Q&A With David Euscher

What first sparked your interest in architecture and design?

I am drawn to both the beauty and complexity of architecture. Growing up, my family home was always a bit unique. My father and mother, neither of whom were designers or architects, had a sensibility about the design of our home that I remember being a little different from houses of my friends and neighbors. Dad would sketch out ideas on graph paper and work with a builder to bring his ideas to reality. That creative process was interesting to me, and as I reflect on those houses from my childhood, they were designed with intention about how my parents imagined our family interacting with each other.

As a student, I had a fantastic art teacher in high school who encouraged me to try new things and to be brave and bold in my artistic pursuits. I also had a science teacher who taught me in middle school science and again in high school physics – one of my favorite courses. When it came time to choose a major in college, I thought that architectural engineering would be the best way for me to satisfy my interest in science and solve problems in an artistic way through building design. However, I soon discovered that while I liked the problem solving of being an engineer, I missed the human element. I changed majors to interior design and that’s where I found my purpose – problems I was excited to solve, with the added dimension of being in service to people to make their lives better through design.

What keeps you inspired and engaged now, 30 years in?

One of the things that keeps me inspired and driven to pursue design excellence is that each project comes with a new set of challenges and constraints, and most importantly, each client is different. While there may be similar themes we hear from multiple voices, everyone has a unique story. There is a challenge, when you are working within a limited timeframe, budget, or space, that forces you to think a different way. Viewing those constraints not as limitations, but as a framework for decision making, you are challenged to be more creative.

With my focus on workplace design and my interest in organizational cultures, I also get to learn something new and broaden my view of the world with every organization we work with. I am always intrigued by the different things people do for a living – it never stops being interesting!

How has ASID impacted your career? How do you hope to spend your time as a chair on its Board of Directors?

I joined ASID as a student and then several years ago, I had the opportunity to get involved with national-level committees and eventually the National Board of Directors. ASID has been an invaluable resource for professional development and education programs, as well as networking with other professionals. The variety of viewpoints I have access to from practitioners and educators across the full spectrum of practice areas enriches my thinking and problem-solving in my own work.

During my board service to date, we have been challenged to find ways to reach more members and grow membership, and as a result, have created a new membership structure that is more inclusive while promoting licensed professional practitioners as we always have. This also happens to be the 50^th year of the organization. During this milestone anniversary, we are celebrating past accomplishments, but I’m most excited about the discussions we are having about the next 50 years. We are tackling subjects like how AI technology will impact design practice, collaborative digital fabrication, health and wellbeing aspects of design, and evolving business practices in the shifting economic climate.

One goal I have is to promote the idea that good design is something that everyone should benefit from. It should not be reserved only for wealthy residential or commercial clients but should be carefully considered in the creation of any built environment. Design impacts everyone and can facilitate improvements in wellbeing, business, and medical outcomes; reductions in loneliness and isolation; and build stronger communities – or it can interfere with these. Knowing this, we can design with intention for outcomes that are beneficial to all.

What would you tell future generations of designers?

Take the development of your people skills and communication skills as seriously as you take the development of your technical and design skills. An interior designer’s job is to solve people’s problems. You need be able to ask the right questions and really pay attention to the answers. If we can’t articulate the problem, we can’t help them solve it, and we don’t want to solve the wrong problem because we made assumptions about what the client needed or wanted. For a design solution to resonate with the population it serves, it must be relevant to them and serve them well. That is the foundation to a successful project and successful client relationship.

What do you see for the future of design?

As we learn more about how the spaces we build affect the people who inhabit them, we will continue to refine our practice in response. We have long felt a direct connection between the environment we inhabit and the way we behave, and now the science is backing that up and giving us better ways to measure and quantify those impacts

For example, there is research showing that some veterans who are experiencing mental health challenges after combat suffer from agoraphobia and feel exposed in open spaces whereas others may feel claustrophobic and anxious in tight spaces. Knowing that, the challenge becomes designing a space that accommodates both ends of that spectrum. Research has shown that access to daylight improves academic performance of schoolchildren and views to nature from patient treatment rooms promotes faster recovery for the patient and has health benefits for caregivers.

Looking to the future, evidence-based design is exciting, because it gives us an opportunity — and responsibility — to design for desired experiential outcomes like interpersonal connection, safety and belonging. 

How about for your home city, Houston?

Historically, Houston has been known to replace rather than revitalize older buildings, but as we move away from that, we are seeing more of an interest in preserving the character of the neighborhood and architectural legacy, sometimes even in cases where an alternative use is unexpected and bold, like the renovation of the former Houston Post newspaper printing press into a mixed-use retail and office development or the historic post office downtown into a mixed-use and entertainment destination.

The mixed-use approach to redevelopment allows for a building with significance in a neighborhood to become a creative and economic hub for that community, drawing in new businesses and supporting the hyper local culture. This approach also supports the desire to create magnetic workplaces – spaces with unique architectural character that foster the growth of creative businesses that are looking for a different environment or connection to community than what they might find in newer corporate office buildings.

What is one thing you wish clients would do?

Trust the process and lean into discovering the dimensions that will help their project succeed on their terms. It is important to understand that the discovery and design process is as important as the resulting environment that is created. As workplace strategists and designers, we partner with companies early on to uncover the issues they are facing and develop strategies to make the workplace respond to those challenges. The critical first step is to define the problem we are solving for, and then the design process unfolds from there. Most of our clients understand that the work we do is so much more than creating drawings, making aesthetic recommendations and something getting built. My wish is that our clients will see that the collaborative process we go through together results in an environment that represents all of the critical thinking and problem-solving we did together and embodies the aspirations and vision for the organizations future.