Architecture

Building Information Modelling increases the efficiency of the design process and reduces the cost and quality risks associated with the building process.

To provide the very best service possible for our clients, we are constantly exploring new ways of working and reviewing the latest developments in technology.

Having identified the advantages of BIM back in 2011, we’ve embraced this evolving technology wholeheartedly. We have been Task Team certified by Stroma since 2018 and this was renewed in December 2020, allowing us to provide our clients with the assurance that we are aligned to working to a PAS 1192-2/ISO 19650 standard.

BIM enables us to generate elaborate virtual models that can be shared between all parties. The models contain digital objects that carry comprehensive information about the design, construction and operation of assets.

To begin with, it improves communication, benefiting both the practice and those we work with collaboratively. It also brings with it the inherent advantages of increasing the efficiency of the design process and reducing the cost and quality risks associated with the building process. And, by allowing visualisation and assessment of concepts and developments, it enhances creativity.

The discipline of architectural practice feeds into our interior design artistry, inspiring schemes that marry functionality with aesthetics and complement the built structure.

Augmenting our architectural practice, our interior design service spans preparation of initial concepts to installation and covers furniture, finishes, materials, lighting and graphics. Our experience is wide-ranging, from enhancing period features in Listed properties to devising robust, functional spaces for industrial new-builds. Each project is tailored to its unique requirements, and we work closely with clients to explore exciting but viable solutions.

In business environments, we can articulate a corporate identity to ensure brand consistency, as well as reinforcing brand values by triggering the right emotional responses. Where budget is an issue, we can create affordable solutions with a wow factor through research and innovative thinking. In places of work, public use and learning, collaboration with Facilities Maintenance departments is invaluable in understanding the needs of end-users. Contemporary spaces demand constant monitoring of creative trends, especially when it comes to choosing environmentally friendly materials, the use of which we advocate wherever possible.

The world of construction is changing quickly in response to new materials, building techniques, digital design and the need to provide immediate, high quality solutions to meet shortfalls in a number of key sectors including education, residential and care.

There are alternative and proven alternatives to ‘traditional’ forms of construction available to clients. Notwithstanding the ongoing need to carefully evaluate all available options and procurement routes during the early stages of a project, ‘offsite’ fabrication is rapidly becoming the default choice for a number of public and private sector organisations. It’s not a completely new approach but is now founded on a very well informed, agile, innovative and highly skilled operation linked to exciting advances in digital design and collaborative project team environments like Building Information Modelling (BIM).

Essentially it’s about pre-manufacturing, using modern methods of production to minimise on site construction. It also has the capacity to not only meet but exceed the requirements to deliver sustainable projects to respond to the climate crisis. In particular, through efficient use of resource, materials and transportation, high-end productivity, reduced waste and energy use, provide robust contemporary solutions that can help deliver circular economy and whole life carbon targets.

At Watson Batty Architects we’re proud of being recognised as an innovative design practice but also as architects who know how to deliver technical, compliant, sustainable and safe to build and use projects. We’re embracing the opportunities and partnerships that ‘offsite,’ modern methods of construction (MMC) can provide. Recently we’ve delivered new airside schemes which incorporate tensile construction and offsite accommodation and we’re currently helping deliver a new £18m academy school on the DfE MMC Framework.

We continuously strive to challenge and improve the way our projects are delivered.

Watson Batty Architects have a number of staff who are members of the Association for Project Management.

We continuously strive to challenge and improve the way our projects are delivered, not only in terms of quality of design, but also in the efficiencies of delivery, and Project Management is at the core of this.

Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. We accept that the only way to demonstrate performance to meet the success criteria is to measure it and compare it, and project Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the main driver of this.

Our Project Management service involves the cycle of planning, implementing, control and monitoring. This process has been effectively used throughout the practice on previous Frameworks.

One of the first Architectural practices in the region to have a fully certified Quality system in the 1990s.

Quality is at the heart of everything we do as a practice and our system has been externally certified by BM TRADA for nearly 20 years. We are Quality Assured to BS EN ISO 9001:2015, obtaining our initial accreditation on 8th March 1994. Additionally, we are accredited to ISO 45001:2018 (Occupational Health and Safety Management) and to ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management).

The implementation of all projects and the delivery of Watson Batty’s Architectural and Principal Designer services are all in accordance with our current Integrated Management System (IMS) which incorporates the above accreditations.

Our IMS procedures ensure that there is an agreed framework in place for project delivery from inception to completion to facilitate the consistent delivery of projects across the practice, ensuring that all our projects are delivered in the same professional manner, regardless of size, scale or complexity. Experience has demonstrated that our IMS procedures are appropriate for all projects.

We were one of the first Architectural practices in the region to have a fully certified Quality system in the 1990s and then a fully integrated management system early in the 2000s, quickly realising the benefits that it brought to consistent project delivery and ultimately customer satisfaction.

Watson Batty Architects Ltd are certified to be Cyber Secure by the ECSC and hold the Cyber Essentials Certificate. This certification reinforces the fact that we are a secure practice, not only for our staff, but clients and potential clients, preventing us from potential cyber attacks from outside the organisation.

From university estates to industrial distribution parks, we evaluate proposals at a strategic level.

Our masterplanning experience varies widely in scale as well as geographical and social contexts. From strategic frameworks to large scale detailed planning applications, a clear, considered masterplan can transform places leading to their physical, social and economic revival.

Our proposals are built on the principles of good urban design and the way places influence wellbeing, work and lifestyle. Technical understanding is key when dealing with interconnected systems such as transport, energy, waste and information. When done right, a successful masterplan can deliver measurable value to all parties.

Watson Batty Architects are experienced Technical Advisors.

We have recent experience in multiple sectors with Education being a recent focus.

We have been working alongside the DfE in a Technical Advisory capacity since 2019. We are currently supporting 9 projects, including primary, secondary, SEND and FE projects. Our team have access to the latest guidance and training directly from the DfE. This has allowed our skill, knowledge, and experience base to add significant value to both the feasibility studies being produced by pre-ITT and contractor teams when they bid projects through both the MMC1 and CF21 frameworks.

We have a clear understanding of how feasibility studies and the school specific brief are produced and which key information and supporting documentation is required to form the ITT.