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Today we speak with the trailblazing team at Common Ground Workshop who isn’t your typical architecture practice – they’re a band of socially conscious mavericks with a hybrid business model that’s shaking up the game!
Curated content, insights and opportunities to accelerate your career in Architecture, Design, Development and Real Estate to the next level.
From Blueprints to Lattes_ Serving the Community ft. Common Ground Workshop
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[00:00:00]
Stephen Drew: Hello everyone. It's Friday. Get your Beers. Are you down the park watching this on your phone? Good for you. I'm stuck here, but if you are stuck in your office, we're gonna talk about some cool stuff or be revealed 28 seconds. Ooh, I'm in the new fancy office today.
18 seconds. We'll go live. Can't put my stuff away then. Professional. Here we go.
Hello everyone, and thank you for tuning into this live room special. I know it's a sunny day, but if you persevered and stuck and I don't know, [00:01:00] put this in your calendar to tune in. I really appreciate it because this one's gonna be an interesting one. I'm in Central London, but I'm joined here today by an awesome Architecture practice in the east of London.
Now they do other things as well than just Architecture. Sounds bizarre. Sounds crazy, right? But it's true. You might have had a coffee or a bagel in their cafe. And as well as that, they're designing their own buildings and all this super stuff that I find really interesting. Without favor Ado, may I introduce the awesome Mark from Common Ground Workshop?
How are you, mark?
Mark Sciberras: Very well. Thanks. Afternoon Stephen.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. Thank you for tuning in. Now, mark, I can see you in the background there. I can see stuff happening. I can see drawings being clicked away and all this cool stuff, but for anyone that's not met you, mark, tell me a little bit about who you are and what Common Ground Workshop is.
Mark Sciberras: So Congram workshops. Just practice open in 2014 and with a desire to run a commercial [00:02:00] business alongside it. Started the practice at Metall Studios back in just from London Field and started working with alongside some friends cause from Collective Works and yeah, just at the time was looking for commercial.
Premises to open a cafe, and then one, a design studio from the cafe. Managed to find a great space in Bethel Green, just on Old Bethel Green Road. Which I got leased for in August of 2014. And then wanted to set up, architects working in a space and and then, have a, just a standard like community cafe front of house, but with the studio operation within it.
I spoke to because everyone Alistair about that and they were really keen on the idea. So we Once the, once I fitted out the cafe they came and joined me as two, two practices sitting in a space which we trialed. It was, fine for the time, but distracting as well.
Cause we were working at a long table in the middle. People kind of chatting and eating and we're obviously doing work. So it was good is like an experiment to see how, you could practice in [00:03:00] a community setting, a kind of commercial public offering. And yeah, I think we there were a few years where we did like a London festival of Architecture kind of barbecue.
We had an open studio and I was lucky because getting the cafe space, I didn't know that there was a news yard behind that had like loads of architects. We had we met Russian for fish and we met B P R and open practice Architecture. There was Charles Holland and Ali Ward.
Loads of amazing practices just flanking DK cm, who is still here. Graham Williamson. Yeah, the list goes on. So we're very lucky. We came and opened a cafe flanking a lot of Architecture practices, so we're able to ho host a few events across a few years and and so therefore, like the cafe.
It's seen as a bit more of an incubator, having us working, having people come in, have meetings and create like a bit of a creative buzz. But but the cafe's called the Common E two and we are Common Ground Workshop. So we wanted to keep the theme of common.
And [00:04:00] it's something that I was very passionate about when I opened Common Ground Workshop. That it was a practice that was about people, about our clients rather than about us per se. Yeah. So just flip it around a bit.
Stephen Drew: Amazing.
Mark Sciberras: cafe distance nine years in, and we as architects use the space as our front of house.
We work there. We also have a dedicated space in Durham Yard, which is the space you can see behind. Yeah.
Stephen Drew: Brilliant. I love it. Now there are a lot of important questions I have including do I get a discount in the staff in, in, in your beautiful cafe after the livestream? But you don't need to answer that right now cuz there are,
Mark Sciberras: It's free.
Stephen Drew: is there? Let's see how this goes. If you're fed up by the end, who knows, maybe you won't let me in, but I promise I'll be kind cuz.
This stuff is really cool. Now I'm just wondering, and listen, anyone in the audience, if you wanna ask a question on a livestream, you can, but what I'm interested in, mark, is that, Architecture practices is, there's a lot there, isn't it? Even just working on amazing projects is. [00:05:00] Is a lot, but I love that you've been entrepreneurial and I love that you set this up.
Can you tell me was, did the cafe come after the few of the projects along your journey? Do you wanna just walk me through a little bit of how that came about?
Mark Sciberras: So I when I started Common Ground Workshop, I had a few kind of residual projects from an old company I I was working with and and then won a few jobs along the way. It's funny because, I was busy on those projects, but I I'd always wanted to have a cafe like I'm from Melbourne and I when I was studying Architecture in Brisbane, I had a lecturer who really.
Promoted the point that as architects we, we should do more, we can do more than just, work specifically on buildings and spaces in between. Like it's about, looking at, how your creative kind of ability, both your technical, creative kind of education can filter into other means.
But lecture of mine inspired me. On to do this a long time ago say 2000, 2001. I finished in thousand one and we were always talking about hybrid [00:06:00] businesses. There was an example practice in Melbourne called Six Degrees that had a very lovely ground floor community cafe in, in the city and had a practice upstairs.
So it's not an original idea, but I really wanted to work on that model. Yeah, I was working on projects and then I, when I got the lease and I had to dive straight in and we did a bit of co-design with with Collective Works. They really helped rationalize and, work on the kind of space planning of the cafe.
And big up, to Alistair and Kama for giving us their time. But yeah we did the fit out and commissioned a great designer Industrial designer who designed it a long table the main table in the middle before we built that sliding screen that you can see on the side. That was like a 5.5 meter long table on two legs.
There's a bit of bridge engineering that Jackson Nesmith did for us. So yeah, it was like our like point of difference from other cafes. But there is an image that you'll in the image bank from Rory Gardner,
Stephen Drew: Oh.
Mark Sciberras: Where you'll I should have put this in order, so
Stephen Drew: No, don't worry. This is more of a me thing but my [00:07:00] listeners and viewers are used to my chaotic madness. So the, we'll just go through it manually.
Mark Sciberras: If you scroll down I can point out, but you'll see like collective works working in the background. You'll see how the cafe was in
Stephen Drew: This one's cool though. I'll love your attention to detail.
Mark Sciberras: Jacks again. So we brought him back to build a screen. But if you carry on down a bit more
Stephen Drew: Going further. Here we go. We're getting there. We're getting there. Look at this quick room though. Look at this
Mark Sciberras: this is our gallery space. We'll talk about that later.
Stephen Drew: Okay, I'll come back. Go on. I think.
Mark Sciberras: These are always, so if you go down a bit more so these, this is the cafe and it's,
Stephen Drew: Oh, cool.
Mark Sciberras: so if you see that image there, you'll see so these yellow chairs or kind of five workspace desks and then the very long table in the middle.
But.
Stephen Drew: Ooh.
Mark Sciberras: It, the idea, and then the reality, once the cafe got busier and when we started opening up for brunch in the weekends, then you, the studio space just, it doesn't really work as well. And you have to then make amendments and change [00:08:00] things and, then you work on confidential projects and you can't really be in a public space to do that.
So there are some I've learned loads of lessons in the. In the last nine years, but that's our front of house, which looks similar to that now and not much change, but it was really the workspace component.
Stephen Drew: Beautiful. I love him.
Mark Sciberras: It's a good, it's a good space and it's, it we've kept it as a community asset.
We're in entire Hamlet. So we've, we're suffering a little bit because we are not, we can't price our product as much as what our competitors do, but because it is an area where we really do want local community to come and see that we're charging a fair price. So yeah that's another story.
But yeah.
Stephen Drew: Oh, whoa. I can see it. Yeah, I think that from two pounds empty for a flat white is incredible.
Mark Sciberras: 2015 prizes. Sorry. That's that's, yeah, not today.
Stephen Drew: No, come on. But it's still good. But what a beautiful space and.
Mark Sciberras: the shot there. So you'll see like before the sliding screen went in, it's like we've got a workspace component and and it was great for, it lasted for [00:09:00] two years in that iteration. Because yeah, but we found that like over time, You can't really, if you wanna come in to work on a Saturday and it's open for lunch, it doesn't exactly work that way.
But we use the rear space now is our meeting space at a point which we can go and work when we get busier. Also we've got shelving and marketing material. So it's great place to meet clients. So that space that you see there now is our studio set up, but it's all, it's open topic to come in and have brunch in the weekends and
Stephen Drew: Oh wow. It's really cool and thanks for showing that. It's really interesting Now, so the Architecture practice is there. Hang on, I'll bring it back to me and you rather than my chaotic PDF for a sec. We'll go back in the second, but so we've got the Architecture practice, you've got the. Cafe and then there were some cool projects in between.
But let's talk quickly about the projects, cuz while I was flicking through my chaotic list, I was seeing some beautiful residential projects and all this stuff as well. Do you wanna give us a flavor mark of the kind of thing that [00:10:00] Carbon Ground Workshop has done over the years and you do now?
Mark Sciberras: so is it the racing project that you have the images for there,
Stephen Drew: Yeah, I'll bring it. I'll bring it back. I'll bring it back now. We'll get there.
Mark Sciberras: that wasn't prompt. It sounded like a cheesy prompt, but that was more just do I talk about
Stephen Drew: You can talk about whatever you want, but maybe you can showcase. I've got a few projects here. We'll just jump straight in. Look, so you got this beautiful pha go
Mark Sciberras: This is a, so what we did as common ground workshop, we, earlier in 2017 we took on a commission from a a independent client. I previously finished the house detached standalone house in, in, in Campbell which I, that was one of my first commissions in starting Common Ground workshop in 2014.
But we finished the build in 2017, and then I picked up. This beautiful warehouse site just around the corner on Cottage Green. And we achieved planning to convert a two-story warehouse into a three-story house. And we went for Priya was a great report from the the case officer because we don't demonstrated a [00:11:00] good design acumen in the area.
So he wasn't really willing to allow us planning on such a small curtilage to go three levels, but. To come. Long story short we started construction in 2019 and then the client got ill and after Covid just decided to sell the site. So my business partner Jack panel and I decided we would collaborate, put our funds together and set up a development company which would therefore acquire the property and build it out.
As per the planning commissions we achieved we had two permissions going, one in 2019, which asked for more area. And essentially, yeah we built it to flip. We're in the process now just of getting to that end point. But the building's finished. We learned a lot along the way because we worked with a builder who let us co-manage.
So in order to save a lot of money in margins and builders margins, we handled all the material for external cladding, doors and windows all the heating and hot water and tech, so the air source heat pump and the under floor heating. And yeah, so the majority of the bill we source the material Organized it [00:12:00] had it delivered to site and so therefore I've acted as developer and the Architecture practices, the Architect.
And yeah. So this is Common Ground Development's first project, which we've we're nominated for the AJ Small Projects small Projects Award for this year. And we also have a feature in the open house weekend in September through Open City. So we're really pleased that it's gained a bit of traction, but it's a small, it's a.
Small site, 60, 62 square meters,
Stephen Drew: Wow.
Mark Sciberras: tiny over three story, it it's great for a couple and it's a freehold detached house. So we sell the freehold and it's a great entry house for young couple. Yeah. And a great area as well yeah.
Stephen Drew: Can I just say that is the coolest bathroom I've
Mark Sciberras: Yeah, it's right. We had to cross the corner window.
So now that's frosted. Cause that looks straight into the neighbor's living room, clearly. And if you go down a few images, you'll see the warehouse itself. So that, yeah, that's the front elevation there.
Stephen Drew: Oh, wow.
Mark Sciberras: we
Stephen Drew: It's beautiful.
Mark Sciberras: that the warehouse is as existing or the [00:13:00] sliding doors.
We just. Lightly refurbished them, but repainted them in the same color. And we've applied texts to the, like signage to the shuts. So we've given the building the name Lloyd Ice House, and that's because of the the client. The original brief was that the house was gonna be for their late son's foundation, the Lloyd Ice Foundation.
It was gonna be a house that would house young young kids. Young adults who come to London and they'd have their rent subsidized by Charlie and Val, my, my clients and Lloyd ICE's mom and dad. When they sold the project to us, we said, look, it will be on the proviso that your son will have for it will.
Full dedication to, to, to Lloyd. So we applied to Suffolk Council to get the name and numbering authorized. And we've, we made sure that the house is now officially like Lloyd Ice House. The buyers are also under a strict kind of covenant that they must never change the name and so on and so forth.
Yeah, so house and we're very proud of that and proud to give Charlie and a bit of a physical mark now for their, yeah, for their son. It [00:14:00] kind. Yeah, that was, yeah.
Stephen Drew: What a lovely project. So clearly you know what you're doing when it comes to these projects and you've got the beautiful cafe, so what.
Mark Sciberras: you much.
Stephen Drew: Where did this like inspiration come from? Because you mentioned before you fancied it, but there might be a lot of architects out there that think, mark, I'm gonna be really honest with you, isn't it?
It's for a full-time job just doing the Architecture. Do you think sometimes there's like massive positives to having such a diverse portfolio of different businesses and sometimes are there some challenges with that comes along with it? Mark?
Mark Sciberras: percent. So I, I didn't and this is like kinda, I know how's like very, to, to the as, as honest as I, I can be on this one. The cafe business is difficult. Like it's, the hospitality industry is something I'm, was never familiar with coming into it. I, no one told me that I'd be hiring so many people over nine years.
I'm up to employee number 89 from. 15. Because it's it's a very demanding job. Like it's not I worked in it for [00:15:00] two years and I still work in it. I still. When we're busy, I go downstairs and because the cafe is just across the courtyard, so I'm there within a minute and I help them.
I sweep the floors and walk the floors still, bit of stock count. I'm learning how to make coffee. So I had one member of the team just forget to come to work one morning and I was like, okay, so I really need to know how to make coffee to open by eight. One of my, one of my clients, one of my customers is a very wellknown, Architect around the corner.
And I was very embarrassed cause I was, cuz the barista called me saying he slept alarm. And I swore really loud on the street and this Architect just came quiet, was like, I'm so sorry that this is not my normal morning. But it's the stress of like, when you are the sole proprietor It's your neck on the line when you don't open or when you if there is a complaint or one star review.
And at one time we had the juice that we buy through our juice supplier, they gave us something that was off and it caused the stomach. Pain in one customer. That customer turned out to become a really good friend because he emailed me to say, oh, by the [00:16:00] way, we've had some fizzy juice from your cafe, so he could have gone to town on Google.
But he emailed me, which is really lovely, but it's a tough gig. And I would say that, to anyone that wants to kind of branch out and have multiple businesses, what's made common ground workshop work is that we've got an amazing team that also got the. The buy-in of my of the team of Jack Martin Cor.
And, it's like I could step away for a week and this place will run smoothly. Jack Panel is the, we're all like the guys are marketing amazing at everything that I'm not currently. Great designers, great marketing, great at everything. Without them like obviously I couldn't hold these down.
So it's really about the team. And when the cafe works well, it's cuz you've got a manager and a head chef. The two department heads that are really dedicated, passionate, they love what they do. And as an owner, I would give all. Creative control, never constrain any of the guys a team to do what I want.
It's not a menu that I saw in Melbourne that I want everyone to roll out and have kept that across nine years, like every [00:17:00] chef has given us, given me what or the common their own flavor. And we let that evolve. But when that doesn't happen, and at the moment like say it's hard to get really skilled labor and.
Unfortunately, the hospitality gig is, everyone thinks it's just so vocational, but it's, for me, it's as professional as an Architecture practice. A chef has like very specific parameters to work with. They've got costings and they've got, there's health and hygiene, making sure that all the food is dated, everything's used there's no wastage.
It's just a remarkable amount of parameters. They've gotta, they've gotta work within. And same with the pet barista. There's. You've got the client, your client facing every moment of the day and you can be as nice as you can to a customer. And if they don't like you or they don't appreciate they've waited an extra five minutes for a copy, they'll bad review you.
It's really demanding and and it's tiring when you listen and you hear the complaints. And not that we get that many of them. We've got good Google reviews standing, but it's tough yeah, so if you were to have multiple businesses having [00:18:00] partnerships or alliances with people who are invested, or as we say, ha have skin in the game, they've got money on the table, it's theirs as much as it is yours then I think businesses can work.
The best restaurants I believe, are like restaurants that the owner, there are two, two or three owners and they work in the business. One is like leading the kitchen, the other's leading the bar, and others leading finance. So yeah,
Stephen Drew: Interesting. It's very interesting and listen, I commend that you on that. My goodness. So you have to. Sometimes find architects, you, sometimes you have to find, baristas. That's quite a wide range, but like you said, maybe before we move on was the bit that you enjoy about the cafe then?
Is it that social aspect?
Mark Sciberras: I've met Steven, like since 2015. I've met so many amazing people and my customers are great. The customers. I've still got customers that have been coming to, to, to us since we opened. I've met some great friends through the cafe and architects that are now really.
Good close friends of mine as well. Yeah, I [00:19:00] think there's, yeah, there's something nice about I, I spend my Saturday in the cafe and when it starts filling up on a Saturday morning, it's, you've done something right when people either call you to get a reservation, which we don't take reservations, but, there is a real joy in that.
That there's something that you created, I think in my little review. There is like these three concepts, and it is very much like designing a building. You've got the kind of concept and you've got the design and planning, and then you've got the realization. And the realization is that you are.
Your space can be busy on a Saturday morning. Then it validates your concept and your delivery work and that how you procure everything with your team is working. So yeah there's a lot of joy in it. It's just another full-time job, but yeah.
Stephen Drew: You've got two full-time jobs. You might have free because you, we, you touched a bit earlier upon. Innovative ways of of projects. And I understand that you were effectively your own developer, your own client in one building. Now, just before you tell me the highs and lows of that mark, [00:20:00] I've known an Architecture practice before that's done that, and he said to me he would never do it again because he was literally sweeping the floor trying to get the builders in.
With that extra level, cause when you are, the project Architect, the client, everything else. It falls on you. Mark, what's your experience mark acting as the developer
Mark Sciberras: So we were really lucky. I said we've had, we had a great builder and I'll give full credit to two good constructions. They were amazing. They, they worked with us to make sure that the contract sum wasn't like, because what we did is when we that was the Cottage green project, which the images we showed you, but when we were about to exchange and complete on the acquisition, we made sure that.
We had our contract sum. That was something Jack was very focused on that our contract sum was enough, like to a point that we would be able to flip it with a profit. We spoke to a number of agents local agents in the time to to get a flavor of what the kind of sale price would be.
Obviously this was all be before there was a war. Announced and also [00:21:00] before the mortgage markets took a bit of a tumble in September, but we had a great builder, so it wasn't so big a stress working with the building company. I think they were amazing and the delivery, like we, we were looking at an October, November finish and we finished in January late January.
And that for me, with such a complicated site, It was such a small site that you are fitting a whole building within. It was only like 36 square meter site and the envelope of the building a little bit eight square meter courtyard. So there wasn't much movement to fit materials and to a Tetris of how do you demolish and build and only work within the envelope that you've got.
I think the biggest challenge was just thereafter it was the sale. It's it's looking to sell it whilst you're under construction. There was a finance model that wasn't particularly reliable for us because it meant that we had to have the building valued every time we ran out of funds.
And then the valuer would, he was like the Bible, he. [00:22:00] 200,000 and you only get a percentage of the uplift from the starting position. And that's not a really clever way of getting a building to complete. We had financing issues where, and this I've learned like an absolute time that we had to look at other streams of financing just to get the bills to a point where the valuer could say, It gives it a value where you get enough uplift to keep the building going.
So from more of a finance perspective, and then looking at the exit strategy, ex exit loans and tying that in with getting the sale. And then also looking at how the mortgage markets were affecting sales and how sales have fall through very. Easily so you'd get a sale, but it would be under offer for a week and then it would fall through.
Yeah. So it, we, yeah, it's just, it's, yeah, it's just difficult time. But I would do it again. I would do it again though. It's
Stephen Drew: I love your energy enthusiasm. So we're finding, a barista because we're short on Monday, then we're doing the development. You're really handling it all, mark.
Mark Sciberras: I, yeah.
Stephen Drew: I love it.
Mark Sciberras: No, but again, it's about having a good [00:23:00] team, like the finding the barista thing. I have a manager to do that. If there's a failure there and I have to do it, then it is problematic. But but yeah, no it's knowing that you need to have an understanding of all parts to keep everything going.
But yeah it's fine. Again, it comes back to, what I was taught back in 2000, 2001, where, Architecture is great as a profession, but we. We are, we have a very unique ability to be, both creative and to be technical. And I like it, it's technical side, but also that we should really be finance driven.
We should have a bit more and be a little bit more understanding that profit is everything and even the way we structure our business like to do a project, but also that at the end of it, when everything is paid, that there is profit. Because in that's the lubrication for progress and forward movement.
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Mark Sciberras: You see everything that way. But the cafe's a bit more there's money in money out every day. So you can start to manage it and tabulate and, get the structure going so that you see it. You can also call out when you're [00:24:00] losing money, so you can then make adjustments before it, before you do go bust so you can make changes to menu and stuff and all that stuff.
Yeah.
Stephen Drew: Fair enough. I'm impressed. And I think that for anyone in our audience here who's been thinking about this stuff, mark, you got a treasure trove of insight here. Now I do wanna talk a bit about, in, in a second what the future is for you, however while we were going through in my chaotic list.
Mark Sciberras: yeah. Nice.
Stephen Drew: sent them very organized, but I've disorganized them now. Now Mark, there was a cool little project and might be just quite a nice chilled out moment. If you can tell me all about this little one while I just click through. So what's all this about? Then
Mark Sciberras: So what we did is my partner is a curator and we discussed this idea of having a contemporary art space.
Stephen Drew: Oh, cool.
Mark Sciberras: and during 20 20 20 hamlets ripped up the pavement to, for this low traffic network. Things. So old Bethel Green Road was closed down and they built cycle lanes and nice kind of parks and stuff green space.
But in the process they [00:25:00] ripped up a little bit of the ceiling which is the kind of, there's one side of it, this gallery space, which started like letting in a lot of water and no one would obviously take ownership on that. So what we did is I have an amazing electrician.
Friend contact Sam Stride. And we, he came up with an idea. We just build a box in a box and waterproof the ceiling of the gallery.
Stephen Drew: Wow.
Mark Sciberras: said to him, help me build a gallery. And and yeah. So over, over the We were in lockdown. So it was around December, 2020 to January, 2021.
We built a gallery space, which now is called Common Edge Projects. It's a project space gallery, and
Stephen Drew: Wow.
Mark Sciberras: It's every six weeks. We've got another show opening up next Friday the 23rd that it is a yeah it's Shamus reaches out to lo loads of his contacts. There's a lot we have.
He has a big. Database of people wanting to exhibit here, but it's a one person show. And some of the works of for sale, like that piece sold for about 12 K. So this is a another named Cyan and really amazing works all [00:26:00] hand embroidered. But yeah, so some works are. Sold very well. And other pieces are more installation pieces.
So the piece that you showed earlier, which has that CPR look like, that was more of an installation where she changed the lighting character and created more of a kind of an experience with within the space. The space is super, super tiny. It's like one, not even a quarter of the basement.
It's, yeah. Less so yeah, maybe one sixth of the basement. Width and depth. Yeah,
Stephen Drew: amazing.
Mark Sciberras: So it's just at the bottom of the stairs. You come into the cafe, turn the corner. It's open all the time. It's, those shows will be promoted through Instagram and on our through flyers on our window.
Yeah, it's it's a good little that's the piece there. So that obviously piece is the sale, but it's more of a Tanya is the artist and it was about the experience. You walk into a bit of a sound tunnel there and there's some sound coming outta that tube. So yeah, quite nice. It just adds another like dimension to the [00:27:00] common, because the common was always gonna be, a bit of a creative cafe space where people come in and can work and they can, eat good food and coffee and having a studio component and the gallery component started to make a bit more sense.
Stephen Drew: I
Mark Sciberras: it's just, yep.
Stephen Drew: love it. It's like the crystal maze, isn't it? You go through
Mark Sciberras: This one was, yeah.
Stephen Drew: You get transported into the Aztec world, amazing. But it shows to me how innovative you can be with the smaller spaces. And again, I think that's the classic case of how as an Architect you can view things differently rather than it just being like a little hole in the ground.
You're like we'll make it a beautiful little space that the the community can jump into as well,
Mark Sciberras: and what's great is Bethle Green is a real melting pot Stephen yeah, as I said the people I met through the common I just a little anecdote, like I met this guy and he he came in when we were building and building a long table. I was there every day with Jack Ell and Dinko, who was the builder who did my basement, but met this [00:28:00] guy and his name's Marcus Lyle, and he is promoted himself as an Architect.
Great. And then Through the summer of 2015, he's coming in more and more with more and more people. And I'm like, I meet his business partner, Evan Smith. I'm like, so what's what's what do you guys do? Like how do you now have 12 people? 15 people, now you've got 20 people.
And they were supporting us every day, buying loads of lunch and stuff. And he's oh we're working we're working on the chemical brothers. Visual show for. I'm like, obviously exclusive expletive. How does this happen? It's we've known Tom and Ed since we were young and we do all of their visuals.
I'm like, you're joking. So that all comes out of your studio in Beth Green and there you go. So yeah. And then I said, oh, can you bring one of them for a meeting? So they didn't announce it, but they brought to Tom Rawlands over for a meeting. So clearly you can't make a big deal about it, but it's.
Great people who work in the area. There's loads of like creative people and then you've got, it's always been filmed sometimes you get like famous people, like we had Joan Collins come in for lunch twice with her entourage and you can't say [00:29:00] anything. No, no tweeting about it.
Full NDAs. But it's nice cuz she did a scene on Ken Robert Street, so Yeah. Yeah. The cafe's in a. Real buzz of creativity. It's really exciting and there's a great community of people who've grown up here and and they've got great stories. So we wanna, the cafe needs to not, needs to be, it's very much about, we don't wanna be seen as like that typical hipster plywood, benches, filament bowls, which it does look like that, but it's, we're trying to make it very much more community focused.
And, we, and I'm really glad that we do get a good slice of. People who grew up in Beth Green coming to us as well. So yeah. That's great. Yeah
Stephen Drew: it's super exciting. Now, I did say I'll talk about the future and I will, however, I just want to quickly touch upon, cuz in the background you got your, you mentioned you got a cool team and they're really smart and that's a clever thing, isn't it? Because. I'm a business owner as well.
You want surround yourself by people who are talented, and they're often better than me at certain things.
Mark Sciberras: Better than you.
Stephen Drew: yourself in the practice [00:30:00] now, mark, what's it like to work in your studio? What kind of projects you work on? What are the, what's the typical day for you, for your team there?
Mark Sciberras: Yes.
Stephen Drew: as, as long as they don't get pulled in the cafe. What's
Mark Sciberras: Yeah. Yeah. I get pulled in a lot and that's quite, it's not great because I'm not giving 100% of my time here. I'm trying to get the cafe like running on its own. So I've just done another hire, which is an ex member of my team who I brought her back. And so hopefully with two great managers, we can get this thing moving without my intervention.
But at the average day, like the practice is, Works between commercial residential work. We, we do a, we, we were very lucky that in 20 17 18 we got an opportunity to do an independent cafe in World Wharf. And then that led us to a project manager for Valley Moore and also the marketing manager.
Out of that little cafe. And the work that Juan, my colleague did in terms of design and great visuals, the project manager was really excited that he'd finally met an Architectural practice taking on a small retail [00:31:00] site. In their development. We actually were adhering to their rules and regulations on licenses, tozer, and agreements for lease, and were very methodical about what we were doing, and they thought the visuals were great and no.
Small practice was doing visuals for tenants. So they brought us on board, gave us some projects at Embassy Gardens, which we've now delivered. One's a cocktail bar. And it's now, I think it's like an American kind of food and cocktail bar. Embassy and then, and 10 Health and Fitness have got a Pilates studio, but that's snowball Jack panel.
Join me. Because we needed I needed help. I was never gonna be able to deliver this on my own. So now, like the bor, the work we do with B Moore is really great. They're an amazing client. We've got great project management team. I've got an amazing client within Ballymore and we.
We are very grateful for that connection. That's kept us busy. Yeah and we've just completed a a project at London City Island, which is called Nebula. It's a pizza and cocktail bar. And there's three sites that will start construction at good luck.
[00:32:00] Hope yeah. And so it's great having the commercial element The practice still consults with independent clients on housing and housing refurbishments. And obviously there's the development, which is now yielding similar inquiries on small space and site acquisitions and trying to do more. Frontend projects, delivering pool houses on small sites and navigating like planning planning control on that. So yeah and, but we'll be happy to tackle any kind of any aspects like, yeah, we're, as I said, we're pretty nimble and yeah, there's a good, great creativity here.
Yeah, it's great.
Stephen Drew: love it. I love it. And while some of our listeners Mark might be running their own practice is a lot of our listeners that I know are either part tos or recently qualified and stuff. And maybe what would be cool is I'd love to hear your thoughts on cuz you probably as the business owner, you see a lot of applications come in, some amazing.
Some not as good as the amazing ones and all that stuff, but I was just wondering what resonates towards you when you see an application [00:33:00] or is there tips for anyone that you would give to them if they were to make a prac an application to yourself or a similar kind of practice? What sticks out in your mind as things that people should do or
Mark Sciberras: Yeah.
Stephen Drew: In a job application?
Mark Sciberras: it's really funny, Stephen, you said that we get more applications that are absolutely amazing than not. I think we've had application even just recently where university is nearly finishing and. We've had five applications come in that are just brilliant. Compared to where I was at the, when I was in my final year of union oh one, not really using a lot of 3D modeling software and.
I, it's really difficult because, as a small practice that we are, like, we only, we are really working hard to increase our, the volume of projects so we can actually, make another two hires. Because we feel that the team now we, everyone's elevating up and, getting to that associate level bringing work in.
And yeah, I think like at the moment I couldn't give any advice on how to make a CV work. Really well for us because,
Stephen Drew: [00:34:00] Everyone's killing in.
Mark Sciberras: Students are like, yeah we've met quite a few, even last year though, were a few from the lsa, for example, that are very tech, technically minded, like construction, detailing very well resolved, like great ideas, amazing visuals.
So yeah I, maybe my business part could be a bit more critical, but I don't know. I think that everything I see I'm really impressed with I think to, to when you join a practice you know it even like when like Juan came to join me in 2017 as a barista, he came as actually funny, sorry.
He came to have a job as a barista. And And my, my manager at the time said that his coffee was really bad, but when I saw his his CV, I was like, the visuals, the ability, like the drawing work was just insane. And then I brought him in just to do a few visuals for me, and then you been together now since 2017?
So it's that kinda thing, just like surpassing my ability. That time, when I finished uni, so yeah, really impressed. There's a lot of students showing a lot of technical ability, which is [00:35:00] great. And I think if you wanna bring someone into a practice there's not really a lot of scope to be designing at the start, but, we'll need people met.
Writing schedules and getting into a bit more of the nitty gritty. And I think, there's a. There's a confidence there. Yeah. The team also Jack and Cor also do some mentoring with, is it the LSA guys or the Lsa Thea work with Central Martin. Central Martins. So it's kind good because they're also getting involved so much more in student education.
And we on the the list of the LSA as well. We wanna be a bit more involved in university life so that we. When we bring in students that they are really they've got the knowledge and the, ready readiness to go and get, go straight in. So yeah it's pretty cool.
Stephen Drew: Well done.
Mark Sciberras: There's a lot of talent here. There's a lot of talent in London. Weirdly. I was in Brisbane and doing a little bit of work last September in my mate's practice, and he was struggling to get. People to work for him. And I'm like, I'll send you some of the cvs across and you'd see the [00:36:00] caliber of work that's coming outta London.
And he was just like, this is
Stephen Drew: Along the way.
Mark Sciberras: just blown away. Yeah. So really, yeah. Big arts to all the institutions out there doing great things with the students. Yeah.
Stephen Drew: Oh, fair play, mark.
Mark Sciberras: Yeah, no.
Stephen Drew: I'm con I've got you for a few more minutes here before you go and now, and anyone in the audience, this is the last chance to ask Mark something bef before he goes back to either helping out in the. In the restaurant or the architects or
Mark Sciberras: I,
Stephen Drew: up the new museum, yeah, exactly. But Mark I'm curious what's in the future for you then? Do you think you're gonna keep doing more stuff? Are you happy with what you are? Or do you see your Architectural practice going in a particular way with the industry going, tell me what your
Mark Sciberras: I'd like to, obviously the commons are really important part of the, our business strategy because it is, it's that formal community link that we have and we wanna really harness that a bit more. So I think. Where I really like the comment to go is I'd really love to bring in someone who [00:37:00] can either co-own it with me or share the responsibility.
That's cuz I'm I just need a bit more time to, to be able to live and not be so stressed about it. But with the studio, I think, we've got. Some great clients and there's, there seems to be a lot of work in the pipeline and going, down those two mainstreams the commercial end, there's a lot that we know we can move into.
So that's the next phase. And with clients like B Moore and then there are other developers we're talking to that we can really add value. But, I feel that like the cafe development business have given us like a very specific body of knowledge. And with the cafe, it's like there's operations knowledge, there's, how do you start, how do you finance, how do you price, how do you arrange your whole business finance schedules and, everything from designing kitchens and restaurants the right equipment extraction methodologies, et cetera.
So I really wanna have at least an arm of the practice that really does specialize in work with kitchen companies [00:38:00] and stuff on delivering high spec kitchens and that kind of thing. And then the development arm, which I really think would be a great thing to. To push forward.
But pending finding a site and obviously a site where you are. Confident you'll get planning because there, the, we were very lucky Steven, we had a client, we got planning, he didn't wanna do the project, so we it was a no-brainer just to buy it off him and get the financing because we had a robust business plan at that point.
But the development company is very exciting, but probably has a lot greater risk. We'll have to map that one out very carefully. But again, there's So many schedules and so many like documents and that we, there's a knowledge base there that we really wanna move forward as well.
So there's a few strands but that will come with more people come joining and, bigger infrastructure because Yeah. As four people in a studio or four or five with yeah, come, we'll do that just as four people. So yeah.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. Good for you. I'm super impressed and [00:39:00] I think that it's absolutely It's an exciting time. I do think you've got your hands full Mark already, and I mean that in the nicest way. So I want you to just have a breather,
Mark Sciberras: Yeah.
Stephen Drew: get sucked into the restaurant. You're gonna wake up at night going double latte, oh, but I.
Mark Sciberras: Properly.
Stephen Drew: I think you do enough. But before you go, mark, cause I really appreciate being here. Maybe cuz I've been asking all the questions. I always like to say, is there anything you want to ask me at the moment at all? Anything that pops in
Mark Sciberras: yeah, I just wanna commend you. I think like when we met at a, an event at the RIBA, I think, you're really like, this is a great platform and I'm sure you're gonna get some amazing people speaking up. As I said, I listened to the one previously with Land Sec and I just think, yeah, you've got the right, it's just like the right attitude.
It's, you ki kept me pretty chill cuz I'm not very good at doing any of this like face
Stephen Drew: Oh, come on
Mark Sciberras: Yeah. My business is better than I'm, but yeah. No, it's cool. I feel very relaxed and yeah, it's been very nice [00:40:00] opportunity Yeah. To talk about this.
Stephen Drew: You are a gentleman. Mark. Of course. Listen, no, thank you for being here and I'll be honest, mark, I'm okay at talking, but if I was in your practice or I was definitely pouring those coffees and stuff, I think I'd struggle. I think I think that your cafe will then become a loss leader, but listen, I really appreciate
Mark Sciberras: you. It's very lovely.
Stephen Drew: I really do. But what I was gonna say, mark, if you can just stay on the stage in the, for two, three minutes with me. I'm gonna end the live stream now, but just a quick thank you for anyone that's tuned in or anyone that's watching the replay. I really appreciate it. And you can get in touch with Mark on their website.
So on www.commongroundworkshop.co uk. You can find Mark, you can find the whole team. And as Mark said, you can pop down the Bethel Green, have a coffee, you might catch him in there one
Mark Sciberras: Good. Mornings.
Stephen Drew: him. Be kind, don't order anything difficult and technically cause he's an Architect [00:41:00] first and foremost, but but you can catch him there.
Thank you, mark. Stay on the stage and thank you for tuning in and we'll see you in the audience soon. Take care. Bye.
Mark Sciberras: Thank you. Cheers. Thanks David.