The Truth about Titles explores why architectural titles matter, why they don’t, and how their meaning shifts over the course of a career.

Discover the ultimate Holiday Gift Guide for Architects – curated picks, tools, and books that every designer will actually want to unwrap this season.

At some point in every career, the path ahead stops looking like the one behind it. The work that once defined you begins to shift, not because it lost value but because you start to see yourself differently within it. For architects, that realization can be complicated because we build our identities around what we design, who we work with, and the roles we play in the process. Change has a way of testing all of that, forcing us to ask what parts of our career still fit and which ones need to evolve. Today, Andrew and I are talking about what happens when you change course, the challenges and rewards of starting fresh in familiar territory, and how to recognize when it is time to head in a new direction. Welcome to Episode 188: Changing Paths.

 [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player] 

Change is something both Andrew and I have lived through, and in this episode we wanted to take a closer look at what that really means. Each of us has reached a point where our careers needed to evolve, and the decisions that came next reshaped how we think about design, leadership, and purpose. This conversation isn’t about following a formula or finding the perfect next step; it’s about the reality of letting go of what feels safe and learning from what comes after. We talk about the adjustments, the uncertainty, and the satisfaction that can come from realizing you are still capable of growing no matter how long you have been doing this. Our hope is that anyone listening who might be facing a similar decision can find something here that helps them recognize that change, when you allow it, can be the most constructive part of your career.

When the Path Starts to Bend (Recognition) jump to 3:21

Bob's Perspective: There comes a point in most careers where the work you are doing and the person you are becoming start to drift just far enough apart that you can feel the gap forming. For me, it wasn’t about dissatisfaction or failure, but about balance. I began to recognize that not every professional decision I made was about me anymore. I had a family to provide for, and whether I liked it or not, that reality had to shape how I evaluated opportunity. The irony, of course, is that architecture doesn’t exactly offer financial guarantees no matter where you go, but I started to realize that what I was looking for had begun to shift. I wasn’t just thinking about projects anymore; I was thinking about impact.

Much of that realization came through the writing I was doing for the blog. Storytelling forced me to look at the profession differently and to think about how architects explain what they do and why it matters. Over time, I began to see that my influence didn’t have to come solely from drawing lines. I still think of myself as an above-average designer, but I started to value other skills that had developed along the way: communication, teaching, and helping people think differently about architecture. Those areas began to feel like ways to make a broader difference, and that awareness started to change what I wanted from my career.

When the opportunity came to move from a small, residentially focused practice to a larger commercial firm, the attraction wasn’t about leaving one thing behind for another; it was about growth. I wanted to see what would happen if I stepped into an environment that operated at a completely different scale. More people meant more challenges, more opportunities for leadership, and more potential to help shape culture. Change has never scared me. I have always seen it as a chance to redefine myself and fix a few flaws that I know I have. Every new chapter is an opportunity to rethink how I communicate, to see how others experience me, and to test whether I am living up to the expectations I set for myself.

The conversation that started the transition wasn’t strategic, and it wasn’t planned. I asked Andrew Bennett, one of the owners at BOKA Powell, a simple question: “Do you think my skill set would translate to a larger office?” That was it. No job hunt, no sales pitch, just curiosity. But in hindsight, that question planted a seed for both of us. Over time, my goals evolved dramatically. I used to want to be known as an exceptional designer, then I wanted to be a better communicator, then a collaborator, and now I think of myself as a thought leader, though it is hard to be a shepherd without any sheep. Writing made me aware of that evolution. It reminded me that what I wanted most was to make things better for others. Andrew Hawkins likes to joke that I have a savior complex, but he’s not wrong. Most of my career decisions over the last twenty years have been attempts to align my work with that impulse, to do work that helps people rather than just impressing them.

Andrew's Perspective: The realization that I might want to change directions came slowly, long before I admitted it to myself or even identified its occurrence. For years, I had been running my own firm, managing every detail, balancing design, business, and people. Even at the peak of twelve or fourteen people, it always felt like I was carrying the entire weight. Of course, this was because I was doing most of the heavy lifting tasks. I realize now that a major turning point may have started when I hired someone of a similar level and experience in the profession, hoping they would eventually take on some of the responsibility that had become overwhelming. But they passed away suddenly, and it caught me off guard, leaving an impact I didn’t recognize at first. In hindsight, it was probably a moment that quietly shifted how I viewed my role, my firm, and the limits of what I could sustain.

At that time, the daily effort began to feel repetitive and draining. I felt as though I was pushing the same rock uphill only to have it roll back down, and at times, crush me with its weight. The creative energy that once defined the practice had become secondary to the grind of management and business operations. However, due to the fact that my office was mainly comprised of young employees and student interns, I was consistently providing guidance to them. This is common for almost anyone who reaches a certain level of experience in our profession, so it wasn’t extraordinary. But I realized that I enjoyed that process as a significant part of my role. So this renewed a semi-forgotten notion; I had always wanted to teach. When I was in college and graduate school, my original plan was to go straight into teaching, never really considering practice as part of the picture. So when the chance came to teach part-time, it felt invigorating and exciting in a way that practice and the firm work no longer did.

Even then, while teaching part-time, I didn’t imagine making the move to teaching full-time. It was simply a side commitment that helped me reconnect with something meaningful. But over time, both internal and external factors continued to nudge me further in that direction. What made the idea difficult was the feeling that leaving practice would mean abandoning what I had built: a firm, a name, and twenty years of work. It felt like betraying a version of myself. I had devoted and sacrificed so much of myself and my life into establishing something independent that the thought of walking away from it, even for something with potential, felt like a loss. It felt like giving up, like abandoning a child. It was not easy, and I am still not sure I am over it after several years. I am still working on letting go and not seeing it as failure. I am simply moving into another phase of my career and life and learning how that works.

Trading Places (Transition) jump to 14:06

Bob's Perspective: The biggest adjustment I had to make when I joined a larger firm was learning how defined the roles were. In my previous offices, I did everything from concept design to field coordination, and while that breadth came with its challenges, it also gave me control and continuity. If I wasn’t there, things waited on me, which at the time felt like both a burden and a compliment. At BOKA Powell, the structure was completely different. Project Designers, Project Architects, and Project Managers all had distinct responsibilities, and understanding who handled what took time. The process wasn’t less collaborative, but it was more specialized. That specialization made the machine efficient, but it also meant I had to learn to trust people to do the work I had always done myself. It was harder than I expected.

The pace was another shock. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the difference between an office of eight and one with a hundred, but it still caught me off guard. I had to figure out which decisions required collaboration and which I could make on my own. Even as a principal, there was an invisible line between what was mine to solve and what needed higher approval. That took patience to learn. The larger the organization, the more the success of one person depends on everyone else being aligned, and that coordination takes time. Once I began to understand the rhythm of how information moved through the office, I started to see how scale itself can become a design constraint - not just a logistical one, but a creative one too.

Adapting to that new rhythm meant rethinking how I approached design. The team dynamic was different, the process was different, and even the codes were different. At times I felt like I had the practical value of someone five years out of school. I had plenty of experience as a leader and communicator, but the act of being an architect was distinct at this scale. The confidence I once had in high-end residential work didn’t automatically transfer to commercial projects. It took more time, more collaboration, and more humility. The details I used to solve instinctively now required layers of coordination across disciplines.

Architects explore the stories behind objects of design that remind us why design matters — revealing creativity, purpose, and meaning in everyday things.

Every rule was made to be broken, except in architecture, where even the act of breaking rules seems to come with its own set of rules. Modernism promised liberation from the past, but it quickly wrote its own commandments into the story—flat roofs, open plans, white walls, and exposed structure became the expected vocabulary. A movement that arrived as rebellion soon carried the weight of convention, and those conventions still shape how we design and judge buildings today. This week, Andrew and I are taking a closer look at the commandments of Modernism—where they came from, why they matter, and what they mean for the way we practice now. Welcome to Episode 186: The Rules of Modernism.

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If you are interested in seeing just a few of the houses I mentioned on the podcast, you can see them listed on the Realtor.com (here and here are just a few of them)

The Roots of Modernism jump to 6:30

Modern architecture did not emerge in a vacuum. It was a response to seismic shifts in society, technology, and culture that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Industrialization had transformed the way people lived, cities were expanding at unprecedented rates, and new materials like steel, reinforced concrete, and large sheets of plate glass were suddenly available to architects. These inventions were not simply practical tools, they were symbols of a new age. Architects began to ask why they should keep designing buildings that looked like medieval castles or classical temples when the world around them had become faster, lighter, and more efficient. The very idea of progress seemed incompatible with copying the past, and so Modernism positioned itself as the architecture of a new century - an architecture that would represent industry, rationality, and optimism for the future.

This rejection of the past was more than an aesthetic preference, it was a manifesto. Ornament was not just unnecessary, it was cast as dishonest and wasteful. Historical references were treated as evidence of cultural stagnation. In their place, Modernists put forward ideas of functional clarity, open planning, and structural honesty. The promise was bold: architecture would no longer serve as a backdrop for tradition, it would become a tool for shaping a better society. Housing would be healthier, cities would be more efficient, and design would finally align with the realities of modern life. It was not only about how buildings looked, but about how they could transform the way people lived … and that is why the roots of Modernism matter to this conversation. The movement began as a radical break from the architectural traditions that came before it, yet it also established a new set of values that quickly hardened into conventions of their own. Before we can explore the “rules” of Modern design, we need to understand the cultural and historical conditions that gave rise to them. Only then can we appreciate the irony that a movement born from revolution became one of the most codified design languages of the twentieth century.

By the time Modernism had established itself internationally, the movement that began as rebellion had already created its own set of unwritten rules. Architects may not have published them in a single manifesto, but they were understood all the same. You could look at a building and know whether it was ‘Modern’ or not, based on a handful of essential qualities. These rules were never carved into stone, yet they became the code that defined the movement for decades. To understand Modern design, and to really grasp how it operates, we need to lay out those unspoken commandments - the ideas that quietly dictate what belongs inside the Modernist tradition and what falls outside of it.

The Ten Commandments of Modernism jump to 13:42

Modernism never published a rulebook, but anyone who studied it - or even just walked through a few of its buildings - could tell that certain expectations were always in play. These weren’t written down in manifestos or carved into stone tablets, yet every architect seemed to know them. They became the quiet commandments of Modern design, the guidelines that told you when a building belonged to the movement and when it strayed too far. What I want to do is call them out, one by one, and see how they’ve shaped our understanding of Modern architecture.

Thou Shalt Embrace Function

When people talk about Modern architecture, the first thing they always bring up is ‘form follows function.’ That phrase is almost a commandment in itself. The idea is that buildings should be driven by purpose, by use, not by ornament or whim. On paper it sounds simple, but in practice it gets tricky. What happens when function alone doesn’t make a building beautiful, or when the function is flexible? The irony is that many of the architects who pushed this commandment the hardest were also the ones who added their own stylistic flourishes. Corbusier gave us pilotis and roof gardens, and Mies obsessed over proportions in ways that went far beyond pure utility. So yes, function is at the heart of it, but we also know that the story is more complicated. This is where Modernism becomes less about a single rule and more about a shared belief system.

Thou Shalt Honor Simplicity

Simplicity is the soul of Modern architecture. Clean lines, restrained geometry, uncluttered spaces. But don’t mistake simplicity for easy. The cleaner a design is, the more difficult it becomes to execute. When there’s nowhere to hide, every joint, every alignment, every proportion has to be perfect. That is why Modernism often feels more expensive, not less. A perfectly simple box can take as much effort as a Gothic cathedral, just in a different way. The lesson is that simplicity is not about doing less, it is about doing things with greater discipline.

Thou Shalt Reject Ornament

This is the commandment everyone remembers. Modernism declared war on ornament. For centuries, buildings had been covered in carved details, cornices, moldings, scrollwork, all of it. Modern architects came along and said, ‘Nope, none of that. Strip it away.’ A wall should be a wall, not a canvas for decoration. But here’s the thing, removing ornament didn’t mean removing expression. It just shifted expression to proportion, detail, and material. And I’ll argue that sometimes those ‘simpler’ details are actually harder to pull off. A Modernist railing detail can cost more than an entire set of classical moldings, because the tolerances are tighter and the craftsmanship has to be flawless. So, rejecting ornament didn’t make architecture cheaper or easier, it just made it more precise.

Thou Shalt Express Structure Honestly

Modernism elevates structure into aesthetics. Columns, beams, slabs—these are not things to be hidden, they are things to be celebrated. You are supposed to be able to read how a building stands up just by looking at it. Mies made this an art form, and Corbusier turned structure into a sculptural gesture. But let’s be honest, structural honesty is often more of an idea than a reality. Plenty of Modern buildings cheat a little, exaggerating one element or concealing another to tell a clearer story. So this commandment is less about literal honesty and more about the appearance of honesty. It is about making the building feel like it is telling the truth, even if you are editing the story behind the scenes.

Thou Shalt Be True to Materials

Concrete should look like concrete. Steel should look like steel. Glass should be transparent, not painted to imitate something else. This commandment is about authenticity, a refusal to disguise or imitate. That honesty elevates materials into beauty. Brutalism is the most extreme example, celebrating raw concrete in all its roughness. But the challenge is that technology complicates this purity. Today we have coatings, composites, high-performance materials that don’t always look like what they are. So being ‘true to materials’ becomes less about absolute purity and more about staying within the spirit of authenticity, even in a world where materials are rarely simple.

Thou Shalt Embrace Light and Openness

Light is sacred to Modern design. Think ribbon windows, glass curtain walls, open floor plans. These are not just aesthetic moves, they are about a new way of living. Healthier, brighter, more transparent. This is where Modernism broke radically from the past—away from dark, compartmentalized interiors, toward spaces that felt connected to the world outside. And this commandment is still alive today. Every client, whether they know it or not, is chasing light and openness when they say they want a ‘modern’ home or office. It has become so fundamental that we forget it was once revolutionary.

Thou Shalt Respect the Grid

The grid is the invisible backbone of Modernism. It provides order, clarity, and discipline. Whether it is structural bays, window spacing, or floor tile layout, the grid is sacred. It’s one of those rules where most people never notice it, but architects do, and we get irritated when someone breaks it. A mullion that’s out of alignment or a window that doesn’t land on the grid can ruin the entire composition for an architect. Respecting the grid is about more than geometry, it’s about communicating that the building is orderly, rational, and disciplined. It tells you that someone cared about how the parts fit together.

Thou Shalt Flatten the Roof

The flat roof might be the most recognizable symbol of Modernism. You can look at a building from a hundred yards away, see that crisp horizontal line, and know what you’re dealing with. But here’s the dirty little secret, flat roofs leak. They always have. Contractors hate them, homeowners eventually learn to hate them, and yet architects keep drawing them. Why?

It’s one thing to be busy and another to be productive – and most of us are far better at the first than the second. The reality is that architects live in a world of deadlines, meetings, and endless to-do lists, but somehow there’s always time to check Instagram, rearrange your desktop icons, or spend twenty minutes deciding which playlist will help you focus before actually doing the work. Procrastination has a way of disguising itself as “just five more minutes” until suddenly tomorrow is looking a lot worse than today. This week, Andrew and I are taking a closer look at procrastination – why it happens, how it disrupts even the best-laid plans, and what you can actually do to keep it from derailing your work. Welcome to Episode 185: Procrastination: Today’s Problems Tomorrow.

 [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player] 

The Struggle is Real jump to 4:09

Procrastination is not about a lack of discipline or effort, it is more like a default response that shows up once the to-do list starts outpacing the hours in the day. Think of it as that urge to tidy up your inbox, check social media one more time, or find anything else to do besides the one task that really matters. It is less about bad intent and more about a short-term survival instinct. I would not describe myself as someone who avoids work, but I can admit there are times when I put things off until there is no other choice, and I suspect that puts me in the same company as most people reading this.

There is research that connects personality traits with procrastination, and some of it feels uncomfortably familiar when applied to architects. People who score high in conscientiousness usually do well in professional settings, but that same trait often brings with it a strong tendency toward perfectionism. When you are wired to want things done at a very high level, it can be easy to delay getting started until you believe conditions are “just right.” The irony is that the higher the standard, the harder it becomes to begin, and procrastination finds a perfect opening. Other personality studies using Myers-Briggs categories found that INTP (Introversion, Intuition, Thinking, Perception) types were among the highest procrastinators. Those individuals tend to be analytical, independent, and comfortable living in their heads, which can be useful qualities for architects, but those same strengths can also create a pattern of putting things off. When you are wired to keep analyzing and refining your ideas, starting the work can feel less urgent than thinking about it just a little longer.

There is another angle to consider, which is that procrastination can actually act as a coping mechanism. Psychologists describe it as a form of avoidance, but not always in a destructive sense. Putting something off can create short-term relief, and that breathing space can sometimes be what allows a person to function in the moment. The problem is that the stress does not go away, it simply accumulates and grows heavier with time. For some people, that mounting pressure even becomes the fuel they rely on to finally act, which is why procrastination is not only common but oddly effective for those who claim they “work best under pressure.”

Architects are Busy jump to 16:03

a look at my weekly calendar for the time we recorded today's podcast episode

Procrastination is not always about laziness, and more often than not it shows up as the result of overload. Nobody in this profession plans to avoid their responsibilities, but when the day fills up with meetings, deadlines, and emails, something is going to slip. That delay might look small in the moment, like moving one task to tomorrow’s list, but it still qualifies as procrastination. It is not intentional avoidance, it is triage, and triage always comes with consequences. Architects are especially vulnerable to this because so much of our time is spent in coordination mode, and what little space is left on an already congested calendar is rarely left alone. Any open gaps are quickly filled by others, often with another conversation about the work rather than time to actually do the work, and the result is that the very moments that could have helped move things forward disappear before they can make a difference.

The real trap is that this kind of procrastination often feels productive. Answering emails, cleaning up a spreadsheet or proposal, or working on staffing assignments might feel like progress, but in reality these tasks are just distractions from the harder thing that needs attention. Hours can pass in this cycle and the needle never moves, yet it feels like work has been accomplished. The cost of those small delays is rarely contained to a single person’s to-do list, because architecture is collaborative and every missed step sends ripples through the team. An internal delay means consultants receive drawings later, coordination gets compressed, and suddenly the client’s submission deadline has become a sprint. What seemed like a minor shuffle on Monday can balloon into a project-wide scramble by Friday, and the result is that procrastination rarely stays personal, in this profession it multiplies.

Add in a podcast and helping friends out with their home renovations and you can quickly feel like you are capable of doing 100 things, but are currently under-performing on 95 of them.

Tips to Avoid Procrastination jump to 29:27

this is the markerboard behind my desk, where I have written down that days "to do" list ... plus a chart on the age-to-risk of waterbeds which is an example of procrastination

Break Big Tasks into Smaller Ones jump to 30:00

Procrastination thrives when the mountain looks too high to climb, so the trick is to stop staring at the peak. Take the 200-page spec you’ve been ignoring and just outline the headers. Draw one wall section instead of the entire building envelope. The smaller the step, the harder it is to rationalize avoiding it — and once you’re in motion, momentum does the rest. Architects know better than anyone that a building is just a lot of little details stitched together, so treat your tasks the same way.

Set Deadlines Before the Deadline jump to 32:44

If the submission is due Friday, convince yourself it’s really due Wednesday. This isn’t lying to yourself, it’s self-preservation. Architecture deadlines rarely move in your favor, and waiting until the eleventh hour is a guaranteed way to spend your Thursday night ordering bad pizza and hating your life. By setting mini-deadlines earlier in the process, you create a buffer for the inevitable “oh, we forgot about that” moment.

Eliminate the Easy Distractions jump to 35:28

Most of us don’t procrastinate by taking a nap - we procrastinate by doing things that feel like work. Checking emails, reorganizing CAD layers, or hunting down the “perfect” precedent photo is just a form of procrastination. To combat it, shut down the browser tabs, turn off email notifications, and admit that scrolling LinkedIn isn’t research. Architects are good at justifying busywork, but being busy and being productive are not the same thing.

We covered a lot of ground in Ep 178: Under Pressure, where Andrew and I unpacked how stress impacts both our process and our priorities. One of the things that came up again and again was how distractions multiply when deadlines get tight. Every email suddenly feels urgent, every notification pulls you off course, and before long you’ve lost an hour to things that don’t matter. Managing those distractions is less about discipline and more about survival when the pressure is on.

Use Time Blocks Instead of “Free Time”

Free time isn’t free - it’s where procrastination sets up camp. Instead of telling yourself, “I’ll work on this after lunch,” carve out a specific window: “1:30 to 3:00 is wall section time.” Time blocking creates structure, and structure is what architects live on. Treat your own calendar like a construction schedule: nobody pours concrete with “sometime Thursday” as the milestone.

Start Ugly, Fix Later jump to 39:09

Perfectionism is procrastination in a tuxedo. The sooner you admit your first draft will be a little ugly, the sooner you’ll get it out of your head and onto paper. Architects are notorious for obsessing over line weights before the design even makes sense. Resist that urge. Start with the messy version, then clean it up later - that’s why trace paper and revisions exist.

If you’ve been around here long enough, you might remember my post on 10 Mistakes Architecture Students Should Avoid, where I admitted that architects are practically trained to procrastinate. That early conditioning often comes from the pursuit of perfection - the idea that you shouldn’t show your work until it’s flawless. But the truth is, progress comes from putting something down and then improving it. Waiting for the “perfect” first draft is just procrastination in a bow tie.

(for those of you that are interested in seeing the stone drawing I mentioned where I procrastinated by adding the individual stone pieces on an outdoor shower, you can find it here)

Prioritize the Hard Thing First jump to 42:08

We’ve all got one task that looms larger than the rest. Get it out of the way before the day gets away from you. Knock out that painful code review in the morning instead of circling it all day like a nervous cat. The reward is twofold: you get a boost from having done the hardest thing, and suddenly everything else on your list feels easier by comparison. Architects are professional plate-spinners, so it’s critical to keep the heaviest one from crashing first.

Set Public Commitments jump to 43:09

Accountability works wonders when procrastination is whispering in your ear. If you promise your project manager you’ll have the drawings on their desk tomorrow morning, you’ve just raised the stakes.

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