Perkins & Will

Perkins & Will is back in the top 10 for the first time since 2007 despite having one of the smallest number of overseas offices in the top 30: five.

The Chicago-based practice also takes the honours as the world’s second-biggest education architect, with fee income from the sector of $50.9 million. In last year’s World Architecture survey, it was the global leader in healthcare and it is still fourth-placed in this sector.

Its dominance in education this year is largely down to two significant commissions for Sabah Al-Salem University in Kuwait – the 111,000sq m College of Arts and the smaller College of Education. Both are due to be completed in 2014.

It has just completed China’s first independent Sino-foreign university, the 42,000sq m Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou. Combining both its fortes, it is working on Rush University Medical Centre’s 90,000sq m campus project which features a state-of-the-art hospital.