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For this special, five-part CE section titled Practice Matters, RECORD tackles pressing issues facing firms today, including the rewards and pitfalls of design competitions, strategies for succeeding in an unpredictable business climate, succession planning, and trends in digital technology.
Photo © Finbarr Fallon/Alamy Stock Photo
Centre Pompidou.
By Dante A. Ciampaglia
Despite slow adoption across the profession, AI has proven adept at augmenting—not replacing—the work of architects, writes Dante A. Ciampaglia.
Jonah Hawk grew up surrounded by architects but never became one himself. Instead, his interest in technology steered him, in the early 1990s, to learn computer-aided drafting (CAD), which eventually led to rendering and 3D visualizations and animations at various firms, and about 20 years ago he was hired by ZGF Architects. In late 2007, Grasshopper3D, an algorithmic modeling tool for Rhino, was introduced, and Hawk dove in. “I made a point to open Grasshopper every single day without fail, got good at it, and eventually dropped all the visualization work altogether,” he says. “I was always more fascinated with the technical side of the software than the aesthetic side of it.”
It was good preparation for the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and large language models (LLMs). Hawk, who is now associate principal and design technology manager at ZGF, went deep into the technology, testing and pushing dozens of generative-AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, which produce outputs like text and images based on inferences and patterns in large data sets. He quickly discovered the potential of these apps’ APIs (or application program interfaces), the set of rules that allows developers to build new software on top of other programs. After more experimentation, Hawk created, and in 2023 ZGF launched, ZGF.ai, which gives the firm an internal AI toolkit that does the job of numerous commercially available products. It includes ChatZGF, which generates notes from meeting transcripts, assists with coding, and checks grammar and style; a text-to-image generator that mimics DALL-E; and AI-aided rendering analysis. This was soon followed by Ziggy, an AI chatbot built on pyRevit that lets users check building-code documents and run diagnostics on BIM models, among other functions. Hawk admits the tools are a little clunky and unpolished, but they are now used by nearly 200 of ZGF’s 700 employees.
Hawk’s experience is just one example of how AI is being integrated into the practice of architecture. Artificial intelligence has existed in our everyday digital experience for years: think autocorrect in Microsoft Word or voice-based personal assistants like Apple’s Siri. And since the public release of ChatGPT in late 2022, AI has appeared in a growing number of existing tools, including those in the AEC industry. Its impact has also been felt in nearly every aspect of the profession, from architect-client relationships to how ideas are conceptualized and modeled. The largest AI apps are publicly available, which means anyone who wants something built can come to a meeting with an AI-generated image as a starting point. This reality has also led to a deluge of superficial illustrations that would make a parametricist blush. While social media are awash with such images, the architectural tomorrow many of them hope to inspire—one where a machine disrupts the architect out of a job—seems a distant fantasy.
The profession has been slow to embrace AI. An AIA survey released in March 2025 found that, while 53 percent of architects have experimented, only 6 percent regularly use AI. Where it has been adopted, the process has been deliberate and tactical, with tools introduced to complete hyperspecific tasks rather than totally upend the work. This is evident in new AI-based products like Gensler’s gBlox.CO2, a platform that draws on troves of data to add carbon and emissions analysis for massing models, and computational fluid-dynamics simulators from Autodesk Forma, which use ML and neural networks to process a building’s floor area, height, structural system, and primary use to render predictive wind and acoustic analysis. These applications point to a more practical future of augmentation—what Ellis Herman, principal product manager at Autodesk, calls “AI on the shoulder.”
“I think there’s huge potential to make complicated things more accessible to more people,” says Herman, who is trained in physics, math, and mechanical engineering but not architecture. “You can actually include these outcomes in every project you do, because you’re able to use these tools without needing so much technical training.”
But architects still need to understand how the technology works. The consensus view is that waiting for AI to blow over is not an option. “It’s not going away,” says Brian M. Kelly, an architect and associate professor at the University of Nebraska. “We have to be engaged in the process to help make it what we think it collectively should be.” This means knowing AI’s potential and limitations. It can help create organizational efficiencies and leverage proprietary data to optimize and improve an LLM’s accuracy and quality. It’s also trained with biased and junk inputs and prone to errors and hallucinations, meaning no one—least of all those creating buildings—can simply off-load responsibility to the machine. The only way anyone can know the technology’s potential is by actually using it.
“I think the challenge is finding the time and the resources to understand what AI means for the profession, to truly begin implementing it in our practices, and to leverage it in a way where we are seen as leaders in this space,” says AIA president Evelyn Lee.
Technologists like Hawk and Ellis say the best way to do that is by playing every day with applications like ChatGPT or Midjourney. Architects should learn how the tools work, push them to their limits, and try creating some of their own using LLMs’ coding capabilities. This will not only affect their work—Kelly says AI has “made my ideation more divergent” and “challenged me to look at things in ways I wouldn’t have expected”—but also improve their interactions with clients. As Lee notes, if architects recognize how someone generated a building design with, say, DALL-E, they can more easily explain the image’s shortcomings—and what the human can offer.
“I see AI as a really great opportunity to switch up our business model and repackage our services in a way that actually gets us paid for the value we believe we are delivering to clients,” Lee says. “It gets us to focus on the things that we are more passionate about, including client engagement—rather than having our heads down in construction documents and specifications—while expediting our ability to deliver smarter, more intelligent, sustainable, resilient buildings.”
Naturally, there’s existential angst looming over every conversation about AI: will it take my job? Some professions are certainly in danger. Architects, though, might be safe—for now. LLMs and other models lack the lived, real-world experience and intuition of someone who has designed buildings for decades, or studied with someone who has. But AI is nonetheless a powerful tool for augmentation.
“You won’t be replaced by AI, but you will be replaced by the architect that’s leveraging AI to its fullest extent,” says Lee. “Jobs may go away, but we never consider—and I don’t think we can honestly conceive—all the jobs that this could create. So the question becomes: how do we reskill ourselves toward those new opportunities?”
Best not to ask ChatGPT.
By Matthew Marani
Illustration © June Lee
Firms are exploiting video game engines to push the boundaries of project visualization and management, writes Matthew Marani.
Project visualization is as old as the profession itself. Physical models and ren-
derings—long made by hand or, more recently, computers—have brought plans and drawings to life to support the design process. What is new, though, is that architectural practices have increasingly turned to an unlikely source for help in simulating a project: video games.
No, firms haven’t been turned into giant arcades. Rather, over the last two decades, they have increasingly harnessed the potential of gaming engines—the powerful computational systems used to create virtual worlds for platforms like Xbox and PlayStation—to generate interactive digital environments that more deeply engage with clients and other stakeholders.
This technology is packed with software, support programs, and comprehensive libraries of source codes and images to help designers create worlds ideally suited for their needs, whether that’s completing a mythic adventure or detailing a building. Unreal Engine and Unity, the two largest commercially available engines, are highly customizable, with frameworks allowing users to create endlessly manipulable worlds and wield Godlike control over physics, weather, and geography, among countless other features. Notably, they are also optimized to consume large amounts of heavy data and swiftly render them into interactive models. Both have been embraced by a growing number of architects who have found utility in the engines’ virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications, as well as their potential for novel forms of project management.
Seven years ago, the global architectural and design firm Populous incorporated Unreal Engine into its practice. It developed its own workflows to easily merge reams of building-information-model geometry with other proprietary data sets within the engine. Those are then hosted on local servers, and, with the help of pixel streaming, may be accessed and interacted with from any location with internet access. “Projects generate massive amounts of data, but much of it is quite bespoke and can be difficult to interpret,” says Nathan Tobeck, Populous regional digital lead. “Engines can help to structure this information and visualize it in intuitive and user-friendly ways.”
Tobeck explains that such tools proved essential to the firm’s work at the Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong, a nearly 70-acre campus that finished construction in March 2025 and includes stadiums and an entertainment district. For example, Experience Studios, a Populous audiovisual- and acoustics-design agency, used the Unreal Engine during the design phase to simulate acoustical experiences across the project, as well as to model and animate minute details, like individual LEDs. “We were able to take enormous sets of data and complex geometries and visualize them simultaneously in high fidelity,” says Tobeck.
In a similar vein, the Swiss AEC software company Revizto, founded in 2008, is using a Unity-based platform, with 7 million unique lines of code, to facilitate collaboration between project stakeholders and improve efficiencies. “The building industry is one of the least digitized, and some 30 percent of construction budgets are wasted correcting errors originating in the design phase,” says founder and CEO Arman Gukasyan. “Many of these errors stem from a lack of communication between different parties, like architects, engineers, and contractors, who often work in silos.”
To combat this, Revizto aggregates data across a range of 2D- and 3D-authoring applications, like Revit, ArchiCAD, and Navisworks, into a single building model that includes automated clash-detection tools. Onsite, contractors can use a computer, tablet, or smartphone to easily pull up non-editable versions of the fully detailed building model, with options for viewing it in VR or AR. Work can then be easily logged through a real-time issue tracker, with changes made to the building model by those with authoring privileges, not unlike a shared Google document.
“We’ve rendered approximately 280 terabytes of 3D models,” says Gukasyan. “For reference, the United States Library of Congress contains 20 terabytes of data. Game engines are the only technology out there that can seamlessly create such holistic views.”
The Dallas-based international firm HKS well knows the real-world benefits of incorporating virtual experiences into the design process. The firm began using the Unreal Engine in 2002 and quickly found it created opportunities to advance storytelling and better communicate ideas. That was particularly useful when HKS began working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
In May 2024, the FDA contracted the firm to support the agency’s Home as a Health Care Idea Lab, which seeks to reimagine the home as an extension of the larger health-care industry. In collaboration with a steering committee selected by the FDA, HKS interviewed key stakeholders, including individuals with diabetes, their caregivers, health-care providers, and medical-device manufacturers, to create LilyPad, a game-engine-powered VR testing ground in which architects can explore the domestic spaces of those living with the chronic disease. It generated three different virtual households—including some shared with caretaker spouses and children—that were traversable using VR headsets.
LilyPad, which is part of the larger Idea Lab, is not simply an empathy-building tool. It also provides a window into the daily considerations of those with diabetes, such as the space requirements for insulin storage, or, in more advanced cases, dialysis machines. “These are some of the features that game engines provide, which typical architectural software does not,” notes Nethra Mohan, HKS director of immersive experiences. “It has become integral to our workflow.”
The Boston-based firm Payette adopted the Unity engine into its practice in 2016, and its powerful VR and AR visualization tools have proved critical to the team’s delivery of complex building science and health-care programs. “Back then, there was an assumption that the technology would primarily be a presentation tool for clients,” says David Hamel, Payette director of design visualization. “For me, it was always about design, and we’ve embedded the technology as a tool within all of our project teams.”
In the case of Fifth Xiangya Hospital, a 5.6 million-square-foot project in Changsa, China, which is still under construction, Payette incorporated VR into decisions pertaining to the building enclosure. The firm developed five different digital facade mock-ups that the client, during design review, could scroll through and interact with from inside and outside the hospital’s building model. They could even alter weather conditions. Occupiable windows, described as the “family nest,” were also calibrated with the help of the engine, to maximize natural ventilation and solar performance while providing intimate space for family members and patients to gather. “These tools allow our designs to be more versatile and malleable and let us customize our design flow,” says Hamel.
Gaming-engine technology continues developing at exponential rates. As it does—and as tools get augmented by artificial intelligence—more advanced hardware is likely to drive and expand the tools’ capacities, and those of the architects who use them. In the years ahead, a growing embrace of improving technology could yield new, unimagined modes of architectural design, and unlock a new era in the profession.
By Sarah Amelar
Illustration © June Lee
Even with ballooning submission requirements and meager stipends, architects are still drawn to design competitions, writes Sarah Amelar.
“We’ve done 170 competitions so far, and won 38, about half of which have actually gotten built,” says architect Steven Holl of his participation in such efforts, dating back to the 1970s. “Getting to design the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki—which we won through competition in 1992—is what put my practice on the map. I love competitions.” While some world-renowned architects with successful firms eventually stop doing them, Holl seems to thrive on them. But, as his numbers begin to suggest, even for such a high-profile, multi-time winner, competitions remain extremely risky propositions.
And the character of major competitions has been changing. Especially for museums and other cultural institutions, design contests are increasingly overseen by professional organizers/advisors, who have, arguably, made the process more methodical, thorough, and precisely choreographed. But, in many cases, it’s no longer about conveying the essential ideas with just one or two boards. The demands have grown exponentially over the past 15 or so years, particularly in the U.S., with the sheer volume of deliverables—drawings, models, renderings, videos, detail studies, written components, structural and sustainability analyses, and more—often becoming enormous. Yet, even as the requirements balloon, architects continue to receive relatively meager compensation for their efforts. As many agree, the stipend rarely covers more than one-fifth of the actual costs, sometimes significantly less. (Even with a $75,000 honorarium, such as each finalist group received in the recent Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art-expansion competition eventually awarded to Weiss/Manfredi, per-team expenditure can easily soar into the hundreds of thousands.)
So, how can architects make juried competitions more viable and rewarding?
There are, of course, different types of competitions, with multiple variations, and hybrids within (or overlapping) the broader categories. While some solicit schemes with the explicit goal of building the winning design, others are purely “ideas competitions,” seeking novel or visionary proposals to generate new thinking, with no intention (as should be stated up front) of realizing any of the schemes. The motivations behind calls for ideas vary, but some are held to boost public and political enthusiasm for controversial or contested work, as was successfully accomplished in 2003 for New York’s future High Line park.
Where architects vie for actual commissions (though realization is not guaranteed), the form of competitions varies widely. Some are open calls, accessible to almost any architect; others are by invitation only, seeking proposals from a limited number of specific firms. And many demand pre-qualification. While some involve a single round of juried review, others are multiphased, beginning perhaps as an (anonymous or non-anonymous) open call and then—once the pool is reduced to a short list—proceeding similarly to an invited competition. (Usually, only invited or short-listed competitors receive any sort of honorarium to help defray the substantial costs of developing and presenting a scheme.)
While other countries have not been entirely immune to onerous submission requirements, much of Europe has differed historically from the U.S. regarding the role of design contests in everyday practice. There, a long-standing culture of competitions is more integral and ubiquitous, with the resulting commissions, in many cases, constituting a higher percentage of a firm’s work. “Even for modest projects, like small neighborhood piazzas, there are competitions—they’re much more common and plentiful over there,” says Maurice Cox, now an urban planning professor at Harvard, who practiced architecture for a decade in Italy. “Doing them becomes a way of life for architects.” Similarly, in Switzerland, says Emanuel Christ, a founding partner of Christ & Gantenbein, whose competition wins have included major museum projects in Zurich, Basel, and Antwerp, “I know many architects, including ourselves, who built their practices right out of university through competitions. While we’ve seen changes, too, there are still many more opportunities here than in the U.S. for emerging talent to launch, develop, and sustain their careers this way.” In countries such as France and Germany, this ingrained culture is also tied to the mandate for open, typically anonymous competitions (regulated by International Union of Architects guidelines) for most public commissions. That’s how, in 1971, little-known architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, then in their 30s, won the commission to build their revolutionary scheme for Paris’s Centre Pompidou—with a one-board submission for the overarching vision.
Photo Courtesy Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Malcolm Reading Associates
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in Kansas City, Missouri, selected a scheme by Weiss/ Manfredi for its latest expansion from a competition shortlist including five other firms.
But, today, there’s pressure in the U.S., and increasingly abroad, for competition entries to appear fully worked out, ostensibly minimizing unknowns or uncertainties for the client, so the vastly augmented deliverables may even include project-cost estimates and abundant technical details. “It’s an illusion,” says one consultant who has collaborated on many top competition teams. “These elaborate processes—which demand a hell of a lot from architects for not a lot of money—give the client the impression of rigor. But, later, many of those schemes fall apart because the research is so shallow.”
Estimating costs at such an early stage can also be a slippery slope. For unethical clients holding competitions, it can be a way of driving down architectural fees. And, when outside estimators are brought in, competitors don’t typically get to see the analysis, denying them a role in determining whether the third party got it right. Participants also tell of losing competitions, as they later learn, due to their own realistic estimates—only to see the low-bidding winner (sometimes with an inferior scheme) eventually completing the project at costs as high, if not higher.
Meanwhile, some argue that excessive competition demands can squelch innovative thinking and nonconforming work. “The submissions that won us competitions, say, 15 years ago, based on the strength of the ideas but without the appearance of working out every detail,” says Christ, “would probably not be enough to win today.” Holl agrees, adding, “Twenty-six years ago, we broke the competition rules and took a creative leap for our [Bloch] building at the Nelson-Atkins, and we won—but I doubt that could happen now.”
And it’s not just about juried competitions. “The ways of getting most kinds of architectural work have changed across the board,” says Julie Eizenberg, a principal of Koning Eizenberg Architecture, in Santa Monica, California. “A lot more is expected up front, and that’s even true of RFQs [Requests for Qualifications] or other routes that didn’t used to require a scheme at the outset.” Lawrence Scarpa, a principal of Brooks + Scarpa, based in Hawthorne, California, agrees: “If architects are suddenly expected—as happens more and more—to bring to an RFQ interview 10 drawings of a completely worked-out proposal, you can’t show up with any less, or you won’t even be in the running.”
And, increasingly, architects have to demonstrate that they’ve already done multiple projects of the given building type to qualify to compete—a catch-22 for designers trying to break into a new sector. While such screening might appear to reduce client risk, says Fabrizio Rossi Prodi, whose Florence, Italy, firm has won numerous competitions, “it’s often someone who hasn’t worked many times, or at all, with the specific typology who brings the most innovative ideas and freshest approach. Maybe it should be more about the scale and complexity of past projects, rather than the particular building type.”
The call for prolific experience within a given typology might be one reason why competition short lists often seem predictable. Yes, some clients seek marquee names. But has this risk-averse approach become too conservative? “Definitely,” says Scarpa. “That’s why we’ve been doing competitions overseas, in parts of Asia, for example, where they tend to be more willing to take a chance.” As for U.S. short lists, says Reed Kroloff, a cofounder of joneskroloff (now cramerkroloff), which ran many juried competitions before focusing on other approaches to architect selection: “Often the so-called ‘usual suspects’—such as Weiss/Manfredi, Studio Gang, and Annabelle Selldorf—happen to be outstanding talents, well qualified to take on the project. But, at the same time, we’ve also made a point of bringing unexpected players into the mix.” Another factor is that not every practice is willing, or willing every time, to do competitions. “Firms frequently turn down invitations for any number of reasons,” says Kroloff. “Maybe they’re too busy, or not interested in the particular project, or have issues with the client, or something else.” Malcolm Reading, whose London-based company, Malcolm Reading Consultants (MRC) has led many high-profile international competitions, likens putting together an invitee or short list to “selecting guests for a dinner party—we try for diversity, and sometimes a client is keen on focusing specifically on fresh or emerging talent.” Even when short lists are (mostly) unsurprising, the best-known figures don’t always win, as in 2023, when Madrid-based Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos won the MRC-organized competition for the Dallas Museum of Art.
Photo © Finbarr Fallon/Alamy Stock Photo
The commission for the Centre Pompidou in Paris was won in 1971 with a one-board submission by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, then little known.
But there are still so many ways for competitions to turn thorny, as when clients are just trolling for low-cost publicity or ideas, with no plans to build (even though the contest isn’t billed that way); or when clients know at the outset which architect they want; or when they are unlikely to ever raise adequate funds to realize the project. And even with good intentions, there can be curveballs. A change in institutional or political leadership can suddenly kill a project, or a competition can be carelessly organized, with terms shifting along the way. “It’s tricky when the briefs are poorly written, making it unclear what they’re asking for,” says one architect, “and that might only become apparent once you’re in deep.” Or the site might become unexpectedly jeopardized, as happened after the Portland [Maine] Museum of Art (PMA) competition was won, in early 2023, by Portland, Oregon–based Lever Architecture. As it turned out, securing the site required declassification and then demolition of a historic building, which led to litigation that threatened the entire project. (Finally, this April, a court ruled in PMA’s favor, putting the plans back on track—but it doesn’t always end that way.)
Yet another potentially complicating factor: competitions entries are often developed without much, if any, dialogue with the client, unlike typical architectural processes. While some architects miss that essential give and take, many also find it liberating to work virtually in a vacuum, as their own client, but the process might not sufficiently test their chemistry with the actual client. “As a result, especially when a third party, like a professional organizer, is an intermediary for the client,” says one competition veteran, “it can end up like an arranged marriage.”
Given all the taxing challenges, why are architects still doing competitions?
“We do them for the joy,” says Christ. “They’re fantastic fields for collaboration and exploration—they give you freedom and autonomy to try out ideas in more radical ways.” Thomas Phifer, whose New York firm, Thomas Phifer and Partners, has won competitions including the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, adds, “The exhilaration is different from the feeling you get with other projects. One could even argue that you do your best work when you’re competing.” This process also gives architects access to projects they might not have otherwise. And the sheer intensity of the effort can be valuable. “Competitions typically have the compressed time frame of a charette or school project,” says Steven Dumez, a principal of the New Orleans–based firm EskewDumezRipple, which has won multiple competitions. “They’re rifle shots, as compared with more drawn-out project schedules, and that intense opportunity to stretch your thinking can be incredibly energizing for a firm, carrying through to other work.”
Certainly the creative urge to compete is not always about how many other projects a practice has. “Think of Zaha [Hadid]. She had tons of work,” says Holl, “but she loved the challenge and stimulation of competitions and would just keep doing them. I feel the same way.”
Even when firms don’t win, competitions can still have potential benefits. Occasionally, a nonwinning entry becomes far more influential than the actual winner, as with Walter Gropius’s and Adolf Loos’s 1922 competition schemes for the Chicago Tribune Tower. Also, says Dumez, “sometimes we get to revisit, in later projects, ideas we first explored in competition.” And connections and collaborations established in the process, including becoming known by the client, “still belong to you and can sometimes lead to future work, as can your competition design,” points out architect Wendy Evans Joseph, whose New York firm, Studio Joseph, has competed as both consultants and lead designers. She tells of taking a nonwinning competition entry, successfully submitting it for top awards, and then, using that multi-award-winning scheme to pursue other projects. “In some instances,” says Scarpa, “a strong competition scheme in our portfolio has even gotten us around the catch-22 and enabled us to break into a new sector.” But the view of competitions as marketing tools that architects need to invest in, anyway, to get work, goes only so far. As Reading cautions, “I would not advise doing competition after competition for the sake of marketing. That’s probably not a good business strategy.”
So, how do architects pull off competitions without draining their firms’ financial and staff resources? One answer, suggests Dumez: “We curb our appetite and only do one every year or two. It’s key to balance competitions with other work in the office. And, if you win enough, and those projects get built, they help pay for the times you don’t win.” Perhaps the bottom line is, as Lever principal Thomas Robinson puts it, “Almost every way of getting commissions involves investment and calculated risk. So, whether it’s through juried competition or not, we always need to weigh the costs against the potential gains, and research that thoroughly up front.”
As for the controversial matter of compensation, “our profession should stand up for itself,” says Scarpa. “We need to band together and not offer free or radically underpaid work.” Another architect, who spoke on condition of anonymity, raises yet another consideration: “If the pie is only so big,” he asks, “should competition organizers be getting a more generous or satisfying slice than the architects—the ones doing the heaviest lifting?”
Maybe one of the ways to begin making competitions more viable for architects is to recapture older, simpler approaches. “Competitions have huge value, but there should be better alignment between compensation and what is required,” suggests one longtime competitor. “I hope there’s a return to earlier models, a move away from excessive demands and a return to more opportunities for emerging talent—and more weight on the potential of great ideas.”
By Leopoldo Villardi
Mergers and acquisitions offer architects one way—with many caveats—to plan for the future, writes Leopoldo Villardi.
For better or for worse, many architects see the profession as a calling, not a job. “They often don’t want to think about their practices as businesses,” says Brian Kenet, a senior advisor specializing in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) at consulting firm Anchin. “Architects are reluctant to think about issues like ownership, transition planning, and making money while still doing good work, until it’s too late.” Presenting these challenges as design problems, however, he says, often gets more engagement. So, how do you build the perfect exit strategy—one that also ensures the continued success of the practice and its employees?
One place to start is from within, by slowly cultivating a younger generation of leaders while owners gradually step back. But internal transitions, ideal as they may seem, are not always easy, or feasible. “Most employees like the idea of becoming an owner,” says Kenet. “There are rewards, of course, but there are also risks and responsibilities.” The realization for prospective owners that they might need to personally sign a loan, or become liable for a lease, can abate enthusiasm—especially when a turbulent economy compounds uncertainty.
For Frances Halsband, who cofounded New York–based Kliment Halsband Architects with her late husband, Robert Kliment, in 1972, internal transition was, for this reason, not viable. “Our younger partners, in that atmosphere of fear during the pandemic, could not really picture taking on the risk of running a firm,” Halsband says. “As a founder and somebody who might very well retire myself someday, it seemed that my principal responsibility was to find safe harbor and keep everybody employed.” In 2022, she sold her 20-person studio to Perkins Eastman (PE), where she now practices.
Although transition plans might prompt an M&A deal, there are other benefits for sellers to consider. An acquisition can bring greater financial security, a more robust managerial infrastructure, or efficient economies of scale for day-to-day tasks. These, in turn, can increase a firm’s ability to land (and successfully deliver) larger projects. And, for owners looking to retire alongside the transaction, Kenet puts it more bluntly: “Chances are that you can get more money from a third-party sale than from selling to your employees.”
But every sale requires a buyer, and many practices are not well positioned for an acquisition. According to the AIA, of the 19,000 firms in the U.S., about 75 percent have fewer than 10 employees. Smaller practices, like Halsband’s, can stand out by “punching above their weight class,” says Kenet. Developing a specialty, such as historic preservation, or amassing one or more high-profile clients, are other ways to attract suitable buyers. For them, an acquisition can be an opportunity to gain a footing in a new geographic region or build a deep bench with new subject-matter expertise. Large firms and engineering companies can also utilize such deals to boost their in-house design chops or grow their brand.
When Michael Graves died in 2015, the firm that he founded in 1964 was left without a figurehead. “He was a rock star,” says Joe Furey, president and CEO at Michael Graves Architecture (MGA). The generation following that of the starchitects, he points out, has many talented designers but is lacking in “seller-doers”—individuals who can balance billable work with business development. When a well-known personality like Graves secures so much of a firm’s work, there are not as many opportunities for others to develop those skills. For Furey, acquiring other practices has been a way to address this, as well as to spread Graves’s legacy and tap into new markets. He has closed seven acquisitions (with an eighth in the works), and, Furey says, “The value of the enterprise has grown 25 times over the last eight years.”
Leonard Castro, an executive vice president for Stantec’s Buildings group, explains that there are five areas that the E/A company examines when reviewing prospects: design culture, commitment on behalf of leaders, alignment on diversity, technical expertise, and entrepreneurial acumen. Stantec, based in Edmonton, Alberta, recently announced plans to acquire Page (which, in 2023, acquired Davis Brody Bond). This particular acquisition will be Stantec’s 149th since 1994, increasing its head count in the U.S. by 1,400 and bringing a stronger architecture presence to many cities where it already has engineering offices. “But we walk away from the vast majority of acquisition opportunities,” he notes, emphasizing the need for a “perfect fit” on all fronts. “We’ve probably vetted at least 10 times as many firms.”
Whether a deal emerges organically or through a matchmaker like Kenet, a term sheet (or a memorandum of understanding) sets out the contours of the agreement: compensation, organization, employment conditions, etc. Ask the tough questions up front—something that looks good on paper may not be so in practice. “It has to work culturally,” says Shawn Basler, co-CEO at PE. “We don’t buy portfolios. We merge with people,” he stresses. Many firms, like PE and MGA, often partner with prospects to pursue work and test chemistry.
Typically, the term sheet is nonbinding, perhaps with a confidentiality clause, allowing both parties to initiate due diligence. “At this point, somebody is brought in to opine about valuation and determine cost,” says Bennet Heart, partner at Noble, Wickersham & Heart, a law firm in Boston, where he advises design firms on matters including contract negotiation and ownership transition.
There are several ways to structure firm consolidations, Heart says, but the most common are stock-purchase agreements and asset-purchase agreements. In the former, the buyer acquires the firm by buying a controlling stake in its stock, thus acquiring assets and liabilities. In contrast, an asset-purchase agreement, which tends to be more complex in nature, allows the buyer to identify specific assets to procure, leaving the acquired entity as a shell company. “It will probably have to change or stop using its name, but it still exists and will typically carry professional liability insurance for a number of years with a ‘tail policy,’ ” he explains. When determining which agreement structure works best, buyers and sellers look at comparative costs and assess risk together.
After closing, work begins on integrating the two entities, a process that can take anywhere from a few months to a few years. Clients may be surprised to hear of the acquisition. Some sellers may find themselves marginalized in decision-making. Small redundancies between firms can lead to internal competition. Even with the best planning, issues as banal as IT infrastructure, expense reports, and software licensing, or as sensitive as branding (such as how much and how long to preserve the acquired entity’s) can create unexpected friction. “You can go from excitement over a bigger platform to the reality of a new way of doing time sheets and other headaches,” PE’s Basler says. “I’m the product of a merger myself. You have to remind people why they did the deal in the first place.”
Attrition is another (at times unavoidable) concern. Some architects join small practices for the inherent intimacy. “They wanted to be involved by going to interviews, meeting every client, being out on the construction site,” says Halsband, “and suddenly there were a hundred people around. Some left. Those who stayed, including myself, are now working on new types of projects that we never imagined we would—that’s really exciting.”
M&A deals can also sour, irreparably. In 2007, the partners of Princeton, New Jersey–based Hillier Architecture—then 350 people strong—offered the firm’s founder a buyout on less than favorable terms. “It was insultingly low,” J. Robert Hillier recalls, ultimately leading him to negotiate with Scotland-based RMJM, which was then looking for a toehold in the U.S. The acquisition created one of the largest global design firms (peaking at No. 9 on record’s Top 300 list). But, soon after the merger, the parent company laid off Hillier’s marketing team, closed the Philadelphia and Princeton offices, dropped his name from “RMJM Hillier” (the U.S.-based entity), and cut his salary, prompting him to leave. “They didn’t understand how to secure work here,” he says, an issue compounded by the subsequent financial crisis. RMJM reportedly struggled to make payroll at several of its worldwide offices, and employees in the U.S. sued the parent company over unpaid retention bonuses. (The suit was settled, and RMJM still has a presence in New York.)
“I’m very sorry that I sold the firm,” he says. But there was a silver lining: because Hillier had instituted an employee stock-ownership plan (ESOP) before selling, everyone received a portion of the $33 million deal. Today, he runs Studio Hillier, which he cofounded with his wife Barbara in 2011, and he has candid advice for sellers: get cash, talk to clients early, and protect your employees.
M&A is on the rise in the profession. For principals planning their firm’s future—with them or without—a merger or acquisition can be a lifeline, a launchpad, or a valuable lesson. Kenet has a simple litmus test he poses to architects considering the plunge: “Will you start winning projects that you wouldn’t on your own? There’s little value in only becoming bigger,” he says. “The value, ultimately, is in becoming better.”
By Vernon Mays
Illustration © June Lee
In unsettling times, architects are doing their best to predict what’s ahead and insulate their firms from economic fallout, writes Vernon Mays.
Entrepreneurial enterprises come with challenges. Architectural practices are no exception, with adversity likely to ramp up. What looked like a difficult 2025 in January has been further destabilized due to uncertainty in the marketplace, stemming from tariffs, fear of recession, political turmoil, canceled contracts, and other economic factors. How are firms handling the pressure?
“For the last six years or so, there’s been increasing uncertainty in design practice,” says Phil Harrison, CEO of Perkins&Will, headquartered in Chicago. “It’s just accelerating now.” He says what’s different this time are the sources of uncertainty: there are so many more of them. “So, when you’re talking about reducing government funding around biomedical research from the National Institutes of Health, or potential changes to Medicare and Medicaid, or tariffs that disproportionately hit countries like Canada, it’s a multidimensional game of chess,” Harrison adds.
With the recent increase in tariffs, anxiety has shifted away from higher interest rates and declining commercial-property values, says AIA chief economist Kermit Baker. “Now there is more concern over prices and availability of construction materials,” he says. Increasingly, as contractors start searching for new suppliers for many materials, architecture firms will need to provide alternative designs.
Baker’s analysis aligns with comments from Heath May, global-practice director of HKS LINE (Laboratory for INtensive Exploration) and, starting in January 2026, the Dallas-based firm’s CEO. In addition to tariffs, May points to markers such as inflation, shifting monetary policy, and geopolitical instability as factors contributing to uncertainty. Clients are more cautious, sales cycles are a bit longer, and delayed decisions are becoming more common, he adds.
Smaller organizations that specialize in a few core building types may be the most vulnerable. Robin Shambach, a partner at BWS Architects, a 25-person firm with offices in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, says she is seeing a slowdown in public-sector work. She is especially concerned about the diminishing project load for federal agencies.
BWS has done a lot of work for the Indian Health Service through an open-end contract, and typically has projects for the federal agency in progress. That’s not the case now. There are no active proposals, and Shambach is uneasy, because much of the agency’s staff, including her main contact, have taken early retirement or been laid off. Similarly, ongoing work for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, another steady client, is on pause. “Usually, they would be starting on their next round of planned projects, and I’m not seeing that right now,” she says.
In response, BWS has held off on hiring—filling current needs by asking existing staff to cover more assignments. The firm hasn’t had layoffs, instead identifying potential reductions in discretionary spending. “And we are accepting more smaller, ‘messier’ projects,” Shambach says. “We don’t feel that we can pass on those, to make sure we have enough work.”
May says most HKS projects are anticipating cost pressures due to the tariffs, but it’s too early to quantify what the impact will be. They are closely monitoring material pricing at a project level, mindful of the fact that if and when tariffs stabilize, construction costs and timelines will be impacted. In addition, HKS is being proactive by staying in close touch with clients, fabricators, and contractors to anticipate where cost escalation is most likely to occur.
Graham Wyatt, partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), of New York, agrees that everybody’s nervous about the tariffs because so many construction materials and products come from abroad. “Prices are higher now than last year, not because the tariffs have been implemented, but because manufacturers and wholesale distributors have to hedge against their risk,” he says.
Wyatt notes that few people seem focused on labor costs. “So much of the labor that goes into building construction in the U.S. is threatened by these immigration pressures,” he says. But when contractors give a price to a potential owner or developer to assess the viability of a project, high labor costs could kill the deal. A shortage of workers could be an even bigger issue, says AIA’s Baker, noting that the typical flow of immigrants, a significant portion of which supports the construction industry, is slowing down.
Looming price escalation has prompted new approaches at Jones Studio, in Tempe, Arizona. The firm is wrapping up design of an education center for the Central Arizona Project (CAP), a network of aqueducts, pumping plants, and pipelines that supplies water to the state’s population. Anticipating rising costs, they worked hurriedly with CAP’s board to get funding approved four months ahead of schedule.
“We did that out of sequence, so the contractor could start buying steel,” says Brian Farling, a principal at the firm. “And we produced some early steel packages to try to head that off.” His advice: work with clients and contractors to get ahead of things before costs skyrocket.
Many firms say they are preparing for uncertain times by relying on operational structures they’ve already put in place, making adjustments as needed. “We’re focusing on agility and consistency,” says May of HKS. “While those may sound slightly oppositional, what I mean is strategic agility to ensure that we can pivot very quickly and decisively when we sense a market condition beginning to shift. And the consistency there is, we want to stay alert to our long-term goals and our long-term values.” That means HKS does a lot of scenario planning, he adds.
Hanbury, a 165-person firm based in Norfolk, Virginia, had an exceptional year in 2024. But CEO David Keith says his leadership team anticipated a sluggish market in 2025, so they held back some profits from last year, to expand markets and make strategic hires to help win work. It was all part of their normal planning process, which resets every two years.
Hanbury is well established in higher education but wanted to boost its presence in the civic and science/technology arenas. The firm, with eight offices, invested some of its windfall in a few experienced people in locations and markets that would expand its presence in all sectors. “Even with the down economy in mixed-use, we brought on a new leader that introduced us to new clients,” says Keith.
A shaky economy has spurred other firms to be more aggressive than usual in their marketing efforts. “We’re normally incredibly selective about what we go after,” says Kevin Sullivan, CEO of Payette in Boston. “We might turn down up to 80 percent of the RFPs we get. We don’t pursue them.”
Now Sullivan’s mindset has changed. Previously, he might have shied away from a project because the budget was low or the client profile was not a good fit. “Where last year we would have said no, this year we’re saying yes,” he adds, echoing the sentiment of Shambach at BWS.
When it comes to hiring, the headlines have Sullivan spooked. In spite of his CFO’s optimistic projections for 2025, he’s skeptical they’ll have a banner year. “So we artificially ratcheted down,” he says. Instead of hiring 10 new employees, they’ve cut it to five. “I have to maintain some optimism by hiring people just because we have work on the books, but I just don’t believe all those projects are really going to happen,” Sullivan adds.
Uncertainty in the realm of immigration enforcement has cast a cloud over many foreign-born employees. Just obtaining an H-1B visa, an employer-sponsored visa for workers with specialized expertise, is already an unpredictable process, determined by a lottery. “But those individuals are terrified,” says Sullivan, noting that foreign nationals comprise nearly one-third of Payette’s staff.
When firm leaders became aware that the Department of Homeland Security was telling visa holders to keep their documents always on hand, they sent a targeted email to everyone who was affected to let them know what was happening. “We’re being ultra-communicative as a way to calm things down a little by keeping people informed, believing that more knowledge is better than not knowing and wondering,” Sullivan says.
The current turmoil reminds seasoned leaders of earlier economic challenges such as 9/11, the 2008 mortgage crisis, and Covid. “The pandemic was the closest thing to this because it was such a sudden and dramatic change to everything we knew of as normal,” says Perkins&Will’s Harrison. “But we were dealing with a single-dimensional problem.” In this case, because there are so many different sources of uncertainty, it’s harder to know how to respond, he says.
Granted, there is a nagging sense among some that damage is being done to American cultural and civic institutions—damage that could be irreversible. That’s the most disconcerting part, says Shambach. “We don’t know the impacts of, not just the tariffs, but the structural changes at the federal level.”
For now, Shambach is turning that anxiety into a source of inspiration. “I’m going to focus my energy on serving our projects, our clients, and the work we’re doing with the staff we have,” she adds. “I’ve re-geared to have that perspective. That’s where I can have the biggest impact right now.”
