638 - Peter Marko

    6:52PM May 27, 2025

    Speakers:

    Rion Willard

    Keywords:

    architecture practice

    rental income

    architect developer

    tiny homes

    monocoque cabin

    design creativity

    business scaling

    sweat equity

    Airbnb funding

    project management

    lease agreement

    holiday let

    unique holiday homes

    marketing skills

    angel investor

    Rental income means that I have to turn over far less in the architecture business than, let's say, a more traditional architecture practice would

    Hello architect nation, and welcome back. Ryan Willard here, co founding principal at Business of Architecture as a practice owner, you're probably all too familiar with the challenges of balancing creative work the demands of running a business. Have you ever found yourself questioning how to scale your business, expand your project portfolio, or develop a more lucrative income stream without burning out? Well, on today's episode, you're going to discover how one architect took a leap into the world of architect, developer, business models and the unconventional path that led to his success, the secrets to leveraging design creativity for maximum profit without compromising on your artistic vision, and why focusing on a unique, repeatable product could be the key to scaling your architectural practice while maintaining a sustainable income. In today's episode, I sit down with Peter Marcos, an architect, developer and founder of the Morocco cabin project, known for his innovative approach to tiny homes. Peter's entrepreneurial journey began at a young age with a passion for furniture making and timber structures, and he's since become a recognized expert in the field, securing funding from Airbnb to bring his Enoch holiday home concept to life. Attention, architects, if you're building everyone else's dreams while yours collect dust, it's time for the smart practice method master class. This free master class is your blueprint for eliminating overwhelm and slaying chaos. Stop drawing up excuses. Start designing your ideal practice today. Go to smart practice method.com. To get access to this free video. Stay tuned. This episode is packed with actionable insights. You won't want to miss Peter. Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you, sir, good,

    good, good. Thanks for having me. Rod, very

    excited to be talking with you. And there was a I was very intrigued when I got your email to one of our responses about architect, developer, business models. You're an architect, you've got your your own practice, and you're also the founder of, is it am I saying it right? The manoch, cabin, yeah, yeah. Cabin,

    sorry, monocoque. Monococh, monocoque,

    yeah. Monocoque, the monocoque. Cabin, great. Okay, so which, which is a really interesting kind of architectural developer business model, which, for once, has a has a potential for a lot of scale involved in it. So perhaps we'll, we'll jump in, and we'll talk a little bit about your Marcos design workshop and how the two sort of businesses sit with each other. And let's, let's start with, how did it all begin? So

    it began. So I studied at Sheffield for my undergrad, and I did a year out in practice, pretty normal. And then I did a year working in India. But then part of that year, I went and lived with a friend in a place called cashmere. And I started designing this chair because cashmere is very famous for its sort of crafts and its manufacturing. And I was kind of like taken by this idea of like, as an architect, having your own product, particularly looking at the likes of ins and auto because obviously, with the eans couple, they have the their chairs, and then the same with even with alto as well. So I was really just drawn by this idea of creating a product and developing a product which would almost iterate over time. So I made the first prototype off the chair out in Kashmir, which was made from Kashmiri walnut. And that was just such an amazing experience, because I was getting the experience of designing something, commissioning it as a manufacturer, and then seeing that entire process through. And my experience in practice had been, you are quite limited to what it is you can engage in. And obviously, I know there is some very clear reasons why practices do that, but I think to some extent that can actually just limit your potential, and perhaps limit the sort of avenue that might suit you better. So after that, I returned to the UK to do my part two at UCL. But I was really determined when I'd graduate, that I would start my own practice, pretty much straight out of graduation. You're at the Bartlett. At the Bartlett. Yeah, you're at the Bartlett. Weren't you? I was. Yeah, so, yeah, so, yeah. When studied at the Bartlett, which was great. And obviously during that time, it was at the time of COVID, and I think in my head, I was just formulating this idea, like, how am I going to start a business? I knew the biggest challenge for any architecture practice is actually getting its first prop project, particularly getting a decent project. And I'm actually not, I'm not just saying this because I'm on the show, but I came across a interview that Enoch, your co founder, did with Jonathan Siegel and I honestly must have listened to about 10 or 15 tides, because Jonathan gets very granular of how a 20 something can do their first architecture.

    Yeah, his story is extraordinary, yes, so it's so it's so inspiring him and Roger sonovich And those, those two guys, their stories are really they're quite similar, but yeah, Stevens is remarkable.

    I don't know Rogers. I'm going to give that one a listen, because I actually gave Jonathan. Every time I listen to that interview, I get nuggets out of that and I get more. Is it like Sony? It's only half an hour long. But he goes into these ideas and things that I'd never really thought about or considered, like this idea of sweat equity, which is essentially this idea that you essentially have your day job where you're getting paid for it, and then outside of that day job, you spend time working on your development. And those drawings, those models you prepare, they become the projects, the sweat equity. So I found that idea quite captivating. I was also sort of quite keen to protect my protect the downside, I guess. And I was reading about, you know, developers going bankrupt and some of the risks around that, so I wanted to start with something pretty small. But I also didn't want to just, you know, let's say, buy a house and flip it, because that wouldn't necessarily encapsulate much of my design interest. So I sort of landed on this idea of creating a holiday let and creating a cabin. Because I think one of the good things about doing a holiday let and a cabin is, or a tiny home, let's say is, the more unique the design is, the more out there the design is more interesting. The design is the higher the rental yield, the higher the occupancy rate. So in that sense, it actually pays to be creative, which in my view, can actually be quite difficult to achieve in architecture. Because in architecture, you know, typically, if you're designing an extension to a house, you know those sorts of ideas of having a really creative structure might not be the most appealing thing for the client, because at the end of the day, they might want to sell the building or, you know, so, so, yeah, I was really taken by this idea of creating a holiday let and Obviously this was during COVID, so I so there was a massive demand for local holidays as well because people could travel. And then when I graduated, I was like, right, okay, let's sort of get this started. And to be honest, I didn't really, from the day we started it, I'm really have many of the prerequisite skills or tools that you'd need to develop projects. So I didn't own any land. My family didn't own any land. I didn't even some of the more basic things. I didn't have a car. I didn't have a driving license. So and most of the ideal sites would be places which are rurally located. I didn't know many contractors, any engineers, etc, but what I was quite keen to do was to actually just really create a list of things and just work my way through that. Say, right, okay, how are we going to acquire the site? And then I landed on this idea of doing a lease, which essentially revolved around this idea that I would approach a farm or farmers and say, Look, can we lease a plot for your land in return for a profit share and a profit share of the rental income of the cabin. And this actually, because I went to a school where there were lots of families who had farms and etc, I was able to sort of reach those contacts, and they were able to sort of send me into the right direction to for. Farmers who may be interested in this. And there was quite a high uptake. There's a lot of interest. I think looking back, one of the reasons that had a lot of interest is because what we were looking for was a really small plot of land, like a quarter of an acre, if not smaller than that. And I worked out that per year that would only yield a farm in terms of profits, about 50 to 100 pounds, if it was a dairy farm. So, so like a holiday let, which has the potential to, you know, yield the farm somewhere between 2000 to 6000 pounds was, is very appealing, and also it has the potential to improve the value of the land, amongst other things. So there was one farm in particular who had a really beautiful plot, and just seemed like a really easy guy to get on with. So I didn't know personally, but we sort of entered a lease option, sorry, at least on the back of that. And then, and then, I think one thing to mention as well, which was one of the things I learned from studying at UCL, was that you can really speak through the work you do, particularly because I didn't have much experience actually delivering a project, or building any projects, or anything really. So what I started to do, you can actually see it in the background, is I made these one to 20 models, which were 3d printed off the cabin, and I would and that's how I sort of convinced the farmers that I approach, I approach them with beautiful visuals, physical model. I was basically able to say it's going to be a bit like this, just 25 times bigger and and also, because I think, I think also, whereas, you know, if you study architecture, you're at the bar level, or whatever you are, exposed a lot to 3d printed models. But if you're a rural farm, it's actually probably not something you come across a lot. So that gave me a lot of credibility, and no one really questioned it. But that actually also expanded to what I wanted to start to build out a team like the structural engineers, we actually got price and Myers involved, who are a really credible engineering firm, and then block build who, again, are really credible manufacturing company, I thought that would be a really effective way of actually building my own credibility, as well as just building a really strong collaboration team. Yeah, so, so, so that actually worked really, really well.

    So, yeah, yeah, amazing. That is brilliant. And so what was, what was the next steps? Then you got the, you got the kind of team together. How did you fund the first cabin or, yeah,

    so, so again, at this point, I was basically just working off sweat equity and my savings. So in terms of paying the engineers, I would just pay them out of my savings. It was they were fairly small amounts at those times. And then one thing I started doing as well, is everything the every sort of visual, every model, I'd start to publish it on Instagram, partly as a diary to the project, but also also just a way of just say, Oh, look, this is what's going on. This is what up to and I think sometimes social media gets quite a negative view. But for me, two things happened. The first thing was people were a lot of people were very supportive. But the other thing was about, you know, maybe a year and a year and a half into this process, maybe a bit longer, some people started reaching out. Some friends start saying, Oh, look, Airbnb are doing this competition. And the competition was they were giving 100 people $100,000 to build their unique property and and at first, like, like, a couple of people sent to me, I sort of ignored it. I didn't think much of it. And then more and more people started sending it to me, saying, Look, you're actually this really fits what you're doing. So I yeah, I applied to that competition. I know there was something like 250,000 people who applied to it. And there were three stages, and I just started getting whittled down for it. And again, I think because you had to obviously upload, like drawings, models, etc, the fact that I'd, let's say, gone above and beyond with these models and these drawings, that meant. That we had a pretty decent chance of winning the competition, even though something like a quarter of a million people applied for it. I mean, I remember what a planning officer say, like, when I submitted this for planning there's like, like, why have you done so much work? Because, from a commercial point of view, it probably didn't make sense the model. Let's say if you were some of the models, if you were to sell them or to charge a client, you know, looking at about three to 6000 pounds. So commercially, it didn't make sense, I guess, at first, but it did actually make sense in that way. So we won the money, and we won the funding. And that what, obviously, $100,000 was a lot of money, but the next thing I did, which I don't think is definitely not something I'd recommend doing. And it was luck, to be honest, but I actually took that money and I invested it in the s and p5 100 at time.

    Genius. Yeah. So this was, this was October 23 if you look at, if you look at

    a graph, at the of the s and p5 100, it was a very low point. So I invested it then and then, within a year, got a return of about 40% or something. You know, I said this, this was

    it just an index fund or, like, it was an ETF,

    actually, okay, yeah, yeah. So I was funny enough, because I was talking to a friend about, because he was, he's thinking about doing something similar. That's like, I really wouldn't recommend it, but it did work out for the better.

    Oh, Peter, that's amazing. Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant. So the money, so you say you put the money aside for a year, basically, in an ETF, it went up 40% and then you pulled it out and then used it.

    That's it. Yeah, yeah. So then, and then at that point, we'd got the planning permission, we were ready to start on the construction. And I just, I just kind of took the money out and started in. I think the the next, I think the thing to say as well, at this stage, I wasn't even qualified. I'm qualified as an architect, but I think my thought, my thought always been, I'd have to take out some kind of bank load from this, or, I didn't really know what, but I one of the good things about the money from Airbnb was it did actually make the whole thing seem less stressful. Because, yeah, it's, it's not a conventional building. There's lots it's, it's all curves. It's, it was new for the manufacturing company. It was obviously totally new for me. It was the first time I'd ever delivered a building. It's all, yeah, it's all made from shingles. It's all made from plywood. It's all

    the name. And the name monococh, I'm assuming, is from, like, chassis construction type of

    exactly. I mean, I can quickly show you the shape if you want. Yeah,

    yeah, yeah, please, yeah. I mean, I've

    got a so this is so we've, we've got these. We use the models a lot for prototypes. But this is actually the original design. The one in the background, just there is the newer version. So, but like I said, this even as a form, was very difficult to deliver.

    So, like I see it so with its CLT kind of timber construction, and then insulated, and then you got your shingles on the outside. And

    absolutely, yeah, yeah. So exactly, it's a little pie. Word, insulated, and then the shingles on the outside. So yeah. So at this point, so just before we went on site I, at that point, became qualified, and then financially, it actually made sense to leave my practice, leave the practice I was working on, and then just go and work on this as, almost as a subcontractor and the main contractor. Because, yeah, because it was, it was, it was becoming a bit much actually just working in practice. And, like I said, financially, the day rate of a lot of contractors would be a lot higher than what I was earning in practice, which, yeah,

    so the math, the methane, methane with your

    Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, so, yeah, so, so I started, I sort of teamed up with a carpenter, and then actually, I got one of my friends involved as well in terms of doing the building work. And. Um, and then, yeah, and then, obviously, that, that all started moving along. I do want to say, though, a lot of this wasn't, I know a lot of this sounds like a lot of like luck and chance, and there was a lot of that, you're

    an entrepreneur, Peter, you're making, you're making your luck. I mean, just, just the, just the, the the aptitude to take the risk of sticking in the s and p5 100 as a stroke is a stroke of genius. I love it. I love it. The whole thing is, you know, is making my hair standing, and it's absolutely fantastic, yeah.

    But at that point, my luck started to run a bit dry, to be honest, and some bad stuff started going. So the first thing is, it took a lot longer than we would have wanted to, and that was just to be honest, it's probably about down to a bit of bad project management on my end. And then finally, when we did get it finished. The weekend we got it finished, somebody came along, stole all the solar panels, the generator, and it was like it was this time last year. So it was, it was the point in which it was like, perfect to rent out in summer. Oh, goodness, yeah. So we had about 20,000 pounds worth of stuff stolen. It was insured, so we but, and then we, yeah, and then we, and then we were quite conscious that if we were to just reinstate the off grid electrics, that would get stolen again. So we, we had to connect the grid. And that entire process took, like, six months or so. So I've got to be honest, that that was, that was quite a challenging time. I remember actually just waking up middle of the night and stuff, panicking, because for some time it was, it was unclear, even if we could connect it to the grid. And then at that point, I was like, Well, how's this going to even operate at all, but obviously, thankfully we like November last year, we did get it up and running, and then I sort of started renting it out, and then along about that time as well. So once the construction of this finished, I then started taking on private clients, and then actually just entering this niche of holiday lets and uni cones. And I've actually quite quickly been able to establish myself in that niche. And I think one of the things about being doing a development is you can actually say to prospective clients, look, I know what it's like. I know some of the financial challenges, and you're actually putting your money where your mouth is. I guess in many ways, it might be similar to you guys as podcast hosters offer Business of Architecture. Guess what gives you credibility, in a sense, is the fact that you've got that experience as an architect and, you know, running your own business. So yeah, so then I've started, I started winning work. Some of them, some of the projects, more sort of conventional, back extensions, home remodeling, but I think more recently, the projects are getting much more interesting and much more in line with my niche, and yet people sort of outreaching me, not the other way around. So, yeah, yeah, not sure if I've missed anything

    there, and that has this brilliant, absolutely brilliant story of getting this, the getting the cabin up and constructed. So is it now up and running, you're letting it out, and it's kind of bringing in cash flow and starting to pay for itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that business model, that, that business model, you proved it, you're happy with it as a proof of concept that it works?

    Yeah? Absolutely so. So be we've been renting it for about six months. When we started renting it, there were so many challenges to the extent I was almost regretting it as a business model, because at like I would, I would actually dread a guest checking in, because there would always be something wrong or something not quite right. But I'm I've been working really closely with the it's not really a cleaner, it's more like a house manager, a lady called Jackie, and she's been absolutely brilliant. And she managing it, and she sort of manages when we get bookings, she sort of organizes her team of cleaners so they deal with changeovers. And what I found over the last six months is those problems, obviously through a lot of effort, but those problems have just gradually start. It's diminishing. But I think the other thing which has been really interesting is that that acts as almost like a post Occupancy Evaluation, because that in terms of the Reba stages, post occupancy is often ignored or not really considered, or

    what kind of relationship then do you now have with the farmer who owns the land that the property is sitting on, and what, what, what risks are there now, because I'm assuming you've got a kind of bespoke contract in place where you're leasing out, you know, he can't suddenly say, right, you're not allowed to have this thing here anymore and change his mind. I want it. I want it back for the cows. Have you sort of navigated that? And what was the process for getting the agreement in place? Yeah,

    that was actually, I completely missed that out, but that was really challenging. I think that was because it was the first thing I've done. So it's kind of moved away from it. So we, typically, the landowner writes a lease agreement. But because I was approaching them with the project, we, I like, we, my solicitors wrote the lease agreement. So it's got a belief the periods got, the lease has got, like, a period of seven years, but we've got something known as, like, the right to renew, which basically means that we've got the right to renew the agreement, and that is subject to the what's already in place. So because what you wouldn't want is for is to approach the land, is to for the landowner to say, oh, yeah, but I want an increase in in rent from like 20% to 50% and that they would essentially have you over a barrel. Yeah. So that's what the right to renew protects, something I'll get onto a bit later, but I've got a non executive director who's joining my business. He's very knowledgeable and capable, but he's recommending that we do something called a lease option in future. And the idea of a lease option is it actually allows you to buy the land at an agreed price, which would essentially give the business more for, like, a greater valuation. So at the moment, the valuation is almost the lease and the length of the lease, lease and the right to renew. But if you've got a lease option and you can buy the land outright, then you've actually just got a property in its own land.

    And so is that an option? Then you that you'd want to better buy the property outright and then just have it and then it's protected. I think it doesn't make any sense.

    Yeah, I think from a business sense, it does. Because I think, I think one of the things with a business like this is you've got the rental income, which comes every, every few days, every day or so, even. But the real valuation is actually when you come to sell the business, because most people don't want to spend time, you know, using their sweat equity, risking things on the s and p5 100 and just going through this process, and you get lots of private equity, lots of affluent individuals and affluent companies who will want to buy out something like this as a whole business. So that's just a long winded way of saying the lease option would give us a better balance sheet, and therefore, me would have a higher valuation, and thus we can, in theory, sell it for a higher amount.

    Amazing, brilliant, very, very smart. It's a bit it's not too dissimilar to the kind of service department strategies that you hear a lot of property guys talking about, where they might approach somebody who's already, you know, a landlord, and they'll say, hey, you've thought about putting your property up on Airbnb for rental. We're manage it. We'll do it. We'll even do whatever internal changes are needed, to your to your to the to the apartment, and then what we'll take it from there. And it's almost like they're subletting it now for that kind of purpose. And people do that. They build them in, you know, businesses out of approaching landlords to take their properties and then use it for an Airbnb, Airbnb

    purposes. Yeah, that's those. Is that rent to rent, is it rent to rent? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, I think, because, I think ultimately, because I was sort of watching something on rent to rent the other day, and I think it's good that people doing that, because you do just need to work with what you've got. Because, yeah, because, yeah, like, like, I said, when I, when I actually started this, I had. None of the things required to develop a project. The only thing really you could probably point to is the fact not the only thing is a massive thing, but was that as an architect, but ultimately, there are people sitting with lots of land, and farmers are typically speaking, they're land rich, but cash poor. So so like I know other people in the industry and other people who've got some of the business models what I've done, and there is absolutely no shortage of farmers who are interested in having one of these cabins with their land.

    Was it difficult then getting planning permission to have some sort of residence on farmland, yes and

    no. So the the the no is because it was a commercial so it's not residents. It's a commercial property, right? Okay, so I can, like, go and let live there, let's say, and there's lots of stipulations in the planning which would prevent me from doing that, or anybody else. But then at the same time, we had lots of objections from neighbors, because I think in rural areas, people are often worried about this fear that the land is just going to be or the farm or whatever is just going to be converted to, like a caravan park and that. So we had something like 28 projections, which is pretty crazy for a small cabin so that, yeah, so, like, like I said, I think we actually thought from a planning perspective and from a regulation perspective, I thought, well, this is going to sail through, but it obviously took a bit longer because of that process.

    Amazing. So tell us a little bit then about what your plans are for scaling the cabin idea. You know, do you want to take it to more more farmers? Is that kind of Is it a repeatable business model, or has it opened up the pathway to do something else? How would you scale it? What would, what would funding look like to do something like this? So

    if, obviously, I started looking at like the Eames couple and an alto, and they both developed this idea of a product and a product which can scale alto particularly, did this on a with a number of products, actually. And I think one of the things which was quite nice in their business model is that actually gave open them up a load of creativity, because they were able to develop a cash flow from these products, which meant that they weren't too reliant on doing like, you know, projects which were a bad fit or they weren't that interested in. So I was looking at, okay, how can I sort of develop this? We've already developed this as a product. It's got the potential to scale. And I think maybe one of the problems with the architect developer model, to some extent, is you develop one project, and then you go and develop another one, and every time you develop another one, there's you're essentially starting the CAD drawings, deciding everything from the fresh obviously, you're far more knowledgeable as an architect And as a developer and what you're doing, but ultimately you are also starting again, so it's difficult, I guess, to scale. So I was really in I've been really interested in how I kind of scale this. So what I've been doing is just spending the last year or so just working on developing the next version of the cabin. So between like, let's say a project goes quiet, or we're waiting to hear back from the planning department on something or anything else, I would use that free time to work on the project. But I think what's been quite nice is, rather than that actually being sweat equity, I'm technically getting paid for that because of the money coming in from the rental income. So the rental income means that I have to turn over far less in the architecture business than, let's say, a more traditional architecture practice would. So that's been really good. And then, and then I, I actually put something out on LinkedIn, maybe in February or so. At this stage, I've got an angel investor involved who's going to come on as a non Executive Director, and the idea is he's going to fund the next four, three or four cabins and, and, yeah, so we're going to do the next three or four, and then from that as well, we're going to say, right, okay, what can we learn from this? And then iterate the business. Accord, agree.

    Love it. I love it. Very, smart, very, very congratulations.

    No cheers for that. Really appreciate. Yeah, really, really

    inspiring story. Of what I love about it, as you kind of outlined, is that you did this without a lot of resource, except for your intellect and your skills, right? There was no it wasn't an enormous amount of capital that you had that you had that you were able just to go and play with. It was just, it was thoughtful, and you had the kind of aptitude about to take some risks, and then whatever you needed to do in terms of lowering your kind of operational costs and just being sort of streamlined to make it happen. That is, yeah, it's brilliant. This is how, this is how good businesses get started. No,

    absolutely. I mean, to be honest, I it does sometimes bother me a little bit when I when I hear people saying, Oh, they can't, they can't start something because I've not got the resources, because that, that's really not how it works. You know, you know, even with what with the podcast and the business consultancy you guys offer, like, I'm sure when you started, the resources that you had were far worse than what you've got now, you know,

    it's interesting. I Enoch and I, we often talk about, you know, our initial setup cost us, you know, under 100 quid. And using this, I was using the same setup for for up until, not to, probably way longer than I should have been. But it was like, Yeah, you start. And particularly Now we're entering into this really interesting world of the digital economy, and there are so many unique opportunities that are kind of that we've got such a lower level entry to barrier for us to be able to play with that, yeah, you know, bit of architectural thought being applied laterally, or just take a sidestep out of the traditional structure. Can can really open up a very exciting, you know, new kinds of business models.

    Yeah, just on that. I mean, just to say as well, because, I mean, I started all of this back end of 2021 maybe 2022 and that's before things like chat, GPT and, and the way that AI is just like, you know, you've got a contract, or you need advice on a contract, or a bit of a second opinion, the way that can actually just feed into your business. I literally sometimes just kind of walk around the office with the chat GPT talk and just ask it, ask it questions, almost like a business advisor. But I think the these tools are just improving. It really is getting so much easier to start a business like, like you're saying as well. There's so many ways to I mean, I've got friends who makes, like, a really good income from doing videos on sharks on YouTube. And you know that that world was just like, not a thing, you know, 2030, years ago. So,

    no, it's amazing. We, you know, I've been at kind of entrepreneurial meets before and bumped into kids like I'm talking 14, 1516, year olds who have got online businesses selling Nike trainers and are bringing in more than most architects are. And, and it's, it's kind of really, it's wonderful. It's really wonderful. We've got, I've got a client, actually, and her son is, you know, he's a tinkerer, and he's good with calculators, and he's been buying, like, secondhand, kind of scientific calculators off eBay, eBay that are broken, fixes them and then resells them. And I was like, fantastic, yeah, fantastic, little kind of, you know, businesses that are that are also allowing people to dive deep into specific kind of domains of knowledge. And we're in this kind of world now where you know you can go deep into very unique domains of knowledge, and you can mix it up with another very unique domain of knowledge, and then something very exciting can happen in terms of Marcos design workshop, the kind of more traditional part of the architectural practice. How? How do you see that evolving, and what's its role right now? So,

    yeah, so I really like both businesses, to be honest. So with the with the cabin, that it's a service accommodation, essentially, and it like, every day, every couple of days or so, we'll get a small amount of money, which comes in, obviously, with the architecture work, they tend to be bigger fees. I quite like the doing. I quite like being an architect. So you know, for me, the I'm not really motivated by the idea of, like, a. Four Hour Work Week, or anything like that. I actually quite like just spending time working. So the idea that you're trading time for money in a traditional architecture practice, I don't, for me, is not necessarily an issue. I guess, what can be an issue with an architecture practice is, if you, I guess, if you've got, like, high overheads, and you're relying on projects and turning over projects and doing projects you don't necessarily want to be doing. That's maybe where things get a bit negative. So I quite like this setup at the moment. And like I said, I think on the back of doing this project, because it's got, it's got, like, a lot of publication, it was in, like, design was one of, one of the most popular articles in the AJ, parametric architecture, you know, I think maybe even the architects review, like lots of the big magazines,

    design boom, stuff like that. So on the back of a lot of that, I've started to get into

    this niche of unique holiday homes and actually helping people develop their holiday home business. And a lot of that business comes through the things like blogging, little bit through LinkedIn, a little bit through Instagram, but that's actually something I'm trying to work on and develop at the moment is actually my marketing skills and sales because that's that's certainly something I think is a massive skill, and it's something I want to get a lot better at,

    brilliant, amazing. So I'm going to give you an invitation for in to come back onto the Business of Architecture podcast in I don't know where the next six months or year or so, when, when the monocoque cabin has been put into kind of scoured production, we'd love to hear how this develops and unfolds. And just want to say massive thank you for for responding to the podcast and sharing your brilliant story with us. Really, really inspiring. No,

    that's very common. Thanks for having me. I've honestly got so much from listening to the show, and I think it's such a good thing and just such a great addition to the industry as well. So thanks for having me

    pleasure. And here's today's Smart practice tool tip, remember when you became an architect to actually architect things. Instead, you've joined 1000s of firm owners trapped in admin hell where spreadsheets multiply and your design passion slowly dies. The delegation roadmap, smart practice tool gives you a proven system to identify which tasks are, stealing $150,000 plus of your time annually, and how to get them off your plate for good. Your family misses you, your creativity is gathering dust, and your firm is waiting for you to lead it properly. Get this tool 100% free by going to www business of architecture.com, forward slash delegate. And thank you to our recent listeners who left reviews for the podcast on iTunes. Your reviews help others find this podcast. So this rising tide raises all boats to be acknowledged on this show. Open up the podcast app on your iPhone, search for the Business of Architecture, and after clicking on the show, scroll all the way to the bottom and leave a review. Today's episode of The Business of Architecture show is sponsored by Smart practice TM, the world's leading step by step solution for small architectural practice owners that want to structure their existing practice so the complexity of business doesn't get in the way of the architecture. Because you see, it likely isn't your architecture skills that hold you back. It's the business aspects of running a practice, managing projects and people, dealing with clients, contractors and money. So if you're ready to quit being a glorified administrator and get back to architecture again, go to smart practice method.com to discover the proven simple and easy to implement smart practice method that is revolutionizing firm management for owners and teams. Hey, Ryan Willard here, and I want to thank you for joining us today and remind you that the views expressed on this show by our guests do not represent those of the host, and we make no representation, promise, guarantee, pledge, warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you conquer the world cup. A DM, you.