Back to The Drawing Board - S4E4 - Get What you Pay For

Navigating the architectural landscape can be tricky, especially when the implications of pricing unfold. We unpack the philosophy behind spending wisely while maintaining quality in architectural design, emphasizing the importance of research and understanding needs. 
• Importance of investing in quality design 
• Researching potential architects or designers 
• Recognizing the value of good tools and resources 
• Learning from past project experiences 
• Balancing client expectations and project reality 
• Collaboration with consultants to enhance designs 
• Clear communication about project requirements and budgets

Transcript

Get What You Pay For

Speaker 1 0:00

This is definitely. They're definitely fully going to be in this.

Speaker 2 0:02

No, I don't think they will Just hear everyone through the wall.

Speaker 1 0:12

You've clearly had a hard afternoon. I would say me too. I'm a little bit too warm Just on the edge where I'm beginning to.

Speaker 2 0:20

Is that why you've not got a?

Speaker 1 0:21

coffee. I had hot chocolate. I had the chilli hot chocolate packet from that, the chilli hot chocolate packet. Yeah, I like chilli, I like hot chocolate.

Speaker 2 0:31

Oh, in the velvetiser, yeah, oh, I need to drink that I don't think they should go together. Chilli and chocolate. It's a really good combo.

Speaker 1 0:39

Oh, I could not, and it sounds good, but just for me, keep them apart. I have my chili on my savory and my chocolate in my mouth and I like to pay for good chocolate, and sometimes good chocolate is more expensive.

Speaker 2 0:54

But worth it, but worth it, which brings us on to the point of today's episode.

Speaker 1 1:01

Can we pay for what you pay for?

Speaker 2 1:05

Well, that's the title. Before we put it through, the AI thing that generates a title for us. But yeah, what I'm going to try and do is we generate AI titles.

Speaker 1 1:16

Oh, we do. Do you not just like? Do you generate titles through AI?

Speaker 2 1:20

Do you know when I send you those suggestions of names Sometimes? Do you know when I go?

Speaker 1 1:24

here's my idea and then here's the ones that AI generate for us Well, because we've got the AI script that we'll most likely ignore. I do love the quotes at the bottom, yeah those ones.

Speaker 2 1:33

I think I only used it to generate those quotes.

Speaker 1 1:36

We're distracted and we haven't even begun yet.

Speaker 2 1:38

Well, that's all part of it. It's all part of it. The wrong part of the plan. What plan? Um, what were we talking about? I don't know. All I can think about is you saying the word chocolate 15 times chocolate chocolate, um, yeah, get what you pay for. But what I'm gonna try and do is not turn this into some sort of business advice podcast where I'm essentially preaching to people how to do their job, because I don't think it's my place. But if you take from this some information that might inform how you go about procuring work, fellow architects, then maybe it's of use.

Speaker 1 2:17

Architects, clients, students and the rest.

Speaker 2 2:19

Yeah, so without further ado.

Speaker 1 2:22

I am.

Speaker 2 2:23

Phil Wanton-Smith, director at PWS Architectural Design, and this is what I paid for, theo.

Speaker 1 2:32

And you got what you paid for Very little.

Speaker 2 2:38

Six foot nine. I got a lot none of it of quality. Oh, I'm pretty sure everyone's already going to get the gist of what this is about, so we might as well just roll the credits Me, me, me me Look, stop being so cheap, right. Stop being so cheap. He says, sitting on a chair we stole from one of the other offices when they closed.

Speaker 1 3:18

And it creaks and you might hear that that could be my knees, and luckily you won't hear it, because we paid for good microphones. Now the thing about these microphones is we researched them, yes, and we knew they would be worth the money. Just, they knew they were right for us. Yeah, and they knew we would do what we needed them to do, just like an architect can do for you if you research them.

Speaker 1 3:38

What a segue a terrible, terrible segue if you know your needs, you can find the right designer for you. And this is clearly advice for potential clients out there, for Mike, because he's our only listener, and for my mum and for your mum.

Speaker 2 3:57

My mum might be, though she does keep saying that if dad goes first, she'll buy a plot of land next to the sea in Whitby and have me do her a house.

Speaker 1 4:05

My gran always says oh, design a bungalow for us. Sure thing, isn't she dead? No, not the dead one, she didn't say much at all.

Speaker 2 4:16

Just with the.

Speaker 1 4:17

Ouija board. She's poor at conversation Get what you pay for.

Speaker 2 4:24

But yeah, no, I know you're going with. This Makes sense.

Invest in Quality Design Services

Speaker 1 4:27

Yeah, look the whole point and everyone knows it. Some people don't want to admit it, but if you pay for cheapness, you better hope you're paying a really broke student who actually just wants the money because, quite frankly, they might actually put the effort in. I'll pay you good money. Don't give't give me that. No, I'm not talking about that, but I just mean like, for example, when you were starting up and you'd not charge a lot because I didn't know how much to charge.

Speaker 2 4:51

Yeah, but you put that in a pin for the next how much to charge.

Speaker 1 4:55

But you'd then give a long way. And that's kind of getting lucky with taking a punt on someone and hoping that they don't charge you much because they don't have the right to charge you that much yet, but then finding someone who kind of is more developed and more well known and has developed their own style, if you've researched them and kind of know and you like this and you like them.

Speaker 2 5:16

You have to be willing to pay for their style that is true and, strangely enough, because obviously we've we've had this now, especially recently as as well put this down, where people have come to us and said, oh, we want you to do it.

Speaker 1 5:28

And then they go. No, we don't want that.

Speaker 2 5:33

Or they then get, but then they get pleasantly surprised by the fee proposal. So that's always been a nice one. But you should always aim for the we should overcharge people more, no more, we should start. We should overcharge people more, no More, we should start. Yeah, we should.

Speaker 1 5:50

Starting tomorrow.

Speaker 2 5:52

Expensive people Inquiries coming in tomorrow. Thank you Now the which will be the day before this comes out, because we're leaving this one last minute.

Speaker 1 6:01

Oh, I wasn't sure how we were looking with this schedule. As you would like saturday, yeah, no, that's bad yeah anyway.

Speaker 2 6:09

Yeah, get what you pay for research into what you want before you jump into it. We find a lot of the time, especially places I've worked at previously, where we specialize in doing a lot of commercial things, and you get a residential client coming to you. One of two things happens either you're to get put at the bottom of the pile because you're going to be a low fee to workload ratio, or you've come to us thinking that we can undertake a project of that scale, which typically they can, but it's not usually kind of worth it. But on the opposite side of the scale, you then get. Get the people who and we've had it before where someone I went out to do a consultation with someone they said they'd had an extension done previously and they paid their. Well, they called them architect. I looked at the plans.

Speaker 2 6:52

They were not big when someone hasn't got their name on it. No logo, no contact details, nothing. And it says something. I think it was just a some a draftsman and it was drawn by hand and it wasn't very they were very, very poor, um, and she said she's paid 300 pounds cash for a little box rear extension, which equated to one plan and one section through, and the notes didn't meet regulations. And the reason that she got us involved was because for this bigger side, two-story side extension, a loft conversion, she wanted it done properly and she wanted it. She wanted to not have a builder complain that the drawings weren't good enough.

Speaker 1 7:35

No, or that the drawings existed in the first place.

Speaker 2 7:37

Yeah, and she understood when speaking to her that it was going to be a more expensive service because it would work out more beneficial for the project in the long run. And we always say to people that we can negate quite a lot of the costs of things going wrong, trying to not have to censor myself on site. And that's the big thing with us particularly is we do a lot of that coordination steel M&E electrical, even though I've just said that in M&E a lot of these things floor finishes we do a lot of that coordination steel M&E electrical, even though I've just said that in M&E a lot of these things floor finishes. We do a lot of that thinking whilst it's on paper before it hits site. That way you're not hitting site delays, you're not hitting expensive question marks.

Speaker 2 8:13

So a prime example I've seen before where someone a builder friend of ours has called to say Phil, I need your help. This other architect's drawings blah, blah, blah, and we've gone to site and there's a steel that's at like 1.5 meters off the ground and it's meant to be holding up a doorway. So there's a lot of things like that. If you can cover those up front, then you save. You know what could be a couple of grand's worth of mistake on site yeah can be covered in less than a couple of grand's worth of good design.

Speaker 2 8:42

Good designing, a good drawing. So that's usually how we phrase it when we speak with clients. Yeah, when we go to consultations be it us two or be it other members of our team that's one thing that we use to justify. The other thing as well, of course, is that we've got the like, it's the expertise. Yes, I don't know. I've kind of covered that in the last one where I've said we've got the ability to put this together, but it's kind of showing that first thing and that's what people, that's what people should be looking for. It's not that we're not making stuff up as well, it's that we actually know that it's going to work.

Speaker 1 9:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:13

And we're not.

Speaker 1 9:14

you're not going to get into that One thing I find interesting is overcompensating on your wall, because when you inevitably find out you haven't made it big enough, you don't suddenly lose meters off your house. Yep 300 will do, and again that's what we have up front.

Speaker 2 9:34

First thing we do we start drawing up a concept. We know pretty soon, right, this is how we're going to build it, this is how deep it will be and because of this is how we're going to build it, we know how the structure is going to work. If we're putting a big opening, are we going?

Speaker 1 9:46

to need this, that the other. That comes down to a lot, I suppose doing your research before you even put your pen to paper and experience, yeah and for a lot of mine, was hands-on experience.

Speaker 2 9:55

I spent a lot of time on sites early doors on, admittedly, much larger commercial projects, but they were domestic construction methods of a 96-bed care home single story. It's basically a gigantic bungalow. It's built in the same way that we would build an extension, pretty much with some various tweaks. But obviously one of the things that I suppose we do a lot of where we're putting our money where our mouth is is that Apple, apple, apple. Where have my phones gone? Apple? We use apple everything and I know that people are probably gonna be like just an apple fanboy. Admittedly I am an apple fanboy, but we've got a max out there that still works and it uses it for admin, and I bought that when I was oh god, how old was I? Oh man, 2009, so I'd have been 16.

Speaker 1 10:44

2009.

Speaker 2 10:45

And that still works. You can run CAD on that. Yeah, I wouldn't try and run SketchUp, it might catch fire, but you can run. We run CAD. Hannah does some admin tasks from that. It still works to this day. Yeah, the OS doesn't update.

Speaker 1 10:59

Well, that's the only problem with Mac, I suppose, is that a lot of Apple devices are designed for obsoletion.

Speaker 2 11:07

So are all things now?

Speaker 1 11:08

Well, Microsoft, you just put a new chip in it. You can't customize your Apple stuff obviously.

Speaker 2 11:13

Well, you can, you can put that piece in, you can't. On the new ones, admittedly Yours. You've screwed that, you're fine, that one you can.

Speaker 1 11:18

Yeah, but that's because it has window pieces in it. That doesn't. It's got an Intel chip, hasn't it? It's not a Windows piece.

Speaker 2 11:23

No it's all Windows Anyway. It's all Windows to me and I have found in the past and touch wood, it continues for a long time All of my Apple products are bomb-proof. You know this has been the workhorse. This is what I started the business on in 2018, and it's now 2025, and I still use it to this day. I take it home, I use it for everything but Enscape, because Enscape only works on the new M series of chips, this Series 3 watch that I've I want to see you run CAD off that.

Speaker 2 11:58

Yeah, watch. Do you know, when people use a calculator to run Doom, just do that, but with CAD on my watch. But I've always like we spend a lot of money on our computers several thousand pounds on the computers, I mean, I think. But they do the jobs well, we have no problems.

Speaker 1 12:18

I remember the time when we first got this and we found that scatter program we were trying to. We were struggling to see if we could make this computer crash, and we didn't. We didn't. We can't make a crash, it uncrashed itself. Yeah, it was incredible. I mean, when you're using these for what you're meant to use them, for which obviously we've researched in advance, we know what we're paying for and they do it well, they don't half-ass their jobs no, and that's you know that?

Speaker 2 12:45

that's the key thing, because, instead of spending several hundred pounds, to compute.

Speaker 2 12:51

You're gonna have to keep upgrading yeah, we just spend it once and have something that lasts over a decade, in that case 15 years. I've had that Like a pair of school shoes. I've had that, and I've even got the MacBook that I bought at the same time as that. Admittedly, though, I did Frankenstein that for a friend's laptop so he could get through his, his part 3. So I should probably get in touch with him and ask for all my stuff back and he ends up taking the hard drive, the RAM. No, he didn't take the motherboard in the end, he didn't need to. But yeah, we Frankensteined the hell out of that. But yeah and it's funny because now I've started a consultancy role at another company and for a construction company, it's a bit of a favour of a friend job that the computer they've given me has four gigabytes of ram, so I can't open cad, which is disastrous which is kind of useful as an architectural consultant, the well, I'm design management consultant.

Speaker 2 13:46

Anyway. When you type on the keyboard it bends and flexes and it's yeah, it's just not good, it's really bad. And when I was talking to them about they were like oh yeah, we'll be getting rid of all of those machines, um, that we got at the beginning of last year. We'll be getting rid of all of them, bearing in mind mine's number 13, so there's at least 13 that they're going to get rid of this year. And they said in the next month or two. So they've I don't know how much they'll have spent on it.

Speaker 1 14:15

And if you, I mean well, not as much as you would spend on 13 Macs, but they're replacing them in a year.

Speaker 2 14:23

Yeah well, he said, they've just become obsolete. He's like oh, they're obsolete within eight, nine months. Which? I find crazy, that's insane. But I mean, if they just put some more money into, I've got a literal hard drive, not not solid state, it's got a hard drive, mad, it's just slower. And yeah, that's insane. But yeah, they say we, we always try them every year.

Speaker 1 14:47

I mean that would be. That would actually put us out of business for trying to replace every single one of these. Buying one of them almost does that's fair, um, but yeah, that's.

Speaker 2 14:58

Obviously you spend a lot of money in the first place, but you don't really have to purchase them. I feel like we save a lot of money in the long run, like you'll probably have that for another million years, five, ten years. Um, as long as it's supported by apple, it'll still be useful.

Speaker 1 15:12

I think that's the only problem is it's as long as it's up to them when they choose to stop supporting it.

Speaker 2 15:17

Well, they've only stopped, kind of at their mercy. Yeah, but it'll be fine. Um, but yeah, we apply this to pretty much everything. To be honest, um, honestly, you can't see it over there on the camera. But.

Speaker 2 15:30

I buy nice shoes and the nice shoes make my feet feel good, to mean that I'm not suffering, and means also that they'll last a long time. I've had these for two or three years. I've had those, my hiking ones, my hiking versions of these shoes. I've had them for 2019. We got them, so that's six years my doc martins.

Speaker 1 15:47

I've had since I was in my first year of a level. I remember I would go for a pair of school shoes every every single year and then I got them and I still haven't replaced them. I'll find my other. I had a pair of school shoes every every single year and then I got them and I still haven't replaced them, I'll find my other.

Speaker 2 15:59

I had a pair of shoes that I got because I got a cheap pair for when we went away and you can see where I've like worn through in the heel and worn through under, like the pad of my foot before your toes, whereas with these they're like they still look brand new.

Speaker 1 16:11

It's mad well, they look like they've seen a few days on site they've seen, yeah they have.

Speaker 2 16:15

These are my site shoes um, so they will have seen a few days on site, um, but yeah, and it's the thing it's like. I think we've covered a lot of this stuff where we've talked about, like you know, tech drawings and planning proposals, blah, blah um, I think knowing, knowing your worth is important, and knowing to say to people which I I still don't Cause. I've got crippling imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1 16:38

No, it's a to people. Look, you're going to get more when you pay more for me.

Speaker 2 16:45

Yeah, and some do and like some don't like it.

Speaker 1 16:48

I almost feel like that's a risk you sometimes have to take, because if you, if they don't want it, then you kind of have to think they're not the client for us.

The Value of Quality Design

Speaker 2 16:58

Yeah, and I think that's one thing that we're slowly getting into A good example of someone who's willing to pay for good advice and good design and everything is I can't name the name because of 395 Underground man Cave, yeah, where he said I've got a really stupid idea. Can you draw it?

Speaker 1 17:16

And we said we'll draw it.

Speaker 2 17:17

And we said and we drew it and said look, you're going to pay us hourly rates, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 17:20

For us to give you an idea that we don't think will work, and he said I know, but I need to see it and I need you to explain why it's a bad idea. So we drew it, we explained why it was a bad idea, we put it to bed. Idea yeah, he did. He got the idea of not doing the idea yeah, sorted, um. But it always reminds us of that grand designs episode with the uh, the lighthouse watchtower thing. You know, the one where he spent I think he spent about 12 million pounds or something daft and it was just like changing things on site and adding things to it.

Speaker 1 17:57

And yeah, oh, is that the one where he lost all of his family?

Speaker 2 18:02

Yes, it is, and like his entire life.

Speaker 1 18:03

Wasn't he the architect?

Speaker 2 18:05

No, I'm sure he. No, he was a record recording artist. He signs on. Yeah, he owns a record label. I'm sure I think it's that one I'm thinking of.

Speaker 2 18:14

I could be thinking of a different one where basically he had Saddest grand design. He had no drawings and he was winging it and it was just costing loads and loads. Is that or it was? I think there was one recently as well last year where they did a lighthouse. They took down a lighthouse or something and built a new one and the just winged up a design, got it through planning and then there was loads of discrepancies on site and things going wrong and it was a lot of oh, we'll work that out on site rather than having it all pre-planned. And then they were coming across problems of all the windows don't work right and this detail's not right and because none of it had been thought through. Obviously I think that's not an instance of not paying for good advice. I think he was more. I'm going to help out a family member and that kind of bit him in the arse a bit, but he probably didn't pay much for the drawings.

Speaker 1 19:03

Yeah, he probably didn't pay for them.

Speaker 2 19:05

I suppose it brings us back to that initial point of just because something's expensive, it might not actually be better. Do research.

Speaker 1 19:12

I remember you've told me about one guy who you're looking at some of his prices. He was an architect or someone was telling you about his prices and they were just massively inflated and basically what you would do is, whenever he had work on, he would charge loads of money for any of a fee proposal. This was this was like when I started working for you and he was like, yeah, he would get hardly any bites from it, but when someone did, yeah, take the bait, that was the only project he needed to see him through.

Speaker 2 19:43

Yeah, it was kind of I know exactly the person with the incredibly rich wife yes, yep, and he didn't need.

Speaker 2 19:49

He didn't need any work at all. In fact, the work was more of a passion project for him because he did other things in the background for himself, like tinkering on with his cars and his workshop and stuff, and that's. Yeah, I suppose it is. It's like you say, it's doing that research and I could see why someone would look specifically for him because he does what he does incredibly well and if that's what you're looking for, that's probably who you want. Um, and I think this is probably more accurate to something like a house rather than a commercial project. He says, knowing full well that a client of ours is paying not an extortion amount of money, we're not ripping them off, and he knows that he's got prices from other people. But we're not dirt cheap, we're not super expensive.

Speaker 1 20:36

But he knows from working with us before we've done other jobs for him well, that's it.

Speaker 2 20:40

We did one other job for him and he was like I don't want.

Speaker 1 20:41

I don't want to go anywhere else, but I also want to make sure I'm not getting ripped off and that was where we landed with that, and so how we've ended up with quite a big job, but and that's kind of where the balance comes from, because I mean, there's some clients who want to be dirt cheap and you kind of think, oh, you've come to the wrong person. And there's some people who maybe have actually just been stung before and they could even be self not self-conscious, but conscious of that and that's one thing that we do.

Speaker 2 21:05

though, when someone gets in touch and says, look, I'm just looking for a garage conversion, a box on the back of the house, something like that, that's not actually something we know we're going to be value for money for we can send them in the right direction.

Speaker 1 21:15

Yeah, we can say look this, we're going to charge you a lot for something that might actually take us half an hour, but it isn't going to be worth your money, Whereas you can get someone. If you know you want this square drawn up, go to a draftsman and ask for those crappy drawings, because they'll do exactly what you want, to the bare minimum standard.

Speaker 2 21:37

But it you want to the bare minimum standard and but it's enough to get through, yeah, and that's a lot of the time as well, like we've had a few jobs where, for example, that one for the one around the corner that we're going to in a couple of weeks, which is just a survey and a draw up, yeah where I've said, well, okay, you can, like theo's, just going to do it and deal with it, because it's not worth me bringing it in through this business.

Speaker 2 21:56

Where we've got the overheads, he can do it and deal with it, because it's not worth me bringing it in through this business. Where we've got the overheads, he can do it in his weekend or evening or something just to, you know, earn himself a little bit extra and keep himself happy. So I think in the end the day, it comes down to what you're looking for, but you actually what knowing, what you want yeah it can be hard going into something that you know nothing about well and that's looking, and that's one thing we do now.

Speaker 2 22:17

when someone gets in touch, we send out a set of you know, here is an example of the types of drawings and the type of visual and the type of service you can expect to find. Is this actually?

Speaker 1 22:25

what you want. Yeah, exactly that. Because as well, if it's not what they want and we get halfway through the job and they realize that, then it kind of can just turn a bit not necessarily nasty- no not good for anyone, because we don't want to be on a job where they're asking for the cheapest of everything. They don't want to be on a job where they're getting charged through the nose for something that they don't need to yeah or they think they don't need to it's.

Finding Value in Architectural Services

Speaker 2 22:50

It's amusing the amount of times we've had someone say I don't think I need visuals or I don't think I need that. And then they go, oh, but what would it actually look like in real life? And we go, oh, we can do a visual For our hourly rate, because that kind of puts you in at one of those I don't want to say it, but boutique services, which I think is more deeply personal toward the person who you're dealing with and is deeply in with a lot of those finer details, and it suggests a finish or a quality or a standard or a service that people are looking for, and obviously that's going to be more expensive. But you know, a good example is 426, where he doesn't necessarily care what the internal finish is, because he's going to do all of that himself. He just wants a shell, um, and from us he just wants a nice logical layout that meets his needs, um, and he wants it to look, yes, a bit nicer on the outside, and he needs a lot of help getting it through planning because of what he's doing.

Speaker 2 23:43

But that's kind of where our he needs it to look a lot nicer on the outside. It does, and that's that's where our the key focus is for our fee proposal as well. Our technical stage is probably slightly lower than it would normally be at that end, because we know we're not detailing invisible handrails and we're not shadow jointing bits of birch-faced ply. We're going with telling him what he needs to do to meet the regulations for him to do the other bits afterwards that he's going to do himself. So it's knowing what you want, it's engaging with the right people.

Speaker 2 24:18

Get what you pay for could also be inverted to pay what you get for charge, what you give for, yeah I think we do that as a separate one, because I feel like I could go on a lot of rambles about that one.

Speaker 1 24:27

I feel like they sort of go hand in hand.

Speaker 2 24:29

And also, this would be a very short one well, do we do we just run into it the end. We've been doing this for over half an hour now, apparently, um, but yeah, I mean, we're probably more, like you say, with 426. We're more versed in that high quality, in those detailing and making sort of everything completely unique, not just shells, not just boxes with doors and windows and a roof on it.

Speaker 2 24:54

Um, so if that's what you're looking for, then that's what you need to be looking for yeah, yeah from from your designer, um, but then on, within that sort of sphere is, we deal with a lot of consultants and because we've dealt with a lot of consultants, we know which is the right consultant for your project as well, which we don't charge for. We charge like our fees are. These are our fees here and the fees from consultants, from planning, from building control, and so we know early doors, who we need to be getting involved with and who's going to be the right consultant. So, a lot of this, a lot of these, say you know, listed buildings that we work with, or complicated pieces of land, will have a survey drawn up and depending. So, for example, the project we went to go see at the beginning of this week, big building, that Big building.

Speaker 1 25:51

Yeah, that kind of square that project needed.

Speaker 2 25:58

That project needed a lot of survey because it's got lots of levels. It's essentially three buildings and so we're not doing that. So we have it fully surveyed out. It's got a full 3d model that we can cut our own sections through. That we can cut our own sections through. That we can cut our own plans through.

Speaker 1 26:13

That we can put levels from it's knowing when to tell someone to pay for pay someone else for something, and almost we're not taking that and knowing what that needs to be as well like it's not just, it's not just oh yeah, go get something drawn, go get some plans drawn up.

Speaker 2 26:27

It's we need to with. These are the bits of information we need. We need drainage, we need heights we need thicknesses, we need this, we need that. You know, we've done surveys, particularly for listed buildings, where it's just we need the elevations and we need the floor plans, because we've got wonky walls and we've got all these odd bits.

Speaker 1 26:43

Oh see when it's something listed you want it to we don't want to be messing that one up.

Speaker 2 26:48

We don't want that kind of almost to be on our shoulders not that we've ever touched wood, done a survey wrong, but you never know and you don't want the one time it does go wrong to be an important one.

Speaker 1 27:00

I can think of times we've done surveys right. I can think of one very recently. That's a good point. The two of us 40 metres squared, yeah, and that's why Two of us, just the two of us, 40 metres squared, yeah, and that's why some people don't work for us anymore.

Speaker 2 27:19

But, yeah, a lot of those other services, it's their technical side of things. It's not necessarily the architectural side of things. It's providing us the information for us to do our job better, and a lot of the time, we know who it is we need, we know when to get them in and we can also give you a rough indication of why that's going to be. And again, that's another service that you pay for, not from us, but from someone else.

Speaker 2 27:43

Architecture is not cheap if there's one thing we learn here, and good architecture is certainly not cheap really not cheap as it cheap as it shouldn't be.

Speaker 1 27:50

It's more uncheap. But you get what you pay for, yeah, sometimes. And sometimes you get stung, and then you've got to make sure that you actually vet the people you're going to employ and with, and that can go into that can go into actually a business kind of level as well of making sure you're paying for the right person when you employ them, which is very hard, it's very hard.

Speaker 2 28:11

As it turns out.

Speaker 1 28:12

Yeah, you've got to do about a year of research as they work for you, or don't?

Speaker 2 28:18

It's funny because we've hired people at quite a few different levels now.

Speaker 1 28:27

I know where this is going. I know.

Speaker 2 28:28

I know you know where it's going and it's funny that some of the ones who have got the highest degree have Can be the least capable, yeah, and the most difficult to teach. Yeah, I was going to.

Speaker 1 28:39

I wonder if it's because I I mean, I came in and you said this a million times when I first joined, I was a blank slate. Yeah, you did not know how to open. Yeah, I was still in school, I didn't. Yeah, exactly, I'd never seen a building before. I kind of went to phil, can I have a job? And he went all right, um, he went, do you want to? Do you want me to pay you? And I went for what? Um?

Speaker 1 29:02

that's a story, and then yeah, kind of I feel like bringing someone younger and they're more open-minded and they're less set in their ways yeah, that's always a hard one is picking someone who's set in their way but then obviously someone with more education has more experience on it and it's. It's a balancing act.

Speaker 2 29:21

I mean, there's a one example of someone who was quite far on in their process to becoming an architect, was very good at their job but never worked out because of other personal issues, personal issues, and that's kind of like you can't foresee that we couldn't no.

Speaker 2 29:41

And you can't foresee it with when you go to meet with your architect, really personal circumstances. But you should be able to upfront know what you're getting yourself into in terms of their process and their. You know even the size of their practice. You know I wouldn't expect to be working on something that I'm doing the consultancy role with here. You know 20, 30 million pound project. If they came and met with us and saw it's a team of six we'd be like no, we actually walk around sometimes they walk around the office in just their socks, and well, not just their socks.

Speaker 2 30:13

They take their shoes off and walk around the office in their socks. I've got slippers on you know what I mean? I'm slippers on Sophia and I wear just our socks sometimes.

Speaker 1 30:21

I would never go barefoot. I don't think I would ever go just socks, because of the rainy incident. I've done barefoot, have you? Yeah, your foot's probably covered in sick and bacteria. That's fine.

Speaker 2 30:32

It is anyway.

Speaker 1 30:35

And this brings us to the end.

Speaker 2 30:38

Of the podcast Of our friendship.

Speaker 1 30:40

Yeah, of our life together.

Speaker 2 30:43

But yeah, I think initially.

Speaker 1 30:45

Pay what you get for when it comes to looking for new recruits and, I think, understanding the value of different people and of where they're at, I suppose. But as yeah, as we've said, there's always that kind of hidden aspect that unfortunately you can't predict and that can go back to as a client. You don't necessarily know that the architect will get it through. Even if they've got good reviews, anything could happen. Every project's different.

Speaker 2 31:17

You've got to take it as a general consensus.

Speaker 1 31:20

There's an amount of faith that always has to go into that sort of thing when you're paying a lot of money for any sort of thing.

Speaker 2 31:25

But similarly as well familiarize yourself with the terms of contract.

Speaker 1 31:28

If someone sends over a contract and it's got umpteen A gazillion pages with fee, with their fees and with all of their kind of how to terminate or what to do if there's an issue in the evening.

Speaker 2 31:40

Read it, yeah, read it I mean we've often sat down with clients and gone through what all the terms mean and to just explain any questions that they've got before they sign on, which is fine, but you probably find someone like that Classic.

Speaker 1 31:51

if you have any questions, please hesitate to ask. Please don't hesitate to ask.

Speaker 2 31:56

But you find with stuff like that, at least someone's got a good grasp of all of the ins and outs of the process. If there's no terms of conditions or all of this sort of other stuff, it's going to be pretty hard to chase them down.

Speaker 1 32:14

I think knowing what you don't know and knowing and being able to ask, and having someone who can answer, really important, being being able to say look, I don't know what the crack is here and paying for someone to actually do their job and fill in those blanks.

Speaker 2 32:24

I like the ones who come to us with a oh yeah, we've got quite an open-ended budget and we want I don't know what to do in that situation.

Speaker 1 32:34

Is it so it's when it's the? We've got an open-ended budget, but we don't want you to do your thing and I'm like interesting we want you to do your thing.

Speaker 2 32:43

We've got quite an open-ended budget, but this is what we need to meet, like in terms of the schedule of accommodation. All these are the features that we like and stuff that's great. Those are always really interesting because they're actually looking to pay for creativity. They're looking to pay for you to do your job, which obviously is what we do best.

Speaker 1 33:03

I'm sick of boxes.

Speaker 2 33:06

We're not doing that many boxes. Get over yourself.

Speaker 1 33:09

I'm just not. You know what it is. I think I'm sick of fixing other people's boxes.

Speaker 2 33:13

Yeah well wait till you're here full time and I can actually rely on you to see a project from start to finish.

Speaker 1 33:18

I'm the quickest person here, fastest hand in the West, mate Aside from me. I've realised you know how we have our mice mouse on fast. Yeah, that really throws a lot of people off and in the past few days I've seen a few people in work and out of work use my trackpad and go what I mean? Sorry, what the heck? When they just like touch it and it goes to the other side of the screen, they're like why is it so fast? Like do you know how fast I think 15 monster energies a day is why do you know how?

Speaker 2 33:49

what's going on in here? It's like like can you imagine a bowl of ramen, but the noodles are thoughts and the broth is thoughts.

Speaker 1 33:56

And we're throwing it everywhere.

Speaker 2 33:58

And all of the things that are in it are also thoughts. That's what's going on here, and the bowl is a thought, and the bowl is one big thought containing the thoughts.

Speaker 1 34:04

And the table that it's on is more thoughts.

Speaker 2 34:14

And the atoms, that, yeah, the thoughts. So I need to, I've got to go fast, yeah, to paraphrase, to paraphrase a great blue hedgehog, gotta go fast, but I always think as well, especially like just to bring it back before we close out, bring it back, bring it back to me, yep, so I could complete through me I just watched as your, your brain just turned to fog because my head went elsewhere.

Speaker 2 34:34

I could, I could I could, I, could, I, could, I could I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could. A nice little handrail detail. If you're going to enjoy these things, it's worth the money to pay for it if you want to write. And then we got some really funny chat. Gpt generated text images.

Speaker 1 34:58

Have you got them on there by Chat Smith? I can get them on there.

Speaker 2 35:01

I like it? Or should I just read them in my no wait, wait, wait. Should I read them in my presentation? Voice voice in architecture, each dollar is a brick in the foundation of your vision.

Speaker 1 35:22

Spend wisely, build spectacularly the true value of architecture lies not in the cost of materials, but in the integrity of the design and the craftsmanship of its construction.

Speaker 2 35:37

Just need an A1 board. Invest in quality and it will return to you not just in integrity of the structure, but in the legacy of its excellence.

Speaker 1 35:50

Chatsmith 1923. I mean, that was fantastic, that was beautiful.

Speaker 2 35:57

Truly, truly beautiful. Thank you everyone. Goodbye, and that brings a close, I think, to this one.

Communication in a Digital Age

Speaker 1 36:06

I think I agree, Phil.

Speaker 2 36:08

I'm getting 101 messages off of 101 people.

Speaker 1 36:12

I got three. I got three messages. This is the power of not having your work phone. I mean, yeah, but that's, I got an email. I've got loads of emails, a couple of TikToks.

Speaker 2 36:26

Ah, small world. Mr Crazy Underground man Cave has. Mr Crazy Underground man Underground. Mr Crazy Underground man Underground man Cave has got in touch.

Speaker 1 36:34

We'll see you next time when we return Back to the drawing board.

Speaker 2 36:38

Do-do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do-do, I'll keep busters. I think a lot of the time.

Speaker 1 36:57

Are they doing cartwheels? I don't know. I think they've opened a window, so the door's moving. It's like a T-Rex is walking around Just text them asking if they're taking the Like I did it, hey Lauren. What Are you taking? Like I did it, hey Lauren. What are you taking? What's all the commotion? She's ignoring us. Yeah, if I don't listen to them, if I don't respond, they can't hear me.

Speaker 2 37:24

If they, if I can't if they can't see me, I'm not here but yeah, not getting ripped off.