Jones Wood Architects
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES POLICY :We recognise that groups and individuals within our society have been, and continue to be, discriminated against on the basis of race, disability, sex, age, marital status, sexuality and religious belief. Direct discrimination takes place when a person is treated less favourably than others are (in the same circumstances) on these grounds. Indirect discrimination takes place when a condition or requirement, which adversely affects a particular group, is applied. We believe that all members of society have the right to be able to enjoy day-to-day living, free from all kinds of harassment and intolerant behaviour. Equal opportunities are also important in the area of consultation to ensure that those who might be excluded because of language, religious custom, and mobility problems or other disability can participate as fully as possible. We intend to actively promote equality of opportunity in the provision of our services. Living and working in Hackney, East London, we consider ourselves to be part of a multi-ethnic community. We daily see the benefit of this diverse environment, in the colour and variety of lifestyle traditions, textiles and cuisine. We feel that this diversity allows us to draw upon an even wider range of references in order to create something new. As well as being aware of this as a client issue we are committed to being an equal opportunities employer and already have an ethnically mixed office. We also recognise that employment practice should take into account of the demands of childcare; we have personal experience of balancing work and family life.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY Juliet Wood and Sian Jones
have a strong personal commitment to environmental issues and we encourage our
clients to consider environmental options, wherever these are appropriate. We
believe that the issues of carbon dioxide emissions (through the energy used to
heat and light the building, and the transport used to travel to and from it)
and CFC & HCFC emissions (from building materials or refrigerants) require
the most urgent consideration. The global consequences of inaction are already
apparent.
We are familiar with the Building Research Establishments
Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and use the following checklist to
assess environmental criteria:
GLOBAL ISSUES: Carbon Dioxide CFCs & HCFCs
Emissions
LOCAL ISSUES: Natural resources water conservation, storage of
recyclable materials and transport issues & facilities for cyclists
INDOOR ISSUES: Ventilation measures, volatile organic chemicals, timber
preservatives, nongaseous indoor pollutants and daylighting.
We are familiar
with the concept of embodied energy in building materials, and as data on this
becomes more readily available we will incorporate this into our environmental
checklist. The practice is committed to Repair, Re-use, Re-cycle and we support
local paper, glass and aluminium recycling schemes and community computer &
furniture recycling initiatives.
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION We are an efficient small practice used to designing large and complex buildings as well as the smaller more domestic scaled project. We take pride in the fact that many of our clients come back to us for further projects. We have also received a number of commissions from friends of clients or from people just seeing our built work. Most recently we were appointed to design the Racquets Centre in the Algarve, which provided the sporting centre for the entire urbanisation development on the strength of our previous successful appointment on the Spa building for the same site.
PRACTICE MANAGEMENT The practice is in the process of setting up a formal quality management scheme. As a small practice our office management procedures have been evolving over the past years, and preparation of a quality management system is not something to be rushed. With many years' experience of being part of a team in much larger offices we understand the need for consistent and methodical management and administration. Efficient administration allows us to spend time on the things that our clients value: Good design, sound specification, value for money, and smooth contract administration. We already have procedures in place for: Answering correspondence, project-related filing, technical Literature, checking drawings, drawing issues and specification writing Quality Assurance: We do not believe that it would be appropriate for our small practice to aspire to third party certification to ISO 9001/BS 5750. Nevertheless, Quality Assurance is sound practice. It allows us to: Satisfy ourselves that requirement's concerning time, cost and quality are being met. Satisfy ourselves that all objectives are being met and that that projects are being undertaken in a consistent and methodical manner. Satisfy ourselves that that all the parties involved in a project have shared objectives. As it develops, our project management system will maintain sufficient documentation to ensure that skill and care is exercised in all aspects of our service to our clients, but without initiating bureaucratic procedures. Our procedures need to be flexible, as over the past year, our projects have ranged from a contract value of around £20,000 to almost £4million.
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