Firm that has changed East Africa’s skyline

They could be referred to as the architects with a Midas touch.

Their name, Triad Architects, is imprinted in Nairobi’s skyline in the form of buildings like Times Tower, Parliament buildings, and Barclays Plaza.

Founded in 1963 by Amyas Connell and Graham McCullough, Triad was one of the pioneer architectural firms in Kenya.

Celebrating 50 years of existence now, the company’s survival is credited to the founders, who managed to pass it down through the years to the current generation of partners.

Most architectural firms are based on the spirit of partnerships. Triad has five partners.

“When those individuals retire or opt out, most firms usually collapse.

But, what has kept Triad going is the trend that our founding partners set: That of training young partners to take over.

That is what is happening even now. We will retire and you will find the younger partners ready to take over,” Mr Julius Kibwage, one of the firm’s partners, told Smart Company in an interview.

Beside their abilities to run the company, younger architects have to buy shares into the firm for them to become partners.

This often happens when the younger partners buy out the older ones.

Mr Kibwage joined as a partner in 1998, having worked his way up from entry level to management and says the firm has been in the frontline of the architectural industry in East Africa and has undertaken over 1,000 projects since its setting up. 

“We believe we are among the top three or four leading architectural firms in the country,” he said.

Architectural companies now number well into the hundreds.

There has also been a resurgence of relatively young firms from less than 10 three decades ago.

This has made the industry competitive and infiltrated by quacks.

The industry’s potential is pegged on the growth in the real estate sector.

From the 1990s to the 2000s, Kenya’s economy faced a lot of challenges, including corruption and declining growth, which affected many industries, construction included.

Steady growth

“That was also the time when very little investment was coming into the country as many foreign investors shied away from Kenya.

But we have seen steady growth with the opening up of the economy from 2003,” said Mr Kibwage.

The construction industry is now one of the drivers of the economy.

A growing population and a rising middle class have pushed up demand for houses and offices.

This has meant good news to the architectural industry that has tapped into the growing demand.

The mushrooming of shopping malls driven by a rising middle class consumer segment coupled with lifestyle change have also contributed to the survival and fortunes of Triad and its competitors.

The firm has built Barclays Plaza, British Council, the Coca-Cola regional headquarters, Longonot Place, Times Tower, Parliament Buildings, Nairobi National Museum, De la Rue printing centre, and the multiple-use Norfolk Towers among others in Kenya.

Its experience also transcends the borders to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and India.

In many of the projects, it has been involved from the design and construction to the delivery of the project to the client.

The changing environment since the 1960s has not made the business any less complex, as Mr Kibwage suggests.

However, modern technology like use of computer-aided designs has made delivery of work much faster with less manpower required.

“While it has not really removed the complexity, it has helped us deliver the work much faster to the marketplace.

So, a design project that would take two years to deliver in the ’60s and the ’70s can now take about six or eight months,” he said.