The founder · Madinah, Saudi Arabia
Rustam Khaitmetov
Architect and developer. Founder and Chief Architect of ARTIFEX GROUP — a practice that draws buildings and then stays on the site until they exist. Two degrees in Tashkent, twenty years of work behind him, and since 2023 a desk in Madinah.
01 — The argument
By the time the architect is called, the decisions have already been taken.
Someone has already bought the land. Someone has fixed the budget, chosen the use, and worked out how many floors the numbers demand. The architect is invited afterwards and asked to give all of it a face.
That is the job most of the profession accepts, and it is why so many buildings are handsome and wrong. The drawing was never allowed anywhere near the decision that mattered.
He wanted to arrive earlier — at the point where the question is still open, where a site can still be read and a brief can still be argued with. That is why ARTIFEX was built to carry the developer's questions alongside the designer's ones: who is this for, what does it cost to run, and what does it become in twenty years.
It is also why he does not leave when the drawings are issued. A drawing is a promise. Site supervision is where that promise is either kept or quietly broken, and twenty years have gone into making sure it is kept.
Anyone can make a decision look beautiful after it has been taken. The work is being in the room before it is.
Rustam Khaitmetov
02 — The path
Education, and then twenty years of it.
Only what can be shown is listed: a degree, a company register, a certificate, a letter. The photographs come from the same years.
—Education
Bachelor of Architecture, then Master of Architecture
Tashkent State Institute of Architecture and Construction. The bachelor's degree first and the master's after it, at the same school — the drawing hand trained before the arguments were.
2009The practice begins
ARTIFEX is founded, in Tashkent
Not a design office with a delivery department bolted on, but one room in which drawing a building and getting it built were treated as a single job. Everything the practice does now still follows from that decision.
2011Incorporated
The office becomes a company
ARTIFEX GROUP is incorporated as a limited company, registration 005035-09 — the point at which a studio takes on obligations that outlive any one project.
2012— now
Director and Chief Architect, ARTIFEX GROUP
Design and delivery across four countries, leading multidisciplinary teams. Architecture, structure, MEP, BIM, visualisation and site supervision work from the same drawing rather than from four different ones.
2015World Bank Group
Expert contributor, Doing Business
Doing Business measured how regulation actually behaves country by country, construction permitting among it — the machinery an architect either learns properly or loses years to. He contributed to it as an expert.
2016— 2020
Four further years with Doing Business
Certificates across 2016 to 2020, and in December 2019 an official letter from the World Bank Group.
2018Consilium Education
A reference letter, after a school in Tashkent
Issued by Consilium Education following a school project in Tashkent — the kind of document that only gets written after a building has actually been delivered.
2023— now
Madinah
Close to three years went into reading the Saudi market before he worked in it seriously: the regulation, the investment structures, and how an approval actually moves from one desk to the next. The same instinct as the rest of the page — understand the decision before taking one.
Nothing above is rounded up, and where a year cannot be documented it is not printed. The same rule governs the work: every project on this site carries its real stage, and anything held under client confidentiality is not shown at all.
03 — What can be checked
The record, with its numbers on it.
One institution, one reference letter, and two company registers — for anyone who would rather verify than take a website's word.
International
World Bank Group — Doing Business
Expert contributor to the Doing Business report, on the indicators that govern permits and construction compliance.
- Certificates
- 2015 · 2017–2020
- Official letter
- December 2019
Client reference
Consilium Education
A reference letter issued by Consilium Education after a school project in Tashkent.
- Letter
- 2018
- Project
- School, Tashkent
Uzbekistan
ARTIFEX GROUP
Founded in Tashkent and incorporated as a limited company two years later. The original entity, still the practice's home office.
- Founded
- 2009
- Incorporated
- 2011
- Registration
- 005035-09
Saudi Arabia
ARTIFEX GROUP LLC
The Saudi entity, seated in Madinah, with its commercial register active and its tax registration in place.
- CR
- 7051189921
- VAT
- 31451370600003
- Register
- Active · Madinah
- Check it
- Ministry of Commerce · ZATCA (VAT)
Nothing here promises a return. Risk is reduced by assembling a project properly; anyone guaranteeing a yield is selling something else.
Project budgets and negotiated contract terms remain private. Standard consultation prices shown on the message page are public.
04 — Where this goes next
One person is not a practice.
Everything argued above only works because a firm carries it: architecture, structure, services, BIM, visualisation and site supervision under one roof, in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Two hundred professionals have passed through it since 2009.
5Countries ARTIFEX works in
200+Professionals since 2009
34Projects published
4Working languages
01
The practice
Founded 2009, incorporated 2011, registered in Saudi Arabia. Six capabilities from master planning to construction supervision, and the history that produced them.
02
The work
Thirty-four projects, each one carrying its real stage — concept, design or built. Nothing dressed up as more finished than it is, and nothing confidential shown at all.
