Longtime Air Force planner Paula Loomis is given the 2024 AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture

The American Institute of Architects has honored architect and decorated civil servant Paula Loomis with this year's AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture. The honor follows a long career in service to the United States military and other federal agencies that has advanced strategies imperative to improving resilient design, sustainability, and design for mental health approaches today. 

The retired officer and woman responsible for maintaining and improving a total of 36 U.S. Air Force installations is credited with authoring over 50 facility standards guidelines. Loomis, who is currently working as a principal at The Urban Collaborative, is also an adjunct lecturer at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. 

Her work has garnered major specialty awards and recognition from the American Planning Association and other professional bodies in a thirty-year span, working closely throughout with the General Services Administration and other key public entities.

She has been credited with the design of the Department of Defense’s first LEED certification for the Monzen Housing Area Development Plan at the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni, Japan. Recently, she was credited by the AIA for her efforts in helping the organization's push to raise fee limitations for federal contractors. Loomis' academic credentials include a Master of Construction Management, a Master of Business Administration, and a Ph.D. in Public Administration and Urban Theory.

“As a public sector architect serving on the AIA National Board of Directors, Strategic Council, Board Knowledge Committee, Government Advocacy Committee, and numerous AIA organizations at local, state, and national levels, Paula is a model of the value of a lifetime of public and nonprofit service for the critical pipeline to practice and leadership for countless future generations of architects,” Rona G. Rothenberg, FAIA, said in nominating Loomis for the Excellence in Public Architecture Award.    

Loomis follows HASTINGS founder David M. Powell, who was awarded the 2023 AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture for his firm’s contributions to his adopted hometown of Nashville.