At the end of 2025, MCTIGUE's Founder and CVO Drew Pedrick sat down with Enoch Sears, AIA LEED AP and host of "The Business of Architecture" podcast to discuss MCTIGUE's unconventional beginnings: No office. A global team. A deep focus on meaning, not just design. Drew also shared the mindset shift that helped him build a profitable, values-driven practice from the ground up, and how profit-first thinking has helped systematize success and avoid burnout.
Together, Drew and Enoch discuss staying aligned without an office, balancing creativity and business, building strong partnerships, and what it really means to run a "conscious" firm. This conversation is honest, bold, and full of unexpected lessons for any architect ready to stop playing small.
The entire 50+ minute conversation is available here, but below are a few of our favorite snippets!
Keeping Projects On-Time and On-Budget
Architects are design people who are passionate about creating something. But to keep things going and flowing at the right pace, structure and accountability are essential. Whatever the project, everyone must deal with each issue directly, and right away. Whether architects, engineers, contractors, furniture suppliers . . . everyone involved should be honored in playing to their highest and best strengths, while also connected to accountability.
Value-Driven Design
We're all human beings wanting to collaborate and be productive, but we need the space around us in order to do that work.
Some say that adding value above and beyond the bottom line for these spaces is impossible, but for MCTIGUE, value goes beyond ROI. It entails providing meaning to what we are creating, including qualities of the environment, time of completion, opportunities in material and spaces, and more.
Propelling Partnerships
Before pursuing partners, it's first important to understand everything the project will need. Once all the "whys" have been addressed, we can utilize the relationships we've built over four decades to find partners that will bring the best to the work --- wherever they are in the world.
Over time, the people you know and work with will grow their own expertise and job connections, bringing richness (and new opportunities) to your work together.
Developing skillsets and expertise in a specific niche will also benefit your practice. When you know how to do something well, you can become known for it and referred to.
Pros and Cons of a Remote Team
For us, being fully remote creates the widest pool of great people we work with --- both in our home country and abroad --- as well as the kinds of projects we get to take on. Though it requires adjustments to the way in which we collaborate, we can bring Conscious Architecture to anywhere in the world, from a co-living project in Koreatown Los Angeles to assisted living in Connecticut to a cruise terminal in Hong Kong. We can work with the best people on the planet --- wherever they are --- to bring our clients' projects to life.
We learn a lot from this diversity in a way that enriches our lives and improves our work.
Finding the Right Client Fit
We put our philosophy and our approach up front, to ensure we're partnering with clients aligned with our Conscious values. Because architecture is for people and about people, Conscious Architecture includes all who participate and experience the results --- today and decades from today.
We do our best work with clients who share our values:
- Great architecture is designed with others, not simply for others
- Buildings can work resiliently with our planet, rather than in conflict against it
- We can move beyond short-term thinking with new methods, approaches, processes, and systems in alignment with those already in place with nature.
When we find partners who are enthusiastic to embrace nature-inspired approaches to design, we know something meaningful will emerge.
If you're interested in learning more about Conscious Architecture, or beginning a project with us, we'd love to have a conversation!