Thoughts for the Weekend & this Week’s Links

Share with

Mid-Winter Planning.

Happy New Year.

Well, Happy Mid-Winter.

It’s a stupid time of year for a fresh start. We force this Gregorian New Year on ourselves, despite nature telling us it’s not a new beginning. It’s time to hunker down. Eat the nuts we gathered in the autumn and wait for the new growth of the spring.

If I had my way, I’d make Christmas a single day of holiday, maybe two to deal with the groans. Then make the start of spring -21 March – the ‘new’ New Year and holiday week.

You can dress up as a lamb, daffodil or bunny in March, and we can dump Halloween. It’s a win-win.

Notwithstanding this, the week over Christmas does turn most things off.

This time, the quietness gave me space to reflect on an idea for a shop I had back in 1991. A place people could come and speak to an architect about their ideas, plans or confusion for a new project – a new house, a remodel, or whatever. Architectural Therapy. Haha.

Back then, as a student, I thought that being an architect wasn’t really about the theoretical, wonderful architecture we were taught, but about helping people realise their dreams. I still do.

For the homeowners I work with, these dreams can be as simple as needing a downstairs loo to wanting to build their family a new home, and everything in between.

The idea was that anyone could walk in, pay a fee and get access to the brain of a real, live architect to help them. And I started rethinking about this as the email requests for help poured in over the holidays.

Head above parapet stuff. My calendar is filling up.

The little shop I’ve had on a back street for 20 years has tentatively opened on the High Street I dreamt of 35 years ago.

Not a physical move — but the thing I imagined back then: being visible, easy to find, and open to anyone who needed it.

That High Street turned out to be YouTube. If I keep making the videos, people keep finding the shop — already knowing how I think, already halfway into the conversation. It’s by far the best marketing strategy I’ve ever stumbled into.

The issue is that there is only one of me, and I’m not interested in running and managing a business of dozens of people. Over the years, I’ve wished I were. There are bits of it that appeal. Having colleagues to share successes and failures with, giving people interesting and challenging jobs, and so on.

But I know I’m a lone wolf. I value freedom, the summer off and time with those I love more than anything.

I hunt alone.

“You must have shot an awful lot of tigers.”
“Yes, I used a machine gun.”
The Italian Job (1969)

So this year is going to be about building a machine gun.

You can currently book a call on my website. These calls enable me to help a homeowner immediately. Live design ideas: sharing my screen, thinking, drawing and advising in an hour. There is an awful lot of value transferred. Forty years of experience distilled into a homeowner’s dreams.

This has worked well over recent years: a steady trickle of bookings and a 65% rate of converting them into paid commissions.

The delivery of complete projects – design, planning, building regulations, builders – is where the meat of the work is. And the money. At its peak, I was delivering seventy-five projects a year.

A quieter second half of 2024 forced a better 2025: fewer projects, decent revenue and July and August off.

So the shape of 2026 and beyond feels fairly clear.

I’ll keep making design videos — pulling apart ordinary houses, sketching possibilities, showing what could be there.

I’ll spend more time in conversation, too. Short, focused sessions where people can walk in, talk things through, and leave clearer than they arrived.

And I’ll still take on a small number of full projects. I like seeing things built. I need that connection to reality. It keeps everything else honest.

I love helping people, and across these three tiers, I will be able to help as many people as possible without breaking myself.

Have a great year, whenever it starts.

All the best