080306 Aia Ny Lecture Nk Rev6

Nik Karalis, Woods Bagot AIA NY Lecture March 2008, New York

PUBLIC: A CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION The Woods Bagot story of a global practice Thank you for this opportunity to present the transformation of our practice to what it is today - the world’s 13th largest global architectural firm. And what it means for us to be a global creative business.

GLOBAL NOMADS Global nomads, like gypsies, are only comfortable if they travel. Scouring the face of the world and collecting memories that are often captured in songs or shared in their caravans. We at Woods Bagot have, by necessity, chosen a similar path. Today, not only do I want to discuss the state of architecture and its connection to the cultures it occupies, but what also fascinates me - how practices, including Western-based businesses like ourselves, can transform and evolve to respond to rapid cultural diversification and this new phenomenon of globalisation.

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Never before have we seen such rapid growth and emergence of new influential cultures and cities that are changing the built environment landscape of the 21st century. We may say that the 20th century of architecture belonged to America, but the next few early decades of this century will determine and re-shape our architectural history books and theory. We are all practicing in an unprecedented period of major construction and a movement towards contextualism and what I call SPECIFIC architecture. A symbolic architecture that is concerned with the PARTICULARITY of the place it occupies. The notion of a universal or international approach no longer resonates to our diverse and complex world.

WELCOME NY-LON-KONG Welcome ‘Ny-lon-kong’ and the trail of sovereign funds and investments. The financial axis between New York, London and China is providing architects with incredible opportunities. Combine this with the UAE vision to make its mark on the status of relevant global cities. This period of human history is potentially more creative than the American post-second world war boom – and will leave in its wake a surge of innovation and culturally diverse building types, including advances in science, education, technology and the influence of the arts. Definitely a period that we are all privileged to participate in; where only hindsight will confirm the success of our aspirations.

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What does this mean for the shape and form of architectural practices? How do they need to change to respond to such speed and diversity of client types, and incredible differences and of nuances of cultures as diverse as the Islamic UAE to communist China and the broadening new European community? This new globalisation is a cumulative process of world wide expansion of trade, communications and flow of migration. Globalisation has taken the place of Imperialism, internationalism and other forms of interchange between cultures and economies.

SETTING THE SCENE FOR GLOBAL BRAND CHANGE Allow me the indulgence of a retrospective and possible prediction on the part of Woods Bagot as to how a specific operating model such as ours has been affected by and is responding to the new global political climate. It is difficult for a practice to review its own ideological direction. In this talk I will discuss a little of our journey of the transformation and later describe how our new research process has influenced our most recent projects. Historically we were an Australian-based company whose roots were firmly grounded in Adelaide 140 years ago. I want to talk a little of our journey and the transformation from a national focus, in our case Australian, towards the creation of a global architectural practice. With a sound and historically classical approach to architecture, Mr Woods and Mr Bagot built a reputation that would see them commissioned across a broad range of projects from churches to commercial buildings, many of which are still standing today. But that was 140 years ago. 3

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Fast forward to the 1980’s, the next period of growth. The business began a rapid expansion fuelled by (those who are old enough to remember). The IT revolution and Telco’s with offices opening in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane. We were aggressively green fielding businesses with and without opportunities on the horizon and marketing heavily, including expansion into Asia and the Middle East with a minor acquisition in London. This was always our way, but tactical project lead marketing had superseded any potential client focused relationship marketing and the emphasis on the quality of product has begun to slip Tom Peters coined the phrase “leaders are angry, yes angry” in his book titled Essentials: Leadership and this certainly began to apply to me. In 2004, after some nudging, our Board gave a mandate to do a global review of the work and report back to the Board on how we were going to lead the then 400 staff around the globe to do better in the design department and lead our global design strategy into the next era.

RESEARCH – IDEATION AT WORK All good change innitiatives start with solid research We also forecasted the resurgence of ideas and design as a catalyst for clients to be more competitive and for cities to gain recognition.

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What we were interested in was qualitative information on how the brand was perceived in Australia where the market was mature, and how it is perceived in new markets where the brand was newly positioned. The research covered three major areas of focus: – Client perception (qualitative) – Financial analysis (brand health) – product critique (result and future opportunity)

CLIENT PERCEPTION The client research included more than 60 candidates from a broad cross-section of clients from a variety of market sectors. I think as creative’s we are more inclined to dig deeper and search for ideas during research. Or if not ideas, we search for valuable brand insights from the research that can lead to ideation early. This was certainly the case for Woods Bagot. The research focused on the 5 main components of our business. –

People – leadership, talent, service

– Product – architecture, design, longevity and sustainability –

Place – global, what does this mean to you

– Price – competitiveness and value for money –

Promotion – communications, web presence, value of

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The overwhelming response was that for our Clients, being a global business meant little to them. In addition the Clients provided us with valuable brand insights.

THE BRAND INSIGHTS The brand insights drawn from this were as follows: –

We needed to deliver to clients and staff real benefits of being a global practice.

– We needed to build the business around creativity not just service & delivery. – This creativity needed to be built around real rigour and narrative. It needed to be underpinned by research both theoretic and applied. – Our full global leadership and design team needed to be accessible to our Clients wherever they maybe.

THE GLOBAL BRAND IDEA It was clear that a new business strategy was required to make the perceptual shift from “professional services” firm to design studio externally. What we needed was a big brand idea that would engage the then, 400 staff and motivate a new generation of architects to join us.

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JAMES CALDER AND THE IDEA This map, as simple as it looks, was the catalyst for major changes at Woods Bagot. What we needed was a way of demonstrating to clients that Woods Bagot was capable of achieving projects beyond their current portfolio, and proving to staff that this was a brand that encouraged applied and theoretic research and innovative behaviour. This was the birth of PUBLIC. The research brand was named PUBLIC for relatively simplistic reasons. The Board’s aspirations to do work of public significance were already part of the global expansion and investment strategy years earlier. We just hadn’t been able to gain traction with the existing position and the research sub-brand PUBLIC talks to this strategy both internally and externally and deals with our concern with identity and context - a nexus between architecture and the world. With the idea of PUBLIC overwhelmingly accepted by the Board, our attention turned to making it real, including doing the research, compiling the knowledge and publishing papers and communicating to staff and clients.

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PUBLIC LIVES The main focus of the campaign was to assign character to each principal and to promote our staff as equally as important as the company. For this to be an authentic change, we also set about reinforcing and aligning the values and behaviour of our culture, for each staff member to be the advocate of the new brand, and become the face of the new organisation. Brand advocates were established around the globe and the identity was launched simultaneously within each studio.

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A CULTURE OF KNOWLEDGE EMERGES Establishing PUBLIC was no mean feat. It required each of the 33 principals to stand behind it and begin a culture of research. Research-based cultures don’t happen overnight and neither can they be forced. PUBLIC without content, doesn’t work. However, the fever with which PUBLIC gained traction was quite astounding. As it turned out the staff were, and continue to be, hungry to contribute to the broader architectural debate. Finally, the staff had something they could tap into. If they couldn’t attach themselves to a large architectural practice that was 140 years old, and this is how it was perceived in Australia, then PUBLIC breathed fresh air into every studio. The first research paper “Spatial Tactics – a study in global architecture”, published in 2006 is, in essence, not a true research paper. What it does do however is set the scene for why PUBLIC exists and how it will manifest in the future. Throughout the more than 300 pages, you will find only about 20 pages containing Woods Bagot’s projects. I often refer to the idea of PUBLIC being about the work we are yet to create, rather than the work we have done. This paper focuses on broad global issues facing us all such as generational change and how this affects the way we will inhabit spaces, communities and cities in the future.

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Sustainability – an obvious one but it focuses contextually on how Woods Bagot will develop sustainable practices, as well as how we will green our own business. One of the great successes of PUBLIC is the formation of the Green team, who recently celebrated transforming the business internally by becoming 100% climate neutral in December 2006. As many of your know when you run a global business, creating a carbon neutral footprint is difficult. Especially with amount of flying we do. This amounts to about 2600 tonnes of greenhouse gases. And we are continuing to charge forward in this area.

The paper also focuses on: – Changing work/life behaviour – Worklife (24/7) – Technology – and its influence –

And the worlds unity and disunity whether it be religious, terror or any other form of social impact.

The successful launch of Spatial Tactics proved to me that clients, no matter the sector, are all concerned with issues that are common to all humans. Specialisation, skills development, advanced technology and products and services alone are not enough to gain a competitive advantage. People (clients) want to collaborate with individuals and organisations that understand the broader issues facing the planet. To this end, Woods Bagot are no longer falling into the trap that most architects do of marketing picture books of the end result, rather than describing the thinking that took them there. 1 0

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PUBLIC has had a couple of profound impacts on the business:

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formalised the research position globally (by committing a sizeable figure to ensure its ongoing success)

and……. 2.

Formalised PUBLIC knowledge platform that underpins the brand globally moving it beyond pure research to an innovation philosophy that manifests in the behaviour and approach to design and is realised across the website, published papers and speaking engagements. We currently invest US$2.0 million back into research each year. 11

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PUBLIC PERFORMS PUBLIC and the spirit of PUBLIC has been a major catalyst for the brands’ growth over the past 2, coming on 3 years. PUBLIC has now been indoctrinated into the culture. This articulated diagram best describes how PUBLIC has begun to have a life of its own.

We have successfully launched 2 more major research papers since the launch of PUBLIC, each concentrated around our key sectors.

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PUBLIC #2: Education Futures by Ross Donaldson who was recently appointed group CEO and describes how pedagogy is transforming learning environments.

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PUBLIC #3: WorkLife, by James Calder heads up the Consulting and Workplace sectors of the business globally. He proposes new tools to measure productivity and human well being in the office environment.

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PUBLIC has also begun to manifest successfully in some fundamental business ways also, such as: 1.

More than doubling revenue in the last 2 years. Sixty percent is derived outside Australia.

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Increasing staff number from 400 to close to 1000 today. And this includes some fairly senior talent.

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One of the greatest areas of proof of PUBLIC’s success is winning some significant public profile projects such as Tall Tower in Dubai, Hong Kong University and one of the largest projects in Australia, the AUD $1 billion dollar Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre.

PUBLIC #4: Lifestyle - a guide to 21st century living. PUBLIC #5 Sustainability, PUBLIC #6 Urban Design, designed here in Australia are currently under development with a pipeline of white papers also on the drawing board. All of this activity is a true measure of its ability to generate a knowledge lead culture. Brand repositioning and culture behaviour are value drivers for the re-identification of a global architectural practise. We have now distilled our efforts into 4 regions and 3 simple sectors. Each of our regional offices are firmly established local offices who have a deep understanding of the places, culture, people, and the architectural context they operate in. The draw upon the knowledge accumulated in the sector structure and with this unique matrix emerges the core ethos of Woods Bagot. 1 3

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A CONFLUENCE OF IDEAS We have emerged as an idea based organisation underpinned by design intelligence, which gives our clients full access to the total talent and knowledge base residing in the entire firm. This still allows for diverse contextual building representations specific to clients projects and needs. In Spatial Tactics I predicted that there would be a gap before the work that reflects the new ethos will take time to evolve and emerge from the research – PUBLIC was about the work we were about to do.

5 CASE STUDIES I now want to present 5 case study projects - not as a ‘show and tell’ - but about the strength and value of the idea set in specific cultural contexts. 1.

Qatar Science and Technology Park: Sustainability, flexibility and laboratory innovation

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Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre: Reinvention of the conventional exhibition centre typology, its invaluable connection to the city it promotes, and mixed use precinct.

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College of the North Atlantic, Doha: Creation of an Islamic campus with its unique pedagogical and spatial opportunities for learning.

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Central Village, Liverpool: Urban rejuvenation

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Hong Kong University of Science & Technology:

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Centre of Advanced Learning QATAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PARK The vision of the masterplan was to create both a physical and virtual hub for the knowledge economy in Qatar as a termination to the Doha education precinct.

The project includes: –

in Phase 1 – 115,000sqm development site and a

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Central 12,000sqm incubator centre

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I t will be Flanked by tenanted buildings of 20,000 sqm each

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These ITTC buildings (Information Technology Transfer Centre) will be clear span laboratory spaces

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Peristitial and interstitial reticulation of services.

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Linking research efforts with industry.

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Green spines link incubator buildings

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Undercover access with landscaped microclimate environments.

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Veils as shade control and the formation of a contemporary Islamic interior.

– Topographical tessellation influenced geometry as texture mapping

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Extend education master plan axis Worlds first double service zones for laboratories Maintenance access without impacting security Flexible laboratory configuration Column free spaces Engineering of a light weight veil structure

MELBOURNE EXHIBITION AND CONVENTION CENTRE A Precinct masterplan, integrating the Melbourne Convention Centre as a world class plenary facility. Public Civic Centre funded by the private sector under a PPP delivery. Brief: 5000 seat flexible plenary hall 8,000 m2 of allied meeting rooms Back of house support infrastructure 400 room hotel Direct connection to 35,000sqm exhibition space Precinct: 10,000sqm riverfront promenade 50,000sqm Homemaker retail complex 12,000sqm commercial residential tower

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Research: 5000 seat flexible hall with 12 modes Fully automated seating 6 star energy rating Melbourne personality – arts, indigenous culture, sport Uninterrupted 5 star back of house service Integrated hotel

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COLLEGE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC, DOHA This is a quote from our client: “Our culture is ancient, but our country is new… The College utilises experiential learning, both academic and technical … The campus has an atmosphere of calm and beauty. The planning draws on the Doha courtyard with new materials… The human spirit is nourished” Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Chairman of the College

This campus included: –

25 buildings

– 7 faculties training of professionals in petroleum and industrial trades –

80,000 m2 of diverse facilities including:

– Teaching spaces – Workshops – Cafeterias – Sports facilities – Auditorium

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Our research focused on the urban heritage of Doha and combined both spatial and contextual local references including: – Historical spatial order anchored to culture – Bedouin rug analysis with an extraction of the old Doha City morphology ceremonial analysis –

National Museum fort like compound planning strategies

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Built elements combine to form continuous walls enclosing courtyard spaces

– 3 dimensional dynamic ribbon wraps and engages buildings and courtyards – Curious organic connection of compounds

Sustainability / façade texture:

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East West Facade o protected glazing with traditional mushrabiyya screens

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North South Facade o Thermal mass concrete screens derived from Kufic Arabic typology

– Microclimate courtyards o Cooler courtyards, catching Gulf breezes

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CENTRAL VILLAGE, LIVERPOOL This project’s focus is the conversion of a dilapidated inner urban site of rail lines and maintenance sheds rejuvenated to a vibrant mixed usage urban village create a development framework. The triangular site is a 1.8 hectare inner urban precinct which will comprise of: – Podium with 2 tower blocks, 24 levels – Hotel, 7 levels – 2 apartment blocks – Basement carpark Existing heritage grain – Historical underground British rail network – Urban connections –

Heritage ground plan focussed around the original underground rail networks that used to weave around existing buildings.

– Determine the urban drivers and public connections.

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HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY This competition winning scheme was won from our research knowledge of advanced institutes of study. This project arose from China wanting to create environments which enable Nobel Prize Laureates, a place where people think. – Institute for Advanced Study (semi-permanent residents) –

Business Schools

– Accommodation facilities A study tour around the world revealed there were no tangible examples. The new media lab at MIT when built will be the closest environment to these spaces. Thoughtscapes towards terrains of knowledge – The aggregation of non-traditional spaces – Multiplicity of pathways discovered through exploring – Continuous space linking disparate locations – Synthesis centres – Individually determined mental mapping

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These five projects demonstrate the diversity of our work and focus on the particularity of the place they occupy. Woods Bagot’s range of design ideology promotes differentiation. Just like globalisation, we are not a monoculture, but a collective of global citizens responding to a new appetite for specific architecture.

THANK YOU

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