Life & Work Matters, Book Opening Update
Hi everyone, Jenny here with a double-whammy update.
Today, I was on Radio National Life Matters chatting about gas and how we should be, and can be, switching our homes to be all-electric. Check out the great resources on the Make the Switch website and listen to the radio segment here (clicking on the image below won’t work).
The Re-Opening of our Architecture Books (NB. Science Services are still open)
We’re just a small business — a bunch of humans trying to do what we do well during fairly crazy times (read more about us and where we live here). Meanwhile, demand for our services remains very high.
At the start of 2021 we closed our books for the first time. When we opened our books again for just a few weeks mid-2021, we were inundated with enquiries. It took me until the end of the year to make my way through them all (remembering I have a business to run*): to review them carefully, find out more, have initial meetings, get to know and understand prospective clients and their projects really well before then preparing individual fee proposals.
A very high percentage of those fee proposals were accepted over the following months — many more than I expected. I thought perhaps people were saying yes to keep their options open and then would drop out down the track, but this has only happened on a couple of occasions. The result is that our design slots are currently booked out until the the middle of next year! Something I had no way of predicting and had never imagined would happen.
So here I am, heart on sleeve, letting you know how it is. I genuinely find myself between a rock and hard place but there are only so many hours in the day and kilojoules of energy in our bodies. My team are AMAZING but we simply can’t do any more.
That’s why we share so many resources, speak at conferences and on radio, write articles, talk to journalists, record podcasts/webinars, post tips and examples on Instagram, Facebook and now Twitter as well. I freely explain our business model to anyone who will listen. We hope one day there will be many more businesses like Light House. There are other architects with a strong interest in sustainability.
So, cutting to the chase, unless we suddenly have a mass exodus of clients who have accepted fee proposals and been patiently waiting for months to commence design work, I can’t see us opening the books again until the very end of this year or start of 2023.
Until then we will focus on what we do best: delivering quality sustainable housing services in a sustainable way… and sustaining ourselves so that we can share info more widely and prompt real change in the housing industry.
I’ll be making time to potter in my small garden (and walking on Mt Stromlo with #zacthesolarpassivedog) which sustains me in multiple ways. Here I am doing the big grape vine prune of 2022 a month or so ago. *I also had my third hip replacement at the end of July 2021. It’s working quite well although my eyesight is clearly failing… don’t be like me and put your ladder quite so close to the edge!
Stay warm and well.
Jenny
