Lateral Naval Architects on creativity, efficiency, and innovation-driven evolution

This article has been written for SuperYacht Times by Adrien Thoumazeau, R&D Coordinator and Senior Naval Architect at Lateral Naval Architects.  

Einstein said that “Creativity is the residue of wasted time”. Some wasted time is, well, wasted time,  but for creative people wasted time is never wasted, it is part of the process of innovation. Were you ever told as a child to stop daydreaming? If you were, or indeed remain a daydreamer, then you are very likely a creative type.  

We have plenty of creative minds at Lateral and encourage daydreaming! Mixed with diversity, the output gives us plenty of material to work with. However, to bring this output into focus our  Innovate 123 framework is applied to give structure to our R&D strategy.Here’s what we have been up to over the past 12 months, as well as what we have lined up for the year ahead.

Innovate One is focused on the development of knowledge and advancing those to Thought Leadership. The primary focus of our work in the past year has been on matters related to environmental sustainability, specifically lower footprint, and decarbonisation technologies. We have brought our work on the energy transition into a more structured and forward-looking plan.

Having now explored both ends of the energy transition spectrum, via liquid hydrogen and project Aqua in 2019,  and more recently advanced hybrid electric via project Kairos in 2021, we are focusing on technologies that enable a compelling and flexible technical platform architecture across the intervening energy transition. Our focus is also expanding beyond the product itself (i.e a yacht) and we are partnering to test the feasibility of our industry taking a lead in the development of future fuel production and distribution. Alongside this we have been looking at the complex topic of all structural materials with respect to sustainability, considering not only the life cycle of materials, but of the product itself as well.Innovate Two is aimed at our internal engineering processes. How do we execute our work faster, with better quality and continuous improvement for both our people and our output? We look at new tools and ways of doing things. Included within this is a focus on our IT strategy and in the last 12 months, we have invested in new software solutions that allow us to not only be more efficient but critically enable late-stage change to be managed more effectively. Given the multiple partner nature of many of our projects, this demands a highly open, flexible and multi-solution architecture,  and as everyone knows change is the only constant in yacht engineering! We employ a broad suite of IT solutions, including many in-house developed applications that are maturing, and like a  carpenter’s chisel, uniquely tailored to our own hand and skills.Innovate Three is focused on product. Lateral is not a manufacturing company, we do not make a  physical product, instead, we produce ideas and knowledge. This part of the framework is intended to bring those ideas into tangible focus via the development of technical platforms that offer a  compelling advantage. Over the last 12 months, we have developed our Free From Bulkheads (FFB)  platform, intended to challenge the status quo of the technical backbone that has evolved in modern yacht development over many decades. We asked ourselves how the user experience could be elevated by creating a technical platform where, above the waterline, there were no evolved constraints, and no watertight bulkheads. What followed involved skateboards and other abstract thinking, we believe the outcome is innovation-driven evolution.Read: James Roy on the Transitioning Role of the Naval Architect

We will be showcasing the FFB platform on our stand at Monaco Yacht Show next week; so visit the  Design & Innovation Hub during the show to find out more!