AIA Baltimore Awards • AIA Baltimore Awards 2021 • Meet the Jury

During the past 25 years, Russell Baltimore has developed a broad range of experience in architectural design, three-dimensional computer visualization, project management, construction documentation, construction administration and architectural firm development. The key to his overall success has been his desire to be involved with every aspect of the construction process, from project inception all the way through project closeout. Baltimore enjoys working on projects of all sizes and types while approaching each project as a new challenge on how to create spaces that improve our overall quality of life. He has worked with municipalities, developers, nonprofit organizations and school administrators as well as individual property owners to put together projects that fit their financial, operational and spatial as well as aesthetic needs. Baltimore’s portfolio of work includes adaptive reuse, education, historic preservation, hospitality and entertainment, light industrial, single-family and multifamily residential, public/civic and worship facilities.

Christian Unverzagt is an associate professor of practice in architecture at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He also is the design director of the Detroit-based M1DTW, a nationally recognized, multidisciplinary studio that is engaged in expanding the boundaries of practice through the design of objects, artifacts, identities and spaces.

Unverzagt has received numerous awards for his work, including the Michigan Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Honor Awards, I.D. Magazine’s Annual Design Review, a North American Hairstyling Award for Best Salon Design in North America, and a 50 Books/50 Covers award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts for one of the best-designed books of the year.

He received a Master of Architecture with distinction from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan. He also studied at the California Institute of the Arts and at The Bartlett, University College London.

James Witherspoon is the vice president of architecture and design at Bedrock, where he leads the design and execution of architecture projects across the Bedrock portfolio, with a focus on large-scale mixed-use developments.

Witherspoon has more than a decade of experience designing for the built environment. His experience ranges from urban strategic framework planning to post-industrial adaptive reuse to ground-up signature buildings, primarily within the City of Detroit.

At Bedrock, he played a crucial role in the design of the Shinola Hotel and is currently working on the redevelopment of the Hudson’s site. By leading and collaborating with local, national and international design firms to realize these complex projects, his goal is to help build Detroit’s legacy as a world-class destination for design excellence through thoughtful and equitable development.

Witherspoon also writes and publishes articles on architecture and the built environment and has served as adjunct faculty at the Taubman College of Architecture at the University of Michigan. His work has been published in The Journal of Architectural Education, The Plan, MONU, Plat Journal and Metropolis.

Over the course of a nearly 15-year career in architecture, Katy Rupp has honed her ability to relate with clients, understand their goals, and collaborate on solutions that yield high-performing spaces completed on time and within budget. In a field where communication and interaction are crucial to a successful project, Rupp excels. Throughout her career, she has covered all aspects of project delivery, including space planning, zoning and building codes, construction administration, field observation, and building assessment reports.

Her experience runs the full gamut of commercial project types, from workplaces and multifamily residential to retail and hospitality spaces.

Alivia Stalnaker, AIA, is an associate and design architect at SmithGroup’s Detroit office. For more than a decade, she has collaborated with large teams to deliver a variety of workplace, higher education, and cultural projects, including the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House North Development and Ally Financial Detroit Headquarters. Her creativity, attention to detail, and commitment to designing unique, high-performing office environments have established her as a leader within the firm’s workplace studio. Dedicated to environmental stewardship and occupant well-being, Stalnaker is also a LEED Building Design and Construction Accredited Professional and Fitwel Ambassador.

RESIDENTIAL JURY

Grounded in her faith and driven by a passion for art and architectural design, Cathy Purple Cherry has been honing her craft since early childhood. Painting lessons at a young age inevitably led to her later studies at the Corcoran School of the Arts; University of Colorado, Boulder; and the University of Maryland. Since graduating with her architecture degree in 1989, Purple Cherry is resolute in her quest for excellence in residential design.

Purple Cherry Architects, her namesake firm, embraces advanced technologies and new materials in their custom designs for luxury residential architecture. Energetic and creative, Purple Cherry is a natural leader, and she relishes the problem-solving inherent in architectural design. Warm and thoughtful, she gathers and processes information that informs the big picture as well as all the subtleties. She considers lifestyle as much as aesthetics. A wife and mother of three — her eldest is a special-needs child — Purple Cherry deeply understands the desire for a dream home that is not only beautiful, but which also supports the values and needs of her clients. A visionary and three-dimensional thinker, she is able to turn aspirations into built reality.

Lindsey May, AIA, is an award-winning architect based in Washington, D.C. She is the founding principal of Studio Mayd — an architecture and design studio working on residential, cultural and community projects. May is also the assistant director of the Architecture Program at the University of Maryland, where she is a clinical assistant professor.

May is a 2021 recipient of the Architecture League Prize and the inaugural winner of the 2020 AIA|DC Architect + Educator Award. In 2020, she was also recognized for her teaching and academic leadership with the University of Maryland School of Architecture Planning & Preservation’s Dean Award and the Outstanding Educator Award.

Prior to founding Studio Mayd, May worked in architecture and design studios including: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Lewis.Tsurumaki. Lewis, SOFTlab, and Rafael Vinoly Architects. Lindsey holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Science in architecture from the University of Michigan.

As owner and general manager of Smithouse Design + Build, Dave Smith’s life motto is to “build homes + build people.” Smith is passionate about improving the life experience of others by renovating their homes using world-class project management and building skills. Since 2005, his full-service residential construction firm has grown from a team of three to nearly 30 of the region’s finest building experts, interior designers and master craftsmen. The firm’s track record of providing exceptional client experiences has provided exceptional brand recognition within the community for completing projects that are stress-free from start to finish. This commitment to excellence has resulted in numerous awards, including the Baltimore Sun’s Best of Baltimore, Baltimore magazine’s Best of Baltimore, Remodeling Magazine’s Big50, Crystal Design Awards Grand Prize for Winning Design, and Baltimore magazine’s award as the “Face of Luxury Renovations” in Baltimore.

SOCIAL EQUITY JURY

As an architect who specializes in the design of all types of housing, Brandon Schultz understands that residential projects play a vital role in defining, transforming and sustaining communities. His skills include the application of historic tax credit financing, low-income housing tax credit programs, sustainability improvements to existing buildings, and public outreach. He works closely with clients, tenant groups, community members, and review authorities to ensure that projects address program requirements and respond to neighborhood context.

Schultz’s experience includes the design of affordable housing, adaptive use, new construction of row homes and mid-rise developments, high-rise renovation, tenant-in-place rehabilitations, and transitional housing.

He actively supports many nonprofit housing and preservation organizations and takes pride in creating safe, inviting, sustainable and functional housing. Schultz’s residential projects have been a catalyst for community revitalization efforts and helped boost local economies throughout Maryland.

Heidi Thomas is founding principal of EnviroCollab, a landscape architecture, planning, and urban design studio focused on collaborative design projects and social equity initiatives aligned with cultural and environmental sustainability. Their work encompasses placemaking projects spanning many sectors and scales and all phases of project development — from outreach and engagement, to visioning and design, through documentation and construction administration. Driven by the values of inclusivity and empowerment, they view their roles as dynamic and adaptive, serving as nimble, creative intermediaries among their clients, partners, project stakeholders and community members.

Daniel McCarthy has served as the executive director of the Episcopal Housing Corporation (EHC) since 1996. EHC’s mission is threefold: to be a technical resource to Episcopal parishes and nonprofit organizations wishing to pursue the development of affordable housing projects, to own and operate affordable housing and community facilities, and to engage in community building projects through partnerships with neighborhood-based partners.

McCarthy has been employed in the field of housing and community development for more than 20 years, after completing a Master of Arts program at the University of Maryland in urban studies with a focus on affordable housing finance and development.

GOOD DESIGN = GOOD BUSINESS JURY

Pavlina Ilieva, AIA, is an architect experienced in residential, commercial and institutional architecture and urban design. She is also program director of the Undergraduate Architecture and Environmental Design Program at Morgan State University and member of the Urban Design and Architecture Advisory Panel (UDAAP) for the Baltimore City Department of Planning.

Al Barry, a 1970 graduate of Johns Hopkins University, is the principal at AB Associates, a strategic planning consulting firm he started in 1995 following his retirement as a Baltimore City Planning Department assistant planning director. At AB Associates, he has completed more than a dozen community master plans, including plans for the Jones Falls Valley, Upton, Flag House Courts and Ruxton-Riderwood neighborhoods. Between 1997 and 2001, he was an expeditor for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI program, working in Richmond, Virginia, and Bradenton, Florida, to transform existing public housing into new mixed-income communities using the Congress for the New Urbanism’s design principles.

He has been president of the Charles Village Association and the Citizens Planning and Housing Association, a founding Board member and organizer of 1000 Friends of Maryland and on the boards of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation and Baltimore Heritage. Between 1998 and 2013, he taught a course on development regulation at the Johns Hopkins Master in Real Estate Program. In addition to assignments in Western and Eastern Europe for the State Department, he received a Fulbright award in 2001 to study urban planning in Germany.

Anthony Consoli is the campus architect for the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB), the founding/ professional schools campus located west of Lexington Market. At UMB he has inspired many campus improvements including an outdoor art gallery, the Greene Street Pocket Park and many new enhanced green spaces and pedestrian walkways. He also served as a juror for several Maryland State Arts Council public art competitions.

Consoli has long been very active in the Baltimore Chapter of the AIA, where he initially was a member and then co-chair of the Design Awards Committee. Later he co-founded the Future Architects Resources (FAR) Committee in 2012, served as its co-chair and is currently an adviser. FAR’s mission is to “be a vehicle for collaboration among professionals and educators (universities, community colleges, middle and secondary schools) towards the education of future architects and enlightened citizens of the built environment.” (FAR offers a college scholarship program and participates in numerous career day and STEM outreach events for students in the Baltimore region. FAR has also created an “Adopt-A-School” program, which pairs Baltimore architectural firms with K-12 schools on a longer-term basis of career discovery.)

Consoli is a member of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) Board and is among the finalists for Maryland Center for Construction Education & Innovation’s (MCCEI) Pathway “Built Environment Hero Award” together with Kathleen Sherrill, AIA. He has also served as a juror for several Architecture, Construction, Engineering (ACE) Mentorship program competitions. He and his wife, Mary Jo Harris, a state children’s health nursing consultant, live in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Baltimore.

FAR JURY

Future Architects Resources (FAR)/Kids in Design serves as a vehicle for collaboration among professionals and educators toward the education of young citizens of the built environment.

The committee is dedicated to increasing exposure among local elementary and middle school-aged students to design education and to career opportunities in architecture and design.

Lonna Babu attended the University of Maryland, College Park, where she received her Bachelor of Science in architecture and an art history minor in 2016 and a Master of Architecture in 2018. Babu is now a licensed architect and associate at Ayers Saint Gross, where she works on a variety of projects around Baltimore, as well as an adjunct faculty member at Catholic University, teaching Design Studio.

Babu joined AIA Baltimore as a member in 2018 and has served as one of the co-chairs of the Future Architects Resources Committee since then. Through this leadership position, she loves working with other designers, educators and advocates to make architecture more accessible to young students, especially in Baltimore!

Eric Bos graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2019 with his Master of Architecture, where he received the Thesis Prize. He is a past recipient of the FAR Scholarship and the winner of the 2019 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Timber in the City competition. Bos also holds a degree in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Bos joined Ayers Saint Gross as an architectural designer in 2019, where he is working on large-scale institutional projects in Baltimore and abroad. He is currently pursuing licensure.

Emily Lodato grew up in Huntington, New York. She attended Syracuse University and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2015. Lodato elected to spend a semester studying abroad at the Syracuse Florence Center, where she traveled throughout Italy studying its public spaces and historical urban fabric. Additionally, she spent a summer studying through Syracuse University in New York City with a focus on real estate development guided by architecture. Her thesis, Re-Forming Prisons: Better Mental Health Through Progressive Penitentiary Design, argues for sound therapeutic practices as the basis for prison design and was showcased in the Thesis Prize Exhibition in the School of Architecture. Lodato interned during the summer at Studio Geiger Architecture & Design in New York City and worked on the design of several single-family residential renovations within the city before moving to Baltimore in the summer after graduation. She began her career at Design Collective working on renovations, additions and new construction projects for Baltimore City Public Schools’ 21st Century Schools program, including the recently completed Pimlico Elementary and Middle School, as well as interior renovations for Johns Hopkins University at its Homewood Campus and its School of Medicine.

Lodato joined the AIA Baltimore chapter in 2015. She was introduced to the Future Architects Resources Committee through her work as a participant and coordinator of the Adopt-A-School program at Design Collective over the past four years. She joins the FAR committee as co-chair to promote the education of the built environment in the greater Baltimore community.

In 2017, Matthew Hawkins received his Bachelor of Science in architecture from Kent State University. After graduating, he went on to work at Helbing Lipp Recny (HLR) Architects, where he participated in a wide variety of religious, educational and commercial projects. In 2018, while working at HLR Architects, Hawkins attended Morgan State University, where he completed his Master of Architecture degree. Following graduation in June 2021, Hawkins joined Design Collective, where he is now working on multifamily and mixed-use projects.

AIA Baltimore Awards - AIA Baltimore Awards 2021

Meet the Jury

RESIDENTIAL JURY

SOCIAL EQUITY JURY

GOOD DESIGN = GOOD BUSINESS JURY

FAR JURY

Issue List

AIA Baltimore Awards 2022

AIA Baltimore Awards 2021