Summary: The 2010 Thomas Jefferson Awards honor three singularly unique practitioners that have all had a vital and positive influence on architecture’s interaction with the public at large. The recipients—Curtis Fentress, FAIA, a designer; Les Shepherd, AIA, a government agency head; and Ken Greenberg, Assoc. AIA, an urban planner—have all exemplified the architecture profession’s regenerative responsibility to make the everyday lives of the public better and earned these accolades in accordance with three award categories.

Curtis Fentress, FAIA. Photo courtesy Jason A. Knowles © Fentress Architects.

Curtis Fentress, FAIA:
A private-sector architect who has established a portfolio of accomplishment in the design of architecturally distinguished public facilities.

Fentress, founder of Denver-based Fentress Architects, has been honored with a 2010 Thomas Jefferson Award for his deep expertise in nearly all types of public buildings and his mountain west regional design identity. His portfolio is filled with well-received courthouses, museums, memorials, and other cultural facilities. He’s left an indelible mark on the civic life of his adopted city of Denver, as he’s designed the tent-like, tensile fabric roof of the Denver International Airport Main Passenger Terminal, and the city’s glass curtain walled convention center. Throughout his work, Fentress has demonstrated a contextual and inventive material sensibility, and a focus on sustainability.

The Denver International Airport. Photo courtesy Ellen Jaskol.

Fentress graduated from North Carolina State University in 1972, and before he established his own firm he worked for I.M. Pei, FAIA, and KPF in New York. Currently, Fentress Architects has 100 employees, making it the largest architecture practice in the region, with four offices and projects across the world. Fentress regularly serves as a General Services Administration (GSA) Design Excellence peer professional, and was named the 2001 Executive of the Year in Architecture by the Denver Business Journal. His projects have won 78 AIA awards. Other major projects by Fentress include the Clark County Government Center in Las Vegas, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyo., and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va.

“Since starting his firm here in 1980, Curt has demonstrated a continuous commitment to high design for public buildings—humanistic architecture that is as effective for its users 20 years down the line as when it is designed,” wrote AIA Denver President Steven Carr, AIA, in a letter of recommendation for the award.

Les Shepherd, AIA. Image courtesy of the GSA.

Les Shepherd, AIA:
A public-sector architect who manages or produces quality design within their agency.

When Shepherd became the chief architect of the GSA, he had eminent shoes to fill in continuing the work of former chief architect Ed Feiner, FAIA, in ensuring the growth of the GSA’s Design Excellence program. Adding the Thomas Jefferson Award to his list of accolades fulfills this promise and underscores the vital effect Shepherd has had on American’s experience of the federal government. A 21-year veteran of the GSA, Shepherd has brought together architects, federal clients, and the public in innovative ways to create a higher standard for federal facility design.

The San Franciso Federal Building designed by Morphosis. Images Courtesy of the GSA.

A graduate of Texas Tech University, Shepherd previously served as project manager for several major GSA building projects in local offices. As chief architect, he led the development of key publications that codified the criteria for designing, siting, and leasing federal buildings. He oversees $12 billion of GSA building projects: renovations, historic preservation, courthouses, land ports of entry, and national labs. Major projects he’s facilitated include Morphosis’s San Francisco Federal Building, Yazdani Studio’s Lloyd D. George U.S. Courthouse in Las Vegas, Bennett Wagner and Grody’s Byron R. Rogers Federal Building and Courthouse in Denver, and SmithGroup’s renovation of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC.

“Les is relentless in his dedication to ideas that improve the design and delivery of public projects,” wrote Mehrdad Yazdani, Assoc. AIA, in a letter of recommendation. “In the last two decades he has demonstrated his commitment to work closely with the architecture, engineering, and construction professionals in finding ways to build better, more cost effective, and environmentally responsive buildings in the public sector.”

“[Shepherd’s] discerning commitment to excellence in architecture represents a worthy continuation of the architectural challenge presented by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan,” wrote Hugh Hardy, FAIA, of H3 Hardy Collective Architecture, in a recommendation letter.

Ken Greenberg, Assoc. AIA. Image courtesy of Ken Greenberg.

Ken Greenberg, Assoc. AIA:
A public official or other individual who by their role of advocacy have furthered the public’s awareness and/or appreciation of design excellence.

Throughout his entire career, Greenberg has fearlessly been an advocate for the civic life of some of the most hobbled and challenged cities in North America. As a city planner and urban planning design consultant with his own firm Greenberg Consultants, Ken Greenberg has designed numerous influential master plans for cities like Philadelphia, Hartford, Washington, DC, and Detroit, becoming one of North America’s most eminent thinkers on the Post-Industrial city, and earning the 2010 Thomas Jefferson award in the process. He’s renowned for his ability to engage the public and ground his designs in the unique zeitgeist of each place he works for to repair its urban fabric. An acolyte of urbanist and writer Jane Jacobs, Greenberg understands that cities are too complex and dynamic to be solved by final, definitive design end points, and that the best urban design interventions allow for and encourage this kind of spontaneous evolution.

Greenberg’s Lower Don Lands master plan in Toronto, completed in association with a team led by Michael Van Valkenburgh, Landscape Architects. Image courtesy of Ken Greenberg.

Greenberg studied architecture and international relations at Columbia University and completed an architecture degree at the University of Toronto. He co-founded the Toronto-based planning and urban design firm Urban Strategies in 1987. Greenberg Consultants was founded in 2001. Greenberg has also created urban master plans for projects in Toronto, Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and the Twin Cities.

Developer Lyme Properties worked with Greenberg on the Kendall Square project in Cambridge, and managing director David Clem wrote in a recommendation letter of Greenberg’s “gift for language. He is able to communicate the importance of urban design and superior architecture, not only to the professional world, but to the residents of neighborhoods impacted by growth, change, construction noise, and traffic.”

“Ken is one of the most skilled and respected urban designers practicing in the world today,” wrote Kairos Shen, Boston’s chief city planner, in a letter of recommendation. “His greatest strength, however, is his ability to build consensus on even the most controversial of projects.”