Suchi Reddy

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi. I am here with Suchi Reddy. Suchi, thanks so much for joining us today. How are you?

Suchi Reddy: I am great. Thank you, Stacy. It’s such a pleasure to be here with you.

SSR: Great. Can’t wait. Okay, so we always start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

SR: I grew up in a city that is now called Chennai in South India. It used to be called Madras after the very famous textile that’s named after that title, but that’s where I grew up until I was 18.

SSR: Ah, and what were you like as a kid? Were you creative?

SR: That’s an interesting question. I don’t get asked that a lot. I was actually, I’m the youngest of four, and much younger than my siblings. And for the longest time my mother had this running joke, because I loved going to the fish market with her, that she picked me up from the fish market. And I really thought that was true. Because I was so different than my siblings. I literally used to sit with my nose in a book. I think I read every book that I could put my hands on, so you would constantly find me with my nose buried in a book. That was really my childhood. Or the fact that I grew up in a house that was surrounded by gardens, which was really beautiful. I’d be out of the garden making things, like sticking flowers onto leaves and weird patterns and playing with nature. But that was the kind of child I was, a little unusual.

SSR: I love that. Were either of your parents in the creative field or?

SR: No, no. My father was the first to be educated in his family, became a lawyer and he was a philosopher too. And I grew up learning all of that from him. My mother ran away when they tried to take her to school, but she ended up speaking six languages and being a very great creative force in the design of our home. And I think I get all of my design chops from her. She was probably also a very difficult client, I must acknowledge.

SSR: Your first difficult client. I’m just kidding.

SR: Yeah. No, but I grew up surrounded by her thoughts on, she made up this terrazzo floor in our house. And I don’t even know where she had seen it, because it didn’t really exist, but giant pieces of marble that she was thinking of sustainability, I think. She would pick up things and use them. And I grew up in a house that had a scenic wallpaper of a forest. And this is like, I’m very old, so this was decades ago. And really she was ahead of her time. I don’t don’t know how and where she picked up these things. And I was lucky enough to be raised in this house that was actually designed by an architect. And he was quite influenced by Japanese design. He was the only architect in all of Chennai who had a bonsai garden. And so, I think I just absorbed all of this endemically. And I really thought this must, as a child you think everyone looks like you. And when I was about 10, I literally had my first epiphany that my house was actually making me the person I would be.

Because I could see that my friends were different and their houses were different as people. Not better or worse, just different. Our sensitivity to things is different and shaped by our environments. And that was my early kind of love of architecture comes from that house.

SSR: I love that. Did you end up going to school for architecture?

SR: I did. I’m a registered architect in I think six states in the U.S. Working all over the world with projects that span now from Sydney to Chennai to Paris to all over this country.

SSR: That’s crazy. Yeah. You started your own firm Reddymade in 2002?

SR: I did.

SSR: Was that right after school? Did you have things before you did that?

SR: Oh, no, no, no. This is when I say I’m really old. No, I had been working for a while when I started my own firm in 2002, and it really was an accident. The firm that I was working for, I was doing a lot of retail, and they had to downsize very suddenly. And somebody called me the same day and said, “Would you design a house?” That I didn’t know. And I said yes, and that’s how I started my practice. It wasn’t even sort of a plan. I didn’t quite think I needed to have my own practice. But life leads you around. Really, life, I think leads you down some amazing adventures and beautiful paths, so here I am.

SSR: Here you are. And where were you at the time, because you went to … Now actually I remember, you went to school in Detroit for architecture?

SR: I did. I started in India and then I finished my schooling in Detroit, which I have a huge fondness for. Detroit’s an amazing place. I learned so much. It was my introduction to driving to jazz, to so many things that were the lifeblood of America. I really learned about America and in an incredibly interesting city that I think is one of the most historic in this country. And so, it was really beautiful to be there and get an education there. And then I traveled around the country. I worked for architects, I worked for large firms doing big projects. Everything spanning from large office buildings to museums to cultural buildings. And then I started working in retail design, and in a firm that specializes in retail design. And then I started my own firm. And now decades later it’s become a practice that does a bit of everything.

SSR: So, it all wrapped up?

SR: It does. It does. Things have a way of coming together. That’s the beauty I think.

SSR: What drew you to Detroit from India?

SR: Oh, personal. I was married. Life leads you down certain path, right? My husband at the time actually was, he was a doctor. He was doing his residency there. And so I went to Detroit and then I decided I was going to go to school in Detroit. And I just wouldn’t trade it for the world. I actually got a great education.

SSR: Awesome. Okay. I know you said Reddymade, your firm, was an accident, but now-

SR: When you phrase it like that it sounds-

SSR: I mean, it wasn’t a master plan, let’s just say. You decided to do it. I mean, taking that leap of faith, sometimes you have to be pushed to do it. And 23 years later you’re doing well, so it was a good thing. But it’s a good accident. But once you started, what did you want? And you now said that you guys do a bunch of different types of work. But what did you want it to be? Or because you … Or did you even know when you started what you were hoping to create?

SR: Well, when I started, because it wasn’t the master plan, it really just began kind of organically. With my first project, in fact, that it was an office project that I got built. And that was right on Park Avenue and it was in Gordon Bunshaft’s Lever House, which was an incredible building. And there was me doing two floors in the middle and there were giant firms like Gensler and SOM on either side of me. And there was me. This was my first built project. Which was an incredible, it remains one of my favorite projects, because my client was so appreciative and understanding of new ideas and new thoughts. And we delivered something really beautiful, including that very thin at that time, really radical, five eighths inch thick walls of bonded onyx and glass, through which you could see and get light into the space. And it was just so beautiful. And for me just such a wonderful experience in materiality building doing something in a historic building like that even.

I started with projects like that. And it evolved into my fascination around what the lasting aspects of the space are. The fact that people want to linger somewhere, that they want to be there, that they feel good in it, this was really what was driving me in every project I did. Whether it’s residential, whether it’s retail, whether it’s commercial, whether it’s an office space, I want to create spaces that people feel great in and keeps them coming back. And so, then I really kept thinking about this idea and I was like, this is when I came up with the idea that my mantra really is form follows feeling. Because we actually, we look at function, and function is something we have to do. We have to make spaces safe for people. And we have to make sure that everything works on a budget and a timeline. But really the thing we should be doing is designing for how people feel in space.

And that’s where I wanted to go with my practice. That actually has now even expanded the technologies that we work in, like art installations and teaching and all these kinds of things that have to do with really learning about this whole thing that we call human experience.

SSR: I love that. And also, neuroaesthetics are very important to you as well. Can you talk a little bit about that, and how you prioritize them?

SR: Sure. As I said, I came out of school, and I have to confess, I was a little disenchanted. Because I looked around everywhere and all I could see were like, what’s the next trend or what’s the next style or what’s the style of your age? I graduated in the ’90s. And I was not convinced that this was really the way to think about things. And so I really was interested in this idea of feeling. And my focus on neuroaesthetics actually came about, because I used to think about the body as being this kind of democratic space that belongs to all of us. We all understand this space, aside from socioeconomic differences and cultural differences, we all know what something feels like, and it feels the same to pretty much everybody.

And so I was really interested in trying to understand how design affects us. Going back to that first epiphany I had when I was 10 years old and really feeling that viscerally. And one day I was in a cab and I think it was passing Madison Square Park, I remember this so exactly. And I heard about this intersection of neuroscience and architecture and I couldn’t wait to get home and learn about it. And I got really interested in this field, which was then a very new field called neuroaesthetics that looks at how our brains and bodies are actually processing what we call experience in space, right? Aesthetics, experience, basically anything. And I really wanted to learn more about that in order to be able to use that in the work. Because I felt like maybe that would give me the basis for really understanding how to design beautifully, to do great work that people feel really comfortable included and happy in.

But not to do it in a way that comes from, here’s a style that it has to aspire to or a look that it needs to have. Because those things I think are derivative more of how the space feels than the other way around. And I always felt like the cart was driving the horse and I wanted to put the in front of the cart, so that was my interest in neuroaesthetics.

SSR: And how does that affect your approach? Because I know you layer in a lot of different elements, like technology, neuroaesthetics, form and feeling, all the things that we just talked about. How does that inform your approach or affect it, I guess? Or what is your design process look like?

SR: I’m sort of by nature a knowledge-hungry creature. I’m always looking at, what are the influences that have really changed design? In the last 50 years the biggest advances in science have been in the field of neuroscience. And I’m like, “Well, why aren’t we looking at that?” Design and architecture have always looked to innovate, based on the newest technologies, now we’re all afraid of AI or running after it, one of the two. But these are things that as designers, I really think we are uniquely suited to look at all of this information, synthesize it in the way that it makes it a very digestible and beautiful thing that everybody gets to enjoy. Because space is a place where all of that comes together. Science, art, experience, knowledge, psychology, all of this comes together in space, nothing happens outside the space.

To really think about the quality of that space and how it’s being affected by all of these things was something that I really wanted to come to from a design perspective and understand that. And like I said, I’m just a creature that loves knowledge and loves beauty. Two things, knowledge and beauty. If I can give all of those things into space, I know I can solve a problem.

SSR: I like that. Is that what you love the most is solving that problem?

SR: I do. I love solving a problem with knowledge and beauty, I have to say. And I also love seeing people’s reactions to things we make. Like my residential clients will say, “We have a party and nobody wants to leave.” Or my commercial clients will say, “Oh, I have to give up this lease or I have to move somewhere. And we really loved this space.” It also helped us grow in all these ways. Because it accommodated us in certain ways. It made people feel comfortable in certain ways, I hear that. Over the pandemic I got so many letters from my clients that were like, “I didn’t get any work.” I got a lot of letters saying, “We’re so happy, we’re spending so much more time in the spaces you made for us, and we’re really enjoying this.” Which was the biggest satisfaction, honestly, I love that. And with the art installations it’s also incredible to watch people’s reactions. Because one of the things I think is super, I would say essential in space and in life, is the sense of wonder and discovery.

And I think retail, hospitality, these are places where you can really offer that. And for me, the beautiful thing about that is it’s like a leveler. It levels people’s expectations depending on their age. Kids and old people can feel the same kind of wonder and discovery in a place. Beauty does that to people. Being heard does that to people. There’s so many beautiful things. And that’s why I think hospitality is such an interesting genre for me. That’s why I’m so excited by what you guys do and what you write about, because I really love that this idea of hospitality. But first of all, I come from a very hospitable culture being Indian. That’s all guests and God are very close and truly that’s how we’re raised. And we have to treat our guests like God. And being raised with that mantra, but also really thinking about how do you really make people feel great? You want to give them this kind of wonderful and discoverable space.

You want them to feel a sense of awe. You want to feel a sense of comfort. And having this wide range of experience in residential, in retail, in art, in commercial work really allows me to blend all of that when I think about hospitality, that gets me super excited.

SSR: Is there one project that you’ve recently done or one that’s on the boards that you’re really excited about?

SR: That is always the toughest question to answer. It’s like asking, what’s your favorite child?

SSR: I can do that.

SR: You can do that.

SSR: Well, today I can.

SR: Today you can. I don’t know that I could say. I’m extremely excited about really all the projects. But today, as we speak, I’m working on an installation of an artwork at a university in upstate New York. And it’s a textile that was woven at the digital loom, I’m super excited by it. And I’m setting that up, so that’s today’s excitement. It’s looking really beautiful, and it’s about ideas and bias and belonging in places where people feel both of those feelings. And they’re usually place-based feelings. It’s really also really interesting to think about how spaces make people not feel bias and have them feel like they belong somewhere, which is also really, really important. I’ve been thinking about that. We are working on a range of showrooms around the world for one of our clients, Humanscale. And the sustainability aspect of that has been incredible to work with their incredibly sustainable company. They were thinking about it before than anyone else was really.

And we’re also on the boards have a cultural project, which is some residences and a gallery and artist spaces that are all being designed around commissioned artworks so that the whole thing feels like a sculpture park. And I’m very excited about that.

SSR: That’s very cool. And you’re an artist as well. I mean, you do a lot of your own pieces and a lot of this installation is a lot of you, right?

SR: Yes. It comes out, I mean, it came out as a natural outgrowth of the architectural work and started with a product I did in Prospect Park in Brooklyn where I was working on creating something for some people that wanted to create an event to commemorate this … To create a commemorative event for the park turning 150. And they wanted to know how people around the park felt. And it was a very diverse population around the edges of the park. And I usually go to all my childhood fascinations. And I made till two acres with 7,000 pinwheels. And then watching people smile as they came up on that was a huge learning for me. To see the kind of joy that this could really offer and to know that that’s possible.

We really know that that’s possible and to see what people did with it. And from that I’ve gone on to do work in various museums and Times Square and Smithsonian. And I bring aspects of that work to our commercial work with clients like Google or in the healthcare space where we’ve looked at designing things for hospitals. That same idea comes into everything. Because it’s really this, how do we make people feel great? Lots of secret sauce to that. That’s usually a lot of ingredients.

SSR: Yeah, many layers. But I think that’s interesting that you, looking at that, especially for hospitals. Because patient care is so informed or patient well-being is so informed by the spaces that they’re around, especially for those needing longer care. Is that some of the stuff that you’re looking at?

SR: It is. It’s also we’ve done projects where we look at reducing the stress of healthcare workers. During COVID we were looking at that, which was huge, right? For Johns Hopkins, we look at a hospital in Baltimore that looked mostly to take care of kids who had neurological, they’re called disorders of consciousness, but they’re really … Sorry, they’re called disorders of consciousness and they’re usually in comas and things. But it was amazing to think about the stress of the caregiver. Because a lot of times in hospitals and particularly in … It’s so interesting that the word hospital and hospitality are related. Because this idea of taking care, I think is at the center of that, both of those things. And separating the stress of the caregiver and the stress of the patient, which actually affect each other. And there’s data that shows that they affect each other and they should be mitigated both.

And really looking at that has been something that we’re looking at very carefully. But you’re looking at some wellness spaces for a couple of clinics, et cetera. That not just take care of the patients, but people who are either looking for preventative care, or for the families that are at the hospital taking care of people that are in critical condition.

SSR: Yeah, I mean, it’s a whole holistic ethos, so they all feed off of each other. You mentioned it briefly, but AI, how are you all embracing it? Are you using it? Are you afraid of it? Are you jumping into it?

SR: In the studio, I always say to everybody, if it can do something better than you, then it’s a good marker to check yourself against. We don’t really use it in the studio. We actually just did a competition with an international group, where for the first time we actually generated some images using AI. But that was because the organizers said they would accept that. And we thought, “Oh, everyone in the world is going to be sending you some automatically generated image.” But the idea of AI doesn’t scare me. I’ve never been someone who’s afraid of technology. I think it’s all in our attitude towards technology. It’s about human self-awareness, really. My first sculpture that I did at the Smithsonian that was about humans and technology, I was asking people to give me one word to their future and then interpreting the emotion in their voices using AI and ML. And this was in an RD like five years ago, I think four years ago, two years. I don’t know, I lose track of time.

SSR: It’s a couple of years ago.

SR: Yeah, it’s a few years ago. And AI’s grown a lot since then. But really the moment of that, the important part of that artwork was the second that people stop to think when you ask them to give you one word for their future, and they stop to think. I’m like, that’s exactly what we need with technology. You need that stop to think. You don’t just go, “This makes it easy and convenient. I’m just going to give it everything I can to let it do whatever it wants with it.” No, you got to think for a second. And that’s all it takes. If you really understand to keep rewriting the compass, most of what I do is really kind of seeing that the compass is just pointing the wrong direction, just keeps needing recalibrating, like shift the magnetic poles. Make it go to the right direction. How are people feeling? Okay, let’s do it for that. Let’s do it to make people feel great.

SSR: I think that’s a really interesting question too. Just one word, right?

SR: Yeah. For me, I think that it’s also, because space is about agency. You have to give people agency within the space. And I think a lot of times we tend to think of people who use our spaces in our buildings as somebody who needs to be hit over the head with a message. But people actually enjoy things a lot more when there’s just enough to intrigue them. And then they’re asked to actually modify, to have agency around them. To understand either how they discover it. If you were doing a hotel, you’d be like, there’s a path that’s winding, and it gives them a choice. It makes them engage better. And there are scientific markers for how all of this retains engagement. We look at all of those kinds of things, because I’m interested in that kind of stuff. I’m not just making a windy path, I’m making a windy path because using X amount of dollars more to do that is going to get you this. And then this kind of result.

But no one’s going to know. They’re going to walk in there and they’re going to feel like they’re vested in this space for a lot of reasons of how they engage with it. And I think that’s the key, really thinking about the quality of engagement very carefully, because in the end, that doesn’t lead to more sustainable, less expensive design over time, if you look at it longitudinally.

SSR: Yeah. What’s that thoughtful care, that thoughtful creation, really taking a step back?

SR: And not at all to downplay the skill and the talent that we have to have as designers and architects. I mean, we have to bring all of that to the table on top of all of these other things. Being thoughtful, being caring, understanding what actually is going to be the right, and it takes years of experience and honing, hence my old age is helpful.

SSR: Tell us a little bit about your firm. How does it work, and how would you describe yourself as a leader to get this thoughtfulness and thought process going with your team?

SR: My team is, I owe everything to my team. They are amazing people who are creative, who are smart, who are passionate, and who are dedicated. And no good work can be done if you don’t have a good team, to be really honest. And that team includes the client, it includes people on the client side, everyone’s on the team. And one thing I’ll say about our team and our studio is that we’re very good collaborators. To do work all around the world, like we do, we collaborate with everybody. And we’re a small team. We’re a boutique team, and I like to keep it that way. Because I like to think about things and pay attention to the detail in the way in which it needs to be paid attention to. From the overall kind of synthesis of everything that needs to be layered in order to come up with a concept that’s actually bringing all of that together. But then down to the micro details.

And to do that, you have to be a generalist, but you also have to be able to scale in and scale out of thinking. And that by definition requires collaborators who are great. Our consultant teams are really amazing. And we really rely on people’s expertise in different areas. But I am very focused on synthesizing all of that information together with a very tight creative team. We’re very nimble.

Everyone at any time is working on at least three things and different scales and different types of projects. And I like it that way, because I think it also keeps everyone very creative and active. We’re never stamping out things in the studio, even when we do an office space, which you might think is the typology that everyone’s just stamping out, we don’t do that.

SSR: Oh, good. How is office changing? How have you been rethinking that?

SR: Well, I think COVID actually, I think we’re still feeling the after effects of COVID. And I think it has had a very lasting effect on the American workforce. I will say I’m not seeing that internationally. It’s quite different in different countries. How people are reacting to it in India is very different. In Europe it’s also very different. In our studio we’ve landed on technically a four-day work week. Where we do 40 hours in four days, and then we get three days in the studio and one day at home. And we ideally have three days off. Of course, I never get that. And the rest of the world doesn’t operate on a four-day work week yet. We have to stay active on Fridays, and we have to keep our eyes out for things that clients might need or consultants might need that we need to get out. But aside from that, that’s really the lasting effect of it, that I see in my practice. Is that that’s kind of changed the balance of time that we spend with each other and without. And we’re so efficient because we are together, we’re like boom, boom, boom. Going from this to that, learning the lessons from one thing into the next thing, all of that creative stuff that can happen in the same space. When we are all together as a team, which is amazing, so we treasure that to work together.

I do think it’s changed people’s attitudes in general, but I wouldn’t say necessarily all in a bad way. People should think about what suits them and how they want to live their lives the best way possible. The difficulty there is when the burden is on the employer to generate the kind of system that supports that balance. When it’s all based the employer and it’s not coming from the state in any way to allow everyone to have this kind of thing. And it also does create this, I think, serious imbalance between blue collar and white collar work, which isn’t great. And that’s reflected in bigger political divisions. You know what I mean? It’s like, okay, all of a sudden everyone should be home in their pajamas, in their athletic wear to work. But there have been people who have never had that opportunity.

People who deliver, people who work in jobs that don’t allow that flexibility. I think it just requires respecting what everyone does in a team and really being … And that team being the larger team, not just what we do, but what happens in our neighborhood? And who’s supplying the things we want when we want them. And how do we bring that all together with fairness for everyone? Yeah.

SSR: That’s a very good point. And what do you think is the biggest challenge of running your own firm and or the biggest opportunity?

SR: The biggest challenge I would say is just maintaining a steady flow of projects both in terms of schedule and timing and budgets and things like that. That’s the biggest challenge, because things tend to, we all know that we have anticipated timelines. But they all save a shift for various reasons outside of our control. That I think is the biggest challenge of doing that. The biggest opportunity, wow, that’s like an endless horizon. So many things could happen. And particularly from my practice, it’s being able to bring all of the ideas of the things that we’re interested in together to make amazing spaces. And that can happen physically, that can happen digitally, that can happen in so many ways. Maybe even a hybrid of those two, which we tend to do a bit, both in the artworks and in physical spaces. I don’t know, I just think opportunity is just a … Yeah, it’s a horizon.

SSR: Yeah. Is there a dream project, or not even dream, but a project you haven’t done or haven’t touched that you’d love to get your hands on?

SR: I actually would love to do a boutique hotel.

SSR: There you go.

SR: I really would love to do a boutique hotel. And I spoke actually for design hotels last year about aesthetics. And it’s been so interesting to see how individual hotel owners who have this kind of ethos towards their patrons think about all the things that I think about. Awe and wonder and discovery and delight and comfort and joy and pleasure and those kinds of things that we want to create in space, yeah.

SSR: Got it. Well, it’s out there. No, hopefully. How do you stay inspired and how do you keep your team inspired?

SR: I think my team inspires me. I’m inspired mostly by things outside of the realms that I’m trained in essentially. I’m inspired by ideas that are out there in the world. I’m inspired by nature a lot. I still think, I keep flowers around me all the time. Because I really think, I look at a flower and I’m like, “Oh, nature’s still kicking my ass. I haven’t done anything that good yet.” It’s that, I get impressed by that in a serious way.

SSR: Has there been one project, and again, I know it’s hard to pick your favorite, but sometimes we have to. One project that’s been your most challenging or that you learned the most from? I know you learned something from every project that you do, but maybe it was your first installation or your first whatever, but has there been something that really sticks with you?

SR: I think my very, very first build project, which was this office space for a company, for a venture capital firm on Park Avenue. And I learned a lot from that. I learned to honor my instinct and not to be afraid to show that to my clients. And to know that this kind of instinct for design and for what actually works in space for people is a very special skill and talent and ability that I’m lucky and humbled to have. And that it can actually make a difference in people’s lives. After 9/11, actually, I really took a break. I was like, “It’s the best thing I could do, be an architect and a designer. It’s the best thing I could do with my life in the world.” Watching the towers come down it really was the thought that I had. And I came around to thinking that I actually have a skill and an ability that can make a difference. And this is why I want to continue doing it. And that’s when I started my practice. It all happened. One thought following the other.

SSR: Yeah. Well, that seemed to work, so. I hate to stop the conversation, but we always end the podcast with the title that is the podcast. So, what has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned along the way?

SR: There’s a quote that I’ve written on the walls of my studio as you come up to it. And it’s a quote from Dieter Rams, he’s a designer I love. And he says, “Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.” And I truly think that’s what I’ve learned. You have to pay attention to people and what they need.

SSR: Yep, I love that. I always say, after COVID you started looking at people individually instead of as a team, just because you got glimpses into their lives. And it’s a good reminder that every person has a different story.

SR: Yes. And we’re such a beautiful concatenation of incredible stories. That’s what everyone is. And we have to find ways to celebrate that. And I think designer architecture are great places to do.

SSR: Well, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your extraordinary thoughts, and can’t wait to see all those upcoming projects that you couldn’t pick one, so all three of them I’m very excited for.

SR: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.