How An Architecture And Design Firm Brings Creativity And Intentionality Coast To Coast

Bringing a building to life involves more than just choosing materials or aesthetically pleasing designs. Attracting today’s tenants requires incorporating layouts and amenities that enhance productivity, relaxation and collaboration, helping them feel connected to the space.

One way to enhance that connectivity is to fuse elements of a neighborhood and region into the materials used, the artwork or the programming. This has been a significant focus of architecture and design firm CUBE 3, especially for its buildings on the West Coast, said CUBE 3 principal Keith Boyle. 

“This was a defining year for our West Coast practice, marked by meaningful design progress across multiple sectors,” Boyle said. “Ultimately, our goal is to continue building a West Coast presence known for design clarity, thoughtful environments and a commitment to shaping meaningful places.”

In a conversation with Bisnow, Boyle shared the firm’s collaborative and creative approach to designing West Coast spaces, how it enhanced its brand awareness in the region, and its plans for the coming year.

Bisnow: How has CUBE 3 responded to architecture and design trends on the West Coast?

Boyle: In the West Coast, we see a strong emphasis on creating a human-centered environment and spaces that merge wellness, biophilic design and hospitality-level detailing into everyday living. Material honesty, highly activated ground floors, and amenity spaces that feel more like boutique spaces than typical residential programs are becoming the rule rather than the exception.

CUBE 3 has been pushing deeper into the human element of design. This can include elevating material palettes, designing flexible amenity suites and crafting highly efficient units where natural light, proportion and flow are foundational. Our teams continue to lead conversations on passive strategies, low-carbon systems and thoughtful exterior massing to create buildings that are resilient and expressive and are contextually relevant to their setting. The collaboration between our San Diego office and our four other offices ensures every project benefits from our national design ethos while staying distinctly West Coast in character.

Bisnow: Can you share some of the plans or initiatives that the firm focused on this year for the West Coast?

Boyle: In 2025, our efforts on the West Coast have centered on strengthening our design presence while expanding the CUBE 3 brand across the region. One major initiative has been to elevate brand awareness — not just through winning work but by consistently demonstrating our design voice, our process and the value of our integrated architecture and interiors capabilities. We’re intentionally showing how CUBE 3’s national experience translates into thoughtful, context-driven design for West Coast communities.

A second focus has been on leveraging our national portfolio with a distinctly regional touch. Our teams in Boston, North Andover, Princeton, Miami and San Diego are working together to bring best-in-class lessons from across the country while tailoring material palettes, amenity programs, outdoor spaces and planning strategies that feel authentically West Coast.

We’ve also continued to advance our “blurred lines approach” to project types. We use a design philosophy rooted in the belief that housing should be inspired by elements of hospitality and the workplace to build its residential context, and student living should feel connected to wellness and community. 

This cross-sector thinking has helped us serve a broader range of project types across the West Coast, from multifamily and mixed-use to campus environments and adaptive reuse.

Finally, 2025 has been a pivotal year for cross-office design collaboration. We’ve expanded shared design reviews, integrated digital workflows and strengthened our national studio model so that every project benefits from the collective creativity, technical depth and design culture of the full CUBE 3 network.

Combined, these initiatives reflect our ongoing commitment to bringing thoughtful, experience-driven design specifically in the West Coast but also nationally. We are executing all this while remaining true to the values and standards that have defined CUBE 3 nationally.

Bisnow: What were some of CUBE 3’s wins this year?

Boyle: We pursued several new mixed-use and multifamily opportunities, crafting hospitality-inspired amenity spaces, intentional interiors and expressive façades that create memorable resident experiences. 

Our team also made significant strides on campus-adjacent and student-living projects, translating our national expertise into designs that support well-being, connection and purposeful density. In the workplace and adaptive reuse space, we reimagined existing structures through natural light, outdoor terraces and flexible planning strategies that breathe new life into underutilized buildings. 

Throughout the year, we continued to strengthen long-term client partnerships, reinforcing the trust placed in our design vision and the consistency of our delivery. Collectively, these efforts reflect the design-forward, experience-driven approach we bring to every West Coast commission.

Bisnow: What are some of CUBE 3’s goals for the West Coast in 2026?

Boyle: Our goals for next year are rooted in expanding both our design excellence and our regional presence on the West Coast. We are focused on growing our design capacity in San Diego by adding talent across our architecture and interior design departments to further strengthen our regional design leadership. 

We’re also advancing our work in emerging sectors such as life sciences, urban infill housing and campus environments. Each of these offers opportunities for thoughtful, high-impact design. A major priority is elevating our project goals and approach, ensuring every commission begins with a clear conceptual framework that guides massing, materials and the overall user experience. 

At the same time, we are deepening integration across our studios so that teams from Boston to San Diego share resources, ideas and a unified design culture that sharpens our collective approach. All of our efforts are supported by the consistency, resources and collaborative DNA that define CUBE 3.

This article was produced in collaboration between Studio B and CUBE 3. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.