Two hundred episodes leaves behind more than a back catalog. It leaves a record of what we cared about, what we got right, what we wrestled with, and what kept changing shape the longer we sat with it. Some topics were easy to discuss, some were harder than expected, and some only became meaningful because the conversation forced a clearer point of view than either of us started with. That has been one of the stranger benefits of this show because making your thoughts public tends to sharpen them in ways private reflection usually does not. Episode 200 seemed like the right time to revisit the episodes that meant the most to us for very different reasons. This podcast has been good for us, important to us, and only occasionally did it feel like a houseguest who failed to realize it was past time to leave. Welcome to Episode 200: Love to Hate You
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To make sense of two hundred episodes, Andrew and I did what architects do when faced with too much information – we made categories and started sorting. We landed on eight that felt like the right mix of meaningful, debatable, and just subjective enough to invite argument, which is usually where the interesting part begins. Each of us picked the episode we thought best fit each category, not because there is some official governing body for this sort of thing, but because looking back through that much material without a framework felt like a good way to lose an afternoon and our sanity. Some of these choices were easy, some took a little more wrestling, and a few probably say more about us than we intended.
Favorite Episode jump to 09:00
Bob’s Choice – Ep 115
This episode has always stood out to me because it gets at something I believe pretty deeply, which is that getting it wrong is not separate from the process of becoming an architect – it is the process. What I like about this one is that it does more than make a general argument about failure; it connects the way we learn in school to the way we have to relearn things in practice, where budgets, deadlines, and real-world consequences start pressing on every decision. Somewhere in that tension is the point I was trying to make, that judgment is usually built through testing, revising, and understanding why something didn’t work, not through pretending there was ever one clean right answer waiting to be discovered. That makes this episode worth revisiting because it says something useful to almost anybody in the profession, whether they are still trying to find their footing or old enough to know that most competence is earned one bad call at a time.
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 049
These are all typically underrated episodes, but this was the first. While it sits about #100 on the ranking list, it is one of my favorite episodes because I got to do some “fun” research into somethings I though were cool. I actually really enjoy this whole series. It was going be a top spot for another item on this list, but I placed it here because I just really enjoy the process and “work” behind these. If we had more time, I would do more (every) episode like this. It is just how I am as a person. This first episode I covered the Eames Lounge Chair and Gullwing Doors. The other episodes in this series are Ep 144 (Barcelona Pavilion Chair + Legos), Ep 162 (The Flip Clock + Fabergé Eggs), and Ep 187 (The Polaroid Camera + Sony Walkman)
Most Important Episode jump to 12:32
Bob’s Choice – Ep 042
I had a hard time choosing between two episodes … Ep 042: Mentorship ended up winning (with Ep 188: Changing Paths as the honorable mention). Mentorship feels more important to me because it speaks to one of the most consequential forces in this profession: how people actually grow, how guidance really works, and why that relationship has to be active, personal, and built on real exchange rather than passive advice from a distance. The reason this episode still matters is that it does not treat mentorship like a warm, fuzzy professional accessory. It treats it like a serious, evolving relationship that depends on curiosity, trust, communication, empathy, and a willingness to keep recalibrating as goals change over time. That makes it worth revisiting because almost everyone listening is either looking for guidance, in a position to offer it, or still trying to sort out the difference between being helped and actually being mentored, which are not the same thing no matter how often people blur them together.
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 073
This one is important because I think at one point EVERY architect thinks about being their own boss and starting firm. This episode covers this idea from a Pros/Cons standpoint and does a good job of putting it all in perspective. If ever start to think this is the path for you, I would start here. Yes there are several other episodes we have to help with this topic as well, but this one should be first as it puts you in the proper mindset, I believe, to then listen to the other episodes we have on this topic like … Ep 030 Starting Your Own Firm with Michael Hsu, Ep 056 Starting a Design Firm with Eric Reinholdt, Ep 089 Small Firm Mentality with Mike McGlone, Ep 102 Bustiness Development with Mark LePage, Ep 151 Starting a Business, and Ep 177 Hanging Out Your Shingle with Daniel Istrate. All of these along with many others speak to the idea of operating your own firm and being “The Boss”. (a second runner up here was Ep 080 Is Architecture Art?)
Most Underrated Episode jump to 16:51
Bob’s Choice – Ep 036
This one feels underrated to me because it takes a topic that most architects do not spend nearly enough time thinking about and makes it clear that labor shortages in the skilled trades are not somebody else’s problem – they shape the work we draw, the budgets we set, and the decisions we make from the very beginning. What makes this episode worth revisiting is that it connects the abstract idea of a workforce shortage to the very practical reality of architecture, where available skill, project location, constructability, and even how much hand-holding a job might require can all start pushing back on design intent. I also think it holds up because it recognized early that this was not a passing inconvenience but a structural issue with long-term consequences for the entire AEC industry. That is why I would call it underrated: it was never the flashiest topic, but it was pointing at something real, consequential, and still very much with us.
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 023
This one is just a lighthearted episode that was a reaction to life at current events at the time. For architecture new, the fire at at Notre Dame had just occurred. Also it was just rough weeks for both Bob and I at this time. So we decided to do an episode that was intended to be lighthearted and just a bit of fun. We talked about some of our first trips to see “architecture” and for both of us it was while we were college age and they were road trips with friends of ours. We come to agree that the best parts of these trips is the events and things that happen along the way. So we talk about travel and share stories of our fun travels. Also the hypothetical is also a good one. Maybe the best one ever, but maybe only because I could not stop laughing. “You’re Super Cute Mister Monkey…eat my Knife!!” Now there are buttons and tee-shirts, if your interested.
Episode that Changed How You Think jump to 28:33
Bob’s Choice – Ep 195
This episode changed how I think because it forced me to confront an assumption I had been carrying around for years without really examining it, which was that designing my own house would somehow serve as a kind of professional measuring stick. What made this one hit differently is that the conversation is not really about house design in the technical sense, it is about myth, ego, money, timing, identity, and the uncomfortable realization that the house you might want to design for yourself is tied to a version of your life that may no longer exist. After going through this exercise, I found myself thinking less about the fantasy of the perfect personal statement and more about the possibility that the right house could still exist if it answered the life I am actually living, rather than the one I once assumed I would have. That is why this one is worth revisiting because it took something I thought I understood after twenty years of designing houses and managed to shift the question entirely.
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 103
This one made me stop and take some stock in my life and adjust my own perspective about my life. Episode 103 Architects and the Art of Being Happy was actually somewhat persuasive and impactful both during the recording and the editing process to really listen to this conversation and perceive my life through this different lens. I am not an overly optimistic person at heart, more to the point, I’m not overly optimistic about my own life and this episode one basically kinda kicked me in the chest a bit. It made me see that I should be more appreciative and grateful for the things I DO have and have done in my life thus far. I am not sure if I can say that feeling last until now, but it was a good episode to put my mind in a different perspective.
Most Enjoyable Episode jump to 33:54
Bob’s Choice – Ep 174
“Most enjoyable” is a slippery category because enjoyable does not necessarily mean funniest or lightest. For me, it means the episode that was the most satisfying to make, the one that let me be generous, candid, and useful all at the same time, which is why I would land on Ep 174: Dear Future Architects. What makes this one worth revisiting is that it gathers a lot of hard-earned advice into one place and frames it for people who are still trying to understand what this profession actually asks of them, from choosing the right firm and learning the language of money to understanding that architecture is more than design and that communication matters just as much as talent. I also like this episode because it manages to be direct without becoming grim, and practical without sounding like a lecture, which is not always an easy line to walk when you have been around long enough to know where the bodies are buried.
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 025
This is a set of episodes, but I have chosen the first one as the “starting point”, Episode 025 Architectural Bucket List. Both of these episodes (Ep 126 Bucket List II) were just a lot of fun to sit down and think about. The notion of requiring myself to limit my selections in the categories to one singular response was challenging, especially the first one. The second one was still difficult, but truly had less pressure. It was, however, quite fun to see what had and had not changed in the time between episodes, which was almost 4 years exactly. I think I always like the episodes where I am forced to simplify and truly refine my thoughts in to one selection or item. I like that they tend to force me into thought and personal reflection on the things that matter to me. The alternate episode for this selection was Ep 122 Artificial Intelligence. I simply really enjoyed the topic because it was new and exciting and the guest was more involved than I was at that time. I could have talked for hours.
Episode that was the Hardest Topic to Cover jump to 40:12
Bob’s Choice – Ep 116
This was a hard episode for me, not because the topic itself was difficult to understand, but because it required a level of honesty that felt a little too close to home. The real discomfort was in admitting that I could see parts of myself in the conversation, while also knowing there is something slightly unseemly about complaining over being busy when a lot of that pressure comes from ambition, opportunity, and choices I have made willingly . What makes this episode worth revisiting is that it does not settle for the lazy assumption that architects are automatically workaholics. It spends time sorting through what the profession rewards, what we normalize, and where the line starts to blur between being dedicated and being unable to stop.
Bob’s 2nd Choice – Ep 103
This episode was harder for me than the title would suggest because it asked me to talk about happiness without pretending that unhappiness is either rare or easy to solve. In the post, I was working through things that are easy to recognize inside the profession – long hours, burnout, the salary conversation, isolation, and that broader post-Covid drag that seemed to leave a lot of people feeling off even when life looked reasonably stable from the outside. What gave this episode more weight for me was realizing that the real subject was not happiness in the bright, cheerful, self-help sense of the word. The real subject was that low-grade dissatisfaction a lot of us carry around, the kind that does not announce itself as crisis but still manages to color everything. That is why this one matters to me and why I think it is worth listeners going back to, because beneath the stated topic is a much more honest conversation about what it feels like to be successful enough, busy enough, outwardly fine enough, and still not entirely at ease.
Part of what helped me frame that feeling was the word toska. Vladimir Nabokov – the Russian-born American novelist and critic who wrote in both Russian and English – spent years wrestling with translation, including his translated work on the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (who is widely considered as Russia’s greatest poets) who is also the author of the novel in verse Eugene Onegin, which is what was being translated. Nabokov eventually wrote that “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska.” I have become someone fascinated by this and I think it is appropriate for this post as well as potentially appropriate for architects. For me, that matters because toska is not quite sadness. Sadness usually has a cause. Something went wrong, something was lost, someone left, some event broke the surface and gave the feeling a name. Toska is different because it can arrive on an ordinary day, with no obvious trigger, as a dull ache of the soul, a restless longing without a clear object, a sense that something is missing even when you could not tell anyone what that something is. Architecture is full of people who are unusually sensitive to possibility, and once you are wired that way, it becomes very easy to feel the distance between the life you are living and the life you suspect might be possible. That is why this episode is worth revisiting – not because it offers a neat formula for happiness, but because it gets closer to the truth, which is that sometimes the most useful thing you can do is name the ache correctly and then learn to keep yourself alive to the small daily moments that make the weight of it more bearable. 
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 040
This episode was very difficult for me to cover. Episode 40 Changing Jobs. At this point in my life, I was struggling very hard with the closing of my office and the move to a new career in my midlife. These are definitely not things I had ever planned on in my life. So this episode was pretty hard for me to record. I had to hold back quite a bit during the conversation on air. My emotions were simply way to raw at the time to get into all of the elements of my personal situation and feelings. While I think it was a decent episode once completed, it was certainly a hard one for me to record personally. Now, I think I could have a much different and probably better conversation about this topic as some time has passed and my perspective is different. 
Andrew’s 2nd Choice – Ep 103
This one was also tough for me. Mainly because it hit really close to home. This was recorded just after the “end” of the pandemic and I was still feeling the overload. While I do not think I appeared to struggle with the topic on air, it was actually really difficult for me to review and talk about some of my own personal struggles with burnout and feeling overworked, overwhelmed, and drained as a person. Life is rough and this one hit me at time when there was a lot going on and I was just beginning to be able to reflect on my business and the past couple of years of my life at that time. So it was a big emotional task for me to record this one.
Episode We’d Recommend First jump to 49:28
Bob’s Choice – Early Career
For someone in the early stage of their career, I would recommend Ep 142: When I Grow Up because it gets at the uneasy truth that most people do not arrive fully formed, no matter how certain they may have sounded in school. What makes this one valuable early on is that it normalizes drift, uncertainty, false starts, and the realization that there are far more ways to build a meaningful career than most people understand when they first enter the profession. Early-career listeners need that because the biggest trap at that stage is believing that not having a clean plan means you are already behind, when in reality you are probably just beginning to understand what the job actually is.
Bob’s Choice Mid Career
For someone in the middle stage of their career, I would recommend Ep 188: Changing Paths because that is the point when your work, your identity, and your responsibilities do not always stay neatly aligned. What I like about this one for a mid-career listener is that it speaks directly to the moment when the path starts to bend, when the thing that once defined you no longer feels like the only way forward, and you have to sort out whether that shift is failure, growth, or some uncomfortable combination of both. Mid-career architects usually do not need motivation as much as they need permission to reframe their value, and this episode makes a strong case that growth at that stage often comes through redefinition rather than repetition. 
Bob’s Choice Late Career
For someone in the later stage of their career, I would recommend Ep 178: Under Pressure because by then the pressures of practice are rarely abstract anymore – they are layered, familiar, and often heavier because you understand the consequences so much better. This one has value for a late-career listener because it names the kinds of pressure that accumulate over time: speed, responsibility without full authority, the strain of adapting to changing tools, and the constant negotiation between design integrity and practical compromise. Someone later in their career is likely to hear this episode not as complaint, but as recognition, which matters because there is real comfort in hearing the weight of the work described honestly by someone who has been carrying it long enough to know where it bruises. 
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 096 (Any career stage)
This episode is about one of the elements that gets brought up in many of the episodes and conversations that we have on the show. I think it is fundamental to both school and practice. It speaks to how strong and great architecture is created in any circumstance. The key here is that this “Big Idea” can come from anywhere. It does not have to be yours or even your team; it just has to be generated and exist in the work. The Big Idea answers all questions in architecture. It is the one thru-line that ties all of the design together. It permeates the full scope of the project from macro to micro scale. Urban and site scale decisions down to the smallest of interior details all need to respond to the “Big Idea.” We bring this concept up or make references to it in a lot of our discussion before and since this episode. 
Andrew’s Choice – Ep 131 + 132 (pre-career)
So this choice is for those who may listen and are here to learn about architecture as a path to choose. If you are not yet on the path, this is where you should start. These will help you understand the journey you are about to embark upon and gives a person some guidance that may not ever be provided by your future school/program. Or maybe have been seeking information about what architecture school will be like, again this one is for you. The episode can help someone set expectations and understand some of the underlying and unwritten concepts that will be coming your way no matter what architecture school you are planning to attend. This two part episode will get into many of the details of how to think about choosing a school and also what the first few years will be like at most schools.
Episode with the Best Guest jump to 55:57
Bob’s 1st Choice – Ep 030
I would choose Ep 030: Starting Your Own Architecture Firm with Michael Hsu – because the value of that conversation goes well beyond the topic itself. Michael is a longtime friend, someone I have known for more than thirty years, and that history gives the episode an ease and candor that you cannot fake, no matter how polished a guest may be. The conversation works because it feels like two friends talking honestly about risk, timing, culture, leadership, and what it actually takes to step out on your own, rather than somebody delivering a cleaned-up origin story for public consumption. That is why I think people should listen to it – there is real value in the advice, but there is also something more human in it, which is hearing what success sounds like when it comes from someone you trust enough to speak plainly.
Bob’s second 1st Choice – Ep 089
I would choose Ep 089: Small Firm Mentality because Mike McGlone is one of those people whose ideas stay with you after the conversation is over. Mike brought a level of thoughtfulness to this discussion that I found genuinely compelling, particularly in the way he talked about mentorship, culture, hiring for fit, developing “Capital A” architects, and trying to run a larger practice without losing the character and connectedness of a smaller one. There is also something about his career, his leadership, and the way he seems to have held onto a clear sense of values over time that I find deeply admirable. That is what makes this episode worth revisiting – not just because Mike is smart, which he is, but because he offers a version of practice that feels measured, intentional, and very much worth paying attention to.
Andrew’s 1st Choice – Ep 030
Many of my reasons for choosing this are similar to Bob’s reasons. But I really enjoyed this episode and it is one that kicked off my relationship with Michael Hsu. We have kept in contact and done things together as part of the Texas Society of Architects. He also gave a guest lecture to one of my classes. But Michael is a genuine person and he talked so freely and candidly about his path to ownership and the operating his office. His firm continues to produce great work and it has continues to grow since this episode. 
Andrew’s second 1st Choice – Ep 105
I selected this one because this was a guest we did not know very well before the recording and yet the end result was a great conversation that felt very natural. The guest, Joey Shimoda, is a great person and was a wonderful guest. Also the topic was one that we don’t cover that often on the show and it was very informative to hear someone his experience speak about it. As rough as it might be to phrase it this way, the episode exceeded by expectations by a mile. It wasn’t that I thought it would be a bad episode, but that I was unsure when we were setting it up and leading up to the recording. Then in the end, it all turned out to be great and was very enjoyable to boot!
Andrew’s Most Hated Episodes (jokes) jump to 60:57
Andrew’s 1st Choice – Ep 104
These are not my most hated episodes. These are ones that seem to stick in my craw at various times in the process and life of the podcast. This one is mainly due to the post from 2015 that generated this episodes and the most unfortunate “nickname” that Bob bestowed upon me as a consequence of the post. He coined me as his “Convention Wife” in the post. Basically it is really someone who is your friend during conventions and travels that make the entire event worthwhile. I guess in a way, I should be flattered, but the reality is that for several years I was consistently called “Bob’s convention wife” by many at the conventions we attended. And for most it was such a fun and comical thing to call me. It is just that it got old after a few years, and this episode brought it back up in 2022. Again, I don’t hate this, it is just one that I get my feathers ruffled over. Even now, Bob cannot speak of it without laughing. Of course I laugh too, but I also cringe. 
Andrew’s second 1st Choice – Ep 001
This is an episode that still plagues me to this day. It is the most listened to episode by far and I am not in it. (insert sad/pouty face) I know this sounds petty and all, but it is the origin story of the podcast to a certain degree and I am not there. Also there was never a time for this type of introduction to me and how I fit into all of this mayhem. So I do get a bit touchy about this one, and I know it does not really matter, but it always just stings a little bit that I know that when someone new starts to listen, they will go back to episode 001, I am not there. Again, I now its 100% petty of me, but it is what it is. A thorn in my side. The closest thing I have to this episode is the blog post that I did when I joined, but that is not the story that everyone gets to see. As a matter of fact, it does not even have as many views as Episode 001 has downloads. If you were unaware, I began on the podcast with my first as Episode 13. So I have been here for 187 episodes. Insert Sad/Angry/Pouty Face here again.
I want to put these both in a frame of reference. Again, I am jokingly poking fun at these episodes and my distaste for them. I am not bitter about them and just have to get some jabs in when I can. As I am not wanting to end 200 on a down note, I want to state how much I enjoy the podcast and all it has done to my life and all the ways it has impacted it.
Episode 200: Hate to Love You
Two hundred episodes is a big milestone, and not simply because of the number. Reaching this point means we have had the chance to share a lot of conversations with people who kept showing up, kept listening, and kept finding value in what we were doing. That kind of support is not something we take lightly, and it is the real reason getting to episode two hundred feels meaningful. We are grateful you have spent your time with us and helped make this worth doing.
Here’s to 200 episodes, and Thank you.
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