Designer Q&A with Soren Luckins

In May of this year I visited Melbourne based Multidisciplinary design studio Büro North to chat with it’s founder and director Soren Luckins. In what is certainly one of the best interviews to be featured on Design Droplets (At least I believe it is, please let us know your thoughts in the comments…) Soren talks about setting up Büro North, why is is important to develop a strong culture in your design studio, some of Büro North’s past and present projects, and risk in the world of design.

Enjoy the interview and be sure to rock on over to the Büro North website to check out some of their awesome projects.

Highlights

• “When I returned I tried to get a job back here and I couldn’t get a full time gig. I guess I was just unemployable.”

• “I think it’s absolutely critical to have a strong culture in a studio. A design studio is a living, breathing thing and people generally work extremely hard, so its important the environment and culture supports that.”

• “Risk is a very important part of the design process. I didn’t realise this until I started running the studio. You’ve got no reason to worry about risk when you’re young and doing small projects.”

• “We don’t have a house style, that’s one of our principles of design – that we should always respond to a brief rather than say that’s this is how we do it. So we like to say we have a house process and because we are process driven studio the outcomes should be unique.”

1. Soren, welcome to Design Droplets. Thanks for the taking the time to do this interview. Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Sure. I completed a BA Design at Swinburne University. In the second year I wasn’t sure what discipline I wanted to pursue… So I battled along and eventually convinced the Uni to set up an exchange program (we didn’t have exchange programs in those days). At the University I attended in Germany, you could choose from any of the art and design courses. I choose gold and silver smithing, graphic design and architecture. In the architecture class I entered a competition with four others which we won.

When the competition ended they went on to start a business together, while I went travelling and came home to Melbourne. Whilst in Germany I was working for a company that designed tyres, cameras, loads of graphics, signage and did pretty much everything in-between. I thought this was pretty exciting. When I returned I tried to get a job back here and I couldn’t get a full time gig. I guess I was just unemployable.

2. So, tell me about Buro North, how it came about, where its been and where it’s heading?

I was freelancing for three years and eventually through the freelancing I ended up with enough work to sustain me full time. Then I’d pick up the odd job here and there. Eventually I had more odd jobs than freelance work so I decided to quit freelance and start a studio. I started a studio, made a website and put “we” all over the website and “our staff” even though it was just me sitting in a room.

Eventually I got a good job, a big job. It was a six month job and it provided enough cash flow to get an employee. So I got one employee and moved into the studio we are currently in. I leased the space and sub-let it out to other businesses. There was a town planner, an architect and us. As Büro North grew we moved other people out of the space so we could grow.

In the beginning I was doing a lot of straight industrial and graphics, which led to some signage design because signage is obviously 2D graphics combined with 3D forms. We got a big signage job which was the Royal Melbourne Show Grounds and I realised that we didn’t know how to do Wayfinding as a discipline. I met a guy called Finn Butler from the UK who is a pioneer in wayfinding, he came out to Australia and he is now a director of Büro North.

We have two divisions, there’s the Wayfinding and the Design side of things. Wayfinding work is interesting because they are significantly large projects whereas our design-work is often a faster turn around process. A lot of our work comes out of the built environment, working with and for Architects, Landscape Architects and builders. Traditionally Architects design structures and spaces, interior designers develop environments and Industrial Designers design for users. And that’s the main key to the success of Industrial Design as a profession I believe – that we don’t follow other professions in defining ourselves by what we deliver.

3. Buro North is a multi-disciplinary design studio, focusing on Form & Object (ID), Signage & Way-finding and branding & communication. Can you speak about what being a multidisciplinary design studio has meant for Buro North? And why is it important for designers to collaborate across disciplines?

I think that everybody brings different perspectives to the design process and if you’re really smart you catch as many of those different specialties in your design process as you can. So quite often we lead projects by attracting a client, developing the brief with the client, the contract and then pulling in other people to help us deliver that project.

And we’re quite open about giving credits for where people have collaborated with us. I’m 30, and have only been designing for the last 10 years, so I don’t have the most experience in the world. So it would be pretty arrogant for me to assume that this is the only way to do it.

The whole point of design is that it’s a problem solving discipline for whatever problem you might have. Well that’s my definition and for Buro North we like to collaborate as much as we can, to give our projects the best chance for success and ensure we are always bringing different perspectives into the project.

4.Setting up a design business requires a designer to wear many ‘hats’ other than their design one, can you talk about what ‘hats’ you found too be the most critical in setting up your design business?

When starting a studio the marketing hat is incredibly critical. I used to spend vast amounts of time developing blue sky ideas, concepts and projects that weren’t funded by clients. Developing conceptual ideas and then working hard to get them into magazines, publications, press and media was critical to building the profile of the studio.

Then when you get the profile and you start attracting work you need to learn, very quickly, the project management role and managing clients’ expectations, which is a really delicate thing. It wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve had to learn, but it was definitely something I didn’t consider part of the design role until all of a sudden it was very important. And then once you’ve got the jobs, you’ve got good design and you have good clients paying bills you’ve got to manage that process and manage the business. That’s probably been the hardest thing and the biggest learning curve. I think I’m probably inherently quite naive when it comes to managing a business, but given my philosophy of collaboration, I’m actually quite good at it. What I’ve done is recognise that I’ve got no idea about business yet, so I’ve pulled in people that have experience.

One of the first things I did when starting out was approach a mentor, an Architect who has run design practices all his life. Who knows the ins and outs and was happy to share his learning. But he is also paid for his advice, meaning that he is accountable and always there when I need him. It also means that we’re marrying youthful creativity with someone who has thirty years hardy, weary industry knowledge. One of the first things he said to me was that management and creative processes was sort of like herding cats, the creative processes is a fluffy process that doesn’t want to be managed. So a lot of what we’ve done is develop the studio’s processes in terms of how we create. We have developed our own Quality Assurance system which just ensures that when a job comes into the office we have, not a guide book but, a step by step process us as designers.

Sometimes the balance between budgets, fees and design means I have very conflicting agendas (hats). Our primary aim is create the best outcome for our client and to spend the most time that we can. But you want to make sure that you deliver the job on budget so that the business can keep going. So I think on a day to day basis I wear two hats. A lot of the work I do is just directing, so I haven’t used a CAD program in 18 months I just direct from behind my designers. So a lot of the time it’s about managing conflicting ideas because I’ll sit there and might say “We’re over budget on this job but I’m comfortable with that so we’re going to keep going. I want this, this and this done.” So it’s a difficult process but an enjoyable one.

5. Buro North have done many different projects, can you talk about a couple of your favourites? and why?

Okay, I’ll talk about two extremes. I have a conflicting ideology about how I work. I love doing thoughtless, fast, unjustified, irresponsible concepts where I just come up with an idea, bash it out, it looks good, it’s something interesting and that’s the end of its life.

But I also have a pretty strong sustainability interest and a pretty strong belief in evidence based design. I kind of fantasies about doing really fast, cheap, quick, fun things. But at Büro North what we’re actually doing is really arduous, long, extensively researched, evidence based design.

The VEIL Sunshade is one of the quick projects. A good evidence based design solution would be the Falls Creek project we developed in collaboration with ID/Lab.

For the Falls Creek project the brief from the client was: We want to replace signage on our site. We’ve currently got one metre wide by 60mm thick steel fabricated signage with internal lighting, concrete footings and we want new ones. So we responded to their brief and said we can do that, anybody can do that. We’re not going to be the cheapest to do that, but we think that that’s a really irresponsible outcome/response to your needs. We’d like to challenge your brief and come talk to you.

It was a tender process, they said sure come and talk to us. We went up there and we looked at the site conditions. We said any sign on the ground when it snows is going to be underground. They have ground level changes between winter and summer. You have signage to ski lifts in winter and mountain bike trails in summer, but they are at different locations. A lot of the locations you’re signing to in winter are closed in summer. A lot of things in summer like the lake for ice-skating in winter are not available in summer, it doesn’t make sense what you’re doing. So we think we should challenge your brief and re-write it.

So they got us on board, they set a budget to deliver this project. We went up and did a wayfinding strategy. We looked at who the users are that are using the space – from the resort managers to the user groups like the ski clubs, mounting bike clubs, walking clubs, hotel owners and chalet owners; a huge stakeholder management process.

Then we looked at the requirements for summer and winter and compared the differences between them. We did a sight line analysis for when you’re on the snow in winter or when you’re on the ground in the summer and we came up with a proposal for them. We developed a modular system that can get changed from summer to winter. We then proposed to them that it should be manageable and be able to be updated by one person during winter using one hand to hold the sign and the other to change the sign. We also needed to manage people hanging off it when they’re snowboarding and it getting damaged by snow mobiles.

We proposed to them that instead of developing and building all the signage in Melbourne, which would normally happen. Which would be a lot of weight on a lot of trucks, carbon and all the associated standard issues with that. We would develop a system that sleeves over a standard street sign and their maintenance guys can build it and maintain it, plus we can use recycled aluminium to give it a lower carbon footprint outcome.

Then we designed it all, we tendered it, it’s currently being made and we’ve delivered about 30% less signs than what they had by going through that wayfinding process and working out exactly what they do need. Then we’ve managed to save them significant amounts of money on an overall investment by being smart with design. So that’s our best case.

Our worst case would be something like the Chiodo Splash which is a few years old. This was just someone saying we want a sculpture in our front shop window. We decided that because it was a void space down a basement that you should have something that attracts your eye and drags you down so it’s a big blue sculpture, a big water splash. It’s made up of foam, which is not so environmentally friendly. It’s just a quick fast thing.

So most of our projects these days are larger, more considered projects and we haven’t really done a quick, fast one for a while and the ones we are doing like the VEIL Sunshade haven’t been realised in 3D so they’re kind of a sexy design exercise (good for promotion), that keeps us excited.

6. Büro North has quite a talented team, can you talk about the culture at Büro North and the key foundations that have helped you to create this culture? Why is it important to have a strong culture in a design studio?

I think it’s absolutely critical to have a strong culture in a studio. A design studio is a living, breathing thing and people generally work extremely hard, so its important the environment and culture supports that. They’re creatively investing themselves in their outcomes so there’s a bit of your blood in everything you deliver. I think that brings a bit more emotion and passion to the process and more emotion and passion means more potential conflict or just more intensity.

It’s very important that people feel valued, that they’re part of the team and that they’re supported. We’ve developed out Quality Assurance system for delivering projects, so that people feel they could go out on a limb and make mistakes, stuff up and not ruin a project. Because part of design is that element of chance and surprise, if you manage that out of your creative process you miss out on a whole world of interesting outcomes. You’ve got to allow people to make mistakes and you’ve got to allow people to grow in a business.

A part of my collaborative model is that staff can acquire shares. So in December Finn Butler became a director and a shareholder in the business. And there a couple of other guys on their way to getting shares in the business and becoming part of it, and that’s exciting for me because I see Büro North as a collaboration. The reason I called it Büro North and not Soren Luckins Design is because it’s not all about me, it’s a vehicle to deliver interesting projects. That objective and direction flows from me through to every email that goes out of the office and every design outcome the studio produces. It’s important that people are recognised for their work and see a future for themselves in the business.

7. Can you talk about the importance of Risk in the world of design?

Risk is a very important part of the design process. I didn’t realise this until I started running the studio. You’ve got no reason to worry about risk when you’re young and doing small projects. All of a sudden when you’re a service provider, a consultancy, you’re dealing with someone else’s money and delivering someone else’s project. Then there’s a responsibility there and there’s a responsibility to that person, the community, the environment and to the people working in your studio. It’s a huge task to make sure the project from it’s inception to it’s end, travels through your office with no hiccups.

Hiccups can be anything from saying no to a client about something you should have said yes to, comprising on something you shouldn’t have comprised on, stuffing up a drawing and it going on site and not working or not being accurate. When you’re dealing with big sums of money the risk becomes real and all of a sudden, scary.

We manage risk by having people like our business adviser. We manage risk by having experienced people deliver a specialist advice to us. So on Falls Creek we didn’t have a huge amount of aluminium casting experience, we certainly didn’t have any concrete casting experience. So we pulled in a contractor who had done a bucket load of that, we pulled in some alpine specialists to give us advice on freeze and thaw effects on the different materials etc…

The outcome is that you try to manage out all the risk of the project to the point where the client doesn’t even know about what could go wrong if you hadn’t managed that risk. But risk to the business, there’s huge risks to the business. We’ve got 14 people working in the studio that need to get paid every two weeks. Bills that come in and go out, it’s a very real thing. Things like the global financial crisis hit and some of our bigger, far more established competitors have gone broke. If someone who’s been in business for thirty years can go broke and I’ve been in business for four years, you suddenly think, I really need to make sure that I understand things.

8. Can you share your creative process and design philosophy with Design Droplets readers?

Sure. Very basically, gather as much information as is feasible. Define all the potential problems and opportunities. Develop a position, and move forwards designing whilst constantly referring back to the start of the process to challenge, inform and shape the design. When I speak to design students, my advice is always to keep challenging and refining no matter what.

9. Social Innovation is the current buzz word is the world of Design. What are your thoughts on social Innovation?

I try not to get too caught up in the buzzwords. I don’t know what social innovation is supposed to mean to us, but as part of the business we try to give our creative skills, design skills and time to some community groups. We support a Women’s Domestic Violence charity, Brain Institute charity, we do work for a couple of environmental organisations and we support some initiatives out of RMIT.

10. Soren, thanks for taking the time to chat with me this afternoon and for sharing your thoughts on design. Do you have any final thoughts or advice for Design Droplets readers?

People will always try to categorise things in life and put things in boxes so they can make it easier to understand. I think one of the hardest things for people to understand about Büro North is, I guess our work is a little bit too scattered for any pre-definitions. Which is why I enjoy design because it can encompass anything from a service design to a form outcome.

The one thing I like people to understand is that we don’t have a house style, that’s one of our principles of design – that we should always respond to a brief rather than say that’s this is how we do it. So we like to say we have a house process and because we are process driven studio the outcomes should be unique.

These might also interest you.

• Designer Q&A with Colin Redmond of Interphase Design
• The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation
• Link Love 28 September 2009
• Emerging Talent: Jaime Sanchez
• Don’t forget to enter

August 20, 2009