Alejandro Pérez, founding partner of HCP together with Javier Higuera, has passed through the microphones of Proyectar el Futuro (a digital programme specialised in the real estate sector in general, and in architecture in particular) to talk about brand creation, project organisation or new construction trends.
For more than an hour, our partner Alejandro Pérez addressed a wide range of topics. Starting with our experience over almost 40 years, which includes the development of more than 3,000 projects in more than 30 countries and the opening of several national (Málaga, Madrid and Seville) and international offices (currently Algeria and Bahrain), Alejandro spoke about the beginnings of HCP: “It was clear to us that architecture and engineering had to work together”.
Beyond being “in the right place at the right time”, as Alejandro Pérez explains in the interview, the business philosophy with which HCP was born has also had a lot to do with the studio’s growth. “We introduced a principle that has subsequently been implemented more and more: to place the client as a fundamental element in the work process“. In this sense, Alejandro Pérez explains that HCP proposed a totally different way of working with respect to how architecture was oriented in the 1980s: “At that time there was a certain ‘deification’ of architects and even a certain ‘rejection’ of certain architectural typologies such as residential architecture, in which we specialise, because it was considered that in it the economy took precedence over architecture. We are convinced that this is not incompatible with good architecture and, in fact, this concept has been changing”.
This “customer centric philosophy” was one of the central themes on which the interview with Alejandro Pérez in Proyectar el Futuro was based: “We have always been an architectural and engineering firm, providing a complete service. This allowed for greater agility in drafting, better economic control and for the client to feel more comfortable and satisfied. That philosophy was what made us grow little by little”. As Alejandro points out, it was precisely this differentiation that allowed us to start working in other countries where this form of organisation and agglutination of services was widely implemented than in Spain.
Branding was another aspect that was not developed in the architecture when HCP was born. Alejandro Pérez comments: “The architect as a representative figure of a studio is very well implemented in Spain. We fled from that and from the beginning we wanted to be HCP, an architectural firm in which there are many people behind it, who contribute value. This allows us to generate a brand and that the day the partners are no longer there, the brand will last”. This conception of our studio was completely new in the sector and a further point of differentiation for HCP.
Alejandro Pérez also wanted to share with the listeners of Proyectar el Futuro how we work with team management and the generation of corporate culture. “More than 600 people have passed through our company and many of them are still our friends, which makes us very proud. We want there to be a lot of intercommunication between all the teams, that communication with partners is very direct and that everyone feels comfortable and is informed about what we do, as far as possible”.
The full interview, in which Alejandro Pérez also spoke about the internationalisation of our brand, the cyclical nature of the sector, the profitability margins of the projects or the demands of the profession, is available on the Proyectar el Futuro website and on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
We would like to thank Proyectar el Futuro (and especially Jesús Rodríguez and Daniel Rincón de la Vega) for having us to talk about architecture from a different point of view, focused on business management. It has been a real pleasure!
