Turning Decades of Design Archives into a Searchable Resource

Leroy Street Studio (LSS) is an award-winning architecture firm based in New York City. Since its founding in 1995 by Marc Turkel and Morgan Hare, joined by Shawn Watts in 2002, the firm has grown into a multidisciplinary practice of over 60 members, including architects, interior designers, and construction managers.

LSS is known for its collaborative design approach, which integrates architecture, interior design, and construction management. Each project combines craftsmanship with innovation and a deep sensitivity to physical, social, and environmental context.

The studio’s mission centers on creating meaningful spaces through collaboration — balancing design excellence, technical precision, and community engagement.

Over the years, Leroy Street Studio accumulated a massive project-based archive containing thousands of files — drawings, photographs, PDFs, and presentations. However, the lack of structure made it increasingly difficult for the team to locate what they needed.

Their previous system, Google Picasa, proved too limited for professional use. Its simple search function and lack of collaborative tools made it impossible to manage the firm’s growing library of architectural imagery.

As a result, employees began resorting to online searches to find alternative reference images, wasting valuable time that could have been spent on creative work. The firm needed a system that was both powerful enough to handle a large archive and simple enough for everyone in the office to use.

Daminion gave Leroy Street Studio the foundation for a more organized and efficient archive. By restructuring their storage system into a single centralized repository, the team could now access, search, and share files without delays.

They created a custom taxonomy tailored to the studio’s workflows — using consistent metadata and tags that allow users to filter images by project type, style, or purpose. What once required browsing through countless folders can now be done in seconds.

Today, Daminion is used across the entire Leroy Street Studio office.
Architects use it for precedent research, reviewing slide decks and PDFs of past projects to inspire new designs. Meanwhile, the marketing and communications team relies on Daminion to collect, organize, and repurpose media for portfolios, publications, and social media.

To keep the archive well-organized, the firm maintains two distinct catalogs — one dedicated to architectural references and project documentation, and another managed by marketing for promotional materials.

This structure keeps workflows clear and efficient, allowing each department to focus on its priorities while drawing from the same organized source of truth.