Start to Finish: Related California's Phoebe Yee on Leadership Styles, Holistic Experiences, and Staying Fresh
By Julia Gamolina
As Senior Vice President of Design for Related California, Ms. Yee leads the architecture and interior design for all market rate and mixed-income residential developments throughout California. She is responsible for the creative oversight and management of the planning, design and engineering of every market rate development, from concept and delivery to building opening. Her direct involvement in all aspects of the building process includes directing architects, interior designers and engineers through each phase of construction to ensure that the completed work is true to the project’s design intent. She is the conduit with sales and leasing and marketing, operations, and development executives, assuring informed design, constantly evolving processes, and seamless execution.
Since joining Related in 2006, Ms. Yee has been directly responsible for the design oversight and completion of numerous developments, including The Avery, Mason on Mariposa and 1550 Mission in San Francisco, and The Century, The Seychelle, The Waverly, The Emerson, and Argyle House in Los Angeles.
A registered architect and former vice president at international design firm, HKS Architects, Ms. Yee holds a Master in Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles and a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University. She is a recipient of the Asian Women in Business Corporate Leadership Award, former editor of the Dallas chapter American Institute of Architects newsletter, and served on the Urban Design Advisory Committee for the City of Dallas. Ms. Yee serves on the Boards of Trustees for Sci-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) and the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. She is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and has been an invited speaker at AIA conferences, Urban Land Institute events, and housing symposium panels.
In her interview, Phoebe talks to Julia Gamolina about being on both sides of the architect-developer relationship, and what she has learned for the best possible such partnership. She advises those starting their careers to set goals for the experiences they’d like to have, as opposed to the outcome of those experiences.
JG: How and where did you grow up and what were those early childhood foundational years like?
PY: I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. My parents are both immigrants from China, and I was the first one born here in the states. I lived there until I went to college at Georgetown; I have an undergraduate degree in economics and fine arts, with a minor in Asian studies. So how did I get to architecture [laughs]?
I have to say, the jump was kind of random! In the fine arts portion of my education though, I had to take art history, and decided to take an architecture history for those credits. I really got along with my professor, and she’s the one that recommended that I look into architecture as a graduate program. She thought it would combine for me the creativity that I enjoyed from fine arts, along with the history, sociology, and psychology aspects of my economics education. I applied to UCLA, and thought, “Okay, if I get in, I’ll go, but if I don’t, I have this nice other job offer.” The job offer was for policy work.
Doing a site walk with the construction and engineering teams to track progress on Related’s Ocean Avenue South site in Santa Monica.
Collaborating with architecture teams and Related development on a new urban plan.
Why UCLA?
I was first looking on the east coast, since that’s where I was at the time. But most of the architecture schools there are private and thus really expensive [laughs]. I didn’t want to get out of architecture school with all this debt. I also knew that if I went to architecture school, I wanted to go somewhere where the professors were actually building buildings. At least at that time, there was a big divide between academics and the profession, and that’s actually why I chose UCLA - there were a lot of professors there that maybe didn’t have the big names, but that had their own practices and were building things. The cost of UCLA and the great weather didn’t hurt things either [laughs].
How did you first get your start in the field?
After three years at UCLA, I went back to Texas! I graduated in ‘93, and with the economy we had at the time, a lot of people had a lot of trouble getting jobs. I went to Dallas and through a family friend who is a real estate developer, I was got a job at HKS. I was there for the first thirteen years of my career. I’ve only had two jobs in my career, so this was the first half. The other was of course Related, and I”ve now been at Related for fifteen years.
I did have other options that were available in LA - I could have worked in various model shops - but after being in school, I really wanted to go someplace where I would get experience working on buildings that were actually being built. I also knew I wanted to work on a large scale and sample various building types. HKS was a great fit in that respect, and I learned a lot and had a really great mentor.
Tell me about your mentors.
They were primarily men! Even though in school, our class was a fifty-fifty gender split, when I went to work, especially at a senior level, the field was predominantly men.
I unfortunately hear that too often. What did you learn from them, especially the one you started to mention?
One gentleman was the president of HKS when I started, and one of the biggest things that I learned from him is that leadership can come in different forms. He was a soft-spoken and quiet person, very different from the bombastic and boisterous people around us in Texas. He was a really great listener and seemed to have a lot of patience in certain circumstances - maybe not always - but early on and right off the bat I learned from him how much he would observe and listen to before speaking. He was very effective, and everyone loved him.
Another thing that stood out about him is that he was very supportive of all kinds of initiatives that my peers and I would bring to him. He would encourage us to see ideas through, and would always listen very thoughtfully to what we were thinking and where we could take things. In hindsight looking back, I now appreciate what he was probably appreciating - someone with initiative and energy coming to you, with ideas, and someone that wasn’t just talking about it but that had plans on how to execute. He helped make my experience at HKS really memorable and off to a great start.
“All processes also evolve all the time, just through various cycles - there’s nothing like building a building, opening, and operating it. That teaches you so much.”
How did you get back to California?
I moved back after three years in Dallas, in 1996. There were a couple hundred people in the Dallas office at the time, and I moved on to HKS Los Angeles, to an office of eleven. That was a really different experience, as you can imagine. I helped grow that office from eleven to seventy-five, and the person who ran that office is also somebody that I became really close with, and we’re still very good friends. In fact, they do work for us at Related.
I always set my goal at work around growth. At the beginning, it was wanting to cycle through a lot of different building types and phases of projects to understand what they are all about and what I might enjoy focusing on. I also really wanted to see projects through from beginning to end because I felt like that was the best way to get a holistic experience. And that takes time! I feel like I’m an anomaly these days because I’ve only had jobs at different places, but I think its because of my desire to start and finish projects, and on the development side, that could take years. I’ve been on Grand Avenue since I started at Related. We’re finally under construction to get it open, but that’s been fifteen years [laughs]. Loving where you work is also a good reason to stay.
Tell me about the transition to Related and how your work and your days here differ from your work in architecture.
You and I were talking, prior to you beginning to record, about how the best next steps tend to come from poaching situations [laughs].
Yep, we’ve both been there a few times [laughs].
That’s the situation I found myself in. HKS was the executive architect for The Century, Related’s first luxury condominium in California. Related was my client and I was the Project Director - I was working with the team at Related very closely, flying to New York with them to meet with our design architect who was there. After a while, the person who became my boss at Related - we were still literally in the drawing phase, in construction documents - was asking me, “Do you know anybody who might work at Related? We need to hire somebody.” And he kept asking me. Finally it dawned on me that he meant me! I just remember thinking to myself, “Come on Phoebe, really?” That it took me so long. But that’s how it happened.
The transition was a little bit of a process for me because I didn’t have a clear picture of what that job was for me. There was no job description. It’s funny, when you ask people to describe what their job or their role is, you see how most people take it for granted because they don’t typically have to explain it to someone! So when I had to start to hire people here for my old position, I had to take the time to sit down and write a thorough job description, especially because when I was moving over from the architecture side, I wish I had had something like that.
What was the transition like?
The transition was really a leap of faith! I really enjoyed my role and loved the people I was working with at HKS, but I think my job was becoming administrative. What typically happens when you move up in design, even if you’re in a design role, you take on a lot more administrative responsibility - staffing, office management and organization, marketing and business development which is typically expected from senior level people...I think I realized that in moving over to the development side, I’d be able to simply focus on the projects more, and that is exactly where I wanted to direct my energy.
Where do you feel like you’re in your career today? What is your day-to-day?
In my role today, there is a lot of problem-solving from project to project, but I also have people who focus on that day-to-day. My role is more focused on the creative oversight of all of those projects, and more interface across different disciplines - marketing, business development, operations, construction. I’m much more involved up front in identifying and trying to position buildings which helps us decide which designers are best for building, and to paint a clear picture of that. All processes also evolve all the time, just through various cycles - there’s nothing like building a building, opening, and operating it. That teaches you so much. It’s also our job as developers to get the design team decisions, and to get decisions and direction to them as quickly and clearly as possible. Being an architect yourself, I’m sure you understand that that’s not easy - building consensus, making sure everyone on our side from all the different groups has the information they need, and then pulling out from that the decision and direction to keep the project moving. Our job on the development side is also to make value judgements about what items on the design side we’re paying for.
Related is unique in that we do have a design group that manages the design process. I think that in itself shows that Related believes that design has so much value. Part of creating that value is understanding what our end user wants, and then figuring out with our architect how that shapes some of the decisions. The process then becomes a very diplomatic dance between the end user and the architect [laughs].
“...it’s not that owners want to make random decision later and change their minds all the time - what happens is, because the lifespan of these projects is long, we are also constantly checking back with the market...to check that what we’re going to build is still going to be relevant. And sometimes, we need to change course, because in two years for example, things change. Nothing is static. ”
With that, what advice would you give architects? And, how do you guys choose the architects that you work with?
The advice I give a lot is that communication is critical. Figuring out how to communicate clearly with your clients, and really understand - even if the client can’t quite articulate what their goals are, because they’re more intuitive or because they need to see things in order to respond - how your client operates. And then, if the client can’t see very clearly, try to help them help you in identifying what their goals are. One of the things architects sometimes do is that they start with the client and try to run with what they think our goals are, without checking back. It’s a constant, on-going, conversation.
One of the things architects might not see from the developer side is that it’s not that owners want to make random decision later and change their minds all the time - what happens is, because the lifespan of these projects is long, we are also constantly checking back with the market, and seeing what other things might have happened since we started the project, or maybe we learned things from the process of the project. We ourselves are constantly trying to check that what we’re going to build is still going to be relevant. And sometimes, we need to change course, because in two years for example, things change. Nothing is static.
And that’s just life! It’s funny you say two years because I do think phases come in two-year spans. Jenny and Anda French have said that in their feature interview as well.
Right, if you can understand what motivates the decision making process, that’s key. So I would remind everyone in architecture to continue to check in - not all clients are as transparent about that process.There are a lot of layers as to why certain decisions get made.
Another question for you, since you’ve worked on both sides - how do we value the work that architects produce, more? That the fees are low is nothing new, so how do we begin to change this.
Absolutely, and that’s why a lot of architects and designers that we speak to appreciate that Related has architects internally. We do help explain, to our groups, how fees are generated. There’s always a sense of fighting about an ad service, because to a client it may not seem like that much work. And from the architect’s perspective, I completely see how I can think, “Maybe it’s not that much work to change this one element, but because you’ve changed it so far down the line, you then need to change the RCP, and the elevations, and all the other documents you’ve produced to coordinate with the plan.”
Gosh, I haven’t thought about RCPs in a while [laughs]. Those can be so beautiful.
Right [laughs]. Those constant reminders is something that my team does a lot to the other teams on our end that have to approve all the fees - just that you get what you pay for! I always advocate that architecture fees in the grand scheme of development are pretty much a drop in the bucket, and if you have a good team, it’s money well spent to make sure that your design and documents are done as well as possible. That’s what you’re paying for.
To architects, in terms of setting and negotiating fees, and talking about fees with owners - it goes back to showing ownership how you add value. I really like working with architects who have a strong point of view, and that’s why I want them on our teams. You don’t want to hire people who will just do whatever we ask them to. The design team members are our collaborators, and professionals that are brought on board to lend that professionalism in their expertise, so having a confident point of view, blending that with understanding what the client does, and making recommendations, are all very valuable things. Those things will help the developer understand that you can be a true partner in making a successful project.
A moment of rest after a long day of installing FFE at Avery 450 in San Francisco.
Speaking to attendees at The Avery event that showcased the building’s art collection in collaboration with Wendi Norris Gallery.
That’s encouraging to hear. What would you say your biggest challenges have been in your career?
The challenges are different at different points The biggest challenge I’m facing today is trying to keep fresh. We do a lot of projects, and when you get really busy, there’s a tendency to say, “Let’s just do what we did over here.” But you can’t do that, since things are always evolving and new! The good thing about having done a lot of projects and a lot of buildings, especially in this last cycle where we were able to open three buildings, you learn so much and you have a body of work. At the same time, a challenge that comes from that is staying fresh, open minded, and creative as we open new projects and as we look to the future. For me to do that, I like to read, and read non-architecture. And travel of course, for the visual stimulation. You have to keep your mind fresh and open, in my position especially, but for any creative person.
Before this phase, when my son was about six or seven, of course the biggest challenge was to balance everything - I’m sure you’ve heard that a lot.
I have. In almost every interview.
It’s because you want to be good at everything, whatever that is, as it is, and then you introduce this whole other being into your life! Learning how to make room for that, when you felt like you were already overwhelmed with work and keeping up - that was a huge challenge. That time though also taught me a lot. Motherhood is one of the best and most important experiences of my life, and I feel like there are things I learned, and am still learning, that have been very helpful for my profession.
Like what?
Patience [laughs]. The quality that I most admired in my mentor Joe, that I mentioned. Patience and learning that you can’t control everything. Sometimes you have to let things play out, and you have to let people do their own thing - whether that be your kids or people you work with. You have to figure out how to make room for all these different things that could happen, and you have to let go and let those things happen. Us as architects really want to control a lot of things, and keep things moving, and that’s how we make things happen to deliver projects, and that’s how we get done what we get done...but being a mom really turns that upside down.
I’m learning that now myself, to be more process and less outcome driven. We were taught exactly that in architecture school as it applied to our designs, and I’m just finally realizing that it applies to life as well.
Having worked for a while now, all of this experience has taught me a lot about working in a different way.
“...you can’t control everything. Sometimes you have to let things play out, and you have to let people do their own thing - whether that be your kids or people you work with.”
Who are you admiring right now?
My parents come to mind immediately. I just saw them for the first time after a year-and-a-half. My mom will be eighty this year, my dad is eighty-three. I mentioned that they both immigrated here, but each under different circumstances. My son is really close with his grandparents, and now that he’s nineteen, they spend a lot of time relating as adults and talking about their youth, and their lives in China, and coming to this country. There’s so much admiration and respect I have for them, especially having the understanding now at my age, how difficult and challenging it was for them, to immigrate and all of it. We faced nothing compared to what they’ve been through, and the things that they’ve lost. Their trajectory is so amazing and that’s really inspiring.
You’re going to make me cry! I feel the exact same way about my parents.
And then I also admire Keanu Reeves [laughs].
[Laughs] That’s one I haven’t heard before!
He’s a favorite. He’s an interesting person because he’s played so many different characters, all of which I encountered growing up, but one thing I really admire about him is that it seems like he’s a really down-to-earth person. After all the experiences and fame that he’s had, he seems really grounded. I admire that.
What is the general impact you’d like to have on the world with the work that you do?
That’s not something I think about a lot...that is so deep! I don’t feel like I have such a grand plan for my career [laughs], or to the point about Keanu Reeves, I don’t think of myself as someone that has that kind of reach. Maybe that’s what I hope to achieve though - in my small way, to improve the things that I touch every day, whether it’s through advising people, mentoring, and trying to help one person at a time. I’d say that’s it. I do believe that building great buildings is a privilege and having that attitude towards what we do is something that I remind myself a lot of, but ultimately it’s about the impact I have on people.
Finally, what advice would you give to those just starting their careers?
My career has been pretty rare in that I’ve worked at only two places, and for so long at each. That’s because I was setting experiential goals, and not goals for outcome. I didn’t choose jobs for salary or title, though don’t get me wrong, salary and getting recognition through promotions is important. But those were secondary to me, and in the beginning, I wanted to gain the best experiences that I could. For me, that was starting buildings from the beginning and finishing them. As an aspiring architect, those are the best experiences you can have, and the more that you do, the more experience that you have. That experience is invaluable - there aren’t that many people any more who have seen a project from its inception to its delivery. That kind of goal also gets you great satisfaction, because there’s nothing like the satisfaction of completing a building you worked on. That would be my advice to young people - set goals that are geared around what kind of experience you want to have.