Architectural firms should prepare for major new opportunities in 2024 as client priorities rapidly evolve. Sustainability concerns, health-focused spaces, and AI-enabled workflows are set to transform best practices.
Sustainable Design Ushers the Future
Regulations, codes and client demands for radically reduced environmental impact accelerate the pivot toward net zero buildings. Firms like Perkins&Will and DLR Group leading eco-conscious design and development are seeing contracts boom 60% in two years.
Specific capabilities rising in importance include renewable material expertise, embodied carbon measurement, passive house certification and integrative design centred on slashing operational emissions 50-70% once occupied. Modular designs allow customizable additions as technologies improve.
Wellness as the New Luxury
Increasingly, architectural stardom stems not from bold structural gestures, but holistic human-centric environments bettering quality of life. BVN’s Mental Health Facilities setting new standards in soothing design popularise evidence-backed elements like circadian lighting, vibrant hues, biophilic motifs and acoustically-attentive spaces balancing stimulation.
Such experiential considerations magnify competitive positioning for hospitals, workplaces, hospitality and residential. Delivering quantifiable wellness metrics and customizable offerings helps secure such contracts.
Generative Design AI Accelerates Concepts
Visionary firms waste no time embedding emerging tools like generative algorithms and VR rendering into design processes. These guided machines rapidly build endless layout options based on specified spatial needs, aesthetic visions and practical constraints – accelerating iterative concepting 10x.
While still requiring human refinement, AI is no gimmick – Eighth Avenue Place’s lobby, autonomously crafted in minutes, could achieve top honours as evidence of efficiency and innovation when leveraged responsibly.
Offsite Fabrication Reshapes Delivery
Finally, constructing high-performing designs demands rigorous quality control only achievable through off site fabrication. As complex components get engineered for easy assembly, improved margins and reliable timelines incentivize scaling preconstruction capabilities.
