Today, Menlo Park, Calif.–based tech and construction company Katerra announced the addition of Atlanta-based design and planning firm Lord Aeck Sargent (LAS) to its brand portfolio. The firm is now known as Lord Aeck Sargent, a Katerra Company. The announcement of the new partnership comes just two weeks after Katerra's May 30 acquisition of Michael Green Architecture (MGA), based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
LAS president Joe Greco, AIA, and Michael Green were two of Katerra's four Design Consortium partners enlisted to help design and execute high-quality architecture. The two other participants in the consortium are Ted Flato, FAIA, partner and founder of San Antonio, Texas–based Lake|Flato, and Andrea Leers, FAIA, founding principal of Boston-based Leers Weinzapfel Associates.
While Michael Green's firm offered, among other things, expertise in the design of mass timber buildings—a structural system that supports Katerra's model of streamlining the design and assembly of buildings, as Katerra Architecture president Craig Curtis, FAIA, tells ARCHITECT in a recent episode of ArchitectChats—LAS also brings to the table a large staff located across six offices and with design expertise in building technology, sustainability, education projects, and master planning.
“Lord Aeck Sargent will play an integral role in cementing our position as a leader in design,” said Michael Marks, chairman and co-founder of Katerra, in the company's press release. “[T]he addition of LAS more than doubles Katerra’s current design staff. It boldly expands Katerra’s level and depth of design expertise, focus on innovation, and sustainability efforts.”
With the recent additions of LAS and MGA, Katerra now has 291 designers in 11 locations and architecture licenses in 31 states, as well as British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.
“By aligning ourselves with a company that is disrupting the design and construction industry, Lord Aeck Sargent will help deliver high-quality design to more people throughout a broader geographic range,” Greco said in the same release. “We look forward to breaking new ground with a company that is poised to transform and optimize the industry. Katerra shares our vision of the power of design, innovation and technology, and a desire to deliver high-quality projects.”
