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As part of the new generation of SOM leadership, Carrie Byles is helping integrate technology into every facet of the firm’s practice and is transforming the practice of design itself.

Carrie Byles, a director based in SOM’s San Francisco office, has more than 23 years of diverse experience in design, technology, and management, with special emphasis on projects with complex programmatic and technological requirements. She is passionate about sustainable, multi-disciplinary, research-based design. She believes in bringing all parties together as early in the design process as possible to spawn new ideas, establish collaborative working relationships, and create a strong foundation for success.

With her background in both architecture and digital design, Ms. Byles has a lifelong commitment to understanding how information technology is changing the way we live, and she translates this influence into SOM’s building designs. Examples of these advances can be seen in projects such as the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning and the new Library and Information Technology Center at UC Merced, which achieved LEED® Gold Certification.

Her laboratory projects at Harvard and Rice Universities incorporate the latest concepts in multi-disciplinary scientific research and the use of space and technology to facilitate further collaboration and the spontaneous generation of new ideas. She continues to support scientific research working on the new UCSF Neuroscience building that will facilitate a high level of interaction between outstanding scientists, physician-scientists and patients – focused on the common goal of eradicating neurological diseases.

Ms. Byles's passion for advancing building design and technology and creating high performance, sustainable communities and buildings, is balanced by her “developer mentality” of optimizing her clients’ real estate investment. Through collaborative working relationships with her contractor colleagues she has often been able to provide great savings through accelerated design and construction schedules - maintaining project quality and long term real estate value, while meeting their development goals and schedules.