While there, he engaged Bryden Wood and together they developed the Front End Factory, a collaborative endeavour to explore how to turn purpose and strategy into the right projects – which paved the way for Design to Value.

How will we design and build offices, if there’s the possibility that they might have to be re-purposed for domestic, healthcare or manufacturing purposes?How will we adapt workspaces, ventilation, lifts and kitchens so that we can keep working if (when) new viruses arrive?

What can we do with existing buildings?.Our Platforms approach to Design for Manufacture and Assembly (P-DfMA) provides some answers here.As a method of construction, it presents many advantages, but in this context three stand out:.

The Platforms approach to construction uses standard components for buildings that can be assembled in a number of ways, depending on the purpose of the building.But because they’re standardised, these parts can be disassembled and reassembled relatively easily within the superstructure.

The inherent agility of Platform construction means that final decisions on configuration can be made much later in the process than in traditional construction, allowing for change, if necessary, during design and build..

The use of the same components across sectors allows the possibility of repurposing buildings – so an office block can later be turned into residential with relatively little intervention.. Digital design makes it all possible.I caught up with her to find out why, for best effect, architects should be incorporating M&E and Sustainability strategies as part of their initial design.. IP: Tell us about your work with Manchester School of Architecture.. HH: I’m tutoring 5th year students who are doing their Part 2, MArch.

It’s through one of the ateliers called PRAXXIS, which is focused on inclusivity in design.A lot of the briefs the students are given involve getting different parts of society to live and work together.

At the moment, they are working on an existing building in Hulme that hasn’t been used in quite a few years.They’ve got to retain part of the facade and completely build a new building inside it.