by: AIA New York
AIA New York is pleased to introduce the five appointed members of its 2026 Nominating Committee! Congratulations to Andrew Bernheimer, FAIA; Benjamin Gilmartin, AIA; Jonathan Marvel, FAIA, ASLA AFF., ANFA; James Slade, FAIA; and Nicole Vlado Torres, AIA, NOMA. The chapter’s Nominating Committee governs member appointments to AIANY’s Elective Committees: Design Awards, Fellows, Honors, Oculus, Finance, and Scholarships. The Elective Committees hold the distinction of shaping AIANY’s awards recipients, editorial content, and in many ways steering the future of the organization and the expression of its values.
The Nominating Committee is an elected body that submits the annual elective slate to the Board of Directors and to membership for vote at the chapter’s Annual Meeting. With four members elected by chapter membership and the fifth comprising the Immediate Past President, the Nominating Committee meets monthly to consider recommended candidates and self-referrals for terms starting the following year.
Get to know the 2026 Nominating Committee, and look for them at upcoming AIANY programming!
Andrew Bernheimer, FAIA, is a Brooklyn-based architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the Parsons School of Design. Bernheimer leads an eponymous firm responsible for a wide variety of residential, civic, and commercial projects, including new award-winning multi-unit affordable housing developments across the five boroughs as well as private residences in the northeast region. The studio is also currently the only private architectural firm in the United States with contracted unionized labor. Bernheimer edited Timber in the City, a book featuring innovative practices in wood construction published by ORO Editions and co-edited the collection Fairy Tale Architecture (ORO Editions, 2020) with his sister, Kate Bernheimer. In 2018, Bernheimer was elevated to the College of Fellows in the American Institute of Architects. Bernheimer sits on the Executive Board of the Institute for Public Architecture in New York City. In 2023, Bernheimer was awarded the AIANY Chapter’s Medal of Honor. While Director of the M.Arch program at Parsons (from 2012–2016), Bernheimer oversaw a graduate program known for its connections between design and practice and a distinct focus on New York City’s communities and their constructed environments. The program includes a signature design-build studio and cross-disciplinary curricular opportunities with graduate programs in lighting and interior design. He currently teaches in both the graduate and undergraduate architecture sequences. Previously, Bernheimer was a founding partner of the award-winning firm Della Valle Bernheimer.
Benjamin Gilmartin, AIA, is the immediate past President of AIA New York (his 2025 Presidential Theme was “See You IRL: Designing for Public Life”). Gilmartin is a partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) with 25 years of experience in architecture. He has been an instrumental design collaborator with Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, and Charles Renfro since joining the studio in 2004, and has helped lead the growth of the practice from a small studio staff of 12 to an international practice of 120. He was named a partner in 2015, having led the design of some of DS+R’s major works including the redesign of Alice Tully Hall, multiple public spaces within the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts Campus, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a key contributor on projects such as The Broad in Los Angeles, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University, the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and The Shed in New York. Most recently, Gilmartin was Partner-in-Charge for The Tide, a public space network at London’s Greenwich Peninsula that opened in 2019, and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, scheduled to open in the summer of this year. In addition to co-leading the design of the Centre for Music in London, he is currently leading the adaptive reuse of the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse into a new home for MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning in Cambridge, a confidential technology headquarters in the Pacific Northwest, and the New Health Precinct building at the University of Sydney in Australia.
Formerly Chair of the AIANY Global Dialogues Committee, Gilmartin is an active member of the AIA and has organized panel discussions and events at the Center for Architecture since 2017. In addition, he has spoken in AIA conferences nationally, including giving the keynote address and serving as Honor Awards Jury Chair for the AIA Colorado and Western Mountain Region Practice and Design Conference (2015), giving the keynote address for the AIA Wisconsin Convention and Expo in Madison (2015), and lecturing and serving on the Honor Awards Jury for AIA Minnesota in Minneapolis (2013). Gilmartin has taught at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning and has lectured widely at schools of architecture. He was a longtime contributor to the independent architecture journal Praxis, alongside his fellow DS+R partners. He received the 2017 Wall Street Journal Magazine‘s Architecture Innovator of the Year Award and the 2018 American Federation of Arts Cultural Leadership Award. Gilmartin received a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in both Architecture and English from the University of California Berkeley. He is a registered Architect in New York.
Born in Puerto Rico, Jonathan Marvel, FAIA, ASLA AFF., ANFA, is an architect and urban designer with over 30 years of experience in architectural planning, community development, and sustainable design for various institutions and mixed-use projects. As Founding Principal of Marvel, he leads design studios in New York, San Juan, Richmond, and Barcelona. In 1999, he was recognized in the 40 Under 40 list and was named Emerging Architect in 2003. He is the recipient of national and international design awards including a 2019 Presidential Citation from the American Institute of Architects, was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People of 2019, and serves on multiple boards and committees. Marvel was awarded the AIANY Chapter Gold Medal in both 2006 and 2020.
James Slade, FAIA, is committed to the positive role that architects play in society. Thoughtfully synthesizing each project’s unique conditions, Slade’s architecture and interiors embody diverse client identities through form, materiality, color, graphics and texture. He co-founded Slade Architecture with his partner, Hayes Slade, in 2002. With built projects in the United States, England, Korea and China, their work has been recognized internationally with awards, exhibitions and over 300 publications. Notable achievement awards include the Architecture League of New York’s League Prize (Young Architect’s Award) and Emerging Voices as well as Architectural Record’s “Design Vanguard.” In 2016, the AIA recognized Slade’s achievements in design, elevating him to the College of Fellows, the AIA’s highest membership honor for exceptional work and contributions to architecture and society. His work has been exhibited at MoMA, the National Building Museum, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, the Swiss Institute, the Architecture League of New York, the Center for Architecture, the Venice Biennale, and other national and international venues. Slade has taught design studios at Parsons, Syracuse University, Columbia/ Barnard, Pratt Institute, and other schools, and served as co-chair for the AIANY Awards Committee. Slade holds a BA from Cornell University, and an M.Arch from Columbia University. James is a licensed architect in CA, CT, FL, MA, MO, NY, NJ, PA, TN and WY.
Nicole Vlado Torres, AIA, NOMA, is an affordable housing architect and advocate. After founding Shakespeare Gordon Vlado Architects in 2017, she pivoted from traditional practice to support New York City’s public housing residents as the Director of Capital Projects at the Public Housing Community Fund. She co-chairs the AIANY Housing Committee, the nycoba|NOMA Cultural Space committee, and serves as an adjunct faculty member teaching Professional Practice at the Cooper Union.