Sharing Big Ideas
Everyone is looking to the future, now more than ever. What will it become? What can we do now to shape it? During Collaboration Week, our firm President Luanne Greene discussed some big topics that we focused on at our #ONEFIRM meeting, where 180 of our Ayers Saint Gross employees gathered virtually to interact and respond to each other in a large group forum.
2020’s big themes were: Design, Carbon, and Data.
Design: It’s a broad topic, especially at a multidisciplinary firm like ours. When we think about design excellence, we think about beautiful and inspirational designs–long-lasting, sustainable, resilient investments in the built and natural environment. Our design ethos has always been rooted in capturing the spirit of our clients and the spirit of place. Of course, our designs support the users and programs housed there. With spaces that are flexible and accommodate change over time. We think about the process of engagement that enhances their experience over many years. Design excellence is about curiosity and exploration. We engage people and places to create designs that enrich our world.
Carbon: This crisis has given us a heightened awareness of the natural environment. There aren’t many positive things you can say about the COVID crisis, except we do have cleaner air now than we did at the beginning of March. That should encourage us all to believe in the power of combating climate change. There are a couple of key ideas now as we address climate change and carbon. Our industry is responsible for a very large quantity of the carbon released in the atmosphere. We can have a huge impact on climate change. In its early years, the 2030 Challenge focused on carbon emissions due to the operations of buildings.
Now, we are also turning our attention to the carbon that is embodied in the buildings and landscapes themselves. Our focus is now shifting to questions to solve with our structural engineers. Why concrete? Why steel? Is timber an option? How can our landscapes sequester more carbon continuously? These are the questions we must ask more frequently and more aggressively. How can we work with our clients to create beautiful, functional, low-carbon, high-performance buildings and landscapes? We strive to answer these questions each day.
Data: This pandemic has severely heightened challenges that already exist across all areas of our culture and economy. For instance, higher education has been struggling with enrollment demographics and financial paradigms for a long time. This crisis has heightened both of those concerns. Our clients come to us asking for help with their facilities. They are making huge investments in their physical environment. As with any big and long-lasting investments, they want to be confident in their decision making. They want to lower their risk and they need to explain their decisions to their own stakeholders. Data is one of the key ways that we can help them with this. Data can support and accelerate their decision-making.
Data weaves through each discipline and across all business areas at Ayers Saint Gross. We work daily with data to connect the dots for our clients, as well as ourselves, to make informed decisions to improve the future.
If you have ever had a brainstorming session and seen how many ideas have come out of it, imagine 180 smart, creative, driven people coming together in a virtual chat to share their thoughts, opinions, and ideas. We are all virtual employees now, and we are connecting across boundaries better than ever. There are no limits for how far our firm can go to achieve great things.
Making it Happen
Have you ever coordinated a week-long virtual event in the middle of a global pandemic for a firm of 180 people that are in the middle of an unprecedented work from home arrangement? You haven’t? Well we have! Here are the five need-to-knows on pulling off a successful virtual event for your company.
