Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marlene Imirzian. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Marlene thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Please tell us about starting your own firm and if you’d do anything different knowing what you know now.
I decided to give myself at most 6 months to see if I could get enough work to have my own firm. I started in the bedroom of my apartment. A wonderful client in Scottsdale hired me to do her gallery addition, which became my first project. I immediately contacted my attorney and accountant to set up the company. I had been speaking at national conferences and one of them was for higher education planning. One of the college attendees contacted me after my presentation at the conference, and that led to my first higher education project, within the first year of my business. Within 6 months I had to hire staff and the firm was on its way!
The biggest consideration for anyone starting an architectural firm is that the pressure for landing new project work never ends, and they should consider the time, effort and cost required.
Marlene, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am the leader of my architectural firm Marlene Imirzian & Associates (MIAA) that provides full services for a wide range of clients and projects including master planning, higher education, public, health care, commercial, multi family residential, single family residential, park facilities and historic preservation. We are known for our design excellence, project performance, and as a leader in integration of sustainable design practices. The firm was named one of the top 50 Architecture firms in the U.S. for sustainable design by Architect Magazine.
Key to our success is commitment of our staff to each project to meet the needs of the client and schedule. We are very unique in providing nationally recognized design excellence for projects within the client cost parameters. Early design scope analysis with cost criteria is the most effective way to develop outstanding design of projects that can be constructed for available funds.
Our work has been awarded over 30 design awards in the state and region, and published internationally. The firm was named the American Institute of Architects Arizona Firm of the Year in 2015, and Marlene was named a Master of the Southwest by Phoenix Home & Garden magazine.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Building our reputation in our market has been helped by our project awards. Architectural projects have opportunities to be featured in competitions and publications, which provide great marketing and potential for clients to consider us. Recently one of our projects was feature on NPR for its design for heat, from which we received great feedback.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Social media requires significant effort which is not practical to be done by architects in our office. We built our social media by contracting with a social media consultant who does all the social meda uploads, monitoring, and follow up for us. Our junior staff provides for the images and content that are then reviewed and uploaded by our social media consultant.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.imirzian-architects.com
Image Credits
Photos by Bill Timmerman, no reproduction allowed