Ep 630 - Buildings (feat. Michael P. Murphy)

- Wow, wow, Wes. - All right, we're here, Michael P. Murphy. What's going on, man? - Hey, man, great to be here. - Dude, man. - Dude, you know, again, I'll be honest, I have a booking service, they just go, and I'm pretty bad in terms of like researching anything. They just go, "Hey, here's the book, I go." Sounds great. (laughs) Sounds awesome. - The book is called our world in 10 buildings. - Yeah, let's go. - Yeah, 10 buildings. - So you're, and this guy, I was doing a little, I did a little research. - Okay. - So, you have like an architectural origin story. - I do, it's a little bit, but this book is about as well. - It's pretty charged. You were saying your father was sick. - Yeah. - He went to the hospital and you're like, "Dude, this place, why is this place so fucking horrible?" (laughs) - Is that about it? - Those are the two parts, yeah. I got two kind of awakenings I had. - Yeah, well, that's a bad way to frame. I shouldn't say that. You were just like, this doesn't look like a place to get healthy in. - No, it's true. I went, you know, like I think a lot of people went to the hospital as you, everyone will go. For those moments of great joy in your kids are born and terror when your family's sick. And I'm sitting around, it was actually like the holidays, Christmas, and the whole family had to be there 'cause he was getting surgery. It's a place emptied out. And there's like no one in there except us. And he's like, this is the worst place. I could imagine spending the holidays. And I'm looking around. I was a young architecture student. I'm looking around, I'm like, where is the architect? Where are the design elements in this place? This place is terrible. - Yeah. - You know? And so I think it kind of cracked my head up and said, you know, maybe one day I could design a hospital or something like that. - So you were already in architecture. You were studying architecture before that. - I had been in architecture school for one semester. - Oh, so you were pretty new. I was pretty new. - I didn't know a damn thing. - Did you talk to anyone in there about architecture during the thing where you just kind of just chillin'? You know, there was this moment where they told him he had to walk around. He's like, oh, get your steps in. And so they're walking around the hallway with no windows, rooms on either side. The nursing station in the middle. And he was very diligent doing what the doctors told him. So he's walking around and I'm just like, this is the most abysmal experience. - Yeah. - I mean, it's this great famous cancer institution in New York City. - Yeah. - That's supposed to be one of the greatest ones. - And it is for research. But the experience was pretty bleak, you know? - Yeah, hospitals are pretty brutal in there. And it's like, I get it. You're trying to build all the cool life-saving machines. You can't really be thinking about nice windows and natural light. So your thing is like, you can't. You can have both basically. - Yeah, I think the question, I think the question emerged like, why is it? Why is it that we can't have both? It's interesting when you think about hospitality spaces are designed completely around your experience. - Yeah. - You know, what the comfort of the chair is, what the smell of the room is, what the light setting is. It's all around making people feel like vibe and comfort, it's interest and-- - Vib at the hospital sucks. - Yes. - Not a good vibe. - And hospitals, which they share the same root word, are completely different. Completely on the other spectrum. It's all about the kind of institution and it's sanitary and cleanable spaces. And you can understand there's a lot of liability around screwing it up. - Yeah. Do you think that's from like, I would imagine hospitals were invented for soldiers initially. So I think it's probably just like a mercenary mindset where it's like, they always were like, give them the worst possible shit. We'll put their legs back on and send them back out. I just think it's just, everyone's like, yeah, that's just what they look like and no one ever even thought about it. - It's a very good point. You know, the history of hospitals, like originally hospitals actually were converted into religious spaces. So like before, let's say the 18th century, they just put the sick in the church, in the kind of large rooms and put beds in there. And you could hear, you know, the only healing power is the power of God, you know, the word of God. So the priest stands at the front, delivers the sermon and, you know, that's your pathway to heaven. - Really, that was the first hospital. - So those are the first medical spaces that are like really converted religious spaces, basically. - Okay. - They're taking in this sick. And then around, let's say the turn of the 18th century, the kind of modern hospital starts to emerge as a place where the state is putting the ill in the sick. - Yeah. - And then the 19th century, 1850s is really when you see what we know today as the modern hospital realm. - Oh, they're pretty new. - Kind of new and you're right that like, it's this confluence of military and kind of state investment. So I did this research eventually to look into why was it so bad? You know, how can a place provide like the best care and actually potentially extend my father's life? I actually provide really good care, good research, good surgery. And have such a, you know, a poor experience in terms of like the comfort level there, you know, why the two so disconnected. So I looked into this history. There's an interesting historical relationship where the Florence Nightingale from the 1850s kind of emerged as like the first medical hospital. I don't want to say medical hospital designer, but she really, she built this thing. She wrote this book called Nuts on Hospitals and Nuts on Nursing. - What was she a nurse? - She was a nurse. She sort of set up the first kind of nursing. She's an incredible innovator. - I always thought she was like a character for my dickens now. That's a real person. - I mean, it's a very real person. - That's like the ultimate nurse name of Florence Nightingale. - Her name is Florence Nightingale. - She's amazing. She went to the, then it was the Crimean War. And all these, all these soldiers were dying 'cause they were in these what's called bell tents and they were dying of disease. And she said, we need to bring, we need to, she learned that through the design of this new kind of military hospital that was brought in, the patients were actually living longer. They were being pulled off the ground that they weren't getting sick. That there was air flow in the facility and she realized that the hospital had this big impact on saving their life. And so she developed rules for how to design hospitals and use those rules that kind of changed hospital design around the world. - Dang. So do you ever hear about the guy who discovered germs? Similar thing. The guy who was like, you should wash your hands. So after you like, you know, package away a dead body and you have to deliver a child. You should wash your hands. That guy was told he was like, other doctors like shut the fuck up, dude. There's nothing on our, there's not like invisible bugs on our hands. And that guy, I forget his name, but he actually, he was the one who like, pretty much founded germ theory and he died in like a St. Asylum. 'Cause all the other doctors were like, shut up. We don't hear about that. They're like, we're doctors, we're gentlemen, we're clean, we can touch anything. It's not gonna make us dirty. - Yeah, there was this study where similar to that where it was doctors ties that were getting germs on them and really affecting other patients as they were walking through different wards and so what? - So the, so this whole idea of sanitary clothing and other things, you know. But those same ideas are really, really fascinating. You know, it was the similar idea around. - Similarly, sorry, that's the guy. - Oh yeah. - That guy. Good guy. - Good guy. - Horrible. - Horrible fate for him. He just tried to be like, guys, we should wash our hands. - Wash your hands. - Watch the dead bodies. - We shouldn't deliver babies right after and they're like, shut up. - Yeah, yeah. All that stuff was changing how we think about, not just what medicine is, but how we live in the world. How the city's changed. - Yeah. - Well, it is, you know, it's a, it is tricky 'cause you're in the hospital and it's like, yo, let's make this place look awesome. And the doctors are like, they've been up for 35 hours straight and they're like, shut up, shut up. They're pretty grumpy, honestly. Doctors are pretty grumpy. If you've worked with a lot of them, I guess. - Yeah. - You're trying to stuff like hospitals. - I am working with a bunch of amazing doctors. - Yeah, yeah. - Eat like crap too. They have terrible diets for real. - That's funny you say that. - That is some truth. - It's 100% true. Doctors have the worst diets out of anybody. Well, they're not as bad as construction workers, but they fall for health food, so that's a lot. Well, we're like 10 coke zeros and be like, completely healthy. - Gotta stay up. It's those shifts. - Yeah. - Long shifts. - It's kind of fucked, yeah, it's not, it's not good. - Yeah, so. - You know, I met this doctor right at that same time and he was thinking about, his name's Paul Farmer. He was this incredible doctor. And he was trying to build hospitals around the world for some of the poorest people. And basically saying, this is terrible. And we deserve better medical care, but also better spaces. - Yeah. - And he invited me to work with him and actually ended up designing a hospital with him. And that's how I got started my first project. - Where was this at? - The hospital's in Rwanda. - Dang. - He's Stafrika, yeah. - Billing that resume, you can't really get started. They're like, we need an architect who works in Rwanda, yeah. - Well, so I'll get back to that 'cause it's kind of fascinating. How did you get into Harvard architectural schools? You were an English literature major. - Yeah, I was. - How do you do that? You join like some intermural sports or like, how did you polish your resume to get up into Harvard? - Yeah, I had, you know, I definitely was not destined to be an architect, you know what I mean? I thought I wanted to be a journalist, maybe a future podcast. - Hey. - But this path is, you gotta study hard. (laughing) - I wanted to, I was trying to write a book. Actually, this book, I often say, is the thing I've been trying to do for 30 years. So, I'm good at it's out. - That's cool. - I studied literature and I went and worked and published it like for a bookage and actually after school, which I did not love and then I went to try to be a journalist. And so I was working abroad. It's someone told me to get your, to do that, you gotta go get your articles, be a stringer or something and go to some foreign place. I went to South Africa. I had studied in school and went back there, I knew some people there and I was trying to figure it out. And while I was there, not being very successful, I would say I got, I called my father and my mother on my father's birthday. - How old were you? - I was 20, I went there when I was 24. - So you're a 24-year-old in South Africa, trying to be a journalist? - Yeah, exactly. - That's a crazy point. - Stupid, yeah, it's like terrible. - Why isn't this working? I'm down in South Africa. I'm on the beat right now, right? - I know. - I shouldn't, something great happened to me. - Yeah, that is pretty sick though. So you were down, sorry, you were down there. And what happened? - I clearly met with some great advisors who told me, first study English literature, one of the least employable professions. Actually, it's funny, this is a segue, but when I did eventually go to architecture school in 2006, in 2008, the financial crisis happens. - I was a realtor. - Oh, you were realtor? - I was a 19-year-old realtor in Philadelphia. - Oh yeah, I've suffered similar death sad facts. - Well, there's this article that New York Times comes at, says, "Architects have finally replaced English literature graduates as the least employable profession." - And then you switch to that? - Well, I was in architecture school too. - Oh, fuck you just switched. - Yeah, just 2008. - Yeah, 2008, 'cause all the every architect was - We share a similar archive, yeah. - So failing up as they say. (laughing) - So you switched, so yeah, so how did you switch? I still don't understand, you're an English literature major and you were just like, you know what? Oh, 'cause you were down there in South Africa. - I was down there trying to write, and then I call my dad, and my dad did my mom answer the phone, and she said, "Listen, your dad's in the hospital." He's sick, he's got, they found cancer in his stomach. He had this, he was feeling uncomfortable. They opened him up and they closed him up. And they said, she said, "Get home." - Yes, he has three weeks to live. - Oh God. - And so we had that terrible call, and the next day I jumped on a plane, it came back home. It was winter, I'm from Pekipsey, New York. - Chile. - Chile, well, you know, upstate North and New York City. And I came home and, you know, what do you do in that situation? I had this whole plan, bad plan, as we articulated. (laughing) That wasn't working so well, so I kind of abandoned that, and I said, well, I'm just gonna sit here and figure out what to do with the family, and well, backstories, my dad had always worked on our family home. Every weekend, he was like tinkering, he was painting, he was like stripping, stripping paint on repainting this old historic home that they had bought for kind of a cheap deal and tried to fix it themselves. - Usually great for a marriage. - Yeah, yeah. (laughing) - Projecting our marriage. (laughing) - Now the next woman, why is dad on the ladder for seven hours on a Saturday? You know, we always have that question, you know? With his like, headphones, he had a little transistor radio playing the, you know, Yankees game or whatever. - That's actually kind of nice. - So, but he was always trying to finish it, never, you know, kind of a job that never ends. And I said, well, what if I asked him? I said, you know, I'm gonna keep myself busy. But what if I try to finish what you've been doing? You know, so it was a good idea. So, you know, I started digging into the house. I started, it was winter, so I started working inside. There was this old attic that had never been restored. I started working up there. So three weeks past, he's still alive. Six weeks, he's still alive. He's responding to the drugs. He's still going to work, you know, a couple of months past. And he's like, I'm gonna join you in this. So he comes home from work every day. We're working on it together. It's like this really restorative experience. A year and a half past, he's still alive. And we finished restoring the house. - That's awesome. - It's amazing. And I went outside with him at the, this one moment, he always, at the end of the day, he always poured drink. And he said like a CC and Coke. I don't know who drinks Canadian Club and Coke for your listener. - Right, yeah. Some old rye, old school drink, and sip in the drink. We're staying outside summertime. And he goes, working on the house with you to save my life. It healed me, he said. - That's really nice. - And so that was a powerful experience. You know, I said like, is that true? Can it have happened, you know? But in that moment, I was like, okay. I think there's something bigger here. I should be an architect. I should actually go study this. - So that was the big moment for me. - So you gave up farting around with the literature. - And he picked up. - He picked up some fucking tools like a man. He found your calling. - I was grinding it out on the floor. Yeah. So what was, what would happen with the cancer? - Yeah, so he, you know, he went through remission. We had her in his head. He was feeling good, we finished the house. But stage four cancer. - Sure, as a bitch. - It came back into my first semester. I told the server we're in the hospital together. So then I went to our school and then I'm back in the hospital just with a little knowledge. You know, I went into the Harvard Graduate School design and I get, you know, overwhelmed with all the famous architects, how you'd be a famous architect. These are all the great people you should follow and all this star studded, you know, attention. And I'm going to this hospital. No one's talking about hospitals in the school. They're talking about museums. They're talking about these. And I'm like, where are these guys in the hospital? - Yeah, you know, because my father's now suffering again. All these people, so people, the nurses are, they're working in these terrible conditions. And like, where is that brilliance that we see and all these things I just studied for the first semester and why aren't they here? So it was kind of like a real kind of whiplash experience to go from having this powerful experience of my father, we kind of restored this thing together and he became restored and extended his life. And then to go to the place where he was facing him in a death again and see the lack of those thoughts in that experience. So I think it really shook me a little bit. I talk about it in the book at the end, but six months later, he did eventually die. But it was not to kill the ending of the book, but he was very intentional about that choice. And he had now had had these thoughts and he said, I'm going to choose where to go. So he picked, this guy never left, but Kips in New York basically. He went abroad once to Barbados, this country where his friends had a house invited him, he got a passport once for one trip. I mean, kind of the best place to go, if I'm being honest. Barbados is nice, but Caribbean is nice, but he hadn't traveled at all, really. And he went down there and he had this great experience there and he said, I don't want to die in that house. He didn't tell me all this, I found this out later. So he went to his friends house in Barbados, he brought his four best friend, couple of friends, and he designed that end of life experience. It would be very intentional, and I chose his last room, as I say in the book, that end of life, being able to design that last experience, where he was looking at the horizon, where he was in this beautiful environment, where he was calm and then comforted. His friends were around him and he went out. - Yeah, it's just pretty easy. - Went out like a king. - Yeah, pretty, deal honestly. - And so I think all those things in my first year of architecture school really, it just shook me, you know, say like, okay, we're doing this, something's wrong. - Yeah. - We're studying and working. - That makes sense. I was trying to figure out how, because it is kind of a, it's a, you know, it was kind of a bit of like an oxymoron to be like, we're bringing architecture to hospitals. You never hear about it. It's like, we're gonna, you know, there's some rich guy with a ton of money, we're gonna paint frescoes on a ceiling and get them bigger. You know, you know, like it's, he rarely, rarely hear about you. - Painting sets on the wall. - It's beautiful. (laughs) - You really never hear about it. And that actually does make sense of how you kind of connected that to be like, let's, let's make this, you know, like your dad had a nice experience. How do you make that, how do you make a hospital where, you know, most people are just gonna sit in a hospital? How do you make that at least somewhat, give like a sliver of that experience to. - Yeah. - I think it asks this question in myself, which is why do we suffer through these anesthetic experiences? You know, why do we allow ourselves to be in conditions which are so poorly designed and have no say in what they are? I mean, we live our lives, 90% of our lives are inside of buildings. - Yeah, people are gonna say, 'cause they don't have any money, that's why. So they're on the house sucks. - Yeah, but in a way, in this book, I didn't want to say, okay, only great architecture which is famous houses we see in the architectural record. I actually wanted to say, actually, there's ways in which, like my dad did in his last room, that we in each of our apartments or houses, everyone in listening, you know, you, actually, you are designers of your home. For changing things, you're buying furniture, you're changing the layout of things, you're putting in mementos of your family, talismenic things that are from your history, memory, and you're making them your own, you know, and there's a real beauty to that, actually, in the spaces that were given, we adapt them, and design them, and accommodate them to what makes us feel at ease and comfortable, you know. - No, that is pretty cool, so then you, so is that how you kind of got into, I guess you're focused in architecture, where you're like, all right, let's work on making plays. I remember the first time I was in a children's hospital, children's hospitals kind of do this. - Yes, that's a good point, yeah. - They were like, I walked in, I remember, it was like, you know, if you have kids, you've ever been to a children's hospital, it's like, it's a really gut-wrenching experience, but then you're seeing like kids who are like, really, really sick, and you're like, all right, let me stop being a baby, whatever. But I remember like, for real, almost crying, being like, this is so nice, that they've put all of this thought into like, making these places, the Philadelphia Children's Hospital, chop is like, really, really nice, the way they've set it up, and they, you can tell they really designed it in a way to make, you know, kids feel more comfortable, and not like they're in such a serious, scary place, - Yeah, no, it's a really good point in a children's hospital because no one's going to a children's hospital. for great things. - No, it's like bleak. - Well, our second kid when she was just a little baby had, they thought she had meningitis. She had such a super high fever that it wasn't, one of them's like bacterial. I think it goes like to the brain, but they like, we just have to be sure. They'd give her like a spinal tap and she was a tiny little thing. I'm like a wreck, but I remember just really, especially in moments like that, you're like, it's really nice we can all come together. And actually collectively design a place for everybody that, 'cause that is, it's just like a brutal, you know? - It's a brutal experience, yeah. - Yeah, and they're like, at the bare minimum, I've been in these children's hospitals and they're like, you know, they're putting like, snoopy characters on the wall or something, whether they have some play area, they're at least trying to think about what the kid's experience is gonna be, you know. - They had gatorade in the waiting room. And I was like, guys, come here, it's loving life. It's really good to have that. I was like, this is so nice to have this. - That's gatorade. - It's cold gatorade, it's awesome. - Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a good point. How do you get into the mindset of those who are experiencing that? - Yeah. - Is that question? And in hospitals, there's a lot of times where we've lost that. We're like, this thing has to be a high performance machine, which is, we're grateful, it's a high performance machine and it's doing incredible, you know, life changing work. So I don't want to discount that. - Yeah. - But it's also a place where people work every day. - Yeah. - And nurses are working there and they're grinding it out and they're doing hard hours and doctors are working and they're trying to muscle through the hard work of this. And is that the kind of workplace that you'd want to be? - Yeah. - You know, it's not Facebook's offices, you know. It's not like there's not like free lunch everywhere. You know, they're not thinking about that total experience of what it is to take care of the workers and labor there, as well as the people that are in there all the time. - Yeah, there's no artistry basically in the whole setup. So some of that can change, you know, but I think it is about understanding the confluence and trying to say, you know, hospitals are the places where we face great joy and great fear. - Yeah. - And we gotta take care of the people that are in that environment. - So how have you, so going back to the Rwanda thing, you're down there, that was like your first project? - I mean, it's a crazy story because, you know, I'm in this moment of like existential crisis where I'm like, what am I studying this thing for? - Yeah. - And I'm not gonna be one of these architects and my dad's dying. I'm going home every weekend, driving back from Boston to Pekipsi, trying to be with him. - Yeah. - And I don't know if you've ever been with someone at the end of their life, I mean, who's just muscling through like every sports program he could watch, you know, like, he's watching golf, he's watching football, he's just like the whole day, he's just watching TV. - I was dispatched. One of my dad's buddies had a pancreatic cancer and he was really just like wasting away. And so my dad would like send us over there, like oh, 'cause we would make him like weed coconut oil, like like an edible stuff. And he'd be like, go over there, hang out, man, go like hang out, spend some time with the guy. And I remember he would just sit in his underwear and just watch Westerns. So I would just chill with him for like a couple of hours every now and again. - So just sit there. - Just watch Westerns with him. But he was a pretty funny guy. - I mean, I remember, he was like, wait for the commercial break. And I try to get something potent in there. - Dad keeps day alive. I love you. - Yeah, I love you dad. - Okay. - Commercials over here, you know? It was pretty bleak. - See the Rob robots on my fox football Sunday. - Yeah. - Yeah, let's be quiet. - So I had a different experience my first year. And then I met this doctor, you know, this Dr. Paul Farmer. And he was like, look, we building hospitals and Haiti and in Rwanda and we're working with all these communities. And who funds that? That's my, that's the question. How do you get the money to like kind of do stuff like that? - He was very interesting guy. His organization Partners in Health is incredible entity. You know, and he was grinding it out, raising money from philanthropists. He's, he had a lot of money from, there was a lot of money funding the programs from PEPFAR, actually from, which was the president's emergency plan for AIDS relief. - Oh, good for you. - There you go. - Pretty good, huh? - That's actually a question. - Actually George Bush put that together. It's one of one of his crowning achievements. You know, he funded all this money into AIDS treatment, especially in, in, in Sub-Saharan Africa, but not just solely there. And that had a lot of money pumped into programs that were radically reducing infection rates and also helped some fund infrastructure. So he was raising money different ways. Anyway, lots are short. He was partnered with the government of Rwanda and they were building after the, they had had a genocide 10 years earlier. They were investing in architecture and infrastructure while the rest of the world was paralyzed after the crisis. - Oh, yeah. - And they were building hospitals and he raised a little money to build a new hospital. They asked him to build a new hospital. He's like, we gotta do, we gotta do a new hospital. Would you ever come and do this with us? - What year were you in? - This is 2007. I went to Rwanda to work with him. - What year were you in terms of studies? Like what was your, - So I had one awesome year under my belt. - Year of a freshman. (laughing) - That's what people know. - That's awesome. And you got to, like no big shoulder bag on and no experience, yeah. - No firm experience. And, but you know, they had done it before. You know, they had done stuff before. I was like, look, I have no experience. Because actually we want that. Because, you know, if you've done it a hundred times, now you're bringing all that baggage. We actually have, we've done it before. We've done it in our way and we need you to come in and assist us. So it wasn't like I'm coming in as the architect. It was, I'm gonna come and work with you all. - That's cool, yeah. - To like see if we can improve basically or just add to what you're already doing. And so I moved, you know, I left school after my second year and moved to Rwanda to be with his team and try to work on this new hospital. Called the Bitaro Hospital. And that's where we tested all these ideas. Where I learned about the history of, you know, Florence St. Goes, where I asked questions like, why are hospitals making people sicker instead of healthier? So I got really into air flow. - Yeah, I saw that from your TED talk. That was kind of cool. - How can buildings breathe better? - Basically how to get the air. I didn't even thought about that. 'Cause I just assumed like in my house, like during winter time, if I don't open a window, I'm like, this is just like old air. - Yeah, that's right. It's just the same old air. - No, it's true, I mean, we learned this in, during COVID. - Yeah, true. - You know, it was about airflow. - Yeah. - We're not getting enough air management. You know, once we sealed all of our, this is the other lesson I learned. Once, and in 1950s, where basically everything became air conditioned. And there's lots of good benefits to air conditioning. Certainly in Austin, where it's 100 degrees. We need some DC. - Oh yeah, I love AC. - You know, but it also means that the air inside often is not recycled enough to clean it. - Yeah, I never even thought so that it's, so in the hospital, you would think like a central air at house would have like a duck that pulls air in from the outside just to give you some fresh air. - That's right. - Yeah, it doesn't, right? - No, they do, I mean, they have big mechanical systems in hospitals, and it's for particularly sick patients. They go in what's called a negative pressure room, where they're pulling air out constantly. - Yeah. - So those folks in a modern hospital who have tuberculosis or COVID or disease, which is infecting the air they would be put into, let's say, a negative pressure room. But in a place like Rwanda, they didn't have negative pressure rooms. So it's the hallways, patients were coming in very sick and infecting other patients, and it's the medical space that was contaminating those patients. - Oh yeah. - And so we had to think really kind of back to the origins of architecture and say, okay, if we don't have the money for big air conditioning units or big mechanical systems, can we design the building? So you get enough natural ventilation that reduces the overall infection rates radically. - And there was like a metric I remember you were saying, like you can measure how many times the air is completely recycled in a building. You're basically like fresh air coming in, old air out. - Yeah, they call it air changes per hour. - Yeah. - And you know, typically a normal room might get like two to three air changes per hour. But in like a negative pressure room, you're getting a few more. And during COVID, you want to get like eight air changes per hour. - Yeah. - So you're kind of like, it's the same thing with TB. You know, you want to get a lot more. And so we said, okay, I went back to night and gale strategies and she had ideas about a window placement and size. She had ideas about how big the floor plate or the kind of plan or the room could be. And all of those things are this relationship, which create air, air management, airflow. And if we introduce that back into this modern hospital in Rwanda, could we actually reduce infection rates and create not only a comfortable space, a beautiful space on this hilltop that looks this incredible view. - I will say, I checked out your portfolio. I was trying to dig up at least one stinker. Really nice, dude. I was like, damn, it was that, what was it that? Matt, not at Massa, Amma. - Amma, yeah. - Amma, yeah, yeah. - Stuff looked crazy, man. - Oh, thanks, bro. - Really for real. I was just, I was like, there's gotta be one in here. I was like, I was like, damn, this shit is awesome. - We don't put the stinkers on the, on what I'm saying. (laughing) - So what was the tech level in the hospital in Rwanda? You're talking like you had just open windows where there's a breeze just coming through, right? - Pretty low tech, but there's simple metrics. Size of windows, size of room. And then this is key. High ceilings, what we call the upper room. - Yeah. - Where the airflow's up. And then this is great Kentucky company. That's a Louisville called Big Ass Fans, you know this group? - It's awesome, it sounds dope, that sounds awesome. (laughing) - And we found them and they create these huge ceiling fans. - So I wrote to Big Ass Fans. I said, would you guys ever think about donating, helping us put these big ceiling fans in these open wards? And they were like on board. - That's awesome. - So that we had this Big Ass Fans. - Shout out to Big Ass Fans, shout out to Big Ass Fans. And it's hilarious too, 'cause you know, all these t-shirts, all these dudes, - Thank you, special workers. - Thank you. We had this big air flow kind of go slow, but because they're big, they get a lot of air flow. We have one in the Austin Airport. Totally. Massive metal fans. I might be a big ass fan. That might be a big ass fan. Yeah, yeah. I'll have to look when I'm walking through there because it gets air up, a lot of air up, but it doesn't, you don't have the speed that creates a lot of, let's say it cools you down. So it gets the room up, it gets the air up into the upper room, and then up there we had UV GI lights, ultraviolet, germicidal radiation lights, it cleans the air up there, and then it moves out. So just the simple strategies actually created enough air changes per hour that we needed without having to bring in big mechanical systems. That's awesome. And it kind of changed the way I think about buildings, I started to say, you know, buildings have to breathe. Yeah. They allow us to breathe. You know, they're actually working with us actually. So our ability to breathe clean air is predicated on the spaces we're in actually. And because we spend most of our lives in these spaces. And that's a critical measure of our health and our comfort and our ability to live. And why is it that the buildings are not, why aren't we thinking about buildings as this like a series of lungs or a filter of the outside to the inside more than just the spaces that we're in and we're forced to. Yeah, keep it cold and keep it cool and all that stuff. Yeah. So that was interesting. That is pretty, I really do. I think it goes back to just like, you know, medieval peasant mentality where it's like, all right, we're going to build, we build stuff for the general population. It's just, let's just build it. Be happy. Have it. It's not going to help you in any way. It's not going to be good for you. But just shut up and just deal with it because that's, I think that's why, like hospitals really do suck so that. There's some of that truth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the bare minimum. Well, it's almost just unthinkable. It'll be like, let's, let's make this nice because everyone's like shut up. Be glad you have anything at all. Yeah, yeah. That's true. And there's that inequality of space, that kind of indignity of environments that we live in, that we don't deserve spaces that not just treat us correctly or treat us well, but also inspire us or give us a sense of awe. I mean, I think, you know, if you go back to the, you know, to the kind of medieval period, you have a great distinction, right? You have maybe terrible environments that you live in in homes, you hovels or something like that. It's like butcher animals and throw them right outside. You have terrible spaces that are not clean, cleanly and maybe not inspiring. And then you go to the cathedral. Yeah. And the cathedral is like the most awe-inspiring things you've ever seen. Yeah. And so they were using architecture and its greatest ability to like inspire awe to remind us that like, you know, there's these greater powers that are above us that you should be inspired by and that give you a kind of purpose. So in a way, every day the public is going in between the conditions of the ordinary and the conditions of the inspiring that some moments in their life. Like, I'm sure each of us has an architectural memory that they can tell a story about. It's one of the reasons I wrote this book. It's like, you know, what is that moment where you said, oh, that was a badass experience I had. You know what it knows for me? What was it? You probably actually know this. The egg in Albany. Oh, yeah, the egg. I performed in the egg. And I'll be honest. That was awesome. Yeah. What was it about the egg that was just fucking cool. I was in an egg. I don't know. I was in like a circuit, a completely circular building. Very new, Josh, please pull up a picture of the egg in Albany. It was also, are you familiar with Albany? Yeah. Because then they have those like government buildings. It looks like evil. Yeah. They have those like bread like brutalist, I guess. They have those like very like you, you like come over whatever highway that wrote, whatever road that is. And you see this like, egg shape building, looming in the distance. That thing. Yeah. Just looking thing. But then there's those buildings to the left corner. Yeah. It almost looks like they were at nighttime, they stick up and it looks like it's like the evil empire. I'm sorry. And honestly, too, I don't I don't think anyone, well, people probably know, but they're like federal buildings. Yeah. That I don't, I couldn't really get it an answer from people like what's actually in them. They're like, I don't know. Yeah. It's like state office buildings. Yeah. And the clearance, you need like, not military clearance. When you pull in, it's like very, very restrictive. Like who can go in there? You need all these credentials. Yeah. That was the picture right there, Josh. Memorable. Yeah. Yeah. That one stuck with me. I just remember pulling up and like, why did they do this? It looks terrible. Yeah. The egg was cool. The buildings behind it were like scary, like literally scary looking. Yeah. And they're so different than the structures around them, which is historic 19th century buildings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That period of time in the in the 60s with urban renewal dollars was a big moment of like a big heroic visionary and kind of sometimes like really miss the mark. Yeah. Also, are you Josh? You pull up the Guild House and Philadelphia. Are you familiar with the Guild House? I'd show you the Guild House. The Guild House. Yeah. So I know the Guild House. Yes. Yes. Of course. The ugliest architecture. Yeah. It's the ugliest building. And this is what I didn't realize that that was designed purposely. Someone made this place. I said, pass it every day. Yeah. The Guild House. It's actually kind of irritated me. Yeah. I don't know. Ethan Springard in somewhere. But that was designed by an architect, which I get the idea was like, let's not like clash with the existing neighborhood. Let's give it something that like we kind of fit in. But that was for basically low income senior citizens. Yeah. And he was like, let's just like purposely make this thing look almost like kind of like run down. And then he had a big satellite dish on the top of it. They had a remove. Yeah. Because that was like an insider joke. Like these guys are just sitting there for the rest of their life watching TV all day in the shitty building. And then they took this satellite dish off. Yeah. That was also in the 60s as well. As Robert Venturi. Yeah. What the hell was that? Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Phil Delphi, architects, real, I actually write about them a little bit in the book. They really championed this, became postmodernism and using kind of signs and symbols in architecture to signal a kind of language so that you read, he actually defended the Guild House as ugly architecture, you know, that you would read the ugly and it could be ordinary and okay. I mean, this guy's got to knock it off. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and-- This is even nice rooms and some ceiling. Like these are low income guys and Phil and Elphi trying to, you know, finish their years out here. It's a very kind of populous thing, but it's also, you know, it's sort of, there's so many Venturi Scott Brown structures that really miss the mark and are kind of hideous architecture. And they, but they're kind of obsessed with the ordinary. Yeah. They, they were obsessed with Las Vegas. They went to Las Vegas and created an entire theory around the buildings on the strip. Yeah. They were just boxes with big signs. Okay. You know, and they were saying, you know, there's something about this which we should think about as like a vernacular American architecture where we care about the sign, but we don't care about what's behind the sign. I don't fully agree with that. I don't even know what they're talking about. I feel like the, oh, is that the old strip in Vegas? Yeah, the old strip. Yeah. So they have like pink, but what is he, I don't even understand that it looks insane. We go to Vegas. It does not look ordinary whatsoever. No, now they, now, now emblematic, emblematic of like little mini Venice or a little mini, you know, New York City or whatever. Was the old strip that plane? What year was this? This was the 60s. Oh, it was just a big neon sign. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So what the hell? Okay. So what? And I still don't get what you're talking about. Yeah. I think where they were saying it was like, cool. You know, we're attracted to the symbol and the sign and the eat here and come in here. But once you get inside, it can be like every other building. Oh, okay. And that's why that we should focus on the language, if you want to use it, or the symbol that wraps the building and not care so much about the experience inside. And of course, like flies in the face of a lot of other architectural theorists who would say like the thing should be interrelated. Yeah. But it was an interesting and provocative theory, which definitely changed, you know, changed the way that architects started to focus on what it looks like from the outside. I mean, here's the thing. And again, I never studied architecture. But if I had a guess, if I was going, all right, what would I, if I'm like a 75 year old dude who's lived in Philly, my whole life, and now I'm in a low income housing, just give the guy like a slightly higher seal. Oh, fuck. This is a high ceiling. This is nice. Totally. Hitting them with the high concepts. And especially being like, it's shitty on purpose. It's shitty on purpose. Come on, man. I, when I read that, I was like, what the fuck? It's very patronizing. It is. It's very shitty. It's very, it's very mean to be like, these guys give them something shitty, I'll put a big satellite. Yeah, I also felt like they never, you know, I critique it a little bit in the book, which is to say like, you know, there's also a reason why you have these big signs in Vegas at the time. It's because you're trying to capture the most capital, you're trying to get the people to buy what they have. You want the louder and louder signs. So there's an economic driver behind that investment that has nothing to do with the experience one has and the desire one has to like be in a space for a long period of time. Casinos are freaked out because it's like they're purposely designed to be disorienting. They kind of just leave you just like, I don't leave them, you literally can't figure out how to get out of there. Yeah, they're labyrinthine. Yeah. No clocks. Pumping in air. So you stay awake. Yeah. Oh, do they do that? Totally. Oh, god. It's terrible. Terrible. Well, okay, so. Okay, so in architect school, this is one of my very questions. At what point in architect school do they teach you how to effectively blame everything on the contractors during the. It's the first, it's lesson number one. Yeah, yeah. It is nice. It's a nice thing to be able to do. Well, trust me, when you work with the conscious, they're blaming everything on the argument. I know. I know. I know it's fight. It's literally vice versa. It's like this. It is actually constructed as this completely adverse relationship from the beginning. Yeah. ideas and they're getting everything done. Well, they're looking at your, they're looking at the plans, you're on bullshit. We made some changes because this, you can't even do this. They don't know what it's like. And if I've seen it a million times, yeah, that's what was so interesting about working in, you know, working in Rwanda because they didn't have, they didn't, we didn't have an architect per se. I was, I was working with the team, but they had a builder, he's got Bruce and Zay. And he had these shops where he was making every piece of furniture, making window details, making, they're making coffins for the hospital. I mean, making everything, head metal shop, a wood shop and I was like, oh, this is amazing. Like you're actually working into related with the builder. We're going to build it together, we're going to design it together, we're going to test it together. Yeah. And so there was that, that relationship, that adverse relationship, never, I didn't learn through that. Right. I learned how to like work directly in relationship with those who are going to make it because we could make it right on site, which is sort of something you don't have access to here where everything is imported. Yeah. You know, and that was a really unique experience, you know. That's kind of cool. But there is this moment where you say, okay, architects, we have this position on high. And we create the great ideas and then everyone else has to surrender to that. And I think that kind of, again, patronizing position is completely, it recreates the idea that only some get access to architecture and architects and that we all have to live and suffer through these terrible spaces in our lives. Instead of trying to figure out how to, how to solve and fix the things that we have. I was reading a, I've been reading this guy's, trying to read his book. It's really hard to read. But he, it's called After Virtue, it's a, like a real dense philosophical book by Alistair McIntyre. And he was talking about, his part of his thing was like, we need to go back to like engaging in practices for the sake of the practice rather than the external reward. Which is like a nice thing to think about. But then he was like talking about like, okay, he had to find what a practice was. So he was, he's like, architecture is a practice. Like, what about bricklaying? He's like, not a practice. He's like, that's his part of architecture. That's his part of architecture. It was kind of, it was kind of a snobby take. He was like, there's nothing to be had internally by being a good bricklayer. You're just a subset of the practice of architecture. Oh, yeah, I don't agree with that at all. Yeah, so he caught a lot of flack for it, honestly, pretty kind of a snobby take. Yeah, it is. I think one of the things I learned is, it's, you know, people ask, oh, how do you define what a more beautiful building is versus nothing? I say, you know, if you can tell a story about the building, if you can, communicate like why it is the way it is. And often, I can be through how it's made, you know, so the craft of making the building. I've worked with these stone masons who, you know, we work together, I'm making this really beautiful stone wall out of this. So I can't have rock. Very nice. You know, in the ground. And it's like, oh, this is about, they made every single edge of every single rock. It was handcrafted. Yeah. And I'm like, you can see the thousands of hours and all the hand stone cutting that was going on inside. You see this incredible thing they created, which will stand the test of time. And in that is the story for generations, I made that stone wall. Yeah. Like my great, great grandfather was a stone mason from Ireland, came up to the Hudson Valley. That's why we were there. He came to build these estates that were made out of these like river stones. You know, he had this Irish stone, you know, mason. Usually breathable stone too. There you go. Breathable stone. Very breathable stones. Yeah, I, that's a thing. It's, it is a funny thing to say, because I think stone mason there is almost like a very, it's, it is kind of an art. You have to like take the stone, know how to actually cut them and where to place them and how to call, you know, put the, they're, they're not like all the same color. It's not like a, it's not in the store. I mean, you see isn't like, especially in Japan where there's such a reverence for the tradition of craft, you know, wood, woodworking and, and masonry and everything. And, and we've lost a lot of that. Yeah. But I think reverting to that, having that pride and what's made, back to my own experience working on my own home, like having to sand and work on every piece of wood. And, you know, you get really intimate with the material and, and the making of a room or a floor. And it reminds you that lots of hands have touched this thing over time. Yeah. Lots of people have worked on this to keep it alive. And there's a sort of reverence to being part of that long relay race of people creating spaces that protect us. That is nice, man. Especially I used to, I used to paint houses and I just changing the color of a room would make me so happy. I would finally finish the last coat and look at it and be like, it's just, it was such a joy, I'd be like, this is such a nice, it was just a nice feeling. Yeah, having that kind of finished thing can imagine it taking on new life. Yeah. Now, let me ask you this. That being said, as an architect, you ever find yourself when meeting a contractor for the first time, genuinely wondering like, what hell hold to this illiterate freak crawl out of it? You don't have to answer that. This is a funny question. So I mean, I actually, I mean, I will say, I have a lot of reverence for people who make things, you know, because it's, it's, no, there you are. It's not easy. You know, it's, it's one of, I would, I would say, because a lot of my family did construction growing up and it's like, it's one of, I sort of got it, it's one of the hardest, I think it's one of the most fun jobs as you're different places all the time. Like, I really love that part of it, but then it's like, it's hard work. It like kind of destroys your body over time, depending on what you're doing. And then you have to go collect, you have to go chase your money down. So like, you're actually working and then there's a whole other part of the job where you have to go like, hey, pay me for that thing I did and people are like, man, you're at risk. Yeah. You know, I think what's fascinating about being a builder or a contractor is you can kind of see the whole system, you take on all this risk, you're trying to budget a future thing that may go over budget, you know, you're assembling all sorts of teams of labor. Yeah. You know, you're trying to bring in folks, people you trust, people you don't know, and get this thing done on, you know, your future proving. I hope it'll take this long. I hope the weather will, yeah, you know, allow me to do it. You're also managing like, like, honestly, like when I would do construction, a huge, I would not all, but a sizable portion of the workforce would be like X convicts, sure. Not yet convict. You're dealing with a fucking city to be got, you're organizing a pretty rough version, you know, rough squad usually. And it's like, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's definitely a different beast all together. This good work, hard work. It is. Yeah, I always worked. I worked in mostly in food service, but everything. Same thing. It's the same exact thing. Every weekend, grinding out like, you know, amount of, amount of peppers I cut, and onions I cut, you know, I'm prepping for this at this place I worked all through high school. You know, it's like, I get it, like, you know, but you at the end of a day, you know, you crack a beer, you look at what you did, you see the next day and you're really proud of it. And that kind of is a really powerful thing. And when the architect is, I think put, move, remove from that process and on a perch, you know, build this vision, I think it's a complete disconnect into like the world around us and why matters. It's the people that make it that actually matter. Yeah. And I agree. It is, you know, so when you, so you gave the TED talk, your TED talk was like, it was a huge TED talk. Am I, is that? Oh. You know, it was a while ago. It was a while ago. We got, you know. It did well. It did well. But that, you also gave TED, a TED talk in the golden age of TED talks. That was a good time. Yeah. That's what I was saying. I used to remember, like if someone gave a TED talk, like, you know, what was that like 13 years ago? Maybe you did it? I did it. Yeah. Like in 15. So like, that was the golden. That was the golden years ago. That was the golden age. That was, was that before TEDx? Because they watered down the sauce a little bit. I think it was like simultaneous, but it wasn't TEDx was starting to happen then. TEDx was starting. It didn't quote me totally, but it was like, it was, there was some TEDx happening like around then. But there was, you still did a 13-minute talk where I think they've now have like a six-minute talk or something. Okay. Well, what was it like given a TED talk? I always wanted, I don't know anyone who's given one. So I'm always curious what that experience is like. I mean, I kept, I always described it as like a high school theater, you know, it was like when I did plays in high school, you know, and he had to like remember all the words and I was like, it was closest thing to theater or you had a little training. So you were able to do? Yeah. You know, you put the presentation together. I'm working with this coach, Chi Proman, she's amazing, and working through the story. And she would always, you know, architectures, we always talk about buildings, yada yada yada, like we just talked about the Guilt Hall and like, you get a little high-falutin, but she was always bringing back down a narrative. It was really meaningful for me to say, okay, people are going to respond to the story of actually what you've got sick in this building, change them or like other people, that's what people care about. And I hadn't seen architects really describe buildings in a narrative way that would like reach people. And so working on it with her and then memorizing it and then like, you know, I was like doing jogs and like saying it out loud and all this stuff like that, like freaking people out around me. I remember I was like in the treadmill in the basement of the hotel and like, this is crazy moment, like in front of me is because Ted attracted all these people, right? So in front of me is Al Gore on the treadmill running, right? And next to me is Chelsea Clinton on the treadmill running, you know, I don't know if they really want to see each other, but there was a big mirror where you can see it sort of all see each other. And I'm like running between Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore speaking the Ted talk out loud, you know, freaking everybody out. What did they what a Gore and Clinton do they even look at you or they just oh, and they didn't look at each other either because I think it was yeah, a little bit of a little history, a little history there, but that's the kind of that's that weird ecosystem who was putting on harder work, who was putting in harder work on the treadmill question, I know, you know, I know. I think it was me. I was doing honestly. Yeah. You're fucking crushing it. I would have definitely paysmatched Clinton or if I was between them, you're like seven eight. Inclined. Yeah, inclined. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, so I mean that was it was interesting but it was a But I would say, after it was finished, I got a lot of really interesting, great feedback. And people wrote to me these cold emails that were like, I want to tell you the story of my house that I worked on with my dad, or I want to tell you the story of the school I went to that was like really weird and why was it that way? Or, and I started getting all these like, everyday reflections on the architecture and the buildings that mattered to people. And I think it was from that TED Talk experience and the response that it got for being about stories. - Right. - That I was like, I have to write a book that actually gets people to tell their stories. You know, that's why I wrote this book, which was to say, let me tell you about architecture in our world, not the architecture you should go to, not the 10 buildings you should go to in your lifetime, in your bucket list. It's not what this book is, this book is like, why the hospitals matter, why the houses matter, why the prisons matter, why does it work place matter? Like, how do we build a language that we understand and evaluate the spaces that we're foisted into so that we can start reflecting back? And you send me this, I want to hear those stories. I want to hear from your readers, your listeners like, hey man, I have this crazy experience in this building, it changed my life, or I had this terrible experience, it changed my life. And that's where, as an architect, you gain the most knowledge actually. - Yeah, yeah, I was just talking to my friend before I came here about cubicles and how like, I think they're a thing in the past now. I didn't realize that, it's more now like the open floor concept. - Yeah. - The cubicles is like a pretty dastardly design. - I write about the cubicle in the book. - Do you really? - Yeah, there's a book, there's a chapter on the workplace on our, I start with the factory. - Yeah. - But then there was this guy at this furniture company, named Herman Miller, which famous furniture company in Michigan, it's got name Props, and he designed the modern office cubicle. - Did he really? - Yeah, and it was like this vision of like, creating all these systems that could be plug and played and grow and evolve in the modern workplace. It's kind of a visionary system idea. And later in his life, he complained. He said like, my big idea of the cubicle has been destroyed. - What was his original idea? - Always that you could create like a good enough workplace that could adapt and change and evolve with the needs of the company. - Yeah. - And there's some beauty into that. There's a beauty into creating this adaptable system that's better than the average. - Yeah. - But what happened is of course it created this kind of the office space scenario. You know, the sort of banal, the horrible, the sitting in a basement, the living in a cubicle kind of environment. And so you have both maybe the aspiration of it and also the use of it. - Yeah, that was Adam Smith had a quote about factories in general. He's like, dude, if we can give everyone just one mindless task all day every day, they'll fly off into these like heightened flights of fancy and they'll come up with like the next great thing. And they're just like, no, they kind of stare at the walls. - Stare at the wall. - That is funny. Yeah, I mean, it's a cool idea in concept, but it's like, yeah, it's not not the case. - Yeah, it's use and when it was deployed, create a lot of terrible conditions that people then fought against. But then the open work plan is also not great either. People get into their headphones and to their Zoom calls and you're like, you almost want the walls and I thought about that too. It's like, I might want to retreat to the walls with cubicle. You put me at a table with like four people. - Yeah, there's like an imperfect, you try to figure out how to work well together and also have heads down work. And that we haven't fully figured out. I mean, the full Zoom office work is not a great environment. We have no socialization. - Yeah. - We have no way to be together in person. - Yeah, what? I've talked to people who do kind of like more office stuff and there's been a lot of people after COVID, they're like, I can't wait to go back to the office. I actually want to go back. It is, sounds cool to be like nice. I can chill in my house and sweatpants, but then you do that every day and like, I think there is like the commute, is there's a soul crushing aspect of the commute, but then there's also like, shutting your laptop and now you're just in your house and you're like, all right. - Yeah. - Just me again. - Still here. - Yeah, it's just me. - Yeah, still here. I'm gonna go do it. My wife and I called them freedom rides. We're like, I'm gonna go to the grocery store and do a freedom ride. - Yeah, just drop it back inside the house. - So, with LinkedIn, they're not LinkedIn. With Ted, the Ted Talk, when you did that, did you take like beta blockers or did you just kind of raw dog it? - I just did it, yeah. - Raw dog, yeah. I get a lot of people are talking about beta blockers. Like, you got to take them and like, I don't know, man, I don't know. - No, I've never, no, I've never taken that. But I'm interested, tell me why, tell me why. - They say, like, it's like the public speaking kind of like, it's like the cure all. - Oh, is that right? - They say it doesn't allow your heart rate to rise basically. So like you, you like, they say you like can't, they actually experience the physical symptoms of anxiety. I, again, I've never tried it. I should have taken a bunch today. - You're true. - Sure, yeah, three coffees might not be that bad. (laughing) - Three coffees. - Yeah, no, I didn't do anything like that. But I did, you know, I did practice a lot. Like theater, you know, it felt ready, but I'll tell you, man. There was this, there was one dude who, they called the, he stepped on the red circle. This one guy went out there, had a talk to give and he just went blank. - He popped. - He just went blank, and everyone in the crowd was just like, is this an act? Then he sat down, everyone stood up in clap, and they stood up, he tried to do it again, blank. It was such a bomb. - Fuck. - Yes, it was hard to watch. - That is tough. I do like the guys who go like, they banned my TED talk. Here's my band, I kind of like the renegade TED talkers. Like they banned my shit. So when you gave the TED talk, did you get like, flood it with like, I guess like DMs and stuff? Like when I'm trying to ask is like, what are the, did the babes respond to the TED talk? (laughing) - I mean, I got a lot of good response. I mean, it was mostly like, people in my mom's age, you know, who were like. - Okay, here we go. (laughing) - You know, I've got this, you know, my son needs a job or like, you know, I've got this house, you know, like, we're working on my garage, you know, that kind of thing. - Nothing intriguing. - Yeah. So do you jump in from TED talks? Do you like LinkedIn? I kind of said it too early, but do you like LinkedIn? Like what are your thoughts on LinkedIn? You know, I, I don't, I hadn't used a lot of social media to be honest with you. - Right, right, right. - Years. But when I kind of went back on it recently as I was doing some new work. And obviously it's a good way to connect, but also I'm trying to like, you know, state keep my eyes off the phone. - Get off of there, yeah. - Like not be too consumed by it. I was watching, you know, like all of us like, tracking things and seeing if people respond and the like button and-- - Well, LinkedIn's weird 'cause you get like, you get endorsements. So you, you say like, these are my skills. And then you're, you know, your friends and whoever, you're like, yeah. It's actually great at strategic planning. - Yeah, I haven't done any of that stuff because a lot of the work that I'm getting is from relationships, you know, people I meet or a lot, I have this crazy idea. I want to build this weird thing. Like how do I do that, you know? And so instead of applying for jobs or answering RFPs, I'm talking to folks to be like, how do I do this crazy impossible project and try to work with them and figure that out? - Yeah. - Yeah, I had a, my LinkedIn profile. During, I guess I had completely given up on like a standard career path. So I had a shirtless pick on LinkedIn. - Nice. - It's kind of nice, yeah. - Like a response. - Yeah, I had written my own skill sets in and they were like, kind of graphic sexual acts that I was trying to get people to put in doors. (laughs) I think they might control for that now. Yeah, my LinkedIn was crazy. - Maybe Josh. - Should be my next, should I do that? - Bro, go shirtless. - You'd be, that's the power, that's thrilled. Shirtless LinkedIn's a power move. - Josh, can you, I have a clip I want to show you. This is an architectural question. Can you pull that up? I saw this guy on, he was talking about something specifically he did with his house. I kind of want to see your thoughts on this as an architect. - You bet. - Let me see here. - Is it sure? - Also, while Josh gets that, I noticed on one of the, one of the, I guess organizations are connected to, there's a thing called the Ellen DeGeneres campus of Diane Fossy Gorilla Fund. - It's a good name, it really rolls off the tongue. - What is that? - It sounds completely unhinge. What is the, what is the Ellen DeGeneres campus of Diane Fossy Gorilla Fund? - Yeah, so this is a, is that a real thing? - Yeah, it's basically, yeah. - I worked on this. - You worked on the Ellen DeGeneres Diane Fossy Gorilla Fund center of care and trouble. Yeah, no, it's this, it's a center for the study and care of Gorilla scientists in Northern Rwanda. - Okay. - Basically like where the remaining, a mountain Gorilla's live are in this incredible part of the country and people go there from all over the world to see the mountain gorillas and you trek up and you, you know, oh, here we go. - No, no, I wanna go with these gorillas. You track them, it's an incredible experience. And so Diane Fossy, which, obviously, so Gorilla's in the mess when you're growing up. - Oh, really? - Did you ever say a movie? - I didn't see it, but I know of it. - So that's a movie about Diane Fossy. Diane Fossy in the '60s moved to Rwanda. What was, you know, then was also Rwanda, sorry. Was still Rwanda. - Yeah. - And studied the gorillas and brought a lot of attention to them. And so her, the, and she was killed up there by poachers. - Dang. - And so this foundation that was set up in her honor continued for 50 years and then they reached out to, to my team to see if we could help build a new campus for them. - That's pretty cool. - And I started working on it with them and the first donor came in. - Ellen DeGeneres. - Ellen DeGeneres, who cares about animals and was like, I'll give the, you know, lead gift. Actually, her wife Portia gave the lead gift in her honor before Ellen knew. So it was sort of this thing, but, you know, naming rights came at the project. - So, but it's-- - Was this prior to her getting kind of skewered by the media for being nasty to her staff? - It was, I was one of the weaker cancellations I saw. - Yeah. - She was like, she's mean. - Mean. - Yeah. - I was telling her to staff. - I've been on Ellen's side the whole time. - Yeah. - I mean, she's known to tight-chip. - Yeah. - She donated it to us. - And she donated it to me. - She donated it to me. - People were on her ass. - It was right at that same time. - Was it really? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was sort of her exit plan. She was sort of leaving the show. She was putting some into philanthropy. She was, you know, funding animal philanthropy. - Also, power move. I have a staff of cry babies. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna give $40 million to Guerrillas to shut up. I don't even care about you yet. - Doing the guerrilla fun. - It was definitely an attempted cancellation. Yeah, but she survived it, I think. And- - I think she's fine. - You know, she's doing all right. - I thought it was weak. I thought being, you can't, like, the, I don't know. I thought that was such a reach to be like, well, she's mean. - Yeah. - Okay, dude. - You're getting into meanness. - Yeah. - Like boss, boss. - Yeah, we're all, none of us stand a chance here. - Yeah, like, you've never been mean before. - Bossy pants. Can you, this is the architectural question I had. - I actually had me thinking. - Oh yeah. - I started to expand the doors. And at one point, you had a trap house. You got in the whole house and put 15 stoves in the house. - Absolutely. My vision was huge. I was gonna see pictures of this, by the way. - Yeah, yeah. My vision was huge. - Okay. 15 stoves, four pots each. Six cookers, 11 people cooking at once. - It was a whole operation. - Definitely an operation. Now, I know you're not an engineer, but-- - It sounds like a fire hazard. - Is that even feasible? Is that even possible to have? 'Cause I'm trying to figure out if he's capping. Is that possible to have, what do you say, six stoves? - 15 stoves. - 15 stoves, excuse me. Is it possible to even do that? In terms of like pulling you in a, I would guess, he was in St. Pete's Florida. And let's say either a row home or a standalone house. - Is that what he was in? - I think so. I mean, if he was, he was saying, he was in a impoverished neighborhood in St. Pete's, Florida. I don't think you could even put 16 stoves. - I'm not trying to knock the man's trap, but it's like. - I don't know. - Is that possible? - I mean, I guess. - If you had to design a trap, how would you, how would you go about putting the 16 stoves with 11 cookers? - I'd do, first of all, I'd do 18 stoves. - You'd do 18. (laughing) - So you think it's feasible? - I mean, I guess. - You know, standard house. - You know, if you have a vision. - True, if you have a big, huge vision. - That's what I always say, you know, you can find a way. - Because people are trying to say he's camping. So I was like, I don't know, it sounds kind of like camp, but I figured I'd ask an expert. - Some glad you asked me. - Yeah. - Do you think he could act genuinely? Do you think he could have put 16 stoves? - I'm just so worried about the fire hazard. - Did it, you know? - For sure. - If he's got, does he have 16 hoods? You know, what's the deal? Does he have? - Daffle. - It's all strategy in there. - Should be good, they're cooking crack. I don't know if you put the context, they're cooking crack. So the airflow should be good. - It should be very nice. (laughing) - I didn't know, you know, I always love to see it turned out white boy, but I didn't know. (laughing) I was like, this guy might be full of shit. - Yeah. - Thank you for letting me know. - Well, hey, so the book's great. Before you go, we always have our premium subscribers. They write into question, would you mind reading it? And then we get to discuss the question. - Sure. - Yeah, it's just, this is my own trap. - You read the, okay. - You don't want the trap out. - It's not a trap, it's just, they send us questions. The producers select, you grab literally at random. (laughing) - This is the premium subscriber question. I'm a 47-year-old married cis-hat male. My wife is 52, and for the better half of her life was a strict lesbian Goldstocks. Good question. We met, we met around the time she was going through menopause. We were working together at Priceware, a scooper. One of the big four accounting firms. We started on the same team as professional equals. Mind you, we've been working together for five years, and she first struck me as being incredibly mask, which is fine for me. I have great respect for mask ladies, especially how they grind in their workplace, but can still have a good time. That's a nice reflection. - It is, yeah. - This guy, yeah, I think that was actually Joe from Minneapolis, I'd rather put that in there. - I've seen it time and time again, but a few years into our professional queen, she underwent something of a transformation from mask to mature femme. Something I learned later was due to a shift in her hormonal profile due to menopause, which I, of course, mentioned earlier. It was around this time that I started developing feelings for her, desiring to be more than just professional teammates, and so I asked her to coffee. One thing led to another, and now we're married. My second, her third, but obviously first, with a man. I'm the only man she's ever been with, and she's always filled the role of the more masculine leaning partner out of all her lesbian relationships. This is something we've done, this is good. I get the architectural substance in this. (laughing) - Oh, it's random, it's random. - They don't know the guess is gonna be here, of course. You want me to finish this? - Please, yeah. - Okay, thank you. This is something we've dealt with in couples counseling from us here, getting something of a resolution. Basically, I had to step up and be more assertive, which I learned how to do after taking several online courses. I mean, I cited it about the internet search that's gonna happen after this. Long story short, things are going really well until just the other night we were arguing about which movie to watch. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, my wife struck me a stiff backhand across the side of my face. I just stood in shock, covering my cheek that was warm from the slap, I cried, and then she cried. That's very nice. We hugged, as she apologized profusely, telling me how domestic violence is statistically higher in the lesbian scene, highest actually out of all other pairing types. Interesting. Wonder where the data is from. I guess my question is, do I forgive or remove on, or is this kind of an assault unforgivable? - That's a question. - That's a good question. What do you think of that? (laughing) - I think it's unforgivable, man. I mean, I would meet her where she is, honestly, but I don't know. - I'm curious what kind of space they were in, were they on the couch? Like, was the home toxic? Was it a toxic home? - I don't know. I mean, I don't know, they're in counseling. So it seemed like they had help, but. - It's a good question. I have to think about it. I mean, they're up there in terms of professionals. They're 50, 50, 40, so. - Oh, is his third, her fourth? Is that what it was? - Her fourth. - The marriage. - I don't know, I wouldn't say second, third. - Second, third, yeah. - So, I actually have heard that it is statistically higher in the lesbian community. The domestic violence is the highest in terms in the lesbian community. - That's all right. That's what I've heard. - Dad, I don't know. - I don't know either, but I've heard that. - We could verify that. (laughing) Thanks for letting me read that. (laughing) - I said I'm back to the theater or the TED Talk theater. (laughing) - Given the script. - It's true. - So no, no advice for him. - I mean, I think, you know, he should follow his heart as he has. - I say forgive, honestly. - You know, I say forgive. - We all get into difficult positions. - True. - I say forgive. - It's actually bisexual woman is what he says. - I have the highest. - And I know this. - Okay. - Yeah. - Well, sorry to end on a sour note. - No, I mean. - I just have to do the premium subscribers. - I get this to make a question. - Oh yeah, I'm sure. I'm happy to give them advice, you know. Hopefully they're listening. - Maybe they should do, they should think about the kind of setting of their house, you know. - True. - Maybe they need a new couch or something. Maybe they need 15 stoves or something like that. - They set up a trap house. (laughing) - Hey, thank you so much. That was a blast. - Hey, thank you. Thank you. - And one more time, the book, our world in 10 buildings. - Yeah, the book's our world in 10 buildings. - Beautiful. - It's how architecture defines who we are. And how we live. And I hope you pick it up. It's about everyday spaces. It's not about the 10 buildings you want to visit. It's about how the spaces around you might improve our lives a little bit better, a little bit more. And I hope you like it. And thank you for having me. And let's go. - Thank you. It was great talk. - Thank you. - Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast on Spotify. - Do it.