Architecture News

AIA NYC Announces Winning Projects of 2026 Design Awards

Photo © Richard Barnes
Davis Center at the Harlem Meer, an Honor award winner in the Archiecture category in the 2026 AIANY Design Awards.

At a public symposium held on the evening of January 12, the New York City chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY) announced the 24 recipients of its annual Design Awards. Spanning scales and typologies, the winners were selected from a pool of 200 entries by a seven-person jury of independent architects, planners, and educators hailing from outside of New York including Phoenix-based Studio Ma principal Christiana Moss, and Susan Jones, founder of Seattle-based atelierjones and a 2024 RECORD Women in Architecture honoree.

Awards were conferred in four categories: Architecture, Interiors, Projects, and Urban Design. Each winning project, granted either an Honor, Merit, or Citation, was chosen for “design quality, response to its context and community, program resolution, innovation, thoughtfulness, and technique,” according to an AIANY press release. To be considered for the awards program, projects had to be completed by AIANY members or architects/designers practicing in New York, or be New York projects designed by architects/designers based elsewhere.

As noted by AIANY, the winning projects celebrate the humanity of architecture while sharing a sense of “optimism, rooted in action: a belief that architects possess the skills to actively shape the future rather than remaining passive subjects of forces like AI or the housing crisis. These works demonstrate rigor in architectural practice and in tackling the technical and bureaucratic challenges that architects navigate while advocating for a better future.” Many of the awarded projects, both those located within the five boroughs and those realized farther afield, have been published by RECORD, including the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow by Mecanoo and Marvel, CookFox’s Terminal Warehouse, and cover projects Frame 122 by Brent Buck Architects (March 2025) and the Davis Center at the Harlem Meer by Susan T Rodriguez | Architecture • Design (August 2025)

The 2026 AIA Design Awards honorees will be recognized at a luncheon held on April 24 at Cipriani Wall Street. On May 7, an exhibition of the winning projects will debut at the Center for Architecture and run through September 2. Below are all 24 winners, organized by category. You can learn more about this year’s winners here.

Architecture

Honor

Amy Gutmann Hall, UPenn. Photo © Jeffrey Totaro

Amy Gutmann Hall, University of Pennsylvania
Architects: Lake Flato, KSS Architects
Location: Philadelphia

Book Tower
Architect: ODA Architects
Location: Detroit

Davis Center at the Harlem Meer Design
Architect: Susan T Rodriguez | Architecture • Design
Architect of Record: Mitchell Giurgola Architects
Landscape Architect: Central Park Conservancy
Location: New York, New York

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The Eliza and New York Public Library Inwood Branch
Architects: Fogarty Finger (building; the Eliza Residences; universal pre-k; Activities, Culture, and Training (ACTS) Center); Andrew Berman Architect (library interiors)
Location: New York, New York

Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob's Pillow. Photo © Iwan Baan

Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob's Pillow
Architect: Marvel
Lead Design Architect: Mecanoo
Location: Becket, Massachusetts

Merit

Brown University Brook Street Residence Halls
Architect: TenBerke
Landscape Architect: STIMSON
Location: Providence, Rhode Island

Disney New York City Headquarters, Robert A. Iger Building
Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Landscape Architect: Scape
Location: New York, New York

Frame 122. Photo © Christopher Sturman

Frame 122
Architect: Brent Buck Architects
Landscape Architect: MKM Landscape Architecture
Location: Brooklyn, New York

Garden House at the Packer Collegiate Institute
Architect: WXY architecture + urban design
Landscape Architect: Starr Whitehouse
Location: Brooklyn, New York

Honnen Arts Hub
Architect: Kennedy & Violich Architecture
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Lopez Playground Modular Comfort Station. Photo © Ty Cole

Lopez Playground Modular Comfort Station
Architect: 1100 Architect
Location: Staten Island, New York

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra
Architect: Snøhetta
Location: St. Louis

Studio Museum in Harlem
Architect: Adjaye Associates
Architect of Record: Cooper Robertson
Location: New York, New York

Terminal Warehouse. Photo © Alex Ferrec, courtesy CookFox

Terminal Warehouse, New York City
Architect: CookFox Architects
Landscape Architect: Terrain-NYC
Location: New York, New York

Citation for the Integration of Embodied and Operational Sustainability

475 High Performance Building Supply
Architect: Ryan Enschede Studio
Location: New York, New York

Citation for Reconnecting Family to Nature Through a Highly Evolved Sustainable Strategy

Riverhouse
Architect: WORKac
Landscape Architect: Anne Penniman Associates
Landscape Architect: Golden Root Inc.
Location: Hopkinton, Rhode Island

Citation for Sensitivity to Landscape and Art

Storm King Art Center. Photo © Richard Barnes

Storm King Art Center
Architects: Heneghan Peng Architects, WXY architecture + urban design
Landscape Architects: Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Reed Hilderbrand
Location: New Windsor, New York

Interiors

Honor

David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
Architect of Record (master plan and concert theater): Diamond Schmitt
Architect (public spaces): Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners
Location: New York, New York

Merit

Manifest
Architect: INC Architecture & Design
Location: Washington, D.C.

Sculpting History at the Valentine Studio: Art, Power, and the “Lost Cause” American Myth at The Valentine Museum
Architect: Studio Joseph
Associate Architect: Glavé & Holmes Architecture
Location: Richmond, Virginia

Projects

Honor

Exodus and Dance Restoration at Kingsborough Houses
Architect: New York City Housing Authority
Consulting Architect: Ronnette Riley Architect
Location: Brooklyn, New York

Merit

Autonomous Urbanism: Towards a New Transitopia
Author: Evan Shieh Publisher: Applied Research & Design

Urban Design

Merit

South Battery Park City Resilience
Architect: AECOM LAUD NYC
Location: New York, New York

Citation for Celebrating the Reuse of Post-Industrial Infrastructure

Neuhoff
Architect: S9 Architecture and Engineering
Architects of Record: HKS (new buildings); Smith Gee Studio (adaptive reuse)
Landscape Architect: Future Green Studio
Location: Nashville, Tennesee