Mithun
Mithun

Our work is inspired and formed by—

An alert sense for the needs and experience of the user

A culture of constant curiosity and discovery

A spirit of optimism and promise

An abiding responsibility to our clients, community and environment

The patterns of nature, the vision of an organization, the soul of a city

Mithun is a design firm.

Our design has purpose—to create positive change in people's lives.

Mithun

We believe in design's vital capacity to connect people to place and each other through intentional and memorable experiences.

Mithun
Mithun

We are committed to design’s ability to anticipate and address the challenges of the future.

Bring Passion.
Leave Ego.

We are united by a belief in the power of design

We leverage technology and integrated disciplines to advance design that serves individuals, communities and our planet. Research and development programs enable our teams and collaborators to transcend boundaries, reaching ever higher levels of design quality and impact. We value the diversity of our staff and project typologies, as they translate into broader perspectives and innovation within the practice.

Work hard and have fun

We bring humility, laughter and resilience to work each day. We work hard, and balance that rigor with a healthy dose of fun. We come together to celebrate professional accomplishments and life’s milestones. We join forces to support causes dear to our hearts, and seek out opportunities to feed the spirit and cultivate wellness.

Our inquisitive nature provokes new discoveries

Our entrepreneurial culture of sharing and learning from many points of view comes from our founder, Omer Mithun, who never heard an idea he wouldn’t discuss. Today, as he did then, we engage together to advance knowledge and creativity. Our teams are structured to welcome ideas, reward collaboration and invite constant professional challenge. Staff-initiated programs—from Mithuniversity to ACE Mentors and Mithun Wellness—enrich our practice, enliven our workplace and open the door for new discoveries.

Pull Up a Chair

The Mithun Mentors program recognizes staff who generously “pull up a chair” to share their knowledge, guidance and encouragement with others around them. More than six staff have been recognized in recent years.

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Advancing Education

We’re proud to support interdisciplinary design through the Mithun/Russell Family Foundation Endowed Professor in Sustainability at the UW College of Built Environments.

All In

Work hard. Play hard. Extracurricular activities – like rowing, kickball, happy hours and museum tours – are a great way to strengthen office bonds and try something new.

Bring It

Ideas come from everywhere, and are particularly welcome at our bi-weekly design crits. Staff unite across disciplines and offices to participate in the dialogue, and contribute to projects at every phase of design and construction.

Threshold Gallery

Art inspires our work and enriches our communities. Mithun hosts a changing art gallery within the Seattle office to provide a venue for emerging and established artists in our local community.

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To Your Health

We are constantly looking for ways to optimize health and well-being in the office. Staff favorites include standing workstations, in-office massage, healthy afternoon snacks, and operable windows in both of our offices.

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Creative Enrichment

The annual J. Don Bowman Scholarship funds employees’ proposals for continuing education and creative explorations in architecture, design and the arts.

Mithuniversity

Our nationally recognized continuing education program hosts weekly classes covering subjects as broad as Revit, resiliency, waterproofing and mindfulness.

Carbon Neutral

A leader in the environmental movement for more than 20 years, Mithun has offset the firm’s entire operational carbon footprint since 2004 through funding of methane capture from dairy cows, wind power development, and other innovative regional projects.

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Mentoring Tomorrow’s Designers

Mithun staff participate in the ACE Mentor Program, which provides hands-on project-based learning for high school students interested in architecture, construction and engineering careers.

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Climate Partnership

Recognizing the environmental challenge of our generation, the firm’s Climate Partnership program provides financial support for staff to make energy improvements in their own homes.

Mithunerfest

In the great tradition of German Oktoberfest, we’ve gathered with friends and family to celebrate community since 1977. Bratwurst, beer and merriment abound in Seattle and San Francisco every fall.

Giving Back

Our generous and engaged team leads creative and fun fundraising drives every year for important community organizations like EarthShare, United Way, Food Lifeline and Arts Fund. We also donate probono design services to organizations and communities in need.

Bicycle Culture

Mithun provides bike storage at each of our offices, and we even have bikes to check out for rides to nearby jobsites or a lunchtime workout. Our strong bike culture also extends beyond commuting to include group rides and organized events.

Innovate

Like our founder, Omer Mithun, we are constantly experimenting with new technologies and approaches to design. Virtual reality is a recent example with big results.

Olympic Spirit

Since 2002, we’ve held biennial summer and winter games coinciding with the Olympics, both in Seattle and San Francisco. The week-long celebration of teamwork includes events like Barbie ski jump and the two-person skeleton race.

Building Community

We give big, through time and contributions, to the communities where we live and work. Our leadership is actively involved at the board level of many civic institutions, and we encourage all staff to engage in professional and community service that aligns with their passions. Mithun’s commitment to community, education, environment and the arts is underscored by a legacy of service and financial support to numerous national and local organizations, like those listed below.

 

Mithun is a national practice. From offices in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, we integrate architecture, interiors and landscapes with urban design and planning to design innovative places that elevate the human experience.

Seattle

Our Seattle office is a renovated industrial pier with open spaces animated by timber structure, natural light, breezes from Elliott Bay, and views across the Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains. Project teams sit in multi-disciplinary groups connected by a central “Main Street,” which is both a thoroughfare and mixing chamber—its eddies feature informal seating, maker space and pin-up boards where ideas take form.

San Francisco

Our San Francisco office is located on a downtown BART stop, and is a local hub for events that bring together the nation’s top innovators. Flexible, open workspace surrounds a central meeting and collaboration zone that is host to a wide range of project meetings, design charrettes and celebrations. The dynamic city right outside our door inspires our growing interdisciplinary team and projects of all scales.

Los Angeles

Our Los Angeles office is centrally located in the Culver City Arts District, a short walk to the LA Expo line. The daylit office space is in a renovated chocolate and biscuit warehouse, with tall exposed wood truss ceilings. The highly collaborative workshop setting is filled with models, renderings, and iterative design studies highlighting a range of project typologies from the scale of custom furniture and exhibits to campuses and large scale urban design.

Our DNA

We are a mission-driven, design-first firm, committed to delivering the highest caliber work with the smartest, nicest and most collaborative teams in the profession. Our practice is founded on a process of listening. Listening to our clients, communities, environment, partners, and teams – it’s in our DNA.

Omer Mithun, a beloved professor at the University of Washington, founded the practice in 1949, and grew the firm with award-winning work throughout the Pacific Northwest. While Omer passed away in the early 1980s, his legacy and ethos live on not just in the firm name, but in our steadfast commitment to education, environment, urbanism, integrated design and civic engagement.

In the 1990s, the practice took a strong leadership role in the emerging sustainable design movement. With cutting-edge project work, investments in research and development, and a curious and innovative spirit, Mithun continues to be recognized as one of the seminal national thought leaders in this area.

In the 2000s, as the firm’s reputation continued to grow, our work quickly expanded up and down the west coast and to a national scale with significant commissions across the country. Mithun opened a San Francisco office in 2008, and in 2013 merged with the acclaimed Daniel Solomon Design Partners. The San Francisco office quickly grew with new work, and the development of an integrated team of architects, landscape architects, interior designers, urban designers and planners. Building on the firm’s many project successes in Southern California, in 2019 Mithun joined forces with the renowned Los Angeles design practice, Hodgetts + Fung, establishing a new office and home base for future project opportunities. Later that same year, Mithun merged with award-winning Schacht Aslani Architects, expanding the firm’s Seattle-based team and strengthening expertise in design-build project delivery and public work.

Today, our “one office, three doors” spirit is held by more than 180 professionals, each of whom is inspired and empowered to realize our mission of “Design for Positive Change.” We are deeply grateful for the visionary leaders who helped build and evolve our firm, and hold a tremendous spirit of optimism and promise for our collective future.