• Adrian Smith of the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill left the firm earlier this month to start his own architectural practice. Smith, designer of Chicago’s Trump International Hotel & Tower and the United Arab Emirates’ Burj Dubai, set to be the tallest building in the world, will continue to consult on those and other projects at SOM. He had been offered a one-year extension of his contract as a consulting design partner, but declined.
• Architecture and engineering firms Crafton, Tull & Associates of Little Rock, Ark., and the Sparks Companies of Tulsa, Okla., will merge in the next two months, the firms’ principals recently announced. The new 320-employee firm will be called Crafton, Tull, Sparks & Associates, with additional offices in Oklahoma City; Rogers and Russellville, Ark.; and Birmingham, Ala.
• Trinity Design, a Farmington Hills, Mich.-based healthcare design firm with 44 employees, has merged with HKS Architects, Dallas. Trinity will be called HKS Detroit.
For more: www.BDCnetwork.com.