Pergola Creations: Architecture, Construction and Real Estate in Ghana

Interview with Percy Ebo Sackey, Architect at Pergola Creations

What are the current trends in the Ghanaian market? Is it very competitive?

My industry is architecture, construction, and the real estate market. The good thing is that over the years, Ghana has gradually started gaining some ground in economic development. Recent reports from the World Bank state that Ghana is now the fastest growing economy. We can see that all around us from the developments that are coming up now. The industry is getting more competitive by the year. Investors are coming in, but it is not so easy for the local services industry like ourselves. These investors do come into the market with their own services, so it makes competition very challenging for us. We really have to up our game in terms of research and development and try to catch up with the foreign competition.

It is difficult to have access to the market. But then, you have the opportunity to work with the local people and the local companies, the ones that know you. Do have a strategy to achieve this?

My advantage comes from my real estate background. I was trained in a real estate company so my thinking as an architect is not typical because I would come in from a more business point of view.

Our strategy has always been client satisfaction. Within our industry, we do not advertise, just like lawyers. That is why you will not see any signs with our name on it. Most of our business comes in through recommendation. When we get a client, we see that as an opportunity to get other clients, and we try to make sure that the service that we provide for them is so unique that they will always want to come back and then recommend us to other people. Networking really helps. For example, I had a client once and I did not know he was a top executive at Nestlé Central & West Africa. I designed his house for him, and we really took our time to detail it out very well and he was very impressed. Next, he asked me to come to his office to meet his director because Nestlé was trying to do a project and he thought I could help with it. That was a big break for us. Through that, we got an opportunity to work with Nestlé CWA. Similarly, we have gotten the opportunity to work with Ghana Commercial Bank, Bayport Financial Services, and other industry giants through individual recommendations.

What are your competitive advantages? Why do people recommend you?

My advantage comes from my real estate background. I was trained in a real estate company so my thinking as an architect is not typical because I would come in from a more business point of view. I have more understanding of the materials and construction, which is helpful when most of the clients that come in usually want to invest in the construction industry or development. My speciality, because I was trained in the real estate company, gives me a competitive advantage because I have a much better understanding of that sector and most of the clients are willing to get into the real estate market. It seems that in Ghana, when people earn disposable income, they tend to want to invest it in real estate because there is a notion that you can never go wrong in real estate. When I sit down with them and I listen to their brief, because I have an experience in real estate, I am able to tell them, even by the location of their land, that this area is not the best for a house and why. I can give them the reasons and an idea of how much money it would cost. Those are the kind of things that intrigue them. Because I have that experience in construction, I am able to give them a cost estimate which is very useful because now they do not have to go to a consultant to get a rough idea of the budget, I can do that off the top of my head. Looking at the scale and the size, I can tell them it will cost X USD and even tell them how much it will sell for and how quickly. This has been my advantage with most of my clients. Once they know that, they get very excited and happy and before I know it, I get another recommendation from another developer.

What are the opportunities for you to grow your business?

I realize that over the years, I have been helping these developers get into real estate and I ask myself why am I not doing it myself? I have studied the real estate market well and I know that most people go in for the high-end development. There is a huge gap between the high and the middle-income developments. We are also very efficient when it comes to construction. We are able to build for about 10 to 20 percent less than the market. Our project management techniques have always been an advantage. We have now actually acquired close to 11 acres of land where we intend to develop low income housing. We are now starting our own real estate development company.

Is your work mainly in Accra?

We have done most of our works in Accra and a few outside Accra. We have also had a few international clients. One is in Bamako, in Mali. We currently have about three projects there that also came through a recommendation from one of our clients. He had travelled to Mali and one of his business partners saw our design on his phone and then they asked us to fly to Mali to speak with him. The scale of those projects in Mali are actually bigger than most of the projects we have done here in Ghana in terms of service.

What challenges do you face?

The challenges are human resources and technology. That also comes with the underlying factor of capital. For the human resource, the training we have here in Ghana is great, but it is not enough. After school, the graduates come here, and you see from the level of education they have that they need some sort of foreign exposure. Taking them out of the country to see the new trends in architectural design, building materials, construction, and technology would help greatly. I have been lucky enough to have had that exposure. Any architect’s skill or level of creativity depends on the exposure that they have around them or they are given. If, as an architect in Ghana, you do not travel or see the things around you, your creativity will suffer. If you look at the current trends in the system, a lot of the big organizations are going after foreign architects and there are a large number of foreign architects in the country now. Some of them have set up firms here and some of the big jobs that we do now are in collaboration with these foreign firms. For our first collaboration, we worked on a building with Paolo Breggia, an Italian architect. We have also worked with Stefano, who owns a firm here in Accra. When you look at the work that they produce, it is somehow superior to most of the ones that our local architects come up with in terms of detailing rather than in terms of design. We can equally match their design. But in detailing, materials, specifications, because they have many more materials and building materials, they are exposed to a lot more. We must import most of the materials here and most of the time, the challenge is that our client has a small budget. So even when you want to be creative and you have done some research and you have gotten to know some new materials that you want to try and experiment with, the client asks if you are getting the materials locally or if you have to import it. And if you have to import it, it will make the project too expensive.

Project yourself in three years’ time. If everything you had planned went well, what will Pergola Creations have achieved?

When I speak with my team, I tell them that we are pursuing a very big vision that will require a lot of commitment and dedication within the short term, from now to three years. We want to be, if not the leading, then one of the leading design and build firms in the country. We want to transcend that vision to the boundaries of Ghana. We want to send this to sub Saharan Africa and take it beyond Africa and eventually become one of the global giants in our industry. But it is a process and we must go through it step by step. Our strategy for this is to keep up with the trends. We need to study the architectural trends that are currently happening in the world and try keep up with them. There is a wave of energy efficiency, sustainable buildings, green architecture, etc. These are trends that will eventually take hold, and some countries are actually implementing them into their laws and their building codes and demanding that buildings must have a certain level of efficiency. Eventually, this will happen in Ghana, so we do not want to wait and be caught by surprise. Now, we are doing research into green architecture and trying to place ourselves strategically in that position, so we can move with the trend.

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