#62 | Building Design with Aaron Wailes of Green Coast Design

Jessica Reynolds 

Hi there. Welcome to the creating Australia podcast. My name is Jessica Reynolds and I’m a private town planner and business owner based in Brisbane in Queensland. I’m passionate about engaging with the amazing people that make the property and development industry what it is today. In creating Australia, I want to learn from experts in the industry and share their knowledge and wisdom with you. In each episode, we’ll talk with different people and unpack their past experiences and innovative ideas for the future. Join me now for an episode of Creating Australia, where we dive into the industry exploring local stories, projects, businesses, people, ideas,

Aaron Wailes  

and more. Welcome to the creative Australia podcast right now I have Aaron Wailes of building designer and owner of green Coast building design. Green case building design is a residential design practice focused on delivering form function, personality and lifestyle to residential housing. Thank you so much for joining me, Aaron. Pleasure to be here. Jeff. Thanks for having me.

Jessica Reynolds 

How are you today? And are you ready for the interrogation?

Aaron Wailes 

Oh, I am been a good day busy as always, and looking forward to discussing all things town planning and residential design.

Jessica Reynolds 

Excellent. And busy definitely seems to be the key word. I think it’s the word of 2021. I think that’s a better word.

Aaron Wailes  

Yeah, busy. Pre COVID. No one would have probably imagined we’d have this much influx in the industry. But now we’re all feeling it. So yeah, we’re busy and navigating our way through everything to keep everything going. And I know that for me personally, it’s definitely been busy. But I am trying to turn 2022 into productive not busy. That’s right. There’s a difference between being busy and productive. That’s so true.

Jessica Reynolds 

So Aaron, I really want to understand how you came to owning and becoming a building designer I greencoat. So I know that you know, overused word, journey. But why do you do what you do? Like how did you even become a building designer? Was this always your dream?

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, look, I’d actually say it was we our family was involved in construction. And I did enjoy being involved in design and documentation. I enjoyed the challenge, ultimately, when I was far younger. And so I always had this something pulling me down towards towards design. So I did a university course through Central Queensland University, which was very convenient at the time. Because what it allowed me to do is work full time in the industry, and then just study at night, which was fantastic, because I could work five days a week, got a lot of on on site, practical experience, but then have the theory also over the top of that. And so I basically started doing that straight after grade 12. So we had uni and full time work. were you living at home during this? So you stay was for the face? Yeah, first six months I was and then I went Nana were out and took off live with my brother lived here in Brisbane. And yeah, he was doing a trade apprenticeship with Kuhn building, electrical, industrial, electrical. And I was doing design. So I was I was learning at uni working at night working during the day. So they were fun times they were good. But the positive was we got the positive was that we got so much practical experience working full time at a younger age. But we weren’t coming out of uni after five years to then start out learning how to work in the industry, which was really positive.

Jessica Reynolds 

Yeah, definitely. And that was my experience, too. I started pretty early on as a student planner slash admin in a planning firm, and it definitely is something that I always recommend to students, you know, not necessarily about the money and yes, you have to turn off time you can’t be drinking every day. But you shouldn’t be anyway, that’s, that’s a waste. We’re old now. So we can try. You’re wasting time, productive things to do and you’ll be setting yourself up.

Aaron Wailes 

Well, I think that you touched on a good point there because like when we were coming out of Union School at 8am, and then going into the workforce, you were you’re essentially a cheap resource for an employee for a company. But the good thing about that was that you got you got pushed around the entire office spectrum. So you got to learn aspects of building design, construction, development, you know, feasibility studies, all the aspects that often people aren’t exposed to later on, which I value I look back on those days and I’m really thankful even to those initial bosses I worked for. They were fantastic in taking the time to to educate educate us on the realities of the industry, which was good.

Jessica Reynolds 

Yeah, no, I think that’s good. So where to from that so you finished university I assume.

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, we finished uni. So as I said, so we started started off in doing a lot of aged care design. Independent living units, documentation, contract management, all of those aspects. It was very commercial orientated, then went through to a larger developer doing multi rise housing, multi rise construction, then worked overseas, worked on stadiums, oncology units, our hospitals, then into the UAE, with apartments, and then back to Brisbane.

Jessica Reynolds 

Where was this little overseas trip? Was this just a little bit of a lifestyle change or an experience?

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, both. So we’ve got family in England. So we had the opportunity to go and live in England. This is obviously pre COVID, a long time ago. But so we took off over there. And my wife and I, and it was absolutely fantastic. So living in London, learning how the English system works was a challenge, then applying those standards in an overseas module like the UAE that was even more exciting. But the purpose of that was here to broaden horizons, enjoy Europe, and all of those fun things. Were which we did, which we thoroughly enjoy and look back on that fondly. Now, I can

Jessica Reynolds 

definitely feel the worldliness coming off you especially with that well back in the background that I can see.

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, well, as you know, the office is inundated with water at the moment, which has been a bit of a tragedy at this time of year. And so I have this little soundproof room downstairs. And it’s like the little sound dungeon so I can come in here and do my do my work and escape.

Jessica Reynolds 

Yes. Anyone who’s been following southeast Queensland weather will know that we have been bombarded with rain event after rain event after rain event. I’ve been getting messages from my mother in Cannes asking how we are I’ve been getting my father gets messages from his mom in South Australia about how are we going? We’re all live.

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, we are. We’re going on we’re battling on but Aaron’s office is gone. Yeah, in my office, he’s gone. He’s correct. me back saying it’ll be back bigger and better. Okay, and so we digress. But so we’re back in Brisbane after having our stint overseas. And then what? Yeah, so we, we basically came back and teamed up with some other professionals that we’ve worked with in the past. And then really, essentially just made the decision. Now we want to, we want to do our own thing, we wanted to create our own brand. We wanted to get involved in our own practice, we wanted to be our own boss. Probably what we liked the most though, is you want to create what you feel is important in the industry. And what we find is important is we want to design a home around someone’s lifestyle. So to do that, you’ve got to get to know them, you’ve got to establish a design brief get to know that client and enjoy working with them directly. It can be challenging to do that when you’re working, say under someone else’s brand or in a different direction. Okay, so that was the main motive is that we thought Now we’ll start and that was smack on the GFC. So our business started in the GFC admittedly, the the GFC in England in London was horrific. Like seeing and witnessing people and their lifestyle change. The economic crash there that happened in London, just watching people come home on the train with boxes in their 1000s in the tune that was quite quite an interesting moment in our life. So kind of helped us balance to remember that there’s got to be a work life balance. You can’t you can’t put everything into work but coming back into Brisbane Yeah, we started our, our, our business at that time, which was called animals building design. And we kicked off starting on residential housing design.

Jessica Reynolds 

Okay, and the way is you and your wife Amanda.

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, Amanda is like the she’s the business manager really Amanda runs the show. So Amanda is heavily involved with literally every decision we make with respects to our marketing our business strategies, etc. Which is great. So we’re in we often get asked like, how do you work together? You know, partners, husband and wife or how do you do we love it? Well, we you know, there’s there’s moments there are moments in which I’m sure she’ll laugh it when she hears this post the but it’s enjoyable we work really well as a team together. And we’re we’ve been going strong so

Jessica Reynolds 

yeah, no, I absolutely love that. And I love saying partners working together. It’s definitely I’ve tried to with my partner but we have separate offices

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, it’s not without its challenges that there’s no question of that. But what we do is Amanda’s got her strengths. I’ve got mine. And I think we understand what each other’s are and where each other need to kick in and help each other out. Which is a good, good opportunity.

Jessica Reynolds 

I’d say some good communication there.

Aaron Wailes 

I’m not always good at it. I gotta be honest. It’s probably all Amanda

Jessica Reynolds 

and so you ran the business as Aaron wills building design for a few years or a couple of years. And then in the last two years or year, you’ve rebranded as green Coast building design.

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, green Coast design. Yeah, building design. And so yeah, that was it was an interesting look, as we progress as the business got bigger as we got more involved, and we started to expand. To be brutally frank, I just didn’t want my name there. I just felt that would mean so much more if we can combine the lifestyle we enjoy with our work. Now that is that we live on the east coast. Like we all know what it’s like, to we love being at the beach, we love being in the water, we enjoy the grandkids. So I was like, Well, realistically, that’s a great name, let’s let’s combine those two together. And let’s bring design into that. And let’s rebrand and create that freshness about what we want to see people enjoy. And that’s why we made the decision. And then we just demand to push the Go button. And Amanda then really deserves the credit for everything else, work with a fantastic marketing company. And they helped us reinvent things. And yeah, the rest is history.

Jessica Reynolds 

So from your language and the way that you’re smiling, I assume that that was a good process. And it was something that you know, you would you enjoyed.

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, we enjoyed it. I think from a business point of view, you’ve got to continually challenge yourself. And if you’re not representing yourself in the right manner, like if you’re not representing you wake up in the morning and you you want to feel good about your business, you want to feel that, yes, this represents Me, you will then be inclined to more challenge yourself. Whereas if you’re not identifying just with that initial brand, and what it represents and who you want to be, you might have a tendency to get in a bit of a rough, you know, you don’t you don’t seem to move out of the ruts in the road, so to speak. So we really wanted to test ourselves. And that’s yeah, that’s what we set out to do so and it’s going good, we’re enjoying it, there was challenges along the way, anyone who has rebranded a business, regardless of whether it’s big or small, know how painful it is. It can be a challenge, and there’s highs and lows in that, but it’s worth the journey. I think any change is painful, that’s just human nature. But also I love that, you know, you obviously started the business in the first instance, because you had an idea and a vision. And then I think you always get you know, as a business owner, you get stuck in the, in the doing and just being part of it. And then you do sort of start, you know, and people change as well. And so what you probably had a few years ago, and what that was all about is probably very different to as you say what, who you are today, and the things you want to bring to your clients. And so yeah, I love the rebrand it’s um, it’s very beautiful. And I think he must have really smoothly. Oh, thank you. I like yours that I love the scene BP up symbol come through the the up in the urban planners, Queensland. It’s fantastic. It’s good. You feel better that yeah, like, Yeah, and you feel better about you, your clients are gonna feel better about you.

Jessica Reynolds 

Yeah, it’s definitely with with the business, it always feels like a bit of an extension of yourself or like a some kind of weird child that isn’t human. And yeah, so when you when you feel good about that being part of you, your bit of your identity, it definitely does help when you go, this is who we are. And this is what we’re presenting to the world, it does create that confidence. And so moving on there, we always have a few conversations when, you know, you’ll call me up and say, Hey, I’ve got this project, I’ve got a few questions. And we’ll have a chat. And then it always turns into something else. A discussion around something else. And one of my favourite chats, and I think is really relevant has been around consultants doing free work. So as a private town planner, it’s very, very, very common for people to call us and say, Hey, can you just tell me about x? Can you tell me if I can do Zed y, whatever. And I am at a point in the business now where we have had to sort of productize that and be very harsh and choosy about who we do free work for and who we won’t. And you’ve been a big supporter of that. Not everyone is an expert, because obviously when you’re getting things for free and free advice, it’s very easy to just go no, that’s fine. Keep that keep it the same, but you’ve always sort of said, Yep, as a consultant, you have an expertise, and you should charge for that expertise, like and I’ve very much taken that on board and things are working out really great. And it’s actually helped us identify who our great clients are, and who the clients that you know, maybe you know, if you don’t want to pay maybe we’re not the planner for you. And what is your experience been as far as around giving free work as a consultant? I assume there has been some over the past that, you know, I’ve seen designers give a bit of work. Yep, very

Aaron Wailes 

Yeah, absolutely. Look, wait, the lessons we love to pass on, especially to people like yourself who have the energy and the desire to improve is like the amount of times we as a young cadet, or at uni, we’d be working with a firm to one in the morning to do a pitch, right? And we’d be doing so much work as a team, we’d be pitching the design for a nominal token fee, or no fee at all, for the practice, to then find out that your designs Yeah, it was great, we loved it, we want to go in a different direction. And what really stood out to me from remembering those days is the client never really valued the service. Okay. So as professionals, architects, building designers, town planners, we have a tendency to be our own worst enemies. Okay, so when a recession comes through, like the GFC, the amount of price cutting between professionals, and the quality of the service that dropped was outstanding, okay, everyone tried to jump in, get as much work as they can. And you have some firms that are doing the design work for free, but then charging for the documentation, and you just devalue your brand, okay? Now, we all admit that there’s cost to pay, there’s bills to pay, but when it comes to us in our business model, now, like yourself, you’re a professional, you’ve got insurance to pay rent to pay staff to pay, if we did all of that work for free. None of that can go on, not one scrap of that can continue. So we identified fairly early in the piece that we would not spec a project that was a golden rule, we would not come along and do a project for free with the idea that we will be then granted that job because we’ve put in all that free time. And yes, we lost jobs because of that, because the clients expectation was they could get that for free. But if everyone does that, where does the industry go? I had saw recently just read on, I think it was ABC that Australia has apparently one of allegedly, I only just saw the article, but allegedly one of the worst standards for construction in the world, for a developed nation, in respects of our building techniques, the quality of those techniques, the quality of the products, etc. So that’s really alarming. But at the end of the day, if people are going to give free advice, they have to find that time from somewhere. So generally means they do it really quickly. They put so many disclaimers on it, but that advice isn’t actually worth anything. And so we we really encourage everyone we work with in our consultant team, such as yourself, the town planner, the builder, ourselves, you put in a scope of work a fee agreement, your client will respect that they will value that because they will see the value in your dedication to their project. We’ve actually won projects. On the other hand, we’ve lost projects, but we’ve actually won projects where we know another firm has come in and said we’ll do all the design work for free. Alright, to get the job, we’ve actually come in and put our fee agreement in and said, This is what we charge for our service. And we’ve won the project and continue to work with that client and then seeing the product built. When the person offering to do that initial stage for free was disregarded. And that really gave us confidence because the client just literally said I can sell, I can tell they’re not going to be committed to what I want, they’re going to be committed to delivering what they want, at this point, because they’ve got an what’s the word and agenda to get the next phase of the project. So for design, you can’t rush design, I just It baffles me to see why we in the industry. And I think we’re we’re to blame. All of us are to blame. We’ve created a culture where the client is now expecting all of this professional service, which comes with risk, which comes with professional liability, moral liability, what’s the words you brands or liability, and we keep undercutting each other. And while we want to be competitive, it doesn’t mean we should give away our IP for free. I don’t think that’s fair for any business. For the people that come along and ask for free town planning advice. It’d be interesting to see if their business works for free. I just wonder if their business works for free or what portion of their business works for free. And if they do have a portion of their business that works for free. Why? Why is it that that’s for free? So we kind of we kind of live by the attitude that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Okay, life costs money. So put in a fair scope of works, outline that scope of works and put your fees there. You’ve worked hard to put yourself in that position. So as you can tell, we’re quite we’re quite firm on that opinion. And it’s great to see it’s working for you. It’s good. No, it’s

Jessica Reynolds 

definitely I’ve definitely taken on board the things you have said in the past and put that into our business because it’s yes, it’s our professionalism. It’s Number one means that we get the right clients, because people who want free work, obviously, we still do a lot of free work for existing clients. So people who bring us multiple projects a year who do just need those one off questions, but general public wise, when I started the business, I was doing a lot of free work, because I felt I needed to, you know, justify and prove that we could do the job. But as you say, it really does. It comes from a place of a lack of respect, and not understanding that it’s not just money, it’s energy. So the energy that I spend in, you know, if someone comes off and says, Hey, can you just tell me if I can, you know, subdivide my land? And whilst that might be, you know, 15 minutes of my time, that’s energy that you’re taking away from someone who is paying?

Aaron Wailes 

Correct, exactly. And we’ve often reminded clients that, like, even when it comes to rushing a project, like you might get a self imposed deadline, like a client or say, this is the deadline. Well, that’s nice. And we can all understand that. And we all appreciate at times, there’s deadlines that have to be met. That’s logical. But the principle or the point is that we put these self imposed deadlines or expectations on ourselves. And we start to believe that, and we shouldn’t all the time, we need to challenge that from a business point of view. I think, for the people who are struggling to understand that like, we encourage builders to be paid for a quote, for example, the amount of time and energy that a builder will put into preparing a thorough scope of work is outstanding. Like it’s an amazing amount of time, energy, intellectual property, experience, financial risk, you can’t rush a quote, but yet there’s these expectations that it can just keep happening. And I think the only people that will stop that, businesses like ourselves that just say, Guys, we can’t afford to do that for free. That’s just the simple fact. We can’t afford to do that for free, because we’re not giving your project the dignity that it deserves. So take money away. Why would I do something for free? Or rush it? Because I don’t want to spend the time on it. Or more importantly, if that project took a day of my time, a full day, like you said, who whose projects are we not working on? And they’re paying? So yeah, I think it’s I think it’s fair on all clients if we do that, and that builds a collaborative team, like our clients then value the town planning advice they get. I remember that discussion, it just baffled me why. And I’ve seen planners do it. They’ll actually advertise free advice. They’re actually getting out there and saying, call us, we will give you the free advice to help you not have a DA Yeah, I got Wow. That’s an interesting concept. So imagine if we all did that, okay. Like, at the end of the day, it’s unsustainable.

Jessica Reynolds 

Well, the thing is, I do see that play out. Because I’ve had people come to me, they say, Hey, I really need your advice, because I’ve spoken to three different planners, and they’ve all given different opinions. And I’m like, Well, yeah, of course they have. Because if you paid for any of this advice, no. So they’re just rushing it going, you know, one probably wants to get the job. So they’ll just, you know, go whatever, yeah, it’ll be fine. Someone else is going, No, you can’t do it. Because they’re just like, well, you’re not paying, I don’t care. Any other person, you know, who knows? Yeah. So pay for the advice.

Aaron Wailes 

That’s right. And the industry is changing. That’s the good thing, what the consumer is becoming far more aware and far more savvy in some areas. Sadly, there’s, there’s a lot more education to work to do. But I think as as the consumer grows, and as that consumer changes, and the expectations of our clients grow and evolve and become different people, as generations move on, those groups of people who are buying developing houses, they’re going to ask different questions. And they soon identify with a different approach that shows that we’re calculating risk, we’re spending time, this isn’t something you can just expect for free. It’s, it’s just yeah, I could talk about that all day. But the good thing is, the good thing is, is that when we ring yourself as a professional, because we work together regularly, we know that we can get good advice. And it’s consistent. So it’s about building a relationship. So if you’re a builder or developer there, you don’t want to have an relationship with a town planner, where you get things for free, or a designer or a builder or whoever. You want to create a relationship where you can pay that professional so that when you get on the phone, you know, they’re going to give you the attention you deserve. And you base your business model around that. If it’s always based on hey, we’ve got to do everything on the cheap along the way. It’s not going to take too long for the professionals involved to turn around and say how much profit did you sell that building for again? And how much work did I do for free? Okay, so I’ve been there in commercial Architecture and development, working for other firms never for myself, I was a small cog in a big wheel. And I just didn’t want to be involved in that. I think you can relate it to getting away from the city and heading to the coast, and it’s a bit more relaxed. It’s the same effect when you stop doing work for free. It just clears your head, and you will offer such a better service to your clients and your clients will appreciate it.

Jessica Reynolds 

No, I absolutely agree. And this has been one of my favourite chats because it’s something that, you know, I guess you have inspired me to enact in my own business, and I hope it really helps others to understand opportunities and their businesses or how they deal with their consultants. So Aaron, if people do want to contact you, what is the best way?

Aaron Wailes 

Best way would be via email, I would suggest jump online, look at our website, we’ve got a design brief questionnaire there. If you’re seeking to create a development, residential development, there’s a download there you can do fill in the design brief. Give me a call my numbers there. We’re always happy to talk. We’ve always wanted to make ourselves available. We don’t want to be a firm that doesn’t isn’t available. And so we work hard to do that. So by phone or email, and we’ll get back in contact. Excellent. Thank you so much for joining me today. No problem. Thank you for having me.

Jessica Reynolds 

Thanks for joining me on today’s episode of Creating Australia. Don’t forget to subscribe and join us on our socials to keep updated on our latest content. on creating Australia. I love talking about everything to do with people property and development. So if you have something you’d like me to explore, let me know by searching creating Australia on Instagram or searching Jessica Reynolds on LinkedIn