Westgroup Designs Named One Of The Top 3 Best Places To Work

Westgroup Designs Named One Of
The Top 3 Best Places To Work 2020

For the third time, Westgroup Designs is honored to be named as one of the top Best Places to Work in 2020 by the Orange County Business Journal.

Placing in the top 3 on the list, Westgroup Designs was selected for its quality of Leadership and Organization, Company Culture and Overall employee Trust and Satisfaction. Westgroup Designs dedicates this award to each and every one of its resourceful, collaborative employees who provides the value offered to our clients and project partners every day, who embody the firm’s values with compassion and integrity, and who approach every day with a great attitude, team spirit, passion for design and enthusiasm for discovery.

This county-wide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Orange County, California, benefiting the county’s economy, its workforce and businesses. The ranking of the winning organizations was issued in a special section of the Orange County Business Journal’s October 26th issue.

About Westgroup Designs Westgroup Designs (WD) is a comprehensive Architecture, Planning, Interior Design and Branding firm headquartered in Irvine, California, with both National and International clients and projects. Founded in 1989, WD is a woman-owned business that values excellence; certain that the best results come from a strong partnership with clients, and high-quality work is a culmination of attitude & approach, enthusiasm for discovery and passion for design. WD leverages design as a tool to help clients achieve organizational goals and strengthen business outcomes. The firm’s expertise includes projects in Education, Commercial, Civic, Retail, Health & Wellness and Lifestyle sectors, from tenant improvement and renovation to new multi-story buildings and campuses.  

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Westgroup Designs Honored With AIA Design Award For INDA Academy

Westgroup Designs Honored With AIA Design Award For INDA Academy

Westgroup Designs (WD) received a Merit Award for its design of INDA ACADEMY, at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Orange County Chapter Design Awards Gala, presented virtually on October 1st.

The project is a 25,000 square foot, Pre-K to 6 educational facility for the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD), focused on the goal of creating an inclusive 21st century neighborhood school with an innovative DREAMS curriculum (Design, Research, Engineering, Arts, Math and Science).

Citing the project’s sustainable concept for Adaptive Reuse and design quality, the AIA Jurors unanimously celebrated this project:

The design is well-considered, thoughtful, and nicely executed, including a playful slide that descends along the side of the building. Another great embodied carbon story that encourages the reuse of existing structures.”

The design team delivered a unique solution that would facilitate progressive hands-on learning for 225 students a year, and understand how this solution would enhance the community, leveraging the local climate to support indoor/outdoor educational activities with glazed retractable walls and highly flexible interior spaces. As part of the resilient design concept, WD focused on creating a healthier building, updating the design of the building skin, adding operable windows and a new ventilation system which exceeds energy requirements by 30% and provides 100% outside air for healthier indoor air quality. 

Our responsibility as architects is to both dream and to build responsibly, Westgroup Designs Principal, Dr. Shazad Ghanbari said. “ This will be a transformational environment; an example for our next generation of emerging technology and learning experiences.”

See Project Portfolio Here

Westgroup Designs CEO, PariSima Hassani, receives Globe St. Women Of Influence 2020 Award

Westgroup Designs CEO, PariSima Hassani, receives Globe St. Women Of Influence 2020 Award

Congratulations to Westgroup Designs (WD) Founder and CEO PariSima (Sima) Hassani on receiving this incredible honor, celebrating Women who have made a distinctive mark in Commercial Real Estate. Growing the firm’s expertise, over the last several decades, to include substantial work in commercial, education, civic, healthcare and lifestyle sectors, Sima affirms that WD values excellence, believing the best results come from a strong partnership with their clients, leveraging design as a tool to help clients achieve organizational goals and strengthen business outcomes. With more than $535 million in successful projects in their portfolio, it’s no wonder that Westgroup Designs has an 80% return-client ratio. The firm is also proud of its commitment to education and diversity of staff, comprised of 50% women and 60% minority, with 75% of professionals licensed in their fields.

Please join us in celebrating Sima and this achievement!
See original publication here. 

PariSIma Hassani Women of Influence

Learn more about us.

Meet Our Team

WFH Wellness Challenge

WFH Wellness Challenge

After 6+ weeks working from home, many are eager to reunite with their colleagues, while some are getting comfortable with connecting remotely. The common denominator is managing change. Staying connected while away makes transitioning back into the office smoother, and for those who will remain a zoom call away, it allows them to feel like an active part of the team.

Our WFH (Westgroup From Home) Wellness Challenge has enlivened and engaged our staff to get and stay connected like never before…and now we’re sharing our secret sauce with all of you! Each Week our WFH Wellness Challenge provides inspiration, a sense of camaraderie and friendly competition, as well as opportunities to be your best self! Weekly goals involving sharing healthy habits, self-care, energy builders, sustainability, environmental resilience, stress relief and creativity earn participant points toward a WD charity donation and, of course, winner’s bragging rights for the week! Staff completes their goal forms and submits them with any photos of their activities; they also post some of these on our Instagram and tag @WestgroupDesigns for some online promo! Sharing the weekly updates with these great submissions serves as a scrapbook of the success along the way, which we will be continuing to do, sharing this at our quarterly all staff celebrations!

Now its YOUR TURN! We’re providing our custom template of our WFH Challenge for you to use with your staff and teams. Have fun with it, and feel free to tag @WestgroupDesigns with your photos…we may just feature YOU and your inspiring activities in an upcoming post!

DOWNLOAD OUR WELLNESS WORKSHEET HERE!

Wellness Eblast

Celebrating Earth Day, Every Day, From Home

Celebrating Earth Day, Every Day, From Home

Sustainable and resilient strategies, for their places and spaces, is a priority that we share with our clients and project partners. As our team, along with all of you, celebrates the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, in support of the efforts to protect our environment, thinking globally, acting locally, we are reminded of what we can do, and continue to do, while we WFH (Westgroup From Home).

Everyone in the WD family is committed to reducing our individual carbon footprint. Here are just a few ways our team members are contributing to ecological resilience from home:

  • Growing new vegetables from scraps, including greens, onions, carrots and celery
  • Providing Nest Boxes and upcycled nesting materials in your yard for birds
  • Planting fruit trees, including citrus, pear, pomagranite and nut species
  • Upcycling natural materials for reusable totes, plant hangers, furniture
  • Planting flowers that are bee, bird and butterfly friendly for organic pollination
  • Investing in reusable water pitchers with filters in lieu of purchasing water bottles
  • Using and gifting reusable metal water bottles
  • Opening windows for fresh air and circulation in lieu of running the air conditioning or heater
  • Picking up trash and debris in your community during walks and short outings
  • Capturing rainwater for use in watering indoor plants and cleaning outdoor surfaces
  • Using eco-friendly products to support the “zero-waste” movement, including reusable food storage, bees wax paper, bamboo cleaning supplies
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Westgroup Designs Continues Service to our Clients, Project Partners and Community

3.18.2020

To our valued Clients, Project Partners, Industry Colleagues and Community,

At Westgroup Designs, our highest priority will always be the safety and well-being of our family of employees, and you, our clients, project partners and professional community.

As we monitor and navigate through the COVID-19 situation, we have employed a work plan to continue providing service which, for the time-being, will include eliminating non-urgent travel, minimizing in-person contact, employing our advanced technology capabilities to work remotely, conducting virtual meetings and maintaining our secure file-sharing methods. Our technology infrastructure already utilizes a platform with seamless, remote support for our team, so we will continue working without interruption.

Staying connected as an industry and community is more important than ever, so our steadfast commitment to all of you will not change.

As such, we will continue to provide the service and care you have come to expect from our professional team. We are also monitoring the activity of local agencies and jurisdictions and will continue to share best practices and updates with our fellow industry professionals, as we weather this storm together.

May you all remain safe and well as we collectively and pro-actively address this rapidly changing situation in an unprecedented environment. We encourage all to take the necessary health precautions to protect yourself and your family. To learn more, please visit the CDC at cdc.gov, or your local Health department.

See the full press release here.

Building Civic Pride for Downey Community

Building Civic Pride for Downey Community

Above is a sneak peak of the first of 4 new Fire Stations, for the City of Downey, nearing completion. WD created each of these unique facilities to serve the dedicated men and women of the Downey Fire Department who strive to deliver the highest quality of service to the expanding needs of their community every day. The thoughtful design of these buildings and their environments represent a great new experience for these first-responders and support staff which will significantly increase the functionality and flexibility of their space, firefighter comfort and parity across stations; along with an enhanced civic presence and identity.

Learn more about this project

WD’s La Quinta High School Auditorium Sets The Stage for Untapped Learning Opportunities

WD’s La Quinta High School Auditorium Sets The Stage for Untapped Learning Opportunities

Nearing completion, the auditorium Westgroup Designs created for the Garden Grove High School La Quinta campus is a multi-functional venue for daily use by teachers, students and the community. The auditorium is an important space in any high school fortunate to have one. It is used for all types of engagement from plays, concert performances and ceremonies to informational school assemblies. These varied events place a range of demands on the room. For every use, it is essential that everyone in the room hear everything presented, which puts a great deal of focus on appropriate acoustics. With the revamping and restricting of so many classrooms to move away from traditional rows of desks, it becomes clear that tapping into the auditorium is a great opportunity to let learning take center stage! Students can act out history lessons and world events; teachers can engage groups to read aloud to classmates, guest speakers can have a captive audience to inspire the next generation. We’re excited just thinking of all of the creativity to be generated in this multi-functional environment!

The auditorium building is slated to be complete at the end of February, 2020.

WD Spreads Holiday Cheer to Orange County At-Risk Youth

WD Spreads Holiday Cheer to Orange County At-Risk Youth

It is the most wonderful time of the year! Each year, Westgroup Designs is delighted to continue participating in programs which benefit and support our community’s at-risk youth in Orange County. Through Share Our Selves and WeCare, both social services organizations that focus on outreach to those in need, we delivered holiday cheer to children and their families!

WD participated in the annual We Care event, sponsored by Herman Miller, benefiting the Boys & Girls Club of Tustin. We Care allows children to let their creativity shine by making holiday gifts for their family, teachers and friends at a variety of craft stations. For many of the children, this is the only way they can provide gifts to their loved ones. This year we created Edible Snowmen; a clever and creative craft that includes a warm pair of gloves the gift recipient can wear all season long!

We are also honored to continue participating in the Share Our Selves Adopt-A-Family program, celebrating its 50th year supporting many struggling families by providing gifts and food for the holidays. This year, more than 1,440 families and 4500 children, recommended by Costa Mesa and Santa Ana organizations and schools, would not normally receive gifts or have enough food for the holidays. Through the generous donations of WD staff and our firm, another family will experience joy, comfort and the relief of knowing that so many care, and together we all help to transform our community.

October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of year that is dear to our hearts at WD.

October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of the year that is close to our hearts at WD.

We continue to support the cause, honoring all that are affected, by giving back through community philanthropy!

Most recently, WD collaborated with Common Thread for the Cure, the nonprofit organization that provides assistance to breast cancer patients and survivors, to design these custom wine labels using this year’s theme: “The Warrior Within”. The selected wine labels will be produced on two wine varietals and proceeds from the sales, by Russian River Winery, fund the grants provided to persons fighting the battle and their families, and to lend a voice to ongoing support efforts. Learn more about their work here.

Many thanks to our Sponsor, Bobby Trujillo and Global Furniture Group for the support and partnership!

Copyright Westgroup Designs 2015. All Rights Reserved
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