SOFTlab team. Photo courtesy of SOFTlab

Executing projects through experimentation and technical refinery, Michael Szivos of SOFTlab focuses his energy on creating new ways for the boundaries of architecture to overlap with other materials, digital techniques, and disciplines. Starting your practice is not an easy task. After receiving his graduate degree in architecture from Columbia GSAPP, Szivos sought to work on projects that pushed his creative process while challenging the scale and feasibility of his work. Established as a studio whose expertise ranges from digital fabrication to immersive and interactive installations, SOFTlab has made their mark in the fields of architecture, art, and technology.

For this week's Studio Snapshot, Szivos shares his humble beginnings as an emerging designer. We discuss the struggles of design feasibility  in addition to how he manages the business and creative side of the practice. From discussions about interactive multimedia to the origins of the studio's name, Szivos shares with Archinect what helps drive the studio and keeps the practice motivated during design experimentation.

How many people are in your practice?

Right now we are 7 people. We are usually between 5 and 10 people.

Why were you originally motivated to start your own practice?

During the end of my final semester at GSAPP I was just starting to think, “this was all a blast, but I need to get a job to pay off these loans!”, and before I really began looking for a job, a number of freelance jobs came up. The scopes of those jobs were pretty diverse and the experience was radically different than my time in an architecture office. Rather than working on one or two large projects at a desk, I was working on a wide range of projects and visiting a number of other designers and practices in their spaces around NYC. It was an exciting time, and SOFTlab grew out of some of the more ambitious and consistent freelance work.

While in many ways it just kind of happened, I always knew I wanted to start my own practice. I think I was motivated for the typical reasons, but I also remember being fairly angsty about proving that things could be done differently. I was really anxious to use the wide range of creative tools we were exploring in grad school to develop projects that might be found at the boundaries of architecture, or in the overlaps with other disciplines. I wanted to do real work with clients rather than drawings, renderings, etc. If architecture didn’t immediately provide this, I would simply look elsewhere. The only criteria was that it be design work, and that it be commissioned rather than speculative. We started by doing video and interactive work as well as helping other artists figure out how to execute their projects.

What hurdles have you come across?

Running a business is just one giant hurdle! The logistics of simply running an office while trying to produce work that you feel is exciting can be daunting and overwhelming. For me, the business side of things is just a necessary part of the process of executing work. It is just one of many logistical parts of a project. Everything services the projects, whether it is the exciting parts of the design process or the more banal stuff (which I do a lot of!) like scheduling, proposals, contracts, payroll, etc.

One of the biggest (and most frustrating) hurdles early on was convincing people we could execute the work we were proposing. There was a lot of interest in our early work, but a lot of it was temporary and made with little-to-no budgets in galleries, so it was hard to move from that initial interest to a real commission. Over the years our work slowly became more ambitious, and now we have produced a number of larger-scale permanent works and have a number of projects in construction and development. It is refreshing that feasibility or confidence is no longer an issue and our portfolio has now become our greatest asset. In hindsight I question that initial frustration because I think what seemed like a slower move up in scale fostered a more organic development in growth that allowed us to retain what we hold important about the earlier work and refine that through larger scale work.

One of the biggest (and most frustrating) hurdles early on was convincing people we could execute the work we were proposing. [...] In hindsight I question that initial frustration because I think what seemed like a slower move up in scale fostered a more organic development in growth that allowed us to retain what we hold important about the earlier work and refine that through larger scale work.

Is scaling up a goal or would you like to maintain the size of your practice?

Scale of the office is not something I think about too much as a measure of how we are doing as an office. I always figure we can scale up to suit the work. With that said, however, I think a comfortable limit for me would be 20 people.

I think our growth has been fairly organic over the years which has allowed us to really consider each project. We basically grow to accommodate the various types of projects we are working on. Lately the scale of our work has increased and at times we have had 10 people in the office, which has felt like a management threshold in terms of what I can achieve by myself. I think the dynamic of the office would change if we were above 10 people. We would need an office manager, and I also think projects will become more compartmentalized.Those changes could make things easier in ways, but I very much like the dynamic now where everyone knows enough about all of the projects we are working on, so that there is always a cross pollination among projects, ideas, and teams.

What are the benefits of having your own practice and staying small?

Having your own office allows you to evaluate where there are opportunities and risks worth taking. We are constantly undertaking a wide range of projects and clients, from large brands, developers, and institutions, to public art organizations. Each one of these clients provide a large range of opportunities and budgets. We are now lucky enough to be in a position to decide which projects offer the opportunity for experimentation versus the projects that offer an opportunity for refinement. Because we are small it is easier to imagine the office as collection of work. Rather than thinking of each project as having to break even or generate income, the office is treated as a large project. In that sense some projects subsidize the more experimental work and being small allows us to keep track and choose which projects offer opportunity beyond the money they generate. I am constantly trying to negotiate and predict when a project might offers the right opportunity and setting for us to explore new boundaries in our work. Sometimes I get this wrong, but in general we have had a number of great clients that have not only supported us, but have been excited to be part of a more experimental and open ended process.

Do you have a favorite project? Completed or in progress.

Projects I am fond of are some of our early ones, where we were less interested in where they might lead and the atmosphere in the office was very much about just testing things and testing what was possible. Although I am romantic about that time, it was obvious that this would be difficult to sustain financially. We try to keep a version of this atmosphere in the studio by doing 2 or 3 projects a year that are chosen more for their context and the opportunity to do something new, rather than their size or budget. Lately the projects that really excite me are the ones where we get to combine the various strands of work in the office, including interactivity, physical installations, and architecture.

Okay, I have to ask, what led you to naming the practice SOFTlab? It's such a specific word choice that's definitely memorable, but very fitting of your studio's ethos.  

I don’t really think of the name that much anymore, someone did ask me recently if the “SOFT” stood for software and I thought that was funny. I started the studio with a partner and we both agreed we didn’t want the studio to be some variation of our names. We were young and romantic and thought it should really be a place of experimentation. That’s where the “lab” comes from. “SOFT” came from the idea that we could create an office that is made up of a small group of people that were malleable through a wide range of skills and interests. We didn’t need to take on more people or “experts” but would simply adjust to accommodate various projects. At the time we were also engaged in video work, websites, interactive media and the production of large scale sculptures and exhibitions. In general I have endured so many jokes from friends about the “SOFT” part of our name, which is all in good fun; we get random calls from people who thinking we are some type of clinic, and we say the name twice a lot because people often don’t understand the name. There are times now that I wonder if we are living up to the “lab” part of our name and this is something that reminds us to retain an attitude that is consistent to why the studio was formed in the first place. I am more conscious lately about actively pursuing a couple of projects a year that allow us to live up to our name. So in a way it acts as a mechanism to remind us why the studio was started.

There are times now that I wonder if we are living up to the “lab” part of our name and this is something that reminds us to retain an attitude that is consistent to why the studio was formed in the first place. I am more conscious lately about actively pursuing a couple of projects a year that allow us to live up to our name. So in a way it acts as a mechanism to remind us why the studio was started.

All of your projects cover many mediums. Can you talk to us about this approach to experimentation, specifically in the realm of interactive multimedia and public installation?

In general we are all nerds and geeks about both design and making things. We are really interested in testing what is possible and for us that is intimately linked with rethinking the relationship between craft and technology. The studio started around the premise of simply testing the conventions of what a small design office could produce. We embraced being naive as a kind of protest against the posturing, email disclaimers, smart profile pics, etc. that came with starting an office. We thought, “let’s not act like we know how to make things, lets just make things”.

At the time it was quite liberating to come to terms with the fact that there was a lot we didn’t know and the office was a vehicle to figure things out. This has also lead us to follow our interests wherever they may take us, even when they ended up being outside of architecture. Some of those interests lie in interactive media, others lie in making things in the real world using new combinations of materials, craft, technology, and ideas. We are lucky to now find ourselves in a position where we can explore those things at a larger permanent scale through projects that directly engage with a public audience. It is hard to describe the position we are in now as planned and intentional, other than saying that we were uncompromising in exploring our interests when the opportunities came up.

Does NYC play a role in the practice's thirst for research and experiment based projects?

NYC is a great place for discussion given the proximity of so many schools and institutions that support architecture, but it can be difficult for young practices to build. I think this is why we ventured towards to the boundaries of architecture early on. NYC has been great for us operating on the fringe of architecture. The development of our early work benefited from the galleries and communities that put together group exhibitions. The various design events and institutions here also provided us with opportunities. As our work has grown and we have done work for corporate clients, being in one of the agency capitals of the world has also helped, as advertising agencies have facilitated many of the projects we’ve completed. Oddly, most of our current work is outside of NYC and outside of the US. In terms of experimentation, NYC has a huge diversity of creative disciplines and communities that we have worked with or have simply been inspired by. Going to school here and looking up to a lot of designers, and now having the opportunity work with some of those people, is still unbelievable to me.

Much of your practice's work touches on redefining sensorial interaction within a space. Why is this such an important theme found in all of your projects? One State Street, for example, is a project I find extremely beautiful both conceptually and structurally. Can you walk us through that project and how it came to be?

One State Street is a project that directly came from another project. We had just finished an installation for the Flatiron holiday competition held by the Van Alen Institute and the architect and developer walked by the piece and decided they wanted something like the interior surface of our installation for their new lobby renovation. People often come to us because they have seen our work online or in various publications but this was the most direct commission from a previous project. Once we met with the client and the architect it became obvious that they wanted something on the main wall of the lobby, but we didn’t want to do a framed wall piece. The design of the renovation was very clean and neutral so we came up with the idea to literally produce another material in the lobby. We decided on making the piece the full surface of the wall so that it would appear to be a raw rocky surface in contrast to the more refined surfaces and materials of the renovation. Rather than rock it would be translucent and light. We worked with Focus Lighting who really came up with a novel solution to evenly back light the piece given its shallow depth. 

Typically we avoid colored light, but the dichroic film we used really had surprising effects as colored light was shown through it. Depending on the color the dichroic will all look the same or it will take in colors at the opposite end of the spectrum. During the initial phases we built a prototype and brought it over to Focus Lighting’s testing lab. On the way I remember being quite skeptical, but once they put LEDs behind it and changed the color we are all really surprised. The outcome is a project that we think of as more of a composite in the sense that we have combined material, form, structure, and light in a way to produce something that appears to be a new material.

What's the best advice anyone has given you in regards to your work, practice, etc? As an educator, what's advice you often provide to your students?

Generally I tell students to make things and ask questions, and the quicker that cycle is the better. This is a much better way to not only define your interests, but to develop them. The worst thing you can do is to think too hard before you get started. Sometimes starting is the most important part of a project/process. The initial direction doesn’t matter, as it gives you something to react to, and the reality is where you end up may be so far from where you start. Once you realize this, there is so much less anxiety about starting with the “right” direction. Same goes for new people in the office. Simply said, less talking, more doing!

If you could describe your practice in three words what would they be?

Experiment, Fail, Refine.