AIA Gold Medal to David Lake and Ted Flato

As with other AIA Gold Medal winners, David Lake and Ted Flato will receive their award at the AIA Conference for Architecture. Next year's event, taking place in Washington, DC, in early June, will also coincide with the 40th anniversary of the founding of Lake|Flato Architects.

According to the firm's website, upon the firm's founding in 1984, the duo “believed first and foremost that architecture should be rooted in its particular place, responding in a meaningful way to the natural or built environment.” Their goals were to create “buildings that were tactile and modern, environmentally responsible and authentic, artful and crafted.”

Last week's announcement from the AIA signals that their goals have remained constant, as they have “raised the collective consciousness surrounding our climate crisis while simultaneously captivating a broad audience with buildings that are both beautiful and sustainable.” The importance of sustainability in Lake|Flato's work is expressed in the “Eco-Conservation” section of their website, where a pavilion for the Dixon Water Foundation and an ecology center at Phil Hardberger Park are found alongside numerous other ecologically focused commissions.

Given today's concerns over the release of carbon and architecture's contribution toward it, “the renewal of existing buildings is also a critical element of Lake|Flato’s practice,” per the AIA, “and the firm has repurposed more than 3 million square feet of space into multifamily housing, hotels, and offices.” 

Fittingly, World-Architects included Lake|Flato's New Mexico School for the Arts as a US Building of the Week in 2021, when the feature focused on adaptive reuse and renovation projects. The project, done with Studio SW Architects, repurposed around a dozen different buildings that previously housed a lumber mill, storage depot, mini-mall and other uses over the span of more than one hundred years.

One adaptive reuse project spanning nearly the whole of Lake|Flato's 40-year existence is its own office in downtown San Antonio. The firm first rented part of the three-story building at 311 Third Street that formerly served as a car dealership, but over time they took ownership of more and more of the building, and now is its sole owner and tenant. Starting in 2020, when the pandemic dramatically impacted workplaces, the firm dramatically transformed the office, inside and out, finishing the project earlier this year as yet another example of its “environmentally responsible and authentic” architecture.

• Anne Hicks Harney (chair), Long Green Specs, Manasquan, NJ
• Kjell Anderson, LMN Architects, Seattle
• Ung-Joo Scott Lee, Morphosis, New York City
• Amy Slattery, Odimo, Kansas City, MO
• Megumi Tamanaha, ARO, New York City
• Roderic Walton, Moody Nolan, Chicago
• Korey White, DLR Group, Quincy, IL
• Taryn Williams, SGH, Washington, DC

*The AIA Board of Directors and Strategic Council select the winners for AIA Gold Medal, per the AIA, with the finalists selected by the advisory jury.