At Bryden Wood, it’s a guiding principle that we never compromise the design to fit the system.
We adapted and optimised the factory size and construction techniques in order to substantially and successfully reduce the cost.. Something even more interesting happened in the process, however.As we began to evaluate the facility, we began to ask different types of questions.
This led to some interesting realisations.One of the primary products to be manufactured in the factory was bottled water.The team discovered two important things: the first was that the energy costs to manufacture the product would be high; the second was that the sale price for bottled water in Africa is low.
This meant that, ultimately, the product itself was prohibitively unprofitable, and the entire venture ended up being deemed a nonviable investment.The company decided not to build the factory at all..
In other words, in this particular case, not building was deemed the most valuable thing.
Design to Value thinking requires a change to the way we approach projects.Many, if not most clients, need designs that can respond to unique sites and needs e.g.
for a healthcare facility the design needs to be flexible to accommodate specific clinical specialisms and the demographics of a particular region..So how can a Reference Design both standardise a design, yet leave enough flexibility to adapt it to any given brief?.
Designing flexible Reference Designs.In Reference Design, we create a core design of the most common of our clients’ facility type using a process of rationalisation, optimisation and standardisation.