ID Design Town Hall: The Future of Workplace, Hospitality and Health & Wellness in the Time of COVID-19
Interior Design’s Editor in Chief, Cindy Allen discusses designing for the workplace, hospitality, health and wellness in the age of COVID-19 with ICRAVE’s Lionel Ohayon, Studio Architecture’s Todd DeGarmo, Rottet Studio’s Lauren Rottet and ZGF Architects’ James Woolum.
Click to watch the discussion, and read the full transcript below.
“What is our responsibility as designers in [the] world that we're building?” Lionel Ohayon, ICRAVE
Interior Design: Design Town Hall
Editor in Chief Cindy Allen hosts a Town Hall with Todd DeGarmo of Studios Architecture, Lionel Ohayon of ICRAVE, Lauren Rottet of Rottet Studio, and James Woolum of ZGF Architects.
Cindy Allen (00:13):
Hi, everybody.
Lauren Rottet (00:15):
Hi, Cindy.
Todd DeGarmo (00:16):
Hi, Cindy.
Cindy Allen (00:18):
Hi! This is our first design town hall, I never thought in my career we'd be doing this. But here we are, right?
Todd DeGarmo (00:28):
It's a once in a lifetime right now, that's for sure.
Cindy Allen (00:33):
It certainly is. We were thinking about how we could talk to the community. And obviously we want the leaders in the community to exchange and be one together. So, we were thinking about who would be a good group. We probably will be doing more of these groups, but the idea today was to look at an overview of the industry in terms of workplace, hospitality, healthcare, health and wellness. And I have an amazing foursome today. There's Todd DeGarmo, CEO and principal of Studios Architecture. Todd, are you in DC?
Todd DeGarmo (01:15):
I'm in Sarasota.
Cindy Allen (01:15):
Oh, you're in Florida. So, he's in Sarasota. Great. And then we have Lauren Rottet, president and founding principal of Rottet Studio, who also has many homes. You're in Texas, right Lauren?
Lauren Rottet (01:27):
I am, and it's like in the 90s.
Cindy Allen (01:29):
Wow. Wow. And then James Woolum, partner of ZGF Architects. Are you in LA right now?
James Woolum (01:36):
I am in LA where I can claim it's sunny and warmer than many places, but I'm jealous that it's as warm as it is in Houston. It could be nicer here today.
Cindy Allen (01:48):
And then we have Lionel Ohayon, founder and CEO of ICRAVE. Lionel, are you in New York?
Lionel Ohayon (01:55):
I'm upstate…[inaudible]
Cindy Allen (01:57):
Right.
Lionel Ohayon (01:57):
It's gorgeous here. It's like 72 degrees, maybe 75. Beautiful. Perfect day.
Cindy Allen (02:02):
Beautiful. Where upstate?
Lionel Ohayon (02:05):
[near Woodstock]
Cindy Allen (02:07):
Ah, nice. Yeah, you're sort of in this ... You're in a moody room or something.
Lionel Ohayon (02:14):
It's my lair up here.
Cindy Allen (02:17):
Well, thank you all for coming and spending time with us. It's obviously a trying time for every firm. But we definitely want your insights, maybe the good and the bad, but let's discuss them. I guess first of all, how are your teams doing and how is everybody reacting and working together in this whole idea of working from home?
Todd DeGarmo (02:44):
Well, we were bounded as an international firm, so we always work this way. So, we moved, I think like a lot of firms, pretty seamlessly into that realm. We had 9/11, we had Hurricane Sandy, so there were some precedents for this. But I think at this point, now what we're really focused on is either the distraction somebody has, or the opposite, the isolation someone has. So, in the coming week it's really how do we switch from the technical side, to the keeping the clients happy side, to the human and emotional side?
Cindy Allen (03:23):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Anybody else?
Lauren Rottet (03:27):
I think that's true. I mean, it actually has been working pretty well. Some of my people have told me that they've had more of my attention lately than they ever had and they like it.
Cindy Allen (03:35):
I've heard that a lot from anyone who's leading a company, that now they can talk to you any time.
Lauren Rottet (03:41):
Exactly. Here I am. No hiding now.
Cindy Allen (03:45):
Right.
James Woolum (03:45):
Yeah. I would say same for us. We were probably ahead of the curve in thinking about sending everybody home. We probably did it about half a week before a lot of the other firms in LA. And at first, people, other firms, clients, they thought we were crazy. They thought we were being too whatever. We were too afraid, we were jumping the gun. So, we sent everybody home. It's actually been working pretty well. We just hosted, right before this, ZGF's about 750 people now, we just hosted an all-firm town hall online, where people were able to send in questions. And I think across the board people are feeling productive, people are feeling connected to their teams. I definitely think my teams feel like they have more of my attention because I am in this room all day long.
James Woolum (04:47):
I think the one thing that we've heard that's kind of on the down side, the people that seem to be struggling the most are the parents. Their kids are home, they're really struggling with ... Even if they're being highly productive, they don't feel that they're as productive. So, what we're trying to do, is we're trying to help manage people's expectations of themselves. That it's okay to focus on your family too.
Cindy Allen (05:15):
Yeah. And are your ... I'm curious about the more junior people, the sort of more junior staff that actually aren't the ones who are always traveling around and aren't the ones who are always using technology to communicate in the way that you get your business done. I sometimes think, how do we make sure to keep their spirits up? They're not the ones that communicate as well either.
Lionel Ohayon (05:43):
We have a couple things. We have a lot of young people living alone in New York, which is my number one concern. And we have a lot of young Asian girls, quite frankly, who are alone living in New York. And they're relatively new. Some of them have been with us for five years, but there's a new kind of group of people that I've seen in studio who New York's new to them, they've never been through something like this. We closed early because a girl in our office was attacked on a train because she had a mask on, an Asian girl had a mask on. And she's just like, "I'm not getting on the subway." So, I think that I've been seeing amazing things coming out of the studio. Every morning at 9:15 there's a meditation group, we do town halls, we do [inaudible 00:06:34] day, yesterday we celebrated people's birthdays, people are doing cooking things.
Lionel Ohayon (06:40):
I think it's, to your point Todd, everyone's really looking at the possibility of how the community can stay vital. You know what I mean? And connected. Because the work's getting done. And for the parents, I mean, I've never been on a computer this much.
James Woolum (06:56):
Same.
Lionel Ohayon (07:00):
I'm usually jumping around the studio: eight minutes on this, three minutes on that, five minutes on this.
Lauren Rottet (07:04):
Me too.
Lionel Ohayon (07:05):
This has been just kind of incredible for me. I'm actually drawing sections of really small detailed things. I got a printer from Amazon a couple days ago. I really do think that the flip side of all this when we get back, is how will it change permanently? I think our studio culture will have changed permanently. There's always been, and all of us deal with it, there's not a good work-life balance in what we do. I think we'll find ways to allow people who have two small kids to just like, "Hey, go be at home when you need to be at home. Figure it out. Work your time out." We've proven that we can do it and everyone's responsible for what they need to get done, we can get it done. I'm optimistic from that end, that we can learn something from this and grow from it.
Cindy Allen (08:00):
One thing I've heard a lot is the fact that we know our staff, but now we kind of know them and they're starting to know us in a personal way. For instance, James you wear a really cute striped shirt [inaudible 00:08:14]. And you have a nice patterned pillow on your couch. There is a personal connection that never necessarily happened before. And that would allow Lionel, for your comment. That you would be more entertained to be open to what the families of employees are doing and allow them to do it, as long as the work gets done.
Lionel Ohayon (08:35):
Yeah. And I think that we're crossing that bridge. We're a young studio, getting older and people have families and stuff now. You got to find a way to evolve. I think just the nature of all the studios have their kind of energy, and people just don't feel like they have the license, in our studio, to just pick up and do it at home. And now maybe that will have opened that door and people can say, "Hey, we can figure this out."
Todd DeGarmo (08:59):
You know-
Cindy Allen (09:01):
Although now when we ...
Todd DeGarmo (09:03):
Lauren and I were talking about this when we were sitting next to each other for the celebration with Longhouse, the different ways our employees communicate now. I'm finding this is the normal thing for us, but I'm also having to learn the chat rooms they use and the design process that's going on that's very different than we're used to. I find it a learning curve in both directions. Because I think it is a way the work is happening already, and we might be outside of that channel. For me, that is the chance to be able to take the time to actually participate in different ways.
Cindy Allen (09:43):
Yeah, don't you think this is actually forcing both generations, in a way. Because I used to kind of joke that I never had to even dial a conference call, ever. And now I'm hosting [inaudible 00:10:00] and doing all these things. Thank God my husband is setting me up perfectly. But at the same time, we crave being together, which many of us who have been around for a long time really do like to work together. So, it may help both generations.
James Woolum (10:18):
Yeah, you know what else that's been really interesting? Obviously we've been interacting with our clients remotely. I just hosted a meeting yesterday in the morning, and if I'd been doing that meeting in person it probably would've been myself, it would've been a couple of other senior people, it would've been the lead designer on the project. But it wouldn't have necessarily been everyone on the team and it wouldn't have been the young lady who's incredible and she's only three months out of school. But now this format, they're able to join the meeting, they're kind of hanging around in the rafters in the background. And they're actually getting to hear client feedback firsthand, which means that when I go to follow up with them, I'm not having to reiterate. I'm not having to interpret. They're able to say, "When the client said this, what did she mean?"
James Woolum (11:11):
So, I actually ... I share Lionel's optimism about the future of how we work. And I also kind of secretly have an optimism that people are getting exposed to the process in a way that maybe they didn't used to have that opportunity.
Cindy Allen (11:26):
Yeah. I've heard from a couple firms already, that there's also this protocol in our industry that when you're presenting to a client, the respectful thing is that you're always there. And there are a lot of plane trips overseas, there's a lot of travel back and forth. And perhaps this will help in the future, to not have to do that quite as much.
Lauren Rottet (11:53):
No, I think it will. And I think that may be a very good thing that comes out of it. I also agree with everyone, it's kind of like an equalizer. It's kind of putting us all on the same footing, which is kind of interesting. 2020 was going to be a year for us where we really addressed efficiency, and I think that this-
Cindy Allen (12:10):
[crosstalk 00:12:10].
Lauren Rottet (12:10):
Exactly.
Cindy Allen (12:10):
This is for you, Lauren.
Lauren Rottet (12:12):
Sorry about that.
Cindy Allen (12:16):
Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk more on the backend of that. I did want to get to, because it was interesting, maybe not in the best way, but interesting that actually two of you, so James and Lionel, you both just finished up some significant projects that are taking serious account into the future of health, and health and wellness. I was thinking Lionel, maybe you can take us through a little bit about the Koch Center for Cancer Care, that we went and toured, we were going to do a big Roundtable there. But there's a lot of lessons learned that comes from that project.
Lionel Ohayon (12:59):
Yeah, there's so much. I think we're lucky to have this relationship with Memorial [inaudible 00:13:04], this is our third project with them. It's a group that actually really is committed to change and to innovation and understanding what the experience for patient care can be like. They have great medicine, great doctors. And we kind of put a big red circle around the medicine part. And then we really challenged ourselves in the Koch Center that Cindy and I toured, to see if there was a way that we as designers can actually create a building that is an actual participant in your care. Can the building itself actually participate in the outcomes of what's happening for people when they go through cancer care?
Lionel Ohayon (13:49):
So, a lot of that was about a lot of research and understanding how people are feeling and what they're going through and what's being taken away from you. And when we looked at the project ... Before I say that, what's interesting about this project is that it's a kind of microcosm sample of what's happening today. People have ... They're going for cancer treatment and they cannot get viruses. Right? So, you have to create this environment that's compelling, and for us, a place that we were actually trying to inspire people to want to be there. So, instead of dragging yourself to go to get your chemotherapy, we're like, what if this place was so engaging? What if part of the programming, the design, the options I had for what I can do there were part of the experience, that then I would say, "I'm going to get there two hours early because there's a macrobiotic class," or, "I'm taking Frank's lessons." Or, "I'm seeing a lecture of someone."
Lionel Ohayon (14:47):
So, they were committed. I mean, a lot of this has to do with your client [inaudible 00:14:50] about when are we going to make people wash their hands? How are we going to make people wash their hands without making them wash their hands? And you have to do it. And there, everyone's bought in. You're a caregiver, it's your loved one, you're bringing them in, you're going to wash your hands. Right? You're a nurse or a doctor, you're a patient, you get it. Now sort of everyone's kind of getting it because we got hit over the head with a hammer. But those kind of questions about what is the protocol in a modern city today in which you make decisions about simple things?
Lionel Ohayon (15:18):
So, there's these behavior changes, which are something that we can sort of help move forward, we can sort of nudge along by the way we design things. For example, putting an obvious hand washing station at an entry of a clinic. It's there in a way to sort of challenge you to step through it without washing your hands. Do you know what I mean? So, you're trying to use your design decisions to change behaviors in some ways. And I think that this question, [inaudible 00:15:57], it's an amazing project that we're very lucky to be working with these guys. And the kind of understanding about how we're allowing people to create their own control, where all their control's been removed from them because they're going through cancer.
Lionel Ohayon (16:11):
And say, "Let me give you back a little bit of control. Choose if you want to sit facing the sun. Here's a little area that you can completely tuck away behind a curtain and just do your own thing, change the color of the lighting." Just simple things that say, "I'm in control, I'm going to do this and that." That changes people's moods and makes them feel like, "This is my decision." It's a small decision, but this one's mine. I'm not on the doctor's regimen on this food regimen.
Lionel Ohayon (16:34):
So, I think that that leads into, and I could talk about this for hours, really this whole kind of thinking about what is our responsibility as designers in a world that we're building? And how is that going to impact obvious things that we've got to think about every day?
Cindy Allen (16:49):
Lionel, I just want to ... So, you worked with MSK on this project, correct? I just want to make sure to give them a shout out. But I just want to tell the group, because I'm so proud of Lionel and iCrave. Because you're just such a great testament. Your career for years and years and years were night clubs.
Lionel Ohayon (17:08):
Right.
Cindy Allen (17:08):
This is sort of the opposite of it. And I thought it was so interesting that somebody approached you and said, "You understand about the human experience and we want to see you do something in healthcare." And that kind of changed the trajectory of your firm. Correct?
Lionel Ohayon (17:23):
Yeah. It was a real inward search to be like why have they seen something in me that I haven't seen? What are they seeing about our work that I'm not understanding? And then airports, I spoke so much in ... Well, we started doing airports where we were like, "We're managing traveler anxiety." That's what the solution set was. What are we solving for? Are we solving for beautiful places to get food? We're like, "No. People are anxious when they travel. 9/11, we're not serving you food. How can we create a less anxious environment?" And that's where we got to this idea that maybe there can be an iPad at your gate and you can just order through an iPad and you don't have to worry about paying a waiter and your food comes right away and you can leave.
Lionel Ohayon (18:03):
So, we were like, "We're solving for anxiety." And I think they saw that, MSK saw or heard me speak about that and they're like, "This is the most anxious place in the world. So, let's talk to those guys." I think that that's very interesting to me, and what you and I, Cindy, talk a lot about. What's our responsibility as designers in problem solving for clients? It is design beautiful things and we love the craft of the idea of beautiful things. But there's so much more in this landscape that I think, that is our opportunity to reach out and say, "Hey, we can solve that for you." This group of thinkers that make up all of our studios have the tools to solve big problems.
Cindy Allen (18:45):
Yeah, it's exciting and you're doing amazing work. Really, it's just like a completely different firm and I'm so proud about that. By the way, don't worry everybody, we're going to get to everybody. Because he could talk forever, all right?
Lionel Ohayon (19:00):
I could, it's true. But James, you just finished or recently finished the medical research lab the Lundquist Institute, correct?
James Woolum (19:11):
Yeah, we did. And it's interesting, just to say one thing about Lionel's work, the power of design. Because all of that work that iCrave has done for MSK, we have a client, cancer care client in Los Angeles, City of Hope, they toured all of the work at MSK and in every single meeting that I have with them, they talk about what they've seen. So, I think just the idea that thinking a different way can really ... It's like a pebble in the lake. Right? That the rings grow. So, Biomed is interesting. I mean, this is a group of people who originally pioneered not only the idea, but coined the term paramedic. So, they've kind of been fundamental in shaping even just the way we think about healthcare delivery.
James Woolum (20:08):
But this new building, it's a research building. And it's pretty interesting, because on the one hand, the core members of the team that designed this building are also the core members of the team that worked on our project for Google for [inaudible 00:20:25], which we've been super lucky, Interior Design has been very kind to us with that project and the coverage. But it was really about infusing workplace thinking, cutting edge workplace thinking, tech workplace thinking, into a research building. It was also kind of the overlap between coworking and research. Because part of the mission here is it's not just a bunch of researchers that moved into the building and they're going to be there for their entire career and they're going to focus on one set of issues. It's really like coworking for research, in that different groups will come in, they will collocate there for a period of time. And the people in the next lab over from them may be looking at a totally different segment of problems. But the idea is that putting all of these people together, just like a coworking space, you're going to get this really incredible synergy.
James Woolum (21:23):
So, from a design perspective, what I feel like we've gotten is this very rich kind of beautiful welcoming environment. But what it's setting up is the ability for people who may have never met each other in the real world, to be collocated in a place where they can be discovering I don't even know what, fill in the blank.
Cindy Allen (21:48):
By the way, you took my line about the paramedics. Because I looked that up, I thought that was so crazy that they coined the term. That's like oh my. What else are we going to coin these days? Todd, that brings me to you. Let's talk about Workplace. How you doing?
Todd DeGarmo (22:05):
Well, you know I think I'd really like to follow on what Lionel said about giving people control. I think that is where the whole movement is. And the big picture wasn't about being able to work from home or work from the office, I think what we've learned in this right, everybody doesn't have to stop their work, print it out, get a conference room, put it on the wall to have a discussion about design. Everybody doesn't have to get a conference room and book a time and figure out when everybody's schedule crosses. And I think it's going to tell us a whole bunch of new problems that we need to solve. We've going to have to figure out the acoustics things and I'm sure people who have worked at home with their kids are probably all sitting there with a sketch pad thinking, "How would I do this differently?"
Todd DeGarmo (22:59):
I think we're going to see an explosion around what Lionel says about people having experienced a certain amount of control and they're going to not want to go backwards as far as that goes.
Cindy Allen (23:11):
Yeah. He didn't even talk about the devices so that you don't have to be stuck in the waiting room, which is also a real change. But Todd, we were about to go look at a big project together, and we're not, although I'm happy to look at your face. But how are your clients doing?
Todd DeGarmo (23:33):
Well, you know, I think we feel particularly lucky that in fact most of our work is continuing to move ahead. I think I'm hoping other people have this experience, we're having virtual interviews. The issue is projects under construction and construction in certain places is thought of as an essential job for our communities. In New York yesterday that definition switched. So, I think ... But right now I think our clients have been very appreciative that we could keep it going with our leadership. They didn't need to figure out how to make that happen, and that we could be proactive about that.
Todd DeGarmo (24:21):
I mean, on the other hand, we had to make a design presentation that had a lot of materials and finishes in it. I think we're going to have to rethink exactly how we do that. And redesign [inaudible 00:24:36] to not be in person.
Lauren Rottet (24:37):
[inaudible 00:24:37] Material Bank, they sent them all for us.
Cindy Allen (24:41):
Yeah, Material Bank is very, very helpful, that's for sure these days, to get samples. Todd, you were meaning also how to show the client samples, right?
Todd DeGarmo (24:52):
Yes, right. And actually say ... I think we're used to covering the table with things and then instead be able to focus on one or two things and make that simple and straightforward.
Cindy Allen (25:11):
We're going to have to send two boxes from Material Bank. One for the client and one to your group. Lauren ... Lauren, who's like a magician and does amazing work in ... Well, in commercial, but a lot in hospitality, and obviously hospitality has taken a hit. But you were telling me that many of your projects are still moving forward. You've lost some, you have three offices. Right? So, tell us a little bit about what's going on.
Lauren Rottet (25:35):
Yeah, it's hard for the hospitality world right now, as you can imagine. Because there's absolutely no cashflow. No one's staying in hotels, so there's no cashflow. So, if you read the industry papers, you know it's not pretty. But it is interesting, I think that some [inaudible 00:25:50] have gone on hold, a couple of projects have gone on hold. But I was telling Cindy, I was telling you the other day, we actually got a call from a client. We started our conference and he said, "Well, let us start first by telling you," and of course we all thought that the project's going on hold. And instead he said, "Well, this has given us a very quick and unusual opportunity to buy those two sites right next to us."
Lauren Rottet (26:08):
So, the funny thing was, we had been designing this hotel with its back to this really bad parking lot and now all of a sudden it's not a bad parking lot. All of a sudden it's redesign. Go forward, go faster, redesign and pick up the lot next door. We've actually seen a little bit of opportunity come out of it strangely. In fact, I had a nice long conference call this morning about a restaurantor here in Houston who was able to pick up a historic property because it was going to be part of a big development and they said, "Oh, forget it," kind of let it go. They had their eyes on it. So they said, "We want to get going on it immediately."
Lauren Rottet (26:39):
So, it's been an up and a down like a seesaw. One minute I'll get an email saying, "This is on hold." The next minute I'll get a call saying, "We want to start something." So, it's been a wild ride. But Houstonians are wild catters, they're oil booming wild catters.
Cindy Allen (26:54):
That's so true.
Lauren Rottet (26:55):
So, we're used to boom and bust. And I think we kind of know how to get through it.
Cindy Allen (27:00):
Yeah. You do a lot of cruise ships, what's happening there?
Lauren Rottet (27:05):
They're steering the course, so to speak. Nervous. They are big investments, big land holders, I mean big stakeholders. And they just, they're continuing. We're doing a Mississippi ship, a [inaudible 00:27:16] ship, they haven't stopped any of them. Some people, and I have actually in the hotel world, [inaudible 00:27:22] office world than the hotel world, some of our manufacturers have actually called us and said, "If you could please tell the client not to stop, we can give them really good discounting at the moment. If they want to go ahead and keep our factories open, we're open." These are people in Vietnam and other places, Columbia, whose factories are wide open, but no one's ordering, everyone's afraid. So, in some ways, people should look at this and say what am I afraid of? This hotel is going to be here, life is going to go on. If I can afford it, go ahead and do it now.
Cindy Allen (27:52):
You have a big brand by the Valencia Group or Valencia Corps, and you're working on a lot of projects there. Is that continuing on?
Lauren Rottet (28:02):
They are. They also are. And those are interesting because even though we do a lot of them, no one of them is super expensive. So, it's not big land holders, big banks, things like that. It's investors. In fact, I'm slightly invested in one of them. So, it's investors like us who want to see them happen and they're not [inaudible 00:28:19]. But you know Arnie [Sorenson 00:28:21] came on and made a big announcement about what they were doing, it has hit them extremely hard. If you can imagine closing X number of hotels and furloughing all of those employees until they get back, it's huge. In fact, I have a client in Aspen right now who has this. She has COVID-19 and she's a mountain climber, she's a skier, she's the epitome of health and it's hit her hard. But she said she's on the upswing and she's doing better. But they have opted to pay all of their workers. So, they are paying people, even the tip workers. So, it's hard on them in a different way, but they're keeping everyone going. It will be a bonding time for hoteliers for sure.
Cindy Allen (28:59):
You had told me, and I thought that was interesting too, that you were saying that some hospitality work might be converting into residential development.
Lauren Rottet (29:09):
You know, it might be and it just depends. Because residential is still going to be around. I can look at New York, LA and Houston, interestingly enough, a little while ago we had some residential in LA that converted to office. We got a call the other day that they might be wanting to convert it back. I'm like, "Okay." The seesaw, it's just going up and down right now until people can really figure out what they want to do. We said, "It's not too late to go back to the residential. We have all the drawings good to go, we can pick it right back up."
Todd DeGarmo (29:39):
Cindy, we're seeing the same, where Amazon is still hiring in Northern Virginia, all our mixed use development is going full speed ahead. If it has housing as part of it, they're still hiring tens of thousands of people driving the housing market.
Cindy Allen (29:57):
That's such great news. James, you were talking about what healthcare will be looking at because of the pandemic. Could you share a little of your thoughts?
James Woolum (30:09):
Yeah, super interesting. I mean, recently we worked on a ... And this is pre-pandemic, we worked on an emergency department that hospitals had been doing preparation for mass casualty incidents for quite a while because school shootings and all the things that you see in the news. And for a while people were really worried about airborne contaminants and dirty bombs and this kind of thing. So, we've already worked on emergency room projects, for example, that if you close one set of doors and open another set of doors, you're kind of allowing for an entire emergency department to be negatively pressured so that whatever is contaminated in there is not getting out into the environment. I mean, we've already been seeing from some of our healthcare clients questions about how could we help them to rapidly prototype 100 bed hospitals that could be rolled out ... I mean, kind of like the things that they're talking about putting into the [inaudible 00:31:13].
James Woolum (31:13):
But how do we start using what we know about healthcare to think about how we can revolutionize the delivery and the quick movement of healthcare toward whatever the next pandemic may be, whatever the next epidemic may be. So, I think we're really positive. Just picking up some of the threads of positivity, we're really positive that coming out of this, a lot of healthcare clients are going to be looking at this as a major learning lesson. How do we think about dealing with surges? How do we think about dealing with these pressures on our existing facilities? You hope it doesn't happen again, it's been 100 years. But the reality is, the timeline of these kinds of things is shortening. So, we think there's going to be a pretty big investment over the next couple of years in looking at what we can learn out of this experience.
Cindy Allen (32:10):
Yeah. Everybody, let's talk about some positives. Don't you think that the design industry is uniquely positioned to solve some of these big problems? And what could you see ... Look, we're not all going to have the answers. But what do you see moving forward?
Lauren Rottet (32:28):
It was funny you were talking about the hand washing, down in [inaudible 00:32:31] we did this hand-carved beautiful stone hand washing thing with the salts from the island just as kind of a concept before you'd go to the restaurant. So, when you were talking about that, instantly my head was designing these.
Cindy Allen (32:42):
Of course you were. Of course you were.
Lauren Rottet (32:45):
Designing these gorgeous hand washing stations. But I do think that you're right, we as designers do actually have a responsibility to look at this right now. We do. Because who knows what's going forward. As you say, the speed of change is faster in every regard. So, I think this will change things and I think we do have to think about what it means long term. We can't just say, "Okay. Over, done, we're fine now." We do have to think about it.
Cindy Allen (33:04):
Lionel?
Lionel Ohayon (33:10):
I think we have to ... It's a stake your claim type of thing. Right? It's not an obvious thing that our profession will be the ones to emerge and say, "Hey, here are solutions that can change the way that ... global warming and pandemics," and all sorts of different things, our city streets dying, right? The retail impact. What happens to public space? The workplace. How is this pandemic going to affect your office work? How many companies are just going to be like, "I'm not renting commercial space anymore." It's possible that a lot of people just say, "Hey, I'm going to grow 50% before I take another 10% of the square footage."
Lionel Ohayon (33:56):
And I think that inside of all of these challenges, someone needs to emerge as a group of thinkers and say, "We can help answer these questions." I'm finding more and more, it's a very strange thing, that we're getting called into projects to be like, "We don't want you to design it, but we want you to be the vision." We can't figure out the word. We're like, "Is this a director role? Are you asking me to be the director of this project? You want me to kind of come with a big overarching vision?" You have an architect, you have a designer, you have a this, you have that and I'm herding the cats to make it all work. Part of it's exciting, part of it's like what's happened to the profession of architecture and design that this is a new role that needs to exist?
Lionel Ohayon (34:43):
Part of it is that things are more complicated. Part of it is that, as far as I'm concerned you can't solve these problems without digital. It's impossible to solve real design issues without really understanding fundamentally how the digital interface or experience of individuals is going to play into the design world that we're doing. I think that for the most part, we've skirted that a lot. We don't own it. We could've owned it. We don't own it yet, but we really should own it. That's this whole, "Oh, are you guys experience designers?" I still cringe at those two words together because I don't know what they mean. We were talking about, we haven't put language to it yet. What is our role today to solve problems when someone says, "I need you to design me X," whatever that is. And I think that it's just a question of just being able to step in and say, "We got this."
Cindy Allen (35:34):
And don't you think that just the past is that you always allow somebody else to take the credit?
Lionel Ohayon (35:44):
Always.
Cindy Allen (35:45):
Always. It's got to change, right?
Lionel Ohayon (35:47):
It's got to change. I mean, even in [inaudible 00:35:51], there was a point where we just were like, "Your IT guys are not the consultants because it's technology we're [inaudible 00:36:00] home on this." I mean, we're holding the vision for you guys. We're here, we've been with you since day one, we birthed this thing together. Let us bring in the right people to ... And there's this weird thing, and it's also that, in our industry if you look at ... They're just not used to hearing you answer these questions yet. So, we're struggling with it in studio. I think we're making a lot of headway because we're being called on a really broad set of solution sets right now, which is exciting for us. But it's still kind of this weird dynamic.
Lionel Ohayon (36:30):
I would encourage us if we're in this industry together, to find ways to open source those solutions. How do we actually own it? And then make it more of a kind of body of work that we've been asked to do and it just becomes a natural thing.
Cindy Allen (36:50):
Yeah. And maybe-
James Woolum (36:51):
Yeah-
Cindy Allen (36:52):
Oh, go ahead.
James Woolum (36:53):
Oh, sorry. Yeah, we've actually started talking about this as what we're calling supercharging. On a number of projects we're working with other design firms. So, some client has retained us or them for ideas to solve a certain problem. One of us is taking the lead and one of us is, it's not a peer review, it's not checking your work. It's this kind of idea of supercharging. And we've actually been really excited about that. I mean, I guess as we think about some of the potentials for the future, I think it'd be really interesting ... I mean, Lionel, you said open source. I mean, I think the idea of open sourcing, crowdsourcing, supercharging each other's ideas to kind of push whatever it is. I think that there's a real opportunity for us to come together as a community in some level, on some way, with some regularity to do that supercharging.
Lionel Ohayon (37:54):
I totally agree.
Cindy Allen (37:57):
Yeah, we were saying now more than ever, this idea of one industry is even more important right now. Todd's shaking his head, I know he has some ... Look at him. I know he has something [inaudible 00:38:12] over there to say.
Todd DeGarmo (38:13):
No. I think you and I talked about this so much, our clients are living in this world of extreme ambiguity before this. Right? And they're coming to us and we're trained to think more broadly than most public is or most professionals are. Right? Engineers are very specific, design is very broad. So, we bring this unique skill to the table. And I think the question will be, I think just like James and Lionel talked, who are the other team players in that? Are the smartest brains at Tesla, are they in the contract furniture industry? Who are going to be our partners to solve problems that we never even had on our radar before.
Lionel Ohayon (38:59):
If I could just add to that, the other part of this is if we don't offer that opportunity for the great thinkers coming out of school, you're not getting the best minds coming into the industry anymore. Because they don't see the opportunity for real impact. Right? We can own that impact and then you're going to start seeing those guys say, "Eh, should I go to Tesla or should I go to this firm and see architecture and design really continue to sort of navigate the big issues of our social structure, how we live, and everything that surrounds that?"
Cindy Allen (39:32):
Yeah. I mean, I completely agree and I see everybody's head shaking as well. We see a lot of ... These days, we're seeing a lot of big corporations hiring more designers for that kind of thinking, let's face it. But somehow figuring out how to come together is the answer. And Lionel, I'm glad that you're sort of ... Before this, you've been sort of living that.
Lionel Ohayon (39:58):
I've been sort of living that?
Cindy Allen (40:00):
You've sort of been living that in your work. Because it's-
Lionel Ohayon (40:04):
Yeah. I've been ... Yeah, look, we really are trying ... We've found a good five years of just trying to find who we are, what we do. We continue to try and understand that. We just made a video to help us just talk through it and do what we're doing it now, edit it down. Say, "Hey, what did we actually say about ourselves? Let's get language to it." And I actually really do believe that we're missing language. And creating language allows us to create this whole new process. I know that I can't do it by myself. I would encourage us as a group to get together and go, "What is it? What is it fundamentally? Why would somebody come to me on a 50 ..." I have a project in Saudi Arabia, another project in the United States that said, "We want you to develop the vision, create the experience, blah, blah, blah, blah, be the holder of it. You got to manage all these different teams."
Lionel Ohayon (40:55):
I mean, why does that role even exist today? It's different. It didn't exist like that before. A developer could go to the architect and share an idea, and that is where all those ideas were held, right? Then it was like that's the vision and let's move it through the process. And I think that it keeps coming up and we're like, "Well, what service is this?" And we're sitting around with the proposal and we're like, "What do we call this phase? What do we do with that? Is this really strategy?" And I really do think that the thinking that's coming out of the studio right now is problem solving. It's a small studio across a lot of disciplines. Again, it's a little sample of how dynamic I think the industry could be.
Lionel Ohayon (41:40):
We do call on specialists from [Frog 00:41:44] Design or somebody from [inaudible 00:41:47] who's not actually an engineer. We have kind of this group of people that we're always collaborating with and pulling in and trying to figure stuff out. So, I think that that's kind of what I'm most excited about this conversation today and where it might lead us into an investigation in how to create this forum for everyone to talk about it and figure it out.
Cindy Allen (42:10):
Yeah, I completely agree and I'm so appreciative that you're all being so candid and open with each other. Lionel, we are going to work on a group, something will come out of this. I am sure. Does anybody ... Maybe one thought from each of you before we close? Something you want to say to the industry. Something you want to say to your employees. Anything.
Lauren Rottet (42:34):
I think we know as architects and designers what our education was. And you're right, Todd, it was very broad. And it has a lot of science and a lot of art and it really merges the two. I think if you're designing, you are creating these kinds of solutions. It's not just the pretty picture at the end of the day. And I think we all know that. I think that Lionel, the reason that your business is probably so successful right now, is people want experiences. And they're going to come out of this wanting them even more because they've been by themselves for so long. But I think the world is about a collection of experiences and about taking yourself and understanding the world. What do I want out of it? Was I impactful on the world? What I do, was it impactful?
Lauren Rottet (43:17):
I think as designers we get caught up in the little project, one at a time, one at a time. And I think some of us were talking at [Giants 00:43:25], if we just simply said one hour a day, okay, 30 minutes a day, solve a world issue. What are the world issues? So, maybe this is a good one to sort of rally around and say, "Okay, what if every single office, we all have a little bit of spare time right now." Of course it has been busy, but at least we have that time we were driving, now we don't have to drive, to think about this. Carve out a legitimate for the better of design, for the better of the world.
Cindy Allen (43:50):
Hashtag.
James Woolum (43:52):
Yeah, I love that. Because one of the things that Bob [Fraska 00:43:56], one of the founders of ZGF, one of the things he always said is, "Whatever it is, leave it better than you found it." So, I think the idea that we as designers have the power to leave anything we touch better than we found it. I keep thinking a lot about the fact that each one of us is designing for the human experience. And it means something different to think about the human experience when we're interacting with each other this way versus if we were all sitting down together at lunch and talking over each other and having a drink and all of that. And I'm really sad I missed Giants, because it sounds like I missed some good stuff.
Cindy Allen (44:36):
I know.
James Woolum (44:38):
No, I mean, I think even now to think about what can we learn from this experience? What can we learn about enriching the human experience through design, even when we're sitting on opposite coasts, here, there, everywhere and talking through technology? There is something to learn from it, and we can be better designers for the experience. We just have to look for those opportunities. And I still think we should all get together and go to lunch and have some drinks when this is all over.
Cindy Allen (45:10):
That's for sure.
Lionel Ohayon (45:11):
I'm down.
Cindy Allen (45:11):
That's for sure.
Todd DeGarmo (45:11):
Well listen, I just [re-egged 00:45:13] the same thing. We've gotten through this first phase, we've gone remote, we've proven that we can do that. We know that we have a lot to contribute in the future and we have this period in between. We're going to have some tough moments and we're going to need to make sure people stay healthy and our industry stays healthy and our businesses stay healthy. And it's going to take a lot of invention every single day to make sure we get to that point where we're back up and running and contributing at a higher level than we ever have before.
Cindy Allen (45:43):
Yes. Well, certainly we know that good design can heal the world. I always trust you designers to come up with solutions. This is a big one. Right now, today we were working on trying to help get masks. So, sometimes it's a big solution, a big concrete solution. And sometimes it's something much more broad, Lionel as you're saying. I promise we're going to work on that. Okay?
Lionel Ohayon (46:16):
I hope so. I'm here for it.
Cindy Allen (46:18):
Yeah, okay. All right. Well, here, everyone put a one up. One industry together. One industry together. Up. One industry together. Thank you for doing our first design town hall. There'll be more. But God bless you all, I'm glad you're all safe. And thanks for all your words of wisdom, all your thoughtfulness and all your love and passion for the industry. It means so much to all of us.
Lauren Rottet (46:44):
Back to you [crosstalk 00:46:45]. Back to you, you're the best.
Cindy Allen (46:47):
Bye!
Lionel Ohayon (46:47):
Stay safe, everyone.
Cindy Allen (46:49):
Yeah, stay safe.