In 1961 Homer Delawie founded the firm in a small office that he built for himself in Old Town. He had no way of knowing that nearly 60 years later the firm would be designing buildings for some of the world’s top Biotechnical, Telecommunication, and Life Science companies.
Delawie has been privileged to provide comprehensive design services to the most prominent private, institutional and public entities throughout the country, with a shared goal to build partnerships with our clients and the community through experience, creativity, and integrity. Our focus is open and frequent communication within the team, in order to meet project goals and address project constraints at each phase of the development.
Biolegend: a Case Study
BioLegend develops world-class, cutting-edge antibodies and reagents for biomedical research, manufactured in our state-of-the-art facility in San Diego, CA. When BioLegend envisioned their new corporate campus in San Diego, they wanted a space that would foster a sense of collaboration and dedication to the biotech company’s mission to enable Legendary Discovery. To do this, Delawie applied its understanding of the client’s process and workflow to form a building program that ultimately marries functional, flexible, and efficient lab space with inter-departmental collaboration.
The main campus building features an iconic 70-foot tall atrium as its focal point. From the atrium, BioLegend employees access the upper floor labs, offices, break rooms, and conference rooms.
A pedestrian bridge connects the atrium to the refurbished administrative and amenity building. The most sought after amenities, determined by their staff, will include a fitness center with locker rooms, a kitchen, wellness bar, yoga rooms, game room, and other amenity spaces that will encourage more collaboration and relaxation in between workweek demands.
Forward-thinking sustainable strategies will be introduced, including copious amounts of natural lighting through large windows and the atrium structure. An expansive green roof will visually mask the presence of a 500-person multi-purpose room built off of the main building.
“Design matters” is how Delawie approaches projects, whether they are ground-up buildings or existing building renovations. Achieving our client’s design vision is Delawie’s primary goal. Our design philosophy reflects the client’s personality, not a preconceived design style. We listen to what the client wants, and our mission is to design every project to reflect the client’s goals.
In addition to creating new spaces for our innovator clients, Delawie finds ways to innovate itself.
Our firm is comprised of over sixty of the brightest minds in architecture and interior design, with many staff holding technical designations in their respective industries. We have maintained a strong architectural presence in San Diego for decades, having completed thousands of noteworthy projects in the public and private sector since our founding.
Delawie has been creating sustainable designs since 1974 and was one of the first firms to embrace the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. The firm designed San Diego County’s first LEED Gold Certified building, EXP Engineer’s headquarters. We are also the designers of Qualcomm Inc. Building W campus, a 525,000 square foot multi-building project that was the county’s first LEED Gold Certified high-rise building, subsequently earning California Construction’s Best of 2006 Outstanding Green Building Project Award.
Our own corporate office, completed in 2015 employs such green strategies as skylights, LED lighting, operable windows for natural ventilation, and drought-tolerant landscape material. The project is seeking LEED Platinum certification, and the addition of a rooftop photovoltaic power station now offsets 60% of the building’s energy costs.
We approach each project with sustainability in mind and provide integrated, multi-disciplinary designs to meet the project’s sustainability goals. Our design philosophy parallels the widely accepted LEED framework, developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). Delawie is considered a LEED pioneer in San Diego with 25 LEED Certified Projects built.
