Life of an Architect

What you want from architecture can change considerably over a career. Bob and Andrew explore four career stages, from finding your footing and developing your abilities to guiding others and deciding what comes next. We discuss how experience shapes your contribution, why priorities shift, and how your definition of success can evolve. Apparently, figuring out what you want to be when you grow up requires periodic updates.

Ep 212: Schedules - Who Owns Your Time explores the demands of architectural practice, shifting deadlines, and the hidden cost of making every commitment work.

The universe has rules, and apparently so does the office - most of them explaining why schedules expand, promotions go sideways, and adding more people can make a late project even later. In Episode 211, Andrew and I use 11 laws, principles, effects, and razors as a practical lens for making better decisions, managing people, and surviving the occasional meeting that should have been an email.

In Episode 210, “The Cost of Loyalty,” we look at how the relationship between employees and firms has changed, why loyalty can no longer be assumed, and what research says about engagement, compensation, career growth, flexibility, and retention. The conversation explores how architecture firms can rebuild genuine commitment by creating clearer opportunities, investing in people, and making professional growth worth staying for.

Ep 209: Understanding Residential Contracts breaks down five ways architects charge for residential work, along with the tradeoffs of each.

Most people treat asking good questions as something you either have a knack for or you don't. Bob makes the case that it's actually a trainable habit, one built on slowing down long enough to catch a guess before it disguises itself as a real question. Along the way, he and Andrew revisit an old closing segment from the show's early days, the one where negotiating the question mattered more than answering it, and connect that memory back to the discipline architects rely on every time technical requirements and design instincts have to share the same decision.

Most of us have learned to treat more thinking as the responsible move, right up until it isn't. This episode is about the moment careful preparation quietly turns into avoidance, and why waiting for certainty is usually just a slower way of losing. Bob and Andrew talk through what it actually takes to commit before you feel ready, evaluate the results honestly instead of defending them, and keep adjusting without ever expecting to get it perfect.

What started as a simple commitment to sketch more became an unexpected lesson in accountability, criticism, and staying true to the reasons we begin creative work in the first place. Bob shares how a personal sketching exercise evolved into a broader reflection on discipline, public feedback, and the importance of measuring your progress against your own standards rather than someone else's expectations. Whether you're an architect, a creative professional, or simply trying to build a better habit, this conversation explores what it really means to keep a promise to yourself.

Designing a house does not begin with floor plans, exterior styles, or deciding where the kitchen island should go. It begins with understanding the people who will live there and translating their habits, priorities, routines, and expectations into a useful design framework.

In this episode, Bob and Andrew examine the residential programming process and the role a well-constructed client workbook can play before design begins. They discuss why traditional questionnaires tend to focus too heavily on what a client wants while failing to explore why those spaces matter, how they will be used, and what problems the...

In episode 204, “Character Development - Revisited,” we go back to the beginning and revisit the very first Life of an Architect podcast episode. Episode 001 was mostly an introduction: who we were, why the podcast existed, and what we thought it might become. At the time, the website had grown beyond the casual creative outlet it was intended to be, and the podcast seemed like a way to return to the original idea - talking honestly about architecture, practice, and the profession in a more immediate way.

More than 200 episodes later, that first conversation feels different. The show has...

Episode 203 explores ten museums worth seeing not for the collections alone, but for the buildings themselves. From quiet rooms shaped by light to dramatic structures carved from old industrial spaces, this episode looks at museums where architecture changes the way we move, look, and remember the visit.

So you are thinking about teaching architecture. You’ve got some years of experience under your belt and you want to share your knowledge with the next generation. Or you’ve always felt a calling to teach the next generation of the profession? Maybe you just want to try something different and it seems like an easy transition? Well today Bob and I are breaking this topic wide open and revealing some of the elements involved in going from working in a firm to teaching in academia.

Middle management is not usually the part of a career anyone dreams about, which is probably fair since most dreams do not involve inheriting more responsibility while time and authority stand nearby pretending they were not invited. Still, there is something important that happens in that space if you are paying attention. You start to see how decisions move through a firm, how unclear expectations become someone else’s burden, and how much leadership depends on remembering what pressure felt like before you had the ability to pass it along.

Ep 200: Hate to Love You looks back at favorite episodes, hard lessons, great guests, and the conversations that made this podcast worth your time from day one.

Ep 199: Conflict Resolution explores how architects manage tension, stay useful under pressure, and move hard conversations toward better outcomes.

Ep 198: The Creative Process | Why creativity in architecture depends on process, judgment, and knowing which ideas are worth pursuing

Ep197: The Knowledge Gap: As veteran architects retire, the profession risks losing hard-won knowledge, mentorship, and judgment no handbook can replace.

Ep 196: Do Architects Retire explores why architects work longer, what comes next, identity shifts, and how money choices that shape retirement options.

Designing Your Own House explores why architects hesitate to design their own homes: pressure, endless choices, ego vs livability, money, and what it reveals.

Being your own boss isn’t about starting a firm. It’s about control, momentum, money, and owning the tradeoffs shaping your career long before you noticed.

Ep 193: The Client Experience, looks at why client relationships feel adversarial and why architects have more control than they think.

Have a Plan is a reflective conversation about why pausing to think matters and how intention can help you move off square one this year.

Architects ask the questions they actually want answered as Bob and Andrew dig into careers, practice, and the occasional absurdity.

The Truth about Titles explores why architectural titles matter, why they don’t, and how their meaning shifts over the course of a career.

Discover the ultimate Holiday Gift Guide for Architects – curated picks, tools, and books that every designer will actually want to unwrap this season.

At some point in every career, the path ahead stops looking like the one behind it. The work that once defined you begins to shift, not because it lost value but because you start to see yourself differently within it. For architects, that realization can be complicated because we build our identities around what we design, who we work with, and the roles we play in the process. Change has a way of testing all of that, forcing us to ask what parts of our career still fit and which ones need to evolve. Today, Andrew and I are talking...

Architects explore the stories behind objects of design that remind us why design matters — revealing creativity, purpose, and meaning in everyday things.

Every rule was made to be broken, except in architecture, where even the act of breaking rules seems to come with its own set of rules. Modernism promised liberation from the past, but it quickly wrote its own commandments into the story—flat roofs, open plans, white walls, and exposed structure became the expected vocabulary. A movement that arrived as rebellion soon carried the weight of convention, and those conventions still shape how we design and judge buildings today. This week, Andrew and I are taking a closer look at the commandments of Modernism—where they came from, why they matt...

It’s one thing to be busy and another to be productive – and most of us are far better at the first than the second. The reality is that architects live in a world of deadlines, meetings, and endless to-do lists, but somehow there’s always time to check Instagram, rearrange your desktop icons, or spend twenty minutes deciding which playlist will help you focus before actually doing the work. Procrastination has a way of disguising itself as “just five more minutes” until suddenly tomorrow is looking a lot worse than today. This week, Andrew and I are taking a closer loo...

The Architect as Brand explores how personal reputation and firm identity collide, coexist, and shape modern architectural practice.

Architectural career tips meet life lessons in a conversation about balancing professional success with being a genuinely good person. This is Tips for being an Architect and a Good Person.

Discover how AI tools are transforming architecture, from design and research to workflow efficiency, and shaping the future of practice.

How leadership behavior shapes culture, trust, and growth - why people mirror what leaders model, and how influence is built through everyday actions.

The phrase “it’s just a small project” has probably caused more confusion, blown more budgets, and strained more relationships than we’d care to admit. It sounds harmless, maybe even charming - the architectural equivalent of a quick favor. But that phrase carries weight. Because behind every modest addition, bathroom remodel, or garage conversion is the same professional rigor we apply to larger work … just without the benefit of scale. Whether it’s fees that don’t shrink as expected, construction costs that defy logic, or clients caught off guard by the number of decisions they’ll need to make, these proj...

Architectural influencers on social media can bring real insight to the table while others blur the line between experience and performance, you should evaluate what you’re seeing, questioning why it was shared, and learn how to tell the difference between helpful guidance and a well-lit shortcut.

What happens when architects face extreme pressure? Ep. 178 explores how stress reveals character, process, and priorities in practice.

There’s a moment in almost every architect’s career where the idea first surfaces—quietly at first, then louder over time: What if I started my own firm? Maybe it’s the itch for creative freedom, maybe it’s frustration with someone else’s decisions, or maybe it’s just the instinct to build something of your own. I’ve had this conversation more times than I can count—at desks, on job sites, over drinks after a long day. It’s a topic that stirs up excitement, fear, pride, and possibility all at once. Today, we’re stepping into that mindset—the...

We’ve all stared at the calendar, convinced there’s a hidden twenty-fifth hour—plenty of room to redline that section, nudge the model, and squeeze in just one more detail. “We’ll sort it during bidding,” we promise ourselves, and the optimism buys another day of breathing room. Architects thrive on this kind of self-talk; some versions are harmless, others lurk like change-order booby traps. Today Andrew and I are spotlighting the greatest hits—the stories we repeat, the messes they create, and the habits that can stop the cycle before it snaps back on us. Grab your favorite red Sharpie...

Nobody wants to be the person who asks a question that causes everyone else within ear shot to turn and look at them. We spend the early part of our careers trying to prove we deserve a seat at the table, hoping we sound competent, sharp, with just the right amount of confidence. But architecture isn’t a field you get good at by pretending. It’s a craft you grow into by doing, which ultimately leads to asking questions early, often, and sometimes awkwardly. We are going to embrace that process. We’re digging into how architects keep learning after...

There are bits of advice that one collects over a 30 year career and when given the chance, some are worth passing on to those who care to listen. While this could have been a lessons from my father sort of episode, we decided to keep things focused on those of us who either are, or want to be, architects, and we are going to pass along a handful of things that we wish we had known at the start of our careers. Welcome to Episode 174: Dear Future Architects. [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access t...