What Do You Look For in a Designer?: Alexander Romer / Collectif EXYZT
Enter a caption (optional)Alex is a German architect and designer, currently working with several experimental architecture and construction collectives, including Paris-based Collectif EXYZT (recently featured on Core77 for their "futuristic low-tech" Southwark Lido project in London),Raumlabor-Berlin, environmental architects Cantercel, and the newly established Constructlab.
1. What do you look for when hiring a designer?
I've mostly worked in and with collectives, so any designer hired would need to be comfortable in this kind of work group--which sometimes means making a lot of fuss about nothing, and sometimes a big mess. Nonetheless, I think the only way to keep a collective working and healthy in the long term is for each designer to be quite individual and autonomous, and have her own opinion. The result is more a kind of synergy of individuals who share their ideas, rather than just some honey made by a bunch of mindless worker bees.
Whoever I hire would need to make space for others; interpret and advance an initial idea, and also, of course, take pleasure in developing projects with others. But probably the most important trait would have to be patience: a collective decision is often followed by the disappearance of some of the members...
2. Is there a particular "tell" that signals a good or bad fit?
A job interview is probably the most unnatural behavioral moment ever: people either find it in them to be very good actors, or they come across as anxious poodles. So I don't think a particular "tell" really helps. Things get clearer once you start working together, and hopefully both sides feel free to point out of a work arrangement is leading to a big nothing. My own experience teaches me that someone can have a really bad day--didn't hear the alarm, missed the metro, the next train takes them in the wrong direction, they don't find the right office, and in the end they're three hours late--and get the job anyway!
3. What is your best interview "horror story?"
See above...
4. Do you have any specific advice for recent graduates, or people just starting straight out from school?
I've got quite a dismissive opinion of The School...it's mostly wasted time. I mean, of course it can be a great melting pot of people and information, and probably a good reason for people to get busy, because we all need a good reason to get up each morning, but is this a real one? In the best case, the thing you learn in school is how to learn. But today pretty much everyone has to produce this final "paper," which certifies you to be a Designer from now on, with a lifetime guarantee. So leaving school is really where learning begins. The specific advice depends on the personal character of the graduate; myself, I decided never to work more than three months in the same office. You may return as often as you want, but keep on leaving!
5. What is the single, most valuable piece of advice you could give to those on the hunt?
Believe in your work and your opinions. Try to be critical and new. Print out a list of some designers you like and try to travel around and work for one for a while. And remember, you want to work with a designer, not for one.
6. Regarding creative employment, what do you know now that you wish you knew then?
Sometimes the curvature of space, time and mood collapse in one moment, and this may signal the starting point of an inspiring, creative and productive collaboration...and sometimes it doesn't. But one should understand that this doesn't matter. The next positive constellation is inevitably coming.
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