Arunima, Matt and Tom became Architects in 2014 and decided to start their own practice in 2018 after having worked in other private practices.
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They started out from Tom's former garage that they converted into a 'home studio'. Through hard work and dedication, studio.SPACE grew to a team of five within six months and with their successful bid of a housing development, they decided to expand their firm. As part of their expansion, they moved to a serviced office in Reading and hired six more members of staff over next the financial year.
Initially unsure of whether their firm will take off, they started with a Partnership company structure due to the low risk involved in setting up the company. Having known each other for a while and partaking in their architectural studies together, they were aware of the skills each individual would bring to the firm. ‘Partnerships’ do not require many formalities when being set up, thus being beneficial for a small firm, however this means it is based on a level of trust. The three of them trusted each other, but despite this, they formed a written agreement which would come into effect if things did not go to plan and this would reduce the risk since operating with unlimited liability.
During the initial six months, they hired a part 1 assistant to handle tasks such as managing their social media presence and working on bids (speculative work). This was beneficial as it allowed them to distribute their workload at a lower cost than hiring a dedicated Marketing Manager.
Working as a studio and having won the bid to design a new residential scheme in Maidenhead, studio.SPACE received an extensive amount of publicity which resulted in the need to expand and hire more Architects and Assistants to cover the fast-growing workload.
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Matt, Tom and Arunima decided that they would remain the main face of the firm by being the first point of call for the existing clients and for new clients to procure more work. Additionally, this meant that they would need to move out of the home office and into a fully-functioning office where their growing staff can work and they can entertain clients. Studio.SPACE decided to make Reading as their base due to the close proximity to London (where they would aspire to eventually expand) via the high-speed train links. Moving to Reading is also advantageous in their long-term plan when they set to establish themselves as a leading southern architectural practice.
With the increase in staff, it was deemed too risky to keep running on a ‘Partnership’ structure and this led to the decision to convert their company structure to a private limited company. This meant that the three founding members became directors. By switching to a private limited company, it meant that their company became more stable in terms of the liability (from unlimited to limited), i.e., their personal assets were no longer at risk. Initially, whilst being a partnership, they weren’t required to publish their company accounts, however with the expansion they now need to register with Companies House and submit their yearly accounts. A benefit of being a private limited company is that their accounts won’t be publicly published therefore their clients won’t be able to see how much profit is being made (unlike in a public limited company where you have to publish your yearly accounts). Additionally, by being a private limited company (instead of a LLP) studio.SPACE can easily raise extra finance by converting in the future to a public limited company by issuing shares to the public.
