"That was two weeks ago."
"Sounds right."
My chopsticks pause halfway to my mouth. I ate four pieces before I trusted my voice enough to say thank you.
Tom taps his screen. "Connectivity section. What do you want to lead with?"
I swallow and pull up my outline. "Pedestrian flow. We need to show how the promenade connects to the transit hub without creating bottlenecks during peak hours."
"Got it." He scrolls through his files. "I have the morning commuter sequence from last Thursday. Seven-fifteen to eight-thirty. Fifteen-minute intervals."
He drags the folder onto the shared drive. Thumbnails populate my screen. Clean light, visible foot traffic, the pergola structure creating rhythm in the background.
I click on the 7:45 shot. "This one."
"Hmm…" He leans over his keyboard to see my screen.
"The angle shows the sight lines from the station entrance to the waterfront. You can see both destinations in one frame. That's the argument."
"Okay. But look at this one." He pulls up the 8:00 shot. Same angle, more people in the frame. "You get the flow. You see how they're using the space."
I study both images. He's right. The second one has life. Movement. The first one is clean, but it's sterile.
"Use both," I say. "Sequence them. Structure, then activation."
He grins. "Now you're thinking like a photographer."
"Don't push it."
He laughs.
We've been doing this for three hours and it doesn't feel like work anymore. It feels like collaboration. Like we're building something together instead of defending our separate territories.
I pull up the next section—material transitions—and Tom opens three files at once. I know which one I need before he says anything.
"The noon shot," I say.
He drags it into the shared folder. "Show me."
I point at the screen. "The light angle. It's the only one that shows the depth of the overhang without washing out the glass."
"Okay. Now you're just showing off."
I smile despite myself. "You started it."
He shakes his head, smiling too. The ease is natural. I forget to be careful. I forget to keep the professional distance I've been maintaining since the dawn shoot.
"Material palette," I say, clicking to the next section. "I want to show the glazing detail here. It's the piece that makes the whole facade concept work."
Tom scrolls. "I've got the southeast elevation at three different times of day. You can see how the glass reads differently depending on the light angle."
"Good. I'll need all three." I drag his images into the layout and start positioning them against the section drawing. "The Board needs to understand that this isn't just aesthetic. Aldridge signing off on the concept last week only gets us in the room on Thursday—the Board holds the actual funding. So this has to visually justify the cost."
“Walk me through it.”
I pull up the detail drawing and zoom in on the section cut. “Look here.” I grab a chopstick and point to the line where the glass wall meets the structural grid.
“Most firms would just use standard framing. You’d see the breaks every twelve feet where the panels connect.”
