Pugh + Scarpa Architects to Receive 2010 AIA Architecture Firm Award

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board of Directors voted today for Pugh + Scarpa Architects to receive the 2010 AIA Architecture Firm Award. The distinction is based on its 35 years of consistent excellent work, including its seamless blending of architecture, art, and craft; community involvement; attention to sustainable design; and nurturing of in-house talent.

The AIA Architecture Firm Award, given annually, is the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture firm and recognizes a practice that consistently has produced distinguished architecture for at least 10 years.

Founding partners Gwynne Pugh, AIA, and Lawrence Scarpa, AIA, and Angela Brooks, AIA, who became a partner in 2001, are known for forging a broad, inclusive, experimental approach to socially and environmentally sensitive urban planning and design.

“We’re thrilled,” said Lawrence Scarpa, AIA, after being notified. “It was a surprise just to be nominated. It’s just stunning to win.”

“Pugh + Scarpa’s practice is known for both design and its commitment to running a socially and environmentally responsive practice,” writes Thom Mayne, FAIA, in support of the nomination. “Comfortable with aesthetic, practical, political, and functional issues, they have mapped an architectural path that is as didactic as it is successful.”

Over the past 10 years, the firm has won 13 national AIA awards, including:

• Solar Umbrella, Venice, Calif., completed 2005
• COoP Editorial, Santa Monica, Calif., completed 2003
• Colorado Court, Santa Monica, Calif., completed 2002
• Reactor Films, Santa Monica, Calif., completed 2000
• Orange Grove, West Hollywood, Calif., completed 2005
• Jigsaw, Los Angeles, completed 2005

The firm has more than 40 state and local AIA awards. In 2008, Pugh + Scarpa received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Interior Design.

Other awards include; Record Houses, Record Interiors, The Rudy Brunner Prize, Emerging Voice in Architecture presented by the Architectural League of New York, The Collaborative Practice Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, The AIA Henry Adams Medal and The Leadership Award for Sustainable Design presented by the California Legislature Assembly. In 2003, Pugh + Scarpa was also selected as a finalist for the World Habitat Award presented by The United Nations and Building & Housing Social Foundation.

The award will be presented June 12 at the 2010 AIA National Convention in Miami. Previous recipients include Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, Leers Weinzapfel, Moore Ruble Yudell, Muphy/Jahn, and KieranTimberlake. In recognition of Pugh + Scarpas legacy to architecture, their name will be chiseled into the granite Wall of Honor in the lobby of the AIA headquarters in Washington, D.C.