DESIGN AWARDS

15th Annual Design Awards Gala

November 9th, 2023 | 6-9pm | David Brower Center

AIA East Bay recognizes outstanding achievements in architecture and design. This prestigious competition is designed to recognize the contributions of teams of architects, contractors, and developers in creating and implementing outstanding building projects.

This honor is given to architects and firms for projects that demonstrate exemplary design skill of formal, functional and technical requirements, including ecological and environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and a strong sense of place.

This Years Theme

“Beyond: Celebrating design that honors the seen and the unseen.”

The need for specialization tends to segment architects and projects into “disciplines” or “market sectors.” Our goal is to expand beyond these boundaries to create productive discourse between project types and scales.

Excellent design creates ripple effects far beyond the project itself. A small space may influence a global discussion, and a single structure may facilitate healing in a community. For these reasons, we have chosen to replace our traditional project categories with these simple categories of small, medium, large, unbuilt, and student work.

Eligibility 

  • Projects designed by AIA East Bay Chapter members anywhere in the world.

  • Projects designed by any AIA members which are located within the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa or Solano.

  • Projects designed by non-AIA affiliated Architects which are located within the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa or Solano, who have an AIA East Bay Chapter member on their design team for the submitted project. 

  • Built & unbuilt Projects completed since January 1st, 2020, and not having previously received an AIA East Bay Design Award.

Read All Eligibility and Submissions Criteria Here

Thank You To Our Sponsors!

Meet Our Jury!

Prof. Renee Chow, AIA 

Renee Y. Chow is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at University of California Berkeley as well as founding principal of Studio URBIS.  She currently serves as the William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design. 

Her work addresses the metropolitan challenges of the 21st century — water scarcities, resource reductions, and sustainable places. She is author of Suburban Space: The Fabric of Dwelling and Changing Chinese Cities: The Potentials of Field Urbanism.

Renee has been honored as a ACSA Distinguished Professor, the Eva Li Chair in Design Ethics, “Ten Top Architectural Educators” by Architecture, as well as received research and project awards from the American Institute of Architects. She received her B.S.AD and M.Arch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she also taught before joining Berkeley.

 

Jonathan Feldman, AIA, LEED AP

Jonathan, FAIA, LEED AP, is Feldman Architecture’s Founding Partner and CEO. Since establishing the firm in 2003, he has led its development into an award-winning design practice recognized for crafting warm, light-filled spaces that are site-sensitive and carefully detailed. Jonathan is passionate about design that solves complex problems and is committed to creating solutions that significantly improve the way we live and interact with our planet. Jonathan’s work reflects an understanding of the elemental connections between buildings and their surrounding environment, whether urban or rural. His work demonstrates that sustainability is an integral part of design, not an afterthought.

In addition to a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Oregon, Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College, where he majored in Astronomy and English. A registered architect in California, Hawaii, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, and New Mexico, Jonathan enjoys sharing his knowledge of architecture and sustainable design on panels and regularly serves on competition juries for local and national design awards, as well as the AIA California’s Committee on Climate Action and Design Excellence (CCADE). He lives in San Francisco with his wife, two daughters, and an ever-increasing number of rescued animals.

 

“Architecture is inherently an act of optimism,” he notes. “It’s a belief that ideas can manifest themselves to solve problems and create beauty that we can all experience.”

Pauline Souza, FAIA, LEED Fellow

The WRNS Studio’s Director of Sustainability and Lead of the K-12 and Community Studio, Pauline has led award-winning and community-focused projects like Sacred Heart Schools Net Zero Stevens Library and the Atherton Library and Civic Center, which recently won an PEC All-Electric Award and AIA/ALA 2023 Library award. She helped to coauthor key chapters in the Decarbonization Building Practice Guide, and led the Sonoma Academy Guild and Commons (LEED Platinum and the first LBC project in the country to receive BOTH Zero Carbon and Petal Certification), earning the 2018 AIA COTE Top Ten Green Project award — the highest honor for sustainable design in our industry. Pauline received the USGBC Green Business Leader Award, LBC Hero, and USGBC Greenest Apple Award.

Meet Our Host!

Jill Bergman, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, LEED AP

Jill’s more than 30-year career is built in service to advancing healthcare design. She leads large teams and complex projects with empathy, always focused on helping clients fulfill their visions. Her project experience and knowledge cover many healthcare facility types and services, from academic medical campuses and outpatient clinics to acute care inpatient and specialty care facilities. 

As a senior health strategist in HDR’s San Francisco architecture studio, Jill focuses on facility data management. With healthcare facilities “swimming” in data, she is always looking for better ways to harness project data by managing facility and space information to help clients drive decisions, make positive changes and affect patient outcomes. 

Committed to advancing gender and equity in the design profession, Jill has presented at the AIA Women’s Leadership Summit and the Equity by Design Conference. Her writing and illustrations are published in industry trade publications, including Medical Construction & Design and Behavioral Health Executive. 

Meet Our Committee!