Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic hurdles, Houston-based PBK continued to grow in 2020 thanks to a steady project workload and some strategic partnerships.

For nearly four decades, PBK has served clients in education, healthcare, sports and corporate business. The firm has more than 550 employees across 17 offices in the U.S., seven of those in Texas.

Across the five-state region of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, PBK grew its regional revenue by $17 million in 2020 in part thanks to projects that were awarded to the firm in 2020 through bond funds and referendums from prior years.

In fall 2020, PBK added a strategic partnership to its national alliances of learning environment specialists: PBK-WLC. This partnership aims to bring best-in-class planning and design services for learning environments.

One of PBK’s initiatives at the moment relates to designing schools with outdoor learning environments. One such project is The Early Childhood Center Project for Alief Independent School District (ISD), which broke ground in late April. During the design process, the team established goals for the project including using the building and site as a teaching tool, scale and age-appropriate design for prekindergarten students, connection of children with nature and focus on indoor and outdoor learning. The concept of the golden ratio and spiral serves as inspiration for the project and will serve as a benchmark for decisions throughout the project.

The firm’s other recent projects include the $145 million Conroe ISD High School, $133 million Chapparal High School for Killeen ISD, and the $75 million Bellaire High School for Houston ISD.

Despite COVID restrictions limiting some community outreach efforts, PBK’s team has remained active in providing virtual mentoring to students at several client school districts, and also hosted virtual career days with graduating classes this year. In addition, PBK is the sole Angel Sponsor of Journeyman International (JI), a non-profit that designs green humanitarian facilities, providing financial means and professional architectural support to support these projects.

Check out more about PBK’s achievements in the May 31 print issue of ENR Texas & Louisiana!