Members of the Safdie Architects team at one of the firm's most iconic building designs: the Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore. Photo: Timothy Hursley. Image courtesy of Safdie Architects.

Few design firms have managed to build a portfolio of realized projects so instantly recognizable and beloved around the world as Safdie Architects has. Established in 1964 by Israeli-born Canadian architect Moshe Safdie to construct his now-iconic Habitat ’67 commission, the studio has grown into a globally-active design heavyweight over the past six decades. Headquartered in Somerville/Boston and closely connected to its satellite offices in Jerusalem, Shanghai, and Singapore, the firm has been making headlines with high-profile projects like Marina Bay Sands and Jewel Changi Airport in Southeast Asia, Raffles City Chongqing in China (featuring the world's longest sky bridge), or Arkansas' soon-to-be-expanded Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

For this episode of Archinect's "How To Get A Job At ____" series, we interviewed members of the Safdie Architects leadership team to learn more about their hiring process. Chris Mulvey (Partner), Jaron Lubin (Partner), and Wen Wen (Associate) shared with us what the firm is looking for in prospective new team members, how the different regional teams collaborate, and how the company cultivates community within the office.

What positions are the highest in demand at Safdie Architects?

Chris Mulvey (CM): We are always looking to make strong additions to our team — sometimes they’re strategic, regarding a specific project or initiative, but more often, we’re looking for individuals with the right profile — resourceful, entrepreneurial, communicative, and inquisitive — who we think will thrive in our practice and make meaningful contributions to projects and our office culture.

When meeting with a candidate, what is the best way that they can make a positive first impression during the interview?

Jaron Lubin (JL): We’re impressed by people who have done their research about our work and our principles, and come to the interview prepared to talk about how they see themselves fitting in. It seems obvious to say this, but it is important that the interviewee shares similar interests and is passionate about design in a way that aligns with our practice.

What is the most common mistake that candidates make when applying to your firm?

JL: Overstating one’s experience is a common misstep, as is taking credit for work that you did not do on your own. It’s clear when an interviewee is bluffing.

When walking through their portfolios, I look for candidates who explain their projects in terms of what they want to do, rather than what is asked of them in the studio brief or what their professors told them to do. — Wen Wen, Associate

CM: Speaking too much to what’s contained within their portfolio. By taking the time to interview a candidate, we’ve already decided that they likely have the capacity and capability necessary to fill a particular position or role. The interview is an opportunity for us to assess how the candidate carries themselves, how they engage in conversation, what’s important to them, etc. — in short, whether there’s a good cultural fit and whether the candidate has the potential to grow within our firm.

How important is an applicant's educational background?

CM: It’s certainly one consideration but not the predominant one. We see talented people coming from many backgrounds and places with varying depths of education and training. We’ve hired individuals without professional degrees who have absolutely thrived in the office, and we’ve brought in those with bespoke training in a specialty only and seen them flourish in a completely different context. At the same time, we’ve hired candidates with a strong educational pedigree who ultimately didn’t work out as we or they had hoped. More important than educational background is their philosophical background — shared values is a strong place to build from.

What makes an outstanding CV/portfolio?

JL: I like a short and sweet presentation of CV and portfolio. When you take care with the presentation of your work and yourself, it shows a strong character trait which fits well with our office — the ability to be clear and concise.

Wen Wen (WW): When walking through their portfolios, I look for candidates who explain their projects in terms of what they want to do, rather than what is asked of them in the studio brief or what their professors told them to do.

What kind of technical skills are absolutely essential for applicants?

WW: I’m frequently asked what we look for in an intern/entry-level candidate. I personally think that good communication is more important than software skills. In school, the work is mostly independent, and the transition to collaborative work really calls for the individual who can share progress updates and ask for feedback in a timely and effective manner, especially in a fast-paced environment like ours.

JL: We want to understand whether the applicant is resourceful and able to acquire knowledge on the job. We look for folks with good people skills, which in many ways are more important than the technical skills that can be picked up working alongside us day-to-day.

What kind of training do new hires receive during their first day on the job?

JL: We place new hires on project teams on their first day and pair them with groups of people to support them. Our colleague Nina does a tour around the office with new hires and ensures they get a good ‘hello’ with every other employee. It has become a warm, welcoming tradition.

We look for folks with good people skills, which in many ways are more important than the technical skills that can be picked up working alongside us day-to-day. — Jaron Lubin, Partner

CM: As a firm with a rich history, we’ve found it’s important for those joining the office to have time to learn about the work we’ve done, how and why we work the way we do, and the beliefs that drive us. We provide new hires with a selection of written materials, interviews, and presentations, and appoint a mentor to help them navigate the first day/week/month.

Do you have an internship program? If so, briefly describe.

JL: We have relationships with many universities who recommend talented people to come work with us during the summers and breaks between semesters. The internships are all fully compensated positions. We do not place young people in designated junior roles; we offer them opportunities side by side with the project teams, and so they are working immediately on competitions and projects under development and in construction.

Safdie Architects is headquartered in Somerville/Boston with satellite offices in Jerusalem, Shanghai, and Singapore. Do the firm's different offices frequently collaborate with each other when working on projects? What challenges are usually involved? Or does each office operate more independently?

CM: We’ve chosen to centralize and concentrate early-stage design activities out of our main office in Somerville. This allows Moshe and our Partners to remain intimately involved in the germination and development of each project.

We constantly travel, co-locate, and re-locate for extended periods to oversee the development and execution of the projects, deploying our resources strategically and intentionally. Each of our regional offices began as a site office for construction of a particular project, that then evolved into a satellite office as we were fortunate to receive multiple commissions in the region. This affords us with great robustness and the ability to practice with the attentiveness of a small design studio, yet with the capacity and reach of a global practice.

How do you encourage a work-life balance for your employees? Does Safdie Architects have any fun, longtime traditions?

CM: Cultivating community within the office is integral to our operations: We have breakfast together every other Wednesday, with the alternating week being an office-wide meeting to provide updates on projects and initiatives; we gather in the garden at the end of the day Friday to close out the week; and we celebrate birthdays with treats from local businesses. In the summer, Moshe and his wife Michal host a picnic at their home in Cambridge, and in the winter, we toast the new year with a holiday at our office in Somerville. Whenever we can, we celebrate the results of our shared work by visiting our completed projects together as an office.

How does Safdie Architects promote diversity, equity, and inclusivity in its work culture?

CM: We’ve worked with the Architects Foundation to establish and fund a diversity scholarship and internship program, retooled our recruitment efforts to focus on schools with a high percentage of BIPOC students, partnered with several Boston-based organizations to provide mentorship and internship programs for high school students interested in pursuing architecture and design, and initiated programs through the Boston Society of Architects to create a professional culture that supports and fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Based on your own observations, how has Safdie Architects' design process and office culture evolved over the years? What aspects of your practice do you want to improve?

JL: One big change I have noticed culturally is how easy it has become to connect with one another — our architects and our extended design team of engineers, landscape architects, and collaborators — located all over the world. It’s a technology thing and also a people thing. We have become very familiar with one another, and we have all grown as individuals together project by project over the years.

We provide new hires with a selection of written materials, interviews, and presentations, and appoint a mentor to help them navigate the first day/week/month. —Chris Mulvey, Partner

We are always looking to improve the methods that we use to communicate our designs to our clients while staying true to our principles. Many architecture practices have shifted away from being builders and have slipped into this storyteller or salesperson expertise; in fact, some firms often separate within the firm those people who tackle early concept work from those who actually work on buildings. This is not a trend we embrace. It’s a tricky challenge because we compete against these folks for work. We believe it is important to stick to our ideals that have made us who we are for over 50 years.

If a job candidate had the choice between you and another firm, what argument would you use to win them over?

JL: We provide opportunities for resourceful, skilled designers to have great influence on interesting jobs early in their careers. The way we operate — compact in size but large in reach and capacity — provides each member of the firm, from interns to partners, with diverse opportunities and experiences, and the ability to learn and grow and develop at an accelerated pace. As part of my own career trajectory, I was in Singapore working with our consultants and contractors after only a short period of joining the practice. This type of experience we realize is rare in the profession.

WW: What sets Safdie apart from a lot of other firms is the caliber of projects being executed by small teams. This means that every team member has a hand in multiple parts of the projects rather than being pigeonholed into performing the same task for the sake of business efficiency.