AIA Names 2015 Winners of Thomas Jefferson Awards

The AIA recognized architect Thomas E. Lollini and Thomas Luebke, the secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

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The American Institute of Architects announced the two winners of this year’s Thomas Jefferson Awards for Public Architecture today.

Thomas E. Lollini, FAIA, campus architect at the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Merced
Lollini’s work is being honored for bringing awareness to the importance of campus design at two California universities. His first project was as the campus architect at the University of California, Berkeley in 1996, where his New Century Plans—the school’s first comprehensive renovation in 100 years—helped to increase enrollment by 10 percent. In 2005, Lollini was hired by the University of California, Merced to design the new campus. With this opportunity, Lollini developed the Triple Zero Commitment plan, which pledged that by 2020, when the school’s enrollment is 10,000 students, it will reach net-zero status for energy, waste, and emissions. To date, U.C. Merced is the only campus in the world in which all buildings are LEED-certified.

Thomas Luebke, FAIA, secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts
For the past decade, Luebke has served as the secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in Washington, D.C. In this role, he communicates between designers and local regulatory stakeholders. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, and graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1991. Before joining the commission, Luebke worked as a preservation historian for Washington’s Old Executive Office Building, designed by Alfred Mullett, and he also served as the city architect for Alexandria, Va. An advocate for historic preservation and adaptive reuse, he and the commission preserved 37 of the 40 buildings on Washington’s St. Elizabeth’s Hospital campus—a 176-acre National Historic Landmark and the future home of the Department of Homeland Security.

About the Author

Chelsea Blahut

Chelsea Blahut is a former engagement editor at Hanley Wood. She holds a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in Journalism and Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Follow her on Twitter at @chelseablahut.

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