Or, CMU and cinder block, which,as people still say cinder block,
I don't think it's been made for 50years, probably more than that now.

Right.

Chad Clary (40:27):
So just that kind of thing because, your, your
document sets are legal documents.
That's why they're signed and stamped.
Like that's, that's aslegally binding as a contract.
And it's, and there's, coming from anoffice for a long time, and now on the
consulting side, you, you hear that stuffof, oh, well, they know what we mean.

(40:48):
They being the contractor.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (40:50):
And that's always followed later in the day by contractor's an idiot.
Why can't they do it?
Right?

Right.

Chad Clary (40:57):
Well, it's because you're not giving them the information.

Right.

Chad Clary (41:01):
I, and I can promise you that the contractor's
saying the exact same thing.
Sometimes they are, yes, sometimesthe architect's an idiot.

Yeah.

Chad Clary (41:10):
Um, but that's, that's kind of, and it's, I'm, I'm skimming through
my notes on this and I have a wholebunch of stuff ranging from, people
not defining the rough opening for astorefront in a wall, especially masonry.
And I have a whole story there.
Dimensioning or even layout onthe job site had a job where.

(41:31):
The plumber did their undergroundwork and they started at the left
side of the building, poured theslab, the framer put the walls up.
He started on the rightside of the building.
Well, when you get to thatlast wall, there's a pipe
three inches out of the wall.
It's like, what's going on here?

It didn't

Chad Clary (41:49):
Now, in this case, it, it was a mechanical room, so it wasn't an issue.
But like, if that was an a DAroom, that's a really big problem.

Yeah.

is where my
saying comes in.
If you can jump it, you can caulk it.
I.

All right.

Chad Clary (42:07):
I have never heard that.
That's amazing.
I've gotta write that down.
Hang on.
Here's my notepad.

You can fill anything with caulk.
Yeah.
So, uh, you three inchesoff, just fur it out.

Hmm.

Let's solve
this problem.

Chad Clary (42:22):
Un, unless you're dealing with a DA clearances,
because they arefrequently the exact width.

yes.
Oh, they're never, they're
never right.
I

uh, you know, it's

dimensions, everybody dimensions.

see,

they don't
take

see.

finishes
into account.

I was, uh, that was exactly where I was going.
See, now you're about to open up acompletely different conversation

about right here.

is, you know, it's just like, how do you, how do you,
how do you even, because we, we justhad this, and they were like, yeah,
we, we mentioned, basically centerline of stud to center, line of
stud.
I'm like, okay, well, but how do you

Chad Clary (42:57):
Why?

know, it's just like,

that out?

don't even, yeah,
don't even get me started with all that.
The why is,

a

why is the que why is certainly the question, because then
I go back in and, well, first of all,did you model the partitions with the
finishes and everything else correctly?
Because,
you know, the thing about it is,is that your, your clearances
are going to be determined bythe finish face to finish face.
And I'm not saying that you haveto, you know, dimension to finish

(43:22):
face to finish face, but you needto verify that that room, especially
that a DA room have all of that.
You
to time me out.

you because you, this is just, goes back
into an, an episode that we
just had where where

Yeah.

wanted
eighth inch reveals in a glass

Yeah.

right?
and
and like

Let's,

these
things aren't built.
They're not so, so yes you have todimension to finish face of final
finishes, but also there's no room for
error a lot of

well, so, okay.
Here's actually a more interesting, Idon't know if it's a more interesting way
to go, but it is a, it is something thatwe should talk about though, because,
Evan is a proponent of, and you can'ttell me I'm wrong because we've talked
about it enough that I know that I'mnot, that, we take less specificity

(44:13):
out and create more design intent

Hmm.

then there's the.
The, the shop drawing processand, and all of these other things
that really, that's where a lot ofthat information is coming from.
So if, if I were to say, okay, well,here is my finished opening for
that window this is what I want.
However, you, Mr.
Contractor are supposed to figureout, all of this other stuff

(44:37):
because you are the one building it.
You know, do we go that way?
Because it sounds like yours.
You're thinking and probably have,probably 'cause I have too that you do
kind of like and detail it out to the nthdegree of, it's just like, okay, look, if
this is what I want, I need to understandthat because of the systems and the,

(44:59):
the, the rough opening and the daylightopening and all of these other things
are, are very specific to what I want.
I need to understand allof those and draw them out.
Right.

Are you talking
to

It,

now?
I think you're talking to

uh, just, I, I, I am talking to Chad, but
you know.

I mean, I just,
I mean, he's, he's a BIM guru, right.
And I,
and I, I'll,

Chad Clary (45:19):
Hmm.

bring this up because I think Chad will, will shake
his head and be like, like what?
We had a conversation that took atleast two days, maybe three days when
we started a new high school in bim.
And the question was nominal or
actual?
About because

yes.
I've had that

Chad Clary (45:35):
Why is that a,

time.

was

Chad Clary (45:37):
my God.

project, that was a conversation and you know
exactly who was fighting for
which side of that
equation.
You know Exactly who was fightingfor that side of the equation.
Right.
And it, and,
and you know, the

Oh, uh,

it, oh, well the

I, I would, I would, I wanna,

And it was just like, are
you
serious Like today?

I wanna, I wanna, I wanna hear Chad's s griefs.
'cause I mean,
he had that, he had thatvisceral reaction and,

Chad Clary (46:01):
Oh,

we all have had that
visceral reaction.
So I'm curious,

Chad Clary (46:05):
I, I have, I have several thoughts on that.
For one, I'm a big masonry nerd.
Um, like I have, I have a stack of books
on the shelf up therethat are all masonry.
But I did, let me find my note.
'cause I actually had anote specific to this.
I did a hotel, um, and this was, I, Iforget if this was all in CAD or if it

(46:26):
was being remodeled in Revit, but it waslike right when we had started using Revit

Take

Chad Clary (46:31):
and these hotels.
Yes,

say, because I know there's p there's like kid students,
I'm calling 'em kids listening tothis who don't even know what we're
talking about, nominal versus actual.
So
if, if you can cover

Chad Clary (46:42):
yes.

about

Chad Clary (46:43):
Okay.

your library here.

Chad Clary (46:45):
Yes.
Okay, we'll, we'll start thatfirst 'cause that's, I'll forget
otherwise 'cause I'll ramble.
Nominal and actual refers to things likemasonry and wood studs in particular.
So a two by four wood stud, that'sthe nominal dimension, nominally
two inches by four inches.
If you actually take a caliperand or ruler and measure it,

(47:06):
I wouldn't use a caliber.

you.

Chad Clary (47:08):
Um,
it's, it's one and a half.
Well,
yeah.
Um, and it, and it's so that, thattwo by four is actually an inch and
a half by three and a half inches,which is the actual dimension masonry.
In the instance of CMU concretemasonry it's seven and five eights

(47:28):
by 15 and five, eights by seven andfive eights tall would be a standard

Mm-hmm.

Chad Clary (47:35):
block.
Obviously there's six inch and 12inch and so on and so forth, but.

actual not nominal.

Chad Clary (47:41):
Correct.

we would say, you know,
an eight by eight by 16

Chad Clary (47:45):
Yes.
Yeah.
So, and this, this is actually moreabout rounding but it applies because
that eighth of an inch in your nominalwall, every dimension you have, you have
an eighth of an inch times however manywalls which add, and it adds up real fast.
Eight of those walls is an inch somewhere.

(48:06):
That's wrong.
But we did a, did a hotel project.
This is a standardprototype like Holiday Inn.
And if you've never worked on those,basically the brand sends drawings with
all their stuff, like all the case work,here's the layout, and then the architect
basically just has to put it together.
So we get the plans, and I, for sakeof argument, 'cause I don't remember,

(48:29):
we're gonna say I was putting it intoRevit, and so I'm going through and the,
they're usually pretty standardized.
The, the wall.
You know, the, the rooms are 12 feetwide, say, and I'm going through
and I adding this up, 12 feet.
12 feet, 12 feet, and I take my overalldimension and it's like two feet longer
than the overall in the CAD file.

(48:53):
It's like, what is, I messed up somewhere?
Check it all again.
The CAD file dimensions had beenrounded to like a quarter of an
inch and they were all wrong.
And so the building was like two feetlonger than the individual dimensions.
So, and I, that, that's whywhen you ask about nominal

(49:15):
versus actual for your block, I,

Yeah.

Chad Clary (49:20):
I'm, I'm very opposed.
Yes.
Oh, very quickly.

crazy, is, is like, oh well we gotta change out this chipboard for
five eights not not half inch anymore.
Or even now we need two layers.
And this kind of stuff just
happens.
It happens

Chad Clary (49:33):
Yeah.

It happens all over the place and

Chad Clary (49:36):
Plus you have your construction tolerances,

Exactly, told the

Chad Clary (49:41):
which which

before

Chad Clary (49:43):
can be a lot.

yeah.

built the pool in my backyard said, only at one foot increments.
You're only allowed tohave it at one foot.
the guys that I use don't knowhow to read a tape measure.
And, and so it was, 'cause itwas like, we're staking it out.
I'm 11 and four and three eights,and he's like, no, 11 feet.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
And yeah, so he
was very much the nominal

It's like you're not getting that four and three eights.

not getting the four and

Well, I mean, you know, and then, go even further, when I talk
about, masonry nerd nerded them thinkabout the fact that, if you're a lot of
times, we're using a, cavity wall with a,masonry backup up, so CMU back up, you're
waterproofing your air barrier, yourinsulation and all that other stuff, and
then your brick, veneer and obviously, thebrick has a corresponding cosing that can.

(50:31):
Work well with, CMU if you knowhow to work the two together.
But then there's, plentywho don't, and they're just,
I've had so many people who arelike, well, can't they just,
cut, like has have Exactly.
You know, it's just like, well,you know, can't they just cut this?
You're like
n no,

Chad Clary (50:52):
I've I've cut brick.
And even with, even with anelectric saw, it's not fast

And, and.

Chad Clary (50:59):
you, unless you use the real, the big one with like the four
foot blade, then it's real fast.

But, but then, you just ask the question.
It's like, well, do youknow what that means?
Later on?
It's just like, now, you, they followthat string all the way down and does
it, like, is it matching up later ondown the road when you're cutting this
one little sliver here because youwant this, to be that kind of like, jam
or, or seal condition or whatever, andyou're just like, it, there are things

(51:24):
that inherently work well together.
I

Chad Clary (51:26):
Yep.

I mean, if you do like a cavity wall with, like metal
stud, I mean, it, it's a lot easierthan, CMU, but like CMU went brick
well together, great.
Together,

Chad Clary (51:36):
Imagine that.

It's, it's interesting too, like to be a good technician
when you're, when you're drafting this
stuff, you

Chad Clary (51:43):
Yeah.

to know,

Yeah.

like, Chad, you, you're talking about CMU, right?
It's 15 and five eights.
I.
But it's 16 with the mortar, right?
And, and, and then which opening,like openings don't have the mortar,
Right.
They have, that's the end of a block.
And that's where things get tricky.
And like people who lay these out needto know that stuff because it's like,

Chad Clary (52:04):
Yeah.

you're laying out two

Yeah.

framing, like the length, cut it, whatever you want, the width,
it's three and a half if youdimension to the center of the stud.
How do, how do you knowwhere the center of a stud is
on a construction site?

exactly.

wood.
It's
a solid

Yeah.

And then
what you're gonna dimension out like.
in three quarters of an inch to
draw a line like

Yeah.

And so it's, all of these things compound
a project.
And if you screw one of those detailsup, talking about specificity, right?
Early on, the ripple oneffects are, can be enormous.
Like to your point, the building is twofeet longer than it's supposed to be.
Somebody's using generic walls insteadof walls with finishes in Revit, right?

(52:49):
And, and you just swap thoseout at the end and all of a
sudden you don't meet your a DA
clearances in the restroom

Chad Clary (52:55):
Yeah.

Yeah.

going
back to constructiontolerances like the, like what?
The real world is not cad, right?
It is not bim.

Yeah.

And, I mean, you, you are, I'm on a big project.
I mean, it depends, it reallydepends on the contractor.
But you could be an inch away,away from where you're supposed
to be and then be acceptable.
And you could be aneighth of an inch too shy.
And it's completely unacceptable, right?
It's like there's justso much nuance in this.
Aspect of the
profession.

Chad Clary (53:23):
Yeah.

Well, you can even take it further as like, when somebody is
like doing this, schematic or designdevelopment, but they're just doing
the design side of things and they'relike, well, I want it to be this.
I want it to be this.
I want it to be this.
Then, you've got your technical architectwho's coming in, and so you're saying,
yeah, you can't have it that way becausethat's not what the, the material
can do, or that's not the dimensionthat you're gonna get or whatever.

(53:45):
Like, no, no, no, I want it this way.
It's just like, okay, well then youprobably should have designed it
the way, taking into account theunderstanding of like the materials
that you can, you're using which isanother big long conversation of, you
know, the, the designer versus thetechnical architect versus the, you know.

the tools and you guys both live in these
tools every day, so I mean, I.
But my, my argument was always like,I mean, Revit forces you to make a
lot of decisions way earlier thanyou're comfortable as a designer
making, right?

Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

what's a
wall?
I don't know yet.
I don't know what it is.
Is it CMU?
Is it two by four?
Wood framing?
Is it curtain wall?
I don't know.
Like, does it need wind braces?
Does it need all this stuff?
I don't know.
And and so then you get more andmore specific and things start to
break over time as well, right?
Because

Chad Clary (54:36):
Yep.

all of a sudden your areas don't add up, your
net areas, your gross areas,
whatever it is, and you do

Yeah.

nudging things to make them quote unquote what they need to be because
it's political Who gets the bigger office?
Like there's just all ofthese weird things going into
synthesizing an actual design.
Anyway, I
just wanted to, to to

Chad Clary (54:58):
There's.

because, because I think a lot of times, like it's too constraining
upfront is not enough freedom, andwe, we, but we do it anyway and it
bites us

I don't, I don't necessarily think I was thinking that way.
I, I, I think that, there's, there's aninteresting compartmentalization of like.
Uh, roles in the profession thesedays where there used to just be this
title called an architect, and thearchitect was a designer, was the

(55:28):
technical guy, was this, was that,understood all of these different things.
And so when they were designing,could be designing a brick, they could
be designing in CMU, they could bedesigning in wood, but when they're
designing, they kind of understand alot of those, the, the inherent nature
of a variety of different things.
And so it could be interchangeable.
So you're not stealing the freedom ofyour design by understanding that now

(55:53):
it's become so siloed of like, you'regonna be the designer, you're gonna
be do this, you're gonna be that.
And it's kinda likeassembly line architecture.
And, then when you get, furtherdown the assembly line, the, the
person who's like actually like.
putting the bumper on and screw it in.
I was like, oh, well it, it doesn'tfit because this was this and this was

place.

and, you know, and so, that's in, in, in my opinion,
this goes much, much broader thanjust, us talking about specificity.
It's, it's, it's actually talkingabout core knowledge of the
architect, and, and other things.
It's, 'cause you know, I kind of,I, I've always been a generalist.
I've, I've, I've been the, designer allthe way through the ca guy, and it sounds

(56:36):
sad, like, you have asimilar experience where

Chad Clary (56:38):
Yep.

been on like, everyone and, and, and I know Evan you have as well.
And so, you know, you like, when youdo silo yourself in doing one thing,
you're also thinking about, what youwill be doing later on down the road.
And, once you get to that nextstage of the assembly line.
But you're thinking
about all of these thingsand not as a constraint,

Chad Clary (56:56):
hopefully thinking,

Hopefully thinking y you know, I'm trying to be optimistic here,
you know?
but, you know, well, I mean,I look at, okay, all right.
I just stole
a, I mean, borrowed a, I mean, um,

Chad Clary (57:10):
oh.

I have a book

in your
possession.

my possession and I'm flipping through and I'm looking at
the finished product and I'm lookingat the sketches and I'm looking at
thing, you could see that Alto was likedrawing with the understanding of like
how it ultimately will go together.
I mean, these beautiful freeform sketchesand they were flowing and they were
beautiful and, you know, he was apparentlyfamous for using the six B pen pencil.

(57:36):
And, but you know, you, you look at thatand you can then look at like the actual
technical drawings of it, and you're like.
Yeah.
Like he saw all of that weavingits way, all the way to the very
end and what it would actuallybe as a constructed element.
And this kind of like compartmentalizationof knowledge in architecture these

(57:59):
days is something that I'm kind of,I I, I somewhat lament, this is the
old man yelling at the clouds, kindof, you know, here, so bear with me.
But it's just, it's like everybodysort of had, they were general
jack of all trades kind of person.
And we are losing that, generaljack of all trades kind of person.

(58:19):
Everybody has to specialize in somethingmake like their job viable and, we're,
we're losing the, the, the generalistthat kind of understood everything.
It, it's just my observation.

Chad Clary (58:34):
I, some of that,
at least in my experience,has to do with where you work.
You know, if you get outta schooland the first job is at a five person
firm, you're gonna be doing a lot.
Yeah.
That's, I was, I was, I think actuallythe fifth hire in the company, like ever

too.

Chad Clary (58:51):
when I started Lee, you, you're just gonna be doing
a lot more just by the nature ofthe job because you don't have
someone there who's spent 20 yearsspecializing in storefront and flashing.

right,

Chad Clary (59:05):
You, you have people that have to get jobs out every day and they
don't have the, the bandwidth to do it.
You know?
And even like me, and I'm sure you did,I found the parts that I really liked

Mm-hmm.

Chad Clary (59:19):
and I studied those,
but I still know how toput a building together.
Maybe not perfectly, but Iknow that it's not perfect.
And I would give it to someoneto look at because, my ego's
big, but it's not that big.

Yeah.

You are not claiming perfection.

Chad Clary (59:37):
no, no, not, not on that.

Progress over
perfection.

Chad Clary (59:42):
Yes, learn.
Learn something new every time,

you know, speaking of

Chad Clary (59:46):
hopefully.

Chad, I'm curious from your, what your perspective is
on kind of BIM and LOD and all ofthose things where there's just this
const, it seems to

All right.

you

I'm,

the trend

I'm,
getting up and leaving.

All right, see you later.
The, trend is like more and more,
more, uh, and
so I'm curious from your perspectiveif you think that this is the right
way to achieve that, or if this isjust kind of a fool's errand, like
where, where do we fall on the spectrumof constantly trying to shove more
into these models and, and there, Imean, it's not just stuff, it's time

(01:00:19):
too, right?
It's, it's

Chad Clary (01:00:21):
Yeah.
Um,

Evan Troxel (01:00:22):
that specific about all of these things and

at, so I, Aaron Mahler said something once, and I don't remember
if it was just he and I talking at anevent one time or if it was on a forum,
but people were talking about LOD andhe's like, I don't like that term.
He's like, I prefer level of expectation.

Hmm,

It's not that, oh, here's this LOD and it's LOD and I
don't know what the LOD breakdownsare off the top of my head, but,

Cormac Phalen (01:00:48):
300,
3 50, 400,

well, I know the numbers, but I don't know o

I can, explain to you exactly what each of those are

Okay, well, so we'll,

based

use.

your

you know, design intent,

Yeah.
So if look at,
if you look at like your keyboard,

had, Yeah.

I can model a keyboard and I can just model basically a box, and
then I can model a blob for each setof keys, and then I can model each key.

I,

And none of that matters.
And a, a keyboard is maybe notthe best example, but it's simple
and it's right in front of me.
Um, but the, the LOD forthat, level, what would it be?
200 would be the box 300, be the blobs.
I think like what matters is whatdo I need that element to do and

(01:01:40):
show, like, I don't need to seethe keys except in a rendering.
The keys are irrelevant outsideof a rendering, you know?
So I need that keyboardto represent the object.

Taking

a specific point.
Yeah.
You know, your, your doors,they all have a clearance.
There's the door swing, but then there'swhatever a DA clearances are required.
So, and I stole it from Aaron again.
All of my doors used to havethe, the firm, I built in a DA
boxes and it was adjustable.
You just go down your an Clist, it's like, oh, this

(01:02:15):
is this door, it's option B.
You change it and it changes the size.
It fits the door.
And it, people would never use it.
I don't know why it was on by default.
And then know it would go throughit and they would get flagged in
review because something, it's like,
guys, the stuff's there,you just don't turn it off.

(01:02:38):
Which, and I totally tangent there.
So it's, I, I like the expectation.
It's what, what do you expect this to be?

Right.

Is this a, is this something just to show that this object exists
in space and it has a clearance?
You know, it's, it's your air handler.
I don't need the air handler modeled.
I need a box and I need to knowhow much space I need around it.

Well, my contention in kind of the whole LOD discussion is, is when
you know contractors and, know, working onan international project where they really
are looking for a higher, level of detailthan what we, would traditionally do.
Because a permit set is typicallyat LOD 300, there's design intent,

(01:03:22):
there's all sorts of, specificinformation and things like that.
And you can, we are doing thingstypically when we're getting to the higher
level of detail, we are looking for.
we're using
basis of design and so when you

All right.

a basis of design, you know, obviously your specs, are gonna call
for the or approved equals, kind of thing.
you've spent so much time toiling oversweating over details of a specific door.
say, you've designed everything aroundconer and they decide that they're
gonna go with YKK and it's got adiff completely different profile,

(01:04:00):
completely different like sticksize and all of this other stuff.
And so now like all of the detail, allof the blood, sweat and tears that you
put into that detail are out the window.
And so literally you, could have wasted.
I don't wanna say months upon months uponmonths of that level of detail for it
to just be thrown out the window becausethey changed the basis of design on you.

(01:04:23):
so, you know, you get to the point ofit's just like, here's our design intent.
Here is enough information toget you to that point, but then

figure it

how much further should you go?

I, I lean it depends on what it is.
So for, for instance, your elevator.

Mm-hmm.

If I'm doing the, the design, the, especially the early
design, I'm gonna find the largest3,500 pound elevator shaft I can

Mm-hmm.

around that.
'cause I can always make it smaller.
That's easy.
I've, I've seen multiple jobswhere contractors on up front,
we're gonna use TSS and krupp.
Okay.

Yep.

They go out to bid it.
Oh, kones cheaper.
We're using Kone guys, the elevatorshaft just got six inches wider.

Right.

That's a problem.
Like you've poured footings.

by the way, it's right next to the a DA bathroom.

Oh, always.
So, yeah.
Like

exit stare.

for, yeah.
Yeah.
For something like I, for something likethat, I always go for the biggest thing
possible because you can always shrink it.
That's easy to do.

right.

Um, and then I, I, I talked to a friend about this
and something he mentioned.
Was level of expected standardof care, which, and I know

This is

standard of care is,

Yeah.

yeah, le less, less suck.
Um, and it's his, his comment was,what's reasonable relative to the fee?
If you're only charging a 1% fee,I'm not going to the effort to
detail out, that and then switch it.

(01:06:11):
But it's not in the, the fee.
And then what does the owner andthe GC expect relative to that fee,
which they frequently don't line up.
Because, kinda like you mentionedin, in the very beginning, people
don't understand what we do.

Yeah.

Like, oh, it's all on the computer, can't you just push that button?

Well,

I was like, well,

Yeah.

about this, this, and I, the, the reason I bring it up
is kind of a technology issue isbecause like the, the tool allows it.
Like, it's not, it's
not

yes.

but it allows it.
And then

Yeah.

Yeah.

like, there's a lot of
owners who think they want thatand they maybe don't even know why
they think they want that, right?
They've been told by somebody, you, youneed to get in a four, a 400 level model
or whatever, because more is better.
Um, and because we're gonnado facilities management with
this and they're not right?
Just kind of, you, you can read,you can read it from a mile away.

(01:07:03):
It's like, you, youdon't need that at all.
Like you, they, they want a BIM model.
Like, what does that mean?
You, that could be, thatcould mean any number of
things.
And, and one
thing that I thought was reallyinteresting, I recently talked
to John Cerone again from shoparchitects and Shop does this thing
that I thought, you know, they're,they're freaking smart people, right?

(01:07:24):
Like they, the way that they operate is.
They're trying to get to a pointwhere there is, you don't need
two dimensional representation.
You
don't need abstraction,

Right.

away
from abstraction basically,is what they're saying.
But what that doesn't meanis modeling to the nth
degree.
It

Mm-hmm.

that
What it means is there's like thiscontrol model that is like surfaces and
things get hosted to those surfaces.
Assemblies get hosted to those surfaces.
you can easily move this kindof lightweight version of the
model, which is design intent.
It is a design intent model, and thenactual assemblies get hosted to all

(01:08:06):
those things, floors, walls, ceilings,what, whatever those things are, and
those things can get swapped out.
Yeah, all they're doing isbasically looking at the host and
saying, where do I need to be?
Right?
So the actual thing can be wayheavier weight and get applied
to those lightweight surfaces.
You move the surface, everythingmoves with it, and maybe it

(01:08:26):
turns red and says, this doesn'twork anymore, kind of a thing.
Right?
That the, this thing that youspecified should be hosted to
this surface doesn't work anymore.
I feel like that is kind of a neat way tothink about this because the big problem
here is you spent, like Cormac said, youspend all this time chasing these things
down, getting super specific,

(01:08:48):
and then somebody changes their mindor the bid comes in, or whatever it
is, and like, let's swap this out.
And oh, it's like, holy crap,where do we start trying to
solve this new set of problems?
Because there's so many,
it's broken

Right.

for, for,
quite a ways beyond the pointwhere we just made that change.
So I felt like this kind of a.
A way of working, thatis, is pretty interesting.
And the, the tool that most people usedon't allow for that to happen, right?
Like, there's just no way to usea Revit for that kind of a thing.
Because if you wanna move the thingand somebody linked the ceiling,

(01:09:26):
they, they pinned the ceiling toit or they didn't or whatever.
Like now you actually have to dothis still that is very manual,
this whole thing that you have togo through and check all the views
hopefully nobody did any 2D draftingon any of that stuff because, they did.
Right.
But in, in some other view.
And that's broken too, right?
Because it was just covering something up.

(01:09:47):
I feel like that, this is kind ofthis weird thing that we've gotten
ourselves into but because I feellike this kinda lightweight model
idea really starts to get back to theearlier days of hand drafting and design
intent, because they're

Hmm.

I mean, you mentioned it Chad, right?
Like the thickness of a pencilline was like an inch thick,
but the dimension made it real,
right?
The dimension

Yeah.

gave it position and
space,

Yes.

I feel

Well that, that,

gets

have to credit that,

to that than, than where
we're going right now

yeah,

current tool set.

that, that particular quote you're saying.
It was Michael Freer, and Iapologize if I mispronounce that.
I had a conversation with him aboutsomething else entirely a while
back, but he, he brought that up.
But yeah.
And, and he says with a pen, yourlines are actually an inch thick.
So the dimension made it real.
And in CAD we're used tofixing overall dimensions and

(01:10:42):
expecting that it wasn't real.
So then it just kind of carried through.
And then he says, BIMis real, which I agree.
So, which goes back tothe nominal versus actual,
so, cleaning up problems.
Yeah.
It can get,

It's

it can get rough.

it's super, and, and it, and it's not like something you
can actually get paid for, right?
Like you just,
you have to

Yeah.

you have to burn those hours
somewhere because, but you still

Yeah,

' Evan Troxel (01:11:13):
em cor like Cormac, that's the thing, right?
It's like, wasn't in the co like
that idea.
This late
in the process wasn't in the contract.

yeah.
Some of some of that stuffcan be handled if you model.
I'm gonna say intelligently.
Um, you can nest detailsinto your profiles, for
instance, for your storefront.
So all you do is swap the profileor swap your, your storefront
curtain wall type and, you know,theoretically the details there.

(01:11:43):
And you just have to make sometweaks, because you mullin's a
little different, so you have tofix your flashing as an example.
Um,

have to be like a pretty, pretty BIM expert to be able
to get to the point where you can dothat and feel confident in it too.
I would, it's a
role like that's pretty

yes.
Yeah, yeah.

Or you have to hire

Uh,

Reed Thomas to do that for you.

yes.
Or one of the many otherwonderful people out there.
but hire Reed Thomas.

Yeah.

Um,

I.

yeah, and it's like, I, I wouldn't expect, you know, if a
sole practitioner using Revit, I, Iprobably wouldn't expect him to be.
Doing that kind of thing, unless theyeither came from a very technical
firm previously or they, you know,some people are just big nerds and

(01:12:38):
like getting into the weeds like that.

Yeah.

But you know, if, if you're at, you know, giant 10,000 person mega
firm, I would be, I, I don't know whatthey do, but I would hope that they're
doing something like that, which,you know, with shop that's sounds
roughly like what you're describing.
That was the first thing I thought ofis, you know, they have the, the family
for say the window and then the detailedparts are just nested into that window

Yeah.

would be

I even, feel like it's, it's

the how

There's this interesting lecture that I, I had a guest
lecturer come into one of my classesthat I taught a long time ago, and
she's, Terry Moore is her name.
And she,
she was talking about

I.

um, what's the name of like the industrial design
application that, that Autodesk
inventor.
She was using

Yeah.

at the time.
And and it has this idea of controlsurfaces and it's very much like
what John was explaining whenI was talking to him at shop.
But in an architectural sense, and Ithink this has been something that's
been more in the aerospace and theautomotive space for a long time, right?
It's like, yeah, you have thesecontrol surfaces and, and everything
is kind of constrained to those.

(01:13:48):
You move the surface,everything moves with it.
And I just feel like that thatactually was, mean, that's
a really smart way to work.
Why haven't we adopted that methodologyin and the tools that we use?
Because things always do change.
I mean, that's, that'sthe constant, right?
Change is the constant on these projects.

(01:14:08):
Decisions get made and then theychange and, and, and we all have to
kind of go back through that process.
And sometimes it's so difficultto, to find all of the things that,
that affected the whole project.
So
anyway,

Yeah, some, some of that is, it's just a very slow industry to
change, given that people still want touse nominal masonry dimensions in 2025

Yeah.

in a Revit project.

Or dimension to the center of a stud
wall.
Right.

Uh,

This the way we've
always done it, I mean,

yeah,

Yeah.

that's a,
boat

and, and
like, like we talked about when wechatted briefly, you know, like there
are instances where a center linedimension is the correct thing to do.
It's not for your generalframing plan though.
It's for, the TV on the wall
center.
It great,

Yep.

And I, not afraid.
And I've, I've talked about thedimensioning with, who was it?
I think it was Brian Mackey and I thinkhe, he said he used to do some framing
and he's like, oh, how, what was it?
No, it wasn't center lines.
I.
I think he, he preferred the, whereyour dimension string actually
includes the stud width versus, Iprefer go to one face of the stud.

(01:15:24):
Yeah.
He did both faces,

Interesting.

I think we, I hope I'm not misquoting him.
Uh

about that and they, their first question
was, well, is it wood or metal?
And so if it's

I mean,

it's to the
edge.
But if it was metal, they're like, okay,center line's fine, because they've
got in the track, they've got holescut out and they can actually see it.

uh

Right.
And,

yeah.

it, it
depends, like that's the, and you, and
that's actually the right

Yeah.

the
contractor.

Yeah.
That's, that's a, a lot of thestandards that I had put together for
the office were, because I would goout to job sites and just sit down
and talk to the contractor like,Hey, like, I know my part of the job.
I don't know your part.
What can we do to make this easier?
And it really came down to the fact thatI didn't want phone calls during the day.

(01:16:11):
Because that usuallymeans something's wrong.

Yeah.
Yeah.

And I don't, I don't like that, you know, obviously if there's a
fire, like call me, but I don't want phonecalls because I dimension to the center
lines and now I have to redo everything.
And I would just literally sit down.
It's like, what can we do?
Like, how can we make thisprocess easier for the next job?

Yep.

You know, obviously this one's out, I can't change it, but
for the next project, what can I do?
What can we do as a, a designer or a firmor an industry to make the process easier?
And it's, in this case, the guy I talkedto was a framer before becoming a gc.
He's like, start on your outsideface and just go one face.

(01:16:53):
'cause he'll drop a chalk line, lineup the edge of the stud, nail it down.
It's fast, it's easy.
That's, I mean, that's, I don'tthink I ever set sill plates when
I was doing habitat stuff, butI, I know they do basically that.
And they're, they're dealing withpeople that have no experience.
So that shows, that's aneasy way to lay it out.

(01:17:13):
You just line up this face, basicallyline the corners, and occasionally
you have to nudge it in the middle.

Mm-hmm.

Hm.

But yeah, it's,

bought that, sale plate at Home

yes.

That's why.

You saying it's crooked?

I'm saying it's, it's warped and twisted.
Yes.
And still wet.

Yeah.

Well, I don't, I don't know what the weather is in Detroit,
but around here it's very wet.

Yeah.

And where are you?
You're in,

I don't think we answered your questions.
Uh,

no, but it was a fun discussion.

Yeah.

these are the kinds of discussions that I think make
sense to put out into the world in apodcast because these are the kinds
of discussions that happen in offices.
And it's,
mean, on one

Oh yeah.

are the discussions that should be happening in public and on
another level you're like, how

Yeah.

figured this out
yet?
We

Because

profession, you know the industry.
crazy.

be because people are insular and I don't wanna share my trade secrets.

Yeah.

you're like, you know that everybody else is basically
using the same materials and
stuff that you're using.

We're, we're all,
we're all buying ourstuds from Home Depot.

Exactly.

Not a

So build.

Well, uh, thanks for the questions, man.
This has been a
fun conversation for

Yeah,

And there's just so much in there that I feel like people will
be nodding their heads with and shakingtheir fists at and, or, and there will
be young people who it is the firsttime they've ever heard that, and they
won't walk into a situation in an officewhere that's new information, you know?
So to me

yeah,

the value in, in having these kinds of
conversations.
For

Yeah.
Yep.
I, I appreciate the invite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

for asking

It was great.

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#367 - Level of Expected Standard of Care

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