Lockdown Tales and Dancing Robots: The Architecture Social Show

0047 - The Architecture Social Show; 2021 Edition!
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[00:00:00]

Welcome to the Architect of Social Show
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Will Ridgway: Hello and welcome to the architect of social show. I'm Will Ridgway and I'm joined with Stephen Drew. Hello. Hey, all right.

Stephen Drew: We're alive. We're in. 2021. 2021. 2020. Get out. Get out. So 2021, here we are, first week back. It's a bit of a shock isn't it actually? I've lost a lot already!

Lockdown Blues and Dancing Robots
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Stephen Drew: Back to work, but back in lockdown.

Stephen Drew: Wave!

Stephen Drew: That's my lockdown song guys. We're in lockdown. Lockdown free. Lockdown free. Step away. Step away from the door. Make sure you don't go anywhere. We've gotta keep safe and support the NHS. How is everyone? How is everyone? [00:01:00] Lockdown aside. The world of architecture is still going on. I hope everyone is safe.

Stephen Drew: I hope everyone is cracking on at work. I'm Stephen Drew. Here's Will Ridgway.

Architectural News and Events
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Stephen Drew: Before we start the year with some good news. We need a little bit of entertainment in life. While not directly architecture, and we do have some architecture news. I thought we'd start off with talking about some amazing feature robots.

Stephen Drew: We need some dancing robots, Will. Do you know what I mean? Just a bit of something. Something nice. Something nice in life. Remember we were talking about Foster's and Partners robots. They've got dancing robots now.

Stephen Drew: There you go. Probably should have some music though, shouldn't it? Should I get some music for it? Yeah, I agree. Copyright for it. I can find some music. Don't worry. Let's get some. There you go. We've got some dancing robot.

Stephen Drew: That was everyone. [00:02:00] There you go. That kind of works, doesn't it? There we go.

Stephen Drew: I can't get copyrighted. LinkedIn. I am an industry leader in architectural recruitment. And we do know what we're talking about. And we are starting with robots. What do you think? The voice is old, right? Yeah. No, I forgot. Hello! Oh, my voice is solid. I think it's good, isn't

Will Ridgway: it? It's surprising, he's smooth.

Will Ridgway: Do you know what I mean?

Stephen Drew: I know. I thought it was the first CGI. I thought it was the first CGI, and it's not. It's real robots. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Do

Will Ridgway: you think that's our foster and partners, that's what their dog was used at the Christmas party?

Stephen Drew: I don't know. So anyone have fosters and partners, send the research and development this video.

Stephen Drew: Because then when they're on site, they can be having a [00:03:00] little giggle, keeping up morale. Tell you what though, with the lockdown and everything, you do need these robots for sight. Fosters and partners, we're onto something because you can't go out anymore. You need this. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to put a link.

Stephen Drew: Actually, I'm going to be really helpful, so anyone watching this, you can see the Robot Dancing, the Robot Dancing Men linky. Link in the description. There we go. There we go. There you go. We got a bit of that. Fantastic. Moving on, Will. How are you anyways? Did you have a nice break and everything?

Will Ridgway: I did.

Will Ridgway: It was nice to take my mind off everything, and then yeah. Obviously, I was on furlough before, so I already had quite a nice little break. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: you're back from furlough though. That's good, isn't it? Yeah, the hashtags worked. The hashtags did work. We've got a few interesting things coming up as well.

Stephen Drew: So we'll talk about a bit of architecture news as well. I just wanted to draw a bit of attention first [00:04:00] to something that I'm involved with.

MADCon: The Ultimate Student Event
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Stephen Drew: That's on the architecture social. So for any students that are watching right now, and we've got a really cool event coming up. So let's bring this going. So the mad con, you've got a lot of architectural influences.

Stephen Drew: You've got a lot of really cool people online. And then currently it's going to be hosted in the artificial social. And I think it's going to be on streaming out as well. It's going to be on YouTube, but basically 19th to 21st February. We've got a little bit of an architectural student events, all online, all free.

Stephen Drew: And I think next week I'm allowed to say everyone that is going to be there. Little clue. I might be one of them. I'll, we'll have to bring you along to it as well. But so it's going to be really cool. It's set up by these guys, which is the MAD Collective as well. And I'm sure that we can do a lot of portfolio reviews, CV reviews and.

Stephen Drew: Here you can see that you've got some of the things that they've done in the past, [00:05:00] which is symposiums talking about should students be networking, what students should be doing. So I will be involved in the MADCON. You can check it out. At the website, which it popped up earlier, so it's, I believe, let me bring it up here.

Stephen Drew: I think it's madcon. org. I'll get that up, but what I'm gonna do for everyone now is I will send the link in the stream that if you want to check out MadCon, you can check out MadCon earlier. You can check out MadCon here. What do you think, Will? of that. Does it seem like a cool thing? Yeah, absolutely.

Will Ridgway: I think it's definitely needed.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, why not? And it's nice to have certain events and I think it's really encouraging to see all this kind of stuff. Great as far as I'm concerned, it's fantastic. Check out the Madcon that's there. So what else have we got? Some cool stuff. I want some cool stuff.

Stephen Drew: Cause we've got the [00:06:00] lockdown, which is so uncool, but need it because we definitely need to keep control of things. We need a little bit of interesting stuff.

Futuristic Architecture: MVRDV's Vision
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Stephen Drew: So what I've got here is I quite like this, which is the value of envy by MVRDV. And so it talks about an area of Amsterdam, which is important for international business.

Stephen Drew: And this is their proposal. Really look at this world. This is the future, I think. Sorry, I'd like to bring it up a bit more full screen, but like I messed with the sentence. We'll go cinema mode. Here we go. But look at this building. This is some serious cool architecture. Wow. And now MVRDV, such an amazing, awesome practice.

Stephen Drew: I thought this was a brilliant video as well. Now there are some futuristic looking apartments, isn't there?

Will Ridgway: I was going to say, if I was like watching one of those, futuristic films, you'd expect to see something like that.

Stephen Drew: I know it's like Robocop world or [00:07:00] something isn't it? Or cyberpunk like we were talking about earlier.

Stephen Drew: Absolutely beautiful scheme. NVRDV. I had their book. So they had a book for many few years, which is really good. And yeah, it's just absolutely great. I absolutely love their work and you can check out the scheme. I will send a link to it. Let's put this in to the chat for everyone to have a little look at.

Stephen Drew: Okay, let's go. Let's see. It's a cool video, isn't it? It is. And I found this on a channel called a YouTube channel called Cities of the Future. So shout out to Cities of the Future. You can check out their work and have a little look at this scheme. But this is the kind of thing I'd like to live in the future.

Stephen Drew: I just think I have to work for another 100 years before I can afford it. But we'll get there. We'll get there.

Will Ridgway: I'll tell you what though, if the lift is out of order, you might hurt your legs a little

Stephen Drew: bit. I need the exercise. Oh, I'm [00:08:00] on my diet, aren't I? So basically anyone that's listening, I'm really grumpy at the moment because I'm not allowed to eat.

Stephen Drew: But it's working. I'm getting there. So hopefully everyone will see me shrink over the courses of these videos. Hey Liz, welcome. Really good to see you. Liz, Dr. Liz a wonderful member of the architecture social community and supporter of the SSME. A few articles that we will talk about as well. But Dr.

Stephen Drew: Liz, I was just showing a really cool video. I found this YouTube channel, The Cities of the Future, and this is a really cool scheme by MBRDV. It's quite flashy quite nice, and definitely the kind of thing. That I would love to live in. I'll see you there in 10 years time, huh? Yeah. Now look at this, right?

Exploring Hong Kong's Skyscrapers
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Stephen Drew: So moving on from this one, let's go to the next video that I had a little look at, and I quite liked, which was Hong Kong. Bill is the skyscraper on the most expensive part of land in the world. [00:09:00] So Hong Kong is so expensive anyways. And I didn't know it was the city with the most skyscrapers. I thought it was New York.

Stephen Drew: I know it's definitely not London. But New York, if you go to New York, it's built up. There's so much stuff going on. They've got Hudson Yard. They've got a few other schemes. But Hong Kong. And so this is gonna be, this is built on the most expensive part of land in the world. It's a cool scheme.

Stephen Drew: Do you know, it reminds me a bit of the Ian Simpson's building by Blackfriars near Corgan's office.

Will Ridgway: Yeah, the Bishop's Gate. Bishop's Gate 1, I think it is. It's got that kind of Yeah, I was thinking that too. Where it's it's curved a little bit and all glass.

Will Ridgway: Or a piece of your glass. I love it.

Stephen Drew: I'm just having a bit of an enjoyment looking at it. It's brilliant, isn't it? Do you know what it makes me feel like? Yeah, it makes me feel like my house isn't that great. I quite enjoyed Bob Lewis's comments here saying, How's the world you always sign as if they would live in their own home?

Stephen Drew: And the answer is pretty telling. That's true, [00:10:00] actually. Do you know, I used to know, Will Alsop. I used to know someone that lives there. And Will Alsop. Passed away, fantastic architect, really great, but it's really interesting because he does all these futuristic houses and then he lived in quite a traditional country estate, do you know what I mean?

Stephen Drew: With the kind that you would like, Will, I can see you there with your, with a tweed jumper enjoying and it's always quite interesting, isn't it, what people go for. But yeah, look at this. It's futuristic. Oh, wow. It's a Zaha Hadid. Do you know what I was going to say? This looks like a very Zaha Hadid scheme.

Stephen Drew: It is. It's because it is. It is, exactly. But, you can't knock Zaha Hadid's architecture, can you? It's pretty slick. Here we go. Hong Kong has over 355 skyscrapers over 150 meters. New York only has 284. Damn. I love New York. New York is crazy. I've never been to Hong Kong. I want to go to Hong Kong, but New York is absolutely crazy.

Stephen Drew: [00:11:00] I'm going to put a link to this here if you want to see the video for Hong Kong's most expensive bit of land. Here you go, guys. Is, I'm not sure I can share the links on LinkedIn, you would need to go to our YouTube channel. I will set up the link for that as well, but you can check that out.

Stephen Drew: Oh do

Stephen Drew: you know what?

Stephen Drew: I'm going to hijack the screen one second.

YouTube Adventures and Modular Buildings
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Stephen Drew: I'm now a YouTuber oh, there we're alive. That's a bit strange, isn't it? We're alive now, but I'm now a YouTuber. Look at this. Me trying to be a YouTuber, trying to do really useful stuff. least smiled in it. . It's really hard doing YouTube. I've never done it before.

Stephen Drew: It's a totally different thing than live streaming, but you can check out our channel now. The architecture, social. I need to get the link to it. That's what I'm trying to do now. I think it's like YouTube C slash architecture social. Let me see if that works and then we can link it, but you can, you, yeah, here we go.

Stephen Drew: So [00:12:00] you can go to that channel. You can check it out. And if you like my videos and if you dislike them, you can dislike them as well, but you can for anyone that can't get the links on LinkedIn, you can. Oh, I can't put the link on LinkedIn. Can I, Will? I can't. So I'm going to have to put a banner. You can check out our YouTube channel at youtube.

Stephen Drew: com. Follow us at carchitecturesocial. com. And if we get enough subscribers, I will, we will do Will Rich Way videos. Will, what video would you like to see on the Architecture Social channel?

Will Ridgway: Can we have a tour of your house? No, you're not having a tour of my house because I've only tidied the view of this camera.

Will Ridgway: Everything else around it's a mess. Yeah. Yeah. I've got, I pushed everything out of the side of the camera. So like the surrounding edges are a mess.

Stephen Drew: Absolutely. I'm a similar, I've, there's a brilliant image that I found by an illustrator [00:13:00] which kind of summarized 2020, which is exactly what you said.

Stephen Drew: Someone wearing, the shirt and everything and looking professional. And in this image and slide on, you can see the mess underneath the computer and behind. But I think that summarizes 2020 and probably 2021. Now you've got to do a tour of the house, Will. I can't do a tour of the house.

Stephen Drew: Talk to Liz. We need to make a petition. We need to write a petition. Good suggestion from Dr. Liz. And actually a company that is hiring at the moment is Skidmore and it's an arrow. So if you want to, if you're interested in sky rises and a good company to work and it is definitely worth checking out SOM, which I think is SOM.

Stephen Drew: com as well. So you've got our channels. You can catch us there. I'm going to be focusing just so everyone knows I'm going to be trying to do a video every week. . And the next one I'm gonna be doing is talking about templates of CVS and how you can improve them. So a little bit of a summary of the stuff we've done before [00:14:00] and you can catch these recap recaps there.

Stephen Drew: So that's the YouTube channel. Now, again, 'cause I found all these Skyrise super YouTube channels. We'll go one more and then we'll move on with current events and current news. And events you can attend in your underwear because it's everything's at home now. So check out this one, Will.

Stephen Drew: This is a new world's second tallest building in 2021. Quite a lumper. Never been. Has anyone in the audience been quite a lumper? Never been. Here we go.

Stephen Drew: Yes, I am live. Look at Phil with a guitar there, huh? Phil, I got a guitar too. That

Stephen Drew: was impressive. That was impressive. I like Do you see how cool Phil is?

Stephen Drew: I gotta be more cool. Do you think I should put my guitar on the background here? Or do you think I should get some artwork, some cool artwork, [00:15:00] so that I look more like a professional livestreamer. You're

Will Ridgway: a little bit like me where you could do with stuff on the wall. Yeah, we've got

Stephen Drew: Anyone has any suggestions on what we can put on the wall?

Stephen Drew: That would be cool. I might put my guitar on then. I probably should play it a bit more to be honest. But, I can put that on the wall. Anyways, while we're in the background, you can check out, look at this project. It's been going for seven years. I'm not surprised. It's pretty big, isn't it?

Will Ridgway: I'm like,

Stephen Drew: come on.

Will Ridgway: There's so many.

Stephen Drew: I wouldn't want to go into

Will Ridgway: the second tallest building if it was built in a year. They'll definitely cut corners.

Stephen Drew: Do you know what though? There's a big building in Lewisham where I live and it's a student accommodation. It's all modular. And the speed they built this building up is insane.

Stephen Drew: And I think one of the themes that we're seeing this year is modular residential and [00:16:00] modular buildings. And it's quite, I reckon it's going to be a lot more 2021 of natural approaches because it solves the housing crisis. And these towers are knocked up, but like you, I was like.

Stephen Drew: Whoa, it's up that quick?

Stephen Drew: Are we sure it's gonna, are we sure it's gonna stay on? I'm

Stephen Drew: sure it's not just one of these slots that's just gonna slide off. Yeah, you'd hopefully not. Can you imagine that? You're in your student pods and you're like, oh. 217 came out again, put it back in. No, that wouldn't be good. But again, check out this YouTube channel skyscrapers and mega projects.

Stephen Drew: That is a really cool one. I just think quite every now and then it's definitely worth looking at that. This is your suggestions here from before. So this is the November survey trend, which is a bit of a ways back, but we did talk about the October one, but briefly, I think what's good to talk about it is probably now the future trends are do you think they're a little bit out the window?

Stephen Drew: No.

Will Ridgway: I don't know. This one details what happened in November and [00:17:00] obviously this was released in December. I imagine December's one will come out in next week at some point. But I don't know. As always, it's all about what the architecture practices themselves are predicting. Obviously these things can change the lockdown was national lockdown was unexpected.

Will Ridgway: I imagine that might change things as well. But, um, the good news is it's not down to that. It's not down to what everyone was expecting in March, April time. That's the that's the main thing.

Stephen Drew: I think before, because it was the first lockdown, everyone was in the way of, look, we're going to sit this one out, and we're going to see how it goes.

Stephen Drew: The fact that we're in a third lockdown, that the feeling that I'm getting already Is that practices we all just have to keep going on. We know a few companies in particular that have a strong workload. Unfortunately, I guess like everything, some practices are going to suffer as well, which is not ideal, but I think the common trend is things are powering on.

Stephen Drew: And so for anyone that's currently looking for a [00:18:00] job right now, I would not let that deter your efforts. There are still jobs out there, but you definitely have to put an extra Effort in and it's as exhaustive as it sounds, it's almost exhaustive for me to say, but we almost have to, you have to keep going.

Stephen Drew: There are jobs out there. We have roles on as well at McDonald and company, which is the architectural team that me and we'll work at. I will I will say I'll put the link to it as well. We do have new roles. And Will has posted some yesterday. We've got about four ads that have popped up as well. Maybe it's a good time to go quickly jump in on those ads, Will, because I think it's massively relevant for everyone right now.

Stephen Drew: So let's talk quickly about. The ads that you posted yesterday in an overview, because people can get in contact with you for more.

Job Opportunities Overview
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Will Ridgway: Absolutely. At the bottom there of that post, my email is there, so you can reach out to me there or even on LinkedIn. [00:19:00] But the the jobs I've got on at the moment, I've got around roughly four of them.

Technical and Junior Positions
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Will Ridgway: One of them I'll go in order that I can see is one, someone technical. Someone that's going to work on stages three, four, and five. On a large residential on a few residential schemes ideally someone that's client facing the job running experience as well. So that can be either an architect that wants to do the delivery or a technologist technician it's really open for anyone really.

Will Ridgway: Get in touch about that. The other one is more of a slightly junior position to that. So still roughly the same brief where you, lots of residential projects, stages three, four, and five. Again, architect, technologist, technician, but you don't necessarily have to have that client face and experiences.

Will Ridgway: Like I said, it's a little bit more junior. And I think the pay grade is representative of that.

Healthcare Sector Roles
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Will Ridgway: And then the other two are revolving around the healthcare sector. It's doing quite well at the moment. They want someone, a senior architect that can work on healthcare [00:20:00] schemes, primarily on the front end.

Will Ridgway: So planning, design, that sort of end and someone that can possibly win work as well. That would be quite very handy for this particular studio. They're doing well, but they want more work down the line as well, which would be great for them. And then lastly, again, healthcare, but maybe more of a junior role where you'd be part of a team and working as part of a team to design and deliver existing and future schemes in healthcare.

Will Ridgway: Quite open base. I'm hoping to hear from architects, technologists, and technicians overall. And yeah, get in touch with me if you think you're interested. All of them use Revit as well.

Stephen Drew: Okay. Amazing. Thank you. That was a nice, I think that was a nice, concise run through point is.

Engaging with the Community
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Stephen Drew: We do want to talk about the jobs here, but this is the reason why I thought it is especially good to bring this on the show right now is to show that companies in particular, we're talking about healthcare, we're talking about technical delivery, there are still roles out there.

Stephen Drew: So if you were [00:21:00] looking or you know someone that's looking, share this video, you can reach out to Will and take it from there. Dr. Liz says she's very good at winning work. Well done, Dr. Liz. Fantastic you can get in touch with Dr. Liz as well. Dr. Liz, you're gonna have to pay me as a sponsor for a V on this.

Stephen Drew: Only joking, you, you've given me so much news and help, you are a valued guest. And part of the community. Dr. Liz is a moderator now in the Arctic social maze. And, yeah, super cool. And Dr. Liz, I'm going to embarrass you in a nice way. Cause I actually listened to Dr. Liz's podcast and she did an episode a while ago.

Stephen Drew: I'm, I think we're going to get Dr. Liz on the guest, but basically PhD is based around the Reba the breather present the medals. Dr. Les, you have to tell me which one's right or wrong, but I found it was interesting that the Reba the, I think it's a sterling prize and the gold medal basically it [00:22:00] talks about the history of this award that's been given around since the 1800s to the 1900s and how it is now and how it's changed over the years and the kind of criterias That got that.

Stephen Drew: So get in touch with Dr. Liz if you'd like to learn more. She talks to your PDP designed the healthcare projects and the Nightingale hospitals for COVID 19. Exactly. What a greater cause than working for a company that's actually helping out with the current crisis at the moment. And yes, so the PhD was on the Royal Gold Medal on Reba.

Stephen Drew: So definitely worth checking out. Thank you again, Dr. Liz. I absolutely love it.

Cheese Tables and Lighthearted News
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Stephen Drew: Moving a little bit on from what we talked about earlier, we're gonna get, we're gonna have a bit of light hearted news

Intro: with

Stephen Drew: Will's Cheese Light Tables. Just before we do that, Will, I've got some comments here that are coming in from people talking about so we got Amir.

Stephen Drew: Hello. Hey, good to see you. Talking about [00:23:00] wooden skyscrapers. Oh, Will, write it down. Let's find a video next week for a wooden skyscraper before I forget, mate. That would be amazing. And Allium says, how about a movable building? Will, that's on the show next week. We need to find some relevant news of a wooden skyscraper.

Stephen Drew: Sounds terrible though, I wouldn't want to be in it, do you know what I mean? We had a wooden rollercoaster in Wales, Dr Liz might know this, there's a park called Oakwood and you go on the wooden rollercoaster and holy moly, that is a bumpy ride. You're scared because, not because of the height, because you think you could actually die.

Stephen Drew: It's really fun as well. Movable building, wooden skyscrapers, and obviously in the professional nature of the Architecture Social Show, where we tell you the most important things that you need to be aware of. Let's talk about this. Cheese tables.

Will Ridgway: I was searching for, I was searching for the news and I saw this, I was like I've got to show it because it's really quirky and unique.

Will Ridgway: Basically it's practiced [00:24:00] in China, I think it's called Say Architects that's my memory playing that. And they basically so they do a lot of interior fit outs, that sort of thing. And to make this one a bit more unique, they decorated it with obscure shapes, including a cheese table. So I was wondering how you feel walking into a store and seeing a cheese table there, would you revisit and use the table and take pictures of it, but I think it was just funky and it fits with the theme of this show. I think. Cheesy. Cheesy, yeah. I like cheese as well, so I couldn't resist. I had to put it on.

Stephen Drew: Will, your name and nickname in the office, you've walked into this one, so you can't blame me for anyone. Will, his nickname in the office, I guess it's a virtual office now, is Cheese Sandwich, because every day, Will would have a cheese sandwich.

Stephen Drew: It will. Cheese sandwich. If we ever go back to the office, I will get you a cheese desk. Thank you. [00:25:00] Although it might be expensive, so I'll have to make one. Which might not look as good. But I'm sure if I put a few filters on the Instagram, we can get away with it. Absolutely. And as long as it's not made out of real cheese, because I'll probably eat that.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, you would. You would. And I can't go near cheese at the moment because I'm miserable on my diet. So I got to stay away from it. Is the cheese table like a chocolate teapot? No, I think it's just carved out like a cheese. It's just a cheese table. Yeah, imagine if you eat at this table, you'd be like, oh no, someone's ate the table again.

Stephen Drew: Oh, brilliant. Absolutely love it. Okay.

Events You Can Attend in Your Underwear
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Stephen Drew: So here's the next part of what we're talking about today, which is events you can attend in your underwear. Now, when we, when we called it this, I was worried that this would become fastly out of fashion, but we were in lockdown free. So here we go with some events that you can't.

Stephen Drew: still attending your underwear. And so the first one you talked about and you found was [00:26:00] delivering affordable housing. So this is what on, this is not too far. So it's next week, Thursday, the 14th 10 to 11. Do you need to be a member or you need, you might need to be a member.

Will Ridgway: You do need to be a member.

Will Ridgway: But I did also make sure to include events that don't need to be a member, but you do need to be a member for this one. New London architecture. And yeah, just talking about about affordable housing really, and ho home programs dedicated to social rented homes. Yeah. Be quite interesting, quite relevant.

Will Ridgway: It's always relevant and it'd just be quite general topic to go and watch, but Yeah. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: I like it. Generally the NLA, I think they're a really high quality organization. This stuff's pretty cool. NLA, you need to sponsor me if I'm gonna keep throwing up your events, then. But joking.

Stephen Drew: Will, you've gone really dark at the moment all of a sudden. What's happening? Where's your light going? Where's my light going? Oh, it's because the sun's gone behind a building. It happens, isn't it? This is where we're in. I like this one. Look at this [00:27:00] retrofit. So this is quite cool, isn't it? I like that.

Stephen Drew: And it's free. This is a free event. Oh, cool. That's nice. So this one's accessible to everyone. And should you always retrofit? And this is the next forward number event. Imagine this brought on with M. That's really interesting. Okay, cool. I like that. Moving swiftly on. Oh, I should put a link. I'll put a link to this one now for everyone.

Stephen Drew: That can find them. Here we go. Cool. I'll put that there. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Here we go.

Architectural News and Updates
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Stephen Drew: Got a bit of news now. Got a bit of news. This is from the fabulous Dr. Liz talking about a Dutch architecture firm is building an underwater museum around a 271 year old shipwreck. See the incredible plans here.

Stephen Drew: So let me, I'll put the link to this, but then that's pretty cool, isn't it? Wow. That is really cool. So the shipwreck was already there, right? I guess so. Yeah. Maybe it was put in and then they build a round edge, you know what I mean? It's my [00:28:00] mum is obsessed by the Titanic. She loves it. She's probably watched the film hundreds of times.

Stephen Drew: And when we went to America, we went to a Titanic museum, which was nowhere in Florida, nowhere near the Titanic. So I imagine my mum would absolutely love this building. But let's have a little look at some of the pictures. Let's zoom in here. Let's get a bit better, isn't it? Here we go. Okay. Pretty cool.

Stephen Drew: That is very cool. Do I live in Greenwich and I've not been in the Cathy Sark Museum.

Will Ridgway: Have

Stephen Drew: you

Will Ridgway: not? I think I'm fairly certain that I

Stephen Drew: have.

Will Ridgway: Have you done it? Oh, no. I was quite young at the time, but I'm fairly certain I have.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, it's done by Grimshaw, it's it's a cool building.

Stephen Drew: And I love Greenwich, and it's one of the few things I'm allowed to do right now, isn't it, to walk? Yeah, so we can do that. You can check out this link as well. I'll put the link to all of this at the end. Amazing. And so a little bit more of. Contemporary news. So this is an [00:29:00] article on DZ where we talk about the American Institute of architects pledges to undo Trump's beautiful architecture order until after he leaves.

Stephen Drew: So if you want to find out about the damage that Donald Trump has done, I'm not surprised anyone. I don't think anyone's surprised. It's more just what else has he done at this point, but this is quite an interesting. article in Dezeen and you can check it out here. The American Institute of Architects for anyone of our any of the students in the UK or anything, it's basically very similar to what Reba is in the UK in America.

Stephen Drew: I think it's really interesting. Another article was in the Guardian, which is the destruction of brutalist architecture. In North of England prompts outcry. It's quite interesting though, because you've got a lot of brutalist architecture is actually was, social housing many years ago.

Stephen Drew: And it's quite interesting that for instance, you talk about the Barbican, that's like the most expensive social housing in the world right now, which isn't even. A lot of it is private now, you've got a lot of this beautiful [00:30:00] architecture, which is bit in danger.

Stephen Drew: So this is quite an interesting article talking about Brutalist Buildings at Risk, Sunderland Civic Centre. There's definitely a poetic beauty to this kind of stuff. So definitely check out this article in the Guardian. Nice one, Dr. Liz. I think that's a pretty cool article. I'm going to link to a post.

Stephen Drew: You can find all this stuff at the end. If you don't want to click the individual links, what I've done now, Will, is I've created I've created a page on the architecture social where we will post all this stuff. And so you can check out the architecture social. com post that blog. And I will have a post that, and as well as that, we have the architectural social.

Stephen Drew: com forward slash podcast, which has a lot of the stuff that we've done before. So you can basically go to the architecture social and you will find all the links and everything.

Brexit and Its Impact on Architecture
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Stephen Drew: Yeah, this, I think I, while I like to show to be lighthearted, we've got to address the elephant in the room that [00:31:00] Brexit's coming.

Stephen Drew: It's quite interesting right now. I'm still formulating my opinion on it, but it's quite interesting that Brexit deal is a tragic loss for architects. That is the view. And it's quite interesting to hear that chief executive Reba Allen Vance said, Oh this deal provides us some certainty.

Stephen Drew: around the future relationship between the UK and the EU. Hesitation and vagueness around the trade in services remains a serious concern for our profession. Now, the bit we've got to be careful is, Arctic's both in the UK and the EU are clear about the need for continued agreement and recognition that professional qualifications is deeply worried that this does not seem to be part of the deal as it stands.

Stephen Drew: But it will be interesting, and it is going to be, especially from my point of view, right? So I don't practice architecture anymore. It's been a few years since I've worked in architecture. I do architectural recruitment. And so many of the talented architects that I've helped introduce to companies and some of the most amazing [00:32:00] people that we see all the time are from, EU countries, overseas countries, American architects.

Stephen Drew: So I do think, without even going into the political nature of it, The point is we do need a bit of clarity on this, especially, isn't it? Because it's like right now, cause what happens if someone's currently, in France or in Denmark and they're a fantastic architect or, the amount of amazing German architects I've met over the years is fantastic.

Stephen Drew: And they're. So essential to the kind of the fabric of the architecture industry in the UK that I think the sooner we can have clarity on it, the better. I think it's great that there is a deal and things are moving on. As you know me, there's so many different facets. I don't really want to get into that, but I would love to know a little bit more about the clarity of it.

Stephen Drew: So what we will do here is as soon as there is clarity from an employment standpoint I'm not, it's less of a thought piece for me, but as soon as I get [00:33:00] clarity. I will let everyone know and we'll hopefully shed light on that as well. Erica, lovely, thank you for joining us. Newcastle is tearing down so many buildings, brutally, I guess that's from Brutalist Architecture.

Stephen Drew: That is a shame, that is a shame. Yeah, this is, this really is an interesting one. There's quite a few buildings being teared down where I live in Lewisham, but there's also a lot of empty land and things to be building. And it's amazing how quite quickly that through gentrification, while important, and I think housing is important, actually, you've got to start balance of not losing.

Stephen Drew: The fabric of the existing environment. Dr. Liz, the British system of validation is now turned its head and we went to the news. It's pretty diabolical. There you go. That's Dr. Liz's thoughts. Phil, you live in Greenwich. Hey, I might see you walking down the road. Hey! I'll be like, Phil,

Stephen Drew: nice to,

Stephen Drew: and then I can't go near you because we've got a two meter rule, which I think is the right thing, but you know what I mean?

Stephen Drew: You've got to be really careful at the moment, [00:34:00] haven't you? So that's a bit of a roundup. That's a bit of a roundup. Before we go, I just want to say thank you to everyone here as well. We've done a little bit of news. I hope everyone's all right. Maybe while we round up here, put one or two comments, anyone watching, how they feel at the moment.

Stephen Drew: What do you guys feel about 2021 and how has it been so far the first week back? Will, how have you found it so far? We've got jobs on, which is great, isn't it? That's yeah. It's been a busy week with Monday, the news and everything, isn't it? A bit of a rollercoaster.

Will Ridgway: Yeah, I feel like we've already had a month in the space of three days, to be honest.

Will Ridgway: That's what it feels like. But very busy. And I guess one of the good news about the lockdown is that construction sites are open. So work can continue forward. So hopefully that is consistent across the majority of practices. Hopefully we don't lose any of these, we don't go further back from [00:35:00] where we were, from where we got before.

Will Ridgway: Yeah.

Stephen Drew: I know, I imagine for some people it's bittersweet, isn't it? Always I think in some things we're progressing and I can totally understand why it's stressful for a lot of people. If you get really stressed at any point, you can come to the Architectural Social and Play with this parametric design I've done.

Stephen Drew: We do that, Will, enough times. Do you think that it'll, everything will fix itself, you

Will Ridgway: know? I'd, I've played that a lot and yeah, everything has fixed itself. No it hasn't! It's

Stephen Drew: a lie! Interesting thoughts.

Industry Insights and Contract Roles
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Stephen Drew: Gizem says, I'm wondering how active the industry would be in terms of contract roles in the next couple of months.

Stephen Drew: Wow. What a really interesting point. So let me just bring this up for a second. So a lot of the work that I did, especially in the last year as well, it has been contract roles as well as permanent. And at least from my perspective, yeah, I've been, there's less. demand it feels for contract roles right now.

Stephen Drew: We, the roles that we're working on, speaking [00:36:00] literally, are permanent. So as soon as I have an update on contract roles we will put it here as well and we will get a bit of news. But for right now, if you're in the position where you can look at permanent and contract, I would definitely be open to both.

Stephen Drew: I wouldn't go to exclusive. The one or the other, but I understand, for instance, if you're, you've had a Turkish visa and you can't, really can't work permanently, it's going to be a bit of a frustrating situation for you. And actually a little bit of my heart goes out for you, but don't give up by all means from our point of view, there are still roads here.

Stephen Drew: This is not as bleak as it was in March where things went off the cliff. And I do think there are signs. Suggestion from Dr. Liz coming in is the biggest places of growth are in housing and health care. I think that is a fair assumption. I think that I would echo those comments. Bottom is dropped out in public sector, but the procurement it's true.

Stephen Drew: I don't really have any roles for [00:37:00] public sector. There really ever any roles for education. I don't really have any roles for that. The roles that we have right now, as you pointed out, Dr. Liz. Actually residential for residential technical delivery architects and healthcare architects. So you can take a bit of a view on that as well.

Stephen Drew: So here we got a few more things here. You can see that. Okay. We've got comments from joy. She says she agrees. I worked in school design that's made redundant. I'm working in high end resi will choice. It happens. Well done. If you're moving on, I'm sure a lot of people can find a bit of help right now is a bit of a tricky time.

Stephen Drew: The last thing I'm going to say before we go is if you're feeling a little bit Lost in the Void.

Architecture Social Community
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Stephen Drew: We talked about the YouTube channel we're building, but if you want that kind of community aspect, you can check out the Architecture Social and I'm just going to bring it up. It won't be too long, but you can actually go into the community and I'll [00:38:00] show a little bit of it here because I suppose some people haven't seen it.

Stephen Drew: So the Arctic Social Community, you can join, we are now, you can see that we're like, we've got events. We're now 3, 100 people. There's some really interesting discussions. You can come, you can post your work. I've done some stuff in the resources section with reviewing CVs and portfolios. I need to do a few more now.

Stephen Drew: I'm probably going to do that more around. When the part ones, part twos go back to university, but last night we actually had an amazing new group that's popped up called the Arctic shelf. And last night there was 15 of us. We give away a book. We're doing a book club at the moment, which is a fantastic book by Sarah Lebanon, which talks about how.

Stephen Drew: To learn new skills and industry. And we were on zoom. It was 15 of us. There was a fantastic lady called Rachel from America. So we had our first American participant as well. So now we're at a transatlantic. It's [00:39:00] nice. Absolutely. So it should be worldwide, isn't it? You learn from each other.

Stephen Drew: Different cultures and everything. I think it's amazing. And it was great. It was great fun. So if you're feeling a little bit alone. Cause, that's, it's so easy to feel that. And that's why I set it up. You can go to architecturesocial. com forward slash join. Now, just before we go. Last thing.

Stephen Drew: It's going to be done.

Weekly Words of Wisdom
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Stephen Drew: The weekly words of wisdom. Will, hang on. Will?

Intro: Yeah.

Stephen Drew: My

Stephen Drew: weekly words of wisdom is to Prepare. Because I'm recording. Okay, that's not

Stephen Drew: fair. I'm going to put it here so you don't, the spotlight was a bit

Stephen Drew: big, isn't it? What's the [00:40:00] wisdom? My wisdom is to always prepare for the unexpected. Because I forgot, I didn't think of this.

Stephen Drew: Sorry, I caught you out with the unexpected there, and I put the big screen.

Stephen Drew: When you see your face on my screen, it's a bit It's a bit, it's a bit, it's a bit distracting, but you have to be unprepared, keep going and well done, bro. They were good, you did all right. You did all right.

Final Thoughts and Farewell
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Stephen Drew: Thank you everyone so much. You can find me and Will on LinkedIn. You can add us there.

Stephen Drew: You can join us in the architectural social. And if you know anyone that's looking for a job, do share this video or do. Link to Will Ridgway's post because we do have live jobs. So while we enjoy doing this as well, we can, in terms of what I do nine to six and I love, architectural recruitment, we can actually help as well.

Stephen Drew: Thank you so much, everyone. Take care. Bye. Bye. very

much. Bye.