YODEZEEN, A MIAMI-BASED UKRAINIAN ARCHITECTURAL FIRM, IS SETTING THE NEW STANDARD FOR DREAM HOMES.
Written by: Stephanie Davis Smith
Artur Sharf was only 22 years old when he founded Yodezeen, his design firm, back in Ukraine. Today, the company boasts a team of over 200 members and is working on projects in the UAE, Miami, Málaga, Aspen, New York City, Warsaw, and Kyiv. Locally, Sharf is responsible for designing the Bal Harbour Club, a 4,000-square-foot condo at The Ritz-Carlton Bal Harbour, a penthouse at The W Miami, and another luxurious residence at The St. Regis Bal Harbour. In the process Sharf has become a design star, delivering major projects for real estate moguls, athletes, and architecture aficionados.
Tell us the origin of your studio’s name. Yodezeen means “your design” in Ukrainian. I hear all the time, “Artur, ‘I worked with different designers in the past. The designer listens to me, and then they make what they want instead. But at Yodezeen, you have a real vision and play with the client and listen.’
Do you live in Miami? For the last two years, I’ve been living in Miami Beach near Sunset Harbour with my wife. I’m back and forth to Europe. But 70 percent of the time I’m working. The other time is spent at the gym, relaxing, and going to the beach. We don’t go out as often as we should. We are also staying in Aspen for a few months this summer working on a project.
You’re in a massive growth phase; what brought that on? We grew almost doubled when the war started. We used to have a lot of work in Ukraine, but with the war, we had to find different places in the world to work. We still have an office in Warsaw with about 70 people and another 90 people working in Kyiv.
What are some of the upcoming Yodezeen projects in Miami? We have 20 to 25 projects in the U.S. right now. We work with single-family houses mostly and we have the Bal Harbour Club completed. I like that location. There’s an Italian restaurant on the first floor, a speakeasy, and a private club upstairs. It will have an old-school Miami Beach vibe.
Takes us through the design process. Our team works on the entire project. We do the main concept and idea, interiors, help with rendering design, and project management. We work from concept to delivery. I feel like an architect can be a designer and a designer can be an architect. But our specific style is very European. There’s a specific look about it.
And bold names seem to like that Yodezeen look. Is it true you designed a private villa for Real Madrid footballer David Alaba? Yes! It’s a 19,000 sq. ft. home in Madrid. It’s a big house! There’s a lounge and a lot of bedrooms, so many people can live there, including his trainers and managers.
Do you prefer hospitality over home projects? I like both personal and commercial projects. This duality challenges your brain, so you don’t lose your mind. You can have a new idea from a commercial project and bring it to a house design. We are working on so many apartments and houses that when we do hotels, we know how people like to live. Then we make amenities for a big condo tower, and we seem to know what the residents like because we just designed a 25,000 sq. ft. house.
Back in Ukraine, did you ever imagine you’d be working on such impressive projects worldwide? Fourteen years ago, we could never imagine we would build such a big global company. Which is maybe why we chose the firm’s name for everybody back home. Yodezeen is for all our people.
