Help the client: beyond business as usual

Help the client: beyond business as usual

Interactive brainstorm

£15+VAT (Free for students)

Seminar space
The Building Centre, London

For the last 12 months the Hummingbird Learning Lab has been working with Architecture Today to work up a brief for a learning space that reflects its neuroscience-grounded approach to education and community engagement, and to run a competition to select a design team from the Regenerative Architecture Index. Having selected two practices, it now faces the very real challenge of facilitating and funding collaborative work.

As Hummingbird embarks on its new project, its founder, neuroscientist, educator and client Beau Lotto, is joined by Piers Taylor of Invisible Studio, who has extensive experience of helping charities and community groups get visionary projects off the ground and is writing a book about collaboration, and Julia Barfield of Marks Barfield Architects, who is currently involved in five projects at this critical early stage, including the International Biosphere School, won through a competition organised by Wildheart Animal Sanctuary in collaboration with the Regenerative Architecture Index and Architecture Today.

The workshop, which takes place between 8.30 and 11.30 am on Tuesday 27th October at the Building Centre in central London, will explore key challenges including:

• How architects can help clients get projects off the ground without undermining the value of their work

• How to establish and nurture working relationships that foster creativity and collaboration without duplicating effort and costs

• How to challenge the siloed working and adversarial culture enshrined on traditional models of appointment, procurement and insurance

• How to arrive at a schedule of deliverables and, crucially, fee payments, that represents a just reward for all parties, while acknowledging the realities of fund-raising, financing and phased delivery

• How to incentivise all parties to work together to minimise costs and carbon, and deliver the best possible results

Members of the audience are invited to share own challenges, problems and experiences as the panel explores ideas about how to organise and manage the project in a way that does justice to the client’s regenerative ambitions.