David Herd

David Herd is the managing partner of Buro Happold’s California region. Located in Los Angeles, the anchor office on the West Coast, David leads a diverse team that offers innovative, integrated design engineering and strategic consultancy services to the region’s world-renowned design community.

David has significant experience in high performance building design and sustainable master planning of public buildings across the U.S. and globally, combined with a growing portfolio of strategic consulting in climate action planning, resilience and vulnerability planning. David believes in achieving successful design through influencing the architectural language, form, function and fabric of a building, landscape or master plan to minimize environmental impacts of energy, water, material, and waste.

Over a nearly 30-year career, David’s highly collaborative approach and distinct leadership skills have enabled his teams to achieve the highest levels of sustainability with unique innovative engineering solutions, tailored to each project’s unique challenges.

He recently led the California team in the delivery of Santa Monica City Hall East, a highly sustainable net zero energy and net zero water building that is on track to be the largest Living Building Challenge certified project for a municipality in the world. The project is the first in California to feature composting toilets and to convert rainwater to potable water. David also led the Los Angeles Countywide Sustainability Plan – the first countywide sustainability plan for the 88 cities and nearly 11 million residents of Los Angeles County which seeks to balance the environment, equity, and the economy.

Having been at the forefront of over 250 prominent projects across all sectors in the U.S. including the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and the new LACMA expansion, David is proud to walk the talk with our own Los Angeles office, which is LEED Platinum certified, a JUST label recipient, and WELL Certified^TM Gold.