Our new Associate Directors!
South Queensferry, Scotland
By Sandy Anderson
As it was for most businesses, 2020 was an unprecedented year for BLOCK NINE. The closure of all our live construction sites and the imposing of full lockdown in March established new working methods which the team quickly adapted to. Whilst the commute into the office was not missed by many, working in isolation from one another initially brought its challenges, and with it, an entirely new office dynamic. However, more than 18 months on it has become the ‘new norm’, as we continue to see lockdown restrictions and social distancing measures slowly being lifted.
The surprise of those first couple of months of lockdown was how many of our clients in the preliminary stages of projects, embraced this difficult period. Anticipating that advantage could be taken of a ‘bounce-back’ when measures were lifted and their projects could hit the ground running, we saw the continuation of our projects which were at design stage as well as an increase of new enquiries. As lockdown continued and it was clear life was not going to return to ‘normal’ anytime soon, we began to feel the full effects of a pending recession beginning in Autumn of last year.
This downturn was surprisingly short lived and towards the final quarter of 2020, we were fortunate enough to have a number of exciting new projects in the pipeline and were in a position to recruit more architectural staff to the BLOCK NINE team. This has been done with trepidation as the business has had to quickly adapt to the unpredictable nature of the construction industry and housing market. Ensuring that we have the relevant project team in place to effectively resource our existing projects has always been a fundamental priority in the practice, but this has also allowed the opportunity to restructure the office team.
During this turbulent period of the last 18 months, two of our longest standing staff members have excelled in their roles, not just as architects, but as 'job runners' of our larger projects and team leaders, and confronted the many challenges which have been thrown at us.
Mark and Steph have both been with us for over 3 years now. Both joined us in 2018 having had several years of invaluable experience in a number of other well established design led practices, and both have brought a wealth of personal and professional experience to the practice. Whilst they were thrown in at the deep end as soon as they joined us, juggling the full management of a number of domestic and commercial projects across various work stages simultaneously, they have both stepped into the roles of managing a number of the larger projects the practice has had the pleasure to secure over the last 12 months, as well as managing their own teams, resources, programmes and budgets. Since starting with us, they have continued to embrace the core values of the practice, focussing on the needs and aspirations of our clients and their colleagues. Whilst they are both extremely talented design architects, they have always fully understood the importance of our client’s brief over our own architectural vanity. We take great pleasure in hearing time and again, what a pleasure they are for our clients to work with and how much value they bring to their projects.
As BLOCK NINE entered its 11th year in business, and we considered the restructuring of the business, it was an obvious decision for both Mark and Stef to step into a senior role within the office and both have now been promoted to the position of Associate Director. We can’t wait to see what they continue to bring to the office in the years ahead.
