Flad Architects

Flad Architects is a Madison, Wisconsin firm founded in 1927 that concentrates on science, healthcare and academic buildings, with a long track record in laboratory and research facility design. Flad is co-designer with BHDP Architecture of the University of Kentucky’s $285 million Agricultural Research Building, a 263,000-square-foot Lexington facility due to complete in November 2026. That project combines wet and dry research laboratories, advanced teaching labs and a rooftop greenhouse complex supporting animal science, entomology, horticulture, plant science, plant pathology and soil science research. The firm works nationally from multiple offices and handles architecture, interiors, planning and laboratory programming for university, health system and life science clients.

Flad Architects operates as what the firm calls one firm in multiple locations, with ten U.S. offices, in Atlanta, Boston, Gainesville, Madison, New York, Raleigh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Tampa, sharing research, planning and design resources on a single national platform. Laura Serebin, AIA, LEED AP, serves as president and chief executive officer.

The firm organizes its practice around seven service lines: architecture, interior design, planning and consultation, innovation and analytics, sustainable design, structural engineering, and landscape architecture. Its interior design team describes its process as data-driven, using post-occupancy evaluations and a benchmarking database to shape spaces for occupant well-being and staff retention. Planning and consultation work spans strategic visioning through specialized laboratory and medical facility programming, drawing on space-utilization studies and change-management consulting.

Flad’s client list beyond its healthcare and academic laboratory work includes Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ biopharmaceutical campus expansion, the University of California, Berkeley’s Clean Energy Campus, a manufacturing facility for Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Argonne National Laboratory’s Materials Design Laboratory, Indiana University’s Simon Hall, North Carolina State University’s Plant Sciences Building, and a research building for the Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

The firm has pledged to three sustainability commitments, the AIA Architecture & Design Materials Pledge, the AIA 2030 Commitment and the SE 2050 Commitment, and shares that work internally through a Design Impact Toolkit and project-level sustainability champions. Flad also runs an Emerging Professionals Group to support staff through licensure and early-career development.