Hands-On Construction To House of the Year with Carl Turner | 097
Jon chats with award-winning architect Carl Turner, founder of Turner.Works. Carl shares the first part of his career journey. From his beginnings as a mature student to building an amazing reputation for residential projects. He won a string of prestigious awards along the way. Several of Carl’s projects have featured on TV shows like George Clarke's Ugly House To Lovely House & Grand Designs. In 2013, Carl’s own home, Slip House, won the RIBA Manser Medal, and in 2021, Hove House won Grand Designs House of The Year. Carl talks about the benefits of hands-on construction for building designers, the importance of teamwork, and his itch to make a larger impact through public architecture. Plus the ups and downs of running his own firm straight out of university and the valuable lessons learned along the way.
Today’s Guest
Carl Turner is the founder of Turner Works, an architecture and urban design studio specialising in the early activation of sites and the meanwhile use of buildings. Carl has founded and set up several meanwhile projects, including Pop Brixton, Peckham Levels and Ashford Coachworks. The building of his own Brixton home was filmed by Grand Designs, and Carl has gone on to feature on Channel 4's 'Ugly House To Lovely House' as an expert in low-cost, high-impact design.
Episode Highlights
00:00 Introduction
01:07 Meet Carl Turner
03:53 The Importance of Taking Breaks
06:36 Carl's Early Career and Starting Turner.Works
11:14 Hands-On Construction Experience
26:01 Building a Reputation and Winning Awards
29:47 The Desire for Public Projects
31:25 Transition to Community Development
31:50 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser
Key Takeaways
Get Involved and Learn by Doing
You learn a lot when you get your hands dirty. If you help build things yourself, you understand how buildings really work. This makes you a better designer because you know what is possible and what is hard to do.
Take Breaks and Make Plans
You need to take breaks and step back sometimes. When you do this, you can see things more clearly and make better choices. If you just keep working without stopping, you might miss out on good ideas or make mistakes.
Work Together and Help Others
You do better when you work as a team. If you help other people and listen to their ideas, you can finish projects more easily. It is not just about you; it is about everyone working together to make something great.
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Next Episode
Next time, hear what happened after Carl decided to move away from residential architecture towards public projects.
Carl Turner:
After winning all of these accolades and we got to a
Carl Turner:
certain point as a practice, we still had this nagging feeling that, um,
Carl Turner:
I hadn't achieved anything that I'd really set out to really achieve,
Carl Turner:
which was to design public buildings, cultural buildings, public spaces.
Carl Turner:
I wanted to work on projects that made a difference.
Carl Turner:
And of course, designing nice houses and nice homes, it does make a
Carl Turner:
difference, but only to a few people that get to benefit from them.
Carl Turner:
I didn't really set out to work for wealthy middle class people.
Carl Turner:
You know, I really, really enjoyed the process of designing
Carl Turner:
those houses and building them.
Carl Turner:
But to me I kind of wasn't really fulfilled as an architect.
Carl Turner:
I just felt there was something else there.
Carl Turner:
Maybe it was just the grass is always greener.
Carl Turner:
I'd had this itch and I hadn't scratched it.
Jon Clayton:
Welcome to Architecture Business Club, the show that helps
Jon Clayton:
you build a better business in architecture so you can enjoy more
Jon Clayton:
freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment.
Jon Clayton:
If you're joining us for the first time, don't forget to hit
Jon Clayton:
the follow or subscribe button so you never miss another episode.
Jon Clayton:
We're joined by Carl Turner, founder of Turner Works, an architecture
Jon Clayton:
and urban design studio specializing in the early activation of sites
Jon Clayton:
and the meanwhile use of buildings.
Jon Clayton:
Carl has founded and set up several, meanwhile, projects, including Pop,
Jon Clayton:
Brixton, Peckham Levels, and Ashford.
Jon Clayton:
Coach Works the building of his own.
Jon Clayton:
Brixton home was filmed by Grand Designs, and Carl has gone on to feature on Channel
Jon Clayton:
Four's Ugly House, the Lovely House as an expert in low cost, high impact design.
Jon Clayton:
To learn more about Carl's practice, head over to Turner Works or to
Jon Clayton:
connect with Carl Direct online.
Jon Clayton:
Go ahead and connect with Carl over on LinkedIn and I'll put a link in the
Jon Clayton:
show notes to both of those places.
Jon Clayton:
Carl, welcome to the club.
Carl Turner:
Hi.
Carl Turner:
Hi John.
Carl Turner:
Thanks for inviting me.
Jon Clayton:
Uh, it's a pleasure to have you here.
Jon Clayton:
Since we, we first connected, I've been really excited about um, you know, getting
Jon Clayton:
this, this conversation on the podcast.
Jon Clayton:
So it's a pleasure to have you here, Carl.
Jon Clayton:
Before we get stuck into things, tell me a little bit about what
Jon Clayton:
you enjoy doing outside of work.
Carl Turner:
Yeah I guess that I, I actually, weirdly, one of my hobbies
Carl Turner:
is renovating houses, which doesn't sound like much of a, of a break, but I
Carl Turner:
think particularly as the practice has grown and I'm a bit more detached from
Carl Turner:
the real hands-on of things it's just something I've done a lot over the years.
Carl Turner:
I've probably renovated about 30 properties when I thought back about it.
Carl Turner:
And I just really love actually the whole process of stripping
Carl Turner:
something back and then re and rebuilding it and reimagining it.
Carl Turner:
Um, and I think when I'm not doing up houses, the other thing I really do
Carl Turner:
love doing is traveling and something.
Carl Turner:
I couldn't do that much when I was younger because I just quite
Carl Turner:
frankly couldn't afford it.
Carl Turner:
But as I've, uh, got older, I've managed to just spend much more time
Carl Turner:
traveling and I find it just really inspiring and it's just a way of really
Carl Turner:
recharging batteries and just, just seeing amazing things that are happening
Carl Turner:
all over the world and being inspired and energized and bringing back ideas.
Carl Turner:
And so I think, yeah, we, weirdly, last year I had a sabbatical, which
Carl Turner:
is another whole story, but, um, I managed to mix up the whole year
Carl Turner:
with like a month, traveling a month working on a house and another month
Carl Turner:
traveling another renovation, few weeks.
Carl Turner:
So it was my ideal year fixing up old houses and traveling the world.
Jon Clayton:
Oh, that sounds absolutely ideal.
Jon Clayton:
So, um, more years like that, Carl.
Jon Clayton:
That would be good, wouldn't it?
Jon Clayton:
If we can do that sort of thing again, that nice balance between your, your
Jon Clayton:
interests outside of work and, um, what you're doing at Turner works too.
Carl Turner:
Exactly.
Carl Turner:
Yeah, exactly.
Carl Turner:
If I could build a whole life around that, well, I kind of have.
Carl Turner:
But you know, work is a commitment, and it does, it does take time and energy.
Carl Turner:
So, but I think it is important to take those moments, those breaks, even
Carl Turner:
small ones where you can kind of take a step back and maybe appreciate what
Carl Turner:
you've got and where you've got to.
Carl Turner:
And then think about the challenges ahead and where you want to go.
Carl Turner:
Anybody knows if you want to, if you want to run a good business, you
Carl Turner:
have to kind of design the business.
Carl Turner:
Really, you can't, if you just sit back waiting for things to
Carl Turner:
happen to you, it's not gonna go.
Carl Turner:
If you haven't got a plan, then it's just gonna happen, isn't it?
Jon Clayton:
Yeah, that's so true.
Jon Clayton:
Um, I love that just you highlighted there the benefits
Jon Clayton:
of just taking that step back.
Jon Clayton:
Whether that's time of time away or working on the projects.
Jon Clayton:
And it's so true because when you're in the thick of it, that thing of,
Jon Clayton:
um, well, you just can't see the wood for the trees, can you, you know, if
Jon Clayton:
you're just reacting to things as they happen day to day and sometimes that
Jon Clayton:
um, break away for a few days, it just, it's just such a good reset, isn't it?
Carl Turner:
Yeah, totally.
Carl Turner:
And I, I think in today's society we do, we worry that we're not busy all
Carl Turner:
the time or that we're not posting on Instagram or that we're not
Carl Turner:
like at the center of everything.
Carl Turner:
But I definitely believe in, you know, going away and doing something quiet
Carl Turner:
and yeah, just, just thinking about things and tr trying to plan, um, ahead
Carl Turner:
rather than, I mean, I, I've spent periods of time stumbling from project
Carl Turner:
to project and, you know, I guess you go through phases in life where you.
Carl Turner:
Where you do that.
Carl Turner:
But I think if I had my time again, I would be a lot more thoughtful in what I,
Carl Turner:
you know, the kind of work that I took on and be braver about having periods of not
Carl Turner:
working, which is, maybe, it's easy to say now, now that I'm more financially secure,
Carl Turner:
but I think when you're younger and you, you need to, you probably need to work.
Carl Turner:
Most people do, but it's work is, work can be quite destructive, I think,
Carl Turner:
things that might be more productive for you, for you and for the, for, for
Carl Turner:
the world, for the, for the climate.
Carl Turner:
Work can get in the way of that.
Jon Clayton:
I think that, um, I guess as a society it's sort of, a measure of
Jon Clayton:
with our work, it's sort of like, oh, well I'm, I'm busy, so, this is a good thing.
Jon Clayton:
You know, I, I'm seen to be being busy and I'm, I'm doing lots of different things.
Jon Clayton:
But actually I think often the reverse is true.
Jon Clayton:
That actually if you're able to kind of do less and be a bit more intentional
Jon Clayton:
with it, that the results and the impact can be far greater than when you're just
Jon Clayton:
sort of busy juggling all sorts of things.
Jon Clayton:
Yeah, so true.
Jon Clayton:
Yeah.
Jon Clayton:
And um, just to touch upon your comment there about the travel cart, I, I love
Jon Clayton:
to travel as well, admittedly, I don't do it quite as much as I used to,
Jon Clayton:
but, um, I'm a former backpacker and I think once you've, once you catch that
Jon Clayton:
travel bug, it's hard to shake it off.
Jon Clayton:
So, Carl, we are going to talk about your career in architecture, um, which
Jon Clayton:
has really been a career of two halves.
Jon Clayton:
Um, and this is going to inspire other architects and building
Jon Clayton:
designers in their own career journey.
Jon Clayton:
I'm absolutely certain of it.
Jon Clayton:
I'd like to start, I guess at the beginning, right back
Jon Clayton:
to studying architecture.
Jon Clayton:
So you, you studied architecture as a mature student, and one of the things
Jon Clayton:
you did differently is most, most newly qualified architects generally they're
Jon Clayton:
seeking employment in a practice or the, you know, they're, they're being
Jon Clayton:
employed in a existing practice and you set up your own firm straight out of uni.
Jon Clayton:
And I wonder what led you to do that?
Jon Clayton:
'cause it's just kind of defies the convention of what
Jon Clayton:
most other people tend to do.
Jon Clayton:
So why did you decide to do that?
Carl Turner:
Yeah, looking back I'm not quite sure why we did it.
Carl Turner:
I think there was a, a touch of arrogance maybe.
Carl Turner:
Um, but I think I graduated from Royal College and I guess I was
Carl Turner:
surrounded by people making things and I had a real passion to make.
Carl Turner:
I was 33 when I, when I graduated from the RCA with an ma. I'd taken quite a few
Carl Turner:
years out between part one and part two.
Carl Turner:
And I think I just felt like I was in the right place to
Carl Turner:
actually strike out on my own.
Carl Turner:
Hadn't really thought through how I would then get qualified.
Carl Turner:
I just knew that I really wanted to really build things and
Carl Turner:
delivering was quite important.
Carl Turner:
I felt like I could make more of an impact doing things for myself.
Carl Turner:
I'd worked in really fantastic big practices like fostering partners,
Carl Turner:
smaller and more community focused practices like Pinau and Psad
Carl Turner:
and lots of others in between.
Carl Turner:
And I'd, I'd learn loads.
Carl Turner:
I kind of felt like I knew what, you know, where I was heading and the
Carl Turner:
kind of work I wanted to do, which was actually, if I'm being honest,
Carl Turner:
I wanted to work on public projects.
Carl Turner:
I didn't wanna work on residential work.
Carl Turner:
Um, but yeah, the, uh, I think four of us left together and then.
Carl Turner:
It quickly whittled down to just me and Cass.
Carl Turner:
So Cassie and Castle, who's went on to found his own practice eventually,
Carl Turner:
but we ended up in a railway arching Kings Cross above an antique dealers.
Carl Turner:
And we were both kind of doing our own individual projects.
Carl Turner:
And then at some point we just said, this is crazy.
Carl Turner:
We may as well worked together.
Carl Turner:
And, uh, Turner, Turner Castle was formed and we, we spent six years
Carl Turner:
working together and we were really two part qualified architects with a
Carl Turner:
white van driving around doing projects.
Carl Turner:
You know, we, we won lots of projects for our tutors at the RCA, people that
Carl Turner:
were designers, but maybe were not quite in the, in the, in the kind of
Carl Turner:
construction and architecture world.
Carl Turner:
So we, we actually, our first commissions were from other designers to help
Carl Turner:
them realize their own projects.
Carl Turner:
So I think, um, you know, we're really inspired by the whole
Carl Turner:
kind of making ethos at the RCA.
Carl Turner:
And I think we'd also have this idea of fail early, fail cheap, which was very
Carl Turner:
much that we wanted to quietly build a portfolio of work that we were proud of.
Carl Turner:
We'd learn our trade, learn our craft.
Carl Turner:
We'd do it a small scale, and then once we kind of learn the skill sets
Carl Turner:
that we needed, we'd then be able to apply that to bigger projects, which
Carl Turner:
is effectively what what we did.
Carl Turner:
I think back then it was, it was really tough for young
Carl Turner:
practices to really make a mark.
Carl Turner:
It was before social media.
Carl Turner:
The architecture magazine world was quite a closed shop, and it was all quite
Carl Turner:
highfaluting, the whole publishing world.
Carl Turner:
And it was, it was really difficult to make a breakthrough.
Carl Turner:
But yeah, weirdly, we, um, we did a lot of, um, construction work as well
Carl Turner:
as architecture work, which we kind of fell into, but I think those were, those
Carl Turner:
were some of the main reasons it was.
Carl Turner:
It was just a general, and I think also we just generally felt that there were
Carl Turner:
not kind of inspiring smaller practices that we really, the people that we
Carl Turner:
really admired were European practices.
Carl Turner:
And I, but I don't think either of us were in a position to, to
Carl Turner:
just pick up and move to Europe.
Carl Turner:
Um, so yeah, for, for many reasons really, we kind of stumbled into
Carl Turner:
setting our own practice up.
Carl Turner:
Um, and then, yeah, we worked together for about six years and then we, we,
Carl Turner:
we, we ended up working on our own projects in the corner of a studio.
Carl Turner:
So in the end we, we kind of decided it was the right time to set up our
Carl Turner:
actual own individual practices.
Jon Clayton:
Cool.
Jon Clayton:
And then, I mean, having set up that practice, um, and you, you
Jon Clayton:
sort of mentioned that a little bit actually already, but you were
Jon Clayton:
doing construction projects, you weren't just designing spaces.
Jon Clayton:
In those early days, you, you sort of positioned yourself as like a
Jon Clayton:
small building firm that offered architectural design services.
Jon Clayton:
Alongside that, what, what were some of those benefits from being
Jon Clayton:
hands-on with construction in addition to architectural design?
Carl Turner:
Yeah, I think there's many, many benefits.
Carl Turner:
And initially the crazy situation we're in is that if we wanted to build
Carl Turner:
a big extension for somebody, people would question whether we had the
Carl Turner:
experience as young architects to design an extension or a loft conversion,
Carl Turner:
let alone a new house or something.
Carl Turner:
But actually, if we said we were contractors and we'd build
Carl Turner:
it for you, people didn't ask.
Carl Turner:
They didn't even flinch as long as the price was right and we could start
Carl Turner:
within a month, you know, it was kind of.
Carl Turner:
The craziness of, yeah, we'll hire somebody to build it, which is obviously,
Carl Turner:
in some respects, a lot more tricky and risky and difficult than designing
Carl Turner:
a, an extension, which is relatively straightforward and you've got
Carl Turner:
structural engineers and everything else.
Carl Turner:
So in a way, we, we found a way around the system by offering more of a package
Carl Turner:
where we'd almost throw in design.
Carl Turner:
Obviously we get paid for it, but we would be selling ourselves really as a design
Carl Turner:
and build contractors problem solvers.
Carl Turner:
So, um, also a collaborative spirit.
Carl Turner:
So if you are a designer, we'll, we'll work with you to help realize your
Carl Turner:
kind of, um, ambitions and goals.
Carl Turner:
So you might not be familiar with planning, but we can help with that.
Carl Turner:
So it wasn't really a plan, it was just, it was a, you know, a kind of
Carl Turner:
path of least resistance really, that.
Carl Turner:
And I think also me and Cass, we both were fixing up our
Carl Turner:
own houses in the background.
Carl Turner:
I've probably already done like 10 renovation projects by then.
Carl Turner:
And we really liked building things.
Carl Turner:
The other thing that we realized is it gave us much, um, better kind
Carl Turner:
of ownership of the whole project.
Carl Turner:
So, we didn't have to battle against a contractor who either didn't understand
Carl Turner:
what we wanted or they were just trying to make as much money as possible.
Carl Turner:
So, you know, we had clients saying to us, oh my God, it's
Carl Turner:
so amazing working with you.
Carl Turner:
It's been so smooth.
Carl Turner:
There's been no arguments at all.
Carl Turner:
It's just seamless service.
Carl Turner:
And obviously in the background we'd be like having punch up with, punch
Carl Turner:
up with plumbers and, standoffs with electricians and all the usual stuff, but
Carl Turner:
just the clients were not subject to it.
Carl Turner:
'cause we, we just, we just kind of took it and delivered the project and, we,
Carl Turner:
we could decide to specify a nicer hinges than maybe the clients were paying for.
Carl Turner:
And it, it allowed us to build a portfolio of really, really good built work.
Carl Turner:
And to be quite radical, our style was quite simple, quite raw, quite industrial.
Carl Turner:
And trying to get other contractors to do that is actually quite difficult.
Carl Turner:
It looks quite simple, but it's quite difficult to achieve those kind of quite
Carl Turner:
minimal things that everything needs to be sequenced properly and you need
Carl Turner:
to really understand how to, to build.
Carl Turner:
So it was a great education process for us.
Carl Turner:
Yeah, we built a portfolio and, you know, I think it made us better designers, you
Carl Turner:
know, it made us understand the process.
Carl Turner:
I think we also built empathy for tradespeople and people,
Carl Turner:
craftsmen, people in the industry, contractors, you know, it is tough.
Carl Turner:
It's a really tough business.
Carl Turner:
And when.
Carl Turner:
I think when you are the contractor, which we were, um, and we, we
Carl Turner:
ended up doing quite big projects.
Carl Turner:
You know, I've built, even with Turner Works more recent and we built, you know,
Carl Turner:
a, an apartment block with 10 apartments.
Carl Turner:
We built some other big community projects.
Carl Turner:
But when you are ultimately responsible for it, there's nobody else to blame.
Carl Turner:
If something goes wrong, you have to fix it and it is kind of your problem.
Carl Turner:
So I think it gives you a different mindset.
Carl Turner:
More of a, less of a pushing the blame on somebody else, more of a, a
Carl Turner:
mindset that, yeah, it's a problem.
Carl Turner:
We need to work together as a team to solve it.
Carl Turner:
And ultimately, you, you as the contractor or the design build contractor,
Carl Turner:
it's, it's your problem really.
Carl Turner:
You need to fix it.
Carl Turner:
So I think for all those reasons, it's been a fantastic process to go
Carl Turner:
through and I'd highly recommend, any, any architects who are thinking about
Carl Turner:
maybe dabbling with construction.
Carl Turner:
Young architects, you know, working on your own home or getting into a situation
Carl Turner:
where you can work on building sites.
Carl Turner:
It's, I, I almost think it's an essential skillset really.
Carl Turner:
It's, I, I honestly dunno how people can design buildings if they don't really
Carl Turner:
know how they're built, or if you've never lifted a sheet of plasterboard and
Carl Turner:
you don't understand how heavy it is.
Carl Turner:
It's just all of that kind of thing.
Carl Turner:
It just, to me, it's an essential ingredient of being a good
Carl Turner:
designer is knowing how to actually put buildings together.
Jon Clayton:
Have you got an interesting story about running
Jon Clayton:
your architecture practice?
Jon Clayton:
Have you done something different in your business that's been hugely successful?
Jon Clayton:
Or has a failure taught you an important lesson that you'd be willing to share?
Jon Clayton:
Then why not apply to be a guest on this podcast?
Jon Clayton:
Just click the link in the show notes to send us your
Jon Clayton:
details and get started today.
Jon Clayton:
And if you're joining us for the first time, don't forget to hit
Jon Clayton:
the follow or subscribe button so you never miss another episode.
Jon Clayton:
Now let's get back to the show.
Jon Clayton:
Mm. Oh, so many benefits there Carl.
Jon Clayton:
So many.
Jon Clayton:
Um, you've mentioned then, I mean, for, even from, um, a client perspective
Jon Clayton:
as well, particularly, I guess on some of those smaller projects, the, the
Jon Clayton:
appeal of you offering a service that's essentially like a one-stop shop, that
Jon Clayton:
this one point of contact, um, that you mentioned that the experience for
Jon Clayton:
the clients was pretty seamless because the sort of wranglings that they might
Jon Clayton:
normally be exposed to, that you were handling all of that behind the scenes,
Jon Clayton:
and you said that that experience.
Jon Clayton:
Built an empathy for those craftsmen and those tradespeople as well.
Jon Clayton:
So you had a much better understanding of the day-to-day challenges that they
Jon Clayton:
have and a better understanding of how buildings actually go together.
Jon Clayton:
As you say that, you know, like you specifying products or detailing something
Jon Clayton:
that we could draw something that looks great on paper, but then actually the
Jon Clayton:
practicalities of getting on site and actually building the thing, that's a
Jon Clayton:
really different perspective, isn't it?
Jon Clayton:
That the builder's, the one there, the contractor there, they're looking
Jon Clayton:
at the design or the detail thinking, well, yeah, this looks lovely, but like,
Jon Clayton:
how the heck am I gonna build this?
Jon Clayton:
Like, how are we gonna do it?
Jon Clayton:
And so as a, from a design perspective, that must have been so beneficial for
Jon Clayton:
you as well to be able to, uh, iterate and improve the way that you design
Jon Clayton:
buildings and spaces, having that knowledge and experience of actually
Jon Clayton:
being hands on with it at site and, um.
Jon Clayton:
As you say, that kind of the team aspects of it as well, that you're approaching
Jon Clayton:
it as, look, it's not uh, us against them and some of that finger pointing
Jon Clayton:
that could ensue, oh, well it's, it's not our fault, it's the architect, or
Jon Clayton:
it's not our fault, it's the contractor.
Jon Clayton:
Or vice versa.
Jon Clayton:
You know, it would imagine a lot of that's really reduced and
Jon Clayton:
minimized, um, if you're approaching it in the way that you did.
Carl Turner:
Yeah, and I think we also went on to 'cause eventually we
Carl Turner:
built up quite a big team of you know, as well as our architecture studio.
Carl Turner:
We had a team of builders of all different skill sets that were
Carl Turner:
pretty much working for us full time.
Carl Turner:
So we try and keep our team together.
Carl Turner:
So we'd quite often plug gaps maybe, uh, with, um, working for
Carl Turner:
other architects as contractors.
Carl Turner:
So.
Carl Turner:
We actually then found, so it's another benefit of being a small builder.
Carl Turner:
There's not many good ones around.
Carl Turner:
And if you've only gotta bring up half a dozen architects and there's
Carl Turner:
bound to be a job there for you that you can pitch on, and if you're
Carl Turner:
any good, you probably win it.
Carl Turner:
So, you know, we found actually that we we're not only building our own projects
Carl Turner:
that we designed for clients, we were just acting as a contractor you know,
Carl Turner:
building another architect's project.
Carl Turner:
And again, I think that helped us realize much more about kind of teamwork.
Carl Turner:
And we didn't have to be the kind of, you know, the designer.
Carl Turner:
We, if, if it was something that we thought was good,
Carl Turner:
then we could get behind it.
Carl Turner:
And I think also then having been subject to A-A-J-C-T contract from a
Carl Turner:
contractor side, realizing actually how, how difficult it is for contractors and.
Carl Turner:
What, what a lot of risks contractors take.
Carl Turner:
Everybody thinks they're making loads of money, but generally
Carl Turner:
speaking it's, it's super risky.
Carl Turner:
The margins are really tight.
Carl Turner:
If anything goes slightly wrong, then you probably end up losing money.
Carl Turner:
And, you know, we, we did a lot of really, uh, good projects for good architects.
Carl Turner:
People like May who've gone on to win the Sterling Prize, we built
Carl Turner:
a, a small rooftop extension on a warehouse in Sage for them.
Carl Turner:
It's a great project.
Carl Turner:
And again, we learned loads because we saw how other architects worked.
Carl Turner:
You know, how they, because again, we were isolated in our own practice
Carl Turner:
having, you know, set up from college.
Carl Turner:
So it was great to see how other people did things and how other
Carl Turner:
architects handled situations.
Carl Turner:
And, you know, I think teamwork's the word that keeps coming to mind, just realizing
Carl Turner:
that you know, the project is the thing and that you can just be part of.
Carl Turner:
One of the cogs to actually deliver the project.
Carl Turner:
So I think it's, um, requires a certain level of humility to be able to do that
Carl Turner:
in that you don't have to, you know, it doesn't have to be all about you.
Carl Turner:
If it's about doing a good project, delivering it, working as
Carl Turner:
a team and accepting that you're gonna learn a lot in that process.
Carl Turner:
So again, I, I think it's another great thing architects could
Carl Turner:
definitely think about doing more is, you know, there's nothing stop
Carl Turner:
an architect becoming a contractor.
Carl Turner:
It's, it's fairly straightforward is just have to kind of take the leap really.
Jon Clayton:
Yeah, I love that the.
Jon Clayton:
The collaborative approach that you took there, you, you said there's an
Jon Clayton:
opportunity there to be able to help deliver projects that other practices
Jon Clayton:
had designed in the first instance, and then you were able to help deliver those.
Jon Clayton:
And so in doing that, there was a learning opportunity for you
Jon Clayton:
as a practice, which was great.
Jon Clayton:
It was helping to get those other interesting projects that you'd,
Jon Clayton:
uh, the other practices are designed to actually get those
Jon Clayton:
things built which is really cool.
Jon Clayton:
And one of the thing you mentioned actually a little bit earlier,
Jon Clayton:
Carl, was about the um, I guess the control that you have over it.
Jon Clayton:
Because that's the thing, particularly in a day and age now where a lot of projects
Jon Clayton:
get designed, they don't get built.
Jon Clayton:
And, you know, it's so frustrating.
Jon Clayton:
Obviously we want to see projects that we work on, that we design
Jon Clayton:
to actually get delivered and be built and to be used as intended.
Jon Clayton:
And that.
Jon Clayton:
Way of working that you've described.
Jon Clayton:
It sounds like that it gave you more control over the, the finished job
Jon Clayton:
and actually did enable those projects to be delivered to a good standard.
Jon Clayton:
And, um, that's only, it's gotta be a good thing, hasn't it, for
Jon Clayton:
everybody involved For sure.
Carl Turner:
I think it meant that we, I mean, at that point we built,
Carl Turner:
almost everything we designed got built because we found a way of building it.
Carl Turner:
And if we'd gone out through a normal tender process, it would've
Carl Turner:
definitely hit a brick wall.
Carl Turner:
And probably we'd have had to then pick it apart or the clients would've dropped it.
Carl Turner:
And that's what we find now as we scaled up and we're working on
Carl Turner:
bigger projects, we only build a small fraction of what we work on.
Carl Turner:
And there is a frustration there.
Carl Turner:
But I think, yeah, the process that we'd put in place meant that we could be you
Carl Turner:
know, we could take a bigger picture view.
Carl Turner:
So a particular project might be on a knife edge in terms of viability
Carl Turner:
or we might know it might make, it might not even wash its own face,
Carl Turner:
but we could keep our team together.
Carl Turner:
And then there was another project over here that was gonna be more viable
Carl Turner:
in terms of making a bit more money.
Carl Turner:
And as long as across the piece we kind of could keep all the balls in
Carl Turner:
the air, then everyone's a winner.
Carl Turner:
So we were not, it wasn't isolating every project out and
Carl Turner:
putting it under a microscope.
Carl Turner:
And, there's, there's a certain risk in that, but I think that's probably what
Carl Turner:
all good contractors do to some extent.
Carl Turner:
They, you know, they, they take on portfolio projects that they know are
Carl Turner:
gonna be tricky to build, they're gonna be expensive, but but they, that, that they
Carl Turner:
want to move the conversation on about the, the work that their company does.
Carl Turner:
So what I don't think we, we didn't particularly start out with the intention
Carl Turner:
of doing that, but I think we quickly realized that it was, that we'd actually
Carl Turner:
hit on something that was really in demand is an attitude thing more than anything
Carl Turner:
that we were kind of like, can do.
Carl Turner:
People that, you know, we would just take it on as a challenge and we would
Carl Turner:
try and make it work and, and for ourselves, we would try and get something
Carl Turner:
that was gonna filter back into the architecture world and be considered
Carl Turner:
to be a success architecturally.
Carl Turner:
But for us also then just the success was running a viable business.
Carl Turner:
Um, employing lots of people.
Carl Turner:
At our height we were probably employing about 50 people and as a
Carl Turner:
sort of small builder, small architects and, it was a great thing to go
Carl Turner:
from zero to a lot of experience.
Carl Turner:
You know, we probably packed 20 years worth of experience into 10 years.
Carl Turner:
It was, um, crazy, you know, kind of thing that we often had five, six
Carl Turner:
jobs on site at any one time that we designed and we were building.
Carl Turner:
And it was, um, felt really exciting.
Carl Turner:
It was energetic and, you know, we felt like we were
Carl Turner:
really sort of making progress.
Carl Turner:
There were frustrations.
Carl Turner:
Obviously we were frustrated that we couldn't, we, we seemed to get just more
Carl Turner:
and more of the same sorts of projects.
Carl Turner:
We didn't really scale up at all.
Carl Turner:
The projects were all kind of stuck at a kind of single house level,
Carl Turner:
mainly refurbs and big extensions, and we had ambition to build new
Carl Turner:
buildings and public and other things.
Jon Clayton:
so you, I mean, you built an amazing reputation,
Jon Clayton:
particularly for resi projects.
Jon Clayton:
You won a string of prestigious awards from the likes of
Jon Clayton:
our IBA architect journal.
Jon Clayton:
We've mentioned in the intro you've had several projects featured on
Jon Clayton:
TV shows like George Clark's Ugly House to Lovely House Grand Designs.
Jon Clayton:
In 2013, your own home slip house that was designed by you,
Jon Clayton:
what won the RIBM Manson Medal.
Jon Clayton:
And in 2021, Hove House won Grand Designs House of the Year.
Jon Clayton:
Amazing stuff like did you ever sit there and think, yes, I've made it.
Carl Turner:
Uh, there were, yeah, there were moments like that.
Carl Turner:
I think winning the MANA medal, which is, is now called the
Carl Turner:
House of the Year, I think.
Carl Turner:
Getting that award with my wife, who was effectively the client,
Carl Turner:
Mary, upon the stage at RRBA in front of hundreds of people.
Carl Turner:
That was a real pinnacle, and it felt like at that point I actually
Carl Turner:
had the mindset that I've achieved what I wanted to achieve, really.
Carl Turner:
And that maybe I was actually thinking at that point I'd probably just go off and
Carl Turner:
be a small developer that I'd probably, I couldn't really get beyond that glass
Carl Turner:
ceiling having, you know, I was really a residential architect at that point.
Carl Turner:
And I did have to take a little bit of time out occasionally and pinch myself.
Carl Turner:
'cause really I'd achieved way more than I'd probably thought I would.
Carl Turner:
Interestingly, winning the MANA medal, building my own house, I
Carl Turner:
actually set myself the task of trying to win the MANA medal.
Carl Turner:
So I'm not really driven by awards, but I realized it was probably the
Carl Turner:
biggest award that I could win, doing the kind of work that I do.
Carl Turner:
And I, the reason that I was interested in winning awards at that point was I thought
Carl Turner:
it would unlock more kind of public work, the kind of work I really wanted to do.
Carl Turner:
And I didn't expect to win it, but I set myself the goal of winning it, which
Carl Turner:
sounds quite arrogant, but I think I'm definitely in that kind of mindset where
Carl Turner:
you need to plan ahead for success.
Carl Turner:
You need to plan.
Carl Turner:
So if you, if you don't plan for success, you're never gonna succeed.
Carl Turner:
I think.
Carl Turner:
So I thought about what I could do, given the plot that I had and the
Carl Turner:
money that I had, what could I do?
Carl Turner:
And it was all around creating a narrative.
Carl Turner:
And it was, uh, probably a long time before people were really
Carl Turner:
so focused on sustainability.
Carl Turner:
And, um, so we set, we set out to design the house using code
Carl Turner:
for sustainable homes, which at that point wasn't mandatory.
Carl Turner:
And it ended up being a, a kind of journey that we went to.
Carl Turner:
We used it as a learning process to learn about sustainability.
Carl Turner:
And I think that's one of the key reasons that we won that award was we produced
Carl Turner:
an unbelievably sustainable house.
Carl Turner:
Um, code five had a lot of embodied carbon, but apart from
Carl Turner:
that, it was, it's still a, a very, very good sustainable model.
Carl Turner:
I think so, yeah.
Carl Turner:
Um, I think what, what it, what it actually did as well getting to that
Carl Turner:
point was it, it kind of put me on the map as an individual in a way.
Carl Turner:
It began to build me as a brand.
Carl Turner:
So people might have heard of me being on tv then put my face to my name.
Carl Turner:
And so then when we started to have a little breakthrough, uh, into more
Carl Turner:
public work, I'd get interviewed and people would say, oh, I saw you
Carl Turner:
on Grand Designs, loved your house.
Carl Turner:
And it was a conversation starter.
Carl Turner:
It was an icebreaker, and it wasn't necessarily that it, um, that it
Carl Turner:
was directly responsible for winning work, but I think it was a kind
Carl Turner:
of, being on TV was some kind of it kind of legitimized me in a way.
Carl Turner:
I don't, I don't know.
Carl Turner:
But but yeah, still after winning all of these accolades and we got
Carl Turner:
to a certain point as a practice, we still had this nagging feeling that,
Carl Turner:
um, I hadn't achieved anything that I'd really set out to really achieve,
Carl Turner:
which was to design public buildings, cultural buildings, public spaces.
Carl Turner:
I wanted to work on projects that made a difference.
Carl Turner:
And of course, designing nice houses and nice homes, it does make a
Carl Turner:
difference, but only to a few people that get to benefit from them.
Carl Turner:
I didn't really set out to work for.
Carl Turner:
Wealthy middle class people who were doing very nicely and that, you know,
Carl Turner:
I really, really enjoyed the process of designing those houses and building them.
Carl Turner:
But to me I, I kind of wasn't really fulfilled as an, as an a as an architect.
Carl Turner:
I just felt there was something else there.
Carl Turner:
Maybe it was just the grass is always greener.
Carl Turner:
I'd had this itch and I hadn't scratched it.
Carl Turner:
Um, but yeah, I'm not complaining if, if my career had stopped at
Carl Turner:
that point, I would've in some respects been very, very happy.
Carl Turner:
And that's the mindset I was in of, maybe I'll just stop when I'm on a
Carl Turner:
high and I'll just quietly go off and I'll have an easy life was what I
Carl Turner:
was, that's what my wife was saying.
Carl Turner:
Let's just have an easy life having all this architecture nonsense.
Jon Clayton:
Building on all of that past success, you, you could have, I mean, you
Jon Clayton:
could have done that, you could have just left it and gone for the easy life, or
Jon Clayton:
you could have comfortably stuck with the resi projects, which is what you'd, you'd
Jon Clayton:
built that name for in the beginning.
Jon Clayton:
But you didn't do that.
Jon Clayton:
You, you mentioned there that was, there was an itch that hadn't
Jon Clayton:
been scratched, um, and a desire to do work on public projects.
Jon Clayton:
So you actually sold your award winning home.
Jon Clayton:
You sold that, and you put some of that money into a community
Jon Clayton:
development project called Pop Brixton.
Jon Clayton:
How and why did that come about, which seems quite a bold move to me.
Jon Clayton:
Can you tell me about that?
Carl Turner:
Yeah.
Carl Turner:
And again, it was, it was a kind of accidental thing really.
Jon Clayton:
Oh, sounds intriguing.
Jon Clayton:
You have to tune into our next episode to hear the rest of Carl's story.
Jon Clayton:
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Architecture Business Club.
Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
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Jon Clayton:
Just search for @mrjonclayton.
Jon Clayton:
The best place to connect with me online is LinkedIn and you can find a
Jon Clayton:
link to my profile in the show notes.
Jon Clayton:
Remember running your architecture business doesn't have to be hard
Jon Clayton:
and you don't need to do it alone.
Jon Clayton:
This is Architecture Business Club.
