RF - Firstly we’d like if you could tell us what is was like to start your new practice just as the recession started.
CM – Right, you mean all the advice I got saying don’t do it? (Laughs), between my accountant, various bank mangers and friends asking me “Are ya mad in the head?”. Generally I’m not really a very cautious person. I tend to take risks in the hope that something good will come from it. Like many architects I tend to look for opportunity in places rather than look at the half empty side i.e. I felt the time had come and I had enough of a range of contacts and plenty of work to do it. The main problem, as with any business, was cash flow. It’s a real problem and, I haven’t done it here but I know people who have had to do it, but it’s difficult to resist from knocking people into a three and four day week or potentially making pay cuts, a concept that would only work if everyone took a pay cut, directors and all, in the hope that the money will eventually be recouped and returned to the business getting people back to where they where. There are too many situations where people are taking pay cuts but the mangers aren’t. The staff are suffering and I think that it’s an unacceptable problem that I wouldn’t want to happen here at ARD.
RF – You mentioned that you feel you took a risk with starting your new practice. Do you feel that the risk has begun to pay off even though you started your new practice at such a difficult time?
CM – Em, well people have asked me why I didn’t just apply to the college for a full time post and, it’s easier said than done because it just doesn’t work like that. I feel confident though that if the work situation was to dry up completely I’d still find a mechanism to keep the practice running. I read a piece in the Architectural Record about nine months ago telling Architects in practice to watch your overheads, manage your costs, promote your work and, actually, target your competitors weakest clients. In a downturn it’s easy for a practice to slip in regards to care and attention for clients who have maybe cut back on work. Architectural Record advised practices to target those clients, not by saying “leave that guy” but by talking to them and saying “this is my practice, this is what we do”, and eventually when this guys business picks up they’ll remember the neglect shown by the other practice and the eagerness of you. Spread your contacts and broaden your network and from that feedback will come through.
It’s hard to find thinking time or reflecting time as you don’t have enough of it so that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
RF – That’s something we want to touch on i.e. an Architect getting time to think, but before that we where wondering, in regards to the recession topic, how many recessions have you worked through and how to you perceive this one to be different from the rest?
CM – It’s funny you should ask that, did you go to the talk organised by PLACE in the Black Box about the recession?
RF- Yes, about a month ago?
CM – Yeah, that’s right. I remember talking to you guys there. After it everyone was saying “do remember the last one… 79, 81, 96 blah blah blah”, and I was thinking, “not really”. I know I should remember. I wasn’t that spaced out (laughs). I suppose in a way I didn’t actually remember it. Thinking back I remember practices I was in dropping staff from around seventeen to twelve but I didn’t realise it was a result of recession. I was just busy working. It wasn’t as obvious in some ways and not as wide spread. In the past there was always work in Germany, London etc but now, there’s no work there either and I guess that’s probably the big difference. Although, the thing that has made this so different is now the banks are struggling. You have to pay staff. The last wage to come out I always your own, and that can be very worrying if there is no money coming in, from fees of from loans / overdrafts. That’s what happens when you start up a business and you have to face up with it.
RF – So, since you just started this practice has the recession encouraged or even forced you to change your approach to Architecture?
CM – No, not really. I’ve worked with a successful developer in the past who has a strong belief on a particular quality his housing schemes should have. He claims he wants his schemes to be Georgian, without fully understanding what Georgian really is. Then you question what Georgian is, if it is the proportions, is it what he really wants and he’ll say yes, but only if it’s a 2.8m high ceiling. Then obviously it’s not Georgian. So now instead of writing a letter telling this guy ‘his heads up his arse’ I’ll let martin read the letters and let it rest for a day or two and try and give this guy a way back in.
I suppose the only other way that I’ve changed the way I practice is in regards to money. I’ve practiced for 30 years but never dealt with money. In the past the person in the practice dealing with money wasn’t me, so in that sense I’d have been able to maintain a working relationship with the client without having to worry about money. Now, when you are the one dealing with the money, and the financial institutions are beginning to hold back on paying out to people, then everyone gets frustrated and the conversation only becomes about money. That can disrupt the design relationship and that’s not good for practice. So now I restructure the practice to try and avoid situations like that.
I worked for a guy in the past who was very client orientated. When he told a client a fee, even if he went over, he still stuck to that fee. Now, in my previous practice and in practices I’ve worked in in the past, if the job goes over we’d return to the client and say, “yeah, I told ya £12000 but now it’s gonna be £15000”. A lot of clients don't have that money lying around. With my current practice, I just take it on the chin. If you run over, that has to be absorbed in the practice.
I take the view that around 15-20% of my time should be on non-chargeable work. There are people who say that a practice principle should never be 100% chargeable because of the amount of admin and meetings etc. that they take part in. If you are able to charge 40% of your time as a principle you’re doing well. That’s different from what I’m talking about though. My belief is that there is a responsibility, maybe from a sense of citizenship, to spend roughly a day or a day and a half on projects that do not directly earn me money. They are about giving time, potentially to voluntary things. I do a number of things like, I chair a group in the Falls Road, do some work with PLACE and with the RSUA, and that time takes up around 10-12hours a week, above my standard 35. I feel that’s reasonable and it should be a practices cost anyway. I go potentially one step further and suggest that a practice should always donate and take part in work like that, from a social point of view, in order to gave professional advice to groups that cant afford it. This concept should be adapted by all professionals, to give time to those groups who don’t have the skills or money to complete such tasks.
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CM – Right, you mean all the advice I got saying don’t do it? (Laughs), between my accountant, various bank mangers and friends asking me “Are ya mad in the head?”. Generally I’m not really a very cautious person. I tend to take risks in the hope that something good will come from it. Like many architects I tend to look for opportunity in places rather than look at the half empty side i.e. I felt the time had come and I had enough of a range of contacts and plenty of work to do it. The main problem, as with any business, was cash flow. It’s a real problem and, I haven’t done it here but I know people who have had to do it, but it’s difficult to resist from knocking people into a three and four day week or potentially making pay cuts, a concept that would only work if everyone took a pay cut, directors and all, in the hope that the money will eventually be recouped and returned to the business getting people back to where they where. There are too many situations where people are taking pay cuts but the mangers aren’t. The staff are suffering and I think that it’s an unacceptable problem that I wouldn’t want to happen here at ARD.
RF – You mentioned that you feel you took a risk with starting your new practice. Do you feel that the risk has begun to pay off even though you started your new practice at such a difficult time?
CM – Em, well people have asked me why I didn’t just apply to the college for a full time post and, it’s easier said than done because it just doesn’t work like that. I feel confident though that if the work situation was to dry up completely I’d still find a mechanism to keep the practice running. I read a piece in the Architectural Record about nine months ago telling Architects in practice to watch your overheads, manage your costs, promote your work and, actually, target your competitors weakest clients. In a downturn it’s easy for a practice to slip in regards to care and attention for clients who have maybe cut back on work. Architectural Record advised practices to target those clients, not by saying “leave that guy” but by talking to them and saying “this is my practice, this is what we do”, and eventually when this guys business picks up they’ll remember the neglect shown by the other practice and the eagerness of you. Spread your contacts and broaden your network and from that feedback will come through.
It’s hard to find thinking time or reflecting time as you don’t have enough of it so that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
RF – That’s something we want to touch on i.e. an Architect getting time to think, but before that we where wondering, in regards to the recession topic, how many recessions have you worked through and how to you perceive this one to be different from the rest?
CM – It’s funny you should ask that, did you go to the talk organised by PLACE in the Black Box about the recession?
RF- Yes, about a month ago?
CM – Yeah, that’s right. I remember talking to you guys there. After it everyone was saying “do remember the last one… 79, 81, 96 blah blah blah”, and I was thinking, “not really”. I know I should remember. I wasn’t that spaced out (laughs). I suppose in a way I didn’t actually remember it. Thinking back I remember practices I was in dropping staff from around seventeen to twelve but I didn’t realise it was a result of recession. I was just busy working. It wasn’t as obvious in some ways and not as wide spread. In the past there was always work in Germany, London etc but now, there’s no work there either and I guess that’s probably the big difference. Although, the thing that has made this so different is now the banks are struggling. You have to pay staff. The last wage to come out I always your own, and that can be very worrying if there is no money coming in, from fees of from loans / overdrafts. That’s what happens when you start up a business and you have to face up with it.
RF – So, since you just started this practice has the recession encouraged or even forced you to change your approach to Architecture?
CM – No, not really. I’ve worked with a successful developer in the past who has a strong belief on a particular quality his housing schemes should have. He claims he wants his schemes to be Georgian, without fully understanding what Georgian really is. Then you question what Georgian is, if it is the proportions, is it what he really wants and he’ll say yes, but only if it’s a 2.8m high ceiling. Then obviously it’s not Georgian. So now instead of writing a letter telling this guy ‘his heads up his arse’ I’ll let martin read the letters and let it rest for a day or two and try and give this guy a way back in.
I suppose the only other way that I’ve changed the way I practice is in regards to money. I’ve practiced for 30 years but never dealt with money. In the past the person in the practice dealing with money wasn’t me, so in that sense I’d have been able to maintain a working relationship with the client without having to worry about money. Now, when you are the one dealing with the money, and the financial institutions are beginning to hold back on paying out to people, then everyone gets frustrated and the conversation only becomes about money. That can disrupt the design relationship and that’s not good for practice. So now I restructure the practice to try and avoid situations like that.
I worked for a guy in the past who was very client orientated. When he told a client a fee, even if he went over, he still stuck to that fee. Now, in my previous practice and in practices I’ve worked in in the past, if the job goes over we’d return to the client and say, “yeah, I told ya £12000 but now it’s gonna be £15000”. A lot of clients don't have that money lying around. With my current practice, I just take it on the chin. If you run over, that has to be absorbed in the practice.
I take the view that around 15-20% of my time should be on non-chargeable work. There are people who say that a practice principle should never be 100% chargeable because of the amount of admin and meetings etc. that they take part in. If you are able to charge 40% of your time as a principle you’re doing well. That’s different from what I’m talking about though. My belief is that there is a responsibility, maybe from a sense of citizenship, to spend roughly a day or a day and a half on projects that do not directly earn me money. They are about giving time, potentially to voluntary things. I do a number of things like, I chair a group in the Falls Road, do some work with PLACE and with the RSUA, and that time takes up around 10-12hours a week, above my standard 35. I feel that’s reasonable and it should be a practices cost anyway. I go potentially one step further and suggest that a practice should always donate and take part in work like that, from a social point of view, in order to gave professional advice to groups that cant afford it. This concept should be adapted by all professionals, to give time to those groups who don’t have the skills or money to complete such tasks.
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Roy Fitzpatrick - 6th year MArch student
Congrats to all at eStudio10 on the launch of the new site.
ReplyDeleteI must advise that when I practiced with Ciaran, or in the interim, I have never encountered the approach to charging clients as noted above and am concerned that such an image of the profession could be portrayed. The terms of agreement must always form the basis for a fee claim and this has always been my own experience.
For students in general on fees: the RIBA advise of scenarios where an additional fee could be appropriate. This of course must always be based on what has been included in the contract terms.
http://www.arc-in-form.com/ExplainingServices.pdf
Michael Doherty
Thanks for contributing to the eStudio Michael.
ReplyDeleteI think the wider context in which Ciaran made that statement has been missed when you read this section of the interview. At the time, and it related I suppose to other discussion we had had with Ciaran, the topic was about an Architects understanding and ability to cope with the business side of Architecture. The discussion moved around the fact that many Architects find it hard to gauge how much their time is worth and how to value their output. As a result, it can happen that when a client makes changes to a design then the Architect may only advise the client that this will cost extra at a later stage. Unlike a solicitor who will potentially bill a client for a simple phone call, Architects tend to provide their service and cost in a different way.
Also, on reviewing the audio, Ciaran actually said:
“I know I told you ten, but actually, you came back to us three times rather than twice or there was a change of circumstances and it’s actually 15,000”
Thanks for the link. I hope this can possibly open up a debate on the professional abilities of Architects, something readers of the eStudio, particularly as students, need to know more about.