Typically, clients spend a lot of time thinking about what they want out of a building.
This fired our imagination about the creation of a Grand Hotel of Value.A beautiful, relaxing place to stay for people who want to solve problems together.
This could be done over breakfast, while swimming in the pool, formally in a meeting room, on the terrace, in the bar.Collisions of people and ideas in a setting where the mundane can be left in the lobby.. A frivolous thought.Well may be, but we did not lose sight of what we felt were the opportunities of place-making and culture setting in being an important element in solving some of the big problems in the world of infrastructure.. Zoom forward several years and the moment seemed right.
Work and projects in a number of business sectors had demonstrated that there is an imperative to be able to industrialise technologies faster and to do so sustainably and cost effectively.There are proven approaches to doing this, the problem seems to be the adoption of these approaches.. Our first attempt at the Grand Hotel of Value, was in fact more of a reception.
Key client organisations in the pharmaceutical industry came together under the umbrella of Accelerate Pharma to be part of the thinking to address the opportunities.. With a great location, opposite the Watson Crick Institute, a light and vista filled room, with good food and an open and relaxed agenda and pace, this approach to cross-company, cross-sector collaboration was started..
If you want to know how it went, read my next blog, which will share the learning and suggest paths forward..The façade has a shorter life expectancy than the rest of a building due to the nature of the materials used, exposure to the elements and the impact of UV light.
To prolong the life of the building, the façade should be replaceable without affecting the structure of the building.. Each component of the façade should be replaceable individually, to allow panels to be swapped in or out to respond to changes in building use.For example, if an occupied space were to be replaced with a non-occupied space, the glazed component could be swapped for an opaque component, improving the energy efficiency of the façade.
The replaced glazed component can be stored for use elsewhere on the building or on another similar local building.. Internal wall positions should be moveable to enable internal spaces to be modified easily.Being able to create new spaces means the building will have a longer lifespan with fewer major changes.. Having the ability to add or remove services to suit internal layout changes or adapt to a changing climate will allow the building to be used for longer.