Who We Are - Core Values

Design Workshop is an ideologically based firm that originated in academia.

It has evolved as a learning organization, seeking out complex and challenging projects wherever intellectual interests lead. From the beginning, the members of the firm have sought to be generalists, willing to tackle any project concerning the land. Their guiding tenet has been that the work must take the most comprehensive perspective and use a collaborative approach to resolve issues. The goal is to do work that matters, work that makes a difference, work that contributes to the well-being of the planet - in other words, to do well by doing good.

The firm is driven by two values: transparency and holism.

Transparency embraces openness at all levels. It is manifest in the firm’s name, which was chosen to describe the collaborative process the founders wished to foster, a process that values and invites every opinion and that keeps the decision-making process out in the open. Input is sought from a wide array of people. This doesn’t mean design by committee and it doesn’t mean senior designers relinquish leadership roles. It does mean input from everyone is valued, down to front-desk personnel, the marketing team and finance staff, all of whom frequently take part in openstudio design reviews.

Holism refers to the comprehensive approach that has been practiced at Design Workshop since its founding in 1969. From the beginning, the emphasis has been on using a comprehensive and holistic approach to design and planning that takes into account a spectrum of elements, including those outside the purview of a particular project. It does so at a multitude of scales in order to understand the broader context of an individual project and allow various levels of interest and authority to cross boundaries that usually separate them or to integrate technical disciplines that ordinarily operate in relative isolation from each other.