Juan Betancur

About

Juan Betancur AIA, LEED AP, is a director at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, focusing on the design of high-performance tall and supertall buildings. Juan’s emphasis on sustainability in large-scale projects is distinguished by a track record of built work that is unusually extensive for a young architect. Juan has been one of the design leaders on a dozen intelligent high-rise buildings that are either completed or under construction. Currently, he is the Senior Architect on the Wuhan Greenland Center, a 606-meter tall mix use tower that when completed will be the world’s fourth tallest building. Juan was also the Senior Architect on the Head Offices for the Federation of Korean Industries in Seoul, Korea.

In his previous role at SOM, Juan worked on a number of now completed projects in China including Pearl River Tower, a 303-meter tower designed to harvest wind and solar energy in Guangzhou; Zifeng Tower, a 350,000 square meter mixed-use supertall building in Nanjing; and Shanghai Grand, a 40-story, 100,000 sm office building in Shanghai. In the process, he has become an expert in the design of exterior-wall systems for supertall buildings that incorporate passive and active sustainable strategies that help reduce the buildings’ energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Juan has also been active in education. He has taught studio classes and been a guest critic and lecturer at both the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois at Chicago. At AS+GG, he has developed a curated design lecture series that focuses on expanding the design discourse within the office, and has also taken a lead role in the mentoring of young designers at the firm.