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.

We first introduced The Starter Home* by the Office of Jonathan Tate to you in the article “Tall, Green, and Global: 10 of the Most Innovative Architecture Projects of 2016” and want to take a closer look at the building and the housing program of which it is the first example.

Starter Home* is an opportunistic urban housing program created to develop affordable living, entry-level homes for the speculative market that prioritizes: contemporary design that is site based and not prototypical; programmatic diversity to address a range of buyers, from first-timers to downsizers; densification through infill of overlooked odd or irregular vacant land; right-sizing as a means of addressing both environmental concerns and to insure affordability; in increasingly gentrifying historic core neighborhoods, a product that enables household economic diversity in rapidly gentrifying historic urban cores; and to do this without subsidization.

The Starter Home* program is fundamentally about using inventive land strategies coupled with design to develop homeownership opportunities in urban neighborhoods that, due to upward economic pressures, are no longer assessable to large parts of the population. The starter home moniker is important in that it clearly associates the program with a quintessential, albeit fading, component of the American housing market. Conventionally understood as monotonous, mass produced, greenfield development, this program takes a decidedly opposite approach of architectural particularity and urban integration to achieve similar aims. And, unlike its namesake, it relies wholly on design to set the development agenda, create access to land and generate the product. Without architecture, in this context, there would be no development.

The program is financed and operated by a working collaboration between developer, builder and architect. It is conceived as being applicable to many, if not all, cities. The first test sites are in New Orleans. Through a thorough analysis of land availability and market pressures, it was determined that there were opportunities with land that was too small or undesirable — odd lots — to attract first-wave developers. The design of the home works within and expressive of the restrictive conditions of the site, resulting in fitting yet peculiar new housing types for the City.

The first completed home under this program, No. 1, is located at 3106 St. Thomas St. in the Irish Channel neighborhood of New Orleans. The site was situated between industrial warehouses and historic homes dating back to the beginnings of the neighborhood — a common condition in the fringes adjacent the River. The site is a remnant parcel long thought to be the rear yard of an adjacent home and measured only 16 ½ by 55 feet. With as-of-right setbacks, the footprint was limited to 10 ½ by 45 feet. The site was further complicated by being in a full control historic district with strict guidelines for scale and massing. The program for this initial house, one bedroom, one and a half baths with an office space, was tailored towards an individual or couple that, as a category, have found it increasingly difficult to locate available housing in this neighborhood.

The formal solution for the 975 square foot home was to use a staggered sectional composition that allowed the rooms to layer farther from the street giving an impression of a much smaller home. As a way to economize space, the side yard setback was used for entry and rear yard circulation, by way of an elevated deck, which was sandwiched between the home and adjacent warehouse CMU wall. The result is a narrow and tall structure that, through manipulation of the roof plane, is disguised from the street, read essentially as a low, one-story roof line, while the remainder of the home climbed up to the allowable building height.

Future Starter Homes* will continue to explore land-use, programmatic and spatial variations that position them as alternatives to the regimens of the normative speculative housing marketplace and we at Archipreneur are looking forward to the results!

Location:

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Project Data:

• Architect: OJT (Office of Jonathan Tate)
• Research and Design Team: Robert Baddour, Travis Bost, Rebecca X. Fitzgerald, Sabeen Hasan, Lauren Hickman, Kristian Mizes, Charles Rutledge and Jonathan Tate
• Structural engineer: John C. Bose Consulting Engineers
• Development Partner: Charles Rutledge
• Planning/Construction: 2015
• Residential units: 1
• Storeys: 3
• Floor area: 44 sqm (472 SF)
• Living space: 90.5 sqm (975 SF)

The post Affordable Living on Overlooked Land: The Starter Home* by OJT appeared first on Archipreneur.

Slender – Bender is the first building of Deadline’s architects Matthew Griffin and Britta Jürgens. In embarking on this project they deliberately assumed the dual roles of architect and developer. As young architects and almost no experience in building it was impossible to find someone to trust them, so they became their own clients. By thus expanding their profession’s field of action, they maximized the creative potential of their project.

“We believe,” Matthew Griffin said in an interview with archipreneur, “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.”

After a two-year search, they purchased a narrow site on a busy street in Berlin-Mitte. The front half of the site was an overgrown bombsite. The slender four-storey building surviving at the rear contained eight small apartments and had seen little change in the previous 50 years.

Because of their subsidiary role as developers, the architects were able to give priority to architectural quality throughout negotiations with the banks, the bureaucracy and the builders.

The finished project is a complex interweave of new construction, and renovation. In the first phase the architects completely transformed the narrow original wing by renovating the apartments to create six “minilofts®” – apartments that can be rented as an alternative to hotel rooms. On top of these they constructed an award winning two-storey family “house” (Slender) with a roof garden.

The second phase (Bender) is rooted in the first. The two floors and the roof of the “house” are accessed from the addition. Three bent stainless steel ribbons embrace the existing rear wing behind and navigate between the buildings on either side. The resulting building presents a strong outward thrust, a striving towards the future that is grounded in the past.

Combined these buildings comprise the minilofts® – run as a family business –, Deadline’s office, a shop, car parking and a family “house” on top of the house.

Location:

Hessische Str. 5, Berlin, Germany

Project Data:

Bender 

• Architect: Deadline architects: Matthew Griffin and Britta Jürgens
• Client: Jürgens, Jürgens, Griffin GbR
• Construction: May 2003 – April 2004
• Gross floor area: 560 sqm (2,028 SF)
• 1 shop 30 sqm (322 SF)
• 8 miniloft units  each 45 sqm (484 SF)
• 1 office maisonette 100 sqm + 10 sqm terrace (1,076 + 107 SF)
• 4 parking spaces

Slender  

• Architect: Deadline architects: Matthew Griffin and Britta Jürgens
• Client: Jürgens, Jürgens, Griffin GbR
• Construction: August 2001 – May 2002
• Gross floor area: 130 sqm (1,400 SF)
• Balcony and Roof Garden: 70 sqm (750 SF)
• 6 miniloft units each 40 sqm (430 SF)

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