Greg Cook
Principal Emeritus AIA, CSI, CDT
Greg grew up at Holabird & Root — following in the footsteps of his father, who also served as managing partner — and has now spent more than four decades building his own legacy at the firm. In many ways, Greg represents an unusual continuity: a second-generation architect molded by both inherited knowledge and firsthand experience.
Licensed across 23 states and provinces (including Hawaii, Florida, Guam, and Ontario) Greg has led projects across nearly every sector Holabird & Root has touched, from higher education and performing arts to industrial facilities, historic renovations, office towers, and civic buildings.
What draws him most are the complicated ones. Greg has long gravitated toward projects others might avoid: aging buildings, difficult renovations, impossible constraints. He sees them as a kind of intellectual logic problem — obstacles to work through, systems to untangle, opportunities to rethink. Whether it was overseeing nearly 500 fast-track projects for a major IBM facility in Rochester or managing the phased renovation of the Federal Reserve Bank while it remained fully operational, Greg has built his practice on navigating intense challenges.
As his career progressed, Greg realized that solving problems was only part of the job. Equally important was helping others develop the confidence and judgment to solve them themselves. Often describing Holabird & Root as an "architectural university," Greg has made teaching a central part of his practice, creating space for questions, and reinforcing the notion that mastery is never final.
At its core, Greg believes architecture is about building bridges — between ideas and realities, ambition and constraint, education and practice — all in service of getting something meaningful built.