2026 AIANS Design Awards Ceremony

Join AIANS for an evening recognizing the outstanding projects submitted to the 2026 Design Awards. We’re honored to welcome Gabrielle Esperdy, Ph.D, Dean of the Hillier College of Architecture and Design at NJIT, as our guest speaker for the evening.

Enjoy an open bar and dinner while viewing all submitted Design Awards boards and catching up with colleagues, clients, students, and industry partners.

The Design Awards represent one of the most prestigious honors within AIANS, highlighting exceptional work across the Residential, Commercial, Institutional, and Historic Preservation categories.

Ruminations ON Architecture’s Now (1 LU)

This course will consider the changing dynamics of technology, culture, and architecture in the middle of the 21st century as the profession grapples with the consequences of rapid and widespread change. The presentation will explore a range of urgent and timely topics, including artificial intelligence and professional expertise, educational and ethical standards, the climate crisis and contemporary building practices, and the effects of labor and income inequality. Through these interconnected issues, participants will examine how current technological, cultural, and economic forces are reshaping architectural theory, design, education, and professional practice.

Gabrielle Esperdy, Ph.D.
Dean, Hillier College of Architecture & Design, NJIT | Professor

Gabrielle Esperdy is an architectural and urban historian and cultural critic, focusing on the intersections of architecture, consumerism, and modernism in the United States. She is Professor of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where she has taught since 2001, and serves as Dean of NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture & Design.

Her research examines how social, economic, and cultural forces shape the built environment, with particular interest in everyday or overlooked buildings. She is the author of Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal and American Autopia, and her ongoing American Road Trip project critically analyzes ordinary and non-heroic American architecture.

Esperdy is Editor of SAH Archipedia, the Society of Architectural Historians’ authoritative encyclopedia of the built environment, and Editor in Chief of the Buildings of the United States multi-volume series. She has published widely in journals including the Journal of Architectural Education, Perspecta, and Buildings & Landscapes, and is a columnist for Places.

Thank you Design Awards Sponsors!