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Teaming with larger firms serves opportunities
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When Arthur Del Muro, AIA, and Dominick Demonica, AIA, colleagues of 16 years at a Chicago firm, decided to start their own practice, they thought it would take a while to garner projects and grow their firm. To their surprise, in less than a year they have added five more architects to their team to handle the commissions that keep coming their way. What has fueled such an impressive growth are collaborations with older, more established practices.
Photo courtesy DDA
For Morton College’s Student Success Center in Cicero, Illinois, Del Muro and Demonica teamed with former employer Legat Architects of Chicago.
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The young firm, Demonica Del Muro Associates (DDA), has been able to get a piece of various municipal projects by pitching their niche knowledge. During their last years at Chicago-based Legat Architects, Del Muro and Demonica helped build and lead the firm’s business in higher education, Del Muro says. Armed with that specialty, they scored one of their first significant municipal projects—a new structure on the Greencastle, Indiana, satellite campus of the statewide community college system—by teaming up with Indianapolis firm InterDesign. This more-established, locally rooted practice serves as the firm of record, while DDA acts as the design architect. “We bring a certain level of expertise,” says Del Muro. “The combination of our portfolios really makes a strong team.”
Andrew Costlow of InterDesign, who is working with DDA on the project, says despite the youth of the practice, it has a lot of experience—experience that contributes to the two firms’ synergy.
DDA’s success in winning projects by collaboration—all obtained by word-of-mouth rather than hard-sell marketing—shows that young architects who choose to strike out on their own can do so without having to completely fly solo. This type of project sharing can be at once promising and rewarding. “I think there is a lot of possibility out there,” says Doug Garofalo, AIA. Garofalo is a professor at the University of Illinois School of Architecture and principal of Garofalo Architects. “The upside is that you get to work on a project that—I hate to say this—you are guaranteed not to get on your own. You gain some valuable experience. If it’s a true collaboration, you’ll learn quite a bit.” Garofalo cautions that young firms should not be afraid to walk out if they feel that they’re being exploited. An escape clause is important for protection.
DDA’s Del Muro, meanwhile, can’t wait for his and Demonica’s noncompete contracts with their previous employer to expire this March so that they can actively solicit from former clients they had back at Legat. During the wait, they’ve joined forces with other firms, including Saavedra Gehlhausen Architects in Rockford, Illinois, and Tang & Associates in Chicago, as well as Legat. Despite the good luck working with others, Del Muro still hopes that before long his firm can be strong enough to go solo. “We want to get to the point that we don’t have to team up and still have enough horsepower to survive on our own,” he says.
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