114 - A'23 Location Scouting and What is a Brick Want to Be?

0:34

Hi everybody. It's Kurt. Nice winter. I just wanted to. Say before you get into the episode that there are some audio issues. With. Our recording setup and I'm working through that and I would hope that you can. Give us a pass on that while we get these things figured, figured out. And otherwise. Please enjoy this new episode.

Jamie: 0:57

Hey, Jamie That's quite a, that's quite an intro.

Kurt: 1:02

That's right. I was just off stage left So, how you doing?

Jamie: 1:11

Good. Good. Another episode. You know, it's been a good, it's been a good season five so far, right? I would say.

Kurt: 1:18

Right? Yeah. So I, I I was just, it's a good, a little, a good re reminder. I was just talking to my brother-in-law, Joe. I give a little casual shout out to Joe cuz he is a listener. He mentioned the podcast and I just saw him this weekend. And, yeah, 114. And we've been, kind of get staying pretty consistent for season five, for, for us, in a

Jamie: 1:46

season five. Yeah. Yeah. So like, like fun facts behind the scenes, like peel back the curtain and there's a whole lot of like, oh, something just came. We need to like push. So, but we're getting better. And, and those, those, those gaps in between are getting smaller and smaller for both of us. So that's good.

Kurt: 2:06

We do a little makeup work here and there. Yeah. And with Joe, you know, so Joe was the reason we're a little late on this week's episode. He was in from out of. and so, so we'll blame it on Joe. So

Jamie: 2:21

you're like, dude, you get a shot out because you were like, you're my reason.

Kurt: 2:26

Yeah.

Jamie: 2:26

Your current reason for bumping them broadcast. That's my ass.

Kurt: 2:30

Yep. Yeah. So yes, and you know other things too, like technology, if you're watching on the YouTube or Twitch, to see that I'm playing around with this new headset, microphone. Quite think it's accomplishing what I wanted it to. So,

Jamie: 2:48

so you might not see this headset on episode one 15 cause

Kurt: 2:53

I know I'm gonna have to, you know, this is always the perpetual experiment between Jamie and i's like, you know, I'm gonna, I'll check it out when I'm editing and see if it sounds any good and you know, I'll, you know, luckily we don't get a lot of, you know, Nasty emails are, you know, negative comments about our audio. So we're, we must be doing something right. Yeah,

Jamie: 3:20

it's, you know, it's the, it's the banter. Everyone comes, everyone comes for the banter, stays for coffee stay, stays for the coffee sketches, so, that's right,

Kurt: 3:29

So, what, what do you got in the, the mug today?

Jamie: 3:33

So. Pause, take a little take, take, pause, take a little taste. So I have the Chiang Chii, also a little city blend. And it's, it's, I'd say between the two, cuz I did get two different blends from them. I am, I am, I'm this one. I would count as a fan. Apricot, toffee, and Blackberry. Notes. It's, it's a Kenyan, and it, it's, they just, they say that it's, it's characterized by intense sweetness and complexity with a bright, ci acidity and juicy berry stone fruit notes. I don't know what stone fruit is,

Kurt: 4:18

It's, it's like pooches.

Jamie: 4:21

Oh, stone, like the stone in the fruit. Got it. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, I'm like,

Kurt: 4:27

I I always feel good when I can teach you something. Cause I know Yeah, well I'm, I'm thinking

Jamie: 4:31

like a mortar and pest, you know, like, like, like we're, you know, killing the fruit. I'm like, what, what, who's doing that to their fruit?

Kurt: 4:40

Or, or fruit that has smoked marijuana. It's stoned.

Jamie: 4:45

No, I didn't say stoned. I said stone fruit like a descriptor. Oh yeah. Not that kind of descriptor.

Kurt: 4:52

Oh, you brought up a mortar and pestle and I thought we were gonna get into, you know, heavy, heavy masonry. Oh, okay.

Jamie: 5:00

No, no, no. This is not a pharmaceutical podcast. So, but yes, it's, I, I'd say the Kangi is, and that's my, that's my best attempt at pronunciation it seemed, seemed to match yours. So I, I feel like I'm doing better. For those new to the podcast. Jamie has trouble pronouncing things, but tries his best. It's a lot of sounding the words. That's right.

Kurt: 5:25

Yeah. Phonetics.

Jamie: 5:26

It's phonetics. Yeah.

Kurt: 5:29

Yeah, that's true. We, yeah, we probably haven't thrown that disclaimer out in a while. The, the, the Jamie in pronunciations.

Jamie: 5:36

Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty bad. I mean, Kurt Kurt's gotten really good at sort of subtly correcting me, like in the next sentence, and so then I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah. That sounds more like the word I'm trying to

Kurt: 5:49

say. Yeah. It's, it's u I think it's cuz you're far enough away that you can't punch me. Yeah, well probably that too. Yeah. Like I'm a I, I, I tend to, Not correct. A lot of people, cuz they're in my physical vicinity, they could, I don't know, I don't know people, I, I don't think people would punch me. But we've been friends

Jamie: 6:08

a long time. You're probably allowed,

Kurt: 6:10

so That's true. Yes. That's almost been 10 years. We did kind of talk about this before, but. It's been about 10 years, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, 10 years since we encountered, or met each other at our first AIA committee work. So,

Jamie: 6:28

and then decided like halfway through, like, Hey, let's have a podcast.

Kurt: 6:31

Yeah. So let's invent this, this coffee sketch podcast. So, so yeah. So, so what I am drinking now? Is I, I had to go to the big corporate s, the green S, the Starbucks. Okay. And, I got a bag of the Italian roast to give it a go. I think I, I'm sure I've had it before, but something about the, may, maybe it's subliminal. My, some of my students were over in Rome for spring break, and so we're chatting about, you know, the sites to see, you know, things like the Pantheon, which Jamie is sketched and we've talked about multiple times.

Jamie: 7:23

So, yeah, my favorite, like, like the, the favorite, like above all other buildings I've ever been to, favorite.

Kurt: 7:32

Yeah. Yes. It's a must see every time you go to Rome.

Jamie: 7:37

Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, and then, and, and I think I've, I've even said this too, and, and just for, for grins, for those who are like, oh, yeah. Geeky boy. Like if it's raining and you're, you're in Rome and you haven't made your trip to the Pantheon yet. Definitely, you know, make your way to the Pantheon when it's raining. Get that moment of, you know, rain inside the building through the Oculus. It's pretty magical. Yeah,

Kurt: 8:08

that, I, I've got both times I've been there luckily been there twice. Been nice and warm and sunny, so didn't get that opportunity. But yeah, the, it's a very surprise. Anyway, we, we didn't necessarily mean to talk about the Pantheon, but

Jamie: 8:24

Well, all your Italian roast, it's like I'm just sitting there going, Hmm, yeah, that's right. Like total inspiration, like, you know. I have been talking about a trip. So

Kurt: 8:36

yeah, the, the, the topic that came up was favorite gelato flavor. Oh. You know, gotta, gotta always talk about that. I guess there was a black cherry. Sound sounded pretty good now. Anyway. We can't, can't keep talking about that cuz I'll, I'll have to run away and go first.

Jamie: 8:58

You'd be like, I'm hungry. time for some

Kurt: 9:01

to serve. So the Italian roast, you know, gotta, but I'm going to probably wind up getting another, misfits. Re-up from, you know, probably intelligentsia. So we'll

Jamie: 9:15

see what Well, and, and you better go check out your, your good friends at Rootless too. So we've, we've got some, some questions for them. So true.

Kurt: 9:26

I do. Yeah. Or Jamie's got questions. Yeah, they've got answers. So, excuse me. So what else, you wanna jump into? I gotta, I gotta kind of pan over to our sketches. You want to talk about. Oh, you know what though? We have. One other thing we were gonna talk about first, right?

Jamie: 9:47

Yeah. So travel. We can still talk about our travel. Yeah. So, as we, if you, if you were on before, the show, before the show, and we were doing our Google Earth sleuthing of San Francisco, cuz we've decided to, take a trip and be, Be at the conference. We've, we've talked, talked about our desire to go to the architecture conference, and how excited we've always been to, to get back there. So here we are. And in California, no less.

Kurt: 10:21

Yeah. San Francisco, which yeah, we. Just painting around looking at buildings. But we we're trying to, we're, we're on the fence here. I guess we have to make a decision, cuz you know, we're not made of money. Right. Right. And you can't be an all nine tours at once. So we have to pick one office tour. And so that's kind of what we're, we're, we're looking at right now. So, I don't know, I don't know if your thoughts, I mean we were looking at, we actually were probably, I think what started the whole map. Journey was that we started Google mapping all of these different architects offices to see right? See what part of

Jamie: 11:04

town they're in. And then of course that turned into, because this is the Coffee Sketch podcast, a discussion of making sure to pack all our pens and pencils and finding a good coffee shop and locations to go sketch. Which we of course, you know, are developing that, that mental list, in excitement and anticipation. But, I did ask my friend Tyler, who is at Smith Group, Mr. Sustainability, and healthcare stuff, who's lived in San Francisco, you know, in the city for you. Way too long. Many, many years. Kind of, you know, because he is familiar of course, you know, with different firms in town and kind of locations. He gave some advice. And then we've got, we've been sort of sleuthing on some of these firms that we weren't as familiar with, looking for kind of interesting locations. But at the same time, you know, you're going to a firm's office, you wanna see kind of interesting work, meet, meet some of the, you know, this is the behind the scenes thing. Yeah,

Kurt: 12:02

yeah, exactly. Get the sneak seek. And so that's why I guess we're trying to decide if we go for firms that. Aren't fam as familiar with, cuz there's obviously the big names, which, if you're not an architect in listening, there's a variety of big firms, big corporate firms, and then smaller firms and somewhere in between satellite offices, things like that. But, you know the big firms, they're gonna have like probably all the toys, right? Right. 3D printing. V r a r I don't know. All kinds of, like technology and, and being in San Francisco probably stuff that we, us sole practitioners never get

Jamie: 12:50

to see Right. Well, and they're like, like tapping the apple vein and just like, just, just wiring themselves in. Yeah.

Kurt: 12:58

Yeah, so I don't know though. I mean, what do you think? I think we were kind of coalescing around this tour number five with Bolen Linsky, Jackson Site Lab, urban Studio and Bar Architecture, which honestly the only one name that stood out to, I think both of us was Bolen, Salinsky Jackson. But then we. As Jamie said, the sleuthing came up with some interesting reconnaissance on the other two, companies. And they're also in, in this case, that they are at least, within the vicinity of the conference center plus our hotel and given,

Jamie: 13:39

and, and they're all three in sort of unique nice buildings. I mean, like kind of interesting kind of mid-rise, you. Not actually

Kurt: 13:49

big buildings though. Yeah, yeah. Kinda the, like the, the sort of infill small, older buildings sort of. So maybe they've done some nice adaptive reuse in there too. So I appreciate that. You know, doesn't have to be a skyscraper. Right.

Jamie: 14:06

But I like, I liked that site lab when I was looking at their website, you know, had, A lot of kind of adaptive reuse, urban infill type projects. But at the same time, you know, kind of a, a broader district focus, it seemed like they were interested in the building in its context. And, and then also were using, it appeared to be kind of a variety of techniques, in presentation of their materials. So seemed to be a lot of process thinking kind of going on. Which you and. You know, particularly dig. So, they, and they weren't a firm that I was familiar with ahead of time, so,

Kurt: 14:45

yeah. Nate, so is that, is that the one,

Jamie: 14:50

I mean, you, you, you were, you were asking about the, is it Ed? I'm just gonna call them Ed. Ed gd. Yeah. ED'S architecture Sounds like a market Ed's architecture. Get your corn beef sandwich right here,

Kurt: 15:09

ed. Ed Well, yeah, they, well, we had talked about. The, a tool that they developed early in this season, called the Epic Tool, which is the early phase carbon calculator. And, and so they developed it in-house but have published, published it online for free to use, where some people and some companies are developing these calculators for money, you know, For, for sale. They decided to kind of open source it and,

Jamie: 15:46

I don't, yeah. Well, and one of the sessions that I was hoping that you were gonna get in town early enough to see was the sort of the, it's a carbon crash course in, in the calculators. Oh. So I'm going to, I'm gonna be there early enough. That'll be probably my first session on Wednesday. And then, and then you'll get in later and, and then we'll go see

Kurt: 16:09

stuff. Yeah, you'll have to tell me about that, cuz yeah. I might have, what's it naively picked, the wrong flight, but we'll see.

Jamie: 16:22

And for those who've traveled with Kirk, Kurt before this does happen.

Kurt: 16:29

Yeah. You know Kurt's, what's the fear of spending dollars gets in the way of. Being, what strategic Yes. Yeah. It's, or maybe it's my own kind of strategy because it typically, it usually

Jamie: 16:44

involves, I mean, at the end of the day, you usually have a really great adventure, which all of us will appreciate. But yeah, when you, like, you get that text from Kurt and he's like, here's my flight info. And I'm like, where are you going? like,

Kurt: 16:58

Oakland, are you sure?

Jamie: 17:00

Like, you know, that's across the bay, right?

Kurt: 17:04

So ge but it physically isn't very far.

Jamie: 17:07

No, physically is Not far, but,

Kurt: 17:11

oh man. Yeah. Well, you know, I, we'll see, you know. When I Google, when I map it here, cuz I'm three hours ahead, right? So I'm not at rush hour. Then it only says it's like 25 minute drive, but it's probably what was at four o'clock in the morning. What was

Jamie: 17:31

the first thing that I texted you? I was like, dude, like you're gonna land. In Oakland, in rush, in rush

Kurt: 17:38

hour, Well this is, this is the ad. The adventure begins.

Jamie: 17:43

Right, right. Well, and and so for the friends of the podcast who know us pretty well, there's probably one or two of you who are laughing or giggling. And that's totally understandable cuz that was the reaction that I had. But we, we will be there. It will be fun. And. We will see you all soon, so we'll, we'll, we'll,

Kurt: 18:05

we'll leave it at that. Yeah. Yeah. It, you know, I, I'll tell you though, I'll, I, I, I cro I'll guarantee you. Someone's gonna be on that flight with me. There's other people that have my kind of strategy, you know? Oh, yeah. Although, anyway, so yeah, so, so it's fun. So I don't know. We'll, we're, we're, sounds like we're still maybe on the fence, on the, on the, the tour, but maybe a little more, a little more digging. I might as well shore up the, some of the other events that we've. Agreed to. So,

Jamie: 18:41

yeah. But yeah, I think, I think we're down between, you know, do we go big with the, the big firms with the all the toys or do we go kind of with the other one? So four or five is sort of, I think, where we are. Which jives with Tyler's recommendations as well. So I think we're, we're okay so far. no offense to anybody else on the list. It's just, that's, that's sort of where, where we got drawn to. You gotta,

Kurt: 19:11

you gotta pick, you know, gotta pick, gotta

Jamie: 19:14

pick. Very, very good. If anyone else wants to, if any of these studios want to invite us over. like, you know, anyhow, then,

19:23

you

Kurt: 19:24

know, yeah. Call us. Yeah, yeah, that's right. You know, we, we, we'll, we actually, we'll take advertising. You know, we can, you know,

Jamie: 19:36

buy us some coffee, coffee, buy, buy us a coffee, you know, we can just come and sketch in your office.

Kurt: 19:41

Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're open two opportunities and

Jamie: 19:46

the break room, you know, like

Kurt: 19:49

well, no, that's an idea. Yeah. A little live coffee sketching onsite on tour.

Jamie: 19:57

We'll call it the break room tour. Like, we're just gonna, we're gonna go to like, you know, we're gonna hit all these open, open studio nights and be like, okay, we're here get our mic set up.

Kurt: 20:11

Well, you know, we'll need some portable options. Yes. Yeah. So, so you wanna, you wanna segue over to our sketch for today? Sketch sketches?

Jamie: 20:25

Yeah. Sketches.

Kurt: 20:26

I'll pan over. Speaking of older buildings, Oh, let me get the, lemme get to hide this out of the way. So this, this, this one of Jamie's sketches looks, looks familiar in that we've talked about a couple of these, so, so far this season with some, some of your site work, your field work on, existing buildings and, you know, it's, it's, I gotta say, even though we, we have talked about one or two other field visits, you know, recently it's still, it's inspiring to see. The perspective, the, the sort of vignette sketch with your sky. Some, some entourage like clouds and birds and trees. And then the detail or the, the analytical like diagram, floor plan, elevation, things like that, that are down below in this sketch. And it's, you know, it's just something, you know. Now you have a little bit of, you know, on one page you've captured a few different ideas. You take it back to the office or take it on the, to the coffee shop and think about even more. So, well, yeah, I mean especially that, that window, you get a window with a little brick going on and

Jamie: 21:57

Well, and it's like, you know, you were asking me about sort of, you know, in the. The precursor to the podcast, the show before the show, about sort of painting brick. And, and that's why I was sort of excited that we were gonna talk about this one a little bit, is that I think, you know, at the end of the day, you know, whether it's brand new construction or rehabbing, adaptive reuse of an existing building and you're dealing with a property owner or someone in a district, you know, that's interested in investing or trying to figure out how to, you know, revitalize underutilized structures. It's about giving people a perspective of, you know, and, and I, I, I like the vantage point that I'm coming into these projects in, try and. Appreciate that, that opportunity is, I'm the, I'm the happy third party who's showing up with sort of fresh eyes to their neighborhood or to their community. And sometimes it's, it's kind of highlighting the, the great assets that they do have. You know, and, and you don't always get that opportunity. Sometimes it's, you're kind of, you know, parachuting in and, and people perceive that you're gonna come in and sort of tell them what to do or, you know, point them in a direction and be, you know, very heavy handed with things, and, and not necessarily listen to their story. And, you know, I think the, the flip side is, is you can almost give them an opportunity to look at their story a little differe. you know, as, as they're sort of telling the story in the history of a building like this, that they're, they're keenly aware of its connection to the community, but that it's been empty for decades. And so there's a, there's a, an inherent sadness about it and what you're, you know, no, you don't have to come in and paint the whole building white, you know, You know, you know, colorful accents or something like that to make it revitalized. It's looking at the details of the building and, and encouraging everybody else to look at those details too. And, you know, and sometimes a sketch does that, So in, in this particular case, that was, that was a lot of what the focus was, was, you know, the building, like you say, in perspective and, you know, looking at some of those brick details and then thinking about it in plan and saying, okay, well you've got a building that you is, set up for tenants. How, how does, how's that gonna work? And how does it sort of reactivate a street? What does, what does the building look like in perspective that it's telling us where signage wants to be. You know, so that you know that the signs are brand new. I mean, and we're not trying to do something historically accurate or something like that, cuz that's sort of a little bit inappropriate. It's like a false sense of history. You know, and for a new business, why would you wanna have a, a, you know, particularly old sign or something like that. So, you know, it it things like that where we're, we're trying to have those kinds of discussions with people, you know, that are economic realities. You know, why, why put, I was dealing with this on a, on a project recently is everybody's into window wraps right now, you know, big, big window wraps because, you know, it's, it's a fairly inexpensive printing process. Mm-hmm. that you, you know, everyone has a lot more technology on their phones and on their, their computers now, so they can come up with, you know, new logos, new prints, you know, and it's a little bit disposable. It's like disposable signage. And so you do these kind of window wraps and, but the thing that people aren't sort of thinking about is, Yes. It's visible. You know, at alar it's like playing with the super graphic, which we've talked about. You know, my love of the super graphic, you know, the muralist, you know, in me. But if you're walking by that on the sidewalk and you've got this gigantic, you know, window wrap that's covering up most of the window, you don't get to see the activity on the inside. Yeah. You know, that's, you know, that's not the transparency that draws people in that activity. The light, the people, the, you know, the conversations, the things, the, the things that you can see on the inside that goes, oh, that's kind of a neat place. Let's go explore there. Window app, you know? Yes. The window app is about the cars passing by on the street. Yeah. Being, being able to read it, you know, from a distance. And, you know, sometimes we have to have those kinds of interesting conversations with folks too. Yeah. You know, here in in print with the Historic District

Kurt: 26:37

Commission, we're also getting approached by people wanting to put window wrap, you know, vinyl window stickers on in historic structures. And so we have to, you know, even that we consider a signage. So it does have to go through the H D C meeting. But yeah, you're right. You know, it, it's not very expensive, but it does kind of, it, it, it's only serving, primarily serving that the pace of the vehicle, not the pace of the, the walker, the pedestrian or, or someone trying to appreciate the, the building. Yeah. So I was curious though, this, the way you sketch this is, is the, the, the sort of white surface, is that like a plaster over top

Jamie: 27:30

of the brick? No. Is that It's a, it's two different, two different colors of brick and so, oh, okay. I'm doing it in black and white. Building had. Really distinct brick pattern, and two different colors. One was sort of a kind of a pale yellow. And so that ends up being the body. What you're seeing as sort of that pla what perceived as a, as a plaster. It does, I mean, you know, now as you say it this way, I, I hadn't read the the sketch that way, but it does sort of remind you of instances where, especially on interior, you know, where people have peeled away the plaster and kind of revealed the brick underneath. Mm-hmm. it, it, the building, you know, and the sketch sort of, you know, for the listener, you know, that it really does kind of have that kind of quality to it. But the building, you know, deliberately was two different brick tones. Not a lot of, brick pattern that. Pushed and pulled from the facade itself. So this is all co planar, so all the brick is, is integral with one another. And so there's no real stepping to, to the facade. It's all done with kind of color and pattern, which is, you know, is understandable as well, for the age of the building and, kind of where it's located in its community and and whatnot. But it has a really distinctive appearance for.

Kurt: 28:54

Yeah. Well, yeah. Adding, yeah. Well, it's, it's still, it's still, since I've not seen it in person, it still reads like that plaster, but it's still, you know, you know, dealing with brick is, is, is interesting after so many years of, of working in architecture, it just, it just, I actually find myself more interested in brick as a material than I was say as a student. And, and it it, it's sad though cause I mean, it, it, there's so much detail. If you look at a variety of. Of older historic buildings and the, the, the artistry, the technique and stacking brick and creating pattern and brick and things like that, that it's hard if you, if you, for me at least, I don't have that much experience in detailing brick buildings to where I could, kind of create a pattern. Of either mixed colors or mixed, you know, laying patterns, stacking, to describe to a mason, like, here's the idea for the, for the design given, you know, say like a hundred years ago when certain brick buildings just had like, you know, That, that was like the, the artistry was like in how to create these

Jamie: 30:23

stacking patterns. Well, and it, it really is. I mean, I think even in my own career, for many, many years, really wasn't dealing a whole lot with, you know, brick. You had a couple projects that we would have to brick detail, but nothing where it was really, you know, broader explorations of design. And I, I think sort of two distinct moments that. Probably changed. My vantage point about it was, was one when I was teaching, and Roto, Michael Roun was doing the new architecture building for Prairie View a and m, with HK s's. They were architect of record, but the, The building is, is brick. It's primarily brick. And he was really interested in sort of historical, analysis of, you know, kind of that site and, and different things like that. And sort of talking culturally and trying to, not necessarily misappropriate culture, but lean into an architecture of place that maybe never even existed there, but that was appropriate for, for, for people. And, to, you know, to consider for that site. And, you know, what a new architecture building at a historically black college could be. And. You know, kind of the weaving of the architecture, you know, with the brick itself was really phenomenal. There's some really amazing, you know, details kind of peeling away of form. And there's a kind of a curve linear piece that sort of, really becomes a centerpiece for it, kind of hinging at the edge of campus. Just a, just a beautiful project. Yeah. I'm trying to

Kurt: 32:04

drop

Jamie: 32:05

a picture of it and, and, and, and even just, you know, just the sighting of the building itself, was really, really important. There's some, some groves of trees that are kind of in, in the background of this, and then one that's more in the foreground. So the building kind of wraps one of the trees, kind of creates a courtyard space. And then beyond it, another grove of trees that sort of suggests. A landscape courtyard, kind of a, a a piazza, you know, within this grove of trees. And on that side there's a, a glass scrim, or glass with a scrim piece that sort of the studios look out to. So it's, it's a, it's a really nice project. You know, really kind of got me thinking about the nature of brick in more of a contemporary context. And so I, you know, kind of a. Use it a little bit of as, as a touchstone as well, kind of in my own kind of experience and thinking, you know, through somebody else's work. You know.

Kurt: 33:01

Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan of this building too. I remember. You know, since Roto Michael Tundi was or is LA based, you know, so, and I did my undergraduate out there. He, he would, he was, I think when I was a student, this was in design or somewhere around that, that time, about 20, 20 years ago or so. And, yeah, so interesting comparison to talk about brick in a new way compared to old brick's, you know, older brick buildings and. Trying to create compliment, complimentary, characteristics versus copycat characteristics or mimicry and things

Jamie: 33:42

like that. So, yeah, I mean, how, how do you push, how do you push a, an, an older technology forward, you know, or an older, you know, a historic material forward, you know, where you're not necessarily jettisoning, you know, all the principles of how you know, I mean, you can see all the brick isn't floating. You know, I mean, I think that that's the impulse. A lot of architects that you see today try to do, especially with these sort of mid-rise buildings, is they, they wanna have brick on the facade because somebody, you know, the client, whomever, somebody says, oh, you have to have masonry on the exterior. And so they add it, but then the brick is like floating in the air. It, it's, you know, it sits on the shelf angle and you. What, and it's really probably even thin brick. It's probably not even like real, real bricks. But here you can see that, the brick definitely has a distinct appearance, almost like a, like a, a fabric. which is, you know, it has an element of motion to it, but that it's also very permanent. And, and I, and I love that about, you know, the way he's done this cuz it, and it, cuz it also engages the ground plane. It doesn't sort of negate the fact that it actually, you know, has to touch the foundations of this building. So yeah, it's a, it's a really unique project. I, I really well executed.

Kurt: 35:02

It's a favorite of Art So did you wanna talk about this, this Yeah.

Jamie: 35:09

So this, this one was fun because it was sort of like the, the next day, relative to the, the other one was, you know, you know, thinking about, you know, the Oscars just happened recently. And so, we've talked a lot about sort of production design and, and architects and designers sort of intersecting that pop culture, kind of world of ours. So this is, the new, black Panther movie, Wakanda Forever. Sort of a sketch from, the. Sort of woman who's been sort of in charge of the world building, of Wakanda that we see on the screen. And, you know, her work has just, just been phenomenal. And she kind of went on a, Twitter sharing spree, You know, kind of in a little bit in advance of the Oscars, kind of after they were nominated, for the production design and, and the other things associated with it. And after the reception of the film. But, you know, in doing that, she sort of was talking about the little Easter eggs that are sort of, that populate the work. But also sort of the evolution of some of the design ideas that they were doing. And so it was a really fascinating read. If anybody's on Twitter, definitely, you know, check out, her thread on, on the work that she did for this movie. Apparently there's, you know, we've talked about it before. There was a. Kind of a tone that they used for the first film that they kind of created. I imagine there's a, there's one for this, you know, at some point I'm sure that these are gonna get published, in kind of real book form, which would be amazing things to see. But this, this particular sketch is, there's a street scene kind of at the very, very beginning of the movie, kind of a funeral procession. You don't ever get this actual shot from the movie, but you can see in the kind of upper left hand corner, Chadwick Bozeman kind of on a mural. Kind of in the background, but the focus of the sketch is this kind of building and the reveal, was that, in the font and the typeface that this is, it, it's actually, the ar it's an architecture office and so, Hannah's work. So she's one of the architects of this architecture firm, including Jack Kirby, who was one of the, the old school kind of creators for Marvel comics, associated with Black Panther and, and all that. So, it's like, you know their names as if they're an architecture firm. And it really is, it's kind of. I think it's sort of a beautiful Easter egg. And then one for architects who love pop culture to, to lean into Yeah,

Kurt: 38:01

and the building itself, the sketch, it has some, some elements to it that sort of reflect what, you know, might be an architect's office, you know, sort of small, a small building, but a with a, a small storefront, but has some sort of, ornament to it. Is a little more abstracted and sort of representative of maybe a particular era, deconstructivists or, or, something like that. You know, minimal modern, which that's kind of fun. So I, I, yeah, I gotta. It's on the list, I gotta get to watching that movie and try and keep an eye out for the, all the other Easter eggs and, and things too. So,

Jamie: 38:45

yeah, it's, well, and, and like this, you know, this sketch too is, is one where, it's, it's actually done initially as a quick ink sketch of the building. And then reversing the process, the, the pencil. is the, is the part that adds all that sort of texture and, and, and ambience of place. So it, it's actually reverse of what I usually do. If, if I am using a pencil in a pen, you know, you'll, and most most artists would do it, approach it this way. You do the pencil underlay, and then the, the pen over the top. in this case, it's actually the, you know, the pen is the pen sketch to begin with, to kind of block in all the pieces. And then the pencil kind of comes back at, at the end to, kind of work through the, the textures and the gradients and kind of gives it a real, kind of plaster feel, to the, to the skin of the building. And then, and then some. Shadow and you know, to the glazing spaces kind of underneath that kind of like you say, decon canopy. Yeah. That, excuse me.

Kurt: 39:59

The way, yeah, the is rendered, does have the sort of cast stone or some sort of plastered and cast, you know, relief into the, into it. So yeah, it has some, some nice little nuance to it. So, Yeah. Good. It was fun, fun to, kind of an interesting comparison with adding the Prairie View building in between and, and sort of this idea of like facade and masonry and, and evolution of these, you know, brick materials well, and, and

Jamie: 40:35

things like it over and, and where your inspirations can. I mean, it's, you know, it's, I, I think that, you know, all those things are, are things we enjoy talking about. So this is just, you know, I think this is me kind of reemphasizing for you. You need to watch this movie. So,

Kurt: 40:53

Yeah, it's on, it's on the list. It's on the list. The, here, let me click that. The, yeah, it's, it's definitely on the list, so I will get back to it. So for, for those that have been watching this entire time, thank you for watching and listening along. Hope you got something out of these sketches with Jamie and Jamie, thanks for always producing some fantastic sketches and I look forward to talking, talking to you on the next one.

Jamie: 41:25

Thanks buddy.