SHoP Architects

The firm is known for its designs of the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, New York, its contract with the Howard Hughes Corporation to develop the new Pier 17 building at the South Street Seaport, and the design of 111 West 57th Street, also known as Steinway Tower. The Steinway Tower is one of several projects SHoP has designed in collaboration with JDS Development Group. Other buildings include the American Copper Buildings and 9 DeKalb Avenue, also known as the Brooklyn Tower. It has also designed the Museum of Sex, Essex Crossing, and Schuylkill Yards. ==Awards and honors==

In 2014, SHoP was named Fast Company magazine's "Most Innovative Architecture Firm in the World", and one of its "Most Innovative Companies in the World" for its policy of accepting equity in projects, rather than traditional payment, in exchange for services, as well as for its use of modular construction methods. SHoP Architects' awards also include the 2009 National Design Award for Architecture Design from the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards, and awards from the American Institute of Architects' New York City and New York State chapters. ==Criticism==

Justin Davidson, the architecture critic for New York magazine, called the firm "ubiquitous" and criticized its plan with the Howard Hughes Corporation for the South Street Seaport, saying its single tower creates "a new barrier between the seaport and the world beyond." He writes that both the developer and the firm need to understand the area's "benign shabbiness" and not "set a new precedent [of] claiming the waterfront for residences." ==References==