Roger Zogolovitch, Founder of Solidspace, is a practicing architect and independent developer with 40 years of experience in the field that he told us about in a recent interview. He has built an impressive portfolio of urban housing projects on gap sites in London – such as the Zog House, but also more experimental architectural design projects.

The Houseboat, an award-winning single house with a more organic form than other Solidspace rectilinear projects, is one of them. It is not a gap site project, but located on a beautiful site overlooking Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. It was designed in collaboration with Meredith Bowles of Mole Architects and the project was managed by Rebecca Granger Architects.

The house has been conceived as two upturned hulls propping themselves together facing the sea, and has been built with an in-situ concrete base and a Douglas Fir timber frame constructed shell. The plan is butterfly in shape. The building emerges with floor plates fanning out from this concrete structure. Accommodation is split between the two wings connected with steps and landings bridging the voids.

The arrangement of the split-level is designed using the Solidspace DNA which works on half levels and leads the eye from a first to second space and finally a third. The lower ground level accommodates the sleeping quarters which are acoustically separated from the rest of the open plan volume.

The upper ground floor provides a kitchen and dining room with terrace overlooking the sea, rising a few steps to the sitting room and concluding the eyrie at the top level.

The Eat/Live/Work sectional arrangement is maintained making a single volume under the protection of the upturned hulls, giving spatial clarity to form and the experience.

The Houseboat is the winner of a South West RIBA Award 2017 and has been shortlisted for World Architecture Festival Awards 2017 House/Future category.

As most of the houses build for Solidspace, this house was promoted and sold by Inhabit Homes, the company founded by Roger’s son Gus Zogolovitch that evolved from Solidspace.

photos: Rory Gardiner

Location:

Poole, Dorset, UK

Project Data:

• Architect: Meredith Bowles of Mole Architects
• Developer: Solidspace
• Planning/Construction:  – 2016
• Residential units: 1
• Storeys: 4
• Net saleable/rentable area: 255.5 sqm (2750 SF)

The post The Houseboat – an Experimental Architectural Design Project Developed by Solidspace appeared first on Archipreneur.

“When you look to buy sites in the city, you tend to find small gap sites, largely leftover spaces”, Roger Zogolovitch – architect, independent developer and Founder of Solidspace – told us in a recent interview.

“When you look at gap sites rather than the ‘usable’ more prominent sites on the waterfront, you may find that the views from the former are towards railways, or down alleys, or overlooked by other residual bits of the city. Some consider them the ugly ducklings of a city, but to me they’re very exciting because of their limitations. These difficult constraints make for fascinating and challenging projects.”

That is why Roger came up with the idea of working in split levels: arranging spaces for eating, living and working on a connected series of split levels. They coined this practice as their company’s trademark design concept and called it the Solidspace DNA.

We present you the Zog House, the first development project were Solidspace implemented this ‘spatial DNA’:

Previously home to six single-storey garages behind Brondesbury Road in Queens Park, London, constructed in the 1970s as part of its conversion into flats, the site had a history of planning refusals. Solidspace purchased this 195 square meter site in October 2004.

And since Solidspace usually outsources the architecture, they appointed architects Groves Natcheva to design a detached family house of 187 square meters. Planning consent was approved in October 2005, to create a building of two interlocking volumes in both plan and section.

It was dug down by half a floor level and, although two storeys internally, its southern facade to the street was only 4.5 metres in height. This met the proscribed light angle from the windows to the rear of the neighboring 77 Brondesbury Road. The northern volume consisted of three storeys (matching 1 Donaldson Road next door), with three levels on basement, ground and first floor.

The generous proportions of the Solidspace DNA in Zog House, allow a triple height void, exposing the section with views to the upper levels of the house, and to the sky, balancing the long views from the living space down to the kitchen/dining area on the lower garden level.

The entire development demonstrates the gap site feasibility of building houses at 187 square meters equating to a density of 52 units per hectare.

Gus Zogolovitch, Roger’s son and Founder of Inhabit Homes, lives at the house with his family. Inhabit Homes was evolved from Solidspace as it became obvious that regular estate agencies struggled to find buyers who were interested in design-led housing. “Inhabit Homes is doing the marketing and sales for Solidspace. We are acting as their sales agency”, Gus told us in a recent interview for Archipreneur Insights.

Location:

1a Donaldson Road, Queens Park, London, UK

Project Data:

• Architect: Groves Natcheva
• Developer: Solidspace
• Client: Solidspace
• Project Manager: Gus Zogolovitch
• Planning/Construction: 2004 – 2009
• Residential units: 1
• Storeys/Levels: 4
• Gross floor area: 190 sqm (2045 SF)
• Net saleable/rentable area: 175 sqm (1883 SF)

The post Zog House – A Spacious Split-Level Development on a Gap Site in London appeared first on Archipreneur.

Dear architects,

I am an independent design-led developer specialising in custom build. My vision is to help change the way that we build, buy and live in our homes in the UK. I wanted to write this open letter to architects to explain how for me, the way that developers and architects interact needs to change. The old rules have been re-written.

I get emails, beautiful brochures and meeting requests from a lot of architects and designers. I enjoy the overtures, but unfortunately, while I work with some brilliant architects and would love to work with more, the reality is there aren’t enough projects to go around.

Observation #1 – Don’t wait for the commission

At time of writing, we are actively working on 5 live projects. This is not unusual for a developer of our size. Our projects include doing the marketing and sales on three developments, and project managing two. We chose the architect in only one of those projects. So, even though we have plans to grow, it will still be only on the odd occasion that we have the opportunity to commission designers.

Observation #2 – Join the pitch

Development for me is bringing everything together, the design team, the money, the building team, the legals, the marketing and the sales down to the queries of the end purchasers.

We look to architects to create the vision for the project, but an architect will only produce a great building if the developer is on board.

In the movie industry, directors and producers find a good script and pitch to the studios together. This is how I think it should be in the building industry. I want to get together with an architect to work up an opportunity on land for sale to a point where I can secure the site and go out and raise money. This is not commission, this is collaboration.

Observation #3 – Spot the opportunity

If I see a piece of land for sale, I will have to choose which architect to work with and that will depend on a number of factors – their experience, size of the opportunity and the location of the site.

Some bits of land for sale already have planning, and some plots will be sold without planning. We have about 30-40 architects who we would like to work with and there are probably 1-3 projects in a year where we need architectural help. So, as they say stateside, ‘you do the math’.

However, architects who have come to us where they have spotted an opportunity, but need help in getting it off the ground, have ended up both with a site-finding fee and the design work. Site-finding is a skill and architects have the basic skills down pat. You are trained and experienced in planning, you can come up with creative solutions to gap sites and you like to cycle (which is by far the best way to spot off-market land)!

Observation #4 – Most developers don’t use architects

I have grown up with architecture in my blood, but not every developer has done so and most developments are ugly, bland and crass. Most, unsurprisingly, don’t use architects at all. I’ve heard that as few as 20% of new schemes have architects involved.

So, when you’re pitching to developers, you have to pick the ones that value architects. Don’t pitch to people who want the smallest possible flats and the flimsiest possible build quality – they don’t want you, and probably, you don’t want them either.

Instead, pick your developers carefully and they will buy into you and your design vision.

Observation #5 – Come prepared

The next time you request a meeting, don’t simply introduce your practice with a beautifully designed glossy brochure and past projects, come with an opportunity that you’ve spotted. It’s more fun, rewarding and more likely to lead to working together.

Developers will be impressed with your pro-activeness and I’ve never known a developer to turn down the chance to look at an interesting opportunity.

A word of warning, take care you don’t give away the land for sale to unscrupulous developers who will bid on the land from under you and then use your ideas.

I hope you found the above helpful and I would welcome your thoughts but most of all, I look forward to working with as many of you as possible.

Yours,

Gus Zogolovitch

***

Gus Zogolovitch is the Managing Director of Inhabit Homes.

He started his career in the City at Goldman Sachs where he was an equity analyst before he set up his first property specialising in residential projects. He ran this venture for a couple of years alone before he joined his architect father, Roger, and set up Solidspace with the aim to deliver design-led boutique new-build projects on forgotten inner city gap sites. He pioneered the Solidspace split-level model by building his own house in north west London where he still lives today. 

Gus has most recently started his own venture, Inhabit Homes, which acts as London’s first custom-build enabler, helping people build their own Grand Designs while also selling some of the most desirable new-builds in London. 

The post The New Rules for Architects and Developers: 5 Insights from an Industry Insider appeared first on Archipreneur.

This week’s interview is with London based developer Gus Zogolovitch, founder of several companies in property development and beyond.

Gus started on his entrepreneurial career path after discovering a gap in the market – project management for refurbishment projects – and building a business offering those services. He ran this venture for a couple of years before joining his architect father, Roger Zogolovitch, to set up Solidspace, which aims to deliver design-led boutique, new-build projects on forgotten inner-city gap sites. (Read the interview with Roger Zogolovitch here)

Gus then started his own venture, Inhabit Homes, London’s first custom-build enabler, which helps people to build their own homes and also sells some of the most desirable new-builds in London. During my interview with Gus, I learned that he had founded two additional companies and that they all interact in the process of building homes.

Continue reading to learn from a self-trained independent developer and to discover his take on the role of architecture today.

Enjoy the interview!

Could you tell us a little about your background? How did you start your career?

I was born and brought up in London, but I had travelled a lot both before and after I went to university. I also lived abroad during my studies.

I started my career in the City of London in investment banking, more by accident than by design. Basically, I had been living with a friend of mine who had to get up really early every day. He got really upset that I could sleep in every day so he got me a job in the City, so that I’d have to wake up early too!

I joined CS First Boston as an intern, working for a guy who later went to work at Goldman Sachs and took me with him. So in answer to your question how did I start my career, it was basically luck. At university, I studied mathematics and philosophy, so I had a good general knowledge but no specific knowledge.

And how did you get into property development?

I left Goldman Sachs and traveled around the world for two years. I did various things, even worked in Australia for a bit. When I came back to London I decided to try and get my house refurbished. I had a very bad experience trying to get builders. Since I didn’t have a job I decided to do it myself and take on the role of ‘project manager’.

It was a disaster! I employed some builders who then walked out on the job halfway through and so I then had to find some other builders who would finish what had been started.

But I realized that that was quite an interesting opportunity. I thought that maybe I could help other people who needed management for the refurbishment of their homes. The idea sounded much more appealing than a nine-to-five.

Seeing that gap in the market I set up my first company. My idea was, rather than paying a fixed price for a refurbishment job, why not pay the price of what it’s going to cost for each day of work and then pay a fee for my services in managing builders and making sure they’re doing what they should be doing. If it takes fewer days than scheduled, the client will save money. If it takes as much time as is scheduled, the client will not save money but can be assured the builders have turned up and completed the work.

I tried running that business for a couple of years. In the meantime, my father had been working on a residential development. I came in at the end to help him with some bits and pieces. And then he wanted me to help him with his website and stuff like that. So I did, and from then on I started doing more for his business. My refurbishment business started to decrease in size and so I ended up working full time for my father.

After a couple of years, we decided to become partners. We looked around, found some sites, bought them and developed them. One of these sites ended up being my house!

Did your experience from your work at Goldman Sachs help you to work with property development?

I suppose it gives you a head for numbers. That was very helpful because I think there are a lot of people in property development who can’t quite get their head around the numbers. They’ve probably been lucky because the markets did go up but they don’t always go up. For that reason, understanding the numbers and the finance is quite handy.

What is your role at Solidspace?

Today I’m just a director. I don’t have any active management in Solidspace. I am just there for board meetings.

That explains why you have time to work for your current company, Inhabit Homes. What is your business model for Inhabit Homes?

It has a few business streams. But the core of the business model is to build high quality, design led homes that are more affordable than some of the homes we built when I was working for Solidspace.

We built some lovely homes at Solidspace, but the reality is they are a premium product. That is almost inevitable as my experience is that good design costs more money. Whatever architects tell you, it is hard to avoid that. So what we do is build watertight structural shells that the owner can then fit out themself.

There are a couple of benefits to this:

First, it is cheaper for customers to fit out than it is for us because we have to include all the management costs, interest costs and the developer profit.

Second, they can choose what they want and how they want it. Rather than having us choose the colours and tiles for their kitchen they want, they can do it themselves. They can spend as much or as little time as they want.

Third, the owner has flexibility in the layout. If you sell someone a 1,000-square foot, they can decide for themselves whether they want three small bedrooms or two large bedrooms.

From our perspective, the benefit is that we get out of the project quicker and can move on to the next project. It also means we don’t have to deal with all the snags in a project that take up a lot of management time when doing a fit out.

At Inhabit Homes, do you employ architects or is architecture a commodity into which you buy?

We don’t employ architects within our company; we outsource the architecture. We do that at Solidspace as well. We like to bring in architects to do the job well and keep everything fresh and the design good. I also think it gives architects an opportunity to do interesting work. I’m a big believer in partnerships. I think of my partnership with an architect as similar to that of a movie director and movie producer. I am the producer and the architect is the director.

How do you carry out market research, and how do you find locations for your projects?

Land is very difficult to get in London so you can’t be that fussy. It’s generally gut instinct but it’s also massively influenced by the price of the land, our financial resources and where our customer base is. We have quite a lot of information on our customers and where they want to be, and we get a good sense of the kind of customer that likes our product. So obviously we try to build in those places.

At the moment, we tend to look in London but we’re also thinking about places outside London for the near future. For now, we’re busy trying to get our first projects off the ground in London.

Do Solidspace and Inhabit Homes ever interact?

Solidspace and Inhabit do quite a lot of work together. For example, Solidspace is building a very nice development not far away from Inhabit Homes’ office near London Bridge. Inhabit Homes is doing the marketing and sales for Solidspace. We are acting as their sales agency on that project because I think we have a very personal relationship with customers. When it comes to nicely designed products, people say, “I don’t want just a basic estate agent to sell it like they would sell any other products. They’ve got to be someone who knows what they’re talking about, someone who understands design and architecture.”

We’re collaborating with Solidspace but also with other clients. Right now, we are working on a project that was just launched in Holland Park, London, by Peter Salter. We are doing marketing and sales for that too.

Our core activity has been in acting as custom build developers, although I’m very interested to see whether or not we can bring Baugruppen (co-housing projects) to London.

Co-housing doesn’t yet exist in London?

No. The financing isn’t really there. Well, they do exist in some slightly strange forms but there are certainly very few of them and they certainly do not have any commercial perspective.

I found yet another company with your name on it: Crowdestates. When did you establish it and what was your goal for this business?

I’m involved with a couple of companies outside traditional property development. Crowdestates is a peer-to-peer lender, a little like crowdfunding for development finance. Small developers need access to finance and what they can borrow at the bank is quite expensive, up to 9% interest a year. The idea behind Crowdestates is to lend money collectively to small property developers at a lower interest rate than the bank.

And is Crowdestates also interacting with Inhabit Homes?

We’re still going through the regulatory authorisation process with Crowdestates. But yes, that is the intention. One of my grander visions is to create a company that does everything from beginning to end.

Another company of mine is called Patch Partners, which sources land opportunities. We train and support people to find development sites, to find old buildings that can be refurbished, or to discover a piece of ground on which to build houses. They go out and find these things themselves and we connect them with developers or investors to get the project up and going.

The vision is to work vertically, Sourcing opportunities through Patch Partners, financing them through Crowdestates, building and selling by Inhabit Homes.

I see! When I was doing my research and found all these companies you own, it made me wonder if you have more days in the week than the average person…

The companies are all connected. A lot of people say, “Don’t work for more than one company.” But I think, why not?

The market is different from how it was when you first started. How would you advise a fresh architecture graduate today on getting his first project off the ground? Any tips on how to manage it?

I think we’re living in amazing times. If you look at the costs of housing and land, they’re ridiculously high. But on the flipside, the costs of connecting and transparency are very low. For that reason, I think there’s never been a better time to create things like Baugruppen (co-housing projects) where communities can come together to buy developments.

I think that we’re going to see more and more of that because why should big companies be the ones buying the land?

Why not get ten of your friends and buy a bit of land together? Through the power of digital technology, you have the power to bring strangers together.

You don’t have to rely on your own networks. It has become much easier to network and to do radical things.

In a way, the barrier to entry into the market is higher because you need more money to buy land. But arguably the ability to find experts is much easier and comes at a lower cost. In the past, what were you going to do? How would you have found an air quality assessor? Now all you need to do is google them, right? In the past, it was a really painful process.

It is all about connectivity and ensuring that you think big when connecting with others.

You have worked a lot with architects. What do you think would help their profession?

I never trained as an architect. But what I see is that there are quite a lot of architects who are very impractical in terms of actually knowing how buildings are put together. Architecture is not just about the design process but also really understanding how a building is structured, for example, knowing what heavy rain or wind would do to it. That’s why I love it when I see architects who have built their own homes and have actually gone through the building process at least once.

Do you have any advice for archipreneurs who are interested in starting their own business?

Don’t be afraid. The key is to realise that there are always going to be risks and there will always be reasons to say no. But you have got to step into the unknown and try it or nothing will change.

Also, believe in yourself and be nimble. Read a lot, speak to a lot of people, and develop your network. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t succeed. This goes back to my earlier point. We live in a world where 24-year-olds can be billionaires. With the digital world, you don’t need to have been around for 60 years before you launch your first invention. You can just get on and do it. No one is stopping you.

How do you see the future of the architectural profession? In which areas (outside of traditional practice) can you see major opportunities for up and coming architects and developers?

I think architects should think of themselves as collaborators rather than as passively waiting for commissions.

They need to think about their role in the process. They’ve got to go out and find opportunities, and get developers to partner with them and say, “Okay, how can we do this together?”

It’s a bit like my director and producer analogy. When a movie is at the beginning of development, producers, directors and writers will sometimes pitch to the studio together. It’s about building a team around an idea, and that doesn’t always have to come from one side. It can come from the architect who has recognized their role in the process.

I think architects will always be needed because they add a great deal of value, especially in terms of the products. But I think that these days, even if you’re in a practice,

you should be thinking about how you can be entrepreneurial and how you can do things differently.

About Gus Zogolovitch

Gus started his career at Goldman Sachs in London where he was an equity analyst before he set up his first property specialising in residential projects. He ran this venture for a couple of years alone before he joined his architect father, Roger, and set up Solidspace with the aim to deliver design-led boutique new-build projects on forgotten inner city gap sites. He pioneered the Solidspace split-level model by building his own house in north west London where he still lives today.

Gus has most recently started his own venture, Inhabit Homes, which acts as London’s first custom-build enabler, helping people build their own Grand Designs while also selling some of the most desirable new-builds in London. 

The post Investment Banking, Gap Site Development and Building New Homes – an Interview with Gus Zogolovitch appeared first on Archipreneur.

An architect’s average median salary is very low, despite it taking over nine years to qualify. This is “totally utterly absurd” says Roger Zogolovitch, creative director of Solidspace, and comes down to the fact that architects don’t monetize their services.

Architects need to understand and prove the services they provide can be value and not only costs for the client. Clients are interested in added value. The job of an architect is to communicate that value as persuasively as possible.

But if adding value is not solely just based on design skills, what’s the market knowledge that architects need to survive? In other businesses, these include a relentless focus on the customer, understanding the importance of increasing sales and profits, and building brands.

Though architects might initially suffer from a lack of business knowledge necessary for entrepreneurship, the architectural discipline does at least prepare architects as problem-solvers. In being creative, architects have already fought half the battle. Creativity is a hard thing to teach and learn; business is not.

Architect’s widely held distrust of being “commercial” is having serious consequences for the profession argues developer Roger Zogolovitch and his son Gus, chairman of Inhabit Homes.

In their talk, held on 8 January 2015, they argue that architects need to put as much emphasis on sales and marketing as design in order to grow a successful business. And they advise architects “to get their hands dirty” by expanding into other areas such as property development, in order to understand their own “creative commercial mode” and understand the decisions that have a tangible financial impact.

See for yourself in the video of the talk by archiboo:

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To learn more about how you can embrace the business behind designing buildings check out Archipreneur’s book on new business models for architects, “The Archipreneur Concept”. There is a whole chapter on Architect as Developers where we explore funding options and practical examples of exactly how successful archipreneurs have used bank loans, partnering and venture capital to develop their own buildings.

The post Editor’s Pick: How to Think Like an Entrepreneur with Roger and Gus Zogolovitch appeared first on Archipreneur.