Martin Gomez Platero He was born in Punta del Este 57 years ago. He studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of the Republic (Udelar) and began in this field as a cadet in the old studio that his father had with two architects.
In 2002 he decided to dissolve it and created Estudio Gómez Platero, his personal project. Today the firm is a reference in architectural projects both in Uruguay and in almost all Latin American countries.
His first international project, that same year in Ecuador, was the seed of the current company because it saved him from the crisis and also allowed him to hire the best architects of his generation who at that time did not have a job. Since then it has not stopped growing and today it sees great challenges in adding innovation and opening Uruguay to the world.
-Your studio has become a benchmark in the region, what is the activity like today?
-We are very good. Today we are about 230 people working, of which 80% are architects. From Mexico to Argentina we have projects in practically all Latin American countries, except Brazil, Chile and Venezuela. The difference between abroad and Uruguay is that here we do construction management. Abroad we make the preliminary project and the executive project, we deliver it and it ends there. Here we do the preliminary project, the executive project and in 95% of the cases, the construction management, which means that we have a relationship with the client and with the project of five, six, eight or ten years. Having projects abroad motivates us a lot, it makes us a better study to be able to work in different cultures, cities, environments. For this we travel a lot to the place, we do like an “immersion bath”. I am very grateful to my profession for a lot of things, especially having known Latin America as I am doing. Even my first international client was key to the current life of the company. It was in 2002, I had dissolved the previous studio and created the current one but due to the crisis it was almost dissolved. At that time, the city of Guayaquil was in a general reformulation process and Guillermo Lazo, who is the current president of Ecuador, took responsibility for building the bus terminal. He sent his manager to investigate the best bus terminals on the continent and since Tres Cruces is an example, they came. Then Carlos Lecueder called me and told me that they had spoken with him and he had recommended me for the contest. I meet with them, I tell them I’m interested, but I had to go see the project in Ecuador. I decided to invest and went. There I met Guillermo Lazo. We won and that project allowed me to bring in the best architects of my generation who were out of work at the time. That is the germ of today’s Gómez Platero studio. But there I also made a big mistake. The work lasted from 2002 to 2007 and since Uruguay had picked up and I had work locally, I decided to concentrate on the country. Luckily, in 2010, Lazo called me for the tower for the Banco de Guayaquil for his 100th birthday. I accepted, there I understood that I should bet on international business and I set up an office in Ecuador. And we don’t stop anymore. Today we are very proactive, we participate in conferences and we have more works to show.
Today we are about 230 people working, of which 80% are architects. From Mexico to Argentina we have projects in practically all Latin American countries, except Brazil, Chile and Venezuela.
-In projects and billing, how does Uruguay behave compared to abroad?
-In billing, about 60% is Uruguay because we do construction management, which is 34% of the fees. In terms of the number of projects, we are executing 194 in parallel, of which 109 are in Uruguay. The company has grown steadily until the pandemic, when we stagnated. We were 100 people but I wanted to support them all. We had some money, we could hold out for a bit and I made a proposal that we all adjust our salaries, the highest ones more and the lowest ones less, and with that I guaranteed them work until December 30. They accepted and I was able to maintain the great team we have. We grew again and today we are more than 230 professionals. Since then we have grown 25% and this year it will be more.
-Is it easy to export architecture from Uruguay?
-I am a big fan of Uruguay and Uruguayans. To sell Uruguayan architecture to the world, the first thing is to have a good professional level and the architects in Uruguay are good anywhere. Every time I enter a meeting somewhere in Latin America, being Uruguayan is a plus. The other is attitudinal and is where more emphasis must be placed. From Uruguay you can work for the world but you have to take risks, enter competitions, have a look beyond the country. You have to go to conferences, travel, gamble. Today the barriers are lower than before and that is why there is a huge opportunity.
-Do you plan to open in new markets?
-We have commercial offices in Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia, and production is done in Uruguay. This year we will do our first project in the US, in Miami, for a client from Guatemala who is going to invest in that city. We go with a local partner.
Photo: Leonardo Mainé
-Last year you joined Microsoft Lab, what role does innovation play in the study?
-I know little about technology, but I love everything that has to do with innovation. One day two great references were talking about the recent departure of OpenAI. I asked them, they explained it to me and I was impressed. When I get to the studio I say “this is coming, we have to be attentive.” During the pandemic I had hired Juan Ciapessoni to advise us on innovation. And when he tells me that Microsoft is going to set up a laboratory here, since it is the main shareholder of OpenAI, I decide to make an alliance to work on artificial intelligence (AI). Now we are also looking to strengthen that alliance with GeneXus and Globant. At IA we are working on preliminary projects. For example, we have several AI programs to which we give the design of a plant or what you are putting together and it returns options in different architectural languages that we then take or discard. It greatly accelerates productivity. What will never replace is the senior who ends up saying this is good or bad. There are people who are afraid of AI, I am totally optimistic and the study has to be above AI because if not, we are going to stay.
There are people who are afraid of AI, I am totally optimistic and the study has to be above AI because if not, we are going to stay.
-Will the time come when a person tells an AI in natural language to put together an architectural project?
-No, because even saying the same prompt, one studio will think an option is good and another studio will not. Therefore, there will always be good studies, more or less and bad ones, because it is a matter of design and talent. AI will help improve it, but if you are bad you will remain bad.
-What challenges does Uruguay have to continue developing?
-Education is key. Reforms will have to be made constantly because everything changes quickly. What is taught today changes next year. You have to have a totally flexible education towards what is coming and not pigeonhole. There will always be specific careers such as architecture, engineering, medicine, law, but they must be made flexible. I like the phrase “each one has his own road, the end is already defined but the width will depend on us.” Uruguay needs to be very up to date in education. Another challenge is openness to the world. The architects who receive it must not only work for Uruguay but for the world. We still don’t have that training, we don’t give it. You leave the Faculty of Architecture very well trained, but you have to be very open and attentive to what is happening in the world. For example, it bothers me a little when people ask me about smart cities, because generally people think of a technological city and a smart city is one that is well planned, one that has good public spaces, one that has flexibility to serve what’s coming, where the pedestrian is the protagonist, where everything is within a 15-minute radius. It is the city you want to visit when you travel. The technology part is a commodity. Today we are making three cities, +Colonia, one in Ecuador and another in Guatemala.
-In the export of services, how do you define the country in terms of air connectivity, Internet and competitiveness?
-Internet connectivity is fine. Air connectivity improved, but we are still weak. Today to go to Europe we only have one direct route, which is Madrid, then everything via San Pablo, Buenos Aires or Panama. For more investors to come, they must come easily and quickly. If we had a Montevideo-Paris flight twice a week, there would be more French people investing here. People who discover Uruguay fall in love with the country. A lot is being done, but there is still a lot to do. And in terms of competitiveness, Uruguay is expensive, but not only because of the dollar. We must look for competitiveness elsewhere. The dollar affects, but also the price of electricity, as well as other services and the cost of living. We must look for forms of competitiveness that are not only in the exchange rate.
