Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) is dedicated to the design of high-performance, energy-efficient, and sustainable architecture on an international scale. The firm approaches each project, regardless of size or scale, with an understanding that architecture has a unique power to influence civic life. The firm strives to create designs that aid society, advance modern technology, sustain the environment, and inspire others to improve the world through a holistic, integrated design approach that emphasizes symbiotic relationship with the natural environment--a philosophy coined as "global environmental contextualism." This approach, which takes into consideration building orientation, daylighting, generation of wind power, solar absorption, and a site's geothermal properties, represents a fundamental change in the design process, in which form facilitates performance. It's predicated on the understanding that everything within the built and natural environment is connected, and that a building's design should stem from an understanding of its role within that context--locally, regionally, and globally. Such a pluralistic approach acknowledges the interaction among building systems as well as between those systems and the natural environment and seeks to improve each individual system's performance. AS+GG's practice includes designers with extensive experience in multiple disciplines, including technical architecture, interior design, urban planning, and sustainable design. Architects also have expertise in a range of building types, including supertall towers, large-scale mixed-use complexes, corporate offices, exhibition facilities, cultural facilities and museums, civic and public spaces, hotels and residential complexes, institutional projects, and high-tech laboratory facilities. The firm was founded in 2006 by partners Adrian Smith, Gordon Gill, and Robert Forest. Today there are 100 employees in offices in Chicago and Beijing.
