The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices award spotlights North American individuals and firms with distinct design voices that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. The jury reviews significant bodies of realized work and considers accomplishments within design and academia.

The work of each Emerging Voice represents the best of its kind and addresses larger issues within architecture, landscape, and the built environment.

Interviews and articles

City as border zone

Architects Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, founders of El Paso firm AGENCY, discuss the reality and rhetoric of the US–Mexico border.

March 5, 2018

The architecture of the everyday

For Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis, mundane issues like the weather and mortgages serve as a springboard for design investigation.

March 9, 2018

Profiles of spontaneous urban plants

Landscape designer David Seiter champions the ecological and aesthetic benefits of informal plants - weeds - in urban space, and catalogues the uses and cultural significance of New York's native flora.

Design as civic duty

Elizabeth Timme, co-director of LA-Más, believes that architecture needs to rediscover its political imperative.

May 4, 2018

La ciudad como zona fronteriza

Los fundadores de la firma AGENCY de El Paso hablan sobre la realidad y la retórica de la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México.

April 30, 2018

Lecture videos

AGENCY lecture

Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, founders of AGENCY, discuss their work.

March 22, 2018

Fernanda Canales lecture

Mexican architect Fernanda Canales presents her work as part of the Emerging Voices lecture series.

March 23, 2018

Davidson Rafailidis lecture

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis present their work as part of the Emerging Voices lecture series.

March 26, 2018

LA-Más lecture

Helen Leung discusses the work of her Los Angeles-based nonprofit urban design practice.

March 27, 2018

modus studio lecture

Chris Baribeau discusses his firm's work in Northwest Arkansas as part of the Emerging Voices lecture series.

April 11, 2018

Roundtable discussions

Jury and supporters

For 2018, the selection process for the two-stage jury was expanded to include past Emerging Voices winners across North America who reviewed work from approximately 50 firms, as well as a second-round jury in New York who selected eight winners from a group of finalists.

The first-round jury included Virginia San Fratello, Sebastian Schmaling, Wonne Ickx, Lola Sheppard, Marcelo Spina, Carlos Jimenez, and Marlon Blackwell. It also incorporated members of the second-round jury: Sunil Bald, Lisa Gray, Stella Betts, Jing Liu, Paul Makovsky, Tom Phifer, Chris Reed, and Billie Tsien.

Emerging Voices is organized by League Program Director Anne Rieselbach.

Emerging Voices is generously supported by Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown. The Emerging Voices program is also supported by the Next Generation Fund of The Architectural League. Architectural League programs are additionally supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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