About
We design architecture where human experience, long-term value,
performance, and beauty are inseparable.
McLennan Design is a regenerative architecture, planning, and consulting studio, founded by Jason F. McLennan, creator of the Living Building Challenge. We imagine buildings that give back—spaces that nurture people, connect communities, and regenerate places.
Whether we are adding space, renovating an existing building, developing a campus, or starting from the ground up, we look for ways to make every decision work harder.
That means better use of resources, lower operating costs, healthier spaces, greater resilience, and more value over time—without sacrificing beauty, character, or the experience of the people who use the place.
We bring design, science, and real-world experience together to create buildings that work better today and remain valuable tomorrow.
Our work has helped turn regenerative design
from an aspiration into a measurable practice.
First Living Building Challenge project in Idaho and for the University of Idaho
University of Idaho McCall Field Campus Dining Hall
First Living Building Challenge Petal-certified project in Connecticut
HMTX World Headquarters
Washington’s first Living Building residence
Heron Hall
First arena in the world to achieve ILFI Zero Carbon Certification
(McLennan Design was Sustainability Consultant)
Climate Pledge Arena
First U.S. higher-ed STEM project to pursue ILFI Zero Energy and Zero Carbon certification, and a 2023 Holcim Awards Bronze winner
(McLennan Design was Sustainability Consultant working with Seattle Perkins&Will team leading design)
WWU Kaiser Borsari Hall
Net-zero energy transformation of a 1970s office building
ASHRAE World Headquarters
Team_Barracks
Every project begins with attention—to people, place, climate, ecology, culture, and economics.
We look for the patterns already there, then translate what we learn into architecture that is ambitious, practical, and deeply rooted in its context.
Performance is part of the design from the beginning. Energy, water, carbon, materials, landscape, and human experience are not layers added at the end. They help shape the architecture itself. Resulting in work that is: high-performing, built to last, economically rational, materially grounded, and human.
McLennan Design is the Bainbridge Island studio of Perkins&Will.
In 2022, we joined Perkins&Will—bringing together our specialized expertise in regenerative design and highly personal approach with the resources, knowledge, and reach of a global design firm.
Our focused team offers agility, close collaboration, and hands-on attention. We build each project team around the challenge, drawing on a broad network of international relationships and integrating the right expertise at the right time.
2,500+ professionals · 30+ studios · global reach
Together, we connect architecture, landscape, interiors, planning, engineering, research, and consulting. This allows us to deliver deep green transformations across project types, scales, and locations—uniting world-class design, measurable performance, and lasting social impact while staying close to the people and places we design for.
Our Studio:
A workplace that practices what we belive
Our Bainbridge Island studio occupies a restored 1911 U.S. Army stables building once used for horse-drawn carriages and coal. Vacant since the 1960s, the structure has been transformed into a net-zero energy workplace while retaining its history, character, and all 58 original roof trusses.
A high-performance thermal envelope and an 8-kilowatt rooftop solar array allow the building to operate entirely on renewable energy. Salvaged Douglas fir windows and doors, along with old-growth wood reclaimed from the adjacent Barracks building, give existing materials a new purpose.
More than our workplace, the Stables is a working example of adaptive reuse—showing how preservation, performance, and craft can give an overlooked building a meaningful second life. Its renovation is the first phase of a broader effort to restore the historic site as a lasting neighborhood asset.
During early stages of the renovation work, the entire building was lifted up to allow for new wall framing and stabilization.
Housed within a net zero historic adaptive reuse facility located on beautiful Bainbridge Island, we are a collective of architects, ecologists and engineers dedicated to creating a better world. Our tight-knit team is unified by our dedication to regenerative design, crafting sustainable spaces that seek to harmonize with the natural world.
Our Founder, Jason F. McLennan
McLennan is the founder and creator of the Living Building Challenge and is an expert in providing deep green design solutions that meet these stringent requirements. You can find the result of this work here (ILFI) and (IWBI).
Completed standards are widely available to download on these websites. Hundreds of articles on our work can be found online, and every major engineering and architecture firm use these standards.
