Bentel Associates International
A Holistic Approach to African ArchitectureWriter: Emily JarvisProject Manager: Stuart Parker Leveraging its extensive experience of emerging markets, Bentel Associates International (BAI) is aligning internal processes across its offices in India and South Africa with international trends and technologies to ultimately support the development of sustainable real estate in a local context.Having influenced a significant number of award-winning building designs across Africa in recent decades, BAI’s involvement in landmark developments has been well documented in our magazine, with the Company’s Business Development Director, Tim Harlech-Jones keen to share his review of the past year and the trends driving the business to new heights. “South Africa is currently playing catch-up with the practices upheld internationally in places such as the UK and US; and we strive to be at the forefront of this transition as it happens here,” he says. “Our team is leading the charge in sustainable design, and we are utilising the latest technology to drive our own long-term continuous improvement by investing in a piece of state-of-the-art building information modelling (BIM) software.”With each project – spanning the areas of retail, commercial, hospitality, residential and mixed-use – benefitting from BAI’s internal workflow and efficiency improvements, as well as its strengthened base of external consultants, the Company has seen a proliferation of new capital combined with a strong project pipeline.“Alongside streamlining our processes, we have been able to increase the number of projects we can undertake at any given time by steadily growing the office to handle projects wherever they may be across the continent. You never know where…
Bentel Associates International (BAI)
Landmark Architecture in Africa and BeyondWriter: Emily JarvisProject Manager: Stuart Parker Responsible for some of Africa’s landmark developments, leading architectural firm, Bentel Associates International (BAI) is now looking to showcase its portfolio of construction excellence beyond the continent, leveraging its extensive experience of emerging markets to explore opportunities across Asia and the Middle East.Founded in 1960 the Company quickly gained traction in its native market of South Africa, learning how to capitalise on the infrastructural growth being witnessed over the course of the past 55 years. To reflect this gradual evolution, the Company changed its name to Bentel Associates International and now stands tall as one of Africa’s largest architectural firms known for landmark developments in South Africa and other key stable markets across the continent.“Throughout our history, we have been involved in all types of commercial-orientated projects, but while we don’t want to only be recognised for being a specialist in one sector, there has been a recent development focus in the past 10 years on mixed-use developments and we are currently capitalising on this market trend,” comments Tim Harlech-Jones, Business Development Director (BDD) of Bentel Associates International.“The Company is a pioneer of shopping centre design in South Africa, and retail has since mushroomed into a significant part of our business today across the continent. We have influenced a significant number of landmark and award-winning retail and mixed-use project designs through our complete service offering: architecture, master planning, store planning, interior design and graphic design,” he adds.New capitalThe proliferation of new capital combined with a strong…
