Lawrence Scarpa is an artist and architect that has garnered international acclaim for the creative use of conventional materials in unique and unexpected ways and the delivery of extremely creative affordable housing. He is the recipient of the American Institute of Architect’s GOLD Medal, the institute’s highest honor, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Award in Architecture, The ACSA Gold Medal, the State of California and National American Institute of Architects Architecture Firm Award. Over the last ten years, Mr. Scarpa’s firm has received more than 100 major design awards, including 32 National AIA Awards, Record Houses, Record Interiors, the Rudy Bruner Prize, six national AIA Committee on the Environment “Top Ten Green Building” Awards and the World Habitat Award, one of ten firms selected worldwide. He has also received the lifetime achievement awards from Interior Design Magazine and the AIA California Council. Mr. Scarpa’s work has been featured in numerous publications and has been exhibited in venues such as Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, The National Building Museum and the Venice Biennale. Mr. Scarpa has also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He in currently on the faculty at the University of Southern California and has taught and lectured at the university level for more than two decades. Some of those institutions include UNC Charlotte, Harvard University, UCLA, SCI-arc, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley. He is a co-founder of the Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute Livable Places, Inc.; a nonprofit development and public policy organization dedicated to building mixed-use housing and to help develop more sustainable and livable communities.