Perkins Eastman and Kliment Halsband Architects are pleased to announce their merger, which will combine the formidable talents, experience, and skills of both legacy firms. With Perkins Eastman celebrating its 40th anniversary and Kliment Halsband celebrating its 50th, this merger promises to create powerful synergies.
Perkins Eastman, the seventh largest architecture and design firm in the world with more than 1,100 employees, has worked on projects on five continents in 60 countries. Its portfolio reflects expertise in multiple practice areas with strengths in healthcare, senior living, large-scale mixed-use, K-12, higher education, hospitality, and workplace design as well as planning, urban design, and strategic consulting. Kliment Halsband Architects is known for designing award-winning new buildings, renovations, and adaptive reuse projects for educational, cultural, and civic institutions. The firm’s reputation for a sensitive, tailored approach for mission-focused clients is long established.
The merger provides a framework for combining Perkins Eastman’s expansive scale, deep reserve of design, and diverse portfolio with Kliment Halsband Architects’ renowned engagement in institutional design, its reputation for pragmatic innovation, and its leadership position within the industry. Both firms have highly collaborative working styles, prioritize client service, and are committed to educating and inspiring the next generation of professionals.
“Both firms believe in the power of design to improve people’s lives, and we’re looking forward to providing that benefit to a wider range of institutions,” says Mary-Jean Eastman, FAIA, co-founder and vice chair of Perkins Eastman.
Frances Halsband, FAIA, a founding partner of Kliment Halsband, adds, “We see things the same way, but we work in different ways to bring something new to the table. When we work together, we accomplish more than when we work individually.” Kliment Halsband will be known as “Kliment Halsband Architects—A Perkins Eastman Studio,” joining Perkins Eastman’s leaders in the K-12 and Colleges and Universities practices. The firms’ New York studios are co-located at 115 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.
ABOUT PERKINS EASTMAN
Perkins Eastman is a global design firm founded on the belief that design can have a direct and positive impact on people’s lives. The firm’s award-winning practice draws on its 1,100+ professionals networked across 24 studios worldwide. By keeping the user’s needs foremost in the design process, the firm enhances the human experience across the spectrum of the built environment. For more information, visit www.perkinseastman.com.
ABOUT KLIMENT HALSBAND ARCHITECTS—A PERKINS EASTMAN STUDIO
Kliment Halsband Architects, founded by Robert M. Kliment and Frances Halsband in New York City in 1972, is a diverse group of architects committed to the idea that good architecture imparts dignity to organizational mission and individual endeavor. The firm transforms buildings and sites with a measured approach that engages the past and welcomes the future. KHA advocates for sustainability and accessibility for all, but values most a project’s enduring usefulness: beauty, intelligibility to the people who use it, and the ability to adapt to change. The firm has received the AIA Firm Award, the AIA New York City Medal of Honor, and more than 150 awards for design excellence. For more information, visit www.kliment-halsband.com.
Related Stories
| Nov 9, 2010
Designing a library? Don’t focus on books
How do you design a library when print books are no longer its core business? Turn them into massive study halls. That’s what designers did at the University of Amsterdam, where they transformed the existing 27,000-sf library into a study center—without any visible books. About 2,000 students visit the facility daily and encounter workspaces instead of stacks.
| Nov 9, 2010
Turner Construction report: Green buildings still on the agenda
Green buildings continue to be on the agenda for real estate owners, developers, and corporate owner-occupants, according to the Turner 2010 Green Building Market Barometer. Key findings: Almost 90% of respondents said it was extremely or very likely they would incorporate energy-efficiency improvements in their new construction or renovation project, and 60% expected to incorporate improvements to water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and green materials.
| Nov 5, 2010
New Millennium’s Gary Heasley on BIM, LEED, and the nonresidential market
Gary Heasley, president of New Millennium Building Systems, Fort Wayne, Ind., and EVP of its parent company, Steel Dynamics, Inc., tells BD+C’s Robert Cassidy about the Steel Joist Manufacturer’s westward expansion, its push to create BIM tools for its products, LEED, and the outlook for the nonresidential construction market.
| Nov 3, 2010
First of three green labs opens at Iowa State University
Designed by ZGF Architects, in association with OPN Architects, the Biorenewable Research Laboratory on the Ames campus of Iowa State University is the first of three projects completed as part of the school’s Biorenewables Complex. The 71,800-sf LEED Gold project is one of three wings that will make up the 210,000-sf complex.
| Nov 3, 2010
Park’s green education center a lesson in sustainability
The new Cantigny Outdoor Education Center, located within the 500-acre Cantigny Park in Wheaton, Ill., earned LEED Silver. Designed by DLA Architects, the 3,100-sf multipurpose center will serve patrons of the park’s golf courses, museums, and display garden, one of the largest such gardens in the Midwest.
| Nov 3, 2010
Public works complex gets eco-friendly addition
The renovation and expansion of the public works operations facility in Wilmette, Ill., including a 5,000-sf addition that houses administrative and engineering offices, locker rooms, and a lunch room/meeting room, is seeking LEED Gold certification.
| Nov 3, 2010
Sailing center sets course for energy efficiency, sustainability
The Milwaukee (Wis.) Community Sailing Center’s new facility on Lake Michigan counts a geothermal heating and cooling system among its sustainable features. The facility was designed for the nonprofit instructional sailing organization with energy efficiency and low operating costs in mind.
| Nov 3, 2010
Seattle University’s expanded library trying for LEED Gold
Pfeiffer Partners Architects, in collaboration with Mithun Architects, programmed, planned, and designed the $55 million renovation and expansion of Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons at Seattle University. The LEED-Gold-designed facility’s green features include daylighting, sustainable and recycled materials, and a rain garden.
| Nov 3, 2010
Recreation center targets student health, earns LEED Platinum
Not only is the student recreation center at the University of Arizona, Tucson, the hub of student life but its new 54,000-sf addition is also super-green, having recently attained LEED Platinum certification.
| Nov 3, 2010
New church in Connecticut will serve a growing congregation
Tocci Building Companies will start digging next June for the Black Rock Congregational Church in Fairfield, Conn. Designed by Wiles Architects, the 103,000-sf multiuse facility will feature a 900-person worship center with tiered stadium seating, a children’s worship center, a chapel, an auditorium, a gymnasium, educational space, administrative offices, commercial kitchen, and a welcome center with library and lounge.