Architect developers displayed a higher internal locus of control. Hello and welcome to the
Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today I'm delighted to introduce Nora. Said, Nora is an exemplary architect, entrepreneur, researcher and community advocate whose dedication to meaningful design and societal advancement is truly commendable as the founder and director of NAS colab, she operates a multidisciplinary practice that seamlessly integrates architecture, development and research, exploring innovative methodologies to elevate the human experience. Nora's academic credentials are very impressive. She holds a Master's of studies in entrepreneurship from the Cambridge Judge Business School, where her research architects in development navigating the landscape for a new business model, delves into the evolving landscape of architectural practice. She also possesses dual degrees in architecture and interior architecture from Auburn University, complemented by her studies at the architectural Association in London, and her involvement in the Rural Studio design led build program in the US, renowned for its commitment to socially responsive architecture as one of Kuwait's pioneering architects, Nora made history as the first Kuwaiti woman to gain professional accreditation from the ARB, the architects Registration Board in the UK and to become a member of the Royal Institute of British architects. Her portfolio was diverse, encompassing a range of residential, commercial and competition projects across the UK, Kuwait and Switzerland. Since 2018 she has successfully managed her own architectural practice in London, providing consultancy on real estate and heritage projects for private clients. Nora's commitment to community development is profound. She perceives herself as a world citizen and a conscientious architect, actively engaging in initiatives that empower individuals and communities, thereby fostering societal progress. Her work spans various demographics, from children to adults, cultivating social connections and reinforcing communal bonds, an ethos she firmly believes lies at the heart of design through NAS collab, derived from the Arabic word for people, Nora embodies a vision of collaborative innovation in design. Her practice seeks to connect with like minded individuals across disciplines, to explore experiment and develop projects that significantly enhance the quality of life. In this episode, we take a deep dive. Look at Nora's recent master's thesis. We look at the history of the profession and why we see the challenges experiences today, we look at new business models for architecture practices, and particularly focus on the architect developer. We also look at vertical integration within architecture practices, and we discuss a little bit about why the AIA and the RBA in the past historically shunned us or moved us away from those sorts of business models, and why that's starting to change today. We also look at the typical psychological traits of an architect and how to unlock them for entrepreneurial success. So loads of gold in here. If you want to read Nora's full thesis, you can follow that on her website. We've got the information in this podcast, but for now, sit back, relax and enjoy. Nora Sade, it's time to announce this month's 200 304 100 club. If you missed our episode on the 200 club, listen to boa Episode 485 to learn more about this new initiative for benchmarking small firm performance. So a big congratulations to our 200 club members, who are Ramiro Torres, Julia, Aria, Philip Liang and Sean Kaki, Jorge, catran Yogesh, Mistry, Marina, Rubina, Brad Smith, Lena buella, Yost, bende, Georgia, girIs, Brad Hubble and Suzanne, Daly, Judy and Larry, April and Chris Driscoll. Now, congratulations to our 300 club members, who are Charles Schramm, Irini, Adams, Mark Elster and Christopher Brandon. And our 400 club members are Kimberly doaks Drew and Justine Tyndall, amazing work. Everybody. Great job to you all. Keep up the good work, and we'll see you next month. 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. Nora, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you
I'm very well Ryan, how are you doing?
I'm very good. A pleasure to have you on the show. So very excited to be speaking with you. You're an architect entrepreneur. You've recently completed your master's thesis from the Cambridge judge School of Business, where you've written a very compelling thesis around New Business Models for architects, very well researched piece of work, you and I, we had a conversation, think a few months back when you were in your research phase, and we were kind of sharing resources and an idea. So I'm really excited, actually, to to speak with you, to to dive a little bit deeper into what your findings were, and also talk about your your career as as an architect, you're based in in in Kuwait. I believe you were the first woman in Kuwait to be registered with the ARB. Is that correct?
That's right. Yes, I lived and worked in London for many years, and moved back to Kuwait recently.
Very cool, very cool. So it will be, yeah, very, very interesting to hear about your own entrepreneurial journey and and what it was that actually triggered you to want to do this piece of of of research. So perhaps what we start there, and you can tell us a little bit about your own, you know, your own company, Nas, and what you and what you do there, and what was it that kind of encouraged you to go on to this line of research?
Yeah, well, beginning. Thank you so much, Ryan for having me. It's really excited to be here today speaking about the research and, yeah, the journey that brought me here, really, where it started from, was, you know, obviously, when we're in architecture school, we're so obsessed with design, and we don't always think about the way in which practices operate, or the business models on which they are based. We tend to take these aspects for granted. But then when we go into professional setting and we have a variety of experiences, and mine ranged from residential and commercial competitions, then we start noticing certain inefficiencies, maybe that don't always lead to better design design outcomes. And this is where, really, I started becoming curious about, how else could we operate? What could we do differently? And specifically, when I was, you know, thinking of starting a family, the long hours, the poor pay, the lack of creative control, no, I thought to myself, there has to be a different way. Because not only are we not contributing the best we can to the built environment, but in some ways, we are also marginalizing entire population, especially women and minorities, as this is not a sustainable way of operating and and in architecture, we know we tend to speak to other Architects, so it's a close circle which really then bought me into entrepreneurship. And because I see a lot of entrepreneurship in architecture, this idea of giving innovative solutions, problem solving, thinking of new products or services or ways to provide something to the public that has not been there or has not been done in that way before. So there was a lot of innovation and creativity. And I thought the judge was, you know, a great place for that. But. To go and explore those ideas as an architect with My professional background, but with people from a variety of backgrounds and from different fields to learn more.
I think, I think that's what's really interesting, actually, is that, you know, studying this in the context of like, without other architects, you know, being surrounded by other architects, I think, is really valuable. I know, certainly my own sort of business kind of learning curve, if you like that, speaking with other disciplines, other business owners, other people who are interested in how the economy works, and the broader macro economic picture, if you like, and how construction and architecture fits into all of that is actually really, really valuable. And just learning about investments and money and the and the wider context is something that is completely negated in in I mean, there's not really the scope in an architecture degree to be able to cover everything that exists, but a very useful context for that in your own experience, what you were saying there about the the disappointment of the reality of practicing as a as an architect, with the low pay and the long hours and how difficult that is. I'm sure a lot of our listeners can empathize with that. And that's certainly one of the things why Enoch and I, we've, you know, we've been doing what we we've been doing when you went, what, from your perspective, what are the reasons for why, the why the current business model is inefficient, or it doesn't work, or it's like, I kind of feel like we're at a point in the architecture profession where it's, it's really broken. It's really, it's like, it's really bad,
yes, and you know, there is a long history behind how we came to where we are, actually. So as you know, obviously the the business model that we're talking about is a fee for service model, that is the predominance model at the moment in architecture. But architecture really dates to over 4500 years, and for the majority of that time, architects were master builders, you know, the completing, the engineering and general contracting, enabling them to collect fees for each of their roles, and being entrusted with an unparalleled level of design authority. So things started to shift, really with the rise of real estate developments and the complexities introduced by the industrial revolution. So there was new industrial capabilities building materials, and that outpaced the tradition, traditional expertise of a master builder, which necessitated a clear division of roles. And this is really where, you know the architectural office, then was first established, and it emerged as a crucial institution in this new paradigm, like bridge the gap between the construction site and the art studio, and even later on, like this professional divide, became even more and more You know, when the Riba was formed, and the AIA, they tried to further distance themselves from labor in order to enhance their rank and become A gentlemen's club in the mid 1800s and certain elements, like we can see, are still stay today. And I mean, there was difference between how it was portrayed in the US versus the UK and Europe. I cover a lot of these in my my dissertation, but it wasn't, you know, everyone was not happy with what was happening really at that time, like there was Architects like Walter Gropius that, you know, they were really concerned that the profession had departed from its initial inherent method known, I think, was in 1949 where the AIA added a ruling that an architect may not engage directly or indirectly in building contracting, which which have further solidified This divide as we see it today.
Oh, that's very, that's very, that's very interesting. So, so prior to the kind of, you know, advances in building technology and construction science there, how would you describe the role of the architect as the as the master builder? How would we distinguish it as being No. Could be different from today. What was there? What sort, what is, what are the, some of the, some of the components of that role that would be, we'd make very clear observation of, oh, that's, that's a different way that they're interacting with the process.
I mean, I guess we it's hard to compare it to everything today, because the building materials were also very different. But if we think of the role of the engineer, if we think of the role of the contractor and consultants as well, the master builder really was able to encompass a lot of these roles, right?
Okay, so a much more kind of poly mathematic approach to some, to something, and then the industrialization was kind of more of that, your your systemization, your production line, as we've seen in so many parts of of of industry, as as going through scaling. You know,
there are implications even nowadays on this professional divide, because as things changed, and as the role of architects evolved, you know, there was no protection or regulation of function in place, as you know, So even until today, you can undertake architectural services. Um, as long as you don't call yourself an architect, so, and that has been, um, a debate, uh, within the profession,
would you say that this idea of the professional divide? So the idea of the master builder, which was was somebody who had a kind of who was more intimately involved in lots of other parts of the whole construction process. Now we see in the modern construction world, we have very specialized roles from everything from quantity surveyors to project managers, and some of these people don't need to have any architectural training or understanding what's so whatsoever. We've got different types of engineers, etc, etc. Everything is so sort of micro, niched, and it's almost to the to the to the, you know, we're here lots of architects complaining about this, that the role of the architect has become one that's become more and more abstracted, and concept conceptualized almost we've been reduced to the to the last thing on the list, which is just being someone who's a purveyor of esthetics, is that, is that something as well, that we can see that the part of why the business model started to break down is we didn't really know where our Place was, or how would you, how would you perceive that? And so what were the what was it that the thinkers were fearing that might happen? So we
spoke about the establishment of the architectural office and studio, which remains a main feature of the profession today. But despite this professionalization, the role of the architects remained unclear in so many ways. You know, there were sociologists that heightened the romanticized but unrealistic image of architects as autonomous practitioners, but that contrasted sharply with the reality of most architects work, and the worry at the time was not only the function of the architect, but the fate of what was called certain spiritual values that had long been regarded as the responsibility of the architect. And you know, this discourse highlights the ongoing tension between maintaining professional purity and embracing a more integrated role within the industry, and it impacts the perception of architectural identity, both from within and from outside the profession as well.
Yeah, so in terms of this kind of identity shift, and architects not really knowing, you know where we are, and then try and do everything, and then not doing anything, and then, in a commercial sense, right? This is where we really this is where the complaint is coming from, because commercially and economically, the value of the architect has been massively reduced. You know, I was talking to the head of Walter Lily the other day in the UK. In the UK, a great construction company, and he was reflecting on his sort of 30 years of experience, and was saying, the beginning of his career, the architect had a very senior position in the construct, in the world of construction, like on site, on as a project, they were viewed as the lead. They were God, everything that they said, they were directed. And that was it, he said. Nowadays, they are not often. They are often just the technical expertise that they offer are not there. So in terms of construction science, they find as contractors, they're taking on more and more design portions of the of the building, whether that's because of a lack of technical competence, or it's because of a lack of fee that the architect is not able to command enough fee to be able to do that portion of the work anyway, and it's more efficient for the contract to do it. It's probably a mix of both, but I thought that was really interesting. Just in a kind of short timeframe, we've started to see the commercial challenge, uh, rise in, in, in architecture. So from, from, again, from your, your research, what have, what have been some of the main aspects of the challenges that we're now facing economically as a profession? Yes,
because really, the work of the architect has been commoditized, right? And when we look at the triangle of architect, owner and contractor, really there in so many ways, they're at odds with each other. The owner wants the best product for the cheaper price, but even our methods of fee calculation are inherently, it's quality, you know, versus financial gain. So the way that our profession is set at the moment, and because we are in so many ways stuck in the same business model, we're not able to leverage our expertise. So even by, you know, the 1970s there was complexities in architectural projects, and they had significantly increased, and architects worked very hard to coordinating with other professionals and assumed more risk, but they largely failed to raise their fees because they were again stuck in the same business model, even the research, the current research, really shows that, you know, with the introduction of BIM and the early 2000s you know, it theoretically enabled a collaborative system where decision making, dispute resolution, resources, risk and rewards were shared by all project participants, but the implementation has not resulted in fee increases for architects, so the cost of errors was dramatically reduced as a result of BIM improvement. But because we're trapped into this traditional delivery model, the capabilities of them have not even been fully exploited, and that is really the challenge in the profession.
Fascinating. So, so what are other alternatives to practice or different business models that could actually unlock the economic potential and value that we know as an art, as a profession, that there's this wonderful breadth of of knowledge, design, way of looking at the of construction projects, and then a massive amount of efficiency that we can bring to to construction. What are business models that could better serve the architect? And ultimately, if it's better serving the architect, I'm going to, you know, I'm sure you and I will both say it better serves the architect. It will better serve the architecture. It'll better serve the end product, and ultimately, the client,
absolutely and really, the research showed that there are in order to have a shift in a business model. So that will take a long time, so we can introduce new ways of working and new business models while trying to, in a way, fix what's there and make it more efficient and better. And there are different ways through which we can do that. Tele Bernstein, actually, one of his books, speaks about three different strategies that are very helpful. You know, one is like a verticalization strategy, in which the architect, you know, takes on, as well as their own role, another delivery role in the industry, so that of a developer, which is where architect, developer comes, or contractor, or expanding strategies where they try to capture more of the value chain by expanding the scope of their services and or supporting strategies so they use their skills, talents and technologies to offer services to other parts of the supply chain that they would not normally engage with, and out of those. Kind of honed in and focused on the architect as developer. And I just wanted to go back that the financial aspect is one of that, one of the motivators, but it's also the creative control, like we just we've lost the control over the design process. You know, other others are calling the shots, and they're not always the most qualified or the one that can contribute the best outcome to the built environment, then also ethically, like if we look at, I think in my research, I also shared about, you know, the tragedy at Grenfell tower in London, where the the report from, from Grenfell tower really shared that this misalignment in the profession was one of the reasons that this happens. So there were also ethical considerations as well. And
that's, of course, that's, that's a, you know, not to overlook that, that the creative control of architecture where we've, I often feel from in a lot of when I talk to our clients here at Business of Architecture, that you know, the architect can bring so much more value to a project, obviously, the earlier on that they're involved with the project, and that in many cases, the way that modern procurement works is like you're talking about this commoditization of the architect, that they're now seen as a service that's kind of producing a series of drawings for very functional purposes, and the the the kind of strategic vision which is actually really valuable to a to the client, when it's when, certainly when it's aligned with a business agenda. And that's often, sometimes the bit of the language, bit that architects don't feel confident talking about, is understanding the business agendas of their clients, and then, therefore, clients don't invite them into those conversations, therefore they're not part of a strategic play for the client. And then they end up getting introduced to a project further downstream, and now they've lost a little bit of the of that sort of oversight. And it's actually a really, that's what an architect does. We're able to really think strategically and join up different aspects of and, you know, it's a perception of having, you know, you've got a broad perspective on a project, and are able to connect up, you know, seemingly desperate ideas and and can curate them in a very powerful manner. And that's very valuable. And it's also the source of where creative leadership comes in, and so to relinquish that is, yeah, that's that's a that it's interrelated as well with the economic, the economic value of it, though, from a outside perspective, it can seem like a sort of prima donna not getting their way of what the building should look like, which is often what it sort of gets reduced to. And, you know, the architect is perceived as the as the esthetic force behind the behind the project. So looking at these, these kind of making shifts in different business models, they're very interesting that you obviously, you focus on the architect, developer, which is, again, very interesting, the vertical integration. I see that happening a lot in the industry, and I'm aware, and I know that historically, the AIA and the RBA have really said that's not what we what we do, but from a business perspective, it's great. It makes a lot of sense. We've seen, I've we've got a number of clients who have all set up their own contracting businesses. They do it very well. They it makes the the it makes the architecture more efficient, because they don't have to produce so much construction drawings, and it can flow easily. And, you know, things on ca, it kind of starts to point towards what you were talking about, that Master Builder aspect, where you're involved in more elements of it. And again, it's like deeply architectural so I'm very encouraged to hear that that kind of vertical integration. I hope the profession is but the professional bodies start to have some kind of encouragement, or just openness to that's actually quite a good way for architects to be pursuing what in what sorts of you mentioned there about the services to other parts of the supply chains, what sorts of things did you come across in your research that you thought Were quite interesting, sort of unusual ways of bringing architectural services to other parts.
And yeah, so I didn't dive into it as as much. But for example, some you know, do more post Occupancy Evaluation and have that data loop. Or AI driven, pre designed services is becoming more and more common now as well. So these are elements of like, how to, yeah, expand the scope of the services. And to be honest, even within the research and through the data that I collected through the interviews, it was very clear that a lot of the traits and qualities and skills and knowledge architects already possess, but they are within the confines of the profession. So if we are just able to expand our scope and our vision, we're able to leverage a lot of our training, our skills and the inherent capacities that we also have to other ends.
Yeah, I think again, so interesting in my own personal experience of when I left University, became an architect, and very quickly had this experience of, oh, we just choose stuff out of a catalog. That's literally kind of what, what I felt like the experience was going again, going back to the sort of the other parts of architectural expertise being applied elsewhere. We've seen here Business of Architecture, we've seen some of our clients create entire businesses out of doing that. So one example was a client in Vancouver who was doing a lot of kind of visioning work and strategic planning work with big institutions like University campuses or like technology campuses and things like that. And it started off as a marketing process to kind of start being able to position themselves well for winning work later on down the line. And actually they ended up honing in on a on a set of kind of strategic vision workshops and kind of pre design, pre design, sort of business conversations that they now have packaged up and has become a business in its own right. On the other side of it, we had a client who was doing work, where they were they were liaising with lenders. So construction lenders, bridging finance, organizations and these companies often have a series of checks and balances when, when a project's in construction, and say, the low the lender has loaned a load of money to a developer, and they often need a series of somebody who's able to see how the project is developing, to kind of assess the, you know, the risk of the current loan that's been, that's been sent out, or to assess the the risk before they do the lending. And so they got involved in doing that for a number of lenders or banks or whatever. However it was. It was very, very profitable for them. They absolutely loved the work, because it was kind of CA work, and they were able to be on site, and they were able to apply all their art. It was just being an architect, just in a different context. And they ended up basically leaving the traditional architectural service behind and just focused on that one element of it, and their revenue was very healthy as a result of it. And those, those are really interesting, because it's like, what you're you're saying, it's not doing something different. It's just, you know, these are already part of the core competencies of the architect. It's just finding intelligent ways to to re position them or to rehab them work. Going back to your, your thesis here, you focused a lot on then on the architect, developer, what were some of your findings there and and why that particular model was of interest to you?
So, yeah, architect as developer model. It was a new way of functioning in architecture which I was really interested in. It's going back in some ways, to a master builder, but the mode of practice differs to how the fee for service for architects is at the moment, and there was, there is several books and courses, also case studies that detail, you know, the steps of initiating your development journey and acquiring foundational knowledge. But what I saw that there was a particular gap in is that it wasn't clear what are the features and the external and internal factors that both prevent and facilitate the adoption of innovative models and development, such as architect as developer. So I then really was able to focus on this question. What are those boundary conditions and and in order to do that, I had like, two sub questions that I was thinking about. One was, what is the current level of satisfaction with the practice model that I post to my interviewees? And the second was, what is their perception of developers? No, because we see them the historical context, you know, even up to late 80s, development was considered a dirty word in the AIA so and wanted to understand how, how this lies today. So those were some things that motivated me to look more into that, and even when I reflect back at it, this interest sparked from early on in my career. You know, I was in the last couple of years of architecture school, and my dad has gotten into real estate, and he's not an architect, has nothing to do with that, you know, started accounting, but as an investor, and I came when I was looking at, you know, the products that he was being offered, and I was just like, we can do so much better, you know? Why? Why is this the standard of what is being offered, and why are non architects making these decisions about what goes in the built environment? And so from that, I didn't, at the time, probably naively, I didn't understand that this was a completely different way of thinking of architecture or a new way of practicing. But that kind of stuck with me that no we should have a say of what goes in the built environment, and should be the ones that are really like advising, as you said, early on with other investors and stakeholders. So that was my really personal passion of thinking about that and then wanting to do that. So early on, you asked me about Yes, my own firm, Nas colab, is really a collaborative laboratory to experiment and start that process as well. So the for my research, then I had 22 interviewees, and each interview lasted, you know, over 100 minutes around so that was the average. And so it was a lot of really great insight that I was able to gain. And really, I would like to thank everyone who participated and gave their time. And thank you also, Ryan for introducing me to several of the interviewees that was really, really helpful. And the way we structured the interview was to understand, you know, a little bit about their firms. So we looked at, you know, what is the current size of the firm, the project they're working on, how they describe the characteristics of their top management. Then we looked at their business models as well. So we looked at, you know, what is their current business model? What is, how do they structure their fees? How do they describe dealing with finances, what are was the profit margin of a company? And then also looking at their attitude towards risk. Could they give some examples? What does entrepreneurship mean to them? We looked at some of their challenges and contributing factors, and then we also kind of looked into development. So what do they think of when they think developer? What do they think of when they think architect, and what do they feel are the differences and similarities in the traits of architects and developers? And then we looked at, we honed in a bit more on development and the external, internal factor that would encourage or hinder their involvement. And I purposefully wanted to capture an array of architectural firms, but those who have experience in development and those who have no experience in development as well. So I looked at small to mid range size firms, and I was able to say, categorize them to four categories. One are just purely architecture firms. One were development entities. One were architects as developers. So they were architects that were just doing their own development work, and then architect and developers. So they were ones that had their architectural services entity and their development entity, and they worked in parallel. And I had one that was development and. Consultancy as well. So it was, it was very helpful to capture a variety of firms and companies, because then we're able to recognize the features that both encourage and and hinder. And then I was able to categorize my findings into qualities and traits that are helpful for this transition and skills and knowledge. Great. So, what
was so? What so? First of all, what was some of the the what were the, what was the kind of array of obstacles that you saw, I'd love to know the perceptions as well of what architects felt about developers and development, and the sort of and perhaps even the conflicts that might even arise from that, from those perceptions.
Yes, so the greatest question so the perception of developers really varied from some calling them visionary to evil, so you had but you know, the data primarily described them as financially driven individuals who prioritize profit over design and social good and but it became more nuanced than that. You know, firms that regularly engage with developers, or had taken that role themselves, recognized and appreciated the difficulty of the developers were acknowledging the essential role that they play in realizing architectural visions. So they were described as generalist with a wide range of skills as financially numerate, adaptable, social, competitive, and you know, and some architects Express admiration for developers, entrepreneurial spirit and resilience. And that aligns with the literature and research available where even John Portman, who is a pioneer of the architect as developer movement, called himself an entrepreneur, real estate developer. So then I was able to take those descriptions and see how they align with entrepreneurial traits as we know them. So I can go into that if you'd like to know more. Because yes, yes, yeah, absolutely, yeah, how architects and actually developers differ in those so you know, developers were often characterized as entrepreneurs who seize opportunities and create value. And there's extensive literature that align entrepreneurial traits with baseline personality traits, like the Big Five model, which I don't know if you're familiar with it, but also includes like openness to experience conscientiousness and extroversion. Yes, yes. And along with other traits, such as self efficacy, you know, risk propensity, innovative need for achievement. So the combination of these traits characterize a multi, multi dimensional entrepreneurial orientation, I would say. And even from the description of the primary data, I have a figure in my research that showed, you know, the description of developers and how it relates to these entrepreneurial traits and qualities. No so architects, for example, you know they were described as creative design focused, socially conscious. They deeply care about the impact of their work, but they also were described as lacking business acumen or difficult to work with, not understanding, you know, the bottom line of other stakeholders. So when we looked at, then, how architects and developers scored on these different traits. It was really interesting because architects scored higher on conscientiousness, exhibiting a strong sense of duty and meticulousness in their work. You know, they're methodical, they're detail oriented, and they were also somewhat open to experiences, especially those in design oriented firms. They appreciate experimentation, exploring new ideas, creativity, innovation, and when we looked at an element, for example, like self efficacy. They exhibited, you know, somewhat level of self efficacy, which is normally defined as the belief in the ability to perform tasks and fulfill roles successfully. So particularly. You know, higher levels of entrepreneurial self efficacy, which encompasses confidence in like one's ability to innovate, take risks or manage business, it correlates positively with innovation as they are more likely to persevere and overcome obstacles. So architects are traditionally trained to innovate and design, right? We're problem solvers, but and can leverage this traits by gaining confidence to expand their expertise beyond architecture. So for example, developers actually scored lower on innovation because they come from a variety of backgrounds. There's no one route to becoming a developer, and they don't necessarily possess the level of innovation necessary for a well executed building. And even with conversation, we realize that they rely on architects design sensibilities for such results. And another element or trait was a need for achievement. So both architects and developers demonstrated a high need for achievement, and architects were motivated by commitment to design excellence and public good, while developers were mostly motivated by profit, and particularly architects, again, in design oriented firms, you know, they set high architectural standards for themselves and aim for awards and recognition from peers. And you know, their need for achievement is seldom financially motivated one. You know, architect developer that I interviewed found that the prestigious awards that they got for their projects was a recognition of the success of the proposed model, which was in years prior, looked down upon, and this highlights a negative generational perception of development. So my research also showed that everyone really had an interest in architect as developer model, and that was very encouraging to see. However, at the same time, you know a couple of very seasoned design oriented architect developers, they found that those in their age group, which was 50 plus, still looked down upon development. And so while this is changing, and the perception is changing, because we can see the interest in this model, it still prevails in some circles, and might influence the need for achievement, which might discourage some architects from this shift, because they want their work to be seen, of course, as honorable. However, some interest across the board, yeah, with the younger generations, this was really changing.
Yeah, that's, that's very interesting. And, you know, I'm, I'm amazed and very excited by how many young architects that we have, either as our clients here at Business of Architecture, or who contact us, who they are just, they're like, fresh out University, and they're like, we're starting development projects. We want to get we're raising finance. We want to know everything about business. They're a bit pissed off that the university hasn't told them anything about money, finance, raising capital, or just anything business related whatsoever, or even acknowledge that there exists a business environment out there, and they're kind of hungry for it. And you know, again, it's driven by switched on, switched on, young architects who were looking towards a future and seeing the sort of, you know, the poor economic outcome of all of this investment for, you know, just being a regular architect, it's so you know, it has the, you know, it can be a very unrewarding, badly remunerated profession. It could also be a very great, renominated profession, if it's done well. But well. But you know, as you were kind of saying at the beginning of the conversation, the long hours and the poor and the poor pay. So what are some of the skills that architects should be, you know, or can learn that can help them towards this level of architects developer. It's almost, it's almost, in a way, I kind of want to not call it architect developer anymore. And it's kind of going back to a closer vision of that master builder, you know, the sort of the master builder at the beginning that was involved in all of these different elements. There's more of that, as opposed to whatever we might think, like the old thought pattern of what development is, this is actually, I think it more, it's more of a true representation of what an architect is and can be. So what? Yeah, so what are some of the skills, absolutely, that you. Been identifying, yes,
so architects, there were some things that they could really work on in order to facilitate the shift to development. One was risk propensity. You know, the architects added towards risk was generally cautious or risk averse, but risk tolerance is a prominent explanation of why individuals start to choose a business despite the inherent risk involved. So we can say that a large number of interviewees have taken significant risks and but in development, this risk must extend to financial and strategic risks that are in hell inherent in development projects, because as architects, we're accustomed to risk within the profession, and the data really show that developers learn how to take calculated risks, or they learn to de risk at Every stage. And seasoned architect developers really contend that this new model actually minimizes overall risk, because they control, you know, the sphere of architect, developer, and in some cases, contractor as well, so they actually limits their risk. So which was also very interesting to see, because now they are aligning interests. So when we go back to the way that the current fee for service model is, is that it's an adversarial relationship, unfortunately, right? But here we are actually aligning interests, and something a mistake happens, you know, because, because they are controlling all this fear, they're able to fix it quite quickly and things and able to make a quicker decision so things are able to move. Another traits was extroversion. So, you know, architects were described as introverts or insulated, while developers were social, friendly and assertive, and extroversion is a trait correlated positively with entrepreneurs and firm performance, and because architects were used to dealing with clients and consultants, but developments, however, requires a lot of face time with various stakeholders, authorities and the public, and maybe another one of those was locus of control, and really that refers to the belief about the extent to which you can control the events affecting your life or so, an internal locus of control indicates that a person can influence the outcome their outcomes by their own efforts, skills and decisions. And external locus of control, you know, attributes outcome to other external factors, such as powerful others or chance. And architects generally displayed a lower locus of control. So that's something that they could really work on, really interesting. Yeah, it could be attributed to the nature of the profession, and because of the adversarial relationship that we were talking about, however, architect developers displayed a higher internal locus of control.
And, you know, because fascinating, yeah, that's that, that, I mean, you know, here Business of Architecture, we, we talk about the mindset a lot, and I probably use more kind of personal development methodologies or kind of coaching modalities to to talk about that. But the this the mindset shift of you being the one that's the author of your career, of where you're going, of of your life, as opposed to, yes, you know now if you and the industry itself, I've often criticized the industry, so we inherit a lot of this external locus of control from the industry, like you just move into the structured culture of it, you are being taught that these things are outside of your control. It's very anti entrepreneurial and anti business in a way. And it's a very subtle cultural thing, and it's a kind of like you're getting more and more entrenched in your lane, if you like, whilst design education is very good at being able to riff off the idea of, what could an architect be? It, it this locus of control element is not present. That's really, that's very interesting finding.
Yes. And you know, like these traits that we talked about, there are some that architects are very good at, and because of their training, actually, they really learn to use those our design skills and to be very creative and innovate. However, these traits, we need to be able to use them beyond the. Finds of Architecture and Design, while other trades accuracy in the mindset we need to be able to develop further. So when I go to my recommendations, I really also look at architectural education and how we could incorporate certain modules and elements of entrepreneurship that is beyond just the industry. In order to help students who then want to go, you know, into the professional world, to know that there is not just one way of starting your practice and one business model.
Fantastic. So how would you like to see architecture being educated in the future, to have us be more entrepreneurially fluent? What sorts of things would you think would be useful, or what kinds of people do you think we should be interacting with that at architecture school? Should we just keep it as just purely architects? Or perhaps your your own experience being in a business school where I'm sure you were rubbing shoulders with all sorts of interesting other students from who I presume most of them were all professionals like yourself. They will so yeah, so be your recommendation for education?
Yeah, that's a very good question, and I know that, you know, refining architectural education has been an ongoing conversation. Sure, you know, even even this idea of like the studio, right? The architectural studio, your own individualistic project, it's stands in contrast to how most architects operate. So even from the research and the interviews, the views on the trajectory of architectural education differed slightly. So one interviewee found, for example, that the separation between architecture and engineering was a good thing as it contributed greatly to the quality of design, you know, departing from pure utilitarianism, while others like, found that their education of combining engineering with architecture actually was very helpful for them this hybrid approach, because it gave them a good understanding of how things are built. So when I gave my recommendations, it really is with an understanding that architectural education is very rich. So even when people ask me, you know about my architectural education, it's great. It's you really, you really learn a lot, and there is so much that you can fit in, within the scope the number of years that you're educated. And mine was five years. So it's still, it's it's limited, however, there were certain things that we could do, which is both in the professional setting, but I think also starts from our education as well. So I think we were talking about that architectural education focuses on this notion of individualistic work as a main component of the curriculum, and this really differs greatly from the reality of architectural practice, and to a greater extent from development. So the traditional, you know, focus on design excellence could be expanded to include other elements that are beyond design, and this diversity and I'll come I'll come back to this point is that even in architectural offices, as normally, where architects or designers that are there, so we don't see a diversity of thoughts, of, you know, professional backgrounds of cultural leadership styles, and that has really, studies have showed that it's very important for the success of ventures or firms. And another aspect that could be included both in the professional setting, but also in architectural education, is the hands on real world experience and projects. So can we include internships with development companies, for example, and interactions with other professionals from other industries. One of the skills that came out strongly in the research was the importance of industry experience and some interviewees. So you have to be a competent architect to go into a. Development and but then it was clear that design is only one element of the whole development process. So one interview we shared, if we think of developments life cycle like seven steps, design and architecture is one of them. So different people were recommending that architect, for example, gain experience in different settings. So one working for architects, one working just for developers, or, you know, real estate development companies or for a contractor, and the variety of experiences will help them further transition into architect as developer model? Is that something we can also incorporate in architectural education? Is a question that I think would be very helpful to look at. Another consideration was now with, obviously, the technological advancements that we have. What does that look like for architects, both who are being trained in university but also in professional practice? We didn't delve into this as much, but it was a reoccurring theme that with the rise in artificial intelligence, one development manager, you know, they could see how the processes in development could really be streamlined. And the next five to 10 years, there can be a very big shift in how development is done, which could be very good news for architects as well, because as more knowledge based tasks are being replaced, that means it could be easier for them to take on the role of the developer,
amazing, brilliant. I think that's the perfect place to conclude the conversation there, but really fascinating piece of research there, and I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your findings. Is your thesis available for other people to look at if people wanted to read it in more depth? Is it widely available. Is it
behind secrecy? Yes, no, I would love to share the thesis and the findings. If you go to my website, Nas, colab.com, and you put in your email, sign up, and hopefully shortly, I'll be able to send you my exhortation and findings, and anyone is interested in digging more and understanding and exploring some of these questions more, I'd be very happy to have a chat and collaborate. I think that's a big part that's come out of the research as well, is that the importance of collaboration and working with others.
Amazing, brilliant. Well, Nora, so thank you so much for coming on and showing that we didn't even get to touch upon on NAS as well, and the work that you're doing. And so perhaps next time we can, we can have another conversation, and we can talk about your own, your actual your practice as well. But thank you so much for for today, it's been really enlightening.
Thank you so much. Ryan. Hope to speak soon,
and that's a wrap. Hey.
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