Latest / 100 Stories: The Narrative Intelligence Project / Angie Lipski: The Spaces That Shape Us | 100 Stories Ep. 15

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Angie Lipski: The Spaces That Shape Us | 100 Stories Ep. 15 · 100 Stories: The Narrative Intelligence Project

• Paige Williams: Welcome to 100 Stories, the Narrative Intelligence Project. I'm your host, Paige Williams. Come along with me as I build the emerging field of narrative intelligence. I am learning from 100 thinkers, creators, researchers, leaders, people whose lives have been shaped by profound change. Together we're exploring a question at the center of how we become who we are. How malleable are the stories we live by, and what does it take to change one? Across these conversations, we are examining the stories we inherit, the stories that become identity, and the human capacities that allow us to recognize, question, revise, and live beyond them. What I learned through this series will help shape the field of narrative intelligence in the foundational book that I'm writing about it. This is 100 Stories. Today I'm speaking with Angie Lipski, who is a practicing architect. She is bringing to light sensory understanding of our world and looking at architecture and neuroscience as a means to greater wellness in the world today. I invited Angie because she is so thought-provoking. I never have a conversation with Angie when I don't like stop in my tracks and think about my space and what it means. And I see such a connection between space in the stories that we tell ourselves. so I'm thrilled to have Angie on the show and to talk about narrative intelligence, architecture, beauty, space. Thank you for being here, Angie, and welcome to the show. Angie Lipski: Thanks so much, Paige. Paige Williams: I would love for you to tell me about the work that has most shaped how you see yourself in the world today. Angie Lipski: I am a practicing architect of 30 years and I'm not done practicing, but as I think about what's coming in my next stages of life, I'm thinking about this work that has been in my brain for 30 years. and it really is about architecture plus neuroscience for a greater sense of wellness in the world today. And I don't mean wellness from a trendy place, I mean wellness from a a soul-satisfying place, that we are all at our best. and thriving in not a necessarily a big way but in a daily rhythm that just feels good and better for the human heart so that we can connect better. There's a lot of assaults that are happening at all times on our senses. And I don't know if people know the the drain that causes on the brain. And a lot of it is through the built environment. That we're subjected to. We're either inside or outside. We're in the built environment or we're in the natural environment. Sometimes we're in the built environment on the edge of the na natural environment. Sometimes we're in nature, but in a little structure that is the built environment. And all there's so many little pings happening at all times in our mind. And I just The design decisions we make are so impactful. And I want people to realize this maybe. And not in a way that like blows their brain out because it could be super overwhelming. But I just want to help share what how to make the invisible visible so that we are making great decisions about design decisions, the kind of spaces and experiences we have every day, and how to reduce the friction in our life. For a just a softer life to be and also Yeah. Paige Williams: Yeah, I had the privilege of being in one of your spaces that you designed, redesigned. okay, I had the privilege of hosting camp for adult women leaders at the Cliff Ranch in Ovando, Montana. And I didn't know at the time that you had done the design of this beautiful ranch, but it makes so much sense to me now, knowing you and knowing your work. And what that space did was created so much community for us in ways in like we gathered in every space and it was so easily done. Like we didn't have to force people into space, we just were in space, and then when we would organically move between spaces, inside and out, because it was felt very much like an inside out experience. It was late May in Montana, it was gorgeous, couldn't have asked for better weather. And it brought this sense of like the space itself brought such a sense of nourishment to our souls. So will you talk about how you do that? Like, what is your magic? What is the neuroscience behind it, or the design principles behind an experience like that? Angie Lipski: Yeah. But so let me just start with that project was brought to me in a state where the four original homestead cabins that you were s you were in were there. But in a project like that where there's so much history, one thing I wanna say from the get go is the previous person had an ego of what of how to inner intervene what intervention to do among the four cabins. When I arrived and I saw it and it was this super crazy wacky place, right? I had to kind of like suss out the intervention that was Poorly and soullessly done. It met the functions, right? Okay, fine. But to me, it didn't sing and it didn't dance with those four other cabins, right? And what we do whenever what I do whenever I have a project is I do three design options for a client. And what that does is it helps like it just helps answer the questions we're trying to answer. But what I more ask about is how do you want feel? What's the interaction when someone's cooking? Is anyone else around or is the cooking sequestered? what happens late at night? What if someone needs to fill their water bottle before going on a hike? What is that experience? What's the morning coffee ritual? How do we spill out to space? Right? But I try to find the magic in what's being said and not said, and the magic of the site. On a historic site like that, that has so much beautiful prospect across it, you can see, we also wanted a space for refuge within the old homes, right? that those old cabins provided refuge on the prairie through all the years, right? Of the peop a hundred years of the people being on the site. But you know, that was a place to gather the people together. So we needed the right kind of refuge. So we needed a place of refuge within the buildings that were brought together to be like the lodge. And what I like about historic architecture is it tells us what to do if your ego's out of the way. I can sit back and I can look at the detailing or the shape of a log or the orientation of the building. And I I literally can almost feel the heartbeat that I am responsible for carrying on. I mean, I know that might sound a little wacky, but it's it's literally because it's not about me. I'm just a conduit and a curator of what the homeowner or the like person the the ranch owner needs as well as what you you as a person who's coming to see there is going to need and it's a little bit of like what falls through the the sieve or how the Rubik's cube comes together right of the final experience that you had but I do think about what is the sense of entry when you first see it. This is the choreography of space that I truly believe in. When you drive in that in the you come across the fields and you see the lodge in the background and then you see it has a fire tower In the center, which is telling you point of entry. So I'm drawing you in, and there's a whole sensory experience, even like the gravel under the wheels of the tire, and then you go in and you park. Like I believe in thresholds all over the place, but that's the threshold to the building, right? Where These are pause places of both entry and exit. You know, I hear about how someone's let into a building and how they're let out of a building. That's the place where the family's going to take their family photo that everyone's going to frame and remember when they went to the guest ranch or where you and your group is going to or The Cycling House when they go. I create these eddy out spaces because when you're in a space like Cliff Ranch, there's a lot of activity that oftentimes can be going on. But not everyone A is an extrovert or wants to be an extrovert at all times. People need these spaces to pull out, to safely pull out, which is what you're talking about with at your camp that it allowed people to have these moments to disconnect from the group, to connect to themselves or to connect with one or two other people. And those are these little pauses and these eddies. And then how do we fill that space and how do we take care of you when you're sitting in that space? Right? All this stuff matters, Paige. And so so it's a it's a really a psychological moment that then we figure out how to put the brick and mortar onto to create a true three-dimensional space in which you inhabit. Paige Williams: Ugh wonderful. Thank you for take taking me through how it's made. Wow. Angie Lipski: Right. You don't just walk up to the front door. You're not you're not arriving at a valet in downtown Missoula or downtown LA. There is a different sensory engagement by even hearing your foot on the pea gravel and the little tire tracks. Like these are transportive moments that get you out of where you've been to where you've now you're now coming. How you're arriving. Paige Williams: Love it. I love it. as a practicing architect, you now have this new website and you have this new mission. Tell me about that mission and the sensory experience and the neuroscience behind it and how it might tie into narrative intelligence and why we're having this conversation. I know that's a big question. Angie Lipski: As I looked through the questions we might be talking through, Paige, I just thought you and I are doing the exact same work. You're just bringing it through words, but I just do it through the built environment, you know. I d we're telling the same story. If I'm designing your house or whatever, okay, your your office space. But let me go back to your your bigger question here of the story. And so this is a story that I have lived, and this is completely applicable to your narrative intelligence work. Okay, so when I was a little person, seven years old, I was in second grade, my brother was in fourth, and I was like, What am I gonna get homework? At what point does this school start giving us second grader homework? I mean, come on, people. And my brother was in fourth grade and he had a assignment to design his dream home. So that was this early moment of I of me thinking that a life was possible within the walls and ceiling if certain things happened within it. Okay. So that's my first moment as a little seven-year-old. move forward to I've gone through architecture school. I love architecture, I love everything about architecture school, et cetera. And it's 1996-ish. I'm living in San Francisco and practicing there. And I'm poor church poor as a church mouse, so I'm like reading and all this sort of thing because I don't have any money to do anything really. So this one man in a in 1996, his name is John Paul Eberhard. He was asked by the AIA to create a research arm for architecture, and he was a n neuroscientist. trained by training, I actually don't even remember his exact accolades, but he started writing and I started reading every month these articles about harmony in space, wellness in space. he didn't use the words human thriving, but I was Amelia, like this is about human thriving in space, you know. Paige, it was as if I wrote these articles. I just felt like I I knew everything he was talking about and he was giving metric work, you know, and true neuroscience information and data. And I was like, I I 1000% understand this. And so I thought there's a world that does swirl along in this space where my brain goes, you know, but I don't always talk about it because I don't know, people weren't talking about this. Okay, that's ninety-six. Then fast forward another like five years later, and that's when I took a year. I'd been working for five years, apparently I needed a sabbatical, but I took a year off because I was considering getting a PhD and going the teaching route is the the moral of that story. But I took a year off and I started studying How our senses inform us about space? What you know, we're so visual. What if visual doesn't exist? How do we also learn about space through these other senses? Why are we given these senses? Like, why do we have these senses? You know? So I looked at the five traditional senses plus the sixth sense of the kinesthetic. Because I believe when your body is also part of an experience, the experience has a much whole nother layer of richness and memory and that sort of thing. Okay. So I studied the five traditional senses plus the sixth sense of the kinesthetic. Additionally, I looked at what what is the choreography? Like like what we just talked about at Cliff Ranch. Because think about, I think about architecture as if it's a healing art, as if it's an art, to be honest. So let's think about a movie, a piece of music, a ballet. There's an like when the movie comes on the screen, a tone is set. Is it dark? Is it light? What's the music playing? Is it like a heart racing music that you know like you're already in a sense of danger as you're a participant watching the movie? And then there's high spots and low spots through the through the story, right? because otherwise it'd be like listening to heavy metal the whole time. Like there's no space, there's no space for us in it, in my opinion. For I can't listen to heavy metal. there's no space for me in it, right? But so that became this choreography of when are what should we be dipping into our senses and then when do we mean we do when do we need a space a pause so that the the mind can kind of settle and then when do we dip when do we activate again when do we pause again when do we activate again and then when that whole sequence happens and it happens multiple times over the day and whatever and then when are we as we're moving back out of the sequence how are we let back out in the world and how can we function in the world after we've just been in this other experience right so That was what I was studying when I was doing my master's work. And in this I was thinking, okay, we can create experiences, and experiences have moods, and we tell a story, right? Think about most stories we tell have a setting to them. And the setting is this. It's all this stuff around us, right? and so we have these experiences. These experiences become memories, and these memories become markers of our life, and they're how we tell the story of our life. So to me, The work I am doing is I'm giving I'm creating settings, placemaking for our lives to take place within. And so every story we tell ourselves, whether it's about how we sleep or we're a Native American who's brought up in a white family, or a you know, a dancer, it's all we're we're living in this space at all times. Like I can't believe the whole world is not talking about this at all times, Paige. Paige Williams: What what should we be speaking about? What questions should we be asking ourselves about the Angie Lipski: Well, it's really like is the stuff that surrounds us serving us to our higher potential? There's a whole layer of clutter and things like that. There's a whole psychology of what people do surround themselves with, which I have zero aspirations to get into because I think it's it is those are deep layers of psychology of why do people want a maximal or a minimal aesthetic around them? And why do people feel safe sometimes with a lot of stuff? Why do they not need things? That's a whole amazing psychology that is not my wheelhouse. I mean, that's my next life. But I I just think that any little friction points like, there's 20 pairs of shoes at the front door. Like to me that's a pause. Whereas might people other people might just like go past like there's twenty pairs of shoes thrown at the front door. But to me, that's a pause. But we have to be careful because I don't want to make people crazy in this world. And that's why that's the beauty of true harmonious in like properly engaged design that you don't even notice this swirl of beauty around you or this swirl of ease around you until you go into a place that doesn't have that swirl. Until you go into a space that has the friction that you suddenly start noticing these things. And if you go in the world and you have a little brain like mine, there's a lot of that. And I can I can still be in the world without like, you know, like my brain exploding at all times. But I notice things like, there's a tick in that mechanical like You know, you just did when my my sound was on, my fan was on in here, you know, or that light's the wrong color temperature. And I can see all these things. And so, you know, it like do I need to make everyone a a s an architect, a study of architect? Does that need to be their life goal? Well, I mean, no, but there's really small, simple things we can all do to make our our environment better and function better for whatever that function is we're doing, you know. A a a yoga studio is different than a gym, which is different than your workspace, which is different than a hospital, which is different than a school. And like are the design decisions we're making in all those places, are they reinforcing so that everyone is becoming their best self in those spaces? Paige Williams: where did your belief that our bodies understand a place before our minds do come from? Angie Lipski: Hey, that belief just came from reality. And I know you feel it, and I know whoever's listening to this feels it. You know, you walk into the school, that the minute you walk in, the air's weird, it's stagnant, like the it's the floor's peeling, the paint feels old, the lights off. Really, we're sending our kids in that space to try to go and learn and be like bright and alive. No. Whereas if you walk into a school, these new schools that are be d being designed in America as well as like in Europe and things like that. I mean, we're having some really good projects come online even locally, where the kids walk in, there's a sense of expansion. There's this there's the big spaces for gathering and for it's I mean it sounds a little wacky, but it is for aspiration. It is for connection connecting to the higher being of of knowledge and education. And then, you know, there's little places for I mean neurodivergency has got to be designed into places and spaces, especially where it's larger groups of people. Again, like let's just keep using the school analogy. And the little spot where the kid who who wants to watch but doesn't want to be part of, but wants to tuck into a little corner to read, and that's a the space that's been created for that little human. I mean, how how empowering is that for that person? And it's really, you know, some people use the words like emp empathetic design. I don't really think of it that way, but in truth it is. so so to me, like the school, we walk into a restaurant. You and I share our favorite restaurant in town here. I go to that damn place because I feel so alive and it's organic and it's modern and people know my order and I have these little moments of interaction and the landscape outside is blooming or it's snowing. Like I can feel what's happening outside but I'm protected inside. We all know this this premise that I'm saying. And I I'm not sure I've never read it anywhere. I don't even know if people are talking about it, but it is a reality. When you walk into your home you feel when you walk into your grandma's home and if the air is stuffy and it feels a little dusty on your nose, you feel it, you know. Some of these amazing airports that are happening are s also indicative. The place I mean, don't even get me started on healthcare because I feel like so much of healthcare while it's trying to take care of the patient, it's really in today's world almost housing the equipment and the patient is kind of secondarily because there's all the beep, beep, beep and the poor person's trying to you know, heal. But how are they healing with all these senses being like, you know, beaten on all day long, let alone the poor people who work in a hospital or a medical facility. my God. But I I just think our body knows these spaces when we walk in. Even if you don't think about it, I I I just I I guess I would bet the farm that we all have the experience. I mean you'd have to really be numb in terms of sense of understanding the world around you if if we didn't have this experience all of us. So it it didn't come from anywhere other than the lived experience. Paige Williams: Yeah, yeah, totally. A couple of thoughts, memories came to my mind as you know, my mom was very sick in May and so she was in the hospital for weeks and it was awful. And she didn't think she was gonna come out and she's like, I'm gonna die here, you know. And she didn't. But when we were finding a rehab for her, we had two choices and but she kept saying, I need somewhere light and bright to heal that is calming. Angie Lipski: Yes Yes. Paige Williams: And sh they were gonna send us to this one place. And I went and looked at it and I was like, no, she will die here. Like this is where people, that's what the space said. People come here to die. Angie Lipski: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Paige Williams: And the hospital said that as well, the space itself and how it's designed. And then we went to this newly designed rehab, and it was like, you come here to heal and to breathe. And they were like, we get you out as soon as we can. That's our mission. And every space reflects that. And it was so true. And she healed so quickly then and then went home and is you know, I I just I couldn't believe it. And I really believe that if she had gone to that other place, we would have had a different story. Angie Lipski: One thousand percent. So it's not only your mom, it's your you visit the kids going to visit and the grandkids going to visit mom. It's also the healthcare workers there all day long. So in in place A, where it was just basically a soul sucking environment Paige Williams: Tragedy. Yeah. Angie Lipski: everyone who works are never no one wants to go see grandma on her final days 'cause it feels so terrible to go there. Versus place Paige Williams: Yeah. Angie Lipski: B, it it's almost a rejoicing of of space and of of humanity. in the built environment. Why Paige Williams: Yeah. Angie Lipski: on earth would we ever design in that place A way? Paige Williams: Right, right. And I mean, I don't know what we do with the old spaces. I guess you redesign them, but whew. Angie Lipski: Yes, we can, yes. Paige Williams: She was like, I just need to be able to go out and sit in the sun and they had a space for that. Angie Lipski: Yes. Hear the bird twitter. Hear the bird Paige Williams: such a gift. Yeah. Angie Lipski: twitter. Hear the little kids on the block away playing in the playground. Paige Williams: Yeah. And the sweetness of life after thinking you're gonna die and then to have that experience, it was just really beautiful. It healed her in multiple ways. Let me let me ask you this. How does a place hold a story? Can a place hold a story? And how do you know what space is telling us? Angie Lipski: Yeah, those are good questions. Definitely a place holds a story. And oftentimes a place holds a story that is based on values from the past. This is what's an interesting conundrum. Like, you know, we go into an old building that was built for the values and the time, and it was forward and everything like that, and it still stands today, 60 years later. And that's great, but it no longer speaks to our values or no longer reinforces our life. Think about the world of technology and how that didn't. I mean, God, when we were coming out of you know, when we were in college, I mean I I remember getting a laptop or not a laptop, but a desktop, you know, my fifth year of architecture school, it's a five year program. And like we had email, I like, Who do I email? Like what do I do, right? And so here we are today, right? So so buildings hold stories. And and they speak of who built them, why they were built. Was it political connection? Did people have money? Was it a Carnegie? And they built libraries because they believed in reinforcing a literate world. You know, so so buildings tell stories. We also have and they're from the past. There's us today in the present, and what is the story we need it to tell? How do we need to change it to reinforce who we need to be to give a pro an opportunity for the connections to be made for us in today's world? And there's gonna be a future of these buildings, right? So in truth, we have to figure out what's precious, what do we hold on to, what are the right moves, especially doing preservation work or historic work. And we're going to, in certain stories, we're gonna get things wrong, like, you know, we're gonna demolish or we're gonna do something wrong. But that's also the reality of life, like it's representative of life and the imperfection of life. so there's that component. Another thing about how stories tell buildings is in the way life has changed, just think about like in the old homes, this is how my house is. My kitchen is separated off from the front rooms. And that was when the the cook used to be in the back, right? And separated from the social. And they didn't want the dinging or the smells or anything like that to permeate, you know, the social interaction in the front when they were reading Shakespeare all together or something like this. I don't know. But that has changed, right? Now people typically want to be part of like the conversation when they're cooking and things like this. So like that's an old story that has a story. And maybe it works for some people and maybe it doesn't work for other people. So we can change that story. The staircase, where's the staircase located in the commercial building? Is it like the irresistible staircase that you want to ascend because it's put in the front front and center and you get these beautiful views as you're walking and you get a little bit of kinesthetic, you get a little bit of mobility, you get movement of your body and you feel it. Like these we are telling stories and we are directing people in these places and spaces that we design. so yes I mean it's part of the power and if people understand that's what we're doing with architecture, I think a lot more architecture would be a lot better. Paige Williams: Yeah. Angie Lipski: Not all architecture is created equal. Paige Williams: Beautiful. Is there space from your childhood that is precious to you? And how does it make you feel and what was in it and who was there? And what do you think about that space today and what is the story you tell about it? Angie Lipski: Yeah. Yeah. This base I would say is my grandmother's ranch. You know, I grew up here and we had a small two hundred and seventy acre ranch south of town. And so one thing about growing up in Missoula, one thing I love, Paige, I don't know if you feel this or not, but I love we're in a bowl surrounded by mountains and we live in the valley floor. I love that sense of containment of the mountains. Okay. We drive through these couple big cottonwoods, which were the threshold as we drove in. And they were a threshold because if it was summer, you suddenly had this moment of shade and like you could feel the temperature change just like that. And if it was winter, it still felt like this craggly gate gateway that we passed through, right? And then we were on the circular drive. And we pull up and we always pulled up to the same spot. You can see my grandma cooking in the window. And and then as we walked in again we had a sense of compression and it was like the smell of an old like you know they were out feeding the horses and the cows and the things like that. So there's like almost that smell of like dirt or of earth. Maybe earth is a better like connection to place of earth. And you know you'd see the old Pendleton jackets hanging up and you All that sort of thing. And then as we walked into the main dining room, then we had these huge views. And we grandmother was cooking you could smell the cooking my grandfather was in the front room this panel lined this wood lined house with the limestone fireplace you know and there was a lot of magic internally but it's massively connected externally right and then I I think at the end of my grandma's life too when I would go see her out there there was a huge maple and you know in this Montana summers they were hot. They're hot. They were hot then. We'd sit under this maple tree in those old you know those old folding chairs that you know they like interwoven those interwoven nylon chairs Paige Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Angie Lipski: and we would drink this lemonade that she had made by hand it was super tart hardly any sweetness to it and you could hear the traffic way down in the valley a little bit in the distance. You'd feel the slight breeze moving across the hillside and I mean talk about wonderful moments of you know of of my early life and I I really love this landscape of the mountains. landscape that has the valleys in it. To me there's just something so it's very settling for me. I'm not someone who loves a big ocean landscape because I'm afraid I'm gonna I'm gonna like, you know, rat I'm gonna float away and no one's gonna find me. But I like a sense of containment. So yeah those are that's a my grandmother's house is and it's where my mom grew up and all sorts of things. So there's a lot of layers to that place for me. Paige Williams: Thanks for sharing that with me. I understand so much more about who you are and why behind your architect design because of that story. That was beautiful. Have you ever seen a space reinforce a story that was no longer serving the people in it? Angie Lipski: yeah. yeah, you see this all the time, quite honestly. Yeah. You know, when I go into houses, like if I'm doing a renovation on a house, you go in and people say they want to live in this certain way, and you're like, my god, it's exactly not what it is, you know, which is okay. It's actually good to see why it doesn't work. you know, you go I go into these some of these office buildings when I'm gonna do a new office for people or and I'm just like, god, like you're not bringing out the best. Like people are not coming in here with a bright mind to be to get I mean, you wanna talk about return on investment, create a good office space. Create a space where people can actually flourish. and thrive in the work they're doing because they're not like stuck under this eight-foot ceiling that just goes on ad nauseum that has this weird air and you can't bring any fresh air in. my god I can't stand those kind of spaces but they're really easy to undo so there's plenty of spaces in this world my god plenty of spaces that no longer meet the story and it's not that hard to change it but you have got to know like don't just like do it again with different carpet and different paint sometimes the intervention needs to be a little bit bigger. At the same time, sometimes the intervention can be paint, reorganize furniture, get rid of stuff. Oftentimes the clutter that surrounds people, they have no idea the mental toll it takes on them. So yes, Paige is basically my life. Yes. Yes. Paige Williams: Yes. That's what keeps me employed. Angie Lipski: Right, exactly. Paige Williams: In changing a physical space Help someone become all of who they are before they even understand that's where they're headed. Angie Lipski: Yes, I believe so. And that is powerful. It's powerful if people will have the courage to step into a new space, right? 'Cause they think it's where they want to go. But there's a lot of momentum of who we are that's stuck in here, right? So can these new spaces start to start to move us into that new direction? So I I just think the power of space is undeniable. The power of architecture is undeniable. The power of of tapping into our senses and the life it can give us and the richness it can give us if we know to do it and know how to do it. It it it's like mind blowing to me. And I don't know if it seems scary to anyone. I don't know if that would feel scary to someone else. To me, I can't imagine not saying yes, but I guess it could be scary to certain people and certain personality types. But if I'm ever with that person, they they I hope would know that I am there 1000% to just softly move them into whatever world. Paige Williams: Wow, that's awesome. How do the spaces we move through every day shape our habits, our relationships, and our identity? Angie Lipski: Yeah. That's a tough and an easy question, I have to say, because the things we do every day They're so secular, right? There's these they're so seemingly meaningless. But those are what become the rituals. The repetition makes it a ritual. Those small moments are actually the true choreography and the true stories of our life. You know, we think they're just, I'm just, I'm, I'm waking up. Well, how are you waking up? Are you waking up to be alive in this world? Or are you barely able to get out the world? Like when you go to turn on, I don't know, NPR in the morning, does that what is that sound of of of waking up? What does that do for you? What is that ritual? People who have to start their day with coffee. Maybe the coffee's already made and they can smell it and that helps them wake up. Or they go down and they pick their favorite coffee cup out and they go through the grinding. I mean, coffee the coffee ritual is legit, as we know. I designed spaces that are literally for the coffee ritual. Because somehow that speaks to those people of waking up and like starting their day and coming out of their little interior shell to be into this exterior shell, right? And then like you know, just that movement of getting into your car, your car. Is a built environment, right? Your car is a space too. How does sitting onto that leather or the posture chair? How do all these things how do they make us feel every day? Like we can go. I think people just buy certain experiences because they do know it is how it makes them feel, and that's a niche market. And then there's other people who kind of don't care, and so those are the people who I feel like they're not maximizing themselves. But Not everyone has to be in this, like we don't have to all be the same. There's beauty in that, right? So to me, these rituals and what they tell us and where do you drink water and how do you end your day and how do you start your day, how does all this work together? it does define us, right? And what we put in our body, there's so much opportunity for it to define us, to become it to become our story, to help us connect to others. And the the le the more we can get the kind of the noise, the white noise out of the way so we can figure out who we really are, that allows a deeper connection between like you and me sitting here right now, you know? Or when you're out eating or when you're, you know, working out in your own body. I feel like Those rituals are so important. They seem secular, but they're so sacred. I really believe that we experience life through these series of sensations. We don't think of them that way. But the sensation of opening your eye and the quality of light that comes in, that is a sensation. Putting your foot onto your floor is a sensation. Right? And our senses help us understand sensations, right? And then you move to the ritual of having your first glass of water, turning the knob, or hitting, you know, NPR on or whatever, or starting your coffee. These are all these rituals and these sensations. And so in truth, we're living through in our world just through these series of small sensations that our brain is making sense of. adjust these sensations to you know to maximize our life and it's just a tapestry like what's the tapestry you want your life to be to be not even to be woven within to be what's the tapestry you want your life to be that is my work Paige Williams: If someone is tr in transformation and they're becoming all of themselves, they're becoming more of themselves, they've gone through something. They've gone through what I like to refer to, which you've referred to a couple of times, the threshold moment, which I call the hallway. And Angie Lipski: definitely. Paige Williams: they're coming into a new them, a more full them. What role can place play in that transformation? Angie Lipski: it's so powerful. It can be so powerful. I mean th I think oftentimes about people who I haven't been divorced, knock on wood. but where people want to leave the house they've been in, and so they move into a new house, right? And part of the reason they move into a new house, they want to leave that past behind and they want that new space to help them be that new person, right? So to me, I think that we can put ourselves into these places that do reinforce the new us, the who we want to be. Like we can we can create these places, almost these nodes for our life that we will reinforce the the healthy or the harmony or with the whatever lifestyle we're trying to create. So place does does reinforce all of that. Does this make sense or am I like totally bonkers in what I Paige Williams: no, absolutely. I mean, I was thinking about when I moved out of my marriage home to Angie Lipski: Yeah. Paige Williams: the home I'm in now. And there were, you know, I I downsized from 3,600 square feet to 1,500. And that was powerful. Like to decide what to leave behind and what to donate and like Angie Lipski: Yeah. Paige Williams: what I no longer needed. And it was like a shedding, Angie Lipski: Yes. Paige Williams: And it was so Angie Lipski: okay. Paige Williams: freeing and the more I shed, the more free I was from my old life. Yeah, I was really scared. So in my old house we I had this huge picture window that looked over Mount Sutton all we were up on the mountain. And Angie Lipski: Yeah. Paige Williams: then when it came to me moving out and and and all of that transition, I was so scared to leave the mountain. But what I realized is that the mountain is within me. what I what shifted, what I didn't expect is there's these beautiful French doors that are in the back of this house that open up to these beautiful maples and that Angie Lipski: Yes. Paige Williams: lifts my spirit every morning when it's warm enough to open them and when it's and when it's winter, I have a fireplace that I never had before that comes on at the click of a button and it nourishes my soul. So both places nourishes me even more than the mountain in that picture window. So I was scared to give up place, but what ended up happening really delighted my life. you're the first architect I've interviewed, and the first time we've really put Neuroscience in space to narrative intelligence. And it's been a wonderful conversation. So if you were to write the definition of narrative intelligence, how would you define it? Angie Lipski: relative to my field or with the big world out there. However Paige Williams: Whatever you want to say. Angie Lipski: I think it is the stories we tell ourselves about our world. And so to me, I can't separate my life from the settings in which my life takes place. And that is my story. And then I have these moments of interactions with other people that take place within this. So that is my narrative intelligence of In place, place making. Those are the stories who make me up as a human being. And that's all I've got, quite honestly. You know, this physical stuff can go away. But what ends up living in here, because of the stories I've lived and the places I have lived, those stories, that is my story. That is my intelligence about my life. And the only life I can tell. The only story I can tell. Paige Williams: Okay, I have to ask you this as a follow-up. Talk about the brain and the stories you live with in your brain and how it reflects, or vice versa, our built world that we live in. Angie Lipski: The story we live in in our brain and or the physical world we live in and that reflection on the brain. it's funny, I think that some people can think I think it just gives freedom in truth, w what I'm trying to say. There is no right answer because it's unique to all of us. So your physical space and how affects your brain and then the space you're surrounded by and then how that affects your brain and how your brain affects the space you're living in. It's unique to all of us because bottom line, this comes back to perception and understanding senses. we all are bringing different ingredients to the to the table, quite honestly. You growing up in the South have a way different experience of humidity, of seasons, of people, of of accents, of foods than I do. But that's what makes your story unique. I've I've never even been to the the area of the world where you're from, right? But then when I go there and I see that culture, I'm like, my God, that's so unique and it helps me understand my culture more, right? So all these stories in these places where we are, they help us understand culturally where we fit in in this bigger picture of life. And that's what I I I love about culture, quite honestly. We can never really belong to someone else's culture because the only culture we know and we can really understand is What we've been brought up in, and we think it's the only way, right? And this is part of the built environment, this is part of the natural environment, this is part of the foods we eat, this is part of the you know trees that grow around us, etc. And so to me, the neuroscience of placemaking, it could be really narrow if you never travel, it can be really big if you see a lot of places, and then you understand the uniqueness of place. But I just think these are just lots of little chapters in our brain. We call upon what we need. for whatever we're working on at that moment. And and that's the power. And some people maybe aren't as affected by this, so they don't store as much in the file cabinet of the brain. But I think most people are. I think most people really are affected by what we're talking about here today. Paige Williams: Hundred percent. Angie, this has been awesome. Thank you for being here. Angie Lipski: Thank you, Paige. Paige Williams: Before we close, here's what I'm taking from this conversation about narrative intelligence. Angie made me realize that we don't just live inside stories, we live inside settings that keep telling those stories back to us. A hallway, a hospital room, a kitchen, a school, a house after a divorce. Space can reinforce who we've been, or quietly give us cues about who we might become. One thing she said really stayed with me. The small things that we do every day can look ordinary, but through repetition. They become ritual. The light we wake up to, where we drink our coffee, the path we take through a room, the places where we gather, and the places where we retreat. Angie called those everyday rituals so sacred. And it made me wonder how much of identity is being rehearsed not only through language, but through place and space. And there was something else I did not expect. Angie believes a new environment can begin to move us toward a new life before we fully know how to become that person. not force us, not change us without our participation, but invite us, give us different cues, different possibilities, a different way of inhabiting ourselves. And that raises a question I want to keep carrying through this narrative intelligence project. What if changing the story sometimes means changing the room? Not because architecture determines who we become, but because the spaces around us may be part of the narrative that we are living inside. What is your environment asking you to repeat? And what might become possible if the space around you started telling a different story? Join the conversation. Take the narrative quotient assessment at storykeys.co and subscribe to 100 Stories, the Narrative Intelligence Project, wherever you listen or watch. And please share this episode with a friend. Give us a rating and comment. It really helps us grow.