What the GCC Design and Construction marketplace is like?

There is the global architectural market or construction market and then there is the UAE or GCC version or scenario, the 2 are completely different.

Globally the worlds nations and specifically urban growth have been massive, though there are now well established cities that create a little less architectural opportunities than some time gone by where massive growth potential existed simply because there just weren’t that many developments and people had a lower expectation of what they could expect to have in terms of facilites in general.

Other than that there are obviously multiple aspects of the marketplace that I could elaborate upon:

1. The lay of the land type of matters

There are super big and super small firms, there are super high quality/fee firms and super low. There are highly specialised and there are all types firms. There are many client firms and there are few client firms. There are top notch client firms primarily and there are low grade client firms. There are really well managed firms and pathetically managed firms, there are sophisticated and totally unsophisticated firms. There are very creative and talented firms and there are bland lower than average barely even qualifying as design firms. The client types vary from super huge massive cash and funds and finance capable clients, to pure govt, to high networth or family owned businesses, to retail franchisers, to residential development, to stadium and govt building makers, to hotels and hospitals, to high rises and resorts, to planned developments, to major zoos, and recreational facilities, and to gyms, and malls., and office buildings. to park design and landscape and urban design, to interior design.

2. The traditions of the profession

There is an expectation of tastefulness and design sensibility and a certain status of the architect that needs to be maintained for architects to even be valued at all. In general architects were and still are respected for the contribution they make to society since it’s also more directly obvious and people perceive of them as practical artistic people that understand the needs of others, all of which is true.

There is an expectation of solidarity, though in GCC that becomes very weakened, and confused, partly since there are people from all over and because they originate from significantly different pedigree and training environments and societal conditions and biases.

Architects are at the top of the food chain so they always have to wear the greatest number of hats, and a lot is normally expected of them.

3. The true current position of an architect

Important but just another cog in a sea of professionals, not to mention that globalisation makes it too easy to hire firms from literally anywhere, and so easily and in the case of Dubai they make sure they have a presence to be able to tap opportunities as and when they come along.

The pedigree and prior experience and the level and quality or management and its talents and prior experience are the primary means of standing out and of being considered seriously for a project of any size.

4. The art like aspects of the way people benefit from architects

There is a lot of imagination and possibilities in the work we do and people do seek that out and expect that from designers, at least the ones above a certain run of the mill just make the box and get on with type of clients who certainly do exist.

That means that most of the clients have just a barebones understanding of what the architect is doing exactly except of course experienced seasoned clients obviously. Also they think some one just makes some cool sketches and rendering and that’s it, in other words they look at it as purely an exercise of imagery or basic blocking out as opposed to a deep dive into every imaginable nuance that impacts the creation and use of the facility.

5. The job market and or business opportunity types that exist and the many different models for it or within it.

The market is one where when firms have work, even a single high paying client can allow them to hire quite a few people and pay them well even and hire fairly high talent level, depending of-course on the the reputation of the firm.

There are many ways to serve clients but by far the most common is to design and initiate the design of buildings, take them through regulatory process, detailing and client satisfaction with quality and systematic process, and oversee the construction and final delivery and satisfaction of the client, and coordinating with all allied professionals including suppliers and the contractor to make sure every one has specific information at the right times and all barriers are removed to ensure smooth functioning and high quality execution of the project.

6. The ways people make money in my marketplace

They are tactful and tasteful in finding the clients and projects that give them the best opportunities to shine and then they deliver with quality and ensure that the fess are well applied to the highest and smartest most optimised priorities and that the fees to do the project are optimised in the first case to enable quality execution and then they actually do this, and build trust in the process both in a given client and in themselves and their staff and allied professionals, which in the process keeps getting repeat clients, which further leverages their capabilities and potential, and their profitability.

7. How much money can be made and is actually made?

If fees are predominantly calculated on the basis of percentage of construction cost, then they could be literally in the millions, but the value of what architects offer is so high and so fundamental that you really cant build any kind of respectable building without architects.

This is however tied to the degree to which the services are ‘commoditizable’ and are actually commoditized. As in how many cheap replacements of a given contender could or would have been found?

8. How stable is the income of both the companies and the employees and partners and allied professional and the entire construction and or design marketplace

Stability is traditionally fairly volatile and indeterminate especially in this part of the world but really any where. Because who could guarantee something like the number of people that will end up wanting to or needing to or choosing to build significant buildings or even for that matter say small residences or restaurants either of which are hardly meaningful to any archtiect or firm accept the smallest and well most meanigless ones. So the only thing that well managed firms do is both diversify, layoff and lean manage, and keep insurance reserves of liquid-able assets that allow them to tide over the worst or just bad portions.

9. What is the racial mix of people in this marketplace?

The highest end architects will typically come from the most developed nations materially and intellectually, which makes complete sense, however increasingly people trained from those same countries have spread all over the world, but people in the GCC typically will expect to and be able to hire with far greater certainty the people who are racially from those countries, and not even be too discerning about that in the first case, again that is slowly changing. 

So there are natives of North America, Canada, UK, Portuguese, Brazil, Mexico who often are in that mid to high tier and South aFricans and Australians, Irish, French.

Then there are arabs from countries like Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon, Morocco Algeria, Sudan, who speak Arabic, and so have a decent advantage in that aspect especially when dealing with very comfortable mostly with Arabic types of clients which will be a vast majority of medium to high tier clients, but hardly entirely , because virtually every one speaks English in UAE, and in most cities in Saudia, Qatar, and Oman.

10. What do the clients really care about? What are the many types of clients out there? 

Most of this is explained above…

There are institutional, retail, residential, govt, hospital, high residential, high rise, office, towers, again see above..

11. How do companies band together, and what are the many ways that firms find successful in finding meaningful clients and work?

Joint ventures, studio in house versus assign to anyone style.

They find work by RFP finding, listing, networking, trade fair data collecting and follow up, Seeking out client types they want and wooing them, taking the time to explain to them and introduce them to the potential of work together, and making and showing walking through a portfolio of work, and using the past projects to project their image, and working out tirelessly on fee negotiations and scope breakups to make it all work out and keep satisfied recurrent clients.

12. How do most companies break up the hierarchy of employee structures, in terms of job titles and responsibilities?

There are interns, fresh grads, middle experienced, highly experienced, tech oriented architects, Draftspersons, detailers and specifiers more construction oriented ones, engineers, and admin and Tech staff. Then there are project managing architects, firm or division directors, who may also be partners and then owners, and marketing staff and accounts.

13. How are firms typically managed?

There are more informally managed ones, and then highly structured and very intelligently managed ones with a highly proactive approach to systematically tackling issues in a full and permanent way and to do this before any issue even exists or has yet come about, and they believe in quality from the get go and always and they maintain high standards for themselves and their talent.

14. What are the skills found most valued by firms and their clients and why?

Already covered .. but some more..

Experience and track record in doing a particular type or nature of project, and being just the right level of quality to fee match, and of course all the while being competent and qualified.

- Being technically equipped, qualified and state of the art.

- Having the pedigree and proven projects that clearly show the skills and systems and business model and infrastructure setup to effectively manage projects of that sort very well, and deliver excellent results as measured by actually built projects.

- Design excellence in terms of extensive understanding of the parameters of a given genre of building scenarios. Humility and investment in learning and really making that show in their work

- Managing all the many milestones and of course intermediate activities in a well planned and well communicated way, and reporting to the client and showing both flexibility and alignment with the clients nuanced or particular interest or concerns on both a given project and or generally.

15. What do people do to get ahead in these professions and the marketplace?

They build a reputation of quality work by doing less of, or lesser paid if must be, but making it so excelling in all the measures of excellence, that the clients and the ones to whom they speak, cant help but consider them seriously for such work, especially if they can compare to clearly lesser capable current architects.

Nominate or get nominated for awards, and actively pursue them as a way to prove their command of a given aspect of excellence or certainly all or as many as there can be.

Network with the right entities, with specific planned intent of where to direct the engagements.

Making free feasibilities to get clients to realise the potential of and perhaps even benefits and need for a client and enable them to experience what it would be like to work with a given architects and his firm.

Produce virtual projects or design projects for entities that may possibly not execute but it will still create a product capable of being presented as design capability.

16. What characteristics do clients look for in this marketplace..

- Position of firm with respect to others in the marketplace, based of course on the number, type and quality of projects actually executed in this country or at least GCC.

- The degree to which the firms either marketing collateral or personal presentations succeed convincingly showing that they understand the given client type and the specifics of their needs.

- The financial standing of the firm and its management and the number of years they have been around and the degree of their commitment to a given country in which they serve.

- The word of mouth from people who have employed them in the past.

- The impression of the contractors who have worked with them

- The quality of design and the level of attention to detail of the final finished product, and the degree of sensitivity to the buildings program and its function and then to the aesthetics.

Characteristics in a single employee..

- Depth of understanding of project delivery that is possible to be and is actually proven by the persons own reality in every dimension and by being able to investigate and through reference and word of mouth

- By the nature and quality of projects and firm quality that he has worked for and in what capacity and the fit of that to their current and long term needs

- Their specialised experience in the area for which the requirements are

- The professionalism and presentability of the person

- The education quality and world exposure

- Who is the person in the company of, the network he belongs to, and the quality of relationship he is capable of building and or has in the past

- How congenial is the person, and how capable of influencing and getting things done, managing him her self and others and actually succeeding in delivering specific project outcomes and or deliverables in a timely and cash realistic manner

- How good at communicating with both the internal management and with clients and handling high stress and high responsibility issues and matters successfully and effectively and in a realistic time frame.