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

28:13You want to get a lot more. And so we said, okay. I went back to Nightingale's strategies and she had ideas about a window placement and size. She had ideas about how big the floor plate or the kind of plan or the room could be. And all of those things are this relationship, which create air management, airflow. And if we introduce that back into this modern hospital in Rwanda, could we actually reduce infection rates and create not only a comfortable space, a beautiful space on this hilltop that looks at this incredible view.

28:45Shane Gillis:I will say, I checked out your portfolio. I was trying to dig up at least one stinker. Really nice, dude. I was like, damn, it was, what was it that? Not Masso, Amma. Amma, yeah. Amma. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stuff looked crazy, man. Thanks, bro. Really, for real. I was just, I was like, there's got to be one in here. He's like, what the hell is it? I was like, damn, this shit is awesome. We don't put the stinkers on the website. So what was the tech level in the hospital in Rwanda? You're talking like you had just open windows where there was a breeze just coming through, right? Pretty low tech, you know, but there's simple, simple metrics, size of windows, size of room.

29:21And then this is key, high ceilings, what we call the upper room. Yeah. Where the airflow is up. And then we, there's this great Kentucky company outside of Louisville called Big Ass Fans. You know, this group. It's awesome. Sounds enough.

29:34Shane Gillis:That sounds awesome. And we found them and they create these huge ceiling fans. So I wrote to big ass fans. I said, would you guys ever think about donating, helping us put these big ceiling fans in these open wards? And they were like on board. That's awesome. So we had this big ass fans. Shout out to big ass fans. Shout out to big ass fans. And it's hilarious too, because we had all these t-shirts, all these dudes, construction workers wearing big ass fan t-shirts. Like no idea what this meant. It's hilarious. That's really funny. So we had this big airflow, kind of goes slow, but because they're big, they get a lot of airflow.

30:08Shane Gillis:We have one in the Austin airport. That's just like a massive metal fan. I might be a big ass fan. That might be a big ass fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll have to look when I'm walking through there because it gets air up, a lot of air up, but it doesn't, you don't have the speed that creates a lot of, let's say, cools you down, actually. So it gets the room up. It gets the air up into the upper room. And then up there, we had UVGI lights, ultraviolet germicidal radiation lights. It cleans the air up there. Yeah. And then it moves out. So just the simple strategies actually created enough air changes per hour that we needed without having to bring in big mechanical systems.

30:46That's awesome. And it kind of changed the way I think about buildings. I started to say, you know, buildings have to breathe. Yeah. They allow us to breathe. You know, they're actually working with us, actually. So our ability to breathe clean air is predicated on the spaces we're in, actually, because we spend most of our lives in these spaces. And that's a critical measure of our health and our comfort and our ability to live.

31:12Shane Gillis:Yeah. And why is it that the buildings are not? Why aren't we thinking about buildings as this, like a series of lungs or a filter of the outside to the inside, more than just the spaces that we're in and we're forced to have? Yeah, keep it cold and keep it cool and all that stuff. Yeah. so that was interesting that is pretty i i really do i think it goes back to just like you know medieval peasant mentality where it's like all right we're gonna build if we build stuff for the general population it's just let's just build it be happy you have it it's it's not gonna help you in any way it's not gonna be good for you but just shut up and just deal with it because that's i think that's why like hospitals really do suck so there's some of that truth yeah it's like the bare minimum well it's almost just unthinkable to be like let's let's make this nice because everyone's like, shut up.

31:56Shane Gillis:Be glad you have anything at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. And there's that inequality of space, that kind of indignity of environments that we live in, that we don't deserve spaces that not just treat us correctly or treat us well, but also inspire us or give us a sense of awe. I mean, I think if you go back to the kind of medieval period, you have a great distinction, right? You have maybe terrible environments that you live in in homes, So your hovels or something like that. Yeah. They just like butcher animals and throw them right outside. There you go. You have terrible spaces that are not clean, cleanly and maybe not inspiring.

32:32And then you go to the cathedral. Yeah. And the cathedral is like one of the most awe inspiring things you've ever seen. Yeah. And so they were using architecture and its greatest ability to like inspire awe to remind us that like, you know, there's these greater powers that are above us that you should be inspired by. and they give you a kind of purpose. So in a way, every day the public is going in between the conditions of the ordinary and the conditions of the inspiring at some moments in their life. Like I'm sure each of us has an architectural memory that they could tell a story about. It's one of the reasons I wrote this book.

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34:14Shane Gillis:Experience I had or... You know what it was for me? What was it? You probably actually know this the egg in albany oh yeah the egg i performed in the egg and i'll be honest that that was awesome yeah what was it about the egg that it's just fucking cool i was in an egg i don't know it was just i was in like a circular completely circular building there dude josh please pull up a picture of the egg in albany it was uh yeah also are you familiar with albany yeah because then they have those like government buildings it looks like evil yeah they have those like breads like brutalist i guess they have those like very like you you like come over whatever highway that whatever road that is and you see this like egg-shaped building looming in the distance that thing that big concrete satellite dish looking thing but then there's those buildings to the left corner yeah it almost looks like they at nighttime they stick up and it looks like like the evil empire out of star wars and honestly too i don't i don't think anyone will people probably know but they're like federal buildings yeah that i don't i couldn't really get an answer from people like what's actually in them they're like i don't know yeah it's like state office buildings yeah and the clearance you need like not military clearance when you pull in it's like very very restrictive like who can go in there you need all these credentials so yeah that was the picture right there josh memorable right yeah that one stuck with me i just remember pulling up like why did they do this it looks terrible the egg was cool the buildings behind it were like scary like literally scary looking yeah and they're so different than the the structures around them which is historic 19th century buildings yeah yeah that period of time in the in the in the 60s with urban renewal dollars was a big moment of like big heroic visionary and kind of sometimes like really missed the mark yeah well so do you are you uh josh you pull up the guild house in philadelphia are you familiar with the guild house i'd show show me the guild house yeah so i know the guild house yes of course the ugliest architecture yes it's the ugliest building this is what i didn't realize that that was designed purposely someone made this place i said pass it every day the guild house it's actually kind of irritated me yeah that place it's on i don't know like eighth and spring garden somewhere but that was designed by an architect which i i get the idea was like let's not like clash with the existing neighborhood let's give it something that like we kind of fit in yeah but that was for basically low-income senior citizens and he was like let's just like purposely make this thing look almost like kind of like run down and then he had a big satellite dish on the top of it they had to remove yeah Because that was like an insider joke.

36:39Shane Gillis:Like, these guys are just sitting there for the rest of their life watching TV all day in this shitty building, and then they took this satellite dish off. That was also in the 60s as well. That was Robert Venturi. What the hell? What was that? Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Philadelphia architects, I actually write about them a little bit in the book. They really championed what became post-modernism and using kind of signs and symbols in architecture to signal a kind of language so that you read. He actually defended the guild house as ugly architecture, that you would read the ugly and it could be ordinary and okay.

37:16Shane Gillis:I mean, this guy's got to knock it off. Yeah, yeah. Just give him nice rooms and some ceiling. These are low-income guys in Philadelphia trying to finish their years out. It's a very kind of populist thing, but it's also – there's so many Venturi Scott Brown structures that really miss the mark and our kind of hideous architecture and they but they're kind of obsessed with the ordinary yeah like they they they were obsessed with las vegas they went to las vegas and created an entire theory around uh the buildings on the strip yeah there were just boxes with big signs okay you know and they were saying you know there's something about this we should think about as like a vernacular american architecture where we care about the sign but we don't care about what's behind the sign i don't fully agree with that i don't even know what they're talking about i feel like the oh is that the old strip in vegas the old strip yeah so it's not like the flamingo they have like pink but was he i don't even understand that it looks insane you go to vegas it does not look ordinary whatsoever no now they're now now emblematic yeah emblematic of like little mini venice or a little mini uh yeah you know new york city or whatever was the old strip that plane what year was this this was the 60s it was just a big neon sign okay yeah yeah so what the hell okay so yeah and I still don't get what he's talking about I think what they were saying cool yeah that you know we're attracted to the symbol and the sign and the eat here and come in here but once you get inside it can be like every other building okay and um that's why that That we should focus on the language, if you want to use it, or the symbol that wraps the building and not care so much about the experience inside.

38:55And, of course, that flies in the face of a lot of other architectural theorists who would say, like, the thing should be interrelated. Yeah. But it was an interesting and provocative theory, which definitely changed, you know, changed the way that architects started to focus on what it looks like from the outside.

39:11Shane Gillis:I mean, here's the thing. And, again, I've never studied architecture. but if I had a guess, if I was going, all right, what would I, if I'm like a 75 year old dude who's lived in Philly my whole life and now I'm in a low income housing, just give the guy like a slightly higher ceiling. Fuck, this is high ceilings. This is nice. Totally. Hitting them with the high concepts, especially being like it's shitty on purpose. Shitty on purpose. Come on, man. When I read that, I was like, what the fuck? It's very patronizing. It is. It's very shitty. It's very mean to be like, Like these guys, give them something shitty.

39:42Shane Gillis:We'll put a big satellite dish on the top. Yeah, I also felt like they never, you know, I critique it a little bit in the book, which is to say like, you know, there's also a reason why you have these big signs in Vegas at the time. It's because you're trying to capture the most capital. You're trying to get the people to buy what they have. You want the louder and louder sign. So there's an economic driver behind that investment that has nothing to do with the experience one has and the desire one has to like be in a space for a long period of time. casinos are freaked out because it's like they're purposely designed to be disorienting but kind of just leave you just like don't leave me you literally can't figure out how to get out of there yeah they're labyrinthine yeah no clocks pumping in air so you stay awake yeah oh do they do that totally oh god it's terrible terrible well okay so okay so in architect school this is one of my prepared questions at what point in architect school do they teach you how to effectively blame everything on the contractors it's the first it's lesson number one yeah yeah it is nice it's a nice thing to be able to do well trust me when you work with the contractors they're blaming everything on the architect i know i know it's like it's literally vice versa it's like this it is actually constructed as this completely adverse relationship from the beginning yeah you have the big ideas and they're getting everything done well looking at your blue they're looking at the plans you're on this is yeah we made some changes because this you can't even do this they don't know what it's like and if i've seen it a million times yeah that's what was so interesting about working in you know working in rwanda because they didn't have they didn't we didn't have an architect per se i was i was working with the team but they had a builder this guy bruce and his a and he had these shops where he was making every piece of furniture making window details making they're making coffins for the hospital i mean making everything had metal shop and wood shop and and i was like oh this is amazing like you're actually working interrelated with the builder we're going to build it together we're going to design it together we're going to test it together yeah and so there was that that relationship that adverse relationship never i didn't learn through that right i learned how to like work directly in relationship with those who were going to make it because we could make it right on site which is sort of something you don't have access to here where everything is imported yeah you know and that was a really unique experience yeah that's kind of but there is this moment where you say okay architects have have this position on high and we create the great ideas and then everyone else has to surrender to that.

42:07And I think that kind of, again, patronizing position is completely, it recreates the idea that only some get access to architecture and architects and that we all have to live and suffer through these terrible spaces in our lives instead of trying to figure out how to, how to solve and fix the things.

42:23Shane Gillis:I was, I was reading, I've been reading this guy's, trying to read his book. It's really hard to read, but he, it's called After Virtue. It's like a real dense philosophical book by Alistair McIntyre. And he was talking about his, part of his thing was like, we need to go back to like engaging in practices for the sake of the practice rather than the external reward, which is like a nice thing to think about. And, but then he was like talking about like, okay, he had to find what a practice was. So he was like, architecture is a practice. And like, what about bricklaying? He's like, not a practice.

42:54Shane Gillis:He's like, that's just part of art. That's just a part of architecture. It was kind of a snobby take. He was like, there's nothing to be had internally by being a good bricklayer. You're just a subset of the practice of architecture. Oh, yeah, I don't agree with that at all. Yeah, he caught a lot of flack for it, honestly. Pretty kind of a snobby take. Yeah, it is. I think one of the things I learned is people ask, how do you define what a more beautiful building is versus another? And I say, if you can tell a story about the building, if you can communicate why it is the way it is, and often that can be through how it's made.

43:27So the craft of making the building. I've worked with these stonemasons who, we worked together on making this really beautiful stone wall out of this volcanic rock. Very nice. In the ground. And it's like, oh, this is about, they made every single edge of every single rock. It was handcrafted. And I'm like, you can see the thousands of hours and all the hand stone cutting that was going on inside. And you can see this incredible thing they created which will stand the test of time. And in that is the story for generations. I made that stone wall. Yeah. Like my great, great grandfather was a stonemason from Ireland came up to the Hudson Valley.

44:03That's why we were there. He came to build these estates that were made out of these like river stones. You know, I had this Irish stone, you know, usually breathable stone too. There you go. Breathable stone.

44:15Shane Gillis:Very breathable stones. Yeah. I, that's the thing. It's, it is a funny thing to say, because I think stonemasonry is almost like a very, it's, it is kind of an art. You have to like take the stone, know how to actually cut them and where to place them and how to call you know but they're not like all the same color it's not like a store i mean you see this in like especially in japan where there's such a reverence for the tradition of craft you know wood woodworking and and masonry and everything and and we've lost a lot of that yeah but i think reverting to that having that pride in what's made back to my own experience working on my own home like having to sand and work on every piece of wood and you know you get really intimate with the material and the making of a room or a floor and it reminds you that lots of hands have touched this thing over time lots of people have worked on this to keep it alive and um there's a sort of reverence uh to being part of that long relay race of people creating spaces that protect us that is nice man especially i used to i used to paint houses and i just changing the color of a room would make me so happy when I would finally finish the last coat and look at it and be like it's just it was such a joy I'd be like this is such a nice it was just a nice feeling yeah having that kind of finished thing you can imagine it taking on new life yeah now let me ask you this that being said as an architect you ever find yourself when meeting a contractor for the first time genuinely wondering like what hellhole did this illiterate freak crawl out of you don't have to answer that this is a funny question so i mean i i actually i mean i will say i have a lot of i have a lot of reverence for people who make things you know because it's it's not there they are it's not easy it's it's one of i would i would say uh because a lot of my family did construction growing up and it's like it's one of i sort of got it's one of the hardest it's i think it's one of the most fun jobs is you're different places all the time like i really love that part of it but then it's like it's hard work.

46:12Shane Gillis:It kind of destroys your body over time, depending on what you're doing. And then you have to go collect, you have to go chase your money down. So you're actually working, and then there's a whole other part of the job where you have to go like, hey, pay me for that thing I did. People are like, meh. Yeah, you're at risk. Yeah. Yeah, and I think what's fascinating about being a builder or a contractor is you can kind of see the whole system. You take on all this risk. You're trying to budget a future thing that may go over budget. You know, you're assembling all sorts of teams of labor. Yeah. You know, you're trying to bring in folks, people you trust, people you don't know, and get this thing done on, you know, you're future-proofing.

46:49I hope it'll take this long.

46:50Shane Gillis:I hope the weather will, you know, allow me to do it. And you're also managing, like, honestly, when I would do construction, a huge, not all, but a sizable portion of the workforce would be, like, ex-convicts. Sure. not yet convict you know you're dealing with you're dealing with a fucking pretty big you're organizing a pretty rough version you know rough squad usually and it's like it's you know it's it's it's definitely a different beast altogether it's good work hard work it is yeah i always worked i worked mostly in food service but every same thing it's the same exact every weekend grinding out like the amount of veg amount of peppers i cut and onions i cut you know prepping for this uh at this place I worked all through high school.

47:33You know, it's like, I get it. Like, you know, but you, at the end of a day, you know, you crack a beer, you look at what you did, you see the next day and you're really proud of it. And that kind of is a really powerful thing. And when the architect is, I think, put, removed from that process and on a perch, you know, build this vision, I think it's a complete disconnect into like the world around us and why it matters. It's the people that make it that actually matter.

47:58Shane Gillis:Yeah, no, I agree. It is, you know. so when you so you gave the ted talk your ted talk was like it was a huge ted talk am i is that oh you know it was a while ago it was a while ago we got we got you know it did well it did well but that you also gave ted a ted talk in the golden age of ted talks that was a good time yeah that's what i'm saying i i used to remember like if someone gave a ted talk like you know what was that like 13 years ago maybe you did or i did it yeah like in 15 so like that was 11 years ago. That was the golden age. Was that before TEDx? Because they watered down the sauce a little bit.

48:32I think it was like simultaneous, but it wasn't. TEDx was starting to happen then. TEDx was starting. Don't quote me totally. But it was like, there was some TEDx happening like around then. But there was, you still did a 13-minute talk where I think they now have like a six-minute talk or something. Okay.

48:47Shane Gillis:What was it like giving a TED talk? I always wanted, I don't know anyone who's given one. So I'm always curious what that experience is like. I mean, I kept, I always described it as like high school theater. You know, it was like when I did plays in high school, you know, and you had to like remember all the words. And I was like, it was closest thing to theater. So you had a little training. So you were able to do. Yeah. You know, I put the presentation together. I'm working with this coach, Chi Perlman. She's amazing. And working through the story. and she would always you know architectures we always talk about buildings yada yada yada like we just talked about the guild hall and like you get a little highfalutin but she was always bringing back down a narrative it was really meaningful for me to say okay people are going to respond to the story of actually what your dad got sick and this building changed and we're like other people that's that's what people care about yeah and i hadn't seen architects really describe buildings in a narrative way that would like reach people and so working on it with her and then memorizing it and then like you know i was like doing jogs and like saying it out loud and all this stuff like that like freaking people out around me i remember i was like in the treadmill in the basement of the hotel and like this crazy moment like in front of me is because ted attracted all these people right so uh in front of me is al gore on the treadmill running right and next to me is chelsea clinton on the treadmill running you know i don't know if they really want to see each other but there was a big mirror where you could sort of all see each other.

50:20And I'm running between Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore speaking the Ted talk out loud, you know, freaking everybody out.

50:27Shane Gillis:What did they, what did Gore and Clinton, did they even look at you or are they just. Oh, and they didn't look at each other either. Cause I think it was a little bit of history, a little history there, but that's the kind of, that's that weird ecosystem. Who was putting on harder work? Who was putting in harder work on the treadmill? Good question. I don't, you know, I think it was me. I was doing the hardest. You're fucking crushing it. I would have definitely pace matched Clinton and Gore if I was between them. You're like seven, eight. Incline. Yeah, incline. Oh, yeah, for sure. You know me.

50:54Shane Gillis:Eight, 30 seconds, back down to four. Yeah, so, I mean, that was interesting. But it was, I would say, you know, after it was finished, I got a lot of really interesting, I mean, great feedback. And people wrote to me these cold emails that were like, I want to tell you the story of my house that I worked on with my dad. or I want to tell you a story of the school I went to that was like really weird and why was it that way or and I started getting all these like everyday reflections on the architecture and the buildings that matter to people and I think it was from that ted talk experience and the response that it got from being about stories right that I was like I have to write a book that actually gets people to tell their stories you know that's why I wrote this book which was to say let me tell you about architecture in our world not the architecture you should go to not the 10 buildings you should go to in your lifetime and your bucket list it's not what this book is this book is like why do hospitals matter why do houses matter why do prisons matter yeah why does the workplace matter like how do we build a language that we understand and evaluate the spaces that we're foisted into so that we can start reflecting back and you send me those i want to hear those stories i want to hear from your readers your listeners like hey man i had this crazy experience in this building it changed my life or i had this terrible experience it changed my life and that's where as an architect you gain the most knowledge actually yeah yeah i was i was just talking to my friend before i came here about cubicles and how like i think they're a thing in the past now i didn't realize that it's more now like the open floor concept yeah but the cubicles is like a pretty dastardly design i write about the cubicle in the book do you really yeah there's a book there's a chapter on the workplace on our on i start with factory yeah but then there was this guy at uh at this furniture company named herman miller which famous furniture company in michigan this guy named propst and he designed the modern office cubicle did he really yeah and it was like this vision of like creating all these systems that could be plug and played and grow and evolve in the modern workplace it's kind of a visionary system idea and later in his life he complained you know he said look my big idea of this of the cubicle has been has been destroyed what was his original idea well it was that you could create like a good enough workplace that could adapt and change and evolve with the the needs of the company and yeah and there's some there's some beauty into that there's a there's a beauty into creating this adaptable system that's better than the average yeah but what happened is of course it created this kind of the office space scenario you know the sort of banal the horrible the the sitting in a basement, the living in a cubicle kind of environment.

53:32And so you have both maybe the aspiration of it and also the use of it.

53:38Shane Gillis:That was Adam Smith had a quote about factories in general. He's like, dude, if we can give everyone just one mindless task all day, every day, they'll fly off into these like heightened flights of fancy and they'll come up with like the next great thing. And it was just like, no, they kind of just stare at the wall. Stare at the wall. That is funny when, yeah, I mean, it's a cool idea and concept, but it's like, Yeah, it's not the case. Yeah, it's use, and when it was deployed, it created a lot of terrible conditions that people then fought against. But then the open work plan is also not great either.

54:09People get into their headphones and do their Zoom calls, and you're like—

54:13Shane Gillis:You almost want the walls, and I thought about that too. It's like I might want to retreat to the walls of the cubicle. You put me at a table with like four people. Yeah, there's like an imperfect— You try to figure out how to work well together and also have heads-down work, and that we haven't fully figured out. I mean the full Zoom office work is not a great environment. We have no socialization. We have no way to be together in person. You know what, I've talked to people who do kind of like more office stuff and there's been a lot of people after COVID that are like, I can't wait to go back to the office.

54:42Shane Gillis:I actually want to go back. It sounds cool to be like, nice, I can chill in my house and sweatpants, but then you do that every day. And like, I think there is, like the commute, there's a soul crushing aspect to the commute, but then there's also like shutting your laptop and now you're just in your house and you're like all right yeah just me again still here yeah it's just me yeah still here i'm gonna do we my wife and i call them freedom rides we're like i'm gonna go to the i'm gonna go to the grocery store and do a freedom ride yeah just drive back outside the house go buy some strawberries with linkedin or not linkedin with um with ted the ted talk when you did that did you take like beta blockers or did you just kind of raw dog it i just i just did it raw dog yeah yeah i get a lot A lot of people are talking about beta blockers.

55:26Shane Gillis:Like, you got to take them. I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know. No, I've never. No, I've never taken that. But I'm interested. Tell me why. Tell me why. They say, like, it's like the public speaking kind of like, it's like the cure-all. Oh, is that right? They say it doesn't allow your heart rate to rise, basically. So, like, you, like, they say you, like, can't actually experience the physical symptoms of anxiety. Again, I've never tried it. I should have taken a bunch today. True. True. Yeah, three coffees might not be that move. Three coffees. yeah no I didn't do anything like that but I did you know I did practice a lot like theater you know it's like I felt ready but you're ready to go I'll tell you man there was this uh there was one dude who they called the step on the red circle this one guy went out there had a had a talk to give and he just went blank he just went blank and everyone in the crowd was just like is this an act then he sat down everyone stood up and clapped and they stood up he tried to do it again blank it was such a bomb fuck yes it was hard to watch that is tough yeah i do like the guys who go like they banned my ted talk here's my band i kind of like the renegade ted talkers like they banned my shit the so when you gave the ted talk did you get like flooded with like i guess like dms and stuff like what i'm trying to ask is like what are the ba did the babes respond to the ted talk i mean i got a lot of good resp i mean it was mostly like people my mom's age you know who were like okay here we go like you know I've got this you know my son needs a job or like you know I've got this house you know like we're working on my garage you know that kind of thing nothing intriguing yeah so do you jump in from TED talks do you like LinkedIn I kind of said it too early but do you like LinkedIn like what are your thoughts on LinkedIn you know I uh I don't I hadn't used a lot of social media be honest with you right right like years uh but when i kind of went back on it uh recently as i was doing some new work and you know obviously it's a good way to connect but also i'm trying to like you know stay keep my eyes off the phone get off of there like not be too consumed by i was watching you know like all of us like tracking things and seeing people respond and the like button and well linkedin's weird because you get like um you get endorsements so you you say like these are my skills and then you're you know your friends or whoever you're like yeah he's actually great at strategic planning yeah i haven't done any of that stuff because a lot of the work that i'm getting is from relationships you know people i meet or like i have this crazy idea i want to build this weird thing like how do i do that yeah and so instead of applying for jobs or answering rps i'm talking to folks to be like how do i do this crazy the impossible project and try to work with them and figure that out, you know?

58:13Shane Gillis:Yeah, I had a, my LinkedIn profile during, I guess I had completely given up on like a standard career path. So I had a shirtless pick on LinkedIn. Nice. It's kind of nice. A lot of good responses. Yeah, I had written my own skillsets in and they were like kind of graphic sexual acts that I was trying to get people to endorse. I think they might control for that now. Yeah, my LinkedIn was crazy. Maybe that should be my next, should I do that? Bro, go shirtless. you would be that's the power that's for real shirtless linkedin is a power move okay josh can you i have a clip i want to show you this is an architectural question can you pull that up i saw this guy on it he was talking about something specifically he did with his house i kind of want to see your thoughts on this as an architect you bet let me see here is it also while josh gets that i i noticed on uh one of the one of the i guess organizations you're connected to there's a thing called the ellen degeneres campus of diane fossey gorilla fund it's a good name it's It really rolls off the tongue.

59:09Shane Gillis:What is that? Can you, that sounds completely unhinged. What is the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dianne Fossey Gorilla Fund? Yeah, so this was a... Is that a real thing? It's basically, yeah. I worked on this. You worked on the Ellen DeGeneres Dianne Fossey Gorilla Fund? Dianne Fossey Gorilla Fund Center of Care and Trouble. Yeah, no, it's a center for the study and care of gorilla scientists in northern Rwanda. Okay. Basically like where the remaining mountain gorillas live are in this incredible part of the country. And people go there from all over the world to see the mountain gorillas. And you trek up and you, Oh, here we go.

59:52You go with these gorillas, you track them. It's an incredible experience. And so Diane Fossey, which I don't know if you ever saw gorillas in the mist when you were growing up. Oh, really? Did you ever see the movie? I didn't see it, but I know of it. So that's a movie about Diane Fossey. Diane Fossey in the 60s moved to Rwanda what was you know then was also Rwanda sorry was still Rwanda yeah and uh studied the gorillas and brought a lot of attention to them and so her

1:00:16Shane Gillis:and she was killed up there by poachers dang and so this foundation that was set up in her honor continued for 50 years and then they reached out to to my team uh to see if we could help build a new campus for them. That's pretty cool. And I started working on it with them. And, and the first donor came in Ellen DeGeneres, who cares about animals and was like, I'll give the, you know, lead gift, uh, actually her, her wife, Portia gave the lead gift in her honor before Ellen knew. So it was sort of this thing, but you know, the naming rights came with the project. That's pretty cool. So, but it's, what was this, was this prior to her getting kind of skewered by the media for being nasty to her staff?

1:00:56Shane Gillis:It was, uh, that was, what was one of the weaker cancellations I saw? She was like, she's mean. Mean, yeah. I've been on Ellen's side the whole time. Yeah, yeah. She runs a tight ship. Yeah, it was. And she donated to the gorilla fund, dude. People were on her ass. It was right at that same time. Was it really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was sort of her exit plan. She was sort of leaving the show. Yeah. She was putting some into philanthropy. She was funding animal philanthropy. Also, power move. I have a staff of crybabies. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to give$40 million to gorillas, dude. Shut up. I don't even care about you guys.

1:01:32Shane Gillis:Doing the gorilla fun. It was definitely an attempted cancellation. Yeah, but she survived it, I think. And... I think she's fine. You know, she's doing all right. I thought it was weak. I thought being... You can't... Like the... I don't know. I thought that was such a reach to be like, well, she's mean. Yeah. It's like, okay, dude. You're getting into meanness. Yeah. Like boss behavior. Yeah, none of us stand a chance here. Yeah, you're like, you've never been mean before. Bossy pants. Can you... This is the architectural question I had. I actually had me thinking. Oh, yeah. starts to expand.

1:02:00It does. And at one point, you're a trap house. You go to the whole house and put 15 stoves in the house. Absolutely. My vision was huge. I would love to see pictures of this, by the way. Yeah, yeah. My vision was huge. Okay. 15 stoves, four pots each, six cookers, 11 people cooking at once. It was a whole operation. It was a whole operation.

1:02:29Shane Gillis:Definitely an operation. Now, I know you're not an engineer. It sounds like a fire hazard. Is that even feasible? Is that even possible to have? Because I'm trying to figure out if he's capping. Is that possible to have, what do you say, six stoves? Fifteen stoves. Fifteen stoves, excuse me. Is it possible to even do that in terms of like pulling the, I would guess he was in St. Pete's, Florida, in let's say either a row home or a standalone house. Is that what he was in? I think so. I mean, if he was saying he was in an impoverished neighborhood in St. Pete's, Florida, I don't think you could even put 16 stoves.

1:03:08Shane Gillis:I'm not trying to knock the man's trap, but it's like, is that possible? I mean, I guess. If you had to design a trap, how would you go about putting the 16 stoves with 11 cookers? First of all, I'll do 18 stoves. You'll do 18.

1:03:24So you think it's feasible for him to have it in a standard house? You know, if you have a vision. If you have a big, huge vision. That's what I always say. You know, you can find a way.

1:03:33Shane Gillis:Because people are trying to say he's capping. So I was like, I don't know. It sounds kind of like cap, but I figured I'd ask an expert. I'm glad you asked me. Yeah. Do you think he could act genuinely? Do you think he could have put 16 steps? I just am worried about the fire hazard. But, you know, does he have 16 hoods? You know, what's the deal? Doubtful. What's his airflow strategy in there? It should be good. They're cooking crack. I don't know if you put the context. They're cooking crack, so the airflow should be good. It should be very nice. I didn't know. I always love to see a turned-up white boy, but I didn't know.

1:04:03Shane Gillis:I was like, this guy might be full of shit. Yeah, thank you for letting me know. Well, hey, so the book's great. Before you go, we always have our premium subscribers. They write in a question. Would you mind reading it, and then we can discuss the question? Sure, totally. It's just random. Is this my own trap? We're talking about the trap. It's not a trap. They send us questions. The producers select. You grab it literally at random. this is the premium subscriber question i'm a 47 year old married cishet male my wife is 52 and for the better half of her life was a strict lesbian gold star good question we met we met around the time she was going through menopause we were working together at price warehouse cooper one of the big four accounting firms we started on the same team as professional equals mind you We've been working together for five years, and she first struck me as being incredibly mask, which is fine for me.

1:04:59I have great respect for mask ladies, especially how they grind in their workplace, but can still have a good time. That's a nice reflection. It is. Yeah.

1:05:08Shane Gillis:That was actually Joe from Minneapolis. I forgot to put that in there. I've seen it time and time again. But a few years into our professional acquaintance, she underwent something of a transformation from mask to mature femme. Something I learned later was due to a shift in her hormonal profile due to menopause. which I, of course, mentioned earlier. It was around this time that I started developing feelings for her, desiring to be more than just professional teammates, and so I asked her to coffee. One thing led to another, and now we're married. My second, her third, but obviously first with a man.

1:05:38I'm the only man she's ever been with, and she's always filled the role of the more masculine-leaning partner out of all her lesbian relationships. This is something we've done. This is good. I get the architectural substance in this.

1:05:52Shane Gillis:oh it's random it's random it's random they don't know who the guest is going to be of course you want me to finish this please okay thank you this is this is something we've dealt with in couples counseling for almost a year getting something of a resolution basically i had to step up and be more assertive which i learned how to do after taking several online courses i'm excited about the like internet search that's going to happen after this yes long story short things are going really well until just the other night we were arguing about which movie to watch and all of a sudden out of nowhere my wife struck me a stiff backhand across the side of my face I just stood in shock covering my cheek that was warm from the slap I cried and then she cried that's very nice we hugged as she apologized profusely telling me how domestic violence is statistically higher in the lesbian scene highest actually out of all other pairing types oh interesting wonder where the data is from I guess my question is do I forgive her and move on or is this kind of an assault unforgivable?

1:06:48Shane Gillis:That's the question. That's a good question. What do you think of that? I think it's unforgivable, man. I mean, I would meet her where she is, honestly, but I don't know. I'm curious what kind of space they were in. Were they on the couch? Was the home toxic? Was it a toxic home? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. They were in counseling, so it seems like they had help. It's a good question. I'll have to think about it. I mean, they're up there in terms of professionals. They're 50, 40 so it was his third, her fourth. Is that what it was? The marriage? I don't know. They've been there before.

1:07:27Shane Gillis:I actually have heard that it is statistically higher in the lesbian community. Domestic violence is the highest in terms in the lesbian community. That's what I've heard. That I don't know. I don't know either, but I've heard that. We can verify that. Thanks for letting me read that. I'm back to the theater of the TED Talk. given a script. True. So no advice for him? I mean, I think, you know, he should follow his heart as he has. I say forgive, honestly. You know, we all get into difficult positions. True. I say forgive. It's actually bisexual women is what AI says. Have the highest. AI knows.

1:08:04Okay. Yeah.

1:08:06Shane Gillis:Well, sorry to end on a sour note. No, I mean. I just have to do that. They're the premium subscribers. They get to submit questions. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm happy to give them advice. Hopefully they're listening. Maybe what they should do, they should think about the kind of setting of their house. True. Maybe they need a new couch or something. Maybe they need 15 stoves or something like that. Instead of the trap house. Thank you so much. That was a blast. Thank you. Thank you. And one more time, the book, Our World in 10 Buildings. Yeah, the book is Our World in 10 Buildings. Beautiful. It's how architecture defines who we are and how we live.

1:08:42And I hope you pick it up. It's about everyday spaces. It's not about the 10 buildings you want to visit. It's about how the spaces around you might improve our lives a little bit better, a little bit more. And I hope you like it. And thank you for having me on the show. Thank you. Appreciate it.

1:08:54Shane Gillis:Watch new episodes of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast on Spotify. Do it.