We sit down for a chat with Amelia Caruso, of Alessandro Caruso Architects
What’s your professional background and what made you decide to set up your own firm?
After graduating with a degree in law and business from the University of Humberside and Lincolnshire in 1996, I decided to take a different path and travel abroad to teach business English. For certain, this wasn’t what those closest to me expected, yet I have always followed my heart and had a love for languages and travel. At the time, I suppose I thought it was now or never. So, I learnt Spanish while teaching in Madrid, where, cutting a very long story short, I met my husband-to-be, Alex Caruso, an Italian architect. Following him to Sicily, I continued teaching and learnt Italian.
Then, on returning to the UK in 2001, Alex worked as an architect and I as a language teacher. Once we had our two daughters, I was determined to put them first, which influenced my decision to seek out flexible working opportunities to fit around the family. I delivered intensive weekend Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) courses, marked online and taught Italian to small groups.
Incidentally, with Alex’s creativity and my business background, we had always talked about having our own business. But it remained a mere dream until an unexpected turn of events in December 2013 presented the opportunity for us to create Alessandro Caruso Architects from our dining room table. Our small beginnings quickly evolved as we outgrew the space and expanded into our garage. Not long after that, we designed and built a garden studio where we stayed for a few years before moving the expanded design team into a dynamic, multi-occupancy office in Beverley in 2022.
Looking back, as I now manage ACA and a team of talented individuals, my law and business degree from many years most certainly comes in handy. It is almost as if life knew what it had in store for me before I did! Having our own business is far from easy, yet Alex and I feel much more in control of our own destiny.
What kind of services do you offer?
ACA offers architecture, interior design and 3D visualisation services as specialists in the health and social care sector. We design new-build and refurbishment: health centres; community diagnostic centres; hospitals; hospital wards; hospices; care homes; extra care and supported living accommodation. Moreover, we specialise in the design for dementia and mental health.
Our clients include several NHS trusts, private care operators, developers and housing associations. ACA’s most prominent local project is the state-of-the-art Allam Diabetes Centre at the front of Hull Royal Infirmary, which has won several awards.
Armed with this specialist health knowledge, we also design wellbeing into the commercial, education and residential sectors as added value.
Our services can be accessed individually or as a one stop shop, ensuring continuity of service and we have a 100 per cent planning approval success rate.
What makes you different from other architectural firms?
Our mission
Years ago in Sicily, Alex suffered an almost fatal motorbike crash. As a result, he was confined to a bed for months, in a poorly designed hospital. That accident became the lightbulb moment and catalyst for his career.
Although Alex eventually recovered physically, he had witnessed first-hand the effects of bad design on mental health, an important aspect of recovery. One day, it dawned on him that designing our environments could be a critical part of a preventative and curative medicine strategy. Having said that, we don’t only value good design for poorly people. Most of us spend at least 80 per cent of our time indoors and the impact an environment can have on our emotional state, either favourably or unfavourably, is undeniable.
It has occurred to me that people can regularly spend money seeking to temporarily boost their wellbeing on an hour’s massage here or a spa break there, yet they can permanently live or work in a badly designed environment which contributes to making them miserable, unproductive, or demotivated for instance. That’s why our mission is to help people feel good and function well by providing holistic, immersive experiences that help align their minds and bodies. Our team go beyond the practical requirements of a job description. It is irrelevant whether you are a patient, resident, visitor, staff, student or homeowner – we believe good design with an emphasis on wellbeing IS for everyone.
Quality
I grew up around my dad who spent many years working in the field of quality. He drilled it into me from an early age that quality is everybody’s responsibility and not just an exercise to tick a box, or something the “quality department” is responsible for. I think he must have created a monster as this is an area I now look after in our practice. We have robust quality systems and processes in place resulting in us achieving the international standard ISO 9001 certification, which makes us stand out compared with similar-sized architectural firms in our area. We see quality as a whole team performance, providing a real opportunity to eliminate waste and become more efficient.
Customer service
We go out of our way to exceed client expectations with an attention to detail second to none. In fact, customer satisfaction is something we measure formally and informally with regular customer surveys, lessons learnt and Corrective Action Preventive Actions. In the words of one of our repeat Clients:
“We have a solid relationship with ACA and it is one that I am keen to continue to see grow and blossom in the long term. The purpose driven mission behind the practice is tightly aligned to our vision and models of care we want to deliver. Briefs and designs we discuss have consistently over delivered and I don’t believe that any other architectural practice has the capability of fusing a balancing act between design, therapeutic benefits of the built environment, commercial viability and aesthetics as well and as adeptly as ACA.” Omair Haider, MD, Millennium Care Group.
Culturally diverse team
We have a multi-cultural team from English, Italian, Polish, Middle Eastern and Indian backgrounds, so you can imagine the creativity that goes into each and every one of our projects! Trying to manage all this creativity can be a bit of a nightmare…
What projects do you currently have on the drawing board?
It is an exciting time at present because we have various projects at different stages and in different sectors on the drawing board.
For instance, we have submitted a state-of-the-art design to planning for a brand-new community diagnostics centre in Scunthorpe town centre on behalf of North Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Trust, for which the Government has announced funding is secure. The high-quality and innovative design puts this project on a par with the Allam Diabetes Centre in Hull.
Furthermore, we are witnessing an increase in demand in Hull and the East Riding for projects in the education and commercial sectors. As an example, we have recently obtained planning permission and are now working on the tender package for an extension and refurbishment masterplan for Cottingham Parks Golf Club. In addition, we are designing: two feasibility studies for an industrial and a mixed-use masterplan; a reception remodelling for a nearby college; the interior design scheme for the chairman’s suite at Hull City and a site masterplan for a green hydrogen production facility.
What’s next for ACA?
I would like to see ACA continue to expand and increase the number of projects with a focus on wellbeing, locally. We have always designed exciting health and social care projects nationally, but it is far more rewarding to design with local people in mind and be able to witness the results.
What have you learned on your journey so far? Anything that, with hindsight, you’d do differently?
I have learnt many things! Above all, I think it is important to be nice and stick to your values. Business can be shrewd and people will let you down, but I would never let that change me or the way I behave. Additionality, I am true to myself and accepting of others. When I was younger, I would sometimes feel reluctant to go against the flow for fear of what other people may think, whereas now, if I believe in something, I act accordingly regardless. I respect other people’s opinions and am not afraid to have my own. Furthermore, I have always sought to surround myself with people from different backgrounds, upbringings and cultures to learn new things and challenge or enhance my ways of thinking. Finally, I am still learning not to compare myself to others, as life would be so dull if we were all the same!
In hindsight, I would have done two things differently: believe in myself sooner and define my role quicker. In the early days, I struggled with confidence as I felt like an imposter, which made me isolate myself. When we set up the Practice, I knew nothing about architecture, apart from being married to an architect. But I have never been one to give up and have always created my own opportunities. So gradually, I started to force myself out of my comfort zone to network and become involved in organisations such as For Entrepreneurs Only (FEO) in Hull, where I have attended and deliver courses. The more I challenged myself, the more I realised I wasn’t the only person who had insecurities. With help and support, I figured out where I could excel and add value to our business, which was like a switch being flipped. Prior to that, I was doing a little bit of everything, reacting to what was happening and feeling that I achieved very little. Once I focused on my strengths, I began to see the results and the confidence came with it.
I am lucky to have a supportive husband and family who encourage me and a mentor who tells me, “Pressure creates diamonds.” I remind myself of that whenever the going gets tough or I feel out of my depth, not just in business but life in general too.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Without a doubt and like many women, it has been juggling being a mum, keeping the house a home and running a business. I always wanted to prioritise our girls, like my mum prioritised me and my brother. Our daughters were nine and seven when we set the practice up and I didn’t want to neglect neither the business nor being a solid foundation in their lives. I wanted to excel at both, resulting in guilt when I was in one role and not the other! With a bit of trial and error and lots of hard work, I have always managed to put the girls first and have a successful business. Everybody has always told me I do too much, but that’s the way it is, I just get on with things.
Also, at the beginning when there were just two or three of us, things could become tense as Alex and I are complete opposites. He is creative, spontaneous and willing to take more risk, whereas I am more practical and think things through. Sometimes in managing the business together, it could feel like I was clipping his wings on occasions, but we have both come to acknowledge that a firm foundation is necessary in a business to allow the creativity to flourish. We can’t all be creative and we certainly couldn’t have expanded the team without somebody with their feet on the ground, implementing the systems and processes. We are still complete opposites, but complementary. Usually!
What advice would you give to someone setting up their own business, especially in the current climate?
If I can do it in an industry which was completely new to me, anyone with the right attitude and resilience can! I would say that the key ingredients are: have a vision; follow your instincts; believe in yourself; never stop learning; work smart not hard and cultivate a support network. Finally, I have also found it helpful to have a mentor who understands you, can guide you and above all holds you to account!
