How do you match the resounding success of our 2010 Fellowship Poster, designed by Experimental Jetset? By inviting Michael Bierut of Pentagram to design the 2011 poster.

I’d like to share some insights about the design process, strategy, and design thinking behind the poster itself. Our design brief to Michael was essentially to match the quality of the candidates we’re seeking as this year’s Fellow: someone who combines a high-level and perhaps rare combination of extraordinary design talent, creativity, passion, intuition, appetite and ...[more]

Building on the award-winning tradition set by our 2009 poster, which received an AIGA Best of New England Design award, the poster for this year’s Summer Design Fellowship was designed by world-renowned graphic design firm Experimental Jetset out of Amsterdam. The poster, which is mailed out to accredited architecture schools across North America, is often posted in common areas within the architecture or design department. I’d like to share some insights about the design process, strategy, and design thinking behind the poster itself.

- Dan Vlahos

An ...[more]

BOSTON, MA – Shepley Bulfinch creative director Dan Vlahos’ design of the firm’s 2009 Summer Design Fellowship poster took top honors last night in the annual AIGA B(oNE) Awards ceremony for the best graphic design in New England.

The poster was one of the category winners in the Best of New England (BoNE) awards, which was sponsored by the New England chapter of AIGA, the professional association for design and held at the Bakalar Gallery at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt).

Dan, who joined Shepley Bulfinch in 2005, leads graphics and branding for the firm. He is a graduate of MassArt, where he is an adjunct faculty member and ...[more]

BOSTON, MA – Applications are now being accepted for Shepley Bulfinch’s 2010 Summer Design Fellowship. The application deadline is February 26, 2010.

Is this for you? This highly competitive Fellowship offers a unique opportunity for a promising architecture student to spend the summer immersed in real design problems in the design studio of an international architectural firm in Boston. We welcome applications from a diverse range of students and institutions. Past Fellows have come from architecture schools throughout the country, including Penn, the University of Kansas, NC State, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and MIT.

The Fellowship ...[more]

Beauty has been banned from the studio. She peers through cracks in boarded windows at the new architecture of performance. The story of her exile is one that spans two disparate events: Sullivan’s dangerous assertion that “form follows function” and the economic downturn that forced a restructuring of architectural practice in the 21st century.

The latter was the blow that erased Beauty’s place in public discourse. A capitalist economy relies on progress and growth, especially in times of duress; this necessity in times of dwindling funds produces a desire for cheaper, more efficient structures, where discussion of Beauty are seemingly moot. It appeared that for the contemporary client, a building’s ability ...[more]

What can you come up with to transform a parking lot into a community gathering place, in the face of financial and logistical constraints? That was the challenge facing design teams in the Flat Lot competition in Flint, Michigan. “Knot Lot,” a Shepley Bulfinch team submission, was chosen as one of five finalists from among 221 entries in the competition, which was sponsored by the Flint (Michigan) Public Art Project and the Flint chapter of the AIA.  Knot Lot and other top entries will be part of an exhibition opening in Flint on April 14.

Organizers asked designers ...[more]

Principal Elise Woodward was quoted in an article on the evolving challenges facing women in architecture in the current issue of the Boston Business Journal.

The second woman architect to join the firm when she was hired in 1981, Elise served as a member and chair of Shepley Bulfinch’s Board of Directors She noted the firm’s commitment to a shift in leadership – and firmwide – demographics that have led to a virtually even gender balance among principals and staff as a whole.

The shift may be embodied in the recently completed Cardiovascular Center for the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. Shepley Bulfinch’s project principals, the lead project ...[more]

NEW YORK, NY – Engineering News-Record (ENR) Magazine released its first Top Green Design Firms list, ranking Shepley Bulfinch at #59. The rankings are based on design firms’ 2007 revenues from projects that were registered and are actively seeking certification from the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and other major third-party environmental standards organizations.

The firm’s portfolio includes a wide range of sustainable projects, including those receiving LEED certification. The Duke Library at Furman University received LEED Gold certification earlier this year, and the firm’s renovation of Gallatin Hall at Harvard Business School, scheduled to be completed later this summer, is on track for LEED Gold certification.

Sustainable design is a ...[more]