Three Years Without a Deck

Idris Calloway: This is Last Call, I'm Idris Calloway. For three years one design studio has not opened a computer in front of a client. Not once, and they keep winning work. Hana Ruiz is a founding partner there. Hana, welcome.

Hana Ruiz: Thanks, Idris. Three years and two months, if we are being precise.

Idris Calloway: What is in the room instead?

Hana Ruiz: Physical models, hand-drawn diagrams, and a lot of paper. We do interiors and small public buildings, so there is usually a model at one to fifty and sometimes a bigger detail at one to five, a bit of a stair or a window reveal. The diagrams are drawn on A1 sheets and pinned up before the client arrives.

Idris Calloway: And no laptops at all?

Hana Ruiz: None. Not ours, and we ask clients to leave theirs closed. Phones face down. People are surprised the first time, then they relax. It is the only meeting of their week where nobody is answering email.

Idris Calloway: How did it start?

Hana Ruiz: A library refurbishment in Valencia. The projector failed ten minutes before a council review. We had a sketch model on the back shelf, and we presented with that and a roll of tracing paper. The councillors stayed forty minutes over the hour, and the head of the library picked up the model and turned it round to look at the reading room from the entrance. We approved the scheme in that meeting. A deck had never done that for us.

Idris Calloway: So you made it a policy.

Hana Ruiz: We tried it for six months first. Then it became the rule.

Idris Calloway: It must cost more.

Hana Ruiz: In time, yes. A presentation model takes our model maker about three days, and she is a full-time salary we did not have before. We budget around four percent of fees for models. But revisions after the first review dropped. Clients point at something real, so the comments are specific. Move this wall, not I am not sure about the feel.

Idris Calloway: What about the digital files they need?

Hana Ruiz: They get everything afterwards, drawings, renders, the lot, in a link the same evening. The rule is about the meeting, not the deliverable. We are not anti-computer, we draw everything in Revit.

Idris Calloway: Have any clients refused?

Hana Ruiz: One hotel group insisted on a remote review with their team in Dubai. We filmed the model on a phone on a tripod and walked the camera through it. It was clumsy, but they hired us.

Idris Calloway: What would make you give it up?

Hana Ruiz: If our model maker left. Honestly, she is the policy.

Idris Calloway: Hana Ruiz, thank you. That is Last Call.