Sven Shockey, FAIA joins Evan and Cormac to talk about Virginia Tech Academic Building One — a 300,000-square-foot computer science and computer engineering building on a new campus in Alexandria, Virginia whose faceted, photovoltaic-integrated form was derived through 1,400 computational iterations. They explore what it means to design a building's exterior before the interior program is finalized, how three distinct types of building-integrated photovoltaics get assigned to 17 different facades based on orientation and performance data, and what a sewage wastewater energy exchange system has to do with a tunnel under a parking lot. This episode is especially relevant for design architects and architecture students who want to understand how computational tools actually interact with design judgment — and for anyone who's ever wondered what it looks and feels like to sit inside a building where the facade is doing real work. The shadows move. The light is soft. The algorithm found a non-intuitive answer, and then the real design work began. Episode Links Guest Sven Shockey on LinkedIn Sven Shockey at SmithGroup
SmithGroup SmithGroup website SmithGroup on LinkedIn SmithGroup on Instagram
Virginia Tech Academic Building One Project page — SmithGroup Virginia Tech Innovation Campus First building nears completion — Virginia Tech News Alumnus plays large role in designing the campus — Virginia Tech News Virginia Tech's Striking New Building Pays Homage to the Sun — Interior Design Virginia Tech Innovation Campus Academic 1 Building — Architect Magazine A Window to the Future — Inform Magazine Design centers on sustainability & connectivity — SmithGroup (2020) First building nears completion — SmithGroup (2024)
Awards Interior Design Best of Year 2025 — Dual Honors AIA Virginia 2025 Design Awards
Context: Virginia Tech & Amazon HQ2 Virginia Tech Innovation Campus key to attracting Amazon HQ2 — Virginia Tech News
Related Work: DC Water Headquarters DC Water Headquarters — SmithGroup Putting Wastewater to Work — SmithGroup Perspectives DC Water HQ earns LEED Platinum — DC Water SmithGroup
----- Thank you for listening to Archispeak. For more episodes please visit https://archispeakpodcast.com. Support Archispeak by making a donation.
#389 - I Want To See Tears
01.05.2026 | 35 Min.
A van conversion project that was supposed to take three days is now four months in and an eighth of the way done. Evan and Cormac dig into what actually happened and why an architect's brain might be the single biggest obstacle to finishing a personal fabrication project on time. They cover the scope creep hiding in "wouldn't you do it differently?", why one wrong cut forces every subsequent piece to compensate, and the design-build logic that makes real-time problem-solving both efficient and indefinitely slow. This episode is especially relevant for architects and designers who've ever started a hands-on project with a realistic-sounding timeline and found themselves months later still fitting cedar lining around corners that aren't quite 90 degrees, holding a saw, and refusing to call it good enough. ----- Thank you for listening to Archispeak. For more episodes please visit https://archispeakpodcast.com. Support Archispeak by making a donation.
#388 - Frank Lloyd Wright Lemonade
24.04.2026 | 38 Min.
Cormac spent last week driving from Detroit to Baltimore for a punch review, then north to a factory two hours outside Toronto to inspect replacement vestibule glass — only to reject it for the second time because the print scale was still wrong. Along the way, he squeezed in an unplanned tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, ended up teaching the docents, and toured AGNORA's glass factory, where he found something almost no other manufacturer will attempt: a fully miterless, corner-glazed insulated glazing unit. He also saw a project where a developer printed the image of a demolished historic building onto the glass facade of its replacement. Evan and Cormac dig into what "punch ready" is supposed to mean, whether we can still build at the level of FLW's Prairie homes, and what it costs (in time, travel, and patience) to hold a project to the standard it was designed to. This episode is especially relevant for project architects and CA practitioners who know the exhaustion of traveling to a site review only to walk away with another rejection, and who still find genuine awe in what the industry is technically capable of building, even when the job itself won't let you use it. Episode Links: AGNORA - glass manufacturer website FLW’s Darwin Martin house
----- Thank you for listening to Archispeak. For more episodes please visit https://archispeakpodcast.com. Support Archispeak by making a donation.
#387 - The Walmart Greeter of Architecture
18.04.2026 | 56 Min.
Five years into one project. Ten into another. Three principals retired before the second one wrapped. Evan and Cormac dig into what long-duration architecture projects reveal about career identity, why the profession has always romanticized the architect who works until death, and what retirement actually looks like when architecture is all you've ever done. They also get into the slow erosion of architectural vocabulary, why Cormac put a massive "WHY" at the center of his studio board, and the design decisions that unravel when nobody stops to ask the most basic question. This episode is especially relevant for mid-career and senior architects who are quietly wondering where the work fits in the rest of their life — and for educators and mentors in the profession who want to give students the reasoning skills, not just the technical ones. Episode Links: Archispeak’s “What Makes This Building Great” - Kahn’s British Museum
----- Thank you for listening to Archispeak. For more episodes please visit https://archispeakpodcast.com. Support Archispeak by making a donation.
#386 - If not me, then who?
03.04.2026 | 33 Min.
Ten years into a $600M research laboratory project, Cormac reflects on what it actually means to see a complex build through to the end — the COVID-era redesign, the permit battles across three code cycles, and the people who've been on site since day one. He and Evan unpack the case for continuity: why the architects who know every decision that was ever made are essentially irreplaceable, and why the grinding sameness of long construction administration is also the kind of rare, compacted education that most architects never get in an entire career. This episode is especially relevant for project architects and CA teams who've ever wondered whether staying on a long, demanding project is actually worth it — and for anyone who's adopted someone else's mid-stream project and immediately felt the weight of not knowing why. ----- Thank you for listening to Archispeak. For more episodes please visit https://archispeakpodcast.com. Support Archispeak by making a donation.
Archispeak is one of architecture's longest-running podcasts — 383 episodes of honest, unfiltered conversation about what it's actually like to work in the profession. Since 2012, architects Evan Troxel and Cormac Phalen have been exploring design, career, firm culture, tools, work/life balance, mentoring, generational differences, and job hunting — everything that comes with building a life in architecture.
This isn't a highlight reel. It's the conversation architects actually have — about the hard parts of practice, the moments that define a career, and the things no one tells you in architecture school.
Built for architecture students, emerging architects, and seasoned professionals who want honest perspective on the profession.
Topics include architecture career and job searching, design process and critique, firm culture, work/life balance in architecture, architecture tools and software, mentoring and professional development, generational differences in architecture firms, and candid interviews with architects and industry leaders.
375+ episodes. Since 2012.
Visit archispeakpodcast.com for more.
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