Steinberg Hart, Los Angeles: Design, Relate, Change.

“We always approach design from a humanistic perspective. We design from the inside out and the outside in, constantly thinking of making lives better for users while creating structures that relate to the context in which they reside,” says Steinberg Hart Partner, Simon Ha. 

The firm’s goal, continues Ha, is to improve the human condition with every project they touch while adding value to the community it serves. “Similar to our design culture, our practice culture is to allow growth and improve at every level with an emphasis on leveraging our collective wisdom through collaboration.” 

To that end they have a lot of informal ‘pin-ups’ in addition to more formal office-wide design reviews on Fridays: two in Southern California and two in Northern California every month. The senior leadership participates in cross-office design reviews to reinforce the notion of ‘one firm’ to help execute a high level of design firmwide. 

The practice is vertically structured rather than having siloed departments for design, production and construction administration. This cross-firm structure continues into the leadership approach. 

Steinberg Hart started as a single office in Silicon Valley more than sixty years ago. When the Los Angeles office moved into the PacMutual building, it was a diamond in the rough, a beautiful historic building in need of some TLC. The space had gone through multiple iterations as a stock trading floor, a ballroom, and then a sound stage. 

The Los Angeles studio enjoys an 18-foot-ceiling with an open floorplan and large windows lining both sides of the office. “You can see the entire space from any perspective, so the visual connection of the open floorplan cues a more inclusive and connected feeling in our everyday working environment,” says Ha. 

Steinberg Hart actively encourages an entrepreneurial culture as well as participating in local philanthropic initiatives such as Canstruction, Art Swagger, 5k runs and other fun events outside of the office. Led by a principal of design excellence, which has been at the core of Steinberg Hart throughout its history, the firm has a renewed start-up company energy combined with a more than sixty-year legacy of strong work and expertise.