Architect Friends

So just today I had a great lunch with a friend of mine - Mike Chiles of Chiles Architects. If you need an architect to do some really cool buildings - hit me up and I'll be happy to connect you!

I've dropped a chat with him about the Gaiaship concept below...

Key take-aways:

1. I need a big architectural firm to draw the plans
2. Engineering all the integrated energy, food and hydro systems is going to be expensive
3. 10,000 people could easily fit in a square mile
4. I love my friends!
   

Brian: How much does it cost to get you guys to draw up plans?

Looking for an approximation

Lalli: depends on how big the project is

Brian: 10,000 units

:)

Lalli: :)

no seriously

Brian: How big a place have you guys done? I'm looking at something a square mile or so that houses 10,000 people mixed use including light industrial

and retail

Plus hotel on site

and yes I'm serious

Lalli: ah never done anything that big

Brian: OK - but could you?

I'm looking at 2.2 billion in residential sales alone

Lalli: a square mile for 10k people would eb an extremely tall building

Brian: How tall? 7 stories? 15? 40?

I don't have a good concept of it

Lalli: umm well hold on let me do some math

ok so... a square mile is 27 880 000 square feet

an average unit for say a 1 bedroom is say 800 Square feet

that would be 34850 untis

never mind then

Brian: :)

Lalli: I doubt though that you could cover the entire grounds with building though

Brian: I wouldnt want to

The areas between buildings would be green spaces - parks... wildlife corridors

streams

walking paths

The idea is to make it mixed use

so that you have retail, office and light industy all in the same square mile

Lalli: ok so typical architectural billl for order of magnitude 300 unit job ranges from 100k to 250 k depending on how intricate

Brian: Lets call this really intracate

and make it 10,000 people mixed use community - with on-site electrical generation, water & wastewater systems (self contained if possible), trash management & recycling... 1.5 million for the plans?

Lalli: I would say that is low but I am not sure

your engineering woudl be alot mroe than that

especially with all the systems you are trying to incorporate

and they are not cheap

Brian: No they are not!

But the over-arching concept here is to create a 95% self sustainable system. One that can have a grocery store on site... but doesn't really require one

Honestly, I'm thinking about this as not just a single location either...

One single square mile

I'm thinking in terms of revolutionizing the way humans live in the 21'st century... including and especially developing countries. So 1.5 million for the plans... and another 5 million for development of the fundamental systems for 5000 of these scattered around the world... seems a pretty decent investment :)

Especially if I can figure out how I'd skim my own profit off the top :)

Lalli: good luck

life long plan eh

Brian: Hey -You bet

Lalli: you are talking about a couple of hundred million dollar project

for a single one

Brian: And revenues of billions just in residential sales alone

Lalli: ok trump where you getting your money? :)

the universal rule still applies

Brian: OMG yes

Lalli: "Got to have money to make money"

Brian: I've been talking with a lawyer friend about this

he has already come up with a couple of ways to leverage land-owners levarage

Brian: And if I can find a bank willing to finance the building of the facility... they could and would be the primary lender for the people buying the residences

So... i may be able to leverage other peoples money

And again - find some way to skim off my own little share

But one of the critical components at this point is finding an architect and putting together the engineering team to figure out if this whole this is even possible

if it is... money shouldn't be a terribly difficult thing to find

I'm even considering finding governments to fund it

Lalli: 95% will be really hard to hit

Brian: It's the stretch goal

If we can break even 80% I'd be thrilled

The first threshold I'd like to ensure the place hits is energy net positive... meaning it sells surplus energy to the grid

Of course done via renewable resources as much as possible

Brian: Do you think Chiles Architects would be interested? This really would be a visionary thing to do.

Lalli: too big for us to get done fast enough for you

Brian: Fast enough? I'm looking at years before we get to this

Lalli: fast during the process

Brian: I don't understand

Lalli: ie when your investors have a big loan out to be able to pay your architect
while we are drawing

because we don't have the people necessary to do a project of that scale quickly you would have your loan out longer costing you more money

Brian: I get it - you're thinking Chiles isn't big enough to handle the scale of this thing

Lalli: if we are good at doing jobs with 300-400 untis than you would need an architect that has like +100 employees

right

Brian: And you guys have ... 30?

Lalli: right

Brian: So you're thinking that something like this would take... how long to draw?

For you... and for the hypothetical larger firm?

Lalli: umm probably over a year

Brian: Full time?

Lalli: if not longer

Brian: Good to know - thank you!

If the timing wasn't an issue - would you want a piece of this? is it attractive at all?

Lalli: not for our company no
Cook + Fox leading architect in New York for green building/renewable architecture

we would have to pull every single person in the office to do it and its would be putting all your eggs in one basket kind of thing

Brian: scary for any business

Lalli: never a good idea for any business

Brian: emphatic nod

Lalli: http://www.cookplusfox.com/