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SRQ DAILY MONDAY BUSINESS EDITION

MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2023 |

Fawley Bryant Architecture 5391 Lakewood Ranch Blvd N #300, Sarasota. 941-343-4070. https://www.fawleybryant.com/

In the March 2023 issue of SRQ Magazine, we interviewed Steve Padgett, Managing Partner, and Stew Henderson, Owner and Design Architect, at Fawley Bryant Architecture as part of our “In Conversation” feature on Lakewood Ranch. The following is an excerpt from the magazine in which Padgett and Henderson share their thoughts on life and work at Lakewood Ranch with SRQ readers.

Lakewood Ranch has long been one of the fastest growing communities. All of Florida suddenly seems to be sprawling like Lakewood Ranch. Growth is proceeding at a pace that none of us could have imagined in the last two or three years. From what you guys see in terms of planning for the future and future opportunities, what does that mean and how has technology affected things from your point of view?

Steve Padgett

Well, I think one of the benefits we have is that thanks to technology, remote work and other ways of collaborating, people can work where they want to, not where they need to be. And I think that this area was the main attraction for people who were leaving areas that they really didn’t want to be in. Whether it’s because of the family, because of the weather, because of work or something else. So I think it was the main attractor that was planned for 15 years. So at the right time, in the right place. And that has given us a lot of flexibility and freedom in the work we do. In most cases, these are public places. So work in sports, work in government, education are things that will support the people who live here. And it fits perfectly into our portfolio and the services we provide. So it’s a bit of a win-win.

Stew Henderson

I will look at it from two sides. Our reaction to technology and being more distant plays to our strengths, which we have already begun. So we’ve already started with teams, video conferencing and internal work with this software, we’ve already used virtual reality to communicate with our design team and our internal view of the building to walk through it before it’s built. This translated into customer service in much the same way. So this allowed us to have our first fully remote teammate and collaborator as a project manager rather than just an admin role where they could do tasks but communicate and work. And I think that, by and large, focusing on the technologies we use and how we collaborate has, in many ways, led to better buildings. We can visualize them, walk through them, and communicate what we see, not only internally, but also to our clients. So building technology seems like it could always be more sustainable. We could do a lot more with this, but budgets and upfront costs are very high for some of the sustainable materials we’d like to use. Therefore, in many cases they are removed. But I think there are deeper and more fundamental sustainability strategies that we’re using, and it’s not a green roof or photovoltaics, but it could be about energy efficiency, it could be about the orientation and location of the building. And all this, again, is an overlay of technologies that allows us to understand these technologies and these strategies even before the buildings are built.

Fawley Bryant Architecture 5391 Lakewood Ranch Blvd N #300, Sarasota. 941-343-4070. https://www.fawleybryant.com/

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