229: Amortizing Your Value: A New Model for How Architects Add Value

Welcome to Practice Disrupted. A podcast exploring how architects can build better businesses, embrace emerging technology, and create more sustainable fulfilling practices. I'm your host, Evelyn Lee, Architect, Angel Investor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're running a firm, starting your career, or reimagining what's possible, this podcast challenges you to think differently about the future of architecture. The built environment is changing fast. If you want to be one of the people leading that change, rather than responding to it, join me this summer for innovation in the built environment. A professional, intensive from the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Learn more at bradicallybetter.com. That's B-E-R-A-D-I-C-A-L-L-Y-B-E-T-T-E-R.com. Hello, disruptors. Welcome back to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted. This season, we have been exploring what it actually means to transform a practice, not just describe it, and one of the threads running through nearly every conversation is this. The architects doing the most interesting work are often the ones who refuse to follow the most obvious path. Today's guest is a case study in that. William Dodge grew up 50 feet from a tobacco field in Eastern North Carolina. He applied to architecture school four times. He moved to the tiny island nation of Malta at 19, because he thought why 2K might end civilization and figured he would rather ride that out in the Mediterranean. He took out trash and recycling as a janitor at NC State Libraries, overheard someone complaining that Snowheadah couldn't deliver the wayfinding maps they needed, and said he would do it. That wayfinding project got him in front of the Chancellor of the University, and within three years, he was a principal at a major firm. He went on to help transform Hanbury's North Carolina office from two people and no work to 49 hires in 49 months, and 2.5 billion worth of projects. Then he left, because he made himself unnecessary, which turned out to be exactly the point. Today, William is founder and design principal at public. Co-founder of the public art practice again in three, and a consulting principal to firms across multiple continents, working as an on-contract senior partner to firm leaders who need someone who has actually done the thing before. Let's get into the conversation. Hi, William. We're so happy to have you here. Thanks for having me. It's a cool opportunity. I listen to your podcast all the time. Actually, I listen to your podcast before even me, which I think is really interesting, so it's a full circle. Oh, well, thank you for that. I think one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on is I've been talking a lot more about portfolio careers and when it means to be able to portfolio career. You've assembled quite an interesting one, but why don't we start with how you got into architecture and go from there, because we always start with the same beginnings. Yeah, so I grew up, I mean, I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, but I moved to Greenville, North Carolina, which is an Eastern North Carolina when I was little. I mean, I think pretty school. And I grew up about 50 feet from my tobacco to the Oldern Eastern North Carolina. So for me, the closest thing to architecture we had was the cool tobacco barns of my youth. I love those buildings. They're amazing. I wish people would make more of an effort to save them, but I wasn't necessarily surrounded by design excellence or architecture. When I was in the eighth grade, I moved back to Raleigh and befriended a woman, the girl at the time now, a woman. My friend Laura Harmon, his father, Frank Harmon's, one of the most preeminent architects in the Southeast United States. And kind of started going over there and hanging out with her. And it was my first exposure to really kind of like fantastic architecture, really amazing space. And I just started thinking more and more about how unusual that was in North Carolina, and particularly in my experience in North Carolina, and how such kind of spaces and places and thinking might be able to positively impact society. That's the main reason why I went into architecture and never had grand delusions that else could have make a lot of money or design houses for rich people or, you know, do skyscrapers or anything. I just really wanted to help people. And I thought it was a good way to do it. And I think what's really interesting is so your path immediately starts from like architecture school applications in a unique way. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that journey? Yeah, so it was funny. I was not the best student. And I was bad at math and spelling. I couldn't, it was terrible at science. I couldn't draw at all. So I was joke that like my path to architecture was like pretty obvious. I was either going to like become an architecture person or like become like a bank robber. There's really not really any thing in between. But I applaud to architecture school four times before they eventually let me in. And then they kicked me out twice. And now they asked me for money into higher-level students. It's funny how that worked. Started undergrad at NC State and then started getting a little bit of a wanderlust. So I ended up applying for directly to the University of Malta when I was 19. So it had been in 1999. And so I ended up going to this tiny little island nation of Malta for two years. And then ended up coming back. And when I came back, that's a lot of the coursework to transfer. So I ended up creating my major, which is a multi-disciplinary studies degree. Which at the time was really hard to find a job with. But in hindsight, it was a really, it gave me a lot of really interesting perspective. And ultimately I ended up applying forward finishing my master's at NC State. But then when I was graduating, there was nobody hiring in America. I had actually, I think I applied for over, I think the final count that I actually stopped counting was over 300 jobs. And I did get offered a job in Idaho Falls, Idaho. And I was married at the time. My stepdaughter was 14. And they had a pitch to me was, get your car on the family and come out here. And I was like, "Wow, I really want to go out there and see it first." I don't want to move my family out to Idaho Falls, I was probably seeing it. And they said, "Well, we don't have any money for that." And they said, "What do you mean?" And they said, "This is the only job in America you can either have it or not." I got 200 other people that are really interested in this job. And I was like, "I can't do that in my family." I turned down this opportunity that, you know, ultimately was the right decision because I ended up getting the job to change my life shortly thereafter, which was a janitor at NC State Libraries, which was a pretty interesting experience. I ended up finding myself working on this exhibition design at NC State. They were looking for a part-time exhibition designer and I worked on that and I finished that and I had become pretty tight with all the people at NC State Libraries at the time. And it was right when they were building Hunt Library, the SNOW Headers Award-winning Hunt Library. And they wanted to keep me around, but there weren't any jobs except for this facility's maintenance technician job. Tell me that and I said, "Oh, take it." And I said, "You know what that is?" I said, "I have no idea." And I said, "That's a bad amount of money." And I needed a job. And he said, "It's a janitor." And I was like, "Well, that's cool. I'll do that." So I took a trash from recycling for four or five months and then it was pretty interesting because one time I overheard them complaining about the fact that they couldn't get SNOW Headers to design the waifon maps around Library, right? And then I mentioned to them, "I'll do it." And they said, "Really, janitor guy? You'll do this." And I said, "Yeah, and they'll be so beautiful. You use them 15 years from now." And they looked at me and started laughing. And they asked me, they gave me and they said, "Well, what are you charted as soon as the time I'm making $9 an hour, I was like, I don't know, $25 an hour thinking that was like really odd." And they were like, "Oh my god, that's it." And I was like, "Oh, Jesus, I just left a lot of money on the table, right?" They were like, "Here's 100 bucks. Give us four hours of your time. Let's see what you got." And so I did the waifon maps for the Mezzanine level of Hunt Library. And they were like, "This is amazing." But I loved this. And I was like, "I know you would. I told you you would." And they said, "Well, send us that file. We're going to give a big presentation at university." And I said, "Well, I can send you the file. And if I do that, it's just a still image. But if I go and give the presentation, like I built a digital model to make this stuff. And then I can fly around the digital model and talk about all their different uses that you can use as digital model for like interactive room reservation system or you can fly through the building virtually or whatever." And they said, "You don't mind doing that?" And I said, "I don't care. I mean, it's all time- That is a steal for $100 there. Yeah, so they said, "Well, I'm going to get paid more to do the whole project. That was just this one, one particular thing." So I go and I give this presentation from the Chancellor and the University of Labyrinth and everything. And this is congratulations, William. This is amazing. You get yourself a job for $25 an hour. And I was like, "God, I really should have told him more money." But it was interesting because because of that, it was, it was giving me a unique perspective. Like, snow at just one of the best design practices globally. And the client was still having a hard time getting them to give them what they needed. But what it did was, is it gave me the perspective that it doesn't matter what your reputation is or what your design capabilities are. Sometimes not everything you're doing is right for a client. And so being able to have this kid that's a janitor, be able to do these maps, they still use, by the way. And I have since pursued a lot of work with snow at and I give him a hard time about the fact that my entire career is dependent on their inability to be able to. do this stuff. But it gave me a unique perspective because I think a lot of times we tend to revere these practices and thinking like every building they do, every project they touch is amazing and perfect and that's just totally not true. But because of that that catapulted by experience and my opportunities and I ended up becoming a principal in a major firm less than three years later. Specifically because of that, where's all my other friends that were giving me a hard time that I didn't take that out of the house job, they took them 10, 15 years to get to that level. So yeah, and it's, you know, a lot of people tend to kind of gloss over aspects of that of things like that in their career like everybody's got a job like where they're waiting tables or being a substitute teacher or whatever that they may not necessarily want to talk about. I'm super proud of that. Like I think it's important to know where you came from and to know where you're going and I think one of the biggest, I don't think, I know one of the biggest problems in our industry is we tend, there's a super high level of snobbery where you went to school, who you worked for, etc. And my work and my perspective is completely anti that. We, in my in practice and my strategy practice and my public art practice, everything I do, it's really important to me to try and provide a concrete example to others to look at to say, it doesn't matter where you went to school, it doesn't matter how well you didn't school, it doesn't matter where you worked or whatever, that you can make a difference in your value matters, right? It doesn't matter what your role it X is, what your bank account looks like, you have the opportunity to make a difference, go make a account. I appreciate that. You think it takes a certain individual with a drive and a certain level of drive and persistence to when applied architecture school four times, right? And then, and then I don't know if it's restlessness or just like constant pursuit and curiosity to leave that environment and go live on a tiny island and then come back. Yeah, no, it's interesting. I moved to Malta in 1999. My dad had traveled all over the world before he met my mother and I spoke a lot of different languages and I was just I was really fascinated by the water world and I was exposed to a lot of it when I was a kid. So I mean, for me, like when I was 18, I went to the UK and hitchhiked around for an entire summer by myself. Like I slipped into the abandoned car, one of the most dangerous parts of London for a weekend. Like I mean, it's like I just, that's the kind of person I am. Like, well, that's the worst that's going to happen. Okay, well none of us are getting out of this thing a lot of anyways. So why don't I really just go on a foot here? Love your life, do what you can. You know, I'd rather live my life to the fullest than gain a couple extra boring days when I'm old. But when I moved to Malta, it was 1999. Everybody was really scared about this whole lot, two K thing. And I had read a read his article about these Americans that had moved to this tiny island nation that was basically built by the Nights Hospitaler. So basically, it's the crusaders. It was stunningly beautiful. They spoke English. It was cheap and they loved Americans at the time. And I was like, why would I not, if the world goes to hell with this, why two K thing happens? I'd must rather be on a tiny island in Mediterranean than an eastern North Carolina in America. Just find that to be very interesting. So that's why I went. But in 2016, you kind of found yourself searching for a different island. Do you want to tell us that story? Yeah. So in 2016, so I had been running the higher education practice for another firm, the firms that I went to work with after my experience at Alon Library. I'd had some other stops in between too as well, I was in manufacturing. Did a handful of other things. But in 2016, did a variety of reasons, not the least of which, being the election. I was really interested in getting out of the country permanently. And I had applied for a variety of different jobs all around the world and ended up having an opportunity to interview with Italian architect. At the time, no Americans really knew who he was, but now he's kind of become a big deal. So he was the most recently the curator for the Venice Biennale for this last architecture. Venice Biennale, so he was looking for somebody to run his practice in Turin, Italy and not happen to be in Italy anyway. So I went to give me with him. Super nice, wonderful firm, did amazing work. It wasn't a right fit. I don't speak Italian, so I think that was a big part of what I didn't get the job. But it was interesting to get a chance to be considered essentially to run a practice at that level. And then I had an opportunity, the night of the election actually, I had sent stuff to my immigration stuff to a variety of different places in particular in New Zealand, because I wanted to try and get far away from America as possible. And I got, I had a recruiter call me and said, "Hey, the best firm in New Zealand is looking for somebody to run the practice. I think you could be a good fit." And it was my buddy Andrew Patterson, I ended up connecting with him. We just talked for 30 minutes, we talked for like three hours, just like really super-hit it off. And looked like that might happen. I was married at the time, and she was super excited about it until it became real. And then the opportunity, like, became real, and then that's the thing she started getting real nervous and I'd get that. I mean, not everybody's just going to jump on the boat like I am. So we ended up kind of tableing that discussion, but years later, when I ended up going on on my own, he and I reconnected. And so now we work together all the time very closely. I think we've been to five continents together. Now, it's either four or five, I actually lose track. But so I worked with Andrew regularly now, but only reason why I know him is because I submitted some immigration paperwork that not in the election in 2016. It's funny. He won his practice one global cultural building in the year of the World Architecture Festival in 2023. And I went to Auckland to celebrate with him. And he was having a huge party and everybody's like, "How on earth do you know each other?" Like, you're this like, you know, super interesting New Zealand architect, like very fancy, like, you know, Pritzker level architect in here. This kind of was dude from Eastern North Carolina. And he was like, "Oh, it's the easy time. Trump introduced this." But, yeah, but essentially that's all it had. But it was interesting because, you know, what I learned from talking to Andrew or, you know, some of these other people was, you know, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, the problems are the same. They're just the nuances are different. And how do you run a practice? How do you hire great people? How do you deal with clients? How do you win work? Oh, those are the things that everybody's dealing with. It's just there's totally unique nuances. But I think that's the thing that's been really valuable to me is to understand those nuances globally and try and figure out a way to synthesize them in my own practice. And I think that's part of the reason why our public art practice has been so successful. And some of my strategy work has been so successful to just kind of see how different people from around the world do things. Yeah. So you've alluded to the public art and you've alluded to strategy. And I think it's kind of kind of bring it to the present day. Why don't we talk a little bit more about what you are doing today? And it's also interesting for me to hear you say my practice. Because I do also know that you're contractually associated with firms. So let's talk about all those threads. Yeah. In 2016, after those things did not work out, I had an opportunity to I got recruited by a former client of mine to he had just become CEO of firm building Hamburg in North Carolina. They were looking to further office and expand their opportunities. It's a diverse father portfolio, et cetera. And so I ended up starting with them. I had like a bunch of audacious demands. He was like he was asking me if I was interested. And my point to him was it's like I'm only going to be interested if I have the opportunity to be really successful. And these are the things that I would need to be very successful. A lot of firms, a lot of times they want somebody to start and then grow by winning work and then they can go and hire an intern or a young designer or another person. And you kind of grow that way. That's a terrible way to do it to be honest. Because by the time you need to hire, you're never hiring the right person. You're never hiring the best talent. And so my pitch to David was, hey, in order to do the kind of work that you're talking about doing, this is what we would need to do. Like you would need to, we would need to bring on my buddy, a man that I trust to be my business partner. So I can handle the operations and the business and strategy and he can be the quote, unquote architect. Because that's too much for one person to do. And in order to be able to grow the the practice and transfer into the portfolio, the way that we want, we're going to need to hire the best talent. So basically I need a blank checkbook essentially to hire whoever we want. And we're going to lose money in spectacular fashion for 24 to 36 months. But by doing that, we're going to be really strategic about how we do that. And we're going to chase work and do different kinds of work that the firm is not used to doing. It's going to be very uncomfortable. But after that dump truck full of money, you're going to start showing up at the office. And that's essentially what happened, which was great because what we did was, it's basically by getting David to agree to those things. We ended up having the ability to go hire all the best talent, bring all that best talent. And I'm really great at identifying talent. And by bringing all the best talent in, not only bring them in, but empower them, build a culture of design culture and entrepreneurial spirit, but also a spirit of empowerment. Like if a 23 year old designer that just graduated six weeks ago has an idea, that's just as important as my idea or anybody else's idea. And so by setting up the culture that way, We got all the best people because we got all the best people we got all the best clients because we got all the best Clients we started winning all the best work And so we went from and and this is not because of me by any means This is like some of the things that I helped to put in place and Identified early on that we recruited all the best people which helped us do all these things So four years later we kind of got into the point that they didn't need me anymore. I had I'd set out to do what I wanted to do the company was Not doing great before I joined and the office was gonna close when I left They're most successful firm by far in the state of North Carolina If not the Southeast United States and they've only gone on to Exploited even more due to we have many of my former partners and their expertise But it was interesting because had we not been empowered to do those things the way the specific way we did it That firm probably wouldn't even exist anymore because of COVID so it was interesting in 2022 after kind of I had started to have in this kind of self Realizations of they didn't need me anymore. I was just looking for a new opportunity. So I decided I was gonna go out on my own and try and amortize my value It's a different firms around the world in order to kind of really Leverage my expertise to help others get to where they need to be out I really like helping people and I like to help grow practices But I also don't ever want to be an employee. I don't want to work for people I want to work with people essentially in partnership situation. So I have my own strategy practice But my strategy practice is basically not basically it is it's on retainer It's under contract with other practices. So I essentially work as an on contract part-time senior partner the different practices globally So most people when they grow a firm I don't think they ever say like they've outgrown the firm or the firm's outgrown So well exactly were you feeling after four years where you just felt like You are ready to move on just because if you think about all of those firm leadership right now That's having a hard time stepping away and how many like private equity and acquisitions are happening because of that It's kind of interesting to have that perspective Yeah, I mean, I think part of it's just my personality because I'm always interested in You know where I can have the most impact It would have frankly been extraordinarily boring to me if I had been there for another five years and not been able to do Have the same kind of impact that I had. That's like I told the CEO when I was leaving That I could be there another 50 years and have a tenth of the impact that I had in the first four and like they just didn't need me any I had never come to that practice with the plans to run that practice one day or make it entirely my own or anything like that It was a firm that really needed help. It was a good opportunity for me, but personally professionally And I wanted to to help set this firm up and to have the opportunity to make a difference and wear the place of which I lived and So I was able to do that and I think my my entire life I'm trying to create situations where there's no winners and losers, but everybody wins and This to me was a perfect opportunity of that so I wasn't I wasn't looking for It to be my own practice. I just wanted to help them get to where they didn't need me anymore and then it was time to move on Which is the way I approach my strategy practice if I'm doing my job right I'm not working with the same people five years later like because I'm helping them get to where they need to be to solve a problem Or whatever it's kind of like if you get to the chiropractor get to the chiropractor for twice a week For ten years there's something bigger going on right it's a bigger problem, right? You know, it's I want to be able to help people not necessarily just being employed If I wanted to be employed, I would just get a practice So another thing that you mentioned was amortizing your value, which I don't think I've ever heard out of an architect's mouth before Talk to me about what you feel like amortizing your value is and like that uniqueness to bringing Yeah, I just want to be able to bring a wide perspective to people's practices I'm really good at a lot of different aspects of the practice that most traditional architecture not But if you tried to have me do a building set it would fall down everybody would die if people get sued So it's like I'm terrible at those things. I'm a good designer. Don't get me wrong But I'm better at strategy running a practice and there there are other people out there for sure that A great at PR great at marketing or good at recruiting or good at winning work or programming Consultants or whatever but those those people typically are good at one of those things I just happen to be uniquely talented at multiple of those things and those people typically haven't Restarted offices started offices from scratch hired 40 people major Christmas came that year for those people's kids You know Make sure they had work to do when they were in the office You know one big deal projects with painting the nice clients but together complex international project teams and design buildings from beginning to end I've done all this stuff so when I when I'm working with my clients and the collaborators It's really more of a partnership situation like I'm beholden to them. Yes, but they're also beholden to me Like if they make me look bad Then it blows up my entire business model So I only work I'm very selective of who I work with it's really a two way street and so like for me My job is to give them advice sometimes that's on how to build work sometimes is how they're portfolio or awards or hiring people it's kind of all those things and my I essentially work as an on contract senior partner to the CEO And so instead of Basically joining a permanent partnership situation. It's harder to just split up a business Relationship than it is to get divorced so for me for me my whole thing is this kind of like we work on the 12 month contract We can option a renew etc and what the plan is it's four to five years of the absolute most We're probably not gonna be working together anymore, but that's by design Right like they're hiring me to help them solve a problem And yeah, I just the weather and not they'd listen to me is really on their end. It's their call But my job is to give them my advice because I've been there before and I'm offering advice is appear not as an employee One I'd love to understand you know how how that pitch goes like how do you find these firms that are interested in this very unique model To I would also love and I know this is a multi-part question. So take it however you want to I'd love to understand why you chose that route instead of I mean most people would say I'm gonna be an outside strategic partner You can hire me as a consultant, but you're really Designating your yourself in your time to one firm for for an extended link. Yeah, and I would say my clients Typically what they need me for is advice and direction and strategy consultant They don't need me as an employee and nor and what I try to do is keep my costs down So I'm not inexpensive by any means But I end up costing those firms less than what it costs into an employee at junior level designer because I'm a consultant. I'm just straight cost. There's no multiplier on my cost, right? There's no benefits or anything like that. So I end up Basically often more often than not and I mean the cheapest person but they pay for and I make a million dollars And so my whole idea is in the whole approach to my practices Trying to do more with less, right? You don't need all you don't need my time 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week You only really need me when you need me, but we need need me you really really need me, right? Like these like you're trying to pursue a project here Well, I've got a relationship with that person I've known for 20 years and I know x, y, and z you know engineers and relationships there and how can I put together pieces and parts to Be able to help you be successful. Basically how this came out is when I was at hand bearing And other places actually I'd helped a handful of friends of mine from major firms around the like flight over example I helped them win several projects then ended up being you know Huge money makers a huge opportunity. There's the the the new Amy Gutman Hall of the University of Pennsylvania I'll put together the entire project team. I wasn't involved in the project And I was really more just trying to help my friends out like hey you guys shouldn't know these people who should do this engineer Etc and it turned into a hundred and forty million dollar project Okay, well, there's value there. How do you get paid for that value? And you know one of the things that I realized it's like I love architects But Jesus we are egos are enormous and we're extraordinary pains in ass like and so the last thing I want to do Is sit around and argue with somebody of like because I've had certain people say well Can you work with me on like if you bring in work will pay you a percentage and I don't want to track that One I don't want to waste my time tracking on that stuff and two I don't want to argue with you because you feel like because you played little league with this guy Wads when he were nine years old somehow that makes it your Relationship and not the work that I did. I just I'm not interested in doing that So I just work on a flat fee This is what I get paid it shows up at my bank account of the first of every month and then we work together We have a 12 month contract. I represent you whether it's And typically it's exclusive by region or by project type so I might I mean, I haven't had this happen at the I was talking just Talking to two different people at one time where one was doing my K-12 public safety and one was doing a lot of cultural work It was very different kinds of work So there may be may occasionally be an overlap there, but I tend to try and spread spread out my clients So create a situation where there's never any possibility of conflict of interest or competition If anything actually my client and New Zealand and my client and Malta have both become buddies So maybe there's an opportunity we could pursue work together. I mean, very real. I remember when I went to Malta to get to see our friends in Malta, Andrew from Zealand flew over to meet us there because he wanted to hang out because he loves those guests. So it's, you know, how do you create an ecosystem where everybody wins is what I'm looking for. This episode is brought to you by the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. I am teaching their professional intensive course, Innovation in the Built Environment, and it is designed for practitioners who are ready to think differently about how the built environment gets made. Whether you're an architect, planner, developer, or somewhere in between, this course gives you the frameworks, the language, and the cross-sector perspective to lead change from wherever you sit. Five weeks of virtual sessions plus an in-person intensive in Detroit. Find out more and register at bradicallybetter.com. Right. So when you refer to your practice, then, it sounds like you can work with more than one firm at a time. Are you a sole practitioner or is there others supporting you? Yeah, it is just me. I mean, I do. There are people I occasionally lean on for specific tasks. If it ever arose where I was busy enough, there is somebody I would want to be able to bring on full time, and I've talked about having another friend in New York. We've talked about the opportunity of maybe combining our practice. She's doing something similar-ish. She's more of an operations person. But we've talked about that, but it's just never been the right fit or the right time. So for me, it's like a lot of consultants, and this is a different way- I mean, this is the way that I'm differentiated, whether it's bill or bad, it really depends on your perspective. I'm not looking for every client. I'm not looking to try and make as much money as I can. I just want to work with cool, good people doing great work, have fun, make a difference, get paid my value. That's what I want to do, whereas a lot of consultants want to try and work with as many people as human as possible. I am super not interested in doing that. But when I'm working with a client, I represent them, but they also represent me. We're tied to each other, essentially. For me, if I have a client in the Mediterranean, in a client, a collaborator in New Zealand, and then maybe one in America, that's an ideal situation for me. I had that until fairly recently, I was working with a firm in Philadelphia who's fantastic, I really loved them. It's actually really interesting. This is how I knew I was really onto something. Their market was in K-12 in public safety. There was two markets I knew absolutely nothing about. Nothing. Like less than nothing. I went to public school and I went to cops to come or the fire department to come if I called them. That's literally all I know about these things. But I knew the people that knew about this market and they were trying to grow the practice, hire right people, pitch their portfolio in a certain way. And we ended up working together and we won over $300 million with the work through those relationships that I had through the relationships that we were able to fund to opportunities to be leveraged and portfolio, etc. We were thinking it was going to probably be four or five years and ultimately, their ultimate plan eventually was to get out and to sell the firm and that just happened after two and a half years. Which was great. It's a great case study. And that also means I don't have a client anymore. Which is both good and bad. I mean, in full disclosure, I was actually planning about six months to maybe have a conversation of whether or not they did continue to need me. Because we had kind of gotten to where we needed to be sooner rather than we thought. I mean, there were still other things that needed to be resolved that we were pursuing. But I don't want somebody to pay me just to sit around and do that. Like, I want to help people. Is that in and it's made from being able to help somebody else? And you are definitely not a person that sits around and does nothing. You also started your public art practice at Gang of Three. So why don't you talk to us a little bit about that as well? It's funny that you mentioned that I'm not a person that sits around and does nothing I had during Switha Perspective Client last night. And he was like, what do you do for hobbies? And I was like, oh God. I don't actually know. It's really sad. I do what I love. I truly love what I do. So I'm always working, but I'm always on vacation at the same time. And I don't know if that's really wonderful or incredibly sad. It's maybe a little bit of both. I think it's actually pretty wonderful. Yeah, no, I can't. As long as you keep the burnout to the side, you're beginning to pay to do what you love. How many people can really say that? Yeah, that's the trick. You know, it's interesting because running your own practice is always a tricky thing. Sometimes it's feast or famine. It's very stressful. And sometimes you make less money than you do. We would if you were a full-time employer or partner, but at the same time, I've never been happier. I'm so extraordinary to have that I did what I did. But in 2020, so we were all sitting around the house. There was nothing going on, basically. And we were trying to figure out, I was trying to figure out something to do. And we, myself and a friend of mine, actually, that I worked with at NC State when I was doing an exhibition about it before I became a janitor. We had started pursuing some public art projects together and just kind of give us something to do. And there was an opportunity that came up for this quote-unquote creative education flood playing display, whatever that means. I think they couldn't call it public art because they didn't want people to get upset that they were spending taxpayer money on public art. So it had to be educational. And I had a friend in Philadelphia, oddly enough, who had just left Olin and decided to start his own practice on ground control. Will Belcher, he's fantastic. And we were, I remember thinking, maybe there's an opportunity for the three of us to partner together and pursue this project. And at the time, that sounded like a good idea. Will ended up getting so busy, which is great. His practice just took off like a rocket. We didn't really anticipate that. He was able to be involved, but he wasn't able to come down and travel as much as he would like. So thinking that it took on kind of a majority of that role. But we ended up winning this project. And it was a tiny little $50,000 total project cost project. And what we ended up doing was instead of doing a mural, which was what they thought they were going to get basically for $50,000, we tried to figure out a way to pixelate the site with data. And one of the things, as I mentioned, one of my big things is trying to do more with less. And so what we tried to do was figure out what was the best way to be able to maximize our impact. And so what we ultimately ended up doing was doing this two-acre pixelated immersive floodplain display basically with a series of 25 different flood markers that are all uniquely colored coordinated. So there's maybe two or three for each particular storm. And what we did was be able to leverage a horrific flooding situation to be able to put it on display in real time, to cars and people walking by. And at the time, we didn't realize what we were doing, but essentially we graded the world's first totally dynamic climate change memorial that put that stuff on display for people to see in full force. And because of that project, it ended up winning. I think we're up to over 20 national and international zone awards or finalists or whatever. And it was completely unexpected. But for me, it was like the perfect example of how we like to work as individuals, because Lincoln and Will, my two partners on the project and Lincoln is my full-time business partner for getting through it. That's how we like to work. Anyway, it's like how do you maximize your impact? You don't need to necessarily spend a ton of money or a ton of time or use a lot of material to have a big impact. Which is exactly how I approach things in my strategy practice and with my entire career. We can talk about sustainability all we want, but if we're using a lot of embodied carbon how sustainable is it really? And so for us, it's like how do we tell a big story whether it's minimal effort and I think it just resonated with a lot of people. Because of the tension that project got it unintentionally basically started a larger practice force. We had to incorporate right when we were signing the contract and we just ended up continuing to win different projects throughout the years. And I think we're in year six now and it's been pretty interesting to see the type of attention and just the kind of interest that are tiny little projects because all our projects are tiny. And the largest project we've done to the date was a $200,000 total construction cost. And we're our own contractors on all this stuff in order to make it work. It has been really interesting to have conversations with some of the best designers in the world that are very familiar with our work and use our work sometimes as precedent studies, which has been pretty interesting. But because of the attention that we've gotten from that, this is a long answer, sorry, but because of the attention we've gotten from that we get invited to these really interesting opportunities to go and speak in Barcelona or in Singapore or have our work exhibited in China or whatever it is, which gets us in the doors that most designers wouldn't be able to get in otherwise, which is also really great for my strategy clients because all of a sudden I'm meeting all these prospective clients. and people that they should know that they would never in a million years be able to get to know, but since I'm doing that, it essentially creates this wider ecosystem, unintentional, but highly effective ecosystem for doing business. You brought me in on one of your fast company articles. There's one that you that I will make sure to link to in the show notes where you talk about our industry as we know it will soon cease to exist. You also said that's not a bad thing. So what do you think disappears, I guess, and then what do you think takes its place? Yeah, I mean, don't be wrong. I mean, it's not that it's not terrifying. It's scary as hell. Like, I mean, like we were talking about AI and things like that. I mean, it's terrifying. Everybody's worried about, you know, losing their jobs etc. It would be great if we lived in some of Utopian society with the universal income and all that stuff. That does not exist. Nor will it ever exist and exist in the United States at least. But that said, when it comes to our industry, it's interesting when you ask people what architects do. And bottomly, I don't think most architects actually really know what architects do. I don't think most architects can distill anything of what they do down to a single cent done. Yeah, exactly. Well, certainly not myself, but you know, the interesting thing about the AI kind of revolution that we're encountering now is, you know, when you ask somebody on the street what an architect does, I think they have these grand visions of this hyper creative kind of inventor master artist master builder, like thinking about Bucky Fuller or, you know, even go back to the ancient Egyptians running to Chinese. Like, these kind of this kind of creative genius that can really impact the build environment. That's not really what we do now. We're more like facilitators and buildings in particular in this country. Not that there's not people doing great architecture, but it's to meet a need. It's a need to think. But a lot of our time just due to our industry is called up both a document in drawings and reducing risk. And as AI continues to develop, I just do not foresee, and I know for a fact, by the way, that many different design firms are using AI to create construction drawings. And as that continues to get perfected, there's no reason to think. I think it would be naive to think that AI is not going to be doing window details and construction drawings. And so all of a sudden, you're not really going to need as many production people. But what that does is it frees up people to have the opportunity to explore more, be more creative. Now, what does that mean? It also means that the workforce is going to be tremendously reduced, or that these larger companies are going to get significantly smaller. That's bad in some ways. It's also extraordinarily good. In other ways, because that means that you and I, and two random people on the street, might be able to go and start around practice. And all of a sudden, we'd be competing with some of the top architects in the world, because it's really more at that time, really based on ideas, and then being able to leverage things, like production through using artificial intelligence. And that that's what I mean when I say it's going to suit suit, suit, suit exists. I'm very bullish on the fact that the large firms will either no longer be in business or will look tremendously different in the next 10 years. I would be absolutely shocked if that is not the case. Just knowing, being aware of what I'm aware of. So, we said the architects probably can't really articulate what they're doing now. Where does that really push our work in the future? Then especially the smaller nimble firms? Yeah, I think it pushes us into becoming creative directors. We're really become creative directors of the build environment rather than you know somebody who's just facilitating drawings or making sure to mitigate risk. I really think that's the direction that our industry is going to go. Whether we like it or not, the sooner the people start to kind of wrap their brain around where their place is in the world and that kind of world is going to be better for them. You know for the people that are close to retirement it's not really going to matter for people that are making a career. I mean they're definitely going to see a change for the people that the concern that I have is the people that are in school right now are the super young designers. I think I should say I'm somewhat concerned about that but also those are the people that are much fluent in this type of technology. So actually they're going to be the ones that are going to be leading a lot of this change. My concern is there may not be as much opportunity for mentorship. But if anything it actually potentially flips the script on mentorship because then all of the sudden it's the young designers that are going to be mentoring some of the older designers on how these things work. If our ego can get out of the way, yeah. Yeah, if anything actually think it kind of democratizes the system a lot better. And maybe what it does is it helps to improve the American built environment. I don't know. I mean I'm not even often to think that that's going to be the case but it's a possibility. You know along the reason why our built environment looks the way it does is because there's a risk mitigation. You know so if you can all of a sudden be able to take that stuff out of the equation where everybody's using the same details everybody's using these kinds of things and then it really just becomes about design thinking. Maybe that's a good thing where I built the environment. Right? Is there an opportunity to start to reduce, you know the amount of steel or the amount of concrete or whatever in a really unique ways to be able to create more forward-thinking sustainable, efficient buildings? You know there, I mean there's I think there's a lot of opportunities there. I'm not an AI evangelist. I'm just a realist. Like I'm not super stoked about this direction but it is the reality. So I just it's what I what I've personally at least. So we've had this conversation and I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear that you actually never got your architecture license. Yeah yeah no it's funny. I've whenever I give a presentation I always started off with two truths in a lie. It's kind of like a dating profile like tack because like you give like two truths about yourself in one lie and then see if there's something I could figure it out. And so mine are always I was once a licensed taxidere ever in the hometown. I once slept in an abandoned car the my state was part of London for three days and I'm an architect. And the lie is of course I'm not an architect because I never bother to get my license. So the the other two were definitely true. I appreciate my times in taxidere ever and this is janitor and all those other things and maybe the person that I am. But yeah now for me I get asked this question a lot. I think that in our industry in particularly in America I should say we are very adamant that you should and I actually had this conversation with student today that we're very adamant that you should get your license. And I think that that's important but it's also not for everybody. And you know the main reason for me of not getting my license was it's not the best use of my time. The best use of my time is growing a practice winning a practice winning work hiring people helping to design it's not sitting around and ceiling drawings and doing details. That's just not my skill set. It's not the highest in best use of my time. So for me to go and get a license I've got all the I mean up for me to go and study for all these tests etc. The opportunity cost is extraordinarily high. Like it just doesn't make any so there's no business sense for me to do that. You know and I was pointing out to some of the other people some of the architects many of the architects and designers that we revere never bothered to get in a credited license in America. You know what I mean like this many of the people that we study in school they may not have their license. They're plenty of license architects that work there. All that really matters is that you can deliver the project and deliver the drawing. I think when it really matters the most is when you're a sole practitioner you're in charge of reviewing specific drawings. It just really depends on which career path you go into and for me it just was never a never made sense. Plus as I mentioned I'm just like sick extraordinary ADD so and I want to just it's a matter of public safety and public health. I'm not going to get more. I've run major companies before I work with people all the time but I always work with people that are great at this things. Know your strengths and work with the people that are great at the things you're not. That's that's a great rule for business. I absolutely agree. So you've said multiple different ways throughout the last hour that you're not interested in helping bad people build a good business that you only work with good people doing important work. I think that's an easy principle when you have the marketing position that you have to be selective but how did you build to the point where you could afford to operate that way or when did you realize that capacity? Well I found myself in situations in the past through a my career where it just became apparent that I was doing myself an injustice by helping other people continue to grow their business so I very quickly left. With my last practice, Hembert that was certainly not the case at absolutely level as people. It's still plethora with them. Nothing but the best for them. They're amazing. They're great people. But when I decided to leave that, I had the best job in North Carolina. I worked with 40 of my friends. I get to hire them all. It was amazing. It was like genuinely to be friends with those people to the data. So for me to leave that, I had to set a certain amount of principles for myself to be able to make it worth my time. I spent my entire life building. reputation and a career based on honesty and collaboration and being easy to work with. Not always easy to understand and sometimes I'm a fan of the house again, but also too, just like, you know, I'll do whatever I can to have somebody be successful or a project be successful. And I've built a career on like that. I cannot jeopardize my entire last 30 years of my life by working with somebody else. There's going to blow that up immediately. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and it takes an instant to destroy it. And so one, there's like a business case for that too. Life's too short to work with assholes and narcissists. I'm good. Like I have no desire to continue to add to that. There are enough of those people in the world. I want to help good people make a difference. Have fun, be patient about it. Just the exact, that's a guiding principle in my life. And so for me, I try to keep my costs down as low as humanly possible. So it affords me the ability to be able to do that. I'm not going to say it's not hard. It is hard. It's hard to find the right clients. I mean, doctors, lawyers, bankers, they're all significantly more creative and more innovative than architects are. I mean, we get really upset when people say that, but it's true. We are like so stuck in our ways on how we're going to do things and being able to think about things in new ways. It's scary because we're so risk averse. So finding the right clients is hard, but also finding the right clients that are willing to pay you, but that are also, you know, ideologically aligned. So you feel good about yourself going to work every day. I can't authentically help somebody grow a business or tell a contact that I've known for 30 years that they should work with somebody that I know is going to not do them right. I would hope that there are some individuals that are listening to that podcast. And be like, we could really use an individual like William Dodge. What's the best way to get in touch with you and are you looking for new clients right now and what size of firm do you typically? Is there like any size constraints or things that really get you going? No, I think for me, it's not a size constraint situation. It's the ability to be able to make decisions. Sometimes you'll have a small firm that has 20 different people that are involved in decision making and everybody's going to incredibly different direction where you'll have a firm of 500 people where it's like couple of people making the decision and that's the direction that's going to go. So I would just more for me working with people that are actually able to make a decision because otherwise it doesn't matter what I'm offering if they're not able to implement anything, then it just becomes completely useless. That said, for me, the clients that I'm looking for the most, again, are the ones that are trying to do good work and good works relative. It's like, what is good work? Does that mean design? Does that mean work in impacts your community? It can be any of those things. But for me, the clients that I'm most looking for are clients that are looking to grow that sometimes that means in terms of size, but sometimes that means just in terms of quality of work or quality of portfolio or type of work that you're doing or type of work. Or they're looking to transition into new markets, new locations or new project types. Or they just need a fresh look, a fresh set of eyes on what they're already doing. My first client, when I went out on my own, was a firm Sanders pace in Tennessee. They're one of the best firms in Southeast. They're amazing. They had called me and I don't normally work on project specific stuff. They're just happy to be good buddies. And so they had called me to help them try and facilitate essentially a design retreat so they could help to distill down where they wanted to take the firm over the next 20 years. Like, how do they start to look at not necessarily thinking about immediately, but planning to think about firm transition, et cetera. And so, you know, for me, any firms that are doing something like that in terms of transition or thinking about the future of the firm, I think it's something that's incredibly useful and interesting. And somewhere I can offer value. I just, my main thing is it's like, I've got to be able to offer value. If I can offer value, it's not worth my time. It doesn't matter how much you pay me is not worth my time. I'm very much a believer of like life short, make a difference what you can, because you only have one chance. You mentioned that you were just talking to having a conversation with a student about about licensure. What is your advice to new graduates coming out right now, especially with the technology shift and everything else that's happening on the horizon. And I clarified this and I was talking to him. I was like, you know, I may not be the best person to ask about this, but I'm very much a believer that licensure is important for some people. And it is important if you can get it and it will add value to you. But I've never thought of myself as an architect. I'm a designer. Architecture is just a medium that I practice. But my point to him was, he was looking at some schools abroad that may not have the accreditation might not transfer to back to America. And my point was, who cares? Try and go, learn as much as you can, get as much of a diverse and varied experiences you can specifically focused on the kind of stuff that you want to be doing for the rest of your career. His last thing you want to do is go somewhere that checks this one box. But it boxes you out of being able to learn all this other life changing experiences, etc. Like go where you're going to learn the most and be happiest and then figure that stuff out later. And my point to him was, is if you go to Delft or wherever else it is, if that doesn't transfer back to America, who cares? Because you can go and get a job at a firm that's got licensed other licensed landscape architecture architecture, whatever. And it ultimately doesn't really matter as long as you've got the you've got the degree in the knowledge to be able to do the project. The only time it really matters is if you're a sole practitioner who has to be able to seal their own drawings. But if you're working for a bigger company, it's less about where you want to school more about what you know. That's my advice. That is very different advice than most people would give, but that's just my advice. I'm not an architect, I'm not a landscape architect. I'm none of those things, but I play one every day and we're pretty successful at it. this summer join me for innovation in the build environment. A professional intensive from the University of Michigan's Tobman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Built for practitioners who are ready to move from thinking about transformation to actually leading it. Learn more at BRadicallyBetter.com, that's B-e-r-a-d-i-c-a-l-l-y-b-e-t-t-e-r, dot com. Hi disruptors, thank you for joining us today on an episode of Practice Disrupted. If you like the content for today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practiceofarchitecture.com/podcast. Be a part of the conversation by joining me, our speakers, and other disruptors in our community. At practiceofarchitecture.com/community. Our social media handle is practice of arch, that's practiceofarchitecture.com/community. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello. Tune in next week for a new conversation on Change in the profession.