Seattle’s own Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects has made national magazine Fast Company’s list of the Top 10 most innovative architecture firms in the world.
Bird's Nest
OSKA is in pretty good company on the list, which gives the No. 1 slot to international giant
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Second slot goes to Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, designer of the
Beijing Olympics’ Birds Nest. The third firm listed is
Zaha Hadid Architects, designer of London’s
Millennium dome and that ET-inspired (or is that just me?)
Chanel pavillion in Central Park last fall.
The list also includes a lot of global designers who’ve done projects in our own backyard. Rem Koolhaas’s OMA is fourth on the list. The Dutch designer‘s recent projects include the CCTV building in Beijing and our own Seattle Central Library.
Holl's St. Ignatius
Steven Holl, designer of Beijing’s “Linked Hybrid” complex and Seattle University’s Chapel of St. Ignatius, was fifth on the list. London’s
Foster + Partners, designer of the new Beijing airport terminal, and, possibly, of the pending
Civic Plaza for Seattle officials, was No. 6. (That project was supposed to leverage a public-private partnership to get a new skyscraper with public amenities across the street from City Hall, but it’s currently a hostage to the downturn.)
Spot No. 7 goes to Italy’s Renzo Piano, which recently designed the new NY Times headquarters building. Then comes Christian de Portzamparc, the French architect who designed the Luxembourg Philharmonic’s concert hall and has some cool visions for the future of Paris. Spot No. 9 went to KieranTimberlake, who designed the Cellophane House for MOMA’s show last year on modular marvels.
Montecito Residence- by Jim Bartsch
OSKA was tenth on the list. The magazine noted the firm’s “dossier of important public buildings” (Seattle Public Library’s Southwest branch, Frye Art Museum) and “skillful hand with residences framing sublime natural vistas.” OSKA has won numerous local awards in the latter category over the past few years (see
Delta Shelter,
Montecito Residence,
Rolling Huts,
Outpost, just to name a few).
This year, the firm was awarded AIA National’s firm of the year award. In the AIA Seattle awards last November, OSKA won an Award of Merit for its design of the Noah’s Ark for LA’s Skirball Cultural Center.
