Tom Kundig is a principal / owner & founder of Olson Kundig. Over the past three decades, Tom has received some of the world’s highest design honors, from a National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum to an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy as an Academician in Architecture. Most recently, Tom was awarded the AIA Seattle Medal of Honor as well as a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Washington.
In addition to receiving scores of design awards—including National Honor Awards, National Housing Awards, and a COTE Top Ten Award from the American Institute of Architects—Tom’s work has appeared in thousands of publications worldwide and on the covers of The New York Times magazine, ARCHITECT, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, and The Plan. Tom’s work can be found on five continents, in locations ranging from Costa Rica to Brazil, New Zealand, China, Mexico, Sweden and Austria. Tom regularly lectures and serves on design juries around the world, and is named in The Wallpaper* 150 as a key individual who has influenced, inspired and improved the way we live, work and travel. Tom is currently working on projects across North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos and more, spanning private homes, remote mountain resorts, sports and innovation facilities, and a championship golf destination.
Courses
Tom Kundig: Designing with People and Place
Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA, is principal/owner & founder of Olson Kundig—a collaborative global design practice whose work expands the context of built and natural landscapes. Tom’s diverse body of work champions the formal and technical yet makes a genuine connection with the people who inhabit it. His longstanding interest in the ways people engage with their environments, both built and natural, was honed throughout his extensive career designing private residences, but it is just as present in his larger scale work. In this way, Tom’s design practice is an ongoing exploration of architecture’s elemental qualities: materiality, texture, and detail in dialogue with the human condition. In this session, Tom will speak to his contextual approach to design, providing an overview of his work that often serves as a backdrop to the built, cultural, or natural landscapes that surround them. Moderated by Sarah Broughton, Tom will share his philosophies around craftmanship, collaboration, and what it means for humans to be in a relationship with architecture.
Presented in partnership with AIA Colorado.