A "three dimensional" exchange with China
Competing on speed and price, a UK computer-aided design firm employs artists from Nanjing in an effort to offer more to leading architects and property developers


/Architecture News Articles/ - LONDON, UK, April 03, 2008 - Eight has always been a lucky number in Chinese culture and H4 Group is celebrating eight successful years of growth in their Chinese production office based in Nanjing.

3D images are now a standard requirement with planning authorities and in property marketing. Outsourcing these services reduces architects costs and allows for tighter deadlines to be met. H4 specialises in photorealistic 3D images as well as animations and fly-throughs. The firm's work graces the pages of Property Week and Estate Gazette and has successfully grown to provide its services to names like Foster & Partners, RTKL and British Land. "Three dimensional visualisation just makes it so much easier to explain a building to everyone", says Guy Middleton, H4's Managing Director.

There are half a dozen significant players in the computer modelling field in the UK, all competing for a slice of the business. H4 claims to have significant advantage: their work is not done in the UK, but all the way on the other side of the globe in Nanjing, China. H4 claims to have found the "secret recipe" combining a keen work force with a good base of IT skills, spending considerable amount of time in China recruiting and training the right people.
Middleton explains the cost advantages saying: "Most companies can have only two images produced. We offer them the chance to have considerably more than that, if need be." H4's team insists that the artistic element of the work is not neglected and that making a good image is as much a matter of using an artist's eye to bring the computer model to life as just taking the architect's CAD files and rendering them into a fully realised image.

Another very important advantage when working with China is the speed aspect. China is eight hours ahead of the UK allowing work files to be transferred across the internet at the close of our working day and be on China team's desk first thing in the morning their time. They can be hard at work when we are sound asleep in our beds. This time-saving aspect gives the firm an edge when often changes to CAD's are needed quickly.

However it can never be all "smooth and silky". The firm tries to overcome the cultural difference by bringing key representatives from China over to UK. This practice helps Chinese employees to obtain a taste of British working culture and, perhaps more importantly, to give the opportunity to develop an appreciation of the British architecture and environment, crucial to making those 3D visualisations look as realistic as possible. Sun Shao Ling, creative team leader, shares his view: "We have the opportunity to improve our English, to take what we have learnt working with people here and then apply it in our own country." It looks like it is a two-way exchange after all.


Media contact:
Denitsa Tapcheva
25 Battersea Bridge Road
London Sw11 3BA
denitsa@h4group.com
www.h4group.com

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Denitsa Tapcheva
H4 Group
Marketing and Sales Coordinator
Sw11 3BA
Voice: 0207 223 6080
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