Sara Bega: Las Catalinas - Building a Stunning Car-Free, Kid-Friendly, Multi-Generational Town

Austin Tunnell

The central core, is what's built now, that's Beach Town, is entirely car free. Life is just better if you don't have to make room for cars. And the kids that live here and visit here have a completely independent life. So specifically, we're just trying to keep things walkable, private, and optimized views. This is filling a gap that isn't available to people.

Austin Tunnell

Today I had the opportunity to talk with Sarah Biga, town architect of Las Catalinas, which is an incredible town being built in Costa Rica. It's a car -free, kid -friendly, multi -generational, people -first community. If you do anything today, be sure to visit their website just to see what they are doing. LasCatalinasCR .com. You can just Google it too. But in the age of corporate franchises and soul destroying subdivision, it stands as a counterpoint. I mean, it really is unbelievable. Some of the best work of the 21st century. And it gives me and I think many other people hope for what is possible today and that we can still build places that will be cherished centuries from now. Sarah and I get into how Las Catalinas was started, her career as an architect and urban designer. how she approaches design and the building of an entire town, making kid friendly and multi -generational places, practical lessons and applications for doing this back in the U .S. and how to think about sustainability in architecture and town building. If you've been enjoying the Building Culture podcast, please share with your friends, subscribe and leave us a five star review on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening. My name is Austin Tunnell and this is the Building Culture Podcast. And now, Sarah Biga. I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsors of the podcast, Sierra Pacific Windows, who when they reached out to me recently, I was glad to say yes, because we at Building Culture use their windows on about 90 % of our projects. The whole team loves them and really thankful to have them sponsoring the podcast. I also want to thank One Source Windows who if you are in the state of Oklahoma, it doesn't just matter about the window manufacturer, but also about the distributor and installer and the people you're working with. And we've used One Source Windows who sells Sierra Pacific and several other great lines for also about 90 % of our projects. All right, on to the podcast. Well, Sarah, it's really nice to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for the invitation. It's great to see you. Yeah, I have yet

Austin Tunnell

to go to Las Catalinas myself, but just seeing the pictures of it and the videos, and if you just go to the website, it is one of the most, I cannot believe it's been built in the 21st century. Like I'm not kidding. It was that beautiful. Yeah, no, it's been an incredible experiment. And I think it probably even is better in person than in photographs, if I'm gonna be honest. sure. Yeah, you should definitely try and get a chance to come down if that works out for you. Yeah. And before we kind of get into it, you know, can you talk about for everyone listening, what is Los Catalinas? Because, you know, I'm going to really point people to the website and stuff like that, put that in the show notes and all that, because people really need to see it to believe it, that this was literally built over the past, you know, 10, 15 years. But what is it? You know, because sometimes you hear like car free community in Costa Rica. But can you talk about, yeah, a little bit more than that? Sure. So it is a new hill town, beach town. in the Northwest coast of Costa Rica in Guanacaste on the Pacific side. It was founded in 2006 by Charles Brewer, who's our town founder. And the real goal here was to experiment with different ways to achieve kid freedom. And that involved getting rid of the car as much as possible. And so there's different ways that we handle that, but the central core, which is what's built now, that's Beachtown, is entirely car free. with this idea that life is just better if you don't have to make room for cars. And it's just been one big experiment, quite frankly. And we've learned a lot along the way and drawn precedents from a lot of different places, both ancient and new, quite frankly, to kind of make this new beach town. So it's grown quite a bit since I got there, which was 10 years ago. when I first arrived, there was just kind of the outfitter shop, mountain biking trails and the, first houses of the front row, on Paso Del Mar. And now we've grown and changed over time. It's been something that has not been written in stone. so what was initially conceived as like a town of houses has matured into all sorts of building types, incorporating flats and hotels and,

Austin Tunnell

We've got a lot of restaurants going now and so it's really a great place to live. That's awesome. And to get an idea of scale, you know, how many acres is it and then how many, I don't know what the best way to measure it would be if it's units or houses or doors or whatever, square footage of stuff like to get an idea. it's, town limits is 1200 acres. And then we're only building on 20 % of that. The rest of it is a tropical. a dry tropical forest. So not kind of the tropics that we think of, we're always lush and green. That happens half the year. But most of the time it's just hiking and biking trails through the rest of that 80%. And then where we are building, we're doing what a typical project would do for all of our acreage in that 20%. So it's very dense. Lots of little footprints twisting and turning next to each other. and at the moment we have about 200 completed things under roof, I guess you could say, among the hotels and things under roof. And, and within that a few hundred residents, we've always looked to a goal of 40 % full -time residential. and, and the middle of the, of COVID we really achieved that and it was a great proof of concept. and so now in the second neighborhood, the Prado, that's going to be adding probably another 600 residences and shops and main street. And so it's growing rapidly. probably the, the full build out will be a couple of thousand, things under roof. people enjoying that either living here, working here or visiting. That's pretty amazing. so. And it sounds like it's doing very well. It's growing. There's people living there full time. And so I think kind of an easy next question is how does all this work being in car free community? Yeah, it's not that hard. I think that the initial barrier is just going for it. But there, know, Charles is a tech guy. He founded Mindspring Internet Service Provider. And his way of going about this is seeing the built environment as the hardware and services as the software.

Austin Tunnell

And so the hardware that we have to provide as a team is to give whatever flexibility possible for changes over time and also services. And as such, there's a rollable route to every front door, which helps ease access in terms of if for maintenance or trash pickup, that's done by like a golf cart, but it's not a golf cart community. So those are only for services. But all of those are sized so that emergency vehicles can get through at any point in time. But day to day, what you do is you either park at the edge and walk in, or you, as part of the HOA, there's a valet that's included in the HOA that the neighborhood decided to provide as a service. And so if you come in, for example, like with your week's worth of groceries, and it's raining, which is always like the nightmare scenario that people say, you know, like, have my kids, have my groceries and it's raining and that's just, that's where I need my car. That is pretty simply solved by dropping your car off, putting the groceries in a golf cart, and then you walk home and the groceries arrive through the HOA. So that could change anything in time. mean, the services could be ramped up or lowered. we used to have My first few years here, we had those like cargo bikes that people would drive around. But the goal is to kind of allow for technologies to be added in within a pretty flexible framework. Yeah, that's amazing. You started off by talking about the vision was actually to build a kid free place and then part division wasn't to create a car free place. The vision was to create a kid friendly place. What are some of the ingredients you could say that go into creating a kid -friendly place? And then what are some of the even the externalities of that? Because you might think like, OK, I don't want to like a place for kids. But I'm guessing building a place for kids has a lot of other benefits to adults and families and everyone alive that even don't have kids. Yeah, it's kind of. It's a poor way of saying it, but like it's kind of the lowest common denominator that if it works for kids, it's going to work for everybody else.

Austin Tunnell

But it really was to maximize his kid freedom because Charles would go on vacation and be in places and think when he was growing up, I'm putting words in his mouth, but he said this elsewhere. He had the classic like just be home by dinner or be home when the sun goes down. And living in suburban areas, the level of supervision that is required to keep kids safe doesn't afford that natural time for exploration and discovery that is really beneficial for everyone, not just kids, but also their parents. And so when he went to kind of experiment this idea, his first experiment was, you know, that's what led him to new urbanism, the new urbanism to begin with. And his first experiment was Glenwood Park in Atlanta, Southside Atlanta. And it's pretty classic new urbanist development, successful in many ways. But he noticed that the kids that lived there or were visiting were still supervised during playtime because there were cars. And so the experiment was if I get rid of the cars, you're not worried about accidents or other dangers that are related to those. Then that frees up all of this explorable surface area is how we kind of our metric. And that played out. We started out with, this resort town is I am allergic to the word resort, but when you add town, it feels less scary. And the kids that live here and visit here have a completely independent life. The whole town looks over them. It's like that real village concept. There literally was a WhatsApp group for a while among the residents of like, where's my kid? That was the name of the group. And they'd be like, yeah, yours is over by the mountain bike place. Yours is at the ice cream place. It was this, they were fine. And on the trails and on the beach, all the kids, the parents went together and got like life safety, like ocean safety training. it was just, you kind of take care of what these dangers of potentially being on your own in an ocean and front environment. But these kids end up being incredibly precocious, incredibly curious.

Austin Tunnell

I'm kind and compassionate because they run into all sorts of people and they have a confidence about them that I still find admirable. Some of these kids that I've seen grow up here, like I want to be them when I grow up because they're multilingual. They just have a whole different sense of being that I find pretty impressive. And their parents and extended grandparents also have maybe many multi -generational households. And the same thing works. Everything's within a very short walking distance. So someone with mobility issues doesn't have to go that far to go to the store. And you'll see pretty often like a barefoot little kid just coming in to get a gallon of milk and they know what house he lives in. So they put it on the house account and he just runs in, gets his milk and goes home. So there's this different community aspect that's built out of that, I would say. And I'm someone who lives here and I'm not raising children, but there's a connection of this wider community that you're always a part of. So I would say constantly we're figuring out new benefits. Like I didn't know that you could play soccer of three on three between three houses and just hit the, you it's like you had to hit the ball between the windows and that was the goal. just kind of things take on a different life, I would say when you're at a smaller scale and your car doesn't have to live where you do. That's really interesting. I had a little bit of experience this and when I lived in Carlton Landing, which is a New Urbanist community in Oklahoma, I don't know, there was like 200 houses at the time. Me and my wife, didn't have kids yet. And I always say I knew more people while living there than I had since college, just because like, it's not like your best friends with everyone. You just like recognize people and you see them. have multiple small interactions with people.

Austin Tunnell

But so many times on a Friday night, we'd end up at the meeting house. That was literally what's called the meeting house. And in the morning, it's a coffee shop at night. It's, beer and tacos. And there's this big outdoor patio and like some Friday nights, yeah, kind of small night, just some locals, whatever. And then other nights there would be a lot of people. But I always say there's there are babies, there were grandparents and everyone in between. And even though we didn't have kids, that was kind of a wake up moment for me a little bit of. Saying it's kid friendly doesn't mean. doesn't mean it's for kids. It actually somehow you make a kid friendly and it feels more comfortable for everyone in a way. I don't even get that because it's like, and then we could have so many friends at different stages of life that frankly, even in the neighborhood I live now in historic neighborhood in Oklahoma city, it's cool. But all the price, you know, all the houses have two bed or three bed, you know, certain price range, very specific. I have a very narrow range of relationships. Now that we've got two kids, all my friends have, you know, kids because otherwise it's like, Hey, let's come to dinner. and we're going to bring our kids along and you're by yourself, you know, or you're and, I couldn't believe even like the high schoolers would be hanging out. And I'm like, I can't even imagine on a Friday night, I've got like my high school daughter hanging out with us for fun. And maybe they go off a little bit on their own and come back and I'm hanging out with single people or people that are married or grandparents. It was such unique experience and, really enabled by that. It's kid friendly. And then suddenly everyone's comfortable. And I would say, you know, cause there's just certain things, you know, it works. I wouldn't say these words of, you know, discovery, curiosity, safety are things that are only work. Those are things that just make generally anybody's life better connection with nature. mean, all those things just would improve the quality of life for anybody involved. would say. Before diving a little bit more into the community. I'd love to hear just a little bit about your background and then what you've been doing there 10 years. What has been your role? How has that changed? then, well, we can talk about what you're doing after later, but you can mention that too. But you're clear path. Yeah. I, well, we'll start way back when I was adolescent and loved watching Law & Order and thought I was going to be a lawyer when I grew up.

Austin Tunnell

And then someone said, if you want to be a lawyer, you should take Latin. And Latin was offered as a zero period only. So the class before classes started. And I am not a morning person. So I quickly decided I didn't want to be a lawyer anymore and would like to sleep in. And so that's not going to be my path. then I did. a bunch of quizzes in the books that you could get out of the library of, what would you major in in college? Because I had to have some sort of direction. And I just couldn't pick a favorite subject. I liked a little bit of everything. I liked doing art. I liked history, all of the above. And so time and time again, it just kept coming up of, you know, studying architecture and design as being a synthesis of that. So through school, I tried some high school programs, ended up looking at a bunch of different architecture schools. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, or suburban sprawl around it, and was this close to going to Georgia Tech. They have a great program. But out of respect for my dad, who grew up on the South Side Chicago suburbs, I decided to take a tour of Notre Dame architecture program. And the Assistant Dean at the time, John Stamper gave me the tour and I was looking at all the work put up on the walls and it seemed like the first school where I wasn't really confused as to what I was looking at. I felt like I could understand, at least relate to see how someone could begin a project like that. And at the end of it, we started to get to some of those skyscraper studios and things and he just said, our graduates end up having pretty broad range of careers. But we focus on the foundation of classical and traditional architecture and urbanism because, frankly, we teach you the rules so that you can intelligently break them. And as is my nature, I don't like making a choice. I like when I could just do both. I said, I can come here and not have to make a choice yet of what type of architect or urbanist I want to be. can kind of get exposed to all of it.

Austin Tunnell

I ended up at Notre Dame studying there. And the summer after my fourth year as a five -year program, I did a research project in Rome, studying public housing there in the district of Senzaba, Testaccio and Garbatella, and it's a masonry project and has a lot of incredible features to it. That wrapped up. And I, all of the internships I had kind of lined up for the rest of the summer kind of fell through for one reason or another. Either they didn't get the projects, they didn't need help or they needed someone who was available for longer. And I was essentially going to go home and be a waitress in Marietta, Georgia, which was fine. But then when I got an opportunity to illegally be a waitress in Rome for the rest of the summer, I said, well, that's way better. so I worked. One shift as a server at a restaurant and company, Fiori, and I got this email from my professor at the time, Douglas Duwani, that just the subject line was get on the, and the body of the email was Befin Plain. It's like you're not gonna, the summer before your last year of school, you're not gonna be a server. Like you're gonna do the thing. and so I landed in about two hours after I landed, I got on the flight that was regularly scheduled for my return. Landed in Atlanta and I got a call from a number I didn't recognize and it said, hi, my name is Charles Brewer. Douglas Doaney says that you are interested in being our interim town architect, for the next couple of months. and I'd like to know if that's true at all. Knowing Douglas can, there's always truth, but it's can be exaggerated. I said, I'm sorry. So I had no clue what he was talking about and had to admit that. He said, well, it seems like we live close to each other. So here's my address. Look into this place. Know that it's a real thing. And I'd love to talk to you in person about it. So the next day we met up. And the first question he asked was,

Austin Tunnell

do you have a problem with bugs? And I was just so floored that like, I really just coming out of left fields and I said, you know, not particularly have a problem with them. You kind of get asked all these questions like, can you rough it essentially? And we ended up talking about what he was trying to do at Las Galinas and how they were looking for a long term town architect. But in the meantime, just needed someone kind of in an intern role to And it is where it's duct tape things together until we figure stuff out. So I down there for a couple of months. It was really intense. There were not that many people here at the time and the learning curve was incredible. Really supportive people, great construction culture, and I just felt way out of my league and that was really exciting. And then that was two months. Went back to finish school at Notre Dame for the last year. And that semester, A relationship that Las Canarias has with Notre Dame is a lot of think tank studios where before we hire a firm, a professional firm to do a project, we will engage a student design studio to figure out what it is that we want. None of the results ever turn into something that we end up building, but it gets the ideas of we can narrow down a direction before we hire a firm to do the work and tease out ideas that maybe we wouldn't have considered on our own. So he was doing that for a beach club here in town and came up that December for a final review. was sleep deprived and probably not the most hygienic state that I've ever been in. And he says, you know, we thought about it and we'd like to have you back when you graduate full time.

Austin Tunnell

And I said, I'm going to have to let you know about that because it was terrifying the idea of being responsible for something like this. And I really didn't think I was up to it. And also at the time, especially like the thing that you did, if you were ambitious and thought yourself serious about your career was you went to the New York firms when you graduated and to do this, felt just so off the wall that I wasn't really prepared to lean into that, I would say. So it took a few months for the conversations to continue. And finally, I just said, are you sure about this? Because typically when projects hire town architects, they hire a firm that has incredible reputation, already a professional credibility that actually lends credibility to your project by them signing on. And that's not what I would be obviously any part of the scenario. And he says, no, I know, but I'm from the tech world and I like very much the innovation that comes from pairing young, enthusiastic people with mature experience and that magic. And so you're going to be with a very experienced construction director, experienced development team. And this is, we're going to see what comes out of that. so I liked that answer and still wasn't completely sold and went back to Douglas, 20 and was mulling this over between going to New York or here. And he said, well, anything in my life that has brought great things has been a result of courage.

Austin Tunnell

And I just walked out of his office. didn't say anything. I think he was left with the impression that I was going to New York. And I called Charles and said, I'll go. So that was the beginning of what I thought was going to be a little bit of a post -graduation adventure in Costa Rica. 18 months, two years, three years max. And then I'll go do the thing that you're supposed to do. I celebrated 10 years in June. Turns out that that learning curve and not having to choose has been. I essentially got to create my dream job. So title has always been town architect. It's never changed. I've had the same title for 10 years, but my role has changed every time I feel like, okay, I've plateaued here. Here's my plan for someone to take over that. And then I'm going to go play with this thing. So I've gotten to have my hands in architecture, urban planning, questions about marketing, although now we have real professionals doing that. just kind of really everything that goes into getting a town like this to happen. may not have been responsible for all of it, but I got to be a part of the conversations for almost everything. and responsible for a great number of things and, know, including like raccoon proof trash cans, which I was shocked by how much overlap there is between the smartest raccoon and the least aware tourist. So that was a real design challenge. So think little things like that or how are we going to, you know, trying to achieve more accessible pricing over the next 20 years and do that in a sustainable way. mean, like big questions or little questions, always solving puzzles. So it's been an incredibly fascinating ride. And the result is even better than I think I would have guessed when I got here, for what was here so far.

Austin Tunnell

That's a pretty wonderful story. That's very cool. I also appreciate Douglas's thought there and the one that kind of got you. was like walk out of the room and like, the call. You kind of know deep down that that's the right answer or something, but you don't realize it's courage that's the thing and the muscle you need to, and then wow, 10 years later. Very cool taking a risk and could have gone to New York, but what an experience you've had. It's been incredible. It's been such a learning curve and, and a real pressure cooker of, you to this day, I get asked to do things that I don't know how to do. and that's, that's kind of environment that I am real drawn to, very drawn to. Yeah. So that's awesome. It's been ideal. If you've been enjoying the Building Culture podcast and are listening on Apple or Spotify, could you pause for just a moment and leave a five -star review? My goal is to get to 100 reviews. And if you do, take a screenshot and email it to playbook at buildingculture .com. Playbook, P -L -A -Y -B -O -O -K at buildingculture .com. And when we hit 100, I'll randomly pick five winners and send them a Building Culture hat that looks just like this. I appreciate it and back to the show. Well, you know, so this town is in Costa Rica. Yes. And a lot of people listening, probably most people listening are in the United States, few in Canada, a couple in Australia, I think. But why Costa Rica and why not the United States when Charles Brewers trying to figure out where to go? Yeah. So.

Austin Tunnell

Principally speaking, when you're dealing with this question of how to achieve a car free, and I would say now I kind of shy away from that phrase because our second neighborhood is half car free, half not for different reasons that I can get into in a bit, but this pedestrian first, let's just say this, it's a pedestrian first mindset. That's a big conversation that has a lot of nightmare scenarios. as a rebuttal. And the sheer force of energy required to pull that off anywhere is intense. especially in the United States considering how car centric our culture is. an idea like this therefore would be easier to experiment with and more palatable in a vacation setting where You're not having the conversation of the everyday life. You're having the conversation at first about on vacation where it seems like an escape. And there are many more people who are excited about that conversation at the, especially when this was this conversation for him was starting in 2006. And in Costa Rica, he ended up here. He actually looked kind of all over the place and ended up here because of a kayaking trip he had taken in his earlier days where the culture in Costa Rica is one that is

Austin Tunnell

really quite beautiful and welcoming and centered on gratitude more often than not. And those core values are something that mirror the core values that he hopes to approach a town like this with. Protecting the environment. I Costa Rica is an incredible steward of their natural resources. It's a country that runs over 300 days a year on renewable sources nationally. You have to go through countless institutions to cut a tree down. And that's a good thing, we would say. And so it shared so many values of what he was trying to, of a place that he was trying to create. And then what's the hope being that, okay, we'll start the conversation as if it's a place to vacation. And then over time, people realize, like, this is okay. And then it kind of can be tested out on a full -time basis and not have as many objections, right? Or people realize, once people realize that it's an option and are actually people who are seeking that out, there aren't any options for that. So you'll start out with people who are like, finally, I found a place that is what I've always been looking for and just haven't been able to find. And then you find the people who realize, okay, this was interesting, but I was nervous about it and now I tried it out and I liked it. So we got a lot of these people that would vacation, they'd come every year. And then they took a sabbatical for a few months and put their kids in the school for a semester. And then it's kind of like the frog in boiling water sort of thing. Like slowly but surely it doesn't seem like that's great idea. And again, the goal isn't to make this a town where everybody... occupies it lives in it. I think that's pretty unrealistic for a place that's on the ocean. But 40 % as a goal benchmark means, there's a natural daily life and natural drama that is playing out in this environment. you're more than welcome to come visit and be a part of it, not where you come here and now the life exists for the time that you're here and then you leave and then there's nothing.

Austin Tunnell

So this aspiration to be a town requires a base where there are things happening, people walking their dogs that live here, that love it, and that there are natural difficulties and there are things to complain about. that's what a place is, people experiencing all parts of it. So that was kind of the goal. And I would say definitely in our case, The pandemic was, like I mentioned before, a real proof of concept in that many people, maybe they were already owners, chose to stay in their house for an extended period of time here. But also, we really pulled off an incredible program of long -term rentals. And so many families moved out from San Jose, the capital city, and stayed here for 18 months. with their families. And they all pulled together and hired a teacher who was giving classes out in the plazas. And so there's this entire outdoor lifestyle. People were safe and it was a really amazing experience, honestly, to see how well it worked. And we've retained many of those families in this new, the second phase of the Prado. They've purchased land and are building homes to now come back and live here. which is, I would say, huge honor that I, as I see it. Yeah. You've really created a compelling alternative, which I think is so important for actually shifting conversations and shifting culture. You can talk about it till you're blue in the face. You can point to statistics. You can do all kinds of things, but I think really it's showing people. I've heard, you know, new urbanist communities sometimes get, critiqued because their drive to urbanism, even Carlton Lanning heard that, well, that's a resort community, that they're not even living up to the thing they say they're living up to. And my response to that has always been, if you go and knock on people's doors, let's say in Oklahoma City, where people are used to living in 5 ,000 square foot houses or 4 ,000 square foot houses on, you know, whatever, an acre or something in a four car garage, and you were to go knock on their door and say,

Austin Tunnell

how would you like to live in a smaller house on a smaller lot with just a two car garage or no garage and live a little bit closer to each other and then pay twice as much per foot? They'd be like, no. And you could be like, well, climate change and other things, and your kids. And they're going to be like, no. But then those exact people go to Carlton Landing, their kids run, they experience the free range kids for a weekend and just the life, hey, there's still privacy. There's still all these wonderful things. We gain all of this, even though, then suddenly they have a completely different mindset. So I think it's just, and they even they go into Costa Rica where you're saying, Hey, rather than doing a half baked vision, you know, in the U S let's do kind of like the full vision, somewhere else and how compelling of, of an example you've created in doing so. Yeah, I would say, you know, it's, it's real key what you say in terms of, know, well, I do think that this is the answer or, you know, they're. There's no silver bullet, but an answer for a lot of things that, you know, I think community and connections among people who are like and are not is the answer to many things resulting of isolation in our built environment. The smart thing that Charles did, he didn't pitch it like that. He wasn't, you know, proselytizing. He just said like, this is not for everybody. A lot of people aren't going to like this. A lot of people aren't going to want to see their neighbor, but there's tons of options for you. This is filling a gap that isn't available to people that are looking for this. And so with that approach, it was just showing that it was possible because the that you have to jump through to make this happen and to steal a John Anderson term like the brain damage that you have to endure through getting this to fit inside the suburban sprawl codes.

Austin Tunnell

It's not for the people who are just trying to make an easy buck. This is not that. Go build storage units if you want to do that. And that's one of the things like Charles for me is the consistency and that he has had in this vision is, I get a little emotional because that's kind of like the white whale of the town founder who just sticks it out. And I would say they're more often than not that you find that in the new urbanism. So there's plenty of amazing examples of people who done this, but I have experience with him and the consistency has been. astonishing. But it has been just, we're just going to do this and we may, well, we most certainly will make mistakes because there's a lot of precedent is not modern. And this is not a place that's trying to be nostalgic or look back. This is a place that's actually anticipating a future where, you know, cars are self -driving. And so you can just call it over on an app. It doesn't need to, it's again, like these software things can be added in, but this is, why would I sacrifice so much space for vehicles to circulate and live under my roof when if I get all these amazing benefits, which is the density, okay, yeah, it's inherently more sustainable. But, you know, we kind of shy away from using that word because that word is such a...

Austin Tunnell

Very definition can mean a lot of different things. So specifically, we're just trying to keep things walkable, private, and optimized views. Those are the three things that we're solving for at any given time. And it has to be a pleasure to walk around. You can't feel like you're living in a fishbowl. And you have to have amazing views of town, the mountains, greenery, and the ocean. And if those three things are, that's what we decided to prioritize. And if we're solving for those, then that's going to be a viable solution for us. And so it's kind of the algorithm that generates infinite number of solutions, depending on the context, whether you're closer to the ocean, higher up. So it's a really great set of rules that we're solving for. Yeah. I'd like to get a little bit. about a few things about how this has unfolded. And like I said, most people listening in the US, developers, architects, planners, engineers, some hopefully city officials. And while, yes, you went to Costa Rica, things are changing in the US. And also, I think there's still probably a ton to actually learn from what you have done there and how you can bring elements of that back to the US, even if it's not, you might not have an ocean next door, right? It's gonna be different. or mountains in the background. But I think there's a lot of things to learn. And so I'd love to talk to you about that. So if anything comes to mind, go ahead and talk about it. But one of the things I wanted to start with is, you you mentioned that you've got streets that, yeah, they're not really for cars, but you can fit fire trucks and your garbage and stuff through there. So I understand that that's kind of solved for. But one of them is when we met a few years back, you'd mentioned the entire thing, think, being Condo was really essential and it doesn't look like it right these are these are houses like there's lots of single -family houses along with other types of units That was like one of the most brilliant kind of like hacks the way you had done that if I can talk about Talk about that. Because I think there is a lot of application here in the US condo I think initially scares people but it's not like I'm talking about building a 50 unit condo building It's just a condo structure legal structure. Yeah That is a key factor

Austin Tunnell

And it was, it was not what we set out to do, but we backed into it. mean, a lot of the overall theme of what has ended up here has been reversing, like reverse engineering and backing into the codes or the legal structure that, makes it legal and possible, with as many, with the least amount of variances possible, to show that it is possible. Right. And, I think that was kind of the biggest thing for me. I have a bunch of different kind of questions that I'm always asking. And one of those was,

Austin Tunnell

we need to show that this is possible within a variety of code structures, because this is a proof of concept that hopefully people will adapt. We do hope to be a model town. And that, yeah, we're experimenting and this really works and that probably didn't work that well, but we're always trying these things that can be these principles that can be adapted elsewhere. And part of that was this, and I was not around for this decision, but have most of my life has been a result of this decision. to do a condominium structure. And in Costa Rica, there's different condominium structures. Some are horizontal condominiums, so condominium of lots, and some are vertical condominiums, so condominium of buildings. Or you could do a hybrid. you can kind of, they're like nesting dolls. You can start with the big one and subdivide. You get three bites of the apple. And... That results in people getting fee symbol title to something. But when we need density and we need the intricacy, we can do a condominium of buildings and satisfy all the egress and things like that. But where I'm selling you a footprint, so it could be your house is three of those footprints stacked on top of each other. And that's what you get titled to. Or it's one of those if it's a flat, for example. And then where we need the flexibility over time is where we do the lots. So I'm selling you a piece of land and then you can come in and build on top of that. And having all different ways in which you can be a part and build something here has been a really crucial element to us being resilient and adapting over time and being able to.

Austin Tunnell

see, okay, this didn't work over here and so let's adapt it for over here. So we're always inclined towards leaving the most flexibility possible, shocker, and always pivoting and fixing stuff for the next round until we figure out, okay, now there's this new thing we need to... So like no kind of medium process has ever been the same. It's like a moving target, which I find fascinating. And it's like the game where the rules keep changing. And it's a real charge for me every time to figure it out. But that helps, I think, in terms of this legal structure that allows the density, but is a clarity of who's taking care of what. And so this walkability, these trails, like all the green spaces, it gives you a real clear legal structure for what belongs to whom and who's in charge for taking care of what. Now again, there's... huge learning curve on all of this. And I'm sure there people who say we could have done that better and be included in a lot of cases, but that has been a real wonderful way to achieve this and minimize the risk, quite frankly. But yeah, so in the, you know, all the condo codes, like we're working the same condo code as everybody else. I have to get the five meter clearance for the fire trucks. then we really kind of just draw the circle inside the square where every day I'm operating it where vehicles don't go in. Well, me not, but the administration is operating without vehicles. But at any point, if something needs to come in, they can. Like the removable bollards, for example. So no barrier to entries on foot, but vehicular barriers. So that's been one of the crucial things in terms of making this happen. And the lessons that I would say could be applicable in terms of I would say a typical planning process for new neighborhoods involves, you know, we figure out the streets and then we do the flats of land. and then we probably do a form based code after that or some other sort of code that, creates a great built environment. And that is an incredible system for a lot of places that never would have worked here. so we had to figure out a new way of doing it.

Austin Tunnell

And essentially what that means is every new neighborhood, we almost design the whole house, all of them, or at least a version of what we would like built. And then those houses, as they group together, create the street and where we know we want windows, make sure that the lot responds to allow that window to exist with setback rules. And so it's reverse engineering all of this. So the plan that actually gets recorded as the plat plan.

Austin Tunnell

is always maintained and respected and those are there legally, but visually that line is blurred incredibly. so this entire built existence of town is trying to blur that public -private line as much as possible so that you really feel it's plaza or street right up against facades. Again, to maximize explorable surface area, which makes town what part, what beach town that exists is 20 acres so far. And it, you could go all day and not repeat where you're walking, which I find a huge kind of metric for us. Yeah, that's amazing. I wrote that one down by the way, explore on the surface area. I'd like to take a moment to thank the sponsors of our podcast for Sierra Pacific windows. We use. their windows on the majority of our builds at Building Culture. one of our go -to products is their H3 Casement window. We love casements because they open sideways, they open all the way, they kind of have this classic window feel. And I really like that you don't have that horizontal bar when looking from the exterior. And to get really nerdy on you, we really love their 5 '8' putty profile on the window, which kind of feels updated, but still a very classic detail. Also, Sierra Pacific Windows. If you are in the state of Oklahoma, Sierra Pacific has a showroom in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and we actually purchase our Sierra Pacific Windows through them. Because it doesn't just matter the window manufacturer, it matters who you're buying your window from, who's putting that order together, who's installing it, who's warranting it. And we work with both of these people at Build and Culture, and I was very happy to say yes when they asked to sponsor the podcast. All right, back to the show. I meant to bring this up early. You're not controlling who's coming in and out, right? Vehicles, yes. People, no. I think a lot of people would assume this must be a gated community, especially when you throw an idea of a condo on top of it. Talk about that, why you didn't do that, and also how it works. How does it work safety -wise? How do people feel? Why do you feel strongly about that? I think, again, if you're trying to make a town, you have to treat it as such.

Austin Tunnell

And so what, yes, legally it's a condominium, but that natural mixing of visitors and residents and an adequate level of security, obviously, within that is crucial for, you know, any place that has good, like, if you have parking problems and good people watching, it's probably odds are you're a great place to be. And so, yes, have barriers, cars cannot come in. except for there's what's built, there's one car street. That's kind of like the most suburbia we get. And then in the second phase, because there's such high elevation gain, we're going from about 14 or seven meters, not 14 meters above sea level to 108. So at some point, I'm not gonna ask you to hoof it. Like that's not realistic. And so the upper half is car accessible. and you're allowed to park one car in your lot, but it to be shielded from view once blah, blah,

Austin Tunnell

The basic rule of thumb for us is, it's kind of like in the founding plaque actually of town. It says, all are welcome to explore our streets, enjoy our restaurants and walk our trails as long as you respect our values of essentially love and community. I'm paraphrasing. And it's essentially treating humans as humans fosters community. And so if someone has intentions to disrespect a little gate and a rent a cop isn't going to change that. Right. And so we've had issues over the year, people who have an intention to be disrespectful. And you handle that human problem with human interaction and someone, you know, corrects that behavior or invites them to leave. and you know, there is that check and balance in place, but most of the people who are walking around are, know, just trying to enjoy a stroll with their family, see something that feels completely different than anything they've seen elsewhere and probably records and tick tocks. and when those get a little too invasive and you forget that people live there, then people are reminded, Hey, you know, Let's not set up tripods. This is a place where people are living. And if ever that gets out of hand, again, there are people that can intervene. But I think it's really, crucial to have this openness because you can't say you're building a new town in Costa Rica and then close Costa Rica out. It's a culture that is eager to welcome you. So why would you not do the same? Now, at any given point, there's the vulnerability that gets challenged, right? I mean, the more, let's call it generations of sales, right? Where these resales happen and people are purchasing from someone who purchased from someone else and have such a distant relationship to the initial purchase from the developer with the vision. That could change over time. And that's an inherent vulnerability.

Austin Tunnell

where they could say, is a condominium, it is private property, I don't want people to come in that don't live here. That would be really sad and scary if that happened, but it is a possible reality. My only thing is I would say that that's not at all in someone's best interest who has chosen to invest here. the real value of the experience here is that openness and the businesses and those businesses sure as heck aren't going to survive on 200 homes. You they need that. So you like that restaurant? Yeah, that restaurant stays open by having people come visit. So I would say, you know, I have kind of a fundamental trust in humans and that if you are attracted to being here, it's because you like that. But yeah, you you can't solve for everything. So that's something that I just I hope that the vision kind of pulls through consistently over time. And if it ever gets challenged, then it's getting challenged because people are taking ownership of the place and hopefully that leads to a good result. I really like that way of thinking about it because if you take too much of a, you know, what I've talked about with someone on this podcast before Devon, just kind of the safest idea of like, we're become so terrified of something going wrong in the United States in particular. I mean, or at least that's where my experience is so terrified across a lot of different things that we create all these rules. We've created this regulations to prevent the bad thing from happening. And maybe it has some success there, some, but what you're also doing is like capping the best thing that can happen to buy a lot. And the more you really try to like impose that of just being so terrified. And it's like, We all advocate for building codes and stuff. want people to be safe. It's not saying being cavalier about it, but also understanding by sometimes trying so hard to prevent the bad thing from happening. You actually like do a lot more damage. Right. Yeah. You, you limit so much. I think, you know, it's because I am an architect and urbanist, this is the way I think, you know, it's like planning the parking requirements of your businesses.

Austin Tunnell

for Black Friday, like this climax condition event, if you're coding in or operating a place for the worst case scenario, then you don't allow the best case to happen. And so I really respect like how the people who are administrating town have put these systems in place where there's always that backstop. Like if something happens, there are systems that can be activated to make sure that everybody's safe, but that's not the day -to -day reality. So operate from a place of trust, but verify sort of thing. yeah. Yeah. I'm laughing because that was the accounting motto back from my accounting days. It's trust, verify, but it has an order. gosh. I was talking like a spreadsheet person. So what other things that come to mind, if anything, of like, hey, know, talk a little about gated communities and condo associations, utilities and making way for fire trucks and stuff like that. What else do you think about if you were doing this in the United States? You're like, I'm to do, you know, not Los Catalinas. It's the right, like it shouldn't be a perfect imitation of Los Catalinas because that's Costa Rica and all this. But if you were trying to do a same kid friendly place in the U .S., what other things have you done there that you're like, this would be great to pull over? Well, I think. One thing that last year, Linus lacks and it's. quite frankly, because it's out of our realm of influence, is it still is one of those places that you have to drive through, drive to. It's a drive to urbanism. And that's kind of an inherent bummer that could be solved. And I think in the United States, it's probably easier because it's less, we're pretty isolated, more rural. It's getting less isolated, but public transportation at the edge, right? you know, kind of rethinking these.

Austin Tunnell

transit -oriented developments are excellent and kind of funneling that down even down to the pedestrian level where, places, and I've seen it experimented with like cul -de -sac in Arizona where you have the car share service that's part of, and it's right next to a bus stop and things like that. And I think that would be another level where you can have your own vehicle, but you're just parking at the edge and walking in and having, you know, these these shuttle services to other close by places. One of the goals that we have is to have, there's a fantastic Costa Rican scientist and astronaut who has created like hydrogen powered vehicles. And we used to have, or maybe we still do hydrogen powered Toyota and talent you can rent by the hour. And I am like a Now I rent a different vehicle, I'm a big, of the most frequent customer of that because I chose to get rid of my vehicles when I moved here and not have to deal with maintenance or anything. It's just been amazing to offload that bandwidth and just rent a car whenever I need it. And I would say that those are things that are so much easier to put in place in the United States that would... really connect these places and kind of take the next level of not being this drive to urbanism. I'd also say, know, incorporating, we have a preschool and kindergarten in town that I think is crucial. This idea of these, you know, nested schools for young kids where they can at a very immediate level go to their schools. And, you know, classic of aging in place. I that's something that's kind of inherent with all of this. But in terms of the way it's adapting, it's just Austin Tunnell (01:00:08.343) Sort of being unapologetic and just questioning the whole conceit of needing a car to begin with. Cars are great. I enjoy driving them. I enjoy driving them too fast, but I shouldn't be driving or tempted to drive them too fast anywhere in the vicinity of where kids playing soccer. And so just keeping them at the edge and creating these places where human beings are the people that have the right of way. and priority in the street and that cars, if they're allowed, are guests. So I mentioned the second part of this neighborhood that is car access. I genuinely hope that anybody driving on those streets is cursing whoever designed them because they should be absolutely annoying to drive. I utilized every traffic calming physical barrier that's legal. And it's going to be really hard to even take your foot off the brake because you should feel unwelcome in a car and you should feel like this is not meant for me to be here. And that's I would much rather that happen. I give you a mixing people walking or biking in cars. And I have to choose someone who's going to feel unwelcome. I'm going to choose a person in the big thing that can kill somebody for sure. That's an important point that it's not that you're anti -car. It's just that you literally have to make a choice when you're interacting with the two. You have to make a choice. Yeah. And we always opt for the people. We always do. I mean, I've heard people in conversations around our Main Street project, which is technically not in our land. So there's lots of conversations with people who don't see things the same way that we do, because it's not our land at all. And so we have to talk to someone who sees things totally different way and street trees were an issue because a car could run into them. And it took a good amount of conversation to be like, well, I'd rather run into the tree trunk than the four -year -old. And finally it of sunk in and we got street trees. But it's this way of thinking that I don't think is conscious for a lot of people. It's just kind of a default. Austin Tunnell (01:02:33.757) that the second you don't take it as a given, it unlocks all of these amazing opportunities. that a lot of people actually prefer, they just don't know it because they've not had the option. So I'm, I'm rarely anti anything. It's just a mouth like, okay, how am going to prioritize? so, you know, we have people are like, well, can I live in Las Canes if I want my own chickens? It's like, yeah, for sure. But that's going to be a different neighborhood where it's experimenting with pedestrian first on a more rural different transect. But that's happening and actually the contrast is important. so these are all things that kind of play out. And that's the other thing. It's not always about density with car free. We think about it because it makes it easier to walk. But it can be different any transects. I would also challenge about that. Yeah. I like how I appreciate how like, nuanced you and I'm assuming Charles is about just thinking about Las Catalinas in this way that it's like, it's not for everyone all the time. And also there's lots of different options for people within that and realizing, you know, priorities, like you just have to make priorities and decisions. but then also you've mentioned this kind of, it seems like you have a very like humble spirit about it in terms of understanding. this is your baby, you've been there for 10 years too and his baby has been there even longer. And there's this constant act of building, but also letting go of it. And I've like picked it up, you know, in our short phone call conversation in today too, of like realizing this isn't mine to hold on to. You know, it's like your vision, like you're kind of like always passing this vision off. How do you think about that over time as the town matures and it kind of becomes this thing and in 30 years or however long, in 50 years, They're not going to even know who you are or Charles is or how the town is. It's just they're living in this place. And how do you think about setting it up for generational success? That's the dream to become irrelevant. Because then it meant it took our life of its own. I I remember the period where like there was no live music in this town if we didn't orchestrate it within an inch of its life. And now that's, you know. Austin Tunnell (01:04:57.673) not even close to the issue. I would say, you know, I'm currently working on finding the right balance between how much I, how much, it's like, someone articulated it much better than I would. They said, it's great to put your heart and soul into something. It's a little dangerous when you find your heart and soul in it. And so that's where I'm kind of, a lot of my soul is in this place. and I never thought that I would be here, quite frankly. But it is... I still say I'm living vicariously through myself. Like, is this really my life? Is this really the kind of stuff I get to work on? But yeah, if your goal is to make a place that's real, you gotta let go of the reins at some point. The trick is how do you do that where it doesn't devolve into absolute chaos that then loses all sight of where it came from. But I think that people who are a lot smarter than me figured that out in the governance, I guess, questions. in terms of the physical reality, You gotta kind of just put together a place that can be resilient over time. you know, one of the things that I do here is I re I, when we go through the condo process, I apply for all the uses possible. And then within how we operate, I talk about building types more than talk about use. I don't say this is the commercial area. I say that this is the, you know, the building types here that are play well together are. Austin Tunnell (01:06:50.007) you know, row houses next to, you know, vertical mixed use next to whatever. I mean, I talk about the physical structure of it as a rule. I don't like to talk, you know, functional zoning. I don't allow in our conversation. It's the, if you want something to be resilient, you have to allow someone to, like a townhouse is a really great example where over time that could be a single family home or stacked flats. or live work or whatever it needs to be. The physical form just makes the street well. And you have to allow a town to grow and change. And I would say you really have to trust that you've done the best you could to guide it in the right way. And I certainly can't take credit. There's a ton of people working on that. But there, I am very pleased that there are a lot of physical solutions. that I've been able to be a part of for sure. But yeah, mean, it's always a risk, right? Any town that's trying to be real goes through an adolescence where it's in its rebellious phase and anything you say is wrong just because you said it. I think Las Callias is not immune from that. I don't think any place that's actually trying to be anything more than just a project on a spreadsheet is immune to that. I don't know if I have the answer or. But think it's probably inevitable. I don't know if it's necessary, but it's probably inevitable that it happens at some point. But there's enough rebar in these buildings that they're not going anywhere anytime soon. So it's kind of hard to undo what we've done. And I think that's a really, one of the best things you can do. You can't control it forever, right? It is your responsibility in a lot of ways right now. But one of the best things you do can do to give the best shot in the long run is to build in as much adaptability as possible, which literally is an evolutionary principle. know, it's the strongest that survive. It's the most adaptable. And then it literally is enabling humans to be human and to solve for problems given the circumstances they're in, which will not be the same 50 years from now or 100 years from now than they are today, which is also quite literally part of the main problems of what we do in our neighborhoods in the United States. It's the exact opposite. They're Austin Tunnell (01:09:15.431) anti -adaptable and therefore they are highly fragile to changes. I think that's a really great way to think about it. I think, know, one of the signs that I put up on my office in the early years was, you know, the question of how do you code the vernacular? Because it's an oxymoron to think that you code the vernacular. A lot of New Urbanist Town, we've We love vernacular architecture. think that that's the best way to create streets of fabric buildings that just make good places and not everything's screaming at you. And the second an architect gets involved, the ego gets involved. And then this is the house that's going in the book on the cover. And so every idea you've ever had gets thrown into this. And so you have to put in some sort of code when design professionals are involved. But then you get rid of this, as you mentioned, in terms of codes. It can also kind of get rid of the masterful architecture and just the good simple stuff. It's a question that I don't know if I have an answer because I think it changes depending on the place, but adaptability is a real factor, at least in part of the solution to that. Trust in human intelligence over time and that you don't know everything and someone will probably come up with a better solution than you. So have to leave room for that to happen. But you do know some stuff doesn't work and so you got to get rid of that as an option. I don't know. That's a fun conversation. don't think that is a way to make it in a short statement. Austin Tunnell (01:11:06.911) You, while we've been talking, you you've talked about how Costa Rica is a very environmentally oriented place in terms of just like taking care of what it has. One thing I have not heard you talk at length about is, you know, lead certifications or our values or solar panels or whatever, or, know, how do you guys. approach and think about sustainability in your project, which is clearly important. But I think I get the sense you think about it a little differently than a lot of the narratives out there today. I would say Austin Tunnell (01:11:43.315) Our real focus, again, it's always, know, technologies come and they always get improved upon. And so we think of them as these, you know, adaptive layers that can be incorporated and changed as they need to. But the foundation and actual core of the thing has to be inherently more sustainable. And again, I like, I get a little nervous around that word because people would say like, no, the most sustainable thing is not doing a greenfield project. they're... Fair point. But if you're gonna build something... You make it as dense as possible in sense that I'm not hauling infrastructure across acres and acres and acres of forest because people don't want to see their neighbors. Densify, increase privacy. We optimize for natural ventilation as much as possible. think when we first started out, we were very idealistic that we thought that people are going to live with their windows open and the ceiling fans on. And because that's people who live here year round, that's the common way of being. But if you're flying in from Michigan in December and you're staying for five days, have AC blasting the entire time because you're not ready for the heat that's down here. So we were a little naive in thinking that people would just be always living with natural ventilation, but it is an option. So part of our design principles are really you have to design for the climate that you're in. So windows for cross ventilation, really deep eaves that help just shed the rain, because we have a lot of rain half the year, but also give more shade. High use of street trees wherever possible to increase the canopy cover. think Charles sometimes will be like, Austin Tunnell (01:13:46.029) I was walking from my house to X place and I walked more than 10 steps in the blasting sun. We need to figure that out. Their shade cover is an important thing and the buildings next to each other help that as well. They give each other shade cover. They work together. It's all about a composition more than it is any individual building. So these kind of these old... Okay, old is the wrong word. These foundational aspects of how something can be as adapted to its environment as possible. And then, okay, sure, you want to add solar panels, can. My particular take on solar panels here is, you know, we're on a national energy grid that runs 99 .8 or whatever the stat is on national. The grid is renewable energy sources, geothermal wind, solar, hydroelectric. To then import your own panel from who knows where. put it on your house to be off the grid. I'm almost wondering what the footprint of that is compared to just using the grid. But that's an opinion, but it's certainly an option. there's no guarantee that every house can be entirely solar powered, but people have solar panels here. That's an option to add in. But we just want to make sure that the house itself does everything it can at first. and then you're walking everywhere and, you know, there's the trails and we're reforesting the tropical dry forest and the ecosystems coming back. so I say there's a lot of things that we're trying to do in terms of caring for the environment that we're in and working with it and improving it. but yeah, we've always been very careful not to say like we're a sustainable capital S project. Austin Tunnell (01:15:48.445) a lot of those things mean lead certification and things like that, that we just have not prioritized. We just prioritized making sure the windows open and you got shade. It's the original green concept, which I'm much more on generally speaking, kind of on the... it's not eliminating the options of all the other stuff. Right. making sure that the base is as good as it can be. And then I can layer in things over time. It's kind of like it's first principles thinking. like rather, you know, it's getting that right and then letting technology overlay that. Yeah. Then trying to save this kind of a broken system with technology, get the system right. in a resilient and adaptable system and that will probably turn out better over time. Cause technology changes so rapidly. mean, I remember when it was the thing to put USB outlets in the houses and now it's USB -C. And so now people are retrofitting their outlets. I'm just like, yep, that's, that's one of those things. Thankfully it's adaptable, but that's going to change many more times before you're done using your house. So, and the house itself is, you know, The size of the code in Costa Rica is stricter than that of California, I believe. And so the amount of rebar in this stuff, it's not going anywhere for a long time. And so when you think about that, it's like, okay, inherently the most sustainable thing, again, I'm using the bad word, but the sustainable thing is to do an architecture that's timeless, that's not trendy, where in 10 years you want to tear it down or change it because that's not on Pinterest anymore. you do the architecture that over time just looks better. So, you know, the natural materials, all of our woods are, you know, actually certified sustainable forestry and as local as possible. And a lot of the builders we work with make their own tiles and doors and windows and cabinetry. it's, it's Austin Tunnell (01:17:55.517) as much of local materials used as carefully as possible that one could do. And we're spoiled in that, you know, we have incredible craftsmen that can pretty much do anything in wood or concrete. And so it allows things to be, that are truly practical to be incredibly beautiful. And so that opens up possibilities as well. That's great. I'd like to end with just a few kind of more personal questions. Start pretty light. What's the small thing that makes you happy? Small thing that makes me happy is watching sugar go through the foam of a cappuccino. I don't know where you're going with that one. That is funny. And that was a very fast answer. Like you had that ready. That is hilarious. What's one thing in the world you'll never get tired of doing? people watching. Austin Tunnell (01:18:58.165) Are humans better at creating or destroying? Creating. We're maybe more efficient at destroying, but we're better at creating. I'm with you on that. would you tell your younger self? Anything in life that's been successful, I've approached with courage. Awesome. Well, that's a great, that's a great way to end. Sarah, it's real pleasure to have you on. I love the work you're doing. I'm excited. Well, actually, can you tell everyone, hey, you're wrapping up your time in Las Catalinas after 10 years. So what's next? What's next? Who knows? That's the exciting thing. I'm, yeah, I'm transitioning out of my full time role as town architect into more of a distant relationship while I again, figure out that, know, these identity questions that are important after 10 years, I want to see when I say, you know, I have a crutch of saying I'm Sarah, the town architect of this amazing place. And I'd like to sit with the discomfort of just saying I'm Sarah for a bit and see what that shakes out. So I'm taking a little bit of personal sabbatical from now through the end of the year. I'm going to be traveling the last three months. who knows where, and then I'll be headed back to continue teaching as an adjunct faculty member at Notre Dame in the design studios and just pursuing really interesting work where I get to keep solving puzzles. So I would say that's kind of the trajectory I'm on and specifics are to be determined, but it's exciting to see what this kind of all of this thinking and experimentation in Las Carlinas, what that leads to. I'm just as curious, I think, as my family is as what that's going to be. But yeah, that's kind of what the plan is right now. So not disconnecting from Las Carlinas. Always, I it's not a place I can disconnect from. But taking a bit of a break to make sure I'm always coming at it with full, full... Austin Tunnell (01:21:19.085) thought and energy and not just recycling things. So that's where we are. That's an exciting place to be. I'll be looking forward to kind of following along and see where you end up. However, whenever that ends up happening. Is there anything you put out there where people can follow you or you like on Instagram? So I do have an Instagram, Vega Design Studio is the handle of that. And I do have a website as well. which is bigadesignstudio .com. But yeah, on the Instagram is where I post the results of my architectural people watching, I'd say, and stuff I'm working on. Cool. And then for anyone listening, you really should, including myself, go visit Las Catalinas. I'm assuming you can just go to their website and they've got, you know, you can book and all that through there. Yeah, absolutely. It looks like an amazing place for couples, families, kids, whatever. Yeah, I'll be a buff. Well, cool, Sarah, thanks so much. And I hope I get to see you here in person at some point in the next few years. I look forward to following along. That'd be great. Good to see you again. All right. Bye. Thanks so much. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with your friends. And on if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave us a five star review and take a screenshot, send it to playbook at building culture dot com. And when we reach 100 reviews, I'm going to send out 10 building culture hats like up there behind my head if you're watching video and I'll send it to your house. Thanks so much for listening and catch you on the next episode.