The Chicago office of SOM recently completed a 55-story tower—called the Beijing Greenland Center—in the Dawangjing business district of Beijing. The mixed-use project is clad in a trapezoidal facade that’s meant to catch and reflect daylight in the often overcast city. The Beijing Greenland Center is comprised of Class A office space and 178 apartments on top of … Continued
Gertrude “Gert” Lempp Kerbis, FAIA, former SOM architect, has passed away at the age of 89. Widely regarded as a pioneer in architecture, Kerbis served as an architect at SOM from 1954 until 1959, and would later found her own firm, Lempp Kerbis, in 1967. While at SOM, Kerbis led the design of several of … Continued
On Wednesday June 8th, SOM Design Partner Brian Lee will speak at a free, public event called “Books and… : How Librarians and Architects are Designing the 21st Century Library.” Hosted by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Chicago chapter, the event will take place at the recently opened, SOM-designed Chinatown Branch of the Chicago … Continued
Manhattan is seeing a building boom, and supertalls, or skyscrapers over 1,000 feel tall, seem to be the new Starbucks…No one person is behind the development rush, but Kenneth Lewis would be a good place to start. As managing partner at architecture firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Lewis was the senior designer on the Time … Continued
New York, NY: Northeastern University’s School of Architecture has released a new book, Efficiency: An Analytical Approach to Tall Office Buildings, produced in collaboration with SOM. The publication features student research stemming from a graduate studio course led by Gary Haney, SOM Design Partner, and Aybars Asci, SOM Design Director. As Haney and Asci write … Continued
I asked William Baker, the SOM structure guru who figured out how to make the Burj Khalifa stay up, how he would respond if a hypothetical developer with limitless resources came to him and said: Okay, time to quit screwing around with ten stories there and 100 feet there. Let’s build the mile-high tower. “Yup,” … Continued
Most of the integration of the World Trade Center site into lower Manhattan has unfolded at ground level, as barricades fall and streets reopen. But it also is coming into view hundreds of feet up, as office-tower designs incorporate terraces and create buildings more open to the city than those of the old World Trade … Continued
As the first office tower to rise on the World Trade Center site, One World Trade Center recaptures the New York skyline, reasserts downtown Manhattan’s preeminence as a business center and establishes a new civic icon for the country. Kenneth A. Lewis, AIA, SOM Director and Project Manager of One World Trade Center, will present … Continued
On October 22, 2014, SOM Managing Partner Kenneth A. Lewis spoke at the Urban Land Institute’s annual Fall Meeting in New York City. Lewis was part of the Global Exchange Council’s panel discussion focused on mixed-use development. He was joined by fellow panelists Marc Kushner, founder and CEO of Architizer, and Larry Lye Hock Ng, … Continued
Three SOM experts will speak at the Facades+ Conference, which will take place April 24-25, 2014, in New York City. Keith Boswell, SOM Technical Architecture Director, will lead the workshop “Structural Glass Standard: The Need, the Philosophy, and the Direction.” Among the many topics explored, the seminar will look at how the American Society for … Continued