Sharif, Lynch: Architecture earns AIA|LA's 2024 Emerging Practice Award

Sharif, Lynch: Architecture, led by AUD’s Todd Lynch and Mohamed Sharif, has earned the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles (AIA|LA) 2024 Emerging Practice Award, and will be formally celebrated during the 2024 AIA|LA Design Awards on October 30.

AIA|LA's Emerging Practice Award is conferred in recognition of notable, innovative achievements in design, community service, education, and service to the profession and the AIA by a practice that has completed at least five built projects in seven years.

“As UCLA professors, Sharif and Lynch blend architectural practice with academic theory, addressing pressing urban issues like housing and density in LA,” AIA|LA observes. “Their innovative projects, grounded in thorough research and practical application, have garnered multiple AIA Awards and are making a significant impact on the city.”

Based in Santa Monica, Sharif, Lynch: Architecture (S,L:A) has completed several award-winning projects across various types and scales. Most recently, S,L:A earned a 2023 AIA|LA Citation Award for “Microplex Prototype” and a 2024 AIA|LA Residential Architecture Citation Award as well as a 2022 Single-Family Residential Merit Award for “Infill IDU,” which was also featured in the Los Angeles Times.

Other projects include "Desert Recharge," an expansion of the Two Bunch Palms Hotel campus with TERREMOTO and Studio MAI; an award-winning single family residence in Mar Vista; and a courtyard house in Santa Monica. Current work includes an SB-9/three-unit project with Madelon Design in Highland Park, a three-unit infill project in Santa Monica, and a 45,000-square-foot office interior in Virginia. Visit the gallery below to browse these and other S,L:A projects.

Unifying the practice’s projects is a frank, elemental sensibility and economy of gestural and systemic means that extend and expand upon the optimism of experimental expressions of modern architecture. Lynch and Sharif also center the spirit of collaborative, applied research, including development of prototypes and construction systems for the post-R-1/SB-9 Los Angeles cityscape.

Lynch and Sharif are each long-time faculty members at UCLA AUD. In addition to teaching professional practice, construction, and sustainable design, Lynch serves as AUD's Licensing Advisor for students and alumni, and Faculty Advisor for AIAS, BruinBuilders / Solar Decathlon, LEED Lab, and Student Action Research teams at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He also is Principal Project Planner and Green Building Specialist at UCLA Capital Programs, enforcing UC Sustainability Policy and campus LEED certification efforts.

Sharif teaches in both undergraduate and graduate design studios and technology seminars and is Director of AUD's Undergraduate Program in Architectural Studies. In addition to his professional and teaching activities, Sharif is a critic whose essays and reviews have appeared in journals, periodicals, and catalogs, including 306090, arq, Constructs, JAE, the Getty Center, and Log.