Consultancy

For over 15 years, our in-house consultancy team have worked alongside our architects & masterplanners.

Participatory design is the hallmark of our approach. To us this means genuine, two-way engagement, supported by clear evidence that views, opinions and ideas have been listened to and (most importantly) incorporated in any evolving proposals. Without this, we believe projects run the risk of community frustration, poor buy-in & ultimately costly changes down the line.

Our portfolio is testament to our approach, delivering a roster of strategies and design which best fit our users ever-evolving needs, foster a real sense of community, enhances organisational culture and values, and – ultimately – creates lasting, social, economic and environmental change.

High Performance Brief Writing

For well over a decade, our unique inhouse engagement and brief writing service has been used across the public and private sector. Using robust management, communication, and organisational skills, we help our clients develop an evidence-based approach to build business cases for complex, large-scale masterplans, estate rationalisation and city centre retail-led regeneration, right through to one-off developments and workplace fit-outs.

Our projects are built on trust; our specialists use our own tried-and-tested methodology to give agency to our clients and their stakeholders, providing a safe space for collaboration, investigation and alignment of aspirations. Our engagement specialists get to the heart of community and organisational structures, running vision workshops, focus groups, questionnaires, events, consultations sessions, soft landings and etiquette guides.

Whilst we believe the cornerstone of communication is face-to-face engagement, our unique tools and methodology are considered industry leading, & have been adapted to be delivered remotely where needed.

Highly visual graphic outputs are then used to capture and share this data, covering spatial, cultural, technical, environmental and operational factors to develop a holistic strategy. This clear evidence base ensures buy-in and excitement within a scheme, allowing for successful project delivery with clearly understood and articulated outcomes from the outset.

Workplace Consultancy

GT3’s Consultancy team have been leading innovative change in workplace design for over 10 years. Our approach takes an in depth look into an organisation’s People, Property and Process, pulling all strands together to deliver a sustainable, holistic, and creative approach to workplace design and layout. In all cases, the fundamental key to our success has been listening to the workforce in question. Design should not be a cut and paste solution and it is imperative that people are put at the heart of these spaces. Employer’s need to understand what tasks people want to do in the office as well as offer a connection with colleagues and the business, which individuals just can’t get at home. In our experience, no matter how well an organisation thinks it understands it’s staff, there are always ways to improve.

Combining the expertise of our engagement, brief writing team, and interiors team, we offer a landscaped approach to the workplace; our interiors and engagement teams work together to move away from the traditional sea of desks, instead creating bespoke micro-environments, physically and visually delineated by clear use of colour schemes, partitions, material finishes and acoustic treatments. Clever and clear use of the above can result in a well-branded, well-thought-out layout, which not only supports employee’s wellbeing and overall staff retention, but actively encouraged the specific behavioural cues which allow your workforce to deliver their best work.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and as the traditional 9-5 office space continues to evolve, our specialists continue to develop their expertise and awareness. Our Workplace Consultancy team help our clients tackle issues with flexible workings, including midweek over occupancy, Friday under-occupancy, incorporating video calls and other new meeting technology into office work life, and ultimately create welcoming spaces which encourage staff to use and get the most out of their office space.

Holistic Sustainability Strategies

Often a construction project will represent the largest environmental and social impact an organisation ever has. Certainly, the effects of good decisions around such a project will far outweigh the opportunities that individuals involved will typically get to influence these issues in their private lives. The complexity and the financial and time pressures inherent in a construction project mean that often opportunities to positively impact the environment and the surrounding community are missed. And in the midst of highly technical language and potentially conflicting demands, it can be hard to ensure that sustainability ambitions are effectively agreed, communicated and delivered on.

Our generation has a responsibility to support zero-carbon initiatives, but – as of yet – has very little guidance in terms of tried and tested initiatives. How do we design our places, spaces, and buildings to meet the needs of the present, without compromising future generations? Further, how do we balance this requirement in an environment of rising running costs, supply management issues, increased prudential borrowing, and risk of perceived ‘greenwashing’?

Our Holistic Sustainability Strategies draws on our People Architecture approach; we place people at the heart of our strategy, ensuring that whatever sustainability measures are put in place, the resulting design ultimately benefits the community it’s designed for, both now and far into the future. Our approach ensures clarity and defines objectives and priorities, so that designers and contractors have an unambiguous brief to work from, opportunities to maximise the environmental, social, and economic benefits of the project are seized and the final product meets the present and future needs of the client, occupants and users of the scheme. Using the framework of Environmental, Social and Economic values, our team considers areas such as:

  • Retrofit Vs New Build
  • Biodiversity
  • Community Provision
  • Social Cohesion
  • Carbon Offsetting Strategy
  • Embodied & Operational GHG Emissions
  • Running Costs
  • Sustainability Accreditation Routes (e.g. Passivaus, BREEAM, LEED)
  • Encouraging Pro-Environmental Behaviours
  • Occupant Health & Wellbeing
  • Revenue Generation
  • Impact on the Local Economy
  • Place Identity
  • Job Provision
Back to Skills