Dyonne Fashina

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Dyonne. Dyonne, thanks so much for joining us today. How are you?

DF: I’m great. Thank you so much for having me. It’s really nice to chat with you.

SSR: Of course. All right. So with this pod, we always start at the beginning. So where did you grow up?

DF: I grew up about an hour outside of Toronto, Canada, in a little township called Mono and on a road called Hockley Road, which is a winding road in a rural community. Actually, people might know it internationally for what you know as the Schitt’s Creek motel, because it’s located on my parents’ street, just down the road.

SSR: Oh, that’s funny.

DF: And they still live there today. Someone I went to high school with owns the motel, and I think he was looking to sell it last year. So, hopefully that worked out for him. It’s a nice little, small rural community, not what you would expect for someone who’s now in Toronto and a designer. I often get that like, ‘Oh, you grew up there?’ But there are lots of great people that come out of small communities for sure.

SSR: Oh, exactly. From an early age, were you creative? Did you have a love of design? Anything that could have made you think you could be a designer down the line from your early loves?

DF: as I said, I grew up in the small community and we had a creek of the Nottawasaga River running through our property. And there was actual natural clay that I would go down and I would play with. I was always this artsy kid. Friends growing up would invite me out for parties and I’d say, ‘I’m busy building a table or a desk, or I’m drawing.’ I was definitely an artsy kid, and I was also very into design. My uncle was an architecture school dropout, but he went on to do some art and some architecture throughout his life, and I think that certainly inspired me as well.

SSR: Yeah. Were your parents creative?

DF: My dad’s a pharmacist. My dad came to Canada in the ‘70s from Nigeria, and his dad was in the pharmaceutical industry. I think what I get from my parents is a sort of science side or math side of things when it comes to design. And then there are other people in my family, like my great-grandfather, who was a painter, and some of my other ancestors who were musicians. There’s lots of creativity and lots of business and lots of math and science background in my family. That comes together when it comes to architecture and design, sort of marrying those two aspects.

SSR: Do you have one early memory of travel or anything from an early age? Did you travel at all? Did you go to Toronto as a kid?

DF: Yeah, we definitely went to Toronto as a kid, but also my grandparents and coming from a family where my father was not from here originally, we traveled as kids. My grandfather really inspired me to travel because he would go all over. He was a businessman. He went to Peru, which is somewhere I’d really love to go. They owned properties in the Bahamas, and we’d go there when we were younger. I definitely had the travel bug from a young age, and it was something that was instilled in me from my grandparents.

SSR: Yeah. Love it. Do you have one great memory or one hotel that you loved or anything?

DF: Well, I feel like in terms of something that I really loved, it would probably be more recently, places that I’ve traveled where I’ve really felt at home, because I think that sort of sense of hospitality that I gained through my grandparents and their passion for travel was really instilled from their passion for bringing people into their home and taking care of people. There’s a little place called Ocho Artisan Bungalows in Costa Rica, Tamarindo, and it’s family-owned; they made these bungalows. And when you go into the space, you feel like you’re being welcomed into their home. I went alone. I was going through a breakup at the time, and it was my first solo vacation ever. For me, that’s something that stands out in terms of the hospitality space—that ability to take you in and make you feel like you belong.

SSR: I had a conversation the other day with somebody about the true meaning of hospitality. And I do think, going back to that idea that it used to be somebody inviting you into their home, right? That’s what a B+B was, or that’s what a restaurant was. It was that early idea that it was an extension of somebody’s home. I love that. Did you end up going to school for architecture?

DF: I went to school for design. I actually went to school for fine arts first. I took that passion for drawing and painting and focused on that. I learned art history, which also included architectural history and people Antoni Gaudi or Frank Lloyd Wright, the sort of standard midcentury modern—Eames—people like that really inspired me to move from the fine arts degree into a design degree. I went to Ryerson University in Toronto, which is pretty well known in Canada as a design school. Many people like Yabu Pushelberg that come out of Toronto all went to that school. It was definitely the defining place for my career.

SSR: Awesome. And so you go to school, you come out. What’s your first job?

DF: I graduated in the recession of 2008/2009. Fortunately, because I had that previous degree and I was a more of a mature student, I already had a job in a small residential design firm. They kept me on a few days a week, but I really learned about resilience because they could only keep me on two days. So I had to find another two days somewhere else. I really got to expand into different realms. I worked for a small retail design firm. But that first residential firm did high-end luxury residential and a little bit of hospitality too. That’s where my passion was sparked for the hospitality design world, even further than it already had been from my upbringing and my passion for travel. I learned a lot at that spot.

SSR: Why did you decide to launch your own firm? What took you to taking that big step because it’s not for everyone?

DF: I don’t have the typical answer that people probably have, which is ‘I had this passion to run my own business.’ My father has his own business. My grandfather has his own business. That’s true. But I was like, “Ah, I think I’m okay working within another setting. I love design, but I’m not sure that I want to get into the business side of things.’ But after working for that small firm, I went on to work for massive 10,000-person firms in architecture and in their interiors department. I was laid off from both companies. That’s something that happens in larger firms. You get a lot of work in, and then you don’t have work and you have mass layoffs and it’s just something that’s kind of part of our industry. I like to be candid and honest about that.

When I met you at the HD Awards and you gave the honor of the HDAC Award of Excellence, I kind of mentioned this moment where I felt like I didn’t belong in the industry. After you get laid off a few times, you feel like, maybe I’m doing things the wrong way. I started to look into other paths, and I looked into graphic design, and what else could I do? But I kept being drawn back to design, and it was friends and old colleagues that came to me and said, ‘Hey, do you ever do side projects?’ It’s like, ‘Oh, actually I lost my job.’ ‘Well, hey, great. I have a project for you.’  I was lucky in that way to be able to receive that.

One thing I want to mention, because there was a recording of my speech from that event and [I played it for] my marketing advisor, and he’s like, ‘You said the reason you want everybody to take action and really make changes for diversity in this industry. And what was done for you was that your wealthy friend brought you a hotel project.’ I didn’t mean for it to come off that way at all, but I kind of wanted to address that because I did have people coming up to me after saying how great my speech was, but he really held me to that point. What I meant by that was, a friend who had the means to see something in me that I wasn’t sure about and really bring me something that could build me back up again. Now, I’m fortunate to have a colleague who owns a hotel. Not everyone has people at the level you can come to. If it’s just saying, ‘You know what? I think you do great work, and you should stick with it.’ That’s not enough. In my case, it was a bit bigger than that. I just wanted to address that.

SSR: I think that’s a really good point. I mean, somebody taking the chance, and giving you that opportunity when you needed it most. Do you think that was your big break? Do you think that was what kind of propelled you to continue on?

DF: Absolutely, I think it was my big break. There were three people that came to me with projects, but that hotel owner, who is a good friend of mine, she and her husband own hotels in Mexico. That really launched Denizens to where it is today. And I am grateful for the opportunity they gave me and for them to believe in my work and appreciate my design sensibilities. It was such a great opportunity, but I think there’s still more opportunity. There’s still more opportunity for other breaks and other avenues through this industry. I feel like you never get that big break. You’re always challenging yourself to push further.

SSR: Let’s go back for a second before we move forward. From those big firms, and people that might be in a big firm right now kind of churning away, what would be your advice to them? What would you tell them to take from that experience, or challenge themselves in that experience, in case something similar happens to them?

DF: I’ve had this question asked to me many times because of my situation. If you love it there in the big firms, there’s a fit for you and enjoy it. There’s lots to be learned. I certainly learned a lot and I’m happy with that experience, but I didn’t realize how much I wasn’t fitting in with that mode. You have to understand your place and what you believe in. If you’re working toward something you don’t believe in, then you should try to move on and find something else. Maybe that’s starting your own thing, or maybe that’s going and working for a smaller firm, or anything to keep you in this industry if you feel you belong, because I’ve seen so many people leave the industry because they have a bad experience working somewhere that was just not the right fit for them. If they had found the right fit, they might have stayed. That would be my advice for sure.

SSR: Tell us about the name of your firm and how that came to be.

DF: Denizens of Design. Well, I have this thing with the dictionary and thesauruses and just obsessively looking into words and the meanings of words, and it took a while to come up with that name. But initially what it represented to me was this idea of traveling and hospitality, because the word actually means to inhabit a particular space or inhabitants of a particular space. I see it as inhabiting the design process as an idea, and then being able to translate designs across boundaries—working internationally or locally or in small communities, in large communities. That’s what the word means to me.

SSR: I know it kind of happened organically and naturally, but now that you’ve been doing it, how do you want to position your firm differently than others? What do you think you offer that sets you apart?

DF: That’s a great question because that’s something that comes up a lot too. It is a smaller practice. There aren’t any permanent staff. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a team. We’re sort of redefining [the word] team and the meaning of that. There’s certainly benefits to the comradery you get in a culture that you can build in a studio. I’m not saying that’s not where we’ll go eventually, but what I’ve been able to do is create a network of skilled individuals, all who are either working independently or are smaller practices that want to work together. You are able to build a team on a per project basis.

In the larger firms I worked for, and I can’t speak to all large firms, but the ones that I worked for, there’d be times where I’d be put on something like a parking structure or a parapet detail or things that were very architectural and not within my wheelhouse, but I was the person that was available to do it. This way, you sort of get people who are interested, who are invested, who are skilled for the job, and it just makes the whole result so much better. The team not only includes traditional designers or architects. We’ve also had lawyers be involved in projects, or the makers, the people who fabricate things getting involved in the design process and making it their own. Even the clients become part of the team. So that’s the way I look at it.

SSR: And I think too, in this new reality that we’re living in with COVID coming and going and coming back again, I mean, I think it’s really relevant for how people are working today and how maybe organically projects should come together.

DF: Totally. I mean, I think a lot of people before the pandemic were saying, ‘You need to scale your business. Scale, scale, scale.’ After March 2020, they were like, ‘Oh, you might have had the right idea.’ It’s not necessarily the right idea for all, but it is the right idea for me and for my team and my network of people, because they’re able to go and do their own thing, and then also work with me on projects. Or I’m able to bring teams together that I might not even be involved in the project. I really love how it’s going so far and I want to continue to see how this network can grow.

SSR: For those also starting their own business, or just anyone out there learning along the way, what do you think you wish you had known about starting a business that you know now? Or was ignorance kind of bliss in how it happened?

DF: The answer is: Ignorance was bliss. I’m always going to be learning. I know certainly much more than I did seven years ago when I started. My father, because I have grandparents and a father who have owned a business, he was like, ‘You need a business plan.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m a creative, what’s a business plan. I don’t know how to write this.’ But I did it. I researched and I came up with a plan and I gave it to him and he was so proud of me. It was helpful to have that guide. If I go back and look at it, I’m probably not anywhere where I thought I would be with that plan. But it really set the tone for me to create something. It wasn’t just like, ‘Oh, you have these projects now. Just wing it.’

It’s like, ‘No, let’s incorporate the business. Let’s do this. Let’s look into business things that are important. Let’s do our research.’ You can wing it to a certain extent, but you do need to start to rely on your network, and talk to other people, smaller businesses. I talked to my old boss and got advice from her. Even though I was laid off, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t because I didn’t get along with my boss. Sometimes there are other circumstances that lead to a layoff. I still communicate with my previous boss, and she comes to me for advice sometimes too. She’s been in this industry for over 30 years. So you can learn from people who’ve been here a long time and you can learn from people who are just getting started or you can learn from people you’ve just met.

SSR: So many different ways and so many different perspectives. I know it’s hard to pick a favorite project, but has there been one project that you’re really proud of or one that defines what your company or your firm is all about?

DF: Probably Clay Restaurant at the Gardner Museum. That was sort of the first project that has launched this new mode that we’re working on that we’re calling empathetic spaces. That was about going into a space that already existed. It was designed by KPMB, which is a Toronto-based architecture firm that is well known for doing landmark architecture, museums specifically. We wanted to go in and honor what they did, but we also wanted to dig into who the museum was. So we started to think about its identity as a ceramic arts museum and making sure that identity came across in the restaurant space, because often in these museum settings, it’s just sort of an afterthought and it just suits a need. You’ve got a couple of multipurpose chairs and tables, there’s your café. Enjoy. But no one’s really going there because they don’t feel comfortable or welcome.

We created this entire kit of parts where the space could speak to the identity of the museum, honor the architectural details and bring that into the design, but also create a space that was flexible enough that it could flip to an event, and the pieces that are there were now useful for that event. It’s the sort of flexible dining environment that looks fixed in place so it feels comfortable, it gives you that hospitality quality that you expect out of a restaurant without having to be so rigid. And I think that’s something that can translate into the world we’re in now, is thinking about spaces in a more dynamic and flexible way.

SSR: Can you talk more about this empathetic approach. What do you want to create? Or what does that mean to you?

DF: I think empathy as a mode in business has become something where people roll their eyes a little bit. I want to sort of challenge that. I think I am an emotional person. I’m an empathetic person. I come from a family who devotes themselves to charity. My mom was on the board and very involved in a youth shelter in my community growing up. My grandparents were also involved in many charitable organizations and they’re often bringing people into their home and caring for them. I learned empathy from my family, and throughout my career I’d learned that emotion and empathy didn’t really belong in business. Or that’s what I was told. But I believe as creators, we have to use things like emotional investment to connect with our clients, to connect with users, to even connect with the past.

I’m thinking about a project we just did at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, another gallery, another flexible dining space, but the way that I connected with it was one, I had gone there as a kid. It’s an art gallery, and I’m already passionate about fine arts. My great-grandfather, who I mentioned earlier, had studied painting under one of Canada’s most well-known painting groups called the Group of Seven. I was connected to the identity of this gallery. I told the team there about that so they knew how much I cared about this space, but then I left it at the door and said, ‘Okay, now it’s time to take that emotional investment and put it into the design and think more about who you are and what you need rather than my personal ego.’

In design sometimes it’s about, ‘this is my design style. This is my point of view.’ At Denizens, we like to bring more people to the table, allow them to speak what they feel is necessary for a space, but ensure that the client is getting what they need and not trying to go over budget because we want this impactful magazine-worthy design. And you miss the boat on the function that’s needed for a space or even the aesthetic or whatever it is. It is important that you’re empathetic to not only the identity needs of the space, but also the business goals of the stakeholders. There’s so much more than empathy toward the person using it and thinking about, ‘is the seat comfortable?’ Those are things that should be part of the design already, but it’s a wider scope of things that get involved in an empathetic space.

SSR: I think you touched on so many great points, but I really do think the importance of emotional intelligence is now finally having its moment, right? Which, I mean, my mom, when I was in eighth grade, handed me a book saying how to deal with emotional intelligence. She’s like, ‘Here, figure this out.’ But I do think it was something that was faux pas years ago, but now it’s being proven how important it is and how much more effective a company can be, a space can be, a leader can be, if they think that way.

DF: Absolutely. And I think it has to be authentic. Just be real. If you want to use it as a tool, then maybe you aren’t doing it right. It needs to be something you want to do. It needs to be part of your company’s ethos, and then it will be authentic if you do it from a place of coming from your heart and meaning it.

SSR: Instead of a business mantra, it’s just how people should lead, right? So interesting. Love it. Okay. So of all your projects, what has been one that’s been most challenging that you learned the most from? I mean, as you said, you learn every day, but was there one project that kind of pushed you in a way that others have not?

DF: I think it’ll come back to the McMichael project. That project was started in 2019, so before the pandemic, and it finished in the middle of the pandemic. Or I guess we’re still in the middle of the pandemic, whatever.

SSR: We’re never leaving the pandemic.

DF: No. But the project, it’s a gallery that’s devoted to Canadian art. And often in design, we really focus on international, often in Europe or Eurocentric-based fabricators. They do great products. They’re beautiful. And it’s something that you get shipped here to Toronto, to the US. It’s kind of the standard. They’re the design elite, and we need to be bringing in these products to have a really quality design. But we really wanted it to be Canadian-made, because if the gallery is devoted to Canadian art, then every piece should be made in Canada.

It was a lot of moving parts, literally and figuratively. In terms of the function of the space, everything needed to be flexible and moveable in that sort of flexible dining environment that I talked about earlier, but we also wanted each maker to represent themselves and their identity in the pieces that they were making. So when you would normally have one or two suppliers on a project of that scale, we ended up having one supplier per type of furniture. So one chair supplier, one lounge chair supplier, one coffee table, one dining table.

And they each took that and created a setting of independently beautiful products, but collectively really meaningful to the identity of the space. The challenge there was making sure everything was working with each other, but also that everybody had an opportunity to take the design intent and put their own spin on it, and kind of taking a step back and relinquishing a little bit of control that designers often want to have and allowing more people to get involved in the process and not worrying about whether it’s exactly what you thought it should be. Because in the end, it’s what it’s supposed to be.

SSR: What part of the process do you love the most? Is there the initial kind of concept? Or is it digging into those type of details? Is it finding the collaborators? I mean, is it a little bit of all?

DF: I think for me, it’s that idea of finding the meaning or that Eureka moment. I really love researching the structure, or the site, the history. Who lived here before? Who lives here now? And when you find that sort of meaningful moment, that’s your concept that you’re bringing to the client, I always just sort of jump up and down like, ‘Oh, this is it. This is what this project is about.’ And it allows something to be carried through. Like I mentioned, going down to my parents’ river and playing with clay as a child. So for Clay Restaurant at the Gardner Museum, museum of ceramics, I went and got some clay and brought it to the first meeting and put it on the table and said, ‘This is your concept. This is who you are. This is my emotional investment and how I connect with your space.’ I love those sort of moments—the Eureka moment. That’s just so lovely.

SSR: Is there a project that’s coming up that you’re excited about that you could share with us?

DF: I can’t share what it is, but it definitely has elements of the Eureka moment that are going on right now. It’s a restaurant in one of the very well-known bar districts in Toronto, and it’s become known as a community watering hole. It’s a place where people go that’s not as trendy, and we want to play into that idea but upgrade it a little bit because it needs a little bit of love. I’m passionate about the way that the client, who has come to this space and is taking it over and wants to honor what was there before but also bring his own spin to it.

And they came to me with a little bit of a concept. I’m trying to talk around what it is, but they came to me with a concept, and we’re sort of spinning their concept on its head a little bit. I love that, where someone thinks they want something one way and you kind of come to them and imbue meaning into what they’ve said that goes beyond and brings more into it than they ever thought they could. I’m really excited about that project and hopefully see when I can talk more about it.

SSR: Well, can’t wait to hear more. You talked how much you were drawn to hospitality from an early age and now continuing with your projects. What is it about hospitality that you love?

DF: It’s the sense of belonging that you get when you go to a hospitality space, whether it be a restaurant or a hotel, it’s often that place where people are going, when you’ve had a long day and you need to go see your friend and have a drink and a laugh or a meal, or you’ve had a long year and you need a vacation, like we all need right now. But sometimes, like I mentioned earlier, I went on a vacation to Costa Rica when I was going through a difficult time, and I needed to rest. There are so many aspects of hospitality that care for human needs and human beings. I love that aspect of interaction and engagement with new communities, and what it brings to, not only the person coming to the space, but also what it brings to the people working there. That feeling like ‘I’m helping somebody.’ I love that.

SSR: How have you seen hospitality evolve? Or how do you see it evolving, especially what was important pre-pandemic? And again, we’re still in the middle of it, but as we slowly hopefully crawl our way out of this at some point, or just learn to live with it better, how do you see it evolving? What do you think will be some of the key takeaways from all this that will continue?

DF: The care for human needs has been amplified to levels beyond what anyone had ever anticipated. Hospitality spaces have always been about taking care of people coming into the space, but now I think they also are about taking care of the people who run the spaces, the people who clean rooms in hotels, or the concierge, the servers in restaurants. The spaces need to be equally empathetic to both user, guests, and the people that work there. Making spaces more flexible so they can adapt to these ever-changing modes. I don’t have a crystal ball to tell you what’s the solution to the pandemic, and I think we’ve been in it long enough that no one wants to hear my take on divider screens and things like that.

SSR: No, hopefully those go away soon.

DF: Oh, geez. Agree. Agree. But yeah, just caring more about people on all levels, and caring about the clients and the business goals. We had a client doing a restaurant where they wanted to put a little bit of an investment in, but they were worried about where things were going with the pandemic. So we designed the shell of the space, and we designed the bar counter, and then we left the dining space empty and that was a separate project. They saved on our cost to design it. They saved on the cost to construct it, and they were able to service all of the food delivery partners and things that were still moving at the time and open. And then, as things got better, then they’re able to move on to that second part of the project. Often, it’s sort of all or nothing in design. How do you design a space without designing everything about it? But I think there’s ways of thinking about what’s next without actually putting pen to paper and charging for a full-fledged design, and giving the client what they need.

SSR: What do you think is the secret to a successful collaboration with a client? Is it this kind of open communication? Is it bringing them more to the table? How do you approach client-designer relationship?

DF: You have to be able to meet them where they are. Some people own hospitality groups that have opened multiple restaurants or developers who’ve built many hotels, and some people, this is their first time doing it. You have to adapt to their process. I feel like in our industry, we kind of have a set standard of how we do things, and often we can’t veer from that. The Denizens way is to try to adapt where we can. There are things you have to do because it’s necessary, but there are also things you can adjust to suit the client that you’re working with. In terms of the way that I interact with clients, I’m a real human. If you’re a jerk, I’m not going to continue working with you. That’s me being empathetic to myself. I want to work with good people and some people say, ‘Oh, well, it’s just business.’ No, if it’s not serving you, I’m probably not the right person for you. That’s the way we go over here at Denizens.

SSR: As you mentioned, you were the first recipient of the Hospital Diversity Action Council HDAC Awards of Excellence. HDAC is trying to promote more diversity within the hospitality industry one small step at a time. But part of it is amplifying people that are doing amazing work, and you are our first one, which was so exciting. So what did that mean to you? And, I know this is a very loaded, big question, but what can we be doing more in this industry to promote DEI and do better in terms of diversity?

DF: Definitely a big question. Something I was thinking about today, and what I mentioned earlier, was some of the people that inspired me through my career were the people I was exposed to like Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright and Eames. I didn’t really see a lot of people that looked like me. But now, we’re starting to amplify voices that are more diverse. And because of that, it makes the community so much better. We all get to learn new ways of working. And I think of people like David Adjaye or seeing faces that look like me being represented more widely, allows people to see us as human.

I’m going to get a bit emotional here, but in my career, there have been times where I think about the plights of all different types of people. One thing that comes to mind is that often people of color are not necessarily, when you’re seen as a leader, you’re often seen as a threat. As opposed to, often I think of women say being seen as aggressive rather than being seen as a leader. To help put more people into the public eye and see what we’re doing, allows people to see us on the same level where we’ve always been and hopefully inspire more people coming up.

I’ve been doing a lot of work with schools recently, and prior to the pandemic and what happened with George Floyd, which awakened a lot of minds to this bias that exists in our culture. That’s always been the most difficult thing for me. I grew up in a community that was pretty wealthy. I may be seen as someone that comes from a bit of privilege, but the one common ground that people of color experience is this idea of bias where people don’t even necessarily realize they’re doing it. If we start to challenge that, we can make greater steps toward being more diverse and inclusive.

SSR: And what has the response been with the schools that you’ve been working with? A lot of this is getting in early and letting people see that people of color are in this business, that they can be leaders, right? That this is a career path for them.

DF: I get a lot of messages from students after attending their classes for guest reviews or whatever it may be that I’m doing, just saying, ‘Thank you for sharing your story and for coming. It’s nice to see someone that looks like me.’ I didn’t have very much of that. I was one of two people who looked like me in my class at Ryerson, and even through many of the places I worked for. The representation side of things is so important because the more people see us, the more people will work with us, and the more people will be able to come up and share in this experience and this community of hospitality design that we all love.

SSR: So true. And congrats again on the HDAC award, because it was such an honor to honor you and all that you’re doing.

DF: Thank you so much. It was so nice to meet everyone. I said to some of my friends here, I just felt this great sense of community that I’d never felt before in my career. I really applaud you and the HDAC council for what you’re doing and I would love to get involved.

SSR: Great. We’re kicking off for next year, so you’ll see a little email. Before we wrap up a couple quicker questions. How do you stay inspired and where do you go for inspiration? I mean, especially in this COVID world where things open and shut down constantly.

DF: The big thing for me is digging into history and research. I love learning from the past, but also thinking about the future and learning about the communities who will be directly affected by the work we’re doing. One thing that inspires me is music. Me and my partner, my brother, lots of people in my family, as I mentioned are musicians, or musicians on the side. When I’m working on a project, I will find a playlist or a song, kind of like an anthem for the project that gets me in the mood to design that space. The creativity gets flowing out of the that. Something very simple is I like to look up definitions of words. As I mentioned, thesaurus, dictionary, just digging into the meaning of words and what words are tied to a project. You can sometimes use it as a jumping off point to find more inspiration for a project.

SSR: I love that. Next time we’re trying to come up with cover lines, I’m going to email you. As somebody lives in words, I love it. Tell us one thing that most people might not know about you.

DF: Well, you might know that I do a great Celine Dion impression.

SSR: Yes.

DF: Not that I’m going to do it right now, but yeah, I guess that I sing, I enjoy singing. My brother, pre-pandemic, we had a little band together with one of my friends and one of his friends. My partner is a musician and he’s gotten involved too. Music is a huge part of my life, and I use it to inspire me, but I enjoy singing at a bar.

SSR: You’re very good at it.

DF: Thank you.

SSR: That’ll be the next pod. And is there one project on your bucket list, something you’re dying to design?

DF: There’s so much change in the hotel industry, and I would love to do something that’s tied to community. I know a lot of people are working on projects like that, but I don’t know what exactly it will be, but someone out there has a project they’re thinking about. I would love to get involved into something that digs into a community and brings a lot of people into the process, the way that we did at McMichael. I love doing that. I learned a lot. I learned to relinquish control. I had that in me a little bit and I’ve developed this new way of working. I’d love to be able to bring that to a hotel project.

SSR: We always end this podcast with the title of the podcast. So, what has been your greatest lesson, or lessons, learned along the way?

DF: For me, it’s been that just because you’re doing something differently doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. I’ve had a hard time with that in terms of the way that Denizens is run, and sometimes people feeling like this isn’t the way the industry does things, or this is a little different and maybe we can’t work with you. But slowly over time and meeting new people and new clients that get to trust the process and they see the benefits. Don’t let somebody tell you that you’re doing things the wrong way. Trust the process, and you’ll get to where you want to be.

SSR: Well, you’re definitely doing something right. Thank you for taking this time with me today. It’s such a pleasure, and I hope I get to see you in person again very soon.

DF: Absolutely. I’m really looking forward to that, a little singing at the bar, whatever we need to do.

SSR: We’ll record it for everyone’s pleasure. Well, thank you again.

DF: For sure. Thank you so much.