Cocktails & Conversations: David Piscuskas and David Hollenberg

“If you think of the life and death of a project as being from birth to ribbon cutting, a lot of decisions are made before the architect is hired, in some cases, 50% or 60% of the way into the life of a project. We have a phrase that I invented when we put in our request for proposals: “Come to the interview with your”—here’s the phrase—“inclinations of design”—as opposed to bringing models and renderings. Because when you do that, it suggests, “We don’t really need a client. We already have it figured out. We don’t need you, and here it is.” We’ve had people come to interviews with walkthroughs that they thought were going to blow us away. But it’s really offensive when you get renderings and animations of a completed building, and all that’s left for the client to do is pick a carpet. It just doesn’t work. If you’re good, you give an indication of the likely direction without pinning it down. And that helps.” - David Piscuskas