Brigada operates on the intersection of architecture and marketing, generating knowledge and experience exchange between these two domains. Focus on commercial projects: retail, office spaces, hospitality spaces, etc. brought about the need to develop new methods and tools to examine in the most objective and precise manner the performance of architecture and its pragmatic success. With Damjan Geber, Brigada’s founder and creative director, we discussed concepts and methodologies that are the basis of Brigada’s projects.

Oris: For starters, let us set the coordinates, the context and the relations. What is the connection between Brigada and Bruketa & Žinić & Grey?

Damjan Geber: When I graduated from college, I started designing commercial interiors mostly because these projects take less time than buildings. I quickly realized that conventional knowledge of architecture won’t suffice. On the one hand, there is an unknown user; on the other, a user-investor that you are familiar with. Both of them have to have their needs met. I researched empirically my own projects, took various additional classes, and launched my first little studio. At the time, I began collaborating with Bruketa&Žinić because they needed a collaborator on their retail projects for big clients that started investing in that particular communication sphere. The collaboration evolved, and I realized that there was an entire market that no one was covering. And exactly ten years ago, in November, we decided to establish a completely new agency as partners.