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Mr. Childs joined the Washington, DC office of SOM in 1971 after serving on the Pennsylvania Avenue Commission, where he prepared plans for the upgrading of the nation’s main ceremonial street. In 1975 he was appointed by President Ford to serve as Chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, a position he filled until 1982; and in 2003 President Bush appointed him to serve as Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts.

His other current civic involvements include memberships on the boards of the American Academy in Rome, the Museum of Modern Art, the Municipal Art Society, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and the National Building Museum. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

In 1984, Mr. Childs relocated to SOM’s New York office, where his diverse range of completed projects includes Worldwide Plaza on Eighth Avenue (the subject of an 8-part television documentary); the New York Mercantile Exchange; the JFK International Airport Arrivals Building; Bear Stearns Headquarters; the master plan for Riverside South; the Stuyvesant School Bridge in Tribeca; and the renovation and preservation of Lever House. He is the designer for the World Trade Center Tower 1 at the World Trade Center site, and the new Pennsylvania Station at the historic Farley Post Office building. His more recently completed work includes the new 7 World Trade Center; a science building for Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts; a fifty-story tower for Boston Properties at the head of Times Square; and Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, which includes the Mandarin Hotel, a residential tower, a major retail center, and Jazz@Lincoln Center.

Other major projects by Mr. Childs in the United States include the UBS Center in Stamford, Connecticut; the Deerfield Academy Natatorium; and the U.S. Courthouse in Charleston, West Virginia. Internationally, Mr. Childs has completed such projects as the new Lester B. Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Canada; the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel; West Ferry Circus at Canary Wharf in London; the United States Embassy in Ottawa, Canada; and an over 5 million square foot mixed-use development for Mitsui in Tokyo.

Mr. Childs has often served as a juror on local and national design awards programs, has participated as a visiting critic or studio head at leading professional schools of architecture, and has been a lecturer or panelist at numerous conferences and symposia. His work has been widely published.