Design Development

Pattern District is the product of a vision built patiently over decades. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Northland looked beyond its individual Needham Street properties, acquired two neighboring parcels, and ultimately brought 23 acres together under one plan.

This week on Design Development, Northland's Vice President, Development, Santo Dettore joins Rens to trace the 30-year journey from land assembly and entitlement to design and active construction - and explore how Pattern District is poised to reshape the surrounding Newton community.

Urban design, open space, historic preservation, and sustainability have guided the project from its earliest planning stages. Those four pillars now take shape across a 1.1M square-foot, mixed-use neighborhood with 822 apartments, street-front retail, seven parks, and 12 acres of open space connecting Newton Upper Falls, Oak Hill, and Newton Highlands.

Pattern District’s scale is impressive, but just as remarkable is the discipline required to preserve its vision through decades of planning, extensive public process, changing market conditions, and the practical demands of development. Santo offers a rare look at the decisions, trade-offs, and moments of conviction behind one of Greater Boston’s most ambitious mixed-use developments - and what it takes to carry a vision three decades in the making all the way into construction.

We’re saddened by the passing of Robert A. Danziger, one of Northland’s founders. A lifelong Newton resident, Bob was a dedicated philanthropist, community steward, and visionary leader who raised his family in Newton, built deep roots in the community, and helped shape the foundation of Northland and what is now the Pattern District project today. His legacy will continue for generations.

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

When Jay Connolly stepped into leadership at Connolly Brothers, he became the fifth generation of his family to carry forward a construction firm founded in 1880. After nearly 150 years in business, the company is still shaped by the same forces behind its longevity: family ownership, trusted relationships, deep-rooted ambition, and a willingness to adapt as the industry evolves while staying focused on consistent, high-quality work. 

In this week's conversation, Jay walks Rens through the history of Connolly Brothers, from its early work to its modern portfolio of commercial, industrial, and institutional projects. He discusses leadership succession, navigating the financial crisis and COVID, and why the company's next chapter is not about growth for growth’s sake. For Jay, the priority is consistency: delivering great projects, working with the right clients, and building a firm where people can advance their careers.

Jay also unpacks how Connolly Brothers developed its design-build model and why this delivery method changes accountability. With architecture in-house, his team can move information faster, reduce confusion, manage RFIs more effectively, and maximize alignment across teams. Jay explores the trust required for this model to succeed, highlights the importance of strong subcontractor relationships, and explains why humility is the first quality he looks for when hiring.

Covering succession, family business, leadership, hiring, collaboration, and technology, today’s episode offers a practical look at what it takes to lead a construction company built to last. 

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

Can strict technical requirements and elegant design coexist? Jay Siebenmorgen says yes. As Design Partner at NBBJ, Jay has spent over 30 years working on hospitals, research labs, and higher education buildings — some of the most technically demanding spaces in architecture — and made beauty a non-negotiable.

Jay walks through the exploratory design process behind 325 Binney Street — Moderna's Kendall Square headquarters — including the massing studies, zoning constraints, and the five-story atrium his team fought to carve into a famously deep floor plate. He also talks through Mass General's new Ragon Building, a 1.4-million-square-foot academic medical center more than a decade in the making, and the McLean Hospital project that proves great design doesn't require a big budget — just discipline.

Along the way, Jay gets into what makes institutional design different: buildings that have to function under enormous technical and regulatory pressure while still feeling humane, beautiful, and calming to the people inside them. He also opens up about teaching graduate design studios for over a decade, what mentorship has taught him about running a 650-person firm, and the leap — three years ago — from top designer to partner, and everything that leap forced him to learn that architecture school never did.

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

When James von Klemperer joined Kohn Pedersen Fox, the firm was still early in its story: growing quickly, defining its culture, and creating real opportunity for young architects. Today, the firm has reached 50 years in business, with hundreds of employees across nine global offices, and James has helped carry forward a culture built around authorship, opportunity, and the belief that great architecture is never the work of a single voice.

In this week's conversation, James walks Rens through the moments shaping KPF’s legacy, from its early founders to its expansion into London and Asia, where the firm has designed across some of the world’s densest and most complex cities. He explains how KPF’s work is rooted in connection: between buildings and streets, towers and transit, public space and private development, and architecture and the larger life of the community. This ideology runs through projects like One Vanderbilt in New York, Lotte World Tower in Seoul, Waterline in Austin, and Changi Airport's Terminal 5 in Singapore.

James also shares what it takes to lead a global architecture firm without stepping away from design itself. KPF’s culture, as he describes it, is still shaped by architects who design, lead, teach, debate, and stay close to the forces changing cities around the world. From succession and authorship to AI, agility, public-private partnerships, and the future of urban density, today's episode offers a rare look inside of architecture’s most influential visionaries. 

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

Paul Zeckser didn’t follow the traditional path into construction. He’s not an architect, engineer, or contractor – instead, he built a career in tech. But as the Co-Founder and CEO of LightTable, he is solving one of construction’s most expensive problems: helping project teams catch drawing and coordination issues before they become RFIs, change orders, and delays.

LightTable was built around an issue Paul believes is bigger than effort or attention to detail. Project teams are managing hundreds of drawing sheets, thousands of pages of specifications, and countless cross-disciplinary decisions. Even strong, experienced teams can miss technicalities or miscoordinate details. LightTable uses AI to review drawings and specs during pre-construction, identify errors and omissions, and rank the issues most likely to create costly problems once construction begins.

Before LightTable, Paul spent years building products by getting close to the end user. At HomeAdvisor, this meant learning directly from contractors and understanding where software helped, where it failed, and where the pain points were for the customer. LightTable carries this same approach into their technology: listen closely to your customers, understand their workflows, and develop accordingly.

Inside this week’s episode:

• How LightTable is solving pre-construction risk, not just speeding up document review
• What a missed coordination detail on a multifamily project reveals about the true cost of drawing errors
• The nerve-wracking sales process that Paul says earns clients' trust
• What's next after LightTable’s $22M Series A as they enter the next stage of AI in construction

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

Four years into his architecture career, Stefano Basso returned to school for a Master's in Construction Management.

Not to change professions. 

To better understand how contractors think, what they need from architects, and where friction between the two begins.  

This decision reflects how Stefano has approached much of his work at SV Design: with curiosity about the full project process, not just the architect's role. Today, he is a Principal and Partner, leading the firm's commercial and multifamily practice with a strong focus on affordable housing. 

Stefano has spent nearly his entire career at SV Design, growing with the firm from Intern to Principal. He began in single-family residential design, where his work required close client communication, careful detailing, and an understanding of how design decisions shape the way people live. 

As the firm expanded, Stefano moved into commercial, mixed-use, and multifamily design, where tighter budgets, first-time clients, and a wider variety of project types sharpened his communication skills and exposed him to the competing priorities behind every development. Today, Stefano applies his construction-informed perspective to projects across Massachusetts, from affordable and mixed-use housing to shelters, supportive housing, and other mission-driven work.

Inside this week's episode: 

• Massachusetts's housing shortage, why Stefano traces it to zoning, and what rent control does to the development pipeline
• What SV Design's affordable housing portfolio looks like, and why the timelines that come with it are rarely short
• What Stefano took from his Master's in Construction Management, and the significance of a course in negotiation
• What it means to become a Partner, and how SV Design's ownership is structured today
• How AI is already shifting the architectural environment, and what's still waiting to change

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

Addie Grady has built her career at the intersection of housing, sustainability, and urban development. Today, her expertise is focused on a very specific location: Bunker Hill.

As Senior Vice President and Partner at Leggat McCall Properties, a Boston-based real estate firm with more than $3B in assets developed as principal and an active pipeline of $1.5B, Addie serves as Executive Director of the Bunker Hill Housing Redevelopment - the largest public housing redevelopment in Boston’s history.

Addie began her real estate career in sustainability consulting before joining Leggat McCall as a Development Manager in 2004. After earning her MBA, she spent more than seven years at Wood Partners, deepening her ground-up development expertise across ten residential projects totaling more than 1,800 units and over $500M in development cost. At Pritzker Realty Group, she expanded her portfolio by leading $370M of ground-up development, including 30 Dalton, a 28-story high-rise in Boston’s Back Bay.

Since returning to Leggat McCall in 2019, Addie has led the firm’s multifamily and mixed-use investments. For the past five years, she's been focused on Bunker Hill, leading the massive project into construction and continuing to guide it through future phases. 

Inside this week's episode: 

• Replacing 1,100 affordable homes without depleting housing subsidies, keeping residents on-site while construction progresses around them, and making building-mix decisions 
• Putting up a building shell in four months with prefabricated wall panels, CLT floors, and precast cores, and delivering a nine-story passive house in Boston in roughly half the time it would normally take
• Pivoting from the pre-med path to architecture, and the value discipline built over seven years at Wood Partners
• Managing a project from an owner's perspective, reducing risk, and creating opportunities rather than chasing deals
• Why Boston's multifamily market is under pressure, how construction costs here got so far ahead of the rest of the country, and why rent control would deepen the housing crisis it claims to solve

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

Nick Pasquenza has spent more than 25 years in commercial real estate, leading complex projects and the teams behind them across design, construction, and delivery. Throughout his roles, he has developed a deep expertise in the full arc of urban development, establishing a clear conviction: if you don't understand how buildings are valued, you don't truly understand the impact of the decisions you make. 

Today, Nick serves as the Senior Vice President, Development and Construction at LCOR, a nearly 50-year-old integrated development and investment management firm. He leads their design, engineering, and construction teams across LCOR’s large-scale mixed-use and mixed-income developments, drawing on a career of over 4,000 apartments delivered. 

Nick joins Rens on Design Development to walk through the behind-the-scenes of consistent development success: on their last seven projects, LCOR delivered on time with contingency remaining. The two discuss entitlement risk, preconstruction, contingency discipline, and what 25 years of weaving through roles as a contractor and developer have taught Nick. 

Inside this week’s episode:

• Why slowing down during design can lead to better construction outcomes
• How LCOR structures preconstruction partnerships with general contractors
• Why a firm's delivery track record has become increasingly important in today’s capital market
• How BIM review, schedule analytics, and 3D site capture help catch costly problems earlier
• Entitlement risk, and the importance of a clear approval path

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

Fred Kramer joined ADD Inc. when it was a 15-person operation focused entirely on suburban Boston office buildings. Over the next three decades, he rose to President, blending his business discipline with design ambition. 

Under Fred's leadership, the firm diversified into multifamily housing, higher education, and interior design - scaling into a 250-person multi-sector powerhouse before its acquisition by Stantec in 2014.

Following the acquisition, Fred spent five years at Stantec, ultimately serving as Vice President and East Regional Business Leader for Buildings. Today, through Kramer Consulting (launched in 2020), he helps founders and next-generation leaders navigate succession, transitions, and leadership development. Fred brings the rare perspective of an executive who has expanded a firm from 15 to 250, steered an organization through a major recession, and managed a massive corporate acquisition from the inside.

Inside this week's episode: 

• Transitioning a team into specialized experts and uniting them as a cohesive team
• Unpacking the critical distinction between a business-led practice and a practice-led business
• How building post-occupancy evaluations into fees transforms client relationships
• Structuring ADD Inc. into sector-based business lines
• Fred’s advice for design firm leaders and the unique value he delivers through Kramer Consulting

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.

In 2008, Greg Minott and co-founder Troy Depeiza launched DREAM Collaborative with a clear conviction: architecture, planning, and real estate development should exist under one roof. 

Now, seventeen years later, DREAM stands as Boston's leading minority-owned integrated design and development firm with a portfolio that has transformed neighborhoods across the city. 

Greg joins Rens on Design Development to share the story of his career journey: what it took to build a vertically integrated firm from the ground up, how nearly two decades of mission-driven development have shaped his approach to leadership, and realizing that controlling capital can redefine possibilities for a community.

Greg grew up in Mandeville, Jamaica, and moved to the United States in 1999 to pursue graduate studies at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. After earning his Master's in Architecture and Infrastructure Planning, Greg built his early career at Elkus Manfredi Architects, where he worked on award-winning buildings across Boston before co-founding DREAM in 2008.  

Inside this week's episode: 

• How DREAM's vertically integrated model works in practice, and why controlling capital makes the difference in creating a building serving a community versus one merely sitting in it
• DREAM's landmark mixed-use development in Nubian Square
• Greg's path from Jamaica to Boston, connecting his passion for design to community development, and early mentors
• Co-founding DREAM during the 2008 recession and the cash flow realities of building a firm from scratch
• What a nearly 20-year partnership with co-founder Troy Depeiza has taught him about respect and alignment

Thanks for being part of the Design Development community.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, featuring leaders across real estate, design, and construction.

The goal is simple: learn from how great people think, lead, make decisions, navigate setbacks, and create opportunity.

There is no single path to success.
Careers are not linear.
The lessons are in the story.

Subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversation.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube

Find out more at https://h-o.engineering/podcasts/

Let’s go.