WashU faculty, alumni, students win big AIA St. Louis Design Awards

Several WashU Sam Fox School faculty members, alumni, and students are among the winners of AIA St. Louis’s 2026 Design Awards, taking home 16 of the 24 awards of the evening. The juried awards recognize outstanding achievements in architectural design and construction craft.

Associate Professor Pablo Moyano Fernández received a Distinguished Award in the small project category for his concrete bird blind at the Audubon Center at Riverlands, Avis Spiralis. The 120-foot-long spiraling concrete wall provides an observation space for visitors while exploring material innovation through his casting system, Opus Versatilium.

Associate Professors Chandler Ahrens, Kelley Van Dyck Murphy, and Constance Vale, co-founders of architectural firm AVV A, received two Honor Awards in the small projects and drawing categories for Inside Out, their project as 2024-25 Exhibit Columbus Fellows, and an Honor Award in the drawing category for The Key.

Teaching Professor Jonathan Stitelman received an Honor Award in the drawing category for “Perspective Arc,” which shows the systematic perspectival construction of an ancient Roman fresco painting.

Lecturer Cody Heller received a Merit Award in the unbuilt category for The Levee, which reenvisions Laclede’s Landing as both civic amenity and disaster infrastructure while restoring public investment in the riverfront.

Associate Professors Kelley Van Dyck Murphy and Heidi Aronson Kolk received an Honorable Mention for their work, “Building a World After the War: Japanese American Design at Midcentury.” The thoughtfully layered, 80-foot piece is on view at Lambert International Airport.

Lecturer Zachary Ebbers was on the Studio Lark team that won Honor and Merit Awards in the interiors category and a Merit Award in the small projects category.

Several graduate architecture students were also named among the award winners. Michael Chmiel, Lydia Roberts, JP Stegman, and Chris Tobin received a Merit Award in the small project category for their work, Across the Grain, as YES show curators. Daniel Moroze received an Honorable Mention in the drawing category for “Machine: Cow and Combine.” Michael Giachino was recognized with Mackey Mitchell Architects with an Honor Award in the unbuilt projects category for their work at Beaumont Scout Reservation.

Ten more alumni were recognized for their work, including:

• Evan Bronstein, MArch ‘96, Distinguished Award (drawing) for Balboa Park Visitor Center

• John Knuteson, MSAS '20; Allison Mendez, MArch '11 (design lead); Rui Guo, MArch/MLA '18 (computational design) of Cannon Design, Merit Award (drawing) for Technolatice

• Aaron Senne, MArch '07, Jessica Senne, MArch '08, and Jonathan Murphy, MArch/MUD '06, of Studio Lark, Merit Award (interiors), Honor Award (interiors), Merit Award (small project design) for Black Oak Residence, Reductive Revision, and House in the Park

• Patrick Fitzgerald, MArch '25, Honorable Mention (drawing) for Reflections of Catalonia

• Jen Holol, MArch/MCM '19, of LJC, Merit Award (small projects residential) for Bellefontaine Cemetery - Columbarium Improvements

• Ryan Kopp, MArch '04, of Cannon Design, Honor Award (architecture) for Powell Hall Renovation and Expansion

The awards were juried by chair Arthi Krishnamoorthy of TenBerke Architects, Michelle Amt of VMDO Architects, and David Whitehill of Shepley Bulfinch, with the drawing category chaired by Jerome Tryon of Yale University.