VRnow uses deep learning to extract structural and semantic details like walls, windows, doors and furniture from blueprints. The extracted information can then be used and interpreted according to the client’s needs. The concept is based on more transparency, a greater degree of predictability and better visualization of real estate objects.

VRnow uses an algorithm based on AI uses scans of the floor plans of apartments to obtain architectural information. The technology recognizes the size and number of rooms and additional details including the number of windows and doors as well as furnishings, automatically and within just a few minutes. With the information obtained from this picture recognition software, it is possible to answer important questions from Asset and Facility Management regarding, for example, cost calculations and options for furnishing apartments.

Deutsche Wohnen explained the idea: “With this technology, we can obtain data which up to now has not been accessible to us digitally. One of our first projects with VRnow will be to collate and standardize the floor plans of our holdings so that VRnow can process this information.”

“Digital floor plans can be used particularly in sales and marketing, but for new builds as well,” added Dr. Marcus Eilers, head of Corporate Development and Strategy at Deutsche Wohnen.

Here’s how it works: The first step in the process is extracting and analyzing information by detect various information such as the size of the property and the number of doors, windows or rooms. Step 2 is to analyze the extracted architectural information. The information gained can improve further strategic planning and facilitate cost calculation and furnishing set-ups.

Deep learning is at the core of our algorithm; the more data it gets, the smarter the algorithm will become and the more it can improve the quality of the product. In the future, it may go on to analyze energy costs and also to create indoor navigation systems for large facilities. The last step relates to the automatic creation of a 3D model from any given floor plan. The visualized object can then be accessed using VR gear, YouTube 360 (for a 360° video) or a web browser.

The post VRnow uses Deep Learning to Automatically Digitize Floor Plans appeared first on Archipreneur.

Keep on reading to learn how Diana and Stefan founded this tech startup and how Bimarium could help your practice.

Enjoy the interview!

What made you decide to found Bimarium? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you?

Stefan: The decision to found Bimarium is rooted in my background as an architect. In my work, we were doing the entire projects in 3D, the building and also the interiors, up to the finest details. This basically meant that we had to build all the 3D models ourselves and that took us a lot of time.

The idea of having a library of 3D models of furniture that are traceable back to the producer, well done, compatible with multiple different CAD softwares and of course, free came into my mind then but unfortunately, I was too caught up in the architecture business so I put the idea aside.

Things changed when I decided to move to Berlin together with Diana, my life and business partner. We wanted a change in our lives and when Diana found a job in Berlin, I said “You know what, maybe this is the time to bring this idea to reality”. That summarizes our beginning.

Diana: I can’t take any credit for the idea because unlike Stefan, I am not an architect. However, I was a part of the execution right from the beginning even though I was working for a different company at the time. It felt only natural after a while to join the team full time, given that I have both an eye for design and aesthetics and also a solid background in business management. I believed in the idea from the start although what sealed the deal for me was the fact that it was us two building it together from down up.

Why did you choose Berlin to start your company?

Diana: I wouldn’t call it a deliberate choice, but rather an intuitive one. We decided to move from Romania to Berlin because we wanted a change in our lives and although we had never been to Berlin and we came basically without knowing anyone and without any palpable prospects it ended up being the right place for us and our life goals. So in other words, at the time when we decided to move to Berlin we hadn’t quite realized that we’ll actually found Bimarium.

Stefan: To pick up where Diana left off, we realized in retrospective that Berlin is a very entrepreneurial city which has a lot of resources to offer to new start-up founders like ourselves. Not to mention the fact that Germany in its whole, is a very good country for the kind of business model we have, given that german people spend an average of 6% of their annual income on furniture. That apparently is the highest quotation in Europe so needless to say that this makes Berlin a very good pick for us.

What problem does Bimarium solve and how can architects use your platform in their everyday work?

Diana: We fundamentally change the workflow of this category of professionals and we do so in two ways. First, we help them create better, smarter designs by offering them high quality 3D models of furniture, compatible with 6+ architecture softwares that they can download for free and use in their projects.

And second, we help them convert these designs into reality, by offering them the infrastructure to directly place furniture orders for their clients and be remunerated fairly for having generated a sale. It is widely known in the industry that 70% of all premium furniture is sold as a result of an architect’s or interior designer’s recommendation although oftentimes, this category of professionals doesn’t get rewarded. We think it’s only fair to receive a slice of the pie if you were the person responsible for making it in the first place.

And given that when you go for an architects’ services you are basically asking for recommendations on what to buy, it felt only natural to standardize and reward this process. So on Bimarium, every user, be it an architect or an interior designer that places an order with us will get up to a 10% standard commission of the entire value of an order and possibly larger, when we talk bigger volumes.

Stefan: In my work as an architect, I know for a fact that we are being paid left-overs for the concept design when you compare our fee with the amounts that the client ends up investing into turning our designs into reality. So of course, Bimarium is a way of changing this, of giving the architect first the tools, by means of the 3D models. To better illustrate his or her ideas followed by the possibility to not only recommend his/her client what to buy but also where to buy it from. So on Bimarium, you have everything in the same place: the 3D models to use in your projects and the possibility of directly ordering all the furniture pieces your client wants to buy, straight to his door and be remunerated for something that you used to do for free. This is a real revenue sharing business.

…so who’s your main customer and what is the business model of Bimarium?

Diana: So our customers are basically the final clients of our users, be they architects or interior designers. Regardless of whether we talk about an architect or a designer: They are our collaborators, a fundamental part of our business model. Because they aren’t paying us, we aren’t making use of their data for monetary purposes but we’re actually paying them for doing their work right.

Stefan: We are pushing hard to maintain the same prices that the producers we work with have across all platforms and this means we are sharing commissions together with our users. But this is the sort of business we believe in, one where everyone gets remunerated for the role they played in creating value for the end client.

How do you want to reach the end costumer who wants to buy furniture?

Stefan: Through our users. In other words, we see our users as the gateway to the end customers. So the platform as we’re building it, isn’t at all for an end client. To give you an example, if an end client comes on our site, she  won’t know that there’s a shop there because the website has this as a feature that you can use when you as, an architect, are done with the design phase. It’s basically like distinguishing between design phase and implementation phase, because they’re two different things. And we don’t want, for instance, architects who just want to get 3D content to be automatically flashed with prices and informations they don’t need.

So we have two ways of viewing the site. One is in design mode where you only see the library of 3D models and the softwares that they’re available in. And the second one is Buying mode where you will see the equivalent of the 3D model as a real product with prices, configurations, delivery and everything you need to know. So basically, our website is exclusively addressed to architects and interior designers. They are, like I said, our gateway to the end customer.

You merged your architecture and business backgrounds to start a company. Has that been a fruitful combination?

Stefan: Definitely. We, architects tend sometimes to get into too many details and oftentimes, overlook the bigger picture. Diana, however doesn’t have this problem. She comes with this “let’s do it” attitude which comes on top of her business background which, when you’re trying to build a network of producers and professionals comes very much in handy.

Diana: I strongly feel that in whatever industry you’re trying to do a business, you need firsthand experience, so you need people who have worked in that industry who know everything inside and out, know why certain things are necessary and others are just nice to have. And then there are other people who, let’s say, can counterbalance this knowledge, because sometimes knowing too much can be a bit of a curse. This is our situation. Stefan has all the industry knowledge and software knowledge whilst I know how to work with and around people. And this, like Stefan said, is a crucial element of building a platform like ours. Which brings together different stakeholders and helps converge their rather different interests.

What are the next steps for your business and how do you plan to grow it?

Diana: So we’re gonna launch the feature which allows architects to buy on our site in May. And to begin with, this feature will only be available in Romania because we have a lot of users from there and also because Romanian architects are strong in handling 3D designs and renderings, so for us, they are the ideal collaborators.

Stefan: In the meantime, architects from everywhere can use our in-house made library of 3D models. But yes, for the time being, the on-platform service of placing furniture orders will only be available for users from Romania. We thought it is a smart call for us to start there and see how we can refine the product and make it better as a result of the feedback we get. So if the first market will be Romania, the second one will definitely be Germany.

Do you have any advice for archipreneurs who want to start and build their own business?

Stefan: My advice is to be more confident and to try to see ways of adapting this very old profession to the times we are living. Technology and the use of technology only grows everyday so it would be only natural for archipreneurs to see how they can blend the knowledge of the architecture profession with the technological developments underway. Another piece of advice is to retain confidence and to pair up with other people, especially those that have what you don’t in terms of skills and capabilities. The way I see it, a successful business cannot exist in the lack of a strong team.

Stop dreaming and start doing. Work even when you don’t feel like doing it and especially in those moments when you doubt yourself and the choices you made the most.

Diane: My advice is not just for archipreneurs, but for entrepreneurs, and my advice would be the following: stop dreaming and start doing. Work even when you don’t feel like doing it and especially in those moments when you doubt yourself and the choices you made the most. In those times, just remember that through effort, perseverance and patience, you can get there. But these are the three hardest qualities to actually uphold, so beware, it’s no easy path. But it’s a wonderful one.

How do you see the future of the architectural profession? In which areas (outside of traditional practice) can you see major opportunities for up and coming architects?

Stefan: To reiterate, I think we have more and more technology in our lives, and it’s only natural for that technology to become more present in our work. To make my point, I’ll start by telling you about this friend of mine, an architect himself, that made his Phd on the topic of how will architecture change in the future given the technological developments underway. In the 90s when the computer appeared it was used for drawing lines and making plans.

And now we are in this era of 3D because now we have the means to do the building in 3D. So of course he asked himself: what will the profession look like in the future? And his answer was that the future will bring to the fore the coding architect. And I believe in this prediction. In 50 years from now, we’re just going to write code and the buildings are gonna be done by themselves. So on a deeper level, I think moving from architecture, what I was doing before to Bimarium is a big step forward because the way I see it, in the future, we won’t draw anymore.

In 50 years from now, we’re just going to write code and the buildings are gonna be done by themselves.

Diana: I see it as a more liberalized playing field. In the sense of having all these small players that actually matter a lot get a fair cut of everything that is being traded as a result of their work. Be it furniture, windows, materials, you name it. In other words, I think there should be more and more companies that treat and reward these professionals to the value they actually create for others and society as a whole. And regarding what Stefan said, I think  you can either resist change or you can anticipate it and ride it. We chose the latter.

About Diana & Stefan

Ștefan Crăciunoiu is the co-founder and Head of Innovation at Bimarium. After having finished the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, with a degree in Architecture and Urban Design, he worked for several years in different architecture companies in Romania, mostly on  large residential projects, before founding his own Architecture company “Format 4” together with three other colleagues. Ștefan was always passionate about 3D and renderings, passion which lays at the foundation of Bimarium.  The way he sees it, Bimarium is a stepping stone in helping architects and interior designers do better, faster and more rewarding work, both from a design perspective and from a monetary one.

Diana Carmen Rus is the co-founder and Head of Development at Bimarium. Her academic background started with a BA in International Law and International Politics at London Metropolitan University. And continued with a MA in Management, Governance and Organisations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professionally, she worked in the Romanian public sector, founded her own NGO “Brain Bloom” and was the Head of Publisher Development for a successful German start-up operating at the intersection of journalism and technology. She believes in a new way of doing business, one where the value created is shared equally across all stakeholders and for her, Bimarium is a true reflection of that.

The post Bimarium Objects: A New 3D BIM Platform That Helps Architects Create Better, Smarter Designs appeared first on Archipreneur.

Starting a company can be extremely stressful. Fresh graduates, freelancers and directly employed architects looking to create startups face various initial obstacles and need to have a clear view of the operating model for their businesses. They have to choose where to cut costs, which can relate to choice of location, office space and limited living expenses.

Following the guidelines of The Lean Startup method – popularized by author and entrepreneur Eric Ries – can be very beneficial for the early phase of a company’s development. This can mean focusing on budget-friendly setups, and creating businesses on the idea of developing products and productizing design services. Being part of an entrepreneurial community can also influence the way owners grow their businesses, as it provides opportunities to establish valuable contacts and partnerships.

We have compiled a list for 6 startup hubs in Europe, which includes established centers for entrepreneurship as well as cities emerging as exciting new places for experimentation at the intersection of digital technology and architecture.

#1 London

London is Europe’s number one start-up hotspot focused mostly on digital creatives and businesses. The UK’s capital is also proving to be a great place for emerging architecture firms. While it has some of the highest real estate prices in the world – something that can be tricky to navigate for start-ups – the soaring house prices and a deepening housing shortage in London is proving to be the right impetus for architects to develop unusual design solutions. Awkwardly shaped sites and infill lots are being eyed as opportunities for innovation.

The emergence of “infill architecture” is allowing less established firms to creatively apply their ideas in real world. We’ve already seen London-based startups like Assemble, who has received a huge amount of attention thanks to their entrepreneurial attitude to architecture. They have won the famous Turner Prize with their Granby Four Streets project, an urban regeneration initiative to preserve and revive a cluster of Victorian-era terraced houses in Toxteth, Liverpool.

Another London-based start-up, the Photon Project, tackles the idea of modular architecture and wellbeing. The firm plans to build what it claims to be the world’s first all-glass, modular residential structure designed to address the benefits of natural light on human health. The proposal is part of the Photon Project, a four-year study on the biological effects of daylight in the built environment and that aims to gather evidence to support improvements in how building occupants live and work.

#2 Berlin

Berlin is an established startup hub, and currently the one of the best cities to launch a new business. Innovators are drawn to Berlin as one of Europe’s most international cities where cheaper living costs allow entrepreneurs to save money and invest it into building better products and hiring great people. Berlin is a relatively affordable city compared to the rest of the country, as well as other European capitals such as London or Stockholm.

It offers co-working spaces and hubs such as the Factory Berlin, a startup campus in Berlin-Mitte that brings the best technology businesses together with early stage startups and talents by providing an outstanding work environment, a curated community of founders, and high-quality events.

#3 Amsterdam

Along with London and Berlin, Amsterdam is one of the largest startup hubs in Europe. Its multicultural population and business-friendly environment, along with ample opportunities for startups to get mentoring make it a great environment for archipreneurs. The city’s budding startup scene is dominated by software development, smart energy and 3D-printing, among others.

One of the most prominent accelerators in the Netherlands is based in Amsterdam. Startupbootcamp, founded by Patrick De Zeeuw, Alex Farcet, Carsten Kolbeck, and Ruud Hendriks in 2010, focuses on “smart city and living space” solutions, smart energy and smart building. The recently launched Sharing City initiative that connects startups with the corporate world through city facilities. Dutch company MX3D plans to 3D-print an entire bridge in Amsterdam in collaboration with Autodesk and construction and civil engineering company Heijmans.

#4 Lisbon

Affordable rent, low-cost living and a growing startup scene are attracting young creatives to Lisbon, where a vibrant entrepreneurial community is exploding. While Portugal’s government is working to recover the country from the last economic crisis, startups and digital nomads are using various tax incentives to set up their offices in Lisbon. According to results from data comparison site Numbeo, rent prices in Lisbon are almost 70% lower than in London and overall cost of living is almost 50% lower in Lisbon by comparison.

The surplus of empty buildings has introduced low rents and living costs. This, coupled with a growing ecosystem of entrepreneurship, is perfect for startups whose businesses often have low or no revenue in initial phases of operation. Here, designers work on revitalizing abandoned buildings, build temporary structures and co-working spaces out of shipping containers. Lisbon has received the name of Europe’s most entrepreneurial region for 2015, with numerous startups, venture capital firms, incubators and accelerators providing great opportunities to creatives.

#5 Dublin

Several up-and-coming architecture firms and an array of startup funding and support programs dominate new Irish architecture. As a gateway to world markets, Dublin is well connected to the rest of Europe, but offers a smaller number of office spaces, which are also more costly, compared to Lisbon. However, the city boosts favorable low-tax regime and a supportive environment for startups.

Ireland has already attracted a huge level of foreign direct investment, particularly from the USA. Several American companies have chosen Ireland because of its pro-business environment, especially in the tech industry. Those working at the intersection between digital technology and architecture will love this emerging startup hub.

For example, FenestraPro is a technology company based in Dublin, Ireland, which provides cloud-based software tools for architects to optimize design of building façades. FenestraPro is an authorized developer with Autodesk Revit and also works closely with some of the leading architectural practices and industry experts. Its co-founder Dave Palmer – architectural technologist by trade and former DIT lecturer in the School of Architecture – started the company in 2012 alongside Simon Whelan after the pair had run their own firm for several years.

#6 Prague

Startup hubs are on the rise in Eastern European countries. Governments are building infrastructure and public VC funds that support startup hubs. This growth is expected to continue through the creation of new accelerators, co-working spaces, mentoring opportunities and reliable funding options. Prague is great place to be an entrepreneur, and an investor. Because of the lack of major competitors, the city is ideal for smaller companies and teams, supported by incubators and accelerators fostering talent.

One of the long-term initiatives that acts as an idea incubator is the Negrelli Viaduct project, organized by CCEA in 2013. It focuses on the new use of the spaces under the famous viaduct, merging urbanism, architecture and art. The CCEA initiated the project in the past few years, together with partners from the public and private sectors. In 2016, the project was supported by the Swiss-Czech Cooperation Programme.

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Do you have first hand experiences working as an archipreneur in any of these cities? What other emerging startup hubs do you think could appeal to archipreneurs?

The post Booming Cities: 6 European Startup Hubs for Architects appeared first on Archipreneur.

This week’s interview is with Matthew Griffin, co-founder of Deadline, a Berlin based office for architectural services founded together with Britta Jürgens in 1993.

Since it first launched, Deadline has experienced an evolution in Berlin from abundant empty space in the center of town with no investors, to a shortage of space and investors knocking at their door – or as they put it “from ‘Wild East Frontier’ to ‘Hipness Capital of Europe’.”

I met Matthew in his office on the top floor of Deadline’s first building Slender/Bender, that we recently introduced to you in our projects series.

Bender is a stainless steel modernistic building that was built on a narrow lot. It connects to the renovated building known as Slender. These buildings comprise short-term apartments, office space, a shop, car parking and an award winning, two-storey family “house” with a roof garden. Deadline realized this project as architect developers with control over all the aspects of the building process. And they stuck with this practice.

Deadline is currently working on Germany’s first cultural co-ownership project, FRIZZ23, in Berlin Kreuzberg. In doing so, Deadline’s founders are expanding Berlin’s tradition of co-housing projects to a larger scale of collaborative thinking and collaborative developing.

Keep reading, to learn about Matthew’s motivation to take on the role of being a developer in addition to that of an architect, and to hear about the potentials and opportunities that have come from this move.

I hope you enjoy the interview!

What made you decide to found Deadline? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you?

I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I started my first business when I was 14, repairing bicycles in my parents’ basement. It just seemed easier to start a business than to find a job.

And when I was in Berlin for the second time, it was 1993 and I was looking for a job, and there were lots of offices that would have hired me but they just didn’t have any office space. So then I thought, “Okay, well, why don’t we just do it from home and work for different offices, helping them on last minute projects.”

That’s where the name came from, Deadline – professionelle Hilfe in letzter Minute [last minute professional help]. The idea was that we would have a crew of people that would go around and help people out with tight deadlines. It never really worked that way, but it was a start.

Did you and Britta start working together as Deadline?

Britta had a job in an office at the time. We were working together, but she still had a full-time job. That was why it was possible for us to get going, because we had some income.

Then it just sort of morphed, and the work we got was doing measure drawings of buildings that were going to be renovated. This was in the middle of a big building boom with tax credits for renovating old buildings. Many archives had been destroyed in the war, so there were lots of buildings that needed plans drawn up. We would measure buildings, and whole housing settlements with 50,000 square meters and 30 people working for us over 2 shifts, it was really kind of crazy for a while.

You moved to Berlin in 1992. So you must have experienced a lot of development in the city. What major problems and opportunities do architects and developers in Berlin face today?

I think there’s been a complete shift in the problems and opportunities in the last decade. If you go back 10 years, it was reasonably easy to find interesting sites but it was really hard to find clients. And so, we had a situation where a lot of our friends and colleagues were starting to build cooperatives and find sites, buying them and becoming their own developers, because no one else was going to hire them.

Maybe you have to go back more than 10 years, maybe 15, but there was a time when a generation of architects didn’t have a chance. There was no building going on, and so the only way to start a practice would be to set up your own by developing a project. So the opportunity at that time was okay; there were all these great sites, but you had to be a good salesman and convince people that they should get on board.

Now there are people knocking on our door all the time, wanting to be a part of our projects, but it’s impossible to find a good site to develop. So, there’s been this shift. Right now we’re working on our FRIZZ23 project, so we’ve got enough work to keep us going for a while, but if we look into the future it’s hard to know where the new opportunities are going to be coming from. I expect that there’s going to be a shift in concentration; that we are going to be moving with our projects a little further off the Berlin center, and stuff like that.

For your project Minilofts, you bought a property, developed and expanded it, and now you manage it as a family-run apartment hotel. Could you elaborate on your motivation to shift from architect to developer and manager? What are the challenges; what are the opportunities?

We believe that to have the chance to do groundbreaking architectural work, you have to have control of many of the aspects that traditionally lie with developers. As money becomes more and more powerful, architects have less and less space to experiment, in particular because there’s very little public building going on now compared to 30 or 40 years ago. That might be part of the change, but the willingness of governments and administrations to experiment in architecture has decreased dramatically in my lifetime.

The interesting parts were when I was too young to be an architect. To practice now, if you want to experiment it really helps if you’ve got everything in your hand. That’s why we thought, “Okay, no one is ever going to trust us as young architects with almost no experience in building,” and we wanted to do something different, so that’s what led to us becoming our own clients.

Do you still build for clients or do you only develop your own projects like the Minilofts?

We don’t build a lot. For the project we are building right now, we have about 30 different clients. It’s a community-organized project, and we are also partially clients. The Minilofts make up 15% of FRIZZ23.

With the Minilofts business you have generated passive income. Can you make a living from this?

We can just about get by with the income from the Minilofts, but the important point is that it allows us to take risks and experiment with our architectural practice. Without this we would not be able to do the kind of work we are doing. To get FRIZZ23 off the ground we had to work for two and a half years without pay.

With your project FRIZZ23 you expand on Berlin’s Baugruppen tradition. Could you tell us a little about your approach of collaborative developing?

One of the really interesting things about FRIZZ23 is that it came out of Berlin’s first Liegenschaftskonzeptverfahren, the first sale of public land based on a conceptual tender process. This was, again, a very experimental thing. It was invented on the fly by all the people involved. There were three sites sold within this framework. Together with the other two projects we formed the Projektgruppe ex Blumengroßmarkt (PxB). We’ve been collaborating with PxB for the last four years.

It’s been fascinating in terms of how we can develop a city quarter in an unconventional way.
Each PxB project is based on a different collaborative model. Each project has certain experimental aspects in terms of how to develop the city, the goals it is trying to reach, and what it means to create something that is integrated into the community.

For FRIZZ23 we have adapted the collaborative housing development models established in Berlin over the last couple of decades to create cultural/commercial space.

Our community is made up of artists, writers, communications specialists, architects, publishers, a bike shop, a non profit education company, and, of course, the Minilofts. It’s a really fascinating, programmatic mix; a very small-scale mix. The smallest units are 28 square meters, and the largest units are 150 square meters. It has really been a good process. It’s complicated and tiring, but I think it will end up being a really lively place.

When will that be… is there a date yet?

Yes, there is a date, the dates always get pushed further into the future, but now we are actually going to start breaking ground on the 1st of August, and will probably get it done by April 2018. That’s the current plan, and I think it’s realistic.

For fresh architecture graduates who know very little about real estate development, how would you break down the process of getting the first project off the ground?

The thing that you have to be aware of is that the parameters are always changing. So the models that we used to build this space in which we’re sitting right now worked very well 15 years ago but wouldn’t work now. Even the model that we are currently working with for FRIZZ23 would not work if we started now. We’ve been working on it for almost five years. If you wanted to start the same project now, you would have to use another model.

As a small innovative team you have to always try and find a new model that works with the parameters suitable for the time, especially when you’re just starting out because it’s really hard to get enough capital to do things.

A decade or two ago there was nobody interested in investing in Berlin, it was pretty easy to find property at a reasonable price to get going. Now it’s the opposite; the whole investment world is looking at the city and everybody is pouring in money. It’s kind of ridiculous but that’s just the way things are right now. Maybe this will turn into a bubble that bursts in the next few years; then there will be all sorts of new opportunities. So it’s just about trying to find the opportunities that are available.

We started the Miniloft business in 2002. At the time, nobody was renting out apartments as an alternative to hotels. Now there’s new legislation preventing people from doing that. If we had tried to start Miniloft 10 years later, it wouldn’t have worked because the competition would have been too strong. We came in at a time when Internet advertising was very young. Google had just copied their Adwords system from a different company called Overture, and we began marketing our building with their services at a time when it was really cheap – two to five cents per click.

Then, five years later, when the financial crisis began, it was like two Euros a click, and we had to find other ways of marketing. Right from the start we were able to market a very small, specialized thing to a global audience at very low cost, and we used these technological changes that were happening at the time to found a business that now flourishes. Now the technological underpinnings are different, but we have established ourselves enough that we can expand.

I think that’s the way a business is; when you start out, you have to find something innovative. The economic forces are so strong that you cannot compete in an established market without a new idea to get started. That’s one of the prime problems of starting an architecture office. From a business point of view, an architecture office is a catastrophe. It’s very difficult to maintain an architecture office that produces good work and still works, financially.

Do you have any advice for Archipreneurs who are interested in starting their own business?

Yeah, go for it. I think you just have to start small, and start with what you can do with your own hands and feet, and find a way to be innovative. I think the biggest trap that you can get into is borrowing a lot of money and then finding out that it doesn’t work. So it’s the same you might hear from any high tech entrepreneur: you have to do what you can, and try to do that as fast as you can. Although the timescales in architecture are different than in the tech industry, you just have to try it out.

How do you see the future of the architectural profession? In which areas (outside of traditional practice) can you see major opportunities for up and coming developers and architects?

I really see the whole idea of community development as the future for innovative architecture, at least for a little while. I think that the major financial systems are running up against the wall because they’re producing unnecessary buildings. We’ve got a situation where a lot of capital is flowing into housing as purely speculative investment. The cost of capital is so low that people are producing buildings that don’t really have ‘proper’ use besides a way to park money, rather than serve an existing need on a rental market.

If you were actually trying to rent out these very expensive apartments, nobody would be able to afford them because the cost of production exceeds the means of a normal citizen.

So we’ve got this huge pressure that’s coming from money, which doesn’t have a good place to go, producing very expensive building infrastructure, that does not suit local needs. This is going to run out of steam sometime. It’s like a pyramid scheme: it’s working right now but there’s going to be a point where it’s not going to work anymore. Locally integrated community development is based on the principle of, “I build what I need,” and, “I build it exactly for that purpose.”

So you get very innovative buildings that are integrated into the community and the local fabric, and I see this as a way forward, particularly in difficult economic situations where standard formulas don’t work. In Berlin, that’s what we’ve been used to, at least my generation. Now that’s changing. We’re getting into a speculatively-driven development situation. Theoretically we have a housing shortage, I’m not sure if that’s really true, but everybody is saying we have a housing shortage, I believe that we don’t.

The future for architectural innovation is to try and find ways of developing the city together with the people. This is a major theme of the current biennale in Venice, which was really nice to see; it’s a theme that’s becoming more and more prominent.

It’s something that I’ve been working on basically all of my professional career, and my partner as well, of course, and many of our friends and colleagues, and the question is how do you take this further? I think with the FRIZZ23 project and the Projektgruppe ex-Blumengroßmarkt (PxB), we have taken this idea to a totally new level, and there are other colleagues working in town who are also experimenting in similar scales, and I think that that is the future.

Locally built projects for local needs is the way things will go, and this is insulated against the bubble being generated by expensive investment properties, for which I think the end is coming soon.

I hope so. Okay, thank you very much.

You’re welcome.

About Matthew Griffin

Studied Architecture at McGill University in Montreal (Bsc Arch 1993) and at the Architectural Association in London (AA Dipl. 1996). Co-founder of Deadline, Urban Issue, and LocallyGrownCity.net with Britta Jürgens. Lives and Works in Berlin. Active in various citizens initiatives, including Bürgerinitiative Invalidenstrasse, Team11 and Initiative Stadt Neudenken.

Deadline’s work explores the structural changes taking place (technological, social and economic) at the end of the mechanical age, and their particular effects on architecture and urban planning. To realize their projects they assume multiple roles intertwining political activism, project development, and design.

Deadline strives to inspire and empower people to create their city themselves, and explores these themes in the blog locallygrowncity.net.

The post How to Create Unique Urban Projects as an Architect Developer with Matthew Griffin appeared first on Archipreneur.

This week’s interview is with Simon Becker and Andreas Rauch, founders of CABIN SPACEY.

The Berlin-based startup jumped on the trend of tiny houses coming from the US. But they added an innovative approach to where in a city they would place them.

And so a new genre for urban living was created. These cabins will be located on cities’ existing and yet unused spaces – rooftops, parking decks, gable walls and temporary lots.

The two architects of CABIN SPACEY have recently completed a successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, where they raised enough money to build the first prototype.

CABIN SPACEY’s cabins are modular, and built with a functional unit that provides a bed, bathroom and kitchen in one innovative block. The cabins are minimally invasive and can be either temporarily or permanently installed. Their size and shape make them ideal to transport and mass produce as standard products.

The concept of these resource-efficient cabins gives a young generation of singles and couples the flexible housing solution they deserve, and enables cities to keep up with growing demand for sustainable urban spaces and to maintain their own commitment to a smart, green agenda.

Keep reading to learn how these two architects started their own business, how they managed their successful crowdfunding campaign, and what their next steps will be.

I hope you enjoy the interview!

What are your respective backgrounds and when did you partner up?

Simon: I myself studied Architecture in Hamburg and Berlin, and fell in love with the field at first sight. But I always had my head around different things – Smart Cities, urban mobility, ecological designs – and I had a great enthusiasm for innovation and change.

Andreas is a true-bred architect with six years of professional experience on his back. Without any bells and whistles, we established CABIN SPACEY in April 2016 with a few pieces of paper and our signatures – fairly unsexy, but the company was founded. Done!

What made you decide to found CABIN SPACEY? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you?

Andreas: We had the mindset that we wanted to feel free to make a choice: A boss, who is rather an artist and designer than a good manager, long working days, a poor salary, and a reward for the heart. Or: We would accept the challenge and climb into the ring ourselves and take the risk and responsibility to pursue a path that hadn’t been explored before.

Founding CABIN SPACEY was just a means to an end. The concept is all that really matters. You shouldn’t fall into the trap of confusing self-employment with entrepreneurship. It was more the idea of the business that wouldn’t let us go. We gave it a whole year to mature, grow, and become a sharper concept before we stepped into full time entrepreneurship.

Founding a company you believe in is a powerful tool for taking action and realizing the projects you really want to see in this world.

How do you finance your startup?

Simon: Apparently, that’s a key question for everyone toying with the idea to found something. There is absolutely no advice we can give, except to start! Just start your project, no matter how small or how slow, just start. Not being financed is not a nice thing – and it’s definitely not very German – but it shouldn’t stop you from taking action. We financed CABIN SPACEY through side jobs, previous clients, part-time jobs, maintaining websites, financial leftovers, and some love money (money you can access because there are people who love you!).

But we have always seen this as being part of the game. When I do a job for someone else now, I do it as CABIN SPACEY – no matter if it is as a bartender or a professional planner.

Now we’re starting to get our first orders and so we were crowdfunding. But here again – there’s no free lunch. To think that crowdfunding (especially donation-based) would just finance you and the start of your company without any prior grounding is a complete illusion.

You are raising money to build the first CABIN SPACEY prototype on the crowdfunding platform indigogo right now. Can you tell us a little about your process to get the crowdfunding campaign going? How much preparation time was necessary? Any dos and don’ts for our readers?

Simon: Crowdfunding has become unbelievably popular. It seems the golden way to get seedfunding for your project but to really get there you have to do a lot of homework. First, you have to know that there are different forms of crowdfunding, and that not every project is suitable for it.

Andreas: If you are in a really early stage of your business, you can compare crowdfunding to ringing a bell at your entire family, friends and neighbors, and asking them to give you money. Because that is exactly what you will do while you’re running the campaign.

Speaking from our own experience, it’s hard enough to make your friends back your idea and close to impossible to find strangers to contribute – especially in Germany. Even if you have very media attention like we had. But we were lucky to partner with smart in the “smart urban pioneers” competition, so we had a professional film crew, photographer and writer on board.

Producing this material needs care, time and deliberation; one shouldn’t underestimate that. The more time you have to focus on the preparation, the better your campaign will feel and the more fun you will have in promoting your baby.

Dos: If you and your product or service are able to inspire and excite people, you’re ripe for crowdfunding. Having an elaborate structure planned beforehand for the duration of the campaign is key. If you just leave everything to chance, you didn’t do your homework properly. Planning, planning, planning is our advice.

Don’ts: Choosing crowdfunding only because you don’t know how else to finance your project!

You have now raised the money necessary to build the prototype through your campaign. What are your next steps?

Andreas: We locked the doors and have finished the final product development and will then built Model Zero (our first cabin). We had an overwhelming response from manufacturers who came on-board to help provide their building parts in order to see CABIN SPACEY come to life. So we used the campaign as a way to create legitimacy for our project. That was, by the way, the greatest impact of the campaign.

So as soon as the first physical parts of the cabin come together, we will make sure that there will be media around to report our progress. Building a prototype unveils an unbelievably hard truth: one that you have created. Once it’s finished you will get feedback, and be both hated and admired for what you have done. And this is exactly what we are going to face.

This prototype needs to be a proof of concept and a marketing machine all at once. Having had the maximum number of people through the first cabin, we will listen carefully to their thoughts in order to adjust and overwork the product for serial production.

What is your business model for your startup? Can clients buy your cabins, rent them, or do you have another innovative idea?

Simon: Primarily, we want to provide “access” to CABIN SPACEY, and that includes selling the product. But we will start quickly to build up an operator model to rent out CABIN SPACEY ourselves for any short-term demands. The smartest way, which is far from now, will be to license CABIN SPACEY as a product and open further revenue streams through connected services like dry-cleaning, food delivery, entertainment… the list is endless.

The trend for tiny housing came from the US. Why do you think there is such a big market for tiny houses here?

Simon: Honestly I can’t think of any trend that hasn’t originally come from the US, but we feel that CABIN SPACEY serves a combination of trends and demands.

On the one hand, there is a debate about housing shortages and a huge megatrend for cities and densification. On the other hand, the Internet and globalization provide a very low barrier for access to travelling and local independency. That creates a need for easy access to real living space anywhere in the world. And we’re talking about living spaces – not just sleeping spots. “Living” implies culture, intimacy, idleness and, above all, a sense of home. This is something that hotels can’t provide.

How did it feel for both of you as architects to take the entrepreneurial route? Do you still work as (traditional) architects?

Simon: If you choose the path of entrepreneurship over the promise of leisure and a paycheck, you will get one thing for sure: adventure! The last year brought us more contacts, opportunities, fun, events, friends and satisfaction than any job we had carried out before. Being self-employed, however, is not the sole answer to your problems. Even so, it gives you the chance to steer the boat on your own. And, yes, there is a dark side to all this. And you will feel it, constantly. But you’ll likely get these kinds of feelings in a conventional job as well.

Being an architect is great fun and since we’re still working in the field of architecture we sometimes deal with basic, traditional architecture work. And we love that, too.

Do you have any advice for archipreneurs who are interested in starting their own business?

Simon: Architects have an ideal starting point for becoming entrepreneurs: they are used to project- and teamwork, they have a high tolerance for frustrating situations, they problem solve through visualizing, they have an ability to think and work at any scale, they have a deep technical understanding and, of course, they have great spatial thinking. The only thing the average architecture student is missing is access to an understanding of economics. To me, economics is the most exciting field besides architecture. But I see architects burdened with a social responsibility to carefully invent the cities in which we wish to live in the future. We cannot leave that to commercially-driven interests alone. So architects will have to understand the mechanics of the economy – and it’s good fun to challenge assumptions. Promise!

How do you see the future of the architectural profession? In which areas (outside of traditional practice) can you see major opportunities for up and coming developers and architects?

Andreas: Architects have to educate themselves a lot more in the areas of digitalization, programming, economics, and the invisible infrastructure of cities (data, interests, emotions, etc.) It’s not enough to simply understand how a building is drawn and set up if you want to shape and think about the modern cities of tomorrow.

And, yes, the question that permanently hangs above us: What is our job as architects today? The challenge for the old building masters was to create elaborate buildings. The challenge of today has shifted dramatically – but there are still plenty of solutions. Architects and urban designers are predestined to make up their minds and wrap their creative heads around them, even if it is not about solving problems to do with pure architecture and designing infrastructure.

About the founders Simon Becker and Andreas Rauch

Simon – vision and concept

As architect and driving force of the company, Simon has already realized a huge range of ideas across many freelance projects via architectural competitions, product design, and smart city research.

Andreas – architect and product development

Andreas is well versed in all areas of private and public architecture, having had a hand in design, detailed design, and project management. He is in charge of fine-tuning the CABIN SPACEY concept: from its initial design and building laws, all the way down to final realization.

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