Welcome to another episode of the Mindful Builder Podcast.

We're recording today out of the Built to Lasts studio by Pro

Climber, who is our major sponsor.

Um, been kind enough to support us after a year of tracking us and probably 10

years of working with their products name.

Is that right?

Yep.

And Roger, you would have experience with working with Pro

Climber Systems too, wouldn't you?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

They're, they're best in the trade.

Really?

We

couldn't have scripted that even better.

No,

we didn't even guess Write that one down.

That

was, that was perfect.

So where Roger Bo Boland Architecture.

Borland.

Architecture Bo.

And is pronounced it wrong.

Sorry.

Uh, who are you?

Who am I?

Oh, well, it's a bit of a long story.

How far back do you want me to

go?

Go for it.

We, we, we've got, we've got a good hour.

Well, there's, there's an accent there, so maybe

let's,

there is.

There is, I'm originally from the northwest of Ireland, from a place called

Donal, um, which is pretty much the middle of nowhere in Europe and sort of as far

north and west as you can go in Europe.

Um, pretty exposed part of the world.

Um, really strong winds coming off the Atlantic and, uh, grew up on a farm and

really that's where it all started for me, you know, very hands-on, on a farm.

You know, we had one of eight kids and it was very much everybody was

hands on deck, making sure that we actually got, uh, got everything done.

And my favorite place on the farm was in the workshop, was actually

taking engines apart, making stuff angle grinder, welder, putting things

together, really trying to explore yeah, the, the physics of actually putting

stuff together and how they worked.

Why you become a tradie then.

Um, I really liked the design side of it through school.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like my favorite topic in school was technical drawing, actually.

Pen and pencil, straight lines.

Yeah.

And it's was sort of set from the start.

Right.

And it was really the only thing at school I was any good at.

I love it when you've got a detail and you've got like a window, ceiling, I

gotta draw it and you can sketch and like, I actually enjoy that myself.

Like it's a very process thinking, all right, what if you do this, do that.

Like it, I totally get the technical side of things.

Yeah.

So it kinda led into that how, how things are put together into design

of how things could be put together.

Yeah.

So it was a leader towards that, if you like.

Um, and I was never any real good at design.

I felt whenever I was younger and throughout the whole university

phase, I, I kind of failed to design a lot of the time 'cause I came

from two practical or background.

Yeah.

And like I, I was a tra on site for a little while.

I carried blocks and did roofs and skirtings and all that sort of stuff.

Um, so I came from a really practical background and also

did a construction course for two years before starting university.

'cause I didn't have the grades to go straight in.

And so it took me a while to develop design.

And it was only really when I started working for.

Designers, not university people, that I actually started to get it

and see the world in a different way.

That this is a, is something that, it's a challenge that you need to solve.

There's, there's problems in the real world that you need to actually

solve, and that's what design is.

It's a problem solving exercise.

Did you, did you do your architecture training in Ireland?

In England?

In England,

yeah.

The northwest of England.

And what, what does that look like?

Because we've, we've had some architects, uh, well, Liam from Hip

first hype on before, talking through what that looks like in Australia.

What does that look like in, uh, in England?

Like what, what's that kind of, the learning modules,

it's pretty much exactly the same as the Australian one.

Okay.

In fact, it's borrowed from the British version.

Right.

Um, so it's three year degree, first undergrad, and then you

do a year out in practice.

And then you go back in for your post grad two years in university, and then

you have a final year out where you do your professional, uh, training

within a practice, and you actually do your end exams at the end of that.

It's only after those seven years and 24 months of practical experience that you

actually can apply to be an architect.

Do.

Do you find that, um, I, I think it's, it's great to hear that you've

had this time on the farm as a kid growing up, tinkering, sort of that

hands-on touch feel kind of experience.

Uh, and then obviously you've done this time on site experience as well.

Do you think that's given you a bit of an advantage when

it comes to your design work?

Like a more sort of practical approach to your designs?

At the start, I would've said no.

But now I would say definitely.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's, uh.

Yeah, my, my approach to design is very practical.

It's actually taking a brief and really breaking that down into the day to day.

I, I actually think that my approach is a bit like a method actor.

It's a bit like Daniel Day Lewis, you know, going out on, uh, taking a roll on.

Like they said, Daniel Day Lewis would stay in that character for potentially

months after the role had finished because it was So he only has a

few films a year.

Exactly.

On a year.

Like randomly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I feel I'm a bit like that.

Like you get so invested in the actual life of the people that's

gonna live in the building, that you become them and you actually envisage

how you move through the house.

And the practicalities, are they left-handed, right-handed?

What does that mean for the kitchen, the bathroom, all these

sort of little moves that make the home fit that particular client.

I never thought of it that way.

Do you know what I, just listening to you then talk through that.

I think.

If anyone's gonna listen to anything in this podcast, it should be the

last one minute of you talking like I'm talking builders and trades.

And if you've ever questioned anything that's on the set of documentation,

just listen to what Roger has just said then, because there are so much time

and energy and thought that you put in before you actually start putting pen

to paper and what that h what that house looks like and something that we might

think looks stupid or doesn't, wor why, why are we doing it way, why on the

left hand side, not the right hand

side.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there, there's a reason.

So that's, um, that's a great, we just, so we'll just right now, yeah,

we'll just press, we'll just stop.

Alright.

That's a key.

TA's a key to go home

because you, so, and this might be jumping forward, jumping back sort of thing that

you said, like with architecture you do all your training, but you said you

pretty much didn't know until you started learning from someone in a practice.

Could architecture be a traineeship where you spend 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years,

you do your schooling on the side bit.

A lot of the uni is just a waste of time, and you just start to learn that way.

Would that be a better method?

Look, I, I think the, the architectural education process is definitely broken.

I think there's, there's issues in there in regard to disconnect to

reality, um, and the fascination with conceptual design.

I think we really need to get back to focusing towards the practicality of

dealing with people and climate and situations that are right in front of us.

Because people think architect, they think, well, the top four,

five architects, and that's what they think an architect is.

They don't realize that no, the average human should be using one.

Can I, can I, can I challenge that just for one second, and maybe

I'm sort of jumping on the, the institution side for a second.

I really like the idea that in the first three years that you're

at university, you just have freedom for design and creativity.

And that's, I guess, my very rudimentary understanding of what

the first three years are, where it's basically design without restriction.

Don't think about engineering, don't think about the what ifs, don't think

about this, don't think about that.

'cause I think that gets the creativity juices flowing.

I think if, if you're kind of restricting people, um, to just design in a certain

way, do you think that we're just gonna get a rinse and repeat product at the end?

Because like

that's what we have right now, isn't it?

Well, I, I love architecture because it's so different.

Like right now my algorithm on YouTube is the local project.

I just love sitting down seven minutes and just watching these homes.

Now I know that they're not accessible for 99% of the population 'cause they're

built in a cove in the middle of New Zealand on Wah Island or something,

and it's probably $20 million to build.

But I love the freedom in that design where they're kind of

designing without restriction.

Yeah.

But, uh, there is restriction at the same time.

You've got building codes, you've got this client's brief, you've

got the site in top of you a

hundred

percent.

Yeah.

All of those things are the thing that's actually driving the design.

Yeah.

And that's where it really needs to come from.

Yes.

There's a, a massive layer of creativity that has to go over the top of that,

but yeah, it's really a puzzle solving exercise within all of those things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the foundations of design are really critical and, and obviously that has to

remain within the university courses.

Yeah.

You gotta understand proportion, you gotta understand where the sun's coming from.

Shading.

But the real basic stuff, real

basic stuff.

It's an interesting point about the sun thing because I have talking to, uh, a

couple of architects where they've been the son or the daughter of a client

that's come in and they've said, oh, we, we'll design it for mom and dad.

And I'm like, okay, cool.

Well, do you have any understanding of passive house?

No.

Okay.

Well, do you understand passive solar principles?

Oh, no, we didn't learn that at university.

Wait, who?

Who's this an architect?

No, this is, so this is experience I've had where I've sat in front

of, uh, like a, a zoom call.

Yeah.

And the parent, I'm talking to the parents to potentially build their home.

Oh, okay.

And the kid, son or daughter sitting there and they're an architecture graduate

and they're gonna design the home.

And I, and my question is, you know, this is the type of things that we build

and it kind of feels like it doesn't get talk, talk taught, taught at university.

Maybe.

Maybe it does.

No, it's a long time since I was a junior.

But, and, and my day sustainability and actually site orientation and things like

that were definitely not a huge topic.

Yeah, yeah.

And it was, it's fundamentally wrong.

Yeah.

It's like it should be the starting point of everything.

It's the first drawing I do on site now as a site analysis.

Yeah.

It,

it's like, I don't know, maybe I'm a bit.

Harsh with this comment that when I see someone say, oh yeah, we

designed with passive solar, I'm like, isn't that just doing your job?

Yeah.

Like that properly should it's, it's like when the builder's

like, oh, we wrapped a house.

Yeah.

Correctly.

It's like, isn't that just doing your job?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, there, there's a question on a, another podcast, which is passive solar

or passive host that you can't actually get one without the other really properly.

Yeah.

That's a sustainability podcast that, that was, was actually,

no, it's right at the end.

It's like one of the questions Yeah.

Is, you know, are you passive house or passive solar?

And the reality is you can't build a passive house without

good passive solar, Don.

Correct.

Good fundamental, passive, passive house is

just adding on mechanical ventilation, air tightness, and a few other bits and bobs.

Really?

Yeah.

Passage solar design should be the absolute genesis of every single design.

Correct.

It's the very first drawing you do on site.

And so I Why

get forgotten though?

Where did it, where did it get lost?

I think it hasn't been taught from the start, like we're

talking about originally.

It's, it's just a, a missing, massive, missing piece.

It's so

you, you, you said bef, you've made a comment before about, you

said that the, the architect's education system is broken.

I would also add to that, that I think the apprenticeship system is broken as well.

So we've got these two, like,

don't get me

started.

The system, system completely broken sort of systems where we are sitting

at the end of it trying to like fix it all, you know, at the other end where

it should be getting fixed back here.

So we don't have the problem up here.

Yeah, quite right.

It's uh,

bizarre.

It's all

Oh, we've solved all the problems now, right?

Don't I?

I like, I think, I think a, the architectural and obviously, 'cause

we're in the building industry, we, the building side, we see the problems

with the apprentices that is so far behind times that hasn't changed since

I was an apprentice 15 years ago.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

That's mind blowing.

Crazy.

What, what, what are I, I'm interested to understand, um, what is, what,

what, what's your process when you first go to site with a client?

Like, what are you looking for?

What are you, what are you trying to experience?

What's the, what information are you trying to get from that site?

What time of day do you go there?

So.

It all starts before I go to site, typically.

Yep.

And so the first thing I do is I actually extract a brief from the client.

Yeah.

And it's, it's a bit of a different brief than what a lot

of other designers would do.

I I never start with how many bedrooms do you want?

Yep.

I start with what do you do when you get up in the morning,

make a coffee.

Love that.

It's because that, that question alone helps me reflect on the route through

the house where they're going to be.

Do they want quiet?

Are they mixed up with all the kids getting lunches ready?

Um, is it, you know, that that really sets the tone for the

house from the start of the day.

So I track these questions pretty much the whole way through the day.

And then on weekends it's different.

Holidays can be different

in the

future, you actually start to get a picture of the people's lives and then

you start working out, well, how often do they have guests around the house?

Do they need that separate bedroom for guests?

Yeah.

Could it be a multipurpose space?

Does it need to be a completely separate studio?

Do they work from home?

All these questions inform the design process, and it's far more valuable

than how many bedrooms do you want?

And I love classrooms

that there's been so many great little fucking soundbites

from this podcast already.

So when asked, like the team from Alter Rico, the question, some of the

questions they asked me, I was like, why the fuck would you wanna know that?

Mm-hmm.

And then it's like, it makes you, it makes sense.

Like

again, it goes back to me being that method actor, right?

I've gotta get in the head of them.

Yeah.

So if I can do that, then I can actually design a house

that completely reflects them.

Yeah.

Look, we've got a client, he's a pilot, like his hours are all over the place.

So he needs a place that the daytime and nighttime aren't really.

They're a thing, but they're, yeah, a little bit different to what we would do.

So he needs a place to shut off at night on the day if he

needs to sleep sort of thing.

It needs to be dark and it needs to be, yeah.

Correct.

So yeah, you do, you do appreciate when you see good design from a builder's

perspective and you, and then you start to understand the client and what they

do, and you go, ah, that's why it is.

And that's why I constantly comment to other builders and even trays,

it's like, it's not your house.

Like you might design it differently, but you're not the ones that live in it.

Do, do you think you should, you should.

What's more important?

Should you see good design or should you feel good design?

Uh, it's gotta be both.

So yeah.

I think you feel it as, as feeling it is probably where the

longevity of it is for a family.

Yeah.

Um, the seeing it is, is just good architecture,

seeing it what you can afford.

Yeah.

It's, I mean, it's.

To be timeless is really important for the longevity of any sort of building, right?

You've, you gotta, you gotta have the right bones behind it that's gonna

make sure that it works over a long period of time for multi-generations.

Um, so that scene, that is obviously important.

Yeah,

that's a good question, Hamish.

Thanks.

I like, I like that one.

I'll

just written it down.

I'm gonna

use that

again.

Great question.

Um, alright, I, I, Roger, I love that.

Like, I, I love just those really simple and they're really intuitive

questions too that just make sense.

You, you'd not for a second is you are going through any of that was,

I'm like, why would you ask that?

And I'm like, oh, that makes all the sense in the world.

So we've got this lot of baseline information from the client.

You, you're obviously doing your desktop review of the site and all

that kind of stuff when you're actually on site, like do you camp on site?

Do you go there certain times of the day?

Like what, what are some of the things for you to really intimately

understand that building site?

I tend to go with the client initially because of, more often than not, it's a

knockdown rebuild or something like that.

And so their experience of having lived on the site is very important.

Yes.

So you, you ask questions like that tree over there, are there

birds in that in the afternoon?

Like, uh, the sounds there is that a really important, um, is,

does the sea breeze, where does the sea breeze come from here?

Is there shelter?

Is it really rough here at certain times?

Is a

neighbor

a pain in the ass?

Exactly.

Sort of you start asking the, as much of the background of the site as possible

from an environmental point of view.

And so again, that sort of adds another layer on top of the, the design and then.

I often will try and stay behind after I've let the client go just to sit on

the site and try and experience it.

Um, I can't say I go at a particular time of day, it's just logistics usually.

Of course.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I would love to stay there for 24 hours if I could.

The best experience of this and all was, um, there was a site in Brighton

that, um, that I was engaged to do and um, I was looking to move house at

the time and there was an old house on the site and actually agreed with the

client to live in the old house for 18 months while it was being designed.

And that, that was, that was a pretty awesome experience because

Wow.

Whilst I was designing the house, I was there.

Wow.

And so I could see where the afternoon sun was coming from.

I could see those birds and the noise of them and how that,

so you write into your contracts now that you are moving

into six

months?

Yeah.

That would be ideal.

That would be fantastic.

And do you think you

got a better result because of that?

Definitely.

And did they, do you think they acknowledged that and felt that.

Yeah.

I mean, they have not that long moved in, but clearly the site operates using

all those things that I found on site.

And they will, I mean, they probably, they didn't live there before

themselves, so they didn't experience it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So they're kinda getting the advantage of that, the passive

house you just finished.

Well, it's, it's not passive a high performance, but Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Can you give an example of something on that particular design and a

ultimately built project that you might not have picked up on if

you weren't on living on site?

Yeah, good question.

Pants on today?

Yeah.

Uh, a key one on that is, um, at the rear of the site, there's a cricket oval.

Yes.

And on.

Saturday afternoons or Saturday mornings, the kids come and they play cricket there

and it's actually a very joyous sound.

And on a Saturday, a afternoon, but also the way the site was,

the fence was quite high and the old house couldn't quite see it.

So we actually elevated the house a little bit more so we could peek

over the top of the fence naturally.

And so now we get the noise whenever the back doors are open and that

view of the, the oval from that.

Did I like cricket?

Uh, it doesn't really, it do matter.

It doesn't really matter.

It's, it's more to do with just the experience and the environment.

Wow.

So I love that.

Yeah.

That was one example.

I,

which is what everyone puts that wanky biophilic term on now, don't they?

Like, isn't it just like pretty much what you said, just

Yeah.

Experiencing it,

it's experiencing your surroundings and trying to bring that into

the design and make sure that that allows for that to happen.

Yeah.

Um, you touched on before, um, passive house and high performance

homes and stuff like that.

Has, has, has sustainability, um, caring for the environment, energy

efficient homes, and all those, uh, I guess buzzwords these days

been always been important for you.

Yeah.

They have always been important.

Like I said, growing up on a farm at home, it was.

It was very much, we grew everything we needed on Yeah.

On site.

It was very much connection with the land, connection with

the environment around you.

You know, I grew up in a 300 year old house with meter thick stone walls.

Wow.

That had doubled glazing.

UPVC doubled glazing in it since the early 1980s.

Makes me so angry,

and it wasn't a warm house.

Um,

well, I'd imagine it'd be so much more fucking cold if it didn't have

that, but I couldn't imagine building an Australian house that was built

30 years ago and putting it there.

Yeah.

Or yesterday

you'd basically be in a shed in that environment and that would've

been better out in one of the barns.

So I, I reckon at the time, and maybe I'm just putting words in your mouth, did,

did you appreciate where you were living?

Because I've, I've got these, maybe rightly or wrongly, like

just these beautiful images in my mind of you growing up on a farm.

In these beautiful old daisies picking daisies.

Yeah.

Like, you know, chasing sheep around and picking potatoes.

Um, like do you look back on those times fondly?

Uh, absolutely loved it.

It's, it's, um, it is such a harsh environment though, that

are times whenever you're there, you just want to be anywhere else.

But they're,

and just

went Was you like one of these areas just wet the whole time?

Just, yeah, it rained constantly.

And, and I'm imagining like those brick fences everywhere.

Is it, did you have that too?

No.

Watched

too many Grand Designs episodes.

Pebble Dash,

yeah.

That day.

Is that what it's called?

Pebble Dash?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it's, they won't go crazy for Pebble Dash and, you know, SL roofs.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

It's really sturdy buildings.

Yeah.

But they need to be in that environment.

Of course.

Yeah.

How far away were you from the Atlantic?

Uh, there was a bay in front of our house that's less than a kilometer away.

Oh,

so like real close?

Yeah.

Geez, the Atlantic is probably five kilometers away.

Yeah.

So

did

you go swimming in summer?

In summer, yeah.

But

in

winter, yeah.

I did it once in winter.

That was enough.

Was there any good surf there?

Very good surf there.

Yeah.

Not that I ever, it's one of those weird things again.

It's right on your doorstep.

Yeah.

And I never actually used it.

It's too

cold

most of the time.

There's like cracking surf there.

Like some of the big wave surfers go there.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they're in like, they've got like this much of their face shown

and gloves and booties and stuff.

Wild.

Like the footage of It's crazy.

Too

many sharks.

Oh, we all sharks though.

There

probably too cold for sharks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They get wheel showers.

So

sustainability has always been something that's been, um, really important for you.

It, it's always been important, but it only really came into my psyche whenever I

did an exchange in, I'm at the University of Washington, Seattle for three months.

Oh yeah.

And.

There.

I picked up a book from somebody called, uh, cradle to Cradle.

If you haven't read this, I commend it massively.

It's a. It, it really explained this whole idea of designing to not be

thrown away and not even designing to be recycled, but designing to upcycle.

Yeah.

Like nature does.

And it uses the, the, uh, analogy of, of a cherry tree.

It cherry tree blooms in the summer.

It has millions of flowers on it, and it feeds the birds.

It feeds all the creatures and to it, but it has way more than it needs.

It has an abundance of flowers on it.

And it does that for a couple of reasons.

One is the beauty of it for the environment around it.

The second one is it drops 'em all back into the soil and it

fertilizes the soil and makes everything around it grow as well.

And so it's, that's what true op cycling is.

It actually is doing way more than a. What it's meant to do

itself and to support itself.

It's actually supporting the whole environment around itself.

So I love this idea from a very early age when, uh, and that exchange program

at uni, 'cause that just set the path to me to say, doing architecture

isn't a one building exercise.

It's a world exercise.

We have a much bigger influence on what we're doing here, and we need

to do it right because otherwise we're screwing everything up.

And how amazing is Washington State?

Uh, it's an incredible,

one of the most incredible places that I've ever been.

I haven't been there.

Yep.

Yep.

We, it's the first place that Lucy and I went to when we did our

trip from Whistler through Central America, through Washington State.

And it was just, it is incredible.

Most amazing.

Um, I love that idea of the thing, the tree in this case, like

nourishing everything around it.

Um, do you kind of take that philosophy in the homes that you design that, um,

that the homes that you're putting on a site improves the surrounding, uh,

I guess experience for everybody else?

Yeah.

Um, whenever I think of self-sufficiency now, I actually think of it

self-sufficiency beyond the site.

It's doing things like green roofs, for instance, that actually encouraged

biodiversity within the neighborhood.

It, it actually, which is

probably important in the sites that you work on, 'cause you probably don't have

the advantage of having a big backyard.

So you're trying to put in this greenery, in the biodiversity in places that.

You normally wouldn't go.

Yeah.

And that's, that's a key component of it.

The other part of it is things like trying to encourage clients to have a small,

productive garden because it teaches the kids where their food comes from.

It teaches them that you can grow in abundance and you

can grow more than you need.

And then you can put a basket out the front of your house and

you're engaging with community.

Yeah.

And they're actually, you're part of more than yourself then as well.

And it starts conversations.

It starts, um, you need to come encouraging other people to do that.

You need to come and look at our food for at home, man.

You'd absolutely love it.

There you go.

You see you're growing a lot.

Hate, hate first year.

We we're totally digressing here, but I, I love this stuff.

Uh, we, it is been in, we started at this time last year

and we have oranges growing.

Pears growing fruiting.

Uh, watermelon's growing.

Wow.

Berries everywhere, like tomatoes coming out of our wazo.

Zucchini.

Will you be self-sufficient from a vegetable perspective?

Uh,

to certain things?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like speaking of this connection, um, we've said to Darcy, 'cause he's

quite the entrepreneurial spirit kind of kid, and I'm like, look, any surplus,

we're happy for you to go and sell to the neighbors, knock on the door and sell it.

However, it gets split three ways.

Third of it goes back in investing into the garden.

A third of it goes to charity, third of it goes to you.

I thought you were gonna say you took a third share of the company.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Entrepreneurial company.

It's a connection.

It's a connection.

It's the sharing and it's the abundance.

It's surplus and stuff.

We are very fortunate.

We've got the space to do this, so why not share?

Has he

gone?

Dad?

What about the overheads?

What's the next lesson?

Business.

Business 1 0 1 first, Matt.

Uh, I love that.

That's the cherry tree.

That's what you're creating right there, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So why don't you come to Australia?

Uh, one year of adventure.

That's, that's where I came here.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

This seems really like a booby chat.

Booby trap for everyone,

everyone,

expert.

I've done it.

Appreciate.

Um, it's actually gonna be really good for the, uh, for the videos.

Um, so you come here to travel

interactive videos?

Yeah.

I, I got married after a year after finishing uni and my wife and I sort of

said, well, we've got some choices now.

Yeah, we can, we can go and get a house in suburbia in Manchester or living at

the time, um, or we could go and have a year of fun before we settle down and work

out what we're gonna do with their life.

And so we looked at various places around the world and Australia

had always appealed to me.

'cause one of my, um, good school friends in primary school moved over to

Melbourne in the year, late eighties.

And, uh, always had an image of Australia in my mind and wanted

to explore it 'cause of that.

And it was.

Yeah, that was the top of my list really.

So, came to Australia, did six months in Sydney, working for a company

over in Neutral Bay, designing beach houses, which was just a dream.

Yeah.

Yep.

Um,

particularly there and the hand and the clients and

the houses that you're designing.

It was incredible.

It was just, you know, this is, this is what architecture's about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And uh, so it was a wonderful experience and, but I always felt

like a tourist in Sydney and I was deliberately a tourist in Sydney.

Like we had thousands of photographs of go out every weekend and just

explore and enjoy the environment.

And then we had planned to do four months in Melbourne, came here, got a job within

a couple of weeks of being here, and pretty much immediately got sponsored

and stopped taking photographs and.

Looking back on that, that was just a sign of the comfort of being here.

Yeah.

And knowing that I didn't need photographs to remember those places

'cause I would just go back there anyway.

Yeah.

Wow.

And I never, after being here nearly 20 years now, I still haven't

explored the rest of Australia.

Which is the, I

was gonna ask

you the last month that we were actually supposed to do

in that, in that 12 months, did you just spend it in, well you've obviously been

here for a lot longer now, but six months.

Sydney, four months, Melbourne.

You didn't do any other travel?

Well, that was the plan, but no, we didn't get there.

Have you got there since?

Uh, not as much as I'd like to.

It's still still on the to-do list.

A lot of it, but, um, I think

same for me too.

Like I've lived here all my life.

Yeah.

And there's still many places.

So many places I want to go and see.

And you And then just, that was it.

Never went back.

Well, been back obviously for trips, but Yeah.

Never gone back to, to live.

Um, the longer term plan is to go back.

Yeah.

So I'm very much building the businesses to be self-sufficient

without me at the moment.

Yeah.

And so it's a, that's a ongoing process.

So within four years, the intent is for me not to be leading these companies at all.

So it's somebody else's actually, well, a team of people are doing it without me.

Yeah.

With all of my ethos and all of the direction that I have, uh, extracted

from me and put into a process instead.

And So you wanna go back to live in the uk?

Yeah.

Well, there's a big family draw.

We've got no extended family here at all.

Yeah.

It's difficult.

Wow.

Uh, it's, it's been really difficult, especially for my wife.

Yeah.

Um, so it would be really nice to be closer to them.

Certainly.

And, um, I'll probably end up doing, you know, six months in each place

so that we can be the ideal, but.

And how old are your kids?

Uh, they're, uh, 14 and eight.

Okay.

So would you wait for them to finish school?

Yeah, well in, you know, in a few years time we'll get to the end of,

um, my daughter's high school and, and also the end of my son's primary

school at exactly the same stage.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's a good time.

It might be the ideal time to do it.

Yeah.

But that's the plan.

Yeah.

Whether it happens or not, I don't know yet.

And you talk businesses 'cause you are, you know, ball ball, balland architecture

and you've also, you're also an author.

Yes.

A book, which thank you for sending that across.

I'm halfway through it.

And you've still got, you've got another, have you just started another

business?

Just started another business,

yeah.

I've got two other businesses.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I've got one called Still House, which is High Performance Prefabricated Homes.

That's

right.

With

With Carbon light.

Carbon Light.

Yep.

Carbon Lighter are doing the full structure of that.

So the prototype of that is starting on site next month.

Yep.

Oh, you've got a project that's taken it on.

Yes, absolutely.

So that is, um.

It's a very exciting

Yeah.

Uh, adventure for me 'cause it's, um, it's really about trying to lower the

cost of high performance buildings.

And the way to do that in my mind is to actually do a pre-design,

pre engineer, pre-certification process and then prefabricate it.

So you're removing the labor from site and you know, what we're producing is

gonna suit the, a lot of people, um, in regard to the layout and so on.

20 years of my experience putting buildings together and kind of know

what the general briefs are and can design buildings without really thinking

too much about it, that well suit

what was roughly the size and what did you get to build cost

if you're able to share that.

So the, the prototype is 208 square meters.

Yep.

Double story.

Nice size.

And it's come in just over a million.

So $1,000,060.

Good.

60,000.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

But, but we need to also understand how that's going together and the

speed that it can get built as well, because I've actually seen some of it.

Yeah.

You know, the model when I've gone into Carbonite before, uh, and it's the

speed, like you, you, you are, you're spending a meal or whatever, but it's

can be done in like six, eight months.

Have you got like a construction timeline for it?

Uh, the first one's really a testing process.

Yeah.

'cause we're all kinda new to it.

Um, and so we're, we're going to be using this as, um, we're gonna

record every process on it to Yeah.

Actually iterate and make it better from here.

And so we, we think this first one will be the slowest and there's no

customization on it.

It's just this is what you get.

Yeah.

There, there's certain things you can customize.

So like a

stone benchtop kind of thing?

Yeah.

Look, the, the building envelope itself is set.

Yeah.

And, um, that's where the efficiency comes.

As soon as we go in and start tinker in with the design of that, then you might

as well design a custom home again.

Yeah.

And have you, have you modeled it to different orientations as well?

Yes.

So,

got it.

So we have a number of different models that suit different orientations.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so one's designed for a northwest orientation.

I won't sell it for an east, west site, it just won't happen.

Yeah.

' cause it, it won't actually meet the standard.

Yeah.

Um, but the first one passed the, uh, preliminary passive

host tests, flying colors.

Yeah.

Um, and uh, yeah, we know it'll be a very good host to be in.

Yep.

And this is gonna have full certification.

Yeah.

The first one is, yeah.

And is that, is that the goal to get them certified?

And if not, do you kind of have some parameters that you want to work within?

Because not every site's gonna be your perfect.

Site for homes, like do you, would you be willing to sell the design in

the homes for something that doesn't quite meet passive, passive as classic?

Yeah, absolutely.

If you know a hay, it's still gonna be a hay performance,

right?

Yeah.

It's to 0.01%

of housing was getting at, because, you know, sometimes you, you want

to, you wanna see this at scale.

Yeah.

And it won't go to scale if it's, if you're going for perfection.

No.

The passive house component of is an optional extra for any client.

Yeah.

And so they, if they want that certification, they pay for it on top,

but, but the baseline is airtight, HRV Thermal Bridge Free construction.

Yeah.

Where are we able to get the cost efficiencies?

Just purely going prefabrication.

Now we've also then looked at the procurement of all the

materials that come into the Fed out and the clain and so on, and.

The best place to find value in that is volume build.

Yeah.

And so we've gone down the route of finding a volume builder, um,

and give them a plug Oak Living.

Um, yeah.

So they're going to be our partner for construction Yeah.

And doing, um, everything outside of the shell of the building.

Yeah.

And so they've got a, obviously a, a great network of trades and supplies,

suppliers and materials that they can bring in a much lower cost price than

what you guys can, and typically the most of the builders that I can use,

yeah.

But they're not touching any of the thermal envelope of the building at.

Yeah.

Okay.

So they've, you know, they move into the host and it's already Pacif host.

Yeah.

This, this, so carbon might buck the frame up, they sign

off and the do the foundations

or, or, or using certified installers.

Correct.

Yeah.

Correct.

So in this case, ker doing the, the concrete slab.

Um, but then we're over insulate in it an oil on site.

So, um, so again, that's a pretty low risk element for them to do.

Okay.

That's, yeah.

And so that's, that's the, the idea is like, what elements of the building

can we give to somebody in the volume build space that is low risk to the

thermal performance in the building.

They

kind of taking it from lockup to final.

Do you, do you give everyone like a, a standing knife license before

they sit on step on site or,

yeah, so they've been well briefed on that side of it.

And so again, that'll be a learning exercise for them as well.

I, I. Truly hope that this takes off because I feel like for it

to be accessible and achievable for a broader population, I a

hundred percent agree with you.

You need to get the volume builder guys involved and excited about it and seeing

that it actually is the pathway forward.

So

I, the price for that is unreal.

Yep.

Like

to a great price.

Yep.

So what's

that 5,000 a square million?

Five square?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I,

we probably wouldn't be able to build that ourselves to that price.

No,

no.

That's, from the discussions I've had, I reckon it's probably one of the

cheapest passive hoses in Australia.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That like under,

under, like

Right, like right now, right, right now,

right.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

That's, and, and, and have you just simplified the internal fit

out, that's where you've saved a lot of money too, like the

architectural interior design look.

It's, it, it's a pretty architectural product even at that price.

Really.

Okay.

And carbon light have actually have a cheaper product themselves as well.

They're working within Via texture as well.

So they've got their own brand, um, going on at the same time.

Yeah.

And theirs is actually a lower price point than ours.

Um, but they're not necessarily chasing Pacifies.

They're not quite as high performance as ours.

Yeah.

And they're not as architecturally designed.

I'm sure they won't mind me saying that.

Yeah.

Um,

but, but they solve a problem though, because I've

seen Absolutely.

I've

seen that design.

It's up in Gisbon or something.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, it's still a great home.

Absolutely fantastic.

A comfortable, healthy home to live in.

And do you know what?

It fits the space in the market, so we need these.

Things at every different level.

Correct?

Correct.

Yeah.

So this whole thing came from an idea where, you know, I've been working on high

end homes with big budgets for many years.

And, and to me, if anybody wants to build a high quality home,

it has to be high performance.

Yep.

You know, that's, that's the real missing piece.

Yeah.

That has always been, and, and high spec homes, it's like they, they

put their money in the wrong areas.

So

I won't, I won't talk to the architect I was talking to the other day about

this, um, but a good friend of mine, we were talking about just would I

do some of the projects that they've got coming through at the moment.

And he goes, oh, would you consider doing it if it's not high performance?

And I said to him, well, don't tell him it's gonna be high performance or not.

Don't give him an option.

Because I'd guarantee that once we are in, and once we've had the

ability, the opportunity to educate and demonstrate what we're doing,

your high performance clients are gonna want the high performance

building because it's, it's gonna be like, well dur of course I want that.

Of

course,

it's a slab.

Do they They we're gonna build a concrete slab.

Yeah, that's So

why saying

remove the whole narrative around high performance and just say,

this is what you're getting.

Correct.

This is our minimum standard.

Correct.

And that's very much the approach I take.

I, I don't talk about sustainability, I don't talk about high performance as such.

I talk about quality.

Yeah.

And it's, it's about trying to say, well, you've got a decent budget.

You want a really high quality home.

You want your kids to have this home and their kids after them.

Then it's, this is the way you're gonna quality

narrative.

Perfect conversation.

Like constantly I get someone on social media, reach out.

That's a train we really want you to proli a product, but.

Well, it might be expensive.

Uh, how do we talk to the client about it?

I was like, you don't, you just do it.

Yeah.

Like they didn't give two shits.

Yeah.

Like we're talking on, on a job.

A few hundred bucks maybe.

Like, just don't talk about it.

Yeah.

It's, it's our job to give them what's going to give the best

outcome at the end of the day.

Right.

Yeah.

You don't need to get talked in the nitty gritties about water

management and vapor transfusion and how the tapes are adhesive.

Like they don't care.

Yeah.

There is a, there is a balance in the design stage on budget as well, obviously.

Yes.

And so I balance that by saying, well, you don't need that extra en suite.

Yep.

You know.

Yeah.

That's your heat recovery ventilation and your air tightness.

All, yeah.

All the,

the hydronic heating that was a hundred thousand dollars will

save you 50 K by building it airtight and putting your HIV in.

Yeah.

Correct.

And, and that comes back to the, the briefing.

You know, what do you do in the morning question?

'cause if I can design out that en suite

Yeah.

That they thought they had originally, I mean, I could sketch up a concept

that shows 'em a concept that would have an en suite for every bedroom

and one that actually suits their lives, which is much smaller.

And then send, this one's a much more aligned building,

which is high performance.

This one's a bigger building that maybe the real estate agents out there

will try and sell, has been better.

But it's gonna be uncomfortable to live in.

It's gonna be hard to clean.

It's gonna be too big for your lifestyle.

Yep.

It's gonna be just not a comfortable building.

So real estate agents, you've just started a business with a real estate agent.

Yes.

So this is, uh, this is again trying to.

Start the design exercise earlier and earlier.

And so the thought with the real estate stuff, and something I've been doing for

years is actually trying to feed real estate agents, design concepts whenever

sites come on the market and saying, um, you could sell this better if you

had this concept on the land so that the general public could understand what they

could actually do on it once they buy it.

And so it's about filling the, the blanks between, um, what's possible

and what's imaginary, you know?

Yeah.

It's, it's actually trying to put something in front of

them that's a bit more real.

So how do you, just a comment before all my family real estate agents, so I

can say this, that they'll constantly add this, add this more, more, more.

How do you have that conversation with.

The real estate agent saying, no, no, no, I'm the architect.

I know what design, like, let's not worry about resale value so much.

Or that conversation.

I look, the, the resale value is obviously important.

Um, and depending on the client's needs, a lot of them are sort

of building a forever home.

Yeah.

And resale value's not important.

Resale value, not necessarily an issue, although things do change.

Yeah.

And so you've always gotta think about the resale value despite

the fact that they're designing a multi-generational home for themselves.

Um, but.

What I'm actually doing with real, real estate now is actually putting together

a different narrative about what a quality home is and marketing that.

And instead of marketing extra en suites.

And so it's, it's about selling the idea of comfort.

It's selling the idea of, of, uh, a clean air inside the house, no

mold and um, a structure that's gonna hold up for, uh, a longer

period of time and create longevity.

Or by building a smaller home, you then have a backyard that your kids

can use and you've got your producing garden here and you've got a space

where you can have drinks outside.

Like it's, these outdoor areas are so much cheaper to build than another bedroom.

Everyone complains that we don't have backyards anymore.

It's 'cause we're building fucking gigantic houses.

Yeah, yeah.

We don't have a backyard.

I've got a front yard, that's my backyard and square meter.

You've also got a tiny, tiny

too.

My size of my land's this half the size of

one

of your driveways

you've done, you've done well with your home by actually having

a space that you can go into

Yeah.

And utilize.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the, you just, we didn't look at real resale value.

Like, I, I, I just, I dunno, I've got pretty strong opinions and we'll

probably digress too much on this.

I think we just gotta, we, we need to design and build for the

people who live in the house.

I couldn't give two shits if my house doesn't suit the way

that the next person buys.

It wants to live.

They didn't pay for the build.

But I would, I would also argue, say with your home, and I'm thinking about your

home specifically, it suits you perfectly right now and it's what you wanna live in.

And I'd almost guarantee that there is another, you or two other yous out there.

There might not be 50 people coming through, but there might be two yous

that really value what you've built.

And that I think is gonna get a premium.

But this, this is exactly my point.

A hundred percent my point because you get real estate agents saying,

oh, two bedrooms, that's not enough.

You need three because the next person wants three.

There's people who just want two bedrooms.

Yeah.

There are

like, so you're saving your bill costs.

You save when you're running costs and someone who buys it, yeah,

you're not gonna get as much for it.

But you didn't waste all that time and effort expenditure to get there.

'cause someone else is just gonna probably most likely inherit the extra

bedroom that they're never gonna need.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

One of the questions I often ask clients is, do you want bigger or better?

And they go both.

Yeah.

You can't always have both though.

And so, um, but there's also been demand sustainability reports over

the last couple of years has come out.

That's, um.

Yeah.

That's demonstrated the value of sustainable features within houses.

Yeah.

And how people are willing to pay well over the odds

because that's been included.

Yep.

And you know,

well, cam Canberra's Canberra needs to show the start rating.

Yeah.

A hundred

percent

That

should

be, should be in Accord for sure.

Yeah.

The start, I. Yeah, I think the star rating you said that

where they're putting the hur.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, but at, I know it's not the best indication, but at least they're doing it.

Yeah.

You have to show the star rating.

No, mine's 9.6 anyway, so I can't complain.

Yeah,

that's If we take into account, I'll blow a door test.

Yeah, sure.

That's like that.

But that I, I think that's, was

it

the tightest building in Australia's a big claim at the start.

The was a lot of that there wasn't stupid.

Yeah.

As soon as I said, I was like, fuck you idiot, Matt.

How do you, with a circle window and the architecture of that

home, you are never getting the tightest building in Australia.

So Australia, we actually bit off topic.

We actually got the volume of the.

High.

Like the, that building that got the tightest and we would've beat it.

I just had no volume to work with.

Yeah.

That was my issue.

Like, and it was so complex.

Well, that's

what I'm saying.

Like, I, I just wouldn't have made the claim,

but good.

But I know, you know, when you're here, like your first day of filming

grand design, it's all, I'm gonna say, it always have to have grand

design.

Design.

It also makes for a great conversation now that I can like, Hey.

Oh, nice.

Remember when you said that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

As soon as I said it, Drew's like, you idiot.

Um, yeah.

But we look again,

let's, let's, let's land on you got

0.25.

Yeah.

It's ridiculous.

It's incredible.

But the first time that Drew reckons, he's done a blow test where pressurization and

depressurization with the same number.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

So like, it was like they were both 0.25 and like the most straight little graph.

Do you, do you, sorry, we're digressing.

Do you, do you, do you, um, put that to the external sheathing?

Yeah, well we applied and yeah.

And we heroed and so yeah, a hundred percent worked and that's

probably given me more confidence.

I can, having a conversation with a client yesterday where we're taking a bit

of an unconventional approach to build a passive house with just an external

membrane and no, oh, were you sitting in the same fucking room as I was?

And he's, he's like, well, you guarantee 0.6.

I was like, selfishly, part of me goes, no, because I don't have my membrane.

But I know that every job we get at is fine.

It's just the fear factor of

can I, okay, I'm gonna, uh, we're digressing here, but we're

gonna go down this path anyway.

I think my opinion is this, so we have a project that we're starting

later on this year and we're having conversation with a client next

week, uh, where we're gonna be pitch.

I've already pitch it with a designer.

We're gonna pitch to them that go, we're not gonna put an internal membrane in,

we're gonna give you a 90 mil frame.

We're gonna do eight M-L-O-S-B, peel and stick, and then wood fiber.

So your WRB and your air tightness is in the middle of your wall.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Wall.

You've got peel and stick.

I've got

peel, peel and peel and stick.

So I think that it's actually gonna be easier to get airtight because

you're completely uninterrupted.

Mm-hmm.

No, no external, uh, ex um, cantilevers or anything.

It's all gonna be monopoly built easy.

And we're going to put timbers in the wall to then bolt stuff too, for all

the balconies and stuff like that.

A hundred percent easy.

That's what

we did.

If, if the client said to me, can you guarantee 0.6?

I'm like, absolutely.

I can carry you 0.6, no problem whatsoever.

Yeah.

I'd guarantee 0.6, no air, no internal membrane.

Yeah.

With the hero externally.

Yeah.

I actually think it's even easier.

Should, I mean, should we be saying that, should we be

saying this now, the proma or?

No, but it's, but

the thing is, but because we're going away from the system we're

still using is their system though.

We're still, yeah, yeah.

We're still using all their products and stuff like that, but.

I, I think it's a really achievable way of doing it.

Now, would it work in every climate?

Probably not.

Uh, I'm pretty sure external membrane, external insulation work in any climate.

I think that's the, literally the beauty of it.

What, what I,

the internal ones only for air tightness.

Right.

Uh and va, depending on vapor trans.

Yeah,

that's what I'm

saying.

In different climates.

I think so.

So yes, it's pretty protected.

'cause the whole assembly is warm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So your risk is a lot lower.

But in saying that, every project needs to be modeled.

Yeah.

And you got a HRV as well to actually removing a lot of that moisture.

So

Yeah.

So yeah, we do and we are currently sitting, kitchen sits

at probably about 60% of the one.

I've learned a few things from living in the passive houses and I'll tell

anyone now, get a call at Douna like it's fucking hot in your bedroom at night.

Get you, it's having three people, me, Nicole, and Noah.

The little one like you drive, you climb about a degree and a half overnight.

Just wait till you add another kid to that

one mate.

There's three

kids in the bed,

so like my wife.

So you need a lighter duna and we just had to go get one last night.

That was half the reason I picked up another camera 'cause I was

going, it was getting too hot.

Um, other,

I thought I saw another line item on that receipt.

The other, the other thing, the other thing is, so double story, like we

just run our air con now on the flow.

Fan speed.

It comes on at eight o'clock.

We'll go off at 7:00 PM at night and we'll turn on at 23 degrees.

That's it.

That's all like the, the, the upstairs, the heat will rise and it takes control.

It kind of keeps everything at bay.

Yeah, that's probably the other thing.

But keep cooking in the kitchen because it's so efficient inside.

Like you cooking will heat your house up and you notice it in the kitchen,

like you'll climb a degree and a half.

When you just cook,

you're ex externally exhaust in the kitchen.

No, I'm not.

I'm one of those gone against device.

I've got a downdraft rangehood.

So yeah, we're tracking it.

I've got, uh, cams, we've got a sensor in there at the moment.

Censoring the p

what's you're taking that and I think we're, we're putting 'em

in more and more buildings now.

Externally extracted.

Yeah.

I've changed based on Karen's advice as well recently.

Yeah.

I've gone against Cam's advice and I'm gonna prove him wrong.

And I'm cooking so clean so the data doesn't go up.

I mean, I mean, you've got salads, anecdotal evidence

on a sample size of one.

It's probably not a really good representation of what was

No.

You industry, you do peak, like when I was, um, frying

some dumplings the day Yeah.

I sent the, the particulate matter through the roof.

Yeah.

Um, but then I also tracked verse the bushfire and I was, I had as.

Zero particulate matter out inside and we're hitting a hundred outside.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

From the, from the ash falling.

So you take, you these

buildings work.

Yeah,

yeah.

I know.

But yeah, it's, um, the, the, the thing that I've learned is the

aircon becomes a dehumidifier.

Like you do need to also run your aircon probably a lot more than I

thought Nicole was like, I thought we never have to turn it on.

And I'd hate that feeling of

you would need your air con in a passive

house.

Yeah.

Like that latent heat, um, is a, it is a thing.

And you do feel the muggs sometimes.

It's, it's, and I think this summer's actually been quite

a muggy summer in Victoria.

Like, I think I found it's been quite humid compared today

will be because it says rain.

Yeah.

So I like we, we have been able to eliminate that.

But yeah, going back to the airtight comment, um, it was

stupid, but you gotta have fun.

And I don't take myself too seriously with those things.

Like I knew I was.

It was a good episode.

It was

a good episode.

Fun.

It was well done.

I I, I had more people messaging me about it.

Like, oh my God, we love Noah.

I, my hate the house is pretty cool,

but No.

Yeah.

Super po.

We've had su yeah, she's, well that's, she's taken mine, but we've had super

positive feedback, um, about it.

And I, I, I encourage anyone actually openly here that to sign up to, if

you've got a cool project, like I know the advertising for transformations

right now, it's not what you think.

Like we see so many TV shows like The Block and they taught that

it's all drama, drama, drama.

These guys are unreal.

Our producer, Steve, like, he made us feel so comfortable if he said,

if you ever didn't like something that we're recording, um, or you

didn't feel comfortable recording something, we'll just cut it and

delete the audio straight away.

So they are there for you.

They want you to succeed.

Yeah, there's drama along the way, but the owner builders do that themselves.

Like that's their own problem.

But yeah, we, it was a super fun, I loved it.

I do it every.

Day again.

And I'm gonna encourage you to do your barn.

Hamish.

Uh, yeah.

Thought it crossed my mind, but I might save it for the house.

Do both.

Um,

we've gone real off topic.

Where were we?

Where we bring my mind back.

Welcome to Matt and Hamish.

We were going so well for a minute there and then we're just

like, we're over here there.

I dunno how you ended up on Grand Ice.

We're over there.

We're over there.

Um,

we were talking about real estate.

Yeah.

Real estate.

Yeah.

So, so the, the new business that you've got,

yes.

You are going in and you are.

Uh, encouraging clients or encouraging, encouraging the real estate agent

to, um, show to the clients what could actually be on that site.

Yes.

That's where we're up to.

So,

so are you, you coming in, like say I had a phone call yesterday

from a client saying, we're thinking of buying this block.

Yes.

Yeah.

So that's, that's the ideal scenario where

I'll have to pass on a number then.

Yeah.

Real, real estate.

Yeah.

Um, so the, the intent is that we get in before that, that purchasing

decision has been made, because more often than not, clients come

to me having bought the wrong site.

Like they, they've got this brief that they want to achieve, which is

fantastic, but the sites oriented wrongly.

There's, there's issues with overlooking, there's issues with overshadowing.

They can't afford what they wanna build on that site.

And, you know, there, there were other options.

And so the intent that we have is to.

Provide certainty before they spend that money, which is often the biggest amount

of money they'll ever spend their life.

Yep.

And more often than not, they're making that decision without

proper guidance from experts.

Yep.

And, and I say that, um, including real estate agents, because

they're not experts in design

Yeah.

They can't actually advise people the best sort of building that

could be put on a site to actually, um, work out what that value is.

And so what I do instead is I'll analyze that site both from a planning

and regulatory point of view, also from an environmental point of view,

but I'll also take a architectural brief from them at that stage.

Yep.

All those questions that we talked about before.

And I'll actually map out a floor plan on that site to see if it actually works.

Yep.

And I'll measure that then and give them an approximate cost of that building.

And, um, we'll not go to a builder at that stage.

Well, it's just high level, but it's given them a lot more information's Yeah.

Than they would have it any other time.

Well, I mean, I, I'll I'll give you the example of the

phone call I had two days ago.

Um, she's like, we're looking at this project in Brun, uh, Brunswick,

and I'm like, great property.

Yep.

I see that you are growing family, you know, you want to keep this section of it.

And then she's like, how much is it gonna cost?

What would you do on the site?

And I'm like, well, I'm not a builder.

I can only talk to Dark Tech.

You're a

builder.

Sorry.

I'm not a, I am a builder.

I'm not architect or a designer.

I can only talk to that.

There's gonna be a certain chunk of money you gonna spend on demolition.

And I don't think there's gonna be many restrictions on

building something on this site.

That's all, that's the only info I can give her.

And she's like, well, how much will it cost?

And I don't know.

It's, but the same as real estate agents.

People need to remember, they're not there to support the buyer.

They're there to sell the house for the, the seller.

That's their job.

They're not, they people come outta the, the agent needs screwed me over.

He got heaps outta me.

It's like, no, no.

That's their job.

They're there to get as much for that, that seller as possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and we'll work on that side of the deal as well.

And so the, the intent there is if somebody wants to sell a house.

Uh, what we'll do again, is we'll look at the potential of that house.

We'll actually pull out the things that are working really well.

Is it well orientated?

Is there a beautiful tree with a potential view towards it?

Um, is there good cross ventilation?

Could, could you put solar on the house?

Um, could you upgrade the windows?

Now, would that be worth it?

But we also do overlays, like, let's say the, the house needs a new kitchen.

A lot of agents may advise that client to put a new kitchen in.

What we'll do instead is actually do a concept of what

10 kitchens could look like.

Yeah.

And we'll put that in front of the market and say, which one do you want?

Yeah.

Okay.

Instead of building it.

Because if you build one, the chances are somebody and that might

walk through the house, will love the house and hit the kitchen.

Yeah.

And so that doesn't make any sense for them to actually spend that money upfront.

And so we'll do that, but we'll also do it on a much larger scale

where it could be, um, the whole house needs extended and renovating.

We'll actually map that out in concepts and portray that in the marketing as well.

Could be a knockdown rebuild.

So we'll show what could be put on the site as Yeah.

Potential could be a development project.

And you need to move pretty fast though, because someone could pick

it up and it's up for sale in a week.

Yeah.

And you know, we're, we're pretty good at doing that.

Yeah.

We can analyze these things and actually get, get, uh, a sketch

design done in two days usually.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, but we'll do that across multiple sites for a buyer and

then we'll do it for the individual sellers to help them sell as well.

Yeah.

We've got a segment called The Mindful Moment, sponsored by MEGT, Australia's

leading apprenticeship provider.

Um.

We, we try.

The whole idea of this segment is to give advice or a bit of a tip to

someone that's an apprentice or someone that's growing in the industry that um,

they can take forward and learn from.

Um, the question, Hamish, and I usually do this, but I've got one for

you, Roger, architecture's changing and how young kids who are starting

architecture, it's not what, when you studied that, it was kind of a very

clear path of becoming an architect.

I feel for the first time ever that is not as clear and an architect now is

not what it's gonna be in the future.

What tips would you give to someone who's studying their architecture

journey, maybe second, third year out, to give advice on sort of what

to plan for or look for in the future?

It's a very interesting question 'cause obviously with the rise of AI as well, a

lot of people are starting to freak out about design work and how, how that's

going to actually look into the future.

And I've, I've had, um, a dad reach out to me recently and said their

daughter's thinking about doing architecture and asking for advice on it.

And so.

My, my advice is that design will always be needed, and it comes down to.

That human touch, like I was talking about at the very start, that briefing exercise

and extracting that and reflecting that back into a design and build project,

you're always going to need that human touch to understand that properly.

A computer's never gonna be able to do it, and

the computer wouldn't have picked up.

The cricket in the backyard.

Exactly.

You know, that's,

and that the birds are there at three o'clock in the afternoon in that tree.

Yeah.

People just sitting there and type into chat.

GDP designing a three bedroom house, two bathroom, uh, and they get a full

set of working drawings and plans.

It ain't happening.

Correct.

So look there, I think there's always going to be a place for an architect,

but it's, it's going to have to be architects with this sort of mindset of

reflecting a client's needs and the, and what the, the best outcomes for a given

site are, and being able to extract all that information and reflecting that

back into the design exercise itself.

My experience with Chatt PT is it's never telling you anything negative

about what you're putting in either.

No.

So, you know, you as a human being can challenge someone's wants or needs or

ideas and AI's never gonna do that.

Yes.

And don't get me wrong, I use it all the time for everything I do.

Same,

but.

And I find it an amazing tool, but it's a, it's an exercise of refinement

and it's an exercise of, of actually.

Testing sort of new things that you put in front of it as a designer.

Yeah.

Um, to make sure that it can work.

It's just another tool.

Like you have acad, it's just another tool that you can use.

It doesn't do the job for you.

It's not, no, definitely not.

So the, there's a, there's a bright future in architecture, I think,

but only for the people who can actually navigate this moment in time.

Carefully.

Yeah.

Um, 'cause I think there'll be, a lot of people will be without work after this.

'cause they're, they go down the road of just saying, I'm gonna

stick with what I've been doing previously and that's not gonna work.

And there is other people that are gonna go, I'm gonna run full head into AI

and that's going to solve my problem.

They're outta business as well, I think because AI will actually take over

and they're gonna be outta a bad job.

Yeah.

I think, I think you, you, the, the, the description you used before of AI as a

tool is the perfect description of it.

But it's a tool that you need to learn how to use.

Definitely.

Yep.

So a big thank you for MEGT for that uh, segment.

Um, Roger, someone to get onto you.

Best way to get onto you Instagram social media websites.

Yeah, so website borland architecture.com au.

I'd say the tag is ww dot borland arch.com au and on there you'll find

stillhouse as well, which is the pre-designed, um, uh, series of buildings.

We've done, uh, real realestate life if you want the real estate stuff.

And we're also on Instagram and Facebook, so I just look up Borland architecture

and real real estate on there.

Awesome.

Thank you for coming on.

Thank you very

much for

coming on.

Thanks, mate.

Thank you so much guys.

Cheers.

Really appreciate it.