GREAT DESIGN DOESN’T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT.
INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH DRIVES CREATIVE DESIGN SOLUTIONS
WHAT WE OFFER
Leverage research to do your best work.
When it comes to your design project, it can be easy to get lost in decisions and details, in budgets and deadlines. All of these can crowd out the important insights and aspirational thoughts that truly make a project successful. This is where we can support you into taking your work to the next level.
Principles has developed a unique way to integrate knowledge from the fields of psychology, social sciences, and beyond in a way that fosters creative thinking & innovative problem-solving, while keeping the project's core purpose intact throughout the entire design and construction process. What’s more, we do this without burdening you with the headaches and jargon that can come with academic research.
our process
PRINCIPLES PROCESS
Watch this video to learn how Principles integrates and supports professional architectural and interior design best practices.
Our contributions add intentionality, inspire creative design solutions, build consensus, and optimize the allocation of resources.
This supports you - Architects, Interior Designers, and Developers - to reach your full potential.
PRINCIPLES APPLIED
There are no one-size-fits-all solutions in design.
This video demonstrates how a shared principle and interdisciplinary research, applied to two real projects - X3 Sports and Clarity Fitness - resulted in two unique design solutions.
Each is innovative in its own way, was supported by the owner, design, and construction teams, and makes the best use of the project's available space and budget.
HOW WE WORK
Aspiration for your project is worth time and consideration—and we’d be honored to be a part of that.
Designing something great is like climbing a mountain. You know where you want to go, but the journey is full of obstacles and unexpected challenges that can make it difficult to stay on track. In this analogy, we’re the mountain guides for architects and interior designers! Our research-backed support can help you overcome the challenges of professional practice, increase the value of your services, and unlock your full potential.
We tailor our consulting services to your needs. We can help in during pre-design, design, and post-occupancy stages of a project, so it's never too late for us to become involved! We offer:
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First, we meet with you and learn about your project and goals. Then, we gather research from relevant fields of study, such as psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and beyond. We synthesize complex information, put it into easy-to-understand and actionable principles, deliver them to you as written reports, and work with you to apply them. During this phase, you may also opt for our pre-design evaluation and a consultation with a specialist in a relevant field of knowledge.
Our principles offer specialized knowledge to help you create design solutions that meet both your requirements and aspirations. Utilizing our research-based principles optimizes resource allocation, adds intentionality to the design process, builds consensus, and provides a foundation for creative solutions that improve health and business outcomes.
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In this stage, we work closely with the project’s design and leadership team to meaningfully apply the project principles. We do this in a number of ways, including additional research, helping generate design and operational ideas, collaborative design peer reviews, and participation in meetings. We check in throughout the design process to streamline decision-making through the filter of our research-backed principles.
We offer valuable support during Schematic Design and Design Development, as well as during Construction Document and Construction phases to maintain project integrity and help navigate any obstacles that may arise, such as unexpected field conditions or value engineering challenges.
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Whether your current design is supported by our design Principles or not, we offer comprehensive evaluations to assess existing conditions. We use a variety of techniques to conduct evaluations, including interviews, observation, and smart surveys. These techniques allow us to gather both quantitative and qualitative data that can help the design team better understand the needs and preferences of end users in a way that ultimately impacts a project’s success and bottom line.
We also conduct post-occupancy evaluations to assess the effectiveness of a design, whether it was informed by our principles or not. These evaluations allow us to gather feedback from users and stakeholders and help generate ideas for future improvements to ensure long-term success and benefit future projects, such as additional locations of a business.
TESTIMONIALS
Principles takes pride in the success and satisfaction of our clients who trusted us to support their journey.
more of our projects
PROJECT TYPE: Industrial, Adaptive Reuse
SAMPLE PROJECT PRINCIPLE: Creative Thinking
RESEARCH: Workspaces that suit the neurodiverse needs of individual team members and provide opportunities for self-expression and play increase perceptions and feelings of freedom in a way that contributes to the free flow of ideas, divergent thinking, and creativity.
DESIGN DECISION: A range of workstations and workspaces support personalization, focus, and collaborative work. These areas are complemented by numerous non-work spaces such as bicycle parking, a 24/7 gym for staff, and showers to clean up anytime.
PROJECT TYPE: Shared Office, Historic Preservation
SAMPLE PROJECT PRINCIPLE: Sense of Belonging
RESEARCH: Shared memories between the users of a space contribute to an emotional connection with this space itself, and promote a sense of belonging.
DESIGN DECISION: The historic character of the building is preserved and contains a variety of communal spaces, including a break room, coffee bar, library, and lobby lounge, facilitating a wide variety of unique experiences, including working, mingling, and taking a restorative break. These spaces are further activated by contextually-driven programming, supported by the flexible organization of space.
PROJECT TYPE: Private Residence, Addition
SAMPLE PROJECT PRINCIPLE: Restoration
RESEARCH: Reducing visual clutter effectively increases mental recovery from the stress of daily life by removing the associated cognitive load of using this cleansing space.
DESIGN DECISION: Reduce visual clutter by integrating hidden storage, hidden HVAC registers, and an ultra-diffuse skylight feature while maintaining a very high level of service, convenience, and ergonomics.
PROJECT TYPE: Hospitality, Interior Design
SAMPLE PROJECT PRINCIPLE: Social Connections
RESEARCH: Loud noise can prohibit effective verbal communication, including everything from the intelligibility of an order being placed to a conversation between friends. Additionally, excessive noise can detract from the restaurant experience by adversely affecting the taste, aroma, flavor, and texture of food and drink.
DESIGN DECISION: Prioritize the acoustic environment as a key aspect of the customer and staff experience by using engineered materials to reduce reverberation to levels that minimize excessive noise buildup from the many sounds generated within.
OUR PEOPLE
We’re happy to support you!
Matt is passionate about overcoming design obstacles with researched principles. Combining his experience and expertise in both research and architecture, he founded Principles by Cognitive Design with Majd Gharib in 2023.
Matt’s interdisciplinary research and innovative thinking have been recognized by Healthcare Design Magazine, who named Matt the 2016 HCD 10 Researcher. Additionally, Matt’s work has been featured by numerous academic institution+s, media outlets, and conferences including the U.S. Green Building Council, Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, and the American Institute of Architects. With every project, Matt brings his contagious enthusiasm to creative problem-solving that meets its end goals.
Majd believes in the power of scientific research to help any architect or interior designer make informed design decisions. He is passionate about researching complex interdisciplinary concepts in architectural and urban design projects.
Being trilingual, Majd has collaborated with reputable researchers and worked with several architectural firms internationally. These collaborations have resulted in a number of published research papers and built architectural projects.
our mission
We’re passionate about the human outcomes of design, how our
behaviors and health are impacted by design of the built environment.
People are our passion and because design influences our health and behavior everywhere, we work on all types of projects. We have a particular enthusiasm for designing to facilitate good health outcomes, which can be the focus of any project, not just in clinical spaces. History and current research alike have demonstrated that design for good health is design for good business. It’s a win-win.
We take great pride in supporting architects and interior designers, as they navigate the challenges of professional practice, with interdisciplinary research that leads to innovative problem-solving and better outcomes for them and their clients. Our team is dedicated to acting as a supportive resource to your team, as we help you achieve your project objectives.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Nope. Principles supports and collaborates with architects, interior designers, developers, and all the others on a team that make a capital project successful. Founded by award-winning architect Matt Finn, Principles understands the practical aspects of integrating research into professional practice.
Our services are tailored for practical application and include things like easy-to-understand research reports and help evaluating the merits of various design ideas. In short, we add another layer of intentionality to your already-awesome design.
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Principles exists to empower and support architects and interior designers— not take charge of their projects.
Every project has its own social dynamic, and we’re just as comfortable presenting our research to your client as we are working behind the scenes.
We always show up eager to help and without ego. We love learning, from you and the research we do for your project. And we never lose sight of the fact that we play a supporting role and you’re the star that should shine the brightest!
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Our fees are based on the complexity and duration of an engagement, and we offer a range of services to right-size our contribution to your project’s needs.
For the Principles stage, we offer three levels of engagement— Light, Standard, and Premium, covering a range of services. The highest, Premium, includes working with someone from our Network of Collaborators, such as a clinical psychologist or licensed clinical social worker, who contribute deep expertise and insights that come from years of professional practice.
The Application and Evaluation stages are tailored to your needs; our fee is either fixed or hourly, depending on the situation.
contact us
Do you want to take your work to the next level?
We are a team of expert researchers and innovative problem-solvers, here to help you do what you do best. Hoping to bring in the Principles team to support your project? We’d love to connect with you.
Send us a note using the form below to get the conversation started!