Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a bride Egg
Speaker 1: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday Frida Egg Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Bride Egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 1: off of the hump course. Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about the architecture
Speaker 1: of golf clubhouses. My guest is Alex war who's a
Speaker 1: designer and digital artist with a degree in architecture from
Speaker 1: the University of Texas, and he is the lead designer
Speaker 1: of the clubhouse at the Tree Farm, which is a
Speaker 1: new golf course project in Aiken, South Carolina, headed up
Speaker 1: by the PGA tour pro Zach Blair. If you've been
Speaker 1: following The Friday Egg for a while, you've probably heard
Speaker 1: about the Tree Farm. Tom Doak routed the course, Kai
Speaker 1: Goldby designed and built the holes, and based on the
Speaker 1: photos that Andy Johnson just took there, it's all starting
Speaker 1: to look pretty cool. So I'm excited to pick Alex's
Speaker 1: brain about the Tree Farm project, but also more generally
Speaker 1: about the way that clubhouses are designed. I think there's
Speaker 1: probably something that we as fans of golf architecture can
Speaker 1: learn from building architecture. There's a lot of differences between
Speaker 1: the two, obviously, but also some significant similarities. And Alex,
Speaker 1: as someone who designed structures for a living and likes
Speaker 1: to geek out about golf courses, is the ideal person
Speaker 1: to put those two subjects together. So with that, here
Speaker 1: is Alex war. So Alex War, why don't we start
Speaker 1: with some storytelling. How did you get involved with the
Speaker 1: tree Farm project?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a funny story to tell on this podcast too,
Speaker 2: because I think really part of it starts with this podcast.
Speaker 2: After finishing architecture school, I graduated, moved to Houston, and
Speaker 2: started to play golf again after putting the clubs away
Speaker 2: for about five years, and in that time found podcasts
Speaker 2: like The frieda Egg and No Laying Up. That's how
Speaker 2: I found out about Zach Blair and the Buck Club
Speaker 2: and TBC and all of that. Started to follow along
Speaker 2: and learn about golf course architecture for the first time,
Speaker 2: and I thought, how cool that this guy is really
Speaker 2: trying to build something. He and I are similar ages,
Speaker 2: And you know, as I got deeper into understanding golf
Speaker 2: course architecture. I realized there was a lot of overlap
Speaker 2: between what we do in the world of building architecture
Speaker 2: and golf course architecture. So essentially I twitter DM Zach
Speaker 2: one time when he was asking if anybody wanted to
Speaker 2: get involved, and we hit it off and I just said, hey,
Speaker 2: I would love to be involved helping you think about
Speaker 2: you know, the buildings at the same level that you
Speaker 2: thinking about the golf course, so that it's this totally
Speaker 2: holistic experience. And so that was maybe twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: late twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and then here we are,
Speaker 2: you know, breaking ground on the tree farm in the
Speaker 2: next couple of months. So a wild ride.
Speaker 1: So you're now twenty nine or thirty.
Speaker 2: Right, twenty nine, yeah, twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if this was a few years ago, you
Speaker 1: were pretty young when you just pitched Zach Blair on this.
Speaker 1: What what kind of experience did you have that you know,
Speaker 1: kind of made you confident, I can you know, execute
Speaker 1: the design of a clubhouse or some golf buildings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was probably an irrational confidence at the time.
Speaker 2: I think I was twenty five when we met. But
Speaker 2: you know, I think what I brought to the table
Speaker 2: was a golf background that I just felt like what
Speaker 2: I had learned in school in my professional experience today,
Speaker 2: which was not a ton but I had had various
Speaker 2: internships and was working at a firm here in Houston,
Speaker 2: and you know, people always ask me, like, what do
Speaker 2: you specialize in? And my goal in school and in
Speaker 2: professional life was never to specialize, Like the beauty of
Speaker 2: architecture is like it's a way of thinking and problem solving.
Speaker 2: And so then I always thought, you know, when I
Speaker 2: learned about sex project, I thought I would love to
Speaker 2: do a clubhouse, Like it's a marriage of essentially my
Speaker 2: two passions. And so I think my main confidence came
Speaker 2: from knowing and having a strong golf IQ and golf
Speaker 2: background and being able to say, I don't think that
Speaker 2: that is normal within the world of architecture and essentially
Speaker 2: tell him that I could I could bring an understanding
Speaker 2: to both because I think I was looking at the
Speaker 2: typology of a clubhouse as a whole and thinking that
Speaker 2: they are these sort of surface level connections that are made.
Speaker 2: But it becomes pretty evident that a lot of the
Speaker 2: times the buildings are not designed by golfers. They're designed
Speaker 2: by people who understand golfers as like a concept or
Speaker 2: they understand it on paper, but not necessarily like the
Speaker 2: rich of history and tradition and flow of everything, right,
Speaker 2: Like you can learn that stuff, but there's like an experience,
Speaker 2: especially to the buildings that are coming out now with
Speaker 2: new developments, where it's almost like a rethink of the typology.
Speaker 2: We're not building necessarily like a traditional country club clubhouse
Speaker 2: at the Tree Farm, it's something that's new, right, Like
Speaker 2: it's this sort of national membership golf trip, golf focused
Speaker 2: almost resort where you're on site, but it's not it's
Speaker 2: just golf focused, right. And so and my pitch to
Speaker 2: him was not that I would be the best or
Speaker 2: I would bring the best building, but that I would
Speaker 2: bring a building that was about supporting the golf, because
Speaker 2: the typology of a clubhouse has an interesting relationship to
Speaker 2: golf in that golf can exist completely without it. It's
Speaker 2: a purely supporting role, but it can elevate the experience,
Speaker 2: or it can be a non factor, or it can
Speaker 2: sort of detract from the experience. And so the idea
Speaker 2: is to produce something that's supporting in a way that
Speaker 2: it elevates the experience.
Speaker 1: So tell me about your initial pitch to Zach. What
Speaker 1: type of clubhouse did you propose to him or were
Speaker 1: you just sort of talking about ideas like we've been
Speaker 1: talking about right now.
Speaker 2: We talked about a few ideas, and then he had
Speaker 2: a site in Utah that I kind of got a
Speaker 2: little info on and found on Google Earth. And he
Speaker 2: had a rough routing, and so I put together like
Speaker 2: a schematic proposal essentially of some floorplanes and some diagrams
Speaker 2: and some perspectives.
Speaker 1: So and this was the Buck Club. This was the
Speaker 1: Utah project.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this would have been twenty eighteen, and so
Speaker 2: we had just been talking over Twitter, and I started
Speaker 2: to do this work sort of in my free time
Speaker 2: because you know, architects were like crazy and we never
Speaker 2: turn it off. And I started to play golf in
Speaker 2: my free time, but I used to just work in
Speaker 2: my free time do like competitions or renderings or something.
Speaker 2: So this is what I was doing my free time.
Speaker 2: And I essentially put together a proposal that was pretty specific.
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't give me a program or anything
Speaker 2: and say it needs to be this big or that,
Speaker 2: but I just started to develop something of what a
Speaker 2: modern clubhouse could look like, and modern in the sense
Speaker 2: of just like contemporary thinking, not necessarily like modernism. Right.
Speaker 2: It wasn't all white and clean lines or something, but
Speaker 2: just in the way that I was thinking about it,
Speaker 2: and that really manifests itself in like a place based,
Speaker 2: sort of site specific solution. That's what I what I
Speaker 2: that's the work that I try to do, is like
Speaker 2: it's not about a certain style, it's not about a
Speaker 2: certain desire to impose something. It's about looking at the
Speaker 2: place and responding and making something site specific. So the
Speaker 2: building was sort of like this long, thin building that
Speaker 2: bent in a few ways to talk to a few views,
Speaker 2: and it was just a very simple, like gable shape
Speaker 2: that resonated with some of the like barns in the area,
Speaker 2: you know, but it isn't a barn. It's not about that.
Speaker 2: It was sort of a familiar form. And then it
Speaker 2: used you know, local stone or something like that. It
Speaker 2: was like ideas like that that were architectural, but they
Speaker 2: weren't and they were specific in that they are about
Speaker 2: being resonant with place. But it wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't have a full CD set or something. It was.
Speaker 2: It was just some plans and some diagrams and a
Speaker 2: few perspectives, and I drove to San Antonio and met
Speaker 2: him at the Valero at that time. I don't know
Speaker 2: what they call it now, but the PGA Tour event and.
Speaker 1: It's at a different course now, but it's still the Valero. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well maybe it's not a different course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's at that resort. It was. It was so wild,
Speaker 2: you know, because it had just been It was like
Speaker 2: taking one of those online community Twitter relationships into the
Speaker 2: real world. And it was also like me skipping work
Speaker 2: to like drive over and hope he made the cut
Speaker 2: to like present him with all this work I had done.
Speaker 2: And to his credit, Zach like he's super sharp, and
Speaker 2: he like totally got the parallels between designing a good
Speaker 2: golful and designing a good building and how they should
Speaker 2: both sort of respond to place and land and how
Speaker 2: the thinking is very similar. And you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know if he was thinking about that before meeting me,
Speaker 2: but after meeting me, he was like, for sure, that's
Speaker 2: what we should do. Like you're kind of you know,
Speaker 2: let's go on this ride together, and you know, all
Speaker 2: credit to him. It was a few years later, of course,
Speaker 2: when we're like actually starting a project, but just a
Speaker 2: ton of credit to him, because, you know, I think
Speaker 2: it would have made a lot of people more comfortable,
Speaker 2: and it made potentially more sense to hire somebody else
Speaker 2: with older and more experience. But I think he and
Speaker 2: I had this sort of special relationship where we're we're
Speaker 2: both saying, look, we're young, and we love this, and
Speaker 2: we'll pour our life into it. You know, I could.
Speaker 2: I could tell him that I will bring the same
Speaker 2: level of dedication and passion that you have to the
Speaker 2: course to the buildings, you know, and I think he
Speaker 2: may have even exceeded his dedication to the course on
Speaker 2: the buildings. He and I. He and I talk a lot,
Speaker 2: so we've had a really great time working together.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the buildings that you ended up
Speaker 1: designing at the tree Farm. I know it's hard to
Speaker 1: put this into words, that it's a lot more efficient
Speaker 1: to look at pictures, and there are some pictures available,
Speaker 1: But how would you describe these buildings in words?
Speaker 2: In very plain words, I would describe them as simple, humble,
Speaker 2: regional and site specific. More complicated words, you know, the
Speaker 2: buildings are they look familiar to people. And so the
Speaker 2: idea again going back to like resonating with something, and
Speaker 2: Zach had pretty strong desires on what he wanted and
Speaker 2: it was simple and humble and things like That's we're
Speaker 2: very much on the same page from the beginning. But
Speaker 2: the buildings turned into low country South Carolina buildings. So
Speaker 2: looking at the rich history of the typology where clubhouses
Speaker 2: started as homes essentially farmhouses, and then the first clubhouse
Speaker 2: at Shinnecock was designed by a residential architect, right, So
Speaker 2: it is about being an extension of the home. So
Speaker 2: there's something there in terms of scale and form, and
Speaker 2: then looking at climate and saying what are the design
Speaker 2: strategies for this climate, what are the materials used in
Speaker 2: the region, right, and so how do we put those
Speaker 2: things together? And so the buildings are really simple, sort
Speaker 2: of humble gable shapes with wood siding and deep overhangs
Speaker 2: and brick walkways. And someone may say, you know, oh
Speaker 2: that looks like a sawmill, or it looks like a
Speaker 2: barn or something, And it's not about saying it is
Speaker 2: a barn, that is a pro shop or something. It's
Speaker 2: about using those you know, architectural characteristics of the region
Speaker 2: to make something that is resonant with that, but it's
Speaker 2: not and it's not a copy, it's not an imitation
Speaker 2: of something. So and then in general the clubhouse is
Speaker 2: quite unique because responding to the topography of the site
Speaker 2: and the routing, the building got broken into three pieces
Speaker 2: because you know, we wanted the bar grill to be
Speaker 2: really close to the first team in the eighteenth with
Speaker 2: that sort of ritual and the idea of viewing and
Speaker 2: things like that. And then but we didn't want it
Speaker 2: to be too imposing, and so there was a central
Speaker 2: spine ridge line running through the property and the routing
Speaker 2: was done right. So you work the way that a
Speaker 2: lot of these places are working now. It's not a
Speaker 2: residential development or something, so you make the best golf
Speaker 2: course first and then you work the buildings around that. Right.
Speaker 2: So I had a lot to respond to in terms
Speaker 2: of that, and so we knew we would arrive up
Speaker 2: on this ridge and there was a view over into
Speaker 2: this sort of bowl of golf looking at eighteen and one.
Speaker 2: And then his routing with Tom one was a part three.
Speaker 2: So there's a really unique opportunity there for the viewing
Speaker 2: and things like that. So just responding to the topography
Speaker 2: of up on the ridge and getting down to near
Speaker 2: the first te you know, there was this little natural
Speaker 2: finger of topography. So the building turned into this sort
Speaker 2: of peace sign shape, which in architecture you don't want
Speaker 2: to make triangles very you know, we don't do well
Speaker 2: with triangles. And so in the center of that, instead
Speaker 2: of dealing with these sort of you know, simple but
Speaker 2: complicated geometries, we just decided what if we created sort
Speaker 2: of like a courtyard or cloister and broke the build
Speaker 2: the building a part where now it's three separate structures,
Speaker 2: and so one is sort of the arrival in men's
Speaker 2: locker room, one is the bar grill and the women's
Speaker 2: locker room, and one is the golf operations, the pro
Speaker 2: shop and things, and they sort of gather around this courtyard,
Speaker 2: but they're all related to each other in just very
Speaker 2: simple buildings. So maybe that was a lot of words
Speaker 2: in the end, but hopefully.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of interesting stuff in there. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, a really specific thing, why don't building architects
Speaker 1: do well with triangles? What's the problem with triangles?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just a sort of like complicated like spatial
Speaker 2: you know, shape and plan, like try to put a
Speaker 2: chair in the corner of a wedge, you know, things
Speaker 2: like that. So if you make those spaces in plan,
Speaker 2: usually we like you try to reserve them for sort
Speaker 2: of back of house like whether that be mechanical or something,
Speaker 2: you know. But what was interesting about this was like
Speaker 2: it was right at the heart of the building, right,
Speaker 2: So there's this weird intersection of three gables almost right
Speaker 2: at the heart of the building. And we could have
Speaker 2: made like a big atrium or like lobby, right, and
Speaker 2: who cares what shape that is, But that wasn't really
Speaker 2: like that's not in the program of this place. You know.
Speaker 2: There isn't like this idea about this grand entry or
Speaker 2: this grand you know, dining room or anything. It's like
Speaker 2: much more humble and simple than that. And we didn't
Speaker 2: want to put all the services at the center of
Speaker 2: the building. And so what we decided, right, we actually
Speaker 2: put now the landscape at the center of the building
Speaker 2: by making it into an next to your feature, right,
Speaker 2: so you bring the landscape into the building, and the
Speaker 2: building is really sort of about viewing the landscape, right,
Speaker 2: whether that be the natural landscape or the golf right
Speaker 2: and sort of dissolving that experience between indoor and outdoor.
Speaker 1: So it seems like the architecture of the buildings here
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the architecture of the
Speaker 1: golf course, because we know that, you know, Tom Doak,
Speaker 1: who routed the course, and Ky Golby, who designed and
Speaker 1: built many aspects of the course, are place based architects
Speaker 1: in their own right right, their golf courses are responsive
Speaker 1: to the land, And so was that an important correspondence
Speaker 1: to make the buildings kind of blend with the style
Speaker 1: of architecture that you saw out.
Speaker 2: On the course one hundred percent? And that's why I
Speaker 2: felt back in twenty seventeen learning about Tom's work and
Speaker 2: people like that for the first time, and you know,
Speaker 2: Bill and Ben and Gil like via the fried Egg
Speaker 2: essentially like I thought, Wow, there's a massive resonance here
Speaker 2: between the work that I do in terms of building
Speaker 2: architecture and the golf and so why would these things
Speaker 2: not merge perfectly together, right and elevate that experience that
Speaker 2: was I mean, that was so crucial and essentially that
Speaker 2: relationship is what made the light bulb go off in
Speaker 2: my head to you know, reach out to Zach and say,
Speaker 2: there's a supernatural fit here and it is very much
Speaker 2: responding to the place, but also the golf course. Right,
Speaker 2: So the arrival view at the tree farm instead of
Speaker 2: this grand lobby, if I could just try to describe
Speaker 2: it and where it's You're up on the ridge a
Speaker 2: little higher than one green actually, and eighteen is down below.
Speaker 2: You can't see it the building. You're on the north side.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite stark to your arrival the building itself,
Speaker 2: but there's a dog trot breezeway that frames like perfectly
Speaker 2: the first view or the first green of view of
Speaker 2: the first green. So when you arrive, the sort of
Speaker 2: architecture itself is saying like, look at that, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm here to support that and frame that, and
Speaker 2: really it's about that the golf you know. So it
Speaker 2: was crucial to the thinking, just the overlap between that
Speaker 2: and it was. It was awesome to work with Kai
Speaker 2: and Tom. And I remember meeting Kai out there when
Speaker 2: they were finalizing the routing and he kind of asked, oh,
Speaker 2: do you do a lot of work on sites you
Speaker 2: know as nice as this, And I was like, no way, man,
Speaker 2: live in Houston, Like nothing is sacred here and here
Speaker 2: we are in like an idyllic pine forest, sandy landscape.
Speaker 2: You know, this is the dream. And then he sort
Speaker 2: of said something interesting where he was like, I don't
Speaker 2: know if I've ever met one of the building architects
Speaker 2: on a project I've worked on, And I was like,
Speaker 2: how is there not this like rich intertwining collaboration, you know,
Speaker 2: And maybe Tom had met them or something. But and
Speaker 2: if you look at most clubhouses, I think by most
Speaker 2: you know, that's a broad generalization, but there isn't much collaboration, right,
Speaker 2: but there is a rich history of it. Like Wingfoot,
Speaker 2: there was a strong collaboration between Tillinghouse and the architect
Speaker 2: and so it's sort of carrying on that tradition, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I'm thinking about some of the ways in
Speaker 1: which clubhouse buildings can be place based, and the tree
Speaker 1: farm is the example we're working with right now. You've
Speaker 1: said a few things about the landscape of the tree farm,
Speaker 1: So maybe just make a couple of connections for me
Speaker 1: between that landscape, that specific kind of biome, and the
Speaker 1: shapes that you created in the buildings. You know, one
Speaker 1: way in which golf architects can make a golf course.
Speaker 1: Blend with the environment is to make the artificial shapes
Speaker 1: look like natural shapes or have some kind of interface
Speaker 1: between you know, the esthetics the way that things are
Speaker 1: shaped and the way that things in the environment are
Speaker 1: naturally shaped. So that's one way, and I guess another
Speaker 1: way would be materials in the building, like the kinds
Speaker 1: of wood and stuff like that. So maybe speak to
Speaker 1: some of those links. How did you try to make
Speaker 1: everything that you were building in the buildings match with
Speaker 1: the environment?
Speaker 2: Yeah, great point, And I think for us as architects,
Speaker 2: we often look at things like form, material, scale, climate,
Speaker 2: you know, all those things play into it. So for example, gables,
Speaker 2: shed water, Well, you don't need a gable in the desert.
Speaker 2: That's why you see flat roofs in the desert. There's
Speaker 2: no rain. So there's like looking at all these things
Speaker 2: when it comes to landscape and region. So at the
Speaker 2: tree Farm, a few things that come to mind, just
Speaker 2: the simple sort of vernacular gable shapes, from barns to
Speaker 2: houses to sawmills, things like that. You know, it's called
Speaker 2: the tree farm. It's pretty direct connection there. The siding
Speaker 2: is actually going to be a cedar just because performance wise,
Speaker 2: it holds up better than pine as next year's siding,
Speaker 2: But there is a resonance there, right, obviously wood and wood.
Speaker 2: We're not importing like some Italian travertine stones and things
Speaker 2: like that, right, We're like using materials that resonate with
Speaker 2: the place. And the siding will be stained to be
Speaker 2: the sort of dark patina that you know, cliche, but
Speaker 2: resonates with sort of pine tree bark or something. And
Speaker 2: the buildings, you know, that's a specific choice though, to
Speaker 2: sort of like try to make them fade into the background, right,
Speaker 2: instead of of painting them white. You know, we have
Speaker 2: Augusta National down the road. We could have said, oh,
Speaker 2: let's build Augusta Nationals cladhouse, but it wasn't about that, right,
Speaker 2: It was about sort of making them fade into the background.
Speaker 2: The site was mined a bit and used as a
Speaker 2: dump site at one point for clay and brick mining.
Speaker 2: So there's a rich history of brick in the Carolinas,
Speaker 2: of course, especially as walkways, and so we are leaning
Speaker 2: into that. There are no real hallways in the project.
Speaker 2: We tried to minimize hallway square footage, and so all
Speaker 2: the circulation is outside under these deep overhangs. Which is
Speaker 2: a hot, humid regional thing. So that's material form. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to think of what else. Oh, in the cabins themselves.
Speaker 2: There will be four on side cabins in Phase one.
Speaker 2: And actually it's quite funny. I found an ach and
Speaker 2: there's a huge horse culture, right, so horse races and
Speaker 2: horse breeding, and with horses come stables. And not to
Speaker 2: say that the cabins are stables, but there's a very
Speaker 2: similar scale building in terms of with and shape their
Speaker 2: little l's or Jay's now the cabins and their exterior
Speaker 2: walkways and you go directly into a room, and that's
Speaker 2: very much like essentially a stable, right, It's like these
Speaker 2: really simple buildings that have exterior circulation and the horses
Speaker 2: go straight into their room. So I'm not making comparison
Speaker 2: between members and guests that horses, but you know, it is,
Speaker 2: it is. It is a scale of building and a
Speaker 2: sort of plan shape and even a functional functionality way
Speaker 2: that resonates with that. And it won't come to mind
Speaker 2: necessarily because you know it's not you know, not to
Speaker 2: throw shade, but like say Forest Creek, they're famous for
Speaker 2: their locker room, and it is like screaming at you,
Speaker 2: I am a stable. Like each of the little areas
Speaker 2: has the whole horse like things and all that, and
Speaker 2: like these fake barn doors. You know, we're not doing
Speaker 2: any of that. We're not yelling at you. I am
Speaker 2: a stable. But it's like hopefully you sort of understand,
Speaker 2: and it just feels of the place because those buildings
Speaker 2: exist in the region.
Speaker 1: So it's more it's more of a hint than an
Speaker 1: exact illusion, I.
Speaker 2: Guess, right, because it's not about appropriating something that isn't
Speaker 2: what it is meant to be, right, Like architecture, buildings
Speaker 2: come out of a time, a place, a culture, a
Speaker 2: construction technology, and a specific need, right, and so to
Speaker 2: just imitate is sort of to cheat it in my opinion.
Speaker 2: And so, but it doesn't mean we can't look at history,
Speaker 2: and you know, both the history of our discipline as
Speaker 2: well as the history of you know, everything in mine
Speaker 2: sort of that richness for ways to resonate with it.
Speaker 1: So, something that you've mentioned a couple of times is
Speaker 1: that it's fairly rare for a building architect to be
Speaker 1: interested in golf or to be interested in golf course architecture,
Speaker 1: and that may be part of the reason why somebody
Speaker 1: like Kai hasn't really met a clubhouse architect on a project,
Speaker 1: because often those disciplines are really different and they're kind
Speaker 1: of aloof from each other just by the nature of
Speaker 1: what the disciplines are and who the people are. I'm
Speaker 1: not really sure of the causes in fact, So what
Speaker 1: do you think creates that divide between the larger architecture world,
Speaker 1: whether it's landscape architecture or building architecture or whatever and
Speaker 1: golf course architecture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question and a difficult one, and
Speaker 2: that may be a false generalization, but it's been my experience,
Speaker 2: both in school and in the professional world.
Speaker 1: Like sure, I mean, and this is something that I've
Speaker 1: heard elsewhere too. This is not the first time I've
Speaker 1: heard someone in the business of architecture allude to a
Speaker 1: bit of an awkwardness or a gap between the practice
Speaker 1: of golf architecture and other kinds of design and architecture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny, like because I don't even know, and
Speaker 2: this is speaking to my you know, lack of lack
Speaker 2: of knowledge. But like if you have to go to
Speaker 2: landscape architecture school to become a building architect, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many have done that. I know
Speaker 2: you could do it, but I know that in my
Speaker 2: experience with schools, if you went to the landscape architecture
Speaker 2: program said I want to design golf courses, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: get studios that let you do that. You would design
Speaker 2: parks and public spaces and you know, other things, and
Speaker 2: then you could maybe design golf courses after you graduated.
Speaker 2: But I don't know of any schools that are sort
Speaker 2: of doing that in practice. And that's how our schooling works,
Speaker 2: right Like I had five years, ten semesters, ten design studios,
Speaker 2: and you essentially design a building every semester, and landscape
Speaker 2: is the same. And I never saw a single golf
Speaker 2: course project, you know. But I can tell you what
Speaker 2: I did see ut which was master planning and urban
Speaker 2: design projects that we're rethinking what Lions municipal could be
Speaker 2: if not a golf course, this is super valuable land,
Speaker 2: how can we develop it? In hindsight, I sort of
Speaker 2: wish I had taken the studio and said, you guys
Speaker 2: should hire Bill and Ben to just restore it, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to do anything to it, you know,
Speaker 2: But that's not the view. I would say in most schools.
Speaker 2: And I think that speaks to something which is like
Speaker 2: the really surface level understanding of golf. And maybe it's
Speaker 2: golf in America specifically, where it's something that is upper class,
Speaker 2: it's private, it's inefficient use of land in a time
Speaker 2: of people moving to cities in density. Right, like the
Speaker 2: surface level understanding, and the current American model that's dominating
Speaker 2: the golf landscape is either real estate development or private
Speaker 2: club or both. And so I think that that has
Speaker 2: led to sort of a disdain within architecture itself for
Speaker 2: the typology of a golf course. And then you know
Speaker 2: there's sustainability questions at a surface level understanding of it too.
Speaker 2: It's like super inefficient use of water. Right, what's the
Speaker 2: golf course that most people know that don't follow golf much?
Speaker 2: Augusta National, I would say, right, which is that's how
Speaker 2: we got some bad golf. Development is looking at that
Speaker 2: and saying this is what every place needs to be,
Speaker 2: and that's just not the case. Right, Like the Masters
Speaker 2: in Augusta obviously unbelievable, but like again specific for one
Speaker 2: time place and sort of event, right, it's not that
Speaker 2: that needs to be imitated everywhere, but people who don't
Speaker 2: know golf deeply would probably think that and say that's
Speaker 2: an unrealistic expectation, what a waste of resources land, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm not interested in building something like Augusta National.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in golf at all.
Speaker 2: It's also super time consuming to play. It's hard that
Speaker 2: barrier to entry is high. You know, as architects, we
Speaker 2: don't have a lot of time. Usually not I I'm
Speaker 2: happy to marry my professional and professional life and hobby
Speaker 2: so that I can do more at golfing, which has
Speaker 2: been great. But I mean, you know, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of barriers to golf, and I would say a
Speaker 2: lot of the ones that are normal, you know for
Speaker 2: non architects are probably also barriers for architects themselves.
Speaker 1: And those are all understandable. But it's not hard to
Speaker 1: see how this divide between the larger profession of architecture
Speaker 1: and golf courses and golf course architecture might create some
Speaker 1: problems if a building architect is hired to build a clubhouse,
Speaker 1: right because if the building architect is not at all
Speaker 1: interested in the golf, then that might create some issues
Speaker 1: with the design of the clubhouse and is that something
Speaker 1: that you've seen without being specific about particular clubhouses, do
Speaker 1: you often see clubhouses that just don't seem to be
Speaker 1: related to the golf course at all and therefore feel
Speaker 1: kind of alien from it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say yes, you know, and I think
Speaker 2: anybody who's listening to this can probably think back to
Speaker 2: your let's say, very typical golf course development, and it
Speaker 2: probably doesn't have a clubhouse that's super resonant and talking
Speaker 2: to the golf. Maybe it has a patio that overlooks
Speaker 2: the eighteenth, but it's probably pretty far away. It's not
Speaker 2: as close as the old clubhouses that really nailed this
Speaker 2: kind of thing, like Wingfoot or Pinehurst, Right, those were
Speaker 2: built in a different era, And so with modern construction
Speaker 2: has come complications with modern real estate development, with modern
Speaker 2: development in general, right, where you don't necessarily want to
Speaker 2: mix the two because it costs more and it's more complicated. Right.
Speaker 2: There's sort of this surface level relationship I think that
Speaker 2: you see in most which is just of view, right,
Speaker 2: And that's that's great to provide, but it doesn't begin
Speaker 2: it in there, right. The scale of it actually matters
Speaker 2: how far away you are, what can you actually see
Speaker 2: is it a vista? Can you see putts go in?
Speaker 2: Just that kind of thing, And then I'd say, yeah,
Speaker 2: the other really difficult thing is like parking and just
Speaker 2: all the infrastructure that even I starting this journey with
Speaker 2: Zach was like totally unaware of how difficult it would
Speaker 2: be to get a clubhouse like within forty feet of
Speaker 2: the eighteenth Green. You know, it's like it's not easy,
Speaker 2: And in hindsight, I'm thinking, Okay, now, I definitely get
Speaker 2: why not a lot of people try this, But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, hopefully it pays off in the actual experience
Speaker 2: of the place in the long run.
Speaker 1: This episode of the Fridagg Podcast is brought to you
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Speaker 1: All right, back to the episode. All right, Alex, So
Speaker 1: before we talked, I asked you to come up with
Speaker 1: a few different buildings that we could talk about as
Speaker 1: examples of interesting architecture. And maybe we could start with
Speaker 1: buildings that are not golf clubhouses, just buildings that are
Speaker 1: in cities that people might be able to go to
Speaker 1: and visit and look at and get something out of.
Speaker 1: So what's the first building that you came up with
Speaker 1: that kind of fits this description.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll say none of these are golf related. I
Speaker 2: tried to pick a few major American cities and essentially,
Speaker 2: if I were visiting, what I would go see. It's interesting.
Speaker 2: There will be a lot of museums listed. I think
Speaker 2: it's like a popular typology where world class architects are
Speaker 2: hired right to design things. So I'll start with Houston,
Speaker 2: where I live. If you come visit, you have to
Speaker 2: go to the Manil Collection, which is a masterpiece little
Speaker 2: museum open to the public and free, designed by Rinzo Piano.
Speaker 2: He's an Italian architect who runs Rinzo Piano Building Workshop,
Speaker 2: and he's he's in the category of what we would
Speaker 2: call in the industry starchitects. You know, so all the
Speaker 2: way at.
Speaker 1: The top the top, haven't heard that before?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So does that mean like really bare bones, like really
Speaker 1: stark that that's what?
Speaker 2: Nope, nope, nope, think movie think a movie star, Think.
Speaker 1: Oh starket to Oh oh yeah, oh I see.
Speaker 2: So essentially the list of the top five ten people
Speaker 2: in the world who always get the phone call for
Speaker 2: extremely high profile projects.
Speaker 1: But I see okay, okay, So essentially the Tom Doak,
Speaker 1: that David of the building architecture world. Yeah, that's exactly
Speaker 1: I'm going to start calling them starchitects. Now, those golf.
Speaker 2: Architects, don't tell them it came from me.
Speaker 1: I don't know, okay, I want they won't. They won't
Speaker 1: like that. At all.
Speaker 2: None of them will like that, I figured, so don't.
Speaker 2: It didn't. It didn't come from me. This is only
Speaker 2: buildings that I'm talking about. So, but Renzo Piano now
Speaker 2: a s architect. You know, it was popular when he
Speaker 2: did the Manil Collection, but it's a very early piece
Speaker 2: of his work. I think it was completed in ninety three,
Speaker 2: and it's just an amazing museum and it has an
Speaker 2: amazing modulation of light. So all the gallery ceilings are
Speaker 2: class but there's this intricate sort of louver system that
Speaker 2: lets natural light in the building is in a neighborhood
Speaker 2: and it's like perfectly to scale but perfectly sort of
Speaker 2: grand at the same time, like it's not a home,
Speaker 2: but it's part of it, you know, part of the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So that's just a must visit if you're in Houston
Speaker 2: ford Worth. Though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention
Speaker 2: the Kimball Museum, which is designed by lu Khan. He's
Speaker 2: one of the greatest American architects to ever live, and
Speaker 2: again modulating light actually through these cycloidal vaults that are
Speaker 2: these cast concrete vaulted spaces and just like maybe the
Speaker 2: best building in Texas. It's so wonderful. Okay, So now
Speaker 2: I have Chicago, which is a massive black mark on
Speaker 2: my resume because I have never been the first one
Speaker 2: that comes to mind is Roby House, which is a
Speaker 2: franklind Right masterpiece residence. It's just like sort of height
Speaker 2: of Frank's work in terms of residential architecture, and it's
Speaker 2: a simple sort of brick home, long, low slung, just
Speaker 2: like beautiful example of his like organic, prairie style and organic.
Speaker 2: He was thinking about resonant with landscape in general, not
Speaker 2: organic when we think of it as like blobby shapes
Speaker 2: or things like that. Oh, here's a good one. Sorry,
Speaker 2: this is for the shotgun start guys. The Apple Store
Speaker 2: on Michigan Avenue is designed by Norman Foster, who is
Speaker 2: also a starchitect who designed the Global Home. So for
Speaker 2: the pitching tour, yeah.
Speaker 1: There you go. Does this one have a moat?
Speaker 2: And there's no moat? But Foster, honestly, Foster really good architect,
Speaker 2: huge firm in London, I would say, starchitect, really clean
Speaker 2: work and does a lot of Apple stores. So Apple
Speaker 2: Store on Michigan Avenue, that's a good one. Okay, we'll
Speaker 2: go to New York a landscape. One place that I
Speaker 2: would really love to go is Little Island recently opened.
Speaker 2: It's like a peer I forget which peer number and
Speaker 2: designed by Heatherwick Studio, who is an interesting guy who
Speaker 2: is more of like a designer and has a studio
Speaker 2: not limited to architecture, so art, public installations, objects, architecture,
Speaker 2: things like that, and this is like a really you know,
Speaker 2: everyone can just google Little Island and you'll be like, WHOA,
Speaker 2: that's pretty wild. It's sort of this like peer that
Speaker 2: rises out of the water and each of the like
Speaker 2: peer pylons sort of turns into almost like a like
Speaker 2: a flowering shape that holds a landscape in it, and
Speaker 2: they're all linked together and it's quite quite amazing. And
Speaker 2: then one really fun one that everybody can visit Prospect
Speaker 2: Parks Skating Rink designed by Todd Williams and Billy Chen
Speaker 2: really great husband wife duo doing really great work and
Speaker 2: it's like a very fun building. It's a roller skating
Speaker 2: rink in the summer and a nice skating rink in
Speaker 2: the winter. Nice la The Emes Foundation, which is actually
Speaker 2: the home of Charleston ray Eames, great designers known for
Speaker 2: their furniture a lot like the Eames chair, which is
Speaker 2: a classic lounge furniture, so you can think mid century modern,
Speaker 2: modular kind of home. And I believe it's open to
Speaker 2: the public. San Francisco the De Young Museum designed by
Speaker 2: Herzogen Demron. Really great Swiss architecture firm. Some of the
Speaker 2: best in the world against architects. Everyone will a lot
Speaker 2: of people know them for the Birds Nest in Beijing,
Speaker 2: which was the main stadium at the Olympics in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight or something I think, but really just
Speaker 2: amazing firm, Herzogon Demron. And then my last stop is Austin, Texas,
Speaker 2: and I'm going like pretty local here, so a very
Speaker 2: small architecture firm that I know, And there's a Peace
Speaker 2: Park tree house. It's in Peace Park which is on
Speaker 2: Lamar west side of campus, and they designed this little
Speaker 2: almost like playground structure that's just a little treehouse for
Speaker 2: kids for adults, and it's by mel Lawrence Architects. It's
Speaker 2: just like a really wonderful, playful piece of architecture in
Speaker 2: a park that anybody can use. And it's you know,
Speaker 2: thinking at a very high level, and it's it's just
Speaker 2: beautiful nice.
Speaker 1: I love that. You know, maybe more importantly, if somebody,
Speaker 1: if a golfer who may know something about golf course architecture,
Speaker 1: goes to one of these buildings, what should they be noticing?
Speaker 1: And I know that's like a super complicated question when
Speaker 1: people ask me that question about golf courses. What should
Speaker 1: I be noticing and appreciating? When I'm trying to understand
Speaker 1: golf course architecture, I never know where to start, but
Speaker 1: I have a few basic things, you know, standing on
Speaker 1: the greens and looking back at the hole and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out the strategy from there and seeing if
Speaker 1: it fits. Looking at the tie ins between the artificial
Speaker 1: shapes of the golf course and the natural shapes of
Speaker 1: the surroundings and seeing how those are working. Those kinds
Speaker 1: of specific things I often tell people, you know, that's
Speaker 1: where to start when you want to appreciate a golf
Speaker 1: course in the way it's designed. So what are some
Speaker 1: similar things people should do if they're going to a
Speaker 1: great building? What should they be noticing?
Speaker 2: Let's start with tie ins, So looking at it and
Speaker 2: saying is this responding to place in a way that
Speaker 2: the forms are similar, or is this like building operating
Speaker 2: outside of its context. So is its context influential or
Speaker 2: is it an object? You know, is it part of
Speaker 2: the fabric or is it a statement? Right? And sometimes
Speaker 2: it does both. Say the Aqua Tower in Chicago that
Speaker 2: I talked about, that's responding to its wind context, right,
Speaker 2: But at the same time it's creating something that is
Speaker 2: quite a statement. So I would think about that and
Speaker 2: kind of ask yourself what the building is trying to
Speaker 2: convey to you. Is it about being grand or is
Speaker 2: it about you know, like essentially a golf club. In
Speaker 2: the same way, like what is this course? What is
Speaker 2: the philosophy? Does it feel fabricated? Does it feel natural?
Speaker 2: Things like that, And then there's a lot of overlap
Speaker 2: within golf course architecture, just thinking about scale, thinking about
Speaker 2: how it's made, thinking about threshold ideas, about threshold ideas
Speaker 2: of flow, like a good routing, what is the flow
Speaker 2: of the space? A good one to always think about
Speaker 2: is like natural light. A lot of like great buildings
Speaker 2: deal with natural light in a really great way, and
Speaker 2: a lot of bad buildings don't. And then you know,
Speaker 2: I would say, does the building feel in terms of
Speaker 2: like style, if you want to think about it like
Speaker 2: that is it telling you that it is something it?
Speaker 2: Is it a certain style and why or is it
Speaker 2: not a certain style? And therefore, what is it trying
Speaker 2: to be. That's like the way that I would think
Speaker 2: about it. And then you said something that made me
Speaker 2: think of something else. But now I'm blinking, so I
Speaker 2: don't know. Maybe I have a follow up.
Speaker 1: Well, I talked about tie ins, and I talked about
Speaker 1: standing on greens and looking at strategy and seeing how.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so very of standing on greens would be.
Speaker 2: Like it's it's very different. It's not about figuring out strategy.
Speaker 2: But one of the fun.
Speaker 1: That's something that's unique about golf course architecture, by the way,
Speaker 1: something that sets it apart is that this is a
Speaker 1: this is a game board in addition to being a
Speaker 1: piece of sculpture or a piece of art. And that's
Speaker 1: something that kind of sets golf course architecture apart from
Speaker 1: most forms of architecture. It's something I've often often thought of.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to interrupt your train of thought.
Speaker 1: What did the standing on greens make you think of?
Speaker 2: It just made me think of like one of the
Speaker 2: things that immediately makes me notice that a building might
Speaker 2: be really dialed and cared for, is like what does
Speaker 2: your hand touch first? So all the way down from
Speaker 2: these big moves of like is it an object in
Speaker 2: a landscape? Is it an object in a city? You know,
Speaker 2: you can think about that scale, but like down to
Speaker 2: the detail of like what is the door handle? How
Speaker 2: does the door move? And if you notice, like a
Speaker 2: lot of really good architects and a lot of really
Speaker 2: good buildings, it's not your sort of standard introduction to
Speaker 2: a building. So say Stephen Hall, who is a starchitect
Speaker 2: and has unlimited budgets. Essentially every entry door handle, essentially
Speaker 2: is always a one off sort of designed object that
Speaker 2: is a riff on sort of the formal qualities or
Speaker 2: the diagram of the building. Right. And so it's like
Speaker 2: that level of care and design can carry its way
Speaker 2: all the way down to a door handle, right, And
Speaker 2: whether that's a simple door handle and it's about materiality
Speaker 2: and patina, or if it's an overly designed, expensive door handle.
Speaker 2: That's sort of a cliche in architecture school is to
Speaker 2: think about the door handles.
Speaker 1: Huh. I love that. I wonder what the equivalent in
Speaker 1: golf courses is. It's like the the extreme level of detail.
Speaker 1: You know, what are what are the individual Maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know if.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's about but I mean speaking to Zach
Speaker 2: and back to the tree farm, like we're crafting everything right,
Speaker 2: like right, it's the golf course architect may not have
Speaker 2: a say in that, but like all of those things,
Speaker 2: and you've talked about this, I think previously. It's like
Speaker 2: the benches, the signs, the flags, all those are like
Speaker 2: designed objects that contribute to a feeling of place, right,
Speaker 2: And so whether that's something that's just picked up off
Speaker 2: the rack or it's like shaped and designed, all of
Speaker 2: that is contributing to the overall experience absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I understand that not all golf courses have the
Speaker 1: budget to be as craft focused on everything that they
Speaker 1: have on the golf course, and that that's, you know,
Speaker 1: partly the result of you know, having a good budget
Speaker 1: that you can pay attention to some of those things.
Speaker 1: And in other cases it might be just as cheap
Speaker 1: to do something lazily as it is to do something
Speaker 1: a little more thoughtfully. But something that drives me crazy
Speaker 1: sometimes on golf courses, aside from the cart paths, which
Speaker 1: I don't know why people aren't thinking through where they're
Speaker 1: putting cart paths or how they look. It's just such
Speaker 1: a dominant feature of many golf courses. But a little
Speaker 1: thing is like the ball washers. You know it always
Speaker 1: everybody has the same ball washers and they're just like
Speaker 1: studded throughout the golf course. And I'm like, do we
Speaker 1: need all of these? Is this necessary? Can there be
Speaker 1: a different way that people kind of have this function,
Speaker 1: you know, clean their golf balls. That's just a little
Speaker 1: thing that sometimes strikes me as like maybe that could
Speaker 1: be thought through a little bit more well.
Speaker 2: And if I could, that's like a system or supporting
Speaker 2: like infrastructure. So the other another thing to look at
Speaker 2: in really good buildings is like try to find the systems.
Speaker 2: Where's the air coming from, how are the lights designed?
Speaker 2: What's this is?
Speaker 1: Like drainage in a golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the drainage. It's the catch basins, where the
Speaker 2: units are they like, you know, and I would say
Speaker 2: a lot of the time these things are really lazily done,
Speaker 2: and you know, people operating at a very high level,
Speaker 2: drawing every everything and trying to minimize the impact of
Speaker 2: the systems. And you know, I don't have to tie
Speaker 2: back to clubhouses. But that's been like the really like
Speaker 2: the hardest thing about the Tree Farm is trying to
Speaker 2: design like quite a robust commercial building at the end
Speaker 2: of the day into a residential scale project that's like
Speaker 2: quite intimate and small, but at the same time, it's
Speaker 2: a commercial building that needs commercial grade materials, commercial grade systems.
Speaker 2: It has a full nice restaurant, it's a retail shop,
Speaker 2: you know, it has all these things. And so the
Speaker 2: clubhouse is something that is kind of like a tricky
Speaker 2: one where you're trying to do a commercial building in
Speaker 2: a residential sort of scale and context. And that's not
Speaker 2: true for all clubhouses. Some are not trying to be
Speaker 2: residential and they shouldn't be. But systems is a good
Speaker 2: one to look at.
Speaker 1: So something that's really interesting about how you have made
Speaker 1: your way through your career and your interests is that
Speaker 1: I believe you were interested in building architecture before you
Speaker 1: were interested in golf course architecture. You played golf, but
Speaker 1: you weren't necessarily connecting your longtime interest in architecture with
Speaker 1: golf course architecture, and so you have kind of a
Speaker 1: unique perspective on what building architecture can bring to golf
Speaker 1: course architecture. What kind of knowing a thing or two
Speaker 1: about the way that buildings are designed can make you
Speaker 1: notice when you're on a golf course. So what are
Speaker 1: just like a couple of things that you think that
Speaker 1: an appreciation of building architecture can add to an appreciation
Speaker 1: of golf course architecture.
Speaker 2: My unique perspective is just seeing both sides almost, And
Speaker 2: what I would hope that people are getting out of
Speaker 2: the podcast is that a lot of the same thinking
Speaker 2: on golf courses can be applied to buildings. And so
Speaker 2: you take that and you think about the way that
Speaker 2: as we say, verticals buildings instead of landscape, like they
Speaker 2: contribute or are talking to the experience at the golf course.
Speaker 2: But also take that home with you, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's not realistic, and even I don't live in a
Speaker 2: home that I designed, and it's like, you know, we
Speaker 2: can't all have like perfect architecture all the time. But
Speaker 2: you can take this knowledge and sort of look at
Speaker 2: the built environment that you live and work in and
Speaker 2: visit and sort of start to I would just challenge
Speaker 2: people to like apply their golf course architecture hobby chops
Speaker 2: to buildings and see where they get and see like
Speaker 2: there's a rich, rich culture right now right of appreciating
Speaker 2: golf course architecture. And you know, we maybe live in
Speaker 2: the echo chamber of that being on a podcast about
Speaker 2: golf course architecture essentially, but and there is a culture
Speaker 2: of that on buildings as well, and so but there
Speaker 2: isn't a lot of overlap, and I don't see why not,
Speaker 2: and not to say that everyone has to be interested
Speaker 2: in everything, right, there's a subculture for everything. But my
Speaker 2: hope would be that some people just start to see
Speaker 2: the built environment like they see golf courses and start
Speaker 2: to care for more and understand that it's also crafted.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's an answer to your actual question, but.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great way to answer it, because
Speaker 1: what you're saying essentially is take it the other way too.
Speaker 1: You know, you went from building architecture to golf course architecture.
Speaker 1: People listening to this podcast are likely to be a
Speaker 1: little bit into golf course architecture at least. And you know,
Speaker 1: when that part of your brain is turned on at
Speaker 1: a golf course where you're trying to understand something or
Speaker 1: enjoy something about the built environment, that you find yourself in.
Speaker 1: There's no reason not to take that to the next
Speaker 1: airport that you land in. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: airports that are beautifully built that just to have these
Speaker 1: sort of outrageously fun shapes and kind of ideas in them,
Speaker 1: but people rarely are looking at them. They're at an airport,
Speaker 1: they're getting to their flight, and so you know, just
Speaker 1: as golf course, architecture can add a different dimension to
Speaker 1: your golf life. I think that being attuned to all
Speaker 1: forms of architecture as you're just walking through the world
Speaker 1: can give you something to think about when you're bored,
Speaker 1: which is always good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be great if I could make two
Speaker 2: book recommendations really quickly. That may may be better at
Speaker 2: answering this question than I am, or just doing it
Speaker 2: very on the nose. There's a book Thinking Architecture written
Speaker 2: by Peter Zumthor, who is a Pritzker Prize winning architect
Speaker 2: in Switzerland that's the highest award in architecture starchitect total starchitect.
Speaker 2: Most of his work is in Europe. But it's a
Speaker 2: really simple book, really short. I give it to a
Speaker 2: lot of people who are thinking about architecture for the
Speaker 2: first time, super approachable, super readable, So that's like number
Speaker 2: one on my list. And he has a second book
Speaker 2: called Atmospheres, which is essentially just discussing how the built
Speaker 2: environment creates atmospheres, which golf courses do the same. They're
Speaker 2: part of the built environment. So those are my main
Speaker 2: two book recommendations from the same author.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well that's a good place to wrap up, Alex.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today, and good
Speaker 1: luck with your future architecture. I hope to see more
Speaker 1: clubhouses from you, but I'm looking forward to watching your
Speaker 1: career as it goes along.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3: It was a great discussion and really cool to be,
Speaker 3: you know, full circle to learning about Zach essentially to
Speaker 3: now working towards completing the project and coming on the pod.
Speaker 2: So thanks a lot here.
Speaker 1: This episode of the Frida Egg podcast was edited by
Speaker 1: Meg Atkins. If you've been enjoying the pod, please leave
Speaker 1: a rating and review on iTunes. We always like hearing
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Speaker 1: are a big way that we find new listeners. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening and we'll be back soon.