Episode Transcript
Vince:
Hello, listeners. Thank you for checking in to Design Makes Everything Better. Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian McKay Lions. He’s founder of McKay Lions Sweet Apple Architects, located here in Nova Scotia, Canada. For those of you who might be far away and have never heard of him before, I hope that this is a really good introduction to his incredible body of work and the strength of the team that, uh, is working for his office. If you are already familiar with Brian and his work, I hope that this is, uh, a really good way to shine a new light on the philosophies of the office, the approach of the office, and the future, and the direction that they’re trying to go. So please enjoy Brian Mcca
Announcer:
Lions welcome to Design Makes Everything Better, a podcast about design as a process for making decisions and succeeding. Now, here’s your host, Vince.
Vince:
Well, thanks for joining us today, Brian. It’s, uh, it’s great having you. It’s very serendipitous that I ran into you on the airplane and got you to Yeah.
Brian:
You know. Yeah. Wait, the plane was late, so that meant we had breakfast in the airport and everything, so that
Vince:
Was good. Yeah. And then we ended up, luckily just being able to sit beside each other just by chance. Right. So we got to catch up a little bit and, uh, was able to Nice. I think, convince you to, to come and join us here today. So, very nice. Yeah.
Brian:
Thanks. You’re a persuasive guy.
Vince:
Oh, is that right?
Brian:
Yeah, . Okay. You don’t need to say to it.
Vince:
Smile. Well, you persuaded me into agreeing to that, so you miss me too. . Um, you know, on that flight I got to thinking about what was maybe one of the first introductions that I had of your work, and it was when I was studying at Ryerson University, and, um, there was an article in Canadian Architect, um, I think it was titled, and it’s coming from memory here. I couldn’t locate it, but the Village Architect. Mm-hmm. . It was this turquoise blue. I almost had a folk
Brian:
Yeah, yeah. Folk. It was Joe on the
Vince:
Of it. Yeah. And, um, you know, the description of, uh, you and your work and the, um, the relationship you had to land at that point. And, um, it’s still there today for you. Very much so, but I’m, I’m wondering how that village architect, uh, definition and title has maybe expanded over the years for you, and what does that mean to you today?
Brian:
Yeah. Well, there’s two villages, right? There’s the one you live in where you go and borrow a cup of sugar next door. And then, and then there’s the global community of architecture and the arts. And, and I’ve always been interested in being in one foot in both, you know, we like where we are at our farm at cvac, we’ve done 40 buildings and, you know, you design, you know, the, a building for this single woman down next door or whatever, you know, and, you know, a studio for an artist or something. And then, uh, and then, yeah. And then the, because of the work is published globally and we’re doing work all over. Uh, yeah. We have one foot in each. And I think it has to do with how I was brought up because we, I grew up in this little village called Arcadia, which was foreign people.
Brian:
Mm-hmm. . And, uh, every year or so, my parents would pull me outta school to go on a trip cuz they were the war shuffled the deck for people, for families. Right. So my mother was a war bride, you know, a circadian woman from Pubco, various r a f guy. And so they, you know, they got used to traveling during the war mm-hmm. . And so they traveled a lot. So we got, you’re in the village and you’re, you know, it’s a very small little world there. And then, then you find you’re in the Roman forum the next day. And so I’ve always had this kind of
Vince:
Connection, local,
Brian:
Global
Vince:
Places
Brian:
Village. And I find the are, uh, community of peers like yourself really important. I’m sure it is in music and all the other, well in every field, but it certainly in the arts, uh, we share a lot of values. And I find, especially starting a practice here back home where my family have lived for literally 10,000 years, uh, I,
Vince:
Uh, let me sit down back home. You mean
Brian:
In Nova Scotia? Inva
Vince:
Scotia or Luna be
Brian:
In Nova Scotia? No, Noar, ether. Mm-hmm. , um, MIMA and Acadian. Yeah. Mix. Uh, it was really, really hard to get a practice going and not being from the right side of the oligarchy, you know? Right. So
Vince:
You had no relationships really in terms of clients?
Brian:
No, not, not nobody. Anybody with money and then, right. Uh, so, uh, you just get kicked in the ribs a lot, except when I would go to international architecture events. Everybody was so friendly and there was a kind of camaraderie and a mutual support system, you know, so mm-hmm. , uh, you know, so it came to rely on the peer group a lot for, uh,
Vince:
Motivation
Brian:
And sense of self worth. Mm-hmm. , you know.
Vince:
So, just to back up just a little bit, when you were going to, uh, these sort of sessions and, and gatherings, did you already at that point have a body of work Yeah. That they could recognize and they were supporting, or, yeah.
Brian:
Yeah. I would always do a keynote at some kind of a thing. I, I was a kid, you know, and I graduated early young, and we got our, our work got out there in the world pretty early. And so people would invite me to come and do a, a lecture and someplace and or a teaching chair in some place. We’ve done, I think I’ve done like 18 teaching chairs around the world. Right. And stuff. So you end up meeting all kinds of people. It’s always a honeymoon, right? Mm-hmm. when you’re in the guest.
Vince:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s great. Yeah. It’s nice. Everybody’s happy to see you. Yeah. Yeah. So what,
Brian:
When would you, and people are generous because they’re not insecure, so they, they don’t need to be mean,
Vince:
Right? Right. So what would you, what were the, the threads that you would find would be connecting you and some of your peers in places that were so different than say, Nova
Brian:
Scotia? Yeah. Well, one thread, uh, you know, was that whole critical regionalist thread. You know, Kenneth Frampton’s famous article. Uh, um, but he didn’t really invent the thing. It was, uh, lafa and, uh, a Greek guy who, Canadian woman, or a Greek guy who invented this whole thing of critical regionalism. And, you know, uh, Louis Mumford talked about it. So Ken Franton didn’t really invent it, but, so that idea of going back to where you’re from and learning about place, learning about climate, landscape, material, culture where you grew up or learning manners, you know, like at the kitchen table at home mm-hmm.
Vince:
Brian:
Mm-hmm. . Um, so a lot of times I would get asked to go and lecture in other boonies places, places where people were also trying to do something like that. And they saw our practice as a kind of a, a model that would work for them. So, you know, other boonies architects would, would gimme a call, you know? Right. So
Vince:
There was, there was a fair bit of learning and cross pollination of sort
Brian:
From Yeah. Yeah. And we still, you know, yeah. We still do it. And what,
Vince:
What would you say you may have taken from, from some of those meetings that you’ve had? Did it, did it expedite the speed of your practice, maybe in terms of Sure. Base and,
Brian:
Yeah. Cuz I mean, you know, Marlon Blackwell just got the a i a gold medal air, uh, during Covid time, and he recommended me to do a teaching chair at Wash Washington University in St. Louis, so mm-hmm. . Yeah. And then I wrote a letter for him to get his AIA medal in, you know, in, you know, uh, you know, POWs nominated me for the, uh, uh, r a I C gold medal. So, and, you know, so it’s, it’s not a club. It, it’s a, it’s a mutual regard community mm-hmm. , um, yeah. And people are doing really good work. And you’re inspired by it. Yeah.
Vince:
That’s the thing I would really see as, as a takeaway, you
Brian:
Know? Yeah. And you go to the site, you go to the site, I mean mm-hmm. , you know, say John Pack, he’s a, he’s a master builder, and I remember going to the site with him Yeah. Or Howard Sutcliffe, you know, in Toronto going Yeah, sure. For the site with him. And I mean, he’s our master builders and they mm-hmm. and you, you’re having a real conversation on the scaffolding.
Vince:
Yeah. Yeah. And you see their thought process and you understand where they’re, where they’re coming from. It’s, it’s really,
Brian:
I call it aa, you know, architects anonymous. Yeah. It’s like being an alcoholic, you know? You can’t Yeah. You can’t help it. Yeah.
Vince:
. Well, you know, that’s, that’s actually, it’s interesting that, that you say that because I find myself sometimes when I go to, and I, I don’t, this might sound like I’m kind of shitting on my profession a little bit, and I apologize for that, but I sometimes find myself leaving association meetings or sometimes gatherings with architects and
Brian:
They’re half asleep.
Vince:
Yeah. Well, yeah, that too. But there’s also this sort of, um, worn down Yeah. Uh, mentality where there’s this,
Brian:
The
Vince:
Struggle is very real for,
Brian:
So you gotta get out of town. Yeah, that’s right. To get past that. Yeah. Because I remember going to Christmas parties and Halifax, you know, the architects would say, yeah, why do you try so hard? It’s not worth it.
Vince:
Right. What’s the It’s worth it. It’s worst. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:
It is worth it.
Vince:
. Yeah. It, there’s so much more to engage in, in this profession that we can all engage in, which is really exciting. Like, all of the challenges and the built environment, all like the housing short and just, just the act of creating is such an exciting process to be around people that don’t see that joy. Or maybe they did see that joy, but they don’t see it anymore. You do get pulled down a little bit or a lot.
Brian:
Yeah. I agree with you.
Vince:
You know, like there’s this, um, expression that you, um, you become the average of the five people you spend most of your time with. And, uh, you know, with that said, you, you always want to spend as much time as you can with people that are motivating and excited to do the things that, that you admire, you wanted. Yeah. And that you admire that really just gets you going. And, um, so what, what else would you say is, um, sorry, I’m just, yeah, you, let’s throw
Speaker 4:
That on there. Put the tapping on the mic then. Oh, I see. It’s good to tap, but it’s, uh,
Vince:
Oh, I see.
Speaker 4:
Okay. .
Vince:
Well, Brian, Brian’s a drummer. Right? I heard
Brian:
You can never
Vince:
Get the tap out of a drummer.
Speaker 4:
Tap. I’m tap something else.
Brian:
I had a, I had a music teacher, uh, teaching me piano lessons since she was a nun at the convent mm-hmm. When I was growing up. And I tapped my feet and she would drive her, her nuns. She was right into the, my in stepss of my feet, gritt her teeth. I thought her teeth are gonna fall out, you know? But she was so angry that I would tap. I said, no, you can’t. It’s music. You’re supposed to,
Speaker 4:
Especially with, with talking, it may actually makes sense, the rhythms. It’s just that it’s, uh, . Yeah. It says
Brian:
From a
Vince:
Musician
Speaker 4:
Righting the audio at this
Brian:
Point. Okay. Sorry. Well,
Speaker 4:
I keep on tapping. Just tap on the, on the felt. Okay. Yeah.
Vince:
Yeah. . Um, yeah. One of my good buddies when I grew up in, uh, high school, or when I was into high school, was a drummer. And he was always sitting behind me in geography class, and he was just constantly tapping away. And it just, maybe that’s how I lost my teeth when I was younger. not from hockey, but from
Speaker 4:
That, I’m just saying it, that course. .
Vince:
Yeah. Anyhow, it’s, um, I can really see that, um, need for camaraderie and, and support and the excitement that you can share. So is that, is that, uh, the only sort of, well, I’m sure there’s others, but like, what else is motivating for you then? Well,
Brian:
Travels, travel, you know, when we’re talking about travel, you know, I, being four years old in their own form or something mm-hmm. , reaching around a column is one thing. Mm-hmm. , but travel, I think a life in teaching and practice. Uh, I was saying to someone the other day, uh, it’s, it’s, uh, when I was a professor up until, you know, for 37 years, I, I Dell I would, um, when I traveled, I would look at things so I could come back and tell the young people about them. Uh, and then I’d still do that. And then I realized that I don’t have any students to, to show it to anymore. So it was a bit of a, a hole there, you know? Mm-hmm. . But, uh, so I always thought teaching was a selfish thing. You, you teach cuz it makes you a better architect.
Vince:
Right. You work through your philosophies.
Brian:
Yeah. Yeah. To take the messy anecdotal, day-to-day stuff and try to into principles you can explain to someone. Sure. Sure. And then they, they, and if they look at you like they’re not getting it, it means you gotta sharpen up, you know? Mm-hmm. . So teaching’s really good for you. Uh, uh, yeah.
Vince:
I, I was never, I, um, I, I really enjoyed teaching for a little bit, um, was an assistant professor for some studio classes, and I think it was with your partner, Talbot mm-hmm. . And, um, uh, I got reviews that would span from one outta 10 to 10 outta 10. And the ones that got the one were the ones that I pushed maybe a little bit too hard. And the ones that were 10 were the ones that whose work was, was maybe terrific. And it was almost a bit too transparent. So I felt like it was difficult to,
Brian:
That’s brutal to keep everybody
Vince:
Tight because I needed to feel like I was giving some direction to the ones that were getting, you know, poor movement in their work. And, um, you know, and it was, it was a fun part of, um, the sort of early years of graduating. But, you know, it, uh, I didn’t get to the space where I was working through ideas and, um, you know, the principles that you’re talking about, which I could see being extremely valuable.
Brian:
And I would go on pilgrimages and some of our colleagues would, I, one time a bunch of us, you know, uh, Marilyn Blackwell, Rick Joy, Tom Kig, uh, uh, well, Wende Burnett, bunch of us went to the Dogan and lived in the Sahara Desert in the mud, amazing cities, you know, for a month in the Sahara Desert together, uh, sleeping in tents along the NI River, and, um, yeah, it’s a pilgrimage. Mm-hmm. , you know, you read Alvan, Ike wrote about the Dogan in 1940s. So you go in the footsteps, and I knew Alvan Ike in, he used to come to our place in Kingsburg, but, uh, he’s gone now, like about, uh, yeah. So you feel that you’re walking in the footsteps of people and walking with your friends and, uh, having all those experiences to share and then go back and share ’em with your students or learn from them. You know, a great way, way to learn about your climate, for instance, is to see another climate. Yeah. You know? Oh,
Vince:
Completely.
Brian:
Yeah. And your material culture becomes more apparent to you when you see another one. Mm-hmm. , you know, so we were built an embassy in Bangladesh out of bricks, and, you know, bricks are not shingles like we built with a Nova Scotia, but, so you, you learn about material culture by being a, a guest in another culture. Mm-hmm. . So the travel thing really important, I think. Yeah. For a whole lot of reasons. Yeah. You know, people of course. And, and the places, you know mm-hmm. mm-hmm. . So place has been a really strong thread in our work. So the Village architect is a kind of a reference to that.
Vince:
Mm-hmm. not taken. So literally
Brian:
It’s a, it’s a bigger picture course. Sometimes it’s the village idiot, you know, like, you know, not everybody, uh, gets it. But, uh, yeah. So the Village Architect was a brand, uh, I guess we had, it’s really just, it’s not, it’s really architecture of place. Mm-hmm. . Uh, so you have to be a good traveler to learn about place you learn from other places. Yeah.
Vince:
Yeah. Well, whenever I’m, um, coming up with early stages of design and, um, putting together some kind of a project, it’s always, I’m always surprised at how, um, much the images of places that I’ve been to come to mind, and not intentionally, I’m not like thinking or trying to think of what was that place? It just, there’s this sort of fluid mm-hmm. kind of memory. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And, and it comes from traveling. So I, you know, maybe coming back to Dow again, like I, or the studies, it must be so hard for a lot of students that couldn’t travel during Covid, for example. And, um, you know, they talk about some of their experiences without traveling. It. It’s, it makes that sort of influence so much narrower. And, um, it, it’s, as a part of the education of any architect that, that traveling, as you’ve described it, is critical for you and I mm-hmm. can’t see it. Um, and then the sketchbook being anything else for everybody else
Brian:
Yeah. And the sketchbook, you know, you need mm-hmm.
Vince:
. Yeah. Oh, that’s why I learned to draw on sketch. You just traveling, traveling. And, uh, there was this great thing that, um, um, I read once with Peter Zumther, and I started to do it after I went to some of his buildings when I was traveling. And, um, he said to do memory drawings mm-hmm. . So, um, he, this was just in an article that I read. I didn’t get the chance to meet him, but it was really interesting because I would visit a place once and draw it without drawing it while it was there, but just from memory and then go back to it afterwards. And what you end up doing is turning up the dial on things that felt smaller. You end up drawing it a little bit tighter, so you kind of exaggerate. Yeah. The sort of, of the information and input that you received, and you gain a lot of knowledge on, on this, the buildings and places that you’ve been to, which is
Brian:
Exciting. This Queens Mark project that we just, uh, finished after 10 years of mm-hmm. . And you worked on it too. Uh, you’re working on the restaurants there.
Vince:
Oh, in the restaurants. Yeah. And, um, some of them,
Brian:
Um, what was I gonna say? Uh, yeah, I, I had this idea that the square in the middle of Queens, mark was a square in, in, in, in, uh, Vienna.
Vince:
Oh
Brian:
Yeah. The old city in Vienna. And so I was back there last, last year trying to find this square. Like you say, you know, the memory. That’s
Vince:
Funny, funny you said,
Brian:
I was thinking and I couldn’t find it over.
Vince:
It’s funny. It was just maybe a figment of your imagination.
Brian:
I think I met a lot of it up.
Vince:
Yeah. Oh, that’s interesting. , you know, you picked together and pulled together the all of them that you’ve been to when it, it turns into something that’s Well, there, there you go. There’s the, the village abroad, uh, turning into the, the local village that you then get to influence and bring it home. Yeah. You don’t know where it came from, it’s just from all of the images and so on that you’ve
Brian:
Seen. And I think, you know, in music, there’s a lot of good analogies of crossover in music. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. You know, uh, Patsy Klein, you know, so many, uh, you know, Sam Cooke, you know, so many crossovers. The crossovers are really full of energy, right? Mm-hmm. , when you, when you, uh, of course the problem is, you know, what happens when all these authentic places that we’d like to, you know, uh, be inspired by, stop being authentic and everything’s a crossover and there isn’t any authentic thing anymore. Yeah.
Vince:
You need to, you need a bit of everything. Right? Well,
Brian:
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, maybe there’s a time when those authentic places don’t exist. Like there’s a, there’s a subdivision around every city in the world that looks the same mm-hmm. nowadays.
Vince:
Yeah. Oh man, it’s so heartbreaking. Whenever you was in the States just a little while ago, and I was looking at the subdivisions there, and then you, you recognize all of the really bad detailing that’s been kind of shared with subdivisions in Ontario, for example. And it’s just the, the sort of homogenous nature of solutions. It’s not, it’s not responding to any kind globalization context, it’s just an economic,
Brian:
Globalized culture growth.
Vince:
Yeah.
Speaker 4:
Sometimes authentic is a illusion too. Mm-hmm. , like you’d say, oh, this is the authentic one. But that was a hybrid of two things that you don’t even remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like jazz, oh, that’s authentic, but mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? So Yeah.
Vince:
How far back does it go? Right.
Brian:
Uh, yeah. One of the reasons, what
Speaker 4:
Is
Brian:
Authentic? One of the reasons we went to the Nigel Delta, you know, to Mali, was to, because of very interested music. Cuz you know, Rick Joy is a drummer. He played with Disney Gillespie, you know, good drummer. And we went there and partly cuz of the music, cuz uh, that, you know, the slave traders went into the hinterland in inland to take the slaves to the coast and bring them to North America. So the, so you’re in, you’re, you’re, you’re tending in a sand dune in, in the, in the, in the Sahara Desert. And then people come out of the, out of the night and start playing music with you. And you think, oh wow. Now this isn’t the a hundred year old Mississippi Delta version of the blues. This is, this is the 2 million year old wow. Version of the blues. This is where the blues originated. It’s so humbling, you
Vince:
Know? Yeah.
Brian:
Right. It’s
Vince:
So humbling, sort of the depth of human history when you, when you see those threads, right. Like, it’s just, it’s hard to,
Brian:
So architecture’s just part of culture, right? Yeah. It’s just another layer. You know, we’re,
Vince:
We’re, um, you know, looking at it retroactively as we have been, what do you, what do you see as the, the future, maybe even just for your, your practice specifically in, in this sort of cultural significance that you hope to bring?
Speaker 5:
Uh, that’s
Brian:
Tough. Um,
Speaker 5:
Yeah.
Vince:
You only have 30 seconds to answer the question.
Speaker 5:
laugh>.
Brian:
Well, you wanna make architecture that’s authentic, uh, and, uh, we’re have no interest in fashion really. And by contrast, interested in archetype of things, things that are cross-cultural and timeless. So, you know, to make architecture that’s more silent is a goal and more clear, more pure, you know, aiming for the sublime, never getting there. So, so the way financial success for a practice can be the kiss of death, because you can end up being too busy and do terrible work, uh, get gets away from you or having too much facility can be the enemy of rigor.
Speaker 5:
Mm-hmm.
Brian:
affirmative>. And so in a way, uh, so that idea of searching for the timeless archetypal things is, for me personally, very, very sustaining. It’s comical. You tell a student the first year architecture student tell a 20 year old, you know, that the project’s great because they’re trying to do it. Cuz it, it reminds you of Louis Kahn, you know, and then they get all this dejected look on their face and you say, no, no, this is the highest compete. Don’t you understand? Like, novelty is overrated. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5:
affirmative>. Yeah.
Brian:
You know, like, uh, yeah. But young people often don’t, aren’t interested in that. You know, it’s like you’re, you know, to feel you have to do patro side, you know, kill your parents. I was never that kind of kid. I just wanted to sit at the, at the, on the floor next to my grandparents, you know, and learn from them mm-hmm.
Speaker 5:
affirmative> mm-hmm. , you know
Brian:
Mm-hmm. . So I didn’t ever confuse my own personal, uh, self.
Vince:
Mm-hmm.
Brian:
affirmative> mm-hmm. with learning from other people.
Vince:
Right. Right.
Brian:
You know, so that’s why I, I think I’m still practically getting too old for this. I, but I, I really enjoy the people you get to work with. And you, you understand this too. It’s part of your nature. And so, uh, every client has another view of the world that you can learn, tap and try on and have empathy for. And, and architecture’s a great thing for that. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Um, yeah. So empathy for others and, and a philosophical level, trying to put yourself in position of other people and other cultures and mm-hmm. , uh, it continues to be stimulating. And so I don’t feel like quitting anytime soon.
Vince:
No, I hope you don’t. It’s, you know, one of the, I remember being very, uh, early in my studies and a teacher said to me that the best thing about architecture is if you stay on track, you can grow a old gracefully mm-hmm. . And I think that’s the, the older that I get, uh, the more I realize that it’s harder to stay focused, like you said, to, you know, to have that success
Brian:
In the way for one thing.
Vince:
Yeah. Yeah. What you said there, there’s a lot in there that I’d love to kind of unpack a little bit. And, um, so, um,
Brian:
But I don’t wanna subscribe to the starving artist, you know, like, no, you should be able to, you know, in fact, I, I would tell my students, and if, if I can’t make a living put bread on the table for my children, I shouldn’t be teaching you because it’s child abuse. Mm-hmm. , you know. Yeah.
Vince:
I, I think, you know, when I’ve heard a lot of people in the field of design talk about how difficult they say the profession could be, or they say that architecture is, um, it never pays. I think that’s just, that’s a business problem that I think is, is, is yours to overcome. It’s not a profession problem. And I think if you can negotiate appropriately and don’t sacrifice absolutely everything of yourself to the client, maybe to the project in a way that you can really give everything that you’ve got, but you don’t have to, you know, sell the farm. Yeah.
Brian:
So, well, DeCarlo, Jan Carlo DeCarlo was one of those team 10 guys and I to work for him in Italy. And he, he, before he died, he said to me, you know, to serve is not to be a servant. And that’s a trick, that’s a discipline, right? Mm-hmm. , like in the last week, we’ve had several conversations with clients and, uh, people are saying, you know, be careful. Don’t keep pushing that idea you got there because the client’s not liking it. Mm. Well, in every single case, you stand up for what you believe in, the client goes for it. You know, so it’s easy to become beaten down. Like you said, you know, we did a house for the Netflix owner and mm-hmm. , you know, he, he, he said, well, you know, why’d you do that curve building for me? Is, is cuz you think that’s what I wanted? And I said, no, it’s cuz it’s the right answer. And if I had have said, yeah, master, I did it cuz I thought you would like it, he would’ve fired us. Right. You know, smart people want the truth. Mm-hmm. and want a critical job, you know, so it’s very cynical. I think this, the client is always right in a certain kind of way. It’s true. Mm-hmm. , the client is always interesting. Oh
Vince:
Yeah. That’s, that’s the thing. Not always right. Yeah, for sure. For sure. You know, when you’ll get, everybody’s had clients. If you have an office where you are, you, you can be pinned into a corner and you do just whatever they are asking to do. Right.
Brian:
Then they get less, they end up getting less out of you. Yeah. Yeah. The good client knows how to,
Vince:
It’s not a long relationship Yeah. If
Brian:
You
Vince:
Do that. Yeah. And, and I think that, that, what, what I’ve come to find is the, the biggest pride that we have as an office, and I would say with the clients, it’s not a lot of ’em are clients that we’ve had for many, many, many years, some over a decade. And they’d be running a variety of different projects because we, you have to straddle that, um, in our, in our space, which I think is very different than, than yours mm-hmm. . Um, cuz we do so much work commercially and we’re working with businesses, there’s this sort of, um, business position that we have to find. Right. And that’s the sort of thing that interests us. That’s what, that’s the like to your client that has another worldview that you want to tap into. For us, it’s another business that has a, a philosophy, a
Brian:
Brand
Vince:
Ethos plan, and an ethos that we want to connect with mm-hmm. . And I find that forever exciting. Yeah,
Brian:
There you
Vince:
Go. So it’s, you know, finding that right, um, solution that is connected to their business means at times you have a conversation with a client that would be, that’s not actually what you’re, you want, but this is what your clients want. And I know that anybody that walks through your store or your restaurant, or whichever it might be, will want to see this given what business you’ve told us that you have and how you work and the people that we’ve talked to in your business mm-hmm. . So it’s, it’s interesting to thread that delicate line at times, right? Mm-hmm. , um, because we want to have those long-term relationships and we see our relationships as a partnership in a way, which is a struggle. And I think it’s a very different than yours. And I sometimes wish,
Brian:
Maybe just wish that yours, my focal length is differently, you guys, I mean Sure. A lot of those interiors that you do have a quick timeline.
Vince:
Yeah, they
Brian:
Do. And, you know, a lot of, uh, more instant reward maybe mm-hmm. , you know.
Vince:
Yeah, yeah. For sure. And I think gratification.
Brian:
Yeah.
Vince:
Yeah. And there’s, there’s a, there’s another thing that I, I find that, um, I wanted to know what you think about the houses that you do, because with us, when we do, um, just as you mentioned, interiors, if we do a project, that relationship that we have with that project continues for quite some time. Like, we will go back to that restaurant mm-hmm. , we will go back to that bar. We will, uh, walk by that building in a way. So it becomes this sort of environment that we’ve created.
Brian:
Even though they’re short duration projects, they can have a lifetime,
Vince:
They have a lifetime and client
Brian:
Relationship.
Vince:
Yeah. And in times, whenever I’ve done a house. Um, so I’d love to hear how you feel about it. Um, I don’t get to visit it the same way. So when the project’s done, it’s, it’s almost like it’s, it’s died a little bit for us. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How, how, how does that continue
Brian:
On? Well, house is a very, uh, personal, uh, so you have patrons, which helps a lot. Mm-hmm. , you know, uh, houses, like puppy dogs on Instagram, everybody likes a puppy dog. Mm-hmm. , you know, everybody likes a house. So there’s a kind of a ready market to publish them for one thing. Yeah. Uh, but quite often we become lifetime friends with them. Uh, and,
Vince:
Uh, they would do a number of houses for
Brian:
Some clients. Yeah. Like we, it was a family that we’ve done houses for, for 30 years and now, um, we’re designing their, their headstones in the graveyard.
Vince:
Is
Brian:
That right? You know, for the, for family messengers or? No,
Vince:
No, they wouldn’t be that.
Brian:
No. Uh,
Vince:
Can you share? I’d be curious. Can’t if you don’t, if you can’t
Brian:
Share. I, I’d rather not. It’s just a policy thing, but, uh, yeah. Uh, yeah. So that’s, that’s wonderful. I mean, to have that kinda long term thing, you know, everything seems to change in life. It’s nice when things, something don’t change or, um, yeah. And I always thought it was a good sign, you know, that you’re doing something right. If they don’t pull up the shotgun when they see the architect coming back,
Vince:
,
Brian:
You know? Yeah. Like, we stay with our clients. I mean, we, you know, they offer their houses, we stay in their places and stuff. It’s very nice.
Vince:
Oh, it’s, it, yeah. It’s having that, those relationships are, are
Brian:
Key. Well, and I’m doing all that on, out on the road, you know, uh, I’m not at the local Rotary Club, uh, or anything. And so we don’t get much work here in, in, in Halifax or Maritimes because it’s on my own phone. I mean, you, you are, as you said, you’re, you’re other people you hang out with. Yeah. So, yeah. So it’s more likely that you get a call from somebody in London saying, come and do something for us than it is for someone in Halifax to give us a call, unfortunately mm-hmm. , because we love this place. We care about this place a lot.
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Vince:
Yeah. It’s so much a part of your identity. Is it? Is it, is that why you, like you, I I, I can, we can go in to show back and like, spend a lot of time there in this conversation, but like, is the, is part of the, I
Brian:
Spent a lot of time there at during ghosts. What’s that? You and I spent a lot of time together during
Vince:
Ghosts. Yeah. There were so many good memories with that place. Yeah. And it’s, uh, that was fun too. So did you, are you motivated to build like that for yourself? Like you, you’ve done a lot of your own developments. Is that because you want to still go through the process of building and creating in Nova Scotia? Yeah,
Brian:
Partly. And also, you know what it is? I mean, last night I was looking at some old sketches, you know, you move offices, you gotta clean out the boxes of bad sketches. Right? And, and there are lots of them. Yeah. and, and you know, you see a drawing and say, oh shit, you know, I did that drawing in front of TV one night with no client, no agenda, just curiosity made a sketch. And so those projects we’ve done for ourselves as developer, you know, out of work, architects, our developers, right? Mm-hmm. , uh, those are pure curiosity driven. Like, let’s build something in a UNESCO world heritage town just to show you can do it. And then, oh my God, we had to mortgage ourselves to death, and now we got this thing. Uh, so we built a lot of stuff we didn’t need.
Brian:
Uh, we built a little house called Enough House, which is a little 600 square foot house sleep, seven people. It’s wicked. And it won a, you know, a AIA national on our award for small house, but there was no need to do that. And, and we didn’t have any money to do it with, and we did it anyway. And then, so the curiosity stuff, the research, the projects at the farm are often those kind of projects, they’re kind of research pros, right. And is pure curiosity. And if no one pays you to do it, you do it. You, you, you find a way to lie to the bank and, and do it yourself, . And, and then those projects, then, because they have a sharp philosophical edge to them, you critical edge to them, then, you know, become the projects that are published and people come to you because of it.
Brian:
So you are what you eat, and if you’re not getting fed you, you gotta feed yourself mm-hmm. . And, but you know, uh, you are what you eat. So the kind of work you do, right? Yeah. Uh, so those, those self-built projects, those design build or architect as amateur developer projects do have a lot to do with how our firm is perceived. Uh, its core values and stuff, you know, so the Showback one is a good example. Like, I got a call yesterday, stayed at CVAC 10 years ago, wanted you to do a house on the Hudson Valley for us, or someone saying, I stayed at Showback eight years ago, and now I want you to design a town in Wyoming on top of mountain for us. And it happens a lot that people go and they recognize the values in that work. We are doing a, a town in Utah now on top of Mountain. And the, you know, the, they, they, they look, these young tech guys are pretty savvy, and they’re looking at people’s portfolios, you know, thousands of them. And they say, okay, the, I feel the vibe here. I feel values here that I can identify whistle. But quite often it goes back to, to showback. You know, someone stays at Showback last year from the eastern townships at Quebec, and
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
Give ’em a couple lobsters for dinner. And then now we’re doing a, uh, a spa, a retreat in Eastern townships for, for them. And it’s fantastic, you know, working with them. But yeah, it often comes back to the hospitality at the farm.
Vince:
Mm-hmm. . Well, there’s just it, there’s, um, I’ve never heard you describe your work this way, but I’ve always felt it to be, um, really quite romantic. You know, when you go into Shoba, if, if you know anybody listening to this has never been when you, when you go over the hill and you come into it like, it, it just feels like another world. But there’s a, there’s such a, a, a warmth and there’s a beauty, and it just feels, there’s just like a romanticism of the, the, the idea of what a place could be and what a community can be. So I can imagine that a lot of these people that see it, they feel that, yeah,
Brian:
Well, I spent 25, you’re just clearing the land mm-hmm. , and you palpate the place, right? You see ruins from the Acadian period and from the German period, you see all this stuff and, and you begin to study it by building next to it. And, and so it’s, uh, you look for the quality of the found potential of the, of the site. But I had to clear the land. Uh, I’ve burned through a hip doing it, you know? Right. But, uh, yeah, like mining the place for ideas and then, and now it’s our lobster trap. So people come up with the hill, like you said, and, uh, sunset or whatever, and a nice September evening when the shatters are long and, and they see the sheep and the field. It’s, I call it our you pick, you know? And, uh, uh, uh, yeah, they get hooked. And, and so it’s, it’s a kind of a showroom full of experiments
Vince:
On
Brian:
Shoestring budgets, but it’s also our, our brand in a way. Yeah.
Vince:
They’re all connected. Did you have the, um, foresight, um, knowing that that’s what it would’ve become, or No? Did it just disolve organically? Yeah,
Brian:
It’s like, it’s like, uh, that Lori Anderson song walking, do you know that one? Uh, I don’t, she said, uh, walking is a combination of falling and stopping yourself from falling. So, so that’s how it happened. There was no master plan, you know? Uh, and there’s humor in it when, when it happens over time, and you, your i your interests change and, you know, so there’s a complexity to it because it happened over many years and mm-hmm. , uh, yeah, no, no, no plan. Mm-hmm. mm-hmm. . And always, it seems like as soon as we complete a project, we see another one, it’s like falling and stopping us following. Right?
Vince:
Yeah. And it just opens up another opportunity that you didn’t see before, but Yeah. Because it was finished, it, it starts to talk back to you. Right. Yeah. It gives you a lot.
Brian:
Yeah. So it continues to do that.
Vince:
Uh, it’s amazing. You know, I think there’s another thing that’s really beautiful about it that, um, that I admire it. Um, I’ve always said that a small business is a family one. Mm-hmm. . So it’s really impossible for me when I go home, if I had a great day or a, you know, challenging day, when I go home, my kids feel it. My wife feels it. Mm-hmm. . And, um, the, I’ve tried to find that ability to balance it to, you know, protect the kids from maybe feeling my frustration about something or, um, my wife. But, so there’s a, in my life, I find that there’s a bit of a separation between,
Brian:
Well, the work-life balance is a very big issue right now.
Vince:
Yeah, for sure. Like, it’s a conscious effort of mine to separate. But what I see in, I don’t yours is there is none. Like you’re, when I went to Ghost, I met your entire family. Like, I had dinner in your house and coffee in your house, and, you know, you didn’t know me when we stopped,
Brian:
It was just when we stopped Ghost, I had to, I went to Yoda, you know, I went to, uh, Johanni, PSMA to Finish Guy, and I said, yo, honey, uh, should we keep this going or not? He said, no, don’t keep it going. I said, why not? He said, well, it’s very costly. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, the most, the best part of Ghost is the most costly part. And I said, what would that be? He said, it’s the hospitality of your family. Mm-hmm. , you can’t abuse that. Right. You can’t, you know. Yeah. So,
Vince:
Yeah. But yeah. And, um, well, you’ve, um, somebody in your office that, uh, we know that used to work here at Paris, she just Yeah. Lent me, uh, she was an intern, I, I believe at the, at the Ghost property as well. And Yeah. She gave me your, uh, book. I think it’s the most recent one where you
Brian:
Sky Room. Yeah. It’s a novel.
Vince:
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it’s really beautiful. And I didn’t get through it all cause I just got it the other day, but, um, you know, in the title is Marilyn, right? Like your, your wife and I don’t, I can’t think of another architect that has included, uh, their partner if they weren’t in the same firm. Yeah. And if they weren’t working together, of which there are many partnership Yeah. Husband and wife. But, um, you know,
Brian:
I know partners are architect partners who, who keep the plant chest underneath their bed, you know,
Vince:
But
Brian:
That Right. But they’re working together, you know, but no, that’s not us. Uh,
Vince:
It’s not, but it is at the same time. Right. Like,
Brian:
I, I do, well she, you know, she’s very involved and Yeah. Has been very involved. And, uh, I’m just fortunate that her father was crazier than me.
Vince:
Oh, really? I was
Brian:
So, well, he was a crazy serial entrepreneur guy. And, um, you know, he just never knew what he was gonna do next. And, and, uh, I, he was, you know, a real street philosopher guy, you know, pick drunks up off the street and dust him off and give him a job. Mm-hmm. just a fantastic guy. And so she grew up Maryland, grew up in a house that was in a me shape. She familiar with Right. House that was like, designed by a German expressionist architect. So she grew up thinking there weren’t any square rooms.
Vince:
Right. .
Brian:
And that’s a good start.
Vince:
Yeah. That’s, that’s handy.
Brian:
Lucky for
Vince:
Me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And, um, I think, uh, you’d mentioned that, um, I don’t know which daughter. One is an engineer, structural engineer. Renee. Renee is right.
Brian:
She works with Blackwell of Toronto, which is a fantastic firm, works from Lunberg. Mm-hmm. , uh, yeah. I mean, structure is a beautiful thing. Right. And architecture, uh, you know, the lead violinist, the concert master in an orchestra’s, the structural engineer, the lead system in a building is structure. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. So she’s, and our son, Matt, now is a architect, works with us, and he grew up in it, you know? Mm-hmm.
Vince:
. Mm-hmm. , uh,
Brian:
And then the farmer needs the other daughter to be a veterinarian, which Yeah, right.
Vince:
. That’s handy.
Brian:
laugh>. Yeah. So we’re really, I, I gotta say, work with my children all the time.
Vince:
I like that.
Brian:
So cool.
Vince:
Oh, does Renee actually participate structurally
Brian:
And Oh, yeah. Yeah. We work a lot with, uh
Vince:
Oh,
Brian:
That’s amazing. With Blackwell. Uh, and she was involved a lot of the ghost projects as an engineer and
Vince:
Yeah. That’s really cool. That nice. Yeah. Um, what I wanted to ask you about was, um, a little bit about the, uh, the conversation that we had while we were just before we boarded the plane. Um, I told you that a long time ago, it was actually back in ghost when I was, um, uh, with you, we were driving to the hardware store, we had to pick up some materials or something like that. And you said that one of your goals is always to move towards the center of a circle, right? So your belief was that you’re not doing a series of projects. It is one project and you’re always trying to move to the center. Yeah. And I, I thought that it was a very beautiful image and a, and a
Brian:
Concept. Sounds good. I don’t remember it.
Vince:
Oh, you don’t . Yeah. So like, but there’s this, there’s this, there’s a focus. Okay. I could, if I look back at it, and maybe to put words into your mouth for this, like, there’s, there’s a, a consistent sort of thread to a lot of your work, um, that, um, looks like you’re always trying to solve, um, a series of problems using, uh, in many ways for some kinds of projects, a, a series of tools that are kind of trying to perfect something like it, it looks like you see in a lot of artists, right?
Brian:
Musician. Yeah. More nervous. Yeah. And musicians and painters and musician. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
Vince:
So
Brian:
You don’t Yeah. Variations on a theme. Sure. So body of work rather than the one hit wonder kind of thing. Mm-hmm. . So, uh,
Brian:
Yeah, I think it’s a way to create time and space in your head to think of it as this one project. Uh, and also maybe it’s a way to have integrity in what you do. And, and I look to the artists who do that, you know, I mean, you know, Monet and his fucking water lilies or mm-hmm. , you know, just did ’em over and over again. Yeah. You know, over and over and over and, and Bach and his, uh, you know, variations and so on. And, and Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, uh, was someone who, who worked with variations and he was trying to develop a typology at language. And you know, Glenn Mer says 80% of what he does comes from what he did before or from the culture, and he just does semi Taylor garments. And so then you can make a living. Cuz if you don’t have to do the a hundred percent every time new Yeah. You do the 80% new and you look for that research dimension, um mm-hmm. . So it’s a way to, is an economic idea there an idea about focus and integrity, um Right,
Vince:
Right.
Brian:
And hopefully the, I think what we’ve done, and it works on a practice scale, you know, we’ve talked too much about me, uh, but uh, can I just turn that off? Yeah. But, uh,
Brian:
If you work that way, you might, you might, you wouldn’t set out to do it, but you might develop a language and with a language comes a grammatical system mm-hmm. . So frankly, Wright definitely did it. He had four 50 house, only three floor plans, you know? Right. So you developed a, a grammar, and I’ve always been interested in grammars because vernacular building traditions are shaped grammars. Mm-hmm. , you know, in Claire, they always build a house the same way, you know, uh, in Lunberg Canada, they always build the barns the same way, and they’re all different. They’re like snowflakes. They’re the same and they’re different. So this idea of grammar in developing a language, a way of looking at the world and a form language, uh, then when it comes to a practice, it seems like the practice is getting a good bit of lift off now because they’re catching the wave. You know, like if you take a surfing analogy, you’re a surfer. Right. Uh, because everybody in the office, in a way begins, comes to the office because they recognize it and then they learn it, they learn the grammar. Yeah. Uh, you know, and that’s not, hopefully not a static thing. So they learn the 80% what Glen Mur calls the Semial garment. They, they learn how to play
Vince:
Right.
Brian:
Play the game. Right. So that, uh, not so that it’s a stagnant language, but that the language continues to evolve and everybody can play it. And so the office, we have that now, like there’s a wide
Vince:
Yeah. Oh my gosh, for sure. Like, you, your, um, language has been adopted by so many people. Right.
Brian:
That’s a whole other problem. Yeah. The intellectual IP theft.
Vince:
Well, yeah, it’s, I, I, you know, it’s challenging, right? Because I can see how people would take it. Right. Like, I’ve done a house that was very much inspired by your work and it, it’s, it’s odd because it’s something that, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword here where Yeah. You go, you teach at school mm-hmm. and you
Brian:
Train people for train
Vince:
People to
Brian:
Do what in the do office too. You
Vince:
Do that. Yeah. And then, um, which is perfect because then if you end up in your office or, um, a few others that had adopted some of your systems, then you’d be immediately valuable or usable to that office. But then when they go out on their own, they, it’s hard to get it out of your system. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like, cuz it makes sense. Yeah. And it’s beautiful. It’s, it, there’s a, there’s a logic to it and then there’s the romance that you can connect to it that I was talking earlier.
Brian:
It’s, it’s wrong to, uh, look over your shoulder too much, so mm-hmm. , it’s real hard to, uh, enforce that ip. I still don’t know how, uh, uh, uh, Chuck Berry managed to sue the Stones and the,
Brian:
And the Beatles, but he did and he won. But I Good energy after bed, you know, if you get too interested in looking over your shoulder mm-hmm. , you won’t be looking where you’re supposed to be looking down the road farther. Sure. Yeah, sure. You know, like, I remember when Donovan Bailey, he blew past, uh, uh, Carl Lewis and the a hundred meter dash, he made the mistake, Lewis, of looking over his shoulder. Right. And while he was looking over shoulder, the other guy passed him . So, so you gotta just, uh, keep, you know, you can’t get angry, you can’t, how can you, how can you, it’s a common, but then in a way it’s a bad economic equation cuz it’s really hard to do the, uh, um, the front end work and it’s easy to copy.
Vince:
Right?
Brian:
Yeah. The copies do look like copies. They don’t look like original work typically, but that’s only for people who know how to look at it. Mm-hmm. . So you can buy a Gucci bag on Fifth Avenue and you can buy it in, uh, on Canal Street. Yeah. Yeah. It turns out it’s the same bag I think.
Vince:
Right. it might just be Yeah. But it’s, yeah, it’s easy to, that, that for me is a, a bit more of like an obvious theft. Right. Um, again, I just, it’s almost like teaching in some ways was, uh, a curse in, in a regard Right. Where you,
Brian:
It’s us. It’s a great how to do it to teach to and
Vince:
Then it is. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, I I enjoyed very much having you as a, as a teacher and what I got to learn from it. And, um, that process though taught me an aesthetic, an approach and a philosophy in part T drawings, which I was the, you were the first one to do one in front of me and I saw it and it just made sense and then you would repeat it, right? So you adopt these systems and then you look across the landscape right. Of the place you call home and you would see a lot of houses and buildings that you could see were in a direct
Brian:
Influence. Maybe that’s okay. You know, I mean, one thing I feel quite strongly is that architectures is about the composite effect, good cities, good landscape, uh, the good generic fabric making. So,
Vince:
And, and repetition in that makes a lot of sense.
Brian:
It’s not a bad thing, you know, if necessarily, I mean, you go to London, you see John Nash’s, Georgian townhouses and stuff, and you see ones by other people and, but London is better for the fact that he taught all those people to think about that. Mm-hmm. , you know, it’s better composite. Now. I do think the, I’m not very interested and I think our firm, were not that interested in the the fetish object, you know, the fashionable object, the cult of the fashionable object, uh, a lot more interested in taking an, an ordinary building and aggregating it well to make a streetscape mm-hmm. . Uh, so yeah. So in a certain kinda way, some coffees out there helps to make, to simulate what cultures do.
Vince:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I can, I can see that. Like, I don’t necessarily in any way from my perspective see it as a, as a
Brian:
Problem. No. The way, if you do it the way you do it isn’t the problematic way. Like, I don’t think of your work as derivative in the, in, in the negative sense at all. Mm-hmm. , right? Mm-hmm. . I, I don’t, um, so that’s, that’s a good example, right? You can be influenced, you can influence people and they find their own voice and everything’s good.
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
Yeah. Sure. So that’s the way I look at the work of your firm. I don’t think of it as, it doesn’t make me angry or anything. No,
Vince:
No. Feel
Brian:
Ripped off at all.
Vince:
Yeah, yeah. For sure. And I think if you go into, uh, some of, um, our restaurants, I, I think you, there isn’t a, a parallel for sure, but like in,
Brian:
Well it’s such a different, uh, building type too. It’s such a different Yeah. Thing. I mean, you know, it’s humbling. I realize, you know, like we sometimes we get to do the interiors for our projects to our houses and stuff and do every stick of furniture. Yeah. But when you’re working with a really firm that really knows in, in tears and understands that discipline, you realize how much you don’t know as an architect, like mm-hmm. as somebody who does buildings rather than interiors. Yeah. Uh, you know.
Vince:
Yeah, that’s true. Like when, when you know you, you’re doing work. If you’re designing a house, for example, you, uh, I remember once you described it as first you make the mark on the landscape where it’s gonna go from there, the relationship between all of the aspects of the site, you know, refuge and prospect, how the party is going to be locating all of the mm-hmm. service and public spaces within the building and then you brail build a house from, from that, um, what we do is we start usually from the very inside, like what’s, you know, place making. Yeah. Yeah. It starts, starts from the inside. What, what does it feel like from the kitchen table
Brian:
And our, and there’s specialized knowledge.
Vince:
Yeah. Yeah. For
Brian:
Sure. You know, when we do an office building, we’re a fish outta water. Cuz we’re, you know, not so much on public building. Certainly not on domestic architecture, but, you know, you gotta acknowledge
Vince:
It’s a
Brian:
Knowledge, there’s a knowledge base for all these things.
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
We were talking earlier about a friend of ours that who works on big hospital project. It’s another world. Yeah. And they know stuff we don’t know. Yeah.
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
Uh,
Vince:
There’s a systems approach to buildings like that, that are beyond what
Brian:
We would know. We’re just lucky. Everybody likes puppy dogs.
Vince:
Yeah, that’s right. . Everybody loves the house. Let’s do just one last, one last thing, just one, one thing. Just in terms of puppy dogs. Like, um, Instagram is not by any stretch an indicator of what is good or bad. And I, I would never say that, but it was really funny in a, in a house that we did, we had it up on Instagram and it, I cannot tell you how many more likes it had than mm-hmm. Our favorite other space.
Brian:
Yeah. Man. Yeah. It’s,
Vince:
You just love it. And
Brian:
It’s, it’s not necessarily that didn’t, they don’t necessarily see it the way you see it.
Vince:
Yeah. No. Oh, I, I think what they do is they imagine themselves in it. Mm-hmm. . Right. They imagine themselves that this house is my home and this is a place that I could live in. So it’s become selfserving to, to, to them versus supporting of the project itself. And to,
Brian:
Well, I have a friend who, uh, who, who has 500,000 followers on Instagram. Mm-hmm. . And he, he stopped doing it because he said symmetry and puppy dogs .
Vince:
That’s all they want.
Brian:
laugh>.
Vince:
Yeah. Sorry Arthur, I cut you off. You
Speaker 4:
Were gonna, that’s okay. I was just curious, uh, how would you describe your grammar of your business?
Brian:
I think, I think we develop our grammar in our firm by, um, evolving it by, by looking at primary sources. Precedent, precedent’s very important, I think. But long lens precedent. Like, uh, we look to the masterworks, you know, Louis Khan, Frank Loder, Wright, Meese, Vanderau, El Alto, whatever. And we look to the vernacular, uh, which is very instructive in terms of how to put buildings in the landscape and how to make things economical. Cuz the vernacular is what you do when you can’t afford to get it wrong. Which is a really interesting idea. You know, all culture comes from the poor, right? Like mm-hmm. . So best food, best music. Yeah, for sure. The food, you know, the back alleys have the best food and, uh, you may not want to know what’s in the recipe, , but, uh, so, uh,
Speaker 5:
Yeah.
Brian:
Yeah. So our, our work is derived from observation of primary sources. So what real cultures make and what the master works, uh, teach us.
Brian:
Uh, so we’re working on a book right now about dwelling, you know, about houses. I mean, dwelling’s, just a fancy heger way to talk about houses. But, uh, we have, we always talk about a project in terms of the precedent. So the precedents are either the masterworks, the vernacular, or our own work. Cuz if you’ve done hundreds of houses, you can express ideas that are already in, in your work. Your own work becomes a precedent for itself. Um, yeah. So the grammar comes from the history of architecture that served servant thing. You know, the fundamental thing you do. Any building has back of house in front of house. Well, that was Louis Kah. So you say thank you Louis. Uh, and then Charles Moore, who used to work for Lu Con mm-hmm. , uh, was my teacher. And he wrote the place of houses. And instead of the served and servant, he talked about the order of rooms and the order of machines. Thank you Charles. Mm-hmm. , you know, and then we pick it up and said, okay, there’s the machines, the rooms, and the totems. So we added this idea of totem, uh, totemic elements. So you in a way we’re always recognizing that we’re part of a continuum of ideas. You know, learning from,
Brian:
Uh, our mentors, learning from our heroes,
Speaker 5:
Uh, yeah.
Brian:
In search of eternal lessons, you know, not, you know, lessons at our time.
Speaker 5:
Yeah, yeah. And not fashionable.
Brian:
I, I remember, uh, giving a lecture at, uh, they had this conference, architectural record, this conference called Innovation Conference. I did the keynote a couple times at that thing, and I said, you up and say, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like, I think innovation’s overrated, you know, according to Peter Eisenman, there’s only in innovation every 250 years, so don’t hold your breath. Like, you know, if you set out to find it, you’re not going to. And they, this conf there was the con this conference was about architecture and the post digital age, I’m think God the vi digital age, just a couple years old now. Like we’re already in the post digital age. Like, I, I have no interest in that. So I go to these conferences and say, I have no interest in the topic of the conference. I don’t know why they keep inviting me back , because I don’t really believe in it. uh, the idea of originality is overrated.
Vince:
Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. ,
Brian:
I think.
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
Maybe you can find some if you don’t set out to find it, maybe.
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
That’s what Glenn Mark said, you know? Yeah. Don’t set out to be famous cuz you won’t be Right. Or you might be famous for 10 minutes. Like, uh, sure. Andrew, Andy Warhol said, right, right. He said, 15 minutes,
Vince:
, hey, 15, 10 minutes,
Brian:
15 pause
Vince:
Post digit something. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it, yeah, it’s really, it’s, it’s a, it’s a funny space to be in where everybody does want to have a degree of, uh, innovation when you have a practice that is, you know, trying to be on the, on the front edge. But yeah, it’s, but the,
Brian:
So I think there’s a difference between innovation and, and a having a thing. Uh, every project has to have a thing. Every there, every, every musician. There’s a sound there, you know, the every piece and what makes a great piece of music, there has to be a thing, you know? And so the thing that makes it unique or authentic or hard to imagine any other way of having done it is important. And I think that’s different than fashion or individuality or, you know, trying to find a thing about a project or a client that you’ve never thought about before. That, you know, that gives the project a certain sense of inevitability. Mm-hmm.
Vince:
.
Brian:
Mm-hmm. . That’s the only way you could have done it, you know, that thing. Uh, so there has to be a thing. I think there has to be something specific about every project. I, I, I’m not saying that,
Vince:
That,
Brian:
Uh, everything should be generic.
Vince:
Yeah, sure, sure, sure. And I think that thing can come from, you know, what we were talking about earlier, about a, a stitching together between different ideas and finding that thing where it’s a, a courtyard, for example, that is inspired from a series of other places that you’ve been to mm-hmm. . Right. It’s coming from a tradition that’s very deep, hundreds and thousands of years
Brian:
Old shows, and you don’t own, it shows up.
Vince:
You don’t own it. You don’t, you don’t own it. But it,
Brian:
Like the blue context, you know, nobody, nobody invented that court progression. Right. You know, like Sure. Uh, but Chuck Barry had a way of doing it. That was a thing. Mm-hmm.
Vince:
.
Brian:
Right. So that the generic and the highly particular is an interesting dialectic, I think. Yeah,
Vince:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um, well that’s why it’s so important too, like we said, travel to expose yourself to learn about all of these places. I’ve seen a, a number of students come in through here, and I’ve been surprised at actually how little that they’ve known about and deeply understood about different projects and buildings. Like they would maybe know about a few that they’ve seen, uh, through digital publications of sorts. But there’s not a lot of deep knowledge and study of some of these buildings, which is where, that
Brian:
We don’t, as a culture have much design literacy. Mm-hmm. , you know, in Japan or Finland or in Italy. We think they’re better at it. You know, we think they teach it in junior high school. You know what I mean? Like, we think,
Vince:
Well, there, there’s, there is definitely a truth to that. Like, I, when I was living in Austria, I was really quite amazed when there was a, uh, it was in a small town, uh, called, uh, Bates a or Al mm-hmm. , uh, in a, the area called Bates ao. And when they had a local community college, do the final exams for
Brian:
Wood mm-hmm.
Vince:
, uh, cabinetry making, uh, where they would do a series of joints on a work desk or a table, the gymnasium that the students would be in, they’d be on the floor. And the surrounding stadium stages would be with friends and locals looking at what was being done in real time with a variety of them at the same time. And then the winner would be one who got through all the joints in a set amount of time, and they were awarded based on the quality of the details. And then they show up in a local magazine. And, you know, this is, this is a stone throw from jumper’s, stomping ground. Right. And if you drive through that landscape, the amount of quality and detail within these homes is just unbelievable. And everybody knows who the builder was on that house mm-hmm. and who the architect was on that house and who did what. It, it, it’s so deeply ingrained mm-hmm. into the culture of, of who they are, which is Yeah. You’re, you’re right. Is not necessarily seen here. Um, I just have two more questions for you. I know you’ve got a busy afternoon ahead of you. Um,
Brian:
You too.
Vince:
Um, within your office with your leadership team that you have, how, how do you see, how does it, maybe just walk through maybe a little bit of how it actually works with your office now at scale with two offices in the states, correct. Three,
Brian:
Three in the
Vince:
States. Two here. Yep. Yeah. And two here. And then, um, how, how do you remain so closely connected to the creative influence of the project’s
Brian:
IPad?
Vince:
Right. ,
Brian:
But, uh, no, that’s, you know, I mean, in a way I’m, I’m spoiled because I’ve set up the office so I can sketch all the time. So it means, uh, a lot of other people have to know the game and know how to carry the project and it cause it to happen. And, and, uh, and I can be a teacher, I can just sketch alongside and, uh, or you know, in my sketchbook in front of the tv, you know, or with the client the first day or whatever. And yeah. So
Vince:
Would you say that you touch every single Yeah. Project?
Brian:
Yeah.
Vince:
That’s remarkable to me.
Brian:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I remember hearing a story about Renzo Piano’s office where he had these clipboards and he would be on the road a lot. And these clipboards, each one would be a project and there would be somebody in charge of the project architect would be in charge of one to the clipboards. Mm-hmm. or three of the clipboards, whatever. And he’d come back off the airplane and he’d have a sketch and he always took a piece of a one paper and folded it into nine pieces, nine little sections. He would draw a part t on it on the plane and come back and put it on the clipboard and there would be a crit in the office around that project. And so I think of myself kind of like, are you’re probably too young, Vince, do you remember the Ed Sullivan show? All
Vince:
Top here? You’re making me blush.
Brian:
Ed Sullivan Show. Remember the Ed Sullivan show?
Vince:
Yeah. It is actually officially before my time.
Brian:
Yeah. Well, there was a guy , so I could lie about it now. Yeah. You could lie. Nobody, it’s
Vince:
A guy, somebody will
Brian:
Be here. There was a guy, this Hungarian guy, and they had a long table and his job was spinning plates. So the trick was how many plates could he get spinning right before they started falling on the floor and braking. Sure. He got up to like 15, I think. Hmm. So I feel a little bit like that guy, which is a little bit, uh, stressful.
Vince:
Yeah, I
Brian:
Imagine. But you know, you get, you get good at doing stuff, you know,
Vince:
Quickly.
Brian:
Yeah. And I learned that from s Siad who was a teacher, you know, who you know about and who recently died. Uh, it was such a visionary. And he taught me to dry, to draw a sketch in a automobile going 60 clicks. Right. You know, if you, so you have to, it’s the instinct of the strategic observation. Right. And it’s kinda like the par t. Right. Um, and teaching’s good for that. If you’re gonna sit at 10 students desks in a studio in an afternoon, you gotta kind of, so fast. You gotta kind of speed dating mm-hmm. mm-hmm. , you know, you gotta disengage and get into that person’s head and help ’em figure that out and then do it again and again and again. And it’s exhausting. Yeah. Uh, so it’s a good workout. Yeah, for sure. It’s, and then in a way, and they practice. That’s what I
Vince:
Do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, spin plates. Yeah. And at the same time, you know, if you’re, if you’re starting to spin all those plates, it, that has a certain stress to it. But also the other side would be if you are handing it off to somebody to continue spinning it and you don’t have to deal with it anymore, that’s also could be stressful. So long as you have
Brian:
Yeah. Well we, we go back, we keep going back and, you know, every couple of weeks we’ll come back and check up and, and, uh, you know, it’s a fine line. You want to give people, uh, independence, a sense of ownership of the project themselves. Yeah. A chance to show you what they can do mm-hmm. . And at the same time, you know, you’re generous to people, they usually generous back. Yeah.
Vince:
Yeah, for sure.
Brian:
For sure. Give ’em a chance to express themselves and then they want your opinion after mm-hmm. mm-hmm. . So, yeah.
Vince:
And I, I do remember that when I was working for you for, uh, a period of time and that you would come in and you would look at it, you would see it. And same with Talbit and mm-hmm. others in the office. And I was just curious with the growth of the office geographically
Brian:
Is a, there are limits to growth is for sure. The, the, the Covid did teach us a few things. Uh mm-hmm. Uh, you know, the architect of place, you know, some historian called me the poet of place one time. Mm-hmm. You know, and, uh, what do you do when, you know, ever go to the site or ever meet the client?
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
Because it’s covid time. Yeah.
Vince:
Earth does not do justice
Brian:
And, but you know, maybe it’s got to do with experience or something. But you know, during Covid we started projects where we never met the clients, never been to the site. We’re on Zoom calls all the time. Is that right? And they go to the after Covid o’s over you go to look at the site and meet the people. They just were already friends. Like, whew, that worked and that worked, and Yeah. Yeah. It works. The grade works and the lights coming from the right direction and good. You, uh, so I think the, I know it’s a weird thing to say as a kind of place person to say that the iPad works pretty good. Yeah.
Vince:
But would you say now with that experience that it has worked out that you would say, you know what, I don’t need to go to the site. Or would you say, now that Covid o’s gone, you would still prefer
Brian:
To go? Yeah, I just don’t have to go very much. And we set up the, uh, office so that when I do go to the site, I’m not the project architect. I’m like a child playing in the sand and there’s a real project architect who’s, who’s actually doing a proper job of it. Yeah, sure. And I’m just looking at the thing like a child, like what, what, where are some missed opportunities? What aren’t we doing? You know? So,
Speaker 5:
Uh, what’s
Vince:
It’s a different mindset, right? Like when you go in and you can think without the burden of taking notes. Yeah. Somebody says that I have a giant shoe collection and I need to make sure. And you don’t have to worry about that necessarily, cuz you’re looking at it from a different lens. Yeah. But somebody else has to, shoe collection is a shitty example. But you know, you know what I, it’s, it’s a good example. It’s a good example. . But like that somebody has
Brian:
To trouble is your, your part of your brain. My wife’s a neuroscientist, so you know, the part of your brain where your feet are connected to, it’s right next to your sexual part of your brain. So watch out for the people that like shoes
Vince:
A lot. , is that right?
Speaker 5:
Great. Yeah. There you go. Really good example.
Vince:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, you can, you can step outside of that. You don’t have to be worried about
Brian:
All those. It sounds like a very spoiled existence. Right. Uh, I’ve set up for myself a kind of very
Vince:
Well yeah, you,
Brian:
That’s why I’m gonna be able spoiled.
Vince:
I if you worked hard to make it happen. Right?
Speaker 5:
I don’t
Brian:
Spoiled. Yeah. You know what, you never,
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Brian:
You know, nobody wants to hear a bitching interview about how hard it’s been.
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Brian:
Well, there’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears and agony and ecstasy and this stuff
Speaker 5:
And
Vince:
The hidden work.
Brian:
Yeah. There’s a lot of, and everything is a hit record, you know, like mm-hmm.
Speaker 5:
affirmative>, uh,
Vince:
That’s why we have Ivy.
Speaker 5:
Ivy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Brian:
Yeah. Cover up covers up mistakes. Yep.
Speaker 5:
Yeah.
Brian:
Yeah. So it’s limits to growth. I think there are limits to growth. Uh, you’d like to be able to build a good enough team. You know, I remember the, the 72 hockey series, you know, the Russians were a team and the Canadians weren’t, they were, uh, came off the golf course never played together. It was pretty close. The team did pretty good. The Russians were good. Yeah. So the team approach is a strong model, and we’re trying to build that because there has to be succession. Yeah. Well, it doesn’t have to be, you just,
Vince:
But you’re working towards
Brian:
That. You can, you can just retire and shut the door, I suppose. Yeah. But it’s not very idealistic.
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
You know, it’s better.
Vince:
I, I imagine there’s more motivation for everybody if there’s success, not just for you,
Brian:
Especially
Vince:
Financially. Financially, but just, just for everybody else that you’re leaving a, a legacy in a, in a
Brian:
Yeah. You know, hopefully, you know, we need to be better at it, but,
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Brian:
Setting up a situation where people can thrive without you.
Speaker 5:
Yeah. That’s the goal. Mm-hmm. .
Brian:
So we’re working on that. Yeah. It’s not easy. Yeah. I, but we got some really good people and you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, there’s a, there are layers of experience now in the office mm-hmm. . So it’s not like Brian and a bunch of kids like Lord of the Flies anymore, right. It used to be. Yeah. It’s now it’s like some pretty experienced architects in the office. Yeah. And they could have a good practice all on their own. Oh,
Vince:
For sure.
Speaker 5:
For sure. Um, for sure.
Brian:
So,
Speaker 5:
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Brian:
How do I extricate myself from the brand is gonna be an issue, but I’m not in a hurry to,
Speaker 5:
To figure
Brian:
It out to, to, or to retire or anything like that.
Vince:
I, if you were to ask, uh, three people or so in the office, um, not your core leadership say, but others, and they were to describe what, what, what makes the office work on a design level in a, in a cultural significance level. Do you think that they would likely have a similar story?
Speaker 5:
Yeah,
Brian:
I think so. Yeah.
Vince:
See, that’s powerful. Like if they, if they have that connectivity, you know, and, and just working with a lot of businesses that are outside of the design space altogether, that is a consistent struggle that I hear a lot of ’em have that they, they all describe what they do differently. Um, but it’s
Brian:
A common kind, a bigger motive. It’s a common language. It’s that common language and what goes to the language. There are standards, right. Or best practices, you know, if you’re a doctor mm-hmm. , you know, uh, efficacy, they call it. You know? So, uh, and there’s a shared set of standards and, and a shared language,
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Brian:
That enables everybody,
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Brian:
That’s the goal.
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Brian:
And for that language not to be static or stifling for people.
Speaker 5:
Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah.
Vince:
I imagine a difficult piece would be for you not to touch a project at least once. I mean, that’s be the
Brian:
First. I might have done it once.
Vince:
Oh yeah.
Brian:
Maybe once. Right. Twice
Vince:
As a part of his succession, then just to be like, okay, that’s three.
Brian:
I don’t know. That’s a tough one. Yeah. You’re asking a tough question. I really don’t know the answer to it. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
Uh,
Brian:
A friend of mine said one time, you gotta watch out and you start believing your own bullshit. That’s right. , that’s a bad, that’s a bad thing. So I don’t know. I’ll say, I don’t know,
Speaker 5:
Uh, uh,
Brian:
How to do that. Yeah. Is I enjoy doing it so much and I enjoy working with Sure. Others. Yeah,
Vince:
For
Speaker 5:
Sure.
Brian:
Uh, staff, engineers, builders, you know, clients especially, you know, it’s a social arts. It’s a team sport. Yeah. Yeah.
Vince:
It very much defines who you are as a, as a person and, and anybody else that has been so invested into a profession and a career and an office for so many years.
Brian:
Yeah. There’s, there’s time sometimes in organizations, you know, someone said to me one time, someone used to work in our office, said, you know, you gotta learn to drive from the back of the boat. Brian steer from the back of the bus, I think it was. And I said, yeah,
Vince:
Have you seen somebody do that? Well, no. ,
Brian:
I’ve never, you know, all those people you say you really respect, you know, they don’t
Vince:
Do that. Right. They
Brian:
Don’t do that. Uh, uh, but you can work in a generous way with other people mm-hmm. . So it’s not a limitation. That’s the hope. You know, that you’re not that asshole boss, our narcissistic boss who doesn’t let anyone have any ideas, you know, that’s, that’s death. Right.
Vince:
Yeah.
Brian:
So it’s tricky. Uh, it’s tricky. I don’t know how to answer your question. Yeah,
Vince:
No, it’s fair. Um, I have a million other questions, but I just want to ask one more before we, where we go. And this one’s I think pretty easy, but, um, in, in, I don’t know, another professional that it’s been, uh, the recipient recipient, sorry, of so many awards and, and accolades and order of Canada like, it, it’s pretty remarkable the, um, recognition that you’ve received from, uh, your peers and, um, and others. What, what meaning do those awards hold for you or maybe value that it may have for your
Brian:
Office? Well, because of what you say, people think that’s what I care about, you know, awards, what do you mean? Well, that it’s all about getting awards or getting published, and it’s really all about doing the work, trying to do a better project. And I was taught that peop the magazines will find you mm-hmm. , uh, and if you have integrity, people will want to give you awards for your career, whatever, uh, it looks after itself, that stuff, uh, again, it used to be the thing that kept me going. I was gonna go back to California and quit, you know, and as he said to me, uh, as Iban Asad, he said, you know, a real farmer never sells the farm. He said, don’t give up. Um, yeah. So when was this? Huh? When was this? Oh, back in the eighties. Uh,
Vince:
You were tired of just
Brian:
The Well, it couldn’t uphill make a go of it. It was hard. But then we won our first Governor Journal’s medal, and it, it was just a little bit of hope. Hmm. I thought, okay, now it’s our big break. It’s all gonna be easy. Now it wasn’t Right. But we didn’t go to California. We didn’t go back to California. So we stayed around. I was, I was at a thing in Chicago the other day with, uh, Tom Maine and Tom Maine, morphous this guy mm-hmm. . I said, Tom, why owe you a favor? You were on that jury back in 1985 in Canada when we got our first Governor General’s medal. And if it wasn’t for you, there would be no practice. Our practice would’ve never happened. You were on that jury, and that’s why it happened. Interesting. So it was nice to see him all those years later and thank him. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , you know, thank, I mean, you know,
Vince:
Uh, he wouldn’t have known what he was doing, but he was
Brian:
Oh, yeah.
Vince:
Yeah. He wasn’t pulling any favors, he was just
Brian:
No, no.
Vince:
He just recognized, uh, something that needed to be,
Brian:
But that was hope. So the, the wards are good for hope. Uh, yeah. So we’re all insecure, so we can all use a little of that.
Vince:
Yeah. I, I love it when people tell us that they love something that we did. Yeah. , there’s nothing that makes us feel better. Like, I’ll be completely honest, but we don’t personally submit for awards. Uh, we, the best that we can receive is when it’s, uh, a peer nominated award, uh, where we didn’t have to submit for Yeah,
Brian:
Yeah. The peer, which we don’t, pier is the closest thing to a merit system.
Vince:
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian:
And the public folks with their feet, they want to eat in Ed Edna, they want to eat in the best restaurant in town and mm-hmm. , you know, that’s also pretty important. Yeah. So it’s good for, you know, the Tom Main to like, it’s also good for your mother to like it.
Vince:
Yeah, yeah.
Brian:
For sure. You know, for sure. Your kids or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we’ll take our, the conference wherever we can get ’em. Yeah.
Vince:
Well, Brian, uh, I can’t thank you enough for, uh, for coming in. I’m so glad that, uh, the flight was a little late and we got to sit beside
Brian:
Each other in the
Vince:
Plane. Yeah. And it’s
Brian:
Nice to catch up again
Vince:
To catch
Brian:
Up, and we’ll leave it so long next time. Yeah,
Vince:
Absolutely. And, uh, next time I’m hoping around and sneaking around through Shoba. I’ll, I’ll
Brian:
Knock on. Yeah. Do dude come by. You got a history there. Yeah, yeah, for sure. See your smiling face. Yeah. Door and ghost over four.
Vince:
That’s right. That’s
Brian:
Right. Remember? Okay, cool. Thanks Brian. Thanks Viz.
Vince:
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Announcer:
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