Planning and Programming

Programming is the architectural term for the pre-design phase.  It carefully defines what and who the building is for – what must it do – before architectural design begins.  An 800-seat shoebox concert hall may be a beautiful building with lovely acoustics, it will likely be ill-suited for performing or enjoying classical ballet. It’s also critical that a multi-use performance space not be multi-useless, providing an unnecessarily mediocre environment for a wide variety of performance types.  Careful experienced planning is the key to right-sizing your facility in order to identify the appropriate resources required before design begins.

We work interactively in a transparent question-and-answer format with all the interested parties to extract the key events and rank priorities.  This is followed by examples including diagrams, representative photos, and sketches to illustrate the options enabling stakeholders to achieve consensus on critical decisions.  The goal is to reach well-informed agreement on a united vision, not a compromise that could miss cost-effective opportunities and unnecessarily wound potential excellence.