Business of Architecture UK Podcast

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking to the Group Managing Partner at Grimshaw based in Sidney, Mark Middleton. Mark joined Grimshaw's London studio in 1996. He had been working for British Rail and Transport for London and has since worked on a variety of projects in different sectors like leisure, ecotourism, commercial, property, and transportation. He has been a pivotal character in providing leadership and creative direction to many of the practice's award-winning rail and aviation projects. Mark has been instrumental in establishing Grimshaw's preeminent position in these sectors. He worked on many large-scale projects such as Heathrow Terminal 2B, Pulkovo Airport, station redevelopments over at Paddington and the Fulton Center. Most notably, Mark was partner-in-charge of a £1 billion London Bridge redevelopment project completed in May 2018 and nominated for the RIBA Stirling Prize. Mark also led the design for the Southern Cross Station in Melbourne, which won the Lubetkin Prize prize in 2007. Mark has had a lot of experience as a senior leader at Grimshaw. He talks about being the Group Managing Partner and discusses what that role entails, what leadership means at Grimshaw, the structure of the business, how they win work, how they go about looking for new projects, how they bid for those projects. We talk in-depth about the sorts of metrics and things they keep a close eye on to ensure the business is profitable while keeping its high standard of design.

This week, I am speaking with Dennis Austin of Daab Design. Dennis has 30 years designing award-winning projects in both Europe and America. He's enjoyed the cultural richness of living and practicing in New York, Paris, and London. He's a French speaker. He believes in the earnest collaboration between client, architect, engineer, and contractor. Prior to creating Daab Design, Dennis had held positions for about 17 years. He was at RSH+P, Calatrava, and Viñoly to name a few, so an incredible array of large practice experience as well as working in smaller practices himself. In this episode, Dennis outlines this collaborative approach and how a small practice actually might approach larger practices. He goes into a lot of depth about his experience in large practices and small practices and how the two can come together. He relates his own experience of large-scale infrastructure and how that has been translated into the types of work he's doing now in his own practice. We also discuss the future of collaborative approach in architecture. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Dennis' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-austin-a8399271/?originalSubdomain=uk daab design: https://www.daabdesign.co.uk/

This week, I'm speaking to Dale Sinclair, the Director of Innovation at AECOM, one of the world's largest infrastructure consultancies. His core expertise is in delivering large-scale projects using innovative, interdisciplinary workflow-aligned digital tools developed within AECOM's technology partners. He's also an author. He published several books on the lead designer role and on design management. He also authored the RIBA Plan of Work 2020 and was recently described as a pragmatic futurist. He is also the RIBA Ambassador for Collaboration and sits on the Construction Industry Council and BRE Global boards. In this episode, we talked a lot about the future of the industry, the innovations that AECOM has been furthering to grow their business. We also looked at the future of construction and the role of the architect within that, and the intersection between new technologies. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Dale's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dale-sinclair-71238b5/ AECOM: https://aecom.com/

This week, I'm talking to Tomasz Romaniewicz who is an Associate at Bond Bryan. He's in charge of land regeneration and development. He commenced his current position at Bond Bryan at around 2017 and has become a specialist with a focus on bridging the gap between the traditional norms of architect and developer. These duties include sourcing development opportunities on and off-market and acting as a lead architect on regeneration projects within the practice. This was a really interesting conversation because we got to speak about a lot of different topics. We looked at the reasons for Bond Bryan being based in Birmingham, and we look at Birmingham as a hub for development and one of the major players in the UK. We discuss developer and land strategies and proactive business models that Bond Bryan is currently utilizing. We also talk about the structure of Bond Bryan and Tomasz's role in that. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Tomasz' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasz-romaniewicz-b3ab23180/ Bond Bryan: https://bondbryan.co.uk/

This week, I'm speaking to Peter Farrall and Stephen Brookhouse who are co-authors of "Good Practice Guide: Fees," recently published from the RIBA. Peter Farrall is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool where he is responsible for the Professional Studies as well as being a studio tutor on the BA and MArch courses. Prior to his current position, he was a partner in a small multi-disciplinary practice in Chester, specializing in the education sector. Stephen is currently the Professor of Professional Practice in Architecture at the University of Westminster. He's a chartered architect with over 30 years of experience as the director of a commercial practice and professional teaching. In this episode, we discuss what brought the two of them together to write the book on fees, and we look at some of the issues that practices face around percentage fees and why percentage fees typically and traditionally don't really work. We discuss the importance of negotiation in determining the fees and how fees should reflect the risk that the architect is taking on, and why it's important to specialize in a niche and how that influences fees. We also talk about profit and surplus. ► Purchase a copy of the "Good Practice Guide: Fees" with the code GPGF5 to get £5 off: https://www.ribabooks.com/Good-Practice-Guide-Fees_9781859469309 Offer valid until 30th September. ► Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ ► If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Peter's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-farrall-57768117a/ Stephen's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-brookhouse-73957628/

This week, I'm speaking to Matthew Dearlove who is the Head of Design of Greenwich Peninsula at Knight Dragon, the development company. Matthew's career started off as an architect, trained in Cambridge and the Royal College of Art. He's worked internationally. He worked for a brief period at Robert Stern Architects. He was a research associate at Helen Helen Hamlyn Research Centre. He's worked for De Matos Storey Ryan, Anouska Hempel Design. He's also founded his own company called Blocwork, which he ran for a number of years. Most recently, he transitioned his career from the design aspects over into the role of working with developers and kind of almost being a translator between the value of good high-quality design and public space, and how that can be translated into financial and business gains for developer clients. Knight Dragon is a really forward-thinking development company that has a reverence for design and has a deep understanding of the craft. Their new project Design District, which is located on the Greenwich Peninsula has involved a number of high-caliber architects. In this episode, Matthew discusses his career, how he moved over from being an architect into this role, Head of Design with a developer, and how he is able to navigate those conversations between design and business. We also discuss the work behind Design District, how that's been conceived as a major development, how it's working, how it's going to be working financially, how they structured the appointment process, how they came to choose the architects, how they've been working with the designers to create a very unique location in London and its metrics for success. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Know more about Corbett and Tasker: https://corbett-tasker.com/ Peter's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-corbett-a9a88168/

This week, we meet Peter Corbett who is the Co-Founder, along with David Tasker, of Corbett and Tasker, a design-focused structural engineering practice. I actually had the good fortune to work with Peter on a number of projects, and I've always been incredibly impressed with their approach, their creativity, their expertise, and the way that they can bring a project together. They really understand the aesthetic and design vision of the architect. In this episode, Peter and I discuss the growth of Corbett and Tasker. We talk about what it's like to work with architects and how to deal with clients. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Know more about Corbett and Tasker: https://corbett-tasker.com/ Peter's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-corbett-a9a88168/

This week, I'm talking to Oz Lancaster who's the Founder and Director of Oz Designs, a London-based interior design company. Oz works with an extraordinary array of high-profile clients from royal families to high net worth individuals, and she's got an international portfolio of stunning work. In this interview, Oz and I discuss how she has grown her business, how she has won those clients and the elements of developing clients into long-lasting relationships that lead to referrals or, as she says, how to tap into the veins of gold. We also discuss fees and the importance of delivering consistently high-quality work. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Know more about Oz and Os Designs https://www.ozlancaster.com/ Oz' LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/oz-%C3%B6zge-lancaster-74770826/

This week, I'm speaking to Martin King who is an Architect and the Practice Leader of Douglas and King Architects. Douglas and King grew up in Shoreditch in East London, in a time before it was the uber-trendy design fashion capital location of East London. They were actually one of the architects that were responsible for contributing to a lot of the locale's growth. Many of Douglas and King's early clients were not sophisticated developers that were buying up land in Shoreditch, but actually, they were laypeople and landowners of underdeveloped properties and semi-derelict warehouses. This created a unique opportunity for the practice in helping develop their design agendas, their expertise, and how they can best be serving these lay developers, and very much put the architect in the driving seat at the front of the project. Currently, they work with more large housing developers, more sophisticated clients, large city owners, and they maintain that client base of lay landowners and private sector developers. In this conversation, Martin and I discuss the evolution of Douglas and King Architects. We talk about what Martin calls the "orange thread,' which is the architect's involvement from start to finish of a project. Martin also discusses how to align high-quality design work, business agendas of our clients. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Know more about Douglas and King Architects https://www.douglasandking.com/ Martin's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinthearchitect/

This week, I am talking to Alan Dempsey who is the architect, entrepreneur, and founder of Nex, which is a London-based design studio. Alan has an entrepreneurial past. He has set up and owned several businesses from a young age. He's always had a passion for design and architecture. He's got a deep amount of experience in working on the construction side. He was actually a consultant at Laing O'Rourke between 1998 to the year 2000. After that, he was actually project director at Future Systems, so we discussed a few of the insights that he gleaned working there. Then we discussed how he has grown the business at Nex and some of their current projects, how they worked, how they've grown, and how they've evolved. THIS WEEK'S RESOURCES Access your free training at http://SmartPracticeMethod.com/ If you want to speak directly to our advisors, book a call at https://www.businessofarchitecture.com/call Discovery Call with Rion https://www.businessofarchitecture.co.uk/discoverycall Know more about Nex Architecture https://www.nex-architecture.com/ Alan's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alandempsey/