Building a Next-Level Integrated Firm

Bringing together disciplines is just the start. Real integration requires a shared process and commitment to data and technology to produce meaningful results.

When LPA first started on the path of becoming an integrated practice, it was with the best intentions. We wanted to do better work, and we believed a multidiscipline approach was the only way to achieve significant progress in our projects’ performance.

We quickly learned that developing an integrated practice is not just a light switch that you flip on. It took us years to find the right talent and grow each discipline. We’ve been learning along the way, finding new approaches to bring together the diverse skill sets and operating styles into a cohesive unit. Decades in, we’re still evolving what it means to be an integrated firm.

Bringing talent together was only the first step. By 2007, LPA had architects, landscape architects, interior designers and engineers under one roof, but we weren’t really integrated. Proximity doesn’t mean integrated. We were a multidisciplined firm but not really operating as an integrated team.

The issues were obvious. There was tension in teams. Each discipline was accustomed to working and communicating in their own way, and each assumed that the others designed in the same way they did. Each discipline felt the need to defend their turf. We were getting results, but there was strain and stress between disciplines.

As we grew, we learned that integration was as much about process as people. And that meant we needed to spend as much time building that process as we spent building and mentoring the team. We had to learn to see design problems from each other’s perspective and celebrate the value those different perspectives bring to the process.

Real integration started with creating trust between disciplines. Everyone needs to believe that when they express a concern or share a design idea, they are going to be heard. Their input will be valued. They can see real change and impact from their work.

Across the firm, we’ve worked to build design empathy and encourage cross-discipline pollination. We’re very vocal about engagement and pinups. We seek engagement and design critique firmwide. To provide a clear framework on projects, we created an Integrated Teams Playbook to ensure that all our project teams are asking the right questions and taking the appropriate steps to make informed decisions. An Integrated Design Residency program was developed to give people the opportunity to embed in a different discipline, learning firsthand about their work and their process on real projects.

As a business, we don’t look at each discipline as a profit center. We are one firm, and that’s how we approach resources and deal with challenges as a company and as designers. Our landscape architects, designers and engineers work within our teams, and that’s where they can affect results in ways that would have been unthinkable in a traditional practice. At every step in the process, we want our teams looking out for the best interest of the project rather than a siloed interest in their singular discipline.

We’ve seen our focus on process transform our integrated practice and produce significant results for our clients. Over the last five years, our projects reported to the AIA 2030 Commitment have averaged a 75% predicted energy use (pEUI) reduction from industry baselines. But even with our success, we realized we needed to continue to evolve what it means to practice as an integrated firm if we expect to eliminate carbon emissions from our projects.

We are entering the next level of integration, where it’s about information. We’ve mentored our people and honed our process, and now it’s about collecting and sharing our data to help clients make smart choices. Each of our disciplines creates a tremendous amount of data. Historically, most of that information has been siloed. In many cases, it might live in an Excel spreadsheet in a folder most members of the team would never see or open. Vital information never sees the light of day unless someone goes looking for it.

Taking this next step in our evolution as an integrated firm, we want to ensure our teams have access to that information in order to make better decisions for our clients. One example is our use of Tessera, a data-driven platform designed to transform master and space planning. Replacing manual calculations with intelligent insights and automated checks, Tessera directly addresses long-standing pain points in the planning process by reducing errors from redundant data sources, eliminating the inefficiencies of manual methods, automated and freeing design teams from excessive administrative tasks.

The next level of integration is integrating more data and improved technologies into the design process. As we progress toward carbon-neutral environments, focusing on operational and embodied carbon, collecting, synthesizing and making decisions based on these data streams is a critical part of our integrated design strategy. From carbon sequestration to embodied and operational carbon, data — and our ability to translate it into actionable information — will be essential to find the innovations necessary to move forward.

As we’ve grown, it has become increasingly important for our clients to understand the carbon footprint of their facilities. Creating a truly integrated firm — based on people, process and information — allows us to continue to grow along that path with them. We are nimbler and can support them in times of change.

As an industry, we are facing pressure from all angles about what it’s going to mean to design buildings in the future. The profession is going through a dynamic time of change. To make progress, we need to understand our projects in a deeper way than we ever have before.

A truly integrated design firm that aligns its people and processes with information and technology is in a much better position to meet the challenges ahead.