Job Information
SMMA Project Designer (1-5 Years of Experience) in Cambridge, Massachusetts
SMMA is seeking a Project Designer with a versatile skill set including typology and site research, hand sketching, diagramming, charretting, rapid prototyping, rendering, and 3D exploration in Rhino.
Clients engage SMMA to define and provide creative solutions to their complex design challenges. Our process involves close collaboration with our landscape architects, interior designers, design technologists, engineers, and marketing team from the earliest stages of a project. We embrace constraints and challenges as opportunities, striving for conceptual clarity and elegance—the hard-earned absence of excess. Our outcomes must please individual stakeholders and elevate the community while meeting client goals. Our integrated practice not only leads to more innovative solutions but also helps develop well-rounded and agile designers.
We are seeking candidates who can explore and generate multiple design options across various typologies. Throughout this journey, you will refine your design-thinking and technical skills. As you grow as a designer and future architect, you will gain increased exposure to other aspects of project work, including building strong relationships with clients and communities, leading client presentations, developing conceptual directions, and exploring the technical aspects of implementation. While not every idea will result in a built project, you will approach each pursuit with dedication and rigor as if it could. The pace of work will vary, but you are adaptable and eager to tackle and learn from any challenge.
Key Qualities:
You are a self-starter, have a bias for action, and are generous with your ideas and process.
You see project representation as an extension of the design. The ability to frame views and tell a story through design imagery is essential. Proficiency in Vray and Enscape is required.
Postproduction skills in Photoshop and Illustrator are expected. Occasionally, you will collaborate with our talented Visualization Team, but you will be the primary author of most project visuals and renderings.
You will craft presentations in PowerPoint and produce booklets in InDesign.
You have a keen interest in contributing to our design studio and a strong desire to help shape our design culture and advance our methodologies.
Requirements:
1-5 years of experience
Current pursuit of architectural licensure
Excellence in written, visual, and verbal communication
High emotional intelligence geared towards collaboration.
Knowledge of sustainable design principles
Experience designing buildings and sites with Rhino.
Ability to incorporate Revit into your design and production workflow.
Grasshopper is not required but is a plus.
About the Firm
SMMA is one of the area’s most unique design firms due to its composition, reputation, and focus. Cambridge-based since its incorporation in 1955, the firm focuses on creating lasting relationships with strategic partners in both the public and private markets.
The firm was founded by MIT and RPI alumni who believed that the balance of architecture, engineering, interiors, and site design afforded clients the agility of a single source of creative and technical expertise. Today, SMMA continues its dedication to a flexible integrated approach while remaining guided by a shared pursuit of design excellence and social responsibility. We are committed to providing an inclusive and equitable environment for our employees and our clients.
SMMA focuses on several markets: K12, Advanced Technology, Development, Federal Government, Higher Education, Life Sciences, and Workplace. At SMMA, experienced teams in each market sector represent specialized communities of practice working together to foster knowledge flow around common interests. Together, the firm’s teams form a larger design ecosystem, sharing best practices and nurturing professional growth and project excellence.
Please note: SMMA does not offer H-1B visa sponsorship for this position.
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