Honored to receive the 2024 AIA Houston Design Award

The addition to the Colegio Japones Paraguayo won the AIA Houston Design Award in 2024. It is an honor to be recognized for a project that helps students receive a more well-rounded education to better prepare them for the modern workforce.

This project has so much meaning to me. It is the reason LuisAyalaStudio exists and has grown to where we are today. The client had reached out to me while I was still working in the corporate world. After months of email exchanges and phone calls discussing every detail possible, she asked me to send her a fee estimate for the project. This felt like such a big win for me. I knew an opportunity of this kind is so rare to come by.

This was too small of a project for the firm I was working for at the time to take on. I went back and forth in my head trying to figure out how to make this work. I asked the client if she had any issues with me taking this project on by myself, apart from the firm. She responded, “I called you, not the firm.”

This project founded LuisAyalaStudio almost six years ago. I went from working at the largest architecture firm in the world to the smallest one with only one employee: me. Receiving this award confirms that taking that leap of faith was perhaps the best decision I’ve ever made.