Corgan—Echo

Good design is sustainable design.

Large Firm, Profound Responsibility

Corgan is a global architecture and design practice known for its people-centric approach, technical expertise, and commitment to clients, communities, and the environment. We strive to design built ecologies that are in harmony with the natural ecology. We believe that such an approach allows both humans and nature to thrive alongside each other.

For both our own spaces and those we create with our clients, Echo moves beyond minimizing harm toward achieving net-positive outcomes. By exploring emerging technologies, materials, and performance strategies, our team works to push the boundaries of what responsible design can achieve — translating insight into action at every stage of a project.

Our work is rooted in advancing resilient, equitable, and regenerative design solutions that strengthen communities and create lasting benefits for people and the planet, ensuring that each project contributes to a healthier, more sustainable future.

From Design to Strategy

Core Services

At Corgan—Echo, we take a holistic approach to delivering sustainable and regenerative designs for our clients, integrating strategic planning, integrated design support, and consulting and advisory services to drive meaningful impact across each stage of a project’s lifecycle from design though construction, operation, and end of life.

Echo Brochure

Integrated Design

At its core, Echo supports designers, contractors and building users to make informed decisions and meet project-level sustainability objectives and performance targets. This support includes environmental design analysis, modeling, and technical guidance to support
higher energy efficiency, increased renewable energy, reduced embodied carbon, enhanced occupant comfort, and increased adaptability and resilience to climate change.

Building performance design optimization

Performance design analysis including solar and wind studies to implement passive design strategies for thermal and visual comfort, building massing and façade articulation for enhanced performance.

Urban scale sustainability, resilience and adaptation

Strategies for urban design intervention to mitigate climate change impacts while maintaining sustainable design integration at scale. Design integration of green infrastructure and technology for future urban centers.

Outdoor comfort

Built environments often comprise outdoor and semi-outdoor spaces. Design strategies for airflow, solar protection, and material selection in addition to building forms can help create comfortable outdoor spaces for occupants.

Consulting & Advisory

Echo's consultancy and advisory services include supporting the integration and delivery of sustainable development frameworks, obtaining third-party certifications such as LEED, and developing and executing management plans to deliver specific objectives such as whole-life net zero carbon and climate change adaptation and resilience.

Third party certification

Successfully managing the delivery of certification schemes such as LEED, BREEAM, ILFI LBC, WELL, FITWELL, and others require an integrated coordination effort across the project value chain.

Whole building life cycle assessment

LCA studies assess embodied carbon through all life stages of material and product sourced for a project.

Post-occupancy evaluation

Provides a crucial feedback loop to compare a building's actual performance and user satisfaction with its original design goals, thereby informing operational optimization and future projects, ultimately driving continuous improvement.

Strategic Planning

Creating mid- to long-term sustainability and climate response plans requires an in-depth understanding of clients' priorities, stakeholder engagement, and analysis of opportunities and constraints. An interactive process with the clients helps create a roadmap that can guide an organization to achieve its long-term climate and sustainability goals.

Sustainability frameworks, development and guidance

Clients may opt to create bespoke frameworks. Such frameworks help align project and organizational goals and KPIs and achieve regenerative ‘net positive’ outcomes.

Decarbonization plans

Developing building and/or campus scale strategies and pathways aligned with our client’s carbon reduction priorities, goals and targets.

Climate change adaptation and resilience plans

Creating mid- to long-term strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change risks for organizations, buildings, campuses, neighborhoods, and cities.

Our sustainability framework

The terms “sustainable” and “regenerative” design encompasses several themes across the built environment. To manage this complexity, we have developed a simple yet comprehensive framework to guide conversations with our clients and designers. The framework consists of four key focus areas: health and well-being, climate change and resiliency, natural resources and biodiversity, and energy and carbon. As we work through each theme, the framework also helps to reinforce that everything we do at the human scale is inextricably linked to its local and global social impact.

Research & Collaborations

Echo advances sustainable design through collaborative research with both internal and external partners. Internally, the team works closely with Hugo, Corgan’s research and innovation incubator, to explore ideas and translate them into practice-ready insights. Externally, Echo collaborates with academic and industry partners to evaluate emerging technologies and building systems. Through these partnerships, Echo conducts focused research, design sprints, and feasibility studies that help integrate innovative, performance-driven solutions into real-world projects and advance sustainable design across the firm.

Understanding biogenic carbon in mass timber

The mass timber research examines the full carbon story of timber, from harvesting and species selection to slash management, while the Mass Timber Carbon Calculator translates that research into a practical tool that captures often-overlooked biogenic emissions and helps project teams make more defensible, early-stage material and sourcing decisions. Read the white paper to learn more.