A multidisciplinary architecture firm focused on designing places and spaces for people
Our designs start with understanding you – the client, the developer, the owner, and the people who will use your building every day. Because we believe that functional, resilient designs are beautiful. Our goal is creating spaces that will serve you, and the communities you nurture, for generations.
Good design starts with you. Great design happens with collaboration, trust, and well-developed processes.
Your vision + scope, not our ego
We approach design as a true partnership, before the first meeting and beyond the ribbon cutting. Your vision stays at the forefront of our entire design process.
Sometimes that vision is clear. When it is, we bring 65+ years of experience in finding the right solutions for your project’s success. When it isn’t, we leverage all that knowledge to uncover project goals that serve your mission, determine user needs, imagine what project success looks like—and then make it happen.
Design that works
We bring together more than 200 staff across offices in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. As a collective of creatives, change agents, thinkers, dreamers, and technical experts, we combine a conceptual and imaginative design process with strong QA and internal standards.
What does that mean for you? From design visioning to public engagement to sustainability strategies, we’ve probably done something like this before. But that doesn’t lead to impersonal features or cookie-cutter design. We apply the lessons learned, success stories, and challenges of past work to the new framework of your project: carrying forward proven strategies, while exploring the unique possibilities of your scope, needs, and site.
65+ years experience, three offices, one team
Every single designer at Dekker benefits from our firm’s 65+ years of experience, and from close collaboration across project types and disciplines.
With this shared knowledge and iterative design processes, your project benefits from prior successes and fresh ideas. While we’re designing for you, we’re gaining real-time insight from other teams on materials cost escalation, lead times, and other construction challenges they’re tackling. That means a smoother project, budget, and schedule for you. Meet the principals who lead our team.
Whether their colleague is one desk or one state over, the sharing of knowledge across our teams unlocks new ideas, streamlines processes, and enables better design.
Support in every step of the project lifecycle
We don’t just work “outside, in”. Because we're a multidisciplinary architecture firm, our process doesn't have to be a linear flow from structure and exterior to adjacencies and interior finishes.
Instead, our architects work alongside structural engineers, landscape architects, interior designers, and consultant partners from the get-go. While every project has dedicated roles like Principal-in-Charge and Project Manager, our process is a collaboration throughout. Design leaders guide projects while team members at every level contribute historical knowledge, new ideas, feedback, and QA.
Our design process is broken into phases, each with specific goals. During these phases, we run multiple iterations of discovery, feedback, and refinement: all while staying in constant communication with you.
Establishing goals + vision
PRE-DESIGN identifies the principles which will guide the rest of the project.
We dig deep into research on local context, the needs of your space and users, functional adjacencies, and sustainability.
Imagining what can be
During SCHEMATIC DESIGN, our design teams brainstorm the big idea.
Concepts are driven by early research, initial options are discussed, the design direction is narrowed, and project requirements (i.e. number of rooms or critical amenities) are uncovered.
Making it real
In DESIGN DEVELOPMENT, we start translating the conceptual idea into a design product: merging concept with feasibility, resilience, and functionality.
Your design is represented in detailed renderings, and we assess systems integration and safety design.
Validating + preparation
The design, details, and systems come together into a set of documents, ready to be implemented by the construction team.
The CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS phase ensures that systems conflicts are avoided, and that building codes and safety standards are met.
Managing your project
CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION isn't just a hand-off: after design has wrapped, we’re with you on this critical phase.
As your space is being constructed, our role is making certain that every design detail is implemented successfully.
Ushering in your new space
When your project is in POST-OCCUPANCY, you can still count on us.
Whether it’s checking in via post-occupancy reviews, building commissioning to ensure systems are functioning optimally, or a quick question, we want to know how it’s going.
Places that serve communities for generations
Every project is a chance to weave beautiful, functional design with sustainability and wellbeing. We have dedicated, in-house Sustainability and Advanced Technology teams who partner with architects and designers across every studio and discipline. Their expertise brings standardized, flexible processes that address impact at each step, to benefit both people and planet.
SUSTAINABILITY
We’ve developed our own, robust set of standards to guide project decisions and promote sustainability from the start. The Sustainability Team works with designers across each project, asking: what more can be done to create healthy, resilient, sustainable spaces that return on investment? Learn more about sustainability at Dekker.
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
We don’t implement new architectural tech just for the sake of it. Our Design Innovation team leads a constant, firmwide exercise in leveraging our tools to unlock the most potential. Think: hands-on education on the latest design visualization software and developing guardrails for AI use in- and outside the design process.
FEASIBLE STRATEGIES FOR EVERY PROJECT
- Dekker's Sustainable Design Standards minimize impact on the environment, whether or not a project is seeking official certifications like LEED
- Early-stage Building Performance Analysis (BPAT) vets early concepts against environmental factors like wind speed, sunlight, and surface temperature
- Biophilic design resources help create spaces that support occupant wellbeing with daylight, access to nature, low-emitting materials, and more
- Digital Twins and building systems commissioning support your systems maintenance after move-in, reducing energy waste and keeping operating costs low
