Christopher Mercier, the president and design principal of (fer) studio in California, tells John Patterson how his company’s approach to design is highly collaborative. Working closely with every client, the architectural design team creates a contemporary iconic transrelational environment for every building or environment. The process is based on form environment research (fer), which is where the business gets its name.

Christopher shares that he has learned a great deal from the Influence Ecology education program. Through it, he has recognized that simply putting your head down and working isn’t going to ensure you achieve what goals. Rather, plans and accurate thinking are vital for strategizing the different conditions of life.

He goes on to focus on the importance of the environment and form. The environment takes on an identity through its organizational solution. By creating and organizing spaces or rooms or relations within the environment, (fer) is able to create the form that becomes that identity.