The artists, the artisans and the end users

When I qualified as an architect in the eighties, I never expected to find myself, 30 years later, around the boardroom of one of Britain’s largest contractors.

My background, however, has certainly been a benefit and not a hindrance, because I am convinced one of the factors driving a successful construction business is an understanding of its design partners.

We are sometimes stereotyped as the artists and the artisans. You are currently reading online one of the few outlets read by both contractors and architects.

But elsewhere we are not great at acknowledging each other. Architects like the limelight; after all, the public mind requires a personality to adhere to a final product.

Good design is not only creative, it is about getting into the client’s mind.

Finished buildings seldom bear a contractor’s fingerprints.

But equally much of Britain’s built heritage owes a huge debt to our great engineers. Today, engineers are as under-rated as contractors are unloved.

But realising great architecture requires the problem-solving mind. You can’t innovate without integrating the two skills that the architects and artists and the artisans possess.

Contractors who do not have a good understanding of design risk a counter-productive descent into standardisation, cost-cutting and conflict, especially in these austere years.

That is because they’ve run up against the barrier between the two professions, perhaps in more confrontational forms of contract.

The rise of the frameworks has been a good educational process for the built environment’s professionals.

Recently, some have been pushed away from best practice but thankfully the frameworks have survived the storm.

A degree of challenge is sometimes necessary, and can improve what we call buildability, but the better we work together, the better is the outcome.

Where we have so much in common, and to gain from our closer co-operation, is in personalisation. Good design is not only creative, it is about getting into the client’s mind. Construction, often wrongly cast as thwarting the architect’s ambitions or vision, is about exactly the same thing.

If we cannot work successfully with their partners, our clients should be given pause. Because if the design does not work, we have to step in and find the answers. That is when being a design-orientated contractor makes a world of difference, for us, and for our clients.

The path to enlightenment isn’t straight or easy, and there is no magic answer. It is about collaboration, informed design, intelligent construction and all parties understanding the lifecycle of our product.

Graham Cash is chief executive of Bam Construct UK