because when you start your own practice, you need to stand for your ideas, you know, and it's extremely important.
Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture uk Today I had the great pleasure of speaking with Ali Reza, Xavi, a registered architect in France, in the US, and in the UK. So I think that was the first to me an architect with a treble, if you like of registrations, and I had the great opportunity to actually visit Ali Reza in his studio whilst I was visiting Paris recently. So a little bit about Ali Reza Ali holds a master's degree from Columbia University in New York and a master's degree from the Ecole nationale, US decorative in Paris. Some of his early work collaborations included Eisenman architects, a gret and Gandel. sonus. Shigeru Ban architects once while the millennial architects and he was a senior project manager, F T. l Happold. In New York. So very interesting. A resin firm studio Razavi architecture is one firm of three offices. So they've got studios in Paris, New York and London, their portfolio, just go online and have a look at some of their work. It's absolutely stunning, and spans from Europe to the Americas, and includes residential, corporate, hospitality, civic transportation, and mixed use projects selected as an ad 100 best designer for four consecutive years. Their reputation is built on their ability to translate a client's needs aspirations and budget constraints into memorable designs. So in this conversation, and Reza and myself, we discussed some of the business lessons that he acquired from working at some of these very interesting studios such as Eisenman and Shigeru Ban. We talked about the genesis of his practice, how he started, why he started, we talked about some of the challenges that face a design led architectural practice today, things that he may have done differently in the in the past or if he was to start again. And we also looked at some of the practical elements of how do you keep a high design project profitable? How do you keep the office operating in a successful manner. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Ali Reza Reza Herbie. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you. Please follow the link in the information. Ali, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
I'm good, thanks. How are you?
I'm very well, absolute pleasure to be here in Paris studios. You've got offices here. You've got satellite offices in London in New York, working on contract administration on number of projects that you've got there. You've been running your practice here for how long? The best part of 25 years, it's been 15 years. 15 years. Okay. Fantastic. This month, and you've got a team of you're saying the sort of 1619 people Yeah, 16 to 18 people overall, amazing. And you've got a quite an extraordinary portfolio of work in private residential, commercial work, both here in Paris and abroad. And also very interestingly, one of the, I think, probably the only architect I've met who is registered in France in the UK, and the US, which is no easy feat, any stretch of the imagination. So welcome to the show. Absolutely. Thanks for having me to be speaking with you. And I guess the first question is, you know, how and why did you set up your practice?
I set up my practice, after working for other architects for about 10 years. And after I had graduated from my master's degree, and I think I went for my own practice, because at one point, I felt that I had enough experience I mean, without some sounding presumptuous, but enough experience to just get started. And also the desire to, I guess express my own idea As through my own projects, so. And I had also, by that point, traveled enough and seen enough practices around the world to better understand how I wanted my own practice to be structured.
Yeah. And interesting. You work with some extraordinary figures, you know, quite iconic figures in architecture, Eisenman, we were just chatting about before we hit record Shigeru Ban. And I know you were Francois moneylion Adressen. Go Gandel Sonas. So, so quite an impressive array of of practices. What were some of the lessons that you learned working?
There were amazing lessons, you know, and frankly, I think that I would not have been able to build my own firm without having worked with them before. Because as a, as an employee, I did witness what they were going through, you know, there were UPS there were downs. And, and it's actually more important to witness downs and see how others handle it than just being you know, at a high altitude. Cruising speed, so, so I learned different things. And all these places. I mean, working at Peter Eisenman 's office, highly theoretical architect, tenured professor, I think back then he was teaching at Princeton. Same would Mario Daniel Sonas and Jana aggressed, both taught Gianna taught at Cooper Union Mario at Princeton. And so it was a way for me to transition from school to work, because they were they had a foot, a strong foot in either field. And for them, there were two inseparable entities, you know, so their, their research had to be reflected into their designs. So that always stuck with me, then working with Shigeru, like we were saying earlier, it was a tiny office back then it was this is 1995 I think, and it was five of us, including sugar. And there I learned an entirely different culture, which was the Japanese culture of course, and, and their working methods and their approach to design and she goes, process which was, you know, phenomenal. And of course, he he strongly encouraged me to travel throughout Japan and learn outside of his office, which which I did
we was it in English? He was an
English because she had studied at Cooper Union. So he spoke English. Yes. But I was the only foreigner in the office. Did
you learn Japanese? For sure, I
learned a few words, but unfortunately, I didn't practice and then I lost it all. Yeah. And, and then later on working with Francois in New York was extremely interesting, because he's really the one who taught me the importance of craftsmanship in a way you know, and, and the link between design and built objects from furniture to buildings, you know, he was extremely focused on quality on detailing. And so I learned a lot with him. And then I worked within, you know, the, the the joint venture of a British firm, burohappold and FTL, future tense limited, which was more engineering design. And this was also a fantastic apprenticeship for me because it was mostly engineers. And their culture, I think, should be inseparable with that of the architect. Yeah.
So it's very interesting that these these are kind of iconic figures and practices that you've worked with. What were some of the business lessons that you learned and not you know, again, someone like Eisenman is a really curious bigger for my for myself, because it's like, well, yeah, how does that exist as a kind of commercial practices?
It probably doesn't exist anymore. You know, I think Peters practice probably could stay afloat because he was a tenured professor, I believe. Was he tenured at that time? I'm not sure. But he taught, you know, he taught everywhere. He was an invited lecturer all over the world. He wrote books, published a lot was sought after, and this was most certainly a stream of revenue for Peter, which allowed him in those days to make a living. The office was certainly not generating any income for him. You or maybe it did at times. But um, you know, I'm pretty sure it did not overall,
was it the kind of place where he was very selective about, you know, he wasn't just doing any old kind of, you know, rear extensions to lubricate the light. It was only ever saying
absolutely. Well, I mean, as you know, Peter built a few houses earlier on in his career with the Turanian, Florence, and, but then he moved on to larger jobs, more institutional projects, he built a few. But then he was mostly essentially not having the opportunity to bring his projects to fruition. And this was extremely challenging, I think, to have an office and back then it was a fairly large office in New York, it was in Chelsea on I think it was on 23rd Street or 22nd. But it was a different New York to you know, you could live with less. Today, that model would be, I think, impossible to emulate, unless you're independently wealthy. But I don't think it was Peters case.
And once I'm what brought you out to Japan, and how did you
I want a scholarship for a, from an engineering school in Paris, and I went to Japan, and I was introduced to Shigeru through common friends of ours, I mean, actually, Gianna aggressed. And, and so I started an internship at his office, which was, which was phenomenal, as I said before, but the the real breakthrough for me was obviously discovering Japan, and the culture and the way it worked. And, and it all looks very familiar, but it's all so different, you know, and this, again, is this is I think, in 1995, nothing was written in English, there was no Internet, there was no, there were no mobile phones. And so it was a phenomenal trip. Phenomenal trip, and I learned a lot on how more specifically, you know, cultures are produced a certain type of built environment, you know, Japan was traditionally a poor country, a small country, an island, facing this giant country across the ocean, China, from which an had inherited part of its culture. And so it had to exist in front of this, you know, formidable country, and it developed its own culture with very modest means. But with such great poetry.
Amazing. And so when you when did you kind of set up here, then what was that? What was the, you know? Well,
after I graduated from school, in New York, ice, I worked in New York for about 10 years after that, and, and then when I felt I had reached a point where I no longer wanted to work for another firm in New York, I can, you know, I had a couple of opportunities to work on smaller projects, and I figured I would just take the leap. And I did, these projects were based in France. So initially, I started working remotely on them. But it soon turned out to be too challenging. So I moved to France and where I had studied, so I spoke the language, and set up shop here. And then a couple of years later, because I had lived so long in New York had clients in New York asking me for projects in New York, so I, you know, I set up shop in New York again, and then then clients in London, so I set up shop in London, and this is how the, you know, the three different professional licenses happen amazing and went from Originally, I'm from Iran, if Mariah was born in Iran, but I moved to I moved to France when I was about nine.
Got it, okay. So it's really, really interesting kind of cultural heritage and kind of, you know, there's seems to be quite an ease that you've had in your career of being able to adapt and move and relocate and, you know, immerse yourself into another culture. I mean, going to Japan to, to work for any period of time as that's, you know, for most people, that's kind of a bit mind bending.
Yeah, no, I mean, it's true. Yeah, I think leaving my country at a younger age, probably forced me to, because obviously, we left in overnight. And so yeah, I think it forced me to adapt and, and take advantage of the different cultural landscapes in which to which I was confronted,
do you have a preference to which country you prefer to practice in to practice?
You know, I think there's we've been having projects in Italy for the past couple of years. And I lived in Milan for a year as a student and but I think all these countries contribute to my knowledge and culture in a different way. You know, I think that I, there's no, I don't have a preference per se, I have to say that there's a, there's a degree of freedom in, in the US. That is very interesting. It doesn't necessarily lead to good architecture, strangely enough, but that freedom exists. Obviously, because the US is so large, not everything is the same building in New York is not the same as building in Nevada, but but I find that to be always interesting, that level of freedom, which is also, you know, in itself can be a problem. But, but no, I enjoy I enjoy all these countries, I was recently in Somaliland for, to look at a project. And, and it looked fascinating because it was sort of a bottom up or top down kind of a project in the sense that you couldn't just sit down in any, you know, in Paris and start designing a project there, you had to go and visit and see what were the means and methods available for a project and then start designing. So no, I enjoy all these places, you know, they bring their idiosyncrasies, to the way we think of a project and design it ultimately,
have you found that being like there's a way that you need to adapt yourself in terms of different types of international clients. So for example, in the US, I mean, I've often got the sense in the EU, in the US, there is a much more like this idea of freedom like that. Someone said to me once that the US has an idea. And it's the idea of freedom, yes. And in built with that idea of freedom is this kind of, you know, a capitalist structure and an entrepreneur, very entrepreneurial culture, and people are very proud business people and sales culture is ingrained in the whole culture. Whereas here in, in France, it's very, very, it's very different.
Absolutely, absolutely. Listen, I mean, that's a really interesting question, because it takes us to probably the core of this conversation is that different types of Office structures, I think, lead to different types of designs, you know, and I'm teaching a class currently here in Paris at a at an engineering school, on this specific topic. Right, you know, the difference between practicing and France, Europe, generally, in the US? And what I try and focus on is, what is it that ultimately built, you know, what are what are what are the forces that built the American culture? And what that what the consequences in terms of, you know, architectural practice and the way that businesses are organized? Are? And? And yes, because the US is business oriented, you know, it doesn't have all the sort of social power this, you know, structure and envelope, you know, a parachutes that exist in Europe. Yeah, this idea of the safety nets, you're pretty much on your own. Right. So, so you need to make sure that any business is viable. Yeah. And, and that obviously impacts your, the way you think, of your designs and your relationship to clients and the type of jobs you seek. And it's different in Europe, it's definitely different in Europe. And and it's, it's it's a fascinating conversation, I think, but I mean, the notion of a corporate firm was born in the US, I think, you know, I mean, we can probably investigate that. But I think, you know, the large offices that were born in the 30s, and then started climbing in the 40s, and 50s, and 60s, you know, the SOS that KPS DHL, KS, et cetera. That's a first and foremost a business model. That was, I think, quite foreign. That's to European.
Yeah, that's very interesting. That's very interesting when you consider the kind of heritage of European absolutely as being this kind of smaller scale. Yes, Lea boutique,
absolutely studio, like, you know, close to certain idea of craftsmanship. Which, which you could still you know, I think keep in mind when you're running a larger office, I mean, I think some of these offices that I just named have pretty amazing output, you know, I mean, you may like or dislike their design show, but but the output is phenomenal, you know, the quality I'm sure they're these businesses are extremely well run. And, and the projects that they deliver, I mean, we know we all know, we've all visited you know, projects by SLM Kpf, etc. And they're flawless, you know, most of the time, and that is the reflection of how they're organized, not so much. They're the sort of design skills that are being pushed in school? Yes. You know, and, and of course at schools, and I've been to a few, I was never told these things. You know, I was never told that if you wanted to practice and have your own office, you needed to be also business person. Yeah. Be mindful of how your business is run, you know, and certainly the American culture understood that earlier on, you know, I think and, but maybe also because it's a larger country, and, you know, they had different demands, and hence these offices were this typology of office was born out of that.
It's very interesting. And I guess as well, the, the kind of industrialization that was happening in the US and factory building and kind of, you know, things like the motor, the motor industry, and the influence that that had on, you know, certainly organism on the West Coast. Yes, absolutely. We start seeing architecture, the way it's been Yes. Constructed is totally different to how it has been for hundreds of years. Absolutely. And that that being reflected in the business premises becomes very interesting.
I mean, no, I mean, historically, and socially and technologically, it's, it's a fascinating conversation. Of course, it is, you know, because, you know, if you'd look at New York in the 20s, and 30s, you know, skyscrapers are starting, you know, they, what essentially allowed for taller buildings is the invention of the elevator. And, but initially, they're essentially extruded Roman temples or Greek temples, steel structure inside, but an extrusion, right, and, and so to switch to something that is more in tune with the culture, and the technique happens at a later stage, you know, I think it probably happens in the mid 30s, and late 30s, when German architects start moving to the US. And, and that's an interesting moment in time, you know, say when Mies van der Rohe moves to the US, that's an very interesting moment in time because he brings this this theoretical approach this intellectual approach to architecture, the notion of craftsmanship, and collides it with the American notion of corporate structures, you know, and, and I think they've been very successful at it, you know, but I mean, obviously, other countries are emulating this equally successfully. I mean, China's there's amazing projects being built in China. You know, I mean, last time I was in Shanghai, I couldn't believe it, the quality of the work and not just the buildings, but urban planning, parks. Phenomenal, phenomenal. So So there, there is a correlation between the context, the structure of your office and the output,
how have you dealt with this kind of tension, if you like, between the need to be a systematized business in many ways, and, and you know, protects your profit. And also, we just look at the caliber of your work, retain that kind of craftsmanship around everything you're doing. This is a struggle that I see and talk to so many architects about, like, it's a, it's like, it's a core challenge. How do you kind of navigated it this?
Listen, I think that, so I've been practicing. I mean, the office has been around for 15 years. And I think I've clearly chosen the more studio version of architectural practice. And I mean, I guess there are many explanations to that. But I think it's important for me to be able to be involved in every single project. And from that point, on the scale of the projects that we deal with, is also important. I mean, we, we have very small projects, and we have large projects. And, and they're extremely time consuming if you want to be involved with every single detail. And I think that this is something that I have not yet sort of structured myself or the office to pass on to others, you know, I mean, obviously, we have project managers and architects and interns, but But I, I need to be involved in, in making sure that these different important stages of each projects are completed as per my idea of quality.
Yeah. How do you think and this is interesting that how do you think leadership differs say in like a kind of boutique firm, like, like an atelier type firm versus your sort of corporate structure that we were just discussing?
Think probably, I mean, probably one of the differences is which which I've, you know, experienced as I want to With the smaller offices and maybe larger ones is that the smaller offices, the boutique type, you know, until the a type offices allow you to be closer to the people or the person who generate the initial ideas. And that's, that's great, humanly speaking, that's great. And larger offices, you learn more from more people. So it's a more sort of, you know, if you could sort of put this in geometric terms, it's more sort of a horizontal learning, because there's so many different people from which you can learn so many different things. Whereas in smaller offices, you tend to look at the founder, or, you know, whoever is the most senior person around, which is usually the founder, as your learning source, but it becomes a more maybe personal relationship, and it, it clearly has a different aura to it, you know, and and I have to say, I enjoy both. But maybe to be more specific, as far as your question goes, how do you how do you make the jump from a boutique sized office to a more structured corporate? I really don't know. I mean, is it something that one wants to have, or, or something that wants gradually builds into? I'm not sure, I think that I've never really looked at the size of my office, or the size of our jobs as a reflection of the quality of our work. So designing the chair is as important as designing 100,000 square foot building as far as I'm concerned. And, and I think they both reflect our Atos. Hence me being involved.
And so in terms of your role as a practice, founder and owner, how has that changed over the years over the last 15 years from when you first start, when you first started? Was it just you by yourself? And you were kind of
it was me with one other employee architect? Yeah, well, listen, I mean, so I used to take care of the coffee machine and Xerox and do a lot of CAD back then. And all of that is obviously gone now. And so I think what I tend to do more now, I'm more involved in our sort of day to day operation operations. But as far as how the projects are sort of overseeing every project in terms of its which stage it is that, you know, schematic design, design, development, etc. or construction. And then at the same time, being mindful of our more long term goals in terms of project typology. What we're interested in, you know, how we want to build where we want to build and what we're trying to say with those projects. Yeah. And I think that what we want to say is extremely simple, but extremely complex to achieve. We want to build beautiful buildings. And the definition of a beautiful building, regardless of the design, is the craftsmanship.
And how do you make these opportunities but yourself to be able to get yourself because when you look at a portfolio, like what you've what you've got, you know, it's it's such a beautiful crafted work. But this is not easy for most architects to even get into a conversation with the right person in the last place. How has that kind of evolved? And what as it hasn't been a conscious thing? Was it something that naturally kind of comes to you, you're very social, you're hanging out in the right circles, or? Well, I
think back to what you were saying before, I was because I was forced, I think, to adapt different cultures. I was always extremely curious to meeting other people. And, and, and the more foreign to my culture they were the more attracted to them I was. So this, I think, allowed for a certain cultural flexibility. But professionally speaking, I think I never shied away from things that I did not know. And actually, I tend to pursue things that I've never done before. Because, as Peter rice famously said, Once when he was challenged by the French authorities for boom war, you know, I think he wanted to use cast steel for the sheer barrettes you know, in the external structure of your end. And so these French engineers challenged him and said, you know, how are you going to make this thing work? We've never done this before, blah, blah, blah. And he, his answer was like, that will because it's never been done before. It's gonna be flawless. And that's exactly what I'm interested in. You know, I'm interested in getting involved in things that I haven't necessarily done before. Because I know that I will feel really investigate them and be involved with them. So I mean, it's a slow process, obviously, you know, and but yeah, I think I've always been, I've never shied away from challenges, geographic challenges, or typology challenges, hence the diversity of our portfolio
hasn't hasn't been Have you had like conscious strategies for winning work. So you've perhaps gone I want to get work with this kind of client or this kind of sector. And then you've gone after it and kind of made a landscape map of like, who are the key players and being strategic like that involved in it? Or, you
know, I would love I've been dreaming of doing this since I started, but I never had the time. Yeah. Every year, I promised myself that I'm going to do exactly that. But I never get the opportunity to sit down and strategize and map out. So no, it's been organic. You know, we've been getting phone calls, we were published, and friends, and so on and so forth. So it's essentially word of mouth, and through publications, but but not through us actively seeking specific clients. Which I would love to do. You know, I would, you know, I would love to be able to sit down and make the time you strategize?
Well, this is the other interesting part, then, is your ability to be marketing or like, how do you get your How do you get your name out there? Because there's an it's, it's, it's interesting, because a lot of architects extraordinarily talented, do beautiful work. And then this season? Yes, absolutely. That becomes a problem outside of so if you're not being strategic, right, in networking, and building relationships, then even very least got to get your work out there. Yes. How have you?
Yes. Listen, things have changed radically, right? The internet. So it used to be that you needed to essentially wait for someone to see your work to be interested in your work these days, obviously, with social media and your own website, things have radically changed, I think I understood earlier on. Maybe not early enough, that your projects needed to be impeccably documented, you know. So that's not, that's something that should not be, you shouldn't cut corners, when it comes to documenting your projects. And, and then it just happened organically and gradually, you know, I think that it's like a forest fire, you know, when you when there's you publish one job, then things start to mechanically happen one after the other, I think what I was very conscious of is that even the smallest job that I got, when we started, I wanted to make sure that there was something interesting to be shown or said or photographed, you know, even a tiny detail. And I wasn't really thinking of documenting it back then. And I'm sad, I didn't for some of them. But I knew that sort of instinctively that the craftsmanship that will be put into the detailing of even the tiniest job would would pay me back at some level, you know, and, and so gradually that,
how do you know when it's not the right fit for a client?
You never know? Right? You never know. Unfortunately, you never know, unfortunately for us, and unfortunately for the clients,
I was hoping you're gonna give me a self series of red flags that you've developed over?
Yeah, I wish I wish I could, you know, but you know, I've been in this business for 20 years plus, but no, I've not been and I don't think anyone can say, you know, no matter how much due diligence, and it works both ways, right? I mean, some of our clients do tremendous due diligence on us. And obviously, as an architect, when you're, you know, you're limited is not done much due diligence you can do on a private client. But you know, it's just luck, I guess, you know, and at times, it doesn't work. At times, it just seems like you cannot satisfy the client. No matter how hard you work, no matter how many options you design. There are times where you fail.
So you kind of it's very frustrating. And what do you do in those situations? You just kind of go into a damage limitation.
Yeah, same process? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's very painful. I think in architecture, I'm not sure how it is in other businesses. But when you lose a client in the process of you know, we've lost projects in the middle at the beginning at the end, for a variety of reasons. And it's, it's tough, not so much. I mean, it's tough, business wise, of course, just like any any other any other business, but it's also tough emotionally because you know, architecture, you've just put so much of yourself and your design, you know, so seeing a design gone, you know, or is always extremely challenging, very tough.
I think that's something It's quite interesting for a lot of young architects as well as to recognize, yeah. Like how much of your work actually sees the light of Yes,
absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, when I was at Peters, we were working on construction documents for, for a center for the arts. And I mean, this set of drawings was supposed to go out to bid the following month or so, you know, and we were designing literally nuts and bolts, and the project was stopped, you know, and the office had been working on it for God knows how many months, you know, charrette after charrette. Night and day literally. And, and then it was halted. You know, and it must have been an immense frustration for Peter, you know, he never showed it, you know, I wasn't close enough to him to, to see him being hit by the snooze. But but, you know, half the office left, you know, I mean, they must have been extremely tough, extremely tough. And yes, you're absolutely right, you know, a majority probably of projects never see the light of day, let's face fascinating, regardless of the size of your office, right, the smallest office or the largest office.
But I remember, I used to work at Richard Rogers practice. And I remember on the first day there, we were being taught around the kind of model shops, and one of the partners said, you know, basically 80% Of all the work we're ever going to do here doesn't get built. And it was like that kind of like, oh, wow, what a painful realization. What is why why does that happen in architecture?
That's a harsh introduction. Yeah, it was,
it was kind of like, Oh, right. So all these ideas, and that was it. You know, I remember as a young architect that being a struggle, certainly trying to get licensed as well. Yes. Well, you need to be able to have your experience run all the way through, how have you dealt with that? Certainly, when it comes back, nurturing talent, and helping and supporting people get get licensed and develop their career, when you aren't dealing with this kind of volatile industry? If you like an industry that's always on this knife edge?
Yeah, it's, you know, it's really challenging. It's really tough emotionally, it's extremely tough. And, and I think anyone, any architect that says it isn't, is probably lying, because you put so much of yourself and any design, regardless of scale, yeah, that it's really loaded with emotions. So I think what I try and do again, even even today, after 15 years of our office being in business is I don't turn down any project, regardless of scale, and as long as we can make a living. And that is, of course, a fundamental criteria, we know, our stage of practice, I want to make sure that there's an there's a, there's design opportunities that we create in the project, right, you know, so if we take on a job, we, that's our main criteria, create design opportunities, create, create opportunities for craftsmanship. And this is, I hope, I believe this is what has created, you know, an aura for our office, and this is how I will attract younger talents and train them and, and try and hand over this culture of us that, you know, and it's a separate conversation, but in the era of BIM, and all 3d drawing sets. That's even more challenging than it was before, you know, yeah. Because 2d drawings, at least allowed for some kind of a focus and effort from your heart to imagine this 2d drawing in 3d. But that effort is no longer required of you, because the computer produces that 3d image for you. To a high level of precision, that's something I've been struggling with a lot, but it's a separate conversation. But But yeah, I think that what we try and do is make sure that even if there's if it's the smallest piece of furniture and a project that it has its specific aura,
how do you ensure that there's a design opportunity within this happen at the very outset of the project before you say yes to it? And and how do you know that that design opportunity is going to be in alignment, for example, with the clients brief or their business agenda? And again, we come back to this kind of this conflict and it's interesting this the description you were saying earlier about the kind of SLM practices that the whole structure has been, businesses have been grown around a kind of industrialized, yes, way of making building Yes. And then looking for design opportunity opportunities for the client and they might have a different idea about Absolutely. How do you how do you kind of negotiate that or to make sure that, you know, you take the Mies van der Rohe approach of don't talk to the client about architecture or their dog? Or?
Well, I think if you had asked this question 15 years ago, or 10 years ago, I would have given you a different answer. Because when you start your own practice, you need to stand for your ideas, you know, and it's extremely important. Because those first years are the founding years of your practice, you know, in terms of aura in terms of identity. So, the early years are years of struggle, and you cannot compromise you need, you need to fight to see your ideas come materialized, you know, and so those first years are challenging, they're fun, but they're challenging at this stage, hope, I mean, we're lucky enough that people come to us because to some extent, they've seen something that we've designed that they like, so it's less of a challenge, and they're more open to our ideas, probably because there's just experienced, they know what they're getting into. Right. And so I think we're, we're, we're less, it's not that we're, we were, I guess, when you start, you have to be forceful, at some level, you know, you need to, you need to spend more time explaining your ideas, and, and pushing them through what, you know, specific criteria and explaining. So investing time essentially, today, we seem to be faster in explaining ourselves and why we're doing the things we're doing. We've, of course, learn from our mistakes, and our mistakes, you know, we've made more mistakes than successful decisions, obviously. And that's, that's the right
way to do it, you know, on one business experience,
because you don't learn otherwise. Yeah. You don't learn from your successes, you know, you learn when you fail, you know, and so, back to your question today, I think that that first and that initial part of sort of design compare, being designed compatible with the client is less of an of an issue. Yeah. And then we I think the clients are now expecting those surprises from us, you know. And so we tend to analyze the projects thoroughly before we start designed to make sure that we identify opportunities.
How is money discussed in the office? How do you deal with the conversation around money? How does it you know, when you're looking at a fee, when you're putting together your fee proposals, and the general culture around money, and how it kind of its compatibility with design opportunities? How do you approach that?
Well, of course, that's, you know, that's another central question. What I learned when I was working, and again, I'm thankful I had these experiences before, because when you start your own business, it's always easier if you have had previous role models or examples or, and so what I end and all these different experiences, the one that I was most interested in was when project managers, and I was a project manager, at one point, were involved in the contracts and the fees. They had access to the contract. I know, many offices where project managers don't have access to the contract, they don't have access to the fee structure and etc. To me, it was key because it'll allow me when I was a project manager to understand notions of time versus design, yeah. And it's not just an open bar, you know. And so, so this is, this is what I do. The project managers here at the office are obviously involved not just in the information that's, you know, they're they have access to the information in the contract, but they also help write the contracts. It's extremely important. Because ultimately, yes, it's a business and, and this was never taught at school. Yeah, you know, it was almost like a dirty word, you know, architecture and business don't mingle. And, but if it's not a business, there cannot be architecture. And that's as simple as that. Right. So, so the way we structure our our contracts is essentially teamwork. You know, because every contract profits from the previous experience, you know, where we failed or word work well, and you know, and of course, because architecture and construction is always confronted to unforeseen conditions, inflation site conditions, So on and so forth, you learn from all these experiences, and you sort of feed your new contracts with all these with all this information, so it's important that more people be involved and drafting these contracts than just a single person.
That's really interesting, because, you know, I think the kind of old guard of architectural practice would often keep will often keep that kind of information, secret. And as you're saying, if your project managers don't know what the fees are, how on earth can they translate it to time to allocate to team members? And then we get into this very vulnerable position of somebody spent three weeks designing something incredibly beautiful, but was completely irrelevant? And absolutely not part of the purposes? And that's how I've been gone, because you've still got pay there?
I mean, yes, I think that there is, there's, there's definitely a moment of transition between school and you know, your first professional experiences, because, you know, you shred all the time, it's your project, it's your baby, and you invest so much time in it, we tend to move away from the shred culture. I mean, we tend to, and we don't work on weekends, we. And I think that this is also something that I learned in the different offices that I worked, because that's a times I would work seven day, weeks, night and day. And, you know, I No one forced me to do it, you know, we would do it, because we were passionate about the work, and we wanted to see it happen. But ultimately, I think that it's also a reflection of how you're organized, you know, I think that you don't need to go through this, for quality work to happen, you know, it's just a matter of how you're organized. And so it's all part of creating an office culture, you know, I think and, and it impacts your turnover, for sure. Because people outside know that you're working, you know, 24/7 or not, you know, how you organize the quality of your work. And again, I think that the type of work that you put out there is to some level, the reflection of how your office is organized. It can of course, never be perfect, you know, but but it at least shows that to some degree, it's the reflection of how things are organized for sure.
How do you kind of curate time within the office? Because this is this is an interesting one about, you know, many are, we often hear the dictum of don't sell time, manage time. And actually the art of managing time inside of an architect practices. It sounds easy in theory, in principle, and we can use wonderful things like the rule of thirds, and a third of it goes to the salary if it goes on over instead of it goes in profit. But actually, the tools and the mechanisms, more importantly, the disciplines to actually have that happen in a business. It's quite complicated. It's quite, it's quite an art. How do you guys manage time? What did what kind of tools and infrastructure Have you developed and put in place?
Well, we use timesheets, obviously. Yeah. We we try and be very rigorous on the initial timeline that we've allocated for each phase, right? That's really a fundamental rule. So I think that every because everybody in the team knows what the deadlines and the timelines are. It sort of organically happens. You know, we don't, I mean, we have weekly team meetings, where in which we allocate time, right for each person in each project. Of course, it's no science, because you know, at times you need feedback from construction site, you don't get it on time. And it's a domino effect. But, but it kind of works. The idea that less than 30% of your time needs to be spent on schematic design for this project, be mindful of that. It tends to attend to works, you know. So, I think that this is how we've sort of managed our times. Not being too strict about it. I mean, being involved with the timesheet, but but not being too strict about it. You know, there needs to be flexibility obviously. And of course, at times you get lucky what you were supposed to do get, you know happens in faster than you you had planned but, but I think we're not, we tend to plan it earlier on in the week. But do Keep some flex. So there's always like a 10% floating here and there to allow to absorb, you know, over extension on this or that or shorter timeline. But, but yeah, managing time is, is key as far as I'm concerned, I think that I rely more and more on digital tools, right? Because I travel a lot. You know, I'm in meetings often and, and having the ability to sketch on my phone or a tablet, at a high quality and email that sketch has changed my life and certainly are extraordinary nowadays. Absolutely. And, and, you know, you can come up with really fantastic drawings, with digital tools. Now, I still use, you know, paper and pencils, but, but that has helped me a lot in my downtime when traveling or being, you know, waiting for a meeting, etc, and so on and so forth. So, so I don't think we're, I don't I'm not sure I can, you know, answer super specifically to the question, but when, you know, we have this sort of Bayes rule that everyone should know how much time they should allocate to each project and each phase per week. But keeping it flexible. Yeah.
And then there's a conversation that you have around that and people Yes, yes, yes. Great. Going back to some of the practices, we mentioned earlier, that you've worked for Eisen and Shigeru Ban, these are practices that perhaps now starting to, you know, they're in that other kind of generation of practices, where there's lots of succession planning happening and people are taking over? True, we see it in lots and lots of the standard texts of the past where they've got a new generation. Yes. Is this been something you've started to think about in terms of like, how you're cultivating leadership?
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I tend to not be, we'll see how things go. But I'm not interested in the Titanic, you know, model of the ship sinking with the captain. So yeah, I think that, you know, what, and again, corporate firms have started on, you know, Mr. Skidmore has been long gone. So they know, and, but their office still produces amazing work. So so it's possible, right? And yes, just like you said, you know, some of the more recent starchitect firms have started to go down that path. And successfully, I think, you know, so yeah, well, I mean, again, I think that it's difficult. There's some things in life that are difficult to plan, you know, you can have objectives, but it also, it highly depends on who you meet, and you know, the vibes that you can create, but I'm definitely interested in seeing another generation of, you know, leaders and owners. Take.
Fantastic. And if you were to my final question here, if you were to meet yourself, your fifth, like 15 years ago, just sit down have a cup of coffee, what would be the kind of key bits of business advice you would tell your, your former self and When embarking on this journey?
You know, I thought about this recently. And it's difficult to say, because so you meet this person 15 years ago, and you tell the person, oh, you know what, you have to be extremely mindful of how you write up your contracts. Keep your timesheets. And let's, let's assume that this person listens to you, and invests time and resources in doing that. As opposed to I mean, there's only 24 hours in the day, right. So as opposed to, you know, investing that time and working over hours on the design, different models, schemes, etc. And what would the consequences be? I don't know, really, you know, so it's, it's, it's interesting. It's
it is because it's this business balance of like, you know, Fireman visor, not speaking with a business. We don't want to turn it into a complete, dried out site. Yes. Yes, I want to do that. Yes, we want to do that. And, yes, we've got to be mindful and be on top of our money and art and time and all this kind of stuff. But there's still the culture of design. Yes. And again, yes. It depends on the practice as well, because there are some practices don't care about design as much. That's fine. That's just a different business. Yes, yes, absolutely. But the ones that are kind of design centric, then there's a certain magic and an organic pneus around that, that doesn't need to be kind of preserved.
I think, you know, there's so many different ways to practice architecture. You know, I have friends who My generation who practice alone, and they're perfectly happy, yeah, and others who are partners at these larger firms and and are also happy. So I think obviously, there's a personal private side to all these decisions. But it is true that architecture, I think, for most of us was initially a Passion Driven endeavor. Right. And, and I think that person 15 years ago would have not necessarily listened to me, you know, and I often think about, you know, I'm upset at the schools that I went to, and how come they never taught us about managing a company? That's, you know, so on and so forth? You know, we should have had business administration classes, but then I'm, I think about it, and I'm like, would we have listened? Would we have attended those classes? We haven't even chosen those classes, you know? Yeah. You know, I'm not so sure.
Yeah. Well, that's, that's very interesting as well, the kind of context with which business gets placed at a new university. And I still remember at university, you know, it was very, we were designed focus on anything that had to do professional practice. Exactly. Absolutely. I want to go, I don't
want to go to that. Absolutely. Because maybe, I mean, again, it's just such a personal approach. But But yeah, I think that if I were to be honest, maybe I would have not attended those business administration classes. Had they been offered to me in school, and, and maybe they weren't offered out of experience. Right from academia, because one would attend. I don't know. Yeah. Possibly, possibly not. Because. So so it's really interesting, but it is, it is one thing that I've noticed is how I was clueless about it, when I started, and how 20 years later, the gentleman said, you know, this, the new generation is equally clueless about it, you know, so it's essentially a Passion Driven profession, or you know, and, and you need to learn, you need to learn to swim as you dive in the pool.
Fantastic. Brilliant. What's the rest of 2023 got in store for you?
2023. Lots of exciting things. Hopefully your project in Venice, projects in upstate New York, and London. Great projects in Paris. Maybe Africa. Yeah. Lots of different exciting things to look forward to.
Excellent, brilliant. Well, thank you so much. Thank
you. expertise today. Enjoyed it. Thank you.
So did I. And that's a wrap. And don't forget if you want to access your free training to learn how to structure your firm, or practice for freedom, fulfillment and profit, please visit smart practice method.com Or if you'd like to speak to one of my advisors directly follow the link in the information. The views expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise guarantee, pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you the unstoppable
