The Real Estate Addicts are joined this week by Michael LeBlanc, principal at Utile, a Boston based“design firm built like a think tank”. Utile has grown from their founding in 2002 to a 64-member team that consistently produces some of the smartest and most innovative approaches to design and urban planning in the City. In this episode Michael shares his perspective on design, why Utile has no one “signature style” and how Utile’s urban planning work influences and improves their design work. Michael walks our listeners through Utile’s very involved client-driven design process and explains how this process yields the right design at the right budget. Finally, Michael shares a “case study” on the Gerard, a 160-unit apartment building which presented a number of challenges during design which Utile did a masterful job of resolving. We hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. We appreciate your feedback ([email protected]) and your reviews and thank you for sharing!