I think the drawing part was probably the most important growing up that was directly connected to what I do and you're not still getting to college that first year and being in a school where you're starting right in the studio. That's when it clicked like I couldn't think about being in a major where I just was studying for tests or writing papers. Welcome to Buildings 2.0 where we dive deep into the technology, trends and visionaries reshaping the very structures we work in. Here's your host, Jose Cruz Jr., CEO of Integrated Projects. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to another episode of Buildings 2.0. Today, I was speaking with David Burns, principal at Studio's Architecture, an international design practice focused on creating spaces with people and communities. David, thanks for chatting with me today. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk. Take us back. Before you designed award winning projects, master plans, big buildings, interior renovations, civic and educational spaces, there was David the Kid grown up in Baltimore. You developed love for architecture, but what was keeping your mind busy in those four minute days before you were a big time architect? I mean, growing up, I don't think I really understood what architecture meant. I was not in a world of exposure to it. I was, you see, Baltimore is really kind of the suburban experience that was more like farmland and occasional trips into Baltimore City. It was not necessarily the kind of immersive architectural experience. And so I don't think I really understood it. And even through middle school, high school, I was more interested, but still didn't really know what it meant as far as what that profession meant. I will say that I was interested in it enough to think in seventh or eighth grade, you have to write paper about what you think you want to do. And I actually ended up picking an architecture and it was partially because I'd love to draw. And I was reasonably sound at math and everybody kind of points you in a direction based on that. And so that kind of led me to thinking more about it as I kind of got through high school. And again, I don't think I fully knew and I still love the draw. That's what keeps me excited about projects and kind of solving problems. So for me, that's the art of kind of thinking through that issue. And so I think the drawing part was probably the most important growing up that was directly connected to what I do. And you're not still getting to college that first year and being in a school where you're starting right in the studio. That's when it clicked, like I couldn't think about being in a major where I just was studying for tests or writing papers, like the whole project based learning, which really wasn't a thing in school, elementary, middle, high school growing up, really was exciting for me kind of getting into college. Yeah. For me, it's a similar story where specifically in undergrad and graduate school where the studio environment was a little bit more open ended, where there was no kind of start or stop or no exam with your kid at 79 or 92 on the exam and it was really what you would make of it. I'm curious. In those times, was there a specific person that inspired you the most or perhaps maybe not a person, but rather a lesson in those times that you know, fast forward in your career, somehow you still hold on to? I will say there's a high school teacher that I had that I still keep in touch with these close friends. He would be what you would call kind of in high school, the shop teacher. And I think taught me more on the practical side of things about design and problem solving in a way that I thought was something I hadn't really been exposed to otherwise. And so working with him on properties that he had bought in Baltimore City or on his farm and fixing a barn and things like that, I think got me more interested in what it meant to kind of think about buildings and older buildings. He's still somebody I keep in touch with today. He's still teaching. We've been talking recently about potential collaboration on a studio with his class and them building a tiny house. So he's still in that kind of very practical side of what does design mean to whether it's construction or how to put things together. So that's definitely somebody that has influenced me over the years and we've had an ongoing dialogue about projects and things that he's working on, things that I'm working on. There's architects that focus on certain types of properties, whether it's commercial office or residential, in your career, you've been able to have your hands on everything from civic projects to educational ones to commercial to everything in between. In those cases, what would you say your product is? Is it the kinds of questions or your approach when addressing so many different property types? What is the product itself? I think it's about the process and the discovery with the client and I think that can translate into lots of different work. And so I think what we learn in certain sectors about efficiency or how people are thinking about space, I think the more we see that, that is informing other types of markets. So I think we've seen a lot of it between hospitality and office recently, really influencing each other. I think on the education side and business, I think there's definitely thoughts about how those worlds are more similar and preparing, whether it's university students to the next step. So I think that cross-pollination of typologies is important. I think not having those siloed practices where you're only working on one thing and this, I think there could be subject matter experts in those fields, but I think you have to be able to get outside of that in order to see other perspectives and how other markets or other project types are dealing with similar challenges and taking advantage of them. So it's tough though. I think in a world like ours where it's a lot about risk, people want to know that you're going to hire somebody. You want to know that a lot of times that they've done it before. And that's the hard part. It's finding the projects that are not just about repeating something, but about doing something different and doing something better and how do you take the learned experience and move into something that's maybe beyond what you thought you could achieve, whether it's a client or the architect or the rest of the design team. But I will say it's a struggle with certain client types because that is usually a gating issue and that gating issue can keep us from certain opportunities. Would you say perhaps some of the guiding principles, whether it's an office or hospitality or whatever it might be, is part of the core principle approach like risk-taking by default? I would say that. Definitely the idea that we're bringing to the table that may not be specific to a certain project typology, but general sensibilities about design and how we're solving things in other realms that can really influence what we do in all of our projects. I think for us, and for me personally, that ability to work at a variety of scales, a variety of project types, a variety of people that kind of get influenced or touched by a potential project that can range from a tiny 300-square-foot project up to a billion to some master planning. So I think that scale and seeing the opportunity in a project, sometime I'll be very fairly small, can still be influential in taking advantage of those. When you take a look at some of the projects you and your team have designed and accomplished, they're stunning and the end result is incredible. I guess I can't help but to think what process or what questions were asked in the process of making this, of designing this, curious. What exactly? There's a quote, for example, on the website from you that says, "I like challenging people to look things differently." If it facilitates a ton of different responses, what does it mean to challenge folks to look at things differently? Whether formally or programmatically, what are the questions you're asking the perhaps other folks are maybe missing? I'm curious. I mean, sometimes the questions, we have to kind of force ourselves. We may come to a project with a very preconceived notion of what is the right attitude. And I feel like, and I wouldn't say we're a firm that is about producing millions of options that we let, okay, you can have it anyway and the client just picks one, but really going through the process with the client and exploring very early what those different strategies might mean. And I think testing and challenging ourselves, if we come out with a preconceived notion of it should look like this or it should be organized like this, okay, what if it wasn't? What are the other strategies and what might be the benefits of doing that? And all kind of trying to get back to what are the drivers of what's going to make this project successful, what's going to be success for the inhabitants, the occupants, and trying to evaluate it that way. So sometimes it really pushes us to look at it almost forcibly, okay, we've looked at these three schemes. They look very similar, like, what is the opposite of it? What would you do that's totally different and are there potential benefits of that that we can pull from? So I think not always the straight forward path, kind of the most logical is always the right solution, but it takes a little while to get there, whether it's internally within our studio or with a client, especially with a client, if they also have a notion about why I came to you because I wanted this, sometimes that's where you end up. Sometimes you can take them on that trip and say, okay, we've looked at that and we've looked at these other strategies and we think there's some potential benefits that we want to explore here, whether it's better energy of the project or a better result, whether it's economically, sustainably, and have that conversation with them to get to that result. Yeah, I want to pose a scenario and perhaps I'll zoom out to maybe zoom back in, but you and I are both in New York. Commercial real estate right now seems to be facing a bit of a perfect storm where let's put ourselves in the shoes of a commercial landlord, let's say a 20, 30 story office building right now between high interest rates, high construction costs, changing paradigms in the way that we lease office spaces, all the while facing kind of record-breaking demand for housing. Is it commercial landlord? What questions did I be asking myself about my building right now? If I'm sitting on, let's say, a 20, 30 story office building in Midtown Manhattan, seeing that folks are not necessarily rushing to come back to my class B building, how do I think through this? Yeah, we're seeing a couple different paths and we're kind of actually exploring these with some actual clients right now and we have a history of working in older buildings in the city and kind of helping reinvent them, so that's a heavy part of our practice here in New York. I think the different potential questions that you're asking, the kind of owners are asking themselves is the level of reinvention within the confines of the use and the infrastructure of the building and what are the sometimes potential incremental changes can be made to transform a property. We went from trying to create the largest format floors possible in buildings and combining buildings to create these kind of broad expanses that would appeal to large tech that wanted more and more space. I think what you're seeing is the need for these buildings to kind of rethink and think about a community of smaller spaces and what does that community need to support itself and get people excited about being there. I think those types of projects we're seeing a lot of and so it's the single floor tenant or we're splitting floors into multiple tenants and creating those hubs of activity in the building that leverage outdoor space. I think all that is done in a reasonably kind of cost-effective manner and really rethinking a building, at least from the experience from the ground up, kind of a branded experience or something that is very specific. The user feels like they're part of something versus just any anonymous person coming to their office through their anonymous lobby and onto their floor. I would put that in probably the category of not as heavy an investment. There are other strategies that hit at the other end which is, "Okay, well, what is the right use for this building? Can this building be the big takeaways, I think, over the last couple of years where everybody was trying to figure out where that next life science hub was going to be?" Certain developers have kind of locked in on that and they've started to find certain areas of the city that build a little bit of energy around them or is there other uses? Are the uses for whether they be medical or university, those campuses in the city are growing pretty rapidly and looking for space and seeing those as opportunities? Some of these buildings function fairly well for that. I think that the farthest end is in realm of changing the use to conversion of residential. I think the challenge for some of those owners is the biggest leap. They've already got a lot of money held up in a building and you've got to go pretty far to get as far as the level of investment for that type of change. If the building kind of supports it naturally from a size and scale of the floors, the district is actually viable from a zoning standpoint, even though there's been easing and this kind of city of yes mentality of pushing things forward for these conversions, there's still a lot of work to be done. Those can fit as many units in. They may not be the best units, but put them in there and they're going to rent because of the neighborhood they're in or the demand. I'm hoping where we're getting is those projects turn into also more aspirational projects. The financing or the value of the assets rebalance themselves, it still means there's a lot of capital that needs to be put into them. I think that's the hurdle right now is that the capital doesn't necessarily meet the final return. Between how to even incentivize it, how do you push forward? My worry is that all the chopping up into small apartments in the financial district are going to lead to a little bit of backlash. I think they're good products because there's a need there, but ultimately making the most hospitable, the best places to live, how do we explore that? Some of that is going to have to come with through incentivizing it in a way that can make these projects a little bit more friendly to their inhabitants. I think your instincts are right. I can't help but to think, let's say 10, 20 years from now, we'll be walking down FIDI and these kind of former office buildings turned apartments. I guess it's an e-jerk reaction to the obvious, which is we need more housing, but I can't help but to imagine 10, 20 years from now, all those weird layout apartments were very specific moment in time. We just did not have enough, so we had to just cram them wherever. You mentioned the importance of uses. I guess for most class B, maybe class C buildings in New York, you've got this kind of traditional retail on the bottom, I guess housing on top. With office buildings, you just got retail on the office on top. For the most part, obviously, that's not true for all. When converting from office to Rezi does not make sense. I'm just curious, have you come across examples as to other uses? I'm sure there's conversations about hybrid work and maybe downsizing offices, but are there just other emerging uses that we maybe just aren't putting up on the table? I think it's a good question. Every landlord is kind of poking, trying to find who's going to be the answer for them, depending on the neighborhood they might be in. I do think there are certain areas of the city where you would think that the market is really soft for office. I think it's some of these buildings that have been rethought as an ecosystem for smaller tenants. I think those are thriving and they're moving pretty fast as far as the lease-ups. I do think there's the challenge with the larger question of conversion is that occupancy and the inability of somebody to really free up a whole building and do the work for two to three years to make the conversion happen. The cost of that, if the building is occupied and you're vacating tenants, becomes hard to overcome. Thinking about how buildings can be more strategic, allowing for potential conversions of parts of buildings is something I think is going to be more aggressively studied in some of these to get uses on floors. I think the other uses in student housing I still think is a big opportunity there that still falls into the similar challenges to the residential conversion, with maybe a little bit more wiggle room because of the difference between a dorm unit and a residential unit. Some of the restrictions on if you have a kitchenette or something that doesn't necessarily in a dorm room need to have access to natural ventilation and daylight, whereas in a residential unit it's more restrictive. I think those are other options for folks and obviously with the markets like around NYU, whether that's in Brooklyn or here in the city or other campuses, I think there's going to be more need for that. We're seeing a hearing of that, whether it's hotels that are not very well that are converting to that or looking at offices, is converting to that. In regards to the ingredients themselves, the things and stuff and programs and technology that make up, let's call it the commercial office, just to say on this subject for a sometime today, what are corporate workplace strategists asking? What would make a successful space a day? I imagine it's some combination of back and different kinds of spaces, but what are those ingredients today? I think it's something that everyone is looking at. I think everyone is there have been a couple of larger topics of, I think from landlord side, how to amentatize a space where people are excited to be in the office and bringing people to the office. I don't think that that's ultimately the only thing that's going to resolve it. I think on the tenant side, I think people are also thinking of how they're using the space and we're seeing some clients that were hesitant and always traditionally one-to-one desking ratio for employee looking at strategies while they're upping their in office mandates. They're also studying less than one-to-one desking ratio, which means either percentage or all of the work space is hybrid where you're able to reserve a desk depending on where you need to be that day. I think that idea of flexibility and movement. We have it in our office. We renovated during COVID and everybody has reservation that they set up for each day that they're in the office and you can reorganize your teams based on the need at that point in time. I think those are big components, both from the amenity in the landlord side or the larger tenant. If you're over a certain square footage, you're going to have that big dent in your program or the tenant side of how they're using space, providing that variety of space for people to work from because that's what people are demanding. It's not awesome as you're putting the pieces together in how we design buildings. You're also designing a firm at the same time. You're growing a firm and the business of architecture in and of itself is fairly difficult, let alone designing and putting buildings. How do you think about that? Have things changed in the 20 years of maybe what a young architecture grad looks for today versus say 10, 20 years ago? How do you think about that? I think that's true. I think maybe 20 years ago, you were expected to go in an office, get paid next to nothing and work all hours of the day as it's kind of right of passage and coming from architecture school, it felt okay because you were used to doing that. And so it was like that was part of the culture. I think we really pushed back on that and the idea that people need to have a sense of balance in their lives and there's an aspect where we want people to understand they're really valued. And it's not just about working ridiculous hours. I mean, we all have deadlines, we all have moments where we can see that if, hey, I'm really excited to be doing this, I need to kind of put a couple more hours into kind of generating some ideas, but it's not a constant. I mean, from my career very early on, even in the Paris office, I remember just being there all the time. At that point in my life, I loved it. That was my studio. That was me coming out of college and needing that kind of environment where we're working on competitions, we're pushing things forward. So I think there's still a little bit of that spirit, but I think people need more flexibility, they need more balance. And I think in environments, and maybe this is just because of my experience has been primarily in New York and a little bit Paris before that, but I think that environment can be really hard. And I think it's getting harder for young people as far as being able to live close to where they were. So I think those challenges of life, we need to have more respect for and have more value for the people that are doing the work. And so I think it's something that we've been trying to tackle from an equity standpoint of making sure that folks are really valued and that there is an understanding that one, we're a business and we need to be economically viable. But at the same time, in that regard, we also need everybody, we need people to get fair wages and they need to be compensated and they need to be rewarded for their work. And so I think a more probably equitable, more value given to real talent, even a junior designer level, are definitely apparent. And I think people hopefully feel like they have a voice to talk about it and ask about it when they need to, and encouraging that so that people are aware. And when they feel like something isn't right, they can raise it and we can have a conversation about it. I'm sure you've been on the receiving end of questions regarding AI and how it's changing and how it's going to impact the profession and the business. How do you think about this? I'm sure this is not going to be the first or the second or last time you're asked about this, but I guess the profession it evolves itself as young professionals start to kind of by default, start using generative AI as kind of yet another tool. But how do you think about this to your point of running a business? It's interesting because it's used right now is kind of splintered into lots of different fragments of our business, whether it's in the kind of proposal side or in the image making side or in the early studies of density side. And I think there are lots of real great applications where you could get kind of a leg up on studying something or illustrating something or even writing something that could have taken bandwidth and that bandwidth might be better thinking about how to then filter that information and then turn it into something that is kind of credible and exciting and how does it something that then hits the drivers of what we think a project might want to be achieving. And so I'm excited for it. I don't think we've seen enough on the practical usage outside of, you know, we're using it in our image making, which saves time, seeing how it can free up time from early kind of test studies that just put information out there to help frame a conversation or frame. Okay, this is what we have to solve for in this project. I don't think it's a solution where it's an answer to what is going to be the appropriate solution. I think it will help inform, but it still requires that person to then take that information and say, okay, this is what we get out of this information. And this is how we move it into a project that is really fitting the client's needs expectations, hopefully pushing them. And so I think there's this balance of how do we call all that information in a way that's understandable, but then how do we use it to free up ourselves to think about the possibilities. And so kind of that balance of almost analog and digital thinking of problem solving, and how do we even when I'm saying analog, it's still using something else. That's the question perhaps from a different perspective now. I'm sure you're going to get a lot more of these. Oh, AI is out. What do we do now? The latest tool or methods, but tasking question another way in 10 or 20 years from now, what is likely not going to change about buildings while I don't know in five, 10, 20 years from now, what were tools or methods we're going to be using. But in your experiences and architects, what is likely not going to change about our buildings? It's a good question about the buildings or about the process. I mean, about the buildings and the end result, I mean, there's still a huge investment. There's still a space that is achieving certain functions for its users, and hopefully those functions go beyond just serving the needs and to kind of be aspirations of who those occupants might be. They still are landmarks within a city. They're still, you know, how they integrate with the landscape. I mean, I think there's so many things about buildings that are going to be unchanged because of the needs that we have in the basic premise of shelter in all of its varied forms for whatever we're used for, we have within that shelter. And so I don't think that dramatically changes. I think how we get there changes. I think the material technology changes, and hopefully all for the better as far as moving forward in ways that are sustainable. But I think ultimately the need of that space can be incredibly practical and incredibly and of utilitarian almost to the most inspiring or spiritual space you may think of. And I think that wide range is still going to exist regardless of how we get there. David, that was a great way to end it. I'm super inspired. I think just your perspective on how we took buildings together, what future is we going to look like, the things just incredible. I can't wait for part two. But in the meantime, for folks listening in, can they find you on LinkedIn or website or just to engage with you further? I will say I am the least active when it comes to social media. I am on LinkedIn, but I think the best is to probably look at our website, look at our word, and keeping that as relevant as possible to what we're doing and our message. Fantastic. David, thanks so much for your time. Thank you.
