CURRENT ISSUE
| Cover Story |
| Columns |
| 'Design Unplugged' |
| Profile | |
| By Brooke Knudson | |
| Sunday, 01 July 2007 | |
 La Cañada Design Group was founded in 1981 by Lance Bird, who named the company after the city where he lived. Shea joined him in 1986, and together they formed the company. Two of the most prominent elements at La Cañada are principal involvement and staff responsiveness, each giving the firm a competitive edge in the market, Shea asserts. Each of the three principals brings to the firm at least 25 years of experience in architecture and design. The firm was founded in 1981 by Lance Bird, who named the company after the city where he lived. Shea joined him in 1986, and together they formed the company. The two had spent the early part of their careers as architectural designers, working for Jacobs Engineering on high-profile projects for Lockheed Martin in Texas and California. “We worked well together, and wanted to provide good services to clients in terms of master planning, site analysis and sustainable design,” Shea recalls. “We felt we had a good match for a business plan.” Veronica West joined the firm in 1996 and quickly became a partner and principal with strong skills in financial and office management and project coordination. Size Matters With their experience, Shea says, both men realized the importance of establishing strong resources, a good management team and strong financial systems, but wanted to avoid the laissez-faire approach that principals at larger firms would take with clients. At times, when working for larger firms, Shea says he had “felt like a vacuum cleaner sucking up jobs,” rather than really helping the clients. Eventually, the two decided that they could do the job better by running their own mid-sized company. “The problem was that the big firms would sell their name to a client, and, unfortunately, the client would get the third-string designers,” he notes. “Principals [here] are involved in the project from day one and clients [understand] that’s the difference between us and the others.” LCDG serves clients within a 200-mile radius of its headquarters, and has worked with clients from Santa Barbara, Calif., to San Diego. According to Shea, its business philosophy emphasizes the fact that, when done right, plans and designs can positively impact employees, shareholders, customers and the community. “Once we get a client we typically hang on to them,” Shea says, estimating that approximately 60 percent of business is with repeat clients. The firm has held longstanding relationships with California State University in Los Angeles, for which it has served as campus architect and completed close to $50 million worth of construction work in the course of five years. In addition, LCDG has provided architectural services for Jet Propulsion Laboratories, Claremont Graduate University and Sun Air Jets. “If you build a relationship and you are responsive, they’ll keep coming back,” Shea asserts. Maintaining a medium-sized practice is also important to the partners because it allows them to pay close attention to clients’ needs – a fact they discovered in the late to early 1990s when business increased quickly. As business grew, LCDG eventually ramped up staff to about 35 people, but soon realized the larger staff didn’t fit with its business model. “It wasn’t comfortable for us, and we started to lose touch with our clients,” Shea notes. The firm decided to cut back on staff and, today, LCDG employs 15 staff members, a size that Shea says it is happy to maintain. LEED Platinum Project At the heart of the company’s approach to design is sustainability. “Our philosophy is very sustainable in our design approach,” Shea continues. “We want businesses to be tuned into these design methods. Our goal lately is to ‘design unplugged.’ That is to say, design buildings that significantly reduce energy consumption down to net zero.” One of LCDG’s most significant projects was its involvement in the design of the Inland Empire Utilities headquarters in Chino, Calif. The two-building, 67,000-square-foot complex was designed as a prototype of self-sufficient environmental conservation. LCDG incorporated sustainable design elements, helping the facilities earn LEED Platinum certification. The firm incorporated photovoltaic solar roof panels, high-efficiency insulated windows, skylights and programmable light sensors and recycled materials into the building. Since Inland Empire also treats up to five million gallons of wastewater per day, LCDG incorporated plans to recover the heat from the power generators at the water treatment facility. The $7.5 million project was completed in 18 months within budget. The goal was to make the facility 100 percent energy self-sufficient in seven years, but was able to achieve it in just three years, Shea says. The Inland Empire Utility Agency’s 2006 annual report stated that it will save $800,000 per year for power and utilities, and at that rate, will be able to pay back the entire cost of this facility in 10 years. Expert Analysts Because architects are involved early in a construction project, LCDG faces the challenge of meeting tight deadlines. To adjust to scheduling demands, LCDG is placing more of its efforts into working on up-front design in the early phases of a project, and will continue shifting the business in this direction in the future, Shea says. “We’re modeling the business plan on more of a strategic level, where we set up the design time and have the architects work closely with the contractors,” he notes. “I feel we can offer very good insights into holistic project development at a reasonable fee.” |
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