USER CENTRED DESIGN
We believe the considerable financial investment made in buildings should deliver more than just a static built asset.
Studies show buildings are a fundamental part of the economic growth stack of organisations; that strategic tool-set that serves to underpin business productivity, effectiveness and even profitability.
The fact is, the building as an enabler of organisational success, is hardly, if ever considered by business managers let alone realised. Which is why we want to do more to encourage our clients to commission built environments that go beyond mere asset delivery; to be creators of people and process success.
To facilitate more focused customer involvement, we conceived Agile in Buildings, a briefing stage scrum methodology to all stakeholders in the customer's business to participate in the big thinking about what they want (and what they don't want) from their new workplaces; then contribute to the creation of the concept designs; enabling the deeper combination of customer experience and creative architecture to author buildings with exceptional business or organisational performance in use.
Build a common understanding
Our Agile in Buildings with Virtual Reality (VR) scrum process is normally carried out in the first six to nine weeks of the project's design period, allowing all of the business' users to help conceive then test in a safe yet fully immersive VR space , walking through a completed virtual representation of the new building, testing it for business or organisational functionality before feeding back any residual issues or improvements, all before a spade goes in the ground.
Doing things in this way allows the Agile in Buildings user centred design process to de-risk the entire procurement and construction of your new building, getting all stakeholders at all levels of the client organisation and professional team to a common understanding faster, defining where value is for the business or organisation, locking in lower budget costs and eliminating the risk of late changes. All directed towards defining better certainty of outcome, building user ownership, so you as client can have the confidence that the entire organisation who will use your new work-spaces will love them, and be better in them.
If you don't do Agile in Buildings user centred design, and are happy to defer the detailed thinking to your architect you can rightly still assume you will get a great building. The difference is if you do Agile, you will know you will get a great building, one that is optimised to deliver maximum value and return on investment for the capital or lease finance you are putting in.
A user on one of our case studies preparing to take a tour through the re-imagined spaces that she helped to design.
Where it comes from and how Agile works
Agile Methods Scrum is not new. It was invented in the 1970's by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber as a way to make sure that products included the features that customers actually wanted (and so would sell), and not those designers or manufacturers assumed they wanted. Roll on 50 years and the whole of the product and software development industries are using Agile Methods, except that is - the property industry. We want to change this. Our specially adapted for architectural design Agile in Buildings process has four steps, all of which happen in the brief development stage of the new project:
Step 1. Gather Users ideas
We have lots of ways to gather your ideas. From surveys, to smart apps, to carefully facilitated charettes, so we can find out what your business does and what kind of spaces will help your people to work more effectively.
Step 2. Sift the ideas into the big stories
Once we have all of the ideas from the top to bottom of the business, we analysis them to find out what the key messages are, how you go about making profit, and what the big obstacles are - that a new building will help to solve.
Step 3. Co-design with Users
With the core messages and big problems understood we sit with your key people to co-design the early stage concepts for the building. This is where the process gets interesting, and for the most part fun as we move beyond the design norms to unleash the power of collective ideas of the organisation to inform a better, more refined version of the built requirement. One that ultimately aligns people, process and place in the search for a better, more purposeful outcome for the project.
Step 4. Road test the Brief/Designs
Using the full and awesome power of VR it becomes possible to mock up the new designs into fully immersive prototypes for everyone right across the business or organisation to walk through and test, to provide feedback and iteration, to improve it while ironing out the creases in what becomes a virtual reality "safe zone". All done before the project embarks upon detail design, so as the client, or tenant you know what you want, and what you are signing up to build, before the design moves into the expense of detailed design and construction, that is before errors and omissions become expensive.
Check out our latest case study video below: to find out how Agile in Buildings works
CASE STUDY 1
Cemetery Road Baptist Church engaged in our Agile Methods process to re-imagine what a modern church needs to be. Nowadays, CRBC are looking at ways to stay relevant to their community. Modern UK life is more secular. The CRBC response has been to assist ethnic migrant Christians coming to the UK. But now they are asking "What about our local communities?" How can we connect with them to establish relevance against the backdrop of declining membership in modern more secular society.
Cemetery Road, Sheffield
CASE STUDY 2
In this case study we worked with Kollider Music, and its future tenant customers Barclays Eagle Labs, TMI The Writers collective to create a new destination for writers, musicians and producers of music. The project was a critical component of the success of the Kollider venture in Sheffield to bring a tech innovation hub to the city.
Nothing like this has ever existed anywhere else in the UK. A place where writers, artists, technicians, and media creatives can work together in spaces that help them to do what they do better. Using Agile, we sparked something that all involved thought was truly special.
Kollider 1, Castle House
PUBLICATION
For more information on the Agile process and our Case Studies download a copy of our Agile in Buildings Brochure here
Experience your plans first before bringing them to life
Check out our video to see how Agile in Building helped Hippo Digital develop their new office plans then experience them before they were built.