20 years over four different firms I decided to create Eponymous. And right at the moment
it's actually out of my own apartment where we are now and and obviously I'm hoping that's
a temporary situation. So I located the office in the bedroom so I could hide it away behind
doors so I wouldn't have to be looking at my office all the time. So I have a pocket
door here it's a full height pocket door. These are all Elfa the Elfa shelving system.
So it would say you know so nicer line where the shelves actually hide the brackets a little
bit the desk is just a series of Ikea components very inexpensive. You still have triangles
in here? This is like; oh man! I don't really use the triangle admittedly. Just for show?
It's a pragmatic decision right now - financial - but also as I just get my feet under me
and to decide whether or not long term this is what I want to do before I start investing
heavily. I had done some work with people directly you know as moonlighting work which
I know a lot of firms look down on but I would always be doing the work on my own time in
my own space I didn't ever use office resources but everyone's got their issues with why they
don't want to allow that. But I was doing some work and I started to enjoy the ability
to work directly with clients, specifically the idea that there's not an additional filter
beyond me so you sit with a client and you work through ideas and you decide come to
decisions and there's not this other person that you have to leave the office meet the
meeting to go to get approval or clarity. I've come to learn that cuts both ways there's
something nice about another voice or a kind of a check if you will which is why ultimately
I want to bring other people into Eponymous I don't want it to be just me the, the, the
spirit of starting this in go down was not just to be on my own there is a real value
to being able to collaborate with people. I had a referral from a previous client that
was looking to buy a townhouse here in Brooklyn and was going to gut renovate the whole interior.
For me this would have been I'd done some projects like that before but that would been
on a scale unlike the other projects and I used this project as an opportunity to say
you know this is now I'm going to try to do it on my own. I was actually in the middle
of a project the timing was not great for me to leave but I just you know I kind of
knew that what was gonna happen in the project go in destruction I would see it through construction
then there'd be another project similar to that one. You know for it to break that chain
that this opportunity came up and I said okay I'm gonna take this and what was amazing is
that again it's gonna be different for everyone is that once I went on my own you know through
whatever reason some people start hearing. It could be as simple as someone called the
office asking for me and they say, “Oh he no longer works here,” it's funny because
while you're working at a firm you know I don't think people will consider you for projects
because of that but then the minute they realize that you're not in a firm anymore that you're
on your own you know all of a sudden got an opportunity that they may not have considered
you for. So ironically right after leaving all these opportunities started coming up
that just because people happen to hear that I was now on my own and I didn't even really
even tell anyone it just was all word-of-mouth. Because I for me I was trying to do a slow
burn to start I had said okay I'm a project I'm gonna establish my firm get this and all
of a sudden other people are contacting me so I wasn't really looking to reach out and
seek more work so I didn't want to as a practice, practice of one, had to be very careful about
workload. So I started on this project and it was enough for me to kind of the, the,
commission for this project was enough to make me feel comfortable in terms of workload
and finances and you know I also knew I had saved some money and I felt like I could break
even for the first year and I'd be okay. I had enough information to allow me to make
the decision to go on my own. So I'm trying to keep it kit simple but you know making
sure I have the programs that I need right yeah I used to be on Vectorworks and I just
transferred over to AutoCAD LT and Sketchup as well for modeling InDesign and Acrobat
Reader Photoshop Microsoft Office suite. I’ve just never really been a fan of tower units
and so I also thought it just kept the space more clear down below and it's just been it's
just I just know that the monitors being so big it just works out well. The printer is
an inkjet so I can do obviously black white and color its sized to do up to 18 inch wide
sheets. I do all my sheets full-sized sheets at 22 by 34 and so when I print 11 by 17 they're
at exactly 50%. So I do have local print shops I use when necessary but in general I can
do half size sets and they'll be out scale. Then I do have this open space here which
is obviously my dining table but it's also just an open table in which when I print something
here I'll come and sketch. I also like the idea that when I'm in that smaller alcove
and drawing on the computer it's kind of one mind set you're in and then I can leave that
space and come here and then it's just a more open space with a more you know you can really
stretch out and it just feels like you can then be a little bit more creative and you're
just kind of for me it just transitions me myself into a slightly different work mode.
Also simple things like materials you know as I started to build my own library it's
nice to use this larger format table to just lay out materials and actually start creating
compositions of palettes and again I think that would be hard to do when space is somewhat
limited. One day you're at an office the next day you wake up and you're in your apartment
and that apartment in my case is also my office and the work for me was a natural flow I would
work like I would anywhere else if anything I actually would be able to get my hands dirty
again doing a lot of drawing that I wasn't doing in the other offices because I was doing
a lot of management so now all of a sudden I'm getting back into the real practice of
architecture which was nice. You know not having co-workers anymore it was something
that I thought would be okay but it actually was a more of a struggle. Just kind of psychologically
and emotionally to be kind of isolated by yourself was tough even though I've been able
to create alcoves of space it's still blurring for me the idea of an a residential space
that's about recreation and an office which is about kind of working and that line gets
blurred to the point where it's you could be doing both at any given time and it can
get you know you can get to a point where you feel like you're working all the time.
Coming home to my apartment is not the sense of release that it's like a removal from work
because it is work too and so for me it's hard to to make that split. One of the challenges
has been when you're in an office of one how you build the workflow. So there's the benefit
is that I know that I'm the only mouth I need to feed right so I I can have a very quick
grasp of the amount of revenue I need to generate. You have to be very careful on how you stack
the work and you don't always have a choice in that obviously as we know; work can come
in and it can go out. So you take on a project and then you have to you know produce on that
project but you also have to be thinking about the next project. I’ve had a problem where
projects come in on top of each other and again when there's no kind of other person
to assist it can be a challenge. Currently all my work has been referral and and so yeah
that that is a concern I have because I mean that stuff can dry up at a moment's notice.
Aligning myself with interior designers can be a help because sometimes they're the first
people clients will connect with. Because I'm relying heavily on on referrals I've started
to kind of foster relationships. For example when I meet contractors I do like and I've
worked with them with success I will say I will get them in the mix and I've had a talked
to a contractor and say, “I know someone who's looking for someone I think you're a
good fit I was gonna have them contact you” I appreciate that thank you and they also
will say sometimes you know I'll let you know sometimes people are looking for an architect.
It's it's funny there's always people looking for good contractors good millworkers a good
metal worker it could be anything. There was a point where I was asked to do something
where I was too much for me at the time because I was still working full-time so I actually
referred it to another architect that someone I used to work with who had gone out of his
own and oddly enough you know he's gotten busy to the point where he doesn't like some
of the smaller residential work so he's actually kicking working my way. So it's it's funny
that I'm actually even getting referrals from other architects because it's work that's
not in their wheelhouse. When I started my own office I realize I needed to start a material
library. I need to use these samples as a way to decide on the palettes that feel right
so I can start juxtaposing different textures and materials and palettes and feel see what
feels right for the space and once you get to that point you can then physically bring
those samples to the client and show them. What I've decided to do is I've gotten small
samples as much as possible so I've slowly created a collection of samples that I feel
I mean right now it's really tight because I'm doing residential work so there's specific
things that I've come to like at my previous offices and I know that I'm gonna kind of
tend to go to. I just bought a series of inexpensive plastic bins and I'm just sorting them in
those by material type. You don't necessarily need to have a vast library in New York particularly
as you're a young architect a lot of this residential work at first can be renovations,
interiors, as such the material palettes are limited. They're in you know I'm kind of limited
at this point to specifying interior finishes so that starts to kind of really focus in
on what you need, so I don't really need exterior cladding samples yet so I'm hoping I don't
need windows samples and all these things I mean eventually I will get there but for
now it's mostly interior finish samples like stone wood metal etc. People bring their interest
in interior environments that you know it's a product of their entire lives which is different
than yours and so what's interesting is that you then get exposed to things you wouldn't
have thought to do. Pinterest becomes a way for them to not be overly specific but starting
giving me a sense of what they're looking for. The Pinterest boards then just become
a default way in which you get exposed to new things and I've actually done a couple
of projects where I went into it a little bit leery I’m like, I don't know this is
not really the material set I'm comfortable with I haven’t really worked with it it's
a little bit you know strange to me. But you you go there with the client and it actually
at the end of the process you then go you know that was actually rewarding. I'm finding
that it's developed I'm developing as an architect because of the relationships with the clients
for me I'm just learning you know you you it could be anything for me in the residential
world it could be the understanding how people live in a way that's different for me. I'm
single I don't have a family most of my clients are usually starting families so you start
learning how they live differently and and you start gleaming interesting you know it
could be a silly thing like you know putting I do you think the master bedroom wants to
be on the top floor of a townhouse but then you start realizing the the benefits of putting
the master bedroom below the kids rooms so that there's this idea that you can always
monitor when they're coming and going. And you know and also the idea that the master
bedroom is closer to living and there's all these interesting things that come out of
these relationships that you would not have always thought of. You could also then do
it where you have the living room bay and then you have the kids wing and then you end
up in the master wing and they're all like three stepping. But the problem is it's all
single-story house and it's I don't think it's gonna fly. And then there were two bedrooms
like one here and one here, something like that but. At the flipside I've also then lost
commissions because the client felt that without having a family I wouldn't be able to solve
their problems. Which I think was unfortunate because I don't think that's true at all.
I think it's our job to understand and listen to a client to figure out how they live and
I don't think you necessarily need to live the same life in fact I think it's better
sometimes that you don't because you actually will not fall into biases that you might have
and you come into it completely open-minded. Yeah the portfolio is an interesting piece
of the whole, not only the career, but also the the job search path. So the first jobs
you get are based on an academic portfolio I don't even use the academic portfolio anymore
for obvious reasons. You know the academic portfolio was at least in my case it was fairly
ambitious in terms of design was very aggressive and modern and so forth right? And so, I kind
of realized that if you were interested in working for more aggressive or avant-garde
design firms it sometimes made sense to maybe do it out of school because it seemed like
it might be aligned and there was always this dilemma about when you went to out of school
and then say you worked for a more conservative office can you then go from a conservative
office to and a kind of more of a avant-garde design firm and and you know I'm sure it can
happen because there's roles in every office for everyone but for me that was always a
concern so what I've done is I've kind of I I tried to get into the design firms early
particularly with the academic portfolio because I think it was less of a jump. But then I've,
obviously the portfolio evolves then the portfolio becomes built projects, right? Now your portfolio
is about the types of projects you've worked on so it's a different animal. It's you know
it just becomes a collection of images at that point. I feel like now the portfolio
is really just a lot about the breadth of your experience. So now I've amassed this
portfolio of work across four different offices and then the question becomes now that I've
gone out on my own what do I do? Because though those projects that previous offices are partly
a byproduct of my contributing to them they're not my work in the sense that obviously it
wasn't my office and the design that is the specific design threads that are there are
the you know the creativity of those specific partner you know business owners partners
we have you. I've chosen to use only the work I've done on my own and not bring in the work
from previous offices and it's unclear yet if that will be successful. I've also started
looking at it in two ways there's the kind of public presence which is what's on the
web and what's available to people publicly and so that is tailored to again my own work
but if you can then get your foot in the door and speak with a client I think at a more
private one-on-one scale I have then no issue with using previous work force I think you
kind of have you have to to show the breadth of your knowledge. But I'm trying to figure
out if I can do it where I don't use that work to get the project but I can also use
I can kind of use that work to kind of really hook the client in the end and you know there's
other pragmatic reasons there's obviously legal things you have to think about in using
other people's work you have to have the rights to the photographs you have to obviously ask
your former bosses and it also depends on the kind of terms in which you've left those
offices and whether or not that's something you want to do. Some people like to make a
point of showing that they're independent and they don't need what they did there. I
fortunately have not had any bridges I've burned but I've also not really asked them
I've never been in a position where I've asked them to use it and see what their response
would be. There's a third concern I have which is not that I'm kind of fishing in the same
pond but once you start using the work of these other people then it warrants the question
of they could just go well then I'm just gonna go hire that firm because that's the work
I like and so that's why I've tried to tailor the work to what I've done and what I'm trying
to do in a limited capacity even in the limited capacity it is rather than potentially using
someone else's design ideas that are not my own that could maybe lead lead the client
astray. When I started Eponymous I gave myself a year. Financially the project I had gotten
when I first started Eponymous and with whatever money I had saved, I knew I could get through
a year and I felt like I had to give myself at least a year before I would either decide
it was something that was right for me or not right for me. So the first couple months
were a struggle in turn again being isolated and also feeling like the work was piling
up and not sure and not clear how to do it because you could no longer just manage the
work and hand it out to people it all just ended up coming back to you, I was questioning
whether I wanted to if this was the right thing but I again I, I went back to the fact
I said I have to give myself a year because there's gonna be ebbs and flows in all this.
And the idea that the 40-hour workweek doesn't have to be so structured is a process that
I'm still learning because it's so ingrained it's just what I've been how I've been practicing
architecture for 20 years. If I'm not feeling inspired to do work if my mind's not in the
right place to do it it's a Tuesday I might can go to a museum and try to just get yourself
out of that rut. And conversely you could also be like a Saturday in the afternoon and
you have this epiphany and say wow that's a really interesting idea I want to explore
it, and so the the idea that the work flow can become just much more nebulous is something
I'm exploring and seeing if that's a benefit of being on my own. The name is it's a little
bit of a tongue-in-cheek. Eponymous means self-titled that the firm is it's, the idea
is that the firm is that specific project, at that time, with those people.