121: Built my Practice Series | Illya Azaroff

Before we get into today's episode, I want to share a quick note. This episode is part of a series I'm calling The Episodes That Built My Practice. What started as simple conversations, really coffee chats, with professionals across the industry turned into something much more impactful than I ever expected. These are the people taking time out of their day to share their stories, their experiences, and how they navigated their careers. And over time, those conversations started to shape how I think. They help me build confidence, work through imposter syndrome, and better understand what it really takes to grow in this profession and eventually to start my own practice. So I'm bringing back the episodes that had the biggest impact on me, 25 episodes, because sometimes one conversation can change how you see your entire career path. And I hope these do the same for you. I hope you enjoy listening to the 25 episodes that really shaped and built my career. And in the show notes below, I'm going to start off the show notes with the impactful lesson I learned from this individual. So don't forget to check out the show notes to see what the lesson was before you listen to this story. Hello and welcome to Mentor Dino. I'm your host, Caitlin Rozier. I am an architect and founder of Mentor Dino. I firmly believe that architecture, engineering, and construction professionals can achieve true success by embracing human skills as their guiding principle. So each week I interview amazing professionals in and around the AEC industry as a way to share stories, inspiration, and advice for others finding their own unique career path. Thank you to all of our current subscribers, and if you're new, we'd love to have you join our community. So if you like this episode, please do me a favor and hit subscribe, like, or leave a comment below. It really helps others be able to discover this resource and support them on their own career journey. So let's dive in. I really hope you enjoy this conversation. Welcome everyone to the Mentor Dino podcast. I would like to welcome Ilya Azaroff, architect and founding principal at Plus Lab Architects, PLLC in New York City. Thank you so much, Ilya, for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is a wonderful opportunity. Looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. So I always start out, my first question is kind of the big loaded question, just to give everybody context on your career path and journey and to set us up for our conversation today. So do you mind introducing yourself and letting us know a little bit about your experiences as far as education and your journey to where you are today? Sure. I think that's a great way to start. Yeah, my journey. Well, a little bit about me. So I'm an architect and I'm also a geographer, but just in terms of background, we have to go a little bit way back. I was born and raised. You can go back to Legos if you want. Legos, perfect. So I'm not one of those Lego architects that grew from that. I grew up in Nebraska, and my parents, my father was a war refugee. He was in a forced labor camp as a child during World War II. And so and I bring that up because it has a lot of formative during my formative years that that has really been something that has driven my career in a certain way. Because he experienced all of these things of hunger and displacement and all of these things that that when we were growing up, my brothers and sisters, any time that there was a any type of disruption. We lived in Tornado Alley, so every time that there was something that happened, we would go out and volunteer in the community or help out others. So it became part of my DNA growing up. And when I fast forward to going to the university, I went to the University of Nebraska for undergraduate school, and there was no programs at that time that really had sustainability or anything with environmental anything, right? So I double majored. So you can imagine going through architecture school. Now imagine going through architecture school and double majoring. You know, cause that for a second. But I was crazy enough to do that, so I finished my geography degree and then finished architecture and graduated when there was no work and decided to move overseas. It was a really great opportunity in retrospect. But I moved to Germany, worked in Germany, Italy, Holland, on some of the best projects in my career. If I really look back, we were working on international airports and schools and mixed-use buildings and you name it. But that period of time, coupled with my experience growing up, gave me a really good perspective. I came to New York in the late 1990s, and it turned into my home of homes. I went to graduate school at Pratt Institute, met my future wife in the city within the first week I was living in New York City. And that became my kind of trajectory. But the interesting thing is that I got involved in the AIA at that point in a very strange way because I built up this really great network in Europe. And this was going to be the place that I was going to live in. And I have colleagues and all of these things. And when I came back to the U.S., I only planned on being here for two years and finish graduate school and go right back. But lo and behold, now I'm here 2023, 2024. gosh, and forever. But so I went to a mixer as soon as it came down to it. And there it was, it was like, well, you know, get involved in the AIA. So that's kind of some of the background. But I think the whole issue of my parents and that background of war refugees really put me in a place where I've always wanted to help people. And my career has guided me that way. in multiple ways. It's not something that I ever tried to escape. I've ultimately come to realize I've embraced that in my career. And now I'm the owner of a founding partner of Plus Lab Architect in New York City, but we also opened an office in Los Angeles just a year and a half ago. So we're expanding and really working towards some of the things that I'm really passionate about. And some of that is really helping people. Yeah. So did you come back to the States for grad school for a licensure perspective? Like what was the pull for grad school? Great question. Great question. You know, the pull for grad school. Yeah. You asked a really great question because my undergraduate degree was not a first professional degree. It was a four-year degree in architecture. And so eventually I had to get either my first professional degree, go back to school and get a master's degree. So I was having it in the back of my mind. The work was so good in Europe that I didn't really think about that part of it until the economy started to get a little bit slower in Europe. And then I said, you know, I can really take advantage of this time. and then and really go to go after this master's degree in licensure. There's two things about that. One is I've always wanted to teach, which I'm happy that I'm teaching now. But the teaching, you know, you have to have a master's degree, at least at that time. And it sort of was catching two birds with one quick swoop. So I said, you know, two years and my job was safe for me. I was working in a great office. My boss, Manfred, he said, you know, you can take the time. You always have a job here. No problem. Lo and behold, now it's so many years later, I should give him a call. Let's do what happens. Yeah. And so could you have stayed in Europe and been licensed over there? Yes. Yeah. You can join the architect in Cammer, which is the Chamber of Architects, architects, as a Diplome Architect. So if you have a Diploma in Architecture, and it's an equivalent Diplome Architect, you can have a degree of practice. Then you can go for your BDA, which is taking your licensing exam. Now, I would have had to go through some hoops, but I could have stayed there, practiced under a licensed architect, sort of the system that you do have in a few states here and then go after the licensure as a BDA there. You know, a tougher path, but I had already been working there for several years. Really great mentorship, really good, really good experience. So it was definitely a path that I could have taken, certainly. Yeah, I was curious. I never looked into it. So minus I know the new connection to England that. Oh, really? So it's like, oh, I wonder if – I haven't looked through the full process, but like, oh, that made it a little bit easier if I ever want to move over to England and have a little bit easier of a connection. Exactly. I think that's great. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything, so I'd encourage you. I'd encourage everybody to work overseas for a while. It doesn't matter where it is. The experience is extraordinary and a slightly different way of doing things, But boy, it really adds to your your ability to take on challenges in the office. Yeah. And you talked about the challenges of the economy and kind of using that, which is not any of our control to guide other opportunities for yourself. So it was slow here. Jump over to Europe. And I know a number of people that have done that. And I know somebody a year ahead of me. I went to Kent State. He's over in Dubai and stayed there. yeah and it works it works in in my case i gotta tell you there was i graduated from class of 45 and um the economy was so bad in the u.s i i think that there's only three of us practicing now we lost all those those folks so every time that every time this downturn comes you know you just have to take the opportunity to go and see where there's work and at that stage in your life, you should just go for the work. Waiting it out may not be your best option. So I'm glad I went overseas because definitely that economy going down, I was in a great place. By the time I came back to the U.S., the economy was good again. Yeah. Now when you came back for your graduate degree at Pratt, was that just an architecture degree or did they have sustainability integrated at that point? Well, sustainability was an option, if I recall correctly. The rationale, the reason I selected Pratt is twofold. I wasn't sure I was going to get a job overseas, so I applied for graduate school while I was looking for work in the U.S. I couldn't find work in the U.S. I applied to five schools, I think, six schools. Pratt was my number one option, and the best thing is I was accepted in many schools, but they hold your place for 10 years. once you're accepted. So as soon as I had these acceptance letters, and then I got the job overseas, I called Pratt and asked them about it. They said, just, you have to call us the semester before and you're activated as a student. So they kind of made the choice for me because they left the door so wide open for you to give you options that I took it. But the reason I selected Pratt is because of one professor there, Hresh Levani, who teaches morphology. And so, you know, this is just when you've got people really getting into computers and, you know, sort of really digitization and using it as a major design tool. So I wanted to go back and really invest in that time about morphology and study of the outside world, whether it's plants or other sort of animals and how things moved. And you could create and use that as form drivers and instances of structural stability that derive right from your observation of the environment. And so he is a leading force in that. And I really wanted to go and work with him. And I became his teaching assistant while I was there. So that really is really what drove me. It was less about sustainability. I'd already gotten to a place where with my undergraduate degrees that I felt comfortable and enjoyed what I was getting at. Yeah. And then switching gears to Plus Lab. Yes. Can you how did you decide? First, we'll start with how did you decide to have your own practice and create Plus Lab? And maybe you'll touch on a little bit about what you're doing within Plus Lab along that journey. Yeah. You know, so Plus Lab, you know, it is the second iteration of of a studio of studios that I've started or office that I founded. when I was in undergraduate school the the people that I respected the most were were professors who were one foot in practice one foot in education and they had a research focus uh and so I always thought that at some point in my career that's what I want to do and every office I worked in I was always trying to teach uh as an adjunct on the side what have you so when I thought about going out on my own, it was one of those kind of serendipity things. There was another person in the office I was in, and we decided to go out together and start an office. And that office, you know, was short-lived. It was just before 9-11. We got a lot of work going. We had many employees, and we had offices in lower Manhattan, and we were doing work for the Museum the modern art. We were doing work for all sorts of folks, but it wasn't exactly the kind of work I wanted to do. True to the DNA that I described growing up, it was a learning experience. We learned how to collaborate. It was called the Design Collective. When 9-11 hit, obviously, that hit a lot of people economically as well as the tragedies that unfolded. We had to split up. And so I purchased the office from him and relaunched it as Plus Lab and then decided to take the office the direction I wanted to go with the type of work I wanted to do. And that's kind of how it started. But I always kind of knew that I wanted to have an office First one was based in collaboration learning how to collaborate with people The second one is really about working with people affected by climate change working on the front lines of this needed adaptation and there's a third studio that's bouncing around in my head that is about financing your own projects on the developer side. That would be the third office that I would open after this one, if I get to that point, but that's sort of the thing that I planned out for myself over the years. So I don't know if that answers your question. It kind of, it's, there was some desire for it, but then just some opportunity that just arose to start things out. Now, the type of work I did touch on a little bit about this, that DNA of helping people has never left me. The stories my father told as a war refugee always stayed with me. And the work that I do and the expertise that I have in terms of building resilient capacity, teaching people about adaptation and uplifting communities is the work that the office does. it slowly creeped from only a small piece of the office to now probably between 80 to 85 percent of our billing is this kind of work and we do a lot of advisement or I do with the federal government local governments all kinds of things but it's very satisfying work and I learned so much from the people that i mean great right yeah how was that transition once you guys were splitting like you said you build a pretty substantial office how was i see like more you know some people may not like the direction it goes and some people follow and so how is that dynamic from a leadership perspective well it was the the tough part of the leadership at that point was the fact that we had multiple employees. 9-11 happened. Every client called to cancel their projects because they didn't know what was happening or put them on hold. We had to slowly, one by one, try very hard, but we had to just start letting people go. And that was the really toughest thing because we had built relationships with these amazing people and we held on to our last employee as long as we could. and it just was evident. We had to shutter our doors. And so when I relaunched, we spent a lot of effort. When you start an office, you hire legal teams. You have to do all kinds of things to get registered and everything from bank accounts and setting all these things up. There's a major amount of infrastructure. Now, even though that it desiccates, it comes down to a place where you don't have, maybe you come back to just you as the sole employee, you still have all of that infrastructure. So in my case, we went down to this place where we had equipment. So we decided, you know, here's how we're going to do this. He wanted some of the equipment. Go ahead and take some computers. I'm going to go ahead and offload the rest of these. Hold on to this. And we went amicably. But what I did get was the client list from that and then the name of the business. And, you know, lo and behold, within 10 months, 12 months, almost every one of those projects came back. all the ones that were on hold. And so it was a good sound financial and business move in the end. But it also allowed me to really, in that moment of pause, to think about what's important to me as an architect. What do I want to do with my career? And all the projects we were doing were fine. They were some wonderful people, but it wasn't exactly this type of work that I'm describing now. So that catalyzed and changed and gave me the freedom to really explore the direction that I really wanted to take my career. And it was a hard time, but I wouldn't trade that time. It helped me look in the mirror and realize who I am. Yeah. And I didn't pry me more being younger and naive when 9-11 hit I didn't even know an architect existed so understanding that anything I would have seen in the news was more the fatalities like yeah the building structure was hit and then I was fascinated with how it fell and so I think that's where some of the architecture in me came out on I was curious to why and how and how they built it different and And then when the new tower was built, how they were trying to, you know, fix it from another plane crash and what would happen and the lessons learned. But I never realized the economic impact on firms, but I'm also not in New York City either. So I was a little bit more removed from any of the bigger consequences out there. So that was just something I didn't realize happened, but makes sense. it's a lot like covid where everybody didn't know what was going on and all the projects get put on hold because they're not sure and they want to wait and see and then they come back blazing and you're like crap yeah truly yeah um i know those projects weren't exactly aligned with where you wanted to take the office do you have any advice for somebody that's starting out their own practice and maybe grabbing work that isn't perfectly aligned quite yet? Yeah, I think if you, yes, I do have good advice for that. Or I think it's a good advice. Maybe people are going to say, no, it's terrible. But, you know, there's a couple of things you should recognize. You've learned what all architects are going after. So just call that, that's the sandbox everyone's playing in. Great thing about the generation that's coming up are people that are really looking at starting their office. The diversification of practice is incredible these days. Just look at my practice. It's a practice that does not do the same kind of work that most of the offices do. So what I call that is there's all these other sandboxes. Look at the other sandboxes to play in. If you have a giant RFP that these 10 offices are going after, there's a whole bunch of other sandboxes that no architects are involved, that they're not going after work, all of those things. So here's my advice. My advice is there's projects that are in that learned state. Here's what architects do. Take those projects, but make sure that you have a plan that you can say, here, I'm taking these projects that I can begin to understand how that advances, profits from that begin to advance me towards where I want to go. It's easy to get sucked into, oh, I'm getting this kind of work all the time. I'm doing high and residential interiors all the time. Great. But is that what you truly wrote and what you want to be true to yourself? Because ultimately, the best work you're going to do is when you're true to yourself. That is completely the honesty that I can give you. It may not be the highest paying work. It may not be, but you're going to sleep well. You're going to be satisfied. You're going to take joy in the work that you're doing. And remember, it's a third of your life if you really say, I'm sleeping eight hours a day and eight hours a day I'm at work. And then the other eight hours is everything else that I need to do that is my own life. Wouldn't it be great if that eight hours that is work is something that I'm deriving utter joy and satisfaction out of? I feel as though that it is a reflection of who I am internally. So that's my advice is look at other sandboxes. Don't be straightjacketed by what you've learned so far. Always look at where other things are happening. And if you do take that work, make sure that your goal of where you want to get to is not obscured or subsumed by the money you're making from those projects. Use it to advance to a better place. Honestly, you must. Yeah, that's great advice. and just the stepping stones. You don't have to do what everybody else tells you all the time. No, you should not. And I know the practice focuses more on resiliency. Do you have a favorite project you've worked on that maybe has really hit the nail on the head on what you've been wanting to do? Oh, you know, we're a favorite project. You know, we're always in the state of becoming. So I've got, You know, I look at a couple of ways. I don't look at them as projects. I look at people. The people who I've worked with become my favorite people. And I'm always learning something new from these projects because they're very research driven from the culture and the place that we're at. and uh so you know a couple of them that come to mind the the current project we're working on is in hawaii and we're working with uh native hawaiian communities on the north shore of oahu this project is called the koalaloa community resilience hub it's a whole campus of five acres three buildings are being planned we've been working at this for five years we just went through the environmental assessment process and whatnot. But what is really great about this is that they reached out to my office because of the past work we've done with indigenous communities. And it's taken the first three years of just working with and us learning about Hawaiian culture, about this place, about the land, all of these things to gain an understanding that we begin to move towards a regenerative design process. So a regenerative design process is cultural regeneration. It's regeneration of economy, creating new pathways for this community to flourish into the future that was so needed that that's why it's become one of my favorite projects. The Kapuna or the elders have taught me so much about life, people, place, that it's extraordinary. But the other part of this is that it's a restoration of what's called an aupua'a, which is a land management area from native Hawaiians. It's an ancient Hawaiian practice that really looks at the geography. There's my geographer coming back. The geography of a place that is a drainage basin and the plantings all the way up the drainage basin, all the way up the valley, have different areas. There is an agroforest that you gather native plants that are for eating. And then there's agropharma, which is native plants for medicinal use. And then there's all of these plantings and water management and everything all the way down to the ocean. And this is an ancient area that used to have that kind of land management. So we're restoring that land management. We're taking away invasive species. The invasive species are being used for production of materials to build the site. We have partners that will be teaching native Hawaiian language, education practices, teaching people how to plant and take care of the land in these types of ways. But at the same time, we're creating this resilience hub that could take a Category 5 hurricane direct hit and house 1,500 people during that storm. So we balanced this idea of the Native Hawaiian practices that are custodial over the land with what's necessary to survive some of these climactic-driven events. And so that's my current one because they have my heart. And every time they go, it's amazing, amazing people. I know that's what I've I found myself learning you always learn about yourself and what you're passionate about architecture and I found it's always the people for me so that's all it was refreshing to hear I'm like okay I'm not alone because it's always um like most recently I had psychology researchers and learning what each one of them do and what their research is and their background besides the fact that I love psychology and neuroscience and everything so that was my own uh fun passion side but learning so much on what they're doing to really get to the heart and the soul of what we're designing and creating for them is so important granted I didn't have to do a whole landscape and look at the background culture of it but I think that's so important. We learn site context in school, but the site context needs to also be the culture, the people, and expand beyond that to make sure it all makes sense. Well said. And so this is now we have a kinship because my projects are about the people and so are yours. At least that's my focus. I don't care if I don't win a design award. I care if My teams have fun. We all had fun as the bigger design construction team and that the users or occupants using the space enjoy the space and habit it well are excited to be there. That's what makes a winning project for me, regardless if it's just a cinder block walls and it's simple, but I don't care. you you uh you would fit in my office very very well that is the exact ethos we want out of the people that are in the studio it's about everything that you just said right on spot on and then i want to shift off resiliency a little bit um i know you mentioned that you're an adjunct professor i think you're at um cuny if i recall correctly yeah so what are you teaching over there and how are you balancing your time between teaching and running a practice? You know, so I'm at the New York City College of Technology, which is part of CUNY, and I've been there for about 15 years. Yeah, I think so. It's been a good long while. And there's a couple of things about the school. So I know you asked about what I teach, But again, it's about the people. So this school is the largest undergraduate architecture school in the tri-state area. Almost 800 undergraduate architecture students. But the really great thing about these kids, and I call them kids because I just feel custodial over them, we get each other because they're all either first generation born here or direct immigrants. that's almost 90 of our population and we are a minority serving institution so most of the time english is the second language and i can see their struggles the same struggles that i had as as first generation born here and all of the the things that they're going through so they're an amazing group right so in this school i i actually coordinate the sustainability um sustainability courses for the architects and the engineering department. And I also teach design, and the design that I teach has to do with, the coursework is called Designing for Disruption, really looking at communities that are facing hazards and have people understand all the students understand how do you assess risk over a long period of time And now what is your design response for it Always centering on culture and people and place and then looking at the science that necessary So those are the two sort of areas that I engage in. And I'm a professor in practice, so I'm no longer an adjunct. I'm a faculty member. And how I balance that is your other question. And I think I alluded to it earlier that I admired the most, the faculty members that I admired the most. They had one foot in practice and one foot in education because everything that they were talking about and everything that they would say to you had a basis of reality to it that it was comfortable to me. That's maybe not for all students. I always found that to be something I wanted to bring to the classroom. But the other side of it is it reminds me as an architect that everything is possible. Seeing projects and ideas through eyes of these younger design professionals as they come through, they come up with ideas and things that you've never seen before. And it reminds me, wait a minute, I cannot get stuck in this concrete of learned, this is what it must be. You've got to move away from that and accept that the first statement I made, we're always in a state of becoming. We're always moving towards the next thing. And they keep me fresh with that. And I give them what I hope is a license to be creative and understand that they can make a difference, a real impact in this world with all the things you're going to do. whether it's adaptation in communities, helping people in one way or the other, whatever it may be. So that's how I balance it. One feeds the other, right? Yeah. Recently in an office, these fresh ideas from these kids, I'm like, whoa, wow. What they come up with and they don't have the work world holding you back and like, oh, wait, you got to think about money. Let that happen later. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know I always appreciate the professors that were in both because it was really the abstract studios that I just didn't get. I'm probably just too practical of a person to be like, no, this can't stand or this can't fit. And so it was like I probably more struggled with the super creative side of college, but I was ready for practice. There you go. And then I know you mentioned you got heavily involved in the AIA once you moved back to the States. And you've done so much with the AIA and you're even a fellow. And I have learned a little bit more about fellowship and how there's the different kind of chapters or I forget what you guys call it. I'm blanking the number category. Yeah. But there's something special. It's called instead of category. I am blanking, but I'll think of it by the end. But how did, what is behind your F behind the AIA and what's everything you've been doing within the AIA since you've got back to the States? Wow. Those are two really big pieces. That's why I figured you'd start with fellow, or if you want to build up to fellow, if it's a better story. Well, you know, I think you could probably guess what my fellow focus was. It's service to society. And because of the work that I do, that was an easy story to tell. and becoming a fellow, it's wonderful because it validates on your peers that, yeah, you know, the work that I've been doing, although in my case, my work is a little odd compared to or it's a little off the beaten path to a normal office does. But to get that validation of you've done some work that has had impact, and it's really about impact, less about the award, But just so people understand that you can have impact with this trajectory was really the get for that F. And it's been a wonderful, wonderful journey to get there. But the leadership side, the assumption was, is when I was going for my fellowship, that because you've done so much leadership that you're going to go for leadership at the Institute. leadership that's right i was gonna say either community-based or within the association because i know that's a category as well so i was curious which one because you you're very strong in both at least in my opinion but thank you anyway well the leadership to me is leadership is is the is the mechanism to actually make things happen but your passion for what you're doing is is rooted in in something else. And so, yes, I enjoy taking on the leadership role, but the leadership is to do what? And for me, the what has been to help communities. And so the result of helping communities, it's what resonates. In terms of leadership, you're right. When I came back to the US, I knew that after I met my future wife that, oh, you know, I'm not going to be heading back to Europe. I have a whole network there. So I went to an AI mixer and that very first AI mixer as a young associate member, the local component president at the time. She tapped me on the shoulder, introduced herself. Margaret Helfand was her name, amazing woman, incredible architect. And she challenged me to get involved. And so I did. And she's unfortunately long since passed away. But that started me on a journey to create these constituencies and networks and meet all these amazing people. And from that era, from that time forward, I volunteered on committees like many do and became a committee chair and then on to local board service. And along the way, the YAF was part of my journey. The Young Architects Forum, one of the best things that I've ever done. The people that I served with are still my friends. They're still my colleagues. We struggle. The best thing about that, You're in an age with the same group of people struggling with the same kind of issues, and the sharing has never stopped. That support network of mine, they're great. And from that service, I eventually got to a place where I did serve in 2021 as the state president for New York. And that to me is amazing. I love the 13 components that we have, some completely unstaffed, other staffed. But the camaraderie around the state and how we try to lift each other up was extraordinary. And I was during COVID. I was one of the presidents during COVID. So that took on a whole other complexion. And that's where my disaster training and resilience side coupled with my experience in leadership. We created a task force. It was the unified task force, city and state. We won a Component Excellence Award for it. But the true story, aside from the award, we activated all 13 components. We worked with the city and state governing bodies. Everybody that needed our help, including the Department of State, asked us to identify buildings for the bed surge. In 24 hours, we had 1,000 buildings across the state from our members that found all of this information for the state so we could handle the coming onslaught. We wrote all the guidelines for outdoor dining, retrofit of buildings for safe interiors with air handling and quality. We did work for micro-manufacturing of PPE equipment from all of the offices across the state. If you had a 3D printer in your office, you were making PPE by our standards that we helped gather from this task force, and we were giving them to the fire department and to the health care workers. So that whole effort lasted when I was president-elect and through my presidency to really help the state of New York. And I'm very proud of that because the number of members that came forward, the new leaders that came forward, it was extraordinary. So that's a big piece of my journey. And it seems like I'm always in this place where these events or all the disruptions bring out the best in many people around me, and they bring out the leader in me. Hurricane Sandy was another one. I was with AI New York Chapter when Hurricane Sandy hit. Based on the work that I was doing in transforming my office, I was working with city government and working in the disaster relief areas at the emergency relief centers. And I brought the AIA with me. And from there, we sort of have never stopped helping the city understanding what resilience looks like. uh so i guess those those local things put me in a place to move on to national and uh gosh from in 2016 i was on the strategic council until 2018 another amazing thing i i liken that to my years of the yaf because the people that you're working with and the study it was all about research and research to what to advance the profession in areas that it's never thought about or were just coming up, whether it was new technologies or, in my case, it was about resilience and sustainability. And that was really wonderful. I truly enjoyed that. And now I'm on the national board. I was in a great position to be elected just over a year ago. I'm in my second year of my term as an at-large director. And in this role, they've recognized my value of some of the things we're talking about. I was the chair of the COP28 delegation going to Dubai, really advancing who we are as architects, introducing folks to the fact that we have a role to play in climate action. And I've also been the chair of Cicada. Now, Cicada is a weird thing. You think about – when I heard Cicada, I think about the – The bug. The insect. Yeah. But CICADA stands for, in AIA terms, is the Committee on Climate Action and Design Excellence. So that's an amazing group of folks that we work on the Framework for Design Excellence. We work with a lot of great committees like the COAT Committee and whatnot that we're really trying to move things along in a much, much better way for all members. Again, lifting all boats. So this seems to be a theme. So I'm glad you hit on this because now I'm kind of realizing, you know, all the things that I do in practice and I do with these communities that I'm very interested in, I'm trying to do the same thing inside our profession to raise all boats and really gather the forces of these amazing people that we're working with to accomplish that. And so with all your involvement with being New York State president, being on more national with the board of directors, where do you think AI leadership should be going or is going based on what you've experienced? Well, you know, I think there's a couple of things that as the Institute, you know, we're the largest professional design organization in the entire world. And I think as an organization, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and kind of embody that to take on a leadership role in the public realm in a much better way. I said earlier that I was kind of spoiled working in Europe because one thing I didn't mention is that you're respected as an architect in a very profound way, culturally. you're put on a very high pedestal and in the US we need to be in that public perception but to embody that as an institute I think that's a leadership role that should be taken on and the other thing is is that globally these challenges that we're facing in society and with climate need these kind of global solutions and as architects we're leading our communities but we need to be able to visualize a future that the Institute supports. How do we create the infrastructure that every architect in his or her community brings leadership to advance that community in a much stronger way? Because quite frankly, I've seen my colleagues in large offices, small offices. People are doing this work every day. But to me, it's the role of the Institute and to really bring those leaders forward to enable them to create that transformative change in society today, in those communities today for not just resilience and sustainability, but also equity, circular economy, all the things that our projects directly affect and then tangentially affect. So I think that's the leadership that needs to happen. And I think we can get there. I think we can. There's enough great people out there working on this and the Institute can do that. Thanks for asking. I think that's a great question. yeah no i always there are certain things that come out of the institute that absolutely make it for me for what i'm a member for for what we're doing and doing some change and making some guidance um i'd like to see some communication language change that would be the challenge to bring the people slide in because I think the challenge is speaking and using a whole other language because I think we flex our architect speak a little bit too much and we aren't trained to how to connect to all these different communities. You talk about working with people in all different types of culture scenarios. I'm sure you've noticed you've had to change how you talk about design and how you talk about how it integrates into culture. And I think we need to flex our muscles a bit more into that to make those bigger impacts that you mentioned. Because if we can't change our language to articulate our value, then we can only go so far because not everybody has an architectural background knowledge. Everybody has their own experiences. I kind of explained to like the English as a second language barrier that you see in universities That same thing happens with our communities That really smart so right So and Caitlin what you bringing up is is incredible If we if we think that we are guests in a place, how do we demonstrate that we are hearing what other people are saying and you're getting at it right away? That's brilliant. And even, even just doing standard buildings and nothing that's a huge cultural impact. A lot of the times we're doing work in different cities and we don't spend as much time learning on the culture of that university or the culture of that city to really make sure it's ingrained. Yeah. I love that. And I know you're also on the Advisory Council for the Building Energy Exchange. Can you explain a little bit on what that organization is about and doing and what your role is. This is a really great organization that its sole purpose is to advocate for, educate and bring forward energy transition for communities. And their main focus is New York City. So we have communities that are really challenged economically, the building stock, everything. And this organization is really advocating for, at the highest levels, the newest building standard we have to have beyond net zero, all of these things, but then also for building owners that are multifamily and we have to do retrofits. So the role there was a gathering of some of the experts of New York City, engineers, architects, developers, building owners, to come together. So what you just talked about communication, this was about pulling together all of the data, but turning it into something that is legible and consumable by the general public to understand what energy transition is. What's it going to do for me? How do I get there? And that is, to me, extraordinary. When I say raising all boats in all of the discussion we've had. This is something that we have to bring people forward if we're going to get to serious climate action. So the Building Energy Exchange has done an extraordinary job at putting together a lot of this information, very consumable to the public, but it advocates for actively putting out guidelines, changing laws, lobbying at all levels of government. So my role there was to advise in that communication process and understanding how the constituency of architects, clients, and who we work with across the various sectors would best fit that communication style. And that's ongoing work. They're doing an extraordinary amount of work, I must say. It's a great organization. yeah have you since so many of these organizations have done work more locally in new york city and climate action this is more off the cuff but have you studied yet the rising waters in new york city in terms of you know a little storm the subway starts flooding and it's what are we going to do if the whole city floods? It's a lot of people. I've studied that quite a lot and advise the city government, the current administration, the last administration, as a subject matter expert. How does the water really affect the built environment and the communities? And it's every piece of infrastructure. There are seven community lifelines, which is everything from transportation, health systems, shelter, food, water, all of those things. And you really look at an evaluation process of when we have inundation in water, oh, well, it's only those streets there. No, it's not only those streets there. That means that transportation has changed. It may be that electric exchange boxes are changed. It may be all kinds of things have changed. So I've studied this a lot. The New York City Panel on Climate Change says that we could have as much as 114 inches of sea level rise by the end of the century. 114 inches. And when you look at that mapped geographically, it is currently, it's 400, it's 440,000 New Yorkers are in the floodplains. Currently, not including population growth over this next remaining of the century. So what do we do? Well, right now there's an enormous amount of work being done based on these reports and analysis of what is going to happen to various neighborhoods. And piece by piece, phase by phase, city governments, along with the private sector, have identified areas, put out contracts to really embed resilience into a lot of these places to keep these neighborhoods safer. Those are approaches that will give us more time to make major changes, which is manage retreat. Some of these areas, based on economy, based on where people are, may not be able to be saved for living. But in terms of resilience and regeneration, if we're going to move people, that's part of the work we have to do. Where do they go? We upzone and change parts of the city. The areas that we quote-unquote abandon are not abandoned. Those turn into public amenities, new wetland, propagation of new species. Maybe this is new parkland destinations for those future families. So we can't look at this as climate is changing. It's going to continue to change. What are we going to do to create a resilient, sustainable, healthy, and equitable future? So that's the work. That's the work that we all should be engaging in. And in New York City, I'm just pleased to be part of these advisory groups, working with teams that are actually doing a lot of this work. We've done many projects in and out of the flood zones that consider a lot of this data. We did a small project, a small house that changed the federal guidelines for building resilient housing in flood zones after Hurricane Sandy. I'm very proud of that very small little tiny house that has now changed all of federal guidelines because of the diligent work that we did with a lot of great people. So you ask a great question, what are we going to do? It's not just New York City. So if you think about it, throughout the United States and across the world, this is an issue that we're facing everywhere. Last year alone, 114 million people were displaced by natural man-made disasters. Every year that's gone up. And it's going to continue to rise. So as architects, we need to look at receiver cities. What you and I just talked about, how can we address our communities to make sure that we're proactive about these things instead of waiting for people who are forcibly displaced, they lose their livelihoods. And potentially their lives is not a great way to be. Health, safety, and welfare, we should be really looking at this head on and saying city has to change. Living patterns have to change. We know how to do that as architects with our colleagues across all of the spectrum of folks to make these sustainable communities. And in the end, what do we do with the land and the areas that are changing? Let's have a great conversation about that. Take on the positive of it. Yeah. Yeah. And what you mentioned with adaptability in a lot of your work, we adapt to change to the different climate. we will not be living 20 years from now as we did 50 years ago and so we have to adapt and not viewing it as so much of a negative as all right what do we do about it now and get ahead of it yeah and i i just everybody to get to this place in the profession this is the biggest source of work, but it's also the biggest issue that we face as society. And we as the architects, as a profession, we have a natural leadership role to take here to make substantive change and transformation that will benefit all. Yeah. And what other organizations have left an impact on your journey? And I are involved in so much. One that I really love is Oceanic Global. I'm on their scientific advisory board. And their sole purpose is to have healthy oceans. They have campaigns to take plastic out of the waste stream. They're a constant fixture at the United Nations. They're helping sign agreements, training people how to change from, say, the tourism industry to get away from all the plastics. How do you take that industry and make it an ecological positive for places rather than something that degrades places? So I love this group because they are so focused on one of the great drivers of the world, the ocean. And the people that are there are just incredible. They have ideas that can really change things. So look them up. They have film nights. They have huge gatherings all around the world, training, you name it. They're amazing. They're really amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I'll have to look that one up. Now, I always like wrapping up my podcast with this final question, and it's what advice do you have for young professionals just starting their career? How young? You know, I think there's a couple of things that come to mind. Given that I work at a university and I see a lot of young up-and-coming professionals, I think that you don't settle for conformity. We've mentioned that before. You have to embrace change. We're in the midst of the greatest disruption in our lifetimes. In the history of humanity, we're in one of these incredible disruptions that is changing everything with climate, with finance, with how we work coming out of the pandemic. These are all different things. So one thing that you should keep in mind as you're taking your career forward, during major disruption, the rules no longer apply. All the rules get thrown out. So think about COVID. All the rules are thrown out. Oh, we can't do this anymore. You can't go to school. you can't do this, you can't do this. You're right. So new systems have to emerge. If you embrace that change and understand we're in the moment of incredible disruption, your ideas have more value than I think you realize. So embrace change and pull your ideas forward and openly share them. This is not like I hold onto this because when you openly share them, it's a and one. It's a plus one. It's yes. And with all of your colleagues, you advance things so rapidly. So that's one of the major pieces of advice. And then the other thing is that, you know, because you have such powerful ideas and that communication is really important, I think the last piece of advice is really to plug the planet. Again, the greatest source of work for you out there, if you're not working on creating a better planet through addressing climate action, taking climate action, then you will be in your career. So jump on now. And this is, you know, so working in Polynesia and across the Pacific, this is a great thing that Dr. Tusi, one of my mentors said, he said, you know, we're all in the same storm. We are. We're in the same storm. The trick is that most people are not in the same boat. We need to get all in the same boat. We know what our horizon is. We know the trajectory. We know the direction. We all need to get there together, putting in the effort of navigating together, of rowing together, of sailing together to get to that destination. And for me, that is adapting to a hotter, wetter world and creating sustainable, resilient communities. So that is your career. My advice to you is really take your ideas and fly with them and really start addressing climate action on a daily basis. It's what we all have to do. Yeah, that's great advice because there's wide open. And what they can do, what they can double major in to help them out on their journey. The double major, yes. Yeah. Now, if anyone wants to learn more about your practice or wants to talk to you more about your work and resiliency or get involved more with the AIA, what's the best way to get a hold of you? Well, if you go, you can go two ways. One is my website. If you go to – it's pluslabglobal.com. That's an easy one. If you want to reach out to me, my email and everything is listed there. But it's really easy. It's my first initial and last name. It's IAzeroff at PlusLabGlobal.com. Reach out. I'm more than happy to continue any dialogue, mentorship, or point people in a direction to get them where they want to go. You know? Exactly. And sometimes that's all you need is a point or a push. And you got where you're going. Thank you so much, Ilya, for taking the time to speak with me today. It was fantastic. This is amazing. I'm very pleased to have gotten through this interview and learn more from you about communication and trajectory. So thank you. Remember, it's about the people. So I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed our discussion today. Learn some advice to take with you and see how our industry is all tied together to create the world around us. Check out the description below for any links or resources we discussed. If you liked the episode, please do me a favor and hit the subscribe button. Give me a thumbs up and leave a comment below. It really helps others be able to discover this resource and support finding that career path that best works for them. If you know someone that has inspired your own career that you'd like me to interview, let me know in the comments below. Or you can reach out to me via my website or LinkedIn. I'd be happy to share their story or your own. Thank you again, and I cannot wait for the next career story I get to share with you next week. you