Arup
Specialty: A global company of planners, designers and
engineers focused on sustainability and environmental management
Seattle office: Gary Lawrence, principal; mechanical engineer Jonathan Markowitz, associate principal; and mechanical engineer Sarah Nicholson and structural engineer Brian Glover, associates
Founded: Seattle office in 2003
2002 North America revenue: $87 million
Projected 2003 revenue: $92 million
The local office of Arup technically isn’t open and already the company’s providing the structural, mechanical and electrical engineering on one of the city’s marquee projects: the Central Library. Arup does all of architect Rem Koolhaas’ work.
Lawrence
|
The myriad lines of businesses “are all dedicated to achieving the most sustainable and environmentally sound outcomes possible no matter what the nature of the project,” said Lawrence, an expert in sustainability who is leading that discipline for the company. The Seattle office will work with the company’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, and the West Coast is where the sustainability practice is rooted.
The Seattle office is opening with four people, and the goal is to have a total of 10, including support staff, working out of it by year end. That’s a challenge in a down economy for even a large company like Arup, which Lawrence said was affected by the SARS outbreak. Arup does a lot of work in China and its second largest office is in Hong Kong.
Besides the Central Library, Arup’s doing engineering work for the expansion of the Seattle Art Museum and Washington Mutual’s new headquarters, two related projects, and Vulcan Inc.’s South Lake Union projects. Arup and Vulcan were part of the team that developed a guide to sustainable development for the neighborhood.
Lawrence also is working with colleagues in London on the sustainability portion of that city’s bid for the 2012 Olympics.