Ken Wai is a Global Design Principal at architectural practice Aedas, based in Shanghai, China. The practice returned to working in Shanghai city in the middle of February 2020. They operated a staged return to the office, taking almost four weeks for a full return to work. Ken talks about how China uses ‘big data’ - monitoring personal risk through a Personalised QR code, which people can to take to meetings with clients or to public venues, via their phones. Aedas haven’t seen a major reduction in workload so far, though they have some delays on projects, because lots of clients and stakeholders are working at home. The lessons Ken has learned from COVID-19 (Coronavirus) are that architectural practices will have to adopt a flexible working pattern allowing for home working, the importance of maintaining a strict discipline for hygiene and how essential it is to improve the way they work online. He says "Perhaps the only upside we can think about this is that we can now spend more time on design and improve on our quality. Which, for a very fast track design environment in China is a real luxury."
