EDAW
Specialty:Landscape architecture, environmental planning and design, urban design
Management: Bruce Powers, managing principal; Chuck Everett, principal; Jill Sterrett, principal
Founded: 1939 (Seattle office opened in 1982)
Headquarters: San Francisco
Projects: United States embassies in Quito, Ecuador, and Libreville, Gabon; Crossroads Center planning and design, Bellevue; Porto Romano community development, Lake Elsinore, Calif.
Is it possible to be too multidisciplinary? Perish the thought.
Still, a challenge facing EDAW is how to encourage its clients to avail themselves to all of its resources.
Photo courtesy of EDAW EDAW is creating a 9-mile pedestrian promenade along the San Pedro, Calif., waterfront for the Port of Los Angeles. The redevelopment will include parks, retail and commercial projects. |
Stephenson said the firm would like to see more contracts structured to take a more holistic design approach that addressed, say, environmental and design issues together.
Cross-disciplinary work
Marilee Stander, a studio lead at EDAW, said the firm is getting more cross-disciplinary work, citing a project at Crossroads Center in Bellevue, which she described as “a really interesting example of a retail shopping center redeveloping into more of a community center.”
EDAW is doing design and planning work for the center, which includes improving its link to Crossroads Park nearby. The firm is also assisting with the project’s community involvement process.
Slow, but steady
Managing Principal Bruce Powers, who joined the firm last year, said EDAW is seeing slow but steady growth.
“We’re planning on 10 percent to 15 percent staff growth each year,” Powers said, and similar revenue growth.
About 30 percent of EDAW’s projects are overseas, driven by development growth in Asia. The building boom in countries such as China present a lot of opportunity for environmental design, Powers said.
“We recently hired a stream and habitat restoration specialist,” he said. “We see water as a real driver for the problems that will take place there.”
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Globally, the San Francisco-based company employs more than 1,200 people in 27 offices, including locations in the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia.
Last year, EDAW was acquired by AECOM, a Los Angeles architecture and planning firm with 22,000 employees worldwide. Such wide reach allows good opportunities for collaboration, Powers and Stephenson remarked.
“We’re learning from many offices around the world,” Stephenson said. “We like to say we’re a company without walls.”