Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
tively. Many architects have to run their practice as a business in the hopes
that maybe they get one or two projects where they can really be creative.
They end up participating in buildings that probably don't really deserve
to be built. I felt I needed to keep architecture, for me, more sacred. But
I wasn't really happy teaching full time, which a lot of architects do when
they're more academic or more theoretical and idealistic. So the product
became market led.”
Hertz also struggled with the problem of protecting his innovation.
Patent lawyers advised him that, although there were aspects of Syndecrete
that were eligible for process or utility patents, such patents would be very
expensive to enforce and would be susceptible to reverse engineering, par-
ticularly in countries where US patent law is not respected. Instead, Syn-
desis chose a strategic path toward trade secrecy and made Syndecrete a
proprietary product.
As Syndesis grew, Hertz moved the business to a much larger space in
Santa Monica, near SCI-Arc. But he found it difficult to manage both the
creative and the administrative aspects of the firm. Fortunately, a friend in
San Francisco had given Hertz's name to Stacy Fong, a recent graduate of
the University of California School of Architecture at Berkeley, who was
moving to Los Angeles. Fong did not contact Hertz for a long time. She
had read about his work in an architectural magazine and thought that any-
one that young and successful would likely also be very arrogant. But when
they did eventually meet, Hertz says, “I knew that she was either the ideal
employee or a great friend or a mate. And I got all three.” A strong friend-
ship grew between them when she joined Syndesis in 1989, and they were
married in October of 1990, on Hertz's thirtieth birthday.Today they have
three young children. Fong, who is a partner in Syndesis, handles all the
administrative responsibilities, leaving Hertz free to pursue the creative end.
The Syndesis office occupies a 25,000-square-foot compound in Santa
Monica, the site of a former foundry. The firm has fifteen employees,
including two other architects, a research and development associate, five
craftsmen, a shop foreman, and marketing and administrative personnel.
Additional temporary employees are hired as needed. Syndesis employees
do all the fabrication themselves, and the market has always been much
larger than their ability to fill it. “I haven't been interested in being a big
manufacturer,” Hertz says.“I'm much more interested in invention and cre-
ativity. Every job is like reinventing the wheel.That's where the fun is, and
the challenge.”
