Move on up

Our interview with Stefan Desormeaux of CBRE highlights the value of integrating building services expertise into a property surveying practice. The initiative is based on sound business principles: building services and energy are increasingly important to CBRE’s clients, and by incorporating into the practice engineers who best understand these subjects, and the financial drivers important to a client, CBRE is able to offer a more comprehensive and, ultimately, better service.

Property surveying is not the only field in which the value of engineering expertise is becoming more appreciated. Driven by the increasing emphasis on energy conservation and sustainability, and ever more rigorous building and planning regulations, architects too are wising up to the advantages of early engineering involvement in a project. As Will Alsop said in his opinion column (BSj 03/08), he can envisage the day when engineers will be absorbed into architectural firms.

Alsop said architectural practice must move on, but perhaps it is engineering that needs to do that. Last year we featured the Innovate Green Office in Leeds (BSj 09/07), designed by King Shaw Associates. What was impressive about it, aside from its impressive environmental credentials – it achieved the highest ever BREEAM score – was that the design team was led by the building services engineer. This radical approach to team structure ensured the best engineering principles were incorporated into the building’s design from the outset.

It seems reasonable to assume that as energy consumption and sustainability become ever more significant in building design, other clients and design teams will consider a similar approach. Perhaps now is the time for building services engineers to lead design from the front. And then, in the not too distant future, we may see architects and surveyors embedded into engineering consultancies.

Andy Pearson