I started writing this newsletter back in 2020 during the pandemic shutdown. It gave me a platform to explore and share ideas about cities, urbanism, transportation, and design - hence the name A Better Built Environment. I wrote about my experiences and opinions, but more importantly I highlighted the work of inspiring people and organizations, and shared interesting points of view from things I was reading.

After starting a full-time job back in 2021, I found less time to write and this space became stagnant for a few years as I focused on other work. I often thought about starting it back up again, but kept delaying for various reasons. Now the time feels right to get back to writing more frequently - probably due to the career changes highlighted below.

This post is a personal story. I’ll return to focusing the writing on the built environment in subsequent posts so please bear with me.

A Work Update

For the past three years I have had the pleasure of working with the amazing team at CVG as a business consultant for design firms, and as the director of business development. I helped small architecture firm owners improve their business operations and profitability. I also had conversations with hundreds of architects and design business owners from across the US and Canada as part of my role doing business development. It was an interesting role - being removed from the day to day aspects of running a firm and designing projects, and instead enabling other firms to run their businesses effectively so they could do great work for their clients.

Working with and learning from so many inspiring clients across the country as well as all of my colleagues was a true pleasure. I learned a great deal and was inspired by so many people doing great work to make our built environment better.

I’d like to thank all of my colleagues and clients for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow, and for supporting me through the whirlwind of the past three years.

A Place To Call Home

The past three years really has been a whirlwind. We lived in 8 apartments, 5 cities, 2 countries, and moved coast to coast 3 times since the start of 2020. Definitely too many moves.

We now find ourselves back in New York City and the plan is to lay down some roots and stay here for the long term. Rather than moving our location for jobs, we are picking the location we are excited to live in and making our jobs work based on that.

The Next Adventure

Speaking of jobs, at the beginning of March I made the very tough decision to move on from my role at CVG in order to pursue a new career opportunity.

I was offered a job at a startup focused on the development, design, and construction of housing to become the Director of Operations of the architecture team. It felt like a natural fit based on my design background working on housing projects, my experience managing an architecture firm, and the past three years as a business consultant.

After much deliberation, I decided to accept the position. I was excited about the opportunity to return to a leadership position within a company and manage a team again. Plus it would bring me closer to the design process and my interest in addressing housing issues through a company that had big growth ambitions - aiming to change the traditional delivery of housing projects through a more integrated approach.

The Plan Goes Awry

Unfortunately, the new role was canceled before I had the chance to join the team. Some large projects the company was planning for unfortunately were cancelled. With an unstable project pipeline and an unpredictable economy at large, the company made the though decision to not grow their team at this time.

Although this meant my potential role was eliminated before I started, I completely understand the decision to maintain their current team. It is what I would have advised my consulting clients to do in a similar situation. I have no ill will and in some ways feel this is actually for the best.

However, it was tough timing for me considering I had already made the decision to leave my other job. Looking on the bright side, I'm confident this will lead to something else I will get excited about. Potentially even a better fit.

What’s Next

Having resigned from my role at CVG, and no longer with the new opportunity in the cards, it means it is time to reassess where I’m at in my career and what I want to do next. This is the second time I’ve landed in NY needing to find a new career opportunity. Last time it eventually led me to join the team at CVG. This time it’s still an open question.

I have a few personal projects I’ll be focused on in the short term. These include taking on a custom house design project, starting to write more frequently again through this platform, helping a couple small architecture firms improve their business development strategies, helping some families with ADU projects, and collaborating with some friends to find land in the Hudson Valley for a small development project.

I’m excited to see where these projects lead and what other opportunities shape up over the coming weeks and months.

Open for Conversations

I posted an abridged version of this story on LinkedIn last week and it has been amazing how supportive everyone has been. Dozens of people have reached out with words of encouragement and support. I even received a handful of job offers. I’ve had many great conversations since the post went live and would like to thank everyone.

Luckily, I have a bit of time to think about what I want to do next and what the best fit will be. That means talking with friends and colleagues, connecting with companies and organizations that inspire me, and exploring what options are out there. Through these conversations I’m looking to find a place where I can add value, be inspired, and collaborate with a creative team.

If you would like to touch base, jump on a video call to catch up, or know a place where I could add value, please send me a message.

Things To Read This Week

1. The Impending Demographic Collapse
   - by Aziz Sunderji from Home Economics
   Looks like population growth is slowing down. If not for immigration, the US would see the population start to decline in just 14 years. This will have a big impact on the housing market.

The Latest in Toilet Design News:

1. San Francisco Tried to Build a $1.7 Million Toilet. It’s Still Not Done.
   Why is building things so hard in America? Seriously, this is one of the main reasons I left the traditional practice of Architecture. The bureaucracy we face to build simple small projects like toilets, or ADUs, is obscene.
   

2. A Close Examination of the Most Infamous Public Toilet in America
   The toilet from the article above has finally been installed. This is a good article analyzing what happened, what needs to change, and how San Francisco isn’t alone in these boondoggles.
   

3. Modular Portland Loo Toilets Are Finally Coming to New York City
   At a price tag of over $5 million, and over a 4 year wait since first being proposed, they are supposed to start installing one of these toilets in each borough this year. Again, the challenges of designing and building things is the main reason I have no interest in working on architecture projects in this city. I’m continually impressed that anything gets built, let along huge skyscrapers and complex public projects when building a tiny pre-fab toiled is this difficult.

Design Inspiration

A great example of how we can quickly and cheaply redesign our streetscape. We don’t have to spend millions to transform our cities. With some stones, planters, and fun use of colorful paint we can make our urban environment more people friendly. There are hundreds of these sorts of interventions popping up around New York City. I hope to see thousands more - especially with congestion pricing being implemented this summer. When we reclaim land from cars we make the city better for every

Photo by Street Plans

Ways to Connect

• Email: lucas@lucasgraydesign.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasgray/

• #Textures instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• Design Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

Most of the individual buildings in Tokyo are ugly. They are utilitarian, designed to house people affordably, survive earthquakes, and protect inhabitants from the weather. Most could be described as brutalist with concrete or tile exteriors, relatively small windows, and minimal decoration. They aren’t precious or beautiful yet they do what buildings are supposed to do. They function and make Tokyo a surprisingly affordable city for millions of residents and businesses.

Meanwhile, the overall built environment of Tokyo is wonderful. When taken together, the small lots, narrow streets, and intimate shops make the experience of walking the city enjoyable and safe. The density of housing supports a diversity of small businesses. The public transit system is second to none with clean trains that run frequently and are always on time. The city is decentralized with walkable neighborhoods and commercial areas close to housing, parks, schools, and other amenities. It is a perfect example of a 15 minute city - where almost everything you need can be found within 15 minutes of where you live.

The city as a whole is beautiful. The individual buildings take a back seat to the beauty of the urban fabric. The architecture frames the public spaces rather than fight for attention. The infrastructure makes it easy to navigate the city affordably for all residents. The decentralized planning means each neighborhood is walkable and human scaled and fun to explore.

Meanwhile, in America we have taken the opposite approach.

We spend so much time and effort regulating the look, feel, and size of individual buildings we neglect to consider the impact these regulations have on the city at large. Zoning separates uses leading to monotonous districts and reliance on driving to get the basics needed to live. Codes, regulations, layers of review boards and community driven barriers to development aim to control the size, style, and use of what we build. Individually our buildings are thus aesthetically controlled to meet the taste of the lowest common denominator - often older affluent homeowners. The effect: new buildings for the most part are palatable and inoffensive. Yet this comes at a steep cost.

While we argue about style and fight over height limits and density, we are driving up the cost of housing to the point where most people can’t afford to live in desirable neighborhoods or cities. San Francisco, Seattle, New York, and Portland for example, have housing costs that are spiraling out of control, mostly due to laws than enable individuals to throw wrenches in the gears of new developments. The regulations make building new housing risky, expensive, and in some cases almost impossible. Rather than have a set of rules that are predictable and guide developers on what can and cannot be built, these cities have subjective processes that let almost anyone halt a project. Rather than think about the long term benefits a project could have on the entire city, as Brandon Donnelly clearly put it, “for better or for worse, we plan to piss off the least amount of people.”

We have onerous design review processes that add unnecessary risk through increased time and cost to developing new housing, cost that is ultimately passed on to families through higher rental prices, making housing less affordable. Worse, in many cases it prevents new housing from being built at all, as the cost of development outpaces the rents people can afford to pay.

Another result of our approach to urban development is that the lengthy and onerous approval process limits who can develop. It makes it hard for smaller scale projects and incremental development. Instead, we get large development companies building large scaled projects. This doesn’t lead to human scaled cities and thus it reinforces people’s arguments that more codes, regulations, and review boards are necessary. I feel this is a chicken or egg situation. Making it harder to develop leads to only a few large companies able to take on the risk, the more expensive it is leads to larger scale projects to make the numbers work, the larger scale projects make locals concerned of scale and neighborhood character, they pass laws adding design review processes and zoning limitations, which leads to increased development costs. One leads to the other in a vicious cycle.

Rather than building to meet demand, we have a bunch of rules and regulations that limit what can be built where, overriding market forces with individual’s opinions. This creates development patterns that are sprawling and scaled for cars rather than people. It means that much of our urban land is exclusively reserved for single family detached housing, which makes absolutely no sense. Rather than building density in the desirable neighborhoods and city centers, wealthy residents pass laws and take over review boards in order to limit what can be built, preserving low-density neighborhoods at the expense of future residents.

Cities should take a deep honest look at whether their zoning codes, the design review process, and local control is actually benefiting the majority of their residents. Are these things needed at all in order to deliver safe and affordable places to live or open new businesses? I would argue no.

The design review processes coupled with allowing individuals to fight developments on aesthetic grounds is counterproductive, directly increases the cost of housing, and often leads to worse outcomes for our built environment.

Ugly shouldn’t be outlawed. Style shouldn’t be regulated. Individuals should not be able to dictate new developments. Instead, we should open the flood gates and make developing new buildings easier by right. Write a form based zoning code with community input, and then eliminate subsequent review processes that are purely subjective.

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Things To Read This Week

1. There’s Another Way to Pay for Infrastructure Projects
   An idea to harvest data from our infrastructure and use sell this new asset to finance new infrastructure projects. The goal, rely less on increasing taxes to build the infrastructure we need and use the data collected from “smart infrastructure” to both improve our systems and fund their upgrades.

   just like data from smartphone apps create value, the data from physical infrastructure will lead to a new marketplace in which public infrastructure is a lot more attractive to private capital than it is right now.

2. “Good Design” Is Making Bad Cities, But It Doesn’t Have To
   Mostly a critique of unnecessary zoning and design review, they argue that there should be an easier/faster path to building new housing. Delaying, halting, and fighting new development in the name of “neighborhood character” is driving up the cost of housing while preserving inequity in our built environment.

   In all likelihood, voters, politicians, and courts are going to cling to the idea that aesthetics are fair grounds to contest what happens on a neighbor’s property. But in a time of extreme housing scarcity and out-of-control rents, is a great-looking building still a luxury we have time to wait for?

3. Mónica Ponce de León on the Future of Architectural Licensure
   An interesting take on Architectural Licensure and how it limits diversity. Reform of architecture licensure is needed if we truly care about the profession being more inclusive and diverse. Are architects ready to make big changes?

4. Yes, Other Countries Do Housing Better, Case 1: Japan
   I love Japan for so many reasons. The food. The people. The landscape. The culture of craft. Yet I also admire it for how it prioritizes housing abundance and affordability over local obstructionism. Lessons I hope can be adopted in America to combat our housing affordability crisis in cities across the country.

   Housing obstructionism is a potent impulse among neighbors in Japan, just as it is in other places. It’s a constant in human affairs. But the nation’s centralization of control over buildings makes it moot. The national interest lies in developing compact, walkable, low-carbon neighborhoods with plenty of homes for everyone, and that’s what policy allows, obstructionists be damned…
   …The results—in housing abundance, low prices, and walkable, transit-centered, low-carbon urban forms—are remarkable.

Design Inspiration

As someone who grew up designing and building with Lego, the artwork of Ekow Nimako resonates with me, both his imaginative world building as well as his fantastical creatures, heroes, and mythology.

Building Black: Civilizations
Inspired by the Medieval Kingdoms of West Africa and the Visionary Scope of Afrofuturism.

See more of his work

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EntreArchitect

I’ve been a member of the EntreArchitect community for around 10 years now, perhaps longer. It has been a great source of information, comradery, and community as I embarked on my architecture career, started my first architecture firm, and currently as I transition to writing about practice and working as a consultant that helps architects run better businesses. Through the active facebook group and website, there is a collection of resources, documents, podcasts, webinars, and colleagues providing information, advice, and education to help architects focus on the business side of their practice. It has been a valuable resource for me and I recommend checking it out.

Mark LePage started EntreArchitect because he noticed there was a gap in knowledge that many small firms faced. Most architects are not trained in business and the AIA wasn’t focused on the conversations small firm architects wanted or needed to have.

The vision of EntreArchitect™ is to be a great and enduring company by building and maintaining a growing and vibrant community of engaged small firm architects who are seeking success in business, leadership and life.

If you are running a small architecture studio, are thinking about starting your own design business, or work for a small architecture firm, I encourage you to check out EntreArchitect and join the community. Below are some links for where to get started.

Shop for business resources:

EntreArchitect Resources

Join the EntreArchitect Academy:

Entre Architect Academy

Listen to the EntreArchitect Podcast:

EntreArchitect Podcast

Also of note, I’ve recently started managing and editing the EntreArchitect Blog. I help find architects who are interested in writing about issues they face, challenges of practice, or share their expertise with the architecture community. If you are interested in contributing to the blog, please let me know.

EntreArchitect Blog

Other things I work on:

I recently joined Charrette Venture Group (CVG), where I work with AEC firms across the country to help them run better businesses. We assist with everything from operations and management, financial analysis and strategic planning, to marketing and business development, branding and web design, ownership transitions, and more.

• CVG: https://www.charrettevg.com/

• Design and Art: https://www.lucasgraydesign.com/

• ADU Plans for sale: https://lucasgraydesign.com/adu-plans

• Photography: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• Design and Drawings Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• Email address: lucas@charrettevg.com

Something I Designed

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This weekend we walked to China Town in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Although not our first time there, it was a wonderful reminder that we live in a vibrant city with incredible diversity. Due to the pandemic we haven’t been able to take full advantage of all that New York City has to offer. Now that we have received vaccines we can start to safely explore more, get outside, visit new neighborhoods, and fully live the New York life.

The best part of this outing was how much different China Town feels from our neighborhood. Despite being only a 30-40 minute walk away, it felt like we were traveling much further afield. The grocery stores were filled with energy, people, and exotic vegetables and products. We stocked up on essentials to cook Chinese and Thai cuisines. We wandered around poking our heads into stores, getting green tea and dumplings, and taking advantage of the many narrow streets that are currently open to pedestrians (closed to cars).

The crowds, outdoor dining, fruit and vegetable stands on the sidewalks, the architecture with predominate fire escapes dominating the facades, the colorful signage overhanging the sidewalks, the lack of cars, and the abundance of noises and smells made us feel alive and excited. The built environment has such an impact on how we experience the city and it was fun to escape the car dominated planning of Brooklyn for the more compact and energetic street life of the Lower East Side. We couldn’t help imagine what it would be like to live there and debated the pros and cons of moving when our current lease is up. Is it worth the extra expense to be in the heart of the city in a much more diverse and dense neighborhood, within short walk of China Town, Little Italy, the shopping of Soho, and the hip neighborhoods of the East and West Village filled with bars, cafes and restaurants? Probably.

Even more so, since I am also holding out hope that all of lower Manhattan will be getting even better over the coming months and years. With congestion pricing on the way, I hope to see fewer cars and more space for life to take back the streets (More on this news in the “Things to Read This Week” section below). This is a compelling reason to chose Manhattan as an ideal place for us to live.

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Things To Read This Week

1. As Biden Pushes Major Rail Investments, Amtrak's 2035 Map Has People Talking
   Trains. We need more trains. Lots of them. Fast ones connecting cities. Local ones connecting neighborhoods. As someone who has taken the train across Russia, traversed from New York to Portland, Oregon and back on Amtrak, and who has explored Europe, Japan, Thailand, and China by rail, I can tell you it is one of the best ways to travel. I can also tell you that the US is far behind almost every country I’ve been to in terms of train infrastructure. Let’s do this!

2. Construction Cost Breakdown and Partial Industrialization
   A great post on another Newsletter I subscribe to called Construction Physics written by Brian Potter. In this post Brian analyzes the construction cost of a typical new-construction single family house and also compares today’s cost with historic numbers:

   The results are...depressing. First, inflation adjusted cost has increased about 50% since 1945. Second, while it’s difficult to make a direct comparison, but it also appears that labor as a fraction of overall cost was similar in 1945 as well - just around 50%. Third, not only do we see almost identical systems and features in place, but their cost fractions are almost identical as well. Flooring, roofing, foundations, framing, painting, electrical - they all make up the same proportional cost of a home today as they did in 1947.

   If you work in residential design or construction, or are considering building a custom home, this is a valuable post.

3. The Rules That Made U.S. Roads So Deadly

   Why did traffic fatalities rise on U.S. streets during the pandemic? Blame laws that lock in dangerous street designs and allow vehicles known to be more deadly to non-drivers.

   This is why I believe the most important war we are fighting in America is not on foreign soil, but rather the war on cars we are waging right here at home. Mind you, the quote above discusses traffic fatalities rising during the pandemic at the same time vehicle miles traveled are actually down compared to previous years. Streets being unsafe is a design problem and one that needs to be addressed both on new roads being built as well as retrofits of our existing street network. This can’t happen soon enough. Hopefully Secretary Pete will make this a priority.

4. This Is Happening: Feds Let MTA Do Simpler Environmental Review of Congestion Pricing
   Finally, an American city is moving forward on Congestion Pricing. I can’t wait until this has been implemented and to experience how it affects Manhattan. I hope it cuts down on traffic and allows the city to reallocate street space from cars to other uses like wider sidewalks, protected bike lanes, outdoor dining, new plazas and planters, open streets, curbside garbage collection, bike parking, etc. If this works, it can also be a great example for out US cities to emulate, especially as more and more local governments are looking for new revenue sources to provide services such as affordable housing, public transit, and others.

Design Inspiration

A wonderful example of how the traditional material of brick can make a distinctly contemporary piece of architecture. The Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China, designed by Studio Zhu-Pei

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Charrette Venture Group

Regardless of the fact that I now work here, I was going to feature CVG in this space. Helping architects run better businesses is something I’ve been thinking about for 8+ years, since I started my own firm with a couple of partners. After a few years spent getting the firm off the ground, we partnered with Charrette Venture Group to help us better manage our business and focus on growing the firm. They helped us with bi-weekly business coaching, redesigning our website, managing our marketing strategy and content creation, provided bookkeeping, and worked with us on operations and management training, financial analysis, and strategic planning. Over the five years we worked together they helped us increase revenue and profits and double the size of our firm from a 3 to 6 person studio. Most importantly, their guidance helped teach us how to run a better business.

CVG has recognized that many small practices are great at designing projects and serving clients but often struggle when it comes to the business side of practice and lack training in operations and management, and/or can use help with marketing and business development.

To help small firms run better businesses, we have assembled a team of experts that advise firms on ways to improve their operations, finances, management and leadership, marketing strategy, and focus on increased growth and profitability. This holistic approach to running an architecture firm was a great help for us and could benefit many other firms looking to grow.

Here is a short interview we did last summer, before I joined the CVG team, with Todd Redding the CEO of CVG talking with me about the my experience running a firm and signing up for an initial consultation call and eventually becoming one of CVG’s investment partners.

We are currently working with over 25 firms across the country. Personally, I’m excited to get to get to know and work with the people at these firms and others who may benefit from our expertise. If you are interested in learning more about what we do and would like to ask questions about how we can help your business improve, please schedule a call with us through the button below.

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Learn More About Me:

• My new employer: https://www.charrettevg.com/

• My website for Design and Artwork: https://www.lucasgraydesign.com/

• My ADU Designs for sale: https://lucasgraydesign.com/adu-plans

• My Photography Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My Design and Drawings Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasgray/

• My email address: lucas@charrettevg.com

Something I Designed (a new section to the newsletter!)

It came as a surprise that this week NY opened up the vaccine eligibility to most adults, and we were lucky enough to get an appointment after refreshing the appointment website for a couple hours straight. On the morning of March 31st we got up early, took a short subway ride, and got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine shot. 15 minutes later we were heading home with a newfound feeling of hope and excitement, with the end to our pandemic isolation on the horizon. There were some short-lived side effects, a slight fever, headache, and achy muscles that lasted about 24 hours, but we are both feeling better now and are excited to be able to safely enjoy life in the city as more and more things start opening back up.

With the spring weather, announcements regarding the permanent implementation of the open streets program here in New York, restaurants returning to indoor dining, events returning with live audiences, and with the vaccine in place, we look forward to experiencing life in New York that we were looking forward to since early last year when we decided to move here.

On top of getting the vaccine, I also accepted a job offer this past week. I will be joining Charrette Venture Group (CVG) as a Senior Account Manager/Business Development Manager. CVG is a company that works with small architecture firms to help them run better business, and grow. I’ll be joining them as a Senior Account Manager, consulting with firms to help improve their operations, management, and finances. I’ll also be helping CVG with business development activities, talking with firms to see if they would be a good fit and giving presentations on the business side of architectural practice.

It is an exciting opportunity for me as I get to use my experiences starting an architecture firm to offer advice to other firms across the country. I get to stay part of the profession and hopefully help firms succeed but get to do try something new - transitioning out of traditional practice to focus on the business side of the profession.

Most importantly, I get to work with a great team of talented people that bring a range of expertise, from marketing and business development experts to financial and management backgrounds.

The position is also a feeling of comfort as I worked with CVG as a client of theirs while running my previous firm from 2014-2019. It will be fun to take what I learned working with the CVG team on my own business and help architects across the country run better businesses.

You can learn more about CVG and what we do here. If you run an architecture firm and are interested in getting help with the business side of your practice, please get in touch. I’d love to share what we do and how we can help you succeed.

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Things To Read This Week

1. Perhaps the Best Available Architecture Job Out There
   I have to include this link because who doesn’t want to work on the design of space stations? A great follow-up to my post from last week about taking different paths in an architectural career. If you apply please let me know!

2. An Enormous Mosaic Spanning 1,250 Hours of Exposure Time Captures the Milky Way in Incredible Detail
   Continuing with the space theme, this is a beautiful composite photograph. Well worth the click.

3. Stunning New Image Of Black Hole Reveals Surrounding Magnetic Fields
   We are getting new/better images of black holes now too. So cool. The short video in the article is worth a watch to get a sense of the scale and distance.

4. Beth Osborne: America's Roads are "Dangerous by Design"
   A podscast discussing the troubling trend of increased deaths of pedestrians being hit by cars. Despite driving being down about 13% overall in 2020, deaths of pedestrians actually went up over previous years. Unfortunately, Americans are numb to this sort of violence as we take driving for granted and overlook dangerous ramifications of our addiction to cars. We need to start designing streets, sidewalks, crosswalks, and other infrastructure to emphasize safety and pedestrian experience rather than how we can move cars as fast as possible. This change in approach must extend all the way to the engineers that are designing our roads, and the rules that regulate their work. This can’t happen soon enough.

5. Olson Kundig’s Alan Maskin on the Immense Power of Architectural Sketching
   A great interview about the power of drawing and moving from hand to digital creation. Plus incredible images of inspiring and imaginative drawings.

   His projects are marked by a collective optimism that unfolds through narrative; part wizardry and chock-full of imagination, Alan’s work centers on fantastic stories told through sketching, art and architecture.

Design Inspiration

Continuing to highlight creative projects that blend architecture and nature, this week’s inspiration comes from Norwegian Architecture firm Helen & Hard and their project Woodnest. Located on the hillside above Odda, Norway, two tree houses offer accommodations that are both integrated into the natural surroundings while offering stunning views over the landscape. I would love to spend a couple of nights here.

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BUILD Blog by Build LLC

I’ve been reading the BUILD Blog for over 10 years now. Written by Build LLC an architecture firm based in Seattle, WA, the blog is a source of inspiration, confirmation on some of my thoughts on architecture and design, a resources for trends and information on modern residential design, and a place to turn for learning how to design better projects.

What I admire about Build LLC’s blogging is their confidence to share their opinions alongside lessons learned or completed projects. The writing isn’t just promoting their firm, but rather they want to improve the practice of architecture and the built environment for everyone. Not enough architects are willing to stand up and take a stand on issues facing their city. For example, here is a recent post discussing how the length and complications of the Seattle Permitting process is directly, and negatively, affecting housing supply and affordability. I experienced similar issues when working on projects in Portland, Seattle, and the Bay Area.

I appreciate Build LLC’s willingness to write about this topic and advocate for change. I want more architects, designers, and our professional organizations to take stands like this.

Check out their blog. It is full of great articles, opinion pieces, interviews with inspiring people, and case studies on how Build LLC designs, details, and develops projects. It is well worth reading and returning to often.

Book Club

1. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
   by Erik Larson
   Perhaps by favorite book, this is a great non-fiction novel interweaving stories of architecture, politics, invention, and murder. If you haven’t yet read this, close this newsletter and go grab a copy of the book. It is an incredible fun read, all the more so because it is true.

   

2. The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
   by Jon Gertner
   A fascinating read about how Bell Labs transformed how we live through technological innovation. From telephones to radar, semi-conductors to cell phone networks, Bell Labs developed some of the most transformational inventions of the 20th century and had an oversized impact on how we live today.

   

Want to schedule a video call?

I’m interested in building stronger relationships and would love to jump on a video call with anyone who is interested. Click the button below to get on my calendar.

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Links to my work and social media:

• My new job: https://www.charrettevg.com/
  My website for Design and Artwork: https://www.lucasgraydesign.com/

• My ADU Designs for sale: https://lucasgraydesign.com/adu-plans

• My Photography Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My Design and Drawings Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasgray/

• My email address: lucas@lucasgraydesign.com

This is trend I wish more people in our profession embraced. Rather than distance ourselves from those who took a different path we should celebrate people who leveraged their architectural training to impact other professions. Most of our politicians are former lawyers and it is no wonder their profession holds more influence. If architecture as an institution (be it the AIA, NCARB, or individuals) embraced those who go into politics, film, marketing, or technology, wouldn’t we increase the voice we have and influence we wield?

If you studied architecture but are thinking there is a different way you want to apply your skills than working for a firm, go do it. I can’t stress enough how much we need people to take design thinking and use it to impact the world in a thousands ways beyond traditional architecture practice. At the same time, if architecture is your calling, that is fantastic too. Everyone should be encouraged and supported to find their ideal way to positively impact the world we all share. We as a profession, need to do better at engaging and celebrating all the ways architects can contribute.

My Personal Story

My career is one example of many that can show how taking a different path should be encouraged. There is no right way to pursue a career in architecture. Experimentation can lead to opportunities and personal growth. I hope this can inspire others to try something different and break the traditional mold.

In undergrad I studied architecture, earning a B.Sc. Architecture degree from McGill University, but rather than following the typical path of staying on for an M. Arch degree I made the decision to take a break from school to gain real world experience.

I packed up and left the frigid winter of Montreal to move to Bangkok, Thailand. Thinking I would teach English for a year and travel, instead I soon found a job doing project management for CH2MHill, doing typical intern tasks like filing papers, running errands, and the occasional drafting assignment. After 6 months working for the Bangkok office I transferred to Shanghai where I got to work on an architectural team designing business parks. I did get to do some design work, but also spent a lot of time calculating the turning radii of trucks to create the ideal layout for deliveries and parking for a large logistics warehouse. Not the most exciting work, but I was living in China, learning, exploring, and gaining valuable experience.

After another 6 months at the company, I left to join a boutique design firm in Shanghai, Brearley Architects and Urbanists (BAU). Here I was working on an incredibly diverse team, with designers from around the world. Most of our work was entering design competitions and typically we had 3-4 weeks to develop a concept and create a compelling presentation to send in for review - and immediately jump onto the next competition until we heard back. It was a very creative and invigorating experience with the tight deadlines and wide range of projects types, from urban master plans, to sports stadiums, schools, office towers, hospitality and retail developments. Each week was a different challenge as I hopped from project to project.

After about two years at the firm (and three years abroad) I decided to return to school to get my Master’s of Architecture degree. At the time, I was still passionate about the more traditional path of practicing architecture. I returned to the US to attend the University of Oregon where I earned my M. Arch. Moving to small town Eugene from the giant metropolis of Shanghai, a culture shock for sure, I enjoyed the closer connection to nature and the program’s emphasis on sustainable design but I missed the fast pace and scale of international work.

Upon graduation I was lucky enough to receive a travel scholarship that allowed me to continue my passion for exploring the world. In the summer of 2008 I embarked on an around the world trip, starting in Australia, attending the Glenn Murcutt International Masters Class, and then to Japan where I started a 5-month overland and sea trip from Tokyo to Berlin without flying - although this is an adventure for another day.

I ended up staying in Berlin for two years working for a couple of small architecture offices on residential remodels, small competition entries, and a couple of train stations in Russia, all while living in an exciting cultural city and getting to travel around Europe. It was a great way to weather the worst of the financial crisis, gain more work experience, and see more of the world.

Knowing I wanted to start my own firm at some point, it was now time to find a place I could settle in long-term, lay roots, built a community/network, and take the final steps into becoming an architect. I returned to the US and moved to Portland, OR where I had some friends, connections from school, and a balance between the vibrancy of the city and connection to the incredible landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

An important interlude:
Working abroad was an incredible experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But it is also something that the bureaucracy of architecture in the US fails to respect. The US licensure process requires a set amount of experience needed to move forward on the path to licensure. Where this fails is that this experience must be working under a licensed US architect. Meaning the 5+ years of work experience working under Australian, Chinese, and German architects didn’t count towards my internship hours. Since all of my work experience was abroad I was basically starting the AXP program as if I was straight out of school with no work experience. It is complete rubbish.

This is a flawed requirement that should be overturned immediately. I am pretty sure I would be licensed if it wasn’t for this arcane rule that doesn’t reflect the globalized world we live in. It is a reason why I lost some passion for the profession and focused my interest in other areas.

Working abroad also wasn’t quite understood by a lot of the firms I applied to after returning to the US. They didn’t quite know how to value my skillset considering interns are mostly used as revit monkeys, drafting the old guard’s ideas rather than being given a chance to design. The experience was valuable to me but it wasn’t valued enough by the companies with job openings.

After a few months job searching, I joined a mid-sized firm, Opsis Architecture, that focused on educational and institutional projects. I was on project teams for a performing arts center, a university student experience center, a community recreation center, and a renovation of a historic classroom building with a modern addition including new study rooms, classrooms and a lecture hall. Most important, I spent a year working in the firm’s marketing department, helping manage the redesign of the website, start up social media accounts and campaigns, designing marketing materials, putting together RFP/RFQ responses, and helping with interview prep. It was here that I realized I enjoyed many of the non-design aspects of architecture and my interest in the business side of practice grew. Understanding how to get work was just as fascinating and rewarding to me than doing the design work itself.

After a couple of years I decided to leave Opsis and started Propel Studio Architecture with a couple of business partners. We focused on residential (Accessory Dwelling Units, Custom Homes, and Small Multi-family projects), retail (cafes, barbershops, grocery stores), and community based projects (public art, street seats, non-profit work, affordable housing). I focused on running the business, leading the marketing and business development efforts, sales, finances, and resource management. I participated in the design of some of projects while my partners and our employees executed most of the architecture work beyond schematic design.

I’m now at a crossroads. After 7 years running Propel Studio in Portland, Oregon, my wife got a job at Sidewalk Labs in New York City that was too exciting to pass up. I passed the reigns of Propel Studio to my business partners and relocated to the East Coast. I’ve recently had a few interviews, one for a business development role at a large international architecture firm, another for the Director of Growth for a small web design company, and a third for a role in a business consultant company. I’ve also been having conversations with a software company to see how my experience could fit into their team. I’m exploring what the next move in my career should be with the realization that traditional practice is not where my passions lie.

I’m more interested in entrepreneurship, business development, marketing, and business management than practicing architecture in the way our profession has standardized. At the same time, I find myself talking with more and more of my former classmates, friends, and peers who are in similar positions in their lives. These talented people are all questioning whether architecture is right for them, or if there is another path that can be more rewarding, fulfilling, and enjoyable.

Handfuls of my friends and colleagues have moved from architecture into other fields. A good friend got into film making, another real estate development. Some had kids and moved out of the city to live a quieter life closer to nature. Others, like my wife, took their architecture skills into a tangentially related jobs (she is helping start a factory to fabricate mass timber building components). I know some architects who switched to product design, web design, and real estate. A good friend, Mike, gave up practicing architecture to start a business that helps emerging professionals get licensed. Another got into teaching design.

More and more I’m having conversations with friends and colleagues about leaving architecture to get into tech. There is seemingly more freedom and flexibility to pursue new ways of doing things in the tech world, and our design thinking can be applied to a range of roles there. Plus, when I consider the inherent risks of practicing architecture against the miniscule compensation and the long hours, it is harder and harder to convince myself it is the right path for me to pursue. Not when there are other exciting opportunities that offer less barriers to entry.

I share this story to give a glimpse into what I’m thinking and struggling with in my career, and hopefully to help others who are in a similar headspace know that they aren’t alone. It is hard to consider transitioning careers and it is hard to reassess what would make you happy professionally and personally. Especially if you have years of your life and thousands of dollars invested in your education and training.

We all want to feel valued, be productive and make an impact. I still want to be creative, use my design training, and create inspiring things, but no longer am I fixated on the things I create being buildings. Designing better businesses, products, ways of delivering services, or software may be just as rewarding or more so than following the more traditional path. Writing and about architecture and design, and sharing my experiences running a business and pursuing other paths can be a way I contribute and help others navigate the profession.

Take a different path. Try something new. Don’t let fear hold you back. And always know there is a community of people willing to help and support you along the way.

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Share A Better Built Environment | Lucas Gray

Things To Read/Watch This Week

1. Do high-density apartments decrease nearby home values? Utah study says no
   There is a popular argument from those fighting new developments (mostly wealthy homeowners in the surrounding neighborhoods) that new apartment buildings will drive down property values. Apparently when you look at actual statistics that argument falls flat. Moral of the story: Build More Housing everywhere, and let’s move beyond restricting areas to only single family homes.

2. What New York Could Do if It Took a Quarter of Its Roads Away From Cars
   I shared this on social media a while back, but it is worth sharing here as well. We waste so much of our public space for the sole use of automobiles, it is borderline criminal. Not only are we directly subsidizing pollution and related health problems, road deaths, and CO2 emissions, but we are failing to realize the true human-centered potential of our cities and towns. Just taking a small percentage of streets and reallocating them to other uses will be an amazing transformation of our built environment for the better. Politicians just need guts to make this possible.

3. ADU News: Anchorage Needs More Moderately Priced Homes: Let’s Start With ADUs
   I’m glad to see this project type gaining in popularity across the country. They have been immensely successful in Portland, are huge in the Bay Area and LA, and cities, towns, and states across the country are making much needed zoning code amendments to make ADUs legal and easier to build.

4. Smart Cities of the Future
   How Technology Can Help Us Reimagine City Streets - an interview with Dan Doctoroff of Sidewalk Labs

Design Inspiration

Like lanterns or periscopes popping out of a hillside, this hotel in France is spread across the landscape with each suite having distinct views over the surrounding mountains. It is a beautiful relationship between architecture and landscape. Breitenbach Landscape Hotel 48°Nord, designed by Reiul Framstad Arkitekter

Visit their website for more info

Sharing the love

Perhaps it is the phase of life I’m in, or it has to do with the changing culture, but it seems like most of my architecture friends are trying to get out of architecture and pivot to a different career path. As I mentioned above, dozens of my classmates, friends, colleagues, and others are making transitions out of traditional practice to pursue other careers - be it in film, development, real estate, or consulting to name a few. Yet the latest trend I’ve been witnessing is a tons of trained architects looking to transition into the tech world.

Enter Architechie. A community of architects/former architects who have made the transition into the tech world or are looking to move in that direction. From UX designers to software engineers, startup founders to project managers, the community is rich with talented and inspiring people who want to help others translate their architectural design skills into the world of tech. I’ve been a member for the past couple of months and have found it to be a great community that is active, supportive, and inspiring to those, like myself, who are looking to try something different than traditional architectural practice. Check out their Manifesto below:

Manifesto

We're an intrepid band of architects now working in the tech industry and helping others do the same. We host events, workshops, and throw a killer happy hour.

1. Architechie is first and foremost people.

2. Our unconventional backgrounds are our best asset.

3. Everyone has a different path, and that's a good thing.

4. Together we make up a living wiki: ask us anything.

5. Networking is paramount. So come to our next event.

This is exactly the type of community the architecture world needs. A place where we value design thinking, we value unconventional experiences, and understand that diversity is strength. It is refreshing to see this as a counterpoint to the conservative culture of traditional architectural practice and professional organizations. I’m excited to see how the community grows and evolves. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in alternative career paths and how you can translate your architectural experience and training into the world of tech.

To the founders and organizers, a huge THANK YOU for putting in the time and effort to build this community. I’m grateful for all of your efforts.
(Shout out to Leona Hu Hudelson, Blake Hudelson, Gavin Johns, Alex Dixon, Moe Amaya, George Valdes, Jeff Lin, Violet Whitney, Vanessa Quirk, Celeste Layne, Adrian von der Osten, and all the generous and inspiring people I’ve met on the slack channel.)

Learn More and Join Architechie

Book Club

1. This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See
   by Seth Godin
   This book offers some different ways to think about marketing, branding, storytelling, and finding your minimum viable audience. Too often we think we need to focus on reaching the most people possible, rather than the specific people that are most likely to resonate with our businesses, products, and services. Hopefully this book can help us change this mindset and focus more on who is the right audience rather than the biggest.

   

2. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
   by Eric Ries
   I’m just starting this one but am excited to dive in. I’m very interested in ways to make running businesses more effective, efficient, and resilient. I’m especially interested in how to change how traditional design practices have been run. Hopefully this will offer some insights to apply to the design business world.

   

   Leave a comment

Want to talk face to face?

I’m interested in building stronger relationships and would love to jump on a video call with anyone who is interested. Click the button below to get on my calendar.

Schedule A Video Call

Other links to check out if you are bored:

• My website for Custom Home Design: https://www.lucasgraydesign.com/

• My ADU Designs for sale: https://lucasgraydesign.com/adu-plans

• My Drawings: https://lucasgraydesign.com/drawings1

• My Photography Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My Design and Drawings Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasgray/

• My not so active blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

• Why is Twitter still a thing?: https://twitter.com/lucasgraydesign

• I’m on Pinterest too: https://www.pinterest.com/LucasGrayDesign/

• My email address: lucas@lucasgraydesign.com

We design for you and your family, your friends and relatives, and all of the people who will call that house home over the years. We design for your children and grandchildren to have a space for play and exploration, a place to learn and grow, a place of belonging and joy. We design to make you feel relaxed, comfortable, and warm. We design to make you feel welcome, safe, and secure. We design for dogs who want a space to lie next to the fire. We design for cats who wander looking for the perfect location to stretch in the sun. We design for you to experience the passing of time through light and shadows moving across the floors and walls, notches on a door frame marking growth, and the changes each season brings to the surrounding landscape.

Although the house itself is an object and of course we want it to be beautiful and functional, it is our job to design for what happens within the house throughout its lifespan; the feeling you have when you return home from a long day at work, the joy of friends gathering for a shared meal, or the relaxation that may wash over you when you escape the city to your weekend getaway. It is these moments that define our work.

We don’t design objects, we design experiences. Architecture isn’t about the physical house. Our work is about what each home will do for you and all the others that will spend time there. The result of our design process is the feelings and experiences you have enjoying life in your new residence with all of your friends, family, and loved ones. These outcomes are what makes us love what we do and what makes the process of design worthwhile.

Who do we design for?

We design for all of the people who will call each house a home. We design for everything that will occupy the space over time. We design for the landscape and the environment that surrounds each home, the ecosystem we are all apart of.

What do we design for?

We design for the emotions, experiences, and memories people will enjoy within our buildings. Our work isn’t about the object but rather the life that happens within what we create.

Although these specific words are residential focused, this idea can be reworked for any project type, be it retail, hotels and resorts, commercial offices, health care, or educational spaces to name a few. People don’t hire us to make buildings, people hire us to create the inspiring spaces within which we experience and enjoy life.

Leave a comment

Things I’m Reading/Listening to

1. City Of The Future: Talking Streets With New York City Transportation Legend Sam Schwartz
   Discussion about how design and new technology can allow us to better manage street use and create public spaces that are better for all users (not just cars).

2. Missing Large Housing
   Move over “missing middle” advocates, it’s time to step up the game and advocate for even larger housing projects.

3. The Japanese Concept ‘Ikigai’ is a Formula for Happiness and Meaning
   So many of us, including myself, are currently reflecting on what is important, what makes us happy, and how our careers should be molded to be more fulfilling, enjoyable, and balanced. This article introduces the Japanese concept of Ikigai and suggests some ways to identify yours.

Book Club

1. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   by Michael E. Gerber
   I just finished reading the E-Myth revisited and although it isn’t design/architecture specific, I have to say it strikes a lot of chords with me. I clearly recognize some of the mistakes and patterns from the first firm I started with two partners and it helped identify ways I will approach creating my next venture. I wish I read this 9 years ago when I was just planning on starting my first business, and I think everyone who is running or interested in running a business should read it.

   

2. Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution
   by Janette Sadik-Kahn
   A great read about the fight to transform New York City’s streets from auto centric to multi-modal. This is an excellent story that is relevant far beyond NY and shares successes and tactics that can be implemented anywhere. To have better communities, towns, and cities we need to rethink how streets - probably our biggest public asset - can better serve a wide range of needs.

   

Design Inspiration

One thing you will learn about me over time, if you don’t know already, is that I love brick architecture. It is amazing how a simple module, despite being centuries old, can be used so creatively to create profoundly contemporary architecture. The York Street Residence designed by Jackson Clements Burrows Architects (JCBA) is a wonderful example of how the manipulation of bricks can create beautiful architecture that speaks to solid vs void, transparency vs opacity, and an integration of architecture and landscape. Follow the link above to see more images and explore their other inspiring design work.

Sharing the love.

This week let’s give a shout out to Iain McKenzie and his website Next Portland. Iain started Next Portland in order to give people an easy place to find information on what projects are are in the pipeline around the city of Portland. In his words:

Next Portland writes about multi-family residential, retail, cultural buildings, educational buildings, hotels and other large projects happening in the City of Portland. We cover both new buildings and major alterations or additions to old buildings. Our blog posts are exclusively written about projects that are either still in the design phase, or are under construction.

One of the best ways to get people more interested and engaged in conversations about the built environment is to make information more accessible. Before Iain launched Next Portland there was no easy way for people to see what was going to be built where. Even architects and developers who work in this space day-to-day would have a hard time finding info - having to search through public records on each specific property. Iain made it accessible through his development map and regular blog posts. He has had a profound impact on his city and I admire his work and dedication.

My challenge to all of you: take the concept of Next Portland and implement it in your town or city. Talk with your government officials and the local building department and make this information easily accessible, searchable, and geo-located on a visual map. Make it easy for everyone to see what projects are being designed and how their city will transform over the years to come. Make architecture, development, and how we build our cities more accessible.

Thank you Iain for all of your hard work and keep it up!

Things I’m Selling

ADU Plans
There are currently 15 designs available and I will be adding more over the coming weeks. There should be a layout that works for almost any need and a range of styles to choose from. If you have ever thought about adding an ADU to your property check out these pre-designed plans to get a head start with your project.

Shop Now

If you know someone who is considering building an ADU on their property, please share the link to plan store with them.

Book List
Here is a full list of books I recommend, from how to run a better business to design inspiration; books for architecture students to fun reads about the built environment.

Shop Now

I’m working on creating a list of tools, software, and other design supplies that I recommend. Hopefully I’ll have that ready by the next newsletter publication. Stay tuned.

Check out my design work, my artwork, my photography, and random other things:

• My website for Custom Home Design and Art: https://www.lucasgraydesign.com/
  [I’m actively looking for new clients, referrals welcome]

• My Textures Insta: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My Design and Drawings Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasgray/

• My not so active blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

• Why is Twitter still a thing?: https://twitter.com/lucasgraydesign

• I’m on Pinterest too: https://www.pinterest.com/LucasGrayDesign/

Want to schedule a time to talk face to face? I’m interested in building stronger relationships and would love to jump on a video call with anyone who is interested. Use this link to get on my calendar: https://calendly.com/lucasgraydesign/30min

Leave a comment

This newsletter covers the things that I’m thinking about on a daily or weekly basis. From my frustrations with auto-centric city design, to design work that I find inspirational, or people who are doing great things, my goal is to share observations on the built environment, the practice of architecture, and ways design impacts how we live.

Lately my thoughts have been focused on how to improve upon running a design firm. What are the lessons I have learned from starting a firm, working for other people, and serving residential clients over the past 10 years? How can I start a new company that is more successful, more profitable, and most importantly, more enjoyable? What are my design values and how can I attract clients that share these values? How do I design a new business from the ground up to reflect how I want to work and what I want to work on?

I have a few general thoughts that I’m working through as I design this new business:

1. Selling time is not a good way to run a business.

   • It isn’t scalable - your profit is limited by how many hours you can work.

   • It doesn’t value experience - if you are efficient and can get a task done in less time, you make less money.

   • Hourly fees aren’t associated with value - the value you provide your clients isn’t based on how much time you spend creating a drawing, but rather value is associated with the quality of the end result.

   • Hourly fees create conflict - clients don’t necessarily understand how long things take and different tasks can take significantly different time commitments to do right. It makes invoicing unpredictable and opens it up to questions and debate. Discussions about money distract from discussions about design ideas and value.

   • Fixed-fees address many of these issues. It creates cost certainty for both sides. It is predictable. It rewards the designer for their experience and being efficient while it provides the client with the same value regardless of time spent.

   • People understand buying products more than purchasing services. How can I make a fee structure that reflects what people are comfortable buying in other places? How can I learn from software subscriptions or how Apple sells iPhones?

2. Passive revenue streams provide flexibility and freedom

   • Generating revenue from products that don’t take up time, allows me to focus on the things I really want to do and be more selective on projects that I take on. This then allows me to better serve the clients I work with.

   • Selling products can have a bigger impact and make design attainable to a wider market. Not everyone can afford to hire a designer - design services mostly serve the top 1%. Yet everyone can benefit from a nicely designed home. How can I package work I have done into a product and make it available for more people?

   • Passive revenue can come from monetizing work you have already completed. Example: an author doesn’t sell a book once, they sell it thousands of times. Designers should do the same.

   • Having a range of revenue streams makes the business more economically sustainable and resilient.

3. The Power of Niche

   • I’m at a point in my career where I have worked in a range of offices on a wide variety of projects. I now have a clearer understanding of what specific project types I like working on and which I’m good at designing.

   • By narrowing in on a niche market it makes it easier to identify and attract better clients.

   • Saying no. If the project isn’t the right fit and doesn’t reinforce my values I’m going to turn it down. If the client isn’t the right fit or doesn’t share my values, then we shouldn’t work together. If the budget isn’t appropriate or someone is trying to cut corners, that isn’t the project for me. Say no to work that you don’t want to do.

   • Marketing is hard, especially when trying to set yourself apart in a very crowded and competitive design world. By focusing on core values and specific project types it allows me to target a very defined audience - to build stronger connections to a smaller reach. Now I just need to craft the story that will resonate with this audience.

   • Who is my audience? People who want custom homes, vacation homes, or weekend cabins with a strong connection to nature. People who are moving out of the city, or want a weekend escape from the city. People who want to build sustainably with high-quality materials and high-performance systems. Clients who would rather do things right rather than do things fast or cheap.

Leave a comment

Things I’m Selling

I’m starting my experimentation with passive income/selling products by offering pre-designed ADU plan sets. I’m reviewing the ADU designs I have worked on over the years and editing the drawings to strip out the site-specific information. The idea is that these products will be a great starting point for people who are looking to add an ADU to their property. Hopefully these will make nicely designed ADUs more attainable for those who can’t afford or don’t have the time to go through a full custom design process.

ADU Plans
I currently have 14 designs available and will be adding more over the coming weeks. There should be a layout that works for almost any need and a range of styles to choose from.

Shop Now

If you know someone who is considering building an ADU on their property, please share the link to plan store with them.

Will this work? I’m not sure, but I think so. I’m basing this idea on the fact that over the years various people contacted us and asked if they could buy previously designed plans. I think there is a demand for it. I also found that many people were interested in ADUs but when they heard the cost of the design work it didn’t fit their budget. Hopefully these will help solve that problem - making good design more affordable.

Things I’m Writing

With a content marketing strategy for my new website, design services, and ADU plans, I’ve started writing blog posts to answer frequently asked questions. As most of you can guess, the number one question I get asked is about the cost of doing projects. I’m focusing on residential projects for my business, primarily sustainable custom homes and Accessory Dwelling Units, so I’ve started by analyzing the cost of these project types.

• Cost of designing and building a custom home
  I break down a typical project budget and discuss design fees, permitting, costs, and construction costs. If you are considering building a custom home, this is a good place to start.

• Cost of designing and building an ADU
  With their smaller size, ADUs tend to have a much higher cost per square foot basis which often causes people to miscalculate how much these actually cost. For a sneak peak, I would estimate $200,000 for the base price to build a simple small ADU in the Portland market, while a higher-quality project, or building in a more expensive market can easily get these up into the $300,000 to $400,000 range. In the article I break down the construction cost of one of the ADU projects I designed in Portland.

Weekly Design Inspiration

Field House - Lookofsky Architecture

A beautiful and modest home sitting in a beautiful landscape on the Swedish island of Fårö. It hits all the right notes for me: simple, small, natural materials, large windows, connection to nature, warm and inviting.

Cove House - 30x40 Design Workshop

Like a lot of the design inspiration I share, this project aligns with my values of integrating architecture into the surrounding landscape. The way the house is nestled into the hillside and the views from that deck are incredible.

I also want to give a quick shout out to Eric Reinholdt the architect behind 30x40 Design Workshop. Along with being an excellent designer he is inspiring in how he is willing to experiment with new ways of running a design business. I have been learning a lot from following his work and reading about his other business initiatives (like the two books featured below) as I set out to design my next career move.

Book Club

As I’ve been rethinking my career and strategizing next steps I’ve been reading a lot of books about running businesses, attracting new clients, developing alternative revenue streams, and how to market creatively to find the right clients and the projects you want to work on. Below are four books I’ve recently read that have been very helpful. The first two are perfect for those who are thinking about starting an architecture or design firm or who have recently gone out on their own. I also think they should be required reading for any Professional Practice course in Architecture School. The third is applicable to almost any business as it focuses on how to think outside the box to better market your product or services. Although the stories primarily draw from the world of sports, they can be applied to any industry and I love how he emphasizes being different than your competition. Finally, the last book is ideal for all of those architects/designers out there who are interested in taking the plunge and self-developing a project - something I hope to do within the next year. This book did a great job at breaking down the process of getting a development started and making it feel achievable.

I highly recommend buying and reading each of these books.

1. Architect + Entrepreneur: A Field Guide to Building, Branding, and Marketing Your Startup Design Business. Vol. 1
    by Eric Reinholdt

   

2. Architect + Entrepreneur: A How-to Guide for Innovating Practice: Tactics, Models, and Case Studies in Passive Income. Vol. 2
    by Eric Reinholdt

   

3. Marketing Outrageously Redux: How to Increase Your Revenue by Staggering Amounts
   by Jon Spoelstra

   

4. Architect and Developer: A Guide to Self-Initiating Projects
   by James Petty

   

If you have read any of these books and would like to talk about them I’d love to connect (you can email me at lugray@gmail.com and we can set up a video call). Or if you have suggestions for other books about startups and running better businesses please send me your recommendations. I’m always looking to learn and get better at the business side of design.

Sharing the love.

I have posted some quotes from Seth Godin on this newsletter from time to time. His blog is on my Feedly list and I often find his thoughts and words inspiring and helpful. Most recently I watched an interview with Seth on Jeff Echols and Katharine MacPhail’s Context & Clarity show and thought he had a very refreshing message for architects and designers. Check it out:

• Seth’s Blog
  Daily thoughts and words of wisdom. Quick reads that often make me think about a problem differently or simply be inspired.

• Seth’s Podcast, Akimbo
  This links to a great episode of the Akimbo podcast titled The Architecture of Architecture. Like the interview above, Seth makes some good points about why architecture is the way it is, and how a relatively small group of people could have an outsized impact to change the way we practice and design for the better. Contact me if you want to collaborate on making this happen!

Places you can see my work and learn more about me and what I’m passionate about:

• My website for Custom Home Design and Art: https://www.lucasgraydesign.com/
  [I’m actively looking for new clients, referrals welcome]

• My Textures Insta: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My Design and Drawings Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasgray/

• My not so active blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

• I’m on Pinterest too: https://www.pinterest.com/LucasGrayDesign/

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I love cities and have lived in some of the largest and busiest urban centers in the world. From the frigid winters of Montreal to the heat of Bangkok, the crowds of Shanghai to the artistic hub of Berlin, the outdoor paradise of Portland to my current home in New York City, each place has it’s own character and pace of life. And each has it’s own soundscape.

Almost every morning in Portland I was unpleasantly awoken at sunrise by the screech of crows. Here in NY there is a constant drone of the noises of city life. Traffic roars along Flatbush; people unrelentingly express their love of car horns; sirens grow and fade as ambulances or police race through the streets; helicopters whirl overhead as they crisscross the sky carrying police or billionaires to some important destination. The biggest downside to life in a city is this constant noise.

Snow changes all of that. Traffic dissipates as people huddle indoors. With less traffic, there are fewer car horns, reduced tires on the roads, and less emergencies needing attention - thus fewer sirens. Flights are grounded leaving the sky clear of human made sounds. Meanwhile the falling snow blankets the city with an acoustic carpet, deadening the audible soundscape.

It is refreshing, and a reminder that cities are more pleasant without the rumble and rattle we all make. The quiet streets are a joy to wander down. In the park you hear the deadened sounds of children laughing as they sled and play in the snow. An occasional dog barks. You hear the slight wind or creak of trees. The snow muffles the intruding sounds beyond the park’s borders.

We need to remind ourselves that cities don’t have to be so noisy. We can design places that have better acoustics and thus create better places to live. We can restrict traffic - either by closing streets, removing lanes, or implementing congestion pricing. Adding protected bike lanes would encourage people to drive less. Charging for parking and subsidizing public transit would further reduce car use. Electric vehicles can replace the roar of combustion engines. It would be an easy political win to ban helicopters as they are completely unnecessary and only serve a tiny handful of people.

The design of our streets, public spaces, and buildings can consider the acoustics of the urban environment just as they respond to climate, weather, and other functions. While we currently focus on how things look, we rarely discuss how the built environment impacts how things sound. I hope this changes.

Cities can be places where the noises of nature outweigh the sounds of human. Sirens and traffic could be the exception rather than the dominant force in the urban soundscape. I’d rather hear the sounds of wind, the songs of birds, or simply have quiet spaces to walk and think, even when I’m in the heart of a dense urban environment.

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Weekly Reading

1. The Architectural Drawing Prize
   My love for architecture and the art of design is strong, even as my frustrations with the profession grow. It is seeing things like this that rekindle my passion for architecture. From beautiful hand drawings to captivating digital creations, Architectural Drawings can be incredible pieces of art that tell captivating stories and describe imaginative spaces. Below is an incredible image inspired by Piranesi and a hand drawn section drawing that I found beautiful. Check the link for all of the finalists from 2020.

   

   

2. Why Is The Modern World So Ugly?
   I’ve long felt that the profession was too afraid of the word beauty. It was rarely heard in architectural school or during design studio critiques. Discussions revolved around function, choreography, concept, diagrams, but rarely what the building looked like.

   when architecture reached modern times, the very word beauty became taboo.

   I firmly believe that modern architecture often is beautiful, and that we can design beautiful structures and spaces in any style. But unless we discuss beauty as part of the design process I fear that most of our buildings will continue to be rather ugly. Anyway, this is a good essay on the subject.

   Modernity became ugly because it forgot how to articulate that beauty is, in the end, as much of a necessity for a building as a functioning roof.

3. Ready Set Containerize: City Moves Ahead With Open Streets Garbage Plan
   A little NYC centric, but more importantly, how has this taken so long? One of the first thing we noticed after moving to Brooklyn this past year is piles of trash left on the sidewalks. This article is pointing out how the current situation and future plan still prioritizes space for cars over people but I feel it is at least a step in the right direction. How has the city not moved forward with better garbage control policies over the past 100 years or so? Isn’t having containers on each street a no brainer? I don’t think any other city I’ve lived in has relied on people just piling up garbage on sidewalks as the primary sanitation plan. So ridiculous.

4. Human Made Mass Now Exceeds All Living Biomass on Earth
   A short read that is basically summed up in the headline. Fascinating none-the-less. My gut feeling is this isn’t a good thing. Is there any possibility of turning back? Probably not.

5. The Case Against Gas In Our Homes
   It is safer, healthier, and cheaper to not put gas lines into new housing. It is also better for the environment. I always advise the clients I work with to go all-electric on their custom homes and ADUs making all of our projects net-zero energy ready.

6. Why Urban Acoustics Matter
   As I discussed above, architecture and cities should be designed for better acoustic experiences.

Weekly Design Inspiration

Courtyard House - Designed by The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative

Located in Calgary, Alberta this house is a great example of a modern/contemporary design that still has a soft sensibility to it. The depth of the façade on the floating box, the warmth of the light reflecting off the wood fins, and the way that interior maintains views to the courtyard garden are wonderful. The home is distinctly contemporary. The manipulation of the grading, sinking the main living spaces below ground and carving out the back courtyard, shrink the scale of the project to respond to the suburban context. It is a project that is specific to the site, one of the design values I hold dear.

My Work Featured in Dwell Magazine.

A couple of ADU projects I helped design back in Portland, were recently featured in Dwell Magazine. It is fun to see your work published. Thank you to Brian Libby for writing the article and Dwell for publishing it!

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a person/organization that deserves more attention

Evelyn Lee | Practice of Architecture

I first met Evelyn when we were both volunteering on various committees at the American Institute of Architects. I was on the National Associates Committee as Evelyn was a leader on the Young Architect Forum. Both groups were focused on emerging professionals within architecture, how the practice should be planning for the future, and how the institute can better support and engage young practitioners as their careers develop and they grow into leaders within the design community.

Evelyn is now the Senior Experience Designer at Slack Technologies molding a career that bridges architectural design and the tech world. At the same time, she has started Practice of Architecture, a website focused on helping develop leadership and other professional development skills for firms and individuals. In their own words:

The Practice of Architecture helps individuals and firms identify opportunities for leadership & growth, building careers & practices that prosper in today’s changing world.

Intro to their Podcast:

Episode 1: Practice Shifts

Please check out the Practice of Architecture website, and support Evelyn and the community she is building. It is much needed as the profession of architecture changes and adapts in our rapidly evolving world. I have personally benefited from the content they are creating - articles, podcasts, and courses - and encourage other emerging professionals and mid career architects, or anyone interested in continuing education to take advantage of this fantastic resource.

• Courses

• Podcast

• Articles

Things I spend time on:

• My Textures Insta: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My Drawings and Design Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My not so active blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

• My website for Art and Design: https://www.lucasgraydesign.com/
  [I’m actively looking for new clients]

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Gentrification is a process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses.
- Wikipedia

This week I’m focusing my thoughts on series of articles related to gentrification and urban development. It worries me that people use the word gentrification as ammunition to fight development and urban investments. Change is inevitable, and more often than not, change can be fore the better.

We are in an age where we are transforming our cities to make them better for people, as we look to future needs and ways to address the climate crisis. Seattle just ripped out a highway cutting off the downtown from the waterfront, opening up this desirable real estate for new development and better uses than moving cars and trucks. New York famously turned half of Times Square, one of the busiest intersections in the world, into a pedestrian zone. NYC and is looking at similar proposals to transform other parts of the city. The former industrial area of DUMBO in Brooklyn has been redeveloping for the past decade and is now one of the most trendy places to live.

New housing and office developments transformed the Burnside Bridgehead in Portland, Oregon while plans for a bike path connecting downtown and the residential NE neighborhoods had to be altered as local residents fought it with arguments about its potential to increase gentrification. In the SE area of the city, Division street has morphed from a quieter low-density neighborhood into a corridor of high-density mixed use buildings with housing built over fancy shops, cafes, restaurants, and breweries.

All of these were investments that made these places more desirable. They also coincided with a shift in demand for being in those locations from a housing and business perspective. Demand increased, prices rose, neighborhoods changed. Such is the life of a city.

In places from Seattle and San Francisco in the west, to Austin and New Orleans in the south, and Boston and New York in the East, gentrification is a hotly debated topic as cities invest in new infrastructure, wealthier people migrate to new neighborhoods, lower income people move to others, and we build new housing, offices, and infrastructure. With these changes, people are quick to blame gentrification for the negatives they associate with the result of these changes.

Every project has side effects, and I am not arguing that isn’t the case. Some of those side effects negatively affect some people. This is definitely true. At the same time, gentrification isn’t necessarily a wholly negative thing. Gentrification is just a word describing the natural evolution of cities and it comes with many positives. Urban investment benefits long standing residents just as it does those moving to gentrifying areas. Better streets, more transit options, nicer parks, lower crime, new businesses, new public amenities, better funded schools, more job opportunities, and higher wages, are all byproducts of gentrification.

As discussed in some of the articles in the weekly reading below, displacement isn’t necessarily a direct biproduct either, even though it is used as one of the main arguments against neighborhood investments. Adding market rate or luxury housing doesn’t necessarily drive up rents or housing costs in the surrounding areas, especially if it is increasing housing density. And fighting against new housing, and therefore limiting supply, as the Bay Area has demonstrated, can make matters exponentially worse - driving up housing prices so high that only the wealthy can afford a place to live. In San Francisco it is the lack of development and investment that has caused it to become unaffordable. As the demand for a neighborhood or city increases, so too must supply to keep housing prices in balance.

My point is that cities are like organisms. They are constantly growing, changing and evolving to adapt to the ecosystem they are a part of. Gentrification is a natural and inevitable part of this evolutionary cycle of cities, and not something that we can control and not a reason we should prevent development. Rather than blame the word for our problems, instead we need to look at the root issues and address those directly.

If housing is getting too expensive then we need to BUILD MORE HOUSING. If wealthy individuals are buying up cheaper houses and renovating them into expensive homes, we need to build luxury housing to respond to the demand in that market, so cheaper homes are still available for others. If increased property values and taxes are driving low-income families out of the neighborhood we should look to implement a more progressive tax code that doesn’t unfairly burden low-income residents. At the same time we can use gentrification as a way to give people more opportunities and life in better, safer, more diverse neighborhoods.

Preventing change isn’t the answer. Fighting development is counterproductive. We should be building to meet the demand that the change brings.

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Reading Assignments

1. How Gentrification Benefits Long Term Residents of Low Income Neighborhoods
   As the title of this weeks newsletter states, Gentrification isn’t necessarily bad. There are many benefits for people of all income levels.

A new study from Quentin Brummet of the University of Chicago and  and Davin Reed of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, is the best evidence yet that this view of gentrification is fundamentally wrong.  Gentrification creates substantial benefits for long time residents of low income neighborhoods, and causes little displacement. 

1. State Incentives For Local Abundant Housing Policy
   I love this idea. Rather than impose new rules on places that may initially be frustrated or resentful, why not use the carrot rather than the stick. A state offering local jurisdictions financial incentives if they adopt more flexible housing policies sounds like a win-win, and hopefully will convince local politicians to start enacting new laws.

2. Five Steps To Prevent Displacement
   This is really what people are fighting against when they villainize gentrification. Displacing long term residents can have detrimental impacts on a community and prevents those residents from benefiting from the positive aspects of gentrification. We should be aware of this and aim to implement programs that can allow new development and neighborhood improvements without displacing the people who call that neighborhood home.

3. If You Want Less Displacement Build More Housing
   Somehow, against what I see as common sense, an argument has arisen within the NIMBY crowd, that to prevent displacement you can’t build anything new. However, people need to move from time to time and they have to live somewhere. So if we aren’t building new housing and offer a range of housing options for ALL income levels, housing prices will keep rising and people will continue to be displaced as they no longer can afford to live in their desired neighborhood. We need to build more housing in all neighborhoods.

4. How Stuff Works: Gentrification
   Let’s learn about what we are actually talking about. I hear the word “Gentrification” used in different contexts and it becomes clear that we aren’t all talking about the same thing. We need to understand the definition, what the causes are, and what the potential benefits and detriments.

5. In Defense Of Change
   A great article from a few years ago about some of the struggles Portland was, and still is, going through as some fight to freeze the city in time, and others want to build the city we need for the future.

Cities are dynamic, cultivators of change. Jane Jacobs understood the importance of maintaining both new and old buildings in order for cities to thrive. A city must be adaptive as technology and culture changes, and Portland has utilized its natural setting and resources to quickly respond to our industrial heritage and move toward a climatically-sensitive future. In order to be sustainable, Portland must be able to change, and change again when need be. As Heraclitus once noted “the only thing that is constant is change,” and 2,500 years later Portland native Chuck Palahniuk similarly advised “hey, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.” As a city, we must embrace change, because it occurs everyday whether we want it or not…

Weekly Design Inspiration

Dumbo Townhouses - Designed and Developed by Alloy

This project is unapologetically contemporary yet does well complimenting the historic context of the Dumbo neighborhood.

Elegant materials, simple form, and dynamic façade patterning is what draws me to the project. The scale fits in with the context, there is a nice distinction between the ground floor that interacts with the street and the mass of the building above. And the interiors take advantage of views of the Manhattan Bridge and historic brick buildings all around - bringing color and texture into the homes.

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a person/organization that deserves more attention

Kevin Cavanaugh | Guerilla Development

Kevin and his company, Guerilla Development, are behind some of the most creative, and controversial, commercial real estate development projects in Portland, OR. He is also one of the reasons I’m interested in development rather than traditional architectural practice. Trained as an architect, Kevin is the guy who sees a car repair shop and envisions the future home of hip micro-restaurants, or takes a parcel of land surrounded by traffic-clogged roads and builds this:

I understand this isn’t everyone’s idea of great architecture. Heck, I wouldn’t have the audacity to design something like this - twin warping cubes, punctured by seemingly random square windows, covered in bright murals. But I’m sure glad someone did. In a city that is blanketed by gray skies for over half the year, and is being transformed by boring “SketchUp architecture” by developers and architects who care little about quality or community, it is refreshing to see splashes of color and a developer who wants to experiment.

Although the Fair-Haired Dumbbell is the most high profile project in their portfolio, it is a few of their other projects that are what I want to highlight here. While most developers are are focused on maximizing profits in gentrifying neighborhoods, Kevin is focused on “enough.” How much does a project need to generate to satisfy investors, and what is the community of people that a building can serve? What does the city of Portland need and how can they wield their expertise to help address communal problems? In Jolene’s First Cousin the answer is smaller profit margins but affordable housing for former homeless people. With SROs, $290/month rent, and shared amenities, this building is the first in a series of projects Kevin is developing across the city that provide government-subsidy-free affordable housing, while still working as a for profit investment. It is the type of development that contributes to the quality of the neighborhood - bringing new ground floor retail spaces and new neighbors and shoppers to the area, while helping transition away from living on the streets. An honorable mission and values that I’d love to see more developers embrace.

Side Note: I was lucky enough to work on the design for small business - Unicorn Bake Shop - that moved into one of the ground floor retail spaces in the Jolene’s First Cousin development. If you happen to find yourself in SE Portland, go check it out.

Hear more about Kevin’s work and his interest in “Enough” with this TEDxPortland talk he gave a couple of years ago.

My creative outlets:

• My Textures Insta: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My Drawings and Design Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My not so active blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

• My website for Art and Design: https://www.lucasgrayart.com/

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All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.

- The Book of the Living from Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Fear not change for it is both inevitable and invigorating. 2020 was a year of immense change for me personally and for us as a collective. 2021 will be no different. It will be a time of rebuilding our lives from incredible disruption. It will be a time to rethink how we want to live as we emerge from the depths of a pandemic and widespread shutdowns and return to having access to what was available before. But do we really want to return to how things were?

We also sit on the eve of tremendous political change. After four years of politics founded on division, hate, and fear of change, we find ourselves about to embark on a political shift in ideology. This change has immense opportunity for us to have our country return to being a leader in the international community, and refocus on how we can improve the lives of those who live here in America, both citizens and those searching to build a better life. We need to come together and work to make positive change for everyone.

And importantly, we need to implement changes that work for people of all walks of life. We can’t just reward those with expensive educations who work in the few “superstar” cities that are growing. This means investment in smaller towns, villages, rural areas, and suburbs, making them better places to live. We need to think about how we can make changes to our laws and regulations so we can build the types of places that can thrive economically and that people want to live in.

How can these places break from the dependence on single occupancy vehicles and be served by multi-modal transit networks? How can we provide decentralized economic opportunities in towns that were once reliant on manufacturing jobs or coal mining? How can the 21st century economy spread beyond the limits of big cities? How can our government, along with private enterprise, build the infrastructure these places need? And what will that infrastructure be in the coming years as we transition to clean energy?

It is an exciting time if you are optimistic about the coming changes. I often say I’m a short term pessimist but long term optimist. I can always find something to complain about with how things are currently done - especially when you can see a better way. But I usually find ways to be excited about the changes on the horizon, even with the many challenges we face.

Parting words: don’t be afraid of change. Instead, embrace it and find ways to help the change improve the world around you.

Weekly Design Inspiration

I love creative use of brick in architecture. It is fun seeing such an ancient material being used in new and creative ways in contemporary design. This is a great example of how bricks can be manipulated to create an immersive space. I especially appreciate the organic curves of the walls and arches.

Cheng Chung Design - 50% cloud artists lounge
Mile City, Yunnan Province, China
Click the link above for more images of this project. They make me want to travel back to China to visit and explore this place.

Things worth reading / watching

1. Here's What *Not* to Do to Your Small-Town Main Street
   Too often urban design tends to focus on large cities. News outlets will cover major developments in New York, or policy changes in San Francisco much more often than things happening in small town America. Yet small towns are where a large percentage of people in America live and we should be working to make those places better and more vibrant. Saying we should cut down on parking, and turn streets into pedestrian plazas may work in the density of Manhattan but those same things could kill businesses on a main street in a small town. This article starts the conversation of what works for main streets and how small towns can learn from mistakes to revitalize their business centers. We need more discussion on the built environment in places like Bamberg, South Carolina and how we can work to make it better to support local businesses and residents.

2. The Case For One Billion Americans Part II
   Following up on one of last week’s links, here is the second part of the interview with author Matthew Yglesias about his book One Billion Americans: The Case For Thinking Bigger. I just started reading the book.

3. The pandemic pushed cities to take back their streets from cars. Will they keep them in 2021?
   We need to work hard to make the positive changes brought on by the pandemic permanent. Our cities should be designed as safe places for pedestrians, bikers, outdoor diners, and public demonstrators. Let’s make this a fundamental part of our built environment by reclaiming spaces that subsidize car culture and instead recraft it into permanent places for people.

   It’s not clear how many of the cities that made temporary changes during the pandemic will make those permanent. But it just takes political leadership, says Mike Lydon, a principle at the firm Street Plans.

   Let’s push for this political leadership in all of our communities.

4. One of the best parts of Winter - Visualizing how our streets can be improved
   I love how people are using our cities’ poor job at clearing streets from snow as a tool to show how streets can be redesigned for the better.
   Another related article: The Urban Design Lesson Hidden in Blizzard 2016

5. Sketchy Intersections Instagram
   Fun drawings of bad intersections and how they can be fixed.

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a person/organization that deserves more attention

I had the pleasure of helping bring Michael Ford to Portland a few years ago to give a presentation for the Portland Design Pup Lecture Series. Michael talked about his work engaging youth, particularly underserved communities and children of color, and introducing them to the profession of architecture.

The Hip Hop Architecture Camp® positions Hip Hop culture as a catalyst to introduce underrepresented youth to architecture, urban planning, and design.
-Hip Hop Architecture Camp

His thinking is that our world would look a lot different and work for many more people if the profession that shapes the built environment is more diverse. Give people the knowledge, tools, and opportunity to shape their communities and they will make spaces that work for their needs. When one demographic controls how our cities and communities are built it tends to work best for that group. In America that means our cities are built for white men who benefit greatly at the expense of those who were traditionally shut out from the decision making process. What Michael and his Hip Hop Architecture Camp aims to do is change that equation. By introducing architecture, design and urban planning as a career opportunity for diverse youth, he hopes to change the dynamic of who our cities are built for and how they serve the needs of a diverse population.

I was excited to see a packed house in Portland there to hear his ideas and support his work. His lecture was sponsored by the Architecture Foundation of Oregon who also ran one of his Hip Hop Architecture Camps for Portland students the same week.

Learn more about his work and invite him to give a presentation to your community. I also encourage you to work to bring a Hip Hop Architecture camp to your city. Help get children interested in design and architecture as a potential career and give them the tools to transform our world for the better.

• Michael Ford - Brandnu Design

• Hip Hop Architecture

And listen to the MIXTAPE of songs created by camp participants!

More inspiring words by Seth Godin:

The most important blog post

It is on the most important blog.

Yours.

Even if no one but you reads it. The blog you write each day is the blog you need the most. It’s a compass and a mirror, a chance to put a stake in the ground and refine your thoughts.

And the most important post? The one you’ll write tomorrow.

- Seth’s Blog

Check out my other creative outlets:

• My photographs of textures Insta: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My drawings, design, and art Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My not so active blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

• My website for design and art: https://www.lucasgrayart.com/

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1. Truth Matters. Having an informed population who can decipher between facts and conspiracy theories is essential to a functioning democracy. It is clear that too many Americans can’t. I don’t know when our society shifted from respecting education, science, and progress, to what we have now - masses of ignorant people believing online conspiracies and attacking science during a deadly pandemic. More importantly, how can we recover and swing the pendulum back? It is imperative that we do.

2. News companies have done a terrible job covering politics over the past 6 years and learned this lesson too late. They should have blatantly called out lies for what they were, and should have been doing this from the beginning of the Trump political era. Additionally, social media didn’t have to give a loudspeaker to those who were spreading conspiracies and falsehoods. Just because a president tweets something doesn’t make it newsworthy. Just because someone is famous or in politics doesn’t mean Social Media should allow them to break their terms of service and behavior policies.

   I believe both traditional and social media companies are complicit in what has happened in our country over the past 4-6 years. I believe this started with 24 hour cable news networks that had political agendas rather than a focus on telling the news, the truth. This has led to the travesty of January 6th, 2021. I hope newsrooms across America self reflect and implement standards and processes that prevent them repeating these mistakes. There are no such things as alternate facts. Lies aren’t news.

3. Those who argued over the past four years for the need to erect walls along our border with Mexico stupidly demonstrated how effective they are.

   

   I apologize for getting political in this space. It was never my intention when starting this newsletter. But alas, here we are in the early days of 2021…
   I was always skeptical that it would get this bad. I believed that our norms and institutions would prevail over the individuals who were trying to tear them down. Sadly I was mistaken. The events over the past few days have made it abundantly clear how low some politicians and their gullible followers are willing to go to keep power and destroy our country.

   I believe it is now vital that there are consequences, both political and legal, for all those involved. These people must go to jail for a significant amount of time. Politicians involved must resign, be impeached, and held legally accountable as well. Individuals and Businesses have to look long and hard about who’s campaigns they donate to. Voters must put common decency and truth above party. Republicans have to come to terms with the fact they are the party of white supremacy and authoritarian populism. No tax cut or business friendly policy is worth the damage that the GOP has inflicted on our country. There is no excuse for their lies, deceit and contemptible world view. There is no excuse for those Americans who enable them.

In other news

It has been a beautiful sunny weekend here in New York. Yesterday we explored a new part of the city, getting groceries and to-go dinner from various places in Jackson Heights, Queens, one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the city (country? world?). While our corner of Brooklyn is relatively mellow with only sparse crowds on the weekends, the sidewalks of Jackson Heights were bustling with activity. Street vendors, outdoor dining, and markets overflowing onto the sidewalks, and crowds of shoppers reminded us that we live in a city. That life goes on. That national politics are far removed from the vibrancy of day to day life.

It also reminded us of the value of diversity. Shopping at Indian specialty stores with floor to ceiling shelving filled with spices, beans, and bags of rice, corner shops offering samosas and other fried snacks to go, and sweet shops with huge varieties of colorful desserts is incredibly fun. Smelling the food being cooked in the various food carts is mouth watering. Buying things we haven’t tried before and finding recipes to use our new ingredients allows us to get some insight into other places and cultures. It allows us to begin to appreciate who they are, where they came from, and offers a glimpse into their lives, creating more space within ourselves for empathy and connection to those who differ from us. With international travel no longer an option for the time being, this trip to Queens gave us a chance to try new things, taste new flavors, and share in the diversity of the city.

These are the things we have missed the most during the pandemic and one of the best things about living in New York. Experiencing and celebrating diversity is what makes life worth living. It is how we become better people. It is what America should be all about. It is sad that so many people have a closed mindset when it comes to learning about different ways to live, to worship, to cook, rather than celebrating the differences that make us great.

Our new policy: every time we are in a store like Patel Brothers or Sunrise Mart, buy something we have never tried before - be it a small snack, a drink from a different country, or a strange new vegetable to cook at home. It might be great. It may taste terrible. It will certainly always be interesting and new. The goal is to constantly challenge ourselves to step out of comfort zone and have new experiences.

Although I used food and shopping in the example above, this is true for the built environment as well. The best part of traveling is seeing how cities and countries work. How do people get around? How are streets laid out and designed for various uses? How are neighborhoods or districts connected? How is indigenous architecture built - what local materials are used and how does it responds to the local climate? How are new technologies and international architecture woven into historic buildings and urban development? How do people socialize and gather? How do people buy their groceries? Where do they eat? What is the local street food? How does the form of the city and its buildings address geography and weather?

The things that make cities different are what make them great.

Weekly Design Inspiration

The more I focus my career on designing residential projects, the more inspired I am by examples of residential projects that compliment their environment.

Designed by HGA Architects, these cabins in Vermont are beautiful in their simplicity. The traditional form and natural materials allow the details to shine while floor to ceiling windows connect every space to the outdoors. I particularly love how they exposed the structure and created interiors that have no drywall. The warmth and texture of the wood makes the spaces feel calm and welcoming. Meanwhile the cabin sits serenely in the landscape - the architecture compliments the surrounding meadow and woods. It’s at once contemporary and classic, a timeless design that reflects my design values. Well done.

Things worth reading / watching

1. The Case For One Billion Americans
   Can population growth solve many of America’s problems? This is an audacious idea and a compelling case for why tripling our population could be a benefit for us and for the world. Author Matthew Yglesias is using the shock value of the big number to instigate discussion on a range of political, economic, social, and environmental issues that we face today. He makes a lot of good points, particularly around the fact that we already have the infrastructure in place to absorb many more people. For instance, Rust Belt cities - from Buffalo to Detroit - have been declining in population for years. We can make use of this “wasted” infrastructure already in place while giving these communities a shot in the arm economically.

   I personally feel that most of the issues that we face in America in relation to the built environment have to do with population density. We can’t afford to maintain the infrastructure we built because we don’t have the population to contribute to the costs. We can’t expand our infrastructure because we don’t have the tax base to fund it. We don’t have public transit to all of our communities because we don’t have the population density to demand it. Population growth can lead to a lot of great things. It is how we address the challenges that could make or break this idea.

   And as Matthew mentions in the interview, if America had 1 billion people living in it, we would still have a population density lower than France, Germany or the UK.

2. Legalize Accessory Commercial Units (ACUs)
   I have spent the past 7 years designing Accessory Dwelling Units in Portland, Seattle, and am currently working on projects in the Bay Area. What I love about ADUs is that they are small in scale, take advantage of existing property, and leverage this to make a big impact on both an individual and community wide scale. With the success of ADUs - they have spread to cities across the country and even whole states are adopting laws to allow them by right - the question is what is next? This article argues that ACUs, or accessory commercial units, would be a game changer, especially to address some of the economic hardships brought on by the pandemic. Unfortunately “ACUs are functionally illegal in most cities; they don’t fit well in our current land use, zoning, or lending paradigms.” writes Ashley Salvador. She continues, “Lowering the barriers to entry for entrepreneurs helps them build a good life for themselves and their families, helps grow the economic ecosystem of a place, and makes our towns and cities more resilient. Clearing the path for ACUs is a brilliant place to start.” I for one would like to see this changed and I personally would love to start designing ACUs in communities across the country.

3. How to Solve the Transit Budget Crunch: Price the Private Use of Public Streets
   Hordes of headlines have shown the dire straights our public transit agencies are in across the country due to the pandemic. Few discuss a how at the same time we give away public land for free that could be monetized to cover the costs of transit.

   We think there’s a solution right under our feet: Make private drivers pay market rates to use the public’s roads. Traditionally, transit customers have had to fork over hefty fares, while private drivers go for free. The result is congestion, endless circling for parking spaces, Ubers and Lyfts blocking bike lanes and bus stops, and, at this precarious fiscal moment, a huge pot of potential revenue waiting to be claimed.

   This shouldn’t be so hard. We just need some political will to actually address the inequity of incentivizing driving and underfunding transit. Let’s do this!

Sharing the love.

a person/organization that deserves more attention

One of the leading forces that has caused our car focused urban environment and infrastructure spending is the powerful, well connected, and well funded Auto Lobby. And that is why I’d like to do my small part to fight this by highlighting the Bike Lobby: People For Bikes.

They are one of the few groups dedicated to advocating for bike infrastructure across America. They provide resources, post bike-related news, conduct research, organize events, and provide funding for bike projects across our country and to help inform and influence policy makers.

Want to get involved and help make biking better for everyone? Donate some money or volunteer your time to help with advocacy efforts in your city. Or simply attend one of the People For Bikes events or dust off your bike and join one of their organized rides. Best of all, the next time you think of taking your car (or an Uber/Lyft/Taxi) for a short trip, chose to ride a bike instead.

BUILDING CITIES FOR BIKING: How does your city rank?

Check out the City Ratings where you can find your city, sort by categories, and compare cities across the country.

City Ratings

Shameless Self Promotion:

A snapshot of a street seat I designed a few years ago for Bamboo Sushi on NE Alberta Street in Portland, Oregon. We were a bit ahead of the curve providing outdoor dining to a local restaurant. Since this one I have also designed outside seating for Bamboo Sushi’s downtown location, a street seat for Bonfire Lounge, and a temporary street seat outside a café in Eugene, Oregon. I love these project types as they take back a small piece of the city and dedicate it to people rather than cars.

Of course, with the pandemic devastating the restaurant industry over the past year, cities across the country have be adapting their rules to allow businesses to set up outdoor dining on sidewalks and curbside parking strips. What I hope is that this trend continues and we see the advantages of transforming our urban environment to be more people friendly long after the pandemic is behind us.

If you own a business that is interested in adding outdoor dining or a street seat, or you know of a local establishment that could benefit from one of these installations, please get in touch.

Opportunities:

• The deadline to apply for the Small Project Design Grant Program is quickly approaching - January 14th.

Apply Now

• And the Small Project Design Awards Program is open for entries until January 15th. Get yours in this week.

Submit Now

If you haven’t already, click these:

• My website for design and art: https://www.lucasgrayart.com/

• My photographs of textures Insta: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My drawings, design, and art Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

2020 started optimistically with getting married in January. I then left the company I helped start 7 years ago in February, watched the world shut down in fits and starts throughout March, moved from Portland to New York City in April, witnessed unprecedented protests beginning in May and stretching through June, found a new job in July (after a 6-month search), moved to a new apartment in September, sold our Portland home in October (finally!), voted in the election in November, all while trying to do my part to stay safe during a pandemic.

As much as we try to plan for the future, there was nothing that could have predicted or prepared us for such a transformational year. Although it was stressful, unpredictable, and devastating for so many people, we are coming out of the worst of it with hope for the future. New political leadership, a vaccine being rolled out, and days that are already getting longer gives us hope that 2021 will be a return to optimism that was too often lacking in 2020’s doom ridden news cycles.

Despite the hardships of 2020 it had many silver linings that we should remind ourselves of. The pandemic and shutdowns had positive effects on the environment. Worldwide carbon dioxide emissions declined 7% and some scientist predict we may have reached peak carbon emissions. More people are biking to get around than ever, creating cleaner air, safer streets, quieter neighborhoods, and healthier people. Cities worldwide have embraced this change and are transforming their urban environments to support and promote cycling as a better way of getting around. New bike lanes have been built, streets have been closed to cars (at least temporarily), and bike businesses have boomed (there are lineups outside every bike shop in NY and like toilet paper back in March, there are now Bike Shortages that will stretch into 2021). And despite articles spouting falsehoods about the demise of cities, the pandemic has caused median rents to fall significantly in high-priced places like San Francisco and New York, making cities more affordable.

All of these will have a positive impact on life as we move into 2021 and approach the end of the pandemic. As lockdowns ease and vaccines make it safe for people return to offices and gather socially again, it will be fascinating to see what the new normal will be for how we choose to live. Will working remotely be the new normal? Will people return to a car-centric lifestyle? Will some of the habits and changes that were forced upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic end up being how people decide they want to live going forward? I for one, hope that life doesn’t return to what was considered normal, but instead we decide to use this as an opportunity to reset and implement changes to make our communities healthier, more sustainable, and ultimately more enjoyable places.

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Weekly Design Inspiration

Kerns Micro House designed by Fieldwork Design and Architecture
This is a small project by one of my favorite firms based in Portland. As someone who has found a niche in designing ADUs I love seeing this project type get elevated by great design. In this case, the project is so simple yet the materials and details make for a beautiful piece of architecture. The exterior seems to blend into the backyard garden while the interior is bright, light filled and elegant. I love how the small space gets transformed by the furniture and murphy bed, and the consistency of the wood accents ties the space together.

Things worth reading / watching

1. Building Cool Things Is Not As Easy As It May Seem
   This is one of my biggest criticisms of most zoning codes: “It is perhaps easy to see why the fear of the things we don’t want has led us to sterilize our neighborhoods to the point where we no longer allow the things that we may in fact want.” This is quote and short blog post by Brandon Donnelly is discussing the challenges a small coffee shop had to open in a residential neighborhood of Toronto. A corner coffee shop would be a desirable use in most residential neighborhoods yet most single family zones prohibit it. And when most of our city land is zoned single family, as it is in Portland, we are mandating sterile urban environments. It is a huge failing of our land use policies and those that create them.
   

2. Trump Orders New Government Buildings Must Be Beautiful
   A recent executive order signed by the current president states that new US government buildings must be beautiful. The order goes on the stipulate that classical and traditional styles shall be preferred. On the surface I can agree that buildings should be beautiful. I think beauty is something that isn’t discussed enough in the architectural profession and especially in design school. I think it is important to create beautiful buildings that will be loved and cared for over generations. However, beauty is somewhat subjective, and I am adamantly opposed to dictating style. Architectural styles should vary based on the local conditions, culture, materials, and labor expertise. There is no reason one style should permeate the entire country when climate landscape and local cultures vary so much. There are two other things I find quite ironic about his executive order. First, none of Trump’s own buildings would meet these requirements. His towers in NYC are mostly black glass clad monoliths. His hotel in Las Vegas is a gaudy rose gold atrocity. None of his projects are beautiful, nor are they classical or traditional styles of architecture. Second, for a political party that pretends to be worried about economics and the deficit, mandating classical or traditional styles of architecture can directly make all government buildings much more expensive. Construction techniques, materials, skilled labor, and technology has obviously changed tremendously over the past 100 years. It would be cost prohibitive to build like we did long ago. We should be designing projects that respond to today’s culture materials and technology. We should design to respond to local community needs, local climate conditions, and responding to the local context. We should be encouraging a diverse range of styles and aesthetics that reflect the diversity of our population. I will admit that I think public architecture should be beautiful. But there are beautiful buildings in all architectural styles.
   

3. "The Map": Making NYC's Live Subway Map
   Film by Gary Hustwit/Work & Co.
   This short documentary presents the process of designing a new map for New York City’s Subway system. As someone who loves maps, loves public transit, is interested in graphic design, and recently moved to NYC, this video is wonderful. Although I’ve heard a lot of criticism on this map, I think it is nicely designed. My only complaint is that a map that isn’t integrated into Google Maps (or Apple maps) who will really use this? Still, it is a fun piece of interactive graphic design.

Sharing the love.

a person/organization that deserves more attention

I find it troublesome that relatively large cities like Portland, Oregon don’t have a full-time architecture critic on staff at any local news organization. This is why I’d like to dedicate this space this week to highlight the work of Brian Libby. Through his blog, freelance writing for other publications, and a new podcast, he is actively filling the void left by local news. Brian is one of the few people writing about architecture and the built environment in Portland and deserves more readers and support. Follow his work here:

• Podcast: In Search of Portland

• Blog: Portland Architecture

Every news organization in every city should have an architecture critic. The built environment is incredibly impactful on everyone’s day to day life that more people should be educated on it, aware of new proposals and changes, and a conversation about related topics should be more prevalent in news coverage and day-to-day discussions. We see sensationalized headlines about Trump’s tweets every day and they have very little direct impact on our lives on the local level. Yet we rarely see news reports on architecture, urban planning proposals, zoning changes, or benefits of new infrastructure projects. I think these things should be much more prevalent in our news cycles.

The benefit would be a population that is more knowledgeable about these topics and better engaged with the evolution of our cities. I want people to better understand and value design and how it can benefit our communities. Instead of only hearing about traffic congestion, lack of parking, and the homeless problems facing Portland, I wish people were talking more about quality of architecture, how urban planning can improve their lives and make a more equitable and sustainable city, and understand how development and architectural decisions are made.

Thank you Brian Libby for recognizing the lack of architectural news in Portland and filling in the gap!

Check out Brian's Blog

Random thought of the week.

I found this quote on my weekly reading and it sums up why I started blogging over 12 years ago and why I started this newsletter this winter.

A Place To Write

One reason that successful and prolific singer-songwriters are prolific is that as soon as they’ve written a song, they can record it and publish it.

And a huge advantage of having a daily blog is that the software is always open, waiting for you to write something.

Your story doesn’t have to be a book, it is simply your chance to make a difference. “Here’s what I see, here’s how you can be part of it.”

When we remove the pre (finding the pen, the paper, the notebook, the software) and the post (finding a way to publish it), it turns out that we write more often, and writing more often leads to writing better.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can simply be the next thing you do.

The patterns matter. Streaks work.

All part of your practice.

-Seth Godin, https://seths.blog/2020/12/a-place-to-write/

My goal is to write more and build the habits to make this an ongoing initiative. Forcing myself to spend time thinking about the built environment, reflect on what I read, and experiment with ways to share information effectively seems like a smart investment of time. Especially in these times where options for how to spend our time are limited and the alternative to writing may be watching Japanese television shows on Netflix or mixing cocktails. Here is to week 4. Kampai to more writing.

Shameless Self Promotion:

The Sheltered Nook House in the hills northwest of Portland, Oregon.
Located on 5 acres of wooded land adjoining a 5-acre farm, the house sits in a natural clearing and is nestled into the hillside, carving a protected courtyard between the hill and the two wings of the home. A rhythm of floor-to-ceiling windows and Shou Sugi Ban (yakisugi) siding define the exterior while connecting the interior rooms to the landscape.

My career has evolved to focus on residential projects with a strong emphasis on designing sustainable homes that integrate into the natural surroundings. Taking cues from the site I aim to take advantage of the landscape, natural lighting, and siting projects to allow for strong indoor-outdoor connections. Meanwhile I look for opportunities to specify natural and locally sourced materials where possible, create high-efficiency homes that reduce energy and water use, and consider lifecycle costs and durability when developing the design.

Homes should reflect the values and lifestyles of their occupants. I work closely with clients to craft projects that are beautiful, functional, and respond to the unique needs of each family.

If you, or someone you know, is looking to build a custom home, I’m looking for new clients. Don’t hesitate to reach out or pass on my contact information.

Contact

Opportunities:

• You can still apply for the Small Project Design Grant Program.

Apply Now

• And the Small Project Design Awards Program is open for entries.

Submit Now

If you haven’t already, click these:

• My website for design and art: https://www.lucasgrayart.com/

• My photographs of textures Insta: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My drawings, design, and art Insta: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

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The alarm clock song we woke up to the day of our flight from Portland to New York:

It was a strange time to move to New York. We arrived on April 1st, 2020, flying on an empty plane between empty airports, at the peak of the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic. At the time we were unsure if we made the right decision, but looking back in many ways it worked out for the best. Shortly after our arrival, cases plummeted in NYC as the pandemic surged in other parts of the country. Most of the people here took it seriously and the local government worked hard to educate people and implement new rules to help limit the impact of the disease. Masks were prevalent everywhere we went, and we changed our lifestyle to stay as safe as possible. Our days meant working from home, cooking from home, and long masked walks through our new home city, exploring new neighborhoods.

Rather than the hectic energy of the big city - the rushing crowds, honking cars, street vendors, and rumble of subways - we were greeted with empty streets, closed stores, and a shortage of toilet paper. It was surreal to wander through the streets of Manhattan, literally walking in the road to avoid people on the narrow sidewalks thanks to the lack of cars. The city was quiet - one of the things that struck us the most. We could hear birds singing in the morning. There were more pedestrians and bikers than cars and it had a dramatic impact on the sounds of the city.

The absence of cars was striking. It made urban spaces incredibly pleasant. Streets were calm and safe. Parks were dominated by the sounds of nature rather than the traffic surrounding them. Walking and Biking became the primary form of transportation as people stayed away from the subway and most stuck close to home. We saw adults learning to ride a bike for the first time using the Citibike bike share system on the streets of Brooklyn. Sidewalks became less cramped because people could safely spill out into the streets.

Parks became centers of community life until the Mayor finally agreed to close some select neighborhood streets for cars so people had more space. Socially distanced neighborhood events started popping up with masked bands and DJs playing impromptu concerts. Restaurants could finally put tables out in the street to stay in business, and families would show up with picnics and games and set up where once there was just 4 lanes of traffic. As the weather warmed up and spring turned to Summer the city started feeling more like a city again, as fear subsided and people started to venture out and use urban spaces.

It has been a fascinating time to be here. Watching the city rapidly evolve and adjust as new information about the virus was balanced with the needs of millions of people demonstrated how flexible we could be and how quickly we can make changes to the built environment. We don’t need to waste years in committees, running lengthy and fruitless community engagement workshops, and haggling with politicians. We don’t need to invest millions of dollars to build new infrastructure. We need to be nimble. Experimentation should be celebrated. Failure should be tolerated as it becomes lessons learned to make the next projects better. Change doesn’t need to cost millions when some paint, planters, and barricades can make a traffic clogged street into a linear park for a few hundred dollars.

I hope some of the great changes we saw in the city this year aren’t fleeting responses to the pandemic and instead stick around long after the vaccine makes it safe to gather again. I hope people saw how great it was to have safe streets for walking and biking. I hope most people realized that birdsongs sound better than car horns when waking up. I hope people saw that Vanderbilt (or their local closed streets) on the weekends could be a celebration of community and that is a better use of space than as a thoroughfare for automobiles.

Ultimately, I hope that the sacrifices we made as individuals, as a community, as a city, and as a country to get through the pandemic can lead to positive changes to the places and spaces we call home.

A Thing I Made (or at least started)

1. A Pre-COVID NYC wish list
   As we were preparing for our move to New York city at the start of 2020, I started building a custom map to add places we were excited to visit. Heavily focused on food (inspired by the food travel shows - Taste The Nation, Ugly Delicious, Parts Unknown, No Reservations - both the amazing ethnic options NYC has to offer as well as some high end fine dining places) with some tourist attractions, museums, and architecture thrown in for good measure, the map was to be our starting point to explore the city. 9 months later and we have only been to a few of what we had hoped. We ate at restaurants a grand total of 8 times since moving here and of that 8 only 3 were dining at the restaurant (outdoor seating). We’ve been to three museums. We have ridden the subway three times. Alas, the map is here waiting for post COVID exploring, and I hope most of the restaurants make it through to the other side.

   Of course this map is by no means comprehensive and there are tons of amazing places I just haven’t been able to add yet. For those of you who are familiar with New York, have lived here or currently live here, please offer suggestions on places to add to this evolving tool. We are always looking for new destinations as we explore our new home.

   Leave a comment

Weekly Design Inspiration

Little House on the Ferry by OPAL
A wonderful residential project that is simple, elegant, and beautifully integrated into the site. Plus it is built out of CLT (cross laminated timber) which is unique for a project of this scale. I would love to have a retreat from the city on such a beautiful site with architecture that is so connected to the landscape. This year it was clear that many people has a similar desire as they looked for space in the Hudson Valley, The Catskills, or out on Long Island since working remotely became the norm, and congested city life became potentially hazardous.

Things worth reading

1. A Decade of Urban Transformation, As Seen From Above
   Incredible visualizations of just how much we change the environment around us. From farm fields to suburbs, from vacant lots to new urban development, this article does a great job at showing how quickly change happens.

2. When Manhattan was Mannahata: A Stroll Through the Centuries"
   The New York Times has been publishing a great series of articles - “Virtual Walking Tours” - by Michael Kimmelman about different parts of New York. This one was particularly fascinating as it focused on how the city has evolved from the natural environment prior to Europeans settling the island of Manhattan, to the concrete jungle we find today. Steams are now roads, ponds have been filled in for new development, the shoreline has been expanded to increase real estate to build on. A really great read.

3. Long-Overdue Dredging Of Gowanus Canal Turns Up 'Black Mayonnaise,' Sunken Cars, Evil Stench
   I first read about efforts to clean the Gowanus Canal a decade ago and now I live a short walk away. With the work actually underway I’m excited to watch as this rebirth of urban infrastructure transforms the surrounding neighborhoods. Like the Highline, where abandoned infrastructure was viewed as a stain on the city only to be transformed into one of the best parks in the world, the Gowanus canal has an incredible opportunity to become something spectacular. To get there it first means dredging up sludge, chemicals, sewage and the occasional sunken car. Despite the naysayers who are afraid of change that rezoning will bring, I think this is a great effort and already appreciate some of the new developments along the shores, including the Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation, an art center designed by Herzog and de Meuron currently under construction.

4. How New Yorkers Want to Change the Streetscape for Good
   The starting point of this great graphic article is about a mile from our new apartment, and a few blocks from the apartment we rented for our first five months in New York. We spent many of our summer weekend evenings strolling up Vanderbilt, listening to music, people watching, and sharing a glass of wine with friends (safely distanced of course) on the median. Kids were running around playing laser tag. Families were having picnics. Bikers were slowly weaving through the crowd. Restaurants were serving outdoor tables and to-go orders. Hundreds of people were enjoying a new linear park in their neighborhood, urban space that was off limits just weeks before. I hope that the silver lining of the pandemic is that we reassess what our cities should be and reconfigure streets to be focused on people rather than traffic. With thousands of miles of streets in our cities we can easily dedicate a few of them to spaces for people, community building, extended retail and restaurant space, and transform the concrete into greenery.

Sharing the love.

a person/organization that deserves more attention

I first heard Majora Carter speak over 10 years ago on one of the TED Talk videos. I saw her in person a few years later when I attended the 25th Congress for the New Urbanism held in Seattle, WA. Although she has garnered a lot of coverage of her work over the years, I want to highlight her again here for a few reasons. First, she is based in the South Bronx and this newsletter has a bit of New York City theme tying things together. Second, she is working at the crossroads of a lot of issues I’m passionate about: sustainability, community building, real estate development, urban revitalization. Third, she is someone that everyone should know. She has a unique voice in a real estate world dominated by old, wealthy, white, men, and is implementing projects that are making underserved communities better places to live. This quote is a great summary of why her work is important:

"Nobody should have to move out of their neighborhood to live in a better one”
- Majora Carter

Look her up. Read about her work. Watch her famous TED Talk. Invite her to speak to your community. And if the right opportunity presents itself, get her involved in a project and find a way to collaborate.

Shameless Self Promotion:

This week I’d like to highlight two programs I help run through my volunteer work with the AIA Small Project Design Knowledge Community. Both are open to submissions and I encourage you all to apply yourself or share these opportunities with others who should enter.

1. Small Project Design 2021 Grant Program Call for Submissions
   Community-based projects often struggle to find funding, especially funds needed to hire professional design teams to help solve design challenges. Too often non-profits feel they can’t afford to pay for design services even though architects would provide immense value and can make the project more successful. To help demonstrate the value architects can bring to a project, this grant helps cover some of the design fees associated with hiring a professional design team.

   • The grant funds are to be used to hire an architecture firm to assist with the design and/or feasibility studies for a community-based project.

   • The architecture team must include an AIA or Associate AIA member.

   • The grant application must identify the 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization and the selected architecture firm. (Either the architecture firm or the 501(c)3 may be the primary applicant.)

   • Preference will be given to small projects with the potential for a big impact.

2. Small Project Awards Program
   A small project can make a big impact. These awards highlight projects modest in budget and size that create a large positive impact on communities and individuals. Submissions are welcome in three categories:

   • Category one: small project construction, object, work of environmental art or architectural design element up to $150,000 in construction cost

   • Category two: small project construction up to $1.5 million in construction cost

   • Category three: small project construction, object, work of environmental art or architectural design under 5,000 square feet.

Returning links:

• My website for design and art: https://www.lucasgrayart.com/

• My photographs of textures: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My drawings, design, and art: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

Share A Better Built Environment | Lucas Gray

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I returned to Japan in 2015 to work on a community project with the Architecture firm I started with a couple partners. We collaborated with the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) and a landscape architecture firm to help the small rural town of Aridagawa generate ideas on how to revitalize the community and attract young people to move back there (I’ll elaborate on this project another time). It was a life-changing experience and I’ve been traveling back to Japan every year since, both for work on the project as well as to visit new friends there and further explore the country. At least until the Pandemic paused travel.

2020 is the first year that I haven’t returned and Japan is probably the first place I’ll go when travel is safe and borders reopen. I miss the expansive urbanity of Tokyo with it’s incredible metro system, tiny alleys, micro-bars, incredible food, and the glow of illuminated streets at night. I miss the traditional temples and gardens tucked into the mountains. Mostly I miss the amazing people we have met, who have welcomed us and showed us glimpses of life that no tourist would ever see. I can’t wait to go back again to reconnect with friends, return to places we have grown familiar with, and see how our work there has impacted the community and evolved over time.

Things I wrote

1. The World Feels Smaller
   A short post on my thoughts related to travel and the pandemic’s impact on my world. How scale has changed and how the geography that is accessible has dramatically shifted. Planes made far off countries feel close, the pandemic makes neighborhoods just a few miles distant feel far away. My current world is literally small, pre-pandemic the whole world felt small. It is strange how scale is relative.

2. Tokyo, Japan Architecture Tour
   When I first was headed to Japan an architecture professor in Australia, who use to teach in Tokyo, gave me a copy of an architecture tour he wrote up for visiting friends and family. It was a great way to explore the city as an architecture student. As I followed his directions and advice I added my own notes, expanded upon the recommendations and updated the tour based on changes to the city over time. If you are heading to Tokyo and are looking for tips on what to see, places to eat, and significant architecture, this is a great place to start.

Weekly Design Inspiration

Muji Yō no Ie, or ‘plain house’

I love architecture that blends building and nature, spaces that flow from inside to outside. In this prefabricated home, Muji brought their design philosophy “to be confident in a simplicity that feels in no way inferior to splendor” and beautifully executed an elegant space that would be an incredible place to live in the landscape.

Things worth reading

1. The 15-Minute City—No Cars Required—Is Urban Planning’s New Utopia
   This is the new dream of urban planners and city dwellers - having all of your needs met “within 15 minutes of their homes on foot, by bike, or on public transit.” It is one of the reasons I picked my neighborhood in Portland (The Alberta Arts district, close to the center of the purple area mapped in the article), eventually moved to downtown Portland, and since relocated to NYC. I want to live in a place where I never need to use a car to get the basic things I need to be comfortable and be happy. Grocery stores, shops, restaurants, cafes, entertainment, parks, housing, and employment should all be accessible within your neighborhood. This should be the primary metrics in which we judge new development: the idea that commuting is not necessary and every neighborhood has all the amenities needed to offer a great place to live.  

2. Cottage Clusters: Portland’s chance to build community in a new way
   An older article discussing how Cottage Clusters should be better integrated into Portland’s Residential Infill Project code update (The RIP was passed by the City Council and should be implemented into the code in early 2021 and Cottage Clusters are allowed through a Planned Development). I’ve recently been reading various articles and codes related to Cottage Clusters for a couple of development projects I’m working on. I also think these are interesting development concepts that more communities across the country should allow by right in all residential areas. If anyone has great examples of successful cottage cluster style developments or is looking for someone to help with a project, please let me know.

3. Streetmix
   Not something to read exactly, but rather a tool to (re)design your own street. Starting with a cross section of a road, you have the ability to transform the space by adding (or removing) lanes, incorporating bike paths, increase sidewalk widths, dedicate lanes to buses or transit, and more. This is a useful tool to generate graphics to help advocate for change to your neighborhood. Take a stab at designing the street you would like to see and share that with elected officials, Department of Transportation staff, and community groups to help make your town a better place to live. Street are a public resource that should accommodate a wide range of uses, not just a way for cars to get around.

4. Stop Asking the Public What They Want
   This is one of the biggest frustrations I encounter through my interest in the built environment. It is just so hard to make positive change because all too often (all the time really) we end up distilling good ideas to the lowest common denominator based on community feedback.

   The opinions of individuals on how to handle things like traffic congestion are often heavily informed by anecdotal experience and misguided conventional wisdom.

   Experts should observe how communities use their built environment, what the problem areas are, and work to fix those quickly and incrementally. We should hire smart and talented people and let them do their jobs. Wasting months/years of time running community engagement workshops and trying to get people to tell the experts how to do their jobs or how to design a better street is bad policy and leads to bad end results. I’ve sat on these community advisory boards and presentation to my neighborhood associations. They are painful, unhelpful, and I see how City staff caters to the complainers more than focus on what is needed to make our city better.

Sharing the love.

a person/organization that deserves more attention

Two people who helped open opportunities for me in Japan and became great friends are Mitsu Yamazaki and Yasuhito Arii. They were the people who spearheaded the Aridagawa workshops and subsequent projects I’ve had the pleasure to work on. They have been incredible friends and supporters who gave a small architecture firm an opportunity that grew into a 5 year (and counting) collaboration.

Mitsu lives in Tokyo and runs an International business consultancy focused around business innovation, business development, urban design, and economic development projects. He also wrote a best selling urban planning book in Japan all about Portland’s urban planning and design. I met Mitsu 6+ years ago, and have seen his passion and dedication to building connections between Portland and Japan, helping companies do business across the Pacific, and sharing ideas that make communities stronger. If you are interested in doing business in Japan he is your man. If you are looking to develop stronger more sustainable communities, make him part of your team. And if you are ever in Tokyo look him up and treat him to a coffee or beer.

Arii-san is based in Wakayama City but can be found galivanting around Japan working with various towns and community groups, or hopping around the bars and cafes of Portland on one of his frequent trips there. Through his company Plus Social he helps connect investors with socially driven development projects. He works with community groups - particularly in smaller rural towns and villages - to start initiatives to support local economies and create sustainable developments. Beyond his socially driven work, he is an inspiring public speaker, an incredible host and tour guide, and probably one of the most well connected people in Japan - he seems to know everyone. On top of all of that he owns a hair salon in Wakayama and helped start Nomcraft Brewing in the project we worked on in Aridagawa. Long story short, Arii-san is an incredible friend, and inspiration, and one of the main reasons we want to keep returning to Japan. If you are traveling to japan, please pack a couple craft beers from your local brewery as a gift and deliver them to Arii-san!

Shameless Self Promotion:

These are the other things that I do for fun and/or money. I design custom homes and ADUs. I take photographs of textures. I draw. I write about the architecture that I visit on my travels and random thoughts I have as I explore the world.

• My website for design and art: https://www.lucasgrayart.com/

• My photographs of textures: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My drawings, design, and art: https://www.instagram.com/lucasgraydesign/

• My blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

Please share this newsletter with any friends or colleagues who may be interested.

Share A Better Built Environment | Lucas Gray

My goal with starting a newsletter is a personal one: forcing myself to read more, curate what I consume, and have a reason and place to process my thoughts. I read a lot of articles, blogs, social media posts, and most of them are related the built environment. Having lived around the world and traveling for work and pleasure has honed my interest in variations in the built environment. The best part of these experiences has been exploring and learning about different cities, how they work, how people use public space, how we move around, how architecture is both similar and wildly different from country to country.

I’ve also learned this about myself: I’m interested in urban fabric as much as I am about individual buildings; I’m interested in details and textures more than I am about form; I’m passionate about transit and how we move from place to place both on short trips and far; I’m fascinated about how all of this comes together to define the places we live.

The current vision is to start each newsletter with an introduction section like this one. A place I can share what I’m currently thinking about. I’ll then follow this with the sections shown below. A couple links to writing I’ve done in other places, a list of articles or posts that I found interesting/inspiring, and a place where I’ll highlight other people or organizations that are doing great things and deserve a spotlight. Finally I’ll wrap up with links to what I’m working on. Although this last section may not change often, I always have ideas for new projects and this seems like a good place to share them.

I hope this newsletter becomes a habit and something to look forward to on a weekly basis. Thank you for joining me on this experiment.

Of course, I welcome your thoughts, ideas, and feedback. What would you like to see and read? How can I improve my writing? How can I make something that is more valuable and enjoyable for you?

Leave a comment

Things I wrote

1. Guide to Starting Your Own Architecture Firm
   My career has evolved from working for design firms to running my own business, to now being the National Design Director of a company focused on ADUs and residential projects. This trajectory has followed my increasing interest being an entrepreneur and understanding the business side of practice. I’ve been writing blog posts for Monograph.io about some of the things it takes to start and run an architecture firm. This is the first post I wrote for them.

2. Ways We Are Subsidizing Driving… Why?
   A recent post on Streetsblog discussed 12 ways we were subsidizing driving through our laws and how we enforce them. I added some of my thoughts and frustrations with this topic. I want to live in a place where walking and cycling is treated equally with driving a private vehicle. If you can drive from any point A to any point B on a dedicated street for cars you should be able to bike from the same point A to the same point B in a dedicated lane for bikes.

Things worth reading

1. Is Trackless Tram NYC’s New Equitable Transit Option?
   Basically it is very nicely designed bus that runs along painted lines in the street. Nevertheless, cheaper, flexible, attractive transit options are much needed across cities and town in the US. It is particularly valuable as a transit option that can be easily adaptable in case of disasters, emergencies, or long term changes to our built environment brought on by climate change which is discussed in the article.

2. Paris to Get Rid of 70,000 Parking Spaces
   A short article the likes of which we should be able to read more often. Can you imagine seeing Portland, Oregon Gets Rid Of 70,000 Parking Spaces grace the cover of a newspaper? Our fixation on cars and parking is one of the primary factors in the poor financial and physical health of our cities and fellow Americans. Plus one of the exciting opportunities something like this creates is how we can use all of that newly available space. “Residents of the French capital will be consulted on how they want to see the new space used.” My hatred of parking on public land in our cities will probably be a common theme recurring in my posts.

3. St Mary Mercy Chapel by PLY+
   This isn’t really an article to read but rather a beautiful piece of architecture. I love the design of great spaces and am particularly drawn to projects that have a creative use of materials, especially brick. I’ll try to post an inspiring piece of architecture or two each week. I think this is a worthy one to start.

4. West Coast Cottage Reforms Lead To Explosive Rise In Permits
   As someone who has spent the past 8 years dedicated to designed Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), it is great to see how much they have grown in popularity across the country. I’m especially encouraged by all of the local and state governments that have been working to reduce barriers and code limitations and legal hurdles for these great housing types. And it is working. With easier paths to approval coupled with incentive programs to build these projects the market has exploded. It is fun to be a part of this growing housing trend.

Sharing the love.

a person/organization that deserves more attention

Each week I’m going to try to highlight someone who I admire, who is doing great work, or an organization that is helping make our cities and those who design and build them better. To kick off this feature I’d like to share an online magazine that is much needed in the profession of architecture and other fields related to the built environment.

Madame Architect.
https://www.madamearchitect.org/

While the seeming lack of women in architecture has been well-documented, women are, and have been, making waves in all levels of the field. Madame Architect is an online magazine celebrating the extraordinary women that shape our world, a magazine designed to break the architect’s mold and show young women entering the industry the myriad choices they have in crafting a dynamic, meaningful, and interesting career. Follow us at @madamearchitect.

Founded by Julia Gamolina, Madame Architect is “dedicated to the built environment and to the empowerment, advancement, and visibility of the women who work in it.” Women are underrepresented in the architectural profession and we aren’t doing enough to elevate those who are doing excellent work and sharing their stories. Madame Architect is helping tear down barriers and celebrating the extraordinary talents of women who are shaping our world.

Other things I work on:

This will final section will probably repeat on most of my newsletters although it could change from time to time as I start new projects. For now I’m sharing the website for my design work and artwork, my ongoing Instagram fascination with textures of the world, and my blog where I occasionally post random thoughts.

• My website for design and art: https://www.lucasgrayart.com/

• My photographs of textures: https://www.instagram.com/talkitect/

• My blog: https://www.talkitect.com/

And of course, please share this newsletter with any friends or colleagues who may be interested.

Share A Better Built Environment | Lucas Gray

Streetsblog recently posted an article highlighting 12 ways that driving is both encouraged and subsidized by the law:

1. Traffic Laws Soft-Peddle Very Dangerous Behavior

2. Land Use Laws Favor Sprawl

3. Legal Parking Requirements Subsidize Driving

4. Emissions Laws Exempt ‘Light Trucks’

5. Emissions Laws Ignore the Environmental Costs of Roadbuilding

6. Vehicle Safety Regulations Ignore Pedestrians

7. Vehicle Safety Regulations Allow Unsafe Aftermarket Vehicle Modifications

8. Insurance Law Limits Payouts to Pedestrians

9. Tax Law Subsidizes Sprawl

10. Tort Law Protects Dangerous Drivers

11. Contract Law Freezes Out Pedestrians

12. Criminal Law Rarely Punishes Dangerous Drivers

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/06/heres-how-driving-is-encouraged-and-subsidized-by-law/

Considering that almost all Americans drive regularly to the point where it is habit and doesn’t earn a second thought, it is hard to get people to accept the fact that these laws can be changed and probably should be. Politicians are too afraid to lose support from drivers that they rarely consider to make changes that make driving reflect the harm it does to our cities, towns, and personal health.

Meanwhile, thousands of people are needlessly being killed every year due to dangerous road design, laws that encourage bad behavior, and the lack of enforcement for the safety laws we do have in place.

We should all be working towards finding a way to make our country safer for pedestrians, bikers, transit riders, and adapt our laws to focus on safety, health, and encourage sustainable transport.

Sign up now so you don’t miss out.

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In the meantime, tell your friends!

We don’t pay surgeons by the hour.

And if the person who cuts the lawn shows up with a very fast riding mower, we don’t insist on paying less because they didn’t have to work as hard.

Often, what we care about is the work done, not how long it took to do it.

And yet, some jobs, from law to programming, charge by the hour.

When you sell your time, you’re giving away your ability to be a thoughtful, productivity-improving professional.

Sell results.

https://seths.blog/2020/08/selling-your-time/

Designers create value based on years of experience, and the creative solutions to people's problems, not by how many hours we work. In fact, selling services by the hour punishes us for our experience or ability to complete work quickly and efficiently. And by selling our time we are capping revenue on the hours we can work in a year.

This is why I firmly believe all architects and designers should offer services for fixed fees or some other metric based on the value we provide and not how long it took to design. What is the value of a custom home that responds to a family's lifestyle? How much is an a healthy office space that reduces sick days worth? Educational spaces that encourage learning and result in higher test scores is worth what to those students and communities? The value isn't in the hours it took to create the drawings, but in the quality of spaces we create for the end users.

Of course, things dramatically changed with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Travel shut down, businesses closed, people hunkered down in their homes, and the world we experience on a daily basis quickly shrunk to how far we could conveniently walk. From our new apartment in Park Slope Brooklyn, our world is now a couple mile radius. We walk to the park for exercise, to the grocery store a few blocks away for food, and occasionally the liquor store for wine and cocktail ingredients. We found a coffee shop that is open for to-go drinks and a butcher that brings in meat from family farms in the area. We work from home, learn to cook from cookbooks and youtube, and read or eat lunch on the rooftop of our building. Twice we hopped on CitiBikes to explore a bit further afield, but for the most part our lives are confined to a the geography within a short walk from our apartment. With flights grounded, trains hardly running, and lockdown orders keeping us off the subway, the lack of transportation keeps the world small.

Trains in the West Side Yard on Manhattan.