Design Competencies in Shanghai

Permasteelisa Group is a worldwide company that supplies facade cladding to some of the world’s most iconic buildings. As part of a strategic development, the company’s departments in China requested an evaluation of the design competencies among their senior design managers.

Permasteelisa has departments on all continents. This means that the employees work in extreme complexity – when different ethnicities, corporate cultures and hierarchical structures have to find concrete solutions to the challenges and expectations that the world’s most visionary architects present.

Therefore, there was a need to investigate whether all departments have the design competencies needed to lead the design process.

Mette Mikkelsen and Martin Andersen from Park (NL) developed a competency course, which was held in Shanghai and Donghuan.

Here, Permasteelisa’s senior design management worked with new and known challenges to find out where the individual participant is strong and where new ways of working were needed.

The course led to a longer bespoke competence development, which was based on Permasteelisa’s strategy and visions for future design in the construction industry.