The Reader’s Choice: Gordon Gill
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Gill, 45, specializes in environmentally sustainable large-scale buildings. His designs have a machine-like aesthetic, looking—and functioning—as much like devices as buildings. While an associate partner at the Chicago office of architectural powerhouse Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Gill led the design of China’s Pearl River Tower, a 71-story building (set for completion next year) that harnesses wind and sun to produce as much energy as it uses. Now at Smith + Gill Architecture, the firm he formed in 2006 with fellow SOM expat Adrian Smith, Gill has upped the ante with Masdar Headquarters, an eight-story mixed-use project under construction in the United Arab Emirates. The complex is billed as the world’s first positive-energy building—meaning it will produce more energy than it consumes.
&Our readers’ choice: Jeanne Gang
