Are Architects Losing Their Edge? - Simon Bayliss

What does it take to become a successful architect? How do you build an award winning practice culture? How do we fix the housing crisis? And are architects still hungry enough to make a difference?In this episode, Simon Bayliss, Managing Partner at HTA Design, shares what he's learned from 25 years at one of the UK’s leading housing-focused practices.

0:00 - Intro

0:56 - Why Simon became an architect

3:26 - Where architects bring the most value

6:41 - Going from Part II to Managing Partner at HTA Design

11:58 - Building an award-winning workplace culture

16:55 - Insights on hybrid and flexible working

22:18 - Benefits of a multidisciplinary approach

25:17 - Strategic growth in housing and co-living

29:51 - Rethinking space and the future of shared living

33:02 - Lessons for the next generation of architects

38:48 - Why trust and high standards go hand in hand

42:46 - What’s next for Simon and the future of housing

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Architecture is the best career.There is no better career than
being an architect, providing you're prepared to work really,
really, really hard. If you're not hungry enough to
work all the time, there are better things to do.
I think the risk is that hunger has possibly diminished.
Simon Bayliss is an experienced architect, urban designer and
expert in housing design based in London.
He is the managing partner of HDA Design and Interdisciplinary

(00:22):
Practice of architects and designers working to improve all
forms of housing. HDA is recognized as a leading
practice within the profession for its transparent currency,
accountability and workplace culture and has been awarded
Employer of the Year 4 times. You could argue the cost of
living crisis is actually a housing crisis because if we
weren't paying so much for our housing then we would have much
more disposable income. At the moment, I think the

(00:43):
profession is wrestling with itsfall away in in perceived value.
I think there has been an erosion of the value in the
architecture. So many, so many areas of
potential, so little time. Simon, thanks for joining me.
No problem. Why architecture?
What is it about a career in architecture and design that
gets you going, that keeps you coming back for more and getting

(01:06):
up in the morning? I suppose going all the way
back, it's usually common to start with Lego.
I mean, we all had Lego growing up in the 70s and the 80s.
There were a lot fewer choices of things to do.
We didn't have a telly, but we had lots and lots of Lego.
I grew up near a farm. Grandparents were farmers, and
the building's always fascinatedme.

(01:27):
I saw a lot of this comes with the benefit of hindsight.
You remember memories and you look back and you think, oh,
gosh, that maybe that was important after all.
But probably if I can track it back to kind of a pivotal moment
when I thought this is what I'm going to do.
And I must have expressed a bit of an interest in architecture,
was a friend of my grandparents,was an architect and gave me a
book called, I think it's a bookof the modern house, which

(01:51):
looking back, I've still got itsfirst edition and it's, it's got
a forward by Abercrombie and it's effectively chapters of
classic English house through modernist, including a Lebekin
plan, which many years later I sort of reflected.
I, you know, I think I remember Lebekin when I was studying him
at university. So if there's a moment when I

(02:13):
think that that that the the turning point when I thought
this is what I'm going to do, itwas possibly holding that book
because alongside that book on the modern house was a magazine
of Architecture International, which had sort of the trio, It
had Roger's Lloyd's building, ithad the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank
by Foster and Sterling in as well.

(02:35):
And I think together that brought together this kind of
classic old plans of houses thatI could kind of study and look
and try and work out how that all worked and this kind of
inspirational future high tech of how the world could be.
And with hindsight, obviously I've gone into housing world.
The the leather bound hardback first edition was obviously more

(02:56):
influential than the the glossy magazine, but that's, that was
that's possibly the moment. And I think there's been moments
along the way when I thought, isthis for me?
And I've always turned around and thought, yes, it is.
And I've stuck there. And I think every day I wake up
and think that was a good choice.
So I'm pleased with that choice.It's been probably way different

(03:17):
to expectations such as I had any, but it's a, it's a, it's a
fantastic career. I've I've enjoyed it.
I'm I am enjoying it usually. And where where do you draw the
most value from personally in your career so far?
Where you know what is it about the role of the architect that
you know that you enjoy and thatyou feel that maybe where

(03:39):
architects bring the most value?Yeah.
I mean, there's a lot in that, isn't there?
I mean, at the moment I think the profession is wrestling with
its fall away in in perceived value.
I think there has been an erosion of the value in the
architecture. I think it's felt particularly
keenly in in the housing world where I work where the sort of
prevalence of design and build taken to its NTH degree, where

(04:02):
almost the design team has been sidelined completely from the
process. But that has led to a real
problem in the industry. Grenfell might be the kind of
the symbol of that, but there are lots of other examples of
how I think construction and development have suffered
through the sidelining of the design professionals, not just
the architect, but as the leaderof the design team, often the

(04:23):
architect, I think probably has has has diminished the most.
And so there's a big discussion now about an existential crisis
perhaps maybe that's too grand aterm about how we regain that
value. We demonstrate that value.
I think we still offer that value.
How do we demonstrate that valuemore clearly and how do we
regain, I suppose, some pride inin what we do?

(04:48):
So that's the that's the kind ofchallenge at the moment.
But the reality is day-to-day, doing the job, we add value all
over the place. And in doing so, we kind of add
value to our self worth. So going to work every day,
running a practice, even in difficult times, overseeing
projects, sitting through designreviews, being out in the

(05:09):
profession, in the industry. I think particularly in urban
centres, it's exciting. In London it's particularly
exciting. I'll find I grew up in the Lake
District. I grew up in a a place where
there was architecture and therewas really interesting
buildings, but nothing like I get to experience here that
variety. I think everyday is where the
value comes for me in, in in architecture as a career.

(05:33):
And even though we as a practiceare focused on a single sector,
we're very broad in the design disciplines that we bring to
that and the locations that we work and the typologies that we
are involved in. So.
I think that is the thing I think when I think about and I,
I speak to other people about architecture, you know, the, the
greatest joy is in the variety of the work.
You know, one day you're sketching, one day you're on the

(05:55):
site, one day you're in meetings.
There's a, there's a huge amountof, you know, different
experiences that you get, whatever position you are in,
whatever point in your career you are.
At yeah, although, you know, youhave to, you have to work to get
to that point. There are periods in the in the
early years. Toilet positions.
And all that I did, all the reflected ceiling plans for
Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington when I was working

(06:17):
over there for a while. You know, those things you think
is, is this really what it's allabout?
Of course it's not. But as with any career that's
sort of worth, it's, it's salt, you have to, you kind of have to
do the hard yards, you have to get through the drudgery and
understand the importance of that and the extent to which
technology has managed to kind of alleviate that.
You know, it's, it's only limited.

(06:38):
There's still lots of that you have to do.
So with, with that in mind, so talking about your early career,
you know, when you were drawing on those reflected ceiling
plants, you, you obviously joined HCA as a Part 2, yes,
architectural assistant and now you're a managing partner.
How did that happen? How did that happen?

(06:59):
Yeah. And I think I think that is a
that is a kind of an interestingsort of conversation to be had
because obviously the contemporary way that people
maybe look for jobs, search for jobs, you know, maybe that is
isn't for the long term. Maybe there's a a skipping
between roles that is more common these days.
So I think it's interesting probably to reflect on what it's
like to stay at a practice for so long and become part of that

(07:21):
practice and become, you know, owner.
Part owner of that practice sortof thing.
Well, was it a plan? No, I don't.
I didn't sort of go in thinking this is my moment.
I mean, I think it's interestingto reflect for me how I why I
ended up at HDA. It was Hunt Thompson.
At the time I was doing a diploma in architecture and A
and a joint diploma in urban design and a sustainability

(07:44):
focus around housing in at Oxford Brookes.
And this is 9898. I joined Hunt Thompson as it was
then the Greenwich Millennium Village competition, which was
launched by the Labour government, sponsored by John
Prescott, who died recently, waswon by Hunt Thompson in working
with in collaboration with RalphErskine in a time when

(08:06):
collaboration wasn't really a thing.
It's everywhere now. Everyone talks about it, but I
think they were sort of early pioneers of that idea, possibly
because they thought they neededsomebody like Ralph Erskine to
give them that kind of credibility to win.
But they beat everybody. I mean, Foster and Rogers, I've
already mentioned in earlier comment, but Zaha was in and,
and Hopkins and Grimshaw and allof the biggish practices of the
day. And it was won by, you know,

(08:27):
Hunt Thompson. You think who are Hunt Thompson
and Ralph Erskine? And so it's all quite exciting.
And then really what they were proposing to do around housing,
around urban design, placemakingand flexibility and adaptability
was all really fascinating stuff.
I'd been sort of studying in a very abstract way in university,
and an advert came out in the February edition of Architects

(08:49):
Journal and I applied and got a job.
I've still got the letters. So I joined a practice that I
was really fascinated by what they were interested in.
And that's a pretty good start so that, you know, I was aligned
with what they were interested in.
But I actually joined at a time when there was a lot of change
in the practice. And so a group of people who
joined around about that time within a sort of two to three
years and you know, some guys within two, 2-3 weeks that I

(09:09):
still work closely with, they weall basically shared that same
sort of vision. So even when the practice, you
know, we were young and junior in the practice, we had a kind
of shared voice and we worked really well together.
And actually those are the groupof partners that are mostly
still there today. Our head of communications, our
head of landscape, you know, most of the partners have been

(09:30):
in the organization for a long time.
So when it came to the point that kind of the practice needed
to move forward, it was sort of fairly natural that we all
stepped up and said, you know, we were hungry for it and we
were reaching for it. And then once we took over in
2013, we did a management buy out.
I had a head for numbers and I ran all the financial side of
it. We just kind of took it from

(09:51):
there and it felt like we'd arrived with a new chapter.
So I've worked for the same practice for 26 years or
something like that, but actually it's been a number of
different iterations. But I suppose the key thing is I
work with the same group of people and that is a complete
joy. I mean, that's a luxury that if
you can find, if you can achieveit, why would you move to

(10:11):
another organization when you have a a kind of shared approach
to your professional career, butalso the culture of the
organization you want to create?So, yeah, I mean, I, I guess I,
I got lucky and some people I imagine move because they are
looking for that perfect fit. But along the way, you know,
it's not been the moments when we've all had to work quite

(10:33):
hard, you know, to keep that, keep that going.
So do you, do you, do you think the the real benefits is that
shared vision? It is about that alignment and
you know that is that sort of perfect chemistry between you
group of people. Yeah, the risk we have, we
sometimes sort of reflect, we have a number of sayings because
if you spend that much time together, you start to get catch

(10:53):
phrases a bit like repeating lines from films and things like
that. But the the phrase that I'm just
going to lean out the other way a little bit here, which is when
we're all a bit too aligned witha kind of idea or a vision or a
direction of travel or a cultural point or whatever it
might be or even a, you know, a design, there's always someone
who'll say, just just a minute, hang on, can we just check the

(11:14):
other side of this? And that keeps us, I suppose
that, that keeps us, you know, balanced such that we, we, I
suppose we, we've got to, we look back and think we've, we've
done quite well to navigate the last decade in practice.
Nearly 12 years now in, in as HDA design.
What, how do we do the next decade?

(11:35):
Because the first decade was actually easy.
You know, with hindsight, the last couple of years have been a
lot tougher. But we've got to look forward
positively thinking there is a there is a great decade ahead
for all of us, but we're going to have to make it happen.
It's not just going to fall intoplace.
So that's where we're kind of atthe moment.
And that involves lots of looking outside and soul

(11:57):
searching and leaning out the other way.
I suppose when we talk about sort of alignment and ethos of
of you as a group, obviously HTAare known as you know at the
sort of forefront of places to work.
You know, you've won the AJ award for for that four times
and obviously that probably comes from so much of A strength

(12:21):
in alignment. I wonder if we can just kind of
discuss that a little bit to, tokind of just highlight, I
suppose how you think you're capable or able to do that as a
practice. You know, is it is it just about
ethics and just about alignment of that?
And I think particularly at a time when, you know, we see so
much about employment in architecture and, and, and how

(12:43):
people's experiences are in the career sort of thing, I think,
yeah, I, I think lots of people will be interested in your kind
of insight into how you manage to, you know, have a practice
that does these things. Well, in some ways, I guess
it's, it's not that it's how do you manage to do it.
It's like, how do you manage notto do it would be another way of
looking at it. Some of it probably comes back

(13:04):
to that kind of luck that we allgot on quite well.
We're a, we're a pretty sociablebunch.
Even now. The, the, the partners have an
annual partner with their partners and their children.
You know, some of us have, we'vemostly been to each other's
weddings and got parents to eachother's children in some cases.
So there's a kind of social thing, which means we like
spending time together. It's kind of even when we're not
working, we do find ways to actually be together.

(13:25):
So that's a supposed and a luck of the, of the, of the structure
of the practice. It was always a fairly sociable
place and a, and a place that did many things.
So when I arrived, they served lunch every day.
We were reflecting recently thatwe used to get cheese and
biscuits for lunch as well as the main course.
I mean, it was sort of that was cut out probably and we all put

(13:46):
on lots of time and we all went to the pub a lot.
So there was a kind of that element.
But actually on the other side, the practice didn't necessarily
do a particularly good job of being a good employer in other
ways. So when we took over, we thought
we're going to spend all this time together.
We are, we want to be known and we are known for, you know,
making really great places to live and that's around

(14:08):
architecture and landscape and interiors.
But actually, if you're going tospend all that time doing
difficult things like that, you know, let's, let's have fun
whilst we're doing it. So let's make it a great place
to work. And that was the sort of the
mission statement, those two strands really.
And it, it's, I suppose it's grown from there and it's grown
from the fact that we wanted to make sure we were paying people
well and we were offering good benefits and particularly

(14:30):
benefits that were sort of cost effective for us to do as a
group that very expensive for individuals to do, you know, why
not do all of those things? We enjoyed being in good
premises. And so that became a, you know,
so every aspect of the practice was sort of beneficial to the
working day. The lunch idea came from the
fact that when the practice moved into Camden Town in

(14:52):
Parkway, there was nowhere to get lunch.
So they went round the corner toone of the partners houses and
had lunch. That grew into a thing.
And every now and again we get to the point we think, are we
too big now? Do we need to stop lunch or
there's a economic global financial crisis?
Shall we stop lunch? And always the answer was, if we
can't actually managed to serve lunch to everybody, then we
should just stop being in business.

(15:13):
And now it's kind of become thisslightly massive thing.
You know, it's part of the studio design.
That's a big. But of course, on the back of
that you do design reviews thereyou have evening events and it
adds to the culture. So we set out to, you know, be a
good, great place to work. And I suppose some of these
things along the way became focuses our focus on EDI.
It happens. My wife's an HR manager, so

(15:35):
she's very focused. So we talk about these things at
home. I come my my family, my wife is
mixed race. So we have those issues.
We have all sorts of things thatwe get talk about the impact on
our daily life and the impact onthe daily life of the partners
effectively picked up and said, well, we can do better.
We can do something about this. So I'm not sure it's something

(15:57):
that we, you know, consciously set out to be the best employer.
We just felt we should do the right thing.
Where we go from now I think is in rebalancing the future is
about how do you know how you high performing organization.
There is a there is a sort of, you know, it's not all soft and
we're wonderful. You know, you've got to have to

(16:18):
it's hard work. You still have to get the work
done. You have to be talented.
You have to to come and work forus.
You have to be quite committed and all those things.
That's not, that doesn't disappear, but keeping the
balance right and keeping the culture comes from the very top
of the organization. And the AJ have often said, they
said the interesting thing aboutHJ clearly comes from the
partner team. And you've clearly got a

(16:38):
fantastic HR team and a studio practice team that kind of
support that and work that and bring new ideas and thinking to
it. But it's not sort of outsourced
to the management team to kind of deliver.
So I don't think that'll ever goaway, but it'll continue to
adjust and evolve, I'm sure. I.
Suppose when when you've invested so much into your

(16:59):
beautiful offices, how and, and obviously you do offer
flexibility working from home practices.
How how do you keep up that level of commitment and work
ethic and it's. It's.
Also balancing, you know, peopleusing your space and and and
getting the most out of it sort of thing.
It's quite a challenge at the moment, I'd say, because not to

(17:20):
want to talk about how difficultthe the market has been, but you
know, really has been very difficult for many.
And a lot of the reaction from that can be, you know, we need
to make this everything needs towork as efficiently, as smoothly
as possible. And that needs everybody to be
in. And the risk of that is it
undoes some of the real benefitsand the gains we've had post
COVID in people having a slightly more flexible approach.

(17:42):
I mean, I think the idea that you have to be at your desk at
9:00. So when we had our kids and my
wife was going off to work, you know, she wasn't, I remember
running from the the nursery to the station to try and get to
your desk at 9:00. I mean, that sounds, that feels
absurd now. And I know some organizations
may be going back towards that sort of idea, but the fact that,
you know, flexibility is absolutely worth its weight in

(18:05):
gold. But at the same time, what we do
does benefit from being together.
We've created a beautiful officespace in our London studio, and
our other studios are nice as lovely as well.
But how do you actually encourage people to be in when
they need to be in? And I think we're wrestling with
that a little bit. I'm not sure we've quite got the
balance right. Because I suppose the general

(18:27):
market is pushing back the. Other it is definitely, you can
see in some surveys that, you know, groups I'm involved in,
it's definitely shifting back towards four or five days a
week. And I think the challenge for us
is to be able to, is to not be pushed in that direction whilst
making sure we're getting, you know, what we need and getting
the most out of everybody. I mean not just for the practice

(18:48):
but for the benefit of their careers.
I worry a little bit, I suppose about the absence of my
formative years in the studio with great people really, you
know, passionate designers and passionate business people who
really I suppose motivated and influenced me.
If you took two days a week, youknow, 40% of your working day,

(19:11):
you were to lose that. That's significant.
Now, there are other benefits that might replace it, but
overall, we, you know, we make the cities and the places that
we we live in. And if we're not moving around
those, and you know, we could stay in our bedroom and see the
whole of the moon, but you know,we'd have to.
No, I, I think you're completelyright.
And I think that is that generational thing of the
attractiveness of flexibility and working from home and that,

(19:32):
but also I think, you know, generationally we understand the
value of being in the office. We understand, you know, just
through osmosis or through hearing conversations or
actually sitting down with a penand pencil with, you know, a
talented designer sort of thing,you can, you can get that
tangible learning, I suppose. And it's really interesting how
the culture of offices has changed.
I mean, I was, I think I arrivedslightly after they'd banned

(19:54):
smoking in offices. But you know, that's 25 years
ago. Some offices still had smoking.
But we were talking about this recently when we well when we
did the office renovation and wetalked about these kind of
booths where you would go and make a call and.
We'd been in a temporary studio for a while, which had been all
a bit too small and hot, But thethese little booze were awful.

(20:15):
They're awful places to spend time.
They made you really consider your, your future options a bit.
So we thought, well, let's not have those.
And then we like, but it's noisyin the studio.
And we reflected on when we all started our careers and people
on the phone all the time shouting at contractors mostly,
or, you know, having conversations with, you know,
the phone was sort of glued to your ear, your drawing board,

(20:37):
and then a computer. But the phone was actually the
thing you spent the whole time on.
And the offices were quite noisy.
We were probably spread out a bit more.
And so we thought, well, we'll do as much as we can to kind of
acoustically soften the space and we'll buy good quality
headphones and, and, and microphones for everybody.
And actually it, it was a great move because people do most of
their calls and meetings at their desk, which means people

(20:59):
around them are picking up that,that, that learning.
And I think so it's a whole hosts of ways that we all need
to learn to work. I think for me, a sort of
mandatory five days a week is will not be a part of our
future. I've said that now I might
regret that, but I can't see whyit would be the way for us to

(21:19):
operate, particularly as actually even pre COVID when we
all went and worked in, you know, our own studios, we worked
across multiple studios anyway and we work with the people that
are most suited to do the project rather than where
they're actually sitting in the office.
So we were working relatively remotely.
So it's kind of inherent. It's a little bit inherent,

(21:42):
yeah. So some of our our regionals
like Manchester and and Bristol are basically formed from senior
people leaving London that we didn't want to lose.
And we were saying, well, why don't you, why don't we set up
there, started with one and now there are kind of 1520 people in
each studio, plus Edinburgh. And so, you know, we were
already working remotely. People in both those studios are

(22:03):
running projects in London and other places.
So it's not that big a leap. The difficult, the thing to
avoid is, you know, four different people on a team in
four different studios never being next to each other.
So you have to work a bit harderat that.
I suppose with that in mind, obviously HCA are
multidisciplinary now with a variety of different, you know,
specific skill sets and roles. How do you think that feeds

(22:26):
into, I suppose, one, the value that you can bring to a client
and to the experience of your employees, you know, being with
those, you know, the architect is next to the interior design,
who's next to the landscape architect.
And I suppose you know, from a client's point of view, the
value you bring in terms of the storytelling and the coherence
of the design by having the sameperson or the same group of

(22:50):
people involved in the design overall.
I. Mean it's interesting that
things start for a particular reason, but you know, reflecting
on it, that changes and as a narrative as you go on.
So that, you know, we started with a problem.
We started with we were we were an architecture practice, HDA
architects, you know, that's So what we did.
And architects then would probably consider themselves to
be able to do everything and to some extent, you know, they even

(23:11):
looked after the cost and that was probably a strength we
should have. We should get back to we should
we should re learn that a skill of being able to manage cost and
and and manage projects generally.
But we had a a landscape projector a project with quite a a
large element of landscape, which the architects sort of
naturally, you know, waded into and realized they had no
understanding or no knowledge ofplanting.

(23:32):
And of course, everything's getting more specialist and more
expert and more sophisticated and more complicated and more
regulated. And 20 years ago, maybe a little
bit, 22 years ago, perhaps now, we we took on James Laud, who's
a landscape architect who has now built a team of nearly 50
landscape architects. And they do amazing work with

(23:54):
us, with us. I say us.
It's not me. I'm, you know, with the
architects have to be careful not to put myself in the
architecture crowd, but they also work with other clients
doing work with other architectsand other practices and that I
suppose we've got a sustainability building physics
team and a interiors team. The interiors team interestingly
came because the client said it would be really useful if you

(24:16):
had an interiors team so that wedidn't have to, you know, get
somebody else to do it. And some clients think there's
nothing better than be able to come to our studio and talk to
us on a number of projects with every discipline including
planning and communications, designer wayfinding.
Others take the view that they would rather have specialists

(24:36):
from different practices. And actually both works fine for
us. It adds.
I think when we were before we did the buy out there was the
business was structured a littlebit in a way that created silos
so there would be a little bit of separation.
We've managed to mostly remove that.
I mean mostly by removing it as a sort of profit centre.

(24:57):
We still report on figures, but it and, and so now it's much
more collaborative in that we, we will each review each other's
projects even if we're not kind of appointed on, on the work.
And I think it adds, it adds a great deal of richness to what
we offer and to the enjoyment ofrunning the business.
In terms the work that you guys do, obviously Asia is known as

(25:20):
a, a sort of housing 1st and you're obviously incredibly
experienced in that sector and have written widely on on that
sort of topic in terms of the sort of evolving market.
HTA is now sort of positioning itself as you know that that
that one of the prominent practices when it comes to Co
living, student accommodation, social housing, things like

(25:41):
that. Again, how much is that sort of
through planning, through strategic sort of movement
because obviously the, the, the,the residential market in London
has changed incredibly, you know, over the last number of
years and we're evolving and, and I think you guys are
reacting incredibly well to that.

(26:01):
And I suppose it's just understanding how intentional
that is. Is it about reactionary
measures? And I suppose also what how you
see that mode of housing in the future and, and, and, and your
role in it. I think it's, it's, it's, it's a
bit of post. On the one hand, we are actually
incredibly strategic and we haveM1 of our partners who's been

(26:24):
there way before I was. But he is out there in the
industry talking to all sorts ofclients, trying to understand
the world. He's big into housing.
He's been a big light in the housing forum and he's written
extensively with people like Mark Farmer on skills and
innovation in the sector. So he's just, he's just into
housing, but he's out there talking to, to clients and, and,

(26:48):
and industry and politicians. So we, we are always looking, I
guess, at what might be next. We the built to rent sector.
We definitely were ahead of thatcurve.
We went to the states probably, I think I went in 2000 and well,
probably so just after the, the finance, so 2010 or something

(27:08):
like that. I can't quite remember, but so a
long time before there was a built in sector here, studied
what they were doing, learnt a bit about it, saw the
differences and similarities. And so when people like Greystar
and other organizations came over, we were lucky enough to
kind of pick them up as a clientand and go with stay with them
for quite a while and and still now today.
So some of it is quite strategic.

(27:30):
On the other hand, things like Co living has come from working
with clients who are in that, inthat rental sector saying
actually, we, you know, we're not sure we can get built to
rent to work on this site. It's not quite right for a
number of reasons. What about, you know, and other
forms of shared living and, and,and Co living was really that
gap between students. So students quite, I suppose

(27:52):
it's, it's quite an established form of living.
We've done quite a lot of student historically.
It works quite well on certain sites, particularly kind of
tight urban sites. And it's great to have students
in, you know, urban locations. And I guess Co living was a
natural case. But we rather than just sort of
let's do a Co living project, wedid a huge amount of research.
We looked at projects around theworld, very kind of lots of

(28:14):
academic and metric analyzing what the spaces work, how much
immunity works, where the immunity should be, what a good
studio size is, things like the width as much as the, the volume
and the, the area, How wide are they?
And then, you know, we, we, someof the research we did on that
was helped used to inform the GLA policy and we were the first
project to be approved by through that policy.

(28:35):
So it's, it's never entirely accidental, but obviously
sometimes things come through clients that you work with
repeatedly that you look at something a bit different and
it's a, it's a bit of an evolution.
And we'll kind of, I mean, we'll, you know, anywhere where
people sleep will probably show an interest in maybe not
prisons, I don't know. And I think the city is, you

(28:57):
know, the city has been in some ways many cities were hollowed
out pre kind of Jane Jacobs, thelife and death of Great American
cities. I remember the difference
between going to Chicago about sort of 15 years apart actually,
from going for the study tour and then going to pick up an
award for one of our built to rent buildings in 2022.
And the difference from the citythat had been turned back in a

(29:18):
place, you know, central Chicagois a place to live have
completely transformed it in a fantastic way.
Now, London hasn't suffered in that way.
The most European cities haven'tsuffered like the American
cities. But you know, the benefit of
having lots of people living in a quite high density environment
in the city is, is is evident. And if that involves some

(29:39):
height, well, I'm pretty comfortable.
I've lived in a tall building before.
It's I thought it was fantastic.So bit of height is fine as long
as it brings the green space andthe amenities that go with it.
And, and do you think it, it sort of it brings about an
interesting and novel kind of design opportunities because of
those, I suppose because of the proximity of the people, because

(29:59):
of the sort of shared space sortof thing.
What you lose in your, your private space, you gain in your
social space. And I guess it is, I mean, you
know, from, from when I've sort of studied it before, it's, it's
kind of you're heightening all of those social aspects and,
and, and things like that. And it's almost like a a
neighborhood within one. I mean, that's that if when it

(30:20):
works well and it's designed well and there are some great
examples in London, that is absolutely the benefit you can
you can achieve from it. And I think we're doing a good
job in the in London in particular.
And it's beginning to move. We begin to see it happening,
Manchester and and Birmingham and other places, but you know,
it's a bit more ahead of the curve, bit more established in
London. But some of the built and

(30:41):
operating examples, you know, they really are brilliantly
designed and they have they offer a great service to the to
the people who live there. I mean, I reflected on this when
we first started looking at Co living and I think a journalist
said, you know, rabbit hutches in the sky or something like
that. And you said, well, look, when I

(31:01):
moved to the city and I didn't know people or there wasn't, you
know, space for the people I knew.
You end up renting a room in a house with people you don't know
and you get 10 square meters to yourself and then a shared
bathroom and shared other space.And you and you, you pay quite a
lot for that. This you get a 20 square meter
studio with your own bathroom and a bit of a kitchen and all
of this shared space. So on the first, you know, an,

(31:23):
an, an opportunity to meet lots of people without having to
actually share the toothpaste with them.
So on the one hand, it's a massive, it's a fantastic offer.
I think on the other hand, on this pure space, if you take a,
you know, a, a 70 square meter, 2 bedroom, four person to get a
technical, what do they have 17 1/2 square meters each between,

(31:45):
you know, divided that by four in a Co living scheme, you've
probably got 20 plus square meters to yourself and all that
shared amenity space, which, youknow, if it's not particularly
busy on a days, can be thousandsof square meters.
So I think I don't even think the metric argument really
stacks up either. And I think there are lots of
people who don't want huge amounts of space, who would

(32:06):
rather pay a little bit less, have a serviced safe environment
because their life involves moretravel or staying at work a lot
or socializing. And that it is the place to keep
some stuff and, and sleep and and be safe.
So I think we need to, we're, we're quite rigid in the UK and
in London in particular on our regulations.

(32:27):
And the problem with standards is that even kind of guidance
quickly becomes sort of the, the, the requirement of
planning. We're spending some time in
other cities giving modular advice and finding that quite a
lot of other cities have adoptedsimilar sorts of standards and
everybody is kind of fighting against them the whole time.
How do we get round this? How, which rules should we break

(32:47):
a little bit? And maybe it has to be that way.
But at the same time we are, youknow, we're sort of hard up
against quite a lot of regulation and standard, which
makes it quite difficult to, to innovate, I think and to be
creative sometimes. So it's just why we're, I mean,
the, the, the examples that you're using obviously feel very
sort of generational and the next generation coming through

(33:09):
and using space differently. So it's just to bring it back to
practice. You know, how do you feel like
the next generation of people inyour practice and people coming
through, you know, what are the lessons they could learn from
your career and the, you know, and, and, and from, you know,
your practice sort of thing? I mean, how do you how?
Do you? How do you keep that next

(33:31):
generation coming in the door, passionate about architecture
and I suppose also, you know, understanding the evolving role
of the architect in all of that because, you know, they're going
to have to combat, you know, just like you've gone from one
generation to another of drawingboards to different software,
they're going to have to combat.With.
This whole AI technology shift and and shifting patterns in

(33:53):
other. Things as well.
I mean, I suppose I'd reflect how incredibly lucky the next
generation always is because it doesn't have the downsides of
the previous generation. So that's the first sort of
starting point. You know, the the other side of
that leaning out the other way are the negatives that generally
turn up that you didn't expect. At the same time, you know, some
people talk about the safety of the world.

(34:14):
My recollection is we grew up with it under quite a big shadow
of the Cold War. You know, it seems absurd now.
So every, every generation that has, it's kind of it's, it's
fears and worries actually on the whole, the workplace now is
a much, much better place for many more people than it was a
generation ago. Even in the 20 years, 25 years
I've been working in a particular practice, I think

(34:36):
employment practices have improved, choice and opportunity
have improved. But I think the risk is that
hunger has possibly diminished. And I, I sort of hesitate to say
something quite so bold because obviously everybody's different.
But I think when I turned up to London, I was, I was just

(34:58):
absolutely hungry to, to learn as much as I could and to
achieve as much as I could and to improve my understanding as
much as I could as quickly as possible.
I just wanted to kind of make progress and I felt that the
only way to do that was to work really like all the time.
And there wasn't actually much else to do because museums
weren't free and everything was,you know, we didn't have any

(35:20):
money. So we worked all the time and
then we'd go to the pub and hopefully a partner or director
would be there to buy a couple of drinks and then we'd go back
to work. Now, we probably didn't quite
get the balance right then either, but we did make some
progress really quickly. And I don't think that's ever
really. And having made some progress
and reflected that the hard workgot you through that progress,

(35:40):
even when you were sort of in those moments thinking, Oh my
God, I'm never going to get these bathroom, you know,
drawings, this door schedule done.
You did get it done. And then you moved on to the
next thing. And every time an opportunity
came up, I sort of took it and thought, I'll run that project.
I did a list of building renovation in Baker Street.
And then I took on a big projectin Gibraltar.

(36:01):
And then I used to fly to Dundeeand Aberdeen to do projects up
there. And I just sort of, I worked all
the time, but I absolutely lovedit.
And I did a recently did a, a kind of how to run a practice
sort of thing with the London School of Architecture.
And my reflection was, you know,architecture is like the best
career. There is no better career than

(36:22):
being an architect in my view. Providing you're prepared to
work really, really, really hard.
And then it can be fantastic andthe rewards can be amazing.
But if, but if not, if it's not like if you're not hungry enough
to work all the time, there are better things to do and say and
easier things to do that would possibly be more financially

(36:43):
rewarding. It's funny because I, I've got
lots of friends who do lots of other things other than
architecture and they all work really, really, they know they
do quite well, but they work really, really hard too.
And sometimes reflect that. Maybe that's the point.
It's nothing to do with architecture.
It's to do. And then I sort of reflect what
else is there, you know, yoga ona Friday or walking the dog or

(37:04):
all the things that you might sort of decide you don't want to
work so that you can do. Those things are much more fun
when you've finished a great week of work.
I do lots of things too, but I don't know, I think that's where
it started and I just, I, I think I never forgot had to had
to keep working. No, I, I think that's a really
great take away from it, isn't it?

(37:24):
It's about it. You know the work ethic in the
in. The the brilliant, just to add,
was that the brilliant thing about today that wasn't there
before? And I, I mentioned earlier about
that, you know, being in trouble.
Not so much me, but you know, I remember more my wife being in
trouble, not being at the desk at 9:00.
I mean that the change to that is fantastic.
The fact that I can leave work at a certain time to go and do

(37:46):
something and cycle off and see the kids at a school event or
something and be back and forth and work remotely and, you know,
drop in and do an event. Last night I did.
And then I did a piece of work when I got home and then I had
to pick it up again at a call at7:00 in the morning and I've got
to go and do something not to work this afternoon.
The flexibility I think is is isis beneficial for everybody.

(38:09):
But that is that just the technological shift or is that
the trust angle? I think it's, it's technology
allowed it, but trust, you know,it was, it was crucial for it to
actually be to work. And I think you, you know,
everybody abuses that trust at their at our collective peril.
You know, if suddenly it gets tothe point where everybody says
trust is broken down, you're coming back into the office or,

(38:31):
you know, you're 9:00 to 5:30 again, you know, we, we
potentially, you know, I don't know, we the risk is you lose
all of those, those those benefits, some of the benefits
have only come by accident through COVID.
Yeah, sure. But they're genuine benefits,
and they're benefits that we should all exploit.
You know, I mean that in a positive way.
And I suppose with that in mind,you know, if, if I'm a
practitioner listening to this or I'm a, an architect thinking

(38:53):
about starting my own practice and you know, I honestly want to
take a lesson from your ethos and the things you've done well.
Is it just about giving a damn and ethos and and wanting to
make a change that all these things can happen?
Trusting your staff, you know, adding in the obviously the
technological angle allows you to do these things.
You know, why can't more practices do this?

(39:18):
Well, I think maybe some of the lots are, aren't they?
Aren't they? I don't, I maybe, I don't know,
I naively think, perhaps naivelythink that more practices are
being more flexible and trusting.
I might be completely wrong. I don't know.
I think you, you, I mean, obviously you have to trust your
staff. You put a huge amount of trust
in your staff every single day. They have access to all of the

(39:40):
information they have. You know, you feel this if there
ever is any sort of breach wheresomething gets reported to the
press or something that's clearly come from inside or, you
know, I don't know, you have things where you think my, the
trust has been breached. And I feel really, I feel awful
about it. And I feel, I know it's a, it's
a terrible feeling. So that doesn't happen very

(40:02):
often at all, if at all, becausetrust staff are generally quite
trustworthy. Everyone's quite, people are
trustworthy. Yeah, people are generally.
They're generally. Do the right thing and actually
they might be doing nothing at home, but plenty of people come
to the office and do nothing in,in lots of employment
situations. So if it being at home allows

(40:23):
them a message from, you know, one of the team today who was
coming in because we're doing a review and we had some to get
that to the client, but has beenup all night with their kid.
Their kids not well, can't go toschool, but it's going to
probably sleep most of the day. And I know them, they will be
getting on with some work and they'll do loads of work.
And so if you were rigid and youdidn't allow that flexibility
and it wasn't part of the kind of culture and that person

(40:44):
didn't feel comfortable just being able to report that, I
think you would you would lose it.
So you've got to trust them, gotto trust everybody.
They trust you to look after them.
You've got to trust them to lookafter you.
And the extent to which some people breach that trust by not
doing any work, you can quickly,you know, notice that and you
can deal with it, just deal withthe individual issues, not a
collective point. I mean, for the future of

(41:07):
practice, if we're looking up more trust everybody, but
actually demand a lot. You know, you can't, you can't
make progress in any industry for any business without being
pretty demanding. But I think what does that look
that what, what does that mean? It doesn't mean you've got to be
here 16 hours a day putting in just putting in time for time's

(41:28):
sake. It does mean you've got to
produce, you know, great work and you've got to show your
commitment and be interested andcurious perhaps in more things.
I mean, it's interesting to talkabout the next generation and
AIAI is the big opportunity thatwe're led to believe we're using
it in the practice in lots of different ways.
But interesting how most of the exploration work is being done

(41:51):
by more senior people, perhaps people who are, who understand
the problem they've got to solve.
People who have struggled with written word, jumping onto
ChatGPT and other GBT tools and cloud and other things that
allow them to check their work or to start them off or to give
them a quick 200 words that theycan edit or whatever it might be

(42:11):
shortcuts. And it's kind of interesting
that those that are stepping up into the practice, creating
tools that then can be used by the rest of the practice are are
more senior people. And yet when I we were younger,
definitely a lot of that. Let's download this new tool
called SketchUp was coming from the younger, the younger people.
So as have we lost something along the way?

(42:33):
Has it is, is the hunger gone orare they expectations different?
Possibly a little bit. Maybe there's a cultural
rebalancing to be to be found, but I don't know.
Yeah, interesting. I suppose just coming coming to
an end then obviously we've reflected on your career, we've
reflected on your practice, yourwork and you know the the things

(42:56):
that you've done as a as a practitioner and employer, that
sort of thing with AI. Suppose with that transition
from starting as a Part 2, now managing partner, has your
career turned out how you imagined is?
Is being an architect in 2025 what you could have ever
perceived it to be and and the evolution that it has been from,

(43:19):
you know, those early days? I think, I don't think the job
that I do now is that different from the job that I might have
assumed the job would be 25 years ago.
But I don't think I expected to be doing this job.
And part of that is probably I've never really looked a long

(43:39):
way ahead. I've never sort of had the kind
of end goal. There were certain things that
I've felt I really would want toachieve that.
But it's not necessarily been ina professional sense.
We've, I think back to where I started, the fortune of being
thrust into a group of like minded people quite early on in
your career and having a kind ofcollective run at it together.

(44:00):
Has, has, has, has allowed us all to build a bit of momentum
and to do more together than we would have done on our own.
So, so perhaps possibly that's helped to outstrip.
I don't, I think I've always probably been reasonably
ambitious. I've been reasonably motivated
and I'm pretty keen to work quite hard with this trip.

(44:20):
We, we did a trip to Sydney for some projects we're involved in
with a fellow colleague, Sandy and Morrison, who's our head of
design. And we got back to the end of
it. And Santi commented that, you
know, it was possibly the best trip you'd ever done because
being with me a, we got to work all the time.
And when we weren't working, we were probably having a drink.
And therefore you combined the social and the professional

(44:43):
activities together and a kind of an ability to just kind of
keep going at it and keep improving it and keep refining
it and keep looking for better and keep opening your
imagination to the possibilities.
And we've, I think we've managedto do that in our decade, 12
years as the practice we've run,we've become much more open

(45:05):
minded to the lack of limitationon the possibilities.
And being in housing, it was allof our choices.
It's what we're interested in, but it is actually kind of the
global problem to solve and tools and AI and our work in in
off site construction and thingslike that are all part of that
solution. But you know, I've said a few

(45:26):
times around things like that, you know, all of the crises that
we live around at the moment, cost of living crises.
Well, you could argue the cost of living crisis is actually a
housing crisis. Because if we weren't paying so
much for our housing and we weren't less well and less well
educated and less well located and drive, having to drive a car
or then we would have much more disposable income to cover the
cost of things that are always fluctuating, food, fuel, those

(45:49):
sorts of things are quite prone to market distortions.
And it's only really now that we're putting so much of our
earned income into where we livethat we create additional levels
of crisis. We're less well.
So we need more money for the NHS.
If we were a little bit healthier because we had a
healthier housing. So I mean, you know, that's a
very, it's, it's a professional centric view around what I

(46:12):
actually specialize in. I would say that, wouldn't I?
But I think, you know, every global city now has done a great
job of making itself popular. People have moved to the city
for economic reasons, and they all have the same problem, which
is not enough good affordable housing.
And we need to solve that. So that is really exciting for

(46:34):
architects. I mean, it's really exciting for
HDA, obviously, but it's what wedo.
But for architects, who often have not had much of A say or a
voice in housing, it's a great chance to kind of add that value
and turn ourself around. With that in mind and and with
an ambition to obviously with HTA, you know, housing based

(46:55):
solving problems in the future, what do you think is next for
your career? You know, what is, I mean,
you've obviously, you know, communicated that hunger and I
think that's something that's come through the whole
conversation is, is having that hunger and drive and something
that seems to have followed you all throughout your career.
You know what is what is next and what is the what is the big
thing that you're hungry for in your career?

(47:15):
Well, if we, if we sort of take on the kind of perma crisis of
the, of the, of the global condition at the moment, it's
not just the UK, but the UK has obviously had a pretty chaotic
decade where not a lot of forward momentum has been
managed. There's been some seismic
events, but they haven't actually pushed things forward
in a kind of upward and, you know, upward direction.

(47:37):
So if we're in a crisis, we've got to find some solutions.
I mean, I've said before that we're in a mode of kind of
multiple crises, but most of them could be kind of tracked
back to the housing crisis in lots of ways.
You know, the global cities havedone a fantastic job of making
themselves attractive. We've just finished a project at
Canary Wharf where you can now go wild swimming and there are

(47:57):
floating islands with trees and it's biodiverse and has
fantastic urban greening factorsand all these other things.
So people want to be in the city, but there isn't good
enough housing and there's not affordable housing.
And so people are in, you know, dire housing need and they're
paying so much for their housingas a result that they're
actually they have less money, disposable income for food and

(48:18):
medicine and all the other travel and other things they
want to do, bringing about things like cost of living
crisis. So, you know, food and fuel and
all these things have always fluctuated, but they've always
been probably within kind of a margin that didn't actually
match too much because people had potential access to
disposable income. If you're spending half of your
income on housing, the third, a third of your income on housing

(48:39):
is, is the sort of recognized maximum sensible level.
Much more, many people are spending a lot more than that.
Then you know, everything else is going to is going to suffer.
So we've got to solve the housing crisis and it's a global
problem, all global cities and we're going to visiting quite a
few at the moment, advising on things like off site
construction, modular construction, which we have a

(49:01):
pretty strong track record in. People are trying to find
solutions and you know, we will find solutions and actually
brilliantly, most of the solutions exist.
It's a little bit like the energy crisis.
You know, if only we had a way of creating free clean energy
from the sun and wind, we could solve this.
Oh, hang on a minute. We do so a little bit like

(49:23):
housing we have built, designed,not built, sorry, but designed
and delivered the tallest modular building in the world.
It's 50 storeys and it's in Croydon, would you believe.
And the one next to it, which is44 storeys, I think it's the
third tallest in the world. So the UK has actually got a
really strong reputation for delivering some housing at the
the cutting edge of delivery. And that is the next portable

(49:47):
technology and expertise. Other countries are trying to do
it and there there's some way behind, but they're, you know,
they will get there and we can help them get there more
quickly. So there's lots to do.
There's lots to do in a better way than we've done it before,
you know, and we know how everyone you know, it's
possible. It's been done, it's been tried
and tested. It's not sort of made-up.

(50:09):
It can benefit from new technologies, AI enabled
technologies and better modes ofcommunication.
And we can, you know, no doubt solve that crisis.
And in doing so, if we are able to kind of restore the value of
the design team within the widerdevelopment structure, to see

(50:29):
them as kind of key, not just toactually just getting the job
done, but to getting it done in a better, a way that's better,
that's more sustainable, lastingly popular, that people
are still enjoying it in 30 years time.
Yeah, sure. We need to replace bits and
pieces. But, you know, people want to
live here because it was brilliantly designed and good
examples of housing over our, you know, our history have

(50:51):
always stood the test of time. The bad ones have not have not
survived. So we can do that.
And that's exciting. I mean, we've always been quite
domestically focused as a practice because housing is
tends to be a local issue. But all of a sudden there are
kind of technological reasons and, and, and particular areas
of, of expertise that we may find ourselves travelling a

(51:12):
little bit more, which is quite exciting if it, if it yields
results. So a bit of that, I think we'll
continue to develop the expertise in different housing
areas. I think renovation and and
retrofit refurbishment, whateveryou want to call it has been a

(51:33):
big part of the practice history, but not recently.
And I think we would expect to do more.
It's a really difficult gig in housing because many buildings
are, you know, struggle to be converted.
It's risky and expensive, but actually in the City, in London,
old older cities, increasingly office building's going to be

(51:54):
obsolete for office function because of the expected
requirements for energy use. I said they need to be
refurbished in something else and that's most likely to be
housing. And it's going to be really
interesting when Sailor Lloyds building comes up for no longer
fit for purpose as an office. Do we get to turn it into

(52:15):
housing? You know, imagine that back to
where? Right back where I started with
that magazine from, from my grandparents architect friends.
So I mean, all of that is kind of there.
The potential that I think is also significant.
We've just done a refurbishment project on a a historic mansion
block where we managed to insertI think more than 100 ground

(52:37):
source heat pumps between the buildings, which is now running
effectively clean and in due course, quite, quite likely more
cost effective energy. So many, so many areas of
potential, so little time. Brilliant.
I think we'll call it a day. So thank you so much for joining
me. Really inspirational.

(52:59):
Thanks for having me conversation.