From Vice to Nice: Running an Architecture Practice in Miami

From Vice to Nice_ Running an Architecture Practice in Miami
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[00:00:00]

Stephen Drew: Hello, everyone. Strap on in. Maybe you're in the UK. It's raining. Maybe, have you thought about flying a few hours overseas? That's right, transatlantic, lots of cool stuff happening. No more Will Smith in the location I'm on about. This is somewhere really cool. Get your mustaches and neon lights going, because we're going to Miami.

Ah, damn, I give it away before the catch up. 10 seconds.

Hello everyone, wherever you are in the world, whether you're in the UK in the evening, or maybe you're on the beach somewhere. Or maybe you're [00:01:00] designing in a really cool location, which happens to be near the beach. Maybe, Like my guests, you specialize in these places as well. So we are gonna be teleported if you, especially in the uk, to Miami, because I've got you the fantastic Mathias from MIK architecture who specializes in creating awesome build projects in the Miami area.

Mathias, how are you today? Are you okay?

Matias Daroch: I'm amazing. Thank you so much for having me today.

Stephen Drew: I, the pleasure is all mine. Now, I, luckily we've got you in the business hours here. There's a lot of stuff happening, but in case some of the listeners here, they don't know who you are. First of all, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and then a little bit about MIK?

Matias Daroch: Absolutely. So yeah, I live in Miami, like you very well explained. And, but I am originally from Chile in Latin America. And I got my architecture [00:02:00] school, architecture degree in Chile, and I, came to the U. S. into Miami back in 2016 with Pretty interesting and a very ignorant plan, you could say, because, you come here and not know anything but to build and, develop a real estate investment family office, you can call it, with a we started with some single family homes here and there, and affordable homes, and it started to grow up and grow up, and I started to learn more and more until I got I said, you know what, Architects here doesn't help me that much on the developer side.

They're great for homeowners, for sure, but on the developer side, I can't find that architect that's going to help us with our single family stuff and is going to give us on time the developer time, not the homeowner time. And so I decided, you know what, heck, I had my architecture degree in Chile, so let me go and grab the one in Florida.

And it took me two years but eventually, yeah, I got it in 2019 and in 2020, I founded MIT Architecture. [00:03:00] To help all the developers, all the investors build and design these amazing single family homes. Either most of them are for sell but you can also sell them or rent them, keep them in rent.

But that's what our niche is, residential, single family, high end homes to build.

Stephen Drew: nice. Good for you. While we're talking, I'm going to bring up the link here. We can have a little look at this stuff. Now, it looks a little bit different than some of the projects we're used to in the UK, so I'm going to showcase some of the typologies here as well. But what would be really cool, and we've got some projects here, I know we can run through one in a bit, but tell me about Miami.

What's it like building buildings or residential single dwellings in Miami? Is there a style? Is there some stuff you have to consider? The location, the weather or all that stuff? What's it like in Miami?

Matias Daroch: Or maybe all of them. Yeah. So I would say, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago, there was a more specific. South Floridan [00:04:00] style of the four pitch roof, all the, everything's built like in concrete, masonry units, the cinder blocks or whatever you want to call it. And very simple, very low, trying to fend off the heat and the light.

But today we got a market that is very influenced by Latin America countries. And in a bit more of a contemporary style, more modern style with a lot of light, with a lot of, floor to ceiling windows a touch of modern stuff warmer stuff here and there, and of course, why not, vegetation has to be included in all our projects.

And then climate wise, it depends a lot of where and what specific part of Miami you're placing, because there's part that you know you're going to get flooded. You can't put your house just there, you have to bring it up. For example, that first house you're seeing there, Crystal House the first one to the left, yeah, that one, we had to elevate the whole house up because it was in a [00:05:00] flood zone.

We ended up putting the carport area there, and we got a pool area, and all the outdoor spaces are right under the house. The pool is, A little bit exposed, but a little bit covered too. And then on top of that, you got the two stories of the house. And because it got so high, we said, you know what?

Let's also do a rooftop. Why not? the top there, you can see some of the sea and that's the backyard. So I don't know. We got a lot of things going on every single project. Every single project just can be very similar or super different. And this, for example, has a much smaller lot than another project we have going on, which is, I don't know, five times a lot than this

Stephen Drew: Wow. My goodness.

Matias Daroch: Yeah, it's huge.

Stephen Drew: Now, compared to a house in, if you're in any city in central England, like London or Wales or whatever, right? It the houses are smaller and cost of fortune. What's the typical kind of [00:06:00] setup then in Miami? Is because this looks to me like luxury. Millionaire kind of living.

Is there all kinds of demographic in Miami? Is it all glamorous at the beach? Is it all these houses or does it vary by based on location as well?

Matias Daroch: In the homes here with the highest, the top of the line, the things that you can't even imagine for some it's imaginable, of course, are the waterfront properties where you can park your boat, 400, 000 or a million dollar boat and in those waterfront properties, you can go anywhere from, I don't know, 4 million for something that is already built there to up to 45 million, maybe.

Stephen Drew: Woo.

Matias Daroch: Yeah, and so the market is crazy. And then we are also talking about. Properties that are more to the inside, like inland, that doesn't have the waterfront, that you can't park a boat. And our projects range between 5 and 12 [00:07:00] million dollars in the sale value afterwards. But you can also start working stuff that is crazy, like

Stephen Drew: It's it's a different world. And then what I quite like it as well. So you've come to Miami, you set all this stuff up as well, but tell me also the early days with MIK, it was it all glam and all this stuff, or did you have to hustle and bustle at the start to build up this profile in Miami, which you were new to at one point.

Now you've got this. Portfolio, but how did you get going in the, in this, in this crazy environment? Yeah.

Matias Daroch: two things that, that when That had guided me to the path that I'm on right now. And of course, when you start, it wasn't glamorous at all. It wasn't bad either because I had projects and I started the firm with already five projects active. But we're talking, smaller residential renovation projects or extensions or my bread and butter project by then, the single family of 1500 square feet or 150 meter square meter.

Affordable home, [00:08:00] which we did. I think we ended up doing four or five of those. And the second part of that path is that we managed to start working with more developers and people more interested in jumping into the next Part of the development phases, because you always, the entry level is that affordable housing.

And then we go a bit higher to something that could be sold at, I don't know, 2 million and then something a bit more higher than that. And I partnered up with an amazing team of builders and realtors. And we ended up. Creating this developer group together and we're looking for that opportunity, looking for that investor, trying to match them and I get to design it and the builder gets to build it and the builder gets to sell it.

So it's like a, it's an, it's a great cycle there that we have. And it spiraled way fast and very high until these projects that we have right now and and new bankers that. We expect to sell it at 10 something. And and that's basically a repeat after that, when the first ones are [00:09:00] good and you got a good investors.

And it doesn't mean I did not, I did get good investors always, but that repeat investor is making you, it's pushing you for more and more all the time because.

Stephen Drew: Now, fair enough. You've done really well. So how many, so paint a picture there. You have a few members of staff, right? And we're going to get onto the bit, the multidisciplinary aspect of MIK. What was it like though, going from that jump from just being yourself to going I need to hire people.

Was it at the time a bit of a leap of faith or was it a bit scary? How did you go through that point?

Matias Daroch: I'm going to say I was both lucky and training, training myself. So I did in the early stages, got someone who could help me and mentor me on the architectural business side. So basically a business coach and, but at the same time, and they help us structure the firm, create the [00:10:00] vision of it and all, and, But the hiring part, it was still not, I wasn't in that lesson yet.

And but it happened to CrossPath with someone I knew at the first time, my first hire was someone I already knew from before, but he had to go. And then the second was someone who knew my wife. And, we started working with one or two projects together and now he's basically full time with me.

And after that, someone else also came in as someone that we had a mutual acquaintance. So that's my lucky side because almost everyone in the firm today is. Is came to the office by a mutual acquaintance or someone we knew and someone that we could trust a little bit more than just in the pool.

And had the opportunity to, and I had the opportunity to take them and let's go over it from there. Amazing. And in the process, they've helped me build systems and all, and we, I don't know, I, at least I think we have fun together when we are building this family,

Stephen Drew: good for you. It, I'm working it [00:11:00] out as I go along now. I ask people all this stuff. I'm trying to frantically work it out. Currently, I have three members of staff and I'm trying to work it out as we go. And you touched upon that. You try to create a healthy kind of environment.

What's the kind of typical culture, office culture there at MIK? What do you Try and aim for materials. Oh, and what would be cool as well while we're on it. So we've got the culture. What is a typical day like working as an architecture practice in Miami?

Matias Daroch: Oh, you would think it's all beaches and sunlight and going out

Stephen Drew: Unbelievable.

Matias Daroch: right. I think why even in Miami, we're not going to the beach. We did go sailing the other day. One of our team members got a boat, invited us and we talked on Friday and. I had a good time. But no, our typical day is coming to the office, sitting down like anyone else on the computer, answering 10, 000 questions trying to get over with the permitting stuff that is us.

for [00:12:00] joining us today, and we will see you in the next session. And yeah, so it's that we use we're mostly sitting down and the computer, we're like all together side by side and then like a corner of the office. And and we also have part of the team is remote, so we always connect and we are all day connected with those remote people.

And, when lunchtime comes we try to get lunch all together, always, every day. And there we talk live stuff and whatnot. Sometimes work still.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Matias Daroch: And, yeah, and go back to either having phone conversations, calls, presentations, and, typical. I think, at least I think typical architectural stuff.

Not so different in Miami.

Stephen Drew: All right. All right. But yeah, no, that's cool. [00:13:00] That's cool. But it's nice to know that. You can go different parts of the world. And there there's a lot of commonality with the role as well. A quick, silly question because in the UK around a few years ago, everyone was moving to BIM Revit or a little bit of ArchiCAD in the UK and in the states.

I'm not too sure how prevalent that is. There are still some companies here using cad. There is some use in Revit. It depends more on the typology of the projects. What do you use, Batir, in your day to day there as well?

Matias Daroch: we are a full Revit firm.

Stephen Drew: Revit! You're in BIM. Miami, we're not messing around. It's all BIM.

Matias Daroch: At least we are. I wouldn't say all Miami is BIM.

Stephen Drew: really? We got some more accounts still going.

Matias Daroch: no yeah. We got a lot of architects here in Miami. You can find one around every corner. It's like Almost Starbucks but many of them are old school, or [00:14:00] very old school architects and they have not moved from CAD and they don't think I'm from CAD.

I have pretty good references and people that I've actually referred to when I'm not doing that type of work, the biology of work and the other two are firms that are referenced to is, are 100 percent CAD, and it's Sorry but yeah, us, BIM, and a few handful more that I know of, but I wouldn't say most of it.

Stephen Drew: all right. Fair enough. Now, one of the quirky things with MIK that you told me before we were When we were talking about a few things we could discuss today, it's actually that you're under the same roof as a builder, which is not conventional at all in the UK. And that has its own, probably a lot of positives and a lot of quirks, I want to say.

It's a bit different, right? Can you tell us, first of all, how did that came about that you were like sharing like roomies with a builder, and then how can that be a cool special relationship [00:15:00] that works at the moment

Matias Daroch: the reason I came to Miami is because of that builder, and he was also an architect, so we got the goods there in the between. He's a architect mentality and all, but his license is General Contractor, so Builder. And after I, and we basically got our license together around the same time, my architecture license and his builder's license.

So the only natural thing to follow when we were developing together was to partner up, and keep up keep up pushing us forward. And today they are as big they're a very big building firm. And they be mostly my projects that I do because of this, devolved developer and cycle thing.

And in, in the pros part it's great to have that feedback when you're designing as, your projects has a budget, when you're designing, you're not sure, shoot, is this going to blow up the project? It's not going to blow up the project. So it's a great [00:16:00] coordination. It's almost like we are in the in house, and.

Just, screaming to the side, Hey, how was the last the, I don't know, sliding windows costing, is it, do we have to reduce them? They have to make it slightly smaller. Can we go a bit larger? And then you start designing because we're designing for developers and investors.

You want to make it efficient. So that connection is so important. That's key to make that efficiency work. That doesn't mean that we design it with all this information and eventually we still have to value engineer it. Because market still goes up and down and between us submitting to the city and then starting to bid it out is still four or five months, difference.

And for them, it's amazing because they get to hear us and any RFIs they have in construction, they don't have to submit it and wait for us a few days to get back and all. It's just shouting back to us, Hey, what happened here?

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Yeah. That.

Matias Daroch: not the[00:17:00]

Stephen Drew: Yeah, no, I was going to say you can't. The one upside is the communication is amazing, but equally, there's no escaping, right? So there's no secrets in this place. Everyone shares the same problems and there's no tag, you're right. It's like there's, it's full on accountability. On top of there being a building team, though, which is better, which is unique in itself, is almost 360 here because you also have The developer, you have the developers in the house as well, so you have the development team, you're the design team, I'm guessing in this analogy, and you've got the build team as well.

You find projects, design projects, and build projects. How do you find the projects to begin with?

Matias Daroch: It's not me that I find, it's part of the team, of

Stephen Drew: Oh, thank goodness. You can't do everything. It was getting a bit crazy there,

Matias Daroch: our developer group, because what we did was partner [00:18:00] up, create this developer group. So I'm architect, but also developer. Wearing a hat of the other person from time to time. So I do perform as, I love Excel, believe it or not.

Stephen Drew: Oh, that's, if you say that out loud, normally you get given the task all the time. That's the danger of saying you love it, isn't it?

Matias Daroch: Yeah, that's, and I do get the task a lot, but yeah. So the person in charge, like in the day to day the developer firm is also a realtor and he's always in the lookout of a lot of opportunities because I'm sure in London has the same thing, something comes up to sale and how long does it take to go to, to sell, actually sell and go in the contract over here is a matter of days, if not a week sometimes when it's too pricey, it takes longer and you can start negotiating down.

But regardless, it's the cycle of that opportunity appearing [00:19:00] and you taking it as super, super fast. So you have to have someone that is every day looking for these new opportunities, listing wise, or actively searching for it and all, so that's one person. But I do get that property and you have to study what you can build on it, hey, I found this, it's a good neighborhood, it's a good price point, I'm not sure how much we can build.

I have some Excel calculation for him to do, or sometimes the city has the information on the website, so it's easier. Once we're on the contract, I had to do a full feasibility study. We can't get, we can't get it wrong. And yeah, so that's when we get on it right away.

Stephen Drew: It's interesting because here in the UK, there's some, there's a few different ways that architects win work. Either they go in from, they bid, they go into bids with, it can be competitions or with the public sector. Basically, they've got to get, write this whole bid and stuff. But then if there's those relationships with the developer here in the UK, some architects will do it.

feasibility [00:20:00] studies quick for free in kind of hopes that they do that and then they win the project. Is that quite common in Miami or is it more that you do that after? You just mentioned you might do Excel and work with a developer a bit or is there still a bit of doing that feasibility with other developers as well to try and get the work in?

Matias Daroch: First of all, I don't think there's many architecture firms that do feasibility studies down here.

Stephen Drew: All right.

Matias Daroch: yeah, weirdly. But the ones that do, I've heard that they try, they just do the architectural, the, the sizing of a, what can, size of built on we do a bit more of the research of septic tanks.

I don't know if we have any or trees that might be a conflict or any specific local codes to And I'm not sure if they do it for free or not, to be honest. I think I would say they do it for free trying in hopes of looking for the work laterwards. But, and to answer your first question most of the architecture firms bid out or give [00:21:00] proposals.

They're not actively looking for a a project to work on or advertising the free facilities.

Stephen Drew: It's become quite contentious here in the UK at the moment because an architect can spend a lot of money trying to win a work, not get it. And, especially in the competition area in the UK, some of the prizes, or maybe there's this tiny bursary for the architect to do work, to participate, but it doesn't near cover the cost here.

Yeah. That's why I was more interested to ask, and in here you have what's called the the Royal Institute of British Architect, scale of a project, and it goes from zero. To seven zero is basically the ideas phase all the way to like practical completion at the end In Miami, I imagine you've got your own procedure as well, right?

So it you are all following the a i A and all that guidance, I'm guessing, so I

Matias Daroch: It's, no it's super similar. Of course, it's not like a [00:22:00] must do requirement and up to the letter, to the, it's not very, it's not a hundred percent strict on it, but we all understand the faces of pretty. Pre schematic or preliminary, and then schematic designs and development, bidding and procurement.

I think you could call it, we call it just construction. And then

Stephen Drew: this is construction. This is getting it built. We're not doing seven stages here with build and design.

Matias Daroch: Yeah. And it's for anyone wants to know more in detail, we have that on our website, like our process. It's very similar to the AIA, A I A M N.

Stephen Drew: Fair, fair enough. I'll bring it up actually. We can quickly walk through it. There we go. So feasibility

Matias Daroch: Oh, I actually missed one.

Stephen Drew: You've missed one. Don't

Matias Daroch: Construction documents. Oh God, I forgot.

Stephen Drew: have said anything. No one in the UK would have known a difference. There you go. You're too

Matias Daroch: now they know that I'm not [00:23:00] perfect.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, don't worry. You're on the right show for that.

You've got me driving it. It's like having a student in your or the new, the newbie on the team driving the presentation, you'd be like, Oh, he's clicking here, there. What is he doing? But it's actually really good to see. I'm going to bring the link up while you're here.

And just so people can check it out. M I K architecture. com. There you go. And now I can see here the phases and stuff and we talked about what it's like in Miami. It'll give me a bit of an idea. We've got these beautiful projects here as well. The listeners on the Architecture Social, a lot of the people are at different points in their career.

And so what I would love to know, because I often ask people in the UK what they look for in the CV and portfolio, that kind of stuff. I'm conscious. That it would be really cool to understand. What you would look for as well. So I'm sure that you, when you get a role, maybe we could [00:24:00] focus on the student area for now.

Say now you're looking for a graduate architect or architectural designer at the moment in your practice, Matthias, what kind of tips would you give someone at the moment to stand out in a pile of lots and lots of CVs and portfolios or resumes, I should say, as you call them in America, sorry.

Matias Daroch: Oh, I call them CVs, in fact, I continue to call them CVs too.

Stephen Drew: exactly. Europe, transatlantic. Come on now. Yeah, we're

Matias Daroch: I would say one of the, one of the things that bothers me the most it bores me to death is having that list of projects. Hey, this project this and that, and like with the address and all. It's great that you did a lot of projects, but if you don't tell me what you, yeah, you put the position there, but again, positions are relative on every form.

So if you don't shortly explain what you actually did, the biggest challenge was for you and what you learned from it, I get, I'm not, I just skip the whole thing [00:25:00] because and you see right away in the first project, if they're describing it or not. And that means that they're describing the other ones.

So I would say that's And what I'm trying to say is, try to express in just one page or two, at the most two pages what experience you have, not in, in the sense of how many square foot you did, but in the sense of what actually was the challenge and how you overcome the challenge and what you learned from that.

And also please don't forget Your first, uh, paragraph profile to describe yourself, you know, sometimes they skip it and it's if I like the rest, I want to go and read their profiles to see a bit, try to get a bit more in depth, understanding the big picture. And it's not there.

It's like. Who are you? I know you've done all this and all, but who are you? What do you like? What style are you?

Stephen Drew: yeah.

Matias Daroch: and then small, smaller things, that I like what I do a lot. And I've seen a lot is all the programs they're listing and maybe the scale level, but I don't know why everyone is either eight or nine or 10 in skills [00:26:00] and software.

There's no a five, but anyways,

Stephen Drew: I, yeah, I get, and also, what does the bar mean, right? If I think I'm 10 out of 10, I try to advise people to start quantifying it. Three years of industry experience in using Revit, you're more likely to be higher on the scale than not. What would be cool also now, so you touched there about the CV now interviews, it's a bit of a strange one because it was all.

In person, pandemic came along and shook it all up a bit. It was all online. And now I'm seeing a trend to going more in, in person again for interviews, which I actually think is quite important because you want to see the environment you're working at as well. What's it typical? interview format like in your practice or practices in the USA.

And then I'd love to know what it's like. And then if you have one or two tips for what you would think is a good interview from your perspective as well. Yeah,

Matias Daroch: [00:27:00] in that aspect, I won't say I have much experience because like I said before, I was looking and I had these specific persons that, that I was a mutual acquaintance, but the typical thing is to. See out their resume, their CDs and and do one long interview, like a 40 minute interview or something like that.

And what I am trying to look there is how they're responding more than what they respond is how they're, answering. If they think about it a bit more, the question, if they ask me, if they ask me something to better understand the question, there's nothing in, There's no rule that says you can't ask questions to better understand the question that they're making you to respond.

And that means that they're open to learn more or to better understand what they're hearing. That I would think is like the biggest tip I can give. Other than that, I am completely ignorant and if I [00:28:00] have to do a summary and an interview for a job, I would be at the same stages as you.

Stephen Drew: no, and it's one of these things sometimes people ask me what is, you never really know how an interview will be, and it's so personal, I think, based on different companies, different style and different levels. So it's yeah. It is one of those things that you can never predict. I'll tell you what was interesting and timely.

So right, so pre pandemic, everyone was in the office then. And I speak to my old directors and I'm like, I'll rephrase. I would speak to my directors many years ago, which could be phrased as the old times. Not that they were old! See, this is what happens when you do a podcast at 7pm. I'm going to get in trouble with all the people I know.

They're going to be like, how dare you? No, but what I mean is, back then, I would speak to directors and they would say, you can't run an architectural practice remote. You've got to be in, Matthias, now. And I think things have [00:29:00] changed, but we've gone one way to fully remote during the pandemic in the UK.

And now we're seeing, People come back in and I've done a a poll and I think basically everyone would like the idea of hybrid work. No one wants to go in full time per se, but what we're seeing is there is a trend of going more back to in the office. So I'd say in London right now, the norm is between.

I have a full time that's coming back or working four days and one day remote and mixing it up. And I think the idea is if you're a graduate, you probably need to be in the office way more because you're learning. There's mixed views on that. We're working it out at the moment.

Is that similar thing in Miami? Did you go from all in? pandemic and now we're working it out then as you go.

Matias Daroch: Miami was very particular in that because we weren't restricted to be at the office. That being said, like in the whole Miami area, many offices stayed open and still went. [00:30:00] That office I referred to, CAD, 100 percent office, non, non, 0 percent remote, and they still are. In our case we did remote, fully remote for a while.

I would say most part of the year. I did full remote for a year and a half because of it. Just having a baby but today and we, today we have it flexible, like for the people that are in the office, because we still have to like fully remote because they're elsewhere and not in, not even, they're like back in Chile.

For the people in the office, we do it flexible. Hey, if you want to go have a trip someday and, want to go one day sooner and get remote that week, full week, one day, whatever, it's fine. But I would say most of us prefer to be at the office. It's

Stephen Drew: Yeah,

Matias Daroch: one thing is to share the screen, to try to explain what you're doing and what your question is.

With Revit or with whatever, Redlining or whatnot, and a completely different thing is actually [00:31:00] sitting both heads, looking at the same screen where we can point the fingers at. It's a completely different aspect. And of course, face to face is, it's great.

Stephen Drew: I I agree. And it was interesting, the poll I did a year ago, most people said they went to their work three days. Oh, the door's gone. Let's see who's that. It's Amazon, was it?

Matias Daroch: Maybe.

Stephen Drew: We'll have to see when it comes down. But yeah, so the popular vote a year ago was three days a week, but actually in the poll, now people want to go in four days a week.

So it's interesting how I think, given the, I think the choice of flexibility is important, and I think flexibility is nice, but it's interesting that when there is that flexibility, actually people do enjoy coming to the office. But yeah. Even we're learning here now I have one other question I wanted to talk about because in the UK, we're working that out.

However, a lot of technology's changing from, the people, maybe not quite in Miami, but Silicon Valley's up to a lot with AI. [00:32:00] We're seeing all these tools come, PropTech, all this stuff as well, especially ChatGPT. I know there was AI before, but that came on the scene and it really has changed.

Things quite a bit. Some people in the UK have said nothing's really changed. Someone's very annoyed that they're not, you're not letting them in. You're like, go away. I'm on the live stream. But where I'm going is that some people think a lot's changed. Some people think nothing's changed at all. What's your views?

Do you use AI in your company? Do you think it's going to be used a bit more or how do you feel about it all?

Matias Daroch: On the marketing side, we completely use AI. It's a game changer. Just to brainstorm ideas, even like talking to someone for some stuff. Amazing. It's weird. And I was talking to the machine, but yeah, that's what AI is. On the production of the architecture side, we've been trying to, we've been exploring I don't think it's there yet to implement like fully on the.

Architecture side, at [00:33:00] least for the single family stages, for multifamily or multi multi-unit projects. Yeah, multi-use projects. There's amazing stuff that out there. Amazing. And you can see it. We tried it out and it gives you layouts and efficiency is, and you can even change it, make your own layout and make it, reproduce it 10,000 times.

But for single family, it's not like quite there yet. And also render style. Um, it helps you give you changes of style and idea, but we don't actually change that much style either. Are exploring and I think it's it is a game changer. I strongly believe that those firms that don't start exploring and don't start using AI are going to be in trouble in a few years to come.

I'm not saying next year or the year after, but five years down the road, they might be in trouble. I strongly believe that

Stephen Drew: Yeah, it can't

Matias Daroch: yeah it's not something that's replacing. It's just that you're getting much more [00:34:00] efficient in the production side. So at the end you're, you can, I can sell efficiency and while the other firm can't, and I can accept more projects while the other firms can.

And the end is just and better quality maybe. But If you don't start looking for that efficiency, then

Stephen Drew: Yeah,

Matias Daroch: labor in Miami is not cheap. Not going to get it from, I don't know how you're going to get the efficiency.

Stephen Drew: I agree. I think so. And it reminds me, I know CAD to BIM was one term. I see that AI is another tool and it would be interesting, the echoes of conversations I have where people would not really embrace BIM and then when it finally came around to the point where you had to do it, people would reluctantly do it, but they were two or three years behind.

So my view is if you can bring AI in now Removes certain things. Actually, it's a good thing. I use it in the business all the time for anything written. I think it's a great [00:35:00] prompt to get going. Do you see it bleeding into that stuff? You mentioned the marketing stuff, Mateo. Where else is it is he potentially useful?

Do you have any predictions for more how it will work? And I don't mean so much the drawings per se, but is there any, do you think maybe it will optimize your Excel list that you passionately hold on to?

Matias Daroch: Eventually. I hope so. Fix this error that I have, please.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, just Microsoft have released Copilot and I'm testing that out at the moment. I still think it needs a lot of driving. However, the concept of Outlook, Excel, Word, don't really use Word so much anymore. That's pretty powerful, right? Maybe at one point we'll get to where someone is Copilot ing an email.

To someone else who's also put in another email, and then it'll just be two people in Miami Beach, and they go, I thought you just emailed me just now, and someone's across from them. But anyways I'm curious to see that, where that will go. And the [00:36:00] last question I was going to throw is, we talked about the future of technology.

However That in the UK, it's been a bit difficult, right? At the moment in the economy, we've been waiting for the interest rates to basically went really sky high year, Matias, and it stopped a lot of projects. And now it looks like the market confidence is coming back. What's it like for you?

Are you feeling confident for the outlook in Miami at the moment? Is the economy pulling in the right direction for you in the, currently in the States?

Matias Daroch: Currently in Miami, not the States, in Miami I would say we're pulling the right in the right direction. We're moving forward. And now we can talk about the. in depth of it, but mostly it's because There's many people migrating to Miami.

Stephen Drew: Right.

Matias Daroch: People businesses, like headquarters. When you move to headquarters, every top level staff also moves with you.

We're getting a lot of top level C suite people of this [00:37:00] big big businesses coming down to Miami. And it's pushing away smaller businesses. People that don't earn that much because it's crazy, people coming in, everything is going up and then it pushes, pushes the other, the bottom part.

So it's terrible in one way, but if you think of a developer, then you've got even more opportunities coming your way.

Stephen Drew: Yeah.

Matias Daroch: Yeah, so on our side, I would say Miami is like that special market because we're not only migrating from Latin American countries, but it's also from New York, from California and even some people from Russia coming down here and coming here.

So we got all this mix, which is also cool. And lots of Spanish speakers, by the way. And I don't know it's that biggest key factor that is making us move forward while the rest of the U. S., I can't say the same thing.

Stephen Drew: I got you. It's a similar thing in London right now, where on one hand, these great [00:38:00] developments add a lot of benefits to the area, but you just have to be conscious about putting, pushing people out. The most extreme example I've seen online, you don't need to comment about it, San Francisco, California, I've seen one or two documentaries, and that is totally, that is crazy level where it's just, It's just, I don't even know how to begin there.

It's absolutely all this different stuff. But the Miami world is very different. It sounds like it, it's, that's a whole different kettle of fish, which I don't even want to get into, but you can look online. It's all this crazy stuff. But anyways, we bring it back. Now we wrap up on the note.

So we've got MIK Architecture. We've got all the cool stuff then, but before we tell everyone where they can get in touch I guess it's a chance for you to flip the script on me. You might have a few, one or two questions for me. Is there anything, Matthias, you wanted to ask me at all? Anything?

Matias Daroch: Oh, this is amazing. Yeah. Can I ask you something unrelated?

Stephen Drew: Yeah, go on. Whatever you want.

Matias Daroch: What position do you play in rugby?

Stephen Drew: I [00:39:00] didn't, don't play any Is it because I'm

Matias Daroch: Come on!

Stephen Drew: I used to, right? So I used to play prop.

Matias Daroch: yeah. Yeah. Oh, you used to.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. So I was never fast enough to be, a wingman and stuff and all, hook and everything, but prop, he shoved me in and I'll drive it forward and that's what I used to do.

And I did enjoy rugby a lot. I've let it go a bit recently, but my dad would be very happy he brought that up. As a Welshman, he's very passionate about his rugby and the big thing here, the big thing is England versus Wales. And we actually get along, but when it comes to rugby, not so much anymore for us, until the match, it's and I'm in London, so I gotta be really careful there, I'm like, go Wales!

Surrounded in the pub with all my English comrades, but there you go, so I was a prop. Do you play rugby then? Because you mentioned

Matias Daroch: I did play before. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: What were you?

Matias Daroch: I was a central, second central. Is that what you say in Spanish? [00:40:00] I played in Chile, but most of the office played rugby one way or the other. So it's. It's pretty funny.

Stephen Drew: there you go. There you go. I'd be in the prop just getting smashed. I'm lucky I haven't got cauliflower ears because it gets pretty rough, doesn't it? It gets pretty mental. And, there is a skill to soccer, but when you've been thrashed around in rugby, it's like that episode of Friends where Ross plays rugby and just gets absolutely demolished.

And I know American football is is taxing in another

Matias Daroch: helmets and stuff. It's not the same thing.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, rugby, you just get proper smashed in the ground. First time you're properly winded, yeah you think you're gonna die. But no, as I play rugby, is there anything other than that, anything architectural related, anything you want to ask about London or anything before we go?

Matias Daroch: Oh no, I'm good.

Stephen Drew: You're good. No, we don't care about that. We care about Miami. I tell you one last thing while you're here, which I absolutely love, little mini confession online. I am addicted. Of course, I love MK Architecture. [00:41:00] But there is this chap that I follow on YouTube called Ben Maller, who's a property developer.

down in florida and like absolutely wild on youtube and i absolutely love it and so it's like my mini is as he's not quite in miami but you know like that whole area and all that cool stuff is really interesting so i absolutely love the environment you're in but

Matias Daroch: now I have two reasons to come down here.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, and yeah, he's a developer, so he's a potential client.

But let me tell you, he is absolutely wild in the best way. I don't know how Grand Theft Auto have not made him into a character, right? Because he's like an absolute gangster in the coolest possible way. But he's really cool. Now, before we go, everyone can find MK Architecture online, which is www.[00:42:00]

mkarchitecture. com. But Matthias, if someone wants to reach out and they want to learn more about you, talk about Miami, talk about the projects, talk about all the cool stuff, you're in those builders development, where do they find you for all that cool stuff?

Matias Daroch: I always redirect them to my website and there's a contact tab there. And if you go there, you got all the information. You got a phone number, you got an email, you even got a form down below if you want to. Write down directly there. Anyways, we're happy to respond. So go for it. And and thank you so much for having me.

It was very fun.

Stephen Drew: problem. You've had to persevere with me. for 45 minutes, but you're lucky because now it's over and you can find out who was at the door. I just hope I haven't got you in trouble. It's like that package that you wanted and the one time they come is when you're live. You're there for the window get out of here.

I need to go. So

Matias Daroch: I'm sure someone in the office that was looking at this [00:43:00] podcast this live went to the door and thank you for that. Anyone in the office?

Stephen Drew: they crawled underneath and, just Hello. And someone's like, why are you on the floor? But I joke. Thank you so much for being here. You're an absolute gentleman. I really appreciate it. And thanks for humor on me while I learn about my house. Cause it's a different world.

It's the same, but it's different. So I really appreciate you showing all that stuff. Stay on the stage for one second, Matthias, cause I'm going to close down the podcast, but just before we do, I'm going to tell everyone for one minute. I have more content coming tomorrow and the day after, but I've been running around like a crazy person and I haven't scheduled it yet, so it will be a surprise, and I can't even remember what it is, but I've got two things planned for the next two days, so it's a surprise.

For me and for you, but let me know what you thought about this. And if you're in the Miami area, you need to check out MIK Architecture. So on that note, thank you so much, everyone. [00:44:00] Have a lovely evening, or if you're watching the replay, have a good day where you are and I'll see you all soon. Take care.

Bye bye everyone. Take care. Bye bye.