Wednesday, 11 May 2011 00:00
Abu Dhabi To Receive A Visit From The Chairman
Our office in Abu Dhabi is now two years old and about to receive a visit from the chairman.
We are now very much a part of the scene there, we have active jobs, we’re earning fees and we are working for some of the top developers. So it’s time to go out again and meet a few of the key people, and talk about our future.
Getting there is surprisingly easy, I’m even flying from Bristol (via Amsterdam) which takes no longer than Heathrow and is much more pleasant which is good because Bristol Airport happen to be clients of ours.Building for aerospace is an area in which Strides has quite a lot of expertise, what with BAA, Defence and a few other airport clients and I’d like to try to make more people in the gulf aware of that.
It’s an industry that I know that the Emirates are keen to encourage and we are right at the cutting edge, just handing over the National Composite Centre, a building for researching production techniques in new high tech materials. The problem at the moment is that industry wants to make use of the new lightweight and stronger composite materials but manufacture is desperately slow and expensive. Our building, for Bristol University, is paid for by names like Airbus, Vestas, GKN, Rolls Royce and Augusta Westland, so that they can learn how to make the stuff efficiently.
We’re also concentrating on education buildings and office fit outs but people need to be aware that we’re a very large practice with expertise in all areas of construction.
I like going to UAE, in spite of stories of abandoned cars, it’s still incredibly dynamic and ambitious. The pace of change is impressive and I am looking forward to seeing what has changed since I was last there.
I’ve already booked my ticket up the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world by some margin. I’ve been up the Sears Tower, the Empire State, even the twin towers, all once the tallest and it says something about the confidence of the place that the Burj is about half as high again as those icons.
I think I might try sending a Tweet from the top!
- Chairman's Blog
- Bob Whittington, Chairman: Abu Dhabi To Receive A Visit From The Chairman
- Abu Dhabi To Receive A Visit From The Chairman