PROFILE with an Entrepreneurial Spirit Gensler focuses on designing responsibly and helping employees follow their passions BY SUSAN BADY With 6000 employees and 53 offices in 18 countries serving more than 3500 clients, Gensler is the world’s largest design firm. Its areas of expertise include workplace, residential, hospitality, aviation, technology, sports, healthcare, and mixed-use and retail centers. Yet it sustains an entrepre-neurial sensibility where employees are given the opportunity to learn what they are passionate about and the resources given to pursue it. “One of the things that supports and enhances that position is that we’re 100 percent employee owned,” says Duncan Lyons, coprincipal, design director, and office developers leader at Gens-ler. “Everyone here is a shareholder and accountable for their own work when collaborating with others.” Founded in 1965 by Arthur and Drue Gensler and their associ-ate, James Follett, the company is committed to “designing re-sponsibly for the environment and limited resources,” Lyons says. “High interest rates and a challenging lending environment have made it hard for new construction projects to get underway, so we’re always looking for ways to be economical in our choice of materials.” Precast concrete is one material that Gensler has been using for 44 years, precisely because of that efficiency. Lyons says that with all-glass buildings, “however good the glass is, they’re not going to perform as well as buildings with a lower percentage of glass in the façade, more opaque materials, and materials that have mass. That’s one thing playing to the advantage of precast concrete.” Whether a building façade is all glass or partially replaced with metal panels or other materials, “if it still has some kind of met-al framing or mullion system or backup system, it’s not going to make a big difference in terms of the cost of the façade,” Lyons says. “Whereas, if I use a significant amount of precast concrete and limit the glazing to either punched windows or small areas of storefront-type glazing, it can positively impact the cost and performance of the project.” A GIANT
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