The Berger Partnership
Management: Jeff Girvin, president
Specialty: Landscape architecture
Year founded: 1971
Current projects: Sand Point Magnuson Park, Cal Anderson Park, Roosevelt High School
Rendering courtesy of The Berger Partnership The Berger Partnership designed Cal Anderson Park to cover Lincoln Reservoir in Seattle. |
“Every school is interested in environmental awareness and sustainable design,” said Jeff Girvin, the firm’s president.
Though there’s an educational component to thinking green, schools are also looking after their pocket books.
“A few schools lately have gone to natural air-handling systems,” Girvin said. The cost-cutting measure means “the relationship between interior and exterior space becomes more important” as schools open their windows and reacquaint themselves with the great outdoors.
On the private-sector front, Girvin said the firm is working on more mixed-use developments. He attributes their rise in popularity to their good economic sense.
Once new communities acquire a critical mass of residents, Girvin said, they soon attract “retail and support services that serve those people and make for a more viable development. That’s the lesson developers are learning.”
After seeing the local economy sputter over the past few years, things are beginning to pick up.
“Last year, we predicted a flat year, and by gosh, we got one,” Girvin said. “This year looks a little more lively. There’s renewed interest in a lot of phases of our work that wasn’t there a year ago.”
Top projects for the firm include a master plan for Seattle’s Sand Point Magnuson Park, design work for Seattle’s Cal Anderson Park and projects at Western Washington University and Whitman College in Walla Walla.
The firm has updated its image with a new logo. “We decided after 30 years to look at something fresh,” Girvin said, adding that the firm moved to a new building a couple of years ago. The logo is tied to the image of the new building. A new Web site is also on the way.