Quinn Evans

Quinn Evans is an architecture and historic preservation practice with offices in Washington, D.C., Ann Arbor, Baltimore, Detroit, Richmond and Madison, founded in 1984. The firm concentrates on civic, cultural, museum and campus buildings, with a particular depth in adaptive reuse and the rehabilitation of landmark structures. Quinn Evans has led design on the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum revitalization for more than a decade, a roughly $1 billion program covering 603,700 square feet that replaced the building’s exterior cladding and mechanical systems and reimagined all 23 galleries while the museum stayed open in phases. Its work regularly involves federal and municipal owners, National Historic Landmark properties and buildings that must remain occupied through construction.

In 2024 the American Institute of Architects gave Quinn Evans its Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor the AIA confers on a practice. The firm describes itself as a design collective built around stewardship and the transformation of existing places.

That framing shows up in how the studio is staffed. Historians, landscape architects, sustainability specialists and interior designers work alongside architects, applying lifecycle thinking to buildings that already exist. The argument the firm makes for reuse is partly a carbon one: existing places hold invested ideas, culture, material and embodied carbon, and reusing them is treated as the fastest available climate lever.

Work is organized into four practice areas – Living, Learning, Cultural and Heritage. Recent and ongoing projects include the new museum experience in the Lincoln Memorial undercroft, the transformation of the National Air and Space Museum, Michigan Central Station in Detroit, the ACE Center at Highland Springs, the University of Richmond Humanities Building, Fox Elementary School, Reservoir Park and Recreation Center, Saline District Library, the Woodlands Stewardship Education Center, and the National Native American Veterans Memorial. The firm reports that the Michigan Central revitalization has generated $5.2 billion in economic impact.

Technology has become part of the stewardship offering. Quinn Evans is integrating historic building information management with digital twins to help owners optimize building performance and streamline operations, with the Michigan State Capitol among the projects shown, and it has published an education session on digital twins for museums and cultural institutions.

Six offices anchor the practice: Washington, DC at 2101 L Street NW, Suite 950 (202-298-6700); Baltimore at 100 N. Charles Street, 14th Floor (410-576-0440); Richmond at 1840 West Broad Street, Suite 400 (804-788-4774); Ann Arbor at 219 1/2 N. Main Street (734-663-5888); Detroit at 4219 Woodward Avenue, Suite 301 (313-462-2550); and Madison at 1037 Sherman Avenue (734-926-0419). The firm carries a certified Women’s Business Enterprise mark, and Building Design+Construction ranked it the number one public library architecture firm in its 2025 list.