"We have a special responsibility" - Interview with Christoph Helbich
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You are celebrating your 90th anniversary this year. You can’t see that at all.
Yes, that’s right, our office is exactly twice as old as I am this year. It was founded in 1928 by G.F. Schumm in Kaiserstrasse, 34 years before my wife’s grandfather, Alois Scheffler, took over and continued the business in Wambel. His son, our father and father-in-law Peter Scheffler, joined the office just a few years later in 1972 and moved to Schwerter Strasse, where we still work with part of our team today. The other part is located in the former chocolate factory in Brackel. We are currently planning our new office in Phoenix West, which we will all move into together in 2019. The shell is currently being built and I drive past the construction site every evening full of anticipation because it can’t go fast enough. It’s simply fantastic!
You are an architect with heart and soul. What fascinates you so much about it?
We shape our environment and want to make it better with our buildings. Architecture and urban planning form public space, working and living environments. Unlike art, it is impossible to escape architecture and urban planning because we are always moving within them. And unlike fashion, architecture must be durable and timeless because we cannot simply discard or replace it. This means that we have a special responsibility not only towards our client, but also towards the general public.
How do you deal with this responsibility?
In general, we always ask ourselves the question of appropriateness and added value. Our aim is to develop clear and easy-to-understand concepts using carefully applied means. In our eyes, good architecture is created when we succeed in creating added value from the synthesis of all functional, structural-spatial, economic and, above all, social qualities, which are rarely mentioned in the requirements program of a project, from which everyone benefits in the long term – and thus sustainably.
A sense of community and teamwork are also important to you in your daily work.
Yes, that is correct. We all love working in a team because everyone – client, colleague, specialist planner and future user – contributes their personal quality, specialization and ideas, resulting in a holistic, interdisciplinary solution. It’s also a lot of fun to do together.
What characterizes the SHA office in the development process of a project?
We are curious, listen very carefully and analyze complex requirements precisely. We do not see construction tasks with difficult framework conditions as a restriction, but rather as a special challenge in which we can demonstrate our expertise.
Over four hundred completed projects represent a wealth of experience from which our clients benefit when we develop their individual concepts. They always follow the logic of function and location and are developed on the basis of clear economic specifications.
And then it’s time for implementation…
Throughout the entire process, we see ourselves as a caretaker who holds all the threads together, is available to the client as a point of contact and prepares everything well for him. This allows the company to continue to concentrate on its core business. With continuity, reliability and precision, the planning is driven forward in detail right through to execution in order to achieve a high level of quality on the construction site right up to the handover of the keys. Adherence to deadlines and costs naturally has top priority.
How satisfied are the clients?
That almost everyone is planning with us again. I don’t think they could pay us a bigger compliment. This fills us with pride and gratitude.
