22 REPORTER
PROFILE Rachel Basha
The founder and CEO of interiors and architecture practice Basha-Franklin speaks about her career to date and her leadership style
WORDS BY TONY ROCK
Visiting the Sydney Opera House as a child in her native Australia had a profound impact on Rachel Basha. ‘That was a pretty phenomenal moment,’
says the founder and CEO of Basha-Franklin, an interiors and architecture practice that specialises in workspace and residential design. ‘I grew up in a country town and although it
was beautiful geographically, being in Sydney was something of a next-level total experience of what architecture and design can do. ‘There was such a great procession to
entering that building. Not many buildings actually change you emotionally and have such a big impact.’ While visiting the iconic landmark had a
transformative effect on the young Basha, family also played a significant role in nurturing her interest in design, with her growing up in a family that ran a furniture business, while her grandfather was a builder. ‘I had a lot of opinions on the furniture,’ Basha
recalls. ‘I could identify what I thought was a really nice piece – and what I didn’t like as well.’ The fascination with design turned into a
career, naturally, and having studied and worked in Australia, Basha moved to London in 2002. Five years later, recognising an
opportunity to launch a new practice, she founded Basha-Franklin. Today, the practice is known for its contextual and creative designs that satisfy the needs and wants of clients for both occupiers and UK property developers such as Related Argent, Canary Wharf Group, Landsec and
W.RE, and investment firms Morgan Capital and Brookfield. ‘We want to always design for the particular
client – design for the location, design for the time and the future, and always take every project as a unique challenge,’ says Basha of the company’s philosophy. ‘With every project, whether it’s a small thing or a big thing, we’re always thinking about what unique element of craft, art or other creativity we can integrate into the experience of the building.’ Explaining the motivation for starting her
own business, Basha says: ‘I always wanted to drive a better outcome in terms of service and product in design. And I always had my own ideas about how I wanted things to work and how to deliver design.
‘I’ve always been very passionate about
that inside-out experience, and now we are delivering integrated architecture and design – although, as an interior designer, that’s not how the business started – it has really come together in that total design experience.’ She thinks of herself as a strategic thinker,
someone who sees the whole picture, and enjoys taking a holistic approach. ‘It’s always a 360-degree view: looking to
the future, how we’re going to achieve something, who needs to be involved, who can we partner with,’ she explains. ‘There are a lot of different aspects that
come into a successful project, and we know that we need the right partners to achieve that. My mind thinks in that way. ‘I’m always trying to get everybody to
contribute to the design conversation. We need to work together, all of us – clients, developers, architects, designers, consultants, artisans, artists, contractors – as co-creators. And we need to shift from the “designing on our own terms” to “designing with” people mindset.’ Leadership, meanwhile, is about good
communication. But that does not mean employing a top-down, dictatorial style – rather, Basha practises ‘bottom up, 360-degree’ leadership because she wants people to achieve their best and take their career forward in the most positive way and as part of a team. Leadership is also about working hard to
hire people that share Basha-Franklin’s values. ‘Now that we’re a really cohesive team, I
want people to develop their own leadership skills,’ she insists. As with any business, there are challenges.
Squeezed budgets, for instance, are one source of frustration. ‘Where you’re under very tight programmes
and budgets, it can be quite frustrating for designers when we don’t get to really deliver the high-quality solution that we want to,’ Basha explains. ‘So it’s a challenge, and it continues to be a challenge. But that’s the real world and the challenge that I want to face [head-on].’ Operating more eficiency is one way of
managing that this issue, she adds. ‘We’re always working at how we can do
things more eficiently. Particularly on some of the more rudimentary process-driven pieces so
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