Regarding the organisational innovation of the design process, there is a trend of integrated designing (designing with an intense collaboration between the various designing parties at an early stage). Our experience is that integrated designing can be very successful. There is more space for different insights, whereby the different designing disciplines jointly arrive at one product.

In this way, more than ever, a design that fulfils the demands of the present and the past is created. Our role in the design process can either be that of participant or primus inter pares within the design or building team formed by the principal.
The design of the building can never be realised by the architect alone. Designing a building is very much a matter of gathering and processing information, especially when several social functions have to be housed in the building.
In the design process several designers of different disciplines work together to create one final building design in the interest of the building owner and the users of the building.

Every project at LLOX is entrusted to one of the partners. The project is assigned in a carefully considered manner, taking into account the knowledge and affinities with the project.

The five partners of LLOX together have about a hundred years of experience in building complex structures such as hospitals. They are highly qualified professionals who want to make their passion for architecture available to society.

It is precisely this role distribution which determines the size of LLOX architects as an agency: the partners want to be architects above all; they want to take part in the design and building process. Managing a big company takes up too much time, it only serves to complicate the main assignment.
In the past, this involvement of the partners in the building process has guaranteed a high sense of responsibility and continuity in all of our assignments.

The project manager is in charge of contacts with the client at the highest decision-making level. S/he takes the lead in the design process and attends more than two thirds of all meetings and is present during all important decision making moments. He is in charge of the resources that are at the disposal of the team. The project architect is his right-hand man and always consults the project manager.

The project architect has an integrating role in the design team. He translates all information gathered (schedule of requirements, outcome of user consultation, etcetera) in a functional, spatial and architectural concept that can be tested, at aesthetic, functional and financial level. Stability engineers, engineers in techniques and interior architects are challenged and stimulated to think along with him/her on solutions that can support the project, make it feasible.

The project architect is capable of seeing the spatial consequences of the solutions proposed by the constructor or other advisors. The architect is therefore responsible for the safeguarding and elaborating the proposed solutions at a high quality, building technical level in the concept.

Next to the input of engineers and advisors it is equally important that our principal, the building owner or the designated project manager of our principal has an active role in the design team. Early involvement of the principal in the choices made during the design process can accelerate the progress, and therefore the commissioning of the building, considerably. When the principal takes active part in the design process, we prevent delays due to choices by the design team being reversed or due to the fact that starting points and the elaborated design require adaptation.

It is an iterative process: all designing parties and the principal have to feel responsible, not only for their own contributions, but also for the whole process of creating an optimal building design.

In general the participants of the design team make good agreements as to the demarcation of the activities, adjusted to their specific expertise in relation to the assignment.

The above applies also for the principal participating in the design team: the participation and role of the client in this team has to be defined in a similar way as the role of the other parties.

Our elaborate experience with several administrations has taught us that the communication plan depends of the internal organisation of our clients.
The architect has to adapt the distribution of information to the existent structure of the principal. In order to do this, the architect’s firm has to have a flexible organisation at its disposal with one single point of contact at every decision-making level.

An essential aspect of the communication process is the work and site reports. Within one work day after every meeting the report has to be disseminated. The first report lays down the levels, channels and procedure of mutual communication. The reports contain vital information without repetitions. Every item is numbered. In this way, subsequent reports can refer to previous reports and be limited to the essentials. In every report essential documents and their last adaptation are referred to: address list, exchanged data, list of plans, schedule, budget check and points that are still up for discussion.

In the translation of a (care) vision to a project it is of utmost importance to define a schedule of requirements. The principal defines this program, but we also always translate it in a dossier that we draw up ourselves:

- putting together this file allows us to familiarize ourselves with all the boundary   conditions and helps optimise communication
- it is an essential instrument allowing the principal to check if the architect has understood his vision
- every design phase has to be preceded by a refinement of the schedule of requirements, a program must be able to evolve
- every design phase ends with a check against the schedule of requirements.