We're delighted to have been shortlisted for a Mixology '18 award. Our project for the Home Office is in the Public Sector Interiors Project of the Year category. It's a testament to the heard work and creativity of our team and we'll be heading off to the awards on 21st June to learn our fate - watch this space!

Whilst the rest of us waited for the first signs of summer, four of our finest found themselves basking in Italian sunshine last week at the Milan Furniture Fair. Alfonso, Agnes, Harry and Nick spent the week exploring the city and researching all things new in the design world, whilst significantly improving their monthly step count averages. Head over to our Instagram page to see plenty of photos.

To borrow the words from some bloke named Bob, the times they are a changing at iDEA.

Last year we gave ourselves a new brand identity. We changed our web domain to idea.eu and we're thrilled to say we've now gone live with our new and improved website!

During this time we’ve taken a long hard look in the mirror and as a result we’re making a conscious effort to be better at communicating in plain English. Like many others, the design industry is full of so many buzzwords and acronyms that we often unconsciously get caught up in it all. There seems to be an inexplicable obsession with combining words together (worksettings, workstyles, hangry…) and turning nouns into verbs, even though it doesn't actually change its meaning (desking?!). Well, no longer! We’re going to de-jargon ourselves from this point on. Watch this space!

iDEA are busy finalising our design scheme for the fit out of United Kingdom Hydrographic Office’s new building in Taunton- handily abbreviated to UKHO. This fantastic organisation is the global authority for charting the worlds oceans, aswell as being the datum for a myriad of environmental data. Our scheme is a little less challenging in scope but nevertheless an interesting route to navigate.

Following on from the success of our work for Edinburgh University’s Central Area Campus we have now been commissioned to assess the requirements of their Bio Quarter and King’s Buildings locations.

Later in the year in accordance with our mantra of ‘making complex information simple’ we will have completed a 3D Interactive Model of all the campuses. This will enable the Estates team to easily and visually access their total spatial database and the distribution of all Schools and space types. The game engine is then theirs to update - ‘For the players’

And they’re back...

3 yrs after we completed the briefing exercise iDEA have returned to Manchester University and the MECD project. It’s been a long wait but it’s great to be back. Our role now is to design the finishing touches to the non-office areas. This giant of a project is now rising inexorably from the bowels of Upper Brook Street. Well worth a look if you happen to be passing.

The iDEA band, Harry and The Ramsdens were back at Stamford Bridge this weekend for their annual gig for Cancer Research UK.

Armed with more hits than a winning game of Battleships, the band kept the 300-strong crowd dancing all night long. The event was a huge success and talks are already on going for a return in 2018.

A huge thank you to all who came along - there were certainly some fine dance moves on display!

Me and Harry were both up and ready to go at 7.24am this fine morning and we hoped we would have good weather fingers crossed. We got to the train on time by drinking coffee and a bun to start our day and on the train we worked on our laptops coming up with ideas for birthday cards and newsletter.

When we got to London we had a walk to get to the office at Somerset House. I noticed they had in the courtyard a big pipe spiting out water and I asked Harry shall I have dip and then we both agreed we should get to the office and we had another bun with Jon, Chris, Agnes and Charlie.

This year was the 50th anniversary of the Longmynd Hike, one of Shropshire's toughest endurance walks. Over 500 people took part in the event, including 4 of our own - William, Christine, Kitty and Kevin. A huge well done to you all, it's some achievement!

We are proud to have been awarded a Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation, demonstrating our commitment to protect our business against the common threats to internet security.

More information can be found on the Cyber Essentials scheme website. You can also learn more about the digital toolkit we use to deliver our projects in the Tools section of our website.

The OGA received an award from the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) for the Scottish Facilities Management Project of the Year 2017.

The iDEA band, Harry & The Ramsdens, were back on the main stage this weekend playing at the Barons Cross Charity Music Festival. Raising money for the Hereford Hospital Paediatric Trust Fund, The Ramsdens played a brilliant hour long set packed full of crowd pleasers. Great fun for a great cause!