blocher partners expands group of companies

The blocher partners family is growing: the new General Planning GmbH launches in May. With the new company, we are responding to changes in the market that already have led to the firm handling an increasing number of projects as general planners.

Recognizing the need to strengthen its comprehensive and integrated support of clients across all architectural and engineering services and all service phases, blocher partners decided to professionalize the division as a separate company.

The search for a high-profile managing director led to an excellent opportunity: With the appointment of 44-year-old graduate engineer Frank Hoekstra, we have brought back an ally who started working for the company back in 2010. Five years ago, he took the position of senior project manager with Thost Projektmanagement GmbH, where his most recent position was as team leader in project control and real estate project management. Benjamin Blocher and Wolfgang Mairinger will join the experienced architect as managing directors of blocher partners’ General Planning GmbH.

The demand for single source planning services is constantly growing, and projects also are becoming increasingly complex. Said Frank Hoekstra, explaining the advantages of the new approach: »We already have a distinctive and broad range of expertise at blocher partners. By adding general planning, we can involve more experts earlier and more intensively than before. That’s exactly where we see the greatest potential going forward: in successful cooperation and trust between planners and client. As general planners, we have a much greater influence on the overall quality of a project.«