Photography by Crimson Sun Studios

When Iconica, a design-build company in Madison, Wisconsin, set out to revamp their 1998 office building and create a mini showroom for their clients, they asked the local Falkbuilt Branch, Meso, to bid on the project. Not only was Digital Component Construction less expensive, “it was a superior product and great customer service,” says Steve Carbin of Iconica’s Architecture + Interiors team. Meso’s list of products included Kai glass walls and doors (Falkbuilt), customer corner-wrapped Float and Wall2Wall glassboards (Clarus), and customer printed gradient decorative window films (NuVision).

“We had a lot of back and forth with the gradient film for the different conference rooms, and they were great,” he says of the commercial interior glass walls. “We’d look at the samples together, there was that attention to detail that we do with our clients that we really appreciate being on the other side of that equation. The communication was outstanding.”

Powered by Echo technology, the Iconica and Falkbuilt teams both used Autodesk Revit software in the design stage, making coordination a breeze. Steve was open to a suggestion to replace transoms above standard-height doors with full-height, 9’0” doors in all of the interior glass partitions provided by Meso. Being in the design-build construction business, providing full architectural, engineering, and general contracting services, the Iconica team was delighted with the change to the interior glass doors.

“In our world, we never get something better in a value engineer situation. What we designed was more expensive, so we got something less expensive that was more beautiful,” he says. “It was a fun start.” As the project progressed, the inevitable hiccup was “handled very professionally,” says Steve. “It was all great. We had a really nice experience.”

With the Iconica space complete, Steve is working with Meso on another project — this time in a dental office. With Falkbuilt’s extensive experience in Healthcare, the designers are able to offer more great suggestions for commercial architectural services. “They’re really good to work with, and responsible,” says Steve. “We’re design-build and we like to build long-term relationships with subcontractors.”

Here’s to the beginning of a(nother) beautiful friendship in design-build and architectural services.