RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

How do transformations in the world around us influence future directions in architecture? This question lies at the core of PROTOinc’s office and research culture, with a focus on three key areas.

mobility

How we move fundamentally affects how we (should) build.
Informed by 15 years of experience in the automotive and transportation sectors, PROTOinc is constantly examining the future effects of mobility on the built environment, particularly given the transformative influence of electrification. Historically, advances in transportation technology have had unintended, widespread effects on the built environment. Through a better understanding of changing patterns of use, we seek a more symbiotic evolution for the rapid transformations currently underway: architecture that not only adapts to but also helps to shape the future of mobility. Our mission is to shape tomorrow’s spaces to seamlessly accommodate the ever-evolving landscape of mobility in all its forms. Let’s move!

WOrking Processes

Innovating workplaces beyond the office
While the knowledge-based economy tends to emphasize office design, our audience is more diverse: “workplace” for our clients covers a broad range of retail, R&D, recreation, industrial, maker-space, maintenance/utility, and yes, office activities. But this goes beyond spatial outcomes; we’re equally curious about the processes that make our society productive, and allow our clients to be innovators in their respective fields. There’s much we can learn from the intricacies of work processes and protocols, seeking to understand the unique dynamics of each industry — and each client — we serve. In turn, these processes may be borrowed and re-tooled in order to create new architectural opportunities. In a rapidly evolving world where the definition of work itself is transforming, we see this change as fodder for architectural innovation.

ART & INDUSTRY

Transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary
Casting an artful eye towards the techniques and output of mass production, we seek new opportunities to enrich the most commonplace and overlooked corners of our built environment. At the heart of our approach is the belief that the ordinary can be a canvas for the remarkable. Embracing the techniques and off-the-shelf products of mass production in an experimental fashion, we reimagine their potential in architectural contexts. Based on our experiences of closely collaborating with local artists, combining these two ways of making — of thinking — make for a potent and fertile source of new ideas, new methods, new prototypes. By marrying the efficiency and rigor of industry with the creativity of art, we create spaces that emerge from yet transcend the ordinary, reassuringly familiar yet provocatively fresh.