The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board of Directors award Thom Mayne, FAIA, with the 2013 AIA Gold Medal, for his government and institutional projects. The Gold Medal honors an individual whose significant body of work has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. The AIA Board of Directors also voted to award Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects with the 2013 AIA Architecture Firm Award, which is given annually as the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture firm, to recognize a practice that consistently produces distinguished architecture for at least 10 years.

Mayne will be honored at a special event in March in Washington, D.C., as well as at the 2013 AIA National Convention in Denver. He founded his Los Angeles–based firm Morphosis in 1972, which communicates his vision of architecture as a journey and not a destination. In that same year, Mayne formed the Southern California Institute of Architects (SCI-Arc) with several colleagues, which has channeled his enthusiasm for education and experimentally pushing architecture’s role in society. In 2009, he was appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and was the recipient of the Centennial Medal of the American Academy in Rome. His well-known works include the new Perot Museum of Science and Nature in Dallas; 41 Cooper Square in New York; the University of Cincinnati Student Recreation Center; the San Francisco Federal Building; The Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse; and the Diamond Ranch High School in Pomona, California.

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects will be honored at the 2013 AIA National Convention in Denver. 
The married team of Tod Williams, FAIA, and Billie Tsien, AIA, have been working together since 1977 and formed their New York-based practice in 1986. In the last 20-plus years, they have designed celebrated public cultural and institutional buildings; university facilities; libraries; museums; and more. Known for their material integrity and sense of innovation, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects has been known to invent their own building materials when they can’t find a suitable option for a specific use. For example, the University of Pennsylvania’s bioengineering building, Skirkanich Hall, that uses a hand-glazed ceramic brick on the front façade that shines an iridescent green, was developed specifically for the project, and references the ivy-covered brick structures that are prominent across the 18th century campus. Other notable projects include the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center in New York; the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia; the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley; and the Long Island House in Wainscott, New York.

To learn more, visit aia.org.