Getting to know the Young Architects Award recipients

Each year, the Young Architects Award recognizes AIA members in the early stage of their architectural career who have shown exceptional leadership in design, planning, education, and service to the profession.

In the first part of our new series about getting to know the 2024 Young Architect Award recipients, you’ll learn about what makes each one tick, why they were drawn to architecture, and what their dream projects are. 

Highlighted in this installment are Erin Reilly-Sanders, Ph.D., AIA; Vicky Chan, AIA; Ryan Kurlbaum, AIA; Darguin Fortuna, AIA; Gabriella Bermea, AIA; and Erin Peavey, AIA. 

Be on the lookout in the coming weeks to get to know more of the Young Architect Award recipients. 

What first drew you to architecture?

Reilly-Sanders: It might have been my dad reading me The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater as a child. In this picture book, Mr. Plumbean shapes his house to be "where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams." I love this idea of people influencing their environment to support their individual needs and interests.

Chan: I was making public art for my high school with my art teacher. I learned the joy of creating pleasant public spaces to celebrate diversity and inclusiveness.

Kurlbaum: I found architecture in a high school drafting class. Mr. DePriest taught us how to hand draw plan, section, and elevations of mechanical parts. I knew I was on to something when I never wanted class to end.

Fortuna: Initially, it was because a friend decided to go to architecture school. Then I noticed the impact we have and could not think of any other career that literally can shape the world and make it more inclusive, diverse, and equitable.

Bermea: Growing up in a small South Texas border town, San Antonio was where I was exposed to the impact design could have on a community. In high school, I was a part of an inaugural STEM Program in Texarkana and completed my independent study in the architecture and drafting program - to be able to connect communities through the built environment felt like a dream come true.

Peavey: Originally, I wanted to be a social worker, and was drawn to architecture through environmental psychology, the study of how people and place interact with one another, and the idea that I could use the built environment to care for others.

What is the most fulfilling aspect of being an architect?

Reilly-Sanders: I really like working with junior staff. There's something both amazing and challenging about trying to explain how I think about a particular problem and watching a colleague start to form their own understanding.

Chan: The feeling of walking into a completed project and seeing people using my design. 

Kurlbaum: The opportunity to create spaces for people, to elevate the human experience, and breathe new life into forgotten places.

Fortuna: To partake in the making of a better world by shaping how people live and the legacy, stories, and memories they want to leave behind for generations to come.

Bermea: Understanding the responsibility that comes along with designing for generations to come - from our ecological footprint to developing spaces that are reflective of the communities we serve and the teams we collaborate with - we must continually raise the bar. And of course, the joy that comes from serving others.

Peavey: Being a translator between architecture, research, psychology, and storytelling has been a great joy and privilege. It’s allowed me to use my skills to serve amazing clients, communities, colleagues, and aspiring designers across the globe.

What is your favorite representation of architecture in culture?

Reilly-Sanders: I enjoy board games that involve building- the pastoral medieval countryside created in Carcassonne meanders across the table and both Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Foundations of Rome reflect the challenges of construction and urban design in fun and fortunately finite packages.

Chan: The building was demolished but it is Kowloon Walled City which was made of multiple buildings stacked together as a village but continued to grow upward without approval over several decades. We see it today as a successful case study of a self-govern society and the project continues to inspire video games, artwork and movies.

Kurlbaum: Saarinen’s MIT Chapel represents all I could ever want a building to be - the approach, the moat, the clicker brick and humble building forms. The chapel transforms on the interior into a vessel of light – reflected from the water outside and cascading from the skylight above. The MIT chapel is the unexpected and timeless combination of masonry, water, and light that welcomes all, moves the soul, and creates profound experience. 

Fortuna: I have always been intrigued by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Its geometry and explorational nature remind me that architecture is play, and to play is the most basic act of living to the fullest that any culture can experience.

Bermea: As an Austinite, I would be remiss not to mention the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center as one of my current favorites. Originally designed by the prominent Mexican architect Teodoro González de León and now expanded by Tatiana Bilbao Estudio and Miro Rivera Architects.

Peavey: Architecture at its finest serves to promote mental, physical, social, and environmental health – and the Maggie’s Leeds Center by Heatherwick Studio is such a beautiful representation of that.

What is your dream project?

Reilly-Sanders: After a day of real-world problem solving, I enjoy building in Minecraft with my child. We just finished a tiny hamburger house, an adorably tiny castle, and two different sizes of houses shaped like snails. We've also built a Puebloan village, Shinto shrine, Japanese tea house, baths, grottos, gardens, and a Moorish palace.

Chan: I already completed one of my dream projects and it is called K-farm, an urban farm with smart technology. My next dream project is to be able to build more smart farm across the world.

Kurlbaum: A community library with affordable housing. A civic hybrid building that serves the community in which it is sited.

Fortuna: I would love to design an entire community from the ground up—hospitals, homes, churches, stores—and essentially build an equitable, inclusive, and diverse ecosystem that thrives by leveraging the insights of each and all, where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Bermea: I'm so fortunate to say I get to work on my dream projects every day. I've been grateful to have been practicing in the design of learning environments for my entire career thus far. It's a joy to give back to public education, our students, and our teachers in this capacity.

Peavey: My dream projects are collaborating with communities to design to foster social connection and belonging as an antidote to loneliness. I am so honored to get to be doing this type of work on several projects today – including the beautiful community at Waco Family Medicine.