00:00BaileyWelcome back to the podcast everyone. Bit of a different episode today. So instead of having any pre-planned topic, instead we're just gonna do a mailbag q and a episode. So Sean had recently posted on the 10 70 architecture Instagram just requesting questions that followers had.
So we're gonna be answering a bunch today. Mult mostly about. ADUs, custom homes, remodels multi-unit, missing middle housing developments. But then once we cover those, we have a bunch of fun off the wall type questions that we'll be doing in rapid fire. Sean, are you ready to tackle these questions that your followers wrote in with today?
00:42Sean CanningYeah, let's do it Bailey.
00:44BaileyAlright, so we'll be starting with ADUs quickly, Sean.
So Carlos Ramirez writes in. As of the moment. Spring 2026, what's the realistic all in cost for a detached a DU in San Diego right now.
01:00Sean CanningYeah, that's a really general question and it has a million variables. So it depends on the size of the A DU. It depends on the bedroom and bathroom counts of the A DU. It depends on how expensive your kitchen, appliances are, that could have a huge swing. Also depends on the site, whether it's flat, whether it's not flat, and like a million other different variables. I would say like when you say all in, we're talking about soft costs and hard costs. So design, engineering, permitting, and construction. You're probably starting at $200,000 at an absolute minimum. If you have a contractor who can really accommodate some cost-effective construction and you design an engineer the project with cost effectness in mind. So I'd say it starts at $200,000 and it just goes up from there. You could easily spend a million dollars. Building a top notch, large A DU
01:50BaileyI think he was trying to establish a floor more more affordable than I was expecting though, quite honestly.
01:55Sean CanningWould be a
01:56Baileyand then also.
01:56Sean Canningthat $200,000 number. It'd be a huge challenge.
02:01BaileyYeah, so maybe more like 300,000 more realistic ballpark. And just so everyone knows, I will be putting the timestamps in case there's a question you can just skip ahead that you really wanna know Sean's answer to, moving on.
So Dave O'Grady writes, I built a shed without permits a few years ago if I want to convert it into an A DU now.
Am I screwed?
02:27Sean CanningMaybe Depends how you built the shed. Yeah. Basically what you'd have to do is retro permit this thing. So you have to create a set of drawings that shows what's been built, including all of the framing. And then if the framing doesn't meet current code, Yeah, you're, you may be screwed. If you're lucky enough and you've built it, to code, it really comes down to the inspector.
So the inspector could have you rip off all the siding to ensure the framing is correct. He could have you just take off a little area and inspect that little area and assume the rest is the same. the same thing goes for your foundation, for your framing, your electrical, your plumbing. So it really depends on how well you did it and how close you built that shed to the code.
03:09BaileyYeah it's not looking optimistic. If I had to take a guess then, based on that answer.
03:14Sean CanningIt is not great. You probably, if it's more than 120 square feet, you should have permitted it. If it's less than 120 square feet, it does not a shed would not need a permit, but an A DU with plumbing wood.
03:25BaileyI imagine it's a borderline garage based on the way he described it. Moving onto the custom homes now
Kristen Cole writes, how do you keep a modern home from feeling cold and sterile? I'd say that's probably one of the biggest complaints about modern home design in general.
03:43Sean CanningI would say you're gonna wanna use warm materials like wood floors would be a great improvement. You could do a wood ceiling, that would be great. Something that's gonna be cold would be probably, like a gray or white or black, like neutral colors without introducing any like of the warmer, like red or orange or yellow type tones that you naturally find in wood. So you wanna be really careful about that. I would also extend. color to also like the softness of materials. So if you have a hard tile floor, there's gonna be a lot of echo and reverb. But again, if you were to go with some sort of engineered wood floor, I think it would feel a lot softer and I think it would also like sound a lot better. And I think those things would contribute to a home that was less sterile. also one more point I'll make. I think when you're talking about a modern home, generally you're gonna have like large expanses of glass. what those windows and doors look at? Would also contribute to how a home feels.
So if you have a large opening that just looks at like a stark gravel courtyard, that's gonna feel cold. if you have it looking out at the ocean, an amazing view, or maybe a really beautifully landscaped courtyard, then that would help a space feel more alive and more.
04:57BaileyInteresting. I would say lean into the mid-century color palette of lots of like oranges, blues, yellows, even. I think that could. Help a lot in my opinion.
05:06Sean CanningCertainly
Is the goal. Yeah.
05:10BaileyMatt Ra writes, what's the biggest mistake people make when building a custom home?
05:17Sean CanningI would say the. mistake is not planning the thing holistically, so a good architect should be planning. The mechanical system as part of the design, but that is very commonly pushed all the way to the end of the project. And then you're like, oh, well how are we gonna fit these ducts?
How are we gonna fit this electrical system and the plumbing? if you can when you're designing the project, you wanna consider. All of these things really holistically, and I would even extend that to say in the city of San Diego where we do most of our work, you also want to consider the permitting process as you're in the design phase. Because if you design something that requires a more complicated permit, you could be really increasing your. Budget significantly and increasing your timeline significantly. So basically the recommendation would be to consider the project holistically, which really takes a lot of experience, but you need to understand the structural system, the mechanical system, and even what kind of permit you're going to achieve and how to avoid certain permitting, pitfalls.
06:17BaileyGot it.
Marcus Dillard writes, my wife and I have completely different taste. How do you handle clients who can't agree on any of.
06:27Sean CanningOkay. As an architect, a lot of.
times our role falls a marriage counselor type role. I've noticed this like from my first project about 15 years ago. What we are pretty good at is mitigating the conversation between a husband and wife in our meetings, but ultimately what? What I think is the best process is to provide my opinion and then to let the clients go home and discuss it amongst themselves. There's only so much that as an architect I can inject myself into the marriage. you want to tread that line finally. This married couple will live in the home for 20 or 30 years. They have to make sure they discuss the thing together and are happy with the decisions they make. And I would say on projects in the past have seen this major issue, and when one partner is more overbearing than the other, that generally never works out well. So you want a husband and wife to be on the same P page, even if they're not on the same page in the meeting.
By the time they come to the next meeting, I want them to be on The same page. So they need to discuss things privately.
07:34BaileyThe scenario picture you paint reminds me of the HGTV and all the different shows they had on back in the day. Alright.
Alyssa Kawan. Kwan writes, how much of your own taste ends up in a client's home, whether they realize it or not?
07:52Sean CanningProbably a lot, the things that I'm looking at are probably the things that most. People that are not architects are not noticing. We have like certain proclivities to try to. How do I even say this? So sometimes we like to push a window all the way to the exterior wall or all the way to the wall. Which means you're gonna end up with a trim less window. if sometimes we'll push it all the way up to the ceiling so you don't have a header. And sometimes we'll move it all the way down to the floor. But basically like we're placing these windows based on our expertise and how we want this, the space to feel. In most scenarios. I don't even think a client would have an opinion on where that window is necessarily placed. So there's like a level of. Design that's going on, like under, like almost subconsciously that the client may not understand. But here's another scenario here. Let's say we're working on a kitchen design.
We provide different options, and then the client selects their favorite option and we make a couple adjustments. They're still selecting from what we think are the three best options. So like you hire an architect because you like the style and you like the work they've done in the portfolio, and you should expect some of that to bleed over into your own project.
09:09BaileyYeah. Plus I imagine it's self-selecting, like clients look at your portfolio, they like that work. That's what they want for their home as well. Now onto the remodels and additions, so
Tina p writes, at what point does it make more sense to tear down and rebuild versus remodel?
09:29Sean CanningSo I think that's a there's two different angles to this question. The first is from the perspective of construction. So if you have a project where the home is failing and it will be, too expensive to basically bring this up to current code than it would be to tear it down.
You're better off tearing it down because some scenarios, like you could have to add complete new framing and then at that point you might as well just tear it down. So point number one, it depends on the cons. Construction type. Then point number two, in San Diego, because we have such high regulation with permitting, the. of permit you may need could affect your decision whether it's better to tear it down or not. So for example, in the coastal zone, if you tear down a home and rebuild, you're gonna get a coastal development permit. if you keep that home or at least keep 50% of those walls, you could be exempt from a coastal development permit. So that could save you like $50,000 and. It also could you like maybe 18 months of time. So that's a major decision. And then there's one more thing that I guess I would roll into the permitting conversation. If you tear down the home, you're gonna trigger public improvements. And also if you have any precon conform conditions, which would be like a closer proximity to the property line than the current setback allows, you're gonna lose the rights to those things. So basically you gotta determine the type of construction and see if. The quality is good enough to keep, but you also have to consider what type of permit you're going to be needing on the project because in some scenarios you're better off keeping something that you otherwise would demolish.
11:07BaileyInteresting. Yeah. The answers to these questions are never as simple as you might think. There's always three or four major things people need to consider.
Lisa M. Grant says, our contractor says we don't need an architect for our remodel. Should I be worried?
11:24Sean CanningYeah, you messed up a long time ago because. How do you have a contractor before you even have the design so that you're just moving in you're working backwards in that sense. There are a lot of projects that don't need an architect. That's true. so maybe your contractor's correct, but you do not want your contractor to design the project for you.
You wanna hire somebody who's a specialist in design because you wouldn't hire an architect to build your project. So why would you hire a general contractor to help you with design?
11:55BaileyInteresting. I think a lot of people think, oh, I wanna remodel or do a renovation. I can just hire a contractor.
12:00Sean CanningYeah.
12:00BaileyMaybe that's the use case.
12:02Sean Canningwhat it is. If it's a bathroom remodel and you're not moving any fixtures, then you don't need somebody to design that, especially if you could pick out your own fixtures. But anything larger than that, a kitchen remodel, you're gonna want somebody who knows how to design a kitchen. in addition, you're gonna want somebody to plan the addition. I don't know if you've ever been in a home with a poorly planned addition, but I've seen plenty of them. Sometimes you can't get into the third bedroom without going through another bedroom. These are poorly planned additions, and then you just don't get the return on investment, both when you resell, but also with the quality of your life while you live in the home.
12:37BaileyYeah, definitely.
Daniel Stokes rights. Is it actually profitable to build rental units right now with construction costs this high?
12:48Sean CanningGood question by Daniel. I would say probably not, but in some scenarios you can make it work. You'd basically have to have a couple of these things like covered, you'd have to be able to do the construction for a really low cost. So maybe you're a general contractor and you can do that. Or maybe you work with a general contractor who can do. You would have to design the projects to be incredibly efficient so you don't drive the cost up. You'd have to have a permit strategy so you don't trigger an expensive permit. And probably the hardest one is you have to have cash so you don't end up, out a loan and paying a high interest rate. So if we see improvements in construction, costs going down, construction, labor going down, interest rates going down, or if you have to buy the property property price going down, then we'll be, we'll end up in a market where it does make sense again. But unless you bought the property, five years ago when things were still reasonably expensive, it could be very difficult to make a rental development pencil out.
13:49BaileyYeah, it seems like in the current market you need some sort of unfair advantage working in your favor. To make it all pencil out and just so people are aware, what would you say? 'cause it's constantly changing. What would you say is the current cost, construction cost per square foot at the moment in San Diego?
14:06Sean CanningYeah, so we always to tell our clients $400 a square foot is your starting point. If you're trying to develop a rental property, you're going to try to be beating $400 a square foot, and this means basically the budget is going to take over the project more so than the design. So you're going to be basically designing. A project to meet the budget rather than designing a project with the best case design in mind and then matching the budget. You try to beat that if you're gonna design rental units and if you're designing anything for a, for a homeowner to live, the price goes up from there.
14:47BaileyNow, some of the fun more off the wall type questions, which was most of 'em, quite frankly. This one I think I know your answer to, but I'm curious nonetheless,
if you could demolish one building in San Diego and redesign it, what would it be? Mike Tran writes,
15:04Sean CanningOh, I'm curious what you think it is, Bailey, but I think for me it would
15:07BaileyI think it's the San Diego DSD building.
15:11Sean CanningI, that one's it's falling apart. Anyway that's the old one. They've now moved into a new building, but the old one is still in operation. And yeah, that, that one
15:20BaileyIt doesn't look great.
15:21Sean CanningNo, it's awful. And, you know, that was the building we would go to. So they would tell us how we had to build our buildings, which was, incredibly hypocritical. Maybe I would say 1 0 1 ash. That's the building that the city just entered a couple years ago into this likes. Unbelievably corrupt contract, and then they found out the entire building was riddled with asbestos. So I could probably do the city a favor and demolish that one. But personally, like for my personal preference, I think I would love to redesign my neighbor's home because it could use a lot of work and it'd be really nice to live next to something really cool.
15:56BaileyThat's a solid answer.
Natalie Reese writes, what's the worst architectural trend you hope never comes back?
16:04Sean CanningPostmodernism for sure. Um, postmodernism is like a facetious replication
16:11BaileyI.
16:11Sean Canningof classical elements in a fake way, in a modern building, and it's been widely panned as one of the worst architecture styles of all time, and I.
hope it never comes back.
16:24BaileyInteresting. Give me an example. 'cause I don't even it doesn't even register in my head. Would that, is that kinda like when you go to Vegas, for example, and you see how they redo stuff in Europe, would that be an example of postmodernism?
16:35Sean CanningNo, that's like replication. I don't even know if we have a name for that.
you don't wanna replicate something that's already been done because once you move, once you have a different site that calls for a different thing. But the most prominent architect who pushed postmodernism is Robert Ventura. And the most famous of his works was a home he actually designed for his mom, ba, which is it's called Mother's House. You can Google Robert Re's mother's house if you're interested. And basically he designed a home that had a gable simulated roof to make it look like the traditional, like American home, but it's actually two shed roofs with a big gap in the middle which makes It look super awkward.
And then above the entrance, instead of having an arch, which was like a construction technique that was used before. Steel was invented in like the twenties. People would use an arch as a load bearing form, so we don't need to use an arch anymore. So what he did was he just installed a little like eyebrow bump out to replicate it.
The arch has like a callback to the arch and then it gets even more weird because the entire entry to the house is supposed to symbolize a baby coming through the womb into birth of as you enter the living room. so he designed the home for his mom, and the whole layout is supposed to somehow simulate like a baby being born through a womb into a open space.
The concept is interesting. The aesthetic is really bad though.
18:06BaileyIt sounds pretty bad. My one question I have for you then I'll take the opposite. Is there any architectural trends that were popular way back that you would hope comes back? For me, I would say, I don't even think this is architecture, maybe more interior design, but the Sunken living room I think is actually pretty cool.
There's like a Mad Men episode where the apartment has it. I think, I don't know. I think it's. It could be interesting for the right person.
18:34Sean CanningI would say mid-century modernism should come back and I think the sunken living room is often a component of mid-century modern movement. I think in terms of architectural styles, mid-century modern is like distinctly American you very rarely hear anybody say they hate the style of mid-century modern homes. we can't really build them the way they used to build them because now we have more like structural requirements and more insulation requirements. But you could come pretty close if you're really careful about how you detail a project. Only, I guess the downside of mid-century modern is it's difficult to make them two stories.
So it is hard to make them like denser. Denser structures, but as for the sunken living room specifically, it is a super cool feature. But you gotta have a home that's like big enough to have almost like a second living room to do the sunken living room because living room is going to like inevitably take up more space because you need to leave space around the living room to move around. House then it's going to limit you with your furniture placement. Like now you can only get a sofa that fits exactly in that area, or you build in the sofa. And then also with there's a lot of push today for, to design homes that are for people who are gonna age in place. So people who will be their fifties when they buy the home, but years old, 25 years from there. And then. are they're gonna be able to experience that home and stairs are generally like discouraged in that type of design mindset. But I am a huge fan of a sun in the living room. I've actually never seen one in person.
that I remember, but I can imagine it would be a really cool experience. I.
20:16BaileyInteresting. Yeah, you gotta be committed to it. 'cause I imagine you can't change your mind later and then retrofit, it'd be quite difficult to fill it up.
20:25Sean CanningIt would be easier to build it up.
than to retrofit it and build it down. Let's put it that way.
20:33BaileyThat's true.
Jordan P says, what's the most ridiculous thing in a city planner? A city plan reviewer has ever told you?
20:44Sean CanningWe don't have enough time for this, but keep getting more and more crazy comments that are really frustrating because these comments spend a lot of our time. So now it's taking a lot more time to get a permit because the people who are plan checking our projects are less and less qualified and less. Trained and the management doesn't seem to be there, even though there's 10 layers of middle management, nobody seems to be managing these people. Just two weeks ago we got a comment that said, you can't have two driveways in this zone. And we were like, where's the second driveway?
I don't understand. If you're in this role, you understand how to read a drawing. And our drawing has one driveway. So where does the second driveway? I like, that's crazy. we've also received a comment from the landscape department where we had a single family home.
It was just a renovation of the interior. And we had, there's a big like oak tree in the front yard, so we just had a big green circle representing the oak tree. But the scope of work didn't call for us to modify anything in the front yard or there was no landscaping requirements on the project.
'cause it was, like I said, just basically an interior remodel. And the comment from the landscaping department is, what's this big green circle on the site plan? my response was like what do you think it is? What do you think it is that's, you're in the landscaping department, you can't figure that out. So those are probably the two of the I mean we've had more wild ones than that certainly. Planning department saying you can't build this. And then we go back and we're like, Hey, I think we can. And they're like, oh, you're right. You can. So a lot of that goes on too. We'd have to make a whole nother podcast to go over all these, Bailey, I.
22:13BaileyMaybe, maybe that'll be a future one for sure. What is
Bri Klowski says, what's your hot take on tiny homes?
22:23Sean CanningTiny homes are awesome, but they're a major challenge to design. As I understand it, a tiny home would be something that's 350 square feet or less. I think the tiny home community draws the line at that square footage threshold. so you could build an a DU as a tiny home.
22:36BaileyQuestion.
22:37Sean CanningI guess we're not, you could build a modular tiny home. You could build a, there's a lot of ways you can get to that. that's under 350 square feet. So if we're talking about tiny homes, just to define the conversation, it's like any home that is under 350 square feet, it doesn't matter whether it's built on site, it doesn't matter whether it's modular or whether it's prefab whether it's a dwelling or an a DU, just anything under 350 square feet. I think it's really cool, and is a way where you can get more. Homes built and more people can live in denser areas. I would hope that it would be a good way to drop the cost of housing. But I under, I also understand the market dynamics where when the average cost of a property in San Diego is a million dollars, it doesn't make sense to build a 350 square foot home and then try to, there'd be. be like nothing you could do to sell that home at a reasonable price. So,
when you buy a million dollar property, you need to build a 2,500 square foot home to, to make it make sense. I understand that as well, but yeah.
tiny homes are super cool. I have respect for anybody who can live in a tiny home. You have to have an incredibly efficient design, and I would think you'd
Incredibly organized to live in that little of space. The smallest home I've ever lived in,
23:54Baileyyeah,
23:55Sean CanningMy first home was 575 square feet, and I think our first apartment was probably around 400 or maybe square feet or something like that.
So I've never lived in anything 350 square feet or less, but much respect to the tiny home community.
24:14BaileyYeah,
that's the size of my apartment pretty much at the moment, but I would say 350 square feet. That's basically the size of an average Manhattan apartment, so tons of people are making it work there. Maybe it's more, it seems more feasible. You might think at first.
Emily Saddo says, be honest.
Do you judge people who like farmhouse style
24:38Sean CanningNo, I, I don't judge people. If you like it, what is a farmhouse style? Is that gable roof clad roof. Si. Vertical siding.
24:47BaileyI assume you've seen the photos. It basically seems like a modern take on like a barn adapted for a home, is how I would describe it. Like a contemporary barn actually.
24:58Sean CanningIt seems like a very way to build a structure and get a lot of living space within a small, simple, or not a small, but a simple footprint. So from that stand, from that sense, I'm a fan of that. I'm, I like simple, modern form follows function type design, and. If you want it to look like a farmhouse, that's where you probably divert from modernism. But if it's just literally built like a farmhouse and then you're living in there, then that's modernism and that's cool. Yeah,
25:34BaileyYeah,
I think there's a way to do it in a nice way, but I saw an article headline recently that said that the farmhouse design is like the millennial generation defining home design essentially.
25:46Sean Canningno.
25:47BaileyI don't know, take that for
25:49Sean Canningthe garage conversion is the millennial home design, I think.
25:54Baileymaybe that might be more Gen Z. We'll see. We'll see. Let's see.
Amanda Hill writes, what's the one room people always overspend on and the one they always cheap out on?
26:07Sean CanningKitchens and bathrooms, I would say for sure, and kitchens may make both of these lists, but the master bathroom is a room that people tend to spend a lot of money on and it doesn't, it, the master bathroom probably doesn't even get as much use as the second bathroom in the home. So I would say master bathroom could be something you overspend on. Also, depending on which kitchen appliances you, you purchase, you could spend a lot of money on a kitchen. The room that people underspend on? That's a good question. I don't know if I've ever been asked that. I guess I, I may also throw kitchen in here because there's this huge range of kitchen quality from like super cheap super expensive and. Different clients will go in either on either end of that spectrum and I can easily see how somebody would regret spending too little money to get a good quality cabinet in the kitchen. And on the other hand, I could also see how somebody would really regret spending like $90,000 on a cooktop for their kitchen. And I've worked on a project where there was a quarter million dollar kitchen involved and. I've personally built five IKEA kitchens on my own properties, and there wasn't too much difference. I feel like I got more value for my IKEA kitchen than this particular client Got working with an Italian kitchen designer and importing everything from Italy. and also there I worked on another project where. The clients wanted to consult with this like kitchen designer. And when he had this like very proprietary kitchen cabinet system, just like IKEA has like a very proprietary kitchen cabinet system. This designer had his own, and it was also imported from Italy, if I believe.
And I was looking at his cabinets and I was like, these actually, I was telling the client, I was like, this looks very similar to the IKEA system, it was, seven times more expensive. And I was like, I don't know why we are gonna go with this option when you can get like custom built cabinets for cheaper. And the client decided to go with the kitchen designer's advice and they ended up ripping out the whole kitchen in seven years. So I would say kitchens make both of those lists and master baths are the thing that people tend to overspend on?
28:27BaileyVery interesting.
Tyler Brennan said. As an architect and a design guy in general, what's the best design car of all time in your opinion, or at least your favorite to drive? I know you've had some Camaros.
28:44Sean CanningYeah, so if you look at any of our renderings, we actually usually use the IROC Camaro to render. And that's 'cause that was my first car and it was the car I drove in high school and I'm still a little nosto nostalgic about it. so I think the. Third generation Camaro is ugly that it actually becomes good looking if you look at it long enough. Kinda like the DeLorean actually. It's like it's ugly, but if you keep looking at it, it becomes like a. Better looking. But it's certainly not the best car of all time. I would say like the best car has gotta go to something like a some sort of supercar probably. But just to keep it more realistic, I'd say there's some beautiful classic Corvettes that I really like, like the Fastback Corvette from Gone In 60 Seconds is like one of the most beautiful cars of all time.
29:32BaileyIs the Camaro you're talking about like the standard like 1980s one people might be picturing,
29:37Sean CanningYeah, it's got like a bunch of hard
29:39Baileyokay.
29:40Sean CanningIt's, and it's like less, it's got less cur Lanier than today's car, so it's like very, it almost looks like a dragon from the profile and the hood is like It's like disproportionately large compared to the car, but it's got T tops, which I think are like one of the most underrated features of a car.
29:58BaileyYeah, the 1980s Camaro looks cool. Then they got weird in the nineties, but I feel like the modern day ones look very nice as well. Reliability. I don't know about. Would you, could you ever see yourself picking up a 1980s Camaro? Again, if it was in good condition,
30:13Sean CanningAnd get 12 miles to the gallon and gas. Yeah, probably I can, I can see that
30:18Baileythat
might be an issue. It would be a cool car though, I think for sure. Chris f writes, I'm always seeing guitars in the backgrounds of your videos.
Which one's your favorite, and are you planning on adding any to the collection soon?
30:35Sean CanningHe's probably talking about the gray one that's over here. Yeah. I have a pretty good collection of super strats. It's a very like, specific type of guitar that's based off the Stratocaster. the eighties people wanted to soup up the Stratocaster, so all these other brands came out to support that demand. I haven't played guitar in two years since I got my dog, because that's where my free time has gone. But here's a quick look at three of my favorites. So this is a 1988 PV Vandenberg. You know this one obviously. And this one has the fiddle cuts that are to represent a violin. So that's a Adrian Vandenberg signature edition guitar. Then one. It is one I bought a couple years back. This is a Charl with a maple neck unfinished, and this one is one of my favorites to play right now. So that's a modern strap. And I'd say this is probably my favorite, appropriately colored. This is a Jackson this is a through neck. So the wood here is the same here. comparison to a Bolton, which makes it really fun to play. But also if the neck breaks the guitar, you've gotta throw the guitar out and it's got the reverse headstock, which is completely impractical, but super cool looking. those are my three favorite and
32:03BaileyOkay.
32:04Sean Canninghave any plans to add another one at the moment.
32:08BaileyInteresting. I didn't know you were gonna do a live demo there, but it's nice. I hope people were watching the what would I say? I I recently saw a photo of John Bon Jovi in the eighties with a hot pink guitar, just like the one you had right there. And I thought it looked super cool.
Although, I don't know if you want it to be your. You have a lot of guitars, so it doesn't apply to you, but if you had to have one guitar, I don't know if you want it to be the hot pink electric guitar necessarily. Yeah. I think the most underrated guitar in your collection is the Blue Stratocaster.
Like you've had it forever, but I know you've just never been too interested in playing it. It seems.
32:41Sean CanningThat was like basically my second guitar. And I bought it used from my neighbor who's a much better guitar player than me, I think he bought, it's a Mexican made Stratocaster. if anybody knows anything about guitars and they're curious, I think he bought it for three 50, or his parents bought it for him, and then I bought it from him for I think $75, like 20. 25 years ago or something. And it was always my backup guitar because I always had guitars with these floating bridge systems, which are, you break a string when you're playing live, like you can, no hope for that guitar. Like you have to just put it down and play something else. So I used the the Mexican Strat as a backup for a long.
33:24BaileyInteresting. And then last thing I'll add here is I think eventually you just gotta go out and bite the bullet. you gotta pick up the the Gibson Les Paul. That's the one guitar your collection's missing
33:37Sean CanningYou might be right.
33:39Baileyonly, it's only 2000, but apparently now people are saying that's like a boomer guitar. Like the new guitar players are not a fan of the Les Paul.
33:47Sean CanningI hadn't heard that, but in terms of color of guitar, the, like eighties colors are back in style, at least like a retro aesthetic.
33:56BaileyOkay. I think we might be onto the nineties now. At this point. That's what people say, at least fashion wise, but I believe it a bit more back to San Diego. If you had to live,
Kevin O'Malley says, if you had to live in one San Diego neighborhood for the rest of your life, which one is it?
34:14Sean CanningLike aside, I think I would probably pick like. Either like Mar, if that counts, that's San Diego County, Solana Beach and Sanitas La Jolla. If we have to limit it to the city of San Diego, maybe I would say La Jolla Ocean Beach, or Point Loma. Or if it wasn't on the coast, maybe Kensington.
34:42BaileyOkay. not North Park.
34:45Sean CanningFor the rest of my life. North Park? No. if I wanted the North Park vibe, I would do Kensington because it's close enough to North Park Kensington is would be a better spot to live if I was like in my seventies than North Park would be.
35:00BaileyInteresting.
Derek writes, do you ever drive past a building you design years later and cringe.
35:08Sean CanningYes, a hundred percent. And if I didn't do that, I feel like I wouldn't be putting the thought into my. Into my work as much thought as I should. when you're thinking about architecture in the general sense, like your ideas are always evolving. First Beatles album is nothing like the last Beatles album, right?
Like an artist's ideas about how things are gonna come together are going to change. And also as you pick up experience, you learn how to do things in better ways. So there's a lot of projects. I drive by and I'm like, man if I was designing that with my. Skillset. Now, it could be much better. but I think also in mo maybe this is a trap of architects, but lot of times, you have really high expectations for the project and if certain things aren't executed well by the contractor, you can say you can look at it and be like, oh man, that could have been better. And, even if it's like already good, you could sometimes just be like, man, I wish this was better. So is hard to even finish a new project and stand back and be like, I'm completely satisfied with that. That almost never happens. And also with like
36:13BaileyOkay.
36:14Sean CanningThat I did 15 years ago, I'm like, man, I probably would've detailed that a little differently to make it look cooler.
36:22BaileyYeah. Alright, this is the last one 'cause I know you have to run, so answer it fairly quickly I suppose. But
Jason f writes, this has nothing to do with architecture, but I have to ask top three albums of all time. Go.
36:40Sean CanningIf you've seen my guitar collection, you know that I'm a huge fan of eighties rock and roll, 80 eighties hard rock and metal. So I would say appetite for destruction. I have to pick a New Jersey album, so I'm gonna say Slippery When Wet. if you hate Bon Jovi, listen to that album. It's undeniable. And third one, I hope this isn't controversial, but I will say the self-titled 1987 White Snake album. You may have heard White Snake is a cheesy band. You may think white snake's a cheesy band if that's what you think. You've never heard this album front to back because it is an unmistakably. Display of instrumental expertise.
The guitar player on that album is John Sykes, who unfortunately recently passed away. But if you like Blues, hard Rock, that album is simply unstoppable.
37:30BaileyI only know two songs from that album, so I'll have to check out the whole thing now that you said that. Now I'm surprised to hear you say Slippery when wet. I was not expecting that one.
37:38Sean CanningIt's just,
37:39Baileyyeah. New Jersey might be to be quite honest.
37:42Sean CanningI know they, they say New Jersey is like Bon Jovi's, shining best album. But I still think Slippery and Wet is because for song, I think there's m there's better. They, I just think the songs are better on slippery and Wet than they are in New Jersey.
Although New Jersey has great great singles and stuff.
38:04BaileyInteresting. Yeah. I think I might say the same, but different in the sense that slippery, when we songs, some of the best songs are better on Slippery and wed, but the album as a whole is better. New Jersey, it's like more overall it's higher out. All right. I know you gotta run. I think this is a fun episode.
All the info people need, if they wanna get in touch with Sean about anything architecture related is in the description of this video. And then also check out some of the other episodes because many of the questions Sean answered on this one we've done deeper dives on in the past. So that's it.
Anything to sign off with Sean?
38:43Sean CanningNo thanks for doing this, Bailey. This was a fun one.
38:46BaileyYou got it
