The July 16 reopening of Dinosaur Hall was a big event for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. After all, it now has the largest dinosaur exhibit on the West Coast. But it also was a big day for the designer, CO Architects on the Miracle Mile. The work for the museum in Exposition Park is its largest museum project to date.

That’s significant because the 74-employee firm specializes in institutional projects, with a niche in architecture at college campuses in and outside California. As a result, it’s been hurt by the rounds of state budget cuts and shrinking endowments.

“Cal State and UC schools have had much fewer dollars available to build new projects,” said Scott Kelsey, principal at CO. “We have projects that we’ve won – at UC and Cal State – that are on hold.”

So the firm has focused on designing more projects outside of the California public school system, such as Dinosaur Hall, and health care buildings and medical schools in Oregon and San Francisco.

One of those projects is a master plan for the USC Health Science Center campus in Boyle Heights, which CO planned in the past year, and which Kelsey expects will launch in the next two or three years.

Kelsey said his clients can be more creatively fulfilling than designing for commercial developers, who tend to be more cost-conscious.

“Institutional clients tend to have a view of the building as being the vehicle in which they undertake their research or teaching,” he said.

“They’re focused on creating the highest-quality space. In some cases, a developer sees the investment in a shorter-term window.”