Gensler’s global product director traces his philosophy to the rink, the stage and every fall that became a beginning.
Gensler Global Product Director Brandon Larcom spent his youth in motion — carving arcs across frozen rinks, practicing lifts and throws with a precision that made him one of the most promising young pairs skaters in the country. For Larcom, skating was more than a sport; it was an identity shaped through discipline, performance and the art of refining the smallest details on the ice.
By 2001, he and his partner had captured the junior national pairs skating championship, earning a place on Team USA and entering the elite world of international competition. Back then, Larcom’s future seemed defined; a trajectory filled with international competitions and ever-more complex elements executed under bright lights and expectant judges.
And then, in a single moment, it came crashing down.
“I did a backflip and didn’t fully make it around,” he shared with me. “I shattered my knee, and I was told I could no longer compete at the same level.”
There are setbacks, and then there are endings — the kind that split a life into before and after. Larcom’s fall ended the career he had trained for since childhood. But it also set in motion a trajectory that would take him from the ice to Hollywood sets, to invention and entrepreneurship, and ultimately to his global leadership role at the world’s largest design firm.
Larcom shared his story, one that hasn’t followed a perfect metaphorical “arc on the ice,” but rather a series of pivots, reinventions and leaps. Larcom’s metamorphosis did not happen easily or always gracefully. “Each chapter ended abruptly,” he said. “But later, you realize there was continuity. Everything was teaching me how to build something.”
What he built — and continues to build — is not just product innovation at scale, but a philosophy rooted in empathy, storytelling and the willingness to prototype through failure. His journey reveals something deeper about design: that it, too, is a choreography of movement, emotion and trust.
The Lessons on the Ice That Shaped His Design Mind
During our conversation, I shared with Larcom that I’ve long had a fascination with figure skating; how the best athletes seem to suspend the laws of physics. They make a triple Salchow look casual, like a step taken mid-conversation, when in reality it’s the product of years of repetition, conditioning, artistry and grit. The beauty of it is deceptive; what looks effortless is anything but.
Larcom shared how product design isn’t so different. The best products feel inevitable and so intuitively right that you barely notice the complexity beneath them. But behind the sublime are countless sketches, prototypes, failures and refinements. The work is meticulous and often invisible. That’s where the real craft lives. As Larcom spoke, I began to understand how deeply skating had shaped his approach to design.
“When you’re skating and you’re doing an element, if there’s any drop of the shoulder or a twist, it can delay the landing,” he explained. “If you have the timing and synchronicity with one another, just like in the manufacturing process, a product that’s working properly is meant to move in a fluid motion.”
Continuing the analogy, he said the costumes and music in competitive skating are like the branding. They are the story, come to life. The competition is the overall marketing strategy and results: “In skating, are you winning and, if so, do you have endorsement deals? On the product side, are the sales strong, and are there other positive ripple effects?” he noted.
Even the falls have meaning. “There are errors in product design. They’re called prototypes. Failure is expected.”
He added: “When I was part of a duo gliding across the ice, we were two skaters, one story. In that medium of skating, every movement is a conversation. Every lift, every spin, every landing depends on trust.”
That trust, rhythm, choreography became the core of how he leads product development today.
The Prototype That Changed His Life
After the knee injury ended his competitive career, Larcom wasn’t ready to leave skating behind. He moved into coaching, working with Team USA athletes while simultaneously pursuing modeling and acting, a path he had begun as a child when he appeared in the Walt Disney film “Iron Will” as a 9-year-old. Acting opened doors, but skating remained his compass. With coaching, he noticed athletes were peaking before they even stepped onto the ice.
“They were doing off-ice warmups, then strength training, then stretching,” he said. “By the time they got on the ice, they were too tired, and their performances were dropping.”
One night, he dreamt of a solution.
In his grandfather’s workshop, Larcom created the prototype for what would become the “The Slide Effect,” a full-body cross-training system. The device combined cardio, strength training and stretching in one synchronized motion. He tested it with his athletes. “They started to win,” he said.
The product launched him into entrepreneurship and global product development. With “The Slide Effect” in 15 countries, Larcom then founded BML Group in 2008 to help other inventors bring products to market, a full year before the TV show “Shark Tank” debuted and made entrepreneurship part of pop culture.
For nearly a decade, Larcom coached elite athletes, developed products and advised inventors. Then, once again, his knee gave out, this time after stepping off the ice during a hockey coaching session. Another abrupt ending. Another reinvention.
Right around that time, Gensler was looking to expand its product development practice. Like landing a perfect triple Lutz, the stars had aligned.
A Boutique Practice Inside a Global Firm
Larcom joined Gensler in 2018. Today, as global director of product development, he describes his role as both entrepreneurial and collaborative, a boutique-style practice embedded inside an international 56-office ecosystem. “More than 6,000 professionals currently work at Gensler,” he told me. “We’re three times the size of our competitors. But we take a localized approach.”
Product development sits at the crossroads of the firm’s expertise. Workplace, hospitality, aviation, sports, brand experience — they all feed into the insights that shape the products Gensler helps bring to market with manufacturers. “Product is everything you can see, touch, feel, experience,” he said. “We take Gensler’s research and enhance the human experience through sustainable designs that are future-proof.”
His own path — athlete, actor, inventor, entrepreneur — uniquely positioned him to think this way. “When I was acting,” he said, “we learned personas. Similarly, what is it like to put yourself into the true character of the client? What are the needs of the person who will be using the product?” This empathy-driven inquiry now shapes the practice.
“We should always be designing with empathy, understanding the ‘why,’” he said.
The Office as Destination: Designing for Emotion
One of the most unexpected examples of this “why-first” approach is the Gensler Infinity Scent Collection, developed with private-label partners. It emerged from a central question after COVID: What will draw people back into the office and make those spaces meaningful again?
“Think about walking into a hotel,” Larcom said. “You automatically feel like you’re transported because of that experiential moment. That’s scent.”
The Infinity Collection is built around six emotional drivers: Appreciating, Awakening, Harmonizing, Intending, Invigorating, Devoting. “Scent completes the evolution of a space’s experience beyond the visual sensory,” he said.
He explained how each scent corresponds to different zones. For example, Appreciating is for lobby entrances and Awakening is for refreshing, open spaces. These scents can be delivered through HVAC systems, tabletop diffusers, candles or oils, each one a branded layer of spatial emotion. It’s not what most people think of when they think of product design. But that’s exactly the point.
Skins That Generate Power: A New Façade for the Future
Another recent initiative moves from interior sensory experience to building-envelope innovation. Gensler partnered with Canadian manufacturer MITREX to develop a solar rainscreen façade that blends aesthetics, durability and renewable energy generation. The system can produce 18 kWh per square foot, Larcom said, while maintaining the appearance of glass, marble, granite or other cladding materials.
“You can skin a building instead of tearing it down,” he explained. “That’s huge for reducing emissions.”
The panels are noncombustible, available in customizable finishes, and can be used on both new construction and retrofit projects. This work aligns with Gensler’s broader 2030 commitment to achieve embodied carbon neutrality, a goal that requires deep material knowledge and rigorous standards. To support that, the team helped develop the Gensler Product Sustainability (GPS) Standards, which identify major carbon emitters in the built environment and advocate for circular systems.
Two recent examples include Smart City carpet planks by Mohawk Group, which earned Living Product Petal Certification; and Haddy Lineau 3D-printed planters, made from fully recyclable and compostable materials.
A Leadership Philosophy Honed on the Ice
As our conversation wound down, Larcom shared something that struck me as the theme tying his entire life together.
“In pairs skating,” he said, “every lift, every spin, every landing depends on trust. You learn to read each other’s rhythm, anticipate the shifts, and adapt in real time. And yes, we fell. Often. But falling wasn’t failure, it was part of the process.”
He sees design the same way. “Design, much like pairs figure skating, is a shared performance built on trust, timing and the ability to adapt together.” And perhaps most beautifully: “Great design is prototyped, tested and refined. It’s a dance of discovery.”
Listening to Larcom, I realized his career has been one continuous choreography from the ice rink to the film set to the inventor’s workshop to the design studio. Reinvention isn’t just something that happened to him. It’s something he learned and continually practices. It is the foundation of his leadership and the core of Gensler product development under his guidance. When a technology glitch delayed our call and I apologized for wasting his time, he just laughed. “It was all prototyping,” he said. “You were prototyping your system.”
I’ve thought about his comment since and how true it is of life, design and the spaces we inhabit. We fall, iterate, rise. We refine the story. And if we’re intentional and disciplined like Brandon Larcom, we can turn each chapter into an incredible choreography of meaning.