08 May Nike taps ZGF Architects to design expansion
May 06–Nike on Monday named ZGF Architects as its architecture firm for the World Headquarters expansion project.
ZGF’s selection breaks the hold that TVA Architects and its head, Robert Thompson, has had on the sprawling campus near Beaverton.
ZGF and TVA have had something of a competition for design business with the footwear and apparel company and its co-founder Phil Knight.
ZGF, formerly known as Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, designed the John E. Jaqua Academic Learning Center at University of Oregon as well as the Athletic Medicine Center in the university’s Casanova Center. TVA and Thompson designed the Matthew Knight Arena on the UO campus, the Ford Alumni Center on the campus, the Nike Air Hangar in Hillsboro, Nike Portland (retail), Nike Santa Monica (retail), and the most recent capital project on the Nike campus, the C. Vivian Stringer Child Development Center.
Boora Architects of Portland, on the other hand, designed the Knight Management Center at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business,
Nike also announced that Hoffman Construction would be the primary construction partner for the expansion project and Gerding Edlen would handle project management.
Former Oregonian reporter Jeff Manning profiled Thompson for the newspaper in advance of the Matt Knight Arena’s opening in January 2011.
Thompson told Manning that the Nike World Headquarters campus was his proudest achievement, “due to the staggering complexity of literally designing a city from the ground up. We designed everything from the buildings to the furniture, the light fixtures right down to the napkins used in the restaurants.”
— Allan Brettman