Most industries since the industrial revolution have
increased productivity overtime, with the exception of
construction. Like in the last decade or so
that we're going down, we're going backwards.
Kateba Alitafi is an architect and writer based in Melbourne,
having practiced both locally and briefly in Japan.
He's worked as part of a number of award-winning officers and
now as Principal Architect of Underwood, a design and build
firm creating custom homes. As a qualified Passivhaus
designer, Kateba is passionate about making sight responsive,
Low environmental impact architect with a sense of place.
Try not to fall in love with the designs initially.
Do you know what I mean? It's very hard to do and
something happens and it feels like it all falls apart.
But I think it's really important to allow the process
to be flexible. I'd like to understand where you
see the relationship that architects have with visual
communication in the future, particularly with, you know, us
being told so much about AII. Guess when it comes to AI, I've
never felt that burying your head in the sand is a good idea.
In our office, we use AI to do menial tasks, and that's what I
think that's probably a very good starting point.
So many young people in architecture struggle with is
that relationship with construction, with sight how
important you think all of those elements are I.
Sort of saw very stark contrast between people who have had side
experience and those who haven't.
You must seek outside experience where possible.
Reimagine the education of an architect more like an
apprenticeship. The design and build process
thought as being the lower quality option.
Is it about you having, you know, your artistic hand held
behind your back, or are you challenging as much as you're
kind of accepting? That's a really good question.
Cateeba Why architecture? What is it about a career in
architecture that keeps you coming back from more, that
keeps you, you know, getting up in the morning and, and and
doing this job? I feel we're very lucky in
architecture in in a lot of ways, the outcome of what we
what we do for a living can be tangible, it can be concrete.
You know, you can feel it, you can smell it, you can touch it.
We also can work on very big picture ideas as well.
And I guess there's often like a tension in architecture, which
I, I personally enjoy. It could be form, it can be
function, it's probably a little bit of both usually.
It could be beauty, it could be ugliness, It, it could be
science, it could be art. And I, I kind of enjoy working
across these themes and, and trying to get that balance
right. A previous employer actually
sent me a message of a year or so ago at that office at the
time, I had worked on a project where I, I sort of Co LED, you
know, the documentation and design and and you know, right
from the concept, let's say, and it took took many, many years.
And so, you know, as you know, say if you worked on apartments,
which is this project is an apartment building with some
townhouses, it, it could take sort of 3-4 years to, to
complete a project of that sort of scale.
And so at that time, I had to left the office and I left
exactly when construction commenced.
And so, yeah, he, he, he just sent me this message.
It was a photograph of the of the building and people have
just moved in and, you know, you could see their things.
There's lights in inside. And suddenly this thing that was
a bunch of scribbles on on a paper was a very real thing
where people live their lives in it and around it.
I don't want to paint a rose tinted view of architecture.
And I don't need to tell you you're an architect yourself,
for instance, like, you know, it can be very, I can be a slog.
It can be very tough, but there is there are very few things in
my personal human experience that give me the, the buzz or
the, you know, the adrenaline rush of the, the excitement as
sort of driving past these completed projects or visiting
them years after they have completed.
You talk about architecture taking a long time, which is I
think something that we all have to come to terms with early in
our careers that, you know, any, any type of architecture takes a
long time to, you know, plan out.
And, you know, if you're lucky enough to actually build, you
know, I, I think that's, that's always such a kind of steep
learning curve, particularly for sort of, you know, young
architects and, you know, depending on the scale of the
building that you're working on, that goes from, you know, a
short period to a very long period of time.
And then secondly, when, you know, the part that you put
probably most beautifully was, was, you know, seeing a
building, you know, finished. And I, I think I still remember
my first time of seeing some ceiling, acoustic ceiling tiles
laid out in a, in a hospital, which was the first project I
worked on. And yeah, those set out that
I'd, I'd drawn and that became a reality.
And however small that was, you know, like you say that that
feeling of, you know, turning what was a drawing into a
building, which, yeah, I think is is, is an amazing thing and
and never goes away. What would you what was your
kind of route into architecture? What are your kind of early kind
of memories and, and you know, family relationships with the
built environment that kind of led you on your path to this
career? So I was always interested in
how things get put together. I, I remember my, my father and
I would go to the library, the local library and would get
books out every Saturday. And I remember seeking books on
how to draw. I was very interested in
drawing. I remember, but also I, it's
going to sound very nerdy, but I was really into Star Wars at the
time and I really liked the sort of cutaway books where, you
know, they'd have the, you know, the X wing and it would be sort
of cut out and you can kind of see how it's sort of put
together. And I'd sort of draw my own
little drawings of that. And, and I think looking back is
probably myself as a child trying to almost deconstruct
something and put it together and make sure things that are
required to run this machine or, you know, the, the structure was
all thought out. And so I sort of treated it as a
bit of a, you know, like a Meccano almost.
And that's how I sort of got into it.
I, I was really into engineering, you know, as a
child, I mean, you know, in terms of structures and, and
that sort of thing. And I suppose also my
upbringing, I mean, let's sort of go back.
I was born in Iraq just to this kind of scenes like the doctor
evil childhood story, you know, the summers, summers in Ranguin,
luge lessons. And what does it say?
So Oh, and in spring we make me tell bits.
My childhood was typical summers in Rangoon, luge lessons in the
spring, we'd make meat helmets, that sort of thing.
But, you know, I was born in a rocket.
And we, you know, my family fled that country during the first
Gulf War. At the time we called it the
Gulf War. I didn't know it was going to be
a second one. And we settled in New Zealand,
which was a beautiful place to be to, to bring up children.
We were very young, my sister and I remember.
And but I, I, you know, it was safe, but I grew up in the outer
suburbs and this details fairly important because it was at that
point where I realized that urban planning and architecture
has, you know, a quite an impact on on human beings.
I really disliked were living there.
I felt like as a, you know, in the outer suburbs, I felt like
as a sort of a almost like a purgatory space.
It wasn't quite in the Bush where you're in the amongst the
trees and you listen to birdsong.
But you also went in a in a sort of vibrancy in the buzz of the
city, sort of a middle ground. And, and later in my career, you
know, obviously as we start to read, you know, architectural
texts, I'm not sure if you know that your listeners in the UK,
certainly a huge name in the last century, Robin Boyd here in
Australia, you know, a Seminole architect, thinker, writer,
communicator to the public, wrote a really beautiful book
called The Australian Ugliness. And having read that, I felt,
well, you know, a sort of a sense of relief that it wasn't
just me feeling this sort of, you know, isolation, this odd
feeling of almost like placelessness.
And so I realized that that that, you know, yes, the
structures, but the things in between it, there's a space in
between. It has an impact on people.
And so that's what really got me into architecture initially.
You, you speak about drawing being very important to you.
And I think for me, that's, that resonates completely.
I mean, you know, let alone the Star Wars thing that that also
resonates quite deeply with me as well.
The, the drawing aspect. How you know, how important has
drawing been as a sort of medium for you in your career moving
forward? And I'd, I'd like to sort of
understand your relationship with it.
And then maybe where you see, you know, the relationship that
architects have with, you know, visual communication in the
future, particularly with, you know, us being told so much
about AI and, and, and things like that.
Where where do you see that sort of the tool of of drawing?
Yeah. I guess it's the sort of
analogue versus the digital. I think drawing at first, I
suppose go back to the, the childhood story.
At first you sort of draw things that you see.
And I guess the next step is to draw things that you can think
of and, and so you can kind of synthesize ideas using drawing.
Using drawing as a way of thinking I feel is still very
much relevant to our work here in our office at Underwood.
Mainly because I, I feel it's, it's a good way to be
unencumbered by the limitations of software.
And I kind of think about it as a bit like spinning many foot
plates at once. You're able to do that using
drawing. There's so much drawing that our
clients don't see. And I, I actually often feel
maybe we should show our clients that.
Maybe we should show the many scraps of piece of paper and,
and yellow trace that goes into coming up with an outcome.
I feel whilst we want to curate a client's experience, we ought
to maybe also invite them into the process a little bit.
And I guess when it comes to AI, I've never felt that burying
your head in the sand is a good idea.
Personally, I think that people probably did that way at the
advent of CAD as well, to their detriment.
But I, I, I sort of saw a very funny meme about this where the
journalist at the Joanne, I figured her name it was, it was
a very, I think it captured it very well.
She said basically that, you know, I want, I want to do my
art and for AI to do my laundry in my, in my dishes.
I don't want AI to do my art so that I can do my laundry and
dishes and dishes. Basically she's saying, you
know, don't let the tail wag the dog, right, and really approach
it with a critical eye. I guess in our office, we use AI
to do menial tasks. And that's what I think that's
that's probably a very good starting point at this point at
this emerging phase of AI transcribing meeting notes,
summarising, you know, long, you know, for both reports and, you
know, that sort of thing. But we still draw with, you
know, by hand at the concept level.
And yeah, I think it's horses for courses really, isn't it?
I always kind of think about it like, you know, I've never had a
problem sort of imagining, you know, an idea in my head and
then, you know, trying to visualize it, however much of A
scribble that comes out it. And like you said, you know, I
don't want to give that bit up to a computer.
I'd much rather have the computer do all the the area
schedules that I don't enjoy, you know, and and that's
probably a lot better at it than I am.
You know, it's it is that it is that aspect.
And I think, you know, when architects speak so much about,
you know, our value and and you know, particularly about fees
and things like that, you know, I do see one clear Ave. is is
efficiency in doing all of that, that back end work that, you
know, we can push ourselves more into the specialism of, you
know, the stuff we do enjoy. And we're good at and the our
training we're good at, yeah, completely helps us with and
yeah, that's right. You mentioned there about
showing clients your drawings, the the, the drawings that don't
make it to the to the final brochure.
How much do you think clients value that skill of drawing?
And, and I think something that I've always played with the sort
of idea within the relationship between how we can communicate
with drawing, like the idea of kind of live drawing or the way
you communicate visually through drawing.
I've always felt that clients have that sort of innate
connection with that. And they're always kind of they,
there's a, there's a joy to it. And I wonder whether you've
ever, you know, you've experienced that with your
clients, how, how you sort of build that relationship with
them. You know, maybe it is through
drawing or in other ways and particularly with the work that
you guys are doing with domestic clients, you know, taking them
on a journey, you know, probably a lot of the time educating them
about the process as well. Yeah, quite often you go into a
meeting and you are very hopefully, very prepared.
We are. We try to be.
And despite best efforts, a client might ask a question and
it may unravel something. Man, you must as an Arctic, I
think, be able to, you know, adopt A nimble stance and be
able to respond accordingly. And I, I think the skill of
drawing and skill of drawing alive and quite a few we, we
walk into a meeting with a client and we have a yellow
trace to one side. And that's sort of with the
understanding that it is still a collaborative process.
It's not just a one way street. So, you know, there's been
meetings where we, you know, we have printer drawings, we have
the yellow traces like, OK, so that doesn't quite work.
And you know, obviously you've got some concerns that we hadn't
uncovered during the discovery process or the, the client
brief. And we talk about it and we draw
and, and it's good because I, I feel it's sort of would skip a
fair few emails doing that sort of thing, being able to, having
that skill to draw live in front of a client.
And I think it demonstrates listening, which is super
important. I think with in terms of a
client service is actively listening to a client and just
and, and, and showing that you've done that and trying to
resolve, you know, a problem at the time.
Now, sometimes that doesn't really work out.
Sometimes you may need to sort of go away and come back to, to
think about that. But certainly you can sort of
the the genesis of an idea or or a solution can take place live
and having the ability to draw at a time is very helpful.
Yeah. I mean you, you touched briefly
on on your sort of process there.
I wonder if we can delve into sort of Underwood's kind of
their, their sort of sell, how they set themselves up as a, a
business, a practice and the kind of unique offer that you
guys kind of bring to the table. Because I think it would be a
very interesting sort of case study, particularly when you
know, architects are trying to look at new business cases for
practices. You know, the idea of that that
you guys are working with of, you know, for a domestic client
having, you know, contractor costing architect all under one
roof, all, you know, singing from the sing same hymn sheet
and working together, you know, feels like an incredibly
attractive proposition for a client.
So I wonder whether you can just touch on, you know, explain to
us how it all works together and you know what a client journey
through that is. So I suppose we sort of going
back, we, Ryan and I, you know, started, you know, pivoted to
this, this way of working design build in, in the one
organization in 2023. It sort of started because we
shared, let's say, a dissatisfaction with the, I'm
going to call it the traditional way of procuring architecture.
And I suppose I will have to assume knowledge with your
listeners as to what that means. It's, you know, designing
architect and builder are separate.
And I think quite often we've, you know, Ryan, who's a, who's a
contractor or a builder and myself as an architect is that
we found that the traditional way of doing things was fairly
disjointed. And it often forced the
architect who's at the sort of forefront of the design process,
obviously, to make a lot of assumptions very early on, which
have which can have a lot of impact on a design outcome,
especially when it comes to buildability and cost control.
And I suppose in past offices where I've worked in, you know,
in that more traditional manner, manner of procurement, despite
all efforts to, you know, cost projects early, say at schematic
design, you know, it's, it was very difficult to, to, to get
that level of expertise. And, you know, there were lots
of projects that were left unbuilt.
You talk about built projects that, that never, you know, left
paper. There were lots of dissatisfied
clients, lots of very awkward phone calls.
And, and, you know, we still sometimes have those, but I feel
it's very different. We, we, you know, as an
architect, I've, I quickly found out, given the dynamic market
we're in, this is putting it lightly.
I mean, we've seen something like 30% increase in cost of
supply and labour in, in, in, in a very short amount of time.
And you know, the old way of doing a square metre, right, You
know, estimate at the, at the beginning.
I just feel it's, it's just fraught.
And to be honest with you, I must admit it's a real luxury to
have access to. You know, trusted trades, not
just not just our construction team.
To give you an example, we, we, we're working on a project and
that particular project, the council mandated the storm water
discharge and the current channel.
Trouble is that we, you know, the levels just won't get us
there and we're staring down the barrel of a, of a pump, a
$20,000 pump. Picked up the phone and called
our go to plumber Steph and, you know, he was able to give us
upfront advice. I just, I can't see it would be
very difficult for me to go back to the old ways of working where
I have to make this huge assumption.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's, I think it's
really good. And I think give the clients,
mainly our clients, but also our design team a huge sense of
certainty that you wouldn't otherwise get.
I think the kind of fascinating thing with that is is, you know,
you kind of speculate on how that works at scale.
And I know you guys, you know, you don't do a lot of sort of
one off houses and things like that.
And, you know, the, the, the, my experience of design and build
in London is, you know, much kind of larger scale things and
the design and build process being sort of sometimes thought
as being the, the lower quality option if you know, the time
cost quality triangle that people think about.
But I think what you guys are doing completely turns that on
its head. And I think the idea of, you
know, when you think about it simplistically, the idea that
the, the contractor, the architect are, you know, in this
thing together providing the product for the, for the client.
You know, you wonder why we do it the other way around, you
know, and you know, I think it is a kind of fascinating and,
and much more kind of forward-looking proposal, I
suppose. I wonder how, how is, does the
dynamic work? And do you, you know, each of
you is coming from a specialism. You know, you are the architect,
you know, you have the contractor, you have the
estimator, everyone has a specific responsibility and you
know, kind of in the traditional way.
And I wonder how how you communicate, how you navigate
that sort of communication process and you know, like you
allude to the value that each of you brings and where you kind of
find balance. You know, is it, is it about you
having, you know, your artistic hand held behind your back or,
you know, are you challenging as much as you're kind of
accepting? Well, that's, that's a really
good question. I mean, I, I do acknowledge that
traditional, you know, we in Australia, we call it DNC has a
bad rap. And like most things,
stereotypes are there for a reason, right?
It's as you said, it's very seen as a very cost driven process,
absolutely. And a compromise.
I guess where this is different is it's actually design LED
design and build, right? And it's interesting because
there's been many times where, you know, I myself, the
designers like, oh, all right, if it's if it's not going to
happen, that's OK. And, and, and Ryan, the contract
is like, no, no, no, no, no, don't, let's not give up on
this. Let's that's, that's, you know,
so, you know, working with a, with a builder who appreciates
design. I mean, that's the thing.
I mean, I feel, I feel one of the reasons why, yeah.
You know, we see this is a no brainer, right?
But I can see now why it, you know, not everyone can do this.
And that's because you need to find the right people.
You need to work with the right people who are who are on the
same path and, and regardless of their vocation and their
speciality. And I suppose in our case, we
like to try to find a balanced approach.
And I sort of, you know, there's a few things we think about to
get there. One of the things is, you know,
we ask ourselves constantly how can our clients and how can our
projects have the cake and to eat it.
Now it's not a 0 sum. You can actually, you can do
both potentially. And, and we see this challenge
as a, you know, as an opportunity.
Do you know, or we, we find that we were hoping, we're hoping and
we're optimistic because you have to be optimistic.
I feel in design sometimes hard to be optimistic, but you must
be in that we we can find a solution and we we back
ourselves and we feel that we can design our way out of most
things. And secondly, we, we try to do a
lot with less. And you know, people talk about
the size of dwellings that I think in Australia, we've got
probably the, I think the biggest houses from what I hear
in the world out, out scaling, even the United States.
So, you know, it's insane. But we're trying to trying to do
a lot with with very little. And I suppose it comes back to
our bringing most things in life, most outlooks with
professional professionals or thinkers or what have you.
That's it comes back to how you how you brought up.
And interestingly, Ryan grew up in the country of Victoria, you
know, where you know, you can't just call someone to come and
fix this thing. They've got to work it out
themselves. Myself, I grew up as an
immigrant, you know, and we, you know, we, we focus on things
basically that are high impact, right?
And, and we, we, we kind of asked ourselves critically, like
do does that bit really need to be a custom design thing?
Are there already made alternatives that can be
integrated into the design? And I think thirdly, we try, we
try not to fall in love with the designs initially.
Do you know what I mean? Like, it's very hard to do.
And I understand it's very seductive, especially when
you've come up with a beautiful, elegant solution and something
happens and it feels like it all falls apart.
But I think it's really important to allow the process
to be flexible. Yes, we have what we call non
negotiables with each project, right.
And what they are, they are sort of high level, high tier
concepts, but sort of the rest of it can be achieved provided
the intent is is met. Yeah.
And and, and every everything that, you know, details or
material selection choices, they would that they should serve
more than one function. And I think of that that then,
you know, that says that that was the correct decision for
that for that role. Yeah.
Do you do you find yourself being more adaptable in the
later stages now because you have that level of trust and you
know, you're working with people that you know, understand
quality, understand design and you know aren't going to be
doing silly things sort of thing.
You know, there's that kind of innate understanding and like
you say, you're coming at it both from a sort of similar work
ethic point of view sort of thing.
Yeah, I, I think also it just comes from like a mutual
respect, you know, the stereotypical Arctic works on
walks onto side, you know, with dark shades on and just points.
You know, I don't think, I think most Arctics aren't like that,
to be honest with you. The ones that I've met, they are
not like that. I, I personally have a huge
respect for trades and, and, and, and, and contractors and
site managers and I can see the stress they go under.
They are, they are under, I should say, and the, and the
level of craft that goes on and the level of interpretation, you
know, from drawings that we, we draw the risk they take.
So obviously, you know, and they, they also then in our, in
our, in our organization construction team also have AI
feel, have a, have a, a mutual respect with for our design team
as well. And they want to achieve similar
things too. We've got a project, I'll just
give you an example. We, we've got a project
currently on site and the site manager there, who's in the
construction team, He, he took it upon himself to, to mark up
our, our reflected ceiling plan. And, you know, he's, he sort of
said to us that, you know, I've worked out that I can actually
increase ceiling heights here. Cost neutral, you know, would
you, what do you think? And I was like, this is really
cool. I mean, a lot of artists were
like, no, just do the thing that was drawn.
Thank you very much. But I, I think for me it was
like, how good's that? I mean, yes, yes, let's go
higher here, let's go higher here, let's keep this one the
same level. There was a a reason for that.
So I think the design and build process I feel naturally allows
for that adaptability to take place.
And also our, our, you know, to give you an idea of how we run
things here, the, the design part and the construction part
work fairly in parallel with one another.
However, we share, we share, you know, organizational values and
that knows that's really important.
And also we have regular check insurance throughout the design
phases again, So it's not just basically a handover or app
building permit. No, no, it's, it's constant peer
review, buildability and costing at every phase.
So front concept, schematic design, design development,
construction documentation and, you know, and then we have a, we
have a page Turner. So at, at the handover from the,
from the design team to the construction team, we go through
the drawings. And it is that, that meeting
really that we establish these the things I've talked about
earlier, which are the non negotiables, What are the things
that we want to achieve? And then how you achieve those?
Let's have a discussion during, during construction.
It's great. I, I, I really like it.
That's a great way to, it does mean that when you're, you do
need to document in a certain way that is a lot more freeing
to allow that to happen. So a lot of intent annotations
and in lieu of, you know, detailing the thing within a,
within an inch of itself, yeah. Yeah, I think it's a really
interesting sort of case study for young architects.
And something that I kind of talked passionately about is, is
getting exposure to site as a young architect.
And, you know, I think one of the things that so many young
people in architecture struggle with is that relationship with
construction, with site, you know, as, as you allude to
understanding, you know, what their lines mean.
You know, it's not just a drawing, it's, you know, it
means this, it means pounds or dollars and, you know, how do
things work together? And I wonder whether you could
touch on the sort of, you know, how important you think all of
those elements are because, you know, to me, having a kind of
understanding of, of how things go together and, and empathy for
the trades and, and, you know, the pressures that people are
under is something that you don't get unless you've gone to
sight, unless you've you've seen those things, unless you've
experienced those conditions and, and understood, you know,
you know, how things meet at the corners, how the junctions work
and, and stuff like that. And yeah, I'd just be interested
to hear your take on on the importance of those aspects, I
suppose. Yeah, I, I think, I honestly
think slight experience is so important for young architects.
I, I, I recall I was doing my registration class, you know,
to, you know, to, to be a licensed architect and there was
a class 20 odd people. And the, the tutor at the time,
he or the person who's taking the course, he, he sort of asked
a question. He said, OK, so you've, you've,
you've received the client brief.
You've, you've, you know, that signed the proposal.
What's the very first thing that you do?
And I sort of saw a very stark contrast between people who have
had side experience and those who haven't.
And yeah, I think it's just, it's a no brainer.
And I, I, I also, you know, use the word empathetic.
I am also empathetic to the fact that a lot of architects, young
architects especially, don't have that opportunity.
They, they are stuck behind a desk and they're just, they're
working on documentation, you know, which is also important.
But I feel partly you must seek it out as a young architect.
You must seek outside experience where possible.
Interestingly, there is a local push, I don't know if it's
happening in the UK or not, to almost reimagine the education
of an architect more like an apprenticeship rather than a,
you know, like at the five year degree that it currently is in
Australia. And, and interestingly, you
know, we have, you know, looking back at his history classes at
university, we know that the likes of Liquebousier did that
too. I mean, they learnt on the job.
They, they, they learnt on site. They, you know, and I, I know
having, you know, I, I personally loved university,
right. I, I, I really, you know, it
worked well for me. I, you know, I was your student.
I actually taught there as well for a short amount of time.
And I wonder if the university experience that I had, I, I
wonder if universities are probably more so good at
creating academics than than the professionals that society need
today. And I, I feel I don't think
one's better than the other. I want to be clear about that.
I think it is probably room for both, but also having, you know,
architects as apprentices. I mean, I look at the
construction crew on site and, you know, imagine getting paid
to, to, to, to learn your job. I mean, how good's that, you
know, it could make it could make it far more accessible to
people to become an architect. Let's face it.
I mean, the fees are astronomical these days.
And yeah, I just, I think it, it probably something's should
change there. Yeah.
And I think it's important to sort of break down those
traditional silos of, you know, site architect.
I mean, with all these little mini titles are coming up and I
see them more in the recruitment world, you know, a documentation
architect or whatever it is. I mean, I just think an
architect's an architect and you kind of need to do, you need to
do the whole lot and personally or at least give it a try.
And I think the sort of also sort of ties into, I guess in my
opinion, the importance of architects not to sort of be
just think of themselves as they can only ever be architects.
A friend of mine said to me that in his opinion, architects, too
many architects are obsessed with being the architects
architect. You know what I mean?
I think there's architects can and should explore using their
skill set and their expertise and their critical thinking and
their design thinking in, in and being city makers, you know, so
that means, you know, like I've seen really talented architects
become design managers, project managers, consultants, admin
designers, public servants, politicians.
So that's also important, not just thinking of yourself as
just an architect, you know? You touch on two really kind of
interesting points there and I so I just want to talk about
both of them in turn. The first one being the
apprenticeship route, which is something I've got experience of
in, in the UK. And I think, like you say, it is
a, it is a sort of very forward-looking and, and
attractive proposition where, you know, the, the, the age-old
long route of, of learning to become an architect becomes much
more entwined with practice, with, you know, industry, with
understanding, you know, the, the, the realities of, you know,
the, the construction process and the built environment around
us. And it's something I'm very kind
of keen on. But I, I think, like you allude
to, you do almost need both aspects of that, because
architecture is, you know, architecture as a sort of
education process allows you to think, allows you to think big
and, and understand cities and understand world problems.
And like you say, can go on to roles that are completely a side
architecture that, you know, look at things, you know, be
able to look at things and, and turn them on their heads.
And, and I suppose it is, it is that balance between, you know,
producing architects that can build buildings that, that
understand process, that understand these things whilst
also not limiting them to that. And it is a kind of fascinating
thing that we have to sort of juggle with and, and the future
generations need to kind of be able to do a bit of both.
And I guess that's the thing that architects, they like to
have their cake and eat it. Like, I think, like you
mentioned before, you know, we, we want to be able to put our
minds to anything and we can. And that is, that is a, that is
a joy to, you know, what being an architect is, I suppose I
wonder with your experience of, I know you're a, you're a
qualified passive House designer and you talk about, you know,
general skills, but also, you know, passive House, for
example, is, is an incredibly specialist skill.
And I, I wanted to sort of ask you what drew you to that, what
value it brings to your clients and, and how much of A market is
there for, you know, passive house type projects, you know,
in, in, in Australia? Yeah.
So I suppose I sort of go back to my education and just to
quickly sort of touch on what you we talked about in terms of
the balance between academia and, and also practice.
And I sort of, you know, I can imagine it maybe the first three
years would be a probably a more academic traditional
architectural learning process. And then perhaps in the last two
years and maybe the last year it can be an apprenticeship.
And I guess for me personally, in order to be a competent
architect, it's always important to remain curious and to learn
new things. I see a lot of architects.
It's almost like, you know, they, it's almost, they're like
martial artists, you know, they tie the black belt around their
waist and like, OK, I know everything.
I don't need to know. They don't even, they don't turn
up. There's lots of architects older
than I who hasn't seen a continuing professional
development seminar in a long time.
And that's just how they are, right?
But I think you must always be learning.
Talking about academic, I, I remember at university, I, I, I
studied the works of Leon Bautista Alberti, who I'm sure
your listeners will be probably aware of who he is.
He was a poet, he was an artist, he was an architect.
It's let's just say he's a polymath.
He's probably well known for coining the word or the term
Homer universalist. And, and what that means is, you
know, literally it's the universal man.
But I think in this day and age, it could be updated to the
universal practitioner. And what he says is that the
architect ought to know a little bit about lots of different
topics in order to be an architect right Now, obviously
specialists would have the working knowledge, the exact
technical knowledge. But as an architect, you must, I
feel to be a cocked architect, you must know and be across the
broader concept of lots of fields that are adjacent to
architecture. And I guess I sadly, I think
architectures sort of dropped the ball there.
I think a lot of architects are almost like, and it may be
because of the tight fees, it probably is, but and they're
getting tighter, but architects are kind of almost like PO boxes
for to consultants. Yes, we have the responsibility,
but we kind of almost, we need to grab it by the horns and
become agents and play an active role rather than a passive role
in an architect. And it orders that we we need to
to know other things. So then, you know, having that
mindset and that sort of drive to learn new things.
I, I got it. I actually initially did a, an
energy assessors course during the lockdown and COVID in I'm
not sure. I'm sure the UK has similar
regulations. We've got operational energy
baseline requirements for code in Australia.
It's called the natters. It's basically a, a, a, a
rating, a star rating from one to 10 for residential buildings
in particular, one being terrible, 10 being uses very
little a dwelling or a house to use very little energy.
And I just wanted to learn and understand this rather than just
kind of receive the report and like, OK, all right.
And, and in doing that, I think I, I, I uncovered a fairly
glaring issue and that is in Australia, the energy rating of
a, of a dwelling is theoretical only it's not verified on site
as built, right. So as a client, you, you think
you're paying for a certain performance, but it's not
verified. And passive house is so, and it
is verified during design. Someone else checks it as a
certifier and then it's verified during construction with, of
photographic evidence of insulation and thermal brakes.
And also it is verified, you know, at at the end of
construction, I should say, with a, with a door blower blow door
test for air tightness. And, and from that I really took
this sort of, you know, the importance of evidence based
approaches to sustainability rather than that, you know, in
Australia we have the saying she'll be right, you know, so I
think the numbers do matter, right.
And I think passive house, whilst, let's be honest, I don't
think every project can is going to be a passive house is often,
you know, sustainability or sustainable design, I should
say, is not immune to the economics.
It just isn't. However, you can, you can adopt
A lot of the principles, the core principles of it.
And you know, we check and that installation has been installed
properly during construction because you know, we're, we're
on site all the time. So we also what, what we also do
here, we've got, we've got incredible access to real world
numbers, right? And we want to leverage that.
One of the things we're doing is understanding what actually
moves the needle with regards to sustainable initiatives.
And for example, you know in Australia the standard timber
construction size is 90 millimetres.
I don't know what it's in the UK, it's 90 millimetres.
So tops at about our 2.7 installation value and we're
testing what does that mean to increase just the external
envelope to 140 stud and you're up to 4R4 Sir, 1 1/2 times as
insulation and insulation bat insulation in particular doesn't
really cost that much more money to increase the thickness of it.
Obviously there's a cost in, in the timber.
So understanding what those trade-offs are, being aware of
return on investment, being aware of, you know, what, what
these, what these initiatives cost as their cost benefit
exercise and the payback period is super important for, for
clients to, to be able to consider these things and to,
and to actually make true sustainable design more
accessible to more and more people.
Unfortunately, sustainability and indeed the climate crisis,
like the UK is a very politicized thing here in
Australia, right? Like it's almost like people
feel the need to barrack for a football team.
You know, I either believe in it or I don't.
So when you present people with real world numbers and that
bullshit goes, you know, like you, you, you're kind of, you're
convinced, you know, as as a business study.
I will say one other thing is, you know, there's a real,
there's a real danger and people thinking that we ought to just
demolish everything and build new as a way of getting there,
you know, net zero. We believe in genuine progress
over perfection. The peak scientific study here
in Australia, the CSIRO did a study recently and what they
found out was it in housing across Australia in particular,
72% of that is what they called older existing stock, right?
So we talked about the energy rating scheme just before 1 to
10. Now code is 7.
At the moment it was 6. Now it's 772% of housing in
Australia achieves 2 stars or less, right?
And so, and then the rest is between 5:00 and, and eight or
whatever it is. So I guess you know, what's the
solution? Should we just demo the whole
lot and build again? Well, there's the cost of that.
And we haven't even talked about embodied energy, right?
How importance in modern energy to.
So I think we believe in incremental improvement and, and
also if you're going to build right, build once, I think you
should build right. So I think personally, as an
architect, thinking about using our skills and then our design
thinking, as you mentioned earlier, to consider, you know,
things like bigger picture, things like ageing in place, you
know, designing something that would cater for multi
generational living. I think it's just as important
as detailing a an airtight envelope that and why I say that
is. And your listeners will be
familiar with this concept of, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of
needs. To put it in a nutshell, if, if
I, if I have a roof over my head and I have food in my belly, I'm
much more likely to consider upgrading to triple glazed
windows and extra insulation. You know, you've got to solve
the shelter first before you, you do the rest.
And in this sort of economic environment, you know, I think
you must be evidence based and and passive house and really
helps with that level of thinking.
You you, you portray an incredibly compelling argument
and I wonder how many I mean, is, do you find it's a lot of
clients that are bringing that to you or is it always you kind
of pushing and educating clients?
You know, what is the market like in terms of knowledge of
sustainability and and demand for, I suppose those types of
buildings and architecture? I think it is some clients are
very interested in that world. I had a client who came to us at
a previous office who who mentioned just during the
briefing process are do you, do you, have you heard of Passive
House? As it, as it happened, I was
doing my Passive House course. And for those of us who in your
audience who have done the designers accredited course,
it's a bit like going back to, you know, to school and, and
being in a physics and mathematics class.
There's lots of formulas and lots of conversion of units as
well as concepts. So some clients are very, very
across that that particular client even said to, you know,
introduced us to some very high performance windows that are
just emerging in the, you know, in, in really an Australian
market that needs to really catch up to, to, to the likes of
Europe. I think we're, we're just
starting with triple glazing. It's like worse, you know, there
are lots of single glazed houses, believe it or not, from
here, still being built sometimes.
Yeah. So you get clients who are
really into that Reich who are very, very knowledgeable and
interested. The vast majority of our
clients, I think, rely on us to educate them in a respectful
manner. I think it's super important to
be able to communicate these things to a client and not come
across as patronising and just kind of looking out for their
interest as much as anything. And like I said, the the
objective numbers and the figures do convince people.
I think having having spoken to you for a while now, the feeling
I'm getting is, is about that all round architect, you know,
like, like we alluded to at the beginning, you know, the
architect that has as much of a feeling for, you know, the test
technical aspects and the numbers, but you know, also the,
the bigger picture thinking and the, the, the artistic nature
that's able to communicate their ideas.
I wonder, have you ever kind of considered what people could
take away from your career? Some of the, the sort of big
lessons that you've learnt, you know, through your journey and,
and something that you know, the listeners would, would, would
love to kind of, you know, take from this conversation.
I kind of have thought about this a fair bit and I can sort
of boil it down into a couple of things.
I suppose. Number one, I really think that
my careers, you know, has been a bit of adaptation.
You know, I mean, I have a goal, We all should have one.
And it's one of the things that I sort of suggest people have is
always to have a goal. You have a goal for the year or
have a goal even when you walk into an office for that day or
for that, for that time you're sitting at the desk or being
outside. But also being able to.
It's kind of a bit like design build, right?
You kind of need to be a bit nimble and you have to fit life
throws curve balls at you. But what personally, what really
helps is to surround yourself with really passionate, really
competent people, especially in the at work.
And I guess like I, I think it's a real privilege to work with
the people I work with. Got colleagues here at Fran and
and William and I sort of, I love talking design with these
guys. It's just also Ryan as well.
He's a builder. He loves design and I, I think
people who are who will sort of, you know, fill your cup with,
with passion, with design interests, with, you know,
things they want to do or things they've seen that they've loved.
But I think really helps, you know, in the, you know, the sort
of peaks and troughs of, of architecture, but also allowing,
allowing people around, allowing room for people around you to,
to be critical of ideas that you might put forward and not let
your ego get in the way of it. And it's really hard because
you're, you're sort of you, you do invest in, in ideas.
Also, I'd say making space for quieter people in the room.
Some people don't really sort of hype up and say something.
I'm, I'm fairly, I'd say I'm fairly extroverted.
I, I can hopefully communicate and, and articulate what I'm
thinking well at the time and fairly quickly.
But I think a lot of people sort of go away to think about things
and, and come back and allowing that to happen.
And I think probably one other thing I would say is just also
listen to older architects. Sounds a bit weird but like they
have a lot to say. I, my first job here in
Melbourne, I worked for a company and they did high end
homes. They interestingly they came
from a design and build background and then they
splintered off and became a traditional architect.
So they're sort of the opposite as it happens.
I, I really learnt a lot about their documentation, their
documentation, It was incredible.
It was the benchmark basically, and it's really aimed at
efficiency on site and, and, and just communicating a design
intent just enough to allow people to, you know, be flexible
on site. So that was really good.
Those old employers have become, you know, this was over 10 years
ago, have become lifelong friends and mentors and, and,
and one of them invites me to these dinners once a year, I
should say, where, you know, how a bunch of boomer architects
turn up to this, you know, cute little Italian restaurant.
And they, and they just rant and they just talk about the, the
just their gripes with the industry, with practice and that
sort of thing. And I just, I just shut up and
listen, you know, and, and I honestly, I have learnt so much
from those sessions. Probably more than that.
Sort of we talk about the five years of architecture in terms
of practice, right? I learnt a lot from that.
And yeah, I think just listen to older people listen critically,
though. I mean, I think they're not
always right. Wisdom, You know, Asia does not
always equate wisdom. Just with that in mind, I, I
mean, I, I, I'm very passionate about mentoring and architecture
and, and talk about it sort of widely.
Can you, I mean, what's your experience of, of, of mentoring
and having been mentored and, you know, your reflection on the
importance of that within a career that is so long.
And as we alluded to at the beginning, you know, university
may not prepare you for it. And and, you know, it's always
learning, I suppose. Yeah.
I mean, I think I, I don't think I'd be here at this level of in
my career without having mentors and mentors can be in the
industry and outside the industry.
And that, that and also just sort of being mindful of also
passing down the knowledge to younger people as well.
And there's a bit of a balance to strike in terms of mentorship
in that you, you don't want people who are you are mentoring
to kind of think exactly like you.
You want to give them the tools, not so much to that they want to
be a mean process of, of yourself, like a carbon copy.
I mean, it's very seductive to do that because then no one,
everyone would agree with you and life would be good.
But I think it's just passed down, passing down the sort of
technical knowledge and the, and the way of thinking and just
allowing those people to, to carry out their work and, and
come up with ideas of their own and challenging you as well.
So with regards to my, my mentors, they, they've often
been past employers. And what I've found
interestingly, and your listeners probably could relate
to this, is that the employer employee relationship is very
interesting. So there's a sort of a dynamic
there when you leave a, an office.
And, and I would suggest, I would highly recommend that, you
know, I've tried to do some my career, I always leave, I always
try to leave with a really good handshake.
And you know, it's, you know, at first when you do depart, it
could be a bit awkward because obviously, you know, the news,
you know, you're probably relying news or the other way
around that they, they are, you know, you're, you're being, you
know, being retrenched or whatever.
It at first it could be a bit confronting and that's okay.
That's your initial feeling. But it's really, I think the
industry is a really small, you know, can be very small and it's
really important to foster those relationships.
And quite often those past, in my experience, past employers
have become friends and sort of we, I text them, I, I call them,
I ask them questions. They then ask me questions
randomly about things, you know, do you know, a good engineer, a
civil engineer or do you, you know, any good builders in that
area, that sort of thing. So or, or I've got a client and
this, this is sort of come up, you know, how, how have you
dealt with this in the past? I think it's, it's really
important to have mentors. I don't think, I don't know how
you could be a competent architect, a good architect
without having mentors personally and also being
mentored yourself. Yeah, mentoring others as well
and and surrounding themselves with a good team, yeah.
One question I like to leave conversations on is a sort of a
sort of summary piece and a, and a, and a look back.
So I wonder, you know, you and your family as immigrants into
New Zealand from Iraq and, and you know, the, the, the life
that you've LED in, in looking back on that as your career
turned out, how you could have imagined.
And I suppose feeding back to the sort of original question
about, you know, why architecture.
So as you know, where, where do you see the value that you've
brought in your career personally and you know, to to
the outside world? And similarly, where do you see
yourself going in the future? I I sort of go back and, and,
and reiterate my point that we definitely are a product of our
environment, but we have to be. I mean, people talk about the
blank slate, you know, a human beings complete blank slate.
Do you, you know, are you the person that you are because of
where you live and, and, and how you live and, and what's I I
think I definitely think so. I guess in terms of how that's
impacted my career, it's. It's definitely made me want to
be make architecture a lot more accessible to a lot more people.
I think, I mean, the common criticism with architects is it
can be fairly elitist as a, as a profession, both in terms of
the, the, the, the sort of parts of society, it's, you know, the
industry services and what have you.
So I, I think, I think being able to make architecture
available to a lot more people is kind of what drives me.
And it's probably from my upbringing and, and my
experiences in the outer suburbs.
So I guess that's sort of fed into, you know, what we do here,
design, design and build, but also being able to being able to
offer that ability to to synthesize fairly sophisticated
artificial responses with great cross control and buildability
know how at the front end to, you know, large value project as
well. So that that's that's really
important. I think in terms of going
forward, where do we see ourselves?
It's just probably getting that balance right between these
probably smaller projects, smaller budgets versus the, the
sort of a higher value projects as well.
And then kind of having some consistency along that in terms
of our processes and our services.
And also I'd say one of the really big things we're excited
about and you'll probably hear this a lot from architects, but
it's, it's very topical is prefabrication.
It's something that we're we're really keen and interested and I
think it's, it's, it's, it's a very compatible endeavour,
especially for a design LED design and build organization.
You know, you're hearing about most industries since the
industrial revolution, you know, have increased productivity over
time, especially at the advent of, you know, game changing
technological advances, with the exception of construction, In
fact, like in the last decade or so that we're going down, we're
going backwards. And this is not the subject of
this podcast. As to why that is, there are
many reasons, but I think we, you know, like the UK, here in
Australia, we have a housing crisis.
Like that's, you know, it's a, it's a very topical thing.
Land is finite. We're not building houses,
especially houses as fast as we need to.
And we've got a declining a, an industry with declining
productivity. And I guess one of the things
that to address that is prefabrication.
And we know that that increases efficiency and modern, what's
called modern methods of construction is a way to address
that. So I think to, to wrap it up,
it's basically trying to make architecture more accessible to
a raft of clientele and people probably who wouldn't have
thought to use an architect as well.
That's, that's kind of, that's a really sort of a big, big part
of where we're trying to to appeal to, but also innovating
constantly and being open to new ways of doing things and being a
younger organization, we're able to do that probably better than
more established practices or builders.
Kateva, absolutely fascinating conversation, and I think you've
shared, you know, lots of insights that you know will have
incredible value for people listening.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you for having me.