2026 Architectural Education Award Winners

ACSA is pleased to announce the 2026 Architectural Education Award Winners. Each year, ACSA honors architectural educators for exemplary work in areas such as building design, community collaborations, scholarship, and service. Award winners inspire and challenge students, contribute to the profession’s knowledge base, and extend their work beyond the borders of academy into practice and the public sector.

Read about all the winners below and in the PRESS RELEASE. Be sure to join us in celebrating the winners at the ACSA 114th Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, March 26 – 28, 2026.

TM | DP | NFT | DA | CA | CP | FD | DB | PL | HDE | TAD | BPP | Selection Committees

AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Architectural Education

Awarded to an individual who has had significant impact upon architectural education and the discipline and practice of architecture.

An AIA/ACSA Award.

Winner

Sarah M. Whiting

Harvard University

Sarah M. Whiting

Harvard University

Whiting’s career is distinguished by her dual role as a leading educator and a practicing architect with her firm, WW Architecture. This unique position has allowed her to bridge the gap between academic theory and real-world practice, enriching both. Her leadership, first as dean at the Rice School of Architecture and now at the Harvard GSD, has been marked by a steadfast commitment to rethinking how architects are trained and how they can positively affect the world.

As the first female dean at Harvard GSD, Whiting has guided the institution through significant cultural and academic transitions. She has championed a healthier studio culture, broadened perspectives on the historical architectural canon, and cultivated a more inclusive and collaborative atmosphere. Her leadership has been described as steady, principled, and clear, particularly in navigating the global disruptions of the pandemic and present cultural pressures.

Distinguished Professor

To recognize individuals that have had a positive, stimulating, and nurturing influence upon students.

Winner

Carla Jackson Bell

Tuskegee University

Bio & Link

Carla Jackson Bell, Ph.D., is a nationally recognized scholar, educator, and academic leader in architecture and design education. She served as Dean of the TSACS at Tuskegee University from 2016 to 2023 and as Interim Provost in 2020. She currently holds appointments as Professor of Architecture and Design and Executive Associate Dean in the Graduate School. Bell was the Director of Multicultural Affairs and a faculty member in the School of Architecture and the master’s of Community Planning at Auburn University from 2006 until 2016. In 2016, Bell became the first African American woman in the United States to be appointed dean of an architecture and construction science school and is one of only three African American women to receive the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award.

With more than 30 years of experience, Bell’s teaching, research, and professional service have significantly advanced culturally relevant pedagogical frameworks in architecture and design education. Her scholarship critically examines the cultural dimensions of design education and practice, identifying strategies that promote equity, inclusion, and student success.

Bell’s national impact extends through her mentorship of students via scholarships, internships, research opportunities, and over 30 publications that foreground historically marginalized voices and perspectives on architecture education and pedagogy. Her edited book, Space Unveiled: Invisible Cultures in the Design Studio (Routledge Research in Architecture, 2014), is widely regarded as a seminal contribution to the field, bringing national visibility to culturally grounded approaches to design pedagogy. She is widely recognized for elevating the national profile of Tuskegee University’s architecture and construction science programs.

Her work has been supported and recognized by the Alabama Historical Commission, Graham Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, NEH, NSF, and the Alabama Commission on Higher Education.

Business website:
Bell Empowerment Solutions

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Phillip Bernstein

Yale University

Bio

My teaching and research are driven by these convictions: that architects must understand and challenge the fundamentals of practice to make design possible; that we must apply our skills as designers to define, evaluate, and implement effective platforms of practice; that our work has aesthetic, technical, and economic value that must be realized; and that we must thoughtfully guide and encourage our students through the challenges of their education and into the profession. In the classroom, this means assuring that students understand the contexts within which they will practice—in the frames of the profession, practice, projects—and gain the tools to translate their ideas into buildings. As they master accepted principles it is equally important that they challenge those norms, explore their implications, and generate alternatives. Whether contrasting design-bid-build with integrated project delivery, interrogating whether commoditized fees should be replaced with outcome-driven profit through new digital tools, or envisioning entirely new models of business practice, future architects must establish this dialectic. Today’s digital natives know how to use technology, but they don’t often see how it is shaping our profession’s future. As they leave school, they are asked to deploy new tools in their offices; they must do so with an understanding of both the technical power of those tools and their potential to empower architects–a perspective I can offer from experience in mainstream practice, the technology business, and as a mentor before and after graduation. My research explores how architects can gain agency in the larger systems in which we work, particularly in relation to extrinsic influences like builders, regulators, technology providers, and the supply chain. As challenges mount, so does our responsibility. My work therefore is intended to help young professionals understand–and ultimately shape–our destiny as the designers of the built world.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Botond Bognar

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Bio & Link

Botond Bognar has taught at the University of Illinois School of Architecture for forty-four years. He is a Professor and the Edgar Tafel Endowed Chair in Architecture, teaching graduate design studios and seminars on the history and theories of Japanese architecture in their cultural, social, political, and global contexts. Bognar is originally from Hungary, where he graduated from the Budapest Technical University with a professional degree in 1968 and subsequently an M.Arch degree. As an architect, he worked in a large design office in Budapest. However, determined to further his knowledge of architecture on the broader international scene, he applied for and received a Japanese governmental Mombusho scholarship in 1973. As a result, Bognar spent several years researching Japanese architecture at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The experience would transform his outlook on architecture, and academia became his true calling. He obtained an MA in Architecture and Urban Planning as well at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), committed to continuing his career in higher education while using the podium for both imparting and acquiring a broader scope and more in-depth knowledge about architecture. In both studios and classrooms, interacting with students has become his passion, and a mutually rewarding source of inspiration. Through his research, Professor Bognar is convinced that in the realm of ideas, both unexpected insights and a more complex understanding of architecture can be engendered through the search for hidden connections between our discipline and such diverse fields of human endeavors as art, music, literature, and philosophy. He is a strong believer in the power and social benefit of education. Professor Bognar is the author of twenty-six books, scores of chapters in books, innumerable essays and articles in professional journals, and has lectured worldwide. He is also the recipient of many awards and prizes.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Caryn Brause

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Bio

Caryn Brause FAIA received her M.Arch degree at the University of Virginia and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She is Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she has taught a broad range of courses both in the Department of Architecture and in other departments, most recently developing interdisciplinary honors coursework on student health, wellbeing, and campus spaces. Her experiential approach applies across the many subjects that she teaches, including design, technical skills, research methods, community engagement, and professional practice.

Through her many activities, Brause connects the academy and the profession, and works to translate research into practice domains. Her current projects examine the spatial dimensions of relationship-building in the post-pandemic campus with a focus on inclusion, equity, and wellbeing. She is author of The Designer’s Field Guide to Collaboration (Routledge, 2017). Her applied professional practice course, Voices from the Field: From Design Concept to Reality, was recognized with a 2016 AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership Award and a 2013 NCARB Award. Her award-winning socially-engaged design work has had broad impact in the region addressing issues such as creative place-making, food insecurity, material reuse, and youth empowerment. Brause was elevated to Fellowship in the American Institute of Architects in 2021 and honored with the 2022 Boston Society of Architects Women in Design Award of Excellence.

Brause’s leadership and service to the discipline include co-founding and serving as inaugural Design Editor for the journal of Technology | Architecture + Design, service on the AIA Higher Education Advisory Team (HEAT) and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) Education and Awards Committees, and as Secretary for the Western Mass AIA chapter. She serves as a Team Leader for Research on the UMass ADVANCE Leadership Team and on the Built and Natural Environment Pillar Group of the UMass Wellbeing Collective.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

David Hughes

Kent State University

Bio & Links

David Hughes, born 1947 in Brooklyn, New York, studied architecture at Columbia University, receiving a Bachelor of Architecture, 1974 and in 1975 he earned a Masters of Urban Planning from CCNY and became a Graduate Fellow in Architecture & Urban Planning at Princeton University. Hughes began world travel to architectural sites in 1967, visiting Paris, London, Berlin, and in 1969 spent a year abroad, which included his first trip to Africa, including Egypt. In 57 years, he has been to five continents and over 100 countries. This year, he visited India for the first time and saw the Taj Mahal and Capitol Complex in Chandigarh, designed by Le Corbusier. In 1979, Hughes gained licensure to practice architecture, in Ohio, began independent practice, dba, DHC Architects and has completed over 100 built projects during 45 continuous years. In 1985 he was appointed to the Faculty of Architecture, Kent State University, in 1999, gaining rank of Full Professor. During 39 years as an academic, he has achieved recognition as scholar, researcher, teacher and also, served five terms as Director of KSU Architecture Foreign Studies Program in Florence, Italy. In 1990, Hughes received a Fulbright Scholar Award – Senior Appointment for Research and Teaching in Africa. He traveled the continent- from Dakar, Senegal to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania and from Cairo to Cape Town. He visited Nigeria, Benin, Togo as well as Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and researched many other culturally rich African nations. His journeys established the base of his research and the eventual formulation of his theory- Afrocentric Architecture. Professor Hughes taught at Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia for two years and invited two noted African-American scholar / architects from the United States – Harry Robinson, FAIA and John Spencer, FAIA- to lecture and critique his students. He also taught at Makerere University in Uganda.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Richard Mohler

University of Washington

Bio

For three decades, I divided my time equally between teaching and professional practice. During this period, my students’ work received twenty-five regional and national awards, was exhibited fourteen times at AIA, ACSA, and Greenbuild conferences, and was widely published. In parallel, my professional work—through my own practice, independent collaborations, and with other firms—was recognized thirty-seven times with regional, national, and international design awards.

A decade ago, I harnessed this experience to more fully embrace the interdisciplinary, community-engaged work central to the University of Washington’s mission. With a focus on the intertwined crises of housing affordability and climate change, I leverage synergies among my research, teaching, and advocacy to expand housing affordability at multiple scales. At the same time, I strive to build bridges between the academy, the profession, government, and community.

My leadership on professional boards, government commissions, and nonprofit organizations has been recognized through regional and national awards. More importantly, these efforts have helped to advance systemic policy change with tangible impacts for the communities I serve. These initiatives—and the relationships they foster—directly inform and strengthen my policy-focused research studios and seminars. In turn, these courses enrich my scholarship while amplifying its visibility and relevance within the broader community. Together, they position design as a tool for progressive policy change, while preparing students to enter the complex realm of policymaking as citizen-architects with agency over their futures. They also elevate the University’s visibility and impact beyond the academy.

As department chair for the past two years, I have addressed internal inequities while advancing interdisciplinary, community-engaged teaching and research. But I am most proud of my support for our diverse, community-focused student organizations. This allows me to extend the cultivation of the next generation of citizen-architects beyond the classroom and into the life of the department.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Eric P. Mumford

Washington University in St. Louis

Bio

My research interests concern the material form of buildings and cities, examined historically to answer questions of how observable built and environmental conditions have come to be as they are. Teaching as I do in a design school, with a previous professional career as an architect in New York, these interests have led me toward a research focus on how architects and designers have attempted to shape modern urban environments, and what the results of those attempts have been. Most of my archival research has centered on the group of modern architects known as CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture).

The outcomes of CIAM ideas are varied, spanning many countries and continents, with many important interconnections that I have uncovered in my research. These include the development of urban design as a professional field in the mid-1950s by the last President of CIAM, Josep Lluís Sert, which has been presented in three peer reviewed academic books, as well as many conferences, articles and book chapters. My research has also informed my seminars and lecture courses (as well as some occasional design studios). It has expanded academic linkages between many scholars and institutions across the world, including many in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. It continues with my involvement as an Advisor to the Humanity’s Urban Future Committee of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and with the successful response to my textbook, Designing the Modern City: urbanism since 1950, published by Yale University Press in 2018, and to the exhibition I co-curated here with Michael Willis in 2024, Design Agendas: modern architecture in St. Louis. Over the years I have also been involved with many efforts to improve life in St. Louis for its residents, and this has also informed my service work at the university.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

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Alan J. Plattus

Yale University

Bio & Links

Alan J. Plattus is Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Yale University School of Architecture. He has lectured nationally and internationally, focusing on architectural theory, urban history, and contemporary urbanism. In 1992, Professor Plattus founded the Yale Urban Design Workshop, a community design center associated with the School of Architecture that has pursued practice-based research on the form and function of neighborhoods, towns and regions. The workshop has undertaken civic design projects in cities and towns both locally and globally, winning numerous awards and recognitions. Along with his work as an urban designer, Professor Plattus has served on the Committee for the Third Regional Plan of New York and is a Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design. He was the Chair of the Education Task Force for the Congress for the New Urbanism and has published widely on topics ranging from the history of cities, to recent American architecture and urbanism. Professor Plattus served on the editorial boards of Architectural Research Quarterly and the Journal of Architectural Education, and writes for the Hartford Courant on architecture and planning issues. In 1987, Professor Plattus helped to organize, chair, and edit the published proceedings of the annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the theme of which was Architecture and Urbanism. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the ACSA and the NAAB. Professor Plattus teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses at the Yale School of Architecture, where he was Associate Dean of the School for ten years and was the director of the School’s Ph.D Program for six. He received his B.A. summa cum laude from Yale in 1976, and his Master of Architecture from Princeton University in 1979.

Supporting Material (PDF)

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AIAS/ACSA New Faculty Teaching

To recognize demonstrated excellence and innovation in teaching performance during the formative years of an architectural teaching career.

An AIAS/ACSA Award.

Full-Time Faculty Winner

Andrew Gipe-Lazarou

Virginia Tech

Bio & Links

Dr. Andrew Gipe-Lazarou (MArch GSD, Ph.D. NTUA) is a full-time tenure-track faculty member of the Virginia Tech School of Architecture, who has committed his formative years to innovating learning opportunities that increase disability awareness in design education. He has notably overseen the creation and development of award-winning, externally-funded courses which focus on community engagement and human-centered design. Among these are the Blind Design Workshop, during which students prepare and oversee the non-visual instruction of architecture for aspiring designers with vision-impairment; and the AI-Accessibility seminar, which challenges students to design and test new building technologies aimed at maximizing the functionality of AI navigation aids for individuals with disability.

Dr. Gipe-Lazarou has also championed the systematic inclusion of alternative sensory perspectives and methods for interacting with the built environment in his core teaching, by integrating participatory, design-build projects in his undergraduate architecture studio; incorporating human-centered design content in his history and theory course; and supervising award-winning, disability-forward thesis projects at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has directly instructed more than 500 students across twenty different courses over the past four years, and cultivated relationships with dozens of nationally- and internationally-influential disability service organizations and professionals. Among his many contributions to the broader pedagogy and culture of the School are the curation of guest lectures by professionals with disability and the organization of school-wide competitions, workshops, and design critiques. His efforts to disseminate his work beyond the university have included invited lectures, professional development workshops, and international conferences and publications.

In recognition of his pedagogical achievements, Dr. Gipe-Lazarou has been recognized at the school, college, state, and national levels, having most recently won the 2024 Sally Brown Excellence in Design Education Award from the Branch Museum of Design in Richmond, VA, and the 2025 Outreach Excellence Award from the School of Architecture.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Full-Time Faculty Winner

May Khalife

Miami University

Bio

May Khalife is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Interior Design at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, a position she has held since 2023. Prior to this, she taught as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in North Carolina beginning in 2021. She also contributes to the academic community as a peer reviewer for several scholarly journals at both regional and national levels.

Her research and teaching explore the intersections of gender, disability justice, community engagement, and social movements, particularly in relation to architectural modernism and historic preservation. In her recent article, “Long Island University’s Library Learning Center: Noel Phyllis Birkby’s Anti-Ableist Activism in the 1970s” (2024), Khalife investigates how radical feminist and disability justice frameworks shaped a significant redevelopment project in Brooklyn, led by pioneering modernist architect Noel Phyllis Birkby. The study offers a critical analysis of how Birkby’s designs challenged dominant social constructs of the human body, reshaping the discourse around equitable architectural practice and environmental design.

Khalife’s courses introduce students to both historical and contemporary case studies in architecture and urbanism. Her scholarship and pedagogy are informed by critical urban and architectural theories that address large-scale urban transformations. With case studies bridging contexts in the United States and Lebanon, her work emphasizes strategies for addressing the erasure of existing buildings and neighborhoods and navigating the evolving dynamics of historic districts.Khalife has been a licensed architect in Beirut since 2014. She draws upon her professional experience as a consultant on historic preservation projects between 2016 and 2019 in Byblos with the Rockefeller Foundation and in Tripoli with local contractors to inform her academic work. Her interdisciplinary background stems from her collaborations with artists, architects, and non-profit organizations focused on advancing social and environmental designs.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Full-Time Faculty Winner

Leyuan Li

University of Colorado Denver

Bio

Leyuan Li is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Colorado Denver. Before starting his tenure-track position, he served as a visiting assistant professor at the same institution and has taught at Rice School of Architecture and the University of Houston.

Li is a recipient of the Art Omi Architecture Fellowship and the MacDowell Fellowship. His research centers on the agency of the interior as the infrastructure of care to confront the injustices of urban landscapes, examining ecological and social issues related to living crises through curatorial projects and public installations. Li’s work has been published on prestigious platforms, including Dezeen, PLOT, The Architect’s Newspaper, and New York Review of Architecture. His work has also been exhibited in national and international venues, including the History Colorado Center in Denver, the Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in Shenzhen, and the São Paulo International Architecture Biennale.

Li’s teaching is closely linked to his research interests, encouraging students to question entrenched power structures and problematize established social norms through the lens of the interior. In design studios, students explore often overlooked concepts, elements, and conditions of domestic and public interiors. This endeavor is exemplified in his research studio series “The Suppressed Interior,” as well as in the foundational studio he coordinates, which reinvents domestic forms to update the Missing Middle housing framework. His approach to housing has received national recognition, including the ACSA/AIA Housing Design Education Award in both 2024 and 2025.

Li studied at the University of Cambridge and Nanjing University before receiving his Master of Architecture from Rice University. He has practiced architecture internationally at OMA and SOM before founding his design practice, Office for Roundtable. Recent projects have been published extensively and have garnered numerous awards, including an Honorable Mention from 2025 AN’s Best of Practice Awards.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Part-Time Faculty Winner

Ashley Tannebaum

Boston Architectural College

Bio

Dr. Ashley Tannebaum, AIA, NCARB is the Director of Collaborative Practice at the Boston Architectural College, where she provides strategic direction for the first-year Practice curriculum. In this role, she teaches across in-person, online synchronous, and online asynchronous first-year architecture and design courses, guiding students in developing the clarity, confidence, and practical skills necessary to thrive as emerging professionals.

Ashley’s teaching is informed by her background as both a researcher and as a licensed architect. She earned her Doctor of Design from Harvard University, where her dissertation examined how “in-between” spaces on postsecondary campuses may foster or hinder social interaction, with the aim of offering practical design guidelines for supporting interdisciplinary collaboration. She also contributed to the Healthy Places Design Lab, where she studied processes and tools to support aging in place for older adults, particularly in light of climate change. Before entering academia, Ashley practiced architecture with Jumper Carter Sease Architects in South Carolina, collaborating with architects and interior designers on the design of K–12 schools and civic spaces. These professional experiences grounded her teaching in real-world practice and continue to shape her pedagogy, which emphasizes connecting design education to community needs.

At the Boston Architectural College, Ashley integrates research, practice, and teaching to support students’ growth as designers and leaders. Her courses engage students in critical inquiry while building strong foundations in professional practice, preparing them to navigate the complexities of the design profession.

Supporting Material (PDF)

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Diversity Achievement

To recognize the work of faculty, administrators, or students in creating effective methods and models to achieve greater diversity in curricula, school personnel, and student bodies, specifically to incorporate the participation and contributions of historically under-represented groups or contexts.

Winner

La Esperanza Community Center in Dallas, TX: Transforming a Vacant School Into a Community Hub Through Design, Diversity, and Collaboration

Lorena Toffer

University of Texas at Arlington

Abstract

La Esperanza Community Center was a collaborative initiative focused on the adaptive reuse of a former elementary school in Dallas, Texas. Rooted in environmental justice and community cultural wealth, the project intentionally wove together diverse perspectives: university students, faculty, high school youth, civic leaders, nonprofit organizations, professional mentors, and neighborhood residents, to reimagine a hub integrating education, wellness, cultural programming, and economic opportunity.

The project was grounded in the multicultural richness of its context. La Esperanza neighborhood is over 70% Hispanic, and the participating school district, Richardson ISD, is one of the most diverse in the nation, with no single racial or ethnic majority. This diversity of lived experiences, languages, and cultural traditions shaped design outcomes and created an inclusive pipeline from high school to higher education and, ultimately, to the profession. Students engaged in discussions on environmental justice, rarely addressed in traditional curricula, which deepened their cultural competence, emotional intelligence, and expanded their understanding of design as civic responsibility.

Through interdisciplinary workshops, design charrettes, reflective practices, and public presentations, students gained professional and civic skills. Richardson High School students participated as “community experts” (some live in La Esperanza and/or attended the now closed elementary), while undergraduate students acted as mentors and emerging professionals. Architects, planners, engineers and Dallas County/ City of Dallas officials contributed as reviewers and advisors, creating a professional setting that challenged students to synthesize technical rigor. This cross-generational, cross-sector collaboration produced rich and context grounded design solutions .

The outcomes extended across multiple levels: students gained agency, confidence, and professional preparation; the community received visionary yet grounded proposals; and the university strengthened its mission as a leader in equity-centered education. This collaboration demonstrates how diversity in people, disciplines, and curriculum can transform spaces of disinvestment into hubs of belonging and opportunity, advancing ACSA Diversity Achievement Award mission.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Honorable Mention

Counter-Narratives: Thirteen Years of a Puerto Rican Decolonial Pedagogy

Yazmín M Crespo Claudio

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Omayra Rivera Crespo

University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras

Irmaris Santiago Rodríguez

University of Puerto Rico, Carolina

Abstract

Counter-Narratives: Thirteen Years of a Puerto Rican Decolonial Pedagogy celebrates the ongoing work of Yazmín M Crespo Claudio, PhD [UIUC], Omayra Rivera Crespo, PhD [UPRRP], and Irmaris Santiago Rodríguez, MArch [UPRC], taller Creando Sin Encargos (tCSE), a Puerto Rican collective of design, pedagogy, and activism founded to dismantle traditional and hierarchical approaches to architectural education and practice. Emerging from the colonial, socio-environmental, and vulnerable condition of Puerto Rico, tCSE proposes a decolonial pedagogy rooted in participatory design, creative research, and critical spatial practices. Over more than a decade, the collective has developed projects that make visible and challenge socio-territorial inequalities while recovering local histories and community knowledge often excluded from canonical architectural discourse.

Through co-created design/build workshops, exhibitions, and public interventions, taller Creando Sin Encargos has transformed how architectural pedagogy operates in Puerto Rico and beyond. Its initiatives—including the Workshops Arquitecturas Colectivas (WAC) and the Summer School: Play, Placemaking, and Participation in Puerto Rico—bring together students, faculty, and community members in collaborative processes that redistribute authorship and generate shared knowledge. These experiences foreground diversity as epistemic and pedagogical, cultivating plural ways of knowing and making through lived experience and collective learning.

By situating architectural education within community contexts, tCSE demonstrates how design can serve as both a pedagogical and social tool for empowerment. Its long-standing engagement across the archipelago and the diaspora embodies translocal solidarities that connect Caribbean spatial practices with global equity and environmental justice conversations. Counter-Narratives: Thirteen Years of a Decolonial Pedagogy proposes an architecture of relation; one that enacts care, inclusivity, and resistance, transforming education into a collective act of worldmaking.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Honorable Mention

Disability and Design: Reframing Architectural Education Through Disability Justice

Gail Dubrow, Chelsea Wait & Laura Leppink

University of Minnesota

Abstract

ACSA has played a key role in accelerating diversity, equity, and inclusion in architectural education through the innovative projects and courses it has recognized within its awards program. This nomination seeks recognition for the University of Minnesota’s innovative curriculum offerings on the subject of Disability and Design (ARCH 4410/5410). Beyond the past focus on the regulatory system implemented by the ADA, this joint undergraduate and graduate offering reframes accessibility as a cornerstone of design excellence. Co-taught by Gail Dubrow, Chelsea Wait, and Laura Leppink, the course integrates disability studies, disability justice, and design practice to challenge ableism within the built environment and architectural education. The co-instructor model helps students to learn from intergenerational perspectives, with teaching grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration and lived experience. Class sessions emphasize constructive dialogue, inviting students to reflect on their own assumptions and engage deeply with disability theory and practice. Students participate in a real-world project that extends beyond theory to its practical applications. These projects have included work with Independence First, an independent living center in Milwaukee, WI, and an assessment of accessibility in UMN’s College of Design. The course emphasizes the principles of disability justice, encouraging students to connect accessibility to intersectional struggles across race, class, gender, and sexuality. By critically examining policies and practices, students come to recognize accessibility as an essential aspect of architectural practice. Student responses demonstrate the course’s transformative impact: they describe it as an “eye opener” that prepared them to be “successful inclusive designers” and “challenged [them] to think critically about accessibility—not just as a legal requirement, but as a design opportunity.” Students praised the course’s accessibility measures, its clear organization, and the value of three instructors modeling dialogue across perspectives. To a person, students expressed a desire to integrate learning from this course into future practice.

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Creative Achievement

To recognize a specific creative achievement in teaching, design, scholarship, research, or service that advances architectural education.

Winner

The Biophilic Region: A Vision for a Nature-Connected Future

Mona El Khafif

University of Virginia

Abstract & Links

Anchored in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, the exhibition reframes the region as a prototype for the world’s first designated biophilic region—a territory intentionally structured to integrate human and nonhuman life through interdependent landscapes, infrastructures, and community networks.

At its core is an asset framework analysis developed through an interdisciplinary seminar with students from architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. The framework examined seven thematic domains—recreation, water management, land conservation, agriculture, sustainable development, cultural heritage, and wildlife—using mapping and annotated drawings. These tools revealed ecological potentials and systemic gaps, generating design strategies that connect top-down planning with bottom-up stewardship.

Bringing together students, faculty, administrators, and local activists, the exhibition bridges scales and disciplines, translating research into visual and spatial forms accessible to professionals and the public. It argues that social ecological responsibility moves beyond administrative boundaries, evolving toward regional frameworks that sustain human life while supporting resilient multispecies ecologies. Faculty-led research expanded the work through investigations in material innovation, habitat connectivity, planning approaches, and tactical operations, building a multi-scalar vision for biophilic integration.

As an exhibition, The Biophilic Region functioned as both a research display and a forum for collaboration. It convened city and county officials, biodiversity advocates, and academia through public programs and virtual lectures, using design to translate ecological complexity into civic imagination and influence regional planning agendas.

This project was made possible through the generous support of the Jefferson Trust Foundation.

Curators: Mona El Khafif with SRAs Katherine Shi, Julia MacNelly, Joyce Fong. Contributors: Biophilic Asset Analysis ARCH/PLAN 5614 (2024, El Khafif); additional work by Biophilic Cities Network (Timothy Beatley, JD Brown); Before Architecture Lab (Kyle Schuhmann, Katie MacDonald); Computational Tectonics Lab (Ehsan Baharlou); Bev Wilson, Jennifer Roe, Barbara Brown Wilson, Karen Firehock, Lara Gastinger, John Comazzi, James Barnes, Leena Cho, Matthew Seibert. Images: Woody Wingfield / AeroWingVA.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Video Essays and Their Public Dissemination

Stewart Hicks

University of Illinois at Chicago

Abstract & Links

Video Essays and Their Public Dissemination presents an ongoing body of work that treats the video essay as a form of architectural scholarship that operates simultaneously within academic inquiry and mass public culture. Originating during the COVID-19 lockdown as recorded lectures for students, the project has evolved into a widely viewed YouTube channel publishing 12–16 minute video essays on architecture, infrastructure, housing, and the built environment. Each work integrates research, writing, narration, editing, animation, and storytelling into arguments that are intellectually serious while broadly accessible.

The project is premised on a simple observation: architecture is already a time-based, performative discipline, yet its scholarly communication remains largely fixed to print and static representation. Video essays allow architectural arguments to unfold through montage, rhythm, voice, and image, all of which align closely with how buildings are experienced and understood. Rather than translating architecture into another medium after the fact, these essays treat video itself as a site of architectural thinking.

The portfolio highlights four representative works that examine how buildings, technologies, regulations, and media environments shape social life. Topics range from the invention of the gang-nail plate and its role in suburban expansion, to the disappearance of Chicago’s three-flat housing, to the Hyatt Regency skywalk collapse and its impact on professional ethics, to the architectural design of reality television environments engineered to provoke psychological stress. Collectively, these projects show how seemingly technical or mundane design decisions produce far-reaching cultural, economic, and political consequences.

Beyond individual episodes, the work functions as a public forum where architectural ideas are debated at scale, often reaching audiences in the millions. The project ultimately argues that if architecture is to remain relevant as a cultural and civic discipline, institutions must recognize emerging platforms where knowledge is now produced, performed, and tested in public.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Where Is Denver’s Chinatown?

Leyuan Li

University of Colorado Denver

Abstract

Historically, Chinatown in Denver flourished as a vibrant district, once acclaimed as one of the largest in the Interior West. However, persistent acts of spatial injustice led to substantial demolitions within the district, ultimately displacing its entire communities. Due to insufficient preservation efforts, Chinatown has gradually faded from public consciousness. As the city and its diverse constituency continue to expand, it raises urgent questions:

Given the limited documentation, how can we deploy creative tools to reconstruct a spatial narrative that encapsulates the silenced stories of the displaced neighborhood? Amidst gentrification emergencies and political crises, how can we cultivate a shared repository of knowledge and expertise for a Chinatown in the state of becoming, particularly in cities where Chinatown is no longer a physical reality but endures in more conceptual forms?

In response to these inquiries, this project presents a body of mixed-media design outcomes, culminating in a year-long public exhibition at the History Colorado Center. It intends to provoke new forms of interpretation, reimagination, and stimulation through four interconnected pedagogical exercises: Repair, Reimagine, Rehearse, and Revive. These endeavors include retrieving historical documentation to construct speculative narratives, fostering a collective reimagination of a city block in the former Chinatown neighborhood, and hosting a series of workshops and performances that further interrogate the ideals and realities of Chinatowns in the United States. By embracing a participatory approach to spatial production and conversation, the project promotes an engaged learning culture that encourages students to co-author the design process. Additionally, it resonates with a broader community and attracts national attention through extensive coverage by established media outlets, including Colorado Community Media and The Architect’s Newspaper. By introducing creative models of reinterpretation and reimagination, the project aspires to inspire future creative endeavors that focus on the becoming of Chinatown and other marginalized cultural enclaves nationwide.

Supporting Material (PDF)

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Collaborative Practice

To honor the best practices in school-based community outreach programs.

Winner

Beyond Wayfinding

Karla Sierralta & Brian Strawn

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Kūhaʻo Zane

Sig Zane Designs and SZKaiao

Abstract

This interactive system of distributed elements shares Indigenous knowledge across campus and invites participation in Native Hawaiian cultural practices that extend beyond traditional land acknowledgments. Conceived to reimagine campus signage and wayfinding, the project physically embodies the university’s commitment to being a “Native Hawaiian Place of Learning.”

The initiative began by unpacking the design problem through a layered framework that recognizes the complexity of place. A graduate architecture studio examined environmental, cultural, historical, and Indigenous systems on campus, producing maps that revealed their interconnections. A multi-phase process followed, shaped by the input of more than 150 faculty, researchers, and students through interviews, campus tours, and listening sessions. These findings informed schematic designs and prototypes, which became the foundation for a public Request for Proposals—the first at the university to require the inclusion of Native Hawaiian artists and cultural practitioners with deep ties to Mānoa Valley.

The resulting spatial system consists of twenty-one Building Signs and four ‘Ili Markers distributed along three main pedestrian axes that trace historic ‘ili land divisions. These architectural elements act as navigational tools while revealing broader systems of cultural knowledge. A design language merging literal and abstract references bridges Indigenous and Western representational approaches: pu‘u pointers orient viewers to specific sites, botanical artworks highlight culturally significant plants, and dynamic watermark patterns inspired by kapa textiles evoke the movement of water and navigation.

Embedded medallions reflect heiau body alignment practices and display the Polynesian Star Compass, celebrating wahi pana—storied places—as land-based points of orientation. Prototypes, first installed in 2022, continue to test materials, fabrication, and engagement strategies. As the system expands in 2026, it demonstrates how design can embody cultural values, foster inclusive authorship, and serve as a catalyst for decolonizing the public realm.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Community Design & Action Capstone Studio: Tucson Hope Factory Micro Shelter Village

Teresa Rosano & Greg Veitch

University of Arizona

Abstract & Link

The Community Design & Action Capstone Studio engaged 16 fifth-year architecture students from the University of Arizona in designing transitional micro-shelter villages, in collaboration with Tucson Hope Factory and the Drachman Institute. Rooted in trauma-informed and community-based design, the studio addressed housing insecurity through inclusive, service-learning pedagogy.

Across two semesters, students investigated root causes of homelessness, conducted site analyses, and proposed scalable solutions for villages of 10–40 units. They evaluated over 50 Tucson sites, ultimately producing master plans for five viable locations and developing a replicable framework for future implementation. A modular micro-shelter prototype emphasized climate responsiveness, cost-efficiency, and ease of volunteer-led assembly.

Centering lived experience, students engaged directly with unhoused individuals—including veterans and women—as well as nonprofits, service providers, and faith-based partners. A pivotal trip to Seattle included collaboration with Sound Foundations NW (which reports a 63% success rate transitioning residents to permanent housing) and hands-on construction of a tiny home. Students also drew insights from the University of Washington’s Design-Build Studio and Habitat for Humanity’s CHUCK Center.

Throughout the process, students crafted detailed construction guides and prototyped a full-scale shelter to test environmental performance and feasibility. The design prioritizes privacy, safety, and community—balancing individual dignity with collective support.

As one student reflected, “I really appreciated the community aspect of this project, having a real client and really feeling like there was a real project that is making a difference.”A community member echoed: “This is a beautiful project coming to life. I am very proud of the University for being part of this. I am thankful that many lives are being impacted!”

Exemplifying the power of inclusive, community-driven design, the initiative has garnered media attention, secured grant funding, and positioned itself as a scalable model and catalyst for zoning reform in Tucson and beyond.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

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Reframing Architecture: Engaged Practice for Community Preservation

Gorham Bird

Auburn University

Abstract

This submission highlights a collaborative research and teaching agenda that reframes architectural preservation through the lens of critical conservation. Rather than focusing solely on the material preservation of monumental structures, this work embraces a more inclusive, community-centered approach that values overlooked and underrepresented heritage. At its core is the Realizing Alabama’s Rosenwald Schools initiative, which documents and advocates for the conservation of rural, segregation-era schools—sites that embody African American resilience and educational equity in the Jim Crow South.

Through partnerships with community organizations, students, and preservation agencies, the project utilizes advanced digital tools such as LiDAR scanning and photogrammetry to create digital records of these endangered structures. The work has led to successful grant awards from the National Park Service and the Alabama SHPO, supporting the rehabilitation of the Tankersley and Merritt Rosenwald Schools.

This project extends into the classroom through seminar-based courses that integrate research, documentation, and design. Students engage in critical conservation practices, learning to analyze the social, cultural, and environmental dimensions of heritage while developing skills in digital and analog representation. Public-facing projects, such as the History Lives On exhibit, further amplify the history and impact of this work by sharing and educating broader audiences.

By bridging academic research, creative practice, and community engagement, this work exemplifies collaborative practice in architecture. This collaborative work brings together allied disciplines through historic preservation: architecture, building construction, public history, and graphic design. It challenges conventional preservation paradigms and empowers students and communities to co-author the narratives of place, memory, and identity. In doing so, it ensures that architectural heritage remains relevant and reflective of the many histories that shape our built environment.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

With the Workforce

John Folan & Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS) AR HOME CoLAB

University of Arkansas

Abstract

With the Workforce chronicles convictions maintained across a four-semester sequence of vertically integrated, interdisciplinary, undergraduate studios focused on addressing critical housing needs in Northwest Arkansas. The body of work represented employs a collaborative practice model predicated on incremental information gathering and team building. Led by a university affiliated non-profit organization, (Urban Design Build Studio -UDBS), as part of a broader university wide initiative (AR HOME CoLAB), students and faculty first assessed the context through quantitative measures, gained understanding of qualitative condition and then verified perceptions through broader community engagement. Engagement revealed the need for broader infrastructural consideration which was addressed incrementally over subsequent semesters and two paid summer internship sessions. The result of the research and engagement focused on a necessity for new partnerships of difference that could promote a positive future in the context of technological innovation, material resourcing, and job skill training. The University of Arkansas Fay Jones School UDBS AR HOME CoLAB; role ultimately focused on the production of a prototype mock-up that leverages the precision, affordability, and expediency of manufacturing to meet perpetual demand has been a recurring dream of designers for generations. This experimental system of element-based pre-fabrication in support of accessible on-site construction holds potential to revolutionize one sector of the home construction industry in fulfilling that dream. A dream articulated through a collaborative practice model that articulated foundational aspirations: 1) Prioritizing regionally specific, replicable strategies, 2) Promote sustainability through consideration of Design for Deconstruction (DfD) principles, 3) Promote intelligent wood and timber construction, 4) Promote reclamation of appropriate wood waste products for reuse in construction detailing, 5) Demonstrate environmental, social, and economic sustainability reflective of climate and culture, and 6) Demonstrate collaborative impact that benefits all State Residents.

Supporting Material (PDF)

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Faculty Design

To provide a venue for work that advances the reflective nature of practice and teaching by recognizing and encouraging creative design and design investigation in architecture and related environmental design fields and by promoting work that expands the boundaries of design through, for example but not limited to, formal investigations, innovative design process, addressing justice, working with communities, advancing sustainable practices, fostering resilience, and/or centering the human experience.

Winner

In the Shadow of the Cloud

Ali Fard

University of Virginia

Abstract & Participants

The modern spatial history of Northern Virginia is inextricably tangled with the development and growth of digital technologies and their networks of dissemination. As the most significant data center market in the world, the rapid expansion of data infrastructure in Northern Virginia has produced a highly fragmented urban territory that caters to the needs of technology corporations while consistently ignoring the adverse environmental impacts and the challenging socio-spatial conditions that data centers leave in their wake.

In the Shadow of the Cloud presents multimedia narratives and speculative design interventions that recount the region’s emergence as a global technopole and reconsider its intertwined relationship with data infrastructure. At the center of the installation, a 1:20,000 scale model of Northern Virginia forms a multimedia palimpsest that captures the tangled histories, forces, and actors that have contributed to the region’s development and continue to inform its future trajectory. Projected maps, drawings, videos, and images interact with the topographic surface of the model to create a complex and multifaceted reading of the infrastructural landscapes that lie hidden in plain sight. A textural soundscape accompanies the unfolding narrative of the project while emulating the experience of living in proximity to data centers.

Complementing the central model, speculative design interventions reimagine three prominent spatial typologies—data centers, highway interchanges, and quarries—along the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, which forms the infrastructural spine of the region. Interspersed with photographs that capture the creeping of data centers ever closer to everyday urban spaces, these design provocations reveal moments of failure and triumph, efficiency and struggle, degradation and repair, and respite and rebirth in the technical landscapes of contemporary urbanization. These interventions ultimately envision alternative forms of data infrastructures and strategies for the afterlife of data centers in NOVA and beyond.

Contributing Participants
Project Lead: Ali Fard, University of Virginia. Collaborator: Stephen Voss (photography and videography)Design and Research Team: Leo Wehner, Sarah O’Donnell, Dorothy Philip, Treston Yetso, Ari BellStudent Contribution and Compensation: Five graduate and undergraduate student research assistants from across architecture and landscape architecture formed the research and design team. Student research assistants were involved in all stages of the work, from research and drawing to fabrication and curation. All student research assistants were compensated hourly for their work, which totaled 668 hours over a four-month period. Additional Contributors: Trevor Kemp and Melissa Goldman (UVA, fabrication) Kyle Sturgeon (UVA, exhibition coordination) Installation Photographs: Tom DalyMIST labFunding Support :UVA School of Architecture Dean’s Office UVA Environmental Institute

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Kiosk K67: System for Urban Imagination

Dijana Handanovic

University of Houston

Abstract & Participants

The Kiosk K67: System for Urban Imagination project is an ongoing cultural and urban revitalization initiative dedicated to restoring and reintroducing Kiosk K67 modules into public spaces across the region of the former Yugoslavia and beyond. Originally designed in 1966 by Slovenian architect Saša Mchtig, the Kiosk K67 was conceived as a modular structure that could activate public spaces and support micro-businesses, including flower shops, ticket booths, and food stands. Manufactured by Imgrad, more than 7,500 units were distributed and installed across Yugoslavia and beyond, serving as everyday gathering points that fostered dialogue, public interaction, and social connection.

Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, production of the kiosks ended, leaving most units in disrepair or discarded. Today, only a limited number remain, many of which are in critical condition. The Kiosk K67: System for Urban Imagination project seeks to rescue and preserve these remaining units through a restoration process that emphasizes historical accuracy and material conservation.

Through the project, four Kiosk K67 units have been restored and installed across Houston (USA), Ključ (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and London (UK). The Kiosk K67: System for Urban Imagination project reclaims a shared cultural heritage while demonstrating architecture’s capacity to transcend disciplinary boundaries and facilitate social interaction. In a region historically marked by political and ethnic division, the Kiosk K67 endures as a symbol of collective identity and civic heritage.

Contributing Participants
Project Lead: Dijana Handanovic (University of Houston) Restoration Team: Dijana Handanovic (University of Houston), Esad Handanovic, MiSan. Exhibition 1- Houston collaborators: Blaffer Art Museum, More Magnets, Rodrigo Gellardo, Allan Perez, Kim Saotonglang, Sheryl Tuker de Vazquez (University of Houston), Patrick Peters (University of Houston). The exhibition was made possible with support from: University of Houston Gerlad D. Hines College of Architecture and Design, Dean Patricia Oliver; The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.Kiosk K67/Zanat exhibition collaborators: ZANAT, Adam Cook (Shop)Exhibition 2 – Ključ, Bosnia and Herzegovina, collaborators: Municipality of Ključ, Azra Kujundzic; Cultural Center Ključ. Exhibition 3 – London, UK, collaborators: FAWW Gallery

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Your Greenhouse Is Your Kitchen Is Your Living Room

Leyuan Li

University of Colorado Denver

Abstract & Participants

Your Greenhouse Is Your Kitchen Is Your Living Room is a pavilion that merges the functions of a greenhouse, an outdoor kitchen, and a living room. Situated within an urban garden amid residential blocks in Guangzhou, it explores food as a catalyst for social engagement, proposing new forms of domesticity and collectivity that reframe the relationship between body, land, and city.

The pavilion is composed of modular elements, primarily constructed from angle steel and polycarbonate sheets. Adjustable cables stabilize the panels at varied heights, allowing the structure to modulate between openness and enclosure. In its flexibility and indeterminacy, the structure enables various reconfigurations to accommodate different social activities through the interplay of movable and operable furniture, animating the site with vegetable-growing racks, kitchen counters, and folding tables. When enclosed, it serves as a greenhouse that nurtures crops; when unfolded, it becomes an outdoor kitchen and living room, hosting activities of reciprocal care such as pot exchanges, weekend cooking, and communal dining.

In addition, the pavilion cultivates a microclimate of care for both plants and humans. It supports the remediation of contaminated soil sourced from a nearby urban farm, stored in portable planters that encourage agricultural cultivation and exchange among community members. Rainwater, harvested and filtered through an overhead metal reservoir, circulates through the pavilion for gardening and cooking activities. Owing to spatial tactics that mitigate the challenges of subtropical weather—such as panel gaps to enhance passive cooling—the structure provides adequate airflow and sunlight, fostering a conducive environment for plants while providing visitors with balanced, comfortable conditions to cohabit with plants and other species.

By positioning food as both material and metaphor, the project speculates on how the acts of growing, preparing, and sharing food can transform an architectural device into a medium of civic engagement and collective imagination.

Contributing Participants
Project Lead: Leyuan Li, University of Colorado Denver. The project was completed through a collaboration involving architectural professionals and students. Xinyu Li, an architectural designer based in Los Angeles, played a key role in the project design. Jiaxun Xu and Yue Xu, two architectural designers from a studio in Guangzhou and New York City, contributed to both the design and technical development of the project while overseeing the fabrication and construction processes. Yuhan Chen and Ignis Zhang contributed to the curatorial process. Two undergraduate students, Brandon Wunder and Efklides Tzimapitis, worked 20 hours per week for four weeks at a rate of $20 per hour. The student assistants participated in curatorial discussions with the host gallery and were responsible for preparing both representational and technical drawings.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Honorable Mention

BoardWalk

Dillon Pranger

Illinois Institute of Technology

Christopher Battaglia

Cornell University

Abstract & Participants

Designed as a temporary installation, BoardWalk is a multifunctional destination serving as an informal gathering space, temporary stage, and viewing platform. BoardWalk creates a concertation and gathering space between the two linear lines. These vectors of construction, one out of the accumulation and stacking of dry-laid stone, and the other of wood joinery hovering above the ground both use unique geometries to hold their forms in place.

The intention is for the 40-foot-long installation to be disassembled, moved, and reused over again with ease. To make this possible, BoardWalk employs a series of resolutions within its joinery to create tight interlocking tectonic connections. Following the assembly of each wood member, a series of reversible nylon strapping connections are used to further stabilize critical connection points throughout the project while simultaneously offering hammock-like surfaces as playful moments designed for leisure throughout the project. The result is a seemingly floating compilation of materials that appear delicate in assembly yet massive in scale. Newly processed areas of each element juxtapose the old aging surface characteristics of the eastern hemlock wood based on one’s orientation bringing into question whether the project is something new or still a relic of the past.

Contributing Participants
Project Leads: Dillon Pranger, Illinois Institute of Technology & Christopher Battaglia, Cornell University. Student Research Assistants: Marlee Barnes, Samuel Castaneda, Sophia Chen, Maxwell Rodencal, Keygan Sinclair [All student contributors were compensated through research funding.] Industry Partners/Support: Arnot Realty (Marissa Reilly), Rocco Design/Build (Mark Cushing), Ithaca Reuse (Diane Cohen) Client: Dr. Neal V. Hitch + Bethel Woods Center for the Arts Funding: Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, Cornell University College of Art, Architecture, and Planning. Photography: Maxwell Rodencal, Sophia Chen

Supporting Material (PDF)

Honorable Mention

Hell & High Water House

Rafael Beneytez-Duran & Ophélia Mantz

University of Houston

Abstract & Participants

When collective housing tackles social, economic, environmental, and political issues on low-lying coastal land nearing abandonment by insurance companies, it becomes more than shelter—it becomes a form of climate resilience. In the Anthropocene, rising temperatures, intensified storms, and disease outbreaks intersect with inequality, forcing a rethinking of where and how we live.

Consider Baytown, near Houston, where the future has arrived earlier than in ther lands. Imagine a Category 1 hurricane like Beryl striking on July 8, 2024, causing a weeks-long blackout amid 42 wet bulb temperatures. With sea levels rising and flood zones expanding, some areas face functional abandonment. Yet in this harsh setting, new models emerge.

Enter the Hell ‘and’ High-Water House (H&HWH)—a collective social housing prototype designed not to defy nature, but to live with it. As insurance premiums rise (up to 27% in Texas between 2022 and 2023) and coverage becomes limited or denied, especially in flood-prone zones like Baytown (elevation max: 34 feet), homeowners are left with few options. Banks follow suit, withholding loans, deepening vulnerability.

H&HWH provides an alternative. Modular truck-length steel-clad units, curved for strength, form resilient structures. A mirrored surface maximizes daylight while deflecting heat and resisting storm debris. Its breathable, plant-covered skin uses wind and thermal gradients to cool the interior, dropping temperatures by 10176; C at ground level and ventilating upward to a rooftop garden rich with vegetables and mosquito-repellent herbs.

Below, floodable “wet-bulb zones” with clay cisterns exploit convection and the Venturi effect for natural cooling. This is not just architecture—it is climate infrastructure.

By integrating ecological intelligence with social need, the H&HWH acts as a ‘Gaia Device’—a new form of housing that allows communities to survive, even thrive, amid the shifting realities of climate, economy, and policy.

Contributing Participants
Project Leads: Rafael Beneytez-Duran & Ophélia Mantz, University of Houston. Graphic Assistant – B.Arch Student, Diego Contreras Graphic Assistant – B.Arch Student, Simon Chiquito Thermal Analysis – Assistant Professor, Mili Kyropoulou Render Image 6- Chroma Estudio Mx

Supporting Material (PDF)

Honorable Mention

Twenty Ways Home

Matt Burgermaster

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute/Parsons School of Design

Abstract & Participants

This adaptive reuse project in Upstate New York reimagines a former church as a multi-building complex for a social services organization that supports refugees and immigrants in the resettlement process. It includes two types of design work: a strategic plan for the entire site, featuring a new landscape and accessory structures, and small interior interventions into the church’s historic fabric to transform it into a non-denominational sanctuary – a temporary home away from home.

The project explores issues of displacement as they are associated with a historically significant building and a new program that supports an emerging community seeking basic human needs and rights as its members find their place in a new world. In this context, adaptive reuse is seen through the wider lens of adaptation writ large. The design takes up alternatives to the binary conceptual framework of “old” and “new” that form the basis of the traditional playbook of adaptive reuse practices. It uses design techniques that take as their starting point the leftovers, aftermaths, and side-effects of displacement. This approach aims to re-align the existing built fabric to the client’s mission through a strategic series of repairs, alterations, additions, and subtractions.

The design aims to enact transformative change with modest means. Based upon broken-world thinking, it aims to demonstrate how an expanded repertoire of creative practices and imaginative paradigms can also transform traditional ideas of architecture’s object-hood, permanence, and value. It does this in twenty diverse ways that are values-based, resourceful, and understated…each one intended as a modest act of making and re-making home.

Contributing Participants
Project Lead + Design Principal: Matt Burgermaster, MABU Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Parsons School of Design. Project Designer + Team Member: Sam Wu, MABU Architecture. Project Team Member: Lucia Stoll, MABU Architecture. Student Researcher: Nora Wright, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). All MABU staff were paid for their work and the student researcher received academic credit.

Supporting Material (PDF)

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Design Build

To honor the best practices in school-based design-build projects.

Winner

Bird Blind Wetlands Observatory

Patrick Peters, Jason Logan & Joseph Colaco

University of Houston

Abstract & Participants

2024 marked 35 years of hands-on learning provided at the University of Houston through its Graduate Design/Build Studio, a teaching initiative that faculty refined to rapidly build professional architectural skills and foster student confidence while also creating lasting community improvements. Grounding site-specific design decisions and construction practices in an understanding of human needs is the basis for this community-building activism. As the teachers and leaders, the faculty demonstrate for the students the value of design practices conceptually shaped by limits that provide for the common good. Among these constraints are those imposed by the construction activity itself, which does not fit neatly within academic coursework. Limits are also imposed by an emphasis on design decisions informed by specifics such as site and place.

Educating young designers in these implications yields valuable maturity to serve them well and quickly in their careers. They confront advantages of prefabrication to reduce labor but weigh them against a desire to root a project to its specific location. Occurring in the first year of the three-year curriculum, the studio is late enough that the students have acquired skills in basic design and methods but early enough that the experience can benefit them greatly in their remaining two years of graduate education at the university.

Bringing students without familiarity into contact with hand tools, construction practices, and physical labor is a structured encounter for lasting and profound learning. Given that the work is born of its constraints, defining those constraints is a particularly critical act. As faculty, we verify the project efficacy but it is the students who collaboratively establish design intent via creatively listening to stakeholder input. And the faculty and the community hold expectations that the students’ work will be not only useful and durable but inspiring and compelling as well.

Contributing Participants
Project Lead: Patrick Peters, University of Houston
Jason Logan, Associate Professor (taught the visual studies course aligned with the studio)
Joseph Colaco, PhD, PE, Professor (was the pro-bono structural engineer through his business, Colaco Engineers).
Joshua Hanson, Chief Operating Officer, MSD Building Corp. (pro-bono steel fabrication, on-site steel erection, donated steel, steel transportation)
Nathan Blacketer, Senior General Manager, Valmont Coatings-United Galvanizing (pro-bono hot dip galvanizing)
Zeki Tolunay, PE, President, Tolunay Engineering Group (pro-bono geotechnical engineering)
Brian Johnson, Soiltech (pro-bono geotechnical test boring)

Master of Architecture students:
Matthew Avelar, Chris Banda, Grenique Brown, Sasha Cea-Loveless, Hozeh Chae, James Devaney, Jonathan Dominguez, Eric Goldner, Monica Liu, Dana Shnoudi, Elena Wolf

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

CLT2: Phoenix House

Chad Kraus

University of Kansas

Abstract

Phoenix House is a small, solar-powered, mass timber, affordable supportive services home as part of the local Community Land Trust (CLT) designed to assist members of our community transitioning from homelessness to stable and dignified housing. This unique home has been designed using an innovative cross laminated timber (CLT) shell, wrapped in a highly-insulated and air-tight building envelop, and clad with a wood rainscreen. The interior of the home is characterized by exposed and highly durable materials and surfaces, including exposed cross laminated timber walls and ceilings and exposed concrete floors with radiant floor heating. Exposed wood surfaces were prioritized due to recognition that wood materials provide documented regenerative and stress reduction outcomes through the appealing aesthetics of color, tactility, smell, humidity-regulation, and indoor air quality.

Phoenix House was designed and built in Spring 2024 by students for a local non-profit organization focused on helping individuals and families with affordable housing since 1992. Phoenix House’s highly-insulated and air-tight envelop, coupled with low-maintenance and durable finishes, is complemented by a mini-split heat pump and energy recovery ventilator. The goal was to provide our community partner with a repeatable model for a durable, comfortable, easy-to-live-in home that uplifts its occupant on their road to recovery.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Rituals of Remembrance – A Healing Garden and Memorial for a University Campus

Scott Lawrence

University of Idaho

Abstract & Participants

A long-standing need for a place of grief and remembrance on the University of Idaho campus was made acute following the deaths of four students in their off-campus home. A university committee was formed to grapple with this sudden, unimaginable loss. Over the next year, we collaborated with the committee, university students, family, friends, consulting professionals, and the wider community to lead design and construct of a Healing Garden and Memorial; a place of reflection, self-care, and healing which honors all the students who have died before they could graduate. Working on the garden was a vital healing step for everyone involved, including our studio.

To ensure the garden design grew from and centered the voices of family, friends, and the community, we led numerous interviews, a community charette, exhibitions, discussions, and regular committee meetings throughout the process. These activities paralleled in-depth research into grieving, healing, remembrance, and mental health best practices. The full studio worked toward shared goals, while subgroups rotated in and out the specific challenges (hardscapes, structure, irrigation, planting, seating, retaining walls, memorial elements, etc.). This multi-focal feedback loop kept all students invested in the full project, ensuring the specific could inform the general and visa-versa.

The ~20,000sf multi-centered garden reflects the varied and non-linear nature of grieving. A covered memorial area includes a dedicated sculpture and seating alcoves where individuals are encouraged to leave their thoughts and memories. The healing walk with integrated seating areas doubles as a place for gathering and mindfulness exercises. Plantings along the interconnecting paths are selected for climatic fit, hardiness, symbolic meaning, and ensure a variety of life and color in the cold winter months. On the hill at the southern edge of the site, a beacon offers a reminder of the light each person offers as a part of the University family.

Contributing Participants – Associate Professor and Director of Idaho Design Build: Scott Lawrence

Graduate Teaching Assistants: Karl Hunt, Matt Wiegand

Idaho Design Build Studio Members: Hunter Anderson, Quinn Anderson, Korbyn Averett, Bernardo Bautista, Ben Borkowski, Harper Drake, Jade Fredericks, John Gross, Cole Kelsey, Ryan Lorensen, Aaron Magalsky, Madailein McLenna, Hoa “Will” Nguyen, Syringa Riley, Kelsey Starman, Taylor Swartz, Ashley Summers, David Wester, Ozzy Wexler, Jackson Wiedenfeld

Collaborators: JSL Engineering, Cobblestone Landscaping, College of Art and Architecture Faculty, Staff, and Students, Vandal Healing Garden and Memorial Steering Committee, Celine Acord – AES Project Manager, University of Idaho Dean of Students Office, University of Idaho Facilities, University of Idaho Center for Disability Access and Resources, University of Idaho Foundation and Advancement staff, A wide-ranging community of donors and supporters.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

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Urban Learning Greenhouse

Ken Marold & Bryan Bloom

University of Oklahoma

Abstract

How can architecture seed ecological literacy in children while addressing urban food security?

At the center of Oklahoma City, the Urban Learning Greenhouse at John Rex Charter School demonstrates how food security, urban farming, and ecological literacy can be advanced through elementary STEAM education. Through a shared two-semester design-build curriculum, architecture and construction science students transformed an unused corner of a schoolyard into a modular greenhouse and outdoor classroom that supports hands-on learning in biology, botany, sustainability, and pollination, while strengthening community engagement and ecological awareness.

The project emphasized experiential learning, requiring students to progress from client engagement, site analysis, and prototyping to documentation, digital fabrication, logistics, and full-scale assembly. Architecture and construction science students and faculty worked in close coordination across all phases, creating a comprehensive design-build collaboration that reinforced interdisciplinary learning and teaching while mirroring the realities of professional practice. The greenhouse now anchors agricultural education within the school’s curriculum, demonstrating how design-build work can deliver both infrastructure for food cultivation and a platform for STEAM learning.

Design-build students achieved a wide range of outcomes. They linked technical design methods with full-scale construction, moving fluidly between digital models, fabrication processes, and assemblies. They advanced community and cultural responsiveness by translating stakeholder input into spatial strategies reflecting social and educational values. They deepened systems thinking by examining how structure, modularity, fabrication, and assembly interconnect. They developed leadership and collaboration through collective decision-making and interdisciplinary coordination. Working within material and budgetary constraints reinforced economic efficiency and resourcefulness, while construction itself cultivated reflective practice, requiring adaptation to challenges while maintaining design intent.

Ultimately, the project demonstrates how agro-ecological architecture can advance cultural relevance, social equity, economic resilience, and environmental stewardship, serving as a replicable model for food security and ecological literacy in elementary STEAM education.

Supporting Material (PDF)

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AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership

To discover and recognize “best practice” examples of highly effective teaching, scholarship, and outreach in the areas of professional practice and leadership.

An AIA/ACSA Award.

Winner

From Studio to Systems: A Research-Based Model for Architectural Education

Ming Hu

University of Notre Dame

Abstract

This submission profiles a transformative pedagogical model developed at the University of Notre Dame that redefines architectural education through interdisciplinary, research-based, and practice-informed teaching. Responding to persistent limitations in traditional studio-centered pedagogy—namely, its isolation from real-world stakeholders and lack of emphasis on data, systems thinking, and collaboration—our approach shifts architectural learning from isolated design exercises to immersive, analytical, and stakeholder-engaged experiences.

Anchored around three core questions, the initiative reimagines how architecture students develop critical competencies. First, it explores how to create learning environments that cultivate analytic, research, and interdisciplinary skills. Courses such as ARCH 43611: Carbon Neutral Development and SU25-34500: Real Estate and Sustainable Development place students in collaborative teams with engineers, environmental scientists, and policy experts to solve real-world sustainability challenges across global contexts, including Germany, China, and Singapore.

Second, it demonstrates how research-based pedagogy can supplant traditional, form-driven studio models. ARCH 81153: Adaptive Reuse Studio reframes the graduate studio as a research laboratory, where students conduct building performance analysis, apply life cycle assessment, and generate data-driven design strategies in response to societal and environmental needs.

Third, it explores alternatives to traditional studio-based experiential learning through immersive technologies and global fieldwork. The use of Interactive Virtual Reality (IVR) modules allows students to simulate sustainable urban environments such as HafenCity in Germany, while international study in Singapore deepens their understanding of policy, development, and global sustainability practices.

Supported by collaborations with academic and industry partners—including CapitaLand, PGIM, and the National University of Singapore—this model equips students with the analytical, communicative, and ethical tools needed to lead in a complex, interdisciplinary design world. The result is a replicable, scalable framework that aligns with ACSA’s vision for innovative, equity-centered architectural education.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Screenshot

ZoomSEs: Prototyping a Consultancy Design Studio Model for Advanced Structural Integration in Architecture

Thomas Fowler IV

California Polytechnic State University

Abstract & Image Credits

This program is a consultancy model where industry-leading structural engineers (SEs) are invited into the architecture design studio (first as consultants in 2023 and then as instructors in 2024), virtually via Zoom (plus periodic in person feedback sessions) as collaborative-partners, working with third-year faculty and students (students at this year level) on capstone comprehensive building design projects for the integration of advanced structural systems. In 1963, 17 years after architectural engineering started in 1946, the architecture department was founded and benefited from the strength of this foundational relationship for many years.

This consultancy model evolved out of a desire to strengthen this foundational connection that the architecture department was founded on, along with responding to departmental faculty and students expressing concerns over limited experiences in the five-year curriculum for the creative application and synthesis of the vast knowledge of structural systems into building design projects.

Additionally, over the years the architectural engineering department is hiring less faculty who have an interest in structural systems integration into buildings and in a small rural town of San Luis Obispo, CA there is a limited depth of practicing structural engineers to connect with.

Developing this consultancy model provides a connection to the actively practicing structural engineers working on large scaled and complex/innovative projects located in major cities.

This consultancy model improves the integration of the teaching of structural systems for buildings within the architecture design studio, during the comprehensive design year of the program, and is taught in the context of the other building design components: site, program, circulation, envelop, and mechanical/environmental systems.

ALL Images by Thomas Fowler IV

Image 1, Caption: Structural Workshop (l) SOM, Eric Long, SE with student Yoo; (r) Holmes, Jonas Houston, SE, with students Cloonan & Boese

Image 2, Caption: Structural Conceptualization (l) Exoskeleton Frame: students Rovinsky & Wu (r); Celestial Silos: students Nordstand & Bouhadana

Image 3, Caption: Interactive Structural Systems Lecture by SOM, Structure = Architecture

Image 4, Caption: Online & In Person Feedback; SOM: (l) Mark Sarkisian, SE, NAC, NAE; (r) Leo Chow, FAIA

Image 5, Caption: Mid Review with student Geritz

Image 6, Caption: Outdoor Final Review: Celestial Silos: Nordstand & Bouhadana

Supporting Material (PDF)

Honorable Mention

Entrepreneurship Is Leadership: Redefining Professional Practice

Nea Maloo

Howard University

Abstract

Professional practice forms the foundation of leadership in architecture, bridging design vision with the business acumen essential for a successful architecture practice. At Howard University, long recognized for producing the nation’s largest number of licensed Black architects, Professor Nea Maloo’s Professional Practice course redefines how the practice of architecture is taught in education by uniting entrepreneurship, equity, and leadership. The course directly addresses the underrepresentation of African Americans in the architecture profession by equipping students to envision, establish, and sustain independent, culturally grounded design firms.

The course centers on the development of a comprehensive business plan that articulates mission, vision, and values aligned with equity and professional service. Students gain fluency in capitalization, operations, and growth strategies, recognizing that leadership demands not only design excellence but also the ability to manage resources to build resilient organizations. Business literacy thus becomes a foundation for agency, empowering graduates to transform professional practice into both creative stewardship and entrepreneurial innovation. Through experiential and reflective learning, students simulate launching their own firms—producing market analyses, branding strategies, and financial projections—while engaging with practicing architects and business owners who provide mentorship and real-world insight. This approach fosters confidence, professionalism, and an expanded sense of purpose that links personal ambition with community impact. Students consistently report that the course transforms their understanding of practice from employment to authorship. By integrating design ethics, business fluency, and cultural leadership, Professor Maloo’s pedagogy approach models’ architecture education to include and advance inclusion, entrepreneurship, and resilience as essential to professional practice. This embodies the mission of the AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership Award and redefining professional education for a more equitable architectural future

Supporting Material (PDF)

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AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education

To recognize the importance of good education in housing design to produce architects ready for practice in a wide range of areas and able to be capable leaders and contributors to their communities.

An AIA/ACSA Award.

Winner

Adaptable Housing: Selma, Alabama

Kevin Moore

Auburn University

Abstract

In January 2023, an EF-2 tornado touched down in Selma, Alabama. Reporting of the damage, however, did not explain the impact of decades of intentional disinvestment. Responding to this acute need for housing, two undergraduate studios proposed adding multifamily units through the adaptive reuse of significant but vacant structures.

First, the Good Samaritan Hospital was proposed as a gateway to a severely damaged neighborhood. “Good Sam” hosted a multi-racial coalition during the Selma Voting Rights Movement in 1965 including treating injured marchers during Bloody Sunday. Students also researched its longer legacy as a training ground for African American medical professionals including graduating over 350 licensed practical nurses. Revitalizing the building would preserve and extend this history. While the building is deep for apartments—75 feet across—students proved careful planning provides ample daylight and extra room for aging in place.

The following year, students studied Selma’s historic downtown to prove the potential of its remarkable but endangered building stock. Students identified two vacant properties with large windows and tall ceilings. Crucially, these historic structures enable an unusual generosity required for adaptability. Students discovered a spacious room can convert to other uses but also defines dignified housing. Rather than a single solution for an idealized future, then, each studio anticipated multiple options for unpredictable futures. Students ruthlessly nudged competing dimensions into alignment, demonstrating how a few simple modifications—to furniture, doors or walls—can reconfigure units without costly retrofitting. If housing can anticipate, even encourage, different social arrangements, then residents are extended agency. Through deep respect—for the place and its people—students approached a radical and expansive precision that embraces Selma’s history with optimism while harnessing the deep internal logic of an existing building. While understanding cultural significance is paramount, six inches can make all the difference.

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Housing America: Exploring Ethics in Architecture

Ted Shelton & Tricia Stuth

University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Abstract

Housing sits at the crux of numerous economic, social, political, and environmental concerns in the United States and its history is more racist and classist than any other building type. Housing America is a series of studios that uses housing as a vehicle to consider how architects are to operate ethically in contemporary society.

As a core method, instructors openly share their work as designers, researchers, and citizen architects both as a way of unearthing the tacit knowledge embedded in their practice and as a catalyst for the work of the studios.

Each studio connects students to specialists and stakeholders – architects and allied professionals working in the area of housing, policy makers, housing advocates, social impact developers, members of underhoused populations, etc – to amplify both the questions and the outcomes.

Offered across a broad range of undergraduate and graduate studios, often including technical comprehensive design studios, the format is flexible but rigorous. The ethical issues surrounding housing in the US are framed broadly with readings in urban history, sociology, and political science; presentations by historians; and visits with residents of the neighborhoods in which we are working.

Then, within the overarching topic of housing with its many challenging concerns, each semester takes up a different focus for special attention. These have included the economics of affordable and workforce housing, the changing inhabitation of cities after COVID, the difficulties posed by single-family zoning and historic overlays, the campus housing crisis, missing middle housing legislation, re-densification of the urban core, and repurposing and adding to historic buildings. In more advanced studios, technical topics of special interest, such as mass timber construction and district stormwater management, have also been addressed.

Such complex considerations create a learning environment wherein the vital question arises – how do architects understand what is the right thing to do?

Supporting Material (PDF)

Winner

Housing Without Displacement

John Dwyer

Thomas Jefferson University

Abstract

This semester long studio challenged students to envision housing as a driver of both environmental and social repair. Set in North Philadelphia’s Huntington Park neighborhood, the studio began with the adaptive retrofit of the Chase Lenfest Center into a shared hub for energy generation, greenspace, and public life. Students reimagined the center as a decentralized resource for neighborhood resilience, capable of producing renewable energy, supporting food systems, and offering shared amenities that reduce the cost of living for existing and future surrounding residents.

Building from this foundation, each student designed a scattered site development of 6 infill rowhouses within walking distance of the retrofitted center. The work was foregrounded by two core objectives: 1- Housing Without Displacement and 2- Human Sustainability. Housing without displacement emphasized affordability in rent, long-term energy performance, access to mobility, and proximity to opportunity—ensuring existing and new residents could remain and thrive in place. Human sustainability focuses on an ethical lens.

Rooted in a semester long analysis of data and site-specific research, students engaged in an iterative design process to develop housing visions as an instrument of care—spatially, socially, and materially. Pedagogically, the work of the studio aimed to align climate action with social equity, combining decarbonization, affordability, and ethical building into a framework for human-centered, resilient housing.

Supporting Material (PDF)

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TAD Research Contribution

The TAD Award for Research Contribution recognizes outstanding peer reviewed research published in Technology | Architecture + Design.

Volume 8.1: Climate

Predictive Model for Optimal Growth and Benefits of Exterior Building-Integrated Vegetation

Keith Van de Riet & Eiman Graiz

University of Kansas

Abstract

Vegetated surfaces in urban environments have the potential to improve building energy performance, reduce urban heat islands (UHI), and establish habitat connectivity between natural areas. However, most design and simulation tools lack integrated metrics to assess habitat fragmentation, suitable growing environments for plant species, or overall potential for biodiversity within urban environments. This research established a modeling framework that synthesizes data input on plant species, urban context, and climatic factors to forecast the habitat connectivity, select microclimatic conditions, and potential biodiversity benefits of integrating vegetated surfaces within urban environments. Utilizing ‘reconciliation ecology,’ the modeling framework combines design feedback on green roofs and walls to reduce habitat fragmentation, promote biodiversity, and create the potential for cities to support a range of threatened or endangered species.

Read the Full Article

Volume 8.2: Coding

Enhancing Outdoor Comfort: Leveraging Sky View Factor Analysis

Lei Xu

Future Cities Laboratory Global, Singapore-ETH Centre

Daniel K. H. Wong

Singapore University of Technology and Design

Srilalitha Gopalakrishnan

Future Cities Laboratory Global, Singapore-ETH Centre

Thomas Schroepfer

Singapore University of Technology and Design

Abstract

Climate change exacerbates outdoor thermal conditions globally and locally, particularly in densely populated urban areas. One key metric representing these conditions is the sky view factor (SVF), often overlooked in district-scale outdoor thermal comfort enhancement. Our study unravels the interplay between SVF, thermal environments, and pedestrian thermal comfort at the district scale. We conducted a mobile survey in Singapore’s one-north district, measuring thermal environments and capturing panoramic imagery, and employed deep learning for SVF estimation. We developed a multiple regression model, estimating thermal comfort from SVF and meteorological variables. A 0.21 SVF reduction corresponds to a 1 °C (33.8 °F) thermal perception decrease. This model empowers urban planners and designers to wield SVF adjustments to optimize outdoor environments and foster climate-resilient and livable urban environments.

Read the Full Article

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Best Paper and Best Project

The Best Paper and Best Project Awards recognizes outstanding peer reviewed research presented at the ACSA Annual Meeting. Sponsored by the College of Distinguished Professors, the award will promote research, scholarship, and creative excellence.

Best Full Paper

Technology, Ecology and the Housing Crisis

Steven Beites

Laurentian University

Abstract

The dual crises of housing supply and climate change demand innovative solutions that transcend conventional policy approaches. This research, positioned at the intersection of sustainability and technology, addresses the critical issues of housing affordability, construction inefficiencies, and environmental impact. In response to escalating housing costs and a growing shortage of skilled labor, the Canadian government has set ambitious goals to double housing construction over the next decade. However, current efforts have fallen short of achieving these targets. Simultaneously, the built environment continues to be a major contributor to global carbon emissions. The presented research explores the integration of natural, renewable bio-based materials with advanced technologies and robotics to both decarbonize and enhance construction processes. The development of a semi-automated mobile platform combined with prefabricated bio-based materials, provides a sustainable solution for scaling housing production while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. The work led to an exhibition with government officials and industry leaders in attendance, underscoring the potential for more rapid, efficient, and environmentally sustainable practices in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector.

Press Release

Best Design Project

The Second Life: From Waste to Oasis | Sankofa Bamboo Greenhouse

Vicky Achnani

Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract

Situated at the intersection of the Anthropocene’s socioclimatic crises and entrenched systemic inequities, The Second Life reimagines architectural practice as an act of material responsibility and collective citizenship. In a moment defined by climate emergency, social unrest, and the aftershocks of a global pandemic, architecture can no longer rely on extractive materials, carbon-intensive construction, or closed design processes. The discipline, both in practice and education, demands bold experimentation, new pedagogies, and demonstrable alternatives.

Contemporary architectural production is responsible for significant global carbon emissions and remains dominated by linear material economies and top-down design models that exclude user agency. These modes are not only unsustainable but increasingly dangerous. Our communities urgently require spatial interventions that cultivate resilience, foster local economies, and foreground care. The Second Life responds to this imperative by advancing circular construction, upcycling, and participatory design through a full-scale design-build intervention rooted in community collaboration.

Press Release

Best Short Paper

Housing Insecurity and Solidarity Architecture: An Educational Intervention in Pécs, Hungary

Tibor Dányi

University of Pécs

Abstract

This paper examines experiential architectural education at the University of Pécs, developed to embody the “Copenhagen Lessons” articulated by the UIA World Congress of Architects in 2023. These principles emphasize inclusive design, prioritization of vulnerable groups, and the reuse of existing building stock. Within this framework, the Lakni Kell (“We All Need a Home”) program, organized by Research Group for Solidarity in Architecture, seeks environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable responses to the regional housing crisis.

The initiative involved the renovation of a vacant 33 m² municipal apartment for a young family at risk of homelessness, realized through a multi-stakeholder partnership including the municipality, NGOs, educational institutions, vocational schools, and private firms. University and vocational students participated in both design and construction, following principles of minimal intervention, cost efficiency, and passive energy performance.

The project highlights the potential of solidarity architecture to integrate social inclusion, housing preservation, and sustainability. Findings suggest that such interventions offer replicable models for municipalities, while also cultivating socially responsible architectural practice.

Press Release

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Selection Committees

Topaz Selection Committee
Robert Gonzalez, University of New Mexico
Marilys Nepomechie, Florida International University
Lee Anderson, Northeastern University
Jason J. DeMarco, Polyline Architecture+Urbanism
Latoya N. Kamdang, Ennead Architects

Distinguished Professor Selection Committee
Marleen Kay Davis, University of Tennessee
Jori Erdman, James Madison University
José Gámez, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Mohammad Gharipour, University of Maryland
Francisco J. Rodriguez-Suarez, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

New Faculty Teaching Selection Committee
Dahlia Nduom, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Noah Palmer, University of Oklahoma
Cathi Ho Schar, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Trevin Thompson, American Institute of Architecture Students

Diversity Achievement Selection Committee
Marcus Farr, American University of Sharjah
Andrew Gipe-Lazarou, Virginia Tech
Mo Zell, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Collaborative Practice Selection Committee
Katherine Ambroziak, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Rachel Dickey, University of North Carolina Charlotte
Jeffrey Huber, Florida Atlantic University
Alexander Ortenberg, California State Polytechnic University

Housing Design Education Selection Committee
Jonathan Garland, JGE Architecture + Design
Marc Manack, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Dahlia Nduom, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Luis Rico-Gutierrez, Iowa State University

Creative Achievement Selection Committee
Uli Dangel, University of Oregon
Shelby Doyle, Iowa State University
David Hill, North Carolina State University

Faculty Design Selection Committee
David Baird, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Liz McCormick, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Rashida Ng, University of Pennsylvania
Karla Sierralta, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Design Build Selection Committee
Andrew Chin, Florida A&M University
Phoebe Crisman, University of Virginia
Joshua Foster, East Los Angeles College
Emily McGlohn, Auburn University

Practice & Leadership Selection Committee
Roxanne Malek, SmithGroup
Hazem Rashed-Ali, Kennesaw State University
Jennifer Sisak, SISAK Advising PLLC
June Williamson, City College of New York

TAD Research Contribution Selection Committee
TAD Editorial Board
ACSA Board of Directors

Best Paper & Best Project Selection Committee
ACSA College of Distinguished Professor
ACSA Board of Directors

Congratulations to all the award winners!

+ View the original Call for Nominations & Submissions

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Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, ACSA is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together ACSA schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.

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2026 Architectural Education Award Winners

TM | DP | NFT | DA | CA | CP | FD | DB | PL | HDE | TAD | BPP | Selection Committees

AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Architectural Education

Winner

Sarah M. Whiting

Sarah M. Whiting

Distinguished Professor

Winner

Carla Jackson Bell

Winner

Phillip Bernstein

Winner

Botond Bognar

Winner

Caryn Brause

Winner

David Hughes

Winner

Richard Mohler

Winner

Eric P. Mumford

Winner

Alan J. Plattus

AIAS/ACSA New Faculty Teaching

Full-Time Faculty Winner

Andrew Gipe-Lazarou

Full-Time Faculty Winner

May Khalife

Full-Time Faculty Winner

Leyuan Li

Part-Time Faculty Winner

Ashley Tannebaum

Diversity Achievement

Winner

Lorena Toffer

Honorable Mention

Yazmín M Crespo Claudio

Omayra Rivera Crespo

Irmaris Santiago Rodríguez

Honorable Mention

Gail Dubrow, Chelsea Wait & Laura Leppink

Creative Achievement

Winner

Mona El Khafif

Winner

Stewart Hicks

Winner

Leyuan Li

Collaborative Practice

Winner

Karla Sierralta & Brian Strawn

Kūhaʻo Zane

Winner

Teresa Rosano & Greg Veitch

Winner

Gorham Bird

Winner

John Folan & Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS) AR HOME CoLAB

Faculty Design

Winner

Ali Fard

Winner

Dijana Handanovic

Winner

Leyuan Li

Honorable Mention

Dillon Pranger

Christopher Battaglia

Honorable Mention

Rafael Beneytez-Duran & Ophélia Mantz

Honorable Mention

Matt Burgermaster

Design Build

Winner

Patrick Peters, Jason Logan & Joseph Colaco

Winner

Chad Kraus

Winner

Scott Lawrence