CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture has awarded its 2001-02 Distinguished Professor Award to University of Illinois architecture professor James P. Warfield.
The award is the highest honor bestowed by the association, an organization that includes 115 accredited architecture programs in the United States and Canada and 120 affiliate programs worldwide. Each year, the association gives the award to a professor at a member school who has demonstrated sustained achievement in the advancement of architectural education through teaching, design, scholarship, research and service.
The lifetime achievement award recognizes Warfield for his "stimulating and nurturing influence upon students" and for "teaching that inspired a generation of students who have themselves contributed to the advancement of architecture."
Warfield's teaching focuses on design studios emphasizing cultural responsiveness in projects of international scope. His research addresses worldwide vernacular architecture and its relevance to contemporary design.
The UI professor, who launched his teaching career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia and has taught at Illinois for three decades, was nominated for the award by Robert I. Selby, the president-elect of the American Institute of Architects/Illinois; Michael Andrejasich, interim director of the UI School of Architecture; and Wayne Drummond, the dean of the College of Architecture at the University of Nebraska. Nomination papers included letters from 60 of Warfields former students.
Warfield is the second UI architecture professor to receive the associations Distinguished Professor Award. It was awarded to A. Richard Williams in 1979.