2025 AIA Nebraska Excellence in Design Winners

AIA Nebraska, A Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, is pleased to announce the 2025 Excellence in Design Award winners. This year the jury reviewed 98 projects.

The AIA Nebraska Jury, comprised of Chicago architects including:

Andy Tinucci, AIA, LEED AP, Principal at WoodhouseTinucci Architects

Adana Johns, AIA, LEED AP, BD+C, Principal, Science and Technology, Chicago, Perkins&Will

Gabriel Wilcox, AIA, LEED AP, CPHC, NCARB, Director of Sustainable Design, Krueck Sexton Partners

Ann Lui, AIA, Founding Principal, Future Firm

The Excellence in Design program is an annual event for Nebraska architects who submit built and unbuilt projects for consideration. Categories for consideration include Architecture, Interior Architecture, Unbuilt, Details, Masonry, and Regional & Urban Design.

AIA Nebraska supports architects in fulfilling their commitment to excellence in design and livability in our buildings and communities. Further information on this year’s design winners and past winners can be found on The American Institute of Architects, Nebraska Chapter’s website. www.aia.org/nebraska

Excellence in Architecture Honor Award

Photographer: Walker Pickering

The Art Chapel
Firm: Plain D-B + FACT + Actual Architecture Company
Location: Lincoln, NE
Owner: F Street Neighborhood Church

The Art Chapel is a studio for adults to cultivate their creativity through art and craft instruction, supporting public events in a community with few cultural outlets. The 1873 building, Lincoln, Nebraskaâ€™s first church, has been transformed from a neglected space into an asset for a struggling neighborhood. The primary design acts are subtractive – removing material and abstracting the building to highlight generic qualities and simple beauty. A large rolling wall replicates the original faÃ§ade and opens the Art Chapel to the community both literally and figuratively. Inspired by the subtle way members of the community are invited to gather for services informally in the car park and on the church steps, the rolling wall allows the entire building to be an extension of the public realm.

Jury Comments: The jury was captivated from the start. With its sliding front door and bold, thoughtful use of raw materials, this project transforms housing into a playful, expressive work of art. The rolling door faÃ§ade as a single statement invites the community in, presenting itself as a place youâ€™d like to experience. A clear idea carried out throughout every aspect and every scale of the project with purpose and a holistic approach to less is more.

Excellence in Architecture Honor Award

Photographers: AJ Brown / Parrish Ruiz de Velasco

CSC Center of Innovative Learning
Firm: BVH Architecture
Location: Chadron, NE
Owner: Chadron State College

Originally built in the late 1960s, the Chadron State College learning center was densely packed with classrooms, labs, and specialty spaces like a planetarium. With education evolving significantly over the past 50+ years, the interior was completely demolished to support contemporary learning goals and future departmental growth. Inside, the original building was stripped to its structure and rebuilt to support flexible, tech-integrated learning. Open lab layouts and movable partitions allow the structure to frame spaces of varied scale and use. Together, the renovation and addition balance performance, pedagogy, and a forward-looking architectural identity.

Jury Comments: An elegant solution upgrading aging STEM buildings that elevates the existing building rather than contrasting it. The new additionâ€™s careful contextual scale and form, complimentary materiality showcases modern science and learning. The jurors appreciate the successful creative repurpose of the atrium to meet the needs of a new planetarium.

Excellence in Architecture Honor Award

Photographer: Nic Lehoux

The Joslyn Hawks Pavilion Addition
Firm: Alley Poyner Machietto Architecture
Design Architect: SnÃ¸hetta
Location: Omaha, NE
Owner: Joslyn Art Museum

The Rhonda and Howard Hawks Pavilion addition at the Joslyn Art Museum was constructed to house the Museum’s recently acquired works from the Phillip G. Schrager Collection. Through an assertive yet complementary design response, it provides a contemporary addition bridging the early century Art Deco and late century High Modernist structures present on the campus. A primary goal of the addition, in partnership with an internationally renowned design architect, SnÃ¸thetta, and a vast team of partners and stakeholders, was to provide a new iteration of world-renowned architecture to accompany the two existing buildings â€“ each esteemed in unique ways. Designed to achieve LEED Silver certification, the interior program includes an expanded atrium, relocated Museum store, new community room, and ample gallery space. Wayfinding is improved through increased visibility throughout the building and from the street, reinforcing the connection with the adjacent outdoor sculpture gardens, renovated landscape, and urban context beyond.

Jury Comments: Beautiful old to new. A striking monolithic material composition that derives its purpose through shape, light, and textural change. The stone faÃ§ade backdrops of the existing building were thoughtfully incorporated with the interior experience.

Excellence in Architecture Honor Award

Photogrpaher: Nic Lehoux

CoARCH
Firm: HDR
Consultant: NADAA
Location: Lincoln, NE
Owner: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, College of Architecture

As the only 19th-century building on the University of Nebraska-Lincolnâ€™s city campus, Architecture Hall is an emblem of the universityâ€™s Victorian history, with a virtually unchanged exterior that provides faculty, students and visitors with a sense of appreciation for the buildingâ€™s preserved history. To maintain the original architecture while expanding to accommodate an increasing student body, HDR partnered with NADAAA to provide UNLâ€™s College of Architecture with the second phase of renovations and a four-story addition, the HDR Pavilion, the campusâ€™ newest space in nearly 40 years. The HDR Pavilion, an entirely mass timber structure, features 14 new studio spaces, a student lounge and an additional crit space on the second, third and fourth floors. Design elements such as exposed wood and long-span timber beams create a flexible and environmentally conscious learning environment, while drafting tables and studio bleachers for crit spaces create a dynamic space.

Jury Comments: Beautiful contract of color, form, and tectonics. Clear and simple solution to complex project – multiple existing buildings and levels.

Excellence in Architecture Honor Award

Photographer: Nic Lehoux

Museum of Nebraska Art
Firm: BVH Architecture
Location: Kearney, NE
Owner: Museum of Nebraska Art

The Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA) is the stateâ€™s cultural anchor and home to Nebraskaâ€™s official art collection. Located in downtown Kearney, the museumâ€™s recent transformation expands its civic and exhibition role through a 23,000-square-foot addition and a new 43,000-square-foot sculpture garden. Originally a 1911 post office, the historic building has been respectfully preserved and reimagined. The expansion introduces a universally accessible entrance and a central circulation spine connecting old and new. New public spaces, including a naturally lit community studio, museum store, event space, and flexible galleries, support MONAâ€™s mission of education, preservation, and outreach. By integrating community-centered programming with architectural clarity and care, MONA positions itself as an open, inclusive institution rooted in place and built for the future. The project is a testament to how architecture can extend a museumâ€™s reachâ€”connecting people to art, to each other, and to the cultural fabric of Nebraska.

Jury Comments: Strong resolution of the exterior and interior detailing stands as a companion to the historic Post Office Building. Great attention to the spirit of place and a balanced attention to both the interior design and exterior context.

Excellence in Interior Architecture Honor Award

Photographer: Matt Kocourek

Osborne Legacy Complex
Firm: BVH Architecture
Additional Consultant: Populous
Location: Lincoln, NE
Owner: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The Osborne Legacy Complex at the University of Nebraska is more than a buildingâ€”itâ€™s a symbol of progress, tradition, and Husker pride. Serving as the new front door of Nebraska Football, its bold design includes a striking cantilevered edge with red soffits and a 40-foot seamless glass faÃ§adeâ€”the largest on campusâ€”offering a powerful, transparent invitation to all. The complex also reflects Nebraskaâ€™s agricultural roots, with a terraced â€œFront Porchâ€ plaza, symbolic crop-row pavers, and memorials to players Brook Berringer and Sam Foltz. For athletes, itâ€™s a transformative space. Cutting-edge training facilities include the worldâ€™s first adjustable plyometric ramp, high-performance equipment, and advanced recovery amenities like red-light therapy, float pods, and a cold plunge. Blending innovation with heritage, the Osborne Legacy Complex stands as a tribute to the past and a foundation for future greatness. Itâ€™s a living symbol of Nebraskaâ€™s valuesâ€”where history, excellence, and the Husker spirit converge.

Jury Comments: This project strikes a careful balance for the Huskers, approaching collegiate pride in a professional, refined way. The use of bold colors, high contrast, and light integrate the branding into the interior design.

Excellence in Interior Architecture Honor Award

Photographer: Dan Schwalm

Omaha Public Library – Downtown Branch
Firm: HDR
Consultant: Margaret Sullivan Studios
Location: Omaha, NE
Owner: City of Omaha

Situated four blocks from its original location at 215 S. 15th St, the new home for the Omaha downtown library has a rich history. Originally designed as a creamery in 1912, the building thrived for nearly three decades. Following the creameryâ€™s closure in 1940, the building transformed into cold storage and an auto parts supply business before sitting vacant for almost 30 years. The neglected building required extensive structural work, including replacing 150 timber beams, rebuilding exterior walls and addressing rot in floor and ceiling timbers. Working with a team of historic preservationists, much of the building was either cleaned and preserved or needed to be replaced with similar means and methods from its construction in 1912. Project restoration has helped lead to the revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood and created a vibrant space for people in the community to come and access the libraryâ€™s services.

Jury Comments: A simple solution that allows the old building to shine. Furniture, lighting, and new architectural elements feel at home and part of a simple sophisticated new composition.

Excellence in Interior Architecture Honor Award

Photographer: Corey Gaffer

The Joslyn Memorial Building and Scott Pavilion Renovation
Firm: Alley Poyner Machietto Architects
Consultant: SnÃ¸hetta
Location: Omaha, NE
Owner: Joslyn Art Museum

The Joslyn Art Museum is a series of iconic structures forming a world-renowned museum experience. The Memorial Building, constructed in 1931 and designed in the Art Deco style, is full of tectonic nuance indicative of the time in which it was constructed. The Joslyn Art Museum is a cultural cornerstone of the Omaha community. To continue engaging its visitors at the highest level possible, The Joslynâ€™s community education and outreach programs were enhanced and expanded with renovations to the administration suite, studios, reference library, the Abbott Lecture Hall, and Durham CafÃ© contained within the original Memorial Building and Scott Pavilion addition. The renovation sensitively inserts contemporary but subdued design updates into staff offices, conference rooms, staff break room, studios, the lecture hall, and the reference library within the existing, early century Art Deco architecture of the Memorial Building. These new insertions are intentionally understated and referential to the existing architecture, highlighting the tactile quality of the natural materials and ornament of the detailing already present.

Jury Comments: Interesting use of renovated spaces and complementary approach to the existing architecture. Rethinking and retaining the entrance door as a backdrop to the meeting room is a strategic method of preservation. Each space is a backdrop to a scene in a cinematic story.

Excellence in Unbuilt Architecture Honor Award

Mod_RAD
Firm: Holland Basham Architects
Location: Omaha, NE
Owner(s): Omaha by Design | AARP

Conestoga is one of Omahaâ€™s oldest and most vibrant neighborhoods, known for its deep cultural roots, historic charm, and strong sense of community. Today, it also holds untapped potential, with over 650,000 square feet of vacant land ready for thoughtful reinvestment. ModRAD (Modular Rapid Affordable Dwellings) offers a solution designed for families, by families, to restore housing in this historic community. Using modular construction and panelized wood-frame systems, ModRAD delivers high-quality, cost-effective homes tailored to meet the needs of diverse households. Each unit is adaptable, accessible, and designed to evolve over time.

Jury Comments: A playful and accessible solution that redefines modular housing. MOD-RADâ€™s shared-resource approach stood out to the jury as a model for adaptive, community-based design.

Excellence in Unbuilt Architecture Honor Award

Ron and Teri Quinn Family Oasis
Firm: HDR
Consultatnt: The Architectural Offices – Landscape Architecture
Location: Omaha, NE
Owner: Lauritzen Gardens

Set within Omaha’s premier botanical garden, The Oasis was designed to bring needed visitor amenities to the isolated back areas of the expansive garden grounds. The building was sited to align as tightly as possible to maximize programmable space while limiting necessary debris removal. The site design, situated above the bale-fill limits, blends interior and exterior programming, with terraced amphitheaters, landscaped retention ponds, and paved plazas for food trucks/events. By providing new refreshment options, restrooms, a multi-purpose space, and other family support, the Oasis will greatly expand the visitor experience for guests at the gardens.

Jury Comments: A compact design with thoughtful siting and straightforward construction that transforms a former landfill siteâ€”projects like this are exactly what the world needs more of.

Excellence in Unbuilt Architecture Honor Award

U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps Command & Control Headquarters
Firm: HDR
Location: Fort Bragg, NC
Owner: United States

This Command & Control Headquarters translates the ethos of the XVIII Airborne Corpsâ€”confidence, fearlessness, precisionâ€”into an architectural expression. Sited on a 40-foot rise at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the building asserts a commanding presence while integrating with the terrain and regional ecology. Two symmetrical weathering steel wings flank a luminous glass coreâ€”symbolizing strength and transparency. Materiality reflects the airborne legacyâ€”resilient, purposeful, and enduring. Weathering steel acts as architectural armor; its evolving patina will mark the passage of time with dignity. A tree-lined plaza and axial procession emphasize order and discipline. Passive strategiesâ€”including solar shading and strategic orientationâ€”enhance performance without compromising the buildingâ€™s bold stance. This is an architecture shaped by airborne operations: decisive, agile, and unshakably confident.

Jury Comments: Itâ€™s professional exterior is a simple and strong expression. Simple and effective interior detailing stay true to the function of the building, the definition of a paratrooper, through selective use of color, the curved soffit in the atrium and a ceiling selection that sits lightly above.

Excellence in Unbuilt Architecture Honor Award

StarTran Multi-Modal Transportation Center
Firm: HDR
Location: Lincoln, NE
Owner: Lincoln Transportation and Utilities

This multi-modal transit center is to be situated adjacent to the center of civic government for the city of Lincoln, NE. It will replace a surface parking lot with an 18-bay bus transit facility, while also providing amenities for bicycle commuters and pedestrians. The building enclosure responds to its immediate context, referencing the simple, monochromatic forms of the adjacent county/city building. Meanwhile, the balance of the project â€“ the site, and bus bays â€“ aim to replace what is today an unrelenting concrete slab with a park-like outdoor environment that is both comfortable and safe for commuters. Geothermal heat exchange is planned to reduce energy use while photovoltaic panels are planned to provide on-site energy generation. The project is on target to become a net-zero building.

Jury Comments: Great presentation â€“ rethinking our transit system to a park, play, and community amenity would serve us well.

Excellence in Architectural Detail Honor Award

Photographer: Bruce Damonte

Sylvan Lake House Windows
Firm: Actual Architecture Company
Location: Sylvan Lake, AB, CA
Owner: Donovan & Joanne Nielsen

Inspired by Sigurd Lewerentzâ€™s frameless windows at the MalmÃ¶ Flower Kiosk (Blomsterkiosk, 1969) where glass panes are recessed flush with the concrete wall and held in place by metal clips, the Architects of the Sylvan Lake House sought to eliminate the visibility of the window frame as a mediating element between wall and glass. The home occupies a narrow, lakefront lot between Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta) windows throughout the house are triple-pane, 4-sided structural silicon-glazed commercial curtain walls.

Jury Comments: Customizing a standard curtain wall system into the architecture was well executed to provide a high level of performance with a minimalist quality of aesthetic.

Excellence in Architectural Detail Honor Award

Photographer: Nic Lehoux

Museum of Nebraska Art Ceiling
Firm: BVH Architecture
Location: Kearney, NE
Owner: Museum of Nebraska Art

At the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA), the ceiling becomes a narrative surfaceâ€”quietly expressive, deeply rooted in place. Inspired by the Sandhill crane migration across the Nebraska plains, its folded geometry evokes both the flight patterns of these iconic birds and the delicate, abstracted form of an origami craneâ€”a symbol of transformation and grace. This bespoke wood ceiling embraces the material language of the region, referencing the textures, shadows, and layered beauty of the prairie. Subtle articulation within the surface allows light to drift and shift, casting patterns that animate the public spaces and offer moments of quiet discovery. Shade and shadow are not byproducts, but integral design elements that enhance the contemplative character of the space.

Jury Comments: An elevated use of a simple and economical material that creates a warm and inviting ceiling plane I would like to spend time under.

Excellence in Architectural Detail Honor Award

Photographer: Tom Kessler

Dvorak Law Detail
Firm: TACKarchitects
Location: Omaha, NE
Owner: David Dvorak

As the growing legal practice prepared to expand into a second floor of its corporate office, Phase Three of the project focused on unifying both levels through a cohesive architectural intervention. A new internal staircase was introduced as both a physical connector and a visual anchorâ€”located adjacent to the reception area, it immediately orients visitors while reinforcing the firmâ€™s identity as contemporary, accessible, and client-focused. The reimagined reception sequence sets the tone for the office experience, balancing formality with warmth through a refined material palette and strategic lighting. The expansion supports continued growth while strengthening the spatial legibility and flow between public-facing and private zones. Clean detailing, subtle transitions, and sculptural elements work together to create a confident and forward-thinking legal workspace.

Jury Comments: A beautiful stair that is elevated by a singular defining element â€“ a mirror to bounce light and reflect geometries. The jurors found it a refreshing simple and effective use of a common material in delightful way. Stairs can be exercise, fun, and beautiful. The intentional placement of guardrail and contrasting handrail separate yet link the adjacent materials nicely. A beautiful stair that is elevated by a singular defining element â€“ a mirror to bounce light and reflect geometries. Stairs can be exercise, fun, and beautiful. The intentional placement of guardrail and contrasting handrail separate yet link the adjacent materials nicely.

Don Littler Excellence in Masonry Honor Award

Photographer: Michael Robinson

Boys Town Education Center
Firm: DLR Group
Location: Boys Town, NE
Owner: Boys Town

The new 110,000 SF Boys Town Education Center supports 450 students in grades 4-12. All students served by the new education center live on campus, have experienced trauma, and many of the students are at risk. The design is inspired by the spirit of campus â€“ celebrating place â€“ with the health and well-being of every student and teacher in mind. Every detail is meticulously blended to create a future-ready learning environment while considering that many of these students have been left behind in their previous learning environments. The exterior of the building blends seamlessly into the rest of the campus architecture. The brick faÃ§ade features unique patterns that pay homage to the other brick features seen throughout the campus.

Jury Comments: The masonry pattern converts a masonry form into a sculptural element. Itâ€™s retro aesthetic provides comfort through nostalgia.