Challenges
Stage 2 of the 2008 Constructions Future Leaders competition involves a series of challenges. These are based on the business/industry challenges that CEOs from within Architecture face over the coming year.
Sustainability and the Skills Shortage are two issues that currently pervade the industry as a whole and therefore these themes make up the two challenges that must be answered by all entrants.These obligatory challenges are detailed below.
In addition to the obligatory challenges, a series of four weekly challenges will be emailed to entrants. Of these four, entrants must choose two to answer. These challenges will also feature on this page as they are announced. In total each entrant should answer four challenges during the month period, (two obligatory challenges and two chosen weekly challenges).
All answers to all challenges should be no more than 200 words. Once completed, please email your submissions complete with your username to futureleaders@emap.com for collation.
Obligatory Challenges
Graduate attraction & retention
In the last few years the construction industry has enjoyed a period of continued growth. The investment from both the public and private sectors has made the construction sector form 8.1% of UK GDP.
At face value, the future outlook appears bright for the built environment with high profile and prestigious projects on the horizon such as, the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, the redevelopment of major cities, Crossrail, huge housing plans and almost every football and rugby club in the land seemingly requiring a new home. It would appear an industry in full bloom. Delivering these projects requires a continuing and ever increasing stream of talented young professionals.
Why then does the industry struggle to capture and retain talented graduates? Maybe it's a question of wages although many pan-industry reports would argue otherwise. Maybe it's a question of perception - the construction industry is not one that graduates deem glamorous especially with the bright lights and allure of "city jobs" catching their collective eye. Maybe it's a lack of marketing - graduates are not aware of the lucrative and fulfilling careers on offer in the industry. You decide.
Future leaders will need a future workforce so here's the challenge:
As the leader of your company how would you address the issue of attracting and retaining graduates in your business? What can the industry collectively do to improve its reach and appeal to graduates?
The Sustainability of Sustainability
The term sustainability is used with ever-increasing regularity. Yet it can mean different things to different people.
The general theory is that sustainability refers to the maintenance and protection of our environment as a whole and the impact our current practices have on its wellbeing. If we don't change the way we work we will not be able to sustain our environment. So it is clearly something that construction is duty bound to take a lead in through its design and building practices. We build for the future.
Construction clients, both public and private sectors, are increasingly putting sustainability high on their agendas. They require companies to be sustainable in all areas - from the way they design and build to the way they source and select products. Sustainability even encompasses the way organisations behave. It is a commercial reality - without following these steps businesses are in danger of losing work.
However, creating a organisation that is fully sustainable may entail reviewing & overhauling working practices, installing new IT systems, employing new staff, retraining existing staff, engaging new suppliers. It is clear that the changes required come at considerable cost both culturally and financially. This begs the question - is sustainability in design and construction a necessity for all businesses to adhere to at any cost?
As the leader of your organisation how do you balance the need to be fully sustainable throughout your business against the commercial realities of making a profit and maintaining competitive advantage? How would you communicate this message externally and internally?
Architecture Weekly Challenge 1
Design for the cycle
Like the undulating hills of the Cotswolds the construction industry has seen its fair share of peaks and troughs in recent years with each hill representing great success and prosperity at the pinnacle and shadowy disappointment or trepidation at the bottom.
Just as the natural cycles that created the Cotswold landscape are impossible to influence, individual businesses cannot control the economic cycles that affect the whole industry - the peaks and troughs are testament to this. As the cycles continue the peaks may become taller or shorter, the troughs steeper or shallower, but the cycle remains by design.
As the leader of your business how do you plan for and manage these cycles in order to maintain continued growth and gain new business throughout?
Architecture Weekly Challenge 2
PFI projects remain some of the biggest contracts to be won in construction. The government has hugely increased its spending in this area over the last 10 years rising from £670m in 1995 to £7.7bn last year and with forward projections of £11bn in 2010. Clearly this is a construction cash cow. But what does this mean for the Architects?
It would be reasonable to think that this would be an area of commercial focus for the Architectural world, just as it is for the rest of the industry. However, it is not.
It seems that design and aesthetics often appear to be of secondary importance on PFI projects, with the architect having little influence on decision making.
As the leader of your company what steps would you take to try and improve the role of design in PFI projects and ensure further business growth?
Architecture Weekly Challenge 3
Detail
"Having too many participants in the design process, and the requirements to deliver excessive documentation at each stage of design, does not result in better architecture. There is a real and avoidable risk of projects achieving competence in all the manifold areas of specialist design, yet failing to produce excellence in any one."
Challenge: What parts of the UK design process would you change and what impact would the changes have on the way practices work?
Architecture Weekly Challenge 4
Clients
Is it unrealsitic not to accept that at some stage clients will expect architects to 'value engineer' their schemes and at what stage would you refuse to co-operate?
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