Performance by Design

NEW DIMENSIONS FROM ARUP | NO.4 PERFORMANCE BY DESIGN Business, buildings and the world around us: the impact of design 04_Business 07_News 10_User- 12_Case 13_Spotlight 14_Incomplete by design Some of the latest centred studies: A focus on how city John Miles, news from around design user-centred Rogier van der Heide, Malcolm Smith, Chairman of the Arup world. design Global Leader of Director of Urban Arup Management Arup Lighting, Global Consulting, Consultant, Dave Design, explores introduces this Ian Rowe, Head brings design and future-proofing Evans, explains of Human Factor technology together edition of Aµ, how truly user- the design of talking about the Integration, gives to improve business cities for long- centred design can case study examples productivity. importance of good have a beneficial term sustainable design and its role of how Arup has performance. impact on personal helped businesses in creating genuine productivity business advantage. achieve superior and business performance performance. through stakeholder involvement in the design process. 04 13 12 14 2 | A2 MAGAZINE ISSUE 4 16_Cost 18_Green 20_Case 22_Enabling 24_Interview: 27_ savings design study: design innovations Sir George Cox Innovations by design Mick Hall and Tom for energy Feedback from a Sir George Cox, A round-up of Mike Willford, Arup Armour from Arup's efficiency two-day workshop, former Chairman innovation stories Environmental hosted by Arup, of the Design from across Fellow and Leader How Arup helped of Arup's Advanced Consulting to review how Council, talks about Arup, including Business discuss Pfizer save money innovation, the importance of sustainable Technology & and improve Research Group, how we can create creativity, design design in business product design and more sustainable their business and lateral thinking and society. Copenhagen Metro illustrates how performance. advanced technology environments can affect the redesigned. can identify areas by considering bottom line. for cost saving in landscape and design. ecology at the beginning of a project. 18 24 20 27 A2 MAGAZINE ISSUE 4 | 3 1 This edition explores the importance of good design and the role it plays in creating genuine business advantage for Arup’s clients and lasting value for society. John Miles, Chairman of Global Consulting, sets the scene by exploring the meaning of “good design” and illustrating how it can lead to good business. In the late 1950’s, the City of Sydney decided it wanted an opera house that would identify that city in the eyes of the world. They wanted an icon. The city conducted a competition to find the right design, and subsequently appointed a little-known architect from Denmark on the basis of what appeared to be just a few hand sketches depicting a sleek, provocative, shell structure. It was a bold leap of faith. The architect’s name was Jorn Utzon… and he called on Arup to help transform those sketches into reality. The final product, the Sydney Opera House, caused a great deal of pain during the design and construction period but, in the end, it surpassed all expectations. During the course of its development, the Opera House went from being a national scandal (as the costs ballooned and the timescales slipped) to becoming a 20th Century icon that sits on a par with the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal in terms of instant recognition. Oddly, it was never recognised as a particularly good opera house but there is no doubt that the building put Sydney on the world map. It gave the city a profile it could not have achieved any other way. What, do you think, has been the business benefit of the Opera House to the City of Sydney over these past 50 years? 4 | A2 MAGAZINE ISSUE 4 4 2 3 1 Sydney brochure (by permission of Tourism New South Wales) 2 A machinist in Henry Ford's Red River plant in Michigan © Getty Images 3 Raymond Loewy’s classic Coke bottle © The Coca-Cola Company 4 Apple iPhone (image courtesy of Apple) 5 (over) The CCTV tower in Beijing In a slightly earlier era, North America’s was a benevolent act, or simply a search for the benefits of a cost-cutting programme; RKO network invested in a string of new greater productivity, is not clear. But the a supply-chain re-design; or a transfer of cinemas of modern, art-deco, design all effect of this design intervention was to operations. But how do you estimate the value the way across the USA. The chain was an enable production outputs to be achieved of the Opera House or Raymond Loewy’s enormous success, and RKO was widely that were previously unheard of, whilst Coca-Cola bottle, even with the benefit of acclaimed as a result. Except in a town in enabling the Ford enterprise to boast that it hindsight? Without a quantitative appraisal, Iowa where, against all expectations, the was a good and conscientious employer. there always has to be a leap of faith at the local RKO cinema was a complete flop. All of these examples illustrate the beginning of the road to good design. Despite vigorous house-management efforts, role that good design can play in the So, what is good design? It isn’t always the Iowa locals doggedly walked past the development of to do with aesthetics, indeed, sometimes attractive red carpet on the steps of the The Sydney good business. The it is the opposite, as evidenced by RKO’s RKO building and made their way to the Opera House creative input of rubber mat. And it isn’t always delivered by rather down-market competition further gave the city talented designers a designer name (who remembers the name along the street. a profile it enabled activities in of Henry Ford’s architect?). But it always It took some while before a design could not have such diverse spheres springs from a fundamental appreciation consultant finally understood what was achieved any as municipal of the purpose of a product (or service), and happening. The local farming community government; an allied ability to create original ideas that was not prepared to walk on the new red other way. entertainment; and significantly enhance the performance of carpet in their dirty work boots. The carpet manufacturing to be enhanced enormously, that offering. was duly replaced with a rubber mat, and with consequent benefit to all. Original thought is an indispensable the locals flocked to the new cinema. A If it is successful, good design can create hallmark of good design. Rule-based case of a small, but important, design value far in excess of the quantitative, business improvement processes, by their insight which unlocked the far bigger process-oriented, business improvement nature, can be replicated at will, but the potential of the new cinema. disciplines taught at business schools, good creative instinct that produces great design Even earlier, in the early decades of though those processes are. We need look no always has a uniqueness and freshness the 20th Century, Henry Ford pressed his further than today’s iPhone for further about it. That is why great design confers architect to put skylights in the roof of evidence of that claim. But, unlike those real business advantage and that is what his new River Rouge plant in Detroit so conventional business improvement makes good design so valuable in business that the workforce could enjoy a decent processes, good design is not easily amenable terms, despite the lack of quantitative working environment on his newly to a priori quantitative analysis. There may assessment tools which can be applied invented production line. Whether this be calculations that can be done to estimate to it. (continues) A2 MAGAZINE ISSUE 4 | 5 The advent and significance of performance-based engineering design In the past, conceptual design has existed in the provinces of intuition and art, whilst Age’. Understanding and predicting engineering design has existed in the the distribution of air movements, provinces of strict methodology and the temperatures and humidity levels within application of rule-based criteria. With a and around the complex shapes defined by few notable exceptions (Utzon and Arup, our buildings is vital if we are to design for example) there has always been a divide systems that simultaneously minimise our between these two essential elements of the environmental footprint and maximise design process. human comfort and productivity. This type Today, however, all that is changing. of simulation demands an understanding of Computers and simulation technology have 5 that most complex interaction between the begun to free the engineer from the slavery worlds of physics and human perception. of rules, and open the door to a much more spectacular CCTV tower in Beijing (above) What, for example, defines ‘comfort’, and creative relationship with the conceptual is just one example. This new technique is what type of environmental conditions designers. Performance-based design is also able to address areas of design that are foster greater productivity in an office a term that has been coined recently to relatively new. For example, exploring how or industrial context? Our historic, rule- describe an approach to design that stands buildings behave under extreme loads is based, methods could never come close to apart from the rule-based methods that increasingly a requirement in this modern providing effective answers to questions have traditionally dominated the world of world. The response of façades to impacts such as these. But the use of performance- engineering design. The difference between and blasts; the collapse of structures based simulation techniques now opens this, and the old rule-based approach is following severe fires; the shock-response the door to exploring all sorts of new and enormous.

Load more