Insight: Are all Architects created equal?

Are all architects created equal? Our built environment is sadly evidence that not all buildings are good ones. Architecture varies in quality, as do Architects. For this reason it is vital, now more than ever, to invest in a great Architect who you can trust to deliver excellence. Buildings are consumers of vast amounts of energy and scarce resources – they impact the well-being of their occupants and communities in very profound ways.

At PAD studio we want to design and build buildings that are beautiful and last a long time. Aiming to create buildings that leave a positive legacy. Buildings that are loved and will be maintained.  Consequently only then can a building claim to be truly sustainable.

Creating places and spaces that nurture the soul

At PAD studio we boldly claim to ‘create places and spaces that nurture the soul’. This doesn’t just happen by chance, it is the product of an ethos and approach refined over time and infused into every building we design and the business decisions that we make. We believe that to create great architecture for our clients we need some fundamental ingredients to be in place.

1.  Motivation
2.  Creative Freedom
3.  Varied Professional Team
4.  Knowing Limitations
5.  Critical Reflection

Motivation

We are not ashamed to admit that we are selective about the work we do, the people we employ and the clients that we work with. It is our belief and understanding that to do a great job, everyone must remain motivated for a long time by working on something that they are invested in emotionally and there must be mutual respect.

Creative Freedom, a high-value investment

We charge the right amount of fee to allow us to do our job to the best of our ability and pay our staff above industry standards. We don’t believe in the exploitation of people at any step of the way, and we promote equality, diversity inclusion and well-being at work. Charging the right amount for our professional skills gives us the creative freedom to:

• be the best we can be,
• be rigorous,
• invest the time needed to understand the places in which we work,
• develop a strong narrative approach and;
• dedicate the time required to listen to and support our clients as best we can at every step of the way.

As we understand that constructing anything is a complex and lengthy process involving a multidisciplinary approach and therefore we work hard as a team.

Varied Professional Team

We are unique individuals, but the PAD studio team shares knowledge, and skills through working in our open-plan studio environment. Often different team members will be involved in a project at various points in the process, according to their skillset. Some of the team are;

• Blue-sky thinkers, brilliant designers with vision.
• Some are gifted at detail and construction – essential skills required to deliver our design vision;
• Others have extensive environmental knowledge, reducing our environmental impact, creating buildings promoting well-being and low running costs.
• great with people, helps inspire confidence in our clients and are essential in the twists and turns in the delivery of a complex building projects.
• Some have an eye for professional standards, project managing and rigorous documentation.

A range of complementary skills ensure that we can best support our clients at every point of the process.

Our limitations lead to collaboration.

We understand our limitations. Whilst we have a broad range of expertise we are not experts in everything and we have developed a network of trusted collaborators who we know can support us and our clients. We work with talented and creative engineers, quantity surveyors, ecologists, planning consultants, contractors, and specialist suppliers. These collaborators work with us to help us deliver excellence.

Critical Reflection

However this is not an exhaustive list of  the ingredients we believe ‘create places and spaces that nurture the soul’. Critical reflection and honesty also play a vital role. At the completion of a building project, we don’t hand over the keys and walk away. Dedicated to life-long learning and improvement, we gather feedback. Recently implementing a programme of post-occupancy evaluation which enables us to monitor the performance of our building’s energy performance with feedback on how our clients use and feel about their building. We discuss, we reflect, and we try to improve.

At PAD studio, we want to create buildings that nurture souls for many years to come. This is a belief that if a building is to be sustainable, it must be beautiful, not an aspiration generated by arrogance. By creating inspiring and nurturing spaces, our hope is that they will then be loved and maintained for many generations and become a built legacy.