EN 
FR 
DE 
IT 
ES
California’s best architecture honored at 2025 AIA California Design Awards
AIA California has unveiled the winners of its 2025 Design Awards. The annual program seeks to “promote, recognize, publicize, and celebrate the value exceptional design has on the fabric of society.”
Twenty-one projects were recognized in the 2025 awards, from civil work to multi-family housing. The awards were given in three categories, from highest: Honor Awards, Merit Awards, and Citation.
“I am honored to lead an organization whose membership is so adept at elevating quality of life,” said 2025 AIA California President Carina Mills, AIA. “AIA California is committed to professional opportunities and advocacy that nurture and catalyze great work. To see this year’s 2025 Design Awards recipients is to see professionals harness new and exciting strategies to produce design excellence. Congratulations to all recipients.”
Below we have listed the winners of the 2025 edition. You can compare the latest winners to those of previous years by reviewing our ongoing coverage of the awards here.
HONOR RECIPIENTS
500 County Center, Redwood City, California by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
Jury comments: This project achieves excellence across the board, from its urban design and siting—creating a civic presence within an urban context—but also inviting and welcoming the public in. It elevates civic architecture to a very high level, while at the same time embracing innovative, resilient, sustainable technologies such as mass timber passive design. It really hangs together, both in terms of a piece of architecture, the interiors, and again, as a piece of civic architecture.
