If you want to get specified for the biggest and best commercial interior projects in 2023, your target is likely to be the top 100 interior design firms. Simple, right? Let’s go for the biggies. And if you want to find out who those firms are, it could not be simpler: a quick search in your favourite search engine will provide all the lists you need. For this article, we’ll use the Interior Design Giants Top 100 for reference as it’s backed by real revenue numbers and it also gives a breakdown by sector eg hospitality projects, residential projects etc.
So, now you have your list. And it’s a great list – well researched and everything. But no matter how much you look at it and start getting excited about some of the big numbers next to those firms, it doesn’t get you any closer to the action. Because you need to get behind the list. Behind the company names that you are chasing and you need to break it down: find the right regional people eg America’s top interior design firms. Then you need a name. You need the decision maker.
Perseverance, consistency, natural charm and some luck with timing may eventually get you a conversation. Then what? Your best sales pitch in 5 minutes flat? We know it’s tempting – you’ve come so far. But you know that’s not the way. You believe in your products. And that has to be where it starts. But even if you make the very best of whatever it is in your sector and you have a team behind you who will back you all the way, the sale is a long way off. Because you don’t know enough yet. You don’t know enough about them and they don’t know enough about you. And until they get the right signals that you could be someone they can work with. That you understand their challenges, their aspirations and frustrations. That you’re reliable. That they can trust you. Only then will their world open start to open up to you.
Commercial Interior projects – it’s a relationship business
You know it’s all about the relationships. And without them, your quest to get specified for those commercial interior projects will remain an elusive one. So, you need to meet these people. Get yourself and your products in front of them somehow. And here’s your lifeline: if you want to get closer to the real decision makers from the world’s largest architecture and design firms, there is a way. The hard work has been done. The top architecture and design firms have been identified. The decision makers have been spoken to. Their attendance is guaranteed. The large-scale interior projects are real and many. And a strictly limited number of suitably qualified manufacturers are sending their best people to meet them.
America’s top architecture and interior design firms in one place
Arc Interiors delivers North America’s most influential architects and interior designers from the top A&D firms on neutral ground, with time and opportunity to meet every single one of them. It is NOT a trade show. It's a business meetings forum. What the ‘f’ is a forum, you might ask? All is explained here. For now, let’s just say it’s about who comes, the projects they represent and the quality of access you have to them.
Here's a snapshot of America’s top architecture and design firms who are already confirmed for Arc Interiors, September 21-24. 2023, including job titles. Numbers next to the firms indicate their ranking in the top 100 interior design firms:
Gensler (1)
Principal, Mixed-Use Leader, Studio Director
Jacobs (2)
Design Principal, Interiors West
Interiors Design Principal
Perkins & Will (3)
Interior Design Principal
Principal
Managing Principal, Workplace
Associate Principal, Workplace Leader
AECOM (4)
Principal, Interiors Practice Leader
Associate Vice President
Principal | Associate Vice President, Interiors Practice Lead: NE Region
Design Director
HOK (5)
Senior Design Principal, Interiors
Director of Interiors
Principal, Director of Interiors
Principal, Director of Design, Interiors
IA Interior Architects (6)
Principal
Managing Director
Nelson Worldwide (8)
Design Director
CannonDesign (9)
Associate Vice President
HDR (11)
Principal
Interior Design Principal
Interior Design Practice Director
Interior Design Principal
Design Principal
Please note the companies and job titles. Now think about the effort and expense of just trying to get in front of this number and quality of buyer under your own steam. Starting to make sense?
Commercial interior projects throughout America and beyond
Every architect and designer who attends Arc Interiors must evidence a portfolio of live, confirmed commercial interior projects or they don’t make the cut. These are the people driving America’s biggest commercial interior projects and they have the clout to decide who gets specified and who doesn’t. And it’s the scale of these projects that makes this so compelling. Here is a small sample from the 100s of interior projects our ‘buyers’ represented at Arc Interiors last year:
Project Name – Town, State, Country – Size (sq ft) – Completion - Type
Youtube - San Bruno, CA, USA - 500,000 - 2025 – Commercial
Google KU South - Kirkland, WA, USA - 280,000 - 2023 – Commercial
160 Front Street West - Toronto, ON, Canada - 1,200,000 - 2023 – Commercial
Sentry Insurance Corporate Headquarters Renovation - Stevens Point, WI, USA - 350,000 - 2023 – Com
Lockheed Martin Corporation - Highlands Ranch, CO, USA - 210,000 - 2022 – Commercial
Bristol Myers Squibb 9 Roszel Road - Princeton, NJ, USA - 120,000 - January 2022 – Commercial
Multi use Project - Bangkok, Thailand - 3,000,000 - 2026 - Mixed Use
Culdesac Denver - Denver, CO, USA - 1,700,000 - 2024 – Residential
UNA Residential Tower - Miami, FL, USA - 680,000 - 2025 - Residential
Hurley Place - Denver, CO, USA - 450,000 - 2023 - Mixed Use
Denver Housing Authority - Denver, CO, USA - 300,000 -
2022 - Residential
USSS Workplace Study - Washington DC, DC, USA - 600,000 – Planning
The project list for Arc Interiors 2023 is being compiled right now. If you want to be among the first to see it when it’s published, ask Charlie to put you on the list: enquiries@bondevents.com
3 days with America’s commercial interior project leaders
In order to prise America’s most in-demand interior designers and architects away from their projects and offices, we need to make it worth their while. So, BOND have devised an intensely productive program of one-to-one meetings with best-of-breed manufacturers, AIA-approved seminars and an abundance of networking where these time-pressured project leaders can catch up with their peers and get to know the attending solutions experts properly. It allows America’s top architects and interior designers to pack a year’s worth of information gathering and inspiration into just 3 days. It’s also a lot of fun.
So, if you want to get closer to the people behind America’s Top 100 Interior Design firms and you have some interesting solutions that could help them deliver what their exacting clients want, you may have found your platform.
For more info. on who’s coming, how it works and what you can expect to achieve at America’s leading interior design forum, just ask Charlie: enquiries@bondevents.com
