Melbourne’s Masci Group brings joy, swagger, and beauty to everything they touch.
On a Thursday night a while back, brothers Daniel and Marc Masci had a lighthearted phone chat about working together to start up a new business or two. On Friday, they made it happen.
“We always knew we were bound to be working alongside each other. We have good synergy, we work well together, we socialise together all the time, and we knew that combining those energies would lead to something really amazing, which it has,” explained Daniel, co-founder of the Masci Group.
That compatibility led to a consortium of companies, to date centred mainly in the AEC sector, that are exuberantly altering the skylines of the nation. Beneath the group umbrella are Interface Constructions, specialising in early contractor involvement and design and construction; MultiCiv, a Melbourne-based residential building and construction business; cutting edge 8 Architecture Studio; Masci Development Group; Masci Property Group; and Masci Services Group, which handles the administrative and marketing aspects of the Group as a whole and our company initiative program “Communitree.”
“We’re very entrepreneurial, and we're always looking to what we can bolt on to the group to benefit all of our teams in a way that is structured under one banner. We had these multiple companies and then we said what better way to give a strong representation of who we are and what we're doing with new business opportunities than to have Masci Group,” he added.
The Group’s creations are masterfully constructed and visually arresting, and sport more than a dollop of whimsy. For the Group, innovation is a very personal matter. “Innovation is continual personal and mental growth,” Daniel noted. “It’s not only challenging our personal selves and continuing with that mental and personal growth and exploring all facets of life and understanding who we are as people, but also transferring that to the team and getting them to understand that we want to challenge them and them thrive. We don't want to see people getting stagnant.
“Marc and I believe there's so much more innovation that we can bring to every business by really focusing and being innovative with ourselves. If we're working continually on ourselves, challenging and growing, everything around us becomes so much easier. Everything flows so much more when you can understand exactly who you are.
“For our teams, there's a clear understanding of what role they play in the direction of the businesses. It creates a really good energy and everyone gets to experience that innovation that we're bringing through personal growth.”
That ethos spawned a leadership strategy of keeping all doors open for opportunity. “Our leadership strategies are a little bit unique in a sense that we really encourage our team to take full autonomy in their roles,” he stressed. “We give them the responsibility to make decisions and to be unafraid of taking risks. Sure, things may not always work out, but you learn from taking those risks and challenges. You get great confidence by allowing yourself to do that. We don't promote micromanaging, we don't promote a hierarchy of management. We offer the team all the support they need to make any decision they need to make. Marc and I have an open door policy and we say to the team all the time, ‘Whatever you want, whatever you need, we are here.’”
Masci Style
When it comes to working with clients, there’s definitely a “Masci Style” of openness and boldness, which is a powerful value add. “Because everyone is so different, essentially what we like to do, for lack of a better word, is quite often to take the bullshit out of everything. We have an awesome team of people with amazing energy being completely honest and transparent with everything we're doing. There's never any in-between. That energy creates great environments for the whole project, for the whole business, and for the whole team.”
The firm pursues design opportunities that are destined to become iconic, such as Melbourne’s Floating Dancer, which appears to glide and dip with the movement of the sun and moon. “The inspiration behind the floating dancer was from our head architect Zac C. How many people can go out and build a normal box or normal building? We look for something with a story behind it, something that represents us as individuals.
“Zac has been able to capture inspiration through movement and style. His original design was a sketch of a young adolescent dancing jumping up in the air with all these amazing dance moves. He transferred those into an architectural masterpiece. It’s all about being outside the limitations of normality and feeling free to embrace who you are and transferring that into construction, and it’s quite amazing that he's been able to do that.”
At present, the Group is working closely with the Victoria School Building Authority to bring that sensibility to spark the imaginations of a new generation of students, from learning and sport facilities to playgrounds. In the Collingwood neighborhood where Masci’s HQ resides, they are presently awaiting council approval on a glass and brick structure, Lantern of the Night. “We're very proud of the design. At night when all the lights are on in the offices, the building looks like a Japanese or a Chinese lantern. It's one we're really excited to be bringing to the area because we think it's going to be a timeless, iconic building.”
Timeless is also the goal behind CommuniTree, a charitable endeavour conjured by the brothers to serve back the communities in which they build. Upon a project’s completion, Masci Group purchases and plants 100 trees. “It’s really important to us because it's a way for us to give back and help with sustainability,” Daniel said.
Made Awesome by Masci is more than a slogan for this viscerally connected group. As they seek out new opportunities as builders, architects, and investors, they are drawn to like-minded souls both in and outside of the AEC space. “We want people who are struggling with certain areas of their business to come to us and look at how to turn these things around for them. The key driver for us is that they have to be the right people with that right mindset. That goes right back to culturally how they are and who they are.
“If you've got one or two awesome people we can absolutely bolster off that to create something amazing. We're not normal people. We'll never be normal. We're not after normal lifestyles, we're about creating more awesome relationships with people through business and life, and sharing our life journey, passions, and experience with people from all walks of life and and sharing and helping and assisting; developing amazing businesses.”
