The Partners of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) are pleased to announce the election of Scott Duncan as a Partner, effective October 1, 2015, in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the firm. Duncan will assume his new role in the Chicago office of SOM.
SOM’s Executive Committee issued the following statement: “Scott Duncan is a highly experienced and talented designer who has delivered numerous innovative projects for SOM. We are confident that he will excel as a Partner, while being a strong proponent of SOM’s core ethos and values.”
In addition to the new Partner, three new SOM Directors have been elected: Colin Koop, Adam Semel, and Jed Zimmerman. These new Directors bolster an already strong and diverse leadership, and their broad portfolios and expertise will help guide the firm into the future.
Scott Duncan, AIA, LEED® AP, Partner
With more than 15 years at SOM, Scott Duncan has developed a broad body of work recognized by the American Institute of Architects and the Municipal Art Society of New York. He has amassed extensive experience in the design and implementation of complex projects throughout Asia, India, and the Middle East, as well as in the United States—including large-scale mixed-use, transportation, commercial, hospitality, and residential developments. Duncan’s work has been published in A+U, Architectural Record, Casabella, Forbes Publications, Metropolis, The New York Times, The Phaidon Atlas of World Architecture, and the SOM Journal. His work at SOM has also been exhibited widely, including at the Chicago Athenaeum, the Skyscraper Museum, the Center for Architecture, and the 2002 Venice Biennale. Duncan serves on the advisory board for the SOM Foundation Travel Fellowship.
Colin Koop, AIA, Director, is a senior designer in the New York office. Throughout his 12-year tenure at SOM, Koop has developed expertise in a variety of building types, and with a particular emphasis on next generation education projects, civic-scale planning projects, and multi-modal transportation hubs. His work is defined by a strong social conscience, a rational approach, and practical results. Koop has extensive experience in the design and implementation of complex projects around the world, including in China, India, the Middle East, South America, and the United States. He is strongly committed to designing innovative architecture, defined by the synthesis of sustainability, function, and an expressed structural rationale. Koop’s work has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects and the Municipal Art Society of New York.
Adam Semel, AIA, NCARB, Director, is a senior project manager in the Chicago office. He is highly experienced with navigating complex public agency approvals, zoning regulations, and community engagement processes. Semel’s strength lies in his ability to work collaboratively with institutional clients and complex constituencies to develop fresh and innovative ideas during the design and planning phases that lead to holistic project success. Consistent with SOM’s design ethos and values, his work as an architect is geared toward providing inspirational, sustainable design solutions that not only solve the client’s objectives, but also provide healthy, stimulating, functional environments in which to live, work, learn, and play.
Jed Zimmerman, AIA, LEED® AP, Director, is a senior project manager in the Los Angeles office. With over 27 years of experience, he brings invaluable perspective, expertise and insight to the design and delivery process. Having performed virtually every role in the design process during his career, he effectively assembles and coordinates project teams and directs all phases of the design and construction process. Zimmerman has worked on both the design and management sides associated with airport, rail-transit facilities, civic, corporate, commercial, industrial, tenant improvement and residential projects throughout the country.
About Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) is one of the leading architecture, interior design, engineering, and urban planning firms in the world, with an almost 80-year reputation for design excellence and a portfolio that includes some of the most important architectural accomplishments of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since its inception, SOM has been a leader in the research and development of specialized technologies, new processes and innovative ideas, many of which have had a palpable and lasting impact on the design profession and the physical environment. The firm’s longstanding leadership in design and building technology has been honored with more than 1,700 awards for quality, innovation, and management. The American Institute of Architects has recognized SOM twice with its highest honor, the Architecture Firm Award—in 1962 and again in 1996. The firm maintains offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Abu Dhabi.