516: Unconventional Paths to Profit in Design Daniel Leon of Square Feet Architects
EEnoch SearsFeb 22, 2024 at 3:59 pm53min
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00:00Speaker 1
Think through that creativity and through that problem solving that is instilled in all architects, we're in a good place to develop. Hello, and
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00:08Rion Willard
welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard. And today I have the distinct honor of conversing with Mr. Daniel Lyon, the esteemed founder of square feet. Architects for square feet prides itself on fostering amiable and constructive partnerships with clients, as well as specialists ranging from interior designers and artisans to engineers. This collaborative approach centered around genuine dialogues ensures the successful realisation of architectural projects before establishing square feet. Dan Lyon undertook his studies in Liverpool and in Seattle, his professional journey saw him contribute to architectural endeavors in Manchester and Sydney. And furthermore, during his tenure in London, he collaborated with renowned firms such as Levitt, Bernstein, Briscoe, Henley and others. His portfolio includes very commendable projects such as the urban regeneration and housing schemes in Dublin and Leeds cultural ventures, like St. Luke's Old Street for the London Symphony Orchestra, and noteworthy structures for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Between 2014 and 2017. Dan served as a counselor for the RBA, and to this day he is an active member of the Riba library committee, overseeing outreach, curating the drawings collection, and orchestrating exhibitions. He's also registered as an RBA. Conservation registrant and his expertise has led him to be a judge for the prestigious RBA Stirling prize. And he partakes in the design review panel and the Jewish heritage UK is casework a panel. Moreover, the Westminster School of Architecture often welcomes him as a guest critic. In this episode, we talk about some of Dan's very interesting research where he's been comparing other professions from lawyers and doctors from the movie industry, and how they procure their work and how they make things happen. We talk about the current state of architecture, and the industry and some of the pitfalls that many small practices find themselves in and we talk as well about their own forays into development and increasing business efficiency in his own business, square feet architects. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Dan Lyon, have
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02:19Enoch Sears
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02:57Rion Willard
Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
Unknown Speaker
Good, I'm good. How are you?
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03:01Rion Willard
I'm very well, thank you absolute pleasure to have you on the show you are one of the cofounders of square feet architects, you guys have got a very interesting portfolio of work, you've got a projects in mixed use developments, private resi, you've done a lot of education, community work or cultural buildings, you've got a very interesting setup, as well, where you've kind of started to enter into the world of doing your own developments. And there are other service services that you guys provide such as square feet home, square feet develops, we can talk a little bit about that and how the business is set up, but a beautiful portfolio. And I know that you've been you've got an act, a very keen active interest in the business side of architecture, and you've been practicing for a long period of time. That's we've just kind of get a sense from you. When did you when did you start the practice? How did how was it born?
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04:06Speaker 1
Sure. Well, 20 years ago, I mean, it just feels like yesterday how time flies and I know I don't look old enough. But the my potted CV is started in Liverpool and Seattle for a period and then went back to Manchester where I'm from and part three there and went off to Australia to Sydney in the late 90s to working on some Olympic projects before the 2000 Olympics, and then came back and had a stint at levitt Bernstein and Bushido Henley was an associate which is now heading to hell brand and, and then had the opportunity the way things do friends and friends of friends asked him doing a bit of moonlight Single on some domestic kind of projects. And things sort of evolved from there. So it's kind of interesting, you know, just classic work on the kitchen table to start with, grew a bit hide apart one. And then I kind of realized in that year actually that that part one was doing all the, all the nice work and I was doing all the admin and all the support all the crap. And, and it's, you know, so anyway, that that problem, went back to college and finisher, finished his studies etc. And, and so thinking about who my second hire was a little bit more strategically, and that person was was an admin person, not an architect, not a drawer, someone who'd worked in contractors beforehand, so knew one end of a brick from another, but nevertheless, wasn't wasn't an architect. So leaving the design the drawing to me, and a lot of us call it the other admin stuff to, to her and actually, she's, she's, you know, cut to 1617 years later, she's still working with me as office manager, and, and she's running our square feet home side of things now, so and then, you know, over years work, work, work was gathered and teams was grown and sort of about 10 people about three or four years ago. And as you say, doing from square feet, square feet, architects doing a range mainly of sort of resi of all sorts of shapes and sizes, typically from one to 50 units, one of houses, two blocks of flats, and then some schools, nursery schools, secondary schools, business schools, things like that. And some community projects, place of worship places, works for charities, things like that, so and then all of a sudden, the world changed a little bit of thing with Brexit initially. Then COVID, and, and, and then, you know, sort of the world changed a bit in terms of that there was an increase in salary, costs, running costs, all sorts of things. So it was really, really a time to read to rethink about the way, the way the practice, the way the practice was operating. You know, the classic stereotypical way a firm architects set up is, you know, a couple of mates from college, get together, win a competition, win a project, and then hire a bunch of staff, and slowly, you know, look, look for that next project in order to keep those staff busy, and etc, etc. And it's, and it seems a bit of a quite hierarchical with those, those, maybe there's one or two leaders, three, four leaders at the top and, and then a sort of a bunch of other people below. And those leaders needing to win the work in order to feed the machine. And it's not necessarily and I've got friends who run big practice, and they feel that sometimes those practices are more like in employment agencies, rather than rather than actually said design practices and the and the, you know, the leaders are more managers than leaders. And because they know how to do the job, my what my first boss, remember, where did my part three in, in Manchester, I remember him telling me that he did. This didn't work in the States and in the States, traditionally, an architect's practice was set up by one architect, one accountant and one marketing person. And so an architect was relatively a small part in that cargo, the delivery of architecture, so that the architect could, whereas the other business aspects of it was dealt by, delivered by if you'd like the specialist. And, you know, I think some architects do become good businessmen, you know, through the good business people through their problem solving skills, through credit, creativity, through their communication skills through the boot camp of the Crip system of university, etc. But not all and, and sort of seem to sort of struggle through and it seems to be that lots of practices go from sort of feast to famine, and it's, it's difficult, I think we all do it. Now. Now. We've sort of reduced our team down and, and delivering things at a much more sort of lean way. But it sort of led me to think about an investigating just as I see, friends and family, in different industries, different professions or about how they deliver their projects, you know, be it you know, a project being, be it a medical case a patient how to how to get that person better. Or it might be a law case, how to deal with deal deal with a particular legal question. Or, you know, could be making a film or making music making an album making. And so I started to chat to these people about how they do it. And I know, you know, anecdotally, the way barristers work very much more in chambers that sort of much more solitary, but that and they contribute to the overheads of the admin of the chambers, and they deliver their work. And I think they give 10 20% of their income to the chambers to cover for the clocks and whatever else. And they can draw down the skills of pupils as necessary, but often, often, they're kind of working pretty solitary, in order to deliver that case, and that they're kind of freelance and some GPS, or not freelancer, some self employed in a way, and
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11:17Rion Willard
they're kind of like contracted with the Chamber, the chamber is something that's helping them avoid
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11:23Speaker 1
self employed know that I don't think the chamber does, sometimes it does a thing. And now they're kind of self employed. And they're responsible to do their own marketing and networking and whatever else in order to bring in their work and the and talking to another sort of law firm, who operates legal firm in that way they, he has a provides an umbrella for the marketing. And what's quite prohibitive in law I've learned is about pick the pie, the professional indemnity, the and the compliance issues, what particular when you're dealing with client money, so they provide that umbrella under which the, the sort of the professionals can do their work. GPS can work in a similar kind of way. Doctor GPS work in a similar kind of way, hospitals are sort of quite different. They're much more hierarchical. So, you know, all of a sudden, you need to get hospital for an operation, you'll be you. There's a consultant who's got a team of, of sh O's in house offices, and registrar's and everything, and that consultant might do the operation or might get depends how complicated it is. So that's a bit more like the way an architect's office works in order to do that project. Sean,
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12:53Rion Willard
interestingly, kind of took it upon itself to kind of do that kind of research and talk with those professionals. And I think I've always found it quite interesting that some of the ways that architects Bill, you know, certainly we've, you know, hourly billing and itemized billing, that's a very common, it's very problematic for a lot of architects that kind of billing, or they get themselves into all sorts of trouble and client pushback, something very common that you'll see with lawyers. And I've often wondered, if architects some time in the past, saw what lawyers were doing with their clients and thought it was a good idea to mimic them, and then started to mimic those sorts of structures as because they were other professionals, and then never really delivered it as well as the lawyers
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13:36Speaker 1
in terms of charging bytes on a time basis. You mean, yeah. Yeah. I understand. That's less common. Now. I know, I think, I think we were always told that, you know, as soon as you pick up the phone to a little bit, they did in six minutes increments, which is a 10th of an hour. That's how they work. Because I used to work. I think it's a little bit less. So I think they're getting much more pressured. The way architects have been extremely type have to do much more fixed fee. And I think they're much more I think, the Law Society held on a little bit longer than the Riba did in terms of fee school fee scale. But I think that they're under similar kind of pressure. And, you know, instinct in terms of that they AI is a is a real pressure on on lawyers as well. Apparently, last month, or recently a the a judge in a New York court gave their summary. The first the first time a judge in in a court gave a summary which had been written by Judge GBT. And wow, I think this this judge wants to be the first to do it. So he kind of did it, but I think I think he'd written the long version and then got chucked GBT to and he declared it but it was a sort of interesting, and, you know, I understand that Doc. HUMINT searching in the traditional ways you get to a bunch of junior lawyers to file to go through piles, which we've seen the films, piles of files looking for a particular word in an email, that might be looking to bring down the company. And that's done very much more by AI now. So I think this is the other thing that influenced my my thinking the way we the way we were doing things, you know, 20 years ago, is quite a different world. Now, in terms of so many things. The car designer chap was interesting who I chatted to. Because he had, and I was thinking, I think the design of a car is similar to designing the building the complex things. I mean, I think part of what we're looking at is that the things that we do as architects, we design complicated things, buildings are complicated, and they've got to last long, and they've got to, and they've got a, a sort of a site context. They need to reflect the context. Where is the car might not need to, whereas you know, a shirt might not need to last as long. You know, if you're making an ad, it doesn't last as long, maybe it's somebody but most don't. So the making a building is a complicated thing. The talking to the car designer, he was saying that, because another aspect of this is the way the team is built up is that he used to deal very much more on a on a freelance having a workforce, which was much more of a freelance base. As people used to cut people used to come in and commissioned them to design this asset on the other end, and they'd grow up and down as required for exits really hit that. Because the pool of available, qualified people in a very specialized world is small. And in order to he feels in order to deliver his projects, he needs to have people there that you can rely on and develop a team. And I wanna hear the conversation, because I've been talking some architects as well have a good chat with all friends, older work colleagues, indie Joe, of zero, and he used who talking very much about that. Not interested in freelance because it's a loss the knowledge that's lost within within a team, he said that, you know, that fosters and Rogers building designing buildings now which have got decades of knowledge. It's it's a it's a knowledge is a pool of knowledge. That is knowledge economy, we're talking about, yeah,
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17:51Rion Willard
it kind of compounds itself over time, where it's more and more valuable in a very interesting kind of set of research here. Did you ask any of these different professions that kind of, you know, regular profit margins that they aim for? Well, they kind of find all that kind of financial performance. And what what did you discover?
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18:11Speaker 1
I didn't actually what, what, what, what did though learn was that in TV, because it's mainly a freelance world, most people and TV and film, a crew is set up for a particular film. And most people in those worlds expect only to work six, six months or nine months of the year. And it's a tough business. And I think, I think barristers also have quite quite a lot of periods of Lean time, because they're self employed looking for the next thing. And so I suspect, proportionately, their hourly rates might be higher than architects in order to compensate for that time off, but nevertheless, they've got more time off. I think what, what I was asking about, which he was kind of interested in as well was that liability. And, you know, as architects is becoming, you know, we're walking an increasingly narrow tight tightrope with sustainability and fire and increased costs, etc, etc, etc. And it's becoming harder and and, you know, one of the conversations I had with a guy who runs a marketing company, you know, what, PR company what keeps them awake at night? Well, it's, it's defamation is liable. Talking to the, the guy who makes films, what keeps him awake at night, it's the lead actor twisting his ankle. And so the whole thing has to go on hold for, you know, we're we design things, architects design, things that we're worried are going to fall down or leak or, you know, whatever that those kinds of things. And and we have those worries that that and delivering things on time on budget, all those things. But it's, it's think that complexity and the longevity of the projects are the things that the sort of influence things. And the knowledge that can play? Well, I was, uh, I was sitting down with my, my son. And we were watching a Netflix film about the building of the James Webb telescope. Amazing. Fantastic. Have you seen it?
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20:34Rion Willard
Well, I've watched a number of documentaries on that telescope, it's just publicly wonderful. Yeah.
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20:40Speaker 1
And, and the, that is a project. If you think about projects, you know, that was 1000s of people over over a decade. Yeah. Millions of dollars or whatever, dollars and they, and you know, it's becoming sort of common parlance in our industry about the golden thread through a post Grenfell, etc. But about that continuity of thought in design, and understanding where the risks and the problems are. And, you know, let's see, James Webb has the ultimate, you know, complicated project, or so far that we like to have done. And it's that continuity of thought between, obviously different departments suddenly designing the the shields on designing the taxman, and that bring it all together. And it was in a did field still, like there was one person at the helm of all this, who brought it all together, because some of those junior engineers were coming and going, perhaps is because life happened. But I think there was this this sort of one guy at the helm, who brought it all together. And I think that is the that is the sort of the thing, which may be is still required. That may be as things get split up into different sections, and things get passed between different people within a project to deliver that project. I think it does need that one mind to understand that and that's what sort of when you subcontract things out to other people, you lose that clarity of thought. So, ya know, it seems to me another, you know, snippet, there was watching an interview with Ridley Scott, promoting his new film, the Napoleon. Yeah. And he's, you know, as a, as a sort of elite Elite. And I think people have talked about it before about as architects, so we, we producers, or directors, you know, what was always you know, and I think, I think, may be, I don't know, maybe different architects, a different producer, a more producers than architects or directors. I think, since the advent, maybe a project managers were more directors. I don't know. That's,
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23:06Rion Willard
that's, that's very interesting. And also kind of, you know, I'm trying to understand from a client's perception where they view the architect, and actually, where do we make more money as being like a director? Or do we make more money as being a producer? And
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23:19Speaker 1
what I want to be better at? I mean, I think the producer, from what I understand is much more than the person who is pulling with about the money. AdWords developer, the the logistics, we all Yeah, maybe the developers or or the developer, the
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23:42Rion Willard
developer, probably like an executive producer. Right. Yeah.
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23:45Speaker 1
Or an investor? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of interesting thinking about film. So the chap I was talking to makes big blockbuster, TV films, for BBC and, and Amazon and others. And they've got a really small core team, that look for the next projects they're doing. Looking at reading books, finding scripts, and taking those ideas to, you know, the broadcaster's to say, Uh, how about you want to, you know, we want an option on this. And that's a little bit like a feasibility study in my mind the thing. And then, you know, which, which a couple of people can do relatively in an agile way, because, you know, he ultimately he grows from five or six people that he's gotten his production company to a couple of 100 by the time he's making make, you know, she making the film and the, and then that sort of evolves and scripts are written and, and pilots are made and samples are done and things are developed. And ultimately, it's only really when they get to, and I think maybe maybe that script writing is Planning? Yeah, maybe maybe the maybe the pilot is diesel design or something, I don't know what they know, or making making a, making a prototype of parts of it. And then it's only really as they call it, the crew up, and they gather this whole range of people have executive assistant directors and etc, etc. In order to deliver and it could be a couple of 100 people from the people who are the who are doing the the operating the cameras to operating the sound. And, and so maybe that maybe the actors and the guys who are, who are operating the cameras, etc. Maybe they're the contractors, maybe they're the builders in our in our little accent analogy. What they have, which we don't have is post production. So for a year after, you know, it's all been shot, they set and choose, oh, should we take this cut or that cut, could do a little bit of CGI even. But it can be that they they're on set, and they're shooting a scene and the director who who's not particularly financially savvy wants, you know, all sorts of angles, and they've got to get offset that day, and they don't shoot, shoot all the thing. So they've got to cut the cut the scenes. So maybe that's like down specking? I don't know, you know, this
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26:29Rion Willard
is kind of value engineered. Yeah. Value Engineering. That's,
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26:32Speaker 1
that's, that's the last thing. And the thing is, though, is that you know, that product, I mean, what's the worst thing that happens if a film is a bit of a bit of a doo doo is, you know, get straight to VHS as they used to say? Yeah,
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26:49Rion Willard
yeah, and obviously, the other thing about film as you've got the capacity to be able to scale, yeah, which was kind of very different from the world of architecture, when one of the kind of inherent kind of constraints that we have as architects is that it's, you know, our services are kind of typically one off things. And there's a lack of ability to be able to, to scale it or to repeat, to repeat something, or the beauty of beauty of a film as it is essentially a kind of completed product. That's low ticket at the end of it, in terms of its consumer. And and also you can make money off that film for 50 years or so.
Unknown Speaker
Most don't, you know,
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27:34Rion Willard
most guys lose a lot of money.
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27:36Speaker 1
Most don't know exactly. Who didn't. She actually gets the Ridley Scott about beginner, he goes through an advertising art school background. And he, he does you know, just as again, reflecting on what we do. He storyboards it himself. He can draw games and wonderful artists, isn't he? Yeah. So in terms of that translation, and that clarity of thought, and that golden thread? He does it, you know?
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28:06Rion Willard
And so what did all this research, then? What kind of conclusions did you draw from it that that that had been applied into square feet, it's
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28:15Speaker 1
still work in progress, I have to say that is in if and, and I'm still, you know, speaking to people. We've got some more kind of interviews lined up talking to different talks as I do doing different things. You know, there's obviously, architects that we all know who, who are working on a much more sort of collaborative basis, less of this sort of hierarchical traditional basis, and other industries. So, I mean, I think, I think we do so many architects, that is it. 50% of all UK practices are sort of micro practices, doesn't matter what the figure is, but it's mainly, and we're kind of pretty much of a cottage industry, I think the way we do things, and that information share is pretty poor, to reinventing the wheel that's going on, is inefficient, and also the, the amount of lost experience within
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29:23Rion Willard
Well, it's kind of mind blowing, and then particularly in the context of, you know, the the rise of modern tech companies and open source and how they're constantly sharing creative ideas and code and things like that. Yeah. And it is completely baffling that why you know, architects particularly like micro practices are working in are finding themselves working in silos of information where no, I kind of networked, a much better network industry would be able to provide a kind of common set of resources that would be infinitely better Right, well exponentially rather than increase the value that an architect is able to deliver. I mean, I'm
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30:05Speaker 1
in kicking around ideas in terms of, you know, it loosely called what one was called sort of spare cap, which is all of a sudden, you've got these practices, which have got that team of, I don't know, whatever that projects been put on hold, and that team is sitting there, you know, as things do. Their teams sitting there twiddling their thumbs, and that practice needs to reassign them. Whereas another practice somewhere down the road, and I know some practices are doing this, but this idea of a network of practices, you share capacity spare cap was missing. Yeah. The London Forum, I suppose, are doing that. Exactly, exactly. So there are parts is doing that. And that's necessary. The other thing is mentoring and how much mentoring that's going on, in mid, you know, mid career practices, sort of develop a platform for that. And again, it's, you know, it's another book, it's got in mind at all, which sounds a bit like mentor, but stuck in that labyrinth, I don't know everything. And, and having those people who will ever say, I don't know, in their 50s 60s mentoring those those startups and having to reinvent the wheel, if there needs to be much more of that interface, this type of thing the Riba should be doing, frankly, you know, it should be a guild of knowledge, sharing all this. I know it does it. And it's an it's a, it's a behemoth of an organization that could should be doing things better. But nevertheless, there are opportunities here that you might have experienced that knowledge is just being, you know, thrown away, as those architects retire. Yeah. Why aren't they becoming non execs in small practices? And saying, you know, you know, yes, you could do it like that, because technology, things are moving forward, and we will need to move forward. But maybe think about it, I don't know, you know, it's, it's, it's frustrating at times, I'm part of a WhatsApp group, which is fantastic, have over 100 architects in there lots of small practices, and that the information and knowledge share, there's great the, the opportunities for doing that, you know, needs to be needs to be more, but it's, it's interesting, I think, some summary, some takeaways about it being agile. And I know it's not, it's not mind blowing ly new ideas, but that idea of really being on top of your overheads. Yeah, not not, you know, because it's very easy to scale up when the times are good, and you got a big team. But just, I think my advice would be just think about, what if what if your team was half the size as you are growing? As you're looking to double think what to look like, when it's half the size, you know, that those lots of people who are trying to shift software licenses or whatever, big offices that are too big, because the people working from home or to, you know, just really, really, really be, I think, a little bit prudent when it comes to overhead, so that, you know, because as they say, shit happens, and I think you want me to operate in an agile kind of way. It's the things that people are talking about, about collaboration. And, you know, we've got all sorts of things with different people, not maybe not architects, actually people who can provide different skills that the we don't necessarily have as a core team, but we can crew up as these pawns in the film business. In order to deliver those bigger projects. We still need that core team who, who know what they're doing, but maybe a slightly more senior people. It's difficult, you know. And of course, just hiring senior senior people is a more expensive model than then then having sort of more junior people. But it's, I think it's quite efficient, because that is that knowledge retention through a project and with a client that's, that's so essential, I think, yeah.
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34:31Rion Willard
Let's talk a little bit about your forays into your own development and where that's come from. What sorts of projects have you delivered and the kind of kind of business models that you've used or business vehicles that you use to deliver them?
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34:50Speaker 1
Well, it's a newish sort of outlet. We've done a couple of things. And I think having having been in the You know, in the business for a little while now, as I say square feets, 20 years old this year next year and they said it would never last. And, and then before, so have worked on quite a lot of things. And I think you do lots of work for developers. And I'd like to think that I've learned a bit from them to rubbing shoulders, asking them, why is it like that, not like that. So opportunity came about to buy. The first one was a site up towards St. Alban Z, which was an old car park that I bought before it went into an auction. And managed to get planning permission on it, to build a few houses. I mean, the process through that was, was exciting, because it got refused. And, and I ultimately got approved on appeal. But took all the all the twists and turns and guile that the and cutting, but that one has been picked up in order to get it over the line. So you know, for example, there was some cantankerous neighbors who were who are a stumbling block. So there was a pub across the road from the site, I said, I was going to sit in that pub, that that particular night and with a set of drawings and answer any questions and by any want to drink, and that's to smooth out any problems. So smooth that any of the objections and get it over the line, it was passed, i In the end, we sold it at a a nice profit. And without without building it, I would have built it I know how to build, I'm not afraid of building. I know, that's where additional risk lies. But I decided to you know, fold and twist another time as it were.
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37:13Rion Willard
Great. So you say that the kind of applied your design ideas to give a uplifting value to the site? So yeah,
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37:22Speaker 1
yeah, and then do similar on a second one, I can roll that profit on. And I mean, looking for next one, to be honest, at the moment, didn't build them. Because the profit added through planning was was was good, you know. So I think all of a sudden, the risks associated with building I know how to build but equally, you know, the rise and build the cost is scary. And at the time, there was no shortage of building materials, and also things like that going get worrying us all. So I cashed in and looking for the next one, you know, things are really difficult now, talking to other developers about getting that, that gap with buildings, building costs going up and valleys coming down, and interest rates going up. So it's a bit of a perfect storm and the increased increased costs in terms of fire and sustainability. It's a bit of a perfect storm at the moment against developing people certainly doing it. But it's certainly harder, I think, than it was. And so, yeah, we're sort of doing sort of joint ventures looking at doing joint ventures with with people who had a joint venture for, for a brief period a few years ago, which was myself a planning consultant and a Site Finder. And between us, we put together deals, did a design to the planning report, did an appraisal and package that up to teach developers to invest. Now that was that was looking good. I think I think we didn't quite get anything over the line. But I'd like to think that I've got a bit of entrepreneurialism a bit of a commercial head on me to be able to know my way around a spreadsheet. And and, you know, I think through that creativity and through that problem solving that is instilled in all architects I think we're in a good place to develop have to be careful because it's you know, it's a costly business as well. So recommend doing it with other people that have done it a lot in order to those negotiations with the bank or or when the bank come knocking halfway through the project and change terms you know, that can be quite squeaky bum time. It's not good not to be gone in faint heartedly, but nevertheless, it can be lucrative certainly what,
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39:55Rion Willard
what kind of insights have you gotten from doing your kind of Are these sorts of self initiated projects that have increased the service capacity that you give to say, your developer clients? Or, you know, what kind of insights? Insights have you learned from the self initiated projects that have improved your service towards developer clients,
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40:17Speaker 1
I think I can better talk their language actually, and understand their pressure points. And, you know, some, some developers are, you know, obviously, design focused, but many aren't many a profit focused. And so to understand what their pressure points are, and it's often about how long things are going to take, and how long things are going to cost, you know, it's all that kind of stuff. And I think, you know, it's what we've done throughout as being architects. We've taken on projects, sometimes, which of which have just paid the bills, you know, we, we categorize some of our projects, as, as being a sort of category A, B, or C kind of project. And a project is, is, might be a sort of a tasty project, but we might not make very much money on and, you know, and A, B might be, you might make a bit of project, but you know, and it's a matter of some design aspect, and a C's probably going to be a bit of a turkey of a design of a kind of a project, but we might make some good money on it. So so as the project's come in, we actually are quite clear about Okay, guys, what what is this, this, okay, this is a seat, let's get on with it, let's do, let's just make let's make maximum profit out of this project. But, but we've always had to introduce some design by stealth, I think that's what he's gonna say, you know, even a project where we are not necessarily singing from the same hymn sheet as, as the client, maybe in terms of taste, or whatever it might be sure. We're aspiration, you sneak in, you sneak in something, you know, that maybe the client knows about or don't know about, maybe it's just a, maybe it's just a Nokia trade detail, I don't know what. But somewhere that you actually can point to that project, that wasn't a complete waste of time. And so with developers, if they're just all about profit, and whatever else, you don't tell them that you've designed this nice little bench by the front door, where you can take off your boots before going in or whatever, you know, it's there. And they might, and once it's built, they go, Oh, that's nice. But, you know, so it's by stealth sometimes. And yeah, you know, you talk learns, talk their, their language, understand what they're after. And, you know, we are a service industry at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, we don't build, you know, nothing with these nice hands anyway. And, you know, we, we push pay, we make we make paper, or destroy, perfectly nice, perfect blank paper.
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43:16Rion Willard
Explain a little bit about how, you know, when your service offerings at square feet, how you kind of present them. So I know, like, the square foot home, for example, a specialized service for for homeowners. It has a little bit about that, and the the kind of marketing and the, the way it's been structured. Sure.
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43:37Speaker 1
So yeah, a couple of years ago, you sort of set up a little separate business, which kind of a small work department if you like, which is a square feet home, which is a more bespoke service for residential clients. It's a separate company to square feet architect setup. With Angela, who was the person I was referring to who joined who joined me 1516 years ago, we've known each other since we were teenagers. And, and she's not an architect, and she sort of become a project manager learns a lot by osmosis through sitting next to architects for a long time. And it's that handholding service for homeowners who perhaps are don't have the time to run around to find those tiles for that floor wooden floor in the kitchen or chop rivers. And it's a bespoke service for for those people and holding them square feet home might buy it architectural services from square feet architects or from a whole a whole roster of separate freelancers.
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44:50Rion Willard
And how is the how is the services of square feet home distinguished from the services of square feet architects Let's
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45:00Speaker 1
say it's much more hand holding, it is offering that interiors, that full sort of turnkey package. We've got, we've got clients who work all sorts of hours of the day and very, very little time. So yeah, we, you know, we do the running around for them. And also, because lots of home, lots of domestic clients are one off clients, you know, they might do it once. They might do it twice, but the return, but, and so there's quite a lot of education that's required about the process, understanding, you know, the whole process of initial designs, pre planning and the planning process, if we're not, we're not dealing with professional developer kind of clients who understand the process. So and sometimes be the marriage counseling involved as well. About why, you know, the decision of you know, we had one project where someone was, should we have, do you need a hook on the back of your bathroom door and, you know, spouse at spouse be said, Why do you look on the back of the door anyway? You don't hang up your towel, any other. Okay. Moving on, you know,
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46:18Rion Willard
how, because there's not a hook on the back of the door. That's why Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly what the
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46:23Speaker 1
will be, and you'll get from you. Anyway. So there's, there's a good there's a good dollar for marriage counseling in the work that we do as well. That's, that's not expressed in our appointment terms as a service. It's therapy marriage. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You know, should we get a divorce or build a back extension? Once for life, I don't know. Anyway. So it's good. You know, it takes patience, but it's enjoyable, because you're, you know, you're dealing with people who are invested in the project. And it's a very, there's nothing more personal than someone's home as you're intimate than their, their home and delivering that for them and their family, a place where they nurture and grow and work, rest and play. Well, that is much more satisfying than sometimes than doing a office fit out, you know, that you might get some restaurants out there. Yeah, you know, that restaurant might fail. So, yeah, very
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47:21Rion Willard
good. Very good. What have you guys got in store for next year? Kind of coming to the end here of 2023?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah,
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47:28Rion Willard
what are the things that are exciting you
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47:30Speaker 1
it's always good to take stock at the end of the good office clear out is always is always healthy. I like that. But we've sort of bit of a new venture going on have turned our office into a gallery i i picked up some paint brushes for the first time last year. And that's a new sort of passion, oil painting. So and as a result of which have been rubbing shoulders with some interesting creatives. And so artists and others and and so, in order to we've got a meeting room we've got our offices in is an old bookshop, and in Marylebone station, if you know what I mean, yeah. And we, our studios, in the basement, from the ground floor was is a meeting room, which turned into a gallery. So that's an interesting place where new interesting people are coming over the threshold, talking about interesting projects that's led to all sorts of other sort of collaborations that we're considering, and with some charities and some arts organizations, so that's, that's interesting. You know, even if it doesn't lead to work, it's interesting, because rubbing shoulders with other creatives is always good. And, and it informs as I've talked about, you know, talking with, with, with lawyers and doctors, you know, talking to people who are at another end of the creative industry is, is also good. We've got some interesting projects, which we doing a library reading room for a theological college, which we're just starting work on. We've got
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49:14Rion Willard
some nice brief. Yeah,
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49:15Speaker 1
yeah. And it's interesting actually. We're, we're debating with the engineer about the weight of bookcases at the moment, actually, anyway, how how big and heavy is the is the average book, that's where we're and various residential projects and doing some work for some charities and the business school. So we're, we're good, we're good. Excellent,
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49:45Rion Willard
very good. Well, it's a perfect place to conclude the conversation today. Dan, thank you very much for for sharing that and for sharing your insightful research with the other professionals that you've been in dialogue with, is there going to be a kind of Presentation of that research or you're going to distill it into a blog articles or Yeah,
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50:05Speaker 1
yeah, how to how to turn it into into something, if it TBC Yeah, an article or maybe playing this some infographics as well, which is always fun. So anyway, we'll see. I love it. Brilliant.
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50:20Rion Willard
Well, thank you so much, Dan, for coming on this afternoon and really sharing, you know, a bit under the, under the bonnet of what happens at square feet and the different services that you you provide, and you know, different forays into architectural services and development is an absolutely fascinating. So thank you, bro. Thank you, ppreciate. And that's a wrap. And one more thing. If you haven't already, please do head on over to iTunes or Spotify. And leave us a review. We'd love to read your name out here on the show. And we'd love to get your feedback. And we'd love to hear what it is you'd like to see more of and what you love about the show already.
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50:59Enoch Sears
Hello, Enoch Sears here with a special announcement for you our diehard podcast fan, listen on for life changing opportunity for the right person. Have a question for you. Did you know that Ryan Willard, who is currently our Director of Education and consulting here at Business of Architecture started out listening to the podcast? Well, we hear Business of Architecture, we're looking for a new team member. And I have a feeling that our next team member currently listens to the Business of Architecture podcast. Perhaps you enjoy architecture, but something tells you that it isn't right for you or you're looking for another opportunity. In any case, we're currently hiring a detail oriented enthusiastic person to be the glue that holds our team together by managing internal project deadlines and communication. If you are someone you know is a spreadsheet wizard thrives on lists and deadlines and knows how to organize and influence a team and you want to learn and grow professionally as well as personally, you could be our next project manager go to business of architecture.com forward slash pm position. To find out more once again that's business of architecture.com forward slash pm position without spaces to find out more. Have you ever been frustrated with architectural photographers who aren't reliable or don't capture your projects the way that you'd hoped? Visit Tobin davies.com or buhay photos.com to book renowned architectural photographer Tobin Davies to photograph your next project. Tobin Davies travels to your location and specializes in architectural photography for modern design focused architecture. Again, visit Tobin davies.com or be away photos.com To get more information or book your shoot today and tell him you heard about him here on the podcast for a complimentary package upgrade. The
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52:52Rion Willard
views expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise guarantee, pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment except to help you the unstoppable
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