Feilden Fowles
Welcome to Office Talk, a fortnightly podcast featuring in-depth conversations with leading architects about their approach to business marketing and communications. I'm your host, Dave Sharp, an architectural marketing expert and director of office Dave Sharp, a marketing practice offering specialized consultancy, marketing, and PR services tailored to meet the particular needs of architects. Visit office dave sharp dot com to learn more, or follow the practice on Instagram at office dave sharp. Joining me on the show today are Fergus Fielden and Edmund Fowles, the directors of Field and Fowles, a highly recognized London based practice known for their sustainable and characterful public and cultural buildings. In this episode, Fergus, Edmund, and I discussed the importance of competitions to help develop their portfolio, studio culture, and connections with potential clients, how they were able to curate their website to appeal to cultural, public, and educational sector clients despite having little built work in those areas in the early years of their practice.
Dave Sharp:We discussed the benefit of designing a unique studio space that represents their practice and values as architects as well as a space to host parties and lunches to build better client relationships. We talked about the importance of investing early in the practice's graphic design and brand identity so that it would be consistent across every touchpoint and build trust in their brand. And finally, we looked at how they discovered that their low tech approach to sustainable design could become a key point of difference for their practice. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Fergus Fielden and Edmund Fowles from Field and Fowles. Edmund and Fergus, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Edmund Fowles:It's great to be here. Thanks.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. Thanks for having us.
Dave Sharp:My pleasure. Maybe take me back in time to the early days of the practice. How did the practice start? How did you guys meet?
Fergus Feilden:Well, we studied together, at university. We were at Cambridge, and we started doing some competitions together. We actually first met even before that on our bikes, and had a shared passion for cycling. So Oh, that's awesome. We were talking technical stuff around bikes, and, I was admiring Ed's bike and his skills on it.
Fergus Feilden:So so I thought he's he's alright. And, my kinda guy. Yeah. My kinda guy. And, yeah.
Fergus Feilden:Then we in our 2nd year, we were in the same unit, and there was a series of competitions that were run, and Ed and I were paired together, and it seemed to be quite a powerful combination of skills and enjoyment. So that was the very first starting point.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. Then, we kind of did did sort of well with that kind of composition and, went on to graduate from university and, fortunately, we're, kind of offered a small project, just to try and get planning on a on a rural site in in Wales. And he reached out and said, should we do this together? So we are still working our day jobs, but we thought it'd be great to collaborate, together on on on a small commission. It was a very kind of slow burn project, so, I think it took over a year and a half to get planning permission, on the scheme.
Edmund Fowles:It's quite a sensitive setting. It was a house on a beautiful kind of rural, sites overlooking the Brecon beacons. And as I think it was a project that really began to kind of sow the seed of our kind of interests, and our values for the the future practice that we'd form. But at the time, we didn't even have a name. You know, we were kind of on the bedroom floor of of facts, working away on models and then came to the point of, having to submit planning, and we didn't have a name on the drawings.
Edmund Fowles:We're like, what should we call ourselves? Fowles Fielden? No. Is that right? Fielden Fowles?
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. Done. Yeah. And that was it.
Fergus Feilden:And I remember when I first asked Ed about whether he wanted to to join me and and and do this commission together and the kind of the relish and passion, which came back immediately, like, the hunger to to deliver a project. I've I thought, you know, I've asked the right person. Yeah. It was it was great. And, and and it made it so much more enjoyable because it was quite a risk.
Fergus Feilden:We were completely unqualified. We had never delivered a building. We we we had a very steep learning curve to go through.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. But we're both kind of, also working in in practice during the kind of sort of daylight hours. And then instead of evenings and weekends sort of plugging away at this, this other commission. But what what that gave us, I think, was, a safety net in a way that it was really great to kind of have more experienced grown ups in practice. He kind of knew that you knew what they were doing, offering us advice.
Edmund Fowles:We're able
Dave Sharp:to done good at
Edmund Fowles:drawings under under their nose and Yeah. That was, that was really, helpful.
Dave Sharp:And in terms of the skill set that you touched on then that felt like it was a great partnership, was it because there was sort of one person had strengths where the other kind of maybe had gaps? Or was it just kind of similar, but you're both so like minded and passionate about the same things? I think
Edmund Fowles:it's really interesting because we probably started out with being being kind of more dissimilar and Yeah. And having kind of strengths in different areas. And over the last sort of 15, 18 years, however, it's been, we've kind of, aligned more and kind of learned from each other. It's certainly kind of FERC's, skills in a you know, to engage people, to excite people, to communicate, always really kind of inspiring. I was more kind of head down, really into sort of technical detailing and and kind of drafting and drawing and that and that side side of things.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. We've converged in terms of design style and all sorts of things, which is is great, but it's, and we can when in design reviews now, we often foresee what the other one might be thinking or, or or or we we we always, at competitions, especially, we've we've often kinda worked really closely where where one person will pick up an idea. We'll we'll kind of escalate it quite quickly and and bat ideas to and fro. And very quickly, we'll kinda settle on our concept. I I think where we were totally always aligned was around design values and around, social values, hunger to build, kind of desire to actually understand the construction as well and get our hands dirty, get on-site, do trials, do mock ups, speak with the builders, you know, kind of just get stuck in on every level.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. And take that role as, like, a design team leader really seriously, and not kind of defer responsibility to other people in the profession.
Dave Sharp:And so that project that you're working on then, it was quite specific. You know, it's residential planning thing, which is obviously not like the kind of thing you ended up. What was the journey that you kind of went on? How early on did you decide on the type of work that you really wanted to be doing? When did that start to kind of crystallize?
Edmund Fowles:What the t PREM, the first project gave us was a bit of a springboard. So we were actually building that during our part 2 graduated from part 2. We're fortunate to publish it, and then, we're able to pick up a few other smaller kind of domestic projects. But we knew from kind of the early days that we didn't want to just work on kind of residential projects. We wanted to work on more public work, cultural projects, but we had to do our time, you know, kind of before 5 years.
Edmund Fowles:We were sort of plucking away at kind of the smaller residential projects, and they they were really, helpful. We were working in other sensitive contexts with historic buildings, so we built up a real skill set through that work. But we're re really fortunate to, begin working with the school and, offering some really kind of, ad hoc advice sort of for for very kind of low fee, doing a little strategic, master plan for the school, delivering a small covered outdoor classroom. And bit by bit, we were able to kind of grow our grow the sort of trust with that, client. So we ended up developing, a a sort of significant building for them, our our first sort of REPA award winning project, which was, the applied learning center, the Lee center at Ralph Allen School, which was a kind of, 3 or or so £1,000,000 of 6 classroom building with with a hall space.
Edmund Fowles:So it was our first, proper kind of public project.
Fergus Feilden:Within a year, because we had those commissions, within a year, we had rebranded or re kind of skinned our website so that we didn't look like domestic architects.
Dave Sharp:Tell me how you suddenly made it look like we went from domestic overnight to, obviously, the public focus, but not having a lot of completed work at that point. How did you do it?
Edmund Fowles:I think it was partly about the the the way we kind of describe the work. So we were doing a a cup we designed a couple of exhibitions as well. So suddenly we could say we work in arts and culture. We did the school, so we had an education sector and, you know, from that, we had kind of out covered outdoor classroom, arranged a master plan, a building. And then we had, sort of other work sort of residential work, but we called it heritage because it was sort of, you know, adapting an old cob barn.
Edmund Fowles:So we were just sort of trying to make the very most from, relatively slim pickings and
Fergus Feilden:and small projects. We would update the website all the time. So because we would we would desperate to appear kind of more grown up and experienced than we were. So so we would it was the website was was good, but we but it was constantly being updated, and it probably wasn't as kind of proofed in things as it would be these days. But Yeah.
Fergus Feilden:It looked it looked professional. But I remember our old tutor from university, Tom from 6 a, so really respected architect. He said, I really like the energy on your website. You've got all your information up there, you know, and it's it's changing, and I I thought that was quite an interesting bit of feedback.
Dave Sharp:What sort of information do you think you're putting out there that he was referring to?
Fergus Feilden:We were showing kinda construction shots and process, because we didn't have enough built work. So we were we were showing lot yeah. A lot of the process. So we we employed a model maker really early on. In hindsight, it was kind of madness, but it was also it was also really important because we we started to have a load of beautiful models, and the studio was populated by lots of interesting models.
Fergus Feilden:But but we were hardly earning anything, and it was we couldn't really afford to to have him. But it was the kind of again, it set the values. It set the tone, and we were working alongside him. So he was also an architect. He'd studied with us.
Fergus Feilden:So, initially, there were a few people we had studied with, who we were working with, and things like that. But, so we had already had that experience of being in a studio together. That was that was quite important in
Edmund Fowles:a way. Yeah. I think I think we've always, talked a lot about the team on the website even from those early days, which we'd, everyone would have
Dave Sharp:a profile on the website, whether they're a part one or a director.
Edmund Fowles:You know? Yeah. We'd have a lot of we'd have a lot of, a text about kind of our values and about the approach and about our interests in different sectors. Yeah. So I think we've always been very kind of transparent and as open as possible and and use the website as a kind of a sort of lens into kind of everything that we're doing on a day to day basis.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. And architects architects are known for having terrible websites, you know, quite esoteric and, obtuse and, quite opaque. Yeah. And and websites primarily directed at other architects, I think, is often the criticism of which we've heard. And, and so ours was ours has gone through a few iterations.
Fergus Feilden:Sometimes it's been, sometimes it's been more about the process. Then we said, okay. We've now got a a body of work, so we had more of a kind of portfolio site. And now we've just we're just in the process of kind of making some changes again, and it's much more current and live again. So yeah.
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Dave Sharp:To learn more about our process and book a consultation, simply visit officedavesharpe.com. I feel like my impression of your website, first looking at it years ago, was that the kind of the office culture side of the site was as interesting or more interesting than the projects in some cases, because particularly, you know, having a film, particularly showing your studio space, showing the kind of way that the people that you work with were all kind of hanging out in this beautiful garden, eating lunch. I think your office building is such an important asset in terms of communicating what you're about, right? So distinctive. So So I don't know how how early that sort of happened in the piece, but
Edmund Fowles:It was
Fergus Feilden:completed in 2016, but the but it originated in 2014. So, yeah, working working with 2 charities to give them a bit of pro bono support on on creating a city farm in the center of London on a meanwhile site. But then we were we got to the point where we couldn't really afford to do that anymore, but there was also they could afford to develop the whole of their site. So that at that point, we said, well, how about rather than us withdrawing, why don't we get more involved? And we could, we could we could build a space, provide them with some desk space within it, help them with their funding, oversee the master plan.
Fergus Feilden:So that was conceived in 2014. But we then it took us a couple of years to get enough, well, to get a decent project into the practice to for us to afford to build our studio. So that was then built in 2016. Yeah. But but as you say, you know, that is a huge part of of our identity and our culture.
Fergus Feilden:Then we started using the studio to help us win work, you know, to invite clients in. And when they visited, they were like, oh, yeah. You guys are a bit just different.
Edmund Fowles:We always kind of use the studio. We kind of envisaged it as a kind of manifesto for the practice. So lots of the kind of the values and kind of ideas are kind of embodied within within this building. We often talk about our approach being quite low tech. So, we use a lot of timber, often, you know, design buildings, principally from timber frames.
Edmund Fowles:So it was a really interesting journey. We went on designing the other agricultural buildings on the on the city farm kind of growing in scale, and then, the studio, which is a slightly more refined, but kind of borrows sorts of ideas from, you know, the idea of kind of artist studios and dropping in north light from the the clear story. We have this lovely expansive view out to the gardens, and it was always really important to us to kind of make the most of the kind of the walls, garden, existing kind of Victorian garden wall outside. We worked with a really, wonderful landscape designer to to form that that courtyard, but it completely transformed our culture as a practice going from a kind of, a warehouse type office space, very cold, no outdoor space
Fergus Feilden:Yeah.
Edmund Fowles:To, yeah, a really kind of warm, rich environment with a kind of outdoor space. We've got a model shop here. We've got kind of, we can eat outside in the summer. It's it is it is really glorious. I mean, we're we're very fortunate to to to have it.
Dave Sharp:I guess, like, going back to that sort of period where in terms of how you presented the practice to sort of make that transition to look bigger and more established and to put your values out there and to show your team and all that sort of stuff, and also to make the most of the work that you were doing in process. So, like, model making, construction photos, all that sort of beautiful stuff. Behind that and in the background, what were you doing in terms of relationship building or pitching for work or competitions? What was that side of things looking like, and what sort of things were you doing?
Fergus Feilden:We were always doing, competitions almost from the the year that we set up. We were never afraid to to go for them, because they were kind of part of I guess, partly because we had started doing competition together in 2nd year. So it was it was very much part of our culture. And we've always found that doing competitions brings the team together. And there's a there's a level of kind of collaboration that's so intense and that in a way for kind of professional development for the team, so and our culture, it's always been really important.
Fergus Feilden:But so and we were lucky to start getting invited onto some mid lists and or short lists for for some competitions quite early on. Often as the kind of almost like the rank outsider, you know, like, oh, well, we for a bit of diversity, let's throw these kids in the mix. And, so which was, it was it was great for us because we had real exposure, but we also inevitably spent a huge amount of time and effort on them. On the face of it, you could say it wasn't great from from the point of view of, say, finances, but Yeah. But, actually, it was building our reputation.
Fergus Feilden:And once we started getting onto shortlists, for for competitions that were being published, people were taking us seriously because they were like, oh, I saw you published in in this journal or that journal. And, actually, we we landed 1 or 2 of the really big international kind of open competitions relatively early on, you know, after, like, 5 or 6 years. And but that was that was really thanks to having honed that over many years. And, actually, we're we're quite good at interview. We get to we get to build on those values, talk to the clients.
Fergus Feilden:You know, if we can, we inevitably try and get under the skin of what the project is really about, who the people are that we're gonna be working with, and and that approach runs through all the projects. But and over time, now we've got now we've got such an amazing bunch of clients that we work with. That's reassuring for them as well. But, initially, we were trying to kind of, yeah, trying to build those relationships and trust.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. I think one of the the first sort of major open competition we won was for Palmerton College in Cambridge, and that was launched in 2016. Completely open call run by Malcolm Redding, and we threw ourselves at the competition, and I think, you know, something like a 150 entrants to to that. But I think a really massive part of, the success of that competition was, the sort of second round of the interview process, and we brought the client team to our studio. And, as I said earlier, so much of the studio building and our sort of team approach and our kind of culture, is embodied within the the the studio.
Edmund Fowles:So they were able to kinda see that firsthand, and we were able to kind of draw references between, or likenesses between the kind of design that we produced for the dining hall and, on a smaller scale, the the buildings here at the farm on on the site. I think, yeah, as Ferg said, a lot of, I think, our success at the competitions has been from really getting under the scene, getting to know people down to sort of meeting, I don't know, the gardeners on a site, having a chat to them, trying to find out where the kind of, where you can kind of uncover kind of knowledge about a site, and kind of wisdom about a particular site from from individuals. And and that actually trickles trickles up to the people that are often kind of, judging or on the panel. Yeah. You know?
Edmund Fowles:Because those conversations, they they kind of sense that there's been a a real kind of effort and interest, and, you're really kind of committed to to their project.
Fergus Feilden:The competition process also, it does drive, design and identity in a way that doesn't necessarily happen on a direct commission, because you also want your project to to be distinctive in some way or memorable or it wants you you have to distill it right the way down, before you build it up, and and lots of lots of our competition schemes, have the the designs have have lasted and endured right the way through to completion. And that's that's that's pretty exciting in the space of, like, to design, say, a multimillion pound building in the space of a few weeks, and then it lasts then the process takes 5 years to deliver it. But when it comes out, it still has some resonance with you. Yeah. Concept.
Fergus Feilden:It's good.
Dave Sharp:Is it something that you still do actively? Was it one of those things that was kind of helpful in those earlier days before you built that body of work, which is kind of like question number 1. But I just wanna add sort of a second question to that, which is that you crucially talked about where you actually got to engage with the clients and meet with them and go through those, like, second and third stages or or whatever those those steps. Is that something that you always found available in these competitions? Because I I always kinda got the impression that it's kind of, like, putting your a ones, like your 3 panels and your model or whatever, and, like, you then cross your fingers and hope that you win was kind of what I felt.
Dave Sharp:So so was there a particular sort of criteria or a type of competition that you were really trying to look for or filter to?
Edmund Fowles:In terms of why we do it and the the kind of purpose of doing that kind of early on and and now and we're we're still very much, doing competitions. We still go for open call competitions. I suppose we we probably limit the number of those that we do. We kind of allow ourselves maybe a couple of completely open competitions a year, but then we're we're doing quite a bit of, like, invited competition, submissions as well. But in the early days, I think it was it was about kind of sharpening our design skills, I suppose, and and also kind of, learning about new building typologies and, you know, we've never designed housing.
Edmund Fowles:What better way of kind of developing your skills designing it by doing a few competitions in in that arena? And and through doing that, you know, if you do a really good competition submission and you you come kind of in the top top 2 or top 4 or something and you're published, you can put it on your website. It kind of broadens it certainly helps to kind of broaden the portfolio of work or the kind of perceived range of work from from quite an early stage. And now I think we kind of use competitions, goes back to that that earlier point Ferg made about keeping kind of intensity or kind of having punctuating the year with moments of kind of real, intensity. And we see it as quite a kind of a way of kind of bringing the team together.
Fergus Feilden:In terms of our profile, you know, they they have it has served us incredibly well, and has helped us kind of take quite a relatively fast trajectory, and we would kind of benchmark ourselves against the other practices who would be competing with. Most architects are quite competitive. When you see there's people you really respect and you're up against them, you know, we do kind of, yeah, we do pull out all the stops. I think that competitions in the UK have a reputation for being quite an abusive process.
Dave Sharp:Yes.
Fergus Feilden:And I think that is true and that it is often a beauty parade, and you have to be really selective about which ones you go for and whether you think that scheme is actually gonna go ahead because Yep. Quite often, there there'll be a competition that you may or may not choose to go for, and then you find out it just kind of evaporates. And there's it's not even reported, you know, but people have spent tens of 1,000 of pounds on it. So luckily, lots of ours are publicly funded. So if they're government funded, and they're public schemes, they tend to be more supported, we find.
Fergus Feilden:Or if you know that there is already funding in place for for a scheme and that it's not just an ideas competition.
Edmund Fowles:I think we're also quite selective. We we try and do a bit of homework to understand, what the nature of the competition process will be like because there are some processes which are really kind of you're really distanced from, from the client, from the organization. You have no contact time, and we really like competitions where you get some form of engagement. You're allowed to kind of meet people. There are maybe several kind of rounds of, of opportunities to kind of meet with the key sort of decision makers, people who work for the charity, museum, gallery.
Edmund Fowles:And we we find that approach much much more sort of successful, being able to kind of really kind of immerse ourselves in in their organization.
Fergus Feilden:Best avoided the kind of stitch ups. You know? Some some competitions don't have any architectural representation. So they they ask for a design competition, and yet there's no design there's no design expertise or component in the judging. And so ones like that, we would try to avoid.
Dave Sharp:In terms of where you find that those particular types of groups or bodies or institutions or clients or whatever are becoming aware of your work, is it the same sorts of channels that anybody else would like just general sort of previous competitions and projects being published in sort of architecture journals and that sort of stuff? Is there like a particular area that you found you sort of think, it's really important to get our work seen in this particular place or that particular place? Like, I'm looking for maybe something that could be possibly unexpected, like, I don't know, some London Design Week or talks or something turns out to be way more effective than, you know, is there anything in particular?
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. I mean, I think from from a really early stage, the practice has always, really valued doing PR and, and paying for that as well and and writing a strategy every year that gets updated and and and sort of sitting back and really thinking about where should we be positioning ourselves, how should we be talking about our practice, where should we be giving talks. And, yeah, we we don't have sort of endless time to kind of put into PR, but, the time that we do wanna put into it, we should we should use that time really carefully and and sort of position ourselves. So, I think when we've always looked at kind of the RIBA benchmark in terms of expenditure on different, areas, we always found like, oh, we're we're spending like a huge percentage of our, of our turnover than than it's sort of the the benchmark. So, so, I think that's that's had an an impact in terms of I think our our profile has always been slightly ahead of where where we perhaps are in terms of scale.
Edmund Fowles:So, very early on, we took on a, a publicist, and that's that's sort of given a level of professionalism to the way that we we undertake kind of PR activities and the way that we kind of produce press releases. So I think that that's given a kind of certainly kind of raised our profile in in the sort of trade press and and beyond as well with kind of, national articles about, about the practice. So I think, yeah, that that's been a really important
Fergus Feilden:I think I think, yeah, national press, so kind of, you know, daily from the outset. Actually, even way back in, I think, maybe it was 2,010, we had we were part of a group where where there was an article called Britain's Brightest Young Architects, and we couldn't believe the title. You know, it was it was perfect for us because it was excellent PR. And, and so, yeah, that served us really well, but then we also connect our clients quite a lot. So we will take existing clients or potential clients on precedent visits to our finished projects.
Fergus Feilden:We host quite a lot of parties whenever we can, on our site. Yeah. And and and deliberately kind of say to them, you know, if we're do giving a a speech to welcome everyone, we'll we'll say, these are the people who we've got here today. It'd be great to connect to you because they they do. They work together.
Fergus Feilden:It strengthens our projects. They appreciate it. It kinda spreads the spreads the network. That's all really useful. And, and we do find it especially some of our arts clients, like, the the people who are especially kind of galleries, for example.
Fergus Feilden:It's it's a relatively small world, and they know one another. They're very inclusive. They like to have their own parties.
Dave Sharp:They love to party, I bet.
Fergus Feilden:And so, yeah, so we get to meet people through that, and that's great.
Dave Sharp:Bringing it up, I think, where I was kind of curious about was, do you find that in terms of your reputation with this sort of institutional client, is it the press around? Because I think the the press and the PR tends to fall into stuff that kind of revolves around the projects. Like, you know, RIBA, Architect's Journal, like, etcetera, etcetera. But then you've got this more sort of, like, mainstream profiling of, you know, more like profiles and pieces about you guys and the practice and the growth and success of the studio and, like, that sort of broadest young architect sort of stuff. And I sort of wonder, like, that plus talks, plus other things.
Dave Sharp:Have you found that that, like, profile driven stuff has possibly in some senses, like, actually had more of an impact than just more like your traditional sort of architecture press?
Fergus Feilden:I think definitely because it's like the spirit of the practice. It's like the it's people wanna know who you are, don't they? They we all wanna work with people we think we might get along with or we might, collaborate well with or might bring something different to to a situation. So and we we certainly you know, during a pitch, we would talk about that a lot, but, also, I think it's really important that we put that energy out there through, you know, really nice activities like giving lectures or podcasts or profile pieces. And, actually, when we looked at the analytics on our website, that was one of the things that we noticed was that people were more interested in our process, in the people page, in the kind of those profile articles because they are there there's a broader kind of alchemy, and it's hard to define, but it's it's much more interesting than, say, the set piece of a single project sometimes.
Dave Sharp:You briefly touched on it, but talking about when you do get to those, when you get to those later stages where you do actually get to engage and sort of immerse yourself in the project. You you did pick up briefly on this idea of, like, kind of turning up on-site and just talking to everybody and trying to really, have as many conversations as possible. And I guess like interested in a little bit, if you could just expand on that a little bit in terms of what that sort of looks like and then how that's perceived by that client when you sort of present the results of that. I don't know if you sort of tell where this information that you get you collected came from or talk about, we met this we met this person and that person, and we found this out and found that out. Or does it just kind of synthesize into the design, or is it about also demonstrating, hey.
Dave Sharp:We we've done our research. We've met your people. We've listened to you, that sort of thing.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. I I I think it's it's a bit of both. I mean, that knowledge, finds its way into the way that you respond to the site, the way that you design, the sort of sensitivity with which you, put forward proposals. But, also, we we try and bring that in in terms of the narrative, say, in in a pitch we might talk about, oh, we found this out. It was really interesting speaking to your gardener or the porter or, or so on.
Edmund Fowles:And they the the clients we have really, really love that fact the fact that we've kind of really engaged and spoken to people, spoken to students, spoken to staff, and or even spoken kind of more widely to kind of people kind of tangential to their sort of area of of interest. So that that there's, yeah, there's there's sort of 2 angles to it for sure. And there was one occasion, so the the the project, for Hamilton College where after we'd we'd won the competition, it was sort of several months later that the the principal of the college said to us, you know what? One of the reasons we picked you guys was, you know, the pause that really liked you and that, you know, we we we've gone through the assessment process, but she said, I I really like those guys. Phil and Fowles, they were so friendly.
Edmund Fowles:You know, they, they we had a nice chat every time they visited. You know, they added such a nice spirit to them.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah.
Edmund Fowles:And we we want that. We want to make a good impression. Doesn't matter matter at what stage, at what contact point with with any of our clients. We we want to sort of, yeah, be positive and proactive. And
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. We absolutely do. It it's interesting.
Dave Sharp:The bigger the institution, sometimes the harder it
Fergus Feilden:is to get closer to them because of people running the really big institutions because they don't have enough time. They they they they they sometimes say, well, we won't trouble you with these, you know, with introducing you to these people, but so we sometimes have to slightly fight to to still have that. But, because it is it is so critical, they're gonna be the people using the building. They are our audience and our client as much as the people commissioning them sometimes.
Dave Sharp:Are there any other sort of selection criteria that you think are pretty meaningful to the clients that you've been working with? There's that sort of listening and feeling like you've understood their brief and spoken to people on the ground and that sort of thing. Is there anything else that comes to mind just in terms of things that you felt have been big priorities, maybe stuff that you've concentrated on making sure we're we're we're really, you know, pushing that?
Edmund Fowles:I think, you know, sustainability is is huge for for all public institutions now and and many of our clients. It's sort of top of their list, in terms of project priorities. Maybe just behind cost Yeah. Yeah. And program and those other important things.
Edmund Fowles:But but it but it's, you know, compared to, you know, 5 years ago even, you know, now, you know, embodied carbon is there's much more awareness about that even though it's not kind of regulated, operational carbon and so on. And I think, we we've tried to kind of always be on the front foot with those topics. We've tried to sort of practice as we preach in terms of our own studio. We undertook a kind of exercise to, become a kind of net zero carbon business through the kind of Green Building Council, and, we've measured the embodied carbon of our building. So we've we've got all these sort of in house tools.
Edmund Fowles:We have kind of documents, sustainability policy. So whenever we're we're pitching, for competitions and pitching ideas to do with their projects, we can say, well, this is work we've done on our own smaller scale at our own studio. These are kind of topics that we understand inside out, and we're proactively at home. And it it's been a way of actually kind of educating our own team and, everyone in in the team sort of coming along on that journey of sort of educating ourselves.
Fergus Feilden:And I'd say just to to add to that that the, sustainability criteria comes through to the materiality of our work and that, we we've always used a lot of natural materials and the and the kind of low tech approach to architecture. And so lots of our lots of our institutional clients actually really like the fact that our buildings feel less institutional. So, and that's largely through the kind of materiality, the expression of structure, the articulation.
Dave Sharp:So that's also become a bit of a point of difference as well just in terms of material palette and natural materiality that you've become a bit kinda known
Edmund Fowles:for? Yeah. I think what we've been trying to do is, use this massive shift in the in the way that we're going to have to build to define a new architectural language. So rather than designing buildings in a kind of modernist style or a postmodernist style or or whatever and then bolting on some green stuff, really kind of thinking from first principles how we should be making buildings today. So using bio based materials, earth, stone, timber, principally, if we can, and trying to minimize everything else as much as possible in terms of steel, concrete, and so on.
Edmund Fowles:I mean, there are times, there are opportunities when you need to use those materials. They're they're the kind of best best material for the job, but I think there's a extraordinary opportunity to, to make buildings in a more kind of vital way, in a more kind of primitive way. And I I think kind of, it's sort of conveyed in some of the big buildings we've built recently, and we were trying to scale up this idea of kind of making buildings in a more low tech way. We went into the National Railway Museum competition with this idea of trying to make a really big building low tech and, trying to use as much timber as possible, and that's principally a a timber frame building for a national museum. So, yeah, there's there's lots of challenges with with scaling up those ideas.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah.
Fergus Feilden:And some of those things have have been more defined recently, but even at university, like, we had a really good environmental course that was around passive solar design, you know, getting the environmental first principles right around siting and building, the orientation, the sunlight, the prevailing conditions, pattern of materials. And so, our very early work was already already doing that. But as Ed says more recently, the challenge has been how we scale that up, and and keep those qualities.
Dave Sharp:I guess it's something that I imagine that a lot of your other competitors, can use the word competitors because we're literally talking about competitions. So you don't have to shy away from that word like we usually would. Our competitors are probably also talking a fair bit about sustainability because they're responding to, you know, the interests of the client and they know that it's a big priority. And I think one of the challenges with that as an area is that obviously when everybody is sort of talking about it, it becomes a little bit difficult when it's sort of top top priority for everybody. But it sounds like the way that you've approached it is to still then go further and kind of develop your own point of view or your own on brand take on how to approach sustainability, and that's where there will be some contrast between you and some of the other practices, right, where they will each have their own approach and their own kind of interpretation of that sustainable language, but you've kind of got your own sort of field and files kind of way of doing it.
Dave Sharp:Right?
Fergus Feilden:I think that's fair. I mean, when we first set up, we used to talk about sustainability a lot, and then we realized that that's what everyone was. And, actually, the way we were talking about it wasn't very different to anyone else even if what we were doing was different. So Yeah. So then we then we stopped, and we just we just focused on on delivering the the type of architecture we wanted to for a few years.
Fergus Feilden:And we did a bit of soul searching, and that was when we started to to to say, well, actually, we do need to define this, and we we need to be able to articulate it because we're not actually doing exactly the same thing as everyone else. And that was that was where we we started to explore the idea of of low tech principles and of craft and materiality, but also kind of interactivity with with our buildings in the same way that vernacular or historic forms, people would would would would inhabit them in different ways during different seasons of things. So we don't see low tech as being anti technology. It's more about some of the principles and around the kind of inherent qualities of embodied carbon, of of simple design, trying not to, yeah, trying not to separate everything. Like Ed was saying about bolt on things, you know, we want it to be integral.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. I think it's been it's been helpful to, alight on a term that we can kind of get around and interrogate. So, I think it was a couple of years ago that we we said, okay. Let's let's call it something. What what what we're doing is low and low tech kind of was discussed.
Edmund Fowles:And, it's sort of evolving, and and we've had have had recent discussions about poetic pragmatism as a kind of, a sort of slant in it because I suppose sort of low tech feels very kind of, physically focused, I suppose. Yeah. And, what we're trying to do is build buildings with as low embodied carbon, but with as much joy and, impact and and kind of richness and identity as possible. Yeah. And sometimes those things are in conflict, and I think we have to be as pragmatic as possible making buildings today because resources are depleting.
Edmund Fowles:But, also, we need to make make buildings people love and will will cherish and use for 100 of years, hopefully.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. If you just heard the words, which we talk about without seeing the architecture, it it could seem a bit low key. But, actually, we some of our projects at the moment, you know, they do have a touch of the sublime. They've got volume. They've got kind of a a muscularity to them.
Fergus Feilden:So it's definitely not against creating, kind of, yeah, interesting powerful buildings.
Edmund Fowles:And I think that's where there's so much opportunity for architects today. We're kind of moving away from, an era of throwing up buildings in with either a steel frame or a concrete frame, then you you wrap it in something, which and you kind of try and do something interesting with what you wrap it with. We're trying to move towards a more kind of inert, more stereotypic form of architecture, more kind of low bearing masonry, low bearing stone, earth, timber frame, hybrids, and there's just so much potential architecturally to give a give a kind of richer form of architecture that's not kind of paper thin.
Dave Sharp:You mentioned earlier this cross pollinating of clients at parties that you guys host, which is awesome. And this idea of that being useful for developing your network, but also useful for your clients as well in terms of helping them to build their networks. I'm interested in this idea of you trying to find ways to support your clients and help them and assist them. And just just interested in talking about that just from this idea of maybe how architects can kind of support organizations or institutions that may then end up either resulting in potentially a return favor the other way or or possibly help to bring a project to reality in some way that might have otherwise not had, you know, help them establish a particular relationship or whatever. So would you guys mind just speaking to that just in terms of this idea of taking an actual role in in sort of pushing clients in in a in a direction?
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. I've I've got 2 quick examples. One is that while we host parties, we've also had our site we've used our site to host their own parties. So other organizations, people like Open City had their launch here. We've let other education institutions use our site.
Fergus Feilden:So so we've just been we've we've let we've let our site be a vehicle for them to to to do their own things. We don't have to shout about ourselves because they're they're here on our site and they're on our turf and enjoying it, benefiting. So that's that's a really straightforward one. The other one is that when it comes to funding applications, the we we tell we tell our clients who we're working with. They know who we're working with.
Fergus Feilden:They know how our other projects are funded. So recently, we had an arts council, bid going in for 1 client, and they said, could you put me in touch with the the director of this other museum? And so, so I just made the introduction, and I said, yep. This this has been our experience, but over to you guys. They just said, yep.
Fergus Feilden:Thanks. And took it took that conversation off by themselves. So that will benefit us because it's it's still a project we're working on. But from their point of view, they were like, well, it's great that you have this range of experience. And even if you don't have it through 2 or 3 degrees of separation, you can probably help connect us to the right people to make this project happen.
Edmund Fowles:Lots of the clients have shared interests, shared concerns. You know, often they're kind of, sort of worried, you know, anxious going into projects. You know, it's it's a big deal for clients to to outlay vast amounts of money on a project, and, often clients, you know, have to structure themselves in in kind of new ways to deliver projects. So, I think the more that we can kind of equip them with, the skills to be good clients and introduce them perhaps to other organizations who've who've tested different models of delivering projects or tested different funding approaches, then, you know, the projects will be stronger, as a result of it.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. And and those lessons learned saying this project worked brilliantly because we had a design champion. The project manager didn't involve too many people. We had focused we had focus groups that were limited or that fed back in in this way and and trying to I think we've traditionally, we've also or in the past, we've certainly brought lots of that information together into graphical materials so that when we're doing a pitch or when we're talking to the client, we we we're smoothing the path for a more efficient project because they can take they can take forever forever otherwise.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. And often we'll put, current clients in touch with past, clients potentially to talk about, you know, things like procurement route. You know, there was a there was a major museum we're working with, wanted to do a design and build. We thought it would be catastrophic for the project to go down that route and, wrote a whole paper about, you know, a different procurement route and and the benefits of that and put them in touch with kind of other clients that they could talk to about, an alternative approach. So there's there's real value.
Edmund Fowles:And I think, it's it's obviously one thing kind of the architect saying you should do this thing. It's another thing to have the kind of the the mutual support of of past clients, having delivered successful projects, able to have kind of a conversation at kind of client to client level, which I think is really important. So I think kind of trying to kind of expand the network as much as possible, at that level is really, really good.
Fergus Feilden:And and then we benefit because we also get to have these conversations with inspiring people who run dynamic organizations. And Yeah. And you hear about how they get their culture right or you observe it. You're like, well, they've got it really right. Those guys, perhaps less so.
Fergus Feilden:So yeah. So and then, obviously, that feeds back to us about what we might do internally.
Dave Sharp:Yeah. It's it's it's funny, isn't it? Because I think naturally, you sort of have this sense as a business owner that you and each client have this, like, extremely private relationship and that they each exist in their own sort of separate silo. And the thought of, like, bringing them all together, it's not this intuitive thing that you would just sort of naturally do, and I think a lot of people don't. But, obviously, you guys quickly realized, like, the advantages of kind of connecting everybody and and bringing this network together.
Dave Sharp:So it's so interesting. On that point, I guess, also interested in terms of of work that you guys do. You know, once you establish a relationship with an institution, I imagine that there's this there's a opportunity there for future projects to happen with that same organization or that same, like, key key individual of that organization maybe move somewhere else or that sort of thing. So I imagine that maintaining and nurturing those relationships and not just letting them sort of fade away the moment that, you know, the keys get handed over is is something kind of important. Could you guys just speak to that a little bit?
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. It's it's so important. I mean, I think we're we we don't necessarily do it in a structured way or in a kind of, an all an really kind of organized fashion, but having, we probably have a party once, twice a year or something, summer party, a Christmas party, different scale. Sometimes we'll have a smaller event where we just invite, sort of arts and cultural clients along, and those are really good opportunities to to sort of engage, reengage with past clients and and invite them. And even if they don't come along, at least there's been a point of contact.
Edmund Fowles:There's been an opportunity to exchange some emails and just remind them that you're you're here. So I think that that's a really that's a really good opportunity. Occasionally as well, we we just, invite people for lunch or or or take a couple of people for lunch just, with no particular kind of, yeah, aim at all. It's just it's just sort of catching up. And I think, you know, we've got really, really good relationships with a handful of past clients that we keep in touch with.
Edmund Fowles:We're not working with them actively at the moment. But Yeah.
Fergus Feilden:I I think those informal, catch ups are are really fundamental. Yeah. Going going for a drink with somebody, making sure that, say, for example, with a project milestone, when we get planning on a project or funding, it's quite often we've we've said, well, why don't we have a why don't we have a a lunch or a dinner? We'll host it in the garden, and if it's in the summer. And, and they they've been great because then you get all the informal feedback, but you gotta make it fun.
Fergus Feilden:Right? I mean, if if they like you and you're having a good time, and it's gotta be genuine. If you if you yeah. It's a bit hard to force it because if it's if it's not genuine, then chances are you're not gonna wanna keep following up. But, we're pretty lucky that we work with some cool people.
Edmund Fowles:I I also kind of, taking the time to go to other events as well or go to their events or kind of
Dave Sharp:Yeah.
Edmund Fowles:Keep, on your radar kind of different, you know, exhibitions that might be opening or Yeah. That that's really helpful. Just generally I mean, it obviously takes a huge amount of time. And if, you know, running projects, you're busy, it's like, another kind of, evening event to go go to, but but they are super important. It's just those sort of touchstones through the year with with different people who may, in in a couple of years' time, be ahead of another organization and be a be a decision maker and, you know, help you out to to win a project.
Dave Sharp:Sounds like also you guys just really enjoy it as well, the hospitality aspect to, to kind of what you do, even just having the space that you have, where it seems like it's become the perfect place for guests and parties and lunches and, like, you've set it up beautifully.
Fergus Feilden:Well, it's interesting. When we describe it, you know, it it it probably can it can sound quite, idyllic and idealistic. And the the there's those aspects are all there, but I just I think it's important to know that it's also like, it's a it's a struggle to keep on top of everything. And it's something is always probably slightly not not being totally neglected, but something is taking priority. So you go through these waves and cycles in the year.
Fergus Feilden:So, like, when when when we can host people in the garden, we're really we're probably more sociable in the summer. And and but I think there is a there's a kind of instinctive component to it. Ed and I are going to an event an hour and a half from London tonight together, and, we get to have that long train journey. We go out for dinner together, and we just mull it over, and we talk about so there's a there's, yeah, trying to trying to balance the kind of, things that have been are quantitative along with all of those subtle subtle things about how we're perceived and where we should be pushing next, when we should be just consolidating, when we should be pushing forwards.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. I mean, it'd be very easy for us to spend a 100% of our time giving lectures, meeting clients. I mean, it'd be quite fun actually. But then, you know, we'd we'd kind of neglect, yeah, time in the office. I mean, I think there's, you know, just balancing, isn't it?
Edmund Fowles:Sort of about a third of our time is probably doing that sort of stuff. Another third is is is with with clients on projects and project meetings, and probably another third is sort of head down in the studio with our teams Yeah. Developing the designs and so on. And that's the sort of the the triad, if you like, that we we try and maintain, and it and it tips. You know, in the summer, we're probably more, yeah, more kind of outgoing and got the the gardens open and people are visiting a lot.
Dave Sharp:Getting to the point where a third of your time is that sort of public facing talks and networking and attending events or hosting events or things like things like that. I mean, that's still quite a significant amount of your time as well for the 2 of you. And as you mentioned, it sort of cycles throughout the year this time, so it's probably Yeah. Half your time and other times that it's, just a fraction. So that that certainly makes sense.
Dave Sharp:It sort of sort of sits in my mind alongside what you were saying also about investing fairly large amounts of a percentage of the the practices turnover into, I imagine, things like photography, film, you know, getting help with PR and comms, that sort of thing. So in both of those areas, pretty significant sacrifice in a sense of both time, both resources, but what's driving it by the sounds of it, have a big aspiration in terms of where you want to take the practice. Right? Like, it's not like you're doing all of this to just sort of we're really, really happy with exactly where we're at right now, and it's just like kind of keeping things ticking over. It's it's not that because that wouldn't take that much work, would it?
Dave Sharp:Yeah. You know? But it's but it's about going like, we actually have these really, really lofty goals. Like, I'm just guessing.
Fergus Feilden:Well, it's true. We've always been looking looking ahead to the future because we're still we're relatively young practice. You know? We're kind of we're both kind of around 40, and we have, we're gonna be around for a long time. So we we knew that this first third of the practice, the the practice life, the first third of it was gonna be about trying to kind of establish ourselves and be kind of laying the foundations for what for what comes next.
Fergus Feilden:So some of the things that we've always said, well, what what is it about what we want to achieve? Is it about scale? Is it about impact? How do we measure these things? Is it about, kind of yeah, could it be about culture, about profile, all sorts of things?
Fergus Feilden:And, of course, we really we we really care about the profession and the future of the built environment. We wanna be a a a force for good. We wanna have a much wider impact than just what we deliver ourselves. So that's part of the kind of the low tech movement is part of, our our attention to materials. I think culturally, you know, that's why we do why we have articles about the practice and about about about our culture because we we've we've done a lot of looking outside of our own organization at at what works, and we want to be a positive force there.
Fergus Feilden:But I think we do wanna have a wider impact, on the public. You know? That's why we love doing public buildings. We have huge numbers of visitors who pass through the sites that we're working at. We would like to do European work, but it's it's not driven by it's not driven by scale.
Fergus Feilden:We're not saying we wanna be a practice of a 100 people or we wanna turn over 5,000,000 or whatever it might be. Those are not the the indicators that we measure it by.
Edmund Fowles:It's not just about the individual projects we're delivering. I think it's sort of we've I suppose we've realized that we can have a greater impact, in influencing younger practice practitioners potentially, in the future, potentially teaching a bit more. I think it's that kind of we've always talked about being a kind of an an educational environment, not just sort of inwardly, but outwardly as well. So it's a sort of this incubator of kind of, projects we're doing. We're we're always doing r and d.
Edmund Fowles:We're always trying to kind of push this sort of lower carbon ways of building, and we we've kind of feel we have a responsibility to, sort of pass that knowledge on in whatever way we think, writing articles, publishing books, hopefully, in the future, and through through the buildings as well as sort of sort of, leading by example, I suppose. So there's sort of, whilst it's it's hard, it's really hard work just to kind of make a practice stack up financially and and keep the wheels turning and, like, deliver jobs like that that sort of that's a grind that's hard enough in itself, but we we do really want kind of in perhaps in in our next decade to be kind of giving more back, sort of professionally, teaching in terms of research because we think that that's where we could have probably have a kind of much greater impact than than sort of individual buildings. And the kind of form that that takes with, you know, not a 100% sure yet, but, that that's what sort of really drives us and motivates us.
Fergus Feilden:I think that's true. Yeah. The professional development of our team because they you know, people come and they move on and they seeing where the where our alumni as it were go is really fascinating. There's been quite a few practices who've set up off the back of having worked with us. And over, you know, in 20, 30 years' time, one would like to look back and go, wow.
Fergus Feilden:Like, look at the broader the broader impact of the people we've worked with both internally and externally.
Dave Sharp:I'm interested a little bit in project selection in relation to that stuff. You're just talking about there, which is that, you know, a bigger purpose beyond the individual building and also goals and aspirations that aren't purely, we need more turnover. We're trying to really think values first in terms of the sort of work that we're doing, the educational aspect of it, where each project that you do becomes this teaching tool, you know, for the public in a sense. Right? So it must be so important in terms of selecting the projects that you work on then.
Dave Sharp:And how do you prioritize that?
Edmund Fowles:There there'd be a certain type of client where you never be able to test anything remotely kind of, new or innovative or kind of, unconventional. I think we're we're always trying to seek out clients who, are are in kind of a position where they're willing to kind of perhaps be more radical, be kind of trailblazing, you know, testing out not not kind of crazy new sort of technologies or anything, but, you know, build building in this sort of more low tech way, is quite unusual, compared to the kind of the industry standard. And I suppose if we were working mostly for developers, you know, we'd be pushed towards just doing the sort of same old old thing. So I think working with certain institutions I mean, we're fortunate to to work with colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, and they have a very very kind of, long legacy of of having built very high quality buildings. And whilst one can look at it and say, well, it's quite elitist working with those sorts of institutions.
Edmund Fowles:At the same time, if we can do our r and d with, with people like that and, have have quite intellectual conversations with the people running those colleges about what should we be doing to kind of push, this debate forward to make radically low embodied carbon buildings and for you to be kind of, at the help ahead of this, really. And if if you can't build a very, very low embodied carbon, very low operational carbon building at those institutions, then there's no hope for for kind of doing it in the mainstream.
Dave Sharp:Because they they wanna also sort of be an example to the world and the sort of the work that they do. Right? Like, they want to demonstrate Exactly. Something. Yeah.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. So, we we I suppose we're we were quite strategic in trying to work with people who who who are like minded in trying to really kinda push forward those principles, those ideals, and having the, fortunately, having the kind of the capital to sort of to do that? Yeah. Most of
Fergus Feilden:our clients are the end users, and we'll occupy the projects that we design for them, which again is is quite unusual in architecture these days. So that probably is one of our criteria. And as Ed says, you know, about the ambition of those clients, that's also really critical.
Dave Sharp:How do you sense that? Is that something that just based on reputation of that institution, is it based on the way that they describe their kind of brief or their competition, or or what what sort of are the make the big signals that you kind of look for?
Edmund Fowles:Reading their their briefs, their kind of values, their own sustainability statements. I mean, those, institutions, the the colleges, they're all, gearing up to become net 0 by 2030. Many of them, sort of, signed up to kind of pledges, and they know that the the kind of largest part of that process is through their buildings and through their estates. So there's there's a lot of work going on, and, you know, across the country, but kind of, principally, with with those sort of, institutions and and also the kind of national museums. I mean, we're working with the Natural History Museum.
Edmund Fowles:It's probably not, sort of very few institutions in the UK that you can associate more with kind of sustainability, with biodiversity, and so on. So, working with institutions like that, we kind of know, it won't just be us pushing them. It would be them pushing us as well and kind of collectively, we're kind of, try trying to kind of, deliver kind of, you know, radically improved, buildings from a sustainability point of view.
Fergus Feilden:And we'll often ask them at interview, you know, if if not before. If we can speak to them before and ask them about their ambitions, we will. But otherwise, at interview, we can say, well, what is it that we should be testing, developing, pushing on this project? What's gonna make it unique? Because with institutions, often, their identity is so strong.
Fergus Feilden:They're totally aware of that. They're totally aware of how they're perceived. And as Ed says, they're kind of, you know, their their physical environment is one of the most obvious, ways that comes through. So, yeah.
Dave Sharp:You know, this is a sort of loosely based marketing strategy brand kind of podcast. So we do need to kind of I think we've been talking about it in a broad sort of strategic sense the whole episode, but I'm kind of interested. You you did mention earlier on that something that you were quite quite thoughtful about even at the very early days of the studio was this idea that, you know, we we do need to be kind of curated and, purposeful in thinking about the sorts of materials that we put out there, you know, the website presentations, documents, all that sort of thing. I'm just interested in your philosophy around that, what you concentrate on.
Fergus Feilden:Early on, I remember, as I said, Ed was really conscious of our outputs and our graphical outputs and having a style guide and things. And, and Ed wanted to bring in a really good, graphic designer and kind of branding agency to to give us to do us an identity. And, Ed's brother is a product designer and had a really cool company making really nice watches. And, and I think that there was kind of I was I was looking on in awe at the power of of of this. And I'll hand over to Ed to expand on how we selected those people.
Fergus Feilden:But but from my point of view, I was kinda coming at it from a very, like, naive position, but I can very quickly see the power in having all of our external communications looking right, having the right kind of tones and textures, and even down to the paper, down to, you know, all the things that architects care quite a lot about, but so do so do clients.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. Yeah. But it but it was I mean, just sort of painting the the the picture of where we were at at the time. You know, we're we're only kind of 8 people, at a practice. We're kind of barely making ends meet.
Edmund Fowles:And, I was there saying, yeah, we need to invest, like, tens of 1,000 of pounds in, like, really, really amazing branding and a website and all this stuff. And before that point, we've been kind of getting by doing ourselves and kind of getting a bit of ad hoc input here and there. But, given we are kind of around it's around the point of winning our first, gallery project, I suppose it was, that we kind of invested in. We've been collaborating with a really amazing graphic designer on, couple of exhibitions and, just forged a really kind of they they were based in the same studio as us, and, we we've kinda just forged a really, like, amazing relationship, and, they they they kind of, came on board to to to design it. But I think it had, for me, it was about kind of making sure that all the touchstones with our clients, with sort of public, any kind of interface was sort of well thought through, consistent, and there was just, an appearance of sort of, formality and professionalism.
Edmund Fowles:I mean, that kind of an analogy might be about growing up, I always used to work in kitchens and work work kind of, you know, back of house and, like, from washing up, prepping, all that sort of stuff. And kitchens are often, like, complete shit show, like, so much drama going on. And then you go out into the restaurant, and it's, like, absolute serenity. And, like, the public image is just, like, oh, perfect. And, I just I I suppose we kind of that that was what we wanted to I mean, it it was like crazy behind the scenes and, you know, working all hours and Yeah.
Edmund Fowles:A bit kind of, far from being kind of like a a professional outfit. We are now, but but I suppose it was really important to just, at least initially give that impression of, of rigor, of kind of, consistency. So that that, yeah, came through to designing initially just a sort of logo and a kind of, there was sort of a typeface eventually that was designed for us. And then that trickled through to sort of templates, website, a style guide, and we did a kind of refresh of that, 3 3 or 4 years ago as well. But, it's been really impactful because we get comments on it even today on kind of the the the kind of dialogue between the way that we our sort of typeface and our graphics are in dialogue with the kind of work that we produce in terms of the sort of sensitivity of it.
Edmund Fowles:There's there's
Fergus Feilden:a kind of understated quality to to lots of those things, and they are pretty minimalist, but they're really they're they're really beautiful, a bit like, the type. You know, when it's a small font scale, you it it looks a little bit unusual, but then when we use it in documents and suddenly, actually, you can appreciate all of all of this subtlety within it.
Edmund Fowles:It has quite a kind of handmade quality, which is something that, a practice for everyday life who who designed it. We're really interested in kind of bringing kind of craft and and actually kind of making kind of almost like a handmade typeface Yeah. With kind of, very sort of subtle thickening as if you're kind of drawing it with, you know, with a pen or something. Yeah.
Fergus Feilden:And we used to be trying to always uphold those standards with and templates within the practice. But these days, I think, in a way, the practice has its own, has its own life, and people are pushing each other in the quality of the image making of the documents, of the presentation. And I think that maybe only has happened in the last year and a half, though, that I've noticed that it has, the the the quality of the outputs has taken on life of its own, and it's partly because of this this structure that has enabled them to do that, enabled the team to do that.
Edmund Fowles:Well, the great thing was that, once we had this framework, you can then relatively easily kind of translate it to to different formats. So we kind of, launched our first book when we completed the Western Gallery at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Shortly after that, we we published a self published book that that, benefited from, you know, the the new typeface that we designed, the whole kind of style guide. And, you know, there was a there was a structure for that, and that can then be kind of translated to web, to films that we've made, you know, little sort of 3 minute films we're asked to make now and again for pictures. We can still use that kind of graphic identity, and there's just, consistency that appears throughout.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. Yeah. People find it reassuring, don't they? They find Yeah. Consistency and care and thought.
Fergus Feilden:You know, it's, a yeah.
Dave Sharp:Consistency from thing to thing that they see, but also consistency between what they're seeing in the work, what you're saying, and then what they're seeing in the the branding. And I think a lot of it is subconscious communication, right? It's like, they might not be explicitly analyzing, oh, the typeface is giving me these emotions, but it's just like this subconscious sort of reptile brain thing that they just see it and they just feel a certain way, right, compared to what they might be seeing from other practices, perhaps who who look maybe a bit more shambolic in their kind of approach. No. That's really interesting.
Dave Sharp:And I just like that. I I think there's this been the scene that's come up on the episode of doing these things perhaps earlier in the journey than others might have when it was a little bit of a risk and a little bit uncomfortable, but it was going, you know, it's really bloody important. Let's sort of sacrifice and do this because it's the right thing to do. And it will, it's a good investment, and it will kind of get us closer to where we wanna get to quicker. Right?
Dave Sharp:That seems to be the sort of thing that you've been doing fairly frequently.
Fergus Feilden:Yeah. Laying the foundations and setting the tone and setting out your stall and then, and your road map and then and then trying to roughly follow it. You know? There's always some interesting details, but at least there's a there's some idea of where we wanna go.
Edmund Fowles:And it's also I mean, the the graphic identity and, the kind of that that language is is often the sort of first point of contact for whether it's someone visiting the website, or someone reading a cover letter for a submission that we've, we put together. That's that's the first thing that they touch or they they interact with from the practice. So making sure that it's it's not a kind of a flimsy bit of paper with a kind of shambolic kind of graphic language, you know, that it's it's really, carefully thought through. And, I mean, I think the significance of, like, the first covering letter that you write to someone is is really important. So having excellent kind of, graphic design and and sort of brand identity that follows through is is super important.
Dave Sharp:I wanna do a, like, some sort of study around architects that just like resort resource Their marketing and branding properly and like what that leads to in terms of, because I think, I don't know, I guess there's this perception that to like do marketing well or comms, well, you have to like do a lot of it. It's about increasing the quantity. And I guess there is like an aspect of that, but I think a lot of the time it's like practices just doing the basics, but doing them really well, spending a bit more on it, you know, to work with really good people seems to be all well, a big part of what you actually need to be to succeed with it. And it's not actually that complicated kind of beyond that, I suppose.
Fergus Feilden:It's a great point. I mean, that's one of it's like design. You know? It's the the essence of good design is kind of when you can't take any more of the the the the superfluous stuff away. And, and I think similarly with with comps, you know, it's gotta be, consistent and it's gotta be it's gotta have integrity, but quite often less is more.
Dave Sharp:Yeah. Like, philosophically, that's where I've been at with with marketing strategy in, like, recent years. I think earlier on, I was thinking in terms of, like, trying to get everybody to do as much marketing as possible, as many types of things. Here's all the different stuff you could do. That was like the the earlier sort of inexperienced sort of side of it.
Dave Sharp:But then with experience, it's about the real challenge is reducing it down to as fewer elements as possible. Right?
Fergus Feilden:But then
Dave Sharp:putting all the quality and all the love and attention into those few things that you're doing has become like the recipe. But I think it's funny because, like, it it kind of is coming back to an architectural value system. But in marketing and comms, like, I think that is how we think about design and good architecture is is kind of that that that sort of stripping things back.
Fergus Feilden:I think the the journey that we've been on so far and that we've, that we're that we're going on, has been around a, kind of holistic, integral approach to architecture and practice and our culture. And, initially, that may have started out as a kind of an internal process about getting our own house in order whilst getting the design right and things. But we're at this transition now where we have a kind of a public profile. We have a public impact, and the the next step is about making sure that it all everything feeds into each element to to create a greater whole. And I think where we're heading for the next 10 years is really exciting because those foundations have been laid, and we're we're we're we're setting off on on the next, yeah, the next important step of our journey.
Edmund Fowles:Yeah. Oh, that's a really good summary, I think. Yeah. We've been moving from a a period of creating to a period of kind of maintaining and kind of consolidating our our kind of profile and and actually kind of it it's there's quite a a big kind of 5 year chunk of time ahead of us, where we're really focusing on kind of the delivery of pretty major projects. So I think that will slightly shift the kind of the way that we've done PR and the way that we kind of we talk about the practice.
Dave Sharp:You'll just disappear for 5 years, basically.
Edmund Fowles:Well, I think it will be just slightly different rather than lots of sort of, smaller bits of kind of, press and things. I think we're moving towards sort of slightly more kind of grown up,
Fergus Feilden:fewer, more significant projects. Yeah. And, and and yeah, with a bigger impact.
Dave Sharp:Very exciting. Guys, thank you so much for going on the podcast.
Fergus Feilden:Thank you, David. It's a pleasure. Yeah. It's great to great to discuss it together.
Dave Sharp:That was my conversation with Fergus Fielden and Edmund Fowles from Field and Fowles. If you'd like to learn more about their studio, you can visit field and fowles dotco.uk or follow them on Instagram at field and fouls. This episode of Office Talk is sponsored by Office Dave Sharp, a practice providing specialized marketing consultancy and strategy tailored to meet the particular needs of architects across the United Kingdom. To learn more about our process and book a consultation to discuss your practice, simply visit office dave sharp.com. That's all for this episode.
Dave Sharp:Thank you very much for listening, and I'll see you next time.
