Tasch Talks - The New Orleans Construction Podcast
We interview Greater New Orleans area contractors, builders, architects, owner's reps, facilities directors, and other local construction leaders talking shop about the industry.
Tasch Talks - The New Orleans Construction Podcast
Stephen Darre' - Lachin Darre Architects
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Stephen Darre, architect and principal at Lachin Darre, joins us for a conversation that dives into the realities of collaboration on complex commercial builds. Stephen recounts his experience working as part of the construction team during the development of the Virgin Hotel in New Orleans sharing behind the scenes stories about the design, collaboration, and problem solving that went into bringing a project of that scale and visibility to the city.
The episode covers practical advice for owners navigating the process of selecting the right contractor and design team. And we learn about his role today at Lachin Darre offering listeners insight into how the firm approaches design and work in the New Orleans market.
Alright, we're here for another episode of the podcast. Today we have Stephen Dari from Lakean Dari Architects, and uh we're just gonna ask him a few questions. Glad to have you here. Thanks a lot for inviting me. Of course. All right, I figure we'd start. Uh you just tell us a little bit about your background and when you first became interested in architecture.
SPEAKER_03All right.
SPEAKER_00Um so my first experience with architecture was uh when I was early in high school, I spent the summer in Italy. Um, one of my friends was going over to visit some family and invited me, and we spent about a month there, and I was just blown away by the architecture. Um, completely different than from what you see here. Um very elaborate um and it was beautiful, and I became really interested. And from then on, I wanted to be an architect.
SPEAKER_04Was there a specific building or a typical pattern you kept seeing uh in the cities or anything that really stands out in your mind?
SPEAKER_00Um it was you know, a lot of the cathedrals. You know, I we were in Florence, that's where our base was, and just seeing the dormer there was incredible. Um the fact that they built it so long ago. Yeah, and you know, I'm thinking back to, you know, New Orleans has some nice architecture, but like the Mettery houses that I grew up in in the 1950s are nothing compared to what they did hundreds of years before.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, so I was just blown away by what they could do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because New Orleans is old, but it's not Europe old. No, it's not uh old like like what they have over there. Um and then you went on to LSU architecture?
SPEAKER_00Right. So LSU Architecture School did uh five years there. Um around the time of graduation, that was 2009, the economy was you know a little shaky back then. So I went to graduate school to get my master's in business because, like most people know, in architecture school, they don't teach you too much business. Right. And did that for a while. Also worked um at a the firm I'm actually at right now. Um worked at, it was at the time a Lake Nubre. And that was your first architecture gig out of school? That was my first architecture job out of school. I had typical internships during school. Um decided to go back, finish architecture school, actually worked for, I mean, I'm sorry, finished business school. Yeah, worked um for Disney for a little short stint. Once I finished graduate school, I decided not to go back into architecture, but to go into construction. And I was a project manager for Skanska. It's a big Swedish company that was building the uh LSU Medical Center. Did that for a while, got a lot of experience from that. Um I came out of that thinking that all architecture students should really have some construction experience just because it opens your eyes to a whole different world of how things are done. I my mind was blown at details that I drew when I would see them in the field every day. Because you can go on architecture on site visits as an architect and see some things, but you're usually just walking through for an hour or two and leave. But when you're in a trailer every day for two years, seeing the entire process, it it just changes your perception of things. When you understand how things are really done, you're watching guys every day, you know, bending metal, screwing in joints, applying window flashing. Like you truly get a better knowledge of how those details need to be drawn. Um, so I think that experience was priceless. Um after about two years there, the hospital was starting to wrap up. Most of the people building that job were from out of town. So I was gonna get shipped out somewhere and I didn't really know where. Um and I kind of switched over and went to go work for Broadmoor, a local design build contractor.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I worked on their design team, um, but handling all design build jobs. So I was there for about seven, eight years, worked my way up, ran their design group, in-house design group, where we focused on teaming up with other architects. Um, and after work there for a while, I was kind of ready for another move, and luck just had it that one of my friends from architecture school reached out. Uh, his uncle, who owned Lakeen, Mike Lakeen, was looking to retire and he wanted somebody to come in as a partner and buy him out. And so I jumped back, ship onto the architecture side, which wasn't really sure that I would ever planned on doing that. Right. But uh timing worked out, and so now we have Lake and Dowray.
SPEAKER_04Perfect. Going back to when you were at LSU Architecture, this is going back 20 years or so now. So um can you talk about some of your experience with hand drawings and physical models that you might have had to deal with back then?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so when I was there, uh they still made everybody do hand drawings for the first year, year and a half or so.
SPEAKER_04Do you think that also gave you, you know, more valuable experience with how to look at something rather than just blow through it on a on a piece of software? Yes, I think so.
SPEAKER_00Because when you're hand drawing, you have to draw every line. Yeah, you have to really plan it out because if you draw two or three lines together and you realize you draw four lines, you're going back and reworking it.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Whereas, you know, once you're in AutoCAD, you can just grab some old details, download some details, and you're not you you can skip some steps in there where you might not actually learn how to really construct it. So I think hand drawing is very important. When I first got out of school, there was still some old school draftsmen that would teach us how to do some detailing. And you know, of course, they didn't like technology at the time, they didn't like Kevin Revit. But understanding from them how things go together was important too because um they could kind of teach you when you're detailing something, you might not exactly draw it, how it's going to be applied, because you've got to draw it as instructions for the contractor to look at. So they would teach you little tricks on how to um adjust detailing.
SPEAKER_04Do you think they should still do that? Yeah, I think so. Do you know if they still do that? I don't even know. I was not an architecture student, so I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Um I you know, it's a good question. Why should they still teach it like that? I I I don't even know now. Maybe I could ask the intern you got. Yeah. I don't know. But um things have become so automated now that I think it's important to still understand um like the method of building and the philosophy behind it because it's so easy now to go on you know ASA Ablei's website or whoever just click download and pop it in, but you don't understand what you're really putting in. So it's important to you know know the backbone behind everything.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Similarly, you know, our uh lead estimator he taught me everything. Um he always said before you get so attached to Bluebeam, remember that you gotta be able to do with the scale, you know, and that way you really understand what you're looking at. Yeah, you know, very important. Um okay. Can you talk about this whole Imagineer program with Disney?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, growing up, I always wanted to be an Imagineer. Um I just thought it'd be really cool to design some of the stuff that they had there. It's not your standard buildings. Yeah. It's just taken to a next level. Uh so I always wanted to do that. Applied for jobs a couple of times. Right when I was finishing graduate school, it was about the same week, I finally got a callback and uh an offer from uh a group in the imagineering uh sector, and it was gonna be designing uh Disney stores and gift shops. That's cool. And um that same week I got the job offer from Scanska. And so that was a that was a tough decision to make, um, but I think I ended up making the right one.
SPEAKER_04But you had worked with Imagineer uh a little bit, right?
SPEAKER_00You didn't you I worked at the parks and I took some classes, made some connections within the Imagineering group that I had been speaking with.
SPEAKER_02And with the college program?
SPEAKER_00During the college program, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And you you had some interaction with engineers and architects in that process and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00I ended up making a connection or two through architects that I knew in the industry, older architects, had friends there.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it would have been a cool job, but you know, I think it all worked out.
SPEAKER_04What were your initial responsibilities when you were with uh Scanska?
SPEAKER_00When I was with Skanska, I was um first things they had you doing. First things I did was I was a project engineer over toilet accessories, um finishes, all the different glamorous stuff.
SPEAKER_02All the yeah, all the great stuff.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, looking at shop drawings for toilet partitions. Right. Uh did that for a while. Then they moved me over to BIM coordination. So I was running all that, you know, building information modeling. At the time it wasn't brand new, but it was still developing, still changing very rapidly. So we were working with a group called IpsyCAD. They're out of England. They had some guys from England and Australia living in New Orleans. And so I was basically the manager over all the hospital uh clash detections and coordination. And that was a great job as well, because it taught me more about the technology side, which since then has rapidly changed even more. Right. Um, but also showed me you know, once the design intent drawings are done, there's still a whole level of coordination that takes place after that. Just especially at a hospital, you've got pneumatic tubing, you've got just massive amounts of cable trays, ductwork, um, everything involves steel. Uh so knowing how all that goes together above the ceiling is extremely important, and uh, I think BIM coordination is a huge part of our industry now that's important. So I did that for a little bit, and I also was uh project manager over the uh mechanical systems for the hospital.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. All right. Um when you were at Broadmoor, you did uh see him at risk, and uh I was just gonna see if you could go into that process and what you learned with that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that's a great process. Um I really enjoyed it. I had never had any uh I never well the LSU hospital did use that process, but that job was on such a massive scale, and I was focused on my little portion of it that I didn't really have any experience with it. Once I got to Broadmoor, we did a lot of design build, which led into a lot of uh construction manager at risk work. I really enjoyed it. I know there's always a lot of people that hesitate to embrace change, and I got a lot of kickback from when we would start working with different architects throughout the city, they would kind of question it and be like, Why are you choosing this? This doesn't seem they they would say uh design by spreadsheet is what they would always say. And um it's really a lot more than that. I think it's a successful tool and a project delivery method because it really helps maintain a budget. You're not doing a lot of rework, you're not trying to design and then price it and you know, hope it comes in budget and changing things, you're actively adjusting the design and hitting that target.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Uh a perfect example of that. So Broadmore was the contractor. Mathis Breer actually worked for Broadmoor. We hired Mathis as the architect, and then there was also another architect for the initial design out of Texas. So we all got together for the first kickoff meeting, and everybody was in the room. We had priority subcontractors that were tied to engineers, we had owners, we had we had it was probably 30, 40 people in the room. Wow. And one of the lead architects from the Texas office uh came in and showed us some very preliminary concepts for what they wanted to do with this building. And this project was situated in the warehouse district on a corner lot, super there's zero lob line. Um so right up against the sidewalk, touching adjacent buildings, and he wanted to use uh brick walls, but traditional masonry brick.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00And a first idea that we had to try to logistically make this project a little more feasible and end up saving money was instead of using traditional brick, using pre-cast curtain walls with brick inlees, we said that would just be a much easier process instead of erecting erecting scaffolding in that load space in that tight space load bearing masonry, especially for that long of a time over a sidewalk. So, and at first he was like, Look, brick doesn't hang, brick is load bearing, like that's how brick wants to be, and got a little theoretical. Um we showed him a project that it was done on, and he looked at it and he's like, I couldn't even tell. Couldn't tell the difference in like and yeah, and we showed him how much faster it was gonna go up, which just helps with not only cost and schedule, but like quality control. It's made in a warehouse, you can go and see it, and he ended up agreeing uh pending we do a mock-up. So we did a mock-up, everybody liked it, and I mean it saved the client time and money, looked great, right? Um, and was I mean, really a better system. It might not be for every project, but this project it worked out, and it worked out well. We made that decision in you know what they call the big room meeting when everybody gets together and it's kind of a meeting of the minds. We made that decision day one, yeah. And it just it helped.
SPEAKER_04Have you ever gotten uh pushback when you're trying to give a VE option just like that rather than have it go so well? Well, so we don't even call those VE options at time because it's you're not value engineering anymore.
SPEAKER_00Well that's true, yeah. It's just you're you're putting it into the program. And so it's a it's a different process than that. We didn't take something and try to make it cheaper. We took a thought and made it right. You're right. Um so we'll get pushback sometimes with things like that. But when you you come in with a, you know, on a C-MAR job, everybody's on a team. You're one, you're one team. Right. Um, if one person fails, everybody fails. Because the owner, you can't just go and say, well, that's the architect's fault, and the owner looks at the architect, or that's the contractor's fault because it's it's one contract. Right. It's it's everybody's fault's job. So that's right. You have to go in with a mentality of working together. And if you get pushback, you just talk it out and work it out, just like you. You know, if you if you've got a sub and you've everybody's gonna have issues on a job, but they're on your team, you gotta you know, help them out and work together.
SPEAKER_04Do you think as long as the owner's rep gets what they're looking for aesthetically, then they're usually gonna be okay with it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Like with the brick on the outside, you know? Yeah, as long as you know everything else, I mean, yeah. You know, you you got the three-pronged approach, uh, you know, scope, schedule, and budget. So you gotta make sure the quality is, you know, you can have two of the three. Yeah. You get it can be really good and really fast, but you're gonna pay a little more. Right. So there's those trade-offs.
SPEAKER_04And look, for the viewers, would you mind explaining kind of in depth what CM at risk means?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so as a construction manager at risk project, it it's really you bring the team together at the beginning. Right now, some clients try to bring the contractor in a little bit later, but the earlier you connect the contractor and the architect, the better. And it's almost what it says. It puts the contractor more at risk in a sense that they're gonna give you the price, you know, they're gonna the owner's gonna have a budget. The contractor early on is gonna say, look, if you need it at this price, we'll lead the design to this price. They'll continually um update the budget as the design progresses. So it's not you're not designing for three months and then seeing where is this budget gonna get. You're you're gonna price out the deliverables, but you're gonna be looking at it the whole time, trying to guide it. You're not just taking a back seat. And so once you get to a certain point and it'll be established in the contract, whether it's 100% design development or 50% construction documents, you're gonna set a guaranteed maximum price. The contractor's gonna have enough certainty in the design and the team that they're gonna say, I can deliver this project for this price. And that you're always gonna have some content a contingency in there for unknowns, because that's going to happen. But that gives the owner more certainty to say, all right, great. You know, we we went down this path from the beginning. We understood the process, and we're at the point that we need to be at. We can keep rolling with finalizing the CDs or bringing the subs on board, starting construction, as opposed to bidding the project out and keeping your fingers crossed and hoping, you know, nobody's priced this yet. Is it is it gonna come in under budget? We don't know. So it's a level of certainty that's given to the owner early on.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Um, you talked about that project uh in the warehouse, that's the Virgin Hotel. Yeah, Virgin Hotel. And I was gonna see if you talk about if you were in charge of the rooftop bar there and maybe some of the uh maybe some of the challenges y'all had with that job. I know there were some obstacles y'all had to go through when that was going up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I I I've said this before. Um, that's when I started getting gray hair, it was on that job. Um, it came out great. Everybody did a great job, but yeah, there were some struggles during that project. During the original design, uh, unfortunately, the original owner died. So Virgin was the brand partner, it was the Virgin brand. But they had uh monetary backers and developers that actually funded the project who were the real owners, and so that put the project on hold for a while. Um, you know, we didn't know if it was even gonna happen. But not too long after, some other developers came in, wanted to keep you know the schedule and budget what it was, but wanted to add some hotel rooms. We didn't even know if we could do that because of how we you know we had maxed out the site already. We couldn't build out any further, we couldn't build further up. But we worked out adding a few more hotel rooms in because they needed to get a certain key count, and we made it happen. Um moving forward on the job, COVID hit. So COVID was during construction. Yeah, we fortunately never had to stop, um, but completely changed how we handled every aspect of the job dealing with. How so? What were some things that came into play with that? Um, we used to have we we were renting out a space close to the job site as our trailer because there was no space, no space for a job site trailer, so we rented a building down the street. Um, and we used to huddle everybody in there. Well, obviously all that all went digital, yeah, which worked out, you can make it happen. But when you're dealing with contractors who are you know just walking right out of the field dirty, who need answers right away, yeah. It's not as easy as you know just walking into the job site trailer versus saying, hey, we need to set up a Zoom meeting.
SPEAKER_04It slowed everything down a little bit.
SPEAKER_00It slowed some things down. Um, you know, we had to make sure a sequencing of work was happening properly to still keep trades distanced and things like that. So there was just a level of complexities that was just a struggle at the time. But we we worked through it. Um everybody was very disciplined in how they had to handle things. Supply chain, that was tough. We were doing just-in-time delivery on those sites because there was no laydown yards, so like the the panels. A truck would show up with panels and we would just hoist them off the truck, put them right in place, and go. Wow. Um, luckily, we did have a lot of prefabrication on that job. Um all the plumbing walls, all the bathrooms in the hotel rooms were prefabricated. So it was ready to go up anyway. So it was ready. So we brought those in. Thank God we had planned on doing that anyway, because that really helped. But we had to um all of the casework in each hotel room we were getting from a company in China. I mean, it was all extremely custom, really nice, all that had to change to a company in the United States because we couldn't get it from China anymore.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we had that with a door for the chapel. Same thing.
SPEAKER_00Uh Boromel.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so that was crazy because we didn't just take the shop drawings from the Chinese company and give them to the American company. Yeah. We had to redesign a lot of them. Because they were just like, yeah, we don't do it like that. So that I mean, it was it got stressful.
SPEAKER_04Um what about um the hard rock? Wasn't that around the same time as us?
SPEAKER_00So unfortunately, the hard rock collapsed during this job, and that just put a spotlight on us. The week leading up to removing our tower crane, because with the hard rock incident, as the tower crane went down, um, I mean, it it was all hands on deck panic move. Um, I just remember the the superintendent and the senior project manager. Well, I've never seen people so stressed. It was news crews out there and like people were calling and asking questions and looking for a reason. Oh yeah. Yeah, I just didn't answer my phone because I was like, I don't want to be the one to have to answer any questions. Um so but everything worked out fine. The tower crane came down great. I mean it it it made sure we had every box checked uh to make sure everything would go smoothly. But that was that was stressful because everybody's watching.
SPEAKER_04Um it was a big deal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and towards the end of the job, we had two namestorms that shut down work for a while and flooded the site. Our site flooded a few times that I mean it was bad, but we were able to pump out all the water, keep going. I mean, that team on that job was great. You know, I was on the design side, but I stayed very involved throughout construction. But the field guys did a great job. I mean, you couldn't have a more complicated job in a tight space, have that many things happen to it all at once.
SPEAKER_04And they stayed the course.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_04Um, what about talking about some of the most common types of projects that Lakeen designs and how do y'all like to pursue new work? If you could explain that process.
SPEAKER_00So we're we do all commercial, but we're very involved in schools. I'd say 75% of our work is probably educational, and that's from preschools and Head Start schools all the way up to university level. Right now, we currently have a lot of elementary schools. We're doing a large project on the West Bank for Jefferson Parish. Um, it's like 125,000 square feet, uh, pre-K through eight. So that's gonna be a nice addition for the West Bank. It's on the Palka Boulevard, and they're gonna get a really nice school, which they needed desperately because a lot of their schools are just old and it's hard to maintain them. So we do a lot of that, but we do other commercial, we do industrial and everything around that you know that that type of sector. Um, a lot of our work we get through RFQs and RFPs, so it's request for proposal, request for qualifications. And you know, an owner or a client or a school board say we'll post something online to a different website like Central Auction House or different bidding websites, we'll see the proposal, we'll put together a package, and compete against you know 20 to 50 other architects for a job.
SPEAKER_04So it's the package is a list of your qualifications that you all have to write uh specific to that job, yes?
SPEAKER_00Yes, so they'll usually give a scoring criteria that says, you know, give us your team, give us relevant projects, give us your engineering consultants, um, tell us about the history of your firm, why you, and so it usually doesn't have anything to do with price when it's coming out like that. It's usually all about qualifications. Um, our pricing structure is typically on the state fee curve, but it it can vary depending on the project. We do get you know calls from past clients a lot. That's a lot of our work, too, is past clients calling us back up for the for the next job. Um, and then we get random calls too, you know, we're not a super connected firm in the know on everything, but um, you know, our our name gets out there and we get a lot of referrals too. I'd say a lot of the work though, a lot of our work currently is publicly funded work, so we go through the RFQ process.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Do you have any particular client um or type of client owner that you really enjoy working with, and what is it about them that really sets them above?
SPEAKER_00I think the type of client we like to work with is, and it they don't even need to have knowledge of the industry or the project. It's a client that wants to listen, work with you, that you know, may know what they want or think they know what they want, but is is willing to admit that the architect and the contractor are the experts, yeah, and so we can help you um with that vision and help you with the project. Let's you do what you were hired to do. Right. And what we're trying to do is that's a perfect way to put it. Yeah, yes. Um, I mean, a a perfect client example would be St. Bernard Um Parish Schools. Their school board and uh they're a joy to work with. Um it really all started. We have a lot of we have a long history with them, specifically after Hurricane Katrina. Um, you know, Katrina was in 2005, but the projects uh in the whole city kept going on for you know five or more years after that because there was so much work that had to be done. And Doris Goce, the superintendent for St. Bernard Schools, she did such a great job, like really focusing on like we need to push as hard as we've ever pushed to get the kids back in school. And that you know, drive that she had and that demeanor really spread throughout the whole um area down in St. Bernard. And everybody took that mentality and just ran with it. And we we've had great projects with them. We still have projects with them, and they just understand like the the team and the coordination aspect of it. Uh they don't come in with preconceived notions that this is what we want, and just design it. They want to hear what we have to say. Um, and it it just makes for a good a good environment. Yeah, that that's the type of client uh you really want. Egos are left at the door in everybody's understanding, everybody's on the team.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they want your expertise and your input. Yes.
SPEAKER_02And they understand the time, like the importance it is of making decisions in a timely manner.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes, they're they're proactive and getting you information. They understand that, you know, like I know it's cliche, but Rome wasn't built in a day, so they don't come and say, like, we need a new school, but we need it next week. Right. They know that you're gonna need to take time, you're gonna have to bring in the right engineer, you're gonna have to understand the project, and and it that that's a type of client that that they know what they don't know, and that's why they they call you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So what about um the best kind of relationships to have with the GC? Um, it you know it's what comes to mind when you think about that versus an owner.
SPEAKER_00As an art well, and it I see this differently, I guess, because most of my career, I think I've spent a more years in construction than I have on the architecture side. That's true. So I kind of have a different perspective than most architects, but you know, it's easy to butt heads. You know, and I I'll say this because I was a contractor, but contractors like playing Captain Hindsight. If they see the smallest little issue in a drawing, they're gonna they're gonna call you out hard. And I've I've done that before too, you know. Um but you know, architects can do the same thing. Some if a job's not the best job, I love doing punch lists because I can say, Oh, you did that wrong, fix it. You know, so but you don't you shouldn't have that mentality because you're all a team, and if one person is struggling, the whole project's gonna struggle. You want to try to go in without having a fight, which doesn't always happen. But you want a contractor and you want an architect, and I've I'm friends with a lot of architects. A lot of architects can have really big egos and talk down to people. I you know, you've got to stay away from that. When I go out in the field, I probably know the least about construction. The guys that are, you know, hanging drywall and and painting and doing whatever, they know their skills. And they know more than I do about it. So you gotta take that mentality. Um when you're in a room and with some of these design bill jobs I've done, we have the structural engineer and the steel erector at the table. And couldn't be opposite types of people. This one steel erector that I'm thinking of is just an old school cowboy. He's rugged, he'll like just fly the steel up, he'll jump on the beams. Oh gosh. And the engineers are perfectly combed hair, don't like going out in the a mild stroke when he does it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, absolutely. But it I've seen magic happen with that. I I did a job in the French quarter. Um, the uh old wax museum, we converted it into condos, and one of the requirements through the View Current Commission was that the exterior skin of the building had to remain intact. The building was falling down. I mean, the structure was jeopardized, it was a mess. So we took out all the structure within the guts of the building, and we kept that skin, and the engineer was working on it, but seeing working on designing it, but seeing the steel erector come in early and kind of say, like, look, this is gonna be a lot easier because of the situation got inside there because the soils were obviously terrible too. Seeing them work together on crazy projects like that was eye-opening. Um, and so you need that type of they ended up they they they like each other now. There was a couple of times when they were like big butt heads, but so it's it all boils down to communication same thing. Yes, yeah, communication is is key in early communication.
SPEAKER_04Um can you talk about how Lakeen likes to produce their opinions of cost before the job um goes out? Yeah, so how it might vary depending on the situation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean that was perfectly stated. It varies depending on the client. Um one thing I don't like to just directly go to is RS means. Um not knocking it, some clients tell us we need the RS means, you know, numbers because that's what we're setting our budget to. But one thing RS Means doesn't do is understand the specifics of the project. Um so I I like to, because I have a lot of connections in the construction industry. I like going right to the source and talking to different subcontractors or trade partners that I know.
SPEAKER_04You call subs, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and just call the subs and find out. Um we we also I mean we've got a lot of jobs going on, so we've got recent numbers from the schedule values that we get from the contractors that we've been referenced to. So we've got a pretty good handle on that. But I mean, a perfect example is we were doing some reskinning work at a school right by the lake, right near UNO's campus. And so I was looking at some numbers in R S means for uh the exterior skin, and I was like, man, this just doesn't seem right. And I, you know, I was looking at the scaffolding, I was looking at the cladding, the painting, everything, and I was like, this just seems low. And so I called up one of my buddies that I used to work with who has knowledge of that, and he goes, Oh, what you're not thinking of. And he gave me a few examples of you know, we were close to the lake, so different wind protections and things, and we were on a campus, so screening off the scaffolding um and that helps, and it added up probably another six dollars a square foot to that price. And so it it's great to call up you know resources to learn about what else.
SPEAKER_04And to think of things in context. I mean, RS means will tell you, you know, it'll be X to hang that drywall, but what is it above the ceiling through all the mechanical to get it up to deck, you know? Yeah, if you're on the 31st floor versus the first floor, but you know, right so that makes sense. That's important.
SPEAKER_00Don't be afraid to make phone calls to people. I've I've done that my whole career, and I still do. I was on the phone with uh seek a caulking rep yesterday, um, just to figure out some answers on a submittal.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, can you talk a little bit about the size of Lakeen as a company, the structure of it, and maybe the intern process there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so right now we have nine people. We could definitely always use more. It's hard to hire right now. Um, for like most graduates are going to Texas. Um, but if anybody needs a job, I'll put in a Seamus plug. Um and our projects range from really like $250,000 in construction value, which is by far the smallest jobs, all the way up to about $47,000, $48 million is our largest sweet spot. Um, the job that we like is probably like $10 to $20 million in construction value. But uh it depends on the job and the client and the scope of work. Because uh right now we've got some projects that are probably about one to three million in construction. They're industrial, yeah. It's designed billed for the same contractor, and those work out really well. We've got a good relationship with them. They we know what they want, yeah. So those are those are good jobs too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, our interns, go ahead, our internship program. We've honestly been having the same person come and intern for us for the past four years. She started interning with us when she went to college, and this is gonna be her last year in architecture school. Um, she really enjoys it. We've had some other people come in and shadow.
SPEAKER_04This was the first one that really worked out all the way like that, you think? Yeah, she just wants to keep coming back. Has it given y'all a better idea of how to make that process go the best way, you think?
SPEAKER_00I think so. I I don't think, you know, I don't think we're ever gonna be an expert on it because things are always changing. That makes sense, yeah. But uh we get feedback from her that's very useful because she'll go back to school and you know, just be in a school environment. And you know, she works part-time from school sometimes, but then she comes back in the summer and she's working for us, and we actually I mean, it's the summer after her fourth year, and she just put together a set of drawings that we obviously were overseen and heavily involved in, but like she drew it all. Yeah. When I was the fourth year after my or the summer after my fourth year in college, I wasn't there doing that yet. I was picking up red lines on drawings, but I wasn't like really like we, I mean, we're sitting down with her, and she said the other day, she's like gonna go back to school, and she's like, I'm just gonna be like at a different level than everybody else that's because of the experience at Charles Cobra. Right. Um, so I think it's really important to help grow the next generation of architects. I definitely saw a lull for a while, like during and right after COVID, like the students that were third, fourth, fifth years during COVID came out of school and they had been doing architecture school from home. Oh, and that did not help anybody. And so, like, we're really focused now on like the younger generation, the the interns, the architectural designers that don't have the license yet, really trying to spend time with them and teach them the process.
SPEAKER_04So, do you handle like the design and then it goes down into a chain of like you know, the guys that are doing the software and how does it work like that?
SPEAKER_00I do very little design anymore. You know how it works for that. I uh uh David, the other partner, he is focused a lot more on the design with the staff. I handle more the business side of things, but David and I are involved in every job. So every project that we have in our office, we maintain communication with the owner throughout the whole project. And I think that's important because one, you don't want to feel like you're just getting passed off as a client, you know, to somebody else, which isn't always a bad thing because sometimes I might know the least about something in the drawings where the rest of the staff knows way more. But you want to feel like, you know, as a client, you know, somebody's overseeing it, and yeah, they can always call me. I I think that helps with repeat business too, because they know call me on my cell phone, talk to me about anything in the future. Um, and we like to have an oversight of that, and we're still at a size to where I think we can handle that.
SPEAKER_04Do y'all still actually go out in the field and ensure that it's being built as designer? Is that kind of a good idea?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Y'all do that? Okay. Yeah. Every OAC that's on site for a job, one of us is at. We're always out there. Um, you know, I was working on a punch list just the last week or so. Yeah. So we we maintain involvement. And and we like to. Um, you know, if we I don't want to get this big, but if we ever had a hundred architects, I don't know. We could do that. Right. But um, I like it because I spent enough time in the office just dealing with contracts and billings and the business side of it, insurance, to where I like going out in the field. That's why I became an architect. Yeah. Things getting built. So it makes it fun.
SPEAKER_04Interesting. Uh some goals that y'all have going forward the next several years as a company, uh, whether it's stuff you talk about or maybe things you just thought about on your own.
SPEAKER_00Just yeah, so some recent goals that we have had was to you know complete the buyout and you know, make sure the company continues to roll forward, because Mike ran the company since the mid-80s and he did a great job of it. Um, and so that's a lot of pressure taking over something like that. Um, I think we're doing a great job of that. We've been wanting to establish a North Shore office, and we've done that. So we have a n we have an office in Covington now because we've had some uh a good bit of North Shore work, especially like with St. Tammy Parish Schools, um, and we'd like to continue to grow that because we think there's a lot of uh growth up there. So um we've done that. And yeah, future goals, you know, we want to try to break into industrial more. We like that sector, we think there's a lot of potential in Louisiana, and uh continue to move into Mississippi a little bit. We've got three jobs there right now, two are uh big healthcare jobs in Jackson, and one is a mixed-use development in Pass Christian, which has been a lot of fun to see that as some apartments right on the beach.
SPEAKER_04Y'all are licensed there in other states?
SPEAKER_00We're licensed there, Texas, Alabama, maybe still Florida. I don't know. We did have a license in Florida.
SPEAKER_04You have to renew that yearly? Yes. Okay. I actually was gonna ask you about that earlier, about when you first got licensed and if that was intimidating or more challenging than you at first thought it might be. Just for any architect that might be thinking about that that hasn't got it yet, you know?
SPEAKER_00So when I was younger, I actually didn't even plan on getting my license when I went into the construction side. You were so involved with the construction side, I was just like, I don't know if I'm gonna get my license because I wasn't doing architecture. But uh one of um one of my bosses at Scanska was like, man, he goes, you put in a lot of work to go through architectures because it is a lot of work, it's ruling five years. Right. Uh he's like, you really should do that. And there were some licensed architects at Scanska, and then obviously there was licensed architects at Broadmoor, to where I could work under them, get my hours, and I started studying for my exams, and I took them all. Um now we've got two designers in our office that are studying for their licensing exam, and it's all different tests. They've revamped the system, they've they've changed it to where when they tell me what test they're taking, I'm like, well, I don't even one, I don't even remember taking my test because I think I've tried to block it out. Look, it is intimidating when you first start to take those exams.
SPEAKER_04So it was a scary thing at the time.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I took seven exams um on different parts of the industry, and yeah, there it's it's a lot of information. It's a lot of information that you've never seen before.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Um sometimes it honestly doesn't even like coincide with what you're doing. Really? And so it can be confusing and uh it's it's scary. It was it was a rough process, but look, you you focus on one at a time, yeah, you study, you get it done, and eventually it's over with, um, and it's worth it. So, but yeah, we we helped uh we help the architectural designers in our office when they have a test coming up, we know they've got one and we'll set aside time to work with them.
SPEAKER_04Are there practice uh programs or you know classes, things like that that they can take?
SPEAKER_00There's classes, there's online classes, there's softwares, and uh we support them in that. We we we purchase the softwares for them so that they can use there's like study manuals um and websites that have all the information and uh practice exams, and so we support them with that. We sit down with them and spend time with them.
SPEAKER_04Um would y'all would you all prefer to have more licensed than non-licensed people on staff, or does it not really matter based on what you've got going on?
SPEAKER_00It it it it there's not one better way to do it. You could have one licensed architect and a lot of unlicensed designers and it can work out fine. Or you could have a firm with 10 licensed architects and no unlicensed people. Um that's how you know we used to be very top-heavy until we started having some of our senior architects retire and they all had the license. They didn't use them. We have one person that stamps everything. Um but you want, you know, you you'd like to see the younger generation get their license too, so the state can maintain their architects. And uh I think it's important to get it now. You know, as much as I didn't think I was going to, I I'm glad I have it now, obviously. Right. Um, so yeah, I I think it's a good thing for sure.
SPEAKER_04Uh if there was somebody just first-year architecture student at any of the colleges, what would be your advice to them? You know?
SPEAKER_00It's never too early to reach out to architecture firms. And you know, maybe it's not an internship your first year, maybe it is. Um but just ask them if you go shadow. We I have two lane students call me up a lot and ask if they can just come shadow us for a day. Uh we did that this year with uh A student from Chicago came down back. She was from here originally, came back down and shadowed us for a few days. So we took around to job sites.
SPEAKER_04And she just cold called you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, it was another architect that I knew in the city who was like, Would you mind doing this? That's cool. And yeah, I was like, sure, why not? And so she just followed us around. Yeah. She asked a lot of good questions. I think it's eye-opening the difference from architecture school to an architecture firm. Um, and it's never too early to start. You'll you'll you'll pick up things and take stuff back to school that you wouldn't know otherwise. So I think that's the biggest advice I could give to a young student. And ask questions. There's no dumb questions. When you're that, I mean, I if I could go back and think about all the questions I asked, I probably were silly, but at the time you just don't know.
SPEAKER_04You don't know.
SPEAKER_00Um, so don't be afraid to ask questions. If there's something that you are looking at that you legitimately don't know, there's a reason you don't know it. You haven't been taught it yet. Right. So ask those questions. We take for granted everything in this industry, just like the acronyms and everything, you know, we're information exactly. A lot of information, so ask questions, don't be afraid to. Yeah, that's like the main bar on the ground floor.
SPEAKER_04I've been in there.
SPEAKER_00And so like there's a secret door on right there, like underneath the uh stairs. There's like a not secret, but a door that closes and like the wall slides open, and there's like a little private room. See, it's open right now. A little private room right there, it's really neat.
SPEAKER_04Um that's cool.
SPEAKER_00Anthony never been in there? Never been invited to the private room?
SPEAKER_02Is it like the champagne room?
SPEAKER_00Could be kinda.
SPEAKER_02Umbody knows.
SPEAKER_00So Mathis Briere was the designer, the architect of record. They worked under us, and I was the design build director. And so I was basically I wrote the contracts to them, the engineers, um, who the engineers were design build as well, and oversaw everything. So I I ran it. Um, just making sure, you know, the client was happy, the budget was met, the deliverables were on time. A job that intricate, getting like that those different sets of drawings out, it's a lot of work just coordinating. Not just the time drawing, but like just making sure like freaking procurement time. Like there was a procurement agent. Every single fabric in that hotel had a full specification. Um, you know, because it's all got the fire rated. It's gotta have like that that double rub count, you know, they put them in the machines and rub it so hard so that it doesn't fray. And so like just the FFE on that job was moving, yeah, getting everything out of the way.
SPEAKER_04They also said this is a looks like a flyover, but it shows the the root top. That's good footage.
SPEAKER_00We reached out to a local guy to do some of this stuff, and we ended up not doing it. The proposal was like $30,000. For the video type stuff? Yeah, we'll just get it from usually. Well, that's what we were like, oh my god. Well, I was like, oh no, that's that's not in my design budget. You know, right, didn't squeeze that in there. Virgin came like a week later, and they were like, all right, let's start getting our marketing people ready and stuff. We're like, alright, let's just take their stuff and no.
SPEAKER_04But just talk about maybe working with them a little bit.
SPEAKER_00I just want to plug them a little bit because they sent me the footage. So just kind of talking about virgin for a little while. Um we can start. Yeah. Uh so working with virgin brands was uh really interesting. Um, it was unique in that we almost had two owners. We had the financial owner, which was some developers out of uh Chevy Chase, Maryland, but then there was also Virgin. And one person's focused on budget, and the other person is focused on quality, and making sure you maintain the virgin brand standards. And the they when I say virgin brand standards, there's you know a packet that's thousands of pages that specify not exactly what you need to design because every hotel at Virgin is different, and they wanted to have some local flair, but like the quality and you know certain requirements, and so that was that was a big part of it. And they were a lot of fun to work with. Their group was out of Miami, so they'd fly in a lot of the time, and they they really had uh a good vision of what they wanted, but it was definitely tricky because that other client would fly in too, and they're they're very business, you know, they want to make money. So trying to meld the two personalities and make sure that they get the project done, and both people are happy. Um, so it was very challenging, but we had the right team in place um to where everything ended well, and you know, it came in on time, on budget, and I think you know, you you can look and see and go there, and it's a very nice, uh very nice space. Yeah. We we we had a great design team uh working with Mathis Brier and the and then the interior designers, LKI, and all the engineers. We had a good team that worked really well. Um there were some times where the interior designers were you know looking at the specific faucets that they could use, and it had to meet the virgin standards, we had to get it on time because remember, COVID, and then it also had to meet the uh plumb uh the mechanical and plumbing contractor's budget, and we also worked with Poncha Train Mechanical Wendell Humphreys, he was a huge help because he would sit down, I mean, really just grind out the fixtures that fit all of those requirements and still got the approval of the interior designers. So when you have a team like that that is you know looking at fixtures from four or five different angles, um it it it's just that's how things come together. You know, and it seems so easy. It's like, well, go pick out a fixture. Is that too expensive? Pick out a pick out a cheaper fixture, but then the cheaper fixture isn't gonna hold up as well for the client. The client's got certain standards that every other hotel in the country meets those standards, so this one's going to. So it gets more complicated than you would you would think. That's why you've got to get the right people. It's not just about who's the cheapest contractor, it's about who works best together. We interviewed lots of different engineer and contractor combos because again, you know, the electrical engineer and the electrical contractor were contractually tied to each other, they were one team.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, and and the same went for the other priority subs. So it's it's important to get that worked out. And um, you know, Virgin was a great client to work with. They were real accommodating, especially with the whole COVID situation during construction. It came out really nice.
SPEAKER_03All right, that's a wrap.