DC25: A Snapshot of People-First Workplaces

We've served many corporate clients over the last 25 years. We love what we do—designing people-first places for our clients that bring their dreams to life. Here are some highlights from the many projects we’ve been a part of since 1992.

June 8, 2017

Share

Lincoln Childcare Center, 1994

The Childcare Center for Lincoln National Corporation was one of Design Collaborative’ s first projects for one of Fort Wayne’s largest employers. This project started a great client relationship that remains today. The facility served children from infants through grade school students. The exterior was designed to highlight each of these individual age-group classrooms. The Childcare Facility was eventually sold and the property redeveloped into what is today Parkview Field and The Harrison (another DC project). We’re happy to say the Childcare Center improved the worlds of many Lincoln employees and their children for many years!

Raytheon, 1999

This project presented us with a great opportunity to show the breadth and depth of our young firm’s capabilities. This large, complex renovation of a 600,000-square foot campus included a dozen buildings. We provided campus master planning, extensive departmental reorganization, building systems upgrades, and adaptive reuse/renovation of facilities, some of which were extremely outdated. The project required multiple phases to minimize staff inconvenience and maintain security requirements. Most of the space was occupied and conducting business during the renovation. Using an aggressive schedule, the project was completed on time and under budget. This project was an important proving ground for DC, and also allowed us to develop another longstanding relationship with a great client.

Petroleum Traders Corporation, 2004

Michael Himes, CEO of Petroleum Traders, challenged our team to develop a new open office concept that balanced office efficiency and privacy for his fuel trading operations. The building design brings in ample daylight while minimizing distraction. Because Mr. Himes is a collector of art and petroleum memorabilia, the entry and lobby spaces were designed to exhibit his collections in a museum-quality setting. This project also features our first green roof design—likely the first in Fort Wayne!

Swiss Re, 2008

A long-standing client relationship with local developer Bill Bean of Hanning & Bean led to the development of an office building for a European company with strong ties to Fort Wayne. The 80,000-square foot office features a variety of sustainable design strategies for this environmentally-minded global corporation. With a geothermal HVAC system, day-light harvesting, high performance glazing, and renewable finishes, this is a modern, refined office building that’s also environmentally responsible. We’ve always designed and engineered energy efficient, healthy, productive office environments, but this project allowed our architects, engineers, and interior designers to feature environmental responsibility as a key form-giver.

Vera Bradley, 2013

Vera Bradley wanted to consolidate their design, marketing, and administrative offices to their south Fort Wayne campus, resulting in this 189,000-square foot Design Center. The Design Center combines three buildings into a single, cohesive, collaborative facility, and creates a positive and creative team work environment for associates. The Design Center also features fitness facilities, a full-service kitchen, photo labs, conference center, and a full scale “mock” retail store. Our team really enjoyed collaborating with the Vera Bradley team of creatives on this iconic and important project.

Contact Us Firm News Join Our Team Office Locations: Fort Wayne, Indiana & Charlotte, North Carolina

©2025 Design Collaborative. All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2025 Design Collaborative