Architectural projects often begin with the realization that your existing facility no longer meets the capacity and operational requirements for your organization. Founded in 1850, the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office in New Jersey is planning for the future to incorporate best practices and new technologies. Like many growing counties, they face challenges with existing facilities including inadequate space for operations, multiple facilities dispersed throughout the county, and aging infrastructure that struggles to meet maintenance and modern building code standards. This presentation uses Ocean County Sheriff’s Office as a case study to explore how the architectural design process can be used to gather critical data including existing facility assessments, space needs analysis, conceptual design options and budgetary cost estimates. We will demonstrate how the information developed through this process ultimately led to the creation of a new facility design that consolidated operations into one facility that includes Sheriff Administration, Criminal Investigations, Forensics Laboratory, Office of Emergency Management, 911 Dispatch, and County Information Technology. We will also define the traditional design steps used by architects and what you need to know to identify a design team and understand how you become a valuable member in the design process.