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Startup: The Latest Architecture and News

“It’s Not About What Makes Good Design, but What Makes Good Design for Wellbeing”: Alex Depledge on Resi

What is architecture? Is it grand designs with complex structures, defying the laws of physics? Is it simple, everyday buildings that, when put together, create the urban fabric? In the mid-18th century, Laugier introduced the concept of the Primitive Hut, a structure, essentially a home, designed and built to meet the primitive man’s basic needs: shelter from the elements and nature. Any structure that meets these requirements would be considered authentic architecture. However, since then, our needs have evolved and are much more elaborate, especially when it comes to our homes. They need to provide shelter, security, thermal comfort, and space. Our homes have to be economical, environmentally friendly, and have access to the internet, among many other prerequisites. So what would the ideal modern human’s home, and thus true architecture, look like?

The Science of a Happy Home Report, carried out by Resi first in 2020 and then again in post-pandemic 2023, sought to discover exactly what elements people believed made up the ultimate happy home. The results were six prominent qualities: a home that is adaptable to meet our changing needs, a home that allows us to connect and build relationships, a home that mirrors our personality and values, a nourishing home that provides the conditions we need to thrive (i.e. air quality), a home that helps us relax, and a home that offers security and makes us feel safe. These needs, however, aren't being met for the majority of UK homes, and that's where Resi comes in.

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How Architecture Firms Are Using Generative Design Today

In May, aec+tech hosted an event on Clubhouse discussing how architects are using generative design in architecture firms today and towards the future. Five guest speakers from reputable architecture and tech start-ups —Zaha Hadid Architects, BIG, Outer Labs, 7fold, and RK Architects— joined the session to share their experiences and insights.

Higharc Startup Aims to Automate Home Design

Stealth-stage startup Higharc has begun rethinking how new homes are designed and built without hiring an architect. Founded to reinvent new home design for the digital age, the company aims to make custom-fit homes accessible to anyone by automating home design and customization online. Taking on pre-made plans, the team wants to bring design back to housing options and make customization more accessible.

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Boston Startup Spaceus Brings Pop-Up Energy to Vacant Storefronts

As retail moves evermore online, vacant storefronts have become ubiquitous sights in American cities and towns. Often located in formerly prime downtown real estate, the darkened windows have a knock-on effect, sapping urban vibrancy and sometimes falling into disrepair. Discourse surrounding the predicament of dead malls and traditional retail space is ongoing, but a one-size fits-all solution clearly isn't the answer here.

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LA Startup Raises $30 Million to Reimagine How Millennials Live Today

Los Angeles-based startup Fernish has raised $30 million to transform the $100 billion dollar furniture industry and rethink how people live today. The platform-based furniture subscription service allows users to subscribe to an entire room or specific pieces, and they can provide a range of curated designer collections. With trends around mobility and ownership, Fernish was designed for the 25 million young professionals renting their homes and planning to move within the next 12 months.

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Why Architects are Super Well-Suited for Startups

This article was originally published by Jude Fulton on Medium under the title "Why Architects are Super Well-Suited for Startups". You can see the original post here.

Architect + Entrepreneur (Volume 2): How to Stabilize Your Revenue Streams With "Passive Income"

In “Architect + Entrepreneur Volume Two”, we follow along as architect Eric Reinholdt scales his business, continuing the narrative begun in volume 1 and applying an entrepreneurial mindset to every facet of his work. The book chronicles his experiments failures and successes as he reinvents his architectural practice.

The primary innovation is a focus on passive income producing products and it involves a simple shift supplementing the standard consulting arrangement – hours traded for revenues earned – with an architecture-as-product revenue model. We discover how products, especially digital products, are nearly infinitely scalable. As compared with the limits of time, which govern the standard consulting arrangement, passive-income-generating products reinforce the brand message and create more freedom for the business owner.

Rather than wholly rejecting the individualized, high-touch service side of the business in favor of products, the book demonstrates how a line of products can actually nourish the consulting arm with only those clients best suited for the brand, while producing enough residual income to fully fund the practice.

The following is an excerpt from chapter 2, “A New Hope Model.”

Starting Your Own Practice: The Challenges and Rewards, According to ArchDaily Readers

Architecture is in some ways a paradoxical profession. On one hand, it projects a popular image of the lone, creative genius, taking control over all aspects of a building project and forming them to their creative ideals. But in reality, most projects take a huge team of people, all working together to produce a building which usually represents the creative input of not only many different people, but many professions too.

One way to find a balance between these two extremes is to take more creative control over the decisions of the group - in other words, to start your own practice, guided by your creative input alone. But is that goal worth the difficulty it might take to get there? This was the question we had in mind when we asked our readers to let us know the pros and cons of starting your own firm last month. Interestingly, not a single commenter left any response about the joys of working for someone else, and the consensus was firmly that running your own practice is preferable - provided you can deal with the significant problems of doing so. Read on to find out what they had to say.

What Are the Benefits of Starting Your Own Architecture Firm Over Joining an Existing One?

For many architects, owning their own firm is the dream which drives their career. In a field such as architecture, the idea of having the freedom to seek out the projects you most want to do and the creative freedom to make the final decision on a design sounds like the ideal way to work. And yet, ask any successful firm founder and they'll probably tell you that owning your own architecture business doesn't live up to such a romantic notion, and takes a lot of hard (non-design) work to be successful. In the recession of recent years, many found this out the hard way, becoming self-employed out of necessity and having to get creative about how exactly they make their money.

Architect + Entrepreneur: A Field Guide to Building, Branding, and Marketing Your Startup Design Business

The inherently dry subjects of business development, marketing, P+L reports, taxes, and insurance are less likely to feed the intellect of the architect than discussions of materiality, parallax, articulation and form. Yet the reality of what it means to practice architecture, by necessity, requires reconciling these two divided worlds. Nowhere is the need to unify them as great as with the startup design business.

Author, award-winning architect and founder of the firm 30X40 Design Workshop, Eric Reinholdt, explores these topics in "Architect + Entrepreneur: A Field Guide to Building, Branding, and Marketing Your Startup Design Business." Part narrative and part business book, Reinholdt advocates new approaches and tools that merge entrepreneurship with the practice of architecture and interior design. The book offers a framework for starting a design practice in the 21st century which leverages the lean startup methodology to create a minimum viable product and encourages successive small wins that support a broader vision enabling one to, “think big, start small, and learn fast.”

Read on after the break for an excerpt from Chapter 2 - Getting Started.