The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles chapter (AIA|LA) has announced its annual design awards winners for 2018, highlighting the work of many of the region’s most creative and thoughtful architecture practices.
Awarded across three categories—Design, Next LA, and Committee on the Environment (COTE) LA—the organization’s award program is designed to recognize achievements in overall design, highlight the work by emerging designers, and bring attention to hallmark sustainability-focused projects. Within each category, awards are ranked into “honor,” “merit,” and “citation” rankings.
Design Awards
This year’s design category awards acknowledge a wide array of project types, from an undulating transit station in Seattle by Brooks + Scarpa to a Modernist-inspired winery by Bestor Architecture. The highlighted projects feature simple geometries that come outfitted with performative architectural elements like screen walls and shading devices that not only lend formal interest to each project but also manipulate light in essential and evocative ways.
A full list of the design winners is below:
MERIT AWARD
Next LA Awards
AIA|LA’s Next LA Awards highlight unbuilt or in-the-works projects that push the envelope in terms of design or programmatic configuration. Synthesis Design + Architecture’s Nansha Scholar’s Tower in Guangzhou, China, for example, is formally inspired by smooth river rock cultural artifacts known as Gongshi and features a pair of pass-through elevated terraces that cycle air through the mid-rise tower’s core. R&A Architecture and Design’s Sunset Tower, on the other hand, proposes to use extended, undulating floor plates to create variable balcony and terrace spaces for a speculative development in West Hollywood.
A full list of the Next LA winners:
COTE LA Awards
The Committee on the Environment (COTE) LA awards focus on performance and sustainability. Gensler’s CSUN Sustainability Center at the California State University, Northridge, campus in the San Fernando Valley utilizes recycled materials and furniture, makes efficient use of passive lighting, and features solar-powered electricity and hot water. The Arizona State University Biodesign Institute C complex by ZGF Architects, an Honor award winner, delivers energy savings of over 44 percent when compared to existing campus laboratories.
The full list of COTE LA winners:
Tempe, AZ
Otis College of Art and Design Campus Expansion
Los Angeles, CA
Ehrlich | Fisher
UCSB BioEngineering
Santa Barbara, CA
Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners
West Hollywood Automated Parking Garage
West Hollywood, CA
LPA, Inc.
CITATION
Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability, Pitzer College
Claremont, CA
Carrier Johnson + Culture
