Archie Lee Coates IV is a founder and partner at PLAYLAB, INC., an extremely multi-disciplinary creative practice. With no particular focus, Archie and company simply explore things that interest them by initiating and working with others on ideas. Like + POOL, an initiative to build a water-filtering floating pool in New York’s East River. During this conversation, recorded live at On Air Fest, Archie discusses the roles that exploration and adventure play in aptly named PLAYLAB, INC's creative approach. "We don't have any goals as an office that are that specific. There's no financial goal. There's no size goal. There's a happiness and quality of life goal." In this episode, you will learn how to dream bigger, how to seek out that feeling of "I can't believe I'm doing this," and the importance of knowing when to check yourself when you're going through the motions.
Archie Lee Coates IV is a founder and partner at PLAYLAB, INC., an extremely multi-disciplinary creative practice. With no particular focus, Archie and company simply explore things that interest them by initiating and working with others on ideas. Like + POOL, an initiative to build a water-filtering floating pool in New York’s East River.
During this conversation, recorded live at On Air Fest, Archie discusses the roles that exploration and adventure play in aptly named PLAYLAB, INC's creative approach. "We don't have any goals as an office that are that specific. There's no financial goal. There's no size goal. There's a happiness and quality of life goal."
Archie also talks creative belief systems, the feelings he's chasing to measure how far he's come and what he still aims to accomplish, and how he visualizes his legacy as a coffee table book. If his son would leaf through the accomplishments of his parents and say, “Our family is tight,” that would seal it.
In this episode you will learn how to dream bigger, how to seek out that feeling of "I can't believe I'm doing this," and the importance of knowing when to check yourself when you're going through the motions.
Follow @OvershareTalks on Instagram and Twitter.
SHOW NOTES:
Archie Lee Coates IV (Instagram / website)
+ POOL (Instagram / website)
Grown Up Flowers public art exhibition
Virgil Abloh "ARTWORK" book
Archie: [00:00:00] Jeff and I talk about this a lot because, you know, we don't have any goals as an office that are that specific. There's no financial goal. There's no size goal. There's like a happiness and quality of life goal. And then there's also this goal of satisfying a sense of exploration and adventure. I want every day to feel this feeling, which is, I can't believe we're doing this.
Justin: [00:00:30] Hello, welcome to Overshare, the show where I interview creatives I admire about the struggles of being a creative professional. I'm your host, Justin Gignac, and I'm also the co founder and CEO of Working Not Working. And I wanna apologize in advance for the quality of this audio and this video recording.
I am huddled in my closet in my bedroom at home, surrounded by pillows and covered by a wool blanket, sweating a little bit. I'm trying to do a makeshift audio booth. If you listen to last week's episode with Tristan, you heard that I sent myself home with a cough and, to get away from everyone. And I wasn't able to get to the studio.
Well, now everyone is sent home with some social distancing here in New York. So I am here in the Pillowfort I created, you know, doing this VO, and I know we're not supposed to talk about current events in a podcast cause it dates it, but, whatever. We're all going through this right now. And so it's a weird, weird time.
So how are you? Are you okay? You're doing all right? You stretching? Are you sticking your head out the window for some fresh air and are you're taking care of yourself? Hopefully you are. I know it's important for people to get together, and especially in a time like this where we feel really isolated.
So we're going to be doing, we as in Working Not Working, we're going to be doing a lot more virtual Hangouts to bring people together. Today we did two virtual huddles, with about 40 to 50 people each on zoom. We're also going to be doing some coaching sessions, some breath work, some studio tours and workshops.
So if you'd like to get in on that, checkout workingnotworking.com, sign up as a creative and we'll send you the invites. You can also follow us on Instagram at @wnotw to find out more information about our events. And also please subscribe rate and review Overshare if you've enjoyed it.
It's the way other people can discover the podcast, and if you want to follow Overshare on Instagram and Twitter. It's at @oversharetalks. Now let's get into the episode. Do you have one of those friends that whenever you talk to them you feel super lazy? Well. Archie Lee Coates IV is that friend to me.
Archie is incredible, and he's the cofounder of Play Bab, where they describe themselves as an extremely multidisciplinary creative studio with no particular focus, which I love that. They make giant inflatable flowers is public art and weird experimental shoes. And then they've made bounce houses for Virgil Abloh and Louis Vuitton, and they do design and branding and books and a magazine and ads.
And. Have a couple of clothing lines and also have this slightly ambitious project where they're trying to build a self-filtering, Olympic-sized swimming pool in the shape of a plus sign in the East river in New York city. And on top of that, Archie is also a DJ and a dad. So Archie is that guy. He is the friend that makes me feel super lazy, yet also super inspired whenever I talk to him.
Him and the play lab crew make me always want to dream bigger. So he was a great person to have in my life, and he could not be nicer. And I love seeing those people succeed. And I feel like that might be the greater theme of Overshare if you've listened to any of the episodes in the past two seasons or two plus seasons, it's just really good people being successful.
And it's great to see and great to be surrounded by. Now, Archie and his partner, Jeff just moved the whole studio to LA, from New York to LA. Great. A five person studio, but they're doing a lot of hiring now. It's exciting time for them, but this was recorded before that move. It was recorded, a live recording, from On-Air Fest at the Wythe hotel in Williamsburg, and I want to thank them and our friends at Simplecast for hosting us in the Simplecast lounge. Now in this episode, you will learn to keep following your curiosity and seek out that feeling of, I can't believe I'm doing this. And you'll also learn the importance of committing and knowing when to check yourself when you're going through the motions.
Now, this is a great conversation. It's a short one because we had a limited time on stage at, at the On Air Fest, but we packed a lot in there. Archie's got a lot of wisdom. And, I'm really happy he shared it with us. Without further ado, enjoy this conversation with my buddy Archie Lee Coates IV.
Justin Gignac: [00:00:00] First of all, I want to thank On Air Fest. I'm really excited to be a part of this. Also, SimpleCast. I've been using SimpleCast since we started Overshare, and they have a new SimpleCast coming out, which I don't have access to yet. But I got an email yesterday that I'm getting access this week, so I'm pretty pumped on that.
So, I just want to introduce Archie. Give Archie a quick introduction, but he's the co founder and partner of PlayLab, a New York-based creative studio founded in 2009, with no particular focus, which I love. they explore themes using architecture and graphic design to initiate ideas. Past projects include giant worm tents for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and storefront for Art and Architecture, a rebrand of America for San Francisco Moma, and a compilation of all the times Joaquin Phoenix has walked in his films. Titled Walking Phoenix.
in 2011, the studio co founded the quarterly publication Clog, which is really beautiful. and in 2010, it co founded Plus Pool with Family New York, an initiative to build the world's first water filtering floating pool in New York. Archie is the co founder, executive director of Plus Pool. Welcome Archie.
Archie: [00:00:59] Thank you. [Clapping].
Justin Gignac: [00:01:01] first hard hitting question, how are you?
Archie: [00:01:04] Doing, doing good.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:05] Yeah?
Archie: [00:01:06] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:06] Doing well?
Archie: [00:01:06] Doing great.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:07] Haven't seen you in a while, so it's good to catch up. Seems like there's a lot of things going on. but I want to dive into a little bit of your history so we know like, where you've come from, like where are you from originally?
Archie: [00:01:16] Sure. I'm proud to say I'm from Virginia, Virginia beach, Virginia.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:20] Nice, ...
Isn't Pharrell from there?
Archie: [00:01:21] Pharrell is from there.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:23] You guys are friends?
Archie: [00:01:24] I wish I was friends with Pharrell. I did work in a recording studio that eventually Pharrell purchased. It was one of my first jobs. And I sanded wood in the sound booth, in exchange for recording hours.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:36] Oh, nice. So you're a musician?
Archie: [00:01:38] yes, yes.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:38] Oh, awesome. What do you play?
Archie: [00:01:40] right now just a lot of production. Ableton.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:43] Okay.
Archie: [00:01:43] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:43] Awesome.
Archie: [00:01:44] Synths and stuff.
Justin Gignac: [00:01:45] And then so, in Virginia, did you have a creative household that you grew up in, or?
Archie: [00:01:49] Yeah, for sure. I mean like, definitely a creative family. My dad is incredibly good with his hands and taught us that. He's built like, a dozen homes, and so we were kind of along for that ride my entire life, which was amazing. I have an uncle that is a painter, and an aunt that is also a painter. and so they exposed me to that kind of stuff, and then my parents jut kind of encouraged it wherever they saw me interested in it would let me in
Justin Gignac: [00:02:12] Yeah that's amazing. So were you doing a lot of building as a kid and helping out on the?
Archie: [00:02:17] Yeah, I remember, like I had at one point, an allowance, and I used it all to go to Michaels to get foam board, to build like dream houses and stuff, you know.
Justin Gignac: [00:02:24] [Laughs].
Archie: [00:02:25] Like I did a lot of drawings of like, slides, you know like everybody does. Like slides to the pool.
Justin Gignac: [00:02:30] Yeah. From like the living room.
Archie: [00:02:32] Yeah, obviously I was like, really up high. Yeah, yeah. I mean definitely and at some point I think I was like, “I want to be an architect.” and my dad gave me a book on Frank Lloyd Wright, and I was like, “This is architecture.” It was like, the only book I had. [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:02:43] Yeah. That's your only influence
Archie: [00:02:45] Yeah. [Laughs]. It was.
Justin Gignac: [00:02:47] That's a pretty good influence, though.
Archie: [00:02:48] It was good, yeah. And then I went to architecture school, so it definitely did something.
Justin Gignac: [00:02:52] Where did you end up going?
Archie: [00:02:53] I went to Virginia Tech, for architecture. That's where I met my partner, Jeff and my wife, Emily, and yeah. It's an incredible school. We're now on the board of the college, which is really incredible, and an honor. And so we go down in a few weeks, but it's nice to kind of play a role in what happens there.
Justin Gignac: [00:03:07] And how the future being shaped.
Archie: [00:03:08] Yeah, exactly.
Justin Gignac: [00:03:09] And then how long after school did you end up coming to New York?
Archie: [00:03:12] I moved to Richmond, Virginia the day I graduated. Started working the next day. I was freelancing with a friend of mine, Joel Spiesmaker. He is a talented graphic designer. He has a studio called Forest. and then, I just started applying for jobs on Craig's List in New York. I wanted to get to New York to start PlayLab. and I think I was an intern for eight months, and then I moved here in 2007. February, 2007. So it's been, it's been just over 12 years.
Justin Gignac: [00:03:34] And so did you get a job, initially in New York
Archie: [00:03:37] Yeah, I worked for this incredible, creative director named Zach Zuckala who no longer lives here. He was art director of Wild Cornell Medical College in Columbia University's medical programs. And so, it paid an incredible salary for a 21 year old, and I had health benefits, and I moved to New York and like, could pay my rent, and pay my parents back for that first month's deposit. and I did that for like 11 months and saved up money. And then eventually, somewhere in that 11 months, Jeff and I got a studio and we would go there in Bushwick at night, and we would just work which was the start of it all.
Justin Gignac: [00:04:12] So you guys knew, like immediately you wanted to start making shit together ...
Archie: [00:04:14] Yeah. Yeah, we had PlayLab.org. I taught myself html in like, 2002 and you know, kind of faked it until we made it sort of vibe. But, yeah. We were, we started taking on projects in 2007, ...
Justin Gignac: [00:04:25] And were they architecture projects? Or what were they?
Archie: [00:04:27] Primarily graphic design, branding, websites. [Coughs], a large part of our practice in the beginning was me designing and building websites for clients for very cheap costs.
Justin Gignac: [00:04:35] After just teaching yourself html.
Archie: [00:04:36] Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, awful. Like, just awful.
Justin Gignac: [00:04:39] [laughs].
Archie: [00:04:39] Like, you know.
Justin Gignac: [00:04:40] Well some people don't know, so they're like, “Oh, you made a thing that was on the internet” ...
Archie: [00:04:42] Yeah, but the funny thing is, man, like Myspace was a huge deal in college, right? Like high school and college, and to use Myspace to the best of its ability, you had to know html or CSS to edit it, and so ...
Justin Gignac: [00:04:54] Right, because you wanted the gif backgrounds.
Archie: [00:04:56] Yeah, 100 percent. I mean I don't even think I had that. I wasn't even that cool, you know. just changing colors and sizes and stuff. But anyways, yeah. And then I was like, ah we can make a website. If I can do Myspace, I can make a website.
Justin Gignac: [00:05:08] And then you guys just started making stuff, got clients coming in.
Archie: [00:05:10] Yeah, 100 percent, yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:05:11] I think it seems like the bulk of your career for the past, what, eight years now, has been trying to build a pool.
Archie: [00:05:19] It's been a large substantial part of it.
Justin Gignac: [00:05:21] How, how the hell did that idea come up? How did it happen?
Archie: [00:05:24] [Laughs]. a friend of ours Dong Ping Wong worked with Jeff at this architecture office called Rex. Jeff and I had just come back from alabama we opened a pie shop called Pie Lab in 2009. That was kind of the first project after we incorporated the company. which is another story, maybe.
Justin Gignac: [00:05:40] What kind of pies?
Archie: [00:05:41] great, great questions.
Justin Gignac: [00:05:42] It's crucial.
Archie: [00:05:42] savory and sweet pies. yeah, I remember a lot of chocolate bourbon pecan pies, apple pies, and then there was a taco pie on Fridays that we did.
Justin Gignac: [00:05:52] Was it just a pop-up, or was it a full store
Archie: [00:05:54] It was a pop-up, but I mean it was kind of like an idea, it was like, definitely, we did it through a program called Project M, which was you know, why can't graphic designers propose projects and then go build them? and so, we got involved with that, and about five of us went down to Alabama and opened this shop, and it was kind of a pure embodiment of what Jeff and I believe PlayLab is supposed to be about, which is "Do we have an idea that we want to see in the world, and, and what do we have to learn to get it out?"
And so, we did that, and at one point, I thought we were going to live there for a long time, and then my now wife was like, "There's no way you want to move to Alabama." and it's a great, Alabama is great. And so we came back from there, and it was successful, like the, the project was successful, and in a very small way, that felt big to us and then Dong and Juana kinda saw that we had done that, and were like, "Man it's cool that like, you're not design, you're not doing what other designers are doing. Let's do something together," and then they had this notion of kind of can we swim in the river, and it kind of started.
And so yeah, we just kind of like, we put it out into the world. We built a brand around it. Designed the thing, and and then and we got a call within like, 24 hours from an engineering office saying, "Hey, we'll pay the first leg of feasibility studies on this to prove it's possible.
Justin Gignac: [00:07:07] Wow.
Archie: [00:07:08] And we were like, ...
Justin Gignac: [00:07:09] And this is based off the Kickstarter?
Archie: [00:07:10] This is pre, like a year before Kickstarter.
Justin Gignac: [00:07:11] Okay.
Archie: [00:07:12] We yeah we did. We made a zine and like, a newsprint poster and like, did what we know how to do and sent it to everybody and then, like the founder of the High Line called us in and said, you know, I want to talk to you about it, and now he's on our board, and he's led us though the fire, but yeah. It's been a long journey there's so many pieces...
Justin Gignac: [00:07:28] Can we, for people who don't, maybe listening to this, aren't familiar with the lore of the East River, why is it such an audacious idea to go swimming in the East River? It's a body of water, jump in it.
Archie: [00:07:39] I think I think there's kind of two parts to it. It has previously and historically been really bad. we have 420 combined sewer outfalls that dot the city, along the coastline. These are large pipes that when it rains over a quarter of an inch, it takes the gray water, the storm water, and the sewage water, puts them together in a pipe and dumps it into the river.
Justin Gignac: [00:07:59] That's a delicious cocktail.
Archie: [00:08:00] Yeah, it's a beautiful, disgusting, cocktail, and so that's, it's 27 billion gallons of feces every year. And that, it used to be not so bad, but now there's a lot of people in the city, and and so the city has done a lot to change that and reverse it but, it's still thought of as a pretty disgusting place. And it's a lot better, but you still can't swim in it. Its illegal. and it's not safe.
Justin Gignac: [00:08:21] Okay. Yeah that's gross.
Archie: [00:08:23] Yeah, it's gross.
Justin Gignac: [00:08:24] All right. So, how the hell do you build a pool where people can actually swim in it?
Archie: [00:08:27] That's a great question. yeah. I mean it started as sort of just an idea. We launched it on a lark, we thought hey we should design a giant strainer, giant filter, that has never, had never been done.
Justin Gignac: [00:08:39] So like a Brita filter ...
Archie: [00:08:40] Yeah, more or less.
Justin Gignac: [00:08:41] For a pool.
Archie: [00:08:41] Definitely totally different technology but the same concept. And so we made like diagrams that showed stuff kind of like moving through this fake system. and we just kind of did a bunch of research, put it out there, and then Air Up, the engineering office that we work with, was like, "This is not so far from being possible. We have to really figure this out." They said, you know, it'll be about a quarter million dollars to figure out how to test this system. And so-
Justin Gignac: [00:09:06] So that's it.
Archie: [00:09:07] Yeah. When we learned that, we were like, okay we have to make a decision. Is this something we're going to embark on or not. Like the idea of building it. That's like so, that was so far away for us, it was like, "A filtration system, okay let's try it." And we did, and we, we did that over four years, and now eight years later, we have a domestic international patent on the filtration system. It's the first of its kind. and yeah. It's, it's a pretty insane unit. [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:09:33] So you guys just kind of put this dream out into the world and it started attracting people that were like hey lets figure this out.
Archie: [00:09:40] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:09:41] And then you were like what was the, so a year later the Kickstarter came, because that's how I heard about it.
Archie: [00:09:45] Yeah, exactly.
Justin Gignac: [00:09:45] So what was the motivation for that? And what was the goal of getting-
Archie: [00:09:48] We were like, if we can raise a tenth of the money it would cost to test his filtration system, that would be tight. So we went to Kickstarter. We were like, "How do we raise 25 million dollars?" And they were like, "you're not, so don't even think you are. Just tell your story." and we really, it was honestly about building a community. We, we raised 41000. We built this, this system that didn't really work that well, but it did okay. and then we used that to leap frog to another Kickstarter campaign. We raised $23000, and we learned a lot more about the filtration system. And we've raised millions since just for that and the development of the project. We raise a million a year. We operate on a million a year budget. Not, for a small nonprofit, that's a pretty goof accomplishment.
and we only need 20 million to build it, and so right now we're working with the city of new york to to get a home, an actual site.
Justin Gignac: [00:10:31] So you, you had a big week last week because I'm on the mailing list, and I got the email. Do you want to tell everyone what happened?
Archie: [00:10:36] Sure. yeah. We, we've been looking at Brooklyn Bridge Esplanade on the east rive on the manhattan dies, there's two piers there. Piers 17 and 35 that are both really perfect for Plus Pool. They're protected by currents. They have a pier in front of them. And the community really needs something like this. so what we learned from The High Line, is that they had a built in community. We didn't because we were, literally a floating project, like there was no home for the project. So we were like we just need to start focusing on community and what they need and ask them questions because that's the goal of the organization is to serve the public in a diverse set of public, and so we built solid community down there and then the community board, which is a fiery CB1.
I mean they're, they're a fiery community board, and they were like, "Why can't we have Plus Pool? We should have it," and so the way that community boards work, if you don't know, is they vote. People come and speak on your behalf. They pass a resolution that goes to from one committee to the full community board, and then they pass a resolution to the mayor. And that's their official declaration that we should have this. So that's kind of like a multi-step process. We presented it to the community board multiple times, and last week, the community full board voted to take it to the mayor, unanimously.
I mean it was like, it's a funny meeting, you know, and you're definitely one of the youngest people there. It's definitely not, like doesn't seem like the coolest thing, but it is in that room that something like Plus Pool happens, and we, I went and I spoke, two minutes, I just said thanks for coming and for supporting this project. We really, we're really dedicated to this, and then I sat down, and I was with my team, [inaudible 00:13:37] and the head of the waterfront alliance came and spoke on our behalf, and he said Plus Pool started as an idea and turned into a juggernaut. And then they took a vote and it was just, "Yes, yes, yes" It was probably like 100 and something yes's and you just hear it, and I was like, just taking a cell phone video, you know.
Justin Gignac: [00:12:26] That's amazing.
Archie: [00:12:27] And I, it was, it was definitely like, chills, vibe, you know.
Justin Gignac: [00:12:31] Well and I know we've talked over the years, it's a daunting process, like I think its easy to go and say, "Hey lets do this," and then you've come up against the reality of bureaucracy.
Archie: [00:12:41] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:12:42] And like its not like hey this is a cute idea, let's, let's, let's start development, like you, how many years have you been like, going through the red tape in the channels, and what have you learned through that process?
Archie: [00:12:50] Yeah, I mean I came to New York fired up to work with my friend Jeff, to collaborate with people. I love art, I love design. But I didn't know anything about government politics, and I typically, historically turned a blind eye to that, in the pursuit of art. but then I learned a lot about Jen Claude and Cristo and what they had to do to get their projects built, and a lot of it was, you know, there's an idea in drawings, and then there's the world in which the project happens and how that happens.
The sculptor Tom Sachs talks about it like, you know, the one percent of a project when you come up with an idea is amazing, and the one percent when you launch it is amazing, and the 98 percent in between is like a slog. And I love that truth, and it's true, and Plus Pool is definitely that way. We've built little small chunks, milestones to get excited and propel everything forward, but its really, it's goverment relations and it's community relations. It's, Jeff is the director of community education. We have a STEM program. We teach kids in public housing to swim. I mean, it's, it's a massive project, and those are the things that we believed would get the project built. Like, we can't propose an architectural initiative that will serve the city if we do not serve the city before it's built. And so-
Justin Gignac: [00:13:58] Yeah, smart.
Archie: [00:13:59] That's the invisible work that the organization does. That's what our galas raise money for, and its not just about a very nice beautiful piece of civic architecture. It's, it's a platform. It's a symbol for what can be done. I mean, you know, I'm 34 now and we proposed it at 25. I, I had no idea how something like this would happen. Neither did Dong, Juana, Jeff, or anybody on our team. We figured it out together, and that's what's cool, like I think a lot about the day that we'll be standing on a deck, about to jump into this pool. I mean, Matt Ruben, here, who is a beautiful part of SimpleCast, he was there to photograph the day we swam in Float Lab, which is this testing unit we built, and it was the first time anyone had swam in a clean, filtered river, since 1938, and-
Justin Gignac: [00:14:49] You guys put like a small little, what? Like four foot by four foot or something, like a little box?
Archie: [00:14:53] At one point, we had like a 10 foot version. This one was a 40 foot version. I mean, it was a giant thing, that we raised 270 on Kickstarter. We spent over that [laughs] to build this thing, that worked really funky, but it worked, and the day we swam in there was a weird day. It was a beautiful day. It was sunny day, and Matt captured this photo of us jumping in and I mean it was, it was crazy. Because it think at that moment we felt like, oh like a couple of punk kids can have an idea and actually see it happen if they're like caring and dedicated enough and treat people well and work hard, and it's been a journey, like we've, you know, screwed up a zillion times along the way. We still are and still will, but like, it's it's cool to see the team prevail.
Like Kara Meyer, deputy director, she's, I mean she's more or less single handedly run this organization since March of 2015. I mean she built the organization from the ground up. I don't know. I wouldn't have known what a nonprofit was supposed to be. and as executive director, it's my job to lead that and its, it's super difficult, but its really cool to see this engine that powers an idea. so yeah. I've learned a lot.
Justin Gignac: [00:16:01] And then how are you guys balancing running a creative studio at the same time as trying to-
Archie: [00:16:05] [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:16:05] Take on this, yeah ...
Archie: [00:16:07] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:16:08] Herculean task?
Archie: [00:16:08] Its difficult, man. It's super difficult, but it's we have a really good system. we have a really good team, we have five people at play lab that are incredible people. Dillon, Anna, and Phil, and we've had a bunch of people come through the office in the past several years, but we rely on people. We rely on a lot of people. Collaborators..
Justin Gignac: [00:16:26] And how is that, influenced, like all the years and the perseverance of Plus Pool. How has it influenced your work as a studio now?
Archie: [00:16:33] I mean I think our confidence has definitely shot up. We definitely, and our endurance. And you take a long view, like, I you know, full disclosure, left architecture school after the second year to pursue graphic design because I was scared of how long projects would take.
Justin Gignac: [00:16:48] [laughs]. Oh, the irony.
Archie: [00:16:50] Yeah. I mean, I really missed the mark on that one.
Justin Gignac: [00:16:54] [Laughs].
Archie: [00:16:55] and who knows if we'll do a long term project like this again, but PlayLab satisfies the requirement that Jeff and I have in our brains of doing things that are a little shorter. and can see results from, and so we have 10 projects running at any time. I mean, it's a pretty busy office. We don't rest on our laurels. We don't spend a lot of time showing the world what we do. We just work. We love to work and we love to make things, and for Jeff and I, it's like, PlayLab is a belief system. We have to believe that the way we're going about work is the way we should, and so we just keep doing it, and keep pushing the button, and over time, it's evolved into this thing that we know nobody can penetrate or touch. It's just something that's ours and feels right and, ..
Justin Gignac: [00:17:34] Only you could do, yeah.
Archie: [00:17:35] Yeah. Exactly. And that's, that's a proud thing, you know.
Justin Gignac: [00:17:38] Well that's important because I know there's a lot of people who start businesses or start creative studios and its easy to go and look to competition and how people are doing things and trying to follow someone else's path, but the fact that you're just like, "Well how, what the hell do we want to do, and how, how can we do it?" And it seems like it's attracted a lot of business for you.
Archie: [00:17:55] Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:17:56] You know, and opportunities.
Archie: [00:17:57] Yeah. Sometimes too much. And like, saying no is a fun thing, and a hard thing too, but yeah I mean I think it's also because other people opened their doors to us, you know, very early on. Like I talk about these guys all the time, but karlssonwilker, small design office. Incredible design office that really allowed us to pick their brains, and they were like, "Yeah, don look to anybody else, like, just look to yourself. Just keep doing it." I remember Jan Wilkers saying, "It seems like, when you ask me for advice, you're asking for permission, like you should stop doing that." And that was good advice.
Justin Gignac: [00:18:27] That's a great insight, yeah. you recently, or fairly recently had another kind of community project with Grown Up flowers. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that, how that came to be?.
Archie: [00:18:37] I mean that's another one of the things. Jeff and I want to make large scale public artworks. [laughs] it sounds great to do, but you know, like any other project, I mean you know like, until you actually do a thing, you're not going to be asked to do anything, so that's why we initiate a lot of our works, and so with public art, we were like, "We need to kick things into high gear, and we need to go out and start telling people we want to do this."
Justin Gignac: [00:18:59] Yeah.
Archie: [00:18:59] and then putting drawings to paper, and we started getting asked to things. There was like this time Marc Jacobs asked us to do something, and it didn't happen, but we had all these drawings and renderings and stuff, and so we just leveraged certain parts of our work to get new work, and there was a donor of ours, Sarah Berman, who supports Plus Pool, and she runs a PR company called the Berman Group, and she was like, "What do you guys want to do?" And I said, "Large scale public works," and she said, "Well I can try to find that for you."
and she had this association of property owners, including Rockefeller and Mitsui, and all these companies, up in midtown, and they said, they'd like art on sixth avenue. I mean it was as simple as that. Here's a healthy budget to go and propose something. We won, and then Grownup Flowers was a result of that. It was how can we make the most simple, soft-edge thing that every artist throughout time has rendered flowers, and this will be our seminal moment of like, we'll do flowers but we'll do it on sixth avenue and float it in a fountain across from Jimmy Fallon, and, and it was the same feeling as jumping in the test pool for Plus Pool. It was like, we did that. And we all went to a bar afterward called The Flower Shop. And, and it was like celebratory. It was like our friends together, happy, and then you know, I remember telling the studio I was like, "Tomorrow we go back to the studio and, and get started on the net thing, like
Justin Gignac: [00:20:14] Yeah.
Archie: [00:20:14] Its no ... we don't take a day off. Its like, what's next? And so the flowers have traveled to Shanghai...
Justin Gignac: [00:20:20] And they're what, like 20 feet tall inflatable flowers.
Archie: [00:20:22] 40 foot tall, inflatable flowers, yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:20:25] And they're beautiful, yeah.
Archie: [00:20:26] Yeah, they're gorgeous and
Justin Gignac: [00:20:27] So now they're in Shanghai?
Archie: [00:20:28] They're in Shanghai in an exhibition. They come down, and then I mean hopefully we'll see whatever I'll say it, is that they will come to the Queen's botanical garden in the summer. but then we got recommissioned by the foundation and in midtown and we're doing another installation in midtown this Summer, which will launch in May.
Justin Gignac: [00:20:44] That's incredible.
Archie: [00:20:45] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:20:45] Well I think that's an important lesson, too, because a lot of times we sit around and either, not happy with the work we're doing, or our portfolio, and it's like, no you just got to make shit that you want to be known for.
Archie: [00:20:54] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:20:55] And then it, good things come from that.
Archie: [00:20:57] Yeah, just keep making stuff, yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:20:58] Yeah. and then you've also been doing some work with a well known designer lately, Virgil.
Archie: [00:21:03] Virgil, yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:21:03] How did that come about? Are you guys familiar with Virgil Abloh? Yeah.
Archie: [00:21:07] Yeah, I met Virgil through Dong and Juana I mean, Dong and Juana have designed all thee stores for them. Off white and a bunch of other things and yeah we're working with him on a book right now. He's got an exhibition it's a massive retrospective at the MCA in Chicago, the museum of contemporary art, and so we helped with, monogramming, basically an exhibition catalog that's like 500 pages that will launch in June. which is super cool.
Justin Gignac: [00:21:30] Yeah, that's a good relationship to have, yeah. these are a little bit more about you. do you feel like you have something to prove?
Archie: [00:21:37] [Laughs]. No.
Justin Gignac: [00:21:38] No?
Archie: [00:21:39] No, yeah. Maybe to myself, you know. My dad always, you know, my dad always gave me really good advice, which was, was, it was something about sticking through something. Like, he always used to say, "Don't go through the motions." You know, I played tennis growing up, and he is an incredible tennis player and coach and, and often, my, I'm kind of ADD, and my mind would get distracted. He would see it, and he'd be like, "You're just kind of swinging. You're just swinging at the ball. Like, you've got to follow through and commit," which was also like a solid skateboarding lesson, was committing. and so yeah, I try not to go through the motions. I check myself every day, like, am I just, am I just doing it because I'm doing it or is there something more to it? and so yeah, I mean with Plus Pool especially it's about, it's about committing and showing up every day and pushing it forward.
Justin Gignac: [00:22:24] Yeah.
Archie: [00:22:24] yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:22:24] That's great. Are you motivated by specific goals?
Archie: [00:22:29] no.
Justin Gignac: [00:22:30] No.
Archie: [00:22:30] No. Jeff and I talk about this a lot because you know, we don't have any goals as an office that are that specific. There's no financial goal. There's no ... size goal. There's like a happiness and quality of life goal, and then there's also this goal of satisfying a sense of exploration and adventure. I want every day to feel this feeling which is, "I can't believe we're doing this, and I can't believe we did that." And then visioning out what the next thing will be, and that stuff comes through a dynamic of Jeff and I having conversations and seeing things out in the world, or the team being like, "I want to do X." You know, we spent a lot of time with a designer I can't talk about that makes shoes, and we saw the process in which those shoes were made, and we were like, "We should make shoes," and Dillon in our office, Dillon was like, "I want to make shoes," so he just started cutting up sneakers, and we started building sneakers as a practice.
Justin Gignac: [00:23:24] I've seen it on your Instagram recently.
Archie: [00:23:26] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:23:26] They're ridiculous. Yeah.
Archie: [00:23:28] Yeah. And so we're doing a lot with that, and it's super fun, and then, and then now Phil Gibson in our office was like, "I want to make lamps." And so now we're doing that, and so we're midway through concept on a first series of lamps, and then Anna in our office who just joined our team from Brazil, she, she was like, "I want to make speakers," and so now that's a part of the practice as well, is, is building you know...
Justin Gignac: [00:23:48] It's just following the team's curiosity.
Archie: [00:23:50] Yeah, because it's now not just us, right. It's like, they have to have skin in the game too. and then it's up to Jeff and I to figure out where do we take it? So you know, do you talk to Adidas and Nike? Or just do you do, do you do an exhibition of these sneakers and see who shows up? Like, it could be a million different things.
Justin Gignac: [00:24:05] Yeah.
Archie: [00:24:05] But we don't know. The goal is just, reveals itself every week. [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:24:09] Yeah. Well that's exciting, and this question I feel like I may know the answer to, but I ask, I always ask this. Do you feel like your ambition ever gets in the way of your happiness?
Archie: [00:24:19] ... I mean happiness is a little relative. [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:24:22] Yeah.
Archie: [00:24:22] because it can be pretty painful. my wife, Emily, is as ambitious as I am and so we spend a lot of time working at night, and we have a beautiful son, Archie V. and so we're busy, but I think we like it that way. It's like, I like being in motion. She likes being in motion, and and so you have to kind of like, sometimes you have to trick yourself into being like, okay like, it's going to hurt a little bit to spend an extra hour on this, but the feeling I get after that hour is like, I mean it's like a drug, so that happiness prevails all the time, and so the goal is to just constantly be in that state, and never really step out of it. So like, rest and vacation is a little hard to do.
Justin Gignac: [00:25:02] Yeah.
Archie: [00:25:02] But I don't, but now this is rest a little.
Justin Gignac: [00:25:04] Well how do you find that balance as a parent now? Like you have two giant things going on with PlayLab and Plus Pool. Like, are you able to find the balance, you know, with a kid now and, and being able to?
Archie: [00:25:17] Yeah, I mean the rule with Archie is that when we're with him, we're dedicated to him, and we're focused, so it's tough, but like staying off devices and paying attention to him and like, sparking what he wants to do. I mean, even at two, you see his like, interests are crazy. He's bouncing off walls, and so the job will be after this too, is like, "Let's try this, let's try this. Let's try this. You like this? Cool, let's add more to that fire. Blah, blah, blah." and then its also like I don't leave the studio past 5:30 ever. So, I'm home with him in the morning and at night.
Justin Gignac: [00:25:51] That's amazing.
Archie: [00:25:51] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:25:51] what's the, I almost feel like you treat him like you're treating your team.
Archie: [00:25:57] Yeah. [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:25:57] Where it's like, "Oh, what's your interest? Go and follow that." It sounds like the same thing as parenting.
Archie: [00:26:01] Man I watched, I watched the documentary on the guy that free climbed El Cap.
Justin Gignac: [00:26:05] I haven't seen it yet.
Archie: [00:26:06] Oh, holy crap. [crosstalk 00:30:30]
Justin Gignac: [00:26:07] Supposed to be amazing.
Archie: [00:26:08] I watched it last night, or two nights ago with Emily, and the mother is interviewed, and she says, you know, "He's, you know, he's kind of a weird guy, and he had these inclinations early on, and even though free soloing is incredibly dangerous and most people die," she was like, "He's so happy." And then she says this quote it's like, "Why would I take that from him?"
Justin Gignac: [00:26:27] Yeah.
Archie: [00:26:28] And I was like, "Fuck."
Justin Gignac: [00:26:28] That's amazing.
Archie: [00:26:29] Yeah. That's, that's the ...
Justin Gignac: [00:26:30] Yeah, that's what it's all about.
Archie: [00:26:31] Yeah. For sure. For sure. So it's the same with the team. It's the same with Archie. It's the same with anybody.
Justin Gignac: [00:26:37] What's been, your proudest moment?
Archie: [00:26:40] I got asked this the other day, and I said Archie, which is definitely true, but in regard to PlayLab and Plus Pool, I mean, it, the CB1 meeting this week was definitely one of the proudest moments. It was low key, but it was like one the proudest things that have ever happened.
Justin Gignac: [00:26:53] Yeah.
Archie: [00:26:54] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:26:54] That's amazing. let's see, what is your biggest fear?
Archie: [00:26:59] I mean the biggest fear would be if I can't do this. That would be rough.
Justin Gignac: [00:27:08] Yeah.
Archie: [00:27:08] I know that I'm privileged, and I know that I'm in a privileged position, that I've worked hard, but I know that my parents gave me an incredible opportunity growing up. I went to a great college. and I met great people along the way, and so the goal is to continue to like, honor that. Work hard, and that's though a form of working hard, being good to people. When people ask you questions, answer those questions. You know, like we have people walk in the office 10 times a day, asking to meet, or for a job, or, like a specific question, and because Karlsson Wilker did that for me, I do that for other people, and I, and we teach too, and I don't know. I think we're trying to make sure karma is good. [Laughs]. Which is hard and takes a lot of work. I remember James Victoria lived next door to me for like seven years, and we were running buddies and good friends, and he, I remember him telling me like, about loving somebody. Is that, it doesn't ever get easier, that every day you have to wake up and make a decision to do that. so it's the same with this stuff. Like I definitely fear this stuff not being in my life, and so I have to actively every day, propel, like gear the universe up. [Laughs]. You know, like, charge it up, so ...
Justin Gignac: [00:28:21] is there, is there anything you're struggling with right now?
Archie: [00:28:26] I'm in a pretty good zone right now. [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:28:27] Once you get a community board approval and a hundred yes's, that's pretty good momentum
Archie: [00:28:31] Yeah, I feel pretty, I fell pretty good. I feel pretty good. The schedule is a little rough, like, I think we have somehow magically over the next eight weeks, be in like, nine different places on like, 10 different flights.
Justin Gignac: [00:28:43] Wow. is there, is there anyone that makes you jealous?
Archie: [00:28:47] No. No.
Justin Gignac: [00:28:49] That's good.
Archie: [00:28:50] Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:28:50] do you have any regrets?
Archie: [00:28:52] no, no, no, no.
Justin Gignac: [00:28:53] No regrets?
Archie: [00:28:54] [Laughs]. Yeah.
Justin Gignac: [00:28:54] You're really nailing these.
Archie: [00:28:56] Yeah, sorry.
Justin Gignac: [00:28:56] no, it's okay. That's a good.
Why, like I know a lot of people do, is it just something you don't believe in?
Archie: [00:29:02] well because if, if I'm like sitting here thinking about the thing that I don't want to lose, which is this great life and the position I'm in to make this stuff with my friends. You know, everything I did, whether right or wrong got me here, so it's, it's; all learning. Like you know, I didn't, I wasn't, I never worked for an office, like a studio. I don't know how studios are run. I don't know how people make projects. I read interviews and I read books and I watch documentaries to piece it all together and I take one step forward, and like, maybe something works, maybe it doesn't.
Justin Gignac: [00:29:32] Yeah.
Archie: [00:29:32] and so I have individual like, maybe we should've done this differently or treated this-
Justin Gignac: [00:29:36] You learn from it, yeah.
Archie: [00:29:37] Yeah. For sure, like I don't regret it. It's sort of like, I want to just be better all the time, so ...
Justin Gignac: [00:29:42] What is success to you?
Archie: [00:29:45] I'm a broken record, but I think just like-
Justin Gignac: [00:29:47] Keep doing this.
Archie: [00:29:48] Yeah, being able to do this. Being able to do this, and I think like, honestly, like, Emily and I talk about our lives like not to sound egotistical, but like if we were to have a coffee table book on our lives at the end of our life, would we be happy with what was in it? Like if somebody did a good job and got all the shit in there, like would we be happy? And so I think, that's it. Like, I think if I can like, die, and like my son is looking through this quote on quote coffee table book, he'd be like, "Our family is tight." You know? That would be it.
Justin Gignac: [00:30:18] That's amazing. how are you feeling right now?
Archie: [00:30:20] Feeling great.
Justin Gignac: [00:30:21] Feeling great.
Archie: [00:30:22] [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:30:22] Well, thank you, Archie. It's been awesome.
Archie: [00:30:24] Yeah, of course.
[applause]
Justin Gignac: [00:30:26] I think we have time for one or two questions. Are there any questions in the crowd? Does anybody want to know how dirty the East River actually is?
Speaker 7: [00:30:36] Yeah, tell us.
Justin Gignac: [00:30:37] Isn't it like a parts per million with fecal matter, I think I heard you say this once.
Archie: [00:30:42] Yeah, it's really after it rains, there's like, yeah, there's a lot of fecal coliform. in the river. Bacteria, ...
Justin Gignac: [00:30:48] But you guys got it down to a safe...
Archie: [00:30:51] Zero. Yeah, zero.
Justin Gignac: [00:30:53] Wow.
Archie: [00:30:53] Yeah, the filtration system zeroes it out on the worst day of the year. We have these like, little things when we test. You bake bacteria over 24 hours, and then you see, like, how bad it is. It takes that long to find out. and so you have these little cells. There's like 50 cells, and so you can have like, I think it's up to 25000 counts per cubic milliliter, and you can only have like, EPA standard is 30 counts. Well after it rains, the thing's maxed out, so it's like 25000 counts of this bacteria stuff. it's pretty gross. [Laughs].
Justin Gignac: [00:31:21] We have a question right here.
Speaker 8: [00:31:26] Hi, thanks so much for telling us all about your project. I had a question, you said, you know, you started this project at 25, and its been you know, 10 years of like, slog. my question is like, did you ever get to a point where you were like, "This might not work?" And what did you do when you were like, "I don't know if I can maintain this?" And how far along were you that you were able to like, keep going past that point?
Archie: [00:31:46] Yeah. No, a lot, multiple times along the way. [Laughs]. A lot of times. But I think, my partner Jeff is amazing, and the team `Dong and Juana that we started this with are amazing, and I think Dong especially like he's never had any fear with this sort of stuff. He's just approached it with like a smile on his face and like positivity, so any time we'd get emotional or roughed up, he'd be like, "Let's just keep going." [Laughs]. You know? He'd be like, "Okay." [Laughs]. And so there's a lot of those moments where you'd hit a wall, and then you'd be like, "Fuck it." Like, and it did help. We made like no money during that time, so it was just sort of like whatever, what are we going to lose? Like, we were already like, just ekeing by, you know? So-
Justin Gignac: [00:32:23] Well that's kind of the, like, reiterating the importance of a support system because if you were doing this by yourself, it's pretty easy to get mired in it and be like," oh, I don't know if I can keep doing this," but if you have a, a balance of personalities and perseverance, like, when someone is down, someone else can lift you up.
Archie: [00:32:36] Yeah. I would hate doing it by myself.
Justin Gignac: [00:32:39] Yeah. That's great. any more questions? Maybe one more.
[silence]
All right, cool.
Guys, thank you so much for coming out. Thank you to On Air Fest, and thank you to SimpleCast. It's been great.
[applause]
Thanks, Archie
Justin Gignac: Archie, thank you so much for joining us. I love that idea of the coffee table book of your life and it's definitely something I'm going to strive for. If you enjoyed this episode of Overshare, please subscribe, rate and review us.
It's the way to help other people discover the podcast. And another way to help people discover the podcast is if you share it. so if you could go to our Instagram at @oversharetalks, we have a bunch of amazing clips of soundbites from this episode and collages of Archie's work, easily sharable on the gram.
If you could do that, we'd really appreciate it. Also. A huge thanks to our audio engineer and editor Jesse Peterson and the team at Second Child in New York city who had been hosting us in their studio and help produce this and make this happen. Also, thanks to our producer, Moira Spahic, it's so great having a producer this season.
What a relief. And a big thanks to Eugene and Gabi from the Working Not Working crew for the Overshare branding and the collages. You'll find our Instagram and Twitter at @oversharetalks. And thanks to Caleb Grow for our theme song. "Let it grow." Now, if you are an incredible creative or you are someone who hires incredible creatives, we would love to have you join us at workingoutworking.com.
We are a curated community of the best creatives in the world. and we have a bunch of creatives that are really eager to work, especially right now. There's a lot of freelancers out of work and they're hungry to take on your project. So please join us and hire the incredible talent within the network.
you'll be very happy you did. And that's it for this episode. A big reminder to do not touch your face. Don't touch your face. And now that I said that you're probably thinking about that itch on your nose, but don't scratch it. and also please take a minute to reach out to someone and check in on them.
Maybe pop in on them going. No, just FaceTime them or do an Instagram video call and unannounced, just like the olden days when people are like, your, your crazy aunt and uncle, you just show up uninvited and, everyone has to stop what they're doing and entertain them. You could be that person to someone right now and I'm sure they'd really be happy to hear from you.
So, reach out, say hello and just know we're going to get through this and we just got to stick together and help each other out. So thank you so much for listening and we'll, we'll see you next time.