As the firm celebrates its 70th year in practice, the AIA California Firm Award recognizes Steinberg Hart’s history of producing distinguished architecture, contributions to communities, advancements in sustainable design, and commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
LOS ANGELES, April 11, 2023: The American Institute of Architects California has named Steinberg Hart as the winner of its coveted 2023 Firm Award, the highest honor the organization can bestow on an architecture firm. The annual Firm Award recognizes practices that have consistently produced distinguished architecture for a period of at least 10 years. Firms must also demonstrate achievements in mentoring, continued collaboration among individuals, and significant contributions made by the firm to the profession in areas of design, research, planning, technology, practice and innovation. The award coincides with Steinberg Hart’s celebration of its 70-year anniversary.
Since its founding in 1953, Steinberg Hart has evolved from a San Francisco Bay Area regional architecture practice focused on custom homes and California living to an international architecture, planning and interiors practice with a deep expertise in higher education, urban mixed-use, residential, arts and culture, hospitality, government, and civic projects. Today the firm has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Austin, New York, and Shanghai and has completed award-winning projects in 48 states.
“I am honored and humbled to work with such amazing people. The Firm Award recognizes the ways in which everyone at Steinberg Hart has put our firm values of design, relationships, and change into action, both within our firm and out in our communities,” shared David Hart, Steinberg Hart’s President & CEO. “This award is a testament to their hard work, dedication to design excellence, and commitment to leading by doing.”
Steinberg Hart’s designs are widely recognized for their design quality, community impact, and contextual responses, evidenced by the award of more than 200 local and national design awards and more than 50 AIA Chapter design awards. Steinberg Hart’s McGregor Computer Science Center at Harvey Mudd College was recently honored at the national level with an AIA Education Facility Design Award of Excellence. “This firm has a significant volume of quality work completed,” one AIA California Awards juror noted. Comments highlighted the “history of the practice and overall design excellence.” Steinberg Hart’s submittal was supported by letters of recommendation from AIA California’s Executive Director Carlo Caccavale, Related California’s CEO Bill Witte, and Former Mayor of San Jose Sam Liccardo, a testament to the quality of the firm’s influence on the architectural profession, client service and policy advocacy, and community impact.
Jurors lauded Steinberg Hart’s “dedication to sustainable design with verifiable outcomes.” Steinberg Hart has long been a pioneer in sustainable design, having designed California’s 1st LEED Platinum Student Housing project at California State University, Fullerton. Boosted by Steinberg Hart’s in-house sustainability experts, other significant achievements in sustainability include over 150 LEED-Certified or equivalent projects, as well as seven Zero Net Energy projects, including the Ohio Street Probation Center in San Diego, McGregor Computer Science Center at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, and San Jose City College Career Education Complex in San Jose.
The Firm Award is also in recognition of an entrepreneurial company culture that is as unique as each of its employees. The firm is made up of 47% women with over half of staff identifying as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). Steinberg Hart has long recognized that diversity and equity are essential to successful collaboration and key to great designs that truly serve their communities. The evidence of Steinberg Hart’s dedication to advancing justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) was particularly impactful for the AIA California Awards jury, who praised the firm’s “commitment to JEDI at all levels of the organization.”
Indeed, since Steinberg Hart’s JEDI group was established in 2020, it has had a lasting impact on firm culture, advocacy, design efforts, and influence in the industry. The firm’s annual Day of Service, holiday Donation Drive, strengthened partnership with local NOMA chapters, and mentorship through staff-led workshops for local high schoolers all found their roots in JEDI initiatives. In an effort to maintain transparency and ensure accountability, Steinberg Hart is also a proud JUST organization, reporting its progress every three years on 22 social justice indicators.
“Each one of us is dedicated to supporting a firm culture that is grounded in openness, inclusion, and empowerment with purpose – a place where every single person in the firm has the opportunity to be wildly successful and create incredible designs,” Hart says. “We look forward to continuing on this trajectory in the years to come as we continue to create tangible, memorable, and authentic architecture, together.”
One juror stated it simply: Steinberg Hart’s submittal “knocked it out of the park in most categories of assessment for this award.”
AIA California is the largest state component of the AIA with more than 11,000 members and 21 chapters. Since the first Firm Award was granted in 1984, 40 firms have been selected. The Board of Directors, AIA California’s governing body that includes representatives from all the state’s chapters, votes to select Firm Award recipients each year.
ABOUT STEINBERG HART
Steinberg Hart is an international architecture, planning and interiors practice with broad expertise in higher education, urban mixed-use, residential, arts and culture, hospitality, government, and civic projects. The firm has built a diverse and talented team that works collaboratively across seven offices, challenging one another to develop designs that build community, enhance business, support learning, and connect people with place. Grounded in our three core values of design, relationships, and change, our firm’s focus is on bringing award-winning and highly sustainable designs from sketch to reality, resulting in tangible, memorable, and impactful architecture. Celebrating its 70th year in practice in 2023, Steinberg Hart was honored with an AIA California’s Firm Award, the organization’s highest honor for an architecture firm. To learn more, visit www.steinberghart.com.
MEDIA CONTACT
Samantha Chastang
Director of Marketing & Communications
schastang@steinberghart.com
213.599.4344