Engineer & Interior Designer Duo | Rayon x Hejmo Designs — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hey, my name's Chris. Um, I run Hey Mode
2. 0:02Projects with my wife Kate. We're a
3. 0:04small familyun business based in uh in
4. 0:07the French Alps. We typically undertake
5. 0:10large scale renovations, the odd new
6. 0:12build and extensions, kind of a mix of
7. 0:14like interior design and more
8. 0:17construction work. How do you handle
9. 0:19unexpected issues during projects?
10. 0:21Having done this for a while now, I
11. 0:23guess the main thing is there shouldn't
12. 0:24really be anything unexpected. As in
13. 0:26things will come up that you didn't know
14. 0:29were going to happen, but you should
15. 0:31kind of expect that to happen. You know
16. 0:32what I mean? Like out of everything I've
17. 0:34done, I think I think I've had one I've
18. 0:36had where it just I don't think there
19. 0:38was anything in there that changed. But
20. 0:40the client had a but he was really open
21. 0:42up front. He was like, "This is my
22. 0:43budget. I'm not sticking from it. I'm
23. 0:45not moving from it." The base was
24. 0:46already poured and we put a new we put a
25. 0:48new wooden structure on the top. So,
26. 0:50it's basically a new build, but without
27. 0:52having to do any ground works. And I
28. 0:53think that's about as simple as a
29. 0:55project can ever get. Pretty much
30. 0:56everything else we do, whether it's a
31. 0:57new build and a client changes their
32. 0:59mind, which is because with the best
33. 1:00will in the world, until you till you
34. 1:03see something in reality, all the
35. 1:04drawings and the 3D models in the world
36. 1:06aren't quite the same as standing like
37. 1:08in the space with the view. And even if
38. 1:11you model through Google Earth or
39. 1:13something like the sunlight and stuff,
40. 1:14it's never quite the same as standing
41. 1:15there. So, someone changing their mind
42. 1:17or if it's a renovation. Lots of the
43. 1:19farm houses here are more than 100 150
44. 1:22years old. So, you just don't know what
45. 1:24you're going to find until you take it
46. 1:25apart. So, the floor height is probably
47. 1:27not going to be the same as you've drawn
48. 1:29it or a wall's going to need
49. 1:30underpinning or whatever it is, it's
50. 1:33highly unlikely that you're going to end
51. 1:35up doing exactly what you've drawn to
52. 1:38start with. So, yeah, kind of it not
53. 1:40being unexpected is the is the first
54. 1:41thing. And then and then after that is
55. 1:44kind of just trying to walk people
56. 1:45through the consequences of whatever it
57. 1:48is, whether it's time or money or what
58. 1:52they're going to achieve from the
59. 1:53building, whether they've lost a room
60. 1:55because of head height is no longer the
61. 1:58is no longer the same. Um, and it's just
62. 2:00being it's just trying to be as quick
63. 2:02with communicating as clear as
64. 2:03communicating that as you as you can.
65. 2:05And that's that's partly with the
66. 2:06drawings. It's so much easier to
67. 2:08communicate with a drawing than it is
68. 2:10trying to explain to me because it's
69. 2:11just it's just reference just written
70. 2:13down in front of you. There's no
71. 2:14language barrier. Like I I speak French
72. 2:16so I find it easy to talk to trades, but
73. 2:18lots of our clients are English. And if
74. 2:20there's a bit of talking between trades,
75. 2:21it's just much easier with a with a
76. 2:23drawing, which is which is why we which
77. 2:26is why we came to using Rayon because
78. 2:29it's so important to be able to manage a
79. 2:32drawing pack as you're going through a
80. 2:33build. What are some of your favorite
81. 2:35projects and why? It was a project
82. 2:37called the Stonehouse which is local to
83. 2:39where we are which was um I think the
84. 2:41building itself was a couple of hundred
85. 2:42years old and the main it's a very tall
86. 2:45as the name implies stone house and they
87. 2:47I think the family that built it maybe
88. 2:49they'd run out of money at the end of it
89. 2:50they' never rendered the outside so you
90. 2:53can see all the beautiful stonework um
91. 2:55that was how the building was created
92. 2:57and where we is part of the Savoir
93. 3:01region which for quite a long time was
94. 3:03Swiss and then it was Italian before it
95. 3:05was French and you You can see lots of
96. 3:07like Italian architectural details like
97. 3:10the there's on the window shutters where
98. 3:12they have like a little over center
99. 3:13latch is um a really common the just the
100. 3:17molding the casting is like a really
101. 3:19common thing you see in Italy. Uh and
102. 3:21when we renovated we found loads of uh
103. 3:24documents in there from the family had
104. 3:26owned it and the guy had been to he had
105. 3:28his diploma in watchmaking from his
106. 3:29helen university and there was just lots
107. 3:31of little details you could see in
108. 3:32there. Anyway, so it's quite an
109. 3:34interesting project, but off the the
110. 3:35main house was cool, but off to the side
111. 3:37of it, he had a small barn that he
112. 3:39wanted to renovate as well. He wanted
113. 3:41the owner wanted to try and get three
114. 3:43bedrooms in there as like a quite an
115. 3:46interesting like Airbnb rent. Like it it
116. 3:48wouldn't clearly wouldn't work as a
117. 3:50family home. It would work as somewhere
118. 3:52to live, but that was not that wasn't
119. 3:53what the brief was. And that was I can't
120. 3:55remember the size of it. It was probably
121. 3:57only 7 m by 3 m footprint over three
122. 4:01floors, but then it had split level in
123. 4:02it and then a gable in the roof and that
124. 4:04was really tight to try and get
125. 4:06everything to fit in. And pretty much
126. 4:08pretty much everything we did had to
127. 4:10have a dual purpose as in like where the
128. 4:13split level was, the split of that
129. 4:15became the bench seating for the dining
130. 4:16table. So where the split was, you could
131. 4:18sit on that. Yeah. Literally every 50
132. 4:20mil in the building counted. And that
133. 4:22was Yeah, it was a really He had a
134. 4:24really good aesthetic. We didn't I did
135. 4:26more of the um construction project
136. 4:28management than the interior design cuz
137. 4:29the client had a really clear aesthetic
138. 4:31of of what he wanted and that blended
139. 4:33with how the building turned out in
140. 4:36terms of layout. Yeah, it's only small
141. 4:39and I but I just really liked it. It was
142. 4:40just a really fun project to work on and
143. 4:42it's just really cool when you walk in
144. 4:44like how everything kind of just works
145. 4:46and the stairs duck under the split
146. 4:47level and the kitchen's levered in and
147. 4:49it still feels big enough to be in and
148. 4:51yeah, really cool little space. Which
149. 4:53features of Ryan made you decide to
150. 4:55start using it for your projects? It
151. 4:57wasn't one feature particularly. It was
152. 4:59the way it was the way the whole package
153. 5:01worked. Like whenever I try out a new
154. 5:03piece of software, whether it's like
155. 5:05drawing software or I don't know,
156. 5:06project management stuff, you kind of
157. 5:08you just kind of sandbox it for a little
158. 5:10while and just kind of play around with
159. 5:12it. and maybe a project you're doing,
160. 5:14you're like, "Right, well, I'm not going
161. 5:15to draw the whole thing on here, but
162. 5:17maybe I'll just put a day into starting
163. 5:19drawing with it and just kind of get a
164. 5:21feel for how just kind of get a feel for
165. 5:23how it works." Been using AutoCAD before
166. 5:26and I've used really um capable 3D CAD
167. 5:30um products from uni. So, my background
168. 5:33is a mechanical engineer like Pro
169. 5:34Engineer. They're um they're really
170. 5:36capable, but they're just too they're
171. 5:38too hard to use on the scale that we're
172. 5:41using. They're also especially AutoCAD
173. 5:44is very hard to use as a designing tool.
174. 5:47It's a very good drafting tool, but it's
175. 5:49a terrible design tool. What I what I
176. 5:52sort of when I was sandboxing, I came to
177. 5:54realize fairly quickly that was that
178. 5:56it's actually much easier to design in
179. 5:59Rayon. Like you do you need to put like
180. 6:01with any program you need to put the
181. 6:02time in to set up and understand like
182. 6:04the walls for example and how the doors
183. 6:06fit in as openings but once you've kind
184. 6:09of put that leg work in and that
185. 6:11groundwork in which is still much less
186. 6:13than it is understanding the basics of
187. 6:15like a full-blown 3D package once you've
188. 6:18done that redesigning is much much
189. 6:20easier just it's quite intuitive and
190. 6:23quite a nice mix of the I don't know
191. 6:25it's AI but the whole kind of snapping
192. 6:27to lines that aren't immediate
193. 6:29immediately obvious that they're that
194. 6:31they're lined up along with like the
195. 6:32normal snap functions and the grid snap
196. 6:34functions and the realization that we
197. 6:37could design in it rather than just
198. 6:39draft in it that I think was the main
199. 6:40thing that we that we we got on to
200. 6:42fairly early and that's what we started
201. 6:44to invest more time into into using it
202. 6:46and then yeah and for us it just fitted
203. 6:48really well. It's it's much easier to go
204. 6:50from model to paper than it is in some
205. 6:53other instances. Like there's always
206. 6:55issues around scaling and dimensioning
207. 6:57and where you're drawing or one or the
208. 6:59other which is yeah which is you need a
209. 7:01bit of in-depth understanding of how
210. 7:03it's working to make sure it comes out
211. 7:05right. But with you like we've I use
212. 7:07SketchUp sometimes for like 3D
213. 7:09visualization more for me for like the
214. 7:11interior of a building and that's
215. 7:13terrible for trying to get anything out
216. 7:14on 2D from that and AutoCAD's pretty
217. 7:17clunky for getting anything out onto
218. 7:19onto a PDF. And we found with Rayon it's
219. 7:21really quite easy to go from your model
220. 7:24to something that you're that looks
221. 7:26professional that you're very happy to
222. 7:27put in front of a client fairly quickly
223. 7:29without you know it's kind of loss not
224. 7:31lost time. That communication bit with
225. 7:33the client is super important. It kind
226. 7:35of stops you doing the stuff you
227. 7:37actually need to do to move the project
228. 7:38forward. So the easier that is for us,
229. 7:40the the better. To be able to quickly go
230. 7:42from a technical view to something that
231. 7:44the client can understand and look
232. 7:45professional is is super super helpful.
233. 7:47How has Ryan improved your design
234. 7:49process compared to the tools you've
235. 7:51used previously? Yeah. So in terms of
236. 7:53like the design process, I think when
237. 7:55like referencing earlier when you were
238. 7:57talking about dealing with unexpected
239. 7:59changes, which I was kind of saying like
240. 8:01they are kind of expected, you just
241. 8:03don't know what it's going to be is
242. 8:05exactly that for our process. I mean I
243. 8:07can't we've only worked and done this in
244. 8:08the French house. So different places
245. 8:10build differently. But from the way the
246. 8:13way that we work where you have a a
247. 8:14structural engineer is telling a masson
248. 8:16how to execute the part of the building
249. 8:18and an architect is with France is more
250. 8:22often than not concerned with the
251. 8:24planning commission and the outside of
252. 8:26the building the number of different
253. 8:27steps of changes in there even if it was
254. 8:29a new build because the structure
255. 8:31engineer will their execution drawings
256. 8:33will differ slightly to the architects
257. 8:35and having someone who can keep on top
258. 8:37of that and there might be quite small
259. 8:39changes or 20 or 30 millimeters here or
260. 8:42there, but uh to have a to have a
261. 8:44software program that you can make those
262. 8:46changes onto fairly regularly without it
263. 8:48like ruining your whole model, you know,
264. 8:51like you can drag a wall down and all
265. 8:52the walls come down with it. You don't
266. 8:54leave yourself like 5,000 lines that you
267. 8:56have to go and trim afterwards. Even
268. 8:58then, especially because of what we do
269. 9:00with renovations where it's never quite
270. 9:01as you as you thought it was going to
271. 9:03be. It's inevitable that's going to
272. 9:04happen. So the biggest part of our that
273. 9:06helps with the design process with us is
274. 9:09being able to manage those changes
275. 9:11quickly. Um you can kind not not any
276. 9:14product you can do an initial set of
277. 9:15drawings and it's fairly easy but
278. 9:17they're just they're not going to stay
279. 9:18like that as you go through the product.
280. 9:19So having something that's easy to
281. 9:21change as you go along because if it's
282. 9:23not you end up everyone ends up working
283. 9:25off an old issue of a drawing or a
284. 9:27sketch and that's when it horribly
285. 9:28starts to fall apart because the Tyler's
286. 9:30got the initial version and you haven't
287. 9:32had time to update a new version and
288. 9:34everyone's working off different
289. 9:36versions of drawings and it's horrible.
290. 9:37So is it the same thing? Having
291. 9:39something that's capable enough to do
292. 9:40what you need to do but is flexible
293. 9:42enough to be able to change it on the
294. 9:45fly as you're as you're going through a
295. 9:46project is the is the biggest thing.