02/01/2024
Read below the following narrative composed by Dave, detailing his personal experiences.
When I was about 18 or 19 I was working in a bar in ST Albans, my home city. I knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but on the other hand I didn't know what I wanted to do. As so many have done in the past, I decided to get a trade, and so applied to college to study plumbing, leading to (over the course of the next three years) me becoming a fully qualified plumber. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the theoretical side of the profession, I found myself panicking that I had left leaks at every job I went to. This was not helped by my apprenticeship being with a person that had employed two apprentices (including myself) as cheap labour, without also having an experienced plumber to show us where we were going wrong. This led to me falling out of love with plumbing as a profession, but realising that the construction industry was where my passion laid.
Skip forward to when I am 23. I am looking at various University courses to see what felt right. I knew I didn't have the qualifications to study architecture, but knew this was the direction that I needed to look in. This was when I found Architectural Technology. It was perfect. It satisfied my love for design whilst also allowing me to look at exactly how buildings were put together, and how they could be improved with the smallest details. I spent the next four years at Nottingham Trent University (including a year in industry) gaining my Bachelors degree.
After I had left University and come back from America, where I had spent the summer working at a summer camp, I immediately started looking for jobs. My partner (now wife) was based in Derby, so my search centred around the East Midlands. After several rejections I was offered a job by Valeria at Conception Architects. Conception was (and has remained) a small practice, as this allows us to dedicate as much time as possible to each project, a necessity when working in conservation.
What I love about the work at Conception is the variety of work. Traditional shopfront reinstatement design and detailing requires a level of detail rarely required elsewhere, and similarly the construction methods, materials and expertise required harkens back to a time when skilled joiners and tradesmen put their heart and soul into their work. This is a practice that we absolutely insist on with all projects, and always results in exemplary finished products. Similarly with all other facets of heritage work, we must assess, detail and report everything to a very high level of detail in order to assure each project is completed to the highest level of detail.
This level of detail also relates to our residential projects. Primarily centred in London, I take pride in the fact that we take part in every project from inception to completion, and take all the time necessary to ensure that any addition or reconfiguration has been designed to best appreciate the existing building and spaces.
