Design Researcher

Join the 2025 AIA Firm Award Winner shaping a more sustainable future.

LPA is a collective of designers, engineers, and researchers committed to tackling the biggest issues of our time. Our  No Excuses  integrated design approach was recognized by the AIA as “a trailblazer in sustainable, high-performance architecture . At LPA you’ll be part of the team that is changing the way the industry thinks about design and carbon emissions, built around the belief that we only achieve our goals when everybody has a seat at the table and all input is valued.

We’re currently seeking a Design Researcher to join our Sustainability + Applied Research team. This role is ideal for someone trained in social science, design research, or another research field related to the built and natural environment who is interested in applying research to real world design challenges. Working across market sectors, the Junior Design Researcher will help interdisciplinary design teams better understand people, behavior, and the built environment and translate those insights into design.

We’re looking for a problem seeker as much as a problem solver. Someone who brings curiosity, initiative, and an innovative mindset to their work by looking beyond the initial question to identify what needs to be better understood, asking thoughtful questions, and finding creative ways to investigate complex challenges. This person should demonstrate sound judgment in interpreting evidence and determining how research can be appropriately applied to design, along with the ability to make complex research understandable and useful to non-expert audiences.

Please note: This is not a UX/UI research or design role. This position focuses on research related to the built and natural environment and its application within the Architecture, Engineering, Interiors, and Planning industry.

• Conduct literature reviews to gather, evaluate, and synthesize multidisciplinary research in response to project and research questions.

• Develop research briefs, presentations, visuals, and other resources that translate research findings into clear, digestible insights and practical implications that designers and clients can easily understand and apply.

• Look across projects and research findings to identify recurring patterns, opportunities, and questions worth investigating further.

• Help build LPA's internal research knowledge base, making previous studies, findings, and resources easier for teams to access and reuse.

• Help develop and refine research tools and methodologies that can be used consistently across projects.

• Support and facilitate pre-design research and stakeholder engagement, including surveys, interviews, workshops, and other methods for understanding user needs and behaviors.

• Support and coordinate post-occupancy evaluations (POEs), including outreach, data collection, analysis, and reporting.

• Analyze qualitative and quantitative data to identify patterns, themes, and meaningful findings.

• Work with design teams to establish measurable project goals and identify ways to evaluate design outcomes.

• Explore creative approaches to investigating research questions when established methods or data are not readily available.

• Communicate research findings and lessons learned through internal presentations and, as experience grows, external publications, presentations, and thought leadership.

• Perform other duties as applicable.

• MS or PhD in environmental psychology, applied research, design research, social science, data science, or a related field

• Proficiency in Microsoft Project and Excel.

• Strong written communication and verbal presentation skills

• Experience with mixed-methods research

• Experience with online…