Dickson Rothschild, the world leader in architecture, urban design and planning, is striving to take an active role in general urban design for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and further strengthen its presence in the Chinese market.

"We hope to provide our expertise on holistic approach working in the built environment for Beijing, not waste money and resources," Nigel Dickson, managing director at the Australia-based designing institute, told China Daily.

Infrastructure, investment in stadiums and gyms, contemporary facilities such as press centres, entertainment venues, toilets and fences, will cost a huge amount.

"After the Olympics, how can we make use of all those facilities? We are able to assist China in making the right decisions and reducing costs," said Dickson.

His company, formed as a collaborative design practice involving architects, landscape architects, urban designers, planners and other specialists, was involved in a wide variety of planning and architectural consultancy for the Sydney Olympics from 1993 to 2000.

The scope of involvement included urban design master planning, operational planning for the Homebush Bay, Darling Harbor Venues, press center, sponsor hospitality and Paralympics, generic venue operational planning model, Olympic training venues and International Broadcast Center.

"Our experience throughout the planning, design and implementation stages gave our firm an excellent understanding of the Olympic stakeholders, processes, and pitfalls of the host city's preparation programme and, in particular, allows us to link the macro level planning issues with the micro level design and resolution of particular aspects of the Olympic environment," said the managing director.

Dickson Rothschild uses a team-based approach in all of their projects, so the company's team combined with experts in various fields will cooperate with the client's team.

Unlike pure building designing and environment planning, urban designing is closely related to geographical conditions, neighboring environments, and local culture, thus Dickson Rothschild has to work with its clients.

Having entered the Chinese market three years ago, the company has established three offices, in Beijing, Tianjin and Shenzhen, and has won entry into three projects - Xigu Park master plan and Guanbo Lake community designing in Tianjin, as well as an international table tennis training center in Xiamen, in east China's Fujian Province.

"We will bring our best people into China," said Dickson." We have to do more in China, and the market is really deserving of our attention."

(China Daily February 23, 2005)