Design

Flat is the new normal.

January 10, 2023

“Mass-market production and the commodification of housing has led to a ‘flattening’ of design into a limited set of bland, homogeneous options” writes Diana Ionescu for Planetizen.

Once upon a time, houses used to have unique features. Today, if you drive around any American city, you’ll see neighborhoods full of cookie cutter homes and rows of surprisingly similar, cheaply constructed apartment blocks. Architecture critic Mark Lamster, from Dallas Morning News, writes: “To call this ‘architecture’ is an insult to the art. Rather, think of these buildings as spreadsheets bumped up to three dimensions.” He calls this “The Flattening, a gradual draining of character from just about every corner of our lives.”

How did this happen? Cookie cutter suburbs are not new, but the trend seems to have accelerated. The status of houses has changed from family home to commodity. This has led to their design being driven purely by economics. Builders who want to appeal to a wide range of buyers, to embrace the demand for greater efficiency and to use the cheapest materials available, now favour quantity over quality and character.

Will this shift be kind to us in the long run? We think not.

For economic and sustainable reasons, we need to shift our focus to long-term growth of cities. This means designing and building a variety of housing types for the ever-increasing variety of family types. And it also means designing and building to improve our cities, making them delightful places to live, not flattening them.

Read the Planetizen article here or the original Dallas Morning News article here.

Image by BrianScantlebury licensed by Canva

Dump it Right There.

October 19, 2022

In 1992 Julie Bargmann founded D.I.R.T (Dump It Right There) studio, a landscape architecture firm in Charlottesville, VA. She set out to focus on regenerating contaminated and forgotten urban and post industrial sites. Early on, one of the studio’s first major projects catapulted her work into the spotlight and became the early poster child for D.I.R.T.

The Vintondale Reclamation Park, a 25 acre park on a former coal mine near Pittsburgh, was designed in collaboration with an artist, an historian and a hydrogeologist. An acid-polluted stream was diverted into a series of six pools, where limestone, engineered soil, and plants leeched toxins out of the water. Vintondale became a model for bioremediation and was featured in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Triennial.

Many other projects have followed, like Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the abandoned Navy Yard in Philadelphia, transformed with pathways, lawns, and dog parks. Julie won a 2014 Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects for this project. Or Core City Park in Detroit, a collaboration with Philip Kafka of Prince Concepts, converting an abandoned parking lot into a public park. Completed in April 2019 this project was featured in Landscape Architecture magazine.

While studying at Harvard, Julie came under the wing and influence of Michael Van Valkenburgh. “Her energy and enthusiasm made her stand out”, he recalled, and she later worked in his firm. She was also influenced by Frederick Law Olmsted, the 19th century architect of Central Park, and Robert Smithson, the artist-designer known for “Spiral Jetty,” a large-scale earthwork sculpture in Utah.

Julie is a professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia, and was named Professor Emerita this past summer (2022) after teaching there since the 1990s. In 2021 she was named Innovator of the Year by Architectural Record and that same year was awarded the inaugural Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (described as the landscape architecture equivalent of a Pritzker Prize). In 2001 she won a National Design Award for Environmental Design, and in 2007 was awarded the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Urban Edge Award. She was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome for Landscape Architecture in 1990, and a United States Artists Fellow in 2008. She was named as one of the most influential people of the 21st century by CNN and Time Magazine.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:07] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone.

Eve: [00:00:42] Meet Julie Bargmann, the inaugural recipient of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. This prize has been described as the landscape architecture equivalent of a Pritzker Prize, so it’s a really big deal. What makes this most exciting is the work that is being honored. In 1992, Julie founded Dirt Studio, which stands for Dump It Right There. She was intent on regenerating contaminated and forgotten urban and post-industrial sites. And it all began near Pittsburgh at the Vintondale Reclamation Park, a 25-acre park on a former coal mine. The end result became the early poster child of her business, a model for bioremediation that was featured in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Triennial. Today, she is often referred to as the fairy godmother of industrial wastelands, as she crafts amazing new landscapes out of the contaminated and toxic sites she works on. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:01:59] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:20] Julie, it’s really an incredible honor to have you on my show today. Thank you for joining me.

Julie Bargmann: [00:02:25] Yes, I am honored. I love that you chose a landscape architect to enter into this realm of speaking about real estate. I’m actually quite passionate about it in terms of what landscape architecture’s role is within it.

Eve: [00:02:41] So, you know, I agree with you. And too often I think architects think about landscape as an afterthought, but it should really be an integral part of building and design. Absolutely, absolutely. So, I’m going to start by saying you studied to be an artist. So, where did your fascination with degraded and toxic landscapes begin?

Julie: [00:03:05] Well, I often tell the story of driving with my, riding in a station wagon down the New Jersey Turnpike and being completely fascinated by the refineries. I don’t know what it was. It was just kind of this perverse attraction, wondering, like, what is going on there and who’s working in there and what’s it like in there? So, I think that was a little kernel of it. And then I just kept finding myself attracted to working landscapes and working cities. So, off I went to Pittsburgh to study sculpture at Carnegie Mellon, and I love that city. I just, when I was there, the steel mills were still along the rivers. They were still belching smoke. It still smelled, which I thought was great, was all part of it. As an artist, I actually went into the steel mills because I wanted to see how they worked and who was working there, and I think that really did it. I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life. When later I discovered what landscape architecture was and that I could be kind of venturing into all these different types of landscapes, that was it. And not that landscape architecture at the point was kind of working in working landscapes, but I was kind of determined to do that.

Eve: [00:04:39] Yeah, but there’s a lot of very precious landscape architecture out there and what you’ve. And I think you really work in some of the worst and most toxic landscapes to be found. What about that is really interesting to you?

Julie: [00:04:56] Well, I think, first of all, I think the range that I like to be clear about with my work is that it does go to the biggest and the baddest, to the toxic, but also to the degraded. That is part of the kind of repertoire of industry. Right. It can be wicked and sometimes it can be kind of, quote unquote, inert but still impactful, you know. And the toxic ones, for a long time, I did projects with the EPA, and I was working on Superfund sites, which are the sites that are designated as kind of the biggest and the baddest. I think what I brought to that, which was completely unknown right then by the EPA for years and maybe to date, is the kind of cultural and social aspect of these landscapes. You know, they were totally focused on the remediation, right? The quote unquote, cleaning up of these landscapes. But I was like, well, come on, there’s kind of more to it than that. There are generations that still live around these sites whose grandfather probably died, black lung. And so, there are connections there. And I actually stopped working with the EPA because I just felt like I was being in my head against a wall where it was difficult to integrate that kind of factor. They always felt an enormous amount of urgency in kind of doing the fix and getting out of there versus actually engaging the community in what might be an incremental regeneration of that site. So, they’re quite myopic.

Eve: [00:06:45] Yeah, it sounds like they’re focused on fixing a problem, whereas what you saw was a future asset, really, for the community.

Julie: [00:06:54] Correct? Yeah. I don’t know if you remember way back to spell check.

Eve: [00:06:58] Oh, yes.

Julie: [00:06:59] Yeah. When I used to type in remediation, it would say correcting a fault. And then if you type in regeneration, it says creating a new. And I was like, Boom, that’s it. I’m never going to use the word remediation anymore because that’s not what this work should necessarily be about.

Eve: [00:07:20] So, I read somewhere that the Vintondale Reclamation Park, which is actually it’s a 35-acre site near Pittsburgh, was pivotal. But I’d love to know why.

Julie: [00:07:31] Well, you know, at the time I was really, really interested in this work. I did, as part of my academic research, because that’s around the time I started teaching. I did a tour around the United States just to kind of get a sense of what was going on. And I got this call, kind of out of the blue to join this team to work on Eve: Vintondale and. Well, actually to work on acid mine drainage, right. Which is the by-product of coal mining. And we were looking for to actually look at prototypes and models for, you can imagine, there are so many towns, post mining towns, former mining towns, that are plagued by acid mine drainage. So, to be on this team was my dream come true. There’s multidisciplinary. There was an artist, hydrogeologist, historian, who I, historians I love, you know, scientists, too. I love them too. And the community involved and AmeriCorps volunteers. It was just this collective effort to look at basically making the transformation of acid mine drainage visible, not behind a fence. You know, let the community know. One of the by-products, too, is yellow boy. Yellow boy is yellow boy. This is what it is. And this is you being a part of the next evolution of that landscape.

Julie: [00:09:14] Much like I was saying with the EPA in terms of trying to advocate for the community to be involved and not even maybe intensely involved, but at least a participant or a witness to what was going on in terms of the transformation here of acid mine drainage. That was, to me, a breakthrough in projects. And for me, it was a breakthrough in landscape architecture. This coincided, by the way, with a lot of the great projects that are in the Ruhr Valley of Germany. So, what we did was, in essence, make that science visible so that they could say, oh, I get it. You know, the acid, mine drainage is coming from mine number one, and it’s going through this system, and it’s coming out as biologically rich and being drained back into the streams. So, I basically, I call it an ecological washing machine. And that’s what was right near a bike trail. So, lots of folks are able to see it and nicely enough, it remains a model for the region.

Eve: [00:10:29] Interesting. So, when you work on a project like this, how does your work begin? Where does the inspiration come from?

Julie: [00:10:36] Oh, the history. Absolutely. Every time. Every time it’s the history of the site, which means the history of the people there. I just can never think about starting a project without really knowing what happened there before, because I feel that you cannot really propose anything about the future of the site unless you know it’s past, because it is all part of an evolution. It makes the process inclusive. It’s what I was thinking about in terms of private development, infusing the public in it for the public good. It’s the history. It’s the history. The history levels the playing field in terms of everyone who’s working on a project, because there’s a bigger story and a bigger picture. I feel that we want to be responsible to.

Eve: [00:11:35] So, is there an example of a project where the history took you in an unexpected direction or.

Julie: [00:11:43] Well, oh man. I guess I flash right to Detroit and I’m working with a wonderful, wonderful young developer there. And he is doing amazing things of investing in the public realm in the neighborhood, along with his private developments. And it was our like our I call it our first date. We just, I just came out and I was like, okay, you know, let’s look at the site. And we’re standing in front of like a blank, seemingly blank, parking lot covered with concrete. And he said, what would you do? And I knew that there was a historic engine house that was there. And I was like, Hmm. And it was raised in the seventies. And I was like, Hmm. I think that’s when they pushed, you know, the buildings into their basements. And I turned to him, and I said, dig. And he went. Okay. And he had a front-end loader there the next day. And I just was crossing my fingers about what would come up because I wanted to, I thought about integrating it into this public park, this community park we are making. And sure enough, beautiful redstone came up to make these, kind of, scattered little terraces. And then one day up came a giant piece of sandstone that said 1893 on it.

Eve: [00:13:22] Oh, wow.

Julie: [00:13:23] I was like, Oh. I was both very happy and very relieved. I was like, That’s it, that’s it. We found it. We found the material evidence of that history, and the park suddenly became actually quite old. I can’t tell you. I just got goose bumps again. I do every time when I think about it. The developer, he tells the story to everyone and the story kind of spreads. And everyone is knowing an essential part of history of their neighborhood, of Core city. That was unexpected and wonderful.

Eve: [00:13:58] That does sound wonderful. Is this the developer who’s working on the Caterpillar housing?

Julie: [00:14:03] Yes.

Eve: [00:14:04] Very unusual architecture as well. Quonset huts, right?

Julie: [00:14:09] Yes. He is having some architects do a little twist on Quonset huts because he wants to take something that’s very affordable and make beautiful spaces that are not terribly expensive so that they’re accessible for more folks. So, he’s quite adventurous that way and he, I just feel like, you know, his name is Philip Kafka, has his heart so much in the right place. I mean his, the proportion of like, I can’t remember, he loves trees, and I can’t remember what number he’s up to. But he’s very proud of the number of trees that he’s planted in Core City. For instance, the caterpillar. I think we planted 200, maybe 300. I can’t remember. He goes 200 trees and eight units. That’s how he thinks of it.

Eve: [00:15:04] Do you find that you need to educate people on this? Because this makes me think immediately of the people around where I live who are who are mowing down enormous old historic trees.

Julie: [00:15:17] Yeah.

Eve: [00:15:18] Because they want a flat piece of land to build their house on. But the tree seems to be the most valuable asset they have. I don’t understand it.

Julie: [00:15:27] Absolutely. I mean, everyone is quite used to a tabula rasa. You know, it’s the kind of easiest way to go. And that’s why, you know, again, I want to emphasize history of the site. Right? The trees are very much that history of the site. And you can’t replace that history, you know? Right. You just can’t. I mean, some history is buried underground like that park in Cork City, and some is just looming large, you know. And so, this is where I constantly go back to history, and I constantly go back to telling stories. Because most people like stories. And most people like to be part of a story. And that’s basically the form of education. Like I’m flashing to working with Ford Motor Company on the River Rouge plant and it took telling the story about the Coke ovens, which they wanted to wipe out. One, say we did our homework and said, you know, that part of it is toxic, that part is not, you know.

Julie: [00:16:41] So we did that homework, the environmental homework. And then when we did the history, we were reminding them that they were looking at a piece of incredible history of this Rouge River plant being the first manufacturing plant in the world. In the world. You know, so it occurred to us and they kind of came to that that was too important a story. You know, it was just too rich and too significant to so many people, so many generations that worked at Fords, they called it Fords, to obliterate. And they didn’t have to. They didn’t really have to. And that was the education part, too. You know, I called it homework and I found that, you know, especially as a woman, I needed to kill them with knowledge and just say, hey.

Eve: [00:17:48] Was it easy?

Julie: [00:17:50] Sometimes more than other. I have to say, I even changed my tone. You know, I think early on I was pretty insistent. And then, I think I was more empathetic, you know, to the folks who were really dealing with the EPA, and.

Eve: [00:18:05] Yes.

Julie: [00:18:06] And a lot of pressure to remediate. And I encourage them, I’m like, come on, let’s talk about this. Let’s show them a careful mapping. Because they didn’t know how to map. You know, they showed the flow diagram of the coke ovens, and we did another map of it and said, look, you know, this is the part that’s harmful. So, we need to deal with it in another way and this other stuff we can deal in another way. So, you don’t need a tabula rasa. You can have your cake, your coke ovens and you’re, there We put remediation fields and remediation gardens, which they just loved, you know, they just whew. You know, they put it on their website in all caps, you know?

Eve: [00:18:49] Yeah. Well, it tells an amazing story. When you work on a very large project, what does your team look like?

Julie: [00:18:58] Oh, wow. Well, sometimes I work with another landscape architect. A DIRT studio is modeled after an artist’s studio. So, the most folks I’ve had been working with me is maybe five. So, if it’s a really large project, I need, I look for a bit more firepower and so, that’s really fun working with another landscape architect. Always engineers are on there, and I think more unusually, is getting scientists on the team. I always insist about that. Like when we’re starting and the client, I’m like, no, we need this scientist. Which they, you know, they didn’t know would be at all necessary. And like I said earlier, I, which is really unusual for a client to hear, is to have a historian on the project. And then when I’m talking about like scientists, too, it’s just not even kind of like one type of scientist, soil scientist, wildlife biologist, you know, that when I had a phytoremediation scientist. And it’s, I have to tell you, it is so wonderful. I mean, my learning curve is always like vertical, you know, on these projects by bringing in. Yeah.

Eve: [00:20:22] Fabulous. So, you know, you’ve done a really broad range of projects. Like there’s some for retail clients and…

Julie: [00:20:31] Yes.

Eve: [00:20:31] …some remediation. What are some examples of the project you’ve taken on, what they were and what they became?

Julie: [00:20:40] The most kind of in a way obvious, because they’re out there, retail client was Urban Outfitters. And, with Urban Outfitters it was really interesting. They were moving from Rittenhouse Square into tight little quarters out to what was really at the time the hinterlands of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. And, you know, I worked very, very closely with the founder, Dick Kayne, which was a blessing and a curse. He’s quite something, but we got along famously. And for a project that was coming from some folks that are so aesthetically based to be kind of more, more like historically based and environmentally based was, you know, that was a challenge. I, quite frankly, learned at some point not to even talk about what I was doing, what I was proposing in terms of history and the environment. It just wasn’t of enormous interest to them. You know, as I say, I snuck sustainability out in the back door and.

Eve: [00:21:59] I hope he’s not listening.

Julie: [00:22:01] Oh, that’s OK. Dick is so cool, you know, he won’t mind. He knows I love him. We used to speak our secret language of Latin, of plants because he loved plants. So, we just got along great. And he was cool, he just was like, Yeah, bring it on. And he never really asked that many questions. There was an amazing amount of trust between us, and that’s something that I can’t speak enough about is, as you probably know from projects, that trust is enormous. And so, with the Urban Project, there wasn’t an enormous amount of remediation that needed to be done. Some lead soils had to be dealt with. And, you know, lead is tricky, man. So, they didn’t want to go through the process of other types of remediation. So, one okay way of dealing with it is actually to encapsulate it. So, it was encapsulated.

Julie: [00:23:04] But the big thing with Urban Outfitters that was tricky was when it was going into like phase four and being built around the historic dry dock that was right in the center of this gorgeous, you know, water body from way back when for the huge ships. I found myself in that precarious place of kind of, I say, I always kind of say, defending the public realm within a private enterprise. That’s when I have to say, I think design gets really tricky, you know, because there was really kind of like a teetering point where literally something that we would do, we were forming, would feel too private, you know. And how is it that we could make this campus that was private, but parts of it could be shared? So that’s, I have to say, a big deal.

Eve: [00:24:04] It’s like pushing against a gated community, right?

Julie: [00:24:07] Yeah. So, I mean, I have to say, that’s what I feel like in landscape architecture, because we’re dealing with ground, and I know this is the case in most development and I’ve had projects where, I’m just realizing I’m picturing a good old fax I sent sometime where it said I quit. Because, you know, the commitment to the public realm wasn’t there, you know, which I’m learning from working with Kafka in, you know, in Detroit is so essential. Maybe I knew it intuitively. So essential in terms of building that quality of common ground that then makes sense for the individual happily living in their private abode. So, yeah.

Eve: [00:25:00] That probably touches on my next question. You’ve written about the overlap between poor and minority communities and contaminated soils, and I certainly know of that. I mean, I have to ask, how and why did that happen and how do we fix it? Why is it that poor and minority communities have had the brunt of this mess, basically?

Julie: [00:25:23] You think about industries and how they would kind of most conveniently cite themselves, you know, and when industries were getting up and running before all the environmental legislation starting in 1973, when you think about it, my God, that’s not that long ago. You know, most of the industries started up then, you know, they were looking for floodplains to discharge all of their nasty stuff and they were looking at a lot of land that did not have a lot of value to have people be downwind and downstream from nasty stuff. So, poor soils, poor people, they go together. I mean, it’s just a thing to be conscious of now, which I think a lot of folks are.

Julie: [00:26:14] I mean, there is the kind of whole movement of environmental justice. Industries are being held accountable. I like to think that, you know, the ground that we live on is, and work on, is becoming more just. And I think it is, I think I like to think it is. I should say it should be because I think folks are much more aware. If you asked somebody what a Superfund site was, you know, what, ten years ago, 15 years ago, they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. The level of environmental awareness has just gone up so high. But the next thing is the action to enforce it and act upon it. And I don’t think that most folks, in what the things that they’re proposing, you know, you look at developers working in Richmond, or any working city and their projects are going to be scrutinized. Yeah.

Eve: [00:27:18] Yeah, I think that’s true. So, there’s been a definite shift, but I always wonder whether it’s still too easy to forget about the poor communities. And you know, and if sufficient funds are being deployed to make those contaminated lands into assets there. Someone has to start a project, right. They have to have the funds to start it and I don’t think that’s equitable yet.

Julie: [00:27:48] Right. So, for instance, you know, I’m flashing back to Detroit where I’ve done these projects and I’m thinking about how, you know, and you probably know about some of these Eve, these deals are being struck with developers where it’s like, okay, we’ll sell you this land, you know, but you’re also going to be responsible for this land, which will be, you have to make something there to benefit the existing, often poor, community. I’m optimistic about initiatives like that. It’s kind of, or it is, forcing developers who I think could very well be just carpetbaggers, you know, in a disinvested, deep populated city like Detroit to make them more civic minded.

Julie: [00:28:49] I was running around Detroit with the former Planning Director Morris Cox. And there’s one man there who’s planting a bunch of tree farms. And I was kind of disgusted, as much as I love trees. And Maurice asked me, he goes, What’s the problem? And I said, I know it maybe improves the quality, the value of the land here, but who is it doing that for and what at all about tt is civic? You know, I’m like, where are the trees along the street where are the. And I just, I kind of went on my rant to just dissect it for what public good a private enterprise was doing, you know? And he was like, oh, and I said, you should insist. You should insist that, yeah, the city will sell you this land, but you need to do this and this for the public realm.

Eve: [00:30:00] I always thought there was just a little bit of a problem with our political structure because someone who has some power to make these decisions may have been an insurance agent in a past life. They don’t necessarily have any training on landscape or architecture or urban design or how to make better civic places. And they’re really given enormous power to control what happens in those places.

Julie: [00:30:28] Yeah.

Eve: [00:30:29] That’s a shame.

Julie: [00:30:31] I’m sorry, did you say planning folks?

Eve: [00:30:35] Well, planning folks are a little bit better because to be a planning person, you’ve got to have some background in planning. No, I’m thinking like a mayor or someone on city council who has.

Julie: [00:30:45] Oh, my God,

Eve: [00:30:46] The power to make a vote and doesn’t really have any of the necessary education or understanding, right?

Julie: [00:30:53] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I have to jump in here to, I mean, I’m so excited to say this because I always say, like, I have a huge crush on mayors, you know, and that happened from being part of the Mayor’s Institute on City Design.

Eve: [00:31:08] Oh, yes.

Julie: [00:31:10] And I was on many sessions and blah, blah, blah, but regional and national and I just think they’re brilliant. I just really think, you know, having been in there and, you know, just one on one or just the mayors, you know, talking about a specific project, but some more in general. Just everyone I know, I saw that light bulb go up above their head and they were like, we are the architect of this city. You know, if we can’t make an informed decision, we better surround ourselves themselves with somebody who could help them. Yeah.

Eve: [00:31:52] That’s a great outcome.

Julie: [00:31:54] Yeah.

Eve: [00:31:54] So, I want to ask you about this incredible honor that’s been bestowed on you. You’re the first inaugural laureate for the Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. It’s not just National, it’s international.

Julie: [00:32:10] Yeah.

Eve: [00:32:11] What does that mean to you?

Julie: [00:32:13] Well, it means a lot to me, obviously, but I can’t not be. But for me, it’s what it means to the discipline, my discipline. And that has to do with, I think, what I might represent. And that is, much like Cornelia Oberlander, who it’s named for, I decided I could take risks and I wanted to take risks. I had the advantage of teaching, so I always say I was kept by the university. But what I found is that there was something that the jury was saying in terms of the value of having a critical practice, not a commercial one, having one that was going to get out there. And the other thing was to influence a good many students after 27 years of teaching. So, that was heartening to me about receiving the prize. I’m just enormously proud, and I’m enormously proud of my discipline. You know, I’m hoping that what my getting the prize communicates is for people to go ahead, you know, be fearless, kick some ass, you know, just do it. Don’t be afraid. Yeah.

Eve: [00:33:31] So, I have to ask you, is there anyone following in your footsteps? Anyone who’s coming up young in the ranks, who’s fearless, doing really interesting things?

Julie: [00:33:42] Yeah, there are former students who are doing it. I even swell up with pride right now. My former associate, David Hill, of Hill Works is just doing some amazing projects. He’s based in Auburn, Alabama. And another former student, and also a dear friend of an architect, I’ve known her since she was nine years old, Maura Rockcastle and Ross Altheimer with TEN x TEN architects, Chloe Hawkins. Nicely enough, I think I can list a good number of folks. And also I think that I have kind of a solidarity, a group that is kind of a support group, I think of Kate Orff. Kate is absolutely fantastic and she’s doing unbelievable work and I can’t think of names right now. They’re out there, and I just know that, you know, there are a lot of emails that just say, you go girl, you know?

Eve: [00:34:46] And so, you got a little bit of prize money. What do you plan to do with that?

Julie: [00:34:50] Oh, okay. Well, I’m looking outside at my Bambi. My Airstream, Bambi. She’s named Cornelia. And she and I are going to take that cross-country trip that I took, it will be what’s 1993? What is the arithmetic? But it’s a lot of time. That mining tour that I told you about. So, I want to do that again. I want to stop at DIRT projects along the way, see how they’re doing, you know, visit with the old pals that I built it with. Hit some more Rust Belt cities. I have a project in Pittsburgh to stop at. And, you know, I think I’m just going to keep going west and look at some big holes in the ground again. I liked them.

Eve: [00:35:45] So, I’ll be really interested to see what comes out of them.

Julie: [00:35:50] Yeah, I hope so. The Cultural Landscape Foundation who has bestowed the prize, I’m hoping they will put together some sort of blog or some sort of something, you know, of my time on the road. That’d be fun.

Eve: [00:36:07] Well, I really, thoroughly enjoyed talking with you. Your work is fabulous, and I can’t thank you enough. And I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Julie: [00:36:18] Thanks. Great. Thank you.

Eve: [00:36:21] Okay.

Julie: [00:36:22] It’s been a privilege.

Eve: [00:36:30] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive together. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. If you like what you heard, you can support this podcast by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media, or leaving a rating and review. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing, head on over to smallchange.co, where I spend most of my time. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Julie Bargmann

Cultural Commentary.

October 5, 2022

Although her focus at school was art history, Allison Arieff initially landed squarely in the publishing world. After an editorial stint at Chronicle Books, she began her well-known tenure at Dwell magazine, in 2000, she was a founding Senior Editor, but she soon took over the reins as Editor-in-Chief, from 2002 to 2006. During her tenure, the design and architecture magazine won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence (2005), and by that point it had already become a ubiquitous read for an emergent design aficionado community, rekindling a design lifestyle boom for the 21st century, lightly centered around a contemporary California-style modernism.

Following this, Allison was an opinion writer for The New York Times for almost a decade and a half, where she dealt with issues such the lack of female representation in architecture, the rapid rate at which home square footage is increasing, and the need for more inclusive cities. She also wrote about design, architecture and cities for CityLab (at Bloomberg). During this period Allison also worked for nine years as Editorial Director for the urban planning and policy think tank, SPUR (San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association). Originally born out of the 1910 SF earthquake as the San Francisco Housing Association (SFHA) it eventually grew to incorporate urban planning, land management, transportation, along with the appropriate name change. Using research, education and advocacy, they focus on issues such as housing, transportation, sustainability, food access and more.

In 2018, Allison was awarded the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary. She has lectured at Stanford University, The New School, Pratt, and the University of California, Berkeley, and has published three books: Prefab (2002), Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America (2002), Spa (2004). Prefab, her first and next known book, explores the history and innovative potential of prefabricated housing – a side gig Dwell actually explored long after her departure.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve: [00:00:41] Allison Arieff was lucky enough to help launch Dwell magazine, first as founding senior editor and then editor in chief. During her tenure, the Design and Architecture magazine won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, and by that point, it had already become a ubiquitous read for an emergent design community, rekindling a design lifestyle boom for the 21st century. Since then, Allison has continued to build a storied and prominent career as a writer, author and thought leader. Prefab, her first book, explores the history and innovative potential of prefabricated housing well before prefab became a thing. Today, Allison is back where she started as the editorial director of another print magazine, MIT Technology Review. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:01:45] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:13] Hello, Allison. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m really pretty honored to have you here.

Allison Arieff: [00:02:18] It’s my pleasure.

Eve: [00:02:19] Probably the most exciting thing for me is that during your tenure at Dwell, one of my little urban real estate projects graced the pages of Dwell, which was a very exciting moment for me because Dwell was, of course, a very big thing at the time. And so, like talking about Dwell, which you helped launch early in your career, what was the purpose of Dwell? How did it come about.

Allison: [00:02:41] So long ago now, Dwell started in 1999 and the founder, Laura Beam, had been designing or looking for an architect to design a home for her and was having a really hard time, kind of communicating with her architect about what she wanted and also felt that there weren’t any publications that really reflected what she was looking for. I also just want to remind your listeners that in 1999, the Internet was kind of at a different place. Right now, of course, there are a billion and one places to find pictures of architecture and houses and all that stuff. But it was so different when Dwell started that for a while we even debated whether or not we needed a website. So think about that for a minute.

Eve: [00:03:34] Yeah, I used to have stacks of architectural magazines that I’d leaf through, and those stacks are long gone, so, yeah.

Allison: [00:03:41] So, Laura really decided she wanted to launch a magazine to kind of speak to what she thought was missing in the market, and specifically with an eye towards kind of modern design. If you think about most shelter magazines that were around back then, kind of like Architectural Digest, it’s more sort of palatial, aspirational, celebrity driven stuff.

Eve: [00:04:08] Not for everyday people, right.

Allison: [00:04:09] Not for everybody. Though, interestingly, the readership of Architectural Digest is much more aspirational. The people who read it tend not to be the people who own those houses, but people who aspire to them. So, I think that the idea of Dwell was to be really about the idea of good design for everybody, that everybody deserves it, that it should be much more a part of the conversation. There was really an emphasis on architecture. Even though only 5% of homes are designed by architects in the United States, I think we would really argue that it’d probably be better if that percentage was a little bit higher.

Eve: [00:04:52] Much, much better.

Allison: [00:04:53] But really, I think the magazine was really trying to demystify design and architecture at a time when they felt much more mystical than they are now. And it was really just a tremendous opportunity to be brought in to build something. Literally there was no magazine, at al, and we had nine months to put the first issue together. We launched in 2000, and then after that we had five weeks to do every other issue. So, we had kind of the luxury of time to think about what this might be at the outset. I think we really benefited, especially from two things. One, we were based in San Francisco rather than in the New York publishing world. So, we actually had to get up off of our desks and we had to reach out to different people than maybe we would have had we been in New York where the publishing world sort of is and was. And also, many of us on staff had never worked for a magazine before, so we were not really burdened with the whole like, oh, well, we always do it this way. So, on the one hand that’s amazing, on the other hand, it’s like we were just blissfully naive about a lot, but I think that enabled us to do a lot of really interesting stuff.

Eve: [00:06:11] And it was an amazing magazine. I remember I just thoroughly enjoyed it. So, it’s really about democratizing design, which hasn’t really quite happened yet. Maybe it’s a little better than it used to be because of the Internet. So, how did you come to be the first editor, which I think you were, right?

Allison: [00:06:32] So I was the first senior editor. And when I started, I was hired by Karrie Jacobs, who was the first editor in chief, and Karrie had been involved in Colors magazine, which was, again, another major design milestone. Tibor Kalman did Colors with Benetton. She was also at Metropolis Magazine. I was hired by Karrie. I had been at Chronicle Books prior to that. Publisher here in San Francisco. We just put together this really amazing team of people. Karrie left after about a year and a half, and I became editor in chief after that. But one thing about that team, and I think it’s really reflected in the pages, is we just really, really liked each other and had such fun putting that magazine together. And I think that energy and enthusiasm, like we really were just a bunch of kids, like let’s put on a show. We really spent a ridiculous amount of time together and just had a lot of fun putting it together. So, I’m stunned and amazed that I am here now at my new job, which I’m sure we’ll talk about later. And I get to do print magazine again because that’s my favorite thing to do.

Eve: [00:07:46] Oh, that’s really interesting. Why is architecture and design so important to you?

Allison: [00:07:54] I think about, and I read about this quite a lot when I had my column for The New York Times. When something is working, you don’t really think about. Like I’m sitting in a chair at my desk and a chair is comfortable enough so I’m not really spending a lot of time thinking about my chair. If my shoes are comfortable, I’m not spending a lot of time thinking about my shoes. But if you’re sitting in an awful chair or if you’re wearing really uncomfortable shoes, that’s all you’re thinking about. So, I think that we underestimate how much that sort of thing affects our quality of life and kind of how you go about your day. And so, on the one hand it seems quite obvious, we should be surrounded by things that were thoughtfully considered and well designed, but for the bulk of people and things, I just think that’s not true.

Allison: [00:08:43] We’re living in generally inefficient homes. I mean, with the heat wave now, I think it shows that we’re not really building things in a way that maximizes energy efficiency. We’re spending our time in cars that are getting bigger and bigger and more dangerous and wasting more fossil fuels. There’s so many aspects of life that, it’s not that we don’t have the ability to do better, we’re just either not paying attention or sort of wilfully ignoring that things could be better, or we’re not willing to invest in them being better. But I think that the things that we use and the environment that we are in, whether the ones we work in or live in or go to school in, are so important to myriad aspects of our life and we sort of ignore them at our peril. And I think that we’ve as a society done exactly that. We’re not investing in infrastructure. We’re not designing schools that are great learning environments for kids. There’s all these things that were neglected. And I think that, again, it’s not that we don’t have the ability to do better. Sort of lacking the will to do so. And a lot of respect.

Eve: [00:09:57] You know, I often wonder whether it’s just the supreme comfort of things being the same and that, you know, making change or changing something is uncomfortable, difficult, difficult to imagine, difficult to envision. You know, it just.

Allison: [00:10:14] It’s easier to not do that. I mean, you were an architect. You’ve developed projects. I mean, I remember speaking to developers, whether of office space or of housing, who were like, well, this model works. We get our ROI and why change it.

Eve: [00:10:32] And then we have the world littered with that model, right.

Allison: [00:10:36] Right, right. It’s like, oh, we’re going to build this on top of a parking structure and have this and that. And it’s like, well, this doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Yeah, but it works, it’s fine. And so, I think that you just see that writ large everywhere, and that’s kind of why you get on a plane and go somewhere now and you’re like, where am I exactly? Because…

Eve: [00:10:54] So, I mean, it’s really a shame to think that the world is shaped only 5% by thoughtful design, maybe, you know, and a lot of the rest of it is cookie cutter just because that’s the way we always do it. Do you think technology has changed changes? I mean, for one, people can see more design and they’re just subjected to more on the Internet. Right? So, they can surely see there are more possibilities. But, has that really changed things?

Allison: [00:11:27] I don’t think so. I feel like technology has enabled more consumerism, maybe. So maybe there’s a greater variety of products available. But I have not seen the advancements that I might have hoped for. More sustainable architecture, say, or cost savings through technology than enabled more attention to the design of buildings. It’s pretty disheartening, to be honest, to see how little that has changed. I have an image kind of in my archive of stuff of the first house with solar panels, which was in the thirties. And we’ve known how to do this for a really long time. And the fact that solar panels are still this really massive cost. They’re not part of anybody’s normal construction process or water collection, like all these things that are actually really, really easy to do at this point. You have to go through some hurdles.

Allison: [00:12:36] I mean, grey water, for example, was like illegal to have in San Francisco, where I live, until recently. Like, all these things that should just be par for the course. We’re trying to put solar on our 100-year-old house, and the cheapest it’s going to be is like $15,000. Ultimately that will be fine. But that’s the cheapest, right? And it should not be. When we got a new roof, whenever we got a new roof, like it should have been at this point, like you get a new roof and that’s part of it.

Eve: [00:13:05] You just get the solar panel with it. Yeah, yeah.

Allison: [00:13:08] I think the government could do better. I think industry could do better. The incentives are still pretty small for these things. They’re just there’s not enough collective work, but there’s not enough will from the top. I mean, you see how places can be transformed with visionary leadership, right? We can take the example of Paris and Mayor Anne Hidalgo who’s like, cars are a blight, these things should happen in this city. We’re going to have bike lanes. We’re going to have greater pedestrian access to things. We’re really going to prioritize the experience of a person in the city as opposed to a car living in the city. That wouldn’t happen just without someone really taking the risk to make it happen. And I’m just not seeing that happen anywhere in the States.

Eve: [00:13:50] It’s also, I think, culturally different here because I have an architectural friend in Italy and I was always astonished at how much sort of design for the good was accepted there versus here, where personal property is really first and foremost. If that tree is dropping leaves on my property, I want you to get rid of it. It’s not that the tree can cool down everyone’s houses, it’s just making dirt on my car. It’s a very different way to think about the world and.

Allison: [00:14:20] Agreed.

Eve: [00:14:21] Yeah, it’s interesting. So since Dwell, how has your focus shifted? What are you working on these days?

Allison: [00:14:29] Sure, let’s see. So, I was at Dwell for about seven years, I would say. And where at Dwell we were very focused on this idea of, that good design is for everybody. But in the end at Dwell, it was like, good design is very good for the person fortunate enough to live in a house that’s in Dwell.

Eve: [00:14:52] That’s right. They were absolutely spectacular places.

Allison: [00:14:55] Like yeah, things are great. I’m in this house. So, not long after I left Dwell, I started writing a column for the New York Times, interestingly, for the opinion section, but that’s who asked, so it was great. And so, I really started focusing on kind of beyond the house, right, to the street and the neighborhood and all kinds of various aspects of design and was really kind of expanding my ideas around how design could have more impact on more people for the better.

Allison: [00:15:30] I joined an urban planning and policy think tank in, let’s say, 2012 called SPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research, and then really expanded my focus from the house to the city to the region. Like how can we think about things from a much broader perspective, transportation networks, housing policy that ensures a certain level of a certain standard of ideally design, but let’s just say at least density, for regions and really focused on all aspects of urban policy. For nearly a decade at SPUR and worked on their, I was editorial director there. So, I did a magazine there, oversaw the website, oversaw public programming, all those kinds of things. And learned more than anyone would ever want to know about how.

Eve: [00:16:24] Probably had a lot of fun.

Allison: [00:16:27] Cities and regions work, which can be a little demoralizing. You talked about different places, having different attitudes. I mean, San Francisco fights for 20 years about a bike lane. The bike lane ends up being like a quarter of a mile and you celebrate for a week. And then someone introduces a ballot proposition to get rid of the bike lane. So, it’s just like this constant specific task around here, which is a little bit exhausting, but you’ve got to keep fighting the good fight. Earlier this year, I joined MIT Technology Review as editorial director of their print magazine, and I’m delighted to be working for print magazine again. I never thought it would happen. And while the bulk of technology reviews focuses on digital, every single person who ever went to MIT gets the print magazine, and we also have subscribers.

Allison: [00:17:23] So, it’s a lot of people who are looking at it. And so, I get to fill 88 pages every two months, and it’s technology writ large. I mean, as far as I’m concerned right now, anything can be a technology story. We’re doing a gender issue right now. We just did a cities issue. You can, of course, find all of these at TechnologyReview.com. We are doing one on mortality because really technology touches everything in our lives at this point. So, it’s a pretty broad definition. So, for me it’s fantastic because the different people that I can talk to during the course of a week, it’s just, I can talk to people about any subject that they want really, and we can turn it into a technology story. So, that’s great.

Eve: [00:18:09] That’s really great. So, you know, the one thing I wanted to touch on also was zoning because, you know, I’m in a place right now which still utilizes the 1950 zoning code, which is really bizarre, you know. It’s an overlay district of 3500 square foot lots that require enormous setbacks and, you know, a nice front lawn, none of which is energy efficient, especially in the current weather. I mean, I know, you know, have you written about zoning and its impact on place and, how do we tackle that behemoth? Because that’s really influencing everything, I think.

Allison: [00:18:48] It really is. I will say, a number of cities over the past few years eliminated single family zoning, which was great. But this goes back to the leadership thing that if there’s not leadership in place to kind of push for the policies that allow things to change within those zoning changes, then you don’t really get very far. But just to give another very contemporary example, during COVID tons of businesses had to shut down temporarily or permanently. And now, so many cities have massive amounts of vacancies, and maybe those spaces are zoned for something quite specific. I’m kind of all in favor of, this will never happen, but I’m in favor of it, of just like there should be no zoning, this should be just like a five-year zoning free time. Like, if you can find something to fill a space. Fill a space.

Eve: [00:19:41] It’s really interesting, yeah.

Allison: [00:19:44] Because I go, we have a little office space in downtown San Francisco, and I go downtown once or twice a week and it is a ghost town. There is nobody down there. Because of supply chain issues, there’s like, a shortage of everything. So, you see plywood over all kinds of businesses. And first I thought, oh my God, this many businesses closed. But in fact, people can’t get glass to to replace doors. So, it just adds to this feeling of just being in utter desolation and barring any pretty genius plan for bringing all these businesses back, I honestly think we just have to think so creatively about how to use these spaces. There’s lots of talk of converting office to housing, for example, which is not easy but not impossible. And I think that, and I’ve talked to people too, I’m like, oh, we have all these vacant storefronts. We can think about housing. And people will say things like, oh well, people don’t want to live on the ground level. And I’m just like, you know, I think people would be okay.

Eve: [00:20:44] Yes they do!

Allison: [00:20:44] It’s pretty easy to, there’s an empty Walgreens that you could like.

Eve: [00:20:51] You could do amazing like artist live/work spaces and taller storefronts and there’s all sorts of reasons to want to live there. You know, I agree with you. And Pittsburgh’s actually getting a lot of new housing in vacated buildings. But I think Pittsburgh’s fortunate in that it’s a little cultural hub in the downtown. So, I am interested to see how that shifts over time. You know, another thing I’ve noticed, which I don’t drive that often, but recently I drove through, past a strip mall which was completely deserted. And I noticed that, you know, first of all, there’s acres of empty parking, acres and acres of it. Surely, we can convert that into parks and usable spaces. Like I could see that being really interesting housing or office space with sort of an amenity out the front. But instead, what I saw was that all the storefronts systematically were being changed into storage, storage pods, which is, I’m not sure that’s the right direction either.

Allison: [00:22:01] Yeah, I’m amazed to see some of the prime real estate that some storage units have.

Eve: [00:22:09] How much stuff can people store, you know, it’s.

Allison: [00:22:12] SPUR did a study of empty parking lots in downtown Oakland actually a few years ago. And I won’t get the number right. But it was something on the order of, let’s call it 45 surface parking lots in downtown Oakland, the amount of housing that you could build on that. And to be fair, some of it has actually been developed into housing. But people will fight to preserve anything right now.

Eve: [00:22:36] Or if you took two lanes off one of those like eight or ten lane freeways in L.A., you could build an awful lot of housing. Anyway, it’s really interesting stuff. What do you hope to illuminate with your work these days? A little bit different than Dwell, I think.

Allison: [00:22:54] Hmm.

Eve: [00:22:56] Because you’ve written about women in architecture, streets, sustainability, access, inclusivity, much, much more, cars as death mobiles. I mean, there’s just tons of stuff out there, right?

Allison: [00:23:11] I feel like culturally we went through this period of embracing every notion of technology and really believing that it was going to solve every problem that we had. Anyone who’s read my work could see that I do not share that belief. I am not anti-technology, but I think for a really long time I’ve been really kind of urging a more critical look at anything that promises that it’s going to be the savior of anything that might be autonomous vehicles or Hyperloop, which, by the way, has still not been built anywhere, or how Lyft and Uber were going to solve transportation problems within cities. And now it costs like double the price of a taxi to take an Uber in the city. And the transportation systems are haemorrhaging riders.

Eve: [00:24:05] Exactly.

Allison: [00:24:06] And don’t have enough money to sustain basic service.

Eve: [00:24:09] And the streets are clogged, right.

Allison: [00:24:11] So we’re seeing a bit of a reckoning. Where people are hopefully being a little bit more thoughtful about empty promises. I think we’re also seeing a racial reckoning, gender reckoning. I mean, all these things that we might not have been thoughtful enough about around technology. Who’s making the decisions about a new product, who is that product serving? What would a diverse team look like to build these products? All these things I’m interested in highlighting. We have a story coming out in the next issue of Tech Review called “Why Tech Can’t Solve Its Gender Problem,” which just kind of looks at the trajectory of women in technology, careers and technology over the last, let’s call it 80 years. And most of technology was kind of dominated by women for a while. Coders were women. It was almost like being in a typing pool and the story just outlines how that culture became so incredibly male and then who is actually working now to change that? So, I’m very interested in telling stories around technology that have not really been told enough.

Eve: [00:25:22] A lot of that has to do with capital too, you know, who’s driving capital to what. Which is also a very elite class of.

Allison: [00:25:29] Absolutely.

Eve: [00:25:30] White males, because really, they dominate the VC world. So, you know, you have some ridiculously low percentage of women owned businesses and minority businesses, like 2 or 3% being funded.

Allison: [00:25:46] Well, I think what’s really interesting about this story in particular is, how it shows how intertwined all these people have been. Like, this guy takes this guy under his wing and then that guy takes this other guy under his wing and there’s just like a continuous thread of sort of insider relationship. So, that’s one thing that we’re exploring. In the cities issue that we did, talked a lot about everything from how surveillance is becoming such a big feature of our cities and how we might think thoughtfully about how that might be helpful in some regards and how that might be terrible in other regards. We had another piece on, I called it because I can’t help myself from my early magazine days of provocative cover lines, but like, sexy retrofits, how really the most sustainable architecture that you can do is just making sure that you’ve made the existing buildings more sustainable than they were before. There was an example of the New York Housing Authority, if they replaced all the refrigerators and all their units with energy efficient refrigerators, it’s like a million refrigerators, right? It has an impact that far outweighs any like, tech gadget or any other thing that you might think of. So really kind of digging into.

Eve: [00:27:00] Sensible solutions.

Allison: [00:27:02] Again, the broader swath of what technology can and can’t do.

Eve: [00:27:07] Interesting. So, I love it. So, what are some of your favorite amazing projects in the built environment today?

Allison: [00:27:17] Oh, this is a tough one. I will say I don’t follow kind of like new developments in architecture as closely as I once did. I’m also going to admit to something. Increasingly, I realize that sometimes a project can be successful in spite of the architecture or design of it, and I’ll give you two examples. So, every Saturday I go to the farmer’s market. It’s just a couple blocks from my house. It’s called Alemany Farmer’s Market, and it’s in a giant parking lot and with some stalls and no one ever parks in this parking lot. It’s just like, it’s there for the farmer’s market and there’s a flea market. And then it was a big COVID testing site at the height of the pandemic. There’s nothing attractive about this. The traffic flow is terrible, but it is the one place that I can think of in San Francisco that is the most diverse place that you could go. People from all walks of life show up there, every income level, every race, gender, kids, everything. People coming from all over the region to sell their produce.

Allison: [00:28:29] It was not designed well but doesn’t matter. Something allows it to succeed. And I’m kind of fascinated by this. For all my time spent arguing about the importance of good design, the fact is that sometimes it’s irrelevant in a way, like whatever it is about this market, it’s drawing everyone to it, in spite of the fact that it is just a parking lot. And so, I think that sometimes I’m in love with a building. It’s gorgeous for a million reasons, but then also I’m in love with something that’s just like a messy, random spot that ends up becoming really popular. And so, you can’t program, it’s programmed, it’s a farmer’s market, but still, I’m kind of fascinated.

Eve: [00:29:14] You can’t program those accidents. No, I think that’s right. And then you just have to hope that no one will mess it up.

Allison: [00:29:21] Yes. Yes. I mean, another example here is the Japan time in San Francisco, which is a neighborhood where lots of people were displaced at one point. It’s right across the street from the Fillmore neighborhood, which is one of the worst cases of urban renewal nationally. Just really, a very complicated history. But what emerged is this weirdly like Japanese shopping mall that has like ramen shops and bubble tea and an amazing bookstore which is packed night and day. And the building is like 1970s. There’s like bronze stair banisters and there’s one, there’s like two bathrooms for this entire huge complex. Like, there’s so much that’s wrong with it, but people cannot stay away from it. And so, again, it’s just whatever is there is just like hit on the zeitgeist of what people want. And if you tore it down and built some Herzog and de Meuron building, it wouldn’t. I’m just kind of fascinated in these spaces that function in spite of architecture.

Eve: [00:30:25] I completely agree. You know, When I visited in Beijing, which I have never been able to get out of my mind, was like, the Chinese like to build these sort of mega malls. And this was this, it was right behind Tiananmen Square. And it was this really long boulevard, very, very wide, with brand new shops on each side. You know, it was wide and difficult to cross. I mean, it was used, brand new, right? And then right behind it was this little alley which ran the length of it, packed like ten feet wide packed with people you couldn’t move. And I would much rather be there than the brand-new boulevard, you know, it was way more interesting. So yeah, I don’t know how you design that.

Allison: [00:31:18] I think this is the challenge of so many suburbs, right? And I’ve written about this quite a lot. It’s like cities are interesting because they have a patina and they’ve evolved over time and things kind of ebb and flow. When you put down like a new suburban development, it’s just this thing plonked down and it’s very hard to give any kind of context or texture to those kind of moments. We see so many of them and I don’t know that anyone is really, can crack the code on making them feel a little bit less like they were just plopped down.

Eve: [00:31:50] Right, right. When I was a young architect, my favorite book of all time was a book called Great Streets. Do you remember that? It had visual sections through streets that worked really well. And you could kind of really dissect what, at least spatially what drew people. You know, if a street’s too wide, it’s scary to cross. If there’s nothing on the other side, there’s no reason to go there. If you have to walk past blank parking garage walls, you’re not going to walk down the street. So, like some… I thought it was a fascinating book, anyway. We’re diverging now. So, what are some of your favorite cities?

Allison: [00:32:31] Favorite cities? Oh, I have a lot of them. Actually, just planning a trip to Dublin, a place I haven’t been, so I’m excited to go see Ireland. I lived in London for a bit. I absolutely love London. A less obvious one. I went on a press trip several years ago to Turin, which doesn’t seem like a city that tons of people visit, but it was kind of the most amazing surprise turn. There was so much there that was absolutely incredible. I stayed in a hotel where the Fiat factory was. There’s a track on the roof, which I think they made into a park. There’s an amazing contemporary art museum in a castle. Like a half hour ahead of town. There was just I mean, I had, it was one of those funny things where someone called me at Dwell, we would like to bring you to Turin. I was like, sounds great. And it was just, I had no expectations. So, it was such a surprise. I do really like visiting. I mean, one of the best parts of my experience at Dwell is that we did this issue every year called Modern Across America, where we tried to find examples, I mean, I’m sure you remember this, of architecture not in the major cities where you would expected and admittedly we were a little condescending when we would talk about fly over zones and all that kind of stuff. But on the positive side, I took trips to all these places that you might not ever normally plan a trip to.

Eve: [00:34:11] Maybe like Pittsburgh.

Eve: [00:34:14] Fayetteville, Arkansas, Gary, Indiana. Once a year I would, we would send people out and we would, this is back in the day when magazines had money and you could like, people have to do stuff. And I loved Milwaukee. I loved going to all these places because you will always find some little pocket of a creative community. And obviously I’d be going in to visit an architect and an architect would be happy to show me everything in their city or town. But also, the architects would universally say, like, if I was living in New York, I wouldn’t be able to build anything. And here I can pretty much build anything. So, there was something always really great.

Eve: [00:34:55] So it seems like you’re describing authenticity and grit a little bit, right? Places that have.

Allison: [00:35:02] Yeah, I mean that, But I think that obviously you go to Paris. Paris is amazing. You’re still going to find like a million surprises in Paris or Rome or any of those places which I love, as everyone does. But I also think it’s interesting to kind of visit places that you’re not expecting to have anything to be good, quite so interesting and discover it there. So, I like a mix of those things for sure.

Eve: [00:35:31] So, you also wrote a book on prefab housing before, probably before it was a thing, right? And what drew you to the subject and how do you think that’s played out?

Allison: [00:35:43] Sure. Well, I have to tell you a funny story, because I just heard the story about. So, before I did the Prefab book, my husband and I did a book on Airstream trailers.

Eve: [00:35:54] Oh, my favorite thing in the world.

Allison: [00:35:56] And weirdly, because they go through cycles of like extreme popularity. But at the time when we started that book, they were not going through extreme popularity. We definitely foresaw a trend. And my sister just told me the other day, my mom passed away some time ago, but somehow my sister and I were talking about camping. When I did that book and went on a few camping trips with my husband during the course of having that trailer, my mother had said to my sister, she’s not turning into a camper, which I just learned and I thought was hilarious. So, God forbid she’s camping. But so, the Airstream, the Airstream trailer, my mom really liked to make hotel reservations. She’s not a camper.

Eve: [00:36:43] I’m not either. I can glamp, but not camp.

Allison: [00:36:48] Which is all to say, the thing about the Airstream trailer that’s fascinating, it’s fascinating as a design object. It’s also fascinating as an example of something that’s built on an assembly line. Like you can live in it. There’s a form that’s repeated, right? And so, ultimately prefab, it’s the same idea, right? Is that you have a form, and you repeat it and that’s how you build housing and it’s more efficient and all those things. Both prefab and trailers obviously are attached with like tremendous stigmas, right? Of like, oh, you live in a trailer park. And I can’t count the number of movies that I’ve seen where, especially after doing an Airstream trailer movie, the bad character invariably lives in an Airstream trailer just outside of town. It’s just like such a funny trope because one the Airstream trailer is probably like $50,000 now because they’ve become like this collectible item, but it’s this funny trailer trope.

Allison: [00:37:41] So one of the first issues we did at Dwell certainly informed by the Airstream trailer stuff was on prefab houses, which was kind of a risqué thing for a shelter magazine to do because again, prefab houses are associated with trailers and cookie cutter crappy construction. In all fairness, the majority of prefab houses are exactly that, and you see them dotted across the United States. They’re just not necessarily advertising that they’re prefab, but in its perfect form prefab could be a very efficient way to deliver well-designed houses to a lot of people, and certainly I went all in on that at Dwell. We had an international design competition to actually build a house for our client, something I would not recommend doing for a variety of reasons. But it really elevated the perception and awareness of prefab to a point we could not have anticipated. There were so many articles about the prefab book and about the prefab competition that even Cooking Light did an article about prefab housing. It was it was in the New York Times Magazine gift guide, like a little prefab house. It just became this weird cultural thing, which, believe me, when we signed that book up with the publisher and told people what we were writing a book about, people were like, oh… interesting. Could not have anticipated that.

Allison: [00:39:11] I will say that it is very, very difficult to put a well-designed prefab house into production and much harder than anyone would have thought in the early 2000, lots of fantastic architects really invested their heart and soul and all their money into prefab factories to kind of do modern prefab. And it didn’t really pan out, especially as the housing recession hit in 2009 and kind of ended a lot of that. If I had a dime for every VC or various entrepreneur who has come to me to say that they have cracked the code on prefab and they know how to make it work, I would be very wealthy. It’s still very problematic. In a way it kind of goes back to what I was talking about a visionary leadership. If you build one prefab house like a one off, it’s going to be really expensive. In order to have any success, you need to do it at scale. Has there been an entity, and I’m talking specifically about the United States because it was very different elsewhere, has there been an entity willing to invest enough money to build, say, 1000 well-designed prefab homes? No. So the businesses end up producing extremely high-end one-off prefabs, which to my mind is like the antithesis of why you would use prefab in the first.

Eve: [00:40:34] That’s what we’re seeing with 3D printing as well, right?

Allison: [00:40:36] Oh, completely. When people say of 3D houses, it’s like, oh.

Eve: [00:40:40] They’re so expensive.

Allison: [00:40:41] It’s not. The energy use of 3D printing is off the charts. Absolutely off the charts. However, in Japan and Scandinavia, there’s tons of amazing prefab houses being built. The stigma is not attached. There aren’t the same kind of union battles that there are with prefabricated construction. I won’t go on and on because I could go too deep on this. But it remains, I say this in my book, it’s like this perpetual promise that we never quite get to.

Eve: [00:41:12] So, if all the myriad of things you’ve done, is it something you’re proudest of or enjoyed doing the most? Well, maybe the print magazine, because you really had.

Allison: [00:41:22] You know, it’s interesting. I’ve been so fortunate. I got to, I really had so many amazing experiences and I’ve got to do so much writing and editing. I’m back to doing mostly editing. And I do have to say it’s really nice to be editing again after a lot of writing, New York Times is a very high-profile place to be putting something out in the world all the time, and it causes a lot of anxiety. It’s kind of nice to just be a little bit more in the background, so I’m quite proud of the work that I’ve done, kind of pushing for more walkable, liveable cities, though I do feel like I could continue to write the same article every year till the end of time. I feel like I’ve turned what began as like a design publication and maybe a career in design journalism, to something definitely more advocacy oriented, which I’m proud of.

Allison: [00:42:24] I promise I didn’t force her into it, but my daughter is actually taking an urban planning college program at UC Berkeley this summer, so I’m raising a generation of, she wants to go into urban planning, I swear we didn’t push her. So, I’m proud of that, that she’s absorbed those lessons. She’s a city kid. She walks around, takes public transit everywhere and understands why those things are important. So, yeah. Thrilled to be back in publication that still values print. And obviously it’s through MIT. So, I’m just working with a very intelligent group of colleagues, which is the most that anybody could hope for really.

Eve: [00:43:07] Well, thank you very much for joining me today. And I can’t wait to read what’s next because I’m sure it will evolve. You’ve had this incredible array of things that you’ve written about. It’s a long way from Dwell, I think, which was a little entitled, maybe.

Allison: [00:43:30] Yes.

Eve: [00:43:32] But lovely. A lovely magazine. I’m still proud that we were in it. So…

Allison: [00:43:36] Yeah.

Eve: [00:43:37] Thank you so much for joining me. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Allison: [00:43:40] Oh, me too. Thank you.

Eve: [00:43:51] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive together. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. If you like what you heard, you can support this podcast by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media, or leaving a rating and review. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing, head on over to smallchange.co, where I spend most of my time. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Allison Arieff

People first.

September 28, 2022

In 2000, Helle Søholt and her (professional) partner, Professor Jan Gehl (a Danish architect and urban designer) launched Gehl Architects (later Gehl), which grew into a notable urban research and design consulting firm based in Copenhagen. The firm, now over two decades old, focuses on improving the quality of urban life, in part by prioritizing the pedestrian and the cyclist in urban design. Jan Gehl was Helle’s professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and after completing her master’s degree at the University of Washington in Seattle, she started working with him on urban design projects in Copenhagen. Shortly after this (she was 28) they co-founded Gehl. Today, as CEO, Helle’s role at Gehl focuses more on the overall strategy of the firm.

Gehl has grown significantly, with projects in over 50 countries and 250 cities globally. This includes the New York City DOT, the Melbourne City Council, the Energy Foundation in Beijing, the Brighton & Hove City Council in the UK, the Institute of Genplan in Moscow, to name a few. Today, they have offices in Copenhagen, San Francisco and New York. Helle describes their approach to be “people first,” which comes down to exploring the needs of the people living in said cities or communities, with a focus on walkability and access to greenery and public space.

Today Helle is a prominent leader in her field. She has acted as an advisor to the City of Copenhagen and other great cities in Scandinavia like Oslo, Stockholm and Gothenburg, advocating for a new alternative to traditional planning. Internationally, Helle has worked in cities such as Cape Town, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Seattle, New York, Vancouver, London, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne adding to her global experience in the field of urban design and development. She has extensive international urban design experience at various levels of intervention and at a multitude of scales – from urban research and analysis, visioning and strategy to design development and implementation. In 2010, Helle was awarded membership of the Danish Arts Society, as well as the Danish Dreyer’s Prize of Honor for Architects in Denmark. She also serves as a member on several boards of foundations, organizations and committees, such as the Realdania Foundation in Denmark and the Danish Federal Realestate Development Agency.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve: [00:00:46] Helle Soholt was just 28 years old in 2000 when she co-founded Gehl Architects with Jan Gehl, her professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Together, they built a commanding firm, now over two decades old. Gehl focuses on people first in urban design with a focus on walkability and access to greenery and public space. In 2016, Helle took over as CEO and the firm now has offices in Copenhagen, San Francisco and New York. People first has gone from its humble beginnings in Copenhagen, to work that spans over 50 countries and 250 cities globally. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:01:38] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:05] So welcome to my show Helle. I’m so honored to talk to you.

Helle Søholt: [00:02:10] Thank you so much Eve.

Eve: [00:02:12] How did urban design come to take center stage in your professional life?

Helle: [00:02:18] Oh, I think very early on as an architect, I found out that I was really interested in not just the buildings themselves, but actually the neighborhood and the context around the building. And I was just very interested in sort of political processes and how society is created. And that made me sort of relatively quickly in my studies, way back then in the nineties, shift from building architecture and then moving into to urban design at a fairly early age.

Eve: [00:03:00] So, that led you to meet Jan Gehl and you launched Gehl with him. How did that happen? That was pretty early on, you were young.

Helle: [00:03:11] I was very young indeed. I was 28 at the time and I had, first I finished a master’s in Urban Design at the Architecture School and Royal Academy in Copenhagen. And I worked for Jan actually for about half a year. And then I went to the States, to Seattle, actually, Washington University, and got another master’s degree there. And when I came back, I started working in a different firm, actually coming back to Copenhagen. But, I kept doing some side projects with Jan. And after about half a year back in Copenhagen, he invited me to start the office together with him because until then it had primarily been him running sort of a sole consultancy. So, I accepted the challenge and we started Gehl together at my age, 28. And Jan was in his late career at the time, 64 years old.

Eve: [00:04:16] So, it looks like he made a wise move. What was the primary focus? What were you planning to do with this firm when you started?

Helle: [00:04:24] Well, we started out in the year 2000 and back then there was not a lot of focus in planning on people, on behavioral aspects of planning, sustainability or was something that mostly was thought of by extremists and it was not part of the sort of general planning processes. So, we really started out with this ambition to change the paradigm within planning. It was a rather big sort of move and bold ambition we had because we focused globally from the very beginning, and we were able to do so due to Jan’s vast international academic network.

Eve: [00:05:11] Interesting. So, you’ve also been heard to say mission is not to Copenhagenize the world, which wouldn’t really be so bad because Copenhagen’s lovely. So, what is the mission then? Just generally project by project maybe.

Helle: [00:05:28] Yeah. Well, I don’t like the term Copenhagen-izing because it really sounds as if we think that all the solutions in Copenhagen is fit for every place and we certainly don’t think so. So, our method is much more based on urban anthropological studies, ethnographic studies, where we go to places, and we use our public life methods to investigate what is the local life and how can we best understand the needs and the behavior of the local people there to then develop strategies and plans and so forth. And by that come up with customized, localized solutions that still brings the place towards a more people-oriented position. So, our ambition started out, as I said, to change the paradigm of planning, and I had that ambition for ten years together with the Jan. But when he retired and I sort of bought the company from Jan at the point, this was back in 2011, the ambition changed and became a bit more sort of action oriented because at the time we had already sort of changed somewhat the planning paradigm after talking about it and sort of advocating for it for ten years. And since then, I would say we’ve been more focused on making cities for people, making actual change and creating what we are now focusing on. Places for all.

Eve: [00:07:10] So then what type of projects do you work on right now?

Helle: [00:07:14] In Denmark at the moment we are part of a couple of large projects. One is actually working with the National Foundation for Social Housing, and we are advising this national entity on how to make sure that their investments, they are investing about 40 billion Danish kroner into real estate development for the social housing across the country. And we want to make sure that that money that is poured into mostly renovation projects, that they actually have a social and equitable outcome and is benefiting not just the buildings but the people and the wider community in those areas. So, that’s a big project that we are helping on and working on at the moment. We also in Denmark engaged in a new sort of masterplan for development where we are actually designing the lived experience for people who are going to live in this new neighborhood. So, going all the way down into master planning and landscape design of public spaces in the area.

Eve: [00:08:32] That’s in Denmark but I think you look all over the world, right?

Helle: [00:08:37] We do.

Eve: [00:08:38] What other cities and countries have you worked in or are you working in now?

Helle: [00:08:44] We have quite a large team actually at the moment in the US and we started out back in 2014 with an office in New York and San Francisco and we actually have three teams now up and running in the US, one focusing more on cities and foundations, a second team focusing on the real estate sector, really being engaged in introducing a new type of master planning approach to the US market. And then the last team focusing more on corporate clients, working more with placemaking and the impact on communities from larger corporations.

Eve: [00:09:30] So, how large have you grown from just the two of you? How many people now?

Helle: [00:09:38] Today we are 100 staff and seven partners.

Eve: [00:09:43] That’s quite large. So, I have to ask, do you have any favorite cities and why?

Helle: [00:09:51] Oh, I’m often being asked that question. I have to say Copenhagen, because this is where I live and the place that I call home. And as you alluded to as well, I think at a point in our conversation, Eve, Copenhagen has become one of the most livable cities in the world with time and having worked here myself in that transition for the past 20 years, it is a place that I really deeply love. But of course, there are so many other places in the world that I’ve come to love so much. You know, messy cities like the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina, for example, where we have worked as well since 2017, Melbourne, that you know yourself so well where we have worked also for about 20 years. I like cities that have an ambition to do better and to strive for that quality-of-life aspect and sustainable ways of living. And if I feel that there is that ambition, I can become very attracted to the place.

Eve: [00:11:00] Yes.

Helle: [00:11:00] Regardless of how messy it is.

Eve: [00:11:03] Yeah, I think I like messy cities too. I think if they’re too cleaned up it worries me.

Eve: [00:11:09] Yeah. Yeah. And Copenhagen, of course, has become more clean or nice with time. But then I supplement, you could say, with going to more messy cities around the world, working there to further develop.

Eve: [00:11:24] Yes. Can you tell us about one of your favorite projects that you’ve done over the years and how it changed the place?

Helle: [00:11:32] Yeah, there’s quite a few important projects, I think having worked in Mexico City, for example, with their bicycle strategy. That was the first time I worked in a really large megacity, a real sort of hard one as well, where the traffic is intense and the processes are intense and hard and it’s, the engagement piece is difficult. But we managed to drive a process that ended up with some beautiful results in terms of implementation of bicycle ways and a public bike system and I believe a culture and positions that has remained within the city organization. So that work is being and has been continued over the years. A city like both New York and San Francisco where we are based, I’m also very proud of the transition projects we’ve been a part of, both in New York with the Public Plaza program, transforming Times Square, Madison Square, introducing bikeways in New York, as well as the transformation of Market Street in San Francisco. A big reference project, I think, from across the country, actually. So, these are just to mention a few.

Eve: [00:12:59] Right. Well, the one I’m very familiar with is New York, which I watched unfold. The Plaza Project and it was astounding to watch how it transformed the city. I studied there and every time I went back it was just a different, walkable, less congested place. Pretty fabulous use of, I suppose it was a reorganization, of streets to become friendlier to people. It was really fabulous to watch. So, congrats for that one. So, how has your you know, I suppose the big question is, is what are cities demanding now that they didn’t ask for ten or 20 years ago?

Helle: [00:13:41] That’s a great question, I think when we started out, it’s been a sort of a transition, I would say, because when we started out there was not a focus on delivering public spaces, having a focus on public life, neighborhood communities and so forth. But I would say that has certainly become something that the cities are now looking for, planning for, caring for, to a much larger extent. And now after COVID and the COVID crisis, we’ve seen further changes in this direction where there is now a strong, strong demand from people in cities to have access to green space, have access to places where you can meet people and socialize outside of your work and your living conditions and so forth. Much more focused on inclusion and equity. Diversity and inclusion, I would say, is something that most people, most cities, sorry, are struggling with. How to engage people locally, how to ensure proper processes, how to ensure processes and efficient decision making at the same time, and how to ensure how do we get more out of the investments that we are pouring into cities? Those are some of the challenges that I feel that are more urgent now after the COVID crisis.

Eve: [00:15:19] I think that’s right. So, I think the outdoors has taken front and center stage over the last few years, and that’s a good thing. So, in all of that, what do you think is the future of cities? Because, you know, certainly a year or two ago, there were a lot of grim forecasts about people fleeing cities forever, right?

Helle: [00:15:38] Yeah, I don’t think the concept of city is dying. We’ve had cities for thousands of years, so cities will definitely continue to exist and flourish. We come to cities not just because we are going to and from work, but because that’s where we can offer services. We can be closer to education and other health options and offerings and so forth. So, there are many, many reasons for coming to cities and living closer together. However, I do see an opportunity to have much more flexibility in our lives. And we see that also with a lot of companies offering more flexibility, people working from home, having much more of a fluent work-life situation where you don’t necessarily have to come into work every day. And that requires a change in cities where we don’t have these business districts and mono functional areas and cities, and we sort of transport ourselves from one end to the other. I think we need to move in a direction where neighborhoods are more diverse in terms of functions, allowing people to have that much more flexible lifestyle, live urban so that you can walk and bicycle on an everyday basis and have access to public transportation where the density of people is needed. So, I think we have a ways to go in terms of still being able to move in a direction where the neighborhood level in cities are developed to allow that type of lifestyle to happen rather than these mono functional urban areas as we are seeing it right now.

Eve: [00:17:36] So I think you’re talking about the tantalizing terms, 24-hour neighborhoods and 15 minute cities, meaning that you can walk anywhere in 15 minutes. Right? That’s a pretty big goal. Also, I noticed on your website something called Inclusive Healthy Places framework. What is that?

Helle: [00:17:58] Very happy you mention it. The inclusive, Healthy Places framework is toolkit that we developed actually with the foundation, Robert Wood Johnson, and the idea with this toolkit is for real estate developers or community developers or place makers to use this tool to help make sure that we think about equity and health as we develop places and public spaces. The tool came about in a process where we collaborated in Gehl with health practitioners from across the states and community developers. And for the past couple of years, we’ve worked together with various organizations, including the American Planning Association, to spread the word about this tool so that more organizations can approach planning in a more holistic way. So, it’s out there, and there is also a website now where you can go in and read some a bit about the cases.

Eve: [00:19:11] Oh, okay. When you move towards making places that work for everyone, everyone feels comfortable in, are there basic elements that you always think about? Basic elements for great spaces.

Helle: [00:19:25] Well, first of all, it’s important to, as I mentioned, not just to think about the place as a very closed entity but think about the context of the area. What’s the history of the place? What’s the culture of the neighborhood? Then there is both the physical and the program aspects, the, you could say the activities in the place as well as the design. And then lastly, the fourth element, which is the whole sort of, how are people actually engaged? How are they, also how is the institution around the place set up in a way that allows people to continuously feel ownership and engagement within the area? So, that’s more of a political, organizational, economic, you could say, structure around the place. Those are the four categories of topics you could say that we are looking into.

Eve: [00:20:29] Okay. So, you know, I have to ask how like, are cities focusing on making sure that good design is available to everyone no matter whether the place is rich or poor, that everyone has access to beautiful urban spaces. I know some cities have more money than other cities, but typically in the past certainly, great spaces have been in higher end neighborhoods, you know. Do you think that is shifting at all?

Helle: [00:21:00] It is perhaps shifting, but I don’t think quickly enough at all. And this varies a lot across the world, I would say. In the US, unfortunately, we still see many, many neighborhoods across cities that are disinvested in and has been for ages for decades.

Eve: [00:21:22] I live in Pittsburgh, so I know what that looks like.

Helle: [00:21:25] Yeah, yeah.

Eve: [00:21:26] It’s half its population, so, you know.

Helle: [00:21:29] Yeah, exactly. And in other parts of the world where sometimes the public sector might be a little bit stronger and have more means, we see a stronger effort to actually even out some of the differences and inequalities in terms of investments. So, I definitely feel that this is an area where we could, especially in the US cities, could do so much more because it’s a rich society and there should be possibilities to actually ensure high quality, proper public spaces for all and it doesn’t have to be expensive granite pavements and what have you. We saw that in New York. It is a matter of the geometry of the space and the prioritization of the people above cars, for example, and just plain access to open space and green space. So, it’s not so much design as it is the pure access and availability of space.

Eve: [00:22:41] I mean, New York’s a great example. It was really paint and some bollards and plants and some furniture from a supermarket originally, like a Target or Walmart, right?

Helle: [00:22:55] Exactly.

Eve: [00:22:55] Just to completely transform the city. Yeah. It isn’t about granite, as you said. I wish we could move along faster. Do you notice different sources of funding coming to the table? Foundations, or other than public sources? Is that shifting? Because there’s a lot of talk in the foundation world about sort of rectifying the inequality, but I wonder if it’s filtered through to urban places.

Helle: [00:23:24] I think that’s a great collaboration and this is also in the US and we are learning from that, I think in Europe with a strong collaboration between foundations and public sector NGOs, community organizations. And that’s admirable because sometimes in our part of the world the public sector is perceived to deliver all of it. So there is a collaboration. I think the collaboration could be more action oriented, more testing, more actually willing to actually get your hands dirty, so to speak. I mean, make some real changes. And I sometimes worry that too much effort is lost in planning processes and strategies. And one of the approaches that we really advocate for is to, yes, you need to have a strategy and a plan. Yes, you need to analyze your conditions properly, but you also need to engage through actions. And in that way, you actually really show the willingness to commit and to make change locally. And too often I think we we don’t get to that level of engagement.

Eve: [00:24:41] I used to work at the Planning Department years ago in Pittsburgh, and we used to call that analysis paralysis. There were many, many plans on the shelves that had never been enacted because of fear or inability to take the next step or I really don’t know what, but a lot of money wasted that way. I totally agree with you. That is actually one of the reasons why I loved what happened in New York, because it was very quick and dirty. They tested it out. They tested it out with not even very nice bollards just to see what would happen and then move forward. And that I, I love that. I think it’s great. I’m going to ask you another hard question. So, I want to know is Denmark more supportive of female leaders than the US? And if so, how are women encouraged to take leadership roles?

Helle: [00:25:39] I do know that the Danish Society is one of the most, sort of, equal society in terms of men and women having equal opportunities. So, there is definitely something in our societal model that allows women to have a career. And the fact that we have so good public childcare system and school system and so forth enables many women to have a career. So that’s for sure part of it. It’s also been a process here. I mean, when I started out in real estate, in planning 20 to 25 years ago, it was much more male dominated. So, I would often in my early career be the sole woman in in a room. And I can see over these last 20 years or so in Denmark how that has changed. And also, in architecture education. We now have 60% women, actually. That is not to say that, we don’t necessarily have 60% women when it comes to leadership positions. So, there is still a gap even in even in Denmark on that front.

Eve: [00:26:58] What about women who control money? I mean, I think the problem we have here is maybe not in architecture, been in real estate in general. There are very, very few women in positions of control in real estate in the US. It’s a very heavily male dominated industry. And when you control the money, you control the decisions, right?

Helle: [00:27:22] Yeah, and that’s definitely the same here. I think the problem with real estate in general is that it’s a very conservative business and it’s a market that is used to developing a model and then sort of really refining that model and copying so that you can sort of earn more and more money over time. And there is very relatively little experimentation actually, and that’s actually what is needed more possibility to experiment with different types of lifestyles and different types of ways of living. I think many of ours.

Eve: [00:28:04] Different solutions.

Eve: [00:28:05] Yeah. I always think about affordable housing in Pittsburgh where I’ve lived for many years. I mean, affordable housing is absolutely important and was heavily supported by the city and I am not criticizing it, but it became a cookie cutter thing. You could drive down a street and you could point to the subsidized house because it had a very certain look to it. And that’s a shame. I mean, again, that speaks to good design shouldn’t only be for people with means. There are people who need affordable housing who want to live differently. It’s a little depressing.

Helle: [00:28:44] Yeah. And Denmark, we have a special model for social housing that is more than 100 years old. And I’ve often tried to export this model even to the US. Generally, it’s called common housing, or it’s called general housing because it’s not social for the people who need support from the government. Actually, in Denmark everybody can apply for general housing or for common housing. And the way it works is that it’s actually run as a separate private company, and all the private companies that run these estates, they pay part of their rent, after having paid back relatively cheap loan to the government, after 30 years, then they can start paying rent into a national fund and the national fund then repays back in a circular system. You can apply for money from the foundation whenever you need to do renovation or social projects in your estate. So, this basically means that we don’t have any common housing estates in Denmark that are badly maintained. We have money to run social programs and job training programs and health programs and renovate public spaces and stuff like that in the public housing estates across the country. And in our planning law, in new developments, you are required to have 30% common housing in your area.

Eve: [00:30:39] Interesting.

Helle: [00:30:40] So, it’s super interesting, sort of circular, sort of, at least in money terms, circular system that has existed in Denmark for 400 years. And I think there should be ways to set up similar types of mechanisms, maybe at more of, sort of, a regional level also in the US. It would be super interesting to think about.

Eve: [00:31:09] Oh, that’s really fascinating. I will look into it for sure. Yeah. So, what’s your ultimate goal?

Helle: [00:31:22] My ultimate goal is I think, currently my ultimate goal would be to try and create a sort of more of a community of thinkers and doers around our approach to development so that we can hopefully impact even more places to create even more sort of visionary projects that can be references and lead impact behind, so that it can inspire others. And do that through more strategic partnerships globally. So, I’m really still very focused on the sort of more global transformation, you could say, within our field.

Eve: [00:32:20] Well, I’d be really fascinated to see what you do, and I think I’m going to make up a list of places that you’ve worked on to go see next. As travel opens up a little bit, and certainly back to Copenhagen, which is an amazing, amazing city. Although I have to say I almost got run over by a bike there. It’s a little scary crossing the bike lanes. And then I actually brought a bike in Copenhagen back to Pittsburgh, so I have a little bit of it there.

Helle: [00:32:47] It’s fantastic.

Eve: [00:32:48] But the bikes certainly rule the road, don’t they, in Copenhagen?

Helle: [00:32:53] They certainly do. And I would say, Eve any time you’re welcome to visit. We have also done a bit of a collaboration with the city of Pittsburgh actually, but I don’t believe any of it has been implemented yet.

Eve: [00:33:08] Oh, I can’t wait to hear.

Helle: [00:33:11] If any of our team is there. I’ll connect you.

Eve: [00:33:14] Absolutely. That’d be fabulous. Thank you very much for joining me today. Bye.

Helle: [00:33:19] You’re welcome, Eve. Bye.

Eve: [00:33:31] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive together. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. If you like what you heard, you can support this podcast by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media, or leaving a rating and review. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing, head on over to smallchange.co, where I spend most of my time. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Helle Søholt

I finally found my tribe.

July 27, 2022

Jim is an infill developer and sustainable development advisor based in Sonoma County, California. Known for his aspirational but practical approach, he works with a range of tools and best practices to communicate the value of inspired design and sustainability within the realities of local market norms. With over forty years experience as an urban designer, land planner, sustainability strategist and now infill developer, he brings a broad range of perspectives and skills to the discussion about how communities grow. Trained as a landscape architect, he received a Master’s in Real Estate Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as way to more effectively integrate economics, development and design thinking.

An active member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), Jim was at the forefront of defining the tenets of sustainable community design, serving as co-instructor for ULI’s pioneering program in Sustainable Community Design. He continues his leadership as founder and lead instructor for ULI’s program focused on small scale incremental development. He has organized and led fifteen national tours where participants explore the impact and benefits of non-institutional approaches to real estate development, and how it creates stronger local economies and more authentic places. Drawing on his own experience and the work of others seen during these tours, he authored Building Small: A Toolkit for Real Estate Entrepreneurs, Civic Leaders and Great Communities. Published in April by ULI, the book has quickly gained a national following from all professions engaged in shaping the built environment.

To Jim, small does not mean insignificant. His work emphasizes the idea that Small is oftentimes Big, and his ULI forums have brought together developers with this same value system, giving them a place in real estate and encouraging them to create change.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:09] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone. If you haven’t already, check out all of my podcasts at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co, or you can find them at your favorite podcast station. You’ll find lots worth listening to, I’m sure.

Eve: [00:01:00] Early in his career, Jim Heid worked on humongous real estate projects all over the world as a management consultant. Over time, the diversity of places he lived and worked in shaped his appreciation of small, community-centric places with soul. He moved his head and heart from a loft in downtown San Francisco to the tiny 12,000-person town of Healdsburg in California, where he is building his thesis that small is big. There are some big things that Jim is working on. They include his small-scale developer forums, which are growing bigger. A recently published book called “Building Small: A Toolkit for Real Estate Entrepreneurs, Civic Leaders and Great Communities” and real estate projects that are small and meaningful. Jim Heid has a big story to tell, so listen in.

Eve: [00:02:04] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:29] So welcome to the show, Jim. I’m really excited to talk to you.

Jim Heid: [00:02:33] Yeah, I’m happy to be here. It’s long overdue, right?

Eve: [00:02:36] It is. I met you a while back. I don’t even know how long back, through the ULI Small Scale Developer forum. So, my first question to you is, like how did the theme Small Scale, which will emerge as we talk, come to take center stage in your professional life? And actually, what does that even mean in your professional life?

Jim: [00:03:01] Those are two loaded questions. So, I’m going to start with the first of all, how did I get there? Why am I so passionate about it? And then I can talk a little bit about at least how I’m defining it. There’s those moments in your life that you remember pretty clearly, and I do remember the kind of, the aha moment for me with Small Scale, which was coming out of a ULI meeting. It was a spring meeting in 2011. I was talking to a colleague of mine. I don’t know if you know Howard Kozloff a great guy.

Eve: [00:03:28] I do know that name. Yeah.

Jim: [00:03:30] Yeah. Southern California, developer. And we were talking about we’ve spent a good part of our careers attending, participating, teaching for ULI, really loved the organization and its mission, but felt that a lot of the content was increasingly focused on really big stuff and it kind of was like, Hey, if I’m not $1,000,000,000 rete or a multimillion dollar six block project, like where do I go anymore? Where do I get content? Where to get inspiration, where to get tips? So, we came up with this idea that there needed to be some place where people, like ourselves, that wanted to. We weren’t doing small deals to get to big deals, we wanted to do small deals because we felt they were important. And I can talk a little bit about why, but I felt they are really important and personally very fulfilling. So, it became a passion, took the form through support of ULI into the small-scale forums. We’ll talk about how the forums fed the book and all that kind of stuff. But the definition of small scale.

Eve: [00:04:36] Well, you know, let me add something, because right when you were figuring out a solution, I decided to quit ULI for exactly the same reason I thought, I don’t belong here. These are not the sorts of projects that really interest me as a developer, and I don’t see how I fit. So, I think you were looking to address exactly what I was feeling.

Jim: [00:04:59] Yeah. And I think the hope was to create a safe place within the organization that could embrace this idea and bring people together. And now, with this incredible focus on DEI, the comment is that’s where the emerging developers, the people of color, the people who want to reinvest in their neighborhoods and make a difference in the built environment where they’re from or where they live or where their neighborhoods and their families are. They’re starting at the small scale and so.

Eve: [00:05:30] So small is now big, right?

Jim: [00:05:31] Yeah, small is well, that’s my other venture now called the Initiative to Make Small Big, so yes.

Eve: [00:05:38] Okay.

Jim: [00:05:39] But so, the other question you had was how am I defining small or how do we define small? And, you know, it’s a great question that’s hard to answer because this is an industry that’s extremely quantitative. It’s all about square feet. It’s all about returns. It’s all about dollar value of a project. And after ten years and working on the book and trying to come up with that singular definition of small really came to the idea that it defies a a quantitative definition and it’s much more qualitative. And so, small is the way that we’re defining it. And in the book, there’s the ten hallmarks of small. It’s typically coming from sponsors that have a very clear core set of values. It’s people who are investing in their neighborhoods and care about their neighborhoods.

Jim: [00:06:29] It’s really the attitude and perspective of the developer. It’s developers that have skin in the game and are typically long term holds. It’s not about fix and flip and move on opportunistically. And the biggest thing that I say about small is it’s people that are involved in this and are working in the small genre. See real estate as the means to the end as opposed to the end itself. And what I mean by that is they’re focused on creating human connections, community uplift, creating great places, bringing economic value to their communities, but also building wealth. This is not philanthropy. This is using disciplined capital and execution to create real estate. But they’re doing it in pursuit of something bigger, which is creating great places, as opposed to simply just building real estate as an asset class.

Eve: [00:07:20] So basically, I always say, you know, I could never build a building as a commodity, right? You know, just as a way to make money. It’s way more than that because people experience buildings in the city and they live, the buildings make the places they live in. So much more.

Jim: [00:07:37] Yeah. So, my shorthand that’s evolved after a lot of these kind of presentations is it’s about building community, not commodity, to your extent, and it’s about doing transformations, not transactions. And so, yeah.

Eve: [00:07:49] So what are the ten hallmarks then in your book?

Jim: [00:07:53] Well. So, it’s a clear sense of purpose, commitment to positive evolution of neighborhoods, understanding and building on the assets of fine-grained street character and neighborhoods. So, instead of building amenities, it actually sees the neighborhoods and what is in the neighborhoods as the amenity and how they add to it. It’s entrepreneur individuals and organizations seeking a contextual and best use for the neighborhoods so very much about what I call context and connections. And those connections are both physical as well as social. Long term agility and flexibility. So, kind of future proofing, thinking about assets, these are not one offs that can never be adaptively reuse, and obviously a lot of the stuff that we see in small is adaptive reuse because there’s a story there, there’s a soul and character and it has an impact on the neighborhood, transforms buildings, and it’s kind of a commitment to transform building sites into economic assets.

Jim: [00:08:52] Again, this idea that this is not philanthropy, this is not unreplicable, the idea is this is disciplined use of capital and good development skills to create a model and an approach both at the enterprise level and the project level that many people can scale up and do. And then, the contextually responsive community responsive and market differentiated. So, what I often say is a lot of these projects are very experientially based and they’re focusing on creating the experience which feeds the sales as opposed to just focusing on what’s my lease rate. It’s like, what am I going to create in? What we see in most of these is if you get the experience right, you create something unique, the rates and the revenues follow pretty handsomely.

Eve: [00:09:36] Interesting. But all of this came after many years of these forums, right? Which you developed, and I’ve been to a couple and really, really love them because I do feel like I fit in there. So, how do they work and how many have you had and where’s the next one?

Jim: [00:09:54] Glad you asked because this is kind of like the best thing I get to do in my world. And so, the epilogue to the aha moment that I had with Howard about, hey, how do we create a place for this conversation? And what I like to say, we’re not trying to disparage big, but we’re trying to elevate small so that civic leaders, people that are interested in the built environment, capital sources, can start to consider it as another alternative approach to real estate as opposed to binary, it’s either big or small. But anyway, so when we were talking about this, and at the time I had been teaching a number of programs for ULI, first the Sustainable Community Development, then the advanced residential, then mixed use projects. They asked for some new content, and I said, Well, maybe there’s a place where we could create a forum for people that are interested in this, small scale developers. And we thought it would be a collection of people that were interested in getting into real estate that maybe had just graduated or leaving some other profession, design, brokerage or whatever else, and wanted to kind of learn the basics of real estate, but again, apply it in a small kind of workmanlike way.

Jim: [00:11:04] So, we did the first one in San Francisco in 2012, so a decade ago, and we’re blown away that what we got was not people coming into the profession, but a lot of people like you and I, people who passionately and deeply believed in this, who had a lot of experience and were desperately seeking what has become, the short end is I finally found my tribe. It’s a group of people who share the same values are dealing with the same challenges. There is one woman said, I’m an investment committee of one. I’ve got to make these decisions myself, which is, leads to incredible agility but also is very nerve racking. So, we did the first one in San Francisco that was good, went on, did one in D.C., went to Seattle, Miami, and every time it grew and we were getting people not one time but every time.

Eve: [00:11:56] A real tribe, right?

Jim: [00:11:58] Yeah. Yeah, real tribe. So fast forward, we just did our 17th one, just completed our first decade. It was in San Antonio. We had 80 people. It’s a two-and-a-half-day program where we do panels and case studies and tours, and a lot of it is networking where people are now sharing pro formas. I’m constantly calling up some of my colleagues and say, hey, I’ve got this contract. I need this kind of a clause. Have you ever done that? So, it’s become this…

Eve: [00:12:30] It’s become a big board, right? A big board for your project.

Jim: [00:12:34] Yeah, it’s an open-sourced approach to small scale development as well as I mean, the feedback that I got from the last one is like, you know, I just always leave so inspired. I’m ready to move forward with my projects. It’s so nice to find people who feel the way I do. I thought I was like living out here on my own. And so, it’s become a great thing. And we go to a different city every time. So, as I said, we just did our 17th one or 18th one will be in Nashville in November.

Eve: [00:13:01] I think I’m going to come to that, hold a spot for me.

Jim: [00:13:04] We have people now that have been to 15 or more. So, it’s become, like I said, a real thing. It’s kind of for people in the small-scale space, it’s their annual or twice a year conference where they really love to get together.

Eve: [00:13:20] That’s awesome.

Jim: [00:13:21] Just as a quick sidebar, one of the super fun things that we do and we tried this about, I don’t know, I guess it’s been about eight years ago, but we called it the small petracca slam or Cochon char or how we say it.

Eve: [00:13:33] Pachuco, I think it’s called.

Jim: [00:13:35] Yeah, we were trying to figure out a way that people could introduce themselves without the mind-numbing things that typically happen when you go to conferences. Hi, I’m Jim Heid from Healdsburg, California, I’m an infield developer. So, about eight years ago I asked people to send me three slides and they get 15 seconds for each slide to talk about a project they’re doing a value or hold or a trend they’re watching. And I put it all together into one slide deck. We do about an hour-long cocktail hour, and then after the hour, after everybody’s been appropriately lubricated, we just turn it on and people go and pass the mic. And it’s this like firehose of amazing projects and people’s values and what they’re doing. And then it creates this bond where people like, oh, I saw this thing you were doing in Minneapolis, I’ve got something similar. How you doing this? So, it really opens up the door for conversations, but it’s also super fun and amazing to see the diversity of stuff that is going on in this space around the country. That’s the other thing I should say is of this 70-80 people that typically come, we’re probably getting somewhere around 30 different states represented.

Eve: [00:14:44] That’s amazing.

Jim: [00:14:45] So this is not a local audience. It’s a national audience.

Eve: [00:14:46] You know, it sounds a little bit like Small Change. 30 states represented, an amazing variety of stuff. Yeah, really interesting. So, yeah, hold a space for me in Nashville.

Jim: [00:14:59] Okay. I will do.

Eve: [00:15:00] Okay. And when is that?

Jim: [00:15:03] We’re still trying to pin down the dates. It’s a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, so it’s either six, seven and eight or 13, 14 and 15.

Eve: [00:15:11] Of which month?

Jim: [00:15:12] November.

Eve: [00:15:14] Okay, so the forums grew into the book, which you described, and who should read the book and why?

Jim: [00:15:25] So, in the genesis of the book was, so let’s see, it was it was Denver, so it was our 2016. So, it would have been probably our ninth one that we had done. And I remember flying back and I’m like, every time we go to one of these, I am so inspired by what people are doing. I’m so frustrated at the stories they’re telling about the barriers that are thrown at them and how hard we are making this to do when in fact so many people want it. Because while I was doing that, I had my consulting business, Urban Green, and I was doing a lot of community outreach and facilitation work for projects. And I would go into towns and people would say, you know, we want stuff that fits better. We don’t like these big formula projects that come in from out of state. We want small scale. We want this, hey, I read this thing and strong towns or incremental development. That’s what we want.

Jim: [00:16:14] And so, and then I would go to the forums, and I’d listen to these people who have done these beautifully crafted projects and listen to the pain and suffering and years of struggles from a capital standpoint, a regulatory standpoint. And it was like, this is a really important story, and somebody needs to tell the story both about the projects and how valuable they are to the community, but also the barriers that most places have put up to make this harder rather than easier than big development. And so, started whittling away at this idea of the book. And it originally was going to be kind of this journalistic opinion about small scale development and then quickly grew into this life’s work that is basically three parts. It’s the what and why of small. So, the definition that we talked about and then why it’s important not only urbanistically, but as a critical part of a resilient local economy and the value of the inextricable link between locally owned businesses and small real estate, and how important that is in economic cycles to have people that are really invested in their community as opposed to just a bunch of out of town lessees that will mail back the keys the first time they run into trouble.

Jim: [00:17:28] And then there’s a whole how-to toolkit, which is about a third of the book or two thirds of the book that was really meant to explain not real estate 101, but what is different about working in this small space than what they would teach you in grad school? And so, I say this is what they don’t teach you at real estate school section. And then the last one is classic Urban Land Institute case studies. And you’re profiled in this because we thought it was more than just talking about projects. It was really important to talk about the people, the agencies, the non-profits that were at the vanguard of this and how they were accomplishing it. Because we wanted people to pick up the book and say, oh, we could do that. This person did this, and I share those values as opposed to, oh, that’s a cool project. What’s the numbers look like on that? So, who should read it falls into two camps and it was written very specifically to two audiences. The first one is the real estate entrepreneur. The people who want to pursue this as a career path or are already in it. And we’ve had a lot of universities now that are using it as a textbook for their design schools.

Jim: [00:18:39] We have some non-profit housing providers that are actually using it as part of their emerging developers curriculum program. And you ULI, a number of the district councils are using it as part of their real estate diversity initiative. But then the other audience was meant to be civic leaders, planning staff and even citizens who are going around all the time saying This is what we want but don’t realize how hard they’ve made it.

Jim: [00:19:04] So, it’s part inspiration and call to action of what’s possible, then it also breaks down in a pretty common sense way of when you make it more difficult to get approvals, you increase the risk, which means the capital costs more, if you can even get the capital and therefore a lot of the community benefits that you think the developers should pay for can no longer pay that because he’s had to pay for it as entitlements or the project doesn’t work. So, there’s a pretty broad audience, and my favorite thing is when people are buying this and giving it to their council members or they’re planning commissions or there are a lot of people who buy like ten or 20 and have me sign them and give them to their whole town council staff. When I get city managers that call me up and say, you know, come talk to me about this, I’ve got this site and we’re trying to figure out what to do and maybe we should try a small approach. So, you know, I think we’ve reached the broad, and then obviously there’s a lot of real estate entrepreneurs. People come in and they’re like, oh, I love this. I’ve been waiting so long for this. It’s just, you know, the other quick thing that I’ll say about the book is this, I was two years late delivering it and actually finished it during COVID. But I say it’s a much better book because during those two years I did two projects of my own and that personal journey and what I learned and the nuances beyond the academia, what the real details and just the personal introspection of what you’ve got to go through to really succeed, found its way into the book, I think as more than just a how to it’s how to do this and how to survive the rollercoaster as a small developer when you’ve got everything hanging out on the line and not sure.

Eve: [00:20:47] Right, it is a roller coaster. Sounds like the book took longer than a real estate project.

Jim: [00:20:51] No, the book was four years. The projects were, well, one was three and one was five. So yeah.

Eve: [00:20:57] So right in the middle.

Jim: [00:20:59] Right in the middle. And they all finished about the same time. So, last year was pretty big.

Eve: [00:21:06] So let’s talk about your projects. So, I’m fascinated by first of the fact that you live and work in Healdsburg, California, which is a small town, and the two projects I know about really exemplify sort of entire community life. One is directed at small businesses and the other is directed at small residences. And the first is craft work, which is a co-working space, which I think you opened right when the pandemic began.

Jim: [00:21:35] 63 days before the shelter in place. But who’s counting?

Eve: [00:21:40] And the second is one that it looks like it was, I don’t know when it was completed, but River House, which is 12 residences also in that town. So, tell me about craftwork first, why did you decide to develop a co-working space? That’s another business again, you know.

Jim: [00:21:57] Yeah, well, back up first, I’ll just gives some quick context for Healdsburg. So, Healdsburg is a town of about 12,000 people an hour north, door to door north of San Francisco, right at the center of kind of the wine and food culture in Sonoma County and has an incredible kind of historic walkable urbanism DNA and it was discovered, really discovered and kind of current trajectory about 2000 we bought a place here in 2003, it was a weekend place. We would come up from the city we were living like right downtown San Francisco in the warehouse district and a loft. So, it was our perfect little town and country lifestyle. And then in 2013 sold our place in the city and moved up here full time. It’s one of those things where every Sunday was a.

Eve: [00:22:43] That’s a Really big move. That’s a big move.

Jim: [00:22:45] It’s a big move. And it was one of those things where every Sunday where you’re packing up the car to go back to the city and your job and then you’re say, oh, it’d be so nice to live here. Really would hate to go. And so, finally we reached the point and said, well, you know, there’s nothing keeping us in the city. We were both independent, you know, mobile. So, it’s like, okay, let’s move up here and do that. So, when I moved here, you know, it’s a small enough town and parochial in some ways that until you really live here, you don’t have as much credibility as when you do. And so, I moved here and then I had all this experience through my consulting and my work with Urban Land Institute and a lot of the projects I’ve worked with around the globe. So suddenly I had this opportunity to bring and test what I’d learned other places to a small town with great DNA that was experiencing, I wouldn’t call it rapid growth, and I’ll tell you about that in a minute, but it was experiencing certainly increased visibility and desirability. Smithsonian ranked it the number two town in the country to visit one year. It’s got one of the one of the top five town squares. So, it gets a lot of press and visibility.

Jim: [00:23:51] So, I had come back from our Detroit forum and each of our forums are themed around something and that particular one was themed around co-working, urban manufacturing and makerspace. And so, we toured a number of co-working spaces in Detroit, and they were really phenomenal. First of all, I just love the aesthetic, I love the concept, I love the kind of community and the flexibility of that. This is so, you know, I can do this. This is what I want to do. So, I came back to Healdsburg, and I live one block from my co-working space and which at the time was an empty, vacant 5000 square foot bank in a sixties strip center between my house and the coffee shop that I went to every morning. And I would walk by it, and I would fantasize about, wouldn’t it be cool to do that? You know, I could do that. And this is a town that even though it’s only 12,000 people, it’s fairly well-to-do. You’ve got a lot of people who I call tech emigres that have left the city and are now living their life up here, but they’re working remotely. Got a lot of people to come through, stay a weekend and want to connect into the town. They want an authentic experience. They just don’t want to do the stuff that’s on the Three Perfect Days in Healdsburg kind of thing. So, I naively said, well, yeah, I can do this. And I talked to a couple of friends and they’re like, yeah, I know this makes total sense. So, this was this was about 2017, we started the discussion. So, WeWork was still in its heyday and rapidly growing. I don’t think even industrious, I don’t think industrious was around. But anyways.

Eve: [00:25:30] No, industrious is later, I think.

Jim: [00:25:32] Yeah, yeah. But the whole co-working phenomena and leading edge and all that was going on. And again, I loved it. I wanted to get my hands dirty, not just write about something, not just go to forums. I want to get my hands dirty. So, it seemed like a perfect opportunity. So, really funny story. So, I go to the landlord. So, this is built in 60 by a gentleman who has now passed away. So, I am dealing with his son and the son’s daughter. The son is 90 and the daughter is 67. And I walk in with my beautiful flipbook, you know, cribbing pictures from WeWork and all the really cool, sexy co-working spaces. And I say, I’d like to lease the space and I’m going to build this coworking space. And they look at me for a minute and they say, well, my dad said, you never should put office in your retail centers. And I’m like, well, don’t think of it as office. Think of it like a gym. Think of all the people moving through here. And, you know, it’s 5000 square feet. It’s been vacant for a while. And with Amazon and everything else is not going to be a lot of takers for the space. So, within a span of about an hour, a gentleman who is 90 years old kind of put the piece in. He’s just like, so if I was young and I came to town and I wanted to start a business, I could just get a desk and I wouldn’t have to, like, sign a lease and I wouldn’t have to, like, get internet and pay for cleaning. And I’m like, yeah, he’s like, wow, that’s a really cool idea. We should do that.

Jim: [00:26:57] So, we struck a deal and then I embarked on the design and planning, and I spent a lot of time talking to people I know I spoke to you about, like, how do you build a performer? What are the metrics? What’s the industry trends? There was a woman in Petaluma who had done one, and she was enormously helpful in terms of thinking through how people in these markets use co-working versus how they do in an urban center. And again, being a fairly upscale community, I knew this couldn’t be shag carpet and beanbag chairs for people with flip flops and hoodies. Our demographic is probably mid-forties professional. So, I immediately created this kind of verbal image of Hotel Healdsburg, which was our upscale hotel, beautifully done by David Baker, Banshee Tasting Room, which was eclectic, cool little hip tasting room meets flying goat coffee, which was the beloved coffee shop where everybody went and worked. And when I would explain that to people, they immediately got it. And so then embarked on the, the design, the construction turned out beautifully. People love it, had a lot of really interesting.

Eve: [00:28:10] And you got through COVID, how did you do that? What did that?

Jim: [00:28:13] So yeah, that’s a great story. And I think it’s, I’ve had these conversations with some other people in co-working. I mean, part of it is the town, but a big part of it is, I think the premarketing and our pitch was, and the business thesis was these small lifestyle towns. This is going to be an incredibly important community asset. It’s not just a business, it’s a community asset, a hub, a place to connect, a place to have informed conversations that talk about the future. And so, I spent a lot of time telling that story. I was telling Jamie Russo when we were doing this podcast on this. So, one of the first things I did was I put a survey out via the chamber that said like, would you be interested in a co-working space? We’re going to open this up, yadda, yadda, yadda. What would you like an office dedicated to? Just to see if there was any market depth. Got a lot of response right away. And then I called up and contacted everybody that said they wanted an office. And I started to talk about, well, what is it that you want? What are you going to need? What do you do? All this kind of stuff. So about two years of creating the story, building the trust. I think marketing and this isn’t just coworking, this is a community asset.

Jim: [00:29:27] So, to answer your question, when we finally got open, which is about a year after we promised we would, people were a very excited about it and B really believed that we were doing something important for the community. This wasn’t just another retail front; this was an important community asset. So, when COVID hit. People said, look, no, no, no, you’re too important to go away. Keep billing me. You know, I’m not going to come in, but I want you to maintain my membership. And so, that lasted for probably 90 to 120 days. And then people said, whoa, this could take a lot longer than I thought. But we immediately were able to backfill because a lot of people had left San Francisco, took an airbnb out in the country. They worked in tech. They didn’t have good Internet out there. So, we kind of backfill with that. And then by September, a lot of people are like, hey, I can’t work at home. The kids are there, we’re home schooling, no bandwidth or whatever else. So, we limped along. The PPP was enormously helpful. It was maddening at the time, but.

Eve: [00:30:31] It was helpful, wasn’t it? It was helpful.

Jim: [00:30:32] Hugely, hugely helpful. And then we just kept staying visible. One of the things I was really most proud of, so when shelter in place hit and it was really ugly, we did a thing called small joys for sheltering in place, and every Friday we picked a local vendor in town and we would curate for 20 bucks some kind of an offering bag of coffee and a jar of granola flowers for Mother’s Day, whatever else. And we would, we’d put it on our site and we’d send it out to our mail list, and then you would come pick them up on Friday. So, people came in and they were like, hey, can we participate? Hey, you know, we love what you’re doing. It wasn’t a lot, but we raised like $10,000 for the all the individual business owners and we ran that for about 12 weeks. So those kinds of things.

Eve: [00:31:20] So you’re a strong marketer.

Jim: [00:31:22] Yeah.

Eve: [00:31:24] Yeah, that’s really fascinating. So, you got through that. And then the second project, which is maybe even more challenging, I think the town has a minimum lot area ordinance of 6000 square feet, is that right?

Jim: [00:31:39] Well, it has all kinds of things. This is a case of where people want what they want and what the codes say are two different things.

Eve: [00:31:46] Codes can be enormously challenging. But you designed and developed an infill project that is very much in keeping with the town and I have a feeling took a lot to get to that point because of the way that zoning codes are. Just talk about that. This is 12 residential living units with ADUs and a whole variety of features that I think are probably unusual for the zoning board to see, right?

Jim: [00:32:16] Well, yeah. It was. So, quick stats just for people that are into this stuff. 12 units, 1.2 acres. So, ten units per acre, all single family detached. We did it all with as of right zoning, which is kind of unheard of. And in California we have very onerous environmental processes, and we got an exemption because we met all of the criteria as infill. But I said a little while ago that we’re not a high growth town because two decades ago, in the town’s infinite wisdom, we passed a growth ordinance that limits the town to 30 permits per year. So, I’ll say that again, 30 permits per year. So now everybody’s screaming about how expensive housing is because it’s high demand and we’re only building so many new ones here. So, we had to deal with that. How do we get enough allocations to build that? How do we do with these minimum lot sizes, which had to be 6000 square feet?

Eve: [00:33:09] That’s insane.

Jim: [00:33:10] Had some prescriptive dimensions of 60 by 90, and then we had some environmental considerations. But it’s a classic cottage court where the 12 units are pretty much organized around a central green space. Cars are subordinated to the rear, kind of a neo traditional, where there’s two alleys that flank it. It’s kind of a square site, the site lent itself to it very well. And big front porches facing onto the green and fairly good private space, and all done in a contemporary farmhouse style. So, a lot of references to kind of home, I think in people visually but also updated for contemporary living. And the big thing with this project and I just came back from a builders’ conference where we won a bunch of awards for it and I was explaining to a panel I was on is so many developments design, especially in these land, more land lot, developments. They lay out the lots and then they just plop the houses into it that will fit on the lot. And in this case, working with Dan Parolek from Opticos Design, we designed the urban form. So how do we want the homes to mass? How do we want them to shape the green? And then once we did that, we lotted them. And so, the lotting plan is highly gerrymandered. And to the town’s credit, once they saw the urban form and what we were trying to do, they understood that the very confusing lotting plan was the only way we were going to get there without having to go through a rezoning and all this kind of stuff that would drag it out way too long.

Eve: [00:34:43] Interesting.

Jim: [00:34:44] You know, the end result when you’re in the space is is actually quite magical. And super successful. We came to market July 4th last year, sold it out in five months.

Eve: [00:34:58] That’s amazing. Because some of the features are things that people say will never work. Detached garages, the units face a little sidewalk, right. A little pedestrian area. And there’s shared green space.

Jim: [00:35:12] And this is a classic case of where the processes and sometimes the people. So, I’m at planning commission and I’m showing this in one of the commissioners says I’m not going to carry my groceries in the rain. You know, you’ve got to attach the garage. And I’m like, look I’m the developer. I’m taking that market risk. That’s not for you to decide. Does it meet code or doesn’t it? But they’re opining on stuff. And then the other thing we did was we painted them all white, and we used different. So, we use shingles and some lap on some board. So, there’s a very subtle kind of textural shade and shadow difference, but there’s a continuity and a harmony between them and, oh my God, you know, I mean just.

Eve: [00:35:51] The they opined about the color.

Jim: [00:35:53] Oh, yeah, white. Oh, I hate white houses. You know, I have one in my neighborhood and they’re too bright. So, no, you can’t do that. And fortunately, the other commissioners are like, you know, I think that’s going to be pretty elegant. So, there’s these personal biases that people bring to these conversations, and they’re not even trained as designers, so they don’t get it. But they’re in this position of power.

Eve: [00:36:11] And then I think some of the other big moves you talk about, I’m a trained urban designer myself, and I think people don’t understand why they love spaces. But that’s what urban designers are trained think about. You know, how to make good spaces. So, you talked about using the existing trees as amenities and framing views. So, there’s a lot that went into the public space design of these 12 houses. Little in the houses themselves. Right. For a little project. You had quite a list of consultants.

Jim: [00:36:43] Yeah, we did. We did. You know, it’s interesting you say that, but the space is so again, at the PCBC last week, one of the jurors was glowingly talking about that and saying, you know, the layering of semi-private to private spaces, the size of the space and the scale of the space. And it’s my background’s landscape architecture, so it’s probably a little less concerned about the buildings and more concerned about how to in the world. She said, a lot of great trees on the site. So how do you use those too? As one of the other, one of my favorite lines last week for the juror was the trees allowed you to cheat history. So, it felt like this thing had been there. I mean, you go out there, you feel like it’s been there for probably 30 years. It looks like the Presidio.

Eve: [00:37:23] Versus the trees kind of make my car dirty, right?

Jim: [00:37:27] Yeah, exactly. And so, to your question, so the people that have bought there, there was a conscious pivot. It was a very interesting study in human psychology. So, buyers came in, I think almost universally loved the project. They were inspired by it. They loved the way it looked. It was beautiful. They loved the trees. They loved everything about it. But then they very quickly came to a fork in the road, and they said, but I’m not really that social and I really don’t want people seeing me on my porch. I’m a little more private. Or they said, I love this idea and I love the fact that spontaneously I’m going to go out to the green and have a drink with some friends or I’m sitting on the porch and people stop by. So, there was a natural selection that occurred by people who wanted that lifestyle, and so they’ve actually made it happen. So, it’s fascinating to me how much the group has gelled very quickly, do things together, spontaneously, gather in the green for happy hour and all that.

Eve: [00:38:29] It’s almost like co-housing, but not quite.

Jim: [00:38:31] It is, yeah. Without the kind of somewhat cultish idea that at least co-housing makes people think of. I know it’s not that there is a thing, but it is. Or we call it intentional.

Eve: [00:38:46] Yeah. So, is it too early to tell what has worked well and what hasn’t?

Jim: [00:38:53] I mean, definitely some good lessons. I mean, the thing that I missed on that was I call it barbecues, trash and dogs. So, one of the things was keeping things very open and kind of granular. But in the end, we had to add a lot more fencing than I originally would have thought, because at the end of the day, people have small dogs, they don’t want their dogs running away. So there had to be fences around that. What do you do with the trash when this is a layout where every square inch mattered and we kind of missed that. And then the other thing is like, what do people do with their barbecues? You know, it’s like, don’t really want to put them on the porch and risk, you know, creating a fire under the roof. So anyways, there are a couple of little things like that. I think the green, the scale of the spaces is really good. We spend a lot of time like how big is too big? How small is too small? And I really feel like we nailed that really, really well. The subordinated cars, I think people again that don’t really fret over having to carry the groceries love the fact that the cars are out of you.

Jim: [00:39:58] My marketing line was you sit on your front porch, and you look at the green, not your neighbor’s driveway. And, you know, so it’s a very different kind of visual experience. So, the other thing that we kind of, we were trying to be very egalitarian, so the green faces the street, and it faces the river across the way, which had been neglected for years. And so, we spent a lot of money to clean up the river and make it part of the amenity. And now one of the challenges we had was everybody in the neighborhood thinking it was their park. So, coming in and having picnics or bringing their dogs in, but not being responsible for them and stuff like that. So, we had to figure out some fairly low key ways to say this is a private, this is people’s private front yards. You wouldn’t walk. You don’t want people walking in your front yard, you know, be respectful.

Eve: [00:40:45] It’s a wonderful story. So, let me ask you, what was your life before small scale? What did you do?

Jim: [00:40:53] You know, it was almost the antithesis of it. It was big. And when I, I don’t know if you saw my TED talk, but the TED talk was I spent my life doing big projects. I mean, literally around the globe, 25,000 acres in the desert of Nevada, Australia, 3000 acres, 10,000 homes. And I was into community design. Two things were happening. I noticed in every one of those projects, after hours, wherever I was, I went to the cool little nitty gritty alleys and spaces and kind of emerging areas, and that’s where I wanted to hang out was probably the most inspired. And then I would come back to these big master planned projects, and I’d say, how do we get that kind of level of what’s now called tactical urbanism, but place and grit and you know, often talk about we’ve gone from greenfield to grit as kind of the cool thing now, and it’s like, how do you create that? And I would work with these big developers, but they, yeah, they couldn’t rationalize it. Their funders didn’t get it, it never met. And so, I finally got to the point where it’s like, I believe in this. I’ve seen it, I need to try and do it. And my sister once said to me, like, why are you doing this now at your age? And I’m like, well, because if I get to your age and I haven’t done it, I’m going to be really mad at myself. So, I kind of went all in and you know, I mean, it’s the classic entrepreneur story. Second mortgage on the house, couldn’t find financing so went in all myself and you know the story, jury’s still out, but it’s been enormously fulfilling personally and to see the reaction and all the things as you said people tell you that won’t work and then you do it and they’re like, oh my god, why don’t we have more of this? This is so great.

Eve: [00:42:42] I can see you having a lot of fun, it’s inspiring for me. But I have to ask you a question now. This is like loaded. So, in amongst all of that you do, all these community projects, you know about equity crowdfunding, you know that it’s gradually taking its place in the capital stack, although most people still don’t know it. Do you think there’s a role in building communities using that tool?

Jim: [00:43:10] Oh, absolutely. I had no doubt. I think it has not found its stride yet. But I think we’re getting to, there’s enough consistency, coalescing in the conversation that people want something different. They realize, you know, California, the state legislature, there’s been a lot of pretty significant changes to help facilitate different and break through the NIMBYism and the barriers. And I think people are starting to recognize that unless they put their money where their mouth is, they’re not going to get different. And, you know, that’s not going to be everywhere. But I mean, where we are, again, we’re a fairly well-to-do community. I have a couple of partners who’ve invested in River House and yes, they wanted a return. Yes, they wanted to make sure they weren’t going to lose their money, but they were equally interested in doing something to demonstrate another way to do what we were getting and be a part of that change. And I think people want to do that and they’d like to be able to access that in a way that it’s not a $200,000 commitment. It’s Yeah, I’ll put 1000 and I’ll put in 2000. And we hear those stories a lot through the forums, the people who’ve done well, a lot of the times, entrepreneurs, they’re at a point in their life where they’ve done well, they’re well off, and they’re like, you know, I want to I want to help somebody else have the ride that I did. I want to support somebody. I like their energy. I like what they’re doing. I want to help. So, we need vehicles to do that. And I think, yeah, actually you were in Seattle when we did that panel with Kevin Cavenaugh, Lorenzo. And I don’t if you remember the guy who…

Eve: [00:44:51] Oh, yeah, I’ll never forget because Kevin, no one knew if he was going to actually show up.

Jim: [00:44:55] Yeah, yeah. Well, and then he had 80 slides and I said, you only have 10 minutes, don’t worry. And he was like, awesome. But at the, after that panel, the guy that stood up and said, raise his hand and gets up, and he said, look, I am from the institutional capital markets. I absolutely love what you’re doing. I believe so much in this. You do not want to talk to me because we will never get this. And so, there’s a lot of people saying, oh, we need to get the institutional capital. They’re never going to get it. And so, we need another vehicle and the crowdfunding and the people that care. But we do need to get along with giving people the vehicle to invest in their communities and take part in this. They also need to just become more educated about the relationship between the risks they create in the difficulties of approvals, of getting things done, and then how secure their investment is.

Eve: [00:45:44] Yeah, I mean, I think that’s the most difficult thing about this is with crowdfunding, you’re letting in a sea, 97% of the adult population who never had the ability to invest before. So, you have to educate them on the risks of investing, what it means to invest, the role they’ll play, and also real estate. How do you invest in real estate? It’s not a widget. It’s a different form of investment. I think the educational piece is definitely lagging. Okay, one more question for you, and that is you must have something else up your sleeve. What’s next for you?

Jim: [00:46:20] Oh yeah. Well really trying to say formalize the forums, they’ve been a work in progress. But I really want to see those continue to grow because they built so much momentum. And my dream is a really big kind of national seminal conference on small scale development. That’s 200 people in the coolest city that’s all around small you know, toying around with the idea Savannah, and really brings together, because there’s a lot of people working in this space and what’s already a fragmented business is further fragmented by everybody having their own little megaphone and not coming together.

Jim: [00:46:58] So that’s one thing. The other thing that I’m working on is a program called Small Coach. And a big part of my journey over the last six years has been participating in an entrepreneur’s coaching program called Strategic Coach. And it’s been really, really helpful in terms of not only tools around business and realizing your goals, but also balancing your life. But the one thing that I miss is it’s kind of industry agnostic. So, I’m trying to develop a curriculum for real estate entrepreneurs that is not just like raising money and getting through construction and entitlements and all that kind of stuff. But also, how do you manage your life? How do you set your goals? How do you embrace the fact that you’re an entrepreneur and make the most of it and really celebrate that? So, that’s hopefully we’ll launch here in the next the next couple of months. I’m hoping to get it off the ground in September.

Eve: [00:47:52] Well, this has been delightful. We should have really done two podcasts. I’m sure there’s a lot more to talk about.

Jim: [00:47:58] I told you I talk a lot.

Eve: [00:47:59] But we’re going to talk more offline. And thank you very, very much for joining me.

Jim: [00:48:04] Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I hope to see you in Nashville in November.

Eve: [00:48:08] Definitely will. I’m going to make it happen.

Jim: [00:48:10] Very good.

Eve: [00:48:17] Jim Heid has found his tribe. Slowly but surely, he is bringing together like-minded thinkers with his forums, his book and his real estate projects. His path from big to small is inspirational.

Eve: [00:48:39] You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at our website RethinkRealEstateForGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Jim Heid

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