The temperature is pushing 100 degrees Fahrenheit as Randy Shumaker, a general superintendent for DPR Construction, tours the firm’s latest building site. A haze of sun and clouds blanket the towering steelscape; glistening I-beams spike right angles into the impressionistic sky.
This soon-to-be manufacturing facility is just one example of the company’s industry-leading, technology-based building approach—an approach that inspires many to join the DPR team.
“Buildings basically go together the same way they did 40 years ago,” says Shumaker. “The nuts and bolts are the same, but what’s different is the technology. I wanted to learn something new, and the innovation really drew me to DPR.”
DPR’s innovative building methods have improved efficiencies in how the company plans and constructs highly complex structures built to rigorous standards for safety, technology, and sustainability. When the time came for DPR to move to a new office in Reston, Virginia, the DPR team was excited to create a workplace that would showcase their building expertise. The new facility would be a better reflection of the company’s empowering and collaborative culture and would encourage the inter-generational exchange of ideas that helps fuel DPR’s creative engines.
“Part of what we need to do is grow the younger generation so they understand the intricacies of a build,” says Shumaker. “They, in turn, share new ideas they’ve learned. This makes us a stronger team, which makes us a better company.”
Making Place for Innovation
Before moving to Reston, DPR was challenged with an office that was beginning to inhibit the person-to-person connection that’s essential to the company’s success. “For us, innovation is about collaboration—working together to come up with new ways to solve old problems,” says Chris Gorthy, a project executive with DPR. “When we started struggling to do that in our old office, we knew it was time for a change.”
Even though DPR’s current office allotted ample space for individual workstations, DPR employees described the space as “overbooked” and “isolating.” With no communal areas for socializing and a scarcity of conference rooms, many people chose to work at their jobsites instead of coming into the office.
As the DPR team sought a new work environment, Greg Haldeman, a member of DPR’s management committee, says they embraced the opportunity to create a more collaborative workplace that better reflects who they are and what they do. The project team identified several goals, including the following two: to create an office that would showcase their sustainable building expertise, and to design a living lab where they could test and measure workplace strategies that would encourage people to share knowledge and solve problems creatively.
To achieve the first goal, the DPR team decided to reuse a facility in Reston, Virginia. “We wanted to demonstrate that you could reuse a building and still achieve Net Zero Energy Building Certification, even in a building that’s 35 years old and in a challenging climate zone. It would be a first for the D.C. Metro area,” says Chris Hoffman, a project manager with DPR. After building three other DPR offices that have been Net Zero certified, the team had a wealth of data and insight to inform the project. Sustainability, however, was only the beginning.