Arup

On July 9, 1970, renowned engineer Ove Arup stood before his partners in Winchester, England, and made what became known as the Key Speech: a path for the future of his practice. “We shape a better world” would be his mantra and the cornerstone of Arup, a London-based collective of 11,000 designers, planners, and engineering consultants who bend steel and concrete to their risk-taking, green-minded will. The Sydney Opera House, Beijing National Stadium, and Heathrow Terminal 5 are icons shaped by Arup’s ethos of “total architecture,” a democratic approach that unites employees from different disciplines and imbues them with a social purpose. (Arup himself died in 1988.) The firm has worked on 20 zero-net energy-efficiency projects and is responsible for the California Academy of Sciences, the largest LEED-platinum-certified public building in the world. This year the company opened the BIQ House in Hamburg, the world’s first building powered by algae. If there is a structure that marries sustainability with a sense of the impossible, chances are it is the work of Arup’s hands.