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525: Taking an Architecture Firm Global with Ondřej Švancara of CHYBIK + KRISTOFa | Otter.ai

525: Taking an Architecture Firm Global with Ondřej Švancara of CHYBIK + KRISTOFa

Enoch Sears52min

Speaker 1

00:00

We don't want to be a commercial studio, we want to like make the space around us better. And there's the main driver and the profit comes with it.

Rion Willard

00:07

Hello, and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today I am speaking with Andres van Cara of Tribeca and Christoph, a architectural practice, which is making waves on the international architecture scene. They are based in the Czech Republic. And I had a great delight to actually visit Andre in the new studio of drybeck. And Christophe, which was actually in London, up on the canal in Angel. So, Andre is the Head of International Affairs, his eminent role, He supervises the studio's array of collaborations and significant projects on a global scale. It possesses a solid foundation in architecture, and manages various multidisciplinary involvements. He cultivates international partnerships, and adeptly maneuvers through diverse regulatory frameworks. He has been charged with the coordination of projects, and he's committed to upholding compliance with local benchmarks and discerning strategic business prospects, was very interested in actually getting to sit and talk with Andre at this very fascinating part in the growth of Tribeca, Christoph, the practices relatively young, about 1013 years or so. And they've got an extraordinary amount of wonderful projects, a lot of infrastructure, and a lot of large scale commercial work in the Czech Republic. And they're making strides to expand internationally. And we actually talk about how the practices going about doing that, how they're looking for business development, how they're developing, and collaborating with local partners, the risks that have been involved with discuss about opening up an office in a new location and the reasons the business reasons for why that's a good idea, and also the specialist expertise that they can bring and make available into these new markets, which I think is really fascinating. We discuss as well, the importance of self directed projects and how Tribeca and Christoph in in Czech Republic have actually used self directed projects for infrastructure projects, which was whilst it was a one off, it's a very interesting kind of case study, in winning that kind of work. And we also talk about the complexities and the importance of how to structure an office, the new sorts of departments that are needed, the systems that are needed, the new kinds of expertise that are needed when it starts to grow. So this was a really fascinating conversation. Really excited to be talking to Andre at this point in the practices, growth, and I expect to be hearing and seeing a lot more Tribeca and Christoph in the very near future. And I'm excited to see how they grow in the UK and around the world. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Andre van

Speaker 2

03:20

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Rion Willard

03:58

Andre, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?

Speaker 1

04:02

Thank you, Ron, for inviting me to do this podcast and welcome to our newest address to the London studio where we are just settling down. I'm all fine. Thank you for asking.

Rion Willard

04:16

How long have you guys been here?

Speaker 1

04:17

We settled here this autumn or last autumn? I think it was November. So it's our third month, third month here. And it's still for me. It's kind of special. I mean, between places between Czech Republic and the UK. So basically meaning every other week, London every other week or every other week. It's Czech Republic or some different country. So

Rion Willard

04:42

it's it's quite interesting you guys you've been around for you're saying about 13 years ago, the company Shafiq and Christoph and and your your role was very much involved in the business side of the practice and business development. How would you describe Have your role and how long have you been at the practice? And how did you? How did your career find?

Speaker 1

05:05

This is very interesting question, Ryan, it was not always like that I was not always involved in business only. Basically, I started, I don't know where, if I should start from the very beginning, I started practicing as an architect during my studies and the UNI after the first year of the uni, which is the thing I would recommend to everyone, because then if you finish your studies, you already hit the ground running, you don't start from the beginning, and you're much more valuable asset for basically, every employer, or who you contact. After school, I used to work with several renowned architects in Czech Republic and different architecture studios. Then I decided to try my own luck and to start my own practice, which was actually its hosting, I started with a colleague, we were a team of four people. And I realized that I basically cannot focus on anything, not on business, not on architecture, I was super exhausting. As you will know, there's like a whole world of skills that you need to run architectural practice. And even after five years, I was not ready for that. That's when I met on Jay, founder of the studio chibi Ken Kristof. And we had a talk and I started working for Quebec, Christoph, eight years ago. And I started working as a junior architect, meaning under the leadership of a senior architect, I was delivering projects and designs. And this was the beginning of 2015.

Rion Willard

06:45

That's, that's quite interesting, actually, that you came to the practice after having already had some experience running your own practice? Yes. Perhaps actually having your fingers burned a little bit. And, and but I mean, that is such a valuable experience, to run your own business and then actually come back into a practice. And, you know, that must have been what was the kind of the emotional experience like, Did you did you feel like you didn't want to let go of your practice? Or was or was the offer that was made here was just much more compelling, or you saw the benefits of being involved with other people and felt like you could still be entrepreneurial inside of this practice?

Speaker 1

07:26

I think that the major emotion was relief, was relief, that I'm not the only one to solve everything. But I have a team of people when I started, it was a studio of 12 people, or 15, some some similar size like that. And suddenly, I had a team and colleagues that I could ask for advice. And it suddenly became teamwork. Something that is not possible when you have practice of four people. Yeah, it's two owners. It's like, basically, you're on your own.

Rion Willard

07:57

I think that's really actually it's really kind of important to talk about, because the architecture industry, particularly here in the UK, 80% of all practices, or maybe between five and less people, and we've got this culture of micro practices and sole practitioners. Nothing wrong with that. It's just really, really hard. Yes.

Speaker 1

08:19

And I admire those practices, big hats off to those who can do it. Yeah.

Rion Willard

08:27

And well, I mean, I think interestingly, I, there's when we look at the numbers on the RBA kind of surveys. It's very hard. And I would assert that probably not very well, renumerated. And that a lot of these smaller practices. It's It's so difficult, and they're not it's not working very well. So when you came when you came here, what was the you came in as a junior architect? How did your role kind of start to emerge, you're evolving to the more business areas,

Speaker 1

09:02

I started to realize that basically, one of the best advantages that being part of a studio has is to be able to contribute to much bigger projects already in the studio can be crushed up, there were big projects ongoing, and it's 12 people on board. And this is the mindset of the studio from the beginning. And it's still still the case. Not to work on really small scale projects. We don't work on single family homes or apartment renovations or topics like that. But on Jan McHale, the founders, they right after school, they started reaching for large scale projects and developments and large and important topics. That's

Rion Willard

09:51

so they went straight from university basically set up practice, and we're going straight into your infrastructure and commercial projects which your portfolio is largely comprised of today. Exactly.

Speaker 1

10:01

And one particular example of this is first big scale one competition for a new neighborhood in Prague. Where she began, Christopher won a competition to, to design or to deliver around 1000 homes, basically new quarter near the metro station. And the developer was so brave that even while seeing two guys 26 years old, he gave them the commission and this was the first big project of the studio, and this allowed the studio, then to grow much more much faster.

Rion Willard

10:38

Wow. I mean, and that's, do you think that that's something that's unique to Czech Republic? Or do you think you could do that here?

Speaker 1

10:46

I think that this is the, this is one of the unique parts of architecture, professional, unique aspects of architectural profession in Czech Republic, because probably here, it won't be possible wouldn't be possible, and not with regards to the scale or not with regards to the age of the architects, but I think that here the the competition would be much different and much higher. And in Czech Republic, we were basically pioneers of, of such a scale of studios, within our generation, we were we were maybe the only 110 years ago. And basically, in Czech Republic, many projects of the scale are still going to happen, it needs to happen because the infrastructure has a little bit of a delay during like the years of communist era, the darkness, it was a little bit delayed. So this means that most of the projects of the important infrastructure, technical strategic infrastructure still needs to students to be built.

Rion Willard

11:53

So tell me a little bit about the kind of economic context of the Czech Republic. So you've come out of a communist era. And I'm you know, I'm I'm kind of aware a little bit of a lot of communist or socialist, very strict socialist, even military types of governments, their rules and regulations are very, it's kind of civic law. It's not common law that we have in the UK. And it's not always the best for business. And what what what happened and and what was the kind of context of the of the of the rules for business that was around at the time of the business started?

Speaker 1

12:33

Yeah, that is good question. I'm happy that you asked, basically, the rules and regulations, I think it might be very similar, because we are now we are part of the European Union. And basically, the rules apply to any European country applied to Czech Republic as well. But the major difference is that, like, basically, after, after the Velvet Revolution, and the beginning of 90s, it was pretty wild. Basically, architects starting to their own studios in those 90s, which now they have 30 years of practice. And these studios, acquired most of the Commission's to the 90s. And basically, they didn't give space to new architects and new generations. And those are those architects those, let's say, old tycoons, they had their education and work experience during the communist era, then they started their own studios, right. And we feel that now we might be the first generation that has the space, the education and the work experience, after our revolution, and we are finally able to articulate ourselves. And I think that's basically what's happening now in Central Europe. It's not an object Republic, the whole central Europe is that that the architecture become becomes competitive with the rest of the European world.

Rion Willard

13:59

Yeah, amazing. And because it is it's so it's such such an incredible portfolio of work that you guys have got in terms of that infrastructure projects and we will look at look at practice like perhaps you know what we're talking about Grimshaw and Rogers earlier. And you know, that's that's a long time of, of their existence before they even started to get a lot of those kinds of infrastructure projects and here you guys are with like, you know, incredible, you know, portfolio of, of major transport hubs. Can you tell me a little bit about the the the bus station project because this I found really fascinating as, as it was, essentially self initiated. Yep,

Speaker 1

14:43

the bus station project. It's very important, wonderful for me, because I used to work as a senior architect and lead architect for this project. It was one of the last project I delivered as an architect, before I started orienting myself on the business part and To development part of the job. And this project, basically it started with our studios founder, who has not his driving licence still doesn't have his driving licence to use public transport. And he used to date a girl from a distant city and used to wait at this particular bus station every week for bus to the city, right. And this bus station, I was mentioning this wild ah, after Velvet Revolution, it's called privatization. So basically, this means that even important part of public infrastructure were possible to be privatized, right. And this was the case with the bus station. So it was privatized, there were some speculative purchase of this with the vision to demolish it later and to build some like nice, huge development, because because there were some, there were some initial thoughts that might happen. But the owner was kept in waiting until this happens, it was not his intention to run a bus station, he did not invest anything into the maintenance. So it was decaying. And after 30 years of decay, and it was like the most horrible place in the whole city. It even won a competition. While my friend on Jay was waiting there, he was thinking like, why something isn't doing anything about this? How is this even possible? In like, third century, so we started investigating, it was lots of work, we first approached our city and asked them to do something about it, it was not possible, because we figured out it's privately owned, we approached the private owner, and he had no intentions to do anything. He was just waiting, if something happens or not. And so

Rion Willard

17:00

the owner was literally just holding on to it and hadn't had no interest in even developing it, or no one was making to sell it perhaps, because

Speaker 1

17:08

it's actually not a very good business to run the bus station. Yeah, that's what we also figured out. It's not something you want to you want to do. But then we figured out some possibilities of European fundings that was like this option to get extra funds for it was, it was targeted directly to renovate bus station, which bus stations around the central Europe, which wasn't perfect. We managed to get another guy to the table, which helped who helped us with managing this thing. And after the owner saw that, basically 90% of the renovation can be paid from public funds, and he was open to talks. And this was like the kickstart for the project. Right.

Rion Willard

17:56

Okay. So it helped. So there was a lot of kind of front end work that you guys did in terms of, you know, actually bringing the right people to the table. Yes.

Speaker 1

18:06

And I think that's, that's maybe something what, what we are seeing around us that architecture as a profession, it changes it, doesn't it? It is not. It is not only like providing the best design, but providing the solution and bringing like the multidisciplinary team to one table. So to then solve this problem, not only with design, but with this with this like,

Rion Willard

18:36

yeah, Donald is anyone like actually how the project is gonna get financed? Exactly. I think that's very interesting. Because, you know, a lot of the practices that are speak to who are very successful with that business development, very rarely. Are they just waiting for projects very rarely, are they just being passive that they're often going and you know, liaising with developers, or landowners or, or even kind of speculating about, you know, the heads, or the Dean's of university campuses, or whatever an institution that is there, they're anticipating that these people will will be thinking about something strategic, and actually starting to do what you guys did, you know, sharing ideas. And even better than that, bringing people or bringing a team together. Does does this does this approach kind of, you know, there's something which is more that you do now as a business development strategy, or

Speaker 1

19:36

I wouldn't say that this is the approach this, this one example was pretty rare, right? It was super complicated in the process. And I'm not saying we are not we are not doing this ever again. But it's, it's it's pretty rare. But anyway, this was like the case here was not I know that we are in a poor Customer Business of Architecture. But the major driver here was not business, it was responsibility to our own city. And at the end, we have a successful project. And to be honest, if the driver was business, we would never, we would never go for such a complicated process, where the prophet was not definitely the topic to, you know, to brag about. So,

Rion Willard

20:26

so after that project was completed, so you took it like, basically, you knew were involved, right from the outset of these initial concept concept ideas through to the completion, then your role in the practice started to evolve. Can you tell us a little bit about about that? Yeah.

Speaker 1

20:47

Basically, as I mentioned, started as a junior architect, and then I'm happy to take up the opportunity to lead several projects as a senior architect. And then, and I don't actually know how it happened, but I ended up with leading multiple projects. And when I ended up leading almost all projects or measuring majority of the projects on the studio, I was thinking like, Okay, this is not even, like, I cannot even call myself a senior architecture architect, it was more like architectural project management, because I ended up with like, setting out setting up all the contractual conditions for the project, with the clients, with subcontractors ended up with preparing fee proposals. And that's when I realized that basically, you need someone to do it, and you need an architect to do it, someone from outside of our profession can never listen to the client properly, you need to be a good listener. First, it's the most important thing. And that I actually might be good at this. And it works. So I ended up with, with this more business oriented position. And two years ago, two, three years ago, when together with Andre and Mikhail, it was decided that we are going to try to be seen as a global studio as an international studio. I took this major part in this in this agenda. So

Rion Willard

22:22

what sorts of things have you been doing too, because again, that's a lovely ambition of everything of you know, wanting to expand and expand into different territories. But it's no, that is that's super challenging. What kinds of challenges have you experienced? And how have you been? What's the what's the kind of strategy that you've been? You've been deploying, to see, you know, even just to get this this amazing space here?

Speaker 1

22:48

Yeah, it's challenging. That's true. And I'm thinking, what are the major challenges? It's like, basically, this whole thing is one big challenge. Yeah, but the major one, I think, is the economic part of it, it is expensive, it is very expensive. And for me, the like, the biggest switch was from the position I had before I was basically earning money. And now I see myself as spending money. And this is like the switch that I need to deal with inside me. But we can all see that it will lead eventually to much better economic results, hopefully, hopefully, but this kind of big dream, it's it's something that that moves us forward. And like basically, this is probably the major challenge, you have to be economically prepared to be able to, to do this kind of agenda.

Rion Willard

23:46

So what did the strategy look like? Did Was there a question of you identifying regions where you thought you'd be able to bring expertise or where there's or where you are, did you when projects say in London first before you can

Speaker 1

24:03

actually this is not our first market that we target is the first one where we decided to open studio or to settle down for several reasons. And the strategy and the most important part of the strategy is basically you need to sit down and realize that you are not able to do it by yourself with your own experience and with your own perspectives and with your own knowledge. So basically, meaning you always need a good consultants and identifying those good partners within within the market you want to you want to work and when work is the most important part. What

Rion Willard

24:42

kind of consultants have you been working with and

Speaker 1

24:47

this is basically several, several, let's say spheres of consultants. I think the market and the clients basically there they can be divided and it is like this without project between private clients, meaning developers and public lands within public tenders public works. And as a studio, we always want it and we always want. And I think that this is like one of the most important things to have balance between those two. And within our projects, which are also in here in the book, it's like 5050, it's 50% private clients and 50. Public. Right? So our consultants, they introduce us to, let's say, procurement processes, and introduce us to the topics that that public clients solve and deal with. This is one chapter one, one part, and there is private clients. And this is more of our research, and, and our, let's say, initiative, how

Rion Willard

25:59

do you kind of mitigate some of the risks so and like, evaluate which territories are worth pursuing?

Speaker 1

26:11

This is like only, let's say, internal discussions, and we all read the news, right? So it's a you have to really, you have to really know what's going around and give a little bit of focus on this,

Rion Willard

26:26

in terms of kind of business development, do you like, geographically or look at, say, a region, and you'll have an understanding of, actually, there's a lot of development happening there, or there's the opportunity for major infrastructure to be to be, you know, to be built there, and then go through a process of finding out what who are the who are the players that are involved with the politicians? Who are the, who are the heads of industry or captains of industry there? Or what is what is that? That kind of how do you map out the people, part of it

Speaker 1

27:00

is not simple. And basically, I discovered this while trying to win our first job here in London, which I have to say, it still did not happen yet. Right? We are still in the process. But you have to be there, you have to be there in this place, you have to basically having an office here in London, I might call it almost useless. Because when you arrive in a completely new environment, the last thing you want to do is sit in an office, you should go around and meet people and basically have a breakfast with one person lunch with second and then dinner with five other people with like, meetings in between this. So the office, it's good, like base here, but I tried to use it as like, you know, as long as possible. Yeah, got it. Okay. So so you have to meet people and talk to them and mostly listen to them. Got

Rion Willard

28:03

it. And so when you're kind of here in the, in the in the UK, how, how and what sorts of people are of interest to you to meet? And how do you you know, you're you're saying that you you go and listen, do you have like a structure for kind of trying to understand what their problems are and their pains are you like, I

Speaker 1

28:25

don't have any structure it's like all material right? All material and what I like the most is to meet and talk with architects because then you really see what are there veins? And what is what are the challenges here? And what's the what's the situation with with the profession?

Rion Willard

28:46

Got a general got it? Okay, so yes, it's actually like actually talking to potential competitors or other other architects in the market to see what they're doing and how they're kind of negotiating on what they're what they're working on the

Speaker 1

28:59

edits. That's one case, but it's not like I'm stealing their ideas or shell knowledge. Definitely, I wouldn't call it like that. I always try to identify how we might be beneficial for them basically, for potential cooperation and collaboration. We know and we know this also from other markets, we are not able to work all around the world know all the laws and regulations and policies in every country work. Meaning we definitely need to partner strong partner reliable partner on every market we we are active. This is the case with Austria with Germany, Slovenia, as well as Albania, Poland, and also UK.

Rion Willard

29:44

Okay, that makes sense. So actually, you're coming at it from a collaborative perspective with other architects Exactly. And then you can bring in I can, I can imagine actually, there's a lot of practices here that because because you've got the experience of doing a lot of transport infrastructure, They've got the UK experience, but they might have not cracked a transport infrastructure. That actually that becomes actually a very good type of business to collaborate this,

Unknown Speaker

30:09

this might be one of the cases.

Rion Willard

30:12

I get it. Okay, that makes that makes a lot of sense, in terms of how the business is structured is that there was 60 people in the in the firm. And there's four offices, right? It's four

Speaker 1

30:23

offices now with this first and smaller one here in London, right. And headquarters is in Brno, my hometown and the second biggest city in China.

Rion Willard

30:32

And how is the office kind of structured? Is it like a studio type of format, or

Speaker 1

30:39

what it is typology. And every studio like, basically Prague and Bratislava, it's led by a senior architect or like a leader of the studio, was actually developed to this position through all the steps from junior architects of this is this are very valuable people. They've been through all the steps of the process. Right now, they are leading this brand studios. But those studios are like, basically two hours away from each other, meaning we meet on a weekly basis, while discussing and solving projects and problems. And the structure this is, this is something very interesting. I've been in the studio for eight years. And I went through all those steps when you are growing as a studio. And I've seen this and we dealt with all the challenges that it brings that you're really aware of that you love, right, when you have the steps like becoming from 15 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 60 meaning basically, we needed to manage everything from financials, back office building, middle management, and all the steps we have, we have been through and we are aware of many others that that we are expecting, because there are next steps there is next development. Once we are 100 We we would need to update the structure.

Rion Willard

32:12

And what what of for new so you remember the business when it was at a much smaller scale? What are some of the most significant innovations or changes that you've seen you guys implement?

Speaker 1

32:25

That's a good question. I have one significant innovation, which I would point out. And that is when we were 15 or 20. The founders of the studio were amazing architects. They have an experience from Nico from the Arcus office on Jay from Vienna from Pepa Agha, they are brilliant architects, and with the studio of 20 people, they could not afford middle management to do this work like negotiation about fees, putting together a few proposals dealing about contractual conditions. And it's super time consuming. Yeah, basically, when you are a good architect, this is a waste of time. And since we were growing, the studio could afford the middle management, which I'm part of now. It's more more people live off some colleagues doing doing similar work and their hands, the found on JME how became free to actually deliver the designs. And I think that this is the most significant change, because the projects then might be much better, they can deliver much more work be really deeply involved into every design that the studio produces.

Rion Willard

33:39

Got it. Okay, that's very interesting. We often we often see that like a practice owners they can, they're wearing the hat of being the CEO, and they're doing everything. And inevitably, they'll end up doing less architecture. And you know, perhaps their work is more focused on bringing in the work, that's fine for some architects than they love doing it. For other architects, they want to be involved more in the projects. And if that's the case, well, then you've got to you've got to have that middle management sector or you've got to have somebody who's operating as a as a managing partner or CEO who's putting in the work and kind of negotiating the contracts and and making sure that yeah, nurses are working. Exactly, this

Speaker 1

34:21

was the most significant change. They want to be involved. They want to know what's happening, but they don't have to now they don't have to be involved in every single task. Right? So this building the middle management structure, this was the most significant

Rion Willard

34:36

and it's the middle management structure as it is an architect. So we're now taking on more specialized business roles, or do you bring in other professionals like accountants or marketing specialists or anything like that in house?

Speaker 1

34:52

We learned by doing we tried to hire I don't know. Project Manager From different sector, different industries, working, when it's architects, and when it's architects who have this like, perspective of their particular roles, meaning project management business and, and this economic stuff, that is much, much better, right? So we have, I think, two people that are not architects by education, and they are involved in communication and PR and and accountancy and financials. But this, this, this development of business and managing of the projects, I think this, this has to be done by

Rion Willard

35:39

architects got it. And let's talk a little bit kind of more granular about the management of projects, you just you just mentioned there. And often, for any practice trying to grow, the management of projects of individual projects becomes very time consuming, people can get sucked into it. And often they're running projects at a loss, or, you know, I'm often quite shocked at when I see, you know, I talk to architects, and we're kind of, you know, looking at, well, which projects are profitable, which projects were not profitable, no one's got an idea, and nobody's tracking it, you know, project managers aren't looking after after profit and not budgeting hours. How do you guys kind of manage individual projects and make sure that they're, you know, being delivered within the fee that you've, you've negotiated for them? Yes,

Speaker 1

36:28

we were there. We were there like, thing few years ago, I remember just realizing that we basically don't know how expensive is our work. And to realize that and to realize that properly, what your work does cost. This is an important first step, guys, not only salaries, but it's like operational costs. And basically, when you realize that you yourself are an operational cost, then this is the this is the step that allows you to then set the price properly. So basically, realizing what really costs every hour that our studio produces. This is the first step right. And second is to realize that not every project is profitable. We know that and to set up this balance between the profitable ones and not profitable ones.

Rion Willard

37:17

Right. Okay. So you're kind of always looking at it as a as a whole, where you're exactly some of them massively profitable, some of them are not. And how do you when you're kind of engaging on projects? Or when you've had a project that, you know, that hasn't been profitable? What kind of learning or how do you debrief from that project?

Speaker 1

37:38

Basically, if it has not been profitable by purpose, then it's okay that it's perfectly fine. Because I think that this balance between projects that are profitable, this means, like, mostly, it's projects for private developers, also some, like few public projects, but it's never the driver, like, right, the profit. So we don't, we don't want to be a commercial studio, we want to like make the space around us better. And there's the main driver, and the profit comes with it when you do it when you do it. Right. And so this is basically what I think might be might be the case, like, do not see the profit behind every project.

Rion Willard

38:21

Right? Correct. And so in that case, then I guess, you've always got to be very cognizant of making sure that there is enough work coming into the business to make sure that you know, what happens if you take on too many projects that are unprofitable, and there isn't the profitable

Speaker 1

38:38

ones? Yeah, it might happen. I think that one of the best examples of nonprofit not profitable projects is architectural competitions, or something that is not that common here in the UK. I've noticed that here. The work is one through frameworks more than open competitions. But in Central Europe, and some, let's say, maybe Eastern Europe and America, just like open competitions, or invite competitions. It's a pretty casual, casual scheme, How to Win work, and our studio, we deliver a big number of competitions, we deliver around 20 competition proposals per year. Wow. And it's very expensive. But it still works with some success rate. And you'll get the training and experience with competitions, you know, what to focus on and what not to focus on, you might eventually become successful. And I think it cannot happen that we take too much of an unprofitable project, because with regards to the success rate of the competition proposals, it eventually brings you the good money for the work. That's very interest

Rion Willard

40:00

in it. So 2020 competitions a year. In my era, when I've been, say the RSA, HP or Grimshaw, they always had like a competition running. And it was usually they were doing between seven and 10 competitions a year. And they only need one of them to kind of pull off in order for it to pay for all of the kind of resource. But for for small practices, it's kind of incredibly difficult to be able to sustain to sustain that kind of level of competition. And

Speaker 1

40:31

it is it is, indeed, but anyway, I have friends who have practice of four people and they are able to deliver for competitions within a month, then almost die have a holiday that you can win work even like this. For but for smaller practice, you don't need to join with 20 competitions per year. Not Definitely not.

Rion Willard

40:53

Yeah, got it. Got it very interesting. And so as the business has started to, you know, you've got a pretty decent size now in terms of things like HR and hiring, because that's always problematic of actually being able to find the talent. I know, a chain. I know this changes very much from country to country, like in the US at the moment or for the last few years. Hiring has just been very, very difficult. thing has been very hard for businesses to grow. How has hiring been in in the Czech Republic? And, you know, do you have? Do you think about hiring in the UK? Or is it more a question of as you grow this office here, you'll be bringing people over? Or a mixture of both? Yeah.

Speaker 1

41:41

Well, this is this is very good point. Basically, we are realizing or we know that people and architects no team is the most important set of the studio. Like basically, without people and without team, we are not able to do anything like we wouldn't be that nothing. So we really, really focus on like maintaining the existing team like to hire in new ones. It's extremely difficult. It was my responsibility for a really long time. And even after hiring people for I don't know, four years, or how long I did this, I have no, like, you know, I cannot say how to do it. It's like, it's like so organic, such an organic process. But I think that with the size of 60, we are starting to realize that we need to, we need to maybe create a new position of HR manager and with the size of 60. I think it's almost full time task to take care about new people come into the studio. This is like first thing that with this size, I think we need to create new position, an HR rep.

Rion Willard

42:59

Right, right. In the past when you've been hiring has it been? You know, when you say organic? Does that mean that people naturally are descending CV? Yes. And then you kind of pick them up? Do you advertise for positions or we

Speaker 1

43:15

send those to with a very low success rate, it's like almost doesn't make sense. Even a very expensive job ads don't bring you like no one are basically not the quality that you need. So we we are receiving large number of series. And we have one big advantage in Czech Republic, we are probably the only studio if you don't speak Czech. You can work with us because we do deliver projects globally. So we receive big number of obligations from abroad basically. Right. Okay. So wanted to work in Czech

Rion Willard

43:50

Republic regarding got it. Okay. And in terms of do you work with recruiters or people like that? Not

Speaker 1

43:58

yet. I already had two interviews with them about potential cooperation. But I think that architectural profession is so special like to hire an architect through a recruiter who is not an architect and not part of the studio and he like basically it needs to be human fit, you need to fit in with the other person like, also emotionally also, like, you know, similar typology of people. That is not possible to hire such people through recruiter, maybe I'm wrong, maybe? Well, I guess maybe it is, but I never met such a good recruiter. Yeah.

Rion Willard

44:35

It's very interesting. I think, you know, recruiters in the UK, certainly, you know, people are practices off. There's I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of suspicion, complaint and friction, let's say, with the architectural recruiting agencies, and there's some very good ones who actually like what you say that they're very attuned. Perhaps they've got architectural backgrounds themselves. They understand the emotion No component of it very good. And then there are other recruiters who, quite frankly, some of the stories I've heard are outrageous in terms of, you know, what they do and how they fit people together. And it's and it's very, very, it can be very, very expensive for practice. Yeah,

Speaker 1

45:14

that's that's another aspect of this that for us, it's still a very expensive service. I still see us as like an AR, I still consider us as an emerging studio with us like we are young we are we have 10 years. We are not some, like 30 years established with big practice. Yeah. So this is first aspect that even if we like, it's difficult to afford a recruiter. But even if we could, I don't believe I don't believe we would be able to find such a good one. But I don't I don't want to say that every recruiter is wrong. Yeah, sure. For different type of company or for I don't know, even higher management. It's my it's my might work. But for leader of an architectural project? I'm not that sure. I don't know, what's your experience with this, if you met any good recruiters, I have to be happy for connection. Yeah,

Rion Willard

46:10

we can talk about after that, because I did there are there are a few good ones in London. And there's also ones that, you know, who get a bit of a bad rep for just because of their practices. And then it's very interesting. I spoke to a practice leader a few months back, and they had created a service called tessellate, which was a kind of AI powered recruitment platform, which enabled you know, architects to be able to submit their, you know, their kind of details, their CVs, and then actually, you know, match them up with a with an ideal type of practice. And it was removing a lot of the kind of biases that were involved. And it was trying to remove the the recruitment recruiters out of it, basically. Because for recruiters, yeah, exactly. And it was very interesting, because they because there was so many, there was so much complaint about, you know, some of the stories of what happened with recruiters and recruiters coming into one practice and you know, helping you helping you find this new position. Great. You've helped us find the new position. And then they're talking to your other team members and getting them placed in other practices. So you win one. Yeah. That doesn't, that doesn't work. Just to kind of begin to wrap up here. You guys, you're doing cool. Like international work. Now you're you're stepping outside of the, of the Czech Republic. Doing international work comes with loads of challenges in and of itself.

Speaker 1

47:46

It does indeed. And to be honest, like, still the majority of work is from Czech and Slovak Republic, from our like, home home countries. Yeah. But the ratio between the International and basically domestic work, it's slowly shifting, right. And the challenges, yes, full of challenges. But do you have any particular challenges in mind? Like you want to?

Rion Willard

48:14

Yeah, like? How pointed? Yeah. Perhaps you could test give us an example of some projects that you're that you're working on, or different countries and how you first started, how do you deal with local regulations and winning that work? Is it just purely through collaborating with with domestic partners or

Speaker 1

48:36

it is, purely. By collaborating with domestic partners, we have no other option. And now, I personally was part of the process of setting up a team and cooperation for a project that we won in Slovenia, which is like it doesn't sound it's far from us. It's like, it's, I think, four or 500 kilometers from from Czech Republic. But the laws and regulations there, it's like I my head almost exploded. It's like, completely different than anything I've heard. And even we got like the probably the strongest possible partner in the country. It's took a year and half with between winning the competition, basically winning competition, we were happy. I can say it now. I think it's a new winery in a wonderful countryside of Slovenia. And even a year after winning, we were not ready to start because of local laws and regulations and setting up the whole process and timeframe and everything, even with strong local partners. So basically, it's the only possible option. Strong local partner,

Rion Willard

49:49

right. Brilliant. Very good. And what do you got planned for the rest of 2024? What where's the where's the practice? What what are some of the kind of main milestones that you guys are working towards this

Speaker 1

50:01

year. Yeah, I'm thinking about this, like, the whole time, I've set myself like this personal goal like basically, last year, the last three months of last year, I started introducing ourselves to London, I hope that this will continue and that we will introduce, we will be introduced here like correctly in the best light and like, you know, in the right way. And I hope that we will win our first work here. That's, that's the ultimate goal for 2024. To win first work one or two, and let's see if, if we succeed. Amazing.

Rion Willard

50:44

Brilliant. Andre, thank you very much for sharing your expertise and your journey here. Really, really fascinating to hear a little bit behind the scenes and how, how the practice has grown and how your career has evolved. So thank you.

Speaker 1

50:58

Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you. It was it was amazing. Happy

Rion Willard

51:03

that we met my pleasure. And that's a wrap. And one more thing. If you haven't already, please do head on over to iTunes or Spotify. And leave us a review. We'd love to read your name out here on the show. And we'd love to get your feedback. And we'd love to hear what it is you'd like to see more of and what you love about the show already.

Speaker 2

51:25

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Rion Willard

52:04

expressed on this show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise guarantee, pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment except to help you the unstoppable

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