The challenges that an architectural consultancy business will face are no different from those that confront the creative industry as a whole. It involves a relevant business strategy that can balance a commitment for creative innovation and customer value, with a watchful eye on the bottom line of the design practice and sustainability. It recognises that a design is a marketable product, and that a product must be differentiated in the marketplace if it is to gain even a small foothold in the consciousness of the buyer. For Chang Yong Ter, of Singapore-based Chang Architects, maintaining a deeply personal brand of authorship with the larger needs of a viable design business has been an ongoing concern for the past 13 years. In this time, projects designed from his office have garnered a wide range of awards and raised the profile of the firm to take on more challenging commissions. The firm has continued to cement its trail-blazing reputation with solutions that critically question the status quo, earning European CEO’s Best Architect Firm, Asia Pacific – 2013 award.
The projects that Chang Architects are engaged in are mainly private, landed residential dwellings. This is staple bread-and-butter work for a host of small to medium architectural practices in the crowded, competitive arena of the island republic. It is also a niche market because the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans live in high-rise apartments, developed and designed by the larger corporate architectural practices with substantial track records. Against this backdrop, Yong Ter had to develop a compelling vision of what sets his services apart when Chang Architects began in 2000.
Avant-garde design
The strategy Yong Ter chose was not entirely different from that adopted by high-end international design and fashion houses in Europe. With an emphasis of quality over quantity, he eschews the temptation to quote lower fees or accept run-of-the-mill commissions. Instead, he consciously pursued an avant-gardist philosophy, taking effort to be experimental with each commission and customising ideas to the specific needs of each site and client. His designs are not repetitive, and there is no house style, but they will often bear an element of surprise or a refreshing take on a mundane problem. The designs question conventions at a very fundamental level, which requires both the client and architect to accept some degree of risk. Asked to define his corporate ethos, Yong Ter states that it is: “A practice for avant garde architectural designs, which adds value to and enhances living, while co-existing harmoniously with nature and the environment.” He describes the attributes of his practice from its inception in a philosophical way: “Always be hungry for the next best work – belief that the best is yet to be. Be bold and daring – design not just from the mind, but the heart as well. Compete with no one, in order to be someone.”
The last point is clearly one related to branding – of seeking inspiration internally so that the solutions developed will have little or no resemblance to external sources. Yong Ter had once proposed an idea of a house with movable external walls to resemble a series of shells that would slide over one another. When he came across a similar design that was built by another architect in a different part of the world, he scrapped the idea.
Love for the environment
Close collaboration between architect and client remains a cornerstone of the practice. A few of the conservation projects have a design gestation period of three to four years – highly uncommon in the fast-paced and impatient milieu of the industry. Various study models are built and form an essential part of the process, as radical ideas are tested out on a smaller, artificial scale – allowing a consensus to be agreed upon before the foundations for the real deal are laid into the ground.
Yong Ter singles out love as another simple, but crucial underpinning factor of whether a proposed design solution has met the standard he expects from himself and his office. “Can the client see from the drawings or model your love for the project?” he asks. Any solution less than this would fall under the category of the routine answer, of the lazy shortcut to conventionality. “Architecture is an expression of love. The love for service, the love for nature, the love for the environment, the love to connect, and the love of the human spirit and of life itself. Success of a practice is measured not by figures, but by the degree of love being expressed in the works of architecture,” he added. This reliance on the intangibles may seem counter-intuitive to how a practice should operate, but the accolades his projects have won over the years attest to just how astute and differentiating this has been as a business strategy.
Individual quirks
Having been in the business for 13 years, Yong Ter remains selective of the type of clients and projects he engages in. There is a minimal speculative projects where the primary focus is return on investment. Instead, he seeks meaningful projects that engage with the lasting needs and aspirations of known end-users at the forefront, instead of catering to the general needs of the mass market. His projects often embody the quirks and taste of individual owners, and are built for longevity. Both personally and in his works, Yong Ter disclaims waste or effects that approximate the gimmicky. He does not shy away from luxury when deployed appropriately, and some of his unconventional designs have not necessarily been the cheapest of options, yet serve a purpose inherent to the overall design intent. Even so, his projects have offered substantial returns on investments, in cases when houses he designed have been sold by the original owners – at more than triple the original value.
Towards this end he has kept his practice small, and ensured that the staff he engages are in tune with his outlook. In a virtuous circle, maintaining a low overhead allows him to be selective of his clients, which in turn helps to deepen his exploration of the unconventional. “I believe that the success of every project is a direct result of the dedication, love, and passion put forth by the people that make up the team, and the result of a great team spirit. Therefore a sustainable practice is very much about sustaining a core team of dedicated staff who are committed towards a common goal of the practice.”
Yong Ter adopts a practical approach to human resource, and believes in offering his staff “first-class welfare” that “goes beyond conventional employment benefits. It is about offering them the opportunities to partake in projects with the potential of becoming world-class architecture.” In his understated way, he remarks that he runs his office along the principle of “love people, use money”, instead of “use people, love money”.
For further information visit www.changarch.com; email enquiry@changarch.com.sg