Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)

Yesterday, we celebrated the beam topping ceremony at Temple University, which marks the final phase of construction for the Caroline Kimmel Pavilion for Arts and Communication. Set to open in fall 2027, the building will serve as the new home for the Klein College of Media and Communications and the Center for Performing and Cinematic Arts. “This topping out marks an important step in realizing the Caroline Kimmel Pavilion as a new center for media and performance at Temple University,” said Partner Colin Koop. “The building’s transparent studios, dynamic facade, and welcoming public spaces are designed to showcase creative production, extend campus activity toward the city, and create new opportunities for collaboration across disciplines.” More → bit.ly/4uGtgO6 📷: © SOM | ATCHAIN

We’re celebrating NYCxDESIGN week with the launch of the SOM79 chair—originally designed by Charles Pfister for Halston’s Olympic Tower studio in the 1970s—at "IKONstudio x Rarify: New Icons." Created in collaboration with Rarify, this immersive installation marks the debut of Teknion's new platform, IKONstudio, and is part of an initiative to bring our massive archive of historic furniture designs to the marketplace for the first time. New Icons is open to the public at Afternoon Light Design Fair at WSA (161 Water Street in New York) May 17-19. Learn more in The New York Times below. More → bit.ly/4fh1O4W 📷: Matthew Gordon, courtesy of IKONstudio

Over the years, we have played a central role in reimagining Penn Station—the busiest transit hub in the Western Hemisphere. Spanning multiple blocks, our work at Penn Station comprises several projects, from the adaptive reuse of the Farley Building into Moynihan Train Hall down to the West End Concourse, through the renovated Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) concourse, and out of the East End Gateway on Seventh Avenue. Together, these projects significantly relieve congestion and recapture the grandeur of rail travel to New York. The East End Gateway and LIRR concourse renovation dramatically overhaul the existing station. Working with Skanska and AECOM, we transformed the infamously dark, overcrowded experience by expanding the concourses, improving wayfinding, and introducing the subterranean spaces to natural light for the first time since the 1960s. These interventions reaffirm Penn Station’s role as a civic asset for New York City, and for it, were recognized with an AIANY + ASLANY Transportation + Infrastructure Design Excellence Award—a program that recognizes exceptional design in transportation architecture across the United States. See the winners → bit.ly/4njZr3g 📷: Lucas Blair Simpson © SOM

From a master plan in Oman and a climate research campus in New York to dynamic workplaces in China and South Korea, six SOM projects worldwide have been recognized by the Architizer A+ awards. While the Waldorf Astoria New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) received special mentions, the following four projects are being considered for the People’s Choice Award, and we invite you cast your votes before May 15: Sultan Haitham City | Unbuilt Master Plan Currently under construction, this new model of sustainable development is designed to foster an inclusive future for Oman’s growing population through a mix of housing types within walking distance to new public amenities, parks, and vibrant open spaces. VOTE → bit.ly/4ddyaej The New York Climate Exchange | Unbuilt Sustainable Project Upon completion, this campus on New York’s Governors Island will be a first-of-its kind international center for developing solutions to the climate crisis, and its design and master plan embody this mission—targeting net zero in energy, water, and waste. VOTE → bit.ly/3PtXKnp Sany IROOTECH Headquarters | Office Building High Rise With a distinctive diagrid structure, grand public plaza, and connections to nature, this set of towers blends commercial and civic space at the heart of Guangzhou’s rapidly developing Pazhou business district. VOTE → bit.ly/42TC1Z9 LG Corporation Headquarters | Commercial Renovation Nearly four decades after designing the LG Corporation Headquarters in Seoul, we returned to this legacy project alongside Junglim Architecture for a 21st-century renovation of the building’s plaza and base. VOTE → bit.ly/3QWh39q 📷: Sultan Haitham City: © SOM | ATCHAIN 📷: The New York Climate Exchange: Courtesy of the New York Climate Exchange and SOM 📷: Sany IROOTECH Headquarters: Dave Burk © SOM 📷: LG Corporation Headquarters:  © Namsun Lee

Yesterday in Riyadh, SOM and Details Real Estate | ديتيلز العقارية signed a strategic agreement contract to collaborate on a new landmark project shaping the city’s future skyline. The ceremony brought together senior leaders from both organizations, including Abdullah Al Rajhi, Chairman of Details Real Estate, in addition to SOM Managing Partner Emily Mottolese and Principal Preetam Biswas P.E., F. SEI., F. ASCE., LEED GA. “SOM is proud to partner with Details Real Estate to help shape Riyadh’s next chapter through a new landmark,” said Mottolese. “Building on our valued collaboration with the Al-Rajhi family, this project will bring together global perspective with deep local insight, reflecting SOM’s enduring presence in the Middle East. Driven by our integrated, interdisciplinary approach, we seek to create a bold, contextually rooted project that redefines the city’s skyline.” Building on SOM’s longstanding presence in Saudi Arabia, the project reflects the ambitions of Saudi Vision 2030 and the Kingdom’s continued momentum in sustainable, forward-looking urban development. Find out more about the ceremony below More → bit.ly/4uA7hIG Images courtesy of Details Real Estate

Architectural Record recently captured the ambition behind SOM’s recently completed Sany iROOTECH Headquarters in Guangzhou, describing a project that “elicits a sense of floating—both in terms of its engineering and its relationship to its surroundings.” That sense of floating begins at the ground plane, where the fraternal twin towers rise from an elevated podium that opens the building to the city. A covered arcade brings retail, dining, and recreational spaces into the project, while a landscaped terrace above extends the public realm vertically. As Brian Lee said, “We wanted landscape flowing throughout the project,” linking different levels and, eventually, connecting to the future park nearby. The towers’ external diagrid structure suspends five-story floor modules, creating flexible, column-free interiors that can adapt as needs change—from workplace to hotel and residential. Tailored to Guangzhou’s typhoon and seismic conditions, the project debuts SOM’s patented pin-fuse joint system at building scale—a structural approach that allows the building to flex and absorb seismic energy during earthquakes. As Mark Sarkisian explains, the goal is to create structures that can survive extreme events and be occupied shortly afterward. Writing for Architectural Record, Clifford Pearson captures the engineering innovations that set the towers apart—read the story below. More → bit.ly/4w9oE4J Images: Dave Burk © SOM

A major milestone for UC Santa Barbara: The San Benito student housing project has officially topped out! The 726,000-square-foot development is the university’s largest housing expansion in a decade. Designed by SOM in collaboration with Mithun, the project will provide 2,224 beds across seven buildings when it opens in 2027. The design uses a staggered layout and a sawtooth facade to capture the coastal breeze and natural light of the California coast, while a central plinth connects residences to study lounges, a market, and other student amenities. Congratulations to Webcor Builders and the UCSB team on this important milestone. 📷: Hailey Spicer © SOM

As SOM marks its 90th anniversary, the work of our Adaptive Reuse team offers a real-time study in architectural endurance. Often revisiting buildings designed by our firm decades earlier, the team addresses the friction between timeless form and shifting function. Designing for this shift is a distinct responsibility. And the ability to revisit and update our own designs allows us to act as responsible stewards, honoring the original intent while ushering in the elements that maintain relevance for future generations. On the occasion of Preservation Month, members of our Adaptive Reuse studio reflect on projects that define our legacy and are being reimagined to serve their users for decades to come. Read on for their perspectives behind the projects that continue to shape our skylines. More → bit.ly/4td1w2m #SavingPlaces #PreservationMonth

SOM leaders across architecture, structural engineering, and our Sustainable Engineering Studio joined the Annual Rowlett Lecture at Texas A&M College of Architecture in March. The lecture, “The Art & Science of Integration in Architecture,” explored how leading practices reinvent architecture as a field that combines imagination with evidence, intuition with analysis, and design goals with measurable environmental results. Design Principal Jose Palacios, Structural Engineering Partner Eric Long, and Sustainability Director Shona O'Dea participated in a panel discussion on how design integration across disciplines builds for endurance rather than aesthetics. Palacios noted that form and shape are never arbitrary; they are driven by a clear “why” that responds to a project’s specific parameters of time, place, and culture. O’Dea and Long shared insights into the technical results of proactive, interdisciplinary design—building efficient, regenerative, and sustainable projects. By evolving a vocabulary of tools and techniques that integrate construction and material early on, the firm ensures that creative aspirations are grounded in technical purpose. Following the lecture, leaders from our Los Angeles and Austin studios, including James Diewald and Nkiru Gelles AIA NOMA, led a hands-on workshop with Texas A&M students demonstrating how to use structural constraints to lead design innovation. Thank you Texas A&M and the CRS Center for hosting us! 📷: Texas A&M University

In an exclusive interview with Dezeen, Partner Kent Jackson discusses SOM’s approach to Corso Italia 23, the transformation of a 1960s modernist office complex—originally designed by the studio Ponti Fornaroli Rosselli with Piero Portaluppi—into a dynamic, verdant campus in Milan. Taking an innovative approach to retrofit and renovation, our team sought to preserve the spirit of the original architecture while radically transforming the buildings from within. The design team revisited Gio Ponti’s original intention to foster a sense of connection to the city and within the complex itself, reimagining the site from a closed, insular block into a porous, green urban campus. "The result preserves the soul of the 1960s architecture, while replacing its insular logic with one of openness and transparency," said Jackson. With sustainability central to the ambitions of PIMCO Prime Real Estate, we significantly reduced upfront embodied carbon—retaining approximately 70 percent of the original foundations and structure. Read the full story below. More → bit.ly/48ubXar Images: Dave Burk © SOM