Bridging Firm Sizes

In today’s rapidly evolving architectural landscape, firms of all sizes are grappling with changing technologies, workflows, and client expectations. While the challenges facing small boutique studios and large international practices may seem worlds apart, there’s enormous value in understanding how different scales of practice can inform and improve each other

We spoke to several architects who have practiced at a variety of firm sizes, some having experience at both large and small scales. The following are some of the insights we gained from these conversations.

The Coordination Burden

The evolution of digital documentation and markup tools, like Bluebeam, has led to some real improvements in efficiency and collaboration. However, these tools have yet to solve a critical pain point: architects remain the de facto mediators of a disproportionate share of stakeholder conflicts.

An architect we interviewed who worked at a 100+ person firm in New York City shared a telling example of this:

“We had to finalize the title block for a project that included an institution’s name. This sounds easy, but one department wanted to use the full formal name of the institution and another department was insisting on using the acronym. We had to get on the phone with each department separately, talk through the options, relay one’s opinion back to the other, and finally come to a consensus after several days of back and forth – over a title block! This isn’t even the building design we’re talking about. And this is not uncommon…it really drains your creative energy, not to mention the delays.” 

While small firms might handle fewer stakeholders, and large firms might have dedicated documentation staff, the core challenge remains: architects spending valuable creative time coordinating feedback rather than designing. Small firms’ close client relationships can help expedite resolution, but the process still diverts focus from design work. 

Organization vs Agility

The compounding effect of firm structure on this coordination challenge was further illustrated when this same architect reflected on another experience at her previous office:

“I couldn’t just stamp the drawing, even for relatively nit-picky changes. First I had to send it to the project architect, who sent it to the studio head. Then the studio head sent it to higher-ups for comments and then it was sent over to the principal on the project for comments. Then, it went to the admin who actually stamped it, back to the project architect, and then finally back to me to send out. This all happened via email and took at least a week for each round. It was exhausting.” 

This “too many cooks” syndrome doesn’t just affect efficiency – it can fundamentally impact design quality and team morale. It’s a common frustration, which reveals how large firms’ attempts to maintain quality through studio structures often create significant bottlenecks. While small firms naturally preserve direct decision-making paths, the challenge for larger practices is finding ways to balance necessary oversight without sacrificing creative momentum.

The Barriers to New Tools

The path to adopting new design tools reveals unexpected hurdles that go beyond just resources and training. At large firms, the challenge often isn’t about capability but about permission.

An architect at a 500+ person international firm in New York City explained:

“It’s tough because we have the ability to research and evaluate the latest and greatest tools out there, but the problem is getting the green light to actually test them.”

Without an immediate value proposition for the firm, he explained, leaders are skeptical to give a tool a shot, even if the value hypothesis is solid and there are some potential use cases to help validate it.

Other firms that are less structured face a different kind of friction: the proliferation of design tools and generational preferences can lead to workflow inefficiencies when team members use different software for similar tasks and the office does not have a system in place to reconcile this.

We spoke to an architect at a two-person office in Brooklyn, NY, who emphasized this dilemma:

“We’ve always used AutoCAD, which has worked well for us and our scale of projects.”

Their office recently hired a couple of interns fresh out of school who have been trained to use Rhino and Revit but lack 2-dimensional drafting experience and AutoCAD knowledge.

“This has been problematic for us because they prefer to use Revit during schematic design, but the software necessitates detailed data input that is not productive at an early development stage. It also hinders internal collaboration since everyone works in a different format.

This shift in tools has deeper implications for architectural thinking, she reflected:

“Because in Revit a project is developed as a 3D model, its use, especially among young designers, has resulted in the decline of abstract spatial thinking through the 2-dimensional representations of space – plan and section. This should be of concern to the broader architectural profession.”

This brings up an important question about the AEC industry: should the tools we use be replacing the need to think critically and creatively at useful levels of abstraction or should they be helping us develop and improve those core ways of thinking, but just streamlining the tedious tasks?

Looking Ahead 

As firms navigate these challenges, several key lessons stand out from both large and small firms:

• Large firms should look to small practices for lessons in streamlining approval processes and maintaining direct decision-making paths.

• Small firms can learn from larger practices’ structured workflows while keeping their flexible culture and creative freedom.

• Both sizes need better tools for managing feedback that enable direct stakeholder resolution and preserve architects’ creative time.

• New tools should support rather than substitute fundamental architectural thinking skills. 
  
  

As our industry advances, success will come not from choosing between methodologies, but thoughtfully combining approaches across the spectrum of practice scales. Firms that can balance systematic optimization with creative agility, regardless of size, will be best positioned to thrive. 

These challenges and opportunities shape our work at Arcol, where we’re developing tools like Arcol Boards to support seamless collaboration for firms of every scale. Boards represents a step toward documentation that supports the entire project lifecycle while providing a platform for real-time communication and collaborative decision-making to move projects forward. 

As new tools and platforms emerge, the opportunity exists to reimagine not just how we document architecture, but how we manage the entire collaborative process of bringing buildings to life. Such innovations could help firms of all sizes safeguard their creative focus while managing the complex reality of modern architectural practice.