Brian Court, FAIA

Brian Court has brought sustainable design to the forefront of the public realm with his performance-driven design process that works in harmony with natural forces, shaping our environment and establishing a low-impact, regenerative future. Since joining Miller Hull in 2001, Brian has led the design of numerous high profile and complex landmark projects using a deft combination of time-tested and innovative design strategies and emerging technologies. This has earned him the reputation as an advocate for groundbreaking sustainable design.

Brian has a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Washington and continues to give back to the program as a guest reviewer and thesis critic. Pushing the boundaries of current practice make him a highly sought-after speaker and instructor who regularly shares his insight and experience with other designers and students. Additionally, Brian was honored with the distinguished and singular Young Architect Award by AIA Seattle in 2013.

Hiroshi Jacobs, AIA

Hiroshi Jacobs, AIA is an award-winning architect and artist who finds joy in analyzing challenging sets of constraints and synthesizing creative solutions. An Associate Principal with Studios Architecture in Washington, DC, Hiroshi has led the design for a number of high profile and award winning projects. Hiroshi has a passion for design-excellence that is accompanied by an in-depth knowledge of design technology, building systems, and regulatory constraints, and the skillset to shepherd projects through complex entitlement processes. Outside of the practice, Hiroshi is committed to community action in the arts as President of the Board of Directors for CulturalDC (an arts non-profit), a member of the Art Review Panel of Montgomery County’s Department of Planning, and a member of Amtrak’s DC Union Station Art Advisory panel. He is currently serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, having previously taught design at Catholic, Tulane, and Harvard. Hiroshi is a 2014 recipient of the AIA National Associates Award and the 2012 AIA DC Emerging Architect Award. He founded the AIA DC Design Technology Committee and served on the jury for the 2015 AIA National Awards for Collaboration and Achievement.

Claire Weisz, RA, FAIA, Hon. RAIC

Claire Weisz, RA, FAIA, Hon. RAIC, is a founding partner of WXY, a New York based studio globally recognized for its community-centered approach to design. Combining architecture and planning the practice works at all scales. WXY was one of Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2019 and Most Innovative Companies in Urban Development and Real Estate for 2023. WXY was AIA New York State Firm of the Year Award in 2016. With her partner Mark Yoes, she received the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Award and the Emerging Voices Award. Weisz was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2017, awarded the Medal of Honor from AIANY in 2018, honored with the Women in Architecture Award by Architectural Record and recognized as ENR’s New York Legacy Award Winner in 2024.

Neil Denari, FAIA

Neil M. Denari is principal of the Los Angeles based office Neil M. Denari Architects and is a Professor of Architecture at UCLA. He received his B. Arch from the University of Houston in 1980 and an M. Arch from Harvard in 1982. With NMDA, Denari has designed and built projects in Asia, North America, and Europe. In 2015, Denari was elected to the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows. He is the recipient of the AIA-LA Gold Medal in 2011, AIA-LA Educator of the Year in 2019, and was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2010. Denari is the author of Interrupted Projections (TOTO, 1996), Gyroscopic Horizons (Princeton, 1999), and Mass X (AADCU, 2018). He exhibits and lectures worldwide on his work.

Iman Fayyad

Iman Fayyad is a designer and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where she teaches and conducts research in spatial geometry with a focus on tectonics, construction, and representation. She is founding director of projectif, an award-winning research practice that explores architectural geometry’s relationship with material economy, sensory perception, and the politics of physical space and building practice. Her writing and design work have been published and exhibited in venues including the New York Times, Technology: Architecture and Design, Nexus Network Journal (Architecture and Mathematics), Log, Pidgin, Archinect, Yale Architecture Gallery, Carnegie Museum of Art, citygroupNY, and the Roca Gallery in London. Her public work and research on zero-waste geometric construction techniques has been funded by grants through the MetLife Foundation and Lender Center for Social Justice, and has received recognition by the Architects’ Newspaper Best of Design Young Architects Prize, the ACSA Faculty Design Award, and Architizer’s Design For Good Award. She is a 2024 MacDowell Fellow.

Previously, Fayyad was Assistant Professor at Syracuse University where she coordinated the first-year design studio curriculum and taught courses in digital media. Her course on Projective Systems and Architectural Form, designed for the new Directed Research Program, was the recipient of the 2024 Britton Memorial Collaborative Research Prize. Fayyad has served on the faculty at MIT, Princeton, and Harvard, where she served as the faculty coordinator of the Digital Media Workshop Program, and where she was the inaugural John Irving Innovation Fellow. She was twice named the Architecture Faculty of the Year at Harvard University.

Fayyad holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from MIT (Phi Beta Kappa Academic Honors), and a Master in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was the recipient of the AIA Certificate of Merit, Faculty Design Award, and the Araldo A. Cossutta Prize for Design Excellence. Prior to starting her own practice, she worked at offices in Boston, New York, and Paris.

Andrew McGee, AIA

Andrew is a principal and co-founder of Format. He is a LEED Accredited Professional, and an NCARB-certified architect, with registration in the state of New York. He contributes to the design of all architectural projects in the office and is equally adept at managing both the design and execution of a variety of project scales and types.

Prior to founding Format, Andrew gained over a decade of experience designing and delivering architectural projects in New York City at leading architectural firms like Studio Gang Architects and Deborah Berke Partners. At Studio Gang Architects he co-managed the design and programming for the Gilder Center extension at the American Museum of Natural History. Prior to that, he was a designer at Deborah Berke Partners, where he helped manage the design and delivery of a variety of residential projects in and around New York City, and was a project manager on the competition-winning design for the Cummins employee offices in Indianapolis, IN.

He holds a Master of Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the University of Michigan.