“Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has been chosen to design a new teaching and learning facility for Barnard College – Columbia University’s world-renowned liberal arts college for women. The selection committee chose SOM after deeming them the best candidate in three categories: “a history of creative and innovative architecture,” a proven recorded on similar … Continued
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s roots trace to Chicago in 1936. In China, the company designed the Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank which is invested by billionaire Tu Jianhua. SOM also did the master plan for Foshan Lingnan Tiandi (pictured), a project developed by Hong Kong billionaire Vincent Lo s Shui On Land in the southern Chinese … Continued
“ Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has created a multimodal transit hub for buses, light rail, commuter rail, and Amtrak service. The $500 million public-private project is a milestone for sprawling Denver, which has embraced transit in a big way The project’s signature elements, designed by SOM’s Roger Duffy, are a curvy white-fabric canopy that hovers … Continued
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is the architecture firm responsible for both America’s tallest building (the new One World Trade Centre in New York) and the world’s tallest building (the Burj Khalifa in Dubai). In a study last year, they conceded that a 125m-high skyscraper made (mostly) from mass timber products is technically feasible, economically competitive … Continued
San Francisco, CA: SOM’s Urban Planning Studio provided technical analysis and policy advice for a comprehensive study on improving the downtown area in San Jose, California. The findings of the study are presented in a new 63-page report published by SPUR, a nonprofit organization that advocates for smart urbanism. Titled “The Future of Downtown San … Continued
There are 236 London towers—buildings of at least 20 stories—in the planning or construction stages, according to an audit carried out for think tank New London Architecture, which studies the capital’s architectural landscape and urban planning. … The new crop of towers is aimed at luxury living. The $330 million Baltimore Tower, also in development … Continued
Good design has been known to have healing properties—in some ways more directly than others. Each year, the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA) enlists top professionals to create elaborate tablescapes for a fundraising gala dinner, the proceeds of which support HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and education. While the name SOM brings to mind monolithic structures … Continued
The goal of the research project was to develop a structural system for tall buildings that uses mass timber as the main structural material and minimizes the embodied carbon footprint of the building. The structural system research was applied to a prototypical building based on an existing concrete benchmark for comparison. The concrete benchmark building … Continued
If cities are serious about tackling climate change, then the solution may be found in building the city of tomorrow to look more like the city of yesterday. As glass and steel towers continue to rise, wood skyscrapers are likely to start sprouting alongside them. Multi-story and high-rise wood buildings are already planned or rising … Continued
Some architects and engineers say new wood products make it possible to build wooden structures much taller than previously considered safe. Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture is throwing its weight behind those emerging technologies. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will announce at the White House today his department would put funding toward training architects and … Continued