Episode 1

Hello and welcome to Going Abroad, an original podcast by the Architects’ Council of Europe, supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

In this podcast series, Going Abroad (working title), we’ll explore the decisions, challenges, and lessons involved in taking an architectural practice abroad. Each episode features architects from Germany, Greece, Poland, France, and Malta, sharing their stories of taking this bold step.

In today’s episode, we dive into the reasons for going abroad. What motivates architects to expand internationally? How do they choose their markets, and what does the journey from decision-making to securing a first commission look like?

Let’s meet our guests and hear about their experiences of working abroad and why they chose to do so.

First up, we have Lina Lahiri and Julia Knaak from Sauerbruch Hutton, based in Berlin, Germany. Lina and Julia,

Q: Could you introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about your roles at Sauerbruch Hutton?

---00:14---

LL - “My name is Lina Lahiri. I’m a Swedish architect trained in the UK, and at Sauerbruch Hutton for 19 years and do project management mainly, internationally, but also in Germany. And, together with Julia, I also coordinate our business development department.”

---01:07---

JK - “My name is Julia Knaak. I am working in the office, since 2006.”

“So I'm one of the partners together with Lina. And, my I'm especially working on projects in France and also in in Switzerland, in Geneva, and we, at the same time, so we are share we are working together at the business development, so we're taking care of getting new ideas, what what we would like to do, what kind what kind of programs, where to extend our profession.”

---02:16---

Q: I’d love to hear a bit about the background of Sauerbruch Hutton. Can you tell us about the firm’s origins and what led to its international focus?

LL - “So the office was founded in London in the early eighties, and the 1st big competition, Matthias and Louisa, won out of London was for a a high rise here in Berlin. (And as quite young architects from a small office, they thought it's really important to be here in Berlin to build this first major building of theirs and move the office in the beginning of the nineties to Berlin. But we have never seen ourselves as a German office, always international office.”

Q: What motivates you to pursue projects internationally?

LL - “we are not a German office, but an international office based in Germany. And we always look at the at the program and the task at hand. So we look worldwide, but, of course, intensely at Europe of where there is architecture that needs to needs to happen even if if it's reused or if it's a a new a new building.”

Thank you, Lina and Julia.

Next, we travel to Greece to meet Penny from Elytron Architecture.

Q: Penny, could you introduce yourself and your firm?

---00:14---

“My name is Penny Kallioppi Balsamidu. I'm a Greek architect. I have more than 30 years of, professional experience. I studied in Greece, and, I finished the architecture school of architecture in, in Thessaloniki, and then I did my master in the school of architecture in London. 20 years ago, we have, started our architectural firm, me and with my colleagues.

It's architectural it's a Elytron Architecture. This is the firm that I'm representing. And, since then, we have developed a strong presence in numbers of project. We it's our office covers a wide range of, project, that has to do with residential office, cultural, educational, and we are specialized in health care facilities project.”

---01:33---

Q: That’s impressive! Penny, can you share what led your firm to begin working internationally?

---01:36---

Our we started working international in in, 2013. A little bit before that, we worked for a but for me, it's it was very important for our office that we work for a very important project, the cultural center of, the Niarchos Foundation. We did all the construction, detailed design, and that was the first experience that we had with international teams. And that gave us the confidence after to to start our first project abroad.

At that time, it was a very difficult period for Greece, and we have the financial, crisis. So, we took this opportunity. We thought also that, it was good to gain this international experience and, to, that will help us to strong to make stronger our reputation and to attract new clients even in Greece.

So so far, we have worked in, North Macedonia. We have done project in, Mongolia, in Romania. Also, we work a little bit in Middle East.

---05:07---

Next, we travel to Malta to hear from Ray Demicoli of Demicoli and Associates.

Q: Ray, could you introduce yourself and your firm?

---00:12---

“My name is Ray Demicoli, and I represent Demicoli and Associates. I started the firm in 1985, and next year, we will celebrate 40 years in the profession.

I graduated in 1975, and I was very fortunate to have, immediately found a very interesting job, with a firm where we produced production drawings for Saudi Arabia. And this was through a Lebanese company because there was the revolution in Lebanon at that time. And from I was the head of the actual department in this firm, Morta Constant, and then, I got the opportunity to go to Paris and spend some time there and then, return back to Malta. And having had this experience of, producing, drawings for site and for contracts, I thought this was, something I would like to do in the future.

And then I I moved off I moved away from this firm and then started my practice in 1985.

And I in the meantime, I joined my father in law's firm.

And I met up with a family in particular, the Thomas Group, who were our biggest source of work at that time. And, we've produced one job after the other with them, and they were going into hotels in a big way and actually had the first hotel job in 1984. And so after that, the office was working locally mainly with some international, work. However, I was always ready to work internationally because of my international experience.

---03:48---

Q: What experiences abroad have been most significant for your firm?

---04:17---

Okay. So having completed the Hilton project in Malta, Porto Mazo, it is, this was completed in the year 2000. And this consisted of, there was the site of the old Hilton Hotel that my clients purchased.

And it was a big very big site about a 150,000 square meters. And we the brief from the client was to still have the Hilton Hotel and build residences as well. And I came up with the idea that the heart of the project would be excavated and become a marina, which was very bold decision, but it made the project. So, basically, the heart of the project, became a marina. So we have it it changed the whole feel of the project.

So it was a huge experience and learning curve. And having completed this project, we felt nicely positioned to look for overseas work. So having a portfolio of a project like this behind the firm was very, very good.

So, yeah, that's that opened up, our confidence in ourselves to go anywhere in the world and especially because Hilton were sending lots of architects to to visit our project. So we felt very very pleased about that because we were always going traveling abroad to seeing buildings of different architects anyway. So it was quite nice to see that. So, yeah, on that, then the owners of the Hilton, Malta, were also looking at other, cities to have a Hilton. And then again, I was traveling to different places in Europe.

I remember we looked at Bratislava and other other places. Then at the same period, after having finished this, there are another group of hotels, which is Carinthia, who I approached to see if they needed work overseas because they were actively working on different areas. And, again, we had a very fantastic relationship with this company and had a lot of work done with them in, Czech Republic and in Turkey and actually built a huge project in Libya in Zanzur. The project was just by the coast, and it was about 1,300 meters of coastline. It was a really beautiful, beautiful project by by the Mediterranean.

Anyway, so these are the opportunities that got us going in different places. 

---09:19---

Thank you Ray for sharing your inspiring story.

Now we go to France to meet Reda Malou from AW 2 Architecture and Interiors.

Q: Reda, could you start by introducing yourself and your firm?

---00:10---

I'm, Reda Malou. I'm the founder and partner at AW 2 Architecture and Interiors.

We're a firm of, architects and interior designers based in Paris. And we've been working at the international level for the last 25 years. 

---00:43---

Q: That’s impressive! Could you share your experiences of working abroad?

---00:49---

We have worked in over 45 different countries, around the world in in very, very different cultures and climates and and and, context, which basically has has led us to, to acquire a very high degree of of understanding of what it is to, work internationally and to be in contact with all those different cultures and and, people. 

---01:32---

Q: It sounds like international work is at the core of what you do. What initially made you decide to export your services?

---01:36---

Exporting was not really not really a a conscious decision. It came from the fact that I have my personal background is is is international. I have my father is Algerian.

At first, it was through my personal contacts that I I started to, to look at at projects, abroad. But then it became a, culture, of our of our firm because, basically, I think it it created, for us a a ground where we could, reach out and and create, projects in in different contexts, which sort of moved us to think differently about architecture. 

---02:35---

Q: That’s fascinating. Why did you choose your first market, and how did you make contact with your first clients?

---02:49---

The first, market we reached out, to was, Southeast Asia. We started working in in Vietnam, more specifically. The first contact came through, a a, group of doctors, French doctors that wanted to create a hospital, in Vietnam. And, our company was young, and we were, we wanted to have, larger built references.

And to accompany those doctors and to, go along with them in their adventure was something that we felt was was a good move for for our company because, basically, it allowed us to, take part in in a much larger project than we would have had in Europe. And also, it was an exciting adventure, just a human adventure. 

---03:51---

Q: How did your approach to finding clients evolve as your firm expanded internationally?

---04:12---

What was interesting is that it got us recognized locally. So even though our first clients were, a sort of French connection, with the French doctors that sort of took us with them and their luggage to go abroad, what then happened very quickly was that we created a local network of contacts, with whom we started working on, completely other, subjects because we started designing, hotels, for, clients that were actually based in Vietnam. And this then expanded throughout Southeast Asia, and now it's more of a sort of world expansion. 

---05:21---

Thank you, Reda, for sharing your journey.

Finally, we travel to Poland to meet Simon Wojciechowski, co-founder of APA Wojciechowski Architects.

Q: Simon, could you start by introducing yourself and your firm?

---00:13---

My name's Wojciechowski. I'm the founder or co founder of, APA Wojciechowski Architects, who is the group of architect, one of the largest firm in Poland. We have slightly below 120, architects on board working throughout the Poland.

---01:00---

---1:36---

Some projects in Russia, some projects Ukraine. Of course, now it's passed. And accidental projects in other parts of Europe. 

---05:56---

Q: Thank you, Simon. Can you share what initially motivated your firm to expand abroad?

---6:20---

Poland is quite a small country, with limited market. We always wanted to to do something outside of Poland. Honestly, the direction to the west was quite difficult for us, because the the architecture was developed.

So we turned our eyes to the east and tried to look for opportunities there. Those were the times when it everything looked very promising in the east, And, we just wanted, first of all, to to have a business there. And secondly, we believed that our Western thinking could, help, the architects, there and developers there to be, more successful. And it happened to be to be through the we added the value, and they added value to to our firm too because we were kind of, I think we are the only firm in Poland who had such a big projects outside of Poland. So to to to answer your question, Shontes, it is obvious for us that we have to to go out, to continue to develop, and to gain new experience which later on can be transmitted back to Poland.

---08:03---

Q: How did you make contact with your first clients in these markets?

---08:19---

And one of our clients, which is now called White Star Real Estate, started the project in Moscow, organized a brief competition, for the idea. To make sure that there is a success, we, made, 3 entries to this, to this, competition. And we took, like, a first, second, and 4th place in this competition. The day, there was several schemes, on this project.

This is Office Project, which is located very, very good, place, which is not ops. I mean, it's, if if somebody knows Moscow, there is one, railway station, which is has a good connection to the main Saremyotivor, which is the main, airport, in Russia. And, they decided to to build this office building, in this place, and we presented 2 schemes. They presented the first schemes, to the authorities of Moscow, which was rejected. So they took our second scheme, which was liked by the by the Moscow authorities.

And, we started the project, which was our first international project.

The first project was called White Square Office Center. The second, White Gardens Office Center. It is it was really successful. So it was a success to a story in Russia and, in Ukraine. So the clients, from the Russia and Ukraine started to come come to us.

---14:49---

That concludes today’s episode of Going Abroad. We’ve explored the diverse journeys of architects from across Europe, learning what motivated them to expand internationally and how they overcame challenges in new markets.

In our next episode, we’ll delve into the barriers and challenges associated with taking your architectural practice abroad.

Thank you for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast.

Going Abroad is curated by the Architects’ Council of Europe, supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, and produced by the Agence Calliopé.