LPA University, also known as LPA U, is a relatively new component of the LPA culture. Our president, Dan Heinfeld, began the program as a forum to share information. By the time we moved to University Research Park (URP), the Irvine office had gotten pretty large and our Northern California office, in Roseville, was growing as well.
Since we're broken up into market segments a lot of project teams were doing new and exciting things with regards to sustainability. With this, came a lot of successes and a many lessons learned.
LPA U has become a way to distribute information to the entire firm at once, so that teams across the firm aren't struggling with something that has already been tried and tested by another group. When Jim Maclay and Kim Coffeen began their more research-based roles, LPA U became a place for them to share their findings as well.
With so many reasons to attend, here are my Top Five ...
1) Learn about the new and exciting strategies that are being employed by other project teams within the firm.
2) Experience professional growth as a sustainable design professional (I know it's redundant but you get what I mean).
3) Learn about research and design tools that are being developed in-house.
4) Q&A with experienced project teams that can assist you in applying new strategies and technologies on your projects.
5) Enjoy one of the two times out of the month that we are all together as a firm.