If you ask the two experts heading up the launch of AESG’s new Australian operations what their point of difference is, they’ll tell you it’s complexity.
“We’re known to be the consultants who can tackle really complex engineering problems,” head of sustainability Devan Valenti says of the company that has lead offices in London, Dubai and Sydney and has been steadily spreading its wings across the globe. AESG now has 350 specialists on board across nine countries.
“If you look at some of the most complex buildings delivered over the past 15 years, our team have been fortunate to have had a hand in many of them in some way,” Valenti says, pointing to a portfolio of over 2000 projects in the company’s completed pipeline.
Technical director Douglas Sum, who recently joined the company after several years with Aurecon, is also at home with complexity.
His work over years in the Middle East, Asia and for the past three years Melbourne, has skewed towards the most detailed work.
“The more complex the better” he says. Particularly with facades, which he loves.
Facades are one of the most critical elements in a building, he says. They are the front end of resilience and sustainability, critical in a heating world.
But facades also deliver another value-laden benefit – form or beauty. They are the building’s “presentation” to the world, Sum says.
“Engineers always deal with the numbers and graphs and then the technical expertise. But it’s the one thing that engineers often miss – the beauty of the building. How it looks, and that’s the façade.”
When he works, Sum focuses on the details, “every single screw, how the thing is put together. It needs to function very well to withstand structural demands and environmental forces and with other designed parameters, but at the same time, it needs to look beautiful.”
Sum has worked on buildings ranging from Hong Kong Disneyland where each straw shingle panel on the roof of one building needed to be separately attached, one by one, to the highly challenging Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world.
The complexity for Valenti manifests in the need for the company to be a consummate generalist to meet current needs and anticipate others in the huge and growing universe of expectations that emanate from today’s climate and sometimes economically challenged world.
Helping clients to open a wider vision
To get a project right, consultants need to understand the full picture, even if the clients are not focused on all the externalities.
Valenti sees his role is to open the viewfinder.
This includes opportunities as well as threats – whether in engineering or even the sustainable finance they may be eligible if they opt for the aligned outcomes.
It’s an approach that’s hitting the mark, he says.
“Clients are looking more towards consultants who can help create value as opposed to just solving problems on buildings.”
He’s got the right background for the job.
From a sustainability point of view, Valenti knows green buildings intimately. He’s been in the property sector for 15 years, with stints in the UK working on BREEAM and LEED green building certified buildings before spending three years leading the development of the Green Star Buildings tool in Australia for the Green Building Council.
He’s also held senior roles focusing on the Asia Pacific region with the International WELL Building Institute.
The plan is for Valenti and Sum to organically build strong specialisations in key areas, such as focusing on facades, sustainability and environment, and calling on the company’s global expertise to fulfill additional technical requirements.
Valenti anticipates part of the offer will be a significant deal of cross sharing expertise between countries, with Australia ahead on some metrics but lagging in others.
Housing for instance. Valenti says the opportunities are abundant, especially in emissions reductions, health and wellbeing.
On the other hand, the commercial sector is “very innovative and doing incredibly well.” He hopes that AESG will make a broad-ranging contribution to this “long hard road ahead.”
Technical advances are starting to come faster
On the technical side, Sum is excited about the constantly evolving potential of sustainable facade materials and techniques to contribute to emissions reductions and better overall performance for clients and stakeholders.
Reductions in embodied carbon in aluminium and even glass, which has been a tough nut to crack in the past, are showing promise. So, too glass fibre reinforced concrete that is strong, durable and resistant to weather extremes and can be used to reduce the thickness of precast concrete panels and the amount needed.
There are advances in glass coating technologies that enhance transparency while blocking heat transmission. And solar skins, a perennial goal to create energy and shading at the same time, are moving from the “gimmick” phase to the useful.
It’s part of Sum’s job to keep up to date with this changing world of materials and technologies.
“We can introduce the latest technologies, the best quality, most sustainable products to our clients, which they may not be aware of,” he says.
Sum and Valenti say the palette of technical opportunities, paired with broad ranging business opportunities that can be offered to clients, is what will make this company’s strategic expansion into Australia an exciting proposition.
