AIA California Design Awards Focus on Climate Change and Sustainability

Since its 1983 inception, the AIA California Design Awards has been a yearly event honoring the best and brightest, both projects and their architect-designers, throughout the Golden State. This year the organization cited 25 honorees across four categories. The Climate Action Award winners, considered the organization’s highest classification, met criteria regarding strict environmental performance standards in such areas as water, energy, materials, health, ecology, and resilience. Categories also included Honor Awards, Merit Awards, and the newly initiated Special Commendations. Notes the organization: “These awards recognize architects who have protected and enhanced the delicate interface between the natural and the built environment, while also stewarding our precious and limited resources.”

Three projects and their teams were awarded the Climate Action Award honor. They are: the Atherton Library by WRNS Studio; San Francisco International Airport’s Harvey B. Milk Terminal 1 by Woods Bagot, ED2 International, HKS Architects, KYS, and Kuth Ranieri Architects; and Aidlin Darling Design’s The Prow, a biophilic retreat on Expedia Group’s 40-acre campus. Aidlin Darling Design also took home three more awards. Its residential retreat in Palm Springs was granted an honor citation; Three Gables, also an IIDA Interior Design Competition winner, received a merit mention; and the Geneva Car Barn and Power Source a special commendation for transformation of a historic building as part of San Francisco’s first electric railway into a community cultural center. This special commendation category, one of seven, was design for resources. The other special commendation considerations were named for: integration, energy, change, equitable communities, discovery, and water.  

After reviewing 206 entries, the jury set out to determine “what elevates a project to an award when there is so much proficiency and talent” amongst California designers. Having their work cut out for them were: Kevin Alter, partner at Alterstudio; Oonagh Ryan, founding principal of ORA Arch; S. Claire Conroy, editor in chief Residential Design Magazine; and Neal Schwartz, founder and principal of Schwartz and Architecture.