FAQ: How We Collaborate With Other Architects

As much as we love taking the lead on bringing our clients' vision to life, we also love collaborating with others in the industry to create successful projects.

Sometimes it takes a village to make these things happen... Here's a glimpse at what you'll learn from us in this episode: 

• How collaboration works for innovative projects. 
• The best time to start working with Three Squared on your project. 
• Why consulting the experts is a good idea for innovative builds.
• Cost savings that can result from consulting on projects. 
• Breck's project highlight of the week: United Wholesale Mortgage

Find the full show notes from today's episode here.

For behind the scenes footage, project updates & more, follow @threesquaredinc on Instagram.

>>> Ask us about your project here.

To learn more about designing & building with shipping containers, check out these supplemental episodes:

1) Your Quick Start Guide to Container Home Foundations, Insulation & Roofing.

2) Cargo Architecture 101: What You NEED to Know About Building with Shipping Containers

Ready to move forward with your project? Contact us here and we will put you in contact with the right member of our team.

Make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay up to date on new project releases, trainings, and more. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Innovative Real Estate Podcast with your hosts Leslie Horn, Brett Crandall, and Claire Olilla. We're here to make your life easier as a real estate developer and teach you everything we've learned about designing and building innovative homes, multifamily, and mixed use structures. On this podcast, we'll be giving you our best advice, trainings, and QA segments so you can learn from our years of experience and make your innovative vision a reality. To another episode here on Innovative Real Estate. We are celebrating today because we have just recently hit 62,000 followers on our Instagram. Woohoo! Which amazing so exciting. We've got our super fantastic uh marketing intern Emily pumping out reels for us, finally putting some good use to all of the video footage and fabrication footage that we've gotten from a lot of our projects. So it's been really fun. I'm sure you've seen our Instagram at this point, but if not, we'll link it in the show notes below. Check it out, check out all our projects. And in today's episode, we've got a little FAQ episode for you. So uh a recent question that we've gotten is how we collaborate with other architects and if we even do collaborate with other architects. So that's what we're going to be covering today. If this is a question that's been top of mind for you, we're gonna get into all the details about how that works so that it's super clear for you. But first, we always kick off our episodes with our project highlight of the week. So this week uh we've got a project that actually did go through that process where we did collaborate with our other architects. Um, and it's called United Shore.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

So, Breck, give a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of highlight. Yeah, we completed that one back in 2021. Uh, it was my pandemic project. It was the one that I spent all the time on. Uh, because turns out uh shipping and receiving and fabrication services were all considered uh, you know, essential businesses. So we kept rolling through that entire pandemic and the lockdown. Very interesting time to work on a project, but it was an awesome project. It is technically speaking our largest commercial project to date because of the scale of the overall building. Uh, it was our first um all indoors project, also. It was a lot of first on that one, but it was uh it's hard to explain all at once because there's a lot of moving parts, but it was 14 containers that collaborated to make like a 14,000 square foot office expansion that has a library, uh, shops, cafes, office spaces, meeting rooms, conference rooms, a huge open working area for um open concept office space and everything in between that you can think of, complete with a cargo net lounge over the uh first level and a firefighters pole from the third story down to the lower level. So there's a lot of things going on there. It's really hard to capture that overall project in a few images just because there's so much happening there, and it is such an expansive addition to the United Shore Wholesale Mortgage Office building in Pontiac, Michigan. Um, but we do have a lot of great photos and videos of that one. Uh, you can jump on social media and check it out. Uh, completed projects, tons of fun to work on. And we collaborated with all sorts of different architects, engineers, fabricators, and the like to pull that building together because it was so complex and involved. So it's it's cool to work with teams and to find out how everybody works together and to find your lane to complete a big complicated project.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Breck, one of my favorite things about that project, I mean, there were some really fun, just playful, unique things that were very unique about the specifics. But my favorite thing was during construction, if you'll recall, the general contractor had to literally blow out an entire wall because with it because they had to get all their equipment coming in um for this indoor expansion. And we couldn't even bring a crane in. We had to bring the containers in. Um, and this is gonna be hard to explain, but imagine a 40-foot container, everybody. We we had the most skilled um what are those things called, um, forklift operators. Oh my god. So imagine a 40-foot container and two forklifts, one at the top end of it and one at the back end of it. And they had to drive the guy in the front behind backwards, while the guy on the on the back end had to drive forwards and like carry this container, not just through the whole warehouse, but in the door jams. And it was just hysterical. But I gotta tell you, man, it was it was amazing to see. Uh, and we knew we could do it. Everyone is always just so surprised, you know. Well, how are you gonna approach this? And blah, blah, blah. Well, we got this, man. We got some skilled mad forklift drivers involved on that project. It was fun. Where there's a will, there's a way. Better believe it.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

And there were people working in that building the entire time. So we had to be really quiet and we had to be clear of it. It was it was quite the feat, but really well. Glad to have that one under our belt.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Same here, same here. That's awesome. We've got a bunch of reels now, too, of the fabrication to completion on that specific project. So, yeah, just head to our Instagram. We've got a ton of footage of that one. You'll know exactly what we're talking about right away. Huge sprawling project inside of a warehouse. That's the one.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Well, you know, we've been getting a few calls, um, just like this one. This was one of the very first projects that we collaborated and um with another architect on. Because when it comes to a specialty like cargo architecture, I mean, the building expansion was not all containers. This was just a subset of of an overall project. Um, it was just a very specific, defined um piece of the puzzle. And so the architects recognized immediately, like, hey, we don't know, we don't know crap about containers, and they know the specialty of it. So uh we were we were reached out to by Boy Breck, you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong, but the structural engineering team had heard about us or we had worked with with them in the past. And so it really opened up our our path on how we are able to collaborate with other architects. Sometimes we get projects it's it's already been designed and it's been, you know, it's already gone up through design development, and now they want to bring us in. And I don't know, it there's there's a good way to bring us in. It reminds me of um, and Claire, you've got to put this up here. Um, Brett, do you remember that meme you sent us about, you know, when clients bring us in and such? Do you remember that funny meme? How much it's gonna cost them if they design it or if we design it, or if we have to come in and fix it. Do you remember that whole thing?

SPEAKER_02 7:35

I do, I do remember this meme because it's uh it's more true than funny, but it's funny because it's true. Is a sign that somebody posted that they saw on a window of a design firm and it it started with their price. They're like, here's how much we cost. And they're like, if we design it, but you watch us design it, it's gonna cost more. If you design it and we help, it costs even more. If you design and we advise you, it costs even more. And if you design everything, it costs the most. And I can't, I can't think of a scenario that's more true than that because everybody comes to us and says, like, you know, I've got a design. And it's like, okay, are you an architect? And they're like, well, no, but I've got this design. I'm like, okay, well, then we have an inspiration for a design is really a way to think about it. You have an idea, we need to make sure that it can actually be built because a lot of times people will come to us with things that are just like leaving us scratching our heads. I mean, we have received some very interesting designs in the past. Um, the most extreme example of which, I'll tell a little story here. Uh, I received a set of floor plans on air quotes, um, from a gentleman in an Excel spreadsheet. And I opened it and it was just like a couple of like black boxes, like, you know, filled out cells in the sheet. And so I started zooming out and I kept zooming out, and I kept zooming out, and a building started to appear. This guy had literally filled in cells on a spreadsheet to create floor plans, which were his quote unquote design that he sent to us. I've I was baffled. I mean, I've I think it's probably the funniest example of anybody ever sending me their own designs. But um, you know, we kind of get some extremes in in that realm sometimes. Um, other times we have people come to us and actually it's a very well thought out design. And our end result ends up being very similar to it, but there are a lot of aspects that they didn't consider. Like, what are the foundations going to be? How am I actually gonna put a roof on this? Where's water gonna go? Like those are all things that sometimes people don't necessarily consider before involving us.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Or it's a really wonderful design, however, it's way bigger than it needs to be, or they just don't have the experience of how you can actually configure containers to maximize your space and hit some really awesome efficiencies, too.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

It's so true. It is so true. Um we when we get, you know, some people have like a brother-in-law, or they've got, you know, their their aunt or some relative that's an architect, and they come to this person with the crazy idea of something, you know, like I want to build this this commercial building with shipping containers. And I know the architects, because I mean, we just had this situation where you know the relatives said, okay, well, we can kind of do this, but they get to a point where literally you can you can do a conceptual design. All of us, well, not all of us, but we can all kind of get an idea about what an inspiration could be. If you don't know containers, you're gonna run into problems. And here's uh this is just this is our freebie for the day. A 20-foot container does not measure 20 feet. Like we get so many designs that have already been done, and people add all these 20-footers and they'll add 40-footers and 53-footers. But then if they were to move forward with it, even as an architect, we look at their designs and we know that they have never worked with a container because on their designs, it shows the 20-foot containers exactly 20 feet. We're like, oh, they've not ever gone out and measured a container, they have not gone out and gotten the specifications of a container. Um, and we see this all the time. And so it can have a significant bearing on your project and how it lines up. So there's just all these little tiny quips um that that from experience that we've learned, sometimes not the easy way.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Yeah, I mean, even projects that we're just starting right now, like we engaged on a project uh starting last week where it's a huge team of architects and engineers who have a building under construction, but they want to do some like gateways and entranceways with a little flare. And so they're introducing cargo architecture to this project. And they brought us in to consult and just to see if we can point out any inefficiencies. And they opened up those drawings, and uh I my head was gonna explode because I was like, guys, gonna listen, we gotta we gotta talk because you're really gonna have a hard time doing it this way. And and now we're working with them to solve those problems, and that's exactly why they came to us. So we have scraped our knees, we've learned over the last five years plus of you know, doing these kind of projects of this construction type and other construction types too. I mean, we're not just brought in on cargo architecture, it's really anything weird, wild, and whimsical, give us a call because we're gonna help you problem solve it and figure it out. Because we deal with all sorts of weird construction types. Um, because we've learned those lessons and we're gonna pay it forward. At the end of the day, though, uh, you'll hear Three Squared repeat this over and over again. We're we're interested in two things involved in projects. Number one, we want to be friends with the clients from start to finish. And that sounds great, but sometimes that's really challenging because building and development is complicated, but it's really important because we're dealing just as much with people as we are with buildings in this industry. And you want to keep those relationships up until the very end. And that's what drives, you know, repeat clients and relationships that last years and years to come. Every time I'm in Muskegon, Michigan, I will stop into Pote's restaurant and Sean and Jeff will welcome me with open arms and we'll pop a bottle of wine and say hi for a few minutes. It's great to have those long-standing relationships. Um, and then number two is we just want to see a project completed. We we don't need to be the only name on it. We don't have egos in this. We just want to see buildings built. And so if that means that we need to collaborate with someone, or the best way to get that done, which is often the case, is to collaborate with a team of different professionals, individuals, large firms, small firms, then we're gonna do it. We're really good team players in every aspect because we're more interested in results than we are in the process.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

You know, it's interesting, Breck, because we've just, as you know, sent out a proposal for two projects. Um I have just totally forgotten where they're located. But the local architect had done some conceptual um on uh and actually schematics on one project. And the second project, they've, I think they got to some conceptuals. But you know, we're putting a proposal together on the townhome project as well as on the um commercial project, it's a mixed use, uh, where it's a shared contract, which you know, I remember you bringing this to me and having a conversation. I I know I didn't get it now. I love it. It's you know, if you if we've got a client that's already working with somebody that they trust in the neighborhood, but doesn't have experience, for example, in cargo architecture, bring us in. We will collaborate, we will cooperate. I think on one of the projects, we will share in, I want to say like 32 or 35 percent of the architectural um uh contract. And, you know, we're very specific on what roles we have during what phase in the architectural piece of it. And I think in the other one, it's more complex. And I think we we've offered 42 or 44 percent of that contract, but we lead in different areas um because we know the spec the specifics. We've got all, you know, I I've I review your library of assemblies and of unique, you know, cross-sections and all those conditions that are needed in order to get a building permit. And, you know, we've been keeping up really um well with the library, especially as it pertains to not just single family homes, but also all kinds of commercial buildings. But I digress. Let's um, but moral of the story is we have that in our arsenal, whereas we know what works, super easy for us to participate and to take a lead in certain sections of an architectural contract.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

And while we can jump in at any point, Leslie, when is it best to give three squared a call on a project?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Oh my God, in the very beginning. Um, and I think people get intimidated by that, especially if they're working with another architect. You know, the word ego just keeps screaming in my head right now. And I used to be that person. I used to, I, you know, everybody would laugh at me because I'd want to control the whole thing. And but now in hindsight, and now in looking at the cooperative and collaborative methods of working on this, if we had a project in the very beginning, we could actually fast track these projects and and allow the the original design intent to move forward, especially if some of the original designs have come in with another architect who's put their blood, sweat, and tears into this. But let us support it, let us tweak it, let us adapt it to cargo architecture. But in the very beginning, because you know, once you go past a certain point in the design process, and Breck, you're gonna have to tell me when that point is, um, it's almost like having to really start over. And it's just gonna cost the client more. So, you know, it's it's really bring us in early on. We'll tell you when we feel it's important for us to have um to jump in. Um, you know, let's again, let's build these things, let's let's get them done. And because of the experience that Three Squared and our team, um, the leadership that Breck has had in developing our our architectural design team, which is exploding, by the way. We're, you know, we're we're we've we've got some methods now. And in order for us to support, we have a very specific methodology. And it's been amazing um in our collaborative projects and in our efforts.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Yeah, well, whether or not you want us to design the whole thing or just come in as a consultant, like the earlier the better, because we can help alleviate those issues that will compound later down the road. Like if we jump in at schematic design when you have design intentions, we can help retain that original designer architect's intentions, as Leslie has said. I mean, we've seen some really great projects that have come to us and we're just like, hey, we got ways that we can make this better and easier for you and more realistic to build that will be more efficient, you know, cheaper essentially to build at the end of the day. If we do, you know, X, Y, and Z. If you get all the way through construction documents, you have like a building permit, and you're calling us like we've been there too, and it's a lot of redoing work because they went too far without consulting somebody who kind of knew what they were dealing with in this regard. Um, you know, even just it's it was like three weeks ago, we got a call from a designer who has an incredible design. I mean, it's a beautiful building, but as I like started like looking closer at it, the whole project is riddled with 20-foot containers everywhere you look. And if yeah, we'll give you another freebie today, 20-footers cost about double what 40-foot containers cost. So we're like, hey, if you just like switch these, you're gonna save a whole lot of money. Like, just that was a huge pickup in cost savings efficiencies in the project, like end to end. And it didn't take that much to like have that conversation, but it's a matter of like knowing what you know and knowing more importantly what you don't know and being able to ask for help when you don't know certain things. And that's that's why three squared exists. And then like ego is like yeah, it is the crux of this profession. It's long time been like a big hurdle for a lot of people to get over. But there's uh there's a lot of reasons why we're called Three Squared Inc., and one of those reasons is because it's not Leslie Horn and Associates, it's it's not Breck Crandall and associate, it's it's three squared inc. It's because there's a team, there's no one name that's associated with these projects, right? Buildings are infinitely complicated. And if you've ever worked on a project, you understand that it's it's the result of an army of people working together to collaborate. And that guy who installed that wire and the person who uh you know hung up that smoke detector have just as much ownership of this project as anybody that was involved from start to finish. If you've ever been on a car with a tradesman, you'll know because I'll point every building, but I put that roof on right there. And you're like, that's because you're proud of your work, like as you should be. We're just a piece of the puzzle. We're here to collaborate with you. It's not our project, it's not your project, it's all of our work that made this come to fruition. And so that's what makes us good team players.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

I agree. And um what I I mean, just a shout out, Breck. I mean, really thank you for for creating that collaborative um atmosphere and culture in our in our company. I think it's just a it's an amazing, um, it's an amazing ethic. Uh, and we love to play. We love to stay a step ahead. And, you know, we we we're all about making the project happen. And there was a compliment from uh a gentleman that you guys all had a meeting with last week who is wanting, you know, he's a builder. And you know, he's got some ideas. You guys, I mean, you the architectural team has this the experience, but what he said, what he what was amazing, he goes, you know, I don't think I've ever been in a room where where nobody held back. You know, we all talked about solutions, we talked about what we needed to do, everybody listened with, you know, and and not, oh my gosh, we can't do that. I mean, how many times have we heard that in our lives? Um, but everybody was very open and um solution oriented. And, you know, to me, that's just one of the best compliments we can hear about the three squared fit.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

And it's not about you're right or you're wrong. It's about like, hey, I hear where you're coming from. Here's another way to think about this. Or here's how I would do it. And then we just go round table and talk about it. Yeah. I think this might be the first time you guys have heard me say this, but I am convinced that the age of Stark attacks has come to an end. I think I think we're done with that trend. I think, I think universally, I think people are just over it.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

I mean, what does that mean? Please explain, Brad.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Yeah. Stark attacks are like there is a name on top of a project. Like you look at a project and you're like, you know, that's a Frank Lloyd Wright project, or you know, that's a Dark Ingalls project. Like, I think like people are kind of like done with that. It's like it's no one name that gets to claim a project. It is such a collaborative effort that we're starting a new trend. Like it's not going to be about a single name that's on a design. It's we're we're fighting the good fight to uh to really debase that being the case. And we're starting a new trend that's just gonna be like we just make really good projects and work with everybody that is progressive and forward thinking and wants to make the world a better place. Like that's that's where we're heading.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

And then we get to cheers after. And then we get to cheers after.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Better believe it. Better, better believe it. That's amazing. This is amazing. This is a great conversation. We do like to play with other people and and actually, I mean, projects sometimes the fresh face and the fresh idea comes out of people who have never worked with containers and they don't know the logistics of them, but boy, oh, we never thought of that. How amazing is that? And we can actually pretty much adapt it to make it work if it makes sense. And and those are the kind of pieces that I think are very beautiful when those ex you know those experiences happen.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Beautiful. Well, is there anything else that you want to add before we wrap up the show today? Or do you think we covered it all?

SPEAKER_02 24:02

No, actually, this time I think we we really touched on all the bases here. I don't I we're just gonna start repeating ourselves after this. I think anybody who's who's made it this far in the podcast understands where we come from and hopefully agrees with our position. We just we want to see real projects get built for real people.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Good. Well, I'll link the uh I'll have Carly link the meme in the description below so people can see what we were referring to earlier. And I do want to get Jeff and Sean on the podcast as a case study example. So I'll reach out to them and see if they want to come on for the next one to talk about Napotes in Muskegon, Michigan. Love that. For anyone tuning in, thank you so much for joining us back. It's been really cool to hear on my end people calling in interested in working with us and saying, Hey, I've been listening to the podcast, I've been keeping up with the podcast. And I already know your process and I already know your team. And I I feel like we can just have more effective conversations because of that and get them started quicker. So it's been awesome to see from that end too. And if you are listening and you've got a project, hit us up below. We've got our contact link in the description. We would love to hear from you. We would love to connect you with the right member of our team to get all your questions answered and help get you started on the right foot. So I think that's everything. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll check in next week. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you found it so valuable, you want to connect with us one-on-one, click the link in the description to tell us all about your project so we can help you get started. And to get notified on the next episode here on Innovative Real Estate, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes so you never miss a beat. Get out there, put today's advice into action, and we will see you in the next episode.