The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced 14 young international recipients for the 2017 AIA Young Architects Award. Young Architects are defined as professionals who have been licensed 10 years or fewer regardless of their age. 

Celebrating its 24th year, the award honors individuals who have shown exceptional leadership and made significant contributions to the profession early in their careers. The Young Architects Award recipients will be honored at the 2017 AIA Conference on Architecture in Orlando.

The jury for the 2017 Young Architects Award included John Sorrenti, FAIA, (Chair), JRS Architect, PC; Josh Flowers, AIA, Hnedak Bobo Group; Peter Kuttner, FAIA, Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc.; Lenore M. Lucey, FAIA, LML Consulting; Raymond 'Skipper' Post, FAIA, Post Architects and Edward Vance, FAIA, EV&A Architects, Inc.

Recipients of the 2017 AIA Young Architects Award listed below:

Image © Steven Holl Architects

Kara Bouillette, AIA

Bolstered by her innate leadership abilities, Kara Bouillette, AIA, is dedicated to advancing the profession while advocating for exposure to the arts, especially for children. While building her legacy of excellence, Bouillette has become a source of inspiration for her peers and the communities she serves.

Bouillette’s portfolio of work is a testament to her love of the arts and architecture. While an associate at Kansas City’s BNIM, she was the project architect for the firm’s expansion of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, both of which were designed collaboratively with Steven Holl Architects. She is now a director at Hufft Projects, also in Kansas City, where her leadership skills and large-project experience are of immeasurable value to the growing firm.

Image © James Ray Spahn

Shannon Christensen, AIA

A natural mentor and driven volunteer, Shannon Christensen, AIA, leads by example. Her guidance and encouragement of her colleagues has been spread across 13 different outlets at the local, state, and national levels. Her efforts to grow and advance the profession are tenacious, and she’s worked ceaselessly to increase the number of women who choose architecture as a career.

Last year Christensen was named an associate principal at her firm, the Montana-based CTA Architects Engineers, becoming one of the youngest professionals to be named to the principal’s team in the firm’s 78-year history. Her talents have been integral to CTA’s growth, and her ability to deliver high-performing designs has made her one of the most sought-after architects in the region.

R. Corey Clayborne, AIA

Creative and resourceful, R. Corey Clayborne, AIA, has distinguished himself as a leader at all levels. Recognized widely for his advocacy for the profession, he has positioned himself as a strong role model for young professionals while strengthening the AIA through his enthusiasm and devotion.

Clayborne, a project manager at Wiley|Wilson’s Richmond, Va., office, assumed a leadership role in the AIA in 2006 when he joined the AIA Blue Ridge Chapter’s board of directors. He founded the Chapter’s Young Architects Forum, which continues to thrive, and instituted hard hat tours, networking events, and a design competition that challenged participants to envision new environments in three distinct areas of the city of Roanoke. After his licensure and a significant promotion sent him to Virginia’s capital, he joined AIA Richmond’s board of directors and its YAF committee. His events, such as Bowling with Bosses, paired the Chapter’s emerging professionals with more experienced architects in an effort to foster mentorships.

Image © Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Collaboration with OPN Architects

Danielle C. Hermann, AIA

Through a wealth of historic preservation efforts and work for corporate clients, Danielle Hermann, AIA, has helped reshape Des Moines, Iowa, transforming it into a city recognized by the creative class for its livability and burgeoning cool factor. A thoughtful and collaborative leader, Hermann has assumed a number of leadership roles, both in her firm and in the AIA, where she has helped propel the efforts for diversity in architecture.

Currently an associate principal at Des Moines’ OPN Architects, Hermann has overseen nearly $550 million in work spread across 1.5 million square feet of new and renovated space in the city’s urban core. As a testament to her design and management capabilities, Hermann is now working collaboratively with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop on a new headquarters for Krause Holdings and its family of companies. The new building, which will be completed in 2018 and is expected to achieve LEED Silver certification, will complete the city’s Western Gateway and activate the final open site adjacent to the 4.4-acre John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

Image © UACDC

Jeffrey Erwin Huber, AIA

A gifted architect and educator, Jeff Huber, AIA, realized at a young age that good design can provide hope, vision, and resiliency. Spurred to action as a 12-year-old when Hurricane Andrew leveled his childhood home, Huber has made a lasting impact on the built environment.

As a faculty member at Florida Atlantic University’s School of Architecture and a principal at Brooks + Scarpa, where he manages the firm’s south Florida office, Huber endeavors to expand the architects’ role through placemaking and resilient design. His development of new tools and design methodologies help connect segregated disciplines to meet the complex challenges that arise through urbanism. The projects with which he has been involved have received an overwhelming number of accolades, including more than 90 design awards, and have helped catalyze a shift in development codes and mainstream design practices.

Image © Sam Kittner 

Benjamin Kasdan, AIA

Balancing dedicated service, integrity, and mentorship with a good-natured personality, Benjamin Kasdan, AIA, has developed tremendous rapport with his colleagues, clients, and the entire profession. An advocate for emerging professionals making their way toward licensure, Kasdan has received a number of accolades for his efforts, most recently being named to the Building Design+Construction (BD+C) 40 Under 40 Class of 2015.

As director, design at KTGY Architecture+Planning’s Irvine, Calif., office, Kasdan has played a pivotal role in real estate projects throughout California, along the East Coast, and overseas for more than 10 years. Focusing on the sustainable design of multifamily, mixed-use, and infill housing development, he’s a team leader in the firm and his mantra “One team, one dream” has become a rallying call for fellow studio members.

Image © Warren Jagger Photography

Andrea Love, AIA

Defining the emerging role of a building scientist, Andrea Love, AIA, is breaking new ground by implementing state-of-the-art analytic and visualization tools to realize solutions for high-level performance criteria. She embodies a rare combination of unparalleled technical acumen, excellence in practice, and advocacy.

As director of building science at Boston’s Payette, Love pursues architecture as both an art and a science. Tackling issues facing the built environment—climate change, human health, water scarcity—she has spent the entirety of her career seeking to minimize the impact of buildings on our environment. When she joined the firm during her final year of graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was hired to begin Payette’s Building Science Group. In the past five years, Love has grown the group and established the firm as a foremost leader in high-performance buildings. Supporting every facet of the practice, Love’s group has significantly influenced the firm through its research projects and investigations. Through her guidance, sustainable practices are now deeply embedded in the firm’s design philosophies.

Kurt Neiswender, AIA

Leveraging his role as an architect to influence many facets of the profession, Kurt Neiswender, AIA, is driven by the philosophy that architects should be leaders in advancing civilization. An advocate and ambassador for architecture, he is deeply committed to his community and has used his position to bring worldwide attention to critical issues.

Neiswender is a project architect at Sedgewick & Ferweda Architects in Flint, Mich., where he is guided by his design philosophy of seeking equitable solutions to create spaces that are inseparable from the existing urban fabric.

Image © Tim Sitler

Jonathan Optiz, AIA

The passion for elevating the architect’s role in shaping community policy and elevating the human experience exhibited by Jonathan Opitz, AIA, has made him a key figure for the next generation of design professionals to emulate. Leading with both his words and his actions, Opitz has been a guiding voice in Little Rock while focusing on sustainability and regionally sensitive projects.

A principal and designer at AMR Architects, Inc., headquartered in Little Rock, Opitz strives to create meaningful connections between people, space, light, and materials. He was recently elevated to design principal because of the lasting relationships he establishes with clients, and his deep involvement in urban redevelopment projects and campus work at the Arkansas Tech University. A vocal leader in the firm, he coordinates many of its critiques and charrettes.

Image © Kevin Weber

Jeffrey Pastva, AIA

Demonstrating effective leadership at every level, Jeffrey Pastva, AIA, has elevated the voice of today’s young architects and inserted it deftly into a profession-wide discourse. By continually exploring dynamic pathways for communication, he has bridged generational gaps to deliver a better understanding of the AIA’s membership.

A project architect for Philadelphia’s JDavis Architects, Pastva has had a hand in many of the firm’s complex large-scale projects. Currently he’s leading a team through the redevelopment of Philadelphia’s Royal Theater, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and located on Philadelphia’s celebrated South Street. Navigating the complex approval process required by the city’s historical commission, legislation, and countless community meetings, Pastva and his team have envisioned a 50-unit, 65,000-square-foot mixed-use anchor designed to invigorate a budding commercial corridor.

Jessica Sheridan, AIA

A combination of inquisitiveness and energy has marked the career of Jessica Sheridan, AIA. An accomplished designer, her enthusiasm for the profession has made her an effective ambassador for the AIA to both the architectural community and New York City.

Sheridan recently joined Mancini Duffy as a Senior Associate. Previously, as  a manager at Gensler, she eagerly collaborated with the firm’s many teams and clients. She oversees projects in the professional services, finance, and technology sectors across the globe. Working closely with MasterCard, a relationship Sheridan has nurtured since 2011, she has provided design solutions that help the credit card giant foster interdisciplinary collaboration and product development as it repositions itself a technology company. Most recently she completed MasterCard’s new Tech Hub and Project Showcase in New York’s Silicon Alley, but she has also designed headquarters and satellite projects for the company in Miami, Toronto, Bogota, and Buenos Aires.

Image © Steve Hall / Hedrich Blessing Photography

Chris-Annmarie Spencer, AIA

With a keen interest in serving the less served, Chris-Annmarie Spencer, AIA, brings the spirit of resourcefulness she experienced growing up in Jamaica to her practice. A talented Chicago architect, Spencer’s focus on creative design is making a broad social impact.

The recipient of AIA Chicago’s 2015 Young Architect Award, Spencer is a project architect at Wheeler Kearns Architects, where she’s led countless nonprofits through the design process and brought into existence schools, design studios, and residences, often through sheer will and hard work.

Image © RATIO Architects

Lora Teagarden, AIA

Approaching life and practice with a can-do attitude, Lora Teagarden, AIA, is a dynamo. Juggling a number of interests within the discipline of architecture, she is a licensed architect, volunteer, author, and advocate.

A project architect at Indianapolis’ RATIO Architects, Teagarden is active in new construction and renovation projects, and operates with the understanding that the work she completes will influence young minds by shaping the places they learn, live, and play. She has also put her formidable public relations and social media skills to good use and recently assumed a new marketing leadership position in the firm.

Luis Vélez Alvarez, AIA

A dynamic designer with a wealth of built and conceptual projects in his portfolio, Luis Vélez-Alvarez, AIA, has brought a new level of discourse to the profession. A thoughtful leader, he brings his unique viewpoint to all aspects of architecture, including education and engagement with the community.

A native of Puerto Rico, Vélez-Alvarez developed an appreciation for the natural world early in life that has continued to influence his design thinking. Working to ensure that architecture is an extension of nature, he is an associate at SmithGroupJJR’s Washington, D.C., office.

Top image: Luis Vélez Alvarez. Image © SmithGroupJJR

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