ever use a microphone but it is my
pleasure today to present Jordan
Goldstein to you all
Jordan Goldstein is genzler's globert
director of design he oversees the
firm's focus on design innovation and
project delivery he's an award-winning
designer who has led more than 8 million
square feet of commercial buildings in
the US and abroad Jordan also serves on
genzler's Board of Directors helping
shape the vision and strategy that drive
the firm's 50 offices and 6,500 people
worldwide an advocate of helping the
next generation of architects and
designers prepare for tomorrow
Jordan frequently teaches at
universities in the US and abroad he has
thought a graduates a graduate course on
design at the University of Pennsylvania
where he earned his master's in
architecture and has previously taught
at the University of Maryland where he
earned his Bachelor of architecture for
his work for his work for his work
uniting academia and practice Jordan was
named the University of Maryland he
distinguished professor professor in
2016 our College has been the direct
beneficiary of Jordan's involvement in
teaching as he and the Gensler team are
our studio partners this semester so if
you didn't know the semester I'm
teaching an interdisciplinary course of
third year architecture student and
fourth year IARC student and Jordan's
directly involved in the instruction of
the course and the development of the
pedagogy for the course so together we
are working on the design of a
multimodal transportation hub for a new
decade that demands an active response
to pressing climate and societal issues
so with that please help me welcome
Jordan Goldstein
hello Tennessee can you hear me now that
was kind of weak can you hear me alright
well it's great to be with all of you
tonight and I appreciate you taking the
time from midterms and studio to hear a
little bit of of my story and you know I
I do get to a lot of schools and when I
go around I often ask students you know
when you when you hear lectures what do
you what do you like what don't you like
and I hear more and more that students
really don't want to hear the here's the
project and it's a case study and it's
another one and it's another one so I
thought it kind of flipped that around
and what I thought I would do tonight is
talk about some lessons learned some
personal experiences from my practice at
Gensler and with the firm across the
globe and some of those experiences and
I'll use projects as cues visual cues to
do some of that storytelling sound good
all right but first before I jump into
that you know a little bit about us so
quick show of hands how many of you are
familiar with Gensler awesome that's
good that deserves the pizza so just
some quick background you know I think
everyone knows we're a global design
firm and you know we are in 50 offices
around the world and we're 6,000 over
6500 people but some other things you
may not know about us one is is that we
are very much a we versus I culture and
I'm gonna flip that around a little bit
because I'm gonna talk about personal
experiences tonight but the the nature
of the firm that art Gensler founded in
1965 is very much a collaborative
practice so the interdisciplinary studio
that Ron mentioned is core to what we do
we get different disciplines around the
table and we make our ideas richer by
virtue of all the voices that are at
that table and those voices may not just
be in one language in fact that we have
over 80 languages spoken and I like to
think of us as a borderless practice so
it's routine for me and my colleagues to
be working across the firm
and I'm gonna share some of those
stories tonight when I was in
architecture school I had no idea what a
global practice meant in fact I just
thought I'd come out and I would be
doing some projects you know locally and
that's been very different than the
experiences I've had and through that
I've realized that you know beyond the
technological advances that are out
there you know beyond the ability to get
on a plane and go somewhere
it truly is possible to have a global
practice to work across borders to work
across cultures and geography you know
but I put this slide up here because
this is really important to us right now
which is we believe in the work that
we're doing all over the world that
we're shaping the future of our cities
the cities we live in the cities we work
in and some of the cities that we aren't
as a firm even in but it's through this
lens because it's really all about
experience about human experience so the
places spaces and objects that we create
we believe you know if we are truly
doing it right we're thinking about it
from that user experience standpoint you
know what does it mean to experience his
face when you walk into it and what
contributes to being a great space
versus a poor space you know and great
architecture what makes that
architecture great for the user you know
but climate change and we all see this
in the news every day this is a profound
impact to all of us now and it's
something that we obviously can't ignore
so for us we're making this core and in
fact in September we announced that
we're gonna make all of our work by 2030
carbon neutral so that's huge that means
for us that the 1.2 billion square feet
that we do on average annually that we
are going to commit to make that carbon
neutral but at the same time we're
recognizing that there's massive
transformation with regards to mobility
with regards to social impact issues
housing and homelessness and also that
there's this kind of hyper connection
happening in cities the technologies is
allowing us to think about our cities in
very different ways so what I'm going to
talk about tonight it's gonna go a
little bit deeper it's gonna kind of
pull away some of the
the layers and I thought I'd talk about
five learnings and I'll put them up here
in pretty broad terms now you know the
first one is about following paths and
you know some of this is stuff that I
wish I had heard in school because I
realized that when I was experiencing
some of these things that had I had some
accused of what to look out for the PAP
perhaps the path would have been easier
so following paths the other is thinking
global what does that mean these days
the third is taking calculated risks we
all hear this you know what take risks
fail fast learn from it and move on but
what does it mean to take calculated
risks in practice the fourth is building
relationships and this is something that
I did start to learn in school and I
realized how important that is that
relationships with those in the larger
context will can make or break a
practice and the last one is about
finding balance so how does this all
come about so I put this up here because
it is a journey you know and point A to
point B is not a straight line
and for me it's been very much a line
that has kind of moved all over the
place but it's been an amazing ride and
it's been one where I don't look
backwards I don't spend time in the
rearview mirror I look forward to the
next experiences that are that are
coming up but it all started for me
actually in school and three very very
different experiences that cause me to
kind of look at the world in a different
way
when I was finishing undergrad I
realized that I was going to be two
classes shy of graduating so a man I was
gonna walk through graduation at the end
of four years but I had to actually go
to the summer program to get the credits
to actually make sure that the paloma
actually worked right so they they told
me you could do two things you could
take the classes in College Park
Maryland or you could go to Italy and
take them so I'm gonna so so I went to
Italy and took classes there to finish
off my degree and that was my first time
going overseas
you know I had traveled around the US
but I hadn't traveled overseas and it
was an eye-opening experience in an
introduction to Western architecture and
it was very much about living the
classroom so the classroom was the field
and we were out there every day you know
in amazing spaces and places
understanding them from again from that
kind of user experience standpoint and I
had this memory back of the one of the
first moments we're sitting out there
and the my apartment actually happened
to be on the Campo de Fiori which for
those of you that are familiar with it
it's an amazing transformative space in
Rome it's Piazza that in the morning
it's a it's a great market you can go
out there and get fresh goods but by
2:00 o'clock in the afternoon you would
never know that there was a market there
because it all goes away and it's a
great social gathering space and at
night it's like almost like a giant
nightclub so I was sitting in there
sketching and I started looking at I
could sketching the buildings but I
realized I was missing something and
that was looking at how everyone is
experiencing the place that I'm
sketching while I'm sketching it so how
do I kind of take that in so then I went
right off to grad school and I realized
that I had this heavy dose of Western
architecture but the place I went had a
Japan program and it was actually at the
time the only jump in Japan program that
was being offered in the United States
so I'm like I really need to go and go
to Japan and kind of get the Eastern
exposure to this so I went to Japan and
studied with a Japanese master and
traveled around Japan really studying
traditional Japanese architecture and
crafts which was you know mind-blowing
and then I came back from that and my
mind was sufficiently confused you know
because I had these kind of rapid
experiences in a short time and I
started doing a quick internship at a
firm in Philadelphia and I was making
models and one day one of the principals
of the firm walks in and goes you're a
good model maker we think you should go
to the go to New Mexico and live with
the Zuni tribe I'm like okay so I got on
a plane and I you know a couple days
later and I went to Zuni
New Mexico which is a for those that
aren't familiar with it it's a closed
reservation for the Zuni tribe and the
principle of the firm had got a Getti
grant to help the Native American tribe
document its traditional historic Pueblo
in a way that the information could be
passed on from generation to generation
because they are quickly losing the
craft of you know patching and making
Adobe structures so I went out there and
it was this great experience but those
three things got my heightened interest
in global design I didn't know what any
of that meant at the time but it
definitely piqued my interest so the
first lesson that I wanted to kind of
share first experience it's really
around following paths and you know how
did this come to be
I had been agains ler which is where I
went literally right after grad school
and I was sitting at my desk and just to
kind of paint the picture so everyone
can kind of imagine this is that the DC
office of Gensler at the time was 65
people so I was 65 right now it's 400
okay and you're all at desks and I get a
phone call I pick up the phone and it's
like this is art Gensler and I'm like oh
okay that's that's pretty amazing
there's at the time I think there was a
thousand people in the firm and I'm like
you call me that's cool so he's like I'd
like you to do a product design effort I
heard that you are good with the
computer and you like to get your hands
kind of around objects and and the
design of objects so there's a company
called Halcon it's in Minnesota and
there's a guy named Jeff Henry in the
San Francisco office
he's a retail designer and want you guys
to go meet there and design a product
great okay hangs up so I'm like alright
so I get on a plane to go and go to
Minnesota so I end up with a client I
have not heard of with a colleague I had
never met in a place I had never been
and the opportunity was to design a new
product
and as someone who has my training in
architecture and design the idea of
industrial design was intriguing but I
had never done it and it turns out this
company was hiring Gensler to design a
product because they wanted somebody to
take a fresh look at it they didn't want
to just go to a traditional industrial
design route so machala put on the table
was this was in the fall they wanted the
product to be introduced as
mass-produced product in the market in
ten months which is if you think about
that it's really crazy right but you
have to go through design and
engineering and whatever so I'm like all
right so this guy Jeff and I met up for
the first time in Minnesota and we we
just started sketching and we met this
company and we developed this product
together product was introduced in the
market in June of that year and because
it was approached with fresh eyes
because it was two guys that had never
actually done product design before it
was a different take and it actually
caught the market by surprise now one
awards was published in magazines but it
got my interest heightened in product
design and you know I go back to the
idea of following past why because
sometimes you get a phone call sometimes
you get an opportunity and it may not be
the journey that you were set on going
on but it may be one that's definitely
worth taking so where did that go from
that while I was still doing
architectural projects I started to get
into more product design and there was a
company I wanted to share this one with
you which is a company called chewy
which ironically is also in Minnesota
all product design by the way does not
happen in Minnesota it does happen in
other places and they wanted to do a new
line as well and I just kind of realized
that you know these experiences that I
had earlier in this case the Japan trip
that those lessons learned while they
didn't show up the day I arrived at
Gensler on the work I was doing at the
time they found ways to seep into the
work so this is some images you know
from in a traditional Japanese
architecture and some just early
sketches for the product line and then
the product line
and it was interesting because you know
that what I loved about proper design is
it's such a rapid pace you know a
building you know if we're doing a
commercial building you can take 2-3
years to get that project to reality you
know this is on the mass market you know
can be months and which was super cool
so I kind of got this bug and I found it
to be fascinating and at the same time
had opportunities with colleagues to
design other products this is one for a
company in New York and then got a call
for from another company this is in
Michigan saying hey we'd like to do but
you know chair on some lounge seating
and I had never done it you know I'd
never really done you know seating
beyond the two we work and it was
fascinating because you're getting to
user experience in a whole different way
what's it like to sit in the chair
what's it like to sit in the chair for a
long period of time how do you make it
experiential you know and then with
another company you know how do you
start to play with conventional form and
and buck that convention in a way you
know how do you start to get more
sculptural and that led to a ton of
projects and and it caused me to learn
something at the firm which i think is
intrinsic to Gensler what i didn't
really know at the time which is that we
work better by blending skills so
getting different people like the retail
designer from San Francisco together
with me
creates really differentiated ideas it
also taught me about working fast and
not second-guessing the work when I was
in architecture school I would like sit
there at the computer and I would like
draft something on the screen it would
be a line it would be a forum or
whatever and then I would just kind of
stare at that forum be like mmhmm right
now maybe I should tweak it a little bit
but in this stuff you got to go you know
there's people waiting to kick this out
on assembly lines so I can't hold up on
that and it also taught me a lot about
saying yes and making the most out of it
about really when opportunities are
presented being able to go for it
so that then led to something else which
is how do you mature that global thing
so if I was able to kind of you know and
my colleagues were as well to take their
experiences whatever their life
experiences were and bring those to a
product you know what would it be like
to kind of think globally so I wanted to
share with you a story and this is
actually one that you know happened
during the height of the recession so
just kind of set the stage my business
partner and I we were leading the
Washington DC office and we actually had
taken on the leadership role
we had about 220 people or so in the DC
office of Gensler in 2008 so this is
early 2008 we took on the leadership
role we restructured the office we were
gung-ho things were going great and then
September 2008 happened everyone
remember what happened or know what
happened it's September 2008 what
happened yeah it was a crash right it
was a terrible crash so all of a sudden
that work went away and so my business
partner and I are sitting in a room
thinking how are we gonna keep the
lights on how are we gonna keep these
people working you know and we're like
we're racking our brains and we come we
came up with a couple of ideas one was
you know looking at helping companies
you know downsize and think differently
about their spaces the other was
following some threads and see if there
was international opportunities so you
know I kind of drew that straw and I had
a relationship that had just begun with
Duke University and at Duke the project
we were doing was a feasibility study
for existing building that's attached to
their business school and it was a
feasibility study it wasn't really
anything crazy but we had won it over
for other firms that had long histories
of working with Duke so it was really
exciting we were you know that we love
in this relationship we were doing this
work and then same thing September 2008
hit for them and that work dried up so I
remember sitting there going oh my gosh
we just spent all this time investing in
a great relationship and we have nothing
to show for it so I decide to pick up
the phone I called a the client
representative at Duke and I said hey
you know we really
loved working with you and the person
that was the senior leader there at the
time we had a great relationship with
him like how do we keep that going and
she's like well you could reach out to
him but he only responds to short emails
like okay like how short she's like like
five words I'm like all right so I sent
him a note and it said you know project
great what's next
for forward and he responds back global
vision towards why what do you do with
that right so I'm like great we're right
and he goes India ever been like no
happy to go I'm still under the five
words right
okay so Oh two weeks later I'm in India
I have never been to India I'm in New
Delhi looking at a project opportunity
for Duke and it was to look at a plot of
land just on the edges of do Delhi to
look at doing a business school for them
their global business school and this
was awesome right because this is during
the recession it's a global opportunity
it's like expanding our purview and I'm
standing in a field in New Delhi and
back at the office the team was working
on research about what types of
construction technology is prevalent in
India
the cultural norms vastu Shastra which
is their version of you know the version
of Fung Shui and what does that mean so
we did we got back together we did a
great Charette and we started to
conceptualize a business school for for
Duke in India you know and we wanted to
respect the great concrete construction
technology traditions that they had also
abilities to allow light and air into
this building and just be able to have
you know a very experience all place so
we designed this all the way through
schematic design it was awesome you know
where this is going right and and it was
great and and then I get this phone call
and it's like there's we don't have the
funding to do this it's not the
partnership isn't right but thank you
that was great so I'm like
back on email India great where next
forwards and I got back China ever been
so same thing no happy to go a month
later I'm in Shanghai I've never been in
Shanghai and I'm sitting at a table with
representatives from the Chinese
government and a representative from
Duke along with with me and the folks in
the other side table are doing a
wonderful monologue in a language I
don't understand I've had an interpreter
I leaned over and I said what are they
saying and I kept her blah blah blah and
I heard 50 I heard about 200 I
didn't know what this meant they said
well they don't want a building they
would like to give to 200 acres of land
and they would like 50 buildings I'm
like whoa so walk to the meeting and we
looked at this we like they want Duke to
have a campus in China so if you think
about it you're all we're on a great
college campus here how many times did
you get a new college from scratch right
like hardly any most projects are
additive so we called back to do can we
say we think they want you to do a
campus and the Chinese government was
willing to put the land forward for this
and work out a deal with Duke so the
project site was just outside of
Shanghai in an area called Quinn Shan
and they wanted to really transform this
area from an industrial area into an
educational technology zone which is
phenomenal the the red line represents
the hour-and-a-half Drive that we were
taking through the first half of the
project the dashed line represents the
high-speed rail that they quickly put in
that got us to the site in 18 minutes so
you talked about transformation in in
time so what did that mean it meant that
we were designing a campus for for a
university for a great you know
University in a foreign country what
does that look like and what does that
mean when you're starting with a blank
canvas in this case farmland so you know
we we dug in as a team and we said let's
start looking at Chinese kind of
architectural
precedent let's look at materiality both
natural and in man-made let's look at
form languages let's look at cultural
norms let's look at traditional Chinese
water towns which were prevalent in this
area let's look also at you know
contemporary architecture in China and
it set up a really interesting thing
which was you know how do we bring to
life a new campus on a blank canvas in a
foreign country and how do we do it in a
way that can be east meets west so I
mentioned earlier that this lesson is
really about thinking global right so
this was about really broadening that
perspective and really understanding
that it isn't about what we think and
we're just plopping it there we need to
put ourselves in the shoes of others
those in China that would be having a
new university in their backyard those
that would be going to that university
whatever nation they were coming from
and that we were doing something that
was truly actually acting as a bridge
between cultures so what does that mean
so this is some shots of the finished
campus and one of the things I realized
and this is something and we were
talking about in the studio earlier is
like looking really understanding that
the context that surrounds you and part
of that is understanding what is the
natural surroundings and the crazy thing
about this area was that one meter so
basically 3.3 feet
you know below the the ground that was
the water table because the area is just
heavily saturated and that's why there's
all these amazing kind of Venice like
water towns that are that are around
this area and so we went to one of them
was called Josh Wong and we walked
through it as amazing and and we
realized that we even though we had a
blank farm field that if we actually
just stuck a shovel in there we'd have
water and rather than taking that kind
of you know norms of campus design and
build everything around a quad and you
know have this very hierarchical
relationship what if we celebrated the
water what if we brought the water out
so this campus is actually formed around
that water and the building's actually
create kind of puzzle pieces that
interlock with that water and there's
bridges across that link the buildings
and create places for people to come
together this we call this the water
pavilion it is literally sitting in the
middle of that body of water with these
very low bridges that have hardly any
railings another issue but that you can
come together in and that the other big
thing I found is that what the Chinese
government wanted was they wanted kind
of Beijing density on this land but that
wasn't what Duke in the university
campus experienced there was about it
was very much a human-scale campus so
meant that we had to create the drawings
the the illustrative content that could
convey what it meant to have a
human-scale campus in a foreign land
that was representative of both cultures
coming together so I mean you can even
see in that representation right there
the roofline is respective of some of
the Chinese precedent that I showed
earlier but the pointed arch that you
see there is representative of some of
the Gothic architecture that's inherent
on on Dukes campus
so it's kind of bring it finding a
language that would would work and that
water can be celebrated in different
ways in this case the main academic
building has an infinity pool that you
walk across to come into it and the
whole facade is curved glass like 55
feet high by about 150 that's right 200
feet long it wraps around why because we
felt like our statement is about
education being transparent and that
outdoor spaces and indoor spaces can
work together and learning can happen
everywhere anywhere so that's what this
was trying to do so that's this space
that you see here is literally right
inside this glass wall so when you're
sitting there you're looking out across
that infinity pool you know and seeing
the the landscape beyond and the glass
wall is really the boundary but it
really isn't a boundary right the crazy
thing is I was so excited about this
project
that we started doing the master plan
first and I got one of those phone calls
you know and the phone call was since
this is a Chinese government project
probably needs to be competed which
means that you know it would be other
firms competing and I'm like oh my gosh
so you know feasibility study that ended
up on the shelf the India project that
ended up on the shelf if this one ended
up in the Shelf I'm not sure where I'd
be going next right so I said to the
person on the other than the phone line
you know what so it has to be
competition well you know we have an
office in China you know maybe it's like
the DC office and the Shanghai office
competing against each other like I'll
try it so it goes back to the Chinese
government has a conversation and we get
the phone call back saying okay good
like all right we won so so a couple
more images from it but this is about
again spaces and places all working
together to really convey the idea of an
education that's very much focused
forward not about today and this is this
is that academic building but this is
from the water view is the back side of
it you step away and and know those
lilies weren't perfectly placed for the
photo for the photograph actually there
but what struck me so I went back about
a year ago and I didn't I walked in the
campus and I didn't say you know where I
was from and you know what why roll
wasn't the project I just wanted to walk
on the campus I went and walked in the
campus and started talking to students
and I said what do you what do you like
about being here and I realized there
was this pride of place and whether that
was an American student that was over
there or a Chinese native that was
studying there that it was a similar
pride of place and then what struck me
the most factor that thinking global and
the impact that we all can make as
architects and designers was I went into
what the residential building and I saw
these drawings on the wall and I went
and found one of the ministers and I
said well well what is this and he says
well this is actually one of the locals
in the community that the campus meant
so much to them that they all sat down
and did paintings of it and presented it
to the school
so thinking global but realizing that
what we do can truly have impact and
where does that take you so part of
thinking global is pulling threads and
what I realize is you're building a
building relationship that it doesn't
have to stop there and it's architects
and designers sometimes we don't often
realize that we're also kind of
ambassadors for the companies that were
with and the opportunities that we can
kind of imagine for our potential
clients so Duke had contacted me and
said you know hey there's this company
we think you should meet it's called the
CP group and they're gonna be happening
there happened to be in Durham would you
like to meet him
so I flew down to Durham and met them
and turns out they're you know a major
business in Southeast Asia in Thailand
and so they they said hey can you come
over so I went over to Thailand and what
I realized was there itis opportunity
there and that led us to doing several
buildings including this one which is
you see over there is a tall tower it's
the last one was the last unbuilt block
of royal land in the Siam Square area of
Bangkok by the way I had never been to
Bangkok before so again thinking global
is like wow this is this relationship
thread is taking us all the way to
Bangkok such that after we started
getting involved the client they said
you know what you really should have a
presence here so we opened an office
there and all of a sudden were bringing
people from Thailand that are amazingly
talented architects and designers into a
place that didn't exist before into a
firm it didn't exist before there and
that they're able to contribute to
shaping the future of their city so this
is this is that building and the crazy
thing about this is because things were
so dense there where Duke was very much
lateral and flat and we had to land to
play with and sculpt with this was a
really tight site so the bottom is
retail the middle portion is a Waldorf
Astoria Hotel the pool deck that you see
there is the amenity floor transition
that's all condo and there's a killer
bar at the top
just kidding
you know but designing in a heavy urban
environment in Bangkok was a great
experience because I was previously
doing something with our team in the
outskirts of Shanghai and it became
something that I think we all now as a
team because we worked with our
colleagues in Bangkok we work with our
colleagues in Shanghai I realized that
you know what it and we may sit in
different places but these experiences
bond us together and actually have some
had some real kind of DNA that we're
kind of forming together through the
trials and tribulations of bringing
these projects to reality and the last
one in this so it took us from Durham to
India to Shanghai to Bangkok to Beijing
and these buildings these are two towers
it's about 3.1 million square feet it
actually is going to be opening in about
a month but it was something for that
same client that got it got us hopping
from place to place thinking global
pulling threads and the cool thing about
this is you know working with the
Chinese glazing manufacturer was
actually fantastic because we're trying
to get curved glass and also at the same
time you may not be able to tell from
this is a breathable skin so not that
you would want to necessarily breathe
the air right now but you're building
for hopefully a time when maybe that
would change so this is something that
they don't have there it's actually one
of the most advanced buildings to come
out in Beijing so through all of that I
was sitting on a plane one day and these
are these are not short flights these
are like 14-hour flights and I'm sitting
on the plane one day coming back and I'm
like you know I'm doing all this stuff
with our teams over here but I realize
I'm missing the opportunity to make an
impact at home and like how do we refuel
some of the city that in this case that
I live in and then I'm raising my family
in so I wanted to take you quickly to a
place called Tyson's Virginia this is
right outside of DC I mean
we'll know Tyson's okay many people
shopped in Tyson's yeah there you go
because that's really what Tyson's was
known for there's a couple big shopping
malls and all the energy was really
downtown DC but what strange thing
happened they built the mass transit
line and extended it beyond the city and
they extended it through Tyson's so all
of a sudden now Tyson's has multiple
metro stops and that triggered
development opportunities but the first
one was a project that was a interesting
site which was around an existing
suburban shopping mall so this is what
Tyson's used to look like farm fields
this is what Tyson's was looking like
when we got involved and this is the
shopping mall that I'm talking about and
there's a little piece of land right up
there and what if this company had
realized is that the future of shopping
malls was definitely in question but the
residual land around these buildings had
tremendous opportunity to be rethought
so theirs was right next to a metro line
so as an amazing opportunity to come in
and design something right there that
would actually be a conduit that helped
connect mass transit potentially
reinvigorated the mall and created a
mixed-use opportunity so this is a shot
of the you know Tyson's to give you a
kind of a broader context but it's kind
of you're also starting to see more
buildings so the first one for us was
was this one and why Chris had take
calculated risks because as I came back
into the DC market from all the wild
Asia experiences I realized that you
know we really wanted to as a team build
a presence there but the crazy thing was
there weren't that many development
opportunities because it was still part
it was still the recession so we got a
phone call from a client well wasn't a
client I'm from a company that owned the
mall that wanted to do a national design
competition for this site
and they said you know we're asked five
different firms we'd like for you all to
be a part of this I said great that's
awesome what is the competition pay
nothing so like whoa really so you know
what do you want to see a full designs
okay like like how full like models
everything whoa
so they they were looking for the mature
design so that led us to say do we want
to do this it's a calculated risk if we
spend all the money and do this and
don't get it then we'll spend all the
money and want some pretty pictures but
we won't have anything but at the same
time if we could do it and do it right
and have a really smart calculated
strategy then perhaps we could really
create something new for this market so
we went ahead and did it we spent about
$175,000 doing this design competition
and we went and presented it models and
everything and we took a different
approach was our approach on this was
back to that human experience cushion
which was how do you design an office
building from the inside out how do you
actually think about this experience
that someone that is looking about where
they want to locate their office or
their headquarters you know anywhere
around this region that they would say
you know what I want to be there how do
you do that so what does that mean what
does the building look like what's the
structure look like you know how do you
give them flexibility that they could
change their plans around over time so
we laid out this building that is really
column free on the interior that takes
advantage of this unique site and then
also figured out something that a lot of
people were struggling with which was
there's really two entries to Tyson's
there's the ground level which everyone
had known to date for those that have
been there it's pedestrian and vehicular
you know but largely vehicular but then
there's something above that which is
new which is this Metro which by the way
wasn't even fully built yet so how do
you bring all those people together and
how do you do it in a way that actually
connects
so we realized that if this concept was
going to work the DNA had to start at
the bottom of this building so what
you're seeing here is the the lobby
experience and being able to come in and
whether you're a pedestrian a big Euler
drop-off or you're coming in from Metro
that everybody comes to the same
gathering point and then one step
further right here is a giant plaza
because we realized that one of the
things Tyson's was missing because it
was really a mall and suburban office
buildings before that was that there was
no gathering space there was no there
there so let's create a large plaza and
then let's take the mall and turn it
inside out at that portion so that it
actually faced into the plaza and that
there was a way to actually have a
gathering space that had a hotel had a
residential building had an office
building but had a public space that
people could come together in so we did
that you know it would pose that and
they they hired us to do it and the
amazing thing was that we did this
building and then we started getting
phone calls because the building was 80
percent leased before it was finished
construction and the world of commercial
development that's like crazy good so
there must be something in that formula
so then we started getting calls we got
a call from Capital One to do work for
them just down the street because they
had seen what we had done this is it
under construction we got called by
another developer at one of the other
metro stations to develop a building for
and a whole retail and mixed-use
development with them another developer
and another one of the metro sites in
Tyson's to do another to do a project
for them and then the last one which was
a developer it says we got the last
metro site and we want to do something
on a bigger scale than any of the other
ones and the height limit in this area
is 400 feet so we want to we want a 600
foot Tower and we want it three million
square feet of mixed-use
but we want a great public space where
people can come together and maybe a
Performing Arts Center so you know we
talked about earlier about bringing a
campus to life from scratch now we're
actually trying to create in a sense a
community that is both pedestrian
friendly also is looking towards the
future but it's recognizing that in an
area before that had office buildings
only with some retail and everybody
lived away from that they could kind of
come all together so this so we went in
to make the argument this is called
taking calculated risk you're going with
your brand on the line and say to the
county the height limit is 400 but we
really think it should be 600 and this
is why so first time response was okay
we're back and some more studies
came back again and they said you know
what that makes sense so go for it so
this is the next project that's in
development the fourth one I wanted to
talk about is about building
relationships and I mentioned this
earlier because I think this is hugely
important and I I didn't realize this
really well until my last year of grad
school and I was organizing an event for
my class and we were gonna do a mixer
this is a pen and we're gonna do a mixer
with the business school so you know
business schools Wharton and we gave
everyone options and everyone decided
ice skating we want to go ice skating so
all right so he planned an event in an
ice rink on the edge of campus and the
evening of the event everybody shows up
and I'm all excited because we're gonna
all interact or it's gonna be like
across school it's gonna be wonderful
and then all the architecture design
students go to one side of the ice rink
and then all the business students go to
the other side of the ice rink it was
like a bad seventh-grade dance right and
I'm like I'm like they're going oh my
gosh this is terrible like I went up to
my colleagues like those are your
clients looks like your future clients
go talk with them go meet with them you
can talk to each other tomorrow but no
one did I realized like okay I may be
missing something but like
in order for this all to work you kind
of need clients right so building
relationships was indoctrinated pretty
well in me in my last year of grad
school so when I got out into the
professional world I realized that
that's key and you know you the
relationships are like your street cred
so so how do you do it in a way that
actually is real its genuine and I I
realized that I'm not the type of person
I'm not gonna go out to you know evening
events every night I'm not gonna join
every single organization in the Civic
community but I need to define the
things that were truly me and my
colleagues were doing the same thing
again slur finding what was them but for
me I realized there was a couple things
that I could plug into and you know one
of them was really trying to understand
you know how to make the community
better so I found a couple organizations
and really plugged into this and that
led to this so DC has a Navy Yard not
sure everyone knew that what most people
think of DC as a heavy water town but
there is a Navy Yard and during World
War two a lot of the battleships were
made there and because of that the the
Navy Yard expanded and in doing so they
created these industrial buildings this
was a boilermaker shop there was a
lumber shed building where they were dry
lumber and by the way DC's got a lot of
federal buildings that you know we don't
have a lot of like industrial buildings
so when that after World War 2 the Navy
Yard went back to its old boundaries and
you had these buildings that just sat
there these amazing buildings that just
sat there because no one could figure
out what to do with them so lo and
behold a developer goes to the
government and says we think we can do
something there and forms a private
public partnership to do it and that
gave us an opportunity to breathe new
life into these buildings and through
those relationships we were able to work
with them to take a boilermaker shop as
an example and make it a vibrant multi
retail tenant destination with offices
above and something that becomes was the
first building done so it became kind of
the anchor to this and then go to that
lumber shed which was used to store
lumber which by the way when we
historic kind of review found out it was
one of the first reinforced concrete
buildings on the East Coast you know a
train literally ran through the building
we'd put off lumber and it would dry so
that was what it looked like um so but
it was historic so we had to figure out
how to deal with that so again back to
relationships figuring out the
relationships that would help us be able
to have a dialogue we started to look at
how to celebrate the structure but also
make it a usable building and this is
what it came out to be which is the
structure is within and we kind of took
a jewel box approach you know where you
basically are wrapping that building and
glazing but that's celebrating that
original concrete structure within and
that the area where the train went down
the middle it becomes this atrium that
brings you to the office space above and
let's the retail exists down on the
bottom level and it became this vibrant
space and then working again with a you
know great partners in this case a
wonderful Landscape Architect to figure
out how to make the spaces around it
equally inviting and by the way this can
this little Canal is like the best
swimming pool in in DC right now and
then they said well how do you
complement that so this is a building
adjacent to that that we developed that
innocence starts to pull from some of
that water vernacular naval vernacular
and you know I almost lumber like built
from the lumber of the lumber shed is
now a urban winery you know in this city
and the crazy thing about this is we did
all this with the hope of making impact
on our city and last year Forbes
magazine named this new neighborhood
which is called the Yards one of the
twelve best new neighborhoods in the
world which is crazy right because what
happened is it took it took what was a
back door of the city and really made it
a front door of the city it made it
something that people wanted to to be
yet so the last thing I wanted to leave
you with is one that I think is
important to all of us as as students
right all of you as students which is
finding balance right the profession of
design is amazingly rewarding it can
take you all around the world
it gives us the opportunity to make
places spaces and objects that you know
have a tremendous impact to the human
experience and obviously can shape
cities but it can be all assumed
consuming it can it you know it could be
24/7 and it's a profession where we
strive for perfection so we need to find
the right balance and one of the things
that hopefully this talk conveys is that
living in forms design and that it's
important for us to be able to its
architects and designers to go have
experiences and bring those experiences
to the table and live outside of the of
the screen so I wanted to take you to
Flint Hill so Flint Hill is in Virginia
and why do I want to take you to Flint
Hill because me and my family I have two
daughters 13 and 17 and my wife we're
trying to figure out what is our balance
and when we were at home our home was
basically like Grand Central Station
because everyone's coming in and now
there's different activities and I used
to joke that we don't do nothing well
because we can't just sit down and do
nothing because we're all moving around
so how do we figure out how to find
balance how do we find our Zen so my
wife and I had been saving for years
that we wanted to build a modern house
right in the in DC urban area and
actually like in our same neighborhood
and then when we went out to go try to
do that we found that the price of land
was crazy and they were bidding wars on
property before they even hit the market
so we're like well we're not gonna do
this we don't want to squash the dream
though so we went an hour and 15 minutes
outside the city and we bought farmland
what rural farmland so rural that I was
in my office shortly after we bought it
and I get a phone call and it was from
the county commissioner of Rappahannock
County which Flint Hill is in and they
said your land is in agricultural use
what are you farming that's like what am
i farming what are my options and they
said well the first one is is cattle
like you mean like like a herd and
they're like yes I'm like well how many
animals are in a herd and they're like
more than one
Kable that's not gonna happen so what's
the next one it's a produce so I'm like
you know I could grow grapes and and
have a winery and they said no no that's
entertainment
you can't do that it's like grow corn
I'm like well that's not gonna happen
either I said what's the third one I'm
just hoping the third one was good and
they said hey said it isn't hey just
dead grass like yes I said I'm a hay
farmer so we became hay farmers in in
Flint Hill and we wanted to build our
Zen so we built a house that all of us
were involved in and my the emergence of
this project also created a craving in
my 13 year old daughter to be an
interior designer
the older one wants to go into theater
and psychology so at least I got one
right so this is our house and what's
interesting is when we talk about living
and bringing those experience to the
table and you know when you sit down to
design something you wonder what what
seeps out what comes out and when I sat
down with the family to talk about this
I started to think about all those barns
that I've driven by in my life those
barns with those stone bases sometimes
with a cantilevered main-level
you know what does that look like in a
modern day and then I also sort of
thinking about you know what if we're
going out to the country to find our Zen
we don't want to be sitting inside a box
with no windows so how do we bring the
outside in and how do we celebrate the
color and the life around us you know
and then how do we do that in a way that
you know allows us to be together
so the center is a great room where we
can all be together
the walls are glazed and open with use
of the surrounding area and parts of
this are all about being together so
whether it's a staircase or whether it's
the big counter at the kitchen we can
all be together as a family
and what I found was that in doing this
we were able to find our balance and my
daughters who were so busy that when we
would come out here could just
be together and that we could all be in
the same space and actually appreciate
each other and the good result of this
probably helps reinforce my daughter
wanting to be an interior designer is it
ended up getting a ton of publicity
which is really good so that when my
daughter then saw this in the magazine
stands you know in the cover of dwell or
in architect magazine or home in design
that they realized that actually you
know what if you if you really believe
in this stuff it can get some it could
get some exposure so I leave you with
these five and the journeys that all of
you are on in your respective careers
and I hope that they provide some value
and can serve as some cues that when you
get to those paths that what may seem
like not the one you wanted to take that
it could be an amazing exit ramp that
could create an even richer career in
design so thank you very much
I think we have a few minutes for some
questions any questions one way in the
back
thank you that was very inspiring to
watch your story unfold for us I have a
question about Shanghai with the Duke
campus sir no it was Bangkok
yes so you build like one building
attention building it happens again in
this did you learn anything from that
experience in Bangkok like do you have a
sort of new intuition of you know if
this goes how do you sort of build your
own context within a new sort of
district or you know how do you like
sort of make your own context
intuitively and then keep designing for
it yeah a great great question so one of
the things I learned in Bangkok that I
think actually served well for going
into the suburban DC community was you
know it because of that site in Bangkok
we had to figure out what his vertical
mixed-use mean like when you're stacking
program and you have to get people up
and down and you still want all these
things to be really great programmatic
experiences how do you do that
you know and how do you do it in a way
that people actually feel comfortable
you know living here sleeping there
spending money down here and and when I
got back to Virginia I realized that we
had a really interesting opportunity as
a firm as Vergennes ler to really make a
statement on what is mixed-use really
mean because in a city like DC that I'd
you know that even though this stuff was
a little taller than the surroundings DC
has a height limit so you can't really
explore vertical mixed-use but right out
in the burbs you could so that solution
for instance with the metro and the
plaza and recognizing that you could
create a way to bring everybody
together directly stemmed from the
experiences in Bangkok I don't know if
he would have come up with that solution
had we not had the Bangkok experience
prior to that you know and the
interesting thing about doing that
showed other people and in the suburban
community that actually Gensler
understood how to deal with mass transit
you know how to make mass transit and
buildings connect and make places that
would bring people together so that I
think was part of the calling card and I
so I do think it's you know one of the
things I think it's it's kind of
intrinsic in the profession like you
finish a project you move on to the next
one I think it's really important that
for all of you and your careers and I
learned this you know probably the hard
way which is that as you finish a
project stop and think about what were
the key takeaways what were the key
experiences that are worth noting that
may serve you well going to the next
thing it may not be the immediate next
one but it could be the one after that
or the one after that
yeah thank you for the great lecture I
think one of the images that was
actually the slide before this yeah and
I'm just curious kind of what global
understandings you're able to it what I
meant to reinterpret the culture of your
home city yeah thanks I got to tell you
you know we talked a lot about you know
things that worked well the Olympics was
something that actually didn't work for
DC but it was probably the best
experience in my professional career so
just to give some context on that got a
call one day to a colleague got the call
which was would he see what Gensler like
to be part of putting together DC's
Olympic bid for the 2024 Olympic Games
he said sure so he and I went to that
first meeting and it was amazing it was
civic leaders it was business leaders
from Maryland DC and Virginia and like
how often do they come together like not
really so we sat around the table and
talked about what could the city look
like and instead of thinking about you
know how do you make it a little bit
games we took a different approach we
said what would the city look like in
2050 whether there was an Olympics or
not and how could an event like the
Olympics be a catalyst to get us to that
vision and it was an amazing exercise
and we laid out an olympic plan that
took all the venues that were often
there white elephants right there
created and they sit around and they
fall apart because they don't have uses
for them and we actually made a whole
series of temporary facilities that
would basically have a zero footprint
you would take it away when it's done
but all the infrastructure that was
coming in around that would be benefits
to everybody in the city and would grow
the city so we went to the Secretary of
the Interior at the time and got
permission to have events like stadiums
on the National Mall and we went through
all this and we had to present I
wouldn't presented to the United States
Olympic Committee and and they loved the
plan they thought it was absolutely the
best plan but they when it came down to
it what was the hiccup is they didn't
know how they could sell Washington DC
to the international community you know
obviously word you know you know you
could argue that DC is an amazing series
of neighborhoods but they were worried
that it'd be perceived as the government
and whatever well you know whatever
government of the time it's the
government so it so it didn't happen so
we ended up you know we were the we we
got to the finals there were 28 cities
in the u.s. that were asked to do it we
made it to the Final Four plan was right
the best but it went to LA which ended
up working out the deal to be 2028 in
powers to be 2024 but the experience was
unbelievable and back to building
relationships the people that were
involved the owner of the Stanley
cup-winning Washington Capitals was
honored before they won the cup you know
people that were driving business in the
markets civic leaders we formed all
these relationships and after that
everyone was like we loved working
together let's figure out other ways to
make our city better and that led to all
these other projects thanks for asking
any other questions
one front
yeah great time the question was how
often do I travel to other offices one
of the cool things about genzler is we
promote a lot of fluidity we want people
to network around and so I'm usually at
a different office at least once a month
and next week I'll be in like San
Francisco and LA and our office is there
and what's what's amazing is that each
office that you go to
it's a DC's the third largest of the
Ginza offices were 400 people New York
is 800 people la 700 but yet you can go
to some offices like Baltimore Maryland
and it's 35 people so there's all these
different scales they're all Gensler but
they're but they really are local first
so the local before they're global so
you go to each one and there's a
vernacular that's really special it's
really kind of wonderful to see so I
love doing that and I love experiencing
but I also love going to the
international offices and right now I
can't really go to some of those because
of the issues overseas with the virus
but you know it has been it you go over
there and you walk in an office and you
don't hear English but it's still
Gensler that's pretty amazing yeah
question back
yeah it was interesting because I think
the gut check would have been to do that
to have the school of x over here school
of Y over there and working with Duke we
said actually no the because it was a
campus that was starting out and we were
doing this first phase it was actually I
didn't share with everyone there so
seven buildings about you know about 750
thousand eight hundred thousand square
feet total and you know there was
academic like an academic building
central academic building there was an
administration building and like there
was an these other different buildings
but they were for everybody so all
programs were having their classes in
the academic building all the faculty
were together in the admin building in
fact we also because it was a foreign
know if a foreign campus we created a
faculty residence building where all the
faculty from the different programs
would live together but we did it in a
way that it was like it actually was
forced collaboration so we like you know
central spaces you know courtyards et
cetera that brought everyone together so
it's a really interesting opportunity to
rethink what a campus of tomorrow could
be recognizing the challenges of today
last question in the back
yell it out belt it out uh-oh
that's a loaded one so unfortunately we
got a little a tour today
so okay so here's what I okay what do I
like this building I find that
architecture buildings pretty much
across the globe and architecture design
school buildings have similar issues
I'll keep it at that so I love the
atrium space but one of the things that
I would to try to figure out we'd love
to figure out is I'm a huge college
football fan and I love the college
football experience and when you have a
stadium that's at the center of campus
that is such a draw and I recognize
Tennessee football is going through a
little bit of rebuilding
they say that lightly was a politically
correct okay is that there's a huge
opportunity to make a building that
isn't used that often an actual
contributor to the campus experience not
just the steel thing over there
so I noticed that today that wherever I
went on campus pretty much I had some
view back towards the stadium and it
seems like there's an opportunity there
to make that space in place more
accessible more architectural II
connected to the rest of the campus and
from a spatial standpoint not something
that's something that you circle around
as an island that perhaps has some
permeability that you could use on a
regular basis so thank you all very much
