SmithGroup, one of the nation’s leading architecture, engineering and planning firms, will now operate at SmithGroupJJR.
The name change reflects the creation of a single brand, bringing together SmithGroup and JJR, LLC. Formerly a SmithGroup subsidiary, JJR is an award-winning specialist in landscape architecture, planning, urban design, civil engineering, and environmental science.
“We have always been one company in culture and ownership,” said SmithGroupJJR President & CEO Carl Roehling, FAIA, LEED AP. “By merging our two brands, it’s now loud and clear that we’re together – increasingly multi-disciplined and fully integrated.”
SmithGroup and JJR have been together for more than 40 years. SmithGroup merged with JJR (then known as Johnson, Johnson & Roy) in 1970 to add landscape architecture and planning services. Since then, JJR has been a subsidiary of SmithGroup while continuing to operate as its own brand, retaining the JJR name.
“The new SmithGroupJJR name will help our clients realize the full extent of our services and capabilities,” Roehling explained. “We are one of a few multi-disciplinary design firms that offer this range of integrated services.”
Owners are increasingly opting to use multi-disciplinary firms to solve their project challenges. Having a myriad of design and planning services--from master planning to architecture to multiple engineering disciplines to landscape architecture--provided by a single, integrated firm allows owners to benefit from the creativity and heightened quality that such collaboration brings.
JJR’s expertise now becomes one of SmithGroupJJR’s practices, which focus on the firm’s significant client markets. The firm’s four primary practices--Health, Learning, Workplace and Science & Technology--will now be joined by a fifth, called the Campus, Community & Waterfront practice.
Fred Klancnik, PE, F.ASCE, who has served as president and CEO of JJR since 1999, becomes the leader of the new practice. He believes the name change is good news for clients.
“The specialized services that we are well known for nationally and internationally, such as campus and waterfront development, will now become more readily available to SmithGroupJJR clients throughout all offices,” Klancnik stated. BD+C
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Cubellis principals reorganize as CI design
Former principals of Cubellis Inc. have formed ci design "with a stellar group of projects in the United States and internationally," states John Larsen who, with Richard Rankin and Christopher Ladd, is leading the architecture and planning firm.
| Aug 11, 2010
Leo A Daly changes name of STH, completes acquisition
LEO A DALY has changed the name of STH Architectural Group to the name of its parent company, Leo A Daly. STH was acquired in February 2009 as a strategic move to accelerate growth in its core business sectors and to strengthen the firm's presence in the Florida market.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA hires Worthen, Fitzgerald for sustainability, young architects initiatives
As part of an ongoing effort to bolster its education and outreach on sustainability, the American Institute of Architects has hired William J. Worthen, AIA, LEED AP, vice president of Simon & Associates (a green consulting firm) as Director and Resource Architect for Sustainability. The AIA has also hired Kevin A. Fitzgerald, AIA, a former associate with Robert AM Stern Architects, as a staff coordinator/team leader for several AIA committees devoted to young architects.
| Aug 11, 2010
Perkins+Will acquires Canadian firm Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners
Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners of Toronto, Ont., Canada, has been acquired by Perkins+Will, a global integrated design firm headquartered in Chicago. The merger marks Perkins+Will's 19th office in North America and its second in Canada.
| Aug 11, 2010
NBBJ and C.T. Hsu associates join forces for Florida healthcare market
NBBJ has entered into an exclusive alliance agreement with C.T. Hsu + Associates P.A. (CTHA) to provide world-class design/planning services for Florida's emerging healthcare and science facilities market. The alliance combines NBBJ's international reputation for the design and planning of healthcare and science & research facilities with CTHA's knowledge of community needs and established reputation for planning and design expertise in Central Florida.
| Aug 11, 2010
Minneapolis Public Housing authority, Honeywell launch energy retrofit program
Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and Honeywell today announced a $33.6-million energy efficiency and facility renewal program that will help the housing authority improve its infrastructure, reduce its impact on the environment, and save more than $3.7 million in utility costs per year. Local contractors will also complete a majority of the work for the program, one of the largest of its kind for a public housing authority, helping boost the Twin Cities job market.
| Aug 11, 2010
Shepley Bulfinch announces merger of Merzproject
National architecture firm Shepley Bulfinch of Boston and Merzproject of Phoenix today announced their merger. The merger unites Shepley Bulfinch, one of the country’s leading design firms, and Merzproject.
| Aug 11, 2010
Skanska Promotes Richard Kennedy to COO for NY/NJ Metro Area
Skanska USA Building Inc., headquartered in Parsippany, N.J., has announced that Richard Kennedy was promoted to Chief Operating Officer from his previous role as Senior Vice President – General Counsel. Kennedy’s promotion marks the latest addition to Skanska’s national leadership team.
| Aug 11, 2010
The New Yorker's David Owen: Why Manhattan is America's greenest community
David Owen is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of 14 books, most recently Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability, in which he argues that Manhattan is the greenest community in America. He graduated from Harvard and lives in Washington, Conn., where he chairs the town planning commission.
