(July 9, 2026. Sacramento, CA) Twenty-two unique projects: from a restrained distilled barn to enriching affordable housing, from a temple that fuses old and new as it offers up community to a high school that establishes a presence on a major city artery that matches its reputation academically—each, individual; collectively, the work is the recipients of the 2026 AIA California Design Awards program.

This year the jury often recognized the value of saving and reconsidering existing buildings through adaptive reuse, renovation, or historic preservation work, as it did with its first Honor Award recipient, Hangar One, HDR Architecture. While the second Honor Award, Malibu High School, by KoningEizenberg Architecture, generated innovation in a typology that is challenging to rethink.

“What is meaningful to our organization, AIA California, is the rigorousness of our membership, the constant leaning forward. The determination to embed the sustainable so deeply into design excellence it disappears.” said 2026 President Ginger Thompson, AIA, “Congratulations to the 2026 AIA California Design Awards recipients, and all members, throughout the state who strive, daily, to produce meaningful work for the communities we serve.”

The 2026 AIA California Design Awards recipients, along with their jury notes, are:

HONOR
Hangar One
HDR Architecture, Inc.
Jury Notes: An incredible and iconic structure, beautifully handled, retaining the best of the historic fabric and legacy while introducing modern uses and structural upgrades that feel worthy of what came before.

Malibu High School
KoningEizenberg Architecture and NAC Architecture
Jury Notes: A very ambitious project that was successfully realized and treads lightly on the land. The jury commends the integration of sustainable and NZE strategies and that these strategies are put on display for students. The casualness of the groupings and the creating of moments through them is impressive. It is really hard to do something that forges new territory in this typology, it does: it’s a kit of parts but extremely site specific, with indoor outdoor learning drilled into it. Absolutely California.

MERIT
Alma Rosa Vineyard Barn
Clayton Korte
Jury Notes: It’s beautifully executed. The simplicity and restraint makes it exactly what it should be. Beautiful, simple, honest. The architects took everything away that wasn’t necessary.

Cocopah Museum Expansion
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects
Jury Notes: A museum expansion that earns its place through cultural specificity, a deep responsiveness to the desert environment, and inventive use of structure and materials. It adds to the larger campus while standing apart as something distinct, organized around Indigenous perspectives in both program and spatial experience. The jury appreciates that the intent of the project is not only to look at artifacts but serves a purpose in the community as a ceremonial space.

Congregation Emanu-El
Mark Cavagnero Associates
Jury Notes: A clever blending of old and new that is respectful of the original symmetry and history while introducing a contemporary sensibility and new social spaces that genuinely enhance community life. They masterfully found space, dropping the mezzanine down behind the central arches. The introduction of modern systems and materials successfully contrasts and enhances the historic temple.

Contemplative Commons at the University of Virginia
Aidlin Darling Design
Jury Notes: A thoughtful solution, with unexpected clarity and complexity, blends a number of influences including Jeffersonian classical architecture and a natural setting for the benefit of student well-being. Natural materials are used to great effect to develop spaces that feel warm and inviting. This impressive academic and civic building brings warmth, vibrancy and connection to the Dell and surrounding landscape.

Santa Monica Vermont Apartments
KoningEizenberg Architecture
The project excels with exuberant and sensitive compositions of form, texture, and color. The jury is impressed by the well-proportioned massing, simply, but carefully detailed surfaces, and richly integrated into the urban context. It integrates affordable housing with neighborhood retail, outdoor space, and transit access. The distributed approach to shared amenities is quite successful, and the decision to break from the closed courtyard model opens the project up in ways that feel generous and connected to the street.

University High School
Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects
A very rare programmatic opportunity, well executed, that delivers identity and heart to a prominent high school on major artery of the city—giving it a presence to match its reputation academically. A building that adds density while reuniting STEM classrooms and offices. The introduction of porosity, landscape, warmth, and light, transforms what could have been purely utilitarian into something genuinely inviting. Cleanly designed and executed, the project integrates a high level of sustainability and decarbonization strategies.

University of California, Berkeley — Grimes Engineering Center
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill
A thoughtful reimagining of a 1980s Brutalist structure into an inviting student hub—delicate and scaled so as not to overwhelm adjacent historic context that bookends it; the right building in the right place. The front porch material, proportion, and positioning, both contrast and complement the existing campus core, striking a balance that feels considered and fresh. The pioneering use of shape memory alloy for seismic resilience is perhaps the project’s most distinctive move, made visible and legible as a physical teaching tool in the building itself. The jury appreciates that the existing building was not torn down.

Vineyard Residence
Clayton Korte
Jury Notes: The jury appreciates the simple massing that is exceptionally drawn into the landscape with the structurally and materially expressive roof. Handsome finish material pallet and deft detailing provide an enriching backdrop to the primary experience of extending into the hills beyond the reach of the roof plane. It intentionally feels like it has been in place for a long time. Weathered, streaked, lived in, honest and of the place.

CITATION
Barrington1503
Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects
This project introduces density while carving volumes to allow for light, air, openness and community gathering. The layering and orientation of private social spaces with public ones is particularly compelling. The courtyard core community zone does so much to create place and porosity, units have individual identities but are interconnected. The shared living room concept, these are not traditional units, is very strong. The floor plan works very well.

David Rubenstein Treehouse at Harvard University
Studio Gang
This is a laudable effort towards the living building challenge, with heavy timber use, and a commendable energy story. The mass timber engineering and construction are exemplary. The interior spaces of the project are rich, warm—powerful. Moving the event space to the top floor is a radical and rewarding decision, fundamentally changing how the space is experienced.

Glorya Kaufman Community Center at the Wende Museum
AUX Architecture
A successful surgical intervention that creates a whole, civic, place with important street presence. An impressive turn of a conventional new-build brief into an adaptive reuse project. Open circulation and continuity at ground plane provide environmental benefits and invite pedestrian movement into and through facility.

Imperial County Criminal Courthouse
Safdie Rabines Architects
Jury Notes: A profound reimagining of what a criminal courthouse can be, balancing civic function with a warm and accessible environment—which is commendable. A laudable goal realized with beautiful follow-through. Light filled interiors provide transparency and comfort, important features for courtroom entry spaces. Criminal courthouses are such a challenging typology.

Lake Tahoe | Cabin(s)
Ro | Rockett Design
A rich material palette inside and out, with poetic moments that hold the light and calm of the place. The sectional siting is strong—three cabins embedded into the slope and connected by a glazed bridge—a simple and elegant move that makes the landscape the organizing force. This house broke itself down to adapt to the site. It felt like it had always been there.

Pavilion for Music and Meditation
Aidlin Darling Design
The large roof which creates a domain in the landscape, it’s not trying to disappear, it’s trying to augment the experience of being in the place. The jury admires the editing of the material palette. It’s beautiful.

Pritzker Hall Psychology Tower Modernization, UCLA
CO Architects
A successful refurbishment and integration of structural upgrades, specifically appreciate the use of ring-form pendant fixtures in the lobby, echoing the original recessed ceiling lighting. This project is a handsome transformation of the exterior wall and lower register that maintains/enhances its anchoring of the plaza on which it sites. The ground level arch and double height collaborative spaces are very successful.

Resnick Sustainability Center at Caltech
Yazdani Studio of CannonDesign
A provocative expression for make/research/innovation space. The architecture and interior design reverses the notion of the sterile “hidden” lab. The wall is not simple, but it is a well-accomplished simple element that brings unifying expression to an otherwise straight forward plan. The jury appreciates the use of mass timber to reduce embodied carbon emissions and to provide warmth and articulation to a program anchored by technical spaces.

Sierra Valley Preserve
Arkin Tilt Architects
As the only public access point to the vast Sierra Valley wetlands, this project carries real civic weight. An admirable holistic story about materiality, because the architects chose to reuse certain structure, and, then when they built, they built back with alternative materials, so there’s a lot of great strategies on display in this project. The exploration of alternative materials, straw bales, is to be commended.

The Kelsey Civic Center
WRNS Studio
This is an urbanistically responsible, with contextual palette and scale, well-integrated with important civic center character. The interior court shifts language to support residential, inclusive affordable uses masterfully and the street and pedestrian realm are very well handled.

The Sophie Maxwell Building
Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects
The balance struck between the industrial character of the historic shipyard and power plant and the needs of residential living is felt. It is inspired by the grit and memory of the site while creating something genuinely livable and invigorates the Southeast Bay waterfront. The design fits into its context nicely; it feels like it has always been there. The jury commends the design team for their inclusion of sustainable strategies and the all-electric design. We need more projects like this.

(W)rapper
Eric Owen Moss Architects
While the project generates questions about appropriate response to context and whether its interior experience justifies the complexity and cost premium of the overall design, the (W)rapper is worthy of recognition for its innovation, and the ideas presented in this core and shell office tower. It is ambitious, experimental, provocative, and memorable.

About the American Institute of Architects California (AIA CA)
AIA California is dedicated to serving its members, and uniting all architecture professionals in the design of a more just, equitable, and resilient future through advocacy, education, and political action. The organization represents the interests of more than 11,000 architects and allied professionals in California. Founded in 1944, the AIA CA is the largest component of the national AIA organization. For more information, visit www.aiacalifornia.org