Bryan Schabel
Over his 25-year career at Perkins&Will, Bryan has designed projects for clients in the K-12 and higher education, science and technology, corporate and commercial, and residential sectors. Bryan’s work has been recognized with 30 national and local AIA design awards. These include the nationally celebrated Ryan Fieldhouse and Ryan Walter Athletic Center at Northwestern University; The Contemporaine, a glass and exposed concrete mixed-use residential building; and Bowling Green State University’s College of Business. In 2021, Bryan was appointed as Co-Design Director of our Chicago studio, a role he shares with his mentor and frequent collaborator Ralph Johnson.
Road trips were a favorite activity of the Schabel family. Bryan always loved setting off from his family’s home in a small college town to visit new places, especially the national parks. However, it was their time spent in cities – both in the U.S. and abroad – that he enjoyed the most. When he was a teenager, Bryan’s developer uncle offered him the opportunity to spend a few summers working for him in California. This solidified Bryan’s interest in architecture and provided him his first industry experience.
Despite all his traveling as a kid, Bryan never really lived in a city until studying abroad in Rome. During that time, his eyes were opened to a design sensibility that continues to inform his work to this day. It’s a sensibility grounded in an awareness of the permanence of architecture: fads are ever-changing, but authenticity is timeless – seek out the point where trend meets verity, and this is where you will find enduring style. This is Bryan’s goal, to always look for the perfect balance between the current and the timeless.
