DESIGN APPROACH
At SPARANO + MOONEY ARCHITECTURE, we believe exceptional design begins with understanding your vision, goals and preferences. Our collaborative approach brings together creative thinking, technical expertise and practical problem-solving to develop thoughtful, innovative architectural solutions that respond to your functional needs, budget and aspirations. We balance leading-edge technologies with timeless, sustainable design principles inspired by nature, creating architecture that is meaningful and enduring, as well as deeply reflective of your priorities.
Every project begins by establishing a shared set of values and design objectives that guide decisions and provide a clear measure of success. Our process is organized into four interconnected phases: research and discovery, benchmarking, solution development and project delivery. Throughout each phase, we work closely with you to explore possibilities, navigate challenges and make informed decisions, ensuring that the resulting architecture remains grounded in your goals from initial concept through completion.
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Every project begins with listening and learning. We take time to understand your vision, goals and needs, exploring the opportunities and challenges that will shape your project. Through collaborative discussions, research and creative exploration, we consider a broad range of ideas and influences, encouraging fresh perspectives and unexpected possibilities. Together, we identify a guiding concept rooted in your mission, program and site that establishes a meaningful foundation for the design process.
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Building on our initial discoveries, we work with you to translate your goals and priorities into a clear, actionable framework for design. Through program development, site planning and exploration of conceptual design strategies, we help you evaluate opportunities, clarify requirements and establish a scope of services that aligns with your vision, budget and project objectives. This collaborative process creates a shared understanding of what we need to achieve with the project and a clear direction for moving forward.
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With a clear direction established, we work with you to explore, refine and evaluate design solutions. Through an iterative, collaborative process, we test ideas, consider alternatives and integrate input from our engineering consultants and construction partners, as appropriate. This coordinated approach helps you make informed decisions, balance design aspirations with technical and budgetary considerations and move forward with confidence in the evolving design.
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As your project moves from design into construction, we remain actively engaged to help bring your vision to life and assist with any issues that arise - we are your trusted partners through what can seem like a daunting journey! Through a rigorous construction administration process, we coordinate with the construction team, monitor progress, address challenges and help ensure that the completed building reflects your goals and the approved design. Our commitment extends beyond construction through post-occupancy evaluation, allowing us to understand how the spaces perform and support the people who use them. Throughout this final phase, we prioritize clear communication, responsive problem-solving and a positive client experience, helping you transition confidently into a building that meets your needs and delivers lasting value.
CONCEPTUAL CONSTRUCTS
The work of SPARANO + MOONEY ARCHITECTURE emerges from an attentive reading of the varied and interrelated forces shaping a project. We begin with a rigorous exploration of the cultural, spatial, environmental and contextual conditions unique to each commission, drawn from the client, the program and the specificities of site. This research is distilled into a conceptual framework that guides the architecture, establishing an internal order rooted in meaning rather than convention or pre-conception. Our process offers a way of forging deeper and more resonant relationships between contemporary architecture and an elevated human experience.
The process is heuristic in nature, testing a broad range of ideas before settling on the ideal framework for the developing design approach. This early way of working is not yet architectural, not yet representational. This step helps us focus on the specifics of the project and our alignment with the client and community we are collaborating with. As the ideas develop, a conceptual construct is designed and then built, serving as a repository of the ideas for the project. The connection between idea and architecture creates a critical filter through which a concept moves toward architecture.
Also central to the firm’s philosophy is a questioning of architectural order as something imposed on a work through geometry, separate from human experience. Instead, we see architecture emerging as a spatial narrative, one that unfolds through time, movement and sensory awareness. Architecture is conceived as dynamic, with occupants engaged as active participants within the center of an evolving spatial field, around which form, light and space are carefully crafted and articulated through architectural design elements.
Through this approach, our work seeks not only to shape an architectural response to a brief, but to choreograph one-of-a-kind meaningful connections among architecture, context and spatial sequence. This process allows our team of Utah and Los Angeles architects to create buildings and spaces not passively observed, but actively encountered within an environment shaped by a curated unfolding of experience.
The images below are a sample of the broad range of exploratory sketches, constructs and process work our team generates as our ideas are conceptualized, tested and iterated during the design process. This heuristic process enables our architects to develop truly novel solutions deeply grounded in the project research.
