One tree at a time.

In my day-to-day life coming across clients, I hear all kinds of things.  Beliefs, ideas, truths, things people have heard growing up in the insular bubble of Western Australia and Perth city. These beliefs and ideas that have been repeated and repeated lead people to make the choices they make when they embark on big decisions about their investments and their projects. A lot of these ideas started as a sales pitch and eventually became the predominant  way of thinking for a whole industry. After having worked in the construction industry in Perth for most of my working life I have seen how this works first hand on many occasions.I have watched tradespeople, builders, designers,  developers, you name it, tell their clients all kinds of things which are usually just to make their job easier or it is because they were told that and are just repeating it without a second thought. Recently I came across one of these statements and I was quite incredulous. 

          A client had engaged a colleague of mine, Bob van Haagen, to project manage the process of meeting the conditions of the conditional approval.  Things such as demolishing the existing house, clearing the site, removing the trees, power, water etc.After looking at the plan, Bob got curious about some other possibilities and potential for this project. Bob called me and asked me to have a quick look over the site and see if there was another way to do this where we could at the very least keep the existing dwelling. I had a quick look at the site and in about 5 minutes worked out a way to do this.  Bob then contacted the client and let them know that even though they already had the approval and had paid the fees, we could redesign this site in a way that would not only keep the existing trees and the existing building but would add about $200,000 of margins to the project returns.

            Of course this got the client's interest with the possible extra returns and the reduced holding costs. Bob discussed this with the client and I was then engaged to investigate further and make a viable plan. From there I redesigned the subdivision layout plan and I diagrammed a proposed footprint of the new house and parking and redesigned the crossovers so there was one crossover for the two sites. In the new design both sites could also now have north facing yards and living spaces. Adding to this both sites could now present to the park across the road creating better passive surveillance to the public space and connection to the facility for the inhabitants.

  I then excitedly called the client and explained to him how I was even able to keep all of the existing trees on the site and it wouldn't negatively affect the proposed building or parking layout. To this he told me that he had been informed that 90% of prospective buyers didn't want trees on the new block. I was bemused, this was a real doozy. I thought I had heard them all. After recovering from the absurdity of the comment I then explained the specific value of every tree on his site, firstly to his property and then the value the trees made to his neighborhood and the larger environment as a whole. He was quickly convinced that it was fine to keep the trees and we then finalized the plan. Then working with his surveyor we re submitted to the wapc.

Now this is a nice story because we have saved some of the existing housing stock in a time when it is difficult to build and housing is in dire need, besides the embodied energy in the building. As well as this we have saved four mature trees and a few smaller trees on the site. For me however, the most pertinent point of this story are the beliefs and ideas that percolate in our industry. These are stated as statistics or facts and the general public don't dare to question when told by professionals. In my opinion though it is not on the general public to have to second guess the professional. We pay for advice and we expect it to be good. As professionals it is on us to question our own dogma and look a little deeper. It may even be true that a lot of people prefer an empty site, but does that make a site cleared of trees better. I would suggest that if people prefer this it is only because they have been told for years and years by the professionals that it is better and necessary. This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and we continuously prove ourselves right. 

        Change starts with questioning why we believe the things we do and then looking forward to the outcomes that we really want to achieve as a community. This is not about who is correct or incorrect, this is about the ideas we chose to take on that are going to make a difference.