The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has recognized LPA Design Studios with the AIA 2025 Architecture Firm Award, the highest national award the AIA bestows on an architecture practice.
Only one firm is recognized each year. One firm that demonstrates outstanding work and exceptional achievement year after year. One firm that that is reshaping the industry and changing the future.
LPA was honored for developing a culture of shared responsibility focused on tackling the most challenging issues of our times. The firm has proven that integrated teams working side-by-side with clients and communities can achieve unprecedented results. The AIA jury called LPA “a trailblazer in sustainable, high-performance architecture… [that] continues to set the standard for the architecture profession.”
THIS IS LPA
SUSTAINABILITY
From humble beginnings, we grew as a multidisciplinary design collective, united by a shared responsibility to drive down carbon emissions on every project, every budget, and every scale.
We lead with climate responsibility to make a difference.
Early on, we decided as a firm to stake a claim that sustainable design is good design, and we set out to prove to our clients that a high-performance project doesn’t have to cost more. In ten years, we’ve shown that any firm, of any size, with any project mix, can make massive progress on carbon emissions.
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american institute of architects (AIA)
TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE
To shape high-performance projects that people will fight to preserve, they need to provide transformative experiences. These are places where people feel they belong; that spark pride and affection; that become part of the fabric of their communities.
TIDE Academy
A public Silicon Valley STEAM school levels the playing field.
Down the street from some of the biggest innovators in tech, a public STEAM school combats inequality by building a career pipeline for underserved students.
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Lincoln Property Company Headquarters
A new workplace helps people learn to work together again.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, nobody was sure if the traditional office was still relevant. A new net-zero energy headquarters gave one company's "rock stars" a reason to go back to the office.
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Palomar College Learning Resource Center
A scenic library gives commuters a study destination.
Providing a compelling reason to stay on campus, the view from the reading room atop Palomar College’s Learning Resource Center is the result of 10 years of orchestration across four major, ground-up campus buildings.
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TVT Upper School
Opening up revives a struggling Jewish school.
When TVT decided on a radical new direction, their campus had to evolve from a cloister into a community.
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EQUITABLE COMMUNITIES
Community perspective is essential. That’s why we’ve developed engagement processes based in research—so we can meet the right challenges with the right solutions, making communities more resilient and sustainable.
El Cerrito Multifamily Housing
Bringing high-performance housing to unsheltered San Diegans.
Large-scale, high-performance housing is an elusive target for designers and builders. El Cerrito, an eight-story, mixed-use supportive housing complex, innovates on schedule, construction method, and energy performance to make it possible.
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City of Eagle Pass International Bridge System Headquarters
On the U.S.-Mexican border, a new facility makes a city proud
For the thousands of people who walk through the U.S.-Mexico border crossing at Eagle Pass every day, the city's first net-zero-energy civic facility is a welcoming presence.
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CSU San Bernardino Santos Manuel Student Union
Inclusion changes the narrative for underserved students.
Students at CSU San Bernardino felt written off despite significant contributions to the CSU system. Their voices were finally heard through the inclusive design process for a bold new student union.
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Lanier High School Renovation
Culture and community light up a once windowless monolith.
At the birthplace of San Antonio’s mural culture, a vital neighborhood institution with a legacy of inequality gets new life and new meaning, recontextualized to tell the community’s story of resilience.
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CONTEXTUAL RESPONSE
Climate change demands creativity and persistence in adapting to new conditions and improving our relationship with nature and the built environment. This looks different in every region and every climate zone.
CSU San Bernardino Center for Global Innovation
A shield against ‘devil winds’ expands student collaboration.
The scorching Santa Ana winds make CSU San Bernardino an unforgiving place. Challenged to create a second home for an international student community far from their own, the integrated team had to tame the environment.
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General Marshall Middle School
New urbanist ideals come to life on a middle school campus.
On an odd-shaped ten-acre site that was once the runway for Austin's municipal airport, a new three-story middle school lives up to the values of a thriving urbanist neighborhood.
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Wimberley Village Library
In drought-prone Texas Hill Country, a library rallies the community around water issues.
Wimberley Village Library is the first to incorporate a new state program for long-term water stewardship, focusing on water conservation and quality while serving as a community laboratory and educational resource.
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Britton Middle School
Creating a new gateway for a growing downtown.
A transparent, two-story swirl of student life plays many roles for a school and a Northern California community.
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SUSTAINABILITY AT SCALE
We design for sustainability on every project, regardless of budget or scale. Each scale requires a different approach, while measuring performance, quantifying value and leaning on the expertise of an integrated team.
Edwards Lifesciences Campus Expansion
Awakening a giant of ecological responsibility.
Starting with a parking garage and growing into a half-million-square-foot campus expansion, LPA’s relationship with Edwards Lifesciences tracks their evolution as global leaders in corporate sustainability.
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CSU Northridge Student Recreation Center
Site, systems, and structures in sync.
When an expansive vision for student recreation hit space-constrained reality, designers focused on small details to deliver high performance and meet programming needs.
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Los Medanos College Physical Education Complex and Student Union
Budget efficiency yields performance gains.
Designers’ suggestion to combine two complementary projects unlocked budget, performance and programmatic synergies. The resulting pair of campus buildings elevates wellness and social cohesion at a community college.
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Piedmont Hills High School Science and Life Skills Complex
A modest STEM village transcends its budget limitations.
Designers squeezed every bit of design out of ordinary, resilient materials, using passive strategies to do more with less at every turn.
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Environmental Nature Center Preschool
A net-positive campus teaches ecological stewardship.
The ENC was established to teach future generations to protect the natural world. Our work together over 10 years helped them grow from a modular trailer to a 4.7-acre campus. These two small-scale projects elevate and embody ENC’s mission.
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ed mazria faia founder, Architecture 2030
HOW WE WORK
We embrace integrated teams to achieve our goals.
Significant carbon reduction demands the attention of every discipline, working as a team. The partnership among disciplines shapes everything we do.
Informed design grounds our work and maximizes impact.
Informed design—our research-driven approach— turns our passion for sustainability into value for clients. Understanding the impact of design decisions allows us to merge carbon emissions targets with the project goals. It’s the recipe for high performance.
We use applied research to understand the impact of our work and push further.
Informed design is only possible when research is embedded throughout the process. In our drive for continuous improvement, teams persistently push for data to validate performance decisions.
Our shared culture makes it possible.
What we’re striving for isn’t easy. Who we are. How we work together. How we grow to better serve our clients and communities. That’s how we find success.
ted hyman faia founder, managing partner at zgf
OUR PEOPLE
OUR COMMITMENT TO THE PROFESSION
Growing Together: Everyone counts.
We are fierce and fluent advocates for sustainable design, ready to share authorship and work together for a higher purpose. Our challenge is to produce results at scale, and to build a culture where every individual on every team sees the vision and has the skills and motivation to achieve it.
Shaping the Profession: There is always a way.
Changing an industry involves the whole industry. We advocate for integrated, informed design, not to win work but to spread a model of architectural practice that is critically important for our shared future.
Making an Impact: We don’t do this alone.
Community is the source and endpoint in the circular economy of our impact. Whether in schools, college campuses or neighborhoods, our work both depends on and reaches out to the communities we serve.
Elizabeth carmichael, president, sdgbc board of directors
No Excuses
No Excuses: Integrated Design for a Sustainable Future
Explore the evolution of LPA Design Studios’ culture and informed design process, recognized with the AIA 2025 Architecture Firm Award. Project studies provide vivid evidence that a collaborative, inclusive, research-driven design process can produce better results. “No Excuses” is an essential study of the power of connecting design excellence and performance.
Everything Counts. There is always a way. We don’t do this alone.
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