Candidates, Why go through a recruitment agency ?
1/ Your chances of finding a job are multiplied If you respond to a job offer published by a recruitment agency, your application will not…
Profile on Aurélien Pasquier: leading architect at the Jacques Ferrier agency in China
When his parents were extending the family home, Aurélien Pasquier took great interest in the architect commissioned to carry out the work through conversations, drawings, the use of rotrings… His love for the profession was born. This then grew while he was a middle-school student during his traineeship at Jean-Pierre Ceccaldi. As a student at the Ecole d’Architecture de Paris-Villemin, he gained practical experience: responding fictitiously to the request of a close associate, in his fourth year of study he designed a retirement home. In 2001, encouraged by the professor, Daniel Guibert, this project became the subject of his thesis.
Numerous travel experiences
During his studies, Aurélien Pasquier went on family holidays – to Italy, Spain, Germany – and travelled independently: “I was always set to leave Paris during the holidays”. Working as a waiter in London during the summer, he had access to building sites. Involved with the charity, Concordia, he carried out humanitarian work in Kenya and Greenland. These experiences in other countries brought untold benefits to someone of his age and level of experience: training in construction, open-mindedness, encounters with international volunteers, knowledge of English, the opportunity to travel far away, and all at reasonable cost. Alongside his thesis, he began an internship in Geneva at BRS architects, and completed his training with a DESS (Specialised Graduate Degree) in “Architectural engineering, planning and development”, thereby forging relations with players connected to the architectural profession (economists, lawyers, engineers, researchers). Upon completing his studies, he worked for a year at Ateliers Jean Nouvel, then at SCAU. In 2004, and because it had been a dream for many years, Aurélien Pasquier stopped working at SCAU and set off on a solo trip to Asia – Eastern Europe, Russia, Japan. His extraordinary saga gradually led him to expatriate status in China, and he went on to set up and run the Jacques Ferrier Architectures agency in Shanghai. Let’s go over the important milestones of his journey.
Gradual expatriation to Shanghai
After having “swapped trainers for proper shoes, and t-shirts for shirts”, Aurélien Pasquier found a job at the French agency Architecture Studio Shanghai which stands out on his CV. He returned to Paris for a little bit to work at Hubert & Roy architects, and shortly after accepted a job at Jacques Ferrier, just as, by happy coincidence, the agency won the competition to model the French Pavilion for the Shanghai World Exhibition in 2010. The architect’s international experience and the interests of the agency grew quickly: Aurélien Pasquier supervised the study phases, then the construction site of this amazing project. Shortly after the success of the pavilion, and with a favourable economic climate in China, Jacques Ferrier gave him the responsibility of setting up an agency in Shanghai. Initiated with the help of a Chinese architect with the status of commercial representation, the new agency rose to new heights by winning competitions, and became a WFOE (Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise). The agency currently employs 15 people, including 12 architects. They all have international experience and speak perfect English. Being a foreign agency, beyond the facts, is used as a strategy to take on the competition: “if clients come and find us, it’s because they want a different offer.”