Brad Wilkins - Architect

Brad Wilkins was born in 1960 in the USA and is an American Architect.  Though he was born in America his projects are not limited to just the US, he has projects in China and Dubai.  Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture is where he works at.  He has worked in the Chicago Olympic effort, the world’s tallest building (Burj Khalifa, Dubai), and the first Zero Energy building, the Pearl River Tower.  Zero Energy meaning that its net energy consumption is zero. Brad Wilkins was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He trained with Rocco Yim in Hong Kong and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. He graduated in 2004 from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design and in 2001 from the University of Utah's architecture program.  He is the son of Utah’s Supreme Court Justice and a Judge.

He was the Senior Designer of the Clean Technology Tower in Chicago: http://eco-thinker.com/sharp-looking-wind-tower-for-chicago/

He was on the design team for the Burj Khalifa in Dubai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa

He was the designer of the Nanjing Greenland Financial Center in China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_Square_Zifeng_Tower

He has been given awards such as the Found Member of the Taj Heritage Foundation in India.  In education, he was given the Young Alumni of the Year, University of Utah, 2010.  Brad Wilkins works with Skidmore Ownings and Merrill and Rocco Design Architects.  Rocco Designs is a large Hong Kong architectural firm.  The only project he worked on by himself, with the help of one more person instead of a team, was the Pearl River Tower: http://www.som.com/content.cfm/pearl_river_tower

This is the latest green technology and engineering incorporated into it, the tower’s sculpted body directs wind to a pair of openings at its mechanical floors, where traveling winds pushy turbines which generate energy for the building.  It also contains solar panels, chilled ceiling system, under floor ventilation air, and daylight harvesting.  This tower is located in Guangzhou, China.

His designs mainly seem to be large sky scrapers, ones that come out with a sharp peak on top.  His work is heavily influenced by the research he commits with other architects and he has won many awards for his projects, the Pearl River Tower alone is projected to win 5 awards, it’s near it’s completion.  I am fond of Brad Wilkins work because he seems to make buildings with a high tech appearance, silver looking with all glass and metal of which the color matches the glass.  His structures are cleverly designed to appear as sections piling on top of each other; he works with many different companies and does his projects mainly in Chicago, Dubai, and China.  He has been the designers and senior designer for many of his structures, only being on a designing team for only two of the structure he has managed to create.  He was also chosen to be the designer of the Olympic Stadium team for 2016; he will work alongside venue and urban planning team.  Brad Wilkins is a very accomplished architect, though young only at the age of 34, and he seems to be making many influential decisions around the world.