Founder Insights: Julian Warring - Landscape Architect - The TULA Project

Firm & Founder

Julian Warring is a licensed landscape architect and the co-founder of The TULA Project - a landscape architecture and urban design firm based out of Calgary.

The TULA Project was founded in 2020. Julian has one co-founder who he met while working together at their previous firm. They currently have a team of 4.

TULA has focused primarily on project work revolving around designing plazas, streetscapes, and public parks. Julian has since emphasized that they are looking to diversify their portfolio with commercial, industrial, and multifamily developments.

Julian’s Key Takeaways

• Production tasks are the first to be delegated, allowing him to focus on design and collaborative conversations.

• Most work comes from referrals and proposals, particularly in public and municipal projects.

• The firm is looking to grow beyond its current size and has recently expanded its team, indicating a desire for strategic growth.

• While the firm initially focused on public realm projects, it has actively diversified into commercial, industrial, and multifamily projects to balance its portfolio.

• As the firm grows, challenges in staffing and delegation become more prominent.

• An ideal firm size is 8 to 10 people for a more intimate and manageable work environment while avoiding the complexities of larger firms.

• Emphasis is placed on achieving a healthy work-life balance, advocating for efficient work practices rather than long hours, and prioritizing personal time.

Website & Selected Projects

Q&A with Julian

Where is most of your time directed to? What aspect of the practice are you delegating to others and what are you focusing on?

I would say most of my time is spent on the business development side of things, as well as project management, design is a very small part of the larger picture.

The first thing that we're looking to offload or delegate is production. It's funny, design is what we all went to school for four years to do but it probably accounts for maybe five or ten percent of what you do in your job, if that. It's also what you get paid the least to do and it's also the most fun thing.

So depending on the project, we start with something that’s definitely Kelsey and I having the range with the design and leading the design conversation, and having those collaborative conversations with our employees and whoever is working with us. Then the first thing is like that technical aspect of being able to say, ok, here's a sketch, draft it, and start to get an idea, because I feel like there's a lot of value in drafting.

Where do you get the most of your work from?

It's definitely a lot of word of mouth. But a lot of our work is proposal based as well. We've been successful with our proposals and that's how you get in with municipalities and public work is through that, and that type of work kind of just reaps more of that work.

Are you able to acquire the type of projects you want on a consistent basis so early on?

We are in a unique scenario where we've been working on the type of work that we've been wanting to work on since we started, which is public realm, plazas,, streetscapes and also community associations and public parks. At the beginning of this year, we had to actually put a lot of effort into diversifying our workload because it was too heavy, it was all the work we wanted to do, but we needed to diversify into commercial, industrial, and multifamily, we were able to do that in the last six to eight months.

I would say that we definitely have a niche work that we want to be doing and we'll always say yes to it, and we'll always prioritize it, but we won't say no to other work at the detriment of relationships or opportunities. Now we're a lot more strategic about the level of effort that we put into proposals and the costing as well.

How frequently do you fill out proposals, and how many projects is your practice working on simultaneously?

In terms of proposal pursuits, like a public call on BC bids, APC, or bids and tenders, we probably average one every three weeks, typically. There's usually one big one always being prepared in the background and then in between that, while one is happening we usually are sending out one.

It comes in waves, the last two weeks I got around eight emails for quotes and then I don't get anything for four weeks. Most of that is architects reaching out to us or developers reaching out to us, it comes in big waves.

Sometimes it is aligned with before a quarter ends, or before the year end comes, and there are budgets that need to be spent, allocations that need to happen, or grants that are due.

We don't delegate our proposal time and that takes away from our project work, especially when I'm writing the bulk of it, then Kelsey steps in and does the detailed fine review and ties any narratives together or fills any gaps that we need to strengthen. So when I'm doing one of those larger proposals it eats up probably 60 to 70% of my time during the week, which is project work that's not getting done, that hopefully other members can be doing.

Right now we probably have 17 projects on the go. Then just legacy projects that are like a coordination piece, or we need to do a substantial completion. So this year alone, there have been 17 projects plus the history of all the other projects that are still going and are active. So there's not really any downtime.

What have been some issues that you’ve run into early on?

We've been lucky in the sense that we're relatively transparent with our work plan and our expectations with our clients. If people are beating us down on the fee, then we say, okay, we'll adjust our work plan, but then when you want to render we'll tell you it's extra. We're very clear with that conversation.

I think the bigger risk is mostly just the length of time it can take to get paid. Sometimes they pay your invoice immediately, sometimes it's three to five months waiting for an invoice to get paid. Then that kind of relates back to cash flow and I think the hardest piece to manage is not the risk of not getting paid, but just the risk of how long it takes to get paid.

What is your current biggest challenge?

I think our biggest challenge, because we've entered this new area is probably staffing and delegation and just figuring out what can be delegated, and how to be useful with people's time. I'm not worried about our project work or getting more work, at least right now, just because I feel we have a decent amount and we're getting more.

Also being able to do all that work and being able to say yes to the work we want to say yes to and making sure that we're producing high quality, good designs and deliverables for our clients that we're proud of.

What is one unique process or piece of technology you use?

Lots of hand drawing. I've been integrating the iPad into digital drawing and workflow for some portfolio traces to transition those hand sketches into a digital format versus trying to scan them into the computer. It helps for digitizing them into AutoCAD.

Do you have a preferred team size in mind? Is there a specific number you would like to reach?

Our goal has never been to be like a 25-person multi X person firm and immediately have an office space with a whole bunch of desks and that was never who we were.

I think we would be pretty happy with like eight to 10 people. Because I feel like eight to ten people you are still casual. You can still randomly go out for lunch without having to make a reservation a week in advance. It's more intimate, it's more personal. You are not having to hire someone to manage, just solely people. When you have that many people (8-10), I feel like that's kind of the sweet spot.

Are there any personal habits or routines that have helped contribute to success in business?

I think there's always this thing about work-life balance. When you start your own firm, I think you're accepting that it's going to go out the window a little bit at the beginning, and just to be flexible with knowing that you're gonna work long hours.

But people like to brag about their 80-hour weeks. I think if you can get everything done in a shorter amount of time and still get project work, then don't work 80 hours, if you can be successful and run your business and still have a personal life, then do it. Some people don't want to do that and that is their work-life balance, that’s fine but that's not what we're really interested in. We're interested in having a successful firm that can support a few different employees and we want to work on things that we find interesting and inspiring and we'll put in the required amount of work to do that but we still want to have our weekend.

I think framing that up in your mind is like; how can I do this without sacrificing everything? Then also finding a way to make sure that you're able to have balance and if that means you have to get up at 5:30 in the morning so that you can work out in the morning because you know that you might work till eight o'clock at night, then do that.

I'm the most productive in the morning. I can get a lot of work done, so I often I do my best to not book meetings in the morning, or I do my best to start early. Stuff that requires less attention I push to the afternoon because that's probably a better time to do it.