Skyscrapers designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) don’t show an obvious family resemblance—the venerable firm’s tall buildings are formally diverse. They include Chicago’s Willis Tower (1974), the Miesian office building previously known as the Sears Tower and made up of square “bundled tubes,” and the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai—still the world’s tallest tower 11 years after completion—with its seemingly spiraling pinnacles buttressing its core. But despite the aesthetic range, SOM buildings do have a common thread of DNA, says Gary Haney, design partner for One Manhattan West, a recently completed 67-story office building on New York’s far West Side. “It is impossible to invent shapes without thinking about structure,” says Haney, now a consulting partner of SOM. “It is part of our ethos.”