“This idea of always having a concept around all our projects is one thing that builds the heart and soul of any process that we have,” said Principal and Partner Andrew Bennett of an approach that is meant to inspire.

Bridging concept and reality
Hospitality projects are some of the most inspirational in BOKA Powell’s portfolio. As a Hyatt and Marriott-approved firm, its reputation is as impressive as the projects it wins—Bowie House, in particular, has become world-renowned in only a short period of time.

The luxury urban retreat is part of the Auberge Resorts Collection and has the hospitality sector on its knees with its immersive Western flavor and chic delivery. Described as “an all-new Western frontier in the heart of Fort Worth’s cultural epicenter,” it was completed late-2023 and continues to garner praise from visitors and afficionados alike.

Referred to by the firm as “the gift that keeps on giving,” Bowie House received numerous awards and nominations in its first year of operation, including two Michelin keys (the only North Texas hotel to achieve this), a nod as one of Time Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places, and being named Texas’ Best Hotel Spa by World Spa Magazine and amongst the Top Fifteen Hotels in Texas by Condé Nast.

“It’s so wonderful that developers and hoteliers are also paying attention, and they’re paying attention to us,” says Senior Associate and Senior Interiors Project Manager Kaky Gowan—especially in the red-hot Dallas-Fort Worth market. The project has even attracted big names like Producer/Director/Writer Taylor Sheridan of Bosque Ranch Production, Inc., a Fort Worth native who is revered for his storytelling ability on shows like Yellowstone, 1883, 1923, and Landman, among others.

Like Sheridan, a significant aspect of BOKA Powell’s storytelling is its visionary ability to harness the past, integrate it with the present, and create something that will last long into the future. This was the case with Bowie House, and it stands to be the same with Caravan Court, a highly anticipated project for Valencia Hotel Group that is slated for completion in 2026.

Caravan Court is likely to gain the same level of praise as it encapsulates a strong sense of the city of Arlington’s history, with modern luxury that transports visitors through the integration of the mid-century aesthetics of the classic motor court hotel with the services, amenities, and luxury standards of the present.

Empowering design and people
Beyond the designs themselves, BOKA Powell’s consultative approach and interpersonal aptitude is essential to its ability to keep people and projects energized through long timelines, financing issues, and managing the competing priorities and interests of project stakeholders. The goal is to keep the work serious but the energy high and lighthearted through every project.

“You not only have to get approval from your owner and the operator, but you also have to get brand approval—it’s like three different silos and they don’t always agree, and you have to have a really great person on your team that can steer the boat,” explains Gowan of the role relationship building plays in the firm’s success.

Fort Worth City Hall was a particularly unique project for BOKA Powell in this regard as it began in 2021 and just recently celebrated its ribbon cutting as a Class A office space that has redefined how public offices look and function. The team at BOKA Powell, led by Principal and Senior Project Manager Mark Dabney, flawlessly engaged with the input received from the client, building occupants, and the public, reconciling the various stakeholders’ visions to find a harmonious concept narrative and design that elevated the space beyond imagination.

“One of our vision statement items is listening intently, and you really have to do that on a project like this because there are so many eyes on it and so many people want to express their opinions and have them integrated. You have to document, and you have to respond, and it’s another layer that typically we don’t do on an office building or hotel project,” Dabney explains.

The ability to listen, hear, understand, and execute is a testament to the firm’s commitment to placing people at the heart of its process, creating spaces and places that they can call home away from home.

“There was a lot of discussion about the city hall as the ‘living room’ and then there’s a nearly four-acre park that surrounds the northwest base of the building. So that becomes the ‘great lawn’ or the front porch to that living room where people can gather, exchange ideas, debate different things. It was a very multifaceted design challenge for our firm,” says Dabney.

With the partnership of Brinkley Sargent Wiginton (BSW), the designers of the Council Chamber addition, BOKA Powell got to work drafting a narrative that would inform the design and elevate the user experience, accommodating 23 different departments and 1,000 employees delivering civic services to the public. The goal was to create an open and inviting space that promoted civil engagement, empowered the delivery of services and interdisciplinary collaboration, and incorporated transparency, sustainability, and adaptability for the long term, while maintaining a Class A look and feel—no short order.

“It’s a workplace that city employees want to be in and that was very important to the design of this building,” says Dabney. “The old city hall is an older building and shows it, and it’s also a very brutalist building and not very welcoming. It’s cold and it’s just not a place you want to be, so that was very important to the city,” he says of the stark contrast from the previous building.

The design team weaved the Western history of the city with its modern, contemporary culture through the careful selection of materials, colors, textures, and other design elements that pay homage to the city’s evolution. From trail drives to the economic contributions of the railroad and aviation industries, the juxtaposition of those themes throughout the space creates an artistic element that is complementary to its function as a workplace and as a public forum.

“We started looking at those things and the whole idea of a pioneering movement: how do you move through a building and how do finishes and textures move throughout the spaces? All of those themes were ultimately integrated into our design concept, weaving these concepts into patterns and textures, furniture and wall coverings, carpeting and those sorts of things,” to elevate the space to create a dynamic user experience.

Dynamic workplaces for dynamic communities
Fort Worth City Hall is just one example of a corporate office space that is investing in its capacities as a workplace, particularly in the post-pandemic period when the push to return to in-person work is greater than ever before. As people continue to return to the office—or show resistance in the face of this push—a greater number of employers are realizing that their office spaces must be enticing, inspiring, and offer some of the comforts of home, which BOKA Powell achieves through amenitization in design.

As Bennett explains of this trend in the corporate office market, “It’s much more amenitized. People only want to be officing in a place that is walkable, where you have a lot of amenities like cafés, fitness centers, wellness centers, things like that. Most of our current planning efforts have all of these mixed-use components and many more, which is exciting.”

Executing this caliber of project not only attracts new clients, but also new talent, which remains a goal of the firm. For Gowan, “That’s what motivates me from day to day—creating a place that has cool projects and cool people.”

From private member clubs to exciting mixed-use buildings, and of course office and hospitality spaces, BOKA Powell can—and will—reshape the markets it serves through its visionary approach to projects while strengthening its relationships. The firm achieves this thanks to its ability to communicate clients’ stories through artful, thoughtful, and exquisite design for a built environment that enriches the surrounding community.

The post Storytelling Through Design<p class="company">BOKA Powell</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Since its inception, Newman has been honored with more than 150 prestigious awards in recognition of design quality, construction quality, sustainability, and/or team collaboration. Today, its staff of 40 forms a knowledge-driven architectural practice with a vision to shape space and deliver outstanding results for clients in the educational, commercial, and community sectors.

In recent years, the company has completed no fewer than 19 LEED certified projects, 10 of which were certified Gold and one of which was certified Platinum. In addition, another recent project has recently earned Passive House certification from PHIUS, meeting even more stringent energy efficiency requirements. In further support of its commitment to sustainability, the company encourages staff to become LEED or WELL accredited and invests in their success by paying for the examinations.

For the past three years, Newman Architects has been named by the American Institute of Architects, New England as an “Emerging Professional Friendly Firm,” guaranteeing an ongoing succession of young architects who wish to work to the highest standards.

We enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation with Principal José A. Hernández, AIA, NOMA, LEED GA, who in 2024 was honored with the American Institute of Architects Presidents Award for his mentorship and leadership in the industry, and in 2023 was named by the University of Connecticut as the Employer Career Advocate of the Year.

Speaking about his long career at Newman, he tells us that success is “about the people we work with. We have an incredible staff and when you work with an incredible staff, you have excellent work, and that is built into our company’s DNA. We had a seismic shift in leadership a few years ago, and with that shift came a whole different way of thinking about architecture, about making it more holistic, less about leadership, and more about being inclusive, with everyone having a contribution. And with those combined contributions, we have been able to make quite a statement.”

We also spoke with Abigail M. Carlen, LEED AP BD+C, Associate Principal and Director of Marketing & Communication, who explained what it means for Newman to be knowledge-driven and to work from a human-centric perspective.

“Each of our employees is involved with a specific Knowledge Group within the office,” she says. “These include Design Methods and Technology, Sustainability, Office Culture, and Professional Development, through which we work collectively to advance our knowledge and skills and to bring all of those areas together and make the whole product we deliver that much better,” she explains.

“We are focused on developing a body of knowledge that supports the work we do, particularly in residence hall design for our higher education clients, many of which we serve through a design-build delivery method,” she says.

In 2024, the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA), Connecticut Chapter, awarded Newman and KBE Building Corporation with the Project of the Year award for one of those design-build projects, the University of Connecticut’s Connecticut Residence and Dining Hall in Storrs, Connecticut.

The LEED Gold, 246,000-square-foot residence is a seven-story, 656-bed facility with a project value of $180 million. Delivered through a design-build-bridging method with Newman as architect of record, the project consists of semi-suite residential units, a 500-seat dining hall, large central living room, common gathering and study areas, seminar rooms, flex spaces, offices, game room, and bike storage. The dining hall includes a main dining floor with a range of food stations and a variety of seating options.

Newman’s first project with KBE was at UConn in 2000, and the two companies have since completed 12 projects together, including UConn’s eight-story Peter J. Werth Residence Tower, a design-build-bridging, LEED Gold, 210,000-square-foot, $85 million project. Newman served as bridging architect for the Werth Tower, continuing as UConn’s design advisor through subsequent design and construction phases. In 2017, that residence received recognition from the Associated Builders and Contractors and the International Masonry Institute.

Referring to KBE, Hernández says, “If you can find a builder you can engage in a design-build project, and if you come out of the exercise wanting to do another design-build with them, then there’s a good chemistry to tap into. We try to be very collaborative, and certainly one of the aspects we bring to the university is our desire to collaborate with the builder. So, rather than the builder and the architect being under contract separately to the university, never speaking to each other, we set up a dialogue and we find common ground to deliver the best product for the university,” he explains.

“We have been able to demonstrate our ability to do that with a high success rate, and that has kept us at UConn,” he says. “Not all architects can collaborate, but this is one of the signature hallmarks of Newman. Clear, constant communication and transparency is everything, and that is why builders like working with us.”

This communication begins in the pre-planning stage—finding out what the building owner needs through a series of meetings with “concentric circles of stakeholders,” the inner circle of university staff who develop the program, then a circle including the department of residential life, and then a circle of end users.

What is unique about these residences is that they were designed to house set populations of learning communities. Connecticut Hall, for example, houses honors students and nursing students, among other groups, while Peter J. Werth has eight learning communities, several of which are focused on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) students, and includes academic spaces on the lower levels where the students can work together and support each other.

Construction of Connecticut Hall experienced additional challenges above and beyond those to be expected when working on a building of that size and complexity. Project Manager Jeff Pleshek explains that the original drawings submitted by the bridging architect were not as developed as Newman, the architect-of-record, had hoped they would be. “It was a very aggressive schedule, with the design work needing to be completed within five months, with some of it folded into the construction phase,” he says. “We even heard there were people betting that we couldn’t do it in time.”

One aspect that contributed to the successful completion in 20 months was Pleshek’s background in construction work, work he did before he studied architecture. “I was coming into it with a sense of how things are put together, and that really helped me establish relationships with the builders and the trades,” he shares.

“But I think the main reason we succeeded was the longstanding relationship Newman has with KBE and the personal relationships between their team and ours which has built a level of comfort and trust. Having open communication lines facilitated the decision-making process.”

Another successful education project that Newman completed as part of the design-build team with KBE is the Wayback Residence Hall at Purchase College, a public liberal arts college and campus of the State University of New York, whose key goal was to bring students together to live and learn in communities and to share collaborative spaces.

The LEED Silver, 78,600-square-foot, four-story, L-shaped residence was a $32 million project completed in 2019. The building was shaped and placed to create a courtyard and edges to give form to outdoor spaces, with paths and portals to promote outdoor programming and informal socializing to enhance the living-learning experience the college requested. It houses 310 students in junior and single-bed suites, including ADA-compliant suites, rooms for disabled students, ten resident assistant’s suites, and a resident coordinator apartment. These occupy the top three floors, while the ground floor features common and support spaces.

Currently, Newman Architects and KBE, with Pleshek as Project Manager, are collaborating on yet another design-build project in West Hartford, Connecticut, which involves the reconstruction and rebuilding of a new clubhouse for the Wampanoag Country Club, whose original building was destroyed by fire in April 2024.

For construction and scheduling efficiency, the new clubhouse is sited in the footprint of the previous building, but a second story will now enable the addition of expanded facilities, which it is hoped will encourage membership growth. The new club plan calls for an office, bar area, dining room, patio, and parking spaces. The 33,469-square-foot building got underway in November 2024 and has an estimated completion date of late 2025.

“However, we are hoping to finish it for them by October 2025,” Pleshek shares, “because they would like to have their members’ annual Christmas party in the new facility. For me, the most rewarding thing is working through projects which have their own sets of challenges, getting them completed, and then seeing the user go into the building and watching them enjoy being in the space, seeing how the space has helped them grow in the way they wanted.”

The post Collaborative Architecture in Action<p class="company">Newman Architects</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

One of the best ways to address housing shortfalls, he believes, is with modular construction, and this saw DJR form a recent strategic partnership with George Modular Solutions, LLC.

Based in North Minneapolis, Minnesota, George Modular Solutions is an up-and-coming company using cutting-edge design, materials, and strategies to create permanent structures faster, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively than ever before. Industry experts lead George Modular’s team with decades of combined construction experience. This includes company Founder Devean George, Chief Executive Officer Lewis Lockwood, Chief Financial Officer Michael Sheatzley, Vice President of Architecture Linda Morrissey, and Chief Operations Officer Will Gorrilla.

“I knew both Lew and Will from previous engagements in the modular world,” says Dovolis. After several phone calls, a team was created. “Devean first had the dream of creating affordable housing in inner-city locations using modular construction as a way of getting there—that’s really what he called the beginning of the strategic alliance about three years ago.” This soon led to making Devean’s vision a reality, including talks with Minneapolis city officials, raising money, and going through the processes necessary to create a modular manufacturing facility.

The George Modular plant is being fitted out, and the dream is poised to come to fruition in the next few months. Once heavy equipment is set up, plans are to get production underway by July or August.

The future is modular
Prior to the creation of George Modular Solutions about two years ago, the team members had gained considerable construction industry experience in their prior roles. As an independent consultant, Lockwood worked with architects and developers entering the modular arena, helping shape plans and processes. Gorrilla worked with a developer who owned about 4,000,000 square feet commercially, with a general contractor in the modular space, and on multifamily projects as a project manager and director of operations. “That allows me to see both sides of things,” he says.

The strategic partnership between George Modular and DJR is an ideal fit, and taps into Dovolis’s decades of experience. Earning a bachelor’s degree in Architecture and Environmental Design from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and a master’s in Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard, he set out on his own, founding DJR in 1985. Even long before modular construction was known, Dovolis knew there had to be better and less costly ways to build much-needed affordable housing in urban areas.

Active in many areas, including civic/cultural, commercial/hospitality, and historic preservation, DJR has led the way with modular projects such as The Dylan and Mod42. One of its most recent works is the award-winning Alvera. A multi-family project in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, it the first seven-story Type 3A modular building in the region.

With decades of modular experience, Dovolis is advising on the George Modular facility. He is working with Minnesota-based Mobilize Design & Architecture (MDA) and its Design Principal and Founder, Jamil Ford, on the layout of the plant. “We are working together to create this new adventure in the modular industry,” says Dovolis.

Although he has been instrumental in many modular projects over the years—and seen different construction methods and materials used—Dovolis says the unique thing about George Modular’s projects is they use steel, not wood. The advantages of steel are many, including precision, longevity, structural strength, and the ability to build taller structures. At present, state regulations allow for a maximum 85-foot height for wooden structures because of fire codes. Since steel doesn’t combust, it allows for greater building heights.

George Modular is working on what will become the first steel modular project in Minnesota which, says Dovolis, “will open up a whole new frontier in the modular industry.” Slated to be three stories, the 36 box/12-unit project will be a test case for the company. A smaller self-development project, the work will become NOAH, Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing. “What that means is, if you build a building efficiently and cost-effectively enough, you can self-perform as affordable housing without the need for government assistance or underwriting or things like that,” Dovolis explains. “The idea is that you create affordable housing without the need for having subsidies.” Other projects in the works include Upper Harbor Development and Village Creek Apartments.

Housing, job creation, and more
Unlike conventional construction, which either requires workers to be on site regardless of the weather or sees the work slow down, modular construction is performed in controlled conditions and is repeatable. As it stands, most modular construction facilities are in rural areas, far away from the cities in which buildings will be located, but George Modular has flipped this model around, and is one of the very few modular plants in an urban setting.

“Others have the advantage of having space, but we have the advantage of having people,” says Gorrilla. “Having people is really going to give us a better long-term advantage; we have the people and we’re going to be that much closer to projects. The site is only a mile and a half from the factory, so there are a lot of advantages to be gained by not having to haul miles away.”

For workers, the urban location of the modular manufacturing facility is ideal. Unlike other plants located many miles distant, George Modular is in North Minneapolis, which is historically an underserved, under-invested neighborhood. Instead of workers having to buy a car to get to work, they can take the bus, bike, or even walk to the plant.

“One of Devean’s goals is to build great housing that the people who work in the factory can live in,” adds Gorrilla. “The idea is to create opportunities for people who would normally not get into the building trades. If they put a union hall half an hour outside the city—and you have to be there at 7 o’clock Saturday morning for training—it becomes quite difficult for people coming from areas where they can’t afford a car. So, Devean’s goal is to create opportunities to get those underserved people into the trades.”

Dovolis agrees. “George Modular is one of the few in the nation that’s made a commitment to an urban environment to create modular manufacturing in the city, in underserved neighborhoods. This is a big deal for what it represents,” he shares.

Lockwood says one of the biggest challenges of getting a plant up and operational is securing workers; in rural areas, securing staff can take a year or more because there are fewer people. For George Modular, being in a large city like Minneapolis will see employees hired much sooner. At present, the company is negotiating with vocational schools and unions: if employees can be trained in the plant to be well-rounded in construction, they make better candidates for different unions, and will receive livable wages. “We don’t want to be a training facility per se, but we understand people have aspirations,” says Lockwood.

Better building and environmental advantages
For George Modular staff, modular construction has a host of benefits. About 80 to 90 percent of the work takes place in a safe, well-lit facility, not outdoors in blistering heat or freezing cold. Since manufacturing is performed in controlled conditions, caulking, sealants, and waterproofing are applied according to manufacturer recommendations. And with modular units built in an urban factory and transported short distances, there is less chance of damage compared to trucking them a hundred miles or more.

Since completed units are transported shorter distances, embodied carbon emissions are greatly reduced. And with units made in a factory instead of on a job site, there is very little waste. The bulk of material generated, such as cardboard and plastic packaging, can be recycled, while metal can be sold as scrap and re-purposed. “We can recycle about 30 to 40 percent of what comes in, whereas on a construction site, almost none of it is recycled,” says Gorrilla. And to further protect the environment, optimize efficiencies, and be cost-competitive, George Modular only accepts full trucks—no partial loads. “It’s a drastic difference between the number of miles on a modular build versus a traditional build.”

“Really, the quality is exceptional,” says Lockwood. While certain elements, like the foundation and exterior façades, must be done on-site, structural members come already installed, along with drywall, countertops, cabinets, sinks, toilets, and more. “And if they want us to hang pictures on the wall, we will hang pictures on the wall,” he adds. “Everything is in when it goes out to site.” Once modular units arrive and are set in place, they are essentially plug-and-play systems. Crews come in and tie all the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing together.

George Modular hopes to see the Upper Harbor Terminal being built next year. “That project will really put us on the map,” says Lockwood of the large-scale development on the banks of the Mississippi. “It is very substantial.” He also envisions the company adding another shift to its urban facility, ultimately employing about 300 workers. “What we’ve done here is repeatable,” he says. “There is a radical need for housing in most urban areas, and there just isn’t a solution in Canada and the U.S. So the intent would be to replicate what we’ve done here and move it down the road to the next city that’s 500 miles away, which would be my hometown, Detroit.”

For Dovolis, 2026 will mark the 40^th anniversary of DJR. Dovolis is the only original member still active, as the others have retired. He has two existing partners, Sheldon Berg and Scott England, and just took on new partner Madi Goodrich, who started a burgeoning interior design component to the firm which is going national.

“We’ve done a good job of surviving,” he says. “It’s been scary a few times, but we are still going. Anything that survives 40 years is a celebration in business. We’ve worked through recessions, depressions, inflationary periods, COVID, and everything else, and the firm is still alive and strong. That’s a real blessing.”

The post Reimagining Construction: The Future of Modular Housing<p class="company">DJR | Architecture & Design</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.