Designing with the client, not for them
At Reddog, we have built our practice around a simple philosophy: that the best thing an architect can do for a client isn’t always to have the loudest design opinion in the room. Sometimes it is more important to be the most attentive person in the room. We believe it is important to listen, to ask questions, and to resist the urge to impose a solution before the problem is properly understood.
We call it walking beside the client. It is less a methodology than a disposition. It is our way of approaching every project so that the client’s goals get put ahead of our own design ambitions.
Client Advocate
The architecture profession has a long tradition of the visionary architect where a singular creative voice designs a building that announces itself as a statement. While there can be real value in that tradition, it doesn’t suit every client or every project. Many of our clients come to us not because they want to be told what their building should look like, but because they want someone who will genuinely help them figure out what they need. That is a subtly different relationship and it requires a different kind of approach.
Being an advocate for a client means being curious about their world before being creative about design. It means understanding the pressures they are navigating. What things exist as constraints that aren’t in the brief but shape everything? Who are the stakeholders they are accountable to?
One of the greatest challenges in taking a client-centric approach is balancing creative vision with client expectations. There can be a tension between the client’s direction and the recommendations for excellent design. We have found the best way to navigate this tension is through discussions with the client to understand what is driving their directions and then using tools like mood boards, sketches and precedent images to help clarify the design.
CASE STUDY – Cannon Hill Anglican College
Our work with Cannon Hill Anglican College is a great example. When we worked with the College school, the buildings were only part of what was being delivered. CHAC, like most schools needed to manage the sometimes-competing interests of parents, teachers, students, and governing body. All of whom had their own set of expectations. In this case, our role wasn’t just to design a good building, it was to help our client navigate a complex process and arrive at an outcome that works for all the stakeholders. That required listening first and designing second.
Attentive from the Start
The tendency in architecture is to arrive with answers. Clients often expect it, and architects often oblige. But the costliest mistakes in our industry tend to happen early, when assumptions go unchallenged and the brief is accepted at face value rather than interrogated.
We have learned that the most valuable thing we can do in the early stages of a project is to ask questions and then ask more questions. What does success actually look like for this client? What are they worried about that they haven’t said out loud? What might change between now and completion that we should be designing for?
Active listening reveals more than what’s explicitly stated. A client might ask for “open, airy spaces,” but what they are really seeking could be a sense of freedom, or calm, or connection to the outdoors. Reading between the lines and actively listening to their answers can give us insight into what will make the design work for the client.
Clients’ needs can evolve over the course of a project, and we have found that it is important to stay agile enough to adapt without losing design integrity.
The clients who have stayed with us over the years (and many have, project after project) often tell us that it is this consistency that they value most. Not just good design, but the feeling of being genuinely looked after.
Design that serves
None of this means we approach design timidly. We are deeply passionate about architecture, and we push hard to find the best possible response to every brief. But we recognise that our design ideas need to evolve when something more right for the client emerges.
The best projects we have been involved in have come from genuine collaboration. Projects where our ideas have been tested and refined by the client’s knowledge of their own context, and where the client has been inspired and challenged by our knowledge of design. Neither of us gets there alone.
At its heart, architecture is about designing for people. Buildings may be celebrated for their beauty or technical brilliance, but the most enduring designs are those that respond thoughtfully to the needs and aspirations of their users. Understanding those needs is a fundamental part of the practice, requiring empathy, active listening, and the ability to translate human desires into built form.
That exchange is what we find most satisfying about the work. Not the finished building as an object, but the process of getting there together and the relationships that outlast the project.
