Change. Transform. Shift. Move. Accelerate. If the last two years have demonstrated anything, it’s to be agile in the way we work. We must continue to rethink our approach and respond to the rapidly changing needs of our clients.
The motivations for this are all around us – climate change, health security, new modes of working and digital independence. All of these factors have an impact on urban and rural infrastructure.
How does Buro Happold continue to evolve and compete in this dynamic world?
We go back to where the firm started in 1976 – with relationships. Technology shifts and their successful implementation are created through personal connections and relationships cultivated over time. These relationships are changing for Buro Happold.
We need to focus on working together and collaborating with our clients, getting deeper into their organisations and really understanding their needs and challenges. Whilst we’ve been shifting our focus in this direction for the past decade, it’s the next five years that will see the most change in our practice. We are accelerating and these relationships are at the heart of a client centric and client forward approach.
How do we achieve this?
Whilst key projects remain the lifeblood of our practice – the next stunning stadium, the next carbon neutral headquarters etc. – the larger scale challenges of our clients can only be addressed across their wider enterprises. Our next step isn’t just to improve a client’s building, but rather, how can we move their business forward.
For example, how does a multi-national technology company become carbon neutral? How does a client with facilities around the world adapt its infrastructure to climate change? How does a city reimagine their transport network? What are the higher education models of the future? How can government investment in urban development deliver a cultural change to its citizens?
Our projects won’t be end cases alone. Rather, they will be part of a broader scope of work with our clients. This connectivity is a journey to more successful outcomes and outputs for their organisations. As we put clients at the heart of our organisation, we are starting to think of their problems and challenges as if they were our own.
Looking to the future
As engineers, designers and consultants, we’ve been trained to optimise the many components of our clients’ problems. Our engineering solutions have delivered everything from lighter buildings and efficient environmental controls to less congested transport networks and drought resilient landscapes. These skills have served us well and will continue to do so.
However, we must now consider the entire system and not merely be satisfied with that single climate friendly solution. Our focus needs to be on how that solution enables our clients to further research, develop, discover, educate, invest, entertain, manufacture, etc.
Our next steps don’t leave behind all the successful projects Buro Happold has delivered to date. We will continue to build upon our legacy and strengthen these skills, as well as widening our services as we adapt to our clients’ needs.
We must be agile to new challenges and adopt new skill sets. We must open ourselves up to not knowing how to solve every solution; but we must remain confident that as a firm we can achieve anything together.
It’s time for a new chapter at Buro Happold. Buckle up.
Other articles from The Edit
Putting our people first
In conversation with Wolf Mangelsdorf
Interview with Coastal and Maritime Engineer Paul Brenton
Interview with people flow expert Becky Hayward
Changing perceptions: what women who work in engineering want
On solid ground: in conversation with our ground engineers
The green recovery
Intelligent masterplanning
Breathing new life into existing structures
Redlining land use — then and now
Riding high: four tall building projects in India and Sri Lanka
Connecting communities with clever urban design
