Many firms that do office design and construction stayed afloat during the recession with modest projectsāfit-outs, renovations, targeted green retrofits. But the sectorās finally heating up.
Commercial Realtors recently reported an increase in annual gross income for the third year in a row (www.BDCnetwork.com/Realtors2013). Jones Lang LaSalleās latest office forecast pegged more than a dozen metros as being in āa rising phase,ā including Austin, Dallas, Boston, Denver, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and New York (http://bit.ly/JLLOffice13).
Though speculative projects still lag, corporate HQs and medical office buildings are moving ahead. āThe medical office building of the future can accommodate much of what was done in a traditional hospital setting,ā says Steve Straus, President of Glumac. āSome of our clients have bold ambitions, including net-zero.ā
TOP OFFICE SECTOR ARCHITECTURE FIRMS
Ā2012 Office Revenue ($)1 Gensler $462,700,5002 HOK $128,726,0003 Perkins+Will $107,951,6724 NBBJ $64,002,0005 Stantec $62,500,2366 PageSoutherlandPage $43,190,0007 Heery International $39,443,9318 Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates $38,081,0009 RTKL Associates $37,474,00010 Hammel, Green and Abrahamson $37,307,000
TOP OFFICE SECTOR ENGINEERING FIRMS
Ā2012 Office Revenue ($)1 AECOM Technology Corp. $830,320,0002 Parsons Brinckerhoff $146,400,0003 Jacobs Engineering Group $95,180,0004 Burns & McDonnell $82,020,0005 Thornton Tomasetti $50,861,4676 Michael Baker Jr. $50,720,0007 WSP USA $48,500,1628 Arup $32,355,6079 Buro Happold Consulting Engineers $28,720,00010 AKF Group $26,917,000
TOP OFFICE SECTOR CONSTRUCTION FIRMS
Ā2012 Office Revenue ($)1 Turner Corporation, The $2,195,790,0002 Structure Tone $1,435,332,0003 PCL Construction Enterprises $1,409,212,7274 Clark Group $974,974,0665 Skanska USA $847,106,2426 Balfour Beatty $792,915,5767 Gilbane $690,915,0008 JE Dunn Construction $613,825,5639 James G Davis Construction $575,006,00010 HITT Contracting $535,524,009
On the West Coast, tech firms are creating eye-popping campuses, including NBBJ projects for Amazon (Seattle, 3.3 million sf); Samsung (San Jose, 1.1 million sf, with Arup); and Google (Mountain View, Calif., 1 million sf). Facebook tapped Frank Gehry to design its 420,000-sf Facebook West in Menlo Park, Calif., and Foster + Partners is designing Appleās 2.8 million-sf, net-zero Campus 2 in Cupertino (to be built by DPR-Skanska.)Ā
Bleeding-edge companies seek the latest in social engineering and sustainability, but theyāre not alone in believing that generational and technological trends justify a reboot in office design. Ā āThe relevance of āthe officeā is in question,ā says Steve Hart, Director of Interior Design at Heery. āWhy are you even in an office? We believe the office needs to help individuals feel connected to the company and support a common sense of purpose.ā
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