BWBR has been designing buildings out of St. Paul since 1922, and it’s still best known for healthcare, education and science work across the Upper Midwest. The firm’s 200-plus staff handle architecture, interiors, planning and code consulting from offices in St. Paul, Madison and Omaha. Its industrial side is in the news now: BWBR designed Polar Semiconductor’s earlier fab addition in Bloomington, Minn., and it’s working with Mortenson on the current expansion, hanging H-frame steel on the outside face of the existing precast so crews didn’t have to work inside the operating plant. The firm is also growing east. On Nov. 2, BWBR said it had acquired Durham-based RND Architects, giving it a North Carolina office for the first time.
Ninety per cent of annual revenue comes from repeat clients. For a design firm that is the number worth leading with, and BWBR publishes it alongside 40-plus LEED accredited professionals, 200-plus employees across four offices and more than a century in practice.
Two of its six disciplines are not what you would expect to find in-house. Code consulting is one — a firm advising on code compliance as a service in its own right, rather than only clearing its own drawings. Graphic design is the other, which on a hospital or campus project means wayfinding and environmental graphics stay inside the same team that drew the building. Architecture, interiors, planning and sustainability complete the list.
The market split is narrower and deeper than a general practice: healthcare, behavioural and mental health, education, science and technology, and civic, corporate and community work. Behavioural and mental health is listed as its own market rather than folded into healthcare, and the firm has a named process behind it — Human-Centered Safety, carried as a registered trademark.
The stated design position is plain for a firm of this age: great architecture must be honest and appropriate. BWBR describes serving as a trusted advisor to client organisations often across decades, and specialises in complex, owner-occupied facilities — buildings whose operator is also the client, where the design has to survive daily use rather than a photograph.
On succession the firm is unusually direct. It notes that many organisations don’t survive beyond their founders, and says it has built a culture of developing future leaders who carry forward the predecessors’ values. The team page bears that out, listing around a dozen principals with defined remits — design manager, professional services director, science and technology practice leader, in-house counsel — alongside architects, designers, a design technology specialist and a data role.
Culture pages cover equity, outreach, internships and flexible working, each as a separate commitment rather than a single statement.
Offices are in Saint Paul, Madison and Omaha, with the firm maintaining a national practice and a published company licensing page.
