How do you erase something off the Internet?

(Part 1: How we really control project costs)

Everyone knows it's impossible to delete anything once it's online. The only way to fade it into oblivion is by burying it under more and more information.

When you're featured in the media for your work, it's a cause for celebration. But we fail to understand why no news is sometimes good news. If an article (like the first one ever written about me and my work) uses inappropriate keywords, you will attract further attention from the wrong audiences. During my first interview, I was caught off-guard, and spoke right off the top of my head. I had started DesignAware with an intent to make good design more accessible, and break the common misconception that design is the forte of a limited few and that the need for architects is not universal. What the writer latched onto was "inexpensive interior ideas." Being the most popular newspaper in Hyderabad, we were bombarded with calls from potential clients with an immediate need for an architect. Most of these calls turned into real projects, and you might think that's a good thing. But foremost in the minds of the clientele was the headline.

Here I'd like to make a distinction between low cost projects and low cost designers. Though we are passionate about serving communities through accessible architecture and design, and our continued work towards socially-responsible architecture is reflected in some of our best known projects (#HilltopSchool, #SacredSpace), we are certainly not low cost architects. Fee is not the best measure of a designer; it is value. We like to think of ourselves as high value architects.

So do we save our clients money on their projects and how?

1 We have a separate quota for pro bono work, such as charity schools and community spaces that are non-profit and sustained by donations. We have a different fee structure for these kinds of projects, and may sometimes offer our services free of charge. By making this distinction, we are able to devote appropriate attention to socially-responsible projects.

2 To control the cost of projects, we work towards reducing the overall execution cost through various practices, such as in-house customization, through passive cooling systems that can lower the energy consumption, or by measures that can reduce the cost of maintenance in the future life of the building. These are practices we have learned as architects and designers, and through professional experience. More importantly, affordability is subjective, and the cost of construction can have a very wide range, so it is important for us to be on the same page as our clients when it comes to their budget.

3 We provide clients a teaser of our work. Architecture and construction is a huge commitment, in terms of time, expense and effort. The rapport between a client and architect is necessary for a project's success, and pre-design planning can elevate or derail a project. We create a project strategy through a series of site visits, conversations, research, analysis, budget, area and timeline calculations, and due diligence before we decide to take up the project for design. This is a low-commitment consultation we call the Needs + Options Review that clients can avail of for a fixed fee, which will allow them to figuratively dip their toes in the water to see how we work, to gather all the information that's necessary to begin the project, and to outline their goals and expectations for the project within a short time, instead of jumping into the design process directly and without preparation. This saves clients money in the long run.

4 Our fee is not tied to the execution cost of the project. Oftentimes, architects and designers need to put in extra time and effort to make design decisions with innovative solutions for lowering costs, a goal that needs to be baked into the design process early on. By keeping our fee independent, we have no incentive to increase the overall cost of the project, and we can comfortably take measures to reduce the cost of construction and the running costs of the building without ending up broke ourselves. We don't believe that we should be able to earn better fees only by compelling clients to spend more on execution. It is a conflict of interest that is unfair to architects/designers as well as to clients. We charge based on the design quality and the effort required to achieve it by team members with different levels of expertise.

Back to the problematic heading. This news feature brought us a lot of work, and I am grateful for it. It taught me many invaluable lessons that were relevant to take us from a rookie independent studio to an established professional practice. We also had to learn how to project our value to potential clients who were focused on "inexpensive interior ideas" and not design quality. In order to avoid the race to the bottom that comes from solely fee-based selection of designers, it is important for creative professionals to be able to quantify and define design in terms of what value it can add to the project and how it is beneficial to the space or object or experience beyond aesthetics.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like.?Design is how it works." ~Steve Jobs

Newspapers get discarded or recycled, but the words remain online forever. It took me five years to erase this association. I did it by being prolific in my writing and posting about design, publishing my work frequently, speaking up about my ideals and aims, and contributing more articles and features to the media that focused on what was authentic to DesignAware (and not what a journalist wanted to portray or what would interest readership). Along the way, I taught myself to converse better, speak better (in different languages) and present better, and to seek out better audiences. It may seem counterintuitive to pull up that old article now, but it is overshadowed by many, many others that are more honest, relevant and interesting to read (or watch, or listen to).

Being a creative professional doesn't just mean making, but also documenting, presenting, and being able to write about and talk about your work at various levels of understanding, for other professionals as well as for laypersons. It means being your own brand, being honest about your work and your beliefs, and being unapologetic about them. It also means shrugging off your gaffes (and that of others) and moving beyond them to newer, more exciting things. It means being unafraid to mess up again and again.

Only when you become comfortable with uncertainty can you innovate and evolve.

If you'd like to learn how I structure interviews and media features as a part of building my personal brand as well as for DesignAware and our associated initiatives, keep an eye out for part two of this article, coming soon!