Congratulations to Our 2025 Design Awards Recipients! - AIA - East Bay Chapter

Congratulations to Our 2025 Design Awards Recipients!

We cannot be happier to formally present our award recipients from our 2025 Design Awards, celebrating the most innovative and impactful architectural projects of the year. After reviewing a staggering number of submissions, our panel of judges selected a diverse group of visionary designs that push the boundaries of creativity, sustainability, and functionality. These projects represent the best of the best, showcasing exceptional talent, craftsmanship, and forward-thinking design. 

Categories

Adaptive Reuse

Honors

Twelvemonth

A LEED Platinum renovation of two historic buildings in downtown Burlingame for Twelvemonth, a plant-based dining experience.

On-site renewable energy, an upgraded building envelope, structural reinforcement and carefully sourced materials ensure that the environmental mission of the restaurant is authentically reflected. A rainwater catchment system recycles grey water to restaurant irrigation and restrooms. A chef’s greenhouse is the starting place for LEED walking tours and composting demonstrations cultivating awareness of sustainable food systems and a zero-food-waste philosophy.

A robust collaboration with designers, local artists and craftspeople and culinary experts, the project is a remarkable manifestation of the owners deep commitment to sharing his passion for mother nature, community, and good food. This adaptive reuse not only revives a Burlingame landmark but demonstrates and design ethos that honors the building’s history, conserves resources, and inspires community connections.

Citation

Jagalchi

Originally a Mervyn’s, then a JCPenney, the east anchor space at Serramonte Center in Daly City sat vacant for years. That is until international Korean grocery chain Mega Mart leased the space with plans of opening the largest Korean food experience in the United States. The project was an opportunity to rethink the mall experience for the 21st century and sustainably transform an abandoned space into a vibrant community connector once again.

Jagalchi’s social, economic, and environmental impacts are substantial. With no proper downtown in Daly City, Serramonte Center is the gathering place for community. Jagalchi breathes new life into the mall—creating jobs, drawing crowds, and sparking renewed interest in the area as a foodie destination for the entire Bay Area. Reuse of the building core and shell also saved money and averted tons of CO2 from entering the local environment.

Citation

Mosaic Boulders

When the Berkeley Market vacated this building in 2008, our firm was hired to prepare plans to upgrade the building. The project involved exposing the beautiful wood ceiling, a complete seismic upgrade, and replacing the existing façade with a new, mostly glass storefront. But, sadly, for fifteen years, the building was occupied by a boring retail tenant, which was not a good fit with the building. When that tenant moved out, we were hired by the new tenant to design a bouldering gym – finally, a perfect use for this building! 

The new program for the building was exciting to us for several reasons: 1) We’d never designed an athletic facility, 2) the glass façade would provide excellent views into the building and connect the passerby with the fascinating activity occurring within. For the passerby, the building is a kind of proscenium which invites the passersby to share in the joy of bouldering and perhaps even participate. It tells a simple but compelling story about adventure and becomes, in Jane Jacobs’ expression, a true gift to the street.

Institutional / Education

Honors

Sierra Valley Preserve

Working closely with non-profit partners and our civil/landscape consultant, subtle moves and simple structures keep the focus on the landscape: re-orienting the entry, enhancing site restoration and stormwater retention with minimal impervious surfaces in this flood-prone environment. Members of the native Mountain Maidu and Washoe Tribes contributed input in site and exhibit design, archeological review during construction, and speaking at the dedications.

The Nature Center—with its iconic barn form—provides exhibits and a comfortable educational gathering space that features passive solar design with southeastfacing glass (providing a panoramic view of the wetlands) and “straw-cell” construction for carbon-storing super insulated walls that were installed with the help of community volunteers.

Two other preserve entrances feature minimal facilities to protect – and keep the focus on – the fragile sagebrush landscape. Additionally, the east entrance features a rustic accessible “bird blind” for observation of wildlife without disruption.

Citation

Chabot College Library and Learning Connection

The Chabot College Library and Learning Connection (LLC) reimagines the campus’s academic and social hub as an inclusive, sustainable, and studentcentered destination. Serving a diverse community balancing work, language, and financial challenges, the LLC integrates library services, technology, and learning support into one transparent, welcoming environment. A dynamic atrium and social stair connect flexible study zones, Writing Labs, ESL programs, and Learning Communities, removing barriers and reducing stigma around seeking help.

Developed through extensive collaboration with students, faculty, and leadership, the design maximizes resources and fosters belonging while honoring the campus’s mid-century heritage. Indoor and outdoor study spaces extend learning into the landscape, enhanced by daylighting, shading, and biodiversity strategies that promote wellness and reduce energy use.

Merit

Claremont Middle School MPR Building

By S Meek Architecture in association with Studio 144 Architects
Photography by Albert Ho Photography

Claremont Middle School is a public middle school in the Rockridge Neighborhood of Oakland, on a campus over 100 years old, established in 1913. The Multipurpose Room Building (MPR) is the first new building on the campus that was not a portable since 1976. The MPR building functions as the new cafeteria building on the campus, as the previous cafeteria building was lost to a fire several years ago.

The MPR Building hosts a new preforming arts stage to provide space for the music program of the school to perform, as well as a location for school assemblies. Before this building the campus did not have a performing arts stage for the music program. While not in use as a dining hall or assembly or performing arts space – it also functions as an indoor full size basketball court for PE uses. The existing school gym also has a basketball court but it is too small for official regulation size for middle school courts.

The Building also functions as a hub for all social activities on the campus, providing lunch space for the students indoors as well as outdoors on the ‘stramp’ (our stair, ramp, seating area). Indoors it provides resilience space for smoke or high heat days with its capabilities to cool and filter the air, and it provides educational opportunities through permanent signage on the sustainability features of the building.

Honorable Mention

College of Marin New Miwok Center

Nestled into a hillside at College of Marin’s idyllic Novato location, this new, highly visible recreation and aquatics center replaces a deteriorating pool building and, alongside student use, generates revenue for the District through public memberships.

The College of Marin’s 333-acre second campus suffered from a lack of community awareness, despite its establishment in 1985. District leaders sought to use this project to revitalize the campus core, highlight the site’s beauty, and affirm their public commitments – all while welcoming wellness, kinesiology and physical education students alongside paid public members.

Interiors

Honors

Subpar Miniature Golf

By EKVA
Photography by Thomas J Story Photography

Tall windows, bare brick, and wooden floors glittered with shrapnel from the factory work that once filled its walls attracted a mishmash of artists, designers, and dreamers to reoccupy the once vacant California Cotton Mill wedged between freeway and train tracks walkable only to taco trucks via bridge. BYOB campfires evolved into a travelling bar cart, then loft-to-loft happy hours, and eventually a once-monthly open studios event featuring fashion shows, performances, and a design bazaar. The next step seemed crazy, but felt natural: rent a storefront, gather the designers, builders, and artists to collaboratively build a city, and open to the public as the first indoor mini golf course.

Each element is a unique addition created by a mix of creatives. The Cotton Mill’s game collector regularly updates the arcade. The Cotton Mill’s metalworker built a 15’ Rube Goldberg-esque ball sorter. A few of the sculptures were repurposed from the original course and a dozen new were created by an eclectic mix of artists, young and old.

The game concludes at the bonus 19th hole, where a simple plinth offers the course’s most prominent location to local artists in residence. The fun continues with offerings such as billiards posed alongside booth seating, an extensive arcade with free short plays, a full kitchen with bar service, and community rooms inviting gatherings from the community.

Citation

McGann Oral Surgery Center

The new McGann Oral Surgery center in San Diego reflects a shift in the medical field toward creating residentially-inspired environments that support the well-being of both patients and practitioners. Recognizing the anxiety around dental surgery, the goal of the design was to make a nurturing environment that was calm and soothing.

The sense of airiness extends into the interiors with skylights, reeded glass partitions, and slatted walls that allow natural light to filter throughout while maintaining patient privacy. Circular skylights at each corner anchor the perfectly square building. The donut-shaped floor plan provides excellent patient flow, beginning with reception and waiting areas, leading to pre-surgery exam rooms and X-rays, then continuing down a clean-lined corridor housing three surgery rooms, and concluding with check-out/administrative offices, and the doctor’s private office. A continuous band of windows provide nearly every room, including surgery, with views to the garden or streetscape.

Merit

Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall

By HOK
Photography by Alan Karchmer Photography

As a place for the convergence of science and discovery, the building is permeated with spaces that promote exchange. Upon entry into the ground floor lobby, the floor steps down to a sunken level below. Pinwheeling off this two-story social space is an auditorium, a drone aviary, a sunken garden and student lounges. This ‘Town square’ provides a multi-dimensional place where people central to the science will collide. The idea of placing “science on display” resonates throughout the building. The open plan and glass walls maximize transparency and integration among laboratories, offices, and public spaces. The blend of work, research and social spaces produce serendipitous encounters among students, researchers, and visitors, allowing science to spill out beyond computational and robotic laboratories into the double-story porches across the southern façade. These porches are environmental buffer spaces that temper the experience between conditioned spaces inside and nature outside.

As one of USC’s first LEED Platinum, all-electric-ready, Net-Zero Emissions buildings on campus, Ginsburg Hall is designed as a “Living Lab” that showcases the building’s regenerative aspects, enabling people to interact with the building systems and the surrounding environment.

Large Civic

Honors

Shade Structure and Partner Hub at Ashland Zócalo Park

The brief was to provide a new community park in the unincorporated area of Alameda County on East 14th Street and 166th St. In an area known as Ashland between Hayward and San Leandro. The design team sought input from the community and worked with local artists to create Ashland Zócalo, a 1.4 acre neighborhood park whose elements are a thoughtful integration of architectural and landscape architectural design, social function, and environmental responsibility. The park includes a new plaza with picnic tables and open space area with lighting, new water recreation feature, new outdoor tness area with lighting, new playground with lighting, new walking path with lighting, new amphitheater with lighting and stage, a new shade structure and a new restroom / partner program hub / storage building. Through a careful dialogue between built form and public space, the project contributes to the revitalization of a once underused urban zone, transforming it into a vibrant, welcoming community treasure: the Ashland Zócalo.

Citation

Rengstorff Park Aquatic Center

This submission — California’s first large-scale, all-electric municipal aquatic center — answers the challenge. Targeting LEED Gold certification, it sets a new, future-focused benchmark for sustainable operations, using heat pumps for year-round comfort in the water and all interiors. Reducing load on the heat pumps, it generates on-site energy using solar panels; a building management system continually calibrates energy supply and demand, discharging no more than what is needed.

The park’s existing pool had seen few renovations since its 1959 construction and could not keep pace with modern municipal aquatics programming — more so given Mountain View’s diverse and growing demands. The compelling, revenue-generating new program will adapt to contemporary recreation trends and regional needs through a 25yd x 25M competition pool, a 4,000-sf recreation pool with a zerodepth beach entry, and a pool deck supported by a robust lawn area accommodating some 1,500+ daily visitors. The building, inserted delicately into its wooded landscape, has a welcoming front lobby, locker and shower facilities, a rentable multipurpose room, and city offices.

Merit

Contra Costa County Administration Building

Ground-up construction of a new office administration building and civic plaza for Contra Costa County in downtown Martinez. The new building replaced a programmatically obsolete and contextually out of scale office tower. Program includes a new public law library, ground floor retail space, a parking garage, and office space for multiple County administrative departments including the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice, Child Support Services, and County Sheriff.

Mixed-Use

Honors

Vineyard

Vineyard encompasses a breadth of much needed resources to tackle housing and food insecurity while fostering community resilience and inclusiveness. 24 permanent supportive housing units and a comprehensive resource center create a safe and beautiful place to call home and the support needed to heal and thrive. The resource center offers free supportive services, showers, laundry facilities, mail services, and a shelter for 30 adults. An on-site kitchen operated by a local nonprofit prepares and provides free meals to anyone in need and serves as the food preparation kitchen for other meal programs in the region. Vineyard’s adaptation and success in operations reflects how a project can maximize a site’s impact through a strong shared vision.

Citation

Ancora Place

Ancora Place transforms a 260-foot midblock parcel on Oakland’s International Boulevard from light industrial and storage uses to a health-forward, community-focused, 77-home affordable mixed-use development. The project simultaneously densifies the city’s most diverse neighborhood, strengthens a Bus Rapid Transit corridor, programmatically and expressively supports a neighboring community organization, and introduces a community-supporting storefront of retail, publicly-accessible community room, and access to a verdant, 14,000-square-foot courtyard gathering space. Ancora Place supports individual and family residents earning 15-60% of the Area Median Income, including warp-around services for 16 households exiting homelessness that have a serious mental health diagnosis. A vibrant urban presence is reinforced by layered materials above an extensive mural by local artists that, along with the new storefront spaces, activate the International Blvd / Tempo Bus Rapid Transit line. A layered, undulating façade breaks up the project’s mass while integrating it into the block’s existing data. Ancora Place is the latest of three contiguous developments led by a nonprofit developer that began with the securing of a local community and cultural organization (EastSide Arts Alliance) at an adjacent renovated building; the rear yards of all three projects liaise with each other, creating opportunities for shared resources and events.

Multi-Family

Honors

Step-Up Housing

Designed for nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS), Step Up Housing provides 39 units of supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness along a sunny and centrally-located stretch of downtown Berkeley.

Step-Up Housing redefines the classic SRO by creating a model for the 50×100 Californian lot in downtown Berkeley. The building is small enough to bypass significant red tape and codes associated with group housing projects while efficiently providing much needed density to the San Francisco Bay Area.

The common spaces will host supportive services, meals, healthcare and residential amenities with staff on-site at all times who can help with case management, job navigation, mental health and addiction recovery, and applying for medical care benefits.

Citation

Hawkins Treasure Island

Hawkins was designed to respond to both its unique island setting as well as to fit within the design guidelines established by the redevelopment agency. Through wind and solar studies, the building’s design was carefully articulated to respond to the unique environmental conditions of Treasure Island, maximizing light while offering shelter from the island winds. Responding to the dynamic light conditions on Treasure Island, the exterior was designed with an asymmetric rainscreen cladding, finished with a white pearlescent coating. With careful thought given to the orientation of the cladding pattern, the appearance of the building changes as the sun cascades across the building throughout the day.

Merit

Truckee Artist Lofts

The Artist Lofts in Truckee is a 4-story mixed-use development featuring 77 affordable live/work units for local artists. Situated in the heart of Truckee’s Railyard, the project also includes 3,735 square feet of ground-level retail space, contributing to the vibrancy of downtown Truckee and extending its community feel eastward. The Lofts are designed with artists in mind, offering amenities like art studios, a second-floor music room, and communal spaces for residents, including two laundry rooms and a community room.

Single Family

Honors

Gold Country Retreat

Nestled in the classic California landscape of oak woodlands, this project exemplifies fossil fuel-free off-grid living. The building was located at the site of a former homestead and agricultural area to minimize its impact on the ecology of the land. The form of the house captures the predominant breeze while protecting against the summer sun. Sweeping views are captured with large sliding doors, and a covered porch invites indoor-outdoor living.

Passive survivability and adaptability were a key part of the design. Despite the extreme summer heat regularly exceeding 100 degrees, the highly insulated building will maintain comfortable temperature with temporary loss of power, assisted by passive ventilation for night cooling. In winter, a wood stove provides heating backup in case extended stormy days reduce the PV output. Principles of wildfire-resistant design were employed with enclosed eaves, class A bamboo decking material, and zone zero defensible space. Most importantly, the house provides for year-round opportunities for enjoyment & stewardship of the land.

Honors

Nest House

Nest House creates opportunities for occupants to engage with their environment on both conscious and unconscious levels. Vignettes from every level engage the senses, from observing butterflies fluttering around the roof garden, smelling the foggy marine air, watching cargo ships unload at the Oakland port, and listening to the birds chirp closeby and the city buzz below. At the ground floor the family room opens to an outdoor yard below the bridge and playful swings underneath the nest wing. Looking up from the swings one enjoys the visual warmth of knotty cedar planks, milled from a cedar tree that had to be removed for construction; a subtle reminder that resources should be considered with care. From above, the floating bridge and nest wing provide a delightful architectural experience from all vantage points, using form, elevation and transparency to create the sense of being in a treehouse nestled amongst the foliage. Light plays along the board-formed concrete wall anchoring the east side of the home throughout the day, providing occupants with a visceral experience of the passage of time. Each of these moments, along with countless other design details and material choices, evoke a sense of home and encourage a deeper appreciation for the community beyond.

Merit

Glen Ellen House

The house, originally built in the early 1980s, is located on approximately 11 acres in Glen Ellen, California. Since the house was purchased in 2012 as a second residence, the architect has completed two prior remodels before this final transformation. Once the owners determined they would be permanently relocating to the home in the early 2020’s, they engaged the architect again to design a new residence, replacing the existing structure. However, it became apparent to the owners that the truly best solution was to re-think the existing structure and modify it to meet their aesthetic and everyday needs of a permanent home. 

Located in an area that has unfortunately become prone to wildfires, the first major change was to remove the tired wood siding and windows and replace it with non-combustable metal siding and aluminum windows. Dark colors were chosen to allow the structure to recede into the surrounding forested landscape; the Kynar 500 FSF Cool Metal Finish specified maintains a relatively high solar reflectance, reducing energy consumption by up to 40% despite the dark look.

Honorable Mention

Garden View ADU

Tucked away in the Oakland Hills, this 671-square-foot detached ADU redefines sustainable intergenerational living. The double-height property offers flexible use— as both a sanctuary for the matriarch to age in place and the family’s new live-work office space. The ADU is designed to nestle modestly into their abundant permaculture garden while feeling spacious, with framed views and abundant natural light.

Built to celebrate the family’s permaculture garden’s natural beauty, the design prioritizes indoor-outdoor living. From the mezzanine, a rooftop deck offers elevated views of the garden. Carefully oriented south and west-facing windows open to serene San Francisco Bay and Piedmont hill views—creating a light-filled and energy-efficient retreat.

Student

Honors

Inhabited Mud: Generative Earthen Houses

By Shenglu Qiu

Honoring the region’s long tradition of earth architecture, the houses blend site mud with plant-based fibers, channeling the cooling mass while delivering made-to-order living spaces that can one day dissolve harmlessly back into earth. Inhabited Mud is organized around three elements—an exterior wall system, an interior wall system, and movable rooms—enabled by robotic 3D printing for making and generative AI–AI-assiste design for customization.

The movable pods are flexible rooms—workstation, nursery, sleeping space—that reposition as needs evolve. 3D-printed in sawdust, they are soft, lightweight, and mounted on wheels, so one or two people can roll them to a new location and lock them in place. The interiors and shell features are also customizable through the same AI workflow.

Together, the three systems and two tools outline a low-carbon, site-sourced house that is highly customizable, community-minded, and ready to adapt over time.

Citation

Closed Loops

By Nadya Mikhaylovskaya

Can something as environmentally and politically contentious as a data center coexist with its surroundings more harmoniously? Data centers require tremendous amounts of energy, access to abundant water for cooling, available land, and cheap electricity. A lot of sawmills are already well-located with the same considerations in mind. My project speculates that future data centers could be situated on sawmill campuses, the number of which might increase due to the need for forest thinning operations around California. This offers a chance to combine two industrial typologies that are unwanted near residential areas due to noise and pollution. It also offers a chance to create a circular flow of energy and matter.

Merit

Aftergrowth

By Laurenne Ross & Troy Neves

Grounded in ecological repair, rematerialization, and cooperative living, this graduate thesis project challenges architecture’s dominant practices of toxicity and extraction by offering a new framework for post-industrial landscapes. Situated at Point Molate in Richmond, California, Aftergrowth addresses the site’s layered contamination from naval fuel operations and invasive eucalyptus monoculture through innovative material processing and cooperative living models, transforming ecological liabilities into architectural resources.

The design strategy converts the entire eucalyptus tree into three building materials: dowel-laminated timber (DLT) for structural systems, lyocell fabric for architectural membranes and bioremediation, and biochar-earth bricks for thermal mass, space division, and soil amendment. This zero-waste processing eliminates synthetic adhesives while creating materials that actively remediate petroleum contamination. Aftergrowth attempts to restore native ecosystems while simultaneously addressing the state-wide fire hazard of eucalyptus globulus propagation.

Unbuilt

Honors

Agualta STEAM Engine

Agualta STEAM Engine is a mass timber structure designed on a modular grid, both for construction efficiency and as a connection to the street grid that defines the neighborhood. The building’s curvilinear floor plates, roofs, positioning of the water towers, and the courtyard orientation of the existing school buildings create a central open plaza that provides opportunities for large community gatherings. The space planning of the work spaces and classrooms is rationally rectilinear to encourage familiar learning environments for the students. The two hubs of these classrooms and labs are arranged around a central double-height collaboration space for activities and outdoor teaching wrapped by the vertical circulation. The contrast between the rational classrooms and the expressionism of the curved organic spaces reinforces the middle school’s STEAM educational approach.

Citation

Santa Ana Memorial Park Master Plan & Aquatic Center

Opened in 1950, the beloved park holds the city’s largest public pool, long overdue for replacement. Challenged by the under-representation of young people and families at community meetings, designers brought the outreach to them, asking school leaders to appeal to students and caregivers. Designers collaborated closely with city officials and the expanded stakeholder group on a concept that differs significantly from the original vision in two major ways: first, overwhelming community support convinced officials to move from a single 50m pool to two smaller pools; stakeholders also requested additional funding for a single construction phase (versus two). Outcomes like these demonstrate the impact of strong community engagement, where broadened feedback helps expand the project. 

All-electric operations support the resilient, richly programmed facility; a lap pool and an activity pool (with waterslide) accommodate all visitors. Surrounding the deck are shade trellises, terraced bleacher seating, and a grove recalling bygone orange orchards. The restoration and incorporation of existing murals by locally renowned Chicano artists adds to the site’s welcoming sense of community and culture.

Beyond

Inhabited Mud: Generative Earthen Houses

By Shenglu Qiu

Honoring the region’s long tradition of earth architecture, the houses blend site mud with plant-based fibers, channeling the cooling mass while delivering made-to-order living spaces that can one day dissolve harmlessly back into earth. Inhabited Mud is organized around three elements—an exterior wall system, an interior wall system, and movable rooms—enabled by robotic 3D printing for making and generative AI–AI-assiste design for customization.

The movable pods are flexible rooms—workstation, nursery, sleeping space—that reposition as needs evolve. 3D-printed in sawdust, they are soft, lightweight, and mounted on wheels, so one or two people can roll them to a new location and lock them in place. The interiors and shell features are also customizable through the same AI workflow.

Together, the three systems and two tools outline a low-carbon, site-sourced house that is highly customizable, community-minded, and ready to adapt over time.

People's Choice

Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall

By HOK
Photography by Alan Karchmer Photography

As a place for the convergence of science and discovery, the building is permeated with spaces that promote exchange. Upon entry into the ground floor lobby, the floor steps down to a sunken level below. Pinwheeling off this two-story social space is an auditorium, a drone aviary, a sunken garden and student lounges. This ‘Town square’ provides a multi-dimensional place where people central to the science will collide. The idea of placing “science on display” resonates throughout the building. The open plan and glass walls maximize transparency and integration among laboratories, offices, and public spaces. The blend of work, research and social spaces produce serendipitous encounters among students, researchers, and visitors, allowing science to spill out beyond computational and robotic laboratories into the double-story porches across the southern façade. These porches are environmental buffer spaces that temper the experience between conditioned spaces inside and nature outside.

As one of USC’s first LEED Platinum, all-electric-ready, Net-Zero Emissions buildings on campus, Ginsburg Hall is designed as a “Living Lab” that showcases the building’s regenerative aspects, enabling people to interact with the building systems and the surrounding environment.

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