A Day in the Life of… Cristian Tudose
In the latest of our regular series exploring a typical day in the life of an LA London team member, we meet Associate Cristian Tudose, who joined the team in early 2018. His projects have included substantial super-prime residential listed refurbishment schemes in Belgravia, Kensington, Notting Hill and Marylebone. Since qualifying as a Chartered Architect under LA London’s tutelage, Cristian has become one of our most respected Project Architects. Cristian is also Director of LA Surveys.
My day begins with coffee, catching up on news, and spending time with my dog, Loki (pictured below). I take the train to the office, arriving by 9 am. I start by reviewing emails and creating a prioritised task list for the day in Notion, which we have built our internal management system in. Following that, I meet with the team for each project I manage, as well as with the LA Surveys team, to discuss progress and priorities.
One of my current projects is a flat refurbishment in a Higher Risk Building (HRB) located in Westminster. It is about to start RIBA Stage 5, construction, so it means that site visits will start to be quite frequent. If there is a site meeting, I prefer to arrange it for first thing in the morning – this way I can go straight to site and then head to the office afterwards.
LA’s whitebox model for a current apartment refurb in a higher-risk building
Another project I am leading is a townhouse refurbishment in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is in the early design stages, and after our initial site visit to carry out the measured survey, all the data we need on the property is stored in Sphere XG, the online platform where we host all of our surveys. This eliminates the need for frequent site visits as all the site information that we need during the design phase is instantly available online. When it comes to our surveys, these take me and the team all over London and sometimes further afield.
Cristian’s current RBKC project, modelled from LA Surveys’ measured survey
The LA Surveys team has recently grown in response to an increasing demand for our services. On the day in question I finished off a CPD presentation on how it is possible to save time and money on projects with (our!) point-cloud surveys, and we are now offering it to our wider network, either as an in-person or online session. If this is of interest, please do get in touch! The challenging (but fun!) part for me is balancing my architectural projects with the more spontaneous and faster-paced surveys, but luckily I have the support of strong teams on both sides.
Get in touch if you’re interested in LA Surveys’ new CPD
Once we have completed the scanning for a survey, the processing and registration of the point-cloud data is then carried out in Faro’s Scene software, which I always oversee. Once this is done, we export the point-cloud and reduce its resolution (i.e. filesize) using CloudCompare so we can import it into ArchiCAD. All of our architecture projects are designed in a 3D model, from which we then generate the 2D information (i.e. drawings) and schedules. If renders are needed, our go-to software is Twinmotion which is a real-time rendering software - great for live client presentations and fly-throughs.
A typical point cloud produced by LA Surveys.
Most of our 3D work is done on-screen, which rather sadly has generally replaced physical models, but both are very useful to visualise the building or space in reality. The same goes for drawings on paper. However, pen and paper, or, more commonly now, hand-drawn sketches on an iPad, will always be the way to go for scribbling ideas, doing a quick design or working up a detail. Sketching is still the quickest way to convey an idea or concept.
“The LA London office is a great location and we’ve built an amazing team over the years. Our projects are diverse and no two are alike.
At LA, you get to design often unimaginable things, and the projects feel more personal. And we get to know every nook and cranny of our projects better than anyone else.”
Given the abundance of lunch options around our studio in London Bridge, I usually grab something from M&S, Amazon Fresh, or the Luncheonette, a fantastic little Italian place offering excellent pasta and sandwiches. Occasionally, I'll treat myself to a Neapolitan pizza or something from Borough Market.
On this particular afternoon, I join a CPD in our board room. We aim to host one CPD every week covering a wide range of topics, from various new products, materials and technologies presented by suppliers, to other educational subjects like VAT and the Building Safety Act. In our profession, learning and training never stops. Annual releases of software updates usually come with new features or interface changes which also means we need to quickly adapt to the changes so we can continue to improve our workflow. We also need to keep up to date with any Building Regulations updates, new legislation or changes imposed by the ARB or RIBA.
Most days I try to set aside time to help the team with any ArchiCAD queries. While in our view ArchiCAD has always been the best BIM package for Architects, it is not the most common one used in the UK. However, one of the countries that teaches ArchiCAD is Romania, where I come from, so when I joined LA I already had an advanced knowledge of it and its associated rendering software. Along with LA Partner, James Hall, I oversee the practice’s BIM standards and IT infrastructure.
I wrap up my day by reviewing some fresh project photography. Taking after my father, who is a retired photographer, and with over 20 years of experience, I have become the official LA London photographer, not only for our projects but also our events, one of them being our highly-anticipated annual summer party. You can see some of my photos from last year's party here.
Cristian in action!
Outside of work, I am currently renovating my house, which has been quite challenging as I am only able to work on it in the evenings and at weekends! So you can guess what I did on this particular evening! Back in Romania by contrast my weekends would often be spent snowboarding! It is probably the thing I miss most about home, but I haven’t done it in a long time. It was so convenient to just jump on a train in the morning and be on the slopes in a couple of hours.