Major UK-based architecture firm Building Design Partnership (BDP) has announced intentions to set up in Australia as part of international expansion strategy to offset the impact of recession at home.

BDP currently has studios across the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Middle East, North Africa, India, and China and holds a track record in all major sectors including health, education, workplace, retail, urbanism, heritage, housing, transport, leisure, public safety and energy utilities.

David Cash

A newly appointed chairman David Cash was formerly BDP's director for international development, where he oversaw the opening of offices in Abu Dhabi, Delhi and Shanghai.

The Manchester Evening News reports that group turnover for the year to June 2011 dived from £86m to £62m as the firm was hit by UK public sector cuts. They said after making 100 redundancies and closing four offices, the company believes it can transform its fortunes by winning more work overseas.

Cash said their response to the recession been “to win work from further afield, helping reduce the impact of the downturn in the UK”.

BDP's revenues are generated overseas have doubled in the last three years and Cash predicts that figure will rise to at least 50 per cent in three years' time.

“We are getting a lot of work from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar, and we are seeing continued interest in work from China, particularly in the commercial, healthcare and education sectors.

“I would also like to set up offices in Australia and Canada if we can win some big contracts there, and we are looking at Poland, Ukraine and Georgia.”

Commenting on his appointment, Cash said: “My role as Chairman will be to give direction to the firm for the next few years. As a company we always to need to be improving and evolving in these changing times, rather than be afraid of change we need to embrace it.

“If I can take BDP from being a UK-based company that does projects overseas to a world-based organisation, I would feel like I had made my mark.”

The firm recently won the contract to design a new hospital complex in the Bispebjerg suburb of Copenhagen featuring 94,000 sqm of new buildings and the renovation of a further 64,000 sqm on a 26 hectare plot. Image: BDP