The Next Generation of Design
Student Merit Awards
One project, judged blind by practicing architects, published beside 16 years of professional award winners. Every student who enters gets a free ALA Student Membership, and the winners get scholarship money and their work in front of the firms that hire. This is the most direct line between studio work and the profession that ALA offers.
Recent Winners
The 2026 winners are in: Gold to Theseus (Harvard GSD), Silver to Oyate Heritage Center (IIT), Bronze to Crystal Canopy (UIUC), with three honorable mentions. See the winning work, the write-ups, and all 40 entries in the archive.
Awards and recognition
Selected students receive direct scholarship funding, and every submitting student automatically receives a complimentary Student Membership with immediate access to resources and professional connections.
Gold Award
$1,000
Silver Award
$750
Bronze Award
$500
Submission parameters
What to submit
Your single best design to date: an outstanding studio project, a personal design concept, or independent work. The one piece that truly represents your current skill and architectural thinking. Individual and group projects are equally welcome.
Strict blind judging
The Board of Directors judges every entry blind. Be absolutely certain your visuals include no name, no academic institution, and no identifying markers of any kind.
Technical requirements
A five-hundred-word brief explaining the design, plus up to four single-page visual files: drawings, renderings, diagrams, or site photography. Standard digital image files and PDFs only.
2026 Cycle
Submissions opened April 1 and closed May 22
The 2026 results are in: six winners chosen from 40 entries nationwide. See every winning board and the full gallery in the archive above. The 2027 cycle dates will be announced on this page, and the requirements on this page carry forward.
2025 award recipients
These students represent the future of architecture through thoughtful concepts, strong presentation, and creative problem solving.
Gold
Jilliana Pilutti
Illinois Institute of Technology · Botenica Hall
Silver
Nishtha Mehta, Rob Lashley, Alejandra Gonzalez
Illinois Institute of Technology · Enlighten
Bronze
Sydnie Wolf
Judson University · The Cove
2024 award recipients
Eduardo Hidalgo and John Kent, Bowling Green State University · Nathanael Newman and Thomas Hermes Escamilla, California Baptist University · Nahshon White and Luiza Heleno, Florida International University · Madison Kendall Psinas and Jerez B. Rinehart, Judson University · Marisa Sandoval and Will Monroe, Miami University · Barbara Bende and Finn Larson, Andrews University · Jillian Kirchner, Drury University · Shir Gross, Harold Washington College
Historical archives of recipients from 1998 through 2020 are available from the ALA office.
Get Involved
The awards run once a year. The relationships they start are the point, and there is a way in at every level.
Students
Membership is free. Use it.
Coffee with Architects puts you at a table with working professionals, no agenda. Open Studio walks you through real firms. ARE study groups start before you graduate. The students who show up are the ones firms remember when they hire.
Universities & Colleges
Put your studio on this page.
Professors: make the Student Merit Awards a studio deliverable and your students get blind professional review for free. ALA will also bring architects to your portfolio nights and reviews, and your program name travels with every published entry.
High Schools
Start before college.
Drafting class, shop class, or a student who cannot stop drawing buildings: ALA will send an architect to talk about the path into the profession, and the Napkin Sketch Contest is open to anyone who loves to draw. Some careers start in tenth grade.
Students Join Free
The profession starts before the license.
Free student membership, real rooms with real architects, and an award program that publishes your work next to the professionals. Teachers and professors: one email brings ALA to your school.