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The Relationship Business

For Founder Guillaume Belgique, the risk to start Architecture Belgique has been rewarding in design, but particularly in the incredible relationships forged over the last two decades.
By Taylor Larsen

Architecture Belgique’s staff (left to right): Mallory Neuberger, Hazel Kynaston, Jeff Bean, Addasyn Everill, David Tashnek, Blake Nelson, Carl Matsen, Diana Al-Omari, Eric Balls, Steve Cobb, Mike Ackley, Alex Stoddard, Heather Cardall, Guillaume Belgique, (Not Shown) Mark Buchanan, Frank Ruano

The story of Architecture Belgique, 20 years in the making, begins with Guillaume Belgique in drafting classes at Woods Cross High School. He loved to draw and manually drafted many a design document, especially after getting his first job working under Dave Dixon at Dixon and Associates. Belgique learned the trade over his seven years at the firm, self-teaching Autocad and even graduating with a Master of Architecture from the University of Utah in 1997.


Belgique said starting this way forced him to expand his capabilities, even if it felt like being thrown to the wolves. “It was a great way to learn about architecture, clients, and construction; it was an incredible learning experience.


He then moved to ASWN and worked under Kenney Nichols, who Belgique called a great mentor and friend. Four years there gave the young architect an affinity for multi-family projects as Belgique decided to make what he hoped would be his final career move and open his own firm.


“I’m a firm believer in risk and reward,” he said. “I wanted to control my own destiny.”


In March of 2003, he incorporated Architecture Belgique and set out to deliver top-tier design to the Wasatch Front.


Fresh Vision for Nascent Firm
A part of the reason for the move was to follow a different mindset practicing architecture. 


“It’s not about us at Architecture Belgique, or our ego,” he said. “It’s about doing everything to make projects successful throughout the whole process.”


Belgique said it wouldn’t be in design alone where they would win their work, but by building solid relationships. The firm approaches the architect-client and architect-contractor dynamics as a fully committed partner willing to iron out issues and make the project succeed. The goal was to build such good rapport across the industry that they would win as much work on referral as possible.


But good intentions can only take a young firm so far. Unlike others who move firms and take clients with them for pastures new, Belgique had no clients, “I started from ground zero.”


Beginnings Old and New
With values established, things soon picked up for Belgique. He designed homes for a Park City homebuilder as the first job for the newly-minted firm. Good luck struck for his first major project, a referral from his former mentor Kenney Nichols for the Green Grove Apartments, 168 garden-style apartments in Pleasant Grove.


It was that project that connected Belgique to Carl Tippets, owner of multi-family builder Pentalon Construction, who the architect credited for getting the Architecture Belgique name into even greater esteem.


As the firm grew and Belgique needed drafting help, he kept things in network and reached out to a colleague after a volleyball tournament for architecture and design professionals. As the firm reached six people working out of the family home in West Jordan, it was apparent the firm needed its own space.


Moving Out


Starting with the first Architecture Belgique office in Murray, the firm added a couple more folks and moved to its current location on Historic Main Street in Midvale in September 2006. Belgique could see the historic architecture and character of the street and envision what the newly purchased lot and the surrounding area would become, even if the idea of what Midvale could be remained blurry.


“Many people thought I was crazy. The street didn’t look great then,” Belgique recalled. Graffiti tags, crowbar marks on the back door—someone even stole the shrubs planted outside the office within weeks of moving into the building—were all the welcome the new business received. But the firm pushed beyond that rough beginning; Belgique described them as the “OGs of Midvale” being the first to develop land on Main Street in decades.


Along the way, the firm designed the first ground up Waldorf Astoria in Park City before the recession hit, and the firm essentially had to start from scratch from a personnel perspective, shrinking down to two—Belgique and longtime employee Heather Cardall, who is still with the company today.


New Team Forms


Since recovering from such a setback, Belgique is happy where the firm is at. “We’ve got 16 people, and I love it,” he said, touching on how familiarity is a standard at the firm. “I know my employees, and I know their families.”


Dedicated, talented, committed teammates at every level of experience, Belgique said, “Everyone from the most senior to newest team members have a huge part in making our firm great." 


He credited the leaders at the firm like Alex Stoddard, Mike Ackley, and Eric Balls, the three Associates who Belgique said were on the path to partnership and will keep the firm on its upward trajectory. Belgique said with a smile, "It’s looking good for the firm for the next 100 years.”


There is a closeness to clients too, Belgique explained, where the work accomplished at the firm attracts the right people for Architecture Belgique. Repeat business is plentiful in Utah, but the relationships made have taken the firm’s design beyond the Beehive State into the Mountain West and even to Chicago, Kansas City, and other locales.

 

“We’re not used as a commodity,” he explained, “clients want to work with us. It’s those kinds of relationships that are important to me.”


More Firsts


As the firm came into its own, Belgique listed off the great work he and the team at Architecture Belgique have accomplished, reaching new heights as a firm and helping clients push new ideas into Utah.


Designing the luxurious 4th West Apartments in 2014 was a unique experience that catapulted the firm in the multi-family market. The finishes, the sheer size of it all at 493 units under one roof, “We had never done something like that,” Belgique said. “And developers trusted us to bring their vision to life.”


From 4th West, to Greenprint, an all-micro-unit project, to Project Open, Utah’s first net-zero apartment project, to Soleil Lofts, the first all-electric project that is 100% powered by on-site solar and battery storage—Architecture Belgique has been at the forefront of many “firsts” in Utah’s multi-family market.


Belgique said the real standout accomplishment has been LIHTC housing and the partnerships pushing housing affordability to the forefront.


The three phases of Project Open, the two phases of Citizens West, the monumental 823 units that make up the Village @ North Station, the upcoming HK office building adaptive re-use project, and thousands of other LIHTC units are all part of the firm’s desire to bring more members into the community.


“I think the most fulfilling aspect of what we do is knowing how many people we are helping provide housing for, especially the affordable projects we work on,” Belgique said. “We are very fortunate to be part of helping the community and fortunate to have aligned ourselves with great developers looking to make a difference.”


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    The 4th West Apartments by SALT Development was a game-changing project when it was completed in 2017 and helped fuel the firm’s rise to being recognized as an industry leader in the multi-family arena. The rooftop pool and fitness area set a new standard for amenities within the luxury apartment market in Utah.

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    SkyHouse

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    Village at North Station

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    Green Grove

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    Startup Crossing in Provo.

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Designing for a Growing Community


The transformation of the Wasatch Front has been an exciting development for Belgique and the team. Whether seeing generational projects go up around them, or designing their own, Belgique and his firm have been part of that growth.


Back in Midvale, the firm’s resident status and penchant for high quality architecture won them two multi-family projects in their own backyard—with more coming. On one of the projects, Architecture Belgique will work with Midvale’s “Main Street Upper Floor Housing Initiative, where the city’s RDA will fund up to 50% of construction costs for units on upper floors of buildings in exchange for holding units as affordable for 20 years. Called “The Court”, this mixed-use project  will bring 16 much needed affordable units to the area as it continues its renaissance.


Looking back over 20 years, the trajectory is not lost on Belgique. Starting from the basement—now he’s here, thriving with a team who have made Architecture Belgique an award-winning, client-focused firm.


“I was so fortunate to have the full support of my wife Laura from day one, and now, a group of talented and dedicated employees who are all set up to help write the firm’s history,” Belgique said, mentioning how the team’s frequent site visits to see that history play out before their own eyes. “The sky’s not even the limit anymore—we’re geared up to push boundaries, redefine creativity, and steer the firm into uncharted territory.” 

Kimley-Horn SLC Office Marks 10 Years

By By Brad Fullmer • 04 Oct, 2024
It's been a decade since Kimley-Horn, one of the nation’s top engineering and design consultancy firms, launched an office in Salt Lake, and by all accounts, the Wasatch Front market has been a boon to the civil engineering firm, with local leaders feeling highly optimistic about its future success and growth in the Beehive State. The Salt Lake office was opened by Zach Johnson in 2014, who previously spent time in three other Kimley-Horn offices including Sacramento, Orange County, and Denver, with three total people comprising the initial staff. The firm's Denver office was providing consulting services for the Utah Department of Transportation and put together a market analysis regarding expanding into its neighbor to the west. "The market analysis we put together showed we should have had an office in Utah 10 years previously [2004], so we decided to plant a flag and open an office," said Johnson, who leads the office along with seasoned Salt Lake office practice leaders Chris Bick, Leslie Morton, and Nicole Williams. Like any new start-up endeavor, it was rough sledding initially, but strong regional support and the sheer tenacity of boots-on-the-ground marketing started paying off, with explosive growth happening along the way. "I would describe the first few years as lean," said Johnson. "We had to be creative, we had to be scrappy to capture work and rely on our partners across the country, folks who had clients in Utah and rely on those relationships. Those first two to three years were about relationship building and knocking on doors that didn't always open. It was a lot of fun."

A Future Paved with Intentionality

By Taylor Larsen • 03 Oct, 2024
Nearly 90 minutes into a conversation with Dave Edwards and Bruce Fallon, the two remembered a story about the values of WPA Architecture from years before. Fallon was in talks with the principals at the firm to define values for the rest of the company. Longtime ownership, with decades of experience founding and building up their own firm, weren’t against the idea, but the idea of formalizing it all seemed inconsequential. Fallon had been a Principal with the firm for ten years and finally asked longtime Principal Alan Poulson (who retired in December 2023), ‘What motivates you?’ to which [Poulson] answered, ‘Providing for my family.’ The thought has stuck with Fallon and Edwards ever since. “It drove [Poulson] in everything he did,” Fallon said. “He was excellent in everything he did so he could provide for his family.” Now that the two lead WPA as Principals, they have looked to embrace excellence through intentionality—in purpose, relationships, and work ethic—that will lead the firm to new heights.

Art of the Grill

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024
Touring the brand name in grilling with Marbe Agee feels fitting, especially as she discussed the design concepts embodied throughout Traeger Grills’ new headquarters. Agee, a southerner and Principal at Method Studio, has helped to build Utah’s office scene by envisioning awe-inspiring commercial spaces for clients, especially here with the firm’s most recently finished work—modernizing a cluster of old buildings and turning them into a clean, 21st-century workplace. “We worked to make sure to not have brik-a-brak or gobbledy gook,” she said of the design, sprinkling our conversation with southern seasonings I haven’t heard used since my dad said “daggum” when referring to the sweltering Oklahoma heat. Committing to those design standards with plenty of existing “gobbledy gook” would be a challenge from concept to delivery. But Traeger Grills, their design team led by Method Studio, and their construction team led by Layton Construction's Interior Construction Specialists, joined forces to perfectly balance the ingredients on site with modern expertise to create a space to savor. Marinade Touring with David Knorr feels fitting, too. The Layton ICS Project Manager has a deep, gentle voice that combines with his beard and flannel shirt to make Knorr a pitmaster personified. He said he does use his Traeger grill often, but his domain is less barbecue, more building. Knorr, Agee, and their teammates at Layton ICS and Method Studio have shared a meal or two with the Traeger team in their ten-plus-year relationship working across multiple projects. Agee and Knorr mentioned watching Traeger go from working on MityLite tables in a Springville warehouse over a decade ago to building the office for the brand name in outdoor cooking with an award-winning project in the Wilmington Flats building in Sugar House. When the time came to envision a “Traeger 2.0” in a 2019 conversation with the Traeger Grills top brass, the designers and builders were ready to leap into action, with construction beginning in September 2021. Agee and the Method Studio Workplace team designed with certain goals in mind: fostering human connection and a place of belonging with a compelling set of work environments that draw you to the space. But, she said, this design needed to stay true to Traeger Grills and how they work while remaining unencumbered by current workplace trends. “Our current philosophy is to create a workplace that is not homeful, or heaven forbid the overused ‘resimercial’ word, but rather something that is better than what employees have at home,” Agee said. What she and her team are trying to capture in their office design is a culture-specific environment “where employees want to be.”

Marmalade Plaza Bearing Fruit

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024
Tucked just beyond the hustle and bustle of 300 West in Salt Lake City is something sweet: Marmalade Plaza—the collaborative work between third-generation Utah family business Cal Wadsworth Construction and landscape architects and designers at Salt Lake-based LOCI. Amidst the lovely built features and vegetation installed around the half-acre site, what catches the eye is the giant bronze apricot statue on the project's westernmost edge. Statue artist Day Christensen, with his last name so fitting for the Beehive State, delved into the Marmalade District’s rich past as the inspiration for his work on “Apricot,” saying the area’s steep streets were named after quince, apricot, and almond fruits as residents used those fruits to make and sell marmalade. The sculpture, he said, serves as a constant reminder of the neighborhood's origins and the ingenuity of its pioneers. That ingenuity in design and execution was a theme as the project team delivered a public space befitting Salt Lake’s historic Marmalade District. The plaza design took off in 2014 with LOCI Principal and founder Michael Budge and his newly minted firm working on their first project. Instead of funding delays that pushed construction back, Marmalade Plaza would need to wait for future development to finish before starting. The landscape architect said the half-acre parcel was always set up as a public space between existing developments at that time (Marmalade Library; Capitol Villa Apartments) and future projects (Harvest Apartments; Grove at Marmalade townhomes). Public involvement quickly settled on a design priority that remains top of mind for many Utah residents—water. “From day one, we wanted a water feature,” said Budge. The plaza would honor the body of water that existed on site previously, one the Army Corps of Engineers had to ensure wasn’t a wetland. The LOCI team designed an abstract wetland in its place, complete with water boxes for the future rushes to be installed. Winning the construction bid was Cal Wadsworth Construction’s entry point to test their collective chops. “We thought that all of the concrete work was exciting,” Jordan Wadsworth said. As Director of Operations for Cal Wadsworth Construction, the design that called for board-formed precast cubes, cast-in-place bridges and steps, plus sandblasted artistic flair would push him and his team to innovative heights. Turning the site from a post-development mud pit into an urban oasis was challenging on such a tight site. One small entrance on the southern edge for concrete trucks and construction teams required high-level sequencing to get the right people on-site at the right time. Connection and coordination were always at the forefront, especially with how the project integrates with the nearby buildings. That LOCI was hired by Harvest Apartments, adjacent to the to the north and west, to design their landscaping and more was a huge win, ultimately helped to site the complex’s three apartment buildings and combine features where landscaping seen in project dovetails perfectly in the other, flowing together like the plaza’s 100-ft-long water feature. “It’s not an easy design and hats off to the contractors who built it,” said Budge. Not easy is an understatement, especially with the ipe (pronounced E-pay) Brazilian hardwood decking. Dense, heavy, durable, and challenging meant a few hundred drill bits were sacrificed at the altar of construction. But the team persevered, developing a system to make cuts so clean that the hardwood boards appear pre-engineered. “All of it was hand done,” Wadsworth said of the work with the decking. Precision and care were standout features of the Cal Wadsworth Construction team as they self-performed cast-in-place concrete benches with the gentlest curves, three concrete bridges, as well as concrete steps across the northern end of the water feature—all surrounded by two lines of paperbark maple trees. “It’s refined,” said Budge. “It’s less so someone’s backyard, but [more] an urban plaza you’d find in a major city.” The slight bend in the form of the benches, water feature, and around 1,600 SF of decking are not only a circulation effort moving people from southwest to north or vice versa, but a testament to the work from the Cal Wadsworth team to artfully construct such complicated forms. The design also called for precast concrete cubes ranging in height between 9” - 3’9” in height. Built by Brigham City-based Mountain West Precast, each of the cubes was picked and placed close to the final location before a forklift positioned each of them on their respective bolts before epoxying them in place. Wadsworth said it came together “like a Tetris puzzle.” The project team dug deep into their problem-solving bag after the fire marshal refused to allow the grass turf of LOCI’s original design. The landscape architects pivoted to replacing the turf with two 25-foot-plus sycamore trees to help cool and shade the plaza’s 5,000 SF of concrete hardscape.

Movin' on UP!

By Doug Fox • 01 Sep, 2024
There’s a new jewel in the crown of Silicon Slopes architecture: the visually stunning Traverse Heights Office Building. The six-story structure, housing 57,000 square feet of Class A professional office space and featuring a floor-to-ceiling curtain wall glass facade, sits like a queen on a bluff overlooking the I-15 corridor in Lehi and the expanse of Utah Valley. If you’re traveling through that section of north Utah County, you can’t miss it on the east side of I-15. “It is impossible to exit the freeway and not see this building standing large, perched over Silicon Slopes,” said Jared Francom, Project Director for Okland Construction. “It stands apart by location, approach and visibility.” The building, owned by Woodley Real Estate, came with a price tag of around $25 million. In addition to the ownership group, tenants include Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, Solidarity Capital, Paramount and family offices for both Curt Doman and Todd Pederson, among others. “We have had way more demand than space,” said Eric Woodley, owner/developer. “It certainly stands out and is a unique offering. The offset design really sets it apart from the rest [of the buildings in Silicon Slopes].” According to David Anderson, Design Principal for Babcock Design, the core concept of the building differed significantly from the typical five- and six-story workplace projects his firm has created along the Silicon Slopes stretch of I-15. “On the heels of several projects designed around 100,000-plus-square-feet tech-sector tenants that prioritized efficient floor plates and large-scale shared amenities, this project targeted smaller, high-end user groups with an interest in a refined, iconic space,” Anderson said. “As a result, efforts were made to sculpt a unique exterior form with shifting floor plates cantilevering high above the ground plane, which provided extensive usable outdoor space.” COVID Conundrums The journey from land acquisition in 2020 to certificate of occupancy in 2023 turned out to be no easy feat. Mentally, Wasatch Front residents may be a few years removed from the peak period of the COVID-19 pandemic but its architectural impact is still being felt and the Traverse Heights Office Building is a prime example. The project started during the mid- to latter stages of the pandemic in 2021 and was designed amid the challenging fallout of material shortages throughout the building industry. Year-long lead times and cost escalation on structural steel products at the time tilted the design decision toward a post-tensioned concrete structure, Anderson said. But that strategic switch spawned its own set of COVID-created conundrums. “By the time construction ensued, of course, there were concrete shortages throughout the state due to shutdowns of several cement production plants,” Anderson said. “Okland Construction worked miracles to acquire concrete during the shortage and significantly minimized delays in the construction schedule.” Choosing concrete both for the look and the difficulty of procuring steel, Woodley noted that the concrete shortage hit during the mat-footing pour — basically the most inopportune time possible. “It was a nightmare to work through, but we had a great construction team to help us navigate it,” he said. On a positive note, the decision to use post-tensioned concrete affected both the overall form — achieving some dramatic cantilevers in the office space – as well as the feel of the interiors, said Anderson. “Exposed architectural concrete sheer walls and solid concrete slabs created a crisp, smooth and dramatic interior space with exceptionally high ceilings,” he said.

ASLA Pulls Up a Chair

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024
It’s hard to keep track of all the decisions made about the built environment happening in Utah. A new commercial design here, permitting there, and the beginning and end of so much master planning. It’s great for the A/E/C community, certainly, but for Bryce Ward and the other board members at the ASLA Utah Chapter, landscape architecture deserves a seat at the table where those decisions are made. Bringing in their unique point of view, ASLA Utah is aiming to break through the misunderstanding in their field to plan, design, and steward environments across Utah for residents and visitors to thrive. There’s the mission, and there’s the practice. Ward explained that landscape architects are expert generalists, meaning he and his fellow professionals are trained to think beyond the site boundaries. “Buildings are part of an elaborate natural and development fabric,” Ward, recently elected Trustee for the ASLA, said. “Landscape architects think through the impacts development has on the built and natural environments.” After all, their work is much more than shrubs, benches, and a walking path. The plan is in motion to build toward a cohesive whole, where every facet of the built environment is considered—with landscape architecture joining the party and improving projects across the state. For Lars Erickson, ASLA Utah President-Elect, the matter is one of dollars and cents in a straightforward equation: clients that value and pay for good design get greater value in their projects. “Even the simplest of landscape projects can create greater value for our environment with a little more effort,” Erickson said.

Big Plans on Campus

By B. Garn • 01 Sep, 2024
Students at Utah’s higher education campuses this fall likely found themselves navigating around construction fencing or finding once familiar pathways to class temporarily blocked as concrete trucks rumbled by and tower cranes cast shadows across campus. From the new buildings for the University of Utah’s School of Medicine that are reshaping the upper campus of the state’s flagship university to plans for a major campus expansion at Utah Tech University (UTU) in St. George, a surge of projects planned and funded several years ago are now taking shape on university campuses from Logan to St. George.

Precast Market Ready to Take Off in Utah

By Taylor Larsen • 01 Sep, 2024
It’s not rocket science. According to Kevin Martin, Geneva Pipe & Precast’s General Manager for the Orem office, precast concrete is a simple, albeit different, solution for a construction problem. “We’re still building a metal cage and building a mold and putting concrete around it,” he said. Simple, sure, but effective. With a huge concrete market to capture, expanding infrastructure with new and growing communities, and a broken labor market showing no signs of repair, the trajectory for precast is upward and onward as the new year approaches. No Rest for Precast Each of those interviewed spoke to how there is not just an insatiable demand for precast in Utah, but that they regularly field calls from out of state to supply jobs across the West. As a byproduct, one trend that may be gone forever is the winter slowdown, especially as development ticks up across the state. Said Martin, “We used to use the winter months to build up inventory, but the new way of doing things is putting pressure on us to keep production high year-round.” Demand for neighborhood infrastructure products is here to stay, especially for growing cities around the state. Developments are popping up across Utah County in Lehi, Saratoga Springs, and Eagle Mountain, as well as an exploding demand from the southward development in places like Payson, Santaquin, and even Benjamin, nestled snugly just south of Spanish Fork. Precast, those interviewed said, is ready to meet it with pipe, box culvert, manholes, and more. With expanding development combined with the growing capabilities of precast concrete, "slowdown" might not enter the precast vernacular again. Lee Wegner, Regional Sales Manager for Contech Engineered Solutions, noted the possibilities that opened up with the Latter-day Saint temples in the 2010s changed the game on precast concrete in Utah. High-level detail and molds brought awards and new possibilities, with rope-like features and scalloped corners doing the best impression of skilled masonry work. “Almost every piece was unique,” said Wegner of their work on the Payson Temple. While unique is not the word precasters want to hear in such a standardized process, the pride of seeing what their work accomplished in the final build helped to reimagine what was possible in precast shops. “We’re pushing the envelope a lot more and are much more adaptable to the needs of the market.”

Innovative Infrastructure

By Milt Harrison • 01 Aug, 2024
Crews from Whitaker construction installed a massive 63-inch diameter HDPE pipe for North Davis Sewer District that allows treated and cleaned wastewater to flow to the Great Salt Lake, putting water back into the ecosystem while combatting dropping water levels. (photos courtesy Whitaker Construction)

Brilliantly Executed Spaces and Thinking

By LADD MARSHALL • 01 Aug, 2024
The Intermountain Chapter of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) held its annual BEST Awards competition on May 16 at The Natural History Museum of Utah, with the UVU Sorensen Student Center capturing the "BEST of the BEST" and "BEST Play" categories. BEST stands for Brilliantly Executed Spaces & Thinking, and the IIDA awards are among the most prestigious given to interior design professionals in both residential and commercial markets. An array of unique projects were submitted, projects that go beyond painting a pretty picture while truly encompassing great design in function, form, and style. IIDA Intermountain recognizes that successful interior design requires a collaboration of many disciplines including consultant teams, project managers, vendors, contractors, and more. These awards are a celebration of that collaboration and of dynamic overall design happening throughout the Intermountain region.
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