Property Focus: The Interview – Kevin Singh

ARCHITECT Kevin Singh, director of The Space Studio in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, is the subject of Property Focus this week.

Also a lecturer at Birmingham City University, Mr Singh casts his eye over loft living and the troubles breaking into the industry.

If you are interested in taking part in ‘The Interview’, please email tamlyn.jones@thebusinessdesk.com and click through to see all our previous Property Focus Interviews.

1. What are your views on the current state of the commercial property and property development markets?

I certainly feel like it is picking up. We are seeing some very exciting opportunities, both in the new build and interior sectors. Quality private developer housing in particular is buoyant for us and so is the extra care sector.

2. What are the key challenges and pieces of legislation you think will most affect your sector over the coming months?

Every time new legislation comes in, it is a challenge for architects. The challenge is maintaining your design flair while meeting new standards or agendas. Eventually though, these things become just a matter of course and as a general rule improve design.

3. Why do you think the West Midlands is a good place to do business?

In recent years, it has become a place which encourages entrepreneurial-ship and creative industries which has redefined business in the city. There now seems to be room for smaller companies and we, for one, feel like there are now no unwritten rules or boundaries and have subsequently won some major commissions which people might have thought were ‘above’ us before.

4. What is your favourite building/development in the West Midlands and why?

I was pleased to see the loft living developments in the late 1990s such as Sherborne Lofts and Ludgate Lofts as they set the tone for city living and the diversity and vitality which a city like this needs. More recently, I am a fan of Fort Dunlop, mostly for its regeneration.

5. If you could improve anything in the region, what would it be?

Public transport, as simple as that – the quality, cost, and coverage. The traffic stifles this city.
 
6. What barriers have you faced during your career and how have you overcome them?

The most frustrating thing is when you cannot get into a sector because you haven’t worked in it before, or you haven’t done a certain size of project so you cannot win one of that size. Everyone must have had a ‘first’ project to break through the glass ceiling but so much of procurement now is obsessed with a specific track record. This means that projects are designed by the same people who do the same thing again and again. For me, design is design, regardless of what you are designing.

7. What was your first job and how did you enter your current line of work?

I did a week’s work experience at school in an architects and I was hooked even though I spent an afternoon doing a drains survey in Cleator Moor, Cumbria. Tony Kerby and I set the practice up in 2000 pretty much off the back of leaving university and qualifying. Looking back, we were a bit naive but it has turned out to be the best thing I ever did.
 
8. What do you most enjoy about your job?

Every day is different for a start. I cannot imagine doing something repetitive. I also love the buzz of doing business, meeting new people and developing these relationships into new clients and projects. Seeing something you have designed actually being built is a great feeling, especially when it improves people’s lives.

9. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I am not sure it counts as advice but someone once told me that “responsibility is what you assume” and I’ve carried that with me since because it is so true.

10. And the worst?

I was told by a careers adviser at school that I was not clever enough to be an architect. Now I even teach it too.