The year is 1783. The treaty between the United States and Great Britain is signed in Paris, formally ending the American Revolutionary War. The Montgolfier brothers send up the first hot air balloon. Mozart’s Great Mass is performed for the first time in Salzburg. And the firm that is now Rider Levett Bucknall opens its doors for the first time.
A history spanning nearly 240 years is extraordinary, and one which brings pride to every member of RLB’s team. But we are not a firm to look back. We are focused on the future – and on the ideas, collaborations and opportunities ahead as we bring imagination to life around the world.
At RLB we deliver proactive and innovative client services and successful project outcomes to shape the future of the built environment. As an independent construction cost consultancy, RLB boasts a team of 4,000-plus that delivers the best outcomes to thousands of clients throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, the Middle East and the Americas.
We are a powerhouse of global construction market intelligence. We are trusted partners dedicated to achieving our clients’ goals and to making a difference to the lives of people around the world.
Perspective Magazine, our flagship global publication, showcases just some of the ways we inspire fresh perspectives on age-old problems. I am proud to see our team contributing to public discourse as trusted sources of factual information and insight.
This edition of Perspective focuses on progressive and thought-provoking pieces on big picture topics from the power of data to the future of working in a virtual environment. We also drill down into market-specific stories that are applicable around the world. These include trends in residential developments in Hong Kong, the cost of building in Africa and the dramatic rise of design build procurement in Qatar.
We reveal what’s ahead for sports venues, examine the role of public art in placemaking and feature the latest trends in data centre development.
RLB’s people are powered by a clear purpose: to create a better tomorrow. We have been doing this for well over two centuries. While our future story is unwritten, one thing is certain: a better tomorrow is only possible through flawless execution today.
PERSPECTIVE INSIGHTS
Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment In South Africa
Its impact on the South African Construction and Built Environment firms Construction and Built Environment firms in South Africa face a very distinctive challenge when bidding or tendering for new projects. Irrespective of size, reputation, experience and capability, being awarded…
Getting Back into the Game: What’s Ahead for Sports Venues
From reconfigured seating bowls to recalibrated revenue streams, arena design and operations are evolving. With the sporting world emerging from a year that saw grandstands populated with cardboard fans, digitized cheers ring through empty arenas, and basketball played in a…
Unintended Consequences: How Owner-Mandated Vaccination Policies Can Impact Construction Projects
Over the past 18 months, construction costs have escalated dramatically, with the pandemic triggering tumult in the labor market, upending the supply chain, and sending materials prices to historic highs. Now, while some owners try to keep their projects on…
Trends in residential developments in Hong Kong – size, price, standards and cost
For the past decades, the Hong Kong private residential sector has focused on offering small flats to address the housing supply and demand imbalance. However, the conflict amongst the quantity of housing supply, the quality of living standard and the…
When virtual becomes the reality: Insights into the ever-evolving ‘virtual quantity surveyor’
The fear of being replaced by the robot is a modern-day perturbation for any cynical professional. No more so than the quantity surveyor of the future, who faces an able army of robo-surveyors looming impatiently in building information models (BIM),…
Let’s paint the town
As we look for new ways to attract people to physical spaces, do we need to revalue the role of public art in placemaking? RLB’s Managing Director Stephen Mee reflected on this question in an article for the Property Council…
The Power Of Data In And The Digital Healthcare Estate
Data is critical in informing the rationalisation of healthcare estates and enabling more sustainable outcomes and consequently many healthcare organisations are looking for a leaner and more efficient estate rationalisation strategy that effectively supports their organisation’s business activity. With governments…
The Cost of Building in Africa
Africa is a continent with 54 different countries divided into 5 regions, namely: North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa, with an approximate population of 1.37 billion. This section gives an insight into the varying construction…
Building Profits: Working with a Construction-Cost Manager
Truth be told, for all parties involved in a construction project, it’s the bottom line that’s the top concern. Owners and developers, architects and engineers, general contractors and subs, and consultants—every member of the team is ultimately—if not overtly—focused on…
Data Center Development 1.0: What You Need to Know
As a result of the unprecedented reliance on technology required by working, learning, and living from home over the last 18 months (think Zoom meetings, online shopping, instant messaging, playing video games, and more), data centers—facilities that house computing and…
A Greener, Smarter and Safer Development Goal in China’s Construction Industry
In China, the Five-Year Plan is a series of social and economic development issued by the government to govern the national major construction projects, productivity distribution, and main proportion of the national economy. By the end of 2020, China has…
Moving Away from Traditional Routes: The Dramatic Rise of Design Build Procurement in Qatar
Qatar is a relatively small peninsula in the Persian Gulf, rich in natural gas, measuring approximately 11,521 km2 with a population of 2,659,000, mainly comprised of expat workers. In 2008, the Qatar 2030 Vision was published setting out the Emir’s…
World-class wonder
Multiple design challenges during the development of the $1.25 billion Collins Arch project tested the talents of Cbus Property’s project team – but the result is a mixed-use masterpiece. Boasting two 40-level tapering towers linked by a 14-metre long, eight-floor…
The new heart of urban spaces – understanding and embracing the value of logistics in our communities
Anyone working in the world of logistics pre-2019 was expecting an uptick in online retail and planning for the resulting fulfilment space. However, what no one imagined as we entered 2020 was the exponential increase in online retail driven by…
Money Matters; The Benefits of Real-Time Cost Estimating
Real-time construction cost estimating offers owners some important advantages over the traditional milestone estimating model. With estimators supplying pricing data quickly and frequently, instead of only at established points in the design process, costs are proactively managed, rather than reactively…
The Past, Present and Future of Technological Adoption on Labour Reliance
The Beginning The construction sector has traditionally been a labour-intensive industry and has in the past exhibited an entrenched resistance to technological adoption. Across industries, we have witnessed a paradigm shift in the last decade in terms of productivity, the…
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