Miami: AIA

Peter Bohlin is a hero! In addition to his keen sense of materials and the landscape and great success in making buildings sensitive to both, as well as engaging to the people that use them, he has won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects.
My co-workers and I were attendees at this year's AIA convention in Miami because our tiny firm won a big AIA National Honor Award for the East Riverfront Extension.
Of course, I made it to the theatre for the final session of the convention by the skin of my teeth - leaving Savannah at 4:30am after the Friday night concert, picking up Kathy in Orlando, finding our art deco hotel, hailing the shuttle after a long sweaty wait and running two blocks to catch it after it passed me. We sat in the balcony and thoroughly enjoyed the part where Bohlin told stories from the black leather armchair about life and architecture while working around the line of discussion posed by AR editor Bob Ivey. We will all try a little harder to "tickle the trout."