Built By Us | Carlo Magni Architect, shares his story on how mentoring has inspired him
I am a passionate Architect with eleven years of experience in a wide range of projects and sectors. I studied engineering and architecture in Italy where, after an experience in university as a researcher on sustainability and energy performance of buildings, I joined Studio Calvi, an architecture and engineering medium-size practice, where I have worked for six years as an architect within multi-disciplinary teams developing projects of various scales both in design and construction on site.
After that joyful experience, my next role was with the Eucentre Foundation, an international organization leading training and research in earthquake engineering where I have worked as an architect for the design of a world-class laboratory for seismic tests and simulations. In the same time, I also did some architectural and structural projects for private clients collaborating with my wife who is an enthusiastic mechanical engineer.
That was a period of ups and downs in terms of career development, between great experiences with amazing clients and discontinuity in professional growth. It was after this period in my career that I decided to move to London to seek more challenging opportunities in a more diverse environment.
Once in London, I joined Pascall+Watson and worked largely on aviation projects, which included the expansion of London City Airport and the challenging project of the Digital Air Traffic Control Tower which I led as project architect and which is now been built, the first one in the UK.
I wanted to broaden my experience in different sectors and gain more experience in residential in the UK, then two years ago I happily moved to EPR Architects to work mainly on large scale residential projects. Currently, I am project lead of a 700-unit scheme in North London.
Since I have moved to the UK, almost four years ago, the flourishing architecture industry and the diverse job opportunities I have found in London, made me think carefully to what it would be my best career choice in the vision of my professional ambitions. I started to wonder if my career path was leading me to the right destination, becoming increasingly anxious about career directions. How much of my career has been under-planned or over-planned? How could I better focus my commitment and passion to lead my professional life in the designated destination? Here comes the mentoring world, the experience of travel a journey with the support and help of a guide, an admired model, a mentor. This mentoring adventure happened for me just once I came to London. Since then I have started being a mentee in very productive mentoring relationships with three mentors in architecture. I have to thank EPR for the in-practice Mentoring Programme and the precious opportunity I have been given to participate in. In Italy I have never come across to such initiatives, in fact, the practice of mentoring is not as known and developed as in the UK.
I’m delighted to have discovered Fluid Mentoring Programme because it spans across the entire construction industry. I have realised the importance of such a great opportunity for learning and growing, particularly from different and multiple points of view, coming from different experiences, backgrounds, age and nationality. I discovered that mentorship is not something that is done to you, it is something you do for yourself with the help of others. It is part of what we call personal development.
With Fluid I’m in the current 2018-19 cohort, halfway through the series of mentoring sessions with my mentor Kathy Basheva, a successful architect who is running her own practice in London. We began by talking about our respective career experiences and our general approach to work/life balance and then moved on to clarify some of my career goals. It was important to discuss the way I am currently shaping my career direction and destination. We discussed various topics spanning from communication, time management, and leadership in dealing with design teams or with clients, focusing on the differences between the skill set needed for successful work within a company or work in one’s own practice, as Kathy had decided to do. I am an avid reader of books on psychology, personal development, leadership and management, so
Kathy is, and she gave me some different perspectives on the reading matter that we’d both consumed. That’s been really interesting for me because it’s made me more open-minded and given me shades of interpretation that I would never have discovered on my own. Because I enjoined the mentoring experience so much, I am currently working on an international project of a book about mentors in architecture called “Building Wisdom”. The book’s aim is to have the most admired and influential architects from around the world, answering a range of questions collated from a diverse group of mentees. Thus providing an accessible source for people to gain advice, mentoring and “wisdom” from the world's leading figures may otherwise seem inaccessible. The project will support diversity and inclusion in architecture, encouraging women, people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds and LGBT community.
My Fluid mentor has been really helpful in pushing me forward. This has been an incredibly positive experience and opportunity for networking and gaining different perspectives from a diverse group of people. The mentor/mentee pairing has been exactly what I asked for and very successful for me. The built environment is a big industry and Fluid can help to make it smaller and more accessible to every ambitious professional out there.