Design Researcher

Join the 2025 AIA Firm Award Winner shaping a more sustainable future.

LPA is a collective of designers, engineers, and researchers committed to tackling the biggest issues of our time. Our "No Excuses" integrated design approach was recognized by the AIA as “a trailblazer in sustainable, high-performance architecture". At LPA you’ll be part of the team that is changing the way the industry thinks about design and carbon emissions, built around the belief that we only achieve our goals when everybody has a seat at the table and all input is valued.

We’re currently seeking a Design Researcher to join our Sustainability + Applied Research team. This role is ideal for someone trained in social science, design research, or another research field related to the built and natural environment who is interested in applying research to real world design challenges. Working across market sectors, the Junior Design Researcher will help interdisciplinary design teams better understand people, behavior, and the built environment and translate those insights into design.

We’re looking for a problem seeker as much as a problem solver. Someone who brings curiosity, initiative, and an innovative mindset to their work by looking beyond the initial question to identify what needs to be better understood, asking thoughtful questions, and finding creative ways to investigate complex challenges. This person should demonstrate sound judgment in interpreting evidence and determining how research can be appropriately applied to design, along with the ability to make complex research understandable and useful to non-expert audiences.

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  Conduct literature reviews to gather, evaluate, and synthesize multidisciplinary research in response to project and research questions.

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  Develop research briefs, presentations, visuals, and other resources that translate research findings into clear, digestible insights and practical implications that designers and clients can easily understand and apply.

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  Look across projects and research findings to identify recurring patterns, opportunities, and questions worth investigating further.

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  Help build LPA's internal research knowledge base, making previous studies, findings, and resources easier for teams to access and reuse.

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  Help develop and refine research tools and methodologies that can be used consistently across projects.

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  Support and facilitate pre-design research and stakeholder engagement, including surveys, interviews, workshops, and other methods for understanding user needs and behaviors.

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  Support and coordinate post-occupancy evaluations (POEs), including outreach, data collection, analysis, and reporting.

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  Analyze qualitative and quantitative data to identify patterns, themes, and meaningful findings.

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  Work with design teams to establish measurable project goals and identify ways to evaluate design outcomes.

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  Explore creative approaches to investigating research questions when established methods or data are not readily available.

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  Communicate research findings and lessons learned through internal presentations and, as experience grows, external publications, presentations, and thought leadership.

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  Perform other duties as applicable.

• MS or PhD in environmental psychology, applied research, design research, social science, data science, or a related field

• Proficiency in Microsoft Project and Excel.

• Strong written communication and verbal presentation skills

• Experience with mixed-methods research

• Experience with online research tools

• Experience conducting literature searches or literature reviews

• Basic descriptive statistical or data analysis experience

• Data visualization or other graphic skills for communication of data

• Awareness of current research ethics and equity, diversity, and inclusion topics

• Entrepreneurial energy, comfortable with some ambiguity.

• Proactive attitude, prepared to ask questions, and always looking for opportunities to improve.

• Additional Research training or certifications

• Human Subjects Research Training (current certification not required)

• LEED, WELL, EDAC, or similar certifications

• Design or engineering training or certifications

• Experience in any of the following: GIS, Power BI, AI for research, research in AR/VR/XR, grant writing, Adobe Creative Suite

• Experience in or excitement to learn how to facilitate meetings and workshops

• Understanding of a typical architectural design process, from concept and schematic design, design development and construction documentation, construction, and post-occupancy.

• Education in or excitement to learn more about sustainability topics such as energy performance, carbon emissions, material impacts, and resiliency, and find ways for human-environment research to better inform sustainable design.

Please note that LPA does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or employment agencies. In the absence of a signed contract, LPA will not agree to pay any recruiter fee. In the situation an agency or recruiter submits a candidate or resume without a previously signed agreement and/or without LPA’s request, LPA explicitly reserves the right to hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers, are deemed to be the property of LPA.