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Architecture, access, talent, and the city we call home.
Insight ·
The hardest part of most sports facilities is not designing them. It is paying for them. Here is how owners combine funding sources, and why credible early planning is what unlocks the money.
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In Michigan, the weather is a design constraint. Here is how climate shapes smart sports facility design, from year-round programming to envelopes that survive Great Lakes winters.
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A school gym is the hardest-working room in the building: PE, competition, assemblies, and community use. Here is how to design a school athletic facility that serves all of them.
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A youth sports facility's real job is retention: keeping kids playing, learning, and safe. Here is how design decisions shape whether young athletes stay in the game.
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Sports architecture in Detroit is not about trophy venues. It is about buildings that serve a neighborhood on a Tuesday and host a championship on Saturday. Here is how we think about it.
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Why the cost per square foot you found online is useless, what actually moves the number, and how to get a figure you can defend in public.
Read the storyFunding ·
A bond is one way to fund a building, not the only way. The realistic sources, what each is good for, and why readiness decides who wins grants.
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Every firm you interview will show you good photographs. These are the six questions that actually predict what happens to your project.
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Three ways to deliver a building, explained for owners rather than for the industry. Who holds the risk, when you find out the real price, and which one actually fits a board, a bond, or a grant deadline.
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A guaranteed maximum price is a real protection and it is not magic. Here is what it actually covers, the four things that can still move it, and the questions worth asking before you sign one.
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You didn't set out to buy drawings. You set out to open a building, on time and on budget. Why the traditional design-bid-build model fails owners, and how single-source design-build with a guaranteed maximum price fixes it.
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The short answer is neither, if you can avoid it. Here is why the question exists at all, what it costs owners who guess wrong, and the third option most owners are never told about.
Read the storySchool Districts ·
Passing the bond was the hard part politically. Turning a ballot number into buildings is the hard part operationally. Here are the five decisions in the first ninety days that determine whether your district delivers what it promised.
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A school does not close for construction. Phasing around an occupied building is where district projects are won or lost, and almost none of it is decided on the job site.
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What actually happens in the first three months, what you will be asked to decide, what you are not responsible for, and the three mistakes owners make before anyone draws anything.
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Michigan districts have three capital funding sources, and each one restricts what it can pay for differently. How to match scope to the right source, and where districts most often get this wrong.
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Bond campaigns are won long before the ballot language is written. What a credible facility master plan actually contains, and why condition data persuades voters that aspiration never will.
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A recreation center is judged by how full it is every hour it is open. What that means for programming, staffing, flexibility, and the budget.
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How to plan a sports complex or fieldhouse that fills every court on a Tuesday, hosts a real tournament on Saturday, and pays for itself.
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A natatorium is the hardest building most communities will ever put up. What drives cost, what drives longevity, and how to settle both before you break ground.
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Your next community facility may already be standing. How to tell whether an existing building is worth reusing, and how to price the risk of what you cannot see.
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The Design Framework Report gives you drawings of the building, a real budget, and a timeline, before you commit to full design.
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Framework E co-founders Pierre Roberson and Jerry Attia discuss their careers, current projects, and bringing more Black architects into the profession.
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