AIA San Francisco (AIASF) recognized the 2022 AIASF Design Awards honorees during the AIASF Design Celebration event on Thursday, April 28, 2022 at PROXY, an outdoor public open space in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley Neighborhood. This was the first in-person AIASF Design Awards for the Chapter since the 2020 lockdown. The Master of Ceremonies was Vas Kiniris, Director of Business Development at NextSF and Board Director-at-Large for the Center for Architecture + Design. 

This year’s program featured a diverse range of project types that highlighted the Bay Area’s rich history of design leadership. Award recipients included Perkins&Will, Gensler, Faulkner Architects, JENSEN Architects, Field Architecture, EID Architects, Mork-Ulnes Architects, Michael Hennessey Architecture, S^A | Schwartz and Architecture, Axelrod Design, Aidlin Darling Design, Sidell Pakravan, JaJaCo, SAW // Spiegel Aihara Workshop, San Francisco Public Works, Bureau of Architecture, David Baker Architects with Cervantes Design Associates, Group, 4 Architecture, Research + Planning, Inc., Integrus Architecture, CMG Landscape Architecture, and WRNS Studio.

In addition, AIASF’s People's Choice Awards in Architecture, a collaboration with the Center for Architecture + Design, awarded one project in each of two categories: projects with budgets over and under $10,000,000. This year’s recipients included the Harvey B. Milk Terminal in the “Over $10M” category, a project by Gensler in joint venture with Kuth Ranieri, HKS, Woods Bagot, ED2, KYA, and Hamilton + Aitken Architects, and the Brisbane Library in the “Under $10M” category, a project by Siegel & Strain Architects and Karin Payson architecture + design. The People's Choice Awards expands the AIASF Design Awards program to provide the public the opportunity to recognize excellence in architectural work in and by the San Francisco Bay Area design community.

The 2022 AIASF Design Awards was juried in a full-day virtual session by five esteemed leaders in architecture and design which included Rodolphe el-Khoury, of the University of Miami School of Architecture, Sharon Johnston, FAIA of Johnston Marklee and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Nader Tehrani of NADAAA and the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union, Marion Weiss, FAIA of WEISS/MANFREDI and the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and Angela Wu, AIA of KPF.

“This year’s Design Celebration was particularly meaningful, as it was the first time our community gathered together in-person in over two years,” commented AIASF Executive Director Stacy Williams, "it was great to honor the people and firms who contribute so much to our shared built-environment and help shape our city into a vibrant, sustainable, and equitable place with every new project.”

The AIASF Design Awards submissions are divided into three main categories—Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Unbuilt Design—with three optional concentrations for Commendations that give special acknowledgment to projects that further encompass the values of good design within the context of Historic Preservation, Social Responsibility, and Urban Design. The Design Awards program incorporates the fulfillment of sustainable design principles into all categories.

This year’s AIASF Design Awards program was made possible by the generous support of sponsors including Salesforce, Forell|Elsesser Structural Engineers, Sixteen5hundred, Tipping Structural Engineers, XL Construction, AlfaTech, AssuredPartners, and Nibbi Brothers General Contractors.

In existence for nearly half a century, AIA San Francisco's Design Awards program recognizes the outstanding achievements in architecture and design of Bay Area individuals and organizations. It celebrates exceptional architectural design as well as the work of allied professionals from afar who contribute to our local built environment's framework. The program serves to inform the public of the breadth and value of the architectural practice.

The 2022 Design Award Honorees are featured in an online gallery that includes project images. A full list of AIASF’s 2022 Design Award recipients can be found here.