The Changing Shape of Practice by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317504818
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Credit: Bruce Damonte

Make It Right

The research continues, driven by the same scepticism of traditional twentieth-century barriers to practice. SHoP Construction (SC) was formed in 2007 to expand the firm’s capabilities towards the full stack required to realize buildings of any complexity to the highest standards (the Barclays Center was one of its first projects), as well as to consolidate the gains the firm was making in integrating BIM and virtual design and construction (VDC) modelling. SC proved itself capable of working both as an independent company, with architectural services provided by others, and an integral component of SHoP’s intraoffice workflow. In each case, the focus was on forging intimate collaborations across the habitual lines of control in the field; SC’s work extended to joint-venture relationships with fabricators in which, through the open sharing of each firm’s knowledge and technology, architecture and engineering best-practices were effectively united, from initial inspirations through to the full delivery of each building. In early 2015, in a measure of its success incubating those capabilities, SC was officially reintegrated with SHoP. At the same time, Jonathan Mallie, former partner-in-charge, spun off his own construction/fabrication venture.

‘BIM is the entry point’, Jonathan Mallie says of his work at SHoP. ‘But the delivery process, and what SHoP proved out through the Barclays arena and our work with fabricators, is something that architects would normally not attempt to engage in.’ Let alone, he points out, in Africa, where SHoP is working directly with fabricators in neighbouring South Africa to complete its Botswana Innovation Hub in Gaborone. The Botswana project is also one platform SHoP is using to beta-test a new software suite developed by Dassault Systèmes, the company best known for the modelling program CATIA, that rocked the design world when it was adopted by architects at the turn of the century. The new software allows not only the virtual modelling of form, but of collaborative processes, too. Given that new emphasis, and SHoP’s longstanding interests and abilities, it is fitting that it is the only design firm that was asked to work with Dassault on the product’s development; the innovative electric car company Tesla is testing the program concurrently for use in the automotive industry.

The design of cars, and planes, has long been a signature touchstone at SHoP. Again, not due to the undeniable romance of those forms alone, but for the lessons resourceful architects might find in how those two sectors act to realize them. ‘With automotive and aerospace, you don’t do the design and then put it out to bid’, Mallie explained. ‘It’s best-practices all the way through. That’s the direction that the whole AEC industry should be heading.’

Figure 7.11 When it was completed in 2012, the true purpose of the technology behind the construction of the Barclays Center revealed itself: to create a new civic icon, appropriate to the neighbourhood and, more broadly, the ongoing renaissance of Brooklyn.

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