Gábor Bojár, Founder of Graphisoft, Redefines Design of IT Office Parks in Hungary

You've evolved from founder and CEO of Graphisoft, an internationally successful architectural software provider, to becoming an office park developer in Budapest, Hungary. Talk a little bit about Graphisoft Park, it's original vision, and its success.

When the company started to perform well, we could afford to move the premises, which would attract new talent. The secret to a good software company is always the ability to land the best talent. You can attract talent with a nice, appealing job, a nice, rewarding human environment, and a very nice physical environment. These are the three most important points. We didn't have the nice physical environment, so we decided, "We have the money, we will build one for ourselves." Then, other similar R&D orientated companies appreciated the quality of the project and wanted to join. That is how the R&D park came to exist.

You were not a real estate developer when you began, but you were looking for a site where you could expand Graphisoft. What was your vision? Where did you find the real estate expertise to pull off this venture?

We hired the professionals to make the development. The vision was to do an R&D park in Budapest that could attract the best talent not just from Hungary, but also from all over the region. Companies in the United States already exist at this level. Apple and Google invested in their particular environments so the companies could take care of the employees. We wanted to establish the same culture in Hungary as there is in Europe. So, the goal and the dream of the park is to protect the physical environment for software and IT talent. We have a very, very fortunate location, next to the Danube, here on the waterfront. It is a very quiet waterfront, which at this point is unique in Budapest. We have no more waterfronts outside of downtown where the hotels are, but that is too busy. Outside of that, or outside of Margaret Island, you can't build a business park. But this is the only place where you can build a business park and have a quiet waterfront area.

How did Graphisoft Park evolved from plan to reality?

We bought the land in 1996, so 12 years ago. The first building was our own building and was delivered in 1998. We moved in 1998, at the same time Microsoft Hungary moved in. Then came the other tenants like Apple, SAP, Canon, biotech companies like Emery, American biotech companies, a French pharmaceutical company, and many others. Very good companies are coming in. Graphisoft and the landlord actually split the company into two parts, two years ago, in 2006. At the time, both were public companies, one a real estate developer and the other a software company. The software company remained public, but last year I sold it, and now I am going to invest the proceeds from my shares in the software company into the founding of a new university.

Talk a little bit about the architecture and the planning of the park.

It was absolutely agreed that green should dominate the plans. Our architectural vision was not to allow more than 15 to 20 percent occupation of the land by buildings, and the height of the building could not be more than ten meters in order to have the trees taller than the buildings. We have a very nice, green framing of the building at entry to the park. When a new employee comes today, say for an interview, they immediately have the feeling that they would want to work here.

Isn't the cost significantly higher than other similar real estate parks?

It is in the 80 percent green area because we do not allow cars to park outside. We made very expansive underground garages for the cars in order to keep the green area really green, not like a shopping mall, full of cars. The increase of the open space cost about 40-50 percent. If you calculate how much a 50 percent increase in rent relates to the cost of wages, you see that this is only 2-3 percent compared to the cost of the software engineers. Therefore we ask two questions: Do we prefer to have this environment or a three percent salary raise? Even in Hungary, it is worth the investment.

Let's turn to the university. You recently outbid the largest developer in Budapest to win the opportunity to build on one of the large sites adjacent to your park. Talk a little bit about this venture and your concept for the university.

Twelve years ago we were selecting this piece of land, and there was another candidate parcel next to the Technical University of Budapest, which is the largest university in Hungary. The biggest advantage of that land was that it was next to the university. If industry and education come together, there is a very big synergy and very big advantage for both sides, for the students to have access and for the industry to have connections to the students. So it was very, very good land, like the Silicon Valley or the Boston area. But here we have the beautiful riverside. In the other place, there was also the riverside, but there was a three-lane road. So it wasn't so close to the river and not so nicely integrated with the green area. Physically, this is much nicer.

Finally we chose this one, but I told the architect who made the master plan that the only reason I wasn't so sure that we made the right choice is because the university is the big advantage over there. He said, "You know, Gábor, as I know you, you will make your own university here." That was the initiation of the idea. We have a similar advantage in higher education as we had with real estate development. In real estate development, the advantage was that we know the kind of premises that a software company needs because we are a software company. And we certainly know what kind of education we need from graduates, so it was similar to invest in education as to invest in real estate development. The two come together and both are based on the experience and the needs of a real software company.

Can you elaborate on the guiding principles of this unique university?

It would be much more market-oriented. The education would be much more market-orientated than the L.A. schools, which are very good, as are the Ivy League schools. But there is one disadvantage in that they do not depend on the market; they depend on their endowments, and do not take too much influence from the market. They want to lead the market, not serve the market, because they are not making their living off of the market. They know that, and they regard the customer as an unavoidable bad thing.

What can you teach other property developers about office parks? What's the lesson you can offer them?

Quality always stays on top. Always invest in quality first. When we concentrate on the price instead of the quality, it's not the best.

You've built this base in Budapest. How, under the E.U., is Budapest positioned to thrive in the global marketplace?

It's a very good symbol that the European Institute of Technology, which is a new institution founded by the European Commission, is placed in Budapest. The official opening of the institute will be September, unfortunately not in my park, but it will be in the Info Park.

Hungary has a several-hundred-year tradition of mathematical education, and we rely on that foundation. It is not by chance that the Rubiks Cube was invented in Hungary-this the result of hundreds of years of mathematical culture. But it replaces a trading culture. We don't have a trading culture; we don't have the business culture. But we do have a scientific, mathematical culture. Now, in the information age, it is high time to transform the mathematical and scientific cultures into business culture.

Lastly, Graphisoft is a global company. How do you compare the market penetration of Graphisoft in the U.S. versus Europe? What is evolving in the E.U. versus the United States?

In the architecture and design software market we have about ten percent of the global market. In the U.S. it's somewhat less than 10 percent, and in Europe it's somewhat higher than ten percent. But the global average is about ten percent. There is another way of market share calculation that I prefer: If you look around among the new buildings that have been developed, constructed, and finished in the last ten to 16 years and select all of those which have been designed with Building Information Modeling (BIM) (which means a real intelligent 3D computer model of the building-a source of information like floor plan, elevation, etc.), about ten percent of the buildings already in the world have something like that. Within that ten percent, we have the majority. Our software is the most used BIM software in the world.