H+ Magazine | No. 2 | Spring-Summer 2015

ISSUE NUMBER TWO

SUMMER 2015

PUBLISHED BY HACIN + ASSOCIATES

THE

IDEAS EDITION

DESIGN FEATURES EDITORIALS PHOTO ESSAYS

DESIGN CULTURE

H+

Photo © Bruce T. Martin

Design. Service. No Boundaries.

“District Hall belongs to everyone, and it’s a smash hit.”

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD

Hacin + Associates [architecture + design] 112 Shawmut Avenue, Studio 5A, Boston, MA 02118 t: 617.426.0077 e: info@hacin.com w: www.hacin.com

FOLLOW H+A ON INSTAGRAM!

@HacinAssociates

Visit F lour in Central Square, Fort Point, South End, & the H+A-designed Back Bay location!

Pictured: The new H+A-designed Flour at the Cambridge Novartis campus

www.flourbakery.com

“Welcome to the Anthropologie of Annuities.”

- WIRED, on Society of Grownups

www.societyofgrownups.com

a collaborative project by

and

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Letter from the Editor

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Places to Make You Think

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The Makers

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Culture +

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Design Moves

A message from David Hacin, principal at Hacin + Associates, about H+A embracing new ideas of who we are as a collective.

Team Hacin puts all of our favorite thinking spots on the map, so to speak, and asks you what places make you feel inspired

H+A’s designers feature some of our collaborative relationships with artisans and makers in the local community

A list of things we love, including what we’re listening to, reading, watching, eating, buying, and discovering lately

Five interviews about the value and effects of good design in the lives and livelihoods of some of our visionary and innovative clients

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TABLE OF CONTENTS [continued]

Drinks Anyone?

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FOCUS

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List of 10: District Hall

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A recipe from our friends and clients at Kendall Square’s quirkiest bar, State Park

A photographic essay “Oppositions” Images by Team Hacin

A list of 10 types of personalities you’ll see at District Hall

For more H+A stories between issues, visit our website, check out the blog, and follow us on social media! Have feedback for the magazine? Tweet or Instagram using the hashtag #HacinZine. We look forward to hearing from you!

/HacinAssociates

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@HacinAssociates

@HacinAssociates

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Photo © Bruce Martin

Innovative cuisine for innovative people.

DISTRICT HALL, 75 Northern Avenue, Boston, MA | www.gatherboston.com

DESIGN CULTURE

PUBLISHER Hacin + Associates EDITOR-IN-CHIEF David Hacin CREATIVE DIRECTORS David Hacin Emily Neumann PHOTOGRAPHY Kent Dayton Darien Fortier Porter Gifford Tim Grafft David Hacin Gustav Hoiland Bartek Konieczny Joshua Lentz Matthew Manke Bruce Martin Jamie McCarthy Emily Neumann Bob O’Connor Chris Sanders Michael Stavaridis David Tabenken COVER IMAGE Emily Neumann PHOTO STYLISTS Matthew Arnold Darien Fortier Matthew Manke Eduardo Serrate Printed in China

H+

CONTRIBUTORS Scott Thomson David Tabenken Matthew Manke Kate Kelley Jeremy Robertson Hillary Faccio Matthew Arnold Jeffrey Brown Jennifer Clapp Rob Clocker Aimee Epstein Norton Darien Fortier Russell Higgins Joshua Lentz Christine Rankin Manke Rebecca Rivers Eduardo Serrate Matthew Woodward Dominik Wit Kathryn Boudreau Jehanna Axelrod SPECIAL THANKS Artaic Bartek Konieczny Kochman, Reidt & Haigh Stone Soup Concrete Jennifer Chayes Christian Borgs Nondini Naqui Grace Ray Tim Rowe Phil & Kim Schiller State Park Proverb ADVERTISING media@hacin.com

H+ MAGAZINE IS CREATED, DESIGNED, AND PUBLISHED BY ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN FIRM, HACIN + ASSOCIATES 1 1 2 SHAWMUT AVENUE, STUDIO 5A, BOSTON, MA 021 1 8 www.hacin.com | media@hacin.com | 617.426.0077

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FOUr LUXURY RESIDENCES ON MARLBOROUGH 4 51 M A R L B O R O U G H S T R E E T, B O S T O N, M A S S A C H U S E T T S

www.four51marlborough.com

FOUr

HISTORIC DETAILS, MODERN SPIN.

DEVELOPMENT | CONSTRUCTION

THE HOLLAND COMPANIES ARCHITECTURE | INTERIORS | BRANDING

HACIN + ASSOCIATES

www.four51marlborough.com

Photo @P orte r Gif ford

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LETTER FROM The +Manifesto THE EDITOR The best spaces have stories to tell.

Design is about more than building something — it’s about creating connection, meaning, and a sense of place.

Facing challenges and taking risks makes us better.

Our clients hire us because they care about design, too.

Freedom and structure can coexist.

Growing and getting bigger don’t always mean the same thing.

Every project is an opportunity to make our city better.

We all add something.

Recognition makes us feel good…and we feel good…a lot.

We design for people.

People and dogs.

Setting high expectations is just as important as exceeding them.

We can’t stop learning and won’t stop improving.

We specialize in not specializing.

Collaboration is directly related to success.

We don’t settle for mediocrity.

We can be demanding without being difficult.

The ability to change is a good thing.

We are a family, and design is in our DNA. This past month, the entire H+A team drove out to Porches Hotel in North Adams, Massachusetts for a two day retreat to ask ourselves big questions about who we are and what we were aspiring to be. We were, in a sense, looking for a new ‘idea’ about how to express our identity in a way that was direct and modern and decidely to the point. We were accompanied on our journey by Daren Bascome and Chris Needham of Proverb, who did a brilliant job of facilitating the retreat and helping discover our essence -- or as their own mission statement so beautifully states, giving us “the Truth Made Simple”. In between tours of Mass MOCA [that our colleague Rob Clocker worked on while at Bruner Cott] and the new Clark Institute [whose beautiful grounds were designed by collaborator Reed Hilderbrand Landscape architects], we spent two days talking, laughing, writing, drawing, and making structures out of pasta -all under the watchful guidance of Proverb.

After a few weeks, the Proverb team - who have worked with organizations like the Hotel Veritas, the Museum of Fine Arts, and MIT’s Dalai Lama Center to name a few - delivered profound and inspiring insights and went so far as to write an H+A Manifesto for us, which I have included above, without edit.

The manifesto takes the form of our Swiss-inspired plus, which had elicited a great deal of conversation at the retreat. At the center of the plus, a simple statement: WE ALL ADD SOMETHING. Our second issue of H+ Magazine is the ‘ideas’ issue and had always intended to focus on our amazing clients and collaborators, who add so much to everything we do, so Proverb’s observation that we believe that we all add something meaningful to the design process seemed like a particularly powerful, if not entirely new, idea. It may, in fact, be the oldest idea in the book, but one worth thinking about and rediscovering.

I hope you enjoy the magazine and its features and photos and, in particular, its more in-depth than normal interviews with some of our truly remarkable clients. Don’t forget to send us your favorite places of contemplation and keep in touch via our blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Add something to the conversation!

David Hacin FAIA President and Editor dhacin@hacin.com

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Team Hacin was challenged to identify places in and around Boston where we go to reflect, contemplate, and be inspired. We set out to map this data and see what connections emerged. What are your go-to places for igniting the light bulb in your brain? Use the hashtag #HacinThinkSpots to Tweet and Instagram your answers! @hacinassociates 14

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H+A designers talk about our fellowship and collaboration with talented artisans and makers of all kinds.

THE MAKERS

photo above by Bartek Konieczny | portraits by Emily Neumann

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WHY MAKERS MATTER Intro by Darien Fortier

As architects and designers, our work boils down

In the realm of design, fabrication, and construction,

and conveying information to those who do the

traditions and a high level of craftsmanship can push

to identifying problems, conceptualizing solutions, physical work of production. In this role, we appreciate technologies that elevate our work by providing new ways to create, communicate, and collaborate. While

we’ve become increasingly adept at deploying 3D virtualization and Building Information Modeling (BIM)

to enhance design visualization and documentation,

many of our collaborators in the field of fabrication are using technology to translate this information into reality, create rapid prototypes, and infuse their work with complexity that was once unimaginable.

combining new technologies with long established boundaries and yield incredible results. At H+A, this

philosophy often carries through to the smallest detail, especially as we design the human- scale components

that our clients will interact with on a daily basis. It is

for this reason that our relationships with fabricators are so important to us. We value design that emerges from

a true collaboration between designer and craftsman, and we thus seek out partners who similarly value good

design and embrace the technologies that facilitate new solutions to familiar problems.

Despite embracing advances in technology, we

Many of the fabricators we work with use 3D printers,

inherently superior. While it’s easy to get lost in the

aided design, coupled with traditional fabrication

believe that new ideas and greater complexity are not endless design possibilities that technology affords, our interest and ultimate goal as designers is to make

real things, places that work, and quality that endures.

That often means pairing novel approaches with wellestablished ideas and principles.

For example, some of the more masterful approaches to sustainability in the built environment are not

exclusively about layering in high-tech components;

scanners, laser cutters, CNC machines, and computer methods to create beautiful handmade works of art.

The use of 3D virtualization tools to design, model, and coordinate fabrication details, together with open lines of communication and frequent in-person

visits to their workspace, shop, and site provides us a thorough understanding of the fabrication process and

stimulates our design-thinking in ways that make our work increasingly thoughtful and resonant.

rather they utilize ancient principles of passive design

In this issue, we pay homage to these fabricators, their

to achieve low-technology, high-performance results.

Their shops, scattered with a fascinating mixture of raw

and local, durable, and replenishable building materials Energy modelling technology can in turn be utilized

to simulate and measure the performance of even the most low-tech buildings.

beautiful craft, and the stimulating spaces they work in.

materials and high tech equipment, inspire us every time we visit.

Darien Fortier is a proponent of interactive environments that encourage collaboration and the exchange of information. She spends her spare time working with local makers, fabricators, and young students through her work with Boston Makers, Inc. Darien is a board member of this Jamaica Plain based non-profit organization which creates collaborative workspaces and access to resources. Boston Makers organizes tools, classes, mentors, peers, and social spaces that give people the skills to make things by hand and to turn their ideas into reality.

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COLLABORATOR: Kochman, Reidt & Haigh H+A DESIGNER: Eduardo Serrate PHOTOGRAPHED AT: KRH Workshop, with Paul Reidt + Karla Monkevich WHERE: 471 Page Street, Stoughton, MA “At H+A, we have a long-standing relationship with Kochman, Reidt & Haigh. I first had the privilege of

working with Paul and Karla on our Newton Tudor Residence - a project that has since won national

and regional awards, due, in part, to their fantastic work. Their craftsmanship resonates in every

finely-tuned joint of cabinetry, but it is their open,

collegial approach to solving a problem that I enjoy the most. From the moment they are introduced to a project, they embrace it with the same level

of ownership that we put into our work; they ask questions, suggest improvements, and discuss possibilities. Their passion for craft is palpable.

Working together, we truly end up with a better

product and this keeps us coming back to them time and again.” - Eduardo

www.cabinetmakers.com | 781.573.1500

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COLLABORATION: Ted Acworth & Paul Reiss, Artaic H+A DESIGNER: Matthew Arnold PHOTOGRAPHED AT: Artaic Workshop with Ted Acworth + Paul Reiss WHERE: Boston Design Center “Artaic’s tech savvy design team modernizes the

creation of mosaics and broadens its possibilities with robotic production; provide them with any

source of inspiration—an image, idea, sketch, or

even just a general direction– and they’ll transform

it into a custom-tile work of art. We first met Artaic’s founders Ted Acworth and Paul Reiss during the design process for District Hall, where engaging an innovative company like Artaic reinforced

the building concept. When Ted and Paul later approached H+A about our restaurant Gather

being the canvas for Boston Design Week’s Design N’ Gather Mosaic Competition, we jumped at the opportunity to work with them again. It was a

delight to work with Paul on deciding the winning entry that you can now enjoy while dining at Gather. He picked the design we all loved! ” - Matthew

www.artaic.com | 617.418.1928

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COLLABORATION: Stone Soup Concrete H+A DESIGNER: Darien Fortier PHOTOGRAPHED AT: Private Residential Site with Greg Bossie

WHERE: Boston, MA “Stone Soup is a fabricator of custom concrete

surfaces. Creating each project with a craftsman’s

hand, they take time to carefully template on site, create individual molds, mix, color, and pour any

shape concrete surface one can imagine. H+A has worked with them to create a number of custom bathroom vanities, retail counters, billiard tables, and even wall coverings. Their finishing process

is done by hand, and it involves using a concrete slurry as glue to bind the old concrete to new

concrete and to smooth the top of the concrete surface. Touch-ups fill tiny holes where the

concrete may not have completely settled, and the

object is then sealed, touched up, and sealed again with curing time in between. The entire fabrication process is a two-week labor of love. It’s fascinating

to watch their meticulous hands-on process unfold in their shop.” - Darien

www.stonesoupconcrete.com | 413.203.5600

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COLLABORATION: Bartek Konieczny H+A DESIGNER: Matthew Manke PHOTOGRAPHED AT: Solutions in Metal with Bartek Konieczny WHERE: Abington, MA “Bartek Konieczny is a master of metal and has a firm dedication to artistic integrity. Using 3D

visualization and state-of-the-art fabrication tools

like a CNC plasma cutter and hydraulic press brakes, he makes beautiful, custom-designed metal works of art. He is a true artist who we have worked with

to create custom elements for high-end residences, including beautiful staircases, sliding doors, and custom kitchen islands. He even takes time and

care to engineer his own mechanical parts. Working together seamlessly, we produce drawings and

renderings using Rhino 3D (modeling software) to communicate concepts, which Bartek then

further develops for fabrication in his fully-equipped machine shop. Working with Bartek is completely collaborative, enriches our work, and is always entertaining. ” - Matthew

www.solutionsinmetal.com | 617.921.1166

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“The space looks incredible...there was such good attention to detail.”

Photos ©Gustav Hoiland/Flagship Photo

-Grace Ray, CEO, Living proof

Living proof. style | lab

R

TM

We are the science. You are the Living Proof.

Visit the Living Proof style | lab at 301 Binney Street, Cambridge, MA or shop online at www.livingproof.com

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LOOK

What we’re into right now at H+A Axelle Galerie, Newbury Street

In the crowded world of art galleries on Newbury Street, Axelle consistently has something worth viewing. With three levels of gallery space dedicated to the finest contemporary European and American artists, exhibits feature original paintings, sculpture, and fine art prints in figurative, realism, and impressionist styles. [Jeffrey Brown] Boston Public Library’s Renovated Johnson Building, Copley Square

The new remodel of the Boston Public Library’s Johnson Building by William Rawn Associates is definitely worth checking out, especially the ‘hidden’ original courtyard. The library reopened the second floor of the Johnson Building in 2015, and improvements to the first floor, mezzanine, lower level, and exterior are under way. [Jeremy Robertson] The Museum of Bad Art, Somerville

LISTEN

The Museum of Bad Art is located in the basement of the Somerville Theater and is a great way to kill some time while waiting for your movie to begin.

The museum celebrates the quirky perspectives of anonymous artists (most of the work is “found”) and presents it in a curatorial free-for-all, encouraging the viewer to form their own opinion of “what the heck is going on here?” [Aimee Epstein Norton]

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Project Trio and Moon Hooch musical artists

Project Trio and Moon Hooch are two small groups from New York who appear frequently in New England, each with their own unusual approach to music-making; Project Trio comprise a classically trained flutist, cello and bass who adapt all forms of music to their unique combo; Moon Hooch are an alto sax, baritone sax and drummer who devise energetic improvisational pieces that add up to far more than the sum of the individual parts.

[Rob Clocker]

This captivating podcast is like the TV show, The People’s Court, but much funnier and more interesting. [Matthew Manke] Johanna Borchert, musical artist

Johanna Borchert blends avant-garde jazz and ambient pop to create a dark and beautiful tonal experience to her latest release. The new album is perfect for a contemplative afternoon including the standout track, It’s been a while.

[Dominik Wit]

LISTEN (continuted)

Judge John Hodgman, podcast

Radiolab, podcast

Radiolab is described as a show about curiosity. The stories told are ones where science, philosophy, and human experience converge to illuminate ideas. A great example to start with is the episode, “Things,” about the big and small objects of importance in our lives and how they move us (www.radiolab.org/story/ things/). [Jennifer Clapp, Christine Rankin Manke]

Published by Fantagraphics Books mastermind Gary Groth, with an introduction by R. Crumb, this collection of political cartoons by 92 year old Jonah Kinigstein skewers 20th Century abstract and modern art, with the intensity and richness of a true contrarian master.

[David Tabenken]

READ

The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Tower of Babel in the “Art” World

David and Goliath

This book by Malcom Gladwell reevaluates what we normally accept to be advantageous and disadvantageous in life, and demonstrates that sometimes these perceptions are off. The research is presented in short story form and is very compelling.

It demonstrates that sometimes being dealt a bad hand can be the best thing for your future.

[Aimee Epstein Norton] Stratechery, blog

Thoughtful, intelligent insight about technology with a specific focus on strategy and business.

Writer Ben Thompson uses current events in tech as a starting point for topics, and uses that news to explain business and economic principles, strategy, what’s happening, and why it’s happening.

[Matthew Manke]

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WATCH

Whiplash, film

This is a visceral film whose subject of maximizing innate talent at all costs is manifested through the relationship of an ambitious jazz drummer, played by Miles Teller, at an elite music conservatory and his abusive teacher, played by J.K. Simmons. The film’s intensity is accompanied by the ever rifting tempo of the drum that beats into the great third act.

[Joshua Lentz] The Secret of Kells, animated film

The Secret of Kells is a fantastic animated film, and a graphic wonder. The film portrays a fictionalised account of the creation of the Book of Kells.

Centered around a young boy, a dangerous quest, an enchanted forest, mythical creatures, and a book brimming with secret wisdom and magical powers, the story symbolizes the power of enlightenment as a triumph over darkness and evil. [Rob Clocker] Somm | Jiro Dreams of Sushi | Three Stars, documentaries

At H+A, we design spaces that people inhabit.

But why not think about food and wine as design?

Plating a complicated entré can involve the same basic questions of structure, form, color, texture and human experience. These three documentaries explore the savory world in a dramatic way that is both compelling and beautiful.

[Jennifer Clapp] Urbanized, documentary

A documentary about the design of cities that looks at issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.

Focusing on what makes a city habitable, the film illustrates cities that design for cars rather than for people, versus others that try to ‘give something back’ to citizens by prioritizing walkability to recreate vibrant city centers. [Matthew Arnold] Better Call Saul, television

The much awaited spin-off of the Breaking Bad series is about lawyer James Morgan “Jimmy” McGill (aka Saul Goodman), set six years before he first appears on Breaking Bad. Saul is a dark, quirky character that stands on his own in the storyline, without having watched the original, however the show does help alleviate symptoms of Breaking Bad withdrawal for former followers of the series.

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This great neighborhood bakery offers homestyle baked goods all made from scratch with a generous selection of vegan treats. As their website says, “Everything down to the mayonnaise on your sandwich is made in-house.”

And they serve the best scones and croissants in Jamaica Plain. [Jeremy Robertson]

EAT

Fiore Bakery, Jamaica Plain

Bagelsaurus, Porter Square

As a displaced Jersey girl, I am always on the hunt for the best bagel in town and Bagelsaurus is now winning. This tiny shop recently opened in Porter Square and has doughy delicious bagels. They serve a bacon and egg sandwich made with mustard butter, and also offer many inventive “shmears” (honey rosemary and beet hummus, to name a few). [Aimee Epstein Norton] Besito Mexican, Chestnut Hill

Rated “excellent” by the New York Times, this restaurant serves authentic Mexican cuisine, guacamole made tableside, and over 75 tequilas all straight from Mexico. The hacienda-inspired atmosphere and servers that greet you in Spanish make it great for dining-in, but it’s just as good for take-out.

[Matthew Manke] Cafe Art Science, Cambridge

Fitting for Kendall Square, with its many resident labs and tech startups, this new addition to the neighborhood calls itself a ‘cafe for the sensorium’. The menu is a mix of FrenchAmerican cuisine prepared with futuristic technology. The dining spot for LeLaboratoire Cambridge, an art and design center for art at ‘the frontiers of science’, it’s no wonder that this is a reinvented dining experience. [Matthew Arnold] Make your own artisanal bread!

Try the “no-knead” bread recipe by Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC, and made famous by Mark Bittman in a NY Times video. Crucial to the recipe is the use of a cast iron Dutch oven which traps steam as the bread cooks, replicating the steam of a bread oven in a conventional oven; Simple to make, no preservatives, and delicious! [https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU] [Scott Thomson]

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SHOP

Art-o-mat, Whole Foods, South End

Boston’s first Art-o-mat has landed in the South End. Located in the new Whole Foods on Harrison Avenue, this repurposed cigarette vending machine provides easy access to original works of art from one of 400 participating artists. Sponsored by the Artists in Cellophane organization, the goal of the Art-o-mat is to encourage art consumption by making it progressive, personal, and approachable. [David Tabenken] LovePop, Cambridge

Started by two friends who first met in shipbuilding school then reunited in graduate school after both became fascinated with the ancient Vietnamese art of paper-cutting. Drawing on their engineering skills, they create handmade 3D paper sculptures hidden as surprises inside unfolding greeting cards and they even do custom designs! [Joshua Lentz] Cambridge Antique Market, Lechmere

The Cambridge Antique Market, located near Lechmere station, is full of beautiful classic antique furniture as well as oddities from all throughout history. It is a huge place with a ton of vendors who usually are willing to negotiate on price. If you don’t have time to explore the whole building, spend your time in the basement browsing midcentury furniture, vintage maps, and the collection of refurbished bikes. [Aimee Epstein Norton] Allied Maker, Long Island, New York

EXPLORE

Allied Maker is a design and manufacturing studio that creates meticulously engineered lighting fixtures. A current H+A client loved meeting with founder Ryden Rizzo and co-owner Chris Zeppieri and was the first visitor at their production and showroom space. Every piece they produce is handcrafted in their workshop and in collaboration with New York’s best fabricators. [Jennifer Clapp]

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Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany

Hans Scharoun’s masterpiece is the residence for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Built in 1963, it revolutionized the performance experience by centralizing the stage and surrounding the audience to create a flawless acoustic performance.

The foyer and auditorium are very impressive spatially, but the real highlight is witnessing the world renowned Berlin Philharmonie perform at home. [Dominik Wit]

Japanese sake bars in Tokyo serve quality sake which is relatively unknown outside of Japan, where sake bars specialize in featured vintages paired with the appropriate bar foods. And if you’re in Tokyo, you can’t miss the Sushi breakfast at Tsukiji Market. Rising at 5am to be at the sushi bar line at 6am is an experience to remember.

[Rob Clocker] Gardens at Elm Bank, Wellesley, MA

Get outdoors after a brutal winter and visit the Massachusetts Horticultural Society at Elm Bank in Wellesley, MA for the warm weather season.

Enjoy the garden tours, events for kids, advice on herb gardening, or just bring kids and pets and enjoy the open fields and hiking trails.

[Kate Kelley]

EXPLORE (continuted)

Sushi and Sake, Tokyo, Japan

Rub’ Al Khali Desert, Abu Dhabi, UAE

This incredible and beautiful area of the Arabian Desert is also known as the Empty Quarter and is the second largest sand desert in the world after the Sahara, spanning the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Bedouin tribal culture can been seen in the food, music, camel-treks, and desert-camping, even just outside of the bustle of Abu Dhabi. [Emily Neumann] Mosel River Valley, Germany

Whether hiking in the network of Traumschleiffen (“Dream Loops”), high above the Mosel, cycling along the river, or cruising down the river itself, the Mosel Valley is definitely easy on the eyes. My first taste of this area was from the comfort of a high-speed train, whizzing by the quaint villages and beautiful vineyards along the steep riverbanks.

Each return to the region has been well worth the time and effort. [Jeremy Robertson] Lotus of Siam, Las Vegas

Feeling lucky? The best bet for an unforgettable meal in Las Vegas is part of another strip entirely.

Skip the lights and din of Las Vegas’ famous stretch and head for an unremarkable strip mall just north of the boulevard to discover Lotus of Siam. Serving Northern Thai dishes passed down from generation to generation, the restaurant is a James Beard Award winner that has attracted a semi-cult following. The setting may be humble, but the food is anything but. [Matthew Woodward]

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DESIGN

Some of our revolutionary and influential clients discuss the effect of good design in their lives and livelihoods.

MOVES Interviewer David Hacin

As designers, we talk about the many ways design affects people’s lives and influences everything from the way we live and work to the kinds of interactions we have, the purchases we make, or the level of creativity we’re able to muster.

Rarely though do we have the chance to hear the people who live and work in those spaces reflect in depth on the way design enhances or impacts their lives.

David Hacin sits down for a discussion about design with some of our clients who also happen to be visionary in their respective professional fields: Jennifer Chayes and Christian Borgs of Microsoft Research New England talk about living and collaborating in a both modern and historic Beacon Hill residence; Grace Ray of Living Proof tells us what makes for the most energetic and creative work environment; Nondini Naqui of Society of Grownups discusses the value of being in a design-led organization; Phil Schiller of Apple and his wife Kim illustrate the way an open-plan environment and a mix of high-tech and low-tech sensibilities drive a design that allows their family to spend the most quality time together; and Tim Rowe of the Cambridge Innovation Center reflects on the process of creating District Hall and the things workspace entrepreneurs consider when creating exciting places that draw talent and new startups. [Photo ©Michael Stavaridis]

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OLLABORATOR

Jennifer Chayes + Christian Borgs Managing Director + Deputy Managing Director, Microsoft Research New England

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We comment to each other all the time, ‘this is just what we wanted.’

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DH: When we first started working together I was amazed with how you were applying your scientific background to the house. Everything from testing the stone to other materials - you both really took an interest in that process, and I had never really worked with scientists before so I was curious how that played out. Did you feel like some of the experimenting and scientific thinking about how the kitchen would be organized and how the materials would be used, worked out well for you in the long-term?

JC: I think so. We comment to each other all the time, “This is just what we wanted.”

We’re very very particular about how things are and it is the way we wanted. It makes it hard to think about ever going any place else because we would never be able to live in a house that we hadn’t constructed. And people love it. They think that the luce de luna is marble and we say, ‘Oh no, it’s not’ and they say, ‘Oh what is it?’, and we tell them it’s a sandstone based rock so it doesn’t etch. It has the feeling of marble but it wears much better, so we like all these choices.

DH: Do you remember that we did light studies because of the stair and we wanted to see how light would bounce into the house? Is there anything about the way the light moves through the house that was surprising or do you notice that there are certain times of year that you like the way the light angles appear?

CB: There was one thing that was surprising. There is a time of the year when the light goes through from the windows on the second floor and then goes through the missing ceiling [in the double-height space], goes through the kitchen, and then grazes the staircase, creating a very strange pattern on the wall two floors down, which is sort of there for ten minutes as the sun goes through. It’s almost like waiting for a lunar eclipse.

JC: Matthew [Manke] really did anticipate the way the light would move through the house at different times of day and different seasons.

CB: It actually works very well. We actually looked at several other houses and we thought this house would have much less light.

JC: When I first walked into the house it was already gutted. We bought it as a gutted house and I took three steps into the house and I said to Christian, “That’s it. I don’t even want to look at it. It’s too dark.” So that was my first impression of the house and he kept encouraging me to look at it.

CB: Now, when we go through the house we always rave to people that we have the skylight, and there’s a glass stair so the light can go through, there’s a glass door to Jennifer’s office so that the sun can shine through the skylight, through the glass door, and into Jennifer’s office, so that takes care of the top two floors. The kitchen gets a

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lot of light because it gets it from the floor above and the floor below. The house is tremendously light for a house this narrow - it’s 13 feet wide!

JC: You really feel the light! 52 feet by 13 feet - and yet the light is moving through the house! It’s an unbelievable aspect ratio. And you did the transoms also, which were making the internal pieces which would feel darker, light up and float a little bit. I turn them on all the time, I love them. And then the light slot! Everybody loves that!

CB: It started off as a waterfall. We wanted a waterfall, remember? Which you said might be nice for two months, but…

JC: And then we wanted something that felt like Ronchamps. You love Ronchamps, and we love Ronchamps. And then Matthew [Manke] put the LED on one side, so it feels like the light is coming through somewhere…

CB: It actually feels like someone is channeling the sun into the building from another place! It’s the right time, and the colors are correct...

JC: I keep that on all the time. I love that. People see that and they say, ‘Yep, this house was architect-designed.’ It’s not something that a contractor would ever put in as a standard thing.

Su n l ig ht movi ng th roug h the house

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tHE HOUSE IS TREMENDOUSLY LIGHT FOR A HOUSE THIS NARROW - IT’S 13 FEET WIDE!

DH: Speaking of your office level, that was a really interesting part of the design process. You both wanted to work in your own spaces with the things that were important to you, so we created glass doors so you can see each other. Does it work the way you anticipated and how does it compare to the way you work at your Microsoft offices?

JC: Yes! CB: When we have to work together and communicate, we sit in each other’s offices and at some point we say ‘ok, you do this, and I do this,’ she starts her music and maybe I like it for awhile and then later I don’t want to listen to it anymore and she closes her door...or I put on my music and she doesn’t want to hear it so she’ll close her door too.

JC: The only problem is the cats don’t like it, so if we close the doors for too long the cats start crying. They want to move back and forth between the two spaces.

CB: And if you lock them in the office they’re not happy either.

JC: If they’re locked out they’re happy. They’re watching us in our little cages, right?! (laughs) DH: Do you have separate offices at work? How do you collaborate?

JC: Well, we often work together in this conference room here, and sometimes we work in our individual offices.

CB: So if you compare our offices here to our office floor at home, this would be like our kitchen.

JC: Right. The kitchen at home is our collaboration space when we’re not at work… it has the southern light coming in and it has that light slot, so sometimes we’ll just spread out papers on the kitchen table.

CB: If we really want to work together at home, one sits on the kitchen counter and the other sits at the table to spread out more.

JC: We also have a lot of Skype meetings with collaborators in our kitchen. There are a lot of parallels.

DH: So we recently saw each other on a flight, and I know that the two of you travel constantly. How you work in other places? You can’t control your environment as much when you’re traveling. What do you do to make it feel like home?

CB: Well it’s difficult. Years ago when we were already married, when we would go somewhere for longer than four days, I would actually pack a few art prints which were just large enough to fit in my luggage, and I would tack them up on the walls.

JC: When we get to the hotel it doesn’t matter if it’s one o’clock in the morning and we have to be up at six o’clock in the morning. We still go around and remove all of the ads, we’re kind of obsessive-compulsive.

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My environment really effects the way i think. If my environment is not clean and satisfying, my thought is not clear.

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DH: I do that too!

JC: He sometimes moves the furniture! He says this looks much nicer.

CB: Occasionally we’ll put our own books out. Say we have to go to Seattle for a week; We buy a fruit bowl, and we put fresh fruit in it and we try to make it a little home.

JC: Because we spend so much time on the road, if it felt generic, our lives would feel generic.

CB: The problem is, when you travel, your sleep patterns are not synchronized anymore, and it becomes very hard if one wants to work…you don’t have two offices and a bedroom like at home.

JC: Sometimes we get a two-room suite, so that if one of us is up when the other one is sleeping it’s ok. And Christian definitely organizes the furniture between the two rooms so one has an office while the other one can sleep. He wants it to reflect that.

DH: That’s really fascinating because I think that it does say that you are very sensitive to your environment and I love that you would bring artwork to hang on the wall, I mean that is really amazing.

JC: My environment really affects the way I think. If my environment is not clean and satisfying, my thought is not clear. I don’t want all that stuff intruding into my thought.

I want everything to have a purpose.

CB: It depends on the purpose. If you have to email you can just sit on the plane and be on your phone or computer. But if you really want to figure something out and think creatively, you really want your mind open to all these ideas you have and if you have all this clutter around it catches your eye and it distracts you.

DH: I think that’s one of the reasons we were in sync with each other. I know there are a lot of people that are really comfortable with clutter and I’m not. I’m one of those people that’s constantly cleaning up at my desk so that I can think clearly. I always really understood that aspect of your project and that really makes sense to me. So the second part to that question is, when you come back home, what aspect of the design of your home immediately makes you glad to be home and makes you feel good?

JC: All of it. I love all of it. We come in the front door, and there’s our glass collection and that is just great, because that represents our aesthetic and our travel, because we’ve picked up different pieces in different places...that’s our life there, you know?

CB: Definitely the cats will demand some of our time…and then we have our suitcases and clutter, so the next hour or two we don’t concentrate on anything but getting the clutter back into the wonderfully organized home.

JC: I’ve got to immediately put everything away. We travel so much that if I’m going to leave two days later, do I want one trip blurring into the other? No - I want my house to be as it should be for me to live there. I want to go through the mail, and I want to put my stuff away. And then I love going to the kitchen…

CB: Well the kitchen is great because from the table there you see the stairs, and you also see the slot reveal that goes up the wall along the stair and it creates this calm because all the lines are just where they should be and you feel it! It wasn’t thrown together. You see that it was all thoughtfully put together. And that’s part of the feeling of being at home again. Rather than being in a place where no matter how much I rearrange the furniture, I can’t do anything that changes the architecture.

DH: One of the first times we all met, I remember you went up to the wall and you were looking to see how the pieces came together, and I thought, hmmm, ok, this house is going to be a work of precision. You mentioned the glass, and how the glass was such an important theme of the house. Where did your love of glass come from?

CB: Originally it probably started in my family. My parents collected glass. They collected glass from the 50’s and art deco glass. I continued that throughout when I was a student. When Jennifer and I started going out, I would drag her to flea markets

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and we would buy glass that would not be too flawed, sort of clear and in clean forms from the 50’s or 30’s.

JC: And you see, our work is glass-like. The physics models I’ve worked on were close to glass, they were sort of idealizations of glass which is in a metastable state. We know this. Over time glass will melt. It’s not stable. It’s actually in a metastable state.

Which is why, when you look at old buildings, the glass is thicker at the bottom than at the top because over centuries the gravity has moved it slowly from one metastable state to another. Metastable states are really interesting and glass is the most common material with a metastable state. So our physics and our math is about glass-like states. I’ve worked on something called spin glasses. They are a glass-like substance built with magnetic spins. You find them in laboratories, and they’re really interesting theoretically, but they have these long-lived metastable states - this multitude of states - and as you look at them you never get to the same state. It’s always different.

CB: We also lived in Seattle for many years, and Seattle has a lot of artists. There is a famous glass school there, Pilchuck, started by Chihuly. We started collecting serious glass when we lived in Seattle, and there are a lot of trips to Venice too.

JC: Every other Fall we go to Venice for the Biennale but we also go to Murano. We’ve visited the studios of the masters and been introduced by our friends. One of our closest friends in Seattle is Ginny Ruffner who is also a great glass artist - one of the greatest. So we have friends who are glass artists, we collect glass, his parents collected glass, and our work is glass-like.

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I don’t think of the old as backwards... in fact... we’re doing cutting edge math and technology but some of the mathematics we use were developed 200 years ago.

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DH: So that raises our last question. It’s about the contrast between the inside of your house and the outside. You live in this very historic neighborhood. Do you ever think about that threshold of your house, like thinking backwards and forwards?

JC: I don’t think of the old as backwards. I think that in the old there is a certain aesthetic, and in fact, if you look at our work and some of the math that we use, we’re doing cutting edge math and technology but always the same elements are there.

Some of the mathematics we use were developed 200 years ago. Some of the music that we love is modern and some of it is old…I love Bach! You can’t help but love Bach.

And actually I like the consistency of Beacon Hill and although I would feel stifled by it 24 hours a day, I like that the neighborhood has an order and a consistency which I love. I don’t want to see something that looks haphazard.

CB: Yes, you come in and you see all the modern stuff, but a lot of the things in our home are not modern. Like a Persian rug from Jennifer’s family and a grandfather clock that I have. We said to you that these are things we don’t want to part with. We actually worked with you to design the house around how some of those things would fit. So the house doesn’t feel like a contrast. It does feel like you are in this neighborhood which looks like it did 100 years ago, and then you come into a world which can only look like it does today….but it’s not divorced from the history.

JC: I actually I think that when you have a house like that, for me, I would either want it to be exactly as it was at the time, or contemporary. I personally do not go for the idea of taking what was a middle class Beacon Hill or South End house of 100 years ago and putting French provincial style in it, which is so jarring. It should either be appropriate to the building or appropriate to the time in which we live.

DH: That’s a very European attitude. Europeans have a great respect for history and the time that each period of style was built, but they also have faith in the contemporary and the idea that if you build something new it should be new and if you are restoring something old, you respect the period it comes from.

So, I want to ask you one random fun question. We know how reliant you are on technology and here we are, interviewing you in the Microsoft Research HQ. But, if all of your computers crashed and you couldn’t work, where would you want to be and what would you want to be doing?

JC: I would want to be walking through Venice.

CB: I was going to say the same thing! We assume the boats in Venice still work?

JC: I can get around without a boat! I find it incredibly exhilarating. Early in the morning and late at night after the vaporettos stop coming through with all the people, when it’s empty and there’s mist coming up from the canals. At the time we go, they usually have a lot of contemporary art due to the Biennale and you will see this beautiful place that has been there for centuries, but then you will see amazing contemporary art.

CB: It’s much like our house, if you think about it.

JC: There’s this beautiful old life where you walk by and there’s the fruit and vegetable merchant with his little boat on the canal, and you go to one of these palazzos that will be really grand, and then another will have some surprise when you enter it. I love it there.

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I think that When you have a house like that... it should either be appropriate to the building, or appropriate to the time in which we live.

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Grace Ray

EADE

CEO, Living proof

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I love my workspace...I can easily see and sense the pulse of energy in the office which is important.

DH: We’ve loved working with Living Proof for awhile now and you in particular on the Headquarters, the lab space, and now on the Style | Lab retail space and I wanted to ask you about how these very different functions of the space work together. You said yourself that sometimes you like to come into the retail space just to take a breath of fresh air but what is it about the different kinds of spaces that you have all gathered together in one place that makes Living Proof function a little differently than other companies?

GR: I think it’s such a good reflection of our integrated development process because we, unlike other companies, do everything in one location. So what can happen is an idea can germinate in a meeting and then can get developed and formulated in the lab, then brought over to the test salon to see how it works on hair, then brought into the retail space so that it comes to life. In a way, what we’re able to do is create this crucible of innovation. And we can do everything from conceive an idea to bring it to life much more quickly and much more creatively because we’re able to interact and integrate unlike other companies can. I think it’s great because this suits the way we work and has turned out to be very, very effective for us.

DH: You don’t really see that very often so I think it’s visionary to be thinking about bringing all of those things together in that way. Do you like to work in your office, or do you like to move around? How do you like to use the space?

GR: First of all, I love my workspace. The reason I like it is that I can easily see and sense the pulse of energy in the office which is important. Also, I’m accessible and that’s important. People can just walk right up and speak to me, and that’s really what the whole open workspace is facilitating, but I don’t really have one place I love to work.

I like working at my desk when I need to do some contemplative thinking but I love working with the entire team and we have so many different areas to do that. We have the boardroom, and actually, we use the kitchen a lot and the natural light and high ceilings makes it really creatively inspiring and, well, food is always inspiring.

DH: I know food is a big part of the Living Proof culture.

GR: It’s so much apart of our culture! And what’s interesting is that when we’re in meetings in the kitchen, people are coming in and out and we get contributions.

People who aren’t normally in the meeting will just chime in with an idea or a point of view and many times that has actually led us to better ideas. So it’s all part of this idea of integrating and mixing groups that don’t normally comingle. With this kind of environment it really creates great ideas.

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What’s great is that departments that don’t normally work together and personality types that don’t normally mix are put together and the result of THat is this disruptive energy and disruptive thinking that takes us off the curve and gives us a different level of creativity.

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DH: This idea of accidental engagement is being talked about a lot in workplace design and what you’re describing is how important workplace design can be to a corporate culture. I know that you worked for some big big companies like L’Oreal which presumably are in large office buildings with multiple floors and where it’s probably a lot more difficult to interact between departments. How is this different and what did you learn about workspace there that you brought here?

GR: I think what’s great is that departments that don’t normally work together and personality types that don’t normally mix are put together and the result of that is this disruptive energy and disruptive thinking that takes us off the curve and gives us a different level of creativity. A great example is that we have a professional hair stylist sitting next to a PhD chemist and a brand marketer. Literally they sit in the same workspace and you constantly see that they are talking to each other so when the chemist is tinkering with a formula, the marketer will say, ‘What are you doing?’ and you’ll hear the two of them talk and then the hairstylist will say, ‘Hey I’ve got a client coming in this afternoon. Let’s try it on her hair,” and before you know it, an idea that really wasn’t anything, becomes something.

DH: Part of that was the decision to put those people in the same space. Because you could have all the financial people sitting in one place and the brand people sitting in another but you’ve made this decision to mix people in that way, right?

GR: Yes, we’ve created a link. We have areas where the sharing is really impactful. You have the formulators and the chemists, the marketers, the packaging people, the ones that come up with the ideas…when they’re all together, it’s magic. But there are also reasons why, for instance, in supply chains and operations, they need to sit together because they’re constantly sharing information. So there’s also proximity in a good way among a department so that the communication flow is much more transparent. There is such a benefit to being able to stand up or look to your side and talk to somebody rather than picking up the telephone.

DH: Is there a downside to open office?

GR: I don’t think there is for our office because we have designated private areas as well. I think that the only challenge is when you’re trying to have a private conversation.

But it’s a fair trade off because what you get instead is energy. You hear people talking and there’s just a buzz, like when we launched Night Cap. Night Cap is a new product we just launched and it’s doing very well. It’s an overnight hair perfector, so at night before you go to bed, you put it in your hair and you wake up and you’re ready to go you’re hair is amazing! What’s so great is that when we came up with the idea, a few of the people that work here took it home and they came back and said, ‘Oh my gosh, this thing was life-changing’ and you could hear them talking about it in the office. I was at my desk and I stood up and I walked over and asked what was going on. I immediately knew that we had something that was really, really special. Instead of having it go through the mill and take months and months to get to me, it was immediate. We said, ‘We’ve got to make this. We’ve got to do it fast.‘ It creates such transparency that it enables everyone to work more effectively.

DH: I’ve been thinking about this. I’m an ex-New Yorker and I spent a lot of time in New York architecture offices, design offices, and other creative companies and I think of the Boston-Cambridge area as nurturing so many innovative smaller companies where everybody knows everybody and there’s kind of an interaction that’s different than you get in a larger city where your other department might be on another floor or in another building or somewhere else, and the city itself is very large and intrusive in a way. You’ve talked about a brand being sort of intimate, and I think if you’re looking for an intimate relationship with your customer, that does happen here, with the Test Salon and the Style | Lab. How does the Test Salon work exactly? Can I make an appointment?

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K itche n at the L ivi ng Proof H e ad qu a rte rs

GR: The way the Test Salon works is that we built a huge database of local women who range in hair types and every time we develop a new formulation we call on these women and they get scheduled to come in. It’s a test salon so we do these great halfhead tests which are these demos to really understand whether our product is superior to the competition. We’re able to test our new technologies and see how we can improve upon them. And the women absolutely love it because they get a chance to be on the ground floor with us developing the product. They’re giving us their opinions and they’re just so passionate. Right now we’re so oversubscribed because we have so much new product activity going on that we really don’t have time to take appointments.

DH: So does a workspace need to reflect the brand?

GR: 100% yes, because a brand takes inspiration from the team and where they work.

I think if you don’t have a workspace that’s integrated and connected with the brand vision, you end up having a disconnect. Everything we have here is very cool - the high ceililngs, the exposed ductwork, and the modern design. It’s just got a really good creative vibe which I think all cool brands need.

DH: I have to say that it’s really so nice to work for a company when you really believe in their brand and their product. I really do. We were curious about the retail conception itself, and the brand and packaging which is so beautiful. With all of your experience in the beauty industry, how important is packaging design in terms of the brand. If you’ve got beautiful packaging but the product is no good it doesn’t really matter, but how much of an influence does the packaging have on the overall success of a beauty company?

GR: I think packaging absolutely influences the brand because it’s the outward appearance and it’s also the outward user experience, the ergonomic design, the feel of the weight of it in your hand, the way it functions, the way it opens and closes - all of that is so much part of the consumer experience. Of course, to your point, it doesn’t make up for product performance. You have to have strong product performance or else product packaging only gets you the first purchase, and never the repeat purchase.

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IT’S JUST GOT A REALLY GOOD CREATIVE VIBE WHICH i THINK ALL COOL BRANDS NEED.

DH: One of the things I think is interesting is that it feels to me like the science and beauty aspect of Living Proof is expressed in the packaging in a really clean way, but it’s not antiseptic. There’s something tactile about it. It’s analogous to space design…it can look great, but if the right pieces and parts aren’t in the right places it’s not going to work. Are you influenced by products and packaging that have nothing to do with your line of work? Do you find that packaging is something that you’re paying particular attention to?

GR: Yes, I am very influenced by design; from fashion, architecture, home furnishings, even automotive. For consumer goods, packaging is the product’s aesthetic design and definitely something all marketers pay attention to. However, if the product does not perform, the packaging ends up becoming irrelevant.

DH: How has working at Living Proof or other beauty companies affected your personal style or vice versa?

GR: I think that when I develop any brand I try not to let my personal tastes get involved because a brand needs to be based on the filter of the brand and shouldn’t be based on individual tastes. Fortunately the Living Proof brand is very much my personal aesthetic so it’s a very good match. I love how clean, simple, and understated it is, that it doesn’t look clinical, or antiseptic, or cold.

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DH: What about your style at home as opposed to work. Is home a retreat for you or do you work differently at home?

GR: Home is a retreat for me. It reflects my family’s personal tastes and is a place where we all can comfortably be together, relax and entertain. There are certain places in my home I like to do work; I prefer an open, airy space and natural light when I work from home.

DH: What’s your favorite place in your house?

GR: The kitchen. I love to cook and spend the afternoon in the kitchen with family and friends, just eating and talking. It brings me a lot of happiness.

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For consumer goods, packaging is the product’s aesthetic design and definitely something all marketers pay attention to.

However, if the product does not perform, the packaging ends up becoming irrelevant.

DH: So this is our random question for you. You’re stranded on a desert island. You can only bring one Living Proof product, one food and one website because you’ll have internet….what would those be?

GR: I love these kind of questions. So the product I would bring is Night Cap. I just got back from a trip to Jamaica and your hair gets wrecked under the sun and in the chlorine and the ocean. So I put Night Cap on every night, and when I woke up, my hair was just great. So I would totally bring that with me to the desert island. The food I would eat - and I highly recommend this the next time you go to San Francisco - is the vegan brussel sprouts from Gracias Madras. It’s a vegan restaurant in the Mission district. They do this flash-fried brussel sprout with a cilantro-almond pesto that will knock your socks off, and I’m not even vegan! I’m taking that with me on the island! So for the website, it’s probably going to be Bon Appetit because I love to cook and I’d love to look at this food that I can’t eat while I’m on this island. The second choice would probably be Architectural Digest, but I think I’ll go with Bon Appetit. But what about you?! What would yours be?

DH: Oh gosh. Well, the Living Proof product would definitely be the Full shampoo.

I love the Full shampoo. The food that I would take would probably be, those really wafer-thin-crust pizzas. That’s my thing. It could just be margherita style but that would be my food. The websites that I always go to kind of aggravate me…the news… so I would probably benefit from not being exposed to those. I would probably enjoy something like Architizer which is just beautiful images of architecture and design.

GR: I’ll have to add that one to my list!

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L ivi ng Proof H e ad qu a rte rs

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ROWNU

Nondini Naqui CEO & President, Society of Grownups

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you can talk about being different, you can talk about being unique, you can TALK about being a designled organization, but if everyone is just sitting in a cube farm, that conversation doesn’t happen.

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DH: So, you were part of the Society of Grownups story from the beginning and I know that Christine, David, and everyone on the team really enjoyed working with you, IDEO , and Mass Mutual to develop the space. Now that you’re in the space, and see the vision you were planning for, how has the space surprised you or made what you do easier, especially compared to other spaces you might have worked in before.

NN: From the beginning of my involvement with this project, I’ve been developing an appreciation for design over time and the physical space itself is just one example of when that appreciation shines through. But one of the things that I didn’t actually expect when we opened was how people would respond to the design. People who visited the space told us it looked like something totally different than what they had seen in the past. The small details like how the menu board lists classes and services along with the coffee and tea - really speaks to our transparency. Another example of transparency within the space is its use of glass, because you can see into the space itself and also into each room. Those are completely diametrically opposed to the way that any other place that does anything with financial services looks like or feels like, and that is the first thing people notice when they walk through the doors. It’s the way the team feels when they come to work everyday. You feel like you are really part of something fresh and that is truly different, and built for grownups. You can talk about being different, you can talk about being unique, you can talk about being a design-led organization, but if everyone is just sitting in a cube farm, that conversation doesn’t happen.

DH: I’m fascinated by this notion of transparency. When you are coming to talk about money and things that are personal and you’re sensitive to the fact that there might not be transparency, how can the space portray that ‘No, this place is someplace different, and we’re going to be dealing with you in different way.’ I think that’s really interesting…

So, next question...It’s true…you really have a great personal style. I’ve noticed that from the first time that I met you. It’s clear to see that you appreciate good design.

So how would you describe your own personal style?

NN: Well, thank you! My style is always evolving. I like the idea of being pulled together but still having a sense of individuality. I also like the idea of incorporating the pieces that you don’t find just anywhere. It’s about what I feel really comfortable in.

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DH: Do you like things that have a story?

NN: I do. I’m a fan of telling a story in some sort of way. That’s basically our business here. We have conversations around people’s narratives and we are changing the narrative around money. That’s ultimately what Society of Grownups is about. As the first President of Society of Grownups, I have the chance to use a little bit of my own organic self in the work that I do on a day-to-day basis. So if that manifests itself in the way that I try to pull myself together everyday, I think that’s a great thing.

I’m a fan of telling a story in some sort of way. that’s basically our business here. we have conversations around people’s narratives and we are changing the narrative about money.

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A D on’t Pa n i c C a m p a i g n p hoto

DH: How would you describe your home style as opposed to your personal style?

NN: My home style has taken longer to evolve but it’s definitely been heavily influenced by being able to work in a space like this. When you work in a space like this, you have a real appreciation for how it makes you feel, and you start to look at physical spaces differently. I’m not an architect by any means, however, I now have taken the next steps to make my home feel like a little bit of an oasis, to make it feel serene, but also to make sure that it has the elements of the life I’ve been living. I have some really unique objects from my travels and have chosen to display them in places that make me remember the moment in which I first saw them. This probably sounds crazy, but I have a leather milk jug from Ethiopia, something that is probably not special to anybody except for me - but when I put that next to the heater, sitting kind of lopsided, everytime I look at it, I remember my two months in Ethiopia. I can go up and I can feel it and I can remember. It has a smell about it that reminds me of where I was, and I think that’s far better than a hundred Instagram photographs and twelve Facebook posts. For me, that’s something that I have a personal connection with and I’m proud of it. I get to feel it everytime I look over there.

DH: There’s something comforting about seeing objects that were made by someone and being in the environment with them. Now, you talked about how spaces made you feel, but have you worked in places that you felt were working against you?

NN: Yes. I’ve worked in financial services and I’ve worked in nonprofit, but I have never worked in a space as beautiful as Society of Grownups. But yes, I can tell you that very early in my career I started off working at the branch in a traditional bank. It was a beautiful, huge, historic building with marble everywhere and gold engravings on the walls. It was a beautiful space! But there’s something deeply intimidating about a space like that. The high ceilings made everyone feel like they had to whisper. And I felt more that it was a sacred place rather than a place where people could go and have a conversation. And that was really eye-opening for me that early on in my career, to really get a sense for how the space shapes the experience. It was hard to say, ‘No really we’re here for you, we’d like to have this conversation…yes, we’re actually here to make a connection with you,’ when you have five security guards and you are nearly half a block away from the next person. So I think that was the first time that I thought we were working a little bit against the grandeur and the beauty of where we were.

DH: Coming back to the conception of SOG, obviously IDEO did such an incredible job of crafting and designing the brand experience, and it’s successful in evoking a fun and more approachable quality to financial services. Has the brand itself influenced how you approach your work?

NN: Yes. IDEO did an absolutely amazing job partnering with us on understanding how we were going to be able to bring the brand to life, and that was really through the Don’t Panic campaign. So you see the ads…these really iconic black and white images of grownups in varying stages of panic.

DH: I love those photographs. How did that happen? Who are those people?

NN: We ended up deciding we wanted the program to be about grownups and so we chose to actually show grownups that look like us - many of them are character actors in New York City. There was a whole photoshoot where the actors came in and the photographer was able to capture really emotive expressions in black and white

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photography. What’s interesting to me is that this is a campaign that was recognized.

People were coming in and saying, ‘I feel like you guys are everywhere,’ which really meant that we were going after where the grownups were and that they were noticing us. They would talk about seeing our ad on the T and tell us they thought it was a clothing store, only to Google the name to find out otherwise. It was incredible that we were able to reach the grownups at a time and in a place where they were recognizing us and taking that extra step to find out what we were actually doing.

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you SAID EARLIER THAT THERE’S REAL BEAUTY IN UNDERSTANDING WHEN OBJECTS ARE CRAFTED AND MADE. THEY MAKE PEOPLE FEEL LIKE THEY’RE VALUED WHEN THEY’RE IN HERE...YOU FEEL THAT YOU’RE WORTHY OF THIS KIND OF SPACE.

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DH: What does the next 6 months or 2 years look like? There’s potentially the plan to roll out more of these locations, but how do you see a place like this evolving in the community over the next 6 months?

NN: In the coming months and the next two years we’re trying to understand how to take the beauty and the intimacy of what we’ve created here in this space - like this beautifully designed classroom - and make it scalable. How do we translate this experience into a digital platform? How do we make that feeling accessible to grownups across the country? That’s the biggest piece. You said earlier that there’s real beauty in understanding when objects are crafted and made. They make people feel like they’re valued when they’re in here. It’s not just because we have an incredible staff that makes them feel taken care of, but when you look around you, you feel that you’re worthy of this kind of a space. So when you think about the digital platform, how do we translate that? Can we translate that? What does the Society of Grownups actually look like? So there is that component of things absolutely. Will we expand physically? I certainly hope so. But we’re going to be really intentional in the way we do that. It’s not going to look like a franchise model of this one thing that we’re going to stick all over the country. It doesn’t work that way. We want it to be an organic part of the community.

And that speaks to the third part of your question, which is that one of the challenges we have is to make the space really inviting, so people don’t feel intimidated when they walk by. They see this beautiful place with this strange name and they’re wondering ‘Should I even go in there?’ So as we keep our door open more and as we get out more locally, that is the way we can actually invite the community in, which is extremely important.

DH: Last question…fun random question: If you had to choose what reality tv show would you want to star in?

I just want to offer this disclaimer that I am very picky when it comes to what I read, but when it comes to the television that I watch, there’s an inverse relationship between the two. So I think it would be really interesting to be on Extreme Couponers! There is something so fascinating about it because there’s this whole buildup. They walk in, they’ve got this amazing plan, and they’ve got everything mapped out down to what aisle they’re going to go to. They’ve got a binder with all the coupons in it. There’s the whole build up and then there’s the rush when they’re actually checking out. And you can just see the amounts getting higher and higher and then they start handing coupons out!

And pretty soon, the amount goes all the way down, and there is something so - I don’t know - addictive about that show! It’s one of the skills that I wish that I had. I have tried so much to talk to the team about doing some sort of extreme couponing class!

T he Cl assroom at Soc iety of Grown u ps

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Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing at Apple, Phil Schiller & wife, Kim talk about their Boston roots, honest design, and their family’s integrated lifestyle.

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boston is such a walkable city, and I REALLY MISS THE OLD BUILDINGS AND THE CULTURE OF BOSTON WHEN WE’RE AWAY.

DH: I wanted to start with the fact that you’re both from New England and years ago you moved to California. In the ensuing years that you were there, you were surrounded by the world of technology, the innovative designers and all of the influences of the West Coast. Now we’re working on a project in New England and I’m curious from the perspective of two people who spent many years in California, and are now returning to spend time in New England again, how life on the West Coast has changed your design sensibilities. Does it make you more attracted to the historic aspects of New England, or do you feel that your tastes have changed?

PS: I think the old saying, you know - absence makes the heart grow fonder - is very, very true. While living out in California for decades, we’d still come back now and again to New England. Things that would drive you crazy out here you actually come to now appreciate and miss. For example, that real raw Boston accent. When you’ve been listening to it day-in and day-out it might not seem like the best thing, and then when you hear it after not hearing it for many years you realize how much you love it. It’s the same thing with old buildings that have their challenges and their charms. You come to appreciate how beautiful and how special they are. When you’re in another environment like California there are so many things that are not that old, and they don’t have that old-world charm. They can be beautiful, but not in the same way. I think we’ve grown a great appreciation for the things that are in our DNA here in Boston.

KS: San Francisco is a great city to visit and spend time in, but Boston is such a walkable city, and I really miss the old buildings and the culture of Boston when we’re away. You don’t realize that until you come back and spend some time here, but there are parts of California that we love and appreciate as well.

DH: You are both very interested in light, and it seems to me that might have come from living in a place where the light was so much brighter and stronger.

PS: Well, one of the interesting things here is that we’ve picked a place where we can see the sunrise over the water. Both of us grew up here, but our primary homes were not on the water. In California, we do have a place where we can watch the sunset on the water and we’ve grown to appreciate that. So with that, coming back to Boston, we brought that desire with us to see the sunrise over the water. Now we have that opportunity to see the sunrise over Boston over the water and the sunset over California over the water, on the same day even.

DH: Phil, the other day we were having a conversation about a particular wall treatment and you said that you didn’t like that particular treatment because it didn’t feel real. It felt like something that was representing something else. And I liked

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WE’RE DEFINITELY A MIX OF HIGHTECH AND LOW-TECH...I THINK IT’S GREAT THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE COMING BACK TO THE IMPORTANCE OF HONEST THINGS MADE WITH SOMEONE’S HANDS WITH A LOT OF CRAFT AND CARE.

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that. What you’re describing is this idea of authenticity, and that there’s something about these older buildings and the city of Boston that has this authenticity that I think you’re attracted to, right?

KS: Oh, definitely.

PS: Both Kim and I have come to that same place from very different experiences or perspectives. Kim’s always looking for the most simple, truthful way of experiencing things. She’s not looking to dress things up and make them overly ornate. I come to it through things I pick up at work, like wanting honest design...things that speak to what they’re meant to be, how they look, how they work, how they should move...things that are just truthful and clear and obvious. So for different reasons we come to the same place on wanting our own home and the places we hang out in to be very simple and honest.

KS: I feel like I’ve always been surrounded by that. I think it goes back to my roots of growing up in a blue collar family where my dad climbed telephone poles and my mother was what used to be called a secretary, and not having a lot, but what you had was meaningful, and necessary, and needed. I also grew up around a variety of women who, when we would get together at holidays, had a project they were doing. Somebody was crocheting, somebody was knitting, and somebody was cross-stiching or doing needlepoint. They were using real fiber and they were using their hands, and I grew up doing all of those things, too.

DH: Well that’s another interesting thing about the two of you, because if one of you is working with a lot of machined and technologically designed things and here you’re talking about craft and things being handmade, actually it makes a lot of sense that you’re both attracted to very simple, straightforward, and honest things.

That combination of technology and craft makes a lot of sense.

PS: Well, we’re definitely a mix of high-tech and low-tech, and I don’t use that word in a derogatory sense. In fact, I think it’s great that a lot of people are coming back to the importance of honest things made with someone’s hands with a lot of craft and care.

We are definitely mashing together those two styles.

DH: Let me ask about workspace/livespace for a moment. Phil, you were actually a programmer at Mass General at one point in your life which I thought was really interesting, and you’ve obviously worked in a lot different kinds of environments.

I’m sure you work at home as well as working in the office, so what would you say makes a good workspace?

PS: I think that is such a personal choice, and that everyone works in unique ways and so there isn’t one good answer for everyone. But for me, Kim will tell you, I’m just always working. It doesn’t matter where we are. We can be sitting here in this space or I could be in a cab or we could be at the hockey game KS: We have a friend that teases him and says, “Put your phone away Phil!’

PS: For me, every space is a workspace and I adapt with it, but when thinking about what I want as a workspace, I actually don’t want a workspace. I want to be in an environment where I can be sitting with everyone else. Kim can be doing a craft in the living room, our son can be playing a game on Xbox, and we can all be together in the same space, so I need my work tools to be flexible enough so that if my hours are really long, I still can be there with them. And there are people who see that as really negative, like, ‘Hey, you’re in your own world in your work. Why can’t we be together?’, and that would create some moments when you’re together, but more moments when you’re apart. I’d rather just be together as much as we all can. So, I don’t want a dedicated workspace. I want the entire environment to be conducive to work. I want a wireless network and I want my mobile iPad or MacBook and I want to be able to move around and interact and talk with people, work for a second, and then stop for a second. It’s the same thing in the workplace. I like being in an environment where you’re not trapped in your own cubicle or in your own office but you’re in a more open plan where people are moving around and there’s the serendipity of bumping into

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fOR ME, EVERY SPACE IS A WORKSPACE AND I ADAPT WITH IT.

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someone and saying, ‘Oh, I just thought of an idea because I saw you and it made me think of something,’ and that creative spark happens. To me, that’s the best work environment.

KS: I tend to have a place for every task. Although, if we’re sitting on the couch and there’s a hockey game or a movie that we’re watching, I will have my crafts out, so I’ll be doing needlepoint or cross-stitching, so we can be together and he can be working.

He has quite the talent to take in a lot that’s going on around him and do more than multitask, while I tend to have to stop what I’m doing if someone talks to me, but it works for us.

DH: So Phil, as long as you have your tools, living and working are kind of a seamless environment for you. And Kim, you have these specific areas for working, because craft requires a certain setup to be effective. What do you think programmatically makes a good home? Is it openness? Is it places for people to go and be away from others, or is it both?

KS: I think for our dynamics with the boys - granted they’re adults now so they’re mostly not at home - but I think that having an open floor plan is great because even though the boys have their own bedrooms, there are times when our son will come up and sit with a laptop while we’re watching a hockey game and just be with us. We have an area where our other son can do his virtual racing and again, neither of them may be paying attention to what’s on TV, but we’re all together. Having places that can connect and allow others to do what they want to do but also allow us to all be together at the same time is what works for us.

PS: Our family has developed entirely around an open floor plan environment from the start. That’s what’s natural to us as a family. So the idea of needing your own space

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to go and be alone really isn’t part of how we live as a family, which is wonderful. For example, we like having a living space connected openly with the kitchen so that if someone is making something to eat, we’re all still around each other and nothing is formally divided into moments in time where you have to split and go here or there.

Open plan living has been really important to us from the beginning, as well as light.

We wanted to understand the daylight and the evening light and how that comes into the space, and knowing whether it’s enough task light for the things Kim likes to do, and enough so that it adds to that airy feeling we want. Those are the things that matter to us.

Our family has developed entirely around an open floor plan environment from the start... the idea of needing your own space to go and be alone really isn’t part of how we live as a family, which is woderful.

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DH: Do you have any other design influences that act as a kind of touchstone for you?

KS: I think that I’ve kind of expanded my thoughts on design because I’m very traditional and I like these old buildings. However, looking at our project here and our project in California, I’ve opened my design aesthetics to welcome the more contemporary and modern feel. I think that what has helped a lot of that too, is my son being at RISD. Over the four years, I went to every end of semester crit. It was very eye-opening to see all of the students’ different interpretations of what they were required to design and develop, and I think that helped me to open up a bit more.

DH: That’s so great that you actually went to those crits. I bet you gained an understanding of your son just by seeing what was important to him.

KS: Yes, and I always knew he was thoughtful, but he’s very, very thoughtful in what he creates and how he looks at things. Seeing how he and the other students developed and getting to know the other students through their craft versus getting to know them just in a casual setting was great for me.

PS: This design is sort of a combination of two contrasting styles: the classic, old building with some very modern lines. The things we’re designing along with the materials and furniture we get to bring together combine those two worlds in a very clean way. I’m drawn to the contemporary and Kim loves the classic, older styles, and Kim’s visits to RISD has warmed her up to accepting some of the more contemporary designs which allows us to create this contrasting space.

DH: So many of the people we’ve talked to have often connected design back to history or classic influences in some way and I think you guys do it in an interesting way. We do have one random question for you…so Phil, I know you’re a car aficionado and I’m curious to know where that came from. What is a car design from the present or a historical period that you really admire and identify with and why.

PS: I think this is a long list…I have so many, but if I have to be forced to pick one, I’d pick the Porsche 550A Spyder. The one James Dean passed away in. I love the Porsche history and the connection with racing and that they create cars that are meant to race, but are also very practical, German-engineered, and have timeless designs. The 550A is beautiful, yet ultra simplistic. There’s very little to it. It’s very small, curvaceous, and exciting, and it’s an open-top car which I love. It’s also a two-seater so it kind of envelopes you and wraps around you and becomes part of you.

DH: How about you Kim? KS: I think the Citroen DS, because it’s classic, but it can move. It’s contemporary too.

I’ve never driven one. I’ve only seen it when we go overseas.

DH: I remember I used to ride in Citroens when I was a kid in Europe and they were famous for their suspension systems.

PS: Exactly.

DH: They had this pneumatic suspension system so you would get into the car and it felt like no other car. It felt different. It had this luxurious ride that other cars didn’t have, but it also had a look that other cars didn’t have.

KS: Right now I drive an Audi TT which is the ‘02 version and I love it. Phil’s always saying, ‘That thing is getting old’, but I love my car! It has this gray pearl essence on the outside with this red leather interior. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it.

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NNOVATO

Tim Rowe Founder and CEO, CIC

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I WOULD PROBABLY SAY I’M AN ENTREPRENEUR IN WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE. AND DESIGN IS A BIG PIECE OF THAT.

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DH: How do you describe what you do, because you do so many things…you’re a founder, you’re a CEO, you’re an investor, a husband and father...How do you define what you do?

TR: I typically say I’m an entrepreneur. I’m in the running this year, I think, for Entrepreneur of the Year with EY, and my wife said yesterday, “You’re an entrepreneur?” (laughs)…

It’s not the same thing as a startup. An entrepreneur is creating new economic activity.

Some people refer to me as a serial entrepreneur and I think I’m more of a parallel entrepreneur. I’m sort of working on things in different stages in parallel. So we’ve got CIC - the traditional business - and we launched Venture Café, which is a not-for-profit movement to connect people and it’s a business too, like any other business, and it happens to be non-taxpaying, but I can’t take the money home. The Venture Café team just won the Roxbury Innovation Center so that’s new. We launched LabCentral which is now tremendously successful. We raised $28 million dollars for LabCentral where we’re basically doing what we did here at CIC but in lab sciences. We took our room reservation system, Roomzilla, and we have about 30 companies around the world using it. I would probably say I’m an entrepreneur in workplace experience. And design is a big piece of that.

DH: So how do you see design as relevant in workplace experience? Were there experiences you had where you really felt like the design was impeding creative thought?

TR: Not ones we’ve designed, but ones that we’ve occupied. Those where you walk in and you say, Oh my gosh…this is a disaster...

DH: So what makes it a disaster?

TR: So there’s a space that we were asked to take over and manage in St. Louis, called the Center for Emerging Technology. It was 89,000 square feet, and a venerable public business incubator. Everyone including the people who worked there and who ran it would agree with me on this - you would just walk into the space and cringe.

DH: It just sucked the life out of you?

TR: Yes. It sucked the life out of you. So why was that exactly? Well, you entered into a kind of a reception area that felt like an outdated doctor’s office. If you went past that, you would go down very stark corridors with linoleum floors and no hint of natural light anywhere. It felt like maybe you were in a less-used basement area of a hospital. That would be the best description. And this was intended to be a place that would attract creative individuals starting new businesses. To their credit, that particular building has a number of wet laboratories in it and that’s part of the challenge. They needed

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WHEN YOU’RE TRYING TO INSPIRE PEOPLe TO TAKE A RISK, QUIT THEIR JOB, START A NEW COMPANY, JOIN YOUR STARTUP, YOU KNOW....

DO SOMETHING IMPORTANT AND CRAZY - BECAUSE IT’S ALWAYS CRAZY - ONE OF THE WAYS YOU DO THAT IS BUILD SOMETHING WHICH IS ATTRACTIVE AND WHICH IS GOING TO DRAW TALENT.

wet laboratory space for these startups, so they built what felt like a very, kind of ‘backoffice’ lab. And yet, when you’re trying to inspire people to take a risk, quit their job, start a new company, join your startup, you know...do something important and crazy... because it’s always crazy - the risk is high with startups – one of the ways you do that is build something which is attractive and which is going to draw talent. This would be a negative design example. So we looked at this building, which was really two buildings: this sort of tired, sad, hospital building, and behind it what had been a manufacturing plant for the Dorris motor company which probably went up in the 1920’s and was one of the early automobile manufacturers in the US. That was a brick and beam building with a lot of character that had also been very downtrodden and mistreated, but the bones of the building itself were lovely and a few spots in it were amazing. Some of the old equipment from the motor company was preserved and some of the old brick walls were exposed. We ended up gutting the parts that were wrong and adding the public entrance to the entire facility into that building. We built an absolutely beautiful new experience. We re-sequenced how you enter and experience it, and now the space is full of light and energy. Part of it is the physical design and part of it is the human design. The human activities that occur - where they occur and with what kind of densities - is also part of the way we think about design. If you’ve walked into the Ace Hotel in New York, and they had a rule against sitting there unless you were a guest, it would be an empty lobby and it would be uninteresting. We talked a lot about Ace Hotel when we worked on District Hall.

DH: And I went and stayed there a few times just to figure it out.

TR: Right. So the people are part of the design. How they interact, how they feel about each other...that’s all part of workplace design.

DH: Well, that’s really smart. We were talking about the fact that a lot of times people want a design to change behavior. They want the design to do all of the work, but actually it’s only part of it. Some of it has to do with how the organization is designed, and what kind of people are interacting with it, and what kind of events are taking place, and so forth. Is this something that you were always interested in or did your interest in workplace design come through your experience working with CIC? How did that evolve?

TR: Well, I think you may remember the story about how we designed our first space.

We were at 238 Main Street across the street with 3000 square feet of already built traditional small office space. There was a line of private offices at the windows, an open-space interior, a door, and a receptionist desk; your basic office. We invited a bunch of people in there and it was functional, and at the time I didn’t think it was terribly wrong, but it wasn’t really inspiring. I had lived many years in Japan as a young person and I think that the Japanese thinking about space had seeped into me. In high school I lived with a family in Tokyo, and in college I did a year in Kyoto. I also spent four years as a professional in Tokyo, living in a hundred-plus-year-old traditional Japanese home on the water in Tokyo Bay for most of that time. So I think all of the aesthetics in Japanese architecture really seeped in. One thing I can say about Japanese architecture is that there’s an incredible respect for space, because space was so dear in Japan. It is a mountainous country, but only about 5% of it is populated. They really care about every square inch and as a result, they have these really intricate, very thought-heavy designs. I think that was an influence for me, but I also had this feeling that the space could probably make people more creative. I don’t know where it came from, but I knew that was important at the time I first started CIC, so I don’t think CIC taught me this, something else did. We went out to Harvard GSD and we put posters up saying we were building a place to create new startups, we wanted it to look unlike anything anyone had ever built before, and we wanted to hire an architect to come on staff and help us dream up what this could look like.

DH: That’s pretty forward thinking on your part.

TR: It just seemed obvious to me that that was the way you should do it. So we had a dozen people apply, and we interviewed them and found two that were just terrific.

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OUR PRODUCT IS WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE, SO THE DESIGN IS INTERBUILT INTO OUR PRODUCT AND WE THINK THAT’S WORTH A LOT OF MONEY TO US TO GET THAT RIGHT.

We couldn’t decide between the two of them so we asked them if they could both come on and they agreed to form a team. They spent six months designing the space you’re in now, but also working with the startups on any random thing the startup wanted. We told them to do anything they could for any of the startups to undertand them, to understand their world, and where they’re coming from. So these guys did that and they came up with an absolutely terrific design, even winning a BSA award for the design here. But the long story short is that we spent lots of hours and months thinking about how we wanted these people to interact and how we wanted the space to work.

Maybe the influence was this Japanese sense that every square inch matters, but also this other notion that we were going to try to change how people create new businesses and that these two things needed to work together.

DH: The Japanese idea that every square inch matters is a really powerful idea.

Sometimes in this country we feel like we have unlimited space and we don’t necessarily appreciate the value of every square inch.

TR: And how empty space can suck energy. How a bigger foyer isn’t a better foyer necessarily. By the way, I think that’s what’s broken about commercial architecture.

I think that there are a host of challenges, but one issue that’s well-known is that architects are typically not living in, working in, or operating many of the spaces that they design. So part of what might inform better architecture - that experience of living it - can be lost. If a good architect is pressured to get a design out quickly you’ll have a design which is very competent, and which will serve the basic needs of the client just fine, and I think some architects do that exceptionally well. But in our case, our product is the workplace experience, so the design is interbuilt into our product and we think that’s worth a lot of money to us to get that right. So it requires changing the thinking of the client, and many architects would be thrilled to spend more time on their designs and be compensated appropriately for it, but I think somewhere in that relationship between client and architect these things tend to get rushed. I think part of that is due to the way real estate is deployed. Typically, I’m not going to start designing the space until I’ve secured it, but once I’ve secured the space the clock is ticking and somebody - probably me at the end of the day - is effectively paying for that space. Even if the landlord is not charging me yet, it’s somewhere built into what I have to pay and there’s probably a date by which I have to be in there and if I’m not, I’m paying. So this is a structural problem. If we really want great design, we really have to think our way around these things.

DH: Which is why some of the best architecture is institutional because they recognize the value and they understand that time is required. They don’t have the same parameters as more commercial ventures.

TR: If they’re going to gut an old academic building they can design for two years to get it right and then do it. So there’s the lack of living it, and the pressure to do it quickly, and the third challenge is that architects are measured to some degree on how their designs look in a photo. You know this. There’s pressure to have the photo look good. I want it to look good too, but that’s just one of the elements. We think of design as absolutely central to what we do. On District Hall, you recall that we went through heaps of different approaches where we liked one aspect from a design and another from a different scheme, and a good design probably always goes through that process, but I think it’s rare that people have the opportunity to have multiple distinctly clashing perspectives on how a space might work and then integrate them slowly and meaningfully.

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DH: We really engaged in a pretty robust collaboration on District Hall, in terms of how the space was going to work. How do you feel it turned out and what about the final result surprised you? We were designing for futures that we didn’t know or fully understand. That was really exciting…a little anxiety-provoking, but very exciting, and it seems to be working.

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TR: First of all, it’s working fantastically. We couldn’t be happier with the way in which District Hall as a building and as a piece of community infrastructure is working and how the design is supporting it. I think if you were to tell me that I had the opportunity to go back and change it, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what I would do differently.

And that’s rare, David, because there’s almost always something I would change. Well actually, I’ll give you one…I would have loved to do the second floor but we didn’t have the budget.

DH: Yes, me too.

TR: I remember fondly our many long meetings wrestling with these somewhat undefined needs of the building because we didn’t know exactly how its use would unfold. We had to fold in contingencies about how the building might respond to different possible use cases. We were not designing a gas station. We were designing a building – a purpose for which, as far as we knew, no other building has ever been designed to have, so there wasn’t a model. There were analogues. You could look at a public library and learn something, but it just wasn’t this. I think that it had the right amount of big-picture concept and there was also the right amount of imagining where people would sit, the kind of conversations they would be having, what kind of spaces we’d need to hold them, or not hold them, openness vs. closedness, and the ability for the building to change, learn, and adapt to the needs. We had doors to the outside which we weren’t sure we would need yet, so we framed them into the exterior without necessarily putting the door in yet. We had the giant garage door because we thought that some day we might want something really big to come in but we didn’t know what that was, and within months we had the not-yet-released Lamborghini drive in. We’ve used that garage door quite a bit since then! But I think we probably put our finger correctly on a lot of those more subtle choices.

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I nte ri or S tre e t, D ist rict Ha ll

DH: I heard there was a sound event where they were using the garage doors at various levels and heights to tune and shape the sound in the space, and I remember thinking to myself how that’s one of those things we didn’t anticipate, but the fact that people are being creative with the space is something we did want to have happen.

We wanted people to be able to work with the space and shape it, customizing it to fit whatever those needs would be whether it’s a conference or a networking event or a sound installation. It all seems to work. And we talked about District Hall as being an anchor or an identifier for the neighborhood. It’s kind of amazing how quickly it’s happened. For a small building that carries its weight, it just occupies such a completely different environment than when we first opened it. Did you think it would happen so fast?

TR: That was the surprise. It’s playing the role that we hoped in our wildest dreams it would play. But the fact that it would have 500 public events related to innovation in just its first year is remarkable. It is an impactful piece of public infrastructure. Not just a pretty picture.

DH: I think of you as an incredibly productive and energetic person which I respect and admire…how does your work life at CIC or with District Hall compare to your life at home? What is the kind of environment where you feel very productive? Is home an escape? Or is home an extension of your world in some way and would your wife agree with that?

TR: Great question. For my wife and I, our escape is travel and we both have always loved to travel. We try to get a fair amount of that in. Recently I’ve been expanding CIC to other parts of the country and now other countries, so I have more opportunity to do that which is great. We just finished a year-long renovation to our home which was far more intricate, if possible, than any of the work that I’ve done at work, but we’re really pleased with the outcome. We’re in a hundred-year-old home that we wanted to respect but also adapt to modern life and I think we achieved that. So when I come home, I have a sense of opening up. I have three kids, and I just couldn’t enjoy more the time I spend with my kids. My youngest was sick staying home from school yesterday and I had a little time in my calendar so I stayed with her and read Nancy Drew books together all morning. I consider myself to be a very fortunate person.

IT’S WORKING FANTASTICALLY. WE COULDN’T BE HAPPIER WITH THE WAY IN WHICH THE DESIGN IS SUPPORTING DISTRICT HALL.

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DH: One last off-the-wall question…What’s one fictional character that you relate to or identify with?

TR: Artemis Fowl. It’s a series of pre-teen focused books. Artemis is sort of a modernday Tom Swift. Artemis is this inventor. He’s got a wealthy businessman for a father and he’s an inventor and he has all these crazy hijinx where he discovers that there are beings…demons and fairies and things in the world that you can’t see normally, but he figures out how to see them and he starts to become allied with them, getting involved in fairy politics. For anyone who’s read them they’re really enjoyable. I like this idea of inventiveness, creativity, being a good person…although he breaks rules as well…he’s mostly hero but not completely a hero. So that’s probably my answer. What about you David?

DH: Tin-Tin was always my alter ego. I always imagined myself as Tin-Tin…traveling the world with my little dog. (laughs) TR: I read all his books! I never saw myself as Tin-Tin, but I can see that for you.

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CHARACTERS YOU’LL FIND AT DISTRICT HALL 1. The Startup Team The Startup Team takes advantage of all that District Hall has to offer: Free WiFi, meeting space, IdeaPaint’s writable walls, and an underlying currently of creativity.

2. The Networker In this environment, it’s easy for the networker to connect with creative and innovative people - they’re everywhere!

3. The Entrepreneur With meeting pods available for reservation and public collaboration spaces, the Entrepreneur finds it easy to brainstorm and refine ideas with a team.

4. The Pop-Up Shop Retailer The meeting pods seamlessly transform into pop-up shops, making it easy for the Pop-Up Shop Retailer to display his or her wares for passersby to see.

5. The Foodie Not everyone in District Hall is there to work; the Foodie ventures into the building to get a taste fo some of Boston’s best dining at Gather Restaurant.

6. The Fundraiser With a flexible assembly space configurable to suit a range of crowd sizes and catered by adjacent restaurant Gather, it’s a no-brainer for the Fundraiser to set up table here.

7. The Student Food? Free WiFi? Space for multiple people to meet? The Student knows that better study spots are nearly impossible to come by.

8. The Freelancer Writable walls for outlining or sketching provide the Freelancer with a convenient canvas, while WiFi makes creating, writing, blogging, or tweeting possible.

9. The Event Planner This is the ultimate venue for flexible indoor party planning, and the Seaport Boulevard patio provides the Event Planner with a stellar solution for a bustling outdoor event.

10. The Workaholic Open from 7am-2am weekdays, with food served until 11pm. Need we say more?

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THIS PAGE Writer’s loft at PJA www.agencypja.com © Chris Sanders BACK COVER FP3 Concept Home [Window graphic designed by Proverb] © Kent Dayton

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