Flight to quality

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Jeff Willis talks about managing the design of complex construction projects with a measured cadence that speaks of both authority and experience. In his capacity as leader of the technical committee of the Emirates Green Building Council (EGBC), and as an associate director at Arup, Willis is a regional luminary when it comes to green building and sustainability. But a campus radical at the forefront of student protest? We take a closer look at how this combination of youthful passion and seasoned experience has helped rejuvenate the MEP sector in the Middle East.

Willis reflects that he has been working at Arup for 30 years. "When I was at college, I used to demonstrate about what would now be called sustainability and was then called the environment. So I have cared about these issues in one form or another for a long time.

A lot happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s; many people younger than me do not realize that America did not have an Environmental Protection Agency until 1970. Greenpeace was established in 1971, and the first Great Earth Day in 1970 saw 20 million Americans demonstrating about the environment.

Thereafter it lost some momentum, and got translated into the BREEAMs and LEEDs, but currently is high on the agenda as global warming. No doubt one is hard-pressed to see an expression of this energy today, given the global financial meltdown. Though Willis remains eminently practical, and refuses to see the cloud before acknowledging the silver lining.

"The way we perceive the slowdown is that it should be a benefit, as it will give us more time to think and plan. I have experienced a number of such economic downturns which affect all industry, and not just construction, although this one is worse than others in its global impact. I heard a phrase on the radio that the slowdown will lead to a ‘flight to quality', which is something that we would not mind at all."

So how does one maintain your level of creative energy and intellectual excitement in such challenging times, when doom and gloom seem to be the order of the day?

"There are two types of work out there. One is where you treat every job as something you need to spend time thinking about and planning, and finding the right solution for each project. The other approach is that you have a set of standard solutions that you apply as quickly and as cheaply as possible. There is a fee difference associated with those choices. Different clients have different perceptions and expectations, and we definitely like to be where the thinking is," comments Willis.

Opposite directions

"This means that, before you do anything, you have to spend time ensuring the client and yourself understand each other exactly. Sometimes during this process you discover that you are actually going in opposite directions. There have been some projects where we have had to admit we are really not the most suitable consultant, simply because we are headed in different directions. One of the reasons I like working for Arup is that turnover is not a driver for the company at all, and profit is invested in R&D" says Willis.

"If your aim is to be at the "thinking" end of things, you need to employ and retain "thinking" people. If you aim to work on projects that stretch the mind, you need the people capable of doing that. Thereafter you have got to keep them, which is not so much about money, as it is about remaining interested in what you are doing."

And Dubai has proved to be a source or tremendous inspiration, says Willis. He explains that Arup's previous presence in Dubai in the early 1990s was as a preferred roads design consultant for the Dubai Municipality. Arup left because the market was not suitable for what Arup offer.

"We try and avoid getting involved in fee pricing wars, because it leads us to the place where we do not want to be, namely doing the commodity work. We would rather not grow or even relocate an office than end up being in that position."

Financial independence

Thus Arup only returned to the region in 2005, prior to which Willis honed his skills in Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore. "I suppose we are lucky in a way that, over the years, the company has built up financial independence, so we do have cash in the bank and do not have to borrow money from anybody. We also try to plan far enough ahead so as to avoid major financial issues. We have a policy that we do not want to make millions of dollars more turnover, but are happy to be busy with the right mix of projects and people, which, incidentally, makes it easier to be a good place to work."

The result of this careful strategizing and attention to human capital development has produced many accolades and successes for the company, like the award for Small MEP Project of the Year at the 2008 MEP Middle East Awards, which Arup clinched for its retrofit of the Dragon Mart Shopping Mall. Willis, however, says the company is not actively targeting refurbishment as a market segment.

"I do think a lot needs to be done on a legislative and/or incentive basis in order to help make this happen on a larger scale. In the UK and Australia, for example, where the renovation business is bigger than anywhere else for Arup, there are operational drivers and incentives that reward the occupant for going down that route. In the UAE there is more of a problem to fix because the drivers and incentives to save operating costs have not been there in the past."

Sustainability agenda

Willis says that, in Dubai, "nobody was really paying attention to sustainability until maybe two years ago, so you have a lot of building stock out there that is not efficient. There are still buildings being finished that quite clearly have not taken on the sustainability agenda at all. Thus if we are serious about sustainability, we must take the opportunity to do something about these older buildings." Willis notes that Dragon Mart is not Arup's first project in this regard, and that it has similar work lined up as well.

"This is not really renovating existing buildings; it has much more to do with straightening out the kinks in fairly new buildings. I do not want to say much more than ‘a few kinks'," Willis says wryly.

He adds that the EGBC has not yet produced any documentation regarding refurbishment. "What has been happening for the last few years is that a lot of new build has taken place, and existing buildings have more often been knocked down and replaced than refurbished. We have been building for a population that was forecast to double, and all of that development has been taking place since about 2000. It has been fascinating to watch. This is why I think the current correction is needed desperately, and it will be interesting to see how it works out in terms of growth in the end. Normally this kind of situation would make people in other markets think of refurbishment before new, but this is not a normal market. We cannot take what happens in the UK and Australia and use this as a precedent. I think it is pretty unlikely that people will want to spend money refurbishing buildings, unless regulation or incentive or much increased energy costs are brought into play."

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