New Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects Website Adds Features: Awards, News & Events, Sustainable Design

In the time since our last posting in this forum, Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects has internally developed a new version of the firm's external website. In addition to featuring previous topics, such as Profile, Process, Partners, and Clients, the new website has a greatly expanded Projects page to reflect increased depth of the overall portfolio. In addition, new sections have been added to showcase other facets of the firm, such as Awards, News & Events, and Sustainable Design. One significant improvement is the site's navigation which is now ever-present along the left side of the page instead of through pulldown menus along the top. Top-level navigation now flows as follows:

Profile, Process, Projects, Partners, Awards, Clients, News & Events, Sustainable Design, Employment, Contact, Home

New look and feel for the Barnes Gormatzky Kosarek Architects External Website

The top page of the wesbite features a nine-square matrix of BGKA projects. Each image is actually a slideshow that fades from images to image of each of the nine projects. This feature was added to give a quick overview of the breadth of the firm's work, and to make the top page a bit more dynamic. Each time a visitor returns to the page, a new set of randomly selected images from the nine projects will greet the viewer. Additionally, each of the slide show images is a link that will take the viewer to a webpage specifically about that project. The nine projects displayed in the slideshows are:

The City of Austin's Lester E. Palmer Events Center
The University of Texas at Austin's Almetris Duren Residence Hall
Texas A&M University's 50-Year Campus Master Plan
Texas School for the Deaf Academic Buildings
The City of Austin Convention Center Parking Garage
Lakeside Retreat Private Residence on Lake Travis
The Lower Colorado River Authority's Emergency Operations Center
Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi Bay Hall Classroom Building
Texas School for the Deaf Residence Halls

The Employment section of the website now features slideshows to improve visual interest. The Contact page now includes slideshows of images from around the office, as well as a map. Lastly, the website includes code that will enable Google Analytics to track activity on our website, greatly improving visibility into what people are viewing when they browse us. The improvements to the website should improve the browsing experience, making it easier and more interesting for people to find information associated with Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects.

Sustainability - Sustainable and Green Building Design Practices and Architectural Projects by Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects

Just a decade ago, "sustainable architecture," "green building," and "sustainable design practices" were unfamiliar terms for most people. For some who were familiar with them back then, these terms may have conjured up images of odd looking buildings built into the sides of hills or covered with visually obtrusive solar panels. While sustainability and green building may have seemed esoteric ten years ago, these practices have since come to the forefront of architectural design consideration.

For Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects, sustainability and green building have always been part of an even broader approach to socially responsible design practices. BGKA has been an active member of the City of Austin’s Green Building Program since 2000, and has completed a variety of sustainable building projects that have been certified by that organization. In addition, BGKA, has LEED® Accredited Professionals on staff and is currently working toward the completion of two large-scale LEED® Silver projects.

As part of this website's goal of enhancing the association of appropriate key words with our firm and our projects, the following sustainability-related phrases are considered:

Green Building Architect Austin Texas
Green Building Practices Austin Texas
Green Architecture Austin Texas
Sustainability Architect Austin Texas
Sustainable Design Austin Texas
Sustainable Design Practices Austin Texas
LEED® Accredited Professionals Austin Texas
LEED® Certified Buildings Austin Texas
Socially Responsbile Design Architect Austin Texas

Bay Hall Classroom Building at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, a BGKA sustainable building certified by the City of Austin's Green Building Program

In addition to general phrases, the following BGKA buildings have been certified sustainable, or are in the process of becoming certified:

Palmer Events Center City of Austin Green Building Program Architect
LCRA Emergency Operations Center LEED® Sustainable Green Building Architect
AISD Nan Clayton Elementary School Sustainable City of Austin Green Building Program Architect
Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi Bay Hall Classroom Building Sustainable City of Austin Green Building Program Architect

Architectural Collaboration and Public Participation

Specializing in publicly-funded architectural design projects for over 20 years, Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects has a long history of collaboration and public participation. Whether for colleges and universities, municipalities, school districts, counties, state or federal agencies, publicly-funded projects invariably involve large numbers of stakeholders. Over decades of experience with these types of projects, Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects has developed a variety techniques to ensure that all interested parties are engaged in the process. Through a series of workshops and participation events, stakeholders are encouraged to express opinions, suggestions, problems, and ideas in an open forum so that the best ideas can be identified and explored.

Public participation event during the design of the Palmer Events Center in Austin, Texas, led by Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects

As part of this website's goal of enhancing the association of appropriate key words with our firm and our projects, the following phrases are considered:

Stakeholder Participation Design Process Architect Austin Texas
Collaboration and Collaborative Design Architect Austin Texas
Community Involvement Design Process Architect Austin Texas
Stakeholder Participation Architect Austin Texas
Publicly-Funded Architectural Design Austin Texas
Civic Municipal Architecture Austin Texas
State County Federal Architecture Austin Texas
College University Architecture Austin Texas

Architect Austin Texas

In August of 2007, the marketing staff of Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects attended the Construction Expo at the Austin Convention Center. The Expo featured a seminar titled "Maximize Your Website's Effectiveness," which provided tips about how to improve a website's search engine ranking. Among other things, it was suggested that creating and maintaining a blog could enhance the ranking of a firm's website. This blog is intended to test that theory, and provide information that might be interesting or useful to other people.


After the seminar, we returned to the office, and ran some simple Google searches to test how high the Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects website was ranked using Google's search engine. Specifically, we tested the phrase Architect Austin Texas, and discovered that we were not ranked as high as we'd like based on these keywords. We also tested general keywords, like:

Architecture Austin Texas
Architectural Design Austin Texas
Sustainability Austin Texas
Austin Green Building Program Architect
Academic Campus Master Planning Texas
Texas Campus Master Plan Architect
Public Participation Architect Austin Texas
Texas Civic & Academic Architecture

It also occurered to us that people might be searching for us relative to some of the building projects that our firm has been associated with. For instance, what if someone were driving along Lake Lady Bird here in Austin, Texas and asked themselves, "I wonder which architecture firm designed the Palmer Events Center?" They might go to Google and type in Palmer Events Center Architect. Would any reference to Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects show up on Google? Once again, our test yielded results with reasonable room for improvement. And so we made similar searches for some of the other projects that our firm is known for:

Texas School for the Deaf Architect
University of Texas Almetris Duren Residence Hall Architect
Austin Convention Center Parking Garage Architect
Congress Avenue Wall Architect
Concordia University Campus Relocation Architect
Texas A&M Student Leadership Retreat Center Architect
Austin Energy District Cooling Plant Architect
LCRA Emergency Operations Center Architect
AISD Nan Clayton Elementary School Architect
Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi Bay Hall Classroom Building Architect

By the same token, we were also curious to determine how closely associated we are to some of the Texas academic campus master planning projects that we've been involved with:

Texas A&M University Master Campus Plan Architect
University of St. Thomas Campus Master Plan Architect
St. Edward's University Campus Master Plan Architect
Concordia University Campus Master Plan Architect
Texas School for the Deaf Campus Master Plan Architect
Temple College Campus Master Plan Architect
University of Texas at Tyler Palestine Campus Master Plan Architect

We made some modifications, and then submitted our website for re-evaluation by Google. We were pleased to discover that the changes we made had definately improved our website's ranking. It was also apparent, however, that there was still room for improvement. As of this posting, we are looking forward to seeing what additional improvement might come as a result of this new blog.