Keynote: A Conversation with Tom Kundig, FAIA

This keynote presentation was a conversation with Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA, Principal / Owner & Founder, Olson Kundig, and Sarah Broughton, FAIA, Co-Founding Principal at Rowland+Broughton Architecture / Urban Design / Interior Design and 2023 President of AIA Colorado, at ENGAGE 2023 Practice + Design Conference.

Kicking off the conference, this keynote session featured Tom Kundig sharing his contextual approach to design, providing an overview of his work that often serves as a backdrop to the built, cultural, or natural landscapes that surround them. In the wide-ranging conversation, Tom shared his philosophies around craftsmanship, collaboration, and what it means for humans to be in a relationship with architecture.

“It was an honor to interview Tom as part of his keynote talk at the conference this year. Olson Kundig’s work and practice is an inspiration to me personally and I know many other Colorado AIA members share this admiration.

Tom’s candid and intimate sharing of his career and journey was enlightening. From how his mountain climbing hobby taught him time management, to his love of simple structures and his admiration of sculpture, it highlighted how Tom is able to consistently contribute and push his architecture. His openness echoes his curiosity and how that thirst for life has resulted on currently working on every continent other than Antarctica. Way to go Tom and thank you!“

— Sarah Broughton, FAIA

Tom on where he learned time management:

“Just starting with something that was super important to me, which were the mountains. I grew up in the mountains. My parents are both Swiss. So naturally, the mountains are really important to my life and I learned a few things mountain climbing and mountain skiing, and all of you that do those sports know how difficult those sports are, and the risk reward. And this is what was most important to learn, sort of risk reward for hard, hard work. Not necessarily romantic, some of those unbelievable, almost spiritual moments you get with a lot of hard work. 

And we all know as practicing architects, that’s what it’s all about. It’s really about hard work for occasionally, the really special moments. Climbing with John Roskelley and Chris Kopczynski, I learned how to time manage, which is a hard issue for a lot of architects and contractors. To date. I’ve never been wrong walking on a construction site. And a contractor will say the critical path is finishing this project on this date. I will consistently say you’re not even close. You’re four or five months away. And I’ve never been wrong, unfortunately, because that hurts us all.

What I learned from John, and was he obviously a world class climber. He says ‘as soon as you start to climb, you’re already behind schedule‘. And your job in every phase of the project is to find five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. So you’re banking the hours in advance of the inevitable surprise at the end of the project.

That’s the way a few of us in the office were when we were managing projects. And again, I learned that from climbing with John and Chris, learning how to manage my time. And to be tough as nails about the risk reward.”

A few of Tom’s thoughts for emerging professionals:

“..this is particularly important for the students or the young professionals in the audience, is if you work on small projects, you go through the cycles quickly. And so you recognize my scribble had this effect during construction. And it was either a good thing or was not a good thing. So you have that cycle. That goes quickly. When we worked on the Burke Natural History Museum, I was on that project for 14 years from scribbles to finally opening up… But if you were a young architect that worked on that project, you would only have seen it in 14 years. That’s a significant part of your career, working on a relatively complicated, large project, and you have a small part of it.

What we like to do is put students and young professionals on large projects to learn about large projects, but also have two or three small projects along the side. And you can only really do it in some retail kind of agendas. But we think the residential arenas, super important for that.”

“..for the students and young professionals, I was 32 years old when I started on this project, I don’t think I was doing architecture when I got my I got my license when I was 24 years old. And that was super young. And I said to my dad, you know, I actually don’t think I’m an architect. And he said to me, ‘well, you’re not actually. You’re licensed, but you’re not an architect.’ And I actually, that was actually a wise thing to say because, of course, I was involved in a number of buildings for a number of years. But until I worked on studio house, I didn’t feel like I had matured to the point where I was actually an architect. So be patient. It takes time. It’s frustrating, but it’s ultimately all worth it.”

Tom’s thoughts on mission statements:

“There is no agenda in our office. There is no mission statement in our office… I think it was Mark Cuban that said, ‘if you have a mission statement, you’re already you’re already failing.’ Which I think is kind of interesting. I don’t know if that’s totally true. But he said that and of course it made us feel good because we don’t have a mission. We don’t have any real agenda, other than just trying to do great work. And it doesn’t matter what the scale of the project is, what the budget of the project is.”

Tom’s use of technology and Artificial Intelligence:

“I participate in none of the new technologies. I’m still pencil and paper. If there’s a proportional study for fenestration or whatever I have to do with pencil, I don’t use pens anymore.

But obviously, the office is fully loaded for bear with technology. And it’s kind of amazing what it’s capable of doing. A.I. of course, we have we’re experimenting with A.I. It was kind of hilarious, because the A.I, group in the office went out and they punched in my name. And I saw that building and thought That’s actually pretty good. It was kind of scary. But it is a tool and I think it’s a really interesting tool. I think you gotta recognize it as a tool.So far, and it can probably help, you know, in some ways, sort of understanding a situation, but I find it fascinating.”

See more ENGAGE 2023 Practice + Design Conference coverage at aiacolorado.org/conference.

Also, keep an eye out for Tom’s conversation with Adam Wagoner on the Architect-ing podcast to be released in the coming weeks.