The first annual Women in Design+Construction conference was held in November 2016 in beautiful Dana Point, California. This conference was sponsored by Building Design & Construction magazine and was a sold out event which brought together over a hundred women in the architecture, engineering and construction industry.

Jeff Jackson’s life story is the American dream. Although he grew up poor and lived in the “projects,” his life turned around. He joined the army, married his hometown sweetheart, rose to First Sergeant of over 200 soldiers in the Army Reserves, and today, works at CannonDesign as a leader in our federal group.

To celebrate during our annual Environmental Awareness Week (EAW), CannonDesign hosted its first firm-wide sustainability competition. Teams of 6-10 people tracked points for their sustainable practices like taking public transit to work, composting, recycling, using re-usable containers, and minimizing printing. The competition lasted for one month and continued through the end of EAW. It was an opportunity for every CannonDesigner to be more sustainable while gaining points for their teams. 53 teams participated, representing more than 400 people across 14 offices. The winning team, the Earthwormz from the Boston office, scored a total of 1,676 points over the four weeks and was awarded – in addition to bragging rights –…

Key takeaways from the University of Kansas Architecture + Design Alumni Symposium Earlier this year, I was privileged to be given the opportunity to help organize the First Annual University of Kansas Architecture and Design Alumni Symposium (titled “The 12,000 that Innovate”), which took place October 13-15th. The day’s sessions all centered around a broad analysis of the Practice of Design – with the invited Symposium presenters narrating stories illustrating the day’s three major touchpoints: design culture, societal engagement, and emerging technologies. Presenters spanned a wide cross-section of fields, ranging from architecture to graphic design to public policy to user experience. The aim of the day’s discussions was to take…

As the Executive Director of Design Strategies, David is committed to ensuring design excellence influences everything we do as a firm. Read on to learn more about David’s perspective on design, and why he thinks 2016 was our firm’s best year yet.

Although the Olympic Games in Rio may have gotten slightly more attention, the CannonDesign Office Olympics garnered a significant amount of employee engagement. Throughout the month of August, teams across all of our offices competed in a number of physically and mentally strenuous games, including the paper toss, staple pull, step count, and the ever-challenging airplane launch. The winning teams in each office received medals (3D printed, of course) and moved on to compete at the firm-wide level. Below is a look at the Games in pictures!   And congrats to the winning team of the firm-wide Olympics, team Basic Gray #1! Learn about our immediate career opportunities >

This five-day summer camp was organized by the Washington Architectural Foundation and the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital that seeks to use design and the arts to enhance STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) skills. Every day last week, a group of ten or so volunteers from architecture and engineering firms across the city arrived at the District Architecture Center to teach a group of 40 girls and boys (mostly girls) about the basics of architecture, planning, and construction. The task for the week was to build a special space for themselves that would support their hobbies and interests in a 6’x6’x6′ cube. They were taught to think through what uses their building had to…

One of the more fascinating events I’ve been able to take part in over the past year has been serving as a judge for the BuiltWorlds Obama Presidential Center crowdsourced design competition. If you’re unfamiliar, the Barack Obama Foundation announced it had narrowed its field of candidates to seven prominent architects who will compete to design the upcoming center and library on Chicago’s south side. For fun and creativity’s sake, BuiltWorlds decided to ask, “What sort of Presidential Library would the people design?” and invited all designers, from everywhere, to unlock their design talent and generate visionary architectural and urban design schemes for this extraordinary, one-time opportunity to shape our…

CannonDesign’s Director of Healthcare Interiors, Jocelyn Stroupe, shares her thoughts on the interior design industry as a whole, what’s on the horizon at CannonDesign, and what inspires her.

Michael Potts is a numbers guy, ensuring our business runs smoothly from a financial perspective. Learn about his career path and the fast-paced field of finance. What led you to pursue a career in accounting? I always excelled in math and took an accounting course in high school. Initially, I was going to pursue a career in either education or criminal justice, but I decided on accounting and received my bachelor’s degree at Niagara University. I didn’t initially like basic accounting and my first job was for a property management firm. My role was assisting the vice president of operations with refinancing all of the commercial properties they owned and…