Louis R. Pounders, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, received a BA from Rhodes College and a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
After working for I. M. Pei & Partners, he returned to Memphis to join the architectural firm of Gassner Nathan & Browne where he became a Partner in 1980. In 1993, he co-founded Williamson Pounders Architects, P.C. specializing in institutional, residential and religious projects. His work has received over 40 design awards and includes the Tunica RiverPark in Mississippi, which won 7 awards including a National American Institute of Steel Design Award and the Metropolitan Interfaith Association Headquarters in Memphis, which received 6 awards and was a finalist for a 2003 National AIA Honor Award for Architecture. His Alex Haley Interpretive Center recently received an AIA Gulf States Region Merit Award, an AIA Tennessee Merit Award and a National Metal Design Award; it was featured on the cover of the May 2009 issue of Metalmag magazine.
Pounders is a member of the National AIA Committee on Design (COD) and headed the AIA Twenty-five Year Award Nomination Committee for eight years. He was on the COD Advisory Group for four years and in 2009, Pounders served as Chair of the Committee on Design; he is the first COD Chair from Tennessee. Louis has served on numerous local, regional and national AIA juries including the AIA Gold Medal and Architecture Firm Award Advisory Jury, the AIA Small Project Practitioner’s Awards Jury, the AIA National Healthcare Awards Jury and the AIA’s Awards Task Group (ATG), which recommends jurors for all the national AIA awards programs. In 2010, he will serve on the National AIA Honor Awards for Architecture Jury. He is a member of the Harvard GSD Alumni Council, the Rhodes College Red & Black Society and the Memphis College of Art Board of Trustees. At Rhodes College, he is Professional Advisor for the Ruffin Professorship of Art and Architecture and in 2005 he was named a Distinguished Alumni of the college.
In 2004, Louis was elected to the AIA College of Fellows for his contributions to design and was named to the GSA’s National Register of Peer Professionals; he has served on Peer Review panels for seven GSA Design Excellence projects.
At ANF Architects in Memphis, Louis is currently designing a new library for Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis and a new Fine Arts Building for the University of Tennessee at Martin.