#422 - MORGAN SYKES JAYBUSH, director of hospitality projects at Omgivning
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Morgan Sykes Jaybush, Director of Hospitality Projects in Omgivning. The three discussed Morgan’s early childhood, education, and career; his interest in adaptive reuse; the market for adaptive reuse; types of projects; financial viability; the importance of adaptive reuse; interesting discoveries; challenges of working with historic buildings; employee alignment with firm’s mission statement, and more. Enjoy!
ABOUT MORGAN
A fourth-generation Angeleno, Morgan Sykes Jaybush is one of the original members of Omgivning. He grew up in and around downtown LA and has been a part of its revitalization for quite a while, so he's a natural fit for our work. He escaped big city life for coastal living while in architecture school at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and then worked at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, for several years.
Hop in his '66 Cutlass Supreme to cruise over to his house, where you'll find his collection of vintage designer chairs and clocks. He's the most upscale and organized hoarder you'll ever meet.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Early childhood & background.
(03:31) Early architecture education & career.
(18:15) Interest in adaptive reuse projects.
(36:22) Types of adaptive reuse projects and financial viability.
(43:27) Why is adaptive reuse important?
“Putting a whole building into the landfill is terrible for the carbon footprint, [especially if it's a high-rise building.] There are also historical and neighborhood cultural reasons to try to keep some of the existing [urban] fabric because it makes the place where we live richer. There are so many Type V buildings being built across the city that it's hard to tell the difference between them. I think you lose the uniqueness of different neighborhoods when there is so much of the same stock being built everywhere. [I worked on] this old craftsman house in Silver Lake, which was used for 50 - 60 years as a florist shop, and this Japanese family lived there and ran the shop. Now, we're turning that into a hotel and restaurant bar. It's opening that up as a space that people remember, but they can also go and experience it forever now.” (43:48)
“It's not only people that have been [in a city] for a long time who feel connected with its history. Even in a place you haven't been to, you feel that warmth when you go into an old place that's been renovated and turned into something new and cool. There's still a connection that you have with it that's different than going into a new construction building that has beautiful, sleek concrete but it's cold in some ways. It doesn't mean that [modern buildings] don’t have a place in the city. This place is big enough for all these things to happen.” (47:18)
(51:51) Interesting discovery in adaptive reuse projects.
(55:27) Dealing with challenges in adaptive reuse projects.
“Honestly, the historic building codes are not super helpful, but there are things that we can use from that. Almost every time the stairs are not code-compliant, but we can write a modification to allow that. It allows us not to bring the windows up to [the new building code]. It allows us to use older versions of the mechanical code. There are a lot of challenges. A lot of times [adaptive reuse] are so expensive to do, that we get historic tax credits with the National Park Service. So that gives you around 20% of your construction cost back in tax credits. It's great, especially when some projects cost $60 million.” (56:00)
(59:54) Architecture firm size & work environment.
(01:07:31) Employee's alignment with office mission statement.
(01:09:51) Convincing clients about adaptive reuse.
(01:17:10) Morgan's Favorite Building.
