Brexit - overcoming new challenges

For several years the Brexit debate has felt like a hypothetical one: stronger together or better as separate entities who share some common values? Whilst the UK has tussled with this philosophical question and the endless divorce negotiations, it was easy to forget the real impact that Brexit would have once it was finalised.

As a European citizen, with an architectural practice registered in both France and London, Brexit has felt particularly personal for me. My professional education was in the UK, as are many of my projects, clients and interests. But since December 31st last year, many of the things I considered as “my normal” are very unclear.

Many other practices are starting to feel the impact already, and so we gathered together a multi-disciplinary group, united by our cross-Channel interests, to share our concerns and build our understanding of the new reality. Importantly, this group has confirmed what we felt instinctively over the last 4 years: we do not want a new frontier to change or jeopardise our working habits, and will continue to do everything we can to enable ongoing creative collaboration and seamless working.

Nathalie Rozencwajg

Round table participants

· Patrick Richard (Stanton Williams)

· Cecile Brisac (Brisac Gonzalez Architects)

· Henry Simpson (IHG)

· Elena Apiou (Adagio - Accor)

· Sebastien Jouan (Theatre Projects -) TPC

· Mitsu Edwards (Eckersley O’Callaghan engineers)

· Stephen Barrett (RSHP)

· Nathalie Rozencwajg (NAME architecture)

Nathalie: Now that Brexit has actually happened, one of the immediate impacts has been that UK architects wanting to work in Europe will need to be registered in Europe. How is that affecting you?

Patrick: We have three current projects in France and it is challenging. We've been registered as a practice in France for the last 10 years but are about to renew. Like many practices we will need to decide whether we want to open a studio in Paris. In France, you need insurance in order to register, but in order to register you need insurance. It’s a Catch 22. Practices will have to deal with each country individually. We work in Switzerland. We have had projects in Berlin. One of our directors is registered in Germany. Opening an office in Ireland is also a possibility. We love the UK and working here but we also love working in Europe. We share a lot of common culture.

Cecile: With all the unknowns about Brexit, we wanted to be prepared especially as we had a large project about to go on site, so we set up a new company and moved our French contracts to that company ahead of Brexit. Now I’m actively looking to set up a physical office with a team in Paris. I had been reluctant to split a very close-working team of people who have been working together for 10-15 years. A lot of the design happens around the table. But I'm looking at it in a positive way, I think it will be an opportunity to open doors. It's just happening a lot faster than we envisaged.

Stephen: We've been trying to register in France for over a year. We have always worked collaboratively from London, and there was a reluctance to create a satellite office which starts to become a separate entity, even from a creative point of view, but Brexit has pushed us to make that decision.

Mitsu: The situation isn’t quite so dramatic for Professional Engineers. In the UK and Europe, “Architect” is a protected title in law, which is why Brexit is causing increased complexity with respect to professional recognition of equivalent qualifications. “Engineer” isn’t a protected title in the same way, and recognition of UK engineering qualifications in Europe is achieved via the Chartership status, rather than a university diploma. Brexit hasn’t changed the terms of this private agreement between professional bodies, and in the same way it hasn’t altered the professional status of European engineers wanting to work in the UK.

Nathalie: There is obviously a strong relationship between practice registration and the international recognition of architectural qualifications.

Stephen: I'm still quite anxious about the fallout of Brexit and the fact that UK qualifications are no longer recognised France or vice versa. What felt like seamless working even a month ago has now become more difficult, although we have yet to feel the full consequence.

In France, as of 31st of December 2020 UK professional qualifications in architecture are no longer recognised by the Ordre des Architectes. To register as an individual with them, you need to register the company as well and demonstrate that you're more than 50% owned by architects. In contrast we registered quite easily with the Institute of Irish Architects, where there is already a precedent for mutual recognition with the UK. One could perhaps use Irish registration as registration in a European member state in order to comply with the requirement of the Ordre des Architectes. But the issue of registration and how it might affect business viability is a significant one. We are presuming that diplomas recognised before the end of last year in Ireland will be recognised. And there is a law by association that if you're registered in one European country, that should be sufficient, but let's see. We may be having this conversation again in a month's time.

Nathalie: One of the big challenges that I found from one day to the next is that suddenly we can't easily employ British people in the French office anymore. How has Brexit started to affect your recruitment process?

Mitsu: It's become very expensive to employ British people in France now, as the minimum salary threshold has been raised to senior staff level and fixed-term contracts are no longer permitted. In the UK it’s become a lot more costly to employ Europeans as well, with about £6,000 of fixed fees, visa processing etc, even though the salary threshold is not particularly high.

Patrick: We have quite a lot of Europeans in the studio and it is something we want to maintain. It brings so much to the culture of the studio. We're all doing different things and have different ideas, which is wonderful.

Stephen: I remember the day before the Brexit vote, my main concern at the time was how the 45% of our non-British, European staff would feel. That has now been compounded by the lack of mutual recognition of professional qualifications between Europe and the UK. We also have French architects who have studied in the UК, and their qualifications are no longer recognized in France. We have seen a major exodus of staff already, with people who had made their lives here talking about moving back. A recent Bloomberg report stated that up to 40% of Londoners were talking about moving to Europe. That’s not just Europeans in London. I think it's really important to challenge this notion that Brexit is not having an impact. The impact may be masked to some extent by Covid right now, but the impact on staff and recruitment is coming. We need to address that now. I would urge UK architects to continue to write to the ARB about this about the need for bilateral agreement established

Nathalie: For those practices looking to set up a European office, Paris seems to be a popular possibility. What’s the attraction?

Sebastien: Historically and culturally, the French are the nearest neighbours to the UK so Paris makes sense. It's also linked to London by the Eurostar which is akin to an underground taking you from the centre of London to the centre of Paris in a relatively short time.

Patrick: Every other part of France is connected via Paris as well so it’s the perfect location. Traveling by train is fantastic – you have so much time to work. When we were working in Nantes we had had design sessions on the train. By the time we got there, we were very well prepared. Paris and London are so closely connected. You see it when you take the Eurostar. During Fashion Week, for example the traffic between the two is extraordinary. We are keen to plant our flag in Paris. We're working on three projects. Doors are opening a little bit, so we feel we should show that we are committed.

Stephen: Obviously there is the proximity issue, but we are also aware anecdotally of UK developers looking to invest in Paris, where they once invested in London.

Nathalie: Are there any upsides to what is happening. Are there market opportunities or ways that we might be able to collaborate more closely?

Stephen: Although I would have preferred things to stay as they were, having been pushed by Brexit to set up a French office does offer an opportunity to consolidate business relationships, and networks, and a body of work that we've been working on for many years.

Henry: We actually saw our market share in France increase last year. We felt that you can wait for the light at the end of the tunnel, or you can believe you are the light in the tunnel, creative positivity and take people with you. With that approach we managed to keep deals going, and energise our client relationships. We’ve seen some very positive competitive bidding for property portfolios which is encouraging. There is money out there to be invested and people need architects and designers to do that work.

Elena: I think the current situation forces us to find our own solutions and to circumvent the new restrictions as much as possible. We are currently working on a new property in the UK, due to open this summer. I have felt a real solidarity between the local site team and the headquarters in Paris as we try to find some alternative references and suppliers, to make things easier. So, in a way, Brexit is already building closer working relationships! There is certainly a strong will to keep on working together.

Nathalie: Technology has obviously made it easier to have a team of people working on the same project in two different locations. This situation is definitely creating a spirit of team working and being able to communicate quickly on things.

Mitsu: We have had to learn to do our collaborative design work on Zoom and Teams. It’s not possible at the moment to work round the table as a design team. So Covid means we are already finding ways to overcome the barrier of distance. We have had a letterbox company address in Paris since 2009, although initially we had no staff there. Before the Brexit vote, we had been exploring opportunities to merge with a French company and set up a new European base. The “Leave” result was unexpected and pretty destabilising, but we decided to go ahead anyway. It was an opportunity born of optimism, and in fact over the last couple of years our office in Paris has seen the strongest growth of the whole company - and we have offices in San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong, and London.

There is definitely demand, and a lot of work here. We thought that the bottom would fall out of the commercial office market after Covid, but it hasn’t. Private office developments are now all looking to build in flexibility and to be convertible. There's a hotel or residential component in practically every office development that we've been asked to work on. It’s interesting to see how rapidly things have developed in response to Covid.

Stephen: Covid has helped us transition towards a situation where a client doesn't automatically expect you to be to be physically present for every meeting. Much as I love travel, Its quite efficient not to be having to travel to Paris once or twice a week, sometimes just for a half hour meeting. Going forward we need to get the balance right.

Cecile: I speak to some clients who find the idea that we're not physically in Paris difficult. One client told me, "We love your work, we'll definitely consider you for the next competition, but only if you have an office in Paris, with a team right here that we can physically meet with.” They were concerned about embarking on a long-term working relationship, that might break down overnight because of some unexpected change of rules between the UK and the EU.

Nathalie: Do you think that Brexit will affect the way UK firms are regarded by our European partners and clients?

Sebastien: I have always felt that the French have a deep respect for British engineering dating back to Peter Rice’s contribution to the profession when working on the Pompidou Centre with Piano and Rogers. To a certain extent, RFR and Terrell surfed on this perception over the past 40 years. I think there is a feeling that British educated engineers have an extra layer of creativity which we’ve all benefited from to a degree, myself included as I am British educated and my company Theatre Projects has British origins. France is very much open to international architects. Le Monde covered this phenomenon a few years ago talking about the many large cultural projects in France that have been undertaken by Japanese, American, Danish and British Architects of course.

Stephen: Yes, I think we have benefitted from that. Historically as an ‘outsider’ you can say things and offer a point of difference, which is attractive to people in different contexts. Certainly, within some of the big masterplanning projects we are working on, we've felt able to say things that French architects might not say. I do wonder how that will be affected going forward. I hope British firms continue to have the same level of support and respect within Europe – despite the Brexit negotiations. We had hoped that the Brexit deal would bring greater clarity but it said absolutely nothing about professional services and professional qualifications. It’s possible that clients, are going to think “UK? That's complicated. I may not want to have them on the team.” There is so much uncertainty around red tape and around contracting with a UK entity.

Cecile: Being in London used to bring a certain exoticism, synonymous with a creative way of thinking, which clients welcomed. With so many changes and so much chaos in recent months, they want to be reassured. They invest a lot of money and so we have to gain their trust. I would hate to see this exoticism now being a source of uncertainty.

Elena: I have worked, and am still working, with several creative design studios in London and as far as I am concerned I will keep on doing so. London has an edge over Paris in terms of creativity and innovative space design. I am convinced Brexit won’t change this perception, at least it won’t change mine. I just hope it won’t be administratively too difficult to hire British designers and pay their fees. But I am confident it will be ok.

Nathalie: So, do the benefits of working in France outweigh the challenges?

Patrick: France has been a great investor in cultural projects, and that is the great attraction for us of working there, especially given that cultural projects in the UK are few and far between. We are attracted to the quality of projects, but the issue of financial viability is more challenging. Although fees are probably comparable, possibly sometimes higher, the construction cost is usually lower. In that sense we have to work smarter.

Stephen: The quality of the work and the respect with which professions are held in France is fantastic. It's still quite an old-fashioned view of the architect in France, which is refreshing if you’re coming from the UK!

Cecile: We are trained in the UK and have this culture of being interested in the construction process, and working closely with engineers to solve issues and innovate. There is a different culture in France. Sometimes our clients say "You go into way too much detail. We don't do things like that here." Eventually though, through the construction process, they really appreciate it. Construction cost is an issue because it dictates your fees and we spend a lot more time on design proportionally. We are still looking at ways to be more efficient in the design process. It is about working intelligently and finding the right balance, but on the whole I think we bring something that clients really appreciate. It’s worth going the extra mile.