Live On Air

“I had a job where I didn’t have to work overtime,” said MAT BARNES in a refreshingly honest, plainspoken Instagram Live conversation with local architect, artist and educator REZA NIK. Barnes, a London-based designer and founder of CAN, reflected on the realities of gradually starting his own practice—while working full-time for somebody else. “In architecture school [in the UK], they teach you nothing about how to develop your business, get jobs, get clients, and do all the stuff you need to actually do architecture,” Barnes told Nik, who is the founder of SHEEEP Studio.

The chat kicked off SHEEEP’s Experimenters series, a monthly, hour-long Q+A with “thinkers, doers and makers.” Structured around a set of six simple questions (When and why did you start out on your own? How did you do it? What were your sources and resources? Etc.), the informal talks aim to dispense practical wisdom about the cultural and economic realities of running a practice. 

In a professional milieu that often remains attached to the mythology of design as a quasi-spiritual calling, the ina…