Our design process is all about dialogue. Whether a project is large or small, involving one client or one hundred stakeholders, we start with a conversation. First, we acquire a detailed understanding of our clients’ and users’ needs, desires, and dreams for the project. Next, we study the physical and contextual conditions of the site. Then, we begin to explore possibilities and develop concepts for the design. As the design progresses, we check in often with our clients, presenting design concepts and options, listening to their responses, moving forward with the ideas that hit the mark, and making adjustments based on their feedback as we go. What we end up with is a strong design concept that is finely tuned to our clients’ needs at every level.

We love our work, and we think it shows. We look for adventurous clients who are as excited as we are about the far-reaching possibilities of their project.

Basic Design Services for new and renovated buildings or landscapes encompass five standard phases. Each phase includes meetings and presentations to the clients, responding to and incorporating client feedback, obtaining client approvals, coordinating engineering and specialty consultants, and evaluating budgets and schedules. To each project we bring our architectural and landscape expertise, and a core structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering consultant team as well as any required specialty consultants, including green-building envelope consultants, lighting and acoustical consultants, ecologists, and arborists.

Briefly, these are the Basic Design Services Phases:
Phase 1: Schematic Design – Concept design, space planning, and early budgeting and scheduling.
Phase 2: Design Development – Concept development, materials, finishes, detail design, and budgeting.
Phase 3: Construction Documents – Permit and construction drawings and specifications, and budgeting.
Phase 4: Bidding and Negotiations – Obtaining and evaluating final pricing with builders and fabricators.
Phase 5: Construction Contract Administration – Monitoring the progress and quality of construction, making clarifications to the contractor, solving on-site design problems, and evaluating payments to the contractor.

In some cases, the design process begins with Pre-design Services. These can include: feasibility studies, restoration/adaptive reuse studies, master planning, zoning investigations, shadow studies, facility analysis and programme development, equipment and furniture inventories, site selection and analysis, and promotional and marketing packages.

Some of our commissions are for Non-traditional Services such as exhibition installations, research, and artworks. Please feel free to contact us with your proposal for a service not listed above.

We provide a detailed phase-by-phase scope of work, tailored to each specific project in our fee proposals. If you would like an initial consultation about the services we can provide for your project, please contact us.

On each project, we coordinate and manage fees for engineering and other sub-consultants on the project team. Our fee proposals carefully outline what is included in this fee, and what is excluded and constitutes an “additional service.”

Fees are tailored to each project, and are modelled on one of the following three types:

Percentage Based – percentage (of construction costs) based on the five phases of Basic Design Service: Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Bidding and Negotiations, and Construction Contract Administration. The percentage varies with the size and complexity of the project.

Time Based – pre-approved, per diem or hourly fees for partial or additional services; small or unique projects; research projects; feasibility studies and other projects where the amount of our work cannot be precisely anticipated in advance. With a time-based fee, we can set an upper hours limit and let you know well in advance if it is likely that more hours or a reduction in the project’s scope will become necessary.

Fixed Fee – a lump sum fee based on a very precise list of included tasks and a fixed construction budget. A lump sum fee can cover all five phases of Basic Design Service, or any one phase. Our fee proposals carefully outline what is included in this fee, and what is excluded and constitutes an additional service.

We would be delighted to provide you with a fee proposal fine-tuned to your specific project.