As those of you who follow me on Twitter will know from recent tweets, I spent most of the weekend at the Parndon Mill Open Studios mixing with the creative community that calls this amazing place home.
Parndon Mill was mentioned in the Domesday Book as having two hives and a goat and is now a hive of creative activity. The four storey mill and outbuildings provide studios and workshops for artists, craftsmen, designers and architects.As a place to work it is not only fantastically pituresque but also a very real example of how individuals and companies in differing fields can come together to work towards a common goal and suceed.
Since moving in here three and a half years ago, we have worked with almost all the inhabiants of this building to achieve a number of different goals. we have worked on hospitals in Ethiopia with BuildAid who are on the floor above, made templates for handmade classical guitars, advised painters on how to approach large murals and developed sculpters plans for large scale public works.
We regularly have painters & other artists "popping in" to see what is happening in the world of architecture, they contribute to schemes that we are developing, casting a constructive eye across drawings & sketches & making observations that improve our concepts immeasurably.
The Open Days at the weekend were a public outworking of this mentality of collaborative working with everyone mucking in to serve teas and coffees, man the studios and gallery and generally make the event a huge success.
The trade magazines these days are constantly telling us, as a small practice, that we need to get our heads around collaborative working to survive. At the same time those publications are telling us, as Architects, that we need to re-establish our position & respect within the construction sector.
On the face of it this appears to be somewhat of a contradiction but, in my opinion, this is not the case.
During my time at the University of Westminster (BA Hons Architecture) the assumption was always that, as Architects, we would need to collaborate with others to make our designs a success. The University rightly took great pride in bringing together students of different diciplines to work on common projects and develop a language of cooperation and shared goals.
Once I entered the profession and started to see at first hand "the real world" of Construction I was shocked at how confrontational the process was with Clients, Contractors and Local Authorities all treating each other with distrust and, in some case, downright contempt! Ever since I have been absoloutly convinced that building a team ethic between stakeholders in projects is key to the project being delievered to everyones satisfaction.
I do not subscribe to the idea that collaborative working is a new idea but I do think that the current focus on small practices collaborating with larger outfits is simply one element of a larger picture. I believe that, for Architects to regain their reightful position within the industry, we have to be seen to be developing relationship with Local Authorities, Clients, other practices and Contractors alike so that we can initiate useful dialogue around projects and ensure that we genuinely add value throughout a projects gestation and delivery.
We have, for the last year or so, been working this out in practice and are starting to see the rewards. these vary from achieving a Planning Permission for a scheme that faced significant opposition but was approved because of the "high quality of design" through to being invited with another practice to develop proposals for the regeneration/facelift of a key area within Harlow. Neither of these opportunities would have come about without investment in relationships and building trust and respect and there is more fruit on the tree simply waiting to ripen.
If you are interested in developing a relationship with us as a practice, please contact me through our website or drop me a tweet!
