OK, Zeeshan, good morning. No, you normally edit at night I
think, don't you? So I'll say good evening and
goodnight. I'm gonna start in 321.
Welcome to Issued for Construction.
I'm your host, Jonathan Jacobs, and they've got with me
gentleman who's an architect but not your standard architect.
Because, you know, there are different kinds of architects
out there, specialize in all different kinds of things.
And most of you who are architects know that.
But did you know that there is a specialty in architecture that
designs fountains? Because today I've got with me a
gentleman whose works at a practice called DO, which is Dan
User Water Architecture. I have Steve Euser with me where
he's been working with his dad for years and they have been
designing fountains all over the world.
And if you're listening to this right now, there's a good chance
you'll have experienced one of them.
So, Steve. Hey, it's nice to be here.
Thanks for joining. Yeah, also what none of you
know, Steve and I are neighbors. Yep, just down the street.
So, so Steve, if you can start off, we'll go all the way back
into the beginnings of your life.
Where were you born? What did that look like?
What kind of kid were you? Were you exploratory?
Were you scientific? Were you mathematic?
Were you creative? Let's get into it.
Alright, well, I would say born in North York.
North York General 1982 So dating myself immediately, but
yeah, I grew up as a kid. Very creative, very outdoorsy.
I would say, you know, summertime was really about
going camping. That was like our passion as a
family. We were always.
Out in the woods, go to Killarney, go to Grundy, go
exploring other provincial parks.
And you remember this from like being.
Hell yeah. My my mom would always say
you've been camping since before you were.
Born. And that was pretty much true.
We would do at least two to three weeks every summer of
solid camping, often in two week stint and then a one week stint
somewhere. Else this is this Backcountry
killing or are you hiking? When we were younger it was car
camping, car camping like, well, tent car camping, provincial
parks and then no trailer or anything like that.
My dad and I think more so than my mom.
Was a bit. Of a purist in that regard.
Yeah, but I've got to be an old canvas tent.
But uh, yeah, You know, until we were old enough to carry packs
and canoes and all that stuff, which was, you know, probably
around 12 or 13. When when I was around that age,
my younger brothers two years younger, my older brothers two
years older. I'm right in the middle of the
group there. But we were all kind of big
enough at that point to to go for a week.
Interior where it was worthwhile to you know.
Have a backpack? And I loved it.
It was passion, definitely canoeing, being out in the open
water. You know, going hiking, we spent
so many hours, we'd get up crack of dawn, OK, we're gonna go on a
hike and it's seven and a half, eight hours later that we get
home, which is great. Yeah.
It, it was really a part of part of my life for for sure.
And then creativity side of things.
I was always drawing, sketching. OK.
We would dig up clay when we were camping and make stuff on
the picnic tables at the beach. What would you make?
Let's say everything from. Balls to sculptures of like
castles or ridiculous things like a little toilet, you know?
Whatever we could think of. Sometimes I would try and make
more complicated things. You're not using refined clay at
that point. So it's it's a little messy.
And then just drawing and painting.
And I was really into watercolour as a kid and
sketching, always had a sketchbook.
I always had a pencil with me. Definitely really took
opportunity to do that when we are out and downtime because
mostly we were. Like free roaming when we went
camping. And even outside of camping, I
did a lot of lot of art. Just loved, loved doing art as a
kid. Drawing.
Were you painting? Yeah, so I would.
Say for most of my life, early years mostly drawing, sketching
and then practicing with watercolor, I was really, I
really liked watercolor. I think it was more accessible
to me because you could start with like Tempra Paint and use
it like watercolor. And I remember my first
watercolor paper that my parents got me one year.
I couldn't tell you whether it was for Christmas or my birthday
or whatever. And I painted a wolf and I was
so proud of it. And the proportions were.
Questionable, but, but I liked it.
It was good. And that was just like, you
know, weekends or after school. Doing that sort of thing.
And what were what were your interests when academically like
what what did you what did you feel it was came most naturally
to? You.
I would say for me, I. I was OK at math and I was OK at
English, and science I really liked, but art I was very good
at. And grade six, Grade 7, maybe it
was grade 7. Yeah, Grade 7.
Um, had a teacher who went up to teach art.
This is like my my parents sent us to a private Christian School
when I was a kid. They wanted us to have a good
upbringing. Yeah.
So. Yeah, anyway, he, he went up to
the board and he started drawing stick figures and I was pissed.
I, I didn't, I didn't say that to him and, and lash out in a
directly, but I remember going home from school and just being
angry about it. And so my, I think it was my mom
who had suggested, you know, well, if you don't like it, so
it's suggest, you know, if you could teach art to your
classmates, you're good at it. You know what you're doing.
So I did. He made me come up with a
proposal and he's like, OK, I'll, I'll hear you out.
And he said, OK, well, you know, I'd like to teach some colour
theory and. How to colour?
And how to like render shapes in 3D?
And how to do 2 point perspective and three-point
perspective? And so like grade 7 and eight I.
You were. Helping TA on a grade school
level art class and and I think the teacher was very happy to do
that because it just wasn't his Forte.
He was kind of stuck with doing it.
So yeah, that was that was a lot of fun.
It it, it certainly opened my eyes to where everybody else
was. At when it came to art and how
far I had already grown in what I had kind of just been dabbling
with, right? Yeah, it was.
It was definitely an eye opening experience for that side of
things. But I, I think you know,
outside, outside of the art stuff to shoot.
I mean, I would I would do. 4 build forts in the woods and I I
made a bow and arrow one year. My dad helped me cast.
Well, what did you use? Just like sapwood from some tree
branch I cut down and it was not like solid like.
The rope was nylon, so it stretched.
I got like a few shots and then I have to tighten it up again,
made some arrows and cast. Arrowheads with sauder cause it
was softer. My dad did the torch part.
Yeah, I was too young at the time.
Yeah, but ended up using it in like a class project.
We had to make a video. This was like early days of VHS
and shoot lead head. Three LED head, 3000.
LED head, 2000. We what we called it cause it
was like lead solder back in the day.
We weren't allowed to like handle it because it was lead
and we knew. It was not going to be healthy
that was allowed to use that bow and arrow until got it stuck in
a neighbor's roof. But we had, I mean, we were
doing stupid stuff, me and my friends.
That's OK. I mean, that's that's part of
being exploratory. Is it as a kid, right?
Yeah. What are the boundaries?
Yeah. And, and, and how did it, how
was your teacher receptive to you being a TA when it came time
to conclude that role? What was was he thankful for?
Did the students appreciate it? Were they receptive to you as a
as a yeah, as a peer, but also as their teacher?
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of them knew.
Already that I was decent at drawing and art and that helped,
but certainly there was definitely a few Snickers at the
beginning and, and the teacher was definitely unsure of the
situation. And you know, I after teaching a
few classes that way and getting everybody to, you know, do some
projects and whatnot, the teacher still had to do his
thing, meet the curriculum requirements and whatnot.
But at least everybody was on a page that was better and I was
happy with that. That's fine.
But yeah, it was, it was a, it was, it was definitely one of
those, one of those experiences that was.
Good. OK.
And how did you determine what you wanted to study?
You and you were leaving high. School.
Good question. I I really wanted to do.
Art in some degree I had in high school gotten into like the
digital media arts. The school had student body that
was really good at fundraising and they managed to raise money
to get like a blue screen installed and a like media room
in the school. And at the same time they got a
computer that could. Run.
I think it was Lightwave. Which was like an earlier 3D
modeling and animation software. And then I discovered that being
artsy fartsy. It's like, oh, that's.
Perfect. And so I, I wanted to do that
and ended up in the Digital Media Arts program at Seneca
York. Yeah, I ended up ended up in
that program is 2 year program, diploma program.
And I enjoyed it. I felt like I was in, you know,
upper, upper ranks of my class. I wouldn't say it was the best
at it. There was definitely other
people who were better and I was fine with that.
Great, great, good skill. Set grades don't necessarily
correlate to to earnings. Well, like, exactly.
And and it's but it's also one of those things where it was
like everybody had things that they were interested in.
Yes, like you across the class, there's some people who were
there as like a prelude to going into video editing and and
special effects. That's what they really wanted
to do. They didn't care about the
modeling and what that's just give me special effects.
I want to blow stuff up. But yeah, coming out of school
is, I wanna say 2000 and. 12000 yeah 2002 thousand. 1 for for
that it the industry had just slowed down.
There was an over abundance of people who could do animation
and whatnot. People were getting laid off
from Pixar and Disney. And so getting hired somewhere
where you were fresh and they affirm that was hiring was
basically picking people up at pennies on the dollar.
The competition was extremely stiff.
And so I think like one or two people actually in my class from
what I recall, actually ended up in animation directly after
that. And most of them ended up going
back to school for other things or moving into sort of different
sort of side related fields. And so for me, after knocking on
doors and getting some interviews and going nowhere, I
was like, OK, well I'm gonna work summers.
My dad had been doing fountain stuff for years and I've been
helping him since I was a kid in the summer when I was a summer
holidays doing mockups. And by mockup, I mean we would
build full scale sections of a fountain that was going to go in
as a test to prove out the fluid mechanics and water performance
and character of the display so that it could get approved for
construction. And this you can't really scale
water. So you would always have to do
it at full scale and then simulate it with wood and foam
and stuff. So I was painting mockups and I
would be inside. Of the mock up pushing.
Stairs or something like that to change the.
Like the the depth of the tread versus the riser and you know.
Like absolutely soaked while my dad's having a meeting out
front, talking with client who'd flown in from wherever to see
it. And so I I've been doing that
for years and so. I basically worked with him
again for a summer and by this point I'm 1920 and I've done the
computer animation stuff and that's gone, got me nowhere at
this point in terms of a job. And so I was like, OK, well.
You know, I really enjoy this. And I really enjoy nature, and
my dad's a landscape architect. Maybe I'll go do that.
And so I applied to Guelph University of Guelph's landscape
architecture bachelor program. Yep, got in Um, ended up doing
the five year program with with a break in between.
There was a year where I just I needed a break.
So where did you do? I bummed around Europe.
Worked for my dad. And you can't just say bummed
around Europe then go to work for your dad.
Yeah, let's talk about Europe. OK.
Yeah, sure. So.
I mean, coming out of, yeah, coming out of my fourth year, I
was just, I was in need of a break.
I was burnt. Out.
Yeah. You've been in like at Seneca,
Seneca York for how many years? Well, Seneca York was two years
and then three years. Then.
They did four years. You were seven years of
postsecondary. Yeah.
Follow this is following OC. Didn't do a.
Grade 12 and then I skipped. Did you go directly into
university or? Did you take your off?
I went directly from grade 12 into Diploma program Seneca.
Yeah. OK.
So same applies. Yeah, You hadn't stopped school
in many years. Yeah, yes.
So for me, it was really just necessary to to do that for my
own mental sanity. I think it was just not in a
good spot to continue. So I had some savings and
basically bought an open-ended ticket flying into Charles to
go, um, and. Did you have a destination or
anything that you had on a list of things you wanted to do?
I kind of. Had this notion in my head that
I wanted to see cities and how people lived more than really
exploring the countryside than anything else.
I think I was. I was at that time in my life,
you know, very fascinated by how people use space.
And how people interact with each other and just kind of I,
my only context was here in Toronto, right?
And, and really most of my life in the suburbs of Toronto, which
is, you know, it's a, a car. Haven, but that's about it.
There's not a whole lot. Of, you know, natural public
interaction outside of like, you know, going to the grocery
store. Yeah.
So anyway, I, I, I basically kind of went with that mindset.
I didn't really have too much of A plan.
Um, I did not very bring very much with.
Me. Where did you?
What were some of the key? Items I had like, yeah, couple
pairs of briefs, a couple pairs of pants, a pair of shorts, some
shirts and a hat, OK. And for I bought a jacket when I
was there because it was September when I left and I got
back in sometime early, earlier mid-december when I ran out of
money, OK. But I I basically can't, I lived
out of I don't know if you remember Molson Canadian used to
have those cooler bags. You get a 24 of beer cans in a
zipper bag with Canadian Molson Canadian.
That that's all I brought with me to Europe.
So I had very little to carry, which was great because
everything was carry on. I never had to pay for luggage.
And you know, I could just oh, you, you want to go hop on a
bus? I just go do the thing.
So started in Paris. Two weeks there.
Then found a cheap flight to Dublin from Ryanair.
At the time if you booked more than two weeks in advance you
could get it for like a euro plus taxes.
So that's what I did. And I so I went to the Dublin,
bummed around Dublin for a week. And when I, when I say bummed
around, it's more like I, I would wander around the city,
explore the city, see how things are kind of laid out.
Just I would be walking almost. Everywhere.
I think I wore out the pair of shoes by the time I was done.
Um, but you know, like sit on a cafe corner, just watch people
go by or like, I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit, but like, at
one point I, I was in Milan for a week and staying with.
My little brothers friend because my little brother had
moved to the Netherlands and was going to school there.
And he was like, oh, you should just stay with with these
people. And I'm like, OK, so they had a
little flat and I basically used it as a.
Home camp but I would just wander around the city all day
and I remember sitting on the steps of the cathedral in Milan
city square and. Just watch people.
And watching, you know, the this sort of performative nature of
the city at being this very like design forward city people, you
know. Walking around, showing off
their new boyfriend, the new girlfriend, their new bag, their
new clothes, they like, the new car, whatever.
They're just like hanging out. We don't have that.
Or at the time, it didn't feel like we had that kind of thing
happening here. The spaces for it, yeah.
I don't know if it's whether they're too new or the culture
is just different or what, but it was, it was fascinating to to
see. And so that that kind of
experience and really interacting that way.
And it's more of an odd passive observation.
I would spend evenings oftentimes out of hostels.
And so you get get to know the hostel folks, but they're all
travelers too, right? So it's it's a different group
than the group who actually live in the place.
So, you know, being apart from them for most of the day and
just, you know, being able to reserve and hang out and see the
architecture. And see the like how people use
their parks and how they're moving around their.
City and you know, what are they doing?
Are they, are they having a coffee?
Are they, you know, early afternoon people are just having
a siesta like, you know, just fantastic.
So. Yeah, being being immersed in
the culture. Yeah, being immersed, I mean
like in insofar as. Yeah, a week or two in a place
can afford you, of course. Right.
It's it's always a taste. It's it's much more much
different. So I'm sure my glasses were
quite rosy at that point. But yeah, I mean, it was, it was
a very good. Trip for me informative and kind
of. I would say.
My first time really on my own entirely, you know, free of any
obligation or expectation other than, you know.
Don't run out of money before you get home, right?
Which I which I did my my last. Train ride before going or as a
bus. I had to get from Alicante in
Spain back to Paris to get to Charles de Gaulle and I had
like. No money to my name.
I had at some point lost my visa and so I was on a temporary, you
know. Traveler like emergency backup,
replacement card and it all like basically almost no no.
Cash left in the bank and sitting there.
And two, two American girls, the goodness of their heart saw me
panicking at the bus station and I'm like, here, we'll get your
bus ticket. It was like €10 but I couldn't
even afford to pay the €10 to get on the bus.
But then yeah, just, you know, it's open-ended ticket.
So you basically. Get to the airport and
thankfully I did and and you, just you.
Wait for your Wait for the first available flight with a seat.
And head home. So couple of questions.
Were there any structures or landscapes that stood out in
your mind as being particularly meaningful, that kind of really
represented what you felt tied to your aesthetic and interest?
Yeah, that's a good question. So I would say, you know,
there's a couple, couple of places that really spoke to me.
One was just Dublin for, you know, some people say, oh, it's
Gray City and there's a lot of stone and, and that's true.
But the scale of the space and the scale of the public space
and the way that it at the time had, and it's been years since
I've been back, had integrated like LRT transit and this sort
of interconnectedness like parks stretching at like anchoring
ends of the city or parts of the city.
And some of the the historic buildings not having, you know,
trying to do what we've done here where it's like you take
the facade of the original building and you build on top of
it or build out from it. So you kind of have the look of.
It and but like to be able to go into the building and it
literally. Has not changed.
I'm going to, I'm going to reference a bar, but there's a
there's a bar there that is what 10/10/68 AD It's been in
operation as a bar slash barrel house and it's still the low
ceilings, like you gotta duck to get in the front door.
Yeah. But there's there's a feeling
about the place that I really liked.
So that was that was one of them.
The second I would say um. Was Paris and.
You know, it's, there is a certain, I, I want to say
there's like there's a formality to how they arrange their parks
and things and, and the buildings.
And obviously it was very intentional, right?
Like. Paris went through this whole
phase of being intentionally designed, like destroying parts
of the city to create this master vision, right?
But you know, when you look at the parks, I don't mean like
the, the big ones. The big ones are very
controlled, very like symmetrical.
There's a lot of pattern and, and, and there, don't get me
wrong, they're beautiful. But the, the little pocket parks
that you would find on some of the side streets where it's, you
know, a handful of trees and just a nice sitting area and
dappled light tucked between some 3 or 4 story stone houses.
And there's just like a little kid kicking a ball around,
right? Like and there might be some
iron gates or something set up just to kind of enclose the
space, but it's still speaking to the street that really caught
my eye and and coming back, I still have a real love for the
kind of vest pocket parks that you see around places like New
York and and some of the other cities.
What were there any particular experiences that you had,
whether it was like a street performer or a concert that you
went to or a meal that you had, an unexpected place where there
was an alley or a restaurant that stood out to you?
From that experience I know that these are relatively like point
Blank. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's a long. Long way back I Hmm.
Um. I'm not, I'm not sure you'll
have to. Yeah, I, I, I would say it's
more the experience of place, right, like just.
The almost the solitude of being alone in a in a busy place like.
At the time in my life, I think there were there was times like
sitting on the edge of a canal and hearing somebody playing
some music under a bridge far farther down.
And you know, it's just, it's just you and a loaf of bread and
a bottle of wine and, you know, some, some lights reflecting off
the water. It was that that kind of
experience, I think I, I would say it was most, most memorable.
So even what about walking into that participating, getting, oh.
Yeah, loaf of bread. I mean, yeah, yeah, fresh.
Just you can't, you can't beat that, that cheese and bread.
And yeah, you don't even have to like think about it too much.
It's it's just this overwhelming sense of Yum.
OK, so you returned from this experience?
Yeah, refreshed. Yeah, yeah.
Engaged. You still have time.
You get back in December. You still have time before next
school year. Yeah.
So what? So what?
What it look like as you move forward from getting home,
Celebrate New Years, all the rest of it.
Yeah, I mean that I think was still a bit of a blur.
I was still trying to just figure things.
Out. And it wasn't really till I
think the following summer that I went back.
So I didn't go back to. Immediately for like the spring
semester. And so, yeah, it took me a
while, OK. I wasn't, I wasn't sure what I
wanted to do. I think it, it's in general in
my life, I've had a lot of interests in a lot of different
things between, you know, art and technology and, you know,
just design in general, but just being creative and, you know,
one of the things I didn't say earlier, but like before I.
Really came passionate about doing the animation stuff, what
I wanted to be. Was a park Ranger.
The Ministry of Natural Resources actually did the
junior Ranger program when I was 17.
I was one of the last years to do that.
And I mean that that was an amazing experience and got
recommended for rehire into the M&R and then it was like, OK.
Well, the animation and I decided on the animation to do
that because it really spoke to me at the time, right?
But I, I think I'd always been so torn between different
things. It was hard to, hard to know
what to do with my life. Um, but eventually I did feel
like I was ready and this was something I not just should, but
wanted to finish. And so I went back.
With the different I graduated with, obviously the different
class than I started, but great group of people.
Still, and, and I mean my original class, I still stay in
touch with. We get together a couple times a
year. There's some people here in the
GTA, there's people in BC. But we we have our annual
holiday ornament exchange. We all kind of design and make
ornaments for each other. If you want to be, if you.
Want to participate? It's not a you don't have to.
And then we'll get together and do like a potluck kind of thing
around the holidays. Um.
But yeah, I mean coming out of that and.
And really being able to focus, I think again, on the landscape
architecture kind of put me in a good, good.
Place mentally, I think. OK, so you, so you, you, you
have finishing school? Yeah.
And what does it look like now professionally?
What do you do? So I came out of school and
started looking for work and I had heard through through my dad
that Janet Rosenberg and associates now Janet Rosenberg
in studio. Yeah, was looking for somebody
and I put in an application. Ended up with an interview.
Now it's probably. A little more confident than I
needed to be or or should have been in any right cause I'm
still very fresh. But I, I felt like I could do
this and I got, I got the. Job and I worked there for a
couple years and you know, it really pushed, pushed me
definitely. You know, I was renting a place,
you know, block and a half away from their office over on
Kenwood. So that's Toronto, St.
Clair West area. Yeah, just, you know, just north
of Saint Clair, West of Bay, West of Bathurst.
Anyway, I I was renting there. And it was going well.
But I was. I was.
Definitely putting in a lot of time and, and, and at the same
time working on passion projects on the side.
I was working with an artist who designs furniture and does fine
art, and he was a high school art teacher, and so we did a
bunch of collaboration at that time.
We designed a piece of furniture called Zitten that ended up in
Azure magazine. Um, and we took it to the
interior design show in Toronto as well and sold that and it
basically was plywood. Like.
Half inch ply with a like a. It's basically like a side table
bench, so long longer. Like I don't.
Want to say like 6 or 7 feet long?
Yeah. And but depth of a chair and in
the IT was sculpted the an actual seat.
So by cutting the plywood into these sort of like a 2 inch
band, so it's 2 inch from the floor square and then it dipped
for the seat and it basically molded to your body.
So when? How did it mold?
So by doing half inch slices we basically built like almost like
a topographic map if you will. But turned upright and so take
that form and obviously it's half inch stack, so it's rough
edges, um, a ton of sanding later.
Basically a smooth form. And then finished it and and
whatnot. But you know, I went through, so
we started the design process as a collaborative thing.
I used my 3D modeling skills to model it out and then to execute
it at that point. I'm, I'm like, OK, well, we need
to be able to do this, so we gotta figure out.
How we're going to do it. So CNC's made sense at the time.
It was kind of an. Up and coming technology we had
a connection for U of T's architecture program somebody we
knew had access to their CNC table that could do a 4 by 8
sheet of plywood and so we started the process of going OK
well I'm gonna lay this out so I I drafted it up in.
CAD drafted up all the profiles assembled in three dimensions in
AutoCAD, basically the process like the assembly and then
figured out OK. Well, we need to be able to.
Align these pieces. How do you keep it together
while you're clamping and gluing and everything else?
So we ended up with dowels at all the corners pinned through,
so continuous except for the outer layer on front and back.
And then just glue stack and work as quick as you can.
And then clamp it all down when you're done.
So it's quite an involved. Process.
But it was, it was a heck of a lot of fun.
So that's that's happening at the same time as doing the
landscape architecture. Stuff with Janet's office.
And then I at some point, I think I was kind of ready for a
change. And this I think was like
September or October 2009. My dad called me.
Up. He's like, I'm super busy.
I know you not been, you know, um, as interested in joining the
firm because that always said I don't, I don't want to do
fountain design. I want to do landscape
architecture. I, I liked what he did, don't
get me wrong, and I could see his passion for it, but I at the
time, I couldn't see myself being as passionate.
And that had held me back for a long time.
But when he called me up in 2009 and he said, Hey, I'm really
busy. You know, if you're, if you need
a change and you're talking about it, come, come work with
me. I am this.
Is this post recession? This is post recession.
Yeah, he's busy. He's coming out of recession.
Everyone else A-frame of mind of like, yeah, this means to be
specialized. Yeah, and he was, he was always
pretty busy, and this just was a whole other level of busy.
Um, and so I said yeah. And gave my notice at Janet's
office and basically I've been working full time in the
fountain business since then. Um, it's, uh, it's certainly
been an adventure. Not without.
Its challenges. It was definitely a big learning
curve still, like for all the stuff and experience that I'd
had in doing the mockups and seeing.
Him work from being a kid all the way into my adulthood.
And you know, there was probably still five year learning curve
to really, really get it right. Like it's, it's a combination of
not just understanding how water moves, the fluid dynamics of it
and how it sounds. And you know, the, the
performative aesthetic that people see when they're walking
down the street. It's, you know, it's the
mechanics behind it. And well, how does that relate
to how you build your structure? And how does that relate to all
the details? And how does that relate to your
building infrastructure? And you know, how do you make
all these? Different parts work.
Well, together so it took me a long time.
I mean, you just do the basic math on this.
If you were working again, this is going to be rough, but five
years at called 40 hours a week and 50 weeks a year, 2005 years,
10,000 hours, there's 10,000 hours.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, basically that's that's yeah, good point.
It's. It's I guess the saying is true.
Shoot, never really thought about it that way.
Yeah. There you become, you know, an
expert in your field in some capacity, right?
Yeah. And you take everything you've
learned prior to that and you compound it.
And now you know what you're doing really well.
Yeah. So tell me about what you what,
what did you start out doing when you were working for him in
those first couple of years? Sure.
Were you drawing? Were you still doing modeling?
Like what did it look like? Yeah, I think for the most part
it was CAD and it was basically draftsman.
Yep. At that point, you know, he
would redline things. I would do the the work on on
that and kind of just take the load as much as I could.
And as I went, I started also kind of, it wouldn't just be at
some point it was, it's transitioned a bit from drafting
to also like looking at, OK, what is the specification and
what did we actually need? Starting to look at calculations
for flow rates over weirs and jets and all that stuff and kind
of just thrown into all of it. And my dad would correct me when
I was wrong and we would have discussions about things.
He was always. And this is something I've
always really appreciated. He was always willing to just be
like, hey, This is why I'm thinking about this.
Or, you know, we should be, we should talk about this part of
it because it's, you know, it's something I remember this
project. We'd seen this thing and, you
know, this one time this was the result.
And so now we've gotta, you know, think about that in the
context of this project and how does that play in here?
So whether it's. For example, a cascade,
basically a set of stairs with water flowing down it.
When you do that kind of thing, you're when it's straight and
straight set of stairs up and down, the stairs aren't turning
to the left or whatever. It's very straightforward.
It's water starts at the top, water goes to the bottom,
driving it with all the work. And if you're at that point,
there's sort of only two things that really matter.
One is is there like. A pool behind each step where
that water can sort of still itself and become calm again
between each step and. So you get.
Glassy effect all the way down and reflective?
Or is it a step where there's no, no containment and now it's
this roiling, frothy aerated mass that really picks up, you
know, this crate active texture like you would see in Rapids.
And so you start from there, but then you're, you know, there's
things that you don't, you don't, you know, you don't know
if it's going to be an issue and you end up having to test.
Right. And so this is where the mockup
stuff comes in. And, and so like at one point,
and I think this was University of Cincinnati, um, there was a
cascade and the cascade needed to actually come in or in plan,
the top step and bottom step were very much out of alignment.
So it's like a 45° angle coming down the stairs, but the water
wants to take the easiest course it can.
So those first steps, it just keeps piling up.
And so you have this. Huge mass of water on the one
side where it's been piling up all the way down and the other
side is basically. Dry.
So how do you how do you deal with that?
You gotta you gotta back slope them.
Yeah. So you're creating this pool
just enough, just enough depth to yeah, to to cast that water
to the side before it falls over the next one.
And you can still get the aeration across everything
without it stilling. If you find that sweet spot
between how far down you go and how far over you have to go.
And and I remember building that mock up.
You were so happy. With the, yeah, I mean, it was,
it was cold. I think this was like probably
a. December kind of mock up.
So it hadn't quite gotten absolutely frozen yet.
And it was in the garage and, um.
We have this like fiberglass pool and built like I think it
was an 8 foot long section and with like a wooden box at the
back and you're, you know, thing you do your best to keep it from
sealing. You're basically making out
plywood and two by fours and two by sixes and paint it to look
like granite. So I mean, that was the the the
artsy part of it I got to. Make fake stone out of wood.
But the, but the understanding the fluid mechanics of it and
taking that, that that sort of thing like I guess, yeah, that's
sort of where I'm I'm going. With it in terms of.
Just that there's there's so much to understand and
technically, technically and then figuring it out and then
working back. From those solutions to get to
OK, well, if, if this, then that and by if this it's the if this
aesthetic, then this mechanics. And so then you have to OK.
Figure out, OK, well, how much space do we need?
What kind of infrastructure do we need?
And the challenge is always, well, you're starting the
construction projects and design projects.
Everybody knows it's schematic design, design development,
construction drawings, right? And then contracted min.
Well, if you're starting with an aesthetic and you have all this
stuff to workout, sometimes you need to do those tests to inform
just your schematic design so that you can actually go to the
rest of the team. Because it's never just us and
be like, hey, OK, you need this kind of infrastructure.
This is how much space taking we are probably going to need now
that we understand how it's how it has to work because nature is
nature and we're basically just creating.
It's contrived but mimicking natural things.
So yeah, it's, it can be a little bit of cart before the
horse kind of thing if you're not careful.
And so it's a it becomes very much a challenge.
In the same ways that like you know, a residential or
commercial public civic architects are going to use
modeling for their for their projects to understand how
lights going to move through it, how they can play with that.
You can understand elevation. You can understand the like the
the experience of what it looks like on mass in some capacity
comparatively to person. There's like so many different
ways to be able to look at that, but but also fundamentally it
makes complete sense to understand because you don't
want to go through the process of designing something that
can't get built. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And sometimes you know it, depending on the situation, if
it's something that we understand.
Mostly. But it's, you know, it's that
that finer minutia that needs to get worked out.
Like, OK, at what point are you going to be happy with the
radius of the stone for how it delivers the water over the
edge? And you know.
Is that radius makes a difference in terms of how that
water is going to accelerate or cling to the surface, right?
And that surface tension comes into play.
And so you might test. That sort of thing between SD
and D or during DD. But you know when it's something
that is entirely new? You kind of have to do.
It even before SD just to get get it on, get it worked out.
And we got one project right now where we're, I think we've
convinced the client that it's necessary.
And so in the backyard, just down the street, I'm going to be
building a mock up over the next couple of months in all
likelihood. And just to test um.
Faking a river. I mean, so let's get, let's
provide some level of context for sure for people listening to
understand scale. Yeah, because there are
different obviously scales to what a fountain can do.
Absolutely. So I mean, when when we talk
about scale, we're talking about everything from A.
Small architectural backyard fountain, but you know, the type
we get into is, is typically on the higher end residential if
if, if we're going to go into that realm.
Yep. And things that are generally a
little bit more challenging or creative.
So everything from open joint pavers with fog emanating out
underneath and it's glowing light out of the joints and
catching that to rain effects and very simple things, there is
a. On smallest scale, I would say
that we've ever done as an office, and this was more my
father than myself. Post 911, there was a number of
memorials that were built. Hmm.
And in New York, there's two in particular that are sort of the
epitome of. Opposites of scale.
There is the memorial in. OHP shoot, apologize.
I gotta think about what's the name of the building?
It's is it 7? It's the seven drops basically.
I know you're talking about wow. Hold on my brain.
Zishan, redo this. Zishan, give us a second here.
I'm gonna look it up for a SEC. I know you're talking about,
Yeah, New York City Waterfall Monument.
What? Summer Memorial is the big 111
tiers and the American Express. OK, You ready to go back?
Yeah, because we're gonna go back to the point where we talk
about where Steve talks about New York.
So you talk about there's two in New York, so let's start there.
So. So 321.
New York, there's. Two particular projects that are
kind of the dichotomy of scale 2 opposite ends.
And these are well you designed. So I was more involved.
With the second one, but the first one my father was very
intimately involved in and that is Ken Smith project at the
American Express building, they lost a number.
Of people. And so there is A fountain there
that is literally 1 teardrop per person that falls once a minute.
And so it's literally a drop of water once a minute landing on
each of their names as a memorial to them.
It's, it's a really moving piece when you're there.
There's, there's some very fine nuance to making that work
because at, at that scale and that little water, you're,
you're worried about flies blocking your holes like it's,
it's really tiny. And so we get down to something
that small and then right outside is the WTC memorial,
which is the footprints of the original buildings, 1600 feet of
waterfall falling 30 some odd feet over an edge and you know,
50,000 gallons a minute or something like that.
It's completely the opposite, you know, It's it's this
presence of space. Both are very different presence
of space, but the same effect like is there's a certain power
to it, but but in terms of scale, yeah, like you're talking
in terms of. You know for mechanicals
probably 25,000 in mechanicals versus you know almost half a
billion, so. It's a, it's a orders of
magnitude and difference. And so you know when we when we
deal with projects. We're.
We're open to a lot of different scales at this point in our
careers. It's, you know, are we gonna do
something interesting, right? OK, so now that everyone
listening as you can appreciate the magnitude of those two and
how important they are to New Yorkers and to Americans in
general and really pretty much almost anyone that wants to live
in a free country like what those things are supposed to
embody and have symbolic there. It's funny cause I'm actually,
we're recording this now, You know, it's pretty much what
called the beginning and end of April.
This will come out couple months from now, but I'm heading to New
York in two weeks, OK, I'm actually gonna now I'm gonna go
and I'm gonna go see. I'm gonna go look at your work.
Amazing. Been there before and I've seen
it, but I'm now something different.
Yeah. OK, so now let's talk about like
other places in the world that you know, if you are a tourist
outside of New York. Yeah.
You'll have likely seen something sure the dude has
touched. Sure.
Well, I'll start close to home, so here in Toronto.
Yeah, if you've been to the doggie fountain.
Which is Burzy Park downtown? Yep, that's us.
Have you been to the Fountains? Dundas Square?
That's US Cloud Garden, which I think is now due for
revitalization. Yeah, but I'm not sure if that
one's running still. It's been 20 some odd years.
That was our office, um, shoot and then coming outside the
city. We should say, before I forget,
like Love Park, I know there was some contention around that with
the water being dyed and going green.
And, you know, the whole purpose of that was trying to make the
system as environmentally conscious as we could.
And so now there's some changes. That will be implemented over
the coming. Years but but Nelson say working
with like CX a on numerous projects around the area.
Um. And then you go farther, you
know, we're, we're, we have work in Calgary, Devonian Gardens.
Um, we have work. Currently project is actually in
process which is Olympic Plaza. I think I'm.
Allowed. I think I'm allowed to say that.
It's it's, it's been an it's been announced.
It's yeah, I think I'm OK to say that cause it's been a announced
it's gone through. The renderings have been
released to the public and whatnot, so yeah that that ones
in process. Um, that would be very cool
project as well. And that's with again.
CXA and Event Scape is doing this big sculptural tree that
jets will be emanating from but actually shooting from birds on
the tree. Cool.
So cool. Yeah, Very, very fun.
Very, very much in line with that firm's style.
Shoot, New York, you've done a number we've, I would say
there's, there's a bunch of residences stretched across the
US that you know, higher end residences that we've done and,
and locally as well. You've done stuff.
Also, have you done not done stuff in throughout Asia?
We have so Middle East Bank Tower in Abu Dhabi, Yeah.
And then there's a big circular fountain in front of that tower
building. And then?
A lot of the theme parks actually, we got in to working a
lot with Forex who are also a Toronto based.
They do theme park design and theme park and resorts and and
entertainment sort of things. Really excellent group of
people. And so we've had the pleasure.
Of working on a number of different theme parks, Lego
Lands and Wanda Lands in China, Shenzhen and Shanghai.
Incredible. Yeah.
Because like all Korea, like, yeah, it's, it's we've been very
lucky in that regard. To it's and it's fun stuff like
you doing everything from, you know, water shooting from a Lego
figure to. The flume rides and like rapid
river rides and and kind of calculating for that stuff,
running jets out of pools and figuring out.
Sometimes. Sometimes it's just basic, like,
OK, well, you know, we've got a big large.
Collecting body of water because we have to deal with runoff on
site, you know, how do we filter that and keep it so it doesn't
look like a cesspool, right? So it's it's a requirement and
you never know what kind of water quality you're going to
deal with. So dealing with just that basic
infrastructure on top of having to deal with the aesthetic
stuff, it's like, OK, well, you know, all these things have to
work together and the whole site has to work.
Together without telling me specifically a project that that
I will ask about defining. Don't name it because I I don't
even know the answer to it. What has been one of the the
biggest challenges that you've come across when trying to
design a project like you've described that didn't go as
planned and you had to pivot? Ah, that's a good question.
Just describe the challenge versus the actual name of the
project where it is. Yeah, yeah, um.
I have to think about that one SEC.
Well, that's good. Yeah, that's a lot of it goes to
plan. Yeah, a lot of it goes to plan.
I mean, there's, there's, I mean there's times where execution
for one reason or another. Doesn't line up.
Yep. And the challenge is always, I
would say more often than not the challenge is grading
mechanics wise, it's, you know, doing plumbing and stuff like
that is, is fairly straightforward, manageable.
It's manageable. Yeah, right.
I mean, it's not to say there's not a specialty involved.
Usually it's it's specialty fountain contractors who will do
the construction side because we're only design and so you you
need that sort of. Knowledgeable hands to work on
these because they are highly complex.
It's not like you're backyard swimming pool kind of deal.
Usually there's controls and, and, and a level of detail and
nuance that's required that is far exceeding, you know, a
little waterfall going into your backyard swimming.
Pool That said, I would say there there's one project in
particular that didn't quite go as planned and I'm not sure if
they've sort of shifted gears on it.
And, and I think, you know, for a long time it it still ran, but
the grading became an issue. It was very finely graded.
And it's one of those things where getting specification
right and getting the right contractor for the job is not
always the easiest. Because particularly when you're
dealing with municipal or city owned.
Projects there is always this underlying need to meet their
procurement. Process right?
Right, and I'm gonna try to say this as gently as I can.
Anyone. Listening to this right now
works in the field of design. Can appreciate what you just
said, don't worry. Yeah, I'm trying to be gentle.
About and if you're listening to this and you're a part of the
procurement process with the city, yeah, I understand there's
a lot of strife associated with it on the design.
Side yeah, it's it's not. And it's not that you know,
these things can't be overcome. It is more that when you do
something and the requirement is the lowest bidder you get.
You get what you pay. For, yeah, and it's.
And when you're dealing with something this complex, with
this many integrated elements, yeah.
And and it's. Always the same thing.
You hear this in this industry all the time, and it doesn't
just ring true in this industry, it's in anything.
Yeah, like it's, it's really, I cannot stress enough how
worthwhile it is for a city to actually invest in something and
spend the dollars to do it right.
Yeah, you you'll get what you pay for, and it will last.
You're not gonna have to RIP it out in 10.
Years. I think the easiest way to
describe this failure, and it's not always a failure, but when
it is a failure, when you say you get what you pay for.
You just think if you've ever had it eating a Big Mac combo,
yeah, and it might taste great when you're eating.
It yeah, but you're feeling. Greatly feel it afterwards.
Yeah. You go and eat a really
delicious healthy meal from a place that has like, you know,
it's, it's organics and it cost the same thing.
And you probably feel pretty energized afterwards.
Yeah, don't feel sluggish. Yep.
You get what you pay for. 100% agree.
So. So yeah, so I've got 22 projects
in mind, different things. One was grading, 1 was.
The actually the plumbing contractor execution because
they didn't get a fountain specialist and both of them had
had had problems and work had to be done.
Like, yeah, it's it's tough. I mean when when you pour
concrete in the rain, when you shouldn't be pouring concrete in
the rain for a large continuous slab that has to be accurate.
Like, and I mean accurate, it's. It it better be good otherwise,
I mean. And what ended?
Up happening was. Grinding for weeks and then that
changes the finish of your finished product.
Yeah, right. Like it's not.
And there's only so far you can go before you start compromising
your concrete. Because for people who don't
know the the minimum. Required amount of coverage on
rebar in the concrete. That's the metal rods that tie
the concrete together, so adding the tensile strength to the
concrete. Which is great structural or
compressive strength there is is 2 inches or 50mm.
So if you spend, you know, you're grinding down from what
was 2 inches of cover to now an inch of cover, your chances of
having that concrete pop later on due to thermal expansion
contraction, especially in the kind of climate we have here in
Canada. Just it's just for layman terms,
meaning like it's gonna buckle because the ground is gonna
thaw. Yeah, it's gonna crack, and
they're gonna crack at different rates because they're too close
to the surface. And.
Or move at different rates, I should say.
And so you end up creating excessive stresses within there.
And at a certain point it just gives and there's nothing you
can do about that. So, so yeah, there's there's
that. And then you know on the other
project where it was a plumbing install and it's.
The the contractor didn't have experience in doing the plumbing
and just they kind of looked at the drawings and did whatever.
Well, so, so well, so tell me like So what do you, what do you
do to correct that in those scenarios like the one where
they have to shave down? The concrete.
Is there anything that you can do to provide a solution for
them or something where they just have to take it all out and
do it again? To a certain extent, some of it
could be corrected and there were certain areas that had to
be done and then it's basically OK, well, you know, if we are
going to modify this or accept this alternative solution, this
change, you know. How do we integrate that into
what we can retain and and that is the challenge.
So you know, sometimes it's OK. Well, we're going to take it
back in a very specific way. And when we deal with our
surface finish, we are going to seed the surface finish or
reseed the surface finish after so.
There's there's a cost to the contractor course obviously, but
but it's yeah, at least then you're retaining that integrity
to the greatest degree. Possible.
And you're looking at something that's hopefully going to look
intentional versus an afterthought.
Absolutely error. Yeah, yeah.
And that's it. So, so tell me just kind of from
a global scale, hmm, how often are you brought in early in a
project? How often are you an
afterthought to the project? What's the percentage?
Percentage wise, that's that's a good question.
So. I would say it really depends on
our client, OK. So oftentimes we we've have we
have a lot of repeat clients. Yeah.
And the ones who we've worked with for a number of years
understand even if they have turnover, there's like.
This inherent knowledge that gets passed in through, passed
down in the company and. They'll go OK, we have a
project. It's in, you know, concept
phase. We want to get you guys on board
so that we can understand what we're getting into, what will.
Work well because you become a part of the infrastructure of
the overall. Construction, yeah, yeah,
exactly. So example, you know, talking
with Janet Rosenberg and Studio on a project that we're working
on them and I can't name the project, don't worry, but but it
is, it's one of those things where as they're going through
their design process, conceptual design process to bring towards
donors. And, and before it goes to
public, it's like, OK, we have these ideas, but we want to make
sure that they actually are viable ideas and, and what what
might it entail? Like ballpark it and back of the
napkin, you know, and we can sit there and go, OK, you know, if
you take this approach, you can try these things.
Here's the limits to what you're based on what you've rendered so
far as your concept. This is what you might need to
achieve, right? And so, so there's great clients
like that. And then there's the flip side
where it's a good client, but either they're being brought on
late or you're being brought on late.
And so now it's a rush to catch up and and you're scrambling
because the infrastructure hasn't been allowed for and the
structural, the design of the rest of the systems and building
nothing allows for you to do the thing.
Yeah. And but they've shown renderings
to a client who's bought into this idea that is now.
God, how is this even? Possible.
Well, I mean they've already used up most of their clients
budget at this point. Yeah, which?
Doesn't leave you with much, and so now you have to.
Yeah, you're working within that reality.
Try and be. Yeah, well, it's it's, it's as
diplomatic as you can being as forthright about what the
realities of those requirements will.
Be just like even in a in a meeting.
Just, you know, hey, I'm just gonna while we're doing this,
while we're talking about this, this is what the back of the
napkin math says. And I'm and I've spent time over
the years developing some Excel spreadsheets to save.
Myself some time on on the math so that while I'm in these
conversations I can be like, OK, plug this number in.
What is that? What does that mean for how much
water in theory we might need? What does that mean for pipe
sizes? And then work backwards.
And so it's, it becomes very much challenging, but it's also
I think at that point really helpful for the client as an our
client, which would be the architect, engineer design firm.
What what it actually means because oftentimes when we are
brought on late, it's we're looking at and being shown
details that they have started for a fountain.
So they had something to price and the pipe sizes are like it's
like a 2 inch pipe for something that requires a 12 inch pipe,
right? And and to give you a sense of
scale for water, every pipe diameter increase is double the
flow. So in a 2 inch pipe. 50 GPM.
A three inch GPM GPM gallons per minute.
Sorry, yes. It's OK.
I just want to make sure people. Understand what we're talking.
No, that's that's fair. I know.
Yeah. Gallons per minute.
So 50 gallons a minute. It, for context, is like 10
garden hoses and your garden hose and your typical backyard.
5 gallons a minute and I apologize, that is an imperial
form and we're in Canada, but like this is what we're all
good. So, so 50 gallons a minute at 2
inch, 100 gallons a minute at 3 inch, so on and so forth.
So you're looking at like 1200 gallons, 1400 gallons in a 12
inch pipe. But they've only shown a 2 inch
pipe and to to put that much water through a 2 inch pipe, you
will literally destroy the pipe burst.
It'll burst. It's just not it's not
physically possible. So it, it certainly creates a
lot of challenges and sometimes months of meetings where you're,
you know, you're, you're educating and you're holding
their hand through it and you're being as gentle as you can, but
also have to be forceful because there's only so much that the
physics and the mechanics and the engineering.
Allow. Forget that there's also so much
that your feet can allow. Well, yeah.
And educating a client, yeah, before you're now already in the
red and you're not providing the service that you intend to
provide because now this project is a strain as if you're
resources as a business. Yeah, yeah, you're just eating
all that time off and you still have to do the work.
And it's just. You end up.
Doing it more than once because the they don't quite understand
yet and they want to explore every option.
So, so for anyone that's listening to this, I don't care
where you live in the world, if you're an architect or you're a
designer and there's a contemplation of some form of
water feature associated with what you're doing.
As early as possible. Please ring this person in early
and this person, his name is Steve K Call do bring them in
early and resolve some of the questions early on so that you
can have a project that's gonna float properly.
Yeah, I see what I did there. Very nice, I like it.
Steve, I gotta tell you, man, it has been so formative, so
interesting to have you on to, to talk about all of this.
I think that there are I I'm gonna have to assume if if you
if you're listening at this point, Kim favor like comment.
OK, if you're in Spotify, you can comment about what you've
taken away from this cause I think I have found it so
engaging, so interesting. You'll be you can also head over
to Instagram. You can take a look at the work
that's that Steve's gonna want to feature from do on Instagram.
Last thing, I also asked, please readings help with exposure.
You can go out there and give five stars to this thing on
whatever device you're listening on, whether it's our platform,
Spotify, Apple, YouTube, good pods, whatever it is, please
five stars that helps Steve. Thank you, man.
I know that you got a deadline. And so we've actually been able
to achieve what you needed in terms of time.
Thanks for coming man. Much appreciated.
Hope, thanks. Walk home.
Yeah, yes, excellent.