Scott Campbell, AIA, Kelley Holmes, AIA, and Jenine Kotob, AIA, are recognized with the 2021 Virginia Emerging Professional Award by AIA Virginia. Launched in 2015, the Virginia Emerging Professional Award is intended to recognize the accomplishments of emerging leaders in Virginia for their contributions to the profession in design, research, education, discourse; service to the profession, mentorship, or service to the community. Most recipients are accomplished in several of these areas, and all demonstrate the strength of the architecture profession in their early promise as thought leaders and designers.
In less than a decade, Scott Campbell moved from architectural intern at Norfolk’s VIA design architects to a firm owner who is growing, guiding, and nurturing a strong, stable team. Campbell encouraged the firm to pursue JUST certification which is managed by the International Living Futures Institute for socially just and equitable organizations. With his diligent leadership, VIA obtained the JUST 2.0 label, making it the first design firm in Virginia to obtain this operational transparency tool.
Campbell has modeled service to the profession as an AIA Virginia board member and Outreach Advisory Council member, Emerging Leaders in Architecture planning member, and AIA Hampton Roads leader – now as immediate past president. The next wave of the profession’s emerging leaders continue to look to him as a mentor. He also supports his community as a “citizen architect,” serving the Downtown Norfolk Council and the Norfolk Innovation Corridor’s Science and Technology board of directors, among others.
As a designer, Campbell has been recognized for Seaside Hall, a classroom building on Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences’ Eastern Shore campus that met complex state requirements while fitting into the local vernacular. And he led the transformation of an historic property, The Essex, into VIA’s office, demonstrating best practices of creating for the future while respecting the past.
Kelley Holmes, AIA, of Quinn Evans in Richmond, is passionate for education-based design projects that promote lifelong learning, and her experience ranges from museum spaces to libraries to schools at all levels. Her training in graphic design gives her a strong understanding of how to organize a client’s heritage, culture, and history in a visual way as well as a physical form.
Holmes’s commitment to diversity guides her service to the profession. She chaired the steering committee of Richmond Women in Design through the challenging 2020 pandemic year, presenting more than a dozen virtual events to encourage and inspire women architects and allied professionals. She was a driving force in the successful renaissance of the local Architecture Construction Engineering (ACE) Mentor Program, which has given her and others an increased opportunity to introduce these professions to young people.
And Holmes was the first female board member in the Virginia Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects, a group she first connected with as a student at Virginia Tech. She helped plan NOMA’s 2021 Southeast regional summer camp, a pipeline outreach to K–12 students, and used her graphic expertise to design the chapter’s official website.
Jenine Kotob, AIA, recently with Hord Coplan Macht in Alexandria, and now Director of Program Development and EDI Strategies at the AIA, leverages her influence as a designer with her passion for advocacy. With most of her projects in learning environments, Kotob is committed to a design process that engages students and gives the communities an opportunity to share their goals for safety and security. She co-led a research study in her firm focused on the intersection of equity and school safety, challenging the longstanding practice of a crime-centered approach to security design and seeking more holistic solutions that ensure safety for all.
Kotob has risen to become a national thought leader on school safety. Working with AIA National, she has pushed for several new pieces of legislation that would allow schools to access funding for design services and informational resources focused on school safety. She has also dedicated time to the Committee on Architecture for Education at both national and local AIA levels. For helping the profession position itself as a problem solver in the face of one of the most pressing issues of today, AIA National recognized her with its inaugural Citizen Architect Award in 2020.
These emerging leaders will be recognized at the Visions for Architecture celebration on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and online.