Behind the Build: Janna Levitt - LGA Architectural Partners - Behind the Build

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome to Behind the Build. I'm your host, Jonathan Jacobs,
and today I have with me, I'm going to call her a trailblazer,
highly respected and reputable individual who has been
practicing for more than a decade.
I have with me today Jenna Levitt from LGA Architectural
Partners. Jenna, thanks for joining.

(00:39):
My pleasure to be here. So I had reached out to Janna
both she was on my radar to to connect with, but also I've had
people that have said they wouldlove to hear Janice story and
have her tell it. So Jana, I would ask if you're
so kind as to go into the time portal and talk about you as a

(01:01):
child and what it looked like for you and what ultimately kind
of led you down the path to becoming an architect and
helping shape. I know a lot of other people's
careers. And so if you wouldn't mind, let
let me and let everyone else know what what really?
Sparked. Sparked your interest in getting
into the field. OK.
Well, if I go really far back into the portal, I would say

(01:25):
generally my interest was in thearts and in creative endeavors
from very early on. And I would say that's because
of primarily my mother. She was a master Potter ceramic
artist who when there was the federal government, about 5
minutes, had a program that was based on the Japanese program

(01:49):
for national treasures. And my mother was a national
treasurer in ceramics. And because we lived in a big
house and most ceramic artists that my mother was friends with
and and knew around the world didn't have a lot of money, our
house became like the rooming house for, for ceramic artists
and then any kind of artist who was in town for whatever reason.

(02:12):
And so we were always sitting around the dining table or the
kitchen nook with interesting people from all around the
world. And how did they find her?
As you know, it was very small community and so if you were
like a ceramic artist, it was even a smaller community.
But they showed people who had, you know, they would bring

(02:34):
people in for talks. And she learned actually it was
interesting. She learned pottery, which was
what it was called then at the Jewish Wyatt called at Spadina
and Bloor. And this is all in Toronto.
Is all in Toronto. She's my family's from Montreal
originally and then they moved to Toronto and so that was the
first place that she took pottery and her her teacher was

(02:57):
a woman named Chris who had beenin the internment camps during
the war out West. She was a Japanese Canadian wow
from BC, and so through there she started to meet Japanese
Potters. And then we had a lot of
Japanese Potters come and stay with us and they would have
workshops. And then my mother and my father

(03:19):
as well were really interested, learn to really love Indigenous
artists work. And so they were early
collectors and supporters of Norval Morrisseau and Carl Beam
and what was then called the Woodland artists, Woodland
Indian artists. And they were all the ones that
came from Northern Ontario around Manitoulin Island.

(03:43):
And it's an Angus Trudeau, another one.
And so again, they, those folks were always in our house.
They were always kind of for dinner.
There were always crazy dinner parties, very wild, many alcohol
fueled and moments in in there. And, and so it was just a great,

(04:03):
really great place to grow up and, and not a lot of rules
about what and wasn't creative and what, and wasn't art.
So I actually ended up going andI had, I grew up, I have a big
family and I had, my father had two brothers and all three
brothers lived about two blocks from each other.

(04:24):
And so there were a lot of us and two of my older cousins were
architects. And you know, is that a point?
I, I'm really at the young end of it and they were at the older
end was like, I don't want to dowhat they're doing.
Like I want to straighten out onmy.
Own and do something for myself.So I ended up, because I loved
arts and art from the beginning,I ended up going to art school

(04:47):
and I did that for a couple of years.
And I found that as much as I loved art, I didn't love being
holed up in the studio. I really loved arts that put you
in the centre of very active andexternalized contacts and that

(05:09):
you could make things in relation to that.
And when I was in art school, itwas a very political time for
art. So lots of installations been
happening. So lot of quoting social
scientists and philosophers because I hadn't studied that, I
didn't know what people were talking about.
So I ended up going to UFT and Istudied political science in

(05:31):
cinema studies, which seems likean odd thing but it was actually
very related to each other so. It's all because it's all
related to like the the space that you're in and the
connectivity to it all. Yeah.
And, and just like, how do you communicate ideas, like through
images? Yeah.
So I did that. And then I decided, OK, I really
do love architecture and I really do want to go to

(05:53):
architecture school. And my father said, you'll never
make a living. And I thought, well, I'm going
to prove him wrong. And my two older cousins, at
that point, I just thought, well, they're employed, I guess
they're making a living. Turns out my father was sort of
right. If I think about how many hours
I work compared to my brothers who are lawyers, and how much

(06:14):
hours they work and what their annual compensation is compared
to mine, I think my dad was right.
But he wasn't right because I managed to do OK.
And so I went to architecture school at UT and I was there in
the bachelor program. That's all there was at that
point. Time when the when the bachelor
program was a five year. Prior year program, Yeah, yeah.

(06:35):
And I got, for all, you know, I had a degree, but I got, I think
I got 2 credits. So I was there for five years
and I think I got, you know, I could take 2 less classes.
And to this day, if I'm super stressed out, I have a nightmare
that I don't really have my degree.
That sounds stressful. Architecture school was, but I
think I don't really have my degree because I didn't take
this one class. And I wake up in this total

(06:57):
panic that I've been faking it all these years.
So, so if you're in school rightnow and you're listening to
this, you have to know that thatmight never leave.
You, it never leaves you it it just never does that.
It's one of things, you know, wealways joke, joke about with,
you know, friends and colleagues.
Yeah. So then, and I was at UT at a

(07:17):
very troubled time. It was the transition from a
point when Peter Pragnell and a couple of other professors were
getting sort of pushed aside fora newer group of people.
I think I benefited. I was lucky because I benefited
from 2. Very almost polar opposite of

(07:38):
perspectives on architecture. It was hard to be in a place
where you could see the good in both approaches.
But I did and I think I really benefited from that.
And but at the same time, which leads all the nightmares.
It was not, you know, it was a achallenging time and a
challenging time if you were a young woman because there were

(07:59):
not a lot of women. It was not a friend, a friendly
profession for, for women. And there was still a lot of
like, bro culture still and a lot of sexual harassment,
Although we, you know, we just. Didn't know you didn't know that
that's what it was called. Yeah, yeah.
So we would do things like, you know, some professor was trying

(08:21):
to hit on someone, you know, in our studio.
Like, we just would always make sure that there were a couple of
us around. Yeah.
Things like that. So.
And yeah. And again, is exactly what you
said when no one knew that you could actually do something
about it. You just toughed it out and
supported each other. But so, yeah, so I did that.

(08:42):
And then I started to work. And when I was in school, I met
my future business and life partner, Dean Goodman.
He was in fifth year when I was in second year.
And we both felt like for very different reasons, that what we
had experienced so far in architecture school was very
conservative in many ways. That there was a lot of even

(09:03):
like the two very polar, the twobinary perspectives on
architecture. Both of them were similar in
that they both had rules about what was and wasn't
architecture. And I think from my Fine Arts
background, I didn't really feellike there were any rules.
I felt like it was all open and that what you needed to do was

(09:24):
to define what your own interests were and how you could
participate in architecture based on that.
And that the kind of conservative perspective,
there's important work and not important work.
Some people say capital A architecture, not capital A lots
of ways to describe it, but but,but there was a real pecking

(09:45):
order. This just didn't really interest
me. And so we just decided, well,
we're he went off to get work and I went, you know, I was in
school and then I went off to get work.
And by that, at that point, we just said we're just going to
have to start our own practice because we couldn't find
anywhere that we could find a home in the city at that point
that was doing the kind of work that we were interested in.

(10:08):
I want to ask a question about when you were in school, given
what you just described. Were there an are there other
practitioners now that you went to school with that you still
maintain a strong relationship with that were a part of that
kind of core unit of support through the course of of
university? There are probably a small

(10:31):
handful that that between the two of us were still very good
friends with who do you know wide range of things all in
architecture. Well, actually, I shouldn't say
that 2 are not in our three are not in architecture.
And I would say that they all have felt more or less the same
way and and although they're participating in architecture or

(10:51):
urban design, have forged their own careers, didn't follow
conventional paths or necessarily conventional paths.
So it sounds like that you were able to support each other
enough through that time to be able to have the momentum and
confidence to be able to go out.And absolutely like I, I think.
Take it by the reins. The practice of being in a

(11:12):
studio, you know, I know from mymany years of teaching that
studio culture sort of goes up and down in schools.
And I know all architecture schools are under a lot of
pressure financially because thestudio program is really
expensive per square foot. Like you have a one student and
a lot of square footage. So there's a lot of pressure.

(11:33):
But I would say, you know, what made me stick with it was the
fact that I had a good network of friends.
And also, I don't know if they do it now, but when I was in
school, they would always like partner you up with an older
student. So you immediately from day one
had someone to ask questions. And that that's really
important. Yeah.

(11:54):
You need to pull a shoot on something.
You have someone there to help with the softer landing.
Absolutely. And whether it's, you know, I
don't know, like I was too afraid to ask my professor, you
know, how do you draw a section?And actually, what is a section?
Because those things don't actually get explained.

(12:14):
Yeah, it's really funny. And so there was always
something you could, you know, you didn't have to be worried
about asking those kinds of. Questions.
It's interesting because you know, all of the people that
I've spoken to so far, no one has ever mentioned the buddy
system before. First I've heard of it.
I, you know, I've heard of call programs and I've heard of
fantastic professors and I've heard of an interesting lectures

(12:35):
on other other topics, but neverof this.
It's almost a a lost art to whatschool dynamics can be like if
because from I guess from my knowledge it doesn't.
Exist. That's too bad.
I could be wrong. I'm happy.
If you're listening to this and you know about the program that
exists, please let me know. You can e-mail me.

(12:57):
Gucci anymore, you know, might have even died when I was there.
And I taught at Waterloo for many years.
Yeah, it didn't exist there either.
Although what they had there, which was similar, was they
would hire students from the older years to be TA's.
And so that essentially became akind of buddy system.
So you had a more collegial relationship with those?

(13:19):
Well, they were. They were closer to you than
they were to the practitioner. At their.
Studio. Yeah, Yeah.
OK. So then you said it was you and
Dean and decided that you wantedto go and formulate your own
practice. And did you, when that decision
was made, you were already, you have been living together and,
and So what did it look like? Cause at that point, now you

(13:41):
have time, right, to be able to in some ways plan what you want
to do potentially. I've spoken to many people and
they're like, I had no business plan.
You just knew that we had to change it.
Did you create a business plan? No.
We didn't have a business plan for many, many years.
And I would say it's one of the changes I find younger
colleagues, yeah, are much more business savvy and good.

(14:04):
Good on them. You know, like we had just
absolutely no idea. We knew what we didn't want to
do, but everything was focused on the work.
That's all that really mattered.So what?
What did you know that you didn't want to do?
Well, we knew that we didn't want to do the kind of
architecture where you had no impact like that.

(14:26):
What you were doing didn't have some kind of impact on the city
and on people. So we were very interested in
the things we ended up doing, libraries, schools.
Dean particularly was interestedin housing at that point.
And I became very interested in housing.

(14:47):
And we were really interested, you know, in conceptually in
certain kinds of work that was becoming like they were new
typology. So for instance, one of our
first jobs when we formed our own partnership was a very
innovative shelter for a housingprovider called Homes 1st.

(15:08):
And it became what what was called Drawn House.
And they had run a similar thinga couple years ago.
And it came at a point it, this was in the early 90s and they
had done one in the late 80s when it was the first round of
really like a lot of homeless people.
And so the city thought, well, we better, you know, I don't
know, make a shelter. And so homes versus housing

(15:32):
provider decided to really focuson that.
And they actually thought that their that Homes First would be
a short term kind of housing provider, that homelessness
would be gone by the early 90s, that it was just this kind of
freak occurrence because of session.
Yeah. And so by the mid 90s when we

(15:55):
were hired by Homes First, homelessness had gotten even
worse. They had become much more adept
at identifying issues regarding how do you house homeless
people. And so they had this idea about
this very, very innovative shelter that a combined men and
women, which had never been donebefore be allowed people to stay

(16:19):
longer term, which had never been done before and became a
kind of self governing model. And so they wanted to hire
someone who was who would work with them, who understood that
our client was not necessarily homes first, but the people we
were designing the housing force.

(16:41):
We, we spent six months just talking to people under bridges
and it drop Inns and just tryingto figure out what the problems
were and what they were looking for in housing Like why, why
wouldn't they stay housed? What would stop you from, you
know, it's like, I don't know, look outside today there's snow

(17:01):
up to your waist. What would make you stay outside
then go in somewhere. And to me and to Dean, those
were incredibly important and creatively stimulating
architectural. Issues.
And and how you translate that. And the, and the client also
didn't want the overlay. So they were very forward

(17:23):
thinking and they said, well, you know, you can't have master
bedrooms. You can't.
So they wanted to develop a new,a whole new nomenclature for all
of the rooms. And you know, and there were
things that they shared. They said, you know, we, we've
gained a lot of experience. And so one thing we've noticed
is you can't have just one door into a room unless it's a

(17:43):
bedroom. Every other space you got to
have two ways in and out. And why?
Because if someone felt at risk,they someone else couldn't
territorialized the one way in or out.
And they said, you know, that's really important because on an
unconscious level we think our clients will pick up on that and

(18:04):
feel better. And also it would help us
formulate a new approach to staffing that was not about
policing. Because if we could build enough
safeguards in, maybe we didn't need to have the same kind of
staff client relationship because some things would look

(18:25):
after themselves right and so. That's a really interesting
approach to. This Yeah, it was very
interesting, very innovative. And so when and there were a lot
of things that we determined were really necessary as ways to
keep people feeling safe and interested in staying indoors.
And so one thing which I've has stuck to me to this day is a lot

(18:48):
of people and it doesn't take very long and it's worse for
women than men. Don't feel after sleeping rough
for even a couple months. Actually, it takes an A big
physical adjustment, like a psychic adjustment living
inside. And so we figured out what
we're, you know, maybe, you know, so he said to the client,

(19:11):
you know, maybe the bedrooms like the end goal, maybe they
have to sleep in different places in the building to kind
of acclimatize. And they're like, oh, that's
kind of interesting. Like, yeah, sure, let's try it
out. So, you know, we built a lot of
places that were almost like little nooks.
And we thought, Oh, well, you know, you can program it like a

(19:33):
whole bunch of things, but if someone wants to just move their
stuff into their room because that was a kind of
administrative thing. Like if the room was filled, you
got your shelter pay. Yeah, but you might sleep in a
little nook off of, I don't know.
Yeah, the main door or something.
And so that, that was really interesting.

(19:54):
And so we did that and we did things like it was very
interesting architecturally because we talked a lot of folks
about like what did what was home.
And it became this kind of very kind of stream of consciousness
admixture of things like home was like having a a bathroom
where you could lock the door and have a bath or are bright

(20:16):
like not P lamb. Operate arborite counters and,
and we had always said, OK, we're going to have stainless
steel counters. It's bulletproof, you can wipe
it down. No, no, because actually for
them that's institutional and we're trying to tell them no,
this is a home. So you start to read all these
architectural signals like it's like a semiotics, you know, of

(20:38):
architecture from a very specific perspective.
I think will you, will you spokeabout the entire time you're
talking about this right now on I think to myself is about you
in university, your group of friends and the possibility and
the likelihood, as you described, of feeling powerless

(21:01):
to some of the male professors or even students and the
inability to be able to have a safe exit from that scenario.
And how cyclical this is To thenbe able to provide people that
don't have that in their currentcircumstance, the safety net of

(21:22):
being able to exit from a situation they're not
comfortable with. And what a powerful way to start
off your career. Yeah, it is true.
It's very true. And those are also things that
now, you know, schools that are based on that kind of except for
a classroom that which is sort of like a.
Bedroom, but it has to be for safety.
Purposes for safety. Purposes.
It's the opposite. It's the opposite of those

(21:44):
shared spaces. Yeah, yeah.
So it's really interesting. So really a great introduction.
We developed and it was in an old like the way we had to
design it, you could not do it and call it residential from a
building code perspective. So which had been really, and it

(22:04):
was very unusual for the time wehired our fire and life safety
consult. We said we got a real problem
here because we, we have, it wasa three story warehouse and
there were houses of 6 to 8 people in the, in the house, but
it was, you know, part of this floor plate.
And then there was a really ambling circulation system.
There are two vertical, really beautiful vertical stair systems

(22:27):
and then a horizontal, A corridor.
But it was very wide because. Yeah, for a lot of reasons.
Yeah. And we said so we said to me,
you know, we have this really challenging issue because we
have these group clusters of housing or groups of houses
connected by a corridor, but we can have any doors from the

(22:51):
corridor to these houses. All has to be open.
And this corridor is really large, very wide.
So. And we have two open vertical
circulation spaces that we can'thave doors around because you
need to be able to hear things and see things.
And so he was so great and he worked with us.

(23:11):
We ended up going in and, and wecalled it a hospital.
He said, I really, I thought this through.
This is really challenging. The way to get this through is
to call it a hospital because hospital you can do all these
things and it was a really earlylesson for us and how you can.
Use and. Use zoning and building code and

(23:32):
IT fire and life safety consultant to help you get
around. Really silly, you know.
Constraints. I was gonna say boundaries.
That's what you referred to before that you didn't want to
have boundaries in school. So, yeah, yeah.
Hmm, So that was really interesting.
And you know, like another example, we did something for

(23:53):
many years later for on college called for an organization
called native child and Family Services and they were I really
think they are a fantastic indigenous organization that
works all over the city and theyhave some housing, but mostly
services service providers from daycares to education classes.

(24:14):
So there are consolidating all of their admin and they had also
just recently been successful atpetitioning the government after
many years of petitioning for their own child CSS so that
Aboriginal CS. So they needed a new, they
bought a building on College Street and we renovated the

(24:35):
whole thing for them to use for admin.
And the ground floor was this kind of welcoming multivalent
program space for the indigenouscommunity.
And then the roof. We planted a native garden, a
native plant garden with the three sisters and a teaching
garden and medicine garden. And we had a because they didn't

(24:56):
have any landing grade. We had a sweat lodge up on the
roof and we could not get a permit for the sweat lodge.
And we just got stopped all across the way.
And they wanted us, you know, and the temperatures and sweat
lodge up to like 120°. And the fire departments, they
wanted us to have like an exit sign.
And we're like, no, you don't understand.

(25:16):
Like not only will that not work, it'll melt.
And so we, we finally, we just said, OK, this is a place of
worship. And if you tell them that they
can't have our client, that theycan't have their place of
worship and it needs to be outside, then it's a human
rights issue. And they're like, oh, OK, And

(25:42):
then so we got it. Yeah.
Where Janice spoke to through Strong House Native Child and
Family Services in her own infill home is this design
doesn't stop at the exterior. Wall.
What happens inside, how is space feels, how it functions,

(26:03):
how it supports the people who use it, matters just as much.
That's where Sound Solutions comes in.
They provide interior acoustic products that reduce
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restaurants. Places where people gather,

(26:23):
think, and connect. Sound is part of the design, but
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Sound solutions bring options like PET felt panels and fabric
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metal, all flame rated and visually considered.

(26:46):
It's not just about noise reduction.
It's about protecting focus, supporting communication, and
helping people feel comfortable in the spaces we ask them to
learn, work, and live in. Because design doesn't end at
the envelope. If you want to learn more about
sound solutions, feel free to e-mail me.

(27:08):
It's Jonathan. Jonathan at waldenhomes.ca.
So, but so it taught us like from our first job that from
Strawn House that there's a lot of creative thinking to get
around things that are just, youknow, they're outdated.
And also, you know, the power ofhaving the right consultants

(27:31):
involved in a project can make or break a project.
Absolutely right. And you cannot.
I'm saying you as in like you asthe architect cannot be expected
to have to look after all of this and know it all.
It's too hard. It's just too hard.
There's too much information to be able to to know it all.
So drawing on the right people and having those resources

(27:51):
available is one of the main reasons why clients will seek
you out. So what to me is already so
interesting about what we've discussed and it's just a short
period of time, is how you have taken what you talked about in
the beginning as the foundation and, and the groundwork of what
your life was and what you grew up with and just kind of ran
with that into your professionalcareer to, to have the sweat

(28:13):
lodge. You know, I'm looking behind you
now. I'm looking at the aboriginal
artwork behind you. So the the just this, this
ability to be able to take what you're passionate about from
architectural standpoint and nowfind these projects with people
where you can talk to your experience as a got to be a
pretty fulfilling thing to be able to, to participate in.

(28:36):
Hmm, no, it is and it is, you know, those and those are the
that's the kind of architecture that, you know, we both really
gravitated to that it it wasn't necessarily so another example
is like just out of saying, you know, the house we're sitting in
is is A5 unit condo. We'd always wanted to do
scientists and no one would let us know how to do it.

(28:59):
So we did it ourselves. Before that.
The first thing we did on in that way was we had always
wanted to build a mid block demonstration.
Like just like this is a demonstration of intensifying a
single family lot, that was a demonstration of how can you
build a really great, very modest scaled house that has

(29:21):
flexibility to move from one to two family very easily.
So like what is really when people say, oh, this is so
flexible. What does that actually mean
architecturally? And in some ways it was always
like, you know, oh, I love warehouse spaces.
They're so flexible, they're so open.
So it's like, well, what is it about that that makes it so

(29:43):
flexible and open? Is it the fact that it was all
wood so you could change things like so get really at the heart
of that. So you always wanted to do that.
And because the, the, we were always very interested in, in
environmental and sustainable initiative that we, we felt like
we worked with sustainability professor at Waterloo.

(30:05):
And we identified that like the average middle class house
before the war was about 1500 square feet above grade.
And it was only after the war, you know, with cheap energy that
things could, you know, get to be pretty bloated.
And, you know, so he said, OK, so we're going to build a 1500
square foot house. We're going to demonstrate that
through good design, you it can feel really as good, if not

(30:30):
better than a house three times that size.
And we also wanted to plant the roof so that we could have like
a 0 lot coverage because it was at a point when stormwater
management was just starting to come in and you were getting all
these really ugly landscapes to deal with storm water
management. So if you didn't separate the

(30:51):
house in your site, you could actually think about it as one
ecology and they could work together.
So on Euclid we bought at like it was an old workers cottage.
You can say the thing and built this two family house.
We lived in it, our family livedin the whole thing.
And then when our kids moved away, we made it into two family

(31:14):
literally over weekend and all the all the roots were planted.
Sounds like a very dirty weekend.
Oh, yeah, it was, it was. And it it required, you know,
ordering the kitchen cabinets before, but everything was
plumbed and ready. Yeah, of course.
And. Just think about the drywall

(31:34):
dust and and then what would have been like at the end of
that day, the the to take that shower, that shower and how good
that shower felt. Yeah, really good and there.
Yeah. So again, it was really
interesting because it was more about the space and people not

(31:55):
really going like, I can't believe this is such a small
space really. It's actually not a small space,
but it's what design can make. And it was mid block.
We really wanted that one to be mid block because we could show
how, you know, you could work a section so you could get light
into the centre of the space andthat you could get really great
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(33:33):
connect you directly with them. And how the, the green roofs
with the sprinkler system actually reduce the temperature
a couple of degrees like so you could actually just model all
that stuff. So again, it was the same to me,
it's the same trajectory of saying I've got this really
architecturally. There's these issues I want to

(33:55):
work on and how do you make something really interesting
like that? That's not just about itself,
but actually makes, pushes the conversation forward just like
this is pushing the conversationforward.
And so, and, you know, from a business perspective, that was
really when we did the house on Euclid.
That was really our ability thenit was like the best business

(34:18):
card we could ever have. Because people like, I can't
believe you fit all this in here.
You know, I'd like you to work with us and do that.
And, you know, that just kind ofgrew.
And what, what I, what I realized that was really
interesting is I don't know if you get it in your business, but
in mine, you know, you get phonecalls from people and after
about 5 minutes, I say, well, have you looked at our website?

(34:42):
Because I don't think what you want is really what we do.
And honestly, you know, if I could think of someone to
recommend you to, I would do that.
And sometimes I do. But because of that project and
now this project, it kind of self sorts people like anyone
who comes to they know what you're about and they're

(35:03):
interested in how you think and how you design.
Yeah, I, I mean, I could tell you because I bet all of our
clientele and the one on the phone with them and I can, one
of the first questions I ask is how did you come to us and what
do you know about us, right. Because if you're not doing that
and they haven't done any of that research, well then are

(35:24):
they really the right people? Because I mean, really you want,
you want people to know that know what they want in some way
or they can get there through that conversation, but they've
at least done some some level ofresearch.
Yeah, I think we, I've learned the hard way that, you know, a
client can be really tough and really challenging, but if I

(35:48):
don't actually understand them, it's not a good relationship.
Like it's not going to work out well.
And it's not, it's not a judgment thing like, you know,
you can do what you want to do. Yeah, there's someone for
everyone, right? There is.
And you can see it in the relationships with people that
are that are partners. And you can see it in in
business partnerships, there's generally someone out there for

(36:11):
everyone. So we might not be the right
fit, but you can go find the other person.
Absolutely, Absolutely. Yeah.
So you, you talked about some ofthese projects and were like
really, really riveting, interesting projects that have
fulfill such a need. When you when you opened the
practice and you said that you didn't have a business plan and

(36:34):
it was the two of you, you landed some of these projects.
How did you see the business grow organically without having
had the plan? Was it the was it the lead in of
some of these projects that allowed you and afforded you the
opportunity to meet other people?
Where you going after RFP's? How did you work on developing

(36:54):
projects? It was a combination.
So we learned about RFP's and weso we thought, Oh well, we'll
have to do RFP's because I don'teven know how strong House came
to us that it must have been an RFP.
And did you have the opportunityto work on RFP's when you were
in university? How did you learn to fulfill the

(37:15):
RFP requirements? By failing.
And I wanted, I wanted you to say it.
Oh yeah. OK, so again, I'm gonna I'm
gonna say this. If you're listening to this and
your student or your young architect, you got to know that
you were going to fail more times and you're going.
To succeed turn by the failures in that, especially in that

(37:38):
sense, like every every colleague and friend I have.
It's like if I say, OK, tell me about the one RFP that you
you've missed by a minute, you know, and everybody has that
story and everybody has a story where they forgot to, yeah, I
don't know, stamp the RFP or whatever like this.
Just the ones that you wake up sweating in the middle of the

(37:58):
night going shit that's three weeks for nothing.
I forgot that and it why it comes then I don't know but.
Because you were so in it, right?
You're like, you're like a horsewith blinders on trying to move
through the documentation to getto the submission date.
Yeah. I mean, like, we, we deal with
it on the completion of projectsand you know what that looks

(38:21):
like? Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah. So tough.
So how far into the practice, how many years into the practice
were you, or months into the practice were you when you
established that it was? It was beyond just the two of
you to be able to fulfill the requirements of the projects you
had on the boards. Along probably a year or two
after we started, we had one or two people working with us, but

(38:43):
it was very cyclical. We'd hire them for like a
contract gig and then they'd leave.
And a certain point, we had strong housing, another project
coming out and it was the first time I actually articulated OHT,
no, these projects are coming out and then what do we do?

(39:03):
1. Like, what do we do?
And, Gee, I like the people working with us and be really
great to have them stay, but I don't know how we gonna make a
commitment. And so we actually hired a woman
she'd taken out and add an Azuremagazine, something like Joanna
Hoffman, and it was about business development.

(39:25):
I didn't even know what those words meant, but it's somehow
aligned with my light bulb goingoff that everything could fall
apart really quickly after feeling like, really chuffed
that we had work and people working for us out.
Yeah, exactly. So, so we hired her and she
basically gave us a crash coursein how to run a business and how

(39:48):
do you do business development? Like how do you follow a lead?
Who do you call? How do you do an RFP?
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(40:10):
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(40:33):
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(40:56):
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free to e-mail me at jonathan@waldenholmes.ca.
That's Jonathan at waldenhomes.ca.

(41:21):
So we were doing an RFP with another architecture firm for a
community centre and she kind ofcoached us through that.
So we learned a lot through doing that.
And you know, in those days it was a Rolodex and she was like,
what? You don't have a Rolodex?
So we got a Rolodex and we figured out how to use it.

(41:41):
And I. Have to explain to anyone
listening OK if you're born post1990, maybe you you probably
don't know what the term Rolodexmeans.
You might have heard it in movies or seen it in in other
things, maybe not. But it is essentially a card
that has a cut out on the bottom2 separate cutouts and it sits

(42:05):
into a housing and on both sidesof the dial you can rotate the
dials and on each of these cards, depending on how the size
of it or depending on how many people you had, you could have
numbers for people. It's like almost like their
business card in some way or dude, this was your cell phone

(42:27):
book, your personalized telephone book.
You would rotate it and you would have all the contact
information for people on top ofthese cards.
That's what a Rolodex is. Apologize for the long winded
explanation, but so you can imagine.
And it was all alphabetized. So you would write, you would
rotate it to find your contacts.This is not.

(42:48):
Open your phone and say call so and so and if the card went
missing the contact was gone. Totally gone.
There were no computers. Never now and again.
They would fall off and they'd be in the bottom of the Rolodex.
That's right, Go ahead. I apologize for the.
That's so great anyway, so that that's how we and then we just

(43:09):
went from there, you know, we just grew and we enjoyed it.
You know, there was never and there still isn't any desire to
be a certain size. That was just never a
motivation. But we enjoy a certain scale of
work and what we start to understand is you can't get to
that skilled work unless you have a certain size office.

(43:29):
So that became a motivation, youknow, in a way to do that that
wasn't just about like, you know, those really boring
conversations you have like, oh,so I hope it's your office.
Like I, you know, I just couldn't care less like about
that part. Of it, it was more so about the.
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(45:00):
tell you what it's like working with them and connecting you
with them. And so, you know, it's just like
for everyone out there is starting out, you just you pick
up so much along the way. And if you have colleagues that
you can talk. To.
You know, and share information with it's really, it's really
helpful. So we had we had some colleagues

(45:20):
that we could share information with and talk to and that was
that was super helpful. What did it look like?
A couple years in, in terms of types of projects that you had
because you've referenced a few of them.
And so, So what, what did that, what does it look like?
Was it you, were you able to take on, would it be 10 projects

(45:41):
or less or more? What?
What? What was it like?
We probably had like after five years, we probably had six
people. We could have 5 or 6 projects
going on at a time and then fiveyears later it was maybe 12
people. Then 2025, thirty.
We grew very gradually and we'vewe've held around 3540 for the

(46:04):
last 10 years. So it seems to be a sweet spot
for us. Because I have this conversation
with so many people, do you everhave the point and I'm assuming,
well, actually I won't say my assumption.
Do you get to a point in a year where you where you can
sometimes panic that you have, I've got this group of people
that I'm feeding and I've got tomake sure that we can continue

(46:24):
with our sales. Does that.
Does that. Oh, 100%.
All the time. That doesn't ever leave.
It's a terrifying thing. When COVID hit, it was a very
terrifying thing. Right.
Again, I say this because peoplecan look at a portfolio of work
and they can say, wow, like thisis incredible.
And one of the main reasons why we wanted to engage in this type

(46:46):
of a dialogue with with our partners was because of this.
Like this is the human side of what it is to run the business.
And so there's the glory in being able to design it and see
it and watch it come to fruition.
But there's the other side of itwhere you know if you're, if
you're an intern architect or you're a junior or you're
intermediate or your senior architect and you're kind of

(47:07):
working your way up the chain, you don't yet have the fear,
right? That comes with the ownership.
And when the insurance company calls and says, by the way,
there's nothing we can do, but the rates are going up on your
policy, not because of over claiming or anything like that,
just because of the nature of the business.

(47:29):
And now your policy is gonna cost you $35,000 more a year or
$50,000 more a year, right? The juniors don't think of that.
They don't know that. And so I just want to make sure
that people are aware that thereis the associated feeling of
ownership. And it's very, so one thing that

(47:50):
we've done that's very unusual and it's part of what self sorts
who ends up staying with us is for us, you know, partly because
we actually need and always needed to make a living.
Like we couldn't, we didn't haveother independent resources.
And also we really felt that oneof the main, I would say,

(48:12):
criticisms we had of architecture as a business and
as a culture was the fact that there was this idea, like it was
a calling, it wasn't a business.And that you know what, we're
hours when you were doing something, you know, that was
part of your calling. And we were like, look, we are
as passionate as anybody else about what we do, but we

(48:34):
actually have to make a living and this is actually a business.
And so we very early on would, we had project budgets and the,
the most junior person and the most senior person, everyone
wants a week would meet about the project budget and we would
have the project manager fill inthe project budget.

(48:55):
And there was accountability. And that was a number of things.
It was partly this is a businesslike we learned the hard way and
we all rely on everyone contributing it, you know, like
it's everyone, all architecture is only about people's hours.
And so everyone contributes to that being successful or not

(49:18):
successful. And we, you know, we pay
overtime and, and, and that's, I'm not saying like, oh, we're
so great, we pay overtime, but we just have a lot of hours,
even more than firms that don't pay overtime.
It's the only way you can managethat is to actually educate your
staff on what the business aspects are.
And what I came to really realize and believe is that

(49:40):
there are some projects and our attitude is there are some
projects that you'll lose money on and you make a business
decision that you'll do that. And we're very clear and we talk
to our staff about why we're doing that in this.
And but we don't just say, OK, so you don't have to do a
project budget. We say it's going to lose, it's
going to lose money. But so look, you're going to see

(50:03):
how much hours are going to go in that are not.
Non billable. We're subsidizing, yes, non.
Billing. It's a sponsorship.
Yeah, exactly. And so we can have conversations
about why it is it certain typesof projects lose money.
And so that's very interested. So people who are interested in
that are interested in working for us and they're the ones who

(50:23):
tend to be interested in workingon the kinds of projects we work
on because they see the relationship between the value
maybe that IT culture puts on certain kinds of projects.
Even a middle class single family house is very hard to do
well on the number of hours you actually get compensated for.

(50:44):
And then what? But what I also came to realize
is that there's a, for me, it's a kind of energy proposition.
So there's the energy you put inand then the energy that is to
build it. There's actually a kind of
tangible relationship between the two.
So if it's say a middle class house and you and let's say the

(51:08):
hours would support, I'm just going to spit out 100 hours.
That 100 hours comes from the construction fee and that
construction fee sort of represents amount of work.
And as you get good at what you do, you realize if I spend 500
hours on the contract docs, but the budget, project budget is

(51:30):
only 100 hours, I'm sort of overdesigning.
So I'm I'm going towards a really bad situation and I'm not
doing right by the client and I'm not doing right by us.
And so you have to have those kinds of conversations and say
the energy you put in then gets translated to the energy to
actually make something. And So what you want to do,

(51:53):
there's align those activities. And to me that works.
It doesn't matter what the project type is.
It's actually really understanding the value of your
work in relation to the final objective, which is the
construction of something. And So what it helps you do in
our case is we actually understand now if a house is, I

(52:18):
don't know, let's say it's a house and it's $1,000,000 for
2000 square feet or it's $3,000,000 for 2000 square feet.
We can actually understand wherewe should direct our energy
based. And that's not about design
because you can always produce good design, but it's how do you

(52:39):
express that those goals? And so that's become actually a
really interesting thing that a lot of people again in the
office are really interested in because it helps you hone your
craft. Because I always felt like there
was nothing worse than killing yourself and thinking through
all these great ideas and drawing them all only to find

(53:00):
out that they were too expensive.
Like you. You never, you never got to try
anything, right? See it actually built.
So were you working in many of these circumstances?
Are you working internally to develop the budget?
Are you working with a with a construction manager, Project
manager? We have collectively.
Initially we were just doing it internally and we'd send it out

(53:23):
for tender, but depending on thesector now, you know, sometimes
we'll work with that, a construction manager, project
manager after SD. And so even in the SD phase,
it's like if you have X budget, you might say we need somehow to
get another 500 square feet for this program.

(53:46):
So what's the best way to do, we've got one move, are we going
to do it in the back and have footings and this and that or is
there a good way to do it on theroof?
But yeah. Like, so you just start those
conversations right off the bat.Yep.
And so then like you spend your time actually creatively as
opposed to dreaming. Yeah, well, in in allocating the

(54:07):
design resources towards something that can ultimately be
constructed and you're not in LaLa land.
Yeah, and really disappointing. Yeah.
And then and then hitting the client at a later phase with oh
man, I'm so sorry. This is going to cost you way
too much. Yeah.
Let's go back and redesign. And it's also a way, and it goes

(54:31):
back to it supports a kind of basic premise of having a small
budget is not an excuse for poordesign.
You can do like good design, andgood design thinking makes a
better project. It doesn't matter what it is
you're doing. And so if you can develop enough
knowledge at your craft, then you're putting, you're allowing

(54:55):
your client to maximize their budget, not based on you can't
afford this, but oh, look what your budget can help help you
achieve, which is a really positive way to think about it.
And it, it's allowed us to, you know, so we, we Albert Campbell

(55:16):
Library was a project that just opened two years ago for the
Toronto Public Library system, Mid century Library, really
Class A kind of classic, very interesting.
And they, they wanted to expand,but they were quite constrained.
They had a, a really constrainedbudget.
And my partner Brock was actually able to explain to them

(55:38):
how he could accommodate all their program growth, growth
within the existing building envelope.
So that meant he could conserve so much of the budget to redo
the existing building interiors rather than just, you know, have
this kind of sprawling thing where you're really pushing the
budget just to get a decent building envelope and things

(56:00):
like that. So it, that's, so it doesn't
matter on the sector. It's about an approach to
architecture. Hmm, it's an interesting, I
mean, one of the one of the other people I've spoken to
about this similar type of philosophy was when I was, I
talked to Jen Cutlets at Studio AC, but one of their first
projects being this, this condo unit and they have $40,000 to go

(56:21):
right out of this condo. Like what do you do with
$40,000? Well, you come up with some
creative design and you figure it out.
You know, and that's not to say that every single project can be
that way, but if the mentality is to try to figure it out in
that regard, well, then you're probably going to be more
successful with the projects that you have then the projects

(56:43):
that you don't have because you told them they can't do it.
Yeah. It's a nice strategy towards
looking at this. I'm curious to know over the
course of the career, have you had the opportunity to mentor
people? Let's say mentor the people in
the office for sure. And then I taught at Waterloo

(57:05):
for many years. I just started a year or two
ago, a very close relationship with a bunch of students that I
taught that kept in touch Muslimwomen.
Hmm. And I wouldn't say it's like an
official mentorship program. Yeah.
So that that keeps going. OK.
And for yourself, did you have amentor when you entered the

(57:28):
field? Was there any?
No. So, so again, now I'm going to
say to anyone that would listen to this to remember that.
And that's why when I this whole, this whole conversation
started, I had alluded to the fact that, you know, Jenna is
very much trailblazer and that you did, you didn't have someone
to turn to in that way, as I seeas a substantial senior that you

(57:51):
could go run ideas off and bounce ideas off of and do all
of those things. So it's a, it was, it's a
different time than to what it is now.
And I think that in many ways, because of what you had
experienced, then it becomes this wholesome experience for
you to be able to go and have those types of relationships.
No, absolutely. And I think it's a different
time. Like I think younger
practitioners, there's a lot more women in the field and

(58:15):
there's a lot less like, you know, all the issues when I was
in school, they don't they don'treally exist anymore.
Like you don't have this, the sexual harassment that we all
had, and there's lots of things you can do about it and people
are educated on that. Yeah, it's a thing.
Like you can't even design gradeschool or a post secondary

(58:36):
school with a solid door into a private office.
There always has to be glass. Like there is no opportunity to
have like the level of privacy that would promote or support
the kinds of things that happened when I was in
university. And that's very, that's very
positive. And I think a lot of younger

(58:58):
practitioners generally are muchmore interested.
So we always did a lot of adaptive reuse and renovations
and additions. And we were always like, well,
this is great work and why wouldyou build something new when you
can just adaptively reuse something?
Because it's all it all takes like carbon and.
I was just going to go there. It's like it's.

(59:18):
Just so wasteful. It's so wasteful, the idea of
waste and. Have that conversation every
morning when I look at the plates in front of me or the
bulls in front of my kids. I know.
Don't. Please don't throw that out.
I I can't, I mean, I, I'm like the person who's always like,
you're not eating that OK, can we pack that up to go home?
It's so terrible. I mean, I make it makes my kids

(59:41):
crazy, but I'm. Sorry.
Yeah, but so, but, and it was again, I find younger people
like it's really interesting forthem.
It's all about sustainability, but they they're quite happy to
do just renovations and additions.
They don't, they don't the same thing like, oh, I'd be so happy
if I could do new building. They don't actually care.

(01:00:04):
And I think that's really, really great.
Because it comes down to it comes back to what you said
before, and that is that it's about the design.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
And sometimes the constraints ofa building are just.
You have to figure that out. Also, I think it, it's about the
design and they think good design can be achieved in an

(01:00:25):
addition or renovation or adaptive reuse.
But it also it, it, it synthesizes a kind of political
position and design perspective.So they'll say, I'm quite happy
to do this because from a carbonperspective, I'm not taxing our
environment unnecessarily. And in fact, I'm saving so much

(01:00:50):
on the embodied carbon. And my goal is to figure out how
to reduce the operating carbon, you know, so and they don't feel
like it's a compromise. Hmm.
So they, they feel like there's a convergence between what they
do in their professional life and their, you know, their life
is a citizen. I've loved this so far, Jenna, I
appreciate that all this time I want I want to ask you about

(01:01:15):
outside of practice. Actually before I go outside of
practice, I will ask you a question about you know kind of
future proofing the practice andwhat that looks like.
Have you guys to a point now or you start looking at what
succession planning looks like or have you not gone there yet?
Oh no, we, we start on that a long time ago.
Like I think we were your classic mom and pop originally

(01:01:38):
and we grew to be more sophisticated than that from a
business perspective. And so we realized early on that
this this model would only be successful if we wanted it to
continue. We had to do it early on so that
people would stay and also that we could increase the

(01:01:59):
intelligence quotient in the firm and also just in the bigger
scheme of things like if you're not changing, you're behind.
And so we eventually took on, wehave at one point there was Dean
and I and three other partners and we were all equal owners.

(01:02:19):
Dean sold his ownership share several years ago.
He still a partner. I sold mine recently, but I'm
still a partner. So we and that's been going on
the partnership like grinding partners who's happened.
Barack was our first partner andthat was probably 20 years ago.
So, you know, again, it was partly to keep it fresh and

(01:02:42):
partly because we knew it's different.
A sole practitioner is differentthan say particularly at a
married couple running a partnership is very different
dynamics. And the sole practitioner can
sort of, they can kind of fold up their shop in a way that
someone else can still still leverage that.

(01:03:03):
But it's different. There's I think externally how
people see a partnership when it's a couple is very different.
And so we wanted to really neutralize that and signal that
that's not what this was about. To ask a naive question, so I
apologize in advance, was the practice ever called Levitt

(01:03:24):
Goodman Architects? It was, it was called.
It's so interesting initiatives called Public work.
It was we loved OK. And then people were like, dude,
do sewage work. So literally.
So we thought, well, this was a really cool name, but probably a
bad idea. So then we called it Levitt
Goodman. And then John Bentley Mays was

(01:03:46):
like, that's a shitty name That sounds like you should just be
doing houses in Forest Hill. Thanks, John.
And so but then when when Brock joined, it was really changing
the name to something more neutral.
Yeah, without losing that's. The heritage, that's what I
figured. I assumed that the LPGA was
actually the part of the succession planning and

(01:04:09):
architectural partners is just, it's just, it's it's such a
great sounding completion to thename.
Because if you can think about this as you listen to this, if
you think about what architectural partner means
literally and you dissect those two words, it is about at the
core design and collaboration, right?
Like that's what this is. That's not we are the hierarchy.

(01:04:31):
It is not we sit on our throne. It is not that.
It is like, let's figure this out together, world design and
let's figure it out together, which is great.
So, OK, so answer the successionplanning question.
Appreciate that in moving past that I now want to ask you about
like yourself, as you, as you have through all the previous

(01:04:52):
years of your life and moving forward in your life, what are
the things that you have enjoyeddoing for yourself that allow
you to in some ways let go of the stress of what running on a
practice is? Well, I haven't really managed
to let go the stress of running a practice, you know, the 50
hour weeks are still a reality. But what I would say, and I

(01:05:16):
don't, I don't think it's the same with all practice like all
my colleagues. But I would say one of the
things that we've been super fortunate and I've been super
fortunate is I was able to teachat Waterloo for many years and
learned. So I, I gained another kind of

(01:05:37):
community there of people that Icould call on to ask questions,
but also people working on a whole bunch of different things
that I found really interesting.And, and then I, I've also, and
this is, I would say the same for Dean, the clients like we've
actually become good friends, whether it's probably a dozen

(01:06:00):
clients like very good friends over the years.
And that's really unusual. And not just house clients, like
public sector clients who just in, you know, I just enjoy being
around them and they're, you know, they're not architects.
And so there's always really incredibly stimulating

(01:06:23):
conversations, dinner parties. Now we say, we joke, we do our
sauna diplomacy, like we just drag people into the sauna after
dinner half the time now and. Just.
But it's really, you know, it's just fantastic and, and I
continue to be extremely interested in in the arts.

(01:06:45):
That's really what most things revolve around for me.
You say that and I have an interesting thing that I I
recognize while I'm here, and that is that you had said that
early on you had studied film and I don't see a TV in the
house. It's upstairs.
OK, yeah, I, I cause I realize I'm like, there's no TV around,

(01:07:07):
which in many ways forces you toengage in a different type of
medium, which could be somethingas basic as what we're doing
right now. And that's talk to each other.
Hmm. Which I find most people don't
do anymore. Yeah, Well, this is, I mean, we
have lots of guests, lots of dinner parties.
And that test is just and, you know, I would say like to get

(01:07:28):
back to where at the beginning, like my parents always had tons
of dinner parties with really interesting people.
And we were always, you know, included in it.
Or to sit at the top of the stairs and peak and, you know,
eavesdrop on what people were talking about.
And that, you know, I would say the biggest thing, biggest
constraint now is, I mean, I would have no compunction flying

(01:07:51):
to New York to see a show. Like I'd go and put her in the
morning, go see saying that was up that I was really interested
in fly back and it was a really inexpensive way to do things.
And now I think I know, but the carbon I I just can't do it, you
know? To that point, I actually say
this now, this is going to get released later than today, like
much later than what we are today.
But I will tell you that this morning, Paul Simon tickets to

(01:08:12):
Massey Hall Kate went on sale and so did The Lumineers.
And they're Paul Simon is one ofmy longtime favorites and I was
so excited. And Lumineers are one of my
current favorites. Yeah, both tickets sold more or
less sold out within 30 minutes.And the cost of going to these
shows, it's like it's unaffordable.

(01:08:33):
Yeah. Now it's not the carbon that you
talk about, but the the one to enjoy it can't enjoy it you
can't enjoy. It it's crazy, too expensive.
It's really crazy. Jenna, I honestly, I thank you.
I thank you for inviting me intoyour house.
It's not often that I come to someone else's house.
And so thank you for having me in it.
It's it's beautiful. If you're listening to this, I

(01:08:56):
would highly recommend that you head over to Instagram page.
I'm going to assume that one of the projects you might want to
feature on our Instagram page when this comes out might be
this. And so for you as a listener, be
able to see where we are sittingnow at the dining room table and
how beautiful the space is and how well thought out and thought
through this this experiences ofbeing inside this home.

(01:09:19):
I appreciate you. I appreciate your candor.
I appreciate the openness to talk about elements of the
practice that some people may ormay not want to discuss.
It's been an absolute pleasure and I am grateful for for you
having me. My pleasure and thank you for
the we had a good lunch.

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Behind the Build: Janna Levitt - LGA Architectural Partners

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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;}Behind the Build: Janna Levitt - LGA Architectural Partners