Hi! How are you, Glenn? 

 

Very, very well, thank you, David.

 

Good! Now, your practice has lost its Glenn-ness, hasn't it? You've changed your name to Howells simply from Glenn Howells Architects. What is the reason for that? Is it succession-related?

 

Partly. I mean, we've been going for - as you know, David, because we've known each other since we set it set out, and that was 33 years ago. And when we set out it was an accident - 'what do you call your practice?' Well, my name was Glenn Howells, and I happened to be an architect and we had got a job. So you had to get some headed notepaper together quite quickly to send the bills out. We never spent any time...it was just a handy title. And it's worked for 30 odd years: 33 years. But it dawned on us that it's a bit of a mouthful. And you look at it and when I set out there was me and a few other people. And what's interesting is some of those other people I set up a business with are still around. But it's now a proper team of people who are very proud to be together. And I feel a little bit embarrassed that everyone has to refer to my Christian name, because I don't refer to their Christian name! So, the whole organization is now much more than around an individual, a founding individual. There are 10 partners; brilliant people in the business. And we just wanted to sort of relax a bit and have a banner, which was shorter, simpler. And so, I stepped out of the process, actually, of the renaming. I said, you can call it whatever you want you to call it, Howell you can call it...we've kicked around a few ideas. But in the end, it was, not just the senior people, a collection of people in the organization said, let's think about it. And what they decided was that it would be crazy to let go of a track record of 33 years of doing, I think, really good work, brilliant work. Because I didn't do it all, and you know, doing all these amazing projects, with all these great clients, and then all of a sudden, for that sort of to get lost somewhere. So, there was a heritage aspect. And then we started to think about it because we started in Birmingham and did a lot of work from the Custard Factory onwards in Birmingham. And there is a tradition of organizations, manufacturers, industrial companies here, like Austin, or Brooks, or even Cadbury's in just going from, you know, losing the Christian name, and just moving it into a word. And it just seemed to be natural...not too thought-about; we just wanted it to be a very natural simplification, without losing the heritage. So, I left the decision, largely, to the people who are out there doing the great work.  I didn't say, 'Well, you've got to keep my name'. In the end, they could have changed the name to anything that they thought would allow them to carry on doing great work, but also connecting to what we've done, because we've got a very strong tradition, not just of projects, but of an approach of doing work. And we didn't want to lose that.

 

I'm always fascinated by these rebrandings. Did you look outside? Did you get a sort of branding consultant? Or was it just an in-house discussion between all your partners, for instance?

 

We thought - it's a bit like anything, isn't it - even if you're a doctor doing your own surgery it has always a bit hazardous. And so, whilst we've done naming work with other organizations, and been involved in helping places to rethink how their identities change over time, we worked with a great company called Base from Brussels, who we stumbled across. And they came in and said, 'Well, we want to come in to get you get to know you'. We avoided the word brand, because I don't like it, actually, the idea that it's about a wrapper, and they said, 'what we want is a tool, or a vehicle, which allows you to be even more effective than you are at the moment'. That the next generation... it's something punchy, it's easy. For example - they've helped us find our domain name, our email address, which is now just how Howells.uk.  We continue to say on all of our projects, David, let's simplify. Let's declutter, let's get to the essence of what it is. And actually, having three words in your title and having all the people in our office when they send an email have to spell out my Christian name and surname just seemed to be so outdated.

 

When I punch in 'Howells' into Google - other search engines are available! - I get Howells Solicitors. So, did they help you with optimization as well?

 

No, I mean, the most painful bit of this whole process and the reason we delayed it for a few weeks was: we sent out a note saying we're going to change the name. And then we didn't go live on it for about another three weeks because of just the complexity of search and the website changes.  I don't know if you've ever done this, but it's much harder, actually, the electronic sort of changes than you immediately think. So, on the optimization, we are working on that. And also, the way you navigate around the website. We're still working with our new home, in a way.

 

Yeah. And what's the feedback been like? Have people been saying, "oh, Glenn, are you retiring, for instance?"

 

(laughs) It's been two - one is: I had a lovely chief of planning from a city I won't name because he's quite well known. But he said, I'm just ringing it up to see if you're alright... I said I'm absolutely fine. (laughs) He said: 'that's all right'. I said, 'is there anything else?' He said 'no, I just was worried'. So, there was a concern that I'd sold it or we've turned it into a trust or anything like that. We're not. I mean, I want to work until I die. And that's no great help for the other people in the organization. I think they find that the most terrifying prospect. But the difference is, I don't dominate the organization.  I love coming in because I'm part of this brilliant team. And some of the partners - we've got 10 partners - some of those have been with me for over 25 years. I'm working alongside the people that I worked alongside before I set up on my own in the 1980s. So, I'm so proud of the family, and I'm slightly embarrassed that they are happy to keep my name in it. I'm delighted. But you know, the idea that I'm going somewhere... I enjoy it. What I don't do anymore, is what, I've never done really, is finance or management or IT or any of that sort of stuff. So, all I've done is retired onto projects, and onto interesting things and working with young people in the organization. That's all I want to do. I mean, people say: 'when are you going to retire?'  I say: 'retire? I have only just got a rough idea what the job is about'. (laughs)

 

(laughs) Now, I'm going to have to pull you up on something that's appeared in your press release, which is a quote from Shauna Bradley, who's one of your partners, where she says, "with a diverse and talented team that is full of energy and great ideas, we wanted a name that's reflective of the wider group of people that make our practice what it is". So: slightly tricky question. So: "diverse". She, I think is only one of nine directors who are female. Is that right, firstly?  I mean, obviously, you're probably going to say: well, we're pretty diverse across the group, but at leadership level, is there something that needs to be done there?

 

Yeah, I mean, we're delighted that Shauna has come up with us. She's been with the practice - all of our partners have all grown through the ranks and have been with us for years and years. I think Shauna has been with us for over 15 years. So, she's been with us for years and years. And it's a slow process. And to be honest, when we set up, it was all male. In terms of the people that we're now promoting and bringing on as directors, who will be the future partners and leaders in the organization, we are a lot more balanced, but it takes time, David.

 

Yeah, 

 

What we haven't done is to look at our numbers and go, "Okay, well, an immediate decision is to just fix that at a superficial level and get the gender balance and the ethnicity right." Ethnically, we've always been in the top 10% of the diversity in the country. We're very fortunate because of our geography, it helps on that. But I think you're quite right. And we are on it. It is something that is important to us. But it's a journey. And what I'm delighted at is, within our directors, and our senior architects, and our senior team, we've now got a clutch of women who are going to be brilliant, and they are staying with us - we've already spoken to them. They are part of the family. They're going to grow with us.

 

Now, lastly, what are you working on? I read you're working on masterplans in Edgware and Newham alongside some work in Australia, which surprised me, as well. So can you tell us about what you're up to?

 

Yeah, I mean, first of all, just on the UK stuff, one of the reasons we also drop the word 'architects' is, because most of our work is still doing buildings, which we care about. We work on them, and we are passionate about doing brilliant buildings. But alongside that now, we're working on bigger projects. For example, I am working on one which is going to be released in UK REiiF next week...

 

Oh good, I'll see you there...

 

Yeah, I'll see you there. So, on that one, we're working with Birmingham City Council on...we worked on the big city plan, but this is expanding the city core. It was from eight to 80 hectares which was the original job we did many years ago before HS2 was announced. And now we're working with the city on this transformation and intensification of the city with public transport and greenery and better public transport and reversing the car dominated nature, not just for the city core, but of the next 18 square kilometres. So, it's 1800 hectares of land. We're working alongside Birmingham City Council. And it's going to be doubling the amount of green, intensifying its use, creating a lot more jobs, and most importantly, connecting it with healthy transport. So those are the sorts of jobs we're working on now. Buildings are part of it, but they're a bit further down the line. I don't even call it masterplanning. It's more of a sort of strategic sort of thinking about big picture, longer term. And it's really exciting because we've got some great projects that we're doing. Edgware is the same. We're working with Ballymore and TfL, in a joint venture partnership on the whole of the centre, really, even though the site is I think it's 10 hectares up there. It impacts on the centre of Edgware. So that's what we're working up there. And then we're also working in other places - the great silver lining of COVID was geography disappeared for two years really, your proximity. So, we're now working in Europe on a few projects. And on larger projects; the starting point will be some buildings and some work there. So those are the sort of projects we're working on at the moment. They all involve buildings. But the early stages on larger projects and larger transformations for cities and regions involves bigger picture, longer term thinking really.

 

Magic. Well, congratulations with the name change.  Long live Howells for another 33 years, one would hope - at least.

 

Thank you, David, and thanks for inviting us on. Thank you. 

 

Cheers. 

 

All the best. Bye, bye.