The most innovative architecture companies of 2026

FastCompany: Beyond the not insignificant work of designing buildings, it can often seem that architects are also tasked with solving some of the biggest problems in the world. From reducing the environmental impact of buildings to increasing access to affordable spaces to fighting climate change to rebuilding what climate change has damaged, the architect’s work can verge on the infinite. For the architecture companies honored in Fast Company’s 2026 Most Innovative Companies awards, this mission creep is part of the appeal.

All 10 honorees on this year’s architecture list have made societal challenges and systems-scale shortcomings into side projects of their more straightforward architectural design work. For example, the global design firm HKS earned the top spot on this year’s list partly because it did not shy away from a bold request from a client for a skyscraper design that could be both the tallest building in Salt Lake City and help reduce the city’s notoriously poor air quality. HKS came up with a unique approach to filtering the air going into the building and ventilating it back out cleaner than before.

Others on the list have taken similarly expansive views of their responsibilities working in the built environment. The architecture firm NBBJ is using neuroscientific findings to inform the way it designs buildings that reduce the negative cognitive effects of high heat environments. Crest Real Estate has applied its forte in construction-permit expediting to assist in the rebuilding of fire-ravaged Los Angeles. And Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is taking an incubator approach to supporting next-generation building materials that will improve the energy performance of the buildings it designs, as well as those designed by others.

The list is replete with design firms and architecture industry specialists that see the complexity of today’s big issues as a call to action, and they’re using their work as a way of getting more than a building built. Their designs and, by extension, the world will be better as a result. 1. HKS For designing a precedent-setting 41-story tower in Salt Lake City that filters air Salt Lake City’s new skyscraper is also a sky cleaner. Astra Tower, the 451-foot-tall luxury residential building that opened in 2025, was designed by HKS Architects to reckon with one of the biggest challenges facing Salt Lake City: poor air quality.

Due to its geographic location in the valley of a ring of mountain ranges, Salt Lake City suffers the choking effects of what’s known as an inversion layer. Cold air forms a kind of cap at the ridge of the mountaintops, effectively trapping polluted urban air in the bowl of the city and pushing the air quality index to unhealthy levels. “You can see it. You can smell it,” says architect Emir Tursic, a partner at HKS and a Salt Lake City resident. Astra Tower’s developer called on the architects to propose a solution. The request “left us scratching our heads for a little bit,” says Tursic.

“How can one building do anything about something that is of this magnitude?” Pulling on expertise from across its 29 offices, HKS took an unusual approach. Astra Tower was designed with a single entry point for its air, which is then passed through a hospital-grade filtration system before being delivered through special ducts directly to each of the building’s 372 units. When that heavily filtered air goes back out of the building, through vents or residents’ windows, it is far cleaner than when it came in. Tursic says it’s a model nearly any other building could follow.

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The article discusses the evolving role of architecture firms in addressing societal challenges, which is significant for brand strategy professionals focused on sustainability and market positioning.