September 13, 2000

Design Detailings: Top 50 A/E firms ranked

The Zweig Letter, a design-industry newsletter, has released its annual ranking of the 50 fastest-growing U.S. architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms. Topping the list are industry giants URS of San Francisco and The IT Group of Pittsburgh.

But the list includes many smaller firms as well, including those who made the top five: The BL Companies of Meriden, Conn., and Mulvanny G2 Architects of Bellevue. Mulvanny G2's revenues grew from about $11 million in 1997 to $28 million 1999 -- an increase of 143 percent.

The Harris Group of Seattle was ranked sixth. From 1997 to 1999, the firm's revenues grew from $39 million to $76 million -- an increase of 95 percent.

The Hot Firm 2000 ranking is based on the change in gross revenue from fiscal year 1997 to fiscal year 1999. Only firms that were in business as of Jan. 1, 1997 were eligible for the 2000 list, and the firm's 1997 revenue must have been greater than or equal to $500,000. Following are the top five firms. The complete list is available for download at http://www.zweigwhite.com/hotfirm2000/top50.

• Rank: 1

Firm: URS

Headquarters: San Francisco

1997 Revenue: $407 million

1999 Revenue: $1.4 billion

•Rank: 2

Firm: The IT Group

Headquarters: Pittsburgh

1997 Revenue: $402 million

1999 Revenue: $1.3 billion

• Rank: 3

Firm: Entact

Headquarters: Chicago

1997 Revenue: $16.3 million

1999 Revenue: $48 million

• Rank: 4

Firm: BL Companies

Headquarters: Meriden, Conn.

1997 Revenue: $5.5 million

1999 Revenue: $20 million

• Rank: 5

Firm: Mulvanny G2 Architects

Headquarters: Bellevue

1997 Revenue: $11.4 million

1999 Revenue: $28 million

"Microtunneling," the topic of ASCE meeting

The Seattle section of the American Society of Civil Engineers will host a dinner talk tonight about new practices in "trenchless" technologies.

The meeting will be held at the Ballard Yankee Grill, 5300 24th Ave. N.W. in Seattle. The featured speaker will be Kim Staheli, principal with Bennett/Staheli Engineers and research civil engineer with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Staheli will give a presentation on trenchless technologies, emphasizing microtunneling. The presentation will cover microtunneling construction methods, design considerations, lessons learned from previous projects, and comparisons of microtunneling with pipe jacking, directional drilling, and traditional tunneling.

The schedule includes a social hour at 5:30 p.m., dinner at 6:30 p.m., a business meeting at 7:30 p.m, and the program at 8 p.m.

For reservations, call (206) 632-2667.

Marketers to 'get down' at EMP

The next meeting of the Seattle chapter of the Society of Marketing Professionals will be held at the Experience Music Project on Friday, Sept. 22. The meeting at the rock 'n' roll museum will include installing the organization's new board of directors and presenting the coming year's goals and events.

The event begins with hors d'oeuvres and drinks at 4 p.m. in the EMP Liquid Lounge. Children under 18 and other family members are also invited. The cost is $30 for SMPS members; $25 for children under 18; and $40 for nonmembers. For more information, go to the Web site http://www.smpsseattle.org. Fax completed registration forms to Tosha Vandegrift at (425) 861-6050.

Artists sought for King County projects

The King County Public Art Program is seeking artists for two projects: an environmental laboratory on the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle and the Overlake Transit Oriented Development in Redmond. The application deadline for both projects is Sept. 18.

The project budget for the environmental lab is $30,000. The county and Seattle architect The Miller/Hull Partnership are interested in commissioning an artist whose work can tell the story of the region's water quality and will contribute to the educational nature of the facility. The county's Wastewater Treatment Division is developing a 13,200-square-foot addition to the environmental lab, which provides services to the county's Department of Natural Resources. For more information, contact Cath Brunner at (206) 296-8680, e-mail: cath.brunner@metrokc.gov.

The art budget for the Transit Oriented Development is $125,000. King County and Hewitt Architects, a Seattle firm, are seeking an artist whose work will focus on the transit portion of the multi-use facility. Residents of the new 300-unit complex will receive bus passes as an amenity to encourage transit use. For more information, contact Barbara Luecke at (206) 296-4137, e-mail: barbara.luecke@metrokc.gov.

Boxwood wins prize for corporate identity program

Seattle architectural firm Boxwood was awarded first place in the corporate identity category of the Society for Marketing Professional Services' Marketing Communication Awards. The annual awards program recognizes outstanding marketing pieces created by architectural, engineering and construction firms nationwide.

Boxwood's corporate identity program was awarded for its consistency, creativity, flexibility and adherence to "green" criteria, including the choice of paper that is processed chlorine free and contains 100 percent post-consumer waste.

The award was presented at the SMPS National Conference in Austin earlier this month. The new firm name and identity, designed by graphic/Web site design firm Plow Creative in collaboration with Boxwood, was launched in April of this year.

AIA Honor Awards: Call for entries

The Seattle chapter of the American Institute of Architects is inviting all Washington architects to submit recently completed work, not-yet-built projects and conceptual work for review and recognition in the 2000 Honor Awards for Washington Architecture.

This competition will be conducted on the Internet; entrants will present their submittals electronically for posting and public viewing on the AIA Seattle Web site (www.aiaseattle.org) in advance of the jury discussion and awards presentation on Nov. 13.

Serving on this year's jury panel will be Craig Hodgetts of Hodgetts + Fung Design Associates, a Santa Monica firm; Joseph Valerio of Valerio Dewait Train, a Chicago firm; Marion Weiss of New York-based Weiss/Manfredi Architects; and moderator James Russell of Architectural Record.

The deadline for submission is Oct. 25. Contact AIA Seattle at (206) 448-4938 for more information.

Bellevue seeks citizen committee members

The city of Bellevue is seeking applicants interested in serving on a citizen advisory committee for the Downtown Bellevue Implementation Plan Update. The committee will help identify transportation and urban design solutions that meet downtown Bellevue's needs over a 20-year planning period. To request an application form, contact Emil King at (425) 452-7223 or e-mail eaking@ci.bellevue.wa.us. The deadline for submitting applications is Sept. 14. The Bellevue City Council will make appointments in early October.

Callison to design Eddie Bauer project

Callison Architecture has been selected to design a new office facility at Eddie Bauer's headquarters in Redmond. The $25 million, 130,000-square-foot project for the outdoor clothing retailer will be designed to "sensitively blend" in with the existing campus and wooded area, the Seattle-based architectural firm said.

Callison, which designed the original Eddie Bauer corporate campus, is providing planning, design and construction administration services for this project.

Transportation award goes to Shoreline

The city of Shoreline was one of two recipients of this year's Best Practices award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). Shoreline was recognized for its predesign study of a multimodal project along the Aurora Avenue corridor. Another best practices award was presented to the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Wilbur Smith Associates, an engineering and planning firm. Based in Washington, D.C., ITE is an international organization of traffic engineers, transportation planners.

Library to hold SEPA hearing

The Seattle Public Library board of trustees will hold a hearing on new State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) procedures that will allow the library to act as lead agency for library actions. The hearing is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26, at the Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Lee Auditorium, third floor.

The procedures include rules for: appointing a library official responsible for SEPA matters, sharing lead agency status and for managing environmental review of all library projects subject to SEPA.

The draft procedures are available on request from the Library Capital Program office, located at the Central Library, fifth floor. For more information, contact Faith Lumsden, who is the library's consultant in charge of drafting the procedures, at (360) 321-5474 or e-mail flumsden@whidbey.com.

Mithun changes name

Formerly known as Mithun Partners Inc. Architecture, Planning, Interior Design, the firm will now be known as Mithun Architects + Designers + Planners.

Mithun, which earlier this year moved its offices to Pier 56 on Seattle's downtown waterfront, said the new name and brand better reflect the collaboration of its 165 employees.

The Seattle-based firm's current slate of projects include the Puget Sound Environmental Learning Center on Bainbridge Island and the Pacific Northwest Aquarium, which it is designing in association with Terry Farrell & Partners of London.