The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
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.
The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
Drop Your EGO and Work With Your CLIENTS.
GET YOUR TICKETS TO THE LEVEL UP EXPERIENCE HERE - https://duaynepearce.com/events/
#132 Building designer Adrian Ramsay returns to discuss how homes shape our lives, our legacy, and our daily behaviors. We explore the emotional impact of architecture and why thoughtful design is critical for creating homes that nurture our wellbeing rather than just providing shelter.
Check out Duayne's other projects here...
Live Life Build
livelifebuild.com
D Pearce Constructions
dpearceconstructions.com.au
QuoteEaze
quoteeaze.com/Free-Offer.html
GET YOUR TICKETS TO THE LEVEL UP EXPERIENCE HERE - https://duaynepearce.com/events/
This dream defines, maybe, the rest of their life and their legacy. It defines how their family will live. It defines how they'll wake up and feel in the mornings. It will define their behaviors. This is so important. So get your ego off and make the promise to put the foundation down that will give them a solid stepping stone to the next point. Get your ego out of the way. This is about them and it's for them. Bring your heart, soul and every bit of knowledge and education you can garner and put it into this for them, because that's what they're paying you to do. And do it with the right builder, so that, as we go, we're both so desperately in love with what we're going to create that it gets created and we get to hand it over okay, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of level up.
Speaker 3:This is going to be another crapping episode today. Uh, I'm not going to get going about this one because I'm back with my good mate, adrian ramsey. He's back for a second go. For those that haven't heard my previous podcast with Adrian, adrian is a building designer from the Sunshine Coast, loves his surfing, loves family and does land whispering. So if you don't know about land whispering, go back and listen to our previous episode because it is. I know it's definitely changed the way I look at building design and I definitely took a lot away from that for our farm development that we're doing at the moment from the tips I got from Adrian. So the other thing Adrian does I want to jump into it get this podcast started. Adrian also organises tours at different destinations around the world to show people and demonstrate good architecture. So how are you, mate?
Speaker 1:I'm brilliant mate, but you're looking good calendar. Yeah, all right, I'm having fun. Last bit yeah, yeah, mostly still in the ways oh yeah, there's been a bit of a swell window going through, so, uh, I've been challenging myself and scaring myself a bit and, um, pretending I'm not my age and getting out and chipping the go, and that's been great fun You've got to live life that way. If you're not living life, then it's not a lot of purpose for working somehow, is it? That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3:So mate, we've got a lot to talk about because you, since we last spoke, you're hosting a TV show. Now You've got bloody world tours, architectural tours, down the hall. You're a busy man and you're designing incredible homes. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about these tours that you have down the hall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, in the tour space. I've been doing this thing, for I travel a lot, so let's get back to that. I see education has been super important about how we stay valid and also who we surround ourselves with. And who we surround ourselves with determines the knowledge we're going to get. You know, we've got a bunch of exponents of that and I look at it in the design space as being a constant education. There's always something more to learn. There's always somebody who knows way more than we'll ever know, and we want to take our opportunity to get the best of those people and bring them together as well.
Speaker 1:And over the years, I've told people about a tour that I was doing and I remember saying to you you know, look, I do this thing where I go to Texas, and in Texas there's some amazing builders, there's some incredible architects. In particular, I go to Austin and in that I go and do some music, I go and do some, you know, like architectural stuff. I go and I eat the barbecue and really experience that heart of Texas piece. And we were talking about it. That sounds like it's something that would be special to do. And I said, yeah, well, I do take people on these tours with me. I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 1:I draw pictures. That's what I really do. I draw pictures, I come up with designs, I work out people and that I draw pictures. That's what I really do. I draw pictures, I come up with designs, I work out people and how to make that work. And so I've been kind of stitching these things together and taking a couple of architect mates or people that asked me if they could go.
Speaker 1:And last year I turned around and I talked to a tour guy who he runs food tours all over the world and his Rolodex is like looking if anybody knows what Rolodex is His Rolodex is like looking at chef's table. So he's connected with the best chefs in the world and with that he sees food as being such an experience. And I see architecture as being an experience. You know, you can go and look at a building, you can look at it online, you can be inspired by it, but you can't feel it until you're in it. And you know, I know that when you feel a building it changes all the emotional parameters of what's going on, how it sounds, how it smells, how you approach it. All those things change that you never get from a photograph.
Speaker 3:I feel like that, like that's, our perception of architecture has really changed, because the word's thrown around so willy-nilly. Now You've got volume builders, we build architectural homes. You've got every bloody builder saying we do architectural homes. It's thrown around so much that architecture. Because we build architectural homes. You've got every bloody builder saying we do architectural homes, everybody's doing it.
Speaker 1:It's thrown around so much that architecture has almost lost a bit of age. Oh, I think hugely. I really do think hugely. It's like you know, you look at builders and you're all locked in as builders, and when we're looking for a builder, we're looking first for capability and then we're looking for capacity, but capability is the number one thing we're looking for, and what are they going to bring to the project if we draw?
Speaker 1:So, with setting up the tours, part of it was is to bring people that have the same passion for the same level of wanting to understand design but also wrapping it around great food and great conversation network and bringing that together and then putting it into an experiential, uh, situation where it isn't as you'd expect and where you might grow from going and looking at, you know, the world's best 3D printers to somebody who shapes a city, to somebody who just creates the best granny flat that you could ever imagine or uses an unusual material, somebody who's an innovator, amazing builders, where the builders are, you know, seen as like building science and you know you get into your people that are like building biologists, these kind of the cutting edge of things that are solid, being put up, performing, happening.
Speaker 1:There's history that we can show as well as there's new that we can show. There's a lot in it for everybody, but it's about creating a tight, tight community. Our tours are no more than 16 people, other than for the event pieces that we might do. They might blow out a bit bigger, but 16 people and they're curated, they're hand-picked, um, we want them to work together when they're on tour it's architecture is very powerful, isn't it?
Speaker 3:like we uh, we've got a lot of like. Obviously, we've got a lot of stuff we want to get through today, but like architecture, I definitely didn't understand architecture for probably the first 10 to 12 years. Okay, then we feel that, like I I in my head, I wanted to build architectural homes, but I didn't understand what architecture was like. I was building plenty of homes that had the like to had these amazing facades. The rest of the house was just a fucking box. It was just boxes on boxes, yeah, and it obviously wasn't until I expanded and reached out and started to well, the real value come from us doing our pack process and being involved with Insolvent and me understanding what goes on behind the scenes and why things are done, and like the incredible designers and architects that we work with now, like a home shouldn't just be boxes. Like it's all about creating shapes and spaces as the sunlight moves around the house, it tells a story. And like different textures and like I've really really changed.
Speaker 1:That's the excitement of actually creating something. Design's a sort of a thing where, whether it's done well or poorly, the cost of the building is going to still be the cost of the building and I'm a building designer the building and I'm a building designer. However, I would say that 98 percent of my community is architects. Um, with that, the training that they do, the way they're taught to approach things, the way they look at it from an environmental point of view so large environment down to small environment, about what the legacy of it is, all these different things. Now, in every business there's levels of people and how they approach it. I look at it and I go this intimate look of how they're going to take something, whether it be a high-rise building or whether it be a you know, massive convention center or whether it be a home. What are they going to do with that and how is it going to engage the public?
Speaker 1:There's a fascinating book that anybody who's really keen to understand what the psychology of architecture creates. There's a book called Humanized by Thomas Heatherwick, heatherwick Studio. Thomas isn't an architect, he's England's probably leading design. He employs a few hundred architects. What's it called Humanize? Oh, I'll have to look it up. Yep, in this book he talks, he busts, he calls a few things down in his conversation, things down in his conversation. But they have done data studies, actual data studies on grain functionality around how people interact with buildings, whether it brings them joy or whether it actually depresses them, and what buildings and public spaces and stuff need to elevate our community to places where they've got interest and joy and they've got the adventure that happens with great architecture. You know the discovery.
Speaker 3:It's funny you say that because I feel like the really good homes that we build are an adventure and, like I say, it's like I don't know, like to me, there are so many homes out there that the only way I can describe them is stale, yeah, but they're just playing. They're literally just boxes on boxes. White, like, just shit, like I don't know, and it's a shame. It's a shame because I agree with you 100, I believe. Now, knowing what I know, I'm just seeing what's happening in this world, um, and like I had, um deb, like deb in the light of hell, I didn't want to do this on my podcast without not yet um, like she was saying how, like, even, just, like everyone wants these white, clean, clean houses, but white is not. We're not meant to look white all day, every day. Like white isn't meant to be stimulated, but it's meant to have interest. They're like it's an adventure. But I feel like because, like you said before, like I'm a big fan of education, like we all have to educate more, like just educate, educate, educate.
Speaker 3:But so you've got builders that don't understand good design and good architecture and so, like I've said this before, I take my job really seriously, like if it's drawing, all the drawings, I push my team to make that drawing and understand it. Yeah, I feel so that you've got builders that basically get given drawings. They then take it upon themselves to interpret things and substitute materials and make changes, because it's just them. You haven't got the architect or the designer around to have their input. So then you've got the builder and the area of the owner and they're making these decisions. But then on top of that you've got trades coming on site to do this and say the builder oh, that's fine, why would you do that? Let's do it this way. And so you've got all these people putting this input in and ultimately destroying what a good designer and architect has put together.
Speaker 1:I 100% agree with this happening. I don't actually do construction administration, so I go, I've got to build it. Why would I have a build-up and then do construction administration? That's a builder's job. So then I go all the way back to your PAC process. I go.
Speaker 1:If you're a builder, you'll probably maybe understand this. If you're an architect or a designer, you will probably understand this, especially in custom homes. And if you're neither of those and you're somebody who's embarking on a journey, please understand this. This is critical. A team, just like you would if you were an entrepreneur in business, just like if you're a manager in a company. If you create a team to carry the job forward from the start and add the right people at the right times, you will get success.
Speaker 1:I come from the thing builders shouldn't be designers and designers shouldn't be builders. Oh sorry, yep, that's my whole. I go run down that line and I think there are builders who are capable of being designers. I still don't think they should, because they should be just better builders and there's designers that are probably capable of being builders will just go and put on a chippy felt and come and build. You know, put money where your mouth is, forget about the design. But in a PAC process thing, what you're doing is you're starting the team at the right point.
Speaker 1:Any architect or building designer, we can draw pictures all day long without knowing what the latest costings, the latest implications and all that will be to the process. How are we going to get to the end without a key component? We'll just say budget is part of a three, because it's always in my ones. How are we going to get to there unless we have you? So this whole thing of interview or tender our documents once they're fully made, screw down the bill to the. You know whoever's going to be the cheapest. Know how to read the documents to bloody. Understand whether it's all in PS and PC some of them are copy built, that anyway. Know how to do all that. If that's your expertise, go for your life. But I'm not working with you, you're not working with them If we go to the same client about the same time whether it's right at the same time or one meeting after another. Now we're in this position where we can actually bring the client's dream to life. That's correct. Yeah, educate them, educate each other, bring each other on the journey. Your knowledge says. Adrian mate, if you could do this, then we could probably get this. We'll be able to bring this into a more of a price thing or bullshit. You're doing that. I can't license that. I know it looks good, but I've got no prior history in it. We might spend another 30 grand trying to work that out to not still get it perfect. Let's either spend more time in the design or let's get on with the design knowing that you can alter it to the way that we can work with it comfortably. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I got asked recently at a talk um that I was doing so. I was telling me talk for I don't know a few hundred people on design. And a builder said so when are architects and designers going to be responsible for the cost of the building that they draw? And I said I tell you this never. And I said and they can never be held accountable either. And I said do you think that's right or wrong? And they said, oh, it's wrong because we get plans and clients all upset and they can't build it for the price. I mean, well, we can't build it for the price. And then they waste all this money and I go yeah, but where were you and the designer in the journey. Oh, we got the plans once they were all drawn, with the engineer and with everything else. Everybody's been paid on that side and now it can't be built or not, for the FUD can't be built, I go how could you make us responsible for costing when we don't build anything? We're just drawing riches. Builders have got to follow a process.
Speaker 3:They've got to get involved early. So designers need to involve them early. That's what I was going to say. Do I know if it's a need to get involved? Look, the solution to the problem is to stop tendering Like it has to be built on a relationship Like architects and designers should have. I believe all architects and designers should have two, three, four builders that they know do great work, know that get good outcomes, keep clients happy, build good relationships that get feedback, don't have lots of variations, all those types of things. Build a relationship and then choose one that suits that client.
Speaker 1:Yeah, make it matter. The problem is everyone's Capability in the right spot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everyone's scared that if they go down that process the dealer's got a free reign and just going to charge at every light. But if you're running a good repuel business you can't do that. You'll be found out. You've still got to deliver people value. That's all it is.
Speaker 1:We say to our clients when that's the case, when they go, what? Just go with one person, go and spend a couple of grand on a QS. Yeah, ask the builder if he's happy with that. I've never met a builder who won't say absolutely and would even be happy to advise the QS on what they're thinking along the way, if they're going to be the ones who do it. Clients often go oh no, no, I don't want them to know. I'm getting a QS and I go. What's the secret?
Speaker 3:The problem with like I've got a few issues with QS Me too If you're going to go to a QS and for this and that you've got to find someone that's got experience in the type of project Like some of the projects we do mate, like they're one-off. The two houses, all of them Well they are, they're all one-off. But like the two houses all of them well they are, they're all the way on. But like the two sustainable houses we just built that have got, 60 odd percent of the building is recycled materials. Tell qus how it would work with better. Yeah, exactly, and like the labor involved in those types of things.
Speaker 3:So there is parts of that job that I've completely done my ass because it it was a first time. Like every job we do, we're doing for the first time that you can't make it about price. And the other thing is whether you're a contractor, a designer, an architect, an engineer, all of build up, everyone deserves to like profits on a dirty word, like to build to for most lessons. The reality is, every business in the construction industry was actually trading, profitable and running a good business, the cost of housing would come down. I have no doubt about it. I'll bet my life on it.
Speaker 1:Yep and variations wouldn't blow out Yep, 100% Yep.
Speaker 3:So, Matt, where's it gone wrong? Where's this misalignment all gone wrong with? How does it get so?
Speaker 1:skew-iff. I reckon there's a couple of places, liz, that design and builders don't love each other enough and they need to bond, they need to get together and they need to understand the pain points and the pressure points in each other's business. A lot of builders don't value design, Like you said. Those think yeah and then you think, oh shit, actually these guys do bring some value. I think that's something. There's a poor education for builders around design it was that, mate?
Speaker 3:I did not get taught anything about design when I got my build.
Speaker 1:The other thing that happens, which is really obvious up my bill. So the other thing that happens, which is really obvious, is that designers all too often get driven by ego. This is all about them, all about their project. Oh yes, it's gonna have my name on it. You know, I've got the big swimming dip. That, that part of it. You see it, though.
Speaker 3:I mean you've worked on that because it's our own project.
Speaker 1:So with that, you know, put your dick away and go and find the people who are going to be in your team that is going to support you to get your projects built. If you look in Australia, I think the figures are somewhere around 50 to 60% of projects don't get built that are designed by architects. That's an industry in failure. Now, there was lots of reasons for that, and you might have to take commercial into that as well and a lot of projects get drawn that then get modified again and changed and all the rest of those things happen. But even if you went, 30% of projects that are drawn that are private family homes don't get built because they bumped it. Because, Again, it's an industry in failure. It's one that.
Speaker 3:Again, that's all adding to the cost of housing. Absolutely Everyone had better processes, ran profitable businesses and ducted their systems. I don't know the easy fix for it. At the end of the day, everyone is scared that they're going to pay too much.
Speaker 1:As the end user, yeah, that they're not going to get value for their money. Yeah. Why is that? I don't know. Well, I think Because you can't see what isn't there yet.
Speaker 3:I believe, like I say this a lot, I'll go toe-to-toe with anyone that wants to own you, riffley. I firmly believe that a builder has the hardest job, like hand, belt and cross, and if anyone wants to trial that, come on. You can come and work with my business for a month and just see everything can be out for you to do, how complex it is and how much regulation there is, yeah, how many parts there are.
Speaker 1:How reliable are people spending on time? How reliable you are for supply on time? How reliable you are for detail on time? How reliable are you for everything that shifts along the way? Yeah, no, why would you do it To lose money?
Speaker 3:No, Well, that's right. The reality is most builders and traders aren't losing money. They just don't understand it. But you can't compare us to other industries. Like a car, you go and buy a car.
Speaker 1:The one behind it on the line is the same as the one in front of it.
Speaker 3:The only comparison is a volume builder. So you go and buy a purchase. Let's say you go and buy a Land Cruiser, Yep, so you've got a base, you've got a GXL, you've got a GX. There's different models of Land Cruiser and everybody knows before they even go to the car to start looking each model is going to be different Starts at, say, 90,000 and ends up at 100,000.
Speaker 1:And so you go to a volume builder.
Speaker 3:It's very similar. You buy a house off the plans and you know if you upgrade or you change those plans you have to pay more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get seat covers and you get some tinting. It's going to cost a bit extra.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so that, and this is exactly why part of my mission and I hope to leave a legacy that I separated the women's street because I definitely believe that volume builders, volume builders, tier one builders, commercial builders, multi-rise builders all need to be put in their own paddock. And us when I say us, builders that build one-off homes, need to be separated because we, like all custom builders and I don't, I don't care if you're doing hundred thousand dollar jobs or ten million dollar jobs custom builders are the ferrari, are you? We're not. We're not the builder that you can walk in the front door and say, $10 million jobs. Custom builders are the Ferrari. Oh yeah, we're not the builder that you can walk in the front door and say I want to buy that off the planes. That's not how we work. We're custom builders for a reason.
Speaker 1:Everything we do is different. So what is the reason for that? I know the reason reason for it, but what motivates somebody to become a custom builder over being a, you know, like a multi? Uh, let them, I want to say project builder. But you know somebody who just bans out the same house over and over, or similar houses over and over um, oh, look, for me it would be quality.
Speaker 3:Like I don't want to be known for just smashing up the same thing. I say no, no again, like that, um, that's just not me. And and well, probably the challenge as well. I'd like, yeah, excitement, the adventure. You said before the adventure. I lied, even though the adventure is very stressful sometimes, I like the adventure of every job being different and having to figure things out and use this.
Speaker 1:That brings out the best in you. It's the problem solving and making your systems robust and still being able to have a system within that, yeah.
Speaker 3:I firmly believe until we, unless we get that separation, it's always going to be difficult because homeowners just think they can go to a designer or an art tech. We've got friends and family that are recently done with volume try filters and it frustrates me. I understand where they're coming from and then again they just don't understand. They don't know what they find out. Yeah, they don't know what they don't know, but for one of them, them the reason that they went with the volume builder over and we I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 3:I told them it wasn't my type of project but there's another really good builder that I recommended, like they told me. I told me to and I said they look like if I was you, I'd swear I'd get a lot better value there than you are there. But their reasoning for going with the volume builder over the person that I would have gone with well, because the volume builder didn't like I think they had a five thousand dollar cap, so, like, for five thousand dollars you've got all your drawing, all your engineering, like all your polymerase done, whereas the other guy was going away getting a designer. Everything was all individual people and the preliminary fees were going to be like $6,000 or $7,000 down in Melbourne and they didn't see the value in that.
Speaker 1:So how would you demonstrate the value in that? I suppose that's the real question there, because we have people doing that with us. That's the only people we work with, so they are doing that, they're going. You know, adrian, we want you to go and organize our engineer and our you know soil tester and all those different people that have been part of that you know the value.
Speaker 3:It's the difference, right, the bill they went with. Mate does not give a shit about how that house works. He's just drawn a box on boxes on boxes. He's got a big front door, massive, beautiful, big entry. That looks like they'd see the washes. Got a big front door, massive, beautiful, big entry. They'd see the whole show. It's kind of a big boy, whereas the designer would have figured out right, oh well, how many kids you got, what vogies you got? Oh shit, you run a business from home, oh, and you need a side access. Fuck, you've got a massive shed down the back. Where is he at there? They've just got a massive house, house plonked on the block.
Speaker 1:This is something I see a lot. And look, doing the TV show, I see all kinds. So I see some absolute… Give it a plug, mate. What's the TV show Dreamhams Revealed? So it's Channel 9, 9, now 9, life, and I just do Queensland. So I just look at the Dreamhams in Queensland and we look at from project homes. We're looking from project homes all the way through to the highest end of architecturally designed homes, everything through that thing. So there's a dream home for everybody.
Speaker 1:At Sunday I was going to ask you how are you Ideally like? You know, if your budget's X and you know that you're going flat, well, in a subdivision, it's unlikely that you're going to be able to be going into a custom home. You are likely to end up in a project home. And with doing that, it's giving people an opportunity to see the values of each project home builder, what they can bring, how on trend, or know on trend or not in the future, how they're up to standard, what they're doing. And I'll go tell you some of those project homes. I walk through them and I go, oh, okay, Others of them. I walk through them and I go man alive, this is bringing something. This is truly bringing something, and I know plenty of people that, uh, I go they should be worried about their design business because these guys are bringing better value than they are and they are bringing things. So I look at that and then I look at the top end, and the top end can be so diverse like it can be so amazingly diverse with design and I look at some of them where they've been designed by builders and I go I can tell it pretty much when I walk through the door and that's a useful experience. I go you know what a bit more design and you would have got a whole lot more from the money that was spent to get to this. So that in itself, seeing all these different parts is really fascinating and seeing how different people jump on the trains and other people are working with the environment. You know what's built in which way.
Speaker 1:The ones that are typically, I think, the best ones I've been in have been designed either by a really good building designer or an architect, and you will notice it in the way the house floats, the dynamics of the home, the circulation, how it brings light and air into the house, how it's positioned on the block, how the block is used to maximize the best of the house. There's a ton of related thought. Well, google, that thingy, babalit. Well, typically these guys that are doing these ones, either they're doing it for someone or, if they are developing, they are working closely with the builder and they are the builder side, or they are working closely with the builder and the designer at the same time. They're doing your PAC process, essentially within their firm, and they're getting the best out of all of it.
Speaker 1:But, as you say, the public don't get to see and know and get certainty because they can't see the outcome. And that's why, like in my business business, I go I've got a meeting saying can you come to this first meeting, see if you would work with these people? And if you come out and you're not for me, or if I come out and you're not for me either, or either one, then we at least know that we're in or out of a project and we also know that you're getting paid to assist the costing through design. Yeah, and I'm getting paid to design and I'm getting paid to assist to make sure that it's buildable by you at the other end. And we've got a chance of getting within a budget range within a budget range and in it we're both able to educate the client to the almighty wish list, to the budget on the other side.
Speaker 1:I was having this conversation the other day with somebody on my podcast and I said to him have you ever had a project? You're an architect in America have you ever had a project that the budget was greater than the desired list of things? And he said no. Have you ever had one that matched it? And he said never, it's not just homes.
Speaker 3:People do that with everything. You get a boy and you child. You always want the next one. It's always upgraded to something. It's human nature. But again, building's very different, because you're not talking five grand, 10 grand, 20 grand, it's multiples. Yeah, you're talking lots of money, like hundreds of thousands, most of the time between what you want and what you can afford.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the thing, like. So, in the design aspect, you know like somebody will come to me and they'll be talking about the new build and they'll be coming and talking to me about the finishes, and normally people start with the finishes and then they're working their way backwards and I'll say, okay, so approximate kind of budget range that you're looking at, and then I've got my design magic process which takes me through a way of actually making them very, very self-aware of what they're asking for and what its cost implication could be. And so that's a process that I've developed so that I've got a good sense of it and they get some bottom of that. And then I give them some choices at the bottom of that and we do some multiplication and we go. So you know they may have not told me their budget by this point, we may have gone, we're not really sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, let's work through it. We get to the bottom and we start multiplying it out and go well, that's probably the cheapest you're going to build it for and that's going to be probably more what I think it will be and this will be what you're showing me in pictures, and the range could be anything from, say, $1 million to $3 million in that same floor space area. And I'm like, well, that picture you showed me is all the frame. It's zero tolerance. You've got 18 meters of sliding doors all sliding away down one end of the thing. We've got cantilevers out here, we've got that. That doesn't only cost us $4,000 a square metre. Wish it would.
Speaker 3:And that like there's simple things like that that people, and even if it's something they fault, they just don't know. But that's exactly why you should have a builder and an architect and build a team. I know haven't seen it. We got a job at the moment we're about six weeks away from wrapping up and one of the last things that client got stuck on was this 12-metre sliding door and they just could not get their head around. Like there was an option to put three posts in and have three 4-metre doors, doors all opening in the center, what's same amount of glass, less opening but they wanted no support and a setter opening 12 meter door, that with some two meter panels, so that ended up in an eight meter opening and we've that's what they ended up going with now the cost implication made that with the, the structural steel, the extra design, the extra engineering, extra foundations to hold the point loads.
Speaker 3:I'm like something you have the the cost of that door, and then they wanted zero threshold so there was drainage on that door, the installation, like everything that went with that door, but it added 120 000 to the house for one door, and so I get it If you've got 120 spins, you might. Yeah, but even me as a builder. I look at it and go that's an expensive door.
Speaker 1:Do you think they got value for money out of it?
Speaker 3:They obviously do they do. That was just one thing they wanted. But what made this even more difficult is not long before, when we were trying to finalise our cross and things, a good friend of theirs was also getting a build and so they had a door Doing a PAC process no, pac process, I don't know the side of their door, but they had a lopsided door which the builder had told them was a flush finish. And they obviously had a conversation and they come back to me like, oh, your friends are doing this, and that their builder said that it's only worth this much and love about it. Anyway, they trusted me and obviously we got the job. We went and we built it and we do our weekly site visits and like. So it got to a point where every week that our weekly site business so our weekly site business is show and tell. But we educate our clients so much, we detail everything, we select everything. Literally they just become a show and tell. There might be a couple of little things here and there.
Speaker 1:We've seen a client for a brief like sign off or agree or yeah, just and bring them up to speed, keep them well informed.
Speaker 3:But it literally got to a point where every for a couple of months the client is getting a phone out and showing me pictures that her friends sent her from their dog, because she's sending him pictures of our dog and going. Man, I'm so glad I went with you. Look at what they're pulling.
Speaker 1:That's what flushes. It's only a 50 mil step and no drain.
Speaker 3:All this stuff. She's proud of drain, like all this stuff, and she's like this. She's proud of it. She's showing me photos of young men. I'm so flattered to be with you. Look at the difference, look at what they've done on this field.
Speaker 1:So she thinks 120 is probably good value.
Speaker 3:Now she's like, now she's responding to me, but looking back, like I understand why it's difficult to educate clients on that, because everyone just looks and goes. How the hell can there be a 120-dollar difference in sliding doors?
Speaker 1:I had a job a few years back and client yeah, got to have zero tolerance. Entry all the way around, tons of sliding doors, tons of openings, everything's got to be zero tolerance. And I'm like, yeah, that means everything's got to carry a great drain, they'll be tiled in because we're coming off tiled patios, fall areas, things like that and just getting at the antsy about what the cost of you know that this looking like it would be. And I said to him you know that little thing where you told me you know everything's got to have a great drain, you've got to be zero tolerance. He said $70,000 worth. I'll show you, I'll show you the builder's quote.
Speaker 1:There's $70,000 worth of great drains that's uninstalled, that's supply to get them on site and have the plumber set them up but not installed. Then we're going to tile them. Everything's got to be done from there 70K. And he's like what for stepping down 50 mil? I said that's your choice. That's your choice. If you want to save the 70, let's put it in the laundry or wherever else you think you should spend. Your choice, that's your choice. If you want to save this devonty, let's put it in the laundry or wherever else you think you should spend your money.
Speaker 3:But what I would say a lot of builders do, like I definitely don't. It's been six years since I've been to one but like my wife and I do some developments and there's definitely been scenarios where we've just bought lots of land and got a boy and girl that put a house on it because put it outside, because that's pure investment. But like you're getting a good display villages and like you see that their zero threshold is a standard sliding door nine times out of ten, not even rebounding into the slab or the subfloor system, so the tiles, but into it and you got a 30, 40 step over it anyway. Yep, but they get away from it because they don't walk to the slab. So if it's a concrete they'll have to. You see, at the top there's a 75mm gap between the slab and the house slab or the house and the deck.
Speaker 1:Fill that up with little stones. Go to Fechmus. Do you want something to do? I like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look it goes, weeds as well, they're fresh.
Speaker 1:That's what biophilic yeah, you bring the. That's what the biofiltrate design. You bring that planting up to that.
Speaker 3:That must have by listen like how is a client supposed to know what things are worth when there's so many options?
Speaker 1:well, also, as a designer or a builder, how are you meant to know what the client looks the most value on? That's the other thing that I find really important when we do our wishlist process. We have a very, very structured wishlist and, to kind of give you guys some sort of scope on what we do with it, we have our clients write their wish lists separately. We encourage them to not talk about it together. They will have had enough conversation. They're already hiring somebody to do something. Don't talk about it together. That's not important. What we want you to do is be selfish. We want you to ask for what you want.
Speaker 1:The first kind of piece we are not asking to fill out. The first part where we get down to nuts and bolts is we have a heading that says this project will not go forward without these. These are number ones. Those are. You know that old analogy if you're going to get a jar, do you put in the sand first or do you put in the rocks? Those are the big rocks, yeah, so I look down that this is the start of the brief. It's not going to happen without these odd. Yeah, that's a good idea, yep.
Speaker 1:Secondly is I would love all these things. These things are what's going to make up the rest of the house. They're less important. I'm more flexible, but I would love these things. And that's usually the next list. So those are our next size rocks that we're trying to put in the jar. And then we have our last one, which is fuck, it'd be brilliant if we could get these. We don't have any budget for it, but, man, this would be amazing if we could have it. And we've had the craziest thing to ask for there. But it's just letting the brakes off, people. It's like let the brake off and let it go and write me a list of if you could hit anything.
Speaker 1:And you're with your wife. Your wife's writing her list. She doesn't give a shit about what you want. You're writing your list. Don't care about her, don't care about the kids. This is just what I want from my home. And then we say if your marriage is up, get those two lists and create a third list. Don't alter ego of those two lists and create a third list. Don't alter ego of those two. Come together and do not consider each other before you write these lists. I want you to do them selfishly. Then come together and compare what each of you is after and write a third list.
Speaker 1:Now from that third list, I look at the third list first and I go there's the brief and then I go backwards to the other two lists. When I go backwards to the other two lists, some center has given up on their dream piece, or have the number ones changed. What's moved in the other? Where have each other compromised? Who's done the compromising? Is it all her or is it all him? Where have they compromised? Do you know what's happened with that? Yep, and that gives me a read on A their relationship, whether one person's overrunning the other. I've also got the other original verse.
Speaker 1:So when I look down at it and I go oh you know, sally gave up this, I'll go hmm, sally, how important was this to you when you wrote it here? Where did it get covered off? How were you taking care of with that? Oh well, it made sense because he wanted this and I suppose that was more important than this. Yeah, but didn't it end up on your number two list? So why did you give it up? Why was it there and it wasn't there? And they'll tell you why. You do it gently.
Speaker 1:Then, once we've got that we've got a hierarchy of needs of the job and we know that our budget has to sit within the big rocks and some of the small rocks. The genius of designers is to give them some things from their list that they thought they'd never get and then also to look at the number ones that got thrown out and see how we could accommodate those. Not always as expected, but how could we accommodate some of those? How could we bring it back for both parties? That's what design's about. It's the human behaviour of understanding people and then understanding that the built structure, the architecture, is going to respond to these elements and then begin to learn what's growing emotional thought, plans and all these things that take that into another level. But we're starting out with a journey of education, first of all around this budget kind of idea and what you're asking for, and then what really matters to you in these things We've got your basic money sort of spend.
Speaker 3:Everything you're talking about now. That's the value. That's the difference between a bodybuilder that gives you a set of $5,000 plan or you go with the custom 50, 60, say, well, $100, drop blocks. That's the difference. But you're and this was a big learning point for me and why I started seeing value You're actually, you're getting in their head, you're figuring out who they are. How do they live? How do they travel? Do they have family comes out of the home? What hobbies?
Speaker 1:do they have? What's their legacy play, what's you know, know? Are they thinking that I'm gonna have a number of clients who go? This home will be tied up for multi-generations. A family might be able to sell it. Well, you know, snotty nose, bloody fourth generation. I think it's going to develop the size or any of those things. We're going to leave this as a as a legacy play for the entire family, those kinds of things as well. And you look at the structures those people have had to put into to protect the asset and make sure that that care and attention and love. Even though it was designed for them, it wasn't meant to be altered. It doesn't mean it won't get made into more for what the family may desire. It's got to move with the times somewhat, but the core of it belongs.
Speaker 3:Look, I don't know if Greg's wrong, but to me real life it's actually as timeless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had somebody ask me this the other day.
Speaker 3:When you see a really well-designed house that functions well, my opinion is they're timeless. It doesn't. But when you like all this shit, you see coming in now and the last sort of tension and stuff. And we went through that Hanford space like.
Speaker 1:Oh, that'll go on forever as well, by the way.
Speaker 3:For five to 10 years we thought it was hell-bent on building this. Every now and then it's like great, I'm away.
Speaker 1:On that. Come on my Hamptons tour and see the variation of houses in Long Island and the Hamptons and maybe all the way to Montauk, and understand that the Hamptons that we call the Hamptons is just a tiny little bit of what's going on. That's a Victorian style.
Speaker 3:The interesting thing Hamptons is a timeless architecture. It's like architecture, you've got to throw it around. Everyone threw around Hamptons like throw a couple of gables, the Golden farmhouse, yeah, and so it loses value I Like. And then those same houses that everyone saw a lot of value in and paid a lot of money for end up being just this run-down, tired-looking, outdated homes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had this person ask me the other day how do you make a home timeless?
Speaker 1:And I said well, it's not hard, it's actually one of the easiest things they could ever do. And I said I'll give you an example. See across the water there, so on a very wide canal, so it's here across the water there. See that big tuscan style home over there. And they're like, yeah, we hate it. And I said, yeah, I said, but we know it's tuscan style, don't we? And in 20 years it'll be tuscan style and if it was 50 years old it would have been tuscan style and 100 years it'll be tossed in style. It's because it's a thousand year old design or a 500 year old design that's being modified and put there. We understand that it's timeless.
Speaker 1:If you don't want to do that, then choose another genre. So choose, say, mid-century modern, and look at the genre and go, okay, what homes like? There's the case study homes that were all done with mid-century modern. What homes in the case study homes, what were the elements of them and how would I recreate those? Now you have a piece of tested, timeless architecture. If you want to go the other way and you want to go well, I want to be an innovator and do something new then you need somebody who's going to be exceptional with design and design for the space. So if for the fully blown, for bluff, and that's going to give you something that has an element of being an art piece, and the minute it looks like the house down the road or the one just over the hill or the one in Sydney, not the one up here, the minute it's doing that you're probably no longer timeless, you're a part of a copy. It doesn't mean it won't have sensibility and elements of that. But you look at certain architects and they do this most wonderful job of creating timeless homes. And it's not that they're ever fashionable In fact they are never fashionable but, as you say, they still operate well and that give it, say, 25 years of life and your kitchen's probably getting tired, depending on whether it was built out of real timber or whether it was built out of, you know, mdf and melamine and colour board and stuff like that, and appliances may have changed.
Speaker 1:The opportunity for different things may have changed, so you might want to upgrade that. And you know you think the house your parents lived in versus the house you live in, uh, suddenly none of us got a butler, but we've all got a pantry. You know these kinds of things we've, but these are fashion and you may still need to ease the space. You know we don't have bigger families than we used to have, but we used to have those bigger families on larger blocks, landed farms and stuff but we had. Now you may ease those spaces in a renovation or a remodel of that piece, it's okay. It's okay the circulation in general will work really well.
Speaker 1:The light coming into the home will work really well. The airflow in the home will work really well. The airflow in the home will work really well, the acoustics of the home will work really well and you will live with some of it and some of it will live with you. You know there'll be, there'll be little moments of, I want to say, teaching in the house where it asks a little bit of you and you ask a little bit of it. But you live symbiotically because that's part of the joy of it, um, of making that work, and you don't just bulldoze everythingically, because that's part of the joy of it of making it work and you don't just bulldoze everything flat. It's in-ground, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm really glad I've learned more about it, because to me, a house that flows, a house that functions, changes your life. You want people to come over, you want to entertain, you do. Look, my house in Kwono means a sexual peace, but like it's, Like it just blows.
Speaker 1:It's circulation-wise, it works for you.
Speaker 3:There's roof space for everybody. Quick, it's 35 years old now. We're just giving it a little bit of a refurb and we've had some plans down to do a little extension and add sort of things. But yeah, I really do feel that's what we mentioned before. I think like obviously there's lots of shit going on in this world, but actually that house, I believe, adds to a lot of the depression, anxiety problems we have in the world today. If you're working we've all got this busy, busy life. If you're coming home to a house that doesn't flow, that doesn't have good natural light, that doesn't that separation doesn't allow spacial space it always does.
Speaker 3:But one thing I think we've really lost is bringing nature in, but we've got plants everywhere in our house and we just won't start to do films you know, like in 1986 I think it was the term biophilic design.
Speaker 1:It came kind of biophilic design and that means in-world planting. Essentially that's what that's what it means. So in in the world of architectural material design, you've got biomimicry. So biomimicry is where we take something from nature and we repeat it in the buildings, in the built structure. Um, an example might be something like we might decide to use the shape of a shell or the way something emulates a part of the landscape yeah, that's the Japanese. We might decide to do that. We might try to bring outside elements that make the home feel like it's very part of its grateful environment. And then biophilic design is where we actually bring plants to the interior of the home.
Speaker 1:And the studies from 86 and Bond will show you that if you put plants in an office, if you put plants in a home, if you put plants in a classroom, cognitive response goes up. We get better results from people when they live with plants inside their house. That could be the old ladder fern behind the toilet which we've probably grown, or under the staircase, the bloody water feature in the planting, those things, and really 1970s there was a lot of it, that kind of Haight-Ashbury hippie movement and all the rest and a lot of what was done in the Pacific Northwest and in California and stuff was bringing these modernist structures together and bringing planting in. That really actually was shifting our cognitive responses and it brings joy to the human when we have plants inside. So it's undertook a massive kind of rebirth by understanding in COVID. Covid was a great catalyst. What happened is the people were locked in apartments.
Speaker 3:Covid's done the opposite of what they wanted it to. It's made people open their eyes and have a think about it, hasn't?
Speaker 1:it. So it's making them consider what their living environment's like and how much value it brings. We say this thing. Let's think of building biology. Building biology is about materiality and, for all intents and purposes, most building materials are unbothered. They're treated, they're chemically dosed. They are. It's the manufacturing factory. It's that simple they are. It's the maverick in the factory. It's that simple. They create electromagnetic fields.
Speaker 1:You take a piece of gibrot, strip the paper off or just let it go mouldy when it gets wet, and then all the gibs inside that plus everything else that's put in there. It's not healthy, don't like breathing it. Our carpet underlay. It's all made of toxic glues. People you know you go and buy a new car and people go oh, that new car smell. Well, that's a shitstorm of chemicals. Let it heat up in the sun for a couple of hours and go and sniff it because it's really healthy.
Speaker 1:So our homes are this. Our homes are this. Our homes are full of toxic materials. So first thing is, what could we do that simplifies the materiality of our home to healthier outcomes? That would be worth spending money on for your own health. You might not be as intolerant to cancers or intolerant to autoimmune diseases, all these other chemical things that we put in our environment. They're stacking on top of us. You know, electromagnetic fields, all these different things that are happening in a home. The first one is this materiality, what are we going to build it of, that will nurture or at least be neutral to your health, so that your physical, what you're breathing?
Speaker 3:it blows my mind that, like I like to, get on hobby horse with this as you know I can too, like I, I, um.
Speaker 3:it's only something I've really started to focus on probably in the last couple of years, but I'm really glad that I have because I really encourage our clients. Now we are getting a lot of clients coming to us, especially here in Brisbane, because there's a lot of builders doing healthy animals. Our focus is high-performing healthy animals and we are very conscious of the materials we use, mate. What sort of questions should people be asking builders and these animals when they're thinking about building or renovating to get them a good outcome?
Speaker 1:The simplest first one is if you're a designer, they should be asking you who's the builder and what selection of builders you're going to introduce me to. That's the first one. And if you're a builder, they should be asking who are the designers you're going to introduce me to? How will I know they're a match for me? That would be the first question, so that know you can work well together and that you've done it before and that you're a team, and then ask what projects have you done before, with when have you worked together before and what were the outcomes of that? What were the outcomes of a client? What were the outcomes of a budget? What were the outcomes of the budget? What were the outcomes of the building? How has it been received? What was the flow of the project like? Those would be the first things, because a lot of people spend all this money.
Speaker 3:I hope a lot of builders, designers, architects hear this and start taking the relationship more seriously.
Speaker 1:It's all, everything has to be based on a relationship A hundred percent. And the other thing with that that's really important is for designers and architects and builders is to make sure that they have a value system that's aligned and that they have a transparency in their value system that they can trust each other, that remembering that they're a team that will go on to do this multiple times, this one customer they've got is one customer. I'm not saying that they are super important, I'm not saying that they're any less important, but they're one customer and we have to manage them and their values with our values and we are as the builder and the designer. We are only two foundation blocks to getting to a dream. So somebody has a bit of pillow talk and says, honey, I'd love a new home. And honey says, yeah, me too. And honey says, how can we afford it? Honey works out a way and eventually they go. You know what we could do this? Where do we want to be? You might go. Oh no, they start looking in the magazines and they go. You know what Found a blog. They go exploring. They find a piece of land. They fall in love with a piece of land Right at that point, before they ever do anything else they should be talking to their builder and design. So the same process they should be going.
Speaker 1:Who is going to be our team to make this happen? Yeah, who? Who's going to get us there and doing that research in parallel with, before you buy a block of land that tells you any easements, any, all the overlays you know like it could be 27 or 57 overlays on a piece of land, but it's going to be significant overlays on any piece of land. What are they? What am I going to be? And don't ask the real estate agent for this information. You need to take it on yourself to get it and if you need to, you come to a designer and you go to the designer. I need this. I'm looking at this block. What's your fee to do this due diligence report for me and what will it cover? Let them go and do that due diligence report and bring it back to you At the same time. Have them do that with the builder and pay the builder's fee to get out there with the designer and wrestle with them. You know Everyone like.
Speaker 3:It's worth doing 100% and I think everybody should do that. But there's so much pressure Like estate agents, developers. There's always this pressure hey, you've got to sell the paper Like, we've got other people interested, they want the seventh, they want the sales, and so everyone gets sucked in and and, uh, let's miss it out on opportunity. And then, because it is finding the right local land plays a massive role. That's something else I've learned, that's what ships me about. They do these housing estates, they do the little display village and in the display village every house is orientated perfectly. People walk through the home, it's so beautiful, it's not too bad.
Speaker 1:Or south or east west, it's working beautifully. The one they buy the road's running completely. The other way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they want to take it. It's just easier and just plonk, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're turned around backwards or half-stolen, might as well be A hundred percent. That's the problem with the developer mentality of you know. Their idea is and I'm not saying all developers are bad, we need them their idea is how many blocks can I get out of this piece of land and how can I do that with the most economic civil structure and the most density and the simplest of the public amenity you have to supply? That's the game in development and somebody has to do that, somebody has to take the risk.
Speaker 1:Then, ideally, a good developer development let's just say it's going to be all project homes would go okay who my project from partner is going to be and what size homes are we attracting to this development? How many of what? Where will they be and how will they be? So what facades will work best? What will be the most economic? What gets will work best? And look at how they can break the blocks up like that. What's my east-west orientation for the majority of the blocks? And then the Project Home guys are going to shoot me, for this is go back and ask those Project Home guys to develop me a set of plans that suit my east-west blocks, my north-south blocks, those best for this development. Yeah, go back and take the ones you've got and alter them and make them work for this development, so that the people who live there get the best out of the environment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I'm passionate about it like, how do you go about building a relationship where both, where everybody trusts each other? Like because I get a lot of feedback about this, because obviously we do the pat process in my business and yeah, I talk about it everywhere, all over our stations, with lots of video, a lot of content, people know pretty much what updates to the owners I collaborate with and so to me, like my answer to that question was through our social media, like, we build a trust with the client. No one's ever attempted for that, even contacted us, of course, but for the general public that aren't, but for the general public that aren't hesitant on creating a team and having a process, what's your recommendations to build trust?
Speaker 1:Jeez, that's a really good question, because that's ultimately what creates this process, isn't it?
Speaker 3:People don't trust enough. If people trust, they don't worry about the 10-year-old, they don't worry about getting money.
Speaker 1:They know they're getting value for money. Yeah, so I think the number one thing that builds trust for people is the testimonial of other people and the testimonial of other people, so that they see the same person as themselves or how they'd like to see themselves. So the builder who thinks that you're amazing either sees something in you that what they want to be, or they feel their values are aligned with your values. So that's the first thing. That's the builder that you attract to your process and all those things they go. He seems to have worked it out, he seems to be honest, all those things, and they dip their toe in. But they've got plenty of opportunity to go and research it. You're an open book. There's tons of knowledge out there. So they can do that. They can scope around for a couple of years. Nothing you bum. You know the whole bit deciding on whether they're going to make a move or not. For the public, which is the people who we really are trying to help, because it's their dream we're getting. Learn it, learn it, it's their dream. Yeah, so we want to put down these foundations the design foundation, the build foundation and then give them their dream For the public, I think again. You know, isn't the stack something like people have spent four to seven hours researching on you as an individual before they actually even make a call to you, and that might mean that they've spent a couple of hundred hours looking at different people They've got to get clear about for themselves, no matter what they're doing. They've got to get clear about what it is that matters to them and their values. And that's a combo of, you know, say, one of a couple is just most of my party are couples like offing fans but if they're not, they're not the single person and get clear about what matters to, what their values are and how they want to be treated. And so if they can do that, then fortunately or unfortunately, social media is going to be the fastest way for them to find some battle.
Speaker 1:If, like you, good podcasts, like me, I've got a podcast don't start listening. Don't start listening to the conversations and see what you can find out from them and then do the research. Just start un-listen and, pretty much I would say, make a short list. Now I've heard a guy called Daniel Priestley, who's he lives in England, he's from Australia originally. He is an absolute person of some marketing guru, he said recently. He said if I went to find, if I dedicated 24 hours to find out about you, how many hours of the 24 would be taken up? That's the good of God, isn't it? Now, if that was you shit, they'd be sitting there at the end of a week.
Speaker 1:If it was me, the same, they'd find me. You know, for me they'd find sitting there at the end of a week. If it was me, the same, they'd find me. You know, for me, they'd find me on the podcast. They'd find me on the website. They'd find me on I don't know, tv, tv, house um speaking on stage.
Speaker 1:You know, they'd find all this collateral for you not too different. It would be these different points of where they would find you. They'd find reviews, they'd find all these things. Out of that we still may not be a match. So then, are our values likely to align? And then, if they are, if you can find and I feel bad about saying this, because I have amazing designer friends who do no promotion of themselves, in fact, they say I don't want to do any promotion myself, I want to be with them, and it doesn't mean they're not really good, it just means that they have a network and all their work comes from that network, and you won't find them easily online. They'll have a website, but you need to have an introduction.
Speaker 3:I think that's a really old-school mentality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's detrimental to the customer. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, it's detrimental to their business. They might be busy, they might get lots of people coming their way, but the people coming their way aren't the right clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not. It's like if we talk some foreign language and we don't have the values coming through that are understood.
Speaker 3:It's like Bill would say oh, we've got deep support, we don't need the market. That's because you're just taking everything that comes across the table. You're not actually knuckling down figuring out who is your ideal client. You're not trying to hold a track on this.
Speaker 1:Let's do that. One Ideal client If you're looking at doing a home and a custom home, who's your ideal builder? Who's your ideal designer? What are the values that you would need? What would tell you that you felt respected and what would tell you that you didn't feel respected? What would be the things that are your biggest worries? Would it be that you weren't going to get value for money? What would you need to see to demonstrate that you were getting value for money? If you're going to go and spend your millions of dollars doing this process, treat it like with the respect it deserves and that that design and build it deserves. Put a bit of effort in and find the right team, because we don't want to do it. If we're not the right team, you know you don't want to….
Speaker 3:Man, I've got my time. My time is too dangling, I've got no time, Just family.
Speaker 1:you've got life, you've got all these things.
Speaker 3:Well, I've just got all these goals that I want to achieve, mate, and I don't want to waste my time on especially with people but you don't value what I'm putting out there.
Speaker 1:I'm not just taking on clients in the front of it, no, no, this is the thing. There's that needy part where people take on clients because they haven't worked out their business model particularly well, and then we also want the adventure of taking on I won't say clients, I'll say projects that challenge us because we want to be challenged. I had an early podcast of mine with a guy called Jeffrey Dungan from Alabama. I said to Jeffrey Jeff, you must have some incredible projects. I know he does. You just go and look on his website and on his Instagram and all that Incredible projects, very traditional style projects. And he goes. Yeah, I do, he goes, but it's a legend, it's not about incredible projects. And I yeah, dude, it goes for this legend it's not about incredible projects. And I'm like shit.
Speaker 1:That stopped me a bit and I said, yeah, right, and he goes. It's about great projects. He said it's about great people. With great people come great projects and one shit project could ruin a great year, or one shit person could ruin a great year. So you're in a great business? Yeah, well, it could seem that right, perfect, yeah, especially when you've got the non-money that swings around in the building company. So we want to know that values are aligned and that we're not for everybody. Yeah, but when we find the match, you know there's magic to be made. So, people, I get the same question a lot Like.
Speaker 3:A lot of builders reject me. A lot of trades say oh, I look up to you, I want to be doing the jobs you're doing and if I'm missing them back, okay, it's absolutely nothing to do with the job. Yeah, we work with incredible people. The projects jump into that.
Speaker 1:Your job's an incredible project for an incredible person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:like Johnny, you have to identify your what you want, to the work you want to be doing, the job that you want to be working for, yeah, and that they have the values you need and you have their values, but also that we're stepping stone to a dream. Don't let the ego get in the way. Their dream is what's the important part. They come to us because they just felt like throwing some pictures. They didn't come to us because they thought they might stick something up in the paddock. They came to us because they have a dream and this dream's precious. This dream defines, maybe, the rest of their life and their legacy. It defines how their family will live. It defines how they'll wake up and feel in the mornings. It will define their behaviors.
Speaker 1:So this dream is so precious there's a podcast on it right now. It is hey, this is so important is so precious. It is hey, this is so important. So get your ego off and make the promise to put the foundation down that will give them a solid stepping stone to the next point. Get your ego out of the way. This is about them and it's for them. Bring your heart, soul and every bit of knowledge and education you can garner and put it into this for them, because that's what they're paying you to do, and do it with the right builder, so that, as we go, we're both so desperately in love with what we're going to create that it gets created and we get to hand it over that's it, mate.
Speaker 3:That's it. That's how I feel with every match. I just like, I just, I am completely just hon with love, like in love, but can't wait to get started, want to build, want to see it come out of the ground, want to see the client smile when we hand over the key, Like it's just, it's a whole. Well, I call it a journey, but I prefer adventure. Or it's a belcher, that's all right. But before we go ahead and do our but, but before we go ahead and do that, we're definitely this is a big one, but before we wrap it up, the last time we talked us through your land with green, which I know we had a lot of people reach out about that Can you talk us through your process for the rest of the actual building?
Speaker 1:The emotional full thing. Yeah, yeah, for sure, absolutely. We'll talk about a role play in it. Yeah, I'll give you sort of the basis of it. You know the land Say hello. Oh, for my father's sake, I'll Creep yourself off.
Speaker 3:That that's getting down here, he loves to cook shrimp. Put the shrimp on the derby Mel.
Speaker 1:The land. Whispering is just sort of about honoring the land and it's about feeling the energy in the land and truly connecting with what the land can offer. And then it's about what it can physically that we can see and anybody can see. You know, like where will the sun come up, what will happen with the wind patterns, what will happen with the rain? And we get three things for free and we get to position ourselves with wind, light and air. That's well sorry. Air, wind and water, sorry, the three things we get. They just come out of the sky. We pay for the land and we pay for the privilege to sit on it every year, with our rates and everything else, and we have regulations over all those things, those other things. They come to us regardless, just like we were born onto the planet. And so, first of all, honoring that is really important, finding the energy in that and not destroying the energy, soaking it up and bringing it together with us. That's really key.
Speaker 1:Then we go into the house and the house, if we get it back to the most basic thing, is house, is shelter and it's security. That's what we're trying to create. There's shelter and security, and that security has a lot to do with how our sympathetic nervous system operates. Security has a lot to do with how our sympathetic nervous system operates. The ease of how a house circulates, the way it brings light and air into it, has a ton to do with how we emotionally feel.
Speaker 1:We got into before a little bit about building biology and materiality. That has a lot to do with our physical health in the house. So we start layering these things up. We spoke about biophilic design, how we're going to blend that outdoors and outdoors, how we're going to create separation from it when we need to and how we're going to embrace it as we need to. So if you look at an emotional thought plan, everybody has what I would call a perfect day. There's a day that they go. If I said to you, well, let's do a perfect day, you need to tell me the day of the week and what you do on it and why that would be the perfect day.
Speaker 3:Could I get in a future or now, what makes it my perfect day to be Perfect?
Speaker 1:in the future.
Speaker 3:So my perfect day would be in the future, when our farms develop and we go home, instead of looking down over the arena and the barn and down on the arena with the kids riding their horse, doing their day, racing, listening to the ocean, feeling the breeze and just seeing the kids enjoying themselves sitting on the arena with the ocean, feeling the breeze and just seeing the kids enjoying themselves sitting on the green with the meal and just being grateful for where we're at it probably doesn't look like I'm going to have to exit yet.
Speaker 1:That's a perfect answer. Tell me, what time did you wake up About?
Speaker 3:30 days. How's the sun for what?
Speaker 1:Why did you do that? About 30 a day? How's the sun come up? What?
Speaker 3:did you do next? Wash the sun cover. And what did you do? Have a glass of water and eat some breakfast. What did you do last?
Speaker 1:On the veranda. Where did you get glass of water? And make breakfast At the kitchen. And so then you got to the veranda, and then that was the start of your day.
Speaker 3:We were supposed to no one's normally out when I'm out, mate, but no, my dog. I'm an early moaner with my dog Good.
Speaker 1:Walter. And so that sets you up in some way, doesn't it? That routine sets you up? Yeah, for sure't it? That routine sets you up? Yeah, for sure. So that's why you do it, yeah, and you know the result of how it sets you up yeah, and you keep doing it because it works.
Speaker 3:Well, I aim to do it. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1:So then, if we break that down again a little bit tighter, so you roll out of bed and you know, make your sun quiet up, or it's just coming up you go and have a shower, or you do all that before you have a shower, what do you do?
Speaker 3:I've always been upstairs with the door to work out. This isn't my ideal day. This is what happens. Well, if it was your ideal day and I've- always been downstairs with the door to work out.
Speaker 1:This isn't my ideal day. This is what happens. Well, if it was your ideal day, you'd probably still do a lot of these things. Yeah, because they reach in. Yeah, so each space that you go into delivers something back to you. So let's just use the kitchen as the example and then we're going to do this in another manner as well, but let's use the kitchen as an example. So you go into the kitchen, you go and make breakfast. What do you make?
Speaker 3:What's your perfect breakfast? I'm sure I've got a perfect breakfast, might as well. I've never, never, get it if you don't. Oh, mate, I don't know, I'm not an egg fan, dude, but we'll go with that, yeah okay, so to make eggs Benedict you know you need some eggs, you need some. So in a perfect world I'd be getting up getting dressed, going outside with the dog, walking down the truck house getting my eggs, walking back to the house making my breakfast.
Speaker 1:In the kitchen, in the kitchen, or and then going back out on the veranda, yeah, sitting there, maybe not taking any, whatever it is out there, thinking about the day here, yeah, watching the sun come up. Watching the sun come up, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I've never thought about it before, but even like so, look. So all we know about the house we're living in at the moment is the guy. That's the guy that built it was his builder, built the first outboard bridge. So he had a quite a big company. He also had corporate pumps and things. He travelled overseas. He loved the architecture overseas and Foundhouse was designed by an architect in Alabama or somewhere.
Speaker 3:And it blows my mind because they obviously because I think the orientation of N, our NS, is perfect. It's absolutely perfect. Maybe it was a bit after 10. Because the way it's positioned, I of a morning, from our bedrooms, from our dining room, from our green area, I don't have to move, I just watch the sun come up. And I didn't call you to. Yeah, I don't have to go and sit in a particular area, I could just come by there. But in the afternoons it sets out of our kitchen window, yeah, and we all know the girls love it, because generally that's the time that we're preparing dinner and we're all having a chat and we can look out the window almost every day at the little sunset.
Speaker 1:I thought you were just going to say. So maybe he was just a great architect and actually wanted to say that the house really well, he thought about what was going to happen and maybe the guy the bridge builder maybe he was the guy who said you know, I know that these things make a difference, I want these things in my life and therefore the house got designed that way. But we think about this thing again of if I was to draw you a house that didn't have a veranda that you could sit on and eat your breakfast. I might have just stolen part of the dream and I could dig into the veranda in a million different ways and ask you questions about it. What I'll do? I'll jump out of that just thinking about what that perfect day is.
Speaker 1:If you just wrote your word perfect on the wall and then just kept track of what perfect meant to you for a Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday, a weekday and I would say Monday is a really important one because for most people that's kicking off the week and then I would also get them to add a Saturday and Sunday and I would ask what the nuances were between those. And we're going to go from wake up to go to sleep. Let's dig in and just find out what perfect for you would be and then, if you've got a wife or a partner, do the same. Do the same, write out your perfect and compare your lists at some point. Oh, I'd like to sleep in a bit more on a Sunday. This is more important to me. You just said you're the first one up Usually it's you and you're getting alone time.
Speaker 1:Then You're getting time for that monkey mind ADHD to just be settled a bit. It's busy. It's got settled with it. It's busy. It's got jobs to do. It's going and getting an egg. It's going and doing things. It's got a little routine that looks at the sun. It does these things that you know make a better you and you know that a better you brings a better family. It makes you a better human, it makes you a better business. It makes you a better community. It makes a better business. It makes a better community. So you are self-aware and you are consciously and continuously working on your own self-awareness.
Speaker 1:Most people aren't probably quite as self-aware as you, but these are the steps to becoming self-aware. These are the steps to becoming self-aware. Architecture responds beautifully to the people who can become self-aware about volume, color, light. You just said that home that you live in you can get up and all those things are actually starting to happen without you having to move away from find a special spot. So in decoding a human or humans that are going to live in a home, how do we take that into account? Now that's gone in your case with this house of orientation, probably window heights and things like that, and you have adapted to them as much as they've made it available to you. If I said to you tell me the favorite room in your home, now, absolute favorite room.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure what to call it. We've got a sitting room or an amp room with a fireplace in it. The room with the fireplace, yeah, but it's a bit odd, I've never had it before. So you walk into our entry, our front door, and it's a huge two-story void area, the bridge across. So you go upstairs. All the main bedroom and master suite is to one side. That's got a bridge across the void to all the kids' living area and bedrooms, but that goes flows straight on to, yeah, like a room with a fireplace and a sitting area, and that again, that's got the exact same what I explained to you before, like the sun.
Speaker 3:It's got two-story windows in the side of the fireplace and the sun just floods in that ring of a morning. You sit in the chair, you can just feel, hear the birds. You can like the exact same thing in the afternoon. You look at like the big chunk. So the thing is it didn't. When we first bought it, the front door was all sealed up, it was solid and you couldn't see the view. Now we've changed it all. We've got a lot of glazing and it's open. The same thing in the afternoon. Like you can see in that sage, you sit in the morning and you can watch the sun go down.
Speaker 1:Something that I'm going to ask with that piece, to kind of keep on the subject, is that ability to see a distance. How important is that to you?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's everything, mate, because I cannot. I hate that. People live in houses and I know it's an affordability thing where you look at your windows and all you see is a fence, or you see the neighbours side of the neighbours. I like your height, though For me I feel caged, I feel left in.
Speaker 1:I know you people listening some of them may not know you. Would you say that you're a man of vision? Yeah, do you think that you've got a reasonably long vision, with a few kind of things you'd like to kick off in that? Yeah, mate, always that's it, eh, yeah. So if I was sticking in your vision for us to physically put you that, yeah, mate, always that's it, eh, yeah. So if I was sticking in your vision, if I was to physically put you in a cell, what would be the hardest thing that you'd have to overcome?
Speaker 3:I think about this very differently now. If you had asked me that question three, four years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to answer. I would have got nuts in that space. But now I've just shut my eyes, mate. I've just invented where I want to be.
Speaker 1:You're a visual Because you're a man of vision. So go back to now, that living space which has the fireplace and fireplace is a key item, and then we'll come to that in a second the fact that you've got this long vision, and you, as a human, need a long vision because you've got a mind that is full of long vision. If I chop it off, you'll close your eyes and you'll react. More vision without it. That's who you are.
Speaker 1:So, when you have long vision, what? And in that room in particular, and you've talked about it morning and afternoon, and I'm going to ask which is the most favorite time to use it. So you told me that first, what's the most favorite time? When does it fill your heart most? Morning? So, if it's filling your heart most in the morning and it gives you that long vision and it gives you the ability to look into the sun and stuff, what's one emotional word that you would sum that up with? Content, content. And when you say content, what was that? Give me the context of what contentment means to you From sitting in that room Whenever you felt content.
Speaker 3:Oh, mate, I just feel so grateful. Well, number one, I used to get up, struggle to get up, feel tired already, have the shits about the day and be stressed about what was going on, whereas my mindset now, mate, is fuck you. If my eyes are open in the morning and I take a breath, I know that was me in my life. We're very alive, I do breath, I know that was me on my face.
Speaker 3:We've are alive. Look to me. It's that simple. It's all all fantastic if you can wake up in the morning and be purely grateful that you've you're woken up and you're alive and you're healthy. Fuck, mate, the rest of those gonna be a breeze does that, yeah, all the challenges.
Speaker 1:I'm bored. So contentment gives you this incredible power to achieve and to follow your vision and to achieve goals and to lead the way you're a leader, to lead by example, to create community, all these things. This is what contentment gives you. This. What contentment gives you, if I chop that window out that you've gone and put so you get the long vision out of it and stuff like that, you'd probably want to fix it. You'd probably go well, what is out there? What else could I have? You could do the opposite and close your eyes, which I know you'll do anyway at different points. So if we can get a read on what that architecture, I wouldn't know that, no, you wouldn't. But this is the thing. This is how we discover it. So we start with something that matters and that has a big, big pull, and then we go through the house, room by room, going okay, if it works perfectly for you, what would that be? What emotion would you feel? This way, we do it on different days of the week as well, because on monday it could be and I'll give the example family, kids, school lunches. Have you got your damn bag wearing your shoes? Shit, you've got sports today. Get your stuff. We've got to get out of the house. I've got jobs to do as well. Come on, stop pissing around. Help your mother. You know all these things. That's kids. That's just part of being a family, yeah, and if you can continually set yourself up so that you've got gratitude and all the rest, those other things, they're just management. Those are management. They're just management. Those are management. They're just growth for you and kids and the family. So what we're looking for is how architecture can support the emotional states that are critical to you being your best human and then being your best man, your best husband, your best father, your best boss. We're looking for those things and we're doing the same with Camille. We're saying actually, what are the things that you need that make you into the best human that you can be, which creates this incredible family? And when you create this incredible family, your kids are stepping off a platform way up here, because you've given them the environment that allows them to step off that platform. And that is what we're doing with an emotional floor plan.
Speaker 1:Room by room, piece by piece, you're looking at what matters to each of you and then going if I lower the ceiling, what would that do to it? Oh, it might lose my eyes. If I made it super expansive, I might not feel as hugged or as intimate or as secure. Yeah, yeah, if I positioned you over here in that room, you might go oh no, no, no, no, I need to be in that corner. There, there'll be a space in that room that feels better than the other spaces. I can dig through all this.
Speaker 1:When we're doing the design of the building, we're taking these elements and we're listing contentment and we know what contentment means to you. And we've got that and that room might not be her favourite. Her favourite might be something completely different. We're looking at that and we're going how do we make this spot magical and make you the human you can be? And this is an extension of what we do from outside. Like I said, well, if we don't put a veranda on it, we put her in the drink and that veranda. It gets to be really specific, because if I jam you up and you've got to eat your breakfast on your knee and you've got, you know, hex Benedict sliding all over the show, it's not going to bring you contentment, it's going to bring you frustration. So it's not about making life easy.
Speaker 3:But that's again back to the value thing. That's the difference between a volume builder presenting a set of off-the-shelf planes and going to an architect who's always having to find out about you.
Speaker 1:It's your dream. Well, you know, like I can look at the things we've just spoken about and I can go okay, cool. So I need to know these things from your point of view. I need to know these things from Camille's point of view. What, from her point of view, would disturb, would you disturb her with, and what, from your point of view, will she disturb you with? Where are these points where maybe there would be a clash of things? So an example would be um, if you get up and you've got a really open ensuite to the bedroom and you're fanging around and scrubbing your teeth or whatever the hell you're doing, and she's still asleep, now her sympathetic nervous system will be differently keyed from yours.
Speaker 1:She's a mum and she's a female. So she is going to be aware of so many things that you're unaware of because you've got male strength, you've got testosterone, you've got these items. Those are going to form you as a different dma structured human and where hers will be more security based. You're like I'll handle what needs to be handled. This will be security based. It will have an air on the kids. It will be like will that change with that movement, even in their subconscious when she's asleep. So if there's a an hour's difference in those two spots, she may need more sleep than you. Is she going to get that early later, but you know, in the ignorance earlier, or is she going to get that later?
Speaker 1:How are we going to design that room so that she gets the least disruption and you get the most flow, so that you're not walking out without it being perfect? Yeah, that's an emotional floor plan, but we do way more than that. That's a touch on understanding the human and getting them to be vulnerable, because when we can get their heart to connect with the heart, that we can put in the home and in this case you know it's in that living room area and in the other case, of a perfect future one, it's out there, you know, looking out over the land, over the arena or down by the chalk shed shed. It's taking the walk, it's getting some eggs, it's getting back up there. It's got the dog with you. We're fulfilling part of a vision that you want to create and you all morph with it In the gym. We've just started. We've just started there. We're going to get to here through a design journey. You think we're going to discover some shit.
Speaker 3:No, it's powerful stuff. It's stuff that people I believe that a lot of builders, tradies, homeowners, designers just don't consider, and that's what makes a difference between a home and a house 100%.
Speaker 1:And I've had. That's about the love that sits on the structure because you can take a box and turn it into a home.
Speaker 3:And I think that's why and I'm sure you get it as well, but I believe that's why, on handover day, on back with our jobs, our clients are in tears. Yeah, because we've deleted something the drink.
Speaker 1:The drink. You know, you think when your dream comes true, when you're sitting. Or you get up in the morning and you're up there at the beach on the farm and you're strolling out. You're getting up in the morning, you're seeing that sun come up and you're strolling out, pulling on some boots, maybe a bare foot, down to the chook shields, looking across, taking it all in, and then you're going, wow, okay, and you get back up and you're sitting on, you make some breakfast, you sit on that veranda and you're going to have a sense of contentment and then you're going to go. Oh man, what am I going to do with my kids? Where are we going to go? What's the adventure we're going to have? How's life going to play out? What am I going to learn? How am I going to be this human that allows them to be their best humans and in the future? They look back and go. I always wondered why that came up so early.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I love it. It's the best time of the day. You can see why we do it. Yeah, 100%. Maybe we'll have to wrap it up, because we can definitely talk on the radio. Mate, before we go, tell us everywhere that we can find you. You're a loaded place now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go spend 24 hours and see what you can find us. No, if you look at ar design housecom, you'll find me there. If you look at adrian ramsey on instagram, that's pretty much my main kind of space. Uh, if you want to watch channel nine stream homes revealed, you'll find me on there as the host for queensland uh chalk podcast. I drop a podcast every week on design and mental state. A lot of different events I speak at as well. They'll be around. The big one would be if you really want to experience some really up close and personal magic and you're not wanting me to design your home've got somebody that's doing that come on a tour so you'll find the tours under feast experiencesus. That's with my you, with my partners who, if you want to come on an adventure that will build you, adventure that will build you network connection. It will take you into spaces that you never thought we could be in in the way of architecture and environment. Plenty of adventure, food, like you've never eaten before.
Speaker 3:I'm super, super keen, whether it's this year or next year, but I want to be on one of those trips. I've seen the places we go, the homes we visit, the builders, the builders.
Speaker 1:The builders. We introduced you to the architects. We introduced you to the mines that we put you around. This is one of my favorite things about these tours is we have a day at the end that we call Breaking Bread. That we call Breaking Bread. And so the wrap day of a tour is we bring all the tour group off in a slew together and we go to somewhere just before lunch and we get there and we have a chef preparing us lunch. We might have wine with it and all the rest, and we have a lot of the guests that we've met along the way come to this lunch as well, and so there's all of us and there's the guests that come as well, and we eat and we drink and we discuss, and some of us, you know some people share things, give talks, wrap up, get common experiences, make sure everybody's sharing and feeling it and networking, and we do that and we have a lazy afternoon doing that, and we get that lazy afternoon roll on into dinner and again then we have a dinner like nothing you've ever had before, just something out of the box. And then after that we wrap the tour at that point and then we disperse back to a hotel and everybody's free.
Speaker 1:The next morning they go and do what they want. Now, sometimes I might run another little day's trick or be doing something and a couple of people might join me or whatever, but that aside, let's just say it's over. That day you may have made appointments to go and see some of those people that you met along the way and dig a little deeper with them because we certainly encourage that and get some more personal time with them one-on-one. If you're around for the day, you might go shopping, you might go walking, you might go swimming, you might do surfing, you might go skiing, it might be whatever it is that you want, and we can curate a lot of that for people. We want to change your perception of how architecture feels and what's happening in the world of building and architecture and this built structure and how we as a community whether you're about to build a home or want a home designed.
Speaker 1:This is like education on steroids. If you're a builder, it is like depth of education and design and in what happens in the building methods globally and what we can see in the future. You know our friend Matt Rising would be a great example of those kind of pieces. And then it is if you're an architect or a designer or an interior designer. It's building your network and learning from world-class people in another space. Yeah, so bringing that together, but with this common conversation of a love of amazing food and a love of the built structure, yeah, I mean, I'm keen, I'm super, super keen to get love. A lot of dancing, a lot of, like, you know, barbecue or whatever the cuisine is, some music, you know all the things that make life magic.
Speaker 3:I've seen your photos and stuff on Instagram, mate. They've been incredible. But, mate, thanks so much for taking some time out to staff and having a time to join us. Another crapping episode. Look, guys, really appreciate everyone listening and watching. Please help support us to continue to make this Australia's number one construction podcast. Look, if you haven't seen it already, go to the personal website, dwaynepiercecom. Buy some merch. Help support our cause to create a new building industry. Also, we have got some incredible events coming up now, so make sure you register so you receive our updates, have emails and blogs and all those types of things, because, uh, yeah, this mission to create a new industry is ramping up and, uh, it is a raging fire now. We got some incredible stuff coming up in 2025. So, uh yeah, life shares strong. All those things and we'll see you on the next one. Are you ready to build smarter, live better and enjoy?
Speaker 1:life, then head over to livelikebuildcom forward slash elevate to get started.
Speaker 2: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.