Carl Falck Architecture

Photos by Carl Falck.

When you ask most people what an Architect does they say “they do the drawings.”

When you ask most Architects what they do they will often say “ We follow the RIBA scale of Fees (which is often a percentage of the construction cost with little incentive to keep costs down according to most clients), prepare preliminary designs based on the clients brief (most clients don’t really have a brief, but they do have a dream), deal with the complexities of obtaining Planning and Building regulations approval (which is unchartered territory for most clients & often makes little common sense) and then obtains prices from Contractors to carry out the works in a given time for a given sum (which hardly ever happens clients will say). Almost all projects evolve as the works progress and few clients have the inner vision of the Architect’s of space and light. We charge a fixed price, lump sum fee in 4 stages and we provide cashflow systems to assist clients with money management from the outset. We bid competitively for our work. Out of approx. 890 projects I have personally built over 500 projects. I know about construction and love making things.

Once on site the Architect often has little control over the Contractor.’s ability to time manage, control cost and delivery quality. We get deeply involved in the construction of the project.

I have always loved making things & getting my hands dirty. I also realise that for 90% of residential clients their home is their biggest asset. Adding square footage, space and value is important at one end of the scale, but a large section of humanity has no home, little income and often live in informal settlements. We start with “affordability” then design outwards. This strategy allows us to design & build projects from the smallest of schemes to large scale projects and monitors cashflow as we go.The projects range from slum dwellings to Ambassadorial houses, both public & private sector projects, offices, theatres, clinics, children’s nursery, community centres, workshops, industrial buildings and solar parks. We focus on rainwater harvesting, solar power, sanitation options, sustainability and up-cycling of materials.

Every Cityzen should have equal human rights with equal access to Shelter, sanitation, nutrition and growth irrespective of religion, creed, colour or gender. Our larger responsibility is to ensure that the built environment that we provide is affordable, economically viable, considerate of our planet and caters for the wellbeing and growth of all of us. Our industry and lifestyles are often extremely wasteful and consume enormous amounts of energy. We need to be mindful of that. We upcycle products & materials and make nature inclusive.

Our remit is to look at all of these factors when considering every project.