Quigley Receives State’s Highest Architectural Honor

Quigley Receives State’s Highest Architectural Honor Local architect Rob Quigley became the first San Diegan to be honored with the prestigious Maybeck Award from the American Institute of Architects California Council. Over 500 architects attended the ceremony. The award is California’s version of the “Gold Medal” and “honors an individual California architect for outstanding lifetime achievement in producing consistently distinguished design.” The awards jury stated, “Quigley’s work adds to urban awareness and he has a great social consciousness. He celebrates urban living and design, and creates buildings in a cooperative way.” The AIACC recognized his body of work for demonstrating integrity of ideas and a consistent high level of design quality.

Mr. Quigley started the firm in 1978 in a warehouse in downtown San Diego with long-time associates Maryanne Welton and Bob Dickens. Ms. Welton has managed the firm’s Bay Area office since 1994. The firm’s early work received national recognition for its sensitivity to regional issues as well as its pioneering innovations in sustainable design.

In the 1980’s, concerned about downtown redevelopment displacing affordable housing for the working poor, Quigley produced a series of single room occupancy hotels which received front page coverage from the New York Times, a commendation from President Reagan, a place on Time Magazine’s Ten Best Designs of 1992, and inspired cities across the nation to emulate the building type. In the 1990’s, with projects such as the Sherman Heights Community Center and the Solana Beach Train Station, the firm began using a unique, interactive community design process that allows users and clients to actively participate and collaborate with the architect – during the design process.

Refusing to be pigeon holed into a building “specialty,” the fourteen-person firm is currently working on civic projects such as the San Diego new main library and Children’s Museum, a homeless center in Palo Alto, the student services center at UCSD, the Shaw-Lopez housing project and several single family homes.

Among the firm’s more visionary efforts is the “Arcwalk” plan for the embarcadero area near Seaport village in San Diego. Designed with partner Sasaki Associates, the plan was recently selected by the Port District in an international competition. The first phase, which rehabilitates the historic police station and creates a temporary park, is well on its way to reality. Still to come are the key elements of the scheme: a continuation of the city fabric to the water’s edge, a large permanent park, and the arc walk itself – a unique public amenity that Quigley likens to a great piece of “civic furniture” connecting the city to the bay.

Quigley’s Sun Field Station for Stanford University was recently selected as one of the eight most energy efficient and environmentally sensitive buildings in the United States. “The building was in use for over three months before the lights were first turned on,” confirmed Ms. Welton,.”They had to ask where the switches were.” Recently completed is the award winning West Valley Library which the San Jose Mercury News architecture critic Alan Hess described as “nothing short of brilliant…..it is everything that great public architecture ought to be: a blend of present and past, practicality and art, all tied together in a package of extraordinary wit, sensitivity and pleasure”.