2017 Architect 50: Top 50 Firms in Business

We’ve been hearing it for years: mid-sized architecture firms are in trouble, squeezed by ambitious small practices on one side and jack-of-all-trades global megafirms on the other. That’s not the case for New York–based FXFowle Architects, however. “We’re one of those firms that have really claimed the middle, and own it,” says senior partner Dan Kaplan, FAIA. “We feel that in the era of very large design organizations, there’s a lack of nimbleness maybe, and a lack of personal touch. Yet for our size, in the age of leveraging technology, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

Chapel at Kehilath Jeshurun Synagogue (see more photos here)

This year’s Architect 50 bears that out, as FXFowle claimed the top spot in business. The firm posted an enviable net revenue-per-employee figure, and most notably, a 43-percent increase in net revenue from 2015 to 2016. Kaplan attributes the jump to a number of projects “really getting into high gear” over the past year, including what will be the first new ground-up office building in downtown Brooklyn for decades. Plus, he says, the firm’s interior practice is growing, thanks to the addition of principals Len Cerame, AIA, and Angie Lee, AIA.

888 Boylston (see more photos here)

As demonstrated by its portfolio, FXFowle can both ramp up for big projects and hone in on much smaller, specialized ones. A 425,000-square-foot LEED Platinum office building, 888 Boylston Street grandly rounds out Boston’s Prudential Center complex, while the Chapel at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun Synagogue repurposes a 2,050-square-foot former gymnasium as a minimalist room for meditation and prayer beneath a midnight-blue ceiling. The firm is also working on a new 26,000-square-foot Statue of Liberty Museum on Liberty Island, expected to open in 2019.

Statue of Liberty Museum (see more photos here)

FXFowle also stood out for the diversity of its design staff: 35 percent are women and 30 percent are racial or ethnic minorities. “It’s one of those issues that we self-diagnosed five years ago, and decided to do something about it and be proactive. It didn’t just happen,” he says.

There’s a group at the office called Women of FXFowle, and role models in senior leadership include senior partner Sylvia Smith, FAIA, and partner Heidi Blau, FAIA. “I do think there is a structural problem in the profession” for women, says Kaplan, who also teaches at Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. “We’re graduating a majority of women. I do see as time goes on, this sort of winnowing, for a variety of reasons. We’re trying to find those pressure points along the way and relieve them, but I don’t think there’s a magic bullet.”

Top 50 Firms in Business