Making Better Teams: Payette’s Sarah Lindenfeld on Mentorship and Embracing the Challenges of Architecture
By Gail Kutac
As Managing Principal of Payette, Sarah N. Lindenfeld, AIA, focuses on firm-wide management and enhancing client relationships. Internally, she leads the Practice Management Group, overseeing staffing and recruiting. She is a passionate and vocal industry leader on management and equity topics, helped found Payette’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) group and was instrumental in crafting the EDI Action Plan. Over the past year, managing the practice during the global pandemic presented a number of new challenges. In her conversation with Gail Kutac, Sarah talks about developing the next leaders, advising those just starting their careers to learn to enjoy the process.
GK: How did your interest in architecture first develop? What did you learn about yourself in studying it?
SL: Looking back, my interest first developed during family trips to Europe when I was a teenager. I always liked reading about cities and buildings on our itinerary, and would often end up as our unofficial tour guide. In college, I was going to be a doctor. I had lost a good friend as a teenager and saw medicine as the answer to that loss. A semester abroad in Toulouse, France (more amazing architecture), during my junior year at Dartmouth made me rethink that. I went back to Hanover, decided not to take the MCAT, and refocused my studies on French and English.
So I came at architecture from a “looking at and thinking about” perspective rather than an artistic perspective.
“...it’s important to find interest, challenge, and continuity at the smaller and larger scales to help pull you forward through the process.”
How did you get your start in the field?
After college I worked as a paralegal and spent time figuring out what I thought I really wanted to do. I realized pretty quickly that law was not it! After some self-evaluation, aided by the classic What Color is your Parachute?, I decided that the challenges of architecture appealed to me. I started taking classes at the Boston Architectural Center (now Boston Architectural College) and looking for a job in the industry. Of course, I had no qualifications, so it was slow going.
I sent a cold resume to Moshe Safdie's office. He had recently finished the National Gallery of Canada, and I remember seeing a Globe article about the project. They called me to say that they didn't have any intern positions open, but asked if I would be interested in interviewing for a receptionist position.
It's the best interview I almost didn't go to.
At the interview, I did everything you're not supposed to do: said I would do the job for a year, but after that I would either be in grad school, or would want to work as an intern while at the BAC; and I asked for a higher than average salary - but they offered me the job the next day.
Sarah Lindenfeld is Managing Principal at Payette
I took the job and learned an incredible amount that year. Being surrounded by the practice of architecture by day (at the office) and by night (at the BAC), that year really set me up to succeed at the University of New Mexico, where I got my masters degree. I knew that architecture as a concept went far beyond the sketch.
When I mention that I got my architecture degree at UNM, most people’s response is, “Why there?” It comes out of another serendipitous set of relationships that started in Safdie’s office. In the fall of 1996, Gene and Dorothy Dyer came to the office in Somerville; Gene had come to work on the design of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. They lived in Albuquerque, NM, and had strong ties to UNM. They encouraged me to apply there, and in the end a not-insignificant part of my decision to attend UNM was due to their recommendation of the program and instructors. When I arrived at the school, I found that there were additional connections between UNM and Safdie. My first-year studio instructor had worked with Moshe on Habitat, and several other faculty members had previously worked for Moshe at one time or another. Gene and Dorothy still live in the Albuquerque area, and I count them among my most valued mentors.
During graduate school I came back to work at Safdie's office during the summers and started full time after graduation. I worked there for almost 15 years before moving to Payette in 2014.
Walk me through your career steps chronologically, focusing on significant moments and key milestones.
In 1994, I graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in French and English. Once I determined that I wanted to go into architecture, in 1996 I started taking classes at the BAC and working at Safdie's office. I entered the M.Arch program at UNM in 1997. Once I graduated, I returned to Safdie's office as an intern. The first day I came back, I joined the team for what became the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. Ten years later, we celebrated KCPA's grand opening, so I really grew up on that project. I started by drawing plans and by the time we were in construction, I was managing the team, coordinating with the owner, consultants, and contractor. Those ten years were an incredibly comprehensive introduction to all the facets of a project.
By 2014, it was time for a change. I knew several people at Payette, including the late Sho-Ping Chin. At the time I didn't know too much about the firm itself, but if people I respected like Sho-Ping felt it was a good place to be, I knew I had to think seriously about the possibility. I'm glad to say that the firm felt the same way about me, and it's been an incredible opportunity to continue my professional growth here.
“I love seeing people who I’ve mentored on project teams start to “grow up,” flex their skills, and learn to lead their own teams.”
Where are you in your career today?
Today I'm the Managing Principal at Payette in Boston, a role I've held since 2019. It's a hybrid role, where I’m both managing the firm operations while still working in the design studio. I think the latter is critical to staying in touch with the needs and lifeblood of the firm, so that management decisions aren't taken in a vacuum. In addition to management and projects, I see mentoring as a key part of any senior role. I have both formal and informal mentorship relationships, inside and outside the firm. The pandemic has made this critical aspect of architectural practice more difficult to sustain; maintaining existing connections takes additional work and making new ones is really difficult. I look forward to more time in the office over the next months, and with it, an increase in mentoring opportunities.
I want to make sure that I mention someone who has had a significant influence on my career: Isaac Franco. Now retired, Isaac was a principal at Safdie's office for decades. I first worked with him in 1996, when I was the receptionist. As I worked at the office, first as a summer intern, then as a new employee, Isaac took me under his wing and showed me the ropes, gave me opportunities to learn, and make mistakes, and advocated for me within the firm. He was able to encourage me to step up and take the lead while making it clear that he had my back. He is my model for how to be a mentor, and I try to live up to his example in my own mentorship work.
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges?
I have spent my career at two firms that focus on large projects. It can be challenging, particularly as a young architect, to maintain enthusiasm and focus over the multi-year arc of a large and complicated project. It's easy to lose the forest for the trees. At Safdie, I spent ten years working on the Kauffman Center, and now at Payette, I'm on year seven with one of my projects. In order to succeed with these drawn-out endeavors, it's important to find interest, challenge, and continuity at the smaller and larger scales to help pull you forward through the process.
For the University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Nursing, Sarah served as Project Manager.
For the University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Nursing, Sarah served as Project Manager.
What have been the highlights?
Obviously completing and opening a project is a charge all its own, but those are singular moments that come only every few years.
In practice, I love seeing people who I've mentored on project teams start to “grow up,” flex their skills, and learn to lead their own teams. It reminds me that we are all part of the past, present, and future of architecture in general and our firms in particular.
Who are you admiring right now and why?
On the one-year anniversary [in mid March] of announcing to the firm that we would go remote “for two weeks and see what happens,” my thoughts go particularly to all the parents in our office (and beyond) who have been managing themselves, their projects, and their home lives in ways we would never have conceived of before March 2020.
“Find a firm that makes you want to go to work in the morning, not just because of the projects you are working on, but because of your colleagues, and because of the informal discussions.”
What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission?
My core mission is to enable more diverse voices in architectural practice, in the firm belief that this makes for better teams, pushes us all to be better designers, and in the end leads to more responsive, humane buildings.
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career?
Find a firm that makes you want to go to work in the morning, not just because of the projects you are working on, but because of your colleagues, and because of the informal discussions.
Learn to enjoy the process. It's different from the school-based rhythm. When I interview new grads, or sit with young designers in our office, I often specifically talk about how starting at an architecture office and working on a project is a very different timeline than the semester-based projects in school. It can be a difficult transition.
Architecture is not all magic markers and tracing paper. Embrace this fact. Find your passion.