Every year more good work is commissioned across borders, and a lot of it turns out worse than it should. Not because the studio was weak, but because nobody set the project up to survive the distance. The fix is mostly process, and it is not complicated.
This is how we run cross-border projects on the studio, and what we ask of clients to make them work.
The first thing worth saying is that distance is not the variable most people think it is. Projects fail across a city as readily as across a continent, and for the same reasons: unclear scope, slow decisions, and nobody named as the person who says yes. Distance only makes those failures faster to arrive and harder to paper over.
Pick the studio for the work, not the postcode
The instinct to hire local is understandable, but proximity is worth less than experience. A studio that has done your exact kind of project three times, in a market that looked like yours, will beat a nearer studio doing it for the first time. Ask to see the closest comparable work, not the nearest office.
There is one thing proximity genuinely buys, and it is worth being honest about it: knowledge of local regulation, local suppliers and how construction actually works in that market. The answer is not to hire nearer, it is to make sure the project has that knowledge somewhere, usually through a local technical partner or contractor working to the design.
Ask directly how that is handled. A studio that has worked across borders will have a clear answer. One that has not will tell you it will be fine.
Agree the shape before the first design
The single biggest predictor of a good remote project is a written scope: what is being made, who decides, and by when. We put this on the table before anyone commits. When both sides can see the same plan, time zones stop mattering.
The scope should name three things that are usually left implicit. What exactly is delivered at each stage, and in what format. Who on your side approves each stage, by name, not by department. And how long a decision can sit before the timeline moves. That last one is uncomfortable to write down and prevents more disputes than anything else in the document.
It is also worth agreeing what happens to the drawings. Who owns them, what they can be used for, and whether a local team can build from them without further involvement. On a cross border project that is not a legal formality, it is the difference between a design you can use and one you cannot.
Meet where the work happens
Weekly working sessions in your time zone, not status calls. Two on-site visits at the moments that need a room: the kickoff and the final decisions. Everything in between runs online, and it runs fine, because the important conversations were scheduled deliberately.
Between the sessions, the discipline that matters is writing things down. A decision taken on a call and not recorded will be remembered differently by two people in two countries within a fortnight. A short written note after each session, listing what was decided and what is outstanding, costs ten minutes and removes most of the friction people blame on distance.
Language is usually less of an issue than expected and occasionally more. The working language should be agreed rather than assumed, and where the local build team does not share it, the drawings need to carry the intent without relying on the notes.
What to ask before you appoint anyone
Four questions separate studios quickly. Show me the project closest to mine. Who will actually do the work, and who will I be speaking to. How do you handle local regulations and the contractor. And what happens if we disagree about a design decision.
The last one is the most revealing. Every project has that moment, and the answer tells you whether you are buying a service or an argument.
The risks that are real, and how to hold them
Two risks are genuine on a cross border project. The first is that the design does not account for how buildings are actually made in that market, which is solved by bringing a local technical partner in early rather than at tender. The second is that site work happens at a distance from the people who designed it, which is solved by deciding upfront how much supervision the project is buying and by whom.
Both are manageable and neither is a reason to appoint the nearest studio by default. What they are is a reason to agree the answers before the first invoice rather than after the first problem.
