Darryl Custer: An Influential Leader Shaping the Architectural Landscape with Creativity and Experience

KEO is a creative enterprise, uniquely resourced with end-to-end services to take clients from inspiration – through conceptualization – to realization of planning, design, and project delivery in the built and natural environments. For over 58 years they have led with vision, contributing to many of the world’s most ambitious projects, iconic places, remarkable experiences, and prosperous communities.

As the Managing Director of the Design Division at KEO, Darryl Custer leads with an acute understanding of development and operations. He works with developers and design teams to lead projects through a coordinated process to ensure the end product clearly reflects the client’s goals and vision.

Early Career                       

Darryl’s family moved around a lot as he was growing up and he learned to be independent, to lead by example, help others, and take care of things as they come. This led him to be somewhat of a “self-starter.” His father was an engineer, and mother an interior designer which gave him exposure to the design and build industry at an early age. A family trip to “Falling Waters” when he was 12 hooked him on architecture.

Darryl has been practicing architecture for 33 years. He spent his early career in the USA working on various commercial projects and then moved on to China and South East Asia before taking up his current role and changing his base location to Dubai. “I was lucky to receive a good amount of organizational leadership training early in my career which combined with my embedded belief systems brings an inherent entrepreneurial approach. A big part of my career has been spent on opening new offices with a focus on design and operational leadership and I humbly consider myself somewhat of an urban mixed-use expert, given most of my time has been working on that typology,” says Darryl.

Handling Challenges

Darryl inherited a troubled project early in his career and was essentially told to “make it or break it” with no expectations of success. At the time, he had just obtained his architectural license and was extremely excited to carry this torch. With some trepidation, he dug in and learned all he could at night and on weekends about contracts and aspects of the design business that really is not taught in school. This gave him a springboard to shift from just designing buildings to the business and operational side of architectural practice. At a young age, he found himself negotiating fees and contracts with the client and sub-consultants as he managed all aspects of the project. This experience fundamentally changed his career, and he took to have some form of leadership position ever since. The challenge served as a valuable experience for Darryl, albeit it was stressful at the time.

Innovation and Adaptability

Darryl strongly believes that technology can enable us to achieve remarkable things if used properly. In most ways, good design principles remain consistent. However, the method of approaching good solutions must adapt. Speed to market, cost expectations, evolving consumer demands, and how to build assets is an ever-changing narrative. “Our team at KEO is constantly learning and working with the most recent tools available. By way of example, my career started with primarily hand drawing to solve problems then quickly shifted toward two-dimensional digital drafting and now we work exclusively in three-dimensional digital modeling. We are now starting to adopt artificial intelligence and machine-driven problem solving into our work – it is all extremely exciting,” he says.

Creating an Inspiring Workplace

Darryl has had the opportunity to work with world-class architects throughout his career and feels he has learned more by collaborating directly with his mentors than in any other manner. While many things change through time, some things in the business stay the same. He tries to remember this and pass it down in his daily work and one of his greatest joys is helping the next generation grow and learn. “I really do get excited learning new things from younger architects about new tools and recent technology. In many ways, it works as a quid pro quo as we collectively adapt tried and true experiences with new ways of thinking,” he says.

He also is a firm believer in teamwork and believes that a well-organized team can accomplish more than compartmentalized individual efforts if everyone involved understands the value of group learning. As a leader, he tries to limit “one-off” conversations and encourages team dialogue with players seeking multiple source points for problem-solving. Short term, this brings better and more well-rounded results and long term, it supports a better work-life balance for everyone. “I have found that if managed properly, this approach does gain buy-in as it helps grow careers and raises the value of everyone’s participation through comradery,” he shares.

Being a Successful Leader Even in Uncertain Times

To be a successful leader, Darryl believes that the most crucial qualities in today’s constantly evolving times are humility and open-mindedness. “The profession is constantly evolving, and no one person knows everything, no matter how much experience they have. Architecture is fundamentally a human service business, and good architectural leaders need to be capable of helping other designers get where they need to be as opposed to telling people what to do as a fundamental mindset,” feels Darryl. In addition, being able to look ahead and change course or adapt when needed is another important trait required to be a successful leader since things do not always work out as planned.

Hiring good people, says Darryl, is another way to ensure that the leader and the entire team are ready to face uncertain situations. They must face the facts when needed. “As a leader, I do not want to be the smartest person in the room, I strive to be surrounded by the smartest people I can gain access to,” he says. Having a strong team with players who can focus on their given strengths, then enabling them to work together in covering the entire pitch is the single best way to manage risk in Darryl’s view. At the same time, being able to recognize an issue openly and honestly as early as possible and then forcing corrective action is the best way to manage uncertain times.

Balancing Short-term Goals and Long-term Vision

Darryl learned early on that good planning is as important as good execution and so a leader should always have a five-year framework guide. Once the framework is ready, Darryl then works backward from that in a stacked hierarchical manner. From the framework guide a three-year plan with some general KPIs is developed followed by a more specific one-year plan with specific KPIs. From that, he looks ahead on a quarterly basis with a once-per-month re-check with a reset as required every six months. That said, in his business KPIs are not just financial metrics but they also constantly measure team composure, the projects they are working on, and the portfolio they are building.

Upskilling and Employee Advocacy

Darryl makes it a point to attend as many industry events as he can, particularly ones that focus on recent  technologies.This helps him stay on top of the latest developments. KEO has strong relationships with its software providers and is always collaborating with them on what is new and how they can stay engaged. He also tries to stay involved in other award-based industry events as a means of staying current with design trends locally and globally. Finally, staying connected to local universities via periodic project reviews is important to see what the next generation is thinking as they enter the workforce.

KEO has a robust employee review program to monitor and track progress. However, Darryl’s focus in this regard is to make sure everyone in his team has at least one mentor and at least one person they are mentoring. “I strongly believe that people can learn and grow their careers tremendously by teaching others and so require everyone to participate in this mindset,” he says.

Addressing Socio-environmental Issues

As designers, Darryl admits, it is especially important, they consider their social and environmental impact. The results of their efforts leave an indelible imprint on the societies they touch, and they must consider the cultural and social impacts of their design work. He and KEO also recognize that the construction industry contributes a significant amount to the world’s human-made carbon dioxide emissions and therefore consistently try to find solutions that minimize these impacts wherever possible.

Handling Challenges

Over the years, Darryl has learned that humans are primarily motive-driven creatures and some of his biggest failures have come when not understanding a client’s motives. “I truly do not mean this in any bad manner and am just saying it is critical to understand what each client is really looking for before starting any assignment. I have also learned that as a design practitioner, it is important to understand that not all clients are a good fit. Sometimes it is ok to decline a project if the work is not suited to my skills. I have learned this the hard way in the past,” he shares.

Looking Ahead

Given KEO’s client’s expectations and with the massively scaled projects in the Middle East [LM2] [SS3] currently, Darryl and his team are exploring the idea of using pre-built modular units in some of their projects. They need to be very selective in where this is used, but for those suitable projects, they are now working with fabricators to assemble wet rooms (kitchens and bathrooms primarily) as a new method of delivery solutions. Good design is always a key priority for his team, and they hope this approach will enable them to focus on the larger, more impactful design areas at hand while using this concept to deliver on repetitive spaces in primarily residential projects.

“I feel blessed to have the current role as Managing Director of the Design Division in KEO and we have been recognized as the #1 architectural firm in the Middle East for three years in a row by the WA100 survey of top architecture firms. Over the coming years I hope we can build on this accomplishment for a broader recognition globally to be recognized in a broader context,” concludes Darryl.

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