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Subjects covered included academia, working with contractors, the role of social media and client relationships - and it proved to be a good preface for Andrew’s talk later that day to RGU students.
“I find it extremely difficult to speak about our work and blow our own trumpet in such a way because I feel as if it's too closely related to myself personally, and as a person that’s the opposite of my personality.”
“I’m not a social media person - but I quite like that window into the background of what happens behind designing and delivering buildings. Normally you don’t show a potential client site photographs, sketches and drawings that are partly conceived.”
“We’re very interested in the process and not just the output. I don’t know whether that comes from having been in academia and that being one of my areas of interest, or where the driver for it is, truth be told.”
“Contractors are the ones who take the things from our head and make them real - and I don’t think that enough attention is given to those relationships, and how fostering them is absolutely crucial to delivering buildings of a quality that you’re looking for.”
“It’s not about money - it’s about values. It’s about what’s important to people.”
“There’s more to life than buying something for £1 and selling it for two. And you need people who have a values system that has a bit of both. I think architects don’t praise contractors enough actually.”
“Architects - I think quite harshly - have a reputation for being aloof.”
“Buildings are about people - and I know that’s really pretentious - but they are. When you work at a domestic scale, the people who inhabit and use those buildings really drive - or should really drive - how those buildings are formed and delivered.”
“Everyone is scared of what they don’t know. What you want to make them understand is they’ve not come to you for you to bestow upon them a building. It’s their building, and actually if you make them feel involved in the process and you develop a relationship with them, they are more likely to listen to what you say.”
The full interview can be found below, via Fifty7°Ten:
