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Overview
Most architecture and landscape architecture collaborations fail from budget overruns, scope confusion, and territorial disputes. But Shape Architecture and Superbloom—two award-winning Denver firms sharing office space—cracked the collaboration code through systematic changes that any A&E firm can implement.
Their breakthrough came from treating collaboration as a data-driven business process. Every Monday, both teams hold all-hands priority meetings where staff project time needs against remaining fees using Monograph, then negotiate priorities and redistribute workload in real-time. Monthly staffing meetings use historical project data to project capacity weeks ahead, preventing deadline pileups. As Stacy explains: "Because we have Monograph, we can look back at every project and say, actually we do think it will take us this amount of time because we have the documentation."
They eliminated communication hierarchy through shared Slack channels and Milanote boards, so neither firm controls client communication. Most critically, they involve landscape architects from project conception, not as post-design plant consultants. This interdisciplinary approach recognizes that landscape architects handle 75% coordination work with complex underground infrastructure teams—they're the "real urban designers and master planners," not just plant selectors.
Their Bluff Lake Nature Center project proved the model. When a million-dollar sewer connection threatened budgets, traditional firms would cut landscape costs. Instead, real-time budget tracking helped them redesign collaboratively and find 20% building savings. Steve notes: "If we had designed a building then hired landscape architects to shrub it up, we'd just cut those shrubs when budget issues hit."
The bottom line: collaboration costs more upfront but creates faster decisions, better outcomes, and stronger client relationships through ego-free interdisciplinary thinking and systematic transparency.
