JURY

I am the founder of Avoid Obvious Architects. We design happy cities and green buildings. We have won 39 awards in the last 5 years.

Placemaking through designs sensitive to site history and context.

James Wright is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and a founding Board Director and current Immediate Past President of the AIA International Region.  He is a past Chair of the AIA International Practice Committee Advisory Group, active with the IPCAG since 2011.  He is currently very involved with the International Union of Architects (UIA); he led the AIA delegation to the 2017 UIA Assembly in Seoul, and currently serves as UIA Professional Practice Commission Co-Director. 

Over his career, Wright has led the design and project management of over US$6 billion of building construction and has conducted innumerable planning and feasibility studies in over 40 countries spanning every continent except Antarctica.  With an unusually broad grasp of architectural practice, every year since 1979 he has been engaged in the marketing, managing, design, and delivery of exemplary architectural design services worldwide. His sensitivity to the local culture and traditions of each project setting is strongly reflected in his program-driven building designs.

I make spaces and places with an emphasis on color, texture, and form.

Scott joined PAE Japan (PDFM: PAE Design & Facility Management) in 2009 and has been FM Practice Group Leader, Dir. of Business Development, and Dir. of Operations. He has been PDFM's President since 2011 (www.paejapan.com / www.pae.com).

In 2006, Scott and others established Solutions Group Intl. As Director of Operations of SGI LLC and Managing Dir. of SGI Japan KK, Scott was responsible for the operations of the company’s worldwide activities including the Philippines, Japan, China, Guam, Palau, Southern Sudan, Kenya, Egypt, and other countries. He was responsible for setting up the entities for SGI Japan KK and SGI Southern Sudan. Scott was in charge of all design projects for the organization.

In 1996, Scott joined MWM Architects, Inc. to manage the firm's Guam office and its projects in the Pacific. He became a company principal, serving as Vice President / Region Director.

Before working at MWM, Scott worked in Tokyo, where he worked for various architects, including Japan's largest, Nikken Sekkei, Kurokawa Kisho, GK Sekkei, and Italian architect Aldo Rossi's Tokyo office.

Scott has also been an Instructor of Architectural Design at Tokyo Technical College, lectured at a number of Tokyo Universities, served as an Adjunct Faculty for Virginia Tech in Japan, and has written articles on Japanese architecture.

For 2 years, Scott served as Vice President and Trustee of Children’s Chance for Tomorrow, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing loving homes for homeless children. Scott designed all of CCFT’s major structures.

Scott has lived and worked in the Pacific for more than 3 decades and is a licensed architect on Guam and in California. Examples of his work can be found at: http://www.scottgoldarchitecture.com

Scott Gold served as President of the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Japan Chapter (2017) and as its Immediate Past President served on the AIA’s International Board. He has also has been AIAJ’s President-Elect and Secretary.

I have developed a wide-ranging practice, as an architect, teacher, writer, publisher, and initiator and curator of events and exhibitions. I have taught widely in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, including Sweden (Umeå) and Germany (Berlin, Bochum), where I had my own practice. My research focuses on performative practices which entangle knowledge, methodologies and techniques from various disciplines, including architecture, performance, geography, anthropology, and sociology. I am interested in the role architecture and its processes of production play in the construction of political practices and the establishment of the 'common'; in critical pedagogies inhering in embodied practices; and in research as intraventional. Much of my work in pedagogy and other areas of research draws particularly upon theories and views which are inclusive and nondual, performative in their diffractive mode, and are fundamentally about an ethical and responsible engagement with the making of the world with others.

I am driven by ergonometric design and contextually conscious architecture.