Wave of the future

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Tomas Gulisek, principal and lead architectural designer for Burt Hill, speaks to FM Middle East's Jeff Roberts on when FMs should get involved in the design process, Burt Hill's entrance into the FM market and the next wave in Dubai.

Facilities management is many things to many people, what is it to you?

As architects, we are touched by many different disciplines and FM is one of them. I often compare architects to movie directors because, like movie directors, we are involved in several different trades and we have to be familiar with a little bit of everything.

If you have design architects or project managers overseeing FM, it isn't natural. They'll often oversee FM as a side task during the project. It's not really the best way to do it.

I've always been quite intrigued by FM because I've always like to work with complex databases. Back in the States, I worked with several people that were involved in helping the client build databases from technical drawings and other information that was provided by different consultants.

I first got involved in facilities management because during the design process, architects get involved a bit but it's not in a hands-on experience. However, Burt Hill is beginning to provide an add-on service in which we provide a lot of technical information to our clients and get involved a bit more in FM.

We will be providing MEP, structural, architectural and interior design solutions. Basically we're specifying all of the elements of the building. We are, obviously, quite closely involved in commissioning and construction administration too.

We are used to collating and storing all of this information on all our projects anyway, so it's very natural for us to move into an FM role. Right now we're working on constructing a massive database that will include all of this information in great detail.

These libraries of information are even more valuable today because we're dealing with sophisticated software packages where all the information is stored in virtual models.

Are there projects in the region in which Burt Hill is acting as the primary FM?

In the UAE, we haven't yet tapped into the FM market. It's one of the things that we've done a lot of through our US office, where we did a lot of FM work for healthcare clients. We would be very interested in getting into the industry in this market too. It's on our radar.

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