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Tulanians honored at Design Awards

Tulanians honored at AIA NOLA Design Awards

Composite of size images of Tulanian winning designs from the AIA New Orleans 2025 Awards.

AUGUSt 6, 2025

BY Shyla Krishnappa

Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment students, faculty, staff, and alumni have received multiple honors at the AIA New Orleans 2025 Design Awards. The AIA New Orleans Design Awards celebrate the best of New Orleans Architecture and Design, admiring our community’s achievements and recognizing the best of our built environment.

This year’s awards spotlight the powerful role New Orleans architects play in shaping a built environment that is beautiful, purposeful, and resilient. From bold new builds to sensitive restorations, the honored designs represent the cutting edge of what our community is capable of contributing to the built environment. The 2025 Design Awards event celebrated included meaningful dialogue and recognition of the architects and firms who are reimagining what it means to design for and with our communities.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD: SPROUT HOUSE

pillars for an outdoor pavilion are erected in a concrete slab, the future classroom and farmstand space for an urban farm nonprofit.

The Small Center's SPROUT House Pavilion was the overwhelming winner of the People's Choice Award. Students from the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment built a new shade pavilion and outdoor classroom for nonprofit SPROUT NOLA on the Lafitte Greenway, an abandoned railroad corridor that has been transformed into a vibrant public green space since its opening in 2015.

The corridor has been in use for more than two centuries, having previously been a shipping canal in the late 1700s. The Tulane project is a collaboration with the school's Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design and Sprout NOLA, an agriculture non-profit working to build a stronger, more equipped community of growers in Louisiana and help all New Orleanians be part of a community food system.

SMALL SCALE COMMENDATION: ARBOR

Picture of green sculpture with sharp ends in front of building

Associate Professor Adam Marcus received a Small Scale Commendation for his Variable Projects submission of the project "Arbor". Arbor is a sculptural installation commissioned for the City of Palo Alto, CA. It is a data spatialization of the urban forest of Palo Alto. The sculptural installation consists of 120 ribs arranged radially within King Plaza at Palo Alto City Hall. It uses the database of over 45,000 public trees in the city’s Open Data Portal as the basis for a collective, three-dimensional map of one aspect of the city’s ecology: all trees in the public realm.

RESIDENTIAL COMMENDATION: URBANBUILD20

Side view of the URBANbuild 20 duplex affordable housing design-build.

Tulane's URBANbuild also won a Residential Commendation for its 20th home, design and built by a team of students and faculty, led by Lacey Senior Professor of Practice Byron Mouton. The jury noted "This modest duplex in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward embodies the profound potential of architecture to heal and restore. The project offers more than shelter; it provides a replicable model for community-building and wellness. It is thoughtfully scaled and demonstrates how small interventions can create meaningful ripples of change."

MULTIPLE AWARDS: EskewDumezRipple

Exterior view of LUMCON Blue Works, a large four-story industrial style building with metal siding and large windows on the left side.

New Orleans-based firm EskewDumezRipple, led by Principal and Professor of Practice in Architecture Steve Dumez, won several awards.

Unbuilt Architecture Honor Award: Louisiana Music & Heritage Experience Museum. The jury noted its "innovative and creative vision that celebrates Louisiana's cultural heritage through architecture" and that it is "designed not merely to house music, but to embody it, utilizing AI-assisted design and instrument-inspired forms to creative dynamic and expressive spaces."
Interior Architecture Honor Award: RNGD Headquarters. The jury noted it "is a bold reimagining of industrial space" and "with intelligence and restraint, the design honors the raw integrity of the original warehouse while introducing a refined, flexible framework for collaboration and innovation."
Civic/Institutional Sustainability Achievement and Award of Merit: Tulane University Lake & River Residences. The jury noted the work "exemplifies smart, sustainable student house."
Commercial Large Scale Honor Award: LUMCON Blue Works (pictured above). The jury noted it "is a poetic response to a shifting coast. A structure that seems to hover above the landscape like a vessel awaiting the tide" and "rather than concealing its purpose, the building invites all into its current where science is shared, seen and felt."

CIVIC/INstitutional Sustainability Achievement: NANO LLC

Perspective rendering of interior design for New Orleans Convention Center by NANO llc.

Alumni Terri Hogan Dreyer (A *01) and Ian Dreyer (A *01) and their New Orleans-based firm NANO LLC won a Civic/Institutional Sustainability Achievement for the Ernest Morial Convention Center project. The jury noted that the project "demonstrates that large-scale upgrades can significantly impact the environment. As the largest LEED Platinum-certified project in Louisiana, it transformed 1.1 million square feet with a high-performance roof, substantial mechanical upgrades, and smart systems that save over 600,000 kWh of energy annually. The team reused 100% of the existing structure, diverted 84% of construction waste from landfills, and implemented comprehensive recycling and composting programs. Water-saving fixtures, bottle refill stations, and stormwater systems that redirect runoff to the Mississippi River all contribute to reducing the strain on city infrastructure. This project serves as an exemplary model of how design focused on energy efficiency and resource management can transform a civic landmark into a more sustainable entity for the future."