Castlemaine symposium – reflections

Sarah Hobday-North reflects on the recent ACA Castlemaine Regional Architecture symposium. The two-day event sparked frank, grounded conversations about the realities of regional and small practice, and highlighted the disparate approaches and business strategies of the speakers.

The ACA Regional Architecture symposium raised enduring questions for regional and small practice. Like the event itself, let’s just get straight to the point.

Collaboration

One theme that kept coming up again and again was collaboration between practices. For example, could project-specific partnerships allow regional firms to collaborate and compete on public sector tenders? Could the ACA make this easier with, say, standard form agreements for splitting responsibilities? There’s potential here, but a key tension remains: this approach often feels like one group (small forms) trying to wrest work from another (larger forms and incumbent architects). This kind of competition doesn’t “grow the pie” and it raises questions about true business sustainability for small firms.

Business strategies

Sometimes the sustainable business strategies presented were at opposite ends of the spectrum, even contradictory. Paul Viney shared how he’s worked to make FPPV the “go-to” architect for public and institutional clients, building trusted relationships that generate multiple projects over time. Stuart Tanner, in contrast, described his work with Kerstin Thompson and the AIA to create an Australian Standard for fair and open tendering, thus providing a benchmark for making project allocation as objective as possible. Clearly both approaches have merit, but the paradox of these systems coexisting in the market lingered in my mind. How can Paul, and architects like him, cultivate relationships and accumulate valuable IP about a client, if an Australian Standard or legislation makes open tendering the only way? Is this even efficient? To stretch the famous Miesian quote, God is clearly in the detail.

Quality work

Anna Nervegna and Toby Reed presented some very thoughtful work, and explained how they had shown their clients smarter ways to tackle their hitherto self-diagnosed problems. They admitted that their main focus is their passions and strengths, and the business follows. In a Q+A session, when I asked Anna, Toby and Stuart how they fill their project pipeline, the answer was strikingly candid: they throw everything into the work and hope it speaks for itself. It’s inspiring in its dedication, but also highlights a gap: talented architects don’t always have structured strategies to generate the next project.

Letting go of full services

Silas Gibson from SOS Architects described one version of a pipeline, explaining how he collaborates with builders to deliver an “architecture-lite” product. Wonderful! Yet the room shuffled when he mentioned this can mean letting go of Contract Administration, a phase many architects associate with quality control. Jean Graham of Winter Architecture has another approach. She delivers a profitable Concept/Detailed Design service and hands a 3D model of the design over to the client, who then develops the working drawings through their own procurement channels. For her, letting go of full services is good business and delivers good design to the next tier in the market. Win-win, right?

Growing the pie

For me, the most productive tension of the symposium was the architects’ desire for more sustainable businesses on one hand, and the pull to continue practising in familiar ways on the other. We are trained to resolve spatial or programmatic tensions for others, so now I believe we need to turn the lens back on ourselves. Growing the pie (increasing the number of people who engage architects) is key. It’s exactly why my practice, Architect GP, deliberately uses customer-focused language and products, shifting thinking from “client” to “customer”. The work is new and the approach is evolving, but the demand and opportunity are there, making it an exciting space to navigate as both architect and business owner.