The Challenge
An award-winning landscape architecture and urban design firm established in 1987, AHBE is committed to creating innovative solutions that are artful, environmentally responsible, socially relevant and technologically innovative. AHBE approached Barbara Pressman Public Relations (BPPR) with the task of differentiating its practice in an increasingly competitive market.
The Approach
AHBE is a firm that advocates creativity and artistry in its practice. To showcase the firm’s unique approach to design, the firm initiated annual art installations, which they shared with clients and friends, developing art pieces created with self-imposed constraints. The firm saw these annual installations as a way to encourage creativity in its members, not realizing their full potential. Recognizing the firm’s unique commitment to art, BPPR identified this “diamond in the rough” event and devised a public relations plan with the art exhibition as its cornerstone to kick-off the AHBE campaign.
The Results
Using three months' worth of used construction drawings and other office paper, AHBE built more than a dozen whimsical and shaggy “trees,” which towered 10 to 12 feet, creating a new take on the idea of “forest” and challenging the notion of what was sustainable. This installation was exhibited at the Museum of Design Art + Architecture (MODAA) in Culver City.
Capitalizing on this unique event, BPPR garnered unprecedented media coverage for AHBE, including extensive national broadcast exposure on NBC, ABC and KUSC. The event was also featured in art journals and local consumer magazines, further increasing AHBE’s public reach. Combined with consistent messaging in all of AHBE’s press materials about key projects, BPPR was able to repeatedly bring attention to AHBE as an innovative landscape architecture firm that married art and design masterfully, with articles in target publications, including Urban Land, Landscape Architecture, Form, and other key publications.
