COULSON produces aesthetically rich and environmentally innovative buildings. We take a thoughtful approach to create striking and feasible designs that are rooted in the activity and culture of the place.
Architect Carly Coulson, AIA, LEED AP integrates the diverse disciplines that combine to make contemporary building into beautiful, humane, and sustainable environments. She is the design principal and founder of COULSON. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree and is a Crown Scholar from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Carly has worked for the last 20 years on highly innovative, sustainable solutions since she first started practicing as an architect with Foster + Partners designing the Gherkin in London.
Ms. Coulson has received numerous awards for design excellence including national and regional AIA Honor Awards, Architectural Record Good Design is Good Business, Architect Home of Year, Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award, and Residential Architect RADA Honors. Carly was recognized with an AIA COTE Top Ten Green Building Award for the Bagley Classroom, the first LEED Platinum Certified and passive house building at the University of Minnesota. In 2016 COULSON received two Chicago Athenaeum Green Good Design Awards.
COULSON is an American Institute of Architects 2030 Signatory Firm. We are 1 of only 6 in the U.S. meeting the 2030 Challenge for all design work with a firm portfolio-average 89% reduction in energy demand. This high-performance is invisible, without impact on the poetry-of-place and the design excellence we strive for. It is accomplished with simple low-tech components and passive strategies with innovation in advanced energy modeling and integrated design.
Our projects also meet Passive House requirements through the Passive House Institute (PHI-Germany), considered the most rigorous benchmark in the world, and we have shown this can be accomplished without sacrificing budget, aesthetic creativity, or transparency, even in the most challenging climates.
