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Today we will be speaking to Pradumn Pamidighantam from Barr Gazetas to navigate the sustainable journey of an award-winning architectural practice.
Curated content, insights and opportunities to accelerate your career in Architecture, Design, Development and Real Estate to the next level.
Pradumn Pamidighanta at Barr Gazetas
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[00:00:00]
Stephen Drew: Yeah, been off that C P D. It's lunchtime. I'm gonna borrow you for half an hour or 40 minutes an hour. I'm not gonna push you that far, but have half an hour with me. Whatever. You've got that ham hock pret sandwich. Grab it. I know I keep talking about pret sandwiches. What else I out there? No one's gonna go to a Starbucks if you're in a Tesco's meal deal in Europe.
Anything but a part one, shame on you. Okay. 13 seconds. I. Hello everyone and welcome to this livestream special. I'm so excited that you're here. I'm not gonna talk anymore about sandwiches [00:01:00] because I've got an awesome guest for the next half an hour or so to talk about their practice, what they're all up to, and a project that's won of you awards, which is for all the good stuff, like being sustainable, we've only got one planet.
So on that note, can I introduce you? To the awesome presume, Pam, Dick Hanham, the Golden Pen of Zetas. How are you sir?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Very well. Thank you very much for the intro. Very nice intro.
Stephen Drew: I'm so happy that you're here and I'm just gonna chill out and relax now cuz you've got an awesome project and all that stuff. And you are at barks at the moment and the WiFi's holding up in the office. So we're all off to,
Pradumn Pamidighantam: up.
Stephen Drew: we're doing all right, aren't we? And I'm gonna bring the link up here, but if anyone doesn't know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, first and foremost?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Yeah. I'm pram I've been at Bar actually for many years. I've been here since 2014. Joined as a young whipper snapper as a part two. I've really been here for a long time but be before that [00:02:00] I, studied at Liverpool at Nottingham Trent as well. So I've.
Worked in a few places. It's been quite nice actually with the studying and working. So it gives you a bit of an exposure into different areas, which I thoroughly recommend any students who are listening in. So yeah, it's been really good and yeah, been here for a very long time at Barta's part of the furniture I guess now.
But yeah, it's been great. Works on some fantastic projects and really seen the practice grow. We're 30 years now, which is amazing for us.
Stephen Drew: Ooh, that's brilliant. I I've got the website here and it's quite a cool website, so I'm gonna try and bring it up, but maybe what you can do, tell us a bit more about then 30 years, my goodness. In that time, you've probably done a lot of projects in the business. What kind of stuff do you get up to up by Ca Settas then?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Ellis is a mixed project based company. We'll do, our bread and butter is commercial officers. We will always Bit to that, but we also do we also get some very quirky projects. So the [00:03:00] one that you just scrolled up past there Lewisham tower House, which is a really beautiful project.
Stephen Drew: I pass that all the time. I'm a Louis Lewisham resident. There you
go.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: it's amazing. This is one of the first department stores around London at the time, and we had this fantastic opportunity to work with a developer to turn it into residential use. There's, I believe there's a gym in there right now. And the red cladding that you can see at the top, there's a 2, 2, 3 story extension at the top.
So that was a really lovely scheme. Completely residential. So we've dabbled in quite a few things. When I joined s we, we were working on this brilliant scheme in Greenwich which was a regeneration of the mar of the Greenwich market. So if anyone who has been there I'm sure everyone, knows it.
It's a really lovely area. And, but it was quite run down when we took it on. So it was a really lovely opportunity and that, that was actually my first project when I joined Bar,
Stephen Drew: Really.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: part of it. Yeah, it's really amazing. And I found the most amazing Hill me bigger sandwich in the world.
Stephen Drew: I [00:04:00] hear you. I completely agree with you, and I think you were very kind there because basically the market, in my opinion, I loved the market. It was super cool, but it was basically an old shed that was gonna knock over any second with all these amazing, stuff underneath. So I think that the.
What you've done in Greenwich is amazing. Now what in particular I was interested to talk about today, because I'll be honest, while we on the podcast, there's a lot of stuff focused about careers and we can come onto that a bit about, what, it takes Bargas, however, We only got one plan here.
Sustainability is a big thing and I think we need to keep shining the light on it. And I understood that you've currently worked on a key project at the moment, which has been heavily focused on being a green building. Can you run me through it with the project that you've been working on most recently then?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Yeah, sure. So we've I've spent the last three [00:05:00] years With my team here at BG to work on a project called HOL Bank Gardens. So this is quite an interesting project for us. Inherently Zetas has done a lot of retrofit. We've always done it from the beginning. We don't actually do too much new build which.
Has consequently become a very big strength of ours. We all know that we've got existing stock of buildings in London and around the country. How do we upgrade these buildings,
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: knocking them down? How can we adapt them? And there's a big, there's a big retro first sort of movement happening at the moment.
How can we do that with existing buildings and importantly achieved some really high standards. And I guess that was the pertinent question with Hol buying Gardens. It, it coincided very nicely with our client Ners new sustainability policy. So they, back in 2019 when we when we won the project with them, we.
We were [00:06:00] advised that Ner had gotten new sustainability policy. And I think during that sort of period, I think all, a lot of the big developers were, really looking at themselves going, okay, how do we hit these 20, 30, 20 50 targets? I don't think there's a single developer that we work with that isn't asking that question.
And so they, they had a nine. Point nine themed policy. And there were things like biodiversity, how do we bring biodiversity into the city? Whether it's encouraging bees and bats and boxes or greenery or whether it's, providing connections to the community. It's such a big thing, we all design these buildings, but how do you connect it to the community?
How work you can give back circular economy, how can we. Pick the right products that we put into these amazing buildings. Are they sustainable? We don't, we often find that we design all these lovely buildings and, tenant comes in, rips it out, and then puts [00:07:00] something else in.
How do we not do that? So there's lots and lots of really lovely questions that were quite interesting. And to be honest, I would. Being brutally honest, I'd say not everyone had the answers to them. And I think that was really lovely because you often find yourself in a scenario where I think. You might be expected to have the answer, but what was really nice was that the project was set up to be quite collaborative and to for everyone, whether it was us as the architects or structural designers or mechanical designers, who it might be who was involved in the team, even the client. To ask these questions between us and research it and find the answer.
And I think that was quite special with this project cuz you don't really get that opportunity. I find so that was really nice. And that was really the basis of it. And you, our client really challenged us to say here's an [00:08:00] eighties, it's a really bog standard eighties building.
It wasn't pretty. can we turn it into? How amazing of a sustainable building can we make it? What amazing materials can we use? It was all of these questions that we had to research and answer. And that sort of led us to this point. And it was a lot of trial and error.
It was a lot of research and a lot of collaboration, which is, everyone talks about collaboration, but I think it's. Slightly unheard of in some scenarios. You've really got engaged, don't you, if you're doing something fresh. So I think that was quite special with this.
Stephen Drew: No, I hear you. And it makes sense. I'm just gonna quickly say what a cool, imagine being in that office with all those windows and stuff and knowing that you're just not throwing heat out the window like my old grandmother rest in Peace House, where it's just Absolutely, it doesn't make a difference.
It's really impressive. If anyone in the audience though, has a. Particular question, feel free to chuck it in. As long as it's in the safe realm that we can [00:09:00] answer, we will definitely talk about it. I'm quite key interested though, predominantly that you talked in particular there about, again, it is important for your clients sustainability and over that you've got this journey in that in net zero carbon journey now.
What was that journey like at the start? How do you begin with a task like this?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Ooh. It's quite a tough one. I sort, I saw, I sort of reason why I say oof was because I think the industry is still finding its feet with the answer to that question. And the reason why I say that is from a basic level, if you're trying to track how much carbon a building is, using or has used to, create this building at the moment, there are quite a lot of different ways of doing it.
[00:10:00] There's, each organization, each sustainable organization will have their own ways of doing it. There is starting to be a bit of a consensus slowly happening in terms of how to do it. So one of the big ones I think is the Ricks so Thero chart surveyors, I think their Report is due to come out at some point soon.
And that I think will create a basis for it. But we've also been working with other companies like Letti, for example. So the low I'm gonna, it was the London economic transport shift, but I think it's now low.
I think low is the swap out for it. So that's year been great. I think they've really been pushing the boundary in terms of trying to see how far we can take these buildings.
It's not just about new buildings, how can we take old buildings? So I think from a net zero perspective, it's, I think you can boil it down to what does the existing building [00:11:00] do right now?
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: What are you going to do to adapt it? What is the impact of that? Whether that's materiality wise or whether it's energy wise.
And energy is such a big thing nowadays where The mechanical and electrical teams are having to work really hard in interrogating every single bit of kit that goes into the building. So it's almost like they are creating a little sims environment for, that building. It's a virtual building for them to test out, how the heating is working, how the cooling's working, how much electricity you need.
There's a lot of, there's a lot of modeling, virtual modeling that we're having to do in an analysis, and I think that's probably the key thing that's different about this project and many other projects that are really trying to, hit that high benchmark. And, and I think to get to that net zero, Point you, you do need to put a lot of effort to get there.
And I think it was a big learning curve for all of us to understand how much work [00:12:00] there is involved in this. And I would say that this is gonna become a bit more of a norm on lots and lots of projects for us. And then as you've said quite a few times we've only got one planet, so we need to all work very hard to make that happen.
Stephen Drew: Yeah, I agree. And thank you cuz it's sometimes I think as well, it's like anything you need to do it. But when you hear these terminologies flowing around or net zero carbon journey, actually I. The more you get to grips of it, the easier it becomes. And because you've given me such a good education and there's high mileage here and I'm learning a lot, the other term that I get throw is thrown around.
That is important. But I don't fully grasp the concept is off a circle of London. And I know that's something that you've talked about before because you're so good at decrypting all this stuff and it's important. What is a circle of London? What are we talking about?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: So the NLA have recently released a new report which, which all of it's coming down to [00:13:00] the whole principle of circular economy. And you're absolutely right in the sense that there's a lot of terminology that gets banded around, and I'm a big advocate of simplifying everything.
Because, we've all been in meetings that, there's lots of abbreviations being thrown around, but at the end of the day, you wanna cut through all of that and just go, what does that mean? And this has been, this is a great report, for anyone who's who's not seen it, I'd thoroughly recommend having a read.
It's not too long a report. And it really this particular talks about. London specifically about what London can be in terms of, it turning into a renewable city. So it covers everything from energy, materiality. And it also talks about. How different sectors are doing it.
And it's important to understand that, that, it's not just the commercial world. A big percentage of our cities and towns are residential, where we all live. How can you upgrade that? And I think that's [00:14:00] really the. For me, I'd say that's one of the base points.
Where do you live and where do you work? I think you can almost start with those two really simple areas. We I've made the switch recently recently bought Flat, and I've consciously made a decision to go to a supplier that actually. Buys green energy or creates green energy.
So I've made that conscious decision. I'm personally trying to offset my petrol car when I drive. And, hopefully in the next couple of months I'll buy a new, an electric car at some point, to try and improve. Do my little bit and I know there's lots of.
Controversial arguments about electric cars, but that's for another day. But, I think we all can do our little bit and, from a, where you live perspective, we can do our own bit and improve installations and pick the right energy efficient equipment. And, when you turn that into a commercial environment, You take that up another notch, don't you?
Where you've got all of these hundreds of people that come into work. And really [00:15:00] circular economy is about interrogating every single aspect of that building. Whether it's. Where are your furniture coming from? Where's your energy coming from? We, on whole buying gardens we picked a chuco manufacturer who does lovely windows and they do a cradle to cradle certification, so I believe this one was silver.
And what I mean, cradle to cradle essentially means that, they look at the whole life cycle of that product from. Where they take the base material from right the way through to the end of its cycle. So I dunno, 20, 30 years or 50 years time maybe when the building needs to be refurbished again.
Those windows might be replaced and someone like Suko will take back those windows, recycle it, the glass, the frames, repurpose it, and there's lots of really lovely companies out there that are doing it. Tar who do lots of carpet tiles, lots of people know them. They will actually take back the carpet [00:16:00] Tars.
After 10 years of use or five years of use. And that's really good. I've noticed a big shift in lots of supplier attitudes in the last five years, where, five years ago I'd say, oh, have you have, you got some environmental credentials to your products? But what's really lovely is that people are now actively and proactively doing that.
Whereas five years ago, I'd have to go If you're not really doing it, I can't really specify you. So it's great. I think the industry shifted. And that's and I think that's probably a testament to all the amazing work that lots of different organizations are doing.
Whether it's gla, whether it's, people like Letti or nla or UK G bbc, they're doing some brilliant work and we've been working with them a few years now, and. The reports that are coming out, they're, lots of reports are coming out thick and fast, and there's quite a lot to quite hard to keep a whole track of them.
But, it's definitely worth, really interrogating what's out there
Stephen Drew: I.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: But yeah,
Stephen Drew: It's [00:17:00] amazing and just for anyone here just to pick up on it, is that you've got the brim outstanding on this building. And I remember years ago when I was a part one, the old criteria or trying to get the points, you start off with the easier ones and then you got the medium ones and you got the mega hard ones.
But there's what as well as there's the well platinum certification, the neighbors five star writing that I've never heard of myself. And why a score goal. So now that's an impressive lot of things that you've done and I'm sure there's a lot of lesson learned and all that stuff for any other practices out there or anyone, how do you even begin?
You mentioned a bit before, how do you begin, but what have you learned then over that maybe you know,
Pradumn Pamidighantam: I think I'd probably say the, one of the big lessons learned with this is to achieve What we have achieved on hol buying gardens Ha, has taken time and I think it's, it does take a lot of time and patience to get there. And you must have a collaborative [00:18:00] team and collaboration gets banded around as a word a lot.
But you really do need an engaged team on this. Like we. starts with a good client that is, is actively keen to achieve something special. And then it comes down to the design team. You need a strong sustainability consultant. So we had t f T on this. And you also need an engaged structural engineer and mechanical engineer.
So we had hts and H D R on this. And with a good team, you can achieve something and we had to work very hard together to show really to the industry that you can achieve a very high benchmark with an existing building. And what's fantastic to see from my perspective is that, There's lots of other buildings that are following whole buying gardens where they are able to achieve Bri outstanding or they are able to achieve well platinum or neighbors.
And, neighbors is a new one. Where, that's about accurate operational [00:19:00] energy, which is a tough one because to do that you need a lot of data and sensors. People are having to. Introduce a lot of tech into the buildings. So Smart Score is a really interesting one where you're making these buildings really smart now, you can, whether it, from a basic co-working perspective where you can access things through an app, now you can see how well your building is performing.
One of, one of the really lovely things that we some pioneered on, on, on Holbein was. This idea of mixed mode ventilation, which doesn't happen too much. But what we'd done a bit special here was we introduced a air quality sensor on the roof of the building. So you, it basically measures around Sloan Square, what the quality of the air is and if it's good quality it will it will have a little light on the office floor right next to where you sit and it'll turn on and it'll say, Open windows to save energy.
And basically it's, you can open the windows, [00:20:00] which is always, we all like fresh air. And it means that once it's opened, there's a sensor which talks to the building management system and then it shuts down the air conditioning. So that's really good. So I think tech is really interesting because I love tech.
And it's really interesting when you start pulling tech into buildings because then it makes a building quite intelligent. And if we are going to try and save energy and reduce our footprint and all these things, you're gonna need tech to be quite smart. You need, you do need smart buildings.
So that's really interesting. I think, that how tech is also really at the forefront of coming through, through with it.
Stephen Drew: I love it. Yeah. Do you Any excuse for me to get tech? My partner normally tells me off all the time, too much, but if it's sustainable, then I'm all for it. And thank you for sharing that detailed answer. You touched upon start before you were very complimentary to the wider design team. That collaboration, it probably starts in [00:21:00] bar as before even going out.
And while I know the culture and I think it's a cool place to work a lot, some people who might be listening into this. Just might have missed Barts for whatever reason. And I was just wondering why I bring up a fancy image video in the background. Cause your website's Nice. If you could tell us more about the culture at Barts of that collaboration.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Yeah, absolutely. So Barga is we've just very recently, as of last week, celebrated our 30th anniversary. We were it's, for us it's an amazing sort of achievement for us. 30 years is a long time to be in the industry, and we were founded by Alistair Bar and Tom Zetas many years ago.
And now we, 30 years in we've got a fantastic group of people in the office. Interior designers, architects bream, assessors, Revit gurus. We've got a wide range of people that really compliment what we are trying to do. I've mentioned the fact that we've always inadvertently, I think at the beginning, done retrofit and [00:22:00] that's really become a big pillar of strength for us.
And that's only gonna be achieved through. The community that we've built at Barta is, our family as we, we always like to refer to it as, and we're quite a cosmopolitan company. If you look through our website you'll see people of different backgrounds and different countries speaking different languages.
So we're quite a diverse group of individuals. We're about full 55 now. Biggest that we've been but yeah, it's,
Stephen Drew: You
room in the office soon. You might have to move into that nice office you've done. That's a good one, isn't
Pradumn Pamidighantam: We've actually just recently moved. We are,
Stephen Drew: Oh,
Pradumn Pamidighantam: we're still on Head Street, but we just moved into our new offices. So be because purely that when I joined we were about 25 and now we're 55, so we've pretty much doubled in size. But yeah, it's been really good.
We've. We're, we try to be as fun as possible. We got our softballs and we go out every summer for a, for an office trip and that sort of thing. So it's, we like to keep it light and fun as much as possible, [00:23:00] and, at the same time trying to design some amazing work.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. Nice one. I, it makes complete sense. I'm just gonna bring up a little taste of the projects here. But what I was gonna ask you is because sustainable it's amazing to see the project that you've done. Now, I know that you are lead, you've led teams on this, right? I'm sure it's, you've seen a lot of CBS come across your desk, whether it's part ones, part twos, architects, and here we love to know, I'm sure there's someone that's probably listening to this and thinking I'd like to apply.
And now in your experience, is there anything that particularly stands out to you in an application when you're looking for, to hire someone?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: That's a really good question actually. For us, I think we, we look at individuals who are actively engaged in designing buildings that positively impact the environment. And I think, sustainability has always been on the agenda and. If you're interested in, and I think [00:24:00] it's a bit of a given now that you do need to understand it.
I don't I've been very lucky to join a few get to, to be invited into a few degree shows and done a few crits recently and it's really interesting and very. Nice to see that universities are embracing that. So I've been to Anglia Roskin a couple of months ago and went to their degree show and did some crits and a big part of it is sustainability.
So it's really good to see actually that universities are actively engaging into it. I was very surprised. There was one particular student who even did a brim assessment on her final project at part one, which was unheard of. So if you wanna do that, then you gonna get hired. But no I would say having that awareness is super key.
If you can do that, I think, any practice is gonna be. Very keen to, to hire you. And, apart from the usual sort of design skill and awareness of producing drawings I think for me it's always been attitude of how you [00:25:00] engage and look at projects. At the end of the day, everyone can draw.
Everyone can produce a render. That's not gonna be hard. Not to say that I can do an amazing render. I think those days are bygone many years ago.
Stephen Drew: Me too. Don't worry. It's fine.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Some of the guys in the office some of the part ones, part twos, I don't think I can even try to achieve what they're doing.
Absolutely amazing work they do. But yeah I would say it's about the attitude and awareness of design and what that means to the environment, which I think is really key. Software you can learn. I think it's about how you approach design is probably the really key one for me anyway.
Personally.
Stephen Drew: Yeah, it makes complete sense. And I've never heard of a brim test being done on the project. However, you're right, I think some universities are doing more rigorous, technical aspects of the courses, which I think really transfer really well to professional practice now. I was just gonna say, cuz you've answered that question really well, looking at, thinking of you as a team leader bar and stuff.
Quick [00:26:00] little one building on them is, so if you were, a student right now, in this day and age, unfortunately me and you, where it's a long time, I'm sure we'd done, dunno, part one, but if you were, was there anything you'd build upon that advice to the students right now
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Looking, looking back at how I was then
Stephen Drew: or now? What would you do now? Differently? Yeah. Yeah.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Oh, that's really, that's an interesting question. I
Stephen Drew: brim test, we got that one. That's a good one.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: That surprised me and I was extremely impressed. I remember joining practice and not knowing what Brianne was. So this particular individual was already ahead of her game.
I think that's a really tough question. I think really understanding what sustainability is a key one. It's definitely, it comes up a lot in universities and they are adding that in terms of an essay form or technically how to understand it. But I think probably looking back at it I probably did a lot of bolt-on sort of style technology, whereas I think there's an inherent [00:27:00] push nowadays to really think about the.
Passive design option, can you bring in natural design principles back again, the natural ventilation, good daylighting, that's all the things that really you, you look at. Certification for, certification, came from an American, it's an American standard, which has come over to the UK a couple of years ago.
And we applied it to one of our projects, one Hedon Street, which is the Crown Estate's first Co-working scheme. And it was a bit unheard of to, to do well at that time. We were quite lucky to. Have a good client again to support us to do it. And then we thought it was perfect for what the Crown Estate wanted to do for that scheme.
So that was, I think, one of the world's first co-working schemes to get platinum, which is quite unheard of at the time. And I think is really interesting. And I would also say bar the sustainability. If people start thinking about how buildings affect the people, It's a big [00:28:00] part of what we all do.
Where we live, where we work, and is a big part of it. Whether it's small things like having, plants or good drinking facilities or places to eat. All those things, that can affect how you work in a place. We've, some of the fit outs that, that we do nowadays, we're getting, we're pushing so much biophilia into office spaces whether it's multi-faith rooms or studying spaces, quiet areas to study, understanding that people work in different ways.
I think it's that awareness. That you can certainly show to an employer when you're presenting your student work that, hey I understand sustainability. I get the principles. I know we need to push to net zero, but I also understand that the person's really important. The, how they feel in that space.
Do the spaces work and function really well? And I think those sorts of qualities, I think any employer. Or even me as a, senior member of staff, that if I get someone joining my team that, I can go, Hey, can you [00:29:00] design this? One of my colleagues is now looking at a reception design for one of the offices we're working on.
I can just give that to her. She can develop it and then we can review it, and if I have that trust in her, then you know, I can delegate that element of works to her, which is great. I think that's what we need.
Stephen Drew: There we go. That's like the most transparent answer we've ever had here. I think it's absolutely amazing. I I thank you for that. That's really insightful because it's one thing for me to say it, but as someone that's been there as a job seeker and now as a hiring manager amongst everything else you do, it's just so valuable to hear that.
What I was gonna ask before I give you a breather, no, nothing trick or anything, that'll be easier now. That was the hardest one. Sorry.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: That's good. That's
Stephen Drew: you a breather. You survived. The project's really cool and well done. You've won the awards, it's all there. What's next for you at Barters? And don't worry, I don't wanna break any NDAs and stuff, but what are you up to some cool stuff then?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: [00:30:00] Yeah. We've got a really interesting project down in south at the moment, which I'm working on. Really exciting. It's for a
Stephen Drew: Oh really? You are south of the river, aren't you? I love it. Louisan,
Pradumn Pamidighantam: I started, I I started south of the River with Greenwich, and then I came north of the river with
Stephen Drew: Popped up a bit.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Popped up for a bit, worked there for quite a few years, and then dropped down to South now, which is quite interesting. Albeit it's getting further and further away from my live, so I'm gonna have to get up a little bit earlier for those site visits when it comes to it. But yeah, really interesting project with with applying in South.
We've also got a really interesting one, which I can say with Groner again which is a really lovely Scheme that we're working with Westminster Foundation which is a really interesting co-working space, but only targeting charities. Watch this space. It's gonna be a really lovely project.
Beautifully designed, but it's got a really good sort of, Ethos behind it in terms of supporting charities. And the Westminster Foundation are doing some great [00:31:00] work to do that. So it's it's gonna be a really cool project. Keep an eye out for that. We're a few months away from that, finishing
Stephen Drew: I love it. And so I'm gonna put all the contact details for Bar in a bit. However, because I've been asking you the questions, I think it's always quite fun. You can turn the table on. You can ask me the most difficult question in the world if you wanted to. I'll try and answer my best, but do you have one or two questions for me that you'd love to know?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: It is. I've, firstly thank you for inviting me onto this cuz it's, it, I've been watching quite a lot of your interviews and what's really nice is actually that you are interviewing quite a varied group of people. And, you've talked about AI and sustainability or the way that practices work.
What I would probably ask you, what would you say is the trend that you've seen? Happening in the industry from your perspective? Cause, cause obviously your podcaster and recruiter aren't you you, you're seeing it from both ends.
Stephen Drew: All right. Okay. Yeah. So podcast, so interesting one and I'll summarize it really quickly. In terms of like [00:32:00] marketing or social media or what's on trend, you're right, there's like some constant themes which are get louder. Which is I think sustainability is one quality of what it's like to work where you work.
And that's a big one right now. It's we all know Architecture is an amazing profession. It's not huge money for everyone. So it's is the project you're passionate about, the environment. So those are always important and getting louder and louder. So very good to hear, bar said is doing a lot of things right.
Now you get in parallel to that. So those are the constant ones, but then you get like what's on trend. And so what was on trend last year was the Metaverse. I hate it, I love it. I've I this and that. Opinion pieces, right? So then they go up, Metaverse has gone down and AI has been the thing, right?
Yeah.
AI is. It's the thing it and we're, I think it's not gonna die off per se because it's gonna be part of everyone's life. I use it in my business all the time. More to remove the mundane stuff, bit of check and text, all that kind of stuff. Will it [00:33:00] replace an Architect? I'm not convinced. Will it replace a recruitment consultant?
I'm not convinced. Will it enable an Architect to pro do more design and stuff they should do. Yeah, potentially. And recruitment. I can tell you absolutely right now I will outsource a lot of stuff to do other things. So that's the answer to your question. I think the AI fad, the more it comes into life, will calm down.
And then the next one is just the next one, and it could be anything. But it's slight, like you say, it's usually tech orientated, and
Pradumn Pamidighantam: I think we're gonna see a lot of that tech orientated stuff because like even with the ai and I've watched a few of your interviews with other peers in the, off in the industry and, it's really interesting how different people have different views on it. I've got a friend who's a lecturer.
And he's, he's teaching Architecture students and interior design students, and it's interesting how he's, how he looks at it from an academic perspective and certainly from ours. I would say we would look at very practical ways of [00:34:00] how you can introduce ai, whether it's, that in Photoshop.
Or whether it's, as you said, whether it's like using chat GBT for a bit of text or whether it's, checking your wording or whatever it might be. Or where we would definitely like to see it a bit more is how you can use AI for. Development of master plans or like designs, how you can see the variations of it, which I think has already has somewhat existed in some ways.
Anyway. When you've, when you combine Grasshopper and Rhino, I'm not an expert, so I'm on the, I'm on the edge of my experience here, but when you do combine Rhino and Grasshopper you get the parametric. Ability to see those different variations of design. You can slide things around, you can see, you can connect things, but I think with AI you can, it's probably a little bit more accessible.
I wasn't particularly strong at Grasshopper personally.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. Neither.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: I think with ai, I think that's probably the key thing I would say. Accessibility. Of doing things. I think that's what [00:35:00] AI will give you. But yeah, it's always been tech orientated, doesn't it?
Stephen Drew: I agree. You know what makes me laugh when you're speaking though? You talked about Photoshop ai. I, but the, my role in remake as a part one would've been endangered back then. I would've been put on other drawings and stuff because I used to spend ages doing those Photoshops. And it's quite compelling, isn't it now?
And you're just like, so you could have your building go. In the day, in the night, people on the front, and it's absolutely remarkable. However, I don't think that's gonna remove a part one. It just means a part one will do something different. And I think that's the mentality that I think people should have.
Not like we're gonna lose our job. This is more about what we can focus on. The other quick thing you touched upon is The recruitment side of it and trends and what I would say is that it's moving at the moment. I think residential is quite struggling, but commercial offices and refurbs like you, that you do specialize in, I think it's quite a buoyant market in the UK at the moment.
And that's where we get a lot of a lot of [00:36:00] practices looking for good people in that probably. To work on people like your team. And so I think it's really busy. The other market that's really in booming, which maybe in another life I can go to is like the Red Sea and the Neon Line.
And basically you're happy to pack your bags and live in the desert for a year or two. You can make an absolute fortune and tax, you want, you, you'd be literally selling your life for a year or two on pause while you go.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: I've got I've got a few mates who've who've definitely done that. And they are, they're still out there. But it's a bit of a, it's not an easy run. I think they do work really long hours and it's quite hard out there. But you can't knock the ambition.
I'm very much suspect as to whether any of those Vast ambitious schemes will work, but kudos to their ambition is all I can say.
Stephen Drew: Yeah, the line is basically something out of Blade Runner, whatever you think of
Pradumn Pamidighantam: It is.
Stephen Drew: absolutely mad. Just go, we're gonna carve a line for the desert. But yes, so then my architects, [00:37:00] if you did want to, if you thought I don't have any ties in the uk. And I wanna make a small fortune in a desert then you can do it.
Me though I like my creature comforts. I like living in the uk, so not for me, unfortunately. I will continue to pay my tax and I don't know, watch EastEnders and stuff, but I'm gonna bring it right back now. Edward Crump says, thank you so much for the insight and I agree. This has been absolutely fantastic.
I think you're a natural, you should host this show at some point.
Pradumn Pamidighantam: Oh, who knows? Who knows? We'll see.
Stephen Drew: you could gimme a break, but if anyone's enjoyed this I, they're probably gonna want to get in touch with yourself or the practice. Where can they find you then?
Pradumn Pamidighantam: I'm available on LinkedIn. So come and find me. I'm on Twitter as well, so come and find me there. But otherwise, yeah, we've got our got our contact details on the website. And yeah, just get in touch. But LinkedIn's probably the best place.
Stephen Drew: Yeah, exactly. So you can find, I'm on LinkedIn and you can also find him [00:38:00] on bar cas.com, which is B A R G A Z E T A s.com for our audio listeners afterwards. But thank you so for being here. I'm gonna win the live stream now and for anyone that joined us today, On your lunch. I really appreciate it.
I do have a crazy amount of podcasts tomorrow. Live streams. I've got two or something, so if you get bored of me, I understand. However, they will be good. Are they gonna be as good as this one? I'm not too sure cuz this gentleman over there isn't, it is a natural, but. You are, but stay on this stage. I'm gonna end the live stream now.
Thank you to the audience. Two more podcasts coming up tomorrow and I will see you again soon. Have a great lunch and I don't know, check out the tech and if you are gonna be doing sustainable buildings, have a look at that. Press then. Take care everyone. Bye-bye now.
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