James M. Wright, FAIA, NCARB

For most of his practice career, Page Senior Principal James M. Wright, FAIA has focused on project design.  In 46 years of professional practice, James led the front-end project delivery of over $6 billion in building construction in the U.S. and nearly 50 other countries.  Joining Page as its Washington, DC Principal in 1997, James initiated the development of a U.S. embassy design-build studio that transformed the five-person office he started with into the foundation for current-day Page Washington, DC with its team of over 80 architects, planners, interior designers and building engineers. 

In addition to a design portfolio of over 20 major State Department projects performed overseas, James has foreign client international project experience worldwide including design leadership of high-rise office, hotel and multi-family housing projects in Korea and China, along with significant projects throughout the Middle East such as the eight-building, 1.9M square-foot College of Social Science, College of Law, College of Islamic Studies and Shari’a, Faculty Club and Student Mosque at Kuwait University’s Sabah Al-Salem University City. Notable projects in his U.S. design portfolio include the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library Center at Texas A&M University and over 1.5M square feet of developer-led office facilities in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

A founding member of the AIA International Region and its 2016-2017 President, James is currently serving AIA International as a U.S. Director.  He is in his ninth year supporting the AIA International Practice Committee Advisory Group (recently re-named the AIA Global Practice Committee), having chaired the IPCAG in 2014.  Also, since 2017 James has represented the AIA as Co-Director of the UIA (Union Internationale des Architectes/International Union of Architects) Professional Practice Commission.  James and his Beijing-based UIA PPC Co-Director oversee a Commission spanning all five UIA global regions charged with creating and updating best practice policy guidelines and accords in response to a wide range of practice issues and challenges.

James received his master’s in architecture with special commendation from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 1975 and his Bachelor of Science in Architecture, summa cum laude, from the Ohio State University two-and-a-half years prior.  Following completion of his graduate studies, James was awarded a Fulbright-Hays independent studies fellowship in urban design, basing him in Bucharest, Romania for a year during the height of the Socialist regime.

Mr. Wright was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in 2017.