Architectural group to merge with consultancy
Architectural design and consulting group DEGW has merged with Dutch management consultancy Twijnstra Gudde to form a 450-fee-earner international firm with revenues of $70m.
The theme of this merger is the “three Ps”, according to DEGW founder and chairman Frank Duffy: “People, process – and place.”
Since its foundation DEGW has developed a space-planning and design practice that relates management intentions to their physical consequences. Examples of previous DEGW projects include Stockley Park, Broadgate, and the current Coopers & Lybrand private finance initiative scheme to regenerate the Ministry of Defence site at Whitehall.
Duffy believes that architectural and space considerations are a neglected element of transformation schemes: “Clients have sophisticated discussions about IT, and perfectly sophisticated discussions about organisational issues, but elementary discussions about building. And these people never talk to each other: it’s a silo mentality.”
Duffy believes buildings themselves can be “agents of change”.
“Buildings have a catalytic effect,” he said. “They can express new ideas and push new possibilities forward.”
Duffy said DEGW sought the merger to keep pace with the rate at which its clients were globalising, and to increase the scale of its projects: “We got tired of organic growth – it seemed to stretch to infinity,” he said. By linking with Twijnstra Gudde, which has been partnering with DEGW for the last five years, the firm will gain access to “urban scale” projects such as airports, parks and universities.
A third element of the merger is the development of what Duffy calls “new ways of working”, treating human resources, process redesign and architecture in an integrated way.
Twijnstra Gudde is the fourth largest consulting group in the Netherlands, specialising in business consultancy, strategic transportation, facility and real estate consultancy and IT. DEGW, together with its existing consulting arm, will retain its separate identity within the group. The firm, whose turnover was $10m, was acquired by TG for $6.5m in cash and shares.
