Before we tell you our mission statement, we should first give you this disclaimer: Mission statements are harder to create than you think (or at least harder than we thought). It started as a stream of consciousness - we wrote down things things that are important to us. Craft, integrity, vision, sustainability, function, comfort, nature, trusted adviser. Trying to weave a mission statement through all of that was madness, though. The result could easily be an epic poem that would make Homer proud. So we backed up...or rather....we got out of the weeds.

From our new vantage point, we boiled it down a little. The result was three primary objectives: 1) Honor the craft of architecture, 2) Serve as a trusted adviser to our clients, and 3) Produce designs worthy of longevity. But....we failed to mention the environment. And we wrestled with that. There was an argument that a design worthy of longevity is inherently friendly to the environment. The opposite argument was that we knew that but would others? And overall, it still felt a little wordy, maybe even a little clunky. So, we paused and climbed altitude again. This time to 30,000 feet.

The rarefied air seemed to do the trick. Others may think it just made us light-headed. Either way, we got it done. We wanted a mission statement that is simple and succinct. One that could be expressed in a single sentence. It turns out, we didn't even need a shoehorn. It all just....fit. Without further ado, the Design Lab mission statement is.....

"To be trusted advisers, masters of our craft and leave a good impression on the environment". Tada!!!

Aren't you glad we gave you all of the back-story? Otherwise, that would have seemed far too short....