The Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) voted for Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects (LMSA) to receive the 2017 AIA Architecture Firm Award. 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. Over the course of three decades, San Francisco-based LMSA developed an impressive portfolio of highly influential work that advances issues of social consciousness and environmental responsibility and will be honored at the 2017 AIA National Convention in Orlando.
Firm principals William Leddy, FAIA, Marsha Maytum, FAIA, and Richard Stacy, FAIA, began collaborating in 1983 with the belief that architecture is the synthesis of poetics, economics, technologies, and has always been embedded in the firm’s culture. Dedicated to addressing issues of resource depletion, climate change, historic preservation, and social equity, LMSA and its leadership clearly demonstrate that architects can help their communities adapt to a complex and rapidly changing world. To that end, the firm’s proficiency in diverse building types – from affordable housing to the adaptive reuse of historic structures – has been recognized with more than 140 design awards and are only one of three firms to have ever received eight AIA COTE Top Ten awards. A small, nimble firm comprising 21 dedicated designers who believe deeply in the transformative power of architecture, the firm’s work demonstrates design with purpose as it develops model solutions to meet crucial challenges.
LMSA’s Plaza Apartments became San Francisco’s first permanent housing for the formerly homeless. The firm’s vigor coupled with the city’s innovative public housing project led to dignified housing with on-site health and social services for 106 chronically homeless people. Designed in association with Paulett Taggart Architects and clad in wood-resin panels, the building boasts a pinwheel plan on the upper floors that floods corridors with daylight while Integrated Universal Design strategies far exceed Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. Across the San Francisco Bay in Berkeley, the Ed Roberts Campus is one of the first buildings of its kind in the nation – a community center serving and celebrating the Independent Living / Disabled Rights Movement. This two story building located at a regional transit hub features an iconic red helical ramp that welcomes people of all abilities to the second floor while it expresses the values of universal design to the general public.
Previous recipients of the AIA Firm Award include, LMN Architects (2016), Ehrlich Architects (2015), Eskew + Dumez + Ripple (2014), Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (2013), VJAA (2012), Lake| Flato (2004), Gensler (2000), Perkins & Will (1999), Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (1994), and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1962).
Related Stories
| Sep 30, 2011
BBS Architects & Engineers completes welcoming center at St. Charles Resurrection Cemetery
The new structure serves as the cemetery's focal architectural point and center of operations.
| Sep 30, 2011
Kilbourn joins Perkins Eastman
Kilbourn joins with more than 28 years of design and planning experience for communities, buildings, and interiors in hospitality, retail/mixed-use, corporate office, and healthcare.
| Sep 30, 2011
Design your own floor program
Program allows users to choose from a variety of flooring and line accent colors to create unique floor designs to complement any athletic facility.
| Sep 30, 2011
AAMA offers electronic technical documents with launch of virtual library
This new program offers a system for members to purchase annual licenses in order to offer electronic versions of AAMA publications in an effort to make AAMA’s technical information resources more readily available to their employees.
| Sep 29, 2011
Submit your Great Solutions
Profiles of Great Solutions will appear in December 2011 issue of Building Design+Construction.
| Sep 29, 2011
Busch Engineering, Science and Technology Residence Hall opens to Rutgers students
With a total development cost of $57 million, B.E.S.T. is the first on-campus residence hall constructed by Rutgers since 1994.
| Sep 29, 2011
CEU series examines environmental footprint and performance properties of wood, concrete, and steel
Each course qualifies for one AIA/CES HSW/SD Learning Unit or One GBCI CE Hour.
| Sep 29, 2011
Kohler supports 2011 Solar Decathlon competition teams
Modular Architecture > In a quest to create the ultimate ‘green’ house, 20 collegiate teams compete in Washington D.C. Mall.
| Sep 29, 2011
AIA Dallas names new executive director
AIA Dallas one of only a few chapters in the U.S. to be led by an accomplished architect.
| Sep 29, 2011
Potter honored with SMSP honor
The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) recognized Alfred K. Potter II, FSMPS, senior vice president with Gilbane Building Co., with the 2011 Weld Coxe Marketing Achievement Award (MAA).
