Tom Kundig is one of the most recognized architects in North America. He has received some of our nation’s highest design awards, including a National Design Award in Architecture Design from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; four National AIA Honor Awards; six National AIA Housing Awards; and an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which recognizes creative individuals whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction. In 2011, he was included in The Wallpaper* 150, Wallpaper* Magazine’s list of the 150 people who have most influenced, inspired and improved the way we live, work and travel over the last 15 years. In 2010, his project the Pierre received the World Architecture News House of the Year Award, and Residential Architect’s design awards named Art Stable their Project of the Year. Architectural Record has chosen two of Kundig’s projects for Record Houses – the Rolling Huts and Delta Shelter. To date, Kundig has been awarded a total of thirty-seven AIA awards, and over seventy awards total. Olson Kundig Architects received the 2009 National AIA Architecture Firm Award (as Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects) and has twice been named one of the Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Architecture by Fast Company.
Kundig’s work encompasses residential, commercial and institutional and is located around the world. His signature detailing and raw, kinetic construction explore new forms of engagement with site and landscape, which he frames in the workings of unique, building-size machines. In his houses, which are quickly becoming recognized as modern-day classics, brute strength and tactile refinement are held in perfect equilibrium. Recent projects and current projects include the mixed-use Art Stable and 1111 E. Pike, Le Massif de de Charlevoix master plan, a gravity-fed winery in the Naramata Bench of British Columbia, adaptive reuse of the Georgetown Brewing Company and Nissan Stadium Seattle, the Rolling Huts and private residences in Spain and throughout North America, including the Pierre, Shadowboxx, Studio Sitges and Outpost.
In 2006, Princeton Architectural Press released Tom Kundig: Houses; the book is one of the Press’s bestselling architecture books of all time. Kundig has been published in over 250 publications worldwide, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Architectural Record, Dwell, A + U, and Architectural Digest. Eight of his projects have been featured in the New York Times. His work has been featured in many books on architecture, including Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects: Architecture, Art and Craft (Monacelli Press, 2003), Architecture Now! Houses 2 (Taschen, 2011), The Good Office: Green Design on the Cutting Edge (Collins, 2008) and The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture (Phaidon, 2008). Princeton Architectural Press will publish a new monograph of Kundig’s work, anticipated for release in Fall 2011.
Kundig regularly serves on design juries and lectures around the world on architecture and design. He has been a university studio critic throughout the United States and in Japan, including at Harvard University and the University of Oregon, and has served as the John G. Williams Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas and the D. Kenneth Sargent Visiting Design Critic at Syracuse University’s College of Architecture. His award-winning work has been exhibited at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, Syracuse University, and at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. In the winter of 2010/2011, he was the sole North American architect chosen to represent the continent in an exhibit at TOTO GALLERY MA in Tokyo, Japan. Kundig is a member of the U.S. General Services Administration’s 2010 Class of Peer Professionals, which advises the GSA with the goal of achieving design excellence in public buildings. His undergraduate and graduate architecture degrees are from the University of Washington.