Beating out SOM and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the Portland-based firm ZGF Architects has taken the number one spot in Architect Magazine's annual ranking of the fifty best architectural firms. The ranking, which evaluates firms using the criteria of Business, Sustainability, and Design, listed William Rawn Associates as achieving the highest score in business, while Marlon Blackwell Architects nabbed the highest design ranking.

ZGF, which had the highest sustainability score, is known chiefly for its healthcare and hospitality buildings, including the Federal Center South Building 1202, which won the AIA COTE 2015 Top Ten Plus Award. Since its founding, the firm has added five additional offices in the U.S. and Canada, all of which follow a design philosophy that "is centered on the premise that design excellence should be reflected in each and every aspect of a building—its fit with the community, its function and relationship to its users, its building systems, and its cost."

For more on ZGF:

• Azure's 2016 AZ Awards conclude with 18 winning projects
• See the newly revealed 2016 AIA COTE Top Ten Green Projects
• "Articulated Site", ZGF Architects, Aileen Sage + Michelle Tabet, and the 2015-16 Rome Prize recipients are among this week's many winners