00;00;00;00 - 00;00;06;26 

Andy Richardson 

Okay, so it's the preview and I thought that was a pretty good episode. What do you think? 

 

00;00;07;00 - 00;00;30;14 

Madeline Richardson 

I think that's my favorite one so far. Oh, wow. Okay. What? So we had Joel Newman, right? And he's with Thomas and Danziger Architects, and he's an architect, so. But what is it that you liked about this show? It felt simple. It felt like he got to the point very quickly. He had his mind made up, very confident about what he was going to say. 

 

00;00;30;14 - 00;01;11;19 

Madeline Richardson 

It felt inspiring to some of the things that he was saying. Oh, now they think about what I'm thinking about it. It was like how, you know, you make your mind up, you have this not self-consciousness, but being conscious about your actions and what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I liked how he talked about the design process, which was something we talked about early on, and just how that working with clients and his approach to getting getting the design from their brain on the, on the paper and then from paper to the construction site, which that was that was a really cool part of it. 

 

00;01;11;22 - 00;01;43;26 

Andy Richardson 

I think, and I think really just the whole episode was really a positive episode and instilled, you know, what we're trying to accomplish here, which is to enhance the world around us. So, I really felt like it was a positive episode, and I learned a lot about architecture. I learned a lot about his approach and I think it somehow helps me be a better engineer as well and a better person in some ways as well. 

 

00;01;43;28 - 00;01;50;11 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah. What do you think? I bet it helps you. I mean, what do you think? Or any other thoughts? 

 

00;01;50;13 - 00;02;09;07 

Madeline Richardson 

I mean, I just love the whole vibe, so to speak, of the show or it just felt like a conversation, a natural conversation where it just flowed. Yeah. It felt simple and easy. Yeah. So for somebody who said he wasn't a social butterfly or whatever his term was, I thought he did a great job. 

 

00;02;09;07 - 00;02;26;11 

Andy Richardson 

And he's a great communicator and made the whole thing easy for me. All I had to do was just kind of egg him on a little bit, so to speak. So for somebody, he had his mind made up. All right. Well, is there anything else that listeners should know about this show?  

 

00;02;26;12 - 00;02;29;23 

Madeline Richardson 

I don't think so. I think that more surprises await. 

 

00;02;29;25 - 00;02;40;01 

Andy Richardson 

Okay. Well. Hey, everybody, my name is Andy Richardson. I'm a structural engineer, and I've been doing this for 26 years. I'm on a journey to learn more about the AEC industry. 

 

00;02;40;01 - 00;02;42;16 

Andy Richardson 

So let's go ahead and jump to the intro next. 

 

00;02;47;05 - 00;02;54;14 

Madeline Richardson (intro) 

Welcome to enhance, an AEC podcast, where we learn the why behind AEC professionals so that you can learn your why. 

 

00;02;54;14 - 00;02;55;01 

Andy Richardson 

Okay. 

 

00;02;55;01 - 00;03;00;06 

Andy Richardson 

Well hey Joel, welcome to the Enhance Podcast. 

 

00;03;00;08 - 00;03;01;15 

Joel Newman 

Enhanced what. 

 

00;03;01;18 - 00;03;04;20 

Andy Richardson 

So that's our website name for the podcast. 

 

00;03;04;20 - 00;03;23;25 

Andy Richardson 

That's a cast name. And it actually comes from, you know, our business name is 2096. But we took that and ran with it. You know that in terms of our six E's. And so that's what we're the idea came. Got it. Okay. So it makes sense. Enhancing the world around us is the idea. 

 

00;03;23;25 - 00;03;51;10 

Andy Richardson 

And, it's one of our six E's. So we really wanted to find out, you know, about other people in the architecture industry, engineering industry and construction, the AEC industry as a whole. So that's really what this show is all about. So, really, I just wanted to start it off with, just a little bit of an introduction as far as who you are, and everything. 

 

00;03;51;10 - 00;04;11;27 

Andy Richardson 

So for the audience listening, but, we've worked together for quite a while, which is one reason I'm excited about having you on today, because I've known you for a long time, and I don't think we've really had a conversation like this. Most of the time we're talking about projects and engineering and architecture, so it's interesting to find out a little bit more about you. 

 

00;04;11;27 - 00;04;17;03 

Andy Richardson 

But your job as an architect, he's been doing this for a long time now, 

 

00;04;17;03 - 00;04;18;00 

Joel Newman 

40 years. 

 

00;04;18;00 - 00;04;33;17 

Andy Richardson 

40 years, and mostly focused on the low country of South Carolina, places like Brays Island, Spring Island, if it's got an island behind it, he probably did it. And he probably work there. Doing architecture for mostly residential projects. 

 

00;04;33;18 - 00;04;34;12 

Joel Newman 

That's right. 

 

00;04;34;14 - 00;04;47;21 

Andy Richardson 

And but some other things, too. So that's a little bit of an introduction. And I just wanted to start out, first of all, just, tell us a little bit about yourself and you know how you got into this. 

 

00;04;47;24 - 00;04;56;12 

Joel Newman 

Okay. All right. My background is that I. I'm a dirty Yankee. I came from Michigan originally. I was born on a dairy farm. 

 

00;04;56;14 - 00;05;25;27 

Joel Newman 

And so I had a background of working, really since childhood. Because we started working when we were kids, doing chores and that sort of thing. So I've always been kind of a worker bee. We moved down south when I was about ten years old, and so I've been down here for 57 years of 67 and, went to school down here, went to Clemson, and that's where I studied architecture and worked, you know, in different places. 

 

00;05;25;27 - 00;05;55;25 

Joel Newman 

I worked in Baltimore for a couple of years when I finished school, and then moved to North Carolina, to western North Carolina, unfortunately, where they've just been devastated. That's where I worked. And it was the same, same environment, same kind of, mostly high end houses in inside developments and that sort of thing, and some amenity work usually related to those kinds of communities, clubhouse kind of structures and things that have to do with amenities in those nice communities. 

 

00;05;55;27 - 00;06;18;06 

Joel Newman 

And then I've been down here, back home, so to speak, for 30 years. Yeah. So I've been here with Thomas and Danziger for 30 years and, running that program, for like, the last 20 of that 30 years. So, that's my background. And you're right, we've worked in all of those environments. Palmetto Bluff is another one. 

 

00;06;18;06 - 00;06;41;18 

Joel Newman 

Kay was another one. We have another part of our office up in Charleston where we do kind of the work that's on that end of the low country. And we focus down here on this end of the Lowcountry. Okay. So this is called the is there a studio name for yours or we you know, we just we're the actual the actual office started in Beaufort. 

 

00;06;41;18 - 00;07;04;09 

Joel Newman 

The Thomas and the Danziger Thomas is a family name in the building that we're in is the Thomas Law Building. So they've been here for, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years. So, yeah, the office is actually, you know, was part of, of a lot of history here, including Robert Smalls and the whole thing. It used to be the Customs House. 

 

00;07;04;09 - 00;07;05;20 

Joel Newman 

It's a pretty unique place. 

 

00;07;05;22 - 00;07;10;14 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah. Okay. And it's a concrete building. The Thomas Law building. 

 

00;07;10;16 - 00;07;28;16 

Joel Newman 

Thomas Law Building is, is, brick masonry, a full masonry structure. And most of it was built in the 1850s. And then there was a kind of a strange additions put on it in the 1950s. Yeah. And, so we're in the old building on the back of it, overlooking the park and out at the river. 

 

00;07;28;16 - 00;07;32;25 

Joel Newman 

It's a pretty, pretty special spot to be working in, quite frankly. 

 

00;07;32;25 - 00;07;49;06 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah. It's a beautiful place. And we're sitting here looking over the river right across the street from your office. That's right. Pretty much. And, I mean, we can walk over and work together, but oftentimes we're on the phone or on, you know, doing things remotely, even though we're right across the street. 

 

00;07;49;07 - 00;07;51;09 

Joel Newman 

That's right. 

 

00;07;51;09 - 00;08;03;24 

Andy Richardson 

So Michigan, you know, a lot of people like to talk about where you are from, purpose of your hand or using your hands or where, where and if you use your hand where you from in Michigan, or do you ever do that? 

 

00;08;03;24 - 00;08;09;02 

Joel Newman 

Right from the center of the mitten, right in the center of your palm near Lansing, Michigan. 

 

00;08;09;02 - 00;08;32;27 

Andy Richardson 

Okay. And one of the one of my marketing assistants or, marketing. I guess that would be the right person to call her. Theresa. She's from Michigan, so she'll want to know that. And I'm sure some of our listeners will as well. So, so, yeah, that's a good starting point as far as, you know, your background where you're from and then moving down to the low country. 

 

00;08;32;27 - 00;08;35;02 

Andy Richardson 

But how did you get into architecture? 

 

00;08;35;05 - 00;08;59;17 

Joel Newman 

Sure. So I had an uncle, my mother's brother was, an artist and an illustrator. And, he's he's passed away now. He'd be 100 and something now, and was always a real creative influence. And on my mother's side of the family, he and my mother and her sisters were all kind of creative. 

 

00;08;59;17 - 00;09;34;29 

Joel Newman 

They were all artistic in one way or another. And I had that same sort of gene or bug. And I always liked to draw, and I always like to make things. Ever since I was a little kid, I would I would build and arrange things and that sort of thing. And my uncle, always, even though he wasn't an architect, he always designed and built his own houses and his studio, when he moved down to Hilton Head, his studio had all these incredible little chipboard models and things like that in it and all these cool drawings. 

 

00;09;34;29 - 00;09;55;02 

Joel Newman 

And I was always fascinated with that. So when I was pretty young, like probably 12 or 13 years old, I started actually making little cardboard models of buildings and that sort of thing. And I've always been fascinated with barns because I grew up around barns and that sort of thing. And so that was a pretty big influence on me. 

 

00;09;55;05 - 00;10;20;21 

Joel Newman 

And when it came time to think about what I was going to do, as far as school was concerned, actually, one of my classmates in high school one day in calculus, the teacher asked, and he said he was going to go to Clemson and study architecture. And I said, that sounds pretty good. That's literally, when I made the decision when I was a senior in high school, and I thought, that sounds like fun. 

 

00;10;20;21 - 00;10;48;28 

Joel Newman 

And it turned out to be a really perfect fit because of the nature of being presented with a problem. Considering all the facets of it and the context around it, and then coming up with the solution. And it really fit my personality of this sort of problem, problem solving, creation and then kind of the realization, you know, through drawings and, and, models. 

 

00;10;48;28 - 00;11;13;25 

Joel Newman 

And then in the real world, once you become an architect, you actually get to build these things. People actually pay you money. They, you know, spend their money essentially to come up with ideas that relate to this place where they're trying to dream, build or create something. And we get to realize that over and over again. And that never, ever gets old. 

 

00;11;13;25 - 00;11;47;23 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah. That's awesome. And then I'm going to go straight into what? Because I asked my wife and you've met Esther. So, I said, what questions should I ask Joel? In the podcast. And, she's always had this thing about how you get because it ties right into what you were just talking about. How do you get your I, you know, the idea of somebody who isn't technical, who isn't an architect and somehow get that out of them, like, how do you get there? 

 

00;11;47;25 - 00;12;09;00 

Andy Richardson 

They kind of have it in their head, you know, what? What they saw or maybe pieces of what they saw, but you somehow get it into reality like a construction. You get the drawings and then see it to fruition. So how does that work? I mean, I don't know if you want to I don't want to give away any trade secrets, but like, how does that process work for you? 

 

00;12;09;02 - 00;12;48;12 

Joel Newman 

Right. So what you learn over time is that people have a lot of different faculties, and some people are incredibly visual and communicate really, really well and have distinct ideas that they communicate to you. And that becomes part of the context. Some people have absolutely no visual skills at all. They're let's say they're more word oriented or, you know, wordsmiths and that sort of thing, and don't have any design bone or any design instinct and whatnot. 

 

00;12;48;14 - 00;13;13;01 

Joel Newman 

So every client is different in that respect. And whenever we're starting on a project, I'm not looking for them to know what they want. I'm looking for them to know what they need. And that's really that's an important distinction. I'm not expecting somebody to tell me I want my house to look like this, and I want, you know, this and that. 

 

00;13;13;01 - 00;13;39;04 

Joel Newman 

And the other thing some people do that they do provide us with images of things that are inspirational to them. And that's that's always important and useful, and that's another way of them to communicate. Some people don't have any idea. And so I sometimes I use the doctor analogy and I say, I'm not looking for you to tell me how to cure you or tell me you know what you have. 

 

00;13;39;06 - 00;14;15;13 

Joel Newman 

I want you to tell me where it hurts. You know what? What is it that you need? What are the symptoms here? And then I'm going to come up with a diagnosis for it. And I'm going to I'm going to cure the problem. And so the context is always two things. One is we have a site, whether it's a natural piece of Spring Island that's, a beautiful series of, you know, magnificent trees and, a marsh frontage or a river or even, you know, let's say an interior lot, but it just has some natural characteristics to it. 

 

00;14;15;16 - 00;14;35;29 

Joel Newman 

Right? That's my job to go out there, study that, take notes on it, really get my impressions from it. Sometimes it's things I hear, the animals and the wildlife that's going on there, or what kind of noise and and factors and the neighbors and, you know, where is the sun, where the breeze is coming from, that sort of thing. 

 

00;14;36;02 - 00;15;00;10 

Joel Newman 

It's my job to absorb all of that context, whether it's that kind of site or it's, a street, you know, site here in downtown Beaufort or, you know, an open site that's going to become a golf course or something. That's my job to go out there and sense what those factors are. The owner's responsibility is to tell me the things that they need. 

 

00;15;00;12 - 00;15;22;25 

Joel Newman 

And quite often people will have strong impressions like, these are the things I need, but I like more privacy. I want more separation. I don't want, let's say I don't want the big open space, or you have people who spent a lifetime living in an old traditional house of rooms and they say, I want to live in and more open environment, right? 

 

00;15;22;25 - 00;15;44;26 

Joel Newman 

So they often have impressions of the way they think they want to head, but I'm not looking for them to tell me the answer. I take that information from them. Some people have written me a narrative of, you know, the, the, the way they imagine they'll live somewhere. And some people just don't know it all. 

 

00;15;44;26 - 00;16;07;26 

Joel Newman 

They just, you know it quite often if they've hired a particular architect, they've seen some things that that person has done or that firm has done and said, I like, you know, I like the character of these things in in our particular work, it'd be hard for you to go look at all of our work and say, it's all like this. 

 

00;16;07;26 - 00;16;36;12 

Joel Newman 

We we tend to try to not have a, you know, a solution and that we're just repeating. And our work is not all southern living or all, you know, low country this or that. Sometimes I can't put a name on it and I really don't try to. It's more the relationship of how it works to that site in that context and that set of people, whoever we're working with, how it relates. 

 

00;16;36;12 - 00;16;59;13 

Joel Newman 

Well, and hopefully if those things marry up, then then, you know, it really works for them. And people, people I've found when you finish a project, they really can sense all of that. They can sense the attachment to what they said they want, and they can sense the attachment to place. If you've done your job right. 

 

00;16;59;13 - 00;17;23;28 

Andy Richardson 

It sounds like a big puzzle, that's a good description. You're taking that site, you're taking the person and, and often a couple or family and you know, and then you have your experience and there's all these factors and you're somehow getting a final product. That's right. So it's really quite amazing. And then you have to deal with those engineers. 

 

00;17;23;28 - 00;17;25;13 

Andy Richardson 

Right? 

 

00;17;25;16 - 00;17;55;18 

Joel Newman 

They're the weakest part of the story, of course. Yeah. So why residential? For some reason, I sort of ended up in that really from the get go. And I learned pretty early on that that is some of the most interesting work. And maybe a better way to put it is, it is some of the most interesting work for me. 

 

00;17;55;20 - 00;18;22;22 

Joel Newman 

I'm not a super social person. I mean, I don't we don't entertain a lot at all and that sort of thing, but I do like interacting with people, and I do find that they're part of this puzzle. Right? Is interesting and part of it is that every person that we work with has come from some other interesting life story. 

 

00;18;22;22 - 00;18;49;12 

Joel Newman 

Right? We've had people who had a lot of resources, but they started out, you know, sweeping the floors in the company and ended up owning it. We have people obviously, that are sometimes very high level executives. Right. And they've had a very high education and that sort of thing. So their story is interesting to me. And, it often informs us in a way what they want. 

 

00;18;49;12 - 00;19;12;22 

Joel Newman 

Right. And their aspirations. One of the things that's always amusing about a project is that some people are built before right? It built a house before, and some people have lived in lots of houses but never built a house. And so that's another piece of the puzzle that you have to determine how to solve the problems that the person that's never built before. 

 

00;19;12;24 - 00;19;35;18 

Joel Newman 

And then how to relate to people who maybe have built and feel like, oh, you know, it was difficult. You're always trying to make sure that that experience isn't difficult again. Right? You're trying to make it as pleasant a process as you can. Right. So, that's just another part or a facet of the work that makes it interesting. 

 

00;19;35;26 - 00;20;20;09 

Joel Newman 

And that always happens with a residential project. If you find yourself doing speculative work, right, there is no client or, or there's a generic client you're trying to solve, you're trying to create a flavor that's broadly desirable as opposed to something specific to this place. And that really has little or no interest for me. Any kind of speculative thing is more based on, you know, what's the return going to be versus what's the emotional return and how have I taken this piece of property and sort of respected it and made a place that is meaningful for these people? 

 

00;20;20;16 - 00;20;33;27 

Joel Newman 

This place. Our projects generally you can't just like pick this project up and take it over and put it on this site and expect it to have the same kind of aura. 

 

00;20;34;00 - 00;20;48;26 

Andy Richardson 

Right, right. But on the other hand, would you say that I mean, you can kind of see okay, that's, that's Thomas and Dezinger house or that's a Joel Newman house right there by certain aspects of it. 

 

00;20;48;26 - 00;20;55;17 

Andy Richardson 

Would you be able to say that, or are there certain design philosophies that sort of follow from? 

 

00;20;55;23 - 00;21;13;19 

Joel Newman 

I think, yeah, I think that we always use the same approach. Right. The careful evaluation. And I use this I sit on a number of review boards and I always bring this word up over and over and over again, context. 

 

00;21;13;21 - 00;21;43;16 

Joel Newman 

And in fact, it really doesn't matter what the kind of problem is, whether it's a graphic problem or a social problem or whatever. What's the context surrounding this problem where it's architectural or engineering or political or whatever, what's the context around it, and how do we create a meaningful full answer design solution, building whatever to that context? 

 

00;21;43;18 - 00;22;08;25 

Joel Newman 

And that's it. At the end of the day, it's the context to me that matters. And so we have a lot of details that get repeated right, that get used. Sometimes they're on projects that look completely different from one another, but there's similar solutions for little bits and pieces. And you're familiar with a lot of those because we've worked together for, I don't know, 25 years or something like that. 

 

00;22;08;28 - 00;22;32;00 

Joel Newman 

So we do have, you know, bits and pieces of our work that are repeated because they fit the right thing. But the building itself is often, you know, contextually different because it has to be to fit that, you know, circumstance or context. Yeah. And it's been interesting to watch that because of our working together for so long. 

 

00;22;32;00 - 00;23;00;23 

Andy Richardson 

And, you know, we've developed a bit of a synergy and also just, seeing the different projects. And there is a substantial variety. I mean, I can definitely see there's a, you know, there's a touch to it that's to me, it's a Thomas Denzinger touch, you know, and but at the same time, they're very different, you know, and it's like, wow, this is, this is a wild design or this is an interesting design. 

 

00;23;00;23 - 00;23;15;04 

Andy Richardson 

And I mean, do you have any, is it okay to talk about some projects like that, or some interesting projects that you've worked on over the years that really stood out? 

 

00;23;15;04 - 00;23;25;19 

Joel Newman 

Lots of projects stand out in projects that are kind of remarkably different from one another, but kind of interesting in terms of the feedback that we've received. 

 

00;23;25;19 - 00;24;13;09 

Joel Newman 

And one of them would be like the Chechessee Golf Club. The Chechessee Creek Golf Club is one of those projects that, for me, architecturally, it looks very, very traditional. It's a white board and batten. I think most people would drive up and say, oh, this is low country architecture. And that's fine. Very porky. Lots of, outdoor space, really strong contextual relationship of every space around this building, which is kind of, what I think of as an additive building, meaning there's lots of parts of it and it's kind of sprawled on a site, but each element is very specific to, you know, it's on this part of the golf course 

 

00;24;13;09 - 00;24;46;16 

Joel Newman 

or it's over at this part of the golf course, because of its relationship. And in the course of 40 years of being a licensed architect, I've probably had more people comment on that place. And, I mean, it is that place more than almost any other project that we've ever done. And so I think architecturally, it's unremarkable in that it's, you know, it looks like a piece of, of everywhere in the low country. 

 

00;24;46;16 - 00;25;12;16 

Joel Newman 

Right? It relates very well in that respect. But environmentally and emotionally, it really connects with people when they use it and experience it. And that's the kind of thing that you really hope for with any project. So that's very traditional. And we're building a house right now, a couple of houses that have some similarities that you've worked on with us. 

 

00;25;12;19 - 00;25;39;29 

Joel Newman 

And one of them is that Spring Island said it was a very challenging site. I met over the years, at least a half a dozen prospects that considered this piece of property. And it has an incredible, you know, riverfront that could have a dock. It sat beside a pond. But the lot was extremely narrow. The lot was very low. 

 

00;25;39;29 - 00;26;10;13 

Joel Newman 

And about, you know, I'd say almost a third of the lot was essentially in the pond. There were a lot of low areas that, you know, would be inundated with water and that sort of thing. So very challenging circumstances. And when people look at a situation like that, it either ignites interest because they see these values in it and the constraints, or they say, not for me. 

 

00;26;10;13 - 00;26;37;14 

Joel Newman 

Too difficult, you know, too challenging, looks too restrictive, like I can't have what I want. And for I think you'd actually find a lot of architects would say this, that, what looks like a really challenging site often leads to some of the most interesting work you'll ever do, because you really can't just say, oh, you know, I'm going to take this thing I did before. 

 

00;26;37;17 - 00;27;11;25 

Joel Newman 

I'm just you're going to stick it on here and it'll work fine. Really was such a unique context. And we had to come up with solutions. Even with, soils engineers and soils engineers are probably more hidebound than almost any other engineer. Right. They're dealing with the ground conditions that exist, and they have a set of typical solutions for deep watering and stabilizing and replacing and, you know, compacting and that sort of thing. 

 

00;27;11;28 - 00;27;52;06 

Joel Newman 

And a site like this, we literally had to invent a kind of a detail that would allow us to essentially build, let's say, the remaining third of the site that we needed to make this house fit this context, you know, and, we had a soils engineer who was, you know, older and experienced and, creative enough that I could propose something to him that sort of fit with what he needed and that he could he could envision that as a solution and then work with us to make it a solution. 

 

00;27;52;06 - 00;28;21;01 

Joel Newman 

And it became the stone burrito, which we now used, in a couple of instances, really, you know, difficult sites. And the truth is, in this part of the world, in places like Spring Island, and Brays Island that have been around a while, we're getting to the sites that people put off from buying or developing because they weren't the, the high land and that sort of thing. 

 

00;28;21;08 - 00;28;49;25 

Joel Newman 

Beautiful views, but more challenging physical conditions. Right. And so, it's leading to having to come up with more creative solutions with the soils engineers and with you guys and even, you know, with mechanical systems and that sort of thing. And that's just more interest, right? Yeah. It's just more and for me, anything that's a problem is really just an opportunity. 

 

00;28;49;25 - 00;29;31;04 

Joel Newman 

The truth is that every problem is an opportunity, to look at something and think, is there a better way to do this? You know, is there something we can do that can meet this situation and come out with something even better? So that particular project has ended up creating those restraints, have created a really unique project and have had some really amazing feedback from from real estate and people that have looked at it and can just recognize how carefully fitted to that context that house is and how special it'll be when it's complete. 

 

00;29;31;10 - 00;29;54;24 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah, and I know the, the, the job you're talking about. So that one, is a beautiful home. We've been to it together and you know, I remember when the stone burrito term was coined and it's never really put like that to me. You have a few of those, which are always fun, but I think it definitely is a good system. 

 

00;29;54;24 - 00;30;05;10 

Andy Richardson 

And can you just tell? I mean, I think this is for some of the engineers and contractors would probably be more interested to know, like how does that system work to kind of dig down into the details of that? 

 

00;30;05;10 - 00;30;25;07 

Joel Newman 

Sure, sure. So this was a typical condition, where, you know, you dig into the ground, you get water, and the first solution for, for most soils engineers is to propose dewatering, which is, you know, is a successful thing in some context. 

 

00;30;25;09 - 00;30;55;17 

Joel Newman 

And, removing soil, you know, one, two, three, four feet just depends on what the conditions are in the borings and trying to get down to what is considered, you know, stable conditions and then dewatering and then backfilling and compacting and bringing things up in lifts to get back to a suitable elevation that is compact and stable and, you know, dry so that you can build. 

 

00;30;55;19 - 00;31;40;24 

Joel Newman 

And in this context, we're literally on the toenails of a very shallow pond. It's only about a foot to a foot and a half deep. But you, you know, dig a hole in the ground, it's going to fill up a wall. It's literally adjacent to the pond within feet or inches virtually. And we had a little bit of experience on a site at Brays Island where, pretty similar to this, we decided that what we needed to do was considered just scraping off the organic matter, which is your top ten, 12in of, you know, detritus, just leaf rot and, and, and, root mass and organic material essentially, that's accreted over, you know, thousands of 

 

00;31;40;24 - 00;32;08;04 

Joel Newman 

years. Take that off. And then put stone on that. That's something that we did at the site at raisin, very successful. It created a stable base here. The idea was you don't want to dig four feet of soil out. You will never deep water the hole because you've essentially made a place for this pond to flow in, and there's no place to pump the water out to de-water to. 

 

00;32;08;05 - 00;32;38;05 

Joel Newman 

Right. So, no way to do that. So we did essentially a kind of a hybrid idea. We took the organic matter off the top surface, which is, you know, un uncomfortable. We put about a foot of large stone on the site and then essentially compacted that in with a roller. And then that was just to make a stable base. 

 

00;32;38;07 - 00;33;03;17 

Joel Newman 

And we knew that water would move in and out of that stone. And that was okay. But we're essentially displacing that one layer of organic material. Then we put down a fabric, a geotextile, and we also used one of the tents or one of those products that is like the geo mat light. Like it's like the equivalent of rebar, right? 

 

00;33;03;20 - 00;33;30;12 

Joel Newman 

Yeah. Put that layer material down and then put down stone again, wrapped the burrito up, in other words, pulled the fabric up over it and made it essentially like a giant stone burrito. And then we're able to put soil over that and cap it, essentially. And we could compact that to make sure it was all locked down in place. 

 

00;33;30;14 - 00;34;07;11 

Joel Newman 

And it didn't matter if water moved in or out of that, because that was stabilized and couldn't go anywhere. And the reason for the fabric wrapping up the burrito was essentially so that none of our stone could migrate horizontally right? We had it contained that created a very stable base that we could build on, that we could dig into, that compacted fill on top enough to pour a slab and footings and that sort of thing and build from there. 

 

00;34;07;11 - 00;34;27;19 

Andy Richardson 

All know, okay, so there was a layer of soil on top of this. Yeah. That's right. And yeah. So that that stone burrito really created a nice almost footing the size of the house. Exactly. Right. And then we put soil on top of that and then built the actual foundation, which, you know, this is the low country, of course. 

 

00;34;27;19 - 00;34;45;01 

Andy Richardson 

And, you know, it's they call it low country for a reason because it's this low for I mean, one reason. But, we don't have to worry about the, you know, like Michigan, for example, because there might be some people that are from Michigan and they're like, well, how do you do that? But we don't have Frost, right? 

 

00;34;45;03 - 00;34;48;07 

Joel Newman 

So we don't have to dig four feet down in the ground to put a footing in. 

 

00;34;48;07 - 00;35;04;07 

Andy Richardson 

But we got other issues like hurricanes, which we just had. So, so I, I want to get in a little bit about, you know, my work briefly and then just a couple more questions, I think, you know, and then we'll get you out of here since, sure. 

 

00;35;04;09 - 00;35;18;15 

Andy Richardson 

So I think it's been really informative so far and really enjoyed it so far, but wanted to be a little selfish and talk about structural engineering a bit, and maybe some of the challenges that you faced, you know, working with these engineers, for example. 

 

00;35;18;17 - 00;35;19;11 

Joel Newman 

Yeah. 

 

00;35;19;11 - 00;35;23;28 

Andy Richardson 

So and yeah, let's talk about that for a minute. 

 

00;35;24;04 - 00;35;27;25 

Joel Newman 

So, work with engineers forever. 

 

00;35;28;02 - 00;36;06;20 

Joel Newman 

And, I feel like you and I went years ago through a little bit of a training process. My my initial experience with engineers when I started working in Baltimore was that quite often they had a set of sort of trained responses to a lot of boilerplate problems and that, they were absolutely able and willing to be creative, but quite often had to be sort of pushed in that direction to say, what if we do this 

 

00;36;06;20 - 00;36;07;00 

Andy Richardson 

right. 

 

00;36;07;01 - 00;36;27;27 

Joel Newman 

What if we look at this and I think, I think that when you and I first met, which has been a long time ago, I think that you came from that same kind of training that we have a set of, and we have a set of solutions to these problems. And that's a good that's a good place. 

 

00;36;27;27 - 00;36;57;05 

Joel Newman 

That's a good base to start from. And I think that what you learn, it doesn't matter whether you're an architect or an engineer or a builder or whatever, over time, over a career, you learn that there are other ways of solving problems, and you would have come to that naturally whether you ever ran into us or not. But that's always been my mindset, is to look at things and say, okay, that that would work. 

 

00;36;57;06 - 00;37;25;01 

Joel Newman 

You know, could we do this? And usually it's driven by some, some background, something, something that seems like that the typical solution isn't, you know, it's not the right fit for, again, this context and it always, always rolls back to context. And so I think part of our solution and our success in our work together has been that it's you've gotten broader. 

 

00;37;25;03 - 00;37;49;04 

Joel Newman 

We've gotten broader. Right? We find out what is most people do with this situation. And if that's the best solution. Right. And then we look at, you know, well, is there other things that we could do. And I think that's been probably the best part of our collaboration is the flexibility to look at something and say, you know, maybe we could do this this way. 

 

00;37;49;06 - 00;38;22;03 

Joel Newman 

You have the evaluative skills to look at that and say, yeah, that works too. And so that's been kind of the basis of our work. Always. We tend to go over a project with you and quite often point out what we see as the probable problems with it. Right. And give you the opportunity to come up with both the this is what we have been doing and the this is what we could do kind of solutions. 

 

00;38;22;03 - 00;38;45;11 

Andy Richardson 

And I think again, that's been the success of our collaboration. Yeah. Awesome. So yeah, I think that that kind of answers that question pretty well. I want to go into a little bit I think one thing that I really appreciate about you is your approach to a project as a whole, you know, because things can go sour at times on a project. 

 

00;38;45;18 - 00;39;16;06 

Andy Richardson 

I mean, almost every project has the potential to go sour. So I think you have a certain style of management, project management, whatever you want to call, but I'll call it. But, how do you help that process be more smooth during the construction process? Design process? Really the whole thing, like how do you manage that? 

 

00;39;16;08 - 00;39;56;13 

Joel Newman 

Age and experience. I think that, what I have learned over a long period of time is to be as unflappable as I can be. And my biggest frustration with any kind of problem is when people sort of, lock down and instead of trying to come up with a solution, spend too much time at the beginning of any problem trying to figure out whose fault it is, or you know, who's going to be responsible or who's going to pay or whatever. 

 

00;39;56;20 - 00;40;39;02 

Joel Newman 

And so my approach has always been, what's the solution to this problem? First, we can figure out, you know, who shot J.R. later, right. But problem number one is how do we get this? Whether it's construction that is, you know, has some kind of impediment to it where somebody is not performing, or, you know, somebody is disturbed, somebody else's work or a solution that's been proposed is not going to work either because the materials aren't available or the or the, you know, the the labor to do it isn't available yet. 

 

00;40;39;04 - 00;41;07;17 

Joel Newman 

Always some kind of impediment on every project. That's absolutely true. But, really a kind of a persistent desire just to find a solution and move on. You'll solve those other problems if the if the design problem or the supply problem or the, you know, the production problem is resolved, you know, who's going to who's going to pay for how's it going to get resolved. 

 

00;41;07;20 - 00;41;33;17 

Joel Newman 

Generally flows pretty well after that. And so that's always been my approach is not to get not to get overly excited about something, you know, as a problem because that anxiety or, you know, or anger or anything like that, it's not going to move it forward. It's going to, you know, it's not going to move it off of the, the impediment. 

 

00;41;33;17 - 00;41;56;00 

Andy Richardson 

So okay, good, good. I like that. And again, that's one reason because we want to I mean, again, selfishly for our company and what we're the projects we're working on, I like when projects are a success. So I want to tag along with people that are working on successful projects. So that and for anybody that's, you know, going to work with you. 

 

00;41;56;00 - 00;41;57;01 

Andy Richardson 

I mean, it's good to know that. 

 

00;41;57;07 - 00;41;57;10 

Joel Newman 

Yeah. 

 

00;41;57;12 - 00;42;06;29 

Andy Richardson 

Hey, this project is going to if it if it kind of goes a little bit south or has potential to go that way, then we can bring it back, you know, so 

 

00;42;07;06 - 00;42;21;20 

Joel Newman 

that's a pretty common, you know, sentiment in one thing that, you know, you hear from time to time is people are anxious about building because they've heard about the brain damage, you know, the difficulties and that sort of thing. 

 

00;42;21;23 - 00;42;48;12 

Joel Newman 

And I always tell people, really, when I have an initial interview, that I feel like it's a little bit the responsibility of the architect. They typically have been considered a little bit of the ringleader or organizer or manager of the process, that I think it's a little bit of our responsibility to make it as reasonable and and for me, enjoyable and experience as possible. 

 

00;42;48;15 - 00;43;12;05 

Joel Newman 

You know, especially with, residential projects, you're kind of you're always dream building, right? People are maybe especially people building for the first time. You want that to be an enjoyable experience. There's going to be pitfalls. There's going to be things that cost too much or take too much time. You have to be able to weather that and help people get beyond that. 

 

00;43;12;08 - 00;43;27;11 

Joel Newman 

And hopefully at the end of the job, they see it and they go, okay, we had to wait longer than we thought. It cost more than we thought, but wow, you know this, we made it to the end. And this is really amazing. 

 

00;43;27;14 - 00;43;41;16 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah, awesome. So that's, that that sounds brilliant. Really inspiring. But sometimes you do go home at the end of the day, as you, you have a life outside of work. 

 

00;43;41;16 - 00;43;53;21 

Andy Richardson 

Is there things you like to do outside of work, like tell us a little bit about your personal life. I mean, is there anything fun you like to do or hobbies or, maybe something that the average person doesn't know about? 

 

00;43;53;24 - 00;44;03;02 

Joel Newman 

Well, my home life is similar in a sense, to my work life. I like to make things. 

 

00;44;03;05 - 00;44;27;28 

Joel Newman 

And so I'm I'm always making something, whether it's, you know, a small thing, or a big thing. I just about done building a screen porch on the back of our house where all the materials were delivered, you know, at the street, and had to be toted to the backyard. And we built a pretty significant porch back there, which is is now essentially done. 

 

00;44;27;28 - 00;44;31;11 

Joel Newman 

And you helped us with the engineering and so forth on it, which was great. 

 

00;44;31;11 - 00;44;32;26 

Andy Richardson 

Thanks, Taylor. 

 

00;44;32;28 - 00;45;00;08 

Joel Newman 

Exactly. I built, you know, I built some guitars, I've built furniture. I've, you know, I've, I've always sort of continuously making something so I like to make things. I like to draw and paint and do all kinds of things. So there's never a time that there isn't, you know, a project or a few projects that are, you know, sort of bubbling along. 

 

00;45;00;10 - 00;45;23;03 

Joel Newman 

And for me, my whole life, essentially, that's been a way of sort of marking a period of time. Right? You can look back and look at a drawing or painting you've done or, or experience. The porch took two years to build. I learned a long time ago through all the renovations that I've done and every place I've ever lived, that you just start something. 

 

00;45;23;05 - 00;45;41;25 

Joel Newman 

Doesn't matter if it takes a year or two years or five years, it's not going to get done until you start. So you start it and, you know, a couple of years pass and you go, this is all done. What am I going to do next? Right? Yeah, I have that same feeling about all the work that we do for our clients. 

 

00;45;41;26 - 00;46;04;29 

Joel Newman 

It's, you know, they often start it and say, oh, we're it's going to take two years to do this. And I'll, I can't remember when projects start and when they end anymore because I just think it's just the flow of what we do, and you're going to be in it and, and I'm going to see you at Spring Island or somewhere two years from now, and you're going to have been in your house for two years or four years. 

 

00;46;04;29 - 00;46;25;02 

Joel Newman 

And I'm not even remember when you moved in or when we started it, because it's just kind of part of the flow of things. So yeah, it's generally my own life is making things, and what I get to do for a living is just kind of helping other people make things, which is it's as good as it gets. 

 

00;46;25;02 - 00;46;46;29 

Joel Newman 

So yeah, I again, I feel like my life has ended up fitting together in a way that suited my personal afflictions.  

 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah. I mean, that's really cool because, it shows the 17 year old guy who said, I want to be an architect. It wasn't quite as flippant as maybe it sounded at the beginning, because, I mean, it really connected. 

 

00;46;47;06 - 00;46;48;11 

Joel Newman 

It fit. Yeah. It's it. 

 

00;46;48;11 - 00;47;07;21 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah. So, thank you for sharing a little bit about your personal life and letting us know that, you know, hey, you do go home at night and do other things. So, but I really want to get into the last aspect of this, which is the name of the show, the name of the podcast, which is Enhance. 

 

00;47;07;21 - 00;47;32;20 

Andy Richardson 

And I think we've already hit on a lot of these aspects, which is the why, like, why do this? You know, like the 17 year old, why? Why go into architecture? I mean, you could do anything and how are you enhancing the world around us? And it sounds a little bit. Yeah. I say all the times I say it sounds a little bit cheesy, right, to say that. 

 

00;47;32;20 - 00;47;46;08 

Andy Richardson 

But, at the same time, sometimes we have to kind of dig deep to really think about those things. But, again, I think we've kind of already covered some of that. But how do you what inspires you? What drives you, like what's the why behind what you do? 

 

00;47;46;11 - 00;47;51;00 

Joel Newman 

That's the easiest thing to me. And it's the difference. 

 

00;47;51;03 - 00;48;33;25 

Joel Newman 

There are different ways of practicing any profession or really any work. You can do it consciously and intentionally, or you can do it as a kind of an afterthought. And that, you know, that might sound a little broad, but I could easily make a living as an architect, creating, you know, plans and and selling them and never having any contact with the person that was going to buy them, where that plan was going to be built, how it suited that environment, and that would be okay. 

 

00;48;33;26 - 00;49;22;22 

Joel Newman 

That is a very viable business. It's a very it can be its own rewarding experience, right? There are people that are creating things and they're nice and they speak to people and they have a they actually, you know, quite honestly, they fit an economic niche that works really well. So that's a good business model that is less enhanced or less involved than the personal relationship where you're actually meeting somebody one on one and doing, a more tailored and more conscious and more intentional and enhanced experience where we're working on this specific place on Earth. 

 

00;49;22;24 - 00;50;02;04 

Joel Newman 

It has specific contextual things about it. Right? The plants that are growing here, the bushes, the trees, the wildlife that's here, the surrounding, buildings and what those people are like, and, you know, their barking dog and the, you know, the birds and the trees and the golfers out in the course wearing whatever, whatever it may be, and making that a holistic solution that really fits that context and enriches that person's life on that piece of ground on earth. 

 

00;50;02;06 - 00;50;32;01 

Joel Newman 

That's what drives me. That's why we don't do, you know, just speculative or just generic work. We do specific work. And that's that speaks to everything about, being conscious and being specific and being sort of enhancing informed live, you know, enriching somebody's experience of buying a little patch of, of this, you know, really wonderful place where we are. 

 

00;50;32;05 - 00;50;52;11 

Andy Richardson 

Right, right. That's awesome. And I mean, really, it's somebody's dream and you're helping dream building. You're helping them fulfill that. It's dream building. Really cool. So, thanks for sharing that. And, I mean, this is the really last question I have is just an opportunity because, I mean, have you ever been on a podcast, by the way? 

 

00;50;52;14 - 00;51;03;13 

Joel Newman 

I have never been. Well, I have done one Spring Island interview thing. Okay. So it might be a it might be a podcast. I don't know, I've seen it. Anyway, 

 

00;51;03;13 - 00;51;11;16 

Andy Richardson 

so the point the point of the question is, I mean, this may be an opportunity to share something that perhaps you, you know, you want to get out there to the world. 

 

00;51;11;16 - 00;51;20;13 

Andy Richardson 

I don't know if that what there might be as far as architecture or otherwise, but is there anything else you want to share and document? 

 

00;51;20;13 - 00;51;49;19 

Joel Newman 

I can't think of anything specific. I, I think, you know, I think I've addressed the things that are meaningful to me. And, I think that what I always wish is that people will be kind of more aware, more conscious of what they're doing, and, let's say the, the impact on whatever they're doing on wherever they are and they'll make that'll make their own experience better. 

 

00;51;49;21 - 00;52;02;20 

Joel Newman 

And it'll probably make the world just a little bit better. So, I think that's a good approach to take to anything is just try to be a little bit more not self-conscious of it, but conscious of what you're doing, you know. 

 

00;52;02;20 - 00;52;06;26 

Andy Richardson 

Yeah. That's awesome. And that's a great lesson. Just I mean, because it's not just about architecture. 

 

00;52;06;26 - 00;52;26;06 

Andy Richardson 

It's not just about engineering. It's about this, that we're having a relationship. I mean, we've been working together for, like I said, 20 something years. And, we still get along and we've, we've had some, some interesting times where we have had to kind of wrestle with, with ideas and things and we somehow came out of it. 

 

00;52;26;10 - 00;52;26;23 

Joel Newman 

That's right. 

 

00;52;26;23 - 00;52;39;11 

Andy Richardson 

Successfully. So, and I'm proud of that, and I'm proud of being a part of the work that you're talking about. So that's pretty exciting. So yeah, thanks for being on Enhance today and glad to have you. And 

 

00;52;39;15 - 00;52;40;05 

Joel Newman 

I enjoyed it. 

 

00;52;40;05 - 00;52;42;05 

Andy Richardson 

Glad to be a friend with you. 

 

00;52;42;08 - 00;52;42;28 

Joel Newman 

I appreciate it. 

 

00;52;42;28 - 00;52;43;22 

Andy Richardson 

All right. Take care. 

 

00;52;43;26 - 00;52;46;04 

Joel Newman 

All right. Thanks. 

 

00;52;46;06 - 00;52;46;14 

Andy Richardson 

All right. 

 

00;52;46;15 - 00;52;49;27 

Andy Richardson 

Thanks everybody. And see you next episode.