Rainbow Hues Inform Autodesk’s Innovative Office in Atlanta

The ongoing BeltLine project has become symbolic of Atlanta’s urban renewal; when finished, the former railway corridor will reconnect historically divided neighborhoods in one 22-mile loop of trails, parks, and public transportation. That was the concept Corgan took inspiration from when developing the floor plan for software behemoth Autodesk’s latest regional outpost. It’s arranged in a loop with “destinations” spread out along the way, each themed around a local landmark like Ponce City Market or the Krog Street Tunnel. Schemes were rendered in a mix of hand sketches and, of course, CAD.

Atlanta has nearly 50 percent tree coverage, so arboreal elements are everywhere, here, too, as in reception’s desk shaped like a giant trunk stump and the layered rainbow canopy with leaf graphics above it. But greening is more than just for show at this LEED Gold ID+C v4.0–certified workplace. The effort started with landing the office in a walkable neighbor- hood close to mass transit and continued into the construction phase, where more than half of all waste was diverted from landfill by either reusing or recycling it.

Studios Architecture Designs an Eco-Friendly School in Washington

As is now commonly recognized, the most environmentally conscious building is one that already exists. That’s why when it came time to welcome a new generation of students, Raymond Elementary in Washington elected to retain and update the school’s original 1920’s redbrick structure instead of starting anew. The Studios Architecture team members took care to maintain the character of the building while making the interventions necessary to meet LEED Gold and, they expect, Net Zero Energy certification. There’s also a new wing of sympathetically similar brick connected to the historic wing by a glazed entry box, for a total of 96,000 square feet. More than 100 geothermal wells provide passive heating and cooling. Automatic shades are fueled by solar power from photo voltaic panels. But there was more than energy savings to consider; most important was that the project be an inclusive and healthy learning environment. That’s why practically all major programmatic zones are windowed, bright, and light, with views to a central courtyard, giving these pupils in the nation’s capital perpetual connection with the world around them

TPG Architecture Reinvents the Office to Prioritize Connection

Here’s a refreshing change for a 21st-century workplace: no open cubicles. Though this financial firm’s New York office can accommodate 300 employees, TPG Architecture skipped the sea of desks in favor of glass-walled team rooms for just four to 12 people. “The client sought a place where people could work efficiently while feeling comfortable and valued,” managing associate and studio creative director Ricardo Nabholz explains. 

The bright, dynamic space centers on a steel-and-walnut staircase that connects all three floors. Positioned in a windowed corner, its profile forms an asymmetrical pentagon, with Michael Anastassiades chain pendants of linked geometric shapes dangling down like jewelry. Employees can meet at communal areas on each landing, in a café (with greenery by Plantwalldesign) that converts into an assembly space, or on a private terrace with views over the treetops in Central Park. They can also slip into what Nabholz calls the “quiet car,” a cozy, librarylike room tucked behind a hidden door. Designed for smaller gatherings, it offers a break from the typical office atmosphere and invites employees to feel at home. 

Arcadis Relocates to an Airy Office in Coral Gables, Florida

Arcadians at the firm’s Miami office dreamed of relocating to digs that would function for work but feel like a resort with South Florida flair. “Learning from neuroscience, we implemented elements that have proven positive emotional responses, like biophilic design and spaces of both prospect and refuge,” says associate principal Randi Rodriguez, who served as project lead for the Coral Gables, Florida locale. 

The hospitality-inflected workplace begins with a 14-foot-high white-oak-slat partition that draws sight lines skyward to a mesmerizing custom light fixture reminiscent of cloudscapes. Polished concrete flooring emphasizes the crisp industrial palette leading to the Hibiscus Room, a coworking space and pantry meant to mimic an inviting home kitchen. The Arcadis interpretation of that includes comfy olive lounge chairs on a custom foliage-patterned rug and an island topped with a slab of recycled terrazzo. 

That repurposing approach extended to furnishings throughout. Some of the pieces brought from the previous workspace and elsewhere include black Flos pendant fixtures, Steelcase workstations, and third-life filing cabinets that Rodriguez originally specified in 2000; they’re now refinished and tucked into built-ins beside bucket chairs upholstered in Florida chic magenta. 

Inside Boston Consulting Group’s New York Locale

Seeking to expand its headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards in New York, Boston Consulting Group took over an additional floor, on 41. As the lowest in the sequence, IA Interior Architects conceived the space as a sort of root for the global strategic-management firm: a foundation that unifies all six levels. IA’s configuration of light fixtures changes as it branches from zone to zone, imparting visual rhythm. Where the ceiling curves, so does the lighting, taking on a more organic form as it flows into open office areas. Graphics in booths are inspired by data and nature, while a white-lacquered corridor wall hosts some creative tech: A series of rectangles animates in reaction to the movement of passersby tracked by a hidden camera. A biophilic pattern on the library ceiling evocative of dappled light through a tree canopy suggests the presence of live plants. The team also added a mother’s room and a prayer/ wellness room to the level above. Connecting the two floors’ communal areas is a glass-enclosed stair literally linking old and new. 

Inside a Houston Healthcare Building Dedicated to Connectivity

Everything’s bigger in the Lone Star State. The Texas Medical Center in Houston is the largest such complex in the world as well as among its most highly regarded. Spanning more than 2 square miles, encompassing 61 different hospitals and institutions, it constitutes the eighth largest business district in the U.S., one that recently became even larger with the addition of TMC Helix Park, a 37-acre trailblazing life-sciences campus that will eventually include multiple laboratory and research buildings along with a convention center, hotel, an apartment tower, and retail space—more than 5 million square feet of real estate in all. 

The first structure, the four-story, 250,000-square-foot TMC3 Collaborative Building, opened in October 2023. Elkus Manfredi Architects, the big Boston-based firm assigned the inaugural project as well as the master planning of Helix Park, has stats almost as impressive as the client’s: It not only ranks number 48 among the Interior Design top 100 Giants but also 34th, 43rd, and 49th on the Hospitality, Sustainability, and Healthcare Giants lists, respectively. David P. Manfredi, CEO and founding principal along with the late Howard F. Elkus, describes TMC3 as “both the convening space for the Helix campus as well as a microcosm of the whole.” Dedicated to connectivity and cooperation between and among researchers and private-sector partners, the facility is inspired by translational science: “Traditionally, there’s been a great divide between academic and commercial science, the biopharmaceuticals,” Manfredi notes. “The translational science construct brings the two worlds together to move solutions from lab to market as fast as possible.”

Discover The LEED Gold-Certified TMC3 Building

“The model at TMC3 is to combine fully equipped laboratory space, promising startups, and organizations that offer seed capital and support in translational medicine,” says Elkus Manfredi principal Elizabeth Lowrey, who led the interior architecture team. “We’re shifting from a research mindset of ‘mine’ to one of ‘ours.’” Thus, the building’s 43,000 square feet of state-of-the-art laboratories are shared by three of TMC’s founding institutions: the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Texas A&M University Health Science Center, and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. 

The building itself, Manfredi continues, “is almost square in plan, out of which is hollowed an atrium that serves as the town square for the whole campus, the agora for ideas.” Throwing off the rectangular footprint slightly, the east facade describes a long, shallow curve that follows the arc of the adjacent garden—one of five green spaces by landscape architect Mikyoung Kim that connect in a DNA-inspired double helix, a near 7-acre expanse that gives the campus its name. 

As for the atrium, it’s also strikingly expansive: 12,000 square feet of limestone-clad floor space topped by an almost equally large ceramic fritted glass skylight nearly 75 feet above. Fronted by deep balcony corridors, three encircling tiers of glass-walled laboratories and administrative offices overlook the huge volume, which is crisscrossed by a bridge and staircases linking the floors. Transparency and connectivity are more than metaphors here. 

Thanks to bleacher seating and a podium backed by a giant video screen, the atrium accommodates educational and cultural events, while oak slats covering the walls and balcony undersides bring warmth and texture to the imposing venue, as do the poured-in-place concrete walls surrounding the reception area. Dedicating so much cubic footage to an atrium might seem counterintuitive but, flooded with daylight, its vast dimensions and natural surfaces animate the whole building. “You walk in, and the generosity of light and space become palpable,” Lowrey observes. “The materials bring a human touch to the scale, making the huge volume feel approachable and reassuring.” 

The second and third stories contain the joint laboratories and adjacent administrative areas. The fourth floor houses the TMC executive suite—a low key–luxe environment of glossy whites and silver grays offset by marble flooring and wood or suede paneling—partner-institution offices, and the James P. Allison Institute, a 14,000-square-foot cancer research lab named for the resident Nobel laureate. Furniture throughout is clean and modern, with a representative sampling of blue-chip pieces by Jasper Morrison, MUT Design, Luca Nichetto, and other contemporary luminaries. 

As befits a medical center, the LEED Gold–certified TMC3 building places a premium on the health and well-being of its occupants, most conspicuously by maximizing the physical relationship between the interiors and the natural world. “When we began discussing our involvement with Helix Park back in 2019,” Manfredi recalls, “one of the first things I said was that the outdoor spaces are as important as the indoor ones.” The curving east facade hosts an amphitheater-like array of staggered terraces—sun-drenched, lushly planted, and furnished with pristine-white tables and chairs by Lievore Altherr Molina and Richard Schultz, they are an irresistibly welcoming al fresco amenity. And, of course, the ground floor offers immediate access to the green park where in good weather research teams can hold meetings under a canopy of shade trees. “People are not just working out there—they can have lunch together or a beer on Friday after work or movie nights and kite festivals,” Manfredi concludes. “Making all those connections with colleagues and their families in a low-pressure, natural environment will accelerate the science.” 

Take A Look At The TMC3 Collaborative Building In Houston

Introducing Interior Design’s 2024 Top 100 Giants

For the first time ever, the top 100 Giants’s interior design fees surpassed the $5 billion mark—and almost zoomed right past $6B! These are record-breaking tallies for our most profitable firms and a year-over-year boost of almost 19 percent.

Looking at sector change over the last five years gives us a more nuanced view of the economic picture. The industry was on a pretty steady upward trajectory until 2020, so we look at 2019 as the marker for recovery. Corporate—always the biggest money-maker for these leaders—is still down 13 percent since prepandemic days, but up 10 percent in the last year.

Top 100 Giants 2024

Note: Firms on this list do the majority of their work overseas and/or are headquartered outside the U.S.

“blank cells” = did not report data

Hospitality, currently experiencing the slowest rebound, is down 21 percent from five years ago. The other blip is residential, down 9 percent since the 2019 high, but fees have been growing slowly every year since that initial COVID drop-off. Surprisingly, 100 Giants experienced strong double-digit growth in every other sector we track. Since 2019, government is up 89 percent, healthcare 55 percent, and education 35 percent. To put things in context, some of those surging sectors account for small dollar amounts overall—education is a $391 million vertical compared to corporate’s $1.6B—but these are big percentages nonetheless. They’re also evidence of the Giants diversifying into markets where business is comparatively booming to offset their declining corporate or hospitality fees.

Projects are way up, to more than 80K, blowing past 2019 levels. Also upticking, and significantly so, is the furniture, fixtures, and construction value of work installed—aka FF&C—to the tune of 25 percent year-over-year. Some of that growth is surely attributable to price increases, but inflation can’t account for the full boost. A particularly interesting metric is the ratio of furniture-and-fixtures dollars to construction dollars. The data has made a notable shift toward F&F since 2019, and this year’s 45/55 split is the highest it’s been. Not a huge surprise, perhaps, given the well-documented construction slowdown we’re experiencing, but noteworthy in that 2023 clearly solidified the “rise of refresh” our ThinkLab friends have been observing and predicting for a while.

Against this backdrop of upswings, other metrics remain stable. Growth locations are unchanged: Domestically, the south predominates, while overseas growth is primarily concentrated in Europe, Asia, and Canada. There was also little movement in satellite office openings/closures, and only 15 percent of firms are planning to launch new locations in 2024, defying our predictions of more prevalent post-pandemic reapportioning.

Staffing has experienced some positive flux, with design-employee rosters zipping past 2019 levels. In fact, the 100 Giants have seen a huge 90 percent increase in the amount of principals and partners over the past five years, a figure that includes both new hires and promotions. Interestingly, the total number of employees—encompassing both designers and supplemental staffers such as admin and HR—has declined 16 percent over the half-decade, likely due to the latter positions being eliminated.

---

International Giants 2024

Note: Firms based outside the U.S. who don’t operate a North American office and/or generate less than 25 percent of interior design fee income in North America are ranked here instead of in the main listings.

“blank cells” = did not report data

---

Billing rates usually track around 80 percent for all design staff. In 2023, those rates were flat for partners, up for project managers, and down for designers, who are perhaps absorbing some of the downsized admin staff’s nonbillable duties. Yet salaries have increased across the board, an average of 25 percent, since 2019. This likely signals a salary correction following a few years of slimmed-down staff absorbing extra work without additional compensation, and/or Giants having to pay their employees a bit more to stay competitive.

Speaking to that issue, the 100 Giants reported that the biggest practice-related challenge remains recruiting qualified staff. (You wouldn’t know that by reading ThinkLab’s U.S. Design Industry Benchmark Report, which found that 41 percent of designers employed at firms work at one of the top 200 companies. So, the bigs are getting bigger and boast more hiring power than ever!) The most pervasive challenge vis-à-vis clients? That’s remained the same since last year, too: getting them to understand the value of design and paying what it’s worth. The Giants noted that clients’ appetite for design services has gone down over the last 12 months.

Overall, these metrics add up great news for the top 100 and for the industry as a whole. The Giants are experiencing recovery at long last. But will that recovery last? Firms remain cautious about the future, predicting a mild decline for 2024, which is expected given that the biggest business challenge remains the uncertain economy. Yet the all-around optimistic data suggests that next year at this time we’ll be looking back at a strong 2024.

Editor’s Note: Take a look at recent coverage of our Top 100 Giants most admired firms of 2023 below. Gensler tops the list followed by Rockwell Group, Perkins&Will, AvroKo, and Yabu Pushelberg.

---

---

---

Top Ten Giants by Sector

Note: * = new to Top 10. Hospitality and Healthcare rankings are featured in their own listings.

All dollar amounts are in millions.

---

---

---

---

---

Project Categories

---

---

---

---

---

Methodology

The Interior Design Giants of Design annual business survey comprises the largest firms ranked by interior design fees for the 12-month period ending December 31, 2023. The listings are generated from only those surveyed. To be recognized as a top 100, Rising, Healthcare, Hospitality, or Sustainability Giant, you must meet the following criteria: Have at least one office location in North America and generate at least 25 percent of your interior design fee income in North America. Firms that do not meet the criteria are ranked on our International Giants list. Interior design fees include those attributed to:

1. All aspects of a firm’s interior design practice, from strategic planning and programming to design and project management.

2. Fees paid to a firm for work performed by employees and independent contractors who are “full-time staff equivalent.”

Interior design fees do not include revenues paid to a firm and remitted to subcontractors who are not considered full-time staff equivalent. For example, certain firms attract work that is subcontracted to a local firm. The originating firm may collect all the fees and retain a management or generation fee, paying the remainder to the performing firm. The amounts paid to the latter are not included in fees of the collecting firm when determining its ranking. Ties are broken by rank from last year. Where applicable, all percent ages are based on responding Giants, not their total number.

All research conducted by ThinkLab, the research division of SANDOW Design Group.

Learn How Design Can Manifest a Brighter Future in This Gensler Tome

Gensler Global Cochairs Discuss Design + The Future

Interior Design: Congrats on the book! Why this topic now?

Andy Cohen: We wanted to write about design’s ability to tackle the major challenges of a radically changing world head-on.

Diane Hoskins: Change is happening at such a rapid and accelerating pace, an effect we coined the “crisis multiplier” in the book. Each crisis happens so soon after the last one: climate change, COVID, geopolitical instability. It means we need to think about design very differently—and get more people to recognize that design needs to be part of the answer.

ID: What message do you want your colleagues to take away from this book?

AC: That climate change is the business imperative of our time. Nearly 40 percent of all carbon emissions is attributable to the building and construction industry. The flip side of that is: As designers and architects, we have a real opportunity to make a positive impact on climate change. Gensler’s taking a stand by committing to reducing carbon emissions in our projects by 2030.

ID: Your discussion of A.I.’s power to reinvent the design process is intriguing. 

DH: We’ve been through new technology adoption—and the training that goes along with it—multiple times in our careers: first CAD, then Revit and parametric modeling. There is not a team in our firm that hasn’t harnessed A.I. in some way. There’s a lot of enthusiasm around how A.I. allows faster iteration; it’s like being able to apply your Pinterest board or “what-ifs” in real time. It stimulates design ideation in a way we’ve never seen before. You can bring a hand sketch into a model, and then sketch again on top of that, and A.I. will convert it to the next visualization. A.I. also has the power to remove barriers to the profession, to engage young people and unlock opportunity.

AC: And it’s not just younger generations who are interested; old guys like me have never had a tool like this that translates hand-sketches into 3D reality! We just finished a really interesting project, the Santa Clara, California, headquarters of artificial intelligence–computing company Nvidia, during which the client gave us tips for how to incorporate A.I. into our process.

ID: How are you designing today’s workplaces to be “a destination, not an obligation,” as you put it?

AC: Our workplace survey showed the top reason people want to return to the office is for focus. But research also found a 37 percent drop-off in collaboration during COVID. So, these days we’re creating a phenomenal amount of living room space where people can come together. Our redesigned San Francisco office, for instance, has become a laboratory of the future workplace, with a layering of zones. The front is like a coffee shop, with music playing; the middle is collaboration space, designed with noise-attenuation technology so you don’t hear the group sitting at the next table; and the back is a pin-drop-quiet library for focusing. 

DH: Design isn’t task work; it’s about the whole person. So, we focus on the power of presence and the innovation it sparks, and even more so on the culture, which comes from relationships and the ability to learn, mentor, and grow alongside each other. More and more companies are recognizing they’re at their best—from the standpoint of innovation, speed, accuracy, efficiency—when everyone’s present together. 

ID: You highlight the importance of designing structures with built-in flexibility for different future uses.

AC: Look at all the B and C office buildings currently sitting empty, every one of which will need to be transformed through adaptive reuse. Gensler created an algorithm for cities and developers to analyze a building portfolio and determine applicability of renovation into much-needed housing. Only 25 percent of structures prove suitable, but that’s still millions of square feet. When prices drop low enough it becomes economically viable to retrofit those buildings into apartments. We just completed Pearl House, the largest such conversion to open in New York.

ID: The future of cities is a sort of sub-theme of the book. Tell us about other urban challenges you’re solving for.

DH: At the Meridian Diplomacy Forum, I met with mayors of Ukraine cities that were destroyed, to help them think through rebuilding. They know that by having a forward vision, they’re giving their people hope. Design makes hope tangible.

ID: Was it hard to find a writing voice that was optimistic yet urgent?

DH: Look, we’d still be in COVID if someone hadn’t created the vaccine. It took innovation, focus, and intensity to get to that solution. It’s within our grasp to make a difference in the world. We have this power—how the design brain connects the dots and thinks big and the collaborative nature of the profession. Our discipline is really well positioned to be the problem solvers of our time. We can do it.