Founded in 1965 and working globally with more than 4,000 clients across more than 29 practice areas spanning the work, lifestyle, community, and health sectors, Gensler is the biggest purely architectural, planning and design firm in the world. Operating out of 52 locations and with more than 7,000 team members networked across the Americas, Europe, Greater China, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East, Gensler understands the need to be flexible because ideas, requirements and ambitions evolve. In other words, design is not a prescriptive process, with the firm adapting to suit a project’s needs.
“We are guided by our mission to create a better world through the power of design and believe the source of our strength is our people. Our approach to design is unique. No other firm has integrated architecture and interior design as thoroughly as Gensler, explains Stephanie Kinnick, Operations Director, Middle East.
“Since we have 52 Gensler offices around the world, this provides the firm with a unique, broad view of its clients’ needs. There have been economic cycles up and down, but the firm has been successful and will continue to be. We’re going to continue to grow in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and within the GCC, and we’ll thrive going forward as we continue to shape the future of cities.”
Indeed, in 2022, Gensler achieved considerable growth and success in the region, now having five studios with 90 staff and operations in the UAE and KSA, with a new Abu Dhabi location and the Riyadh office opening soon. Moreover, with 29 nationalities and a 50-50 gender mix, Gensler has hired 28 new personnel in the last year alone, and designed more than 10,250,00ft2 of space.
With 40 new projects won across 13 countries serviced from the region, and 20 office collaborations across the global Gensler network, the firm serves a broad portfolio of discerning clients, including those from the governmental, large-scale development, and corporate sectors.
Designing Great Buildings Sustainably
Gensler has grown consistently throughout its entire history and is increasing its global footprint with expansion into Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle Eastern market to support strong demand in numerous practice areas, ranging from urban planning to retail, and hospitality to workplace design.
“We think our clients are really looking for the best ideas and we help them with that,” Stephanie says. “We are proud that many of our repeat clients have trust in Gensler and our amazing team to keep delivering world-class projects.”
Gensler contributes to each project with a wealth and depth of knowledge that is fused to the client’s individual wishes and needs. It values personal relationships with its clients and takes immense satisfaction in being involved from project inception to completion and beyond.
“We’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the biggest names in various industries,” Stephanie explains. “By combining our design knowledge with our clients’ rich history and philosophies, we’ve created some of the world’s most noteworthy buildings, including the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Gate Building and our award-winning Unified Real Estate Diplomatic Quarter Mall the 1364 project, in Riyadh. 1364 is a mixed-use development with a focus on retail and F&B that celebrates the pedestrian nature of our urban fabric. The concept of the project is inspired by natural strata formations prevalent in the rugged landscape that surrounds Riyadh. The curvilinear forms of the buildings entice breezes from the northwest for cooling as well as pedestrian movement into the main open central space.
Of course, addressing the various environmental concerns, including climate change, is the business imperative of our time, with Stephanie commenting: “The countries in the Gulf region are leading the way in the development of smart city plans as part of their economic diversification to develop safer and more livable cities with better infrastructure and services, as well as enhancing environmental sustainability by reducing pollution and protecting the environment.
“As governments continue to implement stricter regulations on emissions, designing for a more sustainable future that protects the long-term viability of investments, Gensler is forging ahead into this new era of smart sustainability. Our 2020 portfolio was already designed to save over 17 million metric tons of CO2 from being emitted on an annual basis – an important milestone on the path toward our firm’s aggressive goal of eliminating all carbon emissions in our work by the year 2030.”
The Gensler ‘numbers’ are impressive and include:
- 600+ million square feet of sustainable work
- 110 million square feet of LEED-certified projects
- 1.2 billion gallons of water saved annually
- 1,200+ LEED accredited professionals
With companies ever more focused on environmental, social, and governance considerations, the value proposition of resilient design is undeniable, with Gensler seeing design as a strategy in action, focused on results. “We help our clients envision a better future and get there successfully,” Stephanie says. “We help them leverage design’s power to generate innovative solutions that affect real transformation.”
Lights, Camera, Action
Construction output growth in Saudi Arabia is anticipated to rise by 3.2% in 2022, with a further annual average growth rate of 4% between 2023 to 2026 as indicated by Global Data. As of October 2022, the Kingdom held a 35% market share with a recorded $31 billion worth of contract awards against an overall MENA total of $87 billion as tracked by MEED Projects.
In the entertainment industry alone, there is significant growth and expansion, with film being a key focus of the Kingdom’s plan to develop its entertainment industry as part of the Vision 2030 initiative to diversify its economy.
Saudi’s focus on the entertainment industry is a strategy aligned with Gensler’s, with Stephanie saying: “We’ve just announced that Bob Weiss, the former president of Walt Disney Imagineering, has joined Gensler as our global immersive experience design leader.” During his time at Disney, Bob Weiss led more than 200 major projects around the world with a capital value of more than $30 billion.
A Local Firm with a Global Presence
Most successful companies are built on differentiation: offering clients something they value that competitors don’t have, and Gensler is no different, as Stephanie explains: “Design is constantly evolving, and our clients are facing different obstacles than they were 20 years ago. We support them by reacting to that change, which we achieve through a level of practice area specialization that differentiates us as experts. This includes our network of 29 practice areas, allowing us to provide specific expertise when and where clients need it.
“We are really focused on being local and understanding the local market, but our practice areas are set up in a network across the world. It is one of our guiding principles – we can’t be global if we are not local first.”
Gensler shares information on best practices all over the world, so a client doesn’t just see what’s going on in the Middle East, they see what is going on all over the world. This is driven to a large degree by the firm’s use of data, technology, and people.
“A key success factor is our data-driven insights,” Stephanie says. “With access to our Gensler Research Institute, we can predict upcoming trends based on data and incorporate those into our designs. This has allowed us to be one step ahead when providing counsel to our clients, extending our analysis, insights, and additional perspective into the original brief.”
Gensler is also using technology to help solve its clients’ design problems across all industries, with its teams writing programs around parametric design and automating the design process. It’s all about process innovation and looking into the future.
Finally, and most importantly, is Gensler’s people, with Stephanie concluding: “They are the reason we’re here, it’s what we thrive on and what makes us tick. We grow and empower the industry’s top talent to pursue their passions and make a difference.”
Gensler approaches each project with a distinct value-driven mindset. Its extensive expertise means that it has learned how to do things more efficiently, designing for the human experience and tackling the toughest challenges facing today’s cities, thus shaping a more resilient and equitable future for everyone.
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