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<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/61d0ceef-f5e6-476c-99ba-639f5cd60ebc.png" alt="" width="1080"></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The client loves the scheme, then asks what the facade looks like in brick instead of stone, and the meeting stalls because the only honest answer is "let me render that and get back to you." Every architect knows that stall.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">At AEC+Tech, we've watched the AEC tools we cover get very good at making the picture look real. What's changing now is where that picture sits in the process, moving from documentation into the decision itself.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">For most of the last decade, progress in architectural visualization has been measured in image quality. Physically accurate lighting, richer material systems, and real-time ray tracing have closed much of the gap between a render and a photograph. <strong>What used to count as exceptional is now the baseline clients expect.</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Rendering has improved fast. One part of the workflow has barely moved.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Design reviews still lean on static images, pre-rendered animations, and fixed camera paths. Those outputs record decisions well enough, but they sit outside the conversation. The moment a meeting turns toward a different material, a new lighting condition, or an alternate scheme, the presentation stalls while someone prepares fresh visuals elsewhere.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">That gap matters more as practice becomes more collaborative. Clients, consultants, engineers, and developers now weigh in across the whole design process, not only at the end. Meetings have turned into working sessions where decisions take shape in the room. The way architecture gets presented has to keep up with that.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">So visualization is starting to play a different part. Beyond the final picture, it is becoming a medium for discussion, comparison, and decisions made on the spot. The next step forward may be interaction as much as realism.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Every architect knows the moment a client asks to see it another way and the room goes quiet waiting on new visuals. D5 says 3.1 closes that gap, and will <span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong><a href="https://www.d5render.com/webinars/whats-new-in-d5-3-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prove it live on July 21</a></strong></span></span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Answer "Can We See It Another Way?" On the Spot&nbsp;</span></strong></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">This is the thinking behind <a href="https://bit.ly/d5-3-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>D5 3.1.</strong></a></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Plenty of tools compete on how convincing the picture looks. Fewer ask what happens to it once a room full of stakeholders starts pushing back.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The release starts from a practical question: how does visualization stay useful once the meeting starts?</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">D5's answer is Interactive Presentation, a workflow that lets architects organize a review like a slide deck while keeping the live project open behind it.</span></p>
<figure class="image"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/764404fa-3db9-4d3c-b9ec-9e36afea816e.png" alt="Interactive Presentation enables real-time scene switching with slides and 3D triggers." width="1080">
<figcaption><em><span style="font-size: 15px;">Interactive Presentation enables real-time scene switching with slides and 3D triggers.</span></em></figcaption>
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<p dir="ltr">Instead of preparing several image sets or separate animations ahead of time, teams can move between design schemes, materials, lighting, weather, viewpoints, and object visibility inside a single presentation. A question that used to interrupt the review can be explored right away. Real-time scene switching runs through slides and 3D triggers, so the flow of the meeting holds together.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The presentation becomes a working space for the design, one the team can steer as the discussion moves.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-size: 18px;">Let Clients Walk the Space Before It Exists&nbsp;</span></strong></h2>
<p dir="ltr">Interactive Presentation sits inside a wider set of tools aimed at making review more interactive and easier to adapt to the room.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Stereoscopic Panorama brings depth-aware panoramic views to VR, which helps clients and project teams read scale, materials, and how spaces relate to one another. Better VR navigation and controller handling make VR walkthroughs steady enough for everyday reviews rather than occasional demos.</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Spatial Tour has moved along too, with faster scene generation, smoother transitions between indoor and outdoor spaces, and dollhouse views that make it simpler to move through a complicated project.</p>
<p dir="ltr">These tools sit alongside still renders and animations and widen the options, so a team can pick the right way to explore a design based on the audience, the project stage, and what the review needs to settle.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-size: 18px;">Start Seeing the Design the Moment You Model It&nbsp;</span></strong></h2>
<p dir="ltr">The quality of any review depends on everything that happens before it.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As visualization gets pulled deeper into design work, architects increasingly want to test ideas while those ideas are still moving, instead of waiting for documentation to finish. In that sense, presentation begins earlier than the slide deck. It begins when a team first tries out form, light, material, atmosphere, and how a space feels to move through.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In practice, the visual thinking usually happens long before anyone opens presentation software, and tools have been slow to meet designers there.&nbsp;</p>
<p dir="ltr">That continuity reaches past D5 Render itself. After its earlier <a href="https://www.aecplustech.com/tools/sketchup">SketchUp</a> release, D5 Lite now works inside Rhino and <a href="https://www.aecplustech.com/tools/revit">Revit</a>, bringing real-time visualization into more of the tools architects already use. Designers can preview materials, lighting, and visual direction without leaving the modeling environment, which supports quicker exploration during concept work, massing studies, facade development, and iterative testing.</p>
<figure class="image"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/faae324a-8c58-4578-aac2-06f9faac39b1.png" alt="D5 Lite: Visualize projects directly inside Rhino, Revit and Sketchup" width="1080">
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<p dir="ltr"><em>Start in D5 Lite, finish in D5 Render, without switching tools</em></p>
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<p dir="ltr">D5 Lite is built for that early work, making design decisions more visual from the start. When a project needs higher-end imagery, animation, or an interactive presentation, the work carries on into D5 Render. Paired with Cloud Collaboration, distributed teams can review and share work with less reliance on manual file swaps or local hardware, which keeps things continuous from concept through client review.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>Photoreal That Holds Up When Clients Look Closely&nbsp;</strong></span></h2>
<p dir="ltr">As presentations get more interactive, the visuals behind them matter even more. A live scene only works if it holds up when someone leans in.</p>
<p dir="ltr">D5 Render 3.1 adds a set of production-focused improvements that strengthen realism while keeping real-time response.&nbsp;</p>
<figure class="image"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/84679fde-46df-4239-985d-65e93278fb1f.png" alt="ACEScg Color Space preserves richer HDR color detail and supports professional ACES workflows" width="1080">
<figcaption spellcheck="false" data-qb-tmp-id="lt-926652" data-gramm="false"><em><span style="font-size: 15px;">ACEScg Color Space preserves richer HDR color detail and supports professional ACES workflows</span></em></figcaption>
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<p dir="ltr">The move to an ACEScg working color space brings in a production-grade color pipeline, the kind used in film and visual effects, which improves color consistency across visualization and post-production. HeightField Tracing gives displacement materials richer surface relief without adding geometric weight, so brick, stone, and timber keep convincing physical depth even in large scenes.</p>
<figure class="image"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/196052f2-45b2-4577-a1c1-32e97aa7bc83.png" alt="Seasonal Vegetation lets foliage and branch structure change by date, previewing all seasons in one scene" width="1080">
<figcaption spellcheck="false" data-qb-tmp-id="lt-626429" data-gramm="false"><em>Seasonal Vegetation lets foliage and branch structure change by date, previewing all seasons in one scene</em></figcaption>
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<p dir="ltr">Landscape work gains more nuance through Seasonal Vegetation, which lets foliage and branch structure change by date and previews a full year of a planting scheme in one scene. A run of smaller refinements rounds it out, including Custom Pivot, MeasureLine, improved City Generator controls, smarter Auto Exposure, and wider Gaussian Splatting support. Each one trims repetitive adjustments and keeps production moving.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It adds up to one point. An interactive presentation is only as good as the rendering underneath it, and that rendering has to hold both fidelity and speed at once.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>From Better Images to Better Decisions&nbsp;</strong></span></h2>
<p dir="ltr">Architectural visualization has spent years chasing realism. That work continues, though realism on its own no longer defines the field.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As projects get more collaborative, the ability to move between options, respond to feedback, and explain a design in context is becoming just as important. Presentations are becoming part of the design process itself.</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><em>"The tools we end up writing about at AEC+Tech are rarely the ones with the longest feature list. They're the ones that change how a decision gets made."&nbsp; &mdash; Niknaz Aftahi&nbsp;</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">D5 3.1 reflects that direction. It builds presentation into the design work, making visualization a place where ideas can be explored, compared, and refined with the people in the room.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Whether this turns out to be the next phase of the discipline is still an open question. The goal is clearly shifting, from producing better images toward better conversations about the work.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The biggest change in D5 3.1 sits outside the render itself. Visualization now stays in play through the whole conversation, long after the image is done.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong>See it live&nbsp;</strong></span></h2>
<p dir="ltr">D5 will demonstrate the 3.1 workflow in a live webinar on Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC, hosted by Jeff Espinoza, D5's Director of Customer Success and Services. The session covers D5 Lite for Rhino and Revit, Interactive Presentation, VR review, Stereoscopic Panorama, ACEScg, HeightField Tracing, and Seasonal Vegetation.</p>
<p dir="ltr">You can register using&nbsp;<a href="https://www.d5render.com/webinars/whats-new-in-d5-3-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>this webinar page</strong></a>, and anyone who registers but cannot attend will receive access to the recording.</p>
<p dir="ltr">To learn more about D5 Render, visit their <a href="../../../tools/d5-render" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>page on aec+tech</strong>&nbsp;</a>or explore the latest features on the official <strong><a class="_ymio1r31 _ypr0glyw _zcxs1o36 _mizu194a _1ah3dkaa _ra3xnqa1 _128mdkaa _1cvmnqa1 _4davt94y _4bfu18uv _1hms8stv _ajmmnqa1 _vchhusvi _kqswh2mm _ect4ttxp _syaz13af _1a3b18uv _4fpr8stv _5goinqa1 _f8pj13af _9oik18uv _1bnxglyw _jf4cnqa1 _30l313af _1nrm18uv _c2waglyw _1iohnqa1 _9h8h12zz _10531ra0 _1ien1ra0 _n0fx1ra0 _1vhv17z1" title="https://www.d5render.com/" href="https://www.d5render.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety">D5 Render website</a></strong>.</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/b02023eb-2713-4ea3-a35f-e0c2bb302c00.png" alt="" width="160" height="160"></p>
<p dir="ltr">Niknaz Aftahi is the founder of AEC+Tech. This article was produced with materials from D5 as part of a partnership, and independently edited for the AEC+Tech community.</p>
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D5 Render 3.1 turns design reviews into live sessions. Interactive Presentation switches schemes, materials, and lighting on the spot; D5 Lite reaches Rhino and Revit. 

D5 3.1 Wants to End the "We'll Render It Tomorrow" Moment

<div><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/5741b41d-2b98-40f9-9a96-00550e6d0a57.png" alt="InspectMind AI" width="1080"></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Most conversations about AI in construction start with speed.&nbsp;</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">&ldquo;How many hours did we save?&rdquo;</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">&ldquo;How many pages could we review in minutes?"&nbsp;</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">But a recent aec+tech conversation on AI-driven plan review made a more useful point: the tools save time, but the real reason to adopt them is risk.<strong id="docs-internal-guid-dcacfc00-7fff-ed9c-247a-6474ead9a5a0"></strong></span></div>
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<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0nEGFxC7as">This conversation</a> brought together Colton Johnson, Principal Engineer at Flint Engineering Company; Aakash Prasad, Co-founder and CEO of InspectMind AI; and Simon G. Solorio, President of Solorio Inc. Much of the discussion centered on InspectMind AI's plan-checking tool, though the takeaways apply to any firm weighing this kind of software.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">In this article you&rsquo;ll see where AI plan review helps, where it falls short, and why a firm with weak internal processes will not get much out of it no matter how good the software gets.</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Reading a Pictorial Language</span></strong></h2>
<p dir="ltr">Plan review is not just about reading text. Construction documents carry meaning through symbols, callouts, line weights, and schedules that change from one project type to the next. An industrial set does not look like a large residential set. Every new hire has to learn how to read that visual system before they can review anything in it.</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><em>"Construction documents are a language, and on top of that they're a pictorial language. You're relying on graphic and visual cues to display the information, translating heavy analysis and code requirements into those pictures."</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>&mdash; Colton Johnson, Principal Engineer, Flint Engineering Company</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">Solorio described the second half of the problem: volume.&nbsp;</p>
<p dir="ltr">Even with tools like <a href="https://www.aecplustech.com/tools/revit">Revit</a> and virtual walk-throughs on Meta Quest headsets, engineers still check ever-changing building codes by hand and coordinate across disciplines. Holding hundreds of pages of drawings against dense architectural, structural, mechanical, and civil specifications is a cognitive load that does not scale. There is only so much one person can keep straight at once, and plan sets keep getting bigger.</p>
<p dir="ltr">That is the gap AI steps into. Not the design work or the engineering judgment, but the slow, repetitive cross-checking that wears people down and still lets errors slip through.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">A Third-Party Reviewer That Works Through Lunch</span></strong></p>
<figure class="image"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/bb52d8a0-3272-45e5-b6a9-e96e1717194f.png" alt="Errors missed in review surface on site, where fixes cost most." width="1080">
<figcaption spellcheck="false" data-qb-tmp-id="lt-8150" data-gramm="false"><em><span style="font-size: 15px;">Fig 2) <strong id="docs-internal-guid-f0f0d1bf-7fff-9eae-31ff-f65259db8b5c"></strong>Errors missed in review surface on site, where fixes cost most.&nbsp;</span></em></figcaption>
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<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">AI is a third-party reviewer. It&rsquo;s not a replacement for the engineer or the plan checker, but an extra set of eyes that never gets tired and never skips a page.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Prasad said InspectMind AI can typically review a 100- to 200-page project in one to two hours. In that window it catches discrepancies between drawings and specs, flags cross-discipline coordination issues, and checks against </span><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">selected/applicable codes and references. It surfaces a prioritized set of findings while the team continues other work.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">InspectMind AI has flagged a water main running straight into a 12-inch concrete pipe. It has caught a storm sewer drawn with no slope, which means it would never drain. These are the errors that hide on page 140 of a set and get expensive once they reach the field.&nbsp;</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><em><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"This isn't replacing your own diligence or your own quality of work. It's a useful automated review tool that helps you reduce risk and liability and improve quality overall."</span></em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">&mdash; Aakash Prasad, Co-founder and CEO, InspectMind AI&nbsp;</span></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The discussion was honest about the limits, too. AI still struggles to read the purely graphical parts of a drawing when there are no words or numbers to anchor it. That should improve over the next few years, but for now InspectMind AI is strongest where drawings, specs, and code references can be grounded and cited. Purely graphical meaning, where the intent lives only in the picture, is still an area where human review matters.</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">From Months of Back-and-Forth to Days&nbsp;</span></strong></h2>
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<figure class="image"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/c6175af5-f771-4066-a384-2d4991e7ce06.png" alt="InspectMind AI tags each finding by severity, discipline, and code." width="1080">
<figcaption><em><span style="font-size: 15px;">Fig 3) <strong id="docs-internal-guid-a13650af-7fff-54aa-3a87-16247998979a"></strong>InspectMind AI tags each finding by severity, discipline, and code.&nbsp;</span></em></figcaption>
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<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">A minor discrepancy on a drawing is not just a quality problem. It is a liability problem. Prasad pointed to ADA compliance as an example. A ramp drawn with a 2.2 percent slope instead of the required 2 percent maximum is a small number on a sheet and a frequent target for litigation. Catching it before construction starts is worth far more than the hour it saved.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The same logic runs downstream. Errors that survive review become Requests for Information (RFIs) and change orders once contractors are on site. Each one costs time and money and strains the client relationship. The financial case lives in catching those errors early.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">A church project in California shows how that plays out. The design firm ran its full drawing set <strong>(architecture, civil, structural, and specs)</strong> through InspectMind AI before submitting to the city. The AI flagged around 300 issues. The team fixed them first. When the city's review came back, the comments were mostly minor, and the firm closed them out in days rather than the weeks or months a project like this can take.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">That is the payoff that matters. Not the hours saved running the review, but the weeks of back-and-forth with the jurisdiction that never happened, and the rework that never reached the field.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><strong id="docs-internal-guid-27bb7de9-7fff-b993-eb42-f62df9819b79">Garbage In, Garbage Out Still Applies</strong></span></p>
<figure class="image"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/88271371-af97-4945-8f3f-0a5ee2295ce9.png" alt="AI only reflects the inputs it gets." width="1080">
<figcaption spellcheck="false" data-qb-tmp-id="lt-415377" data-gramm="false"><em><span style="font-size: 15px;">Fig 4) AI only reflects the inputs it gets.</span></em></figcaption>
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<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The strongest warning has always been against leaning on the tools too hard. The old 'garbage in, garbage out' rule still stands.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The software is powerful, but it sits on top of a firm's inputs, its standards, and the judgment of the people running it.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Solorio made the case for foundational knowledge. Junior engineers still need to learn the basics through hand calculations and free-body diagrams so they understand how loads travel and what a structural member is actually doing. Without that, an engineer cannot tell when the AI is wrong.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><em>"If you put in garbage, you're going to get out garbage, and that's still true with these new programs. If you put in something wrong, it gives you something wrong. You have to know the basics to know when it's giving you wrong information."</em></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><em>&mdash; Simon G. Solorio, President, Solorio Inc.</em></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Johnson framed the same idea as a sequence. He sees a working AI workflow as a three-tier system.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">A firm establishes good internal processes first. Then it introduces standard automations. Only then does it put AI at what he called the tip of the spear. Skip the first two steps and there is nothing solid for the AI to stand on. When a firm's drawing standards and inputs are inconsistent, there is no realistic way to scale an AI workflow on top of them.</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Own the Output</span></strong></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Accountability is the other side of this. When an engineer signs off on a design, they own it, whatever tools helped produce it.</span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"><em><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"The motto we live by with AI is own the output. Just because you have a cool tool doesn't mean you get to say that the tool is the reason something was wrong. You own the output."</span></em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">&mdash; Colton Johnson, Principal Engineer, Flint Engineering Company</span></em></p>
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<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">That has a practical edge. Johnson raised data security, pointing out that client information needs to stay protected under NDAs when a firm runs it through a third-party AI platform. Owning the output means owning the data path, too. Before uploading project documents, firms should evaluate the data path and the platform's NDA and security requirements. That is a question to settle before the first project goes up, not after.&nbsp;</span></p>
<h2 dir="ltr"><strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Built by the People Who Use It</span></strong></h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The panel closed on what actually makes these tools better, and the answer was feedback from the field rather than anything happening in a lab. Solorio and Johnson both pointed to the value of a simple thumbs up or thumbs down on each flagged issue. That input teaches the model the difference between a real problem and an irrelevant false positive, which is the difference between a tool engineers trust and one they learn to ignore.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Because AEC technology moves quickly, the tools that respond to this feedback can change almost daily. Johnson offered an example from a job site. He floated the idea of having the plan checker automatically generate a targeted field observation checklist based on the specific materials and structural elements it found in the drawings. Within hours, the development team had piloted a connection between the plan checker and a site inspection app.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">That speed of iteration is the point underneath the whole conversation.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The AI plan review tools that earn a place in AEC workflows will be the ones built and shaped by the people doing the work, not the ones that promise to do the thinking for them. The engineers on this panel were not looking for software to replace their judgment. They were looking for a reviewer that helps them protect it. That is a smaller promise than replacing an engineer, and a far more useful one.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr">&nbsp;</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">To learn more about InspectMind AI, visit InspectMind AI's <a href="../../../tools/inspectmind-ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>page on aec+tech</strong> </a>or explore the latest features and request access on the InspectMind AI's <a class="_ymio1r31 _ypr0glyw _zcxs1o36 _mizu194a _1ah3dkaa _ra3xnqa1 _128mdkaa _1cvmnqa1 _4davt94y _4bfu18uv _1hms8stv _ajmmnqa1 _vchhusvi _kqswh2mm _ect4ttxp _syaz13af _1a3b18uv _4fpr8stv _5goinqa1 _f8pj13af _9oik18uv _1bnxglyw _jf4cnqa1 _30l313af _1nrm18uv _c2waglyw _1iohnqa1 _9h8h12zz _10531ra0 _1ien1ra0 _n0fx1ra0 _1vhv17z1" title="https://www.inspectmind.ai/" href="https://www.inspectmind.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety"><strong data-renderer-mark="true">website</strong></a>.</span></p>
<hr>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Editor's Note</span></strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><img src="https://aecplustech-files.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/c3806924-0521-483d-b74d-a01f09ed330e.png" alt="Niknaz Aftahi" width="160" height="160"></span></strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">This article was independently reviewed and edited by Niknaz Aftahi, Founder of AEC+Tech, drawing on InspectMind AI's product documentation, direct conversation with the panel participants, and hands-on knowledge of plan review and QA/QC workflows. Figures drawn from the panel rather than published material were checked before publishing.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">&mdash; Niknaz Aftahi, Founder, AEC+Tech</span></p>
<p dir="ltr">&nbsp;</p>
<strong id="docs-internal-guid-f605f145-7fff-93d1-69b0-253c1e092ed5"></strong></div>

AI plan review saves hours, but engineers say the real payoff is fewer lawsuits, cleaner permit reviews, and errors caught before they reach the field.

AI Plan Review Isn't About Speed. It's About Staying Out of Court.

Trimble selected 15 AECO startups for its 2026 0-60 Challenge, supporting AI, robotics, and interoperability integrations across construction workflows.

The Next Generation of AECO Innovation: Meet the 2026 Trimble 0-60 Finalists

Learn how Ideate StyleManager, Explorer, and BIMLink reduce Revit inefficiencies with automated QA/QC workflows, cleanup tools, and bulk parameter editing.

How Ideate Software Improves Revit Data Management and QA/QC

Kestrel Labs embeds AI code compliance in the BIM model, using computable codes and Revit workflows for traceable results, less rework, and faster permitting.

How Kestrel Labs Is Bringing Code Compliance Inside the BIM Model

<p>Solibri, a Nemetschek Company, is the global leader in model quality, BIM validation, and digital quality assurance for the construction industry. Solibri helps architects, engineers, contractors, owners, infrastructure teams, and public-sector organizations ensure that digital building models are accurate, reliable, and ready for confident decision-making before construction begins.</p>
<p>Digital construction depends on trusted model data. As buildings and infrastructure projects become more complex, teams need more than visual model review. They need structured, repeatable quality assurance that verifies geometry, information, classification, coordination, and compliance across every project stage. Solibri embeds rule-based BIM validation into digital construction workflows, helping teams identify and resolve issues early, before they create costly rework, delays, or downstream risk.</p>
<p>With Solibri, project teams can check multidisciplinary BIM models systematically, detect clashes, validate data, review classifications, manage issues, and enforce project or organizational standards. This supports a more reliable model-based process where decisions are made using verified information rather than assumptions. By improving model quality before construction, Solibri helps teams strengthen collaboration, reduce financial exposure, protect schedules, and improve the quality of building information across the entire building lifecycle.</p>
<p>Solibri supports BIM quality assurance from design through long-term operations.</p>
<p>- In design and architecture, teams can validate models early to prevent inconsistencies before coordination begins. <br>- In BIM coordination, Solibri helps multidisciplinary teams detect clashes, verify standards, and align around trusted model data. <br>- During construction and handover, validated BIM information supports contractors in planning, delivery, documentation, and project handover. <br>- In operation and maintenance, accurate model data helps owners and facility managers maintain buildings and infrastructure more efficiently over time.</p>
<p>The Solibri platform is available through a structured product portfolio designed for different levels of BIM maturity, team size, and validation needs.</p>
<p>- Solibri Starter gives individual professionals and small teams reliable IFC model review, federation, visual inspection, and model-based communication. <br>- Solibri Essential adds structured clash detection, predefined rule-based model checking, baseline information validation, BCF issue management, and CDE integrations for project teams formalizing coordination workflows. <br>- Solibri Advanced enables organizations to enforce digital quality standards across projects with custom rules, clash detection matrix control, IDS workflows, Quantity and Information Takeoff, repeatable validation practices, and automation-ready workflows. <br>- Solibri Premium supports portfolio-level governance, compliance assurance, scalable automation, point cloud checking, centralized validation frameworks, AI-powered assistance, and extended IDS management.</p>
<p>For secure and regulated environments, Solibri Security+ provides fully offline, air-gapped validation for government, defense, and sovereign infrastructure use cases.</p>
<p>Built on openBIM, interoperability, and decades of BIM quality assurance expertise, Solibri integrates into connected digital construction ecosystems and supports collaboration across disciplines, organizations, and project phases. Active in over 100 countries, Solibri serves construction developers, infrastructure projects, design and engineering teams, contractors, owners, and public authorities working with digital permitting and model-based project delivery.</p>
<p>By raising the standard for model quality and information reliability in BIM, Solibri helps the construction industry move from reactive issue resolution to proactive quality assurance. Solibri enables teams to reduce rework, improve collaboration, ensure compliance, and deliver better buildings and infrastructure through trusted digital models.</p>

Solibri

Solibri is a Nemetschek Company and the global leader in BIM model validation and digital construction quality assurance, helping project teams reduce rework, ensure compliance, and deliver better buildings through trusted digital models.

Unanet Company Overview

Unanet is a leading provider of AI-first ERP and growth software for project-based businesses, with a strong focus on architecture, engineering, and construction firms. Built specifically for the way AEC companies operate, Unanet helps organizations manage the full lifecycle of work — from business development and client relationships to project delivery, financial management, and long-term growth.

Built for the Way AEC Firms Work

AEC firms face a unique set of challenges. They need to balance project delivery, staffing, utilization, profitability, client relationships, and business development — often across multiple systems that do not work well together. Unanet is designed to solve that problem by giving firms a purpose-built platform that connects the critical parts of the business in one place.

Rather than forcing AEC companies to adapt to generic enterprise software, Unanet delivers technology tailored to the realities of project-based work. That means better visibility, stronger collaboration, and faster decision-making across teams.

One Connected Platform for Better Visibility

Unanet helps unify financials, projects, and pursuits in a single intelligent environment. With built-in automation and real-time visibility, leaders can monitor project performance, understand resource needs, track profitability, and make informed decisions using current data instead of outdated reports or manual spreadsheets.

For AEC firms, this kind of connectivity matters. Margins, timelines, staffing levels, and client expectations are tightly linked, and even small gaps in visibility can affect performance. By bringing essential business functions together, Unanet helps firms operate more efficiently while creating a stronger foundation for growth.

ERP Designed for Project-Based Operations

A major part of Unanet’s AEC offering is its ERP solution for architecture and engineering firms. The platform is built to support the operational and financial needs of project-based organizations through capabilities that help teams manage:

Prospects and project pipelines
Active projects and resource plans
Time and expense tracking
Accounting and financials
Reporting and analytics

The result is a shared source of truth for project managers, finance leaders, and business development teams. Instead of working in silos, teams can align around the same data to improve planning, execution, and profitability. For firms looking to gain tighter control over utilization, staffing, and project-based accounting without adding unnecessary complexity, Unanet provides a modern, easy-to-use solution.

CRM That Supports Growth

In addition to ERP, Unanet offers CRM capabilities built specifically for the AEC market. Its CRM platform is designed to help firms strengthen relationship management, improve pipeline visibility, and support more strategic pursuit decisions.

For marketing and business development teams, this means easier access to the client, project, and opportunity data needed to create stronger proposals and presentations. For firm leaders, it means better insight into where opportunities are coming from, how relationships are developing, and which pursuits are most likely to drive profitable growth.

Practical AI for Smarter Decisions

Unanet’s position in the market is also shaped by its focus on AI and smart technology. The company’s AI-first approach is centered on practical automation, faster insights, and better business decisions. For AEC firms, that is especially relevant in an environment where teams are expected to do more with fewer resources while maintaining high standards for delivery and performance.

Rather than treating AI as a standalone add-on, Unanet presents it as a layer of intelligence built into the way the business works. This helps teams streamline tasks, improve forecasting, and focus more time on high-value work across project delivery, marketing, finance, and operations.

Trusted by Thousands of Project-Driven Firms

Unanet’s scale reinforces its position as a trusted technology partner. The company states that more than 4,200 government contractor, architecture, engineering, and construction firms rely on Unanet to help manage projects, financials, and growth. In addition to software, Unanet emphasizes customer success, training, integrations, and related services that support firms through implementation, adoption, and long-term improvement.

Supporting the Future of AEC

At its core, Unanet is focused on helping project-based businesses unlock productivity and perform at a higher level. That mission aligns closely with the AEC industry, where firms are responsible for designing, engineering, and building the environments that shape communities and industries.

Overall, Unanet positions itself as more than a software provider. It is a strategic partner for AEC firms that want connected systems, stronger operational visibility, smarter growth tools, and technology built specifically for the demands of project-based business.

Unanet

Unanet is an AI-first ERP and CRM platform purpose-built for government contractors and architecture, engineering, and construction firms. It unifies project management, financials, resource planning, and business development in one system.



Empowering the Built World Through Technology, Expertise, and Innovation

With more than three decades of innovation and a global footprint spanning 13 countries, Graitec stands as a recognized leader in software solutions that accelerate digital transformation for the Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC), and Manufacturing industries. Since its founding, Graitec has remained focused on empowering firms to design, build, manufacture, and operate more efficiently through advanced digital workflows, automation, and intelligent data-driven tools.

As a long-standing Autodesk Platinum Partner—and one of the largest Autodesk partners globally—Graitec delivers industry-leading software, consulting expertise, and technical support to help teams maximize their investments in Autodesk solutions such as Revit, Autodesk Construction Cloud, AutoCAD, Inventor, Fusion, and Civil 3D. Through comprehensive implementation services, training programs, workflow optimization, and digital advisory, Graitec helps organizations adopt and scale technology with confidence.

Over the past decade, Graitec has evolved from a regional Autodesk reseller to a global technology and innovation leader. A defining part of this expansion has been strategic acquisitions, including Microsol Resources in New York—known for its deep BIM expertise and high-touch client engagement—and Applied Software, a premier Autodesk reseller based in Atlanta. Today, both companies operate under the unified identity of Graitec North America, delivering the combined capabilities of a global organization with the personalized service of a trusted local partner.

Innovation sits at the core of Graitec’s strategy. With a team of more than 200 in-house developers, the company continuously advances its growing portfolio of proprietary technologies designed to complement, enhance, and extend Autodesk and industry workflows. Graitec’s ecosystem of solutions includes:

Ideate Software – A suite of Revit plugins used globally to improve model health, auditing, and productivity.

Strucsoft MWF and Onyx – Industry-leading software for wood and light gauge steel framing workflows, supporting both design and fabrication.

Advance Design – A powerful structural analysis and design platform for reinforced concrete, steel, and timber.

Advance Workshop – A steel and sheet metal fabrication management solution connecting design and manufacturing.

Graitec Data Connect – A platform enabling secure data transfer, automation, and system interoperability within Autodesk and BIM environments.

Together, this portfolio enables greater automation, standardization, and efficiency across every project stage—from concept design and engineering through prefabrication, digital coordination, construction, and facility operations.

What sets Graitec apart is its unique position at the intersection of technology development and expert professional services. Our teams include architects, engineers, fabrication specialists, BIM/VDC managers, and manufacturing technologists—professionals who understand industry challenges because they have worked through them firsthand. This alignment of real-world experience and technical capability enables Graitec to deliver actionable guidance, not just software.

Today, organizations across North America and Europe rely on Graitec as a strategic partner for digital transformation. Whether supporting a single office adopting BIM workflows or a global enterprise scaling connected cloud technology and industrialized construction practices, Graitec delivers proven solutions that improve productivity, reduce risk, and support long-term sustainability goals.

As the AEC and manufacturing sectors continue to evolve—driven by digital twins, artificial intelligence, robotics, and sustainable construction—Graitec remains committed to helping the industry build a smarter, more efficient, and more resilient future.

Applied Software Technology, Graitec

Graitec is a global AEC and manufacturing software leader, and an Autodesk and Bluebeam Platinum Partner. With operations in 13 countries and strategic acquisitions across North America—including Applied Software and Microsol Resources—Graitec delivers expert services and innovative tools that empower professionals to design, build, and collaborate smarter and faster.

Pirros is the AI project hub for architects and engineers. Our mission is simple: make managing projects easier for firms. We learned that we can reduce the burden of producing hundreds of details per project by giving designers instant access to everything their firm has developed in the past. Rather than spending hours digging through cluttered folders on a server or rebuilding details that already exist somewhere in the archive, Pirros centralizes every detail a firm has produced and makes them accessible with a simple search.

Pirros was started by two structural engineers turned entrepreneurs. Ari and Peter spent time at a handful of different design firms and kept experiencing the same problems when it came to detail management and retrieval. They watched experienced designers waste hours hunting for content the firm had already paid to produce, and they watched institutional knowledge walk out the door every time someone left. The technology industry has overlooked the AE design space and the strategic importance of details to a firm's success. Pirros is on a mission to change that.

With unified data and context across projects and teams, plus built-in quality control, Pirros reduces documentation production time and downstream RFI risks so teams can focus on craftsmanship rather than operations. The platform grows more valuable the longer a firm uses it. Every new project feeds the system. Every search, every approval, every reuse makes the next decision faster and more informed. Standards stop being a static PDF that nobody reads and start being a living library teams actually rely on. Mistakes caught in one office benefit every other office, and new hires ramp up faster because the firm's best work is visible from day one.

The four pillars of Pirros:

1. No upfront work. Upload and instantly search across projects without the upfront effort of manual tagging or naming conventions. Powered by a direct ACC integration, firms get tens of thousands of details and families onto Pirros within 24 hours. There is no months-long curation effort before the platform starts producing value.

2. Search by composition, not tag. Find details and families based on what the element actually is, not what its tags say. Powered by a proprietary blend of AI, computer vision, and OCR, Pirros indexes content by geometry, annotations, parameters, and visual composition. A designer searching for "curtain wall head" finds the right detail regardless of how it was named.

3. Share universally. Share Revit details and families as universal PDFs with colleagues and partners outside of Revit, accelerating collaboration, content approvals, and new hire onboarding. The platform extends beyond the BIM team to consultants, contractors, and anyone else who needs to review or comment on a detail.

4. Built-in QA workflows. Review and approve standard content that is automatically surfaced based on analytics across projects. Approval workflows are built into the platform instead of relying on committee reviews and email chains. Standards evolve where the work happens.

Pirros is backed by Y Combinator, SOC 2 certified, and trusted by leading architecture and engineering firms across North America, Australia, and the UK.

Pirros

Pirros is the AI project hub for architects and engineers. Find, compare, reuse and standardize Revit details and families across every project, team and office.

Company Overview

Flying Buttress is a specialized managed services provider serving architecture, engineering, and construction firms that rely on complex workflows, high-performance computing, and collaboration across distributed teams. Founded in 2010, the firm was built to address a gap in the market: AED organizations often outgrow generic IT providers but struggle to find partners who understand the operational realities of design and delivery environments.

Rather than positioning itself as a generalist IT vendor, Flying Buttress operates as a vertical-focused technology partner. The company’s work centers on aligning infrastructure, security, and systems architecture with the business objectives of leadership teams. Clients typically engage Flying Buttress when they need more than technical support — they need strategic guidance that supports growth, resilience, and modernization.

Vertical Specialization

Flying Buttress focuses specifically on the AED (Architects/Engineers/Designers) sector, which brings unique demands: large file performance, collaboration platforms, hybrid work environments, data governance, compliance considerations, and uptime requirements tied directly to project delivery. The firm’s specialization enables it to design solutions around tools such as CAD/BIM platforms, rendering workloads, document management systems, and cross-office collaboration models rather than forcing AED firms into generic IT templates.

This vertical depth allows Flying Buttress to speak the language of firm principals, operations leaders, and executive teams — not just IT managers.

Services and Capabilities

Flying Buttress delivers a comprehensive range of services designed for professional services firms that depend on reliable technology:

Managed IT services and infrastructure oversight

Cybersecurity strategy, implementation, and risk reduction

Cloud and hybrid architecture design

Strategic technology advisory for leadership teams

Business continuity and disaster recovery planning

Compliance-aligned security practices

Systems optimization for design and collaboration workflows

The firm emphasizes proactive management and long-term alignment rather than reactive support. Client engagements are typically structured as a joint effort rather than transactional vendor relationships.

Strategic Orientation

A defining characteristic of Flying Buttress is its emphasis on executive-level thinking. The firm’s approach treats technology as a business enabler, not merely a utility. This includes:

Translating technical risks into business risk

Supporting leadership decision-making around growth, mergers, and operational scale

Helping firms modernize legacy environments without disrupting productivity

Prioritizing resilience, security posture, and operational maturity

This orientation makes Flying Buttress particularly relevant to firm owners, managing partners, and C-suite leaders who view technology as part of their competitive advantage.

Reputation and Client Relationships

Flying Buttress has built its reputation through long-term client relationships rather than high-volume churn. Clients tend to stay engaged because the firm demonstrates a clear understanding of their industry, their workflows, and their strategic pressures. The company’s growth has been driven primarily through reputation, referrals, and repeat engagements.

Leadership and Perspective

Flying Buttress’s leadership brings both technical experience and a broader intellectual perspective to the firm’s work. This informs Flying Buttress’s positioning not just as a technical provider, but as a thoughtful participant in conversations about the future of work, professional services, technology ethics, and digital transformation.

Market Position

Flying Buttress occupies a deliberate niche:
Not a mass-market MSP.
Not a commodity helpdesk provider.
But a focused, specialized technology partner for AED firms that need depth, not volume.

This positioning allows us to compete on expertise, clarity, and trust rather than price compression.

Flying Buttress

Flying Buttress is an AEC-focused MSP providing managed IT, cybersecurity, and executive-level technology strategy for firms that need their infrastructure to support real-world design and delivery demands

Vavetek AI is a SAAS startup, developing AI co-pilots to help building developers and turnkey contractors to audit and optimize the design of principal engineer at super fast speed to save cost of construction within deadlines.

Our first product, BAMROC, is a patent-protected AI-Copilot that automatically resolves and removes clashes in BIM. BAMROC has already attracted interest from many of the largest global engineering and construction firms.

BAMROC, is 11x faster than manual BIM methods for clash resolution and offer up to 500% ROI in direct manpower savings. It helps principal architects resolve clashes, optimize building height and remove space wastage, leading to major savings in construction costs.

Beyond speed, BAMROC is designed to help principal architects and engineers achieve better design outcomes. The AI does not simply “push elements out of the way”; it resolves clashes while considering building height, space usage, and routing efficiency. This leads to reduced space wastage, more efficient ceiling voids, and opportunities to optimize building height and construction costs without compromising core design intent. BAMROC becomes a true co-pilot: it suggests and executes clash-free, system-aware design changes, while the human expert remains in full control of approvals.

To support the full clash workflow, Vavetek AI offers two additional products:

BAMDOC is an advanced BIM plugin focused on seamless MEP clash detection. It delivers high-quality detection with automated report generation and an intuitive user experience. BAMDOC is built for BIM coordinators and engineers who want reliable, repeatable clash results with less manual setup and post-processing.

CRDR BIM is a streamlined Navisworks plugin that simplifies the creation of Clash Resolution Diagnosis Reports. It turns raw clash data into structured, easy-to-understand reports that clearly communicate which clashes matter, how they can be resolved, and what the impact is on design coordination. This is especially useful for project teams that need consistent documentation for clients, consultants, and contractors.

Together, BAMDOC (detect), BAMROC (resolve), and CRDR BIM (report) form an integrated AI-powered workflow that addresses the end-to-end lifecycle of BIM clashes, from detection to resolution to communication.

Vavetek AI is a global pioneer headquartered in Singapore, transforming the construction landscape through advanced AI technology.

We deliver AI-powered solutions that redefine building design from the ground up. Our reach spans continents, ensuring that wherever you are, you have access to cutting-edge tools designed audit building designs, optimize efficiency, enhance sustainability, and improve user comfort.

BAMROC is just the first step in this roadmap. Vavetek AI is now building on this foundation with a focused roadmap of three additional AI co-pilots. The company plans to capitalize on large global opportunities in value engineering to further save cost of construction across multiple disciplines:

AI Copilot for Global Structure Design Optimization and Audit
AI Copilot for Global Air Conditioning Design Optimization and Audit
AI Copilot for Global Façade Design Optimization and Audit

Our vision at Vavetek AI is to build the most trusted AI co-pilots for the built environment, auditing, optimizing, and automating workflows from design review and clash resolution to reporting and compliance, so projects are on-time, lean, and waste-free.

Vavetek AI

Vavetek AI is a SAAS startup, developing AI co-pilots to help building developers and turnkey contractors to audit and optimize the design of principal engineer at super fast speed to save cost of construction within deadlines.

<h2>About Hazenberg</h2>
<p>Hazenberg is a Dutch developing contractor - an <em>ontwikkelende bouwer</em> - and part of the TBI group, one of the Netherlands' major technical and construction groups. Rather than acting purely as a builder taking instructions from a developer, Hazenberg originates, develops, builds and upgrades homes and buildings itself. Its stated purpose is to create pleasant living environments that connect building, people and nature, and to raise the quality of life of the people who live in them.</p>
<h2>Three Core Activities</h2>
<h3>Development (Ontwikkelen)</h3>
<p>The company develops residential and mixed-use schemes from concept through to delivery, taking positions on land and shaping the brief rather than inheriting it. Projects such as Onze Tuinen in Roosendaal show this development-led model in practice.</p>
<h3>Construction (Bouwen)</h3>
<p>Hazenberg builds new apartments and buildings across the southern Netherlands, with recent projects including Arbor in Nijmegen and Poort van Stappegoor in Tilburg.</p>
<h3>Renovation and Sustainability Upgrades (Verduurzamen)</h3>
<p>A dedicated strand of work focuses on renovating and decarbonising existing housing stock - for example the Redemptoristenstraat project in Tilburg. In a country with an ageing housing stock and binding national climate targets, retrofit is now as commercially significant as new build.</p>
<h2>Sustainability Focus</h2>
<p>Sustainability sits at the centre of the business rather than at its margins. The company reports a very high proportion of sustainable concrete in its work - a meaningful commitment, since concrete accounts for a large share of the embodied carbon in Dutch residential construction. Alongside material choices, Hazenberg pursues future-proof buildings through construction innovation, aiming to contribute to a healthier world for present and future generations.</p>
<h2>Guiding Principles</h2>
<p>Four course-setting themes guide the practice, beginning with the idea of a strong society: communities are not built from bricks but from social structures and the connections between people and their surroundings. That framing explains the firm's emphasis on neighbourhood quality, shared space and long-term liveability rather than unit counts alone.</p>
<h2>Approach</h2>
<p>Hazenberg describes itself as creative, entrepreneurial and driven, drawing on proven natural principles where useful while remaining curious about new applications and innovations. Its stated greatest strength is looking beyond the client's immediate question to the underlying need - a consultative posture unusual among contractors.</p>
<h2>Part of TBI</h2>
<p>Membership of the TBI group gives Hazenberg access to sister companies across construction, installation technology and infrastructure, alongside the financial stability of a large parent. For clients, that means a regional builder's proximity combined with group-level technical resources.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Hazenberg competes in the Dutch residential and mixed-use market as an integrated developer-builder with genuine sustainability credentials. In a market where housing delivery targets and nitrogen and carbon regulation now shape what can be permitted, that combination of development capability and low-carbon construction expertise is a strong position.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know Hazenberg</h2>
<p>For teams tracking European housing delivery, retrofit at scale or low-carbon concrete adoption, Hazenberg is a useful example of how a mid-sized contractor can integrate development, construction and decarbonisation across the built environment.</p>

Hazenberg, part of TBI, is a Dutch developing contractor delivering new homes, mixed-use buildings and sustainable renovation with low-carbon construction metho

Hazenberg (TBI) | Dutch Developing Contractor

TBI Hazenberg Bouw

Hazenberg developed Vredeoord in collaboration with Sint Trudo: a special neighborhood with about 250 homes. 

Hazenberg, part of TBI, is a Dutch developing contractor building and renovating homes and buildings, combining project development, construction and sustainable retrofit with a strong focus on low-carbon concrete and healthy living environments.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>Taisei Corporation is one of Japan's leading general contractors, incorporated in December 1917 and headquartered at 1-25-1 Nishi-Shinjuku in Tokyo. The company employs approximately 9,500 people and operates through a national network of branches covering Sapporo, Sendai, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Yokohama, Niigata, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Takamatsu and Fukuoka, alongside a dedicated International Operations Headquarters.</p>
<h2>Core Business Areas</h2>
<h3>Building Construction</h3>
<p>Taisei designs and builds offices, hotels, hospitals, cultural facilities, industrial plants and residential developments. Projects such as The Okura Tokyo illustrate the standard of work at the top of the Japanese market, where craftsmanship expectations and seismic requirements are both exceptionally demanding.</p>
<h3>Civil Engineering</h3>
<p>A separate Tokyo Civil Engineering Branch reflects how substantial this side of the business is. Work covers tunnels, bridges, dams, ports, railways and urban infrastructure - including projects such as the Tokyo Umi no Mori Tunnel.</p>
<h3>Real Estate Development</h3>
<p>The company develops and invests in property in its own right, giving it exposure to asset performance rather than construction margin alone.</p>
<h3>Engineering and Group Services</h3>
<p>Taisei Group companies extend the business into specialist engineering, facility management and related services across the asset lifecycle.</p>
<h2>Technology and Research</h2>
<p>The Taisei Advanced Center of Technology gives the company a substantial in-house research capability - a defining feature of the major Japanese contractors, which invest in R&amp;D at a level uncommon among Western builders. Its best-known output is T-eConcrete with Carbon-Recycling, a carbon-recycled concrete developed to cut the embodied emissions of one of the most carbon-intensive materials in construction. Related initiatives include the CDE3 Company concept and its New Normal Architecture programme.</p>
<h2>Overseas Operations</h2>
<p>Taisei has a long record of international work delivered through its International Operations Headquarters and overseas network, spanning infrastructure and building projects across Asia and beyond. That history gives the firm experience of financing structures, joint ventures and local partnerships well outside the Japanese domestic model.</p>
<h2>Strategy: TAISEI VISION 2030</h2>
<p>The company's direction is set by TAISEI VISION 2030 and its associated Medium-Term Business Plan for 2024 to 2026, which frame targets around business performance, sustainability and technology adoption. Its stated theme - comfortable connections creating new lifestyles - reflects a shift from delivering buildings toward shaping how places are used.</p>
<h2>Sustainability and Governance</h2>
<p>Sustainability is organised around environmental, social and governance pillars, with decarbonisation of materials and construction processes as a central technical challenge. Corporate governance, disclosure and integrated reporting are handled to the standard expected of a listed Japanese company.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Taisei sits among the largest general contractors in Japan, competing directly with the other major national builders. Its combination of building construction, civil engineering, development and deep in-house research is a structural advantage that few contractors anywhere can match.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know Taisei</h2>
<p>For anyone tracking low-carbon concrete, seismic design or contractor-led research and development, Taisei is one of the most important companies to follow in the global built environment.</p>

Taisei Corporation is a leading Japanese general contractor delivering building construction, civil engineering, development and low-carbon concrete technology 

Taisei Corporation | Japanese General Contractor

Taisei Corporation

Taisei Corporation is a leading Japanese general contractor delivering building construction, civil engineering, real estate development and engineering services in Japan and overseas, with strong research capability in low-carbon concrete and advanced construction technology.

<h2>About SWA Group</h2>
<p>SWA Group is a landscape architecture, planning and urban design practice structured as a unified collective of eight independent studios. More than fifty years ago it became one of the first fully employee-owned design firms in the United States - an unusual model then and still uncommon today. That structure shapes everything about how the firm works: individual studios retain their own character and leadership while sharing a collective vision.</p>
<h2>Design Philosophy</h2>
<p>Three beliefs run through the practice. Landscape is essential infrastructure - the bridge between the built and natural worlds, central to healthy communities and ecosystems rather than decoration applied at the end of a project. Ideas and innovation drive reinvention, with new technologies and materials tested against a long legacy of built work. And the business itself is plural rather than singular: in an industry often organised around one name and one philosophy, SWA is deliberately many.</p>
<h2>Services</h2>
<h3>Landscape Architecture</h3>
<p>Studios work across scales, geographies and contexts, from large multifunctional public spaces to small intimate sites. Research into materials, lifestyles and landscape technologies informs the work, combined with close study of how people actually use outdoor space.</p>
<h3>Planning</h3>
<p>Planning is treated as a framework for long-term transformation, balancing short-term benefit against the long view. The firm helps clients grow urban districts, campuses, workplaces, transit-oriented developments and waterfronts into places that flourish and adapt over decades.</p>
<h3>Urban Design</h3>
<p>Urban design work connects buildings, streets, open space and movement into coherent districts, often as the connective tissue between separate development parcels.</p>
<h2>Notable Projects</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Hunters Point South Park</strong>, New York - a resilient waterfront park designed to flood and recover</li>
<li><strong>Buffalo Bayou Park</strong>, Houston - large-scale urban bayou restoration and public realm</li>
<li><strong>Expo 2020</strong>, Dubai - landscape for a global exposition site</li>
<li><strong>Bao'an Bay Park</strong>, Shenzhen, China</li>
<li><strong>Pacific Plaza and Southern Gateway Park</strong>, Dallas</li>
<li><strong>Culver Steps</strong>, Culver City, California</li>
<li><strong>Shunde New City and Dongguan Delta City</strong>, China - large district plans</li>
<li><strong>Port of Los Angeles, The Cannery and Esencia</strong>, California</li>
</ul>
<h2>Resilience and Ecology</h2>
<p>Much of the portfolio addresses water directly - bayous, bays, waterfronts and floodplains - where landscape must absorb storm events rather than resist them. This is where the claim that landscape is infrastructure becomes concrete: these projects perform hydrological work that would otherwise require hard engineering, while also serving as public parks.</p>
<h2>Global Practice</h2>
<p>SWA works across the United States, China and the Middle East, giving its studios experience of very different climates, densities and planning systems. Chinese district-scale commissions in particular operate at a scale rarely available in North American practice.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>SWA is among the most established landscape architecture firms in the United States, competing on ecological rigour, large-scale planning capability and a distinctive employee-owned studio model that retains senior designers over long careers.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know SWA</h2>
<p>For teams working on waterfronts, parks, campuses or transit-oriented development, SWA offers a leading reference for resilient landscape design and long-horizon district planning across the built environment.</p>

SWA Group is an employee-owned landscape architecture, planning and urban design firm creating resilient parks, waterfronts, campuses and urban districts worldw

SWA Group | Landscape Architecture & Urban Design

SWA Group

SWA Group is an employee-owned collective of eight landscape architecture, planning and urban design studios, creating parks, waterfronts, campuses, transit-oriented districts and public realm projects across the United States, China and the Middle East.

<h2>About Studio Rick Joy</h2>
<p>Studio Rick Joy is an architecture, interior design and planning practice based in Tucson, Arizona. Rick Joy has led the studio since 1993 as a cooperative practice, working on projects around the globe from a base at 400 South Rubio Avenue in Tucson's historic centre. The team is deliberately small - around fifteen designers, architects, project managers and specialists - which allows principals to remain directly involved in every commission.</p>
<h2>Design Philosophy</h2>
<p>The studio's values come from an environment where creativity and discovery sit alongside expertise and experience. Its work is described as the result of comprehensive observation and a generosity of approach - a way of saying that design begins with looking hard at a place before proposing anything for it.</p>
<p>Three ideas recur throughout the work: exactitude, details that support ideas rather than decorate them, and a respect for the origins of craft. The aim is architecture that lives well in its surroundings and becomes a stage for daily life, rather than an object competing with its setting.</p>
<h2>Services</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Architecture</strong> - private residences, hotels and resorts, civic and transit buildings</li>
<li><strong>Interior design</strong> - fully integrated interiors, furniture and fittings</li>
<li><strong>Planning</strong> - site and master planning for resorts, campuses and residential estates</li>
<li><strong>Lighting and interior consultancy</strong> - led by senior specialists within the studio</li>
</ul>
<h2>Notable Projects</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Amangiri Resort and Spa</strong> - a desert resort in Utah that became one of the most published hospitality buildings of its generation</li>
<li><strong>One&amp;Only Mandarina Resort</strong> - a luxury resort on Mexico's Pacific coast</li>
<li><strong>Princeton Transit Hall and Market</strong> - a public transit and retail building for Princeton University</li>
<li><strong>Tucson Mountain House, Desert Nomad House, Tubac House and Catalina House</strong> - the Sonoran Desert residences that established the studio's reputation</li>
<li><strong>Woodstock Vermont Farm, Sun Valley House and Lone Mountain Ranch House</strong> - rural and mountain residences in very different climates</li>
<li><strong>New York Loft and Le Cabanon</strong> - urban and small-scale interventions</li>
<li><strong>400 Rubio Avenue and Convent Studios</strong> - the studio's own Tucson buildings</li>
</ul>
<h2>Material and Regional Expertise</h2>
<p>The studio's early work made rammed earth, weathering steel and board-formed concrete part of the contemporary desert vocabulary. Those materials were chosen for performance as much as appearance: high thermal mass, resistance to intense sun and minimal maintenance in an arid climate. The same reasoning is now applied in Mexico, Vermont, Idaho and elsewhere, with the palette changing while the method remains constant.</p>
<h2>Hospitality and Resort Design</h2>
<p>Resort work has become a significant part of the practice. Projects such as Amangiri and One&amp;Only Mandarina demonstrate how a landscape-first approach - burying, screening and fragmenting built volume - can deliver luxury accommodation without dominating an extraordinary site.</p>
<h2>Culture and Values</h2>
<p>The studio states a commitment to cultural diversity, inclusion and equality, hiring talent from around the world and working to build an inclusive workplace. For a practice of this size, that international mix is a meaningful part of how it approaches unfamiliar climates and cultures.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Studio Rick Joy occupies the space small design-led practices earn through consistency rather than scale: it competes for high-value residential and hospitality commissions internationally on the strength of its material craft and site sensitivity.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know Studio Rick Joy</h2>
<p>For architects and clients interested in climate-responsive design, rammed earth and other low-tech high-mass construction, the studio remains one of the most instructive practices in the built environment.</p>

Studio Rick Joy is a Tucson architecture, interiors and planning practice known for desert houses, resorts such as Amangiri, and site-sensitive material craft.

Studio Rick Joy | Tucson Architecture & Interiors

Studio Rick Joy

Studio Rick Joy is a Tucson-based architecture, interiors and planning practice known for site-sensitive desert houses, hotels and civic buildings, working internationally with an emphasis on craft, materiality and the spirit of each place.

<h2>About Studio Link-Arc</h2>
<p>Studio Link-Arc, LLC is an international team of architects and designers based in New York City. The practice works with collaborators across architecture, urbanism, infrastructure and the spatial arts, and states plainly that research and collaboration form the basis for design. Its name explains its ambition: to link information, intelligence and resources worldwide in order to explore the problems of the modern age.</p>
<h2>Practice Model</h2>
<p>The studio operates as a connective hub rather than a conventional hierarchical office. Projects are assembled around the specific expertise a problem requires, drawing in engineers, artists, landscape designers and researchers as full collaborators. That structure allows a relatively compact team to take on work at a scale usually reserved for much larger firms.</p>
<h2>Notable Projects</h2>
<p>The studio's best-known work is the China Pavilion for Expo Milano 2015, a widely published building whose undulating timber roof and open plan drew directly on agricultural landscape imagery. Beyond that, the portfolio spans a wide range of building types across China and the United States.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Cultural</strong> - Wuzhong Museum, Nanjing Art Center, Shenzhen Literature and Art Center, Xichang Animation Museum, Yangtze Culture Center</li>
<li><strong>Education</strong> - Cuizhu Foreign Language School, Qianhai Guiwan School, Yinhu Future School, The Loop Kindergarten, SHSID Hongkou Campus, NSFL School</li>
<li><strong>Civic and community</strong> - The Cloud Civic Center, Luhu Cultural Center, Dasha River Culture and Sports Center</li>
<li><strong>Commercial and workplace</strong> - OCT Tower, Nanshan Tech Park, The Cloud Commercial Complex, 673 Fifth Avenue in New York</li>
<li><strong>Landscape and public realm</strong> - Yunlu Wetland Gallery, Tanglangshan View Deck, Wuhan Wanhua Lakeside Gallery, Shenzhen Bay</li>
<li><strong>Masterplanning</strong> - Shenzhen Dachong master plan and related urban frameworks</li>
</ul>
<h2>Design Approach</h2>
<p>Research precedes form. Projects typically begin with an investigation of site, climate, programme and cultural context, and the resulting buildings tend to be materially direct and spatially generous rather than stylistically branded. The studio's interest in infrastructure and spatial arts also means it treats landscape, structure and public circulation as design material rather than as consultant scope.</p>
<h2>US-China Practice</h2>
<p>Working simultaneously in New York and across Chinese cities requires fluency in two very different regulatory, procurement and construction cultures. Chinese projects often move at extraordinary speed and at large scale, while US work operates under different code and delivery norms. The studio's bilingual, bicultural structure is a genuine competitive advantage in this space.</p>
<h2>Scale of Work</h2>
<p>Commissions range from a restaurant interior and a mushroom-brick pavilion to museums, schools, towers and district master plans. That breadth reflects the practice's stated interest in innovative projects at all scales, and gives its designers unusually varied exposure across the built environment.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Studio Link-Arc occupies the space between an internationally recognised design studio and a delivery-capable architecture office, competing on conceptual strength and cross-cultural capability rather than on volume.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know Studio Link-Arc</h2>
<p>For architects and clients interested in cultural buildings, contemporary school design or US-China project delivery, the studio offers a compelling model of research-led, collaborative practice.</p>
<h2>Recognition</h2>
<p>The studio maintains an active awards and press record, with its Expo Milano pavilion and several Chinese cultural and education buildings widely published internationally. That visibility has helped a relatively small practice secure invitations to significant public competitions.</p>
<h2>Working With the Studio</h2>
<p>Clients include municipal governments, cultural institutions, school authorities, developers and technology campuses. Engagements typically run from competition or feasibility stage through design development, with local design institutes handling documentation and site services on Chinese projects - a delivery model that requires clear early definition of design intent.</p>

Studio Link-Arc is a New York architecture practice designing cultural, education, civic and mixed-use projects across the US and China through research-led col

Studio Link-Arc | New York Architecture Practice

Studio Link-Arc

Studio Link-Arc is a New York-based international architecture practice working across cultural, educational, civic and mixed-use projects in the US and China, with research-led design spanning architecture, urbanism, infrastructure and spatial arts.

<h2>About SSH</h2>
<p>SSH is one of the leading architecture and engineering consultancies in the Middle East and Africa. Established in 1961, the firm now employs more than 1,000 people across offices in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. More than six decades of continuous regional practice give it a depth of local knowledge that international firms entering the market cannot easily replicate.</p>
<h2>Core Services</h2>
<h3>Master Planning</h3>
<p>Large-scale planning for new districts, business parks, mixed-use communities and city extensions, covering land use, movement, infrastructure capacity and phasing across long delivery programmes.</p>
<h3>Building Design</h3>
<p>Full architectural and engineering design for commercial, residential, hospitality, healthcare, education, retail and civic buildings, from concept through tender documentation.</p>
<h3>Infrastructure</h3>
<p>Roads, drainage, utilities, marine works and public realm engineering - the systems that make new developments viable before any building rises above ground.</p>
<h3>Construction Supervision</h3>
<p>Site supervision and contract administration, a service in high demand across the region where clients often require an independent consultant to protect quality, cost and programme through construction.</p>
<h2>Regional Footprint</h2>
<p>Operating across seven countries in the MEA region allows SSH to move expertise between markets while maintaining local licensing, code knowledge and client relationships in each. The firm describes itself as small enough to remain a genuinely close partner - intimate, agile and quick to respond to changing conditions - yet large enough to be trusted with complex, high-value programmes.</p>
<h2>Representative Projects</h2>
<ul>
<li>Capria East and Capria West at Ghaf Woods in Dubai, UAE</li>
<li>Madinat Al Irfan Business Park in Oman</li>
<li>Expo Valley Views in the UAE</li>
<li>Radisson RED Hotel on Marjan Island, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE</li>
</ul>
<h2>Approach and Values</h2>
<p>SSH grounds its work in professional integrity and long-term relationships - with clients, industry partners, employees and investors alike. The emphasis on returns on investment is deliberate: in fast-moving Gulf markets, design quality is judged alongside commercial performance, and the firm positions its work as delivering both.</p>
<h2>Sectors Served</h2>
<p>Typical commissions span mixed-use and residential communities, hospitality and resorts, commercial offices and business parks, healthcare and education facilities, retail and leisure destinations, and government and public infrastructure. That range reflects the pace of development across the Gulf, where entire districts are planned, engineered and supervised within a single decade.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>SSH competes with both international consultancies and regional players, differentiating through its combination of long-established local presence, multidisciplinary in-house capability and construction supervision expertise. For clients in Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman, that means one consultant can carry a project from master plan through to site handover.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know SSH</h2>
<p>For teams working on or entering Middle East markets, SSH is a valuable reference point for how master planning, building design, infrastructure engineering and supervision are combined under regional procurement models across the built environment.</p>
<h2>Working in Gulf Markets</h2>
<p>Projects in the region carry conditions that shape design from the outset: extreme summer temperatures, high solar gain, saline groundwater, sand and dust loading on facades and equipment, and construction programmes that are frequently compressed around fixed opening dates. Consultants working here must design for cooling loads and durability in ways that differ substantially from temperate-climate practice, and must be fluent in local authority approvals and civil defence requirements.</p>
<h2>Client Base</h2>
<p>SSH works with government ministries, sovereign developers, private real estate groups, hospitality operators and institutional clients. Many of these relationships span decades and multiple projects, which is a reasonable proxy for delivery performance in a market where reputation travels quickly.</p>

SSH is a leading MEA architecture and engineering consultancy offering master planning, building design, infrastructure and construction supervision since 1961.

SSH | Middle East Architecture & Engineering

SSH Design

SSH is a leading Middle East and Africa architecture and engineering consultancy with over 1,000 staff, providing master planning, building design, infrastructure engineering and construction supervision across Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt and Morocco.

<h2>About SOM</h2>
<p>SOM - Skidmore, Owings &amp; Merrill - is a collective of architects, designers, engineers and planners working across the globe. Founded in 1936 when two architects and an engineer formed a partnership, the firm has been interdisciplinary for more than ninety years, long before that word entered common use in the design industry. That founding decision still defines how it practises: design as a collective endeavour rather than the work of a single author.</p>
<h2>Architecture and Engineering Together</h2>
<p>The merger of architecture and structural engineering has been SOM's hallmark for decades. Lever House, completed in 1952, was the first modernist office building in New York City. The John Hancock Center, completed in 1970, introduced the braced tube - a structural idea that made supertall towers economically viable and reshaped skylines worldwide. Having engineers and architects in the same studio means structural logic and architectural expression are developed together rather than negotiated after the fact.</p>
<h2>Areas of Expertise</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Tall buildings and commercial</strong> - offices, supertall towers and mixed-use developments</li>
<li><strong>Structural and civil engineering</strong> - long-span, high-rise and infrastructure engineering</li>
<li><strong>Sustainable engineering</strong> - energy, carbon and building performance analysis</li>
<li><strong>Airports and transportation</strong> - terminals, transit stations and mobility infrastructure</li>
<li><strong>Civic and government</strong> - courthouses, federal buildings and embassies</li>
<li><strong>Healthcare and science</strong> - hospitals, research and laboratory facilities</li>
<li><strong>Higher education and K-12</strong> - academic and campus buildings</li>
<li><strong>Cultural, hospitality and residential</strong></li>
<li><strong>Urban design and planning</strong> - district frameworks and regenerative city planning</li>
<li><strong>Interiors, facade design, landscape and ecology</strong></li>
<li><strong>Adaptive reuse, graphics and brand, and product design</strong></li>
</ul>
<h2>Interdisciplinary Practice</h2>
<p>SOM describes its studios as having no boundaries: each area of expertise is interwoven with the others, and knowledge is shared deliberately across disciplines. Teams combine designers with an artistic sensibility, architects and engineers with specialised technical knowledge, and planners who understand policy and economics. The stated aim is design solutions that no single person could have imagined alone.</p>
<h2>Sustainability and Regenerative Design</h2>
<p>Sustainable engineering is a named area of expertise, not a marketing overlay. The firm's work extends from energy-efficient facades and low-carbon structural systems to regenerative city planning, where the question shifts from doing less harm to actively improving ecological and social conditions.</p>
<h2>Global Reach</h2>
<p>SOM operates studios across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, delivering projects such as the JTI Headquarters in Geneva alongside major works in the United States and Asia. Its international portfolio spans the tallest towers in the world, national airports and civic buildings for governments.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>SOM sits at the very top tier of global design practice. Few firms can offer architecture and structural engineering at equal depth under one roof, and fewer still have shaped the technical evolution of the skyscraper as directly. For owners of technically extreme projects - supertall towers, long-span terminals, high-security civic buildings - that integration is the core value proposition.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Study SOM</h2>
<p>For engineers, architects and developers, SOM's body of work remains one of the most important references in the built environment for structural innovation, facade engineering and the integration of design and technical performance.</p>

SOM is a global architecture, engineering and planning firm behind landmark towers, airports and civic buildings, uniting design with structural and sustainable

SOM | Global Architecture & Structural Engineering

SOM is a global architecture, engineering, interiors and urban planning firm known for landmark towers, airports, civic and cultural buildings, combining structural and sustainable engineering with design across more than 90 years of practice.

<h2>About SmithGroup</h2>
<p>SmithGroup is one of the longest-established integrated design firms in the United States, bringing architecture, engineering, planning and landscape architecture together within a single practice. Its interdisciplinary structure means an architect, a mechanical engineer, a planner and a landscape architect can work on the same project from the same organisation - a model that removes many of the coordination gaps that appear when disciplines are contracted separately.</p>
<h2>Integrated Disciplines</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Architecture</strong> - institutional, research, health and civic buildings</li>
<li><strong>Engineering</strong> - mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural and civil</li>
<li><strong>Planning and urban design</strong> - campus frameworks and district plans</li>
<li><strong>Landscape architecture</strong> - public realm, campus grounds and ecological design</li>
<li><strong>Interior design</strong> - workplace, learning and clinical environments</li>
<li><strong>Specialist consulting</strong> - lab planning, medical planning, lighting and sustainability</li>
</ul>
<h2>Markets Served</h2>
<h3>Health</h3>
<p>Hospitals, ambulatory facilities, community health centres and academic medical campuses. Projects such as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and Health Center show how clinical and community functions can be combined in a single civic building.</p>
<h3>Higher Education</h3>
<p>Academic, research and student life buildings, including Virginia Tech's Academic Building One and Santa Rosa Junior College's Lindley Center for STEM Education, which received a national SCUP/AIA award for architectural excellence.</p>
<h3>Science and Technology</h3>
<p>Research laboratories and applied research facilities such as the University of Arizona Applied Research Building - highly serviced buildings where mechanical strategy and architectural expression must be resolved together.</p>
<h3>Cities</h3>
<p>Urban design, waterfronts, mobility and public realm work aimed at making cities more liveable and resilient.</p>
<h3>Corporate, Commercial and Civic</h3>
<p>Headquarters, workplace, and government buildings, including the City of South San Francisco Community Civic Campus and the TechSmith Headquarters.</p>
<h3>Cultural</h3>
<p>Museums, performance venues and civic institutions.</p>
<h2>Climate Impact and Sustainability</h2>
<p>Climate impact is treated as a firm-wide commitment rather than a service option. SmithGroup's environmental credentials run deep: the Philip Merrill Environmental Center, one of the earliest LEED Platinum buildings in the United States, received the AIA Twenty-five Year Award - recognition reserved for buildings that have stood the test of time. Having in-house engineers makes it far easier to pursue ambitious energy and carbon targets and verify them.</p>
<h2>Research and Innovation</h2>
<p>The practice maintains formal research and publication programmes alongside an innovation and technology in practice group, applying findings on daylight, energy, occupant wellbeing and resilience directly to live projects.</p>
<h2>Recognition</h2>
<p>SmithGroup has been named ENR Midwest Design Firm of the Year and regularly receives national AIA honours, with multiple projects recognised in a single award cycle.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>SmithGroup competes with the largest US architecture-engineering firms, differentiating itself through genuine multidisciplinary integration and depth in technically complex sectors - health, research and science - where engineering capability is decisive.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know SmithGroup</h2>
<p>For owners planning laboratories, hospitals or campus buildings, SmithGroup demonstrates how integrated architecture and engineering can shorten decision cycles, improve building performance and reduce risk across the built environment.</p>
<h2>Design Culture and Collaboration</h2>
<p>The firm describes a design approach built on collaboration and inclusiveness, engaging professionals and stakeholders together to produce context-sensitive solutions. In practice that means early workshops with users, clinicians, faculty or residents, so that a building responds to how people actually work rather than to an abstract brief. It also underpins the firm's commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, both internally and in how projects engage their communities.</p>
<h2>National Presence</h2>
<p>SmithGroup operates from studios across the United States, giving project teams local knowledge of codes, climate and construction markets while drawing on national expertise in medical planning, lab design and engineering.</p>

SmithGroup is a US integrated design firm combining architecture, engineering, planning and landscape architecture for health, education, science and civic proj

SmithGroup | Integrated Architecture & Engineering

Smithgroup

SmithGroup is a US integrated design firm uniting architects, engineers, planners and landscape architects to deliver health, higher education, science and technology, cultural, civic, corporate and urban projects with a strong climate and research focus.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>Skender is a construction firm with roots stretching back more than seventy years and a team of nearly 400 industry professionals. The company positions itself around what it calls the premier construction experience - a promise that projects will be smooth and simple, efficiently managed, delivered on time and on budget, and above all collaborative. Its stated vision is to be a world-class builder of projects, people and relationships.</p>
<h2>The Skender Approach</h2>
<p>Three things define how the company works: collaborative processes, high-performing teams and advanced technologies. Rather than treating construction management as a scheduling exercise, Skender frames it as relationship work, arguing that the quality of the partnership between owner, designer and builder is what determines whether a project runs well.</p>
<h3>Leading With Lean</h3>
<p>Lean construction is central to the business and is described as a mindset rather than a method - continuous improvement, waste reduction and predictable workflow. In practice this means pull planning, last planner scheduling, structured problem-solving and a constant focus on removing the delays and rework that quietly consume construction budgets.</p>
<h3>Safety and Quality</h3>
<p>Skender operates a people-first safety culture that has received multiple awards, paired with quality and safety management systems designed to deliver precision, efficiency and durability. On active job sites, safety performance and quality performance tend to move together - the same discipline drives both.</p>
<h2>Markets Served</h2>
<p>The firm works across a notably broad set of building types.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Healthcare</strong> - hospitals, clinics and medical office fit-outs</li>
<li><strong>Life sciences</strong> - laboratory and research environments</li>
<li><strong>Multifamily and affordable housing</strong> - apartment buildings and subsidised residential developments</li>
<li><strong>Senior living</strong> - assisted living and continuing care communities</li>
<li><strong>Higher education and K-12</strong> - academic, student life and school facilities</li>
<li><strong>Office and interiors</strong> - workplace construction and tenant fit-out</li>
<li><strong>Industrial and mission critical</strong> - manufacturing, distribution and data infrastructure</li>
<li><strong>Hospitality and retail</strong> - hotels, restaurants and store environments</li>
<li><strong>Municipal and sports and recreation</strong> - public buildings and athletic facilities</li>
</ul>
<h2>Values and Commitments</h2>
<p>Skender organises its commitments under safety, Lean, partnership, community, sustainability, innovation, diversity and ethics. These extend beyond marketing language into how the company hires, trains and measures itself, and into its stated responsibility toward the communities where it builds.</p>
<h2>Affordable Housing Expertise</h2>
<p>Affordable housing is a distinct specialism. These projects carry funding structures, compliance requirements and cost ceilings that differ sharply from market-rate work, and delivering them successfully requires a builder comfortable with tax credit timelines and public agency oversight.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Skender competes as a mid-to-large regional general contractor and construction manager with unusual sector breadth and a strong Lean identity. For owners who value process discipline and transparent collaboration over lowest-bid procurement, that combination is a meaningful differentiator.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know Skender</h2>
<p>For designers, developers and consultants planning healthcare, life sciences, multifamily or interiors projects, Skender offers a useful reference point for Lean delivery, safety culture and collaborative construction management across the built environment.</p>
<h2>Sustainability and Innovation</h2>
<p>Sustainability and innovation sit alongside safety and Lean as core commitments. On site this shows up in waste diversion, material selection, energy performance during construction and the adoption of digital tools that improve coordination between trades before work begins in the field.</p>
<h2>Working With Skender</h2>
<p>Clients typically include healthcare systems, developers, universities, corporate tenants and housing authorities. Because the firm covers both ground-up construction and interior fit-out, owners can retain the same builder as a portfolio evolves - from a new facility through subsequent renovations and expansions.</p>

Skender is a construction firm delivering healthcare, life sciences, multifamily, education and interiors projects through a Lean, collaborative building proces

Skender | Lean Construction & Building Services

Skender

Skender is a Chicago-based construction firm of nearly 400 professionals delivering healthcare, life sciences, multifamily, affordable housing, higher education, industrial, mission critical and interiors projects through a Lean-driven, collaborative building process.

<h2>About SHoP Architects</h2>
<p>SHoP Architects is a New York-based design practice working from 233 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. The studio is one hundred percent employee-owned, an ownership structure that is still rare among design firms of its profile, and it has completed projects on five continents. Its stated position is direct: evocative, high-performance design can be delivered within real-world constraints of budget, schedule and construction logic.</p>
<h2>What SHoP Does</h2>
<p>The practice covers architecture, interiors, urban design and product-scale design, but its defining characteristic is how deeply it engages with how buildings actually get made. Rather than treating construction as someone else's problem, SHoP invests in fabrication logic, supply chains and assembly sequencing as design material.</p>
<h3>Core Capabilities</h3>
<ul>
<li>Architecture for towers, institutional, civic and cultural buildings</li>
<li>Urban design and waterfront masterplanning</li>
<li>Interior design and workplace environments</li>
<li>Computational and parametric design</li>
<li>Digital fabrication, including an in-house industrial robot</li>
<li>Design for manufacture and assembly on complex facades</li>
</ul>
<h2>Notable Projects</h2>
<p>SHoP's portfolio spans an unusually wide range of building types and scales.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>The Brooklyn Tower and 111 West 57th</strong> - supertall residential towers that pushed slenderness and facade craft in New York</li>
<li><strong>Barclays Center</strong> - the Brooklyn arena whose weathered steel skin became a neighbourhood landmark</li>
<li><strong>Pier 17 and East River Waterfront</strong> - public realm and mixed-use projects reconnecting Manhattan to its edges</li>
<li><strong>Uber HQ, YouTube HQ, Atlassian Central and Midtown Center</strong> - large workplace projects for technology and corporate clients</li>
<li><strong>US Embassy Bangkok, US Consulate General Milan and US Embassy Tegucigalpa</strong> - diplomatic facilities with demanding security and representational requirements</li>
<li><strong>Fulbright University Vietnam and the Joyce F. Brown Academic Building</strong> - higher education campuses and buildings</li>
<li><strong>Gotham FC Training Facility and Nassau Coliseum</strong> - sports and entertainment venues</li>
</ul>
<h2>Technology and Fabrication</h2>
<p>Technology at SHoP is applied rather than decorative. Parametric modelling, custom scripting and robotic fabrication are used to make complex geometry buildable and affordable - most visibly on facades where thousands of unique panels must be documented, procured and installed without error. The studio's single industrial robot is a deliberate statement about testing ideas physically before they reach a factory.</p>
<h2>Employee Ownership and Culture</h2>
<p>Full employee ownership aligns long-term thinking with day-to-day decisions and shapes how the studio invests in its people. SHoP U, an internal education programme offering more than a hundred courses, reflects a commitment to developing technical depth in-house rather than relying solely on external hires.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>SHoP occupies a distinctive place between design-led practice and technical innovator. It competes for the same high-profile commissions as the largest global firms, but differentiates itself through construction intelligence, computational capability and a willingness to take responsibility for how a design is realised.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Follow SHoP</h2>
<p>For architects, engineers and contractors interested in digital fabrication, complex facades and design-for-manufacture, SHoP is one of the most instructive practices to study across the built environment.</p>
<h2>Sectors Served</h2>
<p>Work is spread across residential and supertall towers, workplace and corporate headquarters, sports and entertainment venues, higher education, diplomatic and federal facilities, transport infrastructure such as the LaGuardia master plan, and public waterfront and civic projects. That mix means the studio moves regularly between private developer clients, institutional owners and government agencies, each with very different procurement rules and approval cycles.</p>
<h2>Working Method</h2>
<p>Projects typically begin with an interrogation of the constraints - zoning envelope, structural system, facade budget, construction access - and treat those limits as the starting material for the design rather than obstacles to be argued away later. It is a pragmatic approach that helps explain how such visually ambitious buildings reach completion.</p>

SHoP Architects is an employee-owned New York practice behind supertall towers, arenas, embassies and waterfronts, combining design with digital fabrication exp

SHoP Architects | New York Design & Fabrication Studio

SHoP Architects

SHoP Architects is a 100% employee-owned New York design practice known for supertall towers, arenas, embassies, academic buildings and public waterfronts, pairing ambitious architecture with digital fabrication, robotics and rigorous delivery expertise.

<h2>About SGA</h2>
<p>SGA is an award-winning architecture and design firm operating from Boston and New York. The practice describes design as more than form and function - a means of shaping environments that inspire, connect and endure. That philosophy is applied most visibly in research and development space, where SGA has built a reputation for rethinking how laboratories and science buildings are planned.</p>
<h2>Services</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Architecture</strong> - ground-up buildings, repositioning and adaptive reuse</li>
<li><strong>Interior design</strong> - workplace, amenity and laboratory fit-out</li>
<li><strong>Master planning</strong> - campus and multi-building frameworks</li>
<li><strong>Science and technology</strong> - specialist laboratory and R&amp;D planning</li>
<li><strong>Sustainability</strong> - energy, wellness and carbon strategy integrated into design</li>
<li><strong>Virtual Design and Construction</strong> - digital coordination across the project team</li>
</ul>
<h2>Markets Served</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Life sciences</strong> - research and lab space in established science clusters</li>
<li><strong>Corporate and commercial</strong> - offices aligned to business goals and brand identity</li>
<li><strong>Academic</strong> - teaching, research and campus buildings</li>
<li><strong>Multi-family</strong> - residential buildings and communities</li>
<li><strong>Advanced technology</strong> - specialised technical and production environments</li>
<li><strong>Adaptive reuse and conversion</strong> - repositioning existing buildings for new uses</li>
<li><strong>Amenities and workplace design</strong> - the shared spaces that determine how a building is experienced</li>
<li><strong>Developer-led projects</strong> - schemes driven by leasing and investment criteria</li>
</ul>
<h2>Life Sciences Specialism</h2>
<p>SGA has a proven track record delivering flexible research space in notable life sciences clusters. Lab tenants have specific and fast-moving expectations around bench-to-office ratios, mechanical capacity, vibration criteria and future adaptability. Because the firm works directly with both developers and tenants, it understands what the market will actually lease - not simply what the programme diagram suggests.</p>
<h2>Virtual Design and Construction</h2>
<p>VDC is a defining capability. By bringing designers, construction managers and subcontractors together early in planning, SGA uses coordinated digital models to test constructability, sequence trades and reduce field conflicts. The result is a delivery method built on people, process and technology together, aimed at building better, faster and smarter rather than simply producing prettier renderings.</p>
<h2>Adaptive Reuse and Conversion</h2>
<p>Converting existing buildings - offices to labs, industrial to residential - has become one of the most active areas in North American real estate. It demands hard-headed assessment of floor-to-floor heights, structural capacity, existing services and code compliance. SGA's combination of architectural, technical and VDC capability suits exactly this kind of constrained problem-solving.</p>
<h2>Sustainability</h2>
<p>Sustainability is treated as a service line in its own right, covering energy performance, healthy materials, occupant wellbeing and carbon reduction across both new construction and existing building upgrades.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>SGA competes strongly in the Boston and New York life sciences and commercial markets, where technical laboratory knowledge, developer fluency and digital delivery are all required at once. Its interdisciplinary approach lets a single team carry a project from master plan through interiors.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know SGA</h2>
<p>For developers, owners and consultants working on lab space, office-to-lab conversion or technically demanding workplace projects, SGA offers a useful model of how design expertise and virtual construction coordination can be combined across the built environment.</p>
<h2>Who SGA Works With</h2>
<p>Typical clients include life sciences developers, institutional landlords, biotech and technology tenants, universities and multi-family developers. Each brings a different decision-making rhythm - a developer needs speed to lease, a research tenant needs certainty about equipment and airflow - and the practice is structured to serve both without forcing one into the other's process.</p>

SGA is a Boston and New York architecture firm specialising in life sciences, R&D, workplace, academic and multi-family design with Virtual Design + Constructio

SGA | Life Sciences & Workplace Architecture Firm

SGA architects

SGA is a Boston and New York architecture and design firm specialising in life sciences and R&D facilities, corporate workplace, academic and multi-family projects, with in-house interior design, master planning, sustainability and Virtual Design + Construction services.

<h2>About Sasaki</h2>
<p>Sasaki is an interdisciplinary design firm founded in 1953 and headquartered in Boston, with additional studios in Denver, New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai. More than 300 people from some 30 countries, speaking over 32 languages, work under a single practice model that has been interdisciplinary since day one. The firm's tagline - better design, together - captures a belief that stronger outcomes come from collective work rather than a single authorial vision.</p>
<h2>Integrated Services</h2>
<p>Few practices carry this range of disciplines in-house, which allows a masterplan, its landscape, its buildings and its infrastructure to be developed by one coordinated team.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Architecture</strong> - academic, civic, cultural and commercial buildings</li>
<li><strong>Interior design</strong> - learning environments, workplace and public interiors</li>
<li><strong>Planning and urban design</strong> - campus frameworks, district plans and city-scale strategy</li>
<li><strong>Landscape architecture</strong> - parks, waterfronts, campuses and public realm</li>
<li><strong>Civil engineering</strong> - grading, drainage, utilities and site infrastructure</li>
<li><strong>Space planning</strong> - utilisation studies and programming</li>
<li><strong>Graphic design</strong> - wayfinding, identity and environmental graphics</li>
</ul>
<h2>Areas of Expertise</h2>
<p>Alongside its core services, Sasaki maintains specialist capabilities that cut across projects.</p>
<ul>
<li>Sustainability, resilience and ecology</li>
<li>Community engagement and inclusive design</li>
<li>Data and design tools, including custom digital platforms</li>
<li>An in-house fabrication studio for physical prototyping</li>
<li>Applied research feeding directly into live projects</li>
</ul>
<h2>Client Sectors</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Education</strong> - university and college campuses, academic buildings and campus plans</li>
<li><strong>Civic</strong> - municipal buildings, public space and government facilities</li>
<li><strong>Arts and culture</strong> - museums, performance venues and cultural districts</li>
<li><strong>Commercial development</strong> - mixed-use districts and developer-led schemes</li>
<li><strong>Corporate and office</strong> - headquarters and workplace campuses</li>
<li><strong>Sports and recreation</strong> - athletic facilities and recreation centres</li>
<li><strong>Science and technology</strong> - research and innovation buildings</li>
</ul>
<h2>Data, Tools and Fabrication</h2>
<p>Sasaki invests in its own digital tools and analytical methods, applying data to questions such as campus utilisation, mobility, ecological performance and climate risk. Pairing that with a physical fabrication studio gives designers both quantitative rigour and hands-on making within the same practice - an unusual combination that supports evidence-based decisions without losing craft.</p>
<h2>Sustainability and Resilience</h2>
<p>Planning and designing for a sustainable, resilient future is one of the firm's stated values. Its landscape and ecology expertise is central here: on waterfront and campus projects, stormwater, habitat, heat and sea-level rise are design problems that must be solved at site scale, not treated as compliance items.</p>
<h2>Recognition and Reach</h2>
<p>Over seven decades the practice has received more than 1,000 awards and has worked with clients across the globe, from North American universities to Chinese city districts. That international footprint is supported by a genuinely multilingual, multicultural staff rather than by exported templates.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Sasaki competes most directly in campus planning, landscape architecture and urban design, where its integrated model is a real advantage. For institutions running long capital programmes, having planning, landscape, architecture and civil engineering under one contract reduces coordination gaps between disciplines.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know Sasaki</h2>
<p>Teams working on campus frameworks, waterfront regeneration or civic districts will find Sasaki a strong reference for interdisciplinary practice, data-informed planning and ecologically grounded design across the built environment.</p>

Sasaki is an interdisciplinary design firm uniting architecture, planning, urban design, landscape architecture and civil engineering for campuses, civic and cu

Sasaki | Architecture, Planning & Landscape Design

Sasaki

Sasaki is an interdisciplinary design firm combining architecture, interior design, planning and urban design, landscape architecture, civil engineering and graphic design to shape campuses, civic spaces, cultural venues and resilient urban districts worldwide.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>Ritz-Craft Corporation is the largest family-owned and operated modular home manufacturer in the United States. Owned and led by Paul and Eric John, the company runs production from two divisions - a Northeast operation in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania and a Midwest operation in Jonesville, Michigan - supported by roughly a million square feet of manufacturing infrastructure. Its stated aim is to pair the scale of a large manufacturer with the attention to detail of a custom builder.</p>
<h2>What Ritz-Craft Does</h2>
<p>The company designs and manufactures modular homes in factory conditions, then ships the completed modules to site where an approved independent builder installs them on a prepared foundation. Buyers work with that local builder rather than with the factory directly, which keeps site work, permitting and finishing in the hands of someone who knows the local market.</p>
<h3>Home Design and Floor Plans</h3>
<ul>
<li>An extensive library of ranch, Cape Cod, two-storey and multi-family plans</li>
<li>Curated plan collections, including the Homestead LeGrand range of ranch and Cape Cod layouts from around 1,390 to 2,370 square feet</li>
<li>Customisation of layouts, elevations, finishes and fixtures rather than fixed catalogue products</li>
</ul>
<h3>Manufacturing and Quality</h3>
<ul>
<li>Climate-controlled production that protects materials from weather during construction</li>
<li>Homes engineered to meet or exceed applicable state building codes</li>
<li>Factory-level precision on sealing and assembly, supporting energy efficiency</li>
<li>Structures typically stronger than comparable site-built construction because modules must survive transport and craning</li>
</ul>
<h3>Builder Network</h3>
<p>Ritz-Craft sells through a network of independent approved builders rather than direct to consumers. The company supports those partners with a builder portal, training and marketing resources, positioning itself around a promise of more builds in less time.</p>
<h2>The Simultaneous Building Process</h2>
<p>The core commercial advantage of modular construction is parallel work. While the local builder prepares the site, excavates and pours the foundation, the factory is simultaneously producing the home. That overlap compresses the overall programme, and Ritz-Craft indicates families can move in within roughly five to six months - a timeline that is difficult to match with conventional site-built housing.</p>
<h2>Operating Principles</h2>
<p>Three principles guide the business: empowering its people, with skilled craftsmen working precisely in a safe environment; strengthening its partners through enduring relationships with the independent builder network; and exceeding expectations through workmanship and architectural quality.</p>
<h2>Why Modular Matters</h2>
<p>Offsite manufacturing addresses several pressures facing residential construction at once - skilled labour shortages, weather delays, material waste and inconsistent quality. Building in a controlled factory allows repeatable processes, tighter tolerances and better waste management, while transferring risk away from the unpredictable site environment.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Ritz-Craft competes in the US modular and system-built housing market, where its scale, family ownership and dual-division geography give it strong coverage of the Northeast and Midwest. For builders and developers, it represents a route to volume delivery without carrying manufacturing capacity of their own.</p>
<h2>Relevance to AEC Professionals</h2>
<p>For architects, developers and contractors evaluating offsite methods, Ritz-Craft is a useful reference for how factory production, an independent installer network and parallel site works can be combined to shorten residential delivery schedules across the built environment.</p>

Ritz-Craft Corporation is the largest family-owned modular home manufacturer in the US, building custom, energy-efficient homes through an approved builder netw

Ritz-Craft | US Modular Home Manufacturer

Ritz Craft Corporation

Ritz-Craft Corporation is the largest family-owned modular home manufacturer in the United States, building precision-engineered, energy-efficient custom homes in climate-controlled facilities and delivering them through an independent network of approved local builders.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>Quintain is a London-based property development and asset management business best known as the team behind Wembley Park, one of the capital's most significant regeneration projects. Across a thirty-year history the company has specialised in taking underused assets and turning them into places where people want to live, companies want to grow and neighbourhoods can come alive - a description that captures its focus on long-term placemaking rather than single-building development.</p>
<h2>Wembley Park</h2>
<p>Wembley Park is the defining project in the portfolio and the UK's largest single-site Build to Rent community. The scheme transformed the land around Wembley Stadium from an event-day car park into a permanent mixed-use neighbourhood with homes, retail, workspace, hotels, public realm and cultural venues. It is also a live case study in how to develop around a major stadium, where event-day crowds and everyday residential life have to coexist.</p>
<h2>Core Services</h2>
<h3>Build to Rent Property Management</h3>
<p>Quintain Living operates the company's Build to Rent platform, combining scale, smart design and hospitality-style service to deliver high-occupancy, tech-enabled rental communities. The in-house operating model gives Quintain direct control of the resident experience rather than outsourcing it, which in turn informs how future buildings are designed.</p>
<h3>Masterplanning</h3>
<p>Long-horizon masterplanning covers phasing, land use, density, movement, public realm and the sequencing of infrastructure - the decisions that determine whether a district works twenty years after the first building completes.</p>
<h3>Construction Delivery</h3>
<p>The business manages construction delivery across large multi-phase programmes, coordinating contractors, logistics and handover into operations on constrained urban sites.</p>
<h3>Development Advisory</h3>
<p>Quintain offers advisory services to third-party clients, drawing on its own experience as developer, investor and operator to advise on scheme viability, phasing and operational strategy.</p>
<h3>Developing Around Stadia</h3>
<p>A specialist strand of work focused on regeneration next to sports and event venues, where transport surges, security requirements, licensing and community relations shape what can be built and how it must be managed.</p>
<h2>Build to Rent Expertise</h2>
<p>Build to Rent differs fundamentally from build-for-sale: revenue depends on retention, service quality and operating cost over decades, not on a sales programme at completion. Quintain's integration of development and operations under one roof aligns those incentives, and its multi-award-winning Quintain Living team is frequently cited as a benchmark for the UK BTR sector.</p>
<h2>Sustainability and Placemaking</h2>
<p>Sustainability is treated at neighbourhood scale - energy strategy, transport, biodiversity and the social infrastructure that makes a district function. Because Quintain retains and operates much of what it builds, the long-term running cost and environmental performance of its assets remain its own responsibility.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Quintain occupies a distinctive position in UK real estate as a combined developer, investor, operator and adviser. That vertical integration is rare, and it gives the company an unusually complete picture of how design decisions translate into operational outcomes and long-term value.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Track Quintain</h2>
<p>For teams working on large-scale urban regeneration, Build to Rent or stadium-adjacent development, Quintain offers an instructive model of how development, construction and long-term operation can be aligned within a single organisation.</p>

Quintain is the UK developer and asset manager behind Wembley Park, specialising in mixed-use regeneration, Build to Rent communities and stadium-led masterplan

Quintain | Wembley Park Developer & Build to Rent

Quintain

Quintain is a UK property developer and asset manager behind Wembley Park, specialising in mixed-use regeneration, Build to Rent development and operation, masterplanning, construction delivery and development advisory around major stadia and urban districts.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>Populous is a global architecture and design practice built around a single, unusually clear purpose: drawing people together. The firm designs the venues where crowds gather - stadiums, arenas, convention centres, racecourses, event spaces and the urban districts that surround them. With global headquarters in Kansas City and regional headquarters in London and Brisbane, it operates across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.</p>
<h2>Scale and Track Record</h2>
<p>The practice reports more than 3,500 projects and over 40 years of experience, with a combined value of designed spaces exceeding 60 billion dollars. Fast Company has named Populous one of the world's 50 most innovative companies and ranked it number one in architecture - recognition that reflects how thoroughly the firm has shaped modern venue design.</p>
<h2>Design Disciplines</h2>
<p>Populous works across nine integrated disciplines, allowing it to design not just a building but the entire spectator journey.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Architecture</strong> - stadiums, arenas, aquatic centres, convention facilities and mixed-use districts</li>
<li><strong>Interior design</strong> - premium seating, hospitality suites, clubs and back-of-house environments</li>
<li><strong>Urban design</strong> - the districts, plazas and transport interfaces that surround major venues</li>
<li><strong>Landscape architecture</strong> - public realm, precinct landscaping and event grounds</li>
<li><strong>Event design</strong> - overlay and temporary infrastructure for major games and one-off events</li>
<li><strong>Brand activation</strong> - environments that express club, team and sponsor identity</li>
<li><strong>Wayfinding</strong> - signage and circulation strategy for crowds moving at scale</li>
<li><strong>Audiovisual consultancy</strong> - sound, lighting and screen systems that shape atmosphere</li>
<li><strong>Food and beverage strategy</strong> - concourse planning and concession operations that drive venue revenue</li>
</ul>
<h2>Specialist Studios</h2>
<p>The Populous group includes several specialist practices - OJB Studios, Fentress Studios, Jump Studios and Experience Studios - extending the firm's reach into landscape, civic architecture, workplace and experiential design while keeping venue expertise at the core.</p>
<h2>Fan Experience and Digital Innovation</h2>
<p>Modern venue design is no longer only about sightlines and structure. Populous focuses heavily on the fan experience: how quickly a crowd can reach its seat, how loud a bowl feels, how hospitality tiers generate revenue, and how digital technology creates immersive moments that blur the line between physical and virtual attendance. Its Digital Future programme explores how these technologies will reshape live events.</p>
<h2>Sustainability</h2>
<p>Large venues carry significant embodied and operational carbon, and they sit empty much of the year. Populous approaches this through adaptability, accessibility and ecological responsibility - designing spaces that can host multiple event types, reduce material intensity and serve their surrounding communities between major fixtures.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Populous is arguably the most recognised name in sports and entertainment architecture globally. Its clients are leagues, clubs, governing bodies, event organisers, universities and cities - owners whose projects are highly public, schedule-critical and tied to immovable opening dates such as a season start or an international tournament.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Follow Populous</h2>
<p>For teams working on assembly buildings, transport interchanges or any project involving large crowd movement, the firm's work is a valuable reference on circulation, egress, hospitality economics and precinct-scale placemaking across the built environment.</p>
<h2>Global Reach</h2>
<p>Three regional headquarters let the practice follow the international event calendar, staffing projects across time zones and moving specialists between continents as major tournaments and venue programmes demand. That structure also gives its designers exposure to very different codes, climates and spectator cultures, which feeds directly into how bowls, concourses and hospitality tiers are planned.</p>

Populous is a global design firm behind the world's leading stadiums, arenas, convention centres and major event venues, spanning architecture, interiors and ur

Populous | Stadium, Arena & Event Venue Architects

Populous

Populous is a global design firm specialising in stadiums, arenas, convention centres and major event spaces, combining architecture, interior design, urban planning, wayfinding and event design to shape sports and entertainment experiences worldwide.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>Parkhill is a full-service, multidisciplinary architecture and engineering firm working across the southwestern United States. The practice organises itself around a single idea it calls Building Community: the belief that schools, water systems, clinics and civic buildings are the infrastructure that lets communities grow and prosper. That framing explains why the firm's portfolio leans heavily toward public and institutional clients rather than speculative commercial work.</p>
<h2>Services</h2>
<p>Parkhill offers architecture and engineering under one roof, which lets project teams coordinate building design and infrastructure without handing off between separate consultants.</p>
<h3>Architecture and Interiors</h3>
<ul>
<li>Architecture and building design</li>
<li>Interior design and furniture strategy</li>
<li>Landscape architecture</li>
<li>Master planning and facility assessments</li>
</ul>
<h3>Engineering Disciplines</h3>
<ul>
<li>Civil engineering and site development</li>
<li>Structural engineering</li>
<li>Mechanical and electrical engineering</li>
<li>Drainage and stormwater engineering</li>
<li>Water supply, distribution, and water and wastewater treatment</li>
<li>Utilities, SCADA and solid waste systems</li>
<li>Rail design and transportation engineering</li>
<li>Survey services</li>
</ul>
<h3>Project and Funding Support</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bond planning and grant funding advisory</li>
<li>Construction management and commissioning</li>
<li>Planning and programming</li>
<li>Sustainability and wellness consulting</li>
</ul>
<h2>Markets Served</h2>
<p>The firm works across an unusually wide set of public and private markets.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Education</strong> - K-12 districts, private schools, and colleges and universities</li>
<li><strong>Water and environmental</strong> - treatment plants, distribution networks, stormwater and solid waste</li>
<li><strong>Government</strong> - federal, state, county and civic facilities, plus public safety buildings</li>
<li><strong>Healthcare</strong> - hospitals, clinics and medical facilities</li>
<li><strong>Transportation and aviation</strong> - airports, roadways and rail</li>
<li><strong>Commercial and workplace</strong> - private development, finance and banking, automotive, technology</li>
<li><strong>Community</strong> - parks, sports and recreation, and faith facilities</li>
</ul>
<h2>Bond Planning and Public Funding</h2>
<p>One capability sets Parkhill apart from many design firms: dedicated bond planning and grant funding advisory. School districts and municipalities often need help demonstrating need, sequencing projects and communicating with voters long before design begins. Supporting that early phase builds relationships that carry through the whole capital programme.</p>
<h2>Water and Infrastructure Expertise</h2>
<p>Water is a defining specialism. In a region where supply, treatment and drought resilience are constant pressures, the firm's combined capability in water supply, distribution, treatment and SCADA control systems gives municipalities a single partner for both the built and buried infrastructure.</p>
<h2>Approach</h2>
<p>Parkhill emphasises collaboration and engagement with the people who will use each facility, aiming for sustainable, inclusive and responsive spaces. The firm also grows through partnership - for example, its strategic alliance with Komatsu Architecture to strengthen community-focused design across Texas.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Parkhill competes as a regional multidisciplinary AE firm with genuine breadth: few practices of its size cover architecture, all major building engineering disciplines, civil infrastructure and water treatment. For public owners running multi-year capital programmes, that single-source capability reduces coordination risk and simplifies procurement.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Should Know Parkhill</h2>
<p>Teams researching design partners for school bond programmes, municipal water projects or civic facilities in the southwestern US will find Parkhill a strong reference point for integrated architecture-engineering delivery paired with early-stage funding strategy.</p>
<h2>Working With Public Owners</h2>
<p>Public projects carry requirements that private work does not: open procurement, prevailing wage rules, board approvals and community meetings that can reshape a design mid-stream. Parkhill's practice is built around those realities, with teams accustomed to presenting to school boards, city councils and utility districts and to adjusting scope as funding is confirmed in stages.</p>
<h2>Regional Presence</h2>
<p>The firm operates from a network of offices across Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, which keeps design teams close to the communities they serve and allows staff to attend site visits and stakeholder sessions without long travel. That proximity matters on projects where a superintendent or public works director expects the design team in the room.</p>

Parkhill is a full-service architecture and engineering firm serving education, water, healthcare, aviation, civic and transportation clients across the southwe

Parkhill | Architecture & Engineering Design Firm

Parkhill

Parkhill is a full-service architecture and engineering firm serving K-12 and higher education, water, aviation, healthcare, civic and transportation clients, offering planning, civil, structural and MEP engineering, interior design and construction management.

<h2>About NBBJ</h2>
<p>NBBJ is a global architecture, planning and design firm founded in 1943 and headquartered in Seattle. Over more than eighty years it has grown into a network of studios in twelve creative capitals, staffed by an unusually mixed group of architects, planners, interior designers, researchers, strategists and clinicians. That last detail matters: employing nurses alongside designers is a direct expression of how deeply the practice invests in understanding how buildings actually get used.</p>
<h2>Design Philosophy</h2>
<p>The firm describes itself as ideas-driven with an empathetic process, rooted in research, making and the belief that all voices should be heard. Three commitments organise the work: healthy living, engaged communities and environmental stewardship. Underlying all of them is a conviction that the built environment is a lever for change and is inextricably linked to health outcomes.</p>
<h2>Market Sectors</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Healthcare</strong> - hospitals, ambulatory care, academic medical centres and clinical planning</li>
<li><strong>Science</strong> - research laboratories, life science buildings and translational facilities</li>
<li><strong>Corporate office</strong> - headquarters and workplace campuses for global technology and professional services clients</li>
<li><strong>Commercial development</strong> - mixed-use and speculative office guided by the firm's Creating Community approach</li>
<li><strong>Education</strong> - university academic, research and student life buildings</li>
<li><strong>Cultural and civic</strong> - courthouses, civic buildings and public institutions</li>
<li><strong>Sports</strong> - arenas, stadiums and training facilities</li>
<li><strong>Urban environments</strong> - district masterplans and city-scale frameworks</li>
</ul>
<h2>Services</h2>
<p>Beyond core architecture, NBBJ offers a broad set of specialist services that can be engaged independently or as part of a full design commission.</p>
<ul>
<li>Design performance - simulation, energy and carbon analysis</li>
<li>Interior design and lighting design</li>
<li>Environmental graphic design and experience design</li>
<li>Healthcare consulting and clinical operations planning</li>
<li>Urban design and masterplanning</li>
<li>Workplace strategy and change management</li>
</ul>
<h2>Research and Innovation</h2>
<p>Applied research is a formal part of the practice rather than a side activity. Fast Company has named NBBJ one of the most innovative architecture firms five times, most recently in 2025 for a standards-based approach to design intended to give clients greater certainty over cost, schedule and scope. NBBJ is also the only architecture firm to appear on TIME's list of the 100 Most Influential Companies.</p>
<h2>Sustainability</h2>
<p>The firm is a CarbonNeutral certified company under the Carbon Neutral Protocol, a signatory of the AIA 2030 Challenge and the Amazon Climate Pledge, and a participant in the 1.5&deg;C COP26 Communiqu&eacute;. Helping clients pursue a zero-carbon future is stated as a core purpose rather than an optional service line.</p>
<h2>Recognition</h2>
<p>NBBJ has received more than 1,000 awards from organisations including the American Institute of Architects, the Urban Land Institute, Fast Company and MIPIM - a record that spans healthcare, workplace and urban design categories.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>NBBJ competes at the top tier of global design practices, particularly in healthcare and corporate workplace, where its research-led method and clinical expertise are strong differentiators. For owners weighing design partners on complex, evidence-sensitive projects, the firm offers a rare combination of global reach, sector depth and measurable performance focus.</p>
<h2>Global Studio Network</h2>
<p>Studios across North America, Europe and Asia allow project teams to be assembled around expertise rather than geography, so a hospital planner in one city can support a project being delivered in another. This distributed model also gives the practice exposure to very different regulatory and construction cultures, which feeds back into how it approaches standardisation and modular thinking.</p>
<h2>Who Works With NBBJ</h2>
<p>Typical clients include health systems, universities, research institutes, global technology companies, developers and public agencies - organisations running long, high-value capital programmes where design decisions carry decades of operational consequence.</p>

NBBJ is a global architecture and design firm specialising in healthcare, science, corporate workplace, education and urban projects, with research-led, zero-ca

NBBJ | Global Architecture, Healthcare & Workplace

NBBJ

NBBJ is a global architecture and design firm working across healthcare, science, corporate workplace, education, sports, civic and urban projects, combining applied research, experience design and a zero-carbon commitment from studios in twelve creative capitals worldwide.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>Mortenson is a US-based construction, development and engineering services company that ranks among the country's top 25 builders. Founded by M. A. Mortenson and still family-owned, the firm operates from regional offices including Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Washington DC. Its positioning - builder, innovator, partner - reflects a business that has expanded well beyond general contracting into development, engineering and manufacturing.</p>
<h2>Services</h2>
<h3>Construction and Delivery</h3>
<p>Mortenson works across the full range of delivery methods, from design-build and construction management at risk to integrated project delivery and traditional general contracting. The company publishes guidance on choosing a delivery method, reflecting how much project outcomes depend on getting that decision right at the outset.</p>
<h3>Capital Project Planning</h3>
<p>Pre-construction and capital planning services help owners test feasibility, set realistic budgets and sequence multi-year programmes before design begins in earnest.</p>
<h3>Mortenson Development and Properties</h3>
<p>The firm develops and owns real estate in its own right, taking equity positions rather than only building for third-party owners. This gives its teams direct experience of lifecycle cost and asset performance.</p>
<h3>Offsite Manufacturing</h3>
<p>Dedicated manufacturing facilities produce prefabricated assemblies - bathroom pods, headwalls, exterior panels and MEP racks - that shorten site schedules, improve quality control and reduce weather exposure.</p>
<h3>Engineering and Building Performance</h3>
<p>In-house engineering and building performance teams support energy modelling, commissioning, and sustainability targets, while equipment solutions provide specialised plant and machinery for complex sites.</p>
<h2>Industries Served</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Sports and entertainment</strong> - major arenas and stadiums, including Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee</li>
<li><strong>Data centers</strong> - hyperscale and colocation facilities built at speed</li>
<li><strong>Healthcare</strong> - hospital towers, expansions and renovations</li>
<li><strong>Higher education</strong> - academic, research and student services buildings</li>
<li><strong>Renewable energy</strong> - wind, solar, energy storage, green hydrogen and power delivery</li>
<li><strong>Advanced manufacturing and science and technology</strong> - production plants and research facilities</li>
<li><strong>Aviation and transportation</strong> - terminals, transit and civil infrastructure</li>
<li><strong>Federal government and public-private partnerships</strong></li>
<li><strong>Cultural and performing arts, hospitality and office</strong></li>
</ul>
<h2>Renewable Energy Leadership</h2>
<p>Mortenson is one of the most established contractors in North American renewable energy, with a portfolio spanning utility-scale wind farms, solar arrays, battery energy storage, EV infrastructure and microgrids. Projects such as Moraine Sands Wind illustrate a segment of the business that has grown alongside the wider energy transition, and it gives the company a very different risk and schedule profile from a purely vertical-build contractor.</p>
<h2>Approach and Culture</h2>
<p>The company frames its work around a promise to make projects better than owners imagined possible, supported by core values, a strong safety programme and long-term investment in continuous learning. Its stated ambition - shaping the world of things to come - is matched by an emphasis on leaving a lasting positive impact on the communities where it builds.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>Mortenson occupies a distinctive place in the US market: large enough to deliver arenas, hospitals and gigawatt-scale renewable portfolios, yet privately held and able to take development risk on its own balance sheet. For owners, that mix of builder and investor perspective is a meaningful differentiator when evaluating partners for complex capital programmes.</p>
<h2>Why It Matters for AEC Teams</h2>
<p>Teams researching contractors for data centers, sports venues or renewable energy work will find Mortenson a useful reference point for integrated delivery, offsite manufacturing and owner-aligned capital planning across the built environment.</p>

Mortenson is a top-25 US builder and developer delivering sports venues, data centers, healthcare, higher education and renewable energy projects nationwide.

Mortenson | US Builder, Developer & Renewable Energy

Mortenson

Mortenson is a top-25 US builder, developer and engineering services provider delivering sports venues, data centers, healthcare facilities, higher education buildings and renewable energy projects, backed by offsite manufacturing and capital project planning expertise.

<h2>Company Overview</h2>
<p>McKinstry is a full-service design, build, operate and maintain firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Founded more than 60 years ago as a mechanical contractor, the company has grown into an integrated provider that spans engineering, construction, energy services and long-term facility operations. Its tagline - For the Life of Your Building - reflects a business model built around staying with a facility long after handover rather than leaving at substantial completion.</p>
<h2>Integrated Service Platform</h2>
<p>McKinstry brings design, installation, commissioning and ongoing operations under one roof, which allows a single point of accountability across the building lifecycle.</p>
<h3>Design and Construction</h3>
<ul>
<li>Mechanical, HVAC and plumbing systems design and installation</li>
<li>Electrical and technology systems - raceway, wiring, lighting, panels and generators</li>
<li>Architectural metals design, fabrication and installation</li>
<li>Prefabrication and modular assembly to compress schedules and improve quality</li>
</ul>
<h3>Energy and Decarbonisation</h3>
<ul>
<li>Energy services and performance contracting to replace ageing infrastructure</li>
<li>Active Energy Management for continuous monitoring and optimisation</li>
<li>Energy asset development combining technical, financial and procurement strategy</li>
<li>EcoDistrict services - shared-energy districts spanning multiple buildings toward zero-carbon outcomes</li>
<li>Building performance standards compliance roadmaps</li>
</ul>
<h3>Operations and Optimisation</h3>
<ul>
<li>ActiveOps - a structured approach to taking control of building operations</li>
<li>Commissioning and retro-commissioning to verify systems work together as intended</li>
<li>Preventive and predictive maintenance programmes</li>
</ul>
<h2>Markets Served</h2>
<p>McKinstry works across a broad set of building types, tailoring its approach to each sector's operational demands.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Commercial</strong> - office, retail, hospitality, residential and mixed-use property</li>
<li><strong>Data centers</strong> - cost-efficient, resilient and environmentally responsible facilities delivered at speed and scale</li>
<li><strong>Education</strong> - K-12 districts and higher education campuses</li>
<li><strong>Government</strong> - city, county, state and federal facilities</li>
<li><strong>Healthcare</strong> - critical access and acute care hospitals, medical office buildings and clinics</li>
<li><strong>Industrial</strong> - manufacturing plants, food processing and distribution centers</li>
<li><strong>Life sciences</strong> - laboratories, clean rooms and vivariums</li>
<li><strong>Utilities and infrastructure</strong> - distributed energy resources and grid-interactive buildings</li>
</ul>
<h2>Sustainability Commitment</h2>
<p>Decarbonisation sits at the centre of the company's strategy. Its carbon and climate work, Zero+ commitment and EcoDistrict model are aimed at reducing operational and embodied carbon across portfolios rather than single assets. Because McKinstry both installs systems and operates them afterwards, it can measure whether the projected savings actually materialise - a meaningful differentiator in an industry where modelled performance and real performance often diverge.</p>
<h2>Culture and Safety</h2>
<p>Safety is treated as a cultural commitment rather than a compliance exercise, with the stated goal that everyone goes home safe and unharmed. The firm also runs internship and veteran hiring programmes and invests in innovation through initiatives such as Dawson Ventures and its Spokane Living Laboratory.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>McKinstry sits at an unusual intersection in the AEC market: it is simultaneously a specialty trade contractor, an energy services company (ESCO) and a facility services provider. That breadth appeals to owners who want fewer interfaces, clearer accountability and a partner who has financial exposure to how the building actually performs once occupied.</p>
<h2>Why AEC Teams Track McKinstry</h2>
<p>For owners planning retrofits, campus energy strategies or data center expansion, McKinstry is a useful benchmark for integrated delivery. Its combination of self-perform trade capability, energy performance contracting and post-occupancy operations shows how the traditional boundaries between contractor, consultant and service provider are increasingly blurring across the built environment.</p>

McKinstry is a Seattle-based design-build, energy services and facility operations firm serving commercial, healthcare, data center, education and government bu

McKinstry | Design, Build, Operate & Energy Services

McKinstry

McKinstry is a Seattle-based design, build, operate and maintain firm delivering mechanical, electrical, energy and facility services for commercial, healthcare, education, data center, industrial and government buildings across the United States, with a strong focus on decarbonisation and building performance.

<h2>Who LMN Architects Is</h2>
<p>LMN Architects is an architecture and planning studio headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The practice operates as a single blended studio of approximately 100 design professionals led by eight partners, deliberately avoiding separate departments so that architects, planners, interior designers and computational specialists work side by side on the same projects. That structure is central to how the firm describes itself: one interdisciplinary studio built around research, curiosity and dialogue.</p>
<h2>Core Services</h2>
<p>The studio offers a full range of design services from early feasibility work through construction administration.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Architecture</strong> - new buildings, additions and adaptive reuse across public and institutional sectors</li>
<li><strong>Urban design and planning</strong> - campus frameworks, district planning and civic placemaking</li>
<li><strong>Interior design</strong> - lobbies, learning environments, performance spaces and workplace interiors</li>
<li><strong>Design research and computational design</strong> - simulation, parametric modelling and material exploration through the studio's in-house research and fabrication work</li>
<li><strong>Sustainability consulting</strong> - energy, carbon and wellbeing analysis integrated into the design process rather than bolted on</li>
</ul>
<h2>Sectors and Building Types</h2>
<h3>Convention and Civic Buildings</h3>
<p>LMN is widely recognised for large-scale public assembly architecture. Its portfolio includes the Seattle Convention Center Summit Building, the Austin Convention Center redevelopment and the Dayton Convention Center renovation - complex urban projects that must absorb enormous crowds while still contributing positively to the surrounding streetscape.</p>
<h3>Performing Arts</h3>
<p>Acoustically demanding cultural venues are a long-standing specialism, exemplified by the Diego Rivera Performing Arts Center at City College of San Francisco. These projects combine technical acoustic performance with the civic ambition of a public cultural building.</p>
<h3>Higher Education and Research</h3>
<p>A substantial share of the studio's work serves universities and colleges. Recent commissions include the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building at UC Irvine, the John and Marcia Price Computing and Engineering Building at the University of Utah, the Computing and Data Science Building at Stanford University, Founders Hall at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, and the John Tulloch Business Building at the University of Nevada, Reno.</p>
<h3>Transit, Workplace and Mixed Use</h3>
<p>The practice also works on transit-oriented development, commercial and mixed-use buildings, and public infrastructure that knits into the wider urban fabric.</p>
<h2>Design Approach</h2>
<p>Three values shape the studio culture: curiosity, collaboration and community. Curiosity drives continuous exploration in design, sustainability, technology and culture, balancing creative experimentation against pragmatic project constraints. Collaboration is expressed through the single-studio model and close partnership with clients and consultants. Community reflects a commitment to sustainable, equitable places and to the public realm around each building.</p>
<h2>Sustainability and Technology</h2>
<p>Environmental performance is treated as a design driver. The studio applies energy modelling, daylight and thermal simulation, and embodied carbon analysis during design rather than as a late-stage check, and its interest in digital tools extends to computational geometry, parametric workflows and prototyping through its in-house shop.</p>
<h2>Market Position</h2>
<p>LMN occupies a distinctive niche in North American architecture: large enough to deliver convention centres, research buildings and performing arts venues at scale, yet small and unified enough to keep partners directly involved in the work. Clients are predominantly public agencies, universities, cultural institutions and municipalities - organisations that need a designer comfortable with long approval processes, stakeholder engagement and demanding technical criteria.</p>
<h2>Why It Matters for AEC Teams</h2>
<p>For owners, consultants and contractors evaluating design partners, LMN represents a research-led approach to complex public architecture. Its combination of computational design capability, acoustic and assembly expertise, and sustainability integration makes it a useful reference point for teams planning convention, cultural or higher education facilities.</p>

LMN Architects is a Seattle design studio specialising in convention centers, performing arts venues, higher education buildings and sustainable civic architect

LMN Architects | Seattle Architecture & Design Studio

LMN Architects

LMN Architects is a Seattle-based interdisciplinary design studio of roughly 100 professionals, known for convention centers, performing arts venues, higher education buildings and civic architecture that pair future-focused vision with technical rigor and sustainable, place-specific design.

<h2>About LEO A DALY</h2>
<p>LEO A DALY is an American architecture, engineering and interior design firm with a 110-year legacy of delivering projects around the globe. More than 400 design and engineering professionals work across twelve studios, combining the three disciplines to offer integrated rather than sequential services.</p>
<p>The firm's stated vision is to transform the human experience through the power of design, and its mission is to create innovative, thoughtful and sustainable solutions with clients. Its design approach is described as based on inquiry, focused on innovation and rooted in social and environmental responsibility, with an emphasis on buildings that connect communities.</p>
<h2>Disciplines</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Architecture</strong> &ndash; building design across all of the firm's markets.</li>
<li><strong>Engineering</strong> &ndash; in-house engineering coordinated with design from the outset.</li>
<li><strong>Interior design</strong> &ndash; interiors developed alongside architecture.</li>
<li><strong>Sustainability</strong> &ndash; high-performance design integrated across projects.</li>
</ul>
<p>Holding architecture and engineering in one organisation is central to the firm's proposition, particularly on federal and aviation work where single-source accountability is often a procurement requirement.</p>
<h2>Markets</h2>
<p><strong>Aviation.</strong> A signature specialism covering terminals, hangars, airport operations facilities and air traffic control towers, a highly technical building type few firms design.</p>
<p><strong>Healthcare, education and federal.</strong> Three large institutional markets with demanding regulatory and security requirements.</p>
<p><strong>Civic and public safety.</strong> Government buildings and emergency services facilities including training centres.</p>
<p><strong>Commercial.</strong> Workplace, mixed-use and retail, industrial, residential and religious venues.</p>
<p><strong>Hospitality.</strong> Hotels, resorts and country clubs.</p>
<h2>Locations</h2>
<p>LEO A DALY operates from studios in Omaha, where its head office building is located, alongside Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, San Diego, Washington D.C. and West Palm Beach, with an international office in Abu Dhabi.</p>
<p>In 2025 the Southern California practice Delawie joined LEO A DALY, adding expertise and extending the firm's West Coast footprint.</p>
<h2>Operating Principles</h2>
<p>Seven principles guide the practice: customer first, recognising that the firm exists for its clients; innovative by design, treating design excellence as a constant rather than an occasional ambition; ethical always, described as the cornerstone of the firm; fair and inclusive, valuing diverse perspectives; responsible, owning the environmental and social impact of the work and asking whether net zero is sufficient or whether design should be regenerative; never stop learning, encouraging exploration and tolerance of mistakes; and make it fun.</p>
<h2>Commitments</h2>
<p>The firm frames its wider commitments around three areas. On design excellence it argues that great design and great business are both rooted in sustainability, targeting spaces that support occupant wellbeing, reduce environmental impact and maximise energy efficiency. On equity it advocates for a more diverse and inclusive profession and considers the impact of its work on marginalised communities. On community it supports organisations including the ACE Mentorship Program, Second Harvest, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America and My Sister's Place.</p>
<h2>Why LEO A DALY Matters to the AEC Industry</h2>
<p>A 110-year history places LEO A DALY among the longest continuously operating design firms in the United States, and its aviation portfolio in particular represents specialist capability that is difficult to acquire. Air traffic control towers, terminals and hangars each involve regulatory regimes, operational constraints and security requirements that sit well outside normal building design. For clients in federal, aviation and healthcare markets, the combination of that depth with integrated architecture and engineering under one contract is the firm's central offer.</p>

LEO A DALY is a US architecture, engineering and interior design firm with a 110-year legacy, specialising in aviation, healthcare and federal projects.

LEO A DALY | Architecture, Engineering & Interior Design

Leo A Daly

LEO A DALY is a US architecture, engineering and interior design firm with a 110-year legacy and more than 400 professionals across twelve studios. It works in aviation, healthcare, education, federal, civic, hospitality, commercial, industrial and public safety markets worldwide.

<h2>About Lennar</h2>
<p>Lennar is one of the largest homebuilders in the United States. Since 1954 the company has helped more than one million American families move into a new home, and it currently builds in more than 49 markets across 21 states.</p>
<p>Its product range spans the full ownership journey: first homes, move-up homes and multigenerational homes designed for extended families. Communities cover urban, suburban, active adult and golf course living, reflecting a strategy of serving many buyer segments rather than specialising in one.</p>
<h2>History</h2>
<p>The company began in Miami, Florida in 1954 when Gene Fisher and Arnold Rosen formed F&amp;R Builders. Leonard Miller became co-owner and Rosen's partner in 1956. In 1971 the two combined their names to rename the business Lennar, and the company went public the same year, listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker LEN in 1972.</p>
<p>Growth since then has been driven substantially by acquisition. Lennar doubled in size by acquiring U.S. Home in 2000, acquired WCI Communities in 2017, and in 2018 merged with CalAtlantic Homes to create what was then the nation's largest homebuilder.</p>
<h2>Product and Design Innovations</h2>
<p>Several Lennar initiatives have shaped how volume housing is marketed and specified in the United States:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Everything's Included</strong>, introduced in 1989, bundles thousands of dollars of upgrades into the base price rather than selling them as options, simplifying the buying process and standardising specification across a community.</li>
<li><strong>NEXT GEN, The Home Within A Home</strong>, launched in 2012, provides a self-contained suite with its own entrance, living space and kitchenette within a single-family house, designed for multigenerational households.</li>
<li><strong>Wi-Fi Certified Home Design</strong>, introduced in 2017, was presented as the world's first, with whole-home connectivity designed in and supported at activation.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Family of Companies</h2>
<p>Lennar operates well beyond housebuilding. Lennar Multifamily Communities, founded in 2011, develops rental apartment communities nationally. Lennar Urban delivers condominium developments in San Francisco and the northeastern United States. Village Builders and Friendswood Development Company serve the Texas and Houston markets, the latter creating master-planned communities for more than 50 years. CalAtlantic Homes continues as a brand within the group.</p>
<p>Financial and support services include Eagle Home Mortgage, formerly Universal American Mortgage Company and established in 1981; CalAtlantic Title, one of the largest real estate settlement organisations in the country; North American Advantage Insurance Services; and SunStreet, which supplies solar energy systems to new homebuyers without upfront ownership cost. Rialto Capital Management, a private real estate investment manager, was founded in 2007. Lennar International serves overseas buyers of US residential property.</p>
<h2>Core Principles</h2>
<p>Lennar states three foundational principles: quality, value and integrity. It frames these as a commitment to being an industry innovator focused on build quality, to delivering the best possible home value to each customer, and to doing the right thing for the right reason.</p>
<h2>Why Lennar Matters to the AEC Industry</h2>
<p>Lennar operates at a scale where its specification choices move markets. When a builder delivering tens of thousands of homes a year standardises a product, a connectivity platform or a solar offering, that decision propagates through the entire residential supply chain. Its vertically integrated model, combining homebuilding with mortgage, title, insurance and solar, is also a useful case study in how volume housebuilders capture value across the whole transaction rather than from construction margin alone. For anyone studying industrialised housing delivery in North America, Lennar is the reference operator.</p>

Lennar is a leading US homebuilder founded in 1954, building across 21 states with multifamily, urban, mortgage and solar businesses alongside housing.

Lennar | One of America's Largest Homebuilders

Lennar

Lennar is one of America's largest homebuilders, founded in Miami in 1954 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It builds homes in more than 49 markets across 21 states, and operates multifamily, urban condominium, mortgage, title and insurance businesses alongside its core homebuilding.

<h2>About Leers Weinzapfel Associates</h2>
<p>Leers Weinzapfel Associates is a Boston-based architecture practice founded in 1982, working at the juncture of architecture, landscape, urban design and infrastructure. The firm describes its signature as bringing inventiveness to dramatically complex conditions, meeting difficult technical and urban challenges with design clarity and refinement.</p>
<p>It is a deliberately public practice. From the outset its work has been intentionally public in nature and attitude, usually embedded in the urban fabric, with a stated commitment to providing meaningful spaces for human interaction and promoting social wellbeing. Today the studio is a team of around 30 people drawn from the United States, Central America, Europe and Asia.</p>
<h2>History</h2>
<p>The practice was founded with two goals that have not changed: to create bold and refined architecture for the public realm, and to build a collaborative workplace inclusive of diverse voices and talents.</p>
<p>Its earliest commissions were infrastructure, including a building suspended beneath a bridge in Boston and an airfield maintenance building. That work led to more substantial infrastructure projects such as the University of Pennsylvania Gateway Chiller Plant. Public building work began with small community recreation buildings and neighbourhood police stations before expanding into major civic architecture including state and federal courthouses. Early university renovation projects grew into major campus buildings and campus master planning.</p>
<p>While the firm remains committed to building in the Boston area, its work now extends nationally and internationally, most recently including projects in France and Taiwan.</p>
<h2>Recognition</h2>
<p>In 2007 the American Institute of Architects awarded Leers Weinzapfel its Firm Award, the highest honour the AIA bestows on an architecture practice, making it the first women-led firm to receive it. The studio has appeared in the ARCHITECT Top 50 national rankings continuously since 2014 and has won more than 100 national and regional awards. Its 2011 monograph, Made to Measure: The Architecture of Leers Weinzapfel Associates, was published by Princeton Architectural Press.</p>
<h2>Sustainability</h2>
<p>Social, environmental and economic considerations drive the practice's work. It is a signatory to and advocate for the AIA 2030 Commitment, and is a pioneer in mass timber, having delivered the first large-scale mass timber buildings for higher education in the United States. Internally, an active group known as the Green Monsters studies, shares and applies current sustainable practice across projects.</p>
<h2>Equity and Education</h2>
<p>Founded by women, the firm commits explicitly to equity, community engagement and sustainability. It gives equal voice to all team members and supports initiatives including 100% Talent, the Boston Women's Workforce Council compact, and the Girl UNinterrupted Project, a national research initiative launched by two of its own architects.</p>
<p>Members of the practice teach at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Wentworth Institute of Technology and Boston Architectural College. Internally, mentorship runs through design lunches with senior staff, sustainability workshops and one-to-one career conversations. Staff have also served on the boards of the Boston Society of Architects, the Boston Civic Design Commission, the BSA Foundation and Boston by Foot.</p>
<h2>Why Leers Weinzapfel Matters to the AEC Industry</h2>
<p>Two things make the practice notable well beyond its size. First, its infrastructure work: chiller plants, utility buildings and other back-of-house facilities are typically treated as purely engineering problems, and LWA's insistence on designing them as civic architecture has influenced how campuses and cities approach these building types. Second, its mass timber record in American higher education provides some of the earliest large-scale precedent in a market that has since moved rapidly toward engineered timber. Its AIA Firm Award also marked a genuine milestone for women-led practice in the profession.</p>

Leers Weinzapfel Associates is a Boston architecture practice founded in 1982, working across civic, campus, infrastructure and mass timber projects.

Leers Weinzapfel Associates | Boston Architecture Firm

Leers Weinzapfel Associates

Leers Weinzapfel Associates is a Boston architecture practice founded by women in 1982, working at the juncture of architecture, landscape, urban design and infrastructure. In 2007 it became the first women-led firm to receive the AIA Firm Award, and it pioneered large-scale mass timber for US higher education.

<h2>About KPF</h2>
<p>KPF, formally Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, is a global architecture practice founded in New York on 4 July 1976 by A. Eugene Kohn, William Pedersen and Sheldon Fox. Now employing more than 600 people, the firm operates from its head office at 11 West 42nd Street in Manhattan alongside studios in London, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Seoul, San Francisco, Singapore and Berlin.</p>
<p>The practice states its mission plainly: to transform cities through context, craft and performance. Those three words are not decorative. They function as the firm's operating framework, and it organises its published work and thinking around them.</p>
<h2>The Three Principles</h2>
<p><strong>Context.</strong> KPF holds that its designs should be informed by their environments and should improve them. For a firm whose portfolio is dominated by very large buildings in dense cities, this is the discipline that keeps a tower from being an object dropped into a street.</p>
<p><strong>Craft.</strong> The practice describes its work as carefully crafted, inventive and durable, with attention to material and detail at close range. Its writing on the subject treats detailing as a design act rather than a technical afterthought.</p>
<p><strong>Performance.</strong> Technical, economic, environmental and social performance underpin design decisions. In commercial development, where a building must satisfy an investor's return model as well as a planning authority, this framing reflects the reality of how large projects are actually justified.</p>
<h2>Sectors</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong>Supertall</strong> &ndash; the specialism KPF is best known for internationally.</li>
<li><strong>Office and headquarters</strong> &ndash; corporate workplace at every scale.</li>
<li><strong>Mixed-use</strong> &ndash; large urban developments combining several uses.</li>
<li><strong>Transportation</strong> &ndash; airports and transit-related architecture.</li>
<li><strong>Residential and hospitality</strong> &ndash; housing and hotels.</li>
<li><strong>Civic, cultural and education</strong> &ndash; public and institutional buildings.</li>
<li><strong>Research and healthcare</strong> &ndash; laboratory and clinical facilities.</li>
<li><strong>Adaptive reuse</strong> &ndash; repurposing existing building stock.</li>
<li><strong>Planning, urban design and public realm</strong> &ndash; city-scale strategy and the spaces between buildings.</li>
<li><strong>Interiors, retail, applied technology and environmental modelling</strong> &ndash; supporting specialisms carried in house.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Notable Projects</h2>
<p>KPF's supertall portfolio includes the 115-storey Ping An Financial Centre in Shenzhen and One Vanderbilt in Midtown Manhattan, which rises beside Grand Central Terminal and integrates directly with the transit concourse below. Zayed International Airport represents the firm's transportation work at national infrastructure scale.</p>
<p>Smaller-scale work demonstrates the craft principle: the lobby at 712 Fifth Avenue, the brick facade of 64 University Place, and 500 West 21st Street. Westlake 66 has been recognised by the Urban Land Institute for its use of innovative low-carbon materials.</p>
<h2>Research and Environmental Modelling</h2>
<p>KPF maintains dedicated applied technology and environmental modelling capabilities, and publishes research on urban questions including what it calls central social districts, examining how real estate must adapt as the function of city centres shifts away from pure office monoculture.</p>
<h2>Why KPF Matters to the AEC Industry</h2>
<p>KPF is among a very small group of practices with genuine supertall expertise, a field where structural engineering, wind performance, vertical transportation and facade systems dominate the design problem and where very few firms have sufficient completed precedent. Its influence on skylines from New York to London to Shenzhen is substantial. For developers and engineers, the firm is also a useful case study in how technical, economic, environmental and social performance can be held together as design criteria rather than treated as competing constraints.</p>

KPF is a global architecture practice founded in 1976, known for supertall towers, headquarters and mixed-use developments in cities worldwide.

KPF | Kohn Pedersen Fox Global Architecture Practice

KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox) is a global architecture practice founded in New York in 1976. Known for supertall towers, headquarters buildings and large mixed-use developments, it works across office, residential, transportation, civic, education and adaptive reuse from studios in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

<p>ARES is a modern, feature-rich CAD software that serves as a leading AutoCAD alternative for professionals working with 2D drafting and 3D modeling in the industry-standard DWG file format. Developed by Graebert, ARES combines power, flexibility, and affordability&mdash;making it an ideal solution for architects, engineers, designers, and construction professionals seeking a more cost-effective, high-performance CAD platform.<br><br>With a growing global footprint, ARES is trusted by some of the world&rsquo;s most prominent companies. Among its users are three of Japan&rsquo;s top five construction groups, as well as globally recognized manufacturers such as LG, Hyundai, and Samsung. Its robust feature set supports the complex demands of design, engineering, and construction workflows, offering seamless collaboration and precision.<br><br>ARES also serves as the underlying technology for other leading CAD solutions. It powers DraftSight by Dassault Syst&egrave;mes, a popular CAD software for 2D design, and Onshape Drawings, the drawing module within the cloud-native Onshape CAD platform. These partnerships highlight ARES&rsquo;s reliability, scalability, and integration capabilities across different design environments.<br><br>As a truly cross-platform CAD solution, ARES is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux, with additional cloud and mobile access through ARES Kudo (web-based) and ARES Touch (mobile app). This ensures design professionals can work seamlessly across devices and locations, with real-time syncing and collaboration tools.<br><br>With its DWG compatibility, modern interface, and flexible subscription-based licensing model, ARES offers a compelling alternative to traditional CAD tools&mdash;without sacrificing performance or productivity. Whether you're migrating from AutoCAD or starting fresh with a new CAD workflow, ARES delivers the tools you need to design faster, collaborate smarter, and lower your total cost of ownership.<br><br>Discover why ARES is the next-generation DWG CAD software for today&rsquo;s professionals.<br><br>DWG Compatibility:<br>ARES Commander works directly with DWG files, making it a good option for users familiar with other CAD software that uses this format. <br><br>Part of the ARES Trinity:<br>ARES Commander is the desktop component of Graebert's Trinity, which also includes cloud-based ARES Kudo and mobile ARES Touch. This allows for seamless workflows across devices. <br><br>Productivity Features:<br>ARES Commander includes features like Power Trim, Dimension Palette, and Layer Tools, designed to enhance user productivity. <br><br>Customization:<br>Users can customize their workspaces and user interfaces to suit their preferences. <br><br>Collaboration:<br>The ARES Trinity enables collaboration features, allowing users to share, view, and edit drawings across different platforms and devices. <br><br>Cloud Integration:<br>ARES Commander integrates with popular cloud storage services like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud. <br><br>BIM Features:<br>ARES Commander also includes BIM (Building Information Modeling) features, allowing users to import and view Revit and IFC files, extract 2D drawings, and extract BIM information into tables. <br><br>Licensing:<br>ARES Commander offers perpetual, annual, or flex licenses, and a single license can be used across multiple computers with different operating systems.</p>

Modern workflows leveraging cloud and mobile to synchronize the work across all your users and devices.

CAD Anywhere: Desktop CAD (Windows, Mac, Linux), Cloud CAD (runs in your Internet browser), and Mobile CAD (Android tablets/smartphones and iOS iPhone/iPad).

With the DWG for BIM features in ARES Commander, users can create smarter CAD drawings whose geometry can be extracted and updated from Revit and IFC BIM projects.

ARES Commander - Desktop CAD: All the 2D and 3D features needed to create and modify DWG drawings on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

ARES Kudo - Online CAD: Create and modify DWG drawings online, and enjoy new collaboration features to comment with voice, photos, text notes, and stamps.

ARES Touch - Mobile CAD: A full set of 2D features to create, modify, and annotate DWG drawings on your Android smartphone/tablet and iOS iPhone/iPad with unique collaboration features to markup with voice, photos, text notes, and stamps.

ARES Trinity by Graebert

The ARES Trinity of CAD software encompasses three integrated software products: ARES Commander, ARES Kudo, and ARES Touch.

Featuring Graebert ARES CAD software at the AEC Innovate Conference

8600 AutoCAD users migrated to ARES CAD Software at Takenaka in Japan

Featuring Graebert at the AEC Innovate Conference

<p><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="272" data-end="294">Solibri CheckPoint</strong> is a <strong data-start="300" data-end="336">browser-based BIM model checking</strong> platform that helps architecture, engineering, and construction teams improve <strong data-start="415" data-end="462">model quality, coordination, and compliance</strong>&mdash;without heavy installs or steep training. Open a browser, review <strong data-start="528" data-end="537">Revit</strong> and <strong data-start="542" data-end="549">IFC</strong> models side by side, run standardized <strong data-start="588" data-end="604">QA/QC checks</strong> (clash detection, data/property rules, clearances), and manage issues in one collaborative workspace that fits your existing <strong data-start="730" data-end="737">CDE</strong> and project tools.</span></p>
<h2 data-start="758" data-end="783"><strong><span style="font-size: 15px;">Why Solibri CheckPoint</span></strong></h2>
<ul data-start="784" data-end="1370">
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="784" data-end="888"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="786" data-end="818">Zero install, fast adoption:</strong> Web-based model checking reduces IT overhead and speeds onboarding.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="889" data-end="985"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="891" data-end="922">Native Revit &amp; IFC support:</strong> Review the same source data&mdash;no exports or lossy conversions.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="986" data-end="1090"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="988" data-end="1011">Standardized QA/QC:</strong> Enforce modeling standards with reusable rule sets, filters, and data views.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1091" data-end="1208"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="1093" data-end="1128">Collaborative issue management:</strong> Assign, track, and resolve clashes/data issues with transparent audit trails.</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1209" data-end="1370"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="1211" data-end="1228">CDE-friendly:</strong> Practical integrations with <strong data-start="1257" data-end="1288">Autodesk Construction Cloud</strong> and <strong data-start="1293" data-end="1304">Procore</strong> keep models and issues in sync via direct connections or <strong data-start="1362" data-end="1369">BCF</strong>.</span></li>
</ul>
<h2 data-start="1372" data-end="1391"><strong><span style="font-size: 15px;">Key Capabilities</span></strong></h2>
<ul data-start="1392" data-end="1804">
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1392" data-end="1460"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="1394" data-end="1439">Clash detection &amp; constructability checks</strong> across disciplines</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1461" data-end="1541"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="1463" data-end="1491">Property/data validation</strong> to enforce BIM standards and naming conventions</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1542" data-end="1611"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="1544" data-end="1574">Clearance/free-space rules</strong> for safety, access, and operations</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1612" data-end="1702"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="1614" data-end="1629">Data Viewer</strong> to inspect quantities, attributes, and patterns alongside the 3D model</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1703" data-end="1804"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="1705" data-end="1724">Project Library</strong> to publish shared, repeatable templates (rules, filters, views) across projects</span></li>
</ul>
<h2 data-start="1806" data-end="1832"><strong><span style="font-size: 15px;">Integrations &amp; Workflow</span></strong></h2>
<ul data-start="1833" data-end="2138">
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1833" data-end="1939"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Sync models and issues with <strong data-start="1863" data-end="1894">Autodesk Construction Cloud</strong> and <strong data-start="1899" data-end="1910">Procore</strong> (reduce duplicate uploads)</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="1940" data-end="2021"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Export/import issues via <strong data-start="1967" data-end="1974">BCF</strong> to keep coordination moving across platforms</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2022" data-end="2138"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Fit lightweight checks into more milestones&mdash;from schematic coordination to preconstruction and punch-list closeout</span></li>
</ul>
<h2 data-start="2140" data-end="2155"><strong><span style="font-size: 15px;">Who It&rsquo;s For</span></strong></h2>
<ul data-start="2156" data-end="2394">
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2156" data-end="2237"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="2158" data-end="2187">Architects &amp; BIM Managers</strong> standardizing QA/QC and modeling best practices</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2238" data-end="2319"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="2240" data-end="2275">General Contractors &amp; VDC Teams</strong> driving constructability and coordination</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2320" data-end="2394"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="2322" data-end="2344">Owners/Consultants</strong> requiring transparent, auditable BIM deliverables</span></li>
</ul>
<h2 data-start="2396" data-end="2407"><strong><span style="font-size: 15px;">Benefits</span></strong></h2>
<ul data-start="2408" data-end="2682">
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2408" data-end="2474"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="2410" data-end="2432">Higher BIM quality</strong> with consistent templates and rule sets</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2475" data-end="2544"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="2477" data-end="2499">Fewer rework loops</strong> thanks to faster clash and data validation</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2545" data-end="2608"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="2547" data-end="2565">Lower overhead</strong> via web-based access and simpler rollout</span></li>
<li style="font-size: 15px;" data-start="2609" data-end="2682"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><strong data-start="2611" data-end="2634">Better traceability</strong> with centralized issue records and auditability</span></li>
</ul>
<p data-start="2197" data-end="2446"><strong>Learn more: <a href="https://www.solibri.com/checkpoint?utm_campaign=3706145-Solibri%20CheckPoint&amp;utm_source=AEC%20Tech">www.solibri.com</a></strong></p>

Model view IFC and Revit - Solibri CheckPoint

Solibri CheckPoint

Checking Revit models in the cloud with Solibri

Featuring Solibri at the AEC Innovate Conference

Solibri CheckPoint & the Future of AEC Model-Checking (2)

Acquisition of Xinaps and the rebranding of Verifi3D as Solibri Checkpoint

Solibri CheckPoint & the Future of AEC Model-Checking 

<p dir="ltr"><strong>The Context</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Despite decades of investment in BIM, architectural documentation remains heavily manual. Teams continue to spend significant time on repetitive production tasks, manual QA/QC, and enforcing standards across drawings, views, and schedules.</p>
<p dir="ltr">At scale, this creates inefficiency, late-stage rework, and coordination risk, while contributing to burnout across documentation teams. Existing automation is often fragmented or difficult to apply consistently within live project models, limiting its effectiveness in everyday production work.</p>
<p dir="ltr">SketchPro is being actively deployed at top architecture firms to address this gap by embedding AI directly into architectural documentation workflows.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>The Question</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">How can AI support architectural documentation&ndash; QA/QC, standards alignment, and repetitive production work&ndash; while keeping architects in control, preserving authorship, and respecting firm-specific standards and workflows?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>The Approach</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">SketchPro is an AI documentation copilot embedded directly within Revit, designed to operate on live project models, views, schedules, and sheets. The system is developed around three core principles:</p>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><em>No workflow disruption</em><br>Al actions occur inside the same Revit environment already used by project teams for documentation. No exporting, syncing, or parallel tools required.</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><em>Architect-in-the-loop control</em><br>All actions are previewed, reviewable, and reversible, ensuring professional judgment remains central to decision-making.</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><em>Firm-specific intelligence</em><br>Rather than applying generic rules, the system adapts to project standards, naming conventions, and documentation logic defined by each practice with an &ldquo;AI Knowledge Base&rdquo; set up by admins from each firm.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>The Collaboration Model</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">SketchPro is being deployed in collaboration with architecture firms working across a range of scales, typologies, and geographic locations, including educational, multifamily, and commercial projects. Ongoing collaboration ensures the platform addresses real documentation pain points such as QA/QC consistency, annotation cleanup, and standards alignment within live projects.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>The Results</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Across partner firms, teams report:</p>
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">Standardized preferences across projects with AI</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">30% reduction in documentation time across major tasks like sheet creation, dimensioning, schedules, and QA/QC</p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">
<p dir="ltr" role="presentation">20% more capacity to do more projects with their current team</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p dir="ltr">AI is experienced as a support system rather than a replacement. Junior staff report increased confidence and productivity, while senior staff retain full control over technical decisions.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Key Takeaways</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Successful AI adoption in architecture depends less on automation alone and more on customization, transparency, and trust in the technology.</p>
<p dir="ltr">By embedding AI directly into documentation workflows and aligning it with the realities of architectural practice, SketchPro illustrates how AI can strengthen existing processes rather than disrupt them, supporting efficiency, quality, and professional judgment.</p>

SketchPro allows you to go from a hand-drawn sketch to a fully rendered design

Firm-specific intelligence based on a custom, internal knowledge base

Mentor mode provides model-specific guidance

QAQC Audit using your firm's standards and checklists

SketchPro.ai

<h1 data-start="260" data-end="340"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><strong data-start="262" data-end="340">Ideate StyleManager for Revit: Clean, Standardize, and Optimize BIM Styles</strong></span></h1>
<h2 data-start="347" data-end="390"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Why Revit Styles Become a Hidden Problem</span></h2>
<p data-start="392" data-end="739"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Managing styles in Autodesk Revit &mdash; including object styles, line patterns, materials, text types, and view templates &mdash; is one of those tasks that quietly affects every project. When unmanaged, styles accumulate from imported content, linked models, and copied elements, leading to bloated files, inconsistent graphics, and coordination headaches.</span></p>
<p data-start="741" data-end="846"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Over time, even well-structured projects can drift away from office standards without teams realizing it.</span></p>
<h2 data-start="853" data-end="885"><span style="font-size: 16px;">What Ideate StyleManager Does</span></h2>
<p data-start="887" data-end="1150"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Ideate StyleManager is a Revit plugin built to give BIM managers and architects greater control over project styles. Instead of manually hunting through settings or risking accidental deletions, users can analyze, merge, rename, and remove unwanted styles safely.</span></p>
<p data-start="1152" data-end="1249"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The tool makes it easier to clean up project files and enforce consistent standards across teams.</span></p>
<h2 data-start="1256" data-end="1300"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Safe Cleanup with Built-In Style Analysis</span></h2>
<p data-start="1302" data-end="1450"><span style="font-size: 16px;">One of the biggest risks in Revit is deleting a style that is still in use. That action can trigger unexpected graphic changes throughout the model.</span></p>
<p data-start="1452" data-end="1752"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Ideate StyleManager addresses this with detailed usage analysis. Before merging or deleting a style, users can see exactly where it is applied. This visibility allows teams to consolidate duplicate styles, remove clutter, and align projects with office templates without compromising model integrity.</span></p>
<h2 data-start="1759" data-end="1815"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Improving Model Performance and Documentation Quality</span></h2>
<p data-start="1817" data-end="1928"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Style clutter does more than create visual inconsistencies. It can also impact file size and model performance.</span></p>
<p data-start="1930" data-end="2181"><span style="font-size: 16px;">By reducing redundant definitions and maintaining consistent graphics, teams improve drawing clarity, coordination workflows, and overall BIM health. For firms working across multiple offices, maintaining a unified visual language becomes much easier.</span></p>
<h2 data-start="2188" data-end="2225"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Supporting Long-Term BIM Standards</span></h2>
<p data-start="2227" data-end="2312"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Ideate StyleManager is not just a cleanup tool. It supports long-term BIM governance.</span></p>
<p data-start="2314" data-end="2577"><span style="font-size: 16px;">As projects grow in complexity and content libraries expand, style management becomes increasingly important. The ability to proactively monitor and standardize styles helps firms protect documentation quality from early design through construction documentation.</span></p>
<p data-start="2579" data-end="2740"><span style="font-size: 16px;">For teams focused on Revit efficiency and model reliability, Ideate StyleManager offers a practical solution for maintaining cleaner, healthier BIM environments.</span></p>

Ideate StyleManager

<p>ARES Kudo: The Cloud-Based CAD Solution Empowered by AI<br><br>In the rapidly evolving world of computer-aided design (CAD), ARES Kudo has emerged as a game-changing cloud-based solution. Developed by Berlin-based software company Graebert, ARES Kudo is the first online CAD software to reach feature parity with AutoCAD LT, making it a strong alternative for professionals looking for flexible and collaborative drafting tools. With its modern ribbon user interface and more than 300 CAD features, ARES Kudo enables seamless transitions from traditional CAD environments while introducing innovative cloud collaboration capabilities.<br><br>One of the most significant recent advancements in ARES Kudo is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). Graebert has introduced A3, an AI-powered assistant designed to enhance user experience, optimize workflows, and provide real-time guidance. Unlike generic AI chatbots, A3 is specifically trained in CAD applications, offering expert support tailored to users&rsquo; needs.<br><br>A3: The AI-Powered CAD Assistant<br><br>Artificial intelligence has become an integral part of daily life, from navigation apps to automated customer support. In the CAD industry, AI's potential is now being realized through tools like A3. Initially launched within ARES Commander, A3 is now fully integrated into ARES Kudo, bringing AI-driven assistance directly to users working in the cloud.<br><br>A3&rsquo;s capabilities go beyond simple query responses. The AI assistant helps users locate commands within ARES Kudo&rsquo;s interface, provides step-by-step guidance on using features, and offers best practices for CAD design. For professionals transitioning from other platforms like AutoCAD, A3 simplifies the learning curve by instantly pointing out feature locations. For example, users can type &ldquo;Where is the PDF Import?&rdquo; and A3 will highlight the relevant tool within the interface.<br><br>A3 also functions as an advanced knowledge source for CAD professionals, offering technical advice, design recommendations, and even industry-specific best practices. Whether users are looking for ways to streamline workflows or need assistance with a particular command, A3 serves as an on-demand expert.<br><br>Beyond guidance, A3 can perform time-saving tasks such as unit conversions, text translations, and quick calculations. Its multilingual capabilities make it even more accessible, allowing users to communicate with the AI assistant in languages such as English, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. Unlike traditional customer support, which may take hours or days to provide answers, A3 delivers instant responses, significantly improving productivity.<br><br>A Cloud-Based Alternative to AutoCAD LT<br><br>ARES Kudo&rsquo;s introduction of A3 is part of a broader effort to position itself as a leading online CAD platform. With a feature-rich environment and a familiar ribbon UI, ARES Kudo now matches AutoCAD LT&rsquo;s functionality while offering additional benefits unique to cloud-based solutions.<br><br>One notable enhancement is its support for dynamic blocks, which ensures compatibility with AutoCAD files and facilitates seamless collaboration between different software environments. Additionally, the integration of the Trinity Block Library provides access to over 450 pre-built dynamic blocks, further boosting efficiency.<br><br>By combining cloud accessibility with AI-driven support, ARES Kudo is redefining the CAD experience. Users can now enjoy a powerful, intelligent, and collaborative design environment, making ARES Kudo a compelling choice for professionals seeking innovation and efficiency in their CAD workflows.<br><br>Learn more about the powerful solution here: https://graebert.pxf.io/JKJgyv</p>

ARES Kudo now features an AI assistant with extensive CAD knowledge.

The ARES Trinity of CAD Software: Create and Modify DWG Files with Modern Collaboration Tools

ARES CAD Software: Top 10 Trinity Features Outperforming AutoCAD | Expert Review by Architosh

 Online CAD with Dynamic Blocks in ARES Kudo 

ARES Kudo: Full-featured 2D Online CAD for your DWG Drawings

ARES Kudo Online CAD for DWG Viewing, Creation and Modification in your Internet Browser

ARES Kudo

Cloud-Only Plan (includes ARES Kudo only)

Mobility Pack (includes ARES Kudo and ARES Touch)

ARES Trinity Plan (includes ARES Kudo, ARES Touch, and ARES Commander)

Because ARES Kudo runs in a browser, it can be accessed on any computer.

Featuring ArkDesign.AI at the AEC Innovate Conference

ARES Kudo: DWG Drawings Automation for Developers

ARES Kudo by Graebert Introduces AI to Assist Its Users

<p data-start="0" data-end="519">MeltPlan is the AI-native planning engine for the built environment, built to help architects, engineers, and contractors plan projects better &mdash; earlier, faster, and with far more confidence. Construction planning today is still fragmented across disconnected tools, spreadsheets, PDFs, and tribal knowledge. Teams are forced to manually connect decisions across code compliance, estimating, scheduling, and value engineering, which leads to slow iterations, missed scope, costly rework, and avoidable project risk.</p>
<p data-start="521" data-end="1082">MeltPlan solves this by creating a unified planning platform that connects the four planning pillars that shape every project: code compliance, cost, schedule, and value engineering. Instead of operating like a black-box AI assistant, MeltPlan is built for accuracy and transparency. It understands real AEC context &mdash; including codes and standards, building assemblies and elements, quantities and scopes, and project-specific conditions. Every output is designed to be defensible, with clear assumptions, step-by-step reasoning, and verifiable sources.</p>
<p data-start="1084" data-end="1355">At the core of MeltPlan is the belief that planning isn&rsquo;t just producing a schedule or an estimate &mdash; it&rsquo;s making the right decisions early, before mistakes become expensive field problems. MeltPlan helps teams move from &ldquo;searching and guessing&rdquo; to &ldquo;knowing and deciding.&rdquo;</p>
<p data-start="1357" data-end="1398">Today, MeltPlan offers two core products:</p>
<h3 data-start="1400" data-end="1417">Melt Code</h3>
<p data-start="1418" data-end="2324">Melt Code is the first building code research AI built to make compliance transparent and decision-ready. Instead of giving a generic answer, Melt Code provides project-specific compliance requirements along with a step-by-step reasoning trail and direct citations to every relevant code section. It also maps out Compliance Paths, guiding architects and engineers through multiple valid routes to compliance based on project variables like occupancy, construction type, sprinkler conditions, height/area thresholds, and fire ratings. Melt Code understands exceptions, cross-references, tables, diagrams, and code math &mdash; and can generate project-specific compliance illustrations to make requirements easier to interpret and communicate. It also includes workflow tools like Projects and Checklists, helping firms capture institutional knowledge and standardize compliance across teams.</p>
<h3 data-start="2326" data-end="2346">Melt Takeoff</h3>
<p data-start="2347" data-end="2980">Melt Takeoff is an AI-assisted takeoff service designed for contractors and estimators who need speed without sacrificing trust. It combines AI vision for fast quantity extraction with onshore, field-experienced senior estimators who verify outputs and add detailed allowances for scope not shown on drawings. Melt Takeoff detects hundreds of building elements, flags drawing/spec conflicts, structures takeoffs in MasterFormat&reg;, UniFormat&reg;, or custom standards, and delivers interactive outputs with sheet-linked traceability and clean Excel exports. It enables faster bids, fewer missed scope items, and more confident pricing.</p>
<p data-start="2982" data-end="3167" data-is-last-node="" data-is-only-node="">Together, Melt Code and Melt Takeoff form the foundation of the MeltPlan platform &mdash; a connected planning engine that brings clarity, speed, and trust to preconstruction decision-making.</p>

MeltPlan

ARES Touch is a full-featured mobile CAD app that provides a complete set of 2D drafting and annotation commands. It's the perfect companion to quickly review a drawing shared in the cloud or received by email while on the go.

Team members at the jobsite can collaborate efficiently with colleagues back at the office

ARES Touch helps users work more effectively while on the jobsite or  in the field

ARES Touch works on Android and iOS tablets and smartphones

DWG Editing on Mobile: ARES Touch Makes it Quick & Easy!

ARES Touch: Mobile CAD for Android and iOS to View, Create and Annotate DWG

Result

Companies "233 results"