The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the 2009 recipients of the Institute Honor Awards, the profession’s highest recognition, to works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior architecture and urban design. Selected from over 700 submissions, 25 projects were selected, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has received four awards.

The Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California, a project from the San Francisco office, received an Honor Award for Architecture. SOM San Francisco also received two Regional and Urban Design awards for the Foshan Donghuali Master Plan and the Treasure Island Master Plan. Another Regional and Urban Design award was given to the Southworks Lakeside Chicago Development, a project by the City Design Practice of SOM Chicago with Sasaki Associates, Inc.

Each year since 1949, The American Institute of Architects has celebrated outstanding architecture through the Institute Honor Awards program. The architecture awards are given to projects that exhibit design achievement demonstrating exemplary skill and creativity in resolution and integration of formal, functional, and technical requirements, including ecological stewardship and social responsibility that acknowledges and advances social agendas.

The Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, California is among the honorees this year in the field of architecture. The Cathedral resonates as a place of worship and conveys an inclusive statement of welcome and openness as the community’s symbolic soul. The glass, wood, and concrete structure ennobles and inspires through the use of light, material, and form.

The Institute Honor Awards for Regional and Urban Design recognize distinguished achievements that involve the expanding role of the architect in urban design, city planning, and community development. These awards identify projects and programs that contribute to the quality of the urban environment. The SOM recipients of these awards fully embody these ideals.

The Treasure Island Master Plan, a complex and thoroughly articulated urban design and architectural plan, establishes relationships between buildings, public open space, transportation, views, and natural forces, creating a compact, transit-oriented community with a commitment to sustainability unparalleled in the San Francisco Bay Area. This project was designed in collaboration with SMWM and CMG.

The Foshan Donghuali Master Plan addresses the issue of urban sprawl in Foshan, China, an ancient city home to a 900-year old Song Dynasty Ancestral Temple. As highrise developments threatened the city’s historic Old Town, planners addressed the challenge of conserving the ancient area while simultaneously creating a sustainable, modern central district able to meet the inevitable need for growth of a burgeoning city of 3.5 million.

The Lakeside Master Plan, is located on a shuttered, 573-acre former U.S. steel manufacturing plant being planned for transformation into a new high-density, mixed-use South Side Chicago community of 30,000 residents. The void in Chicago’s waterfront, Lakeside is the last major piece of land available for development on the city’s increasingly vital and valuable lakefront.

Read the whole press release: www.som.com.