Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do
Angela Mazzi: I am an architect, career coach,
author and feng shui consultant. Connecting all those dots creates a picture of someone who is creative, and
passionate about the power of design to make a positive difference in
the lives of everyone. I believe that great work starts with
inspired people and a great project process that captures all of the
different actors in the environment. I practice full time as a
healthcare specialist at GBBN Architects and share my insights on The
Patron Saint of Architecture, my website. While I do occasionally do
feng shui consults, I mostly apply this knowledge in my project
designs. I have been amazed as I study feng shui to see many
parallels with the evidence based design movement and am planning to
write my next book on the ways that this ancient concept plays out in
observable ways in the built environment.
Novedge: What's the story behind the title of your blog?
Angela Mazzi: At the time I decided to start my
blog in 2010, I was working in a very toxic environment and actually
felt depressed by the way that the owners of the firm were making me
work on projects. Instead of helping our clients to have the best
space possible, we were working in a way that set us up to be waiting
on them, just taking orders. We were missing the opportunity to take
the leadership role in helping them to achieve an innovative and
responsive design. The blog was a little experiment with getting my
ideas about the importance of design to well-being out there. I knew
that many of my colleagues were having the same issues I was and had
traded in their passion and enthusiasm for resignation. I never
accepted that premise.
The name came to me once I had the
intention to start the blog. A patron saint is a guardian as well as
an advocate. I wanted to create a resource for architects and other
creative professionals that would help them stay inspired. The
Patron Saint of Architecture is an online mentor, a little bit of
cheerleading, a little bit of tough love, and a little bit of good
solid advice on working with clients, avoiding the competition trap,
being an effective leader, and how to approach projects in a way that
empowers your client and paves the way for great design. I've had
fun with applying elements from my Catholic faith into the blog.
Decoupled from actual religion, these practices are a useful way to
invite in clarity and purpose. For example, each year I do a novena,
which is a series of nine posts centered around a particular
meta-issue. In religious practice, novenas to patron saints are made
by the faithful because they are seeking divine guidance around a
particular issue in their lives. I saw a direct correlation to
bringing his kind of focus to our careers, which are an extension of
our lives!
I have also extended the brand to career
coaching because I saw such a need both from my community of
followers and from just observing issues within creative professions
in general. In April of 2013, I published a book entitled Career
Crisis to focus more tightly on the theme of doing meaningful work
that you love. In June of 2013 I did my first teleseminar series on
career issues. It was an exciting format and I am going to be
offering the series again in fall of this year. I am just about to
launch a whole new expanded website that will make it easier for
people to access all of these offerings.
Novedge: What matters most to you in design?
Angela Mazzi: Aesthetics are cool. However they
need to also be meaningful. The best design is design that actually
makes the lives of the people who use it better. You can't get there
if you don't understand how to draw out information (and it's about
way more than asking people what they need). I am a closet
sociologist/psychologist and I really love understanding how and why
people behave the way that they do in a space. When you can get to
that level, you now have a real purpose behind the project that will
drive the design.
Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?
Angela Mazzi: This is a two part project for the
Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute (CBDI) at Cincinnnati Children's
Hospital Medical Center, the number one pediatric center in the
country.
Because the program has grown and they also needed to add
an adult care function (due to the success in treating childhood
cancers, patients are surviving longer and other hospitals can't
treat these rare pediatric cancers), the existing clinic had to be
moved out from the fifth floor to make room for a new inpatient unit.
These project represented an opportunity for CBDI to create a strong
identity and get spaces that responded to the unique care needs of
their patients: months-long and repeated hospital stays followed by
frequent hours-long visits to the clinic, where the patient may
receive infusions, procedures, or care from a multidisciplinary care team that needs to be able to collaborate on the care of
patients.
As part of my medical planning work, I introduced a
process called Evidence Based Design to the project. What this means
is that we took a lot of time at the beginning to do observations of
existing spaces, surveys of staff and goal building exercises to get
a very clear understanding of the needs but also the big idea
opportunities. Then the design process began, with our decisions
supported by research precedents as well as our hypotheses about what
design moves would best achieve the project goals.
You will notice a
lot of bold color, as CBDI really wanted to create a
cheerful and uplifting environment. You will also see how the design
de-institutionalizes a medical setting. Individual doors are set
apart, each room has a unique color scheme, and the inpatient floor
rooms are treated like a neighborhood, with each room being a studio
apartment (with lots of extra storage and things that the patient can
customize, like LED lights) and multiple destinations for play,
visits or just getting a different perspective on the world.
In the
clinic, introducing a table and chairs in each exam room helps the
patient feel more normal and has spurred physicians to also sit at
the table to talk with the patient, something that has made the
experience of seeing the doctor feel more comforting and personalized
to the patient and their family. The clinic saw its first patients
in January 2013 and the Inpatient unit was occupied in July 2013.
Novedge: What software do you use?
Angela Mazzi: I work primarily in Revit to
design. Our team at GBBN Architects has created planning components
that allow me to use the program even when I am in the early stages
or a project, blocking and stacking to translate program and other
needs into spatial adjacencies. I also use Powerpoint a lot because
I can do diagrams with it and have an instant slide show in the
process. I like to create presentations, especially in the earlier
phases of a project to make design meetings with user groups more
like storytelling sessions. I also do a lot of hands on exercises
like value stream mapping or user profiling to really engage them and
dig deep enough to understand the real problem that the design needs
to solve.
Novedge: What is your approach to career coaching?
Angela Mazzi: Creative people are notorious for
being do-it-yourselfers. Therefore, they often don't realize that
they are having career issues until things get really bad. Even
then, it is often hard for them to realize that they can't fix it
themselves, so they can become resigned to suboptimal career paths
and ways of working. My coaching process involves understanding the
history of their situation (because behavior patterns and limiting
beliefs are cumulative, even cultural) then engaging them in
exercises and activities to help understand what really motivates
them. Once we establish these two baselines, the disconnect between
what someone wants to do and what they are actually doing emerges.
Then comes the fun part: helping them break past all of the limiting
beliefs that are holding them back from following that path. I
firmly believe that we make time for the things we really want to do
and excuses for everything else. That's why it's so important for me
to help architects to fearlessly pursue their dreams and leverage
their talents, instead of using "busy-ness" as a crutch to
play it safe. The world does not need another mediocre building
brought about by a dysfunctional design process that sends the
message to architects that they are on a path to obsolescence. Good
design is never a nice-to-have, it is essential to quality of life.
By helping my clients recognize their talents and interests and
create long and short term action plans, they find their career
"sweet spot" where they can work at their highest
potential and really see that they are changing the world for the
better. I also have a variety of plans (because I know the creative
mind's reluctance to admit it needs help) including a very affordable
Quickie session which lets you just buy an hour of my time to explore
an issue or two. However, I highly recommend the investment in a 90
or 120 day program, because not only can we get a lot of
breakthroughs, but I can work with you over time to implement a plan
of action. As a coach I not only support what you are doing, but
hold you accountable to make progress, which makes a huge difference
in getting results. I serve creative professionals suffering from
career burnout or stallout, who struggle with insecurity about their
abilities and indecision about what will make them happy. I help them
rediscover their passions and optimal work style and work with them
to create targeted action plans for success on their terms.
Novedge: In your experience, what are the biggest challenges architecture professionals are facing today?
Angela Mazzi: The biggest challenge we are facing
is that we are still tethered to a project process from fifty years
ago. It’s not about keeping the building as we know it, but rather
making the building into what we need it to be. Architects need to
stop reacting to conditions they are given and start asking more
questions to define the right problem to solve. Thinking differently
about problems and their solutions, is necessary and so is being able
to qualify everything in terms of the value it brings. We need to
embrace the opportunity that comes with change instead of seeing
change as a threat. I believe that technology will change the way we
understand and use space. Things will become more collaborative and
distance will become less of a factor in the composition of teams.
There will be more synergy between people to tap into each other’s
knowledge and talent. At the same time, we need to manage the
information stream so we are not overwhelmed by it. We also must
recognize that there is an even greater need for sensorily rich
environments and connection to nature cultivate regenerative design
and wellness.
Novedge: If you could go back in time, what would you say to your younger self before embarking in your current career?
Angela Mazzi: I would have advised myself to "own
it" a whole lot sooner. While I knew from the time I was still
in school that I loved exploring the socio-cultural issues around
design, I did not know how to turn that into a real area of
expertise. I was naive enough to think that everyone valued these
issues. I also believed that I needed to work my way up and spent
too much time hoping that the leadership in the firms I worked for
would recognize my strengths and talents and help me cultivate them.
Sadly, that kind of mentorship is lacking in our profession (hence
the whole blog/coaching thing). So I would advise my newly minted
architect self to aggressively seek out a mentor/coach, instead of
passively hoping one would show up, to be more clear with employers
about what I expected in terms of career opportunities (timetable
included) and to LEAVE if I wasn't getting those needs met instead of
thinking that I just needed to keep working harder and accomplishing
more things peripherally. If it seems like it's asking too much to
want to play big, you are working for the wrong people.
Angela's blog is chock full of advice, read it here. And connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.
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