Location: Berkeley, CA
Size: 438,000 sf | 776 Beds
Status: Completed March 2024
Firm: Morris Adjmi Architects: Design Architect
Role: Project Architect
Awards: Award of Excellence, SARA California Design Awards 2025; Special Mention, Higher Education and Research Facilities, Architizer A+ Awards 2025; Best in American Living, Student Housing, National Association Home Builders 2025.
Sustainability: LEED Gold; Carbon Neutrality (Scopes 1 & 2)
Photography: Jason O'Rear
This student housing project was inspired by the goal of building a supportive community for transfer students, many of whom come from lower-income and diverse backgrounds, entering through the UC transfer program. Initially scoped for 350 beds, our client challenged us to accommodate as many students as possible while remaining sensitive to the surrounding downtown context.
A private donation to UC Berkeley from the Helen Diller Foundation, the result is a 14-story, full-block courtyard building that provides 776 beds and extensive amenities. Beyond residential space, the project also creates valuable resources for the broader university community, including: a fitness center, teaching kitchen with associated classrooms, student pantry, dining room, art studio with kiln room and darkroom, outdoor space, and a donor event space on the 13th floor.
Located just outside the western edge of campus, the building serves as a vital architectural link - transitioning from the classical revival architecture of the university to the eclectic urban character of downtown Berkeley.
A proprietary precast system supports brick and metal inlays on the upper floors, while the building's lower three stories feature finely detailed, hand-laid brickwork.
Location: New York, NY
Size: 36,000 sf | 16 Units
Status: Completed Spring 2025
Firm: Morris Adjmi Architects: Full Service Architect, Interior Designer, & Art Services
Role: Project Architect
Photography: Read McKendree, Field Condition
Rendering: Binyan
181 Mac Dougal occupies a vibrant corner in Greenwich Village, just blocks from Washington Square Park. Inspired by the historic and eclectic architecture of the West Village, the project seeks to weave together the neighborhood’s rich traditions with a forward-looking design sensibility. Located within the Greenwich Village Historic District, the development underwent a thorough review and received approval from the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The building presents two distinct architectural expressions: a prominent corner structure and a more slender, loft-style form. Both feature intricate brick detailing that adds depth and character. The corner volume is clad in a light warm gray brick, with alternating window groupings and a thoughtfully designed retail storefront at street level. In contrast, the loft-style expression is defined by rust-colored brick, corbeled piers, and a sculptural curved cornice rendered in corbeled brick. While the brickwork and detailing draw from traditional motifs, the overall composition offers a contemporary interpretation.
The development includes 16 condominium residences, highlighted by a full-floor penthouse on the 7th floor with a wraparound terrace. Amenities include resident lounges, a fitness center, private storage units, bicycle storage, and a dog wash station.
181 MacDougal is represented by Corcoran and was 75% sold within the first six months of occupancy.
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Size: 404,000 sf | 396 Units
Status: Permits Issued
Firm: Morris Adjmi Architects: Full Service Architect, Interior Designer (Residential)
Role: Project Architect
Sustainability: LEED Gold
Rendering: Arqui300
This multi-family rental development seeks to revitalize an underutilized neighborhood adjacent to the downtown core. The development comprises three buildings that together create a cohesive, site-specific vision.
An existing industrial structure on the western edge will be repurposed to house retail spaces, activating the street frontage. A pedestrian-oriented internal street will run between the retail building and a new residential tower. Behind the tower, a structured parking deck will provide vehicle access and storage.
The residential tower leverages zoning incentives to reach a height of 244 feet and will include 397 units in a mix of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom layouts. The tower's design establishes a strong identity at the podium level, where warm orange-red brick is paired with factory-style windows to create a contemporary yet contextual aesthetic.
At the third floor, an inset curved glass volume houses resident amenities and visually breaks the tower massing. Above, the tower utilizes a cost-effective window wall system made of glass and metal slab-and-pier covers. A three-bay by four-story pattern, expressed through alternating metal colors and profiles, introduces architectural rhythm and detail, avoiding a monolithic appearance.
Every other tower bay features vertical metal piers that extend to the ground, grounding the structure and providing visual breaks along the brick façade.
Location: Sandy Springs, GA
Size: 206,000 sf
Status: Completed March 2018
Firm: Gensler Atlanta: Architecture, Interiors & Branding
Role: Designer, Architecture
Awards: 2018 Winner: Large Office, Interior Design Magazine Best of the Year Awards; 2018 Winner: Award of Merit, ENR Regional Best Projects 2018
Sustainability: LEED Silver
Photography: Jason O'Rear & Garrett Rowland
Mercedes-Benz USA Headquarters’ new glassy home in Sandy Springs, just outside of Atlanta, GA, is built on the idea of creating an open office environment to better enable communication, collaboration, and ultimately, innovation. Reinventing what it means to be an icon, the lower-profile project still prominently anchors its site. The larger floor plate encourages serendipitous interaction, and a light-filled atrium provides alternative workspace.
The architecture takes inspiration from the German auto-maker: Miesian in character with an unapologetic orderliness. The seemingly impossible simplicity presents a visual narrative of Bauhaus-inspired Modernism melded with today's most progressive thinking on workplace design. After all, it was Gropius who said "we want an architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios, and fast cars."
Location: Cartersville, GA
Size: 61,700 sf
Status: Completed October 2017
Firm: Gensler Atlanta: Architecture, Interiors & Branding
Role: Designer, Architecture
Awards: 2019 Winner, AIA Georgia Awards
Sustainability: LEED Silver, Well Building Pilot Facility
Photography: Connie Zhou
Located adjacent to an existing test manufacturing plant, Shaw Industries looked to bring together multiple commercial business units under a common roof to foster creativity and spark growth and innovation. The project provides a collaborative environment for designers, marketing, and innovation associates and showcases Shaw's design-thinking culture.
Within a simple massing that respects needed adjacencies to the existing plant, the multiple program elements seamlessly work together. A three-story atrium at the building's entrance provides connections between the varying business units and serves as an all-hands space. It also welcomes visitors to the public facing-program: a conference area and two showrooms. Collaboration spaces line the core with a flexible work environment just beyond.
The facade responds to the programmatic arrangement; zinc panels with window wall openings clad the work zones, while a zero-spandrel curtain wall brings light into the atrium and client-facing areas. To mitigate glare associated with the western-facing curtain wall, a screen wall sits outboard the building. Inspired by both the carpet-making process and the colors from Georgia clay, the screen wall went through computational analysis to find the ideal fin depth, spacing, and angle for most impact with the least material.
Location: Atlanta, GA
Size: Existing 100,000 sf + 5,000 sf addition
Status: Completed April 2019
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Lead Designer & Project Architect
Photography: Alex Arnett
Our entrepreneur client spotted a missing real estate market for growing tech companies, and saw potential in a ho-hum 1980's office building as the perfect place. The idea was to transform the building into a home for growing tech companies who have outgrown traditional co-working environments but aren't quite ready to sign a multi-year lease. Fully furnished office spaces are leased out on short terms with the ability to expand into adjacent spaces during growth periods. Our team was invited to participate in a design competition, winning with our scheme that drastically transformed the exterior and carefully planned out the interior.
The exterior transformation not only addressed out-of-date aesthetic choices of the 1980's but also poor urban design principals. The existing entry was angled, not quite oriented to the street. Our design includes a 5,000sf addition to square off the project and re-orient the entry towards the sidewalk and street. The addition also includes a stair connecting all 5 floors to shared social hubs and terraces, bringing outdoor space all the way up the building. The street-facing facades were entirely re-clad with efficient glazing and fins that light up at night. The remainder of the pink granite facade was simply covered with metal panel; a cost effective strategy garnering big impact. The building is a stark contrast of bright whites and gunmetal grays, making a bold statement while honoring classic tech.
The previously less-than-ordinary building is now an eye-catching anchor to the Buckhead community, offering a haven for growth and success beyond the tech incubator.
Location: Charleston, SC
Size: 76,000 sf
Status: Unbuilt, design early 2018
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Lead Designer
A new technology building in Charleston presented a unique challenge: how do we design a distinctly new building within a city rich with historic context? In a developing neighborhood just outside the historic district, our design needed to stand out while also seemingly fitting in. As a relatively large building for the area, we rejected an all-glass enclosure, and instead used a set of clean elements to create a composition.
The project is a representation of the future of the technology industry, what we saw as the how meeting the why. How being the code, the digi-sphere, reflected as one facade type. Why being the social mission of new tech: cross-cultural collaboration and bringing of people together. How and Why meets along the project's southern and eastern face, where the building expresses itself along the corner with a more open facade, terraces, and ground level entry.
Competition Entry, March 2019
In collaboration with Mario Gonzalez Barrera.
Organized by the NYC Department of Housing and AIANY, the Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC competition sought to address the challenges associated with the design and construction of affordable housing on underutilized City-owned land.
We rejected the notion that affordable housing needs to be standardized, inferior, and ubiquitous. We challenged zoning restrictions on an underutilized lot and instead guided our submission by principals of sound design. We aimed to provide modest apartments with usable open space and a shared sense of community and neighborhood pride.
Location: Atlanta, GA
Size: 165,000 sf
Status: Unbuilt, design 2015 - 2016
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Designer
In an invited design competition, Seven Oaks asked for proposals for a new Class A office project in Atlanta's rapidly growing Old 4th Ward neighborhood. Just down the street from the newly renovated Ponce City Market, 525 North aimed to provide additional creative loft office to the area but with the efficiencies of new construction. Our design proposal integrated the steep topography of the site in a lobby/retail corridor that also concealed a parking structure behind. The office floors offered generous and flexible floor plates, high ceilings, and access to plenty of light. The facade was designed to be sensitive to context but distinctly new. Mutli-story openings in a terracotta and metal frame met with fully glazed ground floors and premium floors above.
Gensler won the project and continued through concept design and city approvals. Although the community overwhelmingly supported the project, the site was ultimately sold off for a multi-family project.
Location: Sandy Springs, GA
Scope: Lobby & Plaza Repositioning
Status: Completed January 2017
Firm: Gensler Atlanta: Architecture & Interiors
Role: Designer, Architecture
Awards: 2018 Winner: Gold Award - Corporate Singular Space, 38th Annual ASID GA Design Excellence Awards; 2018 Winner: Recognition Best of Special Projects, IIDA Best of the Year
Photography: Alex Arnett
To stay competitive in the market, Columbia Properties enlisted Gensler's help to reinvigorate the public spaces at One Glenlake. The design team aimed to create an inviting and active experience with new amenities to support a workforce that craves a work/life balance. The lobby was transformed into a place to relax, work, or host a visitor. The closed off outdated cafe was opened up to the lobby and re-branded with an infusion of hospitality. A previously unusable outdoor space was transformed to an active and passive place of respite just adjacent to the office.
Just months after completion, the space was 100% leased.
Various Locations
Size: 20,000 sf - 35,000 sf
Firm: Gensler Atlanta
Role: Technical Designer
Working with Zara's in-house designers in Spain, The Gensler Atlanta team has been responsible for the realization of multiple North American Zara stores.
