Architect Gone Rogue - Zinc Week 12

For myself, friends, family, former colleagues, future colleagues, clients, collaborators, acquaintances, investors, interested bystanders picked up on the way and other generally nosey people...

This is the journey of an Architect gone rogue and trying something different.

'Christmas Break'

The end of week 9 marked the beginning of the Zinc Venture Builder content pause over Christmas. The gap provided an opportunity to take stock and press reset on a number of things, including the coffee-stained carpet in the Zinc office.

The 'break' for me was spent mainly focussed on ongoing commitments for private architectural work, which don't just go away overnight in the same way that full time employment does.

I read a lot and reflected on an intense couple of months by looking back at notes made before and during the programme to see how thoughts and ideas had evolved and adapted.

Pre-Zinc, one of the main problem areas I had thought about pursuing was finding a solution to achieve Deep Retrofit at scale. Having dropped this after some initial market exploration with Dee Korab , over the break it was reassuring to learn that Propflo received substantial investment from Innovate UK for its work in the space, whilst in Spain, Clikalia, an instant property buyer that renovates 70% of the properties it buys, was named one of the hottest startups in Madrid. It left me wondering again if a similar model i.e. a point-of-sale mechanism capitalising on lengthy typical conveyancing practices could be used in the UK to improve the housing stock and address the decarbonisation challenge, instead of just annoying all parties as it usually does ??

Post Christmas, I lived out a dream by touring the Barbican's resident-only areas with Natalia Baltazar , armed with the skeleton key that opened all of the doors ??

Whilst on our mini adventure, aside from pondering an idea for a Harry Potter-style children's book set on the estate, we learnt about the Garchey system of domestic waste disposal, which was very relevant for the circular waste system concept I'd been working on with Guy Naor .

Whilst surprised to learn that the Garchey system involved throwing all waste down the kitchen sink, it was eye opening to see a waste system integrated into a building fabric at such a scale, and one that could process large volumes of waste as if it were a utility. The system, not without its issues for a number of practical and environmental reasons, gave us confidence that with some design and the right new technology, albeit difficult, it wouldn't be out of this world to envisage a scenario where valorized and environmentally friendly integrated waste systems could be embedded directly into new buildings as if they were any other critical building service.

Week 12

Back into the re-carpeted office, week 12 felt like a fresh start and an opportunity to hit the ground running ????

The result of Christmas thought and mulled wine, my New Years resolution was to cut the passive dissent and heed Rosie Webster 's advice that "your first idea is usually your worst idea", so throw yourself into one thing and be prepared to 'pivot' ?? ??

Whilst on the one hand this feels final and uncomfortably like throwing away weeks of good work on other ideas i.e. the kind of abortive workflow Architects try to minimise, the realisation I've come to is that none of the work is useless, and it might be something that one ends up pivoting back to in the future anyways. Greater is the opportunity cost of pursuing multiple ideas in parallel and preventing building any real momentum with one. More on this next week...

In terms of Zinc programme content, week 12 included user testing, assumption mapping and inclusive design talks, as well as another bout of standup pitches, with current teams using the cohort for constructive comment and scrutiny. Leading the way were Akash Singh and Virginia Szepietowski , who are on course to an early investment committee for their business in precision biological testing within water treatment facilities.

Separately, stayce cavanaugh, Marjo Palanee and I carried out a TAM (total addressable market) exercise and I started devising a funding journey based on a capital-intensive software / hardware product, considering the non-dilutive funding opportunities available using Grantify UK and Innovate UK .

Thanks

Lydia Goldberg and Revital Marom for the Barbican tour, chat and nibbles ??

Akash Singh for the unit economics 101 and displaying his new 3D printing toy ??

Guy Naor for the sensible and understanding conversations ??

Liza Levy and Amy Elliott Peace of Innovate UK for the quickfire Q&A??

Thought of the Week

The programme is hotting up ??????