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Whilst
the majority of members on the RIBA CPD Providers Network are product
manufacturers or distributors, there are a number of leading consultants
to the construction industry as well. One of them is Ceram Research
Ltd. an independent testing house with an international client base
and over 50 years experience. Primarily the activities of Ceram
centre on the investigation, evaluation, of products, systems and
existing structures to ensure they meet UK and European standards
for new uses and applications. Projects can be as diverse as testing
the load tolerances of Victorian railway viaducts at Waterloo for
Eurostar, to confirming the load capacities of Sir Michael Hopkins
designs for the granite cladding at Portcullis House in Westminster.
Their philosophy is simple "we enable innovative designers
to make informed decisions about products, systems, structures and
materials compatibility and we provide independent test data to
support these findings". The communication of this diverse
range of services was more difficult to achieve whilst satisfying
the criteria to join the RIBA CPD Providers Network. The Creative
Department were consulted about how this might best be approached. Genuine need for fast site navigation For Ceram, no two projects are ever alike and to demonstrate the variety of work undertaken, our recommendation was to feature case studies throughout the session involving high profile architects and their projects. Each would be very different in content (eg contribution to product design and development; material testing; specialist problem solving - even involvement as expert witnesses). The structure would be to pose three basic questions in each case:
With
this type of approach there was evidently going to be a need for
high quality graphics and even more importantly, the requirement
for the presenter to move quickly and easily around the site.
One moment a general project shot, then the need to drill down
for detailed site images, possibly followed by a display of test
results would not be untypical. A further consideration was the
requirement for the presenter to move effortlessly to any point
in the presentation and select material to help support the answers
in response to audience questions. As a result, our decision was
to write the material in HTML format. With its superior graphics
and excellent navigation characteristics, the presentation would
easily meet all of the above criteria and as new case studies
are developed, the presentation can be updated accordingly. In
addition, that same material can easily be uploaded to the Ceram
website, providing architects and designers with an expansive,
accessible database of reference information. |
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