Perkins and Will

Perkins&Will was established in 1935 by Lawrence Perkins (1907–1998)[5] and Philip Will Jr. (1906–1985).[6]

The firm first attracted national attention in 1940 with the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, designed in association with Eliel Saarinen and Eero Saarinen.

In 1986, Perkins&Will became part of a network of engineering, design, and construction companies now based in Dubai and known as Dar Group.[7]

With applied research programs across seven focus areas, Perkins&Will contributes knowledge to the fields of architecture, interior design, urban design, and landscape architecture. The firm has published its findings in its peer-reviewed research journal twice a year since 2009.[8]

The firm sponsors an in-house micro-grant program called Innovation Incubator that supports individual and group-led research.[9] It also receives research funding from external sources, such as a US$20,000 grant in 2020 from the American Society of Interior Designers Foundation to study healthy affordable housing[10] and a Ca$460,000 grant in 2021 from the CleanBC Building Innovation Fund to co-develop tallyCAT, a digital tool to help designers identify and choose low-carbon materials for their projects.[11]

Perkins&Will has developed tools to assist design professionals specify healthy materials for their projects. The Precautionary List analyzes the health and environmental impacts of substances found in building products.[12] The Watch List consists of chemicals of concern for which alternatives and data are either not yet available or inconclusive. The Sunset List identifies hazardous chemicals that have been retired from the Precautionary List, usually because they are no longer commonly in use or because they have been removed from most building codes and manufacturing regulations.

In 2016, Perkins&Will became a founding partner of Portico, a green materials database and decision-making tool developed by Google and the Healthy Building Network to bring more transparency to the design and construction industry.[13]

In 2022, Perkins&Will was recognized by the Center for Active Design, which operates the Fitwel healthy building certification system, as the company with the most Fitwel Ambassadors of all time.[14]

Perkins&Will has also authored multiple whitepapers on material health, including "What’s New (and What’s Not) With PVC" and "Healthy Environments: Understanding Antimicrobial Ingredients In Building Materials," both co-written with the nonprofit Healthy Building Network.

In 2004, Perkins&Will launched an initiative led by Peter Busby, a renowned green architect whose firm merged with Perkins&Will that same year, to foster a firmwide culture dedicated to sustainability.[15] In 2005, the firm introduced an operations plan to reduce the environmental impact of its global business across categories including transportation, water use, energy, consumables, indoor air quality, and renovation/construction.[16]

Perkins&Will signed the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2030 Commitment in 2009,[17] the same year it released its 2030 e2 Energy Estimating Tool[18] and its Precautionary List[19] of chemicals of concern. In 2010, the firm recorded its 100th LEED certified project.[20]

When the U.S. withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017, Perkins&Will signed on to “We Are Still In,” an industry-wide public declaration of its continuing commitment to climate action.[21]

The firm served as a pilot partner for Building Transparency’s Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool since 2019 and renewed its commitment to piloting the tool in 2022.[22]

The white paper "Beyond Buildings: Why an integrated approach to buildings and infrastructure is essential for climate action and sustainability" was authored by Perkins&Will in partnership with Dar Group member companies Dar, Integral Group, TYLin, and Currie & Brown. It was published by the World Green Building Council in 2021.

The firm signed the World Green Building Council’s Net-Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment in 2021, pledging whole-life-carbon reduction for each of its owned and operated offices by 2030.[23]

In 2022, the firm announced it would begin offering carbon forecasts to clients.[24] That same year, Jason McLennan, creator of the Living Building Challenge, merged his firm with Perkins&Will and became its chief sustainability officer.

The firm’s Resilience Lab researches and develops strategies to improve the resilience of buildings and communities. The lab’s director co-authored RELi,[25] the Resilience Action List + Credit Catalog.[26] The U.S. Green Building Council adopted RELi as its resilient design rating system in 2017 and later folded the resilience standard into LEED.[27]

In 2017, Perkins&Will founded ResilientSEE as a response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which devastated the island of Puerto Rico.[28] ResilientSEE is an international alliance focused on rebuilding Puerto Rico to promote resilience to natural and climate change-related disasters.

The late Ed Feiner joined Perkins&Will as a principal in 2009 following his retirement from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), where he served as chief architect.[29] While with the GSA, Feiner established the Design Excellence program, which revolutionized the process of selecting architecture firms for federal projects.[30] One of Feiner’s close colleagues, Casey Jones, later served as director of Design Excellence at the GSA and joined Perkins&Will as principal and Design Leadership Council director in 2018.[31]

The firm’s annual design competition, the Phil Freelon Design Competition, challenges junior designers across the firm to propose innovative solutions in response to a compelling competition brief that examines a number of society’s most pressing issues.[32] The competition, spearheaded by Ed Feiner, was formerly known as the Design Leadership Council Design Competition. It was renamed in 2020 after the late Phil Freelon, who served as managing director and design director of the firm’s North Carolina practice until his death from ALS in 2019.[33]

Gabrielle Bullock was named the firm’s first director of global diversity in 2013.[34]

Perkins&Will encourages people from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in architecture. The Harvard Graduate School of Design and Perkins&Will launched the Black in Design Mentorship Program in 2021.[35] The firm also contributes funding toward the Phil Freelon Fellowship[36] and the Perkins&Will Cornell Future Architect Award.[37] The firm’s global design director, Ralph Johnson, and his wife, Kathleen Nagle, fund the Nagle-Johnson Family Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.[38]

In partnership with the AIA, in 2021 Perkins&Will released "Creating a Culture of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Your Architectural Practice," a 26-page white paper outlining ways for architecture firms to diversify their talent.[39]

In 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, Perkins&Will was recognized by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality as a result of the firm’s ranking in the HRC Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index.

The firm offers parental leave for all new parents and domestic partners, including those who choose to adopt or foster, and has done so since 2015.[40]

Employees donate their time and talents to community projects through the firm’s Social Purpose program. Past projects include designing a new headquarters for a Toronto nonprofit that works with underserved youth,[41] designing a library and affordable senior housing in Chicago,[42] and providing design leadership for the Fowler-Clark-Epstein Farmstead, a historic house and urban agriculture project in Boston.[43]

Crow Island School, Winnetka, Illinois (1940)

Chase Tower, Chicago (1969)

Contemporaine, Chicago (2005)

Rush University Medical Center, Chicago (2012)

Shanghai Natural History Museum, Shanghai (2015)

Terry Fox Field, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. (2021)

Destination Crenshaw, Los Angeles (2023)

The Stage, Shoreditch, London (2023)

Ralph Johnson, 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award winner, AIA Chicago[44]

Gabrielle Bullock, 2022 Gold Medal winner, AIA Los Angeles[45]

Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality, Human Rights Campaign, 2019-2022[46]

Canada's Greenest Employers (2009-2022), BC’s Top 100 Employers (2013-2018, 2020-2022), and Canada’s Top Employers for Young People (2022)[47]

Company with the Most Fitwel Ambassadors (All-Time), Fitwel, 2021[14]

Fast Company Brand That Matters, 2021[48]

Fast Company World’s Most Innovative Companies, 2013, 2015, 2018

National Building Museum Honor Award, 2010[49]

AIA Architecture Firm Award, 1999[50]

Perkins&Will’s expertise and geographic reach have significantly expanded through a series of acquisitions. In 2004, the firm acquired Vancouver-based Busby + Associates, founded and led by Peter Busby.[51] Pierre-Yves Rochon, a luxury hospitality and residential design firm based in Paris, joined the firm in 2007. In 2010, Perkins&Will acquired New York-based Guenther 5 Architects.[52] In 2014, Perkins&Will acquired The Freelon Group, led by Philip Freelon, who became the managing director and design director of the firm’s North Carolina practice.[53] Perkins&Will acquired London-based Portland Design Associates in 2015;[54] mobility consultancy Nelson\Nygaard in 2016;[55] Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, with offices in Copenhagen and Shanghai, in 2018;[56] and London-based Penoyre & Prasad in 2019. In 2022, Jason McLennan merged his firm, McLennan Design, with Perkins&Will and became its chief sustainability officer.[57]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Perkins and Will.

• Official website
• List of Chicago skyscrapers designed by Perkins&Will
• List of Perkins&Will buildings
• Oral History interview regarding history of firm