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An interview with Chris Crookes on BIMBox’s recent office expansion

16/01/2023
An interview with Chris Crookes on BIMBox’s office expansion

Following the rapid growth of BIMBox a new bespoke office space, Managing Director, Chris Crookes had a chance to share his thoughts with Northspring at the Spring Gardens location on the office expansion and facilities.

 

What is the reason for BIMBox’s expansion?

Put simply, growth! BIMBox has been fortunate to enjoy continued growth over the last few years, with an increasing client base across sectors and regions. We’ve been focused on both fostering a practice of innovation to ensure we are always sharing the highest level of expertise, whilst endeavouring to humanise, visualise and communicate BIM strategies in a way that is people-driven at every step.

Working with a wide variety of estates teams, contractors and designers, we strive to build long-term partnerships and like to think that we’ve helped kick-start a quiet BIM revolution across the industry! Supported now by an international standard for BIM, we’re finding people are much more open to finding out how digital construction adds value to their work, whether that’s intelligently managing an estate, improving budget or programme certainty or identifying and resolving issues quicker than traditional methods.

BIM is a rapidly evolving discipline and whilst BIMBox has been active across the last 10 years of its development, greater appreciation of the impact of BIM has across sustainability, safety, human and social areas, as well as efficiency gains, is supporting its increasing adoption. BIMBox has an ambition to continuously grow as a hub of digital excellence, offering clients a single point of support for digital construction services. For our staff – we’ve created a collaborative environment for those who want to build a life-long career in BIM and we’ve been very proud to welcome many new starters to BIMBox this year.

 

Why did you choose to stay at Spring Gardens?

The location is fantastic for both our team and clients to reach, plus we love being situated in Manchester city centre, close to all the local eateries and venues. There’s a huge choice for our socials, plus it’s great to be able to pop out and see the progress at some of our local projects in the city itself!

 

Do you use the amenities in the building (roof desk, gym, business lounge)?

Absolutely, several of our team members make use of the gym every week and the roof desk has been fantastic in the summer months. The business lounge is a great additional space to fall back on during busy periods.

 

Are you aware you can use facilities in other Northspring buildings across the UK?

Only recently, but we can see ourselves making use of this whilst visiting clients in cities across the UK. We look forward to hearing about new Northspring buildings as they open.

 

What has been your experience at Northspring?

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster! In 2020 we signed our first lease for the first floor suite just before the pandemic hit. On the bright side, it gave us the time to make the space our own and it was great to welcome the staff back. Fast forward to now, we’re on the move again to the larger third floor suite to support our growing team and it’s been a delight to put even more of our stamp on the larger space, creating a bespoke environment for the team.

 

Do you have any exciting business news you’d like to share.

We’ve had a lot of fantastic recent wins, including an increasing number of healthcare, residential and infrastructure projects within our Information Management services stream, plus a growing number of Reality Capture and Digital Twin initiatives. Further to this, BIMBox is proud to have recently been appointed to join ‘Reconmatic’ – an international research consortium funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Horizon Europe – the EU’s key R&D funding programme, tackling construction and demolition waste reduction. As part of the team, BIMBox will support the establishment of BIM strategies to shape the future of waste reduction.