Origin Stories: Victor Body-Lawson On Embracing Design And The Earning Potential Of Development

This series delves into the myriad ways people enter the commercial real estate industry and what contributes to their success.

Victor Body-Lawson, principal of New York-based Body Lawson Associates, is a man of many talents. Preeminently an architect and designer as the head of the firm he founded in 1993, Body-Lawson is also a developer, an educator on the faculty of Columbia University, and a painter of abstract art whose many works adorn common spaces in the buildings he has designed.

A native of Nigeria, Body-Lawson came to the United States to pursue higher education, attending Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and studying architecture in graduate school at Columbia University. Enthusiastically advocating for collaborative design, arts integration and architectural education, Body-Lawson has largely specialized in affordable housing. 

Body-Lawson’s work has included, among many other projects, the reinvention of the 38-building, 1,340-unit Diego Beekman Houses in the Bronx, completed in 1998. In 2011, he designed the Erbograph, now known as Dr. Muriel Petioni Plaza, an affordable housing development for low-income seniors that also was the first development of its kind to be LEED Silver-certified.

His firm and WXY Architecture + Urban Design are collaborating on the 740-unit La Peninsula mixed-use campus in the South Bronx, which is now completing its first phase. Body-Lawson has also made the case that more architects should serve as their own real estate developers, such as when his firm worked with Brownstone Partners on affordable housing and with the Baltimore Redevelopment Project.

Beyond these works, Body-Lawson has taught a generation of emerging architects as a professor and critic from 1999, bringing many of them to Ghana to share urban design ideas globally. 

Bisnow: How did you get introduced to CRE?

Body-Lawson: I grew up in a family that was always in construction. My father was a surveyor. In fact, he was one of those who surveyed the boundaries of Nigeria before independence. I was always exposed to construction and measurements and the land in one way or another.

Bisnow: What was your first job in CRE? 

Body-Lawson: When I graduated from Columbia — that was in '84 — I joined a group in Harlem who, under an HPD (Housing Preservation and Development) program, built a building through our own sweat equity and then had ownership of it. It's a program that's still going on today.  

There were 10 of us working on a building on First Street. I worked with the architect on it, because at the time I wasn't licensed, to come up with the layout for the 10 units in the building. Then we proceeded to do the construction ourselves.

Bisnow: What kind of education, certification or official training do you have in CRE? How critical was it to landing your first big role? 

Body-Lawson: When I decided to go to school, initially I chose advertising, but I took an architectural course and realized that I was way ahead of my classmates. So I just fell into it. I got a master's degree in architecture at Columbia, where I studied under Max Bond, the chair of the architecture division. He hired me to work at his firm. My first job as an architect was at Davis Brody Bond, which I joined in 1984.

Bisnow: What is one skill you wish you had coming into CRE?

Body-Lawson: At Columbia, I didn't take my other courses as seriously as the architecture and design courses. I wish I had done that, since it might have saved me some trial and error later. 

There's a certain way that real estate developers think that's somewhat different from architects. Architects tend to have an open-ended approach to design, while developers are budget-minded and budget-oriented. I'm generalizing, of course, but I eventually learned there's a point at which you have to stop.

Bisnow: What were you doing before you got into CRE?

Body-Lawson: I never actually worked in advertising. That just didn't work out because I wanted to be in a profession in which you built something and whose parts you feel. I want to be part of the process from the beginning to the end, and I realized advertising wasn't going to give me that gratification. 

Bisnow: Can you remember a moment where you felt in over your head or you worried this industry wasn’t for you? Did you ever think about quitting? 

Body-Lawson: No, I've never thought about that. Architecture is not an entirely lucrative field, but this is what I do. I've never looked back. It's something that I enjoy immensely. I like the puzzle of putting things together.

There's a challenge in owning your own firm, as in, how do you keep salaries paid? What do you do for overhead? That's where real estate development comes in for me. That's why I try to make it part of my business.

Bisnow: What were your early impressions of the industry, good and bad? How has your impression changed?

Body-Lawson: Early on I realized that doing smaller projects, which is good for some people, wasn't lucrative enough to create a strong business. I know a lot of people have figured out a way to do one-, two- or three-family projects, but in my case, I figured that in order to be really successful, I'd have to do larger projects. So now our focus is on multifamily residential projects, developing projects with 50 units and above.

Bisnow: Have you had a mentor or sponsor? How did that person shape your future in CRE? 

Body-Lawson: My architecture mentor was Max Bond, who was one of the preeminent New York architects of his time. He helped me formulate my philosophy about building and being socially conscious about giving back to the community and creating architecture that is empowering to communities that are disenfranchised. 

Bisnow: What is a key lesson someone taught you, either kindly or the hard way?

Body-Lawson: You have to analyze the projects. That's the most important thing. I've made mistakes along the way by not really focusing on the market analysis.

Bisnow: What do you warn people about when they join the industry?

Body-Lawson: The same lesson. It is absolutely important to analyze your projects properly. Everything from its inception to the design, the financing and the management or the scale of the project over time. If one doesn't do that, it's almost as if you're setting off in business without a good business plan or not really having any goals. That's the key thing that I would tell anyone. 

Bisnow: If you could do your career all over again, what would you change? 

Body-Lawson: Given the trajectory that I am on now, which is architecture and real estate development, I would be focused a little more on real estate development. I still like the tactile nature that architecture brings to the profession and maybe people wouldn't believe in creating a hybrid of part architect, part developer. But I believe that's the new paradigm by which we produce things.