Episode 42 - Effective Communication Between Architects and Builders with Unfold Architecture

Episode #42 | Mike Gray & Greg Vose | Unfold Architecture

Mike Gray and Greg Vose from Unfold Architecture join Mark D. Williams to discuss their design process, how they work with builders and clients, and their approach to sustainability in custom home design. They discuss bringing the right team members in at different stages of a project and making sure all parties are communicating effectively throughout the design and construction process.

Listen to the full episode:

About Unfold Architecture

Unfold Architecture designs custom homes to be a direct reflection of the life you want to live and the unique qualities that surround it. Our belief is that the best homes are deeply personal — a place to unwind and connect. A place for stillness and play.

We combine our responsibility to our client’s vision with our responsibility to be good stewards of the earth; incorporating sustainable building practices along the way. This, along with our use of the latest technology, results in an engaging design process and a highly accurate product.

Resources:

• Website:

  https://unfoldarchitecture.com

• Transcript

  Mark D. Williams<br> 0:01

  All right, we are recording so it's not live obviously anything, guys. don't cuss don't cuss. I mean, we've had a few now. Yeah, actually much cussing. Alright, welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I am joined by unfold architecture. I've got Mike gray and Greg Voss. Welcome, and thanks for coming on the show, guys.

  Unknown Speaker 0:23

  Thanks for having us.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 0:24

  So, Greg, you flew in from New York. Is that right?

  Speaker 1 0:28

  I did. Yeah. landed last night. Okay. Yeah, pretty

  Mark D. Williams<br> 0:31

  just for the podcast. I feel flattered.

  Unknown Speaker 0:33

  I appreciate it. Family around here.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 0:37

  Okay, awesome. And Mike, you're, you're in Northeast Minneapolis. Is

  Unknown Speaker 0:40

  that right? Correct. And local, super?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 0:42

  Well, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience. I'm familiar a little bit with your work with sustainable nine. And just being around the area living in Minneapolis. I've seen some of your some of your work and your website is outstanding. Once you tell us a little bit about your your history and kind of how you came on to the Minneapolis scene?

  Speaker 1 0:59

  Sure. I can start a little bit I guess. So Mike, and I went to college at Iowa State several years ago now. But you know, during college, we both worked together a good amount. You know, you got studios and stuff where you can pick your partner and Mike and I ended up finding ourselves gravitating towards each other just with our how we think and how we converse and how we work together. Seemed to coalesce pretty nicely. So after college, I went out to LA worked out in Lake Tahoe in California area for a few years. And then Mike moved up here and worked for BW br a big, big commercial firm let you talk about that. But mountain Tahoe I was working for a residential architect out there, who's their name is Kelly and stone architects. So I learned that I kind of have a love for residential architecture while I was out there. But after a few years came home, when a home I guess I wouldn't move to Des Moines when I where I met my wife there. So she was living in Des Moines so moved back for her. And then I had an opportunity to do a house for a friend's dad and Sioux City, actually. And so I was my first house I did by myself, that was like it was kind of interesting to have, you know, the one on one connection with the client, which you don't have when you're working for someone else's firm. But that went well. And then a few years later a friend of you know, connections through that that house would lead to another one. And actually, we the first one, I was like, Okay, that's a lot of work for one person, just do you know, after after work hours. So I reached out to Mike to help out with that one. And it was just like reconnecting the same things that were working really well in studio in college were working really well after several years being out of college. And that ended up never actually being constructed. But the conceptual phase, we went through it and it went really well. And you know, we were he was in I was in Des Moines, he was in Minneapolis, and we would drive back and forth and work up work has kind of no work sessions to develop it and it worked really well. And then that didn't know as things do that leads to another thing. That's another thing. And I think I forgot exactly where we were, but we kind of had another job dropped in our lap. And we're like, should we like make this more official, rather than just you know, cash on the side?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 3:18

  Because you were living in Des Moines at the time, you're not no longer working for Kelly and stone architects were you What were you doing during that time, just for

  Speaker 1 3:25

  a different firm, smaller startup, I've always worked for startups my entire life, which is another thing we've kind of a good connection between us. Yeah, big, firm, big, firm experience, firm experience. So it was a commercial firm that does a lot of like tenant improvement, did a lot of work with like nationwide down in Des Moines and big corporate office spaces. So nothing very passionate about that. But so after, I think we had another job that kind of connected and connected us. And we formalized it and said this is something we really want to pursue. And at that point, we're both were working for, you know, these other firms, and we had to maintain some sort of footing in the industry here to try to try to develop enough work to actually jump jump ship from our 90 fives. I'll let you take it from there then.

  Speaker 2 4:17

  Yeah, it's funny. You mentioned the the website. We just finished redoing that I remember the weekend I drove down to Des Moines and we threw together the website that we had previously.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 4:28

  It was out still the original one. Craig has been in business for about four, four and a half years. Yeah,

  Speaker 2 4:32

  yeah. And it was and it lasted the first three, three and a half years. But we always knew that it needed to be you know, redone. But

  Mark D. Williams<br> 4:38

  what's very good now for those that haven't seen it, it's I mean, it's sharp, it's very clean. And I feel like people make decisions quite quickly about you and as a company, and the website is the first impression point. So if your website isn't clean, and especially for architecture, if it doesn't show quickly, like good work, like people are checking out. So good work because it's good. Yeah,

  Speaker 2 4:58

  it's a digital gallery for sure. We worked with someone local here to do that hybrid studio. He was he's been great to work with, actually does our photography too, but to back up, I, I went to Iowa State with Greg obviously, but then I came back up to the Twin Cities worked at DWR, which is a larger, commercial firm, I worked on a lot of higher education, healthcare, K through 12. Some technical lab spaces, you know, very detail oriented, you know, more, more intense detailing and things like that projects, but it was a I think, 150 people at the time. So you kind of found your niche within the company. And Greg mentioned that he's always been at startups, and I was at the, the larger scale and, you know, it just kind of worked out with timing that we would jump ship at the right time and go from there. So it's, it's a, it's been a lot of fun. It's a learning curve, you know, certainly coming from Commercial to Residential, the mean, that type of construction is completely different. But it's, it's been fun to learn. So,

  Mark D. Williams<br> 6:08

  what was it like? So how long have you guys? So it was like four years that you guys had worked independently? Before you guys kind of reconnected? Is that about right on timeline? Five years, actually. Okay. And what in? I guess, how would you frame that experience after college gaining some knowledge to where you're at now? Do you feel like now starting a business versus being a part of a lot of startups? Were you able to capture some of the knowledge that you gained while you're working? Or where does that where did this entrepreneurial, you know, feel come from? And that's always an interesting question, when people are starting a business that someone has put out the question before that sometimes that comes from, you know, peers, or people or family when you were younger, and sometimes it's out of desperation, like, Hey, I don't see anything out there, that is really showing me what I want to do. And so they launch out on their own.

  Speaker 2 6:56

  Yeah, I mean, from the experience standpoint, the first five years, I mean, you're a sponge, we were absorbing everything, we were always sponges, right? We're always learning, but it was an invaluable time learning the process and how how to communicate, what what needs to go into a set, what doesn't, things like that. But the the reason to jump ship, you know, I don't know that I ever knew I would be owning, or operating a residential architecture firm, I didn't really think I would end up in that that realm. But having worked on a couple of projects, you know, early on with Greg, it was like, wow, this is, this is a lot of fun, the scale is different, you know, you get to put your hands on everything down to the smallest details, you can sort of fully encompass your brain around the entire project. Whereas working on a, you know, a 10 story, high rise or something, you're, you're kind of niched into one little element of that project, and it's hard to fully grasp everything at once. So that that was an easy, easy decision. I mean, the the pace of projects, and you know, just how quickly you can move from one stage to the next. And from one project to the next was attractive. But the entrepreneurial side, I mean, I think I don't come from a lineage of entrepreneurs or anything like that. But you know, from the very beginning, we did the whole thing that, you know, every middle school kid does, we had the I had the lawn mowing business with the flyers and sold duct tape wallets out of my middle school locker. I mean, it was all you know, all that kind of stuff. But I think the opportunity just kind of came came to be when when we started doing these projects, one, one by one on the side, and it was a, it was a no brainer. I mean, why why not take that leap and try it at that itch? Got to do it

  Mark D. Williams<br> 8:45

  when I think you get a lot of confidence. Right? So someone's giving you one one leads to another one. Greg, like you had mentioned him before, you know, it, you kind of been operating by business without Yeah. Like, it just sort of happens, right. And then after that, you've take more deliberate steps, like paying taxes, office, starting a website and doing all the unglamorous things that make you legit,

  Speaker 1 9:04

  ya know, on the small, firm versus big firm. That's something that we didn't, we weren't aware of until we were in it. And then we were figuring out how this is a great benefit. Coming from a small firm, you know, I'm very much used to, if there's something needs to be done like something as small as like a full like an RP Q form or, or a proposal or presentation. There's not like a template there to do it. So you had to make yourself but and then I also realized how much that eats into the workday. Right, but but my complaint from big firm there was it's a much bigger ship to steer doesn't really turn very quickly. But there is a process in place for everything. And so we were able to, I was able to say okay, this is it really important for us to not be doing five years on the ropes. Let's do it now. And Mike was able to say, Yeah, you know, this is how we do it. This is how a big firm does it, which you know, is a valuable experience for a supermom. Okay, on microfilm that we were so

  Speaker 2 10:03

  absolutely saves us a lot of time. Now, having done that early on, there's a lot of hours at the beginning, but it's set us up for a pretty smooth process. Now,

  Mark D. Williams<br> 10:13

  you'd mentioned that I think when we because we met for the first time, just about an hour ago having coffee for us, you're in town. You'd mentioned about your system, we talked a little bit about systems. How did you develop your system that you kind of go through now with your clients in your process? Is that something that you learn in architecture school is that like, not not even ever discussed? And everyone's kind of left up after architecture school to kind of figure out what process works? Or how is it that I mean, there's some generalities with architecture and home design that follows a similar path. But obviously, there's nuances that everyone does it a little bit differently. Can you speak a little bit about your process? And kind of how you've developed that, and where do you learn from it?

  Speaker 1 10:55

  Yeah. I think the big thing that we learned through architecture school, which I think is, you know, college, in general, for a lot of things is it doesn't teach you so much like, what's this, you know, scuppered detail, it's more like how to think how to think through problems, how to problem solve,

  Unknown Speaker 11:10

  how to approach a problem, how

  Speaker 1 11:12

  to approach a problem, how to break down a problem in a way that is not scary to try to start tackling. So we took a lot of that, and a lot of that stuff, they actually teach you in school, it's harder to do in some some project types and commercial project types, because sometimes you can't really do this. It can be a little bit slow and monotonous sometimes, but it everything is really purposeful. So one thing that, you know, I remember doing first couple years in college was what they call adjacency, diagrams, or bubble diagrams. And so basically, they literally are just bubbles that you draw on the paper circles. And you break down to the program of the building the museum, the house, the library into spaces. And then you start thinking about where did these spaces need to intersect, you know, like the, obviously, the front lobby needs to be here on the site needs to be connected to the bathrooms needs to be connected to the administration, area, circulation, all this stuff, it allows you to start thinking through a taking a small little chip out of the massive problem of how to design whatever this building is. And so we've kind of taken some of those things on the into the residential sector, where we start from a bubble diagram, and it's a little bit something's a little more assumed because it is a home. It's not, it's not so unique, like a museum or a, you know, a manufacturing facility. So we're able to make some assumptions. But it does help because everyone, our big thing is we want to make a really personal connection with the client. And we want the house to have a personal connection with that client. And everyone lives a little differently. We have a client that wanted to have basically the solarium with like a hot tub in the ground inside inside that solarium in the ground. That was a huge thing for him, but he didn't really care about other things. So that was a focal point, that house. And those are the small things when we're doing the adjacency diagrams that we can start seeing, like, how does this house rotate around? Right, this important space?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 13:00

  I often talk about as lifestyle, we kind of have an intake form where I'm asking silly questions like What time do you get up in the morning? What time you go to bed? You know, what do you like to read? You know, how do you like to exercise? You know, what do you watch? And sometimes you don't know, this sounds pretty generic questions, but you don't know when someone's going to be like, Oh, I you know, I get up at three o'clock because I trade in the Asian markets. And like, oh, okay, well, that's that's kind of a key factor. And, you know, I had heard of another builder wants that, because of that exact example. You know, they actually brought in a light fixture that simulated natural sun. Yeah. And so that way, they felt awake, and they weren't allowed to Yeah, activate your brain. And so it was just, it's just really interesting how someone's lifestyle is reinforced with architecture of the home. And it makes sense, we're, I'm trying to tell people like, not only is this home, going to suit your needs, but we're really going to center it around the lifestyle that you have, but also may be one that you want,

  Speaker 2 13:51

  which is I think one of the most critical parts of the process. I mean, Greg mentioned the adjacency diagrams and moving those program pieces around. But he mean, even starts prior to that on on the questions we asked, because, you know, we, we can make some assumptions. And sometimes people will come to sit with us in our list of spaces that they want, but we have to ask questions about all those spaces, because sometimes they can overlap or sometimes they they may require a different space based on the activities that they're doing, you know, and breaking that down. You know, listening really is the is the number one thing we do in those first few meetings, ask pointed, directed questions, and just sit back and let let them talk. Yeah.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 14:33

  Yeah, no, I think it's really important. Listen, listening. You know, I've heard one architect talk about visual listening, right? So they'll put up pictures and literally watch or film or video, actually clients react. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just think that's a fascinating. That's a fascinating way to just gauge like the aha moments. And recently we did some personality testing and I remember this actually from college, I was a communication degree major, actually. And it was, I think it was like 87% of all communication is nonverbal. And so it's like you're, you know, right now you guys are both nodding your head. Like, you know, leaning forward positive emotions, you know, crossed arms, open arms, all these different things I don't know how to. Now he's just paralyzed. But the point of it is, is that there's, our brain is picking up so many different things. But imagine us, as you as architects, and me, as a builder, trying to put this together for a client, sometimes it not everyone is really, you have to get comfortable with the client first because they with you, because some clients are much more open book, they either have a clear picture of what they want. But sometimes they have no idea. And so the right questions is teasing it out of them in a way that they don't even know. Because how gratifying is it from I always am amazed at architecture because I love it. When we're listening as a part of this, I can kind of see where it's going. But then I love that first presentation, you know, being in person. And sometimes the business side of me wants to like, you know, get this out in an email and get it going. And like I'm trying to sell and move the project along. But most architects will resist that, because they want to be there for the initial reveal. And it makes sense, I would too, it's more that you wouldn't want to lose the touch point of the aha moment. And anyway, that first reveal is pretty powerful. Yeah. And

  Speaker 2 16:11

  it's part of the me, it's part of the reason why we love what we do, right? I mean, you get to see those reactions firsthand. And you're, you're part of this person's life in a sense, I mean, you're creating a space that they're going to use every single day. And it's a very intimate thing. You

  Speaker 1 16:25

  have to you have to build trust, because you need to get important things out of them.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 16:31

  upfront, just know, leave it down, but just rotate the mic up. Yeah, sure. Go ahead.

  Speaker 1 16:40

  I was gonna say like, small things, like, you know, some clients, they like are embarrassed and like, you know, can we actually have two showerheads in our shower? And it's like, yeah, you know, and they haven't feel like they have a runway to be open and honest about how they want their house to be in that, like, I don't want people to judge me, because

  Mark D. Williams<br> 16:55

  whatever. That's a great example, I have often brought that up, you know, and a lot of times the builder, like if I'm in a space, and I'll say, hey, it's very common that some of our homeowners would like to shower heads. What do you guys think about that? And sometimes they'll say, yes, sometimes you get some funny jokes. Sometimes. I mean, it's just funny is the reacting right. And levity has its place for sure. I mean, you know, and so breaking down some of those barriers and getting people to react to it. Yeah, anyway, I think architecture is so unique, because you're trying to solve a multitude of problems, but you also want to do something different. I mean, it's art. Right. And I often tell our clients, like, you know, building a custom homes is not science, it's art. And, you know, every project is so different than the site has a lot to do with it. I mean, would you agree with the statement that as much as you want to design it, as much as I want to build it as much as the homeowner has their constraints? The lot? Also has it say as well? Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Sometimes the lot dictates everything. Yeah, yes. Yes,

  Speaker 1 17:50

  surroundings of the lot, like outside of the lot, we always start with art, every single presentation we have with the client always starts with a site plan. And we always reference back to that, because we're like, you're talking about sunlight with the other client. House positioning views out of the house, it's one thing if you're building a development, and you don't really have much space, it's gonna be what it is, or in, you know, in the middle of Edina or something,

  Speaker 2 18:12

  but it's still context, it doesn't form things. Yeah.

  Speaker 1 18:17

  We always try to reference back to that. But it's, it is fine, when you have more loose say on the site, that you can kind of place the house wherever you want, because then that then that if you had the same client, the different house or different site, the house could be completely different, which is fun, it could still solve all the problems correctly, or you know, correctly. But it could be completely different. Because it's just informed by different data, right?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 18:37

  I have an app on my phone called Sun seeker. It's the best $10 I've ever spent my life but basically go out and win, because I'll often meet, at least in Minnesota, the first point of contact often is with the builder. We have a very strong builder group here. And it seems like a lot of clients will reach out to us sometimes before architects and so I'm going to walk the land with them, they might, you know, they're gonna buy it, is it something that they already own? And if they've already lived there, they know where the sun is, but I don't anyway, it'll show you exactly know the summer solstice, the winter solstice where the sun is the art but in real time, and they're always you know, if nothing else is a great parlor trick that you know, it's just really amazing to see how much the Sun Sun sorry, dictates the house positioning though. And for me personally, I love it when people come through my home and guess it to be bigger than it is all because of the design but almost exclusively because of the number of windows and the placement. So allowing light. I always just I think it just makes sunlight is such a powerful part of our lives. And so I love when architecture captures that. Yeah, it seems like every architect when you say sunlight, they just like light up. Yeah,

  Speaker 2 19:36

  I totally agree. But one of my friends gives me crap about picking camping sites because we always want to be on the east or the North Shore right? Because you get the sunset and this in the gradual you know, flow of the day and capture it. You get basically sun at all times and you get the beautiful views at the end of the day, but it's an interesting part of design. To because we can now model these, these homes on the sites with, and we lay that information that you just mentioned over every site plan. So you can see where the sun's hitting at what time of the year. But you can model these overhangs to perfectly time out and to, you know, either shade or, you know, bring sun in, in the winter months at the right time and bringing heat. And there's a million things we could talk about, you know, in terms of sunlight and how it affects design. But the fun part is we can model it so accurately now. And it can it can truly be a video of every Sun time throughout the entire year and how it affects your interior space.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 20:39

  What What, What program do you guys use to draw on, we

  Speaker 1 20:42

  use a few different ones. We do, we do still do a lot of hand sketching from a conceptual standpoint, not like for renderings, or anything, but just to get quick ideas out. But then it kind of goes through a few different phases of using like SketchUp, which you might have heard of, Yep, pretty popular. We use that for quick conceptual design, which include things quickly, but it's hard because you can kind of see when you drive down by different major streets now you can tell that they've modeled, they started the conceptual design in a program like SketchUp, because it's easier to do some things in these programs, and it is others. So it's kind of like the design is biased towards some things because it's easy to do it in the program. But we try not to be hamstrung by what the program does. So that's where hand sketching comes in. But it is does allow you to help mask out things. And then we'll use a rendering program called Inscape. That does a lot of the realism, but it really doesn't filter on it, basically. But then all of our construction documents are all in Revit.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 21:42

  Okay, so a number of different those I assume all kind of play together. I mean, as far as like the, you know, the work that you're doing in SketchUp doesn't get lost into the next programmer. Yes, and

  Speaker 2 21:51

  no, there is some redundancy that we have to build in, in both programs. And there are ways to streamline that which we take advantage of. But it's a it's a definitely a transition that takes time. So

  Mark D. Williams<br> 22:03

  and when you so you had mentioned that, obviously, it's going to limit some of your forms, you know, between the different software's the fact that you're versed in four different ones I have to believe is extremely helpful in turnings, like when you I'm just curious, the creative process, when you start seeing this home on lay, do you have a pretty like, how does it walk us through like your brain pattern, I was just kind of interested like how architects see things, you know how you're able to is it each stepping stone helps you also see it just like you're those stepping stones of software's is also encouraging you to kind of develop it within your own like you only have to worry about, you know, this section now. And then the net, you can expand it is that it

  Speaker 1 22:43

  kind of goes back to the process question you asked where the bubble and the bubble diagram, yeah, because then it sounds silly, but you make these bubbles, and they kind of in their bubbles range in different sizes, you know, so the powder, bath incredibly tiny, whereas the living rooms and acid because it does take up different size, it's not perfect, but it's hints at it. And then you just kind of start it sounds simple, but like wrapping walls around that and starting to see how those forms start to work together. And that's when we use SketchUp when we kind of go into what we call white massing, which is just no color, no room, no texture, just blocks on the site to see how things interact. And then you kind of just start carving away at it. It's, it never works well to like you know, just dive in and start sketching from the kitchen outwards. Because it's like, it needs to kind of be we always talked about with our clients about it being kind of like a what when they walk in the door. It's a big block of marble. And we never want to like take the marble go away and present a finished bust of them. You know, it's we go away, we chop chip a few things off, we come back check in like this is how we're thinking in, you know, four or five different touch points to make sure that they understand we're not making any big moves that they're not comfortable with. Because that's another thing you know, Minnesota Nice. It can be you present something they're like, Oh, we love it. And then an hour after the media DML you can email saying, you know, we actually didn't like this part.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 24:04

  Here's the ad seven things I didn't like, but I was smiling the whole time. Exactly.

  Speaker 1 24:08

  It was like a critical thing. It was a fort like it's it's a core element. It's a lot harder to undo those at that point. Yeah.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 24:13

  That mean that that leads to one of my next questions, which is how much of your work is in Minnesota versus out state right now.

  Speaker 1 24:22

  I will say about 90% of our work is in the Minneapolis, greater Minneapolis, St. Paul area. And then we have 10% Probably in still have some work, Houghton Tahoe area with a builder or developer. And then, you know, little hints, you know, a couple couple of spots down in Iowa. We had a couple things and you know, I Wisconsin, northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, but it's mostly Midwest, but we're trying we have that little bit of a foothold and towel

  Mark D. Williams<br> 24:49

  that we're trying to also expand on. Yeah, and I mean, obviously you're in New York, you fly back when you need to for client meetings and zoom obviously or Google meets or whatever platform we're using for these different than And, obviously, Mike, you're here local. How are you finding, you know, the Minneapolis market here in terms of its appetite for architecture, for instance, I see, you know, at least what I've seen mostly on your website, it tends to be fairly, I would describe it as modern, transitional. I mean, I hate putting labels on architecture, because I know you probably like any architect could probably do everything. But your the work on your website does tend to gravitate more towards clean lines, kind of a more modern field. Is that accurate?

  Speaker 2 25:27

  Yeah, I'd say that's accurate. I mean, it's not, it's not to say that we don't have projects that are not that we, we will do any anything, we, we have the challenge or the opportunity to do but we definitely tend to lean more modern and the styles change though regionally as well, like out in Tahoe, it's a lot more of that mountain palette, both materials and forms and roof lines, things like that. But, you know, we we tend to put on the website, what we want to gravitate towards, and what we want to attract. So that that it's a pretty good representation of where we're where we're heading, I think. But the industry changes in the in the styles change and things things more. I mean, the goal is to find a blend between what what people are looking for right now, but and timelessness you know, we want them to stand there for 50 100 years plus and be a staple that fits within the context and is still a desirable and attractive piece of like you said art or sculpture. Not now, but 30 years down the road, too. So it's a balance, but definitely lean towards the clean, simplified modern lines. Yeah. In

  Mark D. Williams<br> 26:36

  the workflow between the two of you, do you guys handle projects? Because I think you mentioned there's four people on your total team? Yeah, we'll walk us through. So a client or builder comes to you. And you know, I know every architecture firm works this a little bit differently. But how do is do you have a someone that does more high level more business stuff? Someone does more permitting? I'll walk us through kind of your process, because you're the two principals and then you have two others that are on your team as well, what's kind of your workflow and who does what

  Speaker 1 27:05  

  I tend to handle a lot of the, you know, quotations, boring business stuff, because I really enjoy it. For some reason. And that was one of those things I didn't know, I would tell you, we started doing it. But you know. And then Mike tends to handle. So that's I mean, you could see that as like, you know, the extreme front end, it's not even before even clients are in the door. And then Mike tends to handle most of the connected the interaction with the builders and contractors and, you know, construction administration, we call it so he's he's on the phone a lot with people that you know, solving problems that are come up, but there's always problems, there's always issues that come up. And then we both we kind of merge, we tried to always both have connections and times that we were working on the conceptual design together at

  Speaker 2 27:48  

  that at that stage. And Jack and Evan to as well. Yeah,

  Speaker 1 27:52  

  that's true. Because it's always, it's always better when he goes through through filtered through a few filters and people's interpretations and experiences. And never, never the best design when someone just kind of goes away for three weeks comes back and says Look at this.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 28:06  

  I mean, it's the same thing you just said to your client, this block of marble and cutting it away. But internally, you're doing the same thing.

  Speaker 2 28:12  

  You have to check in and collaborate and pick each other's brains. It's just It always leads to a better product.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 28:17  

  I've always wondered about this. So when you have multiple people working on a single project, does it end up being a little bit like presenting your argument? Like, you know, Mike, if you felt like this should be this way. And Greg, you felt like it should be another way is it ended up like, Hey, you have a conversation, you kind of defend your points a little bit like, like, Hey, this is why I think it's better. And then at the other day, it's, I'm not gonna say it's a dispute, but you're you're both challenging the other person with why you think it's the best. How does that get worked out in a partnership? If you both are does it just because you respect each other? Sometimes you will think like, you know what, this is not the sort I'm going to die on. I'm gonna let this one go. I'm gonna fight Mike on the next one. Yeah. How do you handle some of those battles? Yeah, how do you how do you handle some of those?

  Speaker 2 28:59  

  I mean, it's, it's exactly what you just said. It's out of respect. I mean, if design school teaches you anything else, it's how to defend your your ideas, right, and pitch them to people you have design critiques,

  Speaker 1 29:11  

  say differing opinions in a kind way. That's not right. Hearing down just

  Speaker 2 29:15  

  right. Yeah, challenging it exactly. And it's always gonna lead to a better product. So it's always, you know, understood that any kind of critique or questioning is out of respect and out of desire to make the project better as a whole. So it's, it is a, it's an environment where we are very open to feedback. And we've, you know, from the very first day, we said, If there's ever anything, that's a problem between us, we need to need to lay it on the table and have a conversation. And you probably gathered by now that we're both pretty mild mannered people. We're not extremely animated or, you know, highly volatile or anything like that. So it's a very simple thing for us to just sit down and have the conversation if something's not right. I've in between us on a design or a business choice or anything. We just talked about it. And it.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 30:04  

  It's a novel concept right there. Yeah, right. This podcast is also relationship based, if you have an issue turns out talking about it is helpful.

  Unknown Speaker 30:14  

  If only more of us did that, but

  Speaker 1 30:15  

  yeah, we also know from your side of the table, we also like to bring in the builders that we work with and discuss things with them from not just from a pricing side, but also from the constructability. side. And then from even their opinion, you know, like you mentioned, we have a pretty close relationship with sustainable nine here locally, and will very often we'll discuss designs with them before the they've been presented to the client, just to make sure that we're all on board. We all have the, you know, an equal footing to speak, or whatever our opinion might be about the design that might mean that might need to change or just a challenge and like, Hey, did you think about this?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 30:51  

  Or do you think, you know, speaking of sustainable nine annual chat, and Ryan, they're going to be on episode 29 here. And or they've already been aired, by the time this one will have been aired? And it's kind of interesting, because I think one of the things we ended up talking about was, you know, external insulation is coming to Minnesota as code I think in just a few years, and they've been ahead of the curve for a while now. You know, and geothermal and even some of their, their marketing is very, I'm not going to call it greenwashing because I think they actually back it up. But I mean, that concept, they're very interested in like eco friendly, you know, I feel like they do attract a lot of clients that way, as an architecture firm that was kind of starting, how much of that was part of your kind of work in process with, with sustainable nine. And for those that don't know what we're talking about, you know, doing some external insulation, like two inches or four inches, or getting as much insulation to the outside of the envelope is going to make your house, you know, from a, you know, from a rating point of view, and your HERS score is going to you know, just drop, which is awesome, it eats you closer and closer to a netzero home, or just a more and more efficient home, how closely does that align with your personal aspirations and architecture? And how important was that into your relationship with a company like sustainable nine that seems to focus a lot of the marketing around it.

  Speaker 2 32:07  

  And go first, for me personally, I would say it's 100%. In alignment, I mean, part of the reason I was comfortable doing that, or working with them so closely is because of that, I mean that we they've been great, we love working with them and their projects, their their process is awesome. But you know, other times other parts of the country or other builders that we work with, they're not really pushing those ideas as much. And, you know, we'll do what we can to promote that sustainability. It's a it's extremely important in my opinion. And, you know, if we have the opportunity to, to sort of coax a client into the idea of bringing this house up to a much better par, and you know, dropping the herd score, then we're going to try to do that. I mean, it's a it's, we've got one planet, right? I mean, if we're going to build houses, let's build them. Right.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 32:56  

  Well, I think that's something that, you know, and, you know, the United States does a lot of things really well. But one thing we don't do very well, in my opinion, is think long term. I think a part of it is its cultural. So I'm not sure if we can change it other than talking about I think, is really important. I think this podcast is really important to talk about it so that people are educated on it. But you know, in general, I don't know the actual stat. But let's say that the average person probably lives in their home anywhere from five to eight years. And then they move, you know, because the corporate ladder here is such a fluid, one, people are moving in and out, in and out in and out where you maybe pick, you know, Europe, or they might stay or it's generational people, like hey, not only am I building this for my family, but someday my kids will buy it someday my grandkids will buy it, I mean, triple windows and even make double pane windows and most of Europe. I mean, so I've had other people on from Europe, you know, that have, you know, finished backgrounds or whatever. And it's just interesting to talk to them about how culturally they think about a home so much differently than we do. And that being said, like, Americans can build a house really fast, right, very effectively, which is a superpower for sure. But if we don't consider where it goes long term, any Pro has a con. And

  Speaker 2 34:04  

  in people like us, you and us in this room have the most control over that conversation with the client. I mean, we are the team. We are who they're trusting with the project, and we have the opportunity to push it that way. I mean, I don't think there's anyone else that could come into that room and say, Hey, you should do it this way that they're going to believe more I

  Mark D. Williams<br> 34:22  

  think what becomes interesting is, you know, we don't you know, as architects, there's a lot more that you know, about a home than I know, as a builder. And there's the thing of how much more collectively we have than the client to your point, right? The real question is, is how much do we explain to the client versus offer as a few limited suggestions? And then thirdly, how much is just our standard? Right? Right. I mean, so like, I'll take roofing for example two simple one, right? Like, you could build a very inexpensive shingle roof. You could also do there's so many different layers of asphalt shingles, but for the most majority people don't know that. difference, but then you get into cedar shake, and you get into, you know, composite or slate and there's no there's not that many options so you can kind of, but ultimately, if a client is coming to you at a certain strata, you know, if someone, I'll just use an example of someone who's coming to us at, let's say, a million and a half or $2 million, you know, it's unlikely we're going to be pitching a cedar hand split shake roof, because it's like four times the cost of asphalt, like there's not enough money in the budget for it to be a priority. There's other things that are stereotypically going to be prioritized to the kitchen or something else sit I mean, the same thing is with triple but some of these are easier conversations, like do you want double pane or triple pane? I can explain that to you. But when we get into this insulation thing with external insulation, you start losing clients, because they're kind of like, what are most people do? How much does it cost? Right? And they start, they start getting away from it. They're not really unless they're really passionate about it, I sometimes struggle on how much how far do you want to go down each of those rabbit holes, versus just saying, hey, you know, Mark dealings, custom homes, or sustainable nine, or whatever your builder name is, this is the home that we do, the reason that you're coming to us is because we build an exceptional home, here's all the benefits you get, but they don't need to necessarily know about some of the are using an R two and R six and R eight. I do struggle with that I've how I'm not gonna say nerdy, but like how sophisticated to get in some of your options, because you do too many, and their eyes just gloss over and you've lost them, you get overwhelmed

  Speaker 1 36:24  

  with there's a lot of clients that come into sample nine, because of the name that are interested in that off the bat, right. So it's probably a little bit of a skewed data set we're working with here, but what I was gonna say is that, a lot of times, they'll come in and say we want to build a simple home, they don't know exactly how that's defined. But there's a lot of knowledge, this is an S nine sample nine that can bring them through that. And we've been benefits of that food being being able to, to learn a lot from them. But a lot of times, those decisions don't actually get made until they see the budget in front of them. And if a lot easier for them to say, oh, let's, let's just get rid of the ECI and just do the typical spray or whatever. And because I don't want to I don't want to make my house smaller, you know, I don't want to cut out of these program elements. So a big part is on us to know when we're working with f9 is that the budget, there's a larger portion of the budget, it's going going to go towards these sustainable practices. So that means we have to be conscious of that when we're designing spaces in homes. And then also, when we push back on the clients, like you know, you can't have a sport court, because we're going to do this or you can ask me to size or whatever it might be.

  Unknown Speaker 37:33  

  Yeah, how often are you doing ECL? I'm curious.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 37:35  

  Well, we're doing it more and more knowing that it's coming up, you know, you know, for code here in Minnesota, I'm that we're actually have two homes up for bid right now that we're doing the insulated sheeting. Oh, you know, right. Yep. So this one's zip. You know, we use zip about five, six years ago, and there were some concerns and their tape and some of the I'm thinking like, okay, 50 years, 100 years, like, you know, it's an adhesive tape. Yeah. How long will that last? So, you know, there's some talk of like, you know, you put Tyvek over that as additional for some bulk water. And so I'm more I'm still working through that. But we will do that on two of them. And then one of them I'm pretty passionate about rock wool. Yeah. And so I want to do, you know, a two inch rock wool one on this upcoming house. And that particular house has stucco, which is perfect, because I want to air and add a drainage barrier. Well, rock wall can do both of those and add insulation. So that's like a three fold win for me. So we're actually bidding that out right now. And we'll see that'll be kind of our first one. I've pitched it to a number of clients, and they've all kind of gunned it down under price. But that's because we're kind of at a tweener price point. Yeah, that was, and that's always kind of a hard one. Because the clients, you know, and they are spending a lot of money. So it's not that, but everybody has a budget, you know, I think of you know, I don't know, call poll that personally, but like, you know, they built the twin stadium, you know, seven, eight years ago, and I forget that the number on it now it's called 500 million. But it wasn't a billion. They're not George Steinbrenner. Right, like, you know, it wasn't the Yankee Stadium. And so the point is, is like, regardless of your budget, we you as the designers and myself as the craftsman, and really, in some ways, I'm in charge of the budget, because, you know, we have to hold each other accountable. And you know, as good as you guys are in architecture, I'm still the one who has to build that. And I often tell that as a selling point to the client, like you want to assemble the team from the beginning, amen. Because if you go to architecture first, and it's not that you don't know what you're doing, but I mean, you're in design elements all the day, I'm in pricing all day. And so if we can combine those two knowledge sets, you're gonna have a rockstar house at a budget that you can afford. Keep in mind that still aren't, you know, it's not it. I know, this sounds so confusing and probably self serving that like, Hey, if you told me I have a 5000 square foot house, and my budget is, let's say, you know, one and a half million or 2 million or whatever, what am I going to get? And the answer is, depends. Yeah, and so I know we're laughing because we're on the industry, but you can see why it's so confusing in a world of consumerism, especially In the United States, you know, when you're used to going to a car lot and picking out, you know, you know, an Audi, BMW and Mercedes or Lexus, whatever card you like, I mean, you can go and see all of them at the same price point and then pick what you want. In a custom home, you can't really do that. And, you know, there's so many other hidden things, we're just talking about energy. But what about all the other like, you know, you could have one house with 20,000 and low voltage, you could have another house with 500,000, and low voltage doesn't show up in the square foot. And so now that house is so misleading, so I feel like I spent a lot of time in the front end, educating the client without scaring them, I want to, I'm an optimist, so I want them excited. But I also need to make sure that once we get into the build that I'm, you know, not the bad guy saying, Yeah, you know, right. It's hard. I mean, it's, it's, there's a reason why, you know, let's say track homes or production homes or existing home sell so much faster and such greater quantity than custom, there is the barrier to entry is a lot of questions and a lot of knowledge. Yeah. And,

  Speaker 2 40:57  

  and there's a lot, I mean, if you're building a custom home, you obviously have a particular taste in something, whether that's, it could be something like low voltage, you just want a really blinged out house for low voltage or you care a lot about design or you care about sustainability. So there's there, there's a level of being a little bit particular about something. So we kind of have to figure out what that is what those clients are all about, and tailor it to that. And it

  Speaker 1 41:21  

  comes down to like those first conversations, you're talking about just literally the first meeting just being just chatting about their lifestyle. Who are

  Unknown Speaker 41:28  

  you as a human? And what are you interested in? I

  Speaker 1 41:30  

  want us to push push you on your program elements, because sustainability is your primary goal or is you know, having five veterans your primary goal and you need to make sure that the rest of the house works around that?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 41:40  

  Yeah. Was there ever a point of interest where you want it to be a general contractor? I mean, you both went to school for architecture? Did you ever consider being a general contractor before that? I

  Speaker 2 41:53  

  actually did. Yeah, I, I don't come from a line of entrepreneurs. But I do come from a line of pretty handy people that have built a lot of things. And that is I think what, deep down drove me towards architecture. I mean, I've watched my grandpa build a log home stripping the logs, you know, that kind of thing. And I did consider construction administration in college. And you know, Greg mentioned that I do a lot of that back end stuff anyways. And that's just because I enjoy it. I mean, I love the details of how things come together, dealt out a van recently that I like to camp in, which is, you know, the hippie side of me. But it's, it's, it's so fun. I mean, it's such, it's all about sequencing, especially in a small space like that, which I think is comparable to a custom home. I mean, you're obviously intimately aware with that. It's just one thing has to be done, then the next can be done. But that first thing informs the second and it's all layered on in the right order. And with the right details, it's that part is fun to me. I think that's a big reason why I got into it.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 42:58  

  You mentioned your you had a lawn mowing business as a lawn mowing business as well. So it turns out if you have a lawn mowing business, you know, your chances of actually that'd be a very interesting poll. If you're a high school kid, or grade school kid in your lawn mowing business, what are the odds that you end up being an entrepreneur? At some point, you'll probably be pretty high.

  Unknown Speaker 43:16  

  I wonder that would be interesting.

  Speaker 1 43:17  

  Much time designing brochures and actually, yes,

  Mark D. Williams<br> 43:21  

  yeah. Oh, yeah. I've roasted myself a few times on some of my lawn mowing habits in previous episodes, people can tune in for that. And another one. What, when you, you know, when you're meet a builder or a client, kind of for the first time? What is your hope in that first meeting? What are you trying to get out of it? Or them in terms of like, if you know, you're going to be a good fit? You said builder or client builder or client? Because I assume in some ways, they're kind of the same, right? Like, if I'm, in some ways, if I'm the builder, like, you want to know that you have to work with me and like, what are my What do I have the talent level to execute? You know, things like that? I guess they just somewhat different.

  Speaker 1 44:00  

  I would say for me, at least it goes back to what we're talking earlier about the communication styles, I think you can work through a lot of issues. If the person if you're able to communicate openly and honestly with other person, so a lot of times just kind of a little bit of his gut, I think with the clients or builders of like, Hey, can we talk across this table and share honestly, the issues that we're dealing with or things that you're interested in or whatever. And if that feels comfortable, that doesn't feel forced or that you don't feel like you're you can't you can't be yourself or it feels like they're presenting some sort of, you know, slightly site or something which I've never had that issue at all. But for me, it kind of comes down to I don't think I have a lot of like just data points that I would go back to. Yeah,

  Speaker 2 44:42  

  I think a lot of it comes I mean, I can speak to the contractor side, I think every house has, you know, 100,000 questions that need to be answered to figure out how it comes together and we can figure out which ones to answer in our documents set and which ones to you know, answer on a phone call. When they're standing there on on in framing, you know, and the big thing is just how do we make things easier for the way that you operate, I mean, part of our art is the CD set, and how that comes together. And you know, how detailed we get, or how, how much we leave open for the builder to solve, if they desire that in certain cases. So I think it's just having those conversations and, you know, learning how you might operate and how you prefer to see something done, or how you prefer to work with your subs on how you, you know, figure out a detail from foundation framing, and we can we can kind of adapt and tailor our, our set to work with what you know how you want to do it. And obviously, there's a line there, we're going to protect ourselves and draw, right. And I'm not suggesting that any builder wouldn't want to cut a corner, but we have our methods that we think are correct. And we'll do that as, as long as it's, you know, something we can mutually agree upon, which like Greg said, it just comes down to communicating that.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 46:03  

  So you're talking about it is obviously a system of understanding. So this is going to be a two part question. One is, you know, I've worked now on 20 years of building, you know, kind of three sets of, let's say, home design sites architecture, right. So you've got your six page plan, you know, that I built maybe 1520 years ago and built a lot, many beautiful homes for those clients, and they're very happy. I've worked with home designers and architects where the plan set is anywhere from 25 to 60 pages. And then you have, you know, on the higher end side, I've worked on plans that were two to 300 pages, and all of them were homes, all the clients were happy. Can you explain a little bit to just how architecture seems to be very misunderstood what you get to like, as the builders out there listening, they're going to understand this very clearly what I'm talking about, I guess, I'm just kind of keeping an open dialogue here of because you kind of open the door with it, Mike, when you were sent saying that, like, you know, hey, if that builder doesn't need a bunch of Interior Elevations, because they prefer to meet on site, and then either have us out, or the interior designer out to talk about trim details, or coping details, or whatever it is that they're passionate about, then I can leave those off the plants, because we're gonna get evolved later. And, you know, just what is your what, what has been your experience on kind of that, that analogy or those examples?

  Speaker 1 47:23  

  It's hard. I can like, I can go back to my experience, at least, when I was in Tahoe, you know, a lot of those homes were, it depends highly on into interior design is included as well, because you know, this elevation pages can be a lot of pages. But you know, they're typically at perspective set at page sets. Size the house kind of hands a little bit too, but I think when we first worked here that because that was my only experience in my family, corporate, you know, and those corporate commercial can be hundreds of pages that we didn't really know exactly what the standard was here. So I just, we just pull upon the only experience that we both have just house and ever, you know, slapping down, you know, I think was like a 50 page set in the builder was like, I'm not used to this, you know, like, and then even like Not, not knowing where different things was, in the sense, a lot of times it's talking with the builder and seeing what they're comfortable with. And like, you know, some builders, they are used to the six to eight to 10 pages. And so we have to figure out how to get the most amount information into that. And maybe the budget only will allow us to do six to eight to 10 pages.

  Speaker 2 48:27  

  Like that. Yeah. And part of it comes to the client to like, where did they particular about if they're, if they're sending us inspiration images that are extremely detailed? Trim, you know, we're gonna have to take that into consideration on how we design and how we document but I mean, I'm curious, where do you land? Where do you what do you like?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 48:47  

  I mean, that's a great question. It's, it depends. Yeah, exactly. It's almost impossible. It is such a unique it is so variable based on the architect, the budget and the client and I say the budget because, you know, if your budget is a million a half dollars, and you know, these are first world problems we're talking about. So, you know that a million and a half dollar house can't justify a plan of $300,000 it's just not going to work. Because either A, you're spending too much money or architecture, or B the things that will be SPECT are going to make that house at 1.5 Not even viable to be built. So part of it is understanding what the budget is and a lot of is taking cues from the client, you know, obviously, you know, we are not usually a first time homebuyer. Now we might be the first time that they build a custom home is really nice if someone has built a custom home before and even nicer. I mean, you know, high end architecture usually is preceded by an exposure to architecture previously either in a build an addition or somewhere else in their life. Because if you really know what you're getting kind of like the high quality, then you you value it so it's really I guess it comes down to a value statement. I interviewed with a client the other day and I was trying to we When we don't know who's gonna build with that he's interviewing, you know, five or six builders, he's actually independently interviewing four or five, designers, architects, as well. And I can tell he's an engineer, he kind of wants to get all his information and come back and make a choice. And it's interesting to me, because that could go so many different ways. And it's hard for me to give him advice, because I'm a relationship person, I want to make sure that the journey is enjoyable. I mean, there's a lot of ways to get from, you know, let's say, you know, we're in Minneapolis, and you guys are in Des Moines, from here to actually, there's not that many ways. 35 W's so let's pick a different way, you know, but you get the point. Anytime, exactly. So I mean, are we flying? Are we taking a boat? Or are we taking a train, you know, whatever, whatever destination is, we want to get there fast, we want to enjoy, do we want to stop and go camping? And I use these analogies, because I've just how my brain works, but it's really just understanding what the client value is. And so I don't know I can I personally, as a professional can build all three sets, I could build a 5000 square foot house at three different price points with three different architecture packages, but they're going to be different homes. I mean, I don't think it's any stretch of the imagination that the 300 That's ridiculous, 100 set plan, and a six set plan is the same house, it is not the same. It's not even close. Is it? 70%? Maybe there's an 80. That's where That's where it comes down to what does the client value in my opinion, so I just need to ask better questions, as I guess how I handle that. So I, I usually will, you know, I'll interview the client, get a sense of their personality, get a sense of their budget, get a sense of their taste, who they are. And then ultimately, you know, I said, let's, let's interview two architects. And let's interview two designers. And I sit in all the meetings with them, because I want to see how they're reacting. So I can also prompt questions and ask, because I'm trying to assemble the team. I mean, at the end of the day, that's, that's really what my job is. And going back to our earlier conversation point, like if someone comes in with a budget, and they go an architect first and then design the house, then the shop production builder, say who which builder can meet this price point? I don't think that's a very good way to do it. No, it's pretty bad. And so it needs to really be the whole team. And we talked about this when you're having coffee this morning. But we haven't talked about it yet. But at what point you bring in the interior designer, and everyone wants to be in there in the very beginning. But Greg, as you were mentioning, you know, not everyone can be driving the bus at the same time. But you know, who you have in the first couple seats of this bus is pretty important to the experience in so with that in mind, I guess where have you seen successful projects land with, you know, involvement in the interior designer? When did they typically come on board with you guys?

  Speaker 1 52:31  

  It depends, because lot of times, it depends on if the builder has interior design in house, or they have someone that they want to work with. And a lot of times we'll we'll try to bring them in. at a stage where more or less the walls aren't moving, we would kind of say that, like the at least the exterior walls or structural walls aren't moving. And we have but there's also a lot of times, I think really good architecture and unknown microbrew Sydney is architecture that has a consistent story from the exterior to the interior, and isn't there they can't be there's not a book in between the two. So it's hard because it's like, we need to extend this, whatever the story is that we're telling the outside to the inside. So we have to do enough to the interior to make sure that that's there on that kind of project, but then bring the interior designers in and make sure that they also buy into that story. And we just kind of tell them what we're trying to do. And then Is it is it that we're doing all the Interior Elevations and they're doing more finished elections and finishing fixture selections, or is it something where maybe it's a different kind of house, and there isn't such a complete story. And it can be more of a, say more of a traditional home. And so they're able to kind of run wild with whatever the whatever the clients want in the interior, then then we can bring them in a lot earlier because they because we don't have to develop the interior as much. It's kind of it's it's hard, there's nothing, there's a perfect way, it depends on the client. And in the project. The type of project we worked on, we had a really low baseline that was really interesting, where we just didn't even really connect with the interior designer much we designed a lot in the end like we do like interior renderings and everything. And then the client just showed those the interior designer, and the interior designer just took our renderings around with that, and like selected materials that kind of matched it. So it's been a lot

  Mark D. Williams<br> 54:12  

  again, it goes back to communication. Yeah. Because what's, you know, how would you think it's fair to say we had mentioned this earlier that I guess I had said this and I'm curious if you agree with it, but you know, you sort of have to work with let's say an architecture firm, like two or three homes before you really get a feel like what you're gonna get. Do you feel that's also the opposite is true, you kind of need to work with the builder on a couple homes before you really understand what they want what they're capable of.

  Speaker 2 54:39  

  Yeah, the phone will ring a lot more with some builders than others and, you know, decisions will be made with our input versus not our input. Depends on who you're working with. But that's the best part about getting out on the site don't mean we always ask and and really strive to get out there as much as we can to just have the conversations with the builder. Not only the GC, but also the subs. I mean, we can just meet with the framer and walk through it multiple times, ask them questions. I mean, we just did this not too long ago on a house we walked through. And they had four or five things in our set that they thought would be better the next time if we changed it, and they were all, you know, totally understandable thing. So we're just modifying that. And now the next job, it'll be a lot easier for them. And hopefully, the phone doesn't ring as much. But you know, it's just like you said, it's just a series of conversations and a series of questions that need to be answered at some point in the process.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 55:35  

  So we I mean, we refer to that as construction administration. Is that even elective? Sometimes I have clients that they'll they'll say, Well, I don't want to, you know, I'll have I'll be challenged sometimes where a client will say, usually it's about budget. And they'll say, Well, I don't want to pay the architect for construction, management, that's your responsibility. And it should either come out of your fee, or you should be capable enough builder to handle that on your own. How would you answer that question? As an architect,

  Speaker 2 56:00  

  we build in enough into our fee, that's baseline to cover our time to go out there at least a handful of times, if nothing else, for our own learning purposes. I mean, you've learned so much just walking through a job site. But like you said, it depends on on the budget and the fee and the scope and also the travel distance, you know, that's going to play into how many trips we make. So, you know, depending on how many times we've worked with the builder, and how many, how many trips we can expect to need to attend, we'll probably just change our fee structure for that. But we obviously offer that service. If the client would like us to do more walks or go out there. Don't

  Mark D. Williams<br> 56:42  

  do like, just do like an hourly retainer after like, you exceed, hey, once we exceed 30 hours,

  Speaker 1 56:48  

  put that in there. We always have it on the contracts, but I think I can count on. Like on the one hand in Montana, we actually build additional ca ours. It's really only there in case you know, there's last minute client driven, directed. Oh, can

  Unknown Speaker 57:02  

  you add a sport court?

  Mark D. Williams<br> 57:06  

  Rambler a two story. Yes. But

  Speaker 1 57:09  

  yeah. And that's what a lot of times, yeah, just, we get as much value out of it as a client does for us to get out to the site and talk with the subs and talk with the framers.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 57:17  

  I mean, have you heard that before? Right now, I have a client who, who I'm going through that with right now, at the beginning of designing the contract, they refused to sign the architect ca. And they they asked me that direct question.

  Speaker 2 57:29  

  Well, no, we've never had that direct pushback. Yeah, it's not common.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 57:33  

  But it's, it's a way I think they're trying to control costs. And they feel like this is the way to do it. I've tried to educate them as patiently as I can, that, you know, there's an immune, you've assembled a good team, your team is going to build you an outstanding home. Yeah. But like, let them bring it home, you're talking about the last couple percent, right? That is going to make it the difference between a great journey. It's kind of like going on an airplane ride. But not on this, you paid $100 less, so you get no food, no drinks. And by the way, you can't use the bathroom on this flight.

  Unknown Speaker 58:03  

  Movie, I don't know what airline you fly.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 58:06  

  That's, but that's kind of what we're talking about. Like, it's still flying, ya know, right. And they just don't want to do that little add on service. And yeah, and then once they get in the air, they're upset that they don't have the level of service. Nevermind that they didn't pay for it. And they told us they didn't want it in the beginning it it really puts me in a very difficult position to explain to them because nobody wants to say I told you so. But that's really what you're saying. Yeah, very polite way. Right. And just saying like, well, these are the choices that, you know, we made as a team to honor your budget. You know, would you like to change? That? Doesn't mean practicing that. But yeah, yeah, I mean, do you want them to inflate? You may use the restroom now like,

  Speaker 2 58:48  

  yeah, no, honestly, we've probably had more. So the opposite of that. They'll ask us the questions and say, Hey, will you be sure to be a part of the process all the way through to the end? And of course, we say yes. I mean, that's what we want. Agreed.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 59:00  

  And we want as builders to Yeah, I mean, the best. Again, it goes back to the team thing, if you're assembling the team, like you want the whole team there, right? Yeah, we don't want someone missing a game because of injury. Like, you know, I keep going to analogies here. You know, I want everybody there all the way through, right. And those are the best projects and the ones where the client is happy, the team is happy. And you've had a everyone's very proud of the work that you've done,

  Speaker 2 59:22  

  and no relationships have been hurt, you know. But that's a part of this idea of getting out to the site as much as we can to we don't want to become, you know, the day that the architect is coming out is is the worst day for the drive, see, oh, here we go. We're gonna have to do a million things different, right. And we're, that's not our goal. We don't, I mean, things are always going to be a little different than what we all hoped for. So it's just a matter of having those conversations and making sure that everything works out in the best interest of the client. So

  Speaker 1 59:52  

  you can hear from the guys have been framing houses for 30 years. It's the knowledge they have.

  Speaker 2 59:56  

  Yeah, the first time I met one of the framers eat I think he went through like, four cigarettes in a matter of 12 minutes. Like he was just, you know, he was a framer, he's a rough and tumble guy. And he kind of put me in my place right away. And I was like, All right, I mean, I get it. And you just have to stand there and take it for a minute and then say, how can we how can we help? How can we make this better? And then it obviously now we have a great relationship with him now, but it's

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:00:24  

  just as he still smoke four cigarettes at a time like a chimney down to three. He's really moderated. He really stressed him out. He needed the nicotine to calm down. This architect. Like Mike is like the most unassuming, like calming presence or like chamomile tea person. I have my moment. All right, Greg, you're Earl Grey. Okay, well, as we transition here to the end, just a few personal things mainly, I was interested in your, your van so camper, rock climber, mountaineer. It sounds like you'd like to get out on the road. Or you're kind of I've seen some of those videos where you take apart a, you know, a sprinter van and re put it back together and make it kind of cool is that that's what it

  Speaker 2 1:01:02  

  Yeah, no, that's pretty pretty driving force in my vacation days is outdoors. So it's mountain biking, skiing, big time downhill skier, that's probably my favorite activity. But yeah, it's a lot of that. Yeah.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:01:15  

  You tried to get out Weston a few times a year. Yeah. Greg

  Speaker 2 1:01:18  

  gets to go to New York, and I get to go to Utah for a month at least.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:01:22  

  I'm going with Mike. out there. Yeah. Good call. And how about you, Greg, what are some personal things that you'd like to do in your downtime. Um,

  Speaker 1 1:01:30  

  so my, like I mentioned earlier today, my wife's a food writer, and recipe developer. So being in Manhattan for that, we just do a lot of exploring restaurants and bars, and places to be, check out the new openings or whatever, you know, we're only gonna be there for a period of time, you know, 18 months or so. So we'd like to make the most of it. But

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:01:50  

  I have to believe that seeing a lot of I mean, New York is going to have some really cool restaurants and pretty awesome design. Do you find that you're taking like you're kind of inspired by some of these restaurant like decor is and like sending it to Mike saying, Hey, we gotta get this into a house like this is really cool. For sure.

  Speaker 1 1:02:05  

  Our text changed a lot of just photos and things we've seen in the world. But I mean, as a kid, I remember always going to the bathroom in restaurants just to see more of the restaurant, you know, and you can also the bathrooms are always where they always typically do a lot more design in there, sometimes, depending on the restaurant. So I think that's why she loves to go for the food experience. And I'd love to go just to see how do they solve this? Or how do they do this? Or how are they expressing whatever it is that they're

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:02:32  

  right, what about last question is what do you guys do for continuing education in terms of how do you further your craft? And I mean, are you looking at an architect works? Are you doing the, you know, the AIA tour the artisan tour, reading books, podcasts, like what's kind of your jam to kind of further your, your knowledge base?

  Speaker 2 1:02:50  

  I should say all the above all of them, we our whole team is going out to Utah in a few weeks for the custom residential architecture. Not symposium, but conference, I suppose. And, you know, we try to get together every every couple of weeks and do some courses together. I mean, but on a personal note, it's it's a lot of podcasts. Yeah, we like listening to you guys talk. It's, it's interesting to hear the other other side of the tables perspective. I mean, it's, it's fascinating. Now,

  Speaker 1 1:03:21  

  how about you, Greg, saying a lot of podcasts and everything we talked about earlier, too, but you know, just whether it's from a high level, like, connection based, you know, business structure, which I'm really interested in or down to the detail, sort of, you know, how do we do this rainscreen system or whatever it might be. That's just a lot of times, it's just listening to it a lot. And you know, whether you're redrafting or modeling or something and just feel like you kind of just get it through osmosis, just continuing to listen to how people deal with what they're dealing with. Yeah,

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:03:48  

  I curiosity, and the namesake of the show, how did you How did you know about the curious builder podcast and me specifically? I mean, I know I have some obviously, a lot of Minnesota ties but where you guys had actually reached out to me saying, Hey, we're in town, we'd love to sit down with you, I guess what were some of your first points of either marketing that was working on you? Or how did you know either about the podcast or the construction company?

  Speaker 1 1:04:10  

  I think the Instagram algorithm for that, okay, somehow I think I think it's something popped across one of our feeds and you know, diving into it and record talking about from the website. That's the thing that can capture attention and it was like, Oh, this this company really cares about you know, the whole the whole nuts and bolts of everything not just a lot of times architects websites and builders websites are just like kind of crappy. Like I don't know how you cannot like this is the face of your business. So like it was like that this seems like it's really crafted and then I think we just one thing led to another and listened to a bunch of your podcast and was like, This is really good. quality stuff. And also just this hearing about vocal people that are doing great stuff is it's really interesting.

  Speaker 2 1:04:51  

  It's also like a nice cup of coffee. If I'm, if I'm a camera meal. Yeah, you're highly cat

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:04:59  

  shot of us So in chocolate on top of it, yeah, it's pretty revved up this morning McCollum now

  Speaker 2 1:05:03  

  so no, it's it's a good energy. I love it.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:05:06  

  Well, thank you very much for coming on. We'll have everything taped in the show notes, as well. But if people are looking for your website, what's the URL?

  Unknown Speaker 1:05:16  

  architecture.com.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:05:17  

  Oh, one last question. I forgot to ask you the first question. So we'll make it the last unfold architecture. I love the name in my mind. It's your unfolding piece of paper, like this thing is unfolding into something. You know, it's like a surprise. What was the origin story of naming your company unfold architecture?

  Speaker 2 1:05:34  

  It was sort of what you just said. I mean, we were debating a few different words, we worked with a mutual friend of ours to ideate some thoughts on where we could go with it. And we didn't want to do the, you know, the acronyms of the last names. And we wanted to keep this thing new and agile and young and the word unfold stood out. It's just a insinuates a process and a product at the end. And, you know, it's, it's, it's an active word, and I think it represents how we approach problems.

  Mark D. Williams<br> 1:06:07  

  Yeah, I love that. I mean, that's when I heard it the first time I was like, Oh, I liked I got to ask this. So all right, I'm glad I remember at the end. Well, thanks again for coming on. Thanks for joining the curious builder podcast. And for those that are interested, we're doing our next live show on November 14 at the lowlands in St. Paul. Those tickets are available online now. And we hope to see you there we'll be recording live with Alex Welch from large audio visual, he also owns a wedding business now. So if you're enjoying what you're listening to come in and network with a bunch of industry professionals in Minnesota as well as CO live podcast. Thanks for joining. Thanks, Mark. Alright, thanks, guys. See, so last time I did the recording, we didn't do the backup audio like

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