#396 - Don't Judge Yourself by the Wrapper

0:00Cormac Phalen: Start your engines.

0:02Evan Troxel: Let's do this.

0:03Cormac Phalen: Hey, so you ready for college football season there? Does it look like, I guess I'm wearing, I'm wearing your colors. Look at me. You are. What is the, what's Cal Poly Pomona? Are you guys like the Pumas? Or the Broncos? Whee! Is it Broncos for real? Yeah, Cal Poly Broncos. Gold and green. Green and gold. That does not even. It doesn't matter to me what the mascot of Cal Poly is because we'll always be the Cal Poly architects as far as I'm concerned. Is that all that Cal Poly is known for? The Cal Poly I went to is known for its agriculture department more than anything because that was the reason I think that school got started.

0:44Cormac Phalen: So were these guys. More Aggies over there, huh?

0:48Evan Troxel: Yeah. In fact, what was interesting when we were in school, I remember having this conversation. We were hanging out. We used to have this little courtyard that everybody used to walk through because it's kind of like we're in the middle of where the dorms are to then kind of like proceeding through to get to campus. They kind of kept us pretty much on the outskirts of the campus at the time.

1:12Cormac Phalen: This is like architecture schools everywhere. You're in the boondocks. You're in the basement. You're in the cellar. You're in the building with no windows. That's architecture departments.

1:21Evan Troxel: University of Michigan, they're on a completely different campus. Yeah, there you go. You're in a satellite location. And it's predominantly just them.

1:30Cormac Phalen: When I was in school, we had the architecture building, which was this cool old cast-in-place concrete and brick building. And then in third year, the interim design center opened, which was a metal building down in one of the horse fields on the other side of campus, which is not a small campus that is on a hillside, by the way. And so it's not like you could walk there. This is L.A., first of all, right? So, of course, you're going to drive there because it's 110 out most of the time. Sure. And it's far. It was far. And there was no walking. They actually had these propane-powered trams, like Disneyland-style trams, where you could ride around the campus loop on it.

2:15Cormac Phalen: And you couldn't do that with a giant model on your lap, right? So it was ridiculous. We got moved down. It was actually, I think it was a better place because it was designed as a studio more than just a building with classrooms in it. Okay. And so there was lots of pinup space and it was very open. And so it really put all of the years next to each other at least and you could see what other people were doing. And that was, I think, a game changer for the department because it really opened up the full progression that you would experience when you're going to school there in the architecture program.

2:57Evan Troxel: I've always liked that because there is also the opportunity for students to, and it happened, I'm sure it happened with you. It happened with us where the seniors or the upperclassmen would walk through and either A, harass or haze the younger students. But they would also, to be quite honest with you, I mean, they would basically offer up some ideas or thoughts or just like, you know, hey, you know, who do you have? oh, if you want to get a good grade, maybe you could do this or do this because we really know this teacher and this is a way to work around them.

3:37Cormac Phalen: Bribes. So yeah. Amazing.

3:39Evan Troxel: Yeah. College stuff. So you asked me just before we locked on or hit record, what's new? Well, obviously a new semester. Oh, look at you, Mr. Professor. That's right. So we started our new semester and it's honestly going great. The first actual day of class, we had our convocation and we sat down with all the year levels in the auditorium and the dean of the school, she went through all the different like, you know, welcome and here's all the rules and everything else. And then talked about that. And then we went into our studios with each of the year levels. and you know as you know a friend of our right friend of the show who has his own show kurt and i niece wonder i should probably edit that because it's nice wonder not niece wonder but you know

4:34Cormac Phalen: i might leave that in just to see if he's listening there you go but he anyway you know he

4:41Evan Troxel: kind of he's the the year coordinator and so you know he kind of gave like the rundown of the syllabus and everything else. And we kind of broke up into our group because we got about 58, 59 students. And so like what we decided to do was kind of like modify the way we were doing things. It's interesting now, this is like year three of the group of professors that are teaching, that are teaching together. This is like year three of that. And slowly but surely we've been progressing as we get a little bit of input from the students. So like, hey, this didn't really worked very well for you again.

5:18Evan Troxel: Kind of felt like it blew up in your face, didn't it? So maybe you should try something else. They're telling you that or you're telling them that?

5:25Cormac Phalen: Which way is this? Where's this feedback coming from? Yep. We'll just say yes.

5:31Evan Troxel: Full feedback loop. Okay. Full feedback loop. And so actually I think this is going to be a good year and it felt that way because now we've had two classes at the time of this recording and actually three classes at the time of this recording. Correct. Correction. And the very first day, you know what they did? It was weird. Ordered pizza?

5:55Cormac Phalen: What? Really weird. No. Listened and took notes. Like percentage wise of the 59 students, how many do you think actually listened and took notes? 14. My 14.

6:09Evan Troxel: That's all. I don't care about anybody else's 14. My 14. They listened and they took notes. And it was kind of crazy because, yeah.

6:18Cormac Phalen: What you're telling me, Cormac, is that you've got a class of project managers in the making. That's what you're telling me. No.

6:26Evan Troxel: Got really good, strong, talented designers that seem to want to understand. I mean, that is a good sign. I do have to say. Yeah, it is. I have hopes and promise. Now, if any of them even remotely listen to this one, no, it's not you. It's the other one. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the other person in your group, but it was, it was, it was really good. And then the, then we went on a field trip and they actually did that. We, what we basically did was we had some constituents, you know, they actually have a project that has an actual client. It's not a real project, but it's a hypothetical project, but it actually has a real client and a real place.

7:05Evan Troxel: And I think we've talked about this in the past, but it's, it's basically a kind of a adaptive reuse type project. and then in this particular case, it's, you know, with Habitat for Humanity. So it's kind of an exciting new year.

7:18Cormac Phalen: Have you started every year out with this project? Is it always the first project? No. Have you done it before?

7:24Evan Troxel: Adaptive reuse projects or, yeah, yes, that's sort of. That's the theme? Yeah, that's the theme because what we're trying to do, and if I had never explained it to you before or even, you know, the listeners before.

7:38Cormac Phalen: You probably did, but I forgot things.

7:40Evan Troxel: So, yeah, we are of that age, right? Yes. So at Lawrence Technological University or Lawrence Tech, what they do is they basically build upon each year. And so each year they're learning things like whether it's planning or urban design or other kind of like elements, they just continue to keep building. but then they also integrate into it when they're you know learning structures or like tectonics or hvac you know or or other different things they basically have got to you know have a project where as you move through the years if you're adding on your understanding of structures well guess what that studio is going to be having it will have structures as part of that studio And then the next year, if you're learning HVAC, well, that next studio will not only have structures, but it will also have HVAC.

8:34Evan Troxel: And if you're learning whatever, it kind of then just keeps building on that. And then at the end of their four-year degree, they have what's called comp design, which basically is comprehensive design of all of the things that they've learned. Show us what you got kind of project.

8:55Cormac Phalen: Does that mean work 10 times is hard too? I mean, because if you've got to do it all kind of a thing, is that accumulative? Does it show up that way in the class? Does it work? Kind of, yeah. The more you go through it, the more you are capable of in the moment as well. So you have learned skills. You can do things way faster than you used to be able to do them as you move forward. And I can imagine there's that. But it's also just sounds like if it's more comprehensive and you're doing, there are some group projects, right? But like in this kind of situation. And even this is like our studio is sort of a group project.

9:37Evan Troxel: Well, not sort of a group project. It is a group project. And so what everybody's doing right now is research and they'll be doing things like demographics, you know, different things that are part of the program. They'll be doing precedent studies on whether or not it's like, you know, a volunteer-led organization and what does that actually mean or, you know, nonprofit organizations and the types of buildings that they use. And then there'll be some things where people, you know, part of the research will be code research for this type of building and its use and looking at the future program.

10:14Evan Troxel: What does that mean in regards to like your limitations or things that you need to do with the building and all that other stuff? And so it's kind of an interesting collective of early research that they're doing as groups. And then we'll reshuffle everything. So there's 16 basically research paths for this one, like 16 research groups. And so each of them are doing a different one, and then we're going to reshuffle them. And so each of them -

10:43Cormac Phalen: So they're teaming up with somebody in another studio to be part of, like to form those groups?

10:50Evan Troxel: No, no, no. In our studio. So each of them, so like what we've got is we've got four professors. Each professor has four groups. each of those groups has a separate research topic that they have to do. And then they're creating basically this kind of global atlas for, you know, all of the different research topics. And then they reshuffle it so that each of those groups, the future group will have at least one person of each of those research topics in there as the subject matter expert. Gotcha. Yeah. And then so that, you know, it's just like, hey, you know, we're doing this project, you know, who worked on code research?

11:32Evan Troxel: Oh, I did.

11:33Cormac Phalen: And, you know, and so that's the person. So they're the expert. So they each have a different expertise that they're bringing to the table for that final project. Yeah.

11:42Evan Troxel: Yeah. Cool. And so, you know, ultimately the goal is to, one, nobody likes doing group projects. But as we start off, the whole thing is like, look, architecture is a team sport. It is not, you know, an individual thing. Even if you're a sole practitioner, guess what? You're still working with other people. You're still learning how to work with a client or a contractor or your consultants or, you know, constituents that you need to, you know, learn from or your engineers or whoever. And so it really is a way for them to kind of get immersed into learning how to work with others. And we even said, look, you may not like the person that you're in your group with.

12:21Evan Troxel: That's okay because, you know, you may not actually, you may not even like the engineers that you work with in the future, but those are the engineers that you have to deal with and work with. And so, you know, you need to figure out how to work with them. You know, not every, you aren't going to hit, you know, the perfect client or the perfect consultant, you know, every single project. And so you've got a project and you need to learn how to deal with it. Right.

12:46Cormac Phalen: Yeah, I think that's great because it does give you that experience. It's likely going to happen, that there's going to be some clashes in different ways, and you have to learn how to work through those and still produce the project, the outcome. But also, you learn what you can work with and what you can't because you do want to build an A team that you can reuse project after project. Right. And how do you do that? I mean, you learn. I mean, those are skills that you learn how to discern what works for you, what doesn't, why, how to move forward in those tough situations, what a good situation feels like so that you know it when you see it, like with these relationships.

13:32Cormac Phalen: And to me, like really getting beyond the transactional nature of what a lot of throw the project over the fence at the deadline is very transactional. You throw it to the consultant. It's a little adversarial. sometimes. It's like you instead like, okay, we got to learn how to work together to produce this thing in the end. And that's a big deal to learn early. I think that sets you up for more success in the future.

13:59Evan Troxel: What is the big C word for successful project? Collaboration. And honestly, this is a way to teach them how to collaborate, how to figure out how to work around things. I many times does the architect tend to be the peacemaker? I mean, almost, you know, in many cases, it's like, they're the ones who's like, well, you're the architect, you figure it out, or you're the architect, they work for you, or you're the architect, you need to, you know, get a handle on this, or how many times? Insert, you're the architect and whatever else, right? You know, and so I think that, you know, teaching them early on, it was interesting because I don't necessarily know if it was the first time they did this on my first time teaching this you know with with the group but it seemed as if you know everybody was you know all of the students absolutely hated the project absolutely hated doing the the the group you know projects and things like that and and and ultimately what we realized you know what we started to think about is like okay well if we're if if we're having to deal with you know all of this how do we like phrase it how do we kind of sell it to them that like this is just something that you need to learn and you know so i kind of gave the little the little spiel about the you know this is a team sport and we need to learn to to work together and figure these things out it also teaches them conflict resolution with you know when they have to and then there's this one component that we have that is new for this year is that, and I, I don't know if you recall any group projects that you ever worked on, but there is typically like the more quiet people who would just be like, look, I'm happy to just, you know, grind away and do drawings or do this or do that.

15:51Evan Troxel: You know, I don't need, you know, I don't need the limelight. I don't need to, you know, be upfront. We're actually forcing everybody to take a role, a leadership role at each of the different phases. So that, and this would have been great for me early on where I was, I really loved actually, you know, just being the doer and not the leader. And ultimately, you know, that obviously all changed, but I was more a fan of just doing it. And then when I was able to kind of like grow out of all of that, I became kind of like an introvert that actually could lead a little bit and talk a lot. Look at us today.

16:37Evan Troxel: We've been doing this now for 14 years and apparently don't know how to shut up. Still have stuff to say. Still have stuff to say. But, you know, and I think that, like, the thing that I like is I'm seeing my, you know, introverted students. And, you know, I'm thinking, oh, this is an opportunity to help for me to, you know, maybe help teach them how I kind of overcame it. How I kind of learned, you know, to kind of deal with some of the stresses of like, hey, guess what, Kevin? You're going to have to present. You're like, I don't want to present. I'll take the F, you know. And so, you know, it, it, it's in last year we did that and there, there are two students that I'm, you know, that come to mind in my, in my group last year that, you know, happens to be the group that I'm teaching, you know, this semester.

17:32Evan Troxel: And they were, you know, deathly like introverted and their final presentations at the end of the year, they were, they both just, I mean, I don't know if they're like fully out of their shell. But for that presentation, they came out of their shell. They actually, you know, like gave great presentations. They felt very in command of the information that they were delivering. And that was like, that, that, that felt good. That felt good that they, you know, could, you know, felt comfortable doing that. And, and so, you know, I, I kind of already identified a couple of, you know, quiet, quiet students that I'm like, okay, guess what you're going to be doing, you're going to be doing the leading, you're going to be doing the talking, you know, you're going to be.

18:19Evan Troxel: And so, but, but I, I like the fact that like what this particular university does, and thank you for indulging the, you know, the direction of the conversation right now, but is the, just the fact that it, it actually honestly feels like a little bit more of a academic alignment with the profession. Some of the, one of the things that we, you and I have talked about, you know, on so many different occasions, you know, over the past 14 years, it just seems like, you know, that more and more, or I don't know if it's more and more, or at least just this particular program, but it seems like they're starting to align with the, the profession so that, you know, when we actually do graduate these kids, that they're actually, you know, more valuable to a firm coming out of school than create, you know, another intern that we're going to have to just train.

19:14Evan Troxel: And we know they don't know anything kind of thing.

19:17Cormac Phalen: Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like the caliber of interns from my not so recent experience, but also just things that I've been seeing where firms are sending their interns back to school. You know, it's the end of the summer and the programs are coming to a close or whatever and they're celebrating them. It just seems like the caliber of students is really high, really high.

19:41Evan Troxel: Yeah, I will definitely agree with that. I mean, it's interesting. So, you know, we talked about it, you know, some time ago, probably, well, I guess it would be three semesters ago when the first group of students that I had, you know, had taught when they were graduating with their bachelor's, they, you know, just the summer between their, you know, master's and bachelor's, they, a handful of them happened to join me in chicago and you know took them on the you know a tour of a bunch of different architecture and all this other stuff and it was interesting because they had made this comment to me then that they were you know they were really interested to see what you know kind of like some of these big you know urban programs and stuff which you know i kind of reminded them guess what you're in detroit that's a pretty big urban program that you guys have got going on there and so we ended up going to iit and we walked around iit and they were just like oh my gosh look at the quality of these like designs and these final presentations you know it's just like like through the architecture studios yeah yeah yeah yeah okay and you know and so they were just like yeah i wish you know i wish we were that good or something like whoa whoa whoa let's let's stop for a moment and like look at look at their presentations like there's nothing wrong with what they're doing like they're learning more like of design like it is a design oriented school but i was just like really look at the project and they're like okay it's just like is this buildable not really and they're like is that the point i'm like well maybe maybe not you know but think about what we've asked you to do on your final presentations and look at what the their professors have asked them to do on their final presentations.

21:29Evan Troxel: Again, no shade, no knocking. They were absolutely phenomenal work. So please, anybody who might go to IIT, don't misunderstand this.

21:40Cormac Phalen: Well, yeah, and to their point, different schools might have a different focus, right? Totally. And the studio might have a different focus. And I like what you're saying, though. It's like don't just get caught up in the skin-deep version of this. That's where I was going. Because that flashy wrapper versus the substance, Maybe, maybe not. Like, I don't know. I didn't see it. But it's like you are correct in telling them to still have a critical look at it because that is a really important skill to have. Yes.

22:13Evan Troxel: Yeah.

22:13Cormac Phalen: Yeah.

22:14Evan Troxel: Yeah. And that was the whole point is I was just like, look, you know, don't judge yourself by the wrapper of other things that you see that are flashy, that are beautiful, that are, you know, I mean, there were some, you know, phenomenally designed, you know, projects. but if you sat back and you like you know like critically looked at them you were like well are they buildable or you know you can you know would mechanical work here or with this you know or you know there's just so many questions that you could ask and it's just like i don't want you guys to sell yourself short in what you think you're learning here at ltu just because you're seeing another program that, you know, has some beautiful, you know, end products because all of the other things that you're learning, all the different layers, all of that, the coordination that actually makes architecture, hercitexture, you know, I mean, you got to make a building work, right?

23:10Evan Troxel: And people need to understand.

23:10Cormac Phalen: Well, it's interesting because there are schools that push the boundaries of, and then make your list, right? And that is, that's still a really good thing to see and use it to inspire yourself to, oh, wow, like, oh, once I've seen it, now I can't unsee it. And I might push myself harder. I might push my cohort harder. And harder maybe isn't the right word, right? But it's like, this is how you elevate things over time. And it's like nobody knew you could do a 100-yard dash in less than 10 seconds until somebody did it. And then a bunch of people could do it because it was impossible. And so it's like that with architecture, too.

23:51Cormac Phalen: When you see something, it's possible. It's like, whoa, okay, I'm going to rethink. But it's also very important not to get caught up in the comparison game. Right, right. Because the comparison game leads to expectations, which leads to disappointment, which leads to the slog of the pursuit, the endless pursuit. And that's what architecture ultimately is. And you have to actually let it not kill you during that pursuit. Because it could be endless. And you can always do more. And you can always do better in every category. And, and, and. And it actually becomes about balance and intentionality and what your values are.

24:39Cormac Phalen: And there's so many things that you really have to define for yourself. And by comparing somebody else's work to yours, that becomes difficult. You kind of lose who you are. You might just be competing to be something that you're not. So, yeah. Exactly.

24:56Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I even learned, I even learned something, you know, on that conversation is, is that, you know, they, they value, you know, all of that, you know, all of the different aspects of what the, the project they are. you know, they would like a different opportunity maybe to design a little bit more or things like that. And, you know, so that goes heard by the faculty. And, you know, we look at it, it was like, okay, you know, one of their complaints was, is that they feel like they don't get enough time to actually do, you know, the design process. How do we fix that? You know, they still have all of these other, you know, requirements that they need to do as part of this particular program.

25:38Evan Troxel: However, they're also still hungering for more of the process in the design aspect of it. How do we accommodate that? And so we've kind of adjusted the syllabus this time, and they're going to get more design time. And I think that it'll be really interesting, especially since, because I said that this is an adaptive reuse project. and it is a such it it's an interestingly vanilla boring building that has so much potential in it you know so it's just like oh i cannot wait to see what they can actually do with this yeah that's because because it is it is essentially a box you know it's a it's a two two-story box you know one at one side is one story when you come into it but then you know the the landscape kind of drops off and then on the other side you know you can come into it from the other side and it's two stories and so you know it's just like okay so now you've got the challenge of you know topography you've got you know the challenge of you know this existing building you got the challenge of the you know existing structure you know what can you do with this you know and so it's going to be really fun to kind of like see that and kind of you know maybe I don't know, maybe in the future we can kind of almost do like a, not quite a studio crit, but at least kind of like a half-direction review of it.

27:06Evan Troxel: And maybe I could get a couple of students to come on and, you know, if they're willing

27:10Cormac Phalen: to kind of present some work. It'd be kind of cool. So when you guys do precedent studies, what kind of work do you look at?

27:19Evan Troxel: So because, and if you will bear with me here in a moment. But so... Funny you ask. I happen to have it right here. I happen to have the breakdown of all of the different clusters of each of the groups. And so my particular group, we're called the Publix. And so our internal ecology, which is our precedent study, so we break it up into this. We have internal ecology and external ecology. The precedent study that they have to look for is a community-serving nonprofit headquarters. That's one. Two is an affordable and self-help housing models. Three is volunteered-operated facilities. And four, vocational and trade training facilities.

28:12Evan Troxel: So it is absolutely open to your, you know, research. you know find us you know is there is there any of these within the context of the urban environment within flint michigan where this project is if that is that's great because then you can actually like you know tie it to the community if there isn't or if there is but you want to go and look for us another one that is maybe cutting edge in the way that the architect kind of interpreted that particular type of building find that you know and so that's what i've been trying to encourage them is like you know find something that you know speaks to you about that type of building you know that that type of thing and then you know kind of dissect it with a whole bunch of other other like questions to ask about that building you know or that and

29:06Cormac Phalen: so are they looking specifically at adaptive reuse type or are they just looking at those Because that's what I was thinking. I was thinking of like Deborah Burke's projects or - Oh, no. I mean, and absolutely. Things like that where you - They can't. No, they can't. They can't.

29:22Evan Troxel: If like, say, the community serving nonprofit headquarters wants to look at a Deborah Burke project where she's actually done something of that nature, please do that. Because then not only do we know that it's going to be something that is obviously deeply rooted in the understanding of the building, but it is also something extraordinarily creative in the way that that particular organization utilizes the building and how Debra has evolved it and stuff.

29:54Cormac Phalen: Yeah, I just remember -

29:55Evan Troxel: By the time they listen to this, they have already done that work, so they can't use this. We're not helping them out. Yeah, we're not helping them out.

30:02Cormac Phalen: It just makes me think of the way, like you said, incredibly creative ways of finding a building that was intended for a completely different purpose and use and client type to be repurposed for something new, different, engaging with the community where before it was some kind of factory or whatever, right? Because that transformation is part of the story. It's not like, okay, greenfield site, the world is your oyster, blue sky, do whatever you want, make it perfect for this new use case. I think there's something extra in those kinds of examples where it's like, whoa, what did they start with?

30:38Cormac Phalen: What was that? How did it become this? The surgical level of intervention that happens with that kind of thing and just the ultimate expression of it and the storytelling that's involved with those kinds of projects, I think is just like chef's kiss, like really cool stuff.

30:59Evan Troxel: Absolutely. Absolutely. And what's interesting about this is the building is sort of already an adaptive reuse because it was originally an electrical parts distribution company. They made parts there, but they also used it as a showroom and they sold it to the big three. And so it was really interesting that that's what it was. And when Habitat actually bought the building and moved in, they really didn't do much to it other than, hey, we've got this big space. Let's figure it out. And so in the conversations with the director of Habitat for Flint, basically was just like, help me figure out what I can do with this building.

31:42Evan Troxel: Like, you know, how do I use this building? Right. Because it's just a mess right now. And so that's when they can start to ask the questions about like, you know, what does this organization serve? And then, you know, understanding that and then, you know, like starting to pull like all of these other different things. How do you use the building? How do you work? If this building wasn't the building that you had, how do you work? You know, idealize, you know, versions of things and stuff. So they can really understand, you know, what it is that, you know, the building, you know, really needs.

32:14Evan Troxel: but learn it from the people who use it.

32:18Cormac Phalen: The other interesting aspect to projects like this, and it's not just limited to projects like this, but it's like the funding story, right?

32:24Evan Troxel: Because the funding story is creative as well,

32:28Cormac Phalen: typically with these social services and special use case projects. It's so interesting. It's like grants and community fundraising and there's so many versions of that story. And I think that's also important for architects to really understand is that business side, the funding side, because the project doesn't happen if that doesn't happen. Right. And and so to even be able to get involved. How many times have you been on a project where you're putting together renderings in the story of a project that isn't have money yet? Exactly. So facilitate that process. Right. Right. And get board approvals and do all the things, all the red tape and the bureaucracy that it takes to get to the point where there's even a project.

33:15Cormac Phalen: Right. That's a really interesting thing, I think, for a lot of these kinds of projects as well.

33:20Evan Troxel: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, new year, new, you know, newish program. New year, new you. You know, it's one of, it's, it's that, it's the evolution of, it's like, you know, we want to, we want to let you guys know that we're listening to you. We want to evolve this into a program that, you know, obviously it's something that you can learn, you know, the most from. And that we can contribute to, you know, your education as best as we can. And so I'm kind of excited. This is, I mean, I've, yeah, I've been excited every semester. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, this one is one of those. It's just like, yeah, I think we're finally, you know, we've, we've kind of dialed it in, you know, and this is the first time that we're kind of testing out like all of the different input that we've received and all of the, you know, and then we sat down several times during the summer and kind of like reviewed the program and then, you know, talked about, you know, like what we want to actually see and accomplish out of this.

34:16Evan Troxel: And it was a, a really good kind of like collaboration of, of ideas and thoughts. And so I think that, you know, like I said, I'm really excited about like this particular semester. So nice.

34:29Cormac Phalen: Yeah.

34:30Evan Troxel: And the first football game of the season for the good old, you know, agricultural university here, a.k.a. Auburn, is, you know, us against Baylor. Go Tigers. Or as Evan would say, go sports ball. Go sports.

34:51Cormac Phalen: Do the thing.

34:52Evan Troxel: shoot the home run shoot but yeah so that and then you know if you want to ask me what other things have been happening well I know

35:05Cormac Phalen: they weren't architecture related some of the things you got to enjoy a Foo Fighters concert I did it's been a while yeah

35:15Evan Troxel: what was interesting getting to see interestingly enough getting to see the architecture behind like stage stage design you know in the whole

35:29Cormac Phalen: like concert design the whole production side of that is so fascinating when you're when you're there in the the venue and you're just like you because you notice that kind of stuff i notice that kind of stuff it's like whoa there's so much involved in this and then an act as big as that There's probably more than one set of all that stuff because they have to rotate cities. They have to like leapfrog each other. So quickly too, yeah. And it's just like, whoa, the logistics side of that whole thing is another level as well.

36:03Evan Troxel: And then it's like, so, you know, I saw, so like the concert in Detroit was the second in the North American tour. and then I think immediately after that they were going to like Cleveland or something like that and you know obviously it was in the next couple of days so you're absolutely right most likely they had a a repeat they already might have even more than two right they might have three or yeah exactly yeah and but what was interesting is so then you know you see clips and stuff from you know the the Cleveland show or Chicago show or whatever and it's just like not only do they have like this, you know, the stage and the stage setup and everything else are probably replicated and stuff, but like the actual performance itself, it's just like, Hey, he said that at our concert and he used that same joke at our concert.

36:57Evan Troxel: And you know, it's just like, right. The repetition involved, the repetition involved. It's just like, you know, Hey, he used the joke of like, you know, if you don't know. So he, he did use one joke where, you know, he was just like, you know, Hey, all you young bleepity bleeps you know if you don't know the if you don't know the words to this song it was like they were playing like maybe something from like their first album or second album or something like that if you don't know the words to this song just look to your left or right ask your dad he'll know you know and and sure enough like you know now granted my daughter who went with me she's a Foo Fighter fan you know she she actually you know you didn't have to drag her there didn't have to drag in fact actually i i told my wife i'm like you know hey you know i was able to get you know two two tickets to the foo fighters and my daughter immediately just didn't even miss a beat she just looked over at you know her mom and she was just like dibs sucks for she was like

37:54Cormac Phalen: sucks for you she was just like wow so entitled dang so entitled yeah but so she just basically ditched her mom to the you know kicked her mom to the curb and said you know i'm going she should got three tickets, Cormac. Actually, you're the fall guy here. Yeah, well, they were free, man. Man, that's amazing. I'm not going to show some free tickets. I've seen that band a few times, and it does not disappoint. It's really great.

38:25Evan Troxel: It does not disappoint. And there was one that, there was one part of the show where, you know obviously they kind of do this like you know introduction it's just like if you're new to the foo fighters or you're young or whoever and you don't know who we are you know let us kind of introduce ourselves and now this was like i don't know like maybe 14 songs into the concert you know when they did that and you know so but then what they did which i loved this actually was it's like you know what we're gonna do is you know we're gonna you know we're gonna introduce this person but we're gonna play a song from the band that they were in before they joined the foo fighters yeah and it was really kind of cool and so you know they had you know one guy who was their keyboardist and i don't know their names other than dave so you know whatever to everybody you know but you know so so like their keyboardist you know he's just like he was in the wallflowers and you know so they played you know one head light you know and you know like all these other things And then there was a guy, you know, who I do know his name, but I'm blanking on it right now, but he was from the Germs.

39:34Evan Troxel: And so they played a Germs song. Yeah. Thank you. And so, you know, and then they just played, you know, a variety of different ones. And so one of the ones that, one of the songs that they played, so like the new drummer, he, the band that he was in, he was actually like, I guess the lead guitarist in that band. Okay. So did he come out and play lead guitar? So he came out and played lead guitar, and Dave went to the drums. And I'm going to tell you this right now, Dave seemed a little winded.

40:10Cormac Phalen: He's earned that. He's definitely earned it. He's definitely earned it. I mean, did he rock it?

40:16Evan Troxel: Absolutely. I'm sure he didn't play the drums lightly. Oh, no, he did not play the drums lightly. Was he a little haggard?

40:23Cormac Phalen: Yeah, he was a little haggard.

40:24Evan Troxel: but it was was it you know was it a rock and roll show man was it a rock and roll show and

40:30Cormac Phalen: the amount of energy night after night after night is incredible incredible exactly yeah the one thing that was like completely just bewildered by is he so he came out and they

40:46Evan Troxel: started playing and all this other stuff and you know everyone's a great while he'd either like like douse himself with water to kind of cool himself off, or it just looked like he was sweating. And then he'd, you know, keep playing and all this other stuff. And then the camera would go back to him and was like, how is dude dry?

41:03Cormac Phalen: Like he was literally just soaking wet. He was a heater.

41:07Evan Troxel: It looked like he was in a, you know, wet t-shirt contest. Wow. And now he's dry. Okay.

41:14Cormac Phalen: How does that work? So was this an outdoor concert, indoor? What was it?

41:18Evan Troxel: It was at Ford Field, which is a domed stadium. And so, you know, indoors and air conditioning for, you know, all of us good old folks. I looked over. I know, right? You know, hand dump. And I looked at, like, of course, the entire stadium has got seats, right? So everybody has a seat. Did everybody sit in those seats?

41:41Cormac Phalen: No.

41:41Evan Troxel: They didn't sit in those seats. That's a standing concert. They stood up. Exactly. did you know the old one that you're talking to right now sit down

41:49Cormac Phalen: damn right I did

41:50Evan Troxel: like you know what I don't need to keep standing here right

41:57Cormac Phalen: oh hey look could you see over the people in front of you when you were sitting I actually

42:02Evan Troxel: there was like a there they all are you know and if I needed you know if I wanted to like take a photo or something like that you know So I would get up and, you know. Funny. And then, of course, since I've got long arms, I could, you know, get over the top of everybody's heads.

42:20Cormac Phalen: So Dave Grohl's got to be similar age to maybe older. 57. Okay. So he can stand and play guitar and drums all night long. What's up? Give me a break.

42:32Evan Troxel: Yeah. I love it. Was he in combat? I don't think he went to combat. Yeah. He doesn't have the PTSD or the combat injuries. i mean you know i'm pretty sure that he might have some ptsd from being in nirvana there's some there's some rough nights you know i'm sure he actually so for his song he he played a nirvana song that he wrote and it was you know kind of exceptional i mean hey blinking on it now but it was just which what he played but it was just it was it was really good i'm gonna have to

43:07Cormac Phalen: look that up i bet i bet someone's got video of it online that's cool yeah and one of the

43:13Evan Troxel: interesting things was is so there were certain songs that my daughter wanted to listen to and we realized this when we were at a neil young concert that we were that you know we just kind of like looked up the set list and there's apparently a set list.com or set list like head.fm or whatever it's called but oh right right right and it actually will say what the set list

43:35Cormac Phalen: is and sure every concert every night everywhere it's just incredible yeah yeah yeah and it was

43:43Evan Troxel: just you know so they played i think foo fighters played like three hours you know it was yeah it was it was it was it was a long one they played tributes to taylor but you know they they did that and it was it was it was it was amazing and you know it was it was a lot of storytelling which I like that, especially with bands who've been around that long. You know, you actually kind of get a little bit of like storytelling. It's like, you know, when you're sitting around with a bunch of architects and you're like, oh, yeah, I remember that project. It took me like 10 years. And then, of course, the story about that 10-year project is going to probably take about 10 years as well.

44:21Evan Troxel: Which, by the way, you know, I'll be telling this.

44:25Cormac Phalen: You know, it's funny.

44:27Evan Troxel: We're on year 14. so year four i started the project that's now 10 years old i should go back and listen should probably go back and listen to some of like you did i even you know yeah although we didn't even talk about it back then well it was too new but you know i also rarely ever actually talked about projects and sort of still don't you know um some of them are because you know not that they're NDA or anything. It's just, yeah, just protecting clients or, or whatever, or whoever. And so I don't really talk about that. I kind of give a lot of hypotheticals, which I have many people who've worked on some of those projects.

45:10Evan Troxel: They're like, yeah, I know you're not talking about it, but guess what? You're talking about it. Yeah.

45:17Cormac Phalen: Yeah. How can you not? Exactly. That's what happens.

45:20Evan Troxel: It is, it is that life experience right comes with the territory of great podcast about architecture

45:26Cormac Phalen: exactly yeah well i'm glad you had some fun this summer yeah i'm trying to think if i had any fun this summer i've been working my booty off so it's coming to mind right now working you working

45:37Evan Troxel: your booty off so like i don't know what you're sitting on right now maybe you know just standing

45:42Cormac Phalen: because you have no butt yeah a standing desk yeah yeah so i'm in the middle of not even in the middle yet, but I'm in this nine episode series on my other podcast that I planned out earlier this year. And now I'm like deep in the production of, and it's all about like where the next version of the technology stack in architecture firms is going, what's here, where it's going, where it's been. And it's very different than the normal episodes where I talk with one person like we do here. I'm actually talking with like 10 people and then cutting up those interviews into pieces and stitching them all together into these stories and then putting them out over three episodes each.

46:27Cormac Phalen: And oh man, it's a lot. It's a lot. So it's like every episode is like a documentary.

46:33Evan Troxel: That's actually cool.

46:35Cormac Phalen: It's kind of like what you're doing with your students, right? It's like breaking it up and divide and conquer, but I'm the only divider and conqueror. But I've been recording, I think I'm up to like 24 interviews that are all stitching together to make this stuff. That's interesting. And I'm not ready to talk about it yet because I just can't even. You know, it's like. You're still trying to like wrap your whole mind around like just what it is anyway. And it's funny because like I've recorded all those and I'm now editing them together into those composites. Right. And I still, like, it's just there's so much there.

47:18Cormac Phalen: And there's so many other pieces that I have to create and promote and do all of this stuff to make it all work that I can't take a step back and actually appreciate it right now, you know, and even talk about it as, like, what it is. But the ultimate goal is to really make a resource for our industry, for our profession, you know, because it goes beyond our profession. It's kind of AEC, but it's to create something that is useful for firms to navigate a pathway forward because it's very difficult when the project is the thing that you're thinking about all the time, right? Right, right. Yeah.

47:59Cormac Phalen: I think I'll leave it right there for now, but that's what I've been – this has consumed my summer. So another reason we haven't gotten together for a while to record is just like you're traveling. Okay, this week. Okay, then the next week it's the opposite. I can't do it. And you're sitting at home, right? Yeah, exactly.

48:19Evan Troxel: Yeah. Well, sorry for everybody to keep you waiting, but, you know, we're back. We're going to be chatting more. And, you know, if once heaven, you know, his head comes above water, we'll talk a little bit more about his.

48:31Cormac Phalen: Once I grow my booty back, yes. Yeah, would you be a booty back? There you go. That's how it feels. Maybe someday. All right. Well, until next time, thanks for the update on school. I'm excited to hear where it goes. It's going to be a good fall. It is going to be a very good fall.