606: The Future of Architecture Part 2: Emotional Appeal and Sustainability with Paul Iddon of Agency PSI | Otter.ai

606: The Future of Architecture Part 2: Emotional Appeal and Sustainability with Paul Iddon of Agency PSI

Enoch Sears39min

Speaker 1

00:00

Thing about sustainability is it is largely emotional thing. Architects are the primary movers in the world of the built environment. It's like, we don't want to talk about beauty. Why not? Why not? People care a lot about beauty. Hello

Rion Willard

00:14

and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today I am delighted to present Paul Eden, the founder of agency psi, for part two of our fabulous conversation. So sit back, relax and enjoy the brilliant Paul Eden. 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 smart practice 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. The

Speaker 1

01:50

one thing about sustainability is it is largely emotional thing. I mean, that's going to be in popular I'll probably get shot to pieces now, but that I'm not denying the science behind it. There is, there's a rational argument behind it, but the most successful arguments with humans are emotional. I'll give you an example. Like at least for nearly 15 years, I worked for all of works. My client was all of foods who are in the press at the moment, and basically, they've come out, and they've said, We're doing an experiment where we're going to add this Beauvais, I think it's called, it's like a feed additive that stops cows producing so much wind to put like, you know, 27% less far things, to be honest, methane. And I think, okay, and then added demanding. Well, look at the science, you know, look at the science. You know, it's been tested. The FDA said this. Or the, you know, not the FDA, that's Americans, but the British equivalent. And, and one of my ex clients was saying this, and I went, hang on a minute. You can't let preach to or have a position, a strap one under your brand for like, 15 years, saying closer to nature and selling the emotional benefit. Because, I mean, cheese, dairy is a funny thing, right? I mean, at one level, you get cow milk out of a cow. You pasteurize it, you know, to stop it being dangerous, and it's like cow, eat it up, put it in your tea. It's that simple, yeah. But then the cows produce so much milk, more, far more milk than we can possibly consume. So the name of the game is, how do you preserve milk? And that's what the olive foods business model is based on. So they make cheese, which is an Enoch butter from our Shrey yogurt, then milk powder, then processed. A lot of these are quite a long way from nature at this point. You know, the sugar you've added, flavorings you've added, you know, rennet, you do this, that, and the other, you process it, you know, which is all fine. It's a perfectly good food. But my my argument wasn't whether the science works or not. My argument was, well, you've been telling people for like, years and years that it's about being closer to nature, and they're going, like, Absolutely, absolutely, you know, we want this to be a natural food. Natural. Define natural. But anyway. And I say, okay, and then they say, but we're going to add this additive, which is kind of, you know, whatever the chemical aim for it. And people go, sorry, what you what you can do, you're going to give so you're going to give a drug to cows. And, well, is that occurring nature? No, no, it's a man made drug. Well, hang on a minute. And then when people question it, then it's sort of, oh, right now, you're not too low in the science, you know? And then again, it's, it's a bit like the profession. Sorry, long way around this, but it's a bit like the profession when an organization suddenly changes direction and picks up the single it's about climate or farmer activists, which is what on the front I go, like. Used to be about natural food, you're asking the public to make a jump in their head, the consumer that you've been programming in for years, and then they question your change of positioning, and then you feel offended by it and thinking, Oh, I get a minute. You know, you created this doing emotional messaging. So the argument there is, is that emotional messaging is powerful, and therefore it's so, why aren't we? Where's in the architecture profession using similar things instead, you know, we things like the rib kind of work, or, you know, do

Rion Willard

05:35

you? Do you? Do you think that it should be? Because this is the other the other thing is, we often think like a profession, and when we think like a profession, then we think of the daddy figure, the RBA, or whoever. Well, they're the ones that need to be doing it. But the reality of it is that it's the that like we're, you know, we're operating as individual businesses. So is it something for the RBA to be doing, to have that to kind of change the positioning or through marketing architects, or is it, is it the responsibility of individual businesses to be doing it and storytelling and positioning themselves, or both?

Speaker 1

06:13

Well, it's both. I mean, you know, from my point of view, you know, there's, there's a lot of architects out there who, like you, say small practices, who are battling or they haven't got the time and or the money to invest in getting a consultant in to talk about and I'm not even sure that a lot of the consultants, obviously, with the exception of yourself, right, a lot of the consultants can understand it in enough depth to realize what the problems are. You know, because a lot of markets would come and look at architects going, like, hang on, you do what? So it's, to me, it's, I think where the Riba can play a role is like they do with guerrilla tactics or some CPD is okay, we get these membership fees in. We can do events. We can say to people, look, give us under a quid, or whatever it is. And, you know, we'll put we'll do an event, and we'll pull people in, and we'll do some research and stuff. I think the RO being a good place to do that. They do research into other things. So why not this? I don't see any controversy in that, because they already participate in talking about gorilla tactics, for instance. And my argument would be that, like, well, Gorilla tactics is the architecture professionals are not gorillas. You know, the architecture practices is like the legal, legal professional, medicine is that, you know, architects are the primary movers in the world of the built environment. Now, a lot of people argue, no, they're not. But I always come back to the point, well, okay, until an architect does something. And yeah, I know that other providers, architectural technologists and whatnot, but most professional developers and most institutions know, you've got to have an architect number, you know, it's, you know, it's a no brainer. So, so to me, it's kind of like, well, architects are leading the culture of our built environment, and that's what architects are trained to do, but they've lost the ability to communicate that. And but I think this, I think there's change happening. I think there's I see the things shifting. I think people realize now you can't build, keep building stuff, and it looks like this. And then especially the argument with sustainability? Well, the most sustainable building, right, is the one that people love, because they keep it and they keep it going. I as last night, I was

Rion Willard

08:50

talking about nice way of putting it, yeah, well, for instance,

Speaker 1

08:53

one of the arguments is, bricks are unsustainable with some people, okay? And my question is, well, what do you mean by sustainable? Okay, define it. So one of the things I like to say is, okay, which where is the oldest brick in a working building in the United Kingdom? I'm a pain with this and stuff. I look I write CPD, so I'm always looking up stuff like this.

Rion Willard

09:22

Have you any idea in the Vienna Tower of London?

Speaker 1

09:25

Oh, no, no, no, no. Good, good, guess. No, no. It's cogs Hill Abbey in Essex. There's a chapel there that's got, it was built in the 11th century, and it's got Roman bricks built into it that basically found Roman bricks, and those Roman bricks were made in the first century. AD, so they're 2000 years old. How long do you want them to last? Yeah. I mean, if you don't want that, when I say Hampton Court 1530 Okay, constant occupation for nearly 500 years, and the Chancellor is going to be then another. 1000 years. So with sustainability after measure in terms of time, and you know, over what period. So if you're talking about some cladding systems that have got a design life for 30 years, we're not in the same ballpark, are we? So you can't talk. So to me, it's kind of like,

Rion Willard

10:21

well, this is very much the argument that the traditionalists make around, you know, when in sustainable arguments, is that, you know, we've got, we've got a whole load of housing stock called building stock that's been around for literally 1000s of years, that's been made out of stone, and these and stone and bricks and they you know that that's, that's a that's a pretty strong definition of what sustainability is. Well, I'm sitting

Speaker 1

10:47

outside in my garden office or my shed. It's a nice shed, but it's a shed, yeah, but, and my house is 175 years old. It's built in 1850 in stone, and I was recommended by somebody, well, you need to insulate the outside and render it. And I said I'd rather trap parts of my body in a door do that. I won't name which parts, but it could be a finger, it could be hand, it could be anything, but the one thing I'm not going to do is is is do an act of vandalism like that, you know, and 1000 feet above sea level, and render is not good in this environment, all right? It's like, you know, it's 38% of 38% of our housing in this country was built before the Second World War. And you know what? People love them. The 3070 such house is one of the most popular types of housing ever devised by in this country. And people love them. You get a garden, the front garden, the back somewhere to put your car at the side. You can get around. You bring your bins around. You can take, you know, I mean, all of those things. You got nice windows. You got glazing on three sides. What's not to like, right? So, but when, you know, when we hear people say, we've got to demolish all of this old housing, and thinking that, yeah, and end up with something that looks like, you know, Pripyat, you know what I mean, and will be about as popular it's been unoccupied since 1985 sort of like so it's a big subject, and it's very emotional. And, you know, and I think that's

Rion Willard

12:30

a great perspective on it. Actually, sustainability comes from designing things that people love and love. And, you know, that's a real, that's a very, I don't know if you ever heard of the the philosopher Satish Kumar, and he was the the Indian Jain monk. And he, I think he started a magazine called resurgence, or something like that. But he was part of the Schumacher college down in in the west country somewhere. And he had a very interesting philosophy on sustainability, which was rather than kind of fear mongering, you know, that we're all going to die if we don't look after the look after the planet. His his kind of, more sort of, from his Jane philosophy perspective, was if we realize how much we love the planet, or we love, you know, you love something, then you look after it, and that's the most sustainable thing that we can do. And he was, yeah, he often used the example of, you know, you don't, you don't necessarily look after your mother because you're scared of her dying. You look after her because you love her. In

Speaker 1

13:42

terms of sustainability, my mom's doing quite well. She's 100 so, so she's, she's built already sustainable. She's well loved, and she's built, built to last, and she's like, four foot nine or 10 now, the doctor, GP, so the answer said, I can't believe this, but your blood pressure is better than mine. So she said, so, yeah, yeah, I mean, but I think the point is, is that, and I think this is where I suppose I can having worked in consumer and worked and all that, humans are driven by emotion. Okay, so you take sustainability, you say, you know, a passive house, somebody's gonna basically create. It always worries me slightly when it's like airtight and I'm thinking, does that mean if you don't open the window, sooner or later, you can run out? Yes, I don't like the idea that it's like Apollo third space capsule, you know, but I don't think they mean that. But it's just the way it comes across sometimes. But the reason people are doing that. It's like the Grand Designs thing, where they talk about, you know, this, talk about an off grid Net Zero house, and it's like three, you know, you know, 400 square meters, but you get eight houses on that plot. They couldn't, um, but, but if somebody wants to invest in that and feel. Yeah, that's what they feel, and that's what they they believe they're doing something for their children or their grandchildren or for the world. Yeah, there's a rational part of that. There's a very big emotional part of it. And in fact, that's, I'd argue, personally, the emotional part is far bigger than the rational part, if you actually look at the science of it, saying that we did, you know. So

Rion Willard

15:23

what does this mean for like, an individual architecture business, then to like, to be able to harness the power of like? We're talking about fees, salaries, raising them and and solutions. So, so what could what would you suggest like an individual business does with this, knowing that the emotional part of of decision making for consumers is, is the thing that drives that drives it,

Speaker 1

15:52

I obviously it's, there's, there's two levels this can operate at that, you know, going, Going back into consumer speak, there's a category level, and then there's a product level. Okay, so, you know, you walk around in the supermarket and you'll go to any particular category, you know, let's look at, I don't know, chocolate. I was going to say toilet rolls there, but that's what you've known in the trade as a low interest, high importance category, judge the other bit when he's Do you ever see that meme where somebody's like the toilet roll, empty toilet roll, cardboard tube, this tiny scrap of toilet paper clinging to it, and somebody's written on it? Where is your God now? Oops, but, but in terms of categories, there are categories which are high interest, low importance. Okay, like chocolate, man, you defensively. You ask, you can live without chocolate, but living without toilet roll is different, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, but you know, I mean in terms of ranking, I'll jump

Rion Willard

16:59

in the shower afterwards to make a show.

Speaker 1

17:03

So, yeah, so we're talking about need states, okay, let's just talk. And that's forget chocolate, then that's too emotive. Wait, but there's the argument. You see, chocolate is an emotive product, yeah. And so, so you got a category, okay? And, you know, there are, I hate this expression, but it was used in the past called category captains, and that was the big players like Cadburys, you know, Nestle, okay, who drive the whole category of chocolate. But then you'll find that Cadburys, for instance, realized a long time ago that they can't sell expensive chocolate because it's a fun, quite a low. It's not, it's not the best Belgian chocolate that people love the taste because distinct flavor, it's fun. So they keep launching different variants, which got popping candy in and stuff like this. But if they want to sell a premium product, they bought green and blacks, they acquire, okay, so, so within a category, you have to position yourself like, what is it? What is it I'm selling? Okay, and who's my target audience. And then, then helps you. It helps you define your product, so you know your product sort of parameters. So this is fairly standard marketing stuff. It's Unilever, isn't it? And there's loads of models you can use for that. And I think what the profession needs is some basics in like the butterfly model or that, you know, things like that. Because at the end of the day, you can think about all the rational arguments for what you're offering as a service. Please don't put award winning architects is number one, please, please. But to understand a position in the mind of your consumer, you have to make a creative leap. There's no way around it, and so that's where you have to think outside the box. So let's take the example about passive house or or sustainability, okay, there is a, there is an increasing demographic of people who are quite who have got the resources, they've got money, they've got the ability to borrow whatever, and you know in their mind that you know it's been instilled with them, or that you know they want To do something for the world, which is perfectly legitimate and laudable, okay, no problem. Now, I'd say this without sounding like exploiting people, okay, but if that's their passion, if that's their passion, people will pay for their passion. They'll pay a premium for their passion. Look at cars, look at chocolate. Okay, so you are in a far better position if you can find somebody who's passionate about what they're doing, or uncover or excavate that passion and. You like, because it'll be there. And then you say, Yeah, but we do this, and we have this complete service, and we'll lead you through it, and we do this. And that not the Riba plan of work, that's, that's, we have an emotional program of how you do it, okay, and that's, can be creative and all sorts of stuff, but at the end of it, you're charging them 30% more. And that, to me, is like, that's the bottom line, yeah? Doing all this for a reason. Okay? So you have to find the pain point or the passion point, which is solution selling as well. Yeah. So you can find that in almost any area. So for a practice owner, you have to say, well, what am I offering this different? What can I conjure up? What can I what story can I tell and and the point is, is that it's not about the architect. It's about the person who's buying the service of the architect. What, what's the what's their story that you need to play into? I'm trying to be an example of this.

Rion Willard

21:01

Well, I mean, this reminds me of the dear, the book, The Story brand that Donald, Donald Miller, and like his kind of principles of understanding the the kind of Avatar that you're that you're selling to and making them the hero of the story. But it means, it means understanding their their problems, that their pain points, and that's the, that's the kind of, the first, the first place of, you know, getting, getting outside of, ahead of us being architects and actually see how the consumer is perceiving something, and what they're actually struggling with, and where they might be, you Know, irrationally emotional about a particular thing, great, that's our that's, that's where we enter into, I'll

Speaker 1

21:46

make a confession. I do this all the time with architects, not, not, not with their practices, because I learned that I, you know, I work with manufacturers who, because they have things called marketing budgets, yeah, and they want to differentiate that, you know, in any particular category of construction product, that you'll have a number of suppliers, okay, so at that point, it's about differentiation. If it's about price, then, well, you don't need any help with that. That's just arguing with the contractor. But differentiation is key. So I think to myself, well, what can I do to help differentiate my client from its competitors? Now, one of the things I do is I write CPD. Are a lot of CPD, so I've introduced a whole other area CPD, um, about storytelling, and based on my understanding of what it is to be an architect and talking to architects on daily basis. So it's not about exploiting them. It's just about establishing a brand in their mind as a preference choice. Okay? So for instance, I try and play into what the architects kind of soul is about. I'll give you an example. One of my clients said they'll do talk about sliding, folding doors in extensions and alterations on houses, which are very popular, big expenses of glass. Again, I'm saying, like, I'm saying, Well, why do people want that? Well, they said access to the garden. I'm going now, that's just the how, what, why do they feel that need to be to be able to open it up and be part of that? Okay? And that's very deep. So I came up with a kind of an outline, and I said, I want to call the CPD memories green. And I went, if you know Vangelis, you'll know that's one of his tracks. It was also used on Blade Runner. Okay, the actual movie memories of green, I said, because we're basically hunter gatherers who've evolved of 200,000 years, we're used to being in the landscape. It's only relatively recent times, last 1000 years or two, that we've actually dwelt inside buildings. You know, we were camping outside, following for, you know, we're following the food. So, you know, we've, we've evolved, have a much greater precision of vision on green color green than any other color, because we have to be good at that. Because camouflage, we're looking for predators, you know. So we are creatures of the landscape, and that, I said that that is a deep primer, primeval move that people feel to be part of that landscape because they find themselves marooned in this kind of urban world. And there's something in the, you know, the kind of the deeper recess of the brain, I said. So I. You can sell them, like 20,000 quid for the sliding doors, but for the architect, who's the person selling it, it gives them an understanding of so that's why people are obsessed about this, or one of the reasons so I'm trying to say, well, there's an emotional argument you can use about feeling close to nature, because then you reduce your blood pressure, your heart rate, you know, it's well documented physiological changes. So there's one angle, you know. So you could even have a practice that says where, you know, forget about the extension. We're all about connection to the green space. For instance, you know, we're connecting you with your healthier, with a healthier past or or your heritage, your I mean, it's, it's what, it's an argument. But all I'm doing is differentiating again. People come and say, Okay, we got 14 types of slightly taught, yeah, with triple glazing. That's the how, not the why, yeah, so I think architects got to figure out the why. And again, that's what this is about. The why kind of familiar about work. Okay, well, this is written by my wife, actually, and Nick Moss, great architect. My wife's not an architect, she's a social scientist and writer, but she's been marinated in architects for the last 15 years. So she's like, she's met, like dozens of architects. She's been to all the functions social and aided in architects marinade. She's basically, she's been faceted, you know, and and gained a deep sort of, because she's a social scientist, she gave a deep understanding of, like, what makes architects tick, and how weird we are and and then there was a discussion that, you know, the problem with a lot of modernism, which is 100 years old, plus is that it doesn't necessarily deliver the kind of emotional bond that people feel with the Urban with the built environment, in the way that previous movements like art deco, Art Nouveau, secessionist movement, Glasgow School, you know, arts and crafts, people feel deeply attached to buildings like that, like the town halls and that, but they don't feel attachments in the same way to modernist buildings. Why? Because they lack emotion. And so one of this is basically a way of like, well, we've got to introduce emotion back into architecture, because emotion is the primary driver of human beings, as I've just been discussing. But I'll give you an example of what my absolutely excellent, lovely wife is like. She's I was in the background, offering a few bits and pieces, but I'm just handy. If you want to ask a question, I mean, Nick and I did all the work. I was just in the background getting the asset, and she asked me a question, like it was Louis calm. Okay, so I'd say, okay, Louis calm, is this guy? And then next thing you know, she's ordered like, eight books, and she reads them cover to cover, because she's thorough. And then we're talking about Christopher Alexander A Pattern Language in a timeless way building now I've got them on the shelf behind me, and I have to confess, I looked at the pictures and flicked through it and did that. She read them like a novel. Wow. She's fantastically researched on this. So basically, this is, this is a differentiator. Okay, it's how to communicate, how to develop a bond with your client, by talking about emotion, of what's the letter and why it's necessary, what's the name of the book? It's called blueprints for the soul, and it's why we need emotion in architecture. I'm not going to plug it too much. It's our iba publication,

Rion Willard

29:05

and it's, we'll put a link to its purchase in the in the info of the podcast. Hey, look,

Speaker 1

29:10

it's, it's witty and it's funny, and it's not hard to read. It's got lots of pictures. It's even got pictures of James Sterling's buildings in there and stuff. Yeah, it's got lots of pictures for architects to look at, because I like looking at pictures, but that's what I'd say. We don't, you know, what we don't cover is so is some of the deeper consumer driven research that Rory Sutherland stands and in tapping into people's needs states. Well, the one I guess we say, is okay Iran, I'm sure I've asked you this one before. What is the most popular chilled ready meal in the UK, by a country mile? I.

Rion Willard

30:00

A chilled ready meal. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1

30:02

You go to Mark suspensors or Sainsbury's. You go into the chilled food aisle.

Rion Willard

30:06

I would go for a tick of masala.

Speaker 1

30:12

Good, guess, good guess. That's the most popular hot food takeaway in the UK, by the way. Originated in Scotland, Glasgow. But, but, no, it's lasagna.

Rion Willard

30:26

I would have, I would have gone for spaghetti and then lasagna.

Speaker 1

30:31

But why is lasagna so popular? Because it's a pain in the neck to make. It is absolutely it's a comfort food. You shove it in the oven. It's what you call a midweek fallback meal, isn't it? It's First Wednesday or Thursday. You think, I just want to shove it in the oven, and 40 minutes later, eat this incredibly comforting, rich tasting meal. And it's but it's a pain to make. You need this sauce, that sauce. You need to do that. It takes you, like, four hours to make which you get it from. Now, if you go to Sainsbury's or somewhere like that, you will find about five or six different levels on you, right? Okay, so I'm just saying just, just bear with me a minute. Think of it as domestic extensions. Yeah, I love

Rion Willard

31:19

it, I love it, I love it.

Speaker 1

31:21

So at the top there's Charlie bighams, right, which is, like nine quid. And it's a little wooden box. It is excellent, by the way, but it's nine quid, right? And then you'll have, like, a family tray sized one for like, the same price, but for you, like, 15 people or something, and then everything between, you know, you got your value, standard, standard, plus Uber, you know, Uber standard. And then, you know, you know, kind of premium, Uber premium, you know, so, so even with something as modest as pasta, Okay, you go, go look in the supermarket, see how many sounds of pasta there are. And you have all the shapes, tagliatelle, right? Bucha, some of the new ones, you know, some of the you know, the ones you get through MasterChef or something. And then you'll notice that there's the standard pasta, and then there's the bronze dye pasta, okay, which are more expensive, because it authentic. So you got all the things there about authenticity, provenance. You know, you know the old mark. This isn't just food. This is marks and Spencer's food even, but even Marks and Spencers are joking with their own strap line. Now, because I bought a pair of Christmas socks yesterday for this event, and it said on the socks, these aren't just Christmas socks, which, although it's funny, you know, they play with the whole but, but it's getting into why do people need these? Okay? Because you can theory, go a supermarket, they have one very product, which is kind of the original idea for Aldi and little restriction of choice, okay, the tyranny of choice, so, but there are, there any number of niches a product can take or a service, and it's being it's thinking outside the box about what needs to take that and what emotional satisfaction that offers. So, but that takes a lot of effort, and it takes creativity, and it takes you to sort of adjust to a different level.

Rion Willard

33:28

Well, it really makes the, you know, the a very important point. You know, that at the moment in the architect profession, we're just not engaging with marketing or sales at all, like, it's very, it's a, you know, that that's a that's a big resistance, and it's but it's the key. It's the key for being able to raise fees, position ourselves in the in a way, get better quality work out there, to achieve all of the the kind of broader aims of the profession and what individual architects want to have, and to have a more agency as a profession. This, this deep level of communication and learning, learning it has, it has wide ranging applications, not just in selling stuff, but also in in, you know, talking to your team members, and marketing to, you know, marketing to yourself even Well, yeah, I

Speaker 1

34:19

told the students about this. I mean, you know, think about the target audience you're selling to. Yeah. I mean, what, what, what they interested in, okay, and what they care about. I refuse to believe that there isn't a solution to this, because I see it in every other walk of life, okay, you could even see it in dentistry, can't you? I mean, you can see it in medicine. You can see it everywhere. You can see it in the law, the stratification of premium value. Now, there'll always be people who want to compete on price. Okay, I just don't think that architects should do that. I think there are other players who compete on price. So. So architects had to need that. Well, for a kickoff, the architect title should offer reassurance. Okay, so that's, you know, and I think this is where the people at the Riba come in, because it's like, That's the mark of assurance. And you can turn around the Riba can turn around and say, all of our members are subject to this, this, this, and this, you have, you know that they're answerable. They have a code of conduct. They do this, but they're also trained, so I have very high level not just on the technical side, but on the emotional side about creating beauty. It's like we don't want to talk about beauty. Why not? Why not? People care a lot about beauty. Go and look at cars. Go look at fashion, go look at makeup, go and look at all of the the half the shops that populate the High Street are about beauty. Why aren't we talking about this? It's so obvious, but we always seem to boil it down to these few similar, same things. You know, there's a sustainability. One Passive House, where about the other end, absolutely unapologetic hedonism. Okay, there's a market for that. You know, the penthouse with the three pools and the sort of, you know, 15 kinds of marble. I mean, you know, why not? Architects, those provide the service for money. It's not a charity. So going back to the beginning, I just don't think we're exploring enough of the kind of thoughts people like Rory southern has, for instance, you know, you know, the whole thing you did about, you know, Eurostar, like, you know, for 1% you could get broadband. And if you the 10% you get models going up that track giving out three glasses of wine Chateau Lafite 64 and people ask you to slow the train down. So he's right. We've got to look at from a psychological perspective, rather than just, you know, you're providing a box for people to live in. Yeah, it's more working. Amazing.

Rion Willard

37:06

Amazing. Paul. I think it's perfect place to conclude the conversation. That was wonderful. I could have spoken to you for another couple of hours, but we'll have to do another one. But absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1

37:18

No, I'll tell you about the crackers another time. I'll leave that one with you next episode. Thank you, Ryan. I love always great to search you, man, it's fantastic. Thank you. Hey,

Enoch Sears

37:29

Enoch Sears here, and I have a request, since you are a listener here of the Business of Architecture podcast, Ryan and I, we love putting this podcast together. We love sharing information as much as we can glean from all the other industries that we're a part of to bring it back to empower you as an architect and a designer. One thing that helps us in our mission is the growth of this podcast, simply because it helps other architects stand for more of their value spreads the business information that we're sharing to empower architects together, so architects, designers, engineers, can really step into their greatness, whatever that looks like for each individual. And so here my my simple ask is for you to join us and be part of our community by doing the following, heading over to iTunes and leaving a review of the podcast. And as an expression of our sincere thanks. We would like to give you a free CEU course that can get you one professional development unit, but more importantly, we'll give you a very solid and firm foundation on your journey to becoming a profitable and thriving architect. So here's the process for that. After you leave us review, send an email to support at Business of architecture.com let us know the username that you use to leave the review, and we will send you that free training. On the training, you'll discover what 99% of architecture firm owners wish they would have known 20 years ago.

Rion Willard

39:02

Hello, listeners, we hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it without the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month, interested in becoming a sponsor, please send us an email at support at businessof architecture.com the views expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation. Promise, guarantee, pledge, warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you be unstoppable. You.

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