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BE AN ARCHITECT IN CHINA

ARCHIBUCKS ANNUAL REPORT 2013

Village in Guilin Painted by Eric Salmon in 2013

Review of 2013 Incoming work— Archibucks-Fanfan Studio

Introduction Dear readers,

I am Allen Zhu, recruitment consultant of Archibucks - Fanfan Studio. In 2013, we have

finished placing 55 foreign architects in China with internship and formal jobs. 2013 is a great

year for Chinese architecture and related design industry. This year's key word is building

complex. Including Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and other tier 2 &3 cities, building

complex(office tower+shopping mall+hotel tower+residentails), this model is kept being

copied everywhere. It shows the big consuming power and demands of Chinese people. This

building complex model will keep going for next 5 years. So if any foreign architect wants to

join the flow of Chinese design industry, please get some experience in building complex

design, which be more specific, shopping mall, office building and hotels design experience

will be very important.

Foreign Architects in 2013 1. Grigoras Diana-Romania-Architecture

2. Pablo Jimenez-Spain-Architecture

3. Thomas Allan Gardner-UK-Architecture

4. Jimenez Triano Raquel-Spain-Architecture

5. Valeriu Nicolaides-Romania-Architecture

6. Marie Emilie Fock-France-Landscape Architecture

7. Arturo Enrique Veve-USA-Architecture

8. Alejandro Villanueva Alvarez-Spain-Architecture

9. Patricia Ruiz-Spain-Architecture

10. Johannes Simon-Germany-Architecture

11. Pedro Monjas-Spain-Architecture

12. SEI FON CHIAN-Malaysia-Landscape Architecture

13. CHOI KANG JIN-Malaysia-Architecture

14. Robert Ward-USA-Landscape Architecture

15. Antonio Roldan Caballero-Spain-Architecture

16. Maria Kohl-Germany-Architecture

17. Alvaro Avila Ruiz-Spain-Architecture


18. Scott Bryan Baker-USA-Architecture

19. Bruno Rodriguez Mendez-Spain-Architecture

20. Brandon Lee Reimers-USA-Architecture

21. Jimmy James-USA-Architecture

22. Ignacio Villaverde-Spain-Architecture

23. Dzintars Berzinskis-Latvia-Architecture

24. Emilie Delerue-France-Landscape Architecture

25. Pietro Verde-Italy-Architecture

26. Thomas Grannells-UK-Architecture

27. Laura Redondo Diez-Spain-Architecture

28. Salvatore Schiano Di Cola-Italy-Architecture

29. Stephen Aldrich-USA-Architecture

30. Luca Aldrighi-Italy-Architecture

31. Robert Zbigniew Sochanski-Poland-Architecture

32. Orsolya Mátyus-Hungary-Architecture

33. Ismael Abedin-Spain-Interior Architecture

34. Aubin Gastineau-France-Architecture

35. Macros Corbal Caballe-Spain-Architecture

36. Daniel Molas Gual -Spain-Architecture

37. Maciej Debicki-Poland-Architecture

38. Katarzyna Polus-Poland-Architecture

39. Quentin montrie-USA-Architecture

40. Constantin Eugen Cozma-Romania-Architecture

41. Livio Ercoli-Italy-Architecture

42. Tito Dos Santos Moreno Vidinha-Portugal-Architecture

43. Irina Duma-Romania-Architecture

44. Nico Willy Leferink-The Netherlands-Architecture

45. Juliana Valerieva Vargolomova-Bulgaria-Architecture

46. Tomas Larrea Pena-Spain-Architecture

47. Miguel Correia Duarte Semedo Bispo-Portugal-Architecture

48. Jose Sanmartin-Spain-Architecture


49. Victor Manuel Vieaux-France-Architecture

50. Andreea Mitrea-Romania-Architecture

51. Andrei Blejusca-Romania-Architecture

52. Albertus Hendrikus Linssen-The Netherlands-Landscape Architecture

53. Jorge De La Torre Castillo-Spain-Architecture

54. Lorenzo Manuel Romero De Soto-Spain-Architecture

55. Domitille,Marie,Bernadette Carpentier-France-Architecture


Testimonials

Adela Elena Manea-Romania-Architecture

I didn’t plan to come to China. I applied for this internship at FanFan Studio as I did with any

other job. Maybe an opportunity will come. And it did. Right after graduation, one Chinese

architecture company offered me a job. All tough I was supposed to go to Denmark to

continue my studies I chose China. Why? Because when else to explore such exotic, unique,

dynamic place than now. This is the city to be now. Many things happen here and no matter

how hard it may seem to come here from a different culture, Shanghai is a city where anyone

can easily adapt, make friends, enjoy living and have the time of their life.

I’m already for one year in

Shanghai and I can say the

beginning was quite difficult but

now I feel like home. The food,

the language barrier the

difference between work styles

was overwhelming but I made

many friends, both Chinese and

foreigners, during this time, and

they made all the difference.

During my first weeks my boss

told me “I think in China you can

eat almost everyday something

different for a year” and I think

he was right. Chinese cuisine is

so complex that I can easily say I still have many things to try. Language barrier vanished

easily either because I was trying to learn mandarin or my colleagues where trying to improve

their English.

Shanghai it’s a beautiful city. Totally inspiring. In one corner there is a dirty old house and at

the other corner a beautifully designed boutique. Public space is used in a way I have never

seen before and life happens on the street. I never felt bored in Shanghai, not even when I

have to walk from the subway station to work or home. But beside Shanghai, inspiration can

come from other places in China too. Iconic architecture, if it’s either modern or traditional,

can be seen in many other cities and this is what this year offered me. The chance to see

places, far away from Shanghai, I only dreamed about. Traveling around China has made this

working experience even more enriching.

At last, but definitely not the least, the working experience. Coming here right after graduation

gave me an extraordinary start. I did projects for prestigious competitions, and then worked in

an international team to develop large scale commercial, residential and office projects, until

getting responsibility for design and all in less than one year. This experience gave me


courage and confidence, dreams on how to develop my future career and over that amazing

friends and colleagues.

Aubin Gastineau-France-Architecture

It has been 4 months that I am living and working in Shanghai.I am Aubin, just graduated

architect and urban planner 5 months ago in Strasbourg, France. I am working in an

international design firm. We are about 10 architects , and we design several kind of

buildings : hotel, office, shopping mall, residential. We also work on urban planning, in

different cities, like Tayuan or Xi’an, and interior design. It is really interesting to work on that

variety. I was working for these 4 months on : a Yatch Club in Shanghai, urban planning in

Xi’an, urban planning in Tayuan, Night club in Tayuan at the top of a tower, Complex hotel

shopping mall and residential in Shanghai,interior design for our next office in Shanghai.We

are usually a team of 3 or 4 architects and we design 2 or 3 proposals in order to choose the

best one or to show several proposals to the clients.

There are a lot of projects for only 4 months,

that is why the work has to be fast and efficient.

We work at least 40 hours a week, sometimes

late, and sometimes on weekend. And through

this work atmosphere, I had to be confident

about my work, and I am now much more

self-confident about my design and my

capacities.

The Chinese design has to be an efficient work :

mainly a contemporary design, but sometimes

old school or old fashion as well. You may need

to design an art deco or neoclassical style for a

residential building for example. It is really

different than European architecture. In the

architect’s work, we always work with

references projects, or pictures, and we use this

stuff to design a new building through his environment. But here in China, we don’t usually

have enough time to design everything, to think about everything, so sometimes, we may

need to copy, a building through an urban planning, details, or facades…

That is why Chinese architecture firm are looking for European architect, because we used to

design a project from the beggining, and we use to create, to design our own stuff. We

learnt it at school and at work. But the difference is in China, that we do usually design the

building until the work permit, then the government give the project to a construction company.

We mainly design the concept only.

And because of all this project, the time flies.. The only difficulty is the langage sometimes. It's

much more interesting to speak Chinese, even if they speak English.


The life in Shanghai is very interesting. It is very easy to meet new people, and Chinese

people are always really open-minded and interested about foreigner. The life in Shanghai is

very busy, never bored. First, because of the work, then we always have something to do :

traveling, visit, parties, gym, …

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Grigoras Diana-Romania-Architecture

For me China was one experience that, with no doubt, I would love

to relive. The people, the places, the food, the cultural variations, the

way that architecture is being approached, all together form an

amalgam of one great whole, beautiful for its differences.

In my 3 months of working in Shanghai not only have I seen a totally

new way of producing architectural designs, but also I've experience

architecture made at a larger scale and more faster rhythm than in

Europe. I believe that for a young architect China should definitely

be a destination at a certain point, because here the architecture

phenomenon is actually unique in its way of manifestation. People at

my working space were helpful and friendly and in this way the

process of adapting at the Chinese way of doing certain things was

easy, even though I didn't speak the language .

From the cocktail bars at the top floor, to the local food stands in the

street, from the luxurious shops to the traditional incomparable

temples, and mesmerizing gardens, Shanghai is a city of contrast that you never end to discover .

I definitely enjoyed my time spent here and I warmly recommend it to anybody .

Design made by Grigoras in China


Laura Redondo-Spain-Architecture

Coming to Shanghai has been one of my

biggest decisions in life! And I can say I

took the right way. At the beginning when I

first arrived China I found it a little hard and

being sincere I didn’t know if I could stay for

even one month, but now it’s my sixth

month here and I am planning to stay

more.

I am discovering China, its culture and the

most important, its people. Every day I find

things in common between Chinese culture

and mine, Spanish. Yeah! At first sounds as

if we were very different but we are not!

And discovering it’s amazing!

I am also learning Chinese and I had the

chance to travel a little bit out of Shanghai

and I have been in fascinating places!

The experience at work is being very good,

although I am the only foreigner and communication it was a little hard at first, my colleagues

have helped me always in every problem I had. They like so much my work and they all treat

me very well, I am so happy there and I feel I am growing as an architect. China is full of

opportunities!!

Design made by Laura in China


Nico Leferink-Netherlands-Architecture

Before I came to China, I wanted to enlarge my horizon. To work as a architect in a Chinese

company seemed to be perfect for this goal and also a great opportunity to be able to

integrate into a culture that I thought was not close to mine.

I must conclude that this has happened. Working in a Chinese agency is very different from

the previous internship I did in Europe. The projects are much bigger and the great thing is

that you are right in the middle of the design process with many responsibilities on all levels.

Also, my Chinese colleagues have a different way of working in comparison with my former

European colleagues. They often work till late and are almost every day in the company. With

the result that a big part of their social life takes place in their work environment. Everyday

things like; going to a restaurant for lunch and sleeping after that that is done together. Also

after work hours we went already together out for badminton, dinner, Sing at one of the many

KTV places and even spent a vacation together in a beautiful mountain resort far from

Shanghai. This all happened in less than four months that I now have been working in China.

During my internship, I have made several business trips together with my boss, to cities

mostly near Shanghai, but sometimes we flew too. At these visits, I 've learned a lot about the

relation between client and architect in China and of course you see more of the world than

sitting behind a desk.

In my spare time during my the internship , I've been to several places in China. Frankly, I

must admit that most Chinese cities are very similar. So I traveled during Spring Festival

holiday to the places like Guilin and Chengdu. I have visited some wonderful places in nature.

This I can recommend to everybody who is going to work: visit nature sites in China its most

unusual and every time different!

Until now working and living in Shanghai goes very well. I did not expect an internship in a

Chinese office could be so diverse. It isn't just working it a whole different kind of living. There

is something I don't like about this because you're never sure if you will work in the weekend

or can plan the weekend for other things than working. This also happened in Europe, but

personally I think here its more normal.


Before I came into contact with Archibucks I stayed already in Shanghai. I wanted to work

through Archibucks in a Chinese office before I was going to start with my graduation.

Because I had entered the country under a tourist visa , I had to go to Hong Kong to

exchange this for a work visa. I never felt uncomfortable in the process to get this visa

because Archibucks gave me the feeling that they knew what was going to happen and they

were very quick by sending the right information to me.

Therefore, I very satisfied on the service ArchiBucks has granted me. All In all a must!

Design made by Nico in China

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Design made by Marcos in China


Livio Ercoli-Italy-Architecture

After a period of work spent in my hometown in Italy and an internship in London, I decided to

find a way to move to China. Some friends of mine moved to Beijing to work as Architects in a

Chinese company some years ago and they told me great things about China and the

opportunities of work in the field of Architecture in this country. So I contacted Archibucks for

an Internship Program in Shanghai and after a skype interview with two Chinese companies

and after receiving the visa documents directly at home, in a couple of months I was here, in

this great city.

Shanghai is really amazing and I didn’t have to

adapt that much to live here. The city is a melting

pot for people from all over the world with many

different experiences that making friends is easy

and always enjoyable. Despite of that I was

positively surprised to find Shanghai still deeply

‘Chinese’ for what concerns people’s habits,

heritage and the environment of many suburban

areas.

Regarding to my working experience in my firm, I

have been involved in several projects – mainly

commercial complex and offices - from the

beginning of the design process. My tasks usually

start from the conceptual and schematic design to

the first draft of the buildings and the following 3d

modeling and rendering for the client’s

presentation portfolio. It’s been very interesting

and challenging to learn the Chinese design

development which is very different from what I

was used to.

In our office there are almost fifty employees and only four foreigners architects. However,

despite of the initial language-barrier, the relationship with my Chinese colleagues improved

day by day. Our working environment is excellent and everyone try to do their best to help,

starting from the office directors.

Now my internship period is over and I’ve been regularly hired by the same company which

I’m glad to continue working with.

This has been an amazing experience for me both on human and professional point of view

which I would suggest to everyone.


Design made by Livio in China


Orsolya Matyus-Hungary-Architecture

I am already in Shanghai for 5 months and to be honest it has been a great experience! In a

way I can say that time has gone by very fast because there is not one moment when you are

bored in this city. On the other hand it feels like I have been here for ages because of the

multitude of events for what you would need a lifetime in Europe.

Shanghai is enormous, the distances are huge. Any distance which seems small on the map,

believe me… It is not. The people are friendly, but if you don’t speak any Chinese, the

beginning can be tough. This is why I decided to take private Chinese lessons and it has been

a very good choice because fast I could use my language skills in the restaurants for example.

This can be useful if you like to know what you eat. As I had 9 free days during the Chinese

Spring festival, I decided to travel a bit further from Shanghai and see the West of China. It

has been amazing. I especially love the scenic areas; anybody who is doing an internship

here must go and visit the hidden pearls of this beautiful country!

Working here has been exciting as well, but it is very different from Europe. During my stay I

had the chance to work for two different companies. The first , which in the beginning seemed

a very nice small company, as my colleagues were so helpful and could talk very good

English. On the other hand later I realized that the bosses had some serious issues with each

other and this also influenced the work flow and sometimes the employees became victims of

their problems.

The company I am working for at the moment is a big company and the tasks I can do I love

so much. I have the chance to work on master planning and to decide the architectural

concept of the buildings. I get a lot of responsibility at this company I really get the chance to

use my design skills. Everything is much more organized than at my first company and I feel

being taken seriously. My boss always translates everything for me from Chinese to English

and asks my opinion about the choices of the project. Even though Chinese design is very

different from the European one, I still feel that they are very open to ideas from foreign

countries and from foreign architects. There are many rules in China, but my colleagues are

very helpful and we try to co-operate to bring my ideas in the project in a way that they match

the Chinese requirements.


Last but not least I would like to thank Allen from Archibucks that he helped me to arrange

everything, he has been very professional the whole time. It has been a great adventure and I

can only recommend Archibucks.

Design made by Orsolya in China


Irina Duma-Romania-Architecture

I work for a French company that tries to adapt the French architectural design to the Chinese

taste and architecture. Since I came here I worked on various projects, all of them

competitions. Since it’s a big international company, with a strict hierarchical order, and I’m

new in the company and I’m also a fresh graduate, I started from the bottom, without much

saying in the design process and creation part. But now, after I learned how things work here

and I proved myself, the difficulty/complexity of the things I have to do has grown and I get

much more responsibility.

People here are very nice and warm. I integrated

into the collective very easily, and I didn’t have any

problems or conflicts since I came. We also do a lot

of teambuilding activities here, so that I don’t get

bored or feel lonely, since I’m so far away from

home. Also I was lucky to find a nice roommate

from a neighboring country, that always helps me

out if I have problems and she also introduced me

to all of her friends. The only problem is that I’m too

pampered and I didn’t get to improve my Chinese

language level too much in the past 3 months.

Even if I worked in China before, it wasn’t that easy

to readapt to the Chinese way of thinking and of

working, because I’m used to another type or

organization and from my last visit here I also

evolved a lot in a different direction due to my school. I think the architecture world here is

very contrasting. On one side, there are the big companies that do a lot of mass projects, of a

not so good quality, and on the other hand there are the ones that struggle to do quality work

and bring something good and new to the architecture, but don’t have too much space

because of the others. I also think that the clients are starting to know the difference and more

and more of them are demanding for quality work. That demand also depends on the location

and the type of project/ the program.


Katarzyna Polus and Maciej Debicki-Poland-Architecture

We always wanted to work abroad. It was always very important for us, as an students and

later architects, to get know new cultures and people, for better understanding peoples

demands, different way of living – to become better designers.

It is a problem to find a proper job after graduation in companies located 1500 km far from

You. Therefore we were very glad to find FanFan studio and try their service. They had not

only found for us very quickly a proper job, but also provided all necessary documents –

everything seemed to be very solid and in nice atmosphere. After about 3 months, we were

ready to go to Shanghai!

Shanghai is simply amazing. This is one of the city You must see. Mix of cultures, tastes,

colors and people shocks You firstly, but it also provides great time You spend with many of

Your new friends! FanFan studio staff helped us in our first days, so we could easily starts our

completely new live so far away from home. That was also very easy for us, to fix all

documents issues on place and feel comfortable during our first days at work.

We started in different companies, so we could compare how it worked for both of us. We

were very nicely invited by new colleagues and did not have any problems with assimilation

with Chinese staff. Although there was sometimes huge communication problems, we felt it

quite easy to both: learn and teach in our new work environments.

After time, we have spent here, we consider our decision to coming to China as very good.

We could learn a lot about amazing architecture and enormous urban planning projects. We

hope to continue our adventure with China and stay here for longer time!


Design made by Katarzyna and Maciej in China


Pedro A. Villanueva-Spain-Architecture

I decided to look for a job in China, trying to

escape from the complicated economic

situation existing in my country, so I decided

to send my resume to some emerging

countries.

In my case, I work for a British company

with about 15 international people, and

another 35 from China, but my team is

composed only by international people, so

from the beginning I was quite easy to get

used to the working environment.

However, the design of the architecture

here is completely different from the

European. In China the pace of work are

much higher, the aesthetic importance of

the proposals is in many cases more

important than the function of the building

itself, and it's not always easy to understand

the point of view of the customer. It is

difficult to make them understand

developed architectural concepts because

they rarely show interest in the study of artistic movements or tendencies, beyond the mere

formalism of neoclassical ideas coming from Europe.

As to living in a city like Shanghai, there are three things that caught my way from the start:

1 ) the pragmatism of their way of life , the little importance given to the care of material goods

or the cleaning of their houses, shops, etc，

2) The very great social inequalities that still exist in a city where high-end cars coexist with

people living in poverty,

3) The irony of living in a country that considers itself communist and yet I have not been

anywhere else in the world where there is more consumerism and where there are so many

luxury shops.

And yet it is a city in constant change that we can say very little about their future, because it

changes every month. Currently, I 've been here 10 months and, on one hand I can say that

my working conditions are pretty good (not as much as 5 years ago ) and the expectancies

are still good, but on the other hand, the lack of cultural leisure activities, excessive pollution ,

and cultural differences make consider my stay here as another step in my career as an

architect .


Design made by Pedro in China


Salvatore Schiano di Cola-Italy-Architecture

My name is Salvatore, by that time

is more than a year that I live and

work here in shanghai, working in

a Chinese company.

I came here after several years

working in Italy as architect. Sadly,

because of the bad economic

situation prevailing in my country,

from 2012, the work is gone

gradually decreasing. It has been

such that I started to consider the

idea of “exploring new territories”.

So, after obtaining a license to

practice in Italy, I took a flight to China, looking for a new job and a new life.

After Chinese new year, I found my first job, as always happens in life, the beginnings are not

easy. The way to think architecture is quite different, I struggled a lot (and I still have to strain

a lot) to adapt myself to a new life, new job, new schedule… everything works in a different

way here, and sometimes it was a bit messy just trying to understand what I had to do

because sometime (often! ;) some detail is lost in translation!.. communication is such a big

issue there. But this is a part of the game, all of them have to accept it!

Everything it was a pleasant surprise, not only the job, but also the city and the infinite range

of possibility available, nightlife, food, and, last but not least, all the people I met in this year.

Shanghai is the typical so-called “ melting pot” where western and Asian cultures live together

trying to find their balance. here everything changes quickly, life goes fast and it takes very

little time to learn to understand this city and its timing… Be carried by the tide is really

inevitable!

I am really fascinated about this amazing country, from the Culture to the uncontaminated

landscapes, from the historical architecture to the recent history, that I`m trying to learn as

much as possible. I hope to discover many interesting places until I`ll be here. I'd like to be

able to integrate fully and to understand how people are thinking and live in daily so probably

I`ll start to learn Chinese soon.

This is just the chapter one… let`s keep in touch!


Design made by Salvatore in China

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