2021 Johnpaul Jones, FAIA

Johnpaul Jones, FAIA is a founding partner of Jones & Jones Architects, Landscape Architects, Planners in Seattle. Jones and his partners embrace regional traditions to connect people to the land. He has stated that he is mostly interested in Indigenous Native American cultural planning and design. The firm’s work pays deep respect to regional architectural traditions that lead to the understanding of Indigenous people and their rich cultural heritage in America. Incorporating both the practical and the spiritual in planning and design helps heighten human sensitivity to cultural and environmental issues.

Some of the firm’s notable projects include:

• The Gorilla Habitat at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, which earned the 1980 President’s Award of Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
• The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, where Jones served as the lead design consultant beginning in 1998
• The Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat and Conference Center in Leavenworth, Kansas, one of the AIA’s Top Ten Green Building projects in 2001.
• The Vancouver Land Bridge, the most visible part of the larger Confluence Project.

Throughout his career, Jones has worked with Native American communities on projects that honor their architectural and cultural heritage. He has been committed to diversity in the profession for people from all ethnic, cultural, and economic situations. He helped to create the AIA Seattle Diversity Roundtable, and led diversity initiatives at University of Oregon, the American Indian Council of Architects and Engineers, and the National Association of Indian Architects and Engineers.

In 2003, Jones and Jones received the Firm Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects and he was the recipient of the 2006 AIA Seattle Medal. In 2014, Johnpaul Jones was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, the first architect in the United States to receive the medal.