Profile

Personal Greeting James Abell, FAIA Member Emeritus

Abell Architects

Contact Details

Abell Architects
Tempe, AZ

Bio

James received the 2010 AIA Kemper Medal for advancing the profession in the realm of urban design and civic visioning. AIArchitect wrote: "Over his 30-plus-year career, Tempe, Ariz.-based James Abell has time and time again been the public face of what architects and the AIA can do to help people in need of better cities, towns, neighborhoods, streets, homes, and businesses. He’s worked with numerous R/UDAT programs across the nation, assembling diverse groups of design professionals to lead community forums in developing design solutions for changing communities. In many ways, Abell has become something of a traveling design missionary; going from place to place to tell people about the quality of life that better designed communities can win back for all"
-Practicing architect, landscape architect, and urban designer
-Visiting professor of Architecture, Arizona State University, intermittantly 1983-1999
-Visiting professor of Architecture, Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School, 1999-2007

Mr. Abell has lectured at regional and national AIA symposia on urban design and affordable housing.

In 2014, AIA awarded Mr. Abell with the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture, a "lifetime achievement evidenced by great depth, with a cumulative effect on the quality of public architecture. Public buildings of excellence that impact a broad cross-section of the community, and their significance of their lasting contribution to our enhanced quality of life."