Keynote Speaker: Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA
Meet Lawrence Scarpa
The exploratory and ever-innovative work of Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, has elevated design and practice, and created architectural and legislative solutions for the most pressing societal challenges. He is the recipient of the 2024 AIA California Distinguished Practice Award given in recognition of a career of dedicated commitment to the built environment. He is also the recipient of the 2024 ACSA Gold Medal and the 2024 American Institute of Architects “GOLD” medal, the institute's highest award. He has been featured in Forbes Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Time Magazine and on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
His firm Brooks + Scarpa have received 6 National AIA COTE Top Ten Green Building awards, more than any firm in the USA. He is the recipient of multiple international awards including 32 National AIA Honor Awards, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Award in Architecture and the AIA National Firm Award. He is also the recipients of the lifetime achievement awards from Interior Design Magazine and the AIA California Council. Mr. Scarpa has taught at the university level for more than two decades and is currently on the faculty at the University of Southern California.
Why do we remember buildings, locations and experiences? Even a place visited in our childhood can conjure emotions that make an impact on us through the memories they create. Brooks and Scarpa will explain the creative process that aspires to make a lasting impression out of even a brief encounter.
Beauty is deeply intertwined with human values, social structures, and individual well-being. Its relevance can be seen in the way societies and cultures celebrate, pursue, and define beauty. It impacts almost every aspect of life from art and architecture to daily routines and social norms.
Beauty is the promise of happiness.” Happiness is one of our fundamental human needs and Beauty fulfills that promise. Buildings that we admire are ultimately those which, in a variety of ways, extol the values we think worthwhile. Whether through material innovation , form, colors or service to society, qualities such as friendliness, kindness, subtlety, strength and intelligence are part of what we believe are beautiful. . Our sense of beauty and our understanding of the nature of what is good are intertwined and inseparable.
Brooks and Scarpa's work is deeply rooted in conditions of the everyday, and works with our perception and preconceptions to allow us to see things in new ways. They do this, not by escaping the restrictions of practice, but by looking, questioning and reworking the very process of design and building, rethinking the way things normally get done – with material, form, construction, even financing –– and to subsequently redefine it to cull out it’s latent potentials – making the “ordinary extraordinary.”
Learning Objectives
Explore the essential processes behind the ways in which our physical environment is actually created
Demonstrate how clients’ direct participation in the design process results in more meaningful and thoughtful buildings
Identify design projects that successfully integrate beauty, delight, health, and wellness with best practices in sustainability and innovation
Assess how all design disciplines can more effectively collaborate from the inception of projects through maintenance and operation, and even eventual renovation and recycling
