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admits “made it difficult to commit to taking on staff!” Kendrick adds that he couldn’t commit to taking on too much work during that period, and needed to be “a bit more selective” than you might normally be launching a practice. This did however mean Michael Kendrick Architects were able to select the more interesting projects, not merely as many as they could tackle – “a small portfolio of very good projects.” Now through that limbo period, he says he’s looking to take on “one or two” staff this year, enabling him to “push on with the workload” without spreading himself too thinly. Michael works effectively as a sole practitioner, but contracts out packages of technical work on a job-by-job basis to professionals such as CGI artists, architectural technologists, and specification writers. All of the face-to-face client work and design per se is undertaken by him currently. He says that in the ongoing inflationary climate, clients aren’t keen on him outsourcing QS work, to try and get costs nailed down, preferring to prepare tenders then see what the market will offer. He says that currently, it’s “difficult to manage expectations” for clients, and contractors are “struggling to price jobs with any certainty.” As the practice’s staff grows, he foresees buying a studio space, but remaining in Leamington Spa. Michael says it’s a useful place to be not only because of its affluent residential customer base – despite the “very conservative” planning authority, at least when it comes to the conservation area. An additional bonus is its central location, giving the firm the opportunity to tackle projects “anywhere in the UK.”
Challenges
The big challenge of moving from a large firm to being a start-up, says Michael, has been “going from managing design and delivery, to doing everything that’s encompassed in running a business.” The paperwork, book-keeping, contracts management and CDM requirements all need to be done, whereas “in a big practice you have a practice manager and a CDM adviser.” And, he adds, “you don’t have a cost consultant – the client expects you to be a one stop shop.” However, of course the flipside is the ability to choose the projects that you want to pursue, which was necessitated in his
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case by the Covid ‘waiting game.’ Being the only point of contact however means that face-to-face work with clients, despite him enjoying it, takes up a lot of Kendrick’s time. Drawing work needs to be “packaged up” where possible and delegated to outside providers.
The future
In terms of upcoming projects for the architect, an “interesting” glass and timber holiday let lodge is currently underway in Fairlight near Hastings in rural East Sussex, in established woodland near an AONB. It is being featured on (George Clarke’s) Amazing Spaces, which will provide some invaluable publicity for the nascent practice. Michael says the project has a range of ecological issues, such as a protected species of bats. To stop them being harmed he specified electrochromic glazing which turns opaque when artificial lighting activates the sensors. In addition, the house is raised off the ground using screw piles to allow animals to exist underneath. With his background being in larger projects, including commercial and education projects, Michael is keen to explore larger schemes in the future, and he is in discussions with a developer (albeit of relatively small plots) currently. While he initially wants to establish a “solid grounding” in his familiar territory of one-off residential projects, he “doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as solely a residential architect in the long-term.”
Conclusion One of Kendrick’s big goals for his practice is to deliver a Passivhaus scheme. He has been meaning to embark on the journey of learning the ropes “for a couple of years,” however Covid appeared during that time, putting things back, with the ability to book face-to-face training places very limited. The extended wait-and-see period of the pandemic has been a “massive learning curve,” he says, including realising that launching a practice is about “building slowly. Happily, he says the enquiries are now “flowing in.” Michael now has a potential solid pipeline of “simple, well-crafted buildings,” working with clients with a similar sustainability ethos, thereby fulfilling his design aims. Having had something of a hobbled early gestation following a successful start, Hendrick says he’s now “keen to push forward.” g
ADF JULY 2022
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