Announcing the 2026 AIA Virginia Design Awards Jury
Dean Maltz, AIA, has convened and is set to chair the Design Awards Jury for AIA Virginia. We are pleased to announce that Katie Swenson, AIA, and Charles Waldheim, AIA, will be joining Dean on the jury.
As a Managing Partner at Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA), based in New York City and focusing on the Americas, Dean is responsible for executing Shigeru Ban’s creative vision for experiential architecture and design at all scales. He holds a B.Arch. from the Cooper Union School of Architecture and an M. Arch. from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Maltz has led multiple award-winning projects recognized for design excellence and technological innovation, including Cast Iron House (2021), Aspen Art Museum (2014), and Metal Shutter House (2010).
Advocating for low-carbon design practices, Dean is a vocal proponent of the use of mass timber construction as a sustainable alternative to concrete and steel. He is a frequent lecturer and speaker at universities and industry events while holding licenses to practice architecture in seven U.S. states.
Dean is a recipient of the AIA Henry Adams Certificate of Merit (1984), the American Society of Interior Design Pinnacle Award (2005), and the Peter Cooper Public Service Award (2024).
Katie Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, author, educator, and speaker whose work explores how architecture can advance human dignity, ecological health, and social equity. She has served as Senior Principal at MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society) since 2020, where she leads strategic partnerships that connect design, storytelling, and philanthropy to advance systems change around the world.
With more than two decades of experience, Katie believes design begins with human potential, and that architecture is one of society's most powerful tools for creating healthier, more just, and more resilient communities.
Katie is the author of Design with Love: At Home in America and In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness, and a contributing author to Spatial (In) Justice and several books on architecture and community design. Prior to MASS, she served as Vice President of Design & Sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners, where she led the nationally recognized Rose Fellowship. She also co-founded the Charlottesville Community Design Center.
Katie is the recipient of the 2021 AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture and is a frequent keynote speaker on the role of design in shaping thriving people, places, and communities.
Charles Waldheim is an American-Canadian architect and urbanist based in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where he directs the Office for Urbanization and hosts the podcast Future of the American City. He also serves as the Ruettgers Curator of Landscape at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where he convenes the Larger Landscape Conversation.
Waldheim’s research examines relationships between landscape, ecology, and contemporary urbanism. He is an author or editor of sixteen books on these topics, including Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory; The Landscape Urbanism Reader; Technical Lands: A Critical Primer; Landscapes for Adaptation: Lessons from China; Airport Landscape: Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age; Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan; Case: Lafayette Park Detroit; and Stalking Detroit.
Waldheim’s research and creative practice have been recognized with awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. His honors include the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome; the Visiting Scholar Research Fellowship at the Canadian Centre for Architecture; the Sanders Fellowship at the University of Michigan; and the Cullinan Chair at Rice University. He has been a visiting scholar at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Dessau, Germany. He was named Most Admired Educator by DesignIntelligence and Outstanding Teacher by the Student Forum of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
The results of the jury’s deliberations will be announced in August. And then we will convene to celebrate the Design Awards, along with the Honors recipients, at the at the Visions for Architecture Gala, which will be held the evening of Thursday, November 5, 2026, in Richmond, during ArchEx.