Architects know the quiet satisfaction of drawing future walls, but they rarely experience the sheer thrill of battering an existing wall with a sledgehammer. They’re toying with the idea at BCDM, as they prepare to double their office space in the old brick building at 100 Court Ave.

The Omaha-based company, officially known as Beringer Ciaccio Dennell Mabrey Inc., eased into Des Moines 2 1/2 years ago as a one-man operation. That man, architect Randall Milbrath, has now been joined by company principal Marvin Larson, two other architects and a specialist in landscape design. After making more room to work, the company plans to add administrative staff and eventually more professionals.

But the company’s story is slightly more complicated than that. Milbrath worked for Zenon Beringer Mabrey Partners when he arrived; that company has since merged with Ciaccio Dennell to form the current organization.

“The two companies found that they had a common culture,” Milbrath said. One example of that came in Denison.

“ZBM was designing a bank there, and Ciaccio Dennell was doing streetscape work,” he said. “We saw how the building and the streetscape affected each other and saw the benefit of the two firms working together. By merging, we knew that we could address in-house more of the components that should be addressed in the initial planning stages of a project.”

The combined company employs about 50 people in its Omaha office and is working on projects in about 20 states from Pennsylvania to New Mexico.

Rather than focusing strictly on architectural design, BCDM has added experts in mechanical and structural engineering and has ventured into landscaping, interior design and construction management.

Projects of the Des Moines Independent Community School District served as the catalyst for ZBM’s leap across Western Iowa to Des Moines. When Milbrath arrived, his main task was the renovation and expansion of East High School.

About half of BCDM’s projects involve educational facilities, and a fifth deal with churches. “A lot of our work involves institutional clients who have an impact on society,” Milbrath said. That’s not coincidental.

“Among our directors, faith is fairly important,” Larson said. The BCDM Web site says, “We believe that faith is a vital part of everyday life and business, and we are committed to managing our firm by those foundational values.”

“It’s a very strong component of how the company is operated, and our goals are certainly based on those beliefs,” Larson said.

BCDM’s portfolio of recent and current work includes the planned St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Winterset, an expansion of the Parkview Evangelical Free Church in Iowa City, the renovation and expansion of Thomas Jefferson High School in Council Bluffs and the anticipated Longfellow-Wallace Elementary School merger project in Des Moines.

The company’s guiding principle, Milbrath said, is to go beyond design and take into account each building’s relationship with its natural surroundings. “We have started pursuing the current trend of understanding buildings in relationship to the land,” he said. “It’s more than ‘green building’; we’re talking about the respectful use of the land itself.”

He named the Parkview church in Iowa City as an example. “It’s an expansion that’s proximate to wetlands,” Milbrath said, “and our approach is to include all of those concerns, not just put on an addition.”