We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joe Lopez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Joe, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
My purpose comes embedder in my DNA. I guess, my family made me discover it. I was exposed to a good environment growing up. My mother, a successful interior designer, was very good with people. She always made sure that clients were served and went the extra mile. My grandfather had strong personal and work ethics. He was a true leader, people looked up to him. I looked up to him, he was my hero. When you grow up looking up to people like this, you want to emulate that path. Purpose to me is my main motivator to do architecture and serve my community. I love the first and the last meeting. In the first meeting you hear all possibilities, challenges and opportunities of a project. Sky is the limit! In the last meeting you see that vision in action: my clients enjoying their amazing spaces. I love challenges, my architecture is by definition unique and it is meant to transform peoples lives. The more challenging the architectural program and site, the more unique stories are to be told. I love good stories, that is my purpose.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
When you eat a habanero pepper, you will most likely say: “Wow that’s hot!” Our architecture has the same effect. We are a creative architecture firm based in Raleigh, NC. We service the Triangle Area and specialize in modern high-end architecture. Custom & creative is our standard: Our architecture predicates simplicity and elicits excitement. Our process is collaborative, our methodology is pragmatic. This allows us to be extremely efficient and focus on designing something special and unique.
Our goal is to deliver visionary-beautiful architecture.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Number one, experience. Just like doctors and lawyers, Architects have a long journey to become licensed. To be succefull, one has to be patience. The journey really is the destination if you love what you do. My advise to people who are going through the process or want to become an architect, is to take things as the come, one thing at the time. Gain experience and be exposed to the things you love about your profession. Be good a the things that you enjoy, do not focus on trying to get excellent about the things you do not enjoy.
Number two, time management. People across the architecture profession may be good at designing and anything related to the technical skills of our profession. However, when it comes time to prioritize and hit milestones, many struggle. Time management does not have much science to it, really. To me it is just habit formation. People who want to advance in their careers need to learn this to be successful. Thankfully there are numerous articles, books and tutorial videos that help you with this. I encourage anybody, not only architects, to be polish this soft skill, specially if you want to become and entrepreneur.
Last skill that I feel is of essence: Communication. Having a clear voice or message that coveys information in an efficient way is worth gold. If you are shy or timid, in my mind this is good because you can summarize the message and be very efficient. If you are an extrovert, you have to learn how to summarize. It all about being efficient and personable. This will take you a long way. In this digital era we are living-in we are loosing ground in a good old fashion “one-on-one” conversation. Again, thankfully there are plenty of resources out there to help you be better at this. I cannot stress out how important it is to be good at communicating what you want, what you need, what you sell, how do you feel. Personally and professionally, this is essential.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
“Start with why” is a book written by Simon Sinek. This book really had a huge impact on my personally and professionally. Understanding what drives you in life makes you find purpose and ultimately help you help others. Thought my architecture practice I am able to accomplish two things: do what I love doing and help others. This books reaffirms many what they already feel or know and encourages some others that did not know their “why”. This book help entrepreneurs like myself overcoming any fears or doubts about staring their own business. It is very inspirational, please read it if you have not.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://habaneroarchitecture.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/habanero_architecture/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HabaneroArchitecture/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/habanero-architecture/?viewAsMember=true
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPSdQL0eNw719MCPEs3LQjQ
Image Credits
All images courtesy of Joe Lopez, AIA, NCARB.
