631: with Gus Zogolovitch & Amanda Baillieu of Developer Collective

8:35PM Apr 21, 2025

Speakers:

Enoch Sears

Rion Willard

Keywords:

Architect as developer

Developer Collective

architectural practice

development opportunities

small sites

planning system

financial risk

design-led development

entrepreneurial architects

property development

architectural skills

development challenges

UK housing market

architectural innovation

business of architecture.

This idea of building new towns. I mean, we did have that after the Second World War. About time, we had some new thinking. Hello architect

nation, and welcome back. Enoch Sears here, founding partner at Business of Architecture. And today, I have a question for you. Have you ever felt frustrated that sometimes it seems the only way to make a living as an architect is to grind out fee proposals and pray that your clients pay on time. Today is another episode on the popular topic of architect as developer. I love this topic because it's truly the architect taking back the reins of control. What if this was a feasible way, a way to create wealth, unlock design freedom, and actually own what you built. Well on today's conversation with Gus zogolovich and Amanda bailo, you'll discover the one mindset shift that turns overlooked gap sites into high profit opportunities in your development projects. Why the riskiest part of development usually isn't the money, and how to overcome the real obstacle. How architect led developments are quietly outperforming big house builders and changing the game in the United Kingdom today, Business of Architecture. Founding Partner Ryan Willard interviews Gus zugolovich and Amanda bailo, who are the co authors of the book How to be an architect developer available to the Riba bookstore. Amanda baylo is the founder of archibu, a UK based events and awards platform. Gus zugolovic is a multi award winning developer who started in the property world over 20 years ago, running solid space with his famed father, Roger zgolovic, before setting up unboxed homes London's first custom build developer, and remember, stick around to the end of this conversation for special smart practice tools and resources.

Gus and Amanda, what a delight to finally have you both on the on the show The Business of Architecture. How are you

good? Thanks. Yeah, all good. Thank you. Excellent.

So a really interesting, unique duo. You both are Amanda, obviously, you've got a background in journalism previously, and founder of akibu and a massive, influential guiding force of the architecture industry in the UK and and Gus. You know, really innovative developments that you guys have been doing with numerous different businesses that you've been involved in, and you guys coming together and creating the developer collective, again, a very influential platform, if you like, that's really solving and promoting this idea of architect becoming developer, and kind of filling a very critical role in the industry is amazing. So welcome to the show. And I think let's jump in straight away. And how do you guys describe the developer collective, and how did it begin? Right?

We're going to have a problem here, because we both like talking a lot, so we're going to have very careful in the way we split this up and don't interrupt each other. So Gus, why don't you go first, and then I can, I can come in. Oh

gosh, okay, that's why I think, I think, I think the best way to describe is, is, is, if we take ourselves back to sort of, I think about sort of 2017 and Amanda and I just met up for a drink in the in the architects haunt of St John's in in Clark and well. And over drink, we were just chatting, and I was mentioning that lots of architects were coming to me and saying, Hey, Gus, you know, how do you get into element? And I knew Amanda had been running our cabood for a few years by then, and I said to her, Look, you know, I know you're in touch with lots of architects. Are you? Are you getting something similar? And then I think from from that moment on, we said, oh, well, maybe we should sort of try something and put something on and and now I'll let Amanda take over from from where we got to, from there, because otherwise I'll talk too much. We're

both being very, very polite to each other at this moment in time. Um, so I guess, yeah, exactly what Gus said. I mean, it was one of those things where you're having a conversation and you both go, oh, yeah, no, I'm getting that as well. I think so it's post Brexit. I mean, whether that's relevant or not, but I just think everybody was up for doing, like, different stuff, really. And I think also there's a kind of nagging sense that, you know, architecture was becoming quite difficult to make sort of money from over your the course of your career. That's what, that's kind of what I was getting. You know, architects were struggling a bit as. Do at various times. As we know, architecture is sort of cyclical, and they were probably seeing that things were going down rather than up. And so it's like, how could they make a bit more money? And so I think all those, all those things were happening, and Gus and I just went, well, let's, let's try something. And yeah, I think we just, um, kind of threw ourselves in the deep end a bit and rounded up people we knew, um, architects had done a bit of development, and some and some people in the industry who could talk about kind of finance and things. And we just put on a conference, and it sold out, and we thought, oh, yeah, yeah. We were right. This is, this is

it doesn't it doesn't surprise me. And you know, I think here at boa i We know that every time I do Enoch or myself, we do a podcast to do with any kind of architect developer, even if we did a podcast every day of an architect who did some development in the US, and it was a it was a disaster. And even that disaster show was so popular that it it really kind of, you know, it's interesting. The question like, Why? Why? Why is the idea of architect developers so attractive to so many architects? Is it purely because they're not making enough money in the traditional practice? Is it because there is an a massive opportunity, just design wise, to and you know that in terms of architectural mission and getting more houses built, for example, that being a developer is actually more a better way to facilitate that? Or is there something else? Or is it a mix of all of that?

Well, I mean, Gus has probably got his own views. I mean, it's a mix, isn't it? It's not just, it's obviously not just the money. So it's that thing of, you know, wanting to be able to do a development and feel more in control. And, you know, I think whether that's something that, you know, we felt very much when we started develop a collective in 2017 I think it's been going on for some time, is that architects, you know, they come out of college, they've done a long training, they join a big practice in London or elsewhere, and they're a bit of a cog in a machine, and they're not really getting involved in building. And a lot of them, that's what, that's what made them want to become architects in the first place, I suppose, is they love that idea of, you know, the like construction. So, so there's, there's that element, definitely. I mean, maybe Gus wants to talk about, you know, some of the other motivations. Yeah, it's

interesting because my, my my father, Roger scottovich, he, he was one of the sort of first, I suppose, architect developers in the UK. Anyway, this was, he was a certain point the Riba didn't allow initially, architects to do to be developers. And I don't exactly know when it when it happened, but at some stage they they sort of decided it was okay. Developers weren't so dirty, after all. And I think my, my, my, my, my dad was like, Well, he was frustrated about having visions that clients wouldn't sort of commit to. So it's a bit like, put your money where your mouth is. But I think since then, so that's obviously a big, big reason. I think since then, some of the other people we've talked to see it as a really good compliment to doing architecture. Is great, you know, it can pay the bills. You've got regular cash flow, but it doesn't necessarily get you wealthy. And you know, I mean, being an architect developer doesn't necessarily, you know, get you very wealthy, but it allows you to build up decent chunks of money that that that, in a way, if you think about it, as the sort of you know that the mash potato and the gravy, so, you know, you've got the, you've got the ongoing cash flow of your architecture business. And then the big developments that come along, and then once every 345, years, bring big lumps of money into the practice that can make a kind of significant difference. So I think it's control with the attraction of money. You know, built buildings and property development still remains one of those industries where it's actually you can make money quite easily, unlike, I suppose, in tech, where a few companies make serious money, but there are lots of companies not making much money. It's quite hard to make money off of things. So, yeah, so so that that would be my second, yeah.

I mean, I think it's this thing that has been going on for some time now, but it's. Architects looking for an alternative model to conventional practice. So, you know, traditionally, you'll get a practice directors, you know, might go and teach for a couple of days or one day, or they, you know, there's other things that they try and do partly for partly and not have been obviously, not teaching for the money, but for the connections, the conversations, the networking, where that might lead. And I think it's with development. It's obviously got the advantage of, you know, being better paid, but it's this idea that you're not reliant on a single source of income, I think has become very appealing. Is very appealing, and I think that's what we felt, or we are feeling at the moment, particularly is that architecture is just a bit risky. I mean, not saying development isn't risky, but that we know what, we kind of know what the risks are, but architecture itself. I mean, can it sustain you through your whole career. So if you've got that, you know, people call it a side hustle. I mean, I guess that's what it is for a lot of people. Is a side hustle, but it's kind of makes more money than the architecture in a lot of cases. Yeah, and I think it's

Yeah, building on what Amanda was saying is, I think, I think actually being in control of your own destiny, I think, is attractive. So a lot of a lot of architects, as you know, work in a big firm, very, very, very sort of standard is, you know, you work in a big firm, and then you say, Well, I've had enough of this. I'm going to set up on my own. And you might pick up a partner, a mate that's, you know, you've studied with, or you you're at the practice with you. Then set up on your own. There might be two of you. Is very common, three of you. And you start off and you and in an architectural practice, I've seen it time and time again, where you start off in residential extensions, then you go to, you know, slightly bigger jobs. And bit by bit, you might pitch for some work and, and, you know, bit by bit, you can kind of climb the ladder, but it's still very hard to make money, even if you are very well established, and you've been doing it a long time. You know, there are a lot of architectural firms that don't really make it past 10 to 15 people and, and it's difficult to keep that coming in. So while you're then in, in a sense, you're in charge your own destiny, you're still pitching for jobs, right? Whereas, in development, if you go out and find a site, you're in charge, you know, you, once you've got that site, you you make it work, you sell the thing, and then you're, you're, you're, obviously, you've got to make an attractive product, but you're much more in control. And I think that's attractive. How

do you guys suggest that architects kind of get started in development? Because, again, it's such a popular idea and but then it can be perceived as like that. The kind of barrier to entry can be quite high because it's because, obviously, it's based on money. And then if you've got a business that's not making enough money, then to get started becomes difficult. And the whole idea of using somebody else's money might just, you know, it might turn your brain inside out of this, the amount of fear that's involved in that. How do you guys like, you know, how does an architect get begin, how can I kind of start chunking it down?

Just because I think when we were doing the book, and we talked to a lot of architects who'd probably got going before 2008 the economic crash, and so at that time, you gotta remember that you could your whole university education was free and rent was fairly cheap. You could buy, I mean, you didn't have to be like, super wealthy or anything, or or take big loans to buy something. And you could, as an architect, do it up over the week, over weekends and and you knew what to do. And so I think for a lot of those for that generation, that's how they got into it. So they had a little bit of, you know, they they had bit of a nest egg from doing those refurbs at that time. And I think that's what quite a lot of the architect developers that we speak to have done. They've they've bought something, they've bought a site, they've developed it, maybe over quite a long time, but they've picked a really good area. So, you know, they've gone to, like, far east of London, right? And that bit of that, you know, back, that bit of London, has gone up, you know, 20 times since, since they bought the land. So I think so they spot opportunities early on. That's one, that's one obvious way. So they have a bit of the cash. And then I think, you know, if they can do that, they. Are released from that thing of having to go and borrow the money to buy the site and to do the build. So a lot of them combine. I think it's fair to say, wouldn't you, Gus, that quite most of our architects developers can buy their site. It's when they need to raise the money for the build that's obviously more complex.

So your, I suppose your question, just coming back to your question, which is, you know, how do you get started? In a sense, I'd have, I'd have two or three answers to that. First of all, buy our book that will help you get started. That's very cheap,

brilliant book. Well, recommended we put all the information into the podcast to hear it,

and then, and then, of course, come to one of our talks and be inspired and meet us there. But on a I suppose, on a serious note, I think it's, you know, you don't have to start with a development for a kind of nine unit scheme in central London, okay, you can buy a rundown property in an in an area that allows you to you know what that suits your budget, okay, and then you use your skills to refurbish that, and then that gets you into the swing of development. I think development, bearing in mind, is taking something and adding your, your your skills, as it were, to create a vision, which you then sell to a customer, okay? And you can start small. And you know the candy the candy brothers started with their, you know, their their grandparents flat famously. And you know, in Shepherd bush. Now, you know, a flat in Shepherd Bush is now quite a lot of money. But actually, you could find the equivalent in Bristol or or or something, you know, another town or Manchester, or, you know, or leaves you you don't have to be in London. So I think, I think that's the first thing. Auctions are still very popular and easy to sort of track, you know, inexpensive things you can, you know, generally, generally, that the kind of people think the money might be the obstacle, actually it's the deal that's more important. Because if you find a good deal where there's a good enough margin, then you will find, generally find money, whether it's through friends or family or if you have to go to sort of third party. But Amanda's right. I would, I mean that most of the most of the architects who have have done it, generally try and buy the site outright, in cash, and then borrow, borrow to actually do the, do the redevelopment. But yeah, you can start small. You can start with the one bedroom flat and do from there. But

I think, sorry, Gus, I wasn't, didn't mean to cut through you. But I think the other thing that we've been we're kind of getting the message through from from the architects or developers, architect developers, is that, you know, there's a lot of people out there who would like to put their money into a development, but they haven't got the time, and they haven't got the obviously, the expertise, but they have got the money. So we were talking to a couple who did a talk for us recently, and we were, we were talking about this very same thing. And he just said, Oh, well, it's, it's all on this. It's all on my phone, all my all the money is here. They're all my contacts. So, you know, it's basically, if you've got an opportunity, if you spotted an opportunity, and some and your friends know you're good at this stuff, you get the money. I think the money is probably, I mean, everybody, we go on about finding the money and how hard it is, obviously, but I think sometimes we overdo the money, because actually, there's a lot of money out there. You've just got to know, so that it goes back to that networking thing. You've got to know people who've got money

that's interesting. And perhaps we can take, take a little step back here, actually, and identify what, what are some of the skills then that put architects into a good place to be able to be architect developers. And then what would you say are the skills that need to be either developed or that, you see, are not as mature as they need to be for being an architect developer, or there might be completely new skill sets they

are. I mean, if you think about what an architect does, is that they're always, you know, spotting sort of where the value is for clients, aren't they? You know, that's famously kind of the old stories, you know, the architect goes around with the developer and does the sketch on. Back of the envelope, because it's developed, and developer says, Oh, thank you very much, and goes away and makes a lot of money. I mean, that's kind of, you know, architects have that skill, but they're not making money. So I guess, number one, they can spot an opportunity. They but in terms of the kind of thing we're we're talking about is the small sites. We've always, obviously been more focused on the small sites where there could be a lot of problems and issues that a conventional developer just doesn't want to take on. So so the architect, particularly if they've got the income coming in from a practice, you know, they they can see how to unlock the value from that site, even though it could take a long time and the money won't be coming in very quickly. They can afford to do that. I mean, you know, they've got, they've got other jobs bringing the money in and and so I suppose that's the kind of number one thing is that they can see where the value is. They can unlock the value from these difficult sites with overlooking or whatever the you know, the issues are. So I think that's, that's number one. And obviously there's, there's things like the, you know, understanding the planning system, understanding the planning in their local area, yeah.

I mean, I, I'd rather facetiously say, you know, when you talk about, what's the difference between a developer and architect about seven years training. And, you know, that's, that's kind of the truth is, you know, there's no skill set to a developer except being a bit ballsy, you know, and architects who are prepared to sort of believe in themselves and sort of see, you know, they they can, they can make it work. I think, I think that you asked also, what's the thing that they may need to work on? And it is probably only about confidence in around money, okay, it's feel, it's like confidence about getting on the phone to people and saying, Hey, I've got this great opportunity. Do you want to, you know, do you want in due and being able to deal with investors, I think, and maybe being a little bit, and obviously they have to be commercial, so when they're they have to think very carefully about when they are specifying for development, you know, for their own homes for their own development. I mean making sure they're not they're not, they're not designing it for a client, bearing in mind that every decision they make has an impact on the bottom line. And I think it creates a really good rigor around the architecture of architect developers, because, you know, it's, it's easy to spend other people's money, but when it's your own, you really make a choice about design and what, what makes an impact to the to the bottom line, you know, is, if I specify this tile, you know, from Morocco, which is A kind of hand, kind of fired tile versus one, you know, a very nice one from some other local manufacturer in the UK. Am I going to get the return by, you know, by tripling the money? How about I have to spend on a on a tile?

There's those number of skills for that an architect can be sort of looking at. They're well suited in terms of, I like this idea that the architect is is very propositional, like, there's a there's a kind of asset that an architect has of being able to find an opportunity and exploit it. And you know, that's that's part of the that seven years of training is to go and look at those horrible, ugly sites and imagine something that that can happen there, so that, and that's quite entrepreneurial in and of itself, and then actually being able to to link people to it, and I think that's what, what's quite nice about, what you're saying is that if it's a good if it's a deal, if it's a good site, if there's something that's possible there, then actually getting money really isn't as as daunting as it might appear. And a bit of a bit of just being ballsy and going out and asking for it actually is one of the major steps forward. Do you see architects doing other things like say they might find a site, and then they might bring it to a developer, and then they might put some of their, you know, their just their work. Let's say they have, they haven't got much captured cash themselves, but they just put, put sweat equity into a project and then partner up with a with a developer. Is that a good strategy that you see people do?

Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of ways that they can do it, you know? I mean, that is one model more. I mean more with builders and other with developers. I think we've seen that a lot, a few times, and then obviously, architects putting their money together, you know, they haven't got it all in cash, you know, getting together with maybe another couple. We know, we know examples of that. Maybe they're the sort of silent partners, and the architects are putting some. In, but they're also putting sweat equity in, so there's some fees coming in at the same time. I mean, there's all kinds of ways of doing it. There's no, there's no kind of, you know, magic bullet, really. And I think that's what's interesting when we're doing the talks, is that kind of every talk we have, these are the talks we run in London with architect developers. And now we're, we're talking to small design led developers as well. But there's, they always say, oh, yeah, this is how we're, we've made it work. Because it's kind of what who's around and who wants to come along for the ride? You know, like so many it's like a kind of doing a business, isn't it? It's like, yeah, that sounds great. I really like this idea. I think that's why it's a kind of difficult thing to teach.

Because, yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think there were lots and lots of ways to skin the cat, as they say, and that's going to depend who you've got in your black book and who you can network with. I mean, it all starts with the opportunity, though, and I think that's what hopefully, if there's one thing that your your listeners take away from this is, you know, if you see an opportunity, go and talk to the owner and try and find the owner and try and get it, and you don't have to pay money up front, because if you can convince them, you know, you can either work for the owner. You know, we've seen, we've seen examples where architects pitch to the owner and then effectively get in that way, and then they're they, they, there's under so what's called a promoter agreement. You can get an option on the site, and, you know, effectively pay a small amount of money, and then you don't have to find the money up front for that site, but you can maybe put your time in to get it through planning, maybe put a little bit of money in, and all of those things are fantastic ways to get going without very much money at all. So you definitely don't need a lot of money to get started. I mean, obviously, I'm not saying that doesn't help. It does help, but you you, but you don't need it. It's not a prerequisite. The prerequisite is the opportunity. The opportunity that stacks up, and I think, is making sure that the that you do your numbers, because it's all, you know, the old expression is, you know, you gotta buy well on your way in, because once you do that, everything else falls into place. Yeah, it

was very interesting. Actually, I had a somebody on the podcast a few weeks back who was talking about their own experience doing development. And it was an interesting case study, because it was a case study of it going wrong or it didn't go wrong. I say just they lost money, but they were kind of thinking long term, and they were like, you know, you know, what that couple of 100 grand that we've lost is, we're going to make that back on the next project. But it was very much that point that you were making there, that they got overly excited, paid way too much at the beginning, and then they were never able to recoup the money, no matter what was happening. And then COVID happened, and then it will, you know, there was just more and more challenges that kind of kept piling on. But that doesn't that you know that that initial finding the opportunity, and these sorts of unloved little gap sites that are the cities are filled with those really are. You know, we're seeing so much, so many good, good examples of this happening now with design, led architects to design led developers and architect led developers doing that. I think it's very it's very encouraging.

I think auctions are full of sites that have come unstuck because the the person doing it has gone bust. I mean, you know, we, we've only really written about the the people who are successful, but as you've just said, there's loads of people who aren't successful. I'm not saying they're architects, but, you know, it is, I think we've, we've just been saying, Oh, you can get the money, and it's kind of, you don't need a lot of money, but we're not really, I mean, would be wrong of us not to say it's also hugely risky, because, because there are those things which I'm sure you, you know, you probably come on to but, I mean, there are those things that kind of come out of the blue, You know, like a war or, you know, interest rates, or kind of Trump, I mean, things that kind of upend the economy, like very which you kind of take everybody by surprise, and suddenly that loan is, you know, is a lot more expensive and and all Materials suddenly go up massively. So all your numbers are, I mean, you know, all your numbers are wrong. And then you, I think it's, it's quite busy

that there's, there's that old expression, you know, it's only, it's only when the the tide goes out you see who's swimming naked, right? So, at the moment, the I think. The the tide. You know, the tide prior to sort of 2018 was just going up and up and up. Okay? So if you made mistakes, you were going to get you were going to get saved by the market, okay. But now the tide is basically staying still. So you know, if you don't do your numbers right, you will not get saved by the rising sale price of hazard. This is, this is mostly London. I'm talking about now. I mean, I think there has been some movement outside London, but very much in London. I think prices have been static in nominal terms, and arguably in real terms, falling for for a number of years now. And, you know, and you've got build costs rising, and your money costs rising. You know, all of those things put a lot of pressure on the appraisal, because in development, for those who don't know, it works in reverse. So the land price is generally not a fixed price. It's it's a measure of your total sales receipts, gdv and the in the lingo, gross development value, minus all your costs, minus your profit, or your expected profit, your desired profit, and that's the land. That's the value of the land. And you know you can, you can imagine that if you get your your sales, you know you're a bit ambitious on sales, and you underestimate your costs, your profit suddenly shrinks and and you know, that's where you get in trouble, and that's why it's really important to have a healthy profit margin, not because necessarily you want to be super greedy, but because you need that as a sort of a contingency. And you know, we know developers who have, for very good reasons, you know, try to keep their profit margin low, to sort of give back to the community, but then come unstuck. Because, effectively, you know, things have not gone quite right. So, you know. So again, if you've, if you've bought, well, you've reduced your costs, that's a, that's a big, that's a big, you know, opportunity to sort of save money, but, but we, you know, we do think, as architects, it's still, you've still got a fantastic opportunity to sort of spot things that other developers don't. And I think that's the that's the key as a key takeaway is that that you might, you might spot bits of land that are unloved, that don't sell at auction, right? Because everyone's like, Oh, God, that's too complicated. And that's happened a lot. A lot of people we know, bought stuff that didn't sell at auction and then, and then turned it around, because they could assess the the risk themselves. And then you've, you've, you've managed to buy a good, good price, and then you can either then sell with planning if you want, or you build it out. You've got that option.

Have you found that the the kind of work that you've been doing with architects, where you're kind of empowering them to become developers, that other developers have actually started turning around and being like, hold on a minute. There's a kind of like superpowers happening over here, and that it's changed, you know, that part of the industry, or it's kind of given a kind of a level, another level of creativity for developers, because they're starting to see opportunities that are being unlocked where they might have thought weren't possible before.

I mean, I wish, I wish we were having that much impact. Really hard, isn't it, with the, I think, with the smaller developers, I mean, we are beginning to find more. We're beginning to come across more design led developers, yeah, not architects, they are developers, and we are inviting some of them to come and talk. And I think the reason for that, I hope the reason for that, is because there is a demand for more design led development, particularly in London, but also in major cities like Manchester and Birmingham that there are people who want to live in new developments with great architecture or or in lofts, you know, that have been refurbished in a contemporary way. And I think that's just what's happening. And I think, you know this, this kind of come round, really, kind of comes around to that question of, you know, all these kind of new homes that are going to be built, we're told in this country, in the UK, I mean, what kind of homes are we actually going to be building. Because I think what we hear, and I know we're in, we're in kind of central London, but people want to live in contemporary design. That's what you know, those things, that kind of light and and quality of light and space, these are all important things. Is. And, I mean, this is a bit off topic, but I guess it's central to what we, we believe we're trying to do is say, actually, you know, these small developers can really up the quality of what's built, because the quality of what's built here is pretty low. That's being polite, you know, it's, it's so, so obviously, if an architect is doing it, I mean, it's going to be, the quality is going to be so much higher. And but I think, to your question about the design, the developers, I think there are mute there are more of them, or we are noticing more of them, and they're building companies that are not like traditional developers. They're only doing, you know, maybe 2030 I mean, they're not doing massive amounts, because they take time and planning and but this demand that they're doing. Well,

I agree with Amanda. I mean, I think, you know, I like to think of, I like to look at other industries in general, because I'm interested in business as a sort of concept. And you look at the likes of something like brew dog, right? You know, a very small company. I know, 8789, years ago, you know, is probably, I think it was operating one place, one micro brewery. I can't remember wherever it started. And now look at them, you know, they got it. They're everywhere. And craft beer as well is everywhere. You know, it's like, literally, you can't walk down a kind of, you know, a trendy high street without four micro breweries, you know, tripping over, over, over yourself to get to and I think, but that takes time. And we're talking about, and that's beer, right? You know, it doesn't take very long to kind of manufacture and distribute and drink and order another one. Housing takes a long time to do that. So, so I think there's definitely an increasing level of awareness and of design led housing. And, you know, places like the modern house do fantastically well to help get that message out. But there are, there are still a very, very small number of design led developers, but each year they grow because they realize that, you know, customers realize they don't have to live in a drafty Victorian house, or if it or they are going to live in that, you know, could be one that's really nicely fitted out and beautifully done and, you know, so they don't necessarily want to do the work. So that's where developer, entrepreneurial architects, step in and say, well, actually, I'll make this really amazing and do the fantastic extension and the great love conversion, not the boring stuff, but the kind of really interesting stuff, because people want to express who they are. They want to be individuals. They want to, you know, we have that every other walk of life, right? You know, you can express yourself through your your clothing, your art, your literature, your phone, all of this sort of stuff. But housing is quite generic, you know. So, so we're very much on the edges, but it's absolutely, you know, absolutely, in my mind, clear that it's going to it just gets bigger and bigger as more people get into it. And more people say, Oh, it's possible. Because until something becomes possible, people don't, kind of people go, Okay, well, it's, I'm not going to find a nice looking place in the area I want to be, and so don't worry about it. But I think what's, what's interesting, in a way, in the way people are buying houses is not just, is sort of making an I think the modern house have made people think maybe it isn't all about location. I think generally people in the past have gone right, okay, well, I'm living in, for sake of argument, you know, one area of London, I'm going to look within sort of half a mile of where I live, and that's it. But with the advent of these kind of amazing houses coming on, and I think people are making big moves, you know, not necessarily knowing what the other area is like, but just saying, Oh, wow, that's an amazing house. I want to move there. So this idea of sort of location, location is interesting because I think that's slightly shifting in people's, people's sort of mindsets.

I know that that's that is. It's very encouraging as well. And kind of starts to point paint a positive picture of the value of what an architect and what design can bring to properties. And, you know, certainly in the UK, the the sort of level what people have tolerated has been pretty low for a very long time, and and it's an exciting development to consider that that actually people really want interesting buildings and something that's that's unique, and that they and that there's a market for it, and developers are starting to see that, and design is at the forefront of it. Yeah, with the your book, the projects that you the case studies that you included in there, how did you come about those particular projects to show and

Well, I think. We, we knew we had to go away and find, you know, 2025, architect, developers, I mean that. And within, you know, doing any book, I mean, the publishers will always want a smattering of international names as well. You know, can't all be UK. So we did a bit of a, I mean, we obviously knew quite a few of them personally, but we did a bit of a call out using social media and and found a few that way, but mainly they came through our kind of network of people we knew who had done development. I mean, starting kind of, I guess, with, I mean, we didn't include Gus, his father, because he's, he's fully a developer now, but we could have done, I guess. But George Ferguson, who was president of the RBA, and, you know, bought a building, kind of way back when a warehouse in Bristol, and kind of save that building from being demolished, so and but George never really calls himself a developer. You know? He just said, I wanted to save this building and fill it with interesting things. So, so, I guess you know, from so George at one end, right up to an architect who who bought a site during during lockdown or during COVID, and did two two houses on the site with a friend, one of whom was not in the UK. So so you know, various stories that we, we we knew about, and we wanted to include them in the book. I think the only rule we had, and this is probably important in the sense that we we weren't really interested in architects who've just done one house for themselves, because that model is really familiar. I mean, architects have always, you know, done their own homes. And there's books about that, and they, you know, some of them are fascinating, but we really wanted architects who set out to do a development and make some, you know, make some money and maybe go again, or, you know, we're looking for land. So, so that's the kind of, if you like. So,

so all of them were from, like, a commercial perspective, as opposed to their own, their own home.

Yes, exactly, certainly, certainly needed in our mind. It had to be sellable. It had to be made as a sort of because it's only when you put your product in front of the market that you really find out what you whether what you've done is is good or bad, you know. And I think you've got to put yourself out there to really call yourself developer. And so that was one of our criteria, really,

yeah, but they weren't necessarily doing the development, marketing, it, selling, it going on to the next, you know, because they were running a practice at the same time. So, you know, they might be buying a couple of buildings, doing them out over a period of time, having some interesting creative uses for those built buildings, the existing buildings, then knocking that down when they could, and building something else, or keeping retaining the building. You know, all kinds of so not traditional development journey, if you like, but that's fine, because at the end of the day, they were, they were unlocking value in that site, and they were taking risk, and they were raising the money, and, you know, using their skills as architects. And so, yeah, they were definitely passed our our test of what made an architect developer, and

with the the developer collective itself, and perhaps this is specifically a question for Gus the your own background in development, have you found like that that actually kind of providing these, this education and courses, has meant that Your network has now increased quite dramatically, and that there's lots of opportunity for new types of collaboration with your own organization and architects.

In all honesty, my now has increased a little bit, but that's not why I'm set out to do this. In all honesty, it's more I did development with a with a with a very clear idea that housing is crap in this country on the whole. And I thought, you know, I've I've got the, I've got the ability to kind of have quite a small impact, because I can only build so many projects over the course my lifetime, and I don't really have a desire to massively scale up and get lots of investor money in, because that can dilute what you're trying to do. So really, this was an opportunity to think, you know, is almost a kind of good pyramid scheme. I'm thinking, you know, if i i can do however many decent developments, but it. If I can help and educate and and set people on the right path to them to do it the same, then great. So thinking of it more around the sort of mentorship model, and rather than as a sort of opportunity for me to kind of have collaborations. I mean, I'm always open to collaborations, but, but that my main motive is, is, is that really, it's a sort of giving back to the community, creating a kind of ecosystem around design led development. And I've always thought architects make brilliant developers, because they're so I suppose they've got the incentive, the in the the the kind of intrinsic motivation to do something good, whereas I suppose developers who come at development for with the purely a profit motive tend to cut corners wherever they can. I've seen it time and time again, and met many of them, and I just don't sort of find those people like minded. I don't really want to, you know, I don't really want to encourage more poorly built, you know, expensive housing I'm looking for. And I find that architects tend to make very good developers, because they also have this, I suppose, in intrinsic motivation to do something good. So that's, that's really why I'm coming at it so, so rather than as a sort of networking thing. But of course, you know, it's great having meeting all these people, and I like and I really enjoy it. So as you know, is, is it's a it's a fun night out when we do the talks or the drinks or whatever it is we do. And I think Amanda and I have always we're quite in a way. We just go for it, and it's quite nice. You know, we're not when we don't worry too much, because we haven't got investors or anything like that, we just try stuff, and if it works and our audience like it, we go, great, well, let's do it again and and that's sort of the way we've we've sort of run developer collective, and I think we'll carry on doing it that way. I love it.

You mentioned earlier actually about how the RBA, you know, historically, actually had prevented architects from being developers. And this is an interesting one, because both the AIA and the RBA have in the past been very averse to architects doing anything other than architecture, whether it's running contracting firms, even interior design to an extent, and certainly development. Why do you think that is and have do you think the do you think these institutions are changing their perspective, and is there any risks for architects in terms of becoming developers that are that go beyond the kind of, you know, the financial risk, and actually it's a risk to the profession in some way when they're stepping outside of their lane. I mean,

the the Riba, to give them their due did invite us to run one of their conferences, which was all about being, you know, being developers, being architect developers, so and they published our book. So I think in that way, they, you know, they've been a blessing. Yeah, they've given it encouragement. I mean, I guess, you know, it's a professional body, isn't it for architects. So it's, we're a little bit off on the side as far as they're concerned. I mean, you know, they don't, you can't, sort of register as an architect development. There isn't anywhere for an architect developer to go. I mean, I guess that's why we exist, because we are the only organization in in the UK that are kind of doing anything really for this, for this quite small subset, I guess. But I mean, you know, I suppose my kind of view on this is that it's a bit of a broader view is, you know, will the Riba have to look more generally at how the profession is going to survive, and what that means, and architects taking on different roles, and what that does. I mean, it's, it's part of a different conversation. But I, I think it's when you look at the Riba, you know, over the time I've kind of known it, you know, it's always been very much the architect in this camp and the developer, you know, let's get the developers in to talk to the architects about what they want and and the architects can put their case. And I think that's all a bit old school. I think it's got to be much more, you know, architects coming forward and and offering, I mean, not, they don't have all the solutions, by all means, but, you know, let's, let's break down those silos a bit. So actually, an architect developer, you know what? It doesn't really matter. You know, they're just as valued. They're, they're just as valuable part of the mix. And I think it's a kind of question for. The Riba is how pure they want to keep it and why they need to keep it like that. You know, I think the conversations in the Riba, the kind of things that they do, could be a little bit more interesting if they opened it up to this new world of having to be more entrepreneurial, I suppose, is what it is.

I would agree with, with all of that, I suppose I just, I think it's very hard for institutions, especially ones as venerable and as old as the Ria, to change because, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of inertia to change because it's the sort of the way they've always done it. I think they should change because I think, you know, architect, developer is, is a really valuable skill set. And actually, they could offer, you know, they, they should be offering this at university. They should be, you know, doing much more around education, rather than just, you know, giving it over to me, and even if nothing else, I'm I'm absolutely amazed that that they don't teach just the, you know, a course on development, appraisal, you know, in every standard architecture school, even if they don't want to be an architect developer, they're going To be dealing with developer clients, a lot of them, and, you know, they ought to know how that developer thinks and how it works and how their business model is, because the more you understand your clients, the better you can be servicing their needs. I mean, likewise, I think they should be doing, you know, they should all be doing a work study on, on a bit, on a building site, so they know that, you know, drawing a line is all well and good, but how is that line going to be built and supported and screwed in and, you know, and I think, and that's where I think architecture should be teaching the sort of the realities of life outside, if you like, the life outside the drawing board

that gets on to that whole, you know, question of what architects are learning, you know, during their their their long training. I mean, obviously, again, it's a sort of big, big, big question, particularly post Grenfell, you know that architects were criticized for not knowing, actually, how our building is put together. And, you know, do they have, I mean, education is always, is always been a bit of a complex subject. Let's put it like that. But I think going back to the thing about the RBA and and, and, sort of, how much should all this stuff that we've been talking about be taken on board and and integrated more into, you know, how an architect thinks and what they and why aren't people, you know, rushing into their practice and saying, Hey, I've seen this bit of land. I really think we should get going on this. I mean, we all know the architects jobs are very complex, and probably more complex in terms of the regulations and stuff, the red tape, if you like that they they have to sort of go, get through and and I think they all say we just don't have, we just don't have the headspace to be able to think about doing anything else but getting this building up and through planning and all the other things that hit them. But I think politically, I you know, there's, there's probably more. There's a kind of growing recognition of the importance of small sites as part of the mix, yeah, and I think that's why the, I mean necessary. I mean, I don't mean the Riba needs to take more notice of it, because, again, they've got, you know, they've got their role, and arguably, that's not one of them, but I think that it's somehow it's important. Small sites are important, and what you put on them and is important, and architects part of the mix. But that conversation at the level we'd like to be happening isn't happening because it's all the big house builders, and where's the billion pounds going to come from, and how are we going to, you know, streamline planning so it can all happen meanwhile, there's, you know, if you just think about the number of of of empty homes, or, you know, buildings that are not in use. I mean, if you, you know, there's, there's like enough to fulfill the whole target for the first year of, you know, 330,000 homes we meant to be building a year. I think there's 250,000 empty buildings. So you could just kind of look at that, but that doesn't get done. You know that? I think that's the frustration is we feel sometimes like we're doing this stuff. There's lots of people saying, it's great, it's really, it's a really interesting conversations and lots of enthusiasm, but it needs to get noticed at a much bigger scale. You know, somebody needs to go, yeah, actually, we could get something going on this. You know, if everybody put their small society.

I mean, do you mean, do you mean politically or. Like with other institutions or within or within the government, within

government, really, I mean, it's, it's, you know, everybody knows that local authorities have lots of land, and some of them are doing something about it, very slowly. But if there was much more of a kind of national effort to get all these small sites into some kind of shape, and get local builders teaming up with local architects. However you do it, just to get the thing moving a bit faster. Because I think, you know, the clock is ticking sort of thing. I mean, they're going to 1.5 is a lot of those. So momentum would be nice, I think.

And I think again, borrowing from other industries. I mean, I'm a big fan of innovation, huge fan of innovation, and I I've had some experience in the in the FinTech industry as well, and you know what, what? And then that's regulated by the FCA Financial Conduct Authority. And what they did, which I think is very clever, is they create what's called a sandbox, which is effectively saying, you're small, okay, we've got It's okay. You don't have to kind of be within this regulation, which is, you know, 10,000 pages of regulation, whatever it is, just get on with it, try and create something interesting that's a value to the customer, and then if there's traction. So we can kind of look at how we can bring that within the scope, or whatever it is. Now, why the hell are we not doing that with planning, right? You know? Why are we not saying, You know what? Why don't we? Why are we just congesting the system by making it harder and harder and harder, and it's longer, it's more expensive, and all these sort of things, you know, I've always thought while, while, and we're in danger of sort of going on beyond, you know, developer collective. But I think it's relevant, because this is where I think architects can help. Because architects really could go out and identify spits of land that are unloved. You know, maybe we have to use powers of nationalization or compulsory purchase or whatever, just to, you know, there are bits of land around me, and I'm in, I'm in zone two in London, the bits of Atomy that I have known empty and sitting there unloved for as long as I've been here. And I've been here 15 years now, right now, I think you know that is a prime opportunity, but it just sit here a kind of derelict building, and you think you know that that's surely wrong. You know that you think you know some clever architects, you know, if you can kind of effectively, you know, get get that back into the system, reduce the kind of planning load, get that through, rezone it, whatever it is that can become housing. And that's what we need if we're going to try these one and a half million housing we've got to try something different. You know, what they what, what they say is, you know, you keep trying the same thing, and that's that's that you're only gonna end up with the same result. I think the

figure I read the other day is that there are 38,000 long term empty dwellings in London, and that's just London. That's not nationally. So you know, because everybody goes, Oh, well, that's when you're talking about all these empty sites or empty properties, that's not London, because everything in London is, is, you know, is owned and expensive, but there's 38,000 of them. So even at, you know, you know, even a kind of some action on that would be interesting and and help. And

then I was going to say, and saying, then you couple that with the fact that most people now are expecting planning to take them 18 months. That's 18 months of and the cost of Finance to developer is nigh on 10% a year, if not 15 or 20% a year, depending on where they get their money from. You think that is a lot of money sitting there. And the problem is the planning authorities, don't, you know, they like, oh, you know, we hear this time and time again that, you know, something's got resolution to grant or, you know, the the officers are okay, but it hasn't got it misses a committee meeting and it misses another one. You've suddenly added 3040, grand of costs to that to that site, just because you haven't quite got it together, or the committee hasn't got enough time, et cetera, et cetera. Who's going to end up paying that 3040, grand just come straight onto the consumer makes it more expensive, or they have to cut quality. Is it's ridiculous. It just doesn't, it doesn't, doesn't stack up. You know, while, while we have an industry which is purely set up to buy land and sell land with planning. There's no value. There's no value add to come to the to the community, and that, that all just goes back to people prepared to take risks. That's an arbitrage opportunity. We need to get rid of that, and that that that value needs to come back to the people actually building. Stuff.

How do you see that happening? Is it? Is it something that architect developers can, can Well, I think a force for,

I mean, I think it's, you know, nothing's gonna, it's not gonna be a eureka moment, and suddenly, you know, somebody in government is gonna go, hey, you know what, guys, architect developers, that's the that's gonna solve all our problems? No, I don't think it's going to be like that. But I think, you know, sort of, in my kind of mystic Meg moment, I think there's going to be, at some point in the next year, whatever there's the everybody's going to go, we really have got to look at this in a different way, this problem, because doing like the new I mean, I I know this is a this, we're talking about the UK here, rather than kind of stuff that might be so relevant for an American audience, but this idea of building new towns, I mean, we did have that after the Second World War. Isn't it about time we had some new thinking. You know, it's, it's so like, oh, let's go back to what we did really successfully, however many years ago, and try and repeat that. Well, that has never been repeated, despite efforts by successive government to do new towns, eco towns, whatever towns. It's never happened. So is it, you know, so why don't we just look at it all upside down and inside out and think about, you know, this small sites thing, just doing, letting small builders and architects and, you know, more creatives have a go at this problem. And I but I don't think it's going to be somebody in Whitehall going, you know that those people on that podcast I was listening to architect developers, but there will be, it will kind of play out. There will be more and more kind of questions asked, I hope, because the land is there. You know, every other people always go, oh, but they say, oh, yeah, that's really interesting, what you're doing. But of course, there's no land. There's no land anymore. Is there kind of carved up? That's not true. There's always land. There's always sites, you know? Yeah.

I mean, we spoke to someone recently who'd done a study just within Lewisham themselves and identified 30,000 possible new homes, right? And that's all just land sitting there. That's just Lewisham, you know, you think about that across London, across the UK, and this is about identifying or infill sites. So, so in my mind, the big thing that, if I could, you know, if I could change, if I could be London mayor for a day, you know, the big thing is, I would say, right? You know, let's take a slightly scraggly bit of London, right? And, and, and create a sandbox. So you don't need planning permission. You just need to, you know, you maybe get an architect to do some really good zoning, and, you know, you create, maybe a design code, and say, crack on with it. Go, go for it. And I'm, but I'm a big fan as well, you know, with my my development hat on, I do a lot of around self build and custom build. And, you know, there are places in in all over the world that do amazing things where people kind of, you know, build slightly crazy. And we, we've tried it over here, in, in, in graven Hill, but I'm, I'm all for it. I'm all for kind of, you know, putting the, you know, the giving, giving customers agency over their design with the hands of an architect. And I think actually you could, you could, you know, it was a point where you needed to have a license builder, you know, a builder was actually going to be the architect involved in your project. So you could easily enforce some rules where you have to have someone who takes responsibility. So, you know, there is a huge potential role for architects, because of the training, because of the professionalism, because they know what they're doing to you know, you could say you can, you can almost build what you want as long as you have a licensed, registered architect doing it.

Love it. I think that's, I think on that optimistic message, I think that's perfect place for us to conclude the conversation. Gus Amanda, thank you so much for spending some time with me this afternoon and and sharing a bit about your about developer collective and your and your mission. Really wonderful.

You're very well having us.

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