Susan Jones FAIA

AIA Seattle Gold Medal 2023

The design work of Susan Jones FAIA creates delight and wonder in leftover, dirty, forgotten places and spaces.  For her students and with her buildings, she instills beauty and power through rendering space concrete through detail and materials.

Susan earned her BA from Stanford in Philosophy, and her MArch from the Harvard GSD in 1988.  Originally from Bellingham, she has traveled extensively, and lived in San Francisco, Boston, Vienna, Berlin, Catania, Sicily, and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

She began working in Seattle with NBBJ, where she became a Design Partner in 1999.  She founded atelierjones in 2003.  Notable projects located in Seattle include Marion Chapel at St. James Cathedral, Seafirst Gallery which received an AIA national Honor Award in 1994; and more recently the renovation of St. Paul''s Episcopal Church.

Her design studios at UW Architecture attract and engage graduate students.  Her 2017 publication Mass Timber:  Design and Research draws upon studies and work by Susan and her students.

In 1995 she took part in the founding of space.city, which regularly brings notable designers to address Seattle audiences.

Her elevation to the College of Fellows recognizes her design achievements.
References:
2021:  World Architecture News Female Frontier Award
3/30/2023:   "How an architect in Seattle helped make timber towers legal," The Seattle Times
5/18/2025:  "3 Seattle architecture firms represent U.S. at prestigious international exhibition"
10/2025:  Susan Jones, Light on Wood:  Designing for Mass Timber
UW Pacific Coast Architecture Database