Thom Mayne and Angela Brooks Receive AIA California Awards

On March 22, the American Institute of Architecture California released the list of recipients of its 2024 annual awards. SCI-Arc founding faculty and Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne and alumni Angela Brooks (M.Arch 1 ’91) of Brooks + Scarpa were among this year’s honorees selected by AIA California, which annually recognizes individuals and firms who have "produced meaningful work and influenced the field over an extensive period of time."

Mayne, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his boundary-breaking career spanning 50 years, has become known for his non-traditional and genre shifting building designs throughout Los Angeles and Southern California as founder of Morphosis, as well as for his critical role in the founding of SCI-Arc in 1972.

"Thom Mayne’s work has not only represented the ethos of current culture but has also created it," the AIA California Board of Directors noted. "Spanning a half-century of practice, his collective body of work, i.e., writings, works on paper, buildings, and urban master plans, have collectively inspired our design thinking and reshaped built environments globally; through innovative, crafted, and sustainable architectural interventions across project type and scales. His elevated design style is recognized throughout the world. He sets the bar for lifetime achievement."

Brooks and her partner Lawrence Scarpa, principals of 33-year-old practice Brooks + Scarpa received the Distinguished Practice Award.
 Across thirty years of architecture practice, Brooks and Scarpa are well known to have “thoughtfully engaged design as an essential public service that requires the embrace of social and environmental responsibility by the architect.”

"Larry and Angela’s contribution to practice, the built environment, communities, and policymaking has been remarkedly and positively impactful,” stated the AIA Board of Directors. “Their inventiveness and intellectual tenacity prove that good design does make a difference, regardless of program, site, political or budgetary constraints. No matter what they are up against, they have made places and spaces that honor and serve the communities they’ve built for. Their work goes beyond that, to contribute and shape the larger built environment through design excellence."

This year’s AIA award winners alongside Mayne, Brooks, and Scarpa included the practice Frederick Fisher and Partners, and the activist group Immigrant Architects Coalition. To learn more about the California Awards, visit the AIA website.