Hodgetts + Fung and Mithun Merge

The two West Coast firms made the announcement yesterday, stating, "Together, the practices immediately increase their expertise and capacity for urban mixed-use, higher education, civic, cultural and corporate project commissions." Mithun, founded in 1949, is known for sustainable design in and beyond the Pacific Northwest, while the firm of Craig Hodgetts and Hsinming Fung is known for formally adventurous designs born from its L.A. context.

Though not the most obvious firms to merge, the new Mithun | Hodgetts + Fung combines the design talent of HplusF (as Hodgetts and Fung had rebranded their firm not too long ago) with Mithun staff who had been working in Southern California already. Hodgetts expressed the synergy well: "Both our practices take a deeper look into architecture and ask, how does this project benefit the community as a whole? Cities today are in great need of this kind of holistic thinking, and we are excited to bring this approach to groundbreaking projects with our expanded team."

Hodgetts + Fung have been practicing in L.A. for around 35 years, but for Hodgetts the merger is not an "exit strategy." He sees it as "a re-entry strategy for me, Ming and our firm to expand to a much larger stage which, quite frankly, is not readily available to a smaller practice. Our combined capability should open more doors for all of us."