Iconic skyscrapers, especially those that strive for the fleeting title of “world’s tallest building,” are rarely the progeny of cold logic.

From a distance, the half-mile-high Burj Khalifa in Dubai tapers to a near imperceptible spire like a mirage along the windswept desert coast of the Persian Gulf. 

Given the complex forces connecting China and the United States, the new U.S. Embassy in Beijing, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s San Francisco office, had to negotiate difficult political, cultural, and architectural terrain.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill design partner Roger Duffy, FAIA, describes his SOM Education Lab as “a studio that is both independent and dependent on the bigger whole.”

Every 10 years since 1790, the public and media have turned attention to the U.S. Census Bureau’s panoptic data collection about individuals, households, and businesses.

Kings County Hospital Center provides medical care to an underserved, largely uninsured patient population in the center of Brooklyn, N.Y.