Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Andy McCabe. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Andy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

Being in the hospitality design realm, it is incredibly satisfying to experience the spaces and places we help make, and share the enjoyment with the other patrons. Being a fairly “non-spotlight” type person (probably just awkward!), I’d rather observe people talking about how they love the place than being praised for saying “I did this!” Being in San Diego, we have our hands on a lot of brewery tasting rooms/facilities, so it’s very cool to be amongst the end users taking advantage of a place to be comfortable in. With legacy being such a loaded word, and starting this topic of conversation with a specific example, I’d say the broader idea here is that I hope we as Tecscape can look back one day and see that we helped bring the best feelings possible to a lot of people through creating built environments that are there as an escape from normal life.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

At an early age, I loved to draw. I think most kids love to draw, but I was obsessed. In art class I would do whatever the activity was, and in the other classes I would draw (and learn math & all the other core curriculum well enough I suppose). I was fortunate to have parents that saw this drive and encouraged me to “become an architect some day”, so this was in my head at an early age. I loved traveling to big cities, mostly looking upward at the tallest buildings, many with inferior design to the buildings below, but I think these overall experiences shaped my passion for design of the overall built environment. Naturally I went to architectural school. Completely different than I expected and a lot of this had to do with relearning how to think. I hope I never stop learning how to think. At Tecscape, we cannot lose focus on reinvention. Much of what we do is to help companies develop and realize their brand through their building or space. Repeating ourselves could be detrimental to that goal. Also I think I get bored pretty easily, and I like the challenge. I certainly have architects throughout history that inspire me, but when I look at artists like Bowie or Radiohead I can only wonder how the hell they reinvented their sound so frequently and so successfully. Something to strive for, right?!

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

The side hustle turning into a full time business is exactly what happened. Tecscape Design was actually formed as a business almost 2 years prior to what it became as the main gig. It was a place where I could do creative design projects that were outside of the boundaries of where I was working at the time. Some projects were furniture design, and others were architectural elements within a space. Then came a restaurant project from a friend’s referral. Then eventually came 2 larger projects both showing up at the same time. There was a decision to make…take it all on and be mediocre for my employer and underperforming for these new projects or make the jump to Tecscape as the rest of my career ’cause there’s no turning back! I will say it was well worth it, but be prepared to manage a work/life balance and be certain the passion for what you do is true.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think that Tecscape shares a time of necessary resilience with many other small businesses. You may have guessed it, the early part of the Covid pandemic. With some very good momentum coming out of 2019, a couple months into 2020 brought a few upcoming projects to a sudden halt. While political arguments later overshadowed the conversations, the initial unified “we’re all in this together” mantra will always keep me optimistic. Fairly quickly we were able to reconnect with many of our current and past clients, contractors, and other consultants to see how we could work together to adapt to the shutdowns. First it was working with food & beverage clients to creatively become to-go oriented establishments, then it became creating outdoor dining experiences. I’ve always been huge on collaboration, and I feel that this put the importance of it into more focus. A collaborative community always thrives, but this made me realize it is necessary to survive the uncertain times.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tec-scape.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tecscapedesign/?hl=en

Image Credits
Lucianna McIntosh Haley Hill Photography