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BUSINESS NEWS DESIGN TEAM CELEBRATES GROUNDBREAKING OF UNIVERSITY OF DENVER’S BURWELL CENTER FOR CAREER ACHIEVEMENT Lake|Flato Architects , along with Denver-based design partner Shears Adkins Rockmore , is pleased to join the University of Denver in celebrating the groundbreaking of its new Burwell Center for Career Achievement. Designed by the two firms in collaboration with landscape architect Didier Design Studio, the milestone marks an important step toward transforming the campus into a gathering place for the extended DU community. Situated at a key nexus between the campus’s traditional core and its growing urban edge, the new 23,000 square foot Burwell Center for Career Achievement will be a campus hub focused on student career development, employer engagement, and alumni activities. A tower stair will serve as a beacon and an executive lounge will provide views to the campus, the adjacent city core, and the nearby Rocky Mountains, connecting visitors to the neighboring landscape. Designed as a LEED Platinum building, the Center is anticipated to use 70 percent less energy than comparable university buildings. “The collaboration throughout this project has been extremely impactful. Early in the project a series of integrated design workshops, engaging hundreds of people from the DU community, established a social contract for the building. This informed every decision we made – it allowed the entire team to design a
project that we are all proud of and that will serve the DU community for generations to come,” said Dan Craig, AIA, project architect for SA+R and DU alum. The building and its surrounding site are focused on creating “sticky spaces,” areas that encourage users to linger and interact. The ground floor is designed to connect with the surrounding landscape, linking the Center to DU’s academic core and its future campus additions. As one moves up through the building, interactions gradually become more intentional and focused. The ground floor encourages serendipitous encounters around the sticky spaces, whereas the upper floors are focused on coaching, interviews, and career advising. “Coming out of our integrated design workshops, it was clear that the DU community was committed to a sustainable and environmentally responsible project. This ethic led to the selection of mass timber using the most sustainable forestry practices for the building’s structural system, which will be exposed throughout. The result will be a beautiful, biophilic space that harmonizes with the natural and built context. On the outside, photovoltaic panels are expressed as part of the building’s roof form, clearly demonstrating the DU commitment to environmental stewardship,” said Ryan Yaden, AIA, project architect for Lake|Flato. Planned for a Fall 2020 opening, the project has been led by the design team at Lake|Flato,
with SA+R providing local architectural support, regulatory insight, and Construction Administration facilitation. Didier Design Studio has led the landscape design and PCL Construction provided pre-construction services and will now lead the construction process. “Working in such a beautiful landscape and campus allowed us to concentrate on encouraging meaningful experiences that connect the wider DU community to this special place. We focused on natural materials and forms that bring people together, always testing solutions to make sure they encouraged meetings and interactions. We hope the result is so much more than a building, but in fact a place where multiple future generations can connect and forge a life of purpose,” said Andrew Herdeg, FAIA, partner for Lake|Flato. Since its founding in 1984, Lake|Flato has designed buildings that respond to the culture and climate of each unique place. With offices in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, the firm practices with a team of more than 100 professionals. Shears Adkins Rockmore, based in Denver, Colorado, is an architecture, interior design, and planning firm with a strong reputation for the design of urban projects. Today, SA+R operates with a team of approximately 50 professionals, planning, designing and executing urban infill, mixed-use projects across the country.
Account-based marketing is another strategic approach we use to open doors and expand engagements with specific clients. A focus on fewer, specific targets – not marketing to the masses – helps to further align our marketing and sales/business development team and allows a more precise measurement of return on investment. This forward-thinking approach requires the buy-in from the leaders of the firm to encourage technical staff to provide the content and intel. Regardless of your resources, there are avenues to explore to see change and be disruptive in an ever-evolving AEC landscape. You must constantly rethink your marketing strategy in your effort to cut through all the noise. ROBERT MCGEE is Pennoni’s director of marketing and corporate communications. He can be reached at rmcgee@pennoni.com. “Just like our core, tried and true service offerings, we are faced with new and innovative ways of marketing our firms. For my team, we are constantly striving for a healthy balance of what is now seen as traditional marketing versus digital marketing.”
ROBERT MCGEE, from page 9
The advancement of social media is one of the biggest drivers behind all of this. Whether we like it or not, social media has immersed itself into our daily lives, at home and at work. Firms simply cannot ignore social media if they want to succeed, and platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram have the power to reach clients and prospective clients with information that can instantly impact their decision or perception of a firm. How do we balance this influx of information? ❚ ❚ Create a content calendar to organize the different platforms and what you want to post on each ❚ ❚ If you haven’t already, start a blog on your company website and publish posts regularly ❚ ❚ Break up your own content by sharing industry articles that are relevant to your firm Because of the increased focus of digital marketing, our traditional relationship-based method of closing deals and winning projects is challenged, and marketing and business development efforts become even more critical. This is especially true in geographic territories or service offerings that are new to Pennoni. Through social platforms and our blog, we use brand awareness and thought leadership to bolster our reputation of being a leader in the AEC industry.
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THE ZWEIG LETTER August 19, 2019, ISSUE 1309
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