This week’s interview is with Bruno Haid, founder of Roam – A “Space as a Service” startup.

Initially growing up in Austria and later living between San Francisco and New York, Bruno was used to not having a fixed home, and he became accustomed to working from anywhere. Bruno had the idea to turn this nomadic style of work into a business, and so he established Roam, a company that offered co-living and co-working spaces with a “Space as a Service” business model. At the time of writing, Roam is available in four cities: Miami, Bali, Tokyo, and London.

I met Bruno in an area of Berlin where you can already find a number of “Space as a Service” businesses such as hostels and co-working spaces – but no co-working/co-living options to be found. Coincidence? We will soon find out!

Bruno hires local architects and developers for each of his “Space as a Service” projects. For his first location in Bali he worked with Alexis Dornier, who we interviewed for Archipreneur Insights in 2016.

Keep on reading to learn how Bruno reached his goal to offer space as a service locations worldwide, and hear his thoughts about how changes in society influence modern living.

If you are a ‘work nomad’, be sure to check out Roam and all it has to offer!

Enjoy the interview!

Could you tell us a little about your background?

I am a high school dropout. I dropped out when I was 17. I was studying at one of those rigid, educationally questionable institutions you tend to get in Austria. I initially started out as a designer, all self-taught. I think in ’94 I accidentally came across the first HTML tutorials, and I remember there was a German lifestyle and culture magazine called Max – I don’t know if those guys are still around, but they were popular in the mid ‘90s, shortly before everybody started listening to Kruder & Dorfmeister and wearing Helmut Lang. This magazine influenced my move into design. I always knew I had a passion for architecture, despite having no formal training in it.

Right now, I find one of the most interesting areas of work is in organizational design. How can you create an incentive structure, for example, that works for everyone?

When did you decide to found Roam? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you?

I founded Roam a little over two years ago. There was no particular moment that I can think of, but I had a couple of influences. First, growing up on a farm with a bed and breakfast in the Alps helped me to visualize the hospitality aspect of Roam. Then there was the constant moving around: Five years ago, I was living between San Francisco, New York, and a couple of other places. I was broke but could fly cheaply, so I was basically bouncing back and forth between housesitting for friends and sleeping in whatever guestrooms were available. In my 20s, I had been focused on finding my own place and having my privacy. But travelling back and forth between places changed my mind-set.

I think the crucial moment for me came about two and a half years ago when I was doing some consulting work and a friend mentioned that there was a city in Bali called Ubud. Seeing the co-working spaces and the coffee shops there, I started to realize that I really could live and work from anywhere.

I had also started a co-living space in San Francisco about four years before that. That, coupled with my previous experiences, was how the itch to create something more came about.

Roam questions the traditional concepts of housing with a “Space as a Service” approach. I heard you mentioning the Bauhaus attitude – I like that notion. Could you elaborate?

I think that what sets Bauhaus apart from Bjarke Ingels, for example, is this tradition of craftsmanship that started in a very theoretical, abstract age of architecture. There was an ambition to see how to do things differently, practically, and thoroughly. That attitude brought you a ‘House and Home,’ a Frankfurt kitchen, and so on – those really well-thought-through elements of housing that then came to define the next hundred years. So, the Bauhaus attitude refers to an approach to tinker but also think things through.

So, do you think that contemporary housing will soon be obsolete?

Obsolete is maybe a bit harsh. Just like in financial services and other areas, things exist for a reason. You don’t have to abolish and disrupt everything in order to make a change. At the same time, a lot of the things that define housing – like kitchens – are a hundred years old, but if we all live two months here and four months there, or if we change flat mates and/or relationships, what are the effects on the kitchen?

The Bauhaus movement asked this question a hundred years ago. I think you can re-ask this question. As a result contemporary housing might not be radically different on the outside, but it might be different in the details.

Let’s talk about the buildings that you converted into co-living/co-working spaces. How did you find them?

We wanted to act globally from day one, with one location on each continent. We initially didn’t want to open a location in a tier one city because you don’t have a lot of room for experimentation. If you have a real estate asset in New York, for example, you’d better know what you’re doing.

We initially started looking for buildings in Mexico City but instead found a great place in Miami, entirely by chance. Bali happened on purpose because we knew that it was an up-and-coming location, an independent’s paradise with co-working spaces and a really good infrastructure. So, it’s a place where you can feasibly live for a couple of months. So, Miami and Bali were the first locations. London came later.

Did you do the location scouting by yourself, or did you get locals to look for you?

We do have a team of location scouts, but most of the time it has been a case of ‘someone who knows someone who knows someone.’

Different asset classes go to different cycles, so the traditional ecosystem can’t help you that much. Yes, you can ask commercial real estate agencies like JLL or CBRE, “We need a mid-block 25 to 75 unit hotel in a major American city,” and then they will produce a list. But in most cases it doesn’t work that way.

If you look at our partner list, you’ll find innovative place makers who don’t shy away from operating in neighborhoods that are in an early stage of development, or simply who aren’t afraid of doing more interesting things.

The buildings we looked for are not necessarily those that are also on the radar for traditional commercial real estate agencies.

What is the business model behind Roam, and how do you finance your projects?

The business model is quite simple. It is a space as a service model: We lease a building, rent out single units, and try to make about a 20% profit margin. Our basic business model is to take on long-term leases, give people flexibility and services, and charge about 20% – the profits fund the company. (A “Space as a Service” business model)

Do your tenants pay monthly or is there a subscription model?

The goal is for them to subscribe. Right now, you can say that you need a place for a week in London, and you can book yourself into Roam London based on availability. But this is because we currently have just four locations.

The goal is for us to become our customers’ primary housing provider, so that instead of signing a lease or buying an apartment you sign up with Roam for a one or two year period, and in time you’ll be able to choose from a number of beautiful and exciting cities as your next destination.

And for each project you hire different architects and developers?

Yes. That idea is something that we stole from a supermarket chain where I grew up in western Austria. They do something really clever: They take their budget and go to young architects who have perhaps only developed one or two single family homes or who have carried out a rooftop conversion somewhere. They give these architects their budget, tell them their functional requirements, and allow them to go crazy in designing the supermarket. The great part is that not only has every second of these supermarkets won an international architecture prize but they have also become the cornerstones of their rural communities.

The biggest organizational challenge for Roam is: How can we create a system that makes it possible to create a unique but also reliable inventory? If you look at hotels, for example, you can either have an inventory that is very unique but doesn’t really scale – the starchitects who have perhaps developed five legendary boutique hotels but who have never built an organization that can sustain more because it’s dependent on one or two people – or you can have something like WeWork (the large space as a service co-working company) where you don’t exactly know whether you’re sitting in Berlin, San Francisco or China.

The solution was to let go of our ego and let others design something that’s highly localized. The aesthetics and architecture of our buildings are completely different, and so we didn’t want to create a ‘one size fits all’ model.

The building in Bali, for example, is a contemporary boutique hotel, while the building in Miami is one of the city’s oldest standing structures. Nevertheless, we are very opinionated about how our communal kitchens look: We put out the cutting boards each morning with a single white cloth and a knife; the protocol there is very clear!

What is your role in the development process?

As a CEO, you try to make sure that everything fits together, so I would say that my role is in designing the organizational structure. I can say that I’ve succeeded in my job when the organization says, “We don’t really need you anymore. We’re good.” That’s what I try to aim for!

How many users/subscribers does Roam have?

We have about 1,100 ‘Roamers’ to date.

When did the first location open?

A little more than a year ago in Bali, which was developed by Alexis Dornier.

We interviewed Alexis, so I have seen pictures of the location. It is very beautiful.

It’s an amazing space. It’s a combination of his ‘nerdy’ architectural approach and the local flavor from the craftsmen who built it. They have created something really magical together.

A lot of architects would say, “Let’s combine East and West. Can we put a Buddha over there, next to the exposed concrete?” But Alexis is someone who really digs deep when it comes to questioning the underlying principle. That could mean anything from exploring the social construct of a home, through understanding how families live together, to designing a specific method of suspension. He has designed a restaurant, for example, that’s entirely suspended from metal scaffolding. It’s amazing.

What are the future goals and plans for Roam?

The immediate goal is to follow through on our promise that you can live anywhere. Going truly global is obviously a long-term goal for us, but we want to be in at least 10 to 12 cities by the end of the year, which will hopefully include Berlin.

Is that why you are in Berlin right now?

We are actively looking for places in Berlin. It’s pretty high up on the list. Hopefully, we’ll be able to announce something this year; it depends if the building is a ground-up development or if it needs general renovation. We’ll hopefully make an announcement for Berlin either this year or early next year.

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

Just do it, step by step. Trust your instincts and show up every morning.

What I found surprising, having established a couple of companies that didn­’t work out, was how the simplest of ideas can turn out to be the most successful.

There’s this huge tendency, especially in Europe and especially if you are doing something creative, to over-intellectualize. But creative innovation isn’t the most important thing, it’s more about just getting on with it and having the stamina to keep going, to trust yourself and to give yourself time to make a success of your business.

Thinking that everyone else is more successful and doubting yourself is not helpful to becoming an entrepreneur. The most interesting and the most successful people have struggled for a long time. They have taken their time to get everything together, but then they did it. And they did it with consequence, in the good times and bad, and they followed through. This is what leads to great outcomes. That can be true for a great number of people, not just architects.

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 am most interested in the changes made in social contact. It might be a selfish answer because Roam is specifically working on that, but I honestly believe that we’re all just getting started in this area. If you look at city architecture, then everything has traditionally been built around cars and highways. But that’s changing: Cities are now frequently looking to the developments in automation and the potential of smart cities, so how does that change architecture? The philosopher Peter Sloterdijk talked about bubbles, and he is constantly moving back and forth between bubbles and comparing them.

These changes in focus have huge implications for everything from residential real estate and office spaces to retail and urban planning. For that reason, I think the biggest opportunity for architects is to take a closer look into how society is changing and how infrastructure can be rebuilt based on those changes. Of course, some of this is technologically driven – we now have parametric designs and competition capacities that enable the construction of buildings – this would have been impossible some 15 years ago. Perhaps, by combining technical capabilities and new materials with the rapid changes in society and culture, we can start to realize the future of architecture.

About Bruno Haid

Bruno is founder and CEO of Roam. He grew up in hospitality, in a tiny Austrian village, built a couple of startups and led large-scale projects for corporates like McKinsey, BMW or Swarovski. He’s also a founding tenant of co-living spaces on 3 continents, and writes something about housing and hospitality on Medium approximately every decade, but wants to get better at it.

His perfect Roam location is directly bordering a Canadian mountain range, a beach in central America, the New York MTA system and a good resolution of his childhood issues.

The post Space as a Service: How Roam is Building a Co-Living Business for Digital Nomads appeared first on Archipreneur.

This week’s interview is with Alexis Dornier. Alexis started his career in architecture like many young architects do: working for starchitects. But Alexis always knew that he wanted to be his own boss.

In 2008 he started his industrial design firm M AD Ltd. Fed up with the saturated architecture market of the Western world, Alexis expanded his business to Bali where he found his niche. In addition to his architecture studio he founded a construction company that provides the infrastructure for his projects.

Alexis has completed a number of projects in Bali and around the world, among others the co-living space Roam and other hospitality projects that he not only designs but also develops and part owns.

Keep reading to learn how Alexis started his own business and the tips he has for young architects.

Enjoy the interview!

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

From very early on I wanted to get a foot in the door and create small-scale interior design projects, furniture and products. But there is simply no chance to do architecture as a newbie. Working as an architectural slave in some corporate office for longer than necessary was a no go.

I needed the infrastructure and I founded my first company M AD Ltd. Now, after 10 years, we have a ‘real’ architecture studio and a construction company that provides the infrastructure to operate in various scales and fields of development, hospitality and creativity.

You explored the fields of PR and Advertising before you studied Architecture and then worked for starchitects. Which skills that you learned along your way proved the most helpful for starting your own business?

Architecture, just like any creative discipline, is ultimately a form of communication. You communicate through what you create – unconsciously or consciously – and bring something to the respondent or viewer: feelings, statements, personal attitudes, interests, agendas, intentions, and meanings. You create symbols to inspire others, to give them ideas.

There is no difference between designing a house, a chair, an advertisement campaign, a logo, a movie or a piece of music. It’s only the parameters that differ from creation to creation, such as responsibilities, budgets and clients. We are somehow always dancing a thin line between personal agenda and service ­like diplomats, managing expectations that are both our own and those of others. We mediate and mix these, like a chef creates a dish. We want to override the disconnect between what we want and what others want. This disconnect is what drives me in what I do.

You call your practice ‘method-based architecture.’ Could you elaborate on that?

What interests me is the lead-up to an outcome – it interests me even more than the outcome itself. Imagine a movie consisting of only the final act – not too inspiring. Same with the people you meet. The experiences that shape people’s character is what inspires me. The countless stories and experiences both good and bad that influenced their personality, their aura, and what they have to say. The same can be said for architecture.

A method is a narrative, as is a program and a sequence of decisions that have been taken along the linear path of time, whether they were made unconsciously, consciously or intuitively. ‘Method’ sounds dry but it is the most beautiful, exciting and inspiring thing. And it is somewhat explainable. Methods are always changing from task to task, and we choose the methods that feel best at a particular moment in time.

Imagine the divisions of architecture as martial arts styles. Frank Gehry would be the ambassador of wrestling, OMA taekwondo, Louis Khan boxing, and Zaha Hadid the master of judo. Mies van der Rohe might be a samurai, and Calatrava a master of jujutsu. Each of them has cultivated their own way, philosophy, intention, meaning, technique and agenda – and ultimately method, before stepping into the ring.

What interests me is in using a combination of those methods whenever we have a specific task or need to fulfill a condition.

I believe that architecture is a little like mixed martial arts – clearly the strongest fighters are those that are able to adapt, and are not attached to the style that they have mastered. Simply put, they will do what is necessary or available to succeed.

Most of your projects are located in Bali, for instance the recently completed Origami House. What are the challenges of working in Bali, what is completely different there from Western architecture?

It is all about managing expectations. I have to be a diplomat; someone who mediates between personal expectation and reality. Patience is key, as is the willingness to be inspired by different cultures, energies and philosophies. Working in another culture is ultimately about finding the sweet spot between surrendering to their methods while also pushing your dreams, your passions and agenda.

Do you work on these projects from your Berlin office or do you have to be on site?

I am mostly travelling or at my studio in Bali. The Western world at this moment in time feels overwhelming for architecture. Too many people are doing the same thing in a saturated environment where nothing is really needed – at least to the scale that I am operating.

To start a career in a saturated environment, you have to be extremely talented, extremely rich or extremely lucky. None of the above applied to me, so life led me to a place where is actual stuff to do. I never found it a joyful though to work in someone else’s office for a long time, wearing Corbusier specs and black. I simply thought that would be a waste of energy and lifetime.

Last year you completed the co-living space Roam in Ubud, Bali. Could you tell us a little about the project?

We converted a run-down apartment complex into a co-living environment. Co-living is noble because it suggests that what you do for a living is something you love – not work. Work implies burdens, struggles, 9-5 jobs, endurance and hustling. It has a very egotistical underpinning where you have to work in order to get to somewhere better – an uninspiring way to live.

Living on the contrary more flexible. It can be shaped how you want it to be. You don’t just live in order to get somewhere. You live to enjoy and to have fun; shape things to how you want them to be. So you shape available space and time according to your needs.

At Roam, we offer simple and humble facilities to do so. Of course, it’s done in a way that you can meet people and engage. Meeting people piques your curiosity. When you are curious, you learn new things and get a feel for your role in the universe, reflect on and combine thoughts, and create new ideas.

Do you think co-living is a sustainable form of living?

It depends. Co-living is eco-sustainable in that you share things. If you share stuff, you don’t need as much than if everyone had their own car, kitchen or living room. The less we consume, the better. The smaller our footprint is, the less energy we consume, and so on. But what I find most sustainable about this way of living together is that you are constantly inspiring, reflecting and exchanging. In the best case co-living can inspire you to come up with new ideas on how to solve today’s challenges. It’s great for finding ways to wake people up and remind them that they can live their own life the way they are meant to be living it.

What are you working on right now?

In terms of architecture we are working on an organic restaurant and hostel project in Miami, a healing retreat center in Ubud, a housing development, an eco surf resort, a few residential projects and an extension of a museum.

We just opened two vegetarian restaurants, a barbershop and a home stay renovation – we are part owners for all of these projects. We are working on building out our PR and development agency in Bali to support other startups, companies and individuals.

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

As architects, we have learned to be systematical. We have learned to provide a service but are also interested in using architecture as an individual outlet or medium to manifest our own agendas.

If there is anything I have to say to architects, it would be to really use the skill set that they have, and to see that anything has a structure whatever the scale, scope or idea might be behind it. Everything with a structure follows universal rules. To make any idea come true, we need to apply structure. Do other things in addition to architecture, like part owning what you build. It’s a good feeling.

It’s about the fun – and the method – that this process brings along. Go cross-disciplinary. Cooking is like architecture, as well as music. Stop wasting time creating a ‘signature’ because it is egotistical and outdated. That was for those dusty masters. Now there is a new concept – to understand that everything is alike.

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?

Architecture for most people is hard to comprehend or even notice it. We are surrounded by built environments almost all the time and no one, except maybe architects, really acknowledges it. There is something wrong with that – there is a disconnect. Architecture has to find ways to bridge that gap so that people can actually help to shape the world and really engage with architecture. It is about finding out new methods.

As of now architecture is still such a dusty, abstract, so-called sophisticated profession; even young architects look the same in their uniforms looking for their own brand, their own so-called sophisticated way. I include all the grasshoppers too – liquid shapes done by stiff people. I include myself here, for some of our completed projects. It does not require being meaningful. Meaning refers to engaging with other disciplines in a hands-on way.

Architects should be writing pieces of music, rather than creating another variation on the Barcelona Pavilion or some other unnecessary knock-off. They should liberate themselves, look beyond the immobility of the profession and start having a little fun. Crisis is good. It’s a wake up call.

About Alexis Dornier

Alexis Dornier was born in Germany in 1981, where he grew up under the constant influence of aviation and engineering. After exploring the fields of PR and Advertising, he studied Architecture at the University of Fine Arts Berlin and the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan in Stockholm. He worked in New York City as an architectural designer at Asymptote Architecture, OMA NY, and REX in 2004–2007.

Alexis started his industrial design firm M AD LIMITED in 2008 and graduated with his thesis entitled The Pool, which was awarded the prestigious Max Taut Prize 2009.

Alexis is now consulting on a number of architectural projects of different scales in various countries. He part owns a number of startup businesses and projects in the field of hospitality.

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