David Taylor catches up with Passivhaus specialist architect Richard Dudzicki of RDA Architects to talk through the firm’s 25 years in business, home design, cycling – and working from inside an oven.
David Taylor
Hi, Richard, how are you?
Richard Dudzicki
Oh, I'm all right. I'm getting over a bit of a virus, but I'm fine.
David Taylor
This was the Icelandic respiratory virus?
Richard Dudzicki
Yes. I came back from Iceland, sitting in a hot pool, which is beautiful, but with it being minus 16 my head got very cold, and my body got very warm.
David Taylor
Well, as an expert in Passivhaus design, you should be well aware of climactic and environmental conditions! You’re celebrating 25 years this year, aren't you, as a practice? Could you look back over that period and tell me if there is one piece of learning, either as a practice head or as a practitioner of architecture in this particular field, that you've learned that you think is paramount?
Richard Dudzicki
Have fun. Enjoy it. I think that's the most important thing I've ever learned. Because I think if something is getting you down or it is getting boring, don't do it. Or, you know, do something else. For me, it's about having fun, being practical, and coping with things that you feel you can deal with and learn. You know, there's a constant array of new information; learn as much as you can. To me, it's about opening up new avenues, figuring out, why did we do this? That was silly. Let's do this again. Let's try and do it in a slightly better way, and just enjoy the build, and enjoy the process. Enjoy the design.
David Taylor
Your website suggests that you set up all those years ago as RDA to 'change people's perceptions of what a home could be.' What do you mean by that?
Richard Dudzicki
I think the problem with homes in general is that we look at housing and we just think of a normal type of building - Victorian, mid-century, whatever type of building you look at. And I think what you've got to look at, essentially, is how can that work and be fluid for you? What we like doing is going into a project, and far more so recently, in retrofitting buildings and looking at altering the state and changing them and making them adaptable and flexible. I think all buildings can be a home, whether it's a bloody igloo or whether it's a flat on top of Centre point. You know, any building can be a home. And it's about understanding that the perception of a home can be anything. I'm talking to you right now from an oven. I'm inside a bread oven and talking to you from a bread oven. For me, that's my work office, but that's effectively part of my home as well. So, it's about flexibility, and it's flexibility and understanding of what you can create out of the spaces that are around you, not necessarily something which is new and different. That's probably not my best answer!
David Taylor
But I mean, just to explain the oven thing: is that because your office was a transformation from a bakery to a studio, many, many years ago,
Richard Dudzicki
Correct. Many years ago, seven years ago, we bought a building in Peckham, and it was derelict, and I'm in the old bread oven. We discovered it. It was like doing a bit of archaeology. We discovered it at the back of the building. We bought the building in a bad, bad, bad state, and so there was this mound of earth at the back. We really realized, well, hang on, what we got in there? We opened it up, spoke to some of the engineers we were working with, and they said, well, wow, you've got an old brick oven. I'm sitting at a Herman Miller table at the moment on an Eames chair inside a bread oven.
David Taylor
(laughs) Yeah, looking at getting more dough?
Richard Dudzicki
(laughs) Trying to get some dough! I don't know if I’ll get any more dough, but I'm trying to, to keep this place afloat! (laughs)
David Taylor
So, talk to me about Passivhaus design; how you got into it, and how it has changed as a discipline, if it has, over the period of time you've been doing it?
Richard Dudzicki
Okay. Ever since being a student back in the days at Liverpool; it was when we used to have polytechnics, so I did my first degree at Liverpool Polytechnic, and I was always into sustainability, with a very good tutor there in Environmental Design. He got me into it. I won a British Gas competition at that time on housing design, and ever since then, I've always had an interest in it. When I set the practice up, in the first few years, we really didn't do too much sustainable aspects. Then probably in the late 90s, early 2000s we came across the Code for Sustainable Homes, and we were working with SAP calculations from the Code for Sustainable Homes on a lot of the projects. We won a competition to do a couple of properties up in Newhall, up in Harlow. We started working on quite a number of code level six type houses, code level five. But the Code for Sustainable Homes got axed, I think in around 2005, 2006 it started to go. At that point in time, I had a little bit of an inkling of Passivhaus. I knew about it, but I didn't really know a lot about it at that time, and we were doing all these eco house projects. As a student, I was going up to North Wales to CAT, the Centre for Alternative Technology, seeing all these hippies and wigwams and composting toilets, and I was thinking, hang on, we can do something a little bit better than composting toilets. We can do good design, but we can make it sustainable at the same time. I was always a bit of a punk rocker as a young guy, you know, riding around on a motorbike in a leather jacket. That's what I was known for when I was writing for Building Design, and so forth. And so, one of the things really at that point in time to me it was really important to focus on sustainability. And at that point, I employed someone called Carine, who's a dear friend of mine. Carine Oberweis, and she'd worked with Justin Bere. She came into the practice; she's from Luxembourg, and she just introduced me to Passivhaus, and she knew the stuff inside out. And that's when we suddenly all clicked. And I said, right, this is it. Because this is exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for a physics model that would work on any type of housing design, or any type of sort of building, effectively. It seems very complicated, but it's actually a very simple model, and it just suddenly seemed to tick all the boxes. And I suddenly realized, yeah, this totally makes sense. I did physics at A level and so forth, and I really enjoyed it, to be honest. I like the fact that it's really simple. You can explain the Passivhaus in a simple term as putting a tea cosy over a pot of tea. That's literally what you're trying to do. You're trying to create a thermal envelope around the building, and it gives you a physical model in Excel; a massive spreadsheet of how to do that, basically. And that's what got me into it.
David Taylor
And you've done this with your own house, haven't you? Is that right?
Richard Dudzicki
Yes, I've done it with my own house. The current house I live in, we did it about four or five years ago. It was our old office; it's a 19th century Victorian warehouse. We basically lined it all and we created a Passivhaus EnerPHit, which is a retrofit, because I was looking at the embodied carbon of that building. So, we didn't knock the building down, but we built a building within a building and gave it enough floor, so we increased the footprint considerably by adding another floor. But at the same time, it's a Passivhaus. It's also a very VOC-friendly house, because my kids suffer with a number of skin conditions, and it was just something that I was very mindful of. I didn't want a lot of VOCs in this, so there's lots of wood fibre, natural materials, etc, lime renders and so forth. But I live in one of those. And back in 2005 I built a different house, and that wasn't a Passivhaus, but it was a low energy house that was 2004 design in 2004 and that was the previous model. I've always built my own houses, basically, ever since I left college. I think I'm a bit of a maverick as an architect, because what I do is I tend to find derelict buildings or derelict sites. So, I bought a scrapyard, and I built on the scrapyard, is the truth. In fact, that's how I developed my buildings. And the old office was the old warehouse of the scrapyard, which used to be a timber yard. Hence, it's called the timber yard. That's how it's developed over the years, and it's been a 20-year project, really (laughs)
David Taylor
So last couple of questions, because we're coming up to time. What is Four Plus? Is it, as I understand it, a loose affiliation you have with some other firms?
Richard Dudzicki
Four plus Dot Design is an affiliation that I have with an architect in New York and an architect in Los Angeles, and what we are doing is primarily looking at sustainable ways of working on commercial properties, on larger scale, commercial properties, whether it's hotels, whether it's retail, that's what we do. So, it's Heather Fielding, myself and Kurt Krieger. The three of us have decided that we are all working together. We've known each other for a number of years. We meet up once or twice a year, and we all have small practices, practices of around 10 to 20 people. Kurt works in LA so he's busy, unfortunately, now, working on housing, whilst Heather works in New York and myself in London. And we just felt, between all of us and our skill set, it made a lot of sense for us to work together. And currently we are working on a couple of boutique hotels. We're also working on some retail, some restaurants. So, it's basically coming up with ideas. And at the same time as we're coming up with ideas, we've got a couple of clients, but we're trying to sort of crack open
David Taylor
And why is it called Four Plus, if there's only three of you?
Richard Dudzicki
There's only three of us, but there's four offices
David Taylor
I see...
Richard Dudzicki
...because Heather's got two offices. She's got her office in New York, and she's also got her office in the Hamptons.
David Taylor
Very nice!
Richard Dudzicki
Hence, why it is called Four Plus. But there's also an opening for somebody else who might be joining us. So, there is a potential there as well.
David Taylor
Great. Final question, Richard, you're a keen cyclist, and you rode to UKREiiF, for example, last year, and I think MIPIM as well. Are you planning on similar this time?
Richard Dudzicki
This year I've actually got a big trip in Majorca at the same time as MIPIM is on, so I'm going out with the club, Dulwich Paragon, to Majorca for their training camp. So, I'm going to be prepping for that, then UKREiiF, maybe. If I don't cycle, then what I'll probably do is I'll definitely do MIPIM next year. It will be my 60th next year so yeah, I will want to cycle to MIPIM in next year. That's one of, one of the things I want to do. I still want to feel fit, even when I'm 75, and I thought, right, I'm going to leave it. I'm going to have a fallow year this year from MIPIM, and I'll probably do that next year.
David Taylor
What does cycling give you as an architect? What does it bring to you and your job?
Richard Dudzicki
Zen. It's just like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. What I get from it, is when I'm pedalling and I'm talking rubbish to - whether it's a developer, an architect, an engineer - it just gives me... it's the most beautiful, relaxing feeling I've got. I just absolutely adore it. And what it does is it frees my mind so that when I can come back to architecture, I feel that the spark can start from something totally different and creative. I love the Pilgrims' Way. I really like it round there. I really like that whole part of the world. You know, even now, just talking to you, I just remember coming down the Alps into MIPIM and to Cannes, and just those moments; there's nothing better. Nothing beats it. And you just feel free, energy and ready to start again. You know? It's Zen. It's pure Zen.
David Taylor
Well, until the next time that we experience Zen on two wheels again together, Richard, thank you very much for your time.
Richard Dudzicki
Thanks, David, lovely speaking to you. No doubt we'll see each other again, soon. Take care.