Twenty AIA California Members Elevated to College of Fellows

Less than three percent of the architecture profession achieve AIA Fellowship.

Sacramento, California—The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is elevating twenty AIA California members to the organization’s prestigious College of Fellows for their exceptional work and contributions to architecture and society. Fellowship is AIA’s highest membership honor.

The fellowship program was developed to elevate architects who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession and made a significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level. Architects who have been elevated to fellowship can be identified by the designation FAIA after their name.

Below are California’s newly elevated members:

Anthony Brower, FAIA (Gensler) – AIA Los Angeles
A catalyst for innovation, Anthony Brower generates research-driven climate design paradigms that cross building typologies and scales as he educates and motivates the profession to strive for higher levels of environmental consciousness and responsibility.

Cary S. Bernstein, FAIA (Cary Bernstein Architect) – AIA San Francisco
Cary Bernstein’s transformative architecture connects people, place, and time with expressive economy, rigorous detail, and the essential presence of nature. As architect, advocate, and educator she elevates the profession with ardent personal agency and intention.

Francesca Razzano Oliveira, FAIA (Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP) – AIA San Francisco
Francesca Razzano Oliveira advances technical design through research and realization of architecture that achieves decarbonization holistically with integrated systems and materials, and she broadly disseminates these resilient processes with peers and emerging professionals.

Frederick Marks, FAIA (Frederick M Marks Consultancy) – AIA San Francisco
Researcher/educator/architect, through his pioneering leadership, Frederick Marks has championed a fresh way of translating, sharing, and applying scientific research that advances design knowledge for improving building occupancy health and our collective environmental stewardship.

Greg Faulkner, FAIA (Faulkner Architects) – AIA San Francisco    
Greg Faulkner creates highly crafted, haptic built environments in intimate conversation with their surroundings, appropriate to site, climate, and culture. His work’s intellectual rigor fosters a responsible, experiential relationship between habitation and nature.

Hao Ko, FAIA (Gensler) – AIA San Francisco
Hao Ko advances benchmarks for high-performance buildings with innovation, craft, and resilience. He challenges the possibilities, pushing the boundaries of design to create beautiful and iconic places that impact people and planet for the better.

Ida A. Clair, FAIA (Department of General Services Division of the State Architect) – AIA Central Valley
As California’s first woman State Architect, Ida A. Clair, AIA, has leveraged her authority to enhance sustainability, accessibility, and equity in the state, strengthening California’s influence in a challenged world.

Jeffrey Allsbrook, FAIA (Standard®Architecture/Design) – AIA Los Angeles    
Engaging material, context and purpose while practicing at the confluence of domestic and retail architecture, Jeffrey Allsbrook’s sensitivity to local environments, material quality, and culture manifests in modern, memorable design that inspires a worldwide audience.

Jill Bergman, FAIA (HDR) – AIA San Francisco
Jill Bergman has built a career in service to advancing and elevating healthcare architecture and architects. Through sustained leadership in professional organizations locally and nationally, Jill inspires generations with advocacy, mentorship, and knowledge sharing.

Julia E Hawkinson, FAIA (Los Angeles Unified School District) – AIA Los Angeles        
Julia Hawkinson’s work transforms the learning environments for the students of the nation’s second largest public school district. Every day, she guides architects, planners, and those around her to think of students first.

Julia Laue, FAIA (San Francisco Public Works, Bureau of Architecture)  – AIA San Francisco    
Julia Laue fosters a culture of excellence in civic architecture. Through pioneering delivery methods, she assembles design teams that produce inspiring, award-winning projects, transforming the way citizens experience government services that benefit the community.

Michael T. Pinto, FAIA (NAC Architecture) – AIA Los Angeles
Michael Pinto integrates contemporary design practice with social activism. His mission-driven model of practice expands the leadership role of architects and architecture in a broader civic discourse.

Moses Vaughan, FAIA (WRNS Studio) – AIA San Francisco
Moses Vaughan conducts focused tectonic research to clarify and elevate architectural intent. Collaborating with creative trade partners, he explores latent opportunities of technology and materials to deliver highest levels of design expression and user satisfaction.

Paul Murdoch, FAIA (Paul Murdoch Architects) – AIA Los Angeles
Paul Murdoch is an architect of healing who designs public sanctuaries of memory that restore emotional health, community centers that foster social well-being, and regenerative environments that promote resilience and climate justice.

Paul Woolford, FAIA (HOK) – AIA San Francisco
With a passion for cultivating human-nature connections, Paul Woolford transforms complex design challenges into clear, sustainable solutions that promote environmental stewardship, human health, and community well-being on a global scale.

Sanford L. Smith, FAIA (Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian) – AIA Orange County
Sanford Smith devoted his career to creating and promoting sustainable developments changing conventional thinking on scale and affordability. His leadership demonstrated the value proposition for higher performing projects, transforming corporate America’s approach to building.

Silvia Kuhle, FAIA (Standard Architecture | Design) – AIA Los Angeles
Silvia Kuhle employs context and light to elevate our experience of space. Her designs become land art, evoking calm, connecting us to nature and inspiring future talent and clients to advance simple, ecological architecture.

Taal Safdie, FAIA (Safdie Rabines Architects) –  AIA San Diego    
With a profound capacity to capture the essence of a site and a project’s unique use, Taal’s designs fuse nature and structure with the goal of cultivating community and enriching people’s lives.

Taesun Hong, FAIA (YKH Associates) – AIA San Francisco
Taesun Hong’s distinguished oeuvre employs an abstract aesthetic, spanning scales and typologies and resonant with musical themes. He seeks to create timeless places that enhance community identity and cultural awareness through simple yet contextual designs.

Todd A. Erlandson, FAIA, (March Studio) – AIA Los Angeles
Todd Erlandson empowers nonprofit and community-based clients to improve people’s everyday lives through authentic, purpose-oriented architecture. He openly shares his mission-focused model for architects by teaching a new generation of talent about service-centered design.


AIA California is proud of these members’ contributions to the field and congratulates each.


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