[00:00:00] **Michael:** Architects and Landscape Architects have to collaborate, but almost no one shows how it's done.

[00:00:04] **Michael:** Meet Shape architecture and Superbloom.

[00:00:06] **Michael:** Shape just won A.I.A Colorado's Young firm of the year.

[00:00:09] **Michael:** And [00:00:10] Superbloom just took home an A S L A Merit Award.

[00:00:12] **Michael:** They share the same office.

[00:00:14] **Michael:** They win projects together.

[00:00:15] **Michael:** But behind the awards is something harder, staying aligned across firm lines.

[00:00:19] **Michael:** In this [00:00:20] episode you're going to learn how two design firms collaborate.

[00:00:22] **Michael:** If you've ever overstaffed a project, or gone over budget, or struggled to share scope, this is for you.

[00:00:27] **Michael:** These firms built a model that works, and they're [00:00:30] pulling back the curtain.

[00:00:31] **Michael:** And both of these firms are Monograph customers, so we'll also learn about what it's like for them to work in Monograph.

[00:00:37] **Michael:** Let's get into it.

[00:00:37] **Chris:** I'm gonna kick things off with [00:00:40] how'd you start working together?

[00:00:40] **Stacy:** I'll start us off. We all know each other in different ways, and have known each other a long time, steve but And I met [00:00:50] each other about 22 years ago in Telluride, Colorado at super teeny tiny town.

[00:00:56] **Stacy:** And we were working for the same architect together. I [00:01:00] was the office manager. He was doing architectural design. so Steve and I have worked together before, and then over the [00:01:10] years we actually got married. So our firms to, we have separate companies. And during Covid, when [00:01:20] Diane and I started Superbloom, Steven Morgan had already been working.

[00:01:25] **Stacy:** Diane and I met at CITAs here in Denver, COVID times. [00:01:30] Steve had this very, empty office. He was the only one going in. Everybody else was working remotely. And he said, do, we were just starting. He said, do you wanna come share [00:01:40] this space with me? And so Diane and I, just, the two of us and Steve were working in this enormous space for a little while.

[00:01:49] **Stacy:** and so [00:01:50] that's how, things evolved. But now then we all, now we both have, I think we're about teams of 10, so outgrew that [00:02:00] space and decided to move into a new office space together and have, as you mentioned, had some great opportunities to collaborate together on projects and [00:02:10] pursued projects together as well at different times.

[00:02:12] **Steve:** I think one thing that's cool is that when we were together in the old office, 900 square feet, and as we grew, it started to get [00:02:20] crowded. and I think Superbloom first identified the need for a new space. And, we had by then gotten used to it. I don't think if we were, [00:02:30] if Superlo was starting their firm today and we had a separate office, they would, probably find a separate space.

[00:02:34] **Steve:** But because we were really recognizing the benefits of co-location, it, even though we [00:02:40] only had one project together at the time, it just seemed really high value to find another space that we could share.

[00:02:46] **Chris:** Yeah. That's really interesting that, that background, as the [00:02:50] office manager too. I'd, love to talk a little bit more about that and as, we go on, but let's move on to what kind of projects each of your firms [00:03:00] focus on right now.

[00:03:02] **Morgan:** Sure, yeah, I can start with shape. Diane and I are not married, just to be clear, but we both

[00:03:07] **Diane:** have curly hair.

[00:03:09] **Morgan:** Yeah, we [00:03:10] both have curly hair, which is cool. but yeah, like Stacy said, we've all known each other through various avenues for, a long time, so it's been really cool. Continued [00:03:20] collaboration. but for shape, yeah, we started about 10 years ago, or eight years ago, And we focus, we started small, doing small stuff.[00:03:30]

[00:03:30] **Morgan:** we've grown throughout the, years and so both the, kind of sustainability threat has always gone through our work and the projects have gotten bigger and more complicated, but we, [00:03:40] like to think that's still what gets everybody out of bed in the morning into the office. so it ranges from single family, multifamily, some mixed use projects, largely [00:03:50] in Colorado, but we have work in Utah and, Washington state as well.

[00:03:55] **Diane:** And, um, Superbloom. We started four years ago, or four and a half [00:04:00] years ago in those dark Covid times. and we work on a range of projects. I'd say maybe half of our work is [00:04:10] more parks, open space trails, but we do a lot of, master planning and vision planning for parks and open spaces. We're doing [00:04:20] some work on kind of resiliency planning, especially for, institutional clients who are looking [00:04:30] to plan for climate change.

[00:04:33] **Diane:** we're, we will, we're doing some work currently on updating landscape zoning code. [00:04:40] We do a little bit of residential. yeah, so we run the gamut of all the landscape types.

[00:04:48] **Chris:** Just so people can picture [00:04:50] their firm in relation to both of yours, how many projects are you working at any given time and maybe like completing in a year?

[00:04:59] **Morgan:** Yeah, [00:05:00] that's a good question. I just looked at our active job folder, and we, there's 60 projects in there, and I think about two thirds of those are like really [00:05:10] active. so we have, eight, eight architects in the office and they're pretty scattered throughout those, folks. [00:05:20]

[00:05:21] **Diane:** I did not look at our active jobs folder, but I would say maybe we're more like 25 or 30 and, probably similar [00:05:30] two thirds or three quarters very active.

[00:05:34] **Chris:** Okay. how about when you're actually in these projects? How do you structure them? [00:05:40] not everybody, not not every architect has worked very closely with the landscape architect. So I think folks are curious to understand what might be different. [00:05:50] And then, vice versa, what is it like on the architecture project side?

[00:05:54] **Chris:** So base structures, how many folks on the team, key, deliverables [00:06:00] in, in that process? Is it always the same across every project or is there some pattern between this kind of project versus that project?

[00:06:06] **Chris:** How are those structure out?

[00:06:07] **Morgan:** Sure I can start with that. I would say [00:06:10] that, we really go after and value landscape based work. I know that doesn't talk about how our, we structure our projects. but I think that's something [00:06:20] unique to us here in Colorado is that, a lot of times the outdoors is nicer than the indoors, versus place like Boston or Portland, Oregon, which has [00:06:30] beautiful architecture, but it maybe has some kind of more challenging seasons.

[00:06:33] **Morgan:** and that's another reason why we. Love working with Superbloom is because a lot of times we're pretty aligned that we [00:06:40] feel like the landscape does come first before the building. so that, that's a quick aside. But in terms of how we structure our projects, they're all over the [00:06:50] place. We have a lot of residential projects, single family.

[00:06:53] **Morgan:** Those are usually, just we, bill per hour. So we provide estimates, at a percent of [00:07:00] construction cost and bill accordingly. A lot of times that's either, Steve or myself, and then typically one other person as acting, one other architect in the [00:07:10] office as the project manager. And occasionally we do have a couple, newer designers that kind of help in and, fill in where needed.

[00:07:18] **Morgan:** and that kind of goes up to [00:07:20] some fairly complicated projects, where we have, a whole slew of consultants, again, with these more high performance buildings, [00:07:30] there's lots of specialists, so the teams get a lot bigger. externally, but internally I would say, again, we're still, it's usually Steve and then [00:07:40] that, one architect in our office and then one or two people helping out, filling in.

[00:07:47] **Morgan:** so internally our team teams still stay [00:07:50] pretty small. but generally, very collaborative with our clients and owners. lots of in-person meetings, especially, loving love, having [00:08:00] meetings with Superbloom as well in our office. and working screen shares, working meetings, keeping it pretty fluid and, in terms of the, [00:08:10] process.

[00:08:12] **Stacy:** Yeah, and for Superbloom, I think our projects compared to shape tend to be larger and each one is [00:08:20] probably slightly more its own beast. I think we specialize in taking on unique and co complex and custom [00:08:30] projects. we probably have different phases for every project, more or less.

[00:08:37] **Stacy:** once we get into some of the [00:08:40] technical documentation, it becomes more standardized and aligned with probably the architect's phasing. it depends on if we're like a sub to [00:08:50] an architect where we would inherit their phase and, project structure or if we're the prime working with the client to lay out what that process [00:09:00] should be.

[00:09:01] **Stacy:** And I think that's something that really people really value about working with us and is something that's actually been amazing about monograph is because we can create these [00:09:10] custom phases and we can evaluate them versus it being like an exception or having to fit our work into kind of like a standard [00:09:20] structure.

[00:09:21] **Stacy:** so that allows us to. we also respond to a lot of RFPs, and so we're also then inheriting a phase structure that's [00:09:30] been outlined by the client. so we really like having that flexibility. And I think also just in terms of our team and how we work, I think we, [00:09:40] we tend to work as a whole office on projects often, again, because some of our projects are bigger, so we may bring in people with like special skills [00:09:50] or expertise at different phases along the line to really add that to the project.

[00:09:57] **Stacy:** yeah, it works really well. Oh,

[00:09:58] **Chris:** very interesting. we [00:10:00] just took a project oriented, view of structure. How about a time-based view of structure, like your day, week, month? do you have some [00:10:10] patterns that, you've structured in as firm owners? as far as how to get a handle on all this complexity?

[00:10:19] **Steve:** the short answer is [00:10:20] yes, but when you first started asking that question, I had to laugh. Just it feels, a lot of times, no, do we have structure our time? No. but I think [00:10:30] it, it I guess there's a couple lenses for that. One is like how we structure our own time and then how we structure it, the project related time.

[00:10:37] **Steve:** So for us, it really comes, [00:10:40] we start the week off with a weekly priorities meeting that everybody is in. and each staff person is responsible for their own projections [00:10:50] of how much time they need on the projects they have, knowing the deliverable kind of times. and another plug for monograph.

[00:10:58] **Steve:** They're responsible for going into [00:11:00] monograph, like before that meeting and understanding how much, fee is left in whatever given phase or total project so that they can. Check and estimate [00:11:10] how they're doing in terms of how much time they think they need to get done, what they have to get done, versus how much time they have based on the fee that's left.

[00:11:17] **Steve:** And then we use that time with [00:11:20] everybody in the room, even though there's 60 projects and eight of us to go through those projects on a per person basis. And. It's a chance to [00:11:30] negotiate over what thing is a priority over another thing. And then also for people to help out, and it happens a lot.

[00:11:36] **Steve:** We want everyone in the office to be aware of what's happening on every project. It's [00:11:40] like a little bit of like a waste of time for people that aren't working on a given project, but they may have insights or they may be able to say next week I'm actually gonna have a window and I'll help you on that.

[00:11:49] **Steve:** and so [00:11:50] we can kinda shift those deadlines around. So that really helps us with the sort of overall structure, related to projects and then related to our own time, I think we, start with those client [00:12:00] meetings again, with that many projects, we can't push 'em off forever, so we end up with like regular intervals of client meetings depending on the phase.

[00:12:07] **Steve:** and sometimes it's maybe more of a [00:12:10] consultant. Recurring meaning, and the one-offs, and then whatever remains of the time, we structure a lot of our practice, like DCR style. [00:12:20] So each project manager has authorship over every single phase. but we will work, we'll, go sit down or stand up and [00:12:30] workshop, whatever issues or design challenges are coming up.

[00:12:33] **Steve:** and so that tends to like water fill in the gaps in the schedule. and, a lot of times we'll be like, oh, this week [00:12:40] doesn't look too bad on Monday, and everyone starts scheduling like their meetings with Morgan or I, and, by the end of the week or meetings all time. but it does tend [00:12:50] to be pretty effective on keeping us, on track.

[00:12:55] **Diane:** I think they're not super dissimilar. I think, yeah, every [00:13:00] Monday the whole team meets. We have a running, we use Google, so we have a Google sheet going with all the projects and we just, [00:13:10] Projected out for the year, what are the major milestones? and we'll just go through that week and say, [00:13:20] project 1, 7, 20 and 30, we have big things coming up.

[00:13:26] **Diane:** We use the monograph for [00:13:30] staffing to allocate hours. usually Stacy will do that or, one other woman in the office and so we don't, [00:13:40] yeah. It sounds like you have your team's input their own time. We input the time for them, and they're supposed to tell us if they think. [00:13:50] There's not enough time allocated or too much time.

[00:13:56] **Diane:** and then so the other thing we'll do is we'll [00:14:00] meet monthly the project managers and Stacy and I will meet monthly to try to project the next month in terms of kind of basic staffing. [00:14:10] and do we think we have enough, time or team available for all the upcoming anticipated deadlines? Do we [00:14:20] need to try to shift deadlines on, which project would be more flexible because, week whatever 18 looks pretty bad.[00:14:30]

[00:14:31] **Diane:** yeah, and I think that's been working pretty well for us. I think it's, been a process for us to get to what works and, [00:14:40] how much of stopping time is about just this one week versus the rest of the month. yeah.

[00:14:49] **Chris:** [00:14:50] I'll

[00:14:50] **Stacy:** just, I just wanna add one thing to that, which is like, when we were talking before about how do you know when you can start a new project or something like that, like what Diane just described was [00:15:00] like our kind of solution to that because we were finding, we were ending up with like multiple deadlines happening at the same time and not really knowing [00:15:10] whether we could agree to things that were like, far out in the future.

[00:15:13] **Stacy:** And so it has helped like immensely, to be able to lay it out like that.

[00:15:19] **Chris:** do you [00:15:20] structure out your client interactions you're, going out to the site to meet them? Or do, are you having them come into the office? when, project inquiries are coming in? [00:15:30] is it just as it happens?

[00:15:33] **Chris:** just curious how, if, you have a model or it's just every week's different.

[00:15:39] **Steve:** We have clients all over [00:15:40] the state and as Morgan said, the region, so it's like very variable. but we always try to start with in person. We just it's so helpful whether it's in, and the most helpful thing [00:15:50] kicking off a project is at the site.

[00:15:52] **Steve:** we do have. A decent amount of our clients that are not in Denver, we can still have folks come, they may have a, may [00:16:00] live in Denver, pass through Denver, so we can still meet in the office, in person. and as we just find it, es especially critical at the beginning to establish that trust and connection and you can have just [00:16:10] much more nuanced conversation.

[00:16:12] **Steve:** so having said that, it tends to be for our most active projects, especially in the earlier phases and in [00:16:20] construction, a recurring meeting that's usually biweekly, that is quite often virtual. and we're obviously extremely fluid. We can be hybrid [00:16:30] as well, partially virtual, partially in person. It tends to be pretty effective.

[00:16:34] **Steve:** But, again, it's kicking off with the drawing things on [00:16:40] paper in person is critical.

[00:16:44] **Morgan:** Yeah, I could add to that for shape. it's a junk show here, Chris. [00:16:50] Honestly, it's just totally, yeah, I, it's something we're working on we're, trying to become adults, and I think we've gotten better at it every [00:17:00] year.

[00:17:00] **Morgan:** But I would echo what Steve said, being on site is super critical early on. And of course, through, once things happen on, the site and, [00:17:10] we, I'm, located up here in Leadville, which is about an hour and a half from our office in Denver. I'm down there every week.

[00:17:18] **Morgan:** But, [00:17:20] we do a lot of work up here too. And I, think there's a lot of value and trust that happens when you're closer to a construction site, whether it's, [00:17:30] commercial or single family. That's, a big part. So we really do try to, get to the site with the clients early on and, during the construction phase.[00:17:40]

[00:17:41] **Diane:** I would, I would echo what they said. Shapes has said about getting involved in person and meeting in [00:17:50] person as much as possible early on. I think Stacy and I really try to customize, the interactions with the [00:18:00] clients based on, we really try to get to know them in the beginning so that we can tailor that process too.

[00:18:08] **Diane:** Not just, [00:18:10] I, think what I'm trying to say is, certain people have preferred learning styles, preferred ways of interacting, and we try to glean that from them in the initial [00:18:20] contact so that we can tailor how we're gonna make this project sing for them and how they're gonna be able to be [00:18:30] involved in the best way that works for them too.

[00:18:33] **Stacy:** One thing we've been doing more recently is like our initial concept meeting or like [00:18:40] charette, having that for sure in person and having everyone in the team involved. And I think we were reflecting recently too, that because we started in [00:18:50] Covid times, like everything was virtual for the first couple years for us.

[00:18:54] **Stacy:** And that how it does make such a difference to have those more, [00:19:00] messy longer conversations upfront to really, it just makes, it brings everyone together like a little quicker. [00:19:10] and then as far as like the, all the management and all of that, we do have like an outline, project management strategy that [00:19:20] everyone in the office, is like a part of.

[00:19:23] **Stacy:** So a lot of that also just happens based on that system after like those initial [00:19:30] kind of phases.

[00:19:32] **Diane:** I would add, something that we've started doing this year because Superlo has 10 projects under [00:19:40] construction right now, and they're all pretty large projects, pretty complex projects. and, we have team of varying, [00:19:50] levels of expertise with regards to construction.

[00:19:55] **Diane:** one of your questions was about how we manage the team time. [00:20:00] We try to be as helpful and guiding as possible and then also try to allow them to be in their flow state. So it's a [00:20:10] little bit of a give and take, but one thing we've been doing this year for construction is we're doing ca office hours.

[00:20:17] **Diane:** so you were mentioning desk Cris. I [00:20:20] think we're trying to do this thing where, the team can gather all of their ca questions at once and either Monday or Thursday they can meet with one of us to [00:20:30] ask all those questions. Of course, fires happen and we're here and they can ask anytime, but it's like a nice way to focus their time and our [00:20:40] time and thinking into that kind of one thing.

[00:20:45] **Steve:** I think, back to the kind of like in person, back to the [00:20:50] client relationship, we as shape, I think our, we really pride ourselves in, in, I think you're trying to carve out our sort of way of operating as architects is being really. [00:21:00] Listening and focused and really about what the arc the, client wants.

[00:21:05] **Steve:** So some clients want the, I wanna hire the architect that [00:21:10] does the thing that I like the way it looks, and I just want that. And I want them to, I want them to deliver it to me, like ready to go. But clients that come to us often, I think often because of our [00:21:20] specialty in high performance architecture and design and, really building science, they wanna know about, they wanna understand what's going on.

[00:21:28] **Steve:** So having all of our [00:21:30] meetings be really like working meetings is really important. And it's a mutual education. And again, the more in person we are, the more we can listen and understand and listening [00:21:40] on multiple levels. but that sort of, again, mutual education. Happens through meetings that are not presentations, right?

[00:21:49] **Steve:** We're [00:21:50] not like, here is your design that we evolved since the last time and you gave us feedback. We're like, all right, we heard this. This is a couple ways we could approach it. Let's like, and we'll shift [00:22:00] things around on the fly, which I think is a kind of no-no for old school architects like education, educated architects.

[00:22:09] **Steve:** And, [00:22:10] but we found it like does end up usually getting clients really comfortable and trusting and then having a great level understanding with the why

[00:22:19] **Chris:** [00:22:20] there's obviously software, but there's also drawings, drawing in person onsite.

[00:22:25] **Chris:** you've also got having a space of time that's like office hours. But [00:22:30] I'd love to hear more about how you think about some of the tools that are in the office. Are using bim, that kind of stuff. I think folks would like to know, to help place themselves, in relation to your firms.

[00:22:39] **Steve:** The [00:22:40] number one awesome tool is the 18 inch rule of trace paper is, and obviously it's not really, when we can have clients in person doing [00:22:50] things on a piece of paper is hands down the most effective. printing the, design out as it is and like drawing on it because everyone understands that and it's something we're always trying [00:23:00] to work on with our team is, using that kind of.

[00:23:03] **Steve:** Tool more pencils, pens, trace paper, notebooks. but in the, [00:23:10] and it comes back to the sort of site visits too, like using an iPad or a notebook and like drawing design ideas on the spot with clients

[00:23:18] **Steve:** Is a tool that [00:23:20] is more effective than all the hand waving and the words, that we can throw out there.

[00:23:26] **Steve:** and that, that's more effective with a. 2000 square foot [00:23:30] house in the mountains on that site with particular views than maybe a park. but still I think that like we've gotten far even with, nature center design, just like in front of [00:23:40] them. Like here's how we could approach this. and it's really fun to look back at those sketches too.

[00:23:46] **Steve:** And the end of the really successful project stuff we see the threat. [00:23:50] but there's some tech, digital tools. I think we use, sites, monograph, which is really helpful. We use, acad, a competitor. Revit. [00:24:00] we like it. It has a really nice fac like visual. in terms of sort of manipulation while also having BIM capability.

[00:24:09] **Steve:** [00:24:10] and then one other that kind of comes to mind is millino, which is like a sort of a mirror board, but it's just a nice repository. We had a nice example recently where, because Superbloom and Shape are working [00:24:20] together on a project where we both have separate contracts and the clients actually came to us and they want a house on this like large property.

[00:24:27] **Steve:** And we were like, you need [00:24:30] Superbloom because you have all these aspirations that are not house related and we actually need to address those first. So we've pushed back, we haven't started the house design, but we've worked together with Superbloom so far [00:24:40] on the sort of like site ideation and zoning and mostly super bins done, heavy lifting.

[00:24:47] **Steve:** But it's been great having this common platform Milano, [00:24:50] where we can all Putter stuff and it removes that weird lack of hierarchy for us having separate, who's gonna send the email to the client. put it on mail [00:25:00] note. We have the current information, you have the current information, and the client has it, and somebody, it doesn't matter who we email 'em.

[00:25:05] **Steve:** So those are just a few examples to start.

[00:25:09] **Diane:** [00:25:10] Steve mentioned several that we use. We definitely use trace paper also, but I think most folks in the office have an iPad. So iPad I [00:25:20] think has become the go-to, like we use Slack as our internal coordination, tool. So [00:25:30] basically when you start a super planner, like email is for clients and client things and outside things.

[00:25:35] **Diane:** And Slack is for internal things. and [00:25:40] so we'll just shoot off, little sketches and we'll pull 'em down on our iPads and, send 'em back. we do not use bim. We [00:25:50] use cad. Use AutoCAD. but we do a lot of 3D modeling and Rhino. we use the Adobe suite for a lot of the [00:26:00] rendering.

[00:26:01] **Diane:** and Miller note has been nice. We tend to use that with more of our residential clients who need, like [00:26:10] one single place to go to for everything. but we are inveterate, tech testers, so we'll try anything. [00:26:20] someone says try this. Alright, let's give it a little whirl. but definitely the old school trace paper [00:26:30] or just sketching on an iPad is super helpful.

[00:26:33] **Diane:** We, we have a couple people in the office who are very good at sketching on Bluebeam pdf. Yeah, definitely [00:26:40] actually remarkably good looking sketches on them. but I would say the tools we use the most are Bluebeam. [00:26:50] slack cad r. Now how did we,

[00:26:55] one thing actually, like in terms our, okay.

[00:26:56] **Stacy:** Oh, I was gonna say in terms of our collaboration with State [00:27:00] too, we have shared Slack panels, so I was gonna say, and maybe you were gonna say that.

[00:27:04] **Stacy:** Yeah, so that's just like also adds to the [00:27:10] communication and the sense of collaboration.

[00:27:13] **Diane:** We'll do like a, we'll do like a, you know, Superbloom and is doing a park. We'll have a park [00:27:20] channel for our internal team and then we'll have Park Shaper Bloom as our Slack channel.

[00:27:27] **Steve:** we should be clear that, that is what I was gonna say too.

[00:27:29] **Steve:** The Slack [00:27:30] has been really, useful for that. We should be clear that shape hires other landscape architects and Superbloom works for with tons of other architects. Weird, and there's no [00:27:40] We keep it really professional, so there's no like cross thing if everyone's working with somebody else.

[00:27:45] **Steve:** Like we're, it's better for all of us, for [00:27:50] everyone's, for us to have our separate, relationships. but the shared slack threads are really useful for, such [00:28:00] and such park. Yeah. That, or we can be like,

[00:28:02] **Stacy:** how much would a bathroom be to build per square foot? We could just like slack them and they'll be like, oh, X number of [00:28:10] dollars.

[00:28:10] **Stacy:** And we can get information about architecture that may not be even on a project they're working on, but all the time it's helpful to us. [00:28:20] Or vice versa. They'll be like, oh, super boom. you're walking by my desk. what plant should, sometimes you guys almost do very like simple planting plans for things.[00:28:30]

[00:28:30] **Steve:** Yeah. A lot of times our, what

[00:28:31] **Stacy:** plants should we put here? Yeah.

[00:28:33] **Steve:** Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times our clients like, don't

[00:28:37] **Diane:** I that at home too? [00:28:40]

[00:28:40] **Steve:** Will you please come, sketch this like front lawn for this person who doesn't wanna hire a landscape. we've set [00:28:50] some good, foundation., But the really big question of this episode is how should architects and landscape architects work together more intentionally?

[00:28:59] **Morgan:** yeah, [00:29:00] I could start on this one. I think the main difference for us is. really [00:29:10] wanting landscape in general, but especially Superbloom at the table in the beginning. one 'cause of our, value and emphasis on the site and the [00:29:20] land and trying to be good stewards, but also just really valuing their design sense.

[00:29:26] **Morgan:** And having gone through a few projects, we see [00:29:30] the benefits of the collaboration, on the overall project, but also just on the building itself. that I think is probably one of the [00:29:40] most, most critical things for us is and we don't get to do it very often, but when we do, it's really exciting to be able to have all of us [00:29:50] or two of, one of each of us at the table from the beginning, having those conversations because the projects are always hands down better.

[00:29:59] **Morgan:** as, an example, I think [00:30:00] Steve and Diana are gonna talk more about this, one of our main, Collaborations, we have gone after projects together, [00:30:10] with this kind of idea that it's like an equal partnership and that there's no, there's very little ego and who the best idea wins.

[00:30:19] **Morgan:** [00:30:20] And, we've got a pretty good track record. there's only so many projects out there that, are looking for that approach. But the ones that we've gone after, we've been pretty [00:30:30] successful. because I think, we, value and respect each other. The clients can appreciate that and understand that, and [00:30:40] I, think it's reflected in, the work on those projects.

[00:30:43] **Stacy:** Yeah, I think that the idea of like interdisciplinary design is also really relevant [00:30:50] in these collaborations because even though we are trained in different disciplines like landscape architecture or architecture, we are all also designers and [00:31:00] have. The ability to weigh in on things that, like Steve can maybe come and weigh in on grading or like we can weigh in on [00:31:10] architecture.

[00:31:11] **Stacy:** And so what that does is it means we're always looking for what's the best solution? Not like what can I do as a landscape architect or [00:31:20] an architect. 'cause sometimes we also, like Steve mentioned the story about someone coming to them for a building and being like, actually you need like a landscape plan.

[00:31:28] **Stacy:** And that's also happened in, in our [00:31:30] situations too. We've had someone, or we've had a project and then we realized, oh we need architecture here. And we can shepherd the [00:31:40] architectural element and bring in an architect. And how those things interface together, is very fluid a lot of the times.

[00:31:49] **Stacy:** And [00:31:50] doesn't mean like. Um, Superbloom is only gonna weigh in on a plant or, just because that's maybe like the label that we have as [00:32:00] professionals. and I think working with shape, like they really value that kind of, interdisciplinary mindset. And [00:32:10] so I think it's led to the projects being better designed and, we can both add a lot of value to that.

[00:32:17] **Steve:** I think it's [00:32:20] something that's, more general right, than just Superbloom working with shape. That it's the case that with consultants generally, the earlier [00:32:30] we can be collaborating at a, it's like a value alignment and it's a like really understanding what are the priorities, whether it's budget or [00:32:40] form or if a structural engineer can understand right from the beginning that, we want a certain type of look, [00:32:50] but we aren't gonna actually be able to, on this project push to have a floating cantilevered crazy corner. Like how can they then leverage, bring [00:33:00] their expertise or even with like sustainability, thermal bridging is like a major issue. That's when you have like structural components coming through the envelope from [00:33:10] cold to warm.

[00:33:11] **Steve:** And structural engineers are controlling that to a large degree and having 'em understand from the very beginning what those goals are really changes the [00:33:20] outcome a lot. and or just like we might miss something that might be like, Hey, this is why I did this. Or we might, just have to say oh remember the [00:33:30] thermal vision?

[00:33:30] **Steve:** they'll come with this another solution. And I think part of that is consultants. Recognizing that we're not gonna bite their heads off because they suggested a [00:33:40] different idea than was ours. again, like we shape, we were like trying not to, we're not, our ego is not part of the design process.

[00:33:49] **Steve:** So [00:33:50] having like a very wild card, different idea 'cause Stacy or Diane send the precedent 'cause they're like way better at finding precedents than we are, or [00:34:00] instructional engineer being like, why don't you do it this other way? And it'll look totally different, is we want that, and I think that's, [00:34:10] how I, architects and engineers should work together.

[00:34:12] **Steve:** But is it takes a level of trust and confidence to get there.

[00:34:18] **Stacy:** I think you started, [00:34:20] Chris, you framed this conversation too. I think we really recognize that there are many different types of expertise and different people that make [00:34:30] our projects happen. And That's how we approach the projects as like a collective team.

[00:34:36] **Chris:** So let's get into direct experiences on [00:34:40] projects. So talk about one project, let's say that really tested your collaboration. and how'd you get through it?

[00:34:46] **Steve:** it's

[00:34:47] **Steve:** interesting '

[00:34:47] **Steve:** cause there's like a different, re [00:34:50] interpretations of the word tested. So we actually were thinking, we have a, I think our, one of our favorite projects is the Bluff Lake Nature Center.

[00:34:58] **Steve:** It's in, it's the only urban [00:35:00] nature center in Denver. And it is in, actually it's an incredible site 'cause it is in, it's on the edge of Denver, but it is in the city. but it has this sort of [00:35:10] lower landscape area that's below the level of the streets around. So it becomes very special and like.

[00:35:17] **Steve:** feels rural. [00:35:20] and that's, and then there's this like upper area where the parking is and, there's a new building that we, we are collaborative collaborating on as well as if you'll the bluff. [00:35:30] Yeah. they call it upstairs and downstairs. And that's the one Morgan referred to that we won, I think because of, Superlo.

[00:35:39] **Steve:** like [00:35:40] they were looking for architects and we were with like it's consultant teams and we were no, you have a nature center. You don't need a nature center. You have one. We need to really think about [00:35:50] that from a landscape. Perspective, a whole site, not just the word landscape's, not it's like your site and is, it's about wayfinding and it's about, view sheds and it's [00:36:00] about a outdoor experiences.

[00:36:02] **Steve:** It's about shade, really. The, building is supporting all of that. It's an educational, it is an educational basic institution. [00:36:10] they have summer camps, they have field trips. And how, what's lacking for that, that a building can support, but really not, in the, very [00:36:20] fundamental premise of design is how can we make access better from the top to the bottom?

[00:36:24] **Steve:** And how can we control access in a way that there's more communication and easier, [00:36:30] control against dogs and bikes and things that, you know, and, information giving. And so right from the beginning it was like very much Superbloom slash [00:36:40] shape trying to solve that site problem and that the whole building design came out of that a hundred percent.

[00:36:46] **Steve:** and it was a really,

[00:36:47] **Diane:** the test though was. [00:36:50] We are like, this project is so mission aligned for both of us, that I think we all wanted to go all in. And we have, and I think that [00:37:00] has, and we started that project before monograph, I think before we started using Monograph, if I remember that right.

[00:37:07] **Diane:** But we definitely saw some budget [00:37:10] overruns on our internal, work. but I think, ooh, there's a quiz. [00:37:20] but I think the other challenge or test is, because [00:37:30] maybe, a client will often come to either us or Shape or whoever and have in their mind a budget that they wanna spend on the thing that [00:37:40] they have in their mind.

[00:37:41] **Diane:** And maybe we collectively come up with a design that. is more expansive than [00:37:50] that. because, and it's better and it's the right thing to do, but maybe they didn't plan for that. And so I think trying to find creative ways [00:38:00] to get back to their values and the principles for their project and get them the most that they can for what they have.

[00:38:07] **Diane:** And if there are pieces that need to be, [00:38:10] phased in working through that together. and I think, we are designers and we can come up [00:38:20] with really cool ideas and I think we're also creative problem solvers and we solve them better together. Actually.

[00:38:28] **Steve:** I think it probably helps that we're in the [00:38:30] same space in this case.

[00:38:31] **Steve:** 'cause there was never any like totally accurate that, one, we both, we've all gone over budget, but that the project budget was challenged in some things by like [00:38:40] externalities, like the lack of a sewer or the con specific conditions of the city sewer. Just At a million dollars. But those issues, there, it [00:38:50] created a very obvious place for there to be tension where we're like, the site's taking away from the building or the building's taking away from the site budget straight up.

[00:38:59] **Steve:** but [00:39:00] I think because we were all part of the original, like literally every single conversation, part of why Superblooms over budget is they were in conversations they would normally be in and it took [00:39:10] time, but that they, there was always a very deep understanding of okay, this is nobody's fault.

[00:39:16] **Steve:** This is not like you guys are designing this or those guys, [00:39:20] so coming. So that kind of almost helped us on the building side. we were able to find like almost 20% savings just [00:39:30] through the form and size of space. In fact, one of the solutions was to put the lobby part of the lobby outside.[00:39:40]

[00:39:40] **Steve:** The it, I, I don't know if it, hasn't quote, tested our collaboration as much has been, a, like that was the test and [00:39:50] it came through, with a really almost stronger kind of respect on our relationship. But, it certainly [00:40:00] is a case where if we done a traditional situation where we designed a building and then we're like, all right, let's hire the landscape, architects going, shrub it up, and then there was like, [00:40:10] budget issues, we'd just be like, let's cut those shrubs and the landscape.

[00:40:14] **Steve:** But that was just completely not the approach.

[00:40:17] **Diane:** I think it goes back to, [00:40:20] in part, I think this is part of an earlier question, is when you involve your teammates earlier, they really, you work [00:40:30] with a client, you try to understand what their values are and their, and you establish principles together for the project and when.

[00:40:39] **Diane:** You're part of that [00:40:40] conversation, whether you're the structural engineer, you're the landscape architect, or the architect or whomever you, it is like informing your choices. [00:40:50] Whereas if you wait until later, it's harder to like design with that same level of intention and [00:41:00] attention to what the client really needs or what the site really needs or what the project really needs.

[00:41:06] **Steve:** And I, wanna add to that, that for this particular project, the [00:41:10] structural engineer and the civil, especially the civil engineer and the mechanical engineer, have been part of those underlying, like part of the conversations that set up the [00:41:20] values, priorities and have been incredible, like really, challenging civil situation from the path down to the, lower level and to [00:41:30] the, stormwater situation.

[00:41:35] **Steve:** I'm like very proud of the fact that everybody's really invested and has, [00:41:40] gone the next level to do everything possible to keep it as budget conscious and, but still meeting those design aspirations.

[00:41:49] **Chris:** [00:41:50] what's been the most unexpected thing that's come up, that has actually helped you collaborate a lot better?

[00:41:57] **Diane:** We have a kitchen that we [00:42:00] share surprise.

[00:42:06] **Morgan:** Yeah, I would agree with that. I, was, it's, dumb, but it's like the water cooler thing, right? [00:42:10] Where you like walk into the kitchen and there's like a Superbloom person and a shaped person, like talking about one of their projects, not, they're not collaborating on a project, but they're [00:42:20] like sharing what they're working on with the other person, and the other person is like engaged and asking questions of oh, I heard about that.

[00:42:29] **Morgan:** we do, [00:42:30] we also do, weekly happy hours where, it's, we're doing any number of things, but occasionally we do the, co-op happy hours. And, yeah, I [00:42:40] feel like that's a, it's a pretty awesome opportunity for people that are sitting in Zoom calls together to kick back and relax and we don't get to do that with a lot of our other, [00:42:50] consultants.

[00:42:51] **Morgan:** So it's, pretty unique.

[00:42:53] **Steve:** We shared an office like three years ago before Covid with a contractor, and to this day it, [00:43:00] because of that. I like, will text him about a project that they may have even competed on and lost and be like, Hey, how did you do that door threshold detail in the end? and they'll send me a picture.

[00:43:08] **Steve:** And I think it's, [00:43:10] that isn't straight super, but that kind of random question, random answers. It, makes it's like [00:43:20] shortcuts, hours of research.

[00:43:23] **Diane:** The other thing that's really cool about it is, our office, we have about 10 people. You have about 10 [00:43:30] people. And I could see if I worked for us, that might be a kind of small pool of people to hang out [00:43:40] with or, go get lunch with or whatever.

[00:43:42] **Diane:** And it expand, doubles your opportunity to have, even if they're not design related, [00:43:50] just oh, let's go to lunch together with, I've seen some of our. Superbloom team, go hang out with some of your shape team. And that's,

[00:43:59] yeah,

[00:43:59] **Diane:** it's

[00:43:59] really

[00:43:59] **Diane:** [00:44:00] cool. Like cool. 'cause everybody feels like they're, in a safe, good place.

[00:44:06] **Steve:** I kind of wanna bring it back though to like the, [00:44:10] the, just the collaboration without it being in our office. 'cause it's not really fair. 'cause a lot of companies just have their offices. They can still, maybe there's some [00:44:20] nuggets here in this, podcast. But that, I think for us, like some of the benefits of, I, I think the example of [00:44:30] Diane and Stacey sending precedents and being like, you should use this idea as for material or form, overhang, outdoor space.

[00:44:39] **Steve:** Like, [00:44:40] why don't you try this in the building design? And that's not something that we would've asked for. And that's not something that they were hired for, that particular project, [00:44:50] but there was like an immense amount of value added, right? So that there's, degrees of those precedents or ideas that have, I guess usually an idea like if float into projects [00:45:00] and even different projects that aren't the one we're collaborating with them and the unexpected benefit is, or the outcome of our collaboration, whether or not it's [00:45:10] in the same office.

[00:45:10] **Steve:** It's just, getting that comfort level where we start to share ideas that are beyond, the specific [00:45:20] need or demand or question of the project at the time.

[00:45:23] **Stacy:** We also always make this joke. Oh, go ahead. I was gonna say, we always make a joke every year that it's the year of the phone [00:45:30] call because it's so easy to just like email people and then or even Slack, like misunderstandings are so easy to have, so like just, [00:45:40] and it's hard to especially.

[00:45:42] **Stacy:** Yeah, people who have grown up in a totally digital professional world to just make a phone call, [00:45:50] ask the quick question.

[00:45:53] **Diane:** I was gonna say actually, any beyond working in the same building or the same office space, [00:46:00] any way that you can break down the formal barriers between the architect and the landscape architect of civil engineer, whatever it is, whether it's a phone call, [00:46:10] if you are on a Slack channel together, like I would say we probably would not send those precedent images to an architect in an email that seems [00:46:20] too formal and maybe a little like turf worry.

[00:46:25] **Diane:** But if, we have an informal relationship where we could either text [00:46:30] them or be like, Hey, I saw this article, it was really cool, and just shoot off a text or a slack or whatever, then I think we feel like we could [00:46:40] do that kind of thing.

[00:46:41] **Chris:** what do you think is something that, like architects misunderstand about landscape architects and vice versa?[00:46:50]

[00:46:51] **Stacy:** I think the biggest thing is maybe that all we do is [00:47:00] select plants, which is definitely a big part of our work. But I think that just the nature of [00:47:10] landscape, especially in urban environments, I would say 75% of our time and what we're doing is actually this very conversation like, [00:47:20] Leading projects coordinating with complex teams of experts who are contributing their knowledge around, like underground [00:47:30] things that people may never even see. Like the soil or the utilities or the storm drains and the paving and like how all, like, how all of that interacts [00:47:40] or, even, the kind of larger scale programming and spatial elements of a project.

[00:47:48] **Stacy:** So [00:47:50] like even though landscape is planting and living material, I think a lot of what we do is much more complex than that. And [00:48:00] that's also in our practice, like the thing that we really bring value as like a, team member. I think. 'cause we do have like lots of different folks in the [00:48:10] office who have experience with like very complicated projects.

[00:48:14] **Steve:** Yeah, I think architects, we tend to underestimate the breadth and depth of [00:48:20] what landscape architects do just from the scale. Like landscape architects are the real urban designers, and master planners, and, that we're like, a lot of times I think [00:48:30] architects wouldn't bring in a landscape architect to be a master planner on their project, and yet at least Superbloom does it like vastly better than we do.[00:48:40]

[00:48:40] **Stacy:** populous Hotel, which we worked on with studio gang, we were brought in to design, the green roof. Which and what, and the things that you see are things [00:48:50] that we designed, but again, like probably 70 or 80% of the time we spent on that project is invisible because it goes into creating this incredibly [00:49:00] seamless street scape experience, which is very, precise and like matches the level of design of the building, and also involves a lot [00:49:10] of permitting and coordination with the engineers on the project as well.

[00:49:15] **Chris:** What's a way that you used to work that you'd never go back to? [00:49:20]

[00:49:21] **Diane:** Are we old enough for that question?

[00:49:27] **Morgan:** I am so I can go first, [00:49:30] yeah, certainly, I think from a software standpoint, anything that's not [00:49:40] bim, which luckily that's the trend and that's, so that's the way to go. yeah, we, at least at shape, we use that as a design tool and it's an [00:49:50] extension of most of our hands.

[00:49:52] **Morgan:** whereas some of the other BIM programs or non BIM programs out there, just they feel like more of a documentation tool, which is [00:50:00] obviously a big part of what we do, but having that, integrated as a design tool in our office where we're sharing models and jumping around and getting in people's models and, [00:50:10] keeping it messy in the beginning is.

[00:50:12] **Morgan:** Yeah, I think that's a pretty critical part of our process. I guess I would, give a little shout out to monograph, [00:50:20] because we have, we've used other softwares in the past and we maxed them out and then had the additional spreadsheet or, whatever else, where monograph, [00:50:30] it's been great using that in that we, for once we feel like we're scratching the surface and we're only scratching the surface and there's a lot more we can do with it.

[00:50:39] **Morgan:** [00:50:40] So that's been a first. and just the fact that it's, it was designed, it came from architects is like really refreshing. And so we, we hope to [00:50:50] see the, the continued development of the software reflect our ongoing challenges.

[00:50:57] Yeah.

[00:50:57] **Diane:** Yeah. I think for us, [00:51:00] we don't use BIM programs.

[00:51:04] **Diane:** Maybe we'll get to that, but I think I. And we haven't been paid by monograph, [00:51:10] but we pay you. but I do think we would never wanna go back to a situation [00:51:20] like we had pre monograph, which is that we just had like crazy spreadsheets and they were hard to follow. And where they even really doing a good job tracking.

[00:51:29] **Diane:** [00:51:30] How are, I think we were invoicing through QuickBooks, which, it, we still use for tax purposes, but it's less helpful for [00:51:40] doing all the different things. And I'd say the other thing besides that it's refreshing that is designed by designers is just like designers. [00:51:50] You're always working on improving it.

[00:51:52] **Diane:** And I think there are a lot of computer programs or softwares that sort of just fit on their laurels, but it does [00:52:00] genuinely feel like your company is listening to what. We collective designers are saying we need and, could use help with. And so [00:52:10] I sometimes don't even know how to keep up with all the iterations, but Yeah.

[00:52:14] **Chris:** Yeah. One, one thing I want to ask about is, if, you've gotten into the online payments [00:52:20] part one of the most boring things, but important things about running a business. We've looked into how long it takes to get paid. Matters based on what you offer.[00:52:30]

[00:52:30] **Chris:** for example, we see that it takes very short amount of time to get paid over credit card and then only a little bit of time over a CH and then. It gets really [00:52:40] long to wait for paper checks, which, some folks are doing. But, have you poked around at that part, especially when you're thinking about being a consultant?

[00:52:47] **Chris:** Because often you have to wait for the architect to get paid [00:52:50] to then also get paid. So talk a little bit about, the payments experience of being a, an architect. Everybody needs to get paid.

[00:52:58] **Chris:** You actually asked

[00:52:59] **Diane:** [00:53:00] earlier,

[00:53:00] **Diane:** what do architects not understand about landscape architects? And they, and sometimes they don't understand, not shape, but sometimes they don't understand that when we send an invoice and then it takes them six [00:53:10] months to get paid, that means it takes us eight months to get paid enough sustainable level.

[00:53:14] **Steve:** Yeah. No, but I was gonna say, going back to another, a different earlier question, [00:53:20] that's a never going back thing. yeah, we, when we adopted monograph, that was just how we sent invoices. Like every single one has the link for aach h we don't charge. [00:53:30] Clients the convenience fee. 'cause we just want to get that money.

[00:53:35] **Steve:** And for the most part we've had like pretty few, I think relatively [00:53:40] few like hiccups with clients like going through the portal and the processes and the whatever Stripe connections. So they, most of the time we get paid within. It's, [00:53:50] interesting 'cause you can always, you get, I really that we get the notification.

[00:53:54] **Steve:** even with paper checks you can they can get stuck in the mail or they can be sitting on somebody's desk. [00:54:00] and then you could forget to log that it was paid in monograph but you might put it in the bank or whatever. So just having that happen and then be marked and have it be like, and I [00:54:10] love that monograph just rolled out this like pay win paid thing to sub consultants.

[00:54:13] **Steve:** So if we get sub-consultant invoices, it can push that forward. 'cause that's a real big thorn on our side is

[00:54:19] oh my

[00:54:19] **Steve:** [00:54:20] getting money and then having to put it in the bank and then market is paid. And then going back to our spreadsheet, figure out like. Who do we have to pay now? [00:54:30] And then, like some of them we need to send paper checks to because they're not, in our QuickBooks or whatever.

[00:54:36] **Steve:** And it's just so we have QuickBooks and a spreadsheet and Dropbox files [00:54:40] and and monographs. So I think, but anyway, just getting the money right away through people's banks to Sprint,

[00:54:47] **Morgan:** just to add onto that, this will prove that I'm [00:54:50] not getting paid by monograph.

[00:54:52] **Morgan:** we were very excited that we could do payroll through Monograph and it was, reasonably priced work, great, integrated, and we're [00:55:00] sad that's going away because all payroll companies are not great. And, we felt like we had a good one for a little while. So

[00:55:07] **Steve:** we'll be onto our fourth one.

[00:55:09] **Steve:** [00:55:10] Yeah, same. And it's okay to go onto your third one when it's better than the second one, but it's hard to want to go onto the fourth one that's worse than your third one, [00:55:20] or cost 10 times as much.

[00:55:23] **Diane:** To your question, Chris, about the online payments. We, most of our clients are [00:55:30] municipal, institutional or some sort of quasi-governmental situation, and most of them use their own system like bill.com or

[00:55:39] **Stacy:** [00:55:40] whatever.

[00:55:40] **Diane:** And so we really only turn that feature on for our residential clients, and some of them use it, some of them don't. But it is nice. I [00:55:50] agree with you when, that feature is active and on it's, great. But we have, I would say [00:56:00] 80 to 90% of our payments come through other means, whether it's like a CH but not through monograph.

[00:56:07] **Diane:** So we do have to like market as paid and

[00:56:09] **Chris:** [00:56:10] Sure. Yeah. , We did get some audience questions. I run a small team of landscape designers within an architecture studio, and I find that we collaborate much more, but that [00:56:20] tends to lead to higher budget overruns.

[00:56:21] **Chris:** Do you see that as well when you're collaborating? does it lead to a better project? [00:56:30]

[00:56:30] **Stacy:** I would say it depends on the project. Obviously, if it is a project that is very, okay, I'm thinking of [00:56:40] a super urban project with very, little landscape versus. Something that's like more balanced.

[00:56:47] **Stacy:** But I think we routinely see [00:56:50] that architects undervalue the contributions of landscape architects and that's not factored into how much is charged by architects for [00:57:00] landscape services if it's folded into their budget or, even from our clients. we do have a really difficult time explaining to people how much [00:57:10] time we spend on things.

[00:57:12] **Stacy:** so I think we can relate very much and we do go over budget on projects [00:57:20] where the client is setting the budget and telling us we need to work within that. And because we have monograph, we are able to look back at every project and say, [00:57:30] actually we do think it will take us this amount of time because we have the documentation.

[00:57:35] **Stacy:** This is a similar project. I can show you right here. We spent this many hours because you made [00:57:40] us go to weekly meetings. or, whatever it is. That is, it's usually the meeting time. But, I think we have been able [00:57:50] to tweak and evolve our process as we move forward, because totally agree that meetings can become like a huge [00:58:00] time sink and cause projects to go over budgets.

[00:58:03] **Stacy:** but I think if you maybe try analyzing those projects and how they went in the past and then using it to [00:58:10] inform your pricing structure in the future, that's how we've been trying to address that.

[00:58:16] **Diane:** I think that we do go over. all [00:58:20] right. there's the idea that, SD should cost this percent of the fee and DD should cost this percent of the, and CD should be this. [00:58:30] It's all kind of nonsense because actually at the beginning. If you collaborate more, it will cost more than that, whatever that historical idea [00:58:40] of what it should cost costs, but it makes the later phases tighter.

[00:58:46] **Diane:** and I think leads to quicker [00:58:50] decisions. yes, we're always trying to figure out how can we not go over budget and how can we, what, how can we streamline and be more efficient? [00:59:00] but I don't think, not collaborating is the answer.

[00:59:02] **Chris:** we did have another question. Go for it. okay. this is from Emily Milliman. [00:59:10] I'm curious about what, at what point?

[00:59:12] **Diane:** I know Emily Milliman.

[00:59:13] **Chris:** Oh, great. So yeah, Emily's asking, I'm curious what, at what point you adopted monograph and how you decided you need, so this, proves [00:59:20] that this is not a plan, this is, I didn't

[00:59:23] actually know this is a

[00:59:23] **Chris:** legit connection of diane. yeah, I'm curious about what point, you adopted monograph and how you decide you [00:59:30] needed it in order to scale your business.

[00:59:32] **Diane:** I don't remember. Stacy. How do we decide?

[00:59:36] **Stacy:** actually Jacob Reese agree with that. I think [00:59:40] we were chatting with him one time about something. I don't know what, but we were like talking to him and we were, he teaches professional [00:59:50] practice at Harvard, GSD, and we were just talk, we were using QuickBooks at the time for time tracking.

[00:59:58] **Stacy:** And we were [01:00:00] really struggling anyway, but we were just like chatting with him and I think he maybe knew. Y'all and or was like, somehow it was like just starting [01:00:10] up and he was like, you guys should look at monograph, that it's designed by architects. And that of course was very exciting to us right off the bat.[01:00:20]

[01:00:20] **Stacy:** I think it was the kind of ability to customize our phases but still be able to live and to be able to live track our time against our budgets was not [01:00:30] something that existed in any other program we had tried so far. And, 'cause it was like before there was like the time tracking part, but it couldn't ever [01:00:40] align against the crazy custom architecture phases that we all have.

[01:00:46] **Stacy:** so that was the thing that has, I think helped us and it [01:00:50] has taken us time, like at the beginning of our, projects take years contracts that we agreed to four years ago, now we have all the data and the [01:01:00] information to do better in the future. But, it has taken us time.

[01:01:05] **Steve:** I thought you guys adopted it. 'cause we adopted it. 'cause we had another software and it was like [01:01:10] pretty good, but it, we were like at the low at the, we were using it to its full functionality and just, it wasn't quite there in terms of the bookkeeping. So we kept getting in trouble getting [01:01:20] slapped on the wrist by our CPA and so we were like told that we needed to switch to QuickBooks.

[01:01:25] **Steve:** So we did. And it was the worst experience. I'm sorry if anyone from QuickBooks is listening to [01:01:30] this. it was awful to try to do, use it for invoicing and tracking and any kind of project management. It just, there's no visual functionality to it. So we [01:01:40] were desperate and we were like also desperate not to make a second change 'cause it's so traumatic to change all of your entire project management tracking twice.[01:01:50]

[01:01:50] **Steve:** But it was worth it. So we were like, we got an I, I think I got an app from Monograph. and we shared it with this each other and the consultant and maybe. [01:02:00] That was around the same time as super boom, got that like suggestion. But we did a free webinar thing or somebody, a salesperson talked to us and we were like, okay, [01:02:10] that's good.

[01:02:11] **Steve:** That is like clearly more aligned with what we need. yeah. And then it was just like a major sigh of relief when we, [01:02:20] and, obviously if we had switched directly, it would've been nice to avoid that trauma of the double switch, but it also would've, maybe we wouldn't have felt this, like it was this [01:02:30] big of a breath of fresh air, but wow.

[01:02:32] **Steve:** It was great. I,

[01:02:33] **Diane:** think, okay, I'm remembering this now. I, we did have that conversation with Jacob Riddel. I don't remember [01:02:40] if he mentioned monograph, but I do remember, yeah. Jacob Riddel. Yeah.

[01:02:42] **Diane:** We were working with a business advisor who helps like entrepreneurial startups and she, we were bemoaning that it was [01:02:50] hard for us to track like, how are our projects going over budget. And she was really advocating for us to find a software solution that would give us data specifically [01:03:00] so that we could track what we're spending our time on and to be able to like have historical data basically so that we can like [01:03:10] state that inform our future decision making.

[01:03:13] **Diane:** And so I think, although Chris probably can check this better than we can, maybe we started in [01:03:20] 2023, so two years ago, if that sounds right to me. But I don't know if you remember,

[01:03:25] **Steve:** I think it was 22.

[01:03:26] **Steve:** We had the summer of pain and we were hot in our old [01:03:30] office. There's no air conditioning.

[01:03:31] **Stacy:** Also, the invoices are nicer looking than the other programs we had used in the past. And we appreciated the [01:03:40] design aesthetic, which, 'cause at one point we were like recreating our invoices or something because we didn't like, oh my god.

[01:03:48] **Stacy:** Out QuickBooks. Wanna go back to that? [01:03:50] Definitely not going back to that.

[01:03:54] **Chris:** thanks for the kind words. and it's, cool to hear Jacob Ell dropped in here. We're big friends with Jacob Rydel [01:04:00] and in fact, we, recently released this benchmark report, Gives you stats on, how folks are performing across revenue costs, salary, so forth. And oh,

[01:04:08] **Diane:** that was Jacob. Oh, cool. [01:04:10]

[01:04:10] **Chris:** yeah, he provided some commentary on that. so he was recently, doing some stuff with us.

[01:04:14] **Chris:** this is a lot of fun. I hope folks who tuned in got a lot out of this. So we touched on architects [01:04:20] and landscape architects, and there's plenty more consultants to dig into.

[01:04:23] **Chris:** but Thank you so much Steve and Morgan, and Diane and Stacy. This was a lot of fun. We really appreciate you. [01:04:30] Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Thanks Chris. Appreciate it.

[01:04:33] **Michael:**  The biggest takeaway here is that great collaboration happens when you break down formal barriers between disciplines.

[01:04:38] **Michael:** When everyone understands the why [01:04:40] behind design decisions, they contribute ideas you never would have thought of alone.

[01:04:43] **Michael:** These firms share office space, but you can start smaller—shared Slack channels, phone calls instead of emails, [01:04:50] or using Monograph to give consultants real-time visibility into shared timelines and deliverables so everyone stays aligned.

[01:04:57] **Michael:** You also heard how painful slow billing cycles are for [01:05:00] consultants—when architects take months to get paid, landscape architects wait even longer.

[01:05:05] **Michael:** Monograph's automated bill reminders and electronic payments get everyone paid [01:05:10] faster while eliminating the back-and-forth emails that slow everything down.

[01:05:13] **Michael:** If this episode helped you think differently about collaboration, share it with your team—they'll thank you for it