Gensler Recognized as Top Firm in Building Design's 2018 World Architecture 100

Each year, Building Design (BD) surveys the world’s largest architecture firms and publishes their findings as the World Architecture 100. The report details how firms compare to one another, details which firms grew over the last year, and offers insight into how business opportunities and trends have shifted over time.

Gensler remains in the report’s top spot for the third straight year with 2,560 architects on staff out of a total of 5,000+ employees. The ranking is determined by the number of fee-earning architects a firm employs.

The past year’s growth was aided by strong markets for technology and entertainment on the West Coast and finance and media on the East Coast, with additional growth throughout the rest of the U.S. and China. Gensler’s work in the workplace sector — with projects like a new headquarters for tech company NVIDIA — continues to be fruitful, as companies use their office spaces to recruit Millennial talent and boost brand recognition.

And according to Co-CEO Andy Cohen, the future continues to look bright.

More broadly, as the new year dawns, BD reports that confidence across the industry is up as well. BD Editor Thomas Lane shares that 76% of firms expect growth in the world construction economy in 2018. In 2017, the number was just 60%.

In addition, confidence remains high for doing business in countries like China, the U.S., and India. At the same time, the percentage of firms that have positive expectations for Western Europe rose from 28% to 47% in the last year.

In the end, Lane believes that the practices with the most diverse portfolios of work, expertise, and market access are those which are best positioned to prosper moving forward.