University of Chicago Keller Center: Chicago, IL
Uptown Normal: Normal, IL
6001 Cass: Detroit, MI
Granite City Green Communities: Granite City, IL
“the most prominent of [Chicago’s] growing cadre of ecologically sensitive architects.”
— New York Times
Farr Associates is a firm of optimistic architects and planners passionate about urbanism, sustainability, and leading by example.
We help visionaries create the most sustainable buildings and places to embolden leadership and accelerate change.
We start every project with a goal of creating pilgrimage sites—innovative, forward-looking places and buildings that prove the viability of a beautiful, equitable, and decarbonized built environment. We collaborate in workshops and integrated design teams to achieve collective outcomes that balance resources, priorities, and performance.
We lead in our core areas of expertise: stranding carbon, placemaking, and empathetic community engagement.
Through transparency in our practice, we are committed to achieving a positive and measurable impact on society. We are an open book, sharing our successes and documenting our performance in an effort to advance our practice and profession.
Together, these actions amount to our new default, the place where our work begins.
Our Services & Expertise
We start every project with a goal of creating pilgrimage sites: innovative, forward-looking places and buildings that prove the viability of a beautiful, equitable, healthy, and decarbonized built environment.
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FARR can design and deliver high-performance buildings and places whether they are simply Low Energy, Net-Zero Energy, or Net-Zero Ready.
Our high performance expertise extends to all aspects of building, including embodied carbon, water use, and waste.
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We love old buildings, but rarely can they be used exactly as they were built. Adaptive Reuse salvages the character of the architecture while restoring function to the program.
Cities and Towns are filled with existing buildings that are perceived to be ‘not good enough’ or ‘old’. We challenge that paradigm that existing buildings are “not good enough,” and help communities find the good in the old.
Our expertise in sustainable building and building science can provide selective interventions to bring these properties back to life.
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We create places that nurture lifelong connections to family, friends, and community no matter the scale.
Large multi-acre developments garner the same attention individual streetscapes. All can benefit from attention to local influences and successful precedents.
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We can create active living and healthy environments for any scale project. We champion ever-higher standards for public health, safety, and welfare based on established research on happiness and well-being. We are experts in material specifications, daylighting, and ventilation.
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We believe that the best designs occur through collaboration with everyone seated equally at the same table.
Stakeholders, engineers, maintenance staff, end users, and all the other people who enjoy a final design can contribute to it’s production.
Most importantly, this builds consensus with shared decision making which helps reaffirm decisions later or suggests changes if the project needs to take a turn.
We have over 30 years of experience with green building certifications and can act as a third party consultant for many of the top sustainability rating systems, particularly:
Living Building Challenge
PHIUS
LEED
FITWELL
Energy Star for Buildings
DOE ZERO Energy-Ready Homes
