30 years, 1.5 million square metres — three decades of DVM

How does a fully Hungarian-owned company — one that started out focused on office design and interiors — grow over three decades into the country’s most comprehensive construction-industry service provider, with annual revenue above HUF 40 billion? DVM group’s three-decade story is one of organic, market-driven growth. Profitable since its foundation, the firm’s work is shaped by an uncompromising commitment to quality, an integrated approach and broadly diversified engineering expertise. DVM is a defining player in commercial real-estate development, in the hotel and office markets, and also builds residential properties, industrial facilities and power plants.

DVM was founded by Attila Kovács in 1995 as a design office, with the aim of bringing Western-European-standard service to the then-emerging Hungarian office market. The concept — almost unknown in Hungary at the time, drawing on Anglo-Saxon traditions — centred on an integrated approach and the coordination of every workstream, enabling end-to-end ownership of a project including design, construction and supervision. That approach defined the early interior-design work and still defines DVM’s practice today across office, hotel, residential and industrial developments.

“Even as the scope of what we do has expanded, our original commitment — quality, precision and attention to detail — hasn’t changed. Holding the bar at those standards is a real challenge, because reinforcing the foundations of a heritage building requires a completely different professional focus from delivering the flawless luxury interior inside that same building.” — Péter Haberl, managing partner

DVM has always set itself apart through quality buildings and quality work. The firm has delivered projects in several European countries and is currently working in France, Bulgaria and Germany. Its service portfolio has expanded steadily in response to client needs: today DVM operates as a full-service design & build firm with in-house design, project management, construction and sustainability-advisory teams. In 2024 the group launched DVM-Greenfield, a dedicated industrial-real-estate practice offering everything from turnkey general contracting for sustainable warehouses and manufacturing halls to project management and advisory.

The original four-person design office has grown into a more than 150-strong organisation of mostly highly qualified engineers, and annual revenue has multiplied tenfold since 2004, exceeding HUF 40 billion in 2024. Over three decades, 1.5 million m² of design and construction work has been delivered under the DVM banner. The group has designed and built for iconic luxury brands such as Armani, Burberry and Jaguar, and worked for Huawei, Wizz Air, and the U.S. and Canadian embassies.

Among the proudest examples of DVM’s integrated architecture-and-construction services are the Deloitte and British Petroleum headquarters, one of the largest office developments on Budapest’s inner Váci út — the Promenade Gardens — and the Szervita Square Buildings. Several DVM projects involve heritage reconstruction held to strict preservation requirements: the urbanistic, sustainability-conscious rebuild of the Eiffel Palace, the Secession-era Váci 1 office building, the renovation of the Ballet Institute on a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the conversion of part of that complex into the five-star W Budapest Hotel.

Several iconic general-contracting projects are in delivery with DVM today: the St. Regis Hotel in the Klotild Palaces, the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the Gellért, and the 632-apartment Duna Terasz Vista residential park at Foka Bay. The group is also a partner in the full overhaul of the Hungaroring, and is delivering Nilfisk, Morgan Stanley and Wise office fit-outs as well as the Saint James private clinic.

“I don’t think DVM’s future lies in conquering new sectors. I believe instead that we should keep refining and developing our existing design and construction services. We need to pay even more attention to environmental responsibility and to recognise the duty we carry in shaping the world around us.” — Tibor Massányi, managing partner