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The Art of Collaboration & Getting Things Done

2022-AIALA04
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1.00 LU
3.55
Course expires on: 03/24/2025
$30
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Description

This session focuses on how A+D founders and leaders create their own culture with impactful design, and how this is nurtured by design teams, leadership styles, new ways of working, and even, ownership transitions. Join Think-Time Tuesdays host, and SO|arch founder Elisabeth Sporer, AIA CIC for a presentation on design culture that energizes the business of design.

Elisabeth provides an overview of the influencing factors of an office culture from the founder’s values and its impact on client and project selection to the way staff is hired, trained and mentored and how projects are executed in a hybrid work environment. Then Elisabeth is joined in conversation by Los Angeles-based A+D firm leaders Karin Liljegren [Omgvining], Georgina Huljich [P-A-T-T-T-E-R-N-S], Stephanie Ragle [office42], and Monika Haefelfinger [XTEN], who share stories that other founders and leaders of small studios and midsized firms in particular will find useful, on these topics:

  • Applied values: Design culture manifested in client selection and project work
  • Design teams: Growing the firm
  • New ways of working: Collaboration in hybrid mode
  • Leadership: Training, mentoring, and ownership transitions

Course expires 03/23/2025

Learning Objectives

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Discern how an office structure influences design culture

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Gain an understanding of the importance of job descriptions

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Gain additional knowledge of best practices for office design and quality standards

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Adapt best practices for their own business

This session was presented and recorded live on December 14, 2021 by AIA Los Angeles as part of the Think-time Tuesdays Series.  

Instructors
Monika Haefelfinger
SIA

Shaped by an apprenticeship at her father's architecture firm in Switzerland, Monika moved to Los Angeles, then New York City for her studies. She moved back to Switzerland to work for Herzog and de Meuron, playing a key role in several award-winning projects. Then she returned to the US to work for DMJM/Keating on notable high-rise projects in Asia, before establishing XTEN Architecture in 2000 with her late husband, Austin Kelly. 

Monika holds a MS in Advanced Architectural Design form Columbia University in NYC and a BArch from USC.

Georgina Huljich
AIA

An architect and educator, Georgina Huljich joined P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S as partner in 2006, and impacting the firm's design and scale of work.  She previously worked at the Guggenheim Museum and Dean/Wolf Architects in New York City, and at Morphosis Architects in Los Angeles.  She teaches at the Department of Architecture at UCLA and has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Yale, Pennsylvania, Syracuse, Berkeley, USC and TIT in Tokyo.

Georgina holds a Professional Degree from the National University of Rosario, Argentina and a MArch from UCLA.

Karin Liljegren
FAIA

Karin has dedicated her career to community building, sustainability and advocacy by embracing adaptive reuse as a powerful means to revitalize our cities. She became a Fellow of the AIA in 2020, (add comma) based on her drive to elevate the architect’s role in urban revitalization by creating a nationally applicable model for the practice of adaptive reuse. Karin founded Omgivning in 2009, and since then, the firm has built a reputation for uncovering potential in underutilized buildings by transforming them into hotels, multifamily housing, offices, restaurants, and bars. 

Karin holds a MArch from UCLA. 

Stephanie Ragle
AIA

Stephanie founded office42 with her husband, Benjamin Ragle in 2007 on this premise: Good design should be available to all. She co-leads office42 in designing modern homes and creative additions, creating elegant new restaurants and innovative commercial offices, helping non-profits expand, and working with city agencies to end homelessness.  She is active in the community through her involvement with the Girls Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, and Would Works, an economic empowerment retail operation.

Stephanie holds a MArch from SciArc in LA and a BArch from Cal Poly SLO.

Elisabeth Sporer
AIA, CIC

Elisabeth Sporer, AIA, CIC works with CEOs, founders and leadership teams to build successful A+D firms through an integral approach.  She is a licensed architect in California and Berlin/Germany, a LEED Accredited Professional, and a New Ventures West certified integral coach. Her multi-faceted professional experience spans design and architecture to business strategy and business management in her native Germany and in the US for firms such as EHDD, Perkins + Will and STUDIOS, and her own firm SO|arch. Based in Northern California, she has presented at major AIA chapters in California, including AIA San Francisco, AIA Los Angeles,  AIA East Bay and AIA Central Valley, on topics like business strategy [“Blueprint for Success” in 2020 and “Think-Times Tuesdays” in 2021] , entrepreneurship [“The Free Solo Practice” in 2019] ], ownership transition [“Ownership Transition in the Entrepreneurial Era of Gen X”], mentorship [“High Performance Mentorship” in 2020 and international practice [“Unlearning the Metric System” in 2019 and “Career Strategies for International Professionals” in 2021]. 

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