Level Up with Duayne Pearce
I take on the role of an authoritative voice that fearlessly communicates truths drawn directly from my lived experiences. With a genuine sense of ownership, my insights are free from any hidden agendas – they truly belong to the audience. My stories and journey add remarkable value, the key now lies in harnessing its power effectively to help others.
My purpose is to create a new residential building industry. My mission is to inspire unshakable self-confidence in my colleagues in the industry, empowering them to orchestrate prosperous, enduring, and lucrative businesses that bring exceptional projects to fruition for our clients.
My goal is to foster a deeper comprehension among clients about the identity and functions of builders, redefining their perceptions.
Level Up with Duayne Pearce
How Communication Between Architects and Builders is Paramount To a Successful Build.
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This episode reveals the secrets behind harmonising design and construction to create budget-friendly, client-approved projects with our guest, Michael Loubser, who is the principal architect of Align Architecture & Interiors based in Launceston Tasmania.
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We're on a mission to elevate the professionalism of the residential construction industry, and help everyone enjoy building and renovating homes.
Easy to use Quoting software for Builders. Produce professional and accurate proposals. Quickly and accurately measure and markup plans in minutes. Win more jobs and track costs. 21 Day Free Trial.
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You just saw them relax because they'd never been asked these questions before.
Speaker 2:We actually need to assess our expectations.
Speaker 1:I think designers, too, also have to lift their game. My philosophy is to keep things simple. A lot of the people in the construction industry just say yes, so they'll take on whatever. We're building sick homes If you don't do those tests? Well, what are we doing?
Speaker 2:G'day everyone. Welcome back to another episode of A Level Up. We are still on our Tasmanian trip, even though we're not moving. We're doing all these podcasts in the same house, but it is a cracking location and we've got another cracking episode coming up for you today. But before we get into that, look, if you love this podcast, you like the information, the knowledge that we share and the guests that we have on, please like, share, subscribe all that stuff, because that will help us deliver you more value. Architect and builder. Creating a team to deliver a great result and solving problems while they're still in a digital format before it gets out on site and becomes variations for the clients and those types of things, and I think this conversation is going to go really well. He's into his mountain biking, which I was definitely into back in the day, and he's won a few master builders awards, and he's only a young fellow. So a big warm welcome to Michael Lopesha from architects and interiors. How are you, mate? Good thanks. Thanks for coming along.
Speaker 1:Tell us the story behind that name, so align came about after a rebrand of davies design and construction. So we were working sort of in the north of tassie just under the davies design brand and and we got quite a few inquiries from different builders around the state and with that we sort of saw a little bit of conflict of having the same construction company doing design work for different builders. So we thought we wanted to actually bring the design and construct method to other builders. So we thought of the name Align, luke Davies' brainchild, and yeah, that's how it came about. So yeah, the idea is to align architects, builders and clients and try and get to the same point yeah, and you're big on the collaboration yeah.
Speaker 1:So I just think that there's so much value, particularly in the residential space, to be collaborating kind of early. I I think the earlier the better. So we sort of built up over the years a method of builder and architect and client go to a site visit pre-design, you know, before the job's signed up. We do them as a paid site visit and, yeah, from there we start the conversation. So the builder knows about the job throughout the whole design phase.
Speaker 1:Um, the architect's got the benefit of having the builder there to be doing pricing and to be, you know, making sure that it can be built as intended it's huge like yeah, it just it seems to make a lot of sense and, um, yeah, we've been doing it now pretty solidly for it seems to make a lot of sense and we've been doing it now pretty solidly for about the last five years. Tyrone Shumman 06.00.
Speaker 2:So do you like? I know so. We do the collaboration process very well up in Queensland with a couple of architects, designers, and I know how much value it's added to me. I believe it's made me a better builder, understanding more of the design. Do you believe you're becoming a better architect by understanding more of the building process? Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a whole range of things. Building's complex, so it's understanding, firstly, cost what impact a design decision makes on cost. That's a big one. I'm pretty big on trying to keep to clients' budgets. We go through all the estimates by by line at a concept level, again at the final stage. Pretty well, it's kind of an open book approach. That's just. Yeah, we just you take a lot of the, you know it's this, do you want to proceed? Try and do that to educate them about decisions. But I think that there's a lot that the architect should be responsible for when it comes to budget. But there's a lot that the architect should be responsible for to budget.
Speaker 2:but it's a done thing Because I know that strict what you have to do, adopt a different way, but if you know when you're first putting a pen, like you said, you're going to be more strict. There's still going to like. I do take my hat off because I like as a builder. There's things that you want to do. There's products you want to use. There's things that you want to do like, there's products you want to use.
Speaker 1:There's things in your career you have a crack at look, you've just got a home, or later you get the client. That, yeah, I don't know, I've been thinking about lately, because sometimes I get a bit frustrated. My own approach, because I you sort of think, well, holding back on design, design potential, because, no, I am a lot, I know that stuff is expensive to build. So what I'm trying to achieve mostly is just good design, just really good basic design, and then weave in a bit of architectural flair where I can.
Speaker 2:So what do you think the key elements of good design are?
Speaker 1:I'm pretty big on a floor plan, the actual functional arrangement of a floor plan. I think that's essential. If there's one thing that I can do for a client is give them a good floor plan and then they can go and muck it up with you know, picking whatever they want. But if I can actually get that spatial arrangement to work really well, then I think there's a lot of value in that and with that you can contain size and you can get things to work a lot harder by just being smart with good, good planning. So I think that's one of the main things, yeah and I think that's one a lot from my side.
Speaker 2:my opinion on it is it's like that's ultimately what makes the clients house their home, like when you have a floor plan that suits the way they live. Yeah, their family needs their hobbies. Well, that's probably my biggest learning while being involved in this early stage Just seeing, like when a good designer, architect, really deep dives and finds out everything about the client. Yeah, like what time they get up. Well, just to I I guess, go into full detail, like one designer we work with, um does it incredibly well, and like he'll find out with, like husband and wife scenarios like what time each of them get up and like in a house we're working on at the moment, um doctors.
Speaker 2:That has changed the way that the master suite has been designed, because one quite often has to like gets kept back doing surgeries and things and so he doesn't want to wake up the other partner when he gets home. So, like, the way he accesses the walk-in robe has been designed so he can access the walk-in robe, have a shower, get change and go to bed without like flicking lights on and disturbing. So to me that's really good design and good floor planning.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that will make that house suit those clients perfectly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's about it. There's an intimacy that you develop with clients if you sort of have the time to spend with them to really unpack what they're looking for. We spend quite a bit of time in the brief collection phase and we get that signed off and it's a written document that goes back to them.
Speaker 2:I love that you're getting that signed off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we get everything signed off because we don't want to move to the next stage without having everybody understand it. And it's amazing what happens. When you say please put a signature here, all of a sudden they go oh actually, yeah, just think about that a little bit, we might think about it. So we we get everything signed off from you know, proposals to brief, to drawings, um through every single phase concept.
Speaker 2:You know da final drawings as well I think that's a really important business decision that some people just don't make and I don't know it's because they're always rushing or they're just they're chasing the next payment or whatever it is. But it is incredible how a simple process like asking someone for a signature yeah, at the end of each stage like I'm assuming if you're doing that, you're doing meeting minutes and those types of things Part of our PAC process and the collaboration is that through the design stage, but also during the build, every meeting is followed up with meeting minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the clients are asked to accept them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does it, the meeting minutes. It's an extremely powerful thing.
Speaker 2:Well, like you just touched on it, it really changes like a client can be all rosy and yeah, let's keep moving, let's keep moving. And yeah, you're asking to sign that meeting minutes after designing like oh, actually didn't really like the size of that cupboard or whatever, and it's important to do that, hey, because if you, for you as the architect, if you continue to develop those drawings, something that could have been changed very, very easily, yeah, might end up being a massive change and possibly going to cost the client more money yeah, and that's.
Speaker 1:I try and get clients to be as honest as possible. I just sort of say, whatever it is, don't hold back on. You know I won't. There's nothing personal, you know. You're not going to hurt my feelings. I've done this many times and I've dealt with many different types of people, so I understand the kind of the different relationships that you have with the architect and between the. You know if it's a couple or you know it doesn't matter, it's all about honesty. And if you can't be honest with us about what you want, what you like, what you don't like, what your budget is, that's one of the big ones budget, because people are often not honest about their budget, so it hinders the potential of the project if they can't be honest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to change the industry wording on that. I think project spend is a more accurate description, because and and getting out of the client within that project spend is that, is that can all consultants? Is it the house? Is it doesn't include landscaping? Like, what is your actual total project spend?
Speaker 2:yeah because, um, it's funny when you work backwards with clients. Um, I'm sure you do this sort of exercise, like if they say they've got a million dollar project spend, yeah, okay. Well, that's possibly going to include 60, 80, 100 thousand dollars worth of other consultants, architects, engineers, certifiers, all those types of things. Do you want landscaping in that? All right. Well, look, we don't have a design yet, but gonna have to allow 30 to 40 grand, yeah. Do you want a driveway? That's gonna be 30. Do you want fencing? That might be 20 or 30. Do you want a pool? Oh, what type of pool? Like, well, let's allow 60 grand for a pool. Yeah, before you know it, you've got 700 grand left, or I'm not on the mass of my mind.
Speaker 2:So but before you know it, you've actually only got 700 down to spend on the build and they've been telling themselves a million dollars, yep, and that can change like 300 000 often expected build costs it's a lot of money, it is yeah.
Speaker 1:So we we do the same process. We do that at the beginning with the builder as well. So we call it a pre-built feasibility and that's the same thing. We've got site costs that are listed as one item. Then we do a build cost, so for the house alone, and then we do architecture fees and then we've got consultant fees, so you sort of, before they've started, before they've done anything, they've paid us a small fee to give them an extreme amount of value. And yeah, often it's like okay, we didn't expect this, we didn't know about that what's a building surveyor?
Speaker 1:what's? An energy assessor. So it helps with that education process and we lose quite a few jobs because of that process.
Speaker 2:Just because you know we those costs are going to come up.
Speaker 1:Sooner or later they come up. They you know whether you're using a drafty or an architect or building designer as a percentage of your total spend, it's not really a big difference yeah so that's the.
Speaker 1:The main, like one of the main things to understand is sort of what the value is placed on that. But yeah, at the end of the day, the side costs are going to be 100, 000 or, you know, 150 or whatever it happens to be, um, and you, just you can't get away from those costs yeah, yeah, there's certain costs in a build that are there.
Speaker 2:They're there. It doesn't matter who you use, what designer, what builder like, whatever consultants yeah, they're there. Like. The only costs that really get adjusted depend on the final house design.
Speaker 1:On the design, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like if you buy a steep block, it's got to be cut.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it doesn't matter who designs or who's built it. Yeah, and it's funny because I guess it all comes back to your marketing. Like we're very good now at not over-attracting the right types of clients, but like a lot of clients will think that, all right, we'll just pay you to design and we'll just engage with this builder and we'll take care of all those other consultants ourselves, and because I think they're going to save some money, but not knowing that someone like yourself has got a relationship with I'm not sure if they call the same things down here, but like you'll know certifiers, you'll know engineers, you'll know possibly people in council or town planning, and so you can pick up the phone and ring up and ask questions and sort problems out. Yeah, whereas a client will ring up they'll get, oh no, you've got to deal with this department. Oh no, you've got to deal with that department. Yeah, and three hours later they still haven't got an answer on a simple question. Yeah, yeah, we, we try to be the guide through the process.
Speaker 1:We use that word a bit in our marketing and stuff just to, yeah, let let them understand that we we're there to talk them through the whole process. But we're the professionals that do the stuff all the time and we have those relationships with different people and we understand the mechanism of planning and building, approvals, processes and all those sorts of things.
Speaker 1:So it's yeah, you, you're very kind to be well placed to trust that process yeah and, and we and I often say to people I'm just here to take away all the pain for you. I want us to focus, I want you to focus on the fun stuff you know, doing the design, getting excited about the materials and and all the the good things that, um, that you can enjoy as part of the design process, and let us take care of the rest. We'll take care of all the background stuff, we'll organize the consultants, we'll do all that sort of stuff. So there's a big education process that you have to take clients through. Um, we, we try and, as a business, to work to build assets around that, to create educational things, to create flyers and brochures and things that help clients to understand. Yeah, but yeah, like you say, it ultimately comes down to hitting that your target market for clients and sticking to those, knowing when to say no.
Speaker 2:I think it's a massive thing it's huge like so many people just would have such a better business if they just said no, they said no, said no, yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of people in our industry seems to be. I think it's just the type of personas and people that our industry attracts, but we seem to be people pleasers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, could be. It'd be interesting to dive into the psychology of the type of people that are in the industry, type of people that are in the industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not so much. I'm not sure on architects, designers, but I definitely, with the work I've done on myself and, um, definitely talking to a lot of people in the industry now, like I know a lot of builders and tradies, um, indigos, like that's. That's the personas we are and that is we're very visual people. Um, we don't tend to be good at communicating, uh, which is like it's something I've had a lot of time and effort into being better at, but we are people pleasers. So we're yes people and it's definitely been a huge turning point in my business is tuning the right people and learning when to say no, or being confident to say no in things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it takes a while while, I guess, to build up that confidence. You know you sort of in your early days you just take whatever comes um, and as you sort of come to understand yourself and what you, you know what you like to do and um are capable of, then I think the no becomes a bit easier yeah, yeah so how have you got so like?
Speaker 2:you seem like a young fella, how have you got so much experience and knowledge and you, just like you, seem very passionate about it?
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know. I think my background, my personal self, is a fairly balanced and pretty spread across left and the right brain, so I can think creatively and yeah, but also quite technical and I don't know. I've got a fairly logical or method focus. So I like to do things in a particular way. That's been kind of tested over the years and when you make an error or some mistakes then I really try and never make those mistakes again and I'm quite methodical about going through that.
Speaker 1:And I don't know, I think the nature of being an architect you've got to be, well, a certain type of architect like I'm trying to do. I'm trying to be broad based. You know really broad in my skill set, so you know great at design, understand how materials come together, understand sustainability, understand building and then, going to the design, construct, well, I'm trying to understand cost. I'm trying to understand how builders do what they do, how they make money, um, why they're in business, what they like to do. So you know I have an interest that's kind of broad based and and that's gonna.
Speaker 2:That's gonna make you a lot better professional.
Speaker 1:I think so. Yeah, it sort of rounds you out a bit more, so you can give people better advice, hopefully.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how did you get into architecture, mate?
Speaker 1:Like I said, I was into sport at school but I was also into academics. So again, it was just the balance of those two and I think an architect is kind of perfectly placed to be someone that's in that kind of skill set or, or you know, brain type, because it does it just covers so much. And I'd I'd gone to a career advisor at high school and I said, oh, I'm thinking about doing engineering. You know, I'd always had some kind of interest in bridges, for some reason.
Speaker 1:And she said I said I'm thinking about doing civil engineering. And she said don't do civil engineering. And I said oh, why? She said, oh, my husband's a civil engineer. And she said it's a really dry profession and I think she might have saw. Saw, you know, she knew me fairly well. So she thought maybe there was something in the sort of artistic side that you could potentially tap into.
Speaker 2:And then yeah that if you just saw the husband was boring, or that her husband was boring.
Speaker 1:But like now. You know, as I reflect on that, I think about it a lot. Engineers are a particular way, you know. They do sort of take up the left hemisphere a bit more. They, you know, think in a particular way and I sort of I jump between the two. So architecture is pretty well placed for that because you have to be really broad. If you want to be a, I guess, a traditional, well-rounded architect, you've got to be broad across so many things. You've got to know psychology. You've got to know, you know technical design skills, you've got to know how colors come together to make you feel a certain way. You've got to understand health of materials and planet and life cycle, cost and you know this, it's so broad, so it was from that conversation it was from that that I got into architecture and then, yeah, I studied in wa and tassie.
Speaker 1:That it's broken up into two um courses like an undergrad course. I did that at wa um and then I came to tassie had, yeah, my family moved across yeah and so, yeah, I just came to tassie and there's just a different vibe or a bit of an aura in Tassie. Yeah, it was back to sort of country life that I grew up in and, yeah, the climate here is pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've only been here a couple days. I've never been here before it's. It's bloody fantastic.
Speaker 1:It does feel like we've gone back to the 80s, but yeah, I like that first time I came, we all said that's like, yeah, it seems 20 years behind, um, that's what it felt like. I think it's changed a lot over the last 10 years. There's been quite a lot of stuff that's quite different.
Speaker 2:There seems to be a lot of incredible homes being built down here. I was talking to a couple of builders up in Queensland when they heard that I was coming down here. One of them in particular is from down here and he was telling me there's some stats like Tasmania has I forget the wording like basically wealth compared to number of people is quite high and like I don't know. I don't know much about down here, but just from what I see on social media and stuff, like there does seem to be a lot of expensive homes getting built.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there is some great architecture that comes out of tassie. There's um some I don't know that's sort of a kind of a tasmanian style, but a few architects that have been really well publicized for sort of a tazzy modernism kind of aesthetic. Yeah, you know, it's sort of low pitched, flat modernist kind of thing, um, and that's given the tasmanian architecture and quite a distinct um identity, I think. But then also there's this thing about an island, we sort of this small little island. It's quite a unique community it's. I wouldn't say it's quite a unique community it's I wouldn't say it's a community, because there's sort of strange divides like Launceston and Hobart and people that never really stray people in Hobart they may not stray north of the wall you know, it's that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:They kind of stick to that area down there and then I think there's yeah, there's probably a fair bit of wealth that comes about from agriculture. Yeah, there's probably a fair bit of wealth that comes about from agriculture, and, yeah, all sorts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were. You were saying earlier before we started recording, that you are quite a lot of your clients are people that are moving here from other parts of Australia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a pretty big it seems like the big migration out of Queensland. I think they come from the sort of hot climate down to a cooler climate. To generalise, it's usually an elder population that comes down and they sort of can't handle the heat anymore, so they come down to Tassie to cool down a bit. But then also I think there was a period where we had such a sweet spot for land price and even cost of construction though now it's pretty expensive to build just a base spot for land price and even cost of construction though now it's pretty expensive to build just a base accounts for us. Maybe three, four years ago, yeah, people in the mainland were getting pretty extreme value when they compared to the prices in, say, sydney or yeah, or brisbane or even melbourne so yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:There's quite a lot of clientele that come down from those three.
Speaker 2:You've recently done your Passive House Designer qualification.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I did my Passive House Tradesman qualification last year as well and I liked that. You're obviously very interested in that, but you picked up on the quality control, and I think that's something that our industry lacks.
Speaker 2:You're obviously very interested in that, but you picked up on the quality control, and I think that's something that our industry lacks. And I do see, when you're building a passive house, you basically have a set of standards or rules that you have to follow and there's lots of check measures along the way, and I think that's only a good thing. I think there needs to be a lot more of that in our industry across the board. Like we're talking to another um guest we had on the other day, like why isn't waterproofing tested or assessed, or why isn't in? Why isn't the installation of insulation and building wraps, for example? Like why are they not checked when they play such a massive role in the performance of a home? Yeah, so what? What's? What is what sparked your interest in that sort of area?
Speaker 1:oh, I think it's a passive house. To begin with it seemed a natural progression. When you know you're interested in sustainability and trying to lower energy costs and all those sorts of things, um, it seems a fairly natural progression. But I think we were also in the tassie space and the guys that we were working with everyone's kind of moving towards what they were calling the high performance building or, or, um, you know, just better building, basically trying to get things um, done.
Speaker 1:Well, uh, passive house kind of led into that and the course, for me, once I'd finished it, it seemed like the lights had been turned on because it's quite focused on the building science side of things. So it's kind of data-driven. They tested everything, it's all proven. So that's where I just went. Oh geez, there's a way to actually understand how a building is going to perform in the design side, because often we can do things like passive solar and you know, eaves and all these sort of things, but there's no real way apart from the person moving in going yeah, we love it, or you know it's too cold or you know, that room gets really hot.
Speaker 1:And then it's quite late in the piece to be doing that because you can't change anything, you know. Then you've got to tack on things or you've got to put air conditioning systems in and that sort of thing. So Passive House just helps to take those unknowns, put it in the design world so you can then come to understand things a bit better. It was a lot of just about understanding building science and I think for me one of the huge learning factors was I renovated my home about two years ago, put a blanket on the roof, I insulated under the floors, I put double glazed windows in and I moved in and great, the house is nice on the inside. But I was going through the course passive house course and what they were saying was exactly what I was seeing in my house. All the things that they're saying. These are the, the solves that we're doing with passive house. I felt the breeze blowing under the skirting boards. I felt the cold radiation from the windows. I saw the condensation drip down the windows and sit on the windowsill.
Speaker 1:So I'd seen all of these things that I've just done in my renovation, which was kind of trying to improve the energy performance of the home and the actual background of passive house is actually it came about because of this energy standards that they try to lift, and then they realized oh crap, we, we haven't solved the moisture problem. So all of a sudden we've, we've increased all the stuff, but then we've created another problem. So I've just done that for myself and I'd seen firsthand what they'd actually done.
Speaker 2:So well, that seems to be how our industry operates. Yeah, we're constantly like, even the changes that come in last year with the ncc Like, yes, they're good Most of them are good changes but they're really just solving issues that were created by other regulations that were brought in years ago. Like obviously with building wraps, like that's something that back in the day was never put on, and then they brought building wrap in and most of it was foil and that created moisture and condensation issues. And then you've got the whole thing about it not being installed correctly and you drive around job sites you see it flapping in the breeze.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen too many flappy flags.
Speaker 2:People run up to the top of their windows and leave the last 300 mil up to the top plate open. So I do find it very like the more I educate myself, the more I learn, the more people I talk to. It's funny that our industry comes up with these standards and regulations and rules and all this stuff, but at the end of the day, we could actually build better homes if the people building them just built them properly. Yeah, Like actually followed manufacturer specifications and took things a bit more seriously. Like I'll put my hand up I. I honestly feel builders need to lift our game yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um, I think designers too also have to lift their game, and there's a few things with that. I think that from all the feedback that I've received in the building industry or from builders they just complain about the plans, you know the one builder just said, oh, we just don't trust the plans, you know. So they have to figure all that stuff out. So what I'm huge on is getting feedback from people. I want to get it from the sub trades and I want to get it from the builders and I want to get all that stuff so I can implement that on my plan set and then I think we'll have a bit better chance at actually going. Hey, guys, trust us. Here's a you know, we've listened here's a document set that you can trust, and then it's up to the builders to then move it up to that next level and say, yep, we want to do it better. These are the ways that we can do it.
Speaker 1:Do you do any site walkthroughs during builds? Yeah, yeah, we do. Um, as much as we can. Um, tassie we. A lot of stuff's spread pretty wide, so we've we might get to site maybe two or three times through a build. Yeah, uh, we're trying to. We're trying to increase that now.
Speaker 2:That's what the most? Yeah, but you know it's a massive opportunity to learn, isn't it? Like you said, talk to the builder, talk to the trades, like, figure out, like even just simple. I think there's some simple things that just either get overlooked, or the person that's designing them Like, as example, like just plumbing, like quite often they just think nothing about where the plumbing has to go. Yeah, and all of a sudden you're on site, you've got a steel beam, you've got to be able to get a waste pipe from here to there.
Speaker 2:it hasn't been thought about, so the only way to do it now is by lowering a ceiling and having suspended pipe work and yeah like just simple things, but if you're going to site and you're having these conversations and you're acting at the as-built site, I would imagine it would help you think about situations for next time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, the best way to learn is to actually go and see it for yourself and see the guy that's either trying to crawl through that space or you actually see it and you hear it from that person. It's a way that you never forget. I think that's one of the big lessons is that, those site lessons. They stick with you forever. Um, that and that was during my training, all my sort of studies.
Speaker 1:I'd labored, that was my summer job on construction sites, because I just thought you know it's oh, so you saw it before you really yeah as I was studying, I was working as a laborer the rugby club, one of the coaches, he was a builder and, yeah, my first job was with him working on his site. So I had yeah, it was quite cool because I was playing rugby, he was the coach, I worked on his building sites and then he asked me to find the joinery for his house that he was building. To find the joinery for his house that he was building. So it was this kind of cool, cool thing that I, yeah, just got, yeah, so much learning from that. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:What's your thoughts on? I'm a big fan of uh, like, as builders and designers we pay play a huge role in not taking advantage of this planet, like reducing our waste, being more, more consideration into the lots of materials we're using and how they're sourced, and like my big thing now is I like I want to go right back, I want to go to. Where did that come from? Did it get dug out of the ground? Did it come from a forest? Like what chemical on into it? But I, I feel like, and the biggest impact we can have on this planet is reducing the size of the homes we build. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting because clients come with their preconceived ideas about how big a space needs to be and I've so many times just cut that in half. Basically they said do we need this? We need that, and then we need this, and we all want it. We want it all for this much. And I said okay well, we can, we can try that approach, but it won't work no, it doesn't work we do that early on, with that pre-built feasibility.
Speaker 1:We put the numbers in there. So yeah, it's, are we thinking it's going to be 204 or 300 square meters? So we're going to punch it in, and you know. And then it spits out the number and we're going well, there's the number, you guys happy with that, and they go we only have half of that.
Speaker 1:So then we go, okay, well, we'll just only have half, you know and then what it takes there is the confidence to actually well, there's a few things. I think of myself as a problem solver. I think architects are pretty good problem solvers. You have to listen to what the clients want and what they actually need. You have to be able to separate those things that don't really matter. I had a great one just last week a new job, limited budget. They retired enough money to build a house. We're not going to get too much. But they again had this huge expectations of big things and walk-in pantries and just stuff.
Speaker 1:The initial point that they had designed previously had three bedrooms, three en-suites, three walk-in robes, you know, and it was huge. It was 300 square meters or something. So when I sat down with them, I just listened to them and I said, well, what do you guys actually want? What do you need? Oh no, we just want a bit of space and we want to do this. And we, you know, do you need a butler's pantry? They said, well, isn't that what everyone does? And I and I said do you need a butler's pantry? What's the point of a butler's pantry? Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I just we thought that that's just what you got. I said, no, you need clever storage and so you can take out an entire room by just being smart and about educating them all. No, it's okay, we're going to get all the stuff that you told me you need put into a built-in pantry. I have heaps of space and it's going to be functional and it's going to be super well laid out and you can have a great time. And I just you just saw them relax because they just they'd never been asked these questions before. They just told, told people what they wanted and that's what, um, they people just accept and no one ever questions it. So it's, and we solved so many of their problems that they were trying to by just asking particular questions and, um, and the house is going to be half the size I think it'll be maybe 150 square meters, you know to still give them three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a lock-up garage. We can do all of that in 150 square meters.
Speaker 2:So it's important, like you just mentioned there, that they thought that's what they needed. And uh, like that's people's perception, like, yeah, so many people these days are upgrading their homes or building like, whatever the case may be, purely based on shit they've seen on tv or perception they have from social media. Or the one that really frustrates me the most is what a real estate agent told them. Yeah, because they've possibly had advice from a real estate that if they renovate their home and they add this and they add that, what's it going to be?
Speaker 1:like that's, it's just rubbish, yeah it's the that's probably the wrong client. You know, that's where it comes down to that. We do forever homes and we do dream homes, and the conversation's a bit different we don don't have too much of the conflict with what's it going to be in the end, because most of the time we help them through that path. But I think the nature of what we do we don't struggle through that too much.
Speaker 2:And then the other side of that is the size is one thing. I think we need to be a lot more sensible with the size of the homes we're building, but like we're doing this podcast here in kyle's home today like it's beautiful home but like look at the lights in this place there's lights everywhere, like there's lights on every freaking shelf and cupboard and like recesses, like to me that's all part of the sustainability, like sensible lighting and and I've never really taken a lot of notice of this until just recently.
Speaker 2:But if we want to take sustainability and cost of building seriously, we actually need to assess our expectations yeah because building isn't necessarily expensive if you're designing something that's sensible and doesn't have a hallway with six downlights in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Doesn't have four downlights in every bedroom and a ceiling fan and a light in the robe.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I think it's funny now. I remember back in the early days each bedroom had one light switch.
Speaker 1:How many?
Speaker 2:rooms do you walk into now? And it's got like One switch and one light, oh yeah, but now you'll have like a four or a six gang. You even walk into some bedrooms in this.
Speaker 1:There's like two, four gang switches. Yeah, you can get carried away with stuff like that and I've got to. You know my, my philosophy is to keep things simple. Um, I'm always trying to reduce things to what it needs to be. You know these tools, but we do come up against some clients that just uh, you know they've got their preconceived ideas and, um, sometimes they don't budge yeah, do you think having a personal connection with your clients is where the real magic and the real value is?
Speaker 2:Like getting clients that come to you guys because they believe in the same missions and like all the things that you talk about, because ultimately, there's a lot of people out there that do business with the wrong people, isn't there?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, massively. Like you said, a lot of the people in the construction industry just say yes, so they'll take on whatever If it doesn't. Stuff that you know we've been fighting for a long time. Size and sort of overdoing things, yeah, and it just makes the whole process a lot easier. But you have to have those things clearly defined, you have to have it pretty strong in your brand, you have to have that marketing presence to sort of put it out there. And something that we've done at Align and through Davies as well is really push those things the core values, the core values, yeah, and try, yeah, and sticking to those.
Speaker 2:I think it's important for any business. Yeah, you have to have a really clear core set of core values and just don't stray from them. Like every decision you make in your business, that's what it's based on. But before we uh wrap it up like what's the grand plan for align, like where, where do you want to go with this? You want to be the number one architecture firm in in tassie? Or like what's the grand plan for it?
Speaker 1:I think align's pretty uniquely placed because we've got a um, a pretty great relationship with builders across the state and that's kind of growing and we're passionate about that. Design and construct or designer, architect, builder all collaborating and that's been really well received from every builder we talk to. They just go, oh geez, this is the process. Why have we not been doing this? Go, oh geez, this is the process. Why have we not been doing this? We should be following this process and some builders changing the way that they do things, just so that they can follow the same process. And then I want to be the leader in passive house space in tassie. That's what I want to do that's, that's a good goal, yeah I think you know it was interesting.
Speaker 1:We did the. I did the course in August last year. I got my qualification in August and, working with Davies, they'd done their tradesman course, they'd built one that was kind of based on Passive House principles. But then we just started talking about Passive House.
Speaker 2:We spoke to clients when we met them at the feasibilities and we'd signed up about five Passive House jobs and with that I'm pushing for certified passive house because I think that's the thing that a lot of people don't understand in australia, like there's there's a lot of talk about passive house and there's a lot of people getting qualified designers, architects, tradesmen in the passive house space. Yeah, but and you might know the numbers but there's actually very few certified passive house. Like a lot of people are following the principles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a personal thing where you know it's a bit like an architect. You can't call yourself that unless you registered with the board of architects in the state right, so they try and protect the term. I think the same should happen with passive house, because if it's not certified, then it means it hasn't gone through all the check measures to actually prove that it is doing what it was supposed to do, and you know so, we yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm really pushing for that, because it's the only way that you can actually verify things. And I think, do you know the number? I don't know the number, but there'd be, there'd be many, I know there's. There's people that are calling things passive, that are not certified it wasn't huge.
Speaker 2:There was one of my course about 12 months ago and it wasn't. I can't remember the exact number, but I'm sure it was like under 10, like there was that there was very, very few houses that actually gone the whole journey and actually received in in tassie or in australia?
Speaker 1:no, I think australia. There's a few more um, a few more than 10. You can jump on the on the database. I think in tassie there's one or two that are certified, but there'd be, there'd be more than that, I imagine more than if anyone knows give us a shout out yeah, I'd love to, but it's not a lot.
Speaker 1:It's not a lot, but it is growing. But I think the focus is for us to be pushing towards certified passive house, because that way the client is getting literally the best house because it's actually being tested. So you're doing your mandatory building inspection checks that you have to do, but then you're also verifying all of the stuff that the builders installed the insulation. Well, they've done the thermal bridge mitigation. It's, you know, actually built as per design. We've done the blow door test. So you know the air, you know the air infiltration, exfiltration, and and then you can actually fine-tune the mechanical system as it needs to be. If you don't do those tests, well, what are we doing? We're guessing.
Speaker 2:I agree 100%. I think if you're going to call yourself a certified passive house architect or builder, you have to go the full journey and you have to get that certificate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we've got, yeah, the one. There's a first one that's going certified. I've got all the info for the logins to the pacifist portal in germany.
Speaker 1:Um, it's pretty awesome and it's so comprehensive, so you go well, you will really know your stuff once you've done one of these buildings. You have to know absolutely everything. So it's making our job a bit harder, admittedly, because we just, you know, architecture is hard enough at the best of times. We're adding passive house. It's just adding a whole bunch of stuff, but I think it's ultimately ending up with better outcomes for clients, hopefully more climate resilient buildings. You know we still have to, we didn't even talk about it but there's all the healthy home stuff, materials and all that sort of stuff that we have to add on top of that. But I think the Passive House space is really exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely exciting. We quickly touched on the healthy home stuff. I'm definitely very interested in that. Again, it's something that all builders in the entire industry should be taking more seriously. Yeah, because we had Frank from Prime Design Yep Yesterday and I've never heard that someone talk about the way he did. But yeah, he was calling them sick homes like we're building sick homes.
Speaker 1:Wasn't it called the sick home syndrome that was in new zealand?
Speaker 2:uh, I think the leaky, leaky housing crisis anyways I thought.
Speaker 1:I think there is a thing called the sick home syndrome yes you know, that's exactly what we're going through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so unless unless, well, again, the whole industry, but in particular builders, pay more attention to the materials they're using and how they're installing them, and educating their teams more and their trades more, and working more closely with architects, designers like yourself. Yeah, like it's going to be a big problem, like I think it's just starting to sort of point it like its head out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is only just, but I think it's way too late, because that that stuff's all the damage is already done. We're just going to see the fallout from it, I think yeah, all the mold and the condensation and it was like I don't know what the numbers are in new zealand, but it was like a it was a billion dollar problem. Oh, it was. Yeah, it was huge. I'm not sure the exact numbers either, but it was.
Speaker 2:It was a, it's a big.
Speaker 1:Well, they're still fixing and they're still probably fixing it, that's been going for like 15 years, 20 years or something, yeah, so anyways, I think you know, I'm conscious that we're in a very small little market. You know, we, we design in our team maybe 20 to 30 homes a year and the builders might build I don't't know. They're small teams so they might do five or ten houses pretty small numbers. If we want to make a big change, we've got to get to the volume builders that's if you want to be making big impact, you've got to get to that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's such a hard one, isn't it? They're the main reason that a lot of the changes don't come through. Now they get pushed back, or they suggest good changes, but then they get manipulated.
Speaker 1:I did hear on a podcast somewhere that if you've got a problem, get one of your volume builders to solve that problem, because they'll fix the problem and then they're going to find a way to do that quickly cheaply and efficiently. So we should get you know. Hopefully, australia can have enough courage to just go to that next level of saying right, we're going to build the best houses and we're going to do it in this particular way. We're going to follow whatever method it is.
Speaker 1:And then yeah hopefully it can get cheaper, but you just got to get someone with buy-in. I just want one of these big volume builders to go all right we're just going to change our way, we're going to do it in this way and they'll smash it up. I know they will because they've learned how to do particular systems in a way. But if we could just get that basic thing of getting the healthy home side of things into volume building, then we'll avoid that billion-dollar problem.
Speaker 2:It just sparked an idea. I know a couple of big volume builders up in Queensland. I'll get in there a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mate, look, thanks very much for coming in. Really appreciate your time. I think you guys are doing great things. I'll get in there a bit. Yeah, mate, look, thanks very much for coming in. Really appreciate your time. I think you guys are doing great things. I've checked you out on Instagram and stuff since. I think Sean put me in contact with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep up the good work, mate. It's really good to see how can people get in touch with you.
Speaker 1:So the company I work for is Align Architecture and Inter interiors. We're based in launceston in tassie. I'm on instagram, michaellobeshirearchitect, or align architecture as well, and the website's alignbuild. And yeah, any of those platforms, yeah I'm happy. Yeah, I'll you know. I'm happy to talk to people about improving the industry, doing things better and particularly, collaboration. I can go on all day about collaborating with builders and clients yeah, we'll have to get you back on, mate.
Speaker 2:Actually, one very last thing before we do wrap up, because I wanted to go back to it what's some advice you have for young people that are thinking about being an architect?
Speaker 1:being an architect requires a broad skill set. So if you're someone that can cover creativity, technical side of things, then I think it's really well suited. If you're happy to sit in an office and sort of click a mouse for um, for many hours, um, then then I think that would be. You know, it's a profession that's super challenging but also super engaging. You've got a, you know you develop such a broad skill set in dealing with people and products and you know creations and there's nothing like seeing something that you've put on paper just come to life there. You know, the first time I saw that I just I'll never forget it was actually the robes that I did for the builder. You know, I drew these lines and then I went and saw it and I just wow, that's, that's an amazing feeling to actually see an idea come to life.
Speaker 2:So I imagine it'd be pretty special. I know myself as a builder, like I. I love the handover, like when you've taken someone's ideas and dreams and you pulled it all together and you're able to walk them through the front door and hand them the keys to a to a home yeah like, but you're, you're one step further, like you're taking it from yeah, from a few notes on a sheet of paper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, we'll get out of here, but, um, look, if you love this podcast, you love the information and the knowledge that we share, then, um, please like, share, subscribe all that type of stuff so we can make sure we keep continuing to deliver you value. Look, if there's someone out there you'd love me to get on the podcast, or someone out there that's listening to this and wants to come on, then, yeah, give us a shout out, we'll have a chat and we'll get you on.
Speaker 1:Cheers, guys, have a good one are you ready to build smarter, live better and enjoy life?
Speaker 2:then head over to live like buildcom forward, slash, elevate to get started everything discussed during the level up podcast with me, duane pierce, is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We recommend that you obtain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.