Leah Alissa Bayer. All images courtesy of EVIA Studio.

As we continue our investigation of virtual practice in architecture, the diverse range of insights and approaches represented attest to the creative spirit of the architectural profession. We recently spoke with Jennifer Kretschmer, AIA, founder of J Kretschmer Architect, a fully virtual architectural practice. We learned valuable insights from Kretschmer’s experience in virtual practice prior to this pandemic. 

Today we connect with another professional who manages an entirely virtual team. Leah Alissa Bayer is a licensed architect in California, Washington, and Hawaii. She is the founder and studio director of EVIA Studio, a fully virtual research-based architecture and consulting firm in Silicon Valley. Leah’s portfolio includes multi-family housing, high-end custom residential, master planning, and workplace design. Before founding her own studio, Leah worked as an Architect at Perkins and Will in San Francisco.

In this discussion, we learn from Leah’s experience in running a virtual practice, her insights on leadership in a remote work setting, and some her thoughts on tackling the challenges of virtual work.

Thanks for connecting with me, Leah! Could you tell me a bit about your practice?

Sure! I own EVIA Studio which is a completely virtual architecture firm made up of a team of diverse women spread across the country who love creating exceptional spaces for everyone. We believe buildings should look great, feel great, and do great things for our communities. Our projects are fairly diverse but I’d say we’re most passionate about housing.

Why did you decide on a remote working model for your business? 

This could be a very long answer but I’ll try to narrow it down. I chose a remote work model out of a healthy mix of selfishness, a fight for equity, and defiance. 

Selfishly, I wanted to be free. I like to travel, be where it feels right at the time, and work in a way that matches my natural rhythm, but if I opened a traditional 9-5 brick-and-mortar office with an in-person team, I’d be tethered there for the rest of my foreseeable career if I wanted to be a good leader. I needed the autonomy to balance my personal and professional lives in a way that’s best for me without affecting the livelihood of others. 

...as a firm dedicated to bettering the lives of our clients, it seemed inconceivable to be able to do that without first bettering the lives of my team. 

As a woman in architecture, I know I’m not alone here. Having volunteered with AIA and NCARB committees focused on equity and diversity in practice for the past handful of years, I’ve heard the same stories over and over again. The culture of traditional firms doesn’t support the success of everyone equally. I wanted to change that. And as a firm dedicated to bettering the lives of our clients, it seemed inconceivable to be able to do that without first bettering the lives of my team. 

One of the ways I could do that was to grant them the same flexibility, trust, and authority I wanted for myself. And lastly, honestly, I just love conceiving of new, better ways of doing things, having other people tell me I can’t do it and that it’s not going to work, and then proving them wrong by doing it exceptionally well. That’s my rage fuel.

How about collaboration? How does that work amongst the team day-to-day?

Getting everyone adjusted to a virtual collaboration space takes time, but once everyone’s up-to-speed with the tools and systems, our workflow can actually be more collaborative than when working in-person full-time in a large office. That might sound counterintuitive, but adapting to a virtual environment trains you to think and behave differently because you can’t be so lazy with your communication like you are when someone is right next to you all day long (that’s not to say our Slack channels aren’t full of memes and pictures of cats… they are). 

Some people have more trouble adapting to this style than others and ultimately remote work may not be for everyone. 

You spend more time thinking through things before you bring them to your team, filtering non-essential information and organizing content more clearly. And while we sometimes collaborate on design challenges or operational problems live, we’re more often working together asynchronously. That means our collaboration platform stays open for a longer period of time, allowing for fluid contributions when team members are most able to participate meaningfully. Some people have more trouble adapting to this style than others and ultimately remote work may not be for everyone. 

Could you share some of the challenges ties to remote work?

OH! We created a board about this at our first ever company retreat this January. Here are some of our top challenges and what we’re doing now to try to solve them:

• Group Events - This is really all about morale. Physical connection and even just emotional connection beyond work-chat is hard to do remotely. We’re now doing monthly happy hours and bi-annual in-person meetups to have a little more fun together. Some of us join up for volunteer work, and we’re also building a virtual library to loan/ship each other books from home. Little things like this go a long way, but you’ve got to have a champion to keep them going and alive.  

• Physical Wellness - I’ve heard some people calling it the “work-from-home 15”. Reduced movement is real; there’s not a lot of steps involved going from your bed to your home office desk (or none at all for those of you working IN bed, like my husband ever since our shelter-in-place order). It’s also really easy to let time get away from you when you’re removed from a traditional office environment and daily routine, and before you know it it’s 9pm, you never went outside, haven’t left the couch, and maybe forgot about eating so now you’re stuffing yourself before bed. One of my team members said she stopped working out because she doesn’t need to leave the house for work and therefore no longer drives to the gym. You have to be more diligent with your physical health because there are less of the cues or triggers that we’re used to keeping us in line.

• Client Meetings - As a service-based industry, we can require our teams to adopt certain technologies all we want, but we can’t always get our clients on board to do the same. While more people become familiar with using virtual meeting platforms like Zoom or Hangouts, it’s still a challenge interacting with our clients remotely. We aim to be present, authentic, trusted advisors and one of the easiest ways to develop that relationship is with old fashioned face to face time. Right now we do a mixture of both - initial meetings and major milestones are always in-person, while the rest of our check-ins are virtual. This may just be something we need to be patient with as virtual meetings become more commonplace in the service industry world.

Here’s a picture of the rest of our list of challenges, most of which we’re still working on, like: time zone differences, putting on pants and makeup, sharing food during the holidays, not being able to point to things, household distractions, and loneliness.

What kind of leader does it take for this to work? In another discussion, you said: “It requires the type of leadership that doesn’t “manage” people from a fear-based position. It requires trust, respect, communication, and genuine care for the well-being and success of everyone on the team...We’re celebrating 2 years in April, team of 6, 100% retention rate!” Could you expand on that?

Trust, transparency, respect, organization, inclusivity, vision. Honestly, they’re the same qualities that make any leader great, but they’re more important in a remote environment. And it’s a two-way street, each of us must possess these qualities or the system falls apart. There’s still sort of a strange feeling associated with putting something we’ve made or a piece of ourselves out into the virtual world, into the invisible unknown. You need to communicate well and have solid systems in place, but then you’ve just gotta let go and trust that the people on your team are there on the other side ready to catch things and soar. We can all get work done in a vacuum, but that doesn’t make a company. It’s our collective, collaborative efforts that makes a firm what it is, and in a remote setting, there’s an extra level of mindfulness you adopt because you can’t rely on the physical queues and reassurances you get from being with people in-person.

Are there ever challenges with keeping people accountable? Many people seem to have this concern with remote work.

I’ve always found this question so odd. People keep themselves accountable, staring over someone’s shoulder doesn’t. I’ve worked with colleagues who regularly sat in their chairs at the office for ten hours straight to the delight of their supervisors, and maybe two of those hours were spent doing actual work. Do firm owners honestly think being in close proximity to someone means they’re not browsing Instagram or devouring the latest trending news on their dime? Because they are. And they’re much more likely to do so if they’re stuck in an office all day long. 

People keep themselves accountable, staring over someone’s shoulder doesn’t.

My job isn’t to watch people, it’s to provide them the best systems and tools so they can do their job well, when it works best for them, and enjoy doing it. Whether someone is in the same building as you or not, you know if they’re not being productive. Deliverables are either high-quality or not, and on time or not. That said, we do have weekly team virtual meetings (video mandatory, big difference in morale) to talk about projects as a group just like most offices do, and all of our project management tracking and to-do lists are shared so we know what everyone is working on. I also hold bi-weekly one-on-ones with my staff for personal development check-ins, to make sure people feel supported, can share ideas and feedback, set and track goals, and so I can encourage and reward their efforts.

How do you structure pay? Is your team salaried, contractors, or something else?

My biggest goal in the next couple of years is to transition everyone to salaried employees so we can focus more on innovation and less (if at all) on tracking time. It’ll take a healthy backlog of projects and diversified revenue streams to get there confidently. In the meantime, everyone is contracted by project on an hourly basis and each team member sets their availability to take on work. We’ve talked about setting rates based on deliverables, but until we have a better grasp on the consistency of the types of deliverables we’re producing for our clients, hourly contracts guarantee everyone is compensated fairly. In January I shared our current and goal operating budgets with my team so we can chart a path to our personal and shared financial goals, and last month I started publishing our monthly profit and loss reports to everyone on the team. This month I’m publishing everyone’s hourly rates and our compensation ranges based on role and experience. Transparency is so important to me, and absolutely essential if I expect everyone to care about one another’s and the firm’s success.

What technologies, hardware, software would recommend for navigating virtual practice successfully?

Tons of options and opinions here. I’ll describe the essential types of tools and software and then what we’ve chosen.

• Hardware - must be capable of running Autodesk products and rendering programs. Good graphics card is key. We each have our own computers. I’ve got a custom-built workstation for heavy lifting and a Macbook and iPad for working from anywhere or with clients. 

• Accessories - webcam (built-in or added on), headphones, microphone, and speakers all essential. A digital sketchpad ideal.

• Communication - email isn’t the best choice. You want organized, flexible, work-specific communication options. Slack with project-specific channels is our primary communication tool. We use Google Hangouts for weekly team check-ins, internal one-on-ones, and client presentations. Shared Google Calendars help us tell people where we are and when we’re available. Finally, email, texts, or calls for client updates and submissions. 

• File storage - without a local server, all documents, files, models, should be stored on the cloud, or accessible from the cloud. Remoting into a machine in an office on a local network can work but it’s not ideal. We use Google Drive shared folders with permission levels based on project teams and Desktop File Stream for seamless local navigation of files. I do local backups on a dedicated hard drive and a redundant cloud backup for peace of mind.

If you’re a digital firm owner, some other tools/programs you’ll want to consider are: time tracking, invoicing, accounting, payroll, client management, automation, presentation, data visualization, and digital marketing and social media management.

Do you ever struggle to separate life and work?

Absolutely. And I’m OK with that. Life is life and work is a part of it. It’s like saying you’re going to separate fruit and apples, you know? Doesn’t really make sense. What’s important is finding balance, making sure I’m not 90% work, 9% family and friends, and 1% me, and it’s easy to let that happen when work is around all the time. When I first started my virtual firm, I beat myself up over not keeping a regular, 9-5 schedule. I told my doctor how stressed I was about it and I was surprised when she looked at me and asked “why does that matter?”

All I could say was that that’s what normal, productive people do. Which is ridiculous. Her simple question was like permission to destroy the hard barriers we’re conditioned to build between the different functions in our lives. I’ve spent the past year listening to my personal rhythm, finding my right schedule and balance. It’s beautiful to be able to design your world in a way that supports and enhances all the different parts of who you are, and when you do that, life is balanced. I’m still working on it, but I’m getting closer.

So, what about office hours? Do you have them?

No. Kind of? Not really. Does that answer things? Hah. We work Tuesdays because we have our weekly team and one-on-one meetings throughout the day every Tuesday spanning Pacific and Eastern time zones. Everything else is flexible internally, work when you want and schedule group sessions or meetings when needed. For clients, we’re always available and try to work around our client’s schedules. 

That said, architecture isn’t an answer-me-now-it’s-life-or-death-profession, and setting an appropriate pace for communication keeps everyone sane and more proactively organized.

That said, architecture isn’t an answer-me-now-it’s-life-or-death-profession, and setting an appropriate pace for communication keeps everyone sane and more proactively organized. We do keep common courtesy quiet hours - you can text or email us anytime and we’ll respond in the morning after our first cup of coffee. (it’s surprising how many texting-my-architect-at-1-am clients there are out there!).

How about the design process? How does that look in a virtual team?

It’s not very different from what it looks like at a traditional firm. Each project has a primary point of contact who meets with the client in person and/or via video calls to determine the scope of work. They then introduce the project during one of our weekly virtual meetings where they assign the team and work. A lead designer tends to shake out naturally for each project, but it usually starts off by opening up to the group for sketch sessions and design charrettes. Sometimes we jump onto a virtual whiteboard to draw out ideas together live, building on one another’s thoughts, and other times we go off on our own to reflect on the problem and work it out in whatever medium we feel most comfortable. 

We share all our documents, sketches, and notes on a project folder in Google Drive and each job has its own public Slack channel for the team to communicate directly about. Since we don’t have hard copy drawings or trace to give our clients during meetings (everything is digital), we make extra effort to package our deliverables into beautiful design presentation PDFs. Titleblocked drawings are for municipalities and contractors. We also love to print and ship milestone deliverable books to our clients for keepsakes which they really enjoy. 

Quality control and project management are handled with checklists and automation, and at project close, we do a lessons-learned audit and discussion to tweak and enhance our processes and templates. At the heart of it all our process is transparent, deliberate, and collaborative. 

Does loneliness ever creep in? How do you tackle it?

Yes. Even with constant communication with my team, it can get lonely. My dog gets me outside for some sunshine and interaction with neighbors. Sometimes I’ll play sitcoms in the background for white-noise voices. I try to schedule weekly in-person meetings with new connections, colleagues, or friends. I’m also pretty active with volunteer groups which gives that local sense of community. The nice thing about not getting my social fill from work is that it forces me to seek those interactions out for pleasure. As an introvert, I need that extra push, so in a sense working remotely means I have a richer social life because I have to.