David Summerfield joined Foster + Partners in 1992, shortly after graduating with distinction at Portsmouth School of Architecture and spending time working in Paris for Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
He initially worked on Hong Kong international airport at Chek Lap Kok, and was based in Hong Kong during this period. Upon returning to London he was involved in the the Agiplan Headquarters building in Mülheim, Germany as an associate and was later in charge of the North Greenwich transport interchange, and masterplans for Monaco, Sovereign Bay in Gibraltar and La Altura in Cuba. He was a project director on the award winning McLaren Group’s headquarters in Surrey, a semi-circular building on plan wrapping around a lake, incorporating design studios, laboratories and testing and production facilities for Formula One.
He was subsequently involved on two major projects in Astana, Kazakhstan - the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, completed in 2006 and the Khan Shatyry Entertainment Centre, which is currently under construction. He was Project Director for the Red Bull Entertainment Centre in Monaco, and was responsible for the design of the Monaco Yacht Club.
As a partner and following promotion to senior partner in 2007, he led a large team of architects working on a diverse range of international projects. These encompassed a number of hotel and resort schemes, including the Marina Hotel at Kaplankaya, the 56.9 metre-long SY Kaplankaya sailing yacht, both in Turkey, the Banyan Tree Corniche Bay in Mauritius and the Vista Palace Hotel in Monte Carlo. Following on from his earlier work in Kazakhstan he was also involved in two masterplan projects in Almaty, and the AFD North twin towers in the new Almaty Financial District.
In 2008 he became leader of Group 2, which is responsible for a number of high-rise commercial and residential towers in New York city, including a seventy-nine storey building on the site of the World Trade Center at 200 Greenwich Street. Cultural and educational projects include Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Centre, the New Globe Theater and Yale University School of Management. Equally important are projects that embrace infrastructure and urban renewal, notably a new urban quarter in Washington DC and a number of mixed-use developments in India.