#architectoftheday

Marcio Kogan, establisher of Studio mk27, is a straightforward architect who, with many years of experience, refers you to the reality of being in the industry. Kogan talks about how he aw a lack of quality in Brazilian dwellings and so determined to take the manner in his own hands and created his own strategy.

My father was an architect-engineer who created interesting modernist projects in São Paulo during the 50’s and 60’s and ever since a little boy I would visit the sites with him and we lived in the Brazilian version of the Villa Arpel, the house in the movie "Mon Oncle”. Exactly the same: super-technological. When I graduated from architecture school my main objective was to design social dwellings. I was unable to achieve this dream as the quality of these projects in Brazil is quite bad due to the fact that our dear public officials are totally incapable of producing anything of quality. For them, people are nothing more than cattle. The hand of destiny brought us to the opposite extreme, high-end houses which represent 80% of our work. It is a long and arduous effort which, to happen, demands a great investment of time. For me, it was a slow learning process which, at this moment, has not yet reached even 50% of what I would like. Some years ago I was mad about being able to do a good project, but I didn’t have a good client. There are dozens of factors involved: from creativity to playing Super Mario Bros on wii with the client’s 6-year-old son.

Never arrive at the site and say: how incredible! I am super-critical of my work and I always think that it could have been better (I hope my clients don’t read this!). A small dose of obsession is good for all of us. It is very difficult to transform a design into reality without loss of quality, but this is also a simple item among numerous others.

Take a psychology course as well, and ask your doctor for a prescription of Valium to try to control yourself and not kill your first client.