Safdie Architects

Safdie Architects is an international architectural and urban planning practice founded and led by Moshe Safdie. Deeply committed to the creation of architecture that responds to local and regional characteristics of landscape, climate, cultural heritage, and contemporary life, Safdie is recognized for creating welcoming buildings and public spaces that contribute in meaningful ways to their setting while catalyzing a vibrant public life.
Safdie Architects is structured around a team of experienced partners, most of whom have worked together for many years. Moshe Safdie is lead designer on all projects by Safdie Architects. Together with the firm’s partners and staff, he engages in an iterative design process, working closely with the client and consultants to test each project’s program, refine design ideas, and facilitate the development of appropriate and effective solutions. To foster the advancement of innovative approaches, the firm sponsors a fellowship program, which is dedicated to research and the development of new ideas outside of the context of a specific project.
Safdie Architects is nimble in its approach, combining the advantages of an intimate design studio with the network of a global practice and its capacity for efficient implementation. Bringing together superior design, technical, and management skills, the firm is adept at working internationally in close collaboration with local and associate architects to develop innovative designs and see complex, large- scale projects to completion.
Projects by Safdie Architects are distinguished by their geographic and cultural diversity and represent many building types and scales. The firm has completed cultural, educational, and civic institutions such as museums, performing arts centers, libraries, religious facilities, and academic campuses; neighborhoods, residential developments and public parks; mixed-use urban centers and airports; and master plans for existing communities and entirely new cities, among other projects. The firm has created buildings and public spaces in such diverse communities around the world as Boston, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Jerusalem, Bangladesh and Singapore and for a wide range of clients, including municipal and government agencies, colleges and universities, private developers, and non-profit organizations and civic institutions.
Significant current and recent projects by Moshe Safdie include:
 Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem (2005);  Mamilla Alrov Center, a dynamic urban district near Jerusalem’s Old City (January 2010);  Khalsa Heritage Centre, a new center for the Sikh people located in the state of Punjab, India (April 2011);  United States Institute of Peace Headquarters on the National Mall in Washington, DC (Spring 2011);  Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri (2011); and  Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (2011).
Sustainability has long been an important principle for the firm. Its design solutions are in harmonious and reciprocal relationship with the natural world and sensitive to their location and local culture. Each project responds to its site; draws on local labor, skills, and renewable materials; minimizes the need for energy consumption; uses sustainable energy sources; and considers long-term operational and maintenance issues.
Advocating the concept of “inherent buildability,” Safdie Architects proposes an architecture that is not about building the impossible but about building what makes sense for a specific program and for a particular setting. Committed to using resources efficiently while advancing a client’s goals, the firm employs a full range of building tools and cutting-edge technologies to ensure efficiency and ease of construction.
Moshe Safdie founded the firm in Montreal in 1964 to realize Habitat ’67, an adaptation of his thesis at McGill, which was the central feature of the 1967 World Exhibition and a groundbreaking design in the history of architecture. Safdie Architects, headquartered in Boston, maintains branch offices in Jerusalem, Toronto, and Singapore to support its activity in different regions around the world and strengthen local ties.

Our approach to architecture, as demonstrated both in our buildings and my writings, has always been premised on the importance of a respectful and reciprocal relationship with the natural world. While the term sustainability has become increasingly fashionable over the past decade, the principles that it upholds have been the basis of our practice since its inception. Those first principles include:
n conceiving of an architecture that is inherently buildable n use of labor saving means and methods of construction n deploying the available crafts and skills of those in the region n incorporation of local and replenishable materials n minimizing the need for energy consumption n use of renewable and passive energy sources n consideration of the long term operational and maintenance issues
Much can be learned from studying and reflecting on nature’s design – particularly living organisms. I am not suggesting that the shapes and forms of what we find in nature literally inspire us, but rather afford an understanding of causality, of how design is progressively improved through the evolutionary process to better respond to its needs, which are defined in large part by its environment. The extraordinary fitness of purpose in nature’s designs provides a basis for the process of architectural design.
Sustainability, at its core, implies a way of building that is sensitive to its location and the culture that has shaped it. Correspondingly, the strength of our practice lies in the geographic diversity in which we work. We have designed buildings in places as diverse in geography and culture as Boston, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Jerusalem, Bangladesh and Singapore. Always balancing our broad spectrum of experience with our commitment to develop a reciprocity between a building and its setting – the appreciation of the site and region’s landscape, climate and heritage has deepened and enriched our design and construction process. This has provided us with a deep and fundamental understanding of how regional climates and geographies can radically transform how a building that works with nature looks.
Fundamental, embryonic decisions – where to build on a site; what shape, height and form should a building take; how should the building be oriented; how can we take advantage of the natural cycles of light, wind, and growth of vegetation; where should people circulate, etc. – have profound impact on the environmental performance of the building and all emanate from respecting and understanding the microclimates and specific features of the site.
Engaging in dialog with the entire project team, including the client, from the outset affords us the opportunity to integrate sustainability into the “first principles” that are being developed for a given project - as opposed to attempting to superficially apply sustainable features after the design has been conceived. We have developed, in consultation with our engineers and environmental designers, strategies that allow us to measure sustainability performance, understand trade-offs and cost-benefit, and assess the environmental, economic, and social impact of the various design approaches being considered. We have found that this approach – of integrative design, yields environmentally responsive designs that preserve resources and enables us to construct the most with the least.
We position sustainability in the broader context of livability and conceive of buildings with attributes that make a structure transcend and improve the quality of the working and living environment, thereby promoting better health and productivity, and where architecture enriches the lives and uplifts the spirits of the patrons as well as the citizens at large.