602: The Problem With Sustainability (Part 1) Why Most Architects Are Failing at Sustainable Design with Colin Davis and Suzanne Davenport of Studio Partington: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

602: The Problem With Sustainability (Part 1) Why Most Architects Are Failing at Sustainable Design with Colin Davis and Suzanne Davenport of Studio Partington

Enoch Sears35min

Speaker 1

00:00

Things that have worked best for it is where we've helped clients to understand what's realistic from their project. Hello

Rion Willard

00:05

and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and on today's episode, we are delighted to welcome two visionary architects from Studio Partington who are at the forefront of sustainable design and energy efficient housing. First, we're joined by Colin Davis, a pioneer in the energy efficient retrofit of the iconic golden Lane estate. This ground breaking project addresses the thermal performance of seven listed buildings, focusing on reducing energy consumption, cutting carbon emissions and preparing for future free of fossil fuel heating. Colin is also the creator of the recognized construction details website, a free and invaluable resource that provides pre assessed thermal bridging details to support architects, builders and energy assessors in meeting updated regulations such as heart l and the future homes standard. Also with us is Suzanne Davenport, a lead associate at Studio Partington, where she has been an integral member of the team since 2005 Susan has an impressive portfolio standing social housing, the refurbishment of listed buildings and innovative design for older residents at Passive House standard, her projects include a stunning refurbishment of a Georgian building on Swan and pier and contributions to influential publications on energy efficient homes. Suzanne's approach combines a meticulous attention to detail with a commitment to delivering high quality sustainable design. Together, Colin and Suzanne share insights on how architects can champion environmentally and socially responsible design. In this episode, we discussed the innovative work that studio Partington has done in terms of their research and their code analysis and their code writing and their technical expertise, which they've used on a number of different publications. We also look at the challenges that face architects who are working with local authorities and housing associations, particularly when it comes to sustainability and retrofit projects. And we also discussed the technology used behind studio Partington and how they are able to consistently deliver excellent work with a surprisingly small team for the output that they are able to produce. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Suzanne Davenport and Colin Davis, this episode is sponsored by Smart practice business of architecture's 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 smartpractice method.com or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you. Please follow the link in the information we are looking for architect developer stories for the Business of Architecture podcast. So are you an architect developer with valuable insights to share? We're always on the lookout for passionate voices in the industry to join us on the Business of Architecture podcast, if you're ready to share your journey, lessons, strategies with our global audience, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to us to explore being a guest on our show and help inspire other architect developers on their path. We'd be interested in hearing your story, whether you're at the very beginning of your development story, or whether you have $100 million portfolio of projects already in the bag, completed, we'd like to hear from you if you're working with the developers, or that you've developed a number of small houses, or you're working at a larger scale. Suzanne and Colin, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you both very good. Thank you. Well, thank you. Excellent. Great to have you here. Colin, you are a director at Studio Partington and Suzanne, you are an associate at the same company. Very excited to have you. You guys have got an amazing portfolio of work in the Civic, residential workplace realms, as well as a large amount of master plannings. I know, last time we spoke with each other, one of the things that I was quite surprised that was actually to find out the size of your organization, which was a lot smaller than you might imagine, considering the kind of scale of the work that you guys are engaged in, I think that's really interesting. And well, we could talk a little bit about that, you know, the sorts of things that you do and how the business operates, but welcome to the show. Very excited to have you here. And perhaps I could talk a little bit about both of you into. Originally of, how did you join studio? Partington, what's your story to getting to the position that you are right now? And perhaps we'll start with Suzanne first.

Speaker 2

05:13

Okay, so my, I guess actually, pro Colin and I have quite similar stories. So my story is joining as a part one architect, so right at the beginning of my career, and finding lots of variety in the role the types of buildings I've worked on, also writing, doing guidance work as well. So writing as well as being an architect and becoming an author. And yeah, so I've stayed with the business, but I've felt things have always changed through my career Colin.

Speaker 1

05:47

So I started working at Studio Partington on day one in 1998 when I had recently failed my first year of my diploma in pretty spectacular fashion. Actually,

Rion Willard

06:04

that's always a good always, always, always a good story.

Speaker 1

06:09

No, I got very distracted when I moved to London, started my diploma and was doing anything but studying. Failed the first year, got an opportunity to redo it, but part time and but was told by my mum she wasn't going to pay for it, so I better get a job. And yeah, I ended up through a couple of other jobs, meeting Richard, who had just handed his notice in a bigger practice to set up as a sole practitioner, and he needed some help. So, you know, day one, we built a desk out of a door and a couple of computer monitor boxes, and that was the start of what was then, Richard Partington architects, and that's grown over the years. And yeah, I've been a director for probably 10 years now, maybe a bit more with Richard and two other directors. So yeah, I've sort of grown up with the business, really,

Rion Willard

07:23

and for both of you, how have in your tenure at the company? How have you seen it change it?

Speaker 1

07:31

It's been through a number of sort of episodes, I'd say, or chapters, really, where, you know, we the business started really building or designing speculative office buildings. Richard had a background of doing that for a number of commercial clients, and that's sort of what we carried on doing for the first few years of the practice just building, sort of, yeah, speculative office buildings on a on sort of Greenfield sites outside of London. And then we had an opportunity and a sort of desire to move into other other areas and specifically, sort of housing. And so I'd say, you know, there was an interesting sort of cross fertilization, really, from days of, you know, designing office buildings and learning a lot about sort of construction technology and really efficient sort of building practices. And when we started working on housing, that was an interesting conversation with sort of house building clients, whether they be private developers, local authorities, contractors. You know, there was a sort of slightly different mindset in house building, still is probably in some instances, but bringing some of that sort of construction technology across to housing was a sort of Springboard, really into into where we are now, which is, you know, I would say most of our work is hangs around some form of housing. Now, whether that be, you know, large mix use developments in in in London, or Suzanne's just jumped off a meeting, you know, where, where she's working on writing some new government guidance on modern methods of construction. And so, you know, we have this sort of, you know, very broad range of work, but it, but sort of at the center of it tends to be some sort of housing brief, you know, so, so, so, yeah, you know, it's, it's, and then it's changed a bit in scale as well, you know, as maybe many, many practices did we. We grew through the sort of early, 2000s mid 2000s and then 2007 and eight hit, and the, you know, the house building industry collapsed, so we shrunk, and then we've grown a little bit, and we've hovered around the sort of size we are now, which is sort of 12 to 15 people for a while. And that feels a nice you know, it's a nice size where everybody knows each other, you know, very well, maybe too well. But, you know, everybody knows all of the projects. There's a very direct connection between all levels of practice and clients and the projects and so, you know, we find that works well for us. And I think our clients find that comforting as well to know that, you know, they can more or less talk to anybody in the practice about any project, and somebody will at least be able to help, if not have a really sort of in depth knowledge of projects. And the nice thing is that, you know, people like Suzanne has been in the business for a long time as well, and has grown and developed with it. So, you know, in that respect, it feels like a little bit of a family where, you know, people, people develop and stay at the practice and evolve.

Speaker 2

11:20

I think for me, the other thing is we're, we're really, we're quite a diverse group of individuals. And I think there's always been an ethos in the practice to play into your strengths and your abilities. And you could have the same, you know, job title, like associate, like I do someone else in the practice, but my colleague, Nick, has a totally different role, like I've more majored on the side of communication, writing, guidance, you know, activities he doesn't even participate in. So I think there's a real strength in being quite flexible and quite diverse and developing individual skills, but while also doing something that's maybe, I think Colin and I talked about this a bit before, before the interview, you know, like that. We're generalists and as architects, and that's something that's maybe not very fashionable these days, but I think that's where architects bring real strength. And as a small business, we can bring real expertise on projects by having this, this general approach, and potentially not getting kind of too focused on specialisms, but being able to see the bigger picture.

Rion Willard

12:26

Could you guys talk a little bit about your individual roles? So obviously, like, what does it mean to be an associate? What does it mean to be a director? What kind of, what kind of things fall under your stewardship? And I know Suzanne that you're involved a lot with the kind of, as you said, there the marketing parts of the business and Colin, there's also a kind of strategic business element as well, to to your to your role.

Speaker 2

12:52

Yeah, I think the roles we've kind of made them our own as well. So I think I have a particular interest in in the business, some extent, and the marketing of it and the finding new work. So we were talking just now about the kind of shifts in the practice and the different kind of work we've done. And Colin was talking about the real focus on housing that we've really had for quite a few years now, the kind of mid part of the business, perhaps after the focus on office buildings and industrial to some extent as well, but now increasingly, we've started to a large percentage, if not the majority, of our work is now focused on retrofit. And I think that was something we we were able to actively target as well, or to kind of realize that a lot of our interests was lying, lying in that direction and to develop, it's always very hard to show a direct link, but to try and develop contacts in that area and develop that kind of work. So that was an aspect that I thought I was able to contribute to the business and, you know, had the freedom to be able to

Speaker 1

13:59

develop. I mean, yeah, my role feels quite broad, you know, I think, I think that's the reality of a of a small business is that, you know, sort of echoing the sort of, we're generalists as architects, but we're also generalists in the business sense as well. So, you know, my sort of brief, if you like, in the in my role as a director, you know, it covers both being a director of projects, so, you know, offering sort of strategic guidance to clients and the team on projects and leading projects. But you know, on a business level, we tend to sort of, you know, divvy up some of the sort of business management roles. And my role, you know, has really been to one kind of lead. On the on the sort of strategies for kind of quality, quality, you know, quality control. But also, you know, our sort of business ethos, really, you know, what we're trying to achieve, how we're trying to achieve it, and sort of, you know, trying to drive that through the practice, really, rather than it just being my thing that I sit here and say, This is how we how we do things, you know, trying, trying to roll that out through the practice. And then with the other directors, we sort of share a sort of, you know, business planning role as well. So all the sort of normal stuff of, sort of, you know, fee forecasts and, you know, ongoing, sort of, you know, the sort of business maintenance side of things, just making sure that we are, you know, keeping things moving along as best we can, you know, which isn't easy at the moment. You know, in all honesty, isn't easy at the moment. You know, it's been a 2000 and you know, the 2007 2008 recession was very difficult. And I think, you know, I felt quite that was quite brutal. Experiencing a business shrink from sort of 30 people down to five or six in really short space of time was pretty, pretty brutal and pretty traumatic, but, you know, we recovered and carried on. And you know, to some extent it Well, the last, you know, couple of years has felt like it's a more elongated version of that. You know, we've, we've managed to keep the business around the same sort of size. But it's, it's, you know, it's hard work. It's, you know, trying to maintain, you know, a practice, and keep it keep it busy and keep it occupied when people aren't necessarily commissioning so many new buildings, is a challenge. You know, was the the

Rion Willard

16:58

focus on housing? Did that emerge as a kind of response to things that happened? Say, 2007 2008 I know for so many practices, that kind of period is such a it's often a very pivotal, pivotal place in the in a practices history, if they kind of survived it, because there was lots of lessons learned from it. Yeah, it's where specialisms emerge. Was, was the housing focus emerged from that? Or is it? No, I

Speaker 1

17:29

think that was, that was there already. I'd say that the thing that the sort of pivot that happened at that point was maybe to try and not be solely dependent on on building, you know. Now I've got to be careful what I say. You know, we, we firmly believe in architects being involved in building projects from the outset through to completion. You know, we don't really like the concept of just working up to planning or, you know, or purely conceptual work. And so we try to avoid that. But I suppose the thing, the thing that we added to the business that has added an element of sort of resilience is the guidance writing and policy work, which has really varied actually, from, you know, so a couple of current examples. You know, as I said, Suzanne is working on a document that I don't really know how much I could say about, but she could talk about that maybe in a minute. But one of the things that the practice has delivered is a, is a is called recognized construction details, which is an online service that provides pre calculated p values for house builders. You know, smaller house builders, architects, designers, you know, as part of the increased thermal efficiency that we're trying to deliver through housing. It's no longer possible to just use default values for thermal bridging calculations. And so let led by the led by some players in the sort of masonry industry, we developed a resource where we, we, we modeled, you know, 500 typical junctions, giving, giving people, enabling people to freely download pre calculated psi values. And that, you know that that sort of, I think, what we found is, is that sort of work, when, when either government or developers are not building things, they look to do other things, you know. And there's often a sort of, you know, as as construction is is tailing off, that sort of work has picked up again. And, you know, it's, and it's a great, you know, it's very in. Interesting work, you know, it isn't, it isn't designing buildings, but the product. What's nice about it sometimes is the projects a bit shorter, you know, if you take a typical, you know, larger construction project, you're maybe working on something for five, six years, you know, whereas to work to take some time out and spend three months working on a, you know, on a on a guide to part L of the Building Regulations, or something like that. It's a really, it can be a really nice, focused bit of research learning. There's design in it. Because I think the reason clients come to us is that they like that. We're good technical thinkers, but we can also communicate ideas graphically and and offer that as a whole package, really. And so those projects can be a nice, you know, that they're good for, for, you know, cash flow and, you know, managing through hard times. But they're also, they're also, you know, just can be a bit fun, really. You

Rion Willard

20:57

know, how did you start getting those kinds of commissions, and what does a and what does your role look like in the execution? Like, what what do you what are you producing? I think

Speaker 2

21:08

our role, it could be quite varied, actually. And I'd say probably the key thing with the commissions, it's a series of repeat clients, actually. So like the some of the very first guides we I wrote, were working for Joseph Rowntree Foundation. So we're actually doing a large scale 540 housing development there that we've been doing for like, probably the key project of the practice, and been doing for 15 years. But a lot of that, their remit is to research into fuel poverty. So a lot of really excellent research projects went on around that project, and part of that was disseminating information. So we took really technical analysis that would be done by universities and then created guides. So we were doing everything from what we were writing, interpreting a kind of technical paper, to the layout of the whole guide, illustrating the guide. So it's a very kind of all rounded approach. And then we we've used a similar kind of way of working to write a whole series of guides for the nhB, for NHBC, building warranty providers. And the content of that has been really varied from quite technical types of things like Colin was talking about where either we are working with other consultants actually doing energy modeling, often around explaining things like Approved Documents. So we've got those kind of guides to really quite discursive ones which have been more the ones that I've been involved with writing for the NHBC. So across a whole range of subjects around like to take some example, like, say, the advantages of new homes, modern methods of construction, a history of modern methods of construction, conventional house building maybe not being as conventional as you think, been really interesting projects because we've been given very free reign. Like NHBC, maybe would come with, like, a single sentence or a particular area of focus, and then we'd really lead, how, where we think the guide or even website, you know, we have different outputs these days for what, what it is, as well. And so they've been really nice things to be involved with. And then on the other side of that, it's also strayed from the kind of more graphic illustration, kind of explaining things to lay people approach this also strayed into the more like actually writing technical guidance, being a technical author. So in the past, I've written Approved Documents particular jurisdictions around part L, and then currently, what I'm involved with, which Colin was just alluding to is a document called pas 8700 there's going to be a new, publicly available specification for modern methods of construction. She's just gone through the public consultation process. So, you know, that is all just written content, very technical, you know, hopefully helping the industry by having really clear self guidance. How

Rion Willard

24:06

do these guides feed back into your own like architectural work, and do they provide opportunities for winning work as well?

Speaker 1

24:15

Absolutely, I think you sort of asked in the previous question, you know, maybe what? Maybe paraphrasing, but why us? Why is it a good role? And I think, I think there's real parallels between, you know, the role of an architect in designing and delivering a building and and our role on on those written projects, where, you know, the reason, I think people like working with us is, is that everything that we do is, is, is firmly rooted in delivering something, you know, and whether that's, you know, a really deep understanding of construction and construction technology to inform a really robust piece of. Architecture that's going to deliver a great place for somebody to live, or whether that's taking on that role in bringing together a lot of district disparate people that are trying to feed into defining a technical standard, you know, I think it's the same core strength, really, which is about, you know, having this general overview of things, you know. So we have some really strong skills, but also we have a general interest in everything that's contributing to either a project or a publication. And I think that went a little bit out of fashion, you know, it's interesting. You mentioned specialisms coming out of that period in, you know, 2008 and I think that did happen. And you know, specialisms can be great, right, you know, and they're essential as as as delivery of buildings has got more complex. And you know, it is essential to have specialists, but you also need to have a generalist as well that have an overview of everything. And I think, I think that's where, you know, we we're maybe shifting now. I think, I think one of our challenges being smaller was always, you know, big practices can support and offer specialists. You know, whether that be graphics people or consultation people who specialize in consultation, model makers, you know, SAP assessors, as you know, whatever it is, you know that large practices with more projects can can support a plethora of specialists and and I personally always found that, you know, like I felt for a long time that I wanted our practice to be like that, but but came to the realization it wasn't really possible, you know, which has meant we've ended up with a lot of key collaborators, you know. So we have a good team of people that are very close to us that can offer specialist input, but that our strength is much more to be, to be have a big better overview, you know, and understand everything that's contributing to a project. So even if we're not delivering it, we are very aware of what a specialist might need to deliver and how they feed in and make sure that things are well coordinated and well informed.

Rion Willard

27:25

Does any of the work that, say the written work or the research work, does any of that ever become self directed, where you guys have an idea for an area of research that you want to invest time and resource into, and then you kind of, you do that, and then you've got a kind of body of knowledge that you're looking to either put into a project or put into another one of these kind of documents or guidelines,

Speaker 1

27:49

yes. And I Yes, I think it really in, in the in the early days, I'd say absolutely, you know. And it came from a, you know, a place where I think, I think we had a strong and well informed interest in delivering sustainability, you know, a point where it wasn't such a general desire, you know. So from the start of the practice, really, in 1998 you know, and that so there was an iteration of the practice where we did employ, you know, people who had specialisms in sustainability, maybe had studied architecture and then gone off to, you know, to become energy assessors. And so we, so we had an element of that specialism in in the business. And I think it was that the fact that we had taken that on as a way to learn and to research what, what, what, how we should, you know, how that knowledge should impact our projects in a way that that knowledge led on to the the first commissions for this guidance, writing, which was for an organization that was called the Zero Carbon hub, which was a sort of government, quasi government body set up to try and inform the house building industry of you know how to deliver zero carbon really. And lots of that research work grew out of that initial contact, I'd say, you know, maybe less so now you know where, where time and money and resources, you know, quite tight. It's difficult to, it's difficult to support that. You know, a time like, you know, like the last year that we've been to been through, but certainly when you know, when we were doing bigger commercial projects, you know, we try and we try and make sure that, you know, if there's money coming out of those that it is invested into, into giving people the opportunity to go off and study or learn a new.

Speaker 2

29:59

Feel, one of the key things with the writing is we don't do these things in isolation, like we've made, made amazing groups of contacts through, through doing this kind of work. And actually, I think sometimes one thing can lead them to another, and you might not expect it. So, you know, the interest in MMC was, was kind of sparked by the NHPC making a suggestion that we write a guide about the history of MMC. But then through that work, and like, you know, planning another guide with them, which actually didn't, hasn't happened yet, we ended up kind of falling into this world of working for the BSI group and writing a specification which is a whole different skill, skill set. So we haven't, so far, I don't think we've directly like come up with an idea and then gone out to fund it, although we have discussed that as possibly something we could look towards in the future.

Rion Willard

30:55

It's very interesting as well. Then, you know, you've got a kind of body of knowledge that you've been developing and a kind of focus in and around housing, and that you're also kind of pioneering in the world of retro fit. How difficult is this to have, or to find clients who are who are like interested and aligned with your architectural values, certainly around sustainability and retrofit when, like on the surface of it, like the short term finances for your typical housing developers, it always that you know that we, you know we're seeing so many kind of crazy things at the moment with buildings just being torn down that seem perfectly you know, an architect can look at them, and sometimes they're classics, like Robin Hood gardens and and you're just like, how do how do you, how do you change the client's mind? How do you sell it? How do you make it work as both a business for you guys and for the developers,

Speaker 1

31:58

a great question. And actually, you know, sometimes you can't, you know, and so, you know, we have a whole range of work and and there are challenges away which are maybe too great, you know that I think, I think, yeah, on any project, really, you have to define what's an achievable, element that you can influence and change and develop. And what are things that are possibly, you know, outside of your ability to change and and, you know, the retrofit work is really broad, and I think the things that have worked best for us is actually trying, is where we've helped clients to understand what's realistic from their project, and to try and set really definable targets and goals from from a retrofit project. And actually we you know that that that is very different depending on the project. So

Rion Willard

33:02

and we're going to take a pause right now with this great conversation with Suzanne and Colin. Please stay tuned for part two, which will be released in just a few days.

Enoch Sears

33:14

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Rion Willard

34:47

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