Muddy Boots Thinking08 January 2026
“My background is more technical and more muddy boots.”
There’s a point on most projects where things start to feel different. Drawings move from screens to site cabins. Programmes tighten. Contractors begin to interrogate details not as ideas, but as instructions. It’s usually at that moment that the distance between design intent and delivery becomes visible.
Clean lines on a drawing don’t naturally account for tolerances, sequencing, or the realities of how work unfolds on site. Those pressures don’t announce themselves early, but they shape outcomes long before anyone names them as problems. Once you’ve seen that gap often enough, it becomes impossible to ignore.
"It's easy for any architect to draw a straight line on a drawing. It's really hard for a contractor with all the site constraints to actually install something to that straight line" - Graham Ovenden, Technical Architect for Data Centres
This is where muddy boots thinking comes from. A technical mindset grounded in site experience changes how drawings are read and how decisions are made. Drawings stop being representations and start demanding solutions that need to tackle real conditions: gravity, interfaces, trades working around each other, and the steady pressure of the programme.
When that perspective is embedded early, design becomes less about conceptualising issues in isolation and more about understanding how they come together. What gets installed first. What relies on what. Where ambiguity quietly carries risk if it is left unresolved.
“There are tolerances. There are sequencing issues. There are real-world constraints.”- Graham Ovenden, Technical Architect for Data Centres
Drawings as instructions
Thinking this way opens up opportunities. Instead of surfacing on site in the form of problems, more of the work happens earlier, when options still exist and decisions can be made calmly. That doesn’t remove complexity, but it does reduce the number of moments where issues have to be solved under pressure.
“You have to understand how the contractor is going to sequence the works.”- Graham Ovenden, Technical Architect for Data Centres
A lot of that understanding comes from listening to the people who live with the consequences of design decisions every day. Contractors and suppliers carry a depth of practical knowledge that rarely shows up in drawings, but directly affects how projects perform once construction starts.
That input translates back into clarity. And clarity matters, because drawings don’t just guide construction. They shape cost, programme and expectation. What’s clear can be priced with confidence. What’s vague gets priced with risk built into the cost.
The cost of ambiguity
In that sense, every drawing affords us an opportunity to minimise the uncertainty that sits between intent and delivery. Detailing plays a quiet but decisive role here, not as an exercise in refinement for its own sake, but as a way of removing doubt.
“Good detailing saves time. And time is money.”- Graham Ovenden, Technical Architect for Data Centres
Consistency across projects doesn’t come from intent alone. It comes from discipline and memory. Habits that prevent the same issues from resurfacing again and again. Old-school approaches still have a place here, particularly when they act as a record of what’s been learned.
Red lines become a kind of journal. A way of capturing where things didn’t quite work as expected, or where more thought was needed than first assumed. Without that feedback loop, experience doesn’t compound.
“You have to constantly learn lessons, and you have to be willing to learn lessons.”- Graham Ovenden, Technical Architect for Data Centres
Learning doesn’t stop at handover
In fast-moving environments, people need a degree of certainty. Decisions still need to be made, even when every variable isn’t fully resolved. Keeping options alive long enough to test them against reality often matters more than settling on a single answer too early.
“My gut instinct is usually there’s alternative options. We’ll track each one and see which one wins.”- Graham Ovenden, Technical Architect for Data Centres
Muddy boots thinking is ultimately about shortening the distance between drawing and delivery. Taking what’s learned on site and feeding it back into the design process so decisions hold up once work begins. When that loop is working properly, projects tend to move with more confidence, fewer surprises, and less friction for everyone involved.
About Graham Ovenden
Graham Ovenden is a Senior Associate, Technical Architect and Contract Administrator with over 30 years’ experience delivering large-scale commercial projects across Ireland and Europe. His work spans retail, office and residential developments, with a current focus on data centres and mission-critical infrastructure. Graham is closely involved from tender through to construction, working hands-on with clients, contractors and design teams to ensure buildable, high-quality outcomes. Much of his time is spent on site, where practical experience and technical detail shape his approach. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking, kayaking and painting.