Expert Knowledge. Global Talent

Our Expertise

At Grace, we begin our design process by listening to the Client. We want to know what is important to the Client. Therefore, our first objective is to gain a clear understanding, expectations, as well as the goals for each project. Our Clients priorities become our priorities, guiding our decisions through every phase of the design process.

Designing for the best guest experience, whether it is a retirement facility, hospital, hotel, timeshare, entertainment park, or convention facility requires a comprehensive understanding of all functional spaces for owners, guests, and facility operations. Designing efficient and convenient “back of house’ service areas is critically important for supporting the best guest experience and enhancing the work attitude of the facility’s staff. Grace’s knowledge of service and support functions is based on their staff's past project experience, learning from industry leading clients, working with independent operations consultants and regularly conducting “job shadow’ exercises. These exercises allow various members of the Grace staff “hands on’ experience working in different operational areas of a completed project. This fosters both a greater sensitivity and a more meaningful understanding of the functional aspects necessary for quality design.

Quality design is the appropriate blending of function, aesthetics, technology and budget within regulatory criteria. Grace’s commitment to providing a quality design product is exemplified in our projects.

Grace’s Design philosophy is to design the best guest experience within the budget and project parameters. This philosophy is clearly evident by the diverse mix of projects we have helped create worldwide. Every project is unique not only in identifying its target market but in differentiating the product from competing projects targeting the same buyer group. Our firm specializes in creating the best guest experience design, while working in concert with the client’s marketing, operations and maintenance specialists to achieve a balanced product for the sales duration and life of the project. Many of our projects have been recognized for their design excellence, but even more important are the “owner satisfaction rating” our clients tell us they receive for the projects we have designed.

Grace’s approach to design is a proven means to achieve its philosophy of designing the best guest experience. We begin first by understanding the target market and expectation for the project. This is typically achieved in collaboration with the client and their sales and marketing specialists. Next, our team begins to define a guest experience which will differentiate itself within the marketplace while also attract the desired target market. Since parameters of design are critical elements at this stage, budget and owner price point issues assist in establishing the guest experience goals, just as site conditions, the programmed building mass, interior design, construction complexity and cost help direct the selection of a resort theme.

With the theme strategy and guest experience defined, as well as the documentation of primary design parameters, a project team workshop is conducted to confirm goals and explore focused ideas to create a comprehensive project vision that includes architecture, interior design, landscape/ area development and creative engineering. The client and his key marketing, operations and maintenance specialists ideally are participants in this session.

As the project proceeds through schematic design and phase one moves toward design development and construction documents, benchmark work sessions to confirm the guest experience goals will be conducted with the same professional/client team. This helps assure that the guest experience is not forgotten or inadvertently compromised. At Grace we believe in “design focused production” to verify design intent every step of the way resulting in quality projects which meet and often exceed the Owner’s expectations. This is what you can expect from Grace’s design process.

Equally important to the proven process is the Grace’s team members leading the effort. At Grace, we are proud of our ability to listen, learn and respond to all project team members. We believe that when everyone works for the best interest of the project, the result will be one of which we can all be proud. This sensitivity to listen while maintaining a common goal for your project enables our team at Grace to design and produce successful projects for our clients.