The AIA California Design Awards program just unveiled this year's winning projects. Five Honors recipients are joined by twenty-six Merit and Citation winners located across the Golden State as well as beyond California's boundaries.
"This outstanding year of awarded projects delivers the positive impact and influence that architects have on daily lives, whether a building’s users are at work or play, rest or learning," 2024 AIA California President Winston Thorne commented on the selected designs.
The jury comprised Jim Burnett, Michael Hsu, Alison Mears, Margaret Montgomery, and Jim Zack.
HONORS RECIPIENTS
(Cover image) Kresge College Expansion at the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, California), Studio Gang (Design Architect and Architect of Record) with TEF Design (Associate Architect)
Jury comment: "This is a spectacular project. The buildings were surgically inserted to let nature prevail. A sensitive architectural response to the site, with buildings carefully nestled into the redwood forest, and bridging between the buildings, that elevates students above the forest floor."
Blue Oak Landing (Vallejo, California), David Baker Architects
Jury comment: "Offering 75-units of supportive housing, this is an exemplary project that satisfied every requirement the jury can think of for a project of this type and quality of design. The creative use of prefabrication units is amazing. It considers the needs of previously homeless families as well as the environmental challenges of the site. Coherent and powerful design."
Building 12 (San Francisco, California), Perkins&Will
Jury comment: "Exceptional adaptive reuse of a building: the use of the structure, the beautiful execution, the interior spaces. The jury admires the elevation of an old industrial building with new uses that are really very beautiful. The tactic for this architect, which is an appropriate one, was to do no harm to what you find."
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, William and Linda Frost Center for Research and Innovation (San Luis Obispo, California), ZGF
Jury comment: "The very large, complicated program feels humane--an incredible solution. The simplicity of the exterior is a balancing point for the geometry of the massing, and it provides for a richness of interior space."
Rose Apartments (Venice, California), Brooks + Scarpa
Jury comment: "An innovative evolution of a courtyard typology, this project creates exceptional spaces that support informal interaction for residents. The jury admires the scale, and the desire to be innovative and still meet incredible performance standards. The scale shift at the front facade is contextual and breaks the massing to accommodate density that otherwise wouldn't have been had on this site."
MERIT RECIPIENTS
Aro Homes (Mountain View, California), Olson Kundig
Brunson Terrace (Santa Monica, California), Brooks + Scarpa
Girl Scout Camp Lakota (Frazier Park, California), Perkins&Will
International Arrivals Facility at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Seattle, Washington), Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
Intuit Bayshore Building (MTV-22)(Mountain View, California), Designed by WRNS Studio (Site Planning + Architecture), and Clive Wilkinson Architects (Interior Design)
La Fénix at 1950 (San Francisco, California), David Baker Architects
Pleasant Hill Library (Pleasant Hill, California), Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Rice University Ralph S O’Connor Building for Science and Engineering (Houston, Texas), Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
San Francisco Conservatory of Music - Ute & William Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts (San Francisco, California), Mark Cavagnero Associates Architects
Steeplechase House (Hillsborough, North Carolina), Brooks + Scarpa
Student Success District, University of Arizona (Tucson, Arizona), The Miller Hull Partnership, LLP in collaboration with Poster Mirto McDonald
West Edge (Los Angeles, California), Gensler
CITATION RECIPIENTS
Land Art Generator Initiative 2025 Fiji: Climate Resilience for Island Communities
Register/Submit by Mon, May 5, 2025
The Architect's Chair / Edition #3
Register by Wed, Jan 15, 2025
Submit by Tue, Feb 18, 2025
The Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial / Edition #5
Register by Thu, Jan 16, 2025
Submit by Wed, Feb 19, 2025
250,000 € Prize / HOUSE OF THE FUTURE 2024/25
Register by Wed, Apr 30, 2025
Submit by Mon, Jun 2, 2025
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