Hayes Slade, AIA, IIDA
Jury Chair; President, AIA New York; Principal, Slade Architecture
Hayes Slade is a Principal of Slade Architecture, which she co-founded with James Slade in 2002. They create thoughtful and impactful architecture at all scales based on a considered examination of the project context in its broadest sense. Their work has been widely recognized with design awards including AIA Design Awards, Interior Design Magazine Best of Year awards, London International Creative Competition Awards, a NYC Design Commission Design Excellence Award, SARA Awards, and FX Awards, among others. Slade Architecture was included in the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices program as well as the Venice Biennale. Hayes has exhibited, lectured and served on design juries in the US and abroad.
Believing in the importance of the role architects have in community and service, Hayes is serving as 2019 President of the American Institute of Architects, NY Chapter. In 2016, Hayes co-authored Design Guidelines, Laying the Groundwork, for the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. To contribute to public work in New York City, Slade Architecture has been part of the NYC Design Excellence Program at the NYC Department of Design and Construction for over ten years.
Hayes has taught graduate and undergraduate design studio at Syracuse University School of Architecture and Parsons School of Design / The New School. Prior to founding the firm, Hayes worked at Arup, in London and NY, Boston Consulting Group and Skidmore Owings and Merrill. She holds undergraduate and masters degrees from Cornell University and an MBA from Wharton.
Deborah Berke, FAIA, LEED AP
Dean, Yale School of Architecture; Founder, Deborah Berke Partners
Deborah Berke is the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, where she has been a professor since 1987. Previously she taught at the University of Maryland, the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Miami, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, of which she was a fellow. In addition, Deborah has been a juror in numerous architecture and design award programs and lectures throughout the US and Canada. In 2013 she received the first Berkeley-Rupp award, given by the University of California at Berkeley to a “distinguished practitioner or academic who has made a significant contribution to promoting the advancement of women in the field of architecture, and whose work emphasizes a commitment to sustainability and the community.”
Deborah is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a Trustee and Vice President of the Urban Design Forum, a James Howell Foundation Board Member, and she serves on the Yaddo Board of Directors. Over the past two decades, Deborah has also served as trustee and vice president of desigNYC, founding trustee of New York City’s Design Trust for Public Space, trustee of the National Building Museum, Chair of the Board of Advisors for the Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University, trustee of the Brearley School, and a vice president of the AIA New York Chapter.
Claudia Herasme
Chief Urban Designer, NYC Department of City Planning
Claudia Herasme is an urban designer who believes that our everyday life is greatly influenced in small and big ways by our physical environment. Her interest in design policy and public space led her to the Department of City Planning in New York, where she serves as the Chief Urban Designer. At City Planning, Claudia has been involved in a wide variety of projects, from creating regulations related to public space and the buildings that shape them, to guidelines for active design and wellbeing, streetscape, and large-scale waterfront developments. Previous work experience in the private sector includes David Brody Bond in NYC, and Cristóbal Valdez y Asociados in Santo Domingo. Claudia holds a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University, and an Architecture degree, Magna Cum Laude, from Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Ureña in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Nick Lembo
Chairman, Monadnock Construction, Inc.
Nick Lembo started Monadnock Construction in 1975, a general contracting and construction management firm that has built more than 17,000 housing units in the New York City area, including over 3,000 units in one and two family houses. In 1985 he founded The Hudson Companies and in 2005 founded Monadnock Development. The company can handle projects up to $250 million and is active in both affordable and market rate housing. It is known for developments like the Harrison on the Upper West Side, 1 John Street in Dumbo, Hunters Point South in Long Island City and the One Carmel micro unit building in Turtle Bay – among others. Nick, moreover, launched Capsys Corp. in 1995 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to create factory-built modular buildings. It had manufactured more than 3 million square feet of modular housing, mid-rise buildings and hotels. Nick earned an architecture degree from Cornell.
Ruchika Modi
Studio Director and Associate Partner, Practice for Architecture & Urbanism (PAU)
Ruchika Modi is the Studio Director and Associate Partner at Practice for Architecture & Urbanism (PAU). She oversees all aspects of the design process in the office. Most recently, she completed design development for Riverfront Square, a 700-unit residential project in Newark, NJ. Modi is currently spearheading the design of the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn, NY, an adaptive reuse project to transform a former sugar factory into offices, and the design of forty-one buildings as part of a new mixed-use development in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Prior to joining PAU, Modi was a Senior Associate at Standard Architects (NY) and a founding partner of Studio r&star (NY). She has worked at Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects (NY), Richard Lewis Architects (NY), Maria McVarish Design Services (CA) and Tim Perks Architecture (CA).
Modi received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Delhi in 1994 and a second B.A. with distinction in Interior Architecture from the California College of Arts in San Francisco in 2003. She completed her Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation at Columbia University in 2006 where she was awarded the McKim Prize for Excellence in Design & Saul Kaplan Traveling Fellowship; the William Kinne Fellows Prize for Study and Travel Abroad; and the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize. Her work has been exhibited at the Center for Architecture in New York and the International Architecture Biennales in Rotterdam and Beijing.
Justin Garrett Moore, AICP
Executive Director, NYC Public Design Commission
Justin Garrett Moore is an urban designer and the executive director of the New York City Public Design Commission. He has extensive experience in urban design and city planning—from large-scale urban systems, policies, and projects to grassroots and community-focused planning, design, and arts initiatives. At the Public Design Commission, his work is focused on advancing the quality of the public realm, and fostering accessibility, diversity, and inclusion in the City’s public buildings, spaces, and art.
Justin received degrees in architecture and urban design from Columbia University where he is now an Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He is the co-founder of Urban Patch, a social enterprise that focuses on community revitalization and a member of the African American urbanist collective BlackSpace. He also serves as a member of the American Planning Association’s AICP Commission, and on the boards of ioby.org, Mary Miss—CaLL, and Made in Brownsville.
AJ Pires
President, Alloy Development
AJ Pires is the President of Alloy Development, a boutique real estate development company based in Brooklyn, NY. He has been practicing real estate development in New York City since 2004, where he started his career as a project manager for Peter Walker & Partners on the World Trade Center Memorial. In 2006, AJ became a founding member of Alloy Development, where he manages the acquisition, design, capitalization, construction and disposition of projects that seek to promote thoughtful design and add value to the built environment of New York City. AJ received a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College and a Masters of Architecture and Certificate in Real Estate from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught and lectured in the fields of real estate development and design at Syracuse University, Columbia University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Parsons and Pratt. AJ servers on the board of Community Bank Delaware, is an Urban Design Forum Fellow and a member of ULI. He is a Licensed Architect, a LEED Accredited Professional and a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson. AJ lives with his wife and two children in Brooklyn, New York.
Katherine W. Swenson
Vice President of Design, Enterprise Community Partners
Katherine W. Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator. She is vice president of Design at Enterprise Community Partners, where her work investigates how critical design practice promotes economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities. A member of the second class of the Enterprise Rose Fellowship, Swenson has led the program since 2007 and nurtured a diverse network of design leaders fostering community revitalization and affordable housing development and supporting the healing of diverse communities throughout the US. The fellowship has been showcased at the Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the New York Center for Architecture, and the National Building Museum and been recognized by the American Institute of Architects for its groundbreaking work. Swenson founded the Charlottesville Community Design Center, is on the board of MASS Design Group, and has received numerous design and social innovation awards. She has written extensively about design activism and community design.
Claire Weisz
Principal in Charge, WXY architecture + urban design
Claire Weisz is a founding partner of WXY, whose work as an architect and urbanist focuses on innovative approaches to public space, structures, and cities. The firm, globally recognized for its place-based approach to architecture, urban design, and planning, has played a vital role in design thinking around resiliency: combining the infrastructure of public space with working districts for and with communities.
Weisz was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2017, and was most recently awarded the Medal of Honor from AIANY in 2018. She currently holds a seat on the World Monuments Fund Modern Century Advisory Council, and has served on design juries both nationally and internationally including the 2018 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize and the Azure Design Awards. With Andrea Woodner, Claire co-founded The Design Trust for Public Space, and has recently been on faculty at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service and a Visiting Critic of Urban Design at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. Claire received her professional degree from The University of Toronto with Honors and her Master’s in Architecture from Yale University.
As a practice, WXY was named AIA New York Firm of the Year in 2016, and received both the League Prize and Emerging Voices from the Architecture League. In addition to numerous design awards from AIA National and AIANY, the firm has been recognized for innovations in design by the American Planning Association.