The Board of Directors of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) voted today to award the 2012 AIA Gold Medal to Steven Holl, FAIA. The AIA Gold Medal, voted on annually, is considered to be the profession’s highest honor that an individual can receive. The Gold Medal honors an individual whose significant body of work has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. Holl will be honored at the 2012 AIA National Convention in Washington, D.C.
Holl and his firm, Steven Holl Architects have completed projects that tackle the urban-scale planning and development conundrums that define success in the built environment throughout the world. He’s able to work with diverse clients to get his projects executed, all while being a tenured professor at Columbia University. His explorations have served as an inspiration to his colleagues.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board of Directors (BOD) voted today for VJAA to receive the 2012 AIA Architecture Firm Award. The Minneapolis based firm, noted for its consistently rigorous approach to research-driven form-making, will be honored at the 2012 AIA National Convention in Washington, D.C.
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.
“We are honored to be recognized by the AIA with this important award,” says TVincent James, FAIA, principal at VJAA. “This recognition is due to talented and committed employees, ambitious clients and the strong support we receive from our local design community. With this encouragement, we will continue to build a practice that strives to innovate while creating a responsive architecture that is sensitive to its users and its place.”
Founded in 1995, VJAA has already won acclaim for the way it uses architectural research to create buildings uniquely and empirically attuned to their geography, climate, history, and culture. The firm’s three principals (Vincent James, FAIA, Jennifer Yoos, AIA, and, Nathan Knutson, AIA) have lead VJAA on a wide-ranging search for what they call the “embedded intelligence” of projects: the essential markers of place, function, materiality, and craft which lie beneath each work and serve as an armature for its development.
