Grow Places

GP 34: Beyond the Gloss: Authentic Visual Place Storytelling: with Nicholas Worley of Fletcher Priest Architects

• Grow Places • Season 1 • Episode 34

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In this episode of the Grow Places Podcast, host Tom Larsson speaks with Nicholas Worley, partner at Fletcher Priest Architects and a passionate photographer, about the power of authenticity in visual storytelling for architecture and design.

Nicholas shares his journey from studying architecture to becoming a renowned photographer, highlighting how his dual careers have influenced his approach to creating meaningful spaces and visuals. Together, they explore the evolution from glossy, aspirational imagery to genuine narratives that reflect how spaces truly feel and function.

Key highlights include:

  • The significance of people-first design in architecture, with a focus on their design in the heart of London.
  • How authentic storytelling through visuals fosters trust and connects with real users.
  • Insights from cities like Copenhagen and Zurich, where water and natural elements transform urban life.
  • The role of AI in visual communication, balancing inspiration with authenticity in a rapidly evolving landscape.

This episode offers a thoughtful exploration of how architects, designers, and photographers can use their craft to tell real stories about place and create environments that truly resonate with people.

Tune in to discover how authenticity can redefine the way we design, build, and communicate about the built environment.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Grow Places podcast, where we explore the virtuous circle of people, growth and place Brought to you by Grow Places and hosted by our founder, Tom Larson.

Speaker 2:

Nick, thank you for being very patient with me while I've been setting up the camera equipment, which is quite apt for maybe some of the discussion we're going to have today. Pleasure Been through it many times myself, Exactly. So a bit of context for the listener. Why don't you just introduce yourself?

Speaker 3:

So I'm Nick Worley. I'm a partner at Fletchbreeze Architects. I've been here 14 years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you are also a.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I'm also a photographer which I've been doing for a similar amount of time, actually Probably a. I'm also a photographer which I've been doing for a similar amount of time actually probably a bit longer than a bit of practice. My photography career started when I was in the Northeast, so before I moved down to London I was working in Newcastle a different practice and it was during my time in the Northeast that I started to explore and get more interested in photography. That's where it all started, that side hustle, and since then it's been my weekend career.

Speaker 2:

So have you always been a visual person, then a visual learner, or was that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think so, but it really was through the camera that that started. So at university, when I was 18, 19, my mom bought me back in those days, with no digital cameras, and bought me a film camera because we had a study trip to egypt. And it was after that trip. I was just experimenting and didn't really understand what I was doing with this device, with this thing, so I was experimenting. When I got back and looked at the images, um, some of them were just. I just couldn't believe what was coming out of the camera. They were stunning.

Speaker 3:

And so then I spent most of my 20s um deep in sort of forums online, and when I got a digital camera eventually, um, well, you know, at the expense of processing film, you could shoot as many images as you wanted, um, it was really then that I learned how to properly use a camera, um, and it just opened a whole host of doors. So I think, yeah, through through the camera, I've developed a, um, a visual sensibility, um, and, and then that then moved into film and I was very, very interested in film for a long time, still am, um, uh, and still see the benefits of the two different types of medium yeah, and how does that sort of circle back into your work in the environment for you then?

Speaker 3:

so I mean the photography started. I have a huge interest in landscapes and um, but kind of non-traditional landscape photography. So typically landscape photography is very sort of wide stuff. You focus on big foreground elements and then they lead the eye into elements on the horizon, um, and I think through my architectural education and studying things in elevation and composition of elevation and much flatter two-dimensional exercises, I started to apply that to landscapes. So I was trying to pick out features in the natural world that could be composed together, so very sort of flat telephoto images, so trying to flatten out the natural world, if that makes sense, rather than expose it all in big wide images. And then I started to explore, off the back of the architectural education, photographs of buildings and how these two might come together.

Speaker 3:

And it was when I came to London that I really started to. I started mixing with loads of interesting young designers that needed some photography of their work and they're starting out and I was still wanting to exercise my, or flex my architectural photography muscle. So we did that together. So, and then that's carried through into. So in the practice here I sit on the um part of the communications team, so each partner the practice here tries to lead a different section of the business and so, um, I'm involved in communications and so like to try and bring some of that sensibility to all the image making that we're doing now in practice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, amazing. So on that theme of communication then, because what do you think we as an industry and built environment industry, different facets to it what do you think we are communicating through our kind of work to everyday people who are on the streets, using our buildings, using our spaces, and how do you think that maybe influences some of your, your work?

Speaker 3:

it's a good question um, I think there's lots of different facets to it. So if you take um sort of property imagery, for example, um, I think we try and communicate how a place feels or might feel. There's sort of the might and the does. Isn't that there's all the stuff beforehand, there's all the image making in the visualizations that we do, and you know, um, how do we try and communicate a sense of place through an architectural visualization or a visualization or an animation, and then, once that place is delivered, you know how are those places actually used and how do they feel and do they fit the vision. So that's very interesting.

Speaker 3:

Actually, if I get commissioned to go and shoot a building, comparing what you're able to capture on the day that you're there living in the real world, and compare that to what was imagined during the design process, or you know, what we're trying to communicate to the world, is very interesting. So I think we try and, um, I think we try and be truthful to uh, what places are intended to feel like and do feel like. But that can be challenging because places are so different actually and I guess depending on where they are. An interesting example is when you shoot, when you do an architectural shoot. Often you'll grab a few people for the practice to come down and model, you know, and sort of sit in the space and you can always tell that these are kind of contrived images because there's people sitting having nice polite conversations and things like that, but they're not how buildings are actually used. So if you're able to be in a space, um, and capture them in real life, they're very, very different less um, performative, I think, um, and more real.

Speaker 2:

What we try to communicate, I think, honesty and truthfulness, how spaces feel yeah, yeah, I, I agree, and I think that's an interesting challenge for us as a an industry, you know, because the the perception externally is the kind of classic image of luxury flats, with a couple sipping champagne and an aston martin parked outside and, yeah, and that kind of image of um of daily life that's so detached from actual reality of what people experience, and do you kind of feel like the imagery you're making as a practice, and the buildings such as well, is kind of moving beyond that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, we try and avoid the champagne. You know, that's what I was kind of talking about with the, um, the sort of property world. There's this painting of an aspiration, that's, you know it goes, it's related to avatar, you know it goes back to the marlboro man, um, you know, doing something that can kill you, but it looks cool, yeah, yeah. And so people aspiring to do something, um, that perhaps isn't quite for them, doesn't quite suit their lives, um, so I so I think a lot of property imagery is aspirational and is designed to make you feel a particular way about your own life and what you're searching for. But we're very much more interested in real narratives or real stories about how people might use One example, and without having the image it's kind of a little hard to describe.

Speaker 3:

But we designed a scheme in Victoria. It had a series of glass lenses looking into a lower ground space and these glass lenses were about getting daylight in, and this development was next to a residential neighborhood and these glass lenses were set in a bit of landscaping, bit of grass, and so we were working with our CGI team here and one of them I just had this really nice idea that this thing that was designed to let light in could also be a visual connection to the lower ground space. So he put in a kid just peering in to the, to this lens, and it's just a really nice moment. It spoke about the residential neighborhood, he spoke about things that exist in the context and then painted just a very nice picture about how that might influence or, in reality, how it might transpose into um, into the real world. It's just very nice moment. So so we like to tell stories about real people.

Speaker 2:

Um, as far as we can imagine or see that that would be, but that would be real, yeah yeah, absolutely, and um, and because that the idea of actually you know, people in imagery, particularly architectural imagery something actually, curiously, that the industry has often shied away from it's. You know it's actually showing the building or the space without people, or yeah, or as if the person has just curiously walked out of shot, but places are. You know there's a liveliness. Isn't this the people in the, in the places? And are you, are you seeing that much more now about, kind of like, how, how do we depict these things in a much sort of fuller way in terms of the humanity that's in them?

Speaker 3:

so interestingly there are, I, I would say in the architectural photography world there's still an emphasis on the, on the empty space and, you know, focus on quality of light and other things and materiality, um, and composition, perhaps, um, but the more interesting images are those that that have people in, because, whilst we can all relate to space, we can definitely relate to each other, and so we gravitate towards images with people in them, uh, because there's something immediately familiar, um, so actually, my personal view is that the more successful um images uh, it depends on the intent, but generally speaking, the more successful images are those that have people in.

Speaker 3:

So we absolutely shoot with people in our images. Now, in practice, as I said before, sometimes we have to recruit 10 or 15 people from the office to go down and be stand-ins if buildings haven't been complete long enough to have tenants or occupants in them, um, but people are the way that we can communicate how spaces feel and are meant to be used. I think without those, you, um, you're moving into sort of fine art territory, um, and something a bit more abstract, and there's a place for that absolutely. But for what we're doing here at the practice, we definitely want people to be part of our imagery yeah, yeah, and you've actually, curiously, you've kind of got a foot in both those camps, haven't you?

Speaker 2:

because there's what you do as a practice here and the architectural role of designing buildings in london and other places. And then there's your photography work, which is more in that kind of um, if not abstract, it's definitely kind of artistic in its expression of a space or a mood or a setting.

Speaker 3:

But that's often a conversation with the designer or the architect or whoever it is that's been involved in the thing that I'm shooting, so sometimes we might have people. Very, very rarely are people in my shots and actually, frankly, that's a much easier job for me as well. Buildings don't move. Interiors stay where they are. I can move a cushion here or there, but working with people is tricky. It's difficult because they're alive and a bit unpredictable, so I prefer shooting spaces without people in, and a lot of my clients prefer that too. So, yeah, curiously, most of my photography work is sans people. Um, uh, but, yes, very, but they're different briefs. They are, they are, but, but it's. It's kind of interesting because, as a practice, here we um I mean we refer to ourselves. One of our values is people first, um, and that absolutely comes through the way that we communicate our work and um all our visual output yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So so as a, as a practice, then how does that kind of people first narrative do you think inform projects and kind of, and what you're doing here as a, as a business?

Speaker 3:

I've got a good example at the moment in the city, um, london, we're doing a tower. We won a competition, um, a couple years ago now, um, uh, to do a tower, which is which we're going to planning at the end of this year. Um, and we designed. We were, we were very curious about how existing towers in the city meet the ground and the message that that gives the ground. So historically, um, towers would be glass and aluminium and they'd meet the ground play with a set of double doors or sliding doors that you didn't feel you could go into big, empty lobbies inside with a couple of security guards standing there, so quite defensive and private. And all for the right reasons, because the occupants valued that level of security.

Speaker 3:

But we wanted to challenge that notion that the buildings couldn't be engaged with and more that they had a responsibility at the ground plane to speak to people and give something back.

Speaker 3:

So we've engaged with a cultural consultant on this particular tower so that we could really understand what it is that the local community needs, and our client's been very supportive then and has driven actually the approach to then accommodate a whole series of things in the ground floor that are about what people want. So the character of this building is very, very different. At ground it's very, very open, very welcoming, huge sliding hangar doors, and this is all about thinking about people in the local community first. So, yes, there's a tower above that's doing everything it needs to do, but it's the lower levels of this building where we're trying to deliver a linear park of six stories and cultural facilities that can work for both the building and public and ways of operating that reference and pick up on the city's destination, city aspirations. So there's lots of things at play, but they're all about people first. Yeah, that's a really interesting brief, isn't it? There's lots of things at play, but they're all about people first.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting brief, isn't it that when you've got an area of London that particularly, was you know, has historically been kind of like business first, hasn't it To now kind of associating more with okay, well, what does this actually mean for not just the people who are working within the businesses, but actually you know, the broader community nearby working within the businesses, but actually you know the broader community, definitely nearby, there's a big lack of, uh, cultural facilities in this in the city, in the center of the city of london.

Speaker 3:

Um, I think post-covid destination city trying to encourage more visitors, um and non-traditional city people into the city so that the city can continue to thrive and um, um and grow um. This is very much about trying to appeal to all audiences rather than just the sort of core city worker yeah which the traditional buildings would have been would have been accommodating yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And what are your experiences? Maybe from your architectural work, but also from travel, of different cities, different places and successful examples of that really kind of whether it's like successful examples of a moment that you're capturing in an image, or whether it's sort of broader in terms of a scheme or a neighborhood or a place.

Speaker 3:

I remember a number of years ago I don't know why this just came to my mind, but your question prompted it. Well, it's because your question prompted it. A number of years ago it was my previous practice. We were doing a competition in um den haag, in the netherlands, and we did a, we did a side visit, went out for a side visit and everything was very low scale in this town or city, not quite sure and the thing that struck me was the presence of water through this space, through this place. So from every home there's lots of dikes and lakes and other bits and pieces, and the presence of water brought people together.

Speaker 3:

Um, and I mean, it's kind of a simple thing and I think everybody's probably familiar with it, but, um, I was really struck by how pleasant and livable this place felt because of the presence of water. You could just see people enjoying it and I think whenever you travel actually I was in Copenhagen a couple of months ago Again huge lakes and rivers running through the middle of the city and people enjoying and playing and doing things with water Bit of a challenge right in the middle of the city of London. But yeah, I mean, I think from my experience, water has a huge influence on the way that a place can feel. That's one example.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. And you only have to go back to the summer, don't you? With the Paris Olympics and the swimming in the Seine and kind of the political statement that was being made there, as well as the kind of the um, the actual conditions for the athletes, yeah, no, the? You know, our waterways are cleaner, you can swim in them, and I think, as you say, zurich and copenhagen and places like that, whenever I've been there, very envious of just the lifestyle of people, absolutely one we went to zurich once to visit um, a client out there, and his commute he actually swam. Wow, so he swam to his office from his home. I was like that's absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2:

He had a little one of those like um dry bags and he'd just swim and I was like that sounds so amazing.

Speaker 3:

So I was. That does sound incredible. I'm not surprising. I was there three weeks ago, uh, on a photography commission on the weekend, um, and absolutely I walked up the river, um, I, in fact, I cycled out the city about five kilometers and then walked back, and as I was walking back, the river was full of people on inflatables like dinghies and unicorns and whole, whole load of things. Um, all floating down the river and then getting out and making their way back, and I spotted that the city's installed infrastructure next to the rivers that you can inflate. They have they have um pumps and automatic compressed gas so that you can inflate your inflatable and sail down the river and come back. I thought that was an amazing response from the city, recognizing that people love to do this activity around water and so they install stuff to help that happen. Oh, it's magic yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And um, although we're not quite there, I say not quite there, quite a long way from being able to swim in the thames. I think if you went back, you know 100, 200 years, you know the, the conditions you know would be potentially even worse. So, you know, hopefully things are moving in the right direction, but I'm not sure in our lifetime we'll be swimming in the thames, I think you're probably right.

Speaker 3:

I do remember seeing a um. We entered a competition a number of years ago about green infrastructure in London how could we piggyback on some existing infrastructure for public benefit. And we won that competition with a different idea. But one of the ideas in the competition was to separate parts of the Regent's Canal for swimming so you can have a lane, a passable lane, for canal boats, but then you can have a sort of a permanent or semi-permanent Lido of sorts for swimming. And it's always struck me why we haven't really done that. I don't know if it's about cleanliness of water. I'm sure the canal's probably okay. Well, I suspect the canal's probably okay. I'm not. Well, I suspect the canal is probably okay, I'm not sure. Um, but perhaps as ways of purifying sections of the canal so they can be used for that sort of leisure purpose. Um, hopefully we'll see that in our lifetime.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, no, exactly, um, and how do you, through what you know we're talking about communication earlier some of these ideas around health, well-being, place that that aren't, you know, they're not sort of the first thing that maybe comes to mind for a person on the street when they think about the role of an architect or or that, but actually it's so intrinsic, isn't it, to the, to buildings and places that we're shaping, making. How are you kind of now maybe communicating some of those, uh, yeah, those health and well-being aspects that aren't necessarily captured in that? You know that, that glossy image in the magazine that we've talked about, about the kind of the, the uh tectonics of the place, or the light or other things, it's actually about, um, the enduring kind of quality of life that's created through the projects that you're making.

Speaker 3:

How are we communicating that? Um, yeah, well, for our delivered projects, we thought a couple of years ago that one of the ways to really communicate how spaces are used is through film rather than still images. So still images, of course, have a place, and will always have a place, in how we consume media, but film gives has lots more potential to communicate what space feels like, film sound. So we had a filmmaker a couple of years ago to start going out to all of our delivered projects to try and capture the qualities of space and the reaction of people to space. Um, that may talk about some of the things that you're talking about, um, those enduring qualities, what it feels like.

Speaker 3:

Um, it's been especially. It's very difficult. How do you, how do you, communicate health and well-being? Uh, properly, health and well-being is about how people feel. So I think, unless you're either picturing people or talking to people about how they feel about space, um, it's very hard to communicate it. So I think we can do that more actually is to talk to people who use our spaces in our buildings and, uh, and bring that into how we represent how, how we represent what we do. I don't think we do that enough. Um, you know, we, we, we post um pretty pictures, uh, what we've done, and we depict people in those pictures so it's kind of interesting to look. But what about if they were the real people? And what about if we then ask them how they feel to be in those spaces and try to capture that feedback, um, and use that to communicate um success of what we do? Kind of cool interesting, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So so stepping back a bit, nick, then, for you personally you know we've talked a little bit about you, know your experiences and how you got into photography, but do you have a sense personally, like emotively kind of why you're doing what you're doing, why you're in architecture, why you're in photography, how that's all come about for you and that kind of deeper purpose and meaning behind what you're doing? Yeah, I could talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 3:

I come from a very simple background, very working class background, and when I was at school, um that we, we were all given this multiple choice um piece of paper and I remember being very specific about having to stay in the lines of the, the at the answers, because these forms are then fed through some reader somewhere, computer somewhere.

Speaker 3:

This is you know, this is about 30 years ago, um, and what came back, based on the answers that you gave, were suggestions of a couple of careers you might pursue. I was architect and a solicitor or lawyer, barrister, I think, um, and I loved arguing when I was a kid still do a little bit, but I didn't think that was what I wanted to do with my life, uh. So I kind of explored that I was quite creative, I was interested in art and design, other things and music, uh, which isn't, it's just not related, um. And so then I I geared all of my education decisions on going to university to do architecture, didn't know any architects, hadn't spoken to any, but thought that's the thing I wanted to do. And then I was shocked, um, when I got to university, because it was much more. I expected it to be about how you build tall buildings and it being about much more about engineering, and it wasn't. It was about art and the way that you feel in space and how you connect with space and how humans connect with space and all some of the things we've been talking about already.

Speaker 3:

Um, and so I struggled for a little bit, but then I had a kind of an epiphany moment and grew to love it very, very quickly. Um and I, I had friends that were doing biology degrees and um and quantity surveying and other things, and so it was awful, but I always felt bad that they were missing out on this perspective that an architectural education gives you, which I honestly think is about how we connect with the man-made built world. So I'm very interested in and care a lot about, um, our responsibility as architects and designers, and how we create spaces that people can be happy in. That's, that's as fundamental as that yeah, yeah, no great.

Speaker 2:

And um, as you say, that obviously comes across in everything you're doing, different aspects of of your work and then so maybe like that was fun looking backwards but kind of looking forwards then in in the work you're doing personally, but also when you think about trends and technologies, whether it's vr or ar or um ai, those kind of um trends, how, how do do you think the way we communicate visually, if we kind of frame it around, that is going to change or adapt or help us communicate in different ways?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, God, I think we're in a really, really interesting period. I'm a bit worried, if I'm being completely honest, um, because there's a whole level of interpretation that you have, um limited control over, I think. I think that's the thing for me. So, to give an example, um, I was asked by somebody in the studio here, actually, whether they wanted to put an image on their wall, but it was very low resolution, and so we needed to look at ways of bettering that if this was going to be printed and put on a wall, and so we fed this image through an ai upscaler. It's an image of a. It looks a bit like, um, a desert landscape, very dry desert landscape with some rock formations. Remember when we upscaled, it gave options as to how true you, how truthful you, wanted to be a desert landscape, a dry desert landscape with some rock formations. I remember when we upscaled it, it gave options as to how truthful you wanted to be to the original image. That was kind of an interesting question, and so we tried the different options and the AI.

Speaker 3:

The system was interpreting these landscape features and then visualizing, drawing new landscape features that were not the reality, and I felt really conflicted about. I would never put that on my wall because I wrote that, because I'm a landscape photographer and care very much about representing the natural world properly. But, um, so that was a a bit of a trigger. For me is that the world of ai image making, I think can be useful and inspirational, um, but if you're using those, if you, if you wish to use those images to represent a reality, I think that's where it gets a bit muddy for me. So I'm a bit I can see it as a tool and have used it as a tool, and we are using it as a tool in the office for inspiration, let's, let's just call it that, um, but when it comes to actually proposing something, I'd feel very uncomfortable about using that sort of imagery yeah, yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

because you say, as a tool in the design process, yeah, it's almost like the work you're doing in the architectural space. There's, there's a lot of scope for it, as you say, isn't there, but then very soon, very quickly, there's going to be, um, you know you, you take a huge amount of care over your photos. Let's say, you go on a trip to la or wherever it might be, to take a photo as, as you say, online, there's going to be, um, very hard to distinguish what's a real photo that's been taken by someone yeah, with your skill and expertise, and something that's generated by and that, as you say, that's happening in text, that's happening in images, it's also happening in designs, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, well, and the pace at which that's happening in text, that's happening in images, it's also happening in designs, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And the pace at which that's all moving out.

Speaker 3:

Everybody knows about this, but the pace at which it's all moving out is incredible. I went to a really fascinating seminar run by the Alan Turing Institute, which is like the UK's leading AI institution, and there was a whole series of speakers and there was one takeaway that I thought was really, really interesting, and it's a lady at the end. Can't remember her name, but she said that, and this was about eight months ago. She said that if I was going to invest in anything today, she said I don't have any money to invest, but if I had money to invest today, it would be in industries that are responsible for proving whether something is real or not. So AI will be this huge thing, but there'll be a whole industry off the back of it. That's about validating whether what we are seeing and consuming is real, and that was a moment of yeah, I was quite shocked. I think we're going through a whole series of eye-opening moments with AI and they're coming quickly, you know, yeah, and the pace that it's all moving at is kind of scary and staggering.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

I mean yeah, but as you say, time will tell.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and it all goes back to, as you were, as we sort of discussed today, kind of the element of communication, and then trust and how can you kind of communicate and trust what's being communicated Exactly, and how does that then build stronger relationships with you know, in our case, with communities or with brands who are commissioning you as a photographer or whatever, and that's that is a fundamental thing, I think. Yeah, we as a society are gonna have to address and how we deal with that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but I suppose I think about the end and it goes back to a question very early on that you're asking about, and I talked about the kid looking into the, the lens. Um, you, perhaps AI offers an opportunity to create, uh, or illustrate our vision quicker, but it's still just a vision until until that becomes a. So, um, definitely advantages to the tool? Um, yeah, but time will tell. Yeah, jury's out.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly, so, um. So what's what's next for you personally, then, nick, where are you? You know, what are you excited about in the next year or few months, or what what's um. So so we've got we've got.

Speaker 3:

We've got a few exciting schemes at the office, few things completing um. Let's say that this, this building that me and another partner work, uh, co-leading um this town in the city, we feel will be very different to um, to anything else that's in the city at the moment. So very, very excited about what that might mean for um, for future work. Um, from a from my sort of sideline, side hustle perspective and you mentioned it earlier, I use the word travel. That work interestingly gets me into because it's all architectural and interiors, and that gets me into lots and lots of buildings around the world. So in different cultures and locations. I'm able to see a majority of what we do here in the practices workplace by 80% of what we do is workplace through interiors, architecture and and urban design, and I get access to workplace projects. I have workplace clients, photography clients around the world, so I'm able to kind of absorb and see um trends in different parts of the world uh, and bring some of those learnings back here to the practice and share those with uh, with people here. So so I'm excited to do more of that Um, uh, we also um many years ago, still do try and cross typologies.

Speaker 3:

So we were, I think, one of the practices that kind of led or helped to lead this blending of hospitality and workplace. So now when you come to an office building in inverted commas it feels much more like a hotel or friendlier. We're a big part of that and I get to see through the architecture, through the photography work, other sectors as well retail and living and other things that I can bring elements back to the practice. So there's definitely a relationship. People often ask me do you want to do one or the other? I'd like to continue both because they're mutually beneficial. Um, so yeah, excited to see and have access to more projects around the world.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely no, that's really really interesting and, as you say, you know the real, the real value that we um bring as people in this system is really that sort of experience of different things, different aspects of life, different areas, and how you then kind of draw tangents and pull these things together and inform and enrich the different parts of your work and your life, yeah, exactly. So yeah, so it seems really apt that you are working in these different fields and really interesting to watch it all develop.

Speaker 3:

really A really a number of years. It reminds me a number of years ago we we set out to do a piece of uh research on homes and living um, and we just canvassed we have, I think, 24 nationalities here at the practice. We just canvassed the studio's view on different ways of living. You know I had people from Sweden talking to us about how how things are different in the UK, to people from all over the world telling us about the ways that they live in there or lived in their home countries, and so then we use that and fed that into our residential research to try and suggest different ways that we might start living here that might benefit, you know, current economical situations and other things, but they had parallels with you know how the challenges that people are facing at the moment here Can we learn from other communities and other ways of living? Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Good yeah. Yeah, Absolutely All right, Nick. Appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us today. No problem, Pleasure. Thanks, Tom.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Grow Places podcast. For more information, visit growplacescom and follow us at. We Grow Places across all social channels. See you next time.