by: AIA New York
AIA New York is preparing to celebrate the honorees of its 16th annual Honors and Awards Luncheon on Tuesday, July 20. The virtual awards program celebrates design excellence in New York City by honoring the recipients of the AIA New York Design Awards and of AIA New York’s three major annual awards: the Medal of Honor, the Champion of Architecture Medal, and the Architecture in Media Award. The event also serves as an important fundraiser for AIA New York and its ongoing mission to show that design and the city’s built environment matter.
At this year’s event, the chapter will honor Kim Yao, AIA, Principal of Architecture Research Office with the Medal of Honor; Justin Garrett Moore, AICP, NOMA, Program Officer for the Humanities in Place program at Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with the Champion of Architecture Medal; and Cathleen McGuigan, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record, with the Architecture in Media Award. Get to know the honorees below!
Medal of Honor recipient Kim Yao, AIA. Photo: Dean Kaufman.
Medal of Honor: Kim Yao, AIA
Kim Yao, AIA, is Principal of Architecture Research Office (ARO), a New York City firm dedicated to architecture that unites strategy and intelligence with beauty and form. ARO’s diverse body of work has earned the firm more than a hundred design awards, including the 2020 AIA Architecture Firm Award. Yao holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from Columbia University and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University. She has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, the School of Constructed Environments at Parsons the New School for Design, and Barnard College, and has lectured throughout the United States and abroad. Yao sits on the boards of AIA New York and the Center for Architecture as Immediate Past President of AIA New York.
Champion of Architecture Medal recipient Justin Garrett Moore, AICP, NOMA. Photo: Courtesy Justin Garrett Moore.
Champion of Architecture Medal: Justin Garret Moore, AICP, NOMA
Justin Garrett Moore, a transdisciplinary designer and urbanist, is the program officer for the Humanities in Place program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He has extensive planning and design experience ranging from regional and urban systems, policies, and projects to grassroots and community-focused planning, design, public realm, and arts initiatives. At the Mellon Foundation, his work focuses on advancing equity, inclusion, and social justice through place-based initiatives, built environments, cultural heritage projects, digital and ephemeral programs, and commemorative spaces and landscapes.
Architecture in Media Award recipient Cathleen McGuigan. Photo: Jenna-Beth Lyde.
Architecture in Media: Cathleen McGuigan
Cathleen McGuigan is editor-in-chief of Architectural Record, the nation’s leading architecture publication for 130 years. Under her leadership, Record has won, among numerous other editorial honors, the Grand Neal Award, the top American Business Media award for overall excellence. A former architecture critic and arts editor of Newsweek, McGuigan has a BA from Brown University and was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. She has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and has been a Poynter Fellow at Yale University. Besides Newsweek and Record, her articles have appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, and Rolling Stone. She sits on the board of trustees of the Skyscraper Museum and the Center for Architecture in New York and is vice president of the Loeb Alumni Council.