SHoP, Ana Miljački, Nico Kienzl, and Interboro Partners recognized by the AIA New York's 2025 Honor Awards

The AIA New York has announced the slate of 2025 individual honorees as part of the AIA New York Design Awards. 

Winners were selected by AIANY 2025 President Benjamin Gilmartin (of Diller Scofidio + Renfro) with the guidance of Ann Marie Baranowski, Everardo Jefferson, Sara Lopergolo, Clare Miflin, David Polk, and Kathryne Thiele. Each has a unique and different impact on the field of architecture and is selected because their work is seen as an extension of the chapter's guiding principle that "design matters."

This year, SHoP Architects will receive the Medal of Honor; Nico Kienzl will receive the Champion of Architecture Award; MIT's Ana Miljački from the popular I Would Prefer Not To podcast will receive the Architecture in Media Award; and the Brooklyn-based interdiscplinary practice Interboro Partners are the winners of this year's New Perspectives Award. They will be recognized together at the chapter's Honors and Awards Luncheon at Cipriani Wall Street on April 25th.

Medal of Honor: SHoP Architects

"The diverse, trendsetting and enduring work of the firm has been widely recognized with a variety of honors, among them the Smithsonian Institute’s National Design Award for Architecture. In 2021, SHoP became a 100% employee-owned company—furthering a commitment to a culture of innovation and the next-generation practice of architecture," their citation reads. 

SHoP follows Marvel (2024), Andrew Bernheimer (2023), and Tsao & McKown Architects (2022) as the four most recent past winners.

Champion of Architecture Award: Nico Kienzl

"Kienzl has made significant contributions to residential, commercial, institutional, cultural, and masterplan projects in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East," his citation read. "He has shaped environmental performance and influenced the building industry towards sustainability. As Director, he has consulted on over 150 high-performance building projects, including the first LEED Platinum condominium in New York City and the first LEED Platinum university campus under LEED-ND. His outstanding contributions and professional achievements in green building earned him the title of LEED Fellow."

He follows Jonathan F.P. Rose (2024), Richard C. Yancey (2023), and Maxine Griffith (2022) in winning the Champion of Architecture Award.

Architecture in Media: I Would Prefer Not To

Miljački, who is the SMArchS program director for the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, launched MIT’s Critical Broadcasting Lab in 2018. Three years later, it began collaborating with the Architectural League of New York (ALNY) to produce her podcast, which sheds light on issues related to professional practice and is now in its fourth season.

New Perspectives Award: Interboro Partners

"Operating between planning, architecture, and public art, Interboro develops new ideas out of careful observation of places, and in open conversation with the people who inhabit them," the chapter says. "A goal of Interboro’s work is to design interesting, effective tools that bring different perspectives into planning processes and projects."

The award adds to other honors like Architectural League’s Emerging Voices Award and Young Architects Award and the AIANY's New Practices Award. Interboro was founded by Harvard GSD graduates Daniel D'Oca, Georgeen Theodore, and Tobias Armborst in 2002 and operates between Detroit and Brooklyn.

Past recipients of the New Perspectives Award include Nina Cooke John (2024), WIP Collaborative (2023), and Deem Journal (2022).

A look into the 24 projects that also make up the 2025 AIA New York Design Awards program can be found here.