If architects valued themselves more, you know, we think we need to push up fees. Now. I think enough is enough. We just need to communicate that Hello
and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host. Ryan Willard, and today I had the distinct pleasure of hosting germit Sian, the visionary founder of office. Sian architecture and design. Gamits, exemplary work has garnered recognition at both regional and national levels, a testament to his unwavering dedication to enhancing our built environment. His passion lies in engaging with communities to uplift and transform spaces, ensuring they enrich the well being of people from all walks of life. Gamits influence extends beyond his practice, He chairs the London Borough of Southwark Community Design Review Panel and serves on other several panels, including Redbridge Camden and harrow as a London mayor's design advocate. He also plays a pivotal role in shaping our city's future. His contributions to the London festival of architecture 2024 as a curator, and his accolade, as we were London project architect of the year, underscore his profound impact on the architectural landscape. In this episode, we discuss the importance of raising fees in the industry and what impact that could have on the accessibility of the industry. We talk about how to maintain design quality through building a very deep and trusting relationship with your client, and what sorts of communication skills are essential to maintaining that relationship. And we also discuss a lot of insights that Gumi has had through running a small design firm which is committed to design excellence and civic responsibility. So really inspiring conversation here with Gurmeet. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Gurmeet sienne, this podcast is produced by Business of Architecture, a leading business consultancy for architects and design professionals. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice. Business of architecture's flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smartpractice method.com or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you, please follow the link in the information. Hello, listeners. We hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it about 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@businessofarchitecture.com. Gurmeet. Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
I'm very well. Thank you for inviting me. It's good to be here. I'm well.
An absolute pleasure to be speaking with you. You're the founder of officeian. I've been a fan of your work over the last few years, and have been very impressed with the the kind of sense of community responsibility, civic responsibility that your work embodies, the projects that you've done, where you've been able to produce an enormous amount of High Caliber design with seemingly very small, tight budgets, and, you know, and you've and you've served, and I've been interested in the kind of business model that you've been using, where, I know you do a lot of community based work, perhaps there's a fair chunk of pro bono work in that, and then working with maybe higher end clients in, you know, glamorous parts of Hackney doing beautiful rear end extensions and, you know, and I think it's a very thoughtful design practice that you know, that you've been putting across. So I'd love to talk a little bit about, how did you get started? I
think that's a really interesting question. And thank you so much for your kind comments. That's really appreciated. Sometimes you just work in a silo. You don't quite know if it has an impact, but it's good to hear some feedback at least. I think the journey of architecture is didn't necessarily start in architecture school, and I always think back to my childhood and how I started thinking about, generally, the environment around us, and how we can manipulate it for good and sometimes in strange ways. And to answer the question of how it all started, I can't not reference my municipal upbringing, which was beautiful, fantastic. I was raised within a Sikh family, and generally amongst Sikh families, there is a very strong connection with music and the kids being, frankly, forced to learn music, harmonium and harmonium and singing. Vocal, right? Okay, and, and so my I on reflection, my architecture education started with those music lessons, with those very patient teachers who you know, very early on I was learning the basics, but maybe at the age of 1112, 13, there's, there's a strong element of improvised national music in in Asian music or North Indian classical music. And my teachers would speak to me less about notes and tunes, but speak to me in terms of, what's the mood that we're trying to create? Is it sweet? You know, how big is this room? How can we make it bigger, how can we make it colder? How can we make it lighter? How can we make it darker? This is the language that we use within architecture, and this is the language that I use today. But my music teachers weren't thinking as architects. They were thinking as practitioners, who they thought they could shape the environment sonically. And I realized in my mid 30s that actually my my architectural brain was was really being motored at that point through some incredible teachers. And so that's where, and that's the language I still use today, and that's kind of how I feel about creating architecture, of course, through GCSEs, a levels, through formal architectural training at Liverpool, and then express in different ways through writing at the Bartlett's. You know, that was that's pretty standard, and it's standardized because it's a profession, so it's not much, not much wiggle room there, but really, how I am now is, is a collection of lots of different people influencing me in many ways, and that's not necessarily my architecture tutors. They did, but reverse back, 678, years, it was through music, and that's a fantastic journey. Well, it's
interesting actually, now you say that you were brought up as a musician, or had a strong kind of musical upbringing, and the sort of communal sense of making music together is something which is quite profound, and it's such an it's one of the most enjoyable aspects of of being a musician, is playing of other people, and also being able to create a kind of community that's, you know, everyone joining in something together 100% and totally see that in the sorts of, you know, the way that I've seen you speak about your projects, that kind of sense of engagement with other People. And also, you know, there's something wonderful about music where everybody can participate in it, even if you're not a musician, you know, just being able to clap or just sing or or just like, enjoy and your reaction to it is enough.
I think that's so true. I mean, you know, as a kid, I didn't go to music lessons to become a musician. You know, there are many, many factors. I mean, it's probably a bit of childcare as well. My parents for an hour and a half and and I understand that, but it was to expand the mind. It was to draw a connection with the culture. Of course, you know, my parents moved to this country in the 60s, and they're probably fearful of their children losing culture, but but it was about expanding the mind and showing something so that it can be in a civic or community setting, in this case, a religious setting. But not always the case. I played many non religious settings as well, so that so that there was an element of communal sharing. And I'm pretty sure I'm probably post rationalizing a lot about who I am now based on my own upbringing, but, but I can't, also not. I can't delete that from who I am now, either. What's also interesting about the tradition to which I was musically trained, I'm not a very good musician whatsoever. I just want to put that out there. I'm pretty rubbish, but, but in the north Indian classical music tradition that there are no orchestras that you know, there haven't really been any world class orchestras coming out of India, really, or Pakistan. Effectively, it's a tradition of breeding soloists who go up on stage and then do and say something, but engage the whole audience. And that's also interesting, actually, and, and there's a there is a parallel with how we see architects, not necessarily how architects should be us, but how we see architects, male, going up on stage, saying something, showing. Something and the audience clapping, and that, you know, not everything that I learned as a kid is positive. You know that there are certain things that I want to challenge as well. So yes, the sense that I can showcase something, and there's a communal element to it, but also a sense that, actually, I want to be part of more of an orchestra, really, as opposed to a soloist. You know, I want to feel I'm part of a band, as opposed to just the lead singer and, you know, someone playing drums in the background. And that is an interesting parallel that I think about
with your own practice. I know that you were practicing solo for for quite a while. Now, how many are you still practicing solo? Team? No
team of three, team, but, but that's that's kind of been a very gradual journey to actually get to that, and I haven't necessarily followed the path of growth in terms of judging it through staff numbers or or maybe turnover always. And maybe that's not a good thing, actually, but, but, but what I can say is that that I have been continually growing, and my growth has been exponential from starting up a practice, pretty much organically, from the day that I've completed my part three, not having, not having worked in a big practice, worked in some really wonderful, nurturing practices, but not necessarily ones that I would take away a lot in terms of a business culture, nurturing as they were, and positive as they were, so that that growth has been very gradual and and it has been at a pace which is perhaps becoming of a person who is not from an architectural tradition is from a fairly working class background and and is still trying to understand not only his own skills, but how to communicate them. Yeah, you know which, which is much underrated. I think when
you set up your practice, how did you win those first projects? What were the the first things that you get engaged in?
I think, I think winning those practice that I wouldn't use the word winning, giving, given or flopped over the lines, perhaps, the expression I my most important client was probably the first one who somehow put their faith in a young architects just qualified with their home. Of all the things, the most intimate project is a home. And said, Okay, fine, let's go for it. And they were a relative of of a client that I had when I was a part two. And so a few years down the line, they wanted to do something with their home, and they were like, well, we worked with grumit when he was I mean, I don't think clients necessarily, no difference between part two, part three, whatever, but it's like we worked with gurmeetha when he was working at that studio. Let's see what he's up to and and that was a really wonderful, nurturing relationship. Of course, I was also cheap, you know. And of course, there was familiarity there, yeah, but, but, but it was really great to be held in that space by clients who knew me. I knew them. And it was a typical bag extension. I was allowed to, you know, within a very tight budget, express ideas. And, you know, I didn't think too much. I just did, and I didn't think of it being publicized or competitions or anything like that whatsoever. But it got fairly well publicized and it got shortlisted for competitions. And I thought, Ah, okay, so okay, maybe I'll think about that the next time. So it was a very haphazard route through. But the key thing was, was a client putting their faith in a young architect, and I wish more would do, would do that today. This
was the project where you using the tiling on the outside, yeah, vertical, stacked. Yeah,
that's right, it was just bricks, you know what? What is the budget? What is the likely contractor's skill level, which is, you know, something that we don't need to think about. What is, you know, we're not going to get so to get a super duper contractor. We're going to get a normal contractor who's dealt with, you know, pretty standard box back extensions. Okay, so a brick, we have wood, we have glass. What do I want to do? And how do I want to do it? Yeah, so it's a soldier course of brickwork and just expressing it in. Way, in a way which is, is careful and with care, and just, you know, working with a contractor who probably hated my guts at the end of it, but I think even, even he's like, thought I see, yeah, at least I done this once in my life, yeah, but I'm going to go back to doing boots, block packing stations, plaster over it. Yes, plaster over
it. You, interestingly, you've done a lot of kind of, we said earlier on, kind of community projects. And I would, I be right in thinking some of it's some of it, a lot of it's been pro bono. No,
no, no. It's very early on. You know, I think that my, my, my route into community or civic architecture has, has not, it hasn't been a mission for me from the start, right? You know, it was. I think that in practice, when I was a part two and part one, there weren't those types of projects around. There was like, you know, rich back extensions and and new homes, and that was what I thought. I'd never worked. I never knew what it was to be an architect. I never knew anybody else who was an architect. This was my world, and it was being created around me. And that was my idea of what an architect would be. Around 2008 and nine, there was obviously a huge worldwide, wide economic crash, and I had no work, and I left London, and I moved back to my parents home, to the bedroom that I was raised in. And that was a low,
humbling, yeah, absolutely. But also I was very
fortunate, you know, I was very fortunate to actually go through have the parents to accept me back, of course, and and to see, you know, they have been through recessions before. They were like, Don't worry, you'll get back on your feet and when you get married. And so. So going through that process, I realized that, man, I've got to get out of this town, back into London, and I connected again with, perhaps the people that I lost contact with when I was growing up, and maybe I connected again with a bit of music. And I realized that actually there is some some work that can be done in communities and just helping out and with charities, and that work was fairly pro bono, but it wasn't totally and so I would look on some very early message boards and say, architect needed to provide a design access statement for, like, a small community building. I would go in and I would do it really and, like, commute from Maidenhead to actually London, I realized that actually I had been missing a lot of the joy of my childhood, which is being in this place of community, you know, and charities, it can be very challenging working with with charities, but, but there is the concept there that they, you know, they are doing something for the social good, and and I wanted to be part of that, and I realized that I had forgotten about that, and how, how can I incorporate it into my professional life. And so those early projects, they weren't necessarily pro bono, that there was some pro bono but, but it was more of the sense that this is where I want to go, and just slowly working up from there, and of course, not leaving the high end resi behind, because I knew that that had to be part and parcel of
it, working with some of these more kind of community based projects. What are some of the the challenges and skill sets that you need to bring to the table working with, you know, sometimes I'm not imagining that there's kind of multi headed clients, or you're working with a congregation of people, perhaps sometimes, depending on the level of sophistication of the organization, you might have kind of people who are there as as that's not their full time activities. Or other times you might get more of a kind of full time professional basis. What are the sorts of skill sets that you've found that you've needed to develop to be able to work really intelligently and sophisticated with these sorts of clients, I had to well
working in communities and with charities is harder than with private clients. I think that on many, on many metrics or judgment scales, it is harder. There are hard bits about working with private clients. There could be more choice, more sophistication in the final product, but the challenges that I had to overcome working with community clients was that, as you mentioned, this isn't their full time job. They are. They are people who are in full time work, or maybe not full time carers, and this is their bit on the side, and they're passionate about it, and that's also a release as well, and and that can be a challenge to get answers. It can be a challenge to draw consensus. It can be a challenge to engage. Age, working out who the person is, who's going to be making the decisions. I learned very quickly that the idea of consensus within community projects, it's a fallacy. It can't be achieved, and if it does, then there's probably something a bit wrong. There's something a bit crazy about everybody going in the same direction. It seems very cult like to me, actually. So, you know, don't try to go for that. The power of communication and reading the room, that is something that I just did not learn, right? But probably had it within me as a kid. I come from a very large family, and it's bit like you got a survival of the fittest with three other siblings. You know, you gotta, you gotta be sharp. And so that kind of communication of of being authentic, you know, the authenticity of going into a space and and like looking around the room, trying to work out who the key decision makers are, how to present, who to present to. The time scales can also be challenging. Clearly, the money is challenging because there is no money for the project, let alone fee. How do you understand what value that you can get out of it? Because you need to employ staff and you need to look after yourself, and that's, you know, that's really important. And so these are the, you know, the I learned more about communication in those projects and then, and really, less about the design skills. Really, the design is fairly straightforward, in fact. But how do you, how do you place your design in a room, communicate it and understand that not everybody's going to love it.
Yeah, that that's really interesting as well. I mean that because that's going to impact the decision making ability of a client. And when I've spoken with architects in the past who are kind of very engaged in community work, some of our own clients, even they'll often have the challenge of they thought there was a decision that was made, and now the rest of the congregation or the group has seen it, and now there's lots of questions. And then there's a fine line between you being an educator and kind of guiding people through a process and then being derailed, where you're now communicating why this decision got made, yeah to lots of other different groups of the thing and just like, just that kind of just appeasing everybody and making sure can be very yeah precarious. It
can be very precarious. But one of the things that I realized early on is that actually people want your guidance. You know, you are being paid as the expert to come up with a design. And sometimes it's okay to say, actually, I don't agree with you. And I think, in my judgment, this is the way forward. It's, I suppose, I suppose you'd call it strong leadership style. I was like being understanding and being empathetic to everybody's views. That is community engagement, taking everybody along the journey with you. And that's absolutely fine, and that's for the benefit of the design. And I learn a lot through that. But at some stage, I also learned to say, actually, you know, we have gone through 20,000 options. This is the one. Now, you know, I strongly suggest that this is the one that you go for. You cannot please everybody and, and there can be a game which is played where my, oh, can we do another option? Like, no, these are the options now, and that is part management of the business as well. This isn't endless. I think that some charities, unfortunately, can take advantage of that from a consultant in the you know, architects are always the first ones to put their hands up and say, oh, we'll do another design. That's not always great. And so that kind of idea that actually, you know, I love you all, but actually this is the one to go for, and that's what you're paying me. And that takes confidence, because at those moments, you have to value yourself. Yeah, you have to love yourself. Basically, you've got, you've got to say, actually, I'm not just here, just to, like, suggest things, and say, Oh, you make the decision. No, you are the architect, you know, and you make the decision. And let's see how it goes.
It's, it's, we'll talk a little bit about Belinda, one of your your clients, and how you, I remember listening to interview somewhere, and you were talking about the she was very hesitant to get in contact with you, because she had this image of the sort of the fountainhead type of architect who was. Is, you know, in the ivory towers and didn't want to talk to anybody. And what you're describing here as well is interesting because it's, yeah, you do need to be the architect who's being the one who's leading and driving a vision. But if you go too far in that, there's like, a there's this fine balance here of being able to involve and have everyone engaged with the conversation, you making a decision and driving it forward, and it not being like kind of unapproachable, unacceptable architect, yeah,
I think that there's a you have to move forward, forward on every project, in every meeting. There's got to be a movement forward, and it's not about winning or losing arguments whatsoever. I think that that's that's quite a old school way of thinking how a creative process works. Creative process, for me, works through, you know, understanding a client or saying the challenges, presenting ideas, working through the challenges again, and then making iterative changes so that then you can push forward. And I think that that that maybe strong leadership isn't the idea of saying, this is the one, but I think strong leadership, in a business sense, is to lay out a process and say, Look, I don't know where this is going. This design is not about me. I don't have a preconceived idea. It's about you. My idea is to draw out your the best of you in architectural form. This is the process. We're going to meet here, here, here, we're going to do this, this, this, at some stage, I'm going to be quite clear as to what I think is the best idea. That's okay, you're going to be doing the same to me, aren't you? That's fine, and, and, and that's how it goes. So maybe I kind of misplaced my words earlier in suggesting that strong leadership is knowing what's right. I think that strong leadership is more so knowing what what the process is, because there can be a lot of anxious people in the room, many, many times, who would never have met an architect before. I think we'll move on to this with my other client. And if they have, or if they haven't, probably have some quite preconceived ideas of them positive and negative. And to contain those anxieties, you have to you've got to do something about it, and to lay out a process can be quite soothing. You can call it the Riba stages, of course. But actually it needs to be more nuanced and and it needs to be also those stages have to be authentic to you, and that took time for me to actually look at the stage and say, Actually, do I see myself delivering that stage in that way there and and that takes time, and that takes confidence, and it takes learning, and it takes a few knocks as well. So I think that that was a massive learning for me.
And do you lay out the process then at the very beginning of the of the project with the client, and what kind of conversations do you have in terms of what you expect from them, in terms of their ability to make decisions and their behavior and making sure they pay you on time? Yeah, what does that initial conversation look like of just setting out those expectations. Well, I
think that 10 years ago, it would have been a lot different to what it is now. I think that this is
the one business experience, absolutely,
yeah, and that's, you know, that's kind of been my, my journey, really. And, you know, every single project, our contract documents change every single time, because there's something that we've learned from the previous project. It's not about adding more clauses. Maybe it's about taking, taking away, really, but, but those expectations are really key. You know, it's about paying payment on time. I suppose it's about payment for work done. It's about sign offs. It's about design freezes. It's about, know, WhatsApp messages. It's about no text messages. It's about contacting within Office hours only. So, so So these and, and it's about knowing that if you email me on out of 530 I'm not going to read it until 930 in the morning. So, so, so the these are the things which, which kind of I've learned to put in place for the mental health of me and my staff, yeah, frankly, more than anything, for the financial security of my practice as well. But also, you know, giving some flexibility, because I always want to suggest to the clients, and because it is true for my studio, that that actually this is, this is, this is the one time that we do things together, and we haven't done this before, and so I'm not going to apply everything for the previous client onto this one. So part of that is that we, for some clients, we've actually designed the process together. So we design the process, and then we go through the process. And, and so these are quite clear expectations, timelines, financial constraints, and, and I think that what's interesting is that I've learned to put those, I suppose, those markers in place because of some difficult experiences that I've had. But of course, the majority of clients are like, well, of course, yeah, of course. We're not going to call you. It's like seven in the evening. So it's just interesting. You have to learn through failing how
it's interesting then, you know, actually mapping out some of those expectations, and there's, there's quite a skill to be able to do it with somebody without being accusational, or, you know, saying, you know, this is what we're going to do. I'm going to hold the line. You know, this is how you're going to play the game, and still being collegiate. And I know that some of this is a kind of, I get the sense from you. You're very skilled communicator and good with people. So a lot of it's probably happening quite naturally. And you know how to read the room and just be sensitive to people. I mean, how if you could sort of analyze how you do that? What sorts of awareness Do you have around it?
Look, I think that it's quite personal thing that everybody's got to negotiate their way through. And I don't like talking about money, you know, I find it really awkward and say, Can you pay me at the end of the month? If that's okay, like, of course. But one thing that I've learned to do is to be comfortable in sharing my vulnerabilities. And so often I may say, Look, I have a few sensitive points that I'd like to and anxieties, which they're studio anxieties, and I'd like to share them with you, if that's okay, and if I could, it'll calm me down. It'll calm my staff down. I'll make the whole process run, and, and, and it is incredible when you, you know, when we break down the natural esthetic that we're told to, that we, yeah, things have changed a lot, but, but we were kind of told to portray in architecture school and just say, which, you know, I'm having some difficulty in this, but I have a plan. Is it okay to share? That's my way of actually doing it. And then, you know, and then the client generally says, Yeah, of course. I mean, like, what's the look we're going to invoice the end of the month? You know, be really great if you could pay for, of course, like, you know, design freezes. We don't want to charge you abortive fees for changing things. It may happen, but we'll try to keep that down. So that's what designed. Of course, you know, you know communication, of course you're like, of course, go on holiday and and it's that, and then you'll be surprised, or maybe you won't be surprised, they also share their vulnerability. You know what? You like really wondering how we're going to get past this at a board meeting level? Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Let me note it down, and we'll have a chat about it. And not every project has to be one, yeah? You know, like, I've taken on lots of projects for just to get over the line, and it's been the worst decision ever, and to trust your gut. You know, we do not win every project that we go for by a long shot, and we do, we do not accept every project that we're offered. You know, because if the relationship isn't right, if, if to one of those questions, you would like, well, to be honest, sometimes I do need to call you at 730 because something comes into my head say, Okay, fine, you know this isn't going to work for us. Yeah, and, and to walk away and have that as a skill, and to be brave to do that, that's challenging. If you don't have much money in the bank and you don't have a Rolodex. For those who are as old as me, will not know what a Rolodex is, a list of other clients. You know, it's really hard, it's really hard to say no, but you get a sense quite quickly of like, is this relationship going to work or not? And just to clarify what I mean by relationship, working relationship, working as a client, professional consultant, is not that every everything's happy, clappy, everything's all great. That's a great design. You know? That's fantastic. Oh, thank you for paying on time. The judgment is, is, is when there are difficult conversations, do you feel at the start of a relationship that you that when the difficult conversations come, that you'll get through it not Do you feel that every conversation is going to be good, and that is something that you've got to judge. Really becomes all saying no and and take it step by step, and also to, I suppose, at times. To open the conversation to see how the relationship's going, you know, which is quite scary, actually, it's,
it's wonderfully wise, and what you're describing here, and
it may be, why, why you haven't grown to 25 strong?
How does, how does this type of relationship impact the design then kind of this, being this sort of open, and being able to have the courage to share vulnerabilities. Because, actually, I think that's a that's leadership, you know, having the courage to be able to share vulnerabilities, and also having the courage to not take on a relationship that's going to be detrimental to your own values, and the kind of rules that you've set up, which is protecting you and your office, and ultimately, when you're when you're doing that, that's going to benefit the client as well. So, so you know, having the courage to to say no to somebody takes a lot of leadership and and strength to be able to do it. How does this kind of intimate relationships impact the product, what you're actually designing?
Well, ultimately, I think that the the client want wants the best of you and and all that we are outlining to them is what conditions we feel will result in the best work being produced. And there'll be other client, other consultants, other architects out there who have different rules, and that's fine. That's absolutely fine. Like I this is not a blanket policy to all you know ARB members. It's a it's a blanket policy for my studio and the clients that we would like to work with. And so if that, if I can communicate that, well, then it's hard for a client to say, actually, no, we're going to carry on like doing some really, you know, rule breaking stuff, and we're happy for you to to be 80% of your capacity. In terms of design. Obviously, everybody wants the person who they're paying to give their best work, and I'm being quite clear what it takes for us to be the best at what we do in my studio. So that's, that's quite I think it's quite a fairly easy conversation to have, actually, because it'll take a strange person to then say, actually, we still want to point you, but we want to do it to my rules. But the logical way would be for the client, and the positive thing for the client to say at that stage is that, like, that's great. You're not the architect for us. Yeah, I'm like, That's great. Good luck. Yeah, that's absolutely fine. They
can't parts friends. It's all cool. It's all cool
and and we'll see you in a few years time when you when you ditch the other and that, not to go on about that, but a lot of our clients, for our most you know, most published work is because we had the second architect appointed, not the first one interesting. And
yeah, so it's actually that ability of creating relationship and communication really is what's underpinning a lot of the the design, or the facilitating design.
Maybe I think it's, I think it's sad for those first architects, actually, because they, you know, they're probably young emerging practices, maybe not too dissimilar to me, and they've dropped the ball somewhere, you know, and the clients that then come to us after having ditched those ones, you know, I think that they're really good clients, really supportive clients, and so something's happened, you know? I think that if something's happened in our profession, if, if, if consultants are being dropped, you know? And so, yeah, I don't say, say as a, as a, as a woo hoo moment for Office yard. It's just an interesting thing that actually, the reasoning why clients are sometimes moved from consultant to consultant.
It's, you know, whenever we've done surveys with clients, or we've had feedback from architectural clients, or the Reapers done these, those sorts of client surveys, the number one issue that they'll often have with the architect is something around communication. Obviously, just the word communication is incredibly broad, and it doesn't really give it doesn't really give us much insight into what what that means. But I think what you're outlining here is like you've set out a kind of clear set of rules of engagement and presented it in a in a very mature manner that's empowering for both parties. And it's, it's, it's there to play by any that you play, play with it, because this is here for both of us, or it's not a fit, and that's absolutely fine. And not doing that can make a relationship very vulnerable to
absolutely on, on a in a relationship, in a dynamic, or relationship which, by definition, will be strained at some stage, because it is a very stressful process. I think it comes down to fees. Yeah. You know, like I could, I've been in situations where communications, where everything becomes straight strain because there isn't enough money to actually do the stuff, you know, to actually do it. So I think it is about fees. I think it is about knowing what you want to communicate and then having the allocation of fees to resource for it. And of course, some projects are lost making, some projects are profit making, but, but you know, if, if architects value themselves more, you know, I think we need to push up fees. Now. I think enough is enough. We just need to communicate that and how damaging it is for everybody. If, if consultant fees are just rock bottom,
how do you how do you, number one, how do you talk money with clients? And there's a couple of things here. One is the client's own budget for their construction. And sometimes you're, you know, if you're working with a charity, there's all sorts of financial issues. There's uncertainty of how much money they can raise, or they haven't raised the money, or they don't know where the money's coming from, or that's coming from drips and drabs, and part of your services to help them fundraise. And then also, there's the conversation about your own fees, and having that understood by a client of why they are what they are. Because often there's a, you know, a miss, a misalignment of expectations of what the architect fees are. And, you know, often, from a client's perspective, certainly private clients, they'll look at the architecture fees depending on, you know, the kind of sort of tier of project that you're working on, and it's not uncommon for them to be incredibly surprised at what the fees are, but it's not related to anything. It's just, it's just what they wanted to pay for an architect, yeah,
I think it's about demonstrating value, you know, like, obviously what this is what you get for. This is the money that that you pay. And I think it can also be about demonstrating the reduction in risk if you invest in good quality consultants who spend the time risk in terms of built fabric, risk, in terms of financial risk, long term risk. You know, it said these are, if we as architects can demonstrate to clients that if you pay us a reasonable wage, we can resource something and be honest about it, and it de risks your exposure. Sounds so obvious, doesn't it, really, you know? I mean, it's kind of like trying to justify our profession, really, but, but that, but that, that I think is the way forward. I think is a different conversation between private clients and public sector clients, and maybe a different conversation with third sector clients as well. I mean, public procurement in the Councils is, you know, is challenging and fees are quite arbitrary, frankly, but in the private sector, I think that is the way to that is the way that we demonstrate is to, I suppose it's also to show our experience. It's like, this is what we did previously. This is the process that we went went through. Your outcomes going to be completely different, but this is how we make sure that we pretty much start on time, finish on time, within your budget, and have the less moments of stress as possible in a very stressful global condition, which is working with an architect And a builder. Yeah, it is about demonstrating that that value. So so often we will go through each stage and highlight outputs, right?
You know, kind of Yeah, showing the risks of what would happen if they if you weren't, yeah,
yeah. I think that the the risks are fairly obvious when you show the outputs. Why would anybody know what an architect does? Like, what, like, I'm still working out what an architect does, frankly, you know, and why would we expect anybody else to know it? It's a big fee, you know, like, I can't imagine myself, uh, commissioning an architect. I mean, I
mean, it's, it's interesting. I, you know, I've been, I've worked, or work of designers or architects myself, and then I even get surprised. Yeah, and you're like, hold a minute. Hold on. Do this, day in, day out. Why am I getting surprised at the end? And yeah, you're right. It's a complex professional service that absolutely needs that sort of elucidation around it, absolutely,
and that elucidation is is lacking as a profession, if we compare to other professions outside the built environment, obviously we're not even at the starting post the obvious ones at the legal profession and the other medical profession, perhaps. But. But even within our the built environment, you know, if we compare the the the critique of fees across professions, across architecture, compared to structural engineers, m&e Qs, you know, and the architects are often instructed to take a leadership role. Maybe they're not even instructed to. It's naturally there because we coordinate. You know, we have, we have just got to the bottom of the of the pile.
Insane. It's absolutely absurd. And I mean to go and look at the liability as well. You know, the runoff of a project when architects carrying liability for the next six to 10 years or so, and then the contractor might not have as much liability like in terms of length of time as the architect does. So that's just bonkers, and
it is, I think, that post George Floyd's tragic murder, you know, there is, there has been a push towards diversification within our industry and many other industries. I think that is great, and it is working to some part. But I think that public sector clients and private sector clients, all clients, need to think about whether they are fully engaged in that process. Because if I'm trying to employ an architect, or a part two or part one from a non traditional architectural background, then, then money means more to them. Frankly, everybody should be paid well, regardless of what background you're from, but especially if we're trying to diversify our profession, and, frankly, the professional society to create better outcomes, more for you the clients, then the clients have got to pay more so that we can pay our junior staff members so they can live in London. Yeah, forget about, you know, working on so they can live in London, and that is far beyond the minimum wage, frankly, and that is and so this kind of, these kind of ethics statements, Edi statements, which always come from clients, not all clients, some clients who say, like, we are for this, but then the fees are rock bottom. It is hard to see how they think the profession can be, can be more democratized, yeah, and entry, it's like, how did they think
that's that's wild, like you've got the client making the DEI kind of requirements, like you would get in with a public Public Authority, and the profession itself is struggling with, you know, diversity. And, you know, I echo the same sentiment that really, the problem of diversity in the profession is a financial one, yes. And you know, when I've interviewed people from different ethnic backgrounds, and you know, sometimes it's that, it's the case that they're the first generation to go to university. Sometimes there's an expectation of responsibility for them to look after their parents or money back. There's a higher level of, you know, responsibility of where their finances needs to be going. So just looking at the basic maths of it, it doesn't work out for an architect to be getting paid, you know, such a lowly starting fee. And, you know, and it mean, that's not so bad, but you've just spent 10 years, yeah,
exactly. I mean, I was very fortunate. I went through University. I'm old enough to go through when my fees were paid for, yeah, you know, and, and they were means tested, and, like, easily qualified for that. I mean, the we, we take on a lot of work experience students, and they're all bright, and they're all keen, and they work with us for a week and and we speak to them a lot, and I, and I speak to them and and the the the case for them to be retained, or to go into the architecture field and find that case harder and harder to make, because these are bright kids who could they could do anything, you know, and they could do dentistry, can do medicine, they could do law, shorter courses, hard courses. They're bright enough to do it with job prospects, a starting wage which is higher, and after 10 years, a wage which is way higher. And you know, these kids are like, looking at me and saying, Well, you know, yeah, I like architecture, but, you know, I don't love it, like, yeah, and, and that's not when I started at 18. I liked architecture. I didn't love it, yeah, you know. So that's, you know, that that's fine. How are we going to retain these bright kids, you know? And, and I, kind of, you know, struggled to see how that is going to happen.
What do you think is. The responsibility here from some of the kind of overarching institutions in terms of how the role of the architect or the value of the architect is communicated.
Could you be specific about which institutions are talking about?
The RBA, for example,
I think the Riba do a decent job at communicating within their remit. You know, not everybody needs to be a member of the Riba. Firstly, you know, so it's not it, it, it's a position where they promote best practice, not not necessarily minimum practice. That's the ARB, isn't it, really. And so I think that they, they they communicate it the best they can. I know they have bursaries, and I know, I mean, I've, I've worked with the RBA on on a few schemes to try to communicate what architects do do better and to a wider audience. I will continue to do that. You know, that's what I'm I'm really passionate about trying to get more people interested in talking about architecture, but, but I do think that in a Tiktok world and YouTube world, why the Riba isn't heavily investing in a communication style which is more accessible to to a 14 or 15 year old. I do wonder why the IBA didn't try to, you know, sponsor Grand Designs, you know, like it is a massive show, you know, for good or bad, you know, I don't watch it, but that's because I, you know, I perhaps don't want to have enough
of the drama, yeah, running your own project. But
the idea is, is, you know, put I put the IBA in a place where it's in a civic or community setting, you know, to make it, you know, accessible. And you know, I think that that is challenging if your headquarters is an important place, yeah, I think it's challenging if you have all in front of it. These are not things that I'm saying should change, but I think that there, there should be, and maybe there are. I know lots of good people who are working within the IRPA, but I think that that pace of change needs to be quite quick to try to communicate better. I think also, it's limited what the IBA can do, you know, it's a member organization. It's, you know, there's only so much money they could put into to resourcing. So it's, I suppose it's up to advocates of of these, I suppose values to speak up and to carry on speaking up, really. And, you know, I would also say the architecture Foundation is a really wonderful organization where they champion up and coming practices and in a way which I think is accessible. I think open house probably does more than everybody really to to to bring architecture to a wider audience, to opening up of world class buildings and talks, walks and tours and all that kind of things and and so I think that there are, there are few organizations out there. It shouldn't just be the Riba and but there's a long way to go, actually, yeah,
I suppose on the the other side of it, there's a lot more ability that we have as individual practices to be able to communicate now with the with things like Tiktok and Instagram and social media and the ease, you know, the barrier, the financial barrier to being able to communicate at scale, has dropped significantly, like, you know, like never before. And it's whilst it requires a different type of investment in terms of time and just learning how to language something, it's there. It's there as a possibility. And there's a lot of scope for, certainly small practices, to be able to start to message and come and communicate. Yeah, I
think that that's, that's what, what we've been doing, what I've been doing in the last few years. Now, I think it comes down to authenticity. I think that there is, I think however you do it, you know that there isn't one size fits all, but if you can break out of this rigid vision of version of sorry, of the architect and be yourself. I think that generally that that draws better engagement. And I use the term engagement in the modern social media term, Yeah, unfortunately, I don't know what that means. I think that gets more. Engagement across different sectors. So authenticity is important. And I know that's something that you do really well, and I think that probably how you do it probably jars a lot of architects, frankly, by think that kind of authenticity is really important in in communicating. And also I think that we talk about the diversification in terms of different genders, backgrounds, ethnicities, but there's also that, you know, we need to have different diversification, or different personalities and a neurodiverse workplace as well. And when I was a young chap, there was a particular style of architect, and kind of is now as well. It's quite bombastic male and like pushing it forward with a with a wearing a formal suit. And it's true, sometimes I do wear formal suits because I love them, but, but there should be a place for different expressions and and social media is a wonderful free tool to showcase who you are, and also, at the same time, show great design. You know, I, I do get asked to speak a lot about engagement and communities, and the diversification of our profession, but fundamentally, I want to talk about architecture and and how we design and produce buildings, and to do that more and more I think is in a diverse environment is challenging if we Don't call out fees. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But social media to your point, Ryan is, is, is has helped me to speak out about certain things and many other practices
looking at the taking on the subject of of fees. You know, this is obviously such a hot topic for many, for every practice, for every architect, what do you think are some of the things that individual architects could be doing to re raising their fees? And also, what do you think about employees? Because employees often might are sheltered, in a way, from fees, but they're not, because their salaries are as a result of it. And there's often a lot of misunderstanding from employees. And this is, you know, might be a result of the architectural education, where we don't necessarily understand what how are, how fees and salaries are related. But what do you think individual architects can be doing to raising their fees? And what's, what advice would you give to employees about fees and and how it relates to their salaries?
Second question, I'm not too sure. I think that, yeah, I think that's a really fascinating question, because I think that there is a relationship to when I was a part two, and when my boss told me, actually, do you know that this is how much it costs for us to employ you? I was my whole existence changed at that point. I was like, okay, I'd better do some work then, yeah, and I won't go into the context of that conversation, but it was a really valuable business lesson, and it was done in a very nurturing way, gotta say. But I don't know what the answers, though, to that second question is, because I think that how you communicate to your colleagues about how much they're being charged out. I mean, instinctively, I would try to communicate in a way of how much they're valued. You know, we value you this much because you do great work. This is why we love sitting next to you and producing ideas, some of which are working, some of which are not. Don't worry about it. But this is the value. This is how much it costs. Yeah, you know, I don't think it's a natural conversation to have. I don't think necessarily need to have it till every staff member, but maybe I think that there is a moment in their journey where where that could be approached. And for me, it was, it was good, yeah, because it kind of made me value myself more. Frankly,
I think in general, you know, I'm very encouraging of practices to be transparent with their finances and to empower, you know, certainly younger members of the team, and they come in like, here's what your salary is how here's how it relates. You have to tell the whole team what everyone else is earning. I don't think that's particularly useful, but certainly, you know, showing an individual here's what we you know, you know what you're getting paid, and here's what we bill you out at and here's why we. Bill you out, yeah, three times more than you know, and I like that actually putting in the frame of, you know, you're actually very valuable part of the team, and we're billing you out at that, and your work is actually paying for the office, the overheads and everything like that. I recount a story sometimes of a young architect like it was an architectural assistant part two, who somehow found my phone number somewhere, phones me up on a random Tuesday morning and is really upset at their at their boss, and they're like, Orion, you need to speak to my boss. I've just found out how much they're you know, I'm being exploited. You know, I found out how much they're charging the client from the work that I'm doing, and I was like, Okay. And he was like, three times as much as why I'm getting paid. And I was like, well, your boss is doing a great job, yeah, but that, but that kind of indicated a misunderstanding that if it wasn't dealt with, is going to cause a lot of ups, yeah, and frustration and, you know?
But I think that, like my I suppose my nervousness about speaking about that to staff shows the journey and the education that I've been through in in the heads. I'm not blaming that, but I'm a product of an educational system which separated the business and the architecture, yes,
and
here you are like, this is what it what it looks like with a boss who's who's, doesn't know who has to think a lot about how to communicate how much someone is is valued and and I don't know, maybe things have changed within architectural education, but that seems to me, that's a sad indictment of the education system that I went through. Yeah, and maybe why you have this podcast. But to the to the first question, which is, how do you raise fees in that really, that that's kind of it. I think it goes back to demonstrating the value, demonstrating the risk points, demonstrating what, what the answer is, if you went down that route, and it wouldn't be pretty, and also the power of No, you know, to actually say, Look, this is, these are our values, you know. And our value is. Our values are this, this, this, this, and I don't think necessarily this, this, this needs to be always described in number of drawings, number of models. It should be. And we do put that on our on our scopes, service, scope, service, whatever, but, but I've also tended to describe those values in look. We always take on work experience students every single year. We love doing that. It costs money. We forget about minimum wage. We always pay our staff something which is, you know, far in excess of that, because that's what it takes to live in London. We're really proud about that. It costs money, you know, we do this. We do so it's actually demonstrating a culture, yeah, and I don't think that we are expensive, like, there are loads of architects out there who are way more expensive. For sure. There are those artists out there who are also cheaper, yeah, for sure. And, and so we're kind of, you know, and I, I know this because, because I see fee data, and I see salaries and, and all this kind of thing, really, so, so it's, you know, we're in a really, you know, it's not always the case, but at the moment, the studio is in a nice position whereby we have clients who have an alignment with with with values, and sometimes a positive conversation is to say, look, we have the same values, but we can't afford it, so we'll do less, you know, and that, frankly, easiest thing is to take out some of the stuff that we will do, yeah, visual scope. It's very simple stuff, really, but I think that it is about a whole, you know, the reason why we want to raise fees is that is to have a better way of communicating, through design, through conversations, through drawings, so that will produce better results, and we and we increase the standard. Yeah, I
suppose it's interesting as well. You know, some of the projects that you might engage with that have very tight budgets? Yeah. Is that, you know, the smaller the budget, the more the value of the architect. Yeah, right. And it kind of, you know, I'd be interested in in seeing models of fees, where the architect fee is larger as a result of doing more with smaller construction budget, and actually, in the proportion of the whole scheme of the project, the architects budget fee is still just absolutely a sliver of this. And that's something that you know, just even to see that as a diagram, yeah, sometimes just absolutely,
yeah, you know. And as you know, you know the it's kind of whether it's a small project or a small project or a large project, in terms of construction value, the amount of work that a conscientious architect does is pretty much the same. Yeah, I'm not talking about rubbish architects. They can do what they want to, and that's absolutely fine, but for a conscientious architects, and I could name 50 of them, we're going to be doing good quality work, and we're going to be working hard. And so the fee scale, if you do relate it to that, is kind of a bit weird. But basically, you know, for half a million pound project, or for two and a half million pound project, it's, there's not really that much difference in terms of, like work done. And so that that's quite challenging. I think also, and I think this is where it requires strong leadership from, from authorities. And I mean, I suppose not local authorities. I mean architectural wide authorities who are promoting architect, it's, it's, it's about, when you get into the conversation. You know, if the architect can get into the conversation early, and if they're a good, conscientious architect, they can actually set the expectation levels. A lot of the times we get involved in conversations where there have been, where there have been other parties, of other, other stakeholders, such as, not stakeholders, other interested parties, like builders, other consultants, and then, oh, should we get an architect? Oh, okay, so you're too expensive because the builder said it was. This is not all builders. Most builders absolutely fine, but it's about leading the conversation. You know, of architects, you know, becoming that leader role, again, being paid for that leadership role, this whole thing about, or you can project manage it. Well, no that that will take 15% more more time. It's like, is it okay if I increase my fee by 15% as well? What's like, What were you talking about? So actually getting into the conversation early and setting, setting those expectation levels and being realistic about whether a project is a go or not. You know, maybe it's not worth spending time and money on architects fees. It's better to work that out early if the if the budget is going to be tiny, you know, and that that takes some leadership. It takes some mature conversations. And it takes, I suppose, the ability to walk away from from projects and say, Actually, no, this isn't going to work. And it and it takes a proactive attitude to actually thinking about where you want to be positioned, within this, within this built environment realm, you know, architects should be at the forefront leading conversations. I think it's, it's that's been diminished.
What's the rest of 2024? And looking into next year got planned for for you in the office,
we are lucky to have some really wonderful projects at the moment, and haven't always been the case, and they're projects whereby we are we have the resources to express architecture in the way that we think that is going to be beneficial to the final, final product. I hate using the word product, but the final environment, we have a wonderful new build house in Buckinghamshire, which is set to go on site for some for some clients. I mean, I, I would call these clients more patrons. Actually, they're really invested in this process, and really the only clients who have actually said to me, you know, what can we what is it that we can do for you to make your life easier? And I was taken aback, and I took a few moments, and I just, like, said, Oh, can you just pay invoices within two weeks? And they pay within two hours, you know, within two hours. So that so that is incredible for small practice, for any practice, for a small practice, it's just great. So that's going on site, and that would be like an 18. Want to build, and it's really one working with a really wonderful builder to actually get that over the line. And we've recently been appointed as architects for a a a company that makes jeans in Walthamstow, and they have a real building, and they want to extend it so that it becomes more of a community civic space, more workshops for higher composite workshop spaces. They want to have an allotment on the on the roof, and a kitchen and a eating place as well. And that's frankly, such in the wheelhouse of what we've been speaking about for the last 10 years that. And maybe it's not a coincidence that these this project has come it's a result of just good communication, perhaps. And so we're stage one in that IB, stage one, and that's, I'll be a long project, and that's and we have other other stuff as well, but those are the ones I really want to concentrate on, and, yeah, keep things going from there, amazing.
Well, it's been an absolute pleasure, perfect place to conclude the conversation here, but that's been really, really insightful and very thoughtful responses to the, you know, to some of my questions, and I know a great level of expertise there, just managing and dealing with clients and working in these the sorts of projects that you that you do. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Great luck.
Tip Thank you,
and that's a wrap. Hey.
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