Gregg Pasquarelli is a founding principal of SHoP Architects, where he has spearheaded a practice defined by bold innovation, collaboration, and an open-minded approach to architecture. His groundbreaking work includes iconic projects such as 111 West 57th Street, The Brooklyn Tower, and the Barclays Center in New York, as well as prominent international developments across cities like Toronto, Rotterdam, and Mumbai. A Fellow of the AIA and an Academician of the National Academy of Design, Pasquarelli has also shaped the next generation of architects through more than 25 years of teaching at institutions like Columbia, Yale, and UVA.
With SHoP, Pasquarelli has redefined the architectural profession, earning prestigious honors like the Smithsonian’s National Design Award and securing a permanent place for the firm’s work in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Under his leadership, SHoP’s inventive and fearless design philosophy has navigated the complexities of master planning, construction technology, and real estate development—pushing the boundaries of architecture while delivering some of the most breathtaking projects ever built.
In this interview, Pasquarelli discusses the philosophies that have shaped his approach, benefiting his team, his clients, and the cities where his designs, quite literally, reach for the stars.
What led to the founding of your firm?
When SHoP was founded in the mid-1990s, it was a very different time in architecture. We were students together, and we were looking at the profession wondering why there was so much division between different types of architects. One would do this and not that. Others just seemed to let the market constrain their interests. We wanted to do it all. So we founded SHoP as a general practice of architecture.
What’s the best way to describe the personality of your practice?
Fearless, inventive, and fun. The motivating force behind SHoP has always been to reinvent the profession and have fun while doing it.
What’s the best way to describe your approach to architecture and design?
SHoP's approach to design is open-minded. We begin by asking a lot of questions, putting everything on the table, and bringing our clients and stakeholders directly into the process. This clear, open communication—supported by old and new technologies that accelerate understanding and decision making—always leads to the best and most beautiful solutions.
What project of yours best illustrates that approach?
The Brooklyn Tower is famous now for being an icon—the tallest point in the borough and a skyscraper that reflects the culture and context of its location. We got there through a very intensive process of research and design that incorporated a wide range of input from a huge variety of sources.
How do you balance aesthetic innovation with functional requirements in skyscraper building designs?
One of the strengths of SHoP's approach to design is that we don't make a distinction between the aesthetic and the functional. When you start thinking about a tall building with an open mind and in its full context, rather than imposing a stylistic preconception from above, all aspects of the solution begin to support each other and the result is a unified whole.
111 West 57th Street, known as the world's slimmest skyscraper, presents unique engineering challenges. Could you elaborate on the design and construction processes that addressed these challenges?
Because we analyzed and addressed all of the novel technical challenges from the very outset of the design process at 111, we were able to develop a unique and powerful expression that evolved directly from those constraints.
For instance, we incorporated very robust shear walls in each of the long sides, which allowed us to develop uninterrupted glazed spans facing the primary views north to Central Park and south over Midtown. That same move created the opportunity for the building's signature terracotta cladding, which is at once a technical measure to help the tower cheat the wind and a now very much beloved civic gesture that speaks to the architectural heritage of Manhattan.
Your firm embraced innovative technologies from the very start of your firm’s founding. How has technological advancement influenced your design process, especially concerning high-rise buildings?
The role of technology at SHoP centers on communication. That was the big breakthrough we made a quarter century ago: that these powerful new modeling and data management technologies can be deployed to demystify and democratize the act of architectural creation. When designing something as complex as a supertall, it only becomes more critical that everyone involved, from the client to the subcontractors to overseeing agencies to the public at large, can be on the same page—whatever someone's background, training, or experience—and taking control of the process through advanced modeling and visualization techniques lets us do that in a very effective way.
The Brooklyn Tower is celebrated for its distinctive facade and integration with the historic Dime Savings Bank. How did you approach blending contemporary design with historical architecture in this project?
The complex hexagonal geometry of the Dime Savings Bank was abstracted to inform the plan logic of the tower, but we didn't feel it was necessary or appropriate to mimic its neoclassicism. Instead we reinterpreted it in two distinct ways. The tower itself takes lessons about depth and perspective and materiality from the architecture of the bank. The podium, which is still under construction, directly addresses the bank's classical forms through an inverting reinvention of the fluted column that we call “convexicave.”
Pasquarelli will be honored as the "Architect of the Year" at Zonda's Elevate conference at the Fontainebleau in Miami, December 9-11, 2024. Click here for more information about Elevate.
