city—its great textures and fabric, character and culture—extract it and think about pulling it into the vertical plane,” he said. “Neighborhoods don’t need to have 400 single-family homes, schools across town and strip malls. Just because that is how things have been done doesn’t mean we can’t start to envision our communities differently.” Creative guidance It’s not just Winey’s design skills that have gotten him noticed—it’s his commitment to helping educate people in the communities where he builds. Winey supervised Gensler’s Pacific Northwest and Asia Re- gions for nearly 20 years, offering guidance to managing directors in 46 international offices. He expanded Gensler’s presence to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Bangalore and more. When he started working on the Shanghai Tower in 2007, Winey moved to China. “At that time, it was common for a design firm to win a commis- sion and bring the work back to their U.S. office,” he said. “I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to move there and live and work among the people I was designing it for.” The Gensler team also set up a mentoring program in their Shanghai offices, with the goal of encouraging hiring more Asians. When Winey began the Shanghai Tower project, only 10 percent of the Shanghai office design- ers and architects were Asian. Today, that figure is 90 percent. “We taught them everything we know on how to design and construct great buildings. They taught us about the culture and values in the place where they “Neighborhoods don’t need to have 400 single-family homes, schools across town and strip malls.Just because that is how things have been done doesn’t mean we can’t start to envision our communities differently.” 20 | Fall 2017