:scale Spotlight ft. Sana Tabassum - Exploring Architecture, Community, and Collaboration

:scale Spotlight ft. Sana Tabassum - Exploring Architecture, Community, and Collaboration
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Stephen Drew: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Drew and I'm joined here by Sana, who is the founder of Scale. Hi Sana, how are you today?

Sana Tabassum: Hi Stephen, I'm good, thank you, how are you?

Stephen Drew: I'm living the dream, living the COVID architecture dream, but no, there's a lot of good things going on. What are you up to today, first of all?

Sana Tabassum: Firstly, I've got to proofread the magazine. I've got a couple of guest posts I need to sort out. Editors, and then I'm working a bit on the Mad Collective that's coming out too. Wow. So I've got to create some newsletters for that. Oh, wow.

Stephen Drew: So

Sana Tabassum: there's a bit much going on.

Stephen Drew: Super, there's loads of stuff going on, so for anyone that doesn't know you already, doesn't know much about yourself or Scale, maybe we can go back, because you talked about the magazine, you talked about a few really exciting stuff there.

What is Scale all about?

Sana Tabassum: So Scale is basically a blog that I started last year after [00:01:00] I graduated from the University of Greenwich. And I essentially just wanted to get some kind of tutorials and small articles out there to help other students in their first and second years. And so from there, it grew into more of a community based platform where I was inviting actual students to come along and write their own opinions and things like that.

And obviously now it's also turned into a magazine. So it's very much a platform for young students and designers.

Stephen Drew: That's awesome. And it's very interesting, isn't it? Because we're talking about magazines, and you have the Kickstarter, so I'm looking forward to, Hey, I'm looking forward to my copy of that as well.

I got excited about it. And what's interesting is that so you've got the website, you've got. Quite an active Instagram, and you're now part of the MAD Collective as well, and we'll go into that in a bit. So it is, so the scale has organically grown across different mediums. Where did [00:02:00] it start out?

Did it start out with you and a website and a bit of Instagram, or?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, so the idea was always in the back of my mind. So you could say it's a bit of a backstory, but in second year, I had a friend come up to me and ask, how did you do this sun path diagram? It looks amazing. And I was like, okay, let me just quickly show you how to do it.

And she was like, you should. Bring out some tutorials and videos on YouTube and all that jazz and you know it got me thinking about a blog but obviously I was in my second year so I didn't really have that much time and so after I graduated I was talking to one of my friends who also had the same kind of idea and she said you know why don't we just set up a quick blog.

And, I started, we started brainstorming article ideas that we would want going live in September, which is obviously when people start university. But also, for sixth formers who might be looking to apply for [00:03:00] architecture. And Yeah, so that's how the blog started.

We had, I think, three articles in the works already when we launched. And the main aim for me was to get that community engagement going on Instagram, especially. So even before we launched, we had about 200 followers, and those were basically just my kind of contacts from uni and things like that.

Stephen Drew: Wow, it's interesting, isn't it? Wham! Because Instagram, it's definitely really powerful. There's so many different mediums at the moment, and it can almost be a little bit noisy sometimes. But what I quite like about the scale is you've got to be really organized to do what you do, right?

Because new stuff comes out every week. And it's what I'm curious about is the same thing for me. So we had a bit of a giggle and you were really patient with me sending this stuff earlier, and I'm running with my day job, right? As well as really enjoying the [00:04:00] Architecture Social. So we've scaled now.

We, we touched upon it briefly before this, you're going to be going, you're going to be doing your part one job, right? Isn't it? In September, which is super exciting, and I'm sure it can fit around that lifestyle. It could even be the new evolution as well, right? Because it's, because this is a really good chapter, and then, You're going to be going into industry.

So are you excited how it's going to change or have you thought about how you're going to do it when you go to work as well?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, I have started to think about how I'm going to manage my time and stuff, luckily the friend that I started with, she graduated this year, so she can take more on.

And yeah, cause it's amazing. Up till now, it's just been me so far, but we're brainstorming new articles and we have some posts lined up and things, but I think it won't be that difficult to manage it, because I've been doing it for a year now,

Stephen Drew: great.

Sana Tabassum: Yeah.

Stephen Drew: So you're good at time management.

You're going to have to teach me a few tricks at this point. I'm really good at time management. [00:05:00] Yeah, oh, I'm learning on the job and then sometimes I drop the ball, so you're going to have to let me know. I absolutely love what you do and that's why it's great to have you on the platform.

It's very interesting, isn't it? Oh, it might be, yeah, a good timely thing to talk about the MAD Collective thing, because I was following it when, You did the grand reveal, right? With the dum, something's coming. I'm like, what's coming? Come on, what was this all about? And so how did how did that come about then with the MAD Collective?

Sana Tabassum: Let me go back to one of the collaborations we did with Hamza from Two Worlds Design. So we wanted to get someone to do a kind of day in the life of an architecture student. And we ended up doing a kind of IGTV series on that, and it was really successful. People were really loving it because he's a master's student who's just graduated, so everyone was quite interested in his sort of drawing technique and stuff like that.

And Through him, I connected with other content creators on Instagram, and I got a message from Alvin from [00:06:00] Projects by People, who said, I want to put together this group, I'm having a Zoom meeting, do you want to join? And I said okay, but I had no idea who else was going to take part, so it was only once we all got face to face that we realized sort of five of us, and it went from there. We were discussing, the kind of similarities and the problems that we faced in architecture because we're all from different backgrounds and countries. So it was quite interesting to see that, everyone kind of has this issue with kind of stress and.

Why are you pulling all nighters and it's it was really interesting to see. So we thought about setting up kind of symposiums and putting together a resource database. So yeah, that's. That's basically all I can say for now.

Stephen Drew: I love it. Yeah, we keep a bit of surprise, so definitely check out the MAD Collective on Instagram for anyone listening.

It's to me, like the super band of all you, super strong [00:07:00] Instagram architecture network. It's the big band because when it started popping up and I kept seeing everyone every day, you've done a video of a new person. I'm like, yeah, I follow all of you guys, so it was really cool.

And that's interesting. So you jumped into that in your, in an experimentation way. And it's interesting because of us actually, because when I was setting up the social, I don't know, I just saw a scale and then I got on the phone and you were really open to it. I remember when there was even no one there.

Yeah, totally. I know in one month we have 700 and we're going to keep going, but I absolutely love it. And I think that for me, what I find interesting about scale, or for instance, what you do as well, you almost, I think it really helps to adapt and to be on different mediums and to be present. So Instagram, you have your website, I'm guessing there's a mailing list there as well.

There is coming

Sana Tabassum: soon.

Stephen Drew: There you go. Exactly right. And then we've got the, and I like the book [00:08:00] though. And that's what I really liked that because with the book that you're doing, there is something really nice as well. Something old school because yeah, I'm not actually, I wasn't on Facebook for a long time and I signed back up because I got a little bit, sometimes you can get overwhelmed by the digital.

And what's nice is I love the digital. You've got to have the physical as well though, right? You've got to try the book. Go to see stuff. And that's been the real difficulty. I think with with COVID right now is that you can almost feel a bit fragmented. And what I like about, I almost think like scale, sorry, this is my opinion.

It's it's a little bit like a warm duvet. It's a bit of coziness, right? In the strange times, and I really like that. So I think it's brilliant, but where do you see, where do you see it growing or what are you keen on doing? I'm guessing it's finished in the book, right?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, for now, we launch week after next, I think.

So it's getting that wrapped up and seeing how, what the feedback is on there, because [00:09:00] the team is obviously spread across the world, really. We had kind of students come in and say, I want to work on this topic and I'm interested in so and they express their own interests.

I'm going to be doing a lot of work with the artists through it as well. But it's very much a kind of, it's not like an essay style collections. It's more of a, tackling some nice topics and issues through it too.

Stephen Drew: I love it. I think it's great. And Yeah it's growing all the time and even me and you, we've had a bit of an experimentation with on the social because there's certain aspects where even for the group, so there's something really nice about the group, it's what's been interesting as well are not people, it's the same thing as you've got to showcase your work and get people out there because even we notice is the challenging thing with online sometimes is striking up a conversation, right?

Because yeah. Because participating is the thing, and you can do so much, right? It also relies on your audience to talk and communicate with you and what I [00:10:00] loved about what you talked about earlier is contributing and people getting on boards. But so how do you try to do that then? Do you let people do articles and blogs and you credit them?

And you credit their exposure or how have you gone about trying to get that conversation going?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, completely. So we put out ads you could say about, we're looking for guest authors to write for our blog and it's very much, their piece of writing. So we obviously, credit them and we're working on a page where we collect all these kind of profiles of all the guest authors and link back to their socials and things so that, they can put.

They can say, I've written for this blog, so I have these writing skills, I have an interest in this topic. So yeah, it's very much a collaborative process, so they can send us a draft and we can take a look at that and edit it if needed, and then just publish it.

Stephen Drew: I love it. That's something maybe that I knew we should [00:11:00] definitely try on the social in the main channels. Cause I think there was one, I think it was really interesting actually, as I met that early on, I'll find out in my messages, I'd wanted to really good talented students who were like, do you know what?

I love architecture. The thing is though, I really want to get into writing. And this is the perfect kind of way to do that, isn't it? To almost build up that portfolio of work because your website is a real website. You're out there, you have an engaged audience. So that's an interesting one. Maybe we should push that a little bit after this.

I'll do a little experiment and see, but you won't get me writing because I can't write for, I can't do any writing. I just talk for a living. That's what I do now.

Sana Tabassum: Yeah.

Stephen Drew: I love it and what I've learned as well is that what I've enjoyed about using the social media for the Architecture Social is literally to post people's work and I think that actually gets a really good response and what's quite nice is that I like the fact that if you credit the person then ideally what I'd like is someone [00:12:00] to reach out to them.

I don't need to be involved per se at all and it's just that kind of exposure and that middle thing because on my LinkedIn I've got about 20, 000 connections and so it's really good when to use that for something good and I think scale's presence is getting bigger and bigger. I've got a quick little funny story for you actually, I'm Part of it is Architectural Social is a community platform, and the course involved in it, because I'm in the course, I'm really naughty, I go half the time late and all this stuff, because nothing ever changes like that.

But there was this lady who's got an architecture course in Australia,

Sana Tabassum: her

Stephen Drew: name's Sarah, she's on the platform. Yes. I'll find out. My

Sana Tabassum: first Archie job, right?

Stephen Drew: My first Archie job okay. And she said to me. Oh, wow. So scale. Oh, scale's actually on the social. I follow Sarah. Yeah,

Sana Tabassum: she reached out to me when the page was very small.

She, asked me, what do you aim to do on this [00:13:00] page? How's it going to go about and all that. So I explained that to her at the very beginning and I haven't been in touch with her since. Don't

Stephen Drew: worry.

Sana Tabassum: But, we're Always supporting each other on Instagram for sure.

Stephen Drew: I love it. Oh my gosh, you need to message her on social or direct. Definitely do pick it up because I do think she's a fan. And that's a really strange thing, isn't it? That it's such a small world in that way. And I think, yeah, with Instagram, it was so interesting when the MAD Collective came out that all of you guys that I follow, You're all doing your big mad collective.

It's a collection, as you say, isn't it? Look, I think this is great. Maybe we can keep it short and sweet. So if anyone listening here wants to find out more about you where do we find you? So you can

Sana Tabassum: find us on Instagram at 2Scale, that's T O DOT S C A L E, or you can go directly to our blog, which is twoscaleblog.

co. uk.

Stephen Drew: Amazing. And you can also message you on [00:14:00] the social as well. Yeah, definitely.

Sana Tabassum: Yes.

Stephen Drew: We're gonna, I love it. I love it. I'm so thrilled you're here. Guys and girls, everyone, check out 2Scale. I wish that some of these resources were there when I was a part one. Gosh, it sounds like such a long time ago now, isn't it?

But not too long ago. I'm not, I'm, yeah. I'm still a bit of a spring chicken. It's great that these resources are there. So definitely check out Sana, 2Scale. Thank you for popping on. so

Sana Tabassum: much, Stephen.

Stephen Drew: Hey, no worries. Thank you.