BAM Architecture Studio is now BAM Creative.

Over the past 20 years, BAM has grown and evolved to approach design from a holistic perspective, focusing on our client’s goals by helping them shape the future of their organizations. Our new name, BAM Creative, reflects the evolution of our expanded skill sets and better represents our complete service offerings:

Architecture
Branding+Digital
Interior Design
Strategic Action

Learn more at our website bamcreative.io.

New VP of IFMA NYC: BAM Principal Dan Castner

BAM is excited to announce that Dan Castner is Vice President of the IFMA NYC Chapter!

To celebrate this achievement, we’re taking a look back at Dan’s time with IFMA so far:

2013: Dan joins IFMA as a new member, and makes a splash with a summer wine tasting fundraiser. The tasting drew double the expected attendance, and was so successful it became an annual event on the IFMA NYC calendar.

2014: Helping to lead their fundraising efforts since joining the previous year, Dan joins IFMA NYC as the chapter presents a $20,000 donation to the IFMA Foundation.

2015: Dan wins the Distinguished Associate Member Award at the 2015 IFMA Awards for Excellence, acknowledging his “outstanding leadership within the organization at an international level.”

2017: Dan becomes IFMA Programs Chair and joins a series of IFMA panels.

2019: Fostering collaboration between local chapters, Dan pioneers a joint event between the IFMA Westchester/Hudson Valley Chapters.

As of July 1, 2019, Dan also began his role as Vice President of the IFMA NYC Chapter. Congratulations, Dan!

Dwell + BioCom Highlight BAM Life Sciences

BioCom invited BAM Principal Brian Spence, our client TCRCure Biopharma, and other industry leaders to explore the ins and outs of facilities management in biotech.

To effectively examine this topic with valuable takeaways, Brian provided an in-depth case study of BAM’s work on HATCHspaces, recently featured in Dwell.

A collaboration between Agora Partners and ASG Real Estate, the creators of HATCHspaces describes their partnership as “a real estate company built around the needs of life sciences – not the other way around.” The mission of HATCHspaces is to provide “meticulously curated creative spaces for life sciences,” and BAM is helping to make this dream a reality across four projects – HATCHx accelerator, HATCHlabs, HATCH CMO and HATCHcampus.  These four sites allow Los Angeles to cultivate science and research from start up and incubator through their growth to an established biotech company.

HATCHspaces is a breakthrough in life science facility design by creating a multi-tenant building to support the broadest range of science in the most efficient way possible. Following a few design iterations, the ideal arrangement involved maintaining the single-story warehouse framework. As the client preferred the industrial aesthetic as a nod to the building’s past as a 1930s furniture manufacturing warehouse, BAM had the creative freedom to highlight and restore the historic construction techniques and materials. Though we preserved the building origins, supporting current research required more power. With consideration of how to best support modern scientists, our team upgraded the electrical service with new transformers, and reframed the roof to support HVAC equipment and generators. Preserving the critical research under a variety of circumstances, the new electrical support ensures standby power. If the primary power should fail, a secondary source will turn on, saving the research of ongoing experiments for potentially life-saving treatments.

Providing this technical infrastructure, each new tenant only requires basic improvements to casework, benches, walls, and ceilings to customize the space to suit their specific research and culture. This arrangement expedites the plan check process, which results in prompt project completion and allows scientists to conduct or continue their research without significant delay.  At the opening reception for HATCHspaces, the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office presented a certificate recognizing HATCH as “the City’s first biotech wet lab co-working facility, introducing a new innovative adaptive reuse model for expanding wet lab space dedicated to research, development and commercialization of novel technologies and therapeutics.” 

To learn more about this exciting life science space, check out HATCHspaces’ feature in Dwell and see the gallery below.

Happy 80th, Union Station!

Los Angeles Union Station is the largest passenger railroad terminal in the Western United States. Conceived on a grand scale, it has long withstood the tests of time and natural disasters. In 1980, it joined the ranks of other great architectural wonders on the National Register of Historic Places.

To preserve Union Station for the future, BAM was awarded the unique opportunity to upgrade the iconic Los Angeles transportation hub. Collaborating with the team at Morlin Management and Union Station, BAM is passionate about restoring the beauty of the station and modernizing it to open an entirely new market for Union Station to serve as an inspired venue for corporate events, weddings and other milestone celebrations.

Congratulations Union Station on this diamond anniversary!

A continued, vibrant presence in Los Angeles, Union Station is celebrating on May 3^rd and 4^th with station tours, live concerts and DJs, a unique marketplace, and many more activities, showing how the station continues to be a vital part of the community. For more information on Union Station 80th anniversary events, click here.

Workplace Innovator: Powering the Changing Workplace with Flexibility

Being ready to change direction at a moment’s notice is essential to success in facilities management. FM leaders must continually be planning, even when there is no set plan.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals shares their ongoing journey from 60 employees, to over 9,000. Talk about being agile. Michelle and Daniel cover how they handled this rapid growth and used flexibility to their advantage when creating spaces to support their company’s growth and overall mission.

In a collaborative event with iOffice, IFMA Westchester/Hudson Valley and NYC, Mike Petrusky of iOffice and the podcast host moderated a webinar discussion with Michelle Fritsche at Regeneron and BAM’s Dan Castner.

We welcome you to listen to the podcast for exciting insights about how Regeneron and BAM partnered to design flexible facilities to support Regeneron’s continued growth.

Listen to the podcast here.

Disruptive Technology – How is the Industry Adapting?

Ross Cole, Principal of BAM Architecture Studio, served as a featured panelist for the New York Build 2019 conference on the topic Disruptive Technology – How is the Industry Adapting?

One of the greatest successes at BAM is that we encourage people to play with technology. It’s the most likely way to find the magic and get reluctant people to adopt. Right now, we’re playing with VR and Augmented Reality to see how it may be more intuitive in the design process. For us, this means figuring out how to make VR look like an early sketch instead of a finished project – as the successful finished project takes many hours, weeks, and months to become a beautifully built space.

At BAM, weaving the varied passions and talents of our team into our daily practices has led to success not only with our clients, but also our culture. Our technology leaders are architectural and interior designers who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the tools available to enhance the design process. Each technology leader focuses on three key objectives:

1. Search for and evaluate new technology
2. Determine why BAM should consider the technology, and how it will improve our design work flow and project delivery both internally and for our clients
3. If BAM adopts it, be a champion to promote and educate BAMMERs about the technology for consistent company-wide use

In addressing technology externally, BAM seeks consultants, contractors and vendors who are also technology adapters. For BAM, it fosters smooth collaboration and a more efficient process when all firms are able to “speak the same language” while designing and building.

As BAM builds our technology toolbox, our technology leaders look for tools, equipment, and programs that are likely to be widely adopted rather than momentarily popular or new to the market with an unsure longevity. This doesn’t mean our team lags behind – it means the BAM team is consistently aware of programs and trends, and looks for clues to see if a given technology is embraced by a critical mass of the world to stay in existence.

BAM Los Angeles On the Move!

With our expanding team and growing project list, BAM is pleased to announce that our LA office is moving!

We’re excited to relocate to a larger space within the same building.

As of April 5, 2019, BAM Los Angeles will be located at:

453 South Spring Street
Suite 408
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Come visit BAM Los Angeles at our new home!

BAM Community

In addition to her role as BAM principal, Pamela Cole is a certified yoga instructor and shares her passion for yoga with the office.

Each yoga session has a theme, and the theme for the recent sessions focused on BAM community.

Pamela opened the yoga session by explaining the origins of the name BAM. BAM does not stand for anything – it is not the initials of the founders nor is it the name of any one person. Instead, we are BAM, and it symbolizes the talented and inspiring people that comprise our team.

Above are two yoga moves that Pamela has introduced to our team over the January and February yoga sessions. Much like BAM’s approach to projects, successful execution requires strong communication, trust in those around you, and smooth collaboration.

BAM’s community yoga was featured on Defy Daily.

Thank you, Pamela, for providing an opportunity for reflection and team bonding.

Improving Experiences Through Design: Yale Teen Center

Do your little bit of good where you are.
It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
– Desmond Tutu, Emeritus Archbishop

BAM’s goal is to contribute to making the world a better place through the power of design, and we are proud to celebrate the completion of the new Teen Center at Yale New Haven Health. The new center is the resulting collaboration between Yale New Haven Health, The Who’s charity Teen Cancer America and Lauren Telesz, a cancer survivor whose passion raised a majority of the project’s funding.  The funding was supplemented by a long-term donor to Yale.

An exciting expansion at Yale New Haven Health, this center focuses on the needs of a unique and often overlooked demographic – teenage cancer patients. At its core, the Lauren Telesz Smilow Teen Center is a place for hospital bound teens and young adults to go to do what people that age want to do… socialize, explore, imagine, and grow.

Everyone at BAM is proud to be part of the team involved to make this dream a reality.

Teen Cancer America features the opening on their website, here.

We welcome you to view the gallery below, which features photos from the ribbon cutting ceremony and additional photos of the space.

Ribbon cutting photo © Yale New Haven Health.
All other photos are © Albert Vecerka / Esto.

Happy Holidays from BAM Architecture Studio!

From BAM to you, warm wishes for a joyous holiday season!