Santa Raymond.

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architecture

Functional
design
Architects and facilities managers seldom read
from the same page when looking at building
designs. FM Magazine talks to design strategist
Santa Raymond, who is uniquely positioned to see
both sides.

LIGHT UP: natural light is important for
productivity in the work environment.
D
esign strategist Santa Raymond claims to ‘make marriages’.
That is, she assembles the best possible teams for designing
buildings. She talks passionately about the need for pleasant
and functional work spaces, “what works, and what inspires”.
Eco-friendly places with abundant natural light, an appropriate
balance of both clustered work environments and open
breakaway areas that ultimately bring the best out of an employee
– indeed, out of a human being.
Raymond’s extensive experience with buildings is in itself a
marriage of two disciplines: architecture and interior design.
Being a member of both RIBA (Royal Institute of British
Architects), and an associate of IFMA (International Facilities
Management Association) Raymond is as insistent about
optimizing creativity in designing buildings as she is about the
necessity of having a good planned preventative maintenance
(PPM) program implemented.
With expertise in business management, she helps
organizations discover what kind of space would best suit the

F a c i l i t i e s Management M a g a z i n e | GCC E d i t i o n

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ARCHETYPAL: Design strategist Santa
Raymond in Dubai.
needs of the company. She has, in
fact, co-authored a book on this
called Tomorrow’s Office (see box). In
addition, Raymond has written guides
for facilities managers on Sensible
Buildings, eating@work and
Corporate Reception Areas.
“I think an office is rather like a
city,” says Raymond, “where you
want your city centre and then you
“
Architects generally feel that FMs ar e a waste of time. I
mean when I say that, I will say to my fellow architects
that FMs ar e r eally important clients.
want your parks and your residential
and so on. However, top management
need to understand the value of good
design and good maintenance. But it
actually affects the bottom line.
Presently, business people are not
really interested in property. They’ll
delegate both the design and the
construction of the property to
somebody out there and it won’t be
on the boardroom agenda. For me,
what we should all be aiming for is to
get it onto the boardroom agenda
because it does affect the bottom line
in the property costs quite a lot – and
money can be saved. And it all adds
value to the business both directly, by
helping people work better, and
indirectly, by having the right image.”
On her first visit to Dubai,
Raymond is both impressed and
horrified by the building landscape in
the Emirate. While the miles and
miles of glass might be good to look
at, she wonders about the amount of
money wasted in their construction
and how energy efficient they are.
“In Europe now, in order to meet
legislation and be sufficiently energy
efficient, you can’t have too much
glass,” she comments. “You can only
have a certain amount unless you
triple-glaze it – that’s by law.”
Raymond is also concerned about
the amount of glare that these kinds
of buildings emit. Wearing her FM
hat, she talks about the need for more
natural light in buildings here – after
all, the GCC is a region of the world
F a c i l i t i e s Management M a g a z i n e | GCC E d i t i o n
architecture
particularly blessed with abundant
sunshine. “Quite often you’ll go into a
glass building in the middle of the
day and the blinds will all be down
and the lights on,” Raymond laments.
“This is crazy! As well as being very
extravagant, how is it for the people?
People are what make a business run,
so if your people are being made
even five per cent less efficient by
having artificial rather than natural
lighting, that’s a pity.”
Raymond takes her modernist
architect’s hat off, however, to the
quality of workmanship in Dubai.
From the materials used, to the way
they are assembled, to the care given
to detailed finishes, Raymond is won
over by the Emirate’s flair for
glamorous buildings.
As a self-confessed “green person
with a passion for ecology”, Raymond
is not particularly enthralled with the
idea of reclaiming vast swathes of
land from the ocean at the potential
expense of the eco-climate. “I’ve got
a quote in my lecture which I couldn’t
”
resist putting in and which I picked
up from somebody else, which is:
‘The world is not given to us by our
ancestors, it’s lent to us by our
children.’ For me it puts it all into
context. And if one says this, then
>>
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architecture
“
I think FMs ar en’t
particularly good at
appr eciating beautiful
buildings and appr eciating
what a good designer can
do, because they have so
”
much bad experience of not
ver y good designers who
ar e arr ogant, I’m afraid.
even the greediest person will sit up.”
A subject close to Raymond’s heart
is designing for maintainability. As an
FM and an architect, she plays the
role of trying to create a bridge
between the two equally important
disciplines and to incorporate the best
of both worlds into the design stage
of a building. Not always an easy
task, however, given that the two
camps do not always see eye to eye.
“Architects generally feel that
UNDERCOVER: Tomorrow’s
Office, by Santa Raymond
and Roger Cunliffe.
F a c i l i t i e s Management M a g a z i n e | GCC E d i t i o n
20
FMs are a waste of time,” Raymond
freely admits. “When I say that, I will
say to my fellow architects that FMs
are really important clients. And they
say ‘well I had an FM the other day
and he was really hopeless’. And
that’s the normal thing. But that’s
partly because architects – my darling
beloved brother architects and sister
architects – think that nobody
understands what they are doing.”
Great big statements
Architects often want to make “great
big statements” with their work and
tend to relegate thoughts of
maintenance and light bulb changing
to the dust bin. They are not as
concerned as they should be with
listening to the user and figuring out
how the building will be used on a
day-to-day basis.
On the flip side of this, Raymond
says that FMs do not always
appreciate what architects can do. “I
think FMs aren’t particularly good at
Tomorrow’s Office
Creating effective and humane interiors, by Santa
Raymond and Roger Cunliffe (E&F Spon paperback 2000).
his is not a plug – just a very good book
T we felt we had to share. About? You’ve
guessed it, the office of tomorrow. In
character with Santa Raymond’s passion for
“function and feeling” in the workplace, this book
delivers just that to the reader over 200
well-crafted pages.
Practical, useful information that neither
imposes nor presumes, the beauty is in its
humility. The willingness to convey to the reader
appreciating beautiful buildings and
appreciating what a good designer
can do, because they have so much
bad experience of not very good
designers who are arrogant, I’m
afraid,” she laments, adding that
there are more and more architects
that are well-versed in building
functionality and are designing
spectacular buildings that also serve
their designated purpose.
Another pressing issue that
Raymond believes in-house FMs
need to address is that of learning
to speak the language of business
and finance more coherently and
thereby better communicate the
value they can bring to an
organisation. Raymond has been
involved in developing training
programmes for FMs on
communicating with their clients in
order to understand what the
business drivers are. “If you have a
really good FM, who can talk to his
client and build the right position,
that design is subjective, that we all have views
and opinions. The question, rather, is how well
informed we are to understand our own needs
and in turn understand the best way to fulfil
them. This book provides no answers, but
guides you to ask the right questions. “We
identify trends and innovations rather than
providing rules – not prescribing what to
choose, but suggesting what needs to be
considered when choosing.”
Flowing from the strategic to the practical in
considerations to be made for office design,
Tomorrow’s Office is for anyone that uses an
office, from the boss to the new guy, the
architect to the interior designer, and the
furniture designer to the facilities manager.
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then he can act as the champion,”
says Raymond.
Historically, she says, the double-
sided problem has been that FMs
have not understood the bottom line
of their organisation’s business and
that businesses have not been all that
interested in their property, so long as
they are being run well enough.
“They don’t realise the sophistication
of it,” says Raymond. “FM is not just
about the building being hot or cold
enough, it’s also about every little
thing. FM can be everything except
your core business. So if you are able
to do your job well, this would have a
lot to do with your FM.”
Raymond’s strength is in
stimulating communication between
such disconnects and in getting the
relevant people around a table
talking right from the inception of a
project. As a design strategist and
client advisor, Raymond helps clients
to get a team in place who will work
as a group all the way through. “It
means you have each of the
consultants talking to each other,”
she explains. “I help people – clients,
but it may be consultants – look at the
strategy of the design.”
Raymond describes how clients
often only do one building in their life,
and therefore have no idea where to
start. “Given half the chance they’ll
just go to an agent or an architect and
they won’t get the proper information
for themselves,” she says.
architecture
The first thing for a client is to
really understand their business
needs and all the elements of that
and then work out what the
aesthetic is, what brand they are
trying to communicate to the
customer, the outsider, and also to
their own staff. “Do they want a
high-tech building or do they want a
low-tech building?” asks Raymond.
“Here you have traditional buildings
alongside the very modern
buildings. It would be craz
y to go to a modern architect for a
traditional building.”
So does Raymond see scope for
her work here in the Gulf? “Oh yes!
I’d love to come here. That’s why
I’m here.”