#519 - Adrian Morris, Co-Founder and Director of Pangea Design Group

Introducing Adrienne Morris

0:00This is the second studio hosted by the Architecture and Design Office fame. My name is David Lee, and with me is Marina Bordero-Nay. The two of us are architects, partners at the office, and of course, hosts of the show. And today, our guest is Adrienne Morris. Adrienne is one of the founders and directors of Pangaea Design Group, as well as managing partner of Design Partnership and Morrison Co. in South Africa. Those are three different entities. He's a busy person. As you'll hear, for some context, Pangaea is basically a design collective of a few different practices.

0:32And then Adrienne, his own businesses are those last two that Marina mentioned. One is a residential shop, and one is a commercial shop. And it's just interesting. I mean, the idea of collaboration, the idea of work on different types of projects, the idea of diversifying are all themes that come up in a lot of conversations on this podcast. But I think this is a unique structure and a unique set of suite of businesses and things that I've ever seen from a guest on the show, at least.

1:04So the conversation with Adrienne was really interesting. Of course, we hear about how he got into architecture and then what led him to where he is now with all these different things happening, how he manages it, how it works, his future plans, and, of course, his favorite building. Sponsors. Dear architects, design leaders, and founders redefining the industry, if you want to shape not only buildings but the business behind them, this is your moment. Future London Academy's Executive MBA takes you inside the boardrooms of Pentagram, Uber, Zaha Hadid Architects, and Google,

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2:42There is less coordination headache, more actual architecture, and if you're interested, you can learn more by tapping the AceLab link in our show notes. This is the second studio with myself, Marina, and our guest, Adrian.

Early architectural education in Johannesburg

2:52Here we go.

Early architectural education in Johannesburg

2:53I was born in Johannesburg. I grew up in Johannesburg and started my practice in Johannesburg, and then with regards to how I got into architecture, so I went to a government school, pretty middle-class family. My dad was an aircraft technician. My mom had, like, a secretarial job, mostly stay-at-home mom, so no real kind of artistic flair in the family, if you want to call it that, but I always had an interest in drawing and was always making things, drawing things,

3:27and then the way the school system here works, when you get to the last three years, you have to, like, pick a few subjects, so I took all the standards stuff, maths, geography, science, et cetera, and decided to take art, not thinking that there would be any kind of career in it, but I just enjoyed it, so I took art, and the art teacher at school who ran the kind of the three years that I did it, I mean, besides the, like, enhancing and improving, like, how you draw and paint, et cetera,

4:03they ran, like, a theory and a history of art and architecture, and the architecture kind of modules went from gothic all the way over the years, right, ended up with, like, the, like, modern movements, and that really, I mean, I found it, like, fascinating, and, like, relished the kind of history projects around that and learning about architecture, architects, and kind of what shaped all the different movements and, you know, how these architectural movements related to kind of culture, and so I found it really, really fascinating.

4:38So when I got to the end of school, I was, you know, I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do exactly, thought about architecture, but, you know, also had kind of a bit of an interest in advertising, but at the time in South Africa, we still had conscription, military conscription, so it was only one year at the time, it reduced it from two years to one year, so I thought I'll just kind of get it out of the way, and, you know, and then once that's out the way, I would decide what I wanted to do, and while I was in the military, one of the guys in the barracks that I was in,

5:09I was an architect, and he had studied at, like, a technical college, and he said, no, don't go to university, it's, like, all theoretical, it's airy-fairy, so you're, like, go to a technical college, you'll kind of learn the practical stuff, and, you know, and it's shorter, so anyway, I enrolled, when I finished, and I did a year at what was then called a Wits Technicon, and, yeah, it was, like, it was a little bit, like, frustrating, because it was all just, like, kind of the technology of buildings and stuff,

5:41and they had, like, a little design module that we did once, and which I really enjoyed, and the guy who ran that, Hugh Fraser said to me, you know, you're wasting your time, you know, you should go to university, and so he set up an interview with the guy who ran the first-year studio, Don Tinder, and, anyway, I went to the university, it was quite apprehensive, went to kind of meet them and really, really, like, enjoyed that kind of studio set up there, you know, with the models they were building,

6:12and just, it just was really, like, a creative environment, so decided to make the switch and kind of started the degree process, and the way it was then, it was four years to get to what they call the Bachelor of Architecture Studies, you then go out and work for a year, like, a practical year, and you come back and do your Bachelor of Architecture, I mean, if you wanted to do, you could do, like, honours and master's, et cetera, so, yeah, so, I mean, very fortunate with the lecturers that I had,

6:43the programme I thought was really comprehensive, like, you had, like, obviously, theory of design and history of architecture and all that good stuff, but the design and the construction modules kind of ran in parallel, so you would, like, work on a design project, like, you'd do, like, a timber holiday home, and then you'd do the construction in parallel for that, or you'd do, like, nursery school design, and then you would do an aspect of the construction drawings and detailing for that, so there's really, I thought, quite, like, comprehensive.

7:16Yeah. So, yeah, so that's kind of how I got started in architecture. It sounds like that programme was pretty well-balanced, because one of the common critiques, I don't know how involved you are in academia or aware of it, but one of the critiques we hear pretty often, especially amongst professionals, is that school has become, architecture school has become more and more theoretical and kind of gone off to the deep end. Broadly speaking, it varies from institution to institution. Yeah, I think, well, there's kind of two parts to my answer,

7:50so yes, I agree. My son's actually just started studying architecture at exactly the same school, and kind of watching what he's doing, and, you know, obviously have a keen interest in this look at the design briefs they get, and it's a lot more kind of, like, theoretical, a little bit ethereal. So, yeah, I mean, I, from the sidelines, you know, try around, I suppose, like, some of the way he thinks about things. But the other part, I think, of architecture schools

8:20that, for me, has become, like, a big drive in the way I've kind of directed my own career path from when I started doing some, like, practical work, working in other practices, is that, like, none of the architecture schools teach, like, the kind of business of running a practice. And it's not to say that you do commercial work and you sell your soul for it, but, like, it's got to be a system, like, it's a practice, it's a business. Like, you've, and for me, it's, like, one of the things that, like, I realised

8:51when I got into the working environment and when I started working in my year out, I went to work for a lecturer at first and I could just see that, this guy's a struggling artist. Like, this is, like, it's a road, it's a road to nowhere. Like, yes, you know, beautiful buildings, but you've got to, like, be able to sustain yourself. And, you know, and that really got me going down like a whole nother, like, route that eventually culminates in, you know, the kind of practice that we've built.

9:25So, I mean, I can kind of elaborate a little bit of how that all kind of, like, inspired, but to your question about the kind of, like, the theoretical side of it, I think there's two parts that it's, like, you know, how do you design buildings that are relevant and buildable, like, you know, responsible buildings, and also, like, how do you, when you go out, everybody wants to, like, ultimately, I guess, have their own studio or practice, like, and unfortunately, a lot of people who go down that road, it's a road of, like, hard knocks

9:59because you don't know what you don't know. You've spent six years learning to design buildings, but the reality is the design and the delivery of buildings, for the most part, operates in a world of commerce. So, you know, so for me, I, you know, I have this little lecture that I give our staff once every two years up, when we have new people, we have this thing of, like, the business of design and the design of business,

10:29and they interlink, but they're two fundamentally different things. It's like the design of, like, the business of design is how you run a design studio, like, how you design and run your processes and your systems that makes financial sense and you kind of, you know, we sell time, ultimately, how you watch the hours, how you optimize that while still trying to deliver great quality work, but the business, the design of business

11:00is a completely different thing. Like, how do you, what's the structure of your business? How are you positioning yourself in the market? Like, how are you leveraging, like, other opportunities that exist around the kind of, like, the silos that you're operating or the sectors you're operating? So, for me, that became, like, it's a little bit, like, outside of the realm, I suppose, of this conversation, but it's really something that's kind of set very central to how we've built our business and our studio.

The business side of practice

11:31I love that, and I agree completely, being our own business owners, it's a really steep learning curve the first one, two, five, ten years. I was going to ask, so, with those, that lecture you give to your office, like, once every two years, it's an interesting thing because, you know, I've worked at plenty of architecture offices, and I would say, through my experience and my colleagues, it's pretty common for the founders and partners of offices

12:02to never talk about the business side of the practice with their employees, and, you know, maybe the upper-level staff, sure, the other partners, but everyone else, like, they're just focused, and they just know about the design part of the work, you know, the actual architecture part of it, and they know nothing about the business side, but it seems like that's not your approach. No, no, we are completely, so we have a thing called, so in South Africa, once a year, this president gives, like, a speech,

12:36and it's called the State of the Nation, SONA, S-O-N-A, State of the Nation Address, and we adopted that, oh, 10 years ago, and twice a year, we do a SONA in our business, and we kind of give people a kind of lowdown, where we're at, like, you know, what are the opportunities we're chasing, what is the work that we've landed that's come in, and we run, we are very interiors, heavy, like, business, and we run separate, like, silos, so we talk about our business as a collection of small studios

13:09in a bigger business, so we have, in South Africa, we have about 85 staff, and we run them as small independent, literally independent studios, so we have, like, a retail design team, a workplace team, a hospitality team, luxury residential, and there's a lot of crossover that happens, so it's like a dark kitchen, a dark kitchen, everyone uses the same dark kitchen, but there's a different counter, and we market them as, like, all under the banner, but we market the workplace team

13:39and have their kind of own business plan, their own marketing plan, and we kind of share the results, you know, we have a margin that we chase, we track time on projects, when a new project comes in, you know, or, like, we all work to the kind of work stages, I don't know how it works in the States, but we have six work stages, and the fees are kind of split along those stages, we assign the team, we allocate based on the fees, we take the margin off the top, we allocate the kind of hour allowances,

14:12and we don't take tutorial about it, but there's awareness, we've got 300 hours to get this work stage out, how are we going to do it? We have a saying in our business, it actually came from Einstein, if you have an hour to solve a problem, you spend the first 55 minutes working on what's the right question to ask, to actually work out how are we going to get there, like, we've got 300 hours, how are we going to plan it, how are we going to get there, how do we do it, so that's how we run it, we deliver good work,

14:43I think we run awards and stuff, but we always have this tug of war, and I think what's interesting in that tug of war is, I'm an architect by profession, my business partner in South Africa, he's like not, he's a project manager, and he runs the back end of the business, he runs the finances and the time, and it's a healthy tug of war, like, you know, he's always pushing for better margins, more efficient delivery, and we're always pushing for more time, better quality, and it's a healthy tug of war,

15:16and, you know, so we try to balance the quality of the work, and then obviously, you know, it's a business, we have to make money, so. So it's interesting that you're, you say you guys are marketing each of the studio, kind of as a, as an independent entity, right? Yeah, under the banner, under, so it all sits, I mean, in South Africa, it sits under, under design partnership, and I'll talk about how the Pangea thing works, but, you know, we, we very much, like, take in the approach of being,

15:47like, a diversified practice, so, but you also don't want to be a jack of all trades, you know, every, every, like, sector is quite specialized, so if you design, like, a restaurant, designing a restaurant is very different to designing a workplace environment, or designing an office block is very, very different to how you think about designing, like, a hotel, so we have these, what we call, like, little centers of excellence, and then we, we will put together a team for a project, like, we just did a, a big campus for, for Amazon in,

16:17in Cato, and it was the workplace team, all the, kind of, workplace areas, and then there's a lot of, kind of, like, breakout and hospitality areas, food and beverage here, so the hospitality team would, would work with them on that, so we would, they'll, kind of pull the, the, the, kind of best of, or, or what's the right, kind of disciplines, and put them on, on the project, and then, yeah, and then we, kind of, and also it's a nice way to, manage resources, because if you have a staff of 80, it's very hard,

16:48to, you know, to, to, like, manage so many designers, but if you break them into little studios, and there's a studio ahead, and, you know, it's just, the culture's better, the, the discipline's more focused, and, and it gives you the, the ability to, kind of flex, so if the workplace team's under resource pressure, they can take, join resources from another team, we all work on Revit, we all have, like, you know, an in-house firm manager, so the dark kitchen philosophy, then, then applies, so, yeah. Do you think from a,

17:18a client's point of view, having this, kind of, like, different studio, helps, helps you look more like an expert, rather than, like you said, that could jack up our trades, right? Yeah, yeah, 100%, so like, you know, we just want a big hotel project now, and it's exactly, it's a hotel or conference center, so the conferencing is very much, kind of, workplace stuff, and then, obviously, the hotel, we've got rooms, and then we've got restaurants, so the rooms will be done by, like, the residential interiors team, the restaurant, by the hospitality,

17:49and the workplace team, but it'll, we, we put a, kind of a project custodian, to it, and, yeah, that's what the, the clients enjoy, that they, they, they feel like getting, kind of, best in class in each, in each sector. At what point in the life of the company, did you guys make that choice? Like, was it because you felt like, the portfolio was, like, getting way too diverse, and, and you had to make that, or what, did you do it early, like, earlier on?

Genesis of Design Partnership

18:20Well, I mean, I think, to kind of, go back to, to the genesis of it. Yeah. So, so, I mean, architect by profession, um, one, the guy who actually founded design partnership, was also, uh, an architect by profession, and, and the thing, well, in South Africa specifically, I mean, in the 80s with sanctions, interest rates were really high, so, um, risk work became a really big thing, yeah, like, I mean, and it hasn't gone away,

18:51so, yeah, they do kind of traditional commercial architecture, and there's a massive amount of, of, like, uh, risk work, and architecture is, it's, it's, it's generally fees only, like, you design a building, and you get fees for it. On the interior side, like, um, no risk work, that the other thing is that you can, what we call, mine the value chain, so, like, what's it called, like, design and build model, so, you can design interiors, but you can also build, the interiors, so, then all of a sudden, like, you know,

19:21we call it mining the value chain, so, like, now, you're getting fees, plus, you know, you can supply furniture to hotels, on the workplace side, we actually have a whole project management division, and they actually build the fits out, and we do them, like, turnkey, so, that started to really transform, like, the way we looked at how, how we balance, like, architecture, interiors, interiors became a really nice cash generator, and it helps flatten the cash flow, you know, in architecture, as you know, cash flow can do this,

19:52you know, on a big project, sucks a lot of resources, you've got to wait for the next fee draw, so, so, we, we deliberately kind of started thinking about it like that, and then, obviously, as the practice kind of grew, the silos started to develop, it became like a necessity, but more so on the interior side, because it's quite specialized, like, like, if you're designing a retail store, understand, like, how, like, you know, you know, like a department store, how adjacencies work, how planograms and fixed stream works,

20:23is very different to designing an office, where, you know, you need to understand, like, work strategies, and occupation densities, and all that, so, so, the science and the art of it kind of drove, that you needed to create these, these like, these like specialist teams, if you want to call them that. So, give us a sense of timeline, like, how long was it from the, you know, starting of practice to that kind of point? So, after I'd worked for, in my year out, I kind of realized that,

20:56and I'd stumbled across a pentagram, so when I went back for my, what should have been my final year, I did it over two years, so while I was doing my thesis, as they call it here, I went and did a branding diploma, strategic brand management diploma, because I was fascinated about this idea of commercial design, kind of, and how it overlapped with kind of brand strategy, so that it's like strategic design, if you want to call it that, and it was just an interest, I mean, I didn't know a lot about it,

21:26but it was something that I, had an interest in, so I did this, this diploma, I finished my, my degree, and I was looking for, for a job, and I had a friend, who was working, in a, in a property, a big, shopping center development firm, they're like a, a mutual fund, like a, you know, like a fund, and they, they develop shopping centers, and anyway, he was working for them, in their development division, and, it was kind of,

21:572000 and, 2001, I think, and it was kind of, in that boom, we were like, you know, the rainbow nation, it was kind of, after 1994, a lot of foreign investments, so the, you know, the economy was really, starting to, to boom, and there was a lot of shopping centers, being developed, and they were looking for, someone to help, do a store design review, for their malls, they were doing, three big malls, across the country, and they wanted to elevate, the quality of retail design, and they were looking for someone, to,

22:28to come in, and kind of, who's a retail specialist, who can review designs, and help kind of, elevate the quality of design, and it wasn't really, about the big brands, it was kind of, a lot of the, like local retailers, anyway, he said like, are you interested, and I said, yeah, I'll, definitely, you know, studied architecture, did this branding course, I went to the bookshop, on the weekend, and I bought a book, on retail design, and I read the book, I went for the interview, on the Monday, and yeah, I got the job, and I'd never designed,

22:58a store in my life, but I was like, you know, I was convincing, and anyway, so that's how, that's how it started, and in, in doing that, I met a lot of guys, in like retail design, and I met the guy, who had started, like design partnership, they were, I don't know, 10 people at the time, and we just got to know each other, and I mean, I was, I was with this development company, for about four years, and then, as it kind of wound down, I went on to like a, like a contract, like a, like a subcontract with them, and I started doing some stuff,

23:29with, with the guy, who was my part, who became my partner, at the time, and that took us, to about 2008, and then Richard, my current partner, he, he had worked in, at a big food and beverage, company, that owns like a number, of food and beverage brands, and he'd worked as a project manager, and he kind of, he, we had crossed paths before, while I was at this, development company, and, he, he had, got tired of the corporate world, and he decided, he wanted to kind of,

24:00start his own project management business, so he came to us and said, guys, I'm going to start this project management company, I'll give you guys, 50% shares in it, if you pass, all your clients, onto me, and that's kind of how, the turnkey, thing started with us, so we did it in parallel, it was two separate companies, and then by, it was about 2012, we kind of, collapsed it all into, into one, one business, and, and then yeah, just, it just slowly, kind of evolved, and, and grew from there, and you know, we quite,

24:31entrepreneurial in our, in our way, I mean, I, I think it was about, 2012, 2011, I went and did, the equivalent of like, an MBA, a mini MBA, and I think that, that really kind of, opened my mind to, the importance of, of like structure, and thinking about, how you position your business, how you kind of, you, you, you, you have a better understanding, of things like, you know, where's your revenue coming from, how do you like, leverage other opportunities,

25:01around you, and I mean, that's where that whole thing, the, the design of business, like, like came from, it was from doing that, and then, it's just, it's just been an evolution from there, and I mean, we, we, we review our business, every, every like, a few years, we, I mean, COVID was a, was a huge kind of like, like watershed moment for us as well, and, it's just, it's just been, it's been a, conscious evolution, but I think also,

25:31yeah, made, made some decisions that ended up being, right, fortuitously, you know, and it was an exact science, so. Yeah, that's wonderful, so in 2011, 12, when, when, when the, the company was formed, or you guys kind of officially merged together, at that point, had you already executed a wide variety of projects, or was, was it fair, I'm curious about the growth into doing different types of work, because I think a lot of architects are interested in that,

26:02but it's, it's not as easy as we would all hope. Yeah, look, I mean, I think that there's, yes, we had done a fair amount of like, a lot of restaurants, a lot of stores, we've done quite a bit of like, like office developments, we hadn't done any like, big shopping centres, or, or any, anything like that, but, but I do think just your, your question about like, diversified, I think that the, the thing to, I suppose, remember is, you know,

26:33South Africa is a, it's a developing economy, so, you know, it's not as like regulated, I mean, I don't, I don't know what all the regulations are like, in the States, or, you know, with regards to like, you know, if you branch out into other sectors, but I mean, there's, there's a little bit of like, shoot from the hip, you know, so, you know, if you see an opportunity, we like, we tend to like, jump on it, without always kind of, like thinking things, like completely, so there, there are some, some, some horror stories that came out of that, but I mean, that's how you learn,

27:04I mean, that's, that's the, that's, that's the process, I think, and I think that's the thing, we've always tried to kind of balance, like, on the one hand, you're, like you've seen as a professional, you're a professional, on the other hand, it's like, you know, to be a little bit kind of streetwise, and I'm popular, like if you see an opportunity, you like, you know, where can it take us? And we, we always have the same, like, you know, let's walk the road a little bit, so you kind of walk, you know, you, you follow, you follow, follow an opportunity, and if it's, if it's something that, that has like, potential,

27:35you know, then we look at how do you scale it, how do you, how do you systemize it, and then how do you, how do you, how do you scale it? Just walk the road, is that a South African saying? Yeah, like, walk the road, yeah, walk the road, like you don't know where it's, you don't know where it's going to go, like, so you, you kind of like walk the road a bit, and see, and see, see, see where it takes you. I'm going to, I'm going to start using that, it actually, that, that part of what you said, is very applicable to the creative part of, of the practice design itself,

28:06right? You have to test things, kind of go down a path, that you're not sure where it's going to work out, and I think that's always the, that is, is the more common kind of dichotomy or struggle between, you know, as you said, being a business, you want to be efficient, because you, you don't want to be losing money, you don't want to be breaking even either, but you need that space for walking the road, or taking some time to experiment. Yeah, and, and that's the challenge, that's the, you know, so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's always a hard one to,

28:36to answer, I mean, and I suppose part of the way we, we look at it is like, when we start a project, it's like, you know, is this kind of like a bread and butter project? You know, we've done this kind of work before, you know, kind of not, not cut and paste, but it's, yeah, it's, it's nothing, you know, it's like, it's, you're not going to, no need to reinvent the wheel. This project, however, like there's a real opportunity, whether it's the, the brief from the client, or the, you know, the site or, you know, so, so I,

29:07I do think that you have to, I suppose, kind of weigh those up at the beginning and, and kind of cherry, cherry pick the ones that are, that are worth the, the time investment. So you said you're the office, the local office is 85 people, other, other offices outside of that one.

Expanding into international collectives

29:25Yeah. Yeah. So, so in South Africa, between Johannesburg and Cape Town, we're about 85, probably about 50 of those are designers. The rest will be project management, procurement, administration. We, we do a lot of turnkey work. So we have quite a big procurement business. So. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, how, how that all then ties into, into the, the Pangea thing. So like everything is, is always an interesting backstory.

29:55So we, we were doing some work for a developer in 2009 and in 2008, the current president was kind of, is served within his own party. When we got this guy, Jacob Zuma, and that's really when that's kind of the corruption and the kind of like malfeasance in government started. And as a result, there was a lot of kind of slow decay and a lot of, um, um,

30:26not this investment, but like people were becoming kind of more weary. And it's obviously started to affect, affect like guys doing property development. So we had this client, um, and he, uh, he saw an opportunity in, in, in Mauritius. Mauritius were like restructuring how, how they kind of market themselves to the world. They were trying to become like the, the kind of, um, Singapore of East Africa. So telco kind of a finance haven. So he, he, he, he,

30:57he, he managed to secure development opportunity there, which we, we were lucky enough to be involved in. And through that, we needed a local architect and we met up with the guys from, architect studio in Mauritius. I mean, that was whatever 15 or 16 years ago. Now we've just kind of, we've maintained this relationship with them where now in that day, there's kind of traditional practice, you know, we, like I said, are quite interiors heavy. So, you know, whenever they get like a new big project there, whether it's apartments or shopping centers,

31:28you know, we, we tend to kind of collaborate and do it together. And, you know, and then about two or three years ago, we decided to create this collective umbrella, called Pangaea. And then in 2018, we had a client here in SA, a food and beverage client who had seen some new fancy drive through concept in Dublin. And he said, no, he wants to take us to Dublin to see this. And I had a friend who I studied with at university who moved to Dublin in

32:00early 2000s when the whole big property boom was happening there. And he, I hadn't spoken to him since he, since we'd all left fast. He's just been spoken to me. Yeah. And anyway, so we were going to go to Dublin. So I, I messaged Paul on Facebook. I hadn't spoken to him. I didn't even have his number. I messaged him on Facebook and, and I said to him, but I'm coming to Dublin. So like, A, how are you? B, can you recommend a hotel?

32:31And C, can we meet for a Guinness? So anyway, so, so, so we, we went over and I was just supposed to go and my partner, Richard, who loves beer. I said, geez, like they've been to Dublin, always wanted to go. So I said, fine, it's just, you know, we'll all go. So we went and met, so I met up with Paul, hadn't seen him since university. And we were just like chatting, like, you know, what are you doing? Like, you know, and kind of explaining, you know, how we set up. And he was like, you know, we've been thinking of starting an interiors division.

33:01Maybe we must just do it with like you guys. And obviously the benefit is like we operate out of a Rand economy. He operates out of a Euro economy. So our cost base is like so much lower. So we said to him, well, you know, you get the work. You take a commission for it. We'll do the work and you can put a margin on top of it. And, you know, it'll still be the same fee for the client. So that's how we kind of got involved with Paul and Derek in Dublin.

33:31And that was in 2018. And, you know, we've obviously been doing work with them. So, but then between these three offices, we decided we'll create this. And it's not even like a, like a registered, like the name is registered, but it's not like a company. It's really like a collective of these three businesses together. So when we get kind of bigger projects or they under pressure, you know, and we, we like other support them from a resourcing point of view, or we collaborate together. And what's really nice is the kind of North South collaboration is really nice

34:03in the sense of, you know, they think about things like a lot differently to us and vice versa. So, yeah, it's been, it's, it's been really beneficial. That's fascinating. You have like umbrellas over umbrellas over umbrellas. And now a little break for our show sponsors. Are you tired of juggling multiple pieces of software and struggling with spreadsheets that aren't made for the realities of design and architecture in 2023? Built by and for designers and architects,

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35:35tap the chaos link in our show notes. But it sounds like there's no, you know, we were talking before the recording and we were kind of asking ourselves, like, why aren't there more collectives like you've described? And my brief hypothesis is one of them is that a lot of offices like to have full control over their work and they want to have, they want to do like everything, the architecture, the site plan, the landscape, the entries. They want to, it's almost the opposite. The act now they say that it's the opposite mentality,

36:06which is what we hear more often, which is I want to myself just put my arms around everything, keep it internal. And that's, that's like the, the, the mode that we hear more often. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's, there's, there's a part of that, I think in, in, in all architects. And I think what, what we've tried to do within our own practice with the little silos. And I think we've tried to extend that into how we've worked with guys in Mauritius or Dublin is, you know, they better at other things that,

36:39that we couldn't do. Big, big architecture, master planning, you know, commercial office building. So, so I think what, what we would do is when we get a, like a bigger project is you guys are great at that. We'll bring this. And like, and I think what's also really nice with the, the group that we've got is there, there's no, there's no egos. There's no one wants to be like the superhero. You know, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just like, like, I mean, we've had it over the years, a couple of dinners and, you know, go for drinks and stuff.

37:09And it's just like, yeah, it's just six great guys and just get on. I think that's the, that's the magic in it. You know, there's no, there's no, there's no egos. So, which is, which is great. I mean, a lot of the times, I suppose, design, I think to, to do great design, you do need a bit, you do need an ego. You do need to, you know, be able to like, kind of be confident in, in what you're putting down. But I think what we've managed to do really wonderfully is like, you know, we kind of do it collectively.

37:39It's not always playing saving, but don't get me wrong. But like, I think it's, it's great that they, no one wants to be like the, the kind of like design icon, you know, it's about, you know, doing good work and, and hopefully having a good time while doing it. I wonder also if the fact that you guys are in completely different geographic location, kind of helps, you know, feel it more like, I don't know, like you're not stepping on each other's territories, let's say, right? Like you're more kind of like coming together to support each other rather than like,

38:14take food off someone else's table per se. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there is, there is definitely that's like, we operate in different sectors. I mean, in, in Mauritia, sometimes the waters do get a bit muddy because, you know, like we, we have a division here that does like residential architecture. So, you know, we, we quite, we try to be quite cognizant of, you know, we have no desire for instance to do commercial buildings.

38:44We don't like, like we don't want to do shopping centers. We don't want to do big. So, so yeah, I mean, it's, I think you've got to be honest and transparent and respectful of, I suppose, you know, what other people's, what their discipline is. So, and learn, and learn, you know when to take a, um, a backseat. So, yeah. Do you think Pangea will grow to incorporate, include more people? I don't know. I mean, we, we, my partner here in South Africa and I, I mean, we,

39:15we terrified of growth.

39:18Like, you know, I, I, I look at more him than me. You look at the salary bill every month and it's like, so, so like, no, I also think you, you, um, you get to like, I mean, I'm in my mid fifties now, like you, you, not that you lose the ambition, but I think it's like, you know, you also just want to like, do, do, do the work that you enjoy. I mean, there's a project in Mauritius that we've been working on with the guys in Mauritius and it's been a really,

39:49really, really tough, tough project, you know, big project, complicated, demanding clients, you know, and, and like you, you realize like, you know, like, it's not, like it's not, not for me, like, you know, we'll do them, but it's like, it's not what you, it's not what you absolutely like enjoy. Like if I had to pick between that and doing like a, like a, like a, like a luxury home for, for a really interesting client, I'll much rather do that,

40:19you know, so, so, yeah. I mean, 85 people is a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, but, but I think to, to what I spoke about earlier, the fact that, that they operate almost as little studios. I mean, like, right now, we have a retail, retail, you know, that they each have like a lead, they run their own planning, they manage their own invoicing, you know, that all goes through to central, like admin department. We've got a project management team. They're all, you know, it's not, it's not perfect.

40:50I mean, we, we ran a very, very flat structure for years. And as a group, we've had to create some, some degree of, of, of hierarchy, um, without being,

41:01well, we've been very deliberate to try and not make it corporate at all. So, you know, we have, we have an open, very much an open door policy. We try to be as approachable as, and as available as possible, not always possible, you know, you're running a fairly big, uh, studio. And, um, yeah, we, we, we invest a lot of time in, in culture. I mean, when we, when we appoint new people, we, we have a philosophy that, um, attitude trumps aptitude. So if there's two people and the other person is a slightly better designer than the other person,

41:33but the other person's just got a great can-do attitude, we'll take the can-do attitude every day of the week. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. So I, I'm imagining the, the studio space is pretty open and you don't have the different studios siloed into different cubicles.

Navigating COVID and remote work

41:49No, no, no. So, so, so, so, COVID was, was a watershed moment for us. So we had a really big office here in Janusburg. It was about in square feet, like 2000 square feet. Wow. Big office. And, um, anyway, so COVID came and we were renting that, that, that space. We'd been thinking about buying for a while, but we, we, we were renting that space and our lease just happened to be coming up for renewal in kind of the first half of 2020. And then, and then COVID came and,

42:20and as you all know, the world went into lockdown and, you know, knowledge in hindsight and exact science, but at the time, no one knew like, like, was this going to be a month, a year? Like, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. We didn't know. So, so, so, so, so, you know, uh, we took a decision. Our lease was coming up for renewal. So we decided like, um, we're not going to renew, renew our lease. And, um, a few of the big projects continued.

42:52So as we all did, we kind of learned about zoom and teams and working online and mirror board and like, you know, we very quickly had to, to, to adapt to, to all these, these things. And, um, we, you know, we also decided that the reason we, we would like not renew and canceled the lease at the time is our kind of three biggest costs with people, software and hardware and, and our rent. So we, we took the decision that our, that our biggest single asset is our, is our people, our culture.

43:23So we, uh, set the whole office down and we said, look, we know what's coming. The guys in Dublin have gone into lockdown. We can see it's coming. Like, you know, um, and we've, yeah, we've got, we've got money that could last us like two, three months. But I mean, who knows if this is a six, nine or nine month game, like it's going to become financially, like devastating. So we sat everyone down and we said, look, you know, we, we've got a choice here. We don't want to go through rounds and rounds and rounds of, of retrenchments. We're not going to renew the lease.

43:54We're going to preserve the cash we've got in the business, but, um, we can either cut once. So cut the office in half once, or we cut no one and everyone stops getting paid a salary. And we all get paid by the hour based on the projects that continue. And us as the owners will take, no salary will kind of last as, as long as we can with, with no, no pay. And it was unanimous. The whole office said, cut no one and we'll see, we'll see how we go.

44:24And what happened was there were two or three really big projects that, that continued all online. And, um, people who had like a full day's work would start sharing their work with people who had nothing. So like, I've got, I've, I've got like a month of work ahead of me. Like I'll give you five days and you five days that people sort of share. And then, and then we let that paid by the hour run after the lockdown ended right to the end of the net financial. So everyone could earn back what they had kind of like sacrificed in the beginning.

44:54The point I'm getting to is, is we, we ran the whole business for about six months without a physical office. Like, yeah, I stay, I stay on a, you know, an agricultural area. So I had like a, a garage, like a triple garage space that we quickly knocked up into like a temporary office. And we, and we just kind of ran, because the lockdowns would come and go, you know, we went into lockdown and it was, then we went back in. So we were like, guys, like, you know, like we still don't, there's no clarity about how long this is going. So we just ran a remote office.

45:24And at the time we were about 55 people. We just ran it as a remote office. Like, you know, people would like online with that every morning, we'd have an online check-in. Some people came to the, to the studio at my house and, and we, we decided let's stretch that as, as long as we can. And instead of paying the rent, we just put it into like an investment account. And after about, I think we really stretched it as about after 18 months, we bought our own office and, and now, the way we work is we continue a hybrid model.

45:55So people come in based on the projects they're on, the teams they're in, and it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a flexible system. So we can probably seat about 40 people in the office. That's minutes that they work out their own systems and, and, and their own schedule. So, so we don't have like a big, big life studio where everyone comes in, but we invest in laptops. I think we pay internet for, for a lot of people for home. Yeah. So, and, and for us, it's also about understanding that a lot of people have lives outside of

46:27work. A lot of our staff are, are women. So, you know, school pickup and, and we have, we have a, we have a very simple philosophy. We manage by expectation, not inspection. So you've got to go watch your son, watch, watch your son play soccer or taking to the dentist. Long as the work's done and the quality is great, you know, you're not going to be looking over your shoulder. And that's how we run it. And it works. It, it empowers people. It gives them independence. And, and, and the commitment you get is unbelievable because,

46:59you know, people are, they, they stay invested in the business because of the, the, the business also works to improve their own quality of life. So, right. Right. Right. That's, that's phenomenal. That's a pretty stark, I, I'm forgetting now going back to COVID times, it's a pretty stark transition to go from an in-person office to, to remote for that long. Yeah. You guys for structuring it that way. I mean, I think also. It's such a big office too. I mean, you feel like four people, you know, you can manage, but that's a lot of,

47:29that's a lot of people. I think that also points to though, you, you know, your, your business acumen and interest in thinking about the structure of the business. Like you talked about at the very beginning, like I think for a lot of, I mean, it's hard to say, but, but I think for a lot of architects who maybe are not, you know, focus on that as much, they might not have made such as savvy series of decisions during a crisis time of COVID. Uh, my question though is, so, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to believe, but it's been a few years since COVID. You guys have maintained a hybrid remote working policy.

48:05Do you, Oh, okay. Actually a couple of questions. The first is that the people who are working most, more remotely, I would guess are the ones who are doing more of like procurement and, and, and, and that kind of work versus like the design collaborative tracing together, or do people use trace paper anymore? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a little bit of, of, of three parts to that. So, um, production work, like a lot of it, I mean, everything's on the cloud. So we use a Revit ACC.

48:35So a lot of, even on big projects, we do a lot of cloud collaboration from a production point of view. So a lot of that stuff people can do from, from pretty much, uh, anyway. And then I think for, for the, for the design, uh, collaboration work, I mean, a lot of the projects are not massive, you know, so it can be two people on a project. So I think that stuff does happen and is better in person, but we also have been very, uh, uh, adapted using a mirror. You guys know mirror. Yeah. It's pretty amazing.

49:05Yeah. So, so we use mirror a lot. So we, we, you know, we've, and again, we were like forced into it with, um, in COVID with the, uh, the big Amazon project ran through and we had a, a hotel project that ran, uh, with the guys in Mauritius. We had no choice. We had to, the project had to continue and we had to do design collaboration. And, you know, we did it and on mirror. So, I mean, we have a lot of design sessions even now, like, you know, we use mirror, uh, for that. I think for, for kind of layouts and,

49:36and trying ideas out like, um, yeah, on paper, I think it's still better. I'm maybe I'm a bit old school like it, but it's quicker to kind of try iterations with layouts and options. But if you're kind of conceptualizing like a narrative or like a framework or reviewing work and stuff, you know, we, um, we, we obviously do a lot of that online with mirror and, and AI has been a big, uh, a game changer with that as well, just for doing like very quick, it, it, it, it, uh, stuff. And it's a, it's a great tool. Interesting. What, uh,

50:07AI programs do you, do you use? We, we, yeah, we, uh, chat GPT, the, the, the business version, chat pro, and then, um, we use nano banana sometimes for, uh, polishing renders, but we've also learned, starting to learn, especially on the interior side, like before, if you're doing like a really big, big space, like a big restaurant space with all, all the furniture modeled in, whether it's in twin motion or Lumion, like the models become very heavy. What we've now learned, learn to do is you, you use the basic Revit placements for like chairs,

50:41as long as you color code, what's the same type. And you literally just tell chat, like, yes, the catalog put that chair where there's red chairs, put that chair where there's green chairs and it, and it produces it better than what the 3d department can do. That's great. It's crazy. It's great. It's amazing that also that's these AI tools are, they came around so quickly, you know, it wasn't like what we have now with the AI capabilities was, it's not the result of, you know, 10 years of using the software. Like it just, this has been around for like a year and a half.

51:12But people probably have been working on those for the last 50 years. Well, I know, but, but for us, it seems brief. But also I think that, again, I mean, the adoption of AI in our offices really kind of come, that project I was talking about before, the one in Mauritius, like we had some real, like we had capacity challenges there. We had issues with like the size of the file and it forced us into kind of a faster adoption. And it's like the COVID thing. Like you get pushed through the eye of the needle and you,

51:45you know, you have to innovate to, to get through it. So yeah, I mean,

51:51do you, this must be somehow like an odd, odd question, but do you enjoy working through these challenging situations? Like it's, if I feel like you, I mean, obviously you'd rather probably not to have to deal with it, but I feel like also you're good at it. And so maybe you enjoy it a little bit, the, the, the solving of under pressure. I think less now than, than I used to. And I mean, yeah, like,

52:22I don't know. Like, I think, I think I don't particularly enjoy the pressure, but I think you, with what you also learn to, to separate, you know, if you, if you've kind of worked it out and you have a plan, you know, you've got to see, see the plan through. I think when things go, um, haywire, like we've had on this project recently, like, I think, yeah, it's definitely wasn't a great experience, but you, you, I guess you, like I said,

52:53you have to just like put your head down, you know, and as my partner always says, this too shall pass. So, put your head down and, and, and, and you try, you try approach it as intelligently and rationally as you can. And, yeah. And like you say, try, try. And for me, it's always like something good will come out of every bad situation. So, you know, like if you look at COVID, there were good things that came out of COVID, uh, for us as a business, the project I was referring to now, there are good things that came,

53:24that came out of it, you know, the innovation and the adoption around AI, you know, the, the fact that, you know, we kind of, you know, like, um, produced what, what in the end, I think is like a really great, like end product for what was a very difficult project and a difficult client and not without support. I mean, it was done again, you know, the guys in Mauritius, you know, were, were kind of, you know, instrumentally in kind of, you know, coaxing that the, coaxing us and, and the project along. So, so I think, you know, your,

53:55to answer your question, maybe more eloquently, I think that as a business owner to, to come through difficult situations, I think is the test of great partnerships.

54:09That, that's a hundred percent true. Uh, that, that's 100% true. Is there, yeah, go ahead. Are you still able to, uh, to be involved in the design of the projects in the office? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, the way we run, the way we run our offices, I have, not that I don't know what's going on in the finances, but I, I, I, I have very little to do with the, the administration. And it's something we've deliberately, and there's still lots to do there,

54:41but I mean, we, we've been very deliberate over the years to, you know, um, it was a, a really, a smart businessman who, we did work for many years ago and, um, not the nicest guy, but very smart guy. And he, uh, he, we asked him to give us some advice on like, you know, how do we structure, how do we grow, you know? And, and we always about that, like, you know,

55:07um, talk to people who, who have done what you, you trying to, it doesn't have to be in the same sector, but that they've built these kind of like a resilient, like businesses. And, and, and his advice to us was like, the best lawyer in the law firm must lawyer, the best lawyer, the worst thing you can do is make the best lawyer and administrator. Yeah. And, and, and that's what we've done. Like Richard, my partner, like he runs the business. He deals all the HR crap. He deals with the billing.

55:37He stresses about like, you know, month end billing and all that stuff. Like, and, and, and, and, you know, we obviously talk about what's going on, but he runs that and my job is to, you know, kind of be as available and as, as present as I can to help facilitate like work. And, and, and, and that's also, that's what I, that's what I enjoy. And I think I'm also at that age now, I mean, whatever, 13 years experience, you know, you can, you can look at a CGI or a plan and, and you can spot the,

56:09either the flaws or the opportunities, you know, so that's what you need to do. Like while you still have the energy, I think you need to, you need to kind of impart the, the, the learnings. And I mean, the part I struggle with is not to do it yourself, you know? Yeah. So, so that's, that's the challenge, I guess. Is there a type of project that you guys haven't done yet that you personally want to do?

56:37Um, yeah, look, I mean, on the, interior side, we, we've done, we've done a lot. I mean, I, I would, would really love to do, there's probably two. I would really, really love to do like, like a safari, we've done safari lodges, but like, like something really remote, like in the Akavango Delta, I think that, that would be like, and a really an amazing opportunity. And, and then I, I think, um, to do like a really, a really great,

57:07like resort, like, you know, I mean, we've done a lot of like work with the guys, architect studio in Mauritius, but we've never with them done like a green fields, uh, a resort. So I think that, that would probably be, to be right up there. You know, there's a, there's an indulgence, I think that comes with, with, uh, with both of those that's, I think there's, there's, there's a, there's a lot of fun. And I think it's a, a really like, again, a wonderful kind of collaboration between architecture, interior design, and, and furniture as,

57:38as opposed to like a shopping center or an office block, you know, right. It's, it's, it's kind of, it's very, um, a lot more siloed. Whereas I think a project like that for, for you to deliver a great kind of like guest experience, it goes from the, from the arrival, the architecture, you know, right through to the interiors, to the selection of art and furniture. So, so I mean, interesting. The, the other thing I was wondering is, um, just a different question, but, you know, with you having a really good read on the business of,

58:14of the office, the structure of it, and that the system's kind of in place, um, at the age of, you said, I think 55 for most architects, this 54. Okay. Apologies. So you're off there. The age of 54, you know, you're kind of like a mid career architect without long architects to work. But, um, you know, well, I guess what I could phrase is that, you know, some architects, it's their name that's on the front door. And in terms of succession, that's not really a thought. And then they work,

58:45work, work. And by the time they get to, you know, whatever later age in their career, they're like, I have no idea what's going to happen with this. Practice once I leave. Have you thought about what would take place when you were? Well, your son is going to school, right? So he's got to take over. Yeah, yeah. No, so, so, so, I mean, we've, we've like, the way we, and again, I'll talk about the South African business. We've been very deliberate about that exact question. So even the way the business is structured, like the turnkey business, so the design and build business is,

59:15is in its own like entity. And, and we, we are building that business and it could be sold. You could sell it to like a construction company or an investor. So it's, it's very much built as, as like a commercial like entity that it has that possibility, you know, or because it's systemized and, and, and that's built a reputation that could be sold to like a management structure within the business. So, so we think very deliberate about that.

59:46There's a second studio we have called, which has my name on it, a Morrison Co. And that just focuses on, on luxury residential. And I mean, that business was born in COVID and, and that's purely like a passion business. So, I mean, that day, my kind of ambition is like, it's something I'll tinker in. So the day I die, I love doing houses and it's something that I'll just, you know, it's my kind of like architecture passion project or business. And it's something that you could,

1:00:16you could do at a small scale. I mean, it's a, it's a team of 15 now, but that's something that I kind of see is like running into perpetuity. Whereas the commercial thing, I mean, it's, it is an intense business to run, but we've been deliberate in setting it up that it could either be bought by a management team or we could like, you know, potentially like, like selling, which I don't think we would ultimately want to do. You know, we have, we have, we have great seniority in our business. And for us, that I think will be the kind of next,

1:00:47the next iteration of how we evolve the businesses, how we bring the next kind of layer of shareholding into the business.

1:00:56Fascinating. So how much time do you spend with the commercial business versus the residential one? It's probably now like 17, 30, 60, 40 in favor of the commercial side. And it also like varies. I mean, so, so I mean, Morrison County started in, in, in 2020. So at the time that, you know, work was still starting to kind of turn back on. So that did absorb a lot of my,

1:01:27my time and, but I've got a great, there's a great, great team in place. They've learned really quickly. And I mean, there's a lot of projects that they do now that I have very little to, to no involvement in. So I, you know, I find a question for me is that I'm sure a lot of architects listening or thinking, you know, they barely have enough time to, to manage one business, let alone. I don't know how, I don't know how you would count yours in your case, but two or three or whatever.

1:01:57Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is, it is extremely exhausting. And, and as you get older, you have, you have less like energy. So, I mean, this project in Mauritius that I keep referring to has been a bit of a watershed moment for me. So yeah, looking to, you know, like restructuring a few things. And, and, but I do think that the fact that we've broken the business into these smaller teams, right. That there,

1:02:27there is seniority. I mean, there are people in those teams have been in the practice for 10, 11, 12 years. So, so, you know, there, there's like, what do you want to call it?

1:02:40Not just skill, but that they've kind of grown up as, as part of the business. A lot of them are like homegrown. They came straight from varsity and they've kind of grown up through, through the, the, the business. So I think that does make it easier that it's a collection of smaller, like studios in, in a bigger business. And then I think the fact that, that I don't have the burden of administration. Right. But I don't, I don't, I don't do the billing. I like, if we need more people, we need to recruit a partner and like his team.

1:03:11They'll get on LinkedIn, get the CVs. They'll do the shortlisting, you know, I'll interview them. I'll interview the shortlist. You know, they deal with all that administration. I don't have to, and it's not like the person doing the administration is an employee. He's my partner. He like, right. It is, it is a massive, massive load that gives you the time to, to, to be a more invested in design, but be to, to, to be able to kind of diversify in the way that we have.

1:03:44Yeah. Yeah. That's yes. Well said. That's a good point.

Favorite buildings and conclusion

1:03:47All right. Final question for me. And it's kind of a tradition in the show is what is your favorite building?

1:03:55Oof.

1:03:57Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think when I, when I did my, my, my year out at university, I did a three month, three month, like around like Europe, went to see all the kind of great architecture that you'd like, learnt about. So, I mean, for, for me, the, the, the standout one is, uh, Ron Champ. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like, I, I, and I, and I know like of late, he's less and less popular.

1:04:28And I, like he's brutalist work. I, I, I don't really enjoy, but I mean, that little building, if you've been there is like, it's a, it's a really, really special, you know, like it's, it's, I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, it's beautiful. I mean, for, for me, like the, the, the thing that we always try and balance is like, you know, modernism talks to like, like honesty. And like, we like leaning to revivalism, like in some of the residential work we do.

1:04:59But for me, it is an element of beauty. And I think when you look at that building, like it's a, you wouldn't describe it as a modernist building when you look at it, but it definitely, in my opinion, balances those two things of kind of honesty. And beauty. And for me, it's, you know, there's probably more beautiful buildings out there, but I think to, to make the choice, you must have visited. If you see any pictures, it's not the same as actually standing there and, you know, being in the building. Yeah. We have,

1:05:29I've been fortunate to be, to have visited twice. It's definitely in my top list of favorite buildings. It's a very complex building, but I, I've never quite thought about the way you described it. Um, it, and I think you're totally right, especially, you know, now, now meaning maybe the last 20, 30 years, a lot of modernism and modern architecture is honest, but it's, it's not necessarily beautiful. It's brutal. It's very dry. Yeah. It's like inhuman. There's no poetry. And I think that's also why it gets a bad rap amongst a lot of,

1:06:02um, non-architects. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, this was phenomenal. Thank you so much for making the time on a Friday, uh, evening for you. It's basically happy hour. This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you everyone for listening to this week's episode. If you want to support the show, then one of the best ways to do it, it's to leave a review of it in the Apple podcast app, Spotify, or YouTube. Yes. And if you have any questions, any guests, suggestions, any topic you want us to talk about,

1:06:33you can call or text the hotline 213-222-6950. You can find all of our episodes on our website, secondnewestudiopod.com on all of the podcast platforms out there. Some of our episodes are on YouTube as well on our channel. About half, half or more. You know, all of our interviews are on there. And then of course you can find us on Instagram, secondstudiopod, where we, you know, publish the clips of, of episodes and, you know, guest work images, things like that. So there's a lot of places you can follow us and be in touch.

1:07:07I don't check LinkedIn DM. So if you DM me on LinkedIn, I probably will get a response in six months from now. I would say more like in five years. Yeah. Okay. Thanks everyone. Talk soon. Bye. Bye.