From an owner, investor, developers perspective; I see a lot of advantages in hiring a team that is all based in country X. Why would I want to hire time-zone and communication issues into the process? I want to talk to you, in-person, on short notice.
Yes, you can have web-meetings at odd hours, fly all over the place but why…? It seems expensive and exhausting. Nothing beats being there in person. It depends on what phase of design you’re talking about but I like the idea of temporary offices located on-site or as close to the site as possible for construction administration.
For design development, you can probably get by with a few trips over seas to sell the design, then pass the project on to a local firm for CDs and CA, while staying connected to the project remotely.
I haven’t done any communication on-line (live meetings) but it would be interesting to explore technologies that would allow for spontaneous design interaction. I.E. Drawing on a tablet that the other party could see on their end or scanning/ marking-up plans quickly during a meeting, as if you were there…
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