Why do so many architects never build what they dream of?

This is the question that Paragon Group Director Anthony Orelowitz will address in an online masterclass on 29 October. Entitled ‘How financial knowledge can liberate your design’, it is the second masterclass presented by the Paragon Group. Accredited by the Gauteng Institute for Architecture (GIfA), registered viewers will earn CAT 1 0.25 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points.

Architects play a vital role in not only acquiring new work, but in ensuring that projects get built successfully. Orelowitz highlights a host of factors that architects need to be aware of in this process and protecting their practices against risk:

• Understanding the market segmentation: Working in sectors where your risk work can be realised
• Managing client risk: Stratifying clients against their ability to deliver
• Controlling project risk: Taking on work the market can carry
• Project risk and alignment with financial institutions: Working with projects the banks will fund
• Managing QS risk: Controlling the QS and managing the BOQ is key to liberating your design
• Managing engineering risk: ‘Engineering the engineer’ is key to turning your designs into reality
• Software: Empower your design through Revit and Rhino, VR and AR and maximising profitability
• Controlling profitability by means of an effective use of ERP systems: How the relationship between timesheets, project planning and accounting systems gives you control over your business

The Paragon Group was established in 1997 by Orelowitz and Henning Rasmuss and is now one of the largest in Africa. Orelowitz’s experience as a property financier at Standard Bank has afforded him valuable insight into structured project finance, the imperatives of budgetary controls and accountability towards clients and project stakeholders. His core expertise is as design director and project principal on complex and fast-track projects that rely on cost engineering and workshopped construction solutions.

With design and value engineering as his core skills, he collaborates with the Paragon Group teams to ensure cost-efficient delivery of technically-complex architectural solutions such as the Sasol headquarters in Sandton. Orelowitz is committed to driving leadership in innovation, and his projects have pioneered the use of various material systems such as unitised panels, double glazed units and paper-thin stone tiles.

To register for the ‘How financial knowledge can liberate your design’ masterclass to be presented by the Paragon Group at 10:00 on Thursday 29 October, follow the link: http://shackdemos.co.za/webinar/webinars/paragon-group-masterclass/.

This article was published in partnership with Media Xpose.