The Architecture Firm Award is the highest honor that the American Institute of Architects can bestow on an architecture firm for consistently producing distinguished architecture. It is conferred by the Board of Directors.
Past Architecture Firm Award recipients

Submissions

2009 Firm Award Submission Memo
2009 Firm Award Submission Forms

The required number of photos and forms has doubled so nominators will be using two official binders per submission. All exhibits must be submitted in two AIA uniform binders, obtained by contacting AIA Honors and Awards, 202-626-7586.  

Eligibility

Any firm or successor firms, whether an individual or an organization of architects, in which the continuing collaboration among individuals of the firm has been the principal force in consistently producing distinguished architecture for a period of at least 10 years, is eligible for the Architecture Firm Award. While serving on the Board of Directors, Board members and their firms are ineligible to be nominated for this award. No more than one such award shall be made in any year.

Nominations that are made by an AIA component, knowledge community, or a member of the Institute’s Board of Directors will be accepted for review by the Gold Medal/Firm Award Advisory Jury. The jury will also accept nominations by petition if the nominee receives signatures from either 5 Fellows of the Institute or any 10 AIA members in good standing. Petition signers may not be an employee of the nominated firm.

Criteria

Candidates will be evaluated on how well they meet the program criteria as established by the Board, which may include

• The firm shall have evidenced great depth, having a cumulative effect on the profession of architecture.
• The firm shall have evidenced great breadth, having influenced the direction/profession of architecture.
• The firm’s work shall be a product of a collaborative environment that has consistently directed itself toward the future as well as respectful of the past.
• The firm shall have evidenced the ability to transcend specific areas of expertise or shall have made connections between areas, in the event that the firm’s areas of focus might be considered circumscribed.
• The firm shall be widely known by the quality of its products—by those who practice architecture, by those who teach architecture, and by those who perhaps do neither.

Jury

Edward J. Vidlak, AIA, Omaha (chair)
LEO A DALY

Thomas B. Braham, AIA, Chicago
Gensler

Andrea Cohen Gehring, FAIA, Santa Monica, Calif.
WWCOT

Michael Graves, FAIA, Princeton, N.J.
Michael Graves & Associates

Gerald Hines, AIA, Bethesda, Md.
National Institutes of Health

Michael Johnson, Assoc. AIA, San Francisco
Em Johnson Interest Inc.

Sharon C. Park, FAIA, Washington D.C.
Smithsonian Institution

Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA, Boston
Leers Weinzapfel Associates Architects Inc.

honorsawards@aia.org
1735 New York Avenue, NW
Washington DC

Sponsoring Organization:
The American Institute of Architects