Perkins&Will is a global design practice founded in 1935. Since 1986, the group has been a subsidiary of Lebanon-based Dar Al-Handasah (Arabic: دار الهندسة). Phil Harrison has been the firm's CEO since 2006.

History

The firm was established in by Lawrence Perkins (1907–1998) and Philip Will (1906–1985). Perkins and Will met while studying architecture at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

. The company was founded in Chicago. The company attracted national attention in 1940 with the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, designed in association with Eliel Saarinen and

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motor ...

. In 1986, Dar Al-Handasah, a Lebanese consulting firm, purchased Perkins&Will. In 2016, the company had 24 global offices and 2,000 employees. In March 2014, Perkins&Will announced its planned acquisition of The Freelon Group, led by Philip Freelon. After the close of the transaction, Freelon joined Perkins and Will's board of directors and became managing and design director of the firm's North Carolina practice. In October 2017, Perkins&Will acquired sports and recreation architecture firm Sink Combs Dethlefs. Sink Combs Dethlefs, founded in 1962, operated offices in Denver and Chicago. In February 2018, Perkins&Will acquired Danish practice Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, known for their extensive work in the cultural sector, were founded in 1986 with offices in Copenhagen and Shanghai.

Sustainable design

The firm's website claims to have more Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accredited professionals than any other design firm in North America. In 2011, Perkins&Will announced the LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development) platinum level certification for its 100th sustainable building, the Dockside Green Phase Two Balance project, located in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. T ...

. Notable LEED projects: *

University at Buffalo's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences The University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, or UB Engineering, is the largest public engineering school in the state of New York and is home to eight departments. Established in 1946, UB Engineering is ranked 59th by U. ...

VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre
Vancouver BC - LEED Canada Platinum certified, designed to meet the Living Building Challenge
Dockside Green
in Victoria, BC. * Great River Energy Corporate Headquarters in Maple Grove, Minnesota - a LEED Platinum Building that is the first to combine Lake Source Geo-Exchange with displacement ventilation. The building has an urban wind turbine. * Discovery Health Center – 1st LEED NC Certified ambulatory care facility in the country. * Arlington Free Clinic – 1st LEED CI Gold free health clinic in the USA. * Rush University Medical Center, Orthopedic Ambulatory Building – Largest LEED CS Gold healthcare building in the country. * Target Retail Store, San Rafael, California - the first LEED Certified store for this company. * The

Charles E. Young Research Library The Charles E. Young Research Library is one of the largest libraries on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. It initially opened in 1964, and a second phase of construction was completed ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

achieved LEED Gold certification

Notable buildings

Community College of Rhode Island Knight Campus-side

2010-07-12 1580x2800 chicago 235 van buren

A secenic view from Plaza inbetween Classes and Hostels in SRM Amaravati - 2

* Aaniin Community Centre, Markham, Ontario, Canada * Boeing International Headquarters, Chicago, Illinois * Bridgestone Tower, Nashville, Tennessee * Chase Tower (Chicago), Chicago, Illinois * The Clare, Chicago, Illinois * Concordia International School Shanghai, Shanghai, China * Cornell University College of Engineering, Ithaca, New York; complex of seven buildings in the 1950s, including Upson Hall * Crow Island School, Winnetka, Illinois *

Lake Forest College Lake Forest College is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Lind University by a group of Presbyterian ministers, the college has been coeducational since 1876 and an undergraduate-focused liberal arts ins ...

, buildings in Middle and South Campus, Lake Forest, Illinois * Duke University Fuqua School of Business, Durham, North Carolina * Florida Atlantic University, Schmidt Biomedical Science Center * Fort Collins High School, Fort Collins, Colorado * GlenOak High School, Plain Township, Ohio *

International School of Beijing The International School of Beijing (ISB, ) is a non-profit international coeducational day school in Beijing, China. The school was founded in 1980 and offers a dual English and Chinese language program for students from EY to Grade 12. ...

, Beijing, China *

Klaus Advanced Computing Building The Christopher W. Klaus Advanced Computing Building is a three-story academic building at the Georgia Institute of Technology that houses a portion of its College of Computing, College of Engineering, and related programs. History Financing In ...

, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia * Knight Campus, Community College of Rhode Island (1972) * Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago, Illinois * Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania *

Proviso West High School Proviso West High School (PWHS) is a public high school located in Hillside, Illinois, United States. It is a part of Proviso Township High Schools District 209, and was opened in 1958. Its sister schools are Proviso East High School and P ...

, Hillside, Illinois * Riley Towers, Indianapolis, Indiana * Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center, Chicago, Illinois *

Signature Place Signature Place is a 36-story skyscraper located on 1st Street South in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. Construction started in December 2007 and finished in 2009. At 116.1 m (381 ft.), Signature Place is the third tallest skyscraper ...

, St. Petersburg, Florida * SoLo House, British Columbia, Canada * Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Sahyadri Park Campus,

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, India * True North Square, Winnipeg, Manitoba * Tulane University, Mayer Residences, New Orleans, Louisiana *

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learnin ...

, Granoff Music Center, Boston *

University of Agostinho Neto The Agostinho Neto University ( pt, Universidade Agostinho Neto) is the largest public university of Angola, based in Luanda and in the nearby city of Talatona, in Angola. In the academic year 2005–06, 68 licensing courses were ministered b ...

, New Campus Master Plan, Luanda, Angola *

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Uni ...

, Temple Hoyne Buell Hall, Champaign, Illinois *

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, ...

, School of Communication, Miami, Florida *

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

, Biomedical Research Building II, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania *

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8. ...

, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Los Angeles, California * Mumbai 03-2016 19 Antilia Tower

Antilia,

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

, Maharashtra, India *

235 Van Buren 235 Van Buren is a high-rise condominium building located in Chicago's Loop neighborhood near the Willis Tower and the 311 South Wacker Drive Building. The 46 story skyscraper was designed by Perkins & Will and built bCMK Companies a Chicago-based ...

, Chicago, Illinois *

Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University (PNU; ar, جامعة الأميرة نورة بنت عبد الرحمن), formerly Riyadh University for Women, is a public women's university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is the largest women's univ ...

Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, Literal translation, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi Arabic, Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyad ...

, Saudi Arabia. * University Health System 2012 expansion project,

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. * Texas A&M University, Memorial Student Center 2012 Renovation,

College Station, Texas College Station is a city in Brazos County, Texas, situated in East-Central Texas in the heart of the Brazos Valley, towards the eastern edge of the region known as the Texas Triangle. It is northwest of Houston and east-northeast of Austin. As ...

. * University at Buffalo, Davis Hall Building, UB's North Campus, Amherst, NY * Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, North Campus, Suzhou, China * SRM University,

Amaravati Amaravati () is the capital of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located on the banks of the river Krishna in Guntur district. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone at a ceremonial event in Uddand ...

, India

Awards

* 2015 American Planning Association's National Planning Excellence Award for a Planning Firm * 2010 National Building Museum's Honor Award for Civic Innovation, the first architectural firm to be a recipient. * 2010 Honor Award for Civic Innovation from the National Building Museum * 2009 and 2008 Practice Greenhealth Champion for Change Award * 2009 COTE Top 10 Green Projects, Dockside Green and Great River Energy * 2008 BusinessWeek and Architectural Record "Good Design is Good Business" Award for Haworth Headquarters * 2008 CoreNet Sustainability Leadership Award for Sustainable Development * 2003 National Honor Award from the AIA for Skybridge at One North Halsted, Chicago, Illinois

References

External links

*
List of Chicago skyscrapers designed by Perkins&Will

List of Perkins&Will buildings

{{Authority control Design companies established in 1935 1935 establishments in Illinois Architects from Chicago