Platt/Whitelaw Architects Marks 70 Years of Designing Important Community Spaces

Article summary: Platt/Whitelaw Architects celebrates 70 years of community-focused design excellence, highlighting a diverse portfolio that spans schools, temples, hotels, infrastructure and more. Rooted in collaboration, lifelong learning and a deeply committed, diverse team, the firm honors its legacy while looking ahead to the next seven decades of impact.

A Milestone Worth Celebrating

Platt/Whitelaw Architects is 70 years old! In case you’re wondering, the traditional 70^th anniversary gift is diamonds.

All kidding (sort of) aside, we’re proud of our legacy, and we want to share about it.

Over our seven decades of practice, the talented designers and other professionals who have worked under our firm banner have left an enduring legacy of diverse work.

Designing Places That Serve and Inspire

An ISKCON temple? Yep, we’ve designed that.

The original Pearl Hotel in Point Loma? That design was ours, too.

Laura Rodriguez Elementary School? We loved designing an entire school!

Balboa Park’s Botanical Building? What an honor to be the Architect of Record for its restoration.

A groundwater desalter plant that supplies 3,800 acre-feet per year of water for Camarillo, California? Well, you’re catching on.

Buildings That Support Everyday Life

We design buildings for communities, and that can mean a lot of very different but equally important places.

From schools, libraries and community centers to utility and safety infrastructure, rehabilitation centers and places of worship, these buildings care for their communities. Inside them are people who help us meet our needs, fill our brains with knowledge, lift our souls with light, help pick us up when we’re down and maybe even save our lives.

It’s inspiring work to design these important buildings. It’s work that happens from listening carefully to our clients, from continuously educating ourselves and from regarding challenges as learning and problem-solving opportunities.

A Firm Shaped by Its People

Want to know what else we’re proud of? Our team!

Ownership of our firm passed from father to son to mentee and then through several long-term Platt/Whitelaw team members. It’s been a mix of women and men and a diversity of cultural backgrounds and lifestyles.

Same for the rest of our team — we embrace our diversity, the number of languages spoken and the respectful and supportive environment we all nurture and enjoy at work. We far exceed average worker retention rates, and several of the folks who worked for us before came back to do so again.

We’d be remiss not to mention the incredible clients and design partners who have gotten us here. They are far too many to list, but you know who you are. Please know that we are grateful to you.

Honoring the Past, Looking to the Future

To Bob Platt, founder of our firm, could you have imagined this legacy?

While neither Bob nor his son Lee are still alive, we hope they would have enjoyed this love letter, because we love Platt/Whitelaw Architects and we love the work we are lucky to perform. Here’s to the next 70 years of legacy!