Surveys thirty of the most iconic buildings designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the legendary American architecture firm, since its founding in 1936.

Legendary architecture practice SOM presents 40+ of their most transformative works in the sixth and latest volume, SOM: Works by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 2009-2019. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is one of the most influential architecture studios in the world, with a body of work that includes some of the most important buildings and urban designs of our time. SOM: Works by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 2009-2019 is the sixth and latest volume in the series to cover every era of SOM’s history, from the iconic Modernist works of the 1950s to the projects of today. Documenting SOM’s global body of work—which ranges from a prototype for a biophilic breathing wall to the new headquarters for NATO in Brussels—SOM: Works by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 2009-2019 demonstrates how SOM has come to hold its unparalleled position as a steward of international architecture. This new volume details SOM’s approach to designing impactful, complex projects in a globalized world—an approach which marries a deep bench of global expertise with a commitment to honoring culture and people in the communities where SOM works. In this volume, explore SOM’s mission to address the most urgent challenge of our time: climate change. Working in pursuit of a zero-carbon built world, SOM’s designers are pioneering new approaches to adaptive reuse, cultivating emerging technologies including machine learning, inventing new tools to optimize building performance, and beyond. Organized chronologically, the monograph encompasses SOM’s most significant projects of the past decade, across all building types and locations, highlighting the studio’s unique ability to design and execute complex, technical, and efficient structures. The roster includes Burj Khalifa—the tallest building in the world, Manhattan Loft Gardens, a new vertical community in London, the twisting Ningbo Bank of China headquarters, the ‘floating cube’ new Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles, the master plan for the Cornell Tech Campus on Roosevelt Island, the reimagined Strand Theatre in San Francisco, Chicago’s Optimo Hat Company Headquarters, Denver Union Station, and of course, One World Trade Center. Through in-depth essays, architecture writer and critic Sam Lubell dives into SOM’s radically rigorous approach to design in today’s complex world, exploring the unique ideas cultivated within the studio and how those ideas are transformed into transformative spaces across the globe. As with the previous five volumes in the series, renowned design studio Pentagram led the book’s design in collaboration with SOM. Featuring 500 images, the book includes thorough profiles and never-before-published photographs, plans, and drawings of the studio’s most recent works.

Carol Herselle Krinsky's analysis of Bunshaft's work is the first complete study of this important and at times difficult architect

This nuanced portrait of Gordon Bunshaft and his work for the architecture firm SOM explores his role in defining the built aesthetic of corporate America.

The first of its kind, Designing Tall Buildings is an accessible reference that guides you through the fundamental principles of designing high-rises. Each chapter focuses on one theme central to tall-building design, giving you a comprehensive overview of the related architecture and structural engineering concepts. Mark P. Sarkisian provides clear definitions of technical terms and introduces important equations, to help you gradually develop your knowledge. Later chapters allow you to explore more complex applications, such as biomimicry. Projects drawn from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s vast catalog of built high-rises, many of which Sarkisian designed, demonstrate these concepts. This book advises you to consider the influence of a particular site’s geology, wind conditions, and seismicity. Using this contextual knowledge and analysis, you can determine what types of structural solutions are best suited for a tower on that site. You can then conceptualize and devise efficient structural systems that are not only safe, but also constructible and economical. Sarkisian also addresses the influence of nature in design, urging you to integrate structure and architecture for buildings of superior performance, sustainability, and aesthetic excellence.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have been practising architecture for more than sixty years and are amongst the most well-known architectural firms worldwide, with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong and London. They first attracted attention in the 1950s when they created notable corporate buildings such as Lever House in New York, and went on to gain acclaim with their engineering achievements. The technology developed by SOM made buildings such as Sears Tower in Chicago possible - for many years the highest building in the world. This volume presents a selection of those recent projects which are of a particularly high aesthetic and technical standard. Amongst the projects included are: International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport, Jin Mao Building in Shanghai, Hong Kong Convention Center, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Beijing, and Changi Airport in Singapore.