Kirk Mitchell of AKT Designs | North Woodland Street in Englewood | Beyond McMansions

Transcript

Announcer  00:02

Welcome to American Building, a weekly recorded show whose mission is to share an alternative perspective of what we build in America, and why. Together we discover how the work of the real estate industry connects to every American. In season two, we focused on how buildings changed as a result of the pandemic. In this season, we're revisiting conversations from previous seasons, to see where Americans put their heads down at night. Together, we will discover the many definitions of home across the New York City metropolitan area, which includes over 23 million Americans. Each week, we'll visit a new building and explore complex and confusing issues related to housing access to see what they can teach us about ourselves, and our country will meet those who work to develop in thoughtful and impactful ways, who build neighborhoods to be more sustainable, affordable, accessible, or inclusive, who labor to create thriving communities, and transform the lives of generations to come. Through their stories, we will humanize often polarizing topics. Profound, surprising, and hilarious. This show is for developers and builders with boots on the ground for innovators trying to find ways to improve our industry, for the policymakers and public employees. And for any person who has walked by a building and wondered why. And now your host award winning architect turned developer and startup founder, Atif Qadir, AIA. 

Atif Qadir  01:53

This is American Building. And I'm your host, Atif Qadir. I'm the founder of Commonplace. Join me as it take a drive by the skylines and strip malls, crosswalks, and rail crossings, balconies, buildings and boroughs to discover a new generation of housing. Let's build common ground.


Atif Qadir  02:26

In this episode, you will learn about the word mansion and what it means and about its evil twin, the McMansion also you'll join me in hearing about 432 North woodland, a redevelopment of a beautiful luxury single family home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. When I think of the word luxury in the context of a home, I think of the word mansion. So what is a mansion? The old adage goes, a man's home is his castle. That doesn't mean that every home is a castle or a mansion. The word itself. mansion comes from an old Latin word men air, which is the verb that means to remain over time that became mon SEO or place to remain. That was absorbed into French and then into English. 

Atif Qadir  03:28

In contemporary use, mansion generally refers to any home over 5000 square feet on an extremely large lot. They often feature a grand staircase, high ceilings and luxury high end finishes, like marble and rare woods. These are typically older stately homes in historic European architectural styles. They always have multimillion dollar price tags. The levels of ostentation with mansions can be limitless. I've seen ones with multiple underground stories to circumvent zoning codes, ones with ballrooms and even ones with lavish Turkish baths. More recently McMansions were birthed by the demand for luxury homes by those without the budget to support them. For example, McMansions may be oversized in comparison to the lot size, or the features and finishes maybe fo overused or not of the quality of a mansion. 

Atif Qadir  04:39

Writer Kate Wagner dissects McMansions in her cutting article for the Baffler from April 2023 called "Bad Manners." In it she calls McMansions the harbinger of the American apocalypse. She continues, "the street I grew up on in Moore County, North Carolina is unrecognizable now. What was once a mix of modest, low slung ranch style houses, interspersed with pockets of Turkey Oak scrub has been invaded by gargantuan homes with equally oversized trucks parked in the driveway. They tower over their older neighbors at a tragic comical scale, difficult to convey. Each identically crafted for maximum cheapness and interchangeability. Behold the McMansion in all its ready-made, disposable grandure." 

Atif Qadir  05:42

I included a link to her article and her blog, McMansion. How in the shownotes.

Atif Qadir  05:50

All that said about mansions and McMansions luxury homes may or may not be mansions, as luxury can entail modern styles like art deco, like my home International, the ubiquitous mid century modern, postmodern, and contemporary.

Atif Qadir  06:10

In this episode of American building, I am sharing an edited version of the conversation I had in July 2021 With architect Kirk Mitchell. Kirk is the founder and principal at aka T designs, an architecture and interior design firm based in Bergen County, New Jersey. He previously was the Director of Design and Construction for Dixon advisory and Australian investment company focused on Metro New York City. He began his career at Scott Lurie, architect and Marshadow Higgins Steve. He is a graduate of Howard University and Carnegie Mellon University. Enjoy the conversation. And if you're interested in more stories related to housing and impact, visit the common place website. commonplaces, the company I founded to make it easier to finance impactful Real Estate projects. 

Atif Qadir  07:11

Thank you so much for being with us here, Kirk. 


Kirk Mitchell  07:13

Thank you for having me. 

Atif Qadir  07:15

One of those particular projects when you left to start your own firm that will highlight today is what 32 woodlands so that's a single family home that you redesigned in Englewood. So for our listeners, can you describe this area, this part of New Jersey

Kirk Mitchell  07:30

Shore thing so Englewood is located in Bergen County, and Bergen County is northern New Jersey right next to New York City. We're literally right next to the George Washington Bridge. So we are considered a suburb of the New York metropolitan area. I've grown up here most of my life. I'm a Bergen County boy. So I know the area very well. in Englewood is a little bit more of a city than the town that I'm from Teaneck, which is more of a township. So in Englewood, you have a lot more larger density of people. And they're probably a bigger variety of classes, and wealth portion. So you'll have apartment buildings, and you'll have lower blue collar income, and then you'll have bigger mansions for the super wealthy, all within one town. That's actually where my office is located in New Jersey, so I have a good lay of the land. I know a lot of people in Englewood.


Kirk Mitchell  08:26

But one of these first single family renovation projects, was a friend of a friend. And that's typically how I get word to word of mouth referrals. Have a really good friend that I grew up with His name is Dr. Jason Baines. He's a orthopedic surgeon, and he has an office in Englewood. And he has a group of young black doctors, prominent doctors in Bergen County that he golf, squid and good close friends with and I'm to him an avid golfer. So one day he gives me a call from the golf course and said, Hey, I got a buddy of mine. He's one of the best plastic surgeons in Bergen County. He just put an offer on a house up on the hills of Englewood. And he's looking to do a complete renovation, can you help them out? I said, I'll be here tomorrow.

Atif Qadir  09:15

Perfect. So that was the client for the project. And when you when you met him, what was the initial vision that he had for the project?


Kirk Mitchell  09:24

So my client bought a ranch style home on about it, but an acre for the property, which is normal for North woodland is one of the most prominent artery streets through the hills of Englewood. And what he wanted to do was, he wanted to complete cave man's cave in the basement. So the basement was a complete gut renovation. He wanted to redo the entire kitchen, master bedroom, master bathroom, all the bathrooms in the house and just a complete cosmetic makeover to the rest of the plus he wanted to incorporate some new each rack So he had the idea that you wanted to do something like a ski chalet. 1978 ski interior.


Atif Qadir  10:08

How did you did you like hold back your laughter there?


Kirk Mitchell  10:12

Well, you know, it's it's not professional to laugh in the face. But being that we're friends I could. So I said, you know, I understand where you're coming from. And I know where you're drawing the inspiration however, that look is a bit dated now. And the problem with that is that if you go too strong in that direction, either your house gonna look dated now or dated later, at some point, it's going to be dated, and the value is going to drop. So I said, I can definitely find a way to incorporate the natural woods that you liked so much and the warm feeling of the chalet, but in a more modern format. So that's exactly what we did. One of the really cool things about this project is that the basement itself, they had this elaborate age vac system, because they had basically a spa inside the basement. And

Atif Qadir  10:58

effect means heating, ventilation, air conditioner.

Kirk Mitchell  11:01

So they had a mechanical system that was literally just for the spa downstairs where they had a whirlpool hot tub, heated spa, they had a shower, steam shower, I mean, they had the works, but it's been very old, there's a lot of mold down there, it was dated, and the ceiling heights are very low. Because of all this mechanical work. There was so low that the client couldn't use the basement for his enjoyment because all this mechanical work taking them to ceiling space. So what we did was, we had to re engineer the entire H vac system for the house just so that you can get all his ceiling height back, which ended up being about between eight and eight and a half feet before we started with right below seven feet.


Atif Qadir  11:46

Oh, wow. Not only is that not good, that's probably not up to modern standards, right in terms of codes

Kirk Mitchell  11:52

Exactly. Well, because they didn't have habitable rooms down there. They were just considering it rec room. And I guess they got away with it and done so long ago. But what one of my client also wants to do is put a habitable legal bedroom downstairs, so as to if in order to do that, you have to have a minimum ceiling height. So what we did was we we got rid of some really big ductwork and some really heavy stone. That was there'll be the hot tub was made out of stone. And we designed the system, we dropped it down and then we split the system in the house.

Kirk Mitchell  12:27

So now the upper floor was controlled by a air handler and in the attic, and the lower floors were handling on its own separate system. We also in order to make the basement legal and habitable, we put a second means of egress by adding an exit stair out into the side yard. So we did that. We did a couple of egress windows and new bedroom. And we added besides a large open space, we added a second kitchen, which is for all intents and purposes, it's a bar but it's really a second kitchen. We did an exercise room and billiards area. And that huge TV and a full bathroom. So that came out. Or we also added a brand new Astaire open risers there because the stair that was there, we kind of separated the basement into two pieces. And we wanted to feel like it was one whole space. So we got to open risers there. So you kind of see right through it.

Atif Qadir  13:23

So it sounds like the three key areas that it focused on was modernizing and upgrading all of the finishes. That's kind of first level that second thing being the the mechanical systems that supported everything that you wanted to do and the new layouts and the new look and feel and then like the more fundamental structural one is the circulation. So that sounds like the right way of breaking it down.

Kirk Mitchell  13:45

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then upstairs you know, to your point we opened up the living and kitchen areas created a large island because now most of the filming is done in the kitchen space when you have guests come over. So we opened up the living room spaces as well. We did a killer master bathroom. So my client is a bachelor and he said he plans on being a bachelor for a good amount of time. So that's one of the reasons that he wanted to Mankey but the other reason was to have a really great master bathroom so you can impress the ladies. So we did a really cool walking standing shower. It's like a human carwash. It has a steam shower. It has about I want to say six to nine sprays, overhead I mean it's amazing. And then we have a large Whirlpool, a private toilet and then my clients a little fancy who went and bought this modern Japanese toilet that had it's all remote

Atif Qadir  14:42

and plays music and has lights, lights


Kirk Mitchell  14:45

and since warm and thanks for you when you leave. So we did that we fitted all the closets to do master walk in closets and we did all the bathrooms in the house over so we modernized the end Higher Hall. One of the things that he came to me and this is 

Kirk Mitchell  15:03

Not a lot of architects have experience also in the value proposition of doing renovations of a home. And one of the things he came to me and said, Listen, I bought this home for such and such price, it's a ranch. Everybody else on the block would knock these kinds of homes down and build a $2 million, $3 million, $4 million mansion. He said, I don't want to over capitalize. I want to keep the budget. And that way, when I'm out of this, after the renovation, I'm not at a point where I feel like I should have just ripped us down and built from scratch. So we were able to find that happy medium to modernize the entire house, but without making him regret not knocking it down and building something.


Atif Qadir  15:45

So that given that there were a lot of steps in this process, architecturally. And it sounds like there was a lot of decision making in terms of finishes. Talk to us about the design process. So from the initial description and the ski lodge aesthetic that that he described to the final design that you presented, like what is the step by step in that process?


Kirk Mitchell  16:07

Okay, so after what we call schematic design is when we're working with the floorplan layout, because you gotta you have to make sure that you have a floor plan that's conducive to how the house is going to function, how you're going to live in the house. So once the floor plan was approved, then we started working on interior designs in boots. So what we do is, either we'll do physical interior moodboard. But what we'd like to do even better than that is work off of Pinterest. Pinterest is a program that allows anybody to open up pages and pin images, and then post comments to those images. So for instance, a lot of our clients or private clients, it's hard for them to explain exactly what they like. But it's very easy for them to find pictures of what they like.

Kirk Mitchell  16:52

Or if they go traveling or to villas or hotels, they can take pictures, and they can post them on this. And in that way, it creates a dialogue between us and the clients to say, Okay, send us pictures of your dream bathroom, your dream kitchen, know, what are these spaces look like? What are the finishes that will be drawn to your eye? What are the colors? Now there's so much that can be said. And so the words will share an image with somebody. So we set up a board for these different areas of the house, and we have them pin images that they like. And we start pinning images back and saying this is what we see. So we're trying to marry the client's desires, we're trying to marry their budget. And we're also trying to marry the design trends of time, right, because we want to make sure that whatever we do, that we're adding value to the property and not taking away property.


Kirk Mitchell  17:46

So after a collaboration of a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks going back and forth the images and posts or comments, we really can narrow in on a client's desires and their need. Once we started showing them how we can modernize the look and still try to emulate the ski chalet. It was sold to the pitchers. But then what we did was we do Interior renderings. That way, if we do 3d photorealistic renderings to show our clients what those spaces look like, before they spend $1 on buying any finishes. That way they can be completely satisfied prior to starting construction. That's kind of the process of how we get the look, the feel, the desire design, and how we communicate our ideas and vice versa. And then once we have kind of a signed off interior design, then we break up all those finishes into what we call a finished schedule.

Kirk Mitchell  18:40

And we do a package of a finished schedule that essentially itemizes every finished product in a project. So that ranges anywhere from appliances and plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures, flooring, paint, wall coverings, tiles, everything that you can think of that if you were to take a building and shake it, it wouldn't fall out. And the reason I say that is because we don't concentrate on soft finishes, we have a designer that does that. But in house, we do hard finishes. So the thing that's actually fixed to the hole. And then once we have this finished schedule package along with the renderings, that goes with the construction drawings to a contractor to bid. This way, the client knows exactly how much their bid call owner supplied items will cost prior to it being bid.

Kirk Mitchell  19:27

Sometimes if you don't have a tool like that, a contractor can bid prices or give you allowances and it's not very accurate. This also now gives the contractor they know exactly from the rendering what the finished product should look like. They know when and how to order everything to their finished schedule. Because it's given to them early enough where if their items long lead times they can go ahead and order sooner than later. And then it's just a great tool to minimize costly mistakes which you know in construction could add up to be a lot.

Atif Qadir  19:57

So it sounds like the tools that you have at your disposal this design process, it's the moodboards, which can be virtual or like a print version. Then there's renderings. There's construction drawings, and then there is finishes luster finishes schedule. What do you say? Like, I mean, when I think this past year number of friends that are renovating their townhouses in New York, or they moved to the suburbs and bought new houses, and I'll pretty frequently get text messages of like, should I choose this one or this one? Or do like with this? So amongst like the limitless options that you have at your disposal as a design professional, for example, for the tile for the master bathroom that you were talking about? What process do you go through in order to take this limitless set of options to be something that is sensible for you to be looking at, and then sensible for the client to make a decision about how does that work.

Kirk Mitchell  20:47

So with the back and forth, and Pinterest and other shareable images, we kind of get the idea of what the design is going to be. So that way, we start to present different options. And we'll present maybe three or four options, let's just say have a master bathroom tile, but it won't just be the tile by itself, present the tile along with the other finishes, so they can see how it's incorporated into that look. Now we have a lot of vendors that we've worked with in the past, that we know their price points, we know that things will be readily available. So that way, it's easy for us. And we actually have some really good reps at for instance, we use a towel shop, the title shop, literally, literally, and they're very popular northern New Jersey, and I believe in New York, and we have a rep that I can just send them images and send them quantities and say, 


Kirk Mitchell  21:37

Listen, I need something that looks like this within this price point. And I need it by then. And they'll let me know if they can do it or not. And we have about four or five reps do different companies that do the same thing. Now if it's something that's very special, when a client comes to us and says, Listen, I want this, I don't know this bare skin covered floor tile, that it's something we may have to search for and or if it's out of budget, or if we can't find it, it's not going to work with our timeline, we try our best to find something as comparable as possible.


Atif Qadir  22:06

It sounds like the your ability to produce a really accurate, really beautiful, effective finishes schedule has a lot to do with the relationships that you've developed with all of these vendors for all these different products. Does that sound right?


Kirk Mitchell  22:19

Absolutely. That in our interior designers are wonderful. Our head interior designer, Erica Gibson, she, I can show her something of a blank, white subway tile, and she can pretty much tell me where to get it and how much it costs.


Atif Qadir  22:33

I think that that's definitely a definitely an art. For me, I've used Garden State tile, for tile for many projects. And I find that that relationship helps a lot because they can kind of fill in the gaps between our own knowledge of architects. So the pandemic has changed a lot of the normal processes of residential design. And what would you say has been the biggest change in terms of the process, and also like the physical layout of the homes that you've been working on?

Kirk Mitchell  22:59

Short thing Yeah, homes. I mean, because of COVID. You'll notice that people were stuck in their house for almost a year. And then they had to live with their families for a year nine to five. And that included the kids running out of their home offices or people trying to work on the dining room tables, trying to do their work while they're trying to virtually help their children in class. So a lot of people came to us looking to do extensions in their home, they needed more space, they realized they needed more space because there was nowhere for them to work nowhere for them to work out over there for them to get quiet or relax. So we got a lot of requests for extensions, we got requests for office spaces, home gyms, finished basements, do master bedrooms, a lot of people also because of COVID noticed the real estate market here has gotten really hot. 

Kirk Mitchell  23:51

So it's pretty much a seller's market. And because a lot of people found out that they can get a substantial large amount for their homes. They wanted to do some renovations to see if they can increase the value of that property, either refinance and pull cash out or go ahead and sell and with selling, you'd have to buy something and then they will buy that. So it's almost like a cluster or perfect storm that kind of changed the way people are looking at their homes or designing a lot of outdoor spaces. We've done like covered patios, and outdoor kitchens and pools, 


Kirk Mitchell  24:28

Pools now can increase the value of your home from $100,000 to $200,000. It's amazing. We've done pool houses. We've done a lot of these amenities spaces where typically somebody that was working from, I don't know, eight o'clock in the morning to 6pm out in the city or out in the office, they didn't have time to really enjoy their home. And because of COVID, even if you had to go back to work now you realize that it's more than life than just making money and staying in an office. No, it's about enjoying the time enjoying the money that you made and enjoying the ones that you love. So we've kind of taken that theme and brought it into the design spaces a little bit more intimate. 


Kirk Mitchell  25:11

And then you have these hideaway spaces kids rooms, kids playroom, private gyms, people, a lot of people that were scared to go to the gym myself, and I had to set up a private gym in my house by the people converted some of their their garages, and caves or gyms. So we are seeing a lot of that. And we're seeing a lot of bounce back now to where, for instance, people were scared to spend money for a little bit on home. But now, it's almost like it gave a lot of people a year to save their money.

Atif Qadir  25:41

So given the fact that seems like all of America is renovating their homes right now, another issue like a consequence of that is material availability and costs due to supply chain disruptions. Could you talk about how that has affected your projects and how you try to mitigate those issues?

Kirk Mitchell  25:59

Yes. So we've been very fortunate in that the time that materials, specifically lumber, I think that increased like 300%. At the time that that happened, our projects were either come into Completion, or they were in a lot of the bigger projects were in phases of approval with the building department. And because COVID slowed everything down and also slowed down approvals. So we got lucky enough that all the projects that had major framing were either already framed, or hasn't haven't started yet. So some of the items that we had finished items, or the flooring, cabinets, some mechanical equipment, it was on backorder. So some of the projects got delayed, but other projects hold indefinitely. 


Kirk Mitchell  26:43

So we had a few development projects, we do a lot of large scale mixed use development now anywhere between 20 and 120 units. And some of those projects because they couldn't get pilot programs or tax abatement programs to the city, because COVID kind of shut down the cities. And they were worried about the skyrocketing price of materials, those parts that got put on hold, or they we're finding difficulties getting them financed. So luckily, things are starting to go back to normal. But I know some of the underwriters for banks are seriously looking at these projects differently because of construction costs and labor costs. Because somebody has felt, especially in this particular region, America, so many people are building and so many people that are working, that it's hard to find somebody, it's nearly impossible to find anybody to do a small job in a larger jobs, you're getting a tax you're getting if you want now you got to pay extra because we got a whole bunch of people waiting. And this is included for us. I mean, we don't put a tax on our work. 


Kirk Mitchell  27:43

But we're getting close to our bandwidth. And we're trying to scale up our business because we have such a demand. We have been blessed to have a lot of contracts and deadlines coming soon. So yeah.


Atif Qadir  27:57

I think that's something that you're correct in saying that it's something that design professionals as well as contractors have is a lot of demand this project over the past couple of years, or the past few years specifically, one thing that has that is tied to that is this unprecedented flow of people and money from core urban areas like Midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights, to ring areas like Jersey City like Hoboken, the North for the South for Hudson Valley, Western Connecticut, I think we have friends that have all gone off to these places. What do you see, in terms of your pipeline? Do you see that being reflected right now you're doing projects all across this tri state? Or are you seeing people staying put where they are and doing a lot of that renovation work in place in the house that they're in already,


Kirk Mitchell  28:48

We do a probably a mix of both. Again, we're very lucky to be located where we are being in the northern New Jersey, New York metropolitan area, you get the best of both worlds one, you got New York City. And then right outside of New York City, you have the suburbs, and they're vastly different, especially when it comes to property values. If I were to look for, let's just say a 2000 square foot home in Manhattan, I could easily be paying $2 million for $2 million in the suburbs in New Jersey, literally 10 to 15 minutes away, you could probably have about a seven to 8000 square foot newly built home with everything that you can possibly think of plus an acre of land. So we've gotten lucky in that the people that left New York to go into the suburbs, we got them as clients, the people that thought they wanted to go to the suburbs, or they moved out and they bought a larger home for more space within the city. We got them as well. 

Kirk Mitchell  29:48

Many architects in this area don't work both in New Jersey and New York because they're two different animals when it comes to your approvals when it comes to construction process. We've been very fortunate that we have both market's because we have a lot of experience in both. So we do have our large share of clients that left Manhattan. They went to Brooklyn and went to Queens. They came over here to Bergen County, Hudson County, Passaic, Essex County. So we got those clients. But 

Kirk Mitchell  30:16

We also got the clients, oddly enough that they felt as though their mansions in the suburbs, it was too much. It was too much to take care of, and the amount of money that they were spending or time that they were spending, it could just be like hiring a landscaper coming twice a week spending $1,000 a week on an acre of land, that they want to move back into the city be closer to their family, and they spent money on brownstones. So we've oddly enough seen both the mass exodus out of New York City, and then a small Exodus back into the city.

Atif Qadir  30:52

Okay, and I guess that creates opportunities for design, renovation of all of those, those properties that are being picked up again back in the city. So during this time, you've also pivoted towards multifamily and commercial projects, including several in Newark, New Jersey. Could you talk about some of those projects?

Kirk Mitchell  31:10

Sure thing. We have a few of them one right now under construction is famous down Pepys restaurant, and Newark, New Jersey right off on route 21. This is from one of my attorneys that works with our site plan applications, though and use attorneys named Chris Murphy, some good projects for us. And Pepe, the owner of Don Pepe is an older gentleman, right businessman, he's been in business in Newark for over 40 years, knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it. And he needed a he was hurting because he has a restaurant just like most restaurant businesses during COVID. and New Jersey came out with a call that said that if you had a space that hadn't 30% or more open space, and you allowed your standard maximum capacity, and you wouldn't be limited due to COVID. 


Kirk Mitchell  31:58

So he wanted to do an extension we did about a 2000 square foot extension, one storey extension of his restaurant that is 50% open to the outside elements. And meaning we what we did was we use data or folding door class systems, so that during operational hours of the business, almost the entire walls can be opened up. And then once it's closed, it can be closed for security. But it's a really cool space that should be opening in about a month. I didn't move very quickly. And we have other projects, large scale projects. One is on Halsey Street, 29 Halsey Street, and that's a 40, unit residential, multifamily building four storeys residential over one storey parking and commercial. That's really cool space because Halsey is on right downtown, not too many blocks away from Whole Foods, where their work is changing every day very drastically, we got an opportunity to do a really nice building design there. And that one is in the building department now being viewed for construction drawings permits, so that we can start hopefully breaking ground in next month or two.


Atif Qadir  33:07

So it sounds like with all of these projects from Newark to Manhattan, small projects, big projects, you're incredibly busy. So what from your experience is an important part of being able to be really efficient with your team and the production like collaboration? What would you say are the most important things in managing a team to be able to do all of this stuff?


Kirk Mitchell  33:28

Absolutely. First is the right team. Right? the right team members, you have to have the right people in position to you want to delegate certain things that people are good at and people enjoy. Right. One of the things I learned early is that if you're pigeon holed in doing something that you hate, you're not going to be very good at it just like we spoke towards in the beginning. So when you find somebody that has a passion in something like I did design, and you want to emerge them in design, and they will come out successful. So we have the right team members, the right consultants, the right staff, to be able to handle these projects, but also to create a template. So we have a template for our New York projects, a template for our New Jersey projects. And we try to stick to that template as best possible to streamline the design and production process. 

Kirk Mitchell  34:15

One of the great things that I learned at demarche shadows with this type of scale building, which is what we used to work on the mid to high rise, multifamily building mixed use buildings is that you want a very comprehensive, good looking set of drawings. If you're if nobody can read your drawings, and they're pointless, right? If you can't find something if it's too cluttered, if you have so many dimensions that you can't read any notes on your drawings, then you're gonna get a lot of questions, you're gonna get a lot of change orders, change orders, means a lot of money, a lot of money. So by creating these templates trying to have as the most comprehensive attractive set of drawings that we can, it helps kind of fill in the void or that those gaps so right team members ers having a good template in order to streamline the production process. And then knowing your clients wants. 

Kirk Mitchell  35:07

One of the big things is make sure that not let our design egos get in the way of our clients pockets for our clients vision, just like the initial client with the chalet ski chalet. We could have said no, no way. No, we're not designing anything like that. It's not a no, no, we wouldn't do anything. I can put our name on a ski chalet. But we want to let you know when to manage your expectations that you may not love this at the end result, but we think we can find a happy medium. So it's important, especially for the developers, if they need a certain amount of units to make a project feasible. And we have to make sure that we get the most amount of units and then if we can try to find other creative ways of regaining that lost value.

Atif Qadir  35:53

Thanks for joining me today on American building. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, subscribe on your favorite listening app. And don't forget to rate and review and friends. I've teamed up with writers for the New York Times and Wall magazine to launch a digital media platform. To tell the fascinating stories of the impact developers and capital providers. I work with a commonplace. Check it out@commonplace.us