2022 AIA Gold Medal: Angela Brooks and Lawrence Scarpa

Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, and Angela Brooks, FAIA, are the co-founders of their namesake, Hawthorne, Calif.–based firm Brooks + Scarpa. In more than three decades of practice, Brooks and Scarpa have led the profession with sustainable design and elegant affordable housing solutions. Their win marks the second time that AIA has awarded its Gold Medal to a pair of individuals.

What’s the best way to describe the personality of your practice?
Obsessive, compassionate, caring, determined. We operate a bit like a family where everyone’s opinion matters and everyone is cared for and everyone knows just about everything in the office. Nonetheless, we treat business and practice seriously, work hard, have fun, and strive to do the best that we can.

What’s the best way to describe your approach to architecture?
That it is a sequence of spaces and not a form; we design from the inside out. Form is important, but it is experience that matters. One can recall a special place from childhood, or even more recently; when you think of it, it’s very clear in your memory, but when visiting it, the place often looks very different than you remember even though the memory is fresh like it was yesterday. We try to leave something behind, whether there is a form there or not, something ingrained in one’s memory that lasts even when the visual image fades.

What project from your firm best illustrates that approach?
The next one.

What projects are you most drawn to?
Those that ask for good design, whether it be a building, a park bench, a guideline for future development, or a zoning code. We are always looking to challenge ourselves and take on new projects whether they be schools, affordable housing, custom homes, offices, or any other project type. We tried to follow ideas where we think design can matter and make a difference.

What impact has Hawthorne, Calif., (or California more broadly) had on your work?
Like our previous office space in Santa Monica, it is always the designers/artists/makers who transform underutilized industrial areas. Hawthorne is like Santa Monica was 20 years ago—a city in transition and we are situated near SpaceX, makers, and industry innovators. It is a special place to be at this moment in time.

What inspires your work and advocacy on housing, particularly affordable housing, in the U.S.?
Everybody wants to have purpose, and we believe that having purpose enhances art. So, while we are interested in making art, we are more interested in making art with purpose. People and affordable housing need good design the most. We believe that good design and being disadvantaged are not mutually exclusive and that everyone deserves good design, quality of place, and dignity. We strive to provide all of that in the context of making art for people. Art that they can live in.

What is the greatest challenge facing architects today?
Being irrelevant. Society needs the talent of architects. Oftentimes, it is others—lawyers, and professionals without the design experience—that shape our urban fabric. Architects need to be more involved in the processes that impact our built environment such as politics, planning, government, and running for elected office. The profession is large and complex now unlike how it was five decades ago, and we need people who are specialists. There is plenty of room in society for us as designers to be game-changers.

What was your most rewarding collaboration?
We often work with other talented design architects on projects around the world. We learn from them we find it an opportunity to learn more than we know. Those collaborations have always been the most meaningful to us. Also working in underserved communities is important to us. Giving back and working with purpose is something that has guided us throughout our careers.

What’s one building you wish you had done?
We really want to work more in the public realm. Although we are doing projects now in that area we feel that our talents have yet to be fully realized mostly because of opportunity. We want to do more civic buildings and buildings that the public interacts with more meaningfully.

What’s one building you wish you hadn’t done?
It takes a long time for buildings to get built from their initial conception to the actual finish of construction. Often times we have moved on to other ideas by the time a project is completed and occupied, so it is sometimes hard to even look at your own projects because by the time that they are completed the ideas can be somewhat outdated in your own mind.

What’s the one design/project that got away?
The projects that hurt the most are the competitions that we don’t win. We have lost the number of competitions where we felt we’ve had designs that would have a tremendous positive impact. It always hurts when you don’t win. As we tell people most of the time we hate losing more than we like winning. In baseball, if you hit 300 you go to the Hall of Fame. Which means you lose seven out of 10 times. Architecture has that kind of track record where losses are commonplace. It always hurts when you don’t win because it makes you feel like you’re maybe not talented enough or that your work is somehow not good.

What is your greatest fear?
Plagiarizing ourselves.

Which talent would you most like to have?
The ability to create like an artist. There are so many artists we admire that work so freely. It seems that architects can sometimes be mired in the functionality and technical aspects of a building. We would love to be able to work more like a sculptor.

What would you have been if not an architect?
Brooks: A teacher
Scarpa: An artist.

What was one formative, early career experience?
Brooks: Working for the LA Community Design Center and learning about the development and financing of our cities.
Scarpa: Working for both Paul Rudolph and Gene Leedy.

What is your favorite building?
Brooks: Paul Rudolph’s Cocoon House
Scarpa: There are so many but I have always been drawn to the vernacular buildings that coexist in their region and with climate. There is a lot of beauty and poetry in buildings that try not to be overly designed.

What is your greatest extravagance?
We love art. So we suppose having artwork is our greatest extravagance. We have more art than we have space to show it, but that is not keeping us from continuing to collect artwork.

What does architectural misery mean?
Architecture is an incredibly satisfying profession; nowhere else can you create something that people can enjoy or hate. Unlike artwork, you can’t just put it in the closet if you don’t like it. It exists for everyone to experience. That is one of the greatest feelings in our profession. However, getting there is not always easy. Realizing a building has so many technical difficulties. In today’s world, those are even harder with legal requirements, the demand of schedules, and a host of other technical things. So we would say that the misery is mixed with the glory—they are almost inseparable and sometimes it is hard to see the difference.

Which artists do you most admire?
So many, all of our computer workstations in the office are named after artists we admire. Some are: Tim Hawkinson, Egon Schiele, Voth, Andy Goldsworthy, Alexander Calder (our son is named after him), Russell Mills, Patrick Hughes, Frederick Kiesler, and William Forsythe………….

Which five architects, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with?
Andrea Palladio, Louis Kahn, James Wines, Herzog & de Meuron, Carlo Scarpa

Which living person do you most admire?
Brooks: Greta Thunburg
Scarpa: Warren Buffett

What do you hope your legacy will be?
That what we did mattered, made society a better place, and left our planet better than when we got here. That we were relentless in our pursuit of creating great spaces for people to live and work that had a positive impact on their lives and left a good memory of the place.

What does winning the Gold Medal mean to you?
It is a validation that what we have been doing for the last three decades is a viable business model and that our profession values it. The win also provides a platform to have a large voice.

This article appeared in the May/June 2022 issue of ARCHITECT.