Aaron Birney makes his contributions to the banking industry without ever approving a loan or mortgage, cashing a check or counting out $100 in singles. Birney instead makes it a better experience for bank customers in the work he does for the Los Angeles office of Gensler, a San Francisco architectural firm. As a design director in the retail studio, Birney works on a team that creates the banking environment – from the waiting areas and teller lines to the loan offices. Emerging patterns that Birney sees as the finance industry recovers from the recession are smaller branches that borrow from retail establishments. “It’s a really fascinating thing to see that trending movement,” he said. Birney began his design career right after college when he was hired on at the New York office of Gensler. He came west to Los Angeles for what was to have been a temporary assignment and stayed. Gensler’s banking clients are a mixed bag of large, national chains with established ideas of what they want their branches to look like, and smaller regional banks that want to leverage the expertise that Gensler has from working with financial institutions around the world. Gensler has done designs for Adu Dhabi Commercial Bank in the United Arab Emirates, First Federal Savings Bank and Cathay Bank in El Monte, among others. Question: when you started your career did you picture yourself doing bank branch design work? Answer: No, but it is a really interesting challenge. In the past 10 years the focus in the banking industry has been going toward a more retail-like environment. To have the ability to do free-standing buildings, like in retail, is a phenomenal opportunity. What have been some features that banks have borrowed from the retail side? Transparency. Especially since the recession in 2008, transparency means a lot of things in the banking industry, especially with the design: floor-to-ceiling clear glass that opens up the entire banking hall and brings the environment into the banking hall – as well as being able to see clearly as you’re driving by what’s happening inside – gives people an ease of entering. So the financial crisis was an element? I think it absolutely influenced it. I think prior to 2008, banks were starting to dabble with some of these ideas. The money was coming in and everything was working well and there was real resistance to make larger scale changes than there is now. Since 2008 and going through (the recession) there has been a refocus on the customers and what customers’ needs are. In what other way is it the retail world reflected in banking? It’s also about the service and the offerings they have. One big trend is about cross-selling financial services with mortgages and some of these other elements they are starting to perform in the banking environment. It’s very reminiscent of bundling retail merchandise together. What have been some challenges you’ve faced with this type of design work? Early on I worked with the PNC (Financial Services) Group in New York. One of the big attributes for them was looking into the idea of sustainability and how that affected the demographic they were going after. More recently we are working with a confidential Chinese American bank here in Los Angeles, and the focus is on the consumer again but in a different way. First generation immigrants growing into a mass market and how do you bridge those two together. That’s been an interesting and fascinating problem. Why’s that? Learning not only the culture and challenges we need to overcome from a design standpoint, then also bridging that with the mass market to help them figure out a model to grow. What have you learned from those challenging assignments? You learn about the cultural differences between how we bank and how some of the other countries bank. You start to see that banks are more open-minded about spending that money on the upfront process and being able to understand there is going to be a large return on that investment in a few years. In the past it had been a difficult battle to sell to a client about why (they) need to spend all that money in the up-front portion, not understanding the return. How is security incorporated into a branch design? It’s definitely a discussion with the design team as early as possible about how much security involvement they want. It has to come from the bank themselves how to define it. From the design side what we are trying to continue to push is yes, we need to be secure but we don’t want to have the experience of walking into a bank and you feel like someone is sitting there and watching you. What’s the process of working with a bank when designing a branch? The big thing when a client comes to us is to understand what their needs are. Some clients come with an already established program and know what they want. Some banks are really looking for us to leverage the expertise we have in the banking industry and come back to them with proposals on how to make the programming more efficient, a little bit better, a little bit more open, more transparent. Those keywords and descriptors will help bring people into their branch. On the projects you’ve done, what are some of your favorite features? I think the amenities spaces are crucial. Some of the multi-functional spaces are also very interesting. It is about creating efficiencies. It is a similar idea to sustainability; use the footprint that you need and figure out how to create multi-functional spaces within that footprint that can serve all the needs that you have. I enjoy those kinds of difficult puzzles. Are you seeing this primarily with the large, national banks or are regional and community banks getting into it? The larger banks are at the forefront of some of this stuff and pushing some of these ideas. The other half of the smaller banks are trying to catch up with the larger banks. You have that stratification between those different groups. It’s interesting there are a few smaller banks that are starting to make larger changes. A couple of visionary people within those smaller banking environments are pushing some of these ideas, like how to get more community involvement through creating seminars or book signings or some of these other programmatic features. How do you integrate technology into bank design? From a design standpoint the big challenge is knowing people are using ATMs and automated tellers and using that as a tool to get people inside the bank. Some banks are looking at not having external ATMs anymore; bringing them back into the branch so you can have that draw from customers and have the opportunity to start the conversation and talk to them about the other services within the bank. What is your background? I was originally in the construction industry. I went back to school to become an architect. I graduated from the Pratt Institute (in Brooklyn) and started working in the Gensler office in New York. I was there for three and half years and came out to Los Angeles to work on a temporary project and ended up staying. What made you interested in going back to school to become an architect? It was a fascination with building, a fascination with design. I think being able to have the idea and vision and execute that vision is something I admire and respect. That’s one of the things that motivated me to get back into it and get the education. Ultimately, what intrigues you about your specialty? I think it’s a changing environment; it’s very similar to retail. It’s also bridging the gap between a kind of hospitality environment; almost a lounge-like environment is what’s starting to happen. You see those two worlds collide against together. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and space reasons.
On the Money
