Architect

I arrive early, before the office fills with voices, and spend an hour refining the facade details on a mixed-use project—studying how morning light will hit the brick, how the overhang might age. By nine, emails demand attention: the contractor flagged a structural detail, the client wants to revisit the lobby layout. Back-to-back calls follow: coordinating with the MEP engineer about ductwork routing, reviewing site photos with the project manager, sketching rapid iterations on the whiteboard with my design team. Lunch is brief. The afternoon oscillates between the meditative work of detailing (drawing a cornice section at 1:4 scale) and the friction of decisions—material costs have climbed, and we're redesigning the second floor to stay on budget. By five, I walk through the half-finished project downtown, checking that what we drew three months ago is becoming real, standing in the rough shell and imagining the finished space. It's a strange alchemy: part artist, part engineer, part negotiator.