Architecture is two percent success

You have been designing architecture for more than fifteen years: let's start our conversation by explaining how your studio archicraft came into existence...
Tomáš: I met Mirek at school, but we never attended the same studio. In our third or fourth year, we decided to try an architectural competition over the summer. We worked on it for about two months. We enjoyed it, and even then I thought that I could imagine working with this group. Mirek then went abroad, but for example, with Marija (the third partner and head of the American office – note from the editor), we started working on bigger projects together as early as 2004. Meanwhile, I was working on my own private projects.

A Turning Point with a Baguette

Tomáš: Then Petr Cichoň approached me, who was in charge of Bageterie Crocodile (Petr Cichoň is a Czech entrepreneur and the sole owner of Crocodille, a company manufacturing packaged baguettes and sandwiches, and the fast-food restaurant chain Bageterie Boulevard – note from the editor). I couldn't handle that job on my own, so I reached out to Marija for help. We started, had a few meetings, but then Marija went to the USA. And I wrote to Mirek, who was then in New Zealand. He was just preparing to return to the Czech Republic... and the collaboration was born. When Mirek arrived, we worked for a year and a half under my parents' company to have some backing. My parents sold paints, and I had an architecture department there. Mirek joined, and after about a year, our small office was no longer sufficient. We decided to establish our own studio. We thought about the name for a few weeks until archicraft came into existence.
Mirek: I wanted to establish archicraft not only for a workspace but because I wanted my own brand.

How did you actually come to the name archicraft?
Mirek: I don't know who of us came up with it, but initially I felt a bit of a bad taste, that it was hard to pronounce. In general, I'm not fond of linguistic hybrids and anglicisms. Back then, however, it was clear that our language would be English. On the other hand, even after ten years, a third of people write our name with a German K as archikraft.
Tomáš: I come from a trilingual family, so it was normal for me not to have a Czech name. Moreover, I wanted to work for foreigners. It seems funny to me that it is pronounced archi in the Czech Republic, while in English it gets that accent and is pronounced "arkikraft."

About School, Studies, and Humility

Let's take a step back to your studies at the Prague Faculty of Architecture...
Tomáš: I studied for the last three years with Bočan.
Mirek: And I with Sedlák and Lábus...

Did the university prepare you for starting your own office?
Mirek: Not at all. The school didn't prepare us in terms of business, management, and basic social skills of an architect. If people didn't study, say, at a high school, they often didn’t even know what VAT is. Another incomprehensible thing about our studies was that we only covered 20th-century architectural history in two lectures. We drew Corinthian columns for hours and hours, but the entire 20th century was crammed into two lectures. We knew a hundred times more about ancient styles than about 1960s architecture. For me, it was a fatal failure of the school.
Tomáš: It probably also had to do with the fact that most teachers didn't travel much and didn't have a grasp of what was happening in the world. The school was a place where talented people left due to mathematics and descriptive geometry. When I compare that to how architecture is taught in Scandinavia, architecture in the Czech Republic comes out as rather average. One then had to catch up with hard work and diligence to advance further.

Do you feel that over the years, the rigid system of higher education has shifted in any way?
Mirek: Actually, I don't know, because the people we have in the studio are specific. Tomáš and I are demanding, so we can't judge others based on them. We have above-average capable colleagues, also with an inner humility. Generally, I think the education system releases more architects into the market than can be employed here. The current situation, where there is a boom in the market and it's impossible to find an architect, does not necessarily mean that architects are doing their job well. They are scattered across various fields and positions where they shouldn’t be.

Was it difficult for you to find your first contracts and get your newly founded studio off the ground? Or was it a natural progression?
Mirek: We worked for eleven years without any marketing. Work always came to us naturally through referrals.
Tomáš: Internally, it became more complicated for me in the studio when we started hiring people. For the first five years, we managed everything ourselves. Only when we were six did we start delegating.

Which project was pivotal for you?
Mirek: It wasn't so much a project but the personality that shaped us: Petr Cichoň. In terms of workload, economics, but also in approach, which wasn't superficial at all, even though it concerned a relatively superficial thing like a fast-food restaurant. He went deep, and he literally shaped us. And I see that it was also pivotal when we parted: Bageterie Boulevard then accounted for 60% of our turnover.

What was the reason for your split?
Mirek: He was bothered that we were working for brands he perceived as competition: Bombay, Ugo, and others. And that was the second turning point. We lost our breadwinner. But we had to do it; there was no other option than to maintain our freedom at any cost.

The Freedom to Create

How often does it happen that a client gives you free rein and says: design whatever you want?
Tomáš: More often recently than in the past. We have several clients who have given us that freedom to create. And some even come back.
Mirek: That's the example of the apartment with the motorcycle... it essentially represents an unlimited budget for me.

To what extent has your vision of how your studio operates and architecture shifted over time?
Tomáš: A significant shift is that back then it was just the two of us designing everything. Today we mainly manage people.

Do you enjoy that?
Tomáš: No (laughs). I never imagined I would be doing this. I'm not so eloquent; communicating with strangers is more challenging for me, even linguistically, because although I speak Czech very well, I need to communicate in English and Portuguese as well, so finding the right words can sometimes be tough. We also have more responsibility: when we were struggling, or someone didn't pay an invoice, we just took money from elsewhere... But you can't do that anymore today. In the past, we only debated what the project was and what would be done with it. There was no debate about the firm at all.
Mirek: I'm different from Tomáš; that's easy to tell. In the first year of school, we were completely out of it, in the last year, we had opinions. Or at least we thought we had mature opinions. And since then, we've only been maturing. I don't feel like I've changed much. Certain approaches are still sympathetic to me, while others are extremely unsympathetic. My fundamental view of architecture changes only slightly.

Can you be more specific?
Mirek: I don't like sculptor-architects. I think they should rename themselves to sculptors and continue doing their work. But they shouldn't call it architecture. For me, they are architects without responsibility. I kind of crumple some sheets, wait for the sunset, and photograph it. It doesn't matter that it costs a billion and can't be used. This opinion has not changed for me. I don't see the shift in archicraft in us two: we are like brothers. We have kids of similar ages, and we are aging together. I mainly see development in people who give us feedback. And they say we are making huge strides. Archicraft has supposedly traversed light-years in its development.

In what area is the shift most significant?
Mirek: In project management. Before, we would come to work, jump into AutoCAD, and draw something until ten in the evening. Aimless work, and that was it. Now? Before I start working, I sort my priorities. I ask myself why I came to work at all, who is waiting for work, and what will happen at the end of the chain when I leave for home. And sometimes I even get to the point where I should sketch something. I used to begin with that. From the perspective of project and staff management, it is a brutal shift towards greater efficiency.

Doesn't that bother you in terms of authorial ego?
Mirek: I enjoy people; I probably have an advantage, my ego doesn't suffer. On the contrary, it's beautiful to watch how people can create, and often it just takes inspiring them to create and instilling courage in them. In the long term, we want to be redundant in the company, just to state the concept and direction from above. And when the company can function without us, it will be time for us personally to engage more deeply in creation again.

Across the Ocean

And how does your American office fit into this vision?
Mirek: It doesn't relate to it at all. For us, the American office is a matter of prestige and trust in Marija, whom we know and believe in.
Tomáš: The environment in America is completely different. And from it, a different way of thinking from clients and even a new style of work comes to us that we can learn from. American projects can also advance us in how the market functions. It is more client-oriented. Conversely, the client has more trust in the architect there than here. What we describe here as an exception is a rule there.

About Responsibility to Take Consequences

Where would you like archicraft to be in five years?
Mirek: A year ago, we talked about a studio with fifteen people. But a month ago, Tomáš casually admitted a larger number. In my opinion, we will not be significantly higher than that number of 15 people. If a project comes that requires greater capacity, we will outsource. I don't see a future in building a large studio in the Czech market.
Tomáš: That 15 people is a limit for us, and as Mirek said, for example, having 20 people is only possible under the condition that we won't be managing it ourselves anymore.

What is the greatest strength of the archicraft studio? What distinguishes you?
Mirek: We are extraordinarily responsible and efficient. We refuse to do work for the sake of work.

What does that specifically mean?
Mirek: A cunning architect can make a restaurant beautiful, and everything will be fine. But that restaurant will never work or won't open. For example, an architect spends too much money and doesn't allow the investor to properly tune the level of investment. But we perceive this. The desire to be visible is lower for us than the desire for the restaurateur to be richer. That is a responsibility, to follow through. That is the essence of architecture and creation. When someone wants a restaurant, what does that mean? Is it our glory or their money?
Tomáš: We pride ourselves on managing the entire project process so that the client receives results on time and for the agreed cost. And we clearly tell clients at the beginning how it will work.
Mirek: We also know what is hidden behind every line. It is not the case that we would release a project without being sure whether and how it can be realized. On the contrary, with some other studios, this seems almost evergreen.

You specialize in restaurant operations. Don't you think that this is somewhat fast-moving consumer goods in terms of architecture?
Mirek: Of course. In fast food, redesign is a matter of four to ten years. And brands do not undergo revolution but evolution. After those years, the interior must change visually. It's fast-moving consumer goods, and it's up to the brand owner whether they have respect for timelessness or go with trends. The result is usually somewhere in the middle.
Tomáš: Architecture always has some lifespan. It's not that when a building is erected, no one touches it for a hundred years. Every fifteen years, new installations, windows, technologies should be done...

What exactly does archicraft design today?
Mirek: Our portfolio is quite simply describable: we design housing, mostly apartments and family houses and villas. We don't do apartment buildings. The second area of our work is gastronomy: from small brands and chains to large restaurants. Functionally from slow food, through fast food, to food courts in shopping centers or even in a 300-year-old house. And then we also make offices; we have two large projects behind us and a lot of smaller ones.

Do you participate in architectural competitions? Is it a way for you to acquire new contracts?
Mirek: There's no system in that; it's more about our willingness and current workload. Sometimes we feel we have less burden, so we look for a competition. Why send people home when we can do something that will interest us? But it's never the case that a competition takes precedence over work for us.
Tomáš: We also believe more in competitions abroad than in Czech ones. When a small studio wins in the Czech environment, it's more of an exception or coincidence. Maybe even a mistake.

Do you feel that the system is established and it is hard to get into it?
Tomáš: Yes. Remember how Ateliér 69 won a competition because the jury thought it was the proposal of someone else. The second such competition that comes to mind is the one for the City Hall of Prague 7. A great idea won, but the question is how the authors adhered to the conditions. A financial limit of 150 million was set, and we all know that it cannot be built for that money. Proposals that do not meet the conditions often win. That doesn't happen abroad.

Can you describe your handwriting? Do your projects have any connecting characteristics?
Tomáš: Unconventional approaches to interior creation. We don't seek solutions available on the market; we look for new solutions in our heads and try to prove to ourselves and craftsmen that it can be conceived differently.
Mirek: And it is important that our solutions seem more normal to us than the standard.

Back to the Basics

How would you define that standard?
Mirek: I’ll give you an example: we are moving to a new studio, and there tiles on the floor in the size of 25 x 25 cm. And it didn’t occur to us to do anything better than to smash them and have concrete there. Basic, polished concrete. Who invented that a tile must necessarily be added to the concrete that is already on the floor? Who invented that bathrooms must be tiled from floor to ceiling? We don’t know, but we disagree with it. We think that in a bathroom, there should be tiling in the shower. And we want to go against the grain. To stop and think. Why is this toilet fully tiled? What is that good for? Doesn’t a good paint job endure what needs to be held up by a toilet wall? Or we could even just apply plaster with a clear varnish and not use paint at all... we want to get down to the very essence. That’s where we want to set our standard, that’s where we feel the truth lies.

Isn't that also influenced by how the current production of the construction market is set up?
Mirek: The construction market creates its own building techniques and processes. And that defines the standard. But why? From the perspective of architecture or materials and colors, we are trending towards greater roughness, and for example, with solid wood, a piece of brushed wood that will be oil-treated is always closer to us than super-smooth surfaces with high gloss.
Tomáš: In general, we like things that won’t age with use. Materials where one perceives their patina and that they will look the same in five years.
Mirek: Yes, the perfection of surfaces is less ours than patina. And that applies to everything. I also think we work with light a little more sensitively than average architects. We think about what makes light light. And not just how that light looks. I’m convinced that many architects only deal with how some light fixture looks. But we are especially focused on how it shines.

When you talk about standards, what is your experience, Tomáš, from Scandinavia?
Tomáš: When one walks into an interior there, everything: from doors, switches, windows, lights… everything is different. What is here is set to the commercial standard of the German market that started sending its processes and materials here after the revolution. When you go to France, most interiors are different. Germans love matte colors, so all interiors here are in matte, while in France, everything is semi-gloss with a silky sheen. Here we are under the influence of the German market. In archicraft, we strive for freedom. If we like slightly glossy walls, we’ll create them. Perhaps we have trouble finding a color because all colors are imported from Germany, where such a color does not exist. So we find our color in France or Denmark. The same goes for lighting: here, mainly metal or glass fixtures are made. But light made from veneer? Just look to Spain, and we have veneer lights. This is our little revolt.

Is there something like local architecture? When you design for a multinational chain, do you create something that can be labelled as local?
Mirek: In such a case, our task is just to adapt an already completed design to local conditions regarding standards and laws. We develop very little. In general, large brands do not adapt at all. McDonald's has many design manuals, but it’s always a uncompromising invasion into the new space. The company doesn’t care if it has a restaurant in an old brick house or a modern glass palace. They decide based on commercial factors rather than adapting to the city and locality.
Tomáš: Architecture has never been local: if you take Prague, most of the Prague architecture is from Italy. Vinohrady, the Old Town... it's simply Italy or France. Some hint of locality is evident when there has been some limitation of construction material. Somewhere there was no stone, so they built from bricks. When we go further north, the flatter the land and the more it lacks mountains, the more they build from bricks. In the north, there is wood, so they build from wood. For me, that's local architecture, but in terms of expression, I don't believe it has ever been local.

Two Percent of Success

Let's return to the gastronomy operations where you have great experience. Is it still possible today to design any new concept?
Mirek: Yes. It’s actually our big goal: to build brands from A to Z. I really mean developing brands, not just their establishments. We have been present at the birth of successful concepts like Bombay express, Apetit...

Try to describe the process of creating such a gastronomy concept...
Mirek: Sometimes a person comes who has no idea what the role of an architect might be in such a case. And architects Tomáš and Mirek try to explain to him that if he wants their service, he is buying approximately 2-3% of the success. The rest consists of a perfect location, team, cash flow of the project, etc. And whether it’s nice or ugly? That’s just a minor detail. And we insist that he needs one brand, one expression for the website, the establishment. He needs to prioritize the product, personalize it, and adapt to the needs of the time and customers. It’s not just about what chairs and lights we choose; it's also about what clothing the staff will wear. How they communicate the offer... That’s a labyrinth of information that our client has to process after the first meeting. And he must decide whether to stay with us. We try to offer him the broadest range possible.

Have you ever withdrawn from such cooperation?
Mirek: We withdrew only from one brand, and that was the already mentioned Bageterie. There we were accused of working for the competition, which wasn’t pleasant for us. We do everything to avoid conflicts of interest. Because of this, we are even willing to part ways with our most important client.
Due to possible conflicts of interest, we never take commissions systematically.

Architects of a Holistic Approach

They probably didn't teach you at school that one day you would coordinate a team of graphic designers and photographers that contribute to the success of a retail chain...
Mirek: I never heard the word "brand" at school. And yet it's our livelihood. It's something different from designing an apartment.
Tomáš: We learned, for example, that 3% of the value of the project volume during communism was designated for artworks. Art has always been a part of architecture. But today it's not a sculptor but, say, a graphic designer or a lighting designer. It’s about how to label the entrance, how the doorbells look, what the sign looks like...
Mirek: Now we have found our strong points in a roundabout way. We are a studio that approaches work holistically. We refuse our small role. Instead, we desire the shine of the architect's role. We want to restore the significance of the word "archi." We are the ones who influence whether a church will be on this hill or that one. We do not want just to fulfill an assignment. When someone comes to us with a poor location, the first thing we tell him is that he has a bad location. Not that we will give him an offer to process the interior. That is what makes us different.

Your motto is: we don’t draw, we realize...
Tomáš: When a client says they just need it "drawn," our profession degenerates into drawing a floor plan. He has an idea of what the building will look like and only wants us to arrange the building permit. And that goes against our holistic approach. We want to understand why it is this way. We want to influence the outcome of the building, we want to be involved in the actual realization.
Mirek: It's never true that a client has a developed project. He thinks he has it figured out. For example, he owns a project for a standardized house intended for a flat plot, where the access is from the north. But that owner buys a
steep slope with access from the south, so everything is completely wrong. But he thinks he has a project and just wants us to adjust it. Nonsense; the project must be discarded and a new house must be conceived from scratch. "I have it figured out; just draw it for me." That's typically a mistaken approach. Here in the Czech Republic, people often have a habit of saying "it’s done this way"...
Tomáš: …and we're back to the mentioned standards. That people have learned it from some manufacturer. That’s how it's done. But it doesn’t have to be done that way.
Mirek: But we are a bit older now, we have experience, and we can actually smile and not offend anyone. Patiently work so that we can get the contractor on our side of the river. Ideally, he will also feel like the author of our idea. Just give him everything to feel good and do it against the grain and customs. To do it according to us and do it well. That’s probably the foundation of archicraft's work.

Mirek, you said you and Tomáš are like brothers. You spend quite a bit of time together, do you go on vacation together?
Mirek: Definitely not on family vacations. We have to take care not to catch a submarine, rather than inflate the time spent together. If I look at it this way, I spend more time with Tomáš than with my family. When there's time, we go for a beer together. And we definitely have a lot to say.

How do you like to spend your free time?
Tomáš: Architecture has never had priority for me; I’ve always been more interested in technology – cars and airplanes and anything that moves. Whenever I need to unwind, I go on a long trip and I enjoy driving. I love traveling, discovering new places, especially cities. And film – nowadays, I even look at architecture in movies. I love sci-fi; it has great ideas and new materials. And I don't have time for other hobbies.
Mirek: My main hobby is work. Another big hobby is children. In my free time, I like to be active, I run, swim, skate, and love the sauna. I see it as a hobby because I only do it for myself. My wife has a cat breeding business, so we have "cat tourism." We take the kittens across Europe: to Rome, previously in southern Spain, then we flew to Africa... because breeding kittens is sought after by people from all over the world. The kitten gets a plane ticket, and we have a trip. And that's actually a hobby. I don't have to, but I fly. And I like it.

What would you do if you weren’t architects?
Mirek: I would die. I am so incredibly happy to be an architect; I can't even describe it.
Tomáš: I can’t imagine anything else.

Thank you for the interview.
Pavla Halamová, Radek Váňa