www.olsonsundberg.com

159 South Jackson Street, 6th Floor
Seattle, WA 98104, USA
phone: 206.624.5670
fax: 206.624.3730

sellModern features architects from around the world who concentrate on modern work. This month’s featured firm is Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects.

A Firm History
Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects began its creative existence with architect Jim Olson, whose work in the late 1960s explored the relationship between dwellings and the landscape they inhabit in the Northwest. In the early 1970s the growing firm broadened its emphasis to include urbanism, the landscape of the city. The firm’s commitment to urbanism and civic life became evident as they began designing and developing modern urban buildings in and around the national historic districts Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square. Rick Sundberg joined them in 1975 to help make the landmark Pike & Virginia Building, a project that established the firm as a force for positive change in Seattle as the Market and its surrounding blocks evolved into the dynamic community the world knows today.

The firm, known as Olson Sundberg after 1985, began designing urban villas for art collectors nationwide, homes that were both private museums and civic houses. The firm also began working on major museums in the Northwest, including not only art museums but museums dedicated to cultural and natural history. This exploration of one kind of institutional building led to other, related work, including campus and religious buildings. However, more than any other type of work, the firm is best known for such residential projects as the Carillon Point Condominiums, Hillclimb Court Condominiums, and numerous contemporary residences throughout the Northwest and the United States. Today the firm’s work encompasses all of these project types.

The addition of two principals in recent years has maintained the energy of the firm and taken it to another level of creative exploration. Scott Allen and Tom Kundig have helped Jim and Rick make Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects into an office with a national reputation garnered through a dedication to our projects and recognized in extensive publications and awards. The office has the capacity of a large firm-computerized, diversified, and skilled in every aspect of planning, design and management, but balanced by the rich interaction and high level of intensity of a small one. With about sixty-five people in the firm, at least one of the four principals is deeply involved in the making of each project.

The firm has extensive experience in the making of a wide array of building types, able to bring what is learned from the living room to the museum; and what is learned from the church to the campus, and so on. This synthesizing of information is ongoing, self-generating, and serves as an endless source of creative energy.

The firm’s commitment to vigorous, critical design review sessions has infused its designers with a shared sense of deep commitment to every project. The intense level of design counsel and creative interaction is purposefully kept high, as their dedication to “community” is most profoundly evident where it matters the most-in their office.