Michael Schienke Election Statement

Proposer: Mathew Freeman

Seconder: Laura Dragoi

Statement: 

I am a registered architect as well as a full BIID member for years and have been fortunate to mentor future BIID members as well as on the RIBA for a few years now, as well as be involved within the BIID. We do have jobs abroad, and I help organise for example a German-French collaboration together with the German Chamber of Commerce in the South of France. I also teach remotely at a private Polish interior design university and provide mentoring support to its students.

My work experience before starting my own company ranges from high end companies like Winch Design, Argent Design and Blush Design, as well as working for two construction companies as a site coordinator / project manager. I also worked on commercial projects at Haskoll Architects on shopping centres and multi storey residential projects, Cadmium Design on bingo halls, before that at SMC Gower Architects in Leeds on residential refurbishments and beforehand at Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson in Sheffield on student accommodations. Before coming to the UK I worked at several Warsaw based architectural companies.

I studied Architecture and Urban Planning at the Technical University in Warsaw, Poland, did my ARB part 1 and 2 in 2007 a few years after coming to the UK and my Part 3 at the AA. Interior design was my passion even before I started my company in 2010, but it took me until 2018 to fully join the BIID. Well before this I discovered my true passion is working with private residential clients, no matter their budget, to help them not only build but also design the interior of their future homes.

As a director I would like to focus on a long-term strategic approach and planning (I am half German after all) on two specific parts :

PR/business support: From the mentoring sessions I feel that us at the BIID need to give new and existing members more support in terms of helping with PR, the process of getting and keeping clients and also mindset of how to run an interior design business, while at every step focusing on practical guidance, aimed at one (wo)man designers as well as smaller practices.

Strategic relationships: To grow as a mature organisation, the BIID should have in my view mutually beneficial relationships with not only professional bodies, but also with larger companies who have a strong interior design focus/part within them (Winch Designs is one, where I used to work, but not only), as well as partner and collaborate with universities / organisations abroad. The aim is to foster long-term collaboration but also give our members guidance and direct contacts to organisations abroad which will be able to support their work in other countries. To be a British interior designer, a ‘Designer from London’ for example still has great weight abroad, and I believe that every UK based designer needs to have connections and work with and in other countries, even if its just to have a Plan B should their domestic workload be less stable than expected. Its also a good excuse to travel abroad ;-).