Panov Scott
Welcome to Office Talk, a fortnightly podcast featuring in-depth conversations with leading architects about their approach to business marketing and communications. I'm your host, Dave Sharp, an architectural marketing expert and director of Office Dave Sharp, a marketing practice offering specialized consultancy, marketing, and PR services tailored to meet the particular needs of architects. Visitofficedavesharp.com to learn more or follow the practice on Instagram atofficedavesharp. Joining me on the show today are Anita Panov and Andrew Scott, the directors of Panov Scott, a Sydney based practice known for their approach to ethical, sustainable, and innovative architecture. In this episode, Anita, Andrew, and I discussed how crafting personalized publications about each of their projects has allowed them to form deeper relationships with their clients, better communicate their ideas, and articulate their values.
Dave Sharp:We talked about how being quiet on Instagram doesn't translate into a quiet practice and how they've spent their time off social media designing a business to suit their desired lifestyle. We looked at the importance of ensuring that the perception of the practice and and how you communicate and engage with the community is authentic to the personality of the people within the practice. And finally, we looked at the evolution of architectural photography over their careers and the photography trends from the early years of their practice that they see reappearing online today. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Anita and Andrew from Panof Scott. Could we start off with a little bit of a background on the practice?
Dave Sharp:Give us a little run through the history.
Anita Panov:Well, we're 11 years young now, sort of that 10 year has just lapsed and turned over into 11. And look, before that we were working for different practices each for another 10 years. So Andrew was with Angelo Candelepis and I was with Williamsmart. And, you know, as already foreshadowed, we coincided with the start of our family and our practice at the same time so we could, pursue what we wanted to do in practice together. And family, in fact.
Anita Panov:So it was a little bit more shared time, at that point in in everything.
Andrew Scott:So, I mean, we were very lucky at the outset, I think. Anita complains that she missed maternity leave completely because, we ended up getting a few jobs early on, which was good.
Anita Panov:I think we
Andrew Scott:signed kind of disappeared like that.
Anita Panov:Signed up about 6 clients about 3 weeks before, our first was born. It went away.
Andrew Scott:Well, yeah. Yeah. I I think you've got me pegged. I actually we we we put it a little bit out of sequence, so I finished up with about 6 months earlier, and that allowed us to get a little bit of momentum happening.
Dave Sharp:That 6 projects that you picked up when you hit the ground running, what are we kind of talking about? Like, friends, places, residential stuff, like, what was the character of those projects that you started the practice on?
Andrew Scott:While we were working with Angelo and William, we spent about 5 years building our own house. And so that was alterations additions to kind of Newtown inner city, row house. It was kind of like a cottage a little cottage. And we built that ourselves, over that time. And then we we photographed it, and we had it published in, in one of the magazines.
Anita Panov:But we're certainly able to bring prospective clients to the house and show them what we've done.
Dave Sharp:So you're actually starting off with people that weren't actually in your immediate network because you were bringing out this project. It was getting published, and then you were getting some just cold inquiries of people you'd never met before and didn't know. Is that right? Exactly. Exactly.
Dave Sharp:You skipped the first 5 years of practice.
Andrew Scott:We're very, very jealous of people like architects who managed to have good clients as relatives and, and friends. We Bottomless well of good fortune.
Anita Panov:But we did we did have a factor. Like, there was one particular friend who, put a few contacts our way at the beginning, which was good.
Andrew Scott:And we did I mean, we had recommendations from our old offices, and we had recommendations from colleagues. We had recommendations from the editor of the that first publication of our own house and put us on to a couple of people. So it kind of yeah. It started it started to work in that way. And and, like, we reflected on it quite a bit.
Andrew Scott:I mean, we used to joke that the the absolute worst clients we ever had were our own relatives. Because, I mean, there's there's a bit of truth behind that. Like, no matter how good the commission is at any time in a project, you you kinda have to decide whether it's it's about the relationship or about the project. And working for people that you love, it's always gonna be about the relationship. And so you kinda have to let go a little bit more than potentially you would within working within kind of other other realms.
Andrew Scott:So it was it was it was an interesting beginning in that regard. But then the other, you know, the other benefit of it was that it was always about the work, like, from the start. People came to us because they saw what we did, and they liked what we did. And we took a lot of lot of effort to actually describe what we were doing as well. So we kind of we we made these little books about each project, even the smallest project, even those first projects are starting with our own home.
Andrew Scott:And in those books, we described kind of it was broken up roughly speaking into 3 parts. At first, we're just kinda just walking through the project and kinda introducing some ideas and placing it in terms of, you know, what a project can mean, let's say. And then the next part was kind of parts of a whole is what we called it. And that really kinda got into the part prospective clients really like, which is, like, well, part of what they really like, which was kind of what, you know, what's the tap, what's the material, what's, how do these things all come together? And we could kind of explain the meaning behind those things as well.
Andrew Scott:So it was kind of we're putting it within our own, our own manner of describing our projects. And then the third part was just kinda off the air. That was kind of, what do we call it?
Anita Panov:Cuttings.
Andrew Scott:Cuttings. And that was just where we collected just random interesting things that we're engaging in at the time. Totally tangential to architecture.
Anita Panov:But but not necessarily tangential to the project or, you know, there was some kind of key there.
Dave Sharp:So you've got these project books and at this point, okay, so you started off by doing your place. So I guess when you are launching the practice, we've got one book to start off with, right? How long did it take you to develop the book of your place? Like, what was that what did that process look like?
Anita Panov:There was a lot of energy, I think, invested into it.
Andrew Scott:I think it was super quick. It was like Brett Brett Boardman, who kind of great friend, great collaborator. He came and he took some photos, and he looked around because he we'd worked with him through Angelo. He took a lot of his his photographs. And he came and said, you know, this place, it's not too bad.
Andrew Scott:You should put it in the awards or something. I went, okay. That's kinda cool. And then he went away, and he took weeks to actually give us the photos. And so we had to say, come on, Brett.
Andrew Scott:Give us a photo. Give us a photo. And he did, and he gave them to us. And I think we probably sit down and sat down in the weekend and we composed it all because, you know, the thoughts are light. And your first project, it's actually it's more about editing, you know, because there are things that we've been thinking about for 10 years of practice prior in terms of what our own voice would be in architecture.
Dave Sharp:What was your thinking of the kind of the influence or results or outcome that that process of writing would have? Would it just be for your own sort of self reflection as a beneficial process to kind of clarify your own thinking about your work? Or was your mind back then thinking more towards the result that it might have with other people or how it might be informative or, help others to understand the ideas behind your decisions and your work? Yeah.
Anita Panov:It's a good question. I think it was almost intended to be a record, so definitely to encapsulate the thinking through the project project and also at the conclusion of the project or the built outcome of the project to to reflect back. I think the the the great, sort of, surprise that came out of it was how much interest in the writing, there was, in fact, and not in an academic sense or not sort of, you know, it was it was people ringing and and we'd pick up the phone and they'd say, we'd love what you wrote about your house, or you wrote about this house, or it was really, engaging for a certain type of client to see, the way in which we would, use writing in the celebration or dissemination of what our practice does. Not just the image and not just, perhaps a kind of fairly cursory description of what the project was in words, but something that really dug a bit deeper.
Dave Sharp:What sort of themes would you pick up on just as a couple of examples of that sort of ticking deeper? What did that look like?
Andrew Scott:Our house, that first project was about transformations to an existing place. And I mean, even even the idea of transformations, so that was what we called each project. Even though, you know, they were all alterations and additions, they're all kind of typical small scale first architect kind of scenario. Early architecture works. But but just defining that we would kinda leaning in to to that condition and talking about the idea of transformation.
Andrew Scott:So, you know, giving giving relevance, giving weight to the thing that already exists to kind of position our work so that it's gentle, so that it kind of doesn't change what doesn't need to change so that it listens to that place. And I think that that was a theme that was kind of there from the start, and and that project definitely brought it out. We'd always taught as well as part of early practice. It's a fantastic thing to do. So it was constantly kind of over the years eroded in terms of kind of the financial stability that offers and and, you know, also just the stability that that offers in terms of the way sessional staff are treated.
Andrew Scott:But, you know, early days of teaching, you sit down in front of, you know, 15 or 30 or whatever it is, students, And it's like, okay, well, what what do I think about architecture? How do I explain architecture? How do I articulate what's important to first year students in a very simple language? And so we started to realize that that that reframing of what we do, like actually having to describe what you do is this amazing critical tool, and it allows you to hone. It's it's a design process.
Andrew Scott:I mean, the way we practice it, and it's very helpful for a lot of people. So it's definitely that side of, that that's probably the driver. But then, you know, it's great for prospective clients because, you know, you can imagine all of the people in the world, all the different type of people, not not everyone's going to sit down and read a little book and kind of get excited by the ideas behind architecture or this this one little project. They might just want, you know, a big swimming pool out of the backyard or whatever it is. So so it it allows people to come to us by us staying who we are, just to start with.
Andrew Scott:And it's saying who we are in a, in a way which is was fairly unique.
Anita Panov:It allowed some really beautiful relationships to be built out of the process that we engage with our clients, with for the duration of a project, which is always a really lengthy thing.
Dave Sharp:Today's episode of Office Talk is sponsored by Office Dave Sharp. Founded by architecture marketing specialist, Dave Sharp, Office Dave Sharp collaborates exclusively with local and international architectural practices to help them refine their marketing, distill their message, and elevate their brand. Our strategies and solutions provide expert perspective and clarity in the short term while our process allows you the space to reflect on your goals for your practice in the long term. So consider this your chance to pause, to strike the perfect balance between your business objectives and the integrity of your brand. With a highly structured strategy and positioning process, ongoing guidance, and access to our network of talented and skilled creatives will help to position your practice in a way that's considered, distinctive, and timeless.
Dave Sharp:So to learn more about our process and book a consultation, simply visit officedavesharpe.com. I think there's this sort of misconception or this attitude around architectural ideas and writing and language that's kind of spread around the industry that it's bad, or it's like for other architects or it alienates the public or something. But I think then you see the symptoms or the results of that attitude, which is a lot of practices go, I can't seem to find clients that care about architecture. And then you go, oh, I wonder why that is. Maybe it's because you sort of have stopped writing about it or communicating about it and tried to avoid it like it's this bad topic to speak about.
Dave Sharp:But at the same time, I like what you're talking about in terms of not being afraid to communicate about the ideas in the work.
Andrew Scott:It makes me think of, Herzog de Meuron. So is it Jack Herzog who's always said, you shouldn't write about architecture. Like, architecture is architecture. That's how we communicate. And and it's an interesting proposition, but I think that the difference is that the work that they're doing is kind of large scale public museums or, you know, really substantial projects.
Andrew Scott:And they already have a gravitas. They already have a white behind them. They already have, like, people would interact with them in a very different way. They they would see architecture, let's say, with a capital a, whereas we're doing an extension in the back of someone's backyard.
Anita Panov:We were bolstering someone's backyard addition, sort of
Andrew Scott:Like like our It doesn't
Anita Panov:have a street elevation. Barely has one
Andrew Scott:elevation. When we when we got our first corner, we were really excited. It's kinda like it's no longer just a facade. It's got 3 dimensions. But, I mean, we'd we'd we'd couple our second project with a picture of Alberti's giant order in Mantova.
Andrew Scott:So it's kind of amazing church frontage. Talk about scale and how ours relates to a backyard and his relates to a piazza. Actually, it's probably a bit academic.
Dave Sharp:You felt like despite what's kind of thought occasionally, that was actually of interest to clients, that the people that you were then doing projects with were coming back to you and going, really interesting. This is so so fascinating, and we hadn't really thought about projects this way or homes this way. What sort of, I suppose, reaction or response did you find from the the kinds of clients that you were working with?
Anita Panov:Definitely, a client who was aware of our books would start by asking us first what what their project was going to be called and and secondly, when when the book would be ready. Almost as an interest before the project itself. So that displayed an interest. I think the other part of what the books did and what we embody in practice from the outset was you know, that something that Glenn Merkitt always says that every decision you make represents your next client. And so we we embarked on this new thing together, to do the very best we could and and for that, for that reputation to be built perhaps and for it to be demonstrated through the work.
Anita Panov:And so it it seemed only natural then to to embody that same sentiment in the way that we would represent a completed project as well as, you know, how the project was was realized itself.
Dave Sharp:You you spend the time to make something like a book for each project, but then, I guess, the question the first question any of my clients would have for me if I was trying to suggest to them that they make a book for each project would be, well, what do I do with it? How do I give it to people? How do I get it seen by people? Are you kind of giving it to people at the start of the project? Like, they walk into the office and they get, like, a little show bag, and it's got all these beautiful little like, this beautiful stack of books, or is it a digital thing?
Dave Sharp:I I mean, I'm just kind of curious about sort of what format would actually make sense for this.
Andrew Scott:Well, it was it was both. It was both. So we we there was never any publishing deal.
Dave Sharp:Yeah. Thames and Hudson weren't weren't ringing?
Andrew Scott:No. Not not not for not for that one. So it was it was definitely prospective clients. Even, you know, back in those days, we would also make them ourselves because, you know, it's a small smell of an oily rag kind of early start up office. So we got our own kind of wonderful Japanese glue, and we were stitching No way.
Andrew Scott:Threads like this. Even and so we'd give them to clients, and it was great because you've I remember one particular client, we gave them a book, and then we came back, and they they they spent a lot of time. It was kinda one of 16 fantastic clients, lovely people. We came back a couple of months later, and the book had disintegrated. And whether that was just our, you know, really crap stitching or whether they'd been thumbing it so often that it
Dave Sharp:You'd like to think it was that when
Andrew Scott:you yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So there was that. And then and then our website was books.
Andrew Scott:So our website was interesting. We've we've changed it relatively recently. So, you know, for the 1st 9 years, let's say, this was our website was just, photos that we'd taken while traveling. That was a splash page, and there were 100 there, and you just click through them slowly. It was kind of like a Valerio Algiati kind of homage in a way.
Andrew Scott:But it was great because, again, that was about architecture in terms of positioning our projects within the world. And then we'd slip every we'd slip one of ours in there every now and then. And then it was the books. And so you just click on a link on the book, and you could download the PDF. And there were you know, at the start, there were a couple, and then they got more and more, and I think we got up to 8 or 9, before we ended up kind of stopping that that way of working.
Anita Panov:You you kind of alluded before that there might be people who like books and then some kind of really profitable, project that, you know, that there might be two sides to the practice, but really it was it was all passion and love and and throwing everything that we could into everything about every project, I guess. I don't think that there was, it it wasn't particularly sustainable, let's say, to, to to first you know, we stepped through it, we stopped hand making the books, we got them properly produced, and and at the end, you know, I think it's it ended up being even quite laborious to to do the writing and and and everything else that goes along with, yeah. I I hope that it's a hiatus in that process and and not sort of drawing a line under it, but,
Dave Sharp:Well, then the book deal comes into play, and we do the collected works of, you know, the early years of the practice, maybe. It's just like a nice idea. I guess the the reason I'm sort of digging into it, it's very architecturally positive in a way. It's unashamedly architectural, I think, to investigate a project that way and to weave in all of these interesting references and to really create that much content around a a small extension and then to also have that craftsmanship in the publication and the presentation as well. So I love that.
Dave Sharp:But also, I guess it's this idea of like, how how do you find the people to work with that are gonna be like minded and sort of value what you do? A logical person would never have you guys make those books, like a logical business mind would never do that, but it's this sort of special creative, just something that that has this sort of magic ingredient to it. It's what it's what it kinda feels like.
Andrew Scott:Yeah. I I think you've gotta, I mean, you gotta follow your passion, absolutely, in what in what you do. And if you can actually build a sustainable practice And as Anita said, you know, it was, you know, there wasn't a huge there's not a huge income in terms of doing that scale of projects, alterations, and additions. But we we kinda combined it with the strategy of always trying to scale up a little bit. You know, our background is that we were working on large projects like, you know, schools and then Neda was doing, you know, warehouse conversions and things like that.
Andrew Scott:So, you know, managing large in a multidisciplinary teams. And so we started our our practice, very deliberately on a small scale, and we kind of started to we we positioned those projects, by the the publications for for for ourselves, for clients. And we haven't touched on this, but for, the awards processes as well and for publication. So, you know, in terms of those two things, the awards and the publications, we'd already had the capacity to to to really reflect on the projects and to put them in the best possible light because writing is a big part of the awards process. And, of course, it's fundamental in terms of publications and communicating to to the journalist or the the editor or the person writing those, what what we were kind of about.
Andrew Scott:So it kind of you know, it's all interlinked, and it and it kind of dovetails a little bit.
Anita Panov:When you
Dave Sharp:say position the project, I think that's an interesting concept. What do you sort of mean by that?
Andrew Scott:Kind of scroll through a phase here or do I see or, you know, whatever it is, disease. And you just see hundreds of projects happening at any moment in time. And because the world's international now in terms of architectural publications, they are they're so good. They're amazing. So how do you how do you actually break through in that that environment?
Andrew Scott:How do you how do you give relevance to to what you're doing or to to to engage with people? Because, again, you know, these projects, I mean, we we do architecture because we wanna make a difference in the world. That's kind of that's what drives us. And these projects are in people's backyards. So they they change our clients for the better, and we see that and we love that, and they do too.
Andrew Scott:But it doesn't reach a wide audience, so it actually relies on these other means of communication. So to position a project is is a really important thing from our point of view. And, you know, one of the reasons I did say before that we kind of stepped back from putting so much effort into into that in terms of making individual project publications is because the product kind of projects we're doing now, they they tend to be a bit more out there in the world. You know? We've got a bit more of a presence, so we don't need to I mean, pushing's too strong a word, but we don't need to position them quite so much.
Andrew Scott:So because history positions a little bit in that regard.
Dave Sharp:No. That makes sense. If you didn't put in that effort to sort of tease out what's significant about these projects and what is the impact that the ideas of this project what is this saying about housing more generally or living or Australia or what whatever the sort of the themes were, that would just be sort of potentially missed and overlooked. Right? Because it would just be another sort of cool looking extension Yeah.
Dave Sharp:Amongst Yeah. Thousands.
Anita Panov:We We both love, like, jumping online and just finding lectures and listening to architects talk about their work. Like, it's something that becomes a little bit addictive to find out that little bit more about, not just, you know, what they look like and what their voice sounds like and the words that they choose, but you just you're constantly, learning more than you would otherwise through, you know, print medium or or images or or whatever it is that you typically rely on. And, you know, lots of people do this, but it's just it's a similar thing in terms of having a platform or a forum where you can reveal what you're thinking, who you are a little bit more perhaps than, you know, glossy images.
Dave Sharp:This idea of creating this, like, longer form content around projects, even though you're sort of doing the books in a sort of earlier phase as a we kind of wanna put the ideas out there into the world. And then as the reputation and interest in the practice grew, there was a little bit less pressure on you to do that. But there was an interesting example you mentioned to me where you started working on a public project, and you then started producing a book with, like, interviews and illustrations of the public. Could you maybe just tell me a little bit about that as well? Because I think that's a really interesting transition from the residential extension sort of bookmaking world to what actually starts to take on a very interesting meaning once it becomes about community consultation in public project setting.
Dave Sharp:I think it's really interesting.
Andrew Scott:I mean, I think I think you've nailed it in a way. We we kinda started that project, and it was it was, I think it was the second, public project that we're involved in at that time. And we missed we missed the client. It's kind of like, who who do we talk to about, about what you actually want? It's like because the it was a council.
Andrew Scott:It was kind of Waverly Council, and there was a fantastic project manager, and she was, you know, a real champion of architecture. The project was, so Bronte Baths, kind of amazingly beautiful, one of the early, ocean pools, in Sydney. It's kind of it's apparently, it's where the Australian cruel, where free stroke came to Australia. And it's in this incredible landscape setting is one of those baths are. And we were asked to do some work to an incredibly ugly 19 sixties brick amenities building, which kinda sits in front of it, but it strangles the the entrance to it.
Andrew Scott:In a way, it kinda sticks out diagonally. So you kinda have to walk around it, and then you met with these beautiful baths.
Anita Panov:And the other part of the context is it's, hugely loved and and and used, well used by the community. So we came to that knowing that projects live or die by having the, the community on your side. And we knew that, you know, a series of formal briefing documents wasn't gonna cut it for us to understand everything that we needed to know about the place and know about the people and make sure that nothing was missed really.
Andrew Scott:And so on on the the other project, the other public projects that we'd started before this one, for City of Sydney Council, we we developed this idea about box pops, kind of the voice of the people where and now I think it kind of to do with that SBS show. It was on decades ago. And so we we went down, and we spoke to people in the park. And we said, what do you want? And we sent out like, we had a a small office, kind of 6 people, and we sent our, our colleagues down as well to different parts of the park.
Andrew Scott:And we just say, what what do you want? What do you think should happen? We're thinking of doing this. And, of course, the city was very, very potentially upset about that because it's set outside of their own community consultation processes, which are incredibly kind of rigorous and codified. And here here were just a bunch of architects architects asking people actually what they want.
Andrew Scott:And and people in our office were, you know, it was a bit challenging in a way because architects don't often get out from behind a desk in that sense. So it was great. It was really, really good to see. And we generated all of this, these kind of great anecdotes out of that process. And so we thought, well, we'll do it.
Andrew Scott:We'll we'll deploy it again in this scenario. But Bronte is this whole other world like Bronte is fantastic place. It's like the the the kind of the social diversity there is just absolutely phenomenal. So you've kind of got some of the most expensive real estate in in Australia. And then you've got, you know, you know, old families and generally older people who have been there for for day dot, and they define themselves as different from Bondi.
Andrew Scott:And so there's this kind of authenticity that comes out of the place and that diversity. And so we spoke we went down there over over a period, and we spoke to the clubs, and we spoke to people in the place. And we did these little drawings, based on a on a photograph of each of the each of the people that we spoke to. And we made these little anecdotes. And we we compiled them all, and we ended up giving that to the councilors, and the project manager and so just people within council.
Andrew Scott:And it was an example about so our commission was to do alterations and additions to that, that the brick amenities building. And now we're kind of equivocating about whether we keep it or whether we change it. And we were as well because, you know, we take our responsibility seriously about changing as little as possible. But it it really is a pretty horrible thing when you're in the place and when you get to experience it. So we ended up there was enough enough feedback that it should change from it from an enough diversity of voices.
Andrew Scott:And so we presented that to the councilors, and they ended up accepting that as a rationale. And then we developed a design.
Dave Sharp:But it's like an interesting example of how your sort of self publishing process and also this kind of different sort of research process as well, kind of your box pots, it kind of came together and for a completely different purpose, but nonetheless, pretty interesting.
Anita Panov:We just love books too, don't we?
Andrew Scott:Like, let's
Anita Panov:just let's confess.
Dave Sharp:The stuff that we've been talking about obviously it's a sort of slow, thoughtful, methodical kind of approach to communication. It's certainly not fast paced blasting the message out there, trying to get seen by as many people as possible. It seems that a kind of a considered communication approach, but it's also interesting to, I guess, discuss how in combination with the media and in combination with awards, so, obviously, you've had a focus on those 2, that you sort of put the 3 together, and you've seen that, you know, the awareness around the studio and interest in the studio has grown, and you've been successful doing it. A great example of, like, less and quiet and slow and thoughtful is, like, a really nice way to go. And you don't necessarily have to go, what is the easiest way to get seen by a lot of people and then do that thing.
Dave Sharp:That's not exactly what people are looking for. Right?
Andrew Scott:I think the other thing that we're starting to realize a little bit because, I mean, constantly self reflective in terms of architecture to to decide what the practice should be and how it should evolve because we've started to realize that we are steering that that ship. It doesn't just happen. It's not just, you know, susceptible to the vagaries of of time and circumstance, but we can actually change it if we want to. That when when you've been practising just if you just if you just operate in a way which is which is even and which is always fair and always on the lookout for for opportunity, then that often comes to you. I mean, we found early on that a client often won't come to you if they see you in one thing.
Andrew Scott:They'll only 2 things or perhaps even three things. And so there's nothing better than word-of-mouth as well to kind of get get get something to actually happen. So I think it's just observing that, lots of projects as well start and stop. And what's really surprising? Well, what we've learned to deal with over time is a lot of projects stop.
Andrew Scott:It's kind of fireballs than, you know, you would wish would happen. But it happened in all of the practices that we've been involved in. I don't think it's anything unique to us. It's kind of projects go on hold for lots of different reasons, but a lot of them come back and a lot of them come back in different guises or they're touched upon or it's a friend of a friend. It's it's that that kind of thing.
Anita Panov:I think that's the the tentacle thing that you're talking about, which might sound, passive as opposed to deliberate, which was what we were kind of getting at, but that maybe goes to the calmness or the quietness or just at the beginning of our practice. If, if we'd done a presentation on the Friday and we didn't have an email by the Monday morning, we're like, how how are we gonna pay bills? Like, you know, it was just things had to keep moving in a pace to, or, you know, not even bills, just what are we gonna do today? Like, it was kind of, you know, at that very beginning stage where you just you haven't yet relaxed into the thing that you're doing, And over the years and as more of these things come and go, you realize, actually, it's that same mantra. You you do what's in front of you and you do it well, and and the other things will take care of themselves in one way or another.
Anita Panov:But we I guess, to to the other end of that, which is just coming back to TriNet, to that question of, the the maybe more quiet and thoughtful or but still steering the ship. We're not the kind of people, I guess, that, want to be persistent or annoying or, you know, like, to chase something, like, really relentlessly or ruthlessly is probably not the way that we wanna engage in doing things or being people.
Andrew Scott:I think we've learned that we've learned that through practice.
Dave Sharp:Like It doesn't work.
Andrew Scott:Early early on, I I like, we were ambitious. Like, we did we did an architecture bulletin. We we co edited it with some mates of ours, and it was called ambition. Like, it's how you define early practice. You need to you need to believe in yourself.
Andrew Scott:And so I think just over time, we've started to realize that as an architect, if you're not invited in, if there's no really good like, if there isn't a champion for architecture, architecture probably won't exist, and we can't be the champion. It needs to be someone else. So whether that's a client or council or whoever it is.
Dave Sharp:Yeah. That's not just in the public project space. Right? We're also talking residentially too.
Andrew Scott:Any anything. Anything, absolutely.
Dave Sharp:How early on in the practice did you start having an eye towards that public scale work getting involved in non private residential projects and just moving it moving into that other area. Was that, like, day 1, always knew that that was kind of the direction you would ultimately head because you had been doing work at that sort of scale in your previous practices, and it was kind of like your in your DNA, and then you sort of had that mindset, or was it something that event gradually just opportunities opened up and one thing kind of led to the next?
Anita Panov:Yeah. We, you know, we've observed the way different practices start over the years and, you know, some people sit down and and just do competition after competition to try and win that big the Guggenheim or whatever it is.
Dave Sharp:That would be good.
Anita Panov:It's it's it would be fantastic. It was not the path that we took. We we sort of wanted to, see something that was of a scale, that was tangible, that would come to fruition, that we'd be able to build a portfolio and hence, back to starting with these rather more manageable backyard buildings. We did set ourselves a plan though, that wasn't the forever the goal wasn't to do bigger and better houses and fancier houses over the years as well. It was to try and keep our feet on the ground, but to increasingly work in the public realm.
Anita Panov:So I think it was 5 years of of the resi buildings, was it? 5 years to public and and then 5 years later maybe to but that doesn't seem to make sense now, which is why I keep looking at you.
Andrew Scott:I think I think we nicked that from, McConnell. It's a it's a Dutch firm. They talked about 5 years of resi, 5 years of commercial, 6 months ahead, let alone kind of 15 years in terms of hitting those hitting those targets. So it's a yeah.
Anita Panov:But we did deliberately start to engage in and and, I'm not sure if there's another way, but the way that we found to, be working on public buildings, even at a small scale, was through winning tenders. So we started to write tender applications and we were fortunate enough to win a couple at that stage as well. So it seemed like the plan was perfect, it was all going really well. It's just I guess it's yeah. It it wasn't concrete, but it was something that we did articulate to ourselves as as a goal to be moving forward, to to have that momentum through practice.
Andrew Scott:I I I think it was I think it was as much about, moving forward and to change the type of projects, definitely. And I think it was just about engaging more with the capacity to affect more people physically. And so I think we're a bit, let's say, blind to the demarcation between project type because, you know, my background in terms of working in the previous office was a lot of, multiunit residential projects, and they they are far from glamorous projects. But they all have a street facing facade, and they all engage with public in that way. And so we saw them as public projects.
Andrew Scott:We saw the moment we got you know, we moved from our facade to our corner, to our front facade, then that was our first public project. You know, it was actually it engaged with the lane, engaged with the street in different ways. So, it was just about kind of being more involved, I think, in in the world at greater capacity to to change things.
Dave Sharp:You had this thought that you weren't seeing those demarcation or that distinction between these different categories in your from your point of view, but were you finding that the way the kind of the procurement system around different types of work was set up was that it did have a view that these were very different things?
Anita Panov:Absolutely. I mean, that's the, what you said earlier, a client has to find you in a couple of different ways or, you know, there needs to be that reinforcement constantly when you're selecting an architect. It's just the one off is sort of not just enough. Many of the government processes mean that you have to have won awards and, you know, you have to have had experience and you've got to have all the the QMS stuff or or the insurance or whatever. You know, there's always steps that that seem beyond you at a point in time, but But I think we were able to build enough of that up to be able to get a foot in on these first smaller ones, and then there was that period where one one reinforces the other.
Anita Panov:And so, you know, the project manager one council can call the project manager at the other council, and you're currently working together, and it's really front of mind.
Dave Sharp:So there was kind of a loose plan there. I mean, not that sort of exact 5 years, 5 years, 5 years thing, but there was kind of a bit of a trajectory in mind and you were thinking kind of publicly about these, like, private, non public projects or residential projects. You were trying to keep that public mindset in terms of how you were thinking about those projects and communicating them, which makes total sense. Because I guess it's harder to make that transition into then having conversations with public potential public clients when you've never really even considered the public aspect of your private residential work. And now you're suddenly having to cross this huge gap of going, how do I go back and make this story make sense in terms of how this applies to this, you know, Bronte bathhouse or whatever.
Dave Sharp:How do I now make that jump? You know? Of course, I'm not saying that it was something that you sort of methodically planned out every aspect of strategy, you know, at the time that this was a kind of smooth transition because you sort of did some of these additional things that you wouldn't have necessarily be required of a practice doing smaller residential projects to go to that extra step of analysis that later on set you up for a much smoother transition into kind of non private work.
Andrew Scott:Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's a that's a really good observation. I think it I think it also just bolsters your, CV is not the right word, but, you know, when you do your when you do your, your capability statement, you know, if if there's an exhibition there, if there's some publications there, it just demonstrates capacity to be out there in the world a little bit more. And and it's not just about housing alterations additions, but, of course, you know, that was the feedback that we were getting as well.
Andrew Scott:You know, We'd love to we'd love to we'd love to put you on the shortlist for for schools New South Wales, but you've only done house extensions kind of you know, we were hearing that over and over again. But you also you gotta develop a thick skin, and you just gotta go for it. You gotta kinda get out there.
Anita Panov:And sort of pick your pick your risk strategy as well, because for a little toilet block, and the city's a great client for so much architecture that's been realised over the last decade or 2, but they're willing to take a risk on something that's smaller and more manageable, of course. And that was a project that we did win off the back of an idea as well. So some of these things are not just capability, You also get to put forward what you you might be thinking about the project at that time or what you might like to develop, and so
Dave Sharp:Which for some architects or some practices, I feel like conceiving of and putting forward, like, a really interesting idea is almost as hard as capability sometimes. Like, if that's not what you've necessarily been having to do a lot of, like, or it's been a long time since you've had to do that extra layer, I think that could also be a bit of a muscle you might not have been using a lot recently. So I guess, like, also practicing that idea or maintaining that even if you're not doing public work, I think also sounds like it's pretty important. I guess there's a misconception that public clients or councils or whatever aren't interested, and it's not true at all. Right?
Andrew Scott:No. No. No. At the end of the day, you're speaking to people, and you need to excite their passions, their their their capacity to get behind because, you know, architecture relies on building, building relies on funding, and building relies on overcoming thousands and thousands of hurdles. Like, architecture could stop at any moment if there's not people who believe in it.
Andrew Scott:So
Dave Sharp:Yeah. That's interesting. You have to sort of build that support and build that interest and passion for the project, right?
Andrew Scott:Yeah. Even in the office, like when you're working with your colleagues, you know, they've they've got a lot of it, you know, they've got to put in the hours and be vested in it. So clients, consultants, consultants are hard, Consultants, absolutely. Builders builders have to believe in what we're doing.
Anita Panov:And to believe in it, you've got to understand it or to have a shared goal. To have a shared goal, you've gotta be able articulate what the goal is, and it goes back to talking to the 1st year students. You know, just finding a way to express what it is that that, the process demands or that the outcome should be. Or and then, you know, the the council project manager can take it to to their meetings where the funding is agreed or not, and, you know, that can make the difference even if you're not in the room, if you've been able to, pass on what what it is that's driving the project.
Andrew Scott:The the other thing that I was just thinking about is you said earlier about kind of impatience, and I think there's a good story there. Impatience is a big mistake is kind of Kafka. And we we use we talk about that a lot. So we went through that period of very ambitious young architects and a lot of tenders. We're really targeting that public work, and we're relatively successful in terms of, being awarded commissions.
Andrew Scott:But what we did start to see is that some of those commissions weren't necessarily the fact that we were, as a young architecture practice without a very strong track record, that we're involved in those projects. Maybe maybe it was a a client who was looking for, I don't know, who who wasn't gonna champion architecture, let's say, in that same way. And so we started to realize being embroiled in those projects, You know? That earlier observation about, You know? That earlier observation about, architecture being a service industry and you have to be invited in, you know, that the importance of that champion, that really started to come home to us after a certain amount of time in practice.
Andrew Scott:And we started to realize, well, actually, maybe maybe we shouldn't be so we shouldn't be so out there in terms of going after those projects. We should actually just just just sit back a little bit. Just concentrate on the things that we have we're doing at the moment. Do them as well as we can and see what comes to us a little bit. And and we've been in that we've been in that mindset, let's say, for the past, how old is Atlas?
Andrew Scott:For the past 8 years, something like that. 6 years.
Dave Sharp:You were just talking a little bit about the right projects kind of coming to you and have found that you went through this sort of proactive kind of app pushing things in the earlier days. And you were like, if anything, that just led to things that weren't the right fit, this impatience out of necessity, obviously, just this sort of sense of trying to push to make square pegs go into round holes. Actually, we sort of realized going the opposite direction, quieting things down to the point where it's almost a little uncomfortable. Like, I can imagine it's a little bit of a anxiety of a lot of people have this threshold for quietness in terms of what how that much they feel their business and their practice needs to be out there, And people have their sort of comfort level at different sort of levels, but you guys have this little neuron in the brain that goes, I get uncomfortable when things are this quiet, is set at, like, really low, like, super, super low to the way below what other people can stomach in terms of quietness, you know, to the point where, guys, I don't think you've posted on Instagram in 3 years.
Dave Sharp:You know, there's this real sense of quietness. So could you just kind of maybe speak to, I suppose, that quietness being a good thing?
Anita Panov:I'll I'll go back to that list of things that we have that we wanna do that we can't get to. That there's a quietness, but it's not a I don't feel like we've been unproductive for more than a day in our practice, if even a day. Like, We both enjoy working. We might work a bit too much at times, probably less so these days with the balance of everything in life, but, the quietness maybe, maybe we need to tune into it a little bit more to get some some feedback, but but we we, we happily have too much to do. So, I guess we've built a, we've built a portfolio and shared that and things kind of resonate from 1 we still get Instagram reposts of one of our first projects, 3 by 2, it bounces around the world at least every 6 months, that back facade that just really kind of grabbed people.
Anita Panov:I don't know, maybe others tend to to reinforce things more than we do, but we we do mean to post on Instagram. It is important to us and perhaps we've put a little bit of a we've we've made it too much of a hurdle for ourselves because of the you know, maybe that quietness is starting to kind of get a little bit uncomfortable just because It's
Andrew Scott:starting to echo, is it?
Dave Sharp:And you just know that next Instagram post, everyone is gonna get notified. Pat, I've got a post it for the first time in a while. Go check it out.
Andrew Scott:Yeah. Well, so so do you know how intensely like, that's for 1, man. You're gonna give us we're not gonna we're never gonna be able to do it. We'll just have to go straight to TikTok. I think I think that's a really lovely observation, like, the capacity for, because ultimately, we're business owners as well.
Andrew Scott:And, you know, we do understand that there needs to be a public profile, to to fund architecture and to fund what we do, so that that capacity to for that to tune down a little bit because it definitely has. I mean, you know, that that period around when we won the, emerging architecture award, and there were a couple of Herald articles that Trish Croker wrote about some of our work. And, you know, the phone was running hot there for for a period, and and it definitely has tapered off. And and part of it, I mean, part of it is also we've decided not to do that. I mean, because decisions do drive what we do.
Andrew Scott:It's not just happenstance, In that, we didn't necessarily really want to have the phone running off the hook for those kinds of projects into perpetuity. So we we tuned down our practice about, just before COVID. So, and we deliberately got smaller at that time, and we moved out of the city. We still got a place in the city, so we're kinda between the 2. We moved out at that time, and we didn't have any help there for it was just 2 of us for about a year, and then we started to started to engage with a few people remotely.
Andrew Scott:That's kind of what we do these days. So we've got some fantastic staff who help us out, and they're based in their place. But then we come together in the city in every week or every couple of weeks, and all kinda takes got stock of what we're doing. But but that capacity kinda tuned down, allowed us allowed us more time to, I mean, to engage with our family. Yeah.
Andrew Scott:You know, we're we're parents as well, and we need to remember that, you know, architecture is this thing that can actually just take all of the time.
Anita Panov:And particularly being interested in, so many other parts of architecture that at that time as well we were teaching, we were saying yes to every lecture that was asked, that we give or deliver here and in Hobart in New Zealand and there's a couple of symposiums we're involved with that just as soon as one thing finishes, another thing starts and you start to feel a little bit stretched and also maybe like you don't have something fresh to offer, that there's not enough space in between to develop an idea or to think about what it is you're gonna say, and you start to feel like maybe it's a bit saturated to the opposite perhaps of what you're describing now.
Dave Sharp:I think it speaks to obviously, you've sort of designed a business. A lot of architects would really, you know, I think what you are creating with your practice is pretty much what a lot of them are probably writing down as their vision of how they would like to practice in a lot of cases, like in terms of the type of work that they're getting to work on, the sort of the stimulation of the ideas that they get to put into their work and, you know, all sorts of different aspects. And and I think kind of the pace as well, it sounds like kind of something that is sustainable and makes sense over a long term. What I think is interesting is that in those aspirations, like, the way of getting there and how quiet the practice is, if we're talking about kind of marketing and communications and things like that, it's actually surprising that how by some people's standards quiet you can be, yet still achieve, like, the necessary level of visibility and awareness and people knowing about the practice. And I guess like you've you've said, like, oh, look, it always probably could be more, and we could maybe tune into that and be a bit more visible or whatever.
Dave Sharp:But I think for me, it kind of speaks to the impact of things like awards and the media and teaching to do your broadcasting for you. And that the idea of, like, needing to do a lot of your own broadcasting, which has become, like, kind of the way things are viewed right now. I think a lot of the people that I have on the podcast kind of disproved that idea that you don't really need to do a lot of your own broadcasting when you're successful in just a few of those things and including talks and including also building lots of relationships with other architects and your peers. I think these are all things that get a little bit kind of thrown out the bathwater of going like, oh, no, those are sort of the old way of doing things and there's a new way. And it's all about, like, putting your own stuff out there.
Dave Sharp:But, yeah, I don't think so. It doesn't like, I mean, yeah, those those things can be very powerful, can't they, in terms of just getting you that right level of people being aware, enough people knowing you exist in what you're doing to attract that right type of client that you wanna work with?
Andrew Scott:I think it's I think it's really important that you, as an architectural practice, that the way in which you're perceived, the way in which you engage with the world actually fits the personalities of of the people involved. You know, it's kind of when when you don't have because that's the that's the path to authenticity, and, you know, that's what people that's what people look for more than anything. You know? The hurdle at the start of an architecture commission is, you know, do they are they capable of doing the project? And then am I gonna have a connection with them?
Andrew Scott:Are they actually gonna be able to listen to me, to understand me, to to make something that is a representation of me in a way, and that fulfills all of the things that I'm hoping for in this. And so that authenticity is just is just absolutely key. Like, if there's any any whiff and you hear it from clients all the time. You know, I spoke to architects before. I spoke to you, and, you know, one of them was a bit, I don't know.
Andrew Scott:Like
Anita Panov:Yeah. It's you can't you can't sort of fake it. You can't keep it up. It's too exhausting to try and not, be true to yourself in that way and to to be true to to to put your to sell yourself beyond you know, oversell yourself if you like or or, or wrongly sell yourself, and it is us. Our practice is predominantly us in terms of a client facing communication at this point.
Dave Sharp:But it's interesting how it shifts over time because I think there's room for it to evolve. Right? So, yes, I think that authentic kind of expression of your own personality is particularly when I think residential, it's almost like so fundamental because there is that strong personality fit aspect with that client. And then I think it kind of goes in a slightly more complex direction when it comes to working with bigger organizations and things like that and commercial clients and councils and stuff like that. So it takes on this kind of new lens where it's still personality based in a way, but perhaps less so.
Dave Sharp:It's interesting how that will still evolve and change over time. So practices do tend to go through these shifts that happen where you mentioned that you were more proactive in the beginning, which probably wasn't inauthentic to your personality then. It was just that that was genuinely what you were who you were at that point in time because you were kind of driven and sort of needed to be. And then it sort of shifted approach a little bit over time and sort of went with you as you changed and things changed. Right?
Dave Sharp:So, but I guess the the main point is that you're trying to do something that kind of reflects that and feels comfortable with that. I don't know. It kind of plays into this kind of story around architects and their relationship with business or whether they're good or bad at business. And I think, like, I don't know, but I think there's I think there's something really important in it because if you try and, like, break those rules and be kind of inauthentic, I think you're right. It kind of have disastrous effects on your brand, can't it, all the way that you're perceived as a practice or or just by individual clients.
Dave Sharp:It could really make them feel like you're a bit weird. Right?
Anita Panov:Like I'm I'm sure I'm sure we've generated that. It's just so much to think about in business, isn't it? Like, I I guess, you know, maybe it's the first time you've used that word, but I think, there's kind of a formula that you can establish as to what you need to to run a business, and that's essentially financial as well, which we haven't really talked about. And if if that's working, then that sort of allows you to ease off with the worries about other things. And you can be you can you can undertake those aspects of of the practice in a more relaxed way.
Anita Panov:You know? And so there might be, new work or or the future or or the opportunities that haven't yet landed. There's what you've got on your plate at the moment or how many plates are spinning project wise and all the stages that they sit at, and then there's just thinking through and planning and managing, when the bills can go out and and come in, etcetera. And, you know, maybe there's just a balance there that that that we've found that sort of gives the space and the time to be be less, or just to to to be more quiet in terms of what we need to do to get through each day.
Andrew Scott:I think I think the other the the other thing that's kind of has, in fact, in the conversation so far is that we've kind of pivoted a little bit in terms of the types of projects that we're doing more recently. Like, residential projects are like, the small scale residential are still a big part of what we do. But we're engaging a lot more in in larger scale projects, in more commercial projects. And so that that when you talk about quiet, there's kind of you gotta think about the audiences as well that that that our practice actually engages with. And so while we may have inquired on Instagram, you know, we're also speaking to, large scale kind of town and urban planners a lot more, as a conduit to be involved in design excellence competitions and things like that.
Andrew Scott:And so it's it's about that kind of balance. It's about that diversity again, where one part of us is one part of us is kinda tuning down a little bit. That's because we're focusing on other things. Yeah. Or or that focus is a little bit more broad.
Andrew Scott:And that's about evolving the practice in a way, I think.
Anita Panov:So you don't necessarily have something to share that's in that realm, but you also don't want to maybe reinforce an image of what what you've been doing for the the previous 5 or 10 years.
Andrew Scott:But we remember the time we went we went because Jeremy MacLeod was part of the exhibit, the small exhibition for Sydney Uni. We ran and saw him Danny Melbourne once and, interviewed him for that. And he said, I can't I can't believe it. Like, I I I post a picture of a bathroom on Instagram, and I get, you know, 10,000 likes. And we're doing a master plan for Quinn, for the Victorian markets, and no one gives a crap.
Andrew Scott:And it's kind of it's it's because of
Anita Panov:reducing waste and, like, all these great sort of positive outcomes.
Andrew Scott:Absolutely. And it's just because of the way in which those different conduits of communication are rewarded. That positive reinforcement that happens or negative or whatever it is, just that reinforcement happens. That a practice like his at that stage, kind of 5 years ago, was making that that transition. We already made that transition.
Andrew Scott:Let's face it.
Dave Sharp:But Yeah. I think that's one of the hard things to deal with, I guess, in that transition to different sectors is that residential is kind of inherently popular. You can
Andrew Scott:That is.
Dave Sharp:It just is. People love it. It's very it's very, very easy to get that engagement, But then there is so many categories that are just not as interesting, not as engaging with the public, and you see that sort of you don't get that kind of response that you get. I mean, if you're if you're judging everything by Instagram likes or whatever, then certainly you're gonna be pretty disappointed working on just about anything except, you know, really cool hospitality and and private homes.
Anita Panov:Here's our strategy, thinking on, you know, how bins and meters
Dave Sharp:Exactly.
Anita Panov:Like electrical meters and things along a streetscape in a neighborhood where the lots are only, you know, 2.7 meters wide. This is this is what we've been working on. Yeah.
Andrew Scott:I mean, maybe we should. Maybe we should. I mean, that's that that's that thing. It's that thing about, you know, you see that. Because we did.
Andrew Scott:We we posted a little bit on Instagram there for a little while and kinda at one stage, we ended up, we put up a a photo of of a skylight, and that just kinda took off. That's kind of I think that was a big eye opener in a way, because we were having bets in the office about how individual I'm sure architecture practice did how individual images would go. And it's it's really it's an interesting thing because it is it's a it's a feedback, on architecture, on the image of architecture where that feedback is not often there's no other avenue for it in a way in terms of the broader public engaging with your work because you don't get that. I mean, like a magazine editor would be looking at circulation. An architecture practice often doesn't get that feedback or, it's a lot more there's a lot more capacity obviously around it with the Internet these days.
Andrew Scott:But the architecture practice often doesn't get that. You know? Either they get the callback or they don't. You know? It's that kind of scenario.
Andrew Scott:So it does give you that immediate feedback loop. And we kind of we talked amongst ourselves and with others about how that's actually starting to or or has walked, let's say, architecture practice and and the notion of architecture. You know? A mate of ours used to say that if he was starting his own practice again, he'd just do a pink building, you know, just everything pink, you know, and and the the practice would take off because it would get what it needs. But but where's the idea behind that?
Andrew Scott:Where's the sustaining position? Where's the curiosity in the investigation? And maybe they can maybe they both exist, and, you know, that's the actual art of of architecture practices.
Dave Sharp:Well, I mean, you made the point that we might not be doing a lot of communicating through Instagram, but we are targeting a very specific audience of people, these planning people and these council people. And I think that's again where the kind of the long form presentation makes a lot more sense than the short form. If I'm working with a architect and that's a sort of a big sort of segment of their marketing plan is they're trying to think about how to reach that audience, we're not talking about Instagram. You know? Like, it's not relevant.
Dave Sharp:Like, it really just isn't might be relevant in terms of bit of bit of sort of, like, overall perception of the practice as being cool and popular, and I think that does have an influence on people to some degree. But, yeah, like, we're not really worrying about that. But I think in terms of those categories, my sort of thought on this is that you actually just have to work a lot harder to create something aesthetic out of it. I think people, like, underappreciate how important aesthetics and imagery are even when you're talking about, you know, letterbox placement or whatever. If you can't create, like, a really interesting image out of it, I just don't think there is any demand for it on Instagram.
Dave Sharp:Unfortunately, and I think that's what we all find. But I think you you don't wanna write the category off or the typology of of project because there's a lot of practices that have really found that with a really significant investment in the way that they their methods around imagery, doing crazy things like, you know, getting Rory Gardner to shoot their bike shed or whatever, you know, whatever they've built, you know, this, like, almost aesthetic overkill of presentation around these projects. So, like, let's go commission some insane fine art photographer to shoot our, you know, garbage bin allotment placement project on the high street, I meet a lot of officers that actually I've almost lost that awareness of that there are categories of building that just are not interesting to the public, which I find kind of crazy, but they just have almost like detached from what do people think is interesting to look at.
Andrew Scott:I see it. Like, on in on Instagram, like, a a building facade, like, the front facade of a house, like, for instance, Jack, where you put that up, like, a beautiful interior with great light in a certain like like the bath bathroom in Jack as opposed to the front facade, just it would get nothing. Like, there's there's no or the back facade even more so. It's kind of the the there's something that was relatively contemporary, just didn't have that same traction.
Dave Sharp:I think a lot of the people that I kind of have on the podcast, they've developed a real a real strong sense of how to create extremely compelling images or who they need to get to take those images. I think that is, for most categories of work, is almost like 3 quarters of the battle. It's just the key choice about who shoots your stuff. I feel like that's become the almost all important, sadly. I mean, or not sadly.
Dave Sharp:I mean, I think it's really interesting. I love it. So a lot of the time we're sort of discussing, you know, we'll get into photographer choice and it it almost becomes like this fundamental to the success of that particular practice's popularity and brand image and the the sort of the the visibility of their practice and their success in the media and awards. It can literally all be down to, oh, we just started working with this particular photographer and then everything changed. And it's just unbelievable.
Dave Sharp:It really is.
Anita Panov:But but the flip side of that is that bad photography is not gonna solve, you know, a a good thing, is it? So it's important as well, like, there's kind of there's definitely stylistic kind of similarities and differences and and things that come and go in terms of time and, you know, whether you put people in an image or not. And, you know, if you've got a a kid in the train set, then
Dave Sharp:The kid in the train set is an interesting one because we both know what we're talking about and referring to there, but that has become, like, the new thing. The last 3 months or so, I feel like that's now become the thing that everyone is now gonna start putting in their projects is, like, the stocky high chair, the little timber train set. It's so funny to see something as, like, superficial as that catching on as, like, a photography trend so quickly.
Anita Panov:But then we you
Dave Sharp:know, we
Andrew Scott:It's a cut
Anita Panov:it's a cut.
Dave Sharp:It's a cut. It is. Because,
Andrew Scott:it yeah. That was always the rule. It could never be a cover. I mean, we started out where we'd be in the photos.
Dave Sharp:What?
Andrew Scott:So that was that was that was one of our rules. So because we had Putting something in
Dave Sharp:the microwave or putting on the kettle or what it was like.
Andrew Scott:I mean, it started it started with our house, of course. So, you know, we had a couple of mates around and we were in the photos. But, I mean, Brett, who we're working with, he's good at portraiture. And so that's the way it started. But then, you know, when we had our own kids, the kids train sets, so we bring them along, and they'd be part of it.
Andrew Scott:But we'd always have a lunch with our client, and we'd photograph the the part of the the first part of the day would be taking the the architectural images, let's say. And then we'd stop and have lunch, and and then we'd be photographed in in the space with our client, with our kids and things like that. And that was a pattern for the start of it. So
Dave Sharp:That's gonna be the the look of 2024. I don't know when you were doing that. About 10 years ago, it's gone absolutely full circle. It's like the lunch, the the the kids' stuff, it's all kinda coming back into the photos, but done in this really sort of elevated architectural way. I was always wondering how, you know, because it's always complained about the kind of, like, bleakness of the current sort of or photography style that it's like it it's completely different style of imagery to what you would see in kind of, like, house and garden or, you know, Grand Designs Magazine, which is just looks like normal photo well, kinda normal photography with normal sort of live like, family and and the client's stuff and everything.
Dave Sharp:And then architecture images kind of completely got rid of all of it and was like, no. Client's gone. Architect's gone. Everything's ripped out. But now we're they're kind of, like, choicefully putting back in a few of these, like, this sort of very designer lifestyle stuff, and I think it's, like, kind of awkward to see it developing, but, I'm interested to sort of see where it goes.
Andrew Scott:I I think it's kind of I think that's maybe a good analogy for practice because I think, you know,
Anita Panov:arch Or architecture.
Andrew Scott:Or well, yeah, architecture practice, you know, how how we communicate, but also how we design, you know, and because you've got on one hand, you know, the high minimalism, which, you know, a lot of architects tend towards love because there's a control there, and it's just about, what is it, forms in life, that kind of scenario. And then you've got habitation and all of the messy kind of beauty of people and and how they engage. And architecture has always kind of moved between the 2 of those, and representations of architecture has always done that same thing. And so we're probably just seeing a recentering perhaps from some something a bit more hard edge architecture that's been in the last few years. But that light ones, that's that's really interesting.
Andrew Scott:I find that fascinating. Like, I really understand it. A representation of architecture that kind of subdues life, so it's just about soft forms, and it does beautiful things for the interior. The thing that I always wonder about is it doesn't really have anything to do with Australian light necessarily, which is a really harsh thing. And so I I always I always wonder because it positions, Australian projects as international.
Andrew Scott:It's really, really successful sandwiches together our difference, you know, the the tyranny of distance. And so we engage a lot more or our projects can engage a lot more, even flattening the seasons, you know, that that seasonal synchronicity that you actually see when you start to watch these things. Like, we're we're putting out summer projects when it's winter, and they're pointing out summer projects when it's our winter, that kind of scenario. It makes me wonder about I I mean, and you're uniquely positioned because you work here in in the UK. You know, what do you think about Australian architecture and globalism?
Andrew Scott:And because, I mean, we've got Pees Tutber is one of our our teachers. And, you know, he's he, off the back of Rick and Glenn and people like them, it's all about place. It's all about here. Our voice should be ours in terms of our geographic location rather than as international citizens. And And I'm really interested in that kind of idea.
Dave Sharp:I think it's interesting how a lot of our kind of coolest photographers have all set up this, like, dual citizenship arrangement where they all seem to base themselves in Australia plus another country. It's like Australia, Japan, Australia, London. Like, there's this kind of sense that they're always back and forth between these two countries, and then the imagery has this very kind of, like, global kind of look to it or this sort of European look to it. I don't know. I I haven't really given much thought to how kind of how it reflects or articulates Australian kind of conditions in Australianness.
Dave Sharp:My perspective is that it is an Australian style that is then becoming popular in places like the UK. I found generally, like, over the kind of the 10 years that I've been doing what I'm doing, things kind of happen here. They get popularized by platforms like The Local Project and by certain Australian architects who are really big on Instagram, who are substantially bigger than architects are in the UK, with the exception of, like, a Foster, Azaha Hadid, or some you know, someone like that. But there are small practices here that have these, like, enormous followings that translate over into places like the UK, and then we end up having, like, a fairly big influence on their market. They start seeing things happening over there, and they get really interested in it.
Dave Sharp:Then they start sort of paying for photographers and filmmakers to come over from Australia and get them to work on their projects there. I do sort of think that that is kind of how things happen, but I also see how it's kind of importing this kind of European ness into Australia as well. So I think I think the style of photography is being influenced by photography that's happening in Europe, but it's get it's applied in practice here. And becoming super widespread, then it becomes almost commercialized into places like the UK, from Australia. Like, we export it over there because they all they're all obsessed with the local project, I think, is my is my kind of
Anita Panov:We should do an experiment and have, like, a dual project photographed twice.
Dave Sharp:Yeah. The difference would be ridiculous. We could choose, like, very established, very successful photographers, but 2 that are, like, you know, highly contrasting, and it would be completely different projects. And you would get massively different receptions to those projects as well in terms of publication interest, in terms of response on social media, in terms of the type of client you would attract, that would be like 2 entirely different buildings.
Andrew Scott:Such a good experiment. Well, because you may even just double your output, you know, your capacity to engage with all of these different platforms.
Anita Panov:You get gloomy people, sunny people.
Dave Sharp:I I find the double shoot somewhat fascinating, you know, particularly where people have have noticed that there's this huge aesthetic divide between architecture and interiors. The style of photography that leans heavily towards architecture world, the kind of the houses magazine sort of end of the spectrum will be a bit of a detractor when you're trying to get into Vogue. It's like a different color palette. It's a different sort of light, different form. You know?
Dave Sharp:So there's this idea that's kind of emerged that some practices have kind of gone for the double shoot where they'll get somebody on the exterior and it can and somebody that comes from the interior photography world for the interior. We're also seeing more of the kind of the unfurnished empty shoot and then the furnished filled in shoot and then the the two sets of images kind of living alongside each other.
Andrew Scott:And then and then the other one, which I really love, is the is the kind of the just when it's finished and then the the 5 years later when all the
Dave Sharp:Kind of the post landscape settling in kind of image set as well. So I I think these jewel shoots are interesting, but what we haven't seen, this would completely ruin the mystery and the magic of the whole trick that we play with the photography, which would be these 2 completely different sort of sets of the same project by different photographers would actually, I think, massively undermine
Andrew Scott:It's it's like a literary a literary hoax in in in the world of architecture photography. Yeah. Oh, in the world of architecture, actually, isn't it? Because it it's, you know, just There are
Anita Panov:so many days in the year that that a house or any project exists within.
Andrew Scott:They live different lives.
Anita Panov:So to even show, like, 2 different sky conditions or light conditions, which you might love, you know, or the the autumnal tree and, you know, different things that you wanna celebrate about the same thing. It's the same thing, isn't it? It's it's equal to you're not concealing anything. You're actually celebrating more. You you
Andrew Scott:But but but but these platforms, they you need a kind of, they they get confused by it, I think.
Anita Panov:Yeah.
Andrew Scott:You know, but people don't.
Anita Panov:It's hard to hear.
Andrew Scott:To a building under it's kind of all its different guises. But I think we wouldn't expect to open a magazine or to click through a website and to see, you know, a beautiful foreboding early morning shot with the sun coming up and then a bright midday shot. We just wouldn't expect it. You'd expect that homogeneity to to come across in terms of the way in which we we we make our our buildings, our architecture, a visual commodity.
Dave Sharp:Any final concluses? We touched on so many different things. Any final thoughts, reflections on maybe some of the topics we talked about today?
Andrew Scott:Talking about architectural photography, you know, I was thinking about that it was good doing it. It's kind of a lot of architects, and I think part of me as well says, well, that's actually the role of the photographer. It's kind of it's not it's not our role. It's not our principal consideration in terms of what we do. It's kind of what you try and do as an architect as you gather around you as much as you can brilliant people, and you let them do their do their brilliance and and, you know, something happens as a result of that.
Andrew Scott:So it's been interesting kind of wading into that that world and having a few reflections on it, but it's not a big part of how we think of architecture and necessarily how we engage in it. So it's been kind of interesting to do that. And then I think the the last thing from my point of view is just to say that even though we kind of tune that noise down, we've been working the entire time, and and we're looking forward to engaging with people with these projects that that we're doing at the moment that we can now think about how we photograph them
Anita Panov:in different ways share them.
Andrew Scott:How we share them. So that that's been really good from my point of view. Yep.
Anita Panov:I think it's a good point that that, righting the wrongs, like, there's a, a kind of an honesty or a self knowledge, and you always think, as an architect going on-site and just having to tell the client, we got it wrong. We we have to move that. We have to change it. And now it's built up. You know, like, at any point in the process, to actually reflect well, constantly to reflect, but at any point in the process, to kinda pull yourself back and and think, actually, something has to change.
Anita Panov:And and that's coming back to this idea that we're talking about steering. It's not always just a macro thing, like a big overarching concept of steering. It's every little step along the way. It is, you know, it's us, it's who we work with, it's, the way that our projects develop, and to constantly be thinking about what the best thing to do is and to to take steps so that that may happen.
Dave Sharp:That was my conversation with Anita Panov and Andrew Scott from Panov Scott. If you'd like to learn more about their studio, you can visit panovscott.com.au or follow them on Instagram at panel of Scott. Office Talk is sponsored by Office Dave Sharp, a strategic marketing and brand definition practice for architecture. Our practice works collaboratively with clients across the globe. So to learn more about our process and book a consultation, simply visit office dave sharp dot com.
Dave Sharp:Today's episode of office talk was edited and engineered by Anthony Richardson of Simple Dwelling Studio. That's all for this episode. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.
