Bryden Wood, a design company based in the U.K., plans to open a new headquarters in Boston, to work on more projects throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company uses a digital and automation approach to building design, with a focus on sustainability.
There are already U.S. projects in the works, as Bryden Wood says it's working with Equinix, Amazon Web Services, Boldt, Chandos, and DPR Construction on industrialized construction plans.
Methods
The company uses a platform approach by using digital configurators and commercial models such as integrated project delivery to map out projects and specifications digitally.
Platforms, or kits of parts of manufactured components, help standardize design and construction, improving accuracy and reducing costs, the company says. The method also aims to create fewer carbon emissions.
Bryden Wood works on a variety of projects, specializing in data centers.
“We’re consistently being asked the same questions by our US clients and general contractors, can you develop a kit of parts approach, and drive it using configurators? How will this approach reduce the time and costs to deliver my assets?” said Jaimie Johnston, Bryden Wood board director. “Clients are seeking the same benefits of continual improvement that have allowed other industries to flourish. By developing solutions that allow appropriate levels of repeatability, without sacrificing design quality, we’re helping them transform their businesses.”
Johnston, with Phil Langley, board director and head of Bryden Wood’s creative technologies division, will lead the company’s U.S. expansion.
“This move puts us at the center of an industry that embraces change – with large, tech-led clients working in innovative ways and moving quickly,” Johnston said. “Being a US-registered company, with global teams, will enable us to take a leadership position for our US clients.”
Advanced Tech
Bryden Wood is working with The Boldt Co., on a major manufacturing facility in the U.S.; Canadian constructor Chandos and digital platform creator, KatalystDI. Bryden Wood is also partnering with TerraPraxis and MIT on ‘repowering coal,’ an initiative to cut global carbon emissions by repowering coal-fired power plants with small modular reactors.
Bryden Wood says such projects are highly scalable in several industries.
“Clients want more control in the way they make key decisions about their future assets," Langley said. "They want to get to market faster, be more productive, and achieve their climate goals. This means developing new, ownable, creative technologies to enable automated design. We develop algorithmic design software for the global data center and transport sectors that simply isn’t being developed anywhere else.”
