Video Gallery

CareerTalks with Chad Oppenheim

Go to Video Gallery Added Nov 15, 2020 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//bvms.bhusd.org/apps/embed/?v=300484" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Go HD

Show Transcript

lectured Wylie and has taught at various architecture schools including Harvard University Cornell University College of architecture and planning in 1999 oppenheim sounded oppenheim architecture in Miami Basel and New York he has Global recognition on many scales he has built a large-scale urban architecture hotels Resorts and private residences of some famous prison he will share with you guys shortly he has basically received more than 80 industry Awards 50 from the AIA and including the AIA highest distinction the silver medal as well as the 2018 National design award from cooper-hewitt Smithsonian design Museum and the award-winning award-winning friends work has been featured in over a thousand public aid the round-the-world this is unbelievable so basically currently child resides in Miami with his wife and his two children I will hand it to you to please take over we are very excited well thank you so much guys and it's really a great honor to be here can everyone see my screen just want to make sure is that good you guys see yes okay great. I was hoping someone would say I'm a kind person the kind of person you know that I get that that's why I got asked to speak on kindness day and you don't have to wear yellow architects of color so we'll thank you guys it's it's really an honor to be here I'm very excited to to share with you what I do and what I've been doing since I'm pretty much your age so what I think architecture is about is making your dreams reality we buy I started at a at a very young that's me and my mother my parents had built a house actually someone build it it was kind of like you picked five models and they built thousands of them and I'm so I've been involved in this business very early stage going back a little further I wanted to kind of give you guys an overview of sort of what is architecture and you know what what is being a narc I think our civilization we could trace our tour kind of desire for shelter to build shelter build a place to find protection from the elements such as the the wind and the rain but also from animals that are trying to kill us but you know once we sort of got on the move there other ways of a kind of building shelter in hey it's a primitive hot everyone is familiar with with teepees and the Native American people in our country built the very lightweight structure so that they can fast and follow the animals because they really weren't stationary but architecture is also the term it's the pyramids of Egypt I don't know if any of you have been there pretty much got stuck going in one of them there was a very large person coming the other direction and I'm a very large person so we almost had a blockage there but you're actually burial mounds ziggurats which is more similar to pyramids that are more and Central America and then you know you have stitches all which is kind of like a fortress if you well this is Greece sitting on top of a hill so very early on people were building to move fast but also this type of more Monumental architecture I've this is a building not carved out of rock it's a monastery that's in Petra with Justin Jordan in this area so very exciting for us and then in Rome Pantheon which is essentially a temple for numerous gods the Romans were polytheistic happening simultaneously and very interesting to see how different cultures work with architecture in their own way polytheism sorry in Turkey a Hagia Sophia so also once again religious architecture which was it big portion of architecture for many many many years you know basically there were rulers and then there were religion religious rulers and some of these things exist in and some of them were conflicting but most of The Incredibles architecture was was done by your the leaders of the countries or the leaders of the religion and in the case of religion the idea was to elevate people there was a remember there was no television no internet nothing no newspapers no Books A lot of times and people had to go and understand the Divinity through our texture so this is a palace in India that was actually a gift via Maharaja to his princess so architecture takes on many many different forms many many different styles this is a at Cathedral at once against the idea was to connect people with God here you can see that the beginnings of a Powers this is the Eiffel Tower and this was actually built to be a temporary structure in the world Exposition that was held in Paris over a hundred years ago at the turn of the 20th century and it actually be the Domaine symbol of Paris to architecture has a very important place in in our lives going to site skyscrapers the birth of the skyscraper was actually in our country in Chicago and Chicago has a wide assortment of skyscrapers with the working on a skyscraper project in Chicago which is always a great honor and then sort of the last chapter I guess in in in skyscrapers is the Burj Khalifa I used to be known as the Burj Dubai but they ran out of money and they had to get the neighboring ruler from Abu Dhabi to pay for the bills that they running there's kind of a very interesting phenomenon of whoever is Building the tallest tower at the world at a given time typically is running into some sort of financial trouble either during or before the project is finished or slightly thereafter soaked up the skyscraper is probably what we all consider you know the most prominent visual of architecture and in many different skyscrapers actually this site over here was supposed to be a building that we were doing that was 1400 ft tall so is about this Friday where the letter s was this building nearly 3,000 feet all but I'm going to show you a bit more of our working and kind of explain to you are thinking and how we go about so this is our version of a skyscraper for New York that we've been working on so we thought that was kind of an interesting idea to be a Gateway project for new neighborhood that's in development in New York the top of the building is a bridge that house has an incredible a manatee area with grass and a swimming pool and basically like a 5-story a Rockwall but yeah this would be about a thousand feet why are you can see the Empire State Building nearby but we work on Towers all around the world this is a project that we just completed in Australia Easter three powers the funny story is that I actually designed the building based on these crystals that I found these three crystals that were found from the site nearby so I have decided that I could just make this crystals be the shape of hour so I ended up having them scanned three-dimensionally and the buildings became the actual shape of the Crystal this is another project in Brooklyn that's right across from Manhattan that you can and this is inspired by an artist that I really admired by the name of Donald Judd. little Beastie Boys music there ivern inspiring always while I work this is the window of the Prismatic the facade the idea of this window was inspired by a movie that I grew up with as a child I hope none of you recognize this as the Millennium Falcon but I always admired the the cockpit and that was kind of the inspiration of that window how people can get out of the deal I can get incredible views of the city be on so many movies have have inspired me this is a project we did it's the small Towers here it's 50 stories actually it was the first building so often times architecture is also about rebuilding neighborhoods and making them into new places for people to live and people to work I you could see the scale of this building there's a lid person there so this is a building that we did in downtown Miami and words fired by the idea that architecture and structure can be one in the same so everything you see here is actually holding up the bill so we like to have her in our work this is another project another movie that inspired me this is a still from the movie Blade Runner the original Blade Runner and I always found this very very interesting so this is the Tyrell Corporation Headquarters also when I was very young my parents took me to Disney World which open the year I was born in 1971 unfortunately nearly 50 years ago and this is the Contemporary Hotel so all these things that are I'm experiencing are kind of being built up into my subconscious and my memory and these things begin to transport themselves into our work so this is a project in the Middle East of Two Towers that are connected very very similar to the previous images of the Tyrell Corporation as well as the kids so these things become part of our lives this is a very interesting sketch this was done by a student or bars at at Harvard this is me as the large monster from Monsters Inc and my associate professor Eric debraj who is the little monster at very accurate picture we're pretty much the same size ratio but we had a very interesting experience we got to ask by Disney and Pixar to do a hotel for them in China and original idea these are my messy drawings that my incredibly talented turns into architecture so this is kind of the idea of how the building form is generated and we did this is actually just a computer simulation and it was that the building lines up with the palace I guess sleeping Cinderella's palace if you will so what's interesting is that we were asked to design the building and then asked to make the project based on the incredible and Wally so we began looking at a ways to kind of understand how we could be inspired by these movies guess we don't really do architecture but for us we thought it was a really interesting challenge to get to work with Pixar who is done many of my my favorite movies and I am a really big fan of Incredibles and Wally interesting is a lot of the people who work at Pixar creating these movies are actually Architects people who study architecture and then create these new fantasy so this is a little bit about what get in the project and there's an interesting twist to this so part of the project became influenced by Wally part of it became interested influence by The Incredibles and then you can begin to see how these things how to affect the architecture so we weren't very very closely with the creative people and Pixar we ended up building or rebuilding many of the models of all these Incredible characters from the movie and building them into the architecture of the building itself here you could see part of the entryway you haven't seen Wally it's probably one of the greatest films of all time as a credible and here you could see Wally and these holographic images of nature because as you remember in Wall-E if you haven't seen it Nature has been destroyed and the planet has been left as a trashy because species has destroyed everything beautiful about our planets so it's a very interesting talk about how we how we treat our resources so here you could see the deck was actually modeled off of the Axiom pool. So basically civilization has escaped our trash planet and ended up in these very high-tech spaceships that are circling the universe a place for us to live so this is the pool deck which is modeled off of the Axiom and we thought that was really kind of funny and then you could see at night how it's close so it was really experience that you can see the facades of the building or starting to take on Notions of colors and then if we go into the other part of the building by The Incredibles some people actually a loser I think I look like mr. incredible same size and I guess it's the same jawline but never the last this area was inspired by the the suburbs if you will where Mr Incredible live so just a grass lawn it was interesting as in China this really no grass places for people to hang out everything is sort of urbanized or Farms so here you could see we would be inspired by the lava by Edna's home and he basically would enter the restaurant through this lava wall and all his furniture was from The Incredibles all the chairs and everything so we don't I was really interesting and then here you can see the restaurant where superheroes are no longer super they're not importance of this year also we began to to kind of interest rate that exact architecture I in architecture here you can see the volcano crater of no-man's-land which is a syndromes Hideout so it's very important to like under we want I watch this movie many many times before we got hired and we also watch the Moon like a hundred times to kind of be inspired by all of this architecture so here you could see kind of like a mini crater and how to build a war so this is all still a little simulated model showing the facades of the building we got all the way to present to the CEO of Disney Bob Iger at the time and even Steve Jobs as many of you know is the foul of Apple the late founder of Apple he was actually the largest shareholder so he actually got to make an opinion about the building as well so what was really interesting as what we got everyone's Revolt including Steve Jobs and then someone afterwards realize that no one knew about incredible Incredibles or Wally in China they were not like well known movie after working for about a year and a half Disney told us that we had to make the building Toy Story about Toy Story so we actually ended up really quickly changing the design and the facade became basically wallpaper from Andy's room and clouds of which many of you might remember her from his his room his childhood room what's interesting in in China is that people are tartar very sort of superstitious if you will about architecture things and clouds actually symbolize Prosperity so everyone was really excited about it and we quickly read through and and built the hotel so this is the finished Hotel The Toy Story hotel and here you can see the special glass that we develop and the arrival area which is at play like a race track for cars and then you can see like Buzz Lightyear and other things that are scattered throughout the project other movies that have inspired me Star Wars as a as I mentioned before this is the project in the desert it's a research facility and many people funny enough I don't even realize it sometimes but people say it afterwards but many it reminds them of Tatooine which was Luke Skywalker's childhood home where he was hiding out away from his father. Spoiler alert Darth Vader also at any rate draw a lot of inspiration from movies from my my kind of overall psyche so this is. Project so we get to work in many exotic locations around the world that was a cutter this is another place I don't know if anyone could guess this location and it's not Mars although it does look like Mars and was actually used for the movie The Martian with Matt Damon so they actually use the location with no special effects they just changed out the color of the sky and then says we're the kids and try to answer this question like where they think it is okay yeah we could I didn't know how to interact with everyone everyone just to see if you can figure out I'm curious to know before he gets chat where is it what do you think it was on Earth here that they found us K we got Utah stralia Egypt Utah Sahara getting it 5 more seconds guys Studio City Saudi Arabia Death Valley Arizona close tonight it's actually in Jordan This is the desert of Wadi Rum and it's one of the most amazing places on the planet and it's where they feel actually Lawrence of Arabia as well as I believe some parts of the original Star Wars and then they used it as as the base of Mars for Matt Damon in the Martian movie but we were asked to do a project here we actually use a lot of computer simulation and we also use a lot of gaming technology so this is software that is used to make games this is a song where that we don't really use anymore because it's very very expensive the licenses were like a million dollars for each license it's called cryengine but I think you could download a free version of this this cryengine and I forgot the name of all their games but they're kind of a famous gaming company but we do these computer models and gaming engines do understand our projects and how they exist the passage of time of life and how you would experience it because you're looking at it through like a first-person gaming environment so this is a view of the project we were inspired by by Petra which was one of the images I showed you guys in the beginning where they carved into this rock Petra's about an hour-and-a-half today probably a couple a day or two's journey in 2,300 years ago were never tens originally card Rock so we love the idea of using ancient technology this is another project in Jordan about a couple hours from the other one and we were asked to do it building here and we got to the site and there were these Jews that were kind of Park silly man made partially fabricated by the wind and I told the client that I think the project has been done with done I said you know like you I love playing on the beach playing with sand and here we we had the problem how do we turn sand into architecture real architecture that you can have it and we thought that was a real interesting strategy so you know while I come up with many of these crazy ideas I work with Incredible team of people in our office who can you know add to those ideas were like a band righted and I guess I'm kinda the lead singer and the you know tremendous efforts from other musicians or other Architects but then also we work with engineer who have to figure out how to actually make this work and what's interesting about this it is. There's no structural columns structural wall of the building and the shell itself is the structure so this is essentially inhabiting the dunes we found on the site and the idea of the building is it's actually very low-tech it was very inexpensive to build and yet the effects are really quite spectacular so it's essentially we took the Earth that's on the site the sand and mixed it with cement and made this inhabitable Doom you know but what we really like to focus on is nature in all our work and that building was all about taking natural elements and converting them into shelter and you know but we as a species are are very destructive with our planet with our environment and this unfortunately turns into that and you know it's our job as the Builders of the built environment to make sure that that our planet doesn't turn into this which is from Wall-E it's our planet in the future if we keep going in the way that we're going with you know you realizing the resources on the planet you know but still we like to think a lot about nature about how we can read conceive our relationship with nature and the natural world and how we can be more about coexistence rather than dominance and this is a city that we were asked to design in Abu Dhabi by the ruler of Abu Dhabi and our idea which is a project that we want cuz other people got ask design it as well but our idea was simply to make a city in nature constantly trying to build more nature this is a project that we're doing in Bali and this is under construction essentially we took the Landscapes that you see around Bali and turn them in two buildings so it's actually we're creating more nature and then inserting our inhabit our habitats within this natural this new habitat store building more nature I here is another project in Costa Rica where we are also building around nature we're trying to create more habitats for all the birds and the plants in the monkey is crab but also we're trying to work on buildings that don't use energy but generate their own energy from the wind or from the Sun as well as Urban farming and how the buildings themselves can be used to prove as well as create incredible habitat but this idea and this reverence and sensitivity to Nature carries through in much of her work this is in the Bahamas where we kept all the existing trees and allowed architecture to be submissive to the natural beauty of the place where you know the world around us is so beautiful we do not want to the track from it but to allow what we're doing to help you see and appreciate nature and when I mean nature I mean the sky the water the plants the ocean and how the sky is always how bad is this something that we take for granted you know we're always honor devices we are where the most connected species that has ever lived on this planet we're talking thousands of miles from you guys and yet talk to you communicate instantaneously yet that technology also takes us away and removes us from our current presents and what we're trying to do with our architecture is five people in a way disconnect from technology and reconnect with the beauty of the world around us as well as reconnect with each other I mean I can't tell you how many times I've been to restaurants and see like a family sitting down to dinner and you know the kids are on their devices the parents are on their way of the father's calling someone and you know what your dad said that this location is I think a very important part of how we take the natural way for grad that's so we're always trying to reconnect people with the beauty of the natural world and architecture is not just about creating beautiful places and Beautiful Moments to experience but it's also about solving other problems of the world like for instance the lack of water you know we are lucky and are you in Los Angeles deal with a lot water shortages but imagine if you didn't even have any water to drink let alone water your plants so this is a facility that takes the river water in Switzerland and turns it into drinking water and we also wanted to build it out of the Earth the Earth that was there and turned it into a building that purifies the water and makes it drinkable for the surrounding Village and speak about water and the importance of it obviously Notions of a sea-level rise and environmental challenges and as an architect it's really up to us to kind of lead the charge in in create a special places that sell celebrate the natural resources of the planet so this is one of the most untouched a Reeves in the world unfortunately due to climate change many of the world's coral reefs were all what a wonderful sea creatures are living are being destroyed and this project is a research facility but you can also stay out there and we're working with Jacques cousteau's grandkids and other preservationists of the planet make a place that people will begin to be able to get closer to these reefs to study them to cherish them and to learn from them and we're actually building artificial reefs to the idea of this project is to delicately implant in only the areas where there was no life and then rebuild Coral man-made Coral which is actually the same as as as natural car built with the natural elements of the sea and then regenerate life here so and do it in a way that's that's really invisible so these structures are built off-site in the shipyard were using shipbuilding technology and then we're bringing them in by boat or bye-bye are and planting them down very delicately in this sea floor so we're really very very excited about these projects that allow us to do kind of connect with the natural world and this is when you're in one of these these pods in this pod was actually inspired I like to read a lot of Science Fiction as well as it was a very interesting please science fiction fiction book called of three body problem in I'll let you read it it's very a couple thousand pages but very fun we really enjoyed collaborating with Incredible creative people and we've been honored to collaborate with people such as Pharrell Williams used to live in Miami friends of ours and then he moved to Los Angeles and then move back Miami but Pharrell is a is a Visionary and we've been working on this philanthropic project for him to build a a resource center for the children of where he grew up in a very very poor neighborhood so that they can get inspired by creative energies we also been working on a project called the ice cream the Pharrell came up with the name which would be essentially a very large project that was also a skate park because Pharrell really loves skating and his son also enjoy skating and his son and my son were actually born on the same day his son's name is rocket my son's name is is tender and they both loved escape and then we're also working sorry that was a allowed one but that was a project that we're currently working on with Pharrell building a surf pool in the center of his hometown in Virginia Beach and we're currently working on that at the moment I speaking of surfing one of my favorite clients is the founder of the inventor of GoPro I don't know if any of you have one of these he was basically a surfer and came up with this idea he's an incredible adventure and really one of my favorite people in the world and we've been working with with him creating a credible for his family to enjoy the surf this isn't Central America and it's basically like a resort for friends and families and it's all about connecting with The Incredibles they're building this wonderful Retreat that is very much a Vibe of of the place that it's built and then his bedroom which opens up and he could see see the waves so we spent a lot of time on this site surfing here and then decide to have a skatepark also in that palace with a rock climbing wall that goes all play down to the lower level so you know it's really fun to be able to dream with these Visionaries and these people are super creative even though they're not architect they have an incredible way of understanding and RV dictionary get to work with a lot of people and this is his laboratory where he comes up with inventions so we build it under the Earth with robotics and other things we also had the pleasure of working with the legendary Rodger Federer I designing a house for him in Switzerland and you know he's also one of these really incredible and the house is all about opening up to the views of Lake Zurich funny enough my wife grew up like you know 10 houses to the right of this just as a notary of circumstance and then our nature can be penetrating through the architecture genius the Michael Bay came to us and he wanted an awesome house and Michael is a pretty intense guy who loves to blow things up he loves to make big movies can anyone tell me what the movies are open it up is an easy question and what's the name of that car and the truck anyone know I don't know if we open up the chat I don't have the chats working working working name of the yellow car and name of the truck there Kara do we know what anyone know it so we have here Chevrolet 6 Underground Optimus Prime Bumblebee gas in the movie is ABBA play Transformers yeah so we we got to ask by Michael who actually has bought some of our our work does an architect who bought a house Miami that we designed and he asked us to come help them design his house in Los Angeles and you know he was I don't know he claims that I I basically told her feet in a Hardy I will tell him that's the official story but I think he just really wanted to work with us we had to give him a really awesome house this is us it's up above the hills in in Bel Air and it's a really cool house but it was a place for from Michael make these very high impact movie to go and disconnect and connect with the city the views of the city the view of nature and really understand so that when we got to the project there was an existing house here a one-story house that at first we were going to renovate but Michael found out that the the land that where the house was built was unstable and the lot of the land in the Hills when they made these roads they actually dumped the land on top and then stabilized loyal but now 78 years later we know that with earthquakes we have to stabilize the soil so we had to tear down the house and you know we started working so you know there's sketches that that I do when I go to a site I start to feel the the energy of the project and then we start to do drawings based on those sketches we start to do 3D model we start to do serious floor plan here you could see the lowest level for the garage goes down through like a bat cave there is a a gym and a spa that building over on the other side there's a pro Museum where actually if you could see that that's bumblebee actually there and then there is this garage and then bedrooms and then this incredible room and then do you go up you know the house cure you arrive and go down into the store thinking about architecture with thinking about landscape we're thinking about experience so you come down here and then water kind of go through the house and then this is the kitchen with a really cool window which will see a living area Library here's a secret room no one tell him I told you it's behind a bookcase like I hit a book and and then in his office and I'm downstairs he also has like an office and a editing room and whatnot so I really fun project really fun class very very intense this is the master bedroom and then the VIP guest bedroom which I was only allowed to stay in one and I've always been really impressed with that experience but you can see how we start withdrawing here you could actually see the driveway going down into the underground garage which is actually under a water feature DVD gym and Spa then the two bedroom pods begins to see we build these things out of 3D models this is the dining room living room his bedroom and bath and then another the VIP bed and then here is the swimming pool with a glass edge that looks over the city of Los Angeles and then down below are the bedrooms other bedrooms and then we start to develop these images a little bit more and you can begin to see and understand the materials and the textures and Michael was like Hey I don't really get the house why is it when I make my movie that my special text people are able to show me the house so we ended up building Michael little video game so that he can go through his house and you can actually shoot things up you can have like a guy with a machine gun game and it was very very helpful for Michael and it was in fact they gave us a free version of that million-dollar software because they wanted Michael to use it for his movies I'm so here you could begin to experience the house and Michael would be able to go through the house as a first-person shooter and Fly Above the house that and understand everything before it was built so you can see you know up to the roof and others these are some other images that we did to show Michael and these are images that we are the construction it took three years to build this house 3 400 working on it at any given time and came up here to lower pool that pool room and it's very first process in construction and then the final result which you might reference the drawings and see how accurate they were which is really always nice and straight then the reality show the garage is Down Below on here that's the kitchen and then you enter the house you have this incredible Piazza where everyone Congress that goes up to one bedroom I had stayed once and then that's his bedroom and then downstairs to the theater here's the living room with the hidden door behind the bookcase and then looking out over the city of Los Angeles what's the glass edge and then a family room on the other side very Koozie also Michael is inspired by Star Wars and then here you can see that that same to you that that that video game sort of ended on so really fun to see the project go from the imagination to the actual construction and then here's Michael's bedroom what you saw that image dead area looking out over the Century City and just really connecting in a really beautiful and Powerful way to the city Beyond this is his bathroom which also is very open so hopefully no one's watching him go to the bathroom and I from down below and then just that I was mentioning before with this incredible window that actually is done by the people who the hydraulics on his on Transformers 4 where the building the office building is tilting I was actually there when they were filming at trying to get Michael to answer something about the project we heads up these guys helped us build this and then the the theater which at the time when it was built was the most high-tech theater in the world there are I think they were like 88 speakers. needed a three-dimensional sound scheme and then you know the release of a Transformers for which we watched here and then the prop Museum you could see Bumblebee here this connects through the garage but there is props from many of of Michael films but bumblebee is pretty important because the Transformers movies were credibly successful this is on a turntable so we had to design this appropriately because bumblebee essentially paid for the house and then some of the other cars that he has from the movie you know this is Oscar from the transfer what movies you know the garage is something that's that's really not just a place where you store your your bikes you know it becomes an incredible experience and Michael actually designed the lighting here himself he has a tremendous Vision but you know architecture is not just about the luxury products this is a house that I actually built when I was in college and if you built out of recycled materials such as tires Amy we have millions and millions and millions of tires so we were working with a very Visionary architect building this house with this technique where he uses old materials such as Tire 4 foundation and also your architecture could be built out of bamboo this is my son going to a bamboo architecture class in Bali and him building a big structure with a whole group of people he was he was only a guess nine and the youngest person in the class was actually 35 besides him so he really loved it that he was very proud of his little boy blue house but other things are also very important for people who don't have the means to pay for their house so this is my daughter and also my son and we build houses for people who can't afford to build their houses and we paid for the houses that build them for it so you can go the organization is called Petro means roof in Spanish and they basically build houses throughout Latin and South America for people who who need houses and this is a group of us with the people who bought the house and so you know architect is something that is a lifelong practice I I've been interested in it since I was 8 years old when my parents built another house and you don't bite my son here we did a road trip last summer where we went to all the famous architecture between a Pittsburgh we're falling water which is Frank Lloyd Wright's house exists all the way to Wisconsin another Frank Lloyd Wright house and everything in between so you know it I think it's just you know opening your eyes seeing the world around you being inspired by everything and everyone could kind of find their own voice and you know make your own dream reality so I wanted to thank you for listening a little bit about my story and I probably spoke too long but if there are any questions that I'm happy to answer them oh my God and I are like unbelievable play I just want to say first of all Chad that I have so many questions in my mind I can't imagine the kids but really it was so spectacular to see beginning to end the variety projects the links to entertainment so we want to use the next 5 minutes for kids to be able to ask questions and so would be great if we could ask there's what the very first question that came in yesterday the form and then we'll talk about afterwards the raffle and I'll be at the the prices that we're going to win first and then we will talk to you guys about these amazing prizes that had so generously is donating to us I know that I'm as a parent I would want one of those books so hopefully we got a question from a a student her name is odd let's I don't know if I'm going to say it right is Naomi yes Touhy and I think I can you take yourself off mute Night Naomi and just I think it's the most basic but boring question go ahead Naomi I actually asked a question on what was your leg mean used for like your architecture like why did you want to become nurse you know my pipe when I was 8 years old you know we had lived very simple house that was very small but also very common and all the houses were the same and my mother had given me like Frank Lloyd Wright architecture calendar when I was a kid and I was he threw it and I just became interested in houses and my parents bought a piece of land in the next town and hired an architect to help them design the house and he actually was doing it at night you would work at an Architecture Firm during the day and then he was designing other things that night and you know my mother had like a lot of understanding about architecture and she appreciated it and we would still together at the kitchen table basically just dreaming up really amazing things of how we wanted to live as a family ever since that point I've been coming up with you know this kind of dream so you know that was really my initial experience is like basically making these dreams you know everyone has like a vision everyone has like why would it be cool to have like I remember I had this vision as a kid I was like I had like I was fascinated by skylights and you know and you guys probably live in the more interesting houses that I did when I was up until the age of 13 but was fascinated I just love this idea of skylights that you could see through the ceiling and I had this idea that above my desk I had the Skylight and I remember the architect drawing it is chair that would I go like I don't know it's probably from some cartoon space cartoon GeForce or something when I was a kid was a popular show and I'm like I want a chair that can like really high in the sky light would open that I would be able to like into the trees obviously that's a great idea because I can just go outside downstairs to do it but it was just about your coming up with really interesting ideas letting my imagination go so originally I was only a knowledgeable that architecture was about houses and I had you know gone to many different programs Ronnie houses all the time I used to draw cars before my parents injured and injure started working with this architect and then as soon as I did that I would just be drawn all the time like these Animal House just a little by little I took classes at Community College have architecture where I went to school so I had to go to a like a community college when I was in high school after school go and study architecture and then I work with architect my professor he was my first boss so I would work in an architecture office after school when I was in high school so you know I've even had you no kids from it school friends of the family comp work in the office you know not for pay because it's illegal to pasty miners but you know just to hang out and understand architecture and you know my son is been interested in architecture since you probably five and I trust his opinion about architecture on I can ask him anything about a building and he'll know it and now he's 12 but he kind of knows it really old good as anyone I know it could have many people I met at Harvard so anyway it's not like I don't think it's really I think you can use your imagination and and use it for many different things so it sticks out saying that you do for the rest of your life so can I get an internship with you have to be able to I would love to ask Suzanne he has a question can you take your cell phone so my question is Stonehenge England like you know how you're not I thought you're going to ask me do you think it was done by aliens or something like that how is my BIOS a trick question fired by it and I only just like funny enough I kind of sometimes I'll be there like actually we're working on this big project and we're trying to move like big rocks on the site and the guys the contractors are telling me we can only move a rock this size of like a small Volkswagen Beetle and I actually told them babe I said come on like they're like 10 times the size we have like all this equipment you're telling me we can't move like a Little Rock so I know I try to push the people who are our clients as well as like are you know the people who build it July don't look at the past because it's pretty amazing what these civilization with no mechanical devices no energy right like you know that fuel everything was done by manual labor and by Ingenuity and I very much love that that type of work and I I research about it and I tried to two try to understand how these people did what they did without you know that incredible machinery and technology that we have today so I I Look Alot and act like ancient civilization and how they related architecture to the Sun and the Moon and how did they do on certain days like the Equinox as you saw in the house that is aligning perfectly in the house don't you know these things are are very very interesting to me and thank you for asking thank you for answering before we go to the next question Chad the kids have a class at 10:05 for everybody logged out for class please stay with us for a few more minutes of President is going to put in the chat the form that you need to fill out with all the poll questions trivia about Chad and how unbelievable mind blowing he is a person as someone who respects nature integrase sustainability into his work some of his Inspirations all these questions are going to be inside the form so we're going to put it inside chat any of you that want to win these books for your parents can have great holiday gift and if it comes from you would be fabulous anyone who would like to be in this Friday winning for three prizes of the most fabulous books one of them the big prize I saw the price was $175 I was like I just donated these beautiful for us to inspire us also please go out the form that Tina is going to put inside the Chad will come from Deedee PTA thank you they have to put it in there sorry times but make sure you copy the link before you log out and then we like to take two more questions before we log out and so the next question from dilara and then Haley okay so my question is I actually want to become an architect when I grow up do you have any advice is there anyone out there who wants to choose as a career yeah funny enough everyone I met every architect would try to talk me out of being an architect so I won't do that because it is a very a profession but I would say you know now it's so easy to access information about architecture obviously on the internet there is a credible site but I think it's very interesting to to kind of learn from the past as we were just talking about and study the history of architecture I've been working on a book that isn't it's going to take much longer but it was basically about for kids like history of architecture like what went on everywhere on the world and you know but I think like there's so much incredible architecture I'd say within 30 minutes drive you there's probably like the most incredible architecture on the planet so obviously it's a little challenging these days with what's open and what's not but you know there's incredible houses that you can visit for free you know there's like to eat out Charles and Ray Eames house in like Pacific Palisades you know there's the case study houses we are Frank Lloyd Wright houses Shindler and then just incredible architecture along like Wilshire Boulevard when I go out to LA I have a bunch of projects that we're currently building in Los Angeles at the moment throughout LA and you know I'm just in awe of of lack of of the architecture in LA you know you could drive by friend Gary's Original House in Santa Monica that really started him thinking the Frank gehry building Disney performance hall all around head downtown area is just incredible. I mean you live you're so lucky to be living in a place that architecture has been a very important part of a Society so you know I did keep your eyes open and you see something and research it's amazing what you can can find on the internet you know you could be there's a really cool gas station that I logged in Beverly Hills I think it's like what is it in the 70s text that has this like that goes there there's incredible architecture on Rodeo Drive famous architects today did the product shop there's a you're really really very interesting things in such a short distance from where you guys are so you know I think it's about you seeing something you searching it and learning about it and reading about it and you know just absorb be like a sponge and you know you're very fortunate to live in in such an incredible place where there's really some of my favorite architecture more questions Haley you want to ask question and we appreciate your world kindness day we're going to get to Pride after her for the best best background virtual background and your spirit I'm so he said he's going to ask you a question and then Lorenzo Lorenzo my Spanish name is my middle name okay I was wondering cuz I'm sure you I'm have like when you get a project you a lot of ideas about like what you want the final designs look like size wondering how you deal with the problems of like either the soil not being good for the construction or like space problems that likes carry out whatever design you had in your mind you might have to be hired soon as I see you're very practical person I appreciate that you're probably more practical than I am I am a very good question because architecture is a very serious thing right like these buildings have to not collapse these buildings have to not catch on fire these buildings have to survive earthquakes and and you know it I think that's kind of the the Arden is as well as how do you how do you preserve your ideas how do you have your ideas for these challenges rather fight the challenges you know so I think about like a Cheeto where you use like the energy of your opponent for your advantage right it's like you have to kind of celebrate these things in the house for for the director Michael Bay you know we had really bad soil which we didn't know actually when we were doing it because he had done a survey afterwards and basic play r-design truck out all the bad soil built most of the house where the the Earth was so it's like underground almost and then a part of that policy above where the Earth used to be it's really cool because the house is almost like in visible from the street and it you have to like experience it but it also installed a soil problem but you know you really have to be rigorous you have to be crafty and thoughtful and and and kind of understand all these things and that's like one of the challenging things you have to understand everything and you have to operate did everything like fire codes and building codes and accessibility codes for people in wheelchairs and people who are visually challenged hearing challenge all you have to consider how everyone who can occupy a joy building in the building be safe won't collapse burned Western and it's you know we work with a lot of specialist so it's not just us at me we have to understand everything but we work with life safety specialist to understand fire and how you have to evacuate do we have to know it it's become so complex on big projects that you need specialist work with lighting specialist to make sure we have the right amount of lighting even though we want to keep everything very romantic and dim we work with Ada consultant to make sure people with disabilities structural engineers make sure the building don't collapse we work with mechanical electrical Plumbing Engineers to make sure that when you flush the toilet it doesn't let it clap so you know it's a very complicated Symphony with many many people and some of the projects have hundreds of people working on them so it's a very good question Haley I know when you're ready to help us are you friends that wears the red zone they have to go Lorenzo ask you a question please Google, show when I joined in like the first five minutes I invited my friend Mason and for some reason when he when I sent them the link and clicked on it it would have let him log into his account so he just got logged into my account now his name shows up as a Lorenzo and money as well so that's kind of weird ready for something profound no don't worry about it at this is actually what we're doing here today is really has been about inspiring all of you with people that have been so successful as people getting back to our world through sustainability their environments the culture that they've admired into break into their art that's what we're here doing today and so we really want to thank you with from the time of our hearts Chad mind-blowing and the time you took and the detail Ino behalf of our PTA behalf of behalf of Oliver Middle School students at at Beverly Vista Middle School we can't thank you enough for everybody to give up like Round of Applause and we will continue to praise your warped admired your work to the books and and that we will at the end get in touch with children who buy answer the form that's in the chat and that will be really our biggest prize and the biggest wonderful a credit that we've got is you and the Chinese website or something people yeah it's probably better on Instagram right now we're rebuilding our website but it's oppenheim architecture oppenheim architect spelled like it is and yeah it's oppenheim architecture one word your passion comes through everything that you do repeat GIF with the students follow us on Instagram all right I'm so curious to see so that's well thank you guys so much you'll laugh you'll see a lot about her a lot of other crazy things going on there and you don't feel free to reach out to to meet you guys could share my email you can probably find it somewhere but Romy David Sharon any student who is really interested from happy to you know give you any additional insights care about school a bit of both I have a comment I just like to say sorry for being late okay she can't miss so much cuz he just wanted one through now

Uploaded by Romi Azevedo.

Video Gallery

CareerTalks with Chad Oppenheim

Popular Videos