Architecture
Although I was quite shy when I was a teenage, I consider myself very lucky in that I was encouraged and sometimes gently coerced to do loads of different things from outdoor adventure activities, camping, walking, climbing, through to sports, through to creative activities, making things, repairing my own stuff, through to learning musical instruments and playing in orchestras that toured around the world (my secret being that I played the oboe to grade 8 standard, something I kept very quiet because oboe’s weren’t cool..! and I wanted to be cool like everyone else…..). That being said I was never stand out / very good at any of it, there was always someone else much more talented and who put in much more effort – so the core ‘skill’ I discovered in myself was that of being ‘OK’ at everything / at as much as possible. And that being ‘OK’ at everything was ‘OK’. It also meant I didn’t have to work too hard at any one thing…. “Could try harder…” was the perennial school report for every subject.
Like many I went to university because that’s what you did. I dropped the oboe like a stone and took up the bass guitar and was in a number of failed bands. I studied architecture because it allowed me to carry on being ‘OK’ at everything, although I ended up in a great architectural school at Kingston more through luck than anything. Shockingly halfway through my degree I discovered I was doing a bit better than just ‘OK’, and that I really enjoyed it – a pleasant surprise for someone who hadn’t been particularly driven to that point. I became slightly driven at that point (but nothing too annoying.)
Seven years of study (great fun in itself but even better in that I avoided having to have a real job…), and then a real job; I ended up living and working firstly in Madrid for 8 years, then in Shanghai for 9 years, throughout all having a wonderful family with two girls and a boy, and a very very patient / tolerant and lovely partner – heaven knows I got lucky there… then starting my own design practice with a very talented designer mate, now back living in the UK but traveling around the world still….
Trying hard to do good things and in no particular order – a Dad, Husband, keen cyclist (as is my nature I’m very ‘OK’ at that), son, brother, friendly sort of person who’s keen to keep learning, doing more (all at the now established ‘OK’ benchmark), architect, place maker, designer, procrastinator, ‘trying to be cool’ still type person….( I really should give up on that last one..)..
.. AND loving helping E2M’s young designers realise their aspirations for an E2M Place… Amazing process / so much talent there… & I’m learning loads….!