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If you wish to contact us hit our DMs or email us on info@designprinciplespod.com
Welcome back to the design principle podcast. I am sam brown from a red architects and I'm once again here with Ben Sutherland from bear architecture and Gerard Dombroski from Gerard Dombroski's studio. Welcome back, boys. How's it going?
Ben Sutherland:Good, good, happy Easter.
Sam Brown:Oh yeah, thank you. We are recording on Easter Friday today. So in solidarity for our good Lord, we are all having a pint.
Ben Sutherland:Or a wine enjoying life.
Sam Brown:Yeah, exactly, maybe not, Gerard. So we thought, given the recent uh announcement of the nzia, which is the new zealand institute of architects, shortlists for architecture awards in 2024, it'd be a good chance to have a chat about the awards and just the position or place of awards in creative fields in general. But before we get into that, I just want to have a little bit of a gripe, mainly with a certain type of plant. So if there's any landscape designers, architects, homeowners, gardeners, whoever out there that likes to get their green thumb green, this is what I have to say to you never, ever, plant agapanthus. Oh yeah, they're the worst. Oh, my god, I've literally just spent half a day pulling out agapanthus and I already know that when I wake up tomorrow morning they'll be back and they'll continue to multiply like bamboo shoots throughout our garden forever and a day. My question is do they have any benefit?
Sam Brown:I don't think they look good, the flowers dry out and go crusty and gross. They're itchy. The sap from them is really itchy and they're a bloody pain in the ass.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, they're sticky.
Ben Sutherland:Another one that's a pain in the ass is gorse, and people tried to get rid of that for a long time, but it actually sequesters a high amount of carbon, so it's very good for the environment.
Sam Brown:Oh well, that's a tick in Gorse's category. So unless somebody else can come to me with a positive for Agapantha, I'm straight up here vetoing it forever and a day.
Gerard Dombroski:Gorse is actually an awesome nurse canopy for regenerating forests because it dies very quickly once it loses sunlight. So as soon as the plants come up through it.
Ben Sutherland:It dies off real quick and obviously a bacteria for families as well.
Gerard Dombroski:so we hear at dpp a pro gorse if you're up, if you're after a forest, more for it.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah my dad bought this hill in napier once and it was all it was was a gigantic gorse bush. The whole hill was just covered in gorse and he ended up lasting maybe like only for like two months. He couldn't handle it anymore because he was just chopping gorse all day. And I remember he sold it and I remember seeing like two weeks later the whole thing was just up on flames. The new owner must have just gone along and tortured the whole.
Sam Brown:Thing.
Gerard Dombroski:It's the way to deal with it.
Sam Brown:Eh, too much of a moist plant can't burn it also in the center city it's a little bit, uh, questionable, particularly in wellington, where it's blowing a gale 99.9 percent of the time, probably shouldn't burn your gorse in the city center.
Sam Brown:No no, anyway, sorry for that wee segue, I just had to get that out there because it's just driving me up the wall. But back to awards. So, as I said, the nzia have announced their awards, of the shortlists for their awards, and I know that the judges have been around to, if not all, a very vast majority of them may I just jump in there?
Ben Sutherland:how do you know that?
Sam Brown:oh well, we're fortunate enough to have been shortlisted for a project in the wellington awards congratulations, thank you.
Ben Sutherland:Thank you very much. Yeah, well done. How does it?
Sam Brown:feel, uh, it's quite humbling I think yeah, stoked yep, it's nice. I mean, you sort of this is a good way of kind of getting into the conversation, I guess. I mean you put yourself out there a little bit, were you a little? Bit nervous or in the judges round.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, I guess like especially architecture is like your biggest judges are other architects. You know, you don't really care what anyone else thinks about your designs, but other architects. Well, you want the clients to be happy.
Sam Brown:There's that, there's a bit of that. It's uh, it's interesting. A like you do. You kind of expose yourself a little bit well, you put yourself out there a little bit, you're open to critique and so you're sort of hoping for the best. But I think deep down you know when you have a project that is worthy of recognition and you know it may not necessarily get that through the award you know the nzia awards but there's other award awards or avenues that you can target down, or publication, things like that. But yeah, I mean, it was pretty cool and it was nice. We, the judges, come around, you do a little tour around your projects with them, and it was really nice to to do that last weekend with the clients and with the judges as well and sort of see how it's about five months on from when we completed the project and you kind of see how stoked the clients still are, how much it's affected their lives in a positive and they were, yeah, exactly, and they were singing up praises singing up praises to the judges, which was cool.
Sam Brown:So yeah, no, pretty, pretty, chuffed, fingers crossed. May 23rd is when, well, wellingtons are announced. I don't know about the other centers, but yeah, looking forward to a big night. But yeah, it's interesting. You know, this year there's been, I think, a record number of entries. By my account, and I'm just quickly looking on the website here, 26 projects uh have been shortlisted for gisborne, hawks bay, 17 projects nelson marlborough, 13 projects. Western, which is the west coast, uh 36 projects for wellington, 29 projects. Southern, which is sort of like central otago, uh, southland and dunedin, 60 projects for auckland, 34 canterbury, 31, waikato bay, aplenty. So yeah, quite a few, quite a few amazing pieces out there.
Ben Sutherland:May I just ask what category were you in?
Sam Brown:We have been shortlisted for small projects, cool. So we're up against in Wellington. We're up against First Light Studio for their St Hilda's Church renovation and Kelly Architects for a wee renovation that she's done. I can't remember the name of her project off the top of my head, but interestingly we're we're very much newcomers, or, as a ret architects, we're very much newcomers to this award scene, and we're up against two, I'd say, well-established and well-decorated architecture firms. Yeah, I'd say, and in first light, enter and win annually. So fingers crossed, but yeah, we'll see what happens. It's an exciting thing to be part of.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, I don't want to float my own boat, but a few years ago now I went to the NZIA Awards Our friend over there, gerard Dabrowski. One of his designs won an award and he took me along as his plus one. Oh, that's cute we go.
Sam Brown:So, gerard, I mean as a winner yourself, do you think that the award process, uh, is worth it, and how do you, and how do you think it has either shaped or molded um or influenced you personally and in your practice?
Ben Sutherland:and did your boss at the time win any more more work from your awesome design?
Gerard Dombroski:yeah I wonder if you actually get any work out of it probably this year. I just could not actually afford to enter so well this year on the basis that I couldn't afford it that is.
Sam Brown:that is one of the talking points that I had outlined for today was is entering awards a cost barrier for small or growing firms? It'd be interesting to talk about the cost-benefit analysis, because, you're right, gerard, it's expensive All awards are expensive.
Gerard Dombroski:If somebody's winning a bunch of awards, they're paying a lot of subscription submitting fees.
Sam Brown:Well, I guess you've got to. Well, you have to be an NZIA, you know, an NZIA registered firm.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, well, that's my first issue. I'm not a NZIA registered firm. Oh, you're not there, you go.
Ben Sutherland:Well, that's not. That wouldn't be hard for you to resolve, though.
Sam Brown:Yeah, you to resolve though. Yeah, but what's?
Gerard Dombroski:that like is it like 1200 bucks or something, or yeah, it might even be more the outline of cost for me just to get one award when I can just collate. I'll just wait a year or two until I have a few more buildings and we'll just do it all at once that's a good idea.
Sam Brown:Yeah, it is interesting and we sort of played that game ourselves this year. We're like is it worth it? And I think we were fairly confident with the karaka tower, which, which has been shortlisted, and we also put in the recent renovation or recent new sorry, new fit out for mojo and brandon street, and that was we weren't so sure whether we'd win that one, but we we sort of did it as a as a way of I trying to invoke a bit of confidence in us from our client. We're like newly appointed architects for Mojo, the coffee barons of Wellington.
Sam Brown:And they're super stoked with their new space and we're pretty happy with it too, and we thought, you know, put it in for awards and let's see if it gets any traction. Unfortunately it hasn't, but you know that's fine.
Ben Sutherland:It's still an awesome design, though.
Sam Brown:Yeah, I think it's really really cool and you know you can sort of put something in and hope yeah, it's a good client to have A great client. But you know, we sort of did it not so much as a let's hope we get an award, but more of a like let's actually really try and solidify this relationship and you know, build a bit of confidence in us and the brand and, yeah, hope you get it.
Gerard Dombroski:The award's sort of a bonus in a way.
Sam Brown:That first light in the church was pretty epic.
Gerard Dombroski:It is cool.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, it's very cool, love that little faceted laser cut business. Other than the subscription, how much do you have to pay to get in there?
Sam Brown:So it depends on the size of your firm. So if you're a one to I think it's a three-person firm it's $395 or something like that, plus GST per entry, and then it obviously goes up for larger firms. So it's about 500 bucks, let's say.
Gerard Dombroski:Um it's like the entry thing. Tricky thing with awards is like are they? Well, they are making money off awards generally they're now subscriptions and stuff. People paying it like drums up a bit of a buzz yeah, and I think.
Sam Brown:Well, I just think for us, you know, we could not have spent that money anywhere else. You know, in terms of advertising or what have you and got the same level of exposure or recognition that we have so far through this process? You know what I mean. So you know we've we've got a couple of publications now with the tower and things like that, and this is off the back of the awards. I don't reckon we would have been able to spend 500 bucks with an advertiser or whatever and got the same result. So that's a positive, but it's a risky positive. You know it's not necessarily a given.
Sam Brown:Yeah, so it's an interesting one, I think you know you see firms that are there every year. You know we talked about first lie and you know you definitely see repeat offenders in a good way. They're obviously architecture firms that like, do amazing work all the time and want to showcase that. But I'd also say it's probably part of their brand, or you know their business strategy to enter awards and I'd say they budget for it as well. But you know, for us, as smaller and growing firms, it's quite new.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, I think the discussion is heavily tied to marketing.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, yeah, the real winners are the judges. They probably get paid and they get to go and have a look through all the awesome architecture, private tours of all these places, and I'd love to know how they how they pick, pick the judges.
Sam Brown:It was a really, you know my I guess my own experience this year is with the wellington group, but I thought it was a really great, really diverse group of judges. It sort of came at their analysis of the project quite differently, which I thought was really good so is it not the same judges for the whole New Zealand?
Ben Sutherland:Is it different region by region, as far as I understand? I don't.
Sam Brown:I think it's regional. Oh, okay, it didn't used to be. I have a feeling it used to be the same judging group for the whole country.
Ben Sutherland:Well, maybe this is more the NZIA, the second awards, which are the locals?
Sam Brown:No, these are the locals. The um national. Yeah, I imagine the nationals will have the same judging group, but I think post-covid and sort of cost of living tightness and things like that, that, and also you know the the carbon emission required to fly judges all around the country for awards is probably a little bit frowned upon. So they've been a bit smarter about that now and yeah it looks like they're all uh different judges just so yeah, sam, do you have a list of the awards as in, like the actual categories?
Ben Sutherland:I'd be. I'd be quite interested to know.
Sam Brown:I know there's like commercial, residential, commercial education, heritage, hospitality housing, housing alterations and additions, housing, multi-unit interior planning, urban design, public small project nice, it's quite, it's quite a big category what I found really interesting looking through the shortlist this year in terms of the categories, as I say, for the first time I've I've really seen a huge amount of shortlisted projects in, like the heritage categories and and also multi, multi-unit residential, and I'd say that is a very much an example of the changing times you know I'd say that a lot of heritage work being undertaken, one because people are looking at reuse from a sustainability point of view, um, but also there's a lot of earthquake strengthening work.
Sam Brown:So that sort of heritage thing goes hand in hand with that. Are you talking?
Gerard Dombroski:about like working on heritage buildings versus like a heritage award for enduring architecture correct?
Sam Brown:yes, yep, so the enduring architecture awards separate, isn't it? Because so you, you get a heritage. So the Enduring Architecture Award's separate, isn't it? Because you get a heritage. So the shortlisted projects for heritage are working on heritage buildings, versus the Enduring Architecture Award. I don't think you enter your project. I think you're selected, are you not? And that's for projects that were completed in the past, are still around and still hold great architectural merit.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, I think that's a perfect award.
Sam Brown:award, that's the one you want to get. Yeah, I mean, that shows your longevity, right. You've been in the game and performing to a high level for a long time or you've just done something dope in the past. Yeah cool, yeah cool, it's, it's, it's, yeah I. The whole award thing is an interesting conversation and you know we've already talked about what it can do for your business.
Gerard Dombroski:But it'll be interesting to get your. What can it do for your business?
Sam Brown:Well, I was about to say I was just interested to get your guys' take on that. I mean, I've mentioned the fact already that we couldn't have spent the money that we have on entering the awards and getting that recognition so far on any sort of promotion. You know, we we're having people contact us for publication. A lot of people have said like congratulations, they've seen it on the nzia website, all this sort of stuff, so you're able to reach different people through different channels and it's just helping us grow, I guess, our breadth, our reach to, to potential clients, and also just build recognition in the field. And I think that's something I want to get into, maybe a little bit later, about how awards fan egos. But I'd just be interested to see get your guys' take. I mean, gerard, you've been there with an award-winning project before. Ben, you've been in and around award-winning firms. Yeah, the Warren Distributor.
Sam Brown:Your first house? Yeah, exactly, that's funny, though my one was yours as well.
Ben Sutherland:I was thinking before. I was like oh man, I don't even know who paid for that, yeah.
Gerard Dombroski:You need to submit your house, Ben.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah well, I don't well I. Therein lies another conversation yeah, I'm too scared though, because I don't want to be judged by other architects, and that's I'm being real there so you know, just so I get to feel like I've won your award as well just because you guys built it together I've been on the construction side quite a few times actually, but you know, makers have built some awesome stuff for some awesome architects, including themselves and I think here's an interesting different experience yeah, I think there's an interesting chat on like architects getting credit and then builders getting credit, because oh, 100.
Sam Brown:Well, I mean, like, I guess builders have their own awards.
Ben Sutherland:Do they?
Gerard Dombroski:You know they have master build and things like that. It's different. But, like at the NCAA awards. They should be like giving props to builders and stuff.
Sam Brown:Oh 100%. But, I think it's your duty as the architect to give those props. You know you can't claim credit for the success of a project solely. I think that's a bit off. You know, for us, even like the tower that's just been shortlisted absolutely no way we would have been able to achieve that without you know the fabrication team.
Sam Brown:They did an amazing job and, like projects that have worked on in the past you know that have won awards te, aoha and the marion as well like there's no way those projects would have been executed to the level that they were and the success that they are without like a good consultant and build team.
Gerard Dombroski:so it's definitely I think, like the awards, the critique of the awards in particular is that it's like architects are the only ones that care about it. You know like are we getting props between each other? Or like you're saying, you're getting some more magazines coming out there. So are the awards reached the public, do you think?
Sam Brown:Well, that was going to be one of my conversation points, and I think that that is a good point, gerard is is do the architecture awards push architecture more into the public eye? And I think they do. I mean, I don't think they get the coverage that they probably should. I mean, architecture is something that impacts people every single day. Regardless of who you are, where you come from, what you do, you're impacted by architecture.
Sam Brown:Good, bad, ugly, whatever and I think that there should be more of a um, a media push in new zealand for recognition around the awards. I I know stuff always do like a quick article on who the winners are after after the awards nights. But I'm talking like you know, bullet points of these are the winners, blah, blah, blah, and that's a kind of thing, Whereas I think that should probably should get more coverage, particularly when you're looking at these award categories like multi-residential housing, urban design, development, commercial. These are projects that are impacting huge amounts of people and it would be lovely for them to sort of get that recognition and understand architecture and its impact a little bit more.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, I just think the point of the NZIA is to promote architecture in New Zealand and support architects, I guess. And I just think it could go a little bit further to like bringing this to more of a public thing. Yeah, we go back to that marketing chat of HairMag doing little open homes and stuff like opening things up and engaging with the public a little bit more, I think would give more meaning to the public to these awards, because I love awards. Awards are cool, but I think, beyond a mechanism to identify good architecture, it's very commonly seen as like a little circle put on the back.
Sam Brown:Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I agree it would benefit everyone. It's validation from your peers, but it would be interesting to well.
Ben Sutherland:it'd be interesting to get your guys take and listeners as well it's also validation for potential you know client, future clients as well, though oh yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Gerard Dombroski:It's like how do you? It's a huge engage that with the public more so then public can actually look through this stuff and go, oh, yeah, yeah. But what if?
Ben Sutherland:the winning designs had to like have. When you sign up, you know that the winning designs have to have some sort of like open day.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, even if it was just for like.
Ben Sutherland:NZIA members like how good would it be just to be able to have a look around some of these places.
Sam Brown:Or a public day, you know, and they should definitely serve tea and scones and that sort of thing as well.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, get the scones out, mate.
Sam Brown:Everyone loves scones.
Gerard Dombroski:An awesome example of this for me is the Reba Awards, where they get old Kiwi boy, kevin MacLeod, and they do like a TV series. It's like five or six episodes.
Sam Brown:Yeah, I've seen that. I really like that as well.
Gerard Dombroski:I think that's like an awesome way to engage with the public.
Sam Brown:We've got a.
Gerard Dombroski:Grand Designs guy, why can't?
Sam Brown:the NZIA. Should we hit up Chris Muller?
Ben Sutherland:Make a little.
Gerard Dombroski:TV series. Maybe we do it grassroots. We'll just go out there with our iPhones, we can do that.
Sam Brown:Guerrilla marketing for awards. What are you guys? Doing today what are you guys thoughts on? You know if we're talking about public involvement or public engagement. What are you guys thoughts on public voting and or peer voting?
Ben Sutherland:I mean like, even if it was just its own little category People's.
Gerard Dombroski:Choice Award, people's Choice.
Ben Sutherland:Award.
Sam Brown:That's a great idea. Let the judges shortlist their projects? Yeah, absolutely. But then put the shortlisted projects out to the public and go boom.
Ben Sutherland:vote for your favourite People's Choice Award would be fantastic. The open days are so people can actually go around and have a look.
Sam Brown:So, nzia, if you're listening, take note.
Gerard Dombroski:We've got all the ideas. Come to us anytime.
Sam Brown:I think that would be cool, though I mean obviously you potentially run the risk of people just hardcore campaigning for their project.
Gerard Dombroski:I think democratization of awards is good. Yeah, totally. People's Choice Award is awesome. Yeah, get it done, mate.
Sam Brown:Okay.
Gerard Dombroski:Start one of your little Instagram polls.
Ben Sutherland:Hey, that's not a bad idea. We could do that. We could start an.
Gerard Dombroski:Instagram profile and then whatever like you just do in the profile, like every project, and then whichever one gets the most likes is.
Sam Brown:Is our unofficial People's Choice Award Unofficial, official. Yeah, unofficial official People's Choice Award. I like that a lot yeah, definitely.
Ben Sutherland:Maybe we can start making up some of our own categories as well. There's definitely some categories missing. I don't know. Have you guys thought about like any other categories that we could have, like most wow, integrated design, I don't know.
Gerard Dombroski:Like crafty details, I think what I think environmentally friendly biggest cantilever I like that one. For a while the awards all were just who's got the most seat of slats yeah, yeah, they um I mean, but that this is a good point.
Sam Brown:I know we're talking. We're talking about the nzia awards, right, but there are other awards out there you know, and they do celebrate other aspects of not just architecture but design. You know, there's the best ones, there's best ones, there's Home of the Year, which is very house-centric and quite often Home of the Year's. Don't win NZIA Awards or vice versa. Is there any others out there?
Ben Sutherland:Those sort of things come to mind. Greensill must have their awards, or something sustainability ones.
Sam Brown:Yeah, I don't know if they have anything NZGBC doesn't have anything in particular, but that's another thing they probably should Green Building of the Year.
Ben Sutherland:Absolutely. That's crazy that they don't. I looked at the NZIA website and I saw these are a whole bunch of other awards that they do as well, just like various practitioner awards and then there's even one. There's even the john john sutherland uh practice award, which I I like because my granddad's called john sutherland oh there you go.
Sam Brown:That's nice different.
Ben Sutherland:You win that one day maybe I'll win that one one day there's also I do like the. I think a practice award's quite cool though but well, I guess there's that right.
Sam Brown:So we're talking about project-based awards, but then there's also architect-based awards, so there's every year we have the gold medal.
Sam Brown:We have the gold medal award in New Zealand. Internationally, they have the Pritzker Prize, which is the equivalent of the Pulitzer for literature, but the Pritzker is the architectural one. This year, raiken Yamamoto, japanese architect, one who said that he does not believe he's a good designer and never has been, so I was surprised to have one. I think he's being incredibly humble. But you know, there are there's these other avenues for recognition beyond what projects you do, but like who you are as a practice and or who you are as an practice and or who you are as an architect, and I think it's really cool to have those other avenues as well.
Sam Brown:And interestingly, gerard, I know you've got your own opinion on this, but the winner of the gold medal, nzia gold medal award this year, dr deirdre brown. I think it's the first time that I've ever selected an academic in that position. I think that what's really interesting about that? I saw this note at the end of the press release about her winning. You know nzia, basically saying that it's the first time that they have selected somebody not only for her cultural impact, but also somebody that encompasses everything that architecture is, and I think that's really interesting because so often we think of it as purely being the built form, but it's so much more than that. And you know she won because of her impact culturally, particularly on maori architecture, but also her impact on students in the teaching curriculum and architecture and the impact that she's had through that, which I think is really really cool.
Ben Sutherland:So yeah, why? What's your opinion, gerard?
Gerard Dombroski:oh it's. It just seems the first person to win that's not an architect or hasn't done a building. I might be wrong.
Ben Sutherland:I tried really hard to find a building. Does that insult your architecture?
Gerard Dombroski:architecture I just think there's like a lot of really good architects. They're like the award is for like a body of work, like a. It's kind of like a lifetime award, I guess. And yes, she's contributed to like the body, the wider body of architecture, but perhaps like a different award would be more appropriate yeah, interesting like. Melling Morse what they've like. Yes, gerald's died, but their body of work was amazing and they got lots of people Nicola and Lance Herbst putting out some absolute bangers after bangers for years.
Sam Brown:It's not to say that they're not in line to win again in the future. You know this is an annual award.
Gerard Dombroski:So it's an honourable thing. It's for buildings, so like the history of the award is that it used to be for our building. They changed it in 90 I heard the page on something but not that long ago to be fair and they changed it to about a body of work right.
Sam Brown:I think that's more important. To be honest, I mean, you can you can nail it with one building and potentially hang your hat on that for your whole career. But I think if you've truly succeeded in architecture, you've got a lifetime's body of work behind you that's impacted society or individuals continuously for decades. You know what I mean.
Gerard Dombroski:I think that's probably what our ultimate objective is working in this profession For the end of the day. I in this profession. Other awards to people like you can't enter unless you're a registered NZIA member.
Sam Brown:That's true. I mean, I think what would be interesting and they have this with is it Best Awards. They have the Best Emerging Designer. It'd be interesting for NZIA to run sort of an award in that ilk or for there to be an architectural award in that elk of, like, best emerging practice or best emerging architect. I think that would be quite interesting because I did notice this year in particular, there's a lot of new or young, really interesting practices that have entered awards, maybe not necessarily for the first time, but definitely getting their dues paid and no, as at glazima from auckland, they've got five short lists or something and that stuff's amazing. It's really, really cool. They're a young firm. There's a couple of other, yeah that's the one, thank you yeah, yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.
Sam Brown:You know these. It'd be cool to kind of these people to get their recognition as well, because I don't know about you guys, but we're all in our 30s. It seems to me that you don't really get the recognition, uh, in architecture until you may be, uh, at the twilight end of your career, unless you're someone like biaga angles, who has sort of been put on the pedestal from a young age. But everybody else you know, you're sort of looking at 50, 60 years old until you get the props.
Gerard Dombroski:That's what's great about architecture, though I think he's like done some pretty epic work.
Sam Brown:Oh, absolutely, he started from winning a competition.
Ben Sutherland:So.
Sam Brown:I'm not saying it's unjustified.
Gerard Dombroski:I'm just saying, you know, know, there's not that many young architects that I think. Actually something, something about big like appeals to like a wider audience, is that some of those architecture concepts are like pretty comprehensible, like well presented in those, you know, those classic big diagrams how many followers do you think we need to get before we can get Bjarke and?
Sam Brown:Gulls on the show. I'd say we need quite a few more.
Ben Sutherland:Maybe that could be our goal, maybe three more?
Sam Brown:Or just meet them at the right place at the right time and, like, corner them with a microphone.
Gerard Dombroski:He was saying we have some followers. We have some followers on Spotify. Yeah, we might have some. I know three followers. We have some followers on Spotify. Somebody listens to these rants.
Ben Sutherland:I know three followers that we definitely have and you know that's international in.
Gerard Dombroski:Oh, is that because Nina's in Italy? Hi Nina, Thanks for listening.
Sam Brown:Okay, so this is good. This is a good sort of segue into another thing I wanted to talk about. So we just talked about the number of followers we have. Obviously that's like a little self-satisfaction thing because ultimately we do want this podcast to be a success. But like, doesn't matter, probably not. But here's my question is do you think that the awards are important for our validation as architects and, like you know what, as a personally, for your ego, for your success of your business? For, I guess, your level of validation like okay, I've been an architect registered, however many years, I've done a bunch of buildings, but does anybody actually like them, kind of thing do you think that the awards or not necessarily nzia ones, but ones in general go some sort of way in?
Gerard Dombroski:uh confidence in yourself. Well, you hope that, like, awards are uh the mechanism to like identify good architecture. So it's like it's fact checking, like am I doing good architecture? I'm trying to do good architecture and then hopefully somebody out there is validating that and coming up with a list of buildings that they think are good so you definitely think that it is sean godsell's rant on that australian marketing podcast absolutely amazing episode.
Gerard Dombroski:Love sean godsell. But he talks about like work. Getting in particular books like is is important because there's like educated people that are making like intentional decisions on what they deem good architecture to put in their publications. So yeah, I think there's a mechanism to identify that and then if somebody else then says you are doing a good job, that's enormously rewarding.
Sam Brown:It's epic it's kind of that industry-wide pat on the back a little bit.
Ben Sutherland:Eh, it's quite nice well, I guess it's also just like a career progression, as in like you feel like you're evolving in some way in the right direction yeah that's got to feel good, like if this podcast ever got a what are they called webby award or something like that. I mean I would be absolutely mind-blowing but. I would be feeling pretty damn good about myself. I can tell you that you go ben.
Sam Brown:Would you rather a webby or whatever they're called, or an nzia award right now?
Gerard Dombroski:obviously strive, strive to achieve both aim high something that I found a really nice pat on the back is my little um carmandal hut got last year nominated for world building of the Year on Arc Daily. Yeah, that's your little I built for free, and we probably spent three grand at ITMI. Yeah, I thought that was. They work on a nomination basis, so maybe my mum went on there and nominated me. Very nice.
Sam Brown:but but that's great.
Gerard Dombroski:That was epic. When I got that email I was like holy fuck, yeah, I mean that's that, that, that was epic.
Sam Brown:When I got that email I was like holy fuck. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point, gerard, that is, that's incredible that was like yeah, world recognition, right, like that's huge and that's. You know, it's cool to do the nzi awards, but making that it's incredible. Did anything come of it?
Gerard Dombroski:uh, no like. What I was up against was like ishigami's restaurant house, the one sunk underground. Yeah, Dug holes filled it with concrete dug out the dirt Slightly different budget Amazing. Well, conceptually, that project is the epitome of identifying good architecture. Yeah, that is every essence of the word architecture.
Sam Brown:The beautiful thing about that, though, the word architecture, and the beautiful thing about that, though, and you know, is this well, it's just. It's just amazing things like the scope architecture has right, like you talk about your tiny little piccolo thing made with recycled materials in the bush and, you know, in rural new zealand versus you know this huge budget, massive concept kind of you know really incredible pieces of architecture, but that's, they're put side by side and you know that's awesome, massive validation to you as a designer, like clearly I've seen your project and I think it's incredible.
Sam Brown:You know, but you know merit to you as a designer in a big way. Clearly you've got what it takes to produce something that's pretty sensational for it. You clearly you've got what it takes to produce something that's pretty sensational, for it to reach those levels. I think that's cool oh, cheers man.
Sam Brown:Yeah, that was a fun, very fun month yeah, I mean what's interesting from that, though I, you know, obviously I asked didn't come from it and I guess maybe the question and word it quite right in terms of winning, but like beyond that, yeah, well, that's that's the funny thing, right like you can sort of get this recognition, and I guess this comes back to, uh, the media side of things outside of architecture, potentially even just your peer group within new Zealand. Did anybody take note? Like that's the tough thing, eh.
Gerard Dombroski:Well, I think Simon from here jumped on real quick. Sure, yeah, so I thought that was the best validation.
Sam Brown:But for a New Zealand designer to have that level of international recognition, that should be national news, in my opinion.
Ben Sutherland:I think it's up to yourselves to kind of push, push your own projects. Unfortunately, a little bit. It's the same with anyone who wins in any type of award. They've kind of got a build on the back of that award and try and make some sort of awareness out of it?
Gerard Dombroski:I'm not sure yeah, I find it really hard to go from there forward. It's kind of not my personality to to put your work out there coming up and going. Look at me, look at me so yeah, keep on going keep on designing.
Ben Sutherland:They're yelling some more. The proof will come out in the phone again.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, if we go long enough maybe, if you know it doesn't fall down, maybe one day we'll get an enduring award I should probably enter it into the awards.
Sam Brown:You should probably do that. Yeah, exactly.
Gerard Dombroski:Here's the other issue is there's people making banger buildings that we're just not entering?
Sam Brown:Well, that's the thing, and I guess I've worked for a firm in the past which didn't necessarily discredit the awards, but they didn't.
Sam Brown:They'd been part of that award process before in the past. They'd been on the juries and everything and they'd sort of just grown maybe a little bit fatigued by the process, I think. And it definitely took us younger people in that firm at the time to kind of push projects forward for awards. The directors didn't see that they needed it to grow the business and they didn't feel like they needed that validation for themselves because they'd had it in the past, kind of thing. But I definitely think for graduates coming through, younger architects working in bigger firms, I think it's really important for them to push their work forward. Gerard, looking at you, because I do think that it's. It's a way for you as a young designer to get your name out there. You know, I think we're so often against up against big, well-established firms and or individuals in the in the field and it's good for us to sort of be there challenging them and challenging their ideas as well.
Ben Sutherland:Yeah, exactly, and we are our own brand at the end of the day.
Sam Brown:I've talked about that before.
Gerard Dombroski:Things like Instagram are are a good equalizer democratizing, but maybe, like maybe, there's a chat there of that instagram's too visual heavy and it's just not reaching the right people yeah, have you guys seen um chris tate's house in piha, this little black box up on a little concrete v? Absolute mad dog. And you know he's obviously not into it, because I don't see that in the list.
Ben Sutherland:Some. Some of them take a while to come through, though hey, there's some. There's some ones, I noticed, that were built years ago, that have. So there's a five year.
Sam Brown:You have to enter it within five years of completion but I do well, I do know a lot of people do wait and they wait because they want the project to be just like landscaping to be done, it to be bedded in, it to be looking like what their final vision is.
Gerard Dombroski:Planting's huge man. I had a rant the other day to a guy at uni who's in the landscape department and I was saying that like architects should do, like architecture student should do a landscape paper, be forced to do a landscape paper because like it is the ultimate, like integration into site. Oh incredibly so, actually knowing how to prepare soil or like. So, contractors, don't just gravel the entire site and then you're left with well what.
Sam Brown:What I find really interesting is exactly well, exactly on that point you're right. I mean, we're super fortunate with the karaka tower and that we helicoptered it into this incredibly well-established bush area, you know. So we had to trim a few trees to obviously drop the modules into place, but once the building was in place, it had kind of been like it had been there forever. All the trees around it are established, all the gardens are established, and so it immediately bedded in. It looked great.
Sam Brown:Recently just finished a project down in lake hawera in central otago and the house looks amazing, but it's sitting in this barren wasteland you know and you're sort of like well, yeah, you're sort of like shit, man, this isn't going to actually look finished for years, and I guess that is why people do wait to put their projects in, because they do want it to look better than they want it to look like the finished product, not just a finished building, you know, because the architecture is so much beyond just that physical form mom's projects, having some pauses while we try redivert some hidden cables, which has been planting up a storm in the in the courtyard.
Gerard Dombroski:the one we're doing for mom is just like a courtyard house a big mound and plants. But it's like I'm super stoked on it at the moment, getting the plants in there and by the time we're finished it's going to be like a fully ingrained garden immediately.
Sam Brown:Yeah, that's pretty cool, that's amazing.
Gerard Dombroski:Which is pretty cool Beyond awards, sorry bro, karen, oh, just that one was very reliant on landscape to be successful.
Sam Brown:Yeah, beyond, you know, awards for physical, built, real projects. I mean, have you guys partaken in any competitions? I mean that's another avenue for validation, potentially Not necessarily for your completed work, but your design style or your aesthetic in a way. I mean, have you?
Gerard Dombroski:used to race in the past.
Ben Sutherland:Well, it is a competition yeah, I used to do quite a few when I was at university with Chris Chris Moller. Yeah, hang out with him quite a bit and it was awesome because it's exactly as you say. You really got to learn his style of designing and it's similar every single time, similar process, and how he goes about doing things is really like a old school. Everything is kind of really hand drawn and hand developed. So awesome, awesome to experience and did a number of projects with him, which was cool as well because he he doesn't really use any, uh, digital software. So if you can use revit or anything like that, uh, it was extremely helpful. So, um, yeah, did quite a few there, international ones as well uh, we well, it's interesting.
Sam Brown:Really well, we developed some were these idea projects or project, uh sorry idea competitions or project competitions, project competitions, yeah, but yeah out there spots as well so, ben, is that to win projects rather than just to come up with the concept, right cool?
Gerard Dombroski:no, yeah, that's the sort of competition I'm interested in like. I did one um for this chapel in rwanda and I was like, oh man, that's yeah, that would be an epic project. So I did this thing and I realized oh, it's actually just an idea.
Sam Brown:Competition yeah, but even even in saying that though, gerard, what that lets you do is it lets you design with freedom right, you know you're kind of unconstrained and it lets you probably express your true design voice, because you're given a brief but you're not sort of in that meeting with the clients and feeling like constricted by what they want to do, or you know budget's not really talked about in ideas competitions.
Gerard Dombroski:I don't particularly agree with that. I think there's design freedom everywhere. I think it's parameters are our freedom in essence.
Ben Sutherland:Nowadays, our idea, uh, competition is trying to get a job off gets or something like that not so long ago and he turned up, he did the site visit and how many people were on site, gerard oh, I was like 36 or something.
Gerard Dombroski:It was basically just a massive architecture, everyone from everywhere I was like is this like an nzia event or?
Sam Brown:something I feel like those is this, the design series, is somebody I feel like those it's interesting, those gets things as well, because you turn up to them and you see who's there and you're like, oh well, they've clearly, they clearly know who they're going to use already and they're just going through the processes oh yeah, but hey, you got to, you got to talk to some interesting people.
Ben Sutherland:Didn, didn't you, Gerard? Yeah?
Gerard Dombroski:some good yarns. Love a good yarn.
Sam Brown:One thing that we haven't really talked about and there's two things I just want to kind of tap off before you know, in the last sort of stages of this episode. But do you guys reckon that the awards are more objective or subjective, depending on who the judges are year to year, and that's a two-part question. And within that, do you reckon there's a general taste of projects that have been selected, particularly this year, given the ones that we're discussing, or do you think that the breadth is wide and that the sort of chosen projects that don't necessarily fit one ilk, and is there an evolving style from years before?
Gerard Dombroski:well, I think lots of colloquial pub chat you'd hear back in the day is that if you put cedar slats you're getting awarded, and I'm thinking that's a distinct lack of cedar slats. So I think that's a good evolution. Like they're just scrolling through, like there seems to be quite a diverse like I thought that as well.
Sam Brown:I thought for maybe for the first time and maybe because I'm, you know, involved in this I have been in the past, but I think maybe a little bit more so, given this is my first time being shortlisted been in the past, but I think maybe a little bit more so, given this is my first time being shortlisted for my own practice. But I thought that the range of projects that have been shortlisted is really diverse and you know, that sort of was mirrored in the judging panel that I met. You know they all came from very different backgrounds and approached the project and I assume their judging criteria in very different ways as well, from very different backgrounds and approached the project and I assume they're judging criteria in very different ways as well asked very different questions, some of them very practical, some of them a bit more about the design process, some of them were sort of talking about the materiality and the ephemeral, and I thought that was a really good balance and I think that that has been mirrored in the projects that have been selected. I don't know.
Ben Sutherland:No, I agree. I think there's a high quality of architecture in this country and they should definitely be promoted a lot more. I had a good look through and I didn't see anything that I didn't think deserved to be there for sure.
Sam Brown:And I think they're definitely discerning. I think Wellington has 36 short it, 36 shortlisted projects Off the top of my head, but something like 68 entries, so only half got through. I know Auckland was less than half the entries were awarded. I do know that for like Southern and Western, everyone that entered won, but you know they only had like 17 entries or something. So I think it's important for them to you know celebrate everybody in those areas, because the architecture quality is still really high.
Ben Sutherland:Absolutely.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, I think like going back to the sort of bringing it back to the public, I think would be like an awesome move forward if NZA did end up like adopting, like a little Kevin MacLeod style, a couple of episodes on TV or something.
Ben Sutherland:TV and scones. That would be awesome.
Gerard Dombroski:Because I think there needs to be like to go to a slightly deeper level on representation of some of the projects, because I guess you're at slight risk of perpetuating this idea that architects are acidic vanity loving. You know, we're there for the image well, I don't know about that actually for the public and it's to showcase good examples.
Gerard Dombroski:Sorry, continue yeah, sorry, continue. Yeah, let me talk. I think from the public I often hear a sentiment that, oh, architects just want a free building or this or that. But we know that there's more depth there and we want to make spaces that enrich people's lives lower carbon, all these things and I think having a mechanism in the awards that goes a little bit into more depth on like the winning projects, for example, to really like draw that link to the general public, like the you know, moms and dads who don't care about architectural awards yep, because like we're talking the other day about engaging with people that don't know they want an architect, which is the rest of the world.
Gerard Dombroski:So I think, like how we engage with them is pretty important and we could all benefit from.
Sam Brown:Well, interestingly, Gerard, when you do enter and I think it could be done really easily what you're talking about, yeah, it's not hard.
Sam Brown:No, because when you do enter to, you have to fill out quite a comprehensive outline of your project.
Sam Brown:You need to talk about what your brief was, your site and context, materiality, impact on the community, impact on the environment, sustainability, and you have to also mention like the cost and the scale and all this sort of stuff.
Sam Brown:So you have to give quite a quite comprehensive project breakdown which is given to the judges along with your pretty pictures. And I think if that comprehensive breakdown which we're required to put in in the judges read that's never then shot back up to the general public and I think it absolutely should be like why shouldn't you be able to click into a shortlisted project and see that breakdown? So if you know, say, jeff and jeff and belinda from down the road were like I really love that house, I want to know more about it. They can click in and find out more. And then it's more than them just looking at a pretty picture and being like I really like that house and they're like I really like that house and the way the architect's gone about it, and I think that would help us in terms of our engagement with the public from a potential client point of view yeah yeah, absolutely.
Ben Sutherland:Oh well, should we. Um it's finished. Should we wrap it up?
Sam Brown:yeah, maybe, maybe, but um, yeah, I mean good chat. I think I've talked about this all day. Well, yeah, exactly, I mean, and there's that and there's stuff that we haven't covered as well. I think one thing that we're very architecture focused today, and I obviously understandably, given that we're all in that field. But I think the same conversation could definitely be had for any creative field, be it literature, art, design.
Sam Brown:Gerard, you know like it'll be interesting one day, yeah, well, yeah, we probably don't have the time right now, but get your take on. You know the role of awards in furniture and things like that as well, because that's definitely an industry where awards are very important, I'd say, and quite prevalent.
Gerard Dombroski:Here's a quick funny story. A while ago, I submitted four projects to the Best Awards. This was like 2018 or something like back in the day. Um, my giant blue couch, yeah, the couch, yep, that's like these projects that were epic, epic projects and never got anywhere. So like 1200 bucks down the drain right, that was humble pie but I mean, you tackled one avenue right.
Gerard Dombroski:There are other avenues maybe, but you can't find all your validation in an award. Like, we're all artists in our own sort of realm and what we're working towards sometimes will be recognized by other people and sometimes not. So I think that's. I think if awards swayed you too much, if they, like, gave you a reason to live or not to live, if that was your sole focus.
Sam Brown:You should probably be rethinking things be overly concerned with awards.
Gerard Dombroski:I think we're more just trying to work, work on our craft and this little ideas in our own head that I find potentially more important.
Sam Brown:Yeah, it's the cherry on the cake, right, but you still want to meet them.
Gerard Dombroski:Yeah, but I love the award and they're awesome. It's good to validate and I love to share the stoke, so if somebody's doing awesome work, I really hope they're getting high fives.
Sam Brown:Well, that's actually a good place to leave things. I think Gerard is share the stoke. I mean everybody this year that's been shortlisted. If you win or don't, yeah, huge congratulations and good luck. Well-deserved good luck, but also if you win or don't win. You know credit. You've made it this far at least. And for those that even entered and weren't shortlisted, don't be, you know, don't be disheartened. Your projects still, still incredible projects. If they weren't, you wouldn't have thought about entering. So take heart from that and just enter next year.
Ben Sutherland:Absolutely yeah. I mean, if you've got a project that you're even thinking about entering or thought about entering, then kudos to you.
Sam Brown:Yeah, but yeah, good luck to everybody and I guess we will probably return sometime in the next couple of months with the winners. Yeah, thanks very much and that's all from me. Gerard, do you want? To thank, mr Stantz.
Gerard Dombroski:Cheers, guys, and we will talk to you in two weeks. Thanks again to Jacob Marshall for the sound and Colin Dolman for the visual art. See you, guys, next time.