Mithun

Omer Mithun founded the practice in Seattle in 1949, and Mithun now runs more than 200 professionals across offices in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The firm combines architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and urban planning under one roof, which shows up in projects where site, building and public realm are designed together. Mithun has offset its full operational carbon footprint since 2004. It absorbed Daniel Solomon Design Partners in 2012 and Schacht Aslani Architects in 2019. Recent work includes the Bud and Val Peterson Residence Hall at Georgia Tech and the ASUW Shell House renovation in Seattle. In August 2026 Mithun and Waugh Thistleton Architects revealed Bevel, a 12-story Bellevue office tower that would be the tallest mass timber office building in the United States.

Research sits inside the practice rather than beside it. Mithun’s R+D program produces studies such as Building Better Schools, which looks at how mass timber can be used in K-12 buildings to maximize the physiological and psychological benefits of contact with nature; the output is described as an adaptable, cost-competitive, systems-based kit of parts. That thinking carries into built work such as The Bush School’s new Upper School, which won a 2025 AIA COTE Top Ten award, and shows up again in projects the firm highlights including the Nordic Museum in Seattle and Kapuso at the Upper Yard, framed as housing that doubles as equity and climate strategy.

The three-office structure the firm calls one office, three doors arrived in stages. San Francisco opened in 2008, four years before the merger with Daniel Solomon Design Partners; Los Angeles followed in 2018, a year ahead of Schacht Aslani joining and deepening Seattle-based capacity in design-build delivery and public work. Each studio reads differently. Seattle occupies a renovated industrial pier at Pier 56, with timber structure, daylight and views across Puget Sound, and project teams seated in multidisciplinary groups along a central circulation spine that also holds informal seating, maker space and pin-up boards. San Francisco sits on a downtown BART stop with open workspace wrapped around a central meeting and charrette zone. The Los Angeles studio is a ground-floor space in Chinatown near transit and Dodger Stadium, built out with a Fitwel certification target.

Staff programs are unusually formalized for a firm of this size. Mithuniversity runs weekly continuing-education classes covering subjects from Revit and waterproofing to resiliency and mindfulness. Bi-weekly design crits pull staff across disciplines and offices into live projects at any phase, and the Mithun Mentors program recognizes people who make time to coach colleagues. The firm’s Climate Partnership provides financial support for staff making energy improvements in their own homes, and Mithun funds the Mithun/Russell Family Foundation Endowed Professor in Sustainability at the University of Washington College of Built Environments, where founder Omer Mithun taught before starting the practice. The Seattle office also runs Threshold Gallery, a rotating exhibition space for emerging and established local artists, and staff take part in the ACE Mentor Program for high school students considering architecture, construction and engineering.