Who are we?
Hmmmm.....interesting question. Well, if you took the broader look at us, you could say that we are a lot of things but the easy answer would be that we are ARCHITECTS. However, who we are is not solely defined by that term and all that it implies. Our professional experiences, values, beliefs, and relationships all play a role in shaping our corporate identity & culture, not to mention who we are induvidually as people. The opposite of "one size fits all" you could say.
Ultimately, who we are is a complex and multifaceted question that can be approached from many different angles.
For example, one could ask, who do we need to be to succeed in the architecture industry or who should we try to be? Wisdom says that being yourself might not be a bad idea so this is us being us with one eye on us personally and the other on us the professional architectural firm.
Another aspect of the question could be "What do we need to know to make it in this industry"? That said, this introduction also trys to explain WHAT we are, for example, are we caring stewards of our environment, or are we ethical, do we have integrity, do we care about the common good of all mankind or do we wonder what we are leaving future generations who will inherit the planet? Do we believe that our work contributes to the quality of the built environment of our city, etc., etc.. We are really "all of the above" & more. We know, for example, that not every project is going to be "one for the books" as they say and we understand that. We understand that sometimes clients just need a building designed to meet a specific need & that is OK, we get it. We work with our clients to strike a balance between "knocking it out of the park" & getting the job done.
The collective story of "we" is one of determination in being and staying relevant in an industry full of change. The world seems to be changing faster than ever these days and what was relevant even last year has been replaced by all new things to deal with (war in Europe, AI, climate change, a global pandemic, supply chain issues, etc). Our commitment to "being-in-the-moment" involves awarenes, innovation, resilience, faith, humility and an appreciation of project challenges. We are well-rounded in our approach to projects and have always strived to blend art*/creativity and functionality to serve our clients with design solutions that work for them. Sometimes that is the way that it is but sometimes it is all about getting work done to serve a very specific need that has nothing to do with capital A Architecture and that works for us.
Nevertheless, our profesional commitment to the architectural industry has driven us to create design solutions that have touched on practically every building type from restaurants & interior design to potato chip processing plants and almost everything inbetween. We are always proud of the work that we do, as humble as it is most of the time, and we take pride in the stories they tell. In our minds architecture is not all business but it is not all art either. We cling to belief that there is MORE to our industry than maximizing density or building as economically as possible. Let's face it, sometimes it's nice to live it up once in a while but we appreciate that sometimes other things come into play and that too is OK, no judgement from us.
CYNC provides a unique architectural collective type of experience that is run by former art students turned architects backed by an efficient and technology-driven production team that respects and understands the value of collaboration & communication. We use up-to-date technology such as MIRO, MONOGRAPH, REVIT, ENSCAPE & TWIN MOTION that allows us to communicate, track, create and visualize your projects with relative ease. We value bringing your vision (or specific requirement) to reality, and our methods mean your project gets thoughtfully designed, built better, and completed faster. Not only can we design stuff but we have all been baristas, cooks, or servers at some time in our past lives so we can also make awesome coffee drinks & our pot-luck staff lunches are typically pretty good.
We often thought that what we really need is a strong "MISSION STATEMENT" to really be taken seriously but we couldn't really come-up with one that sounded sincere without the cheese element. We thought of "We try Harder" but then we remembered that Hertz already has that one (damn). Then we though of "We take ourselves pretty seriously, hopefully you do too" but that sounded just too misguided, desperate & pretentious & who needs more of that in this industry, right? So we have decided not to have a platitude sounding mission statement & just go with "If you want to work with a team that gives a damn, try us out."
As mentioned earlier, that thing about art (super scary word, right?) Let's face it, art means a lot of different things to a lot of people so when used in this context it means creating something with imagination & skill and conveys or expresses a meaning beyond the physical representation. That said, this begs the question whether architects are really artists or craftsmen? (craftspeople) Maybe give us a call & we can talk about it.
