“So you can arrange it so that if you change one bit it changes the whole of the model, and that's really what parametric design is: it's being able to almost play with it and sculpt the form.”
Given the complexity of the building, which not only includes the residential areas and hotel, but vast leisure facilities, including swimming pools and tennis courts, this kind of ability is vital to making the project viable.
But given the sculptural form of the structure, other technologies to support designing in 3D also provide significant benefits.
“Being able to design in 3D is a huge advantage. And we make physical models as well, but to be able to draw the building in 3D and be able to work through it – we have a virtual reality studio in the office as well, so we can sort of walk round the building and look at the spaces we're creating,” he says.
Virtual reality, like parametric design, is relatively new to architecture but is being readily embraced by major firms.
“It’s relatively simple to do, that's the point, and it's improving all the time,” he says.
“But even now it's possible to walk round a building, as it were, inside and see what it looks like, and more importantly for your clients to be able to see what's going to be built before it is actually constructed. So I think VR is actually quite an important new advance really.”
These technological possibilities also extend to cladding systems that are, in Wilkinson’s opinion, allowing for a greater level of sophistication in architecture, which he anticipates will continue to advance.
“I think we're going to see more buildings with interesting architecture,” he says.
“From the 50s, 60s and 70s towers were very rectangular, they were just vertical extrusions and in order to keep the sun out, they had to use dark glass, like sunglasses. That in itself is fine, but if all the buildings are like that it's a little monotonous.
“The technology of glass has improved a lot, and [to be] able to use clearer, more reflective glass, for instance, instead of the darker glass, low-iron glass is a huge advantage, and of course that technology's improving all the time.
“But it isn't all just about glass, it's about the whole cladding systems, which are much more able to adapt to more interesting forms than they were without it being too exclusively expensive.”