Articles

Interviews

Uplift is a new, interview-style podcast from architecture and design firm NBBJ about the transformative power of design.

Podcasts

Uplift is an interview-style podcast from NBBJ focused on harnessing the transformative power of design to foster community, support health and create a resilient environment.

Slideshows

Diversity and Inclusion

Welcoming. Equitable. Representative. Buildings are for everyone, and by designing inclusive environments we pave the way for meaningful change.

Connection creates meaning. Through hospitable, energizing environments, we design places where people can live their best lives together.

Engaged Communities

Connection creates meaning. Through hospitable, energizing environments, we design places where people can live their best lives together. 

We all want to leave the planet better. As creators of the built environment, we do our part through an unwavering commitment to reduce carbon through our work and actions.

Environmental Stewardship

We all want to leave the planet better. As creators of the built environment, we do our part through an unwavering commitment to reduce carbon through our work and actions. 

Health is more than the absence of disease. It’s an overarching sense of wellness, something that can be designed into every project—from offices to hospitals.

Healthy Living

Health is more than the absence of disease. It’s an overarching sense of wellness, something that can be designed into every project—from offices to hospitals. 

Financial uncertainty. Pivoting programs. These factors can impact a project at every turn. But through construction innovation, projects can be delivered faster and cheaper.

Process and Delivery

Financial uncertainty. Pivoting programs. These factors can impact a project at every turn. But through construction innovation, projects can be delivered faster and cheaper. 

Liability or asset? Challenge or opportunity? Instead of obsolescence, renewal and repositioning of aging properties can provide a quicker, less expensive alternative to building new.

Renewal and Repositioning

Liability or asset? Challenge or opportunity? Instead of obsolescence, renewal and repositioning of aging properties can provide a quicker, less expensive alternative to building new.  

Commercial Development

Corporate Office

Cultural & Civic

Education

Experience Design

Healthcare

Science

Sports

Urban Environments

The Night Shift is Bad for Providers’ Health: Circadian Lighting May Be Just What the Doctor Ordered.

A New Lease on Life: How Renewing Academic Labs Enhances Value and Amplifies Discovery

From Telehealth to AI, How Technology is Influencing Healthcare Design

Midlife Metamorphosis: Four Ways to Transform Old Buildings into Modern Assets

Uplift Podcast: A Complicated Equation. Managing Project Costs in the Face of Financial Uncertainty

A Greener Future for the Tropics: How to Design Buildings that Can Take the Heat

Uplift Podcast: Closing the Gap. Addressing Health Inequity through Design

Look Both Ways Roundtable: Why Prioritizing Efficiency Doesn’t Have to Mean Compromising Beauty

Why a Future of Soundscapes in Offices Could Make Us More Creative and Productive

Should a Workplace Have a Soundtrack?

Uplift Podcast: To Take Care of Us, We Must Take Care of Them. Design to Support the Healthcare Workforce.

The 40% Office: How to Optimize Your Workplace for Today’s Behaviors and Business Needs

Diverse Teams Drive Better Projects. Here’s How to Get the Most from an Integrated Partnership.

Uplift Podcast: From Floods to Pandemics, How to Design Resilience Not Just for Disasters, But Every Day

As Costs and Demand for Care Soars, Here Are Four Ways to Reduce Financial Risk in Healthcare Design Projects

NAIOP Magazine: How to Reinvent Aging Office Buildings for a New Era

Uplift Podcast: Design for Cancer Breakthroughs—Game Changers that 'Give Patients Their Lives Back'

Uplift Podcast: How to Design Now for the Behavioral Health Crisis

Introducing Uplift: A Podcast about the Transformative Power of Design

Home Away from Home: How Comfort and Choice in Hospital Settings Helps Patients Heal

Intrusive No More: How Hospital Security Can Contribute to a Beautiful, Welcoming Environment

Building Rapport: How Relationships and Integrated Teams Drive Project Success

Why the Auto Industry is Key to Designing Healthier, More Comfortable Buildings

Four Ideas to Improve Hospital Work Environments to Help Combat America's Nursing Crisis

Four Strategies to Balance Equity, Ecology and New Development When Designing and Planning for Waterfront Revitalization

Urban Waterfronts Should Be Designed to Protect Our Communities

From Insight to Action: Three Ways Design Computation Empowers Better Decision-Making

Three Strategies to Create an Efficient Hybrid Design Environment

What Happens When a Big Room Goes Virtual?

Strategies to Reduce Embodied Carbon in the Built Environment

Through Their Eyes: How Research-Based Computer Simulations Create Empathetic Buildings

How Can We Harness AI to Design a More Healthy Sustainable and Equitable Future

Four Ways Designing with Natural Ecology—Rather Than Against It—Can Mitigate Climate Change to Create Beautiful, Just Cities

Our Coastal Cities Are Under Threat

Postpandemic Workplace Ideas Inspired by Prepandemic Trends

Harvard Business Review: Design An Office People Want to Come Back To

The Workplace Should Be Organic: Six Ways to Create a Strong Connection to Nature in Any Workplace

The Community as Co-Creator: Why Community Engagement is Crucial to an Inclusive Design Process

Humanizing Skyscrapers: Rethinking Tall Buildings for Human Interaction

NBBJ Fellow Dr. John Medina outlines five neuroscience-based design strategies to support healthcare workers and their patients.

Hope, Healing and Healthcare

Getting to Zero: Rethinking Carbon in the Built Environment

Look Both Ways: A Virtual Roundtable Exploring Well-Being Trends for the Healthcare Workplace

From Fortress to Front Door: How High-Rises Can Attract Tech Tenants In a Highly Competitive Market

Faster and More Efficient: How the Pandemic Has Sparked Project Delivery Innovation

Going Up: Why Vertical Hospitals Might Be the Next Frontier in Healthcare Design

Furniture that is comfortable and safe can be hard to find for people in distress. So on a recent behavioral health project, we met with patients and then designed our own.

When Craft Meets Comfort

In partnership with the University of Washington, we research strategies to overcome a common barrier to productivity: noise.

A Quiet Building Is a Healthy Building

NBBJ Developed the First Open Core Hospital Design. Twenty Years Later, Here's What We've Learned.

Are Zoom Towns the Future of Cities?

Five Strategies to Support Rest in the Office

How Can Rest Build Creativity, Focus and Wellness at Work

Because disruption to the circadian system is linked to chronic disease, it’s critical to rethink lighting levels in buildings.

A Healthy Building Starts with Light

Three Ways to Guide Hospital Visitors Seeking Care

How to Rethink Wayfinding to Increase Infection Control and Decrease Patient Stress

We speak with Colin Brown, Director - Development at Howard Group about the future science workplace.

Facilitating Communication and Collaboration: A Conversation About Emerging Best Practices in Research Facilities

Want to Reduce Your Company’s Carbon Footprint? Start with Your Headquarters

A Visit to the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit

Thriving, Not Just Surviving: Solving the Climate Crisis

Ten Research-Based Ideas to Improve Hybrid Work Settings

Staying Human in a Digital Workplace

How Tall Can Skyscrapers Go? The More Pertinent Question Is: How Can Skyscrapers Better Serve Us?

They’re Alive! Skyscrapers that Breathe, Evolve, and (Maybe Even) Move

How Design Can Support Lifelong Learning at Work

The Workplace as School

How Changing Retail Trends Are Creating New Opportunities for Urban Experiences and Public Space

When Everyone Shops Online, What Happens to Mixed-Use Retail?

Ideas for Shaping the Emergency Department of the Future

Three Ways of Reimagining the Emergency Department

Different Enterprises Require Different Things from Their Workplaces. It’s Time We Met More Companies’ Needs.

Why Aren’t We Building More Hybrid Offices?

A Conversation with Professor Philip Withers, Chief Scientist of the Henry Royce Institute about the Future Science Workplace

"There Will Be No Such Thing as a Standard Day in the Life of a Research Building"

Thoughts on a ‘Healthcare Quarter’

What Does the Future of Urban Healthcare Look Like?

From Swimming Pools to Pirate Ships, Amenities (Even Crazy Ones) Aren’t Just Perks, but Assets to Enhance Performance

The Four Types of Strategic Real Estate Amenities

True Patient-Centered Care Requires a Holistic Approach to Meeting a Patient’s Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Social Needs

The Re-Socialization of Patient Care

Coming Out of the Pandemic, the Future of Workplaces Remains Intriguingly Unknown. Where Can Companies Find Clarity on What to Do Next?

The Longer Experiment

Cities Have to Embrace District-Wide Net Zero Solutions to Create Change at a Scale That Will Make a Difference

To Get to Net Zero, Cities Need to Think Wider Than Buildings

As people head back to the office, a look at how workplaces can better accommodate four-legged friends.

Who Let the Dogs In?

Healthy Air Improves Cognitive Function and Combats Disease. But Its Implications for Carbon Reduction Are Perhaps Most Important.

To Reduce Disease and Fight Climate Change, Design Buildings that Breathe

Six Items to Consider Before You Start to Build Your Next ASC

Want to Build a New Ambulatory Surgery Center?

With prefabricated, open ward-style treatment spaces, we can rapidly scale the number of beds.

We Need More ICU Beds. Rethinking America’s Individualized Healthcare Mentality Can Help Get Them

The overlooked influences that will more strongly define where we work.

Think Covid Shapes the Future Office? Think Again.

Revitalizing the Street Level: Opportunities to Rethink the Ground Floor

Five Lessons From Asia and Europe to Create More Human-Centric American Cities

Cities Should Be Planned for People Before Cars. Here’s How It Can Be Done.

A Conversation with Dr. Delaney Ruston, Filmmaker, Speaker and Stanford-Trained Physician

The More We Talk About Behavioral Health, the Better the Outcomes

Four Opportunities for Commercial Offices to Build Connection Among Tenants and the Community

Buildings in Conversation with the City

A Conversation with Dr. Curtis Wittmann, Associate Director, Acute Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital

Let’s Commit More Resources to Behavioral Health

America’s Shadow Pandemic: How To Design Now For The Behavioral Health Crisis

Eleven Strategies to Reduce Energy Use and Increase Well-Being

A Healthier Planet Starts With Hospitals

Clear Eyes for Climate Change Action

Influencing Action: The Power of Perspective

Bring ’80s Office Buildings Back to Life: Seven Considerations in Successfully Repositioning Older Buildings for a New Workforce

All Together: Summoning Ideals During a Period of Crisis

How Covid-19 exposes the dangerous trap of the work-life pendulum and grants an opportunity to reset the workplace.

Binary Thinking and Other Misconceptions About Work

The Pandemic Boosted Telehealth; Here’s How Existing Spaces Can Support Virtual Visits

A Conversation with Dr. Gregory Miller, Chief Medical Officer, Unity Center for Behavioral Health

Providing Integrated Care Is the Most Important Thing We Can Do for Behavioral Health

A Conversation with Dr. Susan Swick, Physician in Chief and Medical Director, Ohana Montage Health

Behavioral Health Needs Spaces Where Patients Can ‘Pass Storms and Glimpse a New Horizon’

A Conversation with Tammy Felker, Registered Nurse and Architect, NBBJ

‘It Is Crucial That We Send the Message That Behavioral Health Patients Are Valued.’

The business benefit of relationships with colleagues and how the design of post-Covid offices can foster valuable connections.

Socializing At Work Is About More Than Just Fun And Games.

The inpatient room of the future must appeal to baby boomers and millennials alike. Here's how it can.

In a Virtual Age, Physical Connection Still Matters—Especially During a Hospital Stay

Amidst Rapid Change in Healthcare, One Priority Remains Constant: the Human Touch

Six Ways Technology Is Changing Healthcare Design

Three ways technological advances will shift healthcare delivery, from the traditional hospital to at home services.

Rethinking Healthcare Hubs in the Post-Covid Era

Tackling a Biden Challenge with Artificial (and Human) Intelligence

Look Both Ways: A Virtual Roundtable Exploring Trends in the Life Science Market and Workplace

The ‘No Shadow Tower’: How Tall Buildings Can Bring Daylight Back to the Public Realm

Questions to Consider and What to Do If You Don’t Have a Strategy in Place

Is Your Real Estate Strategy Prepared for What’s Next?

‘What We Care About’: A Roundtable Conversation with A+U

How Social and Technological Changes Are Reshaping the Practice of Architecture

How to Reposition Commercial Buildings to Meet Demand for the Life Science Boom

Focus, Collaborate, Learn, Socialize, Rest: How Five Work Modes Can Redefine the Office

Advancements in rapidly deployable inpatient architecture are a key solution as hospitals scale up.

How Modular Construction Can Supply Beds in the Coronavirus Crisis

Applying neuroscience principles to foster comfort and improve workplace health.

Four Strategies to Reduce Stress as People Come Back to the Office

Hospital Rooms Should Stop Making People Sick: Three Strategies for Reducing Healthcare-Associated Infections

Seven Factors Healthcare Facilities Can Keep in Mind When Designing Out-of-Hospital Testing Centers

How to Design a Hospital Triage Tent to Efficiently Screen for Coronavirus

Evidence-Based Strategies to Build Worker Resilience During the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond

How Can We Mitigate Stress for Frontline Healthcare Workers?

Focus in the Workplace: How to Support Individuals and Teams for Success

An evidenced-based approach to elevate workplace experience, health and performance.

Ideas

We are optimists. Question askers. Curious about the world around us. These values shape our thinking and how we design the future.