Kurt Spiering has more than 25 years experience in healthcare programming, planning and design nationally. As principal and national healthcare sector leader of HGA Architects and Engineers, he engages in a highly interactive design process with the client and user groups, focusing on Lean design and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) to transform the healthcare delivery process.
How did you become involved in the construction and design industry?
Genuine interest as a child that led to a degree in Architecture and work in the profession.
What is something that your company is doing that you consider innovative?
We design using a combination of experience design and Lean to create highly responsive buildings that work well and look great. We leverage technology to advance the state of the art such as Virtual Reality to design and collaborate with constructors. Recently, we advanced the state of the art in prefabrication and modular construction through the development of the STAAT Mod, a modular Critical Care room to respond to the current COVID-19 crisis.
What poses a challenge, risk or opportunity for your clients and what is your company doing to address it?
While there will always be a need for architects, our role is constantly changing. Understanding how we can continue to add a high degree of value and fair compensation for those services is a constant challenge, in addition to recruiting talented individuals into the profession as human capital is the basis of our business.
What is something you view as an emerging trend in the industry and what are your perspectives on it?
The use of technology and predictive analytics are two disruptors that are moving into our workplace. The ability to collaborate real time with the best qualified individuals literally across the country is changing the way we work and the quality of planning and design solutions. Predictive analytics will take the guess work out of design as with increased computational power the time to get to successful solutions will be reduced and the reliability of the outcomes will be improved. Research is a third disruptor that is increasingly needed to fuel the data as a part of the predictive analytics to assure clients that the results are state of the art.
Any final thoughts on what to keep an eye on in the near future in the construction and design industry?
Labor shortages in some areas will demand prefabricated and site erection as the preferred delivery method over traditional “stick built” construction methodology.
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