Brian Jones: Hello, and welcome to As Built, the podcast from Graphicmachine about architecture firms, buildings, and how both get built. I am Brian Jones, your co-host. With me is Patience Jones, your other co-host. Thank you for joining us today. Our guest is Matthew Mueller, AIA. Matthew is a partner at PBDW Architects, an architecture firm based in New York City. Matthew, thank you for joining us.
Matthew Mueller: Thanks, Brian. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.
Brian Jones: You have been with PBDW for nearly 25 of the firm’s 60 years. During that time, you've risen in the firm from junior designer to partner. What has been the most surprising thing about transitioning into a leadership role?
Matthew Mueller: Thanks again for having me. This is great. I love these kinds of conversations. I think probably the most surprising thing was learning how little architecture school prepares you for the business of architecture. I mean, aside from, you know, learning how to win jobs and how to craft a proposal, how to negotiate a fee, just the leadership aspect of it is something that takes a lot of time to learn.
I've had great mentors in my career, and I think emulating them is kind of how you learn it. I mean, I definitely learned how to stay up late in architecture school. It’s a good skill. But I think what's important, or what I feel is important as a leader, is commitment to thought of architecture all the time.
There are a lot of things that take time to learn, but there's a lot of talk right now about work-life balance, right? That's something that's on the mind of everyone. I think it's important. Jeff Bezos, who I don't admire for many things, but there is something that he said that resonated with me. He spoke about how he doesn't like the idea of work-life balance, or how that's framed. He talks more about work-life harmony. I think the reason that he doesn't like work-life balance is that there seems to be this kind division between the two, like they don't overlap or they don't have a relationship.
To me, architecture is maybe one of the few professions that you constantly experience the thing that you're trying to create: space, place and human experience within that. For me, I find it very hard to separate work and life because I'm experiencing what I'm creating. That's critical to embody and embrace. So I think that as a leader, you have to accept that your day doesn't end at six, and, you know, 40 hours a week is probably not enough. You have to live it, you have to embrace it and embody it. That's one of the things that I think took me some time to understand and it's part of who I've been for a long time. I think that I had to learn how to kind of hone that and craft that.
Patience Jones: At this point in history, staying with one firm for a long period of time is not typical. What did the firm do early on in your career that kept you engaged?
Matthew Mueller: This firm, PBDW, we're celebrating our 60th year, which is a long time. The firm has been pretty much the size that it's been for quite some time. We're a mid-sized practice, which has ranged from 20 to, I think at one point the peak was about 50. That was pretty rare, but we are in the 25 realm for quite some time. What I like about that is that it allows us to all know each other. There's a lot of trust and a lot of collaboration that happens across the studio, and we've never been broken up into specific studios for specific sectors. The way we operate is allowing everyone to have their hands and thoughts in many different project types. I think that's one thing that's kept people here for a long time. We have a lot of people that have been with us for a number of years and it's something that kept me here.
I think the other thing was that the mentality has always been to teach the architects how to build a building. It's one of the main reasons that I came to PBDW. I was doing a lot of design work prior to my time here, and I wasn't getting my hands into the details of how to construct a building. I came here with the intention to learn that and this firm has had really great mentorship in that regard. Learning was what was important, and I find that's what keeps people here. And again, with the project diversity, it's keeps them interested in many different things. There's no pigeonholing. You're generally on a project from the beginning to the end, and I think that's ideal for becoming a holistic architect.
Brian Jones: The firm is mission-driven, drawing on history and context to inform design decisions. How does that mindset apply to the way the firm is structured in mentoring and project staffing?
Matthew Mueller: It kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier about allowing the staff to, number one, voice what they're interested in specifically. Everyone comes with their own experience, background interest, so we like to try to align their interests with the projects that we're working on. And because we do have a diverse set of types of project typologies, I think we have a lot to offer in that regard. That's always been kind of the MO here at PBDW: allowing them to be part of the things they're interested in, often working on one or two things at the same time, two different projects at the same time that might be very different from each other.
We have a lot of people in the office that have different professional experience or technical experience. For instance, we have a strong preservation background and a lot of what we do is in New York with existing buildings. So, we pull from that knowledge of the team members who are well-versed in preservation techniques and old building design.
We cross-collaborate on projects throughout the office, so it allows everyone to collaborate and learn from each other in a way that I think if you're broken up into different studios, doesn't necessarily allow, so it's been a strength in people learning in the mentorship format, and seeing projects all the way through really does add to that knowledge base over time too.
You were asking me earlier about becoming a leader in what surprised me. I think part of the culture and architecture in the past has been to kind of be gatekeepers of certain information, you know? Of clients, of contracts, or just how the business runs. And I think now we're finding that it's beneficial to kind of open that up more so that more team members can understand how to run a business, how to talk to a client - having everyone involved in every process from the beginning to the end to talk with contractors, to understand construction methodologies. This is really important. It's what we love.
Patience Jones: PBDW is pretty firmly rooted in New York City. The firm does not currently have multiple locations. The work is primarily focused in the New York region. What influenced and continues to influence the commitment to one location?
Matthew Mueller: I think primarily it's construction. We like to be involved in construction and construction administration. We have had projects outside of New York City. We're trying to branch out a little bit, but I think what keeps us here and really deeply rooted here is that we are connected to the site and the work that we do. To be able to go there and solve problems with the contractor and see the work done is a big learning experience for everyone. And it's also just a way to ensure that quality of what we get done, of what gets built is there. We've had some experiences where we've been design architects and someone has taken over in another location. The construction documents and the construction administration, it just doesn't quite come out exactly how you want it. I think our love of that phase and seeing the work done well is really important to us. And I think it's important to many of our clients and we have a lot of repeat clients that we have repeat work with. That's what keeps us here.
Brian Jones: How has technology changed the way your firm practices?
Matthew Mueller: I think lately the biggest change has been the scanning technologies that are there now. You know, the 3D point clouds, we do work in a lot of existing buildings, so what's been very beneficial that I've been finding is getting up existing conditions. 3D scanning a company in early to fully scan and then document the building in Revit, we get a BIM model delivered to us to start, rather than CAD files that you have to then go back and reconfirm. The other thing that's really nice is that there's these viewing programs that take the point cloud or take the scans and then you're able to go back to the site at any time without actually physically going back there. It cuts down a lot of travel time and back and forth going to the site. You've probably been there: you go there to the site and you take a bunch of photos and you come back to the office and you're like, oh, that's that one photo that I just didn't get. But with this, you can go back and you can look at just about every nook and cranny that the scanner picked up. I think that's one of the things that's changed our workflow a little bit. Clients now tend to not push back; it's really not that expensive now. It's pretty easy. It doesn't take a lot of time, so it's kind of a no-brainer at this point. At least for us, we talk about the advantage of that, and I think the clients get it.
Patience Jones: You've held multiple roles at PBDW over the course of your career, and we talked about that a little bit. How do those experiences impact how you look at building up young professionals?
Matthew Mueller: I always try to remember what it felt like to be stepping into the first office experience. I think having experienced pretty much every phase of my career from junior architect to partner in one office and in one culture has helped me just sort of understand what every phase of career can look like. I do think that staying in one place for a good amount of time is very beneficial for any young employee who's trying to learn the business and then learn the process of architecture. It takes time to do a project. We're not a tech company where your projects are done within a month or two. It takes at least a year, two years, sometimes. One of my longest projects took eight years to finish. Just sticking with it and working through that process, I think is the key to understanding how to be a well-rounded architect. And experiencing those roles in one firm I think was a good way to do that. It's not for everybody, but I've loved it, where I've been and where I've been going. I took a lot of ownership in that and I feel like now it's my turn to help the younger generation have that good experience as well.
Brian Jones: PBDW partners are also practicing architects. How do you balance the running of the firm with the work you do on projects?
Matthew Mueller: That’s one of the - I guess I don't know if it's very unique, but we hear that it's pretty unique. It's important to us because it's very important to our clients that we're involved. I think they like to know that our years of experience can be trusted, you know, to be involved in the project. For us, it's always been a very important part of our practice. It's difficult for sure. It's difficult to find the time, but I think the way we've developed our culture here, people stick around here. [Clients] know they've worked here for a long time, so there's actually a very large amount of trust that we have in our staff. Developing that trust in our people allows us to not have our finger on everything. You know, one of my mentors, Ray Dovell, one of the founding partners, he always told us: as partners, keep a little bit of something for yourself to work on that you'd like in the project. And we try to do that. But we can't do everything, obviously. We have people that we really trust that can manage the projects and we still make sure that the clients understand that we're there and that we're following and we have really good communication within the studio to ensure that we're involved. It is a difficult balance, but you know, we'd love to do the work, as I said, and we feel it's an important part of what we do.
Patience Jones: One of the things that struck me throughout our conversation so far is the thoughtfulness and intentionality that runs through the entire firm. I'm very impressed by that, and I think it's probably what has led to this very special place. How difficult is it to adhere to that intentionality when you're dealing with day to day?
Matthew Mueller: Well, we're probably not perfect that regard.
Patience Jones: No one is.
Matthew Mueller: I think we've gotten to the point now where we can be a little selective in the work that we take on. Part of it is selection, but it's also how clients are attracted to what we do or the particularity of what we do. You know, we're very contextual in our design. And that that was rooted, I believe, in a lot of our experience with working on projects within landmark districts. I don't know if you're familiar with the Landmarks Preservation Commission here in New York City. There are public hearings that you have to attend to get projects approved and deemed what they call “appropriate.” For historic districts and whether that's a new building or an old, or an addition to an existing building or a preservation of an existing building in a historic district, you have to get that approval from them.
So we've gotten pretty good, and I think the mindset of our practice has been to be contextual in almost everything we do. And that attracts a certain client, I think, and that kind of intentionality that you were speaking about, it comes from that mentality, and I think that it's a thread through what we do.
Patience Jones: One of your projects, 20 Times Square, is a very intricate, multi-purpose project with lots of competing requirements in a very public setting.
Matthew Mueller: Yes.
Patience Jones: How did you establish communication within the project to achieve the outcome that the client wanted?
Matthew Mueller: Yeah, that's a good question. That was the eight-year project I was talking about.
Patience Jones: It all comes full circle.
Matthew Mueller: Yes. I think as I look back, I was trying to remember how many consultants we had on that job. It was probably working with about 20 different consultants, between all the major base building consultants that you have: mechanical, electoral, plumbing, structural, geotech. There was the hotel team, which was made up of Ian Schrager's group, and if you're familiar with Ian Schrager, he's one of the pioneers of the boutique hotel in New York City and beyond. He had his designers, he had his interior designers, we had an interior architect. We had two different landscape architects, two different lighting designers. A boatload of a lot of different people and everyone had their own priorities. I think for me, I had to kind of understand who the major decision-makers were, who were the people that, beyond the client that we worked for, who I need to talk to to make sure that we're achieving the goals of all those people.
And then reading the room. I think I honed that talent pretty well through that project. You know, you're sort of a sitting in a master class in that. I suppose you're sitting in a room of 20 people in the meetings and you're trying to really gauge what we're trying to solve and which takes priority over the other. I think that's really an important thing to understand and it's a craft that takes time to develop.
And then I treat everyone's voice with respect. I mean, I think that's how I approach my work generally. You know, I really like to work with clients that are diverse in their group. And it's interesting to hear the opinions of the CEO or the person that's running the company, but also the person that's going to be working in the building, down to the maintenance staff or the building engineer. It's always interesting to get their perspectives and try to solve the problems that they're trying to solve. And I like to listen to those opinions and perspectives and I think that's key to kind of, we call it herding the cats or dressing the squirrels to try to get to the finish line. I think that those are kind of the tactics that I employ on a project like that. That's good advice to this day.
Connect with Matthew:
https://www.pbdw.com/matthew-mueller
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewhmueller/
