The project had an awkward beginning during lockdown, and I didn't meet my clients for the first three months. They’d actually had a design done already and they were looking for somebody to execute the interior. And when I saw the drawings, it was very clear that the previous person was doing some bamboozling. But at least I had a reference to pivot from, and luckily our practice had already been working remotely with clients in the US before the lockdown, so we were very familiar with working on Zoom. We presented the first proposal virtually, which was very well received. But the first time I met them was at the building site after the lockdown.

When we got to construction, I handed them over to a colleague of mine. I do design, while she takes it to execution. This is the way we've always operated. She deals with the contractors, the engineers; that's her expertise. And that’s when we started to have problems, because the clients believed that I should do it all. It's not physically possible. Do you know how many people are required to deliver a building?

This was not well received. These clients had also been very shrewd, they had squeezed us hard on professional fees. This project took two and a half years, and they were adamant they were not going to pay a dime more as we agreed to a fixed contract at inception. I'm the most expensive person in my practice but they were not willing to pay me for my time. Also, they are lawyers and bill for time, so I couldn’t understand how somebody like that could be so detached from another professional who also only earns money based on time. That added to my resentment, and then they also had these bad habits, as residential clients often do: they call you on Sundays, they have an idea and they send you a message at 9pm, or they just call. And I was just like, I'm not going to do this. You are not paying me a premium for my time. So I got fired.

I considered walking away. Of course, I did. I was very annoyed. I mean, how dare they? But if I walked away, I would lose out the most. Because it would cost them more money, but they have the money. They could pay. That house cost over a million dollars, in India! The fact they didn't want to pay was a choice, they just did not feel that it was the value of the service.

So I had to make a decision, because honestly they were being unreasonable. A lot of work had been done by many people, which they were refusing to acknowledge, right? But as an architect, sometimes you need to protect the client from themselves. If I walked away at this stage, I would lose the opportunity to take credit for the work, because who would let me back in the house to take photographs? Here in India, it is almost unheard of to gain access to a completed project for a high net worth individual. We have such a massive economic divide that the wealthy keep their affluence very private. Very little work gets published, because clients have security concerns from burglars.

So I had to bite my tongue and did what any smart girl would do: get somebody more senior in the profession to go and speak to them on my behalf. Now this goes beyond professional practice, this is the cultural realm of how to create the right solution. This very senior colleague, an engineer, had a meeting with them, and the fact that I had gone this route made the clients see reason. Then we had a direct discussion which allowed me and my team to continue on the project.

The irony of this story is that this project, once published, became our most celebrated residential project. It was great PR for the practice to show what we can achieve and we have gotten three new commissions off the back of it. And so the benefit of my being humble has been endless. It was worth it, but I had to go and grovel with a client. It was a very painful experience.

I learned a very valuable lesson — and I hate to say this — but the client is always right. Because if the client does not feel right, the project won't go forward. You almost have to make the client believe that it was their decision to get anything done. Even if your client is wrong, the longer you are out of sync, then that's going to be a challenge for the project. The architects who learn quickly the importance of this relationship dynamic, are the ones that end up having better executed projects.

So it's not about being right; it's about being aligned.

Bio

The Humble Pie Eater has been building and curating for 20 years and eating humble pie when necessary.

Lev Bratishenko is a writer and recovering curator. His most recent publication is 21 Games you can play with a Cosmic House, and his curatorial inventions include the Come and Forget series proposing benevolent acts of mass amnesia, and How to, a workshop that brings strangers together to produce interventions in architectural culture: How to: not make an architecture magazine (2018); How to: disturb the public (2019); How to: reward and punish (2020); How to: not become a ‘developer’ (2022); How to: do no harm (2022); How to: mind the moon (2023). He was the inaugural Curator Public at the Canadian Centre of Architecture.