Buro Happold and brightspot: One Year Anniversary of Joining Forces

Building on decades of growth and success, Buro Happold and the higher-education consultancy brightspot strategy joined forces one year ago to create an integrated team of experts to help solve the weighty and complex challenges impacting colleges and universities today. 

Over the last year, together with Buro Happold brightspot has helped a range of clients create more engaging, equitable, and sustainable experiences for their students, employees, and visitors. Some highlights include: 

• We developed the program for a leading professional school to grow more effectively and efficiently. By renovating their space to use it more effectively they’ll grow by 20% over the next 10 years while avoiding building a new 186,000ft2 building, save $99.5 million and 19,000 metric tons of carbon
• We developed 2030 sustainability action plans for both Northwestern University and for global retailer by mapping and meeting with a broad range of stakeholders, completing their first Scope 3 GHG inventory, creating an interactive dashboard, and identifying actions to meet carbon, materials, and supply chain goals 
• We worked on the vision, programming, and planning of a medical education building and a translational research building which will anchor an innovation district in Charlotte as part of a unique partnership between Wake Forest School of Medicine and Atrium Health 
• We built on our long history of more than a dozen strategic planning engagements with the Smithsonian to create the vision and identify the priorities for support space and public-facing programs for their Dulles Collections Center 
• We conducted a market study for new joint Public Administration degree and certificate programs between Claremont Lincoln University and The Lincoln Institute to inform their enrollment strategy and academic planning

Reflecting on and celebrating the first year anniversary of brightspot joining Buro Happold, it was the start of an exciting new chapter of international growth and broadening our offer to clients. brightspot remain leaders in solving the complex challenges impacting colleges and universities today and together we are justly proud of the positive impact we create for clients, bridging institutional vision with implementation.”

James Bruce
Chief Executive Officer, Buro Happold

Here’s what our client had to say: 

“We wanted something much more than a typical market study. brightspot and Buro Happold delivered. Our project was unique, involving an online university and a private operating foundation in testing the profiles of a distinctive group of working adults. brightspot worked quickly and seamlessly to help Claremont Lincoln University and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to develop a new online MPA program. The market study was invaluable in our understanding of who the learners are, what they want to learn, how they want to learn, how many prospective learners there are, and what the tuition should be. The team had the insight and flexibility we needed as a new partnership, and now we’ve enrolled our first classes of students on their way to leading social change.”  

Lynn Priddy
President, Claremont Lincoln University

brightspot’s skillset in higher education are key to assisting North American campus clients in some of the most difficult challenges today.  Buro Happold + brightspot together are expanding our reach into areas of decarbonization, health/wellness and overall economic planning efficiency.”

Craig Schwitter
Senior Partner, Chair of the Global Board

Internal Team Growth   

During the pandemic, brightspot transitioned from a single New York office to having team members located throughout the US. Now that we embraced having a distributed team, we have been able to recruit from a broader and better talent base. In the past year, we have built a more diverse, inclusive team in terms of life experience, background, race, and geography. We know this leads to better ideas, stronger performance, and greater impact for our clients and partners. 

We look forward to building on the success of the last year together and a future in which we scale up to have greater impact, and we integrate complementary services in sustainability, economics, and technology that help us more fully and holistically help our clients create best-in-class experiences not only for students, but for researchers, employees, visitors, patients, travelers, and fans alike.”  

Elliot Felix
Partner, Buro Happold and Founder, brightspot strategy

Looking Ahead 

brightspot is focused on the impacts that Covid-19 has had on higher education and how universities and colleges are planning for the future. We know from the 2021 Campus Facilities Inventory – conducted by brightspot in collaboration with the Society for College and University Planning – that 48% of institutions plan to create more cultural / affinity group spaces in the next year, 62% plan to create more flexible/unassigned space for staff workspaces, and 25% plan to convert lecture halls to allow for in-person and virtual learning.