At this year’s AIA Long Beach / South Bay Design Awards, the Board of Directors along with the Design Awards Committee felt the inclusion of a Presidential Honoree was deserving of a specific chapter member.
The AIA Presidential Honoree Award honors an architect within our chapter who has meaningfully influenced architecture and the practice of the profession in a lasting way. This individual’s influence spans beyond the built practice of architecture and exercises expertise in multiple facets relating to the profession as a whole.
With the goal of our awards program being to elevate the quality of our profession and to elevate the profession within the public eye, the AIA Long Beach / South Bay Board of Directors have chosen Lance Collins, AIA, to be recognized with this honor.
Lance Collins, AIA, has been a champion for design excellence for many years. Most recently, his leadership as President of SoCal NOMA (the National Organization of Minority of Architects) merits recognition. During his presidency, SoCal NOMA responded to the events of 2020 with diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges that offered firms and schools needed guidance to address a lack of equity in our profession.
In addition to this immense contribution to our local design community, Lance contributes significant time to speaking and writing on the importance of pursuing design excellence. Lance chose to shift his career to focus on sustainability, and he has long addressed the intersectionality of social justice and climate action.
This recognition is really a testament to all of the work that our SoCal NOMA Chapter has put in….focusing on issues of social justice and blending it with environmental justice. I want to acknowledge that we are at the starting line for everything we need to do…collectively as an industry we have a lot of work that still needs to be done. Looking forward to working with you all and pushing on these issues of social justice and environmental justice. Thank you again for this opportunity; I’m very appreciative of this award and looking forward to working more with all of you. – Lance Collins, AIA
Please join us in congratulating Lance Collins, AIA on his enormous contributions to our profession and our community at large as he is recognized as this year’s Presidential Honoree. Thank you Lance for all the work you have done and will continue to do for our chapter and beyond.
