After winning all of these accolades and we got to a

certain point as a practice, we still had this nagging feeling that, um,

I hadn't achieved anything that I'd really set out to really achieve,

which was to design public buildings, cultural buildings, public spaces.

I wanted to work on projects that made a difference.

And of course, designing nice houses and nice homes, it does make a

difference, but only to a few people that get to benefit from them.

I didn't really set out to work for wealthy middle class people.

You know, I really, really enjoyed the process of designing

those houses and building them.

But to me I kind of wasn't really fulfilled as an architect.

I just felt there was something else there.

Maybe it was just the grass is always greener.

I'd had this itch and I hadn't scratched it.

Welcome to Architecture Business Club, the show that helps

you build a better business in architecture so you can enjoy more

freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment.

If you're joining us for the first time, don't forget to hit

the follow or subscribe button so you never miss another episode.

We're joined by Carl Turner, founder of Turner Works, an architecture

and urban design studio specializing in the early activation of sites

and the meanwhile use of buildings.

Carl has founded and set up several, meanwhile, projects, including Pop,

Brixton, Peckham Levels, and Ashford.

Coach Works the building of his own.

Brixton home was filmed by Grand Designs, and Carl has gone on to feature on Channel

Four's Ugly House, the Lovely House as an expert in low cost, high impact design.

To learn more about Carl's practice, head over to Turner Works or to

connect with Carl Direct online.

Go ahead and connect with Carl over on LinkedIn and I'll put a link in the

show notes to both of those places.

Carl, welcome to the club.

Hi.

Hi John.

Thanks for inviting me.

Uh, it's a pleasure to have you here.

Since we, we first connected, I've been really excited about um, you know, getting

this, this conversation on the podcast.

So it's a pleasure to have you here, Carl.

Before we get stuck into things, tell me a little bit about what

you enjoy doing outside of work.

Yeah I guess that I, I actually, weirdly, one of my hobbies

is renovating houses, which doesn't sound like much of a, of a break, but I

think particularly as the practice has grown and I'm a bit more detached from

the real hands-on of things it's just something I've done a lot over the years.

I've probably renovated about 30 properties when I thought back about it.

And I just really love actually the whole process of stripping

something back and then re and rebuilding it and reimagining it.

Um, and I think when I'm not doing up houses, the other thing I really do

love doing is traveling and something.

I couldn't do that much when I was younger because I just quite

frankly couldn't afford it.

But as I've, uh, got older, I've managed to just spend much more time

traveling and I find it just really inspiring and it's just a way of really

recharging batteries and just, just seeing amazing things that are happening

all over the world and being inspired and energized and bringing back ideas.

And so I think, yeah, we, weirdly, last year I had a sabbatical, which

is another whole story, but, um, I managed to mix up the whole year

with like a month, traveling a month working on a house and another month

traveling another renovation, few weeks.

So it was my ideal year fixing up old houses and traveling the world.

Oh, that sounds absolutely ideal.

So, um, more years like that, Carl.

That would be good, wouldn't it?

If we can do that sort of thing again, that nice balance between your, your

interests outside of work and, um, what you're doing at Turner works too.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

If I could build a whole life around that, well, I kind of have.

But you know, work is a commitment, and it does, it does take time and energy.

So, but I think it is important to take those moments, those breaks, even

small ones where you can kind of take a step back and maybe appreciate what

you've got and where you've got to.

And then think about the challenges ahead and where you want to go.

Anybody knows if you want to, if you want to run a good business, you

have to kind of design the business.

Really, you can't, if you just sit back waiting for things to

happen to you, it's not gonna go.

If you haven't got a plan, then it's just gonna happen, isn't it?

Yeah, that's so true.

Um, I love that just you highlighted there the benefits

of just taking that step back.

Whether that's time of time away or working on the projects.

And it's so true because when you're in the thick of it, that thing of,

um, well, you just can't see the wood for the trees, can you, you know, if

you're just reacting to things as they happen day to day and sometimes that

um, break away for a few days, it just, it's just such a good reset, isn't it?

Yeah, totally.

And I, I think in today's society we do, we worry that we're not busy all

the time or that we're not posting on Instagram or that we're not

like at the center of everything.

But I definitely believe in, you know, going away and doing something quiet

and yeah, just, just thinking about things and tr trying to plan, um, ahead

rather than, I mean, I, I've spent periods of time stumbling from project

to project and, you know, I guess you go through phases in life where you.

Where you do that.

But I think if I had my time again, I would be a lot more thoughtful in what I,

you know, the kind of work that I took on and be braver about having periods of not

working, which is, maybe, it's easy to say now, now that I'm more financially secure,

but I think when you're younger and you, you need to, you probably need to work.

Most people do, but it's work is, work can be quite destructive, I think,

things that might be more productive for you, for you and for the, for, for

the world, for the, for the climate.

Work can get in the way of that.

I think that, um, I guess as a society it's sort of, a measure of

with our work, it's sort of like, oh, well I'm, I'm busy, so, this is a good thing.

You know, I, I'm seen to be being busy and I'm, I'm doing lots of different things.

But actually I think often the reverse is true.

That actually if you're able to kind of do less and be a bit more intentional

with it, that the results and the impact can be far greater than when you're just

sort of busy juggling all sorts of things.

Yeah, so true.

Yeah.

And um, just to touch upon your comment there about the travel cart, I, I love

to travel as well, admittedly, I don't do it quite as much as I used to,

but, um, I'm a former backpacker and I think once you've, once you catch that

travel bug, it's hard to shake it off.

So, Carl, we are going to talk about your career in architecture, um, which

has really been a career of two halves.

Um, and this is going to inspire other architects and building

designers in their own career journey.

I'm absolutely certain of it.

I'd like to start, I guess at the beginning, right back

to studying architecture.

So you, you studied architecture as a mature student, and one of the things

you did differently is most, most newly qualified architects generally they're

seeking employment in a practice or the, you know, they're, they're being

employed in a existing practice and you set up your own firm straight out of uni.

And I wonder what led you to do that?

'cause it's just kind of defies the convention of what

most other people tend to do.

So why did you decide to do that?

Yeah, looking back I'm not quite sure why we did it.

I think there was a, a touch of arrogance maybe.

Um, but I think I graduated from Royal College and I guess I was

surrounded by people making things and I had a real passion to make.

I was 33 when I, when I graduated from the RCA with an ma. I'd taken quite a few

years out between part one and part two.

And I think I just felt like I was in the right place to

actually strike out on my own.

Hadn't really thought through how I would then get qualified.

I just knew that I really wanted to really build things and

delivering was quite important.

I felt like I could make more of an impact doing things for myself.

I'd worked in really fantastic big practices like fostering partners,

smaller and more community focused practices like Pinau and Psad

and lots of others in between.

And I'd, I'd learn loads.

I kind of felt like I knew what, you know, where I was heading and the

kind of work I wanted to do, which was actually, if I'm being honest,

I wanted to work on public projects.

I didn't wanna work on residential work.

Um, but yeah, the, uh, I think four of us left together and then.

It quickly whittled down to just me and Cass.

So Cassie and Castle, who's went on to found his own practice eventually,

but we ended up in a railway arching Kings Cross above an antique dealers.

And we were both kind of doing our own individual projects.

And then at some point we just said, this is crazy.

We may as well worked together.

And, uh, Turner, Turner Castle was formed and we, we spent six years

working together and we were really two part qualified architects with a

white van driving around doing projects.

You know, we, we won lots of projects for our tutors at the RCA, people that

were designers, but maybe were not quite in the, in the, in the kind of

construction and architecture world.

So we, we actually, our first commissions were from other designers to help

them realize their own projects.

So I think, um, you know, we're really inspired by the whole

kind of making ethos at the RCA.

And I think we'd also have this idea of fail early, fail cheap, which was very

much that we wanted to quietly build a portfolio of work that we were proud of.

We'd learn our trade, learn our craft.

We'd do it a small scale, and then once we kind of learn the skill sets

that we needed, we'd then be able to apply that to bigger projects, which

is effectively what what we did.

I think back then it was, it was really tough for young

practices to really make a mark.

It was before social media.

The architecture magazine world was quite a closed shop, and it was all quite

highfaluting, the whole publishing world.

And it was, it was really difficult to make a breakthrough.

But yeah, weirdly, we, um, we did a lot of, um, construction work as well

as architecture work, which we kind of fell into, but I think those were, those

were some of the main reasons it was.

It was just a general, and I think also we just generally felt that there were

not kind of inspiring smaller practices that we really, the people that we

really admired were European practices.

And I, but I don't think either of us were in a position to, to

just pick up and move to Europe.

Um, so yeah, for, for many reasons really, we kind of stumbled into

setting our own practice up.

Um, and then, yeah, we worked together for about six years and then we, we,

we, we ended up working on our own projects in the corner of a studio.

So in the end we, we kind of decided it was the right time to set up our

actual own individual practices.

Cool.

And then, I mean, having set up that practice, um, and you, you

sort of mentioned that a little bit actually already, but you were

doing construction projects, you weren't just designing spaces.

In those early days, you, you sort of positioned yourself as like a

small building firm that offered architectural design services.

Alongside that, what, what were some of those benefits from being

hands-on with construction in addition to architectural design?

Yeah, I think there's many, many benefits.

And initially the crazy situation we're in is that if we wanted to build

a big extension for somebody, people would question whether we had the

experience as young architects to design an extension or a loft conversion,

let alone a new house or something.

But actually, if we said we were contractors and we'd build

it for you, people didn't ask.

They didn't even flinch as long as the price was right and we could start

within a month, you know, it was kind of.

The craziness of, yeah, we'll hire somebody to build it, which is obviously,

in some respects, a lot more tricky and risky and difficult than designing

a, an extension, which is relatively straightforward and you've got

structural engineers and everything else.

So in a way, we, we found a way around the system by offering more of a package

where we'd almost throw in design.

Obviously we get paid for it, but we would be selling ourselves really as a design

and build contractors problem solvers.

So, um, also a collaborative spirit.

So if you are a designer, we'll, we'll work with you to help realize your

kind of, um, ambitions and goals.

So you might not be familiar with planning, but we can help with that.

So it wasn't really a plan, it was just, it was a, you know, a kind of

path of least resistance really, that.

And I think also me and Cass, we both were fixing up our

own houses in the background.

I've probably already done like 10 renovation projects by then.

And we really liked building things.

The other thing that we realized is it gave us much, um, better kind

of ownership of the whole project.

So, we didn't have to battle against a contractor who either didn't understand

what we wanted or they were just trying to make as much money as possible.

So, you know, we had clients saying to us, oh my God, it's

so amazing working with you.

It's been so smooth.

There's been no arguments at all.

It's just seamless service.

And obviously in the background we'd be like having punch up with, punch

up with plumbers and, standoffs with electricians and all the usual stuff, but

just the clients were not subject to it.

'cause we, we just, we just kind of took it and delivered the project and, we,

we could decide to specify a nicer hinges than maybe the clients were paying for.

And it, it allowed us to build a portfolio of really, really good built work.

And to be quite radical, our style was quite simple, quite raw, quite industrial.

And trying to get other contractors to do that is actually quite difficult.

It looks quite simple, but it's quite difficult to achieve those kind of quite

minimal things that everything needs to be sequenced properly and you need

to really understand how to, to build.

So it was a great education process for us.

Yeah, we built a portfolio and, you know, I think it made us better designers, you

know, it made us understand the process.

I think we also built empathy for tradespeople and people,

craftsmen, people in the industry, contractors, you know, it is tough.

It's a really tough business.

And when.

I think when you are the contractor, which we were, um, and we, we

ended up doing quite big projects.

You know, I've built, even with Turner Works more recent and we built, you know,

a, an apartment block with 10 apartments.

We built some other big community projects.

But when you are ultimately responsible for it, there's nobody else to blame.

If something goes wrong, you have to fix it and it is kind of your problem.

So I think it gives you a different mindset.

More of a, less of a pushing the blame on somebody else, more of a, a

mindset that, yeah, it's a problem.

We need to work together as a team to solve it.

And ultimately, you, you as the contractor or the design build contractor,

it's, it's your problem really.

You need to fix it.

So I think for all those reasons, it's been a fantastic process to go

through and I'd highly recommend, any, any architects who are thinking about

maybe dabbling with construction.

Young architects, you know, working on your own home or getting into a situation

where you can work on building sites.

It's, I, I almost think it's an essential skillset really.

It's, I, I honestly dunno how people can design buildings if they don't really

know how they're built, or if you've never lifted a sheet of plasterboard and

you don't understand how heavy it is.

It's just all of that kind of thing.

It just, to me, it's an essential ingredient of being a good

designer is knowing how to actually put buildings together.

Have you got an interesting story about running

your architecture practice?

Have you done something different in your business that's been hugely successful?

Or has a failure taught you an important lesson that you'd be willing to share?

Then why not apply to be a guest on this podcast?

Just click the link in the show notes to send us your

details and get started today.

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Now let's get back to the show.

Mm. Oh, so many benefits there Carl.

So many.

Um, you've mentioned then, I mean, for, even from, um, a client perspective

as well, particularly, I guess on some of those smaller projects, the, the

appeal of you offering a service that's essentially like a one-stop shop, that

this one point of contact, um, that you mentioned that the experience for

the clients was pretty seamless because the sort of wranglings that they might

normally be exposed to, that you were handling all of that behind the scenes,

and you said that that experience.

Built an empathy for those craftsmen and those tradespeople as well.

So you had a much better understanding of the day-to-day challenges that they

have and a better understanding of how buildings actually go together.

As you say that, you know, like you specifying products or detailing something

that we could draw something that looks great on paper, but then actually the

practicalities of getting on site and actually building the thing, that's a

really different perspective, isn't it?

That the builder's, the one there, the contractor there, they're looking

at the design or the detail thinking, well, yeah, this looks lovely, but like,

how the heck am I gonna build this?

Like, how are we gonna do it?

And so as a, from a design perspective, that must have been so beneficial for

you as well to be able to, uh, iterate and improve the way that you design

buildings and spaces, having that knowledge and experience of actually

being hands on with it at site and, um.

As you say, that kind of the team aspects of it as well, that you're approaching

it as, look, it's not uh, us against them and some of that finger pointing

that could ensue, oh, well it's, it's not our fault, it's the architect, or

it's not our fault, it's the contractor.

Or vice versa.

You know, it would imagine a lot of that's really reduced and

minimized, um, if you're approaching it in the way that you did.

Yeah, and I think we also went on to 'cause eventually we

built up quite a big team of you know, as well as our architecture studio.

We had a team of builders of all different skill sets that were

pretty much working for us full time.

So we try and keep our team together.

So we'd quite often plug gaps maybe, uh, with, um, working for

other architects as contractors.

So.

We actually then found, so it's another benefit of being a small builder.

There's not many good ones around.

And if you've only gotta bring up half a dozen architects and there's

bound to be a job there for you that you can pitch on, and if you're

any good, you probably win it.

So, you know, we found actually that we we're not only building our own projects

that we designed for clients, we were just acting as a contractor you know,

building another architect's project.

And again, I think that helped us realize much more about kind of teamwork.

And we didn't have to be the kind of, you know, the designer.

We, if, if it was something that we thought was good,

then we could get behind it.

And I think also then having been subject to A-A-J-C-T contract from a

contractor side, realizing actually how, how difficult it is for contractors and.

What, what a lot of risks contractors take.

Everybody thinks they're making loads of money, but generally

speaking it's, it's super risky.

The margins are really tight.

If anything goes slightly wrong, then you probably end up losing money.

And, you know, we, we did a lot of really, uh, good projects for good architects.

People like May who've gone on to win the Sterling Prize, we built

a, a small rooftop extension on a warehouse in Sage for them.

It's a great project.

And again, we learned loads because we saw how other architects worked.

You know, how they, because again, we were isolated in our own practice

having, you know, set up from college.

So it was great to see how other people did things and how other

architects handled situations.

And, you know, I think teamwork's the word that keeps coming to mind, just realizing

that you know, the project is the thing and that you can just be part of.

One of the cogs to actually deliver the project.

So I think it's, um, requires a certain level of humility to be able to do that

in that you don't have to, you know, it doesn't have to be all about you.

If it's about doing a good project, delivering it, working as

a team and accepting that you're gonna learn a lot in that process.

So again, I, I think it's another great thing architects could

definitely think about doing more is, you know, there's nothing stop

an architect becoming a contractor.

It's, it's fairly straightforward is just have to kind of take the leap really.

Yeah, I love that the.

The collaborative approach that you took there, you, you said there's an

opportunity there to be able to help deliver projects that other practices

had designed in the first instance, and then you were able to help deliver those.

And so in doing that, there was a learning opportunity for you

as a practice, which was great.

It was helping to get those other interesting projects that you'd,

uh, the other practices are designed to actually get those

things built which is really cool.

And one of the thing you mentioned actually a little bit earlier,

Carl, was about the um, I guess the control that you have over it.

Because that's the thing, particularly in a day and age now where a lot of projects

get designed, they don't get built.

And, you know, it's so frustrating.

Obviously we want to see projects that we work on, that we design

to actually get delivered and be built and to be used as intended.

And that.

Way of working that you've described.

It sounds like that it gave you more control over the, the finished job

and actually did enable those projects to be delivered to a good standard.

And, um, that's only, it's gotta be a good thing, hasn't it, for

everybody involved For sure.

I think it meant that we, I mean, at that point we built,

almost everything we designed got built because we found a way of building it.

And if we'd gone out through a normal tender process, it would've

definitely hit a brick wall.

And probably we'd have had to then pick it apart or the clients would've dropped it.

And that's what we find now as we scaled up and we're working on

bigger projects, we only build a small fraction of what we work on.

And there is a frustration there.

But I think, yeah, the process that we'd put in place meant that we could be you

know, we could take a bigger picture view.

So a particular project might be on a knife edge in terms of viability

or we might know it might make, it might not even wash its own face,

but we could keep our team together.

And then there was another project over here that was gonna be more viable

in terms of making a bit more money.

And as long as across the piece we kind of could keep all the balls in

the air, then everyone's a winner.

So we were not, it wasn't isolating every project out and

putting it under a microscope.

And, there's, there's a certain risk in that, but I think that's probably what

all good contractors do to some extent.

They, you know, they, they take on portfolio projects that they know are

gonna be tricky to build, they're gonna be expensive, but but they, that, that they

want to move the conversation on about the, the work that their company does.

So what I don't think we, we didn't particularly start out with the intention

of doing that, but I think we quickly realized that it was, that we'd actually

hit on something that was really in demand is an attitude thing more than anything

that we were kind of like, can do.

People that, you know, we would just take it on as a challenge and we would

try and make it work and, and for ourselves, we would try and get something

that was gonna filter back into the architecture world and be considered

to be a success architecturally.

But for us also then just the success was running a viable business.

Um, employing lots of people.

At our height we were probably employing about 50 people and as a

sort of small builder, small architects and, it was a great thing to go

from zero to a lot of experience.

You know, we probably packed 20 years worth of experience into 10 years.

It was, um, crazy, you know, kind of thing that we often had five, six

jobs on site at any one time that we designed and we were building.

And it was, um, felt really exciting.

It was energetic and, you know, we felt like we were

really sort of making progress.

There were frustrations.

Obviously we were frustrated that we couldn't, we, we seemed to get just more

and more of the same sorts of projects.

We didn't really scale up at all.

The projects were all kind of stuck at a kind of single house level,

mainly refurbs and big extensions, and we had ambition to build new

buildings and public and other things.

so you, I mean, you built an amazing reputation,

particularly for resi projects.

You won a string of prestigious awards from the likes of

our IBA architect journal.

We've mentioned in the intro you've had several projects featured on

TV shows like George Clark's Ugly House to Lovely House Grand Designs.

In 2013, your own home slip house that was designed by you,

what won the RIBM Manson Medal.

And in 2021, Hove House won Grand Designs House of the Year.

Amazing stuff like did you ever sit there and think, yes, I've made it.

Uh, there were, yeah, there were moments like that.

I think winning the MANA medal, which is, is now called the

House of the Year, I think.

Getting that award with my wife, who was effectively the client,

Mary, upon the stage at RRBA in front of hundreds of people.

That was a real pinnacle, and it felt like at that point I actually

had the mindset that I've achieved what I wanted to achieve, really.

And that maybe I was actually thinking at that point I'd probably just go off and

be a small developer that I'd probably, I couldn't really get beyond that glass

ceiling having, you know, I was really a residential architect at that point.

And I did have to take a little bit of time out occasionally and pinch myself.

'cause really I'd achieved way more than I'd probably thought I would.

Interestingly, winning the MANA medal, building my own house, I

actually set myself the task of trying to win the MANA medal.

So I'm not really driven by awards, but I realized it was probably the

biggest award that I could win, doing the kind of work that I do.

And I, the reason that I was interested in winning awards at that point was I thought

it would unlock more kind of public work, the kind of work I really wanted to do.

And I didn't expect to win it, but I set myself the goal of winning it, which

sounds quite arrogant, but I think I'm definitely in that kind of mindset where

you need to plan ahead for success.

You need to plan.

So if you, if you don't plan for success, you're never gonna succeed.

I think.

So I thought about what I could do, given the plot that I had and the

money that I had, what could I do?

And it was all around creating a narrative.

And it was, uh, probably a long time before people were really

so focused on sustainability.

And, um, so we set, we set out to design the house using code

for sustainable homes, which at that point wasn't mandatory.

And it ended up being a, a kind of journey that we went to.

We used it as a learning process to learn about sustainability.

And I think that's one of the key reasons that we won that award was we produced

an unbelievably sustainable house.

Um, code five had a lot of embodied carbon, but apart from

that, it was, it's still a, a very, very good sustainable model.

I think so, yeah.

Um, I think what, what it, what it actually did as well getting to that

point was it, it kind of put me on the map as an individual in a way.

It began to build me as a brand.

So people might have heard of me being on tv then put my face to my name.

And so then when we started to have a little breakthrough, uh, into more

public work, I'd get interviewed and people would say, oh, I saw you

on Grand Designs, loved your house.

And it was a conversation starter.

It was an icebreaker, and it wasn't necessarily that it, um, that it

was directly responsible for winning work, but I think it was a kind

of, being on TV was some kind of it kind of legitimized me in a way.

I don't, I don't know.

But but yeah, still after winning all of these accolades and we got

to a certain point as a practice, we still had this nagging feeling that,

um, I hadn't achieved anything that I'd really set out to really achieve,

which was to design public buildings, cultural buildings, public spaces.

I wanted to work on projects that made a difference.

And of course, designing nice houses and nice homes, it does make a

difference, but only to a few people that get to benefit from them.

I didn't really set out to work for.

Wealthy middle class people who were doing very nicely and that, you know,

I really, really enjoyed the process of designing those houses and building them.

But to me I, I kind of wasn't really fulfilled as an, as an a as an architect.

I just felt there was something else there.

Maybe it was just the grass is always greener.

I'd had this itch and I hadn't scratched it.

Um, but yeah, I'm not complaining if, if my career had stopped at

that point, I would've in some respects been very, very happy.

And that's the mindset I was in of, maybe I'll just stop when I'm on a

high and I'll just quietly go off and I'll have an easy life was what I

was, that's what my wife was saying.

Let's just have an easy life having all this architecture nonsense.

Building on all of that past success, you, you could have, I mean, you

could have done that, you could have just left it and gone for the easy life, or

you could have comfortably stuck with the resi projects, which is what you'd, you'd

built that name for in the beginning.

But you didn't do that.

You, you mentioned there that was, there was an itch that hadn't

been scratched, um, and a desire to do work on public projects.

So you actually sold your award winning home.

You sold that, and you put some of that money into a community

development project called Pop Brixton.

How and why did that come about, which seems quite a bold move to me.

Can you tell me about that?

Yeah.

And again, it was, it was a kind of accidental thing really.

Oh, sounds intriguing.

You have to tune into our next episode to hear the rest of Carl's story.

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