22 Feb Nike names 2 more architecture firms for World Headquarters expansion
Nike announced a shake-up in its World Headquarters campus expansion project.
The company said it has selected two architecture firms to join Portland-based ZGF Architects LLP: Pelli Clarke Pelli, led by co-founder Cesar Pelli, and SRG Partnership of Portland.
A spokeswoman for ZGF’s Portland office declined to comment, directing questions back to Nike.
Nike spokeswoman Mary Remuzzi said in a statement, “In terms of the architect choices generally, we felt this collective team would be best suited for the work going forward.”
Pelli and SRG are working as single team, Remuzzi said.
And, while Cesar Pelli is the founder of the firm started in 1977, Nike is primarily working with his son, Rafael Pelli, who is director of the firm’s New York office.
Nike also said Friday that Hoffman Construction would be its primary construction partner — meaning that role in the construction project on the Washington County campus is unchanged.
Construction on the project has been stalled since last August.
At that time, Remuzzi said, “We are now working on an enhanced campus design incorporating our recent real estate acquisitions.”
Well after construction got underway, Nike hired Matt Swaim as vice president of construction services to help lead the project. Swaim previously worked as a Hoffman project manager.
Howard Slusher, a longtime associate of Nike co-founder and board chairman Phil Knight, also joined as a project consultant, Remuzzi said last year.
The selection of Pelli Clark Pelli is especially intriguing.
Cesar Pelli, who earned a diploma in Architecture from the University of Tucumán in Argentina, launched his firm in 1977 in New Haven, Conn., the same year he became dean of the Yale Architecture School, a post he held until 1984.
In 1991, the American Institute of Architects listed Pelli among the 10 most influential living American architects. Besides Rafael Pelli, the other partner is co-founder Fred Clarke, design principal for all projects in the New Haven studio and a former Yale faculty member.
Cesar Pelli earned a master of science degree at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1954, where he received an Alumni Achievement Award in 1996.
— Allan Brettman