Lighting a Fire for Innovation LS3P’s Ignite Team, an internal

Architects can save the planet. Seriously, buildings account for 40% of annual global carbon emissions, and recent studies indicate that sprawl has expanded at a rate four times worse than previously predicted for this century. Architects and urban designers have an enormous impact on the planet, and every project we touch matters.

Now entering my fifth decade in the architectural profession, I reflect upon my own personal experiences and realize – yes, much work for woman’s equality has yet to be done. But there has also been advancement. The bar has been raised and it is up to all of us to push it further to create an ever more just, diverse, and equitable world for everyone. Change can happen.

In the not-too-distant past, it was common to view materials through a “cradle to grave” lens. Raw materials would be harvested and turned into products, which would then serve a purpose. These products would eventually break, wear out, or go out of style, at which point they would be discarded and never thought of again. The flow of materials was linear, with a starting point and an ending point.

The higher education market has seen substantial shifts in teaching pedagogy in recent years. When design began for Clemson University’s College of Business in 2015, Clemson wanted to create academic and faculty space with a greater emphasis on collaboration and critical thinking.

We must teach our next generation of architects not only to solve the problems that are asked of us, but also uncover and illuminate problems and solutions that benefit a wider societal audience.

Professional careers and personal interests can inspire each other if you let them. The only thing your day job and hobby may have in common is you, but if you look closer, there may be ways your work could be improved by something you do for fun, and vice versa.

Schools with robust Learning Commons are schools in which students have access to new worlds through books; are taught to navigate the world of information through multiple platforms; and who not only attain literacy, but also enjoy it. School Learning Commons build skills which can propel students towards academic and personal success, with measurable positive impacts.

The Jasper building replaces an earlier fifteen-story, post-war era multi-family structure situated in the Harleston Village neighborhood of downtown Charleston. The site has commanding views to both the Ashley River (to the west) and the Charleston Harbor (to the east), with immediate neighbors being Colonial Lake, Moultrie Park, and the South of Broad historical residential neighborhood. Given this context, the new building needed to complement its adjacent neighbors.

The current hybrid environment, with some team members working socially distanced in our offices, others working from home, and some preferring a mix of both options, has been extremely successful. We were curious as to how team members from different generations felt about this transition, so we asked three members of one family- all of whom work in different offices within the firm- to share their perspectives. Neil Dawson, LS3P’s Savannah Office Leader, brings the longest professional history of the three with over thirty years in architectural practice. His daughter Emily is an architect in the Charleston office, and his daughter Ellie is a recent graduate and a Marketing Coordinator in the Greenville office.