Young Designers Core

Payette’s Young Designers Core (YDC), a grassroots organization founded in 2000, promotes the growth of emerging professionals, supports their progress toward licensure, and supplements our daily project work with educational opportunities. The YDC aims to provide a holistic professional development network through the core values of Knowledge Sharing, Licensure, Culture and Mentorship. It flourishes today, providing emerging designers with leadership roles, promoting mentorship and building community across the firm. The YDC strives to create a balance between professional development and fun and received the AIA IDP Outstanding Firm Award for the 2014-2017 cycle. In 2023, Payette was recognized as an AIA New England Emerging Professional Friendly Firm – an award that the YDC is proud to have upheld six years in a row.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT
At Payette, we believe knowledge sharing is essential, both to our firm and to the profession. The YDC provides a range of learning opportunities, including presentations, construction tours, manufacturing tours and training workshops. These events create a platform for emerging professionals to lead discussions and tours, showcasing their growing expertise, and for architects at all career phases to share experience and insight.

We strongly encourage our designers to pursue professional licensure, and the YDC is a strong advocate for this goal. Our in-house Licensing Advisor helps demystify the licensure process, and the firm supports designers with exam reimbursement, study materials and exposure to all project phases to complete the necessary experience hours.

PROJECT TOURS
The YDC organizes tours of Payette projects at all stages of Construction Administration and beyond, with recent excursions to Boston University’s Kilachand Center prior to completion and Northeastern’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex a year after opening. We visit a mix of laboratory and healthcare projects, including fit-outs, remodels and mock-ups. Each is an opportunity to see our local work and hear from the project designers about the opportunities and challenges presented.

CULTURE
The YDC is extremely active within the firm, with weekly events which build a sense of community and promote mentorship. Well attended by all staff, they provide opportunities to get to know those we rarely work with on a project basis. Firm favorites include ping-pong and bocce ball tournaments, mini golf (constructed in the office from recycled materials), an annual softball game and a Thanksgiving potluck – all of which have now become traditions. Mentorship is embedded within all the YDC events, as we seek to share knowledge and experience across all levels of our practice. Our events will often spark designers of varying professional experience to form groups and do things outside of work hours with one another. Groups will go on sketch crawls to various parts of downtown Boston, or even get together for a weekend ski trip. The relationships you form through the YDC are one of many great things about working at Payette.