Michael Goorevich | Architect

Welcome to "Pelatively Speaking." Brought to you by Pella Windows and Doors of Nashville and hosted sometimes by Matt Bettonson or Ben Huck or maybe someone special. Pella-Tively speaking will be talking with middle Tennessee builders, architects, homeowners and all kinds of pros who have worked with us over the years. We'll be swapping origin stories, sharing insights, and digging into what makes Nashville and the surrounding areas so great. Whether you're deep in the trades or just window shopping for ideas, you're in the right place. Enjoy. Okay, well, welcome to another episode of "Pelatively Speaking" with me, Matt Bettonson. I am really pleased and honored today to have a great time with our guest Michael Gowicz. Michael, how are you? I'm doing great, Matt. Good. Thank you. He's really not doing great because we just had a conversation that this is not his thing. So we're looking eye-to-eye across the table. I'm working through that. So this is new to you, right? This is your first podcast that you've been to. This is my first podcast. Brilliant. Well, we're really pleased and excited and grateful. So I hope you enjoy it. I hope you relax. I get the microphones there. Thank you for the invitation. So renowned architect Michael Gowicz. I know that as I say these things. Yes, continue to make me more comfortable. That helps. I know. I'm looking at my notes and I was thinking, yeah, if I say this, he's not going to like it, but we're going to push through. So tell us all who Michael Gowicz is. There you go. I guess for anyone who cares, Michael Gowicz is. I think of myself as an architect. It's what I love. It's what I've always wanted to do since I was a kid. Somewhere along the line, I became a husband. Somewhere after that, I came a father. And those are the three things I think of myself as. I love it. Who's Michael Gowicz? He's an architect, a father, a husband, and hopefully a friend to people. I don't know what else you want to be in life. No, that's great. That's kick-starting it off. So when I was preparing for this, I was thinking about how much I kind of pestered you, built you over the years. Plenty, everybody. Lend me. Thank you. But you've come back and you've spent your spending time talking to me, so that's a good thing. I can't be that bad. But there's bits that I know, and there's so many bits that I don't know about you, of course. So you just mentioned about you wanted to be an architect, so it's your child. So tell us about that. What do you think the key things stick out to you that may have made you think, "Yeah, I think architect is the way to go?" So I grew up in Buffalo, New York. I've been in Nashville for 18, 19 years now, so it's been a minute. But when I was a kid in Buffalo, I grew up, typical suburban kid, 1960s neighborhood. No exposure to architecture whatsoever, no one in my family, nobody with a connection to art or construction. But I went to a temple. I'm Jewish, and we went to Temple Beth Zion. My temple was designed by Max Abramowitz. Max Abramowitz is, and I'm likely saying his last name wrong. That's funny. And you architect out there. But he was a very famous modernist. He was one of the architects of the UN, the United Nations in New York. And so I would go to Temple, and it was downtown on Delaware. And it is one of the most incredible buildings that I've ever known and still is. It's hard to describe. It's very of its time, sort of 1960s, brutalist with a very Scandinavian aspect to it inside. And the most incredible quality of light that shines through this epic sanctuary. So I would go through my regular day and just, you know, living in amongst unspectacular things. But then I would go to Temple. And we didn't go every week. We'd go for holidays. But when we would go, I would always find myself not exactly paying attention to the service, but just always looking at the light, looking at the light. Just constantly my eyes just moving around the sanctuary. And I never could get enough of it. And as I got older, the building only fascinated me more because it was a kid. I only thought about the sanctuary. And we always kind of walked in the back door. So I never really saw it from Delaware Avenue, which was even the more exciting facade. And as I started to explore the building more, it also had a chapel and it had a really modernist courtyard between the chapel and the sanctuary. I only ever found these things more and more fascinating and beautiful. So that's the simple why. I coupled that with I took drawing lessons when I was a kid. An older friend of the family took art lessons from this woman named Bill and I thought, oh, that seems like something I'd like to do. And when we'd go to Phil's studio, we would paint a figure paint. So we'd all take turns painting someone who would sit in the middle and we'd do figure painting. I could never feel comfortable or like the job I was doing painting the figure. So I would skip whoever was sitting in the middle and I would paint the, you know, I would draw the corner of the room or I would draw the window or I would draw the door. And I knew that I could come back the next week and it was still going to be there. So I started to love drawing buildings and that was really early too and really young. And then in high school, I was lucky enough, oh, I'm on a podcast. So I get to say stuff about other people. Yeah, come on. So when I was in high school, I was lucky enough to take a drafting course in a public high school, Williamsville East high school by Mr. Keller, Mr. William Keller. And he was really just teaching drafting up to the point when my freshman class showed up. And in my freshman class, we were a bunch of us who were all far more interested in architecture. And he started to experiment with us and he started giving us more architectural programs and design programs and moved away from strictly drafting. I'm old enough that they taught hand drafting at the time. And by the time I was, I took Mr. Keller's classes all four years and by the time we were seniors, he was giving us design projects from the University of Buffalo's design program and other places where he was then going around and doing research on what was happening at college levels to bring back to us. So I got what felt like four years of architecture in high school. And the collaborative quality of that between teacher and students, students showed interest, teacher went out and figured out how to feed that interest was incredible for me. So when I went to architecture school, I kind of felt like I had already been doing it. And I drank the punch long ago. And then one last thing for me coupled with that is I started going to the art museum. And we have the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. Buffalo actually has an incredible array of architecture, really, really famous buildings. Burnham and Root, they design Grand Central Station. We have one of theirs, Louis Sullivan. We have one of the two first skyscrapers in the world, beautiful terracotta building. We have some of Frank Lloyd Wright's best work is in Buffalo. We have Yamasaki, the architect of the World Trade Center. We have a precursor of his building and it's the most beautiful skyscraper. We have parks that I'm trying to think of their names who did Grand Central Park. Oh, everybody is thinking, everyone's yelling the name and I can't think of their names. So we had great things to see. But I started going to the Albright Knox Art Gallery, which is designed. There's a Bose Arts Classical Building and then there is the Skidmore Owings and Merrill edition by Gordon Bunchhaft. One of the most famous and important architects of the 1960s did skyscrapers in New York and Chicago, a Buffalo kid. And he made an edition that coupled with the art collection that we had and Buffalo has a great one. I would wander the halls and I would feel the same way I did when I was in. Temple Beth Zion, the same thing, the qualities of light, the qualities of space. There is an activeness and almost a tactile quality that these spaces have. You almost feel like you could feel the air. You walk through the light and most buildings don't have that. Most buildings, they're devoid of that kind of energy. But that really tactile energy is and was inside these buildings. So. There you go. Well, I wish it was longer actually. Thank you. So there's so much that I think is there to unpack. And I'm probably going to do it in the wrong order. But the. I love hearing all of that. The first thing that is, I don't want to forget, the first thing I want to ask is you said about the, I'm going to get this wrong now, your temple, the Zion. Temple of a Zion, temple of a Zion. Beth Zion, there we go. Sorry, beg your pardon. You said it was incredible. And thankfully you've just added to that description about the tactile and that you can kind of feel the air. And you mentioned about the light, but I mean, tree to know what else was making you feel that it was incredible. Because that's the important bits for me is to understand the why and why is it making you feel in that way. Because I feel that understanding those things helps me and hopefully listeners understand how you're coming to certain decisions. And in the last week I've been fortunate to see lots of different things in nature. I've been to a few national parks. So there's, I've got, for some reason, my mind's kind of racing with all different shapes and things that I've seen. And it's such on a base level in comparison to you. But I've started to get an understanding or an appreciation of feelings and connections to different things. But I mean, I'm interested in the light and that feeling that you just mentioned. So the start of the conversation, then the end of the conversation. So this is interesting that you asked that question, I think. So if you looked up Temple of a Zion, you'd see what the sanctuary looked like. But in simple terms, if you held up your hands open to the sky, that's the shape of the sanctuary. Why it's so compelling the question you just asked because this is a Pella podcast, the sanctuary has no windows in it, which I think is ironic, right? I thought you were going to say Pella windows. It's actually these gigantic concave and convex shapes or pieces of concrete that make a shell and you feel like you're in a shell. And all of the light comes from the ceiling. So when you're in the sanctuary, it's a windowless space filled with light and all the light is zenithal. It's all coming from above. Right. Exactly. I say that. There's the concrete that makes up these walls that are also canting out. They're not straight up and down, but they're canting out and opening up towards the sky. When you reach the roof or the ceiling from the inside, they don't touch. There's actually a ribbon of windows around the perimeter. There are beams incorporated in the windows that are what's tying the building together. But between all of these beams, which are really understated, are all these coffers of light. So the light washes down the concrete and the concrete is all, it's not sandblasted. It is, you hit it with a tenderizer. What's the word I'm looking for? Are they perforated? Maybe. Yeah. Now there's a word for it where you hit it with a. Darn it. It's. You can swear on here if you like. Shit. I can't I think of the name of the finish. But it's a very. It's a very. We'll come back to it. Textured finish. And what it does to the quality of light is unbelievable and it changes through the day. The reason I say there is one actually gigantic window. There is one stained glass window that is behind the beeh-ma or the pulpit. And in this case, it's not directly behind it. It's several spaces behind it. But it must be 30 feet tall, 40 feet tall. And it is a giant stained glass window that is supported on this cable system. I believe the artist's name was Ben Shawn and he was a famous artist again in the 50s and 60s. You have this massive window, but it's all stained glass. So it doesn't really bring in. There's no view. Yeah. And it brings in a quality of light and it doesn't have a real proper frame and it doesn't have real proper support because it has this tensile system that holds it together. And then you have these coffers of light around the perimeter that are bringing light down along the walls. So you're just enveloped in this quality of light that you don't experience in your everyday. And that, I think, is the beginning of what makes it special. Then it goes on and on and on from there. But that's the key. And I would say interestingly, the other building I mentioned, the Albright Knox Art Museum, actually doesn't have any windows in it either. What are you doing on these photos? And the ones that it does have, they're steel windows, but it's. How do I put it? These rooms have very specific windows. The types of light that they have are. They don't feel casual. They feel like they wanted to have as few windows as possible or ways to bring in light. The ones they had were so important that they made them the key components of the quality of the room, even though you don't see them or you're even apparent that they're happening. Wow. So that's a lot of. That seems to me like such a deep level of architecture. But I wonder. So that's the other thing that's amazing or something. I actually wonder about all the time. Maybe that sounds deep, I'm putting quotes, quotes, deep from the designer point of view. But the idea is that it's idealist. It's supposed to be something everyone feels. Everyone. It doesn't matter if you know why it's happening, just that you feel it's happening. So my sense is that even if you don't know anything about architecture, even if you don't care about architecture, that when you show up to Temple Beth Zion to pray, you're already put into a certain state by the room in the architecture itself. So even before anyone said anything, you're already being affected by it. In the same way, the nox feels that way when you walk into it. And then go on and on and on and on. That's what I think all great architecture does. It really. There are levels and layers of things that are going on that you might not be aware of, but the final result is supposed to be something that affects everybody. I have a parallel to it that I talk about with my wife a lot. We watch a lot of football, but I am not a football aficionado. So I know that somebody who is or someone who played football or someone who coached football is watching a different game than the game I'm watching at the same time. That doesn't mean I am not fully enveloped in loving what I'm watching, but I know I'm not watching it to that deeper level. A lot of that analogy. An analogy here. A lot of that. That's interesting. That's fascinating me. And I imagine that the temple would be quite cool in there because of the concrete. It is a little cold. The heating system and there's a few examples of great churches and temples that do this. They deliver below the pews. So below every pew is the heating and cooling to supposedly keep you comfortable. But it's funny you say that. That's another good question because there's lots of times I've been in there and I can picture myself shivering. But yes, that's the idea. Interestingly, so the building was designed in 1967-68, I think. And it was designed for how people congregated and prayed for its time, which is very different from how people pray and congregate now and how rabbis want to lead services. So interestingly, while all these things that I love about the room are what they are, it's some of the things about the room that have made it very difficult for the room to grow and change with the way people modern day kind of think, modern day religion. The air handling system I just mentioned, you can't change it. That's the. You can't just sort of take away the pews. And there would be very strange room if it didn't have the pews. So it is interesting to watch buildings go through changes like that over time too. I bet. And what is also sticking out for me is that the passionate description that you gave of the temple, was that something that you think you understood at the early age of the coffers and the hidden elements and then the stained glass window and the tensile kind of structure that it was on? Or do you think you've gone back every time and understood, learned, discovered more things about it? I don't think I knew any of this at the time. I think it. And I know because I think about it a lot. I go back to it and my thoughts change about it as I've grown and became an architect. A lot of it, I think it's because I had to learn about architecture to then reapply that stuff to my experience and say why was this experience? So yeah, I've been deconstructing that experience my whole adult life. funneling what I learned back into the work I do. - Yeah. - And do you think that's important that every time you go back, you have a different, not a different view, but a different thought, or you maybe make my own words into your description now, but maybe you learn something new about that place. Is that important for architecture, do you think? - I don't know if it's important for architecture, but it's important for me. I mean, if, well, if I'm just stilling this conversation down into, and actually I'm now thinking of this myself, and it's true, I have probably been basing my whole career as an architect on the experience I had as a child in one room, not in a variety of rooms, not across a whole bunch of experiences, but really the repeated returning back to one single place. And somehow that single place has been teaching me lessons my whole life. And I still get to go back because we still have family there, and we still have family that are members. My nieces and nephews have had their bar and butt mitzvahs there, I've been to weddings there. It's a place I get to continually return to, which is why I've gotten to see how the rabbis are like, "I wish it had a little more flexibility." But it's never doesn't, it never not delivers something new to me every time I go. And I get to take that back here. Now what I think, this is really, I love this podcast, 'cause now I'm coming up with all, so my favorite architect, and you-- - I'm just jumping ahead now. - I'm not a great fit. - I know what you're gonna talk about. Louis Cahn, one of America's most famous architects, and I've been to a variety of his buildings, so I've been super lucky to do that. One of his central tenants is light. Light for him is metaphysical. It's not just tactile. And I am realizing that through this one room, this one room led me to Cahn, even though he wasn't the architect, but all of his lessons, all of his thoughts, all of his, and once you find Louis Cahn, there is a world of architecture that unravels and unfolds at every level of what architecture is supposed to be about from space planning to light, to the section, the plan, the elevation, tying back to history, looking forward into the future qualities of space, light and scale, scale in particular, materiality. It's all there, but this one room has been a vehicle for me to get there and do it very authentically, 'cause I did it through the experiences of kid who just simply loved this place and felt different when I was there. - Isn't that incredible? That's amazing that you kind of pinpoint in it back to that one place. It was like a, I don't know, the foundation's right, description, but a base point, a base hub, but it's just occurring to me that I've been able to return to it time and time and time and time again. There's another famous architect who I really admire and love his work and have gotten to see a few of his buildings, Peter Zumtour. - Okay. - He will become more well known soon because he just designed his first building in the United States, the Museum of Modern Art and LA, the LA County Museum, and it will open next year. But I've been to see his buildings in Germany and he and his book, Thinking Architecture, talks about how the experience of his, I think it's his aunt or his grandmother's house, farmhouse was very important to him, the way the floorboards sounded, the way the turning the handle on the door knob felt and how he'd sounded. And he talked about all these memories when he was younger. And I guess it's just now, occurring to me that I really had one of those experiences without really realizing I had one of those. And I imagine that's probably not uncommon for lots of architects. - Interesting, but I wonder if, like you'll send, there's a bit of a realization of as we're talking, which is really important. So maybe there's more realizations as people listen to this and then start having their own conversations. I find that fascinating. - I do too. - Really fascinating. - And equally as important, and there's no way it's not, is how, oh, I was gonna say something about Khan, I'll get to it in a second. But how important my bedroom felt when I was a kid? So it's easy to say, it's easy to say, talk about a great building and a great building affected me. But also equally, the most important room of my life was my bedroom. I swear I spent all my time. That's where I went to do all my imagining. I was big into music. That's where my stereo was when I was a kid. So I spent an incredible amount of time just sitting on my bed, listening to music, watching the light come in the window. And I did not have a special bedroom. And I even shared it for most of my younger life with my older brother. And so that's never an easy thing for either of us. My parents filled it with really uncomfortable furniture. You know that. So it was uncomfortable. It was small, it was, but it didn't matter. It was my place. And I think if I combine, if I combine, I'm thinking out loud now. - No, I don't know. But if I combine the way I felt about my bedroom and I combine the way I felt about Temple Beth Zion, and I put the two together, it kind of leads me back to Khan. Khan, if you look his work up, he was central to him was this idea that ruins and the idea or ancient buildings could be a key to unlocking buildings for the future. And if you look at his buildings, he often has the scale of temples, of the pantheon, of aqueducts, of things that were massive scale. He will put them into museums and he has done Unitarian Church, I did a Unitarian Church. But he also put it into a couple of his houses and one house in particular, the Fisher House, outside of Philadelphia. You can look at it as a house, but you can look at it also as a building with 10 times its scale. And it's not a big building, it's not a big house. It's, I don't know how big it is, but maybe it's 3000 square feet, but it probably isn't even that big. But it has a massive scale. And it has this, it has walls of glass. It has the, in the quality of light that comes in the room is unbelievable. The cladding is wood, but the wood strips go all the way up to the top of the building. And you know, maybe the two and a half story building is 20 feet tall, but a 20 foot piece of wood starts to feel like a big thing. And it's these two blocks that come together. So you don't typically see the way, you don't see that in most houses. And so it feels like two things that have come together and then they make almost like these crazy courtyard spaces. But they do it through this efficiency of two simple cubes. And there's a quality, a towering, massive feeling of light in his houses, even though their houses. I think I bought into that idea that very early. And in me being an architect with my own studio and on my own. And I think I am always trying to combine the coziness or the non-awareness of your space that I felt in my bedroom just because I was so comfortable in it. With a more epic quality of overwhelmingness that I felt when I would go to temple, mostly I design houses, that's 90% of what I do. So I'm trying to bring that into the houses that I get to work on. And it literally does now, going back to Windows. It does tie back very much to how I design windows or skylights in particular. And in our studio, Jack McWaters, who I work with a lot, he's been a collaborator with me for the last several years. I feel like we are getting to this place where we are working on ceilings and the profiles of how light comes around curves and enters these rooms and envelops these rooms that starting to approach the way I felt certainly about these buildings when I was younger. But we're doing it in kitchens and in living rooms. And not even necessarily big ones. I don't think any of our work is overscaled or giant. We don't do 10,000 square foot houses. We do, I would call fairly normal and modest sized houses. But we bring a bigness to them that we are looking for. - And now for a quick break. - Hey, it's Willie Donick for "Pellow Windows and Doors" of Nashville. If your home needs an upgrade, start with "Pellow Windows and Doors." It's wintertime. An energy star says you can cut utility bills by about 12% with energy efficient windows. And "Pellow" delivers that. Their proper ceiling and insulation help keep moisture out, preventing rot and costly damage. And installing "Pellow Windows" pays off. The 2025 "Cost" versus "Value" report shows homeowners recouped up to 75% at resale. Upgrade smart. Choose "Pellow Windows and Doors" of Nashville. Go to pellandashfill.com. - And now back to the show. - So what fascinates me is that the light is. It's a guiding light all the way through the conversation. But then you mentioned about the ruins element. And I wonder if it's just those things sort of like driving to come back to the basics in some way. Oh, I think that's a really good question too. So I feel like I'm always trying to make my, I feel like I make overly complicated houses. And I bet if any of the builders that I get to work with are listening right now, they're like, yeah, he's, yes, that's exactly what he does. I am always trying to make simpler buildings like in my mind, I am trying to simplify it. But it always comes out complex. And I have, and I, it's funny. I always feel a certain bit of defeatedness when I realize I've made another complex building because my goal is to actually make a simple building. Yeah, but is that always down to you? I mean, surely it's the client's design and design intent and desires are going to be there as part of it. So this ends up being a whole other thing that I have thought enough a lot about. There are certain architectures in the world in Japan, in Mexico, in Spain, where there are amazing in Germany and Switzerland and Scandinavia. Incredible modern architects and architecture that's all being built right now. But if you looked at the elevations, if you looked at the drawings that they're proposing before any of this stuff goes out the door, they're unbelievably simple. Almost they seem childlike. And I almost, in the United States, I think we have this problem where we can't trust that something like that can lead to something beautiful. So we're looking at our drawings and we're constantly composing them and composing them and making them more and more complicated. And I know that I do that. I believe my clients do that. If you just propose a plain wall of nothingness, it's like, so I'm going to spend how much money on that. It's not part of our culture. I think that's really what it comes down to. It's not cultural. So it's very hard to simplify to that level, I think, in the United States. Funny enough though, when we do, they seem to make compelling things. But it's very hard to get there. So I was, so there's a question that I'm going to ask about that. It's easier to be complex. It is much, much more difficult to be evaluating it. Yeah. Validating the investment, I guess, because it's got stuff on it. It doesn't, doesn't mean it doesn't make unbelievably compelling things. Sure. And it is one of the hallmarks of American architecture. Right. But that is something that Khan clearly did was he simplified and simplified and simplified. Still, making a Khan building was a hard and complex thing to do. And so I'm going to come to that question that hopefully I'll work for again a moment. But earlier, you kind of said this and it was a bit, I don't know if it was flippant, but you said it very quickly. I didn't say anything flippant. You did. Okay, you didn't. But you said you care about architecture. In one of your comments, you said you care about architecture, which most people, and I would think, is a given, but why do you care about architecture? Because for everyone listening, the passion that is coming out from you as you're just, we're just having a chat, but the passion is crazy. So there's an obvious underlying statement that you care about architecture. And what why is that? Is that back to the roots of being at the temple? Or is there another reason where you've got so much care about architecture? Probably the answer is in all of the above, but for sure, something got into me when I was a kid and something in these spaces did something to me that I feel like I am always chasing. And that is what I'm always after. I have been accused of being an artist before and people say what I do is artistic. I don't think architecture is an artist's and art are different than architecture. I think that's a whole other conversation. But I have grown up to be very clear that these are two very different things and different disciplines with different goals. I don't think of myself as an artist. Fundamental to me is problem solving in that. So my buildings don't engage metaphor. They're not, they don't try to look like something. They don't try to act like something else. They are what they are. And they are trying very hard to answer some very simple and basic questions. How do you want to live in this world? How do you cook? How do you entertain? How do you sleep? How do you wash your clothes? How do you do the special life things? But then how do you do also the really mundane boring things? I find those questions never endingly interesting. And I don't think that's any different than what happens in temple. What were they trying to design? There were a lot of metaphors in that architecture. But I didn't know I wasn't aware of any of them as a kid. All I took away was we're here to pray. We're here to participate in this room is trying very hard to help me do that in a certain way. It was trying to answer a question. Every question doesn't mean it doesn't have aspects of poetry or aesthetic or whatever you want to call those things. I think those are fundamental to the questions. I would like to think one enjoys every as much as possible every moment of your day. I would like to think could be filled with passion for the moment. I think that's my job. I think that's what people hire me for. That's the resonance that not only I found interesting and why I became an architect, but I think is the value of why you do it in the first place. Otherwise, don't do it. It's not worth it. You can still make nice places. But if you're going to bother to or maybe put another way, if you're going to bother to do this at all, and it's going to take a long time and it's going to cost an awful lot of money, why be to use your word, "flip in about it." Why not make it really that important? I approach all of my projects that way and I approach all my clients that way. I know that if they're coming to me, they're finally making a phone call that they've been thinking about making to someone for 10 years. It's a dream that they've been carrying around and carrying around forever. One of the very first things I do is to throw cold water onto their dream and tell them, "You're already over budget. From the moment you call me, we're already behind schedule and we're already over budget. Dreams should outpace your ability to deliver on them. They are dreams. They're supposed to be something that you're reaching for. To me, that is also part of problem solving. How do we cook better? How do we entertain better? How do we be a family together better? How do we engage in the moment better together? I bought into my little part of that is, came through these things I've been talking about. It always comes back to light. If I can illuminate your world, but I mean physically, actually illuminate your moment and make you more aware and live in the moment, then that's what I think my job is. I think that's what people are paying me for. I take that seriously and it's because it's tied to the same passion I had when I was a kid. It's invigorating, I think. It really is. I love that. So thanks for sharing that, but let's talk about your approach to client-sync. Because I wonder with all the questions, like I mentioned before, about a deep level of architecture. How do clients respond to that when you're asking questions about, well, how do you do laundry? How do you cook? I mean, is that a bit overwhelming for them to have to think about those things? When you just said those things, I was thinking, yeah, I do it that way. Maybe it could be better. That is one of the initial process of finding a client. I get lots and lots of phone calls all the time. The goal is to find a connection between client and myself. We're going to spend a lot of time. Like I said, a lot of money getting to this built thing. It needs to be a team. We have to be a team that wants to invest in each other. You get there through all these questions, describing how I work, describing what I do. I take people on tours of my work and I'm lucky enough that my clients who've come before are willing to open up their homes and I'm forever grateful that they do to let me share what I do. Then at the same time, I need to go and see how my clients live. I need to hear and see what is it they like about how they live? What is it that they don't like about how they live? Do they have collections of things? Do they have hobbies and things at home that they do? How do you cook? How do you? I will hear all kinds of responses. We don't entertain. But if we had the space, we would love to entertain. I cook a little. Maybe if we made a different kind of kitchen, you'd cook a lot. How do you do your chores? Do you do your chores? Or do someone else do them if someone else does them, what would help make things better for them? So asking these questions not only starts to open up what the problem is, what is this problem, meaning the design, the house, what is it we're working on? And I would say it's a combination of some people have never thought about it, but most of the clients who come to me have, I would say that most of them, because they've been dreaming about it for so long, have fantasized about what this you know, imaginary home could be what they what I think most of them have is a passion for living and authentic and the word authentic. I comes up in my head a lot. People who hire me don't hire me because they want something else they've seen. There may be references to what they've seen and that often seems to be mid-century modern architecture. I don't know why, but that comes up a lot. But people don't come to me if they want a Georgian, if they want a Spanish colonial, and I will politely send those to some, oh absolutely, because I'm not the person to do the best job for that. There are other people here who can do a much better job for them and they're the people that they should work with. So it's not a negative thing and it's not an ego thing. It is, if that is your question, I'm not the right person to answer that question. But if someone comes to me authentically, we want to figure out what this thing is together. Well, that's why I became an architect in the first place. I may have had a passion for like being in that room, but you got to want to actually make it. Because there's two ways you could go on the architecture side, you could be the maker or you could be the consumer. And believe me, having really good consumers of architecture is equally as important, if not more important than the makers. So yeah, my clients typically are thinking about these things, but maybe I'm getting to ask them in a very succinct and in a short kind of condensed way that brings out more in the answers. Wow, okay, love that. With that though, I guess the next step, maybe you kind of touched on it, but what's your design philosophy and how it kind of influences your work? Well, I guess part of it is the question and answer. In the part where I told you, I'm trying hard to answer a question. You combine that with again, the pragmatics of someone's site. Every site is different, which even the same building would be a different building on a different site, their budget, which for every project, there is a budget. It does not matter if it's an incredibly expensive building or if it is something quite inexpensive and small. Everyone is doing the maximum that they can. And like I said, they're trying to do a couple, go a couple steps beyond that. So there's always a budget. And so my philosophy is to try really hard to listen. If I had a philosophy, I don't think that. But I try really, again, even I would say my philosophy is very pragmatic. Try really hard to listen, try to see through to the problem and then try to figure out how to elevate the problem. How can we use the problem to make something special, something bigger than itself, something that I couldn't have anticipated without the clients to site the budget and something that my clients couldn't have anticipated without me or my team or the builder or Jack or any one of the contractors that I work with. And the listening kind of never stops. The listening continues past the clients to the city, to the builders, to the sub-trades, to the actual person who's going to execute the work. And the sharing and the collaboration continue. So I think the central key to making a great building is communication. And that's so part of my process. And is that I'm involved in my projects from the very, very beginning. But I'm involved in an incredibly active all the way to the very end of construction and sometimes even beyond. I hope beyond. You have to be there to communicate and hold everybody to the goals that often are set out a year and a half or two years before. So you kind of have to look back in time and remember why we did and made decisions. So at the moment they're being executed by someone who certainly wasn't there during that time to do it and to do it with intent that's tied to everything else. I often, when I talk to new clients, I'm stuttering on myself because I've developed a spiel. Everyone has a spiel. What is your sales pitch? I don't think of it as a sales pitch. It is how I am really trying hard to describe the process that we're going to go through with a potential client. And I often use the analogy of a tall ship. And I think that this might be very much if there's a philosophy. We all want to get on this adventure. We all want to go somewhere. The neat thing about a tall ship, I think I'm not a sailor so I don't know. But I'm guessing like a frigate or something at that scale. It takes more than one person to move it. It isn't going to go anywhere without a team of people who are going to raise and hoist sales and do all raise the anchor, do all the kinds of things you knew. And someone has to steer it as well. Often I think projects that go awry are where the client ends up being the person who is going to steer the ship. I think the client, supposedly the person who knows the least about this process, should ever be trusted to be the pilot. You would never just trust someone to be the pilot of a plane going across the ocean. No, they are the privileged passenger who is on board with us telling us where we're going to go. And as a group, we're going to figure out how we're going to get there. And that starts with how are we going to leave port and then how are we going to get there and when and how do we want to arrive at that time? And what do we want to experience along the way? My favorite clients are the ones that want to engage in that process. I think it is an incredibly privileged and special opportunity that me and my clients have to design and think about how they want to live on this earth. How many people get to do that? It's a very, very rare thing. That should also be something that is constantly thought about, appreciate it. And it's not just the living that comes after it, hopefully for years and decades after. But it's those months and year, year and a half, sometimes two, of the process of bringing this thing to fruition. That should be something that should be saved and enjoyed as well. That doesn't mean it's not a roller coaster of scary ups and downs. I think every every hard endeavor should be that. But it's a hard endeavor with a lot of risk. And because you're you're risking in the unknown, you don't know. We don't know from the beginning of this path where it's going to lead. So there's risk in am I spending my money right? Am I going to enjoy this house the way I wanted to? Did these people listen to me? They, you know, the way they were, I thought they were going to was this worth investing my time and money. I think those things are always present and should always be thought about and reflected on through every moment. And that's how you enjoy the moment. Yeah. No different than how I enjoyed sitting in that room way back when. Yeah. I love that explanation. That's that. It's so provoking to me. I'm going to keep thinking about that for the rest of the day and then listen back, of course, and try and let that register. I really enjoyed what you said about an unparaphraising now, but how someone would it would choose to live on this earth. And that keeps bringing me back to that deeper level. I don't know. I had a deeper level, but that deep level that I've discovered. You mentioned about communication. That was going to be one of my points. What's your preferred communication during a project because you mentioned very, very early on about hand and drafting. That's not drying. Yeah, dry. And obviously things have evolved now. I think for the better in some ways, I don't know. I'm not in your position, but technologically better things for speed, accuracy, maybe as well. And communication is evolved as well, isn't it? You know, everyone's got a smartphone now. But are you a text or email phone call? All of those, what's your preference? All of the above, but for different reasons. So if we are talking about project specific communication, I prefer email above and beyond anything because it's trackable and we can keep track of decisions that were made. I don't like text, text, just disappears. Text can be great to be casual. Nothing beats as you and I are doing right now, talking one on one to someone about decisions. I often think when you're through that stage of choosing choosing which brick, choosing which roofing material, choosing what color those are things best done person to person because I would like to think I'm kind of a little. all of this. None of those decisions are casual and none of them are isolated. They are all tied to other decisions that build on each other. You can't make a great room by in isolation deciding what the roof should be, then what the flooring should be, then what if it's tile, what tile you choose. It is all part of a bigger thing that you're creating this three-dimensional space or object. And mostly my clients aren't, otherwise they would be coming to me. They can't think that way. They think about the thing that is right in front of them that we're deciding on, a paint color. Well, you can't really think of that in isolation or make that decision in isolation. So you try very hard to convey what the context is of why we're choosing it. That ends up being an incredibly important part of the process. And since you're going to choose a thousand things that are going to go into a building, you have to have a thousand of those conversations. But I think the bigger thing for me above and beyond any of it, how do I like to communicate? I like to communicate through drawings, models, renderings, sketches. They say more than I ever can. At least I'd like to think they do, which is why we build models in our studio, which is why thank you again to Jack. We make gorgeous renderings that hopefully try really, really hard to convey the truth if it's a thing in what we're trying to build. All communication lies. It all lies to you. A model doesn't quite tell the truth because what I see in the model isn't what you see in the model. We talk about that in the miscommunication between an email and the intent or text. But it happens in everything. It happens in a drawing. It happens in a sketch. It happens in a detail. And what I am trying to convey may not be totally understood in a drawing by a subcontractor or if they're trying to install a piece of trim, but they don't understand again that context to how it ties into the rest of the room or its elevation or specifically where we're putting it. They're missing that bigger picture. So something has to tie all that together. And that's the constant communication of really talking. So it's hard to be talking. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I like that too. And you keep sort of like jumping ahead of all my notes that I've got here because I've got you man. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I'm done. So I was my note says here how beneficial are the models when communicating with clients. So I think you've kind of hit that. But for all people that have not had the fortune of seeing the models in your office. I was in your office two days ago and I saw the models and they're just stunning. And you've mentioned Jack a few times. Did Jack do those? No, I do the models. Okay. Okay. Well, we kind of. Jack. Jack. You know, it's great when you work with people that can compliment what you can do, but don't do the same thing. Jack does all of our renderings. I think he is. I said enough to think of us as artists. I think he is an artist when it comes to his ability to render. Okay. And it is. It takes a very, very skilled and subtle hand to work the keyboards to to key in all the information you need to make a great rendering. But I'm very good with my hands and knives and cutting boards. And I've always loved building models. And so so I build the models. Well, as I said, forget Jack. Tell me about the models because they they make I'm going to probably butcher this description. But is it called bolster wood? Or you bolster wood is a type of I'm sorry. I use bass wood. They're too soft. Very modally kinds of woods bass, but mostly bolsa are used in like model airplanes and things like that. They're great for being able to use an exacto knife and cut through the material. I like bass wood more than bolsa because when you look very closely, the grain is very different and bolsa has a texture, not a texture, but a quality to it that can make it. It's not as refined burping again, everybody as as bass wood. So I use bass wood, but I use paper cardboard board plastic. My models are not what I call or what anyone would call I think a finish sort of display model. It's not it's not the end of the process. They happen somewhere after we have decided on the concept of the building. But before we're going to really execute construction documents. So they're very high level concept models. And that's important because it's that hinge point between we've spent a certain amount of time thinking about what we want to design. Is this really what we're going to commit to for the next however long to build. So it ends up being this sort of moment of truth for me. We're both for me and my clients is this really what we want to build. And you have to make the model. So what would value do they have? Architecture is a three dimensional medium that you don't just look at, but you walk through. If you keep it in the computer screen, if you keep it on the page and you don't bring it into the world, you never really see it. A model is something so it's all sounding very arty when you build a model. Your eye gets to take it all in at once when you're looking at a drawing. You can only ever see what image of the drawing that the drawing is presenting to you. So yes, you have to turn the page and look at more. If you're looking at architectural drawings, a plan, an elevation, a section, you get to take all these things apart, but you are dissecting the buildings. They don't help you. If it's a rendering, you only get that one image that is inside, you know, the image. If it is even a walk through, the walk through is sort of sort of dictating where you're going to go and what you're going to look at. That's none of those things are how humans actually act, even in a real VR world, which is amazing. And we use it as well. And find it an incredibly effective tool. But it's it doesn't none of these tools supplant the other they don't they you use all of them back to communication use every mode of communication you can because none of them are quite telling you the whole story. But the cool thing about a model is the ability to look around it as you want you you can spin it you can move around. But also a little model is going to react with light and sun the same way that the actual thing is going to it's just smaller, but it's exactly the same. The relationship to sunlight is one to one doesn't matter if the model is smaller. So you can really see and study it now you can study that again in the computer, but you have all of those limitations of the view and the screen and the model doesn't. But here's the key that I learned over time these aren't just communicative tools for the client. They are for the builder and all the people who are going to execute the work down the line. So another reason that we want really great renderings and why we will render details inside the building or the kitchen or what have you is because once we get to the point of the trim carpenters actually doing their work inside the building. I have builders who will tape up the renderings onto the windows so that the builders can see what our bigger goal is they they're they know that there is this. This guiding light that they're participating in it doesn't matter if it's the plumber the electrician the trim carpenter the drywall person the painter we want them all to know what they're working towards. So you can't you can't render an entire building it takes too much time and would take too much money but you all the key bits and pieces yeah and it's important so it is part of these these tools are for part of the process for everybody not just for quote selling the project. Is that how we'd like buy in as well from those subcontractors if you like to you're part of something special kind of thing. I don't know about something special but I would like to think that contractors and they told me that they like working on these buildings in spite of the complexity. Maybe they're a little fatigued by them at the end of the project which they should be but yes I think I think the models the renderings are our drawing sets are fairly detailed more than others and our ability to communicate and stay through the process from beginning to end. I believe that provides buy in from the clients as well as all of the contractors right and I would like to think we are reciprocating to everybody in that process with our effort to do so so for the clients. This is what they're paying for and we should do as much of it as we can but for the contractors I want them to really know that we are supporting them with design decisions. So contractors are supposed to do are supposed to be responsible for means and methods they're supposed to be the ones who execute the project they're not supposed to be the ones who design the project. But in most cases if you don't give them enough information they become the de facto designer they have to if you don't tell the electrician where the outlets going to go well they got to put it somewhere or or or thermostat and where those things go could really matter to you if they stick them in the middle of the wall because that was the smart place to put it for heating and cooling. for heating and cooling. or on the last job. - Or now you're not hanging a picture there. - Right. - It's these very simple things, but they are also tied to very much bigger design things. - Stay tuned, we'll be right back. - What's going on everybody? Ben Shirk with Pell and Ashville. Check me out on Instagram at Benny Window Guy and welcome back to another edition of Letting the Light In. The Pella offerings are awesome, and one of my favorites is the Pella 250 series. The 250 series are designed to provide a balance of affordability and performance, making them an excellent option for the budget conscious consumer. These windows feature vinyl frames that are durable and energy efficient, helping to reduce heating and cooling costs and promote energy efficiency. Available in various styles, including double hung, sliding, casement, and patio doors, the 250 series can suit a range of architectural designs. Pell also offers customization options for colors and grid patterns, allowing homeowners to personalize their project. With a focus on ease of maintenance and long lasting performance, the Pella 250 series is a reliable choice for enhancing both comfort and curva peel. (upbeat music) And now back to the show. The interesting thing is that maybe it's not for other people, so listening to this and kind of extracting your information and learning about your best practices, maybe shared experiences, I think that's really important. I would think that they're, so if you're looking to live in a house for a few years and then move on, this isn't the process for you. It doesn't make any sense with your goal. Yeah. If none of this is of any interest to you whatsoever, this, I'm not in the way I go about things. I'm not your guy, you know, because-- - But I'm thinking about other architects and designers that are listening to this. - Oh, say that. - Well then ask your question again, I think. - Well no, I was thinking about the best practices that, or practices that your practices and experiences that you're sharing. I would like to think they matter to other architects. I would like to think they matter deeply, but again, different questions, different problems. I would think that, yes, I guess I wish everyone did think of buildings this way, and I think our built environment would be really different. But I also appreciate that there are different kinds of questions that people are asking and answering. And that, I don't know. - I think it's fascinating. - And I really do. - I really find it so interesting. - I would love to know what that world would be like. You know, a neat thing for people, if they're not aware of it, that you can do from Nashville is go visit Columbus, Indiana. Columbus, Indiana, and it's a whole other thing. But it's a place where it's a town in not far from Indianapolis, so it's three hours from here, where since the 30s and 40s through the Cummings engine company, famous architects have been going and building all the buildings in town. From the clubhouse at a local golf course, to churches, to the schools, to the post office, to some of the banks, to office buildings, really famous, thoughtful people have been building their buildings for this little town. And it's a chance to ask, to really ask, if people really put that kind of thought, both from the client side and from the maker side, in their place, do they make a special, do they make something more special? And it seems to me that Columbus answers that question with an unequivocal yes. The residents think that way about it, and the people who go to visit it, just to go visit the architecture, think that way about it. It is a special place, but it all came from very, very basic ways of thinking about buildings need designers, and they need contractors, and we need to think about it as a city, and as a city, what do we value? And through private interests and public interests, they ended up making a very, very special place. - Columbus, Columbus, Indiana. - If you haven't been? - No. - Oh, it's worth a day trip. - Okay. - They have a visitor's center, and you can go and take tours, you can go visit buildings on your own, they have a festival every year. - Really? - They now have the famous, um, um, is it the Martin House? Why am I blanking on their name now? The Miller House, the Martin House, is the frankly, right one in Buffalo. But the Miller House is now a museum that's run by, I guess, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and you can go tour the house, and it was designed by Irios Sarenin. - Okay. - And, um, there are a few other famous architects, Dan Kylie, is the landscape architect, and there's an interior designer who I really love, and I'm blanking on his name too, and other people are moved, but anyways. - I'm looking to look into that, might as well get a pallidite trip. - Oh, that would be one that a lot of architects would go on. - Okay. - I have no idea if there are any fellow windows there, but there are a lot of windows in Columbus. - We can look at other windows. - But it's a unbelievable place where you get to ask that question across an entire city. What if an entire city thought this way? - Okay. - And, yeah, I think the answer is it's really special, and then the parts of the city that have grown beyond, what Columbus was for decades, it turns quickly to back to the banale, and if you just compare the two, it's like, where do you wanna spend your time? It's obvious. - Okay. - So it's amazing. - It's amazing. - All right. Thank you. Talking about design, and you've mentioned a lot of different architects and buildings and whatever, but, and you're gonna hate this now, I know it. But for everyone listening, you were included in the Forbes 2025 inaugural list of America's top 200 residential architects. - Correct. - I'm Lady Massagar now. - Yes. - There you go. - And, in the Forbes 2026 America's top residential architect, Best in State 400 list. - Congratulations. - Thank you. - That's fantastic. - One of the projects that, in addition to this, you've won two 2024 qualified remodel and master prize design awards, and that's for the, the dorma house that we, we briefly worked on it. - With Craig Hughes being Hughes behind us. - Yeah. - That was a great project. - You say Craig, I say Craig, but, either way. So, elaborate on that, 'cause if anyone's not aware of the dorma house, I really encourage them to go to your website, if you wanna give the website address, and have a look at that. 'Cause I remember when we looked at the projects and I was in little early stages, and I think I remember struggling to understand the condition it was into the goal of the design, but that's just because I'm pretty simple. But the photos don't do any justice to that, 'cause I mean, they're stunning photos, but the interior staircase was just immense. So, first of all, - Great contractors for that. - Yes. - Great, great. - Great carpenters. - Yes, they're magicians. - Yeah. - But if you would just tell everyone your website address where they can go and look at this project. - Just my name.com, so it's www.mickelgorvitch.com. - GW or EVICH, in case anyone's wondering. And tell us a little bit about the projects, because I think it was so unique, and what was interesting, I'm gonna read it from your website. What was interesting is how you described it at the end. Bear with me, it's a year. It wasn't at the end, actually. It said, "It came as no surprise to find the house was actually a house, inside a house, inside a house." That was one thing that I found interesting, and I'd love for you to elaborate on in a moment. But then the last sentence of your case study, if you like, it says, "Through these deletions and insertions, the existing home was updated and refurbished, ready for its next 30 years of domesticity." You know, I was reading this, and it just felt like silk. Yeah, it was so smooth and flowing, and it is just absolutely stunning. I really encourage everyone to go and have a look at it. So give us an overview of this project and tell us your experience. And then I think I'd like to come on to the experience with Pella after that to learn about what your thoughts are. So it was a really special project for me. Wonderful clients again. I was introduced to the project by Craig Hughes, be actually a Hughes Be Homes. He had met the clients. And Craig and I had known each other for several years, but never had the opportunity to work together. He actually lived across the street from a project I was lucky enough to get to work on, a renovation addition. And Craig introduced me to the owners. We ended up getting to work together. It's a house with a gigantic roof. It has this gigantic existing roof, not unlike the kind of roof you would have expected to find in Switzerland. or at least in its scale. It had two stories inside the roof. And I had driven past this house for years and was always engaged to look when I would look over at it. And I always thought how unnashable it was. It didn't seem to fit at all. And then I always also thought, gosh, how neat it would be to get to work on that building. And so all the stars aligned and I was getting to work on it. One of the key things that was interesting about the house was it was made up of lots and lots of little rooms, the existing home. It was really broken up into a lot of tiny spaces. And the owners wanted an open floor plan or not an open floor plan, but they wanted more open spaces. They also wanted it to be light-filled, but it had this massive roof on it that had five foot overhangs. The last, like this, this house was screaming for darkness and to keep the light out. So what was forensically fun about it was figuring out how to take this building apart without it falling down and opening it up so that it could be more open and figuring out ways of bringing light to the inside of it, which came through some skylights and some very deep, deep penetrations that we had to make to bring the light down to the first floor. What I love so much about it, which is one reason I love renovation additions is they will drive you to do things that you would never typically do or would never have thought to do. So we could not just open up this house. The way what we learned through, again, forensically taking it apart, it struck us that it looked like it was maybe a hundred-year-old home with stone foundations that at one point was expanded to be more of a typical 1950s Nashville rancher that then was expanded again in perhaps the '70s or '80s to have this giant roof put on it and then renovated one more time in the '90s. So it had, and what we came to find too, is that the original house didn't seem to have the same floor elevation as the house that we were working on. So it actually felt very archeological. Like you were digging back through layers of previous houses to do anything here. And structurally, it seemed like it was a very ad hoc building. They every wall, every door had a header and floor joists would be breaking on every single room, which meant you couldn't just take away a wall 'cause every wall was a load-bearing wall in this house. And there were certain things we just could not take away. The fireplace, it was a massive unit in the middle of the house and to take it down would have been not only ridiculously expensive, but could have also undermined the structural integrity of the house. So it stayed along with a few other key elements, which meant you couldn't just open up the floor, you had to have these things that you walked around and they almost became like, it's almost like the floor plan became like a little town and these elements like the certain walls and the foyer and the fireplace became little rooms, little buildings, little plazas, little interlocking spaces around each other. And so that started to set up the strategy for the house, interlocking squares and rectangles of spaces that cascade from the front yard to the backyard. And where we just could not be without some sort of support, we would take away the wall, but we would provide a post and we did the post as a W section and steel. So you had these elements that were walls, elements that were like the fireplace, elements that were like posts and you would kind of wander and meander through them from the front of the house to the back of the house. But when we were done, if one walk opens the front door and looks and is in the front foyer, you can see to the back of the house. So that was like a huge feat in itself. And all of this was happening during COVID, which was adding another layer of complexity to figuring out how we could restructure the home. So it ended up becoming like a home inside a home. And we did give it this belly button, which is this stairway in the foyer. The foyer was this giant space already and that we were trying to not just make smarter, but tied to the client's program for how they wanted to entertain. One thing that's unbelievable about this client is since the house has been open, they use it as a concert venue, a recital venue, a performance venue. And I have been invited to, but I've also seen videos from performances that this belly button, the stair becomes a central component or to the stage set to how they use the space. And we had these conversations from the beginning, but I never thought they would use it in the way that they use it. And it is really unbelievable. And to get to go to a concert there and see a chamber group engage the stairway as a central figure. And so it's a stair to walk up and down. It is a belly button that you see from everywhere in the house, not just the foyer. It is also a part of this concert space. So serving, that's another thing that has always been a pet peeve or a goal, goal sounds much better. If you can get something to do, not just do one thing, but you can get something to do three things. Well, you start to embed it with you and view it, and view it with far more value. It has more value. And if it has more value, perhaps it's something that you can invest more money into building. So yes, if you can get one thing to do three things, you maybe you need less things, which also can mean maybe you need a smaller, you could live with a smaller house. And so doing you can put more money towards other things to make the qualities of those things better. So that's another thought that gets embedded inside all of these houses and all the decisions, which I might also, if I would love it, if it were true, one reason I don't make 10,000 square foot homes because I don't need to make 10,000 square foot homes for my clients. They can have 3,500 square feet, but it feels like it's 6,000 square feet. And if they're getting more value that way, it may not be how buildings are appraised in America, because that all seems to be about square footage and numbers of bedrooms, but it makes better houses. Yes, so cool. OK, thank you for explaining that. And Pelle was used on the project. Yes. And it was-- Pelle was-- and we've used Pelle now several times for the same kinds of decision making. It was a client that wanted minimal operable windows and doors, and Pelle makes a terrific direct set window that I like, but I also-- how do I put this? The price point is really great with a Pelle window for the quality that you get. I put it up there with any of the other-- Don't say them. You'll say them on the phone. The other lesser, not so good. There is good as any window that you can get out there, but I can hit my budget numbers better with a Pelle window than I can with some other choices. So if this is a house that had to deal with roofing and framing issues and more money had to go to it, then we had anticipated. Well, Pelle becomes a fantastic choice once I finally get to the windows and doors. I can combine them any way I want. I can get some pretty incredible sizes. I'm actually not thinking about that one so much as we just installed them. And I don't know if you have seen this yet, but there's another project in Forest Hills that we just installed them with. And we have giant window units sitting on-- I think they're like 11 or 12 foot long windows, but are only 16 inches tall. So you have this Pelle window that's really, really long with windows sitting on top of it, but it's not very tall. And so they look like everything looks like it's floating. And that ended up being a really engaging aspect to putting these windows together that I loved. So Pelle has-- it seems like we've used Pelle on the last four or five projects that we've been using doing. And I know it's coming up on at least another two, because it hits that sweet spot of-- it has all of the options that I am looking for in a window in sizing for me mostly. And the price point-- good. Thank you. So I use a lot of direct set windows. It just so happens, I seem to have a lot of clients that don't want to open their windows. And the window's been great for that. Great. Thank you so much. So I encourage you, everyone, again, go to MichaelGovage.com and check out Dorma House and other fascinating projects. So you've just spent so much time looking at them all. It's absolutely fantastic. Michael, I know that we've taken up so much of your time today. I really appreciate it. And I think-- I think we could talk so much more as well, there's so much to learn. But we're going to finish with a trivia question and then let you get on your way. So are you ready for this? Cracking my knuckles. Yes, let's go. What kind of window projects outward from a home or building often in a polygonal shape? Is that a polygonal? Bay window folks nailed it. I can't open it. A bay window well done. Fantastic. Oh my god. Are you starting? Were you under pressure sliding me a check for $10,000? Yeah, that's it. That's the noise that you can hear as I slide this across the day. I'm actually very pleased I was able to answer that question. Good. I'm really, I'm pleased for you too. So Michael, thanks so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. MichaelGovic.com and we look forward to working with you in the future, learning about more stuff that you're doing. Maybe we'll go to Columbus. Columbus, I can't say that. Columbus, Indiana. And thanks so much. Thank you for inviting me, Matt. This was a lot more fun than I thought it was today. And you look relaxed now as well. All right, thanks for listening everyone. This is "Pelatively Speaking" with Michael Govic. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to "Pelatively Speaking" brought to you by Pella Windows and Doors of Nashville. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who appreciates quality craftsmanship and a good story. You can also follow us on Instagram @PellaNashville or on LinkedIn @PellaWindowsAnd Doors of Nashville. Until next time, keep your outlook bright and your Windows even brighter.