Calvin Tsao, FAIA and Zack McKown, FAIA

Calvin Tsao, FAIA and Zack McKown, FAIA are internationally acclaimed architects and designers whose projects range in scale from a 20 acre/six million-square-foot urban development to the design of a lipstick case. Their work encompasses both residential high-rises and office towers around the world to private residences for high-profile clients in Manhattan and Asia and the partners’ 1850s farmstead renovation. Their projects can be seen across the United States, as well as in China, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany and Japan. Their design includes an apartment tower in Shanghai, a residential and community center for retired Buddhists monks in Bhutan, a new headquarters for Sunbrella, and a residential development in Suzhou, China that includes a wellness complex and hotel. The firm’s scope extends across the disciplines of planning, architecture, interiors, and product/furniture design.

TsAO & McKOWN studio is highly honored, having won numerous national and international

design awards, and both partners have been inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame, along with being named numerous times to the Architectural Digest AD 100 list. Tsao and McKown received the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum National Design Award, personally presented to them by President Obama at the White House. The studio’s work has been honored by exhibitions at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, MOCA in Los Angeles, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Syracuse University, and Parsons The New School for Design .He currently serves on the Boards of The American Academy in Rome and the Architectural League of New York (The Forum’s sister organization), of which he is a former president. Zack McKown serves on the Board of Directors of the Design Trust for Public Space and the Board of Scenic Hudson, a non-profit preserving the Hudson River Valley. Both partners have served as guest critics at leading universities and have lectured widely around the world.