We recently announced the promotion of our newest principals—eight global leaders who exemplify the qualities that SOM brings to every project: international perspectives, deep expertise, and a commitment to working across disciplines. We’ve asked each of them for insights on their career journeys and a glimpse of what they’re working on now.

Ece Calguner Erzan

Best career advice?

I was five years old when my father told me that I should do what I love—that if I chose to do what I am passionate about, I would be able to succeed. His advice stayed with me. Years later, I think of him every day when I design, because that’s when the boundaries between work and joy begin to blur.

Tell us about a meaningful experience at SOM.

It was the moment I discovered that SOM is a true “collective.” There is a creative alchemy that makes our value as a group much greater than the sum of our individual strengths. We support, complement, and inspire one another in many unexpected ways: our interior designers can offer a perspective from inside out to the team designing a building facade; our urban designers consider the human journey when creating a master plan; our engineers can propose innovative structural systems even at the scale of custom furniture.

What are you working on now?

One of our biggest ongoing projects is 4 Hudson Square, the New York headquarters for the Walt Disney Company. Our interiors team is working on the design of the building lobbies and the dining and retail spaces for the building’s ground floor. I’m continuing to work with clients in the financial industry here in New York, ranging in scale from trading floors for a leading investment bank, to amenity spaces, to a new office space for a boutique private equity firm. Together with the renovation of a Midtown office building, a corporate headquarters in Cairo, and three residential towers—in London, Paris, and Xian—my days are filled with a stimulating variety of design challenges.

Christoph Timm

Best career advice?

Throughout my career I have worked with inspiring role models who practiced great architecture right in front of me. Be positive, curious, build networks, mentor and find mentors for yourself. Asking insightful questions is a great way to engage others. 

Tell us about a meaningful experience at SOM.

A few years ago I asked David Childs if he would meet with my 7-year-old nephew who was very interested in architecture and specifically One World Trade Center. David was immediately all-in. He gave my nephew a private tour at the office and even a memento. It was priceless to see the two of them interact, both clearly having fun in each other’s company! My nephew still has David’s handwritten note and autograph displayed in his room.       

What are you working on now?

As a facades specialist, I am fortunate to be involved in a broad range of interesting projects. I’ve been working on a large office development in Bangalore, the new terminal at Kansas City Airport, repositioning a classic 1970s SOM office tower in Midtown Manhattan, another new office tower at 1245 Broadway, and the LACMA expansion in Los Angeles with its fine facade detailing. Participating in pitching for new work and increasing our profile at conferences are also key priorities. And maybe most important of all: making SOM the best place at which to grow your career. 

Francesca Oliveira

Best career advice?

“If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.” My father, who passed away ten years ago, gave me this advice. As a teenager, he immigrated to the United States from Portugal in pursuit of the very freedoms which today I seek to express through every architecture project.

Tell us about a meaningful experience at SOM.

It has been an honor and privilege to be part of the design leadership for our work with the U.S. State Department. At its core, an embassy represents the American ideals of democracy to its host nation, using design as the vehicle to invite peaceful dialogue and build common ground. 

By synthesizing vernacular design with American innovations, the resulting architecture enables diplomacy based on mutual respect. It is my long-held belief that architecture is a gateway to express the ideals of the institution it represents. This was the foundation of my architectural thesis dissertation at Drexel University, and it has been an incredible opportunity to put these ideas into practice at SOM.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a net zero energy office building for the County of San Mateo, California, which offsets its operational energy with an onsite photovoltaic array. The architecture exemplifies the government’s aspirations for sustainability and resiliency. We used a mass timber structure, which, together with a refined interior palette, reduced the embodied carbon impact by 80 percent from baseline. 

To achieve this goal, we leveraged a two-year research effort which I facilitated with the aim to de-carbonize and de-chemicalize the design process. I have been grateful to exchange material expertise with colleagues around the firm as we all strive to rapidly draw down our carbon usage. 

Frank Mahan

Best career advice?

I learned early on from my mentors that I’m only as good as my team. My job is to support them and see that they can do their best work; only then am I doing my best work.

Tell us about a meaningful experience at SOM.

SOM gives early-career professionals a lot of opportunity to take on significant responsibility. Senior leaders don’t tell you that you have that responsibility; they just treat you that way. I remember working on One World Trade Center and going to the site to review a mock-up of the podium curtain wall panels. I was probably the youngest person on site, out of dozens of design and construction professionals, but our technical director turned to me and asked what we should do first! I ended up directing a crane operator where and how high to lift the mock-up so we could all view it properly and leading the group in our review.

What are you working on now?

I’m focused on expanding our great portfolio of adaptive reuse projects—retrofitting existing buildings is an essential part of our mission to address climate change. Big ongoing projects like the Waldorf Astoria always keep me busy, but at the moment I’m also working on renovations of several SOM-designed mid-century buildings—all of this at the same time!

Lucy Ling

Best career advice?

“You will do best at what you know best” is an adage that has influenced me since childhood. When I joined SOM as a project manager in San Francisco 13 years ago, Gene Schnair, the managing partner who became my mentor, gave me another key piece of advice: “Plan your work and work your plan.” 

With these two mottos in mind, I always make sure that I have the knowledge and skills to do my job well. Building on my knowledge about the China market, the experience I’ve gained by wearing multiple hats throughout my career, and the skills I developed based on Gene’s advice, I have been able to effectively manage fast-paced, large-scale mixed-use projects for a range of clients throughout China.

Tell us about a meaningful experience at SOM.

During a phone call with our client for the Ningbo Guohua Financial Tower, the president of the company told me that he was so proud that he saw his project featured on SOM’s website.

What are you working on now?

In Taipei City, we are working on a major transit-oriented development that will become a new cultural and commercial hub. Although the scale and complexity is similar to some projects I’ve worked on in China, there are unique conditions that we have to account for in our design. It’s being constructed around an operating MRT station, which is the busiest station on the line leading to the airport, and it will also be connected by an underground passageway to Taipei’s main high-speed railway station. We are also preserving the existing foundation and two-level podium on the site. We are excited about the owner’s commitment to make this project the first “double platinum” project (both LEED and WELL) in Taiwan. 

I’m also excited about a local project here in San Francisco: the new Education and Community Center for the American Buddhist Cultural Society. It’s been a great experience to work on a completely different building type at a much smaller scale. I can’t wait to see this beautiful and contemporary Buddhist temple built at one of the major commercial corridors of San Francisco.

Anthony Treu

Best career advice?

Everyone sees problems and solutions through their own lens. You’ll be a better communicator, and more effective, if you learn to speak to address your audience’s perspective.

Tell us about a meaningful experience at SOM.

Presenting “What is an Architect?” to my daughter’s Pre-K class, and seeing their curiosity and imaginations light up when they see how our profession shapes the world.

What are you working on now?

Quite a range of work—from a master plan focused on community health equity, to the repositioning and modernization of an aging (but vital) urban medical center, to the ongoing construction administration of a flagship cancer hospital that is pioneering new ways of delivering care.

Ryan Culligan

Best career advice?

I’ve been very lucky to have been surrounded throughout my life by some great mentors. My dad, my mom, Scott Duncan, and my wife Seanna Walsh (a great designer herself) stand out as my most influential mentors.  I’ve learned from them that I shouldn’t check my enthusiasm and that I should try to have fun in my work. I think these are my superpowers. And I’ve learned from them that the best way to elevate everyone around me is to treat every person with respect and positivity, and to lead by example, demonstrating an unrelenting drive to achieve the highest standards of care and quality.  

Tell us about a meaningful experience during your time at SOM.

One of the things that is special about SOM is that we freely exchange ideas across disciplines and generations. I remember a slide Bill Baker once showed while explaining why some tall building designs get built and why others do not: Galileo’s sketch of scaled bones from Two New Sciences, juxtaposed with photos of dog and elephant skeletons. The point was that animals, like buildings, need proper scale and proportion. Scaling a dog’s bones to the size of an elephant’s wouldn’t result in a structure that supported its own weight. I come back to these images often for two reasons. The first is that as architects and designers we have so much to learn from the natural world. We should draw much more on the lessons of evolution and natural history in searching for elegance, simplicity and beauty. The second is that there is an appropriate “set of bones” for every design problem. Designs should be bespoke, and we should make a point to celebrate what makes each one unique.

What are you working on now?

Lots of really exciting projects both in the United States and abroad that I hope will have transformative effects on their cities! To name a few: two new concourses for the O’Hare International Airport; two towers at 400 Lake Shore Drive that mark the intersection of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan; an office tower also on the Chicago River informed by pandemic design research that utilizes natural ventilation and encourages a healthy workplace; a community hub in Englewood; a set of mixed-use towers in Nashville that encourage indoor/outdoor living; and two city-scale architectural master plans—one in Bangkok, Thailand, and the other in Shenzhen, China—that are both currently under construction.

Vram Malek

Best career advice?

Be empathetic, courageous, and determined—but above all, be yourself. 

Tell us about a meaningful experience during your time at SOM.

When I first joined SOM in 2014, I had an amazing opportunity to travel and work on one of SOM’s most notable and largest projects in Europe at the time—the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. The design evoked interlaced fingers in a symbolic clasp of unity—an apt symbol given NATO’s changing mission from opposition and prevention to unification and integration. I embraced this international collaboration and it gave me a great sense of satisfaction that as a collective of architects, designers, engineers, and planners, we continue to work together to build a better future.

In 2016, Belgium released a 1-euro stamp with an image of the building that we designed. It’s an incredible feeling to work on projects with that level of global impact.

What are you working on now?

I’m working with an amazing team on 175 Park Avenue, one of the most transformative and significant complex mixed use developments in New York City today. The new tower will replace the Grand Hyatt, immediately next to Grand Central Terminal on 42nd Street. This is the kind of project and opportunity you dream about as an architect—to design a building that will transform its neighborhood and hold an iconic presence on the skyline, and also to reimagine the experience at street level for the thousands of people who pass through this site every day.