Specialised and Professional Architectural services,
a Mark for Symbion
Symbion is of age as can be attested by its trophies ranging from award winning hotels and lodges, restaurants, recreational facilities, office and commercial developments, factory and industrial buildings to tented camps in the national parks all across Africa and beyond. This is summarised in their extensive services provided like:
- Architecture
- Interior design
- Project co-ordination
- Project management
- Design Management
- Value management
- Information management
- Contract management
- Independent Technical Audits
Through a single point of contact, the Symbion Group and its international network of designers provide a comprehensive architectural service marked by excellence. The company has qualified staff with skills and experience developed over three decades.
History
In Uganda Symbion story begins in 1993 when the company was first established. At that time, service companies offering the full range of planning, design and management of architectural and interior design were few. With a fast growing and immensely lucrative construction, agricultural and tourism sector in Uganda Symbion had ready market for its services. This also created a huge need for a highly specialised and professional backbone service for the sectors.
There was an increasing demand for modern office space for the growing concerns, residential houses for the highly discerning personnel they drew, while the burgeoning hospitality trade and commercial banking and financing companies sought nothing but the highest international standards.
The challenges and demands for the newly emerging company were thus set. Three decades down the line and Symbion have received commissions throughout the length and breadth of the entire East African region from Kenya to Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Zambia, Burundi, Seychelles and all the way to Botswana, South Africa and Gabon.
Projects
The Symbion mark can be seen in high-rise office blocks, specialised recreational and clinical projects, huge commercial concerns and private residences.
Symbion have evolved distinct responses to client briefs over the years and a complete list of projects would read like the construction industry who’s who. This is vivid in their most recent projects in Uganda like CoRSU Orthopaedic Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre, Warid Telecom building, Course View Towers, LVFO in Jinja and an 8-storey office building on Lourdel Road comprising of office and retail space.
Various residential schemes and executive residences among them the Kensington Housing Estate. In Kenya, Symbion is currently undertaking the implementation of Standard Chartered Bank Headquarters expected to cost over US$25million.-
Other projects the Symbion Group is handling include the refurbishment of Kigali Serena Hotel, 300 unit apartment scheme in Kigali and Polana Hotel in Mozambique. Designing for the special needs of health facilities is a challenge. Symbion has achieved a number of ‘firsts’ in this field. There is the Mildmay HIV / AIDS Palliative Care and Training Center in Uganda where Symbion was selected after a prequalification process to co-ordinate the construction of this first specialised facility for the treatment of Aids sufferers and their families. The result is a sensitive medical and support facility utilising local materials and adopting a climatic design approach. The CoRSU facility opened recently and will cater for the less privileged as well as paying clients.
Design Skills
For medical purposes, Symbion are also evident in the ultra-modern Nairobi Hospital accident and emergency center. The hospital’s brief required a facility that would allow the use of technological life saving equipment for one of the leading hospitals in the region. In 1996 Symbion was appointed to carry out another phase of the major re-development of the Aga Khan Hospitals in Nairobi and Dar-es-salaam. This project follows on from earlier first phase Doctors Plaza and the current Accident and Emergency Department which were completed in 1987. This was a major undertaking and a great show of confidence in Symbion’s design ability.
This design work calls for the incorporation of state of the art technology in line with the modernisation programme initiated by the Aga Khan Health Foundation.
Turning away from the medical field there is also the magnificent Oshwal Religious Centre. A construction marvel that incorporates Jain cultural, religious and traditional architectural traditions has several halls, theatres and worship areas that can be used simultaneously by almost 3,000 people. This project is the evidence of the extent to which Symbion will go to satisfy the cultural sensibilities of a client. Detailed studies were conducted to ensure that motifs and significant reference to religious themes were evident in the external and internal decorations, window openings and paneling.
Achievements
Maturity could in some quarters suggest a slow slide into complacency and conservatism, but dynamism and the desire to constantly be at the cutting edge of innovation is among the most important corporate culture traits that Symbion has cultivated over the past two decades. Since the wave of computerisation first hit the industry in the early 1990’s revolutionising architecture and design in the region, the firm has fully computerised its operations. All departments are equipped with the latest computer aided design workstations with an inter-office network that can access one of the most extensive private architectural reference material archives in the region.
This network has recently reached its latest potential in Symbion’s new offices, in Kenya, Uganda and Botswana thereby offering clients instant access to a wide pool of professional services to serve their particular needs. In this age of trading and economic blocks, Symbion already has a virtual COMESA presence through networking the Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Seychelles and Botswana offices, with a presence in Rwanda currently refurbishing the Kigali Serena Hotel. The network makes it possible for a client to visualise and become part of the design process from the Nairobi offices, or off a laptop computer in a project office or bases in any of the regions.
Major Buildings Done Years Back
In Uganda, Symbion was involved in the renovation and refurbishment of the then dilapidated Crested Towers building to what is now a landmark building in the centre of Kampala.
The magnificent Kampala Serena Hotel (formerly Nile Hotel International) was refurbished, extended and modernised by Symbion and completed in 2006.
Other projects include the Mildmay Centre on Entebbe Road, Rainbow International School, most of the Barclays Bank branches and ATM sites countrywide, the KCB Uganda Ltd and FINA Bank offices and banking halls.
In Kenya, Symbion has successfully completed major projects among them, Refurbishment of Nairobi Serena, 5000 housing units for NSSF, UAP office building .
Two faces of Symbion
While the former can be seen in the designs of the commercial buildings, hospitals, multi-storey office blocks, clinical hospitals and banks the latter can be seen in the lodges and hotels. That face is reflected in the eco-friendly destinations including the award winning Shimba Hills Lodge and Shaba Lodge. Symbion was involved in the rehabilitation of Paraa Lodge in Uganda, The Sheraton in Kampala, the renovations of Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa and the expansion of the Aga Khan Hospitals in East Africa. Over the last two decades two distinct yet compatible faces of Symbion have emerged.
There is the Symbion that is keeping abreast with the fast changing and modernising techno-revolution of our continent; executing some of the most futuristic and 'hard-line' architecture that is changing the city skylines, while there is the Symbion that is an integral part of the preservation of the eco-system; a Symbion that is about caring for the environment, for its inhabitants and the land upon which they live; one that utilises the best in renewable materials that nature has to offer; one that innocently blends into the unspoilt landscape, preserving it while enhancing its beauty and utility.
Collaborations in Uganda
In providing the services mentioned above, Symbion collaborates with the best firms in cost and project management. These include Barker Barton & Lawson, Buildcost Associates, Integrated YMR Partnership and others.
On the engineering side, Symbion collaborates with both structural and civil engineering and mechanical and electrical engineering firms to produce the state-of-the-art projects that are user, environmental and cost friendly. The engineering firms are diverse and each provides their own technical know-how which is integrated within the Symbion designs. These include Multi-Konsults Ltd, Proman Consult Ltd, GEM Engineering Co. and others.
Mission and Vision
Symbion always produce appropriate and refined architecture that reflects the cultural and social traditions of the country in which every project is located. The quality of the work has over the years won the admiration and satisfaction of their clients because by offering commercially viable solutions even on difficult sites, while gaining appreciation of building users and capturing the admiration of local authority planners.
Over the years Symbion have developed a commitment to a client's requirement and the social, economic and cultural environment in which these requirements are generated. A great attention to detail has become a hallmark of the practice. This integrationist approach to architecture and design mean that Symbion deliver not just 'front of house' design solutions, but integrate into the work ethic and practice an all round sensitivity that ensures the project's logistics, cost and aesthetic considerations are catered for.
