Defining Hospitality

🏨✨ Defining Hospitality is Sponsored by Berman Falk https://www.bermanfalk.com/ - Check out their impact page! 🌍🌱 https://www.bermanfalk.com/impact/ 

Today, Dan explores hospitality design with Matthew Goodrich, an acclaimed interior designer and strategist. They dive into Goodrich's journey from his art background to founding his own firm, Goodrich, seven years ago. The conversation touches on recent projects, including a jazz bar he designed, the UBS Arena, and lessons learned from renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer. Goodrich explains his 'Design Foundation' framework, focusing on the elimination of awkwardness and fostering human connection in hospitality spaces. He also reflects on his mentors, the collaborative nature of design, and how life experiences inform his work.

Takeaways: 
  • When starting a project, particularly in a new area, approach it with humility. Be upfront about what you don't know and actively listen to your clients and stakeholders to understand their needs deeply.
  • Implement a structured framework or design foundation in your projects. This involves categorizing the project's inspirations or guiding principles into specific areas.
  • Strive to create environments and experiences that eliminate awkwardness. This can be applied in both physical spaces and during client interactions, ensuring that all processes are smooth and intuitive.
  • Conduct thorough research on the project's context and its historical, cultural, and location-based significance. This helps in creating designs that are timeless and resonate well with the intended audience.
  • Foster a collaborative environment where input from various team members and stakeholders is valued. This helps bring in diverse perspectives and enriches the design process.
  • Consider revisiting and refreshing designs periodically. This helps keep the projects relevant and aligned with evolving market needs and user behaviors. 
  • Encourage a flat organizational structure in your team where everyone can contribute ideas.

Quote of the Show:
“The highest and best that we can bring to a client is to help them imagine something that they couldn't on their own.” - Matthew Goodrich

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Creators & Guests

Host
Dan Ryan
Host of Defining Hospitality
Producer
Rayanne Pruitt

What is Defining Hospitality?

Welcome to Defining Hospitality, the podcast focused on highlighting the most influential figures in the hospitality industry. In each episode we provide 1 on 1, in depth interviews with experts in the industry to learn what hospitality means to them. We feature expert advice on working in the industry, behind the scenes looks at some of your favorite brands, and in depth explorations of unique hospitality projects.

Defining Hospitality is hosted by Founder and CEO of Agency 967, Dan Ryan. With over 30 years of experience in hospitality, Dan brings his expertise and passion to each episode as he delves into the latest trends and challenges facing the industry.

Episodes are released every week on Wednesday mornings.

To listen to episodes, visit https://www.defininghospitality.live/ or subscribe to Defining Hospitality wherever you get your podcasts.

DH - Matthew Goodrich
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[00:00:00] What I do is inconsequential. Why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's journeys every day. What I love about our hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their journeys. Together we'll explore what hospitality means in the built environment, in business, and in our daily lives.

I'm Dan Ryan and this is Defining Hospitality.

This podcast is sponsored by Berman Falk Hospitality Group, a design driven furniture manufacturer who specializes in custom case goods and seating for hotel guest rooms.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Today's guest is an interior designer and strategist whose work strives to foster human connection. He's an entrepreneur who founded his own firm, focusing on interior design, brand design, and product design. He's worked for the likes of Avroco and Rockwell Group, as well as an art background, working in museums, studios, and galleries.

He's the recent recipient of the designer of the year award from BD Mag. And seven years [00:01:00] ago, he founded his own firm, Goodrich, where he's also the principal. Ladies and gentlemen, Matthew Goodrich. Welcome Matt.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Thank you so much, Dan. I'm very happy to be here.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: I'm so happy you're here, and especially considering the timing, uh, a couple weeks ago, I interviewed Paul McElroy in person at this lovely jazz bar in the Romer, uh, Hell's Kitchen called So and Sos, and it was a really great, it was a wonderful interview, being in person is always fun, but then this space was so incredible, um, And you actually wound up designing it, which added to the aura of it.

So if you, if anyone's listening, go to YouTube and look up from a couple of weeks ago, Paul McElroy, um, it was just a really fabulous conversation and just, I don't know, openhearted, real. But then the location was so incredible and [00:02:00] and then we just had BDNY You had just been awarded designer of the year and then after that interview I decided to throw this little party after the award show and the Roamer Hell's Kitchen won all these awards and You had designer of the year and I wish I could say I timed it like that way on purpose but it was just one of those times where like Just struck luck struck down and like made all of this, this confluence of so many great achievements, um, come together in this really great.

So such an awesome celebration. And just, I just want to say thank you for being a part of that confluence of, well, I don't luck is kind of where hard work meets, uh. Opportunity. I think like, right. You, you started your company seven years ago. You've become an overnight success after seven grueling years of hard work and then your career before that.

But it just, I just want to take a moment to [00:03:00] appreciate that moment that we all had. At that time, because it like really, it couldn't have been scripted better.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: It was extraordinary. And, uh, you know, I know we're going to talk about hospitality and what it means, but it is, in my mind, a hospitality experience I'll never forget. That whole night was amazing. The awards were amazing, but opening the front door, so and so's in walking in with my team, and you had invited our whole team, which was amazing. Uh, and really reveling in the moment with Paul and Diane and the whole Highgate team. with our peers and everybody from the industry, but just feeling this sense of kind of coming home. And, uh, it was really truly an evening I will never forget. And that was a huge part of that with your hospitality and you making that alignment of all those things.

And it's, it's been an amazing, you know, several days since then to, Be able to celebrate with our team and to really just have this moment where [00:04:00] everyone that works on all of our projects was recognized as designer of the year. It's, it's like a dream come true.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: well, you said that so much better than I did. I actually got goosebumps as you were talking because I, I basically, as you were sharing that, So I had the, I had the unusual experience. I think I said this in my speech, but I got there. 26 minutes before just to make sure everything was okay.

And of course it was because the team there, it was so incredible. Um, and everything was, but then I was sitting there like, okay, well, I don't really have anything to do. So I was sitting there alone. In this beautiful space, the lighting was down, the music was up just right. And I was like, holy shit, nobody's going to come.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: No one's going to come. Every host of every party has this moment, right? You do all the work and you're ready. And then you're just sitting there alone. You think this is the time no guests are going to show up. And I'm sure it's true. If you're opening a restaurant, opening a hotel too, it's just like, Oh God, what if no one embraces this? it's funny because the other side is true too. When you're going [00:05:00] to an event or to a party or to a luncheon or anything, or even an awards ceremony, you think as you're going, I'm not going to know anyone. Like what if they don't have my name on the list, whatever it is. So there's sort of this universal of a host and maybe a universal angst of a guest.

And I think those things actually drive the work that we do,

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yes.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: when we tap into those.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Well, I think it got even more awkward than that for me, because like I said, the team was incredible. Like they had everything set up. The food was, everything was done. If I host something at my home, you know, my wife is probably saying, do this, do this, or I have a whole bunch of things that I have to get done.

There's like a lot of distraction, but it was so perfectly. Yeah. I was so perfectly hosted by the team there that I basically there was nothing for me to do. Like, so I just, I sat there, I was like, shit, and my brain started going. Then they made me a tequila and I felt much better. But, um, [00:06:00] yeah, it was, it was really, um, Just a wonderful celebration.

I'm just so happy to be a part of that. And I think that's actually a great segue into talking about hospitality and all of those feelings of the awkward to the bad, to the nervous, to the, uh, elated. Um, what does hospitality mean to you?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Well, I like there have been so many really beautiful philosophical answers to this question through the years of your podcast. I have a kind of workman like definition of this, which is almost directly applied to what we try to do in our work. And it comes from my former colleague at Brand Bureau, Michael Pollack. He introduced this idea that hospitality is the elimination of awkwardness. I've sort of held on to that. Um, because what we're trying to do is both on a sort of service or human level, create a welcome for someone when they [00:07:00] arrive into a restaurant or a hotel or a resort or whatever it is we're designing, the sense of, I feel welcomed.

I know that I belong. and at the same time, we're trying to do the same thing for you. In the physical space, I know where to go. I know that I should stand here or move in this direction, or I can see what's ahead of me. And so we're always trying to think on both levels. And as interior designers, we're thinking about the physical space, but it has to support the service. We really approach when we're working on brand or product. or interiors, thinking about it as what is the person, what is the guest going to need and want, and how will they feel at that threshold moment when they're entering the experience you're creating? And those thresholds keep happening throughout, know, a project.

You get to a host at a restaurant, then you get through that space to your table, then it's time to find the restroom and you need to be able to figure out where that is, or in a hotel [00:08:00] your experience unfolds over several days. And you want to just intuitively be able to be in charge of your experience or feel some autonomy and some control.

So I think that idea of eliminating awkwardness is really about making someone feel welcome, but in a very, very concrete way. Um, I think guests travel to be, pushed to the edge of their comfort zone. That's what we seek in travel, but we don't really want to go out over it. I mean, maybe if you're an adventure travel junkie or something, but you want to be surprised and by where you are, but you don't want to feel like you don't belong, or you've just gone too far.

You're not going to be able to navigate this. And that's really where that hospitality comes in.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: I love the conceit of elimination of awkwardness because especially as an entrepreneur, so much of Eliminating awkwardness just in, in terms of working with a client that [00:09:00] we've never worked with before. Uh, they might not know the way that we do it, but most successful companies have a way that they do it, right?

Because we're all companies or businesses, we, we, we have a, an easy button, right? We're, we're, we all exist. A, to be profitable, but B, we wouldn't be profitable if we weren't solving someone else's problem. Right? And I'm curious, how do you take that, um, idea of eliminating awkwardness to starting to work with a prospective client or onboarding a new employee?

Or how do you bring people into that idea of eliminating awkwardness?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: I think one of the things that's of the reasons I love working in hospitality field generally is usually no matter what side of the table you're sitting on, uh, whether you're operating the space, you're building the space, you're an investor figuring it out, [00:10:00] hospitality means something to you. And so unlike maybe in other sectors of design or of operation or development, At the end of the day, there is some base alignment between all of us, between client and designer, which is that we're sort of, at the end, we're trying to create this great experience for people. And so as you're saying, that's gotta be part of the process of working together. that starts with our own culture in our studio, carefully bringing in the right mix of people, treating people with tremendous respect. You know, every day as we're going through these stressful, uh, phases of building a project, but also building a real connection right away with the client team, which includes. operators, as well as, you know, the owner, developer, et cetera. How are we building that confidence and that trust in that common language from the outset? We've chosen a path in our studio, which is to try to do a really wide [00:11:00] range of projects and to try to make each design solution completely unique for that project.

So we always say like, you know, if in 10 years at the end of our 10th year, you looked back at our work, you might not be able to tell that the same studio made all of the work that we made. That would be like a dream scenario because we're not trying to develop a style or a look and feel or certain sort of, of the trade that we use again and again.

We're really trying each time to create a completely appropriate solution for the project that we're doing. And so I think that elimination of awkwardness is, you know, at the root of what we're trying to do as the hospitality, but it's also sort of what we're doing with our client along the way.

There's sort of like a process within the process, which is to say, how do we get comfortable early? How do we align? A lot of times in the beginning, Um, the client's ideas might not be compatible. Like they may be in conflict with each other. [00:12:00] They may want to do one thing and another thing, and it's, they may not know how to reconcile those things, how to make it, you know, super high end, but also very comfortable and relaxed or something, for example. And so, One of our jobs is to listen very carefully to everything they're saying, and then to try to synthesize that into what we call the design foundation, which is basically the way that we will approach the visual and design vocabulary that we will use to build the project out. So we listen to these, know, varied ideas they have, we bring our own intuition and our own experience, and We do a lot of research on the location of the project or the context of the project, and we build what we call the design foundation.

So it's four different points of reference. They're always the same points, but the content of each of those is different per each project. we can sort of encapsulate sometimes varied ideas of where [00:13:00] we're trying to go. into that. when we align with the client, we say, okay, we all agree this is the design foundation, or we all agree this is essentially the vocabulary through which we're going to design this project. Then, uh, No matter what happens along the way, we're each looking back at the same foundation. We're each looking back at the same, uh, roadmap. so that's been really critical. And since we know always how we're going to go about solving the problem, even if we don't know what the solution to the problem is, what it looks like or how it works, are very comfortable along the way, as comfortable as you can be staring at a white page and designing something, you know, that's blank space, uh, that we're, we can track ourselves, our, you know, our team can stay We know where we are and our client, we can guide them through this very nebulous early phase.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: One of the things I visit a lot of different companies, um, [00:14:00] both within our industry and outside of our industry. And there's something about culture that is palpable, that when you walk into a, an office, so to speak, no, if you walk into someone's office and you just get the vibe, like in a, in a second, you just know it when it's right.

There's a, the culture is right. And the values are right. It's, it's all there. And you can just, you can almost smell it. So this. You started your firm seven years ago. Let's take two of those years away for just COVID. Okay.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Okay, sure.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: really in, in F and in essence, five years ago, um, how did, did you have this idea of this design foundation when you first started, or did that evolve as your team grew and you had, and as you built your team and everyone else had point of view, how did you know when to have this?

onboarding process to get [00:15:00] the culture of a project correct.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: it, it did start almost at the beginning and part of it is I'm a bit of a, well, I, I studied art history as an undergrad. I'm a very research oriented person and I love the idea of

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: So when you say, when you say you're a bit of whatever you're about to say, it's like you are a total whatever you're about

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yes, I 100 percent hands up. You got me. I'm obsessed with research. And, um, I'm always trying to infuse as much into something as possible, even if the guest or the user or whoever consumes it. They don't have to know that. They don't have to be able to see all that. I just like getting it sort of maximalized in terms of the inspiration. So part of it is my own sort of, that's how I am oriented in the world. And I love to bring the, all these different references to bear. it also comes from knowing that projects that follow trends [00:16:00] are very likely to date and sort of age quickly. Whereas projects that are referenced to where they are, even if they become a little bit out of fashion or if their design, maybe when they open are very sort of of the moment and then things move on and they no longer look, you know, we are so, uh, sort of trend focus in visual culture they're, they make sense for where they are.

So, a big part of the design foundation is just to say, we're not chasing a trend, we're not trying to do a thing that looks cool right now, we're trying to create an interior that makes sense where it is, and will always make sense where it is, and then ideally maybe subtle updates could happen, or layers could be changed, or new histories could be overlaid, but we're not sort of in 10 years saying, Oh, this is why, why does this look like this?

We hate these colors now, or we don't, you know, do this. Um, so, so part of it is sort of the aspiration. [00:17:00] then I think it is a very scary thing, both for designer and for owner or anyone else creating something to look at a blank page and to decide what should be on that page. Like what are we creating together?

So the design foundation process is not only leading us to a great end result, but it's also just really giving us a way that we can all get really close really early and align on ideas. So I think it's partly a visual thing, you know, or sort of how do we make our designs look special and distinctive, but it's also partly a process thing, which is how can we show you client that we have listened, that we've heard, that we've done our research, that we have great ideas and that they can all work together.

So it's a little bit of a confidence building Right.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: it's, it's the project is tethered [00:18:00] to where it is at that given moment in time. When you were talking about this, I had a friend, I don't know if this is a real story or not, but he, uh, he was, he, this was in high school. He told me about this interview that Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood was being interviewed by a French news outlet.

I don't know what it was. And they're like, Mr. Eastwood, how, why are you so cool? So that mind you, this is probably 30, 35 years ago, 40 years ago. Why are you so cool? And he basically pulled out a cigarette, took out a match, lit it on his cheek and lit the cigarette. He goes, I don't know. But right. Clint Eastwood is tethered.

And purpose built for who he is, right? It's just like it goes every, it, it follows him everywhere. Um, this is my long way around to getting, you mentioned that there were four parts of your design foundation. Um, you also said that you started [00:19:00] it early on when you started your company, right, because you're obsessed with research.

Have you followed that design foundation with every single client that you've had?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: We have. Have we followed it every single time? No. Have we learned a lot in the process? Yes, absolutely. So, like, here's an example. of the four is a muse, so we always have a muse for every project, and that's usually either a person or maybe a group of people, could be like an artist collective, or it could be a composer or something, and they will be related to the project somehow.

Sometimes they're even unrelated, and they're a counterpoint that's sort of adding some frisson or some tension to our design foundation. We learned over the years that If you have a muse that is a living person that is still creating, that is still alive, that's really hard. Because in a way, what you end up [00:20:00] doing, even though you're trying to be inspired by their work or paying homage to their work, you sort of end up almost either copying their work or misinterpreting their work. So over the years, we, in the beginning, we had live muses. And as we've gone farther along, we sort of made our own internal rule. Like the muse should basically be dead.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yes.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: And that's mostly just because you can walk all the way around that person's work. You can see that person's work, but also you can extrapolate a little bit abstract, you know, you can sort of riff off of that. So it's an example. Um, there's another, that we use that is what we call familiar, which is something that someone, not someone, most people who would come to this project might recognize from pop culture, from history, from just sort of cultural mores. And that's been a challenging one over the years that if we make something very general, like let's say that's something like, you [00:21:00] know, a barbecue by a lake or something that might be a certain attitude or mood. Sometimes it doesn't actually give us specific tools. So we've, we've always had those same categories, but we've gotten better at over the years saying this one is a good version of this. This will draw lots of design inspiration. This version is something that seems great in theory, but isn't actually going to help us or our client to make design decisions.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: So Muse, something that's familiar. What are the other two?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: There's a historic, which is basically usually has a lot to do with either the building, the site, the neighborhood, the city, but sometimes the historic could be unrelated. So, but that is kind of, there's some period in history or some moment or movement that we are very closely referenced to that makes sense for the project. And then the more complicated one I think is aspirational, [00:22:00] is to say sort of at its highest and best. What could this project be? could this go? usually with the aspirational, the trick is to shoot for the moon, you know, to say this goes way beyond what we could actually achieve in this maybe highly transactional experience or this very limited space or this strata of budget.

But that's sort of the moonshot for us that helps us to elevate the project. And so it's sort of this effort in the, in the beginning of the project to say within these categories, what are we as our basis here. And that, what we sort of call the equals, there's probably a more elegant name for it, but we put these four things together. What is the, what is the visual language or the conceptual language that we're left with?

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: It's really interesting because what's surprising to me about those four [00:23:00] points is that you're not necessarily, it might be incorporated in those, but usually when I hear about something like this, it's like, who is the customer? Right? It's like, it's, it's almost very tactile. This is like so much more elevated, but I guess if you're doing it right, much in the same way that like Danny Meyer, you know, puts in his four or five stakeholders of one of his Restaurants, the shareholders, which normally are first or the customers are first, the shareholders are actually last and the customers aren't even first.

They're down low because if you're doing all of these other things correct at a foundational level, it's going to be, the odds are, it's going to be a successful project. So let's, if you don't mind, I'd love to think about, um, in, uh, not Nassau Coliseum. What's it called now?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Uh, it's, uh, the Islanders new home.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yeah.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: it's UBS arena at Belmont

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Okay. UBS arenas. [00:24:00] So, so think about. When I think of, when I see an arena, there are so many stakeholders. There's the, the neighbor, there's like the community board of the neighbors. There's shareholders, there's the visionary developer. There's the teams that are going to be playing in there. There's the concert venue or performers that are going to be making their way through there.

Like when you kick it off with your clients, so to speak, in something like that, which has so many different stakeholders, um, how do you, how do How do you introduce this idea of the foundation, and how do you corral from all of the different inputs to make sure that you're in alignment, and do you check in along the way to make sure with all those, not crazy, I want to say crazy statements, they're not crazy, they just are all very specific and branded and they know exactly what they're all about, like, how do you make sure that you're all in alignment?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: I would be, um, remiss [00:25:00] if I didn't say that smoothest projects that we've done in our whole history with the smaller size decision making group, a single decision maker or a very focused team. And just by their very nature, the most challenging ones are the ones where you have a really, really large group of decision makers. And that's, that's just, as you're pointing out, that's just. Dynamics. That's not about any of our specific clients who are large or small. It's just a lot easier to align, you know, a smaller group of people around a vision. And it's. You just don't have so many second guesses or, you know, so much work of kind of aligning all the people. Um, this might be a moment to mention that I went to a Quaker school from kindergarten through 12th grade. And so I'm, I learned consensus as like a foundational method of kind of going through life. Um, and so there's, so there's a degree of patience you have to have to say if you genuinely want to. [00:26:00] all the stakeholders to eventually pull in one direction.

You, you just have to invest time in that. But I also think what's interesting about what you're asking, particularly in the case of the arena, is our, our, our core client team at the very top of all of the different stakeholders had a very clear vision that they wanted to build an arena that was unlike any other arena because they wanted the hospitality experience there to be on par with what you would have anywhere. any restaurant or hotel you went to, which is specifically why they brought us into the process. So they didn't want, and they kind of set us up to say, go ahead and call us out if we're doing a thing sort of by rote, or we're doing a thing that's optimized for throughput of people or whatever that is. And so I think the result is this marriage of listening to what needed to happen operationally, listening to what the whole sports side needed to do. to be and do and how it had to work. Listening to what the entertainment side, the live music, live events had to, [00:27:00] needed to work. And then of challenging both to say, could you get to this place? And so I think that when there are more stakeholders, it's definitely more time. And there's definitely more sort of traps you can fall into where you can sort of Fall back on ways that things have done before, but if you can pull people through that and say, why is it that you've always done it this way when you could do X, Y, or Z, um, in, in particular, like, we spent a lot of time on the bathrooms, both the men's and the women's bathrooms, and we spent a lot of time making spaces for families for. Um, you know, family restrooms and for moments like sensory rooms and things like that, because it's like, yes, the space has to be optimized to get 18, 000 people in and out of it and to have these huge public assembly events. But that doesn't mean that we have to let go of the things that we need as people. doesn't mean that we don't still want a good drink or [00:28:00] be able to sit comfortably or any of that. So it's just sort of holding on to what is the basic needs and just trying to find the ways to bring that to bear.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: One of the stakeholders in that that I is like they're they're in my head screaming right now because I'm visualizing them and it sounds to me like you're your tight group of core clients may have deflected them for you, but it's those passionate Nassau County. Islander fans, like they're like a different breed of person,

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Sure.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: by all measures and everything that I've heard and also just experienced being there, it's a successful project.

So how did you, there's the ultimate win on that, making sure that those super passionate Nassau County Islander fans are happy.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: We, we, I mean, absolutely. That was one. of sort of two main goals. And the second one was, if you're going there to see Beyonce, was the person we always said, or Dua Lipa, or you know anybody in concert, do you feel like you're in a [00:29:00] really great arena experience seeing a great show, not that you're sort of, you know, second important program that happens in that space.

So those two things and the way we started, you know, it's ironic. Um, Chris Rizzo, who's our creative director of branding it at the beginning of the project was the only hockey fan in our studio. The only one that really understood hockey culture. Thank God we had one and we were very honest about that.

We weren't like, walking into the first meeting saying, we watch hockey all the time. We're like, we are novices, but we use that as a strength. So Chris gave us such great knowledge. Um, but also we really, you know, went about trying to understand. And the first thing we did is we went to a bunch of Islanders games in Nassau Coliseum. And then we went to, um, go see them at Barclays, which is just a kind of a terrible place to see hockey because it was really designed for basketball. And so the Islers fans were suffering at Barclays, having just subpar experience, even though Barclays is [00:30:00] cool, it wasn't a great place to see hockey. So we had to find a way to bring the intimacy of what they love in Nassau Coliseum, the sense that you're so close to the ice, the sense of it being small and intimate.

to a much bigger venue. And really the way to do that was to sort of build in that sense of home. And we did this, we did the environmental art program around all the concourses as well as part of our project. And one of the big things we made was this welcome home sign. Um, and that was really one of our guiding principles was when the Islanders fans come. They have to feel like this is their home. They'd sort of been wandering in the desert, right? Between Barclays and Nassau.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yeah.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: it's, it's part of that is like, if you're not willing to design for that core group, if you have any, sense of like, Oh, I want to make this beautiful, or I want to make this what I want, you know, which sometimes people in design and architecture have that trick, right?

You know, that sort of, um, catch that they [00:31:00] think, well, I know what would be better, you have to design with the humility of saying like, What does my guest need and want? What would be success for them? We will be successful if we listen to that.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: I think another interesting fact is because like you've designed like 75 other

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: No,

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: know, this was your first one, right?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: the first.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: okay, so walk us through that, like, how did you even come in contact with those clients, and how did they have the faith that you Cause when did you start that? You must've started that early on in your entrepreneurial journey. So like, how did that happen?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: So we were incredibly lucky that we were working on a restaurant with Danny Meyer, which is now open. It's called Ciciamo. It's been open for a few years. It's one of my favorite projects that we've done. So we were working with Danny.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Is that by Penn station?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: that is exactly right across from Moynihan in the Manhattan [00:32:00] West Plaza, just east of Hudson Yards, not in Hudson Yards. And we we were working on that project with Danny was still in development, but his Uh, team was doing some early consulting with the arena project to talk about, or maybe even just discussing consulting. I don't remember how far it got, but to look at their hospitality and their events and catering side. And the, that client team said to Danny, we're looking for a young firm, you know, that's, that's going to bring a lot of fresh ideas about hospitality. Do you have any ideas? And Danny was gracious enough to refer us to recommend us. And of course, The, the client team, which was officially New York Arena Partners, um, but it's a combination of different, um, entities. They were excited that we were working with Danny Meyer. So it's sort of one of these nice things where the trust of one client sort of led to trust from another,

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Especially Danny Meyer. Like,

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Danny Meyer.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Okay.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: who has [00:33:00] done amazing things to support us and given us tremendous opportunities. Um, but, I think Dan, the biggest thing about this is not of coming with, you know, put cards on the table and not pretending, not saying, well, we've done something like this or that we just say, like, we've never done an arena before. as I said, even a minute ago, like we, we aren't even huge sports fans.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: I did go to a Quaker school.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: There's a good old Quaker school. And so one of the things that I, I learned really early, which was in my, I was a Rockwell group for seven and a half years. And one of David's, you know, like one of the lessons I've most internalized and just most grateful, uh, for, from David is this idea that. If you've never done a project type before, you're actually like one of the best people to do it. And David's really made a career out of that. I mean, Rockwell Group does so many types of projects, maybe the most diverse range of projects [00:34:00] of any architecture firm. I think I've sort of been inspired about that from day one, you know, that If you are looking at something for the first time, it's not going to be the most efficient.

You know, on the, on the design team side, there's a lot of extra work. There's a lot of research. We had to put in a lot of extra hours to get up to speed. We have to rely on great partners, consultants. You know, there's someone that knows a lot more about ticketing than we do. There's someone that knows a lot more about catering on a really large scale than we do. As long as they're at the table, we're going to be able to make good choices together. but it's really kind of become a signature of our practice that we want to every year, every couple of years, challenge ourself to do something really on the edge of what we know. We have to be able to use our core hospitality knowledge, our core understanding of sort of how people want to be and feel. But we also love it when there's a whole part of [00:35:00] this that we don't really know so much. And, um, so, The best way to convince the client really is to say all what I've just said, to lay cards on the table and say, we have no idea, but that we've gotten through it a million times. We've designed a jet, we've designed a ship, we've designed, you know, all kinds of projects that when we started, we didn't know very much about them. What we do is rely on the knowledge that we do have. And then we rely on rigorous research and like a ton of creative problem solving. And the combination of those two things usually ends up with a great project.

Hey everybody, we've been doing this podcast for over three years now. And one of the themes that consistently comes up is sustainability. And I'm just really proud to announce that our sponsor Berman Falk Hospitality Group is the first within our hospitality industry to switch to sustainable and recyclable packaging, eliminating the use of styrofoam.

Please check out their impact page in the show notes for more [00:36:00] info.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: one of my favorite books I've read because it distills what you're saying. Well, One of my favorite, I'll call them business porn books I've ever read. It's not like one of my favorite works of literature. Uh, it's called Rookie Smarts, and it,

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Ah.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: just goes into, uh, whether it's approaching a project that you've never done before, or onboarding someone new, young, or from a whole different worldview.

Like, what are the best ways to get them to look at things from a fresh perspective? And how do you, I, that's rife with pitfalls too, but it's like, but everyone has a real. Looking at things from a different angle or from fresh perspective is where you have, I think you really have these incredible breakthroughs.

You look at, um, and I talk about this a lot, but just, I'm just so in awe of like, uh, Barry Sternlich. And when he started W Hotels, he brought in all these people that had no experience doing a hotel. Um, and he's, [00:37:00] Done that over and over. He's like, I don't, cause, cause eventually when, if you have this one idea of how you do things, you kind of do it in a, in a way that the vacuum cleaner can get under the bed.

Right. But that might not necessarily make for a really innovative and new room experience. Right. So it's, how do you, how do you really tap into that and lean into that? So I want to go back into that foundation. How do you, when you bring on and when you onboard a new team member, and I also just love how I know that you won designer of the year, but you're the first person to say, it's really, we all of us, right.

And you, we all stand on the shoulders of those before us and part of our team, but how do you either organically or scriptedly or prescriptively when you onboard someone, how do you, Make sure that [00:38:00] you're getting their fresh perspective.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: know, that's, that's a great question, Dan, because I think opportunity when you bring somebody on, as you said, that you have, we're sort of increasing the size of our brain and we're increasing our creative capacity. And yet, we do have a way that we work, a process, and we do have knowledge from the projects that we've done that we want to be able to bring to bear.

We don't necessarily want to recycle design solutions, but we do have, you know, worked very hard to understand, be students of our clients, and to be students of the business that we work within. So, I think there is In our studio, we have a tremendously flat So if you were to sit in on any of our design meetings, you would notice that, you know, everyone speaks, everyone shares ideas.

There [00:39:00] isn't sort of a top down approach or these people come up with the ideas and these people develop them or these people document them. We've had a very, very, um, of flat hierarchy the beginning. And at this stage, I have now, you know, many of our colleagues have been the studio for a long time.

So, as you said, it's really a we. It's not, it's not me. I'm not sitting down and saying this is what the project should be. We know where we're going to start. And we can, we now are working more and more simultaneously. So we'll set up, you know, Google slides, documents, and we'll be kind of pulling things together.

And the, the process is taking shape from, from every quarter. So there is a process as people are learning, sort of learning what. What we're about and what we love and what we do, maybe we'll go back to the elimination of awkwardness. There may be moments where new team members are sort of like, I don't quite understand [00:40:00] what, what hits the mark and what doesn't, because it's not very black and white and it's not aesthetic.

It's not about design. But what I will say is that The way we drive our designs is not by saying, okay, we're designing a bar. So let's look at a lot of images of bars. It's sort of like we recently did a food and beverage project where we looked at the layouts of pubs. And how they created certain sort of like social interactions, but we use the layouts, not the physical expressions, right? Not the design. So we weren't looking at like pub design. We're just looking at how did spaces get organized early on. so I think those kinds of things are where. new team members can bring like so much value because they know different movements in art.

They know different, um, things about different places in the world. They've traveled, they've had their own experience that they bring to us. So the way that we build things is a sort of very indirect [00:41:00] process. And I think that is what's really, uh, kind of what's so valuable about bringing in people from the outside with new perspectives and new ideas.

They just are going to bring, uh, new information.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: I'm sure as you're developing that foundation or the design foundation, you're, um, you're asking your clients as well, and they're bringing in their fresh ideas, right? Because you're having them select their muse, something familiar, something historic, something aspirational. So it's this, are they. Are your clients dropping images and feelings into those Google slides as well?

Or do you keep that like separate?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: it depends. We recently did a project with Missy Robbins. It's called Missy Pasta. It's in Williamsburg. And she's a chef who has amazing restaurants, Lilia and Missy. And she was very, very involved in the creative process because she feels design really passionately. She's not trained as a designer, but she came to The meetings with images and she sat in our [00:42:00] studio for hours with us and went through, we would pin things up and we'd go through.

So it's definitely possible. And sometimes part of the process to have the clients bring visual inspiration and really be in that process. But other times it's more that they have a sense of the experience they want to create. They don't know how that might translate into a visual experience or they don't know how that might translate into a brand. Um, you know, foundation or what would, what would need to happen as sort of signatures or hallmarks of a brand to make this experience happen? We, it's a very open door. I would say it's probably when you said, like, you know, are they selecting? I think it's our responsibility to So they're sometimes more like confirming you know, sort of co creating. Um, again, it's not that we don't have the door very open for the collaboration. It's just that I do think fundamentally, like our job is to sort of speak the design to shape the experience. [00:43:00] And so, uh, we take that seriously. If someone's trusting us, you know, we sort of don't want to make them pick everything or figure everything out.

If that makes sense.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: It a hundred percent makes sense.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: I'll give one example too. I see in your face you're thinking about something else. I don't want you to

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: No, no, I, I actually, cause like, as you're talking about all that, I know what I want to do now. So, but give your, give your example.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: I'll just, I'll just add this. Um, we, you know, you talked about so and so's in the beginning. Um, when we started that project, that was a Hampton Inn. So it's a select serve hotel that we helped to transform. Island Studio did the guest rooms. We did the public spaces and the piano bar. that space was, part of that space was just the breakfast room where you get your free breakfast and you kind of crank out those waffles in the waffle iron. And it's, there are no windows, no access to the street. You have to walk through deep, through the hotel lobby, past the reception desk. A dead space. And the [00:44:00] client said we might need to do our food and beverage venue here. Because we don't really have access to the street. they said, what would you do? So we came up with the idea. We came up with three different ways that they could activate the space. And the piano bar in the end was the one that they chose, but that was our team that came up with that. And it would be easy for us as designers to be like, come on, like, this is New York city. No, one's going to walk through a hotel lobby or there's no way to access this or, you know, give us something better to work with. And instead we thought, okay, here's the constraints, no daylight. Like awkward, you know, arrival path. We figured out that you could punch a hole. a door in the side street on 52nd Street and get in. You could combine some luggage room space and some back of house space. You could get a better, bigger space. And then we could create a concept that doesn't need natural light, that gets better and is cooler if there's no visibility from the street. And so I think that's like the highest and best that we can bring to a client is to help them [00:45:00] imagine something that That they couldn't on their own. And then we moved through the process.

We designed the brand, we designed the space. We kind of figured out a lot of ways the space could be activated. And to me, that's sort of the highest and best value of what we can bring to our clients is to say, what could this be with just blue, blue sky as a, our container.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: and the, okay. So this is actually a great transition into what I was trying to ask, but I just couldn't figure out how to ask it. So. In that process, you're not chasing a trend, right? Piano bars are cool in New York if you can find them. I love them. They're great, but it's not like a trend, right? So in a way you're asking all of these clarifying questions in your design foundation, right?

If I were a potential client of yours, it's a two part question. So if I was a potential client of yours when you first started seven years ago and you told me who your, um, muse was, How, what was familiar to Goodrich? [00:46:00] Like your muse, your, your familiarity. The, his, the historic anchor and aspirational. What were they then?

And if I were one and a new client asking you now, have they changed at all for you as Goodrich for you and your team as Goodrich?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: So it's funny you ask this because we actually use the Design Foundation on ourselves too. And we did create, as we were creating our branding, which actually did not arrive until about year two, year one and a half, something like that. Because we didn't have any finished projects in the beginning, obviously, right?

We were working on these projects, we're working on Danny's restaurant, working on a hotel for Kempton, uh, working on a project for West Elm. We had these things going, but we None of them were, you know, they were years before they opened, so we didn't really need a brand, we didn't have a website. I, I had a business card that said Matthew Goodrich is building something, but I'm not sure anyone else even had a business [00:47:00] card. So, so when we did start doing our own identity, we put ourselves through our own process and said, what are our, our four pillars? And, um, I agree with you that I think they could be different today, not because our. Values shifted, but I think we know ourselves a little better. Like I would just say the design foundation is probably always a hypothesis and it sort of gets confirmed through the work with our clients.

And then in a way, once we build that thing, hopefully it gets embraced by its audience and then it just gets codified. I think the difference when you're trying to do it for yourself and also for a studio that is a living, dynamic organism full of. Very talented people that has shifted a lot over this time.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: And has that moves moved? Physical location as well, right?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: And I've moved physical location at the time that we did that. I think there were six of us and we were sharing desks with Anda Andre and her [00:48:00] office.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: I remember.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: um, by. By now we have our own studio. Uh, we have, I think, 16 people. We're actually about to move into a much larger studio in the spring. And so, yeah, we have grown a lot.

And importantly, when we started, we really were only doing interior design. And now we are doing as much branding. And, and brand strategy for, especially for big restaurant groups and for big hotel brands, uh, as we are doing interior design and we're doing product design, um, as well. So the, would say that the design foundation that got us going. it could sort of be worth bringing back into the studio, putting on the table and say, okay, does this, does this cover everything? You know who we are? Uh, because I think we're just a, uh, more multifaceted business now, more multifaceted creative entity. Now,

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: do you think you'll go through, you'll [00:49:00] look you, you got the 16 of you are more or less by the time you move into your new space in the spring, do you think you. All will get out that mirror and look at yourself and go through the new design foundation to like christen the new, the new space and the new world.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: you know, I, I like this idea, Dan, I don't think we have gotten that far in the process, but I sort of love that. Um, someone said to me, it's a little bit like, uh, um, a hermit crab that finds its house, right? And it finds a shell and then it gets bigger and it finds another. And, um, I'm slightly traumatized by leaving our office space.

Uh, it's a beautiful, um, top floor of a building. It has really high ceilings and windows on all sides. And we've been very happy in that little penthouse in the sky. And, um, because it's the whole floor, there's just nowhere to grow, nowhere to expand. So we're leaving it. And I think a lot of us [00:50:00] see all the opportunity that can come from having more space and having just sort of a, a new start. But I think, uh, I don't think we've, I love that you've just given me that gift, Dan, to think of this as like, here's a real opportunity. Okay. We're leaving this shell behind and finding a different one so we can grow a little bit. And what, what can that do? You know, how do we look forward? How do we look at opportunity at the same time?

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yeah, I think it's exciting. I'm in a, I'm for the past 10 years, I've been in a, a business group. We meet monthly, um, you know, and it's talking about, it's like a support group for entrepreneurs, but basically you talk about. Confidentially personal things, business things, family things, and it's, it's all in an effort to become more well rounded, um, as a, as a human, that whole 360 degree view.

In the course of these eight years, like, I've been in a couple different ones, we've, people have come and gone, I've left, I've joined [00:51:00] a new one, but the, the resounding feeling from all of them, or the theme from all of them is that, listen, whenever someone new joins, We shed all the other baggage and we become a new forum, right?

It's not, um, there's, there's no, prejudice or there's no, um, baggage that's coming along to say, oh, this is how we have to roll because we want to get there, the new person's perspective to help it change and evolve, and it helps us change and evolve and look at ourselves in a different perspective.

It's, it's a little difficult with a company because right. You've over seven years and getting all of these accolades and working on all these great projects for you. You got a foundation, but I think it's also good to reevaluate that. And I guess from a branding perspective, as you're doing more and more branding, is there a rule of thumb or any kind of, um, pattern or period that you, you would suggest restaurants or other places of business that you've worked with [00:52:00] relook at those pillars?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: That's really interesting. I would say given our young History as a studio, we probably have not reached that point yet on any project that we birthed or sort of conceived with our clients. Right. But it is a good point. I mean, this is sort of like a live collection, right? Like, will we get to that point? Um, on Chief CMO's second birthday, we gave them a birthday present of a bunch of hours to help kind of spruce things up and refresh. That restaurant has been highly successful, and we wanted to make sure that is still looking its best and kind of make sure we smooth out any of the of the tiny cracks and stuff that come from from being so busy. I think I could see a scenario with some of our projects where, okay, this is now gone. You know, this has been a successful hotel or restaurant for this long. And what does it need now? [00:53:00] don't think we're designing any project, you know, from the perspective we talked before about trends of like, Oh, well this, this will be great for a little bit, and then at some point we'll change it. But I do think that we're trying to design the project so they can age and grow and they could have layers and overlays and a huge part of that is because designer, you know, we're trained as designers in design school to sort of think that we're God, you know, we're creating the environment, we're conceiving it, you know, architects and designers are trained to think that way a little bit.

But the reality is that we're handing that space over and a culture is going to build around either the restaurant or the hotel or the arena or whatever it is that we've built. And that culture, Culture is going to decide what it wants and needs, you know, so it's, it's sort of, um, I think if we're lucky enough that a lot of people embrace a project that we make, [00:54:00] and it becomes successful, we have to also face the fact that It could sort of grow away from whatever our sort of very orthodox vision of it was in the beginning and have to have some humility about that to say, Oh, okay, you know, like this area of the hotel really is just used this way, or this is a need and we're going to have to add or update or change this thing.

So I wouldn't say necessarily that we're thinking of it yet, although it's an interesting idea, like here's the cycle at which you do it. But I think we are aware that the projects that we do. Will be shaped more by their communities the longer they're open than than by us and our vision

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yeah, I also just taking to CMO as an example, you design the space to eliminate awkwardness. You go through their, their, um, design foundation. You've created this incredibly successful or helped create this incredibly successful, uh, [00:55:00] restaurant, but then whatever your best intentions are. People may be gathering in a place that was unexpected, or there might be some other wear and tear.

So my big takeaway from what you just shared, which I think we can all learn from, and that's like the ultimate gift of the heart is that two year anniversary present of giving your time to just like refresh, uh, rethink, um, recharge, re engage with your client, who also was just, did you such a, such a great service by introducing you.

To, uh, the UBS arena. I mean, that's, that's, but I, I, I guarantee you, you did not do it as a quid pro quo, that's like just how you lead with your heart. What a thoughtful gift.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: I mean, well, there's I feel like it's a whole other podcast We could just talk about the ways that Danny has changed the culture in our studio and what we've learned from him, you know

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: think I'm going to take you up on that. Cause he's like a dream of mine to have on here. And I've met him a couple of [00:56:00] times and I've read all of his books and made my kids listen to the audio books. And,

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yeah.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: and, uh, he's just like a real hero of mine.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: And, and mine as well. And we're very fortunate right now. We're working with him and his team on, I think, four projects. Um, but what I will say is this, the. The best thing we can do as we're incubating a project is use, you know, our best, best hypothesis, our knowledge, our experience. We learned so much from him and his team to create that space, but what is remarkable is to see as a designer, to see the space open and operating edge.

Bye! a high level, because the reason the restaurant is successful, I think if Danny was sitting with us, he would say that it's partly due to the design, because I know he likes the design and he's been very complimentary over time, but it also is the extraordinary team that is in that restaurant and it is.

I [00:57:00] mean, it's open seven days a week, lunch and dinner, and there are just hundreds of people having this amazing experience there over and over again. And it's because of the way the service works, the real culture of hospitality there, and we've been fortunate enough to have Projects lifted and sort of made better by how well they're being operated by how, you know, the commitment of that team. But I don't think I've ever been involved in a project where it was elevated so much and to such a high level. So it's so gratifying to have that connection to say we were part of this

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Mm.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: when you walk in every day, it's just an extraordinary experience. We've also had, you know, the experience of designing something that's beautiful and really interesting, but it just doesn't quite click with its operations, or maybe it wasn't aligned with the market it was in. And even though it's beautiful and beautifully designed, it just doesn't succeed. So I think we're [00:58:00] very aware

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Mm.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: special it is when an operator, when a team that is providing that hospitality and that service just takes it to an extraordinarily high level. It makes us look really, really good. Really good,

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: The other thing that's unusual about Chisiamo is that it's not at Penn Station or MSG. It's not at Hudson Yards. It's in this really awkward place that I would go to all the time because I love B& H Photo, and like, that is one of the coolest stores for anyone who ever wants to like, get, Gear or just look around and be with super knowledgeable people.

It's like a weird no man's land. And to hear how and see how successful it is, is just insane to me because, and you were also very quick to say it's not part of Hudson Yards. Like it's cause Hudson Yards is this purpose built, like mini Singapore that popped up out of nowhere with like, The Avengers building and just like, it's very futuristic metropolis.

Moynihan's gone through a cool thing with Penn [00:59:00] Station and also, um, you know, MSG is MSG and all the commuters that come in. But like, it's just, it's a weird little zone. And, wow. If you think about, like, when you lit up there, for those of you who are listening and didn't see it, when you talked about how much you've learned from Danny, throughout your career as you look back, whether it's a mentor or Outside of Danny, who is someone else that, like, you really learned so much from on your, on your journey?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: well, I mentioned a little earlier, um, David Rockwell and, you know, when I worked at Rockwell group, there were 330 people on the team. So it wasn't like. You know, it was an amazing experience. It wasn't like I was sitting next to David and we were talking every day, but I think that that vision that David has of the role a designer could have.

And this idea, we talk about [01:00:00] sort of the world is your oyster as a designer. If you were, you know, if you take that responsibility seriously, that was huge. had a very early mentor. at Pratt, John Otis, who was one of my first professors. And I worked for him for a year after I graduated. John is somebody who's really taught me both how to live as a designer, but also to sort of have confidence to approach design From a very kind of, um, scientific point of view, like to really study the problem. And as a mentor, he's been incredible. I mean, I think every decision I've made about moving jobs in my career, even the decision to start the studio, I've consulted him. He's introduced me to different people. He's the one that made the introduction at Avroco for me to have my interview there. So, You know, there's, there's [01:01:00] kind of different levels of mentor, right?

There's, there is the kind of big personality that helps you set your vision or understand what's possible in the world. And then there's somebody like John Otis, who is really there. feel like, you know, with a hand on the shoulder pushing forward because he was tough, you know, he was a tough professor and he definitely in some of these turns has said like you could do better or you could do, you could challenge yourself more. But I've always felt that support. It's been extraordinary.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: So to me, whether we practice design as a profession or are just figuring out problems, to me, Design is really about taking all these different ideas and whether it's writing an essay or, um, I don't know, just creating anything or just getting your thoughts together for the day. It's really taking this path of intentionality and [01:02:00] organizing all these thoughts in a cohesive way that makes sense.

I do it with writing all the time. Um, I'm curious because I think John Ode, I think he's come up from other people I've interviewed, um, because it sounds really familiar. And I don't know a lot of people at Pratt, but it sounds very familiar. So I'll have to like do a search somehow, but how would, how would John or how did John tell you or inform you or inspire you to live like a designer?

What does that mean?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Well, it's interesting because I think you Well, there's two, okay, there's two things that I would say that I, I really internalize. The first is that your whole life is design. John's mentor, or maybe the biggest creative inspiration for him, I believe, I don't want to speak for him, was Ettore Sottsass, who he worked for in Milan when he was a young designer. And Ettore Sottsass says, you know, this is sort of passed through John to me, would say like your, your life is your creative project. And that [01:03:00] it's, it's not just sitting in the studio and cranking away, you know, now these days, staring at a screen or originally, you know, being at a drafting board, it's really everything that you're bringing to bear in life.

That is what inspires your design. And so I think that I've always been like a very in my head, person, very sort of theoretical and maybe cerebral. And I think one of the things he's taught me to do through his own example, but also sort of my creative journey has to been to bring more things about real life, like felt experience, interactions with people.

It's not all intellectual. It's also very much from the heart and from life. So I am more comfortable now bringing in. My own emotional experiences, experiences that I've had in life, encouraging my team and my colleagues to do the same instead of it all being kind of this highly theoretical, you know, sort of architectural, uh, you know, And so I think that's one piece. And then I think the other thing I would say, [01:04:00] which is directly related. We have to live in our bodies. We have to live experiences. We have to go out and travel. We have to go out and meet other people. We have to consume hospitality. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of others.

We have to think differently. From a compassionate perspective, from an empathetic perspective. And so if we just sort of sit in our corner of the world and design, and we don't actually connect to essentially a flow, like about being a human in the world, engaging with other people, then we're not going to be able to really bring. real, um, experiences to life. So I think that's part of it is like trusting not only the time in the studio, but the time, know, 24 hours a day that you have to be valid as points of inspiration or insight into the work that we do.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Hmm. Yeah, I completely agree. Is he still teaching?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yes.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Oh, wow. to me, [01:05:00] it's really pushing yourself out there, creating. We're all designing whether we realize it or not. And I find One of my big frustrations and you know, you were mentioning the Quaker school. Like I, I went to school. I had great art teachers all the time and they taught art, right?

They, uh, painting, drawing, create all these things. And I really liked it. And I feel like schools at a very young age should teach design. Not as, not as design, like, Oh, you're going to be an architect or whatever, but just it's the idea of design are those two points that, you know, It's like, I don't know, your whole life is your, is your project and like how do you get your body to push out there to suck the marrow out of life to be inspired so that you're bringing all of those information, all that information into every new project that you're doing.

If I have a [01:06:00] whiteboard and I make it look like a beautiful mind, step one, whether it's starting a business or thinking of a new strategy or anything, and then it slowly organizes and gets into buckets. That's design. Like writing an essay, it's design, right? Like I don't know why we don't use that word more in everything that we do, because it also is, It's coming from a place of power and intentionality.

Like I have this whole thing, this is me and I want to take that step forward and I want to create this life, this path. And I think we can all learn from that. So thank you for getting my head going.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: Well, fantastic. I'll add one more thing to what you're saying, which I agree with totally is that I think design having worked in fine art and worked in design, what's very special about design is it, it by its definition requires like more than one person. Right? Like, even if you're the only designer, you're designing for someone who's going to use this [01:07:00] thing or consume this thing or experience this thing. But more typically, and it goes back to what we were talking about with Design Firm of the Year, it's like, it's a, Group of us that are making design and we're making that in dialogue with others. So it's also this thing of co creation, which to me is so special. And there are so many people who can create entirely on their own, you know, and they are auteurs and they write or they paint or they sculpt or they write plays, but I really require this. collaborative process. I really need the context of it and the shared creative process of it. And that's why I love your thought about using design more because it's, that's really what's happening, you know, when we're working within this field, but when we're working in so many fields, it's really about moving towards a better way to do something that's brought about by collaboration.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: I completely agree. A hundred million percent. I want to say thank you to you for. Hey, just being here and putting yourself out there and just chatting with me for all of the listeners. But I [01:08:00] think more importantly, going back to the beginning of our conversation, like, I don't know how it all happened, but I just feel like the luckiest human being in the world that I've been able to be a part in these past couple of weeks of And just being in the right place at the right time and to see your journey from when you started to where you are now and getting all these accolades.

And I don't know, I just, I'm so lucky that I was able to help create this big celebration. It all really came together very well. And again, it wasn't you. It wasn't me. It wasn't Paul. It was all of this. Just seemed to come together in this great celebration. So I want to say thank you to you.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: That's amazing. And I feel so grateful to feel that. And again, as I said, I will not forget that experience because it was really magical. But I also want to say a big thank you to you because you may or may not remember this, but even from me. The very beginning [01:09:00] of me starting this effort, you've been actually just a tremendous support and inspiration and you've connected me to so many people and you've kind of pulled me aside and questioned me sometimes about things or given me, you know, another way to think about something and made so many introductions and really advocated for us as we've been growing.

Along the way at many, many critical junctures. And I think what's so interesting, I mean, I love listening to this podcast because it allows us to be very connected directly to everybody that you interview. It feels like we are almost having that conversation and that's great. It demystifies a lot. It inspires, it humanizes our industry. But I also think that's you in the world. Like you are. feeding all of us by inspiring us, by connecting us, by really making all these things happen. So it's nice that we had this wonderful moment around what to me is really the high watermark for our studio and really [01:10:00] just, you know, you know, the greatest thing that, that I've experienced as, as we have as a studio. But I also think it's the result of the way you are in the world and the way you are designing, uh, the evolution of our industry. So I'm, I'm grateful to you and I'm, I'm really thankful for everything you've done.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Oh, wow. That was unexpected. And, um, thank you. I'm going to like clip that and play that for my kids so that they can,

I don't want to minimize what you said there, but like, I'm like, Oh my God, I wish my kids could just hear that as you're saying no, but I, uh, Seriously, I appreciate it. Um, Matt, if people want to learn more about you or prospective clients even want to like say, Hey, what's this design foundation all about?

Um, what's the best way for them to learn?

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: So our website goodrich. nyc is a great way to see our work and you can get in touch with us through it. Uh, and we have an Instagram goodrich. nyc [01:11:00] and uh, we'd love to talk about projects, meet people, talk more about our work. So thanks so much for making that available.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: Yeah. And as you're, um, growing into your new space, your new hermit crab shell, I'm sure you'll want to, you'll have a few more desks you need to fill as well. So. whoever's interested, you can also listen to this and see that he's not really crazy. He's really a good human being, and his whole team is pretty awesome, so I can just, I can vouch.

But seriously, a heartfelt thank you, and I thank you, thank you, thank you.

matt-goodrich_1_11-19-2024_163732: so much, Dan. This is really, really enjoyable. I'm, I'm really grateful to have had the conversation.

dan-ryan--he-him-_1_11-19-2024_163732: And also to our listeners like and watchers or however you're doing it, please like subscribe, pass it on. Um, without you, we wouldn't be talking to great people and great entrepreneurs and great designers like Matt, um, and everyone else. So without you, we would actually, even if you weren't listening, I'd probably still be here because I get so much out of it.

So it's like my [01:12:00] own little, uh, graduate course in just everything. So thank you all. I appreciate you and we will catch you next time.