Blueprints for Success - Jordan Business

48 48 JORDAN BUSINESS . COMPANY PROFILE

Blueprints

For Success When the property market across the Middle East stalled in 2008, Yaghmour & Associates, a firm of architects that has been operating out of Amman since 1982, was well placed to shoulder the fallout. Nina Montagu-Smith reports on how this small, streamlined business is positively surviving uncertainty in the region’s property market.

Y

aghmour & Associates, which was founded as a family business in Amman by Dr. Farouk Yaghmour and his brother, Najeeb in 1982, has been withstanding fire from several different directions over the past three decades. This included a military bombardment of one of its projects

by Israeli forces during the second Intifada in 2001 to efforts by the Ministry for Religious Affairs in Dubai to halt work on a new mosque.

The firm has survived all these challenges, and despite the latest setback of uncertainty in the region, is still going strong. Amid all the excitement, what has emerged is a highly efficient business operating to low margins, which has been well able to expand into other parts of the Middle East and is now even taking on mighty Canada.

Community Ties There is a strong theme of family and community running through this business. Not only are the senior partners brothers, but their own children now work as architects

OCTOBER 2012

JORDAN BUSINESS . COMPANY PROFILE 49

for the firm. Dr. Yaghmour’s daughter, Rula, has worked there for five years now

trying to replicate the old, as a way to mark a tribute to the work done in 2010, as well

…what has emerged is a highly efficient business operating to low margins, which has been well able to expand into other parts of the Middle East and is now even taking on mighty Canada. and is a strong influence on the direction of the company. The gradual shift to the next generation will not present any difficulties, according to Dr. Yaghmour. “We are more than willing to roll with the changes,” he told Jordan Business.

Indeed, this attitude has been a defining factor in his work, a great deal of which is taken on with community and family in mind. He said, “We like projects related to communities, particularly urban communities. We also like to work on projects that have to do with preserving the environment. It is about balancing old and new and not just renovating the old or building the new. I see the growth of a city as something natural and organic. These buildings and communities, like here in Luweibdeh, are strong and should be built on and preserved.”

The building that houses the office – an old-style Amman villa – is a good example of this. The firm renovated it and moved in two years ago; they bought it from the old Amman merchant family that built it in 1944, by which time only two members of the family – both elderly ladies – remained in the house. They were living on the ground floor while the higher stories had been left to rack and ruin.

Though it was a priority to preserve many of the old features – the windows and doors have been beautifully restored – Dr. Yaghmour and his daughter saw this as an opportunity to add something new to it as well. On the front of the building is a modern staircase, which winds around an elevator. The front of the house has been restored with modern stone, rather than

as that of 1944. “It is more honest to express your own generation and be in keeping with the times,” Dr. Yaghmour explained.

Family ties are also partly what drew him and his brother to the restoration work they are carrying out in Bethlehem, and that Rula is now heavily involved in as well. The brothers grew up in Hebron, where their father was the mayor, before the family went into

“I used to run about with my father on his visits to construction sites and parks, and it really formed this desire to improve the community in me,” Dr. Yaghmour stated.

Sadly, it has become much harder to continue working in Palestine ever since the second Intifada broke out. Before that, they used to go across once or twice a week. Now, it is more like once a month because it takes so long to get across the border. “We have to leave at 6:00am to get there,” he said.

The restoration work the firm is carrying out on the Solomon reservoir pools near Bethlehem, from which the Romans piped water to the populations of both Bethlehem and Jerusalem via 39 kilometers of aqueducts, has been stopped and started again several times, most notably

“We like projects related to communities, particularly urban communities. We also like to work on projects that have to do with preserving the environment. It is about balancing old and new and not just renovating the old or building the new.” exile in the 1967 exodus. They started up an office in their hometown in 1994, and there are now seven architects based there.

during the second Intifada, when Israeli forces bombarded the walls of the project. As well as restoring the clear-water

50 JORDAN BUSINESS . COMPANY PROFILE pools there, they have rebuilt the walls of a 400-year-old Ottoman castle on the site and created a museum and crafts center.

They have also restored the old area of Beit Shour in Bethlehem, providing basic infrastructure and encouraging tourism

has exploded, however, leaving some wondering if demand will be able to sustain it.

For now, rental and purchase prices appear stable, although they are certainly not rising significantly. According to the latest

[Yaghmour & Associates]…has also restored the old area of Beit Shour in Bethlehem, providing basic infrastructure and encouraging tourism to the site, and it is a source of delight to the family to see people living and working there again. to the site, and it is a source of delight to the family to see people living and working there again.

Onwards And Upwards The troubles in Palestine are not the only stumbling blocks the firm has encountered along the way. The property market across the Middle East has suffered since the global crash in 2008, nowhere more so than in Dubai, where Yaghmour & Associates was forced to reduce its workforce of more than 80 architects to just 15 almost overnight. It was able to do this without much fallout, however, and its commercial work in the Gulf remains its most profitable.

Meanwhile, in Amman, property remains in limbo, as money continues to pour in from wealthy families and businesses leaving Iraq. Money from Syria is also starting to flow in. Property development Still image of Gallery 27

report on Jordan from Asteco, the Dubai real estate services group, apartment rents were mostly unchanged in the second quarter of 2012, with only marginal increases of 2% and 3% in the Abdoun and Deir Ghbar areas, respectively, due to strong demand for three-bedroom apartments.

Apartment sale prices have remained largely flat in Amman, apart from a strong 8% rise in Deir Ghbar, which is particularly popular with property developers because they can get around the four-story

Whether this is a long-term sustainable trend that will continue to match actual demand for such properties or merely a temporary life raft for Jordan’s property market remains to be seen. The Yaghmours are cautiously optimistic. “The thermostat of Jordan is very sensitive right now,” said Dr. Yaghmour. “Since 2008, things have slowed down and now feel as if they are in suspension. There is still a lot of property development in Amman, but it is hard to say if demand will be sustained or will collapse. After 2008, things slowed down, but there is money coming from Iraq and now Syria. It is a question of wait and see. It does feel as if everything has been suspended. And yes, it is a time of great uncertainty.”

Despite this, overall, the firm has maintained satisfactory sales growth since it was set up in 1982, and has increased revenues by 400% since then. With a few fluctuations in the income stream, particularly after the 2008 crisis in the Gulf, where income dropped off a cliff by 70%, the business has provided enough turnover to pay costs and make a decent

Around 70% of the office’s turnover is generated by commercial and public projects, with the remaining 30% made up from residential properties. limit on residential buildings by building three underground stories on the sides of the elevated sites there.

profit. The company does not need to advertise, relying instead on its reputation and word of mouth.

JORDAN BUSINESS . COMPANY PROFILE 51 Around 70% of the office’s turnover is generated by commercial and public projects, with the remaining 30% made up from residential properties. In Amman, the firm is currently working on a residential development project in the Al Kursi area, and two commercial buildings.

With a small office of just 12 architects in the Jordanian capital, Dr. Yaghmour believes the company will be well able to weather

be is a medium-sized company in Amman.

If it is kept to a modest scale, you can cope with economic changes much more easily.

In Amman, we have much better survival techniques than Dubai, for example.”

Embracing Change The firm’s ability to rein in its expansion has, ironically, led it to pastures new further afield.

One of the group’s architects from projects in Dubai lives in Canada and has recently estab-

Known as Gallery 27… [this in-house museum] chronicles Dr. Yaghmour’s 27 years of experience as an architect and shows models of 10 projects that are shadowed on the wall behind. any storms to come. The business is settled in a modest but beautifully renovated villa in Luweibdeh, rather than a glitzy tower block in a more expensive, commercial part of town, and Dr. Yaghmour and his brother are free to do much of the work themselves.

lished an office there for Yaghmour & Associates. “We can compete in Canada because our prices are so much lower,” Dr. Yaghmour stated. “That was the only reason I agreed to open an office there. Ours is actually a very good business model to be branching out with.”

Indeed, this is one of the reasons they set up the business in the first place. Having studied architecture in Germany and Jordan, Dr. Yaghmour was teaching at the University of Jordan and did not wish to break his link with academia. He was among the first to branch out in this way as, previously, practice or academia was very much an either-or choice in Jordan. He continued to teach alongside the business until 1992, when he moved to Petra University for two years. Since 1994, he has focused on the business itself, but maintains his ties to the university, often hosting students at the office and at the small museum it houses on the ground floor, which chronicles some of the works the business has done. Known as Gallery 27, it chronicles Dr. Yaghmour’s 27 years of experience as an architect and shows models of 10 projects that are shadowed on the wall behind.

Dr. Yaghmour is also keen to pioneer change to the way mosques are designed and has so far kick-started this movement with the Spine Mosque on Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, which is constructed with contrasting rough brick and smooth glass. The columns within resemble palm trees, which are meant to remind worshippers of the palms under which Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) sometimes preached in Mecca. The mosque was finished this year

The wish to keep one foot in academia and continue his own practice underlined the need to keep costs on an even keel, Dr. Yaghmour told Jordan Business, as he is too busy to become just a business manager. “It is very important to keep costs under control. If a business grows too much, you spend all your time managing it. I want to keep in touch with my work as an architect. “The most suitable size to

[L-R] Rula and Farouk Yaghmour

after two years of construction. He said: “You see many churches built in more modern designs, but not mosques, which are still built in very traditional, conservative styles. We want to change that.” He added, “When we were building the mosque in Dubai, the Ministry for Religious Affairs opposed the design and tried to change it. We persevered and now they take visitors to see it.”

Not all projects make it to the bitter end, of course, and others are altered during construction. For example, when the firm was asked to design renovations for the forum courtyard in front of the Karak Castle, its design for the municipal building that dominates the square was deemed too daring and was modified during construction, which Yaghmour & Associates did not get to oversee. It is one of the frustrations of the job, Dr. Yaghmour noted. It is not uncommon for projects to stall and go unfinished, he said, and this is one of the aspects of the work every architect has to get to grips with.

The final of Yaghmour’s 10 projects on display in Gallery 27 is a design for a bus station in Abu Dhabi, which has never come to fruition. It is meant to serve as a reminder to the students who visit that projects can be abandoned, but that architects should never be discouraged because more will be on the way. It seems to underline to us all that if you are open and ready to “roll with the changes”, you can achieve an awful lot.