CannonDesign CEO Brad Lukanic, AIA, LEED AP and Principal Natalie Petzoldt, AIA, LEED AP, EDAC join As Built to discuss how the firm scales without losing its identity. They discuss the Ennead Architects and Cityfi acquisitions, internal programs like Open Hand Studio and AMP, the firm's employee ownership model, and how their guiding maxim "do good, do right" shapes real decisions. They also share how Billie, their in-house AI platform, supports the team without replacing human judgment.

One of the most common questions architecture firms ask themselves is also one of the hardest: should we niche down, or stay generalized?

On Episode 128 of As Built, Patience and Brian discuss the fears that hold firms back from committing to a niche, the real advantages of staying generalist, and how to tell the difference between a strategic pivot and chasing a trend.

One key insight from the conversation: the decision doesn't have to be a leap of faith. Your firm's project history, client relationships, and staff structure are already pointing in a direction. The goal is to read that signal clearly before making a move.

They also address the temptation to niche down when billings are slow, the risk of over-niching into too narrow a market, and why niched firms aren't inherently better than generalist ones.

Whether you're leading a firm, managing its marketing, or both, this episode gives you a practical framework for approaching the decision with your eyes open.

Ten years into building one of the most unique AEC firms in the world, City Collective Managing Partners David Cooke, RAIA, MPIA and Justin Kearnan, AIA talk about what it actually takes to move the needle on the problems cities can't seem to solve.

City Collective was built around a simple but radical premise: that the only way to solve a city's toughest challenges is to bring every discipline into the same room. In this conversation, Managing Partners David Cooke, RAIA, MPIA and Justin Kearnan, AIA walk us through the firm's holistic design approach, from writing their own economic pro formas to unlock housing deals, to championing the "missing middle" housing typologies that were effectively regulated out of existence for half a century. They share how City Collective operates as a single design culture across Australia and the United States, why they hire for people with roots in at least two disciplines, and what it looks like to bring sports and community infrastructure into the same equity-driven framework they apply to affordable housing.