Architecture & Engineering Business Strategies

The world is changing fast. In order for your practice to survive, you’ll have to change along with it. New technologies and new ways of communicating can be scary, but humans have always evolved and adapted by using new tools. During this Section Cut interview, Libo Li, CTO of KatalystDI, talked to us about how becoming an adaptive organization has to start from the firm culture, how better organ...

Finding and hiring top talent is a challenge for any company, especially in today’s competitive hiring environment. To give your business the best shot at attracting and retaining great employees, you have to know how to market your business to job candidates. In this Section Cut interview, Talentstar’s founder Marjanne Pearson and Principal Connector Linda Wallack share how to attract potential h...

How can you finally say goodbye to an unwieldy spreadsheet system and streamline your operation from start to finish? At Workshop/APD, the team develops strategic and custom solutions at scale. When they doubled their team over the course of the pandemic, a smooth project management system became more important than ever. Thankfully, they already had their “secret weapon” in place in the form of M...

Architects don’t receive a lot of training on business and finance. And staff members with business experience don’t often understand the design side. So, how do these two groups collaborate and run a practice? During this Section Cut interview, Arthur and Marie Eddy of Traverse Landscape Architects shared how they’re using Monograph to speak the same language across groups and get things done fas...

How do you operate a national practice that encompasses art, architecture, historical preservation, and construction documents all under one roof? That’s the task of Verdant Studio, an Arkansas-based firm with incredible breadth and reach. Founder Jessica Hester credits Monograph for keeping the team on schedule and on budget while shaving hours of meeting and accounting time off their plate every...

When an architecture firm is just starting out, almost anything goes in the quest to get up and running. But once you’re more established, two things need to become foundational to how you do business:  transparency and discipline. In this Section Cut conference interview, Tom Jacobs, co-managing partner at Krueck Sexton Partners, discusses how these two values were key to the firm’s success story...

When you think of practice operations, you may think of the tools, information systems, and resources that have to be managed on a daily basis. But Marjanne Pearson, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Talentstar, wants you to reframe how you look at practice operations. It should be about mobilizing all those resources to create value and seek opportunities for transformational change. As a spe...

Have you considered a unique firm structure? RIOS’ practice structure might just take the cake, as it is unique at every level. Not only do they have two CEOs, but they have a multidisciplinary office with architects, interior designers, and graphic designers all working together. What really stands out about the practice is its values. Things like audacity, joy, and agility top a  list of core va...

Now more than ever there’s an opportunity to design with purpose, and with a goal of equity so that spaces are built for everyone. But in order to do that, we need to do two things: keep the new generation of young designers engaged and supported, and involve our clients and communities in the design process. In this Best Practice interview, Black Architects + Interior Designers Association Canada...

In a world of seven billion people and counting, innovative design has become more important than ever. From residential to transportation to healthcare, how can we create an innovative built environment that caters to humanity’s changing needs? These are the questions that occupy leading design firms. For Olson Kundig’s CEO Hemanshu Parwani, or "HP" for short, the goal is to source top talent and...

Social media has allowed us to share our ideas on just about every subject. But free-flowing discourse on architecture styles and design careers hasn’t always been available. Katharina Benjamin of Kontextur and Jeff Kaplon of Subtilitas have each carved out online spaces for criticism, conversation, and inspiration while spotlighting topics and architecture offices that don’t get enough attention....

Growing a firm by a dozen employees each year can sound daunting. But the truth is that when you look at growth as a puzzle rooted in organizational structure, you can begin to make steady progress. Michael Hsu Office of Architecture did just that when the growth rate of Austin, Texas caused them to grow the firm from 21 to 78 people in just seven years. By doing things like doubling down on cultu...

How do you achieve successful growth as an architecture firm? It all comes down to having the right people on your team. Today, there are small 20-person firms that are making incredible revenue and ranking on lists alongside much larger counterparts. There are firms that have been acquired by larger firms, only to see their original talent leave. There is no magic formula for hiring and retaining...

What do business strategists and editor-in-chiefs have in common? They both require you to build relationships. Lots of them. As the director of strategy and partnerships at Trahan Architects, founder and editor-in-chief of Madame Architect , and a lifelong collector of mentors, Julia Gamolina is an expert relationship builder. In this episode, she shares how her roles overlap, how she approaches...

Most architecture firms are grappling with the question of how technology and data fit into their practice. For many firms, the solution is a self-contained design technology team, similar to an IT department. But at KPF, they’re championing the idea of a digital practice, where technology is a means to deliver their projects in the best way possible. It’s not just support, it’s a way of operating...

In the past decade, the number of small architecture firms has been shrinking while the number of large firms has increased. The reason? A steep rise in the complexity of the projects firms are working on. As buildings get taller and more advanced, firms need bigger teams to handle the scope. And those teams would be lost without a good project manager to organize it all. Flora Bao, project manage...

Life at a busy firm can be a mad scramble. When partners and owners start to wear too many hats, key information can slip through the cracks. Over time, the value of that missed information and haphazard staffing plans can add up. That’s why mid-size firms with a healthy budget should consider investing in a new hire: a financial operations role. When Snow Kreilich Architects hired bookkeeper and...

If you want your firm to become known for a clear ethos, aesthetic, and vision, then you need to fold that identity into everything you do. From the clients and contractors you choose to work with to your office culture and the computers you buy, every action—large or small—should contribute to that overarching vision. This is the case at Trahan Architects. Partner Brad McWhirter and Director of U...

The world of architecture is getting more interesting—and complicated—by the day. Sometimes the best way to tackle your projects is to loop in specialists and consultants who have both the skill and network needed to get the job done. Amy Baker is a spec writing consultant and freelance architect who loves digging deep into the “nerdy” side of projects. Chris O’Hara is a founding Principal of Stud...

To design and construct the best building possible, you need to be intentional every step of the way. From honing your toolkit of best practices to creating SOPs to collaborating with other professionals, excellence is the name of the game. That’s the philosophy of Nick Schiffer, owner & CEO of NS Builders. In this interview, Nick shares his process and explains why the best results happen whe...

Real estate developers often keep their eye on the bottom line—for them, it’s all about how a property can make money. Architects, meanwhile, focus on design, but rarely have control over the built environment. But it’s possible to do both. Alloy Development is a hybrid architecture-development firm. Director of Construction Alexandra Militano joined us to explain how they’re equally focused on de...

There are many ways to grow an architecture firm, and many values that can guide you along the way. But one quality in particular will allow your firm to grow and evolve far into the future: generosity. In this episode Alan Maskin and Jerry Garcia, principals at Olson Kundig, told us how the spirit of generosity has influenced their growth over several decades and runs through their team today. In...

For an architect hoping to own their own firm one day, there are two paths available. One is the traditional path: starting your own firm from scratch. The other is to buy an existing firm and transition into its new owner. This second option is less talked about, but with the rate of Baby Boomers retiring, it will become more and more important to the future of architecture. Leah Bayer and Kate C...

Shane Balcom joined Rossmann Architecture in July 2020 and hasn’t looked back. Since Balcom’s arrival, the Ottawa-based firm has seen its revenue triple and the size of its team double, thanks in part to the leadership principles the managing director has brought to the table. In a conversation with Monograph’s Best Practice co-hosts Chris Morgan and George Valdes, Balcom discussed the role compan...

The common issues that architects struggle with -- getting paid, project control, long hours -- have been around since the dawn of the profession. There are traditional ways of working that have remained in place even as the world rapidly changes. But Jacob Reidel of Saltmine thinks it’s time to embrace a different way of practicing. His take? Firms should close the loop between design and outcome...