Vaughan Davies, ISAA
Principal/Director of Urban Design

As an architect and urban designer, Vaughan Davies has produced dynamic urban plans for urban waterfronts, retail/sports and entertainment destinations, transit centers and mixed-use environments with an emphasis on creating pedestrian urban neighborhoods in cities large and small, nationwide and abroad.

Vaughan develops visionary plans and designs with a solid basis in reality, both in their authenticity and in their ability to be implemented successfully – a pragmatic visionary. Collaborating with major developers, cities, and agencies, he has demonstrated a unique ability to create significant added value for all interests involved, by creating one-of-a-kind addresses and focusing his design solutions on the establishment of a superior public realm as a one-of-a-kind amenity.

Vaughan is based in Los Angeles, where he has led the design efforts for many of the region’s precedent setting projects, including: Paseo Colorado in Pasadena; Gateway Intermodal center at Union Station; Hollywood & Highland; Rainbow Harbor; the ‘Bridge to Breakwater Master Development Plan’ in San Pedro for the Port of Los Angeles; and in Houston Vaughan led the development of the Main Street Master Plan and METRO Light Rail integration. Internationally he has led the Dublin Bay Vision Plan, and is currently engaged in the strategic planning of a new green port and associated regional growth plan on the east coast Ireland for the next century of growth.

Dennis McFadden, FAIA

Dennis McFadden is Design Principal with CO Architects in Los Angeles. His work of the last 20 years has been focused primarily on the master planning and design of institutional projects, including academic, research and healthcare facilities. His work has received numerous awards, including a national AIA Honor Award for Bourns Hall–College of Engineering at UC Riverside. He is responsible for the design of buildings on five University of California campuses, including recently completed buildings at UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, and UCLA. A graduate of the University of Southern California with a master’s degree from Princeton University, Dennis has taught at USC and has served as a visiting critic at UCLA, Southern California Institute of Architecture, and CalPoly Pomona. His work has been published in Architecture, Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture and l’Arca. Dennis was made a Fellow of the AIA in 2008.

José Luis Palacios, AIA
Design Principal

As a Principal for AECOM, José Luis Palacios oversees the design of projects for the firm’s architecture studio. Originally from Ecuador, Mr. Palacios’ interests and studies varied from physics and mathematics to philosophy and architecture. He spent nearly nine years in academia in various institutions in South America, Europe and eventually the United States where he graduated with honors, earning both a Bachelors and Masters of Architecture from Texas A&M University.

The outstanding body of work (currently in excess of 35 million square feet) completed by José Palacios in just 24 years of professional practice is remarkable. In less than two decades, José Luis Palacios has earned 18 prestigious project awards and has completed work for many prominent clients including RAND, British Petroleum, BMC Software, American Airlines and Hewlett Packard. These clients have benefited from his artistic and original designs, his methodical and pragmatic approach and, above all, the precision of detail that characterizes his work.

Mehrdad Yazdani

For most of his design career, Mehrdad Yazdani has practiced at the intersection of the large office and the small studio. Named by Progressive Architecture magazine as one of the world’s top emerging architects just three years after earning his Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1990, Mehrdad has succeeded in bringing a design sensibility characteristic of boutique firms to a broad portfolio of significant civic buildings.  Throughout his career, Mehrdad has maintained a consistent and clear design vision for public and institutional projects, developing a reputation for design excellence within the often challenging realm of public architecture.  Today, as a principal of Cannon Design’s national practice and Design Director of the west coast-based Yazdani Studio, Mehrdad is a respected member of the international design community. His architecture continues to exhibit the delicate balance between art and function.

This year, Mehrdad was appointed to the GSA’s Architecture & Engineering Advisory Council. Mehrdad has also been bestowed with the appointment of the Ralph Hawkins Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas, Arlington.  His paintings and other work are exhibited regularly in galleries throughout the U.S. and are part of the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, Museum of Modern Art and Albright-Knox Art Gallery in New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His first monograph was published by Balcony Press in 2005.

Mehrdad’s work has garnered numerous awards and international recognition, including a widely published portfolio and profiles featured in publications Architectural Record, The New York Times, among many others. His impressive body of work includes: the widely acclaimed Ordos Concert Hall in Inner Mongolia China; the well-published expansion and renovation of the Museum of Tolerance; the award-winning University of California, San Diego Price Center East; a US Federal Courthouse in Toledo, Ohio among many others.

Since the outset of his professional career, Mehrdad Yazdani has won the respect of critics and clients alike for his imaginative approach to the design of public and institutional buildings. This collection of work presents a snapshot of projects, illustrating Yazdani’s commitment to design for academic and civic institutions while demonstrating his iterative design process that yields dynamic, inspired results.