Design Principles Pod
Architecture. A hot topic, a buzz word, a realm for the rich and famous, or the thing that your step uncle does? We will be unpacking the good, the bad and the downright reality of the architectural and construction industry. With insights from industry professionals and personal anecdotes from our three hosts Ben, Gerard and Sam, you will be given a look behind the closed pages of those fancy looking moleskins. Tune in and redline out.
Design Principles Pod
Design With Intent: A Conversation with Architects, Seear-Budd Ross
The seemingly effortless elegance of minimalist architecture masks the extraordinary attention to detail required to achieve it. Tom Seear-Budd and James Ross, founders of Wellington-based Seear-Budd Ross Architects, pull back the curtain on this process, revealing the meticulous thought behind their refined residential designs.
Having established their practice nearly six years ago after departing larger commercial firms, the pair sought greater autonomy and the opportunity to create more intentional, considered work. What began with barely a month's worth of projects ahead has evolved into a respected studio known for exceptionally clean architectural expressions. Their journey reveals the challenges and rewards of maintaining design integrity while building a sustainable practice.
At the heart of their approach lies an almost obsessive consideration of proportion, light, and spatial choreography. Tom and James share fascinating insights into their design process – from spending days on site imagining how residents might move through spaces, to debating whether rooms can "handle" 300mm versus 250mm floorboards. In one project, they aligned every element in a hair salon to the 105mm floor tile module; in another, they meticulously planned how to choreograph a visitor's experience of views, revealing them gradually rather than all at once.
The conversation explores how their thoughtful approach to openings (preferring fixed glazing with minimal frames over complex systems), material selection (favouring harmony over contrast), and spatial division (intuitive separation of public and private realms) creates buildings of quiet confidence. They emphasise that while their work has gravitated toward higher-end residential projects, their core design principles can be applied at any scale or budget – proving that good architecture isn't necessarily about expensive materials, but thoughtful application of universal principles.
For those interested in establishing their own architecture practice, Tom and James offer valuable insights from their journey – from the importance of brand integrity and mentorship to their strategic use of high-quality renders for communication and marketing. Their story demonstrates that building a distinctive architectural voice requires not just design talent, but persistence, strategic thinking, and occasional financial sacrifice in service of long-term vision.
Want to see more examples of architecture that demonstrates how simplicity often demands the greatest precision? Follow the Design Principles podcast for conversations with leading practitioners who are shaping our built environment through thoughtful, intentional design.
Episode cover image provided by Seear-Budd Ross.
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Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Design Principles podcast. Today, we're lucky enough to be joined by two exceptionally talented architects doing incredible work across New Zealand Tom Seabud and James Ross, founders of Seabud Ross. We explore building a business, designing architecture, crafting furniture and photography, and how Tom and James bring the same intentional, design-led approach to all of these disciplines, creating work that feels both refined and impactful. I especially enjoyed hearing their discussion around conducting a site investigation and planning spatial layouts anyway. So, yeah, welcome to the pod. I don't know, have you guys ever, uh, done a podcast of of any description before?
Speaker 3:We have. We did one what felt like 30 seconds into starting the business, which was really interesting. That was for was that for the design files? I don't know for Habitus actually. But yeah, we were very fresh and that was just before COVID, so it was kind of.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a while ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, you guys have come a long way. I suspect you've got a lot more to talk about this time around.
Speaker 5:Definitely I've listened to lots of podcasts as well. Yeah, quite a few good architecture ones out there. What's your go-to?
Speaker 4:Yeah, as well as the Design Principles pod Design Principles obviously is the number one. I thought you'd say that.
Speaker 5:Probably my favorite would be the Dave.
Speaker 2:Sharp Video Sharp, he's clinical eh.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he's good. We come and go. We listen to a little bit of Business Architecture UK as well. Yep, same. Yeah, it's kind of like you have to take a little bit of the almost interpret the advice for our own context because, um, yeah, quite different over there, whereas at least australia is a lot more relevant, I guess for us isn't it?
Speaker 2:and it's cool listening to all the firms. He does a good job. I don't know how, but he really, like you know, he interviews some amazing architects and designers.
Speaker 4:So, uh, kudos to him for that yeah, it's awesome how he's branched into the uk with his uk series been enjoying that lately.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I found after a while some have like really good information in there, but you run sort of crowds around things that are have impacted them over time, but after you'd listen to quite a few you can start to get quite a balanced idea around all these sort of marketing ideas and things. So yeah, yeah, it's a super helpful thing to have that little resource in the background, because marketing for architecture is a strange topic.
Speaker 5:I think marketing for architects is quite interesting because there's almost like some organic ways that just by doing your work you create your own marketing, which is probably like the default for a lot of architects. So it's like publication and awards, yeah, and I guess Instagram as well generates a bit of attention. But I think that's quite an interesting question. It's like whether there's other things you do beyond those kind of traditional like methods, I guess.
Speaker 4:What have you found, you guys, doing, or strategies you've had a crack at, or do we do?
Speaker 2:we want to just jump in with a quick overview before we dive straight into deep marketing strategies. Now we'd love to hear a bit more about you know, Sebad Ross and who you guys are, and, yeah, goals and ambitions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we, james and I, started the practice almost six years ago and we both came from a commercial architecture background and so both going for a relatively large practice, and I wanted to craft our own journey and, yeah, do some work. That was kind of a bit more peed back, refined, kind of have a bit more autonomy as well in our own careers, and it was basically it's basically been the two of us the whole time. We've recently taken on another staff member, nina, who has come over from the uk, so she brings, you know, a whole lot of knowledge from europe, which is really good and, yeah, mainly working on residential projects around the country and a little bit of commercial, but, yeah, probably 80, 80 resi one of houses quite high end though would I would I mean, I would say has it all been high end, Like we've done everything from bathroom renos.
Speaker 3:Like we went through a period where we're kind of doing the building drawings for some interior designers that couldn't file them. So we're doing a bathroom reno, but yeah now sort of like houses that are up, definitely up there, and um kind of scale and is it?
Speaker 2:is that mainly because you know the stuff that you guys want to be designing, which is quite minimal, clean, super clean, probably like the cleanest architecture, I would say, in the residential realm? For sure is it so? Is it because it because the stuff that you guys want to be designing kind of leads you towards that higher end realm, or do you try and just bring that into any work you do?
Speaker 5:I think it was Claire Cousins. I heard her talk about in an interview that she quite likes doing small scale projects because they have a fast turnaround and they are almost like a good way to explore ideas and they're quite satisfying just because they're that quick and it might take a year or two years to go from start to finish. So I guess an example would be like Terrier Fit Out. So we definitely don't say no to small projects, but probably what we find like the trend is is that, um, people that want to work with us do have like quite big projects, um, and so if someone has a small alteration, they probably, they probably in general they don't want to spend much of their allocated budget on design fees would be just our experience. But if someone did want to spend much of their allocated budget on design fees would be just our experience. But if someone did want to pay, basically us for our time to work on a small project would definitely be interested in it.
Speaker 3:But it does probably mean, you know, the percentage fees are quite high in the context of their budget it's also like throughout, like we've learned to well, we've kind of learned that designing simple, what feels like a simple building, is actually quite expensive.
Speaker 2:And hard to achieve. I can imagine, yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, if you want to, you know, hide all your flashings and do multiple layers of cleaning and all that sort of stuff, like that's a it's a expensive way to build so that naturally kind of shuts you off from an end of the market. You know, like we're working on a renovation in kandala at the moment which is like it's it's kind of expensive for for what it is, but it's not um, like their overall project cost isn't like some of the new houses, but it has the same ideas as the new houses in terms of, you know, light and proportion and materiality, flow and choreography. We kind of apply the same, the same principles to whatever we're working on. But yeah, as james said, it's just the kind of market is naturally coming to us, larger and higher end.
Speaker 4:Is it worth digging into some of those design ideas and philosophies. So what are you guys, I guess, in search of through your architecture? What are you digging for with these light and proportions?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we probably differ slightly between us, between James and I, but there's overlap. But for me, proportion is really important and creating a calm environment. So less materials and materials that are fairly low contrast with each other, so you're creating quite a harmonious space. But then, yeah, yeah, layering an atmosphere, like certain you know, certain spaces kind of demand a different, a different atmosphere, so it's not necessarily all like bright and light all the time, but it's probably, yeah, like a clarity, um, that you're kind of searching for yeah, I guess, like all your um projects I see, have a good mass, good weight to them.
Speaker 4:Is that something that you're pushing for in projects? This whole face will have Horizontal, yeah, horizontal, elements. It's kind of like a simplified prairie house, some of them Massive horizontal elements, but then being careful not to puncture that with anything Elemental forces there probably is.
Speaker 5:I um say there's been like a ongoing exploration. For us is something as simple as openings in a building. So, like those are doors and glazing. In terms of, like interior experience, you don't really need, you don't always need five meters of glass to have, you know, like to celebrate a view, you might only need four meters, and then it can be actually quite nice to have a solid three meters of wall adjacent that and that's where your art goes. Or you know, there's um that allows for interior furnishing and things like that. So I think, um, and and also like considering like the way light comes into the building, um, you know how you want that interior atmosphere to feel. That's like there might be something in that for the way we maybe a language that starts to become apparent in the buildings we do.
Speaker 4:A lot of your windows are sort of full height, so you get like these monoliths, stonehenge style massings and then like a roof, yeah, kind of like a roof, yeah, kind of like a secular pavilion yeah, which works beautifully with, like when you chuck that's around the earth or something, you start to create a pretty beautiful building pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Also touching on what Thomas said earlier, like designing so that we can assemble the buildings in the way we want. So like, say, a wall has more mass than that. That might like allow us to differentiate between, like the glazing that's adjacent. Quite often we like search for ways to like reduce the amount of like window frame that you can see, yeah, so it does become like just quite elemental, so it might be like a wall, and then glass, so like, for example, we don't do bifold doors that often because like so much of the like profiles, yeah, yeah, and it's like and fixed glazing is something we're quite interested in where, like not Not every piece of glazing needs to open. It could actually be 80% of a glass wall is fixed, and then you might have a pivot.
Speaker 4:Yeah, in those scenarios do you start playing with window profiles and kind of simplify that down to like glued-in systems? You bring that elemental nature right down to like load and systems.
Speaker 2:You bring that elemental nature right down to the to the finer details yeah, and when you guys are working, do you typically kind of just like pick up a project and I don't know, maybe like one person's working on one and someone else is leading another, or do you have like quite a collaborative work style?
Speaker 3:it's led. It's led by jams at night, um. So we'll set the direction of every project. So it will be that where we're kind of essentially designing, designing the bones of it, and then now with nina, like nina's having input, um, like fairly early on as on as a design reviewer. But it's like the direction is definitely being set from James and I, which we talked about quite a bit prior to having a staff member. That that's the pathway that we wanted to follow for consistency, and also that's part of the reason why we started the practice was we wanted to design buildings and so it's yeah, like it's important that we're both and that we're both touching it and we're not.
Speaker 2:It's not like james's projects and in my projects, yeah yeah, yeah, gerard and I collaborate on well quite a bit actually recently. But it's always funny at the start of the project it's like, okay, cool, you know. Like this is the everyone knows what's what. Like this is the scheme. And then we go away, test some stuff individually and come back and we've just got, you know, completely different concepts for the same thing. And then we kind of slowly bring it it together over time. Is that kind of similar for you guys, or do you do like a lot of like initial sketching together, or what's your, what's your design process?
Speaker 3:I think, like like the last thing we've been designing, we we actually spent quite a long time on site, like it might have been, um, or they were there for two days and spent like a good chunk of time on the site and actually like walking through the choreography that we could imagine and then sketching live. That's cool, yeah, so like really using the site to inform the To draw it out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that kind of like starts to form your bubble diagrams and so we're doing that together and then we might both go away and sketch a plan each that reflects that. But they're probably like, they're probably relatively similar, and then it's just kind of turning and throwing and finessing. Oh yeah, we're trying to spend more time sketching before we get into software.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, that makes sense and so that's like perspectives and, um, you know, elevations and and whatever you can probably quite a lot of planning.
Speaker 5:Even just to spell it out in terms of how we what we might be doing, it's when we're on site where the question might be where's the natural point of entry to the house? And then something we do quite often is at the point of entry divides the house into public and a private part of the house, and for the public part we're trying to think about how the entry can make it intuitive to go to the public part of the house, and then the private part is more likely to be obvious only to people that live there every day. When Thomas and I go away and start sketching, we might have already established that aspect of the bubble diagram. It's like here's where we're going to do the living and here's where you're going to rest.
Speaker 2:And I guess, like view shafts and lighting play into that quite a bit.
Speaker 3:It's like giving someone a taste of say there's an amazing view, giving someone a taste of the view, like it might be a little sliver, and then you're turning them 180 degrees away from it and then I guess a lot of Japanese architecture have the same principles. Where you're, it feels like you're really dragging out the entry experience. It's so different to a lot of Kiwi homes where you just open the front door and you're in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's like a white. You're facing like a white wall or something.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A blank wall and some shoes.
Speaker 3:Are you like it does? It's all part of the experience.
Speaker 2:And do you guys do uh much like model making at that stage or anything as part of your process, or do you kind of like take that and then bring it into uh software of some description and start just kind of adding those layers?
Speaker 5:yeah, yeah, like quite a bit of um.
Speaker 5:So we use archicad, which I guess thomas and I have both been in it for like 10 years, so it's like quite easy software for us to use.
Speaker 5:And, yeah, I guess it's just, as you know, like the detail progressively builds up but like the early concept modeling is like quite elemental and we are trying to think about like even in the last year to six months, we've been trying to think a lot more about how we're bringing light and it's almost like bringing light into the building but then also like creating spaces that have more like moodiness and, uh, darkness, I guess. But yeah, it's uh, probably our process would be like get the plan good, test how that plan is going and come back to the plan to see if there's certain moves that aren't kind of like working that well in 3d, but they are in plan and it's like that constant, like refinement of um, yeah, trying to generate ultimately a building. But it's like, yeah, I feel like sometimes there can be a conflict and like we're planning's working well, but the actual 3D and the experience is good, and so we spend quite a bit of time going back and forth just trying to refine and iterate and tick in as many boxes as we can.
Speaker 2:Do you kind of have, I guess, from spending so much time on site. Does that kind of give you a feeling for what kind of materials would work well with the project at that kind of early stage, or is that is that kind of developed as well a little bit over time? Or do you just kind of stick with stuff that you've potentially used in the past that you know works, or that's quite.
Speaker 3:That's quite a topical question, ben. Like we're still trying to find out a way with the materiality. Like it's um. Like for me, designing buildings that have a relationship to their context is really important. So, like, I'm not sure if this is the same for you guys, but like you, you can, you'll have like your own reference points and then you'll have client reference points for what they, what they like um, and then you've got the site and what feels appropriate and then kind of like natural, like material materials on hand. So you're trying to find the overlap of all those things. Typically, we have a pretty good idea of what sort of material we're looking at early on, and then it's about refining it. Um, I think if you're in a stage where you've got a design and you're trying to work out what to clad it on is, I feel like you're in a slightly dangerous position, because it was like the materiality should be a fundamental aspect of the design.
Speaker 2:I find that I I always get kind of bored with what I've been using. Perhaps I've used it a few too many times, I don't know, and so like just constantly trying to find it doesn't even need to be that different, just something that I don't know how to explain it when something's like not quite ticking the boxes anymore. But yeah, you're not sure what to switch to. I guess what's what's?
Speaker 4:what are you thinking of?
Speaker 2:no, just like in I in general, the use of, for example, timber or brick or anything that's like super common without the iron.
Speaker 2:I just find, like you know, you always come back to those three or four or whatever and then it's kind of hard to find something and that kind of leads your design a little bit too much because you know the details perhaps a little bit too well. So it's always really interesting to hear people that use a new, unique, clean, nice, yeah, different materials, x-penny materials. Well, that's the, that's the thing you know. Like, if you two, if you guys were to design your own house for yourselves, I guess, like would you be using a lot of the same details, and let's just assume that we're, like you know, five years into business or you know something, we're not super, not not down the track when you know I'm sure you guys will do very, be very, very successful, but you know what I mean like first homeowner status, would you kind of be designing a house using a lot of your details or do you think that you could find a way to kind of refine a lot of them to be used at that level?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think. So I think maybe not the Can you?
Speaker 4:use an expensive material cheap as opposed to a cheap material to look expensive.
Speaker 2:I guess it's more the design anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the base principles of good proportions, well-balanced rooms and volume, those things don't necessarily have to be super expensive. But then it's another thing. To clear everything in stone it's a different story. So it'd be the same taking the same principles or not having skirtings and full height doors, that sort of thing. So, yeah, taking a few cues but not being able to afford the full shebang.
Speaker 4:Everyone has a budget constraint at some point. I think a big part of architecture is people are like oh, we can't do that because it's too expensive. In my mind, there's a million ways of achieving, let's say, these monolithic, stonehenge-like qualities with a range of materials. I kind of like the idea of a big. In my head. I'm just imagining one of those mega monolith buildings, but all in everything's galv corrugate Loving simple galv corrugate these days. Beautiful New Zealand, contextualised material Like Glen Merkitt, using simple materials in beautiful ways. I think that's always been the strength of architecture being able to play your own game at different financial scales. Yeah, that's right.
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Speaker 2:One thing I've always been impressed with with you guys is just that super cleanliness. Going back to the form and the material, how have you gone about learning how to detail some of that stuff? Because I've spent a lot of my good part of my life with details and, man, some of that stuff just blows my, my mind. I have no idea how you do it or how you'd even go about doing it. So well done there. But what is what's the kind of strategy when you kind of you come across something that perhaps is a little bit unique or you really want to like keep because it's like such a big part of the design. You know, how do you kind of work through those, those details and keep them? The right intention, I guess.
Speaker 5:Thanks, ben, that's the best thing to say, I guess. When we're like the assembly of the buildings, I guess it contributes so much to the atmosphere and sometimes it could even be like the absence of complexity. But you know, just the building feeling really simple but accomplishing that can be quite challenging, definitely, yeah, recently we had a um. I've probably got two examples of like just something that we put a lot of effort into but there may be not that many people would care about, but perhaps most people that go into the building would appreciate it. So we did a hair salon that's got 100mm by 100mm tile across the whole flooring but then when you factor in the grout join it's like a module of 105 by 105. We basically set out the whole, like every element in the building, to that floor tile module and, uh, like, I think for the builder on site it was probably a little bit frustrating. We, we told them it was almost like we gave them the license to so that, like they, they might have had 30 millimeters or 40 millimeters of margin to shift things around so that they aligned with modules. But it was like, just like putting that level of effort into something that was like because it was such a simple like interior fit out. That almost was the design Like. You could definitely argue there's some other things we did in there as well, but it was like, just like I guess I'd call it like a rigor and an attention to detail that I'd say made the project better, but like.
Speaker 5:The second example is like we had on this small-ish renovation in Kandala. We were talking to Nina about like doing a 250mm wide floorboard versus a 300mm wide floorboard and then working out what alignments we're trying to accomplish in terms of how a full module of the floorboard um like aligns with walls and things like that. And like the island for the kitchen, like is that a meter? Because it's, you know, yeah, like that kind of stuff. Um, and it was, yeah. We just asked nina it's like, is this up? Like are we being? Like, is this crazy to you that we're putting like this effort in? She said that she's seen it before at some of the european practices that she's worked at. Um, but yeah, like, thomas, would you have? Like it's not just alignments that we're focusing on, but it is that's awesome though.
Speaker 2:I love to hear it. I love I can imagine the floor guy installer was pretty stoked with that. But super cool though super cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and even just like the floorboard examples, because it would be an easy pathway for us is just to specify. Let's say it's 250, right, but then our second guessing whether it's 250 or 300 is basically we're trying to work out if the space can handle a 300, like proportionally, or if it would feel weird because it's just too wide, and so that's like, that's also what's going through our heads in that, in that conversation. So, yeah, what's like what's going to feel right or is it going to feel jarring? Yeah, so yeah, alignments and spacing and like volume, like we, yeah, we, we kind of interrogate quite a bit, like this overall proportion of a room gets interrogated quite a bit. And then the details, like, as you know, again it's like it is, it is iteration, like and working with the builders to iterate, iterate the detail and, um, yeah, as long as you're kind of communicating what the intent is and you've got good builders, then like it is a good and good engineers, like it's a yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you use like any kind of like early contractor involvement and that sort of thing just to like help with some of those tricky details as well?
Speaker 3:We've had quite a few like a few clients who've had builders either they've been the builder or builder as family members. So through the nature of this early contractor engagement, eastbourne yeah, eastbourne House was called the builder. He was the builder.
Speaker 2:He's a really good builder. By the looks of that house like it's super crispy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's done a good job yeah, like the one's like where all the walls are full boards, um. Yeah, it's like a two mil gap, um. But I think early contractor I'm a fan of generally, because you're just getting kind of early buy-in, you're not having a tender, the builder is such an important part of the team and the engineers and the services engineers or other consultants you're kind of rounding out that team early on and are working towards the same goal, which is good, yeah, and I can imagine you apply the same or similar principles to a lot of your like internal joinery, for example.
Speaker 2:your houses really seem like almost like a bit of furniture where it's kind of like design. The inside is kind of in such, in such I don't know well-balanced, harmonious, you know, environment that it kind of feels like it's just one object as opposed to I don't know, perhaps something with like an interior designer or something I don't know yeah. So I guess like yeah, you must kind of put a lot of effort into a lot of your internal joinery and the actual fit out as well yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And same same ideas of rhythm and even spacing of of cabinetry doors and, yeah, like on the same, that same project that james was talking about with the floorboards. You know, trying to work out a farm, like we're basically like saying throughout the house that you don't have to have a high toe kick. Say, you've got a whole bank of joinery and the doors are 10 mils off the ground, or are they 20 mils off the ground? And then what's your toe kick in the kitchen, trying to bring that down as minimal as you could without meaning you stub your toe every time you open a drawer. So yeah, kind of diving into all of those things the toe kicks quite satisfying.
Speaker 4:I wonder if we can circle all the way back right to the the beginning, interested to know at what stage you guys were working and then, like, did you guys found a project together or something like the first client that sort of launched it together, and what was that sort of the case and what sort of what were your initial projects that kept you off?
Speaker 5:at my end. Um, I was like I think I just um, I was maybe like 31 or 32 when we started bring chicken. Just yeah, yeah, um and uh, I was like, oh, if you want to start an architecture practice, it's probably harder to do when you're 40. So I was just like, oh, it's a good time to start in terms of time of life, but it wasn't a great time to start in terms of we didn't actually have projects.
Speaker 4:So you started without a project.
Speaker 5:We started with maybe like a month's worth of work ahead of us that's a lot of work in there. It's in like two weeks work and it was, I think it was um, but like, so there's that in the background, it's like oh, it makes sense to start an architecture practice, and probably that was my thing was like I think architecture is like quite a cool profession if it's their own business yeah a different profession, um, to working for someone else, I'd say.
Speaker 5:But like there's you know downsides of that in terms of, um, managing pressure and responsibility and whatnot. Uh yeah, so thomas and I we we did a cafe at Wellington Airport together as like a private job when we were at our previous firm. That was like probably like some of the ideas we're interested in we were testing there. It's almost like just been aspirational in terms of what we're trying to do on the project and what we're signing up for. So on that one, we wanted to do aged brass, but no one was going to make it easy for us to do aged brass, so we ended up aging the brass ourselves across the whole project Nice, like in your garage or something.
Speaker 4:No, how long did that take Out on the back lawn, I think probably that's like a week's worth of free labor to make it happen. Nice. That's what it's about, man.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, and it's like when we walked past there. Now it's like check in to see how it's patina-ing. Actually, I'm pretty happy Good aging going on. Yeah, so we actually accelerated the, the aging. But what's kind of interesting is like there's the parts of the um like fit out that are wearing through and it's getting like that natural polish that happens from like use, rubbing away some aging and it goes a bit more like brass Shiny, but like that's quite a specific example and not very good like story about how we started. Nah.
Speaker 4:I think it's a real story of how you started.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's like humble beginnings.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think everyone starts off like that and get on, even with Ben and Warren in the studio. You guys, how much free labor did you do?
Speaker 5:House for free People are super grateful for that kind of stuff, though Half the time.
Speaker 2:And didn't you plant a thousand trees? Your head?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, I've also done a ginormous amount of free labor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the piccolo as well, I know probably it's not sustainable right too many passion projects.
Speaker 4:Well, we have a vision and yeah, push for it, which is, yeah, part of what gets us going up, get going in the morning yeah what are?
Speaker 3:your thoughts. Thomas, you're saying something. No, no, I was just gonna say, um, yeah, we're probably like. The learning in the first three years was, uh, was enormous, and we did like, we did do a lot, of, a lot of different projects and small, small ones, and then we got a. Um, we got a, we got contacted by richard for the eastbourne house and that and that was our kind of big break. The caveat there was it just had to be done extraordinarily quickly, so I think it was like six months from coming into the office to being on site, and that included a resource consent and building consent obviously. But yeah, that kind of that gave us like the experience and the taste of doing um, higher end homes, and then it's, it's kind of been like iterating from from there with what feels like quite a hiatus of the work, but it's just, the projects are taking longer to finish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you I mean you guys have been in a bunch of publications like design and local project and the cover of the financial times, which is quite spectacular, and you've won a bunch of awards. Is that your kind of main strategy for marketing now? Is it kind of like, now that you've kind of got a couple of really successful projects, is it starting to speak for itself?
Speaker 3:Like you said. No, I think it's always good to push the work out there and you need to know where it lands and who picks it up. But we're also we're relatively strategic around what work we're trying to get, and then it's like who do we need to meet to get that work?
Speaker 2:Is that how you got on the cover of the Financial Times?
Speaker 3:No, that was out of the blue, really.
Speaker 2:So cool.
Speaker 3:That was out of the blue.
Speaker 2:How'd that happen?
Speaker 3:We actually contacted Jessica Bell, who wrote the article, contacted us about a piece for wallpaper which I think we're still doing, but, like the, they work a year in advance, so they're not publishing until early next year. Oh cool. And then, and then she said, but. And then, like a few weeks later, she said, oh, there's this other piece in the Financial Times. Can you, you know, can we have a chat about it? So we did that, and then, good target market for you.
Speaker 3:I can imagine I think the like the coolest thing for us was just being like sitting alongside those other architects yeah, architects that you, you know we like Herbst, and who else was it?
Speaker 2:Pattersons, Ferran Hay, Ferran Hay, I mean like that's really cool and really impressive, I would say yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, nice work. I think, like it is, it's probably like a balance between the work, and then Jessica Bell actually follows us on Instagram, so, like, like there's.
Speaker 4:Instagram can be quite helpful, can't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, can be quite a helpful tool. We get some business coaching cool, so like there is, like there is a bit of strategy kind of in the background.
Speaker 4:When I look at you guys, like probably the most strategic office that I can see, I think like I've watched that strategy because, for those who don't know, me and Thomas were in the same class. Me and Thomas were in the same group in fifth year. I've had a close eye on old Thomas for years, always had a very nice aesthetic Right from day one. I think the intention of putting out beautiful work, beautiful renders I guess based on the theory you get the work you're seen doing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but seeing that sort of coming all the way through and it seems very strategic, it's incredibly clever and it seems to start paying off. At what point did you start to look into the business coaching side of things? Because I think we come out of school and yet with no real knowledge on how to run a business work for somebody. Then you go give it a go and you're like it's quite a bit to this.
Speaker 5:Yeah it's pretty key not to answer your question with the question, but like um, what do you like with? What do you guys think about with your own businesses? Like I feel, like in architecture and maybe like the art world as well, trying to run a profitable business is almost like some kind of selling out or compromise, like something our business coach said to us is like you kind of need if you don't have profit in your business. Like you're not, yeah, you're not going need if you don't have profit in your business. Like you're not, um, yeah, you're not going to be around that's what the point of the business is to make money.
Speaker 5:So the business coach. He came to us from like a client saying hey, we like they, they had a digital um like they, basically like they build websites, but they also do some like graphic design, and I think when they started out, they had like this kind of before and after moment of getting a business coach who really just helped them with the business side of what they did, and it was just kind of basic stuff that they hadn't really been exposed to before was my reading of it, and so I think, yeah, I I'd say like making sure you invoice all your hours or something what sort
Speaker 4:of basic what sort of basic things are we giving the people?
Speaker 5:I suspect, is what like strategy or planning or it's um well, like a simple one would be um like how many billable hours do you need to do a week to um break even, or you know, keep track of your overheads, and then I mean this stuff's second nature to them, but do you need to do a week to break even, or you? Know. Set a target, Keep track of your overheads.
Speaker 5:I mean, this stuff's second nature to them, but not for the likes of myself another one would be um, in terms of, uh like supply and demand, do you say, do you want to be a practice with? Do we want to be a practice with three people? Um, and like good work, or do we say yes to like all the projects that come our way and have like six staff but like a portion of that work is like really challenging um from a business perspective and probably like a work life satisfaction point of view. That's part of our strategy is to like um, get, get good work. That like maybe like just ticks three boxes, which is like um, it's like exciting architecturally. Uh, the clients are good to work with. And then the other one would be like there's like realistic kind of like compensation, but like yeah, and do they influence your kind of marketing strategy at all?
Speaker 2:one thing that's kind of noticeable with you guys is you do kind of use a lot of renders, I guess, to like capture your target audience, which is a great strategy and I think works really well, because, especially for you guys, like it'd be very difficult to get everything that you're designing perhaps built or, like you were saying before tom, it would take a long period of time and like the renders are just a way to kind of bring that forward a little bit definitely, I think, what we'd like to get to the point where you only see built work until then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the renders are like it's a good way to communicate what we're working on to then, you know, help push the flywheel but also maybe demonstrate the ideas that we have within the practice. Yeah, and I think I've also been quite flexible with like what clients need. So one of the projects on there is for a client who's overseas, like lives overseas, but does significant work here, and so it's like an exercise of um, showing how what we could do, and then that kind kind of generates like a possibility of work and then like opens the network up as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and must help with that. You know the magazines and other bits and pieces.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I remember there was the Australian, Dave Sharp. There was an episode I remember listening to, maybe six months ago, a practice that was quite young, and they splashed out a few bit of cash on renders to get all that up there and then I think in that episode that paid off quite well for that practice.
Speaker 1:Is that?
Speaker 4:sort of the case of you guys. Are you sort of outsourcing your renders?
Speaker 3:Yeah, outsourcing them, and it's actually quite good like it closes the loop for us, like we're, because we can see the designs in a really realistic way, so like it's almost like a, an educational tool as well, so we can see how those ideas translate into what like almost as close as you could get to real life, so how how the light might operate, what is like that space feel like, or that proportion, that materiality does that change your mind at all?
Speaker 4:on renders you know, gerard has never posted a render yeah, I've gone the opposite approach of only showing it work, like I think, like you guys have.
Speaker 2:I've been very uh strict on strategy, but maybe in a slightly way for myself maybe too strict in my my process, but now that now I've been enjoying the process yeah, now that I think about it, though, I I clearly know what you know, seabard ross as a firm is all about really, whether that's you know through some of their built work, or or your, your renders, or whatnot. But, gerard, I think you're like I've seen a lot of your work behind the scenes and like the the front of your company does not show remotely that you're actually working on. So I don't know, man, I'm not convinced. I think I think I like the render strategy for sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know I've? Uh yeah, because me and connor talked about this at length over the years and that was sort of he's also the worst person to ask because he's just as bad as you are yeah, we've built ourselves into this little corner of obscurity, but this is the benefit of life, isn't it? You go through things and it's. I am changing my mind as we go on, so I think we might start cracking up to renders a bit more as we go.
Speaker 3:I think that projection and I think now there's enough buildings that are believable as built outcomes yeah, we definitely pivot between, like wanting to be a bit obscure and then, um, like out there. Yeah, it's something we're like we discuss constantly. It's like how much, how much effort do you put into getting your name out there versus what?
Speaker 4:And you're like 100%.
Speaker 3:Do people like discovering someone who's like a bit of an enigma?
Speaker 2:Have you guys paid for marketing at all?
Speaker 5:Didn't you do AdWords? We tried. We did test Google AdWords. We tried. We did test Google AdWords, yes, for a week. Yeah yeah, got a call asking like is this Warren Armani? They clicked on the wrong number. Hey, it's putting you in the right spot then, yeah, but it was from a tradie asking for like a um color speak, or no, that's like I still get phone calls from makers every week, I reckon, and I like I can see it's from wellington.
Speaker 2:So I'm just like, straight away, I'm like is this for makers?
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah I still get people asking me if you're at makers, are you not at makers again?
Speaker 2:and so this episode is brought to you by beer architecture and beer construction tom, you also do a lot of photography and you guys also did some furniture design with. Was it wood, wood right, wasn't it? Which was amazing Really, I don't know. I guess really similar to your architecture aesthetic, super clean and, yeah, really nice. Is that kind of all just fun passion projects as well, or does it kind of tie into the architecture at all?
Speaker 3:It definitely ties into the architecture. Like it was a bit of a challenge for us to design something of that scale, like much smaller chair, which is probably arguably the one of the hardest things to design, and we we learned a lot through that process. But yeah, we're pretty keen to have the furniture as a like constant bread running through do you specify it into your buildings?
Speaker 3:rad's always trying to do we, um, I don't know if you guys are the same, but sometimes you get sick of seeing your own stuff. So, yeah, we, we probably went through like an initial phase where it was, it was in a few things, but now, yeah, now we like we're not gravitating towards it as much doesn't it mean you just need to design something?
Speaker 2:something else yeah, you need more of a selection can't find I've done these things yeah, I had thought about that, gerard.
Speaker 5:Like, what would the like? Revision two of, like the chair we designed to be, and even for the table as well? Um, I think there might be. It's just that next round of like trying to make it 10 better or something. Yeah, that probably does align with our design philosophy. Is like not every project is um trying to like differentiate too much from something we've done in the past. It might actually borrow the ideas that we thought were good job. When you're doing your furniture, what's the thinking there? Is it like, do you see that as architecture or is it just yeah, 100 um, definitely architecture.
Speaker 4:I've always thought it was like mini architecture. I've also. The whole intention behind the workshop was like architecture research, those generally. I mean you lose track of it from time to time and then you circle back trying to explore ideas that you could upscale or downscale, just playing with design. But I also have like a million ideas, so it's like um, there's just a million chairs I want to build. I had a business advisor person for a little bit and they said I should stop making chairs catch up yeah, you can't look for a new business advisor?
Speaker 5:was he not saying there's like good money in prototypes?
Speaker 2:endless prototypes.
Speaker 4:I have a habit of just having an idea that I'm trying to explore, irrespective of client or no client, so always find yourself down in the workshop thinking about something and being like, oh shit, I brought all these materials and now I've wasted two days of potential billable labor yeah, yeah, but you've satisfied your ideas yeah, yeah it's. I find it very hard to regret these things. Yeah, maybe my bank account will help me do that I don't know.
Speaker 2:Some of the ideas that you got coming out sound pretty interesting. I don't know if the we can talk about those yet, though can we watch the space, space, watch this space. So what's on the cards for Sandbar and Ross? You guys flat out, or?
Speaker 3:We're like busy enough. It's kind of a I don't know if you guys are the same, but it's like if everything goes live, then you're way too busy and you need to hire more people. Or if everything stops, then like you're way too busy and need to hire more people, or if everything stops, then you're in trouble. Yeah, so we're kind of like we probably are right always to the remit fine line yeah, yeah, but no, like we've got some yeah, some really exciting stuff.
Speaker 3:And then some like projects that have like long, long tales, like a. And then some projects that have long tails, like a heritage restoration, renovation and remodeling, which we've been working on for I think it's a few years now, but that's only just on site, so that's still got a long Cool.
Speaker 2:We're already ahead of it At least it made it to site that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's positive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is yeah, but yeah, no, we're feeling optimistic and yeah, it seems like the market overall starts to rebound a bit. Talking to a few architects, it's a little bit doom and gloom out there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's funny times. Yeah, Very strange times yeah.
Speaker 2:How about Bit flat at the moment, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that the same with the property side, Ben?
Speaker 2:It's definitely flat with the property side. But yeah, I'm always optimistic. Hopefully it's kind of starting to creep up a little bit. Now it feels better up here but in Auckland I'm not sure about Wellington's always kind of lags a year or so behind. But yeah, I think things are creeping up. I'm trying to buy a house at the moment and there's a lot of people trying to buy the same houses. There must be people out there purchasing.
Speaker 4:I wonder if, to a nice sort of sum up, I feel like a lot of us who start offices and are battling away in a one to two to three person team don't often see or I don't know, you don't see the background or what anybody else is going through. So I wonder if you could like run through some of your sort of bigger tips that you've found through your process that kind of kept you going and kept the work coming or kept you excited about moving forward big question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, um, something I think I care a lot about is brand. So like not doing anything to jeopardize the brand, like if you, as soon as you start to jeopardize that, then your options, I think, become quite limited. So that's something that we've been like very careful of and like we've also made our own mistakes in that regard that we've learned from like, yeah, probably being like quite curated with what you show, investing in good photography, so, yeah, it makes a big difference.
Speaker 4:Do you find there's like those approaches, there's a large dose of persistence that's required, yeah yeah, which I feel pays off, but sometimes you really have to remind yourself what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think that's why, personally, I've enjoyed having these two of us off, but sometimes you really have to remind yourself what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, I think that's why, like, like, personally, I've enjoyed having, like there's two of us. So you know there is like you're, you're kind of in the trenches together. It's a nice way to balance it, balance it out. What about you?
Speaker 5:james, I think something that we've, um, that's been like quite helpful for us is we catch up with it maybe three or four architects that have their own companies and they're kind of like in their 60s and they've been like really helpful for just like checking in on different questions that feel fresh to us.
Speaker 5:But they might have dealt with like 20 or 30 times. That's been. That's been quite helpful and we probably like tried to seek out some of those people we didn't know before we started. We sought them out and they were just generous with their time. So I think there's been a real benefit in that, because maybe some of their advice has been in that persistence kind of camp of just saying if you can establish a brand that people see value working with, then these other things kind of come like good projects come. You know people want to pay for your like skill set, I guess, and your work. So it's like, yeah, these check-ins that like I guess, like we, I think we've maybe a few years ago we were just like light on work when, like I think there were a few others in that camp.
Speaker 5:The whole world was light on work when, like I think there were a few others in that camp the whole world was light on work yeah, but it was like like part of what we did was we used the time that we, like we had time where we didn't have projects to work on and so we'd, like you know, did invest in. Like well, like we either over delivered on the projects that we had or invested in ideas. So the furniture collaboration wasn't really about money for us. It was about just trying to refine something and put as much work in as was required for us to be proud of it. That kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:Everything didn't need to like an earlier conversation, didn't need to stack up financially, but it was viewed as an investment in the future, I think that's something I see in you guys that you're happy to spend internal investment for the future gain, which I think everyone could learn from a little bit. Thanks for coming on, guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 4:Awesome watching you guys over the years and I think it's going to be cool to see where you guys go.
Speaker 2:For sure, we're rooting for you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thanks for having us. Yeah, must work with the podcast.
Speaker 4:It's bloody brilliant. Thanks. It's a bloody good podcast, isn't it? Thank you.
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