LOS ANGELES--()--William H. Fain, FAIA, urban design partner of the Los Angeles-based architecture and urban design firm Johnson Fain, whose master plans for major Chinese cities have been recognized internationally, has been honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design (CED), one of the nation’s top environmental design schools. The award recognizes outstanding achievement and significant professional contributions.
“I am very grateful for this wonderful recognition. The time I spent at the College of Environmental Design was highly formative and still plays a major influence in my current work that seeks to integrate the public realm and sustainable environmental resources with urban development,” says Fain.
Fain has dedicated his professional life to designing large-scale urban plans in the U.S., Asia and the Middle East. In each, he strives to address the critical challenges that confront the world’s cities – such as job creation, transportation and transit, housing and public open space. It is his conviction that a building participates in something more meaningful and is complete only when it gathers with other buildings to shape a public space.
Fain’s urban plans in four of China’s major cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu - have won international master plan competitions. Among them, his scheme for Beijing’s Central Business District provided for more than 12 million square meters of mixed-use urban development and was implemented before the 2008 Olympics. The Jiangwan New Town Master Plan in central Shanghai set new standards for the region, emphasizing sustainable, transit-served development. The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) California Chapter recently recognized two other urban plans for Chinese cities in Sichuan Province - Chengdu and Xichang. Although they faced enormous growth pressure, Fain convinced city leaders to realign the path of urban growth in these two cities in order to preserve important environmental resources.
His other award-winning work includes the 300-acre Mission Bay Master Plan in San Francisco that won the AIA top award, the Los Angeles Greenway Concept Plan received awards from the AIA and Progressive Architecture, and the master plan for a first-ever American Indian Cultural Center and Museum on 240 acres in Oklahoma City was also awarded by the AIA.
In 2002, Fain received a Rome Prize Fellowship, the prestigious annual award of the American Academy in Rome.
He frequently writes and lectures on urban design and planning and is the author of Italian Cities and Landscapes: An Architect’s Sketchbook and the forthcoming If Cars Could Talk: Essays on Urbanism.
A native Californian, Fain earned a Bachelor of Architecture from UC Berkeley in 1968 and Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1975.