We are an integrated design firm with a promise to elevate the human experience through design. This fuels the work we do around the world and inspires our mission to improve the lives of our clients, our communities, and our planet. If this sparks your interest, you’re in the right place.
The best integrated design firm in the world has an opening for a Space Planner.
Locations: We are looking for individuals that could reside in the following preferred city:
Position Summary:
We are looking for a collaborative planner with a strategic mindset, focused on the future of Higher Education facility space utilization and data, and enjoy an interdisciplinary approach to projects. If you are the successful professional for this role, you will lead and grow our data-informed space planning processes for colleges and universities across the country and internationally.
This is an opportunity to work with all 28 of DLR Group’s offices within the United States. You will be part of our national Campus Planning Team, within our Higher Education Practice. You will have an integral role in our comprehensive campus and facility planning projects. You will participate in facility programming, digital tool development, research, and developing expanded services for space planning, analytics, policy, and management both nationally and with our international offices in Africa, the Middle East and China.
The successful candidate will:
- Interact and coordinate with the national DLR Group Campus Planning and Space Analytics Team, our institutional clients, and other firmwide planners to ensure the Group’s space analytics and planning are consistent with and support broader institutional and project goals and strategies.
- Provide thought leadership to elevate the Campus Planning Team, our Higher Education Practice, and DLR Group as a whole. Conduct space planning research, gather data, and document trends, strengths, and weaknesses to effectively identify Team and Client needs and opportunities.
- Ability to work collaboratively with all Carnegie Classifications and levels of management.
- Excellent organizational, planning and interpersonal skills.
- Ability to juggle multiple tasks and priorities.
- Conduct utilization and space gap analysis and identify space usage patterns across the institution, unit and department.
- Integrate space usage and capacity data with institutional key performance indicators.
- Apply state, federal, and peer-based standards.
- Integrate best practices, policies, and procedures.
- Compile, cleanse, and aggregate information to generate actionable information and related performance indicators. Provide the foundation for campus planning scenarios, facility highest and best use, and implementation strategies.
- Coordinate, collaborate, review and confirm information for required analytics, scenarios, and reports with the Provost’s office, Institutional Research, Deans and Department Chairs.
- Develop and present findings to support the client and DLR Group project goals, objectives, budget and schedule.
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Planning, Architecture, Engineering, Building Construction, Social Science or a related field where data analytics and space utilization is a critical factor.
- Minimum 2 years of experience in Higher Education Facility Space Planning.
- Ability to work across multiple time zones with a national team and clients located from Eastern to Pacific time zones and internationally, where appropriate.
- Ability to work both independently and with others to achieve project budgets, schedules, and research.
- Knowledge of best practices for facility space assessment, space analytics, and academic and student life space programming.
- General understanding of construction techniques and systems, to include facility programming and project development.
- Strength in Microsoft Office 365, PowerBI, Qualtrics, and Excel.
- Must be eligible to work in the United States without need for work visa or residency sponsorship.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Dual degree or multidisciplinary experience.
- Master's Degree or comparable experience in Campus Planning, Facilities Planning, Facilities Management, Higher Education Management or related field.
- Knowledge of space-related applicable federal, state, and peer standards.
- Knowledge of Higher Ed academic organizational structures, workflow, and operating procedures
- Experience with planning graphics software e.g. GIS, Acrobat Creative Suite.
- Experience with architectural, site, and BIM software e.g. AutoCAD and Autodesk Revit.
- Experience with institutional enterprise-level information management systems e.g. ERP, FMS, CAFM, BANNER, PeopleSoft, and ArchiBUS, etc.
- Experience with statistical sampling and survey methodology software e.g. Qualtrics.
- Experience with web-based microsites that serve the University community.
- Experience with report preparation and leadership presentations as follows:
- executive summaries
- Translating data into graphic story-telling
- Connecting short- and long-term goal setting with analysis and achievement strategies.
- Promoting space reallocation strategies
- Leading space relocation strategies.
- Reading and interpretation of building floor plans, contract documents and drawings.
DLR Group is an integrated design firm delivering architecture, engineering, interiors, planning, and building optimization for new builds, renovations, and adaptive reuse projects.
We are 100% employee-owned: every employee is invested in our clients’ success. As such you’ll enjoy the opportunity to have ownership in the Firm.
At the core of our firm are interdisciplinary teams engaged in every step of project lifecycles. Our teams champion true collaboration, open information sharing, shared risk and reward, value-based decision making, and proficient use of technology to deliver exceptional design. We are pursuing the goals of the 2030 Challenge, the ME2040, and the SE2050, and are an initial signatory of the China Accord and the AIA 2030 Commitment.
Our comprehensive Benefits at DLR Group include: medical, dental, vision, disability, wellness programs, flex spending, paid holidays, and paid time off. We also offer a 401k, employee stock ownership, and bonus opportunities. Additionally, we operate within a hybrid work model, supporting flexibility between office time and work from home.
Through our values – commitment, creativity, environmental stewardship, fun, integrity, ownership, sharing, teamwork – we elevate the human experience through design, together.
We are proud to be an EEO/AA employer M/F/D/V.
Nashville, Tennessee