HKS Named Fast Company’s #1 Most Innovative Architecture Firm
Recognition highlights Astra Tower as a prototype for buildings that address climate and civic health
Fast Company has named HKS the #1 Most Innovative Architecture Firm and #31st on its 2026 World’s Most Innovative Companies list, reflecting the firm’s leadership in shaping the future of global business, technology and culture.
The recognition is driven by the firm’s work on Astra Tower in Salt Lake City, a residential high-rise designed to address one of the city’s most urgent public health challenges. It also reflects how HKS is using architecture as a tool to improve human, urban and ecological outcomes.
Salt Lake City’s geography and seasonal atmospheric inversions trap pollution in the valley, contributing to some of the worst air quality in the United States. At Astra Tower, a key innovation is the building’s centralized air intake, which subjects outdoor air to hospital-grade filtration before distributing it to residences. The system is designed with the aspiration of returning cleaner air to the surrounding environment than the building takes in, advancing a net-positive approach to urban air quality at scale.
A second strategy focuses on awareness and behavior. In partnership with Utah Clean Air, Astra Tower uses its presence on the skyline to communicate real-time air quality levels through a color-changing LED crown, as well as displays within elevators and shared spaces. These signals help residents and the broader community better understand changing environmental factors and make more informed daily decisions.
Together, these strategies point to a future in which buildings go beyond mitigating environmental challenges to actively improving the environments around them. That vision translates into healthier air and stronger connections between people and their surroundings at Astra Tower.
“At HKS, we believe every project is an opportunity to make the world better than we found it,” said HKS CEO Heath May. “Design isn’t just about what happens within a building. It’s about the conditions we create for communities and environments to thrive. This recognition affirms our belief that the most meaningful innovation in architecture is measured by how it strengthens the people we serve.”
“At HKS, we believe every project is an opportunity to make the world better than we found it.”
Astra Tower reflects an approach HKS is applying more broadly – using research and interdisciplinary collaboration to address environmental, human and urban challenges through design.
“Astra Tower was designed in direct response to the realities of living in Salt Lake City, where air quality is an important public health issue,” said Emir Tursic, HKS Salt Lake City Office Director. “Together with our client, Kensington Investment Company (KIC), we saw an opportunity to create a building that not only supports the people inside it but also engages with the environmental conditions shaping daily life in the city.”
