Commercial buildings
Commercial buildings face a growing range of requirements from building owners, operators, and end users.
They must meet high standards for energy, carbon, and environmental performance — as well as being attractive and accessible, located close to local amenities, and with good transportation links.
Interior spaces need to be adaptable to changing ways of working and promote health and well-being.
For developers, cost efficiency and on-time construction remain key objectives to maximize return on investment.
Whether creating new buildings or adapting existing facilities, we know it takes an integrated approach to address all these requirements.
What can we do for you?
We understand how to achieve outstanding building performance through industrialized construction, innovative refurbishment, and repurposing of existing structures, and the design of new structures for multiple uses over a long life.
We can help you create new buildings and adapt existing facilities to meet the needs of a wide range of tenants — potentially spanning medical, education, and retail, as well as office space. We bring expertise in designing larger mixed use projects including precincts, which provide retail, office, and public amenities with well integrated transport and attractive surroundings.
Quality design, rapid construction
Digital tools enable designs to be optimized for construction and use. Design models can be used to enable industrialized construction and adapted for lifecycle asset management.
Cut carbon, build resilience
By identifying carbon hotspots early in project development, we can help you to enhance the commercial as well as environmental performance of new buildings. Reducing capital and operational carbon results in greater efficiency and lower cost, as well as making buildings more attractive to tenants. We help you to understand and quantify your exposure to the physical impacts of climate change, and to prioritize investment in resilience — protecting your buildings and long-term revenues.
Healthy workers in a healthier environment
A healthier environment improves people’s physical and mental health, which is good for business. That’s why we have teams of expert advisors on the use of healthy building materials, products, fixtures, and furniture, as well as pioneering the development of biophilic and nature-based design solutions.
Adaptation over time
We work with you to design new buildings with inbuilt flexibility, and to adapt existing single use buildings so that they can accommodate change. Flexibility and longevity are supported by advances in facade and building systems design; industrialized construction and modular building systems, which enable reconfiguration and deconstruction; and detailed digital models or twins of completed buildings, which can be used for lifecycle asset management.
Smart engineering for sustainable commercial buildings
Our team has an extensive global track record of designing and delivering commercial buildings, and our performance engineering approach applies equally to new and existing buildings.
Our experience
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Food production technology facility, National University, SingaporeWe are designing state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, offices, and supporting infrastructure for a research and development complex that will advance new food production technologies. Design criteria include climate resilience, alignment with net zero, energy self-sufficiency, and the creation of a digital twin for lifecycle asset management.
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Jewel Changi Airport, SingaporeStrategically located in the heart of Singapore’s Changi Airport, the Jewel features a five-storey high waterfall within an environmentally controlled indoor forest and garden. It provides 125,000m2 of floorspace for retail, airport administrative offices, public attractions and access to transport.
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Seascape, Auckland, New ZealandSeascape is Auckland’s tallest building, with a mixed use of offices, retail, and residential. As multidisciplinary engineering designer on the project, we were tasked with achieving unobstructed views of Auckland harbor, which we achieved by designing the structure with no stability elements on the harbor-facing north elevation. Instead, a megaframe on the east, west, and south elevations provides the building’s solidity.
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Sydney Fish Market, AustraliaWe helped conceptualize the new building, providing structural, civil, and marine engineering for the three-year tender design phase, and continued throughout construction as our client’s technical advisor. The building prioritized environmental considerations, including 3D-printed coral support structures on the building’s underside. We designed the structure for offsite construction to accelerate the build. The roof is engineered wood and supports solar panels to supply the building’s energy; it collects rainwater too.
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Waterfront Toronto, ON, CanadaWe are providing our technical expertise and a global perspective toward a new sustainability framework for Waterfront Toronto’s development projects. We are also providing structural engineering consulting services on a team that is designing the public realm for the Bayside development at the eastern end of Toronto’s harbor waterfront. Our sustainability framework will help set a new global standard for waterfront revitalization.
Intelligent Content
Intelligent Content provides a managed library of information-rich, parametric BIM objects that can be reused instead of recreated, and optimized with each successive use. A team of experts creates and quality-checks all objects, reducing model development time and enabling the rapid prototyping of designs.
STEPS
STEPS was the first solution to map people in motion, from transportation interfaces to stadium evacuation. STEPS realistically simulates pedestrian movements to test design layouts and operational plans. It enables users to understand how people will act in daily situations and in emergencies.
