Think like a small business and you’ll always be a small business
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SFM Consulting meets Alistair Barr, Chairman and Founder of award winning architecture practice Barr Gazetas.
Barr Gazetas is a highly successful, medium sized, architectural practice and design consultancy set up by Alistair Barr in 1993 whose clients include Regus, AEG, Petro Canada and the University of Chicago. The practice specialises in architecture, master planning and interior design for public realm, offices, residential, mixed use, bars, restaurants, retail, education and hotels. They describe their approach as specialising in transformation – successfully improving the most unpromising sites or buildings, however tight the commercial or planning constraints.
Starting from his kitchen table in the last recession, going into partnership with a Greek architect to deliver a hotel project for Richard Branson, dissolving the partnership in 2000, moving the business from a small to a highly-successful medium sized practice, then keeping above water in the current recession, Alistair’s transformational skills aren’t limited to sites and buildings.
Alistair BarrSFM: I believe you set up Barr Gazetas as a result of being made redundant when your previous employer went bust. What were the hardest lessons you learned setting up a business?
AB: The first business lesson that was imprinted on my mind was the importance of diversity. My last employer had 150 staff, of which 7 or 8 were directors, and they only undertook new build offices. When the last recession hit in 1993 the bottom dropped out of the office market, and it folded. Although I wasn’t involved in the financial management of the business the writing had been on the wall for some months. The opportunity of some small, private, residential projects had come my way so I had taken these on to bring in some money. When I was made redundant no one was hiring thirty-something architects so continuing working for myself, from my kitchen table, was the obvious thing to do.
The next most important lesson I learned was what sort of business I wanted mine to be, then to take the steps to get there. I wanted my practice to handle a diverse range of projects in the private and public sector, and I knew there was one aspect of architecture I absolutely didn’t want to work on – the private residential market. Initially things were tough as architecture is one of the first professions to be hit by a recession and one of the last to recover. Through necessity I did start doing private, residential work but as my business grew, I gradually raised the bar for private residential projects so we only accepted if them they were over a certain value. Ultimately we were able to say that we didn’t do private, residential work.
I think if you start a new business at the depths of the recession things can only get better.
SFM: What would you do differently if you had your time again?
AB: I would think longer and harder about entering a partnership and be driven by professional advice rather than a situation within the business.
At the beginning of December 1993, six months after starting, I won a massive contract for a 60 bed hotel from Richard Branson of Virgin to build a hotel on the Greek island of Hydra. The contract was conditional on delivering the drawings on Christmas Eve – the same year. Up to that point I had been engaging staff on a freelance basis, but suddenly I needed five more architects to work with me on this massive opportunity. At the time it seemed like a sensible solution to share this daunting task and go into partnership with a Greek architect – Tom Gazetas.
We used a standard partnership agreement provided by RIBA (www.architecture.com), which seemed fine on the face of it, but after seven years we decided to go our separate ways and amicably unravelling our partnership proved far more complex than we had imagined. Investing in more in-depth advice at the outset, by adapting the agreement to our specific circumstances, or by having a project by project agreement, would have saved a great deal of angst and money in the long run.
Tom and I did some fantastic work in our seven years together and consequently I’ve been asked many times whether I’d enter into another partnership. Having grown the business out of one recession I anticipated I’d see at least one more recession (after this one) in my professional career and thought the business would be more financially secure under sole ownership.
SFM: What advice would you give anyone starting up their own business?
AB: Understand what drives you and what challenges you will face in your new working environment, particularly during the early days. The most difficult thing I found was not working as part of a team when I first set up. Architecture is about thinking, and thinking depends on people – both individually and collaboratively. For me, collaboration was an essential part of being a good architect, so in the early days working alone from the kitchen table was lonely, less interesting and less stimulating. Today’s technology has made working from home much easier, but back in 1993 every architectural practice had a comprehensive library which was an essential resource. After a month working from the kitchen I had to do something about my working environment or I thought I’d go mad. I contacted my first boss, who ran a practice of twelve architects and was also feeling the effects of the recession so was delighted to rent out some spare desk space. It gave me access to a well-stocked library but most importantly I was back in a stimulating environment amongst fellow professionals. The added benefit was how potential clients perceived me – as I now had a Bedford Square address on my business card.
Once you are generating business, stick with freelancers until the stream of new business and projects is such that it will have a negative impact if you don’t employ someone.
Take full advantage of technology that you will need to run your business efficiently and effectively and minimise your investment in anything that is on the way out. During the last recession we could see CAD was taking off but we still made the mistake of buying drawing boards for each of our early recruits only to put them in the loft within six months.
SFM: What management skills did you have when you started?
AB: Although I was an Associate Director, and responsible for managing a team of about 25 architects, my management skills were limited to managing the day to day architectural skills of my team. I was very sheltered from real business management and looking back I had no idea how lucky I was at the time. Good salary, company car, pension and all I had to focus on was architecture. Even winning new business wasn’t a concern as all new projects arrived on the wings of the “new project fairies” – the directors of the practice. As for knowledge about VAT, National Insurance, HR, accounts and the like – I was an architect so hadn’t needed to know.
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