Since then we have undertaken significant research and development and delivered a consistently outstanding product. We have been innovative in how we have organised ourselves, in how we have worked with others and in what we have been able to deliver.

The following text about the history of innovation at whitbybird is adapted from our Award submission. You can also .....

The practice set out with a fresh, positive approach that has captured and brought together a diverse range of engineering skills. We take ideas through to delivery with rigour, creating in the process a buzz that enthuses everyone in the organisation and helps us attract and retain high quality engineers.

We have worked to create an invigorating and sustaining workplace environment: with relatively flat management structures, open-plan offices (not even the managing director has his own office) and a full range of social activities. We take a task group approach to much of the decision-making, using vertical team groupings that mix junior and senior staff. Our dress code was seen to be so far ahead of its time that it featured in a Channel Four programme on offices of the future.

Looking for ways to streamline the process of design, management and delivery led us to early, pioneering adoption of 3D modelling. It offered us: better productivity, more time focusing on the delight of engineering rather than the drudgery, and better and more accurate knowledge exchange with the trades. While we are no longer unusual in offering 3D modelling, we are still distinct in having it as a core skill for every one of our engineering teams rather than as a specialist support service.

Dissatisfied with the available methods of managing projects internally, we developed our own computerised job management system (called JMS). This records staff time against projects and feeds our billing systems. However, the real potential of JMS was unlocked when we developed it into an office-wide, integrated management and reporting system. It has proven so useful that we have successfully marketed it to the industry and are now taking it to the next generation with a new software partner. This activity, completely outside our core area of work, is indicative of our innovation-led culture.

Construction is a team activity involving a number of professionals — designers, architects and engineers, contractors and specialist trades. Opportunities for innovation can occur anywhere in the process, within or between the different areas of expertise. Being able to capitalise on the opportunities as they occur is possible when the relationships are built on trust and mutual respect. We go to considerable lengths to create this sort of relationship. We use an open-book approach, constant communication with the design team, the co-hosting of trades in our offices and we try to involve everyone we can in office social and sporting activities.

From the outset we have been recognised as innovative engineers, winning hundreds of awards. In 2005, we were named NCE Consultant of the Year (medium-sized firm) and won several other major national awards, including an IStructE Special Award, a Brick Award (Best Building of the Year) and Bulding magazine's Low Energy Building of the Year. In the last few years, we won RIBA Building of the Year (Stirling Prize 2003), Best Major Shopping Centre (2003), British Council for Offices' Best of the Best (2003) and RIBA London Building of the Year (2004). Alongside these are numerous Civic Trust Awards, RIBA regional awards, and national awards for brickwork, concrete, timber and steel.