F&S Partners, a Dallas architecture firm specializing in the design of educational, recreational and religious projects, announced it has merged with SmithGroup. The 40-person office in Dallas now carries the joint name of SmithGroup/F&S.

SmithGroup/F&S in Dallas provides architecture, interior design and planning to clients throughout Texas and the southwest U.S. The office will also offer MEP engineering services through the expertise available at SmithGroup offices nationwide.

Founded in 1962 as Fisher and Spillman Architects, F&S Partners has served institutional, private and municipal clients across Texas. With the merger, Robert L. Shaw, Jr., AIA, president of F&S Partners, becomes a SmithGroup vice president and the office director of SmithGroup/F&S. He also joins SmithGroup’' board of directors. All of F&S Partners' employees have been retained and its five principals maintain their management positions.

The merger gives F&S Partners the expanded resources necessary to design larger, more complex projects, while allowing SmithGroup to bring its national expertise in designing higher education, science and technology, health and workplace facilities to clients in Texas.

"One of the major initiatives in Texas right now is the elevation of its emerging research universities to national status, and we wanted to find a way to help our clients meet this goal by designing the best facilities. Operating in Dallas as SmithGroup/F&S, we can now offer our clients access to some of the nation's leading experts in university design and laboratory planning," says Shaw.

SmithGroup president and CEO Carl Roehling, FAIA, LEED AP, shares Shaw's optimism for growth in Texas' higher education market. "F&S Partners has built key client relationships with the largest university systems in Texas," says Roehling. "We're confident they're the right firm to accelerate SmithGroup's growth in the higher education market. F&S Partners has an impressive portfolio of recreational facilities, which fits in well with SmithGroup's student life initiative."

The merger follows two years of communication and successful collaboration between the two firms. Earlier this year, SmithGroup and F&S Partners teamed up to win several significant healthcare, university and recreation projects in Texas and Arizona.

In February 2009, the two firms joint-ventured and won a contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide ongoing architecture and engineering services for various VA North Texas Health Care System projects. Two months later, SmithGroup and F&S Partners were selected for two multi-million dollar renovation projects at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas: the Marie Hall SimLife Center and Cancer Research Laboratory. The latest new project the two firms teamed to secure is the design of a $10 million community recreation center in Arizona for the City of Avondale.

Collaboration between F&S Partners and SmithGroup actually dates back to the 1970s.   SmithGroup subsidiary JJR, a nationally recognized leader in landscape architecture, planning, urban design, civil engineering and environmental sciences, collaborated with F&S Partners to develop a master plan to guide campus development for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. In recent years, the firms teamed up to
develop a master plan to guide campus development for Baylor University, Waco, Texas.