COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
Commercial Architecture & Design
With an array of different commercial projects possibilities including commercial office buildings, restaurants, banks, etc., the design process for each one must be different to accommodate specific needs. However, since architecture plays an important part in how everyone sees our world, especially in commercial settings, there are common themes among all buildings catering to one form of “trade” or another. The urban environment is, for the most part, comprised of buildings in which trade and commerce occur. The resultant urban fabric tells a story about the town’s occupants that reflect what the town is all about. For instance, a New England fishing village, a bustling downtown metropolis or an old western ghost town express the specific culture and time of its occupants. Commercial architecture is driven by, and reflects, the collective whole of its users with each building being a subset of this whole.
Richard Turlington Architects works within this context to create a sense of place that fits into this fabric or consciously breaks from it. Our buildings are created with this external acknowledgment in mind. For instance, fitting into the environment means that our projects are not proportionately too tall, the façade materials borrow from local sources and are patterned to maintain the street fabric by respecting the patterns of its neighbors. What makes our projects unique is that our design process creates something different that sets our buildings apart from its neighbors, thus creating a memorable place for our clients to operate within.
The interiors of commercial buildings must be designed to a specific use while remaining spatially flexible enough to accommodate future design changes as the building evolves through time. Typically, our buildings’ “credibility is established by the quality and character of the main lobby, the elevator lobby, the elevator cars and, oddly enough, the public restrooms. If we are working with an adaptive reuse project, we incorporate as many historic elements of the original building as possible, respecting the past while imbuing a new life into an old building.
Richard Turlington Architects is experienced with working within BOMA standards for tenants and clients working with gross and usable areas. We are also familiar with working with local planning and zoning departments, inland wetland agencies and city engineers. This ensures our Clients’ projects are properly coordinated and in compliance before we attend formal reviews and public hearings.
Successful commercial projects must also deal with site constraints such as parking, pedestrian walkways, exterior lighting, grading/drainage, landscaping, and security. Richard Turlington Architects treats each project holistically, designing the entire site from entry experience at the street transition to the selection of the lighting for the parking lots to the walkway in front of the main entry. The result is a completely well-conceived project that looks like it belongs in the neighborhood while maintaining a distinctness all its own.
construction documents and providing construction administration while always maintaining the client's design intents. Richard Turlington Architect’s consulting technical architectural efforts have successfully completed hundreds of collaborations here in the United States and abroad.
Understating the intricacies of a multitude of building methods and deliveries and the design and uses of different of façades from wood framing to highly engineered curtain wall, our technical skills are why we continue to work with the same clients year after year.
Ultimately, every architect’s method of documenting means nothing until its time to build. Richard Turlington Architects has extensive experience actually building in a variety of different delivery environments; GMP, design-build projects, traditional design – bid – build projects and all of the flavors in between.
We have and will continue to work on any clients’ project size from a tiny kitchen to a ground-up college campus in Singapore.