Irish architects Sheila O'Donnell and John Tuomey have been named the 2015 recipients of the prestigious RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture. Awarded since 1848 and personally approved by Her Majesty the Queen, the Gold Medal recognizes a lifetime's work of an architecturally influential person or group.

After training at the University College Dublin, O'Donnell and Tuomey previously worked together at Stirling Wilford Associates and Colquhoun & Miller in London. They then co-founded their practice O'Donnell + Tuomey Architects in Dublin in 1988.

Taking part in "Group 91 Architects" in the early '90s, the husband and wife pair first gained recognition for their first permanent building, the Irish Film Institute (1991). Since then, O'Donnell and Tuomey have built private homes, schools, public housing, and community buildings -- many of their projects crafted in the couple's signature style of smartly arranged brick and sharp-lined geometric forms.

O’Donnell + Tuomey have been shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize five times: in 1999 for the Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School (Dublin, Ireland); 2005 for the Lewis Glucksman Gallery (Cork, Ireland); 2011 for the An Gaeláras Irish Language Arts and Cultural Centre (Derry, Northern Ireland; 2012 for the Lyric Theatre (Belfast, Northern Ireland); and most recently, the London School of Economics Saw Swee Hock Students' Centre (London, UK) in 2014.

The pair have also exhibited three times at the Venice Architecture Biennale and have released a number of publications. Today, they continue to teach at the University College Dublin, School of Architecture.

O'Donnell and Tuomey will formally receive the Gold Medal during a special event at the RIBA in London on Feb. 3, 2015.

Recent Gold Medal recipients include Joseph Rykwert (2014), Peter Zumthor (2013), Herman Hertzberger (2012), David Chipperfield (2011), I.M Pei (2010), and Álvaro Siza (2009). Other notable recipients include Frank Gehry (2000), Sir Norman Foster (1983), Frank Lloyd Wright (1941), and Sir George Gilbert Scott (1859).