How Gensler responded to such seismic events as the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and social inequality dominates its newly released Annual Report 2020.
Titled “A Time For Transformation,” the 101-page report catalogues how the industry’s largest architecture firm—whose revenue totaled $1.55 billion last year, its 55th in business—has addressed events that, sometimes, were beyond its control.
To keep its projects moving during the pandemic, Gensler moved more than 8,000 to the cloud to allow for ongoing digital collaboration. Its post-pandemic strategies included surveying 2,300 of its employees about working from home (70% of whom said they’d prefer to work in the office the majority of the week); polling residents in four cities—New York, San Francisco, London, and Singapore—last May about their COVID-19 related concerns (one finding: people with children are at least 1.5-times more likely to want to move someplace safer); and posting a steady stream of articles and blogs about this topic.
“The key theme of our thought leadership [is] we must have a new understanding of global wellness that must include social justice, equity and inclusion,” the report states. To that end, the company is following five strategies to fight racism: increase its internal diversity, pursue equitable design solutions, expanding its scholarship program and mentoring of middle and high schoolers, create more job opportunities for Black professionals, and partner with clients on diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Gensler’s Global Race and Diversity Committee, comprised of 22 leaders, oversees the execution of these strategies, and connects with regional committees to amplify the firm’s impact.
The firm is also “doubling down” on its commitment to climate action. In 2019, Gensler professionals worked on more than 7,000 projects representing over 1.5 billion sf of space. Its portfolio that year is designed to save over 16 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, and the firm’s goal is to get to 30 million, and ultimately carbon neutrality within the decade.
LEANING MORE ON TECHNOLOGY
Like most AEC firms, Gensler now champions the application of technology in its design process. The report talks about the firm’s various design tools that include Intelligent Places (which uses data to connect human behavior with space design), inFORM ECOSYSTEM and gblox (which help clients make informed decisions), and its Digital Experience Design service that connects digital and physical design.
Technology also facilitated a month-long global charrette that Gensler opened to everyone in the firm. This is now an ongoing charrette platform.
DESIGN AND COMMUNITY SERVICE HIGHLIGHTED
A confidential technology coworking site in San Francisco's Ferry Building emphasizes the role design plays in human interaction.
Much of the annual report is devoted to highlighting Gensler’s recent projects and concepts. These include a technology coworking site in San Francisco’s Ferry Building that is designed to encourage human connections; Universal Creative Square in Beijing, where Gensler transformed a warehouse into a vibrant office building; and the firm’s concept for Verizon’s Hidden Ridge in Irving, Texas, a 150-acre corporate district that blends three corporate campuses with a mixed-use neighborhood composed of housing, retail and offices, all connected by light rail.
The report calls attention to Gensler’s 15 Design Excellence Award winners in 2019, and its nine Research & Innovation award winners in 2020.
Gensler also touches on how the firm and its employees gave back to their communities. Those efforts included:
•Volunteer fabricators in 22 cities created 3,047 face shields and 1,996 specialty PPE parts that were donated to healthcare workers in U.S. and Costa Rica.
•The firm announced a call to action for each of its 50 offices worldwide to create a measurable change toward equitable housing options beginning in fiscal 2021.
•Its Community Impact model organizes philanthropic and volunteer efforts that target four areas: housing and homelessness, health and wellness, the environment, and the next generation.
Related Stories
| Jan 25, 2011
Bloomberg launches NYC Urban Tech Innovation Center
To promote the development and commercialization of green building technologies in New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has launched the NYC Urban Technology Innovation Center. This initiative will connect academic institutions conducting underlying research, companies creating the associated products, and building owners who will use those technologies.
| Jan 25, 2011
Top 10 rules of green project finance
Since the bottom fell out of the economy, finding investors and financial institutions willing to fund building projects—sustainable or otherwise—has been close to impossible. Real estate finance prognosticators, however, indicate that 2011 will be a year to buy back into the real estate market.
| Jan 25, 2011
Chicago invented the skyscraper; can it pioneer sustainable-energy strategies as well?
Chicago’s skyline has always been a source of pride. And while few new buildings are currently going up, building owners have developed a plan to capitalize on the latest advances: Smart-grid technologies that will convert the city’s iconic skyline into what backers call a “virtual green generator” by retrofitting high-rise buildings and the existing electrical grid to a new hyper-connected intelligent-communications backbone.
| Jan 25, 2011
AIA reports: Hotels, retail to lead U.S. construction recovery
U.S. nonresidential construction activity will decline this year but recover in 2012, led by hotel and retail sectors, according to a twice-yearly forecast by the American Institute of Architects. Overall nonresidential construction spending is expected to fall by 2% this year before rising by 5% in 2012, adjusted for inflation. The projected decline marks a deteriorating outlook compared to the prior survey in July 2010, when a 2011 recovery was expected.
| Jan 25, 2011
Jester Jones Schifer Architects, Ltd. Joins GPD Group
GPD Group is excited to announce that Jester Jones Schifer Architects, a Marion-based architectural firm, has joined our firm, now enabling GPD Group to provide architectural services to the Central-Ohio market.
| Jan 21, 2011
Combination credit union and USO center earns LEED Silver
After the Army announced plans to expand Fort Bliss, in Texas, by up to 30,000 troops, FirstLight Federal Credit Union contracted NewGround (as CM) to build a new 16,000-sf facility, allocating 6,000 sf for a USO center with an Internet café, gaming stations, and theater.
| Jan 21, 2011
Manufacturing plant transformed into LEED Platinum Clif Bar headquarters
Clif Bar & Co.’s new 115,000-sf headquarters in Emeryville, Calif., is one of the first buildings in the state to meet the 2008 California Building Energy Efficiency Standards. The structure has the largest smart solar array in North America, which will provide nearly all of its electrical energy needs.
| Jan 21, 2011
Primate research facility at Duke improves life for lemurs
Dozens of lemurs have new homes in two new facilities at the Duke Lemur Center in Raleigh, N.C. The Releasable Building connects to a 69-acre fenced forest for free-ranging lemurs, while the Semi-Releasable Building is for lemurs with limited-range privileges.
| Jan 21, 2011
Harlem facility combines social services with retail, office space
Harlem is one of the first neighborhoods in New York City to combine retail with assisted living. The six-story, 50,000-sf building provides assisted living for residents with disabilities and a nonprofit group offering services to minority groups, plus retail and office space.
| Jan 21, 2011
Nothing dinky about these residences for Golden Gophers
The Sydney Hall Student Apartments combines 125 student residences with 15,000 sf of retail space in the University of Minnesota’s historic Dinkytown neighborhood, in Minneapolis.