2017 – Atkins’ year of transformation
6 min read
The acquisition of Atkins by SNC-Lavalin Group in July 2017 marked a historic landmark in the 79-year history of the company, as it became part of a truly global company with an ambitious vision.
Nick Roberts, Atkins’ President, said: “This has been a transformational year for Atkins and many of our clients with whom we’ve helped turn potential into reality. Across our markets, there is a lot to celebrate as we witness our ideas and ambition taking shape, and experience the impact that our collaboration is having on the world around us.
“Looking ahead, being part of SNC-Lavalin will afford us the ability to do even more in this regard by offering our clients and employees the enhanced scale, expertise and opportunities that come with being part of a larger and stronger global company.”
Below, a review of some of our key projects and company highlights from the last year shows how we’re helping to transform an ever-changing world:
Asia Pacific:
South Island Line
An award-winning world-class railway network of five stations along 7 km that places Hong Kong’s people and supporting economic development at its heart. Our role on the South Island Line was detailed designer for a key section.
Cocobay Towers
We’ve designed a new architectural icon in Da Nang, the third largest city in Vietnam. With a target of attracting 6.1 million visitors, Cocobay Towers is a 200-metre twin tower development that aspires to be the entertainment destination of Vietnam.
Bayshore Precinct
With people at the heart of our design, our approach creates diverse micro-communities tied together by pedestrian-friendly connections. Bayshore Precinct in Singapore is a standard-setter in healthy, liveable place-making.
North America:
An aviation industry first
Successful drone flights took place over Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the world. Seven drone flights were conducted over a 40-acre area, capturing over 700 images to help us plan demolition and construction whilst minimising effects on the airport’s daily activities.
Restoring marshland
Identifying a beneficial use for dredge material unearthed from expansions to docks, ports or other waterway projects is a mission encouraged by the world’s leading dredging associations. Using dredge material from a nearby dock expansion, we helped restore a crucial intertidal habitat at a historic Texas marsh.
North Avenue Smart Corridor
Among the most congested cities in the US, Atlanta is going high-tech to help solve its transportation challenges. The North Avenue Smart Corridor is an innovative test of smart city technologies, not in a lab or simulated environment, but out on the streets. We are working in partnership to assist both short- and long-term transportation planning to create a safer and more efficient place to live, work, and play.
Middle East & Africa:
50 years in the Middle East
We're helping to realise our clients’ vision through the design and delivery of the region’s most important projects such as the Dubai Opera, Riyadh Metro, Burj Al Arab. Looking forward, our culture of innovation and the use of disruptive digital technologies helps us meet the technical challenges of our most complex infrastructure projects.
Dubai marine stations
Our sustainable marine transport station design will soon be seen along the recently created Dubai Canal. Inspired by Dubai’s heritage and the historic fishing and pearling culture, the marine stations will provide transport links for some 13 million passengers a year from Business Bay to Jumeirah.
Two Rivers Mall
Set to be the largest mall in sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa, our design enables people to gather and connect by creating spaces within the complex for both intimate outings and multicultural events. A Kenya Vision 2030 flagship project, it has economic benefits by providing employment opportunities for 10,000 Kenyans.
UK & Europe:
Improving accessibility
We’re part of a new consortium to develop a digital platform to improve the rail travel experience for disabled passengers in the UK. By sharing relevant information in real-time between staff and passengers, it promises to make journeys more seamless and reliable, reducing passenger anxiety and stress and enhancing comfort.
Europe’s largest resignalling scheme
We’re helping deliver the most important combined upgrade in passenger and freight train services in Europe. Spanning 3200km of the Danish rail network, it promises a radical improvement in safety, performance and capacity, opening the possibility of running non-stop trains across all borders. Lessons from the digitisation of this network have the potential to revolutionise the digital transformation of rail globally.
Custom House station
We’ve collaborated to develop this award-winning beacon for both Crossrail and the community. Alternative construction methods, including pre-fabricated and standardised components, minimised work on site which resulted in reduced programme time, lowering preliminary costs and the impact on the local community.
Energy:
Reaching major milestones across our nuclear business
During 2017, we’ve achieved significant steps forward on several of our nuclear projects. Our worldwide nuclear business deals with the most technically complex challenges across the full nuclear lifecycle.
Continued innovation and growth in offshore wind
We’ve been appointed to our first offshore wind design project in China and our designs for foundations at the UK’s Dudgeon and Burbo Bank Extension offshore wind farms have been realised this year. Our drive to help reduce the cost of offshore wind took another step forward as we began development of a new approach to optimising offshore wind farms design with Aditazz.
Atkins Acuity:
Kenya’s energy review
As part of Kenya’s long-term energy development strategy, we assessed the different forms of renewable energy resources and technologies available in Kenya. Through an extensive door-to-door survey of over 10,000 homes across 44 counties of Kenya, we determined the practices, behaviours, and attitudes towards renewable energy and energy efficiency at a domestic level.
Digitalisation:
Using technology to drive innovation
We’ve partnered with several technology companies this year. The Atkins and EAMS Group partnership was set up to provide best in class engineering, transformation, data and technology capability to enable new approaches to asset management in the rail sector. Together, we will achieve substantial cost savings, improvements in asset reliability and increased value from investment in infrastructure assets.
‘Digital Reality – How physical infrastructure is evolving in a world of data’
Our report uses our experiences, and insights and opinions of industry leaders to explore the opportunities and challenges faced by infrastructure organisations as a result of the digital revolution. Our research says that the appetite to embrace opportunities is strong, but we need to overcome aversion to risk.
People:
Integrating digital
Three senior executive hires across the Group are helping us to become the undisputed leader of digital innovation in the industry, integrating digital into the way we think, the way we work, and the services and value we deliver to clients.
Tomorrow’s leaders
More than 350 graduates and apprentices have kick-started their design, engineering and project management careers by joining Atkins in the UK, with the company’s highest ever proportion of female graduates and apprentices. These are our leaders and visionaries of tomorrow, helping to shape our rapidly-changing and increasingly digitally-enabled world, continuing to push the boundaries of what is possible.
Uniting for dementia
In its 70th year, Faithful+Gould launched 704SE7ENTY, its first national charity initiative, seeing colleagues across the UK and European offices cycling 7,000 miles in 70 days and raised £70,000 for The Alzheimer’s Society.
For a view of these projects on slideshare, please visit: https://www.slideshare.net/WSAtkins/atkins-end-of-year-highlights-2017
