Helen and I first met when we got our teenage Saturday jobs at a (pretty high-end) local homewares/gift shop in our local town. We sold expensive stuff to people who could easily afford it, and learned amazing gift-wrapping skills as we did (although as we laughed about after the chat, we mostly just found empty empty boxes from the stock room, put said item in them and wrapped that... Pretty much everyone can wrap a box!
(At this point I have to confess that Helen was much better at wrapping than me... And given what she went on to do career-wise, it's clear why)
Roll on 20-years (yes that's a depressing statistic), and knowing Helen was an architect, my ex and I got her to draw-up (and get us through planning for) the very first set of plans we created for our 'dream house'. She did a great job, however, it was (looking back) the house from hell, and in the end we paused, changed our minds a few times, faffed, and then 4-years later ended up with a 3rd, maybe even 4th set of plans with another architect (the shame of our craziness was too much to go back to Helen with); although even that didn't come off, because Covid then struck and when we started to come out of it, and with Brexit chaos in full swing, our builders' quote went up by £200k... Yes, £200k!
Never has the term 'final nail in the coffin' been more aptly used. However, and on a lighter note, the people we sold the house too have all but demolished it and turned it into a fab place, which is nice to see - good from bad etc.
But I digress. While my ex and I were faffing with our house, I used to regularly drive past the house that Helen and her (then) husband were building a few miles away (centre pic below). It's full of eco/sustainability features, as would (always) be the case with Helen, and it looks mad and cool (as would also be the case). Perhaps not to everyone's taste, but what house ever is?
She's worked in some amazing (London) architect firms and managed some amazing projects - both commercial and residential - and even went on to become a specialist in sustainability. Yep, she's bossed it!
Enjoy.
Chops x
Helen's firm is called Raw Architecture and her socials are @raw_architecture_ltd
Click here to listen to the Helen's podcast:
Click here to read all about how to become an Architect, and how you (yes YOU!) could get started in a career like this:
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