Announcements
August 18, 2025
Atlanta’s New Corporate and Commercial Leader: Q&A with James Puckhaber
What do you want future clients and team members to know about your experience, expertise, and how you work?
I feel very fortunate to have worked on a whole array of ambitious projects where design excellence was not just a goal but a requirement. Having worked with great client partners throughout my career, good design was never something we snuck in there or simply got away with—it was intrinsic to the process from the beginning.
I think that has shaped my career and how I approach complex design challenges. When I am leading, I believe in taking a hands-on approach, and am always ready to lend a hand, especially when difficult issues arise. This means leveraging the talents of everyone else on the team and creating a cohesive process, from design to delivery.
How important is interdisciplinary collaboration?
The more experience I gain, the more I appreciate the value of collective expertise. Great design and successful project execution depend on tapping into the deep knowledge of colleagues and consultants across disciplines. Collaborating earlier and more intentionally allows you to avoid second guessing and prevent challenges down the line.
Ensuring the team is aware and aligned on project goals is essential. This creates a balance where everyone can contribute autonomously and creatively while staying united in moving the design toward a shared vision.
What is your design superpower?
Recognizing that sometimes the best designs are the simplest, distilling complexity into clarity. I’m always a voice for not making it more complicated than it should be—ensuring an elegant design, the best product for the client, and the most efficient solution should be at the forefront of the process.
A hallmark of great architecture is that it feels right for its setting—inevitable, even. Capturing a sense of subtlety in our work can create a place where people want to be.
How can that apply to design of office buildings?
There’s a welcome shift when it comes to how we think about office spaces. Office buildings used to be some of the worst culprits, where they were designed to just put chairs and desks in, and the real architectural effort was put into making the exterior a prestige building in the city.
In the last decade and a half, people have understood that offices are about people and focus on their experience in the space. The exterior is always still important, but we are more aware of creating a high-performance, multifunctional workplace, that allows for flexibility and collaboration.
