Elvira Conejero Crespo
I completed my Master of Architecture in 2014, going on to work on various design projects for local and international architectural practices such as Gensler in the United States and the Middle East. I took the Master in Business for Architecture and Design at IE in 2015, and founded Labit, an architecture and design studio in Madrid, where I lead the design process from concept to execution.
"I decided to start the program because I wanted to look more at the business of architecture, and not designing so much. I wanted to open my mind to the world and the program gave me all the tools that I needed for that."
Elvira Conejero is alumnus of the Master in Business for Architecture and Design and CEO and Partner of Labit, the architecture and design studio she founded in Madrid a couple of years ago.
Elvira had a clear vision of what she wanted from the program before she enrolled. With a strong foundation in architecture, she was looking to dive into the business side of things. “I decided to start the program because I wanted to look more at the business of architecture, and not designing so much. I wanted to open my mind to the world, not only to architecture, and the program gave me all the tools that I needed for that.”
“In a small firm you need to have the capabilities and the tools to be able to do everything,” she explains.
Today, Labit employs over 40 people in Madrid, Barcelona and London. The company is currently working across the European market, providing architectural solutions with a technical component to clients like WeWork. As the firm grows within the workplace sector through projects in Spain, the UK, Germany, Ireland and France, business perspectives become increasingly important for the future.
It’s clear that the Master in Business for Architecture and Design program’s multidisciplinary nature has been invaluable in equipping her with those tools. “In my daily life in the office I work in all the fields that we saw in the program,” Elvira says. “The good thing is, in the program we had a view of finance, and we had a view of marketing, human resources, project management, negotiation, business development… We had a view of many different things that, during my Bachelor, we didn’t.”
Following the program, Elvira’s business acumen has become a central part of her work at Labit, rather than merely a complementary add-on to the firm’s offering. Thanks to the valuable perspectives and insights she encountered at IE, Elvira finds herself ideally positioned to redefine the architectural profession by exploring new connections between design and business.
In fact, she maintains the importance of unlearning some previously held ideas and opinions about the world of architecture. Elvira’s advice to anyone considering taking IE’s Master in Business for Architecture and Design is to forget about what they already know, and open themselves up to new viewpoints.
“Even though in the program most of us are architects, you start touching on so many things that you really need to … start questioning everything.”
As is to be expected, taking on this academic venture was daunting in the beginning for Elvira. Nevertheless, the broad vision and comprehensive synergy between business and design which characterize the Master in Business for Architecture and Design have proved essential to this entrepreneurial architect, giving Elvira the skills and tools she needs “to be able to do everything.”
