Fulton East is a $26 million, 12-story office tower in Chicago’s West Loop. This was one of the first projects that two architectural firms, Lamar Johnson Collaborative (LJC) and BatesForum, worked on jointly.
This week, the firms announced that they had combined to create one business entity with 240-plus professionals and five offices. But the firms had a previous connection in that St. Louis-based BatesForum was 50%-owned by the contracting company Clayco after Clayco merged Bates with its Forum Studio subsidiary in March 2018; and Chicago-based LJC is a Clayco subsidiary, which the contractor acquired in October 2018.
“The future of design is integrated,” says Clayco CEO and founder Bob Clark. “Our integrated delivery model will set a new standard by completely disrupting the inefficiency of the traditional paradigm of design-bid-build.”
Lamar Johnson, CEO of his eponymous firm, adds that this combination is a response to a design-bid-build construction model “that needs to change.” Johnson believes that the combined firm will be better able to draw upon Clayco’s “deep bench of resources and industry leading technology.”
Among the expanded firm’s capabilities are its Technical Assurance Group (TAG), which consults with project teams to apply lessons from the built environment to projects still on the drawing board; and the Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) team, which provides BIM support for the use of integrated models and provides collaboration space for real-time decision-making by owners.
The combined firm exceeds 200 active architecture and design projects in 24 states. Together with Clayco, the overall construction value of active integrated delivery projects exceeds $4 billion. Its client list includes Farpoint Development, Pfizer, Mercy, Brookfield Properties, Blackstone Realty, Levy Restaurants, Lennar Multifamily Communities, Sterling Bay, and The John Buck Company.
The larger LJC will also continue the tradition of civic and community engagement practiced by the firm and Clayco. In the past, it has lent financial support to such organizations as the United Way and Cristo Rey High School.
Related Stories
| Mar 29, 2011
Chicago’s Willis Tower to become a vertical solar farm
Chicago’s iconic Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) is set to become a massive solar electric plant with the installation of a pilot solar electric glass project.
| Mar 29, 2011
Read up on Amazon.com's new green HQ
Phase IV of Amazon’s new headquarters in Seattle is nearly complete. The company has built 10 of the 11 buildings planned for its new campus in the South Lake Union neighborhood, and is on-track for a 2013 grand opening.
| Mar 29, 2011
Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura wins Pritzker Architecture Prize
Portugese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, whose precisely-honed buildings reflect the influence of the late Chicago modernist Mies van der Rohe, is the 2011 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field's highest honor.
| Mar 25, 2011
Qatar World Cup may feature carbon-fiber ‘clouds’
Engineers at Qatar University’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering are busy developing what they believe could act as artificial “clouds,” man-made saucer-type structures suspended over a given soccer stadium, working to shield tens of thousands of spectators from suffocating summer temperatures that regularly top 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
| Mar 23, 2011
AIA adds 13 new contract documents to Documents-on-Demand service
Web-based solution adds 13 popular Architect’s Scope of Services Documents to AIA Documents-on-Demand, providing easy access to documents anytime, anywhere.
| Mar 23, 2011
After 60 years of student lobbying, new activity center opens at University of Texas
The new Student Activity Center at the University of Texas campus, Austin, is the result of almost 60 years of students lobbying for another dedicated social and cultural center on campus. The 149,000-sf facility is designed to serve as the "campus living room," and should earn a LEED Gold certification, a first for the campus.
| Mar 23, 2011
Architecture Billings Index shows nominal increase
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the February Architecture Billings Index score was 50.6, up slightly from a reading of 50.0 the previous month. This score reflects a modest increase in demand for design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 56.4, compared to a mark of 56.5 in December.
| Mar 22, 2011
The American National Standards Institute accredits Stantec for greenhouse gas verification
Stantec Consulting Ltd.’s Atmospheric Environment Group has been awarded accreditation by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for verification of assertions related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Scope of Accreditation is for verification of emissions and removals at the organizational level for Group 1 – General.
| Mar 22, 2011
Mayor Bloomberg unveils plans for New York City’s largest new affordable housing complex since the ’70s
Plans for Hunter’s Point South, the largest new affordable housing complex to be built in New York City since the 1970s, include new residences for 5,000 families, with more than 900 in this first phase. A development team consisting of Phipps Houses, Related Companies, and Monadnock Construction has been selected to build the residential portion of the first phase of the Queens waterfront complex, which includes two mixed-use buildings comprising more than 900 housing units and roughly 20,000 square feet of new retail space.
