Architects balance owners’ needs and budget in creating plans.
behind every building is an architect. And behind every architect are problems that have been solved, tough choices that have been made, and relationships that have been built.
In other words, the architect’s craft involves much more than drawings and blueprints.
"Listening to the owner’s needs and wants, balancing them against the available budget and figuring out how to make their dreams a reality is the majority of what we do," says Carl Winnekins, president of Architect Group Ltd. in Green Bay. "If you spend the majority of time with your clients on the front end, the technical drawings fall into place pretty quickly."
Given the communication and relationship between client and architect, it’s little wonder that so many long-standing partnerships have formed throughout the region. Examples include Bellin Health and Somerville Inc., Berners–Schober Associates Inc. and St. Vincent and St. Mary’s Hospitals, and Architect Group Ltd. and Green Bay Area Public Schools.
Many architects say more than half of their clients are repeat customers. In most cases, these clients have shared with their architects closely held details of their organization and operations, and have agonized over priorities.
"At the end of the day, I look at the folks I work with as close friends as opposed to clients," says Trevor Frank, senior architect at Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc., a national engineering and architectural firm that added architectural services to its Appleton office four years ago. "These are relationships that don’t come along every day and take a long time building."
Those relationships have been fueled by the economic growth of the past several decades, which provided a steady stream of projects for Northeast Wisconsin’s architectural firms. From hospitals to schools to fire stations to housing projects, the region’s landscape is laden with evidence of a rich and diverse heritage of architecture.
Whether employees of large construction and engineering firms or principals in three- to four-person offices that specialize in building design, architects throughout the region have contributed to hundreds of thousands of construction, renovation and remodeling projects. For some, like 111-year-old Berners–Schober Associates in Green Bay, the projects number in the tens of thousands.
"Our region has a couple of incredible firms in terms of endurance for this size of a metropolitan area," says Jeff Kanzelberger, president of Performa Inc. of De Pere, a newer kid on the block that has carved its own niche in the past 15 years regionally in corporate and not-for-profit strategic planning and building design, and nationally in the areas of justice, detention and security.
Many architectural firms consider themselves generalists that can design any type of structure for private, public and nonprofit use. However, many develop niche markets as they gain experience understanding the operations and assessing the needs of particular types of clients.
"I would classify us as generalists in that there are few buildings we wouldn’t be capable of or good at doing," says Dan Dallich, vice president and principal at Berners–Schober Associates. "But there are areas we don’t do much work in, and there are areas that we do a lot of work in."
Dallich’s firm doesn’t design prisons or retail spaces. Hospital design constitutes as much as 60 to 80 percent of the company’s work, he says.
Health care
Health care is a highly specialized field in building design, and a rapidly growing market. Several local firms are making their marks on the region’s hospitals, outpatient facilities and health care clinics.
One of the most notable is Green Bay-based Somerville, a 63-year old employee-owned architecture, engineering and construction management firm that got its start designing manufacturing facilities. Somerville was the architect for the original Lambeau Field, the Brown County Arena in Ashwaubenon and the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay.
Historically, the company has been involved in designing projects for Wisconsin Public Service Corp., Kimberly–Clark Corp., Scott Paper and Fort Howard Corp., as well as churches, schools and municipal buildings. More recently Somerville has worked on everything from projects at four Wisconsin technical colleges to sustainable "green" corporate buildings for Wausau Windows and Morgan Aircraft.
Somerville President Michael Kadow says the health care demands of an aging population have shifted the company’s focus in recent years to health care. The 42-employee company has engineered, designed and managed several projects for Bellin Health, including an addition to the hospital, a new Cancer Care Center, a physician’s clinic, and a Sports Enhancement Center. Somerville also designed a $23 million Riverview Hospital addition in Wisconsin Rapids and the Munising Memorial Hospital in Upper Michigan.
"Not surprisingly, Somerville has a long history with Bellin that goes back to the 1950s when we designed the nurse’s residency," says Kadow. "The firm has been blessed with clients who come back to us time and again. That repeat clientele has allowed us to survive for more than six decades and is the main reason that Jack Somerville wanted to pass this company on to his employees."
Kadow attributes the company’s success in part to the fact that architecture, engineering and construction administration services exist under one roof, which he says results in a more coordinated set of design documents. The staff includes eight architects and 10 engineers who specialize in plumbing, fire protection, electrical, HVAC, and communications and data design.
"Buildings have become more complicated in terms of technology, indoor air quality and sustainability, and I think we can argue that we’re more in tune and educated in terms of the technical aspects of the building," he says. "Operationally, we can argue that our building life cycle costs less. Aesthetically, we are able to integrate engineering equipment in a more pleasing manner to the eye."
Berners–Schober can claim a similar range of engineering services under its roof, a project portfolio that spans a century and significant experience designing and engineering hospitals throughout Wisconsin and Illinois. The firm received the 2007 Build Wisconsin Award for its design work on St. Vincent Hospital’s Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, designed the emergency room addition to St. Mary’s Hospital and is designing a $20 million two-story cancer center addition to St. Mary’s that will incorporate rooftop healing gardens.
Berners–Schober, which employs 58 architects, engineers, interior designers and support staff, has been designing for St. Vincent and St. Mary’s since the 1950s. A 1959 article about St. Vincent Hospital, "The Modern Hospital," features Berners–Schober and hangs on Dallich’s wall.
