So, you officially merged and that expanded your marketing and project capacities. How did it all play out for you? For me, personally, it was all positive. I don’t think any architectural firm is free of cash flow issues, or is free of employee performance problems, or carving out time to work with marketing staff because you’re so involved with the current project on your table. There’s always kind of an ebb and flow of productive versus not so productive activities. Part of the practice of architecture that I miss the most is working with the individuals who will use what we, together, designed: the architect, the engineers and the client group involved in a research project. I enjoyed making sure the clients were happy with the suggestions we made to streamline their activities and to make them as productive as possible. In the Biomedical Polymer project, we carefully studied with the structural engineers the vibration requirements that needed to be in place for things like the robotic mapping of the human genome, which was one of the research activities that was in there. We had all kinds of machine labs, and we had an individual who was studying how to interface an artificial eye with the brain. It was so fun for me, as a lead architect in these research projects, to get on the ground floor of all of these cutting-edge research protocols that we were going to accommodate in these new buildings. It was just an enjoyable experience to interface with these brilliant minds that had invested their lives in various attributes of research — for me to have the opportunity to talk to them and to try and get the feel for what they were trying to accomplish, and to accommodate for this to go; all those issues about designing a hospital to accommodate changing needs. And the same holds true with laboratories. One of the attributes of a successful laboratory is that all of the utilities are brought to a lab. The original occupant might not need ionized water, but you bring it there anyway; over time, eventually somebody will need that. And if it’s available, then the set up for a new client is diminished. It is important to create a lab that serves the next group that comes in so that the money spent upfront isn’t lost in remodeling. Things change a lot and I think the success of a building is the degree to which it can respond to change. their needs to the point where they could give me a great recommendation for the next person that I had the opportunity to work for. Talk about changes that occurred over your career. I’ve had a long successful career so the answer is not straightforward. I’m building my own coffin. And I want to take with me things that meant something to me. It’s 90% there and I am equipping it with my harmonica and my fly rod. I built my own house, so I’ve got the tool belt and the hammer that I used and just a bunch of things that that were meaningful in my life. I am also taking mechanical pencils and triangles and a slide rule. I’ve got a circular slide rule and a kind of normal sliding slide rule. I’m taking a bunch of stuff in my coffin that I used to earn a living. I’m not taking a computer. So, in answer to your question about what changed: the technology of the silicon chip. It impacted my ability to create a design that responds to the dialogue that I had with clients. It transitioned from my early days as an architect, when I was doing drawings and specs, to having to rely on an individual who was brought up using computers. I can’t count the number of New Year’s resolutions I made every year. It started with, “I’m going to learn how to use this apparatus for more than word processing and use it to draw with.” It was a disappointing New Year’s resolution, because I never had the time to devote to just saying, “Okay, time out. I’m going to take a month and have somebody smart on this teach me how to do it.” I was still making sketches and floor plans on fodder that I could turn over to a couple 14 REFLEXION
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