Nuts & Bolts

Pre-design planning. With so many experts available, Joshua Young of Maestro Development unravels the mystery of who you need on your dream team, in particular, the expertise required to build a high-performance home.

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Josh is the founding principal of Maestro Development. Prior to entering the residential construction industry, he gained a decade of project management experience as a consulting engineer. When he bought his first home, Josh’s focus turned towards the building process and sustainable best practices in building science. In 2008 he entered the industry as a project manager to renovators and homebuilders in Vancouver, and from these experiences Maestro was born in 2011.

Throughout his construction career Josh has taken a leading role in advocating for heritage preservation and green building practices. He regularly attends conferences like Buildex, Passive House Canada and IDS West, and continues his education in business development, project management and technical building science with BCIT, HAVAN, Vancouver Heritage Foundation and other industry groups. With an extensive network of honoured colleagues in building, development, architecture and design, Josh has positioned Maestro at the forefront of the building industry in Vancouver.

Check out HAVAN’s Spotlight for a fun personal, insight on Josh!

Listen, like and share for your chance to win a gas BBQ compliments of our Podcast Partner FortisBC.

Jen:

Welcome to Measure Twice, Cut Once the podcast from HAVAN, the Homebuilders Association Vancouver.

Mike:

From code to closets.

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And give you the ins and outs from the experts on what you should know.

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Mike:

I Mike Freedman,

Jen:

and I’m Jennifer Lee. Now that you’re here, why not hit subscribe? And you’ll never miss an episode.

Mike:

Don’t forget to share with your family, friends or anyone else, you know, who might be thinking of a project in their home now or in the future.

Jen:

Hey Mike, it’s good to be back in the studio. How are you?

Mike:

Jen, I am fantastic. Great to see you again. Coming here today, you know, I was driving in and thinking about last week, we left off with Matt, Senf from the topic of budgets. I know. He said the one thing to do is trust the experts to do their job. That was really good advice.

Jen:

Yeah, I loved it. And there are so many efficiencies resulting in cost savings by working with the professionals and of course the right builder at the end of the day.

Mike:

Yeah, just think about the importance of bringing your team of experts together to ensure the builder and their team of experts are on the same page to meet your budget and timing goals. There are a lot of things to consider in the pre-design planning stage.

Jen:

And speaking of experts, we have Josh Young from Maestro Development here today to talk with us about the pre-design planning process. Welcome Josh.

Josh:

Hi Jen. Thanks for having me.

Jen:

Hi, tell us a little bit about your company and how you started your journey into construction.

Josh:

Well, I graduated from engineering at UBC some time ago worked in as a consultant in that field for about eight years. I was tying off that first phase of my career when I bought my first home, right around the time that I had my first child at home. And, both of those factors led me to decide that engineering; the work that I was doing way out in the field wasn’t as appealing to me for the long-term. And in looking at the home that I just bought, I was frankly, a lot more interested in the kind of work that I could do on that house, and housing in general, just what options there were to work in that field. I decided to make a change of career and 2008 with the economic downturn, my company was offering packages and I took mine. And so within a few months had found another renovator to start work, with us a contract project manager, and worked for him and another company for a few years until I struck out on my own.

Jen:

Great. And in just a few minutes, we’re going to dive deep into the pre-design planning process. And of course we’ve been talking along this podcast it’s so important to have a relationship with your clients as either the interior designer architect, or of course even the builder is so important. And you kind of a cool story on how you got your pet, the Crested gecko through a relationship of one of your previous clients. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Josh:

A client of mine that was preparing for a kitchen renovation went into his house, I think it was the first visit even, and he had a, a fish tank on his kitchen counter with a crest, a gecko, a type of lizard from Papua New Guinea. And I was admiring his pet. He told me as part of this renovation, he needed to clear some counter space cause they were looking for a new home for this pet. He offered it to me and could only think how often is anyone actually going to offer you a lizard from the South Pacific, along with everything you need to raise that? So I said, sure, took him home. And I so I set him up on my kitchen counter. So I don’t know if, when I’d go to renovate that kitchen down the road, if he’s going to go to somebody else.

Jen:

It so sad he gets booted each renovation.

Speaker 2:

 

Mike:

No, but that’s the renovation lizard. It’s like good fortune. It brings good luck to the next person.

Josh:

Nice.

Mike:

So your company’s called Maestro Development. Can you tell us a little about what you guys specialize in, and where you do your building?

Josh:

Maestro Development as a company, we build beautiful, healthy and low carbon homes for families with a process that is rooted in transparency, preparation and communication. We work primarily in the city of Vancouver, also on the North Shore Burnaby and New Westminster. And the work we do is in the field of new construction, high performance homes, laneway homes, and major renovations. We’ve got a large portfolio of heritage, house renovation, restoration, as well and terms of restoring, heritage elements and improving energy efficiency.

Jen:

Before we dive deep, of course, into the pre-design planning process. I want to know more about what is the difference between a design build and hiring three separate entities like the architect and the designer. And then of course the builder creating one dream team opposed to going to like a one stop shop.

Josh:

Design build firm is a company that has designers and perhaps architects in house, under the umbrella of that company. And an advantage with that type of setup certainly is the streamlined integration of all of those parties. They have a process where they can evaluate your project from the get go, and it’s probably efficient and cost effective to bundle all of those services. And that can be really advantageous to somebody who is really concerned with the end result. So the execution of the project, the completion of the project, and doesn’t have as fixed a set of ideas about the design or what they’re hoping to achieve and what it looks like. And they’re open to suggestion. I think that the advantages to taking, professionals from different fields and from different companies combining a builder, an architect, and a designer who are all working for themselves is that you can pluck the professional that appeals to you most from wherever they are. So you can take an architect that has a more modern sense and combine them with a builder who builds more traditionally, and then an interior designer who is much more eclectic and combine that. And they may not work together as regularly as all the parties in a design build firm would, but you know, as long as they are open to that collaboration and they buy into the need to create a team to work together in that teamwork setting, then that can work out really well.

Mike:

So it sounds a lot like we gotta to put together a dream team of all the best people. Here’s the challenge, people who are not builders and not part of the building community, it’s kind of daunting to figure out who to work with and how to get the right group of people. Do you have any advice for us on how do you know who you need to figure out the right team of people to work with you, to bring your vision or your dream to life?

Josh:

Homeowners would choose the selection of the parties that are going to design and build their home in different ways, depending on what their primary motivation is. So I think that some homeowners may be most concerned with cost. In which case they might go to a home builder first and present the cost control the budget as their most important factor to consider. Others may be more interested in the design and the way that the home looks from the outside or from the end, in which case they may find an architect or an interior designer as their first point of contact to start designing their home. They may have a fully developed Pinterest board or a stack of Dwell magazines that they want to show this design professional and say end result of how this home looks and feels is the most important to me. Still other homeowners might say the, the energy performance of their home is the most important factor to them. And so they may seek out either an architect who is a passive house designer or a builder who’s built some passive houses or some high performance homes in the past and say a low carbon high performance home is my primary motivation and go from there. Of course, the other factors of design and costs and the rest of it will feed into that. But, you know, we often start with one of those motivating factors. On top of that what we find is that homeowners often really start with a recommendation. And so when they have somebody in their network, family member or friend, who’s gone through a construction project or renovation or a new build and had a good experience, then they’re really strongly drawn to that recommendation from somebody that they know and trust. So that’s always a great place for a homeowner to start.

Jen:

We were talking about that whole idea of how to find the builder and looking into recommendations from people who have previously done it before in our second episode with Mark Cooper. So that would certainly great information as well. So it kind of all ties in together. But if you are going to go the route of hiring a separate interior designer, separate architect, and then of course, builder and creating your own dream team, how important is it to kind of hire them all at the same time and get them all on board and on the same page?

Josh:

It’s important to get everybody together at the start to design your home, to plan your home because of the myriad of benefits that you’re going to get from that. You get a better plan project that is better aligned with all of your goals, even if you’re not able to actually list precisely what those goals are, those design professionals and the builder and that team of professionals you build together will talk you through all of the questions that you need to answer and help you put words what those goals are. They will help you discover what it is that you actually need when you don’t even know. So you get through the process of designing that you are able to evaluate different options in light of your motivating factor. If that’s design, if that’s budget, whatever it may be, and make decisions early on that answer, those needs in a way that saves you a lot of hassle, a lot of heartache, and a lot of extra costs further down the road, if you didn’t have that. So, I mean, it’s much more expensive to change something after you’ve started construction, or even as you’re nearing the point of starting in construction, rather than at the beginning.

Mike:

What are some of the questions you think a homeowner should be asking to someone like yourself to try to find more about the builder’s design team, their qualifications, all the things they need to know to make the right decision.

Josh:

I encourage homeowners to interview all of the potential members of their design team with the question in mind as to can I work with this person? Are they somebody who I can communicate with, who I feel is going to communicate transparently and honestly with me? Who is going to hear what I am looking for, who is going to listen to me and interpret that and try to deliver a design or the result of the project in a way that that meets what I know that I want, and the things that I don’t know that I want? The most important thing is to determine if you can set up a really transparent and honest mode of communication with that design party.

Jen:

There’s so many different terms in construction. So what is integrated design process? Can you explain it to the listener please?

Josh:

The integrated design process refers to the idea of bringing together the project team, the builder, architect designer, structural engineer, design parties together with the client at the beginning of the design process in order to deliver the best possible result. It’s an iterative process where you go through steps of discovery and analysis and a suggested resolution design, and then go back and review and refine over and over again until you get to an end result, an end design that answers as many needs as can be addressed that really answers all of the questions that have been raised through the discovery and design process. It allows all of the design parties that are involved who evaluate each question in light of the overall goals for that project. It allows a mechanical designer, for example, a mechanical engineer to evaluate the heating needs and to create a design for a heating system that meets the actual needs of the house as is designed and no more. And you save money in that regard. It allows you to design the lighting and the aspect of the windows in a way that if a client’s motivation is to have a lot of natural light flooding their home you’re able to design that early on rather than making changes when a design is finished at the end.

Jen:

And talking about, of course, hiring the right professionals and always creating that relationship with them, which we’ve talked many times in this podcast, when you are interviewing your possible interior designer, architect, builder, anyone you’re gonning to be working with, should you be asking, are you the person that’s going to be my point person, because sometimes people meet with you and then pass it on to somebody that you’ve never met.

Josh:

When you ask about who is the point person for that, I may be biased as a builder, but ultimately we are going to be responsible for executing that vision. You know, determining what it’s going to cost to do all these things, these pie in the sky ideas that architects and clients with Pinterest boards imagine. We have the benefit of being the Santa Claus, but in other ways we end up being the bearer of bad news. But ultimately, it comes back to us. And so when we have to implement those visions, it’scertainly is helpful to funnel everything through the builder. But again, you know, I’ll bring it back to talking about that integrated design process. You know, we’ll create an environment where we bring everyone together, collective vision. We ensure that all of the parties involved are taking care of their responsibility to create that design. And then we’re presenting that to the client for approval before we actually build it.

Mike:

Can you give any examples of where applying an integrated design process led to better results than other projects where you or the client hadn’t utilized that methodology?

Josh:

Projects where we design from the beginning for the whole use of the house. We project out how the house is intended to be used as soon as the project is completed and imagine how it might be used further down the road. Then we get really excellent results. So one example is a time that we were doing a Vancouver Special and the homeowners were looking at separate suites and the upstairs and downstairs needed to plan for two separate access points, but also had the intention that down the road, they may bring the homeless back together. And so creating space in the framing for an internal staircase to create a whole home again, was a really easy adjustment to make to the structural plan at the beginning, that would have been a lot more difficult, of course, after you had got into construction.

Mike:

That’s a great example. And I think it really shows the value of collaboration from the beginning. And if you want better results, better communication will enable it.

Jen:

But it just shows too that the homeowner also needs to communicate what their wishlist is and what they really want, and what’s important to them, so they’re not disappointed in the way like, oh, it’s okay, we’ll just cut this and cut this. And then you finished the home. And it’s like, actually, like I said, I really wanted this. This was the only thing that I really want.

Josh:

When we talk about integrated design process and we talk about the design team and all of the, the parties that are so essential to that team and it must not be forgotten that the client is a critical member of that team. It just, as you, as a homeowner might expect that the people that you hire are professional and will act in a professional and honest way and with integrity, and that means, you know, being open about everything, you know, and why you don’t and, and bringing everything to the table, then you have to actually participate in that team in the same way. It’s really important for homeowners to keep that in mind, to understand that the more that they bring to the table in terms of what they know about what they want from the project, but also what they don’t know yet, the more open they are to being honest about their motivations for the project, what their desires are in terms of the final design, being realistic about what their budget is, so that we can help you design a home in a way that meets those budgetary limitations, because we recognize that everybody has them. It’s important to know what we’re working with and what your priorities are. So, because we want to help you We want to help deliver to you the finished home that is going to make you happy. We want to give you an experience that is rewarding. We want you to be thrilled at the end of that. And frankly, willing to come back, if you have a need 10 years down the road to do it again. So, you know, the best way to do that is to contribute as fully to that design team from the get go, as we are trying to do for you.

Jen:

And a big part of it is trust because you’re hiring these professionals for a reason. And if you’re not going to trust the home builder or any part of the team, then it’s not going to go very far. The home is, and that’s the thing is it’s like you’ve hired these professionals for a reason. You got to trust in them that they have your best interest at heart and yeah, have the open communication dialogue within reason, but don’t also, don’t be over their shoulder every two seconds as well. You have to trust the client. They have to trust you.

Josh:

Absolutely. I mean, and that’s what teamwork is all about, right? I mean, when you enter into that team to do that, everyone on that team is trusting each other to bring as much to the table as they have available to them. You know, if I’m on a basketball team and I’m throwing a pass and I’m trusting that you’re going to catch it and do something with that, it’s the same thing here.

Mike:

Josh, I’m really enjoying our conversation, especially the amount of insight you’re sharing with us to help us understand through your lens. So we can all work better together. I want to ask you if you just hold that thought for a sec, we are going to take a very, very quick break to thank our industry partners. And I want to keep talking to you cause I have some more questions and I think you’re giving us some great answers. And I think anyone who’s a homeowner is going to really enjoy this next part.

Josh:

Nice, thanks Mike.

Speaker 1:

Measure Twice, Cut Once is a new podcast and we’re grateful for the support from our podcast partners, BC Hydro and Fortis BC. Their support helps us share expert knowledge like we are hearing from Josh today to help homeowners build and renovate right the first time.

Mike:

And if you’re enjoying this podcast, please like follow share with your friends, neighbors, and family. The more followers we have, the better chance we will get more people to listen and find our podcast and help more people just like you. And this information is very good information. I’ve said this before. I did a renovation myself six years ago, and I wish knew half of what I knew now. It would have created better results. I would have had a better budget and I definitely would work better with the people who are working on my home. So thank you very much.

Jen:

And by liking and sharing us, you’ll be entered in for the chance to win a Napoleon Prestige P 500 stainless steel, natural gas, barbecue from our friends at Fortis BC.

Mike:

I am so proud of you. You have been studying barbecues. Yeah.

Jen:

Yes. I have. Now let’s get back to Josh. Okay. So now we’ve talked about the pre design planning process. We’re getting ready to build. What’s the process once you’ve have your team in place. You have the dream team. Now you are going to start.

Josh:

Yes, Jen, once you’ve got your team together, your builder, your designer, your interior designer, your architect, all the consultants, the structural engineer, everyone that’s involved that is going to design that home to the standards and to the motivations that you’re looking for, then we start the design process. You know, I mentioned this before, it’s an iterative process of discovery and refinement, where you come up with ideas for meeting the general needs of your project, presenting sketches and rough plans, talking about the advantages and disadvantages, and then refining that design down in stages, depending on the motivations of the clients and the various design parameters.

Mike:

You refer to stages and timelines. Can you expand a little on that? Especially timelines, like say we decide we’re going to work together. You just start the next week or is there a waiting period? Is there anything I should be aware of?

Josh:

I mean, obviously it’s a lengthy process, especially when you’re building a new home, it can be a very lengthy process, just to go through all of those steps to design that house. I mean, it’s not simply, you know, taking a bowl of cooked spaghetti and throwing it at the wall and you end up with a carbonara dish, presented in a beautiful platter. There’s a lot of work in between that actually goes into finishing that design before you can even think about starting construction. So there’s the architectural design, the massing, the shape, the conformity to zoning, there’s the structural design to make sure this is a home that meets a current building codes is seismically safe and it allows for your open concept floor plans. Once you go through all of the various iterative steps to refine the design to a point that you can apply for a building permit, then, you know, depending on your municipality that you’re in, in the Vancouver area that can take anywhere from a few weeks to a number of months.

Jen:

Great, and obviously that all costs money. So you have to have an estimating discussion at one point. So how is the project cost it out? And how does the homeowner get involved in that process?

Josh:

We estimate the cost of a home build project can change depending on what your motivations are for designing that home. But we really do start with a high level estimate at the very beginning. If you have a desire for a very modern high design house, then we can give you a high level number that gives you an idea of what the ramifications are. If you’re more concerned with energy performance and are interested in cost saving measures in interior design, which of course is going to leave you plenty of room to upgrade down the road, then we can approach it from that direction as well. We start with a high level estimate of the total space of that house and ideas of the kinds of finishings and the expected use of that house and refine that as we go through the design process at each stage. The best time to create an estimate is late in the design process, right before you’re submitting for a building permit and that design is mostly finished. Then the best way that we like to calculate costs is by actually getting the trades people involved, who are going to build that. We have a great team of subcontractors and subtrades like plumbers and electricians, our carpenters and our tilers, et cetera, who are able to take the plans that we’ve created in our interior designs and give us estimates based on those. Always super important to remember is that the more detail that’s in that design that you’ve taken care of early in that process, then the more accurate those cost estimates are going to be so that you can get the really strong sense of what the budget is going to be before you’ve even submitted for a building permit. You know, another great advantage to that integrated design process, if you’re including the interior designer in that as well and then you’ve selected all of your fixtures and finishings, you’ve settled on the spaces that you’re working in, then you’re going to get much more accurate costing.

Mike:

So it sounds a lot like trust is really, really important when you’re establishing a budget and following through. How do I, as a homeowner know, if a builder is accurately estimating and scheduling the project, like how do I establish that?

Josh:

I think that it’s essential to recognize that you’re hiring a professional and in order to ensure that, that you can trust what they’re doing and that they have the experience to actually deliver on what it is that they say they’re able to do, then in that interview process, even before you settled on that builder or architect, you’re, you’re also interviewing their references, right? Their past clients, their, contacts, people they’ve worked with to, uh, to see how that process has gone for them. So that that’s one great way to make sure.

Mike:

That’s great information. Thank you

Jen:

What can I except for a new home build renovation in terms of scheduling?

Josh:

I think it’s realistic to allow from the point of where you’ve hired your design team somewhere from six to 12 months to complete the design and permitting process, and then somewhere from a year to a year and a half to do the construction. And so if you’re allowing two to three years from the point of beginning design to being able to move in, that’s realistic.

Jen:

We’re touching on it a little bit through that question, but what slows down and speeds up the process because you know, big elephant in the room, COVID slowed down a lot of things for people, weather can slow down things, but what are some other things that can slow down the process or speed it up?

Josh:

The biggest factor that slows down a project is making changes. And the biggest factor that can speed up a project is quickly answering questions from your design team, and your build team. In that design phase before starting the project completing all of the design decisions, answering all of the questions that your design team has for you so that you’re ready to nimbly answer the questions that are going to come up during construction. You have to be ready and committed, to responding as quickly as possible to keep things moving along. Those questions are not just ideas to think about while you’re off on vacation and come back in three weeks and say, all right, this is what we’re going to do. Those questions are being asked because they’re essential piece of information to keep that moving along. So it’s really important, I think for, for homeowners to recognize that they are just as critical a member of that construction team as their builder and as the builder’s plumber, and as the architect is.

Mike:

Josh, if you could offer one last piece of advice to our listeners, what would it be?

Josh:

Yeah, Mike, I think one piece of advice I’d really like to give people is maybe some of the lessons that I’ve heard from clients in the past where they have said that they at the ends of projects, that they wish that they had listened to my advice early on to slow down that planning period, uh, not to leap so quickly into starting construction cause you want to see things happening. Even when you have life experiences, uh, and situation that is pushing you to actually get going on that construction project. Take the time to plan that project well. Because of all of the issues that can arise when you’re making changes during construction, you actually may end up taking longer and paying more for a project that you are making these decisions on the fly during as opposed to just slowing it down and getting the best plan together possible, and then moving forward with that.

Mike:

That’s great advice. It sounds like you’re telling us to measure twice, cut once.

Josh:

Please, plan your build, and then build your plan.

Jen:

Perfect. Well, this has been such a great discussion, Mike and Josh. I’ve learned so much. Some key takeaways of course it’s important to be on the same page with communication early in the pre-design stage, the builders should lead as they control the largest part of the budget. Anything else you learned to Mike from today’s conversation?

Mike:

I like the fact the house should be looked at as a whole system versus room by room, looking at as a complete project and the importance of planning upfront, getting the experts involved with the project and making sure that we know that it’s a lot easier to change things behind the wall than change the walls themselves. So let’s plan for everything and not just some of the things.

Jen:

Thank you so much, Josh, for joining us today. This has been Measure Twice Cut Once the podcast from HAVAN, the Homebuilders Association Vancouver. Thank you so much for joining us today. If people want to get in contact with you, where can we find you?

Josh:

Oh, well our website is www.maestrodevelopment.ca and we are on Instagram. Please have a look at our project updates there as well. Thank you very much for having me.

Mike:

For notes and links to everything mentioned on today’s episode, go to havan.ca/measuretwicecutonce

Jen:

Follow us and review us to help empower homeowners like yourself to make the right decision the first time. And automatically by doing so you will be entered to win a gas barbecue courtesy of our friends at Fortis BC.

Mike:

Next week, we’ll be talking to Doug Langford of JDL homes. He’ll be taking us on a deeper dive into the world of high performance homes.

Jen:

Sounds like something out of the future.

Mike:

It’s not actually from what I’ve been reading from what I’ve been seeing. These are builders and these people are doing stuff today, and it’s really exciting where we’re going in our industry.

Jen:

Awesome. Can’t wait. Thank you.