Amanda Snelson Honored with 2024 AIA Young Architect Award
ZGF is thrilled to announce that Amanda Snelson, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is a recipient of the 2024 AIA Young Architects Award. This program honors AIA members who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the architecture profession early in their careers.
Amanda’s path to architecture started with a talent for geometry, a love for art, and a head for practicality. Raised in the Ozarks, a region known for its salt-of-the-earth pragmatism and resourcefulness, she grew up dreaming of making big things one day like her ironworker father. In 13 years of practice, Amanda has left her thumbprint on projects of all types and scales, from small healthcare renovations to large academic and research facilities. Her ZGF career spans three offices—Los Angeles, Portland, and now Seattle.
Each chapter of Amanda’s story reveals more of her passion and commitment to the profession, her willingness to be vulnerable and take risks, and her deep understanding of how design touches all aspects of community.
“To me, architecture is an artifact of what our society deems important. When successful, it becomes a public good for all.”
– Amanda Snelson, Associate Principal
Activist Spirit
Being in relationship with community and engaging in meaningful citizenship is a way of life for Amanda. She first engaged with the AIA in Springfield, Missouri, where she volunteered on the AIA Springfield Events Committee. She also founded and organized local PechaKucha Nights, affiliated with the globally acclaimed event series.
Amanda took these experiences to AIA Los Angeles, serving on the Design Awards Committee for two seasons and attending their Women in Architecture events. While sitting for her licensure exams, she became involved with NCARB and spoke at the 2016 AIA National Conference about the path to licensure, hoping to pave a smoother way for other aspiring architects. Outside of work, she ran in the LA Marathon, rallied volunteers for the Great LA River Cleanup, and organized Habitat for Humanity build events for ZGF Los Angeles staff.
Climate Strike Los Angeles, 2019
The College of Professional and International Education classroom building at California State University Long Beach (CSULB) marked Amanda’s first role as project architect at ZGF.
The LEED Platinum, net-zero-energy-ready project set a campus benchmark for sustainability when it opened in 2018, advancing the University’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.
Sustainability Advocate
Sustainability is core to Amanda’s design ethos, having started as a daylight analyst and modeler and working her way up to project architect and project manager. She has been actively involved in tracking her firms’ AIA 2030 Commitments—most recently as a ZGF Los Angeles liaison for our project performance team, gathering data for over 30 existing projects and ensuring all new projects were reported going forward.
As project architect for the William and Linda Frost Center for Research and Innovation at CalPoly San Luis Obispo, Amanda fondly remembers hand-selecting bricks after touring the manufacturer’s clay mines and firing kilns.
It was rewarding to see how the facade design developed from early consultation with the campus ornithologist to how the highly technical connection details came together in the end.
When the Covid pandemic began in 2020, Amanda was working on the City of Hope Orange County Lennar Foundation Cancer Center. She quickly pivoted to coordinating life safety plans with a toddler at home and another child on the way.
“Amanda brings her full authentic self to work, sharing her experiences with others, which allows others to open up about their experiences. Growth takes place from these open dialogues.”
– Mitra Memari, Partner
Heart of a Mother
Raising two kids under the age of three through the Covid pandemic, along with two interstate moves after experiencing two second-trimester pregnancy losses, has been Amanda’s greatest challenge but also her greatest source of strength. Knowing one in four women experience similar pregnancy loss, Amanda leads with empathy in every interaction. She advocates for maternal health by sharing her story openly through dialogue, podcasts, and social media, hoping to shed light on the silent struggles many young architects face as they navigate their careers. Now Amanda is in a season of focused growth—proving it’s possible to balance family, career, happiness, and even setbacks, in her own way.
Lennar Foundation Cancer Center
