definitions

Beauty Our Definition: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit; a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality.

Biophilic Design We utilize Biophilic Design, which is the study of creating spatial experiences focused on human evolution's connections to nature in order to improve physical and mental health, performance, and well-being. Through an understanding of how to create such connections in authentic spatial experiences, supported by over 100 scientific studies, we guide projects towards allowing humans to achieve higher performance through a strong connection to nature and sense of place.

Co-Evolution Our Definition: evolution involving successive changes in two or more ecologically interdependent species that affect their interactions. In order to demystify the design process, we use our training in Regenerative Development. This includes co-evolving with the client and stakeholders through the design process, where everyone involved (including our team) learn, grow, experience, and evolve themselves through an invigorating individualized design process, becoming more connected with the needs of the project while learning to be more whole themselves.

High-performance Our Definition: used to describe a product that is faster, more powerful, etc than other similar products. From an Article regarding high-performance individuals/entities: “the definition of high performance is succeeding above and beyond standard norms over the long-term, involving: Clarity, Energy, Courage, Productivity, Influence. We aim towards the highest standards of environmental resiliency possible on each project within the site, budget, and other constraints. Those goals include standards set by Passive House and holistic values of the Living Building Challenge. We track project data on our work relative to the LBC’s twenty “imperatives,” which include issues of Place, Water, Energy, Health + Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty; producing an understanding of how our projects perform and how to continually improve our design process. coLAB studio has been working to create some of the most energy efficient and healthy buildings in the Southwest that are clean, modern, and require no extra maintenance to reap the benefits.

Identity Our Definition: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. We believe in understanding who we are working with. This may be an individual, an environment, or a city of millions- in each case there is a core to who our client is, with a set of values and a potential to reach greater heights. We feel the values and essence of client and situation should be reflected functionally and symbolically in the built environment. We use systems thinking and Regenerative Development frameworks to get deeper into the essential purpose needs of a client and/or place. For more on Identity and place-making.

Integrative Design Process American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defines the IDP as a method to “actively seek to design and construct projects that are cost-effective over both the short and long terms, by engaging all project team members in an intentional process of discovering mutually beneficial interrelationships and synergies between systems and components, in a way that unified technical and living systems, so that high levels of building performance, human performance, and environmental benefits are achieved.”

Multi-Track-Thinking Our Definition: Combining the thinking of various expertise or points of view simultaneously. To treat every design type as a multi-typology project by thinking about all the ways a project can function in order to optimize the outcome. Along with the main function, some additional project examples include:

·         A house always needs to be a home & sanctuary, yet often includes a workspace and/or an educational space for children. And when guests are invited for a party, a house also operates as a social community and/or family gathering place. 

·         Office buildings are places to work, yet are also a home-away-from-home for employees.

·         City Hall should be a professional environment where serious work is completed, yet also be welcoming; A bit like a home. This will allow the public to feel a sense of responsibility for the building and town.

·         Locally owned restaurants are often treated as separate from their neighborhoods even though they are small community centers of a sort, bringing together a tribe of loyal customers.

·         All building types have an outward appearance that elicits a response from the environment, and that response should be a positive one. We believe buildings and structures should function to connect people with local natural and artificial ecosystems to create more social and environmental cohabitation.

We blur, blend, and disrupt thought patterns to rethink limitations of typologies, people, neighborhoods, and design processes. We combine the thinking of artists, architects, scientists, experts, and “beginners mind” on every project- because real life problems require holistic solutions.