Androsky Lugo founded Framing Futures Architectural Firm (FFAF) in 2019 after a storied career of working in top companies across the country (including his own father’s firm). He works with board members, architects, and ancillary staff to ensure that his buildings hold up to the incredibly high standards he sets for himself. Here, he details more about how he works through this process, and what matters most to him by the time a project wraps up.
Androsky Lugo on Learning and Growing
The expression ‘live and learn’ is an oft-used one, but it makes an assumption that people are learning from their mistakes. There are many who end up making similar errors again and again, either because they don’t want to admit they’re wrong or because they can’t see where they’ve gone wrong in the first place.
Over the past two decades of his career, Androsky Lugo has worked hand-in-hand with professionals from all backgrounds. In 2012, he planned and designed renovations to public service spaces alongside the San Francisco Historic Buildings Committee. In 2015, he designed the first structure built entirely out of sustainable or recycled materials after being contracted by the Hagman’s Group of NYC.
Throughout all of it, he noted what worked when it came to executing a schedule and what didn’t. When he works with his team today, he tries to use those lessons to make him a more effective leader. He thinks long-term about the ramifications of his choices. As an architect, he has to have the social skills to work with others, but he also has to have the courage and confidence in himself about the best way to move forward.
A Higher Purpose
Androsky Lugo wants the public and commercial spaces he designs to be functional. Whether it’s a courthouse or a convenience store, people use these buildings every day. Their aesthetics and configuration ultimately do affect their quality of life. Above all else, though, Lugo is concerned with how his buildings affect all of us — not just the people who walk into or see the buildings.
Real estate development is an active contributor to climate change. It affects what space can be used and who can use it. Actions that take place today in Southern California can affect people around the world, and Lugo wants FFAF to promote equality in its structures. His leadership challenges those around him to think differently about everything from where materials are sourced to how machinery impacts the air quality in the immediate neighborhoods.
Androsky Lugo has learned that ideas are a great starting point, but what really matters is how those ideas are carried through. Whether it’s affordable housing or narrowing down the right architect(s) for each project, he’s learned to look at the bigger picture at every stage of the way. Environmental responsibility, social justice, respect for his colleagues: these are the building bricks that have allowed his firm to really flourish in one of the most competitive areas in the country.
