Journal
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Five Steps to Successful Collaboration
Collaboration isn't just desirable; it's essential.
A successful project hinges on the ability of multiple stakeholders to work together in harmony. Here’s a five-step framework I use to evaluate the effectiveness of a collaboration. Each step is quite broad, but this simplicity helps keep projects on track.
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The Path to Alignment
Without alignment, there's no true collaboration; everyone is just working for themselves, doing whatever they can or want or need to do to cash a check and call it a day.
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Toward a New Definition of Collaboration
You've been lied to all your life.
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Rooms Matter
Townhouses have a special presence in the city. Their intimate scale, relationship to the street, private gardens, and expressive details, among other qualities, have helped drive a renaissance in townhouse living in New York and beyond.
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Collaboration in Construction
Townhouses have a special presence in the city. Their intimate scale, relationship to the street, private gardens, and expressive details, among other qualities, have helped drive a renaissance in townhouse living in New York and beyond.
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Three Tips for Selecting a Townhouse
Townhouses have a special presence in the city. Their intimate scale, relationship to the street, private gardens, and expressive details, among other qualities, have helped drive a renaissance in townhouse living in New York and beyond.
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Your Piece of the Block
Townhouses have a special presence in the city. Their intimate scale, relationship to the street, private gardens, and expressive details, among other qualities, have helped drive a renaissance in townhouse living in New York and beyond.
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The Dutchess Fair
What stands in the way becomes the way
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You Are Your Home
At a fundamental level, the purpose of a house is simply to provide shelter.
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The Choice of Beauty
I dreaded going to the suburbs as a child.
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Nature is the New Luxury
Luxury is often associated with material goods such as cars, jewelry and fine art, but the luxury of nature can be far more extraordinary.
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Man vs. Nature
What I miss most about New Orleans, the city where I grew up, is the magnificent trees. The Oak trees especially. Those majestic, aged trees to me embody both the beauty and power of nature.
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Compounding Collaboration
Great movements can start with just a little push.
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Solving the Problem of Me
Most successful projects are group projects—but not everyone sees it that way. Some professionals prioritize their own interests over others. I call this the “problem of me.”
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My Octopus Teacher Tells Us About Desire, Trust and Success
What do you want?
How do you build trust?
How do you succeed?
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Designers and Makers: How Creative Collaboration Yields the Best Work
There’s something magical that happens when designers successfully collaborate with makers on projects. I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with talented makers working in a variety of media, and the design and construction result is often better than what I could have achieved on my own.
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The Queen’s Gambit and Architecture
I binge-watched “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix recently, and I can't stop thinking about it. Not because I follow chess per se, but because I think there’s something valuable to be learned from the way the series portrays teamwork as the driving force behind the success of an individual.
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The Gift of Crisis
The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought me back to the last time I experienced something seismic like this: the 2008 financial crisis. It was frightening, it tested me, and ultimately it made me and my work better. Fear, uncertainty, and a kind of creative energy all seem to go together in times like these.
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6 Reasons Why Hudson Woods Worked
In March of this year, we were invited to the Lang Architecture’s offices to celebrate the last home sale at Hudson Woods.
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From the Architect: Good Design is Good Business
When I decided to initiate a large development project from within our architecture studio, called Hudson Woods, among my primary goals was to reinforce the notion that good design is good business.