Case study - 360 buildings, 90 typologies, nine square kilometres

When there are too many buildings to design one at a time

Ninety typologies across 360 buildings means the deliverable is not 360 designs. It is 90 designs and a system that says which one goes where, how each adapts to its plot, and what is allowed to vary.

Get the typology set right and the campus is coherent and the tender is priceable. Get it wrong and you have 360 special cases, a tender full of qualifications, and a contractor pricing risk instead of work.

Oversight rather than authorship

The role here was oversight: reviewing the schematic design as it was produced, against the brief, the standards and the internal consistency of the typology set. Asking whether a submission actually delivered what it claimed, and saying so plainly when it did not.

The same discipline, elsewhere

This kind of assurance work made up much of the 2021–2023 period, on programmes where the client had many consultants and needed one consistent standard applied across all of them.

Reviewing tenant designs for compliance at KAFD and assessing contractor submissions. Managing design reviews across the MISK boys’ and girls’ schools and mobility hubs. Establishing the approval workflows and procedural manuals for RRDC outdoor advertising, parking and park applications in Riyadh — the framework a review function needs if its decisions are going to be consistent from one reviewer to the next.

The subsequent appointment as Senior Manager at NEOM, from December 2023 to February 2026, focused on Stage 1 and 2 reviews, design governance, feasibility, quality assurance, framework consultants, standard operating procedures and AI-assisted review workflows.