To keep afloat in precarious times, a firm needs to be proactive, creative and flexible. In this past year, Los Angeles-based DLR Group not only remained afloat but also increased its regional revenue and innovated to meet pandemic needs by developing air-quality technology and reimagining workspaces. Those are among the reasons why the firm was chosen ENR California & Northwest’s 2021 Design Firm of the Year.
DLR Group, with 1,175 employees and offices around the globe, posted total revenue of $279.5 million for fiscal year 2020. For both California and the Northwest combined, DLR Group, with its 294 regional employees, reported revenue of $89 million from offices in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and Riverside, Calif., as well as Seattle and Portland, Ore.
在同一时期，2020年加利福尼亚地区收入为5430万美元，西北部的总收入为3470万美元，这两个地区的收入同比增长2％。
The design firm’s focus is broad and ranges from civic, cultural and detention centers to energy services, health care, education, retail, mixed-use and workplace construction, but the core of DLR Group’s work over the past year has been helping clients adjust and adapt to changing expectations for shared spaces in response to COVID-19.
SPIRAL STAIR:The complex staircase for Google winds like a ribbon through six floors.PHOTO COURTESY OF ED SOZINHO, ©GOOGLE
“As we look to the future, it’s hard to imagine things going back to the way they were, and so as we design product now, there is definitely an eye on hybrid workspaces and flex-space within living environments,” says Faraaz Mirza, DLR Group mixed-use and multifamily lead designer. Energy Services Leader Rauiri Barnwell adds: “I think coming out of this pandemic, one of the future industry trends that we are going to see is a concept of energy effectiveness versus the concept of energy conservation.”
Barnwell is the firm’s energy services leader and developer of sonrai IAQ, an intelligent air quality analytics platform for smart buildings that collects and visualizes live and historical building performance data. The platform combines data from multiple sources to better understand air quality.
巴恩威尔说，Sonrai IAQ的创建是为了“在空气质量和能源使用和人数之间进行背景”。
Debuted in late 2020, sonrai IAQ is now used by 10 DLR Group clients, with roughly 15 million sq ft of space currently in the platform. Clients range from school districts to Class A office buildings.
MIXED USE:The 2-million-sqft Freedom West in San Francisco will include nearly 2,400 homes with 60,000 sq ft of retail space.RENDERING COURTESY OF DLR GROUP
“You can say you saved 40% of energy last year or achieved carbon reduction goals, but was the energy that was used by that building system—whether it’s HVAC or lighting—appropriate to support a healthy and productive workplace or a healthy learning environment?” says Barnwell. “We need context between the energy that was used versus the environment it is supporting.”
杰里米•雷丁DLR g组本金和工作场所lobal leader, says the firm was recently asked by a big tech company to research how the modern workspace is used and how it is changing.
They met with 160 employees and studied lobby orientation and break room amenities and how the open office came about. They then asked the employees how they have been working away from the office this past year. Were they going to a park and having a conversation or working in different parts of their home?
雷丁说：“我们要求他们想象一个未来，他们可以回来上班。”“他们将在哪里做所有这些事情？”
Reding说，DLR Group以及客户目前正在从这项研究中收集数据，并希望在不久的将来将一些发现实施到工作场所。新利18备用
SMART AIR:DLR Group created sonrai IAQ, which combines data from multiple sources to better understand air quality.PHOTO COURTESY OF DLR GROUP
Regional Hurdles
该公司西北领导人斯科特·克鲁斯（Scott Kruse）表示，他的地区被共同的19号停工击中，但由于重复业务和综合和可持续的心态，DLR集团保持忙碌。
克鲁斯说：“我们拥有DLR集团的所有工程学科。”他补充说，他目前约有70％的工作来自回头客。“有很多公司称自己在西北地区，但没有多少公司具有我们拥有的工程和高性能设计和设计敏锐度的广度。”
In the Northwest, the firm’s busiest sector is designing workplace and corporate space, Kruse says. One of its biggest projects in the Seattle area is designing more than 1.2 million sq ft of mixed-use office space for Google at the company’s Kirkland, Wash., campus. The Google Kirkland project, set to open this summer, is highlighted by a complex wood and steel staircase that spirals upward through six floors.
杰里米•雷丁DLR g组本金和工作场所lobal leader, says the constant spiral of the heavy steel stairs posed a design challenge. “It’s like taking a ribbon and wrapping down six floors as a continuous spiral. The building was already built when we took over the project, so we came in and cut an 18-ft-dia circle out of the floor. It was a post-tension concrete deck, so we had to cut all those cables, secure them, then cut them and then pull the tension back again,” he says. “And then we had to go back and add support for the floors because it was never designed to hold the weight.”
Americas Northwest地区Google房地产项目主管Mark Rowe表示，DLR集团作为一个团队合作，找到维护该项目总体意图的解决方案。“In this business, we have the unique opportunity to choose our team that will be working together for two to four years, so if you have the choice of a talented team that’s challenging versus a talented team that listens well and is enjoyable to work with, which would you choose?”
Another signature Northwest project for DLR Group is the Portland Building in Portland, Ore. The 15-story, 360,000-sq-ft building, which houses approximately 1,400 city workers and was completed last year, renovated a local landmark. The postmodern building, built in 1982 and designed by Michael Graves, is on the National Register of Historic Places as a building of “exceptional importance.” For the progressive design-build project, DLR Group provided architectural services, change management, environmental graphics, interior workplace, shear wall relocation and exterior skin replacement.
波特兰市的战略分析师克里斯汀·威尔斯（Kristin Wells）说：“ DLR集团通过整个进步设计的过程高度合作。”“他们脱下了DLR集团的帽子，并反复戴上项目帽子，以确保我们获得了最好的项目，他们思考了框框，并超越了组织以获得更多的专业知识。根据我的经验，这并不是所有设计顾问都这样做的事情。”
威尔斯说，这座建筑是一个涂有打孔的开口和铝制窗户的混凝土结构，“从第一天开始泄漏”。DLR组通过金属面板系统覆盖了外部，该系统固定了防水问题，同时尊重该结构的历史悠久的立面。她说：“该系统使我们拥有适当的防水和低维护的，同时显着提高了绝缘价值并降低了能源的使用。”
On the inside, DLR Group reimagined the workspace, transforming the building’s base into transparent glass. “When you drive by, you can see city workers, and that wasn’t the case before,” says Reding. “The space encourages collaboration and communication and changes the way the entire city works, in a healthy way.”
在加利福尼亚州，DLR集团正在蓬勃发展，全州的主要项目。新利18备用网址去年，该公司完成了洛杉矶纪念体育馆的现代化，涵盖了超过100万平方英尺的改进。明年，DLR集团将在旧金山的200万平方英尺自由开发区开发，其中包括近2400户房屋，并拥有60,000平方英尺的零售空间。
“Business is strong,” says Pamela Touschner, DLR Group’s California region leader. She says while there is currently some volatility, with rising costs and material shortages, the company is doing well thanks to its reach into multiple sectors.
“We have a lot of large-scale workplace projects that have helped us, and these clients have asked us to redesign and re-envision their workspaces as employees prepare to return to work in some fashion,” says Touschner.
洛杉矶的140万平方英尺钯住宅塔将在今年夏天破土动工，是一个重用项目。该项目位于历史悠久的好莱坞音乐场所的前地点，由两座由六层楼零售领奖台连接的住宅塔组成。住宅内还设有地下停车场和灵活的工作空间，并在整个物业上进行战略性放置。
