Alastair Powell

Through doing this, the designer can start to see incongruities in the value chain..

Mostly, it’s trying to get them to think about getting adequate daylight in, which is quite interesting with the facade they’ve got because they have to reuse it, so they don’t have many options to make the windows bigger.They’ve got to think of a more interesting way of doing it.

I’ve given them some homework and this time they are going to be presenting their daylighting to me.They all have fully glazed facades on the south facing, so it’s trying to get them to think about the fact it’s going to overheat and they have to look at solar shading and passive design measures.The overarching premise is getting them to think from an architectural perspective about how they can influence the environmental design of the building.

If they do it now whilst they’re still at uni, when they get into practice they can apply the principles more easily, which not only makes the M&E teams’ jobs better, but also, ultimately, delivers a better, more efficient, building to their client.. IP: In general, are architects as focused on this area as they could be?.HH: In general, no.

It’s taught a lot more than it used to be and it’s very much dependent on which university you go to.

In Manchester, for example, students now have to incorporate technical design elements such as, Structures, M&E and Sustainability into their projects, so the course is teaching them a more integrated approach, which is how it is in real life.. IP: What are the benefits of incorporating technical design into their project at an early stage?.They’re familiar with manufacturing processes and, in some cases, are already supplying other industries and familiar with other mindsets and cultures.

They’ll easily adapt to this future delivery model.. As the SMEs grow and invest in their capabilities, we’ll see more drive from that supply chain side because of the confidence they’ll have in the pipeline, and the opportunity to be secure in that investment.However, one challenge we do face is that SMEs can be hard to reach because they’re often so busy doing their jobs that they don’t necessarily have time to look at these bigger changes.

One reason government funding and R&D programmes are so important is because these things enable a de-risked environment whereby SMEs can work and learn the evolving operating and delivery systems..TIP 2: Will there be a future mandate?.