EPISODE 119

Howard Well, thanks, Derek, for having me here, and it’s a really wonderful series, and happy to at least contribute in some part to everything that you have going on. We’ve been working, or I have been working, rather, as an architect for 31 years, and me and my two business partners, Mark Diedrich and JC Chi, all started working for Richard Diedrich in ’94 and ’95. And for those who may or may not know, Richard Diedrich was sort of an icon in the club design world. He used to be called the Dean of Golf Clubhouse Design. He taught the recreational facilities course at Harvard Graduate School of Design. And he’s the author of several really prominent books, including the Recreational Facilities book, which is essentially what we call the Bible of Golf Clubhouse Design. So we all started with them in ’94 and ’95, and to make a long story short, we eventually sort of embarked on our own path in 2002 and still collaborated with our mentor until he finally essentially retired. So we’ve been 31 years as Kuo Diedrich, and now Kuo Diedrich Chi, or we like to say KDC Architects. So you don’t have to say two Asian names and a German name. KDC is just always really easy to say.

Derek Awesome. Correct me if I’m wrong. You hold patents in watchmaking – is that true?

Howard So you have done a little homework. Yeah, so that’s just a little file under miscellaneous tidbits and triviata. But, yeah, I have kind of a love of what they call horology. Horology is, by definition, the study of time. So that basically means I like watches. I’ve had a chance to obviously go to Switzerland and visit some of the museums and spend some time over there. Both my daughters have Swiss watch-based themes, names, and just because it’s fun for me, I essentially created some watch designs that I filed for one US utility patent and three US design patents. But I don’t really have much time to kind of play around with that or follow up on that, simply because, quite frankly, as you know, and some of your listeners know this, the club industry is just exceptionally busy right now. And so I’ve got to stick to my day job.

Derek Someday, if I ever have the opportunity, I want to see the watch drawer in your house and see the collection that you must have and the brands and the styles. There’s got to be a couple of super cool keepsakes in there.

Howard Well, I have a few, but it’s by no means a large collection. I just enjoy it. It’s a bit of a hobby.

Derek What that tells me, though, what I get about you, and you and I don’t know each other really well, but we’ve had a few conversations since we met a couple of years ago at a golf conference. You’re a creative person. I don’t know that design is a job for you. I think it might be your calling, your passion. It’s who you are. It’s how your mind works. And as I then translate that to the firm and the work that you’re doing in the club space. I saw a line on the website that says something like extraordinary design comes out of listening and relationships before it comes out of drawings. It’s such a great sentiment that before there’s ever a thought or a concept or a sketch, you’re working to understand the club and its members. Does that ring true?

Howard So let’s sort of break that down for a moment. I mean, obviously, you and your office have that similar kind of approach. I mean, you enjoy being creative. You have a passion for what you do. And I think really it’s just, on a broader philosophical note, you have to be able to love what you do. Because if you don’t love what you do, it just makes going into the office quite difficult. So you have to really enjoy it and not feel like it’s a job. Feel like It’s a passion that you don’t really feel like you work a day in your life. But that being said, this isn’t really like a pursuit that is just for my own folly or just for my giggles. This is really what we’re trying to do, or the essence of what KDC tries to do, and I would imagine your office as well, is that we need to create a design solution that essentially solves the problems of our clubs and our clients. And the only way to do that is to really extract the DNA of every club. And extracting the DNA just takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of research. It takes a lot of nights meeting members, playing a round of golf, introducing yourself, going to the pool, studying – every aspect and every amenity piece of the club or resort or whatever our assignment is really needs to be studied. And also listen to all the concerns about the members and also from the staff, because we really enjoy talking with the staff at different clubs. Then you begin to have the basic picture of what you need to do. And that background palette allows you, or us, as designers and creatives, to come up with the proper solution, and that’s really the only way to do it. And thanks for seeing that quote on our site, but I think it’s just basic. It’s like class 101. It’s intro to what we do. We have to listen to what the demands and the needs are for the clients, and we have to give them an appropriate response to that.

Derek I agree, and heads-up to the listeners. We’re going to nerd out a little bit. This is two designers. I know our mediums are different, and our trades are different, but we’re clearly going to nerd out on this process a little. Yes, it’s design 101, but frankly, I think some service firms and even some clubs that we work with take that listening step for granted. There’s the assumption that we can just jump right in. I mean, I’ll have clients that we talk to when we’re still in a very perspective, very early conversation, after a one-hour conversation, say, So what do you think? What do you think we should look like? How do you think we should sound? What do you think of our current brand identity? And I haven’t had a chance to really listen or take that assessment yet. When we’ve talked, our processes run similarly. We both start with learning. You and I take for granted, maybe, that of course that’s the first step that we’re going to do so that then we can dig into purpose. That’s where, for you, you pivot to the spaces, the physical structures, the form, the function, the usability, while we’re coming at it from brand and identity and communication. Am I simplifying this too much? From where you sit, from an architect’s process and ours as a brand process, do you see that same sort of parallel?

Howard It’s exactly the same. It’s just a different medium. On the design side, we have to get all of the requisite research. We have to understand everything. We have to listen because there’s this domino effect of what has to happen sequentially. We have to understand what the mission statement is. What are the objectives? What is the market position? What is our final intended product? What is it trying to serve for the members? And then we have to go through an entire process. And, sure, you can kind of skip that, and I suppose someone could say, have KDC come in and take a look at a club. And then we could say, well, we think you need this, this, and this. But I think ultimately I would encourage clubs to sort of take a more methodical approach to it so that they can figure out and allow the necessary process and determine what the solution is. So, translated back to your space, it’s the exact same thing. By the way, a lot of this is sort of born out of the strategic plan for clubs. The strategic plan is essentially you have the financials, the operations, the governance, the membership laws, and all that kind of stuff. But there’s also the component of the Strategic Plan to tell you what this club is about. What is the market position? Where are we trying to be? What are we trying to serve? And those kinds of things, in your world, lead to trying to create purpose and mission and then trying to determine the look, and then trying to discern how you’re going to get to that, which then drives your branding and messaging from that point forward, and you really can’t do it well unless you have everything in place prior to that.

Derek It’s so well said. The strategic plan is a bit fascinating for me. I’m thinking of GGA, one of your partners. We’ve worked on a project where GGA did a strategic plan for the club and did an amazing job – setting the finances, the facilities, the background, even some of the competitive research. And our job was to come in, consume all of that content, and translate that into our side of the project so that it would help and inspire the work that we did. And I’m imagining that’s the same for you. You’re taking a lot of that data, and I’m sure you’re supplementing that with some of your own process steps. But what’s interesting is, in my experience, the strategic plans can be so focused on the facility as a deliverable, and while our job is to tie in the member belonging and the emotional side of what the club is doing, the facilities that you are designing and building and the spaces that you’re creating are telling stories. Those spaces are not just serving a function. They’re actually saying something to the members and the staff, of course, that use those spaces.

Howard What’s interesting, and I’m going to kind of reverse this a little bit on you, when you look at your website and some of the body of work that you guys have done, it’s really about this emotional connection, both in terms of the aesthetics of it and maybe also the branding and messaging. And that’s just something that requires a lot of time and effort to do. It needs to be early in the process. It needs to be in concert with a strategic plan. And quite frankly, also in concert with where the demographics of a club are headed. So right before we jumped on this call, or at least started recording, we talked a little bit about your work at Frenchman’s. And when you look at Frenchmen’s, like a lot of clubs across the country, the demographics are changing, and we are looking at a younger club audience, in most cases, as well as sort of this migration from golf club to a lifestyle. And when I look at the work that you’ve done, which, by the way, is really beautiful – the branding, the colors, the messaging, the typology, the graphics – all sort of come together and really synchronize with that. And it really looks fresh. It appeals to a different aesthetic. It looks a little bit younger. And I think it reflects accurately where that club could be heading.

Derek Awesome. Appreciate it. I did not pay you or prompt you to point out that wonderful project that we’ve had a chance to work on. Over the years, when you’re presenting to a GM or a committee or a board that represents the club as a whole, that makes the decisions on behalf of the club, then you do your work, and you see how the spaces are actually now used and activated, have there been any learnings or surprises along the way in the difference between the board and the committee and the decision makers and then the staff at large or the members that use those spaces?

Howard The unique thing about designing clubs from an architecture standpoint is that there’s no formula involved here. Everything is unique. So it should be great to go into the drawer and just say, Oh, you want a 20,000-square-foot club and just roll out a set of prints, and they’re a done deal. Buy me a beer. But it just doesn’t work that way. Everything has to be customized completely. And when you do that, you’re essentially doing something from scratch. It’s like building a car new every single time, and it’s not like any other car before. So it becomes challenging in that aspect because you don’t necessarily know how the outcome will turn out. We can only rely on the experience that we’ve had – for me, for 31 years – and just what you know the broader team can bring to the table. So I think that, obviously, for the most part we’ve been able to have appropriate responses. But once in a while something happens, and we usually try to monitor it. If it looks like before it’s done, we need to make a little minor pivot. We have done that once in a while. But hopefully with the right research, you’re getting pretty close.

Derek With that kind of due diligence, and 31 years is an incredible amount of history, I think, and authority for you to leverage. I don’t know that I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually went to college initially for architecture, and I didn’t make it – round peg, square hole. Luckily, I found my path, but I still use architecture all the time as the metaphor when we’re talking to customers or prospective customers about building a brand. Pulling it out of the drawer is exactly what some people expect – that I’ve got a three-ring binder on the shelf and I can just say, Oh, do you want a bird? Or should we be a lighthouse? We’ll just pull a piece out, and we’ll be done. And when it comes to making a recommendation, that’s my metaphor. You’re building a clubhouse. I don’t know how big it is. I don’t know what function it needs to serve. I’m not sure yet what the story is that it needs to tell. I don’t know if you’re looking for glass. I don’t know what the aesthetic is. I don’t know what the level of materials are and what those costs are, and so it’s all part of that distinction in helping them tell that story. I spend a fair amount of time redirecting conversations that the brand is not the logo. The logo is one component of a brand, and a brand to me is your reputation, and the logo is just one symbol of it. The clubhouse is a symbol of that brand, a living, breathing symbol. When you’re working with a club, how important is understanding the actual identity of that club to influence your work?

Howard I think you’d be surprised that not as many clubs as we would all hope have done a great job with their brand. Some clubs have done an amazing job. It’s been well thought through. It’s buttoned up. Some clubs have not really updated the brand or done anything to it to sort of bring it into modern-day or what’s happening today. Obviously, those are clubs that are candidates for a brand audit. What a brand is drives what we ultimately design. I’ll give you an example. Is the brand of a club family-friendly or family-centric? Well, that could mean a big difference in the size of the bar and the restaurant, and the outdoor spaces. It could also have a bearing on what other amenities could be happening at the club. You know, possibly an upsizing of the kids’ club and pool facilities. I think just that one small definition has a lot of ramifications down the line with design.

Derek I think of that brand, that being family-centric, that’s one point of clarity. But then if you layer on that, what is then the actual personality of that club? You could be family-centric and formal, or family-centric and casual, or family-centric and vacation vibe, or family-centric in neighborhood. How does that personality of a club that you’re able to uncover and understand influence how you look at spaces?

Howard Obviously, as I mentioned previously, it has a bearing on size, capacity, and the way things are laid out. That also goes hand in hand with the demographics because typically more formal clubs may cater towards a seasonal or an older membership, and a family-centric club may cater towards younger children, and each of those has wide-ranging outcomes on the design of a club.

Derek Have you had the occasion where a club who lacks a brand or who lacks that story ends up making the process of designing the clubhouse for them complex, and requires extra learning, extra digging that you do before you can actually do the tangible part of your work?

Howard What has happened is that when some clubs have started down the design process, they have come to realize that they probably need to do some manner of brand update/brand audit. And they’ve embarked and hired firms to kind of do that. So it has happened sort of parallel to what we’re doing, but I don’t think it’s changed us like mid-stream.

Derek No examples that you should speak out loud, but I’m envisioning this big, beautiful clubhouse with a club that’s got a terrible, outdated brand. And then they turn that into a big sign and bolt it on the side of this big, beautiful wall that you’ve just built. It can be a bit of a challenge.

Howard But I think that as a design professional, when our team comes in and we spend time with the club, you actually sense what the brand and personality of the club is after you get to spend time there. Now, whether they’ve articulated that in the form of their message or any materials or graphics that you’ve mentioned, maybe not. But the brand is there. It just needs to be uncovered and then shined up and polished up like a car, and just displayed in a proper way.

Derek My assumption is one thing that you and I share in that the ultimate user, the one thing is obviously interesting and quirky and unique about the club industry compared to the corporate world is the emotional attachment that the members have because they belong, because they’re financially invested, they’re emotionally invested, they may have legacy at a club and working with people that have those emotions and subjective inputs is part of the process that we work through versus somebody in a corporate world where they’re just concerned about ROI and profit. So if part of the end goal in a space or in a brand is increasing a member’s sense of value and enhancing that emotional attachment that they have to a club, how much do you think about promoting the ultimate attachment that members will gain as they now are in that clubhouse every day, every week, and every season?

Howard Our goal is that we want, from a design standpoint, every space and environment that we touch to have a great pride for the club and to really have a sense of emotional attachment. So that’s just kind of baked into what we’re trying to do on every project. It’s just hard for a member to not be proud if we can pull off a space that looks very nice. And I think that, in a broader statement, as it pertains to a little bit about what you guys do, it’s like there’s a sense of pride if your club is known as X.

Derek In our prep call, you talked about your work drawing from the modernist – I think Mies van der Rohe is somebody that you mentioned – and the idea of distilling something that’s complicated down to something that is simple – less is more. Why can getting simple be so hard, but why is it worth it when we do that?

Howard It’s not just, for instance, a logo. It’s not a brochure. It’s just one of those things that the more you keep working on it, and then you refine your focus to be something laser-like, and you know exactly what you’re trying to achieve. You continue working, working, working on it. You’re essentially baking out the impurities of whatever your final product is, leaving you with ultimately the simplest and purest expression of whatever you’re trying to achieve. I like bourbon, and spirits are distilled. So what is that? They’re sort of like extracting what you need or don’t need out of something in order to get a final product. So I think it’s very important to have the patience with consulting and professionals to give them the time to really go through everything because ultimately that will simplify the design and be more on brand and on message than if you just rush through it.

Derek I love the bourbon metaphor. I might have to adopt that. That’s really, really good. I had a club president that we worked with where, when we finished the branding work – the brand initiative, which for this club included some mission and vision guidance, messaging, full comprehensive identity. The logo was part of that, but it was really around who we are, who we’re for. Who’s our target market? What does the next 10 years of this club look like? And that club had already engaged an architect to help them with some clubhouse renovations. And this particular president said, I wish I would have hired the branding team to have done this foundational work because I believe that if we would have handed that off to the architect, who did a phenomenal job, by the way, it would have added to the inspiration that the architect’s work did. In addition, it complemented the work that they were already doing in their discovery. Can you see where the brand identity foundation could help you, or do you think that doing that as a follow-up to help tell the story of the spaces you’ve created is the proper sequence?

Howard No, I think absolutely there’s all upside, no downside to that. Having that piece complete and having your strategic plan complete, everything has to kind of work in sequence. So if you started your scope of work, and as you’re finishing and our scope of work began, then you’re leaving a little bit of wiggle room depending on how the design leads that you could adjust to your taste. But the general message and the general themes are already there, which help, as I mentioned, drive what we may do. And I think that doing a design and then following with a brand is pretty much doing it backwards.

Derek Design can be interpreted a bunch of different ways. And I think, for some of the clubs, depending on who you’re talking to, oftentimes if it’s a committee of members and the members happen to have a background in architecture or marketing, et cetera, they can kind of speak some of the language. But many of the general managers that we’ve worked with, they’re operators, or they come from hospitality, or their expertise is in running and managing, not in creative, or the creative process is often new to them. And oftentimes, from the projects that we work on, I think to start, it can be a little overwhelming. Just think of the budgets by comparison. Building a new building, building a new clubhouse, the change management that then has to be communicated through the memberships or potential assessments – all of that can be a big thing to take on while, at the same time, really exciting when you can envision what it looks like on the other side of that. If a club is at the very beginning of that, and maybe they’ve even done or started to do that strategic plan, and they realize that they need a new clubhouse, a renovated bar. Who should be in the room first? Who’s the best person to come talk to you to start that conversation so that you get off on the right foot with them?

Howard It can be a very complicated process because, first of all, a lot of people don’t really know the difference between a strategic plan and a facilities plan. So, that right there creates a little bit of paralysis through analysis, because you’re trying to figure out this, and do you want to go over there? Meanwhile, you have this element out there, just different silos. You have operations. You have design. You have branding, and messaging, and marketing. And they all have to kind of come together in a certain way. I know it sounds corny, but if everybody kicked off with a design workshop, like a brainstorming session, even if it was just for an afternoon, it allows all the viewpoints to kind of be flushed out at the very beginning. Then from there, obviously, the processes of strategic planning and then branding would sort of happen earlier in the process because that helps dictate what happens – the outcome – in the end. And also, don’t forget there’s a really key piece here that we really haven’t talked about, and that’s the communication plan back to members. If a club is going to embark on a capital improvement package and think about what they might want to do, having the brand and the mission and all that aligned at the beginning makes the communication back to the members much more meaningful. It’s purposeful. This isn’t just like, oh well, willy-nilly. We just figured we’re going to roll out x amount of square footage and x million dollar plan. It’s not rooted in anything. But if the data is there and the research and the metrics are there, if the operations backed it up, if it aligns with the brand or what the personality is of the club, then now it’s easier to develop and gain consensus on what clubs are trying to do. I can’t put a number on it, but certainly if they had branding work done prior, then that really increases your chances.

Derek You’re speaking to the choir. The communications piece is critical. We’ve seen clubs that have done an entire brand initiative led by a committee or a couple of members and not engaged the larger membership at all and just rolled something out because they were excited because they created something, and the pushback was so hard because people didn’t understand what they were doing, why they were doing it, what the whole point was in the first place. They just ended up reverting back to what they used to have and basically wasted all that time and effort, which was probably on point, but they missed the step. The other one that we’ve run into, and this has happened a couple of times, is when an excited committee member shares sketches or drawings with a friend of theirs who’s also a member, but without the benefit of giving them the context or all of the research or the data or the insights that we’ve gathered to lay it out strategically and that member reacts purely subjective. And in these two examples, those reactions were: I don’t like this. I don’t get it. What are we doing? And because there was that improper communication and that plan wasn’t followed appropriately, there was a lot of damage control that had to be done.

Howard Yes, sometimes you have to put someone on double secret probation or something. Or everyone checks your phones in at the door. I’m not quite sure what’s the best way to handle it, but you can’t really blame people. Club members are volunteering their time, and they want to get excited about things. And I take what you’re saying, maybe even a step further, and sort of introduce the element of golf course design. Because when you look at CapEx projects, everyone wants to somehow be involved in the golf course design, even to the point where they’re working on it and constructing it, and then they have to almost back into what the data and the metrics are to support what they want to do. And again, backwards, I think, but It’s just very easy to kind of fall in love with some of the glamorous aspects of we’re rerouting the entire golf course or we’re redoing the bunkers and greens or we’re going to add this great indoor-outdoor bar, and we’re going to double the size rather than coming back and doing some of your homework to get these things going

Derek This has been a super fun conversation. If a member or a GM who’s listening to this takes one thing away from us sitting here, a designer and a branding guy, potentially working on their project, what’s one thing that they could be thinking about that might help them get started or unlock who they are and where they’re going?

Howard What we’re really talking about is this sequence and bringing in professionals. Most general managers now have become very savvy about ensuring that there’s a long-term plan in place at their club. And if there isn’t, they want to do it. That sort of leads them to the effort of having a strategic master plan that has a system of checks and balances. We gotta make sure that is our financial model. Are we operating at a certain load? Do we have the appropriate amenities? Are we charging the right amount to members? Who is our competitive set? Where are we compared to that? So I think sequence is huge. The long-term strategic plan drives into the branding plan, eventually drives into the facilities plan, and everything is just sort of like wham-bam. It just rolls straight off of that. So I think the takeaway here is about getting the right people into the project at the right time. If that happens correctly, the outcome will happen correctly. If it doesn’t, then you’re missing something.

Derek So good. I appreciate you joining me today. For somebody who’s looking to get ahold of you, to connect with you and your firm and your work, where can they find you? Where’s the best place for them to go?

Howard Well, they invented this thing a couple of years ago called the internet. And so you can go to the internet, where you can just Google us and find us. But KDCarchitects.com. We also have an Instagram page and a LinkedIn page. We have all that stuff. So you can find us. Feel free to check us out. We’re happy to talk to anyone if something comes up.

Derek Awesome. Really appreciate you joining me today, Howard. This has been fun.

Howard Really appreciate it. It’s a fantastic podcast you have, and you do it with such regularity, and you cover such an expanse of topics. It’s really pretty amazing, and you do such a great job being a host. So thank you for having me

Derek One thing that I’m taking away from this conversation is that Howard’s world and mine meet in the same place even though we come at it from opposite sides of the room, literally and figuratively. His team shapes what a club feels like through the space itself. My team shapes it through how the club expresses who it is. Different crafts, one member standing in the middle of it, though, feeling whether the space and the story are telling the same truth about this place. The clubs that get it right aren’t the ones who do design well and do brand well in isolation. They’re the ones who make sure that the two are pointed at the same idea and pointed there early. Less is more works on a floor plan, and it works on brand. The hard part and the worthwhile part is knowing what to leave out. And one more thing. We publish a newsletter called Clubs Made Meaningful Insights, and I’d love to have you as a reader. It’s not episode recaps or show highlights, but rather original thinking, frameworks, perspectives, and ideas on identity, belonging, member experience, and club culture. The kind of thing you can bring to your board or leadership team. Sign up at clubsmademeaningful.com. At Sussner, we help private clubs build brands that create belonging. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone in your club world. And until next time, let’s create something worth celebrating.