What was particularly interesting about Carfrae's presentation was his proposition innovation in the building industry is very difficult and when you look at the simple physics of his proposition, he has a point.
Every building is a prototype that mustn't fail. In structural engineering, you just cannot fail or the building will fall down. Engineering is calculable but it is not the calculations which fail. It is what the engineer chooses to calculate that will bring about the failure and in this sense, engineers' thinking can be compared to the way artists work. Doctors have more flexibility in their choice of calculation than engineers according to Carfrae. Building materials haven't changed over a long period of time and gravity won't change.
So why should the building industry innovate when it needs to be totally risk averse and perfect in its product delivery and implementation every time?
Innovation is the capital of the knowledge economy and engineering as a service is one of the main drivers on which that knowledge is constructed and our current knowledge is telling us we are facing a human problem of epic proportions.
The production of the basic building materials on which our civilization exists is depleting our natural resources. As the global population rushes towards 9 billion, our consumption is exceeding our resources. The destruction of the rainforests, the depletion of oil supplies, the failure to find reliable energy alternatives and food shortages offer compelling evidence of this occurring.
Under these circumstances, it is not a matter of innovation. It is simple and obvious and urgent. We have to change the built environment fundamentally to survive!
Carfrae is an optimist who believes the building industry can do just that and his organization, Arup, a global firm of structural engineers, might just offer some insights as to the type of organization required to implement this tall order.
According to him, we need to create a rewarding organisational environment where individuals want to work allowing their free independent spirit to flow in the process building self confidence to take the creative risks to bring about these profound changes - an organisational nirvana no less!
Ove Arup, a philosophy and mathematics major from the University of Copenhagen founded the organisation in 1946 as a;)
result of his interest in engineering solutions to common problems intuitively and then proving them mathematically. Preferring to bounce ideas around, he would get out his thick pencil and sketch ideas that came flooding out. He was renowned for his inability to finish sentences, the Danish accent he never lost increasing with his excitement. A fellow colleague described this phenomenon as ‘somebody continually throwing out coloured bubbles’.
Arup was best know for his love and use of re-enforced concrete and his work in this area came to world prominence in the 60's as one of three members of the original design and construct team that built the Sydney Opera House.
It was Arup's study though as a philosopher that informed his belief that an individual can exist happily within an organisation which is perhaps his most important legacy.
Arup recognised individuals as being innately creative. He reasoned if you provided employees with the simple humanitarian conditions of self organisation and creative freedom, an employer gained loyalty, respect and integrity from the employee, these values became recognised and respected by stakeholders and as a consequence the organisation was seen as reasonable, reliable and ethical.
To achieve this outcome, Arup's structure as an organisation is at odds with almost ever other commercial organisation, regardless of industry.
Ove Arup on his retirement donated the organisation to its employees. It is owned in trust on behalf of its employees. There are almost 9000 staff, affectionately referred to as Arupians, working in 92 offices in over 37 countries. At any one time, Arup has over 10 000 projects running concurrently. The organisation has made a profit every year for over 60 years. There are no shareholders and no borrowings. The firm cannot raise funds and cannot be sold.
Even odder, there is no management structure whatsoever for this behemoth. There is a Board made up of Arup partners only and Carfrae admits the Board has no power whatsoever to direct the firm or its employees. It meets on a regular basis to discuss nothing more than the philosophy of the organisation and its work practices.
When an employee joins Arup, the only induction offered is the Key Speech, a 15 page philosophical article written by Ove Arup in 1970. In it, Arup exhorts his partners to understand the social value of good work as opposed to what Arup called the Henry Ford model that argues work is a necessary evil. He outlines "Total Architecture" an holistic approach to building in which architects, engineers and builders must have equal representation on any design team working in any built environment to produce the ket result, good quality. The key to "Total Architecture and good quality" is collaboration, the inductee is told.
Having read this article, the new Arup employee seeks out projects that hold his interest. He enters the project team collaboration with the expectation that he will be required to think creatively and innovatively as the first principle of engagement.
This enshrinement of self organisation collaboration within the organisation permits employees to determine what they want to do and what they want to be. Arup are the first to admit this model doesn't work for everyone and their payment structure does not make their partners the highest paid in the industry.
Recently external business consultants when asked what they thought of Arup's business model informed Arup they did not have one!!
Yet with a track record of 52 years of continual profits without any borrowings and a highly creative and engaged self-organising workforce, Arup's business model or lack of it speaks for itself.
Its involvement in the Water Cube project at the Beijing Olympics demonstrates that it continues to set the standards for design and structural engineering globally.
The design thinking behind the Water Cube consortium, a collaboration between PTW, CCDI and Arup, posed the highly
innovative question how can a structure inhabit a 3 dimensional space in its own right? The solution was found in two layers of pillows, made out of a material similar to transparent Teflon, wrapped around a re-enforced steel structure. The pillows formed a pattern that related directly to the structure, in the process insulating the environment from green house gasses externally whilst generating clean heat for internal use. This transparent box of bubbles, as it is now being referred to, afforded natural light and the right acoustic properties in a noisy jam packed environment.
Carfrae points out that like all creative endeavours, nobody knew what the final outcome would be like when the building was finally opened some months before the Olympics.
The Chinese President Mr Hu Jintao had no doubt when in his 70 minute pre-Olympic open media conference with the Western press earlier this week he said "the Australian-designed "water cube" swimming centre is a model for China's development, making "the skies clearer, the land greener and the water cleaner".
So next time an engineer says to you he is not creative, look him hard in the face and say, "Stop lying, your natural role is that of a creative. How was the Water Cube, the aquatic centre at the Beijing Olympics conceived and built, then?" and see what he has to say!!
Photographs and Drawing were supplied by Arup. Ben McMillan is the photographer and the drawing is by PTW + CCI + Arup