We are who we are. And there's a beautiful honesty in that in saying, We really love what we do. We're gonna have fun while we do it. And why not?
Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture UK I am your host Ryan Willard and stay I have the great pleasure of speaking with Peter Esposito and Liam Spencer cofounders of anomaly, an award winning London based architecture practice who specialize in creative office spaces and injecting new life into old buildings, no matter what sector. So Peter was a graduate of the Bartlett and the Ravensbourne University. He's got a decade of experience working with internationally renowned practices. He has a great depth of experience from the commercial to the playful and has been involved in notable commercial retrofits and lead on a number of residential schemes across London. Liam studied at University of Edinburgh and Westminster and oversees all retrofit projects, employing his skill for storytelling and unlocking value to deliver massing and strong brands for leasing. His unrelenting attitude to design enables him to provide support to clients decision making, in developing a brief protecting commercial interests and producing high quality architecture anomaly have recently won planning and listed building consent for 40,000 square foot of grade to space. In the heart of shortage. There'll be interconnecting seven buildings fitting a new core within listed shear walls retaining and refurbishing key listed elements delivering a new fully accessible terrace landscape to the rear of the building, adding mezzanines on ground floor and level four and featuring a staircase running through the building to name just a few. We've also recently been announced as finalists in the London construction awards for architecture firm of the year. This was a great conversation, I spoke with Peter, a couple of years back, I think during the pandemic. And since then the business went through an enormous amount of changes. They've rebranded and restructured the company and the way they look, the way they feel the way that they communicate. This has been very impactful for them in terms of opening new doors, developing new relationships, and being able to work with new types of clients. We spoke about the impact of COVID-19. And what happened with the business what kind of facilitated the the change how they maintain their relationship with third way, what that relationship is now how they support each other how they work together, and the existing harmony that's been created. And we also look at the company culture, and their hiring philosophy, how they build team, how they've been able to foster and maintain a very unique sense of personality, and a unique creative vision in the practice. Really fascinating conversation. Brilliant to be speaking with Peter, and Liam again, so sit back, relax and enjoy, Peter Esposito and Liam Spencer. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures, flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how we might be able to help you please follow the link in the information. Peter and Liam, welcome back to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
All good, man. All Yeah, Parker. You're right. I'm, I'm very good. You like you always, never tell anyone that you've just spoken for the past 15 minutes as if we just chatted.
I know. I know. That's part of the secret. That's the Hollywood. That's the Hollywood Yeah, element of it. It looks like podcasting. We've just arrived on a call and it's it's all fresh. That's why That's why when when the pre conversation gets too good, I have to stop it. Because sometimes it burns up all the all the all the juice. And I asked, I asked the same question again in the podcast, and then you're then you go, we just spoke about that. I was like, No,
I got loads of juice. Don't worry about it. So Fine. Good.
So a pleasure to be speaking with you. Again. The last time we spoke was a few years ago. It was either kind of just before COVID Or one of or like maybe after the first lockdown or something like that. So a lot has changed. And last time, you were still under the umbrella of Third Way. Now, your anomaly. I know that there's been a kind of a big restructuring of the business, there's been an uncoupling of the brand. You guys continue to be one of the disruptive horses in, in the UK for Office fitouts and producing an extraordinary caliber of really cool sexy looking office buildings and you're being lapped up by lots of developer commercial clients all over the all over the place. And I remember last time, when I visited your office, I was just massively impressed with the kind of business acumen, the way that the business was being set up the way that you were being very thoughtful and commercially minded, and also retaining a very strong sense of design identity in all of the work that that you're doing. So I guess my first question is, it was like, why the why the big change? What happened? What was what, what, let's start, what was what has been the change? Is it just been superficial? Name change? And what was the thoughts? What's been the strategic play behind it?
You hear me, I think the ticket? Yeah,
I think, I suppose one of the good things to come out of the pandemic allowed people a bit more time, time to think of I suppose we weren't, perhaps as heads down in the business as usual. And the sort of the projects you were describing, then there were kind of moments that you could be a bit more, I suppose introspective, or worse kind of navel gazing and spending a bit too much time on it. But what it did allow us to kind of take a sit back and say, Okay, are we still doing the right thing with the third way link. And while as much as we were doing that, from our side, the third way business themselves were doing it, they were going through, obviously, that business is much more reliant than we are on the actual office, fit out sector. And while that was, I suppose at its lowest during that period, both businesses I guess, said, what are we doing? Are we doing the right thing, and we're doing it for the right reasons. And this kind of coupled at the same time with some of that growth that you were talking about? Suppose from that three to four year period of projects for us getting larger, and being procured in different ways, perhaps some of the turnkey setup that worked really well with third when that first couple of years, wasn't working so well. But actually all the same benefits were there. This idea, and I suppose we'll talk a bit about it. And this about the kind of punish shame that commerciality that we have the fact that we didn't want a website until we had some real projects, we never wanted to be paper based architects, all these principles that were founded to, were still very much true. We were just going in a different trajectory, I suppose from a business perspective of how things were tended, how they work. So it felt like the right time to do it. And I suppose the nice thing was both sides, or both all aspects of the business group came together in a really coherent way. And it wasn't we haven't fallen out with them. It wasn't this big kind of theatrical. We hate you moment. It was a real I suppose. There was a calm with it wasn't the P.
Yeah, I think the it was. The nice piece of it is, though, we've gone through a massive growth periods while they've been very successful, they'll be running what 3040 50 years, and they are an incredibly successful designer build office fit out firm. Me and Liam, you know, since running this practice, for the past six and a half years, we've had really great success and it's been a real privilege to be part of that we've been involved in some really interesting and exciting schemes across London and beyond. And where we were sharing sort of part of that brand, it was there was a mutual benefit within that those first real three years, but as a third way, we're really focusing on what they were really good at, which is, you know, on the Fit outside of internal fit outside of buildings, predominantly, we were looking at actually much larger, more complex retrofit buildings that were going into their sort of five to 25 million pound projects, which didn't fit the profile of design build practice that is a really good problem to have for both parties, they want to continue to be successful within their market and we want to continue to be successful in our market. So being able to sit or stand their own two feet and being you know separate but very successful businesses actually the rebrand of that was to kind of focus and you know, define that we are a standalone design an architecture business that is still has a sister company that we are still very much you know, our parent company still say within the same office, but we are doing different things and that's been actually quite nice moment.
So perhaps he could you could outline then the way it was and the structure know how it was previously? And what exactly has been the shift?
Yeah, I think when we, I mean, the key thing is, even from day one, we were separate companies in separate entities. And I think that often often gets lost in the story there. Because I suppose, Pete and I just kind of didn't have a better idea for a name on. And, and there was, there was a real kind of mutual benefit of being part of that ecosystem. Third, already existed, it was a juggernaut. It had a kind of client base there that we tapped into so quickly, and almost accelerated our growth, I think within our first three years, we'd built out 10 or so projects, which is kind of unheard of, in some of those kind of smaller setups. So that that part of it was was great. I think what we were also exploring at the time was, I guess, part of that disruptive attitude of do things need to take as long during tender processes. And the whole, I suppose Third Way mission at that time was to grow its construction on into different fields and different areas and almost a line with us under their elements, that group that came in to offer either a full turnkey solution. So that's obviously from cradle to grave in terms of a full project, almost entirely managed through to various versions of that. I think that in some ways is the real key differentiator that changed. So it was the idea that the decoupling of that we were always linked to that. And I think that the kind of main thing, I suppose building on something Pete said, is this, the brand change, gives us our own narrative, or allows us to have our own narrative and a really good client of ours. Chip. Sorry, good.
So it was it was that always the case previously, when you wander the third way, brand that that? So third way, remind me the the different segments of it, you've got kind of interior fit out, you guys the architecture, there's a real estate component.
And I think this is this is that moment of kind of change that we're talking about and flux of there was an idea, this idea that call it seven years ago, eight years ago, where all these things come together. And they did. And in lots of instances, it works really well. Some of our best projects, perhaps were delivered through that. Province Street is a beautiful example of a Victorian warehouse that we extended by a couple of floors. We were technically part client, architects, interior designer and contractor for that. And then ended up we visited
and we paid. Yes, yeah, yeah, I did. Okay, yeah.
So and again, and that's kind of the proof of the concept that it could work. But I think what was happening to Pete's point is we were growing into worlds where Third Way wouldn't feel comfortable tender in it. But then in some instances, and I think this is a kind of a key, not critique, but it was a key big point for us. We were getting held back occasionally by what people thought they knew we did. And that's, and that's a real key one, that third way as a brand was really is really strong. But people naturally just assumed, on a couple of instances, perhaps we even before we'd entered the room, people thought they knew what we did. Yeah, because they knew a story of a third way.
I think I said that's a that's actually happened quite a few times to the point of, you know, most parties aren't just one client, you might have a DMA. But they're funded by a foreign foreign fund, that might just type in third way or have an idea that was and we're trying to bid or trying to develop a 20 million pound scheme, which is two three fours on top massing on the back, and they go, why if I want to fuck up, I got to fail company doing this. Like, that's insane. And it's, there's no point having that argument. You know, because I've always made my mind up, you know, the initial Perception is everything. So it was a really hard work to do that when they could just go to the likes of dinky wise, different rebellion, to have a really easy conversation to say, we're getting the best outfits to work on this. And I think, where we changed that brand, it was almost an immediate uplift in the the types of work that we engaged on, and the ease of the conversation of which we could have it we often tucked around. As we suffered through COVID, as everyone did, as it was started to get a sense of coming out of it. That's when we had, you know, engaged in this full rebrand and actually what we're going to do or what we're focusing on, as we launched the brand, we picked on five major retrofit jobs each circa like farmers 1000 pounds of feed value, or those four major developers or the institutional funds are fed I think well established family funds. And we went through them without any sort of equivocation around our capacity or ability to do that no conversation around, are we a fit out firm, we are a standalone traditional architecture practice. And that really set the tone. And we wonder within three weeks of each other, so it's a massive pivot for us in terms of, is it gonna work? Is it not? Have we made the wrong decision? Sure, we've kept that brand because there were so many benefits for us. And there was a slight nervousness, and we hadn't, you know, number of conversations with our CEO on the matter as well around whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. And actually, as they came in, it was very much a Yeah, that's right. And off the back of those, again, we've seen that sort of cyclical growth over the past two, two and a half years.
And I think, I think weirdly, it's been mutually beneficial to Yeah, and I think this comes down to the underwrite here is the owning your own narrative, and owning your own brand is actually probably way more important than we, we kind of thought I think in those early years. I think from a business perspective, the allure or the shine of having a kind of pre made Black Book of clients was obviously the key kind of driver for being part of the juggernaut. But then when it reaches a point that our own our own identity, I suppose, was not held back in any way. Because on a day to day basis, it was the Yeah, I was going to use the example Pete a really good client of ours, Jamie said, the the kind of new brand allows us that second line. And I think that was such a kind of clever thing to say in the sense that even if that their first responses who are anomaly, it gives us the opportunity to say who we are, while we were a third way, there was an element of like pizza, again, alluded to, people might have known a version of it, or they might get a different version. And we were almost coming from not behind the eight ball. But we were coming from a position where we maybe have to over explain what we were. And actually, by having our own ownable thing in the same way that Yeah, but to go home and do different, all these amazing architecture is it just maybe allowed us to compete on a fair level with them?
It's interesting, it's, it's very difficult to kind of, you know, when you're when you've got a strong, already well established brand, and there's been a new kind of niche, or a new kind of service offering that's been developed, to not always be thought of what the original brand was. I mean, it's very rare that you see that in business, I mean, Virgin is probably the one of the, like, an exception to a company that actually does it quite well, where you've got, you know, you've got coke and Coke, two airplanes. It's I mean, that's, that's, you know, that's, that's quite, quite unusual. But the power of the of an existing brand, and you're always kind of competing competing with it. And that wasn't necessarily the intention of what you set up the architecture, space for, could totally that type that totally makes a lot of a lot of sense.
How think actually, what was sorry, I was gonna say what was actually interesting at that time was that it was a two way debate. It was actually as we were doing the rebrand exercise was was, do we lean so hard into the third way brand and drop all the sub names, and everything just becomes third way? And it's almost like, like sky? Or something like that? It's a name, it's a brand? Or do we go entirely the opposite way? And I think it's it that process was really interesting, actually going through it with a couple of branding agencies on the benefit of each. And I think we're in the right place now. 100% of your marriage.
Yeah. Could you walk us through that process that you went through with the branding agency, and and what were the benefits of each and why you decided to go the pathway? You did? Yeah,
cause I think, again, like I suppose having a little bit more time to be introspective or reflective, actually allowed us to wait for things that had worked and hadn't that on a day to day you just kind of steamroll over. And it's like, okay, that's not quite working, but it's almost there. Whereas when, I guess an external company, I suppose we're probably in some ways for our brand and agency, probably one of the worst clients that they worked with at the time, because we think we can do it. Like we were like, Oh, we're creative. We can come up with some great ideas. We don't need you. And actually, that early discovery process was so fantastic. We worked with them stepladder on our brand. And they were great at just listening initially and presenting things back to us that were in different directions. And I think, Pete, you and I both said at that time, it was just actually someone else replaying your story. was a great thing to then hear back and say actually, that's way more important than I thought it was.
It was it was is one of the most enjoyable things I think we've done actually as a practice. And it was, it came at a time actually haven't gone through that first cycle, you know, COVID, or otherwise, we've gone through a three four year cycle at that point, we were growing very quickly, we had lots of success, we've maybe going too quickly, you know, on reflection, and actually, were able to deal with almost like couples, couples counseling, you know, we were sat in a room together, we weren't too, you know, we had different ideas of what we were good at, or what were successes may have been. And it was nice to have been given the time to sit back and actually reflect of what we had done really well, areas that we hadn't done so well. And actually, what we want to do in the future, I think we got, you can get so caught up in trying to win the next project trying to grow in a successful manner that being focused actually can be far more beneficial for the long run, rather than trying to, you know, try and win everything, you know, we were looking at anything to the degree if we thought it might have worked at the end of it. And actually part of that cycle was around being exacting on wants to go and what we wanted the brand to be and it came as wants to be experts in commercial retrofit office. And everything really started to kind of focus on that key point and resulted like a saying, really nice kick of work. So it was was an interesting process, which I think was it nine months? It went on for.
Yeah, and I think on the like to go back to your question, I think the the, like the opposite side of that, in terms of the benefit of doing the all consuming brand is almost the exact opposite in a way of rather than being very focused on okay, this is exactly what we want. It was almost How can we be everything to everyone, but in in a way that doesn't water down the brand too much. And actually, that the kind of leaning into the third way aspect was, we almost become this kind of powerhouse company where someone could come to the front door and say I need to do X, Y, or Zed. And we'd almost take you into the labyrinth and they'd be the answer within. And they're very, very different branding stories in a way that the anomaly narrative allowed us to be, I suppose much more. Much more apt than that our personalities, and also the personality of the team is very, very front and center. Whereas the branding story for something a lot bigger, you're appealing to so many different people, you almost have to leave quite a lot of like blank space for people to fill in their own story in. And I think that's I think at that time, it was a really interesting. I'm certainly glad we went the way we did. But it would be interesting to see how the last four years would have gotten if we went the other way.
How did you change the actual business and legal structure then? Because previously, Third Way was like a majority owner of the February architecture, was that the case? And is that nothing they say they like now more like investors or like and what What stopped you, for example, being completely independent?
I think there's always, I mean, the legal structures kind of ebb and flow behind the scenes, like with the setup and relationship we have with third where I think pizza looted alluded to this, we are still part of the family of companies, as you'd call it now or the house of brands or any of these analogies. And we've got so much in common in that we've still got the same sort of vested interest in third way doing well. I think from a day to day perspective, it was almost that full cutting loose of our reporting to and governance. The idea that actually third way as a company brought in a non exec board, which has been probably one of the most fantastic things to happen again, to that point of the branding, right? Someone else replaying your story from externally allows you to get rid of the whole echo chamber and just the self validation that sometimes comes in this industry. It's like, Yeah, sure. It's the right idea. Let's just keep doing it. Someone else telling you that? So we, I suppose from our reporting, it becomes tighter, more autonomous.
I think that's I think that's a really key point there. That it's amazing how often we get asked why why don't we just break away? Why don't we just do our own thing as if that is just innately good because I think people are obsessed by the idea of ownership and being able to have this kind of idea of, we're free to do what we like that's always actually the, the point of being within the wider group and actually, it's especially with the governance and the board pieces, accountability being being challenged and being questioned around not just the design we do, but actually how we operate the business on a day to day on terms of how we do future planning, our business event, whatever it might be, it's, it's been so fruitful to us on an operational level to have that being challenged and questioned by those that they don't need to be impressed by design, they don't care about, you know, if I'm in out for a beer with them, or whatever, they don't care, which is great, but what they care about is the management of the business and how that's going to be reported on. And it's made me a limb, question how we, you know, engage clients, so we, you know, instruct or provide fee proposals have been engaged in different projects, that types of, you know, geographically where we could try and operate in the type of work that we're going to have a look at whether it's always gonna be office or we start to look at you know, BTR schemes and the value in that. And then, again, being doing that, not just for our own ego, or we think this sort of this random margin, we're going to find it but go, where's the business case in that, where's the risks in that where the long term sort of value in doing these different things, I think that's given us far more value to do to be much more freer and have the autonomy to explore these things. By having those restrictions, weirdly, then if we said, the layout we're going to do on our own. And I think it's interesting that mostly will still always go down, cut, cut your ties, do anything, you're going to be happier. Which I find? Yeah, I don't think I
think there's a number of benefits either. Yeah, I think that's peach made a really interesting point about that whole autonomy of decision making, like, the opposite profession is so divisive, isn't it? When it comes to? Is it an art? Is it a business? Is it whatever and you get, you get a real spectrum of people along the way. And I guess it's the entire focus of this podcast in some ways that actually having that external party Once removed, and then almost twice removed, again, in the sense of a non exec well to ask you questions, of saying, okay, is that right? If it is sure, that's great, you kind of crack on and do it. If not, perhaps you should think about x, y. And Zed is actually way more freeing than it is restrictive. Because it takes some of that, perhaps, doubt, or impostor syndrome or some whatever version of that might exist. If you're sat in your own bubble, it kind of takes it away. And you you almost answered that as an academic question. All right, actually, I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. And I think that's kind of the second part of the benefit in a way that it just allows us the biggest humbled in what we do is so interesting. So relying on people, it's so reliant on tenants, it's so reliant on occupiers, like Pete said in BTR, in total in commercial in a wide spectrum, this whole thing, acts as just a big soundboard. So as we are designing something, we're constantly garnering opinion on it, is it the right thing to do? Is this aligned with what you're doing from a kind of tenant perspective? Is this. The cap B teams that are doing really, really quick fitouts. Pete says it all the time cut the leaves cut Amy's architecture, we're actually in that kind of ecosystem within our own kind of, again, autonomous bubble. So yeah, we feel quite privileged in that sense. I don't think it's a completely replicable business model, because it's quite unique in some ways. Definitely benefits.
I think, you know, I think you've made some good points here about the there is a sort of perception that breaking away and being completely independent is somehow the, the pinnacle. And from a creative profession. That's often the misunderstanding, I think. And I think, I think a lot of business strategies, quite frankly, have happened as a result of perpetuating that myth that, you know, and we see it all the time of, you know, people having the great idea when to start a creative business, and then they do and then it's 15 years of struggle and strife and difficulties and actually partnering with other businesses, being part of a group being part of this, the the amount, the amount that you can get done, the kind of compound effect that exists whether with a network of other businesses and being part of it, and also your business intelligence, how quickly that compounds and grows and also the networks and relationships. It's all Why wouldn't you do that there's, there's, there's an enormous amount of, of, of kind of, yeah, opportunity really think massively.
So I think, again, we've both been through the kind of wringer of architectural education, and you got to come out of it with all these great ideas. And so few of them relate to actually how something's going to get done. And I think it's that, I suppose the expectation that if you do start your own practice, you are you know, everything about the ins and outs of business, the ins and outs of HR, the ins and outs of how to do architecture, right, and then actually taking a step back from that and saying, I'm probably not the best person to be making. Or even if I, even if I could probably do with a bit of a second or third opinion. And even if it's even if it's not the same construct we have, right actually having these conversations about it. But again, going back to something we talked about with our website very, very early on about, we didn't want to have paper based work up there, actually understanding what then gets a project from paper base to being built. And it comes back to this kind of commercial realities. I don't think it's been crass. I think it's just understanding what makes a client's project work. Because you can, again, you might have the best idea you might be chasing it, and you kind of practice by yourself and think it's absolutely the right thing to do. And it's just not quite aligned. And that was a massive learning curve for us early on, and it's stuck, so true to what we do now.
So how does the in terms of winning work under the brand of anomaly, furnishing? Where did the name come from? And what has, you know, how does the winning work process altered as a result of being kind of an independent appearance?
To me to do the brand. I think, again, from that process we did with the branding agency, where we almost allow it I refer to it perfectly as couples therapy, we sort of sat a little bit like this, talking for a couple of hours about our story where things have come from and stepladder at the time just almost listened, and took away a few kind of key key themes and came back was it three or four ideas? Initially they had one
they Well, I mean, names wise, it was I think it was like 90 or so it was almost like a full full roster, but then they honed in on three three sort of brand concepts with under a name.
About that was it wasn't it, there was sort of a three or four kind of themes that were to do with things we'd said some of them about, that were very kind of personable people we really liked to get on with clients, the idea of that being a kind of core theme, there was an idea that we were, I suppose quite disruptive and trying to be quite pioneering in the way we did things is another theme, which took a different direction. And then this one, again, in pizza list, as we was talking about, there's maybe 20 names in this final category, which was all about, I think they refer to it as the outlier. It was this idea that we didn't quite fit a mold. We weren't from here we went from there, we've done we've been brave enough to do things a little bit different, but we weren't absolute aggravators so it kind of was this almost outlier and one of the first names I think it was the first name on that list actually was phenomenally and we were like okay, the jobs are really easy. And and from there then obviously the entire brand identity and narrative defined around it. And a lot of people can't say it even more people can't spell it which is fine. That's totally fine. Oh, isn't a is everywhere. So we've kind of learned the hard way on that from it's a bit of a mouthful sometimes.
What's What's the funniest myth? I think it's not ask
probably from Pete Yeah, probably. I mean don't ever read my Docs. I mean, it's this is their car crashes spelling, but never mind. Works like it just can't calm right.
But first, the first pitch we did with it was was great. Because everything we've been saying and have been saying in this about narrative. It was all ours. It was all our story. The brand gives us an A freedom for me and Pete to be very different, which was exactly the crux of the business and is the crux of everyone we employ. Everyone has room within that kind of anomaly brand to be that I think one of our taglines is traditional architecture, new direction which just allows it's not about entirely reinventing the wheel. It's just about saying, okay, there are new ways to do this. There's new ways to think about everything.
It's, it's that reflection on me. But yeah, I think the build on that it's a reflection of what we're trying to encourage the guest the company culture of everyone within the team. And this is something that has stayed resolutely since we started is the things that we didn't like, maybe from traditional practice. And the idea of, I guess, from however Junior however, green that you have, you have a voice, you have something to say there is an opinion within every individual that can be of value and of benefit, that can change the status quo can change the hierarchy of or whoever's hosting the meeting. And part of, you know, a nominee as a, as a faceless brand in terms of if not Spencer, Esposito, you know, it means that anyone can, can own it. And then part of you know, any design, we don't have a set style, it's really important for us as a business to continually encourage any individual team working on a project that we really push a process. And the process is very much about testing and validating and evidencing the commercial drivers of any one scheme. But how it looks should be reflective of you know, the brief drivers, you know, limitations of the building, whatever that is, but to maintain, you know, obviously exemplar quality of design. And so, you know, the outlier anomaly as the outlier eats, it means that, again, any individual within the practice can occupy that brand, occupy that name and push these designs and give full agency to it, I think there's been a really nice play on it. And like I said, I think people have bought into, and
again, some of that honesty and candor are from, actually that time when, again, coming out of the back end of the pandemic, where there's been a lot of kind of false hope and just outright lies, right, that had been so public, our brand is just so hinged on. We are who we are, and there's a beautiful honesty in that in saying, We really love what we do, we're going to have fun while we did it. And why not? Projects lasts such a long time with people that in the first instance, you don't really know, if you're going out in the first instance, to be really contractual. And really, I suppose by the by the book, and I'm very, okay, this is a very stiff structure. The minute that comes in picks, it's just not an enjoyable process, I think, kind of have to remember that. Yeah, people are at the root of all of these projects, from the project team, to contractors to the end users, actually, let's just, let's be more people about it. And allow those individuals in the team from the very most junior person, we have all the way through to, I guess, our technical delivery team, each person has a kind of voice. And, again, going back to your question on what that meant for job with and it just allowed us to put that in front of clients in a way which was quite, I think, refreshing in a sense that I'm not gonna say it's pioneering, I'm not gonna say that there are other practices similar to those who say similar things, because they're all and it's nice to have that kind of healthy competition in the bracket that we set. I think it just allowed us to pitch in a way which was almost just felt so natural. We weren't trying to be any I wasn't trying to be Pete, Pete wasn't trying to be me. And that inner kind of job when intensity, I think is so important.
In terms of brands, and the importance of brands in actually seducing winning, winning work, could you explain it's that role, I feel like you've kind of started to point point towards it. How do you now use the anomaly brand to open doors, if you like?
I think we've like, it's tricky, isn't it? Because people like and I care a lot about this, like, as much probably should be in brand development as much as architecture I think sometimes. But I think there's a point in which we, I'll be quite candid, we will lose in work to more known names, because people want to buy a product. And again, we can dress architecture up as all these different things. But at the end of the day, there is a product there that people want to pay money for. a buckler Graham and building because they know that brand is associated with quality, it's associated with great things. For us to compete on that playing field. We needed our own brand that was almost could compete with fashion brands. Right and that was our brief in some ways to the brand and agency and pizza rock and some of our summer 2023 merch at the minute, actually, we've been able to use it in a different way that feels beyond like pizza, or names or that quite kind of corporate heading, allowed it to be quite fun, playful, the icon and the use of it. Actually, we probably played it down early on that people cared about that. And actually for to be able to market building to say, it's not an anomaly building, even entrepreneur over it. But actually to be able to put it in a brand bracket. And own is. Yeah, I think there's an importance to it that goes beyond a document or
a header. It's interesting that that point around association of brand, that P. In this is this is anecdotal, only. So you get a real sense, especially now, with that rebrand that people want to hire us. Especially even on mobile, they're trying to sell a building, we'll work on doing a feasibility study to do that. Most of the time a spec that are normally are going to be working on this is not Oh, we've got an architect to do this thing. Now we have actually got a nominee into this, because it shows that there's a commercial awareness to unpick all the value. And so by that word of mouth, having the strength and the depth within the association brand means that we're being spoken about without us in the room. And the innate value of just having an association of us on a project is starting to come to come through, not for a second, we're saying we're up there with you know, as a member of us, we are tears away from that. But there's a growing, I guess, engagement with the type of work we're doing. And the scale of the work that we're doing that is comparable to those that we always want to be seen next to they are aspirational practices, different rebellion, Hawkins brown PGY. For a long time, they were like, Oh, how do we ever get there. And I think in a nice way now is where nipping at their heels on their off to probably their smallest stuff, but very much can be in competition with them for a spective building. And the anomaly brand isn't seen as the also ran, it's very much a seat next to that they can offer a quality of scheme. That is that is worth investing in.
But I think he's asking that question, again, using the fashion analogy just to break out of our industry, because I think that's always so important to us. Other comparative examples that are just on the kind of day to day, why would someone buy is the white t shirt thing, right? Like, you can buy a white t shirt from a high street shop, or you could pay 20 times that to buy a designer label. And people do that people have buying patterns, people have brand association patterns, it's absolutely no different in our industry that people pay at times. Even if you're pop, like pound for pound, absolutely on par in terms of quality of output. A brand might be the thing that sometimes just pushes that into that next level. Because it's making Badgett in a certain way, like Pete said, and it can become something different because of the brand association. And I think we yeah, we probably for too long pushed against that. And we we thought it doesn't matter as part of the third way thing. It's, it's alright, our quality will come through. But when we were going up against these amazing kind of competitors, we were losing out because on a couple of instances where people were like, Oh, well, people know their name. So we're gonna go with them. Yeah,
that's so that's so interesting. And it was absolutely it's, you know, it's when we start to look at client buying behavior or consuming behavior. And this idea of, you know, the brand, actually, it has an enormous impact on people's consuming consumer habits because people do not buy logically, people do not buy things just purely on the utilitarian. There's something else that we that we want and it's a kind of, you know, all of us when we purchase whatever brand is that we're purchasing, there's a little bit of identity shift that happens and fashion is probably the biggest example of this because at the end of the day, clothing is you know, there's a utilitarian function, there's a utility to it. And people are as you say, willing to spend 1000s of pounds on a coat where they could have bought it the same thing from Primark but yeah, but you want this the status, the wearing the the Burberry, the Cotulla or something, you know, and other other kind of high end brands. It's a that's who you become wearing that coat and we're who you communicate yourself to be is totally different from, from the from the Primark and to, to kind of deny that color clients go through that is, you know, it's our own detriment for sure.
I think it's that it's understanding, again, goes back to that commerciality point not just from a numbers perspective, but risk and decision making. As much as obviously, we're the, again, something we did early and we're really glad we did is really tried to understand that, that buying pattern you're talking about, what actually, when, when a client is considering buying a building or starting a project, what hurdles did they have to go through? And actually, in our day to day, a lot of them just had the can seem quite dry, they can seem quite Excel lead a lot of risk management, really. But then if you were a tiny part of that puzzle, but if you're you've got an hour allocated to assess for businesses, what are the things that are going to stand out? And it's often that time of how much can you portray through brand recognition or other people knowing that, but also then backing up with the work? Right. And I think that's where the the beauty of the last couple of years has been for us in terms of saying, we know, we're not exactly the safe choice all the time. And I think that again, from a an honest understanding, if we're going up against practices that have been established for 1015 20 years, we know we're coming from behind on that. But actually, if people that are well respected in the industry, which we're very lucky to have, as a lot of our clients are talking about this in a way that make people raise an eyebrow. And then all of a sudden, you see this quite cool pack of work and well branded well put out. Actually, that's, that's incredible. The we've had it in a number of occasions haven't repeat, where we're just baffled at how far a document we have sent to someone has gone without our control.
Right. That's very, that's very interesting, the kind of power of the brand and how it wants, how it makes clients want to share it. Want to share it one to one to spread it around. And again, it's this is what we're exactly what we're talking about with the with the clothing is people want to be associated with a particular brand, because it's elevating them. It's making them look good. It's making them and I think
that shouldn't be downplayed, isn't, it absolutely shouldn't be downplayed as a concept, right, we can maybe get overly apologetic sometimes about saying, oh, because we're doing good stuff. It makes them look good. Actually, again, some of our clients that we've become very close to, they want to look good to their peers and to their own bosses. And by appointing a practice that do well and call, actually, let's not hide behind the fact that actually is a good thing. It's yeah, it's mutually beneficial, for sure.
Very good. Um, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the how the internal structure then has changed? And has there been a, you know, how was the size of the practice now, what happened in terms of kind of staff members? How's that?
I think when, when we've got to COVID, sort of the month before that with we'd hired I think, on average about one person a month. So we were 3032 people. And that was part of, again, significant success, but also a very aggressive growth pattern. And it was exciting, and what sort of good stuff as COVID Really bid, we had a number of sort of very large scale projects, or one being Deloitte new office buildings at about 300,000 square feet of which was bankrolling about six or seven individuals within the business that stopped, I think two months after COVID. And then all the other speculative schemes or elements going through stage two or three before we got the site also got stopped. I think we ended up at a very lowest point at six of us altogether. And that was
and that shouldn't, and that shouldn't be downplayed about how big that was to go from. Wow. Yeah, like 30s to kind of single digits again, we were almost back in the, in the kind of kitchen table moment of everyone been around and a very different business. Yeah. It was amazing. It was amazing. It was
it was it's that you always want to say always good time, in terms of that self reflective piece, but you know, all the horror and the pain and the anguish of COVID. And you know, it was you know, this is the first business that may limb have run and we've not gone through a process sort of having to make people redundant, you know, people that we'd work with very closely and really enjoyed their company, and we're about to take away their jobs, for no fault of their own is fucking shit. And it's really fucking shit for them. And it's, you know, we're not as bad for us, because we're still working. But that was horrible. And it was the, it was a really challenging time to kind of go through that. And also for the people that stayed, you know, what, how much job protection did they have, how, how secure Do they feel, we didn't even know what's going on people asking us around what the future of the business is going to be, frankly, we didn't know because the work just wasn't there as we were busy looking at anything and everything. But as soon as we started that rebound process, and things were starting to come come out of it, it just worked in a really nice time. And as we started to kind of re gear and get people back in the rebrand and the refocus of what we're trying to do also bled out lead out rather through the to the team about thinking about who was going to be working within the practice, the type of work and process that we're going to do, again, slightly shifted, we had a very fluid, I guess, we tried to say a non non hierarchical business at the start. But I think people didn't know where they stood. They didn't know how they were going to grow. They didn't know who was responsible for what. Because again, we're almost in that, you know, fairly obvious rejection to traditional Brantas. A, everyone would do everything. This is great and very exciting. And actually a lot of feedback was No, no, I think, what's the structure? Do you want some accountability? I do want to know where it's going. I very much love what you just said about the board, we actually it's great to have feedback and critique. And where do I grow? How do I develop and so it's the balance here is not clinically hierarchical in terms of you can't do this because you're a junior, we have Jews pitching leaning on projects, coming to client meetings, taking things on, but if they are screwed, or something, you know, they know, they can go to dissociate, or they can get support from from a variety of different people. And we also made a real key decision around how we were going to hire. And I think because we've grown so quickly, we had hired I think always based on immediate need. And so some people were really great for certain projects, but maybe they weren't part of, I guess, the culture that we were looking for, they would they were excellent at doing x y Zed, but maybe they wanted a different kind of way of working, it wasn't maybe what would enable us to thrive. And it's kind of trying to say not being mean about any personal individual. But we want to really privilege the culture that we wanted to nurture, we wanted to operate. And putting that in a way that if we can make that really successful, it will attract the type of employees that we want to work with. And so we there were definitely times over the past 1824 months where we weren't hiring, we didn't have a big enough team, because we've been so careful around the type of group you want to engage. But we've now got to a point where I love the idea that I would hang out with any one person in the team and have a beer with individually or have a drink with because actually they everyone's got the same sort of drive and work ethic. And I guess persona that that works for us. And I think that's that's been a really nice shift.
Business. And I think the the kind of second layer of people that we put in, we were very lucky that we have a formidable set of kind of associates that kind of work with us. And Amy, who is now our Associate Director almost, in many ways kind of runs the output of the studio and is again, to Pete's point into my point earlier about having a counterpoint. This has never been about the labor picture. I think at times it spiraled into versions of that through circumstance but actually then have in a me as a bit of a figurehead to say okay, sense check this and then the likes of Lucy who kind of runs our interiors team, these people that actually are probably way more important on a day to day basis for the the overall studio than we are actually given them the autonomy and the I suppose the position to be able to say, Okay, this is how we're going to do this allowed us to grow around these quite key pivots. So yeah, from where we were at six, we're back a bit 22 Now I think. Yeah. 22. So actually, that regrowth again has been quite fast, but it's been in a completely different way. A very, very organic way but one that we feel to Pete's point where Uh, yeah, we love the team to pieces, I think that's the kind of the great.
I mean, that's, that's a real, really interesting kind of cycle of growth and contraction to actually go through 31, down to six, then back to 22. And actually the amount of insight that you get from going through that, and you know, not many businesses actually have the opportunity to, to kind of restructure themselves in in that way and kind of change the way that governance is working internally and kind of going for a rebrand, I think that's really, that's it's very, it's a, it's quite a unique, it's a unique business story if you like.
And there's different businesses, different businesses have different scales, I think that's the big thing. And again, as part of this growth in our association to the wider business, we're able to benefit from perhaps business knowledge sharing, and things like that, perhaps some of the smaller practices might not. And what's so interesting about that divide from, say, six to 20, is there kind of needs that the business is so different. And I think a lot of businesses that perhaps struggle in that middle bit is by not acknowledging them, that actually, it's a very different thing. And we're probably on the cusp of, I think it's named something happily, like the valley of death or something like that, beyond where we are in the kind of the 30 people, you might as well then be kind of 100 or 200, because all the systems and processes are in place. So we're often flirting with this size, and so many other I suppose practices are around that kind of growth point. Because all of a sudden, you're not that kitchen table. Practice, you're not in everyone's business, you don't know the ins and outs of every project. And the amount of trust you put in different business channels from associates in project leads becomes so much bigger, but it becomes scalable, because you're effectively just adding to those channels, rather than doing it in that way. And I think, yeah, we kind of like that moment, teetering on the edge of it.
Happily, brilliant. Brilliant. I think that's the perfect place to conclude just quickly, things that you're looking forward to in 2024.
Isn't it tricky market to be objectively forward looking, I think, through through all kinds of times of adversity and a bit of kind of market uncertainty come amazing opportunities. And I think Park architects, architectural designers, interior designers are always really well positioned to to grow and thrive in these times. It might feel like a bit of a overly poetic answer. But I think actually with so much tricky market uncertainty, there will be some amazing opportunities to come over. Yeah.
That like to second that. It's, yeah, the we're all the projects that we won, when we rebranded and now starting to be on site, they're looking to be completed by the end of next year. So all that hard work and sort of that strife have gone through a set of architects through COVID rebranded one is really significant key projects of now that have become you know, materialized into physical things. And it's again, just not forgetting actually, it's not always about winning, the next thing about always looking to them, the years down the line, it's obviously coming back to just being content being I mean, what we've done is, I'm I'm so utterly thrilled and proud of like the people we get to work with the jobs we get to do, it's stupid, because it's so really cool and mad and interesting. And now the things are going to be built to get to enjoy that and just see the things be done. I think that actually for me, that's gonna be a key keep it to look forward to.
Awesome, brilliant, I think. Thank you very much for your time and expertise and sharing this story that that's been really, really fast. I can't believe the time has gone so quickly. But I hope to be doing this. We'll have another conversation in a few more years to see the next the next stages of evolution. So thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
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