Top 20 Architects Studio websites; Best architectural company sites

Here are some of the most beautiful, innovative, visually stunning architectural studio websites, presented alphabetically.

20 Best Architectural Company Websites

Bjarke Ingels Group - Copenhagen

Bjarke Ingels studied architecture at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and the Technica Superior de Arquitectura in Barcelona, receiving his diploma in 1998. As a third year student he set up his first practice and won his first competition. From 1998-2001 he worked for Office of Metropolitan Architecture and Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam.

In 2001, Bjarke Ingels returned to Copenhagen to set up the architectural practice PLOT together with Belgian OMA colleague Julien de Smedt. The company rapidly achieved success, receiving significant national and international attention for their inventive designs. They were awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2004 for a proposal for a new music house for Stavanger, Norway. Their first major achievement was the award-winning VM Houses in Ørestad, Copenhagen, in 2005. Despite its success, PLOT was disbanded in January 2006 and Bjarke Ingels created Bjarke Ingels Group, BIG, while his former partner founded JDS / JULIEN DE SMEDT ARCHITECTS.

With BIG, Bjarke Ingels has continued the ideology from PLOT and has several major projects under construction or development both in Denmark and abroad. These include BIH House in Ørestad and the new Danish national Maritime museum in Elsinore, hotel projects in Norway, a highrise designed in the shape of the Chinese character for 'people' for Shanghai, a masterplan for the redevelopment of a former naval base and oil industry wasteland into a zero-emission resort and entertainment city off the coast of Baku, Azerbaijan, shaped as the seven mountains of the country, and a museum overlooking Mexico City.

Under the BIG Banner Bjarke recently published "Yes is more - an archcomic on architectural evolution".




Santiago Calatrava Architect - Zurich

Santiago Calatrava Valls (Valencian pronunciation: [santiˈaɣo kalaˈtɾava], born 28 July 1951) is an internationally recognized and award-winning Valencian Spanish architect, sculptor and structural engineer whose principal office is in Zürich, Switzerland. Classed now among the elite designers of the world, he has offices in Zürich, Paris, Valencia, and New York City.

Calatrava was born in Benimámet, an old municipality now integrated as an urban part of Valencia, Spain, where he pursued undergraduate studies at the Architecture School and Arts and Crafts School. Following graduation in 1975, he enrolled in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland, for graduate work in civil engineering. In 1981, after completing his doctoral thesis, "On the Foldability of Space Frames", he started his architecture and engineering practice.

Calatrava's early career was dedicated largely to bridges and train stations, whose designs elevated the status of civil engineering projects to new heights. His Montjuic Communications Tower in Barcelona, Spain (1991) in the heart of the 1992 Olympic site, as well as the Allen Lambert Galleria in Toronto, Canada (1992), were important works and turning points in his career, leading to a wide range of commissions. The Quadracci Pavilion (2001) of the Milwaukee Art Museum was his first building in the US. Calatrava's entry into high-rise design began with an innovative 54-story-high twisting tower called Turning Torso (2005), located in Malmö, Sweden.
Calatrava is currently designing the future train station - World Trade Center Transportation Hub - at the rebuilt World Trade Center in New York City.

Calatrava's style has been heralded as bridging the division between structural engineering and architecture. In the projects, he continues a tradition of Spanish modernist engineering that includes Félix Candela and Antonio Gaudí. Nonetheless, his style is also very personal and derives from numerous studies of the human body and the natural world.




C F Moller Architects - Denmark

C. F. Møller Architects is one of Scandinavia's oldest and largest architectural practices. Our work involves a wide range of expertise that covers programme analysis, town planning, master planning, all architectural services including landscape architecture, as well as the development and design of building components.

Simplicity, clarity and unpretentiousness, the ideals that have guided our work since the practice was established in 1924, are continually re-interpreted to suit individual projects, always site-specific and based on international trends and regional characteristics.

Over the years, we have won a large number of national and international competitions. Our work has been exhibited locally as well as internationally at places like RIBA in London, the Venice Biennale, and the Danish Cultural Institute in Beijing.

Today C. F. Møller Architects has app. 275 employees. Our head office is in Århus and we have branches in Copenhagen, Aalborg, Oslo, Stockholm and London, as well as a limited company in Iceland.




Coop Himmelblau Architects

Coop Himmelb(l)au (1968-) is a cooperative architectural design firm primarily located in Vienna, Austria and which now also maintains offices in Los Angeles, United States and Guadalajara, Mexico. The firm's name Himmelblau translates from German into English as 'sky blue', Himmelbau translates to 'heaven construction'. The term Coop in the title is pronounced as is the business abbreviation for cooperative, co-op.

Coop Himmelblau was founded by Wolf Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer and gained international acclaim alongside Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry with the 1988 exhibition, "Deconstructivist Architecture" at the Museum of Modern Art. Their work ranges from commercial buildings to residential projects.





Hariri Pontarini Architects - Toronto

Hariri Pontarini Architects, established in 1994, is a Toronto-based architectural practice drawing on the collective skills and expertise of over 45 registered and intern architects, and support staff. HPA’s portfolio builds upon learnt knowledge, technical innovation and design excellence of each successive project, revealing the conception of refined architecture with crafted details. The firm excels in creative design and managing complex projects within strict timelines and budget.

Projects created by Hariri Pontarini Architects are distinctive expressions of the vision and values of the firm’s clients. HPA’s commitment to quiet excellence is embodied in the creation of enduring, carefully conceived spaces that are seamlessly interwoven within the context of their surroundings; spaces crafted to exude a solid dignity and purpose. Known for creating spaces with an implicit understanding of the architectural components, HPA’s extensive portfolio consists of architecture that affirms human conviviality: a sense of proportion and materiality, a facility with natural light, and an intuitive grasp of human dynamics.





JDS Architects - Copenhagen

Julien De Smedt (born 3 December 1975 in Brussels) is a Belgian-Danish architect based in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2006 he founded the architectural practice Julien De Smedt Architects (JDS] based in Copenhagen with offices in Brussels and Oslo. JDS is a multidisciplinary office that works with architecture, urban planning and product design.

After attending schools in Brussels, Paris, Los Angeles and London, Julien De Smedt received a diploma with commendation from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London in 2000. He Then went to Rotterdam to work for OMA and Rem Koolhaas.

VM housing in Ørestad, Denmark, by Julien de Smedt and Bjarke Ingels
In 2001 he went to Copenhagen to set up the architectural practice PLOT together with OMA colleague Bjarke Ingels. The company fast achieved success and received significant national and international for their inventive designs. This included several commissions and competition wins as well as a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2004 for a proposal for a new music house for Stavanger, Norway. Their first major project to be realized was the award-winning VM Houses in Ørestad, Copenhagen in 2005. In spite of the success and attention, PLOT was disbanded in January 2006 and Julien De Smedt founded Julien De Smedt Architects (JDS, first called Julien De Smedt Design], while his former partner founded Bjarke Ingels Group.

In 2007 JDS won their first major project when they won the international competition for the New Holmenkollen Ski Jump in Oslo, one of the city's major landmarks. Other major competition wins include a residential project in the old docklands of Århus, Denmark, and a Harbour development project in Copenhagen.





Kirkor Architects - Toronto

Kirkor Architects + Planners was founded in 1990 by partners Steven Kirshenblatt and Clifford Korman. It has developed into a firm of nearly 60 architects and is a multi-faceted architectural design and planning firm with an award winning reputation for design excellence and client service. We are a highly collaborative, partner driven team of about 60 architects, designers, planners, technical and support staff working on projects across North America and around the world.





Daniel Libeskind Studio - New York and Zurich

Daniel Libeskind is the Principal Design Architect in Studio Daniel Libeskind and solely responsible for all design decisions. Every project is developed with a consistent core team, which works together throughout the design process toward the eventual realization of the project. Within the Studio, teams are set up in individual project rooms and great emphasis is placed on working together.

The proximity of the different team members ensures communication on a daily design development basis. Studio Daniel Libeskind operates with thoroughly integrated teams, where team members assume a high degree of responsibility for ensuring that the project management function is there to support and serve the primary creative design function. There is a clear reporting structure within the team. Design and planning issues are sketched by Mr. Libeskind, alternatives drawn up by the team, discussed and reworked with Mr. Libeskind through regular internal presentations which act as in-house critiques and then reworked until the solution is agreed upon by him. The Project Architects coordinate the work of the team and maintain continual design contact and development with Daniel Libeskind ensuring the ongoing quality of the work in the well-recognized Studio tradition.





Richard Meier & Partners Architects - New York and Los Angeles

Meier was born in Newark, New Jersey. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University in 1957, worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill briefly in 1959, and then for Marcel Breuer for three years, prior to starting his own practice in New York in 1963. Identified as one of The New York Five in 1972, his commission of the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California catapulted his popularity into the mainstream. Richard Meier & Partners Architects has offices in New York and Los Angeles with current projects ranging from China and Tel Aviv to Paris and Hamburg.
Much of Meier's work builds on the work of architects of the early to mid-20th century, especially that of Le Corbusier and, in particular, Le Corbusier's early phase. Meier has built more using Corbusier's ideas than anyone, including Le Corbusier himself. Meier expanded many ideas evident in Le Corbusier's work, particularly the Villa Savoye and the Swiss Pavilion.

His work also reflects the influences of other designers such as Mies Van der Rohe and, in some instances, Frank Lloyd Wright and Luis Barragán. White has been used in many architectural landmark buildings throughout history, including cathedrals and the white-washed villages of the Mediterranean region, in Spain, southern Italy and Greece.

In 1984, Meier was awarded the Pritzker Prize. In 2008, he won the gold medal in architecture from the Academy of Arts and Letters and his work Jesolo Lido Village was awarded the Dedalo Minosse International Prize for commissioning a building. Meier is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council.





Morphosis Architects - Los Angeles and New York

Founded in 1972, Morphosis is an interdisciplinary practice involved in rigorous design and research that yields innovative, iconic buildings and urban environments. With founder Thom Mayne serving as design director, the firm today consists of a group of more than 50 professionals, who remain committed to the practice of architecture as a collaborative enterprise. With projects worldwide, the firm’s work ranges in scale from residential, institutional, and civic buildings to large urban planning projects. Named after the Greek term, morphosis, meaning to form or be in formation, Morphosis is a dynamic and evolving practice that responds to the shifting and advancing social, cultural, political and technological conditions of modern life. Over the past 30 years, Morphosis has received 25 Progressive Architecture awards, over 100 American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, and numerous other honors.





Olson Kundig Architects - Seattle WA

Olson Kundig Architects began its creative existence with architect Jim Olson, whose work in the late 1960s explored the relationship between dwellings and the landscape they inhabit in the Northwest. Olson started the firm based on some simple ideas: that buildings can serve as a bridge between nature, culture and people, and that inspiring surroundings have a positive effect on people’s lives. Rick Sundberg joined the firm in 1975, and its commitment to urbanism and civic life became evident as they began designing and developing modern urban buildings in and around Seattle’s national historic districts Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square.

In 1996, Tom Kundig joined Olson and Sundberg as an owner, taking the firm to another level of creative exploration and helping it grow into an office with an international reputation. Alan Maskin and Kirsten Murray joined the owners group in 2008, continuing the evolution of the firm and furthering its commitment to the experience around architecture, articulated in exhibit design, interiors, and connections to urban and rural landscapes.

The firm now numbers over 75 employees. Olson Kundig Architects’ work, including museums, commercial design, academic buildings, exhibit design, interior design, places of worship and residences, often for art collectors, is now worldwide. Our in-house interiors studio, founded in 2000, provides a full range of services including material selection, custom furniture design and purchasing capabilities.





Philip Johnson Alan Richie Architects - New York

The firm of Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects has been recognized as one of the most creative and innovative architectural firms for over half a century. Philip Johnson's leadership in the modern movement, and later playing a seminal role in the introduction of post-modernism and deconstructivism, has helped to form new ideas and exciting directions in design and architecture around the world. Now, under the leadership of Alan Ritchie, who worked with Philip Johnson for over twenty-five years, the firm continues to explore and present new and cutting edge designs. In 2004, when Philip Johnson retired, he expressed his confidence in passing on his legacy on to Alan Ritchie.

Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects is a New York Professional Corporation, with a staff of over twenty people and an in-house interior design group. The firm also has a registered architectural office in Shanghai, China with a staff of eighteen.

Alan Ritchie, the managing partner of the firm, is a respected designer in his own right and has been responsible for the implementation of many of the office's most important designs.





Steven Holl Architects - New York

Steven Holl Architects (SHA) focus on Design Excellence and Green Innovation, and is a 50 person innovative architecture and urban design office working globally as one office from two locations; New York City and Beijing. Steven Holl leads the office with partners Chris McVoy (New York) and Li Hu (Beijing). Steven Holl Architects is internationally-honored with architecture's most prestigious awards, publications and exhibitions for excellence in design. Steven Holl Architects has realized architectural works nationally and overseas, with extensive experience in the arts (including museum, gallery, and exhibition design), campus and educational facilities, and residential work. Other projects include retail design, office design, public utilities, and master planning.





OMA Rem Koolhaas Studio - The Netherlands

OMA is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. The office is led by seven partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, David Gianotten and Managing Partner, Victor van der Chijs





Pei Cobb Freed and Partners - New York NY

Since its formation in 1955, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners (formerly I. M. Pei & Partners) has completed more than two hundred projects in over a hundred cities across North America and around the world. The firm's clients have included major corporations, private developers and public authorities, as well as educational, cultural and religious institutions. Among its best known works are the John F. Kennedy Library, John Hancock Tower and John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse and Harborpark in Boston; the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and Fountain Place in Dallas; Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong; First Interstate Tower in Los Angeles; First Bank Place in Minneapolis; Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York; National Constitution Center on Independence Mall in Philadelphia, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.




Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects - New Haven CT

Founded in 1977, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects has earned a reputation for designing buildings that express the core values of our clients. We have designed many of the world’s most recognizable buildings, including the World Financial Center in New York, the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, and the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong. Our award-winning portfolio includes academic buildings, libraries, performing arts centers, museums, research centers, residences and master plans, and we have served private clients, businesses, institutions and government agencies. The breadth of our work reflects the belief that a firm must not be constrained by a signature style. Rather, great design arises from sincere collaboration with a client and a deep respect for a project’s environmental, economic and social contexts.





REX Architecture Studio - New York City

The implementation of good ideas demands as much, if not more, creativity than their conceptualization. Increasingly reluctant to assume liability, architects have retreated from the accountability (and productivity) of Master Builders to the safety (and impotence) of stylists. To execute vision and retain the insight that facilitates architectural invention, REX re-engages responsibility. Processes, including contractual relationships, project schedules, and procurement strategies, are the things with which we design.





Studio Under Manufacture - Oakland CA

Studio Under Manufacture was founded in 2002, in an effort to merge disciplines of architecture and design alongside emerging methods of making and management techniques necessary to implement unique solutions.

Studio Under Manufacture is an award winning architecture, design and fabrication consulting firm that draws on a broad set of disciplines to create architectural elements that are both visual and interactive. Our projects reflect a wide spectrum of knowledge from architects, artists, graphic designers, computational mathematicians, manufacturers and museum curators.

Technology informed by aesthetics, social awareness, craft and program specific goals is a positive medium of communication and design that enables and inspires multiple interests to collaborate from diverse viewpoints. With our unique resource of an in-house design studio and workshop with full digital milling capabilities, we experiment with and deploy new methods of prototyping and production that enrich the process of translating ideas into their tactile, physical counterparts.




Bernard Tschumi Architects - New York and Paris

Dedicated to the interface between 21st-century culture and architecture, Bernard Tschumi Architects is an international architectural and urban design services firm with over $1 billion worth of projects for institutional, private, and civic clients.

With offices in New York and Paris, the firm has been the recipient of numerous national and international honors, and has established a world reputation for its innovative design solutions to client concerns of different sizes and scales, from small facilities to large-scale master plans.

Bernard Tschumi established the firm in Paris in 1983 with the commission for the Parc de la Villette and opened the head office, Bernard Tschumi Architects (BTA), in New York in 1988. Bernard Tschumi urbanistes Architectes (BTuA) was established in Paris in 2002 to act as executive architects for BTA's French projects. All designs are personally directed and supervised by Bernard Tschumi.




UNStudio Architects - Amsterdam

UNStudio is an international architectural practice, situated in Amsterdam since 1988, with extensive experience in the fields of urbanism, infrastructure, public, private and utility buildings on different scale levels. At the basis of UNStudio are a number of long-term goals, which are intended to define and guide the quality of our performance in the architectural field. We strive to make a significant contribution to the discipline of architecture, to continue to develop our qualities with respect to design, technology, knowledge and management and to be a specialist in public network projects. We see as mutually sustaining the environment, market demands and client wishes that enable our work, and we aim for results in which our goals and our client’s goals overlap. In 2009 UNStudio Asia was established, with its first office located in Shanghai, China. UNStudio Asia is a full daughter of UNStudio and is intricately connected to UNStudio Amsterdam. Initially serving to facilitate the design process for the Raffles City project in Hangzhou, it is envisioned that UNStudio Asia will expand to a stable multinational team of all-round and specialist architects.




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