CMA Architects (Formerly Campbell and Morris Associates) was founded in 1991 with the specific mission to provide the most professional, Client focussed and responsive architectural design and contract administration service possible to our Clients.

Delivering that service has required the fundamental substance of excellent architectural design skill and contractual knowledge to be supported and delivered to our Clients by a team of highly qualified and motivated practitioners who have a sound knowledge, skills and experience of the environment in which our Clients are operating.

We often perform as lead consultant and show leadership through effective communication, motivation and team management. We have, a continual professional development process to learn about new, efficient and technological advances in construction methods and materials as well as developing effective relationships with all stakeholders involved with our projects.

Our approach to all design commissions is to ensure that we fully explore and understand the Client’s brief. Successful delivery of a project often requires us to assist our clients in the development of this document. A clear and accurate brief ensures that all parties in the design and construction process fully comprehend the client’s aspirations whilst ensuring that the opportunities and constraints of development are made visible and that all lines of responsibility are clarified. Clear guidance of expected outcomes and objectives from the beginning of any project is the best approach to minimising risk as the project proceeds.

We use the RIBA Plan of work as our framework for tackling any project, even for small projects there will be an appropriate stage applicable and we can use this document to inform the client as to what issues we will be working on. From the strategic brief through to in use there are key stages and important information phases to consider so that we have a balanced project.

Net Zero and Passive-Haus Standard Design

We are excited by the push from the Scottish Government and associated statutory bodies in their push towards carbon neutral design delivery. We are fully onboard with preparing designs to meet these standards. We have in-house Passive Standard qualified persons as well as our own research and development programme to help develop a unique CMA response to designing buildings that meet the very exacting performance criteria necessary.

Building Information Management

In April 2017 the Scottish Government published its Scottish Procurement Policy Note 1/17 (SPPN) on the Implementation of Building Information Modelling within Construction Projects, setting out how BIM should be adopted within public sector procurement. It was another signal of an increasing shift in public sector construction strategy towards the obvious financial and efficiency benefits brought by Building Information Modelling.

Scotland’s move towards BIM was a testament to a new way of thinking being encouraged in UK construction where the built environment would transition to a digital built environment. Efficiency gains have been realised from this new approach which resonates through the design, construction and operational phases of an asset’s lifecycle. This was achieved by the way in which BIM uses digital data collaboratively to manage, share and analyse information more effectively for any asset or infrastructure project.

CMA despite being a SME have embraced this new way of designing and set about enabling staff to work within this information rich environment. For the last three years we have developed our hardware and software to help produce our BIM strategies. We have provided staff training and have rolled out the BIM process on most of our new works at present. We now create data-rich ‘BIM Level 2’ models using Autodesk Revit as our principal design tool.

We have established internal processes to define our approach to the BIM execution plan based on the industry standards of BS1192 and the AEC (UK) standards. We are continuing to develop essential processes in readiness for BSI accreditation.

Advanced modelling and immersive technologies.

With our move to designing predominantly in a 3D environment we have been able to experiment with fast rendering of spaces and have started to develop some designs with Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). Both of these tools offer far reaching opportunities for designing spaces for older people. We have upgraded our hardware and software to allow us to work with these new design methodologies.