"Don't spend money you don't have" and "don't be afraid to be an asshole," architects advise
Getting paid on time, finding time to have children and dealing with long-hours culture were among topics discussed by executives from BIG, Zaha Hadid Architects and Design Haus Liberty at a business talk hosted by Dezeen in London last month.
"Don't hand over your drawings if the client hasn't paid," was the first tip provided by BIG's chief executive Sheela Maini Søgaard, who revealed that she got her job 10 years ago by scrawling this and two other snippets of advice on a napkin during her first meeting with BIG founder Bjarke Ingels.
"Bjarke said he was having trouble with clients who weren't paying the bills," recalls Søgaard, who previously worked in the food industry, including a stint with celebrity Danish chef Claus Meyer. "So I just wrote three things down on a napkin," she added, saying she found time between child-nursing duties to meet Ingels in Copenhagen on the suggestion of a mutual friend.
Two weeks later, Ingels called her to say the tips were working ? and to offer her a job. BIG has since ballooned to 470 staff split across studios in Copenhagen, London and New York, where both Ingels and Søgaard are now based.
Søgaard said her job is "to establish and maintain processes for everything that isn't design". She is the only female partner at the firm ? a fact that brought her unintentionally into the spotlight recently.
BIG's chief executive Sheela Maini Søgaard, Zaha Hadid Architects' global head of p...
-------------------------------- |
NICHO. Vocabulario arquitectónico. |
|
Tetinska: Innovative House Design by SMLXL in Prague
03-05-2024 09:24 - (
Architecture )