Today global firm Perkins+Will announced a merger with Copenhagen, Denmark–based Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects. Founded in 1986, Schmidt Hammer Lassen is best known for projects such as the 1999 extension of the Copenhagen Royal Library, the International Criminal Court building in The Hague, and the 2013 RIBA award–winning University of Aberdeen New Library.
“Schmidt Hammer Lassen and Perkins+Will have symbiotic goals,” Perkins+Will CEO Phil Harrison, FAIA, tells ARCHITECT. “[We] aim to diversify our talent, expand our cultural and civic practice, and strengthen our presence in Europe and Asia. Schmidt Hammer Lassen aims to expand into new geographic markets, grow its client base, and apply groundbreaking design research to practice. The partnership is complementary.”
While Perkins+Will has offices in the U.K., Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark, will become Perkins+Will’s mainland European hub. The two firms’ Shanghai offices will merge and function as a single design studio going forward.
“We want to be known as a company that is both design-driven and client-focused, as a firm that produces extraordinary designs and delivers them with extraordinary efficiency,” Schmidt Hammer Lassen CEO Bente Damgaard said of the 170-person firm in a press release. “Merging with Perkins+Will enables us to maintain this critical part of our identity while having the support, technology, and reach of a much larger organization.”
As part of the deal, technically an acquisition, Damgaard and all Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s founding and practice partners will continue to lead the Denmark studio, which will retain the Schmidt Hammer Lassen name.
Perkins+Will and Schmidt Hammer Lassen both cite their shared commitment to sustainability and cultural diversity as key commonalities that led to initial discussions about a potential relationship last summer. Now that the partnership has been formalized, the firms are “being prudent and gentle in this transition,” Harrison says. “We are already highly engaged with each other with the goal of cementing our new relationships and building collaborative potential. Perkins+Will leaders are spending time in all Schmidt Hammer Lassen studios right now, and Schmidt Hammer Lassen leaders will be spending time in Perkins+Will studios in the coming months.”
