Architect Tom Gresford met software engineer and project manager Joe Thompson in 2016 through friends. They quickly realised that they shared similar thoughts around the way in which architectural projects were managed, although from different perspectives.

For several years, Tom had been growing frustrated with the lack of robust project management tools available specifically for architects. ‘As a practice, we wanted to manage our projects seamlessly and efficiently, and our clients wanted to have programmes for their projects too. The project management plans that we were producing on Excel just weren’t cutting it.’

As a technologist, Joe was more interested in the way that tech hadn’t penetrated architecture and construction the way it had with virtually every other large industry, observing that ‘there’s a great opportunity to really help people with tech in these sectors.’

For Joe, there was also a more personal angle. ‘I’ve been through house refurbishment a couple of times, and each time I’ve been struck by how poor the customer experience is. People are making some of the biggest investments they will ever make in their lives, yet it can be so difficult to keep track of things.’

Quickly realising that together they could make things happen, Tom and Joe created some wireframes then gathered a small group of architects together in a focus group setting to talk about their priorities, their pain points and where they could really use some help. Joe describes this evening as ‘probably one of the most exciting early moments. We started to get a really coherent vision for what the problem was we were trying to solve.’

So where are we now? briq.works is here, and is being used by a group of testers and early customers. It’s making project management more efficient, effective and collaborative, allowing architects to build a project plan and allocate tasks to all of the parties involved, keeping everybody up to date with progress as a plan gets underway.

What’s great about it? It’s simple. It enables architects to work smarter with less time spent doing those admin tasks which can take up so much time, energy and head space. So when you use briq.works to manage your projects, you’ll have more time to spend designing, being creative and doing all the things you really enjoy.

If you’d like to hear about what briq.works can do for your practice, visit briq.works to learn more and to book a demo.