Blending Architecture, Design and Education for MAXIMUM IMPACT, ft. Kevin Haley

Show Notes

Step inside the studio and classroom with Kevin Haley, a designer and educator who bridges practical architecture with academic inquiry. 

At Kevin Haley Studio and Aberrant Architecture, he designs spaces that resonate deeply with community values and cultural narratives, while his role at the Royal College of Art involves mentoring emerging talents, pushing the boundaries between practical design work and theoretical frameworks. 

Tune in to learn how Kevin's dual passions influence his approach to creating meaningful and functional spaces. 
 

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Blending Architecture_ Design and Education for MAXIMUM IMPACT_ ft_ Kevin Haley
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[00:00:00]

Stephen Drew: Hello, everyone. It's Friday. If you're not down the pub I've got you for a half an hour, 40 minutes. That's all right. We're just gonna chill out. I'm not gonna tell your boss if you got a beer or a non alcoholic. It's 2024. Progressive. right. Hello, everyone, to this live stream special on a Friday. We're just gonna chill out here. No big scripts, nothing [00:01:00] hugely profound. I'm only joking. My next guest has done a lot of profound stuff, but we're gonna relax, just chill out. I won't tell your boss if you're watching this. We're just going to take it easy.

I've got an extra special guest here. So if you've been in the Royal College of Art and you're currently one of his students, you can watch this episode and you might hold something on your tooth or maybe you've seen a few of his work in the industry. So We have an educator, we have an innovator, we have someone that has come along to this to showcase all their cool stuff.

We have the fantastic Kevin Haley. Kevin, how are you sir? Are you okay?

Kevin Haley: I'm good, Stephen. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. And what an introduction. You should do that more often for me.

Stephen Drew: Time you go into a room you just wheel me in. And then you just wheel me out, but I think you'll get bored of it, and I'll probably cost you more work than you win in the long run, if I'm being honest. Now Kevin, we've had a few chats before, we always end up having a bit of [00:02:00] laugh, bit of a banter, so I think this is going to be more of a chilled out, But for people who haven't met you yet, Kevin, can you tell us a little bit, first of all, about who you are?

Kevin Haley: yeah, sure. Yeah, name is Kevin Haley. I have my own design studio called Kevin Haley Studio. I also I'm a tutor at the Royal College of Art in the Interior Design Department and I do lots of other exciting things, so I'm a curator at a new space set up in Wandsworth and I was one of the former co founders of Aberrant Architecture.

Stephen Drew: Nice. Well done. Well done. Now, we originally got in touch when I was going on a bit of an interior design. I'm trying to explore that world, and it was cool to learn your stuff as well. But you do architecture. You blur the territories. Let's wind it back. So you studied interior design first, is that correct?

Kevin Haley: Yeah, so I have a bit of an unusual route into all of this really I'll just go one back from that [00:03:00] actually, Stephen, I'd say that, I originally was a drummer in a band and yeah. Music was my first love, I'm a creative soul for sure but I stumbled into architecture or interiors because the band didn't work out.

So I

Stephen Drew: what happened? You weren't in one of those bands that got cancelled or something, were you?

Kevin Haley: No. Actually, the band was called Bob and basically we were doing lots of gigs. I was having an absolute blast, 17, 18 years old and just the lead singer. It started to get a bit serious. We started to get some offers and things potentially coming our way.

Stephen Drew: Ooh,

Kevin Haley: coming our way and the lead singer and the lead guitarist basically fell out over royalties and things and the band split up but for me i when we was doing gigging i used to love drawing so you just sketch something on the side and always did drawing with my mom and then i thought what am i going to do now because i was going to be a rock star that was all that i had in my head i just want

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Kevin Haley: On the road, [00:04:00] playing music, and then I end up doing a foundation because I wasn't quite sure, and this foundation, which was at CAYAD I'm originally from Kent, it covers a lot of things, graphic design, fine art, the whole sort of thing you want, really when you're unsure what you're doing, and I fell in love with making things three dimensionally.

Now, at the time, architecture wasn't really in my head, but I was then just essentially told about a college called Ravensbourne and they were doing this course, which it was expected to be an interior design degree, but it was interior design and environmental architecture. And to be honest, probably cause I was still in my rock and roll mode, I didn't really engage with any of this until the end of my first year.

First year going to university was just, it's your first time away from home, getting to know yourself.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, we've, a few people have done fresh this year, we know what happens the first two or three weeks.

Kevin Haley: but I wasn't, I actually wasn't doing too well. I I pretty much failed my first year [00:05:00] at design school. Just wasn't really that engaged with it. And then had to spend the summer really knuckling down and then started to, I think when I found I fell in love with FormZ in that summer.

And FormZ, I'm showing my age now, but that's one of the earliest 3D modeling packages. So I really got excited. About what you could do with parametric design and all this kind of stuff really early on that sort of really. Yeah, I started to find a bit of love for it and yeah, so that I did this degree did quite well.

Ended up winning new designers , from going from basically nearly being told that design wasn't for me in my first year all the way through to, they used to be new designers at the Business design center. I picked up that award, and this is a really nice little thing I just wanna throw in here. Now, I've just finished a project at the Business Design Center on the new studio design the bar.

of the place where I picked up the award and used to work in this. It's a really nice all the way back. Like I knew that building [00:06:00] inside out. But anyway, so yeah, left design school went out and I was going to, I was having interviews with architects and they were saying to me, have you got your part one?

And I was like, no, I haven't got part one. They're like, your portfolio is very architectural. You should get your part one. At that point I was like, what's a part one? I had no idea.

And then I was going to get jobs at interior, interviews at interior places, and then I just decided, basically, I missed education quite early on, because you go from, I remember finishing my degree, where you get to design the world.

I think my project was all about, I don't know what I was doing at the time, but it was certainly I was very much in it, and I was, I think I was solving world problems and all this kind of stuff in design, and it was telling a story, it was like a bloody film that I was basically designing. And then my first job was I was told to design some guttering details and my heart sank.

I was just like, guttering details? Don't know how to do that. And drainage [00:07:00] details and ironmongery schedules and door schedules. And I was really I don't know if I can do this. And then I think I saw, as I used to read a lot of design blogs and magazines and things, and I saw some of the work of NATO, Nigel Coates, all the stuff about narrative, architecture, and how, the role of stories and I was just like, I need to do that, that, that's me.

At the time, I didn't know if I wanted to be an architect, a filmmaker, a storyteller, whatever it was, I just knew that I needed to get out of your body. Ironmongry Schedules and Drainage Details. So I ended up essentially doing my Part 1. You can do this exemption thing. Because of the RCA course, which was a Part 2 course, you had to have, you, it was unclear whether you had to have your Part 1 or not.

So I just thought, John, I'm going to do it.

I basically just spent a year, a couple of years working, but in, in my evenings, I had to, I was sent this kind of ARB to say, this is what you've not covered off in your course. You need to learn about this. So I taught myself all this stuff. Sat this [00:08:00] exam and then got my part one exemption and that allowed me to then go and do going basically to the RCA where Nigel Coates was and had a wicked time at the RCA.

Just that literally changed my world.

Stephen Drew: yeah. It's interesting because I think I also can have my own mini different version of an existential crisis going from uni to profession. And it was actually technical drawings that that I went, you know what, I can't do this. And I went into sales. I went into recruitment. That's the last thing anyone wants to do.

You imagine speaking to mom and dad and that, Hey, we've done all this, but I'm going to, sell stuff. It didn't go down that well. But yeah so you were in industry, you would do it, you're doing these details and then you got your part for your extension course.

So you changed it a bit, but you've got the interiors at Angom, you got then the architecture Angom, and now I know you set up your own business as well. Do you want to fill me in? How did we get to that point then, Kevin, that you went, you know what, I've done enough of these details for other people and think I might do [00:09:00] my own thing now.

Kevin Haley: Yeah. I think that very early on, so this is another little funny story, actually. I think the other side to me is I'm a designer, but I also, ever since I was a kid, I've always been trying to set up businesses. When I was at school, you could basically come to me and for a quid, I would basically record the top 10 for any, yeah, this is back in the day, any order you wanted.

And I had the ones of top one to 40 charts in my locker. And I just always remember loving kind of ideas of having my own businesses and stuff.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Kevin Haley: Actually, I partly paid for going to the RCA from my first business setup, which was, just when I say this name, try not to vomit, but it was called Sense of Beauty.

Stephen Drew: Oh! Oh, this could be a, this is like a salon name, it's one of them pamphlets you get, and someone's used the, Microsoft Publisher, they got the word art,

Kevin Haley: that's it. So what I noticed was, so I think I said [00:10:00] previously that I'd got into Form Z, 3D modeling, and I was really loving this digital thing. And it was quite early on, and I was doing renders and they were quite, if I got them out now, we'd laugh, but at the time everyone was like, wow, that looks realistic.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Haley: Oh, I was walking on Upper Street, which is the world of like estate agents, and I just noticed they kept on putting up in the windows like new property coming soon, brand new development, blah, blah. There was no picture of it. And then so I walked in there and I said to the guy, I pretended at first I was interested in buying it. And I said, Oh, when do I get to see what it looks like? And he goes, Oh, we're having a sketch done of it at the moment. It'll be something like this. And he showed me his hand sketch. And I said to him, I can I can do a realistic render of that. I've just learned this new software. I said, how about I do one?

And if you like it, I'll do the rest of them for you. So I did it. He loved it. And then he was paying me at the time 1600 quid per image,

Stephen Drew: Whoa. You were the big man on campus when you got those invoices. I weren't you. I

Kevin Haley: It basically allowed me to pay for being at the RCA, [00:11:00] living expenses, very expensive in London, I don't particularly come from a wealthy background. It was, anyway, that spirit's always been in me. I'm at the RCA, I knew by then, I had a taste of, I ran Sense of Beauty for about a year, pretty much, what I started to employ.

People to do renders for me, all sorts of stuff. But I didn't, let's just say I wasn't really doing it by the book. I hadn't learned that side of it. So I needed a much more structured approach and I knew that I was quite good at coming up with ideas, coming up with those sort of things. But I very much knew that my next business, I needed a business partner and I needed someone who maybe was there to keep me a bit more grounded.

Stephen Drew: Ah, yes.

Kevin Haley: And so I went to the RCA with that in the back of my mind. And then the first guy I sat next to Dave. I knew he was going to be my business partner. So I had in the back of my head, I think this is going to be the right guy for me. We built up a friendship and then we were on a trip in Tokyo.

And I remember we were sitting in Yokohama Terminal. I just said to him, look, when we finish, we should start practice. We've got similar [00:12:00] ideas. We were both very much interested in, creating social spaces that were telling stories about place. And we wanted to build installations. We wanted to do exhibitions.

We didn't necessarily want to do your traditional type of architecture. But it wasn't, that wasn't off the table either. So yeah, we I went to we set up immediately after the RCA. We both had to go and get full time jobs. And we were fortunate enough, Dave moved to Dalston. So now I moved into the same block.

Dalston was the place to be. It was a great, it was a great time to be there. I'm going back now probably 15 years. So we just, I just remember, this is the sort of the first lesson I learned. You come out the RCA, which, by the way, when you're at the RCA, you think you're the bee's knees in the design world.

And, it's obviously a great place to be, and I met amazing teachers there. They changed the way I thought, but maybe my ego was slightly inflated coming out of it, because I just assumed I'm just going to get loads of work. And We set up this practice and [00:13:00] it was very hard to get a project. In fact, it took us two years to win our first commission.

I think we used to do every Sunday together, me and Dave, sit down, building a website, thinking about stuff, trying to make contacts, going for competitions. And we didn't win. We just heard no for two years, basically. And when the recession hit in 2010, the V& A had put out basically an open call for an architectural residency and Dave and I remember Dave, recessions, redundancies were kicking in at our practices.

I think Dave got made redundant just before I volunteered and we just went for it. We went for it hardcore on this residency and put in so much work. I'm talking like I was around, I remember being around Dave's house late, late nights rehearsing the presentation and word for word and memorizing it and just thinking this is the one we're getting so close to.

First commission [00:14:00] and we I remember we did the pitch to the V& A, we obviously got shortlisted. I remember we were up against they were old Bartlett guys, Mobile Studio, I think they were shortlisted as well at some point and a bunch of other people and went in there and CJ Lim was on the panel actually, I remember, and I remember he asked a question which was, I don't forget this, he said, Sounds amazing.

And we were there saying how we were going to use the archives in the V& A to study the earliest forms of the workplace. And we came up with these kind of imitative workshops we would do with the public, how we would engage people in design of architecture. And he just said, listen, my grandma doesn't like architecture.

So if she came into your studio, how would you engage with her? And I think Dave tried to give an architectural response, which you know, which was good. And certainly answered the question, which we had thought about. But then I remember just saying to him, does your grandma like tea? And he said, yeah.

I said I'll put the kettle on and we'll just have a chat. [00:15:00] And I think that was, I think a pivotal moment in that thing, as a reminder that yes, we're interested in architecture, but actually part of what I like to do, and we went on to do with Abrant, and I now do with my own studio, Kevin Hayes Studio, is that we want to socially connect with people to discover.

Stories and stuff that then build onto projects. So actually, I think starting most projects with a cup of tea and a chat is not a bad way to go. Certainly if you're, if I'm designing something for Swansea and I've never lived in Swansea before,

Stephen Drew: So you do you bring that up? 'cause I lived there for 18 years.

Kevin Haley: had to. Anyway so yeah, I ended up, so we won the V& A residency. I remember, I was teaching at the time at Ravensbourne. That happened pretty quickly. I left before Aberrant kicked off, I did get a teaching position quite quickly which was good, but I did volunteer my time for nothing in the beginning to get into that scene.

Stephen Drew: I really, I was going to [00:16:00] ask because it's, I find the academia circuit, it's really hard to break into Kevin, really hard. You

Kevin Haley: Basically what I did was I, my old tutor, Leighton Reid at Ravensbourne, always stayed in touch with him. I, he knew of my ambitions. I was trying to set up a practice. He said, why don't you come spend some time with some of the first year students with me? You can get some experience that way.

They weren't able to pay me, but they were able to obviously expose me to that, which was great. And then, actually, when we then, we spent two years trying to win a project, we won the V& A residency, and then we saw that as a really great opportunity to start approaching universities. My old tutor at RCA now, Diana Cochran, was running interior architecture at London Met.

So I said to her, we just won the V& A residency. Be great. Bring the students down. We can get them involved in the archive. And then a few conversations at the pub, she then invited us to run a studio there. But, primarily because we had the relationship, but also [00:17:00] because now we have a little bit of something to say other than we've got a practice.

No, we've actually got a live commission. It's a research project. We'll have. Opportunities in the V& A. So, that was the way in and then we stayed, I ended up being Head of Interior Architecture at London Met a few years later, etc. But, initially to get in there, I think it was a combination of staying in touch with my tutors, but me showing willingness that I want to do this.

And I generally did want to teach because I see teaching as a research tool really, but also a dialogue between myself and. Now younger students with very creative ideas and I very much enjoy that conversation. So yeah.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, it's really interesting. And listen, that's off to you. And, anyone who puts themselves out there, I really commend. Now, there was the, I'm sure, and I get a bit of the vibe of you as well, you're like we've got this project, we get the students in, it's going to be amazing. I went, what was it like when reality kicked [00:18:00] in, Kevin, of you've got to make the money.

On your studio, then you've got to do the academia projects, which, as you said, even at the start, you were getting into them. It wasn't exactly paid, maybe at the start and all that had to come. How did you balance that at the front? And also, you hadn't taught before formally, how do you even begin?

Do you just learn it as you go?

Kevin Haley: Yeah. Some great questions here in terms of reflecting on this. That time was crazy because never really run a business before. That's number one. It's certainly not an architecture business. Number two, didn't really know,

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Kevin Haley: well. So we're trying to set up a practice, deliver this project to V& A and get our heads around this teaching environment.

Once again, I think I made the pivotal mistake thinking, oh, we've just won the V& A residency with the architecture residents at the V& A. The phone's going to just start ringing. Of course it is. And The reality was no, [00:19:00] it didn't. When you're at architecture school, you don't get taught things about marketing, sales.

Certainly at part two, you're not being taught how to write a fee proposal. How do you even value yourself? Someone says to you, how much design that? We had, didn't have an idea. So we're trying to learn all this. And I'm, that side of it, I remember it was like five months into the V& A residency.

And I was saying to Dave, why don't we want to go back to a full time job? Do you? And he was like not really. But I said, we don't have a project. So we need to accept the fact we're probably going to have to go out and try and find one. And we, we still didn't really understand how to do much of that, but it's funny how things just happen.

And it just, I'm looking back now. And at the time I can tell you, I can assure you, I was stressed, but looking back now, it's just amazing how things happen. We're working out the London Met thing, run this studio. I don't think in the beginning I was maybe the I think my teaching is a lot better now, in terms of how I approach things teaching.

So I, yes, I am learning in the field. I'm learning [00:20:00] from very experienced teachers around me in London Met. We're But what we did have is, we loved it. We absolutely were in it. So we were, we over delivered from a teaching point. If you had, if you were in our platform, we were giving you more hours than you've ever had in terms of teaching.

We were supporting you. We had students, we were going to the pub down with the students talking about design and architecture. We were bringing to the V& A, I was just in this whole world. So they, It wasn't a very good business move because the money we were getting paid would probably run about 1.

50 in the end as it did. But so that was going on and then I built up a really, I was also still teaching at Ravensbourne, so I was doing the V& A gig a couple of days a week. We were a couple of days in London Met and I was a day in Ravensbourne and then my whole weekend was designing other projects for Aberant at the time.

that we're trying to win. And one of my students at Ravensbourne, his brother owned a pub in Old Street called El Paso. And when the [00:21:00] student wanted to come to an internship for me and things like that we got into a relationship and then one day he said, Oh, you should come meet my brother. And the funny thing is at the V& A, what we'd unlocked from the archives was the history of public houses and how pubs basically used to be a workplace, a public workspace.

What we do now, we go into a cafe. We there's a plug point you take in there and you can use it as an office well historically people would you know your library would be in your public house you'd have your bureau to change there would be effectively conference rooms for people, so we're quite fascinated how this whole Victorian idea could be really relevant for a contemporary society in which we're getting addicted to mobile technology, so I go to this pub with my student I meet his brother.

He basically says my pub's failing and we have to close this down We're not making enough money And I'm saying, ah, we should maybe do some of these ideas that we're discovering from the past. By the end of that he, after getting very drunk with him, we had our first commission

Stephen Drew: Oh, good for [00:22:00] you.

Kevin Haley: It was probably, I think it was probably something like 7, 8000 pound fee, which for us at the time was just like, Oh my God.

Stephen Drew: Xavier. Yeah.

Kevin Haley: saviour. I admit, at the BNA, there were, we had a bit of money for the residency. I think it was only like 9, 000 for the year. So it's hard anything I'm living in a, I'm sharing a room in Shoreditch with three different people in a room, but I didn't care because I was having the best time of my life.

But that was the first project we got over line. Someone paid us actually money to design it for them. And we then turned that into, we used a lot of the ideas we were discovering about the history of Victorian pubs to test in this place called El Paso. And then we ended up setting up a gallery in the basement.

called the Go4Hole, which we started to run. We did exhibitions, events, but once again, that was gold because we invited half of London's design journalists to that, those events, we started to build relationships with them. So people then wanted to publish our work. And [00:23:00] when our work got published, the phone did start to ring, people

Stephen Drew: Oh, finally.

Kevin Haley: Finally, right? But we're talking, we'd already gone for two years here and now, we're about a year into the V& A residency. So we're talking about three years just to get a little bit of momentum going where, yes, we can design things, yes, we'll charge for it. And, we were learning on the go.

As well as Dave and I were learning how to build business partners, still learning how to teach and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: It's it. I'm glad you mentioned that as well, because I always say the social is better. My third business, it's taken years, it's a lot of mistakes. I think that it's very easy for people to see the final product or these big companies and actually the graph to get there actually, but it is also part of the journey you, since you mentioned Swansea and you did mention though, and there's the last thing from the past I want to say, because we will come to the future.

Come on then tell me what you're splashing Wales was while we're on the subject. [00:24:00] Yeah,

Kevin Haley: basically designed. A piece of public art outside Swansea Museum and

Stephen Drew: the nice part, not near, cause if it was on Wine Street, it wouldn't have survived very long, Ken, you'd have to make it to Eflon.

Kevin Haley: I'll show you my, I've probably got an image on it here somewhere, but it's a blue,

Stephen Drew: it out.

Kevin Haley: it's essentially I really love that project from lots of different perspectives, but essentially, we, a piece of public art called the Civic Stage. One side of it is this bright blue facade, and the other side of it is a series of laser etched cut coins.

Stephen Drew: Here we go.

Kevin Haley: oh, you're bringing it up. Very nice.

Stephen Drew: Here we go. We can put it as the album cover after, because it's Swansea. As long as you don't see me for the copy right after, we can do that on there.

Kevin Haley: Yeah this is actually some of the drawings we used to do where we're collecting all these We used to call it local intelligence. So we'd go and run workshops, talk to people, meet people in like pubs, community centers. Then we go to museums and archives and we're just gathering [00:25:00] all this stuff.

And we found out this amazing story basically, where historically when Swansea was the center of the copper industry, they used to have to go on these voyages from Swansea to Valparaiso in Chile to swap basically copper ore for coal. And along the way, Because at the time currency was in short supply, the copper barons sminted their own coins.

So effectively on these boats, these were these specifically designed boats that you're on the screen now the sailors actually had, like we have today, the Brixton pound, the Bristol pound, you had the Swansea pound where they were able to trade

Stephen Drew: The Swansea Pound. There we go.

Kevin Haley: So we thought, oh, that's really super interesting.

So we came back after finding out all this stuff and decided to run a lot of workshops in Swansea, in these various locations, asking people. That's actually one of the coins on the screen now that's inside Swansea Museum from the original voyages. We said, here's the workshops. We said to people, if Swansea did have an actual panel today, [00:26:00] who would you put on it?

And so people started to sketch different ideas. I, I remember three, the three that come to mind is T. Cozy Pete, who's a local I think he was, I think he's homeless, but he was a kind of character around Swansea that everyone knew. So they stuck him on it. Number two was the Big Apple, which is a famous meeting point.

Number three

Stephen Drew: Oh, yeah, that's true. In the Mumbles Beach. Yeah.

Kevin Haley: Number three was apparently Swansea is a great place to surf. So

Stephen Drew: Yeah. That's

Kevin Haley: people threw lots of surfing boards. So we then. We took those actual designs and we put it into the piece of public art. If you go to the photographs, if you close that one down,

Stephen Drew: Oh, sorry. This is what happens. It's like one of your unruly students driving the presentation. I'm the worst. Imagine.

Kevin Haley: Here is that slice of Valparaiso. It's a kind of elevation of a street that we quite liked. And it's blue and it's bright and Swansea. And if you flick to the other side, Yeah, this side is where you've got all the coins. Etch and what we've designed this side, it's a stage [00:27:00] that faces the green.

So we very much wanted to create a piece of public art that people could use. Have your picnic on it, do a catwalk on it, set up a little shop on it, whatever you want to do. But what's really nice to see, if you keep flicking through the images, is that people would come down to the structure to basically find the coin that they made in

Stephen Drew: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Kevin Haley: Sort of see, yeah, you can, I think there's another shot zoomed in at some point.

Stephen Drew: Oh, here we go.

Kevin Haley: Yeah. So all the different coins that were made in the workshops are on it. Here's an example of someone using it as a kind of picnic. I promise that wasn't staged.

Stephen Drew: Oh, yeah.

Kevin Haley: Yeah. And here we go. Some of the kids finding their coins, Just to I think it was a really nice moment for us in the sense that some of the things we'd been thinking about for a long time about how we can work with people and include them in the process of design and I think this was a really successful result of that, and I'm certainly going on to do more of that now.

Great.

Stephen Drew: we're going to [00:28:00] feature on here, bearing in mind that you've done the V& A, is Swansea. And I think we should leave it on that note. Because why not? Maybe just a quick interlude while we're here. We've got lots of comments coming in from Twitch, believe it or not.

So I guess we're with the cool kids now. We've had highs. We found the work inspiring. That might have been the V& A. I think it was the V& A, but I'm going to say it was the Swansea Project. Yeah, exactly. Red. Mike says he loves the cup of tea story. Yes. It can be that easy. Bringing it down to earth, isn't it?

No. No. Archie speak. No, Archie speak and then P Palita also says An ugly and lovely town. I don't think that's the swans quote. The Kwani quote is actually pretty shitty city,

Kevin Haley: That is it, you're right, yeah.

Stephen Drew: Oh no. I might get kicked off LinkedIn and it was me, not you after all that

Kevin Haley: ha!

Stephen Drew: but there we go. Nice to see ings coming in. Maybe what I can say now, [00:29:00] Kevin, is I've got one or two questions more about the present day. And you mentioned as well, you talked about that cool as it was in Z 3D model.

Kevin Haley: Full zed, yeah.

Stephen Drew: day, I, and again Cheryl, my, I would be on my, with my nerves and I thought I was the coolest thing since sliced bread.

But tech has come a long way and the last year or so people have taught. Banging the terms around of AI, chat GPT, and all this stuff. Cause you're in the space on the academic front, as well as the professional front doing your projects. What's your thoughts on the emerging tech at the moment?

Has a lot changed? Has not much changed? Is there exciting opportunity or is it carrying on the same thing?

Kevin Haley: I think it's an exciting opportunity but very much this year at the RCA, the platform that I teach on SuperMatter, part of our brief is to encourage the students to actively experiment with AI to see how we can use it as a tool. It's not really a thing that we should be, scared of. So a lot of the students are, [00:30:00] have been experimenting with it.

I've been experimenting with it as well to see what is possible. Yeah, I think that is the really cool thing about teaching, really. I think a good teaching environment is somewhere that should be embracing the involvement of our practice as designers. And What better place to research and understand how to use AI than at a college like the RCA.

Yeah, all sorts of things I think are going to happen fairly soon, certainly coming out of the Interior Department. And the students are really embracing it, and I'm learning a lot from them about how to use it.

Stephen Drew: yeah. It feels like it's moving that quite a fast pace. What I was going to ask as well, because I'm a bit of a Luddite now, Kevin, as well so I was, went to uni back in, was it 2005, right? And, It was quite a difficult time, wasn't it, in the pandemic and now things are going back. What's it like studying architecture or more to the point interior architecture now post pandemic?

Is it, what is it, there's [00:31:00] more collaboration in the studios again? Is it a bit of both? What's it like?

Kevin Haley: Yeah, it's interesting. When I reflect on when I was at university, And certainly when I was at the RCA, it was tiny, I was probably in a, I was in the art and architecture platform where there was, I maybe 15 people and a couple of tutors and, it was an amazing place to be in terms of how it opened up my mind.

And I like to think that the RCA still has that that role for a lot of students coming there, but I think now, Students come there and what I quite like is, and certainly within the the interior department is that students don't necessarily want to just go and do interiors. We have another platform there called Super Futures and they speculate on essentially future trends and create stories and think about, where we might be going into the future.

But that job role necessarily isn't just a typical interior designer role. I think now what I'm seeing, when I went to university, there was like, I want to be an architect, or I want to be an interior designer, but now I [00:32:00] think there's a lot more students suggesting that they still maybe want to go out there and try different things, and maybe it's more multidisciplinary, and maybe they want to go into theatre design, of course.

Furnished design. And certainly once again, what I think is really great is that on the teaching team at interiors, it's very diverse. You've got theater designers, you've got interior designers, you have architects, you have urban planners, you have researchers and stuff. So students get to develop these relationships with them.

So it's different, but there's similarities.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, nice. Fair play. And what I was going to ask when I have a question around the subject of academia is because you've been a student before, we joked about everyone has their cheeky freshers, they usually start knuckling down in those two to three years, stuff gets serious.

I was gonna swear again, then I'm really gonna get kicked off LinkedIn. But what I mean is now You've been a tutor, you've done a lot of this stuff as well, so you've seen the other side. Do you have any advice for students now in 2024 that you think would be useful for people to learn [00:33:00] from?

Is there anything you could impart to someone studying now compared to before? That's what I'm trying to say.

Kevin Haley: Yeah, a sort of a couple of things, really, and this is only really coming from my personal experience. So I think what the most important thing while you're at university, and it might not feel like it when you're there, because you do have assignments and deadlines to hit, and it's very easy for me to sit there and give you this piece of advice, but Taking risks is super, super important.

And so yes, you have to get that assignment done, making sure you have fun and you're playing and you're experimenting because you don't get that time back. When you leave there, yes, there's always potentially times to go and do other courses, but most people, step into the professional world, they stay in the professional world.

For a lot of people can be become more of a dry place in some ways. [00:34:00] Another thing to tackle. So it's a golden opportunity wherever you are, the RCA, any other university, you've got that time to really experiment. So what I mean by that is Yes, tutors are there to guide you.

Yes, tutors are there to maybe set your briefs, but it's your time. And try and use that time how you want to use it and get the best out of that situation. The second piece of advice really, and this is something that I really wanted, and at the time that maybe wasn't available, is that I really wanted to, my own business, and I wish I could have started it whilst I was studying in some ways, or had that kind of relationship with the academic world, because I do think sometimes they are quite different in terms of, like I said at the beginning, I've left university, I'm designing this amazing world, I'm asked to do drainage details, no idea how to do them.

Not saying we should be doing drainage details at university, by the way, so if you've got, if you're thinking about you want to do your own design studio, or you do want to collaborate with a fashion designer, you want to do those kind of [00:35:00] things, you don't have to wait till you finish, you can start it whilst you're there.

And I think, there's been people that have done that. Since then, Assemble are a good example. They obviously were studying and setting up at the same time. But it's now, for me, the role the university can play in that as well, for the academic environment, to think about how can we better support students that when they do finish, even from the point of view, you go and do that drainage detail, you have no idea how to do it, or you want to go and set up your own practice.

How do we do that? And, A little project that I'm working on at the moment that I've just set up with the RCA, which I'm really excited about. I'm actually sitting in a thing I've designed for Wandsworth Town and it's it's

Stephen Drew: looks sharp. Looks cool.

Kevin Haley: partly so there's a new development being built and I'm involved in the project and this is a kind of a meanwhile space, whilst the kind of, there's 18 new towers being built and a whole new public realm with a sort of commercial setting, is that there's a kind of, Concept or Community Lounge at the front, which is a kind of coffee shop where people locally are going to come in and give their ideas and conversations and [00:36:00] workshops be happening in here, the kind of stuff I've done in the past.

And then we've got on one, the other side, we've got actually the RCA called Super Satellite. It's a pop up studio making space where I'm going to be in there with my students every Tuesday. Architecture students will be doing it. I'm sure other students courses will be involved. We then are running something with RCA Illuminae.

So I've got five former students from the RCA department who have got ambitions to do their own practice, to do, go and do their own commissions. So we're able to give them a space which basically doesn't cost them anything. They're going to be making Something I noticed about this project was that there's a lot of waste coming off the 18 towers.

So the project is they get to use the waste coming off the build to make structures and things. So we'll be able to have an exhibition in there for them, events, but I'm also able to introduce them to another brand that's involved in this called Foundry, who are a co working company, they've [00:37:00] got lots of entrepreneurs in there who've got a really strong business.

Business Head. So what I'm thinking is it'll be amazing in the future that you've got an opportunity for alumni or graduates coming out of university. They get some studio space. They get to work on live projects. They maybe get to collaborate with not just our designers, but actually people from a business background, a commercial background.

They get Maybe those conversations turn into how do you value yourself as an architect designer? What do you charge? What do you cost? How do you do the legal stuff? All that kind of thing. And then hopefully I can also try and help some of these students that've got these ambitions, get them some of their first commissions.

Maybe they design a shop window for the development. Maybe it's a piece of public art. So that's something a long term, For me, my advice is, going back to that question was start now if you've got that ambition, start pushing your academic institution about what support can you give me.

And I think in the future, this could be amazing things for all sorts of universities. Think about how do we continue those relations? How do we support these [00:38:00] new practices that might want to come through? Because it is difficult once you leave. Difficult from, just letting go of the fact now you've got to actually go out there and turn this into a living for a lot of people.

So, those are the two bits of advice really, but also links into a passion project of mine, which is

Stephen Drew: I, no, I love it. And I love how academia, the more and more it gets involved with the community and the built environment, it, it feels like to me, the more profound things can come out of it, or the more real opportunities get. It all sounds really cool. The last question I had from me, Kevin, if it, I do get some people who are able Profession practicing architects who want to go into academia.

So it's you offered the advice here for the students for those people that were in the industry who maybe have an itch for the going into academia. Actually, it's a lot of hard work. But how do you does one person who is practicing go into it is? Or do you even recommend it for everyone? Can you do it in certain [00:39:00] jobs?

Kevin Haley: Yeah. For me, the idea of the industry academia, linking up more, like reducing the gap sometimes between those two worlds, I'm all for it. Okay, you can sometimes in academia, you can spend a bit too long out of the professional world to understand some of the pressures going on and vice versa.

You can forget sometimes in the professional world that academia is about dreaming, experimenting, risk taking, doing all those kinds of things. So if you want to come back into that world, I think the reason you would be coming back into that world is very much for those, for that reason, which is you, it's not, for me, teaching is a dialogue, right?

And a dialogue between two people. Yes, there is the tutor and yes, there is the student, but really, you would like it to be that you're both learning through that conversation. So it's not about. Coming out of the professional world, going into academia and seeing as I'm going to lecture, I'm going to teach them how it is done from a [00:40:00] place of frustration.

It should be, I'm interested in also learning myself, what new materials, what new, like you spoke about AI, maybe this is, I want to go and work within a department that is investigating AI and design. I'm interested in innovative materials. So have a reason that you want to be there from a learning point of view, and then.

And then secondly, I think the way to get into that, there's, just a little side note, there's obviously loads of advantages in terms of, you might be interested in doing your own kind of research and a lot of the academic environments will have funds you can apply for that would give you research funding.

There's lots of initiatives set up. You also might be interested in doing a teaching qualification like a PGCert, which can be funded by an institution. But if you want to get into this, my, the best way to do it is to make sure you go to the show of the university. When you go to that show, go and talk to the tutors.

Go and actually talk to them about the stuff they're doing, express your interest in it. And then I would say in the [00:41:00] beginning, the best way to build up that relationship is to offer your, I'd love to come in and be a part of one of your reviews, your crits. I'd love, that's one way into it.

Another way is, I'd love for your students to come and visit my studio where I work. It's actually build up the relationship like that. And when there's an opportunity in the opening then hopefully that's the way in. There's, you could also offer to run a workshop, things like that, it depends how the the institution is structured.

Like the RCA, there are funds there to pay for professional people's time to come in. We, we even do at the RCA professional mentors. So we give students a mentor at a certain point of the year. They go visit their studio. The mentor actually gets to look at the design project. So we are definitely trying to bridge that gap.

And like I said, the super satellite here is going to be another component to that. So yeah, that's what I'd say to people freshly trying to get into academia.

Stephen Drew: I like it. It's the theme of this whole topic is you've got to be out there, you've got to experiment, you've got to make a bit of noise, meet people, and [00:42:00] then things come to you. Just because you want to go into academia, it doesn't mean that the phones are going to be in per se. You've got to, you've got to, You've gotta get involved really, isn't it?

So

Kevin Haley: It's the challenge, to be honest with you, in the sense that You know, this has not come easy to me. I can assure you as a designer, or if you know any artists, what would we want to do? We want to sit in a beautiful little hole somewhere out away, making things in our own little worlds and stuff.

But then at some point, No, you have to go and show people what you're doing and you have to be able to talk about it and you have to be able to receive lots of potentially things that you might not want to hear and you have to be open to all this and you have to then start talking to people that don't really care about the things you are interested in, don't see it your way, but then you have to build that relationship and find common ground and all this kind of stuff and that is a part of the architecture design education we don't ever receive which is And I think the only way to do that is get out of the university or get out of the [00:43:00] studio and go and spend time in the places we want to design or the places we want to be and strike up conversations.

Stephen Drew: Said. Now the last thing before you go, it's only fair, you get to flip the script on me. Go, goodness knows what you're gonna ask me, but Kevin, have you got one or two que quick questions for me or anything like that?

Kevin Haley: Yeah. I would like to, I guess I would like to know a bit more about, why did you, you mentioned you went from architecture school. I think you then said you spent a bit of time in recruitment.

Stephen Drew: Oh, yeah. Still do a lot of it. That's where a lot of the revenue, which keeps the podcast and everything with the social going, so you can't get away from it. But yeah you ask him why I give it up? What and what do you want?

Kevin Haley: I'm asking what's the driving force behind Architecture Social? What's the, what is it you love, what is it you love, why do you love to do this?

Stephen Drew: Yeah, cool. It's evolving. And I guess a bit like the way you have your studio, which has design, but you have maybe certain projects which bring in more [00:44:00] revenue, and then you've got your creative stuff, and you've got your academia. I'm treading those lines at the moment. So the loose experiment of the Architecture Social, if you could call it one, is connecting companies, people moving in that space, trying to do something useful, trying to make a message, trying to get involved in stuff, trying to shake stuff up.

That's the cool thing. However You need cash to burn to keep the lights on and all this stuff. So there, therein becomes the quandary. And then the, so I find that the moment my, my personal challenge is keeping the conveyor belt going to keep the revenue going to do the cool stuff. So there was an interest in chat.

There was an there was a developer from LandSec and he was talking about. You have to, things have to be financially viable to do the really cool, profound stuff which affects the community. I'm in that quandary at the moment. But then equally, the interesting thing about the social which is for everyone in the audience here and yourself, Kevin, all this stuff is that basically the infrastructure that I've [00:45:00] built, A lot of it doesn't get used.

And then maybe there's an opportunity then for young entrepreneurs. Cause I'm like, Hey, I'm paying the bills per month and you can use the same software to do your own cool stuff. So I think a good example, Kevin, of it in the pandemic was the Architecture Social started as a forum when I was, I mentioned to you a little bit, I was going into the abyss, drinking my, my, I had to keep myself motivated.

So I set up a forum at the time and it was bouncing and there was people's ideas, people were sharing information that I thought was just going to be for students and people came. However, once the lockdowns lifted, it wasn't used so much. But the podcast, which was a mini project in the forum, because I was like, oh, let's just bring on cool people and see what happens.

That's done really well. So I think businesses evolve, things evolve, where the next thing might be, I'm not too sure yet. Is that, I'm giving the [00:46:00] straight answer, but giving you the real answer where my head's at now. Does that

Kevin Haley: That's a great answer, but it's made me just think of another question. Has Architecture Social ever done a live event, physical event?

Stephen Drew: Short answer is no. Yeah, I wanna yeah. I do wanna, yeah. Yeah. I need, I've got the cam, I've got the cameras, I've got already, do you know what it is? I've just gotta do it. It's like the first credit, whatever. And it's gonna be a little bit janky. It's gonna be a little bit ugly.

But it'll be cool. You want about digital and physical?

Kevin Haley: Yeah, I'm thinking there could be an event in the Super Satellite at the back. A live you doing maybe it could be a series of speakers, then a discussion. We get a sponsor for that. I've got a couple of people in mind. Have a cool event about it. We could do something like that.

That'd be cool.

Stephen Drew: I love it. An Autodesk. I am coming for you. You need to spend some money on me and Kevin

Kevin Haley: Hold on. It's form Z on the phone. Hello? [00:47:00] I

Stephen Drew: going?

Kevin Haley: don't know. I have no idea.

Stephen Drew: we find out

Kevin Haley: Isn't this podcast actually sponsored by FormZ?

Stephen Drew: it can be now.

Kevin Haley: Or Yeti, one of the two.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Why not? Yeah. What else? Swans sponsored by Swansea. That's what else it is. Thank you so much, Kevin. I would love to do that. Let's actually commit to this. See if we can do the event, but at least by this time, we'll give a reasonable amount of time to see by next year. If we've got that done, I'd like that.

That would be cool. Because, I like to, if I'm committing, I don't like doing the paper thin yeses, so we'll lock it in, but listen, Kevin, thank you so much for being here. Last thing, where can people find you if they want to reach out to you to follow up and say hello after this?

Kevin Haley: probably best place at the moment is going to be Instagram. Kevin H's website is still currently being built, but I would say either, I've got two [00:48:00] Instagrams, Kevin H Studio, I'm sure you can share this at some point Stephen, and also my own personal one, Kevin John Haley. Yeah, hit me up anytime.

Stephen Drew: I'll put them both in the description at the end of this. No funky messages to Kevin, on,

Kevin Haley: Only funky messages. What are you on about?

Stephen Drew: funky messages in the personal and Zed forms, you can message the professional one. We love it. Thank you so much, Kevin. You're an absolute legend. I really appreciate this. I'm going to end the show in one second, but stay on the stage and thank you in the audience while we were here.

Yeah, I can see that we've got a few people that have enjoyed the conversation. Great. That makes it a bit more fun. And I was laughing because Red Mike was enjoying him and that he, but he's going to get on this flight. So Red Mike, don't blame me if you didn't get your flight, but if you did, then we'll see you soon.

Thank you so much. More content coming soon. Have a fantastic Friday and enjoy the rest of your day, everyone. Take care. Bye bye now. Take care. [00:49:00]