From Getting Projects to Going Paperless; Starting your Own Architecture Firm

Audrey Whisker is a Melbourne-based architect and the founder of Whisker Architecture. Whisker Architecture’s studio’s tagline is “Live [in] your values” and they design custom solutions to forever-homes, local schools, and conscientious workplaces.

Whisker Architecture's clients are ready to invest in a construction project that reflects their values of social, environmental, and governance responsibility - a clever, compact design that’s designed around the users’ needs.

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Can you tell us about your background and what sparked your interest in architecture?

Born in Sydney, I’ve lived all down the east coast in Queensland, Canberra and now Melbourne, but also as far afield as the United Arab Emirates and Vanuatu. I’ve experienced a variety of cultures, climates, building styles and education systems and I bring a love of diversity and open-minded approach to each of my projects.

I'm fascinated by how people interact with public and private spaces, and how those spaces influence how we act. After a varied early career, this drew me to focus on education architecture where I have spent the past five years delivering award-winning multimillion-dollar education facilities for the Victorian School Building Authority, Catholic Education Office, and higher education institutions. This experience with state government works has given me a strong understanding of delivering on time, on budget, and to a high moral standard.

When did you start Whisker architecture and what inspired you to take the leap into your own practice?

Whisker Architecture was registered as a business in October 2018 but was not officially launched until September 2020. I registered the business when my husband and I started designing our first home, thinking that I would slowly transition over several years into my owning my own firm. We finished building our home as an owner-builder carpenter and architect couple in February 2020 – so just before the pandemic hit.

Over the next few months, I had a lot more time to think about my future. I saw a clear path to success in large corporate firms but didn’t enjoy the idea of complex bureaucracy and career specialisation. I’m a good all-rounder and I enjoy strategic thinking.

How did you know you were ready?

I knew I would never be 100% ready, but I wasn’t happy where I was, and I needed to take action to change that before I burnt bridges in the industry. That doesn’t mean I leapt before I looked. I had a couple of small projects to move ahead with. I’d started a lot of the templates, standards, and business planning work and I knew that we had enough savings to survive without my wage for around 6 months if we had to. And I cannot stress this enough – I have a very supportive partner who wanted me to succeed.

What resources did you access to help you plan and set up your practice?

“I stand on the shoulders of giants.” I started by reading Simon Sineks “Start with Why”*. There was a lot of soul-searching involved in deciding if running my own practice was really what I wanted.

We live in an incredible era where so many resources are available for free. I binge-listened to hours and hours of podcasts. A few you can’t go past:

Since starting out I’ve also read Profit First* and Fix This Next by Mike Michalowicz, Jab Jab Jab Right Hook* by Gary Vaynerchuk, and next on the list is Change by Design* by Tim Brown.

What were some of the trickiest things to work out or set up?

Standards and templates take a lot of work and as amazing as Revit is – building a family library was the most daunting task I started. I was incredibly lucky (and am incredibly grateful) that I was able to do some early casual work for a good friend of mine, Brad Straus at Bimco. He gave me access to some of their families as part of that work and it really helped kickstart productivity. Since then I’ve become an official subscriber to their services and have never looked back.

What’s in your hardware and software toolkit?

Office 365 - I am acutely aware of the power of the Microsoft desktop apps. If you’ve never read “Smart Work” by Dermot Crowley* you’re leaving money on the table when you use Outlook.  A little known function is Microsoft Bookings (similar to Calendly but a part of my subscription) – it saves me hours of faffing about organising meetings.

(Sarah to add links to these things too)

Backups - It’s so important to have your work constantly backed-up. Our files are our “assets”, are our “inventory” so all of our files sync to onedrive, onto my computer, and get backed up to a physical external harddrive.

Revit – I’ve been using Revit since my first student job at Colin Stewart Architects in Canberra. The inefficiencies it would cost me to change software at this stage of my career just isn’t worth it. That said, Revit is *@&#ing expensive! For over the first 12 months I only had Revit LT and that was perfectly fine for what I was doing. We only recently purchased a full Revit license as part of a need for a large project where I’ll need to collaborate in realtime with another architect for and for one or two other projects where shared coordinates has been invaluable.

What programs do you use for management, accounting and communication?

Xero – I should have listened to my husband's bookkeeper when she told me to subscribe to Xero from the start. I held out until I was earning a bit more money but the time spent untangling my manual excel spreadsheet at tax time was truly tedious. You don’t have to use Xero but I really recommend using something that will sync with your bank accounts so every dollar and cent is tracked and reconciled as you go.

Slack – I work regularly now with a couple of subcontractors. We use slack to communicate internally and find that works really well for us.

Airtable – I was part of a team that set up a lot of project management and quality assurance management systems using Airtable at my old firm so it’s what I’m familiar with. I use it now to track leads, project timelines, and almost anything I would have other done in excel. It’s not perfect and I’ve had to build a lot of what I have from scratch but through that I’ve learnt what I need for my business. One day I may move to a proprietary system like Asana, Agiled, or Streamtime but whatever I move to will be compared against what I can build.

You’re a paperless office. How do you manage that? What’s been the hardest paper to kick?

Welcome to my 3-step Paper-ics Anonymous program.

Step 1. Don’t buy a printer! The first thing that happens if there is a printer around is that everybody reverts back to their old paper addiction. Printers sense deadlines and break down and cost a fortune to maintain.

Step 2. Hardware is key to supporting the change. I’ve had a Samsung Note phone for years. It’s fantastic on site – I can take a photo and sketch an idea for a client or builder quickly then email it to myself for future action or the builder for reference (with a disclaimer of “I’ll send an ADA (Architectural design advice) with this officially when I get back to the office).

I also have a laptop with built-in stylus. I bought a Lenovo Yoga when I still had a wage and it’s been brilliant for sketching and markups.

Step 3. Find the software that works for you. I use:

Autodesk Sketchbook - for design sketching because it has layers and brushes like photoshop.

Drawboard - for markups, particularly because you can be collaborative in realtime.

Onenote – has replaced my normal A4 notepad.

If you’re an Apple-addict I’ve heard great things about Morpholio-trace.

How did you find your first clients?

I married him! My first client was my husband and myself – it was a great exercise in “put your money where your mouth is” but also gave me a great empathy and understanding for my clients because I know what it’s like to be spending that amount of MY (borrowed) money on a home. My second client was my husbands parents – who just happened to want to build a house with my sister in-law’s husband as the builder.

It’s all sounding very nepotistic isn’t it?

Well after that we ran out of family members needing a new home. That’s where my relationships with other professionals in the area, my membership of a local networking group, and getting registered with the Department of Education & Training paid off.

What’s your long-term vision for Whisker Architecture?

My long-term dream project is a new school campus that is fully certified Passive House. Combining sustainability with community legacy.

While I make my baby steps toward that personal goal, I hope to leave each client, each community, each site better off than how I found it. And I’d like to add myself to that list – I’d aim to know more and be better at something after every project.

What has surprised you about the process?

The biggest surprise has been how quickly the business has won work. It was a glacially slow first 6 months but since then things have been picking up exponentially. Starting a business in the middle of a pandemic was always going to be a bit of a gamble but I’m happy to say – so far – it’s working.

What advice would you give to other emerging architects who might be considering starting their own practice?

  • Know why you’re doing it. That’s what will get you up and back at it when a mistake or misjudgement comes back to punch you in the guts.

  • Know what you’re doing. If you can’t be all things to all people. Do your research. Be self-reflective and play to your strengths.

  • Know how you’ll do it. If you’re not an all-rounder maybe you need a documenter or a technical business partner from day one. Start early with your templates so you can hit the ground running.

  • Know who you’re doing it for. You need to speak their language. Explaining things to a mum-and-dad or a commercial developer needs very different language. Know who you’re speaking to and tailor your language to them.

  • Surround yourself with a team of advisers who you trust. You will need advice and help. Choose them wisely. Choose them for their strengths in business and their honesty, not on how long you’ve been mates.

  • Never stop learning.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like to read When Is The Right Time to Start Your Own Architecture/Design Business?

Sarah Lebner