The Crit That Wasn't About AI
📰 Olson Kundig put 300 people in a room and asked what wastes their time. One rule: don't call it an AI meeting. The lists came back honest, and a big share of the complaints already had a fix sitting inside the firm.
What would your firm hear if you put 300 people in a room, split them by role, and asked what wastes their time?
Summary
Olson Kundig is a firm most architects know by the work rather than the tech stack. Tom Kundig's kinetic houses, the Space Needle renovation with its revolving glass floor, the Gates Foundation Visitor Center. Roughly 300 people across Seattle, New York, and Chicago, doing everything from small cabins in Wyoming to large hospitality and cultural projects. Technology has been part of how they deliver for close to 30 years, but it has never been the thing they lead with.
In episode 235 I sat down with Marlene Chen, principal and chief operating officer, and Blair Payson, principal and the person who has grown into shepherding the firm's conversation about technology and AI. What I wanted to know was operational: how does a firm this size move a whole office on AI without turning into a firm that talks about tools instead of Capital-A Architecture?
Their answer was less about software than I expected. They ran an office-wide crit on friction points and deliberately refused to call it an 'AI meeting.' They watched their visualization group go from three people to something closer to 150. They found out what happens when you show a beautiful AI video to the whole office and say nothing about budget. Most of what they described is the unglamorous, messy-middle of adoption, which is exactly the part nobody writes case studies about.
What's Inside
- The unnamed crit. Why the most useful AI meeting they ran was never introduced as one.
- Sorting by role. What changes when the interns, the project managers, and the owners each make their list separately.
- The silver lining problem. A large share of the complaints had a fix already sitting in the building, which is good news that stings.
- Three to 150. How the visualization director read his own obsolescence out loud to the owners, and what he did next.
- Bumpers. The credit card surge that taught them enthusiasm needs a frame around it.
