Hidden Gems: Meet Aaron Olko of tlrs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Olko.

Aaron, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in Michigan, just north of Detroit. The area I grew up in was hilly and heavily forested, with more lakes than I’ll ever know about. Subsequently, I fell in love with the land at an early age, playing outdoors all four seasons and learning how nature worked. When I was in high school I spent as much time as I could in the art studio. The school was brand new, had a panopticon plan, and looked like a post-modern volume study with different shapes defining the roofline of the buildings. It was built into a sloping hill and the studio had a sweeping view of a state park with an evergreen forest. I remember painting and drawing the landscape a lot during that time. Architecture was a natural fit for me because of my love for art, drawing, tectonics, building things, etc, but it took a while to figure it out. I was more into sports and my first passion was snowboarding, so I wanted to pursue it as a career. It didn’t pan out due to injuries, so after graduating I made the decision to change my career path. I worked a bunch of odd jobs – in restaurants (as a cook and a waiter), at a printing press as a graphic designer, in construction, mowing lawns, etc. My favorite job was a summer gig on a logging crew in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I spent the summer clearing trees to gap a “rails to trails” path through a state park. Every morning I got to walk through the forest with a chainsaw and spent my day playing in sawdust. As much as I loved it, I didn’t want to do it forever because it was hard work and didn’t pay well. During that time I was studying economics at a community college. I enjoyed the subject but couldn’t see myself making a living out of it. After a gut check, my mother suggested I enroll in an architecture course and that was it; when I learned how Cesar Peli designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, I was hooked. Before I knew it I had a Bachelors Degree in Architecture was headed to China to study the rapid urbanization (this was the 2000s). During and after my undergrad I was working for an Urban Design office in Detroit. My team and I were evaluating urban land value by overlaying visual data sets to draw conclusions about areas of “intensity.” Detroit is known for its ghastly abandonment, which naturally made our work unique. We were doing a lot of community outreach to promote our research and find ways to make it real. It was a formative time in my career.

I wound up in LA after spending time in China and reflecting on the next steps in my career. I wanted to pursue graduate studies, and SCI-Arc was my top choice. I studied there during the Eric Owen Moss years and it taught me a lot about thinking outside the box and about architectural and cultural theory. After grad school I wanted to lay low because I was pretty burned out. I wanted to pursue a PhD to write a dissertation about the urban development changes of pre-French and post-French colonization of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City, but I couldn’t handle any more school at the time.

Around 2019, after working for some mega-corps, I started getting the itch to go out on my own. I had dreams of developing my own style and conducting my own research, but didn’t feel like I would be able to achieve them by working for others (no offense to my old bosses and mentors). During the pandemic, I took a job as a Project Manager working for one of the premier design practices in West LA. The project I was managing was very interesting, but I didn’t stay long. I learned a ton from the owner of that practice in a short time..

When I left that job I knew it was time, so I moved back to Michigan to test my business savvy in a safe environment. I had cold feet about working in LA because of the regulatory environment, so I wanted to take one step at a time and focus on learning how to work with clients without a safety net. I met an investor at a coffee shop in Traverse City, Michigan and he introduced me to a local builder who introduced me to a bunch of clients. I was looking for work for about two months, then suddenly had a full book of projects. Before I knew it I had a civic client as well. Business in Michigan was growing, but I had to get back to LA, I stopped taking projects in the mitten and began looking for work in the southland. I worked from home at first, to keep overhead low, but after a year I had a couple projects so I moved into an office in Hermosa Beach. Today, my business is growing in a way I’m very proud of. I’m super proud of the work I’m doing. I have great clients and an outstanding team.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think anyone has a smooth road as an entrepreneur. If they do, then they’ve been lucky to have a lot of help (or a lot of luck). I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of help from my family, friends, and colleagues. It seems that any professional services practice takes a lot of time to build a trusted name and brand. As an Architect, the inherent challenges of design and construction are difficult enough, let alone trying to carve out a niche for what one believes in. The challenges I’ve faced have been around the confluence of timing, economic conditions (current events, economic conditions, competition), and of course hard business lessons as an entrepreneur. Given how my practice has grown and how my client list has developed, I’m extremely grateful and wonder what challenges I’ll face next.

We’ve been impressed with tlrs, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I’ve had folks ask me what style I design and I always have trouble answering the question without coming off as being harsh. I don’t try to mimic styles, because styles are the byproduct of something in the past. The zeitgeist of a place and time created the elements of a style, which we see as canonical now (streamline modernism, deconstructive postmodernism, craftsman, victorian, prairie, farmhouse, etc.). I don’t feel comfortable mimicking these styles. A lot of architects continue to push for modernist principles, which I understand because of the need for efficiency (consider Le Corbusier’s Five Points), but I don’t see the value in eliminating foundational components. I also don’t agree with everything being painted black and white. I like color, I like natural materials, I prefer to use less plastic, and I like to design with components that are influenced by other places. I really dig wabi sabi and material imperfection. A few years ago Rem Koolhaas directed the Venice Biennale and his prompt to designers was to consider the foundational elements of architecture from the past century. I found the end result inspirational. Every time I begin a project, I look at historical elements that relate to the context, the conditions, the program, and the client’s preferences to influence the design decisions I make. I also strive to find ways to blur the line between what’s man-made and what’s natural, because I deeply believe that connecting with nature is one of the healthiest things we can do, regardless if we are at home, at work, shopping, being entertained, whatever it is. All that being said, I think my style is uniquely my own and is what separates me as an individual from a machine or an AI agent.

The zeitgeist of our time is influenced by political unrest, commercialization of space travel, artificial intelligence, social media, and a blitz of technological advancements that are unfolding far faster than we can comprehend. But at the same time, advancements in nutrition are going backwards to go forwards. Efforts to practice organic farming, to reduce meat consumption and avoid added hormones, to replace processed foods with whole, raw foods, and to recognize the importance of our body’s immune system to fight off sickness are fundamental things that the western world has traded in exchange for technological advancement over the last century. One could argue the same is true for construction. The damage caused by the raw material sourcing, manufacture, transport, and construction of buildings and the materials of buildings has caused significant damage to the earth and our bodies (considering how toxic chemicals and microplastics enter the body in part from the exposure to materials). The funny (and sad) thing is that we have always known how to build with the environment, because humans have been doing it since the dawn of civilization. The development of our current construction technique is relatively new in the span of human existence however we have new tools to help us build naturally in more efficient and effective ways (sadly the regulatory environment is blocking our progress). What I’m trying to say is that I see architecture going backwards to go forwards. The new “high-tech” architecture is “low-tech.”

If I were to put labels on my specialty or style, I consider myself as a “Biophilic” architect and my work as “Low-Tech Post-Modernism.” I probably shouldn’t label it though, someone else should do that when I’m too old to practice or gone.

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Hard to say. I’m fortunate to have had a wonderful childhood. My parents loved me and both were involved in raising me. We used to go camping a lot, all over Michigan and those may be some of the most formative experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tlrs.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tlrs_works

Image Credits
Mike Yoon