'Rethinking Real Estate Issues' Interview with CEO Pawel Michalski

Interior architecture has grown to become one of the most important factors to consider when creating a commercial interior space. An interior can either make or break its success.

Pawel Michalski (46), formerly Executive Director of globally renowned hospitality design firm AvroKO, and formerly Worldwide Head of Real Estate Design at Amazon Inc. is currently working on a new venture called Nama Project that combines real estate development, design, service operations, and data for a new kind of real estate asset class.

Pawel is currently in Seoul collaborating with local industry experts and joined us for a brief meeting.

Pawel Michalski

Q : Tell us about your new venture

The world as we all knew it changed this year.  What’s most significant, is the speed at which this has happened. Thanks to COVID 19, all of a sudden fundamental assumptions about real estate have evaporated.

Now we all have first hand experience that people doing office jobs don’t actually need to be in the office everyday to do those jobs.

Now we all have first hand experience that people don’t actually need to fly all over the world to do business, or to have a great holiday.

While these are great discoveries for contemporary society, the real estate industry that provides the space for all these activities is starting to feel the pain now, and will continue to do so over the decades it will take for it to adapt.

Q : And this is where Nama Project fits in?

Exactly. Nama is about being ready for change and about helping our developer clients be prepared. Rather than looking at real estate from the perspective of traditional formats, we ask the question “what’s the biggest impact to real estate we can imagine as a result of a COVID type event” and we start from there.

This means blurring boundaries between traditional categories like residential, commercial, and retail; but it also means putting real focus on community and culture – this doesn’t mean adding a sculpture and some public seating, but it means starting with the people who will be using the space and developing these as self-contained communities. For example, using public spaces to house shared facilities for tenants that encourage interaction such as work lounges, kitchens, bars performance stages, and then providing staff to play the role of a host that introduces people to each other breaking down the ‘stranger’ barrier.

Q : Tell us about the name ‘Nama Project’?

I spent my 20s in Japan and while learning Japanese  , I was fascinated with kanji and how complex ideas and concepts could be summarised so succinctly with a single character. Nama is the Chinese character ’生’ – I believe it’s read ‘생’ in Korean. I latched on to the fact that some of the best things in life are ‘생’ – like draught beer (versus bottled), live music (versus pre-recorded), raw fish (versus cooked) and so on.

In Chinese the same character means ‘to give birth’ and I think all these ‘ideas’ summarised perfectly in one character what we’re trying to do with Nama Project and what we’re trying to create with our projects: they need to be alive in order to adapt in real time with change and the life comes from the community and culture in each space.

Pawel Michalski

Q : Why did you choose to come to Korea?

I love Korea. Ever since the first time I came here in 1993 on a visa run from Japan. I loved how exciting it felt here. I could really feel the potential of Korea back then – particularly in contrast with Japan which at that time was still in the aftershock of its bubble bursting in the late 80s. Looking back now, it’s incredible how much Korea has grown in that time – both economically and in the arts.

Since then, I’ve visited many times for business. I was part of the team that worked on the interior design of some of the bars and restaurants at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul and also for Procter & Gamble’s new office in Yeouido.

I’m an architect and an entrepreneur and I think Korea is at a very interesting crossroads in terms of its global identity. Already Korea has made a fabulously impressive transition from a developing nation to arguably one of the most technologically advanced in the world. But what I’m especially excited about is Korea’s cultural and artistic global outreach – I can think of no other non-English speaking country that’s achieved this much. This all tells me the timing is right for a Korea-based global interior design firm – something similar to AvroKO, Andre Foo for hospitality interiors; or Gensler or Orbit Design in terms of commercial interiors.

Q : What do you think are the opportunities here for design?

I think there are 2 areas of opportunity for interior architects in Korea. The first is inward-looking – what’s going on here right now. What I mean by that is as an interior architect, you have to be connected with the real estate market and be able to come up with creative solutions to existing problems. One major real estate challenge right now is the oversupply of hotel rooms and their underperformance as an asset class for their owners. I believe that by combining design thinking with entrepreneurship this issue can be solved – and potentially on a global scale too given the whole world is facing the same issue thanks to COVID19.

The second area of opportunity is outward looking. When you think about the best known international interior architecture firms, names like Gensler and HOK are synonymous with commercial interiors, and AvroKO and Yabu Pushelberg are synonymous with hospitality and F&B. They’re all based in the USA and have global reach because they’re all design-only consultants. They’re not construction companies – Korea has no shortage of construction companies that also do architecture, but the format is very different and makes it almost impossible to export.

I helped AvroKO get started in Asia and subsequently was running their Bangkok studio for several years and I know intimately how the model of exporting creative value in the form of interior design has a lot of potential. Similarly, I was GM at Orbit Design based in Bangkok for many years. By repositioning it from a predominantly local market company, to a truly global commercial office interior architect, it revolutionized the business by decoupling it from the local economy. I really believe the time is right for a design-only interior architect firm based in Korea to export its creative value around the world.

Q : Going back to the first opportunity you mentioned about hotels in Korea – what’s the solution that you have in mind?

Well, without giving too much away, what I can say, is that the solution isn’t a simple ‘renovation’. A lick of paint and a new set of lobby furniture isn’t going to solve anything. The solution can only be found by looking deeper into the problem – and from different perspectives.

For example, how many people responsible for the design, or management of hotels have actually stayed in a hotel room in a new city for more than a month? I’m currently doing that here in Seoul. As hotel room prices are so cheap right now, it’s a great opportunity to examine this problem first hand from arguably the most important perspective: the guest. One of the observations I’ve made is the lack of community – and I believe this is a huge missed opportunity. Generally, if you’re staying in a hotel, you’re new in town and you’re probably alone. Sure, you’ll have meetings lined up during your stay, but for at least half of the time, you’re on your own – especially on weekends. You can’t call up friends for a drink, you can’t drop by to see your parents and you can’t drop by your local. Right now it’s made worse by the fact that everyone has to wear face masks as it makes it even more difficult to connect with people.

Most hotels I’ve stayed in so far do a terrible job in this area: Service is incredibly impersonal and robotic. An exception is one hotel in Yongsan. Their staff were fabulous - they initiated conversations with me, remembered my name and really treated me like a guest in their ‘home’. I think this is far as the traditional format can go in a hotel: there’s always a staff community in a hotel, but there’s never a guest community. This requires an integrated hardware, software and operational solution.

Q : What do you think of interior design in Korea?

That depends on which space we’re talking about. Like anywhere in the world, there’s some awesome design and some not-so-awesome design too! I’m a big fan of Korean crafts – which currently are recognised as being some of the best in the world. I love how they push the boundaries of the traditional natural material palette and the relentless attention to detail.

I think one of the challenges with interior design in Korea is that there are very few old buildings with interesting histories that you can build up a concept from. For example, Public – AvroKO’s first restaurant that they created as owner/operator in the early 2000s was located in a building in New York City that at one time was Thomas Edison’s workshop – and it was that connection that gave them the idea to use exposed filament light bulbs and a ‘workshop-meets-public-services-building’ concept to generate the design. This is an example of where the building’s history informs a design direction and therefore gives the design a certain ‘depth of authenticity’. If there’s no connection between site and design, then aesthetic design can only ever be superficial, so to counter that, I think spaces that play on a contemporary Korean aesthetic will always work better in modern buildings.

Q : So what are your plans here in Seoul?

My home is currently Bangkok, but I’m unable to return due to COVID as Thai borders are closed to foreigners. It looks like I’ll probably have to stay here until the new year, as given the new political demonstrations in Bangkok, I doubt the Thai government will reopen borders anytime soon. In the meantime, I’m meeting with real estate industry specialists here and conducting workshops with interior designers.

Pawel Michalski