This Wednesday, I will be leading a webinar which will be looking at how three leaders of top UK architecture practices have broke, the mold and grown their businesses from being bedroom practices or working in the spare room to international offices with landmark projects in this training.
You will discover how these architects have gone from very humble beginnings, not knowing where work was going to come from to building these internationally respected offices. With these multi-million pound projects that, in some cases, define city skylines we’re going to look at a number of different things. You’re going to learn the three breakthrough secrets for building a dream practice, how you can master your messaging to attract your ideal clients and also how to define your niche to be able to win work so make sure that you register to the webinar.
I will provide the details in the information below so go along register that and I’ll look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, and this week we’ve got a super interview with Melissa Wolford, who is the executive director of the Museum of architecture and the Museum of architecture? Was a fabulous charity organization that is really facilitating business, development and entrepreneurship and innovative business models and a new way of approaching business specifically for architects.
And so it was really great to be able to sit down and Melissa. Obviously, herself and I share a lot of common interests about business and also being able to empower the architecture industry, and she basically explained how the Museum of architecture had come about how it grew out of her work of the Neuse gallery. Where she started in 2006. And also touched upon her own architectural experience. She’s got a master’s in architecture from the Pratt Institute and she also worked as an architectural designer for Zaha.
Hadid, Architects and she’s got quite an incredible array of knowledge about the creative industries. So this interview is really really interesting. She goes into a lot of the kind of common constraints that she’s seen architects dealing with, and she also talks about the importance of entrepreneurship and business for people who are staying within the employment of an architectural practice and perhaps who are associates but want to get Involved more in the business development and client acquisition side of practice, so sit back, relax and enjoy melissa, Wolford melissa.
Welcome to the show. Thank you absolutely pleasure to have you and so tell me a little bit about your career. How did the Museum of architecture begin so it all started when I got to deeds office after having studied architecture for six years and realizing in my first week that I didn’t want to be an architect read the house. While I was it that was, I mean it’s a fantastic office and I’ve made incredible friends there, so the experience was it was definitely worth going through, but I think very early on.
I realized that actually being an architect wasn’t for me, but I was really interested in helping the industry as a whole. So originally I started a small gallery in the front room of a friend’s flat in Kings. Cross called now scholary with the intention of helping young younger architecture practises, show their work. So we did a series of exhibitions there and then then, in 2014 I was noticing that there were quite a few friends of mine who were going off and starting their own practices, and I also noticed that a lot of architects just tended to talk to architects.
So that’s when I really decided to change the name, Museum of architecture and turn it into a charity and set up the mission of helping the public better, engage with architecture and also by helping architects become more entrepreneurial by setting up MOA Academy as part of the Museum so that so that first period from 2006 to 2014, you was you were kind of doing a zip site activity or yeah, so so from 2006 to 2009.
I was still at da, so I was spending kind of my lunch times and my weekends my evening sort of not having a life, otherwise yeah working on the exhibitions, so everything was done on a shoestring budget and a lot of people chipped in to help. I had friends who helped help me start it Paul Coates and Christian Derrick’s were the original sort of. It was a three of us kind of working on it, and, and so we then started talking to developers who gave us empty spaces.
This was before developers started. Sort of necessarily charging for spaces, so I was great. I really had lots of support in that way and and then in 2009 I was able to leave so I had. I started another business as well on the side called Mouse collaborative and with that I was hired by a friend to help him redesign their office space. So I did the whole concept design for that they ended up not being able to do it, because legislation changed on how that particular type of work was being done.
So so the progeny ver went through, but it gave me enough funding to be able to sort of to two leaves Ahaz and and start start doing different projects. I was also asked to run the architecture competition for wild turkey, bourbon visitor center in Kentucky, which was great and again gave me. Some income also helped me work with brands and look at how brands could benefit from really good architecture, so that particular project won the the most prominent a award for the state of Kentucky that year, which is great because it would gave me a really good case.
Study to be able to go to different people and say look at the value of architecture. They were getting lots of. Press they’ve got a lot of visitors because of that. So it was really interesting way for me to say that look at the power of architecture and what were the? What was some of that’s a really interesting experience, being someone who’s being an advocate for architecture into other disciplines and industries.
How has that experience with news informed what you’re doing now with the Museum of architecture, so what it does is it really helps me identify with potential sponsors? So you know what can we actually do for this particular brand? Who might be interested in sponsoring a project that we’re working on? So I feel like I have the experience, the knowledge to be able to talk about how those particular brands could get involved in the projects that we do so, for example, like gingerbread city, we work with various different brands and it’s.
How did the brands kind of amplify what their what they want to get out of the project, and I can you know from having work with these various other brands? I can. I can help them really identify those just, but people who don’t know what gingerbread City is. Can you explain a little bit about that? This is a fantastic idea champion or karynda’s each year, so gingerbread cities started because I went to an exhibition of sort of just pris — mess time.
It was Christmastime event and I saw four large gingerbread houses designed by Baker’s, and I thought, wouldn’t it be amazing, to have an entire city made out of gingerbread designed by architects and again it really fit into our mission of helping the public better engage with architectures. So so we got in touch with South Kensington estate, so we said: can we use one of your empty shop fronts in South Kensington and they gave us a space and we had it master planned by Tibbals planning and urban design, who have been incredible supporters and Sponsors for us over the past three years, so it started in 2016.
We had over 50 architectural practices participate in that first year, and so the architects respond to the master planning brief. So there’s everything from kind of fire stations of schools and hospitals. Everything you’d find in a real city. Is there in gingerbread city in gingerbread form, so the architects design it they bake it, they construct it and they and they bring it. We give them the particular plot, then they bring it on the plot and yeah, and it’s just expanded so that first year we had about 16,000 people come through last year we were invited by the VNA to host it with them, so we held it with them, Made over 24,000 people, but that’s just because we couldn’t get more people in it, sold out in the first week.
So yeah, it’s really it’s a really exciting project and for us the response has been. You know. This is amazing to see what architects can do, and people have come up to me as well in the exhibition and said, I’ve never really been interested in architecture before, but this has really opened my eyes to what architects do we also have sort of part of It as an exhibition as well explaining the theme for the past year, so we’ve got everything from how do you master plan a city? What’s a future city, an eco city this year we’re going to be looking at transport so every year.
There’s this particular theme that we want to get these messages out to the public and but through the medium of gingerbread, which everyone can kind of relate to, because most people at some point in their life have done a gingerbread house or I’ve helped their kids make One or, if I’m on them with their grandparents, so it’s just it’s really relatable, which are the kind of projects that we like to do, and is this very much part of the mission of the Museum of architecture, is to be able to make and communicate what It is architects, do to a wider audience.
Absolutely I mean we all the projects that we do on the public side have to go through that filter. It’s just going to be accessible in terms of the language that we use in terms of the actual particular projects that we have. We always try and make sure it’s something that people have been exposed to before in another way and somehow architects make it different and how do architects add the extra element, because then it becomes exciting and and to be able to communicate what architects do and what Architecture is is really important.
Could you give an example, some other ways that you do tour, so we’ve done another project called sand castles where we commissioned architects to do two and a half meter high by two and a half meter eyes wide sandcastles and those were through the rbk see through The burro and read one in front of the design museum by asif Khan. We had one in Duke of York’s square by next architects and went up and Notting Hill by V, PPR, so yeah, that was that was great and the one in Duke of York square.
It was, it was really interactive because we actually built a sand pit below the the one designed by the architects, where kids could actually then play and sort of replicate and make the around sandcastle. So again, it’s just about people that sort of happening upon these architectural elements, sort of within their everyday sort of goings on and and then also being able to get everyone involved so from kids through adults through grandparents.
And so so that’s the kind of the public face like interfacing with the public or people who perhaps don’t know or come into contact with architecture on a daily basis. What is it that you do to support the industry or within within the architectural practices? How? How are you yeah supporting those those kinds of businesses sure so the GAD through? So we have a program called MOA Academy, which we started a few years ago, because again I had friends who were starting their own architecture, practices who just are really struggling because they just didn’t know how to run a business.
They were great designers, but just didn’t know how to run a business, and so I thought, how can we help them? Just do that I’d be able to sort of get on with the design side. So we run different courses, workshops that are almost every Thursday of the year and everything from business development to marketing. To accounting I mean all different types of courses and we bring experts in to run those courses who leave them.
We have a great network of consultants that we work with and but then we also have our directors Club and our associates Club, and we started that because we realized that there was so much conversation happening at these workshops. But actually there wasn’t time to really get into everyone’s the way that they, everyone runs their practice, and so the directors Club is meant to be a forum for P to really open up and share their best practice.
So it’s incredible sort of how open these architects of these practices are. We sort of capita about 20 practices per cohort, we’re now in our third cohort cohort, because it’s been so successful at really allowing people to kind of benchmark their own practice and seeing how other people do things differently in order to be most efficient. And the idea is that everyone learns from each other so where one person is good at something the other person might be good at something else, and by sharing that everyone benefits, and because of the success of that, we have recently started our associates Club, which is A bit more of a training course, but we found that a lot of associates are sort of promoted, but there’s there might may or may not be any training for them and to sort of move into this new role.
So the idea was to get the training that they need to be associates, but then also to help them better. Think about what career path they may want to have and how to develop that, but then also being kind of a room for a sounding board. For for it, for these sort of associate level architects to talk about how things are done in different practices, and what might they be able to take to their practice to do things differently and better, so we’re looking at them, then, hopefully expanding that sort of through Every stage of an architect’s career, but those are the two programs that we have: that’s really fascinating, so you actually you’re doing stuff, which is kind of focused towards people running their own practices and also people who are actually looking to progress.
Their careers within larger scale practices, and what do you? What are the sort of the themes that you’re encountering a lot with architects? What other common sort of pain points or the sort of things that come out up again and again and again that architects are experiencing? I think it’s tricky, I think, especially right now. A lot of our kids aren’t obviously sure, what’s going to happen with a brexit, but we just find that there’s there a lot of different waves happening in architecture.
So some architects get a lot of work for maybe two or three years and then all of a sudden, you know there’s sort of a dry spell, and I think it’s part of the reason are. The reason that we see is that architects are so busy running. The projects that they forget to do the business develop inside of it, but then it’s also looking at kind of how the arbitral practice is structured. So just the what you know, what are the different models that are available to people? For example, if you look at math group – but you know based out of the u.
S., they are not-for-profit architecture practice. They work in multiple different sites. They get grants for projects they initiate their own proc projects so as well. For us, it’s also about exposing architects to different ways of working and sharing with them different kinds of practices and how they operate. But I think that yeah business development is always a tricky one for people I think marketing, just knowing how to get their name out there, how to differentiate themselves as well a lot of Architects on their websites.
You know their award-winning practices. Well, most of them are award-winning practices so had beyond that, how do you have you differentiate yourself? How do you write about yourself so again that you’re relatable to the people who might hire you? You know there’s something as we all know that so there’s architecture speak and then speak that sort of other people might understand. So it’s it’s just making sure that they’re writing about their work in sort of interesting ways that people can, then you know, decide that they might want to hire them on based on and one of the kind of common themes that you see occurring in the saya.
The conversations are people working within practices and who are looking to progress their career to that associate route. Is there a similarity between that conversation and the conversations that was happening in independent practices? Yeah, I mean, I think, that their struggles are sort of similar. You know I think time management is always a you know. It’s always a big one and also leadership as well.
I think a lot of associates want to be good leaders. They might not know how they might not know how to sort of deal with different situations. So I think you know those are very sort of similar between the director level and the associate level, and I think quite a few. Those associates probably want to go off and start their own practices at some point as well, so they, I think most associates, probably want to learn a bit more about how the business is run, and you know, depending on the practices depending on the director, there may Be more or less levels of pairen see, but actually, I think for the industry, the more the directors are able to share how the businesses actually run with with that associate level architects.
I think they would just they would really understand. You know why decisions are being made, and you know when mistakes happen. Why what you know – and I think the industry will benefit as a whole because as those associates go off and start their own practices, they’ll benefit from that knowledge and that experience and hopefully not make those mistakes in their own practice and for you? What what kinds of things do you think are interesting in terms of like innovative business models that give architects more diversity or opportunity to you know protect their businesses over the long term yeah, I think, just being innovative in the way that they start their projects.
I think that’s something I think I think a lot of architects feel like they need to be hired by people and actually, I think, there’s a lot of ways. Architects can initiate projects themselves like, for example, if you’d like a studio octa-pie with the Thames bath project. It’s such a great idea and there’s so many so many sort of opportunities there. It’s just trying to figure out ways of realizing that was projects.
Can you partner with various community groups, to see something come to fruition? Can you look at different causes? You know what are what are the pain points for, let’s say people with different medical issues. With you know the people who’ve suffered from strokes from people who’ve suffered from from other illnesses. You know what are ways the architects can kind of innovate to help help those particular people – and maybe there are lessons to be learned about that, and maybe there were certain projects that can come out of those for the benefit of everyone.
So I just think it’s kind of looking for opportunities. I also think it’s reaching out to different industries, so we’ve run two conferences on neuroscience and architecture, so we’re neuroscientists are looking at ways that people use spaces. Is there an opportunity there for architects to do projects with neuroscience and develop things further, whether they’re, just maybe theoretical projects or whether they’re real projects? But I see the I think I see the industry becoming more multidisciplinary kind of as we grow and I think architects have to decide.
You know what industries are they interested in, which again helps them to differentiate themselves from other people and potentially work in different ways and how’s your own personal experience in running a organization in a business? How does that influence? How you communicate with architects, or can like facilitate other sorts of business expertise for architects yeah. I mean, I think, being a director myself and having a team of people that I lead and that I mentor and having could have similar issues of having to bring money in to pay staff patron to pay everything else that we need to pay and and also To support our projects, I think I I have sort of similar concerns and similar issues.
So hopefully I can relate to them in terms of just that there, the business side of of just yeah, just running a business hmm, and how was your? How was your business set up health? He was saying earlier set up as a as a charity. Yes, so we are a charity and they’re. One of the reasons for that is that we just want to make sure that architects understand that everything we do is for them in order for them to to grow, to learn to benefit.
Even the public projects that we do is all about helping the public understand. What architects do in order to hopefully hire architects in the future, so yeah everything that we do is is really sort of for architects and and it’s very much about giving back to the industry. So all the money that comes in goes back out to programs or projects for them. The more that we can do for free the more subsidized programming we can do the better.
So so, what we’re just working at ways of being able to do more, we’d like to become a grant giving body? Hmm so kind of, like the graham foundation, is for the u.S.. We would like to become the grant giving body for the UK and be able to help people do more research, do more innovation and and just generally support entrepreneurship in architecture. So you be actually a body that was able to facilitate grants for architects to about to do their own projects.
Amazing, yeah yeah. We are working so we’re working towards that and obviously having our own permanent space as well. To be able to do have a series of exhibitions constantly running and to be educating people about architecture, and how do you see your relationship with some of the institutional bodies of architecture and do you do work in conjunction with them when you’re supportive, or do you Think that there are things that they, the governing bodies, could be doing better yeah, I mean, I think we kind of we operate very independently of other organizations, there’s so many great organizations out there in the UK, but I really feel like our mission is to educate The public about architecture and just make sure that the programming that we do facilitates that through through doing these projects that exist in public spaces and the Entrepreneurship courses very much about very much about yeah, just generally supporting architects, hmm and where and where do you think, Like in the new experience as an architect and in architectural education, do you think that architectural education there is more scope for entrepreneurship coming in as as at an earlier stage as a discussion, and how could that be facilitated? Yeah I mean, although again it’s it’s.
It’s hard because I think until you’ve actually worked, and you understand what it means to be an architect in practice. I think it’s hard to understand that the business of architecture might be so. I think the schools that have work placements are really valuable because it allows people to get into practice and really understand what it means to to work as an architect, and so, therefore, what the challenges might be, and so in terms of the business side of it.
As well, what what’s going on, but I think I think that the business of architecture should be introduced earlier, and I think it should be something that is more of a forerunner. And I think that our schools do projects that potentially can be lets, say, commercialized or or perhaps you know that there’s some brand alignment. So I think, I think that schools should perhaps explore those areas a bit more and see how the projects that their students are creating, could then go off and either become projects themselves, or they should encourage them to try to develop a bit further, that they can Be realized and then, as soon as they try to realize that projects they will come across these bigger issues of you know how they’re funded, how to organize them.
Project management, all those skills that will benefit them when they become an architect, and so by having that experience, I think that would be valuable earlier on then than just doing theoretical projects, yeah yeah, and so what’s next for the Museum of architecture, what we’ve got planned For 2019, and how are you going over the next over the next few years? So hopefully we will have a permanent space it within the next few years.
We are also launching a school for creative thinkers this year, which is which has come out of all the workshops that we’ve done for our families. So, over the past three years we’ve had 1,800 people participate in our gingerbread house, making workshops and a lot of people say well. What else do you do for the rest of the year, and so we decided to start a program for families which is launching on April 27th and it’s all based on biomimicry.
So it’s looking at how animals build their homes and then how that relates to architecture and then creating projects around that. So, for example, we’ll be looking at birds nests and then we’ll look at the bird’s nest, stadium, the Olympic Stadium and then we’ll have the kids. Do weaving as a means of making and architectural structures of weather that they decide to make it home or pavilion or whatever they’d like to do.
But the concept of weaving is the architectural element that comes out of the bird’s nest. So we’ll be looking at lots of different animals and kind of how they build their homes and and then how that then relates to architecture and getting kids to sort of think in those in those kinds of ways. And so that’ll be our first course and then we’ll keep developing that further. We are also working on our treehouse project that we’re hoping to do next year and that would be five tree houses in a public park.
So we’re just the very sort of early stages of that project, but that’s really exciting and we’ve got a pavilion going on in Kings Cross this year for London festival of architecture, and we are also in our third year of a platform for women to speak. So it’s a kind of a women in architecture conference, but it’s not about women and architecture. It’s just a it’s a platform for women to speak on, based on a particular topic.
So, oh, and we also have a playground going up in Sloane Square and that is a collaboration between an artist and architect, Lily, Jenks and that’ll, be up for the month of June as well. So yeah there’s that’s great. What’s going on and if there are young practices or architects listening to this podcast, how is the best way for them to get involved with some of your trainings or development? Your course is sure.
So it’s they can look on our website, which is Museum of architecture. Org and they can find all of our programming there brilliant Melissa. Thank you so much you so much thanks. So that is a wrap. Thank you for listening. The views expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host, and I make no representation. Promise guarantee pledge, warranty, contract bond or commitment, except to help you be unstoppable.
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