The AIA has chosen five outstanding young architects, defined as professionals who have been licensed 10 years or fewer regardless of their age, to receive the 2004 Young Architects Award. The award honors individuals who have shown exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the profession early in their careers.

John Burse, AIA, Mackey Mitchell Associates, St. Louis, a community activist architect, “has provided vision and creativity toward realizing Old North St. Louis, a seriously deteriorated area now poised to break ground for new housing,” writes nominator and boss Eugene J. Mackey, FAIA. Burse joined Mackey Mitchell in 1997 and became an associate in 2001. A 1994 graduate of Syracuse University with a BArch cum laude, he received the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Thesis after travel to Florence to study Italian city architecture and language and Greece to study Greek classical and vernacular architecture. His expertise in urban design has made him a frequent participant in public discussions and panels. In 2002, he participated in “Urban Infill Housing Design,” a panel discussion at the Saint Louis University School of Law.

A skilled designer and master planner, Burse has worked on a master plan for Concordia Seminary’s campus, on the renovation of Brookings Hall at Washington University, and on the site planning and design for a new Central Institute for the Deaf campus and buildings. He was lead planner for the Ladue School District’s facilities master planning project, a district-wide program to improve early-childhood to senior-high-school campuses. A member of AIA St. Louis, Burse serves on the Young Architects Forum and the AIA Missouri Board. He serves his community as a commissioner of the City of St. Louis Preservation Board, a Landmarks Association counselor, and an activist through whose leadership the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group developed a comprehensive plan to guide restoration and development.

David Y. Jameson, AIA, David Jameson Architect Inc, Alexandria, Va., “merits recognition for his outstanding accomplishments in design,” writes AIA Northern Virginia Executive Director Deborah S. Burns on behalf of the chapter’s nomination. “In the eight years that he has practiced as an architect, David’s exceptional designs have been acknowledged by the accumulation of over 35 local, state, and national awards.” In the five years that Jameson has been a member of the Northern Virginia Chapter, he has won seven of the chapter’s design awards. He has also received awards from the AIA Virginia, AIA Maryland, the AIA Washington, D.C. Chapter, AIA Baltimore, and AIA Chesapeake Bay. Fairfax (Va.) County presented Jameson with its Exceptional Design Award, the International Masonry Institute has recognized his work twice, and he has won seven Renaissance Design Awards.

A Virginia Tech graduate who received his BArch in 1990, Jameson worked for the prestigious Washington firms of Hugh Newell Jacobsen FAIA, and Cooper Lecky Architects PC, before hanging out his own shingle in 1997. He finds time to volunteer with the AIA Northern Virginia Chapter, currently serving on its board of directors. He is an active member of the Virginia Society Design Committee. He also promotes design in his community by volunteering in local elementary schools in the “Architecture in Our Schools” program and presenting AIA Northern Virginia’s “How to Work With an Architect” workshop to the community. Jameson serves as a visiting critic to Virginia Tech’s Washington Alexandria Center for Architecture.

Donna Kacmar, AIA, Architect Works Inc., Houston, has had a career to date that “demonstrates a balanced approach to architecture, embracing design, management, teaching, and professional services,” according to Chris A. Hudson, AIA, her nominator. “Her accomplishments are solid, distinguished, and passionately delivered, showing a commitment to excellence. Kacmar was graduated from Texas A&M University with a bachelor of environmental design in 1988 and an MArch in 1992. In the intervening years, she worked as an intern for a design-build firm, renovating houses in the Washington, D.C., area, and taught several design studios. After graduate school, Kacmar moved to Houston and joined the firm of Natalye Appel Architects. In 1999, she started her own firm, Architect Works Inc, “dedicated to developing solutions for residential and small-scale commercial projects that are straightforward, cost-effective, and environmentally responsible.”

Kacmar has won numerous design awards, including the 2000 William W. Caudill Award from the Texas Society of Architects, which also gave her firm a 2003 Design Award for the Round Valley Texas Office Building + Garage. Kacmar has also found the time to combine teaching with practice; she has taught at the University of Houston’s Summer Discovery program for high school students for eight years. Currently, she is an assistant professor at the University of Houston’s College of Architecture. She serves as a Level I coordinator preparing for the school’s NAAB visit. And Kacmar devotes time to her community through active participation in the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture as well as on the board of Houston’s Avenue Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit low-income housing development corporation.

Janis LaDouceur, AIA, Barbour/LaDouceur Architects PA, Minneapolis, is “a designer who dreams hand-in-hand with her clients to shape spaces that capture the essence of her client’s identity,” writes nominator and AIA Minnesota President David Dimond, AIA. “Janis’ thoughtful storytelling is consistently reflected in her work, especially with regard to how her architecture reveals a passion for serving small and underserved clients in intense, artful, and meaningful ways.” LaDouceur followed a BA in political science from UCLA with an MArch from the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee. She worked for a number of prestigious architecture firms in Chicago and as an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Minnesota College of Architecture before founding her own firm with a partner 10 years ago.

“Our special focus began as interpretive museums. We have grown to see all of our work as story telling, and focus on small buildings,” LaDouceur writes of her firm. “We practice architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, furniture design, graphic design, civil engineering, planning, and visioning. We have grown to 15 multi-disciplined professionals. I oversee all aspects of design.” LaDouceur’s projects include Ghost Dance Dakota Cultural Center, Badlands S.D.; Battle Point Ojibwe Cultural Center, Leech Lake, Minn.; Dodge Nature Preschool, West St. Paul, Minn.; and the “Science House” Environmental Experiment Center, Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul.

Kevin G. Sneed, AIA, Brennan Beer Gorman Monk Architects/Interiors, Washington, D.C., “consistently exhibits a fierceness of will to ensure that whatever project he takes on—on behalf of the chapter and his colleagues—is done exceptionally well and does us all proud,” writes AIA Northern Virginia Past President Daniel J. Feil, FAIA, in Sneed’s nomination by the chapter. “I think that his crowning achievement for the chapter is his rethinking, reformatting, and elevating our Design Awards program into a singular event that consistently attracts more and more entries of growing quality.” Sneed, a 1987 University of Texas/Arlington graduate, headed for the Washington, D.C., area shortly thereafter and has been an active participant in the community and AIA Northern Virginia ever since. He was one of the founding members of the chapter’s Associate/Young Architects Program and has worked diligently to make it one of the most admired in the country and one used as a model by the AIA national component. He served as AIA Northern Virginia president in 2003.

Sneed also donated his time to the community on the Board of Architectural Review for the City of Alexandria, Va., by working with the chapter’s “Architecture in Schools” program and serving as the Young Architects Forum regional liaison for The Virginias to AIA national. He has served AIA national as a member of the Diversity Committee and currently serves on the AIA national Interiors Committee. Sneed also finds equal time to devote to his job as senior project architect/quality control manager for Brennan Beer Gorman Monk Architects/Interiors, where he is responsible for numerous architecture and interiors projects from Rhode Island to Virginia.

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