ARCHITECTURE LECTURE: ALLISON GRACE WILLIAMS | AGWms_studio
ABOUT ALLISON GRACE WILLIAMS, FAIA
Architect Allison Grace Williams amassed an international portfolio of large scale civic, cultural and research works in 40 years of practice as a design leader with SOM, Perkins+Will and AECOM. Williams is best known for her inventive instincts and leadership that generated award-winning buildings bridging culture, technology and the environment, and conveying the values and traditions of audience and place. Williams' most successful projects transcend the buildings themselves and as they age, continue to evolve a narrative on relevant issues. Notably, her work includes The August Wilson Center (Pittsburgh PA), The Health and Sciences Campus for Princess Abdulrahman University for Women (Saudi Arabia), CREATE (in Singapore), the US Port of Entry at Calexico (Calexico CA) a GSA Design Excellence Commission, and research laboratories for NASA Langley and NASA Ames.
​In 2017 Williams founded AGWms_studio. Design consulting for clients, frequent lectures, occasional studio teaching, design competition and awards juries, pro bono activities, and making (art, building and inventing) are its mainstay. Williams is an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University and 2-term Visiting Committee chair at Harvard GSD. She served as a juror for the 2019 COTE (Committee on the Environment) Top Ten Design Awards, The 2020 Architecture at Zero Design Competition and was a member of the interdisciplinary jury for the Chouteau Greenway Design Competition in St. Louis. Williams delivered the keynote address at NOMA's 2019 Conference in Brooklyn NY.
Williams holds an M.Arch from UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, a BA in the Practice of Art, also from Berkeley, and was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard GSD. In addition to the 2020 Joseph Esherick Visiting Professorship, Williams was also the Howard Friedman Distinguished Professor in 1997. She was elevated to Fellowship in the AIA 1997 and in 2015 was named Berkeley CED's Distinguished Alumni in Architecture. In 2018, Williams was awarded The Norma Sklarek Award in Architecture by the AIACC and recently joined the Board of Directors for Designing Justice Designing Spaces (DJDS).
THIS EVENT IS SPONSORED BY THE JOSEPH ESHERICK ENDOWMENT AND PRESENTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AS PART OF THE SPRING 2021 BERKELEY ARCHITECTURE LECTURE SERIES AND COLLEGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN LECTURE SERIES. OPEN TO ALL!
IMAGE: AUGUST WILSON CENTER FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE | PITTSBURGH, PA
IMAGE: HEALTH SCIENCE AND RESEARCH CAMPUS AT PRINCESS NORA ABDULRAHMAN UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN | RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
IMAGE: SHYH WANG HALL COMPUTATIONAL RESEACH AND THEORY FACILITY AT LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABS | BERKELEY, CA