Press kit no. 7943-01

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Press kit - Press release - Found Projects, Co-Founded by Architect Miaojie Ted Zhang, Named Jury Winner for Best X-Small Firm at the 2026 Architizer A+Awards - Found Projects

Press Kit | no. 7943-01

Found Projects, Co-Founded by Architect Miaojie Ted Zhang, Named Jury Winner for Best X-Small Firm at the 2026 Architizer A+Awards

Los Angeles, United States

Found Projects

Landscape Architecture

The award recognizes the Los Angeles studio led by Zhang and Veronica Smith, highlighting a body of public, cultural, residential, and landscape work across the United States and China.

Los Angeles, United States, 2026-07-30 - Found Projects, the Los Angeles architecture and design studio co-founded by architect Miaojie Ted Zhang, AIA, and designer Veronica Smith, has been named the Jury Winner in the Best X-Small Firm category of the 14th Annual Architizer A+Awards. The distinction recognizes excellence across the studio’s body of work and its contribution as an independent practice of one to five employees.

The Architizer A+Awards is an international awards program devoted to architecture and design. Its Firm categories recognize practices for aesthetics, performance, and impact. The 2026 Jury and Popular Choice winners were announced on June 8, 2026.

“For me, architecture begins with understanding how a place is built, how it will be used, and how it can contribute to public life. This recognition affirms the value of a small, hands-on practice in which I can carry an idea from early design through technical coordination, material research, and construction,” says Miaojie Ted Zhang, AIA, co-founder and principal of Found Projects.

Found Projects works across public spaces, cultural interiors, residential projects, landscape interventions, and small civic structures in the United States and China. Its portfolio includes the Four-Roof Pavilion at Shenzhen Pingshan Children’s Park, Blue Court, Columnating, Twin Pavilions, and Oriole House in Los Angeles.

Across the portfolio, the studio approaches architecture as a form of public infrastructure. The three-story Four-Roof Pavilion serves as a gateway to Shenzhen Pingshan Children’s Park while accommodating multi-purpose rooms, a bookstore, a café, and a roof garden. Blue Court combines a blue concrete basketball court with an exposed steel frame and tension-cable system, creating both a sports venue and a gathering place for a coastal village. Columnating reworks an oceanfront overlook through a curved retaining wall, a field of columns, and shaded places to rest.

The studio’s work also ranges from Twin Pavilions, which transforms an underused viewing deck into two steel structures framing a semi-enclosed ocean-facing courtyard, to Oriole House, a Los Angeles renovation organized around a central atrium and an existing collection of art and photography. Together, these projects demonstrate a consistent interest in structural clarity, material atmosphere, and spaces that support public and everyday life.

Miaojie Ted Zhang, AIA, is a licensed architect in California and New York and co-founder and principal of Found Projects. Trained in architecture and structural engineering at UCLA and Tongji University, Zhang leads the studio’s design direction and the development of projects from concept through construction. His work integrates spatial design with structural thinking, material research, technical coordination, and direct collaboration with clients and project teams. This combined background informs Found Projects’ emphasis on structural clarity, constructability, and spaces shaped by everyday use.

Veronica Smith is a co-founder and architectural designer educated at Yale and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her work spans architecture, interiors, public space, and design research. Together, Zhang and Smith guide a practice that uses focused design and close collaboration to create spatial, cultural, and public value across scales and contexts.

Award: 14th Annual Architizer A+Awards

Recognition: Jury Winner

Category: Best X-Small Firm (1–5 employees)

Recipient: Found Projects

Location: Los Angeles, California, United States

Co-founders: Miaojie Ted Zhang, AIA; Veronica Smith

Winner announcement: June 8, 2026

Selected projects: Four-Roof Pavilion; Blue Court; Columnating; Twin Pavilions; Oriole House

Website: https://www.found-projects.com/

Architizer profile: https://architizer.com/firms/found-projects/

About Found Projects

Found Projects is a Los Angeles architecture and design studio co-founded by Miaojie Ted Zhang, AIA, and Veronica Smith. Zhang, a licensed architect in California and New York with training in architecture and structural engineering at UCLA and Tongji University, leads the studio’s design direction and project development from concept through construction. Smith is an architectural designer educated at Yale and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The studio works across public spaces, cultural interiors, residential projects, landscape interventions, and small civic structures in the United States and China, exploring how site, structure, material, construction, and everyday use can shape clear and precise architecture.

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For more information

www.found-projects.com/

Media contact

Found Projects
Miaojie Ted Zhang, AIA, Co-Founder
ted@found-projects.com
4244650321

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