Design Voice Podcast

Pascale Sablan, AIA, is an award winning architect and mentor in New York City. Pascale seeks excellence and humanity in all of her projects while providing a resounding voice for the issues facing women architects and architects of color. She's also only the 315th black female architect to obtain licensure in the US. She has lectured at colleges and universities across the US, is a 2018 AIA Young Architects Award recipient, a past president of the New York Coalition of Black Architects (NYCOBA), and serves on the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) national board as the Northeast Regional Vice President and Historian.

Pascale is currently a Senior Associate at S9 Architecture in New York City. Previously she had been an associate at the New York's FXFOWLE Architects for more than a decade. As a member of FXFOWLE's design team, she contributed to a number of commercial, cultural, and residential projects in the U.S., Asia, and the Middle East.

In this episode, Pascale speaks about her career journey and how she developed her advocacy voice, and shares her candid thoughts about motherhood and the architecture profession. Pascale also talks about what she and others at NYCOBA and NOMA are doing to educate and empower minority architects and inspire the next generation.

Julia Gamolina is the founder and editor of Madame Architect, an online platform celebrating women in architecture from different generations, countries, and corners of the industry. Originating as a guest series on ArchiteXX's online journal Sub_teXXt, Madame Architect is designed to encourage young women considering entering this industry by showing the myriad of choices they have in crafting a meaningful career. The ultimate goal for Madame Architect is that everyone who is looking at the site is able to find encouragement and guidance for their own pursuits, and empathy and understanding for the pursuits of others.

Julia is also a Business Developer at FX Collaborative and has experience in both communications and design. She is the Co-Chair of ULI New York's Young Leaders Group Communications Committee and is on the AIANY Women in Architecture Committee.

Learn more about Madame Architect at www.madamearchitect.org

Sandra Vivanco is a Professor of Architecture and Diversity studies at California College of the Arts, co-director of the CCA BuildLab, as well as the founding principal of A+D, Architecture + Design, in San Francisco. Based on the premise that inclusiveness and design excellence can and should co-exist, the work of A+D is globally recognized and operates at multiple scales. As one of a few of Latina-owned architecture firms in the country, A+D explores cultural identity representation as design inspiration for new and invigorated public spaces.

In this episode, Sandra and I discuss so many interesting topics - the scrappy beginnings of her architecture practice, the melding of architecture and diversity studies in her curricula, on why representation matters, on engaging communities throughout the design process, and more!

Learn more about Sandra at: https://www.cca.edu/academics/faculty/svivanco

Learn more about A+D Architecture at: www.a-plus-d.com

Jennifer Wolch is the William W. Wurster Dean and Professor of City and Regional Planning in the College of Environmental Design at University of California, Berkeley. Jennifer holds a BA in Anthropology and an MA in Geography from California State University Hayward, and a PhD in Urban Planning from Princeton. She's a scholar of urban analysis and planning, and her past work focused on urban homelessness, urban environmental justice and political ecology, and the delivery of affordable housing and human services.

Jennifer shares with me her experiences in academia and as Dean, and we get into an in depth discussion on the housing crisis and homelessness issue in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Angeles Garcia is a Project Executive at McCarthy Building Companies. Originally from Ensenada, Mexico, Angeles has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Tijuana Institute of Technology.

Angeles started out at McCarthy over 20 years ago by answering a newspaper ad for a Project Admin position. Since then she has slowly worked her way up to an executive role, breaking down barriers all along the way. In this episode, Angeles shares some great advice on how to inspire teams to do great work, how organizations can address unconscious bias, and how we should all stop second guessing ourselves and just go for it.

Show Recap:

• How Angeles's family's home remodel when she was in high school inspired her to study architecture
• Transitioning from being an architect in Mexico to practicing in the US - and then realizing she wanted to do something else
• Getting her foot in the door at McCarthy
• It wasn't always Angeles's goal to be a Project Executive at one of the largest construction firms, and at one point she thought it was unachievable
• On telling your supervisors what your end goals are so they can support you
• What Angeles does in her role as a Project Executive
• Why Angeles feels like she has a voice and an opportunity to influence where the construction industry is going
• The biggest barriers facing women in construction
• On unconscious bias, and what organizations can do to address it
• "You'll find that most often than not, you're ready. And if you're not, you have the support to succeed. But you need to be able to really speak up and ask for support as well."
• What the best way is to inspire teams to do great work
• What Angeles loves most about the construction industry - "We start with just an idea on a piece of paper and turn that into reality...into a building that will serve the community."
• The low point of her career, and what inspired her to keep going
• McCarthy's diversity initiatives, and why diversity makes business sense

Anne Torney is a partner at Mithun | Solomon, and leads their San Francisco office. For more than 20 years, she has made affordable multi-family housing and transit-oriented urban infill the focus of her work. For Anne, architecture isn't just about the form or the icon, but the process of making and the narrative of a building, and sharing that with a community to help them envision change. She believes that the two biggest challenges of our time are income inequality and climate change, but design has the power to address both.

In this episode, Anne tells the story of her first community planning meeting, how Mithun has been able to successfully get affordable housing projects built in San Francisco, and shares why you should bring your values to your firm and push for change.

Show Recap:

• How Anne's interest in architecture developed - "In a very backwards way"
• The idea that buildings can be read like books, as critical cultural objects
• Working at David Baker Architects was her first introduction to affordable housing projects
• How attending her first community meeting and her first encounter with design guidelines led Anne to study Urbanism and City Planning at Berkeley
• Wanting to study with Daniel Solomon in grad school, and the approach that architecture and city planning are one continuous discipline
• On the eternal conflict between a city's design guidelines, what architects think is the best for the city, and what the public thinks is the best for the city
• The disagreement between parties is often programmatic rather than design
• Anne talks about the kinds of clients and non-profit developers she works with at Mithun that build affordable housing projects in San Francisco
• Why it's important to have the same values and mission as your clients
• How Anne became a Principal and Managing Partner at Mithun - "Having a nose for what I had a passion for"
• Why Anne finds the firm management aspects of her job very gratifying
• On changing an organization from within versus finding an organization that shares the same values as you - "I love it when people bring their values to work...and say this is what gives me passion, this is what I'm seeing the world needs, and shouldn't we as a firm be doing this?"
• "Be really out there with what want, and the way you think the world should be."
• What Anne loves most about being an Architect - for her it's not just about the form and the icon, but the process of making a building, and taking the narrative of a building and sharing it with a community to help them envision change.
• On how the biggest challenges we currently face are climate change and income inequality, but design has the power to address both.

Mary Wurst is a lighting designer and electrical engineer DLR Group. Her design philosophy revolves around seeing light, whether natural and artificial, as the soul of any space. A chance encounter with a cadaver arm ended up steering her toward getting an engineering degree, and she's now a Senior Associate at DLR Group. We discuss the importance of exposing high school students to different careers, the challenges that mid-level professionals face, how she balances her work life with her home life, and why firms should be less focused on the rigidity of the 9-5.

Show Recap:

• How Mary ended up going to engineering school
• Why it's important to expose students to different career options
• What made her join an integrated design firm instead of working for a strictly engineering firm
• How she decided to become an electrical engineer
• What it was like advancing from Intern to Senior Associate at the same office
• On having independence at work
• What she loves most about being an engineer
• The biggest challenges that mid-level professionals face
• On struggling with what your career aspirations are
• How she balances working full time and having two young children, and whether or not she ever considered not working
• Taking her son to the grand opening of a project
• Why firms should be less concerned with employees working strict 9-5 hours

Nishita Lakhani is a Senior Project Engineer at McCarthy Building Companies. Although she is relatively new to the profession, I loved hearing how passionate and positive she is about the construction industry. We talked about the differences between construction in India versus the U.S., how you don't realize it when you're in school but communication is the key to successful projects, and whether or not mentorship and diversity initiatives are actually effective.

Show Recap:

• How growing up in India inspired Nishita to pursue a career in construction
• How growing up in India inspired Nishita to pursue a career in construction
• Nishita explains the difference between the Construction Engineering Management and Construction Management majors
• On interning at Disney!
• Why she chose to stay in the U.S. after graduation, and how construction in India is different from the U.S.
• I shared my experiences working in Shanghai
• Advice for someone who wants to study CEM
• How we both spend most of our day talking to or emailing people (before getting to our "real" work)
• What she does as a Senior Project Engineer at McCarthy
• McCarthy's project management training program
• How technology has changed the construction process
• Contractors and architects are on totally different time schedules
• What she wishes architects knew, or would do

Sandra Biddulph is a structural engineer, and a Principal at the firm DCI Engineers. Before settling down in Irvine, Sandra worked in both LA and Seattle, and has had a really interesting career journey. She's worked at small firms, co-founded her own practice, and worked on the general contractor side before becoming Principal at DCI. She appreciates the art of structural design; watching a project come together, with a tangible finished product that becomes a part of our built environment.

In this episode, we talk about what it was like transitioning from Project Engineer to Project Manager to Principal, why engineers should get out and promote their profession, and how she was able to balance her work life with her home life.

Show Recap:

• How Sandra decided to pursue structural engineering
• On designing her first project
• What it was like transitioning from Project Engineer to Project Manager
• Letting go and developing trust in younger professionals
• On co-founding her own practice
• If she ever considered not going back to work after having kids
• Realizing modified work weeks are a thing!
• How she became a Principal at DCI
• What it feels like to be one of the few female principals at a structural engineering firm
• How the profession can attract more young engineers
• What she wishes more architects knew about her profession
• Lightning Round

Irina Schneid is an architect, educator, and principal of the interdisciplinary design lab SCH+ARC Studio LLC. Aside from running her design practice, she currently teaches undergraduate design and theory courses at Pratt Institute.

In this episode, Irina shares with me how she got her foot in the door in the ultra competitive world of academia, how she balances teaching and running her own practice, and how motherhood has changed her notion of what constitutes a successful career.