KNOXVILLE—Philip Enquist, partner in charge of urban design and planning and leader of the City Design Practice at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, has been named the 16th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill is one of the world’s leading urban planning, architecture, and engineering firms, a press release said.

Enquist and a select research team will serve as Governor’s Chair for High Performance Energy Practices in Urban Environments and will be affiliated with and administer projects through the UT College of Architecture and Design.

The Governor’s Chair team will be a research partnership among many designers at the firm who specialize in sustainable urbanism and high-performance buildings. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s City Design Practice is the world’s most highly awarded urban planning group.

The contract between ORNL, UT, and the design firm is pending, the press release said. [Read more…]