It’s all about the podcasts.
Everyone has a hobby, something they enjoy that becomes a passion.
If you’re lucky this passion imbeds itself into your work. If you’re really lucky it enriches what you do and lets you grow creatively. For me that’s podcasts. I wanted to talk to creatively interesting people. The reasons for doing them has changed over the last 5 years. For me they’re like a form of creative therapy.
At the beginning, it was about exploring a new side of myself. Then I learnt from these people, I grew more confident. Its been an amazing journey. It has it’s ups and downs, I realised you reveal a lot about yourself, you lay yourself bare. Each podcasts feel like a snap shot of my life in time. They are really important to me, so I wanted to detail each one, for me as much as anything. To remind myself why I did them and to give you a story to accompany each podcast.
I started recording in my bedroom and ended up with a dedicated studio. In hindsight its the actual process and journey I have been on as much as the actual recordings themselves.
2015-2017: Create More Podcast
Humble beginnings. My loft room and my first interview was my wife, ever the supporting partner. It was great, we talked about her passions in teaching. In fact it was the first time I listened intently without interrupting…her words not mine.
18 months later, 24 episodes and over 20,000 downloads I had interviewed 20 fascinating people and loved every minute of it.
2018-2020: Architecture Den
Next dream. Create a youtube show.
Bill & I built a fully functioning youtube studio, with full podcast recording facilities. Each week we would discuss architectural topics and have guests on. We recorded 20 episodes across 2 series and had almost 10,000 downloads.
It was so exciting having the ability to film, record and edit all in real time across 5 live cameras.
#JFDI
If I had one bit of advice to any person thinking about doing a podcast (Or anything creative and challenging really):
Just fucking do it.
You will only ever feel better for trying something new. The first time wont be as good as you hoped. You will worry that people wont like it. That’s fine. Keep going, after a while you will look back and be amazed you didn’t start earlier. People will start asking how you managed to start something new. You will grow in confidence and even if it doesn’t carry one, you will feel so much better for trying in the first place.
Meet the team
Ben Stuart
Founder and Presenter
Joseph Caden
Producer and Editor
Get in touch
My name is Ben Stuart and I’m a serial podcaster.
I’m also the co-founder and director at able partners. At able I over see the outward communications of the studio as well as manage large scale architectural projects and manage the studios creative direction. I really believe that as architects we are story tellers at heart, so for me this starts with the graphics of a document all the way to the architectural design wrapped around the narrative of a great idea.
Prior to starting able I was at Heta Architects for almost 2 years and before that I was at Make Architects for almost 10 years as a project architect on 1 Leadenhall, a skyscraper in the City of London for 5 years and before that, along with developing my podcast skills I was worked on almost all parts of 5 Broadgate, UBS Bank headquarters, from planning all the way through to completion.
I also love a good endurance event, from rowing through to an ironman in 2016.
The world is full of people I want to talk to.
If you want to get in contact drop me a message on social media or email me at benstuart.uk@gmail.com