This is CXD with a conversation about design houses, collaborative partnerships and second careers. All things you have heard me talk about on the show before…but not like this…
Maryline Damour started her career doing business development with some of the biggest names in accounting and finance. Her desire for something greater led her back to school to study interior design at Parsons The New School for Design.Our conversation covers that journey as well as her experience growing up in Haiti where they are no strangers to living with disasters of all types unfortunately, and that experience has provided Maryline with a unique perspective on life and design. In this episode of the podcast, you will hear about that experience, meeting her business partner, Fred Drake and crafting their boutique design firm.
Are you subscribing to the podcast, if not, please do so you get every episode automatically when they are published. You can find Convo By Design everywhere you find your favorite podcasts and now, you can find us on DesignNetwork dot Org, a destination dedicated to podcasts, all things design and architecture so make sure to check it out.
Thank you, Maryline. Thank you Walker Zanger and ThermaSol for your partnership. And thank you for listening. Without you, there is no joy in doing this, you are appreciated. My hope is to bring you inspiration and sublime design through these conversations. To give you that extra push to be the most creative designer you can be. I think we did that here. Please make sure you are subscribing to the show so you don’t miss a single episode. You can also follow us on Instagram, @ConvoXDesign, with an “x” and convo by design dot com. Be well and remember to take today first.
this is Convo By Design with another edition of The Showroom, a partnership between Convo By Design and Walker Zanger. This episode features the talent behind iconic groundbreaking architecture firm, Dugally Oberfeld.
Matthew Dugally and Mauricio Oberfeld are the talent and skill behind Dugally Oberfeld. Matt and Mo have a partnership that, when explored in detail exemplify a 1 + 1 = 3. There is undetectable value in the partnership itself that has resulted in some wonderful work, unexpected design and the type of Projects that inspire the work of others. The idea of intrinsic value, true value of a partnership can’t be measured in dollars, pounds or other quantifiable measures. So how can you place a “real value” on something like partnership and collaborative spirit? You can certainly look at the work. You can explore the external responses to the work. If you really want to understand how the value of a partnership is indwelled within the body of a structure, keep listening.
Are you subscribing to the podcast, if not, please do so you get every episode automatically when they are published. You can find Convo By Design everywhere you find your favorite podcasts and now, you can find us on DesignNetwork dot Org, a destination dedicated to podcasts, all things design and architecture so make sure to check it out.
Thank you, Matt & Mo for your time. Thank you Walker Zanger and ThermaSol for your partnership. And thank you for listening. Without you, there is no joy in doing this, you are appreciated. My hope is to bring you inspiration and sublime design through these conversations. To give you that extra push to be the most creative designer you can be. I think we did that here. Please make sure you are subscribing to the show so you don’t miss a single episode. You can also follow us on Instagram, @ConvoXDesign, with an “x” and convo by design dot com. Be well and remember to take today first.
Do you know the story behind the reigning queen of home staging? If not, you are going to absolutely love this, trust me when I tell you because you listen to the podcast, you know I am going to take you deep in the world of design, behind the pretty pictures and together, we explore the “how” behind design. Baer found her calling at 50. Then built an amazing brand. If that doesn’t give you the drive to do all the things you have been planning for the growth of your own career, I don’t know what will.
Are you subscribing to the podcast, if not, please do so you get every episode automatically when they are published. You can find Convo By Design everywhere you find your favorite podcasts and now, you can find us on DesignNetwork dot Org, a destination dedicated to podcasts, all things design and architecture so make sure to check it out.
Thank you, Meridith, I love your story. Thank you Walker Zanger and ThermaSol for your partnership. And thank you for listening. Without you, there is no joy in doing this, you are appreciated. My hope is to bring you inspiration and sublime design through these conversations. To give you that extra push to be the most creative designer you can be. I think we did that here. Please make sure you are subscribing to the show so you don’t miss a single episode. You can also follow us on Instagram, @ConvoXDesign, with an “x” and convo by design dot com. Be well and remember to take today first. Side note, I was asked why I switched the tag line from Keep Creating to Today First. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn’t promised. All we have is today so what are you going to do with that? Huh, control what you can and don’t worry about the rest.
This is Convo By Design with a two part special about The Magic City…Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In the 1920’s, Tulsa Oklahoma was called the ‘magic city’ because of the things that were happening as a result of the oil boom. The Cushing Field was discovered at the beginning of the 1900’s which saw the population explode fromjust over 7,000 in 1907 to over 72,000 in 1920. Names like Waite Phillips, J. Paul, Getty, Henry Sinclairand John D. Rockefeller came to Tulsa and built a world-class city around the oil industry, and creating companies like Texaco and Phillips 66. With the influx of money and came high-society, culture and the arts along side extraordinary architecture and design.
It wasn’t just rich white money. Black Wall Street was within the highly successful, self-contained black community of Greenwood. This is a success story with a horrific ending that resulted in the Greenwood Massacre. To understand how this happened, one needs to fully understand that Black Wall Street, as it was called, wasn’t isolated, it was a community crafted out of necessity and developed into a highly functioning community of black-owned, black-run businesses, by design. O.W. Gurley, a wealthy man of color bought 40 acres of land and called it Greenwood. He and others created a center of commerce built by and for the black community and it is a success story with a tragic ending. After years of success, and years of publicly, well documented jealousy, the result was the Black Wall Street Massacre which saw the entire community destroyed by a white mob. 36 Greenwood residents lost their lives, 800 were injured, 6,000 were held unlawfully and the entire community was burned to the ground.If interested in the whole story, which is an incredible and tragic story will be linked here. And today, you can find influences of Black Wall Street imbued within the city itself through design and architecture.
This is not the end of the story and there is so much to explore in how Tulsans have respected the Black Wall Street story and are making sure it is told to future generations much of which can be seen through the design and architecture. Speaking of architecture, this AMAZING art deco and mid-century modern, the gothic cathedrals and a city plan straight out of mid-town Manhattan. This is part of the story of Tulsa, an amazing story and one I wanted to share with you from the architecture, design and city planning perspective. To understand the origin and evolution of Tulsa, I spoke with two community experts, Grant Bumgarner with an organization called Tulsa Remote and architect Ted Reeds, both of whom know this city and her history intimately.
Grant Bumgarner is Community Manager with Tulsa Remote. If not familiar, Tulsa Remote is a community development program designed to bring talented people to Tulsa, Oklahoma. People who work remotely that can bring a fresh perspective to the city. This two-year old initiative will be further explained by Grant. This is a story about regrowing a (formerly) modern city, city planning with people at the center of moving forward smartly into the future.I love studying American cities. I am a huge fan of cities like Austin, Texas…Memphis, Tennessee and yes, Tulsa, Oklahoma. You can learn a lot about how cities respect their past and nurture their future. Some of the most successful cities are those that respect their past and keep an eye on ever moving forward and Tulsa is one of those. You have no doubt heard about Tulsa recently, and for all the wrong reasons. The Trail of Tears, the destruction of Black Wall and massacre of its residents. This city has a mixed past and you are going to hear about much of it. You are also going to hear about a city that was built on some of the countries best architecture.
You heard me correctly, some of America’s best Art Deco architecture is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. One of these structures is the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, designed by master architect and prodigy, Bruce Goff. Goff has significant SoCal ties as well. He designed the Al Strucks House, if not familiar, search it…this house is… extremely interesting. Goff also designed the Japanese Art Pavilion at LACMA, a legendary structure that, for me, is in the collection of significant Los Angeles architecture. But back to Tulsa. I visited the city and Grant gave me a walking tour of the city. We had a chance to reconnect and talk.
By the way, are you subscribing to the podcast, if not, please do so you get every episode automatically when they are published. You can find Convo By Design everywhere you find your favorite podcasts and now, you can find us on DesignNetwork dot Org, a destination dedicated to podcasts, all things design and architecture so make sure to check it out.
Ted Reeds is an architect and adjunct professor of architecture at the Christopher C. Gibbs School of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma. Ted is president of his eponymous firm and one of those amazing storytellers you are instantly happy with whom you’ve found yourself connected. I have often shared my opinion that architecture islanguage while design is storytelling. Ted is the rare architect that has mastered the storytelling within the architecture which is probably why he was so much fun to speak with. Ted and I spoke by phone and discussed some of the amazing structures in and around Tulsa.
3. The Gathering Place – A 70 acre private park gift to the city of Tulsa. Designed by Landscape architect, Michael Van Valkenburg. The banks of the Arkansas River is public land.
4. Cathedral District, one of 5 downtown districts. Multiple churches, Boston Avenue Methodist Church, designed by Bruce Goff. Goff also built the Al Struckus House, one of LA’s most unique homes and Japanese Art Pavilion at LACMA. Bruce Goff controversy.
11. Waite Phillips, father of modern Tulsa, Phil Tower and Philcade, Beginning of mixed use. Style of Philcade, vertical lines and dramatic shadows. All that gold! Talk about the cornucopia.
Enjoy this story about Tulsa, Oklahoma…The Magic City.
Thank you, Ted and Grant for both the tour and the chat. I cannot wait to get back to Tulsa. For images from my walking tour with Grant, check out the Convo By Design website and Instagram. You will also find links to the George Kaiser Foundation to see what they do and check out the Gathering Place. Thank you, Walker Zanger for your support of Convo By Design and thank you for listening to the show. Please make sure you subscribe so you get every episode of the podcast the moment it’s published. Until next week, be well and take today first.
This is Convo By Design with a virtual visit to the Kingston Showhouse. Hey, are you as tired of the word ‘virtual’ as I am?
As tired of the word ‘virtual’ as I am, without the ability to have these conversations, we would not have access to designers and showcase houses in parts of the country like the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. The 2020 showcase includes work by; Ana Claudia Design, Ariana S. Winston, Jennifer Salvimini, KD Reid interiors, Patrick Ryan’s Office, Stone Ridge Landscapes, Damour Drake, Hendley & Co., Krishna Fitzpatrick, Lava Interiors,This and That, and Jen Dragon. Maryline Damour of Damour Drake is the founder of this project and this is the third offering of this showcase home.
On a personal note, 2020 presented all of us with a choice. Crawl up in a ball and shut down, or figure out how to reinvent ourselves, over and over again while we all struggle to figure out how to work through this and get back to life on the other side of this thing. This joint struggle has brought some of us closer together. Convo By Design has been reinvented over eight years of production. I was able to cover this relatively new design house and I’m really proud and happy to share this with you.
Thanks for downloading, streaming, and downloading this episode of the podcast. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do so you don’t miss a single episode of the show, like this one from the Kingston Design House.
Thank you to all of the remarkable creatives that fought through extreme circumstances to bring this project home. Thank you Walker Zanger for your extraordinary partnership and thank you for listening. My goal is to bring you the stories behind sublime design wherever that may be. To share those stories, bring you business strategies to help you build a stronger firm and inspire you to do your most creative work.
For more, please follow us on Instagram @ConvoXDesign with an “X”, check us out at Convo By Design dot com. Until next week, be well and keep creating.
