David Lake and Ted Flato of Texas studio Lake Flato Architects have been awarded this yr’s AIA Gold Medal for his or her engagement with “controversial environmental and socio-political points”.
Lake and Flato received the 2024 American Insitute of Architects (AIA) Gold Medal, which is taken into account one of the vital prestigious to be given to architects.
The 2 architects, who cofounded their studio, Lake Flato Architects, in San Antonio, Texas in 1984, had been cited by the eight-person jury for his or her potential to make “sustainability thrilling in a means few different architects have achieved”.
“The initiatives they envision have raised the collective consciousness surrounding our local weather disaster whereas concurrently fascinating a broad viewers with buildings which are each stunning and sustainable,” continued the AIA.
“Whereas Texas, a area grappling with unprecedented development and local weather change, appears an unlikely place for a agency targeted on sustainability to thrive, they’ve nonetheless helped purchasers see structure and sustainability as inextricably linked.”
The pair has been on the helm of their studio for the final 40 years, and have expanded, opening up places of work in Austin and creating initiatives internationally, whereas all the time specializing in Texas’ constructed surroundings.
The jurors cited initiatives equivalent to a pavilion in Decatur, Texas as examples of the studio’s deal with sustainability.
This pavilion, the primary Dwelling Constructing Problem-certified mission in Texas, was designed for an organisation selling wholesome water methods and included options that mitigated wastewater’s results on marshland – a technique the studio has replicated in initiatives equivalent to a pavilion at Confluence Park.
Additionally cited was the studio’s work on a grocery chain working in Mexico and Texas referred to as H-E-B, for whom Lake Flato created sustainable components that set “the benchmark for resiliency in a big-box retailer”.
Restoration has additionally been excessive on the studio’s agenda in initiatives such because the Marine Schooling Middle in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, which was constructed on the positioning of destruction from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and was constructed to face up to additional disasters.
“Tireless environmental advocacy”
Lake Flato Architects has additionally designed many works of residential structure, equivalent to a current Corten-steel-clad home in Texas that was designed to “sit flippantly on the land”.
Technological innovation additionally options of their work, and Lake and Flato’s studio has been on the slicing fringe of 3D printing in structure, working with Texas constructing know-how firm ICON to create homes with 3D-printed components in Austin.
In line with the AIA, the studio’s method has led to vital ties between conservation and structure.
“All through all of their groundbreaking work, Lake and Flato have ensured their buildings sit flippantly on the land and nurture the life that interacts with them,” mentioned AIA.
“Their course of, collaborations, and tireless environmental advocacy have instantly preserved entry to greater than 50,000 acres of land in Texas, the place lower than 4 per cent of land is publicly out there, and conserved 35,000 acres of habitats stretching from West Virginia to Florida’s Everglades.”
Lake Flato has been the recipient of different honours, together with the AIA Agency of the 12 months Award in 2004, in addition to lots of of different awards together with COTE’s 15 Prime Ten Inexperienced Challenge Awards and the International Award for Sustainable Structure in 2014.
The Gold Medal was established in 1907. Final yr, the award went to Chicago architect Carol Ross Barney and different recipients embody Angela Brooks and Lawrence Scarpa (collectively) in addition to British architect Richard Rogers.
