The most innovative and forward-thinking construction firms know, innovation doesn't just "happen," rather, it's a result of a willingness to take on new challenges and push boundaries.
When we sat down with Noyan Uras, Founder & CEO of Integrare Group, it was clear that the company’s culture was ingrained with principles of adaptive thinking, professional and social impact, and ultimately, collective purpose.
In our conversation, we chatted about what makes Integrare unique, how the company overcomes its biggest challenges, and what the team is doing to promote productivity and innovation.
Check out what Noyan has to say below!
We're a dynamic collective of adaptive thinkers, engineers, architects, designers, planners, strategists, and finance professionals. It's rare to find a construction company that seeks to bring all of these backgrounds under one roof. Working together, we can transform "business as usual" in the construction industry and turn visions of the future into concrete reality.
As a Los Angeles-based builder, our current market segment focus is in mid-to-large size multifamily mixed-use commercial projects across this vastly diverse and populous county. We also have significant experience with modular construction building and permanent supportive housing with FlyawayHomes for The People Concern.
There's also the vertical integration with our B2B material supply arm, SÔRS. At SôRS, we offer architects, developers and builders a strategic advantage: high-value products that fulfill their inherent artistic vision, at the affordable prices their projects require.
My proudest accomplishment at Integrare is the culture we're cultivating. This has been really important to us from day one. Watching it permeate all layers and evolve as new challenges and opportunities present themselves, is what drives our day-to-day hustle. We are a close-knit group of professionals who live by our tagline—Holistically Driven, Passionately Built. When we say holistic, it’s in reference to the consideration that we place on the entire value chain and everyone involved in this complex building environment. As for passion, well, we love what we do, and that shows clearly from the moment you meet us.
We live in a very fast-paced environment. There is never enough time for designers to create a complete, well-coordinated set of documents that developers and builders can rely on. This is nobody's fault and is mostly driven by the financial landscape. This puts a lot of pressure on general contractors. We find ourselves in a position to bridge any gap between design intent and lasting results.
This is why we think the first step to a successful project is investing in the preconstruction phase and involving the general contractor as early as the schematic design phase. This helps the owner, architect, and contractor align expectations and set a strong foundation for the construction phase.
At Integrare, we have a promise that has turned into a principle. There are no projects too small or too large for BIM 360 coordination. This means having participation from all parties—including the GC, architect, consultants, AND subcontractors.
Implementing this in multifamily was difficult at the beginning because it wasn't an industry standard–it still isn’t. Not all the consultants work in 3D modeling, and most subcontractors are not fully BIM capable. At Integrare, we overcome these challenges by converting 2D drawings to 3D, by training subcontractors, and, most importantly, by training Integrare's most valuable asset: our people.
We're now at a stage where we implement 360 BIM coordination at the preconstruction phase and carry it throughout construction. This allows us to stay miles ahead of potential conflicts in the field. We further reinforce these efforts with a rigorous QA/QC process, overlaying plans with actual high-definition drone photos, achieving down to a quarter-inch accuracy.
These are just two of many other examples of how Integrare stays on top of challenges. One of our promises to ourselves is to be ever-evolving. We stay true to this by continuously improving our processes, technologies, and approach with each project and experience.
There are many reasons why we are excited about Autodesk Build, but I'll give you our top three.
First is the smooth integration of construction documents from Building Connected during preconstruction to Autodesk Build once we start construction.
Secondly, we're excited about the TradeTapp integration with contract issuance. Our PMs need to check each bidder's qualification status on TradeTapp but use a different platform to issue the contract. Now, through Autodesk Build, we will be able to streamline the qualification and contract issuance phase.
Third but not least is having a more efficient, real-time BIM coordination experience, where our consultants and subcontractors can work on the same model and see clashes in real time. At the same time, our field staff will be able to pull the same model on their iPads and very easily compare the design to as built during their daily field walks. This effort currently requires many steps to get real results that will soon be redundant with the Autodesk Build implementation.
As a company that lives by its processes and constantly refreshes itself, we love how customizable Autodesk Build is. We will take full advantage of its PM features and make it our own to better streamline our processes with real-time updates through Autodesk Build.
It was our curiosity to look for better and improved ways to deliver our products. We were already using a variety of Autodesk products. When we realized we could bring them all together under Autodesk Build, the light bulb went on.
We said, "Okay, how do we do it? How soon can we do it, and what do we need to do to implement this?"
Since then, your team has been extremely helpful. Right now, our team is going through a series of trainings, both onsite and offsite. We're excited to complete the transition!
At Integrare, we believe we are on the road less traveled, and we love it. Innovation and advancing productivity are in our DNA.
We're always renewing processes, upgrading our technology toolkit, and looking for innovative ways to build. It's not easy, but for passionate souls, there is no other way. We will continue this ever-evolving journey, invest in our culture, and focus on partnering with like-minded developers, architects, consultants and technology platforms.
We know that innovation cannot be led by one person but by the diverse collective and its culture. This is why our hires are very strategic. One thing we all have in common is we're all passionate about what we do, but we are also incredibly different. We have 19 different languages spoken in our company, a variety of subject matter areas, a team where close to 40% hold advanced degrees, and when you bring all of these backgrounds and experiences together, you see breakthroughs in ways you never imagined.
Start with working hard, and expose yourself to as many aspects of our industry as you can. Find mentors to learn from, find curious colleagues to exchange ideas with, and discover new technologies/methods to use as tools.
