The panelists Roger Zogolovitch, Meredith Bowles, Amandine Kastler and Jack Self talked about introducing the concept of entrepreneurship as a way of operating architectural practice even while studying.

Jack Self had to work different jobs to put himself through school and found the idea of working in offices for other people rather unappealing, which is what prompted him to take a less conventional route.

Roger Zogolovitch noted that the imbalance between the number of students who become “master builders” and those left to pursue smaller projects and forge their careers on their own. He also stressed the ability to recognize opportunity as a unique skill of an architect, exemplified by his own work as an architect and property developer with a keen eye for “soft sites”.

Talking about opportunities, the panelists agreed on the importance of recognizing and seizing the right opportunities, not relying on lucky breaks. This feeds into the idea of designing your architectural practice as you would a building.

Members of the audience posed provocative questions asking about ways architects can gain more control over projects and stay relevant. Meredith Bowles noticed that the limitation of the role of architects is real- architects need to take change and not be in the service industry-accept changes taking place all around and bring those changes into the profession.

Another interesting question pertained to the lack of published work that covers architects’ careers and the idea of looking at architectural practice from a production standpoint. One member of the audience noted that architects are failing to take responsibility for the building process, participate in every aspect of the project, from graphic design to tenancy leasing strategies, not just sitting in the office designing. This readiness to take risks and be active participants is what separates great practices, regardless of firm size.

Roger Zogolovitch agreed that there is arrogance among architects due to which they don’t engage with the business and production aspects of the industry. Instead, most architects focus only on design and ultimately lose control over projects. This is why Meredith Bowles moved to executive role and worked on the business side to get to build the types of projects he and his partners wanted to do.

A portion of the talk was dedicated to the idea of marketing and self-promotion. Jack Self mentioned Mies Van der Rohe and Le Corbusier as the best examples of architects who understood the power and importance of media and publishing. Both have also reinvented themselves and assumed different names early in their careers.

Here is a link to the video

The post Pathways to Practice: Unique Approaches to Architectural Practice appeared first on Archipreneur.

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.

Learn to sell something, anything. You’ll never learn more about what it takes to run a business than when you put yourself out there and make an offering.

– Michael Kilkelly, Founder of ArchSmarter

***

Be persistent and don’t give up on your dreams. Find the best team members to build your business with and, most importantly, – don’t be afraid to dare and enjoy what you do.

– Adi Biran & Lihi Gerstner, Founders of Splacer.co

***

It’s all about surrounding yourself with the most talented people who can help you realize your vision and stay most true to your ideas.

– Natasha Case, Founder of Coolhaus

***

Studying architecture is just the greatest thing there is. The skills learned are actually quite good for management. You learn to form a vision, present this vision or break it down to smaller tasks.

– Kaspar Helfrich, Co-Founder of Archilogic

***

I hope that if architects and design minded people are impacting development and urbanism in a greater way, our buildings and our communities will only get better.

– Ari S. Heckman, Founder of ASH NYC

***

Architects have a huge contribution to make to the world in the 21st century – particularly in shaping how we can live sustainably and happily within ever-denser cities and within the Earth’s resources.

– Will Hunter, Founder & Director LSA

***

Just get started, and don’t be afraid because the people who are successful are willing to fail and so you should be too.

– David Belt, Founder of Macro Sea

***

I would like to see architects be less passive in their roles and with their profession. For me that means real estate development. But it could mean any number of other variations on the trade. Architects are holistic thinkers. I am at my best when I use my right brain and my left brain equally. Architecture school hones both of these hemispheres in a way that’s not common in other professions.

– Kevin Cavenaugh, Founder of Guerrilla Development

***

Start today…! I suffered from analysis paralysis for a long time, fearing I’d never be able to save enough working capital to make a run at starting a business. I was determined to spend as little as possible to make it work.

– Eric Reinhold, Founder of 30×40 Design Workshop

***

In the architectural profession we mainly think about solutions, and we constantly challenge how things are normally done. I think that’s a rare quality.

– Jakob Lange, Partner at BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and Head of the BIG Ideas project unit

***

I see a profession that is completely different from the one we know today. Traditional practice is broken – I yearn to see solutions that we can’t even imagine today.

– Marc Kushner, Founder of Architizer & HWKN Architects

***

I think that the most important step is to just do it. It sounds bold but in the end you need to think about your business idea and how customers will use and pay for it. Finally, you need to implement it. Do not wait too long; make it a reality.

– Antje Kunze, Founder of SmartBetterCities

***

My advice to architects who want to start their own business is to put creativity at the heart of their activity, and to try to invent new things that can be really useful for other people.

– Filippo Schiano di Pepe, Founder of CoContest

***

As architects, we like to think that successful projects come because we have a great idea. But a project’s success is actually down to risk management by a practicing and experienced developer.

– Roger Zogolovitch, Founder of Solidspace

***

Go for it. I think you just have to start small, and start with what you can do with your own hands and feet, and find a way to be innovative. I think the biggest trap that you can get into is borrowing a lot of money and then finding out that it doesn’t work.

– Matthew Griffin, Co-Founder of Deadline Architects

***

Follow your heart and do what you love to do. However, if it’s business you want then you need to learn to take care not only of yourself but also your customers.

– Qi Su, Co-Founder Modelo.io

***

Architects have to educate themselves a lot more in the areas of digitalization, programming, economics, and the invisible infrastructure of cities. It’s not enough to simply understand how a building is drawn and set up if you want to shape and think about the modern cities of tomorrow.

– Andreas Rauch, Co-Founder of CABIN SPACEY

***

What are your favorite quotes that inspire you?

The post 17 Inspirational Archipreneur Quotes that will Motivate You in 2017 appeared first on Archipreneur.

This week’s interview is with Roger Zogolovitch, Founder of Solidspace. I met Roger at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Berlin where he was a judge for the completed buildings category for housing.

Roger is a practicing architect and independent developer with 40 years of experience in the field. He has built an impressive portfolio of urban housing projects on gap sites in London.

Roger implements ‘spatial DNA’ into his projects by arranging spaces for eating, living and working on a connected series of split levels. By doing so, Roger can use his architectural skills to build unique projects on otherwise difficult sites in London and also to create beautiful living environments for people.

Anyone keen to develop their own housing projects should read this; Roger gives a ton of valuable advice for getting started.

Enjoy the interview!

You have 40 years of experience in architecture and development. Could you tell us a little about how you started your career?

That’s a good question. From the beginning of my career in architecture, I never worked for another firm. I only ever worked for myself; even when I was at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) as a student. At the AA we ran a little practice and did some quite innovative things in terms of shop fitting. So I’ve always been entrepreneurial.

When I finished at the AA I managed to get quite a big project going. We established the practice, which we called CZWG, Campbell Zogolovitch Wilkinson and Gough. The practice is still in operation in London and has just celebrated 40years. I was involved with that practice for its first 10 years, after which I decided to move my career from architecture – pure architecture – into architecture & development. My passion for development became a reality.

How did you develop your first project and how did you finance it?

It was always difficult. I hadn’t inherited any money. I didn’t have any when I started. But I was able to involve myself in projects. When I was starting out, I spent a lot of time trying to find sites. So my entry point was really through the land.

I was lucky enough to find a piece of land in London. It was a big, old school. I was able to get an option on it, which enabled me to secure it and get planning consent. Then I was able to sell that to another developer. And that made me a profit; at the time, I felt that I was hugely rich! I wasn’t, at least not in today’s terms, but the money was sufficient and enabled me to reinvest it and gradually use this capital to build a development business.

So you managed to secure a buyer’s option and did not have to do the financing for it?

Actually I had to sell it on before I could use the funds to finance the original project.

And did you have to get permission beforehand?

Yes, of course. The planning consent I obtained added value to the scheme. This included changing the designation of a redundant road and incorporating it into the development.

That’s really the skill of the architect; drawing out value…

We should recognize that an architect’s skill set has value. I think that one of the dangers of being an architect is that we tend to look at our projects only in terms of cost, we charge our fees based on that, we consider projects by reference to their budget cost. Developers on the contrary look at the value they create. If architects continue to only look at the costs, they will never be able to make that change to the value side for themselves.

For me, it’s absolutely essential that architects rework this mind-set because architecture does bring value. I thought it back when I started my career and I’m just as committed to that notion 40 years on.

Do you think that there’s a business knowledge gap in architecture education?

There is a huge knowledge gap. I think some architects do try to take an MBA, but property development is not quite the same because what makes them successful is understanding and managing development risks. Architects need to learn risk profiling of their projects.

As architects, we like to think that successful projects come because we have a great idea. But a project’s success is actually down to risk management by a practicing and experienced developer. Of course, they have to have a great idea as well. But successful projects from the developers standpoint are the consequence of successful risk management.

As architects, we like to think that successful projects come because we have a great idea. But a project’s success is actually down to risk management by a practicing and experienced developer.

What happens in development is that you manage risk in terms of acquiring sites, getting planning or regulatory consent, outlining an effective construction and procurement chain, and developing a strategy for marketing and sales. For a developer, it is a production process. You take on board the total cost of the project and become invested in its every aspect. You’re not just involved with the nice bits.

You’re involved with the difficulties, and problems with neighbors, land titles, drains, fire departments, contractors and delays in construction as well as in encouraging sales to take place at the time you want, getting the right price for your sales, satisfying your customers, and thinking about your customers when you’re conceiving a project to make sure it fits with their wishes.

I think that a supplementary course on these business and development topics could be very beneficial for architects because the skill that an architect brings to a project is currently a creative one. Having said that, the average architect already has the ability to view a site, come up with an idea or a vision for it, and be able to manifest it. They already have a partial understanding of the business of development. The need is therefore to add skills that they don’t already have. These skills as I have said are in the field of risk management.

What made you decide to start your firm Solidspace? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you?

We’ve been in development for years but Solidspace was an idea that we had connected to the constraints of building apartments in the city. When we were looking to buy sites in the city, we tended to find small gap sites, largely leftover spaces. 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.

The idea for Solidspace was to find an internal arrangement of an apartment space that entertained some sense of grandeur. Something where no matter how small the footprint was, when you came through the door you would say, “Wow, this is really beautiful.”

And that’s why I came up with this idea of working in split levels. You never have the space to do a full double level in these types of sites; a split level means you take away half the volume. It seemed to me that a split level would achieve a sensation of space and volume. That is what we’ve discovered in all the projects we’ve done. Everyone who walks into our spaces says, “This is fantastic. This is beautiful. This is spacious.” And they find it hard to believe how much floor space there actually is. For me, that is a way to turbocharge development.

How does your company lean on a skill set that is specific to architects rather than developers? You’re certainly adding value in terms of design; that’s not what an ordinary developer can accomplish.

That’s quite a complex question because most architects and contractors work on flat or horizontal planes, whereas this Solidspace approach involves working in section putting volume inside the buildings that we’re developing. To be truthful, it has taken us a long time from the first project we undertook to persuading a conservative market of the project’s added value. But after 13 years I can happily say that we have achieved success and we are now managing to sell our products at a premium.

One chapter in your book Shouldn’t we all be developers?, is titled “Land to development is what the canvas is to the artist.” How do you conduct market research, and how do you find locations for your projects?

To me, a project doesn’t really start until we have secured a piece of land. I can obviously still do theoretical designs but the reality is that I need the site to see. For instance, I want to know that it faces north, that it has a wall of 12 meters on one side and a wall of 5 meters on the other, that the sun comes in from one corner, that there’s a window I can’t obscure, and so on. It’s out of this matrix of constraints that I build the site, which I describe as a canvas.

And do you still make the preliminary sketches yourself?

Yes, always.

Do you also assign an architect to the project?

We always work with another architect. We believe that architecture has a good collaborative tradition. But it’s difficult because in a process of collaboration you have to accept that your authorship is not going to be there. Authorship is invariably retained by the architect who executes the project.

So I think that’s quite difficult to swallow, although I think collaboration and authorship are other topics of discussion. But, yes, we make the initial concept and do the basic designs. Then we bring in an architect who works with our a very figurative brief.

What major problems and opportunities do you think cities face in the 21^st century?

For me, the central problem is that the cities we face building upon in the 21^st century have all been established. These are cities that have important histories, some of which are thousands of years old. In that sense, everything has already been developed. So architects need to look at redeveloping former structures.

Take for example the many redundant industrial buildings due to changes in industry and economic growth. Those present opportunities for expansion in the city. To my mind, the most challenging and exciting aspects of future development will be going back over a city and discovering it all over again.

Many commentators have said that London is an open weave city; a cloth that has lots of gaps but the gaps are difficult to bridge. When you fly over London, you see all these houses with gardens and open spaces.

One solution for housing in London is to continue densifying its grain. If you read about the history of housing in London – and the same might also be said for housing in other cities – you will see that housing was made in a very simple way by people who weren’t great architects but rather good builders and contractors. The traditional terraced house followed a very prescriptive model that suited the average family. It was layered horizontally so the lower layers or the top layers were the servants’ quarters.

I think we need the same utility in the way we make our designs today. My feeling is that our designs are far too rigorously regulated and should be more generic with a simpler approval process for the buildings we create. In London, we have a rather desperate problem regarding affordable housing. I’m not convinced that taxing developers who are housing manufacturers to provide our social housing will have any kind of benefit. It’s just a political position with a mind-set to punish developers rather than the recognition that good cities need good supply of different tenure housing.

How would you advise fresh architecture graduates to get their first project off the ground?

I’m afraid it’s all down to hard work. My career has been about development, and it has been very rewarding, both emotionally and financially. But it’s still very hard work. I work very long days. That doesn’t matter to me because I love the work so much. But don’t think this is something that will happen quickly. It won’t make you get rich quick.

You cannot be an architect without having a client, and you can’t be a developer without having a site.

You need to start off very simply: with a site. You cannot be an architect without having a client, and you can’t be a developer without having a site. Those are my two golden rules. I think the reality is that once you have a site, or control of one, then you can start to pull your development together. And then it becomes quite straightforward. You might not be able to afford it, or finance it, but those issues pale in comparison to not having a site at all.

In terms of development and starting a business, what kind of person would you advise to use entrepreneurship?

You should always use entrepreneurship in architectural practice. I remember it was once quite fashionable to talk about business plans, and improving productivity and workflows. I think you just have to tell yourself every moment of every day: what value am I adding to this project?

Architecture and development are based around projects. It doesn’t matter whether you’re designing or building them. A project has a beginning, middle and end. I think that if architects – whether or not they are also developers – can demonstrate to clients that they understand the value they’re adding, and that they want a fee based on that value, then the developer will believe that the architect is on their side. To me, that is the future of entrepreneurial activity in architecture.

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?

I think the architecture profession is in danger of being completely eroded. Architects don’t really understand how to talk about value. Take the WAF – World Architecture Festival where we met. Architects have no measure for value. I didn’t see a single poster that showed the intrinsic or extrinsic value of a project. I didn’t see the cost of a project being created. And so if you say that construction costs are increasing and projects are getting bigger, that means that projects will bring in more money.

The developer will aim to make between 10% and 15% of the project’s margin. If you take that margin off the gross development value and look at the cost, you can see that the developer is responsible for an enormous array of costs: land, interest, finance, professional fees and construction.

Why don’t we understand the value that we’re creating?

The architect only represents a minute percentage of that. But the architect believes that they have a much greater influence on the direction of the project. The people who do the finance don’t have an influence on the direction of the project. Neither do the people who contract that project. It’s the architect who does.

So the question I would ask is: why don’t we understand the value that we’re creating? We must begin to understand where we’re adding value and recognize that what we can bring in entrepreneurship to demonstrate how we can do that. That has the added benefit of making us more competitive against other architects.

That’s great advice. Thank you very much for the interview!

About Roger Zogolovitch

Roger is the founder and creative director of Solidspace. He is a qualified architect with 40 years experience of design and development. He is known in the industry as a progressive thinker – always striving to create projects that delight, engage and push the boundaries of how architecture can enhance our cities.

Roger was the director of the Infrastructure and Development course at the London School of Economics, and lectures regularly on regeneration policy throughout the UK. He has served as president to the Architectural Association.

He has considerable experience in the process of design management of major regeneration projects, including the Greenwich Millennium Village Competition and the Hastings & Bexhill masterplan. Roger is often asked to give his expertise as a juror, he contributes regularly to the architectural press and teaches and lectures widely.

He is author of Shouldn’t we all be developers?, a book that has sparked a debate about the role that small and independent developers should play in building the new homes that are so desperately required.

He is the Honorary Surveyor to the Royal Academy of Arts and assisting them in making their masterplan for their enlarged campus in London for their 250^th year celebrations in 2018.

The post The Solidspace DNA: Roger Zogolovitch Shares His Insights on Being an Architect Developer appeared first on Archipreneur.