Having enjoyed a rewarding year in 2009, Aedas has re-engineered its business to offer the very best service and to generate true value. RLI talks to Chief Executive Officer Asia, David Roberts, about the company’s triumphant turnaround and a future that looks brighter by the day

Whilst 2008 was a year that won’t be forgotten for quite some time, 2009 turned out to be a lot better for Aedas Architects than the company might have imagined at the beginning of the year. Looking back on a year when earnings for Aedas’ Asia business were down by some 20 per cent, and 25 per cent globally, the company now finds itself in a position where it is re-inventing and restructuring the business in a much more
dynamic way.

Key developments include a major project completing in April in Singapore at Marina Bay Sands, whilst other projects completed in 2009 include the North Satellite Concourse at Hong Kong Airport, very much an iconic, signature design and at the forefront of what will be the future of airport design.
When RLI last spoke with David Roberts, Chief Executive Officer Asia, back in October 2009, it was markets such as Abu Dhabi, Qatar and China that had provided a very real boost to the company and, with the exception of Dubai which is to all intents and purposes ‘on hold’ at the moment, the Middle East has provided Aedas with a certain momentum to go out and expand its business.
Indeed, it has seen an increase, rather than the expected decrease in business, initially with projects in Abu Dhabi and from there Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where the practice is looking at a number of significant new projects.

In China, many of the projects that had slowed down, or even paused, at the end of 2008 restarted in 2009, thanks largely, says Roberts, to committed clients with firm ambitions. The pipeline has since gone on to increase, so much so that the China operation has been restructured with the introduction of Ken Wai as Managing Director and Andy Wen as Design Director.
“There are now more senior directors on our China board,” says Roberts. “This is to deal with the upswing in work, an upswing that we do not see reducing. If anything, we expect it to continue to increase over the coming 12-24 months.”.

The economies of South East Asia have remained fairly robust, with a lot of important lessons have been learned following the economic crisis of 1998.
“Singapore in particular has been very good for us,” continues Roberts. “We won a very large commission for the Express Rail Terminus in Hong Kong at the beginning of 2009, a rail station for the high-speed service out to Beijing – a project with a high degree of retail commercialisation and much more akin, in size and scale, and with customs and immigration considerations, to an international airport project.”
Closer to home, Aedas has been very fortunate to have received a lot of public sector work, particularly in education, providing a good balance for its commercial portfolio. Not being overly-exposed to the residential and speculative commercial sectors, the company has been fairly well protected from the UK recession and has remained quite robust throughout.
In Europe, and particularly Warsaw, the company has been performing well in what can only be described as a challenging market, with the foundations laid last year in Central Europe beginning to bear fruit.
In Italy, Aedas has merged with a practice in Turin, which is now known as Aedas Visconti, specialising in high-end, bespoke architectural projects. On the back of this came the opportunity to speak to Pininfarina in Turin with whom the practice signed a global agreement to provide design services, particularly product design, relating to building interiors of branded buildings.
“This is very exciting for us. We have developed from being an architectural company with urban design and masterplanning capabilities, to the point where we can now offer landscape and interior design services, and the ability to carry out this fascinating area of product design,” explains Roberts.
The opening of Aedas’ Italian office is a very clear statement that the company has secured a very firm footing in the mature markets of Europe and that is very much a feature of its business plan for 2010.ll.

For the full article please see the RLI March 2010 issue