Building industry firms look to the Far East

The Springfield-based firm is doing interior design work for a 20-story residential building in Dongguan, China, a city of nearly 2 million people and home to South China Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall.

The building is part of a multibuilding development by Chinese developer Hua Gian Real Estate Investments.

Designer Joyce Buxton said she doesn’t know the size or cost of the total development, though she did say the value would be “hundreds of millions” of dollars.

The firm does the design work for its building from its Springfield office, with one employee spending three months at a time in China to act as a liaison.

Buxton said the liaison doesn’t actually do the design work for the project.

“The person in China is basically our representative,” Buxton said. “They present the design work and then take the Chinese criteria and translate it back to our team here.”

Brandi Yancey was the first employee to take the three-month China sojourn; Erin Taylor is representing the company in China now.

Getting started

Other companies are also seeing possibilities across the Pacific.

Executives from architecture firm Butler, Rosenbury & Partners – principal Geoffrey Butler, Marketing Director Bill Bergman and China architecture veteran Tai Li – are currently in China making initial contacts for possible future work there.

Company principal Tim Rosenbury said the firm, which has hired 17 new staff members since April 1 – including Li, who worked on Chinese projects at Pellham Phillips for nearly 10 years – would not even be attempting to make inroads into China without Li’s experience and expertise.

“It’s essential. Since he’s come here, we’ve been bringing in teachers of Chinese and immersing ourselves in Chinese culture,” Rosenbury said. “We’ve been trying to get a handle as much as we can on what China is all about and what doing business there is all about.”

Li joined Butler Rosenbury from Pellham Phillips Architects and Engineers, where he worked for 10 years.

Pellham Phillips is no stranger to the China market – the company did design work for the $13 million Nine Dragon Lake Hotel in Guangzhou.

Li was an architect and manager at a Guangzhou firm before moving to the United States.

Butler Rosenbury several years ago identified international projects as a growth strategy, Rosenbury said, adding that the firm was not sure how to proceed before Li joined the company and suggested looking to China.

The trip is BRP’s initial visit to the world’s most populous nation, and there are no specific projects lined up there for the company at this point.

But the firm is optimistic – Rosenbury anticipates adding four to eight more employees in the first year to handle the initial China business.

“After this effort gets some traction and we have some real business relationships in place, the sky’s the limit,” he added. “There’s an enormous amount of business in China, and if we’re even marginally successful, it will have a huge impact on our firm.”

Buxton said the Chinese culture creates large differences in the building and design business – and most of the difference is in sheer size.

“Something we would maybe put three people on, they would put 30,” she said. “It’s just because of the available manpower.

“Also, it’s the scale of the projects – more than half of the new skyscrapers scheduled to be built in the world right now are in China.”

Another difference comes in the reuse of existing spaces.

“In this country, we’ll turn a hardware store into a library or a grocery store into a church. That’s pretty common,” Buxton said. “In China, they’ll usually just tear it down and start over.”[[In-content Ad]]