Woods Bagot on future of design industry

Led by Stanford University's Centre for Integrated Facility Engineering, Ross Donaldson, Joint Group Managing Director (JGMD) at Woods Bagot talks of committing to a new kind of architectural engagement and the need for firms to execute a robust knowledge management strategy, at the inaugural conference for Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Abu Dhabi.

'It is through this portal that we are seeing the potential of BIM being realised - breaking it down, its leading technology, combined with collective intellect from our people being shared and injected across the globe that is allowing next generation designs to be realised,' said Ross.

Winning projects such as Qatar Science and Technology Park, the Shijiazhuang International Exhibition and Convention Centre, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, and the ZERO-E concept have been realised through this exact process.

'Developed with Buro-Happold, ZERO-E was developed as a tool using BIM to enable architects to be relatively autonomous - a new model, an interactive design platform that tracks energy and carbon footprints for design solutions.

As we look towards the future, technology is only going to continue to evolve.

Yet, as simple as it may sound, the core to fully harnessing the tools is how we ignite and cohere collective intellect and drive, through people; as a global studio we've done this successfully through our robust knowledge management strategy," said Ross.

In October 2011, Woods Bagot was announced the winner at the Asian Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) Awards, recognised for their collective research and knowledge management capability As the only architectural practice announced on the 2011 short list, Woods Bagot is spearheading the industry illustrating an exceptional ability to leverage knowledge to deliver superior solutions.

'Harnessing and leveraging innovative tools, has enabled our global studio to lead the design industry in producing cutting-edge solutions that are resulting in a new type of architectural engagement,' said Ross Donaldson, JGMD, Woods Bagot.

Entering the market almost a decade ago, the adoption of BIM has put designers in an improbable position to design in real time; inadvertently addressing key issues early on so as to minimise risk in, and well beyond the construction phase.

'It's no secret that the use of BIM has enabled significant leaps in the 'design and construct' phase of projects.

For us, the core of our success has been the execution of a robust knowledge management strategy to capture the design intelligence of the whole firm, and have this available to all studios and project teams around the globe', continued Ross.