Architect Blog

Most restaurant and hospitality owners approach a tenant improvement project the way they approach a renovation: pick a contractor, agree on a budget, and start building. That instinct is understandable, but in Colorado, it is also expensive. What looks like a cosmetic refresh almost always involves occupancy classification changes, commercial kitchen ventilation systems, health department plan review, and ADA compliance triggers that extend well beyond the dining room floor.

Most design-build firms will tell you their architecture is in-house. Few of them mean the same thing when they say it. That single word, "in-house," is doing an enormous amount of work in the industry right now, and the gap between what firms claim and what they actually deliver is often where project budgets begin to quietly unravel. Understanding the real relationship between an architect and general contractor within a design-build firm is not a technical detail reserved

In the Summer of 2000, I designed and built a new custom home for my wife and I in The Palisades, just up the hill from my home town of Santa Monica. When we became residents of this special town, we participated in community support, such as me with the PaliHi Student Mentorship program and my wife for (13) years on the Fourth of July Parade Committee. But even a quarter of a century ago, designing fire resistant materials into the construction of our home, such as a Cla