The Studio in a Garage

Noor Fasi: Small Practice, on The Rightup. I'm Noor Fasi, and today I'm sitting in a garage in Leicester, on a stool next to a plan chest. Darius Rahimi has run his architecture practice from this single-car garage for six years. Darius, welcome.

Darius Rahimi: Welcome to the office. The heater takes about ten minutes, so keep your coat on.

Noor Fasi: Describe the space for people who cannot see it.

Darius Rahimi: Two point eight metres by five and a half. Insulated walls, a rooflight I fitted myself, a desk along the back, the plan chest, a shelf of samples, and a folding table for meetings. The roller door is still there. In summer I open it and work facing the street.

Noor Fasi: Why have you not moved?

Darius Rahimi: Rent. A small studio in the city centre would be around a third of my turnover. Here my overhead is the electricity and the broadband, about ninety pounds a month. That difference means I can say no to a job I do not believe in.

Noor Fasi: What kind of work do you do?

Darius Rahimi: Houses, extensions, two small chapels, and a lot of work for a community land trust. Eight to twelve projects a year, from fifteen thousand to about a million in build cost.

Noor Fasi: What do clients make of meeting in a garage?

Darius Rahimi: Most of them like it. Many of my clients are about to spend their savings on building something, and I think seeing a practice that is careful with its own money reassures them. One client, a solicitor, asked politely whether I had a proper office. I took the meeting to a café after that.

Noor Fasi: Do you meet clients here at all?

Darius Rahimi: For samples, yes. I can put a brick and a timber window sample in their hands. For first meetings I go to them, because I need to see the house anyway.

Noor Fasi: The isolation must be real.

Darius Rahimi: It is. I fixed it with a Tuesday. Every Tuesday I work from a shared studio in town for a day rate of twenty pounds. I get the gossip, the criticism and a coffee machine. Then I come home.

Noor Fasi: Will you ever leave the garage?

Darius Rahimi: When my daughter wants her bicycle back in it, perhaps. She is four. I have time.

Noor Fasi: Darius Rahimi, thank you. That's Small Practice.