Joy in Collaboration: Two Bay Area Designers Unified Through Mutual Respect
Our podcast delves into the art and science of collaboration within the built environment industry. Hosted by Drew Lang, founder of Brick & Wonder, we explore the stories and strategies behind successful collaborations that drive innovation and shape the built world around us.
In this episode we moved the conversation to the west coast, where Drew spoke with two members who have come together in many successful project collaborations. Lisa Staprans, a San Francisco based interior designer and Karin Payson, an architect based in San Francisco and New York.
I don’t think success is so quantitative, it’s mostly qualifiable. How do you measure the happiness of a client? How do you measure the happiness of the design team? When everyone’s done, and you say, “Wow, that was fun. Can I work with you again?”
– Karin Payson
It’s always a joy to bring a whole team together, but then I feel a huge responsibility, like they better be what I hope they are. That means leveraging. They better be able to come through and be problem solvers with me to make sure our collective project can be its best. So to me, the leveraging means we’re all going to be showing up at our best.
– Lisa Staprans
I always want to be a collaborator and layer in. But this was tricky, the client used us against each other and we both got thrown into this situation, and we both cared deeply about the outcome. And I have to say, when it got really tricky, we got through it, and we kind of got glued together.
– Lisa Staprans
For many years, I was hesitant to lead when I had the capability of doing it, and so I would rely on other people… And I don’t know exactly when it happened, but it’s been within the last decade, I’ve really begun to own the leadership part of those relationships.
– Karin Payson
