NEW ORLEANS – EskewDumezRipple, a New Orleans-based architecture, interiors, and urban planning firm, is entering a new phase marked by a downtown headquarters relocation, the appointment of Christian Rodriguez as Managing Principal, and continued national expansion while remaining deeply rooted in New Orleans.
New Leadership
Christian Rodriguez, newly appointed Managing Principal at EskewDumezRipple, brings a long-standing commitment to firm culture and a track record of leading collaborative, interdisciplinary teams across architecture, landscape, and infrastructure, including the award-winning Thaden School in Arkansas, the Olney Theatre Center in Maryland, and the new Medical School for the University of South Alabama.
“As EskewDumezRipple continues to grow nationally, our future depends on leaders who are deeply collaborative, values-driven, and committed to expanding the firm’s impact,” said Steve Dumez, founding Principal and Director of Design. “Along with an exceptional new generation of Principals, Christian embodies these values—someone who elevates teams, integrates disciplines, and keeps our work grounded in purpose.”
Rodriguez said the leadership transition builds on the firm’s long-standing connection to New Orleans and its culture.
“We are a firm that grew up here, founded in 1989, and we are very embedded in this community,” said Rodriguez. “We’ve learned from the folks who came before us, the civic leaders in this town, the culture and the role that we play in protecting communities through design work.”
New Location – A Better Reflection of EskewDumezRipple
EskewDumezRipple relocated its New Orleans headquarters from 365 Canal Street to the reimagined 400 Lafayette building in the Warehouse District.
“We had been on the top floor of Canal Place for 25 years and it was great in one sense: it had the most beautiful view of the Mississippi River and the French Quarter in the city, and we certainly miss that, but for years we also acknowledged that the quality of the space was not up to par,” said Rodriguez. “If you’re a designer and you’re out there selling a certain quality of space, it’s important to embody that in your own office.”
Relocating to the late 19th-century building just a few blocks from its former office reflects a shift in both the firm’s physical relationship to the city and the evolving ways its teams work and collaborate. The firm operates nationally, with additional offices in Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City.
“Our space needs have evolved. The industry has evolved. We’re very digital. But we’re still very dedicated to the hands-on craft of design. The new studio space permitted more spaces to serve this. We now have a materials library, a wood shop, a digital fabrication shop filled with 3D printers and laser cutters, as well as more space to collaborate with different scales of meeting rooms and an open lounge,” said Rodriguez.
As design workflows have shifted, the firm has also reduced its reliance on large architectural drawing boards, instead adopting more compact, digital workspaces that support collaboration and flexibility.
EskewDumezRipple’s Intentional Growth
The move into the downtown studio reflects a longer-term growth strategy shaped by both opportunity and necessity. While EskewDumezRipple remains deeply rooted in New Orleans, the firm has for years intentionally diversified its project mix to support work well beyond the region.
“Companies can grow up here, become national, do work in other places and bring revenue back home. We don’t always need to convince somebody to come here. We can be national experts, a national caliber organization, and import revenue,” said Rodriguez.
That strategy began to take clearer shape after Hurricane Katrina, when an influx of federal funding created both opportunity and long-term decisions about scale.
“After Katrina, when billions of dollars of federal grant money came to the city and it presented an opportunity for growth – the firm doubled in size,” Rodriguez said. When that funding ended, the firm faced a choice. “Our larger scale offers us the ability to do research, pro bono work and a lot of things that we can’t do as a 25-person practice. That’s when we decided to keep our firm as it is.”
Maintaining that scale has allowed the firm to remain broadly practice-oriented at a time when consolidation has reshaped much of the design industry.
“The diversity of our expertise is allowing a small, generalist practice to continue to exist in the age of joint venture capital consolidation. It allows us to produce results that are specific and custom as opposed to homogenous, and that matters so much in a city where its culture is precious.”
The firm’s growth has also coincided with an evolution in its internal structure and leadership.
“Our firm started with a founder and then it became a partnership of three complimentary personalities and skill sets, and now it’s a group of seven with four of us in a new generation practicing with many different client types all over the country,” Rodriguez said.
That evolution, Rodriguez added, was supported by experience managing complex projects across markets well before the pandemic.
“We had been deliberate about seeking projects outside of our hometown for many years before COVID and that often required partnerships with other design firms that became quite collaborative so we were used to managing projects that way.”
Upcoming Projects
The firm has several major project openings slated for 2026, spanning higher education, hospitality, civic infrastructure, and the performing arts.
- The newly expanded Goldring Woldenberg Riverfront Park reimagines one of the last working stretches of the New Orleans downtown riverfront as a civic living room – an elevated park on an existing wharf structure that reconnects New Orleans to the water, stitches together historic neighborhoods and creates a new economic and cultural engine at the edge of the French Quarter. As the roughly $30 million first phase of Audubon Nature Institute’s Riverfront for All initiative, the Governor Nicholls Wharf component of the project is on track to be completed in early 2026, with its public debut planned around French Quarter Fest.
- The Warbler Hotel in New Orleans is expected to open later in the year, expanding the firm’s hospitality portfolio.
- Scheller and George Towers at the Georgia Institute of Technology will open in phases, strengthening EskewDumezRipple’s national presence in research and higher education innovation districts.
- The Olney Theatre Center for the Arts in Maryland will reopen in April with a renewed architectural identity.
