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EPISODE 4:
BUILDING IN BALI?

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Building in Bali? Top Architect and Project Manager Insights

🎙️ Welcome to the 4th episode of the @BaliBusinessClub Podcast!

In this episode of Bali Business Club, host Gawain Blizzard sits down with Architect Lucas Issey and Construction Project Manager Céline Patron.

Together they explore the unique opportunities and obstacles anyone who is looking to build in Bali might face! Discover how Lucas’ award winning architectural design blends modern aesthetics with traditional Balinese features to create properties that harmonise with the island’s natural beauty and cultural heritage.

Get an in-depth perspective from Céline Patron, a seasoned expert in managing large-scale residential projects in Bali and Europe. Céline shares crucial advice on avoiding common pitfalls to ensure your project is completed on time and within budget. Céline expertly navigates the complexities of the local construction landscape with all of its environmental and cultural considerations, offering invaluable insights for anyone looking to build in Bali. Her extensive experience and advice will guide you through every stage, from planning to execution, ensuring a seamless and stress free construction process.

Join us for an enlightening conversation that sheds light on the creativity and dedication driving Bali’s thriving property sectors.

Lucas Issey is the Director of The Serious Bureau
Website: https://theseriousbureau.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theseriousbureau/

Céline Patron is the Director of Passage Project Management
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passagepm/

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes!

Timestamps

Welcome & Guest Introduction (00:00:42):
Host Gawain introduces architect Lucas Issey of The Serious Bureau and project manager Céline Patron.

Lucas Issey’s Background (00:01:14):
Lucas shares his architectural journey from Brazil to Bali and the importance of understanding clients’ creative vision.

Holistic Property Development (00:02:56):
Lucas discusses viewing property development as a system and identifying land potential and business model suitability.

Finding Suitable Land (00:03:56):
Céline explains working with clients to match land with development goals and budgets.

Project Management Insights (00:04:59):
Céline shares her Bali construction experience, stressing the role of project management for timely and stress free development execution.

Bali Construction Challenges (00:06:41):
Working in Bali – Céline discusses safety, worker conditions, and efficient project management for quality construction.

Contractor Contract Negotiation Tips (00:08:28):
Advice on managing costs and setting clear expectations with contractors and clients.

Sustainable Design Strategies (00:11:18):
Focus on sustainability through local materials, good design, and natural resource use.

First-Time Developer Tips (00:19:25):
Advice on collaboration, feasibility studies, and understanding local regulations.

Final Project Stages (00:20:59):
Céline discusses tips for quality checks, villa testing snag lists, and client communication for project handover.

Bali Cultural Adaptation (00:25:50):
Emphasises respecting Balinese culture and eco-friendly construction practices.

Sustainable Architecture (00:35:54):
Using eco-materials, efficient design, and aligning with Bali’s cultural values.

Bali Development Approach and Advice (01:00:40):
Advice on adapting to local culture and adding community and environmental value.

Podcast Wrap-Up (01:02:38):
Upcoming Podcast topics include Bali’s fashion industry and two successful brands on next Podcast.

Keen to invest in Bali’s thriving property market yourself?

For more information about easy-access investing visit The Kedungu Fund:
https://www.thekedungufund.com/invest

Follow them on their socials:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekedungufund/
X: https://twitter.com/kedungufund
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thekedungufund/

Summary

In this episode, architect Lucas Issey and project manager Céline Patron share essential tips for building in Bali. They emphasise the importance of understanding client needs, adhering to proper procedures, and integrating cultural understanding into design.

Key insights include the need to tailor projects to client specifications for greater satisfaction and successful outcomes, the significance of conducting thorough feasibility studies to identify potential challenges early, and the importance of selecting reputable contractors to maintain quality and adhere to timelines.
They also highlight the value of incorporating local culture and customs into the design to respect the environment and enhance the villa’s appeal. Adhering to established processes, like the tender process, is crucial to prevent costly mistakes and ensure all stakeholders are aligned. Additionally, focusing on sustainability by using local materials and traditional architecture contributes to environmental conservation and community spirit. Finally, maintaining regular communication and client involvement helps avoid misunderstandings and delays, ensuring that projects stay on track and within budget.

Highlights

  • 🏗️ Importance of understanding client needs.
  • 📊 Conducting feasibility studies is crucial.
  • 👷‍♀️ Working with the right contractors is vital.
  • 🌍 Emphasising cultural understanding in design.
  • ⚠️ Risks of skipping proper procedures outlined.
  • 🌿 Focus on sustainability and local materials.
  • 🕰️ Communication and updates are key to success.

Key Insights

  • 🎯 Understanding Client Needs: Tailoring projects to client specifications leads to greater satisfaction and successful outcomes. Listening and adapting to their vision fosters collaboration.
  • 🔍 Feasibility Studies: Conducting thorough feasibility studies helps identify potential challenges early, ensuring that projects are practical and financially viable from the outset.
  • 🛠️ Choosing Contractors Wisely: Selecting reputable contractors mitigates risks associated with quality and adherence to timelines, protecting the project’s integrity and budget.
  • 🌏 Cultural Sensitivity in Design: Incorporating local culture and customs into the design not only respects the environment but also enhances the villa’s appeal and marketability.
  • ⚒️ Proper Procedures Matter: Adhering to established processes, like the tender process, prevents costly mistakes and ensures that all stakeholders are on the same page.
  • 🌱 Sustainability Focus: Utilizing local materials and traditional architecture contributes to environmental conservation and promotes a sense of community within the project.
  • 📅 Communication is Essential: Regular updates and client involvement help avoid misunderstandings and delays, ensuring that projects stay on track and within budget.

Transcript:

00:00:00 Welcome to the Bali Business Club Podcast. I’m Gawain, and we’re joined today by Lucas Issey, architect, and Céline Patron, project manager. And today, we’re going to be discussing how to build a project or a villa, specifically in Bali, but it applies to any development or project, from step one, as in design, architecture, all the way through to when you hand over the keys, I suppose. So yeah, join us now. I’ll see you right now. All right, so welcome to the Bali Business Club podcast. Again, just briefly, I’m here with Lucas Issey.

00:00:42 He’s the head architect and owner, shareholder of The Serious Bureau to the architectural firm, just here in Pererenan. And Céline Patron, I think let’s say that right. – Yeah, that’s right. – Petron, okay. So same as the tequila here. – Yeah, exactly. – Okay. Project manager. – Yeah. – And you live in Canggu. – Yeah, Canggu. – Okay. So yeah, we’re just gonna discuss how projects work in Bali, what to do, what not to do, good things, bad things, – A lot of not to do. – issues you’ve had. Yeah, I presume.

00:01:14 We would usually start with you, I suppose, but we’re gonna start with Lucas there because he’s the architect and I suppose he goes first in this whole thing. So plans, drawings, why don’t you talk us through, well first of all, what you do. – Yeah. – At The Serious Bureau, how long have you been in Bali? – Good questions. So I’ve been in Bali for almost three years now. I’m from Brazil actually. You know, I know that I look like I’m from around. Typical Brazilian – Yeah, I’m Brazilian. Born and raised there.

00:01:46 Had my own firm there for 10 years and then came to Bali, fell in love with the place and then started business here. So we started Serious Bureau about two years ago, almost two years ago. And we got, we have projects from villas to school to commercials, spaces, everything. – So you’re doing a school project together actually in Kedungu. – Exactly. – Or grow a school. – That’s our biggest project right now. So, and the one that we are most proud of and we need to have a better team for that. Like there’s not something like a small villa

00:02:25 or something like super easy, right? So that’s why we need Céline to be the project manager. – Okay, okay. – Manage me, manage everyone else. Exactly, yeah. – But your bread and butter typically, villa, construction. – I’ll say development in general. Because if you tell me, okay, I wanna build like one villa, yeah, of course we can do. But our forte would be development in general. Like if you wanna– – So what, in general? – Development in general. Like, yeah, like, but I mean, if you wanna think about,

00:02:56 okay, what I do with this land and then we can say, hey, you can do like five villas on this land or three villas on this land. It’s very just one villa on this land. Depends on the business model. So actually when you say where it starts, it actually starts on the land. Like what kind of land you want and what are the potentials of the land? And then– – So do you work with a potential client on finding a piece of land? Or do you– – We can do that. – Traditionally? – Usually, because the clients usually

00:03:22 they don’t know the process. They come to me with the land. But I would love to be part of the process. Like more seasonable clients, they understand that finding the right land is important. So they come to me before that. And they say, hey, Lucas, what are you thinking about this land? Let’s have a look. Let’s see the potency of it. And then we see like, what are the main characteristics and what we can do in that. And if that fits within the business model that the client wants to do. – We can say business model, I mean,

00:03:51 it could be business as in commercial or retail as in just somebody building there. – Most of this hospitality, right? Yeah, mostly hospitality, especially here in Bali, which is blooming. But I’ll say that it’s more important to understand what kind of relationship the client wants to have with the development and what kind of returns they want to have it. And I think that’s a good thing. – So before we get into the nuts and bolts of the process and how you work with clients, et cetera, maybe a little bit about yourselves.

00:04:23 You’re French, obviously. – Yeah. – How long have you been in Bali? – I’ve been in Bali almost three years ago. – Oh, same. – Yeah, yeah, exactly, 2021. – So just before the pandemic, yeah. – Yeah, middle end of the pandemic. And I came here as an opportunity. I got this job offer for a big developer company in Bali. And I came here, work on construction, work sites. The developer was really growing a lot. So I had a big responsibility at the beginning, managing more than 100 villas at the time,

00:04:59 delivering 10 villas per month, getting new villas 10 per months. – So what was your role in that specifically? – I was really a project manager, but a global project manager because I couldn’t check each villa in details because that was a lot. So I was going on the global process of delivering villas, making sure everything is on time, communicating a bit with the client, solving the major issues. So that’s how I– – But coming from Europe, that must have been quite an interesting experience.

00:05:31 – Yeah. – Not having dealt with Bali needs environment at all. – Yeah. – Coming into that. – It’s completely different expectation and way of working. But really interesting, learning a lot every day. So that’s how I got a lot of experience on the work site and the issues that can happen, rain, rice fields, things like that. – What would you say were the three biggest shocking realizations when you started building those projects? Being outside of Europe, you know. And you were involved. – The way the workers work, you know,

00:06:06 they are almost barefoot working– – More casual. – Yeah, yeah, yeah. – How can safety laws are not as strengthened. – Exactly, yeah, they were. And also, I mean, the way they live, the way the workers was the big shock coming from Europe. You know? But we try and I, as a project manager, and for the project of Grow in Kedungu we try to bring more well-being to the workers. So that’s good. They have more safety. The contractor that we hired, they have more safety, measure than any other, a lot of contractors in Bali.

00:06:41 So that’s a good point. They have safety meetings. They have like, the signs. They have the jacket. The supervisor have at least the shoes, you know? And even this is surprising because in France, everybody has these shoes. So yeah. And last year, I quit this big company and I create my own company. So I’m running this. What’s it’s name? – Passage, project management. So, yeah. So this company is only for project management. And we are taking from villas to also school projects. Mostly villas, I mean,

00:07:21 that’s the villas here in Bali. And I’m helping the project management regarding the design phase and to the delivery of the keys. On the design phase, I’m less present, but I’m here to coordinate and have a technical input to the architect. So for example, in the project, Ron Cadungu, Lucas and I were a good coordination on the design phase. He had more the lead and the decision making. And I was more on the coordination with the other people like contractors for the price to deal or a technical issue that could happen on site.

00:07:58 So basically, my role during the design phase is avoid myself some issues for the later part of the project. – Planning, planning, planning. – Yeah, exactly. I choose the right contractor, try to reach the budget of the client and avoid any technical issue that could happen. – Okay, so let’s come back to a budget because I’m sure that’s a big issue with rules, playing budget out and timelines, et cetera, et cetera. I think Lucas, you sent you from Brazil. You did some architectural work there. – Yeah.

00:08:28 – You also told me that you used to be a lecturer. – I used to. I had that part of my life. – So did history. – So right after I finished college, I finished university, I started my own architecture company because in Brazil, you had the real estate crisis arrived in Brazil around 2013. So all of classmates, they were getting out of jobs, like everything else. And then we started tapping to commercial business or commercial architecture. And that was blooming because people need to put their savings in something more solid.

00:09:08 So they were like, you know, tap into commercial, especially F&B. So we had a lot of projects on that like we won some awards. So like a lot of people come to work for us and– – You won some awards as in your firm or? – In the firm, yeah. Designs like we would go into competitions as well. So we become kind of established in a way. And then I was invited to be a professor at university in Brazil at the same time, which was madness looking back now, like having the company growing and being a professor.

00:09:39 And I did that for six years. So I was teaching like, my idea is that I would have to graduate one class. – You were in the class for six years. – For six years, yeah. So I was overseeing all the design classes of all the professors in university and teaching my own as well. So it was kind of like an interesting experience because we could use the theory in practice and practice in theory. So like we would bring clients to the classroom, talk to the students, and we would take like their studies

00:10:14 and bring to the office and say, “Hey, this is what the students did. What we can learn from that.” So it was a good mix. It was a good laboratory for that. – Okay. And then so you’ve left all your businesses in Brazil I presume, or exited, came to Bali for holiday and never left, which is a typical Bali story. – Yeah, no, it’s a typical Bali story. Like when I arrived here, everybody would say, “Hey, you’re gonna stay here for two months? Forget it, you’re gonna stay here forever.” And I still had some

00:10:42 projects that are back in Brazil. And then I remember like, I think it’s first month, I called my business partner and I said, “Hey, let’s stop getting new projects. Let’s finish those ones. I’m gonna stay here.” And I fell in love with the place. – In what way did you fall in love with the place? – I think two main things. Brazil’s pretty boring, in a lot of sense. – Boring? – Yeah, I mean. – Carnaval, yeah. – Yeah, after you spend 30 of those, I think you get quite used to that. But in terms of internationality, I would say,

00:11:18 like Brazil, because of the the politic landscape in Brazil, there’s not a lot of international foreign investment. So you don’t see a lot of people like from all different countries. Like here, man, you go any cafe, you know, talk to someone from all over the world. Like it’s madness. Like every day you meet someone else from somewhere that you never thought about it. And that’s pretty interesting. – So you like the social side of that? Or did you like the cultural side of that? Or purely from the professional side?

00:11:47 – So that’s the second point. The first point is the social side, which I find amazing. And the second point is the professional side, which, okay, I have clients from Turkey, from France, from Australia, and building for them is very interesting because they have very different cultures, very different tastes, and becomes much more, I’m gonna say, but much more challenging in a way, in a good way to design for different people. And then you can start to see the humanity in each part of those. And you can see the–

00:12:20 – So culture comes through in a vision for what they’re going to design and create which when comes to here which becomes quite a fulfilling creative process that I presume. – Yeah, for sure, man. It’s something that I’ll never dream before back in Brazil. Brazil, you only design for Brazilians, most of them. And here you design for everybody else. And that makes you a better architect because then you study people from all over the world. And you understand, like, what are their cooking habits?

00:12:49 What are their sleeping habits? So like, what do they like to do on the weekends? You know, like, how do they see family? I presume culture has a really big influence on your design process. So starting with a family, where they’re from and what is important to them. So if they’re Italian and they love cooking, I presume that becomes a central aspect of your design. And then there’s all the layers from functionality to aesthetic to– – Sure. – How is that, how do you unfold that? – I think that comes with

00:13:21 experience a little bit. But over the years, I developed kind of a script. So like, I have in my mind what fields of the human personality I need to tap into. So I need to understand, like, how they work, how they spend their free time, how they see the future, how they see the past, things like that. So I have this map out in my head. And then I’m talking to the client. I kind of like try to fill those fields, you know? So I ask him or her about what, how was your childhood, where you came from?

00:13:56 Why did you pursue your career like that? And why you’re coming to Bali? So I started with the basic questions for them to feel more comfortable and talk about themselves. Like, for example, what are your hobbies? Like, what do you want to, like, what you like to do? And like, oh, you like surfing, why? Why do you like surfing? Maybe it’s not the same reason why I like surfing. Maybe it’s another reason. So I tap a little bit more into that. So it becomes kind of like a three hour, four hour conversation.

00:14:22 There is, of course, they present to you what are they taste, but there are also oblivious of everything else that they might like. So there’s a whole plethora of options that they never tap into. – So they know what they do like, but they don’t know what they don’t know. – What they like. Yeah, and that’s the thing. The client comes to us and say, hey, this is what I like, but I’d love to hear your opinion on it. I think that’s great. If the client comes to us and say, this is exactly what I want,

00:14:53 they kind of don’t need us for that. They can do it themselves, mostly. So I think that’s when do have a room to talk to the client and talk to everybody actually. Like, you talk to the project manager, talk to the contractor. There you have the rooms to do something better. I think that’s the main key. And you have to be able, everybody, clients, us, contractors, managers, et cetera, they have to understand each other in a way. So it’s not a battle. Like people always think about architects and engineers fighting or

00:15:25 clients and architects fighting. I never saw like that. It’s always like, okay, I’m a person like you and I understand a little bit of your side. Let’s find something great in between. So common ground. – So I presume the serious bureau was built out of that and the name kind of goes along with that. – Kind of goes along with that. Like it’s kind of like a parody on like how people take themselves too seriously in a way. – Which is exactly to that, speaks to that point about – Totally. – Architects, engineers, project managers,

00:16:00 not you, other project managers that take things serious, because it is a serious endeavor. I mean, you’re dealing with a lot of money, you’re dealing with people’s life savings. – It’s stressful as a time management thing, budgetary constraints, it’s intense. – It is intense. But at the same time, it’s like a high performing sports. It is, there is a lot of pressure, but if you’re not relaxed, it doesn’t go well. So I think that speaks a lot. Like a lot of people, a lot of, especially a lot of practice,

00:16:36 they take themselves so seriously that they don’t give room to improvement or room to things to breathe and go organically. So I think that the idea was, okay, we can do something different, we can do something fun, and we can learn from it a lot. And at the same time, because we are in that state, things flow, you know, I think that’s amazing. – I suppose from a creative side, yes, you would need that flow, you need that creative liberty. But when things come over to you, the creative side stops, spreadsheets start,

00:17:08 the GANTT chart, you know, timeline management becomes extremely stringent. – Can I answer my part on that? I disagree, actually, especially with Celine. She comes with like questions like throughout the week, and we have weekly or twice a week meetings. And I just say, hey, we’re gonna talk on Tuesday when we were supposed to meet, and that’s fine. And she understands that, and whatever there’s something urgent, she tells me, look, this is urgent, we need to find a solution for that. And I bring my opinion into it.

00:17:43 And then she adds her opinion on my opinion as well, or her opinion too, and we come with a solution. I don’t think there’s any issue that she brought to us that was like completely one-sided decision. It was just like, you know, ah, we can work together. – There’s always room for flexibility regarding the communication I have with the client, I have with the architect, or even the contractors. The contractor will come with an idea, a problem, I get a solution, I also ask for other people for solution,

00:18:13 like Lucas can have a solution and together we find in that flexibility the best way to solve it. We don’t have always one way, oh, this is a big problem, everyone is angry. No, we find a way, there is always something to do with the design, and also when the architect is also in kind of flexibility, because we have some issue on site, we need to solve it, if the architect is no I want to keep my design exactly what I did, I mean, in this case it’s complicated, but there is always room for flexibility.

00:18:49 – Okay, well I think that plays into our kind of mixed question really, because I think a lot of the listeners here want to specifically know, okay, I’m gonna retire, I’m gonna move to Bali, I’m keen to build a family home, or where do they even start? They’ve never done this before, because they’re from buying off-plan, or older houses that are already built, and wherever, and they want to come in and do this project. Like myself, I have no idea where I would even start. What do I do? – I think you have a big head start already,

00:19:25 because you’ve been here for like five years, six years, right? That’s, I think that’s the start. Like come to the island. – But most people don’t have that luxury. – So you have about three months and they want to build. – I think three months is great already. I mean, if walk around, feel the environment, feel the island, try to understand a little bit, because it’s growing so fast, you can actually spend a month here and see it growing, which is great, you know? I think that’s a great experience already,

00:19:51 so that’s the first thing. So yeah, the second thing would be like do some legwork, because if you just walk in the main road, you’re just gonna see like the main buildings. But if you walk into the smaller roads, you see like some nice opportunities, and try to see like what kind of land you want to have, and talk to real estate agencies and say, hey, what kind of land you have available? Go visit the land, you know? And as I told you before, if the client comes to me with like five or six land

00:20:24 that they want to look into, we gladly provide the service, okay, let’s do some studies on, and see which one. – What do you mean by studies? – We can do– – So I find a great piece of land that say out in Kedungu, I’m like, okay, this is a dream home for me, three bedrooms, when you say study, like what does that actually mean? – We do a feasibility study, which is kind of like we tap into how big the house, or the villa’s gonna be, like what’s the scale of it? Because when you’re thinking about a two bedroom villa,

00:20:57 and you’re thinking about a five bedroom villa, it’s not just adding bedrooms, it’s making the living room bigger for those five bedrooms, it’s make the dining room bigger for those, so they have different scales. And especially how they accommodate on the land, right? Like for example, we have the expat clients that come to me and say, hey, actually I don’t want the normal villa type, because they want to be able to watch a movie on a Sunday, and feel like they’re not missing out going to the beach club, you know what I mean?

00:21:29 Like they want a garden, they want their kids to relax, and they want to watch an old movie on a Sunday afternoon without thinking about if they’re missing something else in Bali. So that’s a different thing, when you’re building a home, and a villa for hospitality, those are two completely different things. So we do a feasibility study on that. – So as a formal feasibility study, you like come with a report, and you say, okay, Gawain, you like this piece of land, and they’ve got a fiduciary duty,

00:21:56 and there’s a lot of due diligent that you need to undertake to make sure the project’s viable. – Exactly, exactly. – But I think most, the listeners are smaller than that, so probably 5 are, 10 are. So tell me about zoning. So if I was going to buy, I wanted to buy something that, how does it actually work? A lot of listeners are aware probably of green, red, yellow. – Yeah, there is different zoning in Bali. It’s been implemented a few years ago, and before that it was another implementation.

00:22:32 But basically for residential, there is two zoning, yellow and, I think pink is commercial, yellow is where there’s– – Pink is tourist. – Pink is tourist, there is various colors. But what you can do is, the first thing is to go with notary. She can do, or he can do the process to see if your lands really has the zoning as the landowner tells you. – I’ll just stop it on that point. So we have a podcast with the notary a few days ago, actually. So click on the link below, and you’ll get all the technical information

00:23:10 about what notary does, how they work, what they do, all the technical aspects, and how they work with both the buyer and the seller, so there’s no issues from zoning, land, registry, et cetera. So check that out. – Yeah, so basically the first thing you see is that you get to learn, you’re happy about it, you start the process with notary, the notary will check if the land is good for the potential building you are willing to build. And the person will approve everything. Basically, you are not the person

00:23:46 that will go to the government and see if it’s good or not. And don’t trust 100% your landowner. I mean, he’s just sometimes ricefield farmers. So the first thing to do is really to go with the notary. And then when the notary check all the documentation and tell you it’s good, you can buy the land, pay the deposits and everything. And in this case, after that, you can do the technical studies. So topography, soil tests, so try to test the land if the soil is good to build, and where will be the foundation,

00:24:18 and the topography is for the architect to be able to draw the design regarding and following the land. In my experience, I will more go with the technical things about the land, how you build a land. You have to know, you can build on any land, but the design will be impacted by the topography and the way the land is built. For example, the land is sloped like this. You have to take into account and that will be additional cost for the building because you have big foundations and big retaining walls.

00:24:51 – So you deal with everything once, okay. So they brought the land, they come to you with plans, and all this is pre-planned, they just come with the land. – Most of the time, they come with an architect, they already talk with the architect, have a pre-design, and me, I come before validating the renderings to make sure that technically it’s good, it’s fitting with the budget. I mean, the budget is both the work of the architect and mine, we have different inputs, but technically speaking, I will tell the client

00:25:22 and the architect, yeah, this roof, I would prefer to be a bit longer to avoid rain. Most of the time, the architect, if it’s good, like Lucas, he already think about this. – Very good. – He already think about this kind of issues that can come already built three years and had project three years in value already, so you know the issues of the rain, of the potential earthquake, of things like that, but it’s always good to have a second opinion like mine, technical opinion. So there is a part of the design

00:25:53 where we are just two inputs together on the design and make sure that the project can go well and in the budget of the client. – Has you guys worked from almost day one? – I’ll say day seven. – I’ll say day seven. – I’ll come in with later. – Yeah, a little bit later, but I think it’s funny because what you’re describing when, it’s what happens to everyone that comes to Bali to try to develop a build, right? So I’ll tell you what happens most of the time. They come here, they find the land and they try to find not

00:26:30 through the real estate agencies and et cetera because they know they’re gonna find the best deal, et cetera. And I find it funny because everybody that comes, you can see like every month there’s someone that comes, I’m super smart, I’m gonna talk to the guy. – Special deal. – Yeah, special deal. Like, hey, I can do it. And then they start talking to other people that have been here for three years, two years, five years, 10 years, and they’re having dinner on a Thursday night. And they say, hey, how

00:27:00 did you start your business? The guy who’s been here 20 is like, when I arrived here, there was nothing, I talked to the guy in the subak and blah, blah, blah. And then the guy who’s been two years, no, you know what, I got great deals, I went there, did that. So of course, like, the newbie, he or she, they’re gonna start to do like, they’re gonna try to cut corners, you know? And I highly advise anyone who comes to first play by their rules and then see if you can crack the game. You know what I mean?

00:27:36 – So do things through the correct channels first, maybe for five years and then you can start. – Yeah, I mean– – There is a risk a bit more for this process, but at least do a first project, go with the agencies, pay a bit more expense to the land because they get a commission. And it’s the same for the project management. A lot of people try to do that by themselves. And I arrived, sometimes the foundation already start and I am trying to save the project, you know? It’s not saving, I’m not a hero,

00:28:04 but you know, there are lots of other contractors late or they feel like the foundation are not so deep as they expected and they come to me like, ah, I’m not sure and there is a lot of project. I think half of my project, I didn’t arrive during the design phase, I arrived when the construction is already started and they realize the time that you have to spend on the project to make sure that everything is going smoothly. So, yeah. – So what are all those kinds of issues? I presume, so you get called three weeks in

00:28:31 and there’s a panic because they’re struggling to manage team, construction people. What kind of issues, if I try and do this semi-magical, villa in Kedungu, if I try and do it myself, what, as a first time, what are those likely issues that I would encounter? – If you are alone and you developed. – If I’m alone, all by myself, don’t have him, don’t have you. – First on the tender process, you can have a price that is highly expensive. – Explain that tender process. – Yeah, so when the design is done,

00:29:02 the drawings are done, technical drawings are done, we send the list of the volume, so we call it BOQ, bill of quantity, two different contractors compare the price, they give you back prices and you find and you choose– – So how are we going to like a marketplace or something, finding a builder? – There is two options, I mean, no, three options. There is the one that you find a good deal, deal that is fine, the price is fair and the contractor is good, he knows his price. The second option, you feel like,

00:29:33 I have this super good deal of the year, the contractor is so cheap, and you end up three months after the construction, the contractor don’t have any more money because his price was too low and he cannot buy the material. And there is a third option where the contractor is super expensive but you don’t know it because you don’t know the market price, and you pay highly expensive for a project of classic villa projects. So that the three points and the good thing when I’m on the project is that

00:30:00 I know the price of the market, I know the contractors, and you can tell, like, I will do the negotiation, OK, your price of concrete is way too expensive, it’s lower down, I know the price of the market, or your price of your contract is too cheap, and in this case, your mix will not be good, the material you use will not be good. – So a wall will fall over or something will disintegrate. When it starts raining. – Yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s not good. – Too cheap is not good. – OK, so too cheap, also

00:30:27 expensive, I understand that. What are the problems would I likely encounter? – When the construction starts? – Yeah. – Everything can happen. No, but I mean, it can be exactly like the contractor was too cheap, so he tried to cheat on you with the material he’s using, like not the same cement, not the same granite on the floor, he will try to reduce the size of the bricks. It’s maybe two centimeter, but in the end, it’s a high price on the building. All the steel that are in the concrete, he will put the less thickness,

00:31:04 so in the end, he will adjust with his price, but in the end, your structure will not follow the technical drawing that the architect approved that have been studied, so this is the kind of issue that could easily happen, the contractor trying to cheat on the material. – So it’s like a quality creep, you know, lesser quality for amount of money, OK. So those kinds of things is technically what you do. – Yeah, quality control, and also sometimes, like the dimension of the supervisor of the contractor

00:31:36 is not checking exactly the position of the foundation, you end up with the wall that’s not straight, or the room, one meter square. Yeah, smaller, your room are smaller, or like you end up, sometimes the developer builds several buildings on the same area, and the building can be a little bit bigger than on the drawings, but in the end, the last building will be quite smaller because all the space have been like– – Accumulated. – Accumulated. – And then the building, I don’t have space anymore,

00:32:08 you know, because there is the, how it’s working badly with the contractor, there is a contractor where they achieve the best that you are dealing the price, you are dealing everything, this contractor, most of the time is not a lot on the project, and you will refer to the supervisor. And if the supervisor is not here a lot, it will be the workers by themselves, and that’s not a good idea, you know, and they will do what they think, when they always have a double check, triple check, you know, like an example, one week ago,

00:32:39 on a project, a pool was already digged, and we were ready to put the structure. Before, when the pool was digged, they already checked the mention of everything, approved the supervisor, I come back today, and the dimension of the form work were not exactly as we discussed, so we need to correct again, and thankfully the pool has not been cast because I checked every week, you know, so that’s this, you know, it’s also human mistake, sometimes they cannot be everywhere, there is like 10 workers on the site

00:33:10 who cannot see everything, that’s always good to have a second technical eyes, as I have, you know. I think the biggest problem is the sorry. Sorry. Sorry? Yeah, it’s like they made a mistake and said sorry. I can say three months in, building the foundation and said sorry. Yeah, and it’s like, yeah, like this is clearly wrong, and say yeah, I’m sorry. So I think that’s, you know, like we’re asking, like, oh, what kind of problems can happen, I think any, and I think the idea of having professionals work on that

00:33:42 is because we have, not only we have SOPs that prevent most of the problems, but also we have an eye to see like, oh, this might be a problem in the future, you know, we have to close, pay close attention to that. But the worst thing is the sorry, because it’s,- Nothing you can do I mean they’re gonna look you straight in your eye and say sorry, and then you’re like– – Already cast, already cannot move anymore, so sorry, yeah. – I think that’s the main thing. – And we try to fix as we can, but in general, it’s already done, so yeah.

00:34:19 – Okay, so what other issues would I likely run into? Like regulatory, zoning, like a height on things, and maybe explain like the how are they involved in this? – I’ve seen so many things differently already, like for example, I’ve seen a client, that he got a land, he checked in the notary, everything, but the land was still on, on like, how can I say, on mortgage in the bank, like as collateral for a loan. I was like, the client couldn’t build, you know, like it was completely weird, and that took like months to regulate.

00:35:00 You can find that the BPN measurement is wrong, like the government measurement wrongs, you have to check that. So sometimes I actually ask clients, if they have the resources to do the topographic survey before they acquire the land, so they can understand it a little bit better before they do it. But I’ll tell you, anything can happen, and I think that’s, it’s kind of asking, what can go wrong in a surgery? You know, anything. That’s why they have so strict procedures to kind of avoid most of this stuff.

00:35:38 – And the things here in Bali, when you do first project and you just, new arrival to go with the professional, like you know, the agencies , the notaries to make sure they check for you because you don’t speak the language and you don’t know the rules here in Bali, and after on the technical, architectural project management, we know the issues, I mean, for example, the issue that we have in Bali and it’s really known is like the water, it’s raining really hard in Bali, sometimes also you are close to the rice field,

00:36:09 so a lot of water can come on the project and that’s something you need to think about before building, you know, because you arrive half of the project and your land is flooded with water because the rice field farmer just opened the valve, you know, so there is things like this you need to think about. So when you are on a rice field or next to a rice field, level up the building, when you are on area like Ubud, you need to take additional process for the water because it’s raining much more harder in Ubud.

00:36:40 When you are in Uluwatu, there is no water there, so you need to think about the tank and the supply of the water from the… – So all of those things, going back to the point on timelines and budget, because that’s your, nuts and bolts of what you do, so you take all of those things into account, so if you’re looking at building Kedungu or Bingin or whatever it might be, so you look at location, suppliers, who you’re dealing with, maybe just talk us through that timeline management. What does it look like?

00:37:15 How do you… – Basically the timeline, depends of the size of the building and also the area, I mean, it’s easier to build in Canggu than Ubud because of the rain, most of the time, if you start in a project when the rainy season starts, you will have lower progress because it will be raining much more often than in Canggu on the dry season. So that’s how we manage, we deal with the contractor, so first, I give the, as I told before, the BOQ, to contact contractor, they give us the price, and then we talk about timeline.

00:37:52 How long you can do this project? They tell me six months, I mean, no, I’ll be a bit more optimistic, so you will be not played, oh, the opposite way, they take so much more time, and they want the villa in one year, so let’s try to fit into the timeline, you know? So yeah, that’s something we did really before starting the construction, the timeline and the budget, making sure everything is fine, and also we don’t forget anything on the budget of the clients, so with everything that is in design,

00:38:21 is in the BOQ and in the price, and also additional costs that could come, like electricity is not part of the deal of the contractor maybe, so we need to think about that. On the road, the road is not part of the deal of the contractor, so maybe we have additional cost for the road, or the landscape so all of this become the budget of the clients, the furniture as well, but yeah, most of the budgets come from the construction, and I’m here to negotiate the price, you know, I can save maybe 100 million,

00:38:54 200 million on a project, if it’s too expensive for the client, or the contractor is too expensive, I can negotiate the price. Sometimes if it’s not fit in the budget, we modify a bit the design, and we come back to it, like go and forth. – So it’s a dynamic document though, so timeline budget, continually changing as the project progresses, and I presume with that is managing clients’ expectations, and managing change, because I’m sure that can be an uncomfortable conversation sometimes, projects like it’s flooded,

00:39:30 and there’s a three week delay, but they’re sitting in Rome or something, they don’t understand, like how do you manage clients? – It’s always about communication, regular communication, you don’t come on a project at the end of the day of the delivery, oh sorry we’re late, and sometimes a lot of times it’s happened with that, with the contractor, like now where is the villa, you should give me the key today for the contract, and oh sorry, sorry we come back to the sorry. – How did you say sorry?

00:39:57 – Sorry, no back to– – No that’s happened when the client go directly with the contractor, and that’s happened like this. Me, I’m always checking the timeline, because there is a schedule, we check every week the timeline, that we stay on track, and if we are not on track, what solutions we can have, what are the reason, if there is proper reason, like it’s been two weeks, it’s raining so hard, so okay you explain to the client, sorry there is a delay on your project, you say that before the end of the project,

00:40:25 you say that when it’s happened, it’s like okay it’s been raining since two weeks, there will be a delay on the project, we are trying to catch a project, the progress, but I’m just warning you, and they can understand, they don’t, it’s difficult, more difficult to understand when it’s the end of the project, and yeah, but because six months ago it was raining super hard, so the way you communicate with the client– – So you have like a weekly call, an update, you deliver like where we are on the timeline,

00:40:51 where we are on the project? – Yeah on the progress, the percentage of the progress, pictures, call, meetings, when– – And I presume the timeline is linked to the budget, and there’s milestones– – Yeah. – Between access, open, another kind of budget segment that they would need to pay on certain dates. – Exactly, so at the beginning of the project, there is always a schedule, a schedule is made of each item of the bill of quantity, each time when it’s gonna be done, and with this we will be able to know

00:41:23 when exactly we’ll have to pay for the next invoice, based on the percentage of the progress, and also how I check the progress, is like with this percentage, are we on time or not? 2%, 5% late, when we are 5% late, okay we need to take action, 2% is fine, 10% we have to worry. – Especially when you’re working in hospitality, right? Like two months late, it’s a lot, because– – You’re start staffing it? – Because you could be monetizing it, right? So let’s say you’re building a villa, let’s say for $200,000, right?

00:42:08 And then you’re gonna rent it for 15 or 10,000 a month, and you lose two months of that, that’s 10% already of your construction costs. So it’s, I think you need to be very specific on that, and very realistic. But I also like to say that, there is a distance, a healthy distance that the clients should have in the construction site. Because all the problems that you’re asking, for example, like what can happen, right? I think that’s the least thing the client should be thinking about. – What do you mean by that?

00:42:47 So say for me, okay, for my example, in Kedungu, you don’t want me anywhere near the site, you don’t want– – Not anywhere near, I’d love to visit with me, and follow me on the milestones of the construction. But I would rather prefer you to worry about how you’re gonna work better. Yeah, and earn your money, so you can pay a project manager, so not worry about construction for you. – So you’d have to sit at me, yeah. – Yeah, exactly, and that’ll be the, and then you can go there once a month, with your friends,

00:43:23 you’re like, “Hey, this is my jacuzzi.” That’s great. And we love to have the client there to follow, because it’s a process, but can be an enjoyable process, but can be a very painful process as well. And I’ll tell you, if you go there every day, you’re gonna find the same problems that we find every day. But the thing is, we are chilled because we know how to solve them, or we were predicting them from the beginning, but you are there, and you see something, like, “Oh my God, how am I gonna do this?”

00:43:54 So the same problem becomes something completely huge. – And also you try to solve the problem directly with the contractor, but the communication is completely different. Where you’re from talking to Balinese, to Indonesian, it’s not the same language, not the same culture, so you don’t yell out at Indonesian, “Your work is not good.” Otherwise they will over reacting, and they will close. – So how do you know, how’s your Bahasa these days? – Yeah, I mean, I have a Bahasa that is enough to make myself

00:44:23 understand on the work side. I’m not talking about politics with them, that’s enough to talk and to make myself understand and understand what they’re saying. It’s good to talk with the workers, as it’s good to talk with the supervisor. It’s a different version. Also, when you talk to the workers, they are working and they are missing some materials, so I will directly ask the supervisor to bring the material, because I have more impact and more hierarchy above the supervisor. So yeah, it’s always good to communicate,

00:44:56 and when you don’t know how to communicate with the contractors, you should always go directly to the boss, but you don’t know that in the end, the boss is just managing the money, and it’s always good to communicate with the supervisor, but most of the supervisors don’t talk English. – Yeah, I also like to give a little bit of perspective to you. You are in a foreign country, which is not yours. You don’t speak the language, you don’t understand the culture. Try to be a little bit more humble,

00:45:26 try to listen to others. I think that, again, that’ll be the first thing, the first project, try to do that. And then the second one, you can be a little bit more adventurous. You’re gonna have other kinds of relationships, and that could work. But I’ll tell you, by experience, you see clients that, their first timers, most of them are first timers. I can see the ones that try to push a little bit in the beginning, because they wanna hustle, and I see the ones that wanna try to do something very by the book.

00:45:54 You can see the level of happiness of both kinds. The second kind is way happier. – So you spend maybe 10% more, but the stress hasn’t taken five years of his life. – Yeah, and they can enjoy it. I won’t say they’re spending more, actually. They’re spending the same amount. Because they are– – Their time is valuable, as well. – And I think that’s the thing that people don’t understand about project managing, and good architecture, and even quantity surveying. It’s like, if you have a certain kind of scale,

00:46:31 again, I think you’re gonna earn much more money doing your job well, rather than going down the side and choose what kind of pipe you want. – Kinda save $100, you know. – You know what I mean? – $50 a year, yeah, yeah. – Exactly, so my advice depends on things like that. Focus on yours, let’s enjoy it together. – Okay, so the overwhelming consensus is, especially first project, go to the experts. – Go to the experts. – Do one or two projects in Bali, then you can kind of spread your wings a little bit.

00:47:04 So my project’s nearly built now. What, and project’s going to plan on budget, save me many left, right, and center. I hope, what are the steps then to finishing the project? Like, what are the final stages to this process? – So there is the, you have to deliver a checklist. I mean, do a checklist with the contractor, because there’s always small details, you know, paint, things you need to clean, lamp that are not well working, things like this. So go on the villa, do a checklist, stay in the villa as well.

00:47:38 If you already have the furniture, try it. Test the villa, stay three days in there, and then the contractor can finish the contract when you already tell him, okay, everything is good, I test everything, all the equipment are working, so that’s fine with me, I can pay you your last bill. But really first test the villa before going– – I’m sure a checklist can sometimes be a difficult list to complete. And some of the things will probably require fundamental. – Exactly, prioritize, what is the,

00:48:04 I mean, you can notice something, ah, that’s a big issue, but in the end you will have to destroy something to do that, so you try to find a balance between what you will do, and also the delivery. If you are a developer that is building for a client, what do you choose to correct that and take one more month? So keep it like this, even if it’s like a small detail, and then you deliver to the client, so he can run the villa and get money from this, it’s like, do you lose one month, and lose one month of like a rent,

00:48:36 or you fix it to make the villa perfect? And that’s the balance you need to find, and I mean, once the contract is finished with the contractor also, during this time you will get the delivery of the furniture, the delivery of the equipment, everything to make the villa ready, electricity coming as well if it’s out there. Yeah, that’s a good one. – All right, well, have we missed anything else? Is there anything else that I should know about? – Yeah, I think the best advice is the one that Celine gave,

00:49:08 you stay in the villa two or three days, I think that’s great, works perfectly, and try to enjoy it as much as you can. Don’t try to think about the next project for at least a month. I think, and try to learn from it. You know, try to see what details you want best. – What went wrong? – What went wrong. – What looks good, what doesn’t. – Exactly, yeah, especially because you’re gonna have the same review after three months after you rented the place as well. Like if you rent for other people, you’re gonna have some feedbacks,

00:49:44 and I think that’s extremely valuable before you go to the next one, you know? Before you try to, because it’s very easy to flip here, okay, you finished something, what next? And half of the Bali population is currently flipping the list, so. – Yeah, but I always question how fulfilled they are. – Wow, process relation these days, they’re probably quite fulfilled. – Probably, I mean, I’ve been talking to some people, like the ones that they are enjoying the most, I think, they have a pace and have a formula themselves,

00:50:21 they are happy to do it. But you also can see a lot of people struggling for the last five years, six years, especially the last two years after COVID, right? People are like trying to flip it, flip it, flip it, and then you ask them, “Hi, how’s your life in Bali?” And it’s miserable. And so again, I think the idea that you have to do a reality check, you are in a foreign country, in a tropical country, the culture is very different, et cetera, et cetera. So aligning those expectations, I think, is very important.

00:50:58 – Okay, just before we, and thanks for the great advice, if you develop it, but yeah, thanks for that, but let’s touch on, because we were talking about thriving development environment that’s happening in Bali. Let’s talk sustainability, because I know, in closing, this is a subject that both of you are passionate about. What is the current state of affairs right now, from a top-line perspective? And then, what are you trying to do to change and become more sustainable in both of your businesses

00:51:33 and personal, whatever? And then, where do you see Bali going? Now, this is probably a podcast in itself. But yeah, in a nutshell, how do you weigh all these things up, urban development, which is a big issue, and you can see it in Bali day in day out. It’s just, you know, it’s people are, it’s mayhem out there. – I think in Bali, in Indonesia, in general, sustainability is not well developed because of the awareness also of the people, local people, or the tourist, or something like this. We can see on the way, we’ll see in the beach,

00:52:09 and something like this, in the rivers. What we’re trying to do in the villas is to build better. We cannot, it’s difficult, really difficult to do villa here in Bali, that is like zero carbon, because you don’t have all the materials, all the innovation we can have. But sustainability here in Bali is like, it’s a bit like, think smart. There is no more water in Uluwatu, but there is so much, I mean, coming from the floor, but there is so much water, like, I mean, the rainy season in Bali, so why you don’t harvest the water,

00:52:45 it’s really smart, you know, it’s raining so much in Ubud, or even sometime in Canggu, that just the smart way to do is not much expensive, but… – So like water capture? – Yeah, capture the water, there is so much shine in Bali, so why you don’t put solar panels, most of the electricity comes from the coal industry. So, yeah, there is not, you don’t have to be super innovative, taking like, materials from the, I don’t know, where in the world, but it’s like, more about wellbeing, having a good ventilation

00:53:19 in the villa, natural light, what we try to do with as much as possible in the school, that is like, we have a really good ventilation in the middle of the school, like, windows everywhere for natural light, so you don’t have to use a lot of electricity, a lot of AC, and we harvest water, because I mean, it’s like, it’s really smart here to do in Bali, so it’s the way you manage the resources you have on the land, so harvest the water, filter, and maybe use again the water for the toilet, because that would be super smart to do in Uluwatu,

00:53:53 to harvest the water, reuse for the toilet, because they struggle now to get the water from the water supplier, or from the floor, so… Yeah, I mean, sustainability is just like… – It’s just common sense. Common sense, exactly, yeah. I mean, I’m from South Africa, and it’s also a major water problem there, you know. – Electricity as well, right? – All problems, actually. But yeah, I mean, water, electricity, especially transport, you know, those kinds of things, which I know Bali is looking to fix in certain ways,

00:54:28 but yeah, I think common sense, recycling, certain things you can do that are low-hanging, fruit picking make a big difference. – Yeah, using local material, there is a lot of beautiful stones, beautiful woods coming from around, and you can have like a recycled woods, like how do you say, unclaimed woods, that come from an island around Bali that could be really helping on lowering the carbon footprint of your villa. – For example, in the school project, we’re using the company that’s building the school, right?

00:55:04 They develop a kind of brick that use as an aggregate of the brick, they use the ashes of the volcanoes. So they have a carbon footprint that’s amazing, because instead of using actual concrete, they use the ashes. So it’s– – Well, that’s the eco-crete. – That’s the eco-crete, yeah. So it starts with that, as Celine was saying, like how we can use that. Or for example, I was just talking to a developer the other day, they’re building some villas in Mentawai and what they’re doing is that, because he’s a foreigner,

00:55:37 he’s not allowed to cut trees, but he’s allowed to pick up trees from the beach. So all the huge tree trunks that arrive in the shore, he’s be able to harvest them, and it’s amazing. Like you can see videos like him taking like 15 meter tree trunks from the beach and cutting it and building the villa. – Beaches trees all naturally sanded, but a bit more. – They’re beautiful, and they’ve been through a lot, so they’re very sturdy and resistant, but I think that’s very interesting. – I think sustainability as well is like,

00:56:16 try to follow as much as possible the environment you’re around. So if you are in a jungle, try to cut less trees as possible, you know, it’s that you can, in the architectural part, you can do things to be more smart and to just avoid. You put the tree inside the deck, I mean, it’s super smart, super smart and super beautiful. People love to be surrounded by nature, so no solution in sort of cutting everything, cutting the land, just try to work with the environment you are in, and you will cut less land,

00:56:49 it will cut less, and you will not struggle with your environment, you will work with the environment you’re around. – I think also it’s about like resources. Like I feel that a lot of people spend a lot of money, try to build their own bubble in the island. Like, oh, you’re for South Africa, I’m gonna try to build the most South African home possible so I can go there and feel like home. Yeah, but maybe you should just go to South Africa, you should prefer that, right? And that happens to like the Mediterranean style

00:57:21 of architecture that everybody’s doing. I mean, I would prefer to go to Ibiza, man, if I want to experience a kind of architecture or you know, go south of Spain or something like that, which would be much better. But in Bali, I feel like whatever visits a place that has a kind of architecture that speaks to the local tradition, it doesn’t have to be traditional architecture, but it speaks to the local tradition and makes me feel more fulfilled and say, hey, I’m Bali, this is Bali, this is very interesting.

00:57:54 – So– – And we both, I think, professionals love to work on this kind of project, something that is more linked to the culture, that’s not like a square of building, put in the middle of the rice fields, you know, it’s like something that work with the environment, that work with the culture using local materials. I love, for example, the Joglo style of Villa. So yeah, I love this. – You were talking about how I love the Joglo. – And that’s like most of the Joglo’s are like, Joglo are coming from other islands

00:58:22 and you, that you, it’s like reclaimed wood, you put it on your land, you have nice windows, so you can have like a mix of modern and old traditional house, and that’s the kind of project I love to work on. – Yeah, yeah, like for example, we were working on a project in Uluwatu, the client, she had the Joglo structure from other developments that she had, and she said, look, what about we use them? It’s like, yeah, of course, let’s use it. So the common area of the Villa is all in the old Joglo structure, which is very beautiful,

00:58:56 and then the bedrooms we built, like kind of like a little bit of a modernized version of it. And then we were on the topic of air cons. I like, how should we put air cons in the whole Joglo? But the Joglo structure is not made to have air cons, like the way, the shape it is, and how the air flows inside. So we worked really hard how to make the air flow much, much better, and then you have this kind of tropical feeling, but it’s a fresh tropical feeling, which– – And cuts down energy. – Cuts down energy, and there we go, right?

00:59:31 We’re talking about common sense a lot. And you can have niches of comfort, like how you understand the comfortable part of the Villa. I always speak about what kind of place you want to build. Instead, you want to build a place that you’re gonna be inside the aircon unit the whole day, or you want to feel a little bit more outside inside. And that’s one of the reasons I came to Bali, is because in Brazil, we have a history of tropical architecture and how to deal with that. And then I felt that when I arrived here,

01:00:05 I said, “Oh, there’s so many techniques “that we have in Brazil, and we can apply here, “and you know, to apply to a more tropical climate.” – Cool, so yeah, I think sustainability, I think it’s close to all of our hearts, so yeah, important, thanks, great common sense advice. Yeah, I think just in closing, if you guys got any more wisdom nuggets for somebody like me just starting off, and what we can do, what I shouldn’t do, I mean, yeah, I think we go for a beer. – I think we’re pretty set up

01:00:40 in the island already, right? But I think any advice I would give to everyone is that try to be in peace with everything here. Don’t try to make your own way, learn. The island has their own way to do things, it has their own way to flow along the progress. Try to watch and learn how it is and try to flow, and when you decide to flow with it, I know it looks very Ubud, what I’m saying, but once you decide to be part of it, try to think how you can contribute, how you can add, not what you can change,

01:01:19 but what you can add to it. I think that will make everything so much easier, so much better, and then you have a final product that actually speaks with the progress of the island instead of the degenerative side of it. – I think that’s the perfect advice. I will say I will add to just adapt with the culture, try to interest yourself with the culture, it will help you with the communication with everybody, the banjar, the architect, the contractors, and help you be in peace with your project and the people around, the environment around.

01:01:59 – Cool. Well thanks guys, I’m really informative. I think it was great to understand and learn what you guys have been through and how everybody in Bali can hopefully benefit from it. So thanks so much. I’ll put the links below for The Serious Bureau. How you get hold of Lucas if you’re keen to do a project with him and yourself, Céline Patron. -Pasagge Project Management Passage, how do you spell that? P-A-S-S-A-G-E Yeah, also a link here. So yeah, thanks so much and we’ll see you on the next podcast. I think

01:02:38 next week we’re going to be discussing fashion. Fashion industry specifically in Bali, but we’ve got one of the biggest brands here as a guest and we can discuss all the trials and tribulations that they experienced. 20 years running a fashion brand, a successful fashion brand in Bali. So that’ll be interesting. But thanks guys, I really appreciate it. -Thank you so much. -Thank you.

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