Q&A: For stronger sustainable solutions, we need to collaborate
Henning Larsen is joining forces with Danish engineering company Rambøll Group. The collaboration is based on a shared vision to create sustainable cities and buildings that answer global challenges. We sat down with CEO Mette Kynne Frandsen to learn more.
Why are you taking this huge step?
We want to take greater responsibility as a global firm and see our design and projects as part of a bigger agenda. We see a need for thinking differently in the industry and breaking down silos to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. We are experiencing a time of growing cities and significant climate challenges. The solution is partly to be found within our line of business - architecture. By combining ours and Ramboll’s competences, our ambition is to contribute to limiting the global carbon footprint and ensure that the growing cities are good places for people to live and stay in.
Why Ramboll?
Ramboll Group is one of the leading engineering and consultancy firms in the world. By joining forces with Henning Larsen, architecture will be the third area of focus in the Ramboll Group. We already know Ramboll very well from our longstanding cooperation and we know Ramboll as an extremely competent knowledge-based organization specialized in deeply relevant areas such as urban development, high-rise buildings and water and climate. Like us, Ramboll is a Danish company with a long history and we are both based in the Nordic tradition. In addition, the Ramboll Group has trust ownership which ensures a long-term strategy where the funds are retained within the company in order to develop it.
What does this mean to the Henning Larsen company as we know it?
We will keep the Henning Larsen name and hold on to our architectural and artistic vision but, at the same time, we will become part of the Ramboll Group. I will continue as the CEO of the architectural business that accounts for 300 Henning Larsen architects in addition to 500 other architects and landscape architects. We will continue to make decisions as far as the organizational development of the company is concerned and our ambition continues to be creating the world’s best, most beautiful and visionary buildings acknowledging a great social responsibility for the people living in them as well as for uncompromising artistic ambition. Our offices will remain at our current addresses which means that our headquarter will continue to be at our premises at Vesterbrogade in Copenhagen.
What can our clients and collaborators expect from us in the future?
In the 60 years that have passed since Henning Larsen established the company, we have grown and have become a global company with offices in Oslo, the Faroe Islands, Munich, Riyadh, Hong Kong, and New York. This has been possible only due to our competent and loyal employees, valued business partners and not least our loyal customers. This year, we handed in the best annual accounts in our history. In the future, we will continue working together with other engineering companies than Ramboll. We are, thus, free to find the best business partners for future projects. All of our current contracts and existing business partnerships will continue under the new agreement.
When will it happen?
Our agreement will become effective from 2 January 2020 but we have allowed ourselves one year to develop detailed plans for the future structure of the partnership.
