Case Studies Education

During the 40 years Louis Sigman has worked in Colorado’s glazing construction industry, he has lived through the leanest of times. So he had a pretty good idea of what to expect when he took the reins of a glazing contracting company shortly before the economy took yet another nosedive. While working for his family’s […]

What’s in a name? Plenty, if it’s Michael Graves Architecture & Design in New York City and Princeton, New Jersey. For seven principals today, it means living up to the legacy of the late, great and often-times eccentric architect whose name graces the firm’s letterhead. It’s a daily reminder of what’s at stake as its […]

Institutional clients like schools and healthcare providers are increasingly willing to invest long term, both with the incorporation of renewable energy and sustainable design. That makes them ideal clients for architecture firms like NK Architects. NK Architects is a full-service architecture, interior design, planning and structural engineering firm based in Morristown, New Jersey. It works […]

John Harlan, president of The Harlan Company, wasn’t planning on making a green building—or rather, the greenest building. But in 2015, he and others at the company learned about a private school in Missouri that needed a remotely located classroom built to the highest environmental standards set by the Living Building Challenge (LBC). The company […]

Before 2007, most general contractors self-performed at least a few different trades. This involved hiring a larger staff of skilled workers and giving them work through busy and lean periods. But after the financial crisis in 2008 killed projects and forced thousands of workers out of the industry, many contractors started subbing out almost all […]

Originally the nation’s first public high school for African-Americans, Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., had fallen into such disrepair that in 2011, the district opted not to renovate but to raze and rebuild. “A dark, dingy and nearly windowless high-rise,” the Washington Post deemed it. Its principal likened it to a prison. Its replacement […]

People have been building with stones, blocks and bricks since before they had language to describe what they were building. Sturdy, fireproof and low maintenance, stone buildings have carried humanity from the temples and fortresses of ancient civilizations to modern skyscrapers. As the times have changed and the materials have evolved, the need for craftsmanship […]

Sixty-five years ago, when Capform Inc. founder Mario Dozzo applied to emigrate from Italy, he told the Italian consulate that he wanted to get as far away as possible; they handed him tickets for Vancouver, Canada. Dozzo spent weeks traveling to Spain, crossing the Atlantic by boat and traveling through Canada by train. When he […]

There’s a Nelson Mandela quote that reads, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” In a way, Lloyd Rosenberg, founder of DMR Architects, has done just that. When Rosenberg founded DMR Architects in 1991, the first buildings he designed were schools. […]

When Verizon was opening a concept store in Virginia a number of years ago, it appealed to the architectural and designing expertise of Gruskin Group. An integrated design firm in Springfield, New Jersey, Gruskin Group used pink foam to mock up a 5,000-square-foot concept that enabled Verizon’s departments to field-test what would be their new […]