— FOR ARCHITECTS
A builder who makes you look good.
We have deep, ongoing relationships with Chicago architects — repeat and new — and we earn every one of them the same way. We enter during schematic design, protect the design intent, and treat your vision as the gold standard.
Schematics
STANDARD ENTRY POINT
100%
ARCHITECTURE-LED PROJECTS
4
PRACTICE AREAS
— HOW WE WORK WITH YOU
A partner,
not a vendor.
Many builders enter a project once it's fully drawn. At this point, their only real lever is value engineering. We'd rather be useful earlier, when our input can still shape the outcome instead of reacting to it.
Preconstruction at Schematics
We join during schematic design while concepts are still forming and our input on constructability, budget, and coordination can genuinely shape the outcome. Questions that would become expensive field issues get answered at the drawing board instead, protecting the client and their project.
Coordination, Not Correction
We read drawings closely, ask questions early, and coordinate trades proactively. The problems that derail projects rarely arrive as one big issue — they accumulate from small things that weren’t caught at the right moment. We catch them in the drawing phase.
Design Intent First
We don't substitute materials or simplify assemblies without your knowledge. When we have a concern, we bring alternatives, not ultimatums. Your vision is the goal. Our job is to bring it to life.
Relationships, Not Transactions
Many of our architect relationships span multiple projects. All of them span multiple years. We invest in understanding how you work, what you value, and where you want to take your practice — and we show up accordingly, project after project.
— OUR ENTRY POINT
you might expect.
Earlier than
Most builders are introduced to a project at bid — after every consequential decision has already been made and the client is attached to the design. We're here to help before that happens, while your concepts can still be tested against cost and constructability without anyone feeling at a loss.
WHAT THIS LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE
Early budget modeling alongside your first concepts. Constructability review before details are final. Material and trade input gathered while there's still room to adjust — so the set of drawings that goes to permit is one we've already pressure-tested together.
Custom Residential
Our origin practice — deep, repeat relationships built on schematics-entry and budget discipline through occupancy.
Commercial
When your client is a first-time developer or expanding operator, we help align the design with the pro forma from the earliest concept stage.
Multifamily
For urban infill and mixed-use work, we bring residential-level precision to projects at a denser scale — selectively, with the right team.
Remediation
When a project involves an existing building's envelope or structure, we coordinate with independent technical authorities to define scope before design proceeds.
Bring us in
If you're starting a new project — residential, commercial, multifamily, or a building with a complex envelope — we'd welcome a conversation while the concept is still taking shape.