Two prominent Atlanta-based design firms whose specialties include the hospitality sector are joining forces.
On Jan. 1, The Johnson Studio, which has been in business for more than 25 years and currently has 22 employees, will blend its operations into the Atlanta offices of Cooper Carry, a full-service architectural design firm founded in 1960, with offices in New York and Alexandria, Va., and an international portfolio.
Kevin Cantley, AIA, Carry Cooper’s CEO, says that his firm is one of the top three hotel designers in the country. As such, it has worked with myriad restaurant design firms, including The Johnson Group. “We are delighted to have them work alongside our talented hotel and retail team every day,” Cantley said about the merger.
Bill Johnson, AIA, Senior Principal and Founder of The Johnson Studio—whose first big restaurant design project was a Cheesecake Factory in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood in the early 1990s—is staying on to lead the new business’s restaurant design practice. He will work with Cooper Carry’s seven Hospitality Studio principals.
The Johnson Studio will maintain its own brand. “This collaboration provides a platform for future services that we feel will be unparalleled,” said Johnson in a prepared statement.
According to its website, Cooper Carry has 11 specialty practices. Its services include architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, planning, sustainability consulting, and environmental graphics and wayfinding. The company emphasizes “environmentally responsible design,” as well as “connective architecture” that brings people and buildings within neighborhoods together.
Among its recent hotel design projects are the 1.1 million-sf Marriott Marquis Hotel in Washington, D.C., the 37,916-sf Sea Pines Plantation Golf Clubhouse in Hilton Head, S.C., and the 613,942-sf Hilton Cleveland Downtown.
Related Stories
| Mar 14, 2012
Plans for San Francisco's tallest building revamped
The glassy white high-rise would be 60 stories and 1,070 feet tall with an entrance at First and Mission streets.
| Mar 14, 2012
Hyatt joins Thornton Tomasetti as VP in Chicago
A forensic specialist, Hyatt has more than 10 years of experience performing investigations of structural failures throughout the U.S.
| Mar 14, 2012
Tsoi/Kobus and Centerbrook to design Jackson Laboratory facility in Farmington, Conn.
Building will house research into personalized, gene-based cancer screening and treatment.
| Mar 13, 2012
China's high-speed building boom
A 30-story hotel in Changsha went up in two weeks. Some question the safety in that, but the builder defends its methods.
| Mar 13, 2012
Commercial glazer Harmon expanding into Texas
Company expanding into the Texas market with a new office in Dallas and a satellite facility in Austin.
| Mar 13, 2012
Worker office space to drop below 100-sf in five years
The average for all companies for square feet per worker in 2017 will be 151 sf, compared to 176 sf, and 225 sf in 2010.
| Mar 12, 2012
Improving the performance of existing commercial buildings: the chemistry of sustainable construction
Retrofitting our existing commercial buildings is one of the key steps to overcoming the economic and environmental challenges we face.
| Mar 9, 2012
2012 Giants 300 survey due Friday, April 13
See how your firm ranks among the AEC industry leaders.
