From AMO and OMA's website
In the late nineties, while working on the design for the new headquarters for Universal (currently Vivendi), OMA was first exposed to the full pace of change that engulfed the world of media and with it the increasing importance of the virtual domain. It led Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) to create a new company, AMO, exclusively dedicated to the investigation and performance in this realm.
While OMA remains dedicated to the realization of architectural projects, AMO applies architectural thinking in its pure form to questions of organization, identity, culture and program, and define ways - from the conceptual to the operative - to address the full potential of the contemporary condition.
AMO is now a research office that embodies both the professional experience of OMA and knowledge generated by the Harvard Design School Project on the City. Supervised by Rem Koolhaas and Reinier de Graaf and with a core staff based in Rotterdam, New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts, AMO has consolidated a series of existing and new professional collaborations and cross-disciplinary partnerships.
AMO’s work is to develop new models of thinking about systems and to create clearly considered blueprints for change. AMO often works parallel to OMA for the same clients, providing extra services in the domains of organization and identity while, at same time, work on the design of a building is being conducted. This is for instance the case for fashion house, PRADA: while OMA worked on the design of five epicentre stores (including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles), AMO worked on PRADA’s in store information technology, the website and media content. This has also led to work on PRADA’s advertisement campaigns, websites and general business consulting.
AMO has acted as a consultant for WIRED - a magazine on the impact of technological inventions on contemporary society - and published a guest edition. AMO’s resume also includes work for Universal Studios, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Harvard University, Conde Nast and Ikea.
Most notably AMO was involved in a brainstorm on the visual communication about Europe organized by the European Commission. The coloured `barcode`, one of the results of this brainstorm, has received full attention of the media, touting it a `new European flag` replacing the twelve gold stars. In 2006 the barcode was adopted by the Austrian Government as a symbol of its European Union Presidency.
AMO’s resume also includes work for Universal Studios, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Harvard University, Condé Nast, Heineken, and Ikea. Recent works include the development of in-store technology for Prada, a strategy for the future of Volkswagen, a strategy for TMRW, new organic fast food chain and work for Platform 21, new design institute in Amsterdam.
In summer 2005 AMO curated an exhibition titled ‘Expansion & Neglect’ for the prestigious Venice Biennale which explored the expansion of the world’s museums and art galleries and investigated whether large extensions were necessary. For the 2006 Venice Biennale AMO explored the rise of The Gulf cities, followed by the book, Al Manakh, which was published in autumn 2007, coinciding with OMA’s continued architectural and theoretical presence in the Middle East. Early 2008 AMO curated ‘Dubai Next’ at Vitra Museum in Switzerland which was an exploration of the challenges of change and tradition in Dubai.
Currently AMO is working for the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg) and for fashion house Prada. In addition it is engaged in studies for the European Union and various OMA projects.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
God is in detail
This article was published in Indian architects and builders magazine Dec 2008 edition . The article is written by Mumbai based designer jashish Kambli who explores the importance of detail in Indian collective consciousness and suggests a change in the current thought process.
article :
" God is in the detail "
An interesting answer,if one knows the question. Designers would unanimously agree that nothing kills a great design more than really bad detailing .Design anathema is all about replacing that superlative fine idea with an insensitive ,unfinished , unforgivable product . And so one hears it all the time -when one is studying design or struggling with one's first commercial product ,and later one is even saying it to one's apprentices - God is in details .
But if it is divine blessings one is looking for ,detailing can be pretty controversial.The most pressing of which is the chicken and egg story -which came first ? There are a bunch of designers who believe detailing can be delegated to later date .This approach unfortunately demotes detailing to a clear second place .Also , fundamentally the design itself must allow for good detailing .A great design that puts off the details to a later date might simply not be possible to detail at all.This leads us to conclude that good design can be realised by designing and detailing at the same time i.e. designing with enough focus on what details could be possible , and doing this early enough in the process.
So if detailing really is that critical to good design , what are we doing to ensure that we have got a handle on it ? While as a community , Indians are more than capable of absolute stunning , world stopping, breath catching design , we are far distance from realising this capability . The key is to first find why we struggle to be what we can, and then attempt to find a few solutions to fix it . If one goes back far enough in our history , it becomes evident that everything we designed was greatly detailed. Our temples, paintings, craft design was detail. Historically design relied heavily on master craftsmen whose understanding and mastery over the materials of their craft produced some of the most intricately finished and visually stunning objects the world has ever seen .
But when the industrial revolution heralded mass production , in an attempt to catch up on losing ground , design was lost and so was detail to the cause of technology .As a result , today , we have the best breed of technical professionals but struggle to find good designers .
Why detailing is held dear in the west and why it constantly eludes us , can be explained even via smallest of detail that are often eye-catching .For example , at a busy curb of Piccadilly circle in London , within a host of commuters, motorcars and much chaos, one can look up to see, hanging from an intricate , immaculately polished lamppost , a basket of brigh flowers.Inevitably , one ends up comparing this , to the infinitely more dreary curbs at any of our major cities.While there are many reasons we don't put up flower baskets at busy curbs, most of them stem from the fact that we belong to a poorer nation ;where fine living and good design are way too far from our thoughts .The first person to stand at the curb would look up and probably not think "How lovely that looks , what a super morning ".He would probably think "I'd better nick the basket now when no one's looking ,and sell it for scrap." If not , he is probably too busy fretting over how he could take on clearly unstable traffic , to even look up and notice flowers.Or the flowers might wilt with the overwhelming stench of the dangerously heavy emission clogging the air at the curb . Our best efforts are spent on managing basic infrastructure and meeting our basic needs , so attention to detail is clearly way down in priority .
while one can understand that though process, it is difficult to agree with it . India is at crossroads. While we grapple with the basics , we are clearly ready to take on much more .Indian markets today , are flooded with the same well-finished products available abroad ; so the argument 'we can't afford better quality ' does not ring true .Some of our home bred industries have acquired European factories, so the argument 'we don't have the best equipment ' does not hold water either .We have the resources and the ability to produce design that is detailed to the very end , finished to reflect a quality we deserve to use . If we fail, it is only because we do not demand enough.
article :
" God is in the detail "
An interesting answer,if one knows the question. Designers would unanimously agree that nothing kills a great design more than really bad detailing .Design anathema is all about replacing that superlative fine idea with an insensitive ,unfinished , unforgivable product . And so one hears it all the time -when one is studying design or struggling with one's first commercial product ,and later one is even saying it to one's apprentices - God is in details .
But if it is divine blessings one is looking for ,detailing can be pretty controversial.The most pressing of which is the chicken and egg story -which came first ? There are a bunch of designers who believe detailing can be delegated to later date .This approach unfortunately demotes detailing to a clear second place .Also , fundamentally the design itself must allow for good detailing .A great design that puts off the details to a later date might simply not be possible to detail at all.This leads us to conclude that good design can be realised by designing and detailing at the same time i.e. designing with enough focus on what details could be possible , and doing this early enough in the process.
So if detailing really is that critical to good design , what are we doing to ensure that we have got a handle on it ? While as a community , Indians are more than capable of absolute stunning , world stopping, breath catching design , we are far distance from realising this capability . The key is to first find why we struggle to be what we can, and then attempt to find a few solutions to fix it . If one goes back far enough in our history , it becomes evident that everything we designed was greatly detailed. Our temples, paintings, craft design was detail. Historically design relied heavily on master craftsmen whose understanding and mastery over the materials of their craft produced some of the most intricately finished and visually stunning objects the world has ever seen .
But when the industrial revolution heralded mass production , in an attempt to catch up on losing ground , design was lost and so was detail to the cause of technology .As a result , today , we have the best breed of technical professionals but struggle to find good designers .
Why detailing is held dear in the west and why it constantly eludes us , can be explained even via smallest of detail that are often eye-catching .For example , at a busy curb of Piccadilly circle in London , within a host of commuters, motorcars and much chaos, one can look up to see, hanging from an intricate , immaculately polished lamppost , a basket of brigh flowers.Inevitably , one ends up comparing this , to the infinitely more dreary curbs at any of our major cities.While there are many reasons we don't put up flower baskets at busy curbs, most of them stem from the fact that we belong to a poorer nation ;where fine living and good design are way too far from our thoughts .The first person to stand at the curb would look up and probably not think "How lovely that looks , what a super morning ".He would probably think "I'd better nick the basket now when no one's looking ,and sell it for scrap." If not , he is probably too busy fretting over how he could take on clearly unstable traffic , to even look up and notice flowers.Or the flowers might wilt with the overwhelming stench of the dangerously heavy emission clogging the air at the curb . Our best efforts are spent on managing basic infrastructure and meeting our basic needs , so attention to detail is clearly way down in priority .
while one can understand that though process, it is difficult to agree with it . India is at crossroads. While we grapple with the basics , we are clearly ready to take on much more .Indian markets today , are flooded with the same well-finished products available abroad ; so the argument 'we can't afford better quality ' does not ring true .Some of our home bred industries have acquired European factories, so the argument 'we don't have the best equipment ' does not hold water either .We have the resources and the ability to produce design that is detailed to the very end , finished to reflect a quality we deserve to use . If we fail, it is only because we do not demand enough.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Design thinking by Tim Brown
Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services , processes- and even strategy .
Thomas Edison created the electric bulb and the wrapped an entire industry around it . The lightbulb is most often thought of as his signature invention , but Edison understood that the bulb was little more than a parlor trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful. So he created that , too.
Thus Edison's genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he made, and he engineered towards that insight.
Edison's approach was an early example of what is now called " Design Thinking " - a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human - centered design ethos . By this I mean that innovation is powered by a thorough understanding , through direct observation ,of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made , packaged, marketed, sold , and supported .
Many people believe that edison's greatest invention was modern R and D laboratory and methods of experimental investigation . Edison wasn't a narrowly specialized scientist but a broad generalist with a shrewd business sense .In his Menlo park , New Jersey , Laboratory he surrounded himself with gifted tinkerers, improvisers , and experimenters . Indeed , he broke the mold of the "lone genius inventor " by creating a team based approach to innovation .Although Edison biogrphers write of the camaraderie enjoyed by this merry band , the process also featured endless rounds of trail and error -the "99% perspiration " in Edison's famous definition of genius . His approach was intended not to validate preconceived hypotheses but to help experiments learn something new from each iterative stab . Innovation is hard work ; Edison made it a profession that blended art, craft , science , business, and an astute understanding of customers and markets .
Design Thinking is a lineal descendant of that tradition .Put simply, it is a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity . like Edison's painstaking innovation process , it often entails a great deal of perspiration .
I believe that design thinking has much to offer a business world in which most management ideas and best practices are freely available to be copied and exploited .Leaders now look to innovation as a principle source of differentiation and competitive advantage ; they would do well to incorporate design thinking into all phrases of the process .
This arcticle was published in Harvard Business Review and it represents IDEO's approach to developing the methods and sensibility of a designer .
Thomas Edison created the electric bulb and the wrapped an entire industry around it . The lightbulb is most often thought of as his signature invention , but Edison understood that the bulb was little more than a parlor trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful. So he created that , too.
Thus Edison's genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he made, and he engineered towards that insight.
Edison's approach was an early example of what is now called " Design Thinking " - a methodology that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human - centered design ethos . By this I mean that innovation is powered by a thorough understanding , through direct observation ,of what people want and need in their lives and what they like or dislike about the way particular products are made , packaged, marketed, sold , and supported .
Many people believe that edison's greatest invention was modern R and D laboratory and methods of experimental investigation . Edison wasn't a narrowly specialized scientist but a broad generalist with a shrewd business sense .In his Menlo park , New Jersey , Laboratory he surrounded himself with gifted tinkerers, improvisers , and experimenters . Indeed , he broke the mold of the "lone genius inventor " by creating a team based approach to innovation .Although Edison biogrphers write of the camaraderie enjoyed by this merry band , the process also featured endless rounds of trail and error -the "99% perspiration " in Edison's famous definition of genius . His approach was intended not to validate preconceived hypotheses but to help experiments learn something new from each iterative stab . Innovation is hard work ; Edison made it a profession that blended art, craft , science , business, and an astute understanding of customers and markets .
Design Thinking is a lineal descendant of that tradition .Put simply, it is a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity . like Edison's painstaking innovation process , it often entails a great deal of perspiration .
I believe that design thinking has much to offer a business world in which most management ideas and best practices are freely available to be copied and exploited .Leaders now look to innovation as a principle source of differentiation and competitive advantage ; they would do well to incorporate design thinking into all phrases of the process .
This arcticle was published in Harvard Business Review and it represents IDEO's approach to developing the methods and sensibility of a designer .
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Green Building To Rocket in 2009! Top Ten Trends
Jerry Yudelson’s Top Ten trends includes the following:
1. Green building will continue to grow more than 60 percent in 2009, on a cumulative basis. We’ve seen cumulative growth in new LEED projects over 60 percent per year since 2006, in fact 80 percent in 2008, and there’s no sign that the green wave has crested.
2. Green building will benefit from the new Obama presidency, with a strong focus on green jobs in energy efficiency, new green technologies and renewable energy. This trend will last for at least the next four years.
3. The focus of green building will begin to switch from new buildings to greening existing buildings. The fastest growing LEED rating system in 2008 was the LEED for Existing Buildings program, and I expect this trend to continue in 2009.
4. Awareness of the coming global crisis in fresh water supply will increase, leading building designers and managers to take further steps to reduce water consumption in buildings with more conserving fixtures, rainwater recovery systems and innovative new water technologies.
5. LEED Platinum-rated projects will become more commonplace as building owners, designers and construction teams learn how to design for higher levels of LEED achievement on conventional budgets.
6. Solar power use in buildings will accelerate with the extension of solar energy tax credits for buildings through 2016 and the prospect of increasing utility focus on renewable power goals for 2015 and 2020. As before, third-party financing partnerships will continue to grow and provide capital for large rooftop systems.
7. Local governments will increasingly mandate green buildings from both themselves and the private sector. While concern over economic impacts of green buildings mandates will be present, the desire to reduce carbon emission by going green will lead more government agencies to require green buildings.
8. Zero net energy designs for new buildings will gain increasing acceptance in both public and private buildings. I’ve shown that you can get building energy use down to low levels with better design,” said Yudelson, “and that makes it easier and more cost-effective to buy green power to displace the remaining energy use.
9. Green homes will come to dominate new home developments in more sections of the U.S., as builders increasingly see green as a source of competitive advantage. This trend was foreseen in my 2008 book, Choosing Green (New Society Publishers), which for the first time documented the large number of new green housing developments in the U.S. and Canada.
10. European green building technologies will become better known and more widely adopted in the U.S. and Canada. My forthcoming 2009 book, Green Building Trends: Europe (Island Press), will be out in the spring and will help accelerate this trend, along with more European architects and engineers opening offices in the U.S.
Sounds good for Architects around the world ! ...You can read more about Jerry Yuldeson his website
1. Green building will continue to grow more than 60 percent in 2009, on a cumulative basis. We’ve seen cumulative growth in new LEED projects over 60 percent per year since 2006, in fact 80 percent in 2008, and there’s no sign that the green wave has crested.
2. Green building will benefit from the new Obama presidency, with a strong focus on green jobs in energy efficiency, new green technologies and renewable energy. This trend will last for at least the next four years.
3. The focus of green building will begin to switch from new buildings to greening existing buildings. The fastest growing LEED rating system in 2008 was the LEED for Existing Buildings program, and I expect this trend to continue in 2009.
4. Awareness of the coming global crisis in fresh water supply will increase, leading building designers and managers to take further steps to reduce water consumption in buildings with more conserving fixtures, rainwater recovery systems and innovative new water technologies.
5. LEED Platinum-rated projects will become more commonplace as building owners, designers and construction teams learn how to design for higher levels of LEED achievement on conventional budgets.
6. Solar power use in buildings will accelerate with the extension of solar energy tax credits for buildings through 2016 and the prospect of increasing utility focus on renewable power goals for 2015 and 2020. As before, third-party financing partnerships will continue to grow and provide capital for large rooftop systems.
7. Local governments will increasingly mandate green buildings from both themselves and the private sector. While concern over economic impacts of green buildings mandates will be present, the desire to reduce carbon emission by going green will lead more government agencies to require green buildings.
8. Zero net energy designs for new buildings will gain increasing acceptance in both public and private buildings. I’ve shown that you can get building energy use down to low levels with better design,” said Yudelson, “and that makes it easier and more cost-effective to buy green power to displace the remaining energy use.
9. Green homes will come to dominate new home developments in more sections of the U.S., as builders increasingly see green as a source of competitive advantage. This trend was foreseen in my 2008 book, Choosing Green (New Society Publishers), which for the first time documented the large number of new green housing developments in the U.S. and Canada.
10. European green building technologies will become better known and more widely adopted in the U.S. and Canada. My forthcoming 2009 book, Green Building Trends: Europe (Island Press), will be out in the spring and will help accelerate this trend, along with more European architects and engineers opening offices in the U.S.
Sounds good for Architects around the world ! ...You can read more about Jerry Yuldeson his website
Monday, November 24, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
CEO for cities
CEOs for Cities is a national network of American urban leaders dedicated to creating next generation cities that hold the answers to many of the challenges our nation faces.
Carol Coletta is president and CEO of CEOs for Cities and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City .Previously, she served as president of Coletta & Company in Memphis. In addition, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and American Architectural Foundation.
CEOs for Cities:
- Connects urban leaders to powerful ideas and each other.
- Mobilizes new urban activists to execute real change in cities .
- Produces new urban insights that lay out the best opportunities for cities, and the people who live in them, to succeed .
- Tells powerful stories about the potential of cities to solve our most pressing problems .
Carol Coletta will be a guest speaker at the REMIX conference to be held at ogunquit , Maine , USA from Oct 5-8 ,2008. REMIX is the 33 Annual Design Management conference organised by DMI .
Carol Coletta, will share the latest research on market trends at work in cities and how designers can make an important contribution to the success of cities.
Carol Coletta is president and CEO of CEOs for Cities and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City .Previously, she served as president of Coletta & Company in Memphis. In addition, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors, and American Architectural Foundation.
CEOs for Cities:
- Connects urban leaders to powerful ideas and each other.
- Mobilizes new urban activists to execute real change in cities .
- Produces new urban insights that lay out the best opportunities for cities, and the people who live in them, to succeed .
- Tells powerful stories about the potential of cities to solve our most pressing problems .
Carol Coletta will be a guest speaker at the REMIX conference to be held at ogunquit , Maine , USA from Oct 5-8 ,2008. REMIX is the 33 Annual Design Management conference organised by DMI .
Carol Coletta, will share the latest research on market trends at work in cities and how designers can make an important contribution to the success of cities.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Gensler's focus on business created a new standard
San Francisco Business Times - by Lizette Wilson
I am copy pasting the whole article as it is.....its really interesting how architectural frm are getting more professional and treating architecture like any other trade . The hype created by architectural colleges and then by the students ....leads to frustration once the students are thrown into the real world which is beyound the reality the arch students have created , hope this article prove an eye opener .
article :-
The founder of the nation's largest design firm doesn't dress fancy and doesn't have a favorite building.
Art Gensler of Gensler architects is atypical in other ways, too.
He studied architecture at Cornell University, but doesn't consider himself an artist. He specialized in building interiors during the '60s when exterior design was the rage, and interior work was still essentially furniture arrangement.
But the biggest difference is the way he runs his architecture firm. He runs it like a business.
"He's reading the Wall Street Journal, and I'm reading an architecture magazine. He's looking for an industry, and I'm looking for one good project," said San Francisco architect and occasional Gensler competitor Theodore Brown, recalling a transatlantic flight when Gensler was his seatmate.
Ed Friedrichs worked alongside Gensler for 34 years, including eight years as president and three years as CEO of his company. "He got the money gene -- we all did," he said.
Indeed, with the industry's cyclical and highly competitive nature, slim margins and long delays between services rendered and payments made, architecture firms are not easy businesses to run.
Most schools still emphasize theory and design over business rules, and architects are typically drawn to the profession for a love of the work -- not a burning desire to run a business. Businesses are usually small, too, with 87 percent of firms nationwide operating from a single office and fewer than a dozen employees, according to the American Institute of Architects.
"Small firms don't have the resources to weather a downturn," said Kermit Baker, chief economist for the AIA, noting that just 14.2 percent of firms founded before 1970 are still around today. And Gensler is the largest of them.
During the past 40 years, Gensler has grown from one office in San Francisco to 28 offices and more than 2,000 employees worldwide. Revenue for the year ending March 31, 2006 is tracking 28 percent ahead of last year's numbers, thanks to rapid growth in every office except Tokyo and Detroit.
Practice areas now stretch beyond interior design work for corporate clients to include hospitality, education, airports, railways, furniture design and large-scale urban planning, with projects ranging from the 110-acre International Financial Center in Dubai to redesigning the approach to the Black Stone of the Ka'aba in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
Art Gensler, 70, steps closer to retirement this month and is appointing three co-executive directors to lead the firm, including his oldest son, David Gensler.
While the change could signal a major shift in company operations, chances are it won't.
Beyond Art
Although the firm is named after Art Gensler, he's never been the sole decision maker.
Run for roughly 30 years by directors including his wife, Drucilla, Friedrichs, Anthony Harbour, Denis Rice and Margo Grant Walsh, the practice would usually reach consensus after debate, according to past and current board members. Votes were taken rarely, if ever, and nearly all major decisions emerged after a roundtable discussion.
While the management structure recently put in place will be different, the leadership has been active since 2003.
That was the year Friedrichs, Harbour, Rice and Walsh stepped down and the firm added 10 new board members to join Gensler and Drucilla. That board included their oldest son, David Gensler, who splits his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco; Washington, D.C.-based Diane Hoskins; and Los Angeles-based Andy Cohen. All three now hold responsibilities as co-executive directors and continue to serve as part of the 12-person board.
Gensler will handle finance and operations; Cohen will focus on clients and design; and Hoskins will be responsible for employee and practice issues.
Said David Gensler: "To change from a founder leader to the next generation is something that we've been working on for 15 years. It's an evolution."
The firm's design style, which is as diverse as the client roster, is also unlikely to change with Art Gensler less active in daily operations.
He only touched 30 to 40 of the 1,000 projects the firm was working on in any given month, with much of his time going to networking and not-so-glamorous tasks like bill collecting and handling insurance issues.
And on the projects he did touch, Gensler didn't leave a signature mark. He's proud of the fact the firm doesn't have a distinct design style, and instead takes its leads from clients.
That was a major reason why Gap founder Don Fisher continued to hire the firm for the past 40 years. He estimated the firm has done roughly 3,000 of the Gap's 4,000 stores worldwide, plus the majority of the corporate office build-outs.
"He does not have a distinct architectural style where people will look at his building and say 'that's a Gensler building'," Fisher said.
Said Gensler: "Architecture has to be appropriate. It's about solving problems. One of the problems is aesthetic -- it's the most obvious, but it's not necessarily the most important."
The most important?
Money. And Gensler learned that lesson from his clients.
Money honey
When Gensler launched operations during the mid-'60s, it was the beginning of the great white-collar expansion. Professional service firms were opening up branch offices nationwide and multi-tenant buildings, particularly in San Francisco, were becoming the norm. With older floorplates not always well-suited to an organization's business or focus, a lot of work was available.
"At that time, interior work was really done by housewives. The attitude of most architects was, 'We'll take the rough and tumble part -- the exterior -- and leave this other prissy stuff to the women,' " said Brown.
The sector meant both a major opportunity for Gensler -- it was the first firm to specialize in interior design -- and an education.
Execs at fledgling companies didn't have blank checks for build-outs and had to make the numbers pencil out for corporate headquarters.
"The culture very early on was to work on business-to-business terms. Not be interior decorators," said Friedrichs -- noting the firm broke the stereotype that interior design was more an artistic endeavor than a business.
Shortly after starting the company, Gensler realized he needed to know more about running a business. He attended a few night classes at San Francisco State University before deciding it would be more efficient to hire a business professor to come to Gensler and teach all the firm's architects -- roughly two dozen at the time -- business basics.
An early lesson was the importance of collecting on overdue bills.
"Most architects are generally embarrassed to ask clients for overdue bills," said Friedrichs. "We had a re-education process for people who carried that attitude. People make a science of floating their late payments, and if you let them, they'll work it to the max."
Along with hiring business consultants on an ongoing basis, Gensler and other executives sought out best business practices and principles from other fields. They learned to be flexible, creating a separate business unit for Gap projects to ensure they snagged all the company's business, and they learned to focus on financials.
That was among the reasons Friedrichs began courting David Gensler to join the firm in the early '90s.
With an undergraduate degree in economics from Dartmouth and an M.B.A. from Stanford, David Gensler had worked at the Pacific Stock Exchange, Morgan Stanley and Microsoft.
He was chief financial officer of Datis Corp., a software firm in San Mateo, and was happily anticipating it going public. He was a numbers guy, and architecture, let alone joining his father's firm, was the furthest thing from his mind.
"Being the oldest of four boys, the closeness to Art was a little overwhelming," David Gensler said. "I wanted to make my own way in life, so I got as far away from design as possible."
Friedrichs, who had known David since he was 10, had been searching for a CFO-type to help run the rapidly growing firm. After sitting next to David during the firm's 25th anniversary celebration, he decided to pursue him as a job candidate. The men had several clandestine meetings at the San Francisco International Airport -- Gensler would meet Friedrichs when he was flying up from the Los Angeles office -- before deciding to discuss the idea with Art.
"We agreed on a couple of ground rules going in, the main one being that we would never let anybody or the company come between us. That's always a risk when you go into a family business," said David Gensler. "We've fought about issues, and I'm sure there are hard feelings on both sides. But at the end of the day, our father-son relationship is different than our business relationship."
David began working at Gensler in 1992.
The youngest of the Gensler boys -- 37-year-old Doug -- joined the firm that same year. He had studied architecture at Cornell University, like his father, and then traveled in Asia. He worked at the San Francisco office for three years before being asked to run the Boston office.
After building the group to 70 people, he moved back to San Francisco, where he now does a mixture of academic, mixed-use, hospitality and life-science projects.
"When we're all together, we tend to talk about (the business) a little bit. It doesn't consume us, but it can certainly be a big part of a dinner conversation -- everything from individual projects, to clients to strategic initiative -- you name it," said Gensler, before adding, "but it's not a family business."
Extended family
With 1,600 or so shareholders and a 2,000-plus employee-roster, critics often say Gensler has grown too big to respond to client needs.
David Gensler and other company leaders say scope is the firm's greatest strength, enabling the company to select the best people for a job. While a project is often handled from the nearest office branch, location becomes irrelevant as the project advances. Firm directors, who discuss roughly 1,500 of the firm's 2,000 employees at review time, frequently create new teams, drawing from locations around the world.
The 28 offices share the same profit and loss statement so they don't compete with each other.
While Gensler has not formally announced expansion plans, more activity in India and Asia will likely require an increased presence in those markets.
"People talk about us being a large firm, and it's like, 'Yeah, we're the tallest fifth-grader in the class,' " said David Gensler. "We're trying to build a truly multi-disciplinary global design firm."
Lizette Wilson covers real estate for the San Francisco Business Times
I am copy pasting the whole article as it is.....its really interesting how architectural frm are getting more professional and treating architecture like any other trade . The hype created by architectural colleges and then by the students ....leads to frustration once the students are thrown into the real world which is beyound the reality the arch students have created , hope this article prove an eye opener .
article :-
The founder of the nation's largest design firm doesn't dress fancy and doesn't have a favorite building.
Art Gensler of Gensler architects is atypical in other ways, too.
He studied architecture at Cornell University, but doesn't consider himself an artist. He specialized in building interiors during the '60s when exterior design was the rage, and interior work was still essentially furniture arrangement.
But the biggest difference is the way he runs his architecture firm. He runs it like a business.
"He's reading the Wall Street Journal, and I'm reading an architecture magazine. He's looking for an industry, and I'm looking for one good project," said San Francisco architect and occasional Gensler competitor Theodore Brown, recalling a transatlantic flight when Gensler was his seatmate.
Ed Friedrichs worked alongside Gensler for 34 years, including eight years as president and three years as CEO of his company. "He got the money gene -- we all did," he said.
Indeed, with the industry's cyclical and highly competitive nature, slim margins and long delays between services rendered and payments made, architecture firms are not easy businesses to run.
Most schools still emphasize theory and design over business rules, and architects are typically drawn to the profession for a love of the work -- not a burning desire to run a business. Businesses are usually small, too, with 87 percent of firms nationwide operating from a single office and fewer than a dozen employees, according to the American Institute of Architects.
"Small firms don't have the resources to weather a downturn," said Kermit Baker, chief economist for the AIA, noting that just 14.2 percent of firms founded before 1970 are still around today. And Gensler is the largest of them.
During the past 40 years, Gensler has grown from one office in San Francisco to 28 offices and more than 2,000 employees worldwide. Revenue for the year ending March 31, 2006 is tracking 28 percent ahead of last year's numbers, thanks to rapid growth in every office except Tokyo and Detroit.
Practice areas now stretch beyond interior design work for corporate clients to include hospitality, education, airports, railways, furniture design and large-scale urban planning, with projects ranging from the 110-acre International Financial Center in Dubai to redesigning the approach to the Black Stone of the Ka'aba in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
Art Gensler, 70, steps closer to retirement this month and is appointing three co-executive directors to lead the firm, including his oldest son, David Gensler.
While the change could signal a major shift in company operations, chances are it won't.
Beyond Art
Although the firm is named after Art Gensler, he's never been the sole decision maker.
Run for roughly 30 years by directors including his wife, Drucilla, Friedrichs, Anthony Harbour, Denis Rice and Margo Grant Walsh, the practice would usually reach consensus after debate, according to past and current board members. Votes were taken rarely, if ever, and nearly all major decisions emerged after a roundtable discussion.
While the management structure recently put in place will be different, the leadership has been active since 2003.
That was the year Friedrichs, Harbour, Rice and Walsh stepped down and the firm added 10 new board members to join Gensler and Drucilla. That board included their oldest son, David Gensler, who splits his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco; Washington, D.C.-based Diane Hoskins; and Los Angeles-based Andy Cohen. All three now hold responsibilities as co-executive directors and continue to serve as part of the 12-person board.
Gensler will handle finance and operations; Cohen will focus on clients and design; and Hoskins will be responsible for employee and practice issues.
Said David Gensler: "To change from a founder leader to the next generation is something that we've been working on for 15 years. It's an evolution."
The firm's design style, which is as diverse as the client roster, is also unlikely to change with Art Gensler less active in daily operations.
He only touched 30 to 40 of the 1,000 projects the firm was working on in any given month, with much of his time going to networking and not-so-glamorous tasks like bill collecting and handling insurance issues.
And on the projects he did touch, Gensler didn't leave a signature mark. He's proud of the fact the firm doesn't have a distinct design style, and instead takes its leads from clients.
That was a major reason why Gap founder Don Fisher continued to hire the firm for the past 40 years. He estimated the firm has done roughly 3,000 of the Gap's 4,000 stores worldwide, plus the majority of the corporate office build-outs.
"He does not have a distinct architectural style where people will look at his building and say 'that's a Gensler building'," Fisher said.
Said Gensler: "Architecture has to be appropriate. It's about solving problems. One of the problems is aesthetic -- it's the most obvious, but it's not necessarily the most important."
The most important?
Money. And Gensler learned that lesson from his clients.
Money honey
When Gensler launched operations during the mid-'60s, it was the beginning of the great white-collar expansion. Professional service firms were opening up branch offices nationwide and multi-tenant buildings, particularly in San Francisco, were becoming the norm. With older floorplates not always well-suited to an organization's business or focus, a lot of work was available.
"At that time, interior work was really done by housewives. The attitude of most architects was, 'We'll take the rough and tumble part -- the exterior -- and leave this other prissy stuff to the women,' " said Brown.
The sector meant both a major opportunity for Gensler -- it was the first firm to specialize in interior design -- and an education.
Execs at fledgling companies didn't have blank checks for build-outs and had to make the numbers pencil out for corporate headquarters.
"The culture very early on was to work on business-to-business terms. Not be interior decorators," said Friedrichs -- noting the firm broke the stereotype that interior design was more an artistic endeavor than a business.
Shortly after starting the company, Gensler realized he needed to know more about running a business. He attended a few night classes at San Francisco State University before deciding it would be more efficient to hire a business professor to come to Gensler and teach all the firm's architects -- roughly two dozen at the time -- business basics.
An early lesson was the importance of collecting on overdue bills.
"Most architects are generally embarrassed to ask clients for overdue bills," said Friedrichs. "We had a re-education process for people who carried that attitude. People make a science of floating their late payments, and if you let them, they'll work it to the max."
Along with hiring business consultants on an ongoing basis, Gensler and other executives sought out best business practices and principles from other fields. They learned to be flexible, creating a separate business unit for Gap projects to ensure they snagged all the company's business, and they learned to focus on financials.
That was among the reasons Friedrichs began courting David Gensler to join the firm in the early '90s.
With an undergraduate degree in economics from Dartmouth and an M.B.A. from Stanford, David Gensler had worked at the Pacific Stock Exchange, Morgan Stanley and Microsoft.
He was chief financial officer of Datis Corp., a software firm in San Mateo, and was happily anticipating it going public. He was a numbers guy, and architecture, let alone joining his father's firm, was the furthest thing from his mind.
"Being the oldest of four boys, the closeness to Art was a little overwhelming," David Gensler said. "I wanted to make my own way in life, so I got as far away from design as possible."
Friedrichs, who had known David since he was 10, had been searching for a CFO-type to help run the rapidly growing firm. After sitting next to David during the firm's 25th anniversary celebration, he decided to pursue him as a job candidate. The men had several clandestine meetings at the San Francisco International Airport -- Gensler would meet Friedrichs when he was flying up from the Los Angeles office -- before deciding to discuss the idea with Art.
"We agreed on a couple of ground rules going in, the main one being that we would never let anybody or the company come between us. That's always a risk when you go into a family business," said David Gensler. "We've fought about issues, and I'm sure there are hard feelings on both sides. But at the end of the day, our father-son relationship is different than our business relationship."
David began working at Gensler in 1992.
The youngest of the Gensler boys -- 37-year-old Doug -- joined the firm that same year. He had studied architecture at Cornell University, like his father, and then traveled in Asia. He worked at the San Francisco office for three years before being asked to run the Boston office.
After building the group to 70 people, he moved back to San Francisco, where he now does a mixture of academic, mixed-use, hospitality and life-science projects.
"When we're all together, we tend to talk about (the business) a little bit. It doesn't consume us, but it can certainly be a big part of a dinner conversation -- everything from individual projects, to clients to strategic initiative -- you name it," said Gensler, before adding, "but it's not a family business."
Extended family
With 1,600 or so shareholders and a 2,000-plus employee-roster, critics often say Gensler has grown too big to respond to client needs.
David Gensler and other company leaders say scope is the firm's greatest strength, enabling the company to select the best people for a job. While a project is often handled from the nearest office branch, location becomes irrelevant as the project advances. Firm directors, who discuss roughly 1,500 of the firm's 2,000 employees at review time, frequently create new teams, drawing from locations around the world.
The 28 offices share the same profit and loss statement so they don't compete with each other.
While Gensler has not formally announced expansion plans, more activity in India and Asia will likely require an increased presence in those markets.
"People talk about us being a large firm, and it's like, 'Yeah, we're the tallest fifth-grader in the class,' " said David Gensler. "We're trying to build a truly multi-disciplinary global design firm."
Lizette Wilson covers real estate for the San Francisco Business Times
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
AEC World Expo 2009
361 Degree The conferences 2009
March 19,20,21,22
Mumbai , INDIA
India's first comprehensive internation design forum for ideation , inspiration and interation.
Objectives:
1.To provide a comprehensive insight into ideas and innovations that are today driving the fields of architecture, construction and design
2.To create a platform of interaction and expression for the thought leaders in the field of design across the globe today.
3.The Conference and workshop sessions offer dialogue opportunities satisfying the information needs of all segments of the design and construction fraternity - from business to academic scopes, from the professional to the entrepreneur...
For more info on World expo check out website
March 19,20,21,22
Mumbai , INDIA
India's first comprehensive internation design forum for ideation , inspiration and interation.
Objectives:
1.To provide a comprehensive insight into ideas and innovations that are today driving the fields of architecture, construction and design
2.To create a platform of interaction and expression for the thought leaders in the field of design across the globe today.
3.The Conference and workshop sessions offer dialogue opportunities satisfying the information needs of all segments of the design and construction fraternity - from business to academic scopes, from the professional to the entrepreneur...
For more info on World expo check out website
JLL Acquires LEED Rival
In a move certain to raise eyebrows in the industry that has grown around benchmarking and certifying green buildings, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (NYSE: JLL) has acquired the developer of Green Globes, an online interactive tool viewed as either a competitor or supplement to the U.S. heavyweight Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, depending on who you talk to.
In the deal, JLL acquires Toronto-based ECD Energy and Environment Canada Ltd., an environmental consulting firm known for developing suites of online environmental rating systems for buildings, including Green Globes, licensed and overseen in the U.S. by the nonprofit Green Building Initiative (GBI) in Portland, OR, and Go Green, supervised by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) in Canada. ECD staff will join Jones Lang LaSalle’s Toronto office, but other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The GBI, which emerged as an alternative to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standard in 2004, touts Green Globes as "the practical building rating standard" on its Web site.
Green Globes’ roots go back to 1996 when the Canadian Standards Association, a public/private group establishing safety and performance standards, published the Building Research Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) as a guideline for existing buildings in Canada. It became an online assessment and rating tool for existing buildings under the Green Globes brand in 2000 and began developing standards for new building design.
In 2004, Green Globes for Existing Buildings was adopted by BOMA Canada, where it operates under the name Go Green Plus. Under the terms of the acquisition, Green Globes/Go Green standards will maintain independence from JLL and continue to operate under the GBI in the U.S. and BOMA in Canada.
JLL, which has emerged as a leader in energy conservation and sustainability in the commercial real estate industry, acquires ECD’s technology platform for measuring sustainability and benchmarking across commercial building portfolios. The tools assess new building design, existing building operations and interior modifications for their impact on energy, water and other environmental factors, along with occupant health and well being.
Although the upstart program is often described as a competing standard to LEED, Jones Lang LaSalle officials describe it as a supplement rather than a replacement for the well-established USGBC program, especially for owners of large commercial portfolios.
"Green Globes is more of a tool than a standard. We think they are very complementary," Dan Probst, chairman of energy and sustainability services at JLL, told CoStar Advisor. "LEED is clearly a standard that has gained wide acceptance and carries a lot of meaning for people in the marketplace, particularly for new construction.
"The marketplace is begging for a tool that will enable a quick assessment. Owners who have a large portfolio of existing buildings want to know where they stack up in terms of LEED. We think Green Globes is a great tool for doing that baseline assessment, and generating some recommendations to improve the buildings’ overall performance."
"It’s a fairly lengthy process" under LEED to assess performance to the standard, especially portfolios that may have hundreds or thousands of properties, Probst continued. One scenario would be for an owner to start the process with a Green Globe assessment, then use the baseline and recommendations as a foundation to pursue LEED certification, "if they think it’s important to have [LEED] designation."
JLL "definitely does not" see Green Globes as an all-out replacement for LEED or Energy Star, he said.
"We really see it as more of a tool; in fact, we’re already looking at some enhancements to link it to Energy Star. We’ve already had some discussions."
In a statement released to CoStar on Wednesday evening, USGBC Manager of Corporate and Investment Real Estate Marc Heisterkamp called the JLL acquisition 'yet another proof point in the business case that green operations and maintenance practices are moving from an add-on, ‘nice-to-have’ feature to an integrated approach to sound building management that makes good business and environmental sense."
Heisterkamp noted that the USGBC has been working with 40 organizations -- including CB Richard Ellis, Cushman & Wakefield and Transwestern, which together own or manage more than 4 billion square feet -- to green their portfolios using LEED for Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance.
"But those numbers, even considering Jones Lang LaSalle’s commitment, are small in the face of this tremendous challenge of greening 5.1 million commercial buildings," he said. "As an industry, what we have here is a good start, but there’s a lot more work to do."
While JLL supports LEED, Energy Star and BREEAM, "there are few efficient tools like the Green Globes/Go Green programs that allow owners to bring their entire portfolios up to these standards," said Lauralee Martin, JLL global chief operating officer.
In the deal, JLL acquires Toronto-based ECD Energy and Environment Canada Ltd., an environmental consulting firm known for developing suites of online environmental rating systems for buildings, including Green Globes, licensed and overseen in the U.S. by the nonprofit Green Building Initiative (GBI) in Portland, OR, and Go Green, supervised by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) in Canada. ECD staff will join Jones Lang LaSalle’s Toronto office, but other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The GBI, which emerged as an alternative to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standard in 2004, touts Green Globes as "the practical building rating standard" on its Web site.
Green Globes’ roots go back to 1996 when the Canadian Standards Association, a public/private group establishing safety and performance standards, published the Building Research Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) as a guideline for existing buildings in Canada. It became an online assessment and rating tool for existing buildings under the Green Globes brand in 2000 and began developing standards for new building design.
In 2004, Green Globes for Existing Buildings was adopted by BOMA Canada, where it operates under the name Go Green Plus. Under the terms of the acquisition, Green Globes/Go Green standards will maintain independence from JLL and continue to operate under the GBI in the U.S. and BOMA in Canada.
JLL, which has emerged as a leader in energy conservation and sustainability in the commercial real estate industry, acquires ECD’s technology platform for measuring sustainability and benchmarking across commercial building portfolios. The tools assess new building design, existing building operations and interior modifications for their impact on energy, water and other environmental factors, along with occupant health and well being.
Although the upstart program is often described as a competing standard to LEED, Jones Lang LaSalle officials describe it as a supplement rather than a replacement for the well-established USGBC program, especially for owners of large commercial portfolios.
"Green Globes is more of a tool than a standard. We think they are very complementary," Dan Probst, chairman of energy and sustainability services at JLL, told CoStar Advisor. "LEED is clearly a standard that has gained wide acceptance and carries a lot of meaning for people in the marketplace, particularly for new construction.
"The marketplace is begging for a tool that will enable a quick assessment. Owners who have a large portfolio of existing buildings want to know where they stack up in terms of LEED. We think Green Globes is a great tool for doing that baseline assessment, and generating some recommendations to improve the buildings’ overall performance."
"It’s a fairly lengthy process" under LEED to assess performance to the standard, especially portfolios that may have hundreds or thousands of properties, Probst continued. One scenario would be for an owner to start the process with a Green Globe assessment, then use the baseline and recommendations as a foundation to pursue LEED certification, "if they think it’s important to have [LEED] designation."
JLL "definitely does not" see Green Globes as an all-out replacement for LEED or Energy Star, he said.
"We really see it as more of a tool; in fact, we’re already looking at some enhancements to link it to Energy Star. We’ve already had some discussions."
In a statement released to CoStar on Wednesday evening, USGBC Manager of Corporate and Investment Real Estate Marc Heisterkamp called the JLL acquisition 'yet another proof point in the business case that green operations and maintenance practices are moving from an add-on, ‘nice-to-have’ feature to an integrated approach to sound building management that makes good business and environmental sense."
Heisterkamp noted that the USGBC has been working with 40 organizations -- including CB Richard Ellis, Cushman & Wakefield and Transwestern, which together own or manage more than 4 billion square feet -- to green their portfolios using LEED for Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance.
"But those numbers, even considering Jones Lang LaSalle’s commitment, are small in the face of this tremendous challenge of greening 5.1 million commercial buildings," he said. "As an industry, what we have here is a good start, but there’s a lot more work to do."
While JLL supports LEED, Energy Star and BREEAM, "there are few efficient tools like the Green Globes/Go Green programs that allow owners to bring their entire portfolios up to these standards," said Lauralee Martin, JLL global chief operating officer.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Solar roof
C21e & C21t
solar electric & solar thermal roof tiles
High efficiency
C21e:
• Delivers high power output - 52Wp per tile, less than eight square
metres per kWp (kilowatt peak)
• Back mounted contact strips increase the effective collector area
and reduce surface glare, typical with standard solar cell technology
• Integrated ‘thru-flow’ ventilation enhances PV performance
C21t:
• Less than eight square metres provides roughly two thirds of the
hot water for an average three bedroom home
• Latest insulation technology maximises heat retention
Sunday, June 29, 2008
gma radio - viability of this concept in India
23rd UIA world Congress in Torino , June 29rd to July 3, 2008
The theme of the congress is Transmitting Architecture , Since i cant visit the place , i am just relying on their website for information . Another interesting thing that's happing at the congress is the launch of the first web radio in streaming dedicated to the world of architecture . That's interesting concept and i was thinking what about having a dedicated radio for architects in India ....anybody listening !....anyways my mind will work on that .....Those are few initiatives to make the architecture world more connected . We will see more of these in developing nation as our economies move towards progress. Lot many venture funds are available in India but the thing is
- How big will be the market for such a new concept .
- How receptive Indian architects will be for such a concept .
- what will be the content so that it will be usable for the working professionals (as nobody can waste time on useless stuff).
- Will architectural colleges ,studios be interested in contributing to it ( That can be a platform to promote upcoming architects and create a visibility for established studios ).
The theme of the congress is Transmitting Architecture , Since i cant visit the place , i am just relying on their website for information . Another interesting thing that's happing at the congress is the launch of the first web radio in streaming dedicated to the world of architecture . That's interesting concept and i was thinking what about having a dedicated radio for architects in India ....anybody listening !....anyways my mind will work on that .....Those are few initiatives to make the architecture world more connected . We will see more of these in developing nation as our economies move towards progress. Lot many venture funds are available in India but the thing is
- How big will be the market for such a new concept .
- How receptive Indian architects will be for such a concept .
- what will be the content so that it will be usable for the working professionals (as nobody can waste time on useless stuff).
- Will architectural colleges ,studios be interested in contributing to it ( That can be a platform to promote upcoming architects and create a visibility for established studios ).
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Indiabulls raises Rs818 cr from Singapore Reit offer
Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd, India’s fourth largest listed real estate developer, raised S$262 million (Rs818 .7 crore) from its offering of a real estate investment trust (Reit) in Singapore, less than the S$285 million the company had sought.
The initial public offering (IPO) of 262 million shares closed on Friday.
Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust fixed the price at the lower end of the price band at S$1 per share, the company said in a filing with the Singapore stock exchange. It had sought between S$1 and S$1.10 a share.
The offer was to close Thursday, but Indiabulls had to extend the share sale by a day, after it failed to attract the 1,000 retail investors required for a listing.
“There is not much appetite for property trusts.,” David Lum, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Singapore, said. “The last IPO we had was in November and we dont expect one to happen in the next few months. I think the poor demand is reflective of the weak market conditions,” he said.
Company officials declined to comment because of a rule requiring them to observe a “silent period” ahead of the listing on June 11.
L.N. Mittal, chief executive of Arcelor Mittal, the top global steel firm, had earlier acquired 91 million shares in the unit as an anchor investor, meaning Indiabulls Real Estate raised a total of S$353.5 million. Deutsche Bank AG and Merrill Lynch (Singapore) Pte arranged the share sale.
The initial public offering (IPO) of 262 million shares closed on Friday.
Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust fixed the price at the lower end of the price band at S$1 per share, the company said in a filing with the Singapore stock exchange. It had sought between S$1 and S$1.10 a share.
The offer was to close Thursday, but Indiabulls had to extend the share sale by a day, after it failed to attract the 1,000 retail investors required for a listing.
“There is not much appetite for property trusts.,” David Lum, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research in Singapore, said. “The last IPO we had was in November and we dont expect one to happen in the next few months. I think the poor demand is reflective of the weak market conditions,” he said.
Company officials declined to comment because of a rule requiring them to observe a “silent period” ahead of the listing on June 11.
L.N. Mittal, chief executive of Arcelor Mittal, the top global steel firm, had earlier acquired 91 million shares in the unit as an anchor investor, meaning Indiabulls Real Estate raised a total of S$353.5 million. Deutsche Bank AG and Merrill Lynch (Singapore) Pte arranged the share sale.
Monday, June 2, 2008
RMJM Founds Business-Focused Program at GSD
Source: ARCHITECT Magazine
By Amanda Kolson Hurley
On March 17, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) announced a $1.5 million gift from U.K.-based architecture firm RMJM to support a new integrated design program at the school. The RMJM Program for Research and Education in Integrated Design Practice will emphasize business management principles and a thorough understanding of the construction process to round out students' design skills.
Speaking to attendees of Harvard's Design Firm Leadership Conference, who filled the GSD's Piper Auditorium, dean Mohsen Mostafavi said, “We believe very strongly in the role of transdisciplinary research. We believe it's the future of design education.”
RMJM CEO Peter Morrison told the crowd that “architects must regain the status of master-builder” and that to do so, they must learn “to generate proper reward for the value [they've] created.”
GSD professor Spiro Pollalis told the audience that although the details have not been worked out yet, the program will entail collaboration between the GSD and the Harvard Business School.
By Amanda Kolson Hurley
On March 17, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) announced a $1.5 million gift from U.K.-based architecture firm RMJM to support a new integrated design program at the school. The RMJM Program for Research and Education in Integrated Design Practice will emphasize business management principles and a thorough understanding of the construction process to round out students' design skills.
Speaking to attendees of Harvard's Design Firm Leadership Conference, who filled the GSD's Piper Auditorium, dean Mohsen Mostafavi said, “We believe very strongly in the role of transdisciplinary research. We believe it's the future of design education.”
RMJM CEO Peter Morrison told the crowd that “architects must regain the status of master-builder” and that to do so, they must learn “to generate proper reward for the value [they've] created.”
GSD professor Spiro Pollalis told the audience that although the details have not been worked out yet, the program will entail collaboration between the GSD and the Harvard Business School.
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