Design professionals and AIA members across Pennsylvania gathered for the state’s AIA Architectural Excellence Awards 9th annual broadcast with viewing parties hosted by local AIA chapters. The state-wide award program recognizes work, firms, and individuals for their “excellence in design, contributions to the profession of architecture, and commitment to the quality of the built environment.”

Gallatin Residence was one of the recipients of AIA PA’s most prestigious recognitions, the Silver Medal. Gallatin is an example of a carefully crafted home and site-restoring project in the upper Hudson Valley. Jurors praised the project’s integration into its site, noting, “the interplay between the solid and the wall, the groundedness, and then the transparent top layer that allows that roof to float is so beautifully done.” Built to be a retreat from fast-paced Manhattan city life, the home respects the surrounding landscape through its scale, massing, and use of natural, unadorned materials. Its interiors open to spectacular views across the Hudson River Valley to the Catskills, emphasized by the entry-level pavilion, which creates the sensation of floating over the vast meadow. Seeds from native grasses, planted during construction, further strengthen a cohesive habitat.

This year, the AIA PA introduced the 2025 Masonry Awards, which included three new categories: Creative Fusion, Re-Imagined, and Visionary. Flats on Forward received a Creative Fusion Award, an award “granted to projects that blend traditional masonry craftsmanship with contemporary design innovation.” Led by not-for-profit developer ACTION-Housing Inc., Flats on Forward responds to Pittsburgh’s pressing need for affordable housing. The mixed-use building includes 43 apartments available to households with incomes of 60% AMI or below, a publicly accessible community center, and 10,000 square feet of storefront offices. The contemporary facade features simple brick folds efficiently combined into standard brick units and textured fiber-cement panels, weaving the building into a dynamic urban fabric, where the surrounding eclectic brick buildings provide an authentic context of materiality, texture, and detail. Jurors highlighted the window inlay design and stack bond soldier coarsening, saying, “Paired with the rich dark brick, they contribute to a building that is both striking and elegant.”

Former Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Principal Frank Grauman, FAIA, received the Medal of Distinction, the highest award bestowed by AIA Pennsylvania upon a living chapter member. Frank joined BCJ in 1976, and decades at the firm developed broad expertise across a range of building types, including education and athletic facilities, offices, libraries, research laboratories, residence halls, theaters, and visitor centers. A presentation celebrating his accomplishments included work from throughout the arc of his career, including the Shelly Ridge Girl Scout Center, completed in 1979, Stetson Hall and Saywer Library at Williams College, and Lauder and Gutmann College Houses at the University of Pennsylvania, among others.

Congratulations to our clients and collaborators!