#374 - 2025 Summer of Architecture, Part 1 - Archispeak

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evan Troxel (00:08):
you're way more organized than I am.

Cormac Phalen (00:11):
Yeah.

I'm like, yeah.
So what did, what did,
we see?
what what did we
do?
I can't even, it's this ishow, like this was a week ago.
I What do you expect?
I,

actually closing in on, yeah.
Yeah.
Actually we're

dude,

two weeks.

I know.
Oh, yeah.
What?
It's been a blur since I've been back.
I've had to go to a graduation,
a commissioning ceremony, whichincluded lots of driving and
just tons of stuff to catchup at, at the house with work,
but also just at the house.
Oh my gosh.
Just so many things.

Yeah.
I'd, I've came home assuming that,the lawn would've been attended to
It wasn't.

Why did I laugh?

Yeah.

Oh, it looks just like we left it.
Except worse.
Yeah.
That's.

no, I, I, I mowed the grass the day before we hit the road,

Mm-hmm.

and assuming that.
Okay, it won't be toobad when it comes back.
Well, it rained and, youknow, grew pretty quickly.

What's, what's that?
Oh, it rained.

that?
as people would walk outsidethe house, they'd say, oh, wow.
Grass looks bad.

It's like they get paid not to notice.
It's, it's, what is it What is
it with the kids these days?
I'm
shaking my fist at the clouds right now.

Yes,
plenty of them.
Right now, it's pretty overcast
and

it is here too.
Yeah.
We, we might get a little
rain today and, tomorrow.
We'll see.
That would be nice.
It would be very nice.
It's so dry.
Uh, there was a, in the last couple days,a big fire erupted about 11 miles away.
Uh, it's at 470
acres.
It's 30% contained, so it's not.
Really big on West Coaststandards, which is

(02:04):
Of thousands of acres.
That's a big fire.

it's big enough when it's only 10 miles away from you.

it is, and it's, it's, you know, threatening for sure.
It's just one, it's like, and it's
what I would still calllike early in the, season
For that kind of a thing.
So
a little scary.

What was interesting is
the while we were gone in Boston at theconvention was the Canadian wildfires that
were

Right,

here.

right.

so it was, they said it was pretty hazy and
looked, you know, pretty rough.
so
we don't usually get affected by wildfires
because there's nothing wildleft other than the people here.
But we do get a lot of haze
and,

Yeah.

air quality issues.
Yeah.

what did we do a week and a half, two weeks ago?
Tell, let let

did a

you, you
Yeah.
We did a lot.
Just judging by my camera roll,which is the new timeline, right?
Like that's the, that's thetimeline of events and receipts
and capturing everything.

Well, most of the time.
And so, what I'm Doing is I'll like,look, oh, I want to, you know, look, I,
I, I went and I went here, and then I'msitting there and I'll have to like scroll
and scroll and keep scrolling till I

Yes.

it's just like dang, I took a lot of pictures.

Yeah.
And what's funny is like we just don'tclean up after ourselves in there, right?
And so you don't delete thebad stuff because it's like
they're free.
I don't know what the, I, maybethere are people out there who really
meticulously kind of curate their

I, I

library better than I do.

I should, because, you know, it's like, here's a picture
of MIT library, or sorry, chapel,then here's one right next to it.
Right next to it.
Same

Slight, slightly crooked.
Yeah.

crooked.
Um, you know, not adjustedlight wise and things like
that.
And so, I'm like, eh,
why do I still have that.
one in my in my camera roll?

So here's a funny thing.
Yesterday I went to a little car showthat is an annual Dotson Roadster
car show in Mount Shasta, California.
And I, I took my oldestson who shoots film.
He's got a medium format,uh, dual lens reflex camera.
It's really cool.
Yeah.
Yashika, it's like a Japanese model.
I think we probably talkedabout it a little bit, but

Yeah.

he gets more conversations at car shows about his
camera than he does about the cars.
Right.
So, because he's shooting film

Right.

It's 12 shots per roll.

Hmm.

And he got the rolled from last year when we went to the
car show we actually did two car showson and he got 'em both shot on film.
One was the Studebaker Show inSouth Dakota that we went to,
and then one was the Dotson roaster show.
And he, he made this commentbecause he gets 12 shots, right?
And, and he will, he will sometimeshe's like really sparingly, kind of

(05:01):
going around looking for the angles.
But yesterday it was different.
He was just like, I'm gonna get 12shots, like in the next five minutes.

Hmm.

And I thought that was interesting.
And, um, because the lighting wasreally good, it was like golden hour.
And he was like, I gotta takeadvantage of this quickly

Yeah.
Yeah.

And, shoot a whole roll here.
And, but what he said was when hegot the film back from the developer,
he sends it down to LA to get itdeveloped and then it shows, shows
up in the mail and uh, he's like.
Every shot was a banger.
And, and he likes that about shootingfilm because he's so, he uses his
iPhone as a light meter, right,so he's, that's his light meter.

(05:39):
And then he, he, he uses that to 'causeeverything's manual on the Yashika camera.
and so he sets it all up, takes histime to like, frame the picture and then
snaps it off and then finds other angles.
and, he's like, every one of them is goodbecause he takes the, time for setup.
Whereas like, with us looking througha phone or through our camera,

Like, oh, I

like we take the picture, then we look at it then we make an
adjustment and then we shoot three more.
Right?

Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Or you take the shot that you thinkis pretty close to what you want
and then, you know, you've gotthe opportunity afterwards to do
a little bit of post-production

Yeah.

fix it the way
I'm

And I get less and less.

Go ahead.

I do less and less pro post-production nowadays.
I'm just like, here's the picture.

Yeah.
I mean, and the only thing ThatI do is 'cause I personally like,
slightly more saturated photos.
That, the I can set when I'mtaking the, photograph, I can
set the camera to
the more vibrant
is I

Oh, like the, mode.
Yeah.
Okay.
So here's, here's my pro tip cormick.
You want my pro tip

please.

in the camera app?

whatever.

Okay.
So I'm talking on iPhone, Idon't know, whatever iOS, this is
the latest ish.
There's a profile that you can set.
It's a upper right corner button.
And um, I have mine setto the amber profile.

Ooh, Amber
profile

I have my tone at minus 28, my color at
19, and my palette at a hundred.
And I have it set up in the
camera app where that, that whatever you,
that's my, my, that gets appliedto every photo by default.
And o obviously you can

(07:32):
change it out of that later ifyou want to but that is a slightly
warmer, maybe slightly, I, don't know.
the saturation is, it's good.
Like this.
These are, you want me tosay those numbers again?

Uh, you know
what

Did you catch it?

I'm just telling you right now,

Mm-hmm.

that you, you're on film, so, or you're on, you've been recorded.
I, I'm
pretty sure I,

I have been
recorded.
You can reverse.
So
look at here, here we are.
Let's see if it can focus.
If I move my face outtathe way, there we go.
So, you can see that little, thatbox at the bottom of the screen?
That's where the gridpositioning is for those numbers.
'cause you can't set those numbersmanually, but you kind of have to

(08:17):
use your big fat meat finger to getthose numbers where you want them.

Let's see if it'll focus in on me.

There you go.

Yeah.
Now I, I I do the same thing.
I just
haven't set.

You
gotta set it in the camera app, Ithink to like go to that profile
every time.
That to me gets me.
Without having to go in and do thatediting process for the most of the
time, that's a really good daylight
setting.
For me I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't use
it in every situation, but like I said,it, you only get it, You only get to
apply it, yes or no, and then you canalways remove it or change it later.

(08:54):
There's your pro tip, pro camera tip.

So everyone

Let me know, what you think.
Lemme know what you thinkabout those numbers.
Yeah.

try
those settings, see what you think
about.

Yeah.
I think I started maybe with,um, I like gold and amber.
I like those
two as kind of startingpoints and then I tweak 'em
to go from there.
For like normal, you know, photography.

Yeah.

Anyway, so where did we go?
What did we do?
What did we, back to the, back to the,so this is my first East Coast trip to
this location, so I went, I went to NewYork and then I, I've been to New York
before, but then my first time to Bostonand it was I think maybe this episode
we just talk about kind of the general.

sure?

i a conference and, but I, I see us kind of having lots of

Oh

episodes about the things that we actually got to
experience that were not the ai a conference, but still like

yeah.

absolutely foundational to a being an architect.

Oh yeah, absolutely.
This whole enriching things.

Yes.
Soul enriching.
I felt that for sure.
So yeah, my first trip to Bostonand and so I went to the ARCO
launch, which is a, a softwarecompany, and they're creating kind of
early conceptual 3D modelingand I don't know I don't know, I
don't have their elevator pitchlike burned into my head, but

what's

but it,

you going to that ar hole thing

what

you left this behind,
but I still have it

You've got the swag.

Well, the swag
of the ar hole thing.
they're creating,
all of this, you know,nice digital support
stuff, but
giving away pencils,

colored pencils.
Yeah.
That was cool.
Yeah,

I mean, I
You're not getting it back.
I,
have two

I know.
I know.
You're not sending it to me.
It's okay.

I now have two boxes of them but

Check out, check out my LinkedIn feed.
If you want to kind of see whatthe, what the Arco event there.
There's many posts about it, notfor me necessarily, but from others
And I've been reposting their stuff.
But the successful launch, theyactually went live, it's available
for everyone to use ar cole.io,
aco.io.
And like I said, it's kind of earlystage contextual modeling programming

(11:11):
what I would call jello cube programmodeling, stacking, adjacency,
stacking, but also tracking the numbersand giving you multi-user support.
people.
can all get in there and work on the sameproject at the same time if you want to.
And it does, uh, layoutboards and it's live.
So what's cool is it's likea early phase 3D modeling.
Study app feasibility, but It also doespresentations and it's all live link,

(11:35):
so you don't have to like export PDFs toInDesign or to Illustrator and to do that
whole rigmarole of back and forth andwhat's the latest version and all that.
stuff.
It's all live.
So it's, it's, and and then you can justgo into presentation mode and it's all in
the browser, all on the web, and so youdon't have to install a piece of software
to use it, and you get the updates asthey roll out, which is really cool.

(11:56):
But like I said, multiple people can workon the same project at the same time.
Leave comments, mark things up.
So it's kind of a collapsing a bunchof apps into one user interface.
It's really cool.
Yeah.

'cause as you know, we always keep talking
about, one of the things that
we're looking for is kind of like theability to kind of consolidate all of
these different workflows into somethingthat's a, lot more user friendly.
Right.
And

User
friendly and it doesn't lose data.
like every time you export that stuff,You you're always wondering, like, like
I said, is this the latest version is,
was this the latest floor plan?
Is this the latest
massing model?
And when those views are live,
it gives you that reassurance.

the final, final, final,

Final, final five be no really this time.
Final.
Yeah.

No, seriously, this is the
final.

Yeah.
If you're not good with filenaming, these are the apps for you.

Exactly.
So you went from Portland to New York,

Yeah.
So yeah, the,

launch.

and I don't live in Portland, so Yeah, we
actually drove to Portlandfor the weekend before.
Flew out of Portland.
My wife drove home alone.
I went back to New York,

How was,

so Portland's like a six
hour drive.

how is the, uh, the new airport or the new,

Oh,
beautiful.
Yeah.
That was ZGF, am I correct?

Yeah.
I've got a

Yeah.
So

PM on that,

That is a, a gorgeous, gorgeous terminal.
Absolutely amazing.
I would love to
spend more time there, although Ireally don't care for airports that
much, but that was like probably
the number one airportexperience that I've had.

Was it you that I was having this conversation with?
'cause I know I washaving a conversation with
someone and you know about spending, youknow, gobs of money and stuff on airport
terminals and all of this other stuff.
And,

it wasn't me, but I think I, I think I
overheard a little bit of like,why, it's like why do people spend
so much money on airport terminals?
It's

basically,

like this transactional process, right?

I
mean, it's this,

Yeah.

This is the introduction to
what most people who, quitepossibly have never traveled
to say Portland or wherever.
this is their first introductionto this, that place,

It's the gateway to the city.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.

I mean, and I've been through multiple different airports
throughout the world was completely blown
away by
the airport in Doha, in,

Mm-hmm.

These are some amazing that, you know, you're just,
this is the first introduction to.
Let's just take the ZGF, uh,Portland one because getting
rave reviews, everybody loves it.
You know, you're having like all ofthese different, you know, mass timber
conferences that are featuring this,

(14:40):
and it's
putting Portland, not just on the,I mean, people know Portland for,
Pacific Northwest and youknow, their connection to the
environment and, everything else.
And this is just putting thatface to what, putting the
money where the mouth is right?

I think it's, it's like it's a value statement for a city.

Yeah.

It could be, let's say it that way.

Because I?
mean, let's be honest, there's acouple of uh, airports that you fly
into to the greater New York areathat you're just like where am I?
Or,

Well, and it's a tool in that, regard, right?
It's like a way to move people inand out and get them connected to
other transit or whatever, and.
And so it, it does that Right.
But yeah, it's so the themeof that Arco event was called
Bringing the Magic Back to Design.
And this airport to me is an attemptat bringing the magic back to air

(15:36):
travel because I think of it asa departure for, 'cause for me.
That's how I experienced it.
I left Portland going through it.
I
didn't come into Portland that way.
and, so it wasn't really myintroduction to Portland.
And it
it hasn't been in, although I have flown
into Portland that my first
time into Portland was a flight.
But this wasn't the terminalthat I went to when I landed.
Or, or maybe it was under construction'cause it was years and years ago.

(15:57):
But the bringing the magicback, like air travel has lost a
lot of magic.
Right?
It is.

Absolutely.

is the lowest common denominator of of travel.
Now, like taking the train is aluxury compared to air travel, right?
I mean, who,
who who does?
I mean, maybe there's some, some like,I've, I've taken a few flights where
it's like they actually treat you well.
Like Qantas flying to Australiawas absolute, was great But most

(16:24):
air travel is like it's just afunction of getting you there
without dying.
Right?
It's like, it's likehow, just barely above
that.

Yeah,
there's

And so I hope that some of the magic of this terminal starts to
work its way back into the flight, right?
It's just squeezing as many peopleinto the flying can as possible is.

is,

Yeah, it's brutal.
For sure.

you think about it when, the kind of like height of
travel was, and you know, you hadlike the TWA terminal, you know,
you had

Yes.

in Dulles and all of these
other ones

People used to get dressed up to go for a,
flight and they would, there was
like lounges on airplanes and,there was smoking and there was

I mean, there

people hanging out in living
rooms in airplanes.

There
wasn't

Yeah.

me who, pay in that $15 extra to check
in, you know, to

15 is a deal.

to do my early bird check-in so that I can
get on my Southwest flight
early

Oh yeah.

so that

' Evan Troxel (17:29):
cause it's, you pick your seat.

'cause I

Yeah.

to the 'cause I don't care,

You want an exit row.

want an exit row
because I

Yeah.

room.
I
do

Yeah.

time.
It's just like, and, then I get like,oh, somebody like got in front of, me.
Dang you.

They've monetized leg room.
I mean, that, tells you everythingyou need to know, right there.
Yeah.
So I just hope some of that magicof, of what they're doing in the in
the architectural landscape makesits way back to the airplanes.
I know that's a lot to ask, butthat, that would be incredible.
Yeah.
So anyway, that was great.
And then, so yeah then a nonstopflight to JFK and then a air train,

(18:06):
and then the subway into, uh,the city and then to the event.
and it was like, literally got to myroom, put down my bags, walked to the
event, and it had already started.
So it was just like, nonstop.
And, and I didn't get to rest until maybethe next day on the, on the train when
I got on a train out of Penn Station.

(18:26):
And you were like Ew, Penn Station.
Ugh.

About as

not that Penn State.
It was the better

the, the

it was the

the newer

the
newer Penn Station.
And yeah, I, I did I, I was thinking ofLouis Kahn when I was there for, for,

I mean, I, you
know, I
I jokingly, you know,
say every time I go through Penn Station,
I kind of mutter under my breath, Louis.
I get it.
I
understand

yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It took it all out of him, literally.

It was just like, you know,
although,

Oh, man.

And
so,

Well, so what's the story of Louis Kahn Cormick?
Just for those who don't know?
and And

you who don't know Louis Kahan on his last trip, uh, from
India, back to this, the states, he wascame back in through New York and was
gonna get the train from Penn Stationto Pennsylvania to Philadelphia, and
he died in a Penn Station bathroom.

bathroom.
Yeah.
In a bathroom stall.
yeah.

Um,

what a way to go.

yeah.
And,

Geez.

uh, I, seeing the complexity, seeing the unnecessary
complexity of travel in and
out of Penn Station, I kinda get it
like.

You know, I've always said I want.
I want a 3D model.
like I could, they coulddo this with scanning.
Nowadays I want a 3D modelof the New York underground.
I think it would be incredibleto see the complexity and you
know, maybe the unnecessarycomplexity as you call it, right?
Or maybe it's the necessary complexity.
I don't know.
But it would be absolutelyincredible to see

(20:11):
the earth peel away and justhave a model of all of that.
What's going on underground.
I think it would be

it

super cool.

would be like, have you seen those sculptures?
Um, you know, we have one in a buildingthat I did down in Florida where this, uh,
professor
from that who's studying
ant biology and, and the
communal
aspect of ants.

Mm-hmm.

did
a sculpture where he took molten aluminumpoured it down into a carpenter ant.
And

Like a colony.
Yeah.

know, then he dug it all away and saw all of the interconnectedness
of the colony and everything else.
And just like the intricateconstruction that they did
and how much of it there was.
I mean, and it looks like ifyou were to kinda like hold a, I
dunno, like a jellyfish and seal,like all of the tentacles and
everything else, it looked like that.

(21:05):
And I can almost bet that probably if youlike, peeled away all of that stuff and
just isolated the New York underground,that's probably what you would see.

I think most people think the experience of the New York
subway system is like one level deep,

Oh yeah, I

but, but you go into a station like Penn Station and you
realize, wow, there's a lot, there'sso many levels to this going on.
It's like mining, but for

yeah.

normal pedestrians, it's, it's really crazy.

So then you um, took a train
and.

I took the train to New Haven, Connecticut.
Right?
My fir.

do that?

I don't rem I don't remember.
No,
it was like a two, two anda half hour train ride.

But

Uh, first time into Connecticut.
So this was my first time out of NewYork City to an adjacent state up there.
And I went, where you andyour lovely wife picked me up

Yep.

we went to see Hotel Marcel, where you got to stay.
So tell us about the digs in hoteland, and what hotel Marcel is.

So what, what hotel Marcel is.
And so why I selfishly asked Evanto take a train from New York
instead of me picking him up because

Well, I, driving into New York would've sucked too.
We would've, there was manylogistical issues that we had
to figure out on this trip.
And this was just like the first one.

you and I were still planning on trying to get to any
events or anything like that in theevening of, what was it Tuesday?

I don't know.
Yeah.

never made it if I would've driven into the city
regardless.
'cause,

True.
True.

would've probably
spilled,

would've had a 3:00 AM Yeah.

But when we left, so you, you know, went through your
adventure of, Portland to New York,to, all of the different mass transits
and then out to new Haven, we drove,

Right.

purpose of, not only, driving to the conference, but also
around looking at, architecture as muchas we could that, weren't going to be
in downtown where we could access it byeither Uber or bus or walking or whatever.

Hold, hold up your, do you have that page on your book that you,

my,

for those who are watching on YouTube, you can see Cormick
kind of itinerary of want to sees
on this page here.

I called it the Boston must Sees if possible.
And then I have on the otherpage, Yale must sees if possible.
And so, you know, we started at Yaleas, as you said, but so we drove
through Canada, down through NewYork and stayed at the hotel Marcel.
And for those of you who are not inthe know of what Hotel Marcel is, uh,

(23:49):
hotel Marcel is a repurposed adaptivereuse building that Ikea of all people
bought and did some modifications sothat they could fit their their lovely
surface parking you know, their store.

What does that mean?
What does modifications mean?

they lopped half the building off so that they could,
you know, have a parking lot.

Oh my gosh.

So what was left over was this, you know, beautiful
pedestal the tower of what wasformally the Armstrong Rubber, Pelli
rubber tire and rubber buildings.
So it was an, an officebuilding before beautiful,

Hmm.

modernist building.
We'll have some photographsin the show notes
and also

Really?
You call it modernist?
Is that what it is?
I don't know.
I'm just

Did I say modernist?
I didn't mean

You did?

Oh,

real time.
Follow up.
Here you go.
Here's your chance to correct yourself.

brutalist,

you go.

building.
And it, it's.
Incredibly amazing.
The light and shadowplay and everything else.
And, you know, we'll give some links tomy, uh, Instagram page that, you know,
shows some of the photographs that I took.
And probably if, uh, Evan tookany photos and posted, if not,
then you know, you'll just look at

(25:04):
mine.

I didn't post anything at all yet, but I think I, your pictures
were great, so I don't need to repostwhat It was the same angle that you shot.

yeah.
Except for mine wasbetter 'cause you know,

You had better lighting that day.
I dunno.

yeah,

It was be, it was beautiful and I can't help but think
that lopping off that half of thesingle story pedestal is a bad idea
from a compositional standpoint.

Oh yeah,

Man, it looks like it's top heavy, right?
For sure.
And I don't think it probablyused to feel like that because of
the way that it was proportioned.

it's, it's like this, right?
But it used to be like this,
you know.

Yeah, it used to, yeah, in elevation it used to be a, an
L with the long leg on the ground.
And so I'm, I'm speaking to theaudio listeners right now for you Mr.
Sign language on the screen.

know,

Um, yeah,

hands.

so there's this big heavy floating concrete cube on the short
leg of the l just floating in the air.
And because there's this wholeI hate even to say soft story.
There's just a missingfloor right in the building.
It's so cool.
There's the, the two columns, which arelike this the vertical circulation on the

(26:17):
ends of that, holding it up in the air.
Talk about just likeanti-gravity structural system.
It's so cool.
So cool.

the weight of this thing, and
you're just like, how?

How,
and so now the only pedestal that's leftis directly under that floating cube.
So it really feels kind of weird.
I mean, I think it probably just made moresense from a reading architecture point
of view for, for more uninformed people.
Like, oh, okay.
Like that it feels a little over, I don'tknow, like, like it, it could just topple.

(26:52):
Uh, it's not going to Right,but it just 'cause it's

is

heavy

if if I encourage everybody to kinda take a look at
the link to the, the photographthat I took compositionally.
It looks as you said,very heavy and, it also
looks

as brutalist buildings do.
Yeah.

looks so gravity defying

Mm-hmm.

I think that's the thing that intrigued me the most
about, it's just like, how, how,

Yeah.
How, yeah.

and

It doesn't look like it should work.
And, and I don't think you'vementioned the architect yet.
Maybe you did, but I missed it, but.

Well, sort of a giveaway in the name for those of you who
know

For those who are on a first name basis,

yeah, yeah.
With Marcel, you know, you know
your buddy

you know Marcel,

Broyer,

Right?

who interestingly enough we have, and we've talked about this
on the show in the past, you know, Ithat I am unfamiliar with a lot of his
work, but it's interesting to see thatparticular building in the building that's
in my town that was designed by him,

Mm.

brick and glass, very modernist.
So it's

Mm-hmm.

Marcel brutal Marcel.
Wait,

Versus

Marcel or Brutalist Broyer.
There you
go.

There you go.
There you go.
Nice alliteration.
Yeah.

Exactly.
So, but.
and so it's just this interesting tosee the, the development from and what's
interesting is the building in my townis actually newer than that building.
So it's almost like he returned to hiskind of modernist roots, when he did

(28:26):
the, uh, gross point public library.

May, maybe Gross Point was like absolutely no brutalism here.
Maybe they were just like,maybe they just said, no,

You wanna do a building, you're gonna
do it,

no.

you

You're,

brick.

how many architects have ever gotten that kind of Yeah, absolutely.
Happens all the time.
No, it's gotta look like this.
Yeah.

Oh, you

And then they have to figure out how to make it work.
Yeah.

Well, guess what?
Collegiate gothic

ex.
Exactly.
Exactly.

Oh,

So what was it like staying there

you know, I was
impressed

as an adaptive reuse?
Right?
I mean, like you said, thiswas an office building before.

I was very impressed at how very sensitive architecturally, interiors
wise they were to the existing building.
From what I understand, they'vegot a bunch of plans up on the wall
of what the building used to be.
so you look at it and you see that forthe most part, they kept the rigor of the

(29:24):
modules of offices and things like that.
also kind of think of is if those were theoffices or if it, if roughly the layout of
the offices as shown by the layout of thebedrooms for the hotel are, that's a very

(29:44):
rigorous

big.
Was it big?

no, they

No.

They
were, you

Okay.

were pretty much, average size.

I would assume it would be super rigorous.
Like, was Marcel a a big.
I mean, maybe

Oh yeah.

Tell me about Marcel and the free plan was, was he

he was

or was he on the grid?

He was on the grid.
was both, he
really was

Hmm.

you know, it all just really depends.
I mean, what was interesting abouteverything that I've been reading in
the, about the Bauhaus and, and he andGropius specifically, they, they helped,
evolve the free plan as much as, youknow, they were also, guys to the grid.
I mean, you think about even,even Meese, still on the grid,
but still very much a free plan.

Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

So,

Yeah.

yeah.
You know,
but

Cool.

Nice, beautiful interiors, very respectful of the period,
very respectful of like his style.
I did not look up who did therenovations, but I do want to.
Find out who was, and maybe on the nextepisode I can give them a little shout out
because

Learn a little more.
Yeah.

did a fantastic job.
Very, very sensitive to thestyle and the feel of it.
It did not feel like itwasn't building all the time,

Mm.

you
know?

Nice.

was so well done.
And
so

Cool.

you to you for accommodating, me and my wife
staying there by, you would'vehad to have taken an Uber from
New York to Boston if you said no.
But

I could have taken the train all the way to Boston.

have taken the trade, but
it was, it

No, this was a, a great place to stop.
I didn't get to go inside, but uh,as soon as I got in the car with
you guys, we went back to the hoteland you're like, you gotta see it.
So we did.
And it, 'cause it wasright by the train station.
So
That was very cool.

and then, of course we, uh, started our journey to Boston, but
it had to include a couple of stops.

So, so real quick before, before we go on I think we're gonna,
we're not gonna go in depth about the,the stuff that we're, the projects
that we got to visit in this episode.
I think that was probablythe most in depth.
We'll get around the hotel Marcel,for this episode because there's a
lot of ground we need to cover, butthen we'll come back and do that.
But.

(32:01):
I just want to maybe take a little bitof a moment here to talk about this
idea of, okay, so how many architectsdo you think Who went to the A I A
conference, the National A I A Conferenceon architecture 2025 in Boston.
Just went to Boston and then just poppedback outta Boston without doing all of
this other stuff like we're talking about.

(32:21):
So, and because the reason Ibring this up is because it took,
it took a little extra effort.
Yeah.
McCormick's list right there islong of all the projects that were
the want to see if possible andwe got to see quite a few of 'em.
Right.
I don't know if you'vechecked kind of a percentage,

60%.
We
saw

60.

And

Nice.

pretty impressive,

That's pretty good because they're not
localized to the city of Boston.

in one spot where we can go and walk around.
We,

Yeah.

effort to get there, to go there to see them.
You know, things like, youknow, we drove out to, like
outskirts and things like that.
So

And you, you rented a car, right?
You, you drove with your wife fromDetroit, not a short drive to, to pull
all this off, which gave us the abilityto go out and do all this other stuff,
which, okay, so now it's my turn tothank you for being like, so amazing
at figuring that out and doing it.
And like that to me is what made the trip.
It made the trip way more than theconference was doing all that other stuff.

(33:20):
And so I bring it up becauseit's like, it took extra effort.
But man, was it worth it?
Like to do all of that stuff, especiallyfor me who have never been to that
side of that part of the country,and get to experience those kinds of
places that I'd only seen on literalslides in my architectural history

(33:41):
class or on the internet since then.
Right?
It's so, never having had theopportunity to explore the places
that we're talking about today.
And so I guess I just so the older Iget the less tolerance I have to do
this kind of logistical planning, right?
Like, I literally leaveit to the last minute.
You're like, what if youtook a train to New Haven?

(34:02):
And I'm like, I'll figure itout the day before, right?
If I, if I can.

Yeah.

and I just don't have the time or the patience to kind of, and
this, I'm excited for AI agents, AItravel agents especially, like, figure
this crap out for me because I don'thave the time or the patience to do it.
Um, we'll see how that works out.
But, um.
It.
It was so worth it.
It was so worth doing that to makethis trip what it ended up being.

(34:28):
So anyway, I just wanted to take aminute to kind of talk about that
because Yeah, it's way extra effort.
I'll just say it.
It's a way extra effort, butit's way extra payoff too.

I mean, because you and I have talked about this on numerous
occasions about the of travel andexperiencing new places as part of the
enrichment of our experience and oureducation and our ongoing education as
architects, so that we can understandwhat are other people doing out there,
know, what

Or remember,

Or

why we do what we do.
Like why did we go into this?
I think it was, it was equal parts.
Yeah.

Yeah.
Yeah.

I have to also bring up here in this part Cormick, the thing that I
heard you start to say at this locationthat you never stopped saying after

Okay.
All right.
What.

Cor Mick's famous two words on this trip.
I was like, oh, I'm gonna get thisprinted on a shirt for Cormick.
Shadow play, shadow play,shadow play, shadow play.

thanks
man,

This is where the shadow play started, but it, it
is true, like the facade of thisbuilding is absolutely incredible
because of the depth and the shadows.
That, and, and I bet like if you couldjust watch this building all day long
and get like really cool views of it.

could,

Yeah,
you definitely could.

sit there and set up a time lapse and go through a nice sunny
day

by frame.
Cormick would watch that.

Ooh, Ooh,
Ah,

Did you see what just happened right there?

look,

like, yeah, a documentary.
It's just one camera angle.
Maybe it's multiple camera angles, justswitching back and forth, watching the
shadows move across the building allday with, with just some cool soundtrack

little floating head in there.
Just you know,

Mick's reaction video to the documentary.

how the door disappeared because of the shadows.

Right?

Uh, thanks,
appreciate that.

Yep, yep, yep.
Yeah.
I was paying attention.

you're right.
It, it totally did not.
And then of course, you know, someof the other buildings that we'll
be talking about later is likethe strength of those buildings.
All right, so we got to to Boston.
So
fast

So then we drove to Boston.
Yeah, we, we got somepizza on the way too.
I, I wouldn't call it like Boston Pizza,but it was, it was good pizza still,

it, so we were outside of New Haven, so it wasn't quite New Haven.
It was still tavern style, itwasn't new Haven style Pizza, which
is, you know, a little bit morecrispier, brick oven, brick fired.

Mm-hmm.

and, and so unfortunately we didn't get that, people were trying
to convince me to come out and once wegot to Boston and come out and have some
pizza, and I've never in my life heardBoston being famous for pizza at all.
And

Is it

Anybody listening that might, be from Boston
and think that I'm full of it.
I'm more than happy to come back
and have some

Right.

you.

Changed my mind.

I kind of politely declined because I wasn't, well, one, we were at
an event, but two I wasn't quite convincedthat and Boston go well together.

Funny.
Well, I, I heard good things aboutit too, but we didn't get to try it.
Not that we just didn't.

I mean, you've got New York style, new Haven, Detroit, Chicago, but
Boston,

Yeah,

I mean,

question mark maybe.
Yeah, I don't know.
So, so from there, yeah, likeyou said, we got to Boston and
Boston is not what I thought.
Like, okay, so there's, so I guessthis is the next thing we talk about.
There's like this idea that I had ofwhat Boston looks like, which there are
parts of Boston that look like that.

(38:06):
And then there's like the partof Boston that just looks like

Everywhere.

new part.
What do they call this Har, southHarbor, or what do they call it?

yeah, I

you remember?

was something like,

You gotta pull up the map.

yeah,
har

But

Harbor.

it was like, uh, it looked like Seattle.

old South

They old.
Yeah.
So what did it look like to you?
It looked like Seattle to me.

looked, honestly, unfortunately, it looked like every
other, know, large scale development area.

Developer driven architecture.

driven

Yeah.

And the thing that somewhat disappointed me that particular
area, when we're talking about thearea around the conference, um, center
that,

Mm-hmm.

was Old South Boston and now that that grid of Old South
Boston is somewhat scrubbed clean.
And now it is very much kind of like thesecrystalline towers of, glass and steel.
And it doesn't.
S me, it didn't speaklike this was Boston.

Yeah, because we talked about Genius loci.
Genius loci in our last episode,or two episodes ago, and that
the spirit of the place, right.
And so what you're saying is itdidn't evoke the spirit of the place.

the, the thing that I love about the East Coast and
East Coast cities are, is when yougo from say, DC to Baltimore, to
Philly, to New York, to Boston andall of the other ones in between and
all the way up to Portland, Maine.
They all have, there are characteristicsthat are, strictly East coast, but each

(39:43):
one of them seem to have a very different,very unique, I'm only in Boston, I'm
only in New York kind of feel and.
you were to pick somebody up and dropthem just into that area around the
conference center in, in Boston, wouldnever know that they were in Boston.
They would, it would actuallybe, you would feel like you were

(40:06):
just in kind of like anywhere USA
now

Yeah.

you go into, the old downtown or back bay or, um, the North
End and all of this other stuff, yes,you absolutely feel like you're in Boston
and you know, thankfully having a carand being able to get out and get around.
you, you could, you coulddefinitely feel that's Boston.
And so I don't want to sound likeI'm overly critical saying that, you

(40:33):
know, Boston doesn't feel like Boston,

New parts of Boston.
Don't feel like oldpot or Boston for sure.

There is quite a disconnect in, what you think of
Boston and when you're ploppedinto that particular location.
Y you're not rewarded with, a, anexample of what Boston feels like.

So what, what if you could characterize what it feels like, 'cause
you, you and your wife got to spend moretime in like the back bay area than I did.
You had, you got to go out ona field trip, go to a baseball
game, do fun things, visit Trinity
Church.
Right.
So,

a couple of Irish pubs, you know, things like
that.

Okay, cool.
So tell,
tell us what the, what that feels like sothat for those of us who haven't gotten
to experience that kind of get an idea.

feels like, a city that's grown up and held onto its past.
So you could see the evolution frompre-colonial America to the evolution of
architectural styles and, and evolutionwhere they still held onto, small masonry
buildings like, you know, the row homeand things like that to then, you know,

(41:38):
evolving into, brick masonry, you know,like block size buildings to then to
skyscrapers and high-rises and stuff.
But like the tapestry that you get whenyou have all of that together creates
a completely different character.
And you know, this from, you know, beingin New York City that it still feel

(42:00):
there are so many different architecturalstyles stitched together in New York City
that it still feels like New York City

There isn't a spot in New York City where it's like they mowed it
all down and started over, and that's howthis new area in Boston really feels like.
Yeah.

so the older part, you know, like you go
across the bay into, downtown I.
Boston.
It feels like Boston it, you know, it,it still keeps that character, it still,
it's like, oh look, you know, if there'swhere Paul Revere, started his ride from
and things like that, you know, you seethe old North Church, and you see all
of, you know, like you can understandlike the breadth of the history that they

(42:38):
maintained and you see how, it evolved,and stitched together new styles with old
styles and things like that, and thingsplayed off of each other pretty well.
And that, that's what I think isinterestingly successful about
all of these old East coast citiesthat they held onto their tradition
and explored it in different ways.

(43:00):
Um, Philly's a great example of, ofthose, of that kind of a city and the
Boston that I got to see outside ofthe conference center still has that
very, that very much same feeling.

Because they haven't mowed down.
Yeah, that

mowed down,
and I don't think

so.
And it, is it safe to say that thisnew version, Boston, whatever, 2.0
was, you know, by the new conferencecenter, newish conference center
is in the last 10 years mostlybeen developed, would you say?
Yeah.
So I mean,

I've, I've

boom.

To South Boston when it was still South Boston when, people were like,
oh, you don't wanna go to South Boston?
And it still, and it felt still gritty
and still unsafe
or whatever

yeah.
Unsafe

and,

yeah.

and for some reason this, you know, it felt, it felt very sanitized.

And gentrified, right?
Like the, this, to me, this, thisit, so when I say it felt to me like
Seattle, it's like the area aroundthe Amazon headquarters in Seattle
where there's just all these towersthat are filled with Amazon and.
The bubbles that NBBJ did downtown, likethe Amazon conference rooms that are like
these indoor greenhouse kind of things.

(44:15):
And then,
cause there's even a project like thatthere, it's not, it's not bubbles, but,
um, it was a really cool uh, glass cubethat had a bunch of plants inside of it.
I mean, I think, uh, I heard, uh, RobOtani from, uh, Thornton Thomasetti told
me that they worked on that project.
So it was, and that, that did looklike a cool project, but it's like,
it just felt like, like, that's whyI say it didn't feel like Boston.

(44:38):
It felt, it felt to me ex almostexactly like how I felt in Seattle.
And I bet in Seattle it'skind of a similar story.
It's like this super developerdriven environment in the,
in this area of downtown.
And it's like, that probably doesn'tfeel like a port city of Seattle either.
Right?
So, it's just this trend, right, whereit's like this huge infusion of money.

(45:01):
And to create something newand the next version of a city.
But it is cleaned up.
It is safe, it is

Yeah.

walkable.
There's a lot going on.
There's a lot of mixedprogramming going on.
Like we saw like somefitness classes on the lawn.
I bet that never happened inthis area of Boston before.
Right.
So

The,

just out in the open on the, on the

there was for your life,

right the Herzog and Deron building, I don't know the name
of it, but that, that was really cool.
Right on the right on ICA, so yeah.
To walk under that cantilever.
I mean, that's like acantilever of all cantilevers

thing that.
So I remember seeing that when,you know, especially in like
publications and stuff, when
that was

When it opened.
Yeah.
Right.

you know, it was, it was a jewel by the water all on its own right?
None of this developer, um, work hadkind of engulfed that, that space.
And the one thing that I did finda little disappointing about it
now is that it's so dwarfed by allof the other buildings around it.

It is not a tall bill.
Yeah.
It's not one of the giants.

it, it now sort of feels you know, at one point in time it was, you
know, this nice little jewel box sittingon the, edge of the water in the same vein
as like, say the, uh, Sydney Opera House.

Mm.

And, and so it, it had a lot of like power on its
own and now it's competing withso much noise around it that it's.
And then you firstengage it now, like you,
You were exactly, you were at anevent where we were waiting for
you to pick you up and you wereright across the street from it.
But, and so all we were doing is likestaring at the back of it in the, the

(46:44):
service entrances and things like that.
unfortunately that's where nowpeople who are gonna be walking
around there, how they engage that.
And so it's going to it's gonna bea completely different experience
now granted from across the way, andwhen you're looking at it obliquely
from the side and stuff like that,it's still got that same power.
It's still an amazing building, butit's but now it just seems to be

(47:08):
overwhelmed by its surroundings,

Mm.
Yeah.

which

unlucky in their timing maybe.

Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
But that, that was I, Istill dig that building that
cantilevers

about Trinity Church.
Talk about the baseball game.
What, what you got to experience.
I didn't get to go to those.

So decided to, on, this was Wednesday.
Really.
There wasn't a lot that had started yet.
And there was, you know,an a i a event at Fenway.
But we I did as very much I would normallydo is say, oh, AIA is charging 55 bucks.

(47:47):
I think it was something like
that,

For a ticket to go to see the game.

I went to my my apps that, you know, for cheap tickets and stuff, and
basically found the same tickets in thesame area except for I was a lot closer to
the field for 20 bucks a pop, actually 17bucks a pop, to be quite honest with you.

Nice.

and so I was just like, yeah, I'll save the money.

Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll save them.
Definitely save the money.
I don't need to sit with a bunchof other architects, I don't know.
At a baseball game.

I mean,
if I

Yeah.

if I notice that they're an architects, I'll do some like weird
little architect wave you like, Hey,
you

What's that?

I
don't,

I wanna know.

I don't know what,

You're like the shadow play.
Am I right?

Exactly.
As a big fan of baseball, you know,I've always wanted to go to Fenway
because, you know, it's kind of atemple to, the history of, of baseball.
But man, is it a dog?

Really crammed in like, okay, so I had to drive
your car to go pick you guys up.

thank
you

Dude, driving in Boston is horrendous.
Geez.
Don't do it.

let's, let's, let's talk about that for one real quick second.
So, in Detroit if say, Surior Wazes or whoever says that
it's two miles away from you.
That typically means between twoand four minutes away from you.

Mm-hmm.

If in for instance, you are in Boston and it says that it's two
miles away, it's 20 minutes to maybean hour and 20 minutes away from you

Yeah, I was gonna say 40 minutes probably.
Yeah.

and you're just like,
you

Brutal.

question your judgment, you question your life, you question
all sorts of things in that whole,in that timeframe of like sitting
there watching the frustration levelof your, know, drivers around you.
Just build and build and build.
And, and I understand why we used tohave this, kind of like running joke.

(49:52):
The, you know, the closer you got toDC the angrier and angrier you got
because of just like the frustrationof dealing with traffic and people
and everything else and stuff.
I can, I get it.
And, you know, seeing like Boston andnot really knowing Boston driving at the
time I got a real quick education in, and
so did

Yep.

on
how

Be aggressive.

Be aggressive.
Um, do not be apologetic.
Um, there are gonna be a lot of people whoare gonna tell you that you're number one
with a very

Yep.

finger.
Um, there, it just, it was, it wassomething, something to behold.
And
so, you

And if you miss a turn, good luck.
Like, wow.
Yeah.

Uh,

What a mess.

there

What a total mess.
What a cluster.

it, it it is, there is a, there's been on occasion where I'll say,
you know, the cluster bleep uh, versionof that statement, you know, it's just
like, what, you know, what's a good.
Image that, conjures up when you say,you know, of a, of a cluster and driving.
Yeah.
That fits there.
That fits there.

And the roads are really bad, but imagine if they took the
time to close the roads and fix 'em.
What would happen to that traffic?

exactly.

I can, I understand why they're not addressing the roads.
What a mess.

is that neither you and I really kind of like acknowledged the
fact that like all of those tunnelsthat we were driving through, that
was all part of the whole big dig,

Mm-hmm.

and when you're up on the surface and you're like actually
traversing through the city andstuff, that whole effort of resiting,
downtown back together so worth it.
it is the experience from the pedestrianside of thing and even, you know, from
a car on the surface, is so worth,the effort that they went through now.

(51:47):
Does it mean that it's,you know, stellar driving?
No.
No, not at all.

No, it's terrible.
Absolutely terrible.

It was, uh, it was something special man.
You know, and I've driven through somany these different East Coast and
you see the images of like, you know,the bumper to bumper through like
say Manhattan and things like that.
And I've driven through Manhattan andyou, you know, you sort of expect it.
Right?

Mm-hmm.

Boston is a whole special kind of traffic slash aggression
slash anger slash whatever otheradjective that you want to throw
on top

And these zones are really separate from each other,
so they are harder to get to.
I don't know that there is a greatpublic transportation system in Boston.
I didn't get to experience it ifthere is, but like in New York,
they've got this figured out.
Right?
Completely figured out with the subway
or city bike or Uber or whatever youwant to do, but, or walking right.

(52:43):
It's very walkable.
This, I didn't feel like fit any of those.
May maybe city bike, but I wouldn'thave felt safe at all with the
kind of driving that was going on.

the cool thing is, is that, so we took a bus from the
convention center to kind of likethe downtown hotels that the a i a

Oh yeah.
You did like a shuttle, right?

took

Yep.

shuttles and then
we basically walked from there and,you know, we got to, go to Boston
Commons and, and you know, walkaround the botanical gardens and
things like that for a little while.
And then we just started our kind oflike long walk, which was about two
miles, but honestly, city walkingtwo miles, that's not bad at all.
But we started a two mile,hike down to Wrigley.

(53:24):
in between, you know, we got, you know, we

You keep saying Wrigley, but

do I keep saying?
Wrigley?

I don't know.
You did it when we were there too.

I did too.

You're offending many, many sporting people.
I think

You know, people of Boston.
Wrigley's better than Fenway.

you just doubled down.

I

I'm pretty sure you're not.
Sorry.

I'm not sorry.
Have you, have you been to Fenway?
Have you been to Wrigley?
You
know,

No comparison.
I don't know.

with you, if we're gonna, you know, start, you know
that whole thing Yards in Baltimore,much better than both of them.

Hmm, hmm hmm.
You heard it here?

is, it is.
It is the new temple of baseballthat I think is so much better
than, than practically everysingle baseball stadium out there.
So, nah,

So talk about the church.
What was the, what was that?

so you know, we to talk about the shadow plate?
No, no.
So we went to, on our walk toFenway, we stopped at Trinity Church.
We also stopped at Boston PublicLibrary Trinity Church by HH Richardson.
The top 10 of, the most notablearchitecture in the United

(54:36):
States, and I understand why.
This

Hmm.

this

Hmm.

a lot of, of the architects and architecture from early
let's just say the mid 18 hundreds tothe early 19 hundreds, that, where all
of those architects kind of evolved.
and Trinity Church was, an absolute gemthat thankfully, they have preserved

(55:05):
and continue to con to preserveand provide tours, and it's so well
worth it to, to go on these tours.
You know, it's still a very active church.
Still have a large congregationthat, you know, takes care of and
are, are good stewards of this,beautiful, masterpiece of architecture.
And get wax poetic about, you know, shadowplay and the depth of everything and

(55:27):
blah, blah, blah and all this other stuff.
But to me, in our conversations thatI always have about the kinda like
lineage of architects, you know, youhave hh Richardsons who, you know,
had a draftsman who was, you know,um, McKim and then the McKim goes on
to, you know, McKim meet and white.
And then you have this whole evolution of,HH Richardson trying to kind of establish

(55:50):
this American language of architecture.
But then, you know, when he passed atrelatively young age, I believe he was
in his forties when he passed, McKimkind of took on the mantle as kinda
like the next, you know, big Bostonarchitect or sorry, New York architect,
the hell they were, they were, but.

On the East Coast,

But

Coast architect.

know, he travels in, you know, he, he takes a sabbatical and
travels through Europe and is an influenceby the classical architecture there.
And then when, you know, they arehired to be part of the the white
city, the, um, the, world's clubin exposition bring back and kind

(56:30):
of like set back in a way American.
Architectural language they set it behind.
And then you have people like LouisSullivan who comes out and is trying to
like, you know, rebel against all of that,you know, and then you've got Frank Lloyd
Wright that evolves from that, you know,and it's just, it's kind of interesting
because you're sitting there and you'relooking at this extraordinarily beautiful

(56:52):
building, and you can see the influencesof all of these other architects from this
like, origin of this very Richards sonianRomanesque type, not type building that
has a completely different language fromeverything that was being built around it.
So this was as much of thisavant-garde, kind of like modernist,

(57:12):
kind of like movement before it wasa, before modernism existed because
it was just this, it was kind of a.
Yeah, yeah.
I see what you guys are doing, butcheck out what you know what my
boy Henry here is doing, you know?

My boy Henry.

You know, and it was just, it was, it is just a captivating thing.
And the thing I, I love aboutgoing on some of these tours is
I will not say I'm an architect.
I will just sit back and I willlisten and all of this other stuff.
And, everyone's a great while of,you know, like my wife was like,
you know, is that, is that right?
You know, so it's like I, you know, I'mlearning just as much as, as the next
person, I do know enough about, richardsonto, kind of like just be enriched and

(57:51):
think about you know, all of the otherthings that were going on while I'm
listening to like, their conversation andthe docents there were just, phenomenal.
This lady loves this building.
She's, you know, a member of the,um, congregation loves the building
and has taken such a huge deep diveinto understanding the building,
understanding Richardson, understandingkind of like, you know, even McKim

(58:15):
where you know, like she's, I.
could be a foremost experton, on what's going on.
And it was great because then afterwardsI started to have a conversation with
her and then, you know, I apparentlystarted dropping some arch speak that
she was just like, are you an architect?

Duh.

And so then, then the conversation kind of changed and we got
into a much deeper conversation about it.
And then we started talking about,like the kinda like the, the lineage
of like some of these other ones andhow, because you can see a lot of, like
Sullivan, you know, a lot of influencein Sullivan's work from, HH Richardson.
And so it's kind of interesting tokinda like, for me to piece all of

(58:55):
that stuff together while I'm sittingthere doing all of this and then
immediately go across the street
and,

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

oh.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna.
This is where we actually call it outand we, we do some market speak here.
And I give you a word and then youtell me that you've already, you've
already, you're already there.
Juxtaposition, cormick, juxtaposition.
Tell me, tell me what this bringsup in relation to this church.

so juxtaposition, what does it bring up?
It brings up two different things.
One, immediately across the the commentsis the McKim kind of like transition from
this development of the architecturalstyle to a setback, to kind of like
Reem embracing a European style.

Hmm.

right next door is this big glass high-rise John
Hancock building by I am Pay.
it is such, this amazing.
Dichotomy of buildings,

contrast.
Yes, it is a contrast.

contrast.
And so there's one photograph thatwill again, you know, put a link to my
Instagram page, uh, in the show noteswhere there's this kind of concave split
in the, kinda like triangular piece

Evan Troxel (01:00:08):
It's like, it's like a wedge has been subtracted.

Cormac Phalen (01:00:11):
from the, and you know, if you, if you stand in the
right position, the, the the spiresor the Spire, if we wanna call
it that, of the Tower of TrinityChurch, aligns perfectly with that.
And it almost looks like the, youknow, that, that wedge it, it's a
good kind of like, compositional,like, you know, filler of that.

(01:00:34):
Um,
And it's, it's really interesting.
But then what was interesting is havingthe conversation about the construction
of the tower did to the church,which almost destroyed the church.
because, they were driving all ofthe piles in and, and the piles were
undermining the structure of the church.

(01:00:55):
The whole back Bay areais actually filled.
And so it was already on unstable groundand that particular church was built
on a large mat concrete foundation.
And of course, now, you know,these big high rises need to be,
built on, large, you know, caseons that go down to bedrock.
And so as they're doing all of that,it's disrupting everything else.

(01:01:18):
And almost everything on the buildingfor Trinity Church is original.
There are a few little small reproductionpieces, but there's one glass, one piece
of glass that was completely blown outand is a brand new piece because when the,
y you know, the heat, you know, the, thethermal expansion in the, the early days

(01:01:42):
of the Hancock Tower were going on, piecesof glass were popping out and dropping.

Just raining down glass shards of glass onto church churchgoers.

Raining down, imminent death to,
to folks.

God.

um, it ripped out one of, or it shattered out one
of the, uh, stained glass windows
of

It's a sign from God when you're inside
that church and that happens.
Well, I think maybe we, we wanna talka little bit about the AIA conference
in general because we'll save our nextfield trips for future episodes for sure.
We just want to give those projectsthey due to talk about them and, and
even talk about some that we didn't talk

(01:02:24):
about.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: I mean, I, I think it kind of in an (01:02:25):
undefined
interesting way, sort of help set thestage for, the trips that we took and
what we wanted to see, but also justkind of like that, that first impression
of Boston, especially since, you know,this is your first time in, you know, the
New England states and things like that.
And being able to do that.
And then of course, you know,talking about, well, why were we
even there in the first place,

Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so get, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about the a i A conference.
And so the ai, the conference itself.
Was, it was really Thursday and Fridayand, and maybe the first half of Saturday.
Right.
I, that's typically how they do it.
And, and I felt like, I mean, justgeneral, like 30,000 foot level,

(01:03:08):
I felt like the energy was betterthan it was the last two years.
You know, just pulling from recent memory.
And I also felt like, well,I felt like the speakers.
Were better, better thanthey have been this year.
And I mean that from kind of a, Imean, engagement level, there was,

(01:03:28):
there was, it was very, the, thekeynotes were very well done, I
thought, compared to previous years.
And I'm not quite sure what thedifference is other than just the people
who were involved in delivering the,
speeches and the, andthe, the conversation.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Also, you know, I know that you and (01:03:43):
undefined
I in the past we've talked about inkind of like, you know, is, did the
speakers that we had in the past speakto the audience of a group of, a very
large gathering of architects, right.

Yeah, like 15,000 architects.
Is is the, the number I heard.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Right. (01:04:02):
undefined
And, you know, and in the past,you know, there were some that were
highly questionable as like, you know,well, why are we listening to them?
And then there were some that, youknow, as you kind of remember from
the past, you're like, eh, why arewe gonna go listen to this guy?
And that turned out to be afantastic keynote speaker.
But I think these all, kind ofare very relevant to, what we do.

(01:04:24):
You know, giving like, a kind of alittle bit of a vision into the future
with, you know, the first keynotetalking about ai fantastic kind of
recognition of, you know, even beforethat fantastic recognition of, a lot
of people who are doing great, youknow, great work in the profession,
the recognition of the, you know, firmof the year, recognition of a lot of

(01:04:45):
like individuals who are, out there,

Gold medal.
Yeah, Deborah Burke.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Exactly. (01:04:51):
undefined
You know, doing great work.
And then, you know, so like all ofthat was in my opinion, it felt better
than it has in the past because I.
I don't know.
I mean, maybe it was the energywas definitely a lot different.
Like, so we went to like thefirst, one post COVID in Chicago

(01:05:13):
and it felt like we were just

That was not post COVID That was,

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: that was well (01:05:18):
undefined

that was I, I got COVID there.
Yeah.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: That was the, the first, first, first. (01:05:21):
undefined
And only time I got COVID was there.
Thank you architects.

Yeah.
Thanks architects.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: and and so, it, that was kind of like (01:05:28):
undefined
this, you know, it was such a weird vibethere anyway because everybody was just
worried about like, am I gonna get COD?
And yes was the answer in many cases.
But then, you know, and thenSan Francisco, you know, we go
there and it still felt so very.
I don't know if it was like, maybe this,the place, I mean what was great about

(01:05:51):
like being in San Francisco is it was likein the heart of the city and it was very
walkable and you know, we, like, I got mystep count in and then some, there, but I.
It didn't seem like it was so wellattended or that the the vendors were,
like there, there wasn't as many vendorsand even in DC last year, which I was

(01:06:12):
somewhat disappointed with, you know,being kind of like the semi, home.
Turf.
You know, this is where, you know, thatwas like where the, uh, the birth of,
of cus speak even, you know, began, wasat the orig, you know, the, the what,
13 years ago, you know, 14 years ago.
A i a convention in DC was, butit, it just didn't have the vibe.
And this one, you're absolutelyright, it was so much more electric.

(01:06:35):
They're, you know, a lot morevendor, a lot more vendors,

Mm.
Mm-hmm.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: A lot to engage with. (01:06:39):
undefined
The thing that I am, I, I amsomewhat disappointed with.
Is the way that they did the CEUs andall of like the the lectures because
whereas in the past, you know, you sortof had these you, you, you could sign
up for, for, different sessions andstuff and you would go there and, and

(01:06:59):
you actually were guaranteed a spot.
they did was they sort of had alot of like the, the vendor related
CEU type stuff out on the floor.
Which they, you know,they have in the past.
Sure.
But for some reason you know, if yousigned, you know, if you, like, you
didn't sign up for it per se, you actuallyjust, you know, you sort of showed up and

(01:07:19):
if there was space you could go there.
And if there wasn't space,you're like well too bad.
And I, it didn't feel like that wasas organized as it was in the past.
But still though the overallfeeling, the overall vibe of
the overall camaraderie about.
That was so much better.
A lot of walking on that floor.
It was a

Yeah.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: a, that was a big conference (01:07:38):
undefined
center that was completely filled.

It was great.
I thought that was great.
The energy was great.
There was the, the the engagementwith just the vendors who
were there was, was great.
It, it was just like, Hey, we're allhere to like learn and to get exposure
of what's going on in the industry.
And it actually feltlike, it just kind of.

(01:08:03):
Like matched up with the energyof like everybody was bringing
something positive to the situation.
And I don't know how to explain, like,that sounds super woo woo to me, but like
at the same time, that's what It, was.
It, it felt great.
I I, and, and it's like it is mentally andphysically draining to do these things.
I mean, how many people did youtalk to at, at the conference?

(01:08:26):
I mean.
Hundreds and hundreds of people.
I could, I, I would say athousand people is probably not
a thousand people, but it felt
like a
thousand people, like literal one-on-oneconversations with that many people.
And so it's taxing.
And at the same time, like I didn'tfeel like, oh, get me outta here.
Which I have felt before

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: I will say that there was a (01:08:46):
undefined
few times where I did feelthat way and, you know, as you

you you had to retreat.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Yeah. (01:08:51):
undefined
I had to retreat a few times and then getlooked at where, 'cause I, I went into
the ias, little area and I just found anice, comfortable seat to sit down in.
But apparently it was for likea, i a related like things.
I'm like, yeah, whatever.
I'm just

You're okay.
You're not allowed.
We don't.
We don't like your

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: well, well, somebody came up and (01:09:10):
undefined
they're like, you know, are you waitingto, um, you know, meet with someone?
And I'm like, Nope.
Just off my feet, and

Yeah.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: But then they kinda like glanced at the (01:09:18):
undefined
press pass and they just, I guess gaveme a pass on, the press pass thing.
So, and maybe that was, that was the,the key is to get yourself the little
golden, you know, the golden ticket.

I I was curious if, if the a i a kind of taking over running
the show, which I think happened inSan Francisco for the first time.
Uh, no, DC maybe it was DC lastyear that they did that for the
first time, was gonna change itsignificantly in a, in a bad way.
Um, because like it'shard to run events, right?
Like that, that's a, a thingthat's, it's not easy at all.

(01:09:53):
It's very difficult.
And I felt like this one,they actually got their feet
under them.

yeah.
Yeah.

That's how it felt to me.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: totally, I, you know, I definitely gotta (01:10:02):
undefined
applaud them that they did, the food, foodat the, uh, the event though, come on now.
You could have gotten somefood trucks or something out
on the, on the street because

There weren't that many options.
There weren't that many options.
They only did it for alimited amount of time.
I think that, that, that is avalid critique and it, it, it like
going outside of the conferencecenter to find something.
It was a walk, it was ahike to find something.

undefined
Now, you know, again, you know, hopefullythe development will engulf that whole
area and there will be more food choicesand stuff around there for future events
and things like that for other people.
But yeah, it was a, it was kindof a chore to like, if you didn't
like pack something in with you,it was kind of a chore, although.

(01:10:48):
You know, Anderson Windows gonna
give you a special shout outwith your nice little coffee.

Not a sponsor.
They
should

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: a sponsor. (01:10:54):
undefined
but man, um, Evan got sometwo, two, nice espresso,

Thanks to you.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: thermal mugs (01:11:01):
undefined

My wife was like, what?
We don't need those, andI'm like, these are so cool.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: and I gave up mine for her (01:11:08):
undefined

I know
she ungrateful.
Yeah.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Mean, geez. (01:11:14):
undefined

Well she hasn't gotten to actually use it yet,
so may maybe that'll change your
mind,

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: exactly. (01:11:19):
undefined
You, you need to, you know this, theweekend is coming and you should,

treat her.
I

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Treat her to some coffee (01:11:24):
undefined

well.
Let's, let's talk a little bitabout, about Evelyn's keynote.
So Evelyn, friend of the show, beenon the show, Evelyn Lee, president of
a i a this year, and I thought thather speech was absolutely fantastic.
I thought she did an amazing job.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: I, uh, um, I will say something and (01:11:42):
undefined
I don't know if you notice, but youknow, so I, while she was speaking,

I noticed that you, you were doing some, some
serious reporting as a pre,

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Well, no I actually texted her to tell (01:11:54):
undefined
her how good I thought you know, her.

Her speech.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: during her speech, I texted, because (01:12:02):
undefined
this was during her speech, but beforethe conversation with, with Pete.
And so, I, you know, I, I texted her andthe guy next to me was like, kind of like
glancing down and, like noticing thatI had, he's just like, you know, her.
I'm like, yeah,

She knows a lot of people to be

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: but she, but yeah, to be fair, (01:12:22):
undefined
she knows a lot of people.
But you know, I mean, fellowintroverts of the world unite right.

Yeah.
Right.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: but, uh, no, she did a fantastic job. (01:12:30):
undefined
It was one of those that in, I don'twanna say that in the past a lot
there's, you know, been both hitor miss with the President's speech

Like the delivery of

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: know, the delivery of that. (01:12:42):
undefined
And, you know, I think you know,Kimberly last year was, did a great
job for some reason this year, I thinkbecause of the electricity of the.
The conference itself, but then just, youknow, kinda like the way that she kinda
like, just, blended right into it andtalked about with passion, you know, the,
the vision, you know, for architectureand the profession and everything else.

(01:13:05):
Did you know, a fantastic joband, and I thought, it was great.
And then, you know, it kind of like ledinto obviously the next conversation
that she had with, the next keynote.
Which, so what did youthink of, of that keynote?

Oh, so she basically had a, a, a, a chat, a conversation
sitting, and this is like previous,you know, I think what Obama has
been part of this before, right?
Where they, they have these kindof one-on-one conversations,
so it feels unscripted.
It's a little bit scripted, obviously,all of the, the, the, the questions

(01:13:39):
have been kind of pre-vetted and, and

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Oh, I-L-I-L-I looked at like the, (01:13:41):
undefined
uh, the teleprompter that was likebehind us, up on the big screen,
and I'm like, you know it pre

it's all there.
It's all there.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: unscripted, script. (01:13:51):
undefined

Yeah.
But it's delivered verynaturally, much like this podcast.
Right.
But, but it, it's one of those, uh, itwas a great conversation and I thought
Pete Butch's, uh, is that how you say it?
Buttigieg Bute's

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Well. (01:14:05):
undefined

side of the, you know, his part of the conversation, you
know, being the question answerer.
I felt like it was superinspiring and it was, it was like.
It was really engaging for the audiencethat was there and kind of the, and you
know, his emphasis on infrastructure,transportation, things like that,
uh, that his platform has reallybeen built on over the years applies.

(01:14:30):
We lived it in Boston, right?
Like we lived kind of the, thestate of transportation and
infrastructure on, on many levels.
And kind of, you know, you,you see the direct need for.
The attention in those matters.
And, and I felt like just his weavingin his personal story with his twins and
his kids and just like the, the normalfamily life side of things and, and all

(01:14:55):
of that was like that personal side of itis, you know, what makes it land for all
of the people in the, in the audience.
So I felt like it was avery well done conversation

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: And it was a good conversation about (01:15:06):
undefined
how architects can influence anddrive infrastructural improvements.

At the policy level, right?
Like
I

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: the policy level. (01:15:18):
undefined

and I think that that really is, to me, kind of the call
to action for, for architects is.
Getting involved at the policy level, notjust the RFP, not just the project level.
Get, you know, getting involved in citycouncils and, and decisions early so that
the, these things happen and, and, andbringing an architect and the way that

(01:15:39):
architects rise to challenges and, andshow up with a different perspective than.
Anybody else at the table whenit comes to like our training
and, and how we go about problemsolving is a, is a, is a huge plus.
And so that's why it's a big takeawayfor me is like he's talking to the
right audience here to get involved.

(01:16:00):
You know, it, it is a huge sacrifice tobe able to take the time to do that, but
it, it really does help in immense ways.

undefined
What I hope changed for a few peoplethat I overheard when we were entering
into the hall, we were talking about whydo we really care about infrastructure?
And I don't, I, I didn't connect with thatcomment because I think a lot of our, you
know, like every bit of our work reallydoes kind of connect with, infrastructure

Beyond the what?
Yeah, go.
Go beyond the property line.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Exactly that I hope that, the conversation (01:16:33):
undefined
kind of helped to change their minds.
You know, it didn't sound like that,that there was a lot, I mean, there was a
lot of, you know, like, you know, reallykind of encouraged, pe people were,
seemed encouraged by the conversation.
So I kind of really that you know, thingschanged they changed their minds as well.

Yeah.
We skipped over the first day'skeynote because we love Evelyn, but um.
Ally Miller delivered the AIkeynote, and, and I think this was
one of those ones where it's like,do we really need to go to this?
And I'm glad we did because Ifelt like her message at that
time for that audience was super

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Mm-hmm. (01:17:14):
undefined

And on the big scale because she, she is so
good at delivering just like.
non-A speak non-technical, like, likethe, you know, obviously she's not
an architect, but she, she bringskind of a, a really conversational,
practical vision of the usefulness of.

(01:17:35):
AI and other emerging technologyto an audience that is constantly
slow to adopt new technologies andor unable to see the application
of technologies in their practice.
And she gave some great examples, likejust literally great examples that I
hope really got people's gears turning.
And, and it it made me want to startto use kind of the AI coding stuff to

(01:17:58):
build my own applications to do stuff.
'cause she gave some great examples about.
About that.
Like even just for kids developing atoothbrush toothbrushing app with a, a
timer and a reminder and, and I thoughtlike, well, it, it's just like super
simple example, but it shows you kind oflike how things are literally changing
underneath us at a foundational level whenit comes to what the tools are that we're

(01:18:20):
gonna use to deliver projects, and thenhow we could apply that to our practices.

undefined
So one of the things that always amazesme about people in the conversation
about ai, especially a well architectsin the conversation about AI is yeah,
yeah, but what does that mean for us?
What does that mean for the profession?
And so, not only did we have thatkeynote, but then when you went
out onto the floor and you got tosee people in how they're applying.

(01:18:47):
AI as an, you know, as a tool toassist architects and planners
and, you know, jurisdictions andall of that other stuff, and it.
It really kind of showed that, as wealways say, the genie's outta the bottle.
AI's coming whether we like itor not, but now here is exactly
how you can actually use it.
So it was a good tie into, you know,not only that first keynote, but then

(01:19:09):
when you went out onto the floor andyou could actually see how it's actually
being practically used as a way.
At, for what you know, is accessibleto architects AI in the software,
you know, like the, just theproduction software that we use.
But then, you know, this, this wholekind of expansion of, other softwares
that are using it that you know can help.

(01:19:31):
Streamline.
And, you know, as we were talking aboutwith Arco you know, how you can use
all of these different productivitytools with AI to kind of help assist in
like the mundane kind of things that,you know, we, we wanna do differently.
And I think we were sort of blown awayby the capabilities of, uh, what was it?
Astar.

Astar.
Yeah, I was gonna say shout out to Astar.
Yeah.
Small booth.
Big idea.
Yeah.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: Oh, absolutely. (01:19:56):
undefined
And it was just, you know, fantasticthe way that they're, you know,
implementing things and helping thingsfrom, the a HJ side of things that,
you know, we, and then, how it's beingused and implemented in things like,
you know, up codes and stuff like that,and how that's directly helping us.
And then like, you know, interesting.
To like you, it was, it was kindof good to see like you kinda like

(01:20:19):
suffering around saying who you guys,you know, like going from one booth
and saying, you guys need to go talk tolike these guys and these guys need to
go talk to those guys and, and stuff.
And like you were like makingintroductions and to other
things that could benefit fromeach other as well as, you know.
How can architects use it, buthow can those particular, like
tech developers use each other tokind of improve their own stuff?

(01:20:42):
Which I thought was kind of cool.

Yeah, people don't know what they, people don't
know what they don't know.
And so when everybody knows what it'slike to be like in your lane and,
and like heads down and like go, go,go on the things that you're doing,
whether that's developing software ordelivering projects, and so as somebody
who can kind of sit back and see.
Where these connections need to be madebecause yeah, like chances are they don't

(01:21:07):
know about this startup that's doingthis thing or this as an architect, like
this tool that accomplishes this goal.
And so I love kind of makingthose connections with people.
Yeah.

undefined
That was cool.

Awesome.
Well, I think, uh, weneed to wrap this one up.
You have a meeting to get to but we willcontinue this conversation in our next
episode and do some deeper dives into theprojects that we got to visit, which, uh,

undefined

can't wait.
It's gonna be great.

undefined
This is when I get to nerd.
Seriously.
Out.

Yes, definitely.
All right, man, so seey'all in the next one.

riverside_cormac_phalen_raw-synced-video-cfr_archispeak_0253: All right. (01:21:43):
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#374 - 2025 Summer of Architecture, Part 1

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#374 - 2025 Summer of Architecture, Part 1