Contract - January/February 2016 - 49

PHOTOGRAPHY: ANTUANY SMITH (TOP); COURTESY KOHLER (OPPOSITE, MIDDLE TWO); GARRETT ROWLAND (OPPOSITE, BELOW)

Heiser's Gensler projects
include 1871 (above). Located
in The Merchandise Mart in
Chicago, 1871 is a tech startup
coworking space that Heiser's
Gensler team designed in
multiple phases. The Kohler
Creative Communications
Center, nicknamed The
Beacon, houses the Kohler
Company's creative teams in
Kohler, Wisconsin (opposite,
middle two). The Garage at
Northwestern University
(opposite, bottom) is an
incubator space linking the
entrepreneurial community
with the university.

adjacent to each other in the studio-until Martinez moved in early
2015 to Gensler's New York office. "Throughout my time at Gensler,
Carlos has been an incredible friend, a mentor, a colleague, a fearless
critic on all things, personal and professional, and really, he's a very
important person in my life," Heiser says. "As we worked together,
Carlos always took the time to teach me. He taught me the importance
of clients and how to really listen."
While he may have learned from working with Martinez, Heiser's
own natural abilities to communicate shine through. And Martinez
recognizes that. "Todd has this ability to connect with clients
one-on-one," Martinez says. "He's got this amazing personality, and
I always say he's sort of like catnip for clients. He walks into a room,
and, at the end, everybody wants to be his best friend."
One of those clients with a great admiration for Heiser is
Natalie Black, a current board member of the Kohler Company and
a retired senior vice president and chief legal officer of the plumbing
product manufacturer. She oversaw Kohler's efforts to build the
100,000-square-foot Kohler Creative Communications Center, a home
for the company's brand studio and account teams nicknamed The
Beacon, which opened in Kohler, Wisconsin, in 2010. "In conceptualizing
The Beacon, we challenged Todd and the Gensler team to create a
timeless legacy building within which our associates could be inspired
and excel," Black says. "We asked for a creative hub that cultivated
fresh thinking and reflected our company's mission of contributing
to a higher level of gracious living. Todd and Gensler delivered,
and The Beacon is an architectural and sustainable showpiece within
the Kohler campus."
In the last five years, Heiser has developed a specialty in
designing creative workplaces that reflect the evolving economy. Many
of those offices happen to be in The Merchandise Mart in Chicago,
the vast building that is home to NeoCon. Motorola Mobility, completed
in 2014, is one of those projects incorporating the latest in technology.
"I was taking these 225,000-square-foot floor plates and thinking about
materiality, how that would communicate to break down these floors,"
Heiser says. "Many of the furniture solutions were extensive studies

in mobility and how power could adapt in a highly flexible way
within a new workplace."
Also within the Mart, Heiser and Martinez designed 1871,
a coworking tech incubator space that has grown with multiple phases
in the past four years. Howard Tullman, the CEO of 1871, is effusive
in praise for Heiser. "Todd worked closely with us to provide strong
ideas and design direction as we built out the second and third phases
of 1871, each of which represented extensions and enhancements
of Carlos andTodd's original design ideas as 1871 itself matured,"
Tullman says. "Todd's great eye and design sensibility are tempered
by a realistic and pragmatic nature, which has made it a pleasure
to work with him."
Meaningful interiors for a new economy
Chicago venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker, the nephew of Jay Pritzker,
who founded the Hyatt hotel chain as well as the Pritzker Architecture
Prize, provided financial support to initiate 1871. Pritzker has also been
Heiser's client for the healthcare incubator Matter and the tech
incubator called The Garage at Northwestern University. Heiser even
designed Pritzker's own office. "Todd and I have worked together many
times," Pritzker says. "No matter how simple or complex the project,
Todd approaches it the same way: as a visionary, an astute business
man, a collaborator, and a well-trusted partner."
Matter, which is also in the Mart, opened last year as a healthtech incubator for startups focused on information technology, devices,
and pharmaceuticals. "This project is meaningful because what is
happening here is heroic," Heiser says. "They are developing new
standards of care for hospital stays, new devices, and pharmaceutical
options to dramatically change people's lives."
Projects with meaning and a sense of purpose are those that
Heiser thrives on. "Todd is one of those people who asks a lot of himself
and his own standards for how he wants to be successful, how he wants
to be valuable to clients, and how he wants to look back and realize
that he has grown a lot in his own career," Martinez says. "One of the
reasons why he's such a great designer is his ability to be so aware
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Contract - January/February 2016

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