Build a More Inclusive Design Environment

We are an open studio comprised of many and we offer the brain-trust of our collective people to our clients and communities.

We believe design is about exploration and discovery. As such, our studio space and our process shape a setting which fosters open dialogue and deliberation, and meaningful participation and contribution to the work we do.

The spaces we occupy influence us and can help or hinder the actions we engage. As a design studio we explore ways our own studio environment leads our work. The energy of a studio comes from people, most obviously through dialogue and engagement. The pandemic forced an adaptation to in-person collaboration, which revealed some advantages and some disadvantages. Creative collaboration: pin ups and desk crits, central to our design process, became more challenging to orchestrate and simply stopped happening in large part. We seek ways to bring those activities back to the office to renew the energy and dialogue within the studio. Through reflection and further study, we seek also to uncover ways it can become more inclusive for all staff.

Increase Design Dialogue Within the Studio

Dialogue around design is central to the education of an architect, and therefore embedded in each of us as a meaningful component of what we do. As a design firm, we feed our architectural souls through dialogue and discourse, and find satisfaction in this effort. Production without voice is a “job”. Production in service of an idea over which one feels agency and voice is a career, a drive, a mission, and source of joy.

Goal

• Invest in the power of our physical environment. Reimagine our physical space to enhance opportunities for dialogue.

• Track and promote “outside the box” design opportunities including:

• Opportunities for design interventions as community service

• Opportunities to participate in competitions

• Review accessibility awareness on all projects; universal design.

• Engage cultural consultants on strategic projects.

Celebrate Design Within Our Studio

Celebrations build company culture, strengthening and bringing focus to the values that are celebrated. By recognizing and appreciating ways design, equity and inclusion occur in the studio, we build a practice of gratitude that strengthens our culture.

Goal

• Develop internal recognition programs that reinforce the firms mission and culture and highlight equity and inclusion accomplishments.

• Reinforce team building through project-team specific celebrations.

• Appreciation/recognition should occur internally, and on external platforms.