“It’s a great fit,” says Higgs. “It’s got the space we’ve always wanted, but there is a sense of connectivity and interaction at the same time. It has actually become somewhat of a recruiting tool for us as well; people get quite enthusiastic about the prospect of working in such a lively, animated space.”
DDG has designed its new studio space with the same attention to usage requirements and architectural detail that characterizes its projects, creating a memorable experience that engages the user. Aside from providing plenty of room to spread out — and come together — the 50,000-square-foot space with the distinctive 22-foot-high vaulted sawtooth wooden roof and bright yellow floor-to-ceiling steel columns is an eclectic and tangible reminder of DDG’s strongest asset: a diverse workforce with as broad a range of educational and cultural backgrounds as you are likely to see under one roof. The mix of cultures, backgrounds, and educations, and the accompanying collage of international perspectives, impart DDG with an experienced and distinguished collection of talent.
As Vice President Simon Sykes puts it, “In a sense we are emblematic of the American melting pot. At the same time we derive great value from our diversity.”
Sykes presents the example of a recent DDG project in Nevada, Town Square-Las Vegas, and rattles off the home states and countries of the employees who worked on the project.
“The folks on that one project team alone are originally from Louisiana, England, Indonesia, Russia, and Colombia; and there they are, working on a quintessentially American project in the quintessential and iconic American city of Las Vegas. It’s truly remarkable, really.”
It is a phenomenon that extends throughout the firm, from internship to ownership. In addition to the United States, DDG partners hail from places like Pakistan, England, Thailand, India, Venezuela, Colombia, Indonesia, and the Middle East. All told, DDG employees come from more than 20 countries and speak more than 25 different languages.
Ahsin Rasheed, senior vice president and director of planning, explains that “the advantage of such a culturally diverse workforce isn’t just in facilitating communication and understanding when working with different people and in different places around the world but in the global perspectives and differing viewpoints that it brings to the table from a creative design standpoint.”
“Without question,” says Sykes, “it’s been a vital part of our success. It’s a defining part of who we are.”
It is that diversity that sets DDG apart from the crowd, influencing not only the firm’s international work but their many domestic projects as well. Whether it’s a town-center style mixed-use project in China or an open-air market or waterfront development here in the US, an invigorating exchange of cultural perspectives and ideas is a crucial part of the DDG design process.
“It’s a two-way street,” says Higgs. “We’ve had a lot of success adapting elements of what you might call ‘American’ architectural design to projects in places like Asia, South America, and the Middle East, while at the same time we’re always looking to infuse our work here in the States with some of the energy and innovation we see internationally.”
It is a formula that has paid off over the years, as the firm has garnered more than 90 design and real estate awards, including top US and international honors from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), the Urban Land Institute (ULI), the International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI), and the Pacific Coast Builder’s Conference (“Gold Nugget”).
Forward Thinking: A Series of Firsts
From early town center and mixed-use developments that helped usher in the first wave of true urban entertainment center design in the US to the grand and immersive theming of Muvico Cinemas, evocative Middle American nostalgia of town square developments, inspired flexibility of lifestyle centers, and energized, supercharged atmospherics of the next wave of brandscaped retail/entertainment projects, DDG’s portfolio testifies to the firm’s consistent ability to position itself at the forefront of retail design trends.
The list of notable works includes projects both at home and abroad. The much-emulated Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, draws in excess of 20 million visitors a year, and the first “American-style” malls in the Middle East and Indonesia — BurJuman Center in Dubai and the UAE and Pondok Indah Mall in Jakarta — have not only flourished but have recently expanded to meet the growing demand generated by their burgeoning status as regional icons.
The mixed-use mega-project Atlantic Station in Atlanta, Georgia, includes 138 acres of high-density urban master-planning, and the upcoming 204-acre National Harbor in Washington, DC, blends street-level retail, dining, and entertainment options with office, hospitality, and residential components to create an authentic urban waterfront community reminiscent of Georgetown or Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
Expo-Xplore, the world’s first branded water- and board-sports destination, brought a heightened level of coordination between its retail offerings, entertainment content, and experiential architecture to the surfing mecca of Durban, South Africa. Closer to home, the brandscaped Westgate City Center in Glendale, Arizona, adjacent to new arenas for the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes and the National Football League’s Arizona Cardinals, is slated to include a town center, outdoor events plaza, hotels, townhomes, office and residential lofts, neighborhood and regional destination retail centers, and over 2 million square feet of class-A mid-rise office space.
According to Rasheed, DDG has been able to strike a balance between smaller-scale “boutique” projects and larger, more ambitious efforts.
“We’ve done everything from art-house theaters, small, high-profile restaurant and resort work, and even landscaping for single-family homes. At the same time our master-planned residential and mixed-use projects can encompass thousands of acres.”
In recent years many of those projects have come in the rapidly expanding markets of China and India, developments such as Horizon Resort and the Vizcaya residential community in Shanghai and the Viva Zone mall in Mumbai, India.
Middle East, Middle America
Explaining how DDG has managed to find success in such a variety of locales around the globe, Sykes credits a flexible corporate culture, a firm-wide understanding of the importance of humility, and a willingness to listen to the client’s vision and respond to the brief:
“We don’t judge. You can’t go into foreign cultures with the approach that you know best and you are going to impose your ideas upon them. We try to be open to the cultural exchange of ideas and to tap into that energy rather than stifle it with preexisting notions of what is and isn’t possible or appropriate. We’re there to help them make their vision a reality, not to dictate to them. That’s something all of our clients appreciate, whether we’re working in the Middle East or in Middle America.”
With such a wide range of design styles and locales, it might be difficult to pin down what identifies a finished project as a “DDG design.”
“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” explains Rasheed. “We take pride in it, as a matter of fact.”
“Creative pragmatism” has long been a DDG guiding principle, and a large part of that philosophy, says Rasheed, is the recognition that it is human activity that defines a space. He explains that, as he sees it, rather than conform to an existing formula or architectural style, design considerations should fundamentally address the distinctive context of cultural, physical, and natural environment, financing, commercial necessities, and intended usage. He and his partners encourage the architects and designers at DDG to approach each project with an open mind, to focus on the importance of atmosphere, to generate work that harnesses the energy and motivating influence of a positive experience, and, most importantly, to comprehend the tremendous difference between a place and a destination.
“We try to simplify the complex calculations of the retail design equation down to a few simple questions: ‘Is this a place where people will enjoy spending time?’ ‘Is this a place people will remember?’ ‘Is this a place to which people will want to return?’”
For the most part DDG has done just that, creating iconic destinations that use the power of emotion to animate and inspire.
Rasheed points to another factor responsible for the scope and breadth of DDG’s successes:
“We may be based in Baltimore, but we occupy a rather specialized niche. We don’t operate like a local firm, nor even a regional one, but as a global firm. Our willingness and ability to forge working relationships with local architects and designers around the world has enabled us to present our package of design services to a broader range of new clients. As an added bonus, those firms often become our biggest fans, introducing us to new work and collaborating with us on multiple projects.”
Creative Chaos
If there is a unifying theme behind DDG’s work, it lies more in the design process than in the finished product. According to Sykes, the creative process at DDG succeeds because the firm has always understood the importance of maintaining a balance between creativity, professionalism, consistency, and accountability. The firm’s commitment to applying the artistry of inventive design in ways that simultaneously challenge convention and resolve fundamental contradictions between art and functionality relies heavily on a collaborative approach that takes full advantage of its diverse and talented workforce.
According to Higgs, the design process at DDG prioritizes “great architectural design and planning, of course, but also creativity, foresight, insight, passion, hard work, and more than a little social psychology.”
Encouraging an interactive, flexible, and energized working environment, says Higgs, means embracing a kind of “creative chaos” — an engaged, synergistic approach that channels the natural energy and creativity of his team into working groups that encourage enterprising solutions and reward innovation.
And DDG’s design architects do function as a team — in the truest sense of the word. At least one senior principal oversees a design team for every project and assumes responsibility for coordination and scheduling, a system that allows the firm to maintain accountability while maximizing creativity and flexibility.
Ultimately, the key to DDG’s design process is that it barely qualifies as a process at all. It is less a procedure than a commitment to certain principles. A commitment to proactive, anticipatory, and inspired collaboration. A willingness to explore. The courage to take creative risks and the vision to seek out new answers to old questions. A commitment to be responsive, versatile, accommodating, flexible, inclusive, diligent, and passionately engaged in the work.
Walking through DDG’s design studio, it is readily evident that there is an “old school” ethos that permeates the firm’s everyday work. While the architects and designers have access to — and make frequent use of — the latest and greatest technology, drafting tables and sketch pads are prominent features of DDG’s professional landscape — “standard issue” to every new employee and an inescapable presence at every workstation.
“There really is a sense of pride,” says Sykes, “in using your hands and engaging the work on a basic, fundamental level. Computers and architectural software are vital tools for us, but our best designs still spring from concepts sketched out on a scrap of paper or blocked out with foam core by a group of people brainstorming around a table.”
The firm places a premium on craftsmanship, ingenuity, and expertise, and there is an almost throwback sense of apprenticeship, of learning the trade from the bottom up and earning respect and responsibility through the quality of your ideas and the character of your work.
“Anyone and everyone can and does contribute,” says Rasheed.
There is value too, according to Rasheed, in being able to stay within the company for services like graphics and model-fabrication. DDG’s graphics department provides full-service environmental graphics, logos, and production materials. Its model division occupies its own dedicated space in the new studio, and the intricate, remarkably detailed scale models are a vital and distinctive part of the firm’s package of marketing and design services. Together, the in-house graphics and model capabilities make it possible for DDG to provide clients with comprehensive leasing and marketing collateral, an attractive and convenient option for many firms.
As the World Turns…
Where does DDG go from here? The plan, says Higgs, is to build upon past successes and to continue to transition into an expanded ownership with the same smooth efficiency that characterized its recent office move. The firm plans to expand slightly from its current total of 85 full-time employees but will attempt to retain the same mid-sized character and collegial atmosphere.
“We’re comfortable with who we are,” Higgs explains. “Large enough to handle even the biggest jobs but personal enough so that you still know everyone’s name.”
The rapidly expanding Asian market — particularly in India, where the firm has recently begun work on several new projects — bodes well for DDG, as does the increasing demand for the sort of vibrant mixed-use developments that it helped to popularize.
As for the next generation of DDG designers, the firm has long maintained an internship program and scholarship fund for (previously disadvantaged) aspiring South African designers and architects as well as established similar programs to host interns from the Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia, the University of Alexandria in Egypt, and a Shanghai architectural firm. Closer to home, DDG partners with the University of Cincinnati to host a popular and successful internship program.
It would appear that the future is not only bright; it’s already sitting at a drafting table helping to sketch out the next big thing in retail design.
