When Vision Meets Velocity
How ATÖLYE and SYPartners turned creative differences into collaborative fuel.
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In the summer of 2021, two creative consultancies separated by thousands of miles faced a big question: How do you make centuries-old cultural traditions come alive for the tech-savvy next generation? The answer would require an Istanbul-based team from strategic design and innovation consultancy ATÖLYE and an Abu Dhabi-based team at transformation consultancy SYPartners (SYP) to forge a long-term collaboration that would test the limits of creative partnership.
The project, commissioned by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT), aimed to transform the UAE’s Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) into an experiential learning platform for K – 12 students. This wasn’t ATÖLYE and SYP’s first time team-up: The two had previously collaborated on several projects, including work for Expo 2020 Dubai, which caught the attention of the DCT. Still, this project would be different — it would require nearly two years of deep integration that would push both companies into uncharted territory.
A Marriage of Differences
ATÖLYE senior program manager Polen Gökbuget, one of the project’s key team members, was acutely aware of how the companies differ. “SYPartners tends to operate at a conceptual and reflective altitude,” she says, explaining SYP’s preference for shaping narratives and frameworks with deliberate depth. On the other hand, she describes ATÖLYE as a place that “thrives on hands-on experimentation and execution.”
Where SYPartners lingers in the “why,” crafting elaborate strategic frameworks, ATÖLYE pushes urgently toward the “how,” with a proclivity towards sketching tangible prototypes.
Rather than serving as a point of friction, this difference became the project’s creative engine. The collaboration was structured across four integrated workstreams:
- Program Management & Governance (co-led to ensure DCT alignment)
- Learning Design & Content Development (the creation of experiential K – 12 modules, also co-led)
- Branding & Experience Design (SYP-directed and ATÖLYE-executed)
- Field Immersion & Prototyping (ATÖLYE-led on-site research and school testing, while SYP guided methodology and documentation).
When the project evolved to include a digital platform, ATÖLYE took on web design and development as well.
Building the Bridge
The collaboration’s success hinged on trust between senior leaders. ATÖLYE’s CEO, Engin Ayaz made a crucial decision early on: despite ATÖLYE’s larger representation (10 – 15 team members to SYPs’s 3 – 6), Ayaz explicitly stated that the consultancy was working through SYPartners, granting decision-making authority to the SYP project lead, partner Jia Jia Liu.
“It was incredibly generous and trusting of Engin to let me direct his team,” acknowledges Liu, who points to open communication as one of the key elements of the project’s success.
By establishing unambiguous governance in the first few weeks, both teams could focus on their strengths rather than waste precious energy on territorial disputes.
The Rhythm of Integration
The teams developed a “two-tempo plan” — parallel tracks of strategy and execution with carefully orchestrated “sync nodes” where conceptual thinking informed prototyping and prototypes refined strategy. Shared digital hubs, Slack channels, and structured stand-ups were the tools for daily coordination. Weekly “Merge & Align” sessions, where each stream shared updates, were key to connecting the dots and keeping the project on track.
Working remotely 90% of the time, the teams discovered that even basic vocabulary required translation. “Prototyping” meant something very different to ATÖLYE’s designers than to SYP’s iterative strategists. A deliberate investment in human connection made all the difference. At the start of each phase, ATÖLYE’s Istanbul team flew to Abu Dhabi for intensive sessions with the SYPartners team, which helped build trust and clarity.
Recognizing the need for stronger day-to-day alignment, Ayaz also brought in Carla Lemgruber, a senior lead and design director to partner more closely with Liu. This mid-project adjustment exemplified the adaptive leadership both companies brought to the table; they were willing to evolve rather than stubbornly stick to initial arrangements.
Transformation Within
Despite their combined wealth of creativity, dedication, and enthusiasm, the learning curve was steep. Liu notes that team members on both sides were “relatively inexperienced and keen to prove themselves,” creating stress early on. Liu found that she had to coach the SYP team to provide space for ATÖLYE’s methods, while Ayaz needed to help his team understand SYP’s client expertise as an asset.
“What began as a challenge evolved into a powerful learning exchange on how vision and implementation can continually inform each other,” says Gökbuget. The SYP team learned to adapt their regular ways of working to activate teams with different cultures, and ATÖLYE absorbed lessons in client management and strategic depth while teaching their partners about agile execution and community-driven design.
What Makes a Successful Partnership?
Here are some of the top learnings that emerged:
- Name the culture gap early. Run a fast “tight-loose” culture check in week 1 and agree where you’ll flex.
- Create shared mental models. Teams that make these explicit coordinate better and deliver more consistent results.
- Lock decision rights and escalation paths. Ambiguity kills speed. Use a living RACI matrix and be sure to revisit it at each milestone.
- Schedule quarterly retrospectives during the project. Step back regularly to surface tensions and evolve collaboration habits.
Most importantly: Be ruthlessly transparent. In every instance, be clear about which company leads and which supports. Agree on what level of control to grant a partnering company over your own team.
Tension as a Feature
This partnership illuminates what makes the kyu Collective special: It’s an ecosystem where complementary capabilities combine. With business incentives aligned across ATÖLYE and SYP, Liu emphasizes the lack of “structural pressure for territoriality.” Both companies continue to submit joint proposals and hope to work together in the future.