Behind the Build: Pat Hanson - gh3*

Pat Hanson is a founding principal of gh3*, a Toronto-based architecture, landscape, and urban design practice recognized for its clarity, precision, and integration of natural and built form. Raised in a Norwegian-Italian farming community near Regina, Saskatchewan, she developed an early affinity for making and exploring the outdoors before studying fine art and later discovering architecture at the University of Manitoba.

After graduating, Hanson moved to Toronto in the early 1980s and began her career at Jack Diamond’s office, where she advanced to associate before co-founding her first practice. In 2005, she established gh3*, which has since become one of Canada’s most acclaimed design firms. The studio’s work bridges architecture and landscape, emphasizing civic engagement, material expression, and environmental sensitivity.

Hanson’s notable projects include the Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool in Edmonton, Toronto’s Cherry Street Stormwater Facility, the Boathouse Studio on Stony Lake, and June Callwood Park. Her leadership has earned gh3* multiple Governor General’s Medals in Architecture and national recognition for innovation in public and infrastructure design.

A Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Hanson has lectured widely and contributed to academic and professional discourse across North America. She is also a supporter of equity in practice, having advised organizations such as BEAT (Building Equality in Architecture Toronto).

Outside of architecture, Hanson maintains a lifelong discipline of daily running, travel, and immersion in nature—an extension of the curiosity and focus that continue to shape her approach to design.

Curated Podcast Sponsors:

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Aquanta Pools: https://aquanta.ca

Henry Rotberg Steel

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome to Behind the Build. I'm host Jonathan Jacobs, and
today with me, I call her. I call her thing.
Others do too. A trailblazer in Canadian
architecture for women. I have Pat Hansen with me today

(00:31):
from GH3. Pat, thanks for joining.
Very happy to be here, sort of. I like, Oh yeah, it's true.
Like we wouldn't even initially spoke that we weren't, we
weren't sure whether or not something you wanted to do or
not. It's a different medium, right?
Very. But the reality is that at least
from what we've done, we've discussed is it's a conversation

(00:53):
and we, we have a we have, I have a really nice time dealing
with a lot of people. And I think that there's a lot
of people that will hear this and be really interested in
learning about you. OK, you say.
So No, I'm yes, I'm looking forward to the conversation and
the conversation is good. It's just, you know, recording.
It is always there. Yeah, but so, you know, listen
to it later. On yeah, for sure.

(01:16):
I'm sorry. I like I a few things For those
of you that are not familiar with with Pat, I did a quick
thing on GPT, asking GPT about Pat and among many awards that
she and her practice have received, she is heavily
involved in a number of different groups here in
Toronto. Beats Waterfront.

(01:38):
I want one of the nice awards they've received a few times,
they believe is the Governor General's Award.
And while we don't always like to lay claim to the accolades,
it's it's, it's indicative of a very fruitful and ambitious
career. Quick pause before we get really
rolling here. You'll hear this throughout

(01:59):
today's conversation with Pat that when work matters, details
and service matter. Later on, Pat and I talked about
how great projects come from clarity, a couple of key details
done perfectly, and people who actually show up and follow
through. And that's exactly why we
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(02:21):
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coordinate with our team and make the install and the
aftercare or feel easy instead of stressful.
When something needs attention, they pick up the phone and solve
it. It's the same ethics you'll hear

(02:42):
from Pat today. Do the simple things
exceptionally well and do them consistently.
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(03:03):
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that's captain's appliances. Alright, well, if you want to
learn more, well, you can e-mailme.
It's Jonathan. Jonathan at waldenholmes.ca.
For now, let's go back to Pat and in a minute you'll hear us
get into why that kind of followthrough is everything.

(03:26):
So start with that and I would then say, how did you get there?
Like what? I ask everyone the same question
from an early age. Were you interested in arts?
Were you interested in maths andsciences?
Did you sketch what? What did that look like as A and
and where did it start? Where where did you grow up?
I actually, first several years of my life, I lived in a town

(03:52):
called Lajord, outside of Regina, SK.
And it was, I have a Norwegian farming community, so have my
family or Norwegian. Half are Italian.
But yeah, so that's where I grewup, sort of just in a small town
near many farms. Yeah.

(04:12):
Really farming? Wheat, it's all green.
Yeah, all green. And then we moved to the city.
My father's family again, Norwegian sort of, well didn't
sort of lost their land in the Depression, partially because of
my father's father having Parkinson's disease, which is

(04:34):
there. And my father actually had that
as well, sort of a high incidence of that disease
because it's tied to well water and farming communities anyway.
So they they, we did not have land.
My father worked for a hail insurance company and then we
eventually moved to the big cityof Regina, which is about 3-3

(04:57):
miles away. Like going from a farming
community. To a city, I was still pretty
young, so I think it's sort of somewhat oblivious.
And even even when I moved to Regina was still I could get on
my bike and ride out into the wheat fields.
And of course, those were the days when nobody was worried
about children's safety. So I still had a pretty easy

(05:17):
life getting out. Into the country.
There wasn't. There wasn't a tracker.
Embedding. No, for sure not.
Wrapped in bubble. Wrap.
Yeah, yeah. And, and so were you actively
involved in in farming when you were living there or, and when
you moved to the city, did you feel the change from that or do
you remember like running through the fields like?

(05:39):
Yeah, I kind of. I kind of do.
I remember being in the country a lot.
I remember even later on sort ofhelping, going on hunting trips
with my father. I definitely remember him coming
home and cleaning birds. And we would look at the sort
of, you know, insides of birds and their seed sacks.
And you know what, I remember looking, helping him with

(06:00):
cleaning birds and finding a bottle cap and a bird seed cap,
like stuff like. Yeah.
So yeah, we, it was, yeah. I had a kind of country, kind of
a country race. I was raised sort of in the
country in a way. And when and when they moved to
the city, did the right of farming What?
What did that look like? Yeah, I just remember my parents

(06:21):
bought, they bought a new house in a suburb and in Regina and it
was just a different way of life.
I remember my father, you know, trying to improve the soil
quality before he planted a lawn.
So we planted potatoes in the front yard.
So that kind of life where you, you know, it's really, I don't
know how to explain it, but. Hard to like all what he had

(06:43):
before. Yeah, a little bit, yeah.
Yeah, it was, Yeah. It was a simple life in the
suburbs, suburbs of Regina that were pretty close to the
outskirts of Regina. So just.
I've just never really felt thatthere was a boundary, I think
between the city and and the country.
Later on when I got a little bitolder and the city grew a bit,
but. Yeah.

(07:05):
And so do you have recollection of what it looked like for you
as you were kind of evolving as a as a youth, like when you were
in junior high school and high school, did you start honing in
on the skills that you now have or where, where did it kind of
come later? What did that?
What did that look like? I think, I think when I think
back about what I was like as a child and where that's connected

(07:28):
me, what what that's brought me to is always an interest in like
always being really comfortable outside, making things outside,
growing things outside. I mean, I, you know, for a long
time I was obsessed with killinginsects and making graveyards
for them. So that kind of, you know, was
and making, you know, playing inthe backyard endlessly with, you

(07:51):
know, found, you know, pieces ofwood and stuff to make little
enclosures. I mean, not like not dissimilar
I'm sure from any other child, but very had a lot of, I had a
lot of freedom and spent a lot of time making things.
And I think I was probably a bitof a dreamer as a kid, sort of,

(08:13):
you know, could occupy myself for hours.
I think being a fewer kid that was outdoors than, yeah, being
outdoors, you could always just find yourself, yeah, it's late.
I should probably get home. Yeah.
I mean, I've never, you know, it's never, you know, a great
adventure. But I would, I would kind of, I
mean, I had a lot of freedom, actually, when I think about it.
And yeah, like to make things. And so when you were when you

(08:36):
were in high school, were you starting to take any courses
that lead you down the path or did you know that you were going
to lead down the path of architecture?
Like what? What's what changed it?
What sparked it? Well, I think the sort of
interest in making things was with me in a very early age and
I, whatever things I made, like whether it was sort of clay or

(08:56):
sewing things or I was always making things and giving them.
I would sort of joke about giving things to my sister,
making something and giving it to her.
So that was always with me. And I think my mother probably
recognized that, you know, I hadkind of a creative outlet, but
you don't need a kind of some creative outlet.
So I went to, I think she enrolled me in a number of art

(09:20):
classes, even when I was Pretty Little.
And I also remember kind of taking her life series books on
Michelangelo and Da Vinci and stuff and drawing through them
and being absolutely fascinated by them.
But so a bit of a bit of art classes in my early years, I
remember in, and then obviously in high school, I took art,

(09:42):
remember having sort of an argument with my art teacher who
I was drawing something and she came to sort of correct my
perspective or something and started to erase it.
And I got very angry with her. Richard, she did that to.
Me, did she? Yeah.
And, and actually I did because I was actually quite a shy
child. I, I actually said something and
the teacher really felt badly about it afterwards and

(10:03):
apologized. Apologized to me profusely so,
but yeah, no, I was always, yeah, kind of a maker, a drawer,
all that stuff. And so, um, and not a
particularly a good student comment.
Bit of a dreamer, I guess. That's OK.
Not a good student at all really.

(10:24):
So anyway, so yeah, so when I, you know, when Gray toile was
finished, my both my sister, I have two sisters and they were
older than me and are both very good, quite good students, quite
bright. So I think my parents were like,
you know, what are we going to do with Pat?
But anyway, so I did go to university and.
Did you know that architecture was something that you?
Guys didn't even know what it was, OK, I had no idea what it

(10:47):
was. I knew what painting was and
drawing was and never really gave it really.
Never really think about buildings.
And I didn't, you know, I don't think I thought about streets or
whether there was one building Iliked or building I didn't like.
Well, that's not true. My father had was in an old
office building in downtown Regina, like kind of like that

(11:08):
building. But if you ask me then why I
liked it, I wouldn't have been able to tell you.
So yeah, completely oblivious toit.
So when I went to university, I said I wanted to major in art,
which was the only thing that I'd actually ever really
excelled at, right? I mean, I was fairly, fairly
athletic kid, but but art was really the only thing that I

(11:28):
really had gotten something backfrom.
Well, what were what were the athletics?
What would you would you like todo?
Oh, everything. Just about everything.
Running baseball, I mean softball, basketball and, you
know, and I wasn't, I was, yeah.Fairly athletic, Yeah.
You know, kind of maybe too small to really be serious, you

(11:52):
know, and later in years, but yeah, yeah.
No, I really liked, I really liked moving my body.
That was kind of a a big part ofit.
So I went to, I enrolled at university with a BA with a
major in art and was only at theuniversity and went to the
University of Regina. So the only real art classes in

(12:14):
the first years were history, which I also enjoyed and kind of
did well at. And then all of my, many of my
friends were moving and taking decided that they were going to
study interior design at the University of Manitoba.
So I went with them to sort of see what that was like thinking

(12:35):
that maybe I could go to art school there.
And, you know, my parents are, you know, very practical people.
So I, you know, I felt, you know, quite thankful of them
that they allowed me to do it and go and study art because I
mean, you know, did not lead to a job, obviously, right?
I guess they thought perhaps I'dend up being a school teacher or

(12:58):
something like that, right. So anyway, I, I do remember
going there Manitoba, I'm going to Winnipeg and it was sort of a
bigger city than Regina and being kind of, you know, amazed
and, you know, sort of somewhat intimidated by Winnipeg and went
to look at the interior design department with my friends and
was kind of horrified because itwas, it really didn't.

(13:18):
Oh, I went to an all girls school too.
I went to a Catholic all girls school.
And so when I went into the interior design department and I
saw all these sort of attractiveyoung women all sitting together
doing watercolors, I just was like horrified.
I thought, I like, there's just been through.
I'll never, I'll never be able to do this.
I can't be, I can't do this. So, but their art school is next
door. So I enrolled, I was accepted.

(13:40):
And yeah, it was really, you know, couple of really great
years of my life. Quickly before we keep going,
you'll hear in today's conversation with Pat, the
moment things start to click is when many disciplines come
together, drawing, model making,problem solving so the idea
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(14:03):
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(14:23):
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(14:47):
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(15:11):
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And then I had to think about how I was, you know, what I was

(15:32):
going to do after art school. And it was a question of, you
know, was I going to be an artist?
And I think at the time I was 20, maybe 2120.
I could do that. Because I thought I couldn't
actually. Yeah, I really thought I could.
And I thought I really didn't know enough.
I hadn't lived long enough. I didn't like, what was I making
art about? I felt like I, I'm, I was a good

(15:53):
draftsman. I could draw, I could actually,
you know, manipulate, you know, art, media and stuff.
But I, I felt like I didn't really, I couldn't find a voice.
I didn't. I just, plus I didn't know what
that would look like in terms of, you know, it's too broad,
looking after myself and all that.
Right. OK, so there was an architecture
school next to the fine art, theinterior design school, which I

(16:17):
obviously paid a little bit of attention to throughout my art
school. So there was the Fine Arts
school and the architecture school had both interior design
in it and architecture and environmental studies.
And I don't know, I guess I met,I think it was maybe one of my
sort of major boyfriends that, yeah, was in architecture and

(16:39):
told me that there was a qualifying year and said you
should do it. You could do the qualifying year
and then you could get into architecture.
And I thought, I just don't think that's possible.
I mean, you know, I really didn't think I could do it.
I didn't think I'd be smart enough.
And yeah, I was just super intimidated.
But I, but I tried and I and I think it's largely because he

(17:01):
couldn't understand why I thought I couldn't do it.
I mean, so I felt very supportive, right?
So I went and I, I was accepted and shocked.
I was kind of shocked. Yeah, super shocked.
Did you have to have a portfolio?
I think yeah, portfolio OK and obviously decent Marks and I
guess I had OK marks cause I was, I was in art school.

(17:24):
But I mean, if they looked at myhigh school marks, they said
like, are you kidding? They only they didn't care.
So yeah, anyway, so I'm first year, I mean in this crawl
qualifying year and honestly, I could kind of do everything was
so much fun. Like I understood everything.
I could, you know, build models,I could kind of, I could

(17:47):
understand the problem. I could develop the design.
I had the, you know, kind of haddrawing skills.
Yeah, it was. Yeah.
Like a culmination of everythingthat you were really interested
in. Yeah, it was.
It was same together. It all just came together.
It really came together in that year, which was remarkable.

(18:08):
I was super happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, and so this is this is now what year of school that you
had? So this would be.
From the General. Yeah.
So I would be going into that would have been so the
university for about 8 years. So that would been year five and
then I did 6-7 and eight. Yeah.
So that was the fifth year that I've been at university.

(18:30):
OK. Yeah.
And and so you got, you got intothat.
And I mean, I have to imagine that now that you've kind of
found your mark, you're startingto, well, you had previously in
terms of the the dreamer, yeah, all of a sudden starts to hone
in, alright. Yeah, yeah, I start to be.

(18:53):
More dialed and focused. Yeah, definitely more dialed and
focused for sure. Like able to kind of manage my
time. Yeah, more analytical, be able
to, I mean, big part of architecture school is being
able to, you know, students haveto present, you know, they work.
First of all, you work with yourstudio professor.
You have to be able to explain what you're doing and what

(19:15):
you're thinking and all of that kind of really disciplined me.
I was when we had to, we used tocall it a jury when you did did
your final presentations on a project and I would be nervous
beyond belief, like just shakinglike a leaf.
Well, what I've come to realize that you're interviewing quite a

(19:36):
number of people, is that prettymuch everyone that's in
architecture is an introvert. Oh yeah.
There are very few people I've met that are like full on
extroverts. Is that right?
Yeah. And so, yeah, this whole
dialogue is the only reason why this really works that we're

(19:56):
right now is because the two of us talking sitting across from
each other. And if this is in front of a
whole group of people, it's a different conversation.
For sure, for sure. I would never.
I mean, I haven't told anybody that I was at that student.
Honestly, I kind of feel like I can do it now because like, you
know, I'm gonna be a little bit successful.
So. You're right, if you have
managed, you know, managed to get this far.

(20:19):
I mean, but also like, you know,at the time when you're I, I
look back on this, I used to joke about it with, with my
family, like your high school grades get you made, they're
going to get you in university. But like, really, high school
grades don't matter. Yeah, they don't.
But I've told my children I realize you're your marks in
that first degree really matter.Yeah, probably know.

(20:39):
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
The degree, yeah. If you're gonna continue to yes
or something, you want to go foran NBA, Yeah, yes, you need the
marks. Yeah, High school is just the
gateway to that. Stage for.
Sure. So you could be a B student,
whatever. Big deal.
So you you go through the next three years of school to finish
off your eight years. And at that point, did you know

(21:01):
like you wanted? Oh, actually, before I even
asked that next question, Coop was there.
Coop. No, there was no, there wasn't
any. OK, I did.
I did manage to get one summer job.
I think maybe I did it for two years in a row at an
architecture office in Winnipeg and that was also really good
experience. What were you doing at the

(21:21):
office? Did it was a bit of a problem in
the early years of my education.I could draw well and I could, I
kind of could get the design issues pretty quickly.
So I, I, I was given a fair bit of responsibility in the very,
very early stages of a project. Yeah.
In fact, it kind of blew my mindthat there were all these older
people and I was doing kind of their guessing media design,

(21:43):
like do the sort of preliminary design of things.
Anyway, I had a couple of good summers in Winnipeg and then
obviously I graduated and there was a question about where to go
and many of my colleagues at school went to Western Canada.
There was a lot of work in Alberta at the time, even some

(22:06):
work in Vancouver. And I don't know, I mean, I'm
not entirely sure why. I just thought trying would be
more interesting. And honestly, I think I've only
been to Toronto at once. So I wanted, I think, I think I
recognized I wanted to go somewhere that was more of a
city then what you would find isa typical city in Western

(22:28):
Canada. And Toronto is kind of, I mean,
Montreal would have been super interesting, but being the bad
student I was, I had no French. So, uh, so Toronto it was, yeah.
So I came here and then again, Iwas sort of like kind of
intimidated. It seemed like a really big city
at the time when they came. One at a time, yeah.

(22:50):
We would probably like a population of like 3-3 or 4
million, right? Yeah, no, this would be like an
81 when I came. Yeah, so much smaller.
Yes, so. So what did that look like when
you arrived? You you arrived to Toronto.
Did you have a job? No, I had a couple.
I had a couple of interviews, OK.
I was interviewed at Web Zarafa,which is I think, well, it still

(23:14):
exists. It's kind of reincarnated itself
a few times and and an interviewat Jack Diamond's office that
had been previously arranged by history professor Manitoba.
I have a question to ask about this.
So you moved to Toronto and you had your your Norwegian parents

(23:35):
and were they OK with you just kind of packing up and moving to
Toronto or were they supportive of that or were they hesitant?
Mike, actually my Norwegian grandmother was alive at the
time and she felt that it was kind of a sellout moving E
right. I mean, they were they were
completely fine that I was leaving my sister.
I I think yeah, I mean, it was fine that I was leaving the

(23:58):
city. There were OK, but there was,
you know, Western Canada when I was younger had sort of felt
that that that Central Canada and Montario, we're kind of
sucked up all the money and, youknow, we're kind of selling a
motor to the big cities, right, Yeah.
Right, so so were you because I mean that could that could

(24:22):
really play an impact on the waythat you feel when you're going.
There is like, I have to now prove myself and at the same
time like, you know, am I going to be ostracized for my family?
Yeah, no, no, my family was fine.
They were. They were completely fine about
my grandmother made a few snide comments, but that was that was
really about it. I think my parents were in awe

(24:43):
that I'd managed to get myself together enough to do this.
So it was all good. They were like, Oh my God.
So maybe she's not, you know, no.
We're not going to have the supporter.
Kind of like, kind of in awe. I think like a step, step after
step. She's doing this now.
I yeah, I do think, I do think they were sort of surprised.

(25:03):
OK. And when I came here, it was
kind of cool again. It was, you know, it was big
city. I felt like I fit in here a bit
more because I'm kind of a darkie, like sort of dark
skinned people in the on the prairies, you know, You know,
everybody is sort of British or Ukrainian or Eastern European.

(25:24):
And like I was always asking forexplanations about what I looked
like. But there were more people here
that looked like me and I felt kind of comfortable.
I sort of liked that about beinghere.
And even more so now you would find it, right?
Because it's so it's so much more varied.
But yeah, I mean, I grew up in areally sort of white, sort of

(25:48):
European, you know, city and growing up.
So it's kind of nice being here and I like physically I felt it
was good. I took the job at, I remember
being offered, it was Paul Simonwho's no longer with us
unfortunately at Jack Diamonds offering me a job for $16,000 a
year. And I said, oh, did you know

(26:08):
that Webs giraffe or offered me something like 22 or something?
And he said, what do you want the job or not?
So I mean, they always there wasalways this kind of feeling, you
know, being a design firm that they, you know, they were better
than the others, which is, you know, I'm gonna say you can see
it in sort of other, you know, even architectural critics view

(26:29):
the sort of corporate are in thekind of corporate architectural
firm as opposed to the design firm.
So I said, oh, OK, no, of courseI have to.
I'll work for this and never give it a second thought and I
never did really. It just it was all fine.
It's all very much money though,that's for sure.
Yeah, all $16,000 a year. Yeah, right.
Yeah. It just as a reference, I mean

(26:52):
what would that would probably be something like nowadays,
probably like 35 to 40,000. Dollars probably, yeah.
Like, yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't even think.
I mean, we, we wouldn't pay a young recent grad that low, but
but it would be, but it would. Be like that it would be below.
Well, below. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

(27:12):
Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, yeah.
OK, so so you take that job and can you remember, and I know
this is going to be an obscure memory, do you remember what it
was like walking through the doors on the first day?
I was, you know, a little bit terrifying, like when you again
sort of extremely self-conscious.

(27:32):
I was, you know, I was, I was worried there eating that I
wouldn't be able to, you know, perform because the firm, you
know, had a pretty good reputation, right.
But it, you know, it eventually became pretty comfortable.
There were a number of recent grads from Waterloo when I
joined and they were all, you know, really quite friendly and

(27:55):
inclusive. So it, it, it went pretty well.
So, you know, some of the peoplethat I, that I was working with
at that time, do you know MGMA, you know, that firm victors,
Young Collins, who's kind of semi retired now, was one of my
colleagues then, Mark Sterling, Sandy McKee.

(28:15):
So people that I've kind of keptin touch with over the years.
So it was interesting to be withpeople that had, you know,
graduated from other schools that thought they were all Co-op
students, right. So they were, they were, I think
technically more proficient thanI was for sure.
But yeah, I loved it. I loved every second of it.
I just like I died and gone to heaven.
It was amazing. And what was?

(28:37):
What did some of the first projects look like?
Well, do you remember where you were working with?
Yeah, I worked on a, uh, I worked on a little City Hall in
Bowmanville, OK. I worked on the central YMCA
building, which is, I don't knowif you know what I mean.
It's pretty old now. It's obviously it was
constructed in the 80s. Yeah.

(28:59):
Hmm. Variety of kind of variety of
things again, sort of kept in sort of the design mode.
Not well, I guess I got a, a, a bit of a range of experience
because I did work. But on the central, why I did
work on the technical drawings, the construction documents for
that. But it was when we used to work

(29:20):
on drafting boards. I don't know if you've even seen
one that there are these enormous boards.
Pretty. They were relatively
sophisticated ones at Diamond's office where we had the the
elbow and the movable. It tilt it up.
Yeah. Down, yeah, Pivot, yeah, yeah.
But I remember actually working on the same table, you know,

(29:45):
towards the end of the, the, thephase of the construction
documents with Victor Younghans,he was working on one side of
the drawing and I work on the other.
Like the, you know, with straight edge.
And I don't know. Anyway, it was, it was, it was
crazy times. And you know, I can't even
explain to people at the office now what it is to draw on Mylar
and to use Rapidograph ink pens and Leroy texting.

(30:10):
And it was kind. It's like just crazy, you know
the. So for anyone listening to this
right now that is currently in school or yeah, as a junior or
an intern or whatever you are, you have to appreciate the fact,
yeah, that's what you are currently working with is way
easier what it was 30 years ago 4.

(30:32):
Years ago we used to when we when we tried to kind of
determine how long it would taketo do a project, we would base
it on number of weeks per sheet.So if you were drawing the site
plan or the second floor plan orthe building sections, we would

(30:52):
usually use the metric of three weeks per sheet as a way of
determining how long it would take to do a set of working
drawings. And how long and how many sheets
would go? Into how many sheets?
I got a project like this central.
Why it would be probably, you know, 60 to 70 sheets, yeah.
Yeah, just do the math. Yeah, you do the math and figure

(31:12):
out how many people you need to have working on it, right?
Super crazy. And that also meant like, how
many projects could you take on realistically at the time?
Yeah, right. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it's
always been an issue. I mean, when I was at diamonds,
which is, I mean, was it called diamonds?
I guess I don't know what we used to call it then, you know,

(31:33):
work was still scarce like getting for Jack to get that
central why project was they do a really big deal.
So, yeah, because it was a youngfirm.
Even even the Bowmanville City Hall is.
Yeah, big deal. Yeah, right.
Very big deal. Yeah, Yeah, yes.
OK. So, and how long were you at
diamonds? I was there from, I think 81 to

(31:54):
about 87 and then I was approached by a, you know, a
colleague that I've been workingwith there to join him in a new
office that potentially, you know, we'd have more control and
potentially sort of some ownership.
I, I did well at diamonds officetoo.

(32:14):
I advanced to a kind of an associate position in relatively
short time. Just sort of, I think testament
to how much I like to work and how hard I worked and how much I
enjoyed it, couldn't tear me away.
As the first time you said to you like to work hard before we
started this recording. I was talking.

(32:35):
About me. Yeah.
No, no, I can recognize. Yeah, I can see the signs.
Anyway, so then we I left and I worked in a firm that was,
again, even newer, like younger and, you know, less of a
portfolio than Jack Diamond's office.
And it was at a time in the late80s where there were a lot of

(32:56):
programs for. Seems like Ontario has been in a
constant housing crisis ever since I've been an architect.
So just so you know, it's been going on for a long time.
And that was yeah, yeah, late 80s.
And that at that point it, the housing programs were assisted
directly by the province. So we built a relatively new

(33:19):
practice. And this is when you were
talking about Janna Levitt earlier, she did the same thing.
So, you know, in the late 80s, early 90s, lot of young firms
got their their beginnings through the ability to, you
know, get project, do design project, do construction
projects for used to call it at that time assisted housing.

(33:42):
Yeah. And so we did that.
I did that for five or six yearsand actually became a partner in
that practice. And then then it was called what
It was called Van Nostrand Hansen de Castri, OK.
And it was originally Garwood Jones, Vanostrand.

(34:04):
And then the Garwood Jones, who was a Hamilton architect,
retired. And John van Nostrand is still
around. He has a, he's still in practice
with a firm called SVN Sinclair on Nostrand.
And then myself and then my colleague that it brought me
over to the to join that firm, Adrian de Castro, who sadly

(34:26):
passed away in 2005, 2003 somewhere on the and that was a
great, that was a that was also a really great time for me for
work. Of course, I'm getting a little
bit older, had few other relationships and ended up, I
think, actually single at the end of that tenure of that

(34:47):
practice with two children. And then in the 90s, you would
be too young to remember this, but it's when interest rates
went completely through the roof.
Percent. Yeah.
And that I remember. Yeah.
And that my dad, yeah, destroyedthe construction, construction
industry, like just destroyed it.

(35:08):
I know there were residential. I mean, there was some
condominiums being built at the time and there were firms that
just, you know, laid everybody off.
Like, you know, it was just, there was no work.
Fortunately for us, we managed afew years longer because we all
of our financing was coming through the provincial
government for some of this assisted housing.

(35:29):
But really by the mid 90s there was really very little work.
I mean, you're probably aware too that there was a whole
decade of architects that graduated at that time that
never were able to find jobs at all, kind of left and with
different fields, different fields.
Behind left the passion behind. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(35:50):
So many people. So yeah, I I kinda needed to
make money because I had children and.
That's a shocker. Yeah, yeah.
So. So, so, so, OK, so tell me like,
did you have this? I'm gonna try to like was, was,
did you, did you want to start your own practice or was it a

(36:11):
byproduct of the necessity to doit?
Or was it maybe a combination ofthe two?
Like what? What was the?
Because I when I talk with so many people about this, what I
find to be such an interesting element of it is that most
people start it while they're moonlighting.
And what you've just described is like you didn't actually have

(36:31):
the opportunity to moonlight because things just changed so
drastically. Things changed drastically,
drastically, you know, and I wasn't, I mean, I didn't have
another, There was another another.
There's never been another income particularly even since.
And I for me, it would have been, well, I was like I was a
partner in a firm, but I never, The thing is, I never had to get

(36:54):
the work. I was always the kind of studio
person, you know, I was the one that would kind of directing the
design. Yep.
I was, you know, very comfortable.
I mean, you write about being introverted, very comfortable in
studio, working with, you know, my colleagues in studio, always
a little bit of always a little bit nervous with clients, except

(37:14):
for when I was making present, you know, a project that I knew
really well or that I was working on.
So yeah, it wasn't, it was just not, not something that I really
wanted to do. I wanted to be in a partnership
where I had some control for sure.
But did I want to be? Yeah.

(37:35):
Yeah, exactly. So I went back to diamonds for a
while, OK, knowing that they were going to be restructuring
and that that just went too slowly and didn't really work
out. And then in the meantime, the
economy got better and my old practice, my old partners asked
me back to firm called Architects Alliance.
I went there for a while and that was kind of good.

(37:56):
Well, then it wasn't good and then went after it wasn't good.
Then I had to make up my mind whether I was going to look for
another sort of situation where I would be kind of a design
partner or go it alone. O At that point I did decide to
go it alone. You know, children were a little
bit older, kind of could see my way through to doing it

(38:18):
financially, but it was still. Like and also because they were
older, you consume the risk a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, so. But still like I was sick to my
stomach with fear. You know what Pass describing
here? Taking the risk and building
something strong from the groundup reminds me of a lot what we

(38:39):
can count on from our partners. Robert Steele.
Every project we build starts with structure and whether it's
beams, posts, rentals or custom steel assemblies, Robert has
been our go to for years. Their team handles everything.
Fabrication, shop drawings, coordination, delivery and
installation, even service afterinstall if it's ever needed.

(39:03):
What makes them invaluable to usis the way they collaborate.
Brett and his team don't just drop steel on site, they're part
of the process. They work directly with us on
ordering, timing, delivery and shop drawings with our
architects and structural engineer partners coordinating
at a high level to keep our schedule intact.
It's the same principal Pat and I touch on throughout this

(39:24):
conversation. When the structure is right,
everything else has the chance to work.
That's why we trust Robert Steele, because solid design
deserves a solid foundation. Do you wanna learn more?
E-mail me Jonathan and Jonathan waldenhomes.ca Alright, let's
get back to Pat and this moment where she's talking about what

(39:46):
it takes to build something steady when everything feels
uncertain. I couldn't.
I actually, I was about to say that I could.
I couldn't imagine. Yeah, no, I was at it.
Yeah, Yeah. No, I and there was not one
entrepreneur in my entire family, right.
So this is like just. Broke new your parents at this

(40:06):
point. Yeah, so the.
Roof. Yeah, well, they're on their way
in a way. But yeah, I don't think, I
actually, I honestly don't thinkI was honest with him because I
think if I told them and sort ofasked them to, you know, assess
the risks and what I would do, they'd say go get a job.
Yeah, exactly. OK, so so so OK, so now when you

(40:30):
started the practice was it called GH3 room started?
It why I had another partner. I had a partner that I have a
partner. I have a couple of partners now,
but had a partner at the time who's landscape architect and
her surname was Gerard and I wasHansen.
And then, I mean, it's a random and stupid shit.
You know, there was a cool firm called W 8.

(40:50):
We thought, you know, you know, we should have a generic name,
but it would only be really actually interesting, but had a
number. So I'm just showing you how
completely shallow and ridiculous the whole thing is.
So use the number 3. It is completely anyway.
So we use the number 3 because 3is actually, you know, kind of a
pretty good shape. Yeah.

(41:10):
And then we could rationalize itwith, you know, landscape
urbanism and architecture. You know, it's all you know.
It's a combination of rationalizing and post
rationalizing and, you know, silly silliness.
It's objectification. Come on.
I now that you say it makes sense.
Hmm, yeah, and it's fine. And and I'm not sure that I like

(41:33):
the name, but I do ask people, you know, in the office and
others. And I said, what do you think
about the name? And they say, oh, they really
like it, so I can't say that I do, but.
OK, well, I mean it's it's working.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, So you started the practice.
What was the year? I think 2005, OK, yeah.

(41:54):
So it's honestly, it's 20 years.Time goes fast, right?
Yeah. So.
So I'll tell you about the beginning.
That's I'm gonna ask that question, but I want the
question before the whole beginning is do you remember
what it felt like when you were submitting your documentation to
the OA with the name and saying like, we're doing this, I know

(42:19):
you gotta draw, you gotta draw back on that a little bit.
Yeah, I don't think it was the moment of doing the, the
documentation, OK. It was, you know, the, the, you
know, was the day of not going to an into an office, right,
Because we started it at my house and yeah, it was just sort
of sort of projecting ahead financially and.

(42:41):
How long can we carry this? Yeah, yeah.
Of course, we have to try to addsomething and bring in some
revenue. Yeah, like how can I?
Yeah, what? You know, how long am I going to
give myself before I really haveto figure this out?
O OK, so so OK, so now let's go there.
So what are the look like first,you know, you're, you're either
trying to hopefully acquire something where you don't have

(43:02):
to go into an RFP process, right, Because that will
hopefully now line up the business.
For, I mean, very fortunately, and maybe this made it a little,
the transition a little easier for me.
I had been approached probably about the last six months after
I was leaving Architects Alliance by a client who wanted
a boathouse. And so, you know, the one, the

(43:24):
first Governor General that we won that, that glass building on
Stony Lake that I had already started working on that.
So I had that. And, you know, it wasn't a
fantastic fee, but it was, you know, I he, you know, gave me
what we needed and it was enoughto, you know, so it was good.
Yeah, that was good. And then I had also been

(43:45):
approached to do a house and it's a house on our website
still, we still publish it. It called, I don't know if it's
called the Russell Hill House ornot, but so I had two
residential projects that helped.
And then my business partner, she'd had a bit of a landscape
practice, so she had some smaller landscape projects that
she could bring. So it was a scramble and then

(44:09):
we, we even actually got a couple of projects through an
old client something it was for Humber College.
They were starting a new campus in Orangeville, but that fell
apart and they pulled anyway, they, the Hamburg College pulled
out of that project in Orangeville, but looked like it

(44:30):
was kind of really going well for a while.
We even had a project with this Smithsonian, which is very
random. It wouldn't go to the details
that we got it. And then that fell apart too.
But, but so really for the firstcouple of years, we kind of
managed, even even hired a couple of people.
And we, what we, where we workedwas I had just finished
renovating a house. I've always been a house

(44:50):
renovator and made a little bit of money that way.
So I just finished the renovation of.
I bought a large house and I'd severed it, sold half of it and
we had just finished the house that we moved into and I moved
my and with a big not unlike your house, like a big open
space. Yeah.
And I made that my office and I had about 5 or 6 employees.

(45:14):
My children, what I put them through is really kind of not
nice walk down into and. You know them resilient.
Yeah, things that they will never, ever do in their own
adult life, right Anyway. You'll have the opportunity to
talk about what? Anyway, it was good.
It was all. It all worked out pretty well.
And um, and then I, you know, managed to pull together some

(45:39):
funds with sort of some family money, including my sons, cause
they're grandparents had passed to purchase a building on
Ossington, which is where, wherewe are right now, which is the
office moved there in 2009. So, but then when you talk about
RFP, so we're still kind of Grambling scrambling between
small residential, smaller residential projects, smaller

(46:02):
landscape. And then there was the kind of,
you know, in 2009, there was kind of a real downturn in the
economy, right course. So there was all of this
infrastructure funding, my sister always talks about this
infrastructure funding in the inlate in 2009 or so, all of these
RFP's came out O if you look at our my promotion folder for 2009

(46:27):
and part of 2010, I think there's probably about 30
proposals that we responded to. And largely because, you know, I
had never had always been the kind of design hag in the studio
and never been out in front withclients and stuff was very
difficult. I didn't really have a
reputation with even with certainly with even some of our

(46:51):
institutional clients, right. We've submitted I think 30
proposals and we got an interview for one.
Wow. So.
OK, so that's that's just deconstruct that for one minute.
Again, you're listening to this and you don't understand what
that would mean. That is me.
That means that you have probably put forth well over a

(47:11):
months worth of time cumulatively, Yeah, into
proposals that you're not getting paid for.
Yeah. To have one interview, yeah.
And that could be so crushing. Yeah, for sure.
No, it could be. Yeah, it could be like for the
wrong person. Yeah, they say, OK, I don't know
that I could do if I could do that type of work.

(47:32):
But, you know, at the same time,we're just, you know, the
boathouse is being constructed, the leather little house is
being constructed. And, you know, the feedback from
seeing something realized is good.
You know, it can still sort of manage to pay the bills and and
there's always tomorrow. So, you know, I'm kind of an

(47:53):
optimist. To go with that one.
Which one? The one that you were able to
get the interview for. We didn't get it.
OK, Yeah, we didn't get any of them.
Yeah, but you know we at around the same time, towards the same
time, I had a colleague who was working for Waterfront Toronto.

(48:14):
They were looking for a Waterfront Toronto don't
normally do their buildings, they hire landscape architects
and really rely on developers for any of their built work.
But some of their infrastructureprojects they will do take them
in house. So they were looking for an
architect to team with an engineering firm on a

(48:34):
stormwater, A stormwater qualityfacility.
Yeah, Yeah. And we, she reached out to me
and said, would you like to put in a proposal for this?
It was being very low key because she, I think they
assumed nobody would really wantto work on it.
So I said yes, for sure. I put in actually a relatively

(48:55):
low fee to get the work. We did get the work and that
building, while it took probablya decade to actually get it
constructed because it had a fewdifferent lives giving, you
know, dealing with, you know, funding issues is also one of
our more well known projects. That's the stormwater facility

(49:16):
down on Cherry Street, you know,that faceted cast in place
building. So, you know, there's just
little things like that happen that there are opportunities.
We were talking about that earlier, right?
Lock yeah, I was gonna be a reference that other.
Competitive right now luck. Yeah.
And so I think that's kind of the the early history of the

(49:38):
practice. You know, what's really the kind
of the way that we still operated today is we look for
projects where we think there's an opportunity and where there's
a client that might be open minded enough to, you know,
obviously not spend more money, but a more open minded about the
kind of the importance of the project and what it means to,

(49:58):
you know. In the city, yeah.
Can you tell me a little bit about the public pool project?
Yeah, Yeah. That's because I found that to
be a really interesting project.Yeah, you would.
I feel like you would have had to have learned a lot.
Yeah, we did research. Yeah, we did.
We did that. That's in Edmonton.

(50:18):
And that project, we got that project as a result of Edmonton
running a competition for park pavilions of which we were
successful enough to, you know, win two of those pavilions and
then the pool came out of that. And the.
So there's a city architect department there and they're
kind of more open minded about their procurement process, I

(50:41):
think partly because we had built some creds up from the
pavilions that were, you know, well received.
If you haven't, by the way, sorry to cut you off listener,
if you have not yet seen any of this work, whether or not this
is where we're gonna promote on social media or not, we'll
determine later on. But I highly recommend going and
looking at these because these pavilions are beautiful.
This pool is also really cool. O yeah.

(51:04):
That said, go ahead. Sorry.
Thank you. Thank you, Thank you.
Yeah. So anyway, we, we got the pool
without really having the kind of the right expertise for it.
But what it does speak to, and I've spoken to this a number of
times, a procurement model run by a city that is open enough
that will allow for sort of young talent and, you know, the

(51:26):
ability to sort of demonstrate your abilities other than just
what your passport Leo is. So it's kind of huge.
I think it's hugely important to, you know, allowing, you
know, younger talent. And anyway, so we got the
project we did. It was originally anyway we, we
got the project, we did it the first, the first version of it

(51:49):
went extremely over budget. And if anybody that knows
Alberta well enough because partly because of the oil
sector, it's kind of a boom postbust economy.
So you know, one year the the construction prices go through
the roof, two years later they can be bought, they can bought
them out. So we just hit the market on
that at a time with our first proposal that the project nearly

(52:12):
failed. So desperate to keep the project
alive, we kind of reimagined it because the first project had
some curves in it. It was really more about
biophilic shaping and we were thinking of molecules.
So it had a, you know, kind of aslightly, you know, in the, in
the naturalness of the pool. We had kind of rendered that

(52:33):
ideally sort of in a more organic way with shapes and
those all of course all cost money.
So we kind of regrouped and had a kind of a rethink about that
the the pool building could be an exterior building.
It would be seasonal and it would think about it as a much
more materials based concept that would be very inexpensive.

(52:56):
So hence all the Gabian and all the raw.
Listening to Pat talk about the natural swimming pool in
Edmonton, how her team completely rethought the design
to make it more sustainable, materials base and beautifully
restrained reminds me so much ofwhat our partners at the Quantum
Pools are doing here. A quanta specializes in
biodesign, natural pools and incredible system developed in

(53:19):
Italy that transforms the traditional idea of a pool.
Instead of concrete shells or harsh chemicals, these are
sculpted lagoon style pools madewith natural filtration.
Sand and stone finishes informedthe blend seamlessly into the
landscape. Just like past project, it's a
total rethinking of what's possible when design and

(53:41):
engineering meet environmental sensitivity in.
The Qantas team handles everything locally, from design
and excavation to installation, waterproofing, long-term
maintenance. They bring the same precision
and passion that you'd expect from an architect LED project,
only now it's in your backyard. Whether you're envisioning

(54:02):
something sculptural or serene. And Quantum Pools delivers that
kind of innovation, craftsmanship and quality that
we love seeing in projects like paths.
If you want to learn more, e-mail via Jonathan Jonathan at
waldenholmes.ca and I'll connectyou with Yuri and his fantastic
team. Alright, let's get back to Pat,

(54:23):
because this next part dives right into how constraints and
creativity can produce somethingtruly extraordinary.
And the, the project is completely orthogonal and
regular. Like there's, you know, it's,
it's very rigorous in a kind of very straightforward way.
And we could get, we could manage to get it on budget.

(54:46):
So like, I don't think the firstdesign would nearly have been
nearly as interesting, right. So it's kind of interesting when
you get really challenged and have to reach deep down for a
solution, right? You know, sometimes it can be a
far better, more sophisticated 1.
No, they don't feel it at the time.
At the time you're like you're trying to claw your way out of
a. Hole.
Yeah, exactly. Really scrambling.

(55:08):
Where's the light? Yeah, yeah.
So I was actually, I reached outto a few different people and I
got a so wanted. Anyway, have a question they
would want to ask to you? And so I spoke with Maggie
Bennison and Maggie wants to want to know based on the

(55:29):
portfolio of work that you have and how well executed most of
most of, if not all of your projects are, how are you able
to through the course of construction get the
constructors? Yeah, that's us in many ways to
really kind of fall in line withwhat the design intent is and

(55:50):
not lose it over the course of the project.
Hmm. Yeah, I know.
Yeah, I, well, I think it's through a really good set of
drawings. I mean, if you look at the work,
the, the, the ambition is alwayskind of bracketed.
Like we don't expect too much from each project.
So each project has one or two really key details that you got

(56:12):
to get right, not too many materials.
So one or two sophisticated details that kind of carry the
vocabulary. The larger architectural
vocabulary is, is key a good setof drawings that are, are
constantly sort of making sure that that information is clear

(56:33):
in in the set. We think in more recent years
use dual, include more 3 dimensional imagery in our sets.
So contractors can sort of visualize this.
I mean, think about being a contractor and getting this sort
of two-dimensional sets of drawings like, you know, how do

(56:53):
you put, you know, it's hard to visualize it.
So we do a fair bit of that and then we're, we're really
vigilant. I'm, you know, we spent a lot of
time on site and we kind of talkthings through.
So I think we are experienced enough that we can work with
contractors and tell help them to anticipate where there's

(57:15):
going to be challenges. So one of the projects that
we're constructing right now is got barrel vaults and we know
that we've got like just inches to spare to thread through all
the infrastructure. We kind of work that through
with them, you know, right from the beginning, like we're always
sort of monitoring that and, andgetting them to sort of do
mockups to show us how they're going to be able to execute it

(57:38):
row. So I, I don't think it's any,
it's not rocket science, but. It's also.
There's no one element of it. It's, yeah, it's a process,
yeah. You know, it's just being, you
know, really vigilant through the whole process for sure.
And staying heavily involved. Yeah.
Yeah, right. Right.
And I say that because like, that's largely when we're

(57:59):
building. With yeah, right, we right.
We're asking for site visits allthe time.
Yes, I know videos like how? How do you want this?
Yeah, exactly. Explain it to me.
What? Is yeah, yeah, yeah, go figure
it out together. Yeah.
I mean, that's, that's what, that's what real collaborations
about. Yeah.
So where, where do you see, where do you see your practice
going from where you where you were to where you are to where

(58:21):
you want to go are, are there are there certain projects that
you've not yet been able to takeon that you want or are there
regions that you haven't yet been able to design for that
you'd like to design for? What does that look like?
Is there material that you have in your been able to play with
that you'd like to? Yeah, well, I think about, you

(58:45):
know, um, my, my fellow colleagues, my, you know, I have
a partner, Raymond Chow or principal, and then a couple of
two other principles in the office, John McKenna and Joel.
And then, you know, a group of other people that will carry on

(59:05):
once I'm sort of done, which I'mnot sure when that's going to
be. So I think about kind of think
about that more than I think about making sure that the
portfolio stays diverse so that they're, you know, inheriting
something, you know, that they can work with right.
And and that that is a diverse portfolio, which includes, you

(59:29):
know, infrastructure, multi residential.
We've been trying to pick up thelandscape sector a little bit
more. And certainly Elise Shelly from,
you know, with the director at the University of Toronto
downhills landscape department is a huge part of that.
But yeah, sort of really trying to keep and and actually build
into other sectors. Even of course, what architect

(59:52):
wouldn't like to do is sort of a, you know, an art gallery or
museum or whatever. But that's, you know, I'm a
realist. I get I get a lot back from
infrastructure buildings. So I don't, I don't know that
that it's not that there's a real type.
I'm actually quite happy, as I was explaining to someone a few

(01:00:12):
years ago, about sort of nibbling around the fringes and
finding work there that I can make interesting.
It doesn't have to be the most important project, you know,
cultural project, but it would be interesting.
I think you know, too, you know,do something that was, you know,
more a little bit more public facing, OK, than the small

(01:00:33):
pavilions that we do, which are pretty public facing, but still,
you know, kind of simpler scale.Yeah.
So yeah, that would be. But honestly, I'm happy to
design anything. Kind of happy if the if if the
client is right. Doesn't have to be a huge
budget. Pretty happy to think about
anything. Is there a project that you've

(01:00:56):
that you've completed or that you have under construction now
that you felt is really has embodied like with what you
would call like or what your life's work or is it?
Was there a specific element of a certain project that has
really resonated with you, you kind of hold dear?
I really do feel good about the natural swimming pool in that it

(01:01:20):
is a kind of that it is very conceptual without being with an
architecture that is so much like, don't look at me like it
is so restrained and it's just well executed.
Yeah, with a, you know, one veryclear idea that resonates on a
number of levels. I feel really good about that

(01:01:43):
project. You know, other projects, you
know, we're like every other architecture firm.
We look at what other architectsare doing and you know,
everybody gets influenced by somebody else, but that project
is just not influenced. Probably anything that isn't
just. Yeah.
So I kind of I kind of that one.I do feel like, you know, if I
was to look back, it would be that was a a good result.

(01:02:08):
So someone asked you questions in terms of what you like to
fulfill your time with when you are not working.
What does that look like nowadays?
What do you like to do? You were you were an outdoors
person before and in the sports is that is that maintained
itself over the years. Not really.
I mean I am. I do a lot of exercise and I,

(01:02:29):
you know, I, I work out and I run and by.
War you're short distance. Around I am a short distance
runner every morning of. Every every morning, yeah.
How? How far do you run?
I run for about 30 minutes. So distance doesn't matter, just
time. We have the same route.
I'm like a creature of habit. OK, Yeah, I don't exactly the

(01:02:52):
same route. If I change my route, I get
tired every morning. Absolutely every morning since
I've been about 30. I just don't feel good if I'm
not outside within minutes of waking up.
So you'll run on an empty stomach.
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When I was running I was gonna say yeah.
Always. Yeah.
No, I mean, I pee, brush my teeth, and I was straight, you

(01:03:13):
know, That's it. Yeah, yeah, the basics.
Yeah, yeah. No, it's good.
Because you're starting. Off my like, you know, I've had
many bad habits, but it's been my only good habit that I've
sustained for many years. And other things, travel or
vacationing or. What do I do for fun?
I have no fun. That's not well, you you like

(01:03:35):
what you do. Yeah, I like what I do.
No, I have been, I have been traveling more and um, yeah, so
I've been and I like, I do like to travel and I have family in
Mexico, so we go there a lot andbeen recently been going to
Europe quite a bit more than I used to.
And my my most favorite new activity is going to a cold
plunge. Yeah.

(01:03:57):
So I've been pretty doing that alot, which I like.
How many minutes can you? Can you?
Can you last? I, I go, I'll go in for two
minutes. I could probably go longer, but
I kind of this is the way I run.I think that's good enough.
I could go farther, but this is enough.
I remember I said I had one run.It's actually funny.

(01:04:19):
I remember I was taught. I talked to Vanessa Fong right
after I had finished this run because she also runs.
She runs. She was running distance.
She runs all the time. And I had finished this run is
up in my cottage in Muskoka. Might run like it.
It was like not crazy the wrong,like I think it was like 1414
1/2 K That's a lot. Something like that.
Yeah. And I was like, I feel like I
could just keep going right now,right.

(01:04:40):
I looked down at my watch. It's like I've been gone for a
while. I feel like I need to get back
to me and the second I thought on my family like none of this
runs. Over.
Yeah, this is good. This is good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm.
I'm actually pretty easy on myself when it's stuff when it
comes to that, yeah. And of course my running is not
as good as it used to be. I feel like I'm kind of half the

(01:05:01):
time just dragging my body across the street, but it's OK.
I still do it. But seven days a week?
Well, yeah, for sure. I mean, I occasionally miss one
day, but not rarely, right? Rarely, yeah.
That's that's, I mean, that's that's a lot running, running
is. If it's good, it keeps me happy.
Yeah, yeah. And do you listen to music or

(01:05:22):
anything or nothing? I'm pretty good with silence.
And breathing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean. Yeah, OK, maybe I'm breathing.
Yeah. All right, Pat, it's been, it's
been such a pleasure, honestly. OK, good.
I'm, I'm glad. I'm glad that you, you came

(01:05:43):
around through it and we said yes and that we were able to do
this because I know that you've,you've had a strong impact on a
lot of people. And I know that there have been
a couple people that have asked to have you on this because they
want, they really admire what you do and, and, and your, and
your work. And so I appreciate you becoming
extrovert for an hour. Yeah, I'm going to regret it.

(01:06:04):
I know for sure. But anyway, it's OK.
No, you are. I won't listen.
And I'll, I'll just. No, you are.
Yeah. Thanks again, I appreciate.
It. Yeah.
OK. No, it was a pleasure.
You made it easy.